Disney’s Magic

Posted on December 15, 2010 by sinyaw

Few can tell Rapunzel’s story from memory. That is before this instant Disney classic. Now millions of kids around the world will, the Disney version of course, just like Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, and other Walt Disney classics.

This is probably also Disney’s answer to Pixar that appeared to have taken over animation the way Apple took over portable music from Sony. Disney lost its magic don’t know when. But years ago, their releases of the animation film was the most exciting event for the family. They delighted everyone, glued kids to DVD replays, and had everyone sings the theme songs. With Tangled, Disney’s back.

Every year, Taiwan’s PingXi has the Sky Lantern festival that attracts tourists and photographers around the world. The movie’s scene surely will touch many who were at that festival or witnessed something similar. But this critical movie element also introduced a confusion. Rapunzel was supposed to be from the German region, given the origin of the fairtale and her appearance. But sky lantern is a south-eastern Asian thing, rumored to be invented by a famous Chinese military strategist in the 2nd century, ZhuGe Liang (諸葛亮).

Guess it is logical for a girl growing up in one room to be barefooted all the time. But she sported no foot-wear running through forests and in the big city too. No one ever mentioned this to her ever, “Of course Rapunzel will never wear shoes. Even to meet her parents, King and Queen, for the first time.” Is bare-footing going to be acceptable as part of a formal wear now? Hmm…

Go watch this one. Make sure to take the whole family. You will be happy.

Posted in Books & Reviews | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Middle Management

Posted on December 9, 2010 by sinyaw

NPR’s Marketplace recently aired an interview with Stanford University’s Professor Nicholas Bloom on the topic of middle management. It was ridiculously hilarious to me, a professional manager for the past many years, that someone even thought of studying this topic.

Companies big or small, Indian or America, pursue pretty much one thing: profit. (There are exceptions; but we can statistically ignore them.) At the end of the day, the owners and investors of the company care just about only the bottom line. What happens in-between are inconvenient business necessities. They therefore ask only one question at the end: which way generates more profit, given the constrains the society imposed on the business (laws, social contracts, environment, etc.).

And, for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, all businesses created the middle management layer for one compelling reason: it works.

Posted in Management Thoughts | 1 Comment

Harry Potter #7.1

Posted on December 3, 2010 by sinyaw
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

Like a distant relative, we see those kids once every 18 months or so and were surprised that how much they have changed. Hermione (Emma Watson) blossomed into a lovely young lady and is my favorite. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) turned up just as expected. Ron (Rupert Grint) is now a muscular hulk, still awkward.

It is really more obligatory to view this movie, as was to read the respective book several years ago. The Harry Potter franchise really became involuntary at the end; the only reason to continue is because you have already invested so much and you needed to see to the end. It is frustrating that #7 movie was split into two. I felt helplessly being taken advantage of.

Those who did not read the book will be confused by those Horcruxes. There are three more become Harry can kill Voldemort. I wrote about this after Harry Potter #6. It may ruin your movie if you haven’t read the book.

I recommend waiting for 7.2 and watch it together.

Posted in Books & Reviews | Tagged | Leave a comment

Arctic Blast

Posted on November 26, 2010 by sinyaw

“The drizzles do not bother me,” my standard reply when people asked how I like Seattle. “You guys did not tell me it is cold here.” In fact, this newbie to Seattle found the summer bright and pleasant. “Just you wait,” local would say. “Rain will come.”

They were wrong. Snow arrived first.

The first snow came Sunday and lasted only for about half an hour. Monday morning I woke up to a thin blanket of whiteness. The streets were clear and snow accumulates only on tree limbs and shrubs. By mid-afternoon, the sky turn grey and it looked like a thick fog out there. By 10pm, flakes flew horizontally against the street lights. White sands move on the streets as if they are alive. Pretty much all surfaces were covered in inches of powder.

Awesome!

The city is practically paralyzed. Local news reported a pregnant women stranded on the highway for over five hours. She had 23 miles to go at the speed of zero. Spin-outs, flip-overs, and fender-benders were everywhere. Wind blasted the temperature even lower. Some areas lost electricity.

When I walked Dog at night, I donned a beaner hat, wool scarf, trench coat (heavy sweater inside), gloves, and insulated boots. Snow flakes whirled up and stung my face. I twisted my torso against the wind and navigated with memory. Even with traction boots, the footing was slippery. Nasty.

Morning came a glorious day. Bright sun, blue sky with lovely clouds, whiteness coated everything on the ground. Funny how that just lifted my spirit. Since Seattle actually does not even try to clear all roads (“Take the bus,” said the mayor), all schools were closed and most people stay home. The city appeared deserted.

Honestly, this is fun for this city dweller. I am not sure of the snow’s entertainment value if it continues.

Posted in Seattle | Leave a comment

Diane goes to China

Posted on November 21, 2010 by sinyaw

ABC World News Tonight spent several days in China recently. They made a 3-part series on various aspects of China: its economy, of course, education, innovations, etc.

Viewers should feel awed by China’s prowess in so many areas: manufacturing, internet savvy, attentive to educating its youth, diligent work-style, or even business acumen. The interviews of Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba, and several other global enterprises were impressive. The program showed case the modern China at its best, while giving Americans a polite nod of acknowledgment, “Americans are still the best, but we are the one with the world’s fastest train.”

There was practically no coverage on anything negative. It touched a bit on censorship and pollution. But were no mention of Mr. Liu XiaoBo or any human right matters. It was as if CCTV produced the whole series.

If Americans don’t get concerned after this, they are in serious denial. There are more people learning English than the entire US population in China. The TV program showed elementary kids conversing with Ms. Sawyer in fluent English. The implication is clear: Chinese will be more competitive in the coming decades, since they invest on education, infra-structure, and government efficiency. “We finished the high-speed railroad before you finish your paperwork.”

I did not know that China imports over $6 billions from Washington State, where I live now. In addition to Boeing airplanes, China buys a lot of Washington apples and Almond Roca. This sweet is hugely popular in China and also one of my favorites. Brown & Hailey has been making candies in Tacoma, WA, since 1912. I cannot help remembering recent political campaign that certain candidates are “sending jobs to China.” In fact, China could have helped more Washingtonians keeping their jobs than the US.

Posted in Books & Reviews, China | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

QE2

Posted on November 18, 2010 by sinyaw

Early this year, the US government printed an extra trillion dollars. This operation is called quantitative easing. Similar to the stimulus program, it pumped money into the society in hope for coaxing the economy to bounce back. The side effects are well-understood: inflation and currency depreciation — the very thing the US accused of China doing.

Dr. Paul Krugman argued that the US has the right to do it, but China not. In fact, the US just started the second round, called QE2, for $600 billions more. QE1 and QE2 pushed interest rate to virtually zero and rendered Obama’s G20 trip fruitless. No one knows if it will actually stimulate the economy.

What the US economy needs is productivity boost. Stimulus monies simply flow out to other countries, mainly China, and make the problem worse. Look at the productivity: how much does it cost to make an airplane, car, MP3 player, shirt, shoes, software, computer, movie, potato, wine, soy bean, whatever? How about service productivity: accounting, legal, marketing, advertising, business consultation, or simply foods?

Whatever it is, Americans need to do it better, cheaper, or both. Otherwise, its economy will continue to weaken until it becomes a colonial society that relies only on its natural resources. Since 2008, the US did $700 billions of stimulus money and $1.6 trillions of QEs. That’s $2.1 trillions in total. It is sad that so little has gone into projects that will fundamentally improve Americans’ productivity, such as infra-structure, education, or streamlining governmental services.

In late 1800s, China was the biggest economy in the world but a weak one in term of productivity. Western countries came and devoured China and set the country back for 150 years. This happened many times in the history, just that most civilizations never recovered.

Posted in Peek into my mind | Leave a comment

Akeelah and the Bee

Posted on November 14, 2010 by sinyaw

A good movie on an obscure topic: spelling tournament. Like all good stories, the pursuit (to win the tournament) is vividly elucidated. One will be awed by the difficulty of mastering spelling at tournament level and cannot help admiring those kids’ determination and hardwork trying to win it. The movie makes the national spelling bee contest no less glorious than the Olympics.

Of course, a good movie is about the characters. Akeelah’s search for fatherly relationship and friendship, her mother’s struggle as a single parent, the coach’s love for his deceased daughter, and other kids who compete with Akeelah. The movie is more than a tournament; it is about lives, friendship, and love.

But really? Spelling bee?

Pretty much only for English that spelling is a skill. Which other languages even worry about this matter? Chinese is non-spelling, so a quarter of the world population do not worry about this matter. Otherwise, words are spelled as they are pronounced. The movie offered a little explanation: there are so many roots for English words — Latin, French, German, etc. Somehow, this language chose to retain them all raw. After several hundred years of working into everyday conversation, new generations can no longer tell the origin of those words and simply must memorize them as is.

Mark Twain’s classic is worth repeating here.

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter c would be dropped to be replased either by k or s, and likewise x would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which c would be retained would be the ch formation, which will be dealt with later.

Year 2 might reform w spelling, so that which and one would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish y replasing it with i and Iear 4 might fiks the g/j anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.

Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez c, y and x — bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez — tu riplais ch, sh, and th rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

Mark Twain

Posted in Books & Reviews, Peek into my mind | Leave a comment

A China Telecom Giant

Posted on November 9, 2010 by sinyaw

Huawei tried to stay away from the spotlight. It seems New York Times found them.

Do you know that it has a sales reached about US$30 billion last year? This top technology company employs an army in China and several hundreds in the heart of silicon valley. Its ShenZhen headquarters should be renamed Huawei city that thousands of businesses — stores, restaurants, real estate agencies, taxi services, laundry services, bus operators — all depend on Huawei to thrive.

The primary competitors for Huawei are Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent. These are the companies that make the cell phone towers (called base stations) for the world. They also make equipment that enable your mundane everyday phone conversations possible. Huawei has a very strong market position on third world countries: China, obviously, Africa, south-east Asia, eastern block, etc. They have their eyes set on the first world countries for years now and have started to inch toward these markets.

A gigantic company like Huawei has many subsidiaries, strategic relationships, investments, and partnerships. Most of them are well kept secrets. Information is a weapon and they intend to use it.

It is kind of scary to face a US$30 billion private company that is anything but transparent. Very few people knew what’s going on with Huawei, how it is run, what is its strategies, how much money it makes, etc. To a typical American company, this is very frustrating and unfair. “They can see everything of us. We can’t see anything of them.”

Western companies fear Huawei like western countries fear China. It is a formidable competitor and there aren’t obvious winning strategies against them. Comically, or ironically, this attributes to the westerners’ own failing. Huawei management (or China officials) went to the same MBA schools, read the same books, and had the same information. They exploit the advantages they have and avoided the pitfalls that history taught the world. They wasted little resources on anything other than the pursuit of the stated goals. They are not stupid nor uneducated. Their mistakes became lessons and they kept going.

The winning strategy is rather simple: out execute them.

I did not say it is easy. That’s just life.

Posted in Management Thoughts, Peek into my mind | Tagged | 1 Comment

Mandelbrot remembered

Posted on November 6, 2010 by sinyaw

As a young software engineer focusing on interactive graphics, I had the office next to Vaughan Pratt. I knew him only by the name plate and this beautiful screensaver that’s always on. I would looked at it for minutes and got lost in the beauty of the picture and the way it grew as if alive. One day, Vaughan was in his office, so I asked. “It was a toy,” he said. “An clever way to render the Mandelbrot set.” He just gave me the source code nonchalantly. I felt if someone bestowed me a treasure. And it humbled me that there are things that can be so much out of my league. I did not even know what was Mandelbrot set.

The father of fratals, Dr. Benoit Mandelbrot, died of pancreatic cancer on Oct. 14, AFP reported. He was 85 years old.

Each point of the picture is a world. If you zoom in, the world reveals itself. If you pick a different point and zoom again, there will be another world. The closer you inspect, the more complex the world, or the picture, becomes. Many programmers have rendered many of those worlds. They are all beautiful. They are deeply mathematical, yet visually artistic.

Yes, there are infinite number of worlds, each one infinitively complex, expandable, and all beautiful. All of them exist in a simple formula. Anyone can explore them as long as their computer can handle high-precision calculations.

Thank you, Dr. Mandelbrot, for introducing those worlds to us.

Posted in Peek into my mind, Witness to my life | Tagged , | 2 Comments

WA License Plate

Posted on November 1, 2010 by sinyaw

Most Californians dread the trip to DMV. Even if you made an appointment, you still enter a long queue. Then you are shuffled from one counter to another, each time just to enter another queue. The people behind the counter are usually, uh, lacking courtesy or the willingness to help. At the end, you ran out of the building mentally exhausted, probably emotionally abused.

So I took a deep breath when I arrived at the county building in Seattle. When I entered the room, I was astonished to find no line what-so-ever. A sign pointed me to a desk. I sat down (!!) in front of this nice lady. She asked some questions, got my paperwork, and started typing to her terminal. We started to ask some questions and actually chit-chatted. When she produced two pieces of paper for us to sign, I asked, “So how long would it be for the plates to arrive at my mailbox?” She gave me a wry smile and handed me the plates, after she applied the registration stickers for me. “Welcome to Washington,” she said.

I allocated 90 minutes for this errand and ended up at work 10 minutes earlier.

Posted in Seattle, Witness to my life | 5 Comments