Colleges use Turnitin to turn away plagiarists - latimes.com
To me just a natural evolution. What I find useful is if you think your essay is a bit of retread, do a quick google search and if you find one similar (such as music is my life), may be change essay unless you you can prove that music really is your life and your not just another Asian Piano Prodigy. And yes, we bought a grand piano for my daughter. Colleges use Turnitin to turn away plagiarists - latimes.com
The other day I was listening to a local radio station that had discussion on Amazon. Quality of comment varied, even from the guest speakers from great, to clueless. Does Amazon want to burn the book business? KPCC
My thoughts (as a competitor, customer, and seller of Amazon):
As the Economist said, people love going to a physical book store, but they don't like buying there.
Amazon is like an Octopus with many legs. They are very innovative and agressive. They are pushing in all directions. Some failures, but a lot of successes.
Books are not being used a loss leader at Amazon.
Print on demand may chance the economics of book selling (Amazon is also big in this)
Amazon publishing - what do they have to lose?
The current book business of printing lots of books, where 40% of books is pulped is ripe for a revolution.
Amazon through the Kindle offers instant gratification. Very powerful force.
The closed formats of e-readers is frustrating.
If your a competitor of Amazon and your not worried, start worrying.
The buying experience online for a book is often much better than a physical bookstore. Reviews are a huge advantage for online sales
Amazing the super low margins Amazon has, and no sales tax!
Having to charge sales tax could have a huge negativer impact on Amazon, in CA almost 10% more to their price.
I have been a customer of Amazon since 1997, and its been interesting to watch how they have evolved. I started ChildBook in 1998. I still appreciate the two travel cups I got sent by Amazon back in 98 or 99. Unfortunately they were not dishwasher safe and finally got too damaged.
iPadded - The trade gap between America and China is much exaggerated
My eyes glaze over when I am confronted with too many numbers. The point was China has to import much of the material used in the iPad, and this is not taken into account with the China US trade deficit.
There are a few typical perspectives regarding children at weddings,
from the idea that weddings are family affairs to the idea that it's a
solemn occasion for adults. No matter what your position is, whether
you're the bride, groom, or guest, there are ways to compromise.
Bridal Concerns About Children
Brides and grooms who have concerns about children at weddings aren't
anti-child. They have planned this day meticulously for months, maybe
even years. Children can be a bit of a wild card when it comes to social
events, especially a lengthy, detailed wedding ceremony or at a
late-night cocktail reception.
Hiring a Babysitter
If you think that asking parents to leave children at home will create
tension within your family or friend circle, consider hiring a
babysitter if you have the budget. Many churches and reception halls
have areas set aside for children. Parents won't have to leave their
children at home and you won't have to worry about whether children
might be disruptive.
Including Children
If you have no qualms about having children at the wedding, there are a few things to keep in mind, from ideas to including children in the wedding to keeping them entertained during the ceremony or reception.
Young children may be bored. Supply coloring books, crayons and
other activities that might keep them amused for a few hours. This is a
good task to assign a bridesmaid or a reliable friend.
Young children might not appreciate wedding food. Prepare for
picky children and ask the catering company to offer substitute meals
for children.
Children get sleepy at long receptions. Request a few back to back
slow songs to give parents a nudge to take kids home. You might even
ask parents ahead of time to remove children by a certain time.
Consider adding roles for children in your wedding. Besides flower
girl and the ring bearer, kids can usher and distribute favors to
guests.
Ask the photographer to make a children's gallery of the kids in attendance.
Whether or not there should be kids at weddings is entirely up to the
bride and groom. If they decide they would rather not invite children,
please respect their wishes. Just as the couple has the choice on who to
invite, the guests can choose whether or not to attend. Couples should
understand when guests decline due to the no child policy, and guests
should decline with no hard feelings if they feel they can't attend.
Must-see Chinese TV becoming a snooze - LA Times New censorship rules are driving viewers away from the hours-long New Year's Gala, long a staple of the Chinese holiday.
Megauploader got taken down by the US Government over the weekend. I understand the piracy issue and that nexus (US Law has jurisdiction) is assumed, since megauploader had servers in Virginia.
But there were some legitimate users who all of their material has now disappeared (their property), I find this worrisome.
I am surprised how the tarrifs on Chinese tires has not worked. Other countries have stepped into the low quality market to take the place of the Chines tires. What I expected was US prices just to go up, hurting the consumer. At least there was not a trade war! I was worried about one between the US and China. Get-Tough Policy on Chinese Tires Falls Flat - WSJ
Per a study in Maylasia, there are at least 3 different ways different ethnic groups recognize people. Malaysian's is the left, Caucasian the middle, and mainland Chinese/Japanese to the left.
Interesting...
Only 15,000 of the 400,000 Chinese American live in the LA Chinatown.
And yes, I know, what is the definition of a Chinese American? Does this include overseas Chinese, such as some friends who's family was in Taiwan, moved to Costa Rica, and then the US?
Population in Chinatown Shrinks - NBC So CA The Los Angeles metropolitan area is home to the nation's largest Asian-American population, but now more and more Asian-Americans are leaving the traditional Chinatown area to move to the suburbs.
I would also guess part of the reason is the suburbs are a lot nicer and safer than Chinatown at night. When I was down there a few weeks ago, almost everything was closed at night. I go to Monterey Park, and there is so much that is open and I feel safe walking at night.
This quote captures why Apple at this time does not build the iPhone in the US: Apple executives believe there simply aren’t enough American workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility.
I feel a huge amount of empathy for Mr. Saragoza, an Engineer (same degree as me, except from Cal Poly SLO, where I went to Pomona), who worked for Apple in the US, who got laid off off after Apple closed their manufacturing plant in the US and spent a lot of time job hunting, till becoming an electornics instructor at a local community college (the article was a bit mis-leading on his status, I googled him).
This is the week where China goes on vacation, also called Golden Week.
Good article to read, especially how reducing the amount of scalping is both positive and negative. For the elderly and those with out Internet access, its a negative.
An old article I thought I had blogged about from 2007 for budget vacations, travel, tours to China, but I guess not. I just spent a bit of time looking for this (I am researching different vacation options).
Internet users in China speak admiringly of the public rebellion against anti-piracy bills in Congress. Such a display would be nearly impossible in China.
My 2 cents, something like this would terrify the Chinese leadership, and would get a huge reaction, as Falun Gong did after their demonstration that occured with no warning with 10,000 people outside the governments compound. The result was a huge crack down within China on Falun Gong.
Something similar did happen, but at an individual level with the green dam software that was supposed to go on all PC's in China to help morality, got killed.
I am in a state of shock on how expensive the textbooks are for my daughter's college classes. One of them was $190! And unfortunately I am not able to get the wholesale price :-( My supplier had it available with a +5% discount (translation, we are not making money on this, so we charge you our cost plus 5%).
Apple is fixing the price of iPad textbooks at $14.95, which is a game change. I hope more content moves over to the iPad, even if that means I will need to buy one for my daughter (iPad 3 is coming in March per rumors).
My daughter asked me last night why are so many sites going dark? I then explained it was due to SOPA, and she asked me what SOPA was.
Basically its being backed by the Movie Studios as a way to protect their existing business. And the entertainment business has a history of fighting innovation and has done an A+ job of lobbying congress to help them out. An example of past hyperbole was video recorders are going to kill the movie industry. SOPA would make a lot of activity illegal in the US and allow the easy take downs of sites, possible for even only sharing links there goes twitter if it passes).
The blog post, why the Movie Industry can't innovate is a must read!
Higher numbers of out-of-state, foreign students apply to UC
UC's are a great deal, and they are admitting more non California residents to help their budgets. As a California resident, I am not very happy about this.
It's over!
Oops, sorry to all those Blue and Green supporters out there, that is not the right response.
Lots of Green and Blue supports scheduled their vacation so they could fly back to Taiwan and vote. Taiwan does not allow overseas absentee voting as the US does (with possible corruption issues - this is a hot topic).
My Take:
The Green Presidential candidate did very well
Overall voters cared more about the economy (translation - keep nice relations with China, especially economically).
10% of Taiwan's population works in China, and they voted more blue.
Taiwan's economy is struggling
The Blue and Green party are not moderate (doomsayers on both sides).
Taiwan is not going to become part of China as a result of the election
President Ma was elected with a narrow victory
US favored President Ma due to the perceived danger China relations being stirred up by the election of the Green Party candidate
China's tourists in Taiwan were told to stay in their hotel rooms the day of the Taiwan election.
Good question - the census asks what language do you speak at home? 20% say a language other than English. The challenge is many only speak English at home, but may be fluent in another language and use it at work and such.
I noticed last week when I was picking my daughter up from Union Station in LA around 8PM, how Chinatown except for some restaurants was closed down. And when I talk to shop keepers there, they are all complaining about how bad business is. Just south of Little Tokyo there was a huge amount of homeless. Her train was late, so we walked around Little Tokyo that had some stores open. When I was growing up, Chinatown was open at night. What a change!
On Saturday night, 150 of the richest and most influential people in Shanghai gathered to attend the first-ever debutante ball to be staged in China. But the stars of the evening were ten British debs flown in specifically for the party, along with two Chinese girls from Hong Kong and Taiwan and one Pole.
Note how one of the invitees is related to the current mayor of Taipei.
China is becoming a very tierred society, with the super rich, and emerging middle class, and many who are still poor. With the economic challenges in China, I am surprised this went ahead.
We do a lot of USPS shipping, so any price increase is always a worry. What I usually do is wait to the changes go into affect, and then adjust my charges after - hmm, losing too much money on shipping, need to increase shipping charge by a little to make it break even again :-)
Per this blog post from stamps.com, the main impact seems to be on Foreign Shipping which translates as about 10%, priority mail is 3.1%, and I am not seeing Media Mail I try very hard to keep our charges for shipping as close to the actual cost as possible.
Pvt. Danny Chen, 1992–2011 - New York Magazin
He was 19 years old, a scrawny six-four, and wanted nothing more than to join the Army. Just like so many other young men. But very few from Chinatown.
Asian Americans lose as California schools pursue Chinese students
The public colleges in CA have major issues, so they are hungry for more out of state, and even country students. Easy source of money to make up for the budget cuts. My daughter is trying to add classes at a CA public college and she is having a horrible time getting the classes she wants. And since UC's use essays and soft measurements for 50% of their acceptance criteria, I am not surprised that Asian American students are being accepted at lower rates. What I heard was 2011 was the worst year yet for college acceptances per a college councilor I know. And the acceptances did not make sense (a student got into UC Berkeley, but rejected by UCSD?).
Very insightful article that captures both American culture, as well as China's leadership reading of what lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union through the US policy of containment. The Chinese leadership view is the US has a similar containment policy towards China through moderation, that was used so successfully against the Soviet Union. China Feeling Hemmed In - Via Media
China plans to have a man on the moon, as well as their own space station per their latest 5 year plan for Space. The US space policy seems to be going no where, with the exception of the work that is being done privately in the US that is very exciting.
China has also just launched their own GPS satellite navigation system, which will be completed by 2020. They need 35 satellites for complete world coverage, and currently have launched 10, and will launch 6 more in 2011.
Kids who grew up here and went to college, are moving to the suburbs (like Flushing).
Chinatowns continue to attract more recent immigrants.
I question how many residents of Chinatown are "Sea Turtles"
Cost in the Chinatowns is making them less attractive for living.
Suburban Chinatowns offer jobs and services which traditionally were only found in the urban Chinatowns. I live in Rowland Heights, a surburban Chinatown with my in-laws, and we rarely visit the LA Chinatown. Our Chinese restaurants are as good, or better than anything in Chinatown. We have 5 Chinese supermarkets within 2 miles of my house. And its a nicer place to live and do business.
I know some deep green types, and I have not heard this. But, I avoid talking Taiwan politics with either deep blue or green types to avoid arguments and this Taiwan election I have not been keeping up to date on who's running and the politics. A quick read on the election from Wikipedia - Republic of China presidential election, 2012
The accusation is since the US may in the near future allow travel from Taiwan to the US without Visas, this is favoring the ruling party in the upcoming Presidential election.
Unfortunately I never stopped by there, and now it's too late. The great culling of physical bookstores I find sad. From Zen to now: After 40 years, Bodhi Tree Bookstore is closing- LA Times The cozy store on Melrose Avenue — with its incense, herbal teas and portraits of sages on the walls — has served as a spiritual mecca for seekers of all persuasions, including Jerry Brown, Ringo Starr and Shirley MacLaine. Its owners hope it can be reborn at a different location.
Amazing, China did DNA testing on a family in Kenya that per oral history was decended from the crew of Admiral Zheng He and had Chinese features, and the testing validated this. China is sending an archaelogist expedition to see if they can find the remains of some Chinese ships from his fleet that sank there. Admiral Zheng He may have also reached California. Chinese archaeologists' African quest for sunken ship of Ming admiral - The Guardian
Search for remains of armada which came to grief on a pioneering voyage to Kenya 600 years ago
Good read on the Digital habits of Beijing vs. Palo Alto, both representing some of the best schools in their countries.
I am surprised at how popular Apple is in Palo Alto, compared to Beijing. For Chinese, the Apple system is easier to use. Its great you can write characters on the touch pad, instead of having to type them. But, there is a major price difference in China between Apple and PC's, more so than in the US.
I am also surprised at the high tablet usage (iPad) in Beijing in the sample, much higher than Palo Alto. May be because of the portability?
