In Remembrance of James Kim

Recent tragic news about James Kim has stroked the hearts of many in Bay Area.

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

In all regards, James Kim was a good husband and a good father. His story reminds us of the limits of technology in the face of mother nature. In the efforts for his rescue, a cell phone designer erected an emergency cell phone tower to help searchers and to give Kim's cell phone a signal. Kim's father, an executive of an aerospace company, managed to get a satellite moved in space to help find his son. But reality was cruel, fog clouds prevented helicopters from flying. Severe weather and the rough terrain beat out satellites in space.

Under the difficult snowy weather circumstances and his weak body, James was taking a risk against all odds to get a chance of help for his family. As a man, a husband, and a father, he must have undertaken the burden to gave his family the love they need, and a chance of survival. He did the right thing, with dignity, even at the harshest conditions.

The Glass Ceiling

Asian Americans face the worst discrimination in rising to the management class! (first chart)


Yet Asian Americans have the highest educational attainment, an important qualification for management.

The average rate of improvement over the last 6 years is so slow that it will take 75 years or three generations to reach equal opportunity.

Source of those charts? Government data. Indeed, EEOC has seen the first chart and replied "consistent with our calculations."

For more information, see Break The Glass Ceiling by 80-20 Education Foundation.

Grow old along with me -- Rabbi ben Ezra

Rabbi ben Ezra is a poem by Robert Browning about Abraham ibn Ezra (1092-1167), one of the great poets, mathematicians and scholars of the 12th century. He wrote on grammar, astronomy, the astrolabe, etc.

The poem begins with:

GROW old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith `A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'

For SciFi fans, this poem was quoted by Issac Asimov in his science fiction, Pebble in the Sky.

top 10 lies

There are some interesting blogs recently.
Here is another blogger who summarized the most common lines in business:

• Top 10 lies of Engineers
  http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_top_ten_lie.html
• Top 10 lies of Marketers
  http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/04/the_top_ten_lie_1.html
• The Top 10 lies of Venture Capitalists
  http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_top_ten_lie.html
• The Top 10 lies of Entrepreneurs
  http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_top_ten_lie_1.html

Tools for writing and publishing

For those of us who are serious about writing scientific work, LaTeX is an indispensable tool, especially if you are writing a thesis or academic paper. We can also draw simple figures using Xfig. When using LaTeX, most people would prefer UNIX/Linux. As Windows and laptops become popular, most of these tools are moving to the Windows platform. So now, instead of LaTex, we can use MikTeX. Instead of Xfig, we can try TpX. In fact, we now can use any drawing tool on Windows, and copy&paste it to TpX.

The value of academic research papers

What is the value of academic publishing? The purpose is to document new discovery or to contribute to the body of knowledge. Recent years, we have seen some efforts to quantify and measure these values. One of such metric is the "impact factor" for academic journals:

• ISI impact factor
• Various links on Journal Impact Factors
• Journal Impact Factors
• Science Journal Ranking and Average Impact Factors
  

However, the correctness of these metrics are still subject to debate. Most of them are measurements of citations, and pretty much limited to English language pulications. There are many concerns about such a practice:

• Assessing the Value of a Journal beyong the impact factor
• Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research
• The Number That's Devouring Science
• Impact Factors: Use and Abuse
  

Ultimately, what is the impact factor of the journals who published Einstein's paper on relativity?

• Scientific publications of Albert Einstein

ban smoking

California, being a progressive state, is the first to ban smoking in bars and restaurants for the entire state. Now that ban has been expanded to many public places. More and more states are also moving in similar directions.

One would imagine, perhaps in a distant future, that smoking would be prohibited just like drugs, with few exceptions for mitigating circumstances.

Perhaps this idea is far too extreme for now. A significant portion of our population is still addicted to smoking. But everybody would agree that, in general, smoking is bad to our health. It is bad to the people who smoke, and even worse to those who had to suffer from second hand smoke.

Remember the 18th constitutional ammendment?

• "... the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. ..."
  

This ammendment was ratified on 1/16/1919 but repealed on 12/5/1933. This law was not very popular under the circumstances.

However, smoking is quite different from drinking alcohol. While some might argue that drinking a small glass of red whine (e.g. on a daily basis) may contribute to health, similar argument cannot be applied to smoking. By now, it is generally acknowledged that smoking is bad for our health. Also, enforcement is much easier for a smoking ban than alcohol ban. The smell of the smoke would simply give away the smoker. It is easy to catch this type of stuff.

So if the anti-smoking campaign keeps moving forward, perhaps we will (in a distant future) be able to enjoy a smoke free environment.

HDTV and Big Screen TV

America is moving towards the next generation TV: high definition television (HDTV). Since I am also planning on getting a big screen TV, it seems the following should be considered:

1. LCD vs. Plasma (other technologies are not so desirable)
2. HDTV
3. screen size

There are some web commentaries (including this one) that seems to provide some insights on HDTV. As for screen size, the bigger the better, as long as the price is right. There are also a lot of debate on LCD vs. plasma TVs. So far, it seems that LCD is popular for 32" or smaller TVs, whereas plasma has much lower pricing over competitive LCD for 42" or larger TVs.

Finally: never buy anything unless you really need it. Technology products depreciate very quickly.