New quote

I’ve added a new entry to quotes I love.

Robert McNamara Dies at 93

I learned a lot from reading this Washington Post article, and this following quote near the end caught my eyes.

“I’m not wealthy, but I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do, and I decided not to do anything that doesn’t meet two criteria: expand my understanding of the world, and allow me to apply whatever understanding I have in some productive way.” – Robert McNamara

News of the death of McNamara at TIME, NEWSWEEK, Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Guardian, Reuters, AP.

Here is Errol Morris’ documentary “The fog of war: Eleven lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara“. (you can probably find the rest of the documentary online)

Have a listen to NPR interviewing Morris about McNamara and the “The Fog of War“.

Lunch Etiquette?

Are there any precedence that might have raised any concerns over comments and conducts by previous Warren Buffett charity lunch winners? I just hope my suspicious is wrong here as there is probably no way to impose any “lunch etiquette”. Hmmm …

Warren Buffett Lunch Winner: I Won’t Profit From Stock Tip Windfall’

P.S. Here is something less serious and more fun. Warren selling mattress at Nebraska Furniture Mart.

[via CNBC]

Ambassador to lead MI6 & his “Facebook Controversy”

John Sawers, British ambassador to the United Nations, will soon to be the chief of MI6 (UK Secret Intelligence Service). Sawers is in a “Facebook Controversy” at the moment as reported here, here, here, and here.

While I don’t know exactly when, but the day that these so-called “facebook controversies” becoming “non-news” will come.

P.S. People who honestly think that ambassadors to the United Nations don’t get fully profiled by friendly and unfriendly countries are much more naive that I can imagine.

green thumbs at greengate of heaven

Last week, I discovered (to my horror) that some insects were eating our roses and rose buds! Our neighbour gave us some tips and suggested we visit greengate garden centres in South West Calgary to see what the experts may suggest to solve our problem.

When we got to greengate, we were amazed by the many beautiful flowers and plants. greengate looks like a heaven for green thumbs! (see more flowers and plants at the end of this blog entry)

And when I asked a staff for help, she suggested we talk to Troy, one of their rose experts. Upon seeing pictures of the bugs that were eating our roses, Troy immediately identified that they are Rose curculio (also here and here). Tory then suggested a things we need to do to try to handle the bugs, without using chemicals and even without buying anything from the store! (see these pages) Troy suggested hopefully those methods should work and we can check with him again if our problems get much worst and he has other things we can try.

Before we left, we saw a copy of gardensense, a 100+ pages booklet full of good flowers and plants information published by greengate, and a friendly and helpful staff got us a copy to bring home. To gardeners, gardensense has many useful information and I am happy that I asked for and got a copy.

I don’t put ads on my blog. But when a store does thing right like greengate, I am happy to blog about how great they are. Free of charge! If you live it Calgary and love flowers and plants, visit greengate and check them out.

Is the future free?

Chris Anderson, Wired editor-in-chief, has written a new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price”.

Here is an excerpt of Malcolm Gladwell’s insightful book review (emphasis added),

The only problem is that in the middle of laying out what he sees as the new business model of the digital age Anderson is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, YouTube, “has so far failed to make any money for Google.”

Why is that? Because of the very principles of Free that Anderson so energetically celebrates. When you let people upload and download as many videos as they want, lots of them will take you up on the offer. That’s the magic of Free psychology: an estimated seventy-five billion videos will be served up by YouTube this year. Although the magic of Free technology means that the cost of serving up each video is “close enough to free to round down,” “close enough to free” multiplied by seventy-five billion is still a very large number. A recent report by Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube’s bandwidth costs in 2009 will be three hundred and sixty million dollars. In the case of YouTube, the effects of technological Free and psychological Free work against each other.

Dirty Tory ad

Does the political gain from using dirty political ad justify the deliberate distortion of honest disagreement?

Because of Bloc Québécois’Quebec centric outlook, I will not agree with the Bloc much. At the same time, it is unfair to accuse the Bloc of “protecting child traffickers” when they disagree with the principle of minimum sentences, which the Bloc thinks interferes with judges discretions.

To me, a difference in judicial philosophies is an honest disagreement. A dirty political ad exposes what these “Honourable” and “Right Honourable” politicians are made of.

Tone of everyday

A very cute and creatively shot music video made with the help of may fans.

[HT 周游]

Counter Ban for Park Shin Yang

I can’t believe the international campaign “Counter Ban for Park Shin Yang” to try to reverse the lifetime acting ban of the Korean actor Park Shin Yang is in its seventh month already.

Please consider joining in the July email campaign to help Mr. Park.

Steven Chu talks Energy Research @ MIT

Steven Chu talks Energy Research @ MIT

China plays by Teck’s rules

Three blog entries by Globe and Mail Andrew Willis on China Investment Corp.’s (CIC) $1.7b investment in Tech.

• China plays by Teck’s rules
• How a Chinese fund met Teck (nice background)
• Teck financing wins fans

P.S. It is a nice way for China to spend some of its massive reserve. With insights expressed in this blog entry “压低人民币汇率等于供养美国“, I think my friend Zhaofeng may agree.

Rebranding America

PAPER magazine posted a challenge to a group of “fearless creative communicators” to rebrand America. Check out the article and wonderful designs (and the creators’ notes).

I have selected four of my personal favourites and reposted them here. They are all clean and get their messages across beautifully.

[HT: Kevin Roberts]

Let there be light – GE Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

I love battery technologies, light is another one.

[via GE report]

Google PageRank sculpting

Matt Cutts on “Google PageRank sculpting“.

Brett’s Garden Party: 777 Run for Sight, Canadian Tenors, and the beautiful Sarah McLachlan

Last week, I had had the pleasure of attending Brett Wilson’s yearly charity Garden Party. Each year, party guests are invited to make a donation to a featured charity. And this year over $100,000 was raised to fight blindness through 777 Run for Sight where Norma Bastidas is “running 7 ultramarathons [over 100 km each] in 7 continents in 7 months to raise funds for the blind and the visually impaired.” (see my earlier blog entry here)

It was very enjoyable listening to The Canadian Tenors performing at the party. And the highlight of the party for my better half and me had to be listening to the beautiful and accomplished Sarah McLachlan performing with the Tenors (singing Tenors’ Hallelujah) and then performing a few solos. Sarah’s performances were just beautiful and wonderful for us as it was our first live & really up close performance by Sarah!

Now, I first met Brett and Sarah at the 2009 Banff World TV Festival award ceremony where I also interviewed Brett.

So to me, Sarah & Brett seems to be more than just friends, but then only they really know!  :) :) In person, Brett & Sarah are just super nice and very friendly people. I think it is in part of our Canadian DNA to be nice and friendly. :)

P.S. The following are better quality videos [recorded elsewhere] of the songs we had the pleasure to listen to at the party that evening. Enjoy.

YouTube Reporters’ Center

With so many non-j-school-trained-reporters reporting, this sounds like interesting.

$2.1 million Warren Buffett lunch

A Hong Kong based hedge fund manager paid $2.1 million for a lunch with Warren. Some of the questions he asked, he could have found out from reading Alice’s biography about Warren “The Snowball“.

Million dollar Netflix Prize Winning lessons …

The Prize is a million dollar. The challenge can be simply stated.

“The Netflix Prize seeks to substantially improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to love a movie based on their movie preferences. Improve it enough and you win one (or more) Prizes.”

Check out this page for links to the international coalition of four teams that first broke “the 10% barrier and sets off a 30 day period where all competitors are invited to submit their best and final solutions.“

See coverage of this breakthrough in NYT and Wired.

Quoting the official Prize forum,

In accord with the Rules, teams have thirty (30) days, until July 26, 2009 18:42:37 UTC, to make submissions that will be considered for this Prize. Good luck and thank you for participating!

I am looking forward to reading the technical papers to be published by the winners and watching their presentation. I am most curious about what can be learned from these winners and how their breakthrough can be applied in other fields and challenges we have (medical science, etc.).

P.S. While I hope and wish there will be major computer technical advancement discovered/developed by the winning teams, I kept reminding myself of how the Feynman nanotechnology challenge was solved.

Either You’re in or You’re in the Way

It was good watching “Touching Home”, a film made by the Miller brothers (Noah & Logan) in 2008 CIFF. (See my interview with Noah & logan.) So when I heard the brothers have now published a book (and “a National Bestseller and was #1 on the SF Chronicle Bestseller list two weeks ago”), I am so happy for them.

Here is the book description of “Either You’re in or You’re in the Way” from HarperCollins,

The hilarious, implausible, and touching story of twin brothers accomplishing the impossible—making a feature film (with a cast and crew with 11 Academy Awards and 26 nominations) with no experience, no money and no contacts.

When identical twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller’s homeless father died alone in a jail cell, they vowed, come hell or high water, that their film, Touching Home, would be made as a dedication to their love for him. Either You’re in or You’re in the Way is the amazing story of how—without a dime to their names nor a single meaningful contact in Hollywood—they managed to write, produce, direct, and act in a feature film alongside four-time Academy Award-nominated actor Ed Harris and fellow nominees Brad Dourif and Robert Forster.

Either You’re in or You’re in the Way tells of the desperate struggle of two sons fighting to keep a vow to their father, and in so doing, creating a better life for themselves. A modern-day Horatio Alger on steroids, this fast-paced thrill ride of heartbreak and redemption will both captivate and inspire.

Origin of Flashpoint (CTV & CBS series) – 2009 Banff World TV Festival

Flashpoint is one of the best TV show in recent years (I don’t use the word “best” lightly). In my humble view, Flashpoint is even better than 24 (recent plot twists have become overwhelmingly nutty).

Here is the origin of Flashpoint as told by Stephanie Morgenstern & Mark Ellis, co-creators of Flashpoint, at 2009 Banff World TV Festival. Hope you enjoy the video.

P.S. In Canada, you can watch the shows on CTV (online episodes available). In US, on CBS.

P.P.S. Mark & Stephanie, a husband & wife team, were very nice and humble people (very Canadian). I had a chance to talk to Stephanie briefly afterwards and it was so wonderful to talk to her. Great to see nice people being successful and their passion paid off.