Reading Time: 3 minutes Sudden Change vs Gradual Change I have seen a few sudden changes of vendor in my career. And this is usually sign of either “not thinking through” or “the bean counters are in charge”. Once at Ascension Health, it seems they only implemented the Okta two factor authentication for a few days or a few

Reading Time: 2 minutes (Update 03-09-2025) LA Times – His wife dead, an ailing Gene Hackman was stranded alone in his house for days, authorities believe. (Update 03-7-2025) Huff Post: Gene Hackman And Wife Betsy Arakawa’s Causes Of Death Released. It seems to me in other words: Mr. Hackman who is in his 90s and has dementia, appears not

Reading Time: < 1 minute 美国最近一个月，川普他胡汉山又回来了。他这一卷土重来，可谓是来者不善善者不来。基本上把联邦政府翻了底朝天。他最近半年来宠幸的世界首富马斯克，带着一帮美国红卫兵，直接关了两个机构（USAID和CFPB），裁了所有的试用期的联邦政府员工。同时所有的机构包括国防部都要裁员。对华人来说，在高校研究机构工作的人，有不少是拿联邦政府的grant, 一般是通过NIH（卫生部）和NSF（国家科学基金会）。她们中应该也/已有一些收到直接间接的影响。有点搞笑的是，其实华人中有不少是川粉，或者是投票给川普的选民。这下好，搬起石头，直接砸自己的脚。这个让我想到前两天看到一个博文下的两个有点意思的评论： 如果川普发动战争，让你儿子死在战场，川粉会说，如果没有川王保护，我们会全家覆灭。奴才永远没有清醒的能力； 川粉但凡有点思考能力就不会是川粉了。川粉醒悟不了，有个关于美国农民的新闻里说得挺好，被川虐待千百遍，仍待川普如初恋。 安全 我97年夏天来美国，经历过克林顿（三年多，小克第二任任期是从97年1月20日开始），小布什（8年），奥巴马（8年），川普 1.0（4年）， 拜登（4年），接下来不出意外川普2.0还有3年11个月。 其实我刚来美国的时候，我在罗拉 University of Missouri at Rolla (后来改名为 Missouri University of Science and Technology: 一般现在简称是 Missouri S&T). 罗拉是一个小镇，97年是美国发生9-11（2001年）之前，所以在那里当时总的来说我感觉并没有什么歧视。我现在想想，那时候没有感觉受到各种歧视，尤其是种族歧视。我猜主要还是因为我们那时就是穷学生，尤其从经济上来说，当地美国人心理上对我们其实是有优越感的。 Covid I recall lots of unprovoked violence towards Asian and Chinese during pandemic, especially the early days (the shutdown phase). Note for many Americans (white, black and latinos), they cannot

Reading Time: 3 minutes For a guy with a hammer, everything is a nail Use SQL for everything At Mastercard, I used to have a colleague who is great at SQL. And once I realized he used PL/SQL for quite complex business logic for a “promotion build” and it backfired. The customer noticed there were some inconsistencies and notified

Reading Time: < 1 minute Not a complete list Online I am aware of eBay, Etsy, PoshMark. But I learned couple new ones. Curtsy : our 14 year old (when she was still 13, but almost 14), bought a nike puffer jacket Depop (wikipedia, just realized it’s a subsidiary under Etsy) – our 14 year old tries to sell her

Reading Time: 2 minutes Tom Krause – CEO, Cloud Software Group – finance guy – Princeton U alumni – Now you know not all ivies have high moral standards, because Tom is obviously a #muskrat or a fat cat in the corporate world (ABS News). Quote the ABC news article a bit: One former Cloud Software Group employee said

Reading Time: < 1 minute Not financial advice. This is the most important thing you need to know. Your money your decision. Try not to be forever diver 不要做永远♾️的潜水员.  02-21-2025 每个人都可以自己的炒股风格：但是归根结底，不管黑猫白猫，会抓老鼠🐭的猫才是好猫。 要做好风险控制：拿每个人可以接受的钱去炒股票，一般不能all in. 尽量留一部份现金等等。 02-15-2025 1. Be happy; 2. 赚钱是王道：don’t lose money; 3. Refer to rule 1 and 2.  01-16-2025 My top 3 stock positions (excluding the stocks indirectly hold in various S&P 500 index funds): brk/b, KO and OX.  Some learning resource: 活到老学到老：这一点也很重要，沃伦巴菲特和查理芒格都是学习机器。 他俩主要的学习手段是读书，读年报，再加上自己独立思考。 Warren Buffett reads a lot of company’s annual reports: mostly to learn.  I found listening to companies’ Earning call to be educational sometimes –  EARNMOAR – YouTube  Fyfull – YouTube   奶头乐级别: “NaNa 说美股” 每天市场评述，mainly entertainment value –  ;  “小lin说” various topics, mainly entertainment and education value –  个人感觉小林讲的一般不深奥，主要是入门知识，但是她讲的还是有干货的； 美国年轻人Joseph Carlson Show and Joseph Carlson After Hours 他好像有两个频道 – stocks, food for thought – 比如这个油管视频：   Please note one goal for many content creators including YouTubers is getting eyeballs 👀 👁️ and making💰. So keep this in my mind when you consume the online content.  我又想了一下。我觉得网上多数视频包括CNBC Jim Cramer 的mad money，包括Nana 的油管每天更新，还有其它很多，教育或有启发的东西不是很多。娱乐的成分倒是不少。可能有点这个短视频的”奶头乐”的味道吧。或者相当于麦当劳🍔的快餐。光吃那个或天天吃那个可能不是最健康：因为营养成分不够丰富。还是要自己做饭，或吃一些更健康的食品（少吃垃圾食品，少喝可乐等等）[捂脸][呲牙]  Together let’s share some 💡 and make some 💰.  We try to keep the America (US) politics at a minimum here.  I believe everyone is entitled to her or his opinion including political views and affiliation.  But those are best kept to yourself. Probably religion too.  I recall 20+ years ago one golden rule is not to talk politics and religion at work.  Also, we will try to keep out many fake stuffs on Internet or from social medias. PS: Hard core MAGAs may find it hard to stay there sometimes because I

Reading Time: < 1 minute What doesn’t kill us can only made us stronger — German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche — his original words are: “Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” Five years ago today, 01-23-2019, Wednesday, I was laid off from the company I worked for about 3 and half years. I saved the

Reading Time: 5 minutes Chinese version (translated by Google) is here: 谷歌翻译的中文版在这里。 Turbo Tax web vs Desktop I switched from Turbo Tax Web version to Desktop version in last 4 years. The main reason is the latter is cheaper (if we consider both the state and tax). It’s probably $40 to $50 cheaper. Before the switch I used the

Reading Time: 3 minutes (Update 03-04-2025) Tesla China shipments tumble, the latest sign of weakening demand (Yahoo Finance) (Original Feb-2025) BYD is offering a self-driving feature for all. That could be trouble for Tesla. Below is what I got from googling when using “Tesla self driving timeline” as search keywords. I think we all know Tesla is the de