this is very yummy with soy milk..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax

What God?

Are Scientists Playing God? It Depends on Your Religion

By JOHN TIERNEY

Published: November 20, 2007

There is an East-West divide over stem-cell research and genetic engineering.
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There is always a God. It is just whether it is the God in the bible. Or the Cai-shen who will bring in lots of $$$ into the country.

This brings hairgel to a whole new level

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5j0DcqENG9L1Z3TnL94DJdaJuhXfA

hmph

Today morning,

Broji: Are you or Bibji coming home next year?
Fibji: I don't know. Wassup? You miss us?
Broji: Oh, I want to buy another book next year and it is cheaper to hand carry.
Fibji: .............................................................................................

Why UGs are annoying

I hope the ^&$%& UG who was hogging the seat at the cafe, pretending not to see people waiting for seats to have lunch, fail his test. Hmph.

Katamari!

http://xkcd.com/161/

Mid Autumn Festival

A few days ago, Bibji offered to fly me across the country to visit her and Benji. So touched. Hee.

I never notice there is a function "why"

>> why
Bill obeyed the very young good engineer.
>> why
Because a terrified programmer wanted it.
>> why
The not excessively young programmer wanted it that way.
>> why
Barney told a not very terrified and smart and terrified and bald and bald and tall and tall and young and rich and not excessively terrified and tall and not very bald and not excessively tall and not very terrified and very smart and rich and good and very tall and young kid.
>> why
To please some bald mathematician.
>> why
He obeyed some system manager.
>> why
Because I obeyed the terrified not excessively rich kid.
>> why
To fool all.
>> why
It should be obvious.
>> why
It's your karma.
>> why
Pete obeyed him.
>> why
Joe knew it was a good idea.
>> why
I wanted it that way.
>> why
Because the rich mathematician suggested it.
>> why
You insisted on it.
>> why
Some terrified mathematician helped a tall and young and rich and good and young and rich and young and very rich and smart and very good and rich hamster.
>> why
Pete obeyed some smart engineer.
>> why
For the approval from me.
>> why
Because some programmer insisted on it.
>> why
To fool all.
>> why
A smart programmer wanted it.
>> why
They knew it was a good idea.
>> why
Loren suggested it.
>> why
For the approval from Barney.
>> why
A terrified and good and tall and good and tall and bald kid wanted it that way.
>> why
I suggested it.
>> why
Loren insisted on it.
>> why
Barney suggested it.
>> why
Pete told me to.
>> why
The hamster obeyed some tall kid.
>> why
You told me to.
>> why
Jack wanted it.
>> why
A kid insisted on it.
>> why
I knew it was a good idea.
>> why
To please some hamster.
>> why
For the approval from some terrified and rich kid.
>> why
A hamster obeyed a not excessively terrified and rich kid.
>> why
How should I know?
>> why
Because Pete suggested it.
>> why
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...
>> why
It's your karma.

>> help why
WHY Provides succinct answers to almost any question.
WHY, by itself, provides a random answer.
WHY(N) provides the N-th answer.
Please embellish or modify this function to suit your own tastes.

I hate Mondays..

argh argh...

Side remark: ttw and i managed to get a huge ass Sharp 32US50B TV from my car into the living room on Sat somehow...
On Sun, we went to Joe's Noodle House for some serious Szechuan food.. I think ttw is still suffering from the mala-ness now..

Cheap joke from Roman, Courtesy of G-man

Apple announces...

Apple Computer announced today that it has developed a computer chip that can store and play high fidelity music in women's breast implants. The iTit will cost $499 or $599 depending on speaker size. This is considered to be a major breakthrough, because women have long complained about men staring at their breasts and not listening to them.

No points for guessing who is who

Report 1



Report 2

Hookah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah


It is interesting. But not particularly high inducing.

Erm

My "partners-in-crime" managed to sneak a nap during the 30 mins break in the afternoon everyday. They are happily snoring away now. -_-

Down in the Boondocks

The journey took 2 hours longer than we expected. Mostly due to traffic on the main north-south freeway. But there aren't any accidents, so apparently, people are just being "strange".

My trusty GSM phone is on roaming mode @@. But apparently, there is no charge for it. And I found that GPRS still works! So I am still connected to the outside world. Hee.

Apple buyers

IPhone Futures Prove to Be a Bad Investment
By KATIE HAFNER

SAN FRANCISCO, July 5 — David Flashner thought he had it wired: buy two iPhones last Friday when they first went on sale, keep one and sell the other at a profit so big it would pay for most of the first one.

Mr. Flashner wasted no time. He began advertising the extra phone while still in line at an Apple store in Burlingame, Calif., south of San Francisco. During his 21-hour wait, he posted half a dozen different ads to Craigslist — with prices ranging from $800 to $1,200 — and waited for the calls to come in.

But no calls came because consumers expect that stores will soon have phones in stock. He continued to advertise the extra phone through the weekend, and ended up with just one call, which went nowhere. On Wednesday, he returned the phone.

Mr. Flashner, 25, who manages an audio-visual equipment rental company, is not the only would-be iPhone reseller whose plan failed to follow the script. “I haven’t heard of a single person who sold one,” he said.

Across the nation, people looking to make a quick and easy profit bought one, two or as many phones as they could by recruiting friends to stand in line with them. Many of them were the first to get in line, camping overnight outside the stores. But now they are finding that the iPhone is much more like a Harry Potter book than a hard-to-find Wii video game machine: a great thing to be one of the first to own, but not high in resale value because supply is not constrained.

Last Friday, just after the first iPhones were sold, thousands of listings showed up on eBay and Craigslist, with prices of $1,000 for the 8-gigabyte phone, a $400 markup. Some bold sellers were asking $2,000. But as it became clear that supply was meeting demand, they found themselves stuck. Few of the phones have sold for more than $700, which after sales tax, is not a remarkable profit margin.

Corey Spring, a blogger at newsvine.com who analyzed eBay auctions, estimated that a significant number of sellers “were only making their money back, even closing at a loss.” Most Apple stores in the United States have no phones available, but the most determined customers seem to have been able to buy a phone. Few people seem willing to pay even $100 over the retail price.

Some frustrated resellers say they will keep trying, then return their extra phone or phones within the 14-day return period.

D. J. Ostrowski is typical. Mr. Ostrowski, a 20-year-old college student who lives in Carol Stream, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, stood in line “in the hot sun” outside an Apple Store for nine hours and talked a friend into joining him.

Like other resellers, Mr. Ostrowski was hoping the iPhone demand would duplicate the Xbox, PlayStation and Wii crazes. Lines are still long for the Wii gaming console, because Nintendo misjudged demand. Devices sell on eBay for around $100 more than the $250 retail price. In his ad, Mr. Ostrowski offered to “rendezvous anywhere,” or even deliver the phone. The only call he got was from another unsuccessful reseller, asking if he had had any luck.

Mr. Ostrowski had used a day off from his job at a hookah bar to stand in line. Now, he said, after factoring in the money he spent on gas and the waste of a free day, he views the entire venture as a net loss. “I’m probably better off getting a side job,” he said.

A few people got lucky. Trevor Lyman, 21, a senior at Temple University in Philadelphia, sold an 8-gigabyte phone on eBay for $1,300 while waiting in line Friday afternoon to buy it. But he has three more he is trying to unload, with no success so far.

Demand for the phone was remarkably strong in the first days. Analysts estimate that Apple and AT&T stores have sold around 500,000 phones so far. One analyst ventured a guess as high as 700,000. But Apple appears to have anticipated demand and contracted with manufacturers in Asia to build far more. Apple has said it expects to sell as many as 10 million phones by the end of 2008.

Over the last few weeks, Apple stirred a great deal of speculation about inventory levels by shrouding them in secrecy. As a result, resellers decided to take a chance. The company declined to comment on the rush to resell the phones, and on the status of iPhone inventories. The Apple Web page that had listed the phone’s availability last weekend at stores across the country no longer shows the row of red (for no) and green (for yes) lights. It says: “Please check back after 9:00 p.m. for tomorrow’s status. After your local store closes, we determine iPhone availability for the following day.” Only two Apple stores were listed as having phones available Thursday: Tigard, Ore., and the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

Jim Fazio, 41, an entrepreneur in Fort Collins, Colo., said he had seen people make huge profits off the PlayStation 3 last Christmas and decided to jump into the iPhone market.

“I took a chance that the prerelease hype would create a supply-demand imbalance, but obviously that scenario didn’t play out this time,” said Mr. Fazio, who advertised his iPhone on eBay for $1,200. “I pity the poor goobers that camped for these things.”

On Tuesday, when Mr. Fazio failed to sell his phone at a reduced price of $850, he took the phone back to the Apple store, which was out of 8-gigabyte phones. The instant he returned it, another customer in the store bought it.

“It’s a lot easier with tickets,” said Aron Honig, a 23-year-old equity research analyst who lives in Boston and has had more success selling Yankees and Red Sox tickets. Mr. Honig bought one 4-gigabyte phone and advertised it for $700 on both eBay and Craigslist, but heard only from people he assumed were scam artists, offering to wire him the money. “I think it’s the last time I’m going to do any kind of electronics product,” he said.

Some resellers are amused, if not wealthier. Jack Boyce, 62, a graphic designer in Boston, bought two 8-gigabyte phones last Friday, after waiting four and a half hours in line. Mr. Boyce took his computer with him and was able to do a little work. He charges clients $100 an hour and calculates that he lost three and a half out of four billable hours.

Still, Mr. Boyce said, he “had a ball” waiting outside the Apple store in Cambridge. “The people around me were wonderful,” he said. “We took pictures of each other.”

And he remains optimistic that someone might still pay him $950 for his extra phone, pointing out that only a few Apple stores have iPhones in stock, and none of the AT&T stores do. “So my wish may be coming true,” he said.

Hmmmm

http://www.amlpsettlement.com/

On Wimbledon

A: venus almost lost to a nipponese
B: oh
B: hahhaha
B: i read that as
B: "venus almost lost a nipple"
B: hahahhahahha

Reporting from the conference

1) A fellow countryman, who is an associate professor in one of the top universities back home, came and asked a bunch of questions, which reflect the ways of thinking. Which is to put a bunch of random algorithms together that does not mean anything. And will not mean anything after 2 years.

except maybe back home when they count the number of random publications.

2) Two of the biggest names in the field came together with a young scientist and asked me to present my work. In the middle, the Bossman walked by, stopped and smiled. I got tense and @_@. One of the big names chased the Boss away. Shoo.

Heh. I hope they don't think I am a moron, considering the ideas they worked on are cooler.

yum