c0redump

windsurfing, comedy central, wedding, and move out day

2008-09-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

Windsurfing lessons this past weekend was awesome! horray for acquiring a new hobby (agility+2, strength+1). The sport has a low barrier of entry (so everyone was surfing after the first 30 minutes), but has many interesting techniques and moves as you move up the skill chain =) Will def. try to make this a summer activity staple.

amidst the economic and political madness, i take refuge each week nights in the wits of the two master pundits after my 12 hour startup work days. on the weeks when the duo took time off the air, i'd go to sleep dreaming restlessly about optimizing my code and fixing race conditions (damn reruns!). Stewart/Colbert '08! ... oh oh, and i saw on digg today that my favorite heroes had joined forces! I want that issue!

i'm done with weddings for the year... the travel aw def. the worst part of the events... long flights to and impossible street configurations in boston and terrible traffic jam to santa rosa were pretty rough. ceremonies were ok, the receptions were pretty decent, and it's good to see that friends and families are all doing well =)

been trying hard to sell off my belongings before moving out... all hail craigslist =) incidentally we're also moving our office this weekend. this october's gonna be the move everything month =)

cmu andrew servers nostalgia

2008-08-13T18:25:00.000-07:00

so i came across this today, which i had no idea existed while i was in cmu... though i guess it's not quite functional when i tried it today.

Anyway, i was hit with a overwhelming case of nostalgia, and tried to finger ppl's old login on andrew.cmu.edu, but it seems that everyone's plan files were destroyed along with their andrew space.... except mine, for some strange reason =) even after almost 5 yrs i can still access my public folder and plan file =D http://andrew.cmu.edu/~dlien/shared ...

dear cmu admins: if any of you ever read this, i'd be so happy to regain access to my andrew space =) please please don't remove my files =)

座右銘

2008-07-28T16:19:00.000-07:00

切記三緘其口
切記毛遂自薦

切勿猶豫不決
切勿草下結論

oh yes!

2008-07-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

finally this blog is no longer ugly.

Brush

2008-06-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

And in her restless slumber, Thanatos said to her, "Aw, so you won, with spirits tenaciously bonding to the mortal world ... well, another time, then."

Thus she opened her eyes, bleary but determined, and fought.

another airborne entry

2008-06-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

another long distance flight. another comtemplative blogging session.

the time between my flights to taiwan blured together like a long, surreal day. perhaps i am more suited for a job as a consultant, flying weekly across the continent. perhaps then i'd have more days in my life.

"I am a very lucky man."... who was it that wrote this as the opening line of his autobiography? I'll look it up when i land in taiwan in ... 5 hours?

I am very lucky indeed. Good family, good friends, good health, good career... good life. I wondered when i first graduated college how my paths always seems to be chosen and laid out for me in advance. Now I look back at the 4 years that had since passed and this continue to be true. I often wonder about the seers throughout history, from simple fortunetellers to prophets, from advices of daily lives to creations of the greatest religions. I wonder about their methods to foretell the future, about their uncanny ability to accurately describe your past without actually knowing you. I wonder about their power to communicate with the dead, with spirits, with gods. They use different methods and they hold very different believes, about their abilities or otherwise.

I wonder about the nature of these supernatural gifts, about whether we would one day discover the secret of our minds, the fundemental rules of fate, the connections between humans. What if we learn to control it, to alter it, to use it? What will we do then? Over the past 100 years we've discovered and created a great deal of things that should have killed us: we tamed lightening, we destroyed atoms, we created life. But perhaps 'it' is something so intangible we cannot possibly master it. Much like the big bang and relativity, perhaps things that dwell outside of our dimensions of existance will ever only remain as theories, unprovable, and we can only ever observe them through consequences of their behaviors in our world.

So back to the fate thing. People say you should take the readings from fortunetellers with a grain of salt... or maybe a whole crap load of salt... well, enough salt so that our lives are not steered a certain way because of what they told us we should do, anyway. Really though, most sane human beings do take it with enough salt that we don't go crazy over them. We might drive more carefully, changed travel plans, or maybe even arrange weddings accordingly, but we won't quit our jobs and slack off just because they say we'll make millions in our lifetimes. I guess what i'm getting at is: without trying, my life is happening as perscribed to me by ... well whoever it is, exactly to script.

that's scary =)

the death of blogs

2008-06-02T00:12:00.000-07:00

The great calligrapher once said, "if you practice just writing 3 characters a day, after 3 years you too will master the art of calligraphy."

And yet such is the near impossibility of the simple task... we are simply not genetically engineered nor physically trained to be persistent at doing extra work 'in our spare time', even if we may enjoy the activity, whatever it maybe.

Looking at the blog list on the right (and on my rss feed), over 90% of the links are now dead. I bet if I plot out the number of posts per month by everyone over the course of 6 years (holy shit, it's been almost exactly 6 years since my first blog post), it forms a ... a... ah crap what are those curves called? let me look it up...doh, can't find it. if you know what it's call let me know and i'll update this =) (it's the one where it's high at the beginning and low at the end, tapers(flattens) off at both ends and steep slope in the middle) ...

Anyway, the conclusion is that it's too hard for most ppl... I only updated today because i've been sick with a headache this weekend and am now bored from not doing anything the whole day.

----

In other news, my startup is working me like a dog (or rather, i'm working myself like a dog)... during the weekdays, anyway. It's been 2.5 months, and i work 12 hr days prob. 80% of the time. It's been very exciting and the speed of progress astounding. Oh and i'm also officially house hunting.

oh and i found(bought and read) a signed first edition copy of Card's 'A War of Gifts' at Barnes and Noble... what a steal!

ok time to sleep.

Hats, grass hut, and coffee houses

2008-03-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

I never quite considered my time in Taiwan as 'true bum-dom', per se, and most certainly not the road trip before, nor the backpack trip before that. Those kind of fulfilling, fun, and occasionally life changing trips can only be counted as casual bumming. Amateurish.

Between January 17th 9:00PM, and 8:00PM today (Mar. 14th), though, it was for real. Almost.

In my mind, I've always imagined that a true professional[bum] would go from day to day without a true sense of purpose nor direction, and enjoys himself while doing so. He would be spontaneous and random, visiting friends and places without notice, or stay home the entire day and just play games.

I did do quite a bit during my 2 months of pro bummage, only to discover in the end that, to my dismay, I'm unfit for such intense slacking-off. I was never really bored; most of the frustration was in the form of restlessness: waiting for events that's so tangible yet so far from my control; working on projects that is almost surely to be fruitless or meaningless.

I brought back 80 hat 'samples' from dad's overproduction warehouse in China, I've sold 35 total to date. It wasn't a very fun experiment, but the conclusions, i think, are certainly interesting enough to share. First, ebay retail does NOT work as a side business. Without a barrier of entry, the online auction market is too efficient and too low-margined for a silicon valley engineer. I posted 2 dozen listings(including re-listing) over a course of 3 weeks and made only 3 sales. So that's a 25% success rate for listings costing between 40-90 cents. However, i was able to complete an order of 10 hats outside of the ebay system with one of the ebay buyers, which was good! Unfortunately it was a one time deal. The second conclusion: selling over-production hats directly to retail does not work. I called up all the local mom-n-pop hat shops to try to establish a business relationship with them. Only store in berkeley didn't flatly reject me, and I was able to sell them 20 hats when i drove up there (I must note, though, that the store owners were, uh, unfriendly, to say the least... definitely not the most pleasant experience in my life). Being unable to guarantee quantity nor style, though, was definitely a deal breaker for them (e.g. since they are over-production hats, the shops won't be able to reorder any hats.). Excel says: "今日の実験: FAILED!" (see foot note bonus for a proven e-business idea =)

My grass hut project, on the other hand, was definitely a success! I bought a hut model kit at the Taiwan Miniature museum (which was basically, cut wood, papers, grass, twigs, and a 2-page instruction in japanese).
Note the nickel in front for size reference... This took me about 25 hours over the spam of a month.

I've been trying to [find time to] write a flash game since last august, and during the past two months i finally had no excuse not to work on it =). The product is, of course, still unfinished, so there's not much to say there. But as a side effect, in order to avoid suffocating at home, I went to 15 or so coffee houses w/ free wifi to do my programming. I think i've drank more coffee in the past 2 months than the past 2 years combined. Here are my verdicts:
The shop with the best programming environment is Red Rock Cafe in Mountain View. Its 2nd floor seating is quiet, nicely lid and homey with good ambiance. When I need a break, I stretch and observe the passerby on castro while eavesdropping on the entrepreneurship discussion at the neighboring table. Wifi there unfortunately leaves something to be desired, but Google Wifi was definitely good enough for my use.
The best mocha goes to the Prolific Oven at rivermark! Its small mocha is the perfect 16oz size for me and comes in a glass at the perfect temperature. The chocolate, milk, and coffee is in perfect balance: flavorful but not too sweet, rich but not too creamy, deep but not too bitter.
Chains like Peet's and Starbucks are obviously unacceptable for their lack of plugs and lack of free wifi; The Bean Scene Cafe in sunnyvale was disappointing (yelp rating there is very high), and the 3Bees in San mateo and people's cafe in Berkeley are acceptable. Bacio Cafe in San Mateo and Palo Alto Cafe are quite good =) I think I've spent more than 50 hours on my game so far... writing strategy game in Actionscript is HARD...

Adding up all those activities still doesn't quite cover two month's time, of course. In the voids, I finish all the errands I could have done during the time, played lots of DS, golf, and some tennis, and traveled to LA for a short visit to my grandparents and relatives. Now at long last, I am done waiting and will be officially starting my entrepreneur career on Mar. 17th, 2008.

Adventure awaits!!

------
Bonus!!!
Amazon Used-Book Market HowTo:

Something that *is* worthwhile as a side business, is the Amazon used book market, with great margin and almost no listing effort involved:

1. once every two weeks, go to all the libraries within driving distance with a notepad and a pencil.
2. Go through all books at the for-sale rack and jot down ISBNs for books in good condition.
3. While still at the library, goto their computer terminal and look up the price medium for these books on amazon.
4. Purchase all books with max(100% margin, $5) or better, and sell them on amazon marketplace.
5. Use label/postage printer and usps boxes to save time and money, respectively.
6. profit

Well, you heard it here first folks, be sure to cite your sources when you become rich =)

indecision 2008, or not

2008-02-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I decided to go vote in the presidential primary on super tuesday! It'll be my first time voting ^^ and I plan to leave everything blank except for the democratic candidacy vote!

I'd vote yes on prop 94-97, but i just don't think it'll actually help the California government... maybe it's better to just let the state government go bankrupt and lay off 1/2 of its employees to keep its spending in check. California has the highest GDP (and therefore the highest taxes revenue) in the nation and has the best weather with relatively few natural disasters... how can it possibly have a 38 billion dollar deficit? I mean compare to that number the 250 million per year you get from those propositions are peanuts, i say Arnold should hire Jack Walch and have him black belt the state government, or something ... But i degress.

During the past 7 years, Bush messed the country up so badly, the country will most definitely get better over the next 4 years regardless of who's in the white house. But in order to be *much* better off, the democratic candidate must win this year's presidential election. With a democratic house and senate (by a good margin, too), a democratic president is necessary for a efficient government. And the fact is democrats basically won already, with 2 superstar candidates running (and Bush helped out their campaign a great deal too =)

Up until a week ago, I was neutral between Obama and Clinton, and was not going to vote in the primary.... But yesterday i decided to go and vote for Obama on Tuesday. In addition to the accelerating momentum gathered behind him, I now believe Obama will make a better president. Obama seems like he'll be able to get more bipartisan support and be less influenced by his party or the lobbyists. Or maybe it's simply that Hillary is too forceful on her stands on military issues (what's with the attacking iran stand? US economy's gonna collapse if we continue to spend 10mil a day to attack random people) ... I mean, she's making McCain look more democrat-like than she is!

Or maybe it's just because he's endorsed by the Kennedys =)

China, Palau, Japan, Taiwan

2008-01-23T17:36:00.000-08:00

I'm back in CA at last, getting ready for the kickoff crunch, so to speak. For some reason i STILL have lots of things to take care of here, just like when i was in Taiwan... but first some notes about my trip ;)

I spent a few days in China visiting dad's factory, trying to get an broad overview of the operations while i still can. In the end I'm not sure how much I actually learned about the business, but i took some over-production samples back to the states to see what i can do with them... we'll see =)

My new year weekend was spent in Palau with family and my cousins' family. We spent the days snorkling around sunken warship, coral reefs, tropical fish (they ate bread out of our hands XD), and jellyfish; at night we played cards and watched taiwan new years program on TV =p. It was a great fun! I will be sure to go back there once i get a scuba license =D

I went to Okinawa and Tokyo for 2.5 days each with family and yet another cousin's family. The last time i visited japan was 15 years ago and i didn't remember very many things. The weather was miserable, but visiting cousin i haven't seen for 10 years was pretty exciting. We went to the newly remodeled aquarium with my nieces, featuring the largest underwater observation window in the world. Everything (well ok, many things) in that aquarium is super-sized, everything from huge manta rays and whale sharks to giant lobsters and hermit crabs... and i've really been to alot of aquariums. Did mostly shopping in Tokyo... it was fun walking around akiba, jiyou ga oka and shinjuku while catching up with t.

W finally came to visit a week before i return to CA =) Went to the usual spots like 9fan and danshui and baitou... we went to the miniature museum in Taipei (which was great) and bought this (the 2nd one) model kit in case i don't have enough things to do back in Cali ^^;; and we had some awesome Tonkatsu dinner =) The rest of time in Taiwan was spent taking golf lessons, attending seminars, visiting relatives, hanging out with friends, going to the acupuncturist, making photobook and before i knew it 7 weeks had flied by.

ohoh almost forgot the mention all the interesting food i tried during my trip. I tried the following food for the first time- in china: bee larvae(interesting, but i think it'd taste better if i didn't know what they were =p), blowfish (chewy... this was an non-poisonous species, supposedly), 拉尿蝦 (some sort of lobster like shrimp, pretty good); in Palau: bat soup (i ate some bat too... taste like tasteless chicken); in Japan: fancy tofu cuisine, real okonomiaki, rice cake pancake thingy (forgot the japanese name for it).

yay.

Hualien

2007-12-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

I've been visiting my grandmother in hualien this week. I always enjoy my time here in Hualien... There's something about my grandparents' house (we live in a 3 story concrete house) that makes it very inviting. The first floor is marble and concrete floor, and we all walk around in sandals... since we live in the middle of downtown, you would wear your sandal around in the house, and then walk right out to the main street to go shopping for books, cloths or stationaries. During the day we don't lock the front door (so i never carry a key... not that the crime rate is very low, just that there's nothing to steal in our house's first floor =) ), and neighbors and relatives would hear that we're back and drop by randomly to say hi and play go with my dad... It's all just a very laid back city during the day, and a very lively one at night. Though the economic recession is Taiwan is most noticeable in smaller cities like Hualien. Mom and I went to a slightly older department store in hualien, and found that we were the two of the maybe 5 customer in the 6 story store (with maybe 30 staff members on the floors). I couldn't bear the quietness and the, um, extra attention received from the sales people, and left in a hurry =)

On wednesday we went to 太魯閣... It was extremely pretty. I don't remember much of the last time i went there, probably more than 15 years ago. My parents hadn't been there for a long time as well... The white and gray marble/limestone cliffs, the trickling waterfalls that pour out of the cracks between the stones, the river that runs through the gorge... We stop at various locations to walk around and take pictures, and most places were devoid of tourists. We didn't see the tour buses until the afternoon when we were on our way out of the gorge.

中國政府做生意, 台灣政府搞文革!

2007-12-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

God damnit, my blog template is messed up again... i swear i didn't do nothin =/
----

Today I went to listen to a talk hosted by Business Today (今周刊) titled "The Flow of Wealth in 2008"
(2008 全球錢潮流向... http://www.businesstoday.com.tw/winwinsp/071121speech/).

The speaker was the former Morgan Stanley chief analyst in Asia, and the talk was very informative indeed. Even though he stuttered alot, I still found the speech very engaging. The speaker gave a very clear picture of how the most important countries in the world interact with each other (US and China, of course, but also India, Russia, Japan, etc) and where/why/how the money is flowing.

Essentially, he predicts that the US economy will be going down the drain at least until 2009. A US economic collapse is unlikely but possible... most likely it'll be stagnant at 1 - 1.5% growth (world average is about 2.5% this year) The dollar will continue to weaken until 1. Iraq war ends and 2. housing finishes tanking (apparently this will occur when Warren Buffet buys a housing related stock). China on the other hand is still all about real estate and energy and construction. The Chinese government is hogging the shares of State owned companies, so the stock market is extremely volatile. Real estate remains the single most important thing Chinese ppl invest in (he said, "buy some downtown office suites in major China cities and you can't go wrong"), but foreign luxuries and heavy industries will also be strong in the near future. He predicts that markets worldwide will be slow through the winter, but Beijing Olympics will pick up the Chinese stock exchanges starting February...

One interesting thing he noted was that the US economy is dictated by its current working generation. He felt that until the baby boomers retires from their political and business careers, United States will not make much progress as a whole in terms of productivity and economic growth. As for China, its government is so focused on making money it has lost track of the duties of an administration. Real estate, while strong, would become the cause for instability should the price increase continue to outpace economic growth (Chinese housing bubble). In comparison, Taiwan is facing much bigger problems than housing bubbles. In its current state of political madness, Taiwan is seeing a continuous outflow of people (and the money they carry with them) as businesses migrates to China. The fact that Taiwan economy is so closely tied with US['s slumping economy] doesn't help either. Taiwan is looking at a future of long recession similar to Japan today if the government cannot get its act together, create direct air route to china (三通), and passes policies to encourage foreign investments....

anyway, very interesting and educational stuff =)

flight

2007-11-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

--timestamp modified to when this was written--

It's been a long while since I've written anything... I think i'll start writing again.

For some reason, I always get minor panic attacks when I fly a long distance. There's something about crossing the Pacific that makes me ponder about life, family, relationship... future. Perhaps it's the exciting prospect of change, re-visiting relatives and friends [that i haven't seen for a year] that invigorates me. Perhaps it's the wonderful uncertainty of a new career that taunts me(of course, i only travel to afar when i 1. graduate/winter vacation, 2. change jobs, or 3. threaten to change jobs). Or maybe it's just the confined environment of an Boeing 747-400 that's sending shivers to my heart.

I got a window seat this time. I noted that as we headed west, above the clouds, we enjoyed a beautiful panoramic sunset in slow motion. Over the course of a two and a half hour movie, i glanced out the oval-shaped plexiglass every now and then to see the sky goes from blue, to a gradient of pink, orange, red, purple, brown and then finally blackness, an hour after the movie ended.

I love quitting jobs... maybe i'll make it a hobby (this statement just ensured that i'll never be able to get another proper job o_O hehe) ...No... that's not really true. I love long breaks. Because we all know that we live our lives For these breaks. What I love even more are long breaks packed with 3 times more things to-do than i have time for... And for the most of us (well, ok, at least for me), it's these period of self-incurred responsibilities and self-enforced schedule that allows me to slow down and reflect on where the world is, and where i am in this world. I guess now is one of those periods. Maybe i'll write a post-mortem on my Shutterfly experience (which was great and most certainly extremely educational!)
... we'll see.

But for now, I'll be landing in Taipei in about 9 hours, and I better get some rest.... before the next movie starts ;)

Semi-Annual update!!

2007-10-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time, everyone... anyone?

It seems futile to try to recount all the events for the past 6 months, but it suffices to say that things are moving forward. The valley is exactly as I imagined it'd be: full of opportunities. People I know are moving here almost as fast as they left Pittsburgh... =) I've stayed in California (and some some Nevada visits) since I moved here last August... No long distance travel (not even across US), for over a year, definitely some sort of personal record for me in recent memory (maybe the first time in like, 15 years o_O). The weather here is most definitely taken for granted, and I have long lost that urge to abandon work and run around throwing Frisbees around instead every time it's sunny out. My only gripe about bay area is that it's too spread out, with popular cities evenly distributed over a 25 mile radius.... Still much better than LA, that's for sure =)

A shoutout to w and l... welcome to the valley =) cmu clan is still missing a few members though... no worries, i'm sure you'll all be here soon... you know you want to!

=)

--
edit: want to write this down before i forget ( and never run again in my life ;) )...
I ran in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge this year.
3.5 miles, 27:06, 7.73 minute miles =)

the Flat Stanley Project [retroactive post]

2007-08-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

[03/18/2009]
I was digging around old email posts and found this in my google docs. I wrote the letter below back in aug. 2007 for my little cousin's homework project (she was in 4th grade). The assignment was to make a paper cutout of yourself ("Flat [your_name_here]") and snail mail it to your relatives along with a notebook. Your relatives (e.g. me) were then to write a journal entry w/ pictures in the notebook as well as a letter to the class about where you took Flat Stanley to. After that, the relative is supposed to mail the package to the next victim, and the package was eventually mailed back to the student at the end of the year where she can then do show and tell about her paper doll's travels.

... I hope my cousin got to read my letter out loud to the class (by class i mean her teacher).

* * *

Dear Class,

Downtown San Francisco is famous for its extremely steep alleys, plethora of street performers, and great sea food. Flat Angela and us arrived at the famous Lombard Street around 2PM. The winding one-way street consist of eight hairpin turns and neatly trimmed bushes and flower patches along every corner. Driving downhill at the blazing speed of five miles an hour, Flat Angela was evidently excited at the panoramic view of the Golden Gate, Telegraph Hill, and China Town.

We drove to Fisherman's Wharf at 3, and parked at the super-secret-free-public-parking-lot that only true locals know about. It was a rather windy afternoon, but the chilly weather was clearly not enough to deter chocoholic Americans from flooding the entrances of Ghiraradelli Shop & Caffe. We squeezed past the long line to take a look at the great chocolate stirring machine, which mixed in a disproportionate amount of sugar and cream with dark chocolate to create the tooth-rotting confection that is the Ghirardelli "Squares". We passed by "Bushman" on our way to Pier 39 as the infamous "performer" scared unsuspecting tourists by jumping out of his cut leafy tree branches. We wondered how unbelievably boring it would be to yell "ugga bugga" 417 times a day, everyday, for 20 years. When we walked to the back end of Pier 39, we were greeted by the group of fat sea lions barking on the floating platforms. They lied lazily under the setting sun and noisily discussed schemes to obtain junk food from the spectators who can't read the signs. By then, our feet were abit tired from carrying Flat Angela and pushing around the crowds all day, so after a quick coffee break we headed back toward the super-secret-free-public-parking-lot and drove home.

The Flat-Stanley Project places minimal amount of responsibilities on the fourth graders (and teachers) and maximum amount of work on the families and friends of their parents. We humbly suggest assignments that require more effort from the students.

Sincerely,

David
08/18/2007

hi

2007-03-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

I can't decide whether or not to continue updating my blog... on one hand, blogging has been push so far down the priority list that i cannot realistically expect myself to update regularly... on the other hand, it is scary how easily we forget what happened when we don't write things down...

So after the road trip, i paintballed, river hiked, day hiked, got hired, moved, furnished, attended halloween party, hosted housewarming party, spent thanksgiving with family, played broomball for the first time, went mountain biking, went go kart racing 3 times, traveled to tahoe twice (once for skiing, once for snowshoeing) and to LA for new years, took an entrepreneurship and a finance class at stanford and berkeley, bought a car, built a htpc, got two bikes for free, and bought wii, ddr pads, and gone through a full release cycle at work (about 4 months)

So!
that was the review... here's the preview

I will be: traveling to vegas for PMA conference tomorrow, going go kart racing two more times this month, attending b's wedding in LA next month, trapeze flying, taking a project management class next month, and finishing twilight princess this month =)

5000 miles part two: the actual trip...

2007-03-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

Coninue on... (um... sorry for the [3 month] delay there ;) )

...
august 10th - 11th, winston salem

i had my last meal in pittsburgh with weiting (it was crepes, i think ;) ), and headed south toward k's new place in winston salem, nc. two hours later I was pulled over by the virginia state trooper for speeding (only 60 miles of I77 lies in virginia ... man, i wasn't even going that fast =( )... it's the first ticket i got in 6 years =(((. <-- my insurance didn't go up tho (and still hasn't ;) ). Interestingly it was also k's first day to winston salem, having moved from texas just before =P. In true cmu style, the only items in his apartment were blankets, air mattress, and 1 server, 2 desktops, and 2 laptops. I took my comp out of the car to leech off all the tv series and apps i can carry on my hard drive... that room was 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the house =p

k's Pod(tm) arrive the next morning, and together with his brother 3 of us moved the poorly packed content into the living room =)

...
august 11th - 14th, columbia

it was a short 3 hr drive to Columbia, SC, and j took me to a southern seafood place (new item learned... apparently, locals would order 'sweet tea' at all the restaurants they goto...). We played tennis on saturday =) By then i was almost done with 'the World is Flat' (which was 20 CDs long), so i started looking for new listening materials. we spent sunday in charleston, walking around the open market, shopping district, and the beaches. With history dating back to the 1600s, charleston is full of historic landmarks, old colonial and confederate buildings; In contrast to philadelphida tho, the sunny warm weather, small crowds, and the utter lack of tall buildings make charleston a nice and laid back little town.

I spent half of monday fixing j's machine that was built by m's brother (pfftt amateur... it's the n00b mistakes that'll cause you pain and sufferings and lost of data =P ). after two runs to best buy i replaced the hdd and ram, and the machine was back up and running like nothing's happend ;)

...
august 14th - 15th, atlanta

I wasn't really planning to stay in georgia overnight, but apparently p assumed that i'd be crashing at her place (i was only gonna grab dinner with her then go). how can i refuse free lodging =). p was spending her last week in us before heading to nippon for a year(semester?). There's supposedly things to do in atlanta, but we ended up just going to a border's and i walked out with Blink! and Guns, Germs and Steel audio books (p had to run an errand in the city)

...
august 15th, grand rivers

hmm, where the heck?

grand rivers is a tiny town along I24 in the great state of Kentucky. I specifically looked for a best wester with whirlpool and free internet, and it was perfect after 9 hours of driving. I finished most of Blink! that day... The book discusses the nature of human instinct and our reliance(or lack of reliance) on it for judgement and decision making... Malcolm Gladwell provided many compelling examples to illustrate his points, and you should read the book sometimes =)

...
august 16th - 18th, kensas city

I scheduled a phone interview with Google for a PM position on the 16th... so I pulled off the free way 5 minutes before the appointed time, parked on a quiet residential street, and had the interview in the car (writing down notes on paper and using the steering wheel as table =) ... I thought it went well but i was later rejected when i got to bay area=/

I arrived at a&s's place around dinner time. they lived in a nice housing community, and the newly painted houses with similar styling under a cloudless sky is a picture straight out of the neighborhood of Edward Scissorhands o_O (a didn't think so tho =p) We played some friendly pingpong in their basement and had some kansas bbq for dinner. The following day i wondered aimlessly around downtown, trying to understand the city in less than 4 hours. Kansas city is definitely a well maintained town, with parks, fountains, museums and outdoor sculptures around every corner (random trivia, the city's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has a large collection of bronze sculptures, including huge badminton shuttlecock sculptures littering the front lawn.) I met up with a&s to play tennis around 5:30 (after they got off work), and had a nice sushi dinner nearby.

...
august 18th, avon

[i wrote a journal entry this day, so i'll just copy and paste it ;)]

i think my english is improving quickly by 'reading' so much recently ;) or maybe it just make my blog much longer ^^;;

---
I left Arthur&shuhong's around 10am, central time. After fueling and putting some extra air in my front tires just outside Kansas City, I cruised along the almost perfectly straight highway of I-70 while listening to the abridged version of Diamond's Pulitzer-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. To my great disappointment, I was appalled by the time i finished listening to the prologue of the book. I felt that the author's tone of writing was presumptuous and patronizing, and the while sentences and paragraphs are eloquently constructed, the book was impersonal and dull. I patiently finished listening to the 6 hr program, and found that I've learned nothing more than a summary of my high school world history (and not even the full semester, just the pre-15th-century part), and the 'insights' the author proudly presented were, well, obvious. I was about 90 minutes away from Denver by the time i finished listening to the book, and the sun was beginning to set behind the sharp, regional and vertically layered cloud to the left of the perfectly straight road. I had entered Colorado from Kansas, from Central to Mountain time zone. Denver sits at the foot of the Rockies, separating the great plains from the misty mountain tops. I popped in the last audio book i had, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins, and it was fascinating and very entertaining for a non-fiction. With a pessimistic and ideological reflections, Perkins wrote about his job of bringing 3rd-world countries to their knees to be forever slaves of the modern democracies and corporations. I'd tell you more, but since 1. i'm still reading it and 2. i don't want to ruin the fun for you, you should just go and get a copy =) I stopped at Idaho Springs for dinner (about 45 minutes west of Denver), and found out with a shiver that the temperature outside was 30 degrees lower than two hours ago on the plains.

It was getting pretty dark by the time i finished dinner around 8:00PM, mountain time, and I continued on the now winding I-70. Rain started showering down, and the two-lane freeway sparkled as headlights are reflected by the slippery wet pavement. I became nervous as the trunks, SUVs and high-beaming sedans around me showed no signs of slowing down. Visibility is poor and I was distinctly aware of my shoulders, tense from concentration. After an hour I knew I can't make it to my target interim destination of Grand Junction, and started looking for lodging. I exited at the resort village of Vail, only to find myself creeped out by the somehow eerie street lighting and the utter lack of hotel signs. There were lights coming out of the windows of what looked like apartment complexes, but with little traffic (for a touristy area) and sidewalks deserted, i just couldn't shake the feeling that i had entered an abadoned little village.

I drove back on to the unilluminated freeway for the next exit, able to stay in lane only by carefully following the white solid shoulder line, visible for only a hundred feet in front before fading into darkness. On the next exit i saw a clear sign with a list of big hotel chains, but as soon as i exited I found myself in the same unnaturally dark lighting of the previous exit. I found my way to a Sheraton on a small hill, and as i stepped out of my car i found my legs shaking slightly, either from fear, fatigue or the cold mountain wind blowing into my T-shirt. The girl at the front desk told me politely that it was a time-share resort and does not take walk-ins, and pointed me to another non-time-share sheraton nearby. Following the seemingly simple directions, I was unable to find the hotel. I wanted to leave Vail as soon as possible to get rid of that chill on my spine, so i abandoned my search and returned to the freeway. The rained had thinned and visibility improved, and soon I was checked into a hotel at the neighboring town of Avon, ending this long day =p
[/end of entry]

...
august 19th - 21th, irvine

At the beginning of the trip, I contemplated the idea of hanging around grand canyon for a few days before reaching the west coast... however, having received no interest from the possible participants, I decided to see if i can drive straight across the canyons and deserts to california.

I believe it took me exactly 13 hours from Avon, Colorado to Irvine, California, passing through Las Vegas where i stopped for dinner (10 am - 11pm). The change of scenery from mountains to canyons to desserts to california cities is quite amazing; it's also interesting to see the change in high way condition from state to state (the road in arizona are fresh and perfectly paved, and nevada is nice and smooth, but as soon as you enter california you see cracks and uneven pavements and random constructions...... state tax dollar at work, i guess)

I spent sunday hanging out with b&m - sleeping in, playing badminton, gaming and reviewing my trip with everyone. As usual, staying with b&m is always relaxing with plenty of engaging conversations. On monday I took my time getting ready and took a short 1 hour drive up to LA.

...
august 21th - 23th, l.a.

I spent 2.5 days in LA for even more relaxation; taking care of the kids is always fun, and meeting up with a and c is also good... A took me around USC campus [in order to run some errands, talk to professors or whatnot], and while i don't remember much about the school, i saw the most advanced coke machine in the school parking garage (or maybe it was pepsi)! While the crude traditional vending machines simply drop your beverage about 5 feet from the display rack to the slot at the bottom, risking severe foaming/explosion/shattered glass, the USC uber coke machine has a robotic arm that moves up to retrieve my 20 oz cherry coke on the first row and 2nd column and gracefully returning to the exit slot, rotating it into position for minimal disturbance of liquid within. I was so impressed that if i wasn't a cheapass with no income i'd spend all my spare singles buying cokes from that machine, just to see the amazing technology at work again.

...
august 23th, milpitas. final destination

The 5.5 hour drive from LA to Bay area was pleasant enough. Having purchased John Stewart's America, and Jim Colin's Built to Last in irvine, I was definitely entertained/educated on the way over.

So at last, my war-battered black G20 pulls into m's apartment's parking complex around sunset.... the promised land... exciting opportunities awaits!

....
odometer reading:
Starting 115,285mi
part 2 starting 116,654mi
Ending 120,580mi

Part two time: 13 days
Part two distance: 3,926 miles

Total distance: 5,295 miles

5000 miles, part 1: the northeast

2006-10-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

hi, this has been sitting in here as draft for two months, but i didn't get around to completing it until now ^^;; sorry...

Here's the first 3rd of my journey from the atlantic to the pacific (after taiwan =)

...
seattle, jul 15th - 18th

technically not part of the road trip, but it was very enjoyable nontheless...
returned to the states after a month in taiwan...

visited v+l's house and had a nice bbq at the porch =) house is now newly remodeled and fully furnished with rear proj. TV and a plethora of decorations =) they remained very disappointed that i did not get the expedia job =p
bought a pair of sneakers and used it to play tennis with s (and the new shoes shaved a piece of skin of the backof my ankle =( ... ), and had dinner with s+bf and sh at a good pizza place in issaquah =). also had lunch with j, and learned about his path to dentistry o_O
and i met up with p for dinner and actually got to say hi to his family (last time i saw them was like 6 yrs ago). Incidentally, p lives exactly 100 ft from the Expedia headquarters ^^;;

I spent the free time in seattle sorting out mails and watering the house plant (vic said "as a true bum would"... or somethin' close to that)

...
pittsburgh, jul 19th - 26th

Back at the starting point of the journey.
I went back to TerraSim to pick up my last check and to deliver the postcard i got in taiwan =p
ben, good luck ;-)
Spent the week cleaning and packing... turns out it's extremely hard packing everything i own (and w's stuff too!) in to my car... well i knew it'd be hard, but thought a week's ought to be enough to figure everything out =p... end up dumping a bunch of crap at n&p's place for now until i return from my northeast tour...

...
philadelphia, jul 26th - 28th

First time to philly, airport excluded. Hen lives on 2nd and market, a block from Ben Franklin and two block from the liberty bell. The downtown is comprised of buildings with a wide variety of architecture styles, age, and historical context, giving the city a strangely refreshing look and feel. The granite stone city wall sets nicely against the tinted glass buildings around it. This is technically my first stop of this road trip, and each day i took the entire afternoon, walking around aimlessly in the city, browsing book stores, museums/halls/buildings, stores, libraries, but mostly just walking around. h introduced me to the true philly cheesesteak: bun, steak, cheezwiz, lots of grease and nothing else. yum.

...
new york city, jul 28th - 31th

I took the infamous chinatown bus to NYC on friday night...quite interesting, actually, getting tickets on the spot and fighting for the last seat (i was the 2nd to last one before they made cut for the rest wait for the next one an hour later). as usual nyc is about friends and food. met up with w,a,k,j,j,j,a,v and had meals at yakitori totto, gogo dimsum, 'english is italian' italian restaurant, and that korean bbq place; went to the apple glass elevator, fao, and had lots of jumba juice(!!).

...
philadelphia, jul 31st - aug 3rd

Got back to philly late monday afternoon, and did basically the same thing as the previous week for the next 4 days. h took me to Morimoto's on wednesday... Iron chef's modern ambient-light-changing restaurant was surprisingly affordable... sort of. We set at the bar and watched the sushi chefs prepare all the fancy specialties we knew we would not order (we got cod and ramen =)... final bill: $60 for two.

...
princeton, aug 3rd - 5th

R convinced me to visit her for few days ("YOU have no excuse this time!! only 40 minutes from philly!"). It was a pleasant two day stay. I walked around the picture perfect princeton campus friday afternoon, gave direction for 3 different ppl, and picked up a copy of the undergrad application and brochure=) the campus looks like a movie set... it's exactly how you would picture a nice ivy league school with lots of traditions and history, nicely maintained and preserved. At R's place i played katamari all night and got allergic reaction to the cat =(... went to all you can eat sushi with R's nj crew, then met up with a&v to eat at rendang the following night.

...
boston, aug 5th - 8th

At first i didn't really wanna goto boston, being a bit too far out of the way (abou 6.5 hrs out from philly). But H convinced me otherwise.
It was my first time to Boston, and i got there just before the sun sets... around 7pm saturday night. Staying with phil at the experimental housing was an interesting experience.

[thoughts 08/07]

P lives with a very diverse group of young people...
"so when are you going to become a christian?" a young black lady
asked me tonight in the stuffy AC-less living room.
"... I don't know." i smiled politely.
"Well I'll pray for you man... put your name on my wall... next to
Henry's." H visited two months ago.
I chuckled abit and wondered whether B will convert to Christian,
seeing how he goes to church with M a couple times a month.

Perhaps you don't truly understand a religion until you believe in it.
That seems like the only logical explanation why many scientists and
historians are religious. Since from the historic and scientific
standpoints the Christian faith clearly contradicts many evidence and
theories, there must be something significant we as agnostics cannot
perceive. I asked P about how he came to believe in the holy
Father, and he explained that it was a gradual process. His values
were aligned with that of the churches, and as he learned more about
the religion, faith was born naturally.

[/thoughts]

p took me around; we biked around MIT, harvard and downtown boston for 5 hrs on sunday... along the river bank we rode on the dirt trails, on the sidewalks, and on streets, with perfect weather under the warm august sun. Monday night, p&i met up with our other cousin s, who was in town only coincidentally, and had dinner at the beach (jamacan food was excellent, but the location wsa poor<--windy, dark and cold =P ).

...
pittsburgh, aug 8th - 10th

I set out for the 10 hour drive back to Pittsburgh early Tuesday morning... about an hour into the drive i decided it'd be a huge waste of time to just drive and listen to music all day. So I pulled into the first barnes and noble i saw and bought the audio book 'The world is flat'. Turns out, when you're listening to something interesting, you stay awake better, focus more, and the drive is much more pleasant... plus you are learning new things! I was planning to meet up with a in harrisburg for dinner, but she was out of town... (btw, the world is flat is a good book... prob. too long for me to read, but perfect for long cross country drive from boston to california =)

I spent wednesday making sure everything fits in my car, however cramped, and donated everything else... before heading west, leaving pittsburgh forever.

--
Total days including seattle and nyc: 26 days
Total driving distance including local and lost milage: 1410 miles

MBA Application PM

2006-08-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

now that everythin's settled, i'll post some things about the MBA apps =p

As you may know, MBA apps were the main cause of my four months of no free time, no exercise, no go games, and no social life whatsoever (Oct. 05 - Feb. 06). Here are some highly objective and likely inaccurate advices for those of you who are gonna apply for b-school some day...

- choices
I started off listing all schools in NYC, BayArea, and LA that's in the top 20 (together with CMU and Harvard makes 8 total). Then after the GMAT i quickly eliminated the 2 in LA based on my concentration preferences (which are technology, int'l business, entrepreneurship, and entertainment)... then i blew off harvard cuz stanford was taking up way too much time... After finishing Berkeley app, I decided to drop Columbia as well since it didn't have the specialties i was looking for... And since i am not going to CMU regardless of what happens, i really only applied to three schools: stanford, berkeley, and nyu. I think it would have been a good idea to do a bit more research in the beginning so i can finalize the list earlier...

- timeline
while not exactly a spontaneous decision, I made up my mind about mba over the summer, and couldn't start preparing for it until after the china trip, which was already October. I wanted to make sure i exert minimal effort until i've taken my GMAT (to make sure i have a fair chance), which was at end of November. I then spent December writing essays solely for Stanford, my top choice (along with NY trip takin' up one week), leaving about 6 days for each of the remaining 4 schools (deadlines were jan. 4th, 9th, 15th, 20th). All was very last minute, but i think everything will still be pretty rushed regardless of how much time i was given (i'd just keep working on the stanford one until it's due ^^;;). It probably would had been better if i moved everything up 3 months, so i can make the first deadlines (B-schools has 2-4 deadlines... most have 3).

- the GMAT
this thing is way easier than any of the other standard tests... besides Chinese SAT II ;). And this is 100% due to the fact that you can actually study for the verbal section whereas SAT and GRE's vocab requirement makes short-term cramming basically useless. Get a copy of Kaplan's GMAT 800 book and work through it. Then work through all the ones you did wrong, again.... it improved my scores by 60 points. i failed the writing sections miserably (fortunately it was not part of the overall score) ... good thing nobody cares about the writing section since it's graded by a robot =p (even tho schools' websites might say otherwise)

- recommendations
i feel bad for my boss having to write recommendations for me, knowing that he's helping me escape from pittsburgh ^^;;.... in addition to providing your reference the standard materials such as resume, list of projects at work/school/or whatever you did with the person, self-addressed envelops, and a hard copy of the pre-filled forms even if submitting online... it may be a good idea to send him/her a copy of your essay draft, so you and the rec. providers don't end up writing contradictory points. While not quite as painful as essays, the recommendation forms do require a fair bit of time, especially when one need to do 5 of them! I need to treat them to a round of beer =)

- essays
the most annoying part of the process that turns away many of my potential competitors... Last time i written something grammatically correct was in freshmen year's interp. and arg. class, and writing about why i wanna goto b-school and why X school is the perfect school for me was pretty painful... My stanford essay #2 went through 5.1 revisions (essay#1 went through 2.2) and 3 proof readers, and i turned in the application and found a typo 3 minutes later >.< ... for CMU i turned in my first draft and got the interview request a week later XD... for nyu and berkeley, the essays went to 1 proofreader each. Thanks alot to everyone who helped out!!! thnx b,vic,m,n for proofreading and recommendation =) I would say it's a bit tricky getting the essays proofread... MBA app guides recommand at least 3 proofreaders (more the better), but that's obviously impossible, especially when u have to write 15 essays. Since i don't want to overly bug my friends, i planned out who would help with which school ahead of time so i won't bother anyone more than once ;)

- interviews
These are virtually identical to behavioral interviews for companies. Just replace company names with school names and add in the question "what is your short and long term goal after graduation" and there you have it.

-the wait
the second most annoying part of the application process. Like call centers, applications are processed in the order it's received. So submitting the application one day before it's dued means getting a response one day before the deadline schools promise to get back to you.

-the rejection
I knew stanford was basically a guaranteed ding. So no hard feelings when i got group with the rest of the 91% of the applicants... *throws chair across room ballmer style* It was too bad berkeley was also no good... guess the low (relatively speaking) tuition cost was a big incentive for many.

- the acceptance
I admit i was happy to receive the acceptance email from Tepper. The package that came in the mail was much much nicer than any undergrad acceptance package i received years ago ( i guess they're putting that 57mil 'gift' to good use), complete with nice thick plastic folders and lots of information. I turned them down in mid-June.

-the waitlist
Being waitlisted is a good thing, and cutting things close is my specialty =) most schools stress that the stats varies widely from year to year, but most report (if they report) the waitlist acceptance rate between 33 - 50%. Not to shabby, especially when the said school(s) encourages contact, in which case you can send admission commitee (adcom) a bouquet and a puppy to see if you can bribe your way in. I sent NYU an email detailing my recent achievements at work, along with the notebook scans from the China trip after being placed on waitlist (the scans didn't help my stanford app much, but i don't think anything short of an 800 in GMAT would have helped). But alas, as my plan developed i lost my interest in pursuing this and ceased to actively communicate with them... i was rejected on Aug. 3rd.

bottomline... Given the experience i think i'll need some extraordinary incentives and/or reasons to try again in the near future. And if i do apply i'll only apply to stanford and berkeley next time... all or nothing =)

taipei, kaohsiung, hualien, tainan, kenting

2006-07-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

I had almost forgotten about the 100% humidity and 100F weather, having not been back during summer time for a while. I had forgotten about browsing through every third store just to get some AC, about trying not to sweat while getting dressed after a shower, and about getting the sandel tan line on my feet.

The trip was very nice.

I visited southern taiwan and w visited north. We met friends and relatives; we ate local and not-so-local food; and we visited musuems/aquarium. In the south we drove, and in the north we walked; In the south we visited historic landmarks and famous food joints, and in the north we visited friends' homes and shopping malls (no wonder she kept saying southerners are more cultural =) ). ...Rest of the time was spent in taiwan doing the usual routine: Hualien to visit grandparent -> dental appointment -> new glasses/perscription -> meet up with friends -> haircut. The new event added this time was Chinese medicine clinics + western hospital runs ... went to MaJie general hospital at least half a dozen times last month for follow-up of my illness in China and an X-ray for my back <-- all the Chinese therapists/doctors declared that my spine has two crooked segments, but the x-ray shows that it's perfectly straight ^^;; ... so now i've been drinkin' herbal medicine twice daily for almost 4 weeks now u.u ... 2 more to go.

....

the actual update

2006-06-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

the postmortem entry was actually sitting around as drafts for a few month now. beeing editing it on and off, including tonight... ^^;; sorry if it's really long and uninteresting. i have a few more that still need to be finished an published =p , but first some update...

been in asia basically since i quitted (except an unsuccessful interview with expedia just before i left the states =(... sorry v+l, i failed... ^^;;) Met up with a for a few hrs to catch up, and got to walk around ministry of foreign affairs in sandals =D quite nice, actually. true taiwanese style! I was only back to taiwan for two days before taking on a family trip to visit yunnan (again. for me. sort of) =D. The 6 days trip was great fun involving lots of horseback riding (and sore/aching butts, backs, and legs that came with it) and walking around the touristy but ancient and beautiful cities of Dali and Lijiang. I got extremely sick on the 7th day when we flew back to Shenzhen and slept all day to wear off the fever+upset stomach+muscle fatigue+chills+headache. We flew back to taipei yesteraday (8th day) and flew down to visit grandparent/uncles in hualien the same day. Today i'm completely healed (yay for my immune system), and sticky sitting in our old house's living room with no AC.

ok if i keep posting at this rate i'll run out of steam soon =) good night! (12:30am) here..

Job Postmortem

2006-06-24T21:00:00.000-07:00

The 2nd postmortem post...

--
Boring history...

Once upon a time in 1996, 4 research scientists at the Digital Mapping Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University created a spin-off company that would utilize the programs and research done at the lab. With some of the Ph.D students in MAPS Lab, they created a modular system for putting many various types of data together, and creating a 3D visualization of the geographic data using the tools and libraries from the lab. They received government contracts to continue development of the software suite, TerraTools, and sold copies to US agencies and oversea VARs (value added resellers... These are software middlemen who pitch 3rd party software to their local companies and government agencies, often include training and/or contract works).

And for a time, it was good.

I received the offer on Dec. 13th, 2003, accepted it on Jan. 4th, 2004, and my first day at TerraSim was Feb. 1st, 2004. It was hard breaking into the code base, as there are well over 2.5 million lines of code, and many (especially the old MAPSLab's code) were poorly documented and not very reader-friendly. But half a dozen programming tasks and a few weeks later, I got the hang of things and started implementing a number of key features in the next release of the 3D realtime database viewer. Over the next 6 months, I implemented over half of the new graphics tools and GUI enhancements.

Over the summer months, the gang left Pittsburgh one by one, and I moved to schenley apartment to roommate with jt, so I can pretend to be a cmu undergrad for a year longer. At work, I was charged with the task of creating a new product line, using COM/ActiveX to interface between our programs and 3rd party software. Since then there was a gradual and steady decline in quality of life at work. The COM environment is hard to work with and cumbersome, to say the least; the new usage of the existing programs reveals bugs in old lab codes that predates mankind; the 3rd party API is massive, buggy, and uselessly documented despite their best effort (supposedly) to support the developers. Most importantly, the project quickly overtook my normal, more interesting, shorter tasks and consumed my hours at work, preventing me from working on computer graphics related work (which was supposed to constitute at least half of my responsibilities, accordingly). I tried hard to keep my life outside of work colorful and fun, and indeed the summer was great fun traveling to visit everybody and fall was not too bad either (see: Pittsburgh Postmortem).

And for a time, it was good.

Nevertheless, I knew I will not stay in Pittsburgh any longer than I have to, so quitting TerraSim constantly lingered in the back of my mind...

Thus it was a gloomy Tuesday after the Chinese new year of 2005 when I flesh out my plan to quit. I would leave when the next version of software is released in May, and go backpacking in China. Little did I know that I wasn't the only one making exit plans... And company lost 4 employees over the next 3 months, including the director of research (my supervisor). ... So I took a partially unpaid leave and came back from china for another year of hacking...

--
Insights

It's funny how heavily job satisfaction is influenced by the outcome rather than the course to get there. Regardless of how many new things learned, regardless of how much experience gained and regardless of all the personal growth along the way, at the end of the day it's the sense of accomplishment that really counts. Even though all the elements mentioned certainly contributes, without the milestones reached or product packaged it's hard to feel productive at all. I think you know what I'm going to say already... What I realized over the past year is that when it's not working, knowing complexity of the problem doesn't help me feel better; and when it finally worked, it didn't matter that it was not a computer graphics project.

The problem with a spin-off that doesn't grow, is that it ends up having to deal with complex software engineering problems that usually happens in larger companies. 25 years of source code implemented, modified, reimplemented, and modified again by dozens of PhDs who just want their thesis done... by the time TerraSim was born, the code base was outdated, tattered, and obfuscated (not to mention a lack of in-source and external documentation). The company end up lagging many many years in terms of updating to new technologies and revamping old programs.

The world of government contractors is also something I care not to experience again... As explained above, the product I was given charged of was difficult and very unsatisfactory to implement. After nearly a year of work the software was still extremely buggy, and would crash left and right at more extensive trade show demos, etc; and my boss would say: "wait until you see the work of other companies." This 'whose tomato is less rotten' reasoning is just not acceptable for me... And that was a important reason for many of my other concerns about the company's software: 10 yr old graphics, inadequate UI, slow processing times...

but I digress.
The company is understaffed. That is the undisputed truth. Growth of a small company in a niche market is surly a colossal task. But it was clear if the company have fewer of the above problems it would have far greater potential [of being bought, make lots of money, etc], and people would stay. That and location. Aw. Pittsburgh, the it's-not-so-bad-but-everyone-keep-leaving city was a important reason for quitting.

--
Quitting

quitting. is. hard. very hard.
The entire process took over three months, including multiple 'talks' with my boss about the reasons (except the most important one just mentioned ^^;; )... MBA, Pittsburgh, growth, family, friends... causing much stress on both sides... finally he just said, 'I'm gonna feel bad regardless of how u handle ur departure, so just do what makes u happy' ... And that was that.

It's not so much about loyalty, nor was it so much about responsibility, though obviously they are very important. The company undoubtedly taught me much, most important ones could not be put on my resume. Besides the obvious and perhaps relatively-narrowly-scoped programming skills, software engineering processes through the experience is invaluable. Communication skills, written and spoken, to clients and colleagues, analytical and marketing... I have as many reasons to leave as there are reasons to miss this company (just as there are just as many ways I contributed to it). The interesting balance would be broken if I stay any longer. So quite simply, as I've told many, it was just time to leave.

old job: software engineer
new job: professional bum
start: 02/02/2004, 09:00 AM
end: 06/09/2006, 05:00 PM
duration: 859 days, or 123 weeks, or 2 yrs 4 months 8 days
estimated work time: 545 working days, or 4360 hours
bottom line: my first job is great, quitting is also great, and everything is just the way it should be. I will miss terrasim, and I will miss Pittsburgh...

Lots has happened since my last post...

2006-05-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

--
the Bay

My skin finally finished peeling after two weeks XD

After an unexciting week of staying around trade show floor and talking to people who are not really interested in our products, I was in bay area for the weekend of May 5th.

Aside from the standard kareoke run and good food (hotpot, dimsum x2, monster sushi(was TGI sushi), breakfast at b&j's =) ), we went hiking and played lots of badminton (seperately, that is ;p ). Pix are up at the usual place, complete with shots atop mission peak and awesome action stills from our badminton session =)

--
the escape

Here's a shocker for you (in case u didn't know already), I finally, resolutely, unmistakenly quit my job. last day is june 9th, and i will be leaving pittsburgh on 11th to seattle, Taiwan on the 13th. I will write about this in more detail in another post, probably.

The plan is to spend the first week on a family trip somewhere (prob. outside of taiwan), then bum around taiwan for 3 weeks or so, then back to pitt and take 2+ week to do a cross country road trip, driving my car to west coast =)...

--
the choices

I've been passively looking for jobs, since it's probably not a good idea to say, i'm actually on the other side of earth; we can interview next month ^^;; But so far it looks promising, speaking with a few companies and already turned down an xbox contract job ^^;; more on this once i actually get a job =p MBA looks less and less likely, even if i got accepted to Stern.

Untitled =/

2006-04-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

Statistically, it should probably be apparent that this is the expected outcome. It was never a question of what I should do because, for the most part, the choices were made without me ever really have to decide anything. I believe "behavioral engineering" is the proper term: no choice was ever forced upon me, but usually by the time I have to decide, it was clear there was only one way to optimize the situation. Decisions to go for cmu waitlist, to go for ece waitlist, to go for dual degree, to stay in pitt, to stay in pitt longer ... god knew there were no other legitimate choices.

Using college app process as a template, i knew that statistically i should be accepted into one backup school and one non-backup school, and waitlisted by one more. I picked no backup this time and was accepted by Tepper. Stern waitlisted me and the rest were rejections. Exactly according to script. With the pattern empirically proven to be accurate, we can thus conclude that i shall be accepted by Stern (as i got in cmu from waitlist). Eventually. Though now, for the first time, i am given choices. True choices that are nearly equal in terms of benefits and drawbacks. No gold paved road this time... actually, i guess there never was, just that before all but one were blocked by boulders ... Now the boulders block my way before i even reach the crossroads...

Proximity of friends is a luxury that seems so simple yet impossibly remote. Obviously what i need to do is to take the first step: to get rid of those damn rocks... and the rest will be easy...or something.

Excellent essay on patents

2006-04-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

pulled from /.
paul graham wrote with candor and insights about the software industry, in easy to read english =)