Reading Time: < 1 minute Missouri, the show me state where I live, had a pretty wild weather last weekend. We had Tornato (twister) both on Saturday and Sunday. I stayed whole day at home on Sunday, and I never saw so many Tornato warnings on the TV. On Sunday night the weather guy basically told the viewer to stay

Reading Time: 1 minute In the stock market there is a thing called “earning”, basically it’s how much money a company made for each share of the stock. The higher the earning, the better for share holders (company owners). But the stock price does not necessarily hold a linear relationship with the earning. Why? Because there is another thing

Reading Time: < 1 minute It took me a year to figure out the difference between these two. Unfortunately one year ago when I bought my condo, I used the latter one, which means when Fed raises the rate, my rate goes up too. Today I found the following definition at GMAC mortgage (click on Home Equity). Home Equity Loan

Reading Time: 4 minutes I saw this article in ShanghaiExpat, and I think it’s very informative. ================================================ Understanding Shanghai’s Rental Market Shanghai’s downtown housing supply grows each year with more and more buildings popping up around town. For the newcomer it must seem overwhelming and many can’t work out why the differing asking prices for what seem to be

Reading Time: 2 minutes I have been a nice guy most of time, in my work and outside of work. But I have done something pretty bad this week. I am talking about programming. I made two mistakes. First I checked in code to the source control system and forgot to put in some compile flags. Without these flags

Reading Time: < 1 minute My work is not easy these days. I have to solve some problems and the deadline is approaching quickly. I feel sitting before the computer all the day (don’t we all do that?) is not helpful for my health. So I tried to find some time for exercises after I came back from China. I

Reading Time: < 1 minute From mitbbs: =========================================== 看到前面东航的事情，我也来说说前些日子回国的遭遇。 我是坐UA由别处到chicago再回上海的，在我这个地方check-in 的时候，不知怎么搞的就没有给我chicago到上海这一段的正式机票， 只是一张confirmation，工作人员说，到时候一定会有位子的，我也 没多想。到了chicago,被告知票子卖得太多了，现在没有位子，要我 等20分钟看看，当时距离飞机起飞还有40分钟。我当时挺着急，但是 这样的事情听过不少，倒还没到出离愤怒的地步。就站在柜台边等 叫我的名字。过了15分钟，形势开始不对，这时候来的人，航空公司 都是一句话，没位子了，今天走不了了，等明天吧。可是很可气的是 他们不一视同仁，老外来了（这里指看上去肯定不是亚裔的那种）， 绝对是有位子的，机票立马给你。中国人来了，先说没有位子，然后 问是不是绿卡，如果是，位子又有了，而像我们这种F1，或者探亲 旅游访友的，就绝对绝对地没有票子。看着这些人的嘴脸，我心里 那个气呀，尤其这些UA的工作人员都是黄皮肤，黑眼睛，说中国话 的中国人呀！ 回到国内，唯一不开心的经历就是在大使馆，那些中国保安的 嘴脸，想必大家也见识过了，尤其是他们对一些拿探亲签证的老人 家，人家年纪大，不懂英文，也许连普通话都说不好，就更应该 多帮帮忙的，但是那些人那个凶，那个不耐烦，呼呼赫赫的，让人 看了心寒。我去拿签证的时候，发现签证上有些错误，去找保安， 本来只想问问有什么电话或者人我可以去找找问问的，却招来了 一顿骂。我很委屈，老爸说，只有白痴才跟这些人理论讲道理的， 我为此还跟老爸争了起来，可是现在想想，我是不是有点白痴啊？ 我爱自己的国家和同胞，只是对这些人，实在无话可说了，只 是不明白，也许这些人不工作的时候，也是挺正常的，但是为什么 一工作就换成了那样的嘴脸，sigh… ========================================= Comments: I think it’s an extreme case. For international travel it’s a good idea to confirm the ticket before heading to airport. This applies to

Reading Time: 2 minutes It seems like China is going to get only one Gold Medal at this Winter Olympics games. It’s a bit disappointing for many Chinese who care about the game, including me. I think lots of people, especially the team China expected to win more gold medals this time. I believe four years ago we got

Reading Time: < 1 minute I received a letter from Missouri Department of Revenue yesterday. And it says my tax return for the year 2004 was invalid. That made me nervous. I scambled to look at my 2004 return which is done by Turbo Tax software, and other supporting documents. I found out an obvious problem eventually. I should have

Reading Time: 2 minutes I ordered Motorola E815 and Verizon Wireless new service plan from Amazon yesterday, after doing some research on the web. My contract with T-mobile expired recently, and I was not impressed by their service: the biggest problem is their limited coverage area. Many times when I am off the highways, I no longer have the