For those of you who read this blog, I've decided to start a cleaner, more professional version of this personal blog. Please find me at joycelai.org
I always appreciate your thought and comments. Let me know what you think!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Stuff White People Like, the interview
Christian Lander is the writer of the blog, stuffwhitepeoplelike.com.
Here is his interview on abebooks.comHe wants to be a comedy writer when he grows up. Definitely sounds like something he would like.
I love this guy!
Saturday, May 16, 2009
It's official: IMEEM ap > Pandora ap
Since downloading the IMEEM ap, I have not used Pandora once. Not to say that I will never use Pandora again, but IMEEM certain has more of what I am looking for in an "internet radio" mobile application.
The most important reason is that IMEEM offers international music. Back in Pandora, my stations consisted of Leona Lewis, Diana Krall, John Mayer, some station named Smooth and another station called Chopin. (there are a few others and I can't remember what they are). On IMEEM, not only do I get to listen to those international super stars, I also get to listen to Stephy Tang, Jackie Cheung and Utada Hikaru. It only makes sense that the music selection be international. You get a bigger market share and more sources of ad revenue. I don't know how international music copy right laws work, but I give IMEEM mad props for figuring it out and letting me listen to Apple and Cinnamon (it's a great song, see the posts below...).
IMEEM is also more of a community. Pandora allowed me to share station my friends. But honestly, it was way too complicated and I never used it anyway. IMEEM let me view other's (not limited to people I know) play lists much more easily. I also get to visit artists's own pages. Which is brilliant because I get to see what events they have coming up. This of course, is on internet, and not on my phone. Which leads me to another point: it allows me to more seamlessly transfer my efforts of "favorting" songs and getting more value for it when i'm online away from my phone.
IMEEM has been so far so good for me. I'd love to hear what you think about it!
The most important reason is that IMEEM offers international music. Back in Pandora, my stations consisted of Leona Lewis, Diana Krall, John Mayer, some station named Smooth and another station called Chopin. (there are a few others and I can't remember what they are). On IMEEM, not only do I get to listen to those international super stars, I also get to listen to Stephy Tang, Jackie Cheung and Utada Hikaru. It only makes sense that the music selection be international. You get a bigger market share and more sources of ad revenue. I don't know how international music copy right laws work, but I give IMEEM mad props for figuring it out and letting me listen to Apple and Cinnamon (it's a great song, see the posts below...).
IMEEM is also more of a community. Pandora allowed me to share station my friends. But honestly, it was way too complicated and I never used it anyway. IMEEM let me view other's (not limited to people I know) play lists much more easily. I also get to visit artists's own pages. Which is brilliant because I get to see what events they have coming up. This of course, is on internet, and not on my phone. Which leads me to another point: it allows me to more seamlessly transfer my efforts of "favorting" songs and getting more value for it when i'm online away from my phone.
IMEEM has been so far so good for me. I'd love to hear what you think about it!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Pandora VS. Imeem on the iPhone...hmm...
Wow imeem has an iphone ap! Very excited about this. Pandora has been heaven sent. But when on a laptop, I actually prefer imeem. Since I don't drive anymore (no more radio), I never get to hear new music. Imeem helps me discover new music, something that Pandora doesn't do for me.
More importantly, imeem has international music! I speak more than one language; of course I want to listen to songs in more than one language. Props to imeem for that.
I am very thrilled to to have imeem right in my pocket, as far as 3G can take me. Let me experiment with this for about a week and let's see which one I like more.
More importantly, imeem has international music! I speak more than one language; of course I want to listen to songs in more than one language. Props to imeem for that.
I am very thrilled to to have imeem right in my pocket, as far as 3G can take me. Let me experiment with this for about a week and let's see which one I like more.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Montreal
I've been seeing Canadian tourism ads all over the city lately. Outside of ads, I've been hearing many good things about Montreal. It's only an hour's flight from NYC. It feels like Europe. There is great food and I'm sure it's not as crowded as the city.
A New York Times article is making me like it even more. It's adopting the bike sharing system. Just look at these shiny two-wheeled things. I want to ride one! It reminds me of my earlier UC Davis days. Just don't do what my roommate Sarah did, talk on the phone and ride at the same time and coming home with crazy scratches on her side.
Not sure if this would work in the Big Apple. I don't see where there is room for bike lanes. And without bike lanes, there is no way that I would risk getting slaughtered by crazy yellow cabs.
After Hong Kong in August, perhaps I will consider taking a short weekend trip to Montreal to see for myself.
A New York Times article is making me like it even more. It's adopting the bike sharing system. Just look at these shiny two-wheeled things. I want to ride one! It reminds me of my earlier UC Davis days. Just don't do what my roommate Sarah did, talk on the phone and ride at the same time and coming home with crazy scratches on her side.
Not sure if this would work in the Big Apple. I don't see where there is room for bike lanes. And without bike lanes, there is no way that I would risk getting slaughtered by crazy yellow cabs.
After Hong Kong in August, perhaps I will consider taking a short weekend trip to Montreal to see for myself.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
My name is...
A name should be a person's point of reference to everyone else in the world. It is the one fact that everyone else should be able to agree on about you. I wish things were this simple for myself.
Born in Hong Kong, I have my Chinese name: Lai Lok Yi. But since Hong Kong was a British Colony, my parents have also given me the unofficial name of Joyce since I was a small child. Immigrating to the US required filling out forms with the format: first name, middle name and last name. Therefore, my actual first name "Lok Yi" got separated into Lok being my first name and Yi being my middle name. Lai now has to go after Lok Yi since English places the last name last.
Because Yi is now my middle name, it is permanently dropped in all casual contexts in English. I am now Lok Lai. Having a exactly three letters in both first and last name in a conspicuously foreign format certainly adds to the problem. Is Lok a she, or is Lok a he? The only thing that someone can deduce from my name is that A: this person can be a female who doesn't look like Britney Spears or B: this person is a male who does not look like Joe Biden.
Oh don't get me wrong. I love my name. It means Joy and Harmony. Lok means joy and Yi means harmony. What more can I ask for?
What does bother me is that I cannot effectively use my name in the US. I use Joyce because it is easier for others. Hopefully one day I'll find a solution to this life long dilemma.
Born in Hong Kong, I have my Chinese name: Lai Lok Yi. But since Hong Kong was a British Colony, my parents have also given me the unofficial name of Joyce since I was a small child. Immigrating to the US required filling out forms with the format: first name, middle name and last name. Therefore, my actual first name "Lok Yi" got separated into Lok being my first name and Yi being my middle name. Lai now has to go after Lok Yi since English places the last name last.
Because Yi is now my middle name, it is permanently dropped in all casual contexts in English. I am now Lok Lai. Having a exactly three letters in both first and last name in a conspicuously foreign format certainly adds to the problem. Is Lok a she, or is Lok a he? The only thing that someone can deduce from my name is that A: this person can be a female who doesn't look like Britney Spears or B: this person is a male who does not look like Joe Biden.
Oh don't get me wrong. I love my name. It means Joy and Harmony. Lok means joy and Yi means harmony. What more can I ask for?
What does bother me is that I cannot effectively use my name in the US. I use Joyce because it is easier for others. Hopefully one day I'll find a solution to this life long dilemma.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Learn to speed read...
http://www.eyercize.com
If there is one thing that I wish I did when I was a little girl, it would be reading more. I have been reading as much as I can these past couple of years. I have become faster at it, but not fast enough. I found this great website that helps you practice speed reading. It has been really great so far and you should try it too!
If there is one thing that I wish I did when I was a little girl, it would be reading more. I have been reading as much as I can these past couple of years. I have become faster at it, but not fast enough. I found this great website that helps you practice speed reading. It has been really great so far and you should try it too!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
IM Two God for Scool.
A Sharpie marker and time to spare can often be a the perfect recipe for a little vandalism. Some graffiti are clever, while others are just plain stupid, some are even inspirational. This poster that I saw while waiting for the F train at Grand Street had a combination of all three.
In case it's hard to read, this says, "If we can send a ship to Mars and make it stay there for 5 years, why can't we build the Twin Towers?"
This person has a great point. Ground zero still looks pretty much the same as it did several years ago.
I have no comment for the following:
Although inspirational, this one confused me a little. Isn't fate something that is beyond my control?
Finally, one that put a smile on my face. =)
In case it's hard to read, this says, "If we can send a ship to Mars and make it stay there for 5 years, why can't we build the Twin Towers?"This person has a great point. Ground zero still looks pretty much the same as it did several years ago.
I have no comment for the following:
Although inspirational, this one confused me a little. Isn't fate something that is beyond my control?
Finally, one that put a smile on my face. =)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Atlas Shrugged: in Buffett's words
"Though Berkshire's credit is pristine- we are one of only seven AAA corporations in the country- our cost of borrowing is now far higher than competitors with shaky balance sheets but government backing. At the moment, it is much better to be a financial cripple with a government guarantee than a Gibraltar without one."
Berkshire's 2008 Letter to shareholders, page 12.
Berkshire's 2008 Letter to shareholders, page 12.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Can I trust you with my secrets? The case of the electronic medical records.
My good friend Stephen Cheung, who is a MHA student at USC, often shares with me his thoughts and other interesting articles regarding healthcare.
The most recent one he sent me was this article arguing the importance of establishing a electronic medical record system. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/24/EDDK1641AH.DTL
I cannot agree more. Eliminating redundancies, increased accuracy, cost savings, timely access to information and ease of sharing information are all qualities that data bases want to have when they grow up. But the question of how to align the data agency with the proper incentives comes to my mind.
Health information is extremely sensitive information (In an extreme example, Steve Jobs' health). I want my individual dentist, my doctor and nurses to have access to my health information. I want them to know everything and to be able to do so quickly. I trust that they want my information to ensure the most effective treatment. I trust that they will keep my information confidential after they use what they need. Their license depends on it. I trust that they would act in an ethical manner because frankly, getting sued and losing your license over not keeping your mouth shut is just silly.
I am also comfortable with medical institutions, such as Kaiser Permanente, keeping detailed electronic records of my medical history. I trust that they are using the information primarily for the purpose of making their process more efficient and cost effective. As a patient, I would directly benefit from that. Since their primary business is providing medical services, I do not see an incentive for them to use the data in other ways.
Notice that the two types of people/organization I mentioned above have a primary function of providing medical care. On the other hand, if there existed a company whose only job was to collect data, without providing any medical service, I would have to think twice before allowing them full access to such sensitive information.
If a company's sole purpose is to keep data, then their revenue must be directly related to the usage of this data. In other words, selling it to whoever is willing to pay for it. This poses many ethical issues as to who can buy this information. It is not to say that the company shouldn't have the right to sell this data that they have worked so hard to gather. If it is their business model and they are providing a service, then they should have a right to profit from it. But knowing that their incentive is such makes me uncomfortable. And that alone is enough to make me think that perhaps we need to consider the consequences more thoroughly before throwing out all the manila folders.
To create one central electronic medical records system, it seems that there must be an independent company that works exclusive of the medical institutions. The question becomes how to create an entity with the proper economic incentives motivating them to ethically keep our medical information.
The most recent one he sent me was this article arguing the importance of establishing a electronic medical record system. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/24/EDDK1641AH.DTL
I cannot agree more. Eliminating redundancies, increased accuracy, cost savings, timely access to information and ease of sharing information are all qualities that data bases want to have when they grow up. But the question of how to align the data agency with the proper incentives comes to my mind.
Health information is extremely sensitive information (In an extreme example, Steve Jobs' health). I want my individual dentist, my doctor and nurses to have access to my health information. I want them to know everything and to be able to do so quickly. I trust that they want my information to ensure the most effective treatment. I trust that they will keep my information confidential after they use what they need. Their license depends on it. I trust that they would act in an ethical manner because frankly, getting sued and losing your license over not keeping your mouth shut is just silly.
I am also comfortable with medical institutions, such as Kaiser Permanente, keeping detailed electronic records of my medical history. I trust that they are using the information primarily for the purpose of making their process more efficient and cost effective. As a patient, I would directly benefit from that. Since their primary business is providing medical services, I do not see an incentive for them to use the data in other ways.
Notice that the two types of people/organization I mentioned above have a primary function of providing medical care. On the other hand, if there existed a company whose only job was to collect data, without providing any medical service, I would have to think twice before allowing them full access to such sensitive information.
If a company's sole purpose is to keep data, then their revenue must be directly related to the usage of this data. In other words, selling it to whoever is willing to pay for it. This poses many ethical issues as to who can buy this information. It is not to say that the company shouldn't have the right to sell this data that they have worked so hard to gather. If it is their business model and they are providing a service, then they should have a right to profit from it. But knowing that their incentive is such makes me uncomfortable. And that alone is enough to make me think that perhaps we need to consider the consequences more thoroughly before throwing out all the manila folders.
To create one central electronic medical records system, it seems that there must be an independent company that works exclusive of the medical institutions. The question becomes how to create an entity with the proper economic incentives motivating them to ethically keep our medical information.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Gazillion, Jizillion, infinity...
In kindergarten, we learned to count on our 10 fingers. To my amazement, someone showed me that you can easily count to 24 with just eight of your fingers. Using your thumb as the pointer, point to each segment of your other fingers. Assuming that you're genetically normal and can use a knife properly, you can count to 24 just like that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/business/economy/11bailout.html?_r=1&ref=business
But lately, that does not seem to be enough. Everything in the news lately involve enormous numbers. A 2.5 trillion dollar bailout? A 100 billion Zimbwabwe currency bill? This is what 2.5 Trillion looks like when written out: 2,500,000,000,000. Do zeros even mean anything anymore? (Probably not. But at least they remind me of bubbles and bubbles make me happy.) Perhaps Steve Jobs is a visionary and therefore saw this coming. The calculator on my iPhone turns into a graphic calculator when turned sideways. With these types of numbers, we definitely need a calculator to do the math.
Let me take out my Ti-83 real quick.
A simple Google search of "US GDP" tells me that the US GDP is currently 13.84 Trillion. Google also tells me that the current US population is 303,824,640. If the 2.5 Trillion dollar bailout was split equally amongst the current US population of 303,824,640, everyone will receive exactly $8228.43.
To put it into a different perspective, the IRS tax man is forcing us to pay $8,228.43, EACH PERSON, for this so called bailout. My tuition at UC Davis per year was about $8,500. I can buy one cup of coffee everyday from my favorite coffee man on 19th street for another 22 and a half years.
I have an idea. Since the news paper industry is having such a hard time finding people to buy their printed news papers, they should forget the news paper idea all together. They should use their printers to print dollar bills. I mean, Geithner just put in an order of 2.5 Trillion of them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/business/economy/11bailout.html?_r=1&ref=business
But lately, that does not seem to be enough. Everything in the news lately involve enormous numbers. A 2.5 trillion dollar bailout? A 100 billion Zimbwabwe currency bill? This is what 2.5 Trillion looks like when written out: 2,500,000,000,000. Do zeros even mean anything anymore? (Probably not. But at least they remind me of bubbles and bubbles make me happy.) Perhaps Steve Jobs is a visionary and therefore saw this coming. The calculator on my iPhone turns into a graphic calculator when turned sideways. With these types of numbers, we definitely need a calculator to do the math.
Let me take out my Ti-83 real quick.
A simple Google search of "US GDP" tells me that the US GDP is currently 13.84 Trillion. Google also tells me that the current US population is 303,824,640. If the 2.5 Trillion dollar bailout was split equally amongst the current US population of 303,824,640, everyone will receive exactly $8228.43.
To put it into a different perspective, the IRS tax man is forcing us to pay $8,228.43, EACH PERSON, for this so called bailout. My tuition at UC Davis per year was about $8,500. I can buy one cup of coffee everyday from my favorite coffee man on 19th street for another 22 and a half years.
I have an idea. Since the news paper industry is having such a hard time finding people to buy their printed news papers, they should forget the news paper idea all together. They should use their printers to print dollar bills. I mean, Geithner just put in an order of 2.5 Trillion of them.
Monday, February 2, 2009
His Awesome Column
Subscribing to Time Magazine has gotten me hooked on Joel Stein. Perhaps writing about my latest fad will help myself understand why I like him so much (My last fad was nail polish and granola. Neither of which I understood why I randomly began to like).
Well first off, he doesn't take himself very seriously. Being able to poke fun at yourself is important at staying sane in this insane world. So I'm assuming that he is a very sane person... But that doesn't seem to be the only reason that I like him. Because after all, when he's not busy poking fun at himself, he does seem to be busy being narcissistic. How so you may ask? First, he convinced the editors at Time Mag to title his column "The Awesome Column." At his website, www.thejoelstein.com, he plainly acknowledges that the guy behind him is probably "gay for him." But self confidence is good. America society did not raise their citizens to be humble. At least he doesn't have a drinking glass crusted with jewels or a pinky ring so big that his hand won't fit into his purse.
Or maybe he's over compensating for the fact that there is another Joel Stein (a musician) who is also famous. Not only is there is another Joel Stein who is famous, this other Joel Stein also beat him to the domain of www.joelstein.com. I feel your pain Mr. Writer Joel Stein. Some @sshole beat me to www.joycelai.com and they're not even using it. Too bad we're both clever enough to add "the" in front of our names to bypass this problem. I refuse to pay more than $10 a year to register my domain name, shoot.
So if you have the time, check out this guy's columns ( http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?N=0&Ntk=NoBody&Nty=1&Nr=OR(p_record_type%3AArticle%2Cp_record_type%3Ablog%2Cp_record_type%3AOther)&Ntt=joel+stein&x=0&y=0&srchCat=Full+Archive ). I hope you'll enjoy the dry humor that he has. But don't forget to check back on this blog often as well!
Well first off, he doesn't take himself very seriously. Being able to poke fun at yourself is important at staying sane in this insane world. So I'm assuming that he is a very sane person... But that doesn't seem to be the only reason that I like him. Because after all, when he's not busy poking fun at himself, he does seem to be busy being narcissistic. How so you may ask? First, he convinced the editors at Time Mag to title his column "The Awesome Column." At his website, www.thejoelstein.com, he plainly acknowledges that the guy behind him is probably "gay for him." But self confidence is good. America society did not raise their citizens to be humble. At least he doesn't have a drinking glass crusted with jewels or a pinky ring so big that his hand won't fit into his purse.
Or maybe he's over compensating for the fact that there is another Joel Stein (a musician) who is also famous. Not only is there is another Joel Stein who is famous, this other Joel Stein also beat him to the domain of www.joelstein.com. I feel your pain Mr. Writer Joel Stein. Some @sshole beat me to www.joycelai.com and they're not even using it. Too bad we're both clever enough to add "the" in front of our names to bypass this problem. I refuse to pay more than $10 a year to register my domain name, shoot.
So if you have the time, check out this guy's columns ( http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?N=0&Ntk=NoBody&Nty=1&Nr=OR(p_record_type%3AArticle%2Cp_record_type%3Ablog%2Cp_record_type%3AOther)&Ntt=joel+stein&x=0&y=0&srchCat=Full+Archive ). I hope you'll enjoy the dry humor that he has. But don't forget to check back on this blog often as well!
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