Conversation with M and D

So I called M today to wish her a happy birthday and D picked up the phone. The enlightening phone conversation went like this:

Me: Hi D. What are you doing for M's birthday?
D: Did you forget M's birthday today?
Me: Noooooo. Did you?
D: Nooooooooooooo. Did you?
Me: D, you forgot M's birthday, didn't you?
D: Noooooooooooooooooo. You did.
Me: No I didn't, I just called home to wish M a happy birthday.
D: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Such a deep conversation!

Academic integrity

Here's a rare serious post on my blog. I recently went to the big device conference and saw that a paper was published by a group at Stanford (by two big name EE professors). The professors (and their grad students, of course) were reporting on some simulations for a particular device. However, students in my research group had found similar results earlier, and chose not to publish these simulation results without experimental data.

Now here's the bad part. The main professor on the paper is in charge of a research center involving many research groups from different universities. He is also the Chair of the conference that I attended. He had heard a presentation from my research advisor during one of the research center updates - basically, this prof knew what one of the students in my group had studied yet still decided to publish his own paper. Not only that, the other professor on the paper was previously a professor at my school before moving to Stanford, and had a close working relationship with our group. Talk about dishonesty.

That's just not right. BOYCOTT STANFORD. They conduct some dirty business.

Pro-Bowlers from the Bay Area teams

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... This had me laughing for a while:

"The Bay Area's NFL teams haven't been stellar on offense this season, but they're certainly skilled when it comes to giving the ball back to the opponent.

Power and placement, along with the NFL's best net averages, secured Pro Bowl berths for 49ers punter Andy Lee and Raiders punter Shane Lechler."

You can find the full San Francisco Chronicle article here.

Leafs are dumb.....

Brad Boyes is on track for a 50 goal season....of course not with the Leafs.

The Leafs just love to trade away their first round picks or first round choices for old foggies. Come on you stupid Leafs, trade some of the old guys for draft picks. Maybe then you can win a Cup!

Oh, another thing the Leafs seem oblivious to is the fact that there are prospects from Ontario. Hey, Ferguson et al., you are allowed to draft players from Ontario. They don't always have to come from Europe!

Japanese and English...again

Yet another display of Japanese second language abilities....



the guy on the video is my hero!

Also, listen to this one!

This one is another funny "Learn to speak English" commercial...

Learning English...

So, being in Europe, I am amazed how well some people speak English, especially here in Germany. Maybe the French are not as good, but in any case the average French person speaks better English than the average American/Englishman speaks French. And the northern European countries are amazing at English...Denmark, Holland, Norway, etc.

So I guess English is indeed the international language, and learning it is important....
If one needs further motivation, you can see this:




Now that we've established that English is important to learn, what is the most effective way to learn it?

I vote for this method:



he he he he he....no wonder Japanese people speak English so well!

Anyway, once that's done, unfortunate situations like this one can be avoided!
Win-win situation!

Genius relatives...

I was recently went to a conference and was able to meet up with some of our relatives (who will not be named) who live nearby. One of them is a genius, but I have proof now of how much of a genius he is.

I went to dinner with family on Sunday night and then they were kind enough to drop me off at my hotel. They turned on the GPS to see directions to the hotel, but my genius family member decided to ignore the directions. The entire time. Haha... I think he ignored 4-5 directions, saying that he was able to get back to the hotel. And lo and behold, he got me to my hotel! What a genius!

Name Change

So I was able to get a radio interview, but it was in Mandarin.

You can see the summary here.

The interviewer wrote to me in English and addressed me by my English name, but as the interview was in Mandarin, she got my name wrong (she never really asked me for my Taiwanese name, and I'm not sure where she got the new name from).

Apparently, my name is now:
賴宏吉

Who would've thought?

STUPID NFL TV Rules

Really really stupid....

I watch NFL (and even better, College Football) on the awesome Slingbox that my sister setup, so that I get the TV feed from her local cable. So this Sunday, I had an interest to watch as the early game, Chargers vs. Titans. But of course its a local station in the Bay area, so CBS instead is broadcasting Raiders vs. Packers.

Ok, this is reasonable, but I didn't want to watch 4-8 Raiders being blownout by the 10-2 Packers (38-7). So I would like to watch maybe an NFC game instead...like maybe: Eagles vs. Giants (NFC East traditional rivalry), or Cowboys vs. Lions (playoff implications). But NOOOOO, NFL stupid rules prevent FOX in the Bay area to broadcast something up against the Raiders game on CBS.

For the late game, I'd really like to watch the Steelers play the Patriots, (Go Steelers!), but NOOOO, NFL stupid rules prevent CBS from broadcasting something against the 49ers game (who are 3-9) against the Vikings (6-6).

STUPID STUPID STUPID

Is there any wonder, more people are watching NCAA football instead of the NFL? Hey idiots in the NFL commissioners' office, stop being idiots and let us watch more than a 4-8 or a 3-9 team every single week!

BOOOOOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Laptop for Thought

A couple of device group folks were talking about the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative and someone brought up that Intel decided to organize a similar initiative to compete, called "Classmate PC". Both initiatives are developing cheap but usable laptops to kids in poor countries to help education standards.

Funny that an initiative that has such noble intentions ends up being a competition. Regardless, having both initiatives should in theory help the world out a little more... right?

Anyway, as we were discussing these programs, I was looking around the coffee shop and almost every single person there had a nice laptop (mostly MacBooks, some HPs and some Dells). I encourage everyone to check out the laptops being developed cheaply for these kids. Best of luck to these programs!

136 points....

This year is so weird in College Football. Talk about upset city!

In any case, one of the unheralded teams in College Football set a Div-IA record last week....Navy beat North Texas 74-62! What a crazy game! That is a ridiculous amount of points for a team to score, that never passes, and basically runs the 3 back option every play.

Although its not as glamouras as Ohio St. vs Michigan, or anything else, I am definitely looking forward Army vs. Navy on Dec. 1.

Go Navy, beat Army!

The Curse of the No. 2

What the heck is going on? I guess it's just a big curse to be No. 2 ranked this year in NCAA football... I don't know whether to be sad for the Pac-10 this year or to be excited about such a big upset! Well, it's good to see that USC is not the best team in the Pac-10 this year.

ESPN link

Though the Bears are sucking this season, I'm still rooting for them! Let's hope Nate Longshore doesn't throw yet another interception during a crucial drive in the 4th quarter (was it really worth standing in the cold rain watching Cal lose to USC?)

Gonna see some Canada!

Well, I guess we're gonna be going to see some good ol' fashioned Canadian hockey:

Dec. 29 CAN vs SWE
Dec. 31 CAN vs DEN
Jan. 4 Semi-finals
Jan. 5 Finals

Oh, isn't it great that the stupid Yankees got their clocks cleaned by the Tribe?

#1 is LSU and #2 is who?

Man, LSU pulled off a squeaker against Florida, otherwise do you know which school would be #1 in the nation?


P.S. Stupid Trojans finally ran out of luck....

Europe, here we come!

I'm planning a trip to Europe, and I'm trying to figure out some cool places to go. This is a tentative plan:

Dec. 25th: Leave from SFO. Merry Christmas!

Dec. 26th: Arrive in Frankfurt, Germany. Head to Freiburg, Germany by train.

Dec. 29th: Pardubice, Czech Rep. with Stan
Sweden vs. Canada - World Junior Hockey Championship
Dec. 31st: Pardubice, Czech Rep.
Canada vs. Denmark

Possible itinerary from here: Pardubice -> Prague -> Vienna -> Budapest -> back to Germany

Jan. 9th: Arrive in Barcelona, Spain (with Betty!)

Possible itinerary #1: Barcelona -> Granada -> Seville -> Cordoba -> Barcelona
Possible itinerary #2: Barcelona -> Figures -> Bilbao -> Barcelona

Jan. 16th: Return to Freiburg, Germany (from Basel)

Jan. 22nd: Return to SFO. Good-bye Europe... I hardly knew ye.

I'll keep adding plans as they become more concrete!

Berlin sized beer

Mmmmmm......beeeeeeeerr.......gooooooood......

Wolverines, the sequel

Well, the Wolverines really suck! 39-7 against the Ducks....

Man, things are not happy in Ann Arbour.

And kudos to the Golden Bears' offence for winning with a non-existent defence again.....

Game Summary

Is Mom Really...

... drinking BEER!?

Too Berkeley!

Here's what the hippies in Berkeley have been doing for the past few months:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/05/BAFKRV1TR.DTL

Seriously, these hippies are just completely useless. I understand that they want to preserve their trees, but seriously, the university is willing to plant THREE trees for every tree they'll tear down. Isn't that a win-win situation? More trees and a new athletic stadium...

Sigh. It's amazing how these tree-sitters have wasted so much time and so many resources. Don't they realize how much money is wasted on all this bureaucracy? This money would be better suited for people who need it!

Sometimes, Berkeley is just too Berkeley for me.

Ah, wolverines...

Ah College Football...

I went to the Cal(#12)/Tennessee(#15) game today and watched Cal victoriously defeat the Volunteers (GO BEARS!).

However, as big a game as it was, I think it was more entertaining seeing highlights from the BIG upset that Appalachian State pulled against Michigan. Haha! Good to see Michigan fall flat at the end of their game... thank you Appalachian State football!

Go Bears!

More sighs

So, I've been hanging around two people for the last 5 weeks in Germany, let's call them D and M.
Well, today, D and M were heading back to Canada.

Of course their flight was at 1:45pm, so naturally, D wanted to take the 7:57 train to the airport, so that he would arrive at 10:06. (Because taking the 8:57 and arriving at 11:06 is just too rushed).

So the walk (no possibility of traffic jams) to the train station is at most 15 minutes. To catch the train at 7:57, D wakes up at 5:30 and just ends up standing outside in the hallway. Then at 7:15 wants all of us to leave for the train station. We are at the train station by 7:30 (a full 25 minutes before the train is to come), but D still looks nervous that he's going to miss the train.

At which point M says to D, that she cannot stand his uptightness when there is a train to catch....

Sigh....

Sigh...

It's so sad how the U.S. is so scared of China... why is little Taiwan the one of the few countries willing to stand up to such bullies?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20478712/

Put your foot in your mouth...

I was in Portland this past weekend with some friends from undergrad. Of course, one of them has a habit of putting her foot in her mouth, and she did it again.

On Sunday, we had already dropped off someone (M) at the airport. His girlfriend (L) had not yet left. Keep in mind that no one had met L before this weekend. We were hanging out in downtown Portland, when N said: "M has no standards," right in front of M's girlfriend L. Sigh... then N decided to justify her comment by saying that last year, M was checking out any girl that could walk, including a bunch of old 50 year old women.

Good thing L is such a good sport!

Austrian Alps

this picture is worth a thousand words....

Dad's best friend

Something about Dad...he only has really old friends or really young friends....

Explanation of Dad's behaviour

I knew there was some explanation of Dad's behaviour....it turns out that he's a snowboarder!

Scariness personified

If this isn't scariness personified, then I don't know what is....

I Am Art

Apparently, I can also be a piece of art....

Jokers

These two jokers are coming to Germany for 5 whole weeks. Will they be better behaved than they were in California?

We are twins...

It looks like Stan and I are twins in this picture... We look like brothers. So sad! Hahahaha...

Proof that Dad is obsessed with Cornell...

I found this in the collection of photos... Apparently, Dad took the whole family to Cornell a couple of times for some visits.

Dad is so obsessed with Cornell. He should have gone to school there. Maybe, when I make lots of money, I will send him there for school.

Happy Mother's Day!

Today, Betty, Dad and I took Mom out to Niagara-On-The-Lake for Mother's Day. Dad was annoying Mom all day... She yelled at him, and told him to go away several times.

Dad said: "Today is not Mother's Day... it's Sad Father's Day!"

Family portraits cont'd...

This is my picture from our family portraits!

Jimmy Carter is ...

So today, Former President Jimmy Carter was invited to give a talk at the UC Berkeley campus. Luckily, one of my officemates couldn't go, and gave me his ticket.

For some really odd ODD reason, Jimmy Carter is my Dad's favourite President all time. However, today I learned that most Taiwanese people don't like Jimmy Carter since he broke off some diplomatic agreement with Taiwan when he was in office. So why does Dad like Jimmy Carter so much?

I have no idea. But then again, it's hard to explain Dad!



Anyway, Jimmy Carter talked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He gave this cool quote from the late Pope John Paul II. Paraphrasing this quote, the Pope had stated:

There are only two ways to have peace in the Middle East: realistic and miraculous. A realistic method would be divine intervention from heaven above. A miraculous method would be for Israel and Palestine to reach a peace agreement.

Family Portraits are Cool

From Christmas time...isn't Skype great?

Schwarzwald

More pictures to tell Mom about Germany....

So I biked about 10 km from Freiburg to Kirchzarten, then did a 6 km leisurely hike in the Black Forest.

A pretty nice hike! As I finished it, it started to thunderstorm, so I biked back soaked in the rain. To make up for being drenched, I decided to eat Schnitzel for lunch...he he he Badisches Schnitzel with fried potatoes....

All in all a very good day!

Mmmmmm, SCHNIIIIIIITZEEEEL!

Germany is nice, MOM!

Sometimes, if you talk to Mom, it seems she is sooooo anti-Germany.

Ok, hopefully these pictures change her mind.

Oh, by the way these pictures were taken during a 4 hour hike from my place. I went 13 km on this hike, but the hike originates just across the street from my place! Its like living with a National Park in your front yard!

Calculus or Haddock

So Tintin is kinda cool, but he's lame compared to either Cuthbert Calculus or Captain Haddock.

The question is: who is cooler, Calculus or Haddock?

Miscellaneous Pics

Freiburg Munster

Some close up pics of the Freiburg church:

Hiking in the Schlossberg

Some nice hiking just across the street from my place.

Freiburg Fotos Finally!

Ok, finally got around to taking some photos of Freiburg.

Here are some panorama views from the Schlossberg.