After using Uber for three years, this is the first time I have tipped a driver. I was making a trip from Berkeley to San Francisco. The quote was ten dollars for UberPOOL or twenty something for a regular Uber. I didn't understand how the pool fare can be less than half of the full fare. But it sounded like an easy choice for me. Just the bridge toll would have been five dollars, which I wasn't even charged for after I reviewed my bill.

I had a casual discussion with the driver. He believed he will get 80% of the ten dollars for this trip. I thought he misunderstood. He should have gotten 80% of the full fare while Uber get the sum of from all the POOL riders. On this particular trip, I was the only one. So the company would have lost money because it was too optimistic and quoted the price too low. In any case, ten dollars just seemed too good to be true. I decided to share my good fortune and handed him a five dollar tips at the end of the trip. This was the first time I tipped. I felt happy for it.

This morning I had an embarrassing incident. I have boarded a bus to go to work. I put my wallet against the clipper card reader and anticipated it to beep. It didn't. It dawned on me that I have taken out the clipper card last night and must have forgotten to put it back into the wallet. Guess I had to pay cash then. I found an one dollar bill, a bunch of coins, most of them nickels. I kept counting and counting and scrambling to come up with the 2.25 fare. Seeing my awkward moves, the gentlement standing next to me just handed me an one dollar bill. He saved my day. There was probably some good karma at play.

2016.11.30 comments

My 8 mile run to Golden Gate Bridge and back today. It is a gorgeous route with some hills in Presidio. Add another 7 miles round trip of bike ride from my home to the starting point.

2016.11.25 comments

This issue's National Geographic is about Mars exploration. Elon Musk himself is advancing the effort with his company SpaceX. He reportedly said he wants to die on Mars.

I am a lot less interested in Sci Fi these days compares to when I was a child. The idea of colonizing Mars no longer excites me. Suppose our earth is too ruined or too full that some people want to move to Mars? But is our earth really too full?

What if instead of Mars, we create a new colony on some remote and barely inhibited places on Earth? Let's say the South Georgia Island. There are a population of mere 30. With the resources for Mar Exploration it can easily buy them out and put them into some nice apartments in London. Then you have the whole island to do whatever you want.

South Georgia's land mass is unfortunately fairly small. How about we find some places in Alaska? Given the history of manifest destiny, I'd think the United State government will be quite open for people to settle in remote areas in Alaska. Beyond Alaska, there are plenty of land available in Kamchatka, Siberia, etc.

You many protest that these places are barely inhibited because they are terribly harsh for human. Yeah, the sea is ice-locked in the winter (if it is a warm water port Russia definitely won't it give away). But could we trust the SpaceX engineers to figure something out, couldn't we? If they are good enough to send cargo to space they should be good enough to send stuff to the Arctic. Perhaps some places do not have enough water to support a large population. I don't know how do you get water on Mars. But here on earth we have the ocean and we have the technology for desalination. It is costly perhaps, but a proven technology. However horrible is a piece of land on earth, it is really a heaven compares to Mars.

Better still, if the colony does not work out, you can easily back out. Why die on Mars when you can return home?

2016.11.20 comments

Anyone remember these green Volkswagen Beetle? Back in 2001 City Car Share began one of the first car sharing operation in United States, starting with a fleet of green Beetles. People paid an annual fee so that they can rent the car by hour, picking up and returning to a designated spot. I have joined in 2004, just as they were phrasing out the green Beetles and replacing them with a wide selection of cars. Let me tell you the Volkswagen Beetle is a terrible car. There was a good reason that this iconic fleet didn't last.

Fast forward to 2016, what a difference the landscape has become. Not only is car share exploded, hundreds of cars are available throughout San Francisco and beyond. We also have ride sharing, privately owned car sharing, bike sharing, scooters sharing, ... So many transportation options are available these days.

Now City Car Share has turned a new page. First they have merged with Carma last year. And now they are turning over their booking to Getaround. The news is bittersweet to me. Setting up as an non-profit, City Car Share is an oddity among other well financed companies. It is an accomplishment for them to have gone this far. It is perhap inevitable for a local company to be subsumed by large scale national company with greater resources.

Looking back to 2001 when the few people started City Share with a lofty goal to offer an alternative to car ownership, the success 15 years later is beyond the wildest imagination. Let's give a round of applause to this transportation pioneer.

2016.11.19 comments

A few months ago I have a upgraded to new laptop Lenovo T450s with Windows 10. Usually after a new years, the old computer feels old and slow and a new computer gives you an instant boost. It did not work out so well this time. The shiny new laptop actually feels lot more sluggish than my old one???

Later I tracked this down to a process "System and Compressed memory". It is running at the background and pushing the baseline CPU usage to 40% constantly. This make the computer hot and slow and drain the battery real fast. I have checked for remedy from the web for days. This problem seem to have many different causes. Many fixes were suggested. They worked for other but not for me.

Finally, after a lot of trial and error, I found a single culprit for my laptop. There is a service named "CRON service" from Fork Ltd. I don't know how it got into my computer. But disabling such service put my baseline CPU down to 1%. Months of misery has ended right away!!! If you run into this problem and other advices do not work for you, give this a try.

2016.11.04 comments