Tatchee's drawing is getting more advanced. He spend plenty of time copying figures from the popular her TV Ningago all day long. I was particularly impressed by his drawing here because it was seemingly an original composition. This is a rich scene and the master in the sky is a really nice touch. I couldn't find where he get this idea from so I assume he come up with this himself.

2013.06.15 comments

Here is something to brag about. It has taken me 6 weeks, and at last I have cracked all 123 problems in the Rosalind Bioinformatics Challenge website. I become the 11th person in the world to have solved all the problems posted.

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I have always been curious about science of molecular biology and the related field of bioinformatics. But as a layman in biology, I find it difficult to grasp the concept in any depth. Since someone has introduced me to the Rosalind project, a website that uses hand on problem solving to teach bioinformatics, I was quickly hooked to work on the problems. These range from basic programming and algorithm problem at the beginning, which I have quickly knocked down, to the rather advanced problems at the end. For a few hard problems I have to reach for research papers to find the approach. I feel quite an accomplishment to have done it.

2013.06.13 [programming] - comments

Tiger Mom parenting doesn't work. We know it all alone. Su Yeong Kim, an associate professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas, has published a study of parenting profiles of Chinese Americans and adolescent developmental outcomes. Her finding - "Compared with the supportive parenting profile, a tiger parenting profile was associated with lower GPA and educational attainment, as well as less of a sense of family obligation; it was also associated with more academic pressure, more depressive symptoms, and a greater sense of alienation."

Via slate.com from unknown source

So this is a study on 300 Asian families compare to Amy Chua's sample size of 1. Sorry, despite Chua's portrait of relentless strive for excellence, the study finds this actually result in lower academic achievement. Study also finds "Tiger" parenting is not typical among Chinese as in her stereotypical portrait either.

Perhaps less surprising is the kids show more depressive symptom. I'm looking forward for Chua's children to write their own book to tell their side of story!

2013.05.14 comments

I rather excited to came upon the new iSquare Mall in the old hotel site in Tsim Sha Tsui. So what did I do there? I'm not a shopping type of people, nor was I going to eat there. I did nothing pretty much. I'm actually quite happy just to ride the escalators. The intricate cascade of escalators goes up and down with great view of the street scene below. It is a great place to see live goes by.

Next I came upon the old observatory now restored into an upscale shopping complex called Heritage 1881. Tsim Sha Tsui is becoming more glamorous than ever.

Start Ferry is my next activity. I was just going to ride the Star Ferry to the Central and come right back. But I found the pier in Central is also changing and is becoming a destination itself. There shops and restaurant and a farmers market. I found a newly opened Maritime Museum there and spent two hours to check it out. It is good to be a tourist for a day.

2013.03.18 comments

I found these tickets in the bottom of the drawer, yellowed paper tickets dated December, 1999. It was from the one trip to the United States my father made in 1999 for our wedding ceremony. After we went back to work, he and my mom would venture out on their own, using the bus map to find their way around the city. He did not stay long through. After a little more than a month, he returned home. These tickets were keep as his memento.

2013.03.17 comments

I slowly start to resume some normal activities. I went to see a movie this afternoon. The Broadway Cinematheque is a multiplex with a shop for movie merchandise, a cafe and a bookstore. It is a great cultural destination. I have not dwell in there too much. But I am glad that there is a place like this.

The movie is 不老騎士 "Go Grandriders". A group of elderlies, average over 80s, are out to accomplish a dream. They want to make a trip around the island of Taiwan on motorcycle. This is a physically demanding trip that last 2 weeks! Despite of their aged and frail body, the granddads are determined to do this. The documentary follows them along. There are challenges, there are assorted health problem to deal with, a lot of tears have shedded (because of their determination to tackle the problems). It brings a lot of happiness to the granddads when they finally accomplished their dream at the end. This is quite an inspiring tour.

2013.03.15 comments

三月五日清涼的深夜，我和家姐步出佛教醫院走到外面無人的街頭。五年前媽媽在這醫院過世，這夜榮業也離開我們了。榮業你再不用受痛苦的煎熬了，安息吧，我們會懷念你的。

2013.03.05 comments

To honor my father, I ordered his favorite BBQ Pork Rice in the same food court that we have gone to.

2013.02.26 comments

As I have previously heard, Opera announce they are moving their rendering engine from Presto to WebKit. I have been a loyal Opera user for some 10 years. I have mixed emotion about this. Opera used to be the most innovative browser among the many. For a few years, it is the only browser that supports tab and zooming. But its market share has remain low. There are always web pages that does not work on Opera. And it has only become more so as web applications get more complex and few people test it on Opera. [more...]

2013.02.13 comments

I have finally learned to write math formula in Latex. It is actually quite easy and somewhat comparable to writing expressions in computer language. To be able to express math idea on the web is an empowering experience, like the empowered feeling when I finally learned to type Chinese quickly a few years ago. I am so excited with this new found capability that I have written up a long calculus notes for the study I'm doing currently. [more...]

2013.01.29 comments

In Pixar's animation series Toy Story 3, Andy has grown up and is about to leave for college. He is facing the decision in how to dispose of his boyhood toys, either to take them with him, to put into storage or to throw them away. The toy do not foresee the prospect of being abandon by their owner. They are fearing for they future and hope to find a new home with children who want them and love them. [more...]

2013.01.27 comments

行行好奇心強，家中雜物無不被他玩弄一番。有時見他行為鬼祟，一定是偷偷地拿了不該玩的東西來玩了。有時被我們發現要制止時，他心裏一怕，立刻把手中的獵物掉了。一次他拿了我的手錶玩，我要拿回來，他立刻把錶掉到地上，真是禍不單行。 [more...]

2013.01.21 comments

Hindsight blinds because the path of what happened in the past is so brightly lit. That trail is so clear to you that everything else that could have happened is cast even more deeply into shadow. If you then want to reconstruct what could have happened and understand the choices made that produced that pathway versus another, you actually have to work hard to avoid the dangers of hindsight to then re-imagine the world before problems had been solved. — Philip Zelikow

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2013.01.17 [learning] - comments

行行的說話越來越清楚，越來越完整了。今天就聽到他說了這些話： [more...]

2013.01.16 comments

Coursera has finally issued me the statement of accomplishment for the Probabilistic Graphical Models Course I took last December. Since 2012, I have completed 7 online courses with Coursera. I have the faintest idea about the subject when I sign up for it. Little do I know what a killer course it will be. [more...]

2013.01.15 comments

It is herring season in San Francisco. I would not have paid much attention or have much idea about it if I have not stumbled into this in the morning. On my way to work I came by the familiar shoreline. Something was going on. I saw large number of birds, sea gulls, pelicans, flying in the sky or standing on the decayed piers. The normally quiet Agua Vista Park has a large group of people on the pier. One after another they were casting net into the water. Out in the water a number of little steel boats turned up. [more...]

2013.01.10 comments

I have purchased Toby Segaran's book Programming Collective Intelligence when it first come out in 2007. Yet I still have not been able to finished it after all these years. Now I am giving myself another push. While I was revisiting the book I tried to implement its technique using Pandas. I am quite happy to be able to do it in just 9 lines of code. So I have put together a little article to show collaborative filtering using Pandas. This is also a great exercise for me using to make a very nice document using iPython notebook for the first time. [more...]

2012.12.17 [programming] - comments

2012.12.08 comments

News reports that the closely contested District 7 election recount could cost up to $200,000. Many RCV haters take this as another problem to attack RCV election. [more...]

2012.11.27 comments

We have make a trip to Point Lobos State Reserve today. It is a place of exceptional beauty! I feel lucky to be in California with all these wonderful places around us. [more...]

2012.11.22 comments