Back after a long hiatus

Hi,

In honour of die hard 4 coming out, I thought I;d update my blog, plus cause Han Min requested me to.

So I;m in Seattle now, as MS Research for da summer.

Cornell is nice, but its ridiculously hot in the summer. Seattle is much nicer, and Microsoft in Redmond is pretty awesome. The restaurants here are great, but not as nice as Toronto's obviously.

One annoying thing is Redmond claims to be the bike capital of the world, but its not a biker friendly place, most places, including work only has 5 parking spots for bikes, and very few bicycle lanes.

I started going to the gym now...the one here is awesome.

Let you know how my exercising going.

Big Changes

As some of you already know, I am currently working on my MS/PhD. I came across this interesting tidbit, which is pretty neat cause it describes the graduate scene quite well...

During the 1980s things changed. Computer Science Departments had proliferated throughout the universities to meet the demand, primarily for programmers and software engineers, and the faculty assembled to teach the subjects was expected to do meaningful research. To manage the burgeoning flood of conference papers, program committees adopted a new strategy for papers in computer architecture: No more wild ideas; papers had to present quantitative results. The effect was to create a style of graduate research in computer architecture that remains the "conventional wisdom" of the community to the present day: Make a small, innovative, change to a commercially accepted design and evaluate it using standard benchmark programs. This style has stifled the exploration and publication of interesting architectural ideas that require more than a modicum of change from current practice. The practice of basing evaluations on standard benchmark codes neglects the potential benefits of architectural concepts that need a change in programming methodology to demonstrate their full benefit.

Jack B. Dennis

Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, MIT, Emeritus

Something I think ppl forget in their rush to publish...

Why Air Canada sucks so much

I just finished 5 days of straight flying last week, and even though United had significant delays and crappy service, Air Canada was worse. I got to the airport several hours early and asked if I could take an earlier flight out, and they said it would require a $42 change fee, which was ridiculous as their plane was half empty. Therefore I decided to just wait for my original flight. Several hours later when my original flight is to be boarded, we are told the plane is broken and the pilots have immigration issues so there will be a 2.5 hour delay while these problems are addressed. I was astonished, not only was I not allowed to take the earlier flight, but my original flight was being delayed without any compensation. In total I spent 5+ hours in the airport waiting for my flight. Ridiculous. That was my return flight too, my original flight out of Toronto was delayed more than an hour as well without any notice until we were already on the plane.

My United flight was pretty bad, when the plane was landing, some kid in a row in front of me threw up on the plane, vommiting over several seats. Unfortunately, the gate people were late coming to the plane AGAIN (every flight they are), so we were stuck inside the pressurized cabin breathing recycled disgusting air.

I really hate flying now, but at least Taiwan, San Francisco and Colorado were all fun.

Back in Taiwan

Long time no post...

Back in Taiwan, had to escape the frigid temperatures of Ithaca, NY and instead of -20 its +20 degrees here :) Unfortunately I must say its become quite boring here now, next time I definitely need to pick some place different, like Japan or the Bahamas.

At least there's high speed internet here :0)

I should probably update my pics too of all the food I missed taking pics of last time.

Beetles, Squirrels and Loan Sharks

I wasn;t planning on making another entry in my blog, been pretty busy with school readings and projects. I'm on the AUV team @ Cornell, which is pretty awesome.

Today I noticed a squirrel covering up a hole with dirt. I'm assuming he hid his nutz there for da winter, it was just amusing enough to nudge me into making an entry....like honestly, there are nutz litering the area, all over the sidewalk, maybe some squirells were fighting earlier for them or something. Regardless, they really should invest in a nut bank or something, whats their hit rate in the winter when the soil is covered by a foot of dirt? Probably like 30% or less, wasting quite a bit of nutz I;m sure...perhaps thats how trees get grown? The nutz that were planted but weren't found afterwards by squirells?

I have this gross beetle investation in my house, its nasty, I first thought there was only one of them (yesterday), but today found 2 more on the window looking outside. Not sure why or how they got in the house, just gonna make sure they don't start breeding in here, can't wait till it gets colder, unbelievably hot in my house.

Ever wonders what happens if you don't pay the $30-45,000 USD/yr to the bursar;'s office or the loan sharks U took the money from? They break your legs, yup. Thats what happens, it serves as an example to the other students and motivates you to study and get a good job to pay off your loans. Honestly, I have never seen so many students with broken legs/shins/knee caps since entering any academic setting. Every week a new person has a broken leg, just when the previous person around campus give up their crutches after healing up. No one ever says it was loan sharks, er ya I broke it skiing, er.. in California, naw I mean windsurfing, ya....Ya I was skateboarding to class when I tripped....datz it....

All I know is I;m defenitely gonna watch my expenses and make sure I pay off my tuition bills in time ............... :-)

Cornell is alright I think, I don;'t like ppl's attitudes about how the poor can't afford Cornell, thats the American style, its sad, ppl shouldnt be filtered based on income when it comes to higher education....alas I;m merely a meagre student so I can't do much in dis regard.

Adios,

p.s. I;m heading back to Toronto dis weekend (its Fall break) so hopefully my car will last till than. The monstrous gas prices defenitely ain't helping though :-0

Cornell

Ok, this is my new blog.

Well after a 5 hr drive through customs from Toronto to Ithaca, NY I finally made it to Cornell University. It was pretty harrowing at Customs, i had almost every stereotypical customs issue, a Mexican, an Iranian and some out of status Japanese VISA student in the examination room with me.

The Ithaca speeding and parking rules are extremely confusing, apparently u need a degree to know how to park here. Cornell University itself is quite beautiful and very modern. Yet, I would assume so considering the amount of money ppl (including myself) spend to come here.

Wowthe kids sure are rich here, lotta rich kids, sporting nice cars. Enough said.

Damn, since lotta forests around, crazy bugs here too :( There's these 2 HUGE spiders in my house, sooo scary :( Omg, ridiculous, they are almost the size of the outdoor TW spiders. Ridiculously huge. I promplty scared one of em away using some Windex, but i had to go out to the convenience store and buy some RAID, which cost $6.15~!!! ya, $6.15 for a bottle of RAID, and thats U.S. dollars too, insane, talk about insane markup, but I guess if u need it, u need it :(

Dang.... well i;m posting this blog from Carpenter library, because too scary to go home, nice they dont close till 2 a.m. :)

Moving into my apartment was strenuous, no internet and the place was a bit messy at least the floor. I bought a mop, but it broke in a few minutes after use, which sucked, cause i didnt get a chance to mop and clean my bedroom. Luckily the fridge is big cause I stockpiled a ton of food, I got a gas stove which is neat because I've never used a gas stove before, it cooks food really quickly so you dont need to spend so much time waiting for the stove to warm up.

I signed up for Internet through a local Bestbuy store, but i've had so much headaches, from TimeWarner RoadRunner(the internet company) not having any record of the order to them not honouring the BestBuy store stated price. Not sure what to do now, I just been calling BestBuy customer service who are working on it with the TimeWarner ppl. I must say its absolutely ridiculous customer service, the local BestBuy store couldnt help me out either and were totally useless.

Hopefully I get internet soon, as its a must for my classes.

Regards,

p.s. classes seem like a blast so far, but seems pretty hard, tons of intense readings and only had 1 class so far.

Byebye Taiwan

Sorry for not updating sooner, but last week I left Taiwan, perhaps permanently, not sure yet, but nevertheless, I am now at Cornell.

Plz check my other blog.

Intense heat, beautiful beaches and disgusting roaches

OMG, what a crazy weekend. The cockroaches are out in full force in July/August. I actually found one in the bathroom, MY bathroom :'( This roach was smart, after I went to get the RAID and came back, he was gone, couldnt find him anywhere, although he was previously right on the counter wall next to my toothbrush and shaver. After carefully removing everything serially, I finally found him hiding UNDER my shaver , the empty pocket area where my blades reside. Amazing, he found such a clever hiding spot, really, these are some fairly intelligent creatures. I noted that while I took him down in a hideous gas of chem warfare. Unfortunately this necessitated me to throw out everything in da bathroom and buy new stuff. New toothbrush, new tooth paste, new shaver DEFENITELY, etc. Unfortunately, I had a severe headache from breathing the fumes from an entire can of RAID and than bleach from cleaning the pesticide from my bathroom. Also surprised sometimes how these critters even get into my house, its literally locked down airtight, although I think they may come out of the drain or even from under the door where in lies some small cracks.

Spend all of yesterday (Monday) outdoors at the beach, it was incredible, FRESH CLEAN AIR!! wow....I also saw ocean roaches, they are a fairly different species from the normal roach as they live on the beach, but nevertheless an ugly bug. What made the beach so special was that it was completely empty, taking a day off work I lose 1 vacation day, having a clean beach to myself is literally PRICELESS. Especially considering how crowded Taiwan is.

The heat is really intense now, from 7 am to 6 p.m. its not really feasible to travel outside as the sun will scorch u.