Merry Christmas

DSC01541, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

(Yoshi taken under the Christmas tree in our community)

This Christmas must be the busiest one I ever had. Beside work and two kids to take care, this year I'm also responsible for events in the community we live. Photos check my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwcutter

Being Boss is Lonely

Yesterday I was called into CEO Office with some colleagues. I wondered what the meeting was for because the combination of attendees did not fit any on-going project. Then the answer was revealed. My boss was very upset and angry about the resignation of a key engineer, because he thought it was still under negotiation but the engineer believed it was accepted so he left. He was so frustrated and needed to give vent to his anger, but as a CEO, he can't just complaint to his colleagues like we do. He can't bring it home to his wife and children, either. So, he called a fake meeting to invite a few people he think he can talk about it. I almost felt sorry for him. As an old Chinese poem goes, it's freezing at high positions.

First Dinner on 85th Floor at Taipei 101

(Image from Wikipedia)

It's been a long time since my last post. I've been very busy because I'am also doing community service in the building I live besides work and family. Now my schedule is always full even on weekends.

This Wednesday I had a dinner on the 85th floor of Taipei 101. We had a whole-day meeting with two important Dutch customers and then had the dinner with our chairman. It was the first time I visited the top areas of this building, although I live only 15 minutes away and go there often. The view was magnificent at night, with beautiful lights below and clouds flying by the window. Maybe I will take my son to the observatory someday when he's older.

Burning Late Night Oil

3:30AM, still helping Windows Mobile press conference preparation. Most of the time is just waiting and waiting. I'm too old for this...

Brother and Sister

Who is who?

Now and Then

Above: my son on Sep. 19, 2009, two years later
Below: my son on Oct. 6, 2006, five months old

Great Firewall of China

Behind the GFW now. I cannot access Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Wiki, etc. And I can't access blogger.com, too. I can't imagine to live here. I knew it always, but I always forget until I'm blocked. There so many FB applications developed by companies in China, but I can't open www.facebook.com. Do every Chinese know some trick to pass through?

 

At least I got email. I can email to my blog and email to twitter via twittermail, I hope. Let's find out when I get home.

Google Maps Street View Japan AD

Yoshi's Dilemma

DSC01109, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Since his baby sister came home, Yoshi found himself in a dilemma. He likes baby sister and likes to be a big brother taking care of her, but he also want to maintain his old life when he got all the attention. As a result, you'll find him behaves like a grownup helping his mommy changing diapers at one time, and in the next five minutes he degraded to a baby who piss on the floor and refused to change his wet clothes.

My mom and wife are going crazy chasing him before he bumps into walls or closets (he often does), and preventing him from hurting his sister accidentally.

You can talk about many theories how to handle this, but the fact is, nothing works. It's something we just have to live with for a long long time.

Taipei Now on Google Maps Street View

My home. Interesting and scaring.

Summer Full-Mmonth 1

Summer Full-Mmonth 1, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Baby Summer now one month old! Thanks to everyone who visited her or sent her warm wishes in the first month of her life.

Summer Crying

26 days old. Hungry.

Hillarious "Fake" Facebook Page

Check this out! PC World got this really funny Facebook Pages We'd Like to See article. Ha ha!

On Recent SNS Reports

Recently the media is very interested in those social networks services and micro-blogging tools, such as Facebook, Twitter or Plurk. TIME magazine had a cover story in June on Twitter, and the Business Week and many others followed that in Taiwan. Obama is a well-known twitter user, and so is Oprah Winfrey. Many politicians and companies have been trying to gain the same influence or popularity in cyberspace with such tools, but so far I don't see anyone very successful.

From the reports on these media, I found most of their angles are so narrow-sighted or even ridiculous --perhaps that's why they can't benefit from it. The reports are so focused on how much potential it can be to reach so many unknown users in the world and people can hear you with so limited expenses. They pick one or two super-star users to backup their arguments that companies can benefit from this super-long lever. I think that's so wrong from the beginning.

For me, I use such social network tools to satisfy my social needs in the cyberspace to overcome the restraints in the physical world. In Marslow's hierarchy of needs, it's the love and belonging layer or even in the self-esteem layer. However, if such tools are only treated as a cheap marketing option for a company or an individual, it is down-graded to financial security or even the basic needs for food. That's why we see so many politicians hire part-time workers to write for them on Twitter or Plurk, and naively thinks that people can't tell. Believe me, anyone who has real-life friends in the virtual world can tell the difference, not to mention those who have real friends in cyberspace.

Yoshi the Driver

Summer Day 8

She opens her eyes looking around, and happily licking her wrapping cloth. When it comes to appetite, this baby girl is much better than her older brother. Her best record is 70 cc a meal so far. My son better be careful otherwise he might be bullied by his sister soon.

Yoshi Play and bumps his head

Day 3

Allie almost fully regained her mobility and spirit. Our little daughter is still in ICU. Her respiratory rate is improved and oxygen level stablized, but today her heart beat often drops to under 100/min when I visited her. Keep observating...

My Daughter

Born on the 4th of July, 21:23, Weight 3692, length 53cm

Great Post-It Animation

Bad Day

Today I missed a milestone on project beta release and got complained. Then, I fired a colleague. Then, I went out at the time that happened to be a military exercise that no traffic was allowed for half an hour. And then, I got hit by a truck. Fortunately, I'm not harmed.

Great Baseball Day

After more than one year, Wang finally won a game since his injury in base-running. Although his strike counts is only average compared to his best days, but his GO/AO is a strong indicator that his sinker is back. Perhaps thanks to the luck brought by JJ Wang as in old Taiwanese saying. I think this win not only relieved his pressure to prove himself to Cashman and Girardi, but the stress of his teammates trying to help him out. Way to go, Wanger!

Another good new is that Tigers called up RHP Ni Fu-Te today, marking the first Taiwanese player to join MLB from CPBL (first player was Melvin Mora of Orioles). This is noticeable especially in the bad times of CPBL that struggles to attract audience and the national team lost all major international games in the last few years. I'm not a supporter for CPBL, but for Taiwan baseball players. If the team owners still think the professional baseball in Taiwan is a favor from them and everyone should thank them and never criticize them, the players have no choice but to prove that they can compete in MLB level and forget about CPBL.

Expected Mommy

Expected Mommy, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Today our little girl is 37 weeks old and ready for the world any time. Estimated baby weight is now 3200g and growing, so Allie is very tired carry her around 24 hours a day.

Taiwan Plurk User Map

在較大的地圖上查看台灣噗友地圖

See who plurks in your neighborhood on Google Map. Follow mine at www.plurk.com/rwcutter.

On Chinese Characters

This foreign student obviously knows more about the value of the heritage of Chinese culture lies in the Chinese characters than President Ma. I wonder if Ma has never actually speak to a real person from China so that he is stupid enough to toss the topic of "Reading Traditional, Writing Simplified" in his speech. I don't see any problem in the communication caused by the Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. People from China or Singapore write me emails in Simplified Chinese, and I write them back in Traditional Chinese, and we all understand each other.

Besides, I believe many young people in China now actually is getting more and more familiar with Traditional Chinese because that watch a lot of (pirated) TV programs from Taiwan, along with those embedded subtitles and on-screen-messages written in Trad Chinese. Hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese also learned Simp Chinese already. As a President, why bother raising an issue which is not beneficial in practical matters? He should know more about the influence of Taiwan Culture in the Great China area and enhance that, not to dump them to toilet and surrender to China.

Simplified Chinese is not logical, and it's one-to-many compared to original characters. It's not just a word being converted to a simplified form, but many words is dropped or replaced by another which only sounds the same, such as 發/髮 or 後/后. For this, I think it's not s good and complete system.

On the other hand, the symphonic system (Pin Yin) using Roman characters is a superior one than the ridiculous system used o the street signs in Taiwan. How am I supposed to know Cheng means 政 or 成, not to mention that Chi can be 基 or 奇, when they all use "Ch"? They are "Zh", "Ch", "J" and "Q" respectively in the China system. Isn't it more logical?

Microsoft Project Natal

This is absolutely the coolest introduction I've ever seen from Microsoft. I wonder how real it is already and how soon we can see it in shops. Also check out this promo on YouTube.

Be strong, David

JadeDam-21, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Yesterday I heard a shocking and sad news. David's wife passed away after she gave birth to their second baby. All her family suffer from high blood pressure so it was very dangerous for her to be pregnant already. They tried several times to have a second baby, but all ended up with miscarriage in late pregnancy. It's the fourth time. I don't know what to say, just overwhelmed by the shock and sadness. It's the second time such tragedy happened on my friends. I found this picture of her and her son in my album.

Jayson Werth steals 4 bases

Not much time to watch baseball or any sports game since child born...(sigh)

Funny YouTube - Job Hunting in China

I think it's a commercial of job hunting site, but it's funny anyway.

Yoshi to the Zoo

DSC00878, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Yesterday was a cloudy and cool Sunday, and we decided to took Yoshi to Taipei Zoo. We wanted to show him what real animals look like, otherwise he might think that they are all painted in colors as in cartoons and puzzle blocks. It was interesting to see what he connects those animals he saw with the pictures at home. The most interesting part was when he sang out loud trying to attract elephants and hippos to come forward. That was the loudest voice I've ever heard from him except for crying. :)

Damage

Last Friday a sales was fired. She was trying her best but the company did not recognize her hard-work. Today I was called in to the CEO's office. Obviously the sales said something honest on her last day, which was not very pleasing to the bosses. My boss told me that he wants to UNDO what happened in the last three months, and to begin damage control. The damage refers to the impact on the command system in the sales team that is collapsing due to different directions inside. I was blamed for spreading negative opinions and tense relationship with sales. It can't be undone, but seems I need my damage control plan now.

DEMO09 Winners Announced

DEMO 2009 is finished. Perhaps influenced by the economy tsunami, only 39 companies attended this event. This is almost 50% loss compares to previous records (I think it must be a dilemma for Chris Shipley to find a balance between companies that are willing to pay and those that really worth it.)

Among them, there are 7 DEMOgod winners and 1 People's Choice. I am interested in the above solution and is going to try it.

Sci-Fi Movie

What kind of movie will you expect when you see the title "IP MAN"? To me, it is definitely a sci-fi Matrix-like movie. Wrong answer! It is actually a Hong Kong martial art movie about the master of late martial art movie star, Bruce Lee. Ip Man was the name of the master in Cantonese. I wonder if he would be a hacker today if he's not dedicated to martial art.

Sell It to Your Boss

Recently there's been argues on company directions and where to put most of our resources on. The main reason is that we didn't have marketing function in the organization before, and the CEO and Sales head have different directions on what's the best move in such troubled time to prepare for the rising wave when it comes.

Our not-clearly-defined-and-treated-as-sales marketing people complains that the company only values OEM sales; marketing is more like a liability than an asset. They are forced to change their job function to serve OEM customers as sales assistant, which will deprive their previous time from marketing planning. As everyone can imagine, every body is thinking about quitting.

Yes, every boss is an idiot. However, I would say, if you are willing to spend 6 months educating potential customers, create relationship with channels, and expect people you don't know to buy your products, why not spend three months to educate your boss, improve relationship with the one who pay your bills, and see what will happen? Quitting may look cool, but it ain't get you anywhere except one job after another and another, because there's always another idiot waiting in the next company. I will not go down without a fight--tenderly.

Yoshi Plays iPhone Video

Yoshi is now an expert (considering his age) with iPhone.

Taipei Lantern Festival 2009

New Year

Just returned to work from 9-day New Year vacation. Allie and I took one extra day off, so it was ten days for us. We went 300 km south to Kaohsiung for family reunion, a must-do but not always pleasant tradition. My grandfather and grandmother, now in their eighties, are not the kind of people you want to spent your holiday with. Actually, there were two small argues and one big fight when we were there. It may be the last time I follow this tradition to ruin my holidays.

After Kaohsiung, we then went back north to Tamshui and stayed with Allie's family. Yoshi had a good time there because there was more space for him to run, and there were many toys to play while his cousin was away.

When we finally returned to Taipei, Yoshi fell asleep right after dinner time--very very early for him compared to his usual schedule. He became very shy to strangers in the vacation--maybe there were too many new people and new places to him. That summarized the vacation, if not with the surprise that came on Sunday.

One o'clock in Sunday morning, Yoshi got a fever which reached 39 degrees. I was not too worried because he seemed still as energetic as usual. My mom "strongly suggested" that we took him to a nearby clinic on Sunday morning, so we did. On the way home, he began to said that his belly aches. In the evening he had diarrhea. At sunrise time of Monday, the fever raised to 40 degrees and he shivered badly. So, we took him to ER. The resident on duty was an interesting one. He finishes his diagnosis very quickly but spent a lot of time teaching me the reason of fevers and signs should be alerted. I guess he had saw too many cases far worse then Yoshi so in this case there was no need to go to ER. He also knows that such thing will happen again and again as Yoshi grows up, so he tried to prepare me for that.

Yoshi's fever now lasts two to three hours at 40 degrees, and the peak repeats every five to six hours. This is only the second day in the progress, still several days to go before he recovers from this virus infection and develops new immunity for it.

Toda Yasuhiro

A Japanese drummer who lives in Kaohsiung filmed this video to introduce the city he lives and works. Toda Yasuhiro fell in love with the city and married a Taiwanese girl. I lived in Kaohsiung for 18 years and although I rarely go back now, it's still a pride to see someone from another country cherishes my hometown.

Slander

Definition on Wikipedia:
(n) law, defamation (also called calumny, libel, slander, and vilification) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image. Slander refers to a malicious, false, and defamatory spoken statement or report, while libel refers to any other form of communication such as written words or images.

There are times when people accuse you something unreal, you have no way to clear your name. If that someone is one that is your closest one, you even have no one to talk to. That is how life is like--full of shit. What ever people said, heaven knows and time will tell.

Great HD VIdeo of 2009 Taipei 101 Fireworks

Found this great video of the 2009 fireworks show at TAipei 101, shot and edited by Alez Wu.


2009 Taipei101 Fireworks show @ Taiwan from Alex Wu on Vimeo.

Yoshi and iPhone 3G

Allie bought an iPhone 3G today. My son immediately said, "Mommy bring phone" as she enters the door. He knows how to wake the phone one and almost unlock it. If a boy less than two years old know how to use it, it must be a good design.

On the Public Letter from Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs more than a CEO to Apple and Mac fans. He is a legend, a religion, or even a god to many Mac fans. He is probably the best sales person in the technology world, and his keynote and demonstration is a million times better than Bill Gates. Therefore the health of Steve Jobs is a big concern to many investors, especially after his recovery from cancer and drastically losing weight last year. Before the first Macworld without Steve in more than a decade, Apple released a public letter explaining his health conditions. Here is the letter:

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause — a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.
Steve

Good and Bad

(picture from Nolita)

Welcome! New Year. There is always new hopes and plans in the beginning of a year, and this year seems really exciting.

First, the good news. My wife Allie is now three-months pregnant. The expected date of delivery is July 25, 2009. Next month we'll know if we are welcoming a male or female Leo. Allie's appetite is complete different this time. Sometimes she gets hungry very soon after a big meal, and sometimes she does not feel like eating anything. Every baby has its own preference.

As for bad news, Allie and I argue (or fight) very often in the past few weeks. Partly because of her work not going as smooth as she expected -which led to lots of pressure in our lives- and partly because of (I guess) unstable mood in pregnancy. Working in the same office is not easy, because there is inevitable conflict in the roles in our work and personal life.

Happy New Year

DSC00651, originally uploaded by rwcutter.

Just watched the fireworks with my son. He was sleepy but yet excited when watching the beautiful fireworks. He called his mom and grandma when he saw something exciting, seemed eager to share with others. I think he will remember this, especially when he sees the replays on TV over and over again tomorrow.

Happy new year to you, my friends!