Hello, and HAPPY NEW YEAR ... hope everyone have a safe and happy year that we are about 10 days into.
One of the big local thing that happened on new years day was the BART shooting .... oh wellz .... don't want to add any biased information there ... but really ...... i could understand the added stress on New Year's Day for the police ... but it was not justified at all for the action to happen ..... and that's my 0.02 ..... since the media had blown it out of proportions already ... don't really wanna make it even more controversial than it already is.
Anyways ..... my little experience with the BART police was also on New Year's Eve/ Day ..... we were lucky enough to be able to walk to Montgomery station and ditch the crowd after the countdown, and got on the train before everyone else. Then of course, it was delayed a little bit because of some stupid kids fighting on the platform in embarcadero. When we got there, these teens got onto the train .... our friends and my girl and I were more towards to middle of the car when they got to one side of the door. Maybe they were high on something, but it's totally unacceptable that they started smoking in the train .... the smoke got to everybody on the train and started to make some people totally pissed .... and we are like ..... go on stupid kids ..... u can go ahead and take your time ... we will see what will happen once it got to the next station .... then it got up to the next station ..... and surely some police were there ...... they were looking for something or someone, maybe the smoker? we tried to point them to those teens' direction, they walked and tried to look for them a couple times ... and then they gave up, and let the train go .... WTF ...... do you need us to take you by hand to show you who broke the law and such ...... you know ..... i started to understand why people want citizen oversight in their department .... this was totally ridiculous ...... we ended up had to take up the smoke again until we got off the train about 20 minutes later ..... and had to have our friends drive us to fremont ..... because it was so hard to take up ...... i swear .... no more SF new year count down ..... esp. when we need to take BART with STUPID ASS SMOKING TEENS .....
Friday, January 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Is there ever a way that we can get out of this?
Day after day after day, something unfortunate to some integral part of our society has happened. It doesn't necessarily have to be related to the auto industry, the banking industry, or the fraud, or tons of troubles we have out there at this moment. It makes me think, though, if all the things we are going through is due to all these media exposures?
Come to think about it, is it just the media feeding us what we need? But then ... we shouldn't need all these bad press to tell us how bad the world is doing. We should be able to tell ourselves by the happenings around us. Is it really necessary for us to know how bad the world is going on around us , maybe to make sure we know that the world is falling with us or something? Have we gone to the point where we even need people around us to confirm with us that we are all going bad?
Well, hopefully more positive news will come out soon. s
Come to think about it, is it just the media feeding us what we need? But then ... we shouldn't need all these bad press to tell us how bad the world is doing. We should be able to tell ourselves by the happenings around us. Is it really necessary for us to know how bad the world is going on around us , maybe to make sure we know that the world is falling with us or something? Have we gone to the point where we even need people around us to confirm with us that we are all going bad?
Well, hopefully more positive news will come out soon. s
Friday, November 28, 2008
Black Friday --
Yesterday was thanksgiving - Happy belated turkey day everyone!
Today was black friday, or shopping day, or bloody pocket day. Traditionally, it was supposed to be a day where we - the consumers spent, and clear out the cash in our pocket, or put on debt; and the retailers take in and smile as their balance sheet and budget turned pretty. But there are so many things that marked this year different from last.
First thing's first of course, the economy, well basically the economic crisis we all are in caused most of the companies to hold back on spending and focus on retaining their cash. Thus they are not as willing to dramatically cut their prices just to get the merchandise out the door ...... so I did not attempt to line up outside one of these doors .... and thus ... I didn't become one of these people.
If you have followed the news, you must know of this one poor temp worker from Walmart who got killed for stand right in front of the door while shoppers were outside trying to get in and in turn broke the sliding door and knocked this guy down and finally killing him while people were going crazy trying to track down what they want to buy while they stepped over him ..... Whatever the fuck is wrong with these so called "people", because obviously I DO NOT WANT TO CATEGORIZE MYSELF AS THE SAME AS THESE THINGS. I really would think that people will stop once they see they broke the door and the guy got hurt because of it. Instead they just walked through as if nothing is as important as their deals, and add to the man's suffering by storming in over him. What disgusted me more was that these things refused to leave once they heard the store was closing and that was because of them.
Hey, can you be any more senseless than this? I really pity for this man because he died for something like this and people did not have a tidbit of remorse over what they did, instead they just wanted their TVs, DVD players, and such for $500 less. This is really ridiculous, words cannot explain how mad I am to these things. I cannot call them humans because they act like savages in this situation.
Walmart, in turn, should have tickets out for their customers and at least prevent this from happening in part.
R.I.P. Mr. Jdimytai Damour
Today was black friday, or shopping day, or bloody pocket day. Traditionally, it was supposed to be a day where we - the consumers spent, and clear out the cash in our pocket, or put on debt; and the retailers take in and smile as their balance sheet and budget turned pretty. But there are so many things that marked this year different from last.
First thing's first of course, the economy, well basically the economic crisis we all are in caused most of the companies to hold back on spending and focus on retaining their cash. Thus they are not as willing to dramatically cut their prices just to get the merchandise out the door ...... so I did not attempt to line up outside one of these doors .... and thus ... I didn't become one of these people.
If you have followed the news, you must know of this one poor temp worker from Walmart who got killed for stand right in front of the door while shoppers were outside trying to get in and in turn broke the sliding door and knocked this guy down and finally killing him while people were going crazy trying to track down what they want to buy while they stepped over him ..... Whatever the fuck is wrong with these so called "people", because obviously I DO NOT WANT TO CATEGORIZE MYSELF AS THE SAME AS THESE THINGS. I really would think that people will stop once they see they broke the door and the guy got hurt because of it. Instead they just walked through as if nothing is as important as their deals, and add to the man's suffering by storming in over him. What disgusted me more was that these things refused to leave once they heard the store was closing and that was because of them.
Hey, can you be any more senseless than this? I really pity for this man because he died for something like this and people did not have a tidbit of remorse over what they did, instead they just wanted their TVs, DVD players, and such for $500 less. This is really ridiculous, words cannot explain how mad I am to these things. I cannot call them humans because they act like savages in this situation.
Walmart, in turn, should have tickets out for their customers and at least prevent this from happening in part.
R.I.P. Mr. Jdimytai Damour
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
"Technologies and Toys"
This is gonna be a quick post, I just saw the TV ad for electronic monopoly - it's basically monopoly with NO BILLS, but instead a little machine/calculator type of thing which AUTOMATICALLY calculate the differences of your monopoly money before and after you buy something and record it on a card.
Now it's not so bad that we keep up with technology and utilize them to our advantage, but it's totally another thing when people try to apply them onto products, and it can totally go both ways. Take this one for example, to me monopoly has this implied learning of basic math and planning your finance and learning to invest (well to a very limited extent for the last two). Now with a credit card like player card and a "calculator" that does the calculation for you, to me it kinda lost half the purpose to play the game. Sure it would be lots more convenient, but it took away lots of fun as well in terms of the money transaction .... and being in a world where credit cards basically IS cash doesn't necessarily mean cash does not work anymore.
In fact, it's gonna be a lot more awkward for us to play the game with the updated technology because we have no banks anymore. I am pretty sure that there are a lot of fun to be had in becoming the banker in the game, the "commanding" and "middle-man" position of that player has to learn to be a fair, accurate, and rule-binding individual. With a self-calculating calculator went the chance to implicitly teach the player how to abide and enforce the rules of the game, play the role of a mediator, and to learn how "the banker" works - i'm pretty sure that will all be lost when the calculator is used in the game.
I can understand the update, but I think to keep it as it was before was better .... what do you think?
Now it's not so bad that we keep up with technology and utilize them to our advantage, but it's totally another thing when people try to apply them onto products, and it can totally go both ways. Take this one for example, to me monopoly has this implied learning of basic math and planning your finance and learning to invest (well to a very limited extent for the last two). Now with a credit card like player card and a "calculator" that does the calculation for you, to me it kinda lost half the purpose to play the game. Sure it would be lots more convenient, but it took away lots of fun as well in terms of the money transaction .... and being in a world where credit cards basically IS cash doesn't necessarily mean cash does not work anymore.
In fact, it's gonna be a lot more awkward for us to play the game with the updated technology because we have no banks anymore. I am pretty sure that there are a lot of fun to be had in becoming the banker in the game, the "commanding" and "middle-man" position of that player has to learn to be a fair, accurate, and rule-binding individual. With a self-calculating calculator went the chance to implicitly teach the player how to abide and enforce the rules of the game, play the role of a mediator, and to learn how "the banker" works - i'm pretty sure that will all be lost when the calculator is used in the game.
I can understand the update, but I think to keep it as it was before was better .... what do you think?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Day 1 of MY new year - my NEW toy
Yep, I am now 12 hours into my new year ~~ well it's been quite uneventful so far ..... i have to say thank you for my lovely GF that got me an ipod touch at this time (I had been telling her about it for the longest time, but thought at this kind of time I shouldn't get one, I am really thankful to her for it), and now that I am taking a break from studying materials, I am looking up for materials to mess with it a little bit. None the less, with all the greetings on FB and else where , I would like to say to people - THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR REMEMBERING ME !!
anyways, back to the ipod. It's been a whole five years since I owned my last ipod, and its battery died on me and that was the end of that one, and then a cheap mp3 player popped up and I got to use it for a little bit. So to my surprise, I did not find any user manual type of publication in the package. Although I do applaud Apple to have the resort and the guts to not include any kinds of publication for various reasons, it still hurt a little when I don't have something to read to get started with (weird huh?) ... so I started going online and look for tips/tricks/guide what not ..... it amazes me that how much you can do with a mp3 player that has wifi capability ... the price (she) paid was well worth it because other than listing to mp3/ watching videos, there are lots more uses for this little music player that is like a phone ...... it's amazing that Apple opened its platform so that most of us can develop apps for them ... whether for hobby or for commercial use ... i'm getting tempted now to get a mac book - IF I don't find ANY virtualization solution to my windows xp that can also run a mac on (I doubt I can) - and if that's the case, that's master marketing move from Apple , where I don't mind because i'm sure i'm getting my bang for the buck easily ... compared to all these PCs out there.
Going to Fry's always makes me think of what I want next as a present or as a little treat to myself - a digital drum set .... crap ..... our material needs is always a black hole ~~
anyways, back to the ipod. It's been a whole five years since I owned my last ipod, and its battery died on me and that was the end of that one, and then a cheap mp3 player popped up and I got to use it for a little bit. So to my surprise, I did not find any user manual type of publication in the package. Although I do applaud Apple to have the resort and the guts to not include any kinds of publication for various reasons, it still hurt a little when I don't have something to read to get started with (weird huh?) ... so I started going online and look for tips/tricks/guide what not ..... it amazes me that how much you can do with a mp3 player that has wifi capability ... the price (she) paid was well worth it because other than listing to mp3/ watching videos, there are lots more uses for this little music player that is like a phone ...... it's amazing that Apple opened its platform so that most of us can develop apps for them ... whether for hobby or for commercial use ... i'm getting tempted now to get a mac book - IF I don't find ANY virtualization solution to my windows xp that can also run a mac on (I doubt I can) - and if that's the case, that's master marketing move from Apple , where I don't mind because i'm sure i'm getting my bang for the buck easily ... compared to all these PCs out there.
Going to Fry's always makes me think of what I want next as a present or as a little treat to myself - a digital drum set .... crap ..... our material needs is always a black hole ~~
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