I’m not talking about the edible kind, but more of the technology-related sort. Here’s an interesting look at how Lexar makes their memory cards and sticks from start to finish. Watching it reminded me of a late night in Chicago’s chinatown four years ago when Ray tried to explain how chips are made. He wasn’t very successful at explaining it, though he did have a few drinks that night. Now I finally know what he meant by wafers.
Someone sent me this youtube video today and it made me laugh at how true to life this is of the experience of being on a conference call. For anyone who’s attended conference calls with several attendees on the call, you will definitely relate to this video. There’s always people joining late, phantom beeps, dogs barking, people typing loudly or speaking in the background, babies crying — I’m sure you can add to this list.
In my opinion, a majority of these conference calls is a waste of time. Most of the time a short email can accomplish what is spent in a one hour conference call. That’s just my opinion. Speaking of which I better head to bed since I’ve got a 6 a.m. call in the morning — ick.
For JLC 4 we met up in L.A. this year and experienced the star studded city, although we didn’t see any celebrities besides the wax ones and hand and footprints of those left behind in cement at Grauman’s Chinese theater. It was quite spectacular to experience Halloween night on Santa Monica Boulevard with the thousands of people all decked out in lavish costumes that must have taken days if not months to prepare.
The night before Halloween we trekked all the way to Knott’s Scary Farm for some spooktacular night of fright. For $45 with the triple A discount, we wandered into a theme park with roller coasters that was transformed into one of horror. With thirteen individually themed haunted houses to choose from, there was no shortage of fun and terror. Throughout the park scary monsters, clowns with chainsaws and zombies roamed around scaring people left and right. It was usually funny to witness some girl screaming while being chased by one of them.
For more photos, check out my L.A. set on Flickr. By the way if you’re a Twitterer, you can follow me @michleephoto. I’m quite new to it so still trying to get the hang of it.
I’m currently working in Pune, India and will be here for three weeks. Since arriving on the 3rd, it’s been quite interesting to observe the people, culture and daily life here. I was looking forward to this trip though not the long journey to get here, which took about 28 hours and two long layovers in Hong Kong and Bangalore. Since the moment the hotel car came to pick me up at the airport, I was eager to see for myself what it is really like in India.
Pune is considered a small city when compared to Mumbai or New Delhi, though it’s population is about 3.4 million. It is a developing city with a growing number of IT development centers. But mostly it is a city of extreme contrasts. Driving past neighborhoods of tin shacks, I arrived at the Taj Blue Diamond, a rather posh hotel. Everywhere I go it’s quite common to see extreme poverty next to some swanky hotel, restaurant or shopping mall.
The traffic is very chaotic, but somehow people here know how to maneuver through it without getting hit. Four-wheelers and two-wheelers weave in and out of lanes while dodging pedestrians crossing the street in between vehicles and auto rickshaws that look like black beetles swarming the roadways. The bigger streets have lane markings though no one stays within them and the honking never ends.
I’ve taken a number of photos, but I’ve been quite busy so it’s been hard to find time to edit and post. However, I’ve finally been able to post some to my Flickr stream and I’ll also be posting to my photo blog that I’ve just launched.
I have an idea. And I’ve had it for quite some time. But the problem is I’m not sure who to share it with; more specifically, the person who can make it a reality. So I’m going to share my idea with you and I hope that you might find it to be a pretty darn good idea. Good enough that you’d help me share it with whomever you know and maybe, just maybe, the people you share it with will want to do the same. And eventually the hope is that this idea will reach the right person who can take it to the next level.
You may wonder why I can’t take this idea of mine and turn it into reality. The answer is simple really. I’m not a rocket scientist or an engineer, but I do have an idea and one that deserves consideration. Because the thought of having to ride in a saddle with only 23 inches between your seat and the one in front of you sounds terribly uncomfortable. Sitting in economy class is already a pain as it is and now it’ll really be a pain in the arse quite literally.
For some time now the airline industry has been cutting costs and tacking on fees to everything in order to increase profit margins. Charging for things we used to get for free like checking a bag, meals and pillow and blanket set. And those little bags of pretzels—no more! Now they want to introduce semi-standing seats. This is getting worse and I don’t see it going back to the way things used to be. Flying used to be fun. Not so much these days.
This is the reason why we need to totally reinvent the way we travel because the airline industry will continue to seek ways to make money and not in your best interest or anyone else who flies for that matter.
Perhaps you may have heard about the space elevator a few years ago and how they are working on making this become a reality. You might have thought this came out of a science fiction novel and actually it did. If it’s conceivable to take an elevator ride to space then shouldn’t it be possible to ride the elevator to a space pad which serves as a waiting station? Here passengers would get off the elevator and wait for the earth’s rotation until it reaches their desired location. They would then take the elevator back down to earth. These space pads could replace airports and include hotels, restaurants, spas, theaters and shopping malls to make it a pleasant waiting experience. And all without having to fly!
So if you’d rather take an elevator ride to space and wait for the earth to reach your destination than to possibly fly in a saddle seat in the near future, please share this idea with everyone you know. Hopefully someday not too long from now we’ll enjoy traveling again.
Yesterday I woke up with a foggy head, not because of alcohol, but from a week long work hangover or "workover." I describe it as working too much for your own good, especially when it's not so enjoyable. The past few weeks have been filled with long days at work because of having to meet a tight deadline. But what's made it not so fun are the unreasonable demands made by the client who is unable to manage stakeholders' expectations. As soon as I think that the hard part is over, it just doesn't end. Friday was the worst of all days since the start and believe me, my patience is wearing thin.
All of that tension is polluting the thoughts in my head and as a result I've got a workover. It's got me thinking about a lot of things lately because of it. Mainly how it's not worth spending my time doing something I don't enjoy. So I've decided to focus on what it is I do want to spend my time doing and figure out how I can begin to make those changes happen.
One of the things I feel I need to do is to begin de-cluttering my mind and my life. Getting rid of junk that's not being used will help me focus on what's important. Today I dropped off old computer equipment and electronics at a recycling center. It felt great to get rid of the clutter that had no value to me anymore.
I've also come across a few blogs that provide advice on simple living and how to work on your own terms. Rowdy Kittens is one such blog with a strange name, but has some great resources and links to other sites. The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau is another blog that provides advice on how to do what you love and travel the world at the same time. Chris' goal is to travel to every country in the world and has currently been to 125 of them. Illuminated Mind provides a free ebook called the Zero Hour Work Week, which explains how the author broke free from the 9-to-5 routine and started his own online business.
Some of the commonalities I'm noticing among these bloggers are:
- They earn income by writing on a topic that targets a specific group of people
- They make use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook to market their message and build a following
- They give away a lot of free advice, but also sell ebooks on their site to generate income
- They build relationships with other like-minded people in the online community and cross promote each other's work
These bloggers are producing some really great work that they're sharing with the world. I'm sure a lot of effort goes into generating the attention of the online community in order to build their business and I'd like to explore this idea. But some things I need to think about are:
- What do I want to produce and share
- How will I brand myself
- How do I market my content and create awareness and a following online
- How do I generate income from it
It's a lot to think about and leaves me with lots of homework to do so I better get crackin' if I want to spend my time enjoying what I do.
So yesterday when I decided to grab a quick bite to eat down the street at Crystal Mall, I noticed a lot of celebrating going on. Decorations were up in the plaza, eight roast pigs were neatly lined up on a table, dragon dance performances were being held, lettuce with red envelopes were hanging from the rafters and a photographer was on site to document all of it. Then I realized it must have been Mid-Autumn Festival, though it seemed quite early for it in the year. But we are in mid-August after all and Chinese holidays never fall exactly on the same dates every year in the Western calendar.
I kept thinking how I wished I had carried my dslr with me, but all I had was my camera phone so I followed the dragon dancers snapping photos and videos as they went from stall to stall performing their lettuce-eating dance. It wasn’t until I passed a table with two five-foot length sheet cakes with the words written on them celebrating the tenth anniversary of Crystal Mall that I realized the reason for the celebrations. So after confirming with a co-worker, Mid-Autumn Festival isn’t until mid-September actually. Oops! False alarm, hehe… but now I can be prepared for when it arrives so that I have my camera in hand.
