Swf Extract

I first learn Quora from Matt, and now, email about someone following me came in like crazy. I got about 120 email like this in the last few days.

The website by few ex-former employees of Facebook, and invested by Benchmark is very interesting. It showed the early characters of a promising website - the feeling of WOW when you first read it.

On my first page, I saw some interesting question answered by interesting people. For example, the best answer voted to “What does Matt do when he was in China” was answered by Matt himself, and the question “What does Craig of Craigslist think about money” also received a lot of answers, out of which, Craig’s own answer was chosen to be the best.

You can have a try there.

Source:Quora is Growing Crazily

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out

- French proverb and quoted in and inspired the title of the Chinese novel, Fortress Besieged.

After being passionate about bigness, and the magnificent, the splendid, and the modern, I started to learn to appreciate the beauty of smallness.

Growing up in the Smallness

Grew up in a mid-sized city, Luoyang, in the middle part of China (with 6 million population), most of the things around me are small.

The biggest building in the area of my school is a theater. In the current world-class standard, that theater is just a mini model of the real theater at 3:1 scale.

The tallest building in the area is 6 stories high. In the current Shanghai standard, the lowest residential building that is not classified as a villa.

The road is narrow - just one wide lane in each direction, making it difficult to pass.

That was the memory in the early of 1990s.

Beijing! The Big City

My first visit to Beijing in 1993 shocked me a lot. I loved the high-raised residential buildings that stands 18 floors high from where I stand. The contrast made me, and I believe many Chinese people, to admire the height of the buildings, and the width of the road.

Later, after I am transplanted to Shanghai, the high buildings, and complicated road system, including the traffic jam, are mixed together to form a scene of the modern, and the future.

“How I hope one day, Luoyang can be as big as Shanghai!” I dreamed when the tallest building of 14 floors in height was just under discussion.

Back to Smallness

After 15 years in Shanghai, and travel to many places in this world, I started to really understand the beauty of smallness. I started to enjoy travel to the old Hongqiao Airport T1 instead of much more modern, and big Pudong Airport, because the small airport provide easy access to the city, and don’t require me to walk too long. Just few years ago, the bad news of losing the chance to fly to/from PVG would ruin my entire day. The airport I like most started to be the Nanyang Airport, and Aspen airport, where you pick up your luggage at the side of the aircraft, and everyone walk from the plane through the small room (they call it terminal), feeling as the VIP of VIPs.

I started to love small town like Aspen, CO, or small city in Hainan. If I have a choice, I live in places like Aspen where there is just 5000 residents. Los Angeles? Oh. No. Thanks. New York? Oh. No. Thanks!

Smallness is the outside of my besieged fortress.

Source:Back to Smallness - Fortress Besieged

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

I have few questions for my friends in US who are familiar with the legal system there. It is about definition of trespassing, and property owner?s right when it happens.

It is about the recent case of Guo Degang, the famous Chinese talk show (well, I know it is a funny translation, but what is the right one) actor. That is maybe the hottest news in the recent days before the media was ordered to stop reporting it. Huge amount of people rushed into debating whether they support Guo, or not, and why, but few people really dig into the details of the fact part. Let me try to repeat what is happening. I want to understand how people in the US deal with it, since there is no exact way to define trespassing in China yet.

The event in concern started when two persons claimed to be affiliated with Beijing TV got into the residential area of Guo (an area owned collectively by all the villa owners), and went along the stairs of Guo?s house (the part at the side of his garden), and knocked the door and talked with Mr. Lee, who associated with Guo. After few minutes, Lee physically forced the reporters to leave the house. (People are arguing whether the activity is defined as beating, or pushing, etc).

Here are my questions. Please help me to understand what the rules in America are.

Although in China, most people define trespassing by the fact whether they entered the DOOR of the building, I suspect by the time the reporter entered the gate of the residential area is the time they conducted trespassing. So questions:

1. Is it a trespassing when the reporters enter the gate of the residential area? Collectively, the property is owned (well, in China, at least it can be defined as leased from the State for 70 years) by the residents of the residential area. If the reporter don?t have business with any of the residents, is it a trespassing?

2. Can the activity of interviewing be defined as legitimate business reason without making appointment with one of the residents behind that gate? I know in some States in US, postman who is going to deliver, policeman when conducting business, and people who can prove to get lost are not trespassing when they enter the property. They are generally defined as Invitee. Are journalists also invitee?
3. If entering the residential area, is entering the stairs of the house trespassing?
4. If entering the stairs of the house not trespassing, is it trespassing when they knock the door of the house?

If the reporters WAS trespassing, or when told to leave and given enough time to leave, but still does not leave, what is the action the house keeper can do?

1. Obviously, he has the right to call police immediately.

2. Does the host have the right to physically drive the person away? I heard the idea that although in most States, shooting the trespasser have been strictly forbidden, in States like Taxes, trespassing after dark, and can cause immediate threat to the safety of the owner entitled the owner to shoot the trespasser to death. I am not sure whether it is true or still the case. Does pushing or beating allowed?
3. To what extend can the house owner drive the trespasser? Can he only drive him out of the stairs, the garden of his individual house, or drive the trespasser all the way out of the residential area? In US, the case will be people living in an condo. Can he drive the person out of the whole building or just his apartment? If he cannot, who are the legal entity to drive the person out of the condo, if no management company exists for that condo? Even when they have a management company, can one of the house owners do it by himself?

Another set of question relates to the right of journalist and the rights of privacy.

1. Does the answer to any of the questions above change if the person accused as trespasser is a journalist?

2. Can the journalist take video or photo of the interviewee without him knowing that?
3. If the above is illegal, what remedy action can the interviewee take? For example, if I found someone took a naked picture of me in my private area, can I force the person to delete the photo, or have to wait for the person to publicly distribute the photos and sue him? If he refuses to delete, what violate action can I take to avoid future damage?

I hope the answers to the questions at least help to educate people, like me, about the right thing to do in events like this.

Source:Questions About Trespassing

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

These are the photos I took at the Grand Canyon.

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Photograph by Jian Shuo Wang

Source:Grand Canyon Photos

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

I answered the question Does Shanghai have Beach? before: No.

Wendy and I have been searching beach in Shanghai many times. We went to many claimed beach in Shanghai - the Jinshan Beach, or the Fengxian beach. So far, the nearest real beach is at Shengsi.

This time, we continued our search to the north side of the Yangtze River, and arrived at Changshazhen, at Rudong, Nantong.

To our disappointment, there is so no beach there. What we see is very like the scene at Dishui Lake in Shanghai.

My car, Bandenger, with wind mill as background.

We finally confirmed that in lands formed with sands from rivers, like Yangtze River, there is no way to form beach. Beach can only be found when waves of sea or ocean hit hard rock of mountains.

The next time, we may need to go to places as far as Shandong to find beach. Rizhao, or Qingdao is good candidate.

We will report when we finally find beach near Shanghai.

Source:Does Shanghai have Beach, Nearby?

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

Thanks Jianqiu to deliver a tech talk on Data Mining at Baixing office. I enjoyed the talk, and enjoyed the way people share knowledge in the format of tech talks.

Baixing is recruiting PM interns these days, and I hope to get your resume if you are in grade 3 in universities. The benefits of being an intern at Baixing is to access to all technical sessions like this one every week.

Source:I Love Tech Talk

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

At the west coast of US, there is a lighthouse called Pigeon Point. Wendy and I arrived at that lighthouse at a dark night, thinking we were in the middle of nowhere.

We were driving lonely around 9:00 PM along the CA-1, planing to leave San Francisco the second day. Along the dark route, we only can barely hear the wave of ocean on the left, from deep down the cliffs.

Then there is light far away - the lighthouse. The house is always there, shining inn the dark, with reflection of the light on the surface of the ocean.

We have passed the lighthouse, but out of curiosity, I made an U turn when possible, and got back to a spur road leading to the lighthouse. That was pretty adventurous drive, since we didn’t know anything about it, and didn’t know what to expect. At the foot of the road, an old badge read: “Pigeon Point”.

It turned out the lighthouse was not lonely. At the foot of the lighthouse is an Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel. From the number of cars parked outside the hostel, we understood the hostel is more of a happy home, instead of a perfect background for a criminal scene.

We really wanted to get a room in that hostel, but the nice reception told us he had nothing left in that area. Anyway, we spent some time at the lighthouse, watching the stars on the Pacific ocean and listening to the “sound of waves crashing the Pacific coast”, as the hostel website put it.

I hope one day I can get back to the lonely Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

Many really great scenes are on the road, without any planning, and without any expectation. Only afterward you realized how beautiful it is.

Photo by (nz)dave

Source:Pigeon Point Lighthouse

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

Rick posted it on Sina Microblog about this photo. It is a late afternoon near the Lake Tahoe this March. If you watch this photo close enough, you will find the person at the lake is actually me.

photograph by Rick Zhuang

Thanks Rick!

Obviously, Rick has some nicer pictures of the same place without me breaking the beauty of the nature. Good photographer!

photograph by Rick Zhuang

photograph by Rick Zhuang

Now I have visited two of the most famous ski town in US, Tahoe in CA, and Aspen in CO. What are the others? Mt Rainer in WA?

Source:Lake Tahoe Photo of Me (Some kind of)

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

Today, a candidate came to interview at our company. The experience, and the answers to questions looks very promising, but there is one problem: he intentionally changed the date of his employment history by few years. We immediately terminated the interview when we found out.

Integrity is the key to any person, and company. It is by trust that this society works together. No matter how good a person is, if there is integrity problem, that is a big problem. In Microsoft, for example, integrity issue is the biggest mistake someone can make, and will result in immediate termination of employment. The first value of the seven key values of Microsoft is Integrity and Honesty. At least in the few years I was in Microsoft, it was really enforced. I know it is a big deal.

So, don’t play trick with your resume, and don’t play tricks in most of the things.

Source:Integrity of Resume

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai

After a week of incredibly nice weather, and beautiful sky, Shanghai returned to its gray, hot, and humid nature of summers.

Currently, the temperature of Shanaghai is 35°C, and humidity is 53%. I often pay more attention to temperature (well, this time, the visit to US enforced my attention to this metrics), but generally ignore humidity.

What does 53% means? I need to find out later. According to Wikipedia article on Humidity, “Shanghai and Hong Kong in China also have a extreme humid period in their summer months”. It is talking about weather like today. The 6km SW wind does not help at all.

Visiting Shanghai these days? Bad choice.

P.S. I am still keeping the sleep early and raise early theme after getting back to the States. The jet lag on the way back always helped to keep me an early raiser for a week or two before I return to my normal status. The key learning is, the only way to raise early is to go to bed early enough that you cannot fall asleep easily (an indicator that you slept early enough).

Source:Shanghai is Hot and Humid

admin All Blogging, China, events in shanghai, MOney Making, Shanghai