Interestingness Rediscovered

Businesses facing extinction in 10 years

MSNBC summarized nicely. Not all MS-related company's work sucks.
Among the dinosaur industries introduced, I am still unconvinced about the newspapers. They will not survive as they are now for sure, but watching the onslaught of Apple daily (蘋果日報) - gossip tabloid disguised as legitimate newspaper - in Taipei, probably people still need a recap of what is going on in the real world, in papers. Mobile phone does not give much detailed pictures of the crotches, side boobs, corpses, and car accidents.
Coin arcade is another example of such supposed-to-be-dead-by-now industry. They didn't just switch Pac-man into Street Fighters, they switched the entire shop in to a family-oriented amusement park. No more dark corners and cigarette butts, but mini-pinballs, mini-basketballs, and mini-vending machines.

My list of businesses which should be dead (but probably be thriving) in 10 years.

• Consulting (someone needs to feed the debt-ridden MBA holders)
• Market research (this one might be doomed for sure, unless they lobby hard to force Google out of business)
• Temp agency (the thin line between human traffickers are disappearing)
• and Consulting.

Calories in 7-11

Since I started caloric control a couple of weeks ago, checking the nutrition information at the back of the labels became one of my daily routine.
Once, during the quest for 100g < 400kcal biscuits, I flipped around the entire row of snacks, which are filled with biscuits, crackers, and waffles - whole wheat, chocolate, plain, with nuts, ginger, cheese cream, oat. Almost everything stayed between 400kcal and 550kcal per 100g, just a dollar short.
A healthy male with 60kg of body mass is supposed to take 1,800kcal per day. Just 100g of  snacks take as much as one third of the daily quota is a frightening fact. Maybe 7-11 wasn't the best place to hunt for healthy food.

Well I will not be freaked out by a person inspecting food label in a convenient store any more. That is me - I might even give a nostalgic, (sim)pathetic look.

Resident Evil: Extinction

The greatest news regarding the third installment, hopefully the last one in this year's trilogy rush, is the return of the director Russell Mulcahy. It has been a long time since his Highlander heyday, but his taste for gory and end-of-the-world theme still live in the film, especially in the  ruthless massacre of convoy team by the zombies, who are supposed to be one of the few people living on earth.
Milla Jovovich... yes this film is her vehicle and yes she was almost 30 but she could have toned down the amount of airbrush. In some cases her perfect skin and hair went beyond excessive make-up and almost reached complete CGI like in this movie. Someone is going to post the pre-and post- version of her close-up.
The amount of her flesh was also toned down, limiting the camera angle in her supposedly naked scene, creating a deja-vu: we have seen them before in the encyclopedia, in the "evolution of human" section where the right leg is always stepping out.
By the way, at of Sep 26th, we can watch almost the entire Part2 movie on Youtube.

Po Bronson's new project

I bought Po Bronson's "What should I do with my life?" three times and read it at least five times. I am sure no one will feel he has wasted his time reading this book. Awesome documentation of people confronting the "Who am I?" question of our era, including the author.
His latest book, "Why do I love these people?" is about maintaining the unit called family, a good read but didn't resonate within myself primarily because the question wasn't an urgent matter (I was desperately searching for the next career step when I bought the former book).
The new project has started which deals with the issues around parenting, probably as an evolution out of his numerous research during his last book, and the preview questionnaire offers a good insight and 30 minutes of entertainment. They are based on research without skewed conception, and provides hilarious yet accurate portraits of parents and kids.

Parents of budding liars often assume their child doesn’t quite realize she’s lying – she’s probably just blurring the distinction between the fanciful and the deceptive. They expect their child to grow out of it as she matures. This is dead wrong, according to the research. The better a child can distinguish a lie from the truth, the more likely she is to lie given the chance.

Instant noodle attracts cockroaches

Leaving the instant noodle cup (+ the soup), the lifeline during the typhoon, at the corner of the room generated a makeshift cockroach killer: 8 total, all drown in the red sea. Nothing like this was seen before.
Looks like the Japanese miso flavor had a special thing for the tiny creatures. Or if it is due to the reddiness and spiciness, then nothing beats the Beef noodle. The experiment should go on.
Problem is since beef noodles taste very, very well even in the NT50 (USD1.5) stores, downgrading it into the cup version does not sound like an edible choice at all. Totally spoiled.

Typhoon holiday

A typhoon hit Taiwan yesterday, strong enough to raise the "schools & offices out" flag but weak enough to keep the water, gas, DSL, and 7-11 up. Extra holiday with all the lifelines kept intact? Pure luxury. The internet was snail-slow (looks like it has taken the place of couch-potato TV) and all the good foods were taken from the 7-11s but it was worth it.
We had three such bonus days two years ago, for me the first year in Taiwan. Everybody in the company outside Taiwan might thought this island was a mining field in terms of weather, but for newcoming settlers, a bliss.
I guess the source of confusion is that the word "typhoon" is used in describing both situations, in Taiwan and Katrina-class disasters.

Philip K.Dick

Watching his works coming into another life as a blockbuster movie is a delightful experience, as one of his readers who spent a good amount of time reading his short stories, originally published as part of pulp sci-fi magazines. An article says his children have started managing his assets so that only quality movies be made, not something like Screamers (my favorite).
I was amazed that it was only 2005 that someone took initiative to manage (market) his works - that means his books were bought by 9 films so far without aggressive advertisement. How many writers can claim such achievement besides Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and John Grisham?
Still, the hype surrounding his works might suggest that he alone is sucking all attentions that should have distributed to other great sci-fi or horror writers. With the exception of Blade Runner, people are picking up scripts from his short stories (Minority Report, Screamers (again)). Which might mean that his popularity is based on clever plots and twists, despite the often-cited "philosophical influence" embed in his long stories.
If smart plots are the point, why the great writers in the same era - Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Robert Sheckley, Fredric Brown, especially their short stories, aren't given enough attention?  R is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury opened my eyes into the world of science fiction, Robert Bloch is the greatest horror writer when it comes to shorter piece, and Fredric Brown proved that sometimes a couple of pages are enough to churn good readings.

Characters and contents

Is there a negative correlation between the richness of content and the sale of character goods?

Goods-oriented (high sales figure)

• Mickey Mouse
• Peanuts (Snoopy)
• Hello Kitty

Contents-oriented (low sales figure)

• The Simpsons
• Tom & Jerry
• Dilbert

Disney did not produce classic animation movies based on the two iconic characters, Peanuts...I never "get" while reading its comic strips, and Hello Kitty does not have any storyline except for recent animations which were created after it became famous.
The Simpsons is one of the best animations ever (no matter how degrading they have become recently), I grew up watching Tom & Jerry and never got tired of endless massacres, and Dilbert is my daily fantasy escape.
Now I realize it is that "my taste are not a good predictor of strong character goods sales".

Taking nap at lunch break

I was exposed to this custom first while visiting a company called ZTE in southern China. At precisely 12:00, lights are shut down and everybody goes to the dining room, and after coming back, crawls into their own desk. Some just slumps over the desk, some cover themselves with blankets in the chair, some into their sleeping bags. The entire office falls into a deadly silent mode. You realize a piece of chewing gum is sticking to the bottom of your left shoe by listening to the disoriented footsteps. Wanna achieve a zen-like peaceful moment while working? Come to China.
Basically the same phenomenon can be observed here in Taipei in my office, though nobody brings his sleeping bag. The dark office suits me very fine, concealing my body movements ducking the deadly attacks while playing Doom. I always realize my dorky behavior after I am brutally murdered.
Somebody should start bringing his blanket. Others will follow with pillows, inflatable beds, and Coleman sleeping bag. Regretfully massage chairs are excluded from this club for their still loud noise. I will bring in my LaZboy reclining chair which also servers as the office chair.

Blade Runner vs. Terminator

The polished, uncut version will come out at the end of this year. Like Terminator, Blade Runner is a certified classic marred with rudimentary special effects.
In the Terminator we had the scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger trying to take off damaged eyeballs - the full-sized rubber doll is so badly constructed it gives us a slight shivering - way past the chuckling stage. The same goes for all stop-motion animations. Just because Ray Harryhausen pulled off critical praise with Clash of the Titans doesn't mean someone else is allowed to repeat it, even after mere 4 years.
The Blade Runner, on the other hand, is a showcase of matte painting. The scene where Harrison Ford desperately hang on to the top of the building is a classic example. You might even be able to see the artist's signature. All the other effects are nearly perfect, especially the miniature sets, which makes the flaw more appealing.

The blurring line between public relations, advertisement, and marketing communication

A couple of years ago I suddenly nurtured an interest toward marketing communication, believing it is a new, distinctive career helping customer "connect" with what the company offers. And yes, the "marketing" looked like something that could work as a Plan B for sneaking into other fields if I wanted to cop out.
As I studied further, surely the reality started to look much more messier than my clueless imagination.
My tentative conclusion was "Marketing Communication" applied in real-world was a shelter for advertisement and PR companies trying to look glorious by snatching the ubiquitous-yet-still-powerful "marketing" title and trying to appeal to the customers by claiming they are helping the world with better "communication".
In short, a glorified advertisement job.
Whether it is good or bad, I put aside the morale issue and asked myself - "Can I put my heart in advertising something?" The answer was obvious; I was never good at giving people fake dreams. Or put it in another way, I was (still is) a very bad liar. Not that I am always honest, just I wasn't born or trained with that skill set. Not much of a heart problem.
Becoming a journalist looked too far fetch, and - if it was about truthtelling, being a professional journalist didn't look like a requirement (the blog movement after 911).
Finally the job direction settled into an abstract but more down-to-earth "making complex information easier", thus, a technical writer. Low threshold but lots of job opportunities.

Changes in Japanese landscape

When I returned Japan for the late summer vacation three weeks ago, the most notable changes occurred in the suburbs. More restaurants, more mobile phone service stations, more small offices, more DIY malls. They indicated two trends.
1. The sceneries are getting uglier. In order to fight for attention, these buildings boast colorful billboards and eye-catching structures. There is nothing wrong with them, it is just that they totally lack unity. No coherence, no orderliness, no cooperations. If rows of them stood side by side, as in Hong Kong or downtown Taipei, they would have made a sensational, Blade-Runneristic cybertown. But they don't. Instead they are meshed up with rice fields, electric poles, vegetable fields, and traffic lights. When focusing on individual buildings we might find some evidence of local architects trying to do their best artistic work despite mounting limitations. Putting together, all they give us is a gigantic chaos. Structured, but chaos. We'll see. Maybe someday, something interesting will come up from this gotchas.
2. People are relying on restaurants and shops more than ever. Goodbye to the days of DIYs and local communities, welcome to the isolations and shoppings.

Changes always bring both good and bad side effects - for those knowing the old days (like me), good things are likely filtered out. If I am missing a good trend, what might it be?

Back to Taiwan - new iPod

So I had spent a week in Japan, taking a late summer vacation. Some things have changed, some never.
Today's topic is, of course, the new iPod series.
Get this - the iPod now contains 160GB of storage. That's more than the entire hard drive in my laptop, 100GB (which was the milestone a couple of years ago).
What are we going to do with this storage? Download a higher resolution video? What about its tiny screen? Should we connect it to an external display? Wait, isn't that contrary to what the iPod has been trying to achieve - complete mobility?
The new iPod Touch is, uh, an iPhone without "Phone" - I can feel the amount of grudge the early iPhone adopters are going to carry - who have paid couple of thousands dollars just to join the interface evolution experiment.
It has WiFi - voila, all we, the sane and late adopters, have to install is Skype. Now we can call anybody. The amount of grudge have tripled.

The buzz killer is the promotional video. Is the narrator Steven Chen from YouTube? I admire that guy, but he is not exactly a movie-star material. Bring back our Justin Long. I smell petition. And an attention-stealer-disguised-as-patent-infringement-claim from HTC, who coined the usage "Touch" in their phone, which was originally an iPhone follower. That might not add any carma, but surely completes a loop.