Another Xmax party, another year at CW and goodbye Jono

Had my third xmas party at CustomWare yesterday and also saw my best buddy Jono leaving for pursuing his own aspiration. Feel glad he has had chance to try different things that he wants to experience over the course of his lifetime. We went to UTS together where he showed his great commitment that people a few years older wouldn't dare to show. He is outspoken at uni but knows the limit. Knowing the limit will be one of his lifetime traits that will accompany him while he pursues his future.

At last I asked a question I have been saving for the last moment to ask him -- as someone who holds strong Christian faith, why he never tried to convert me. Well again the answer doesn't disappoint me -- for someone who wants to seek the door when the time is right, the door will be shown to them. I won't say good luck to Jono as I know it would just be the waste of words -- good luck will always be with him no matter what and when. I rather told him my last advice for some time to come that ideology never works in reality and the best way to form your opinion about a thing in a country will be traveling to there and see the thing by yourself. Oh, again, the exception of course is unless you want to be a politician who takes whatever serves his/her purpose.

中国并不缺乏制造能力

工厂并不是最重要的资产，因为他们可以复制；而且作为世界的工厂中国并不缺乏制造能力。相比之下，任何一个产业研发水平和技术储备是最重要的资产，也是中国工业目前的短板。因此，

中国各工业企业应该瞄准时机，开始在经济危机严重的国家特别是美国大举招聘技术人才。然后用招聘来的人才来培养自己的人才，优化企业运作流程。自己培养的人才要比花大钱请来的技术高超的外国‘大爷’们更容易留驻。

Black Friday Shooting

Wow, where else could this happen besides America? The answer is none, only Americans are able to wage this scale of ridicule -- adults shooting at each other inside a toy store that is meant for kids.

• Toys R Us reopens in Palm Desert after 2 men are killed
  
  
• Black Friday shoppers out in force
  

That leads me to knock off a few thought over top of my head,

• Adults can't wait to show off their toys when shopping toys for their kids.
  
• There are real angry men and women outta there in a beautiful state called California.
  
• Black Friday isn't named for nothing and can't get any darker.
  
• At last God always bless America and no one else.
  

Sun cuts jobs, well guess who is not yet?

Sun Microsystems is going to cut 6,000 jobs throughout its global workforce affecting all the major economies in the world, news from Bloomberg. The company, more well-known for its creation and promotion of Java/Open Source initiatives than their real business - selling high performance servers, is no-doubt struggling at moment. Server orders are expected to slip amid current economic turmoil. Within IT industry Sun is not the only one who has announced job cut, Dell and HP all followed as well. But guess who has not yet? The "evil of all" -- Microsoft.

For Sun's Java initiative, the company over years has failed to make any solid revenue out of it. The technology is revolutional driving understated hundreds of thousands of uni graduates into programming. But Sun is not a non-profit organization, things they do they need to make profit out of it. Failure to do so is a failure of their business model. Now they slash 6,000 jobs world-wide and that is 6,000 families seriously affected world-wide. At Microsoft on the other hand, at least the families are safe for the time being. Who contributes to the society the most? You have your call.

Drive domestic demand, China

As much the country loves to see export booming as the central government realize how much they can't rely on it but more on domestic demand. Drive from the inside is always reliable than obtaining from the outside where trade embargoes, monetary policies set up by IMF and even real wars prevail. Here are the latest ten policies just released by China's central planning committee (well I don't if I have used the right words for the committee as the country is no more communism which is often associated with central planning).

这十项措施是:
一是加快建设保障性安居工程。加大对廉租住房建设支持力度，加快棚户区改造，实施游牧民定居工程，扩大农村危房改造试点。

二是加快农村基础设施建设。加大农村沼气、饮水安全工程和农村公路建设力度，完善农村电网，加快南水北调等重大水利工程建设和病险水库除险加固，加强大型灌区节水改造。加大扶贫开发力度。

三是加快铁路、公路和机场等重大基础设施建设。重点建设一批客运专线、煤运通道项目和西部干线铁路，完善高速公路网，安排中西部干线机场和支线机场建设，加快城市电网改造。

四是加快医疗卫生、文化教育事业发展。加强基层医疗卫生服务体系建设，加快中西部农村初中校舍改造，推进中西部地区特殊教育学校和乡镇综合文化站建设。

五是加强生态环境建设。加快城镇污水、垃圾处理设施建设和重点流域水污染防治，加强重点防护林和天然林资源保护工程建设，支持重点节能减排工程建设。

六是加快自主创新和结构调整。支持高技术产业化建设和产业技术进步，支持服务业发展。
七是加快地震灾区灾后重建各项工作。

八是提高城乡居民收入。提高明年粮食最低收购价格，提高农资综合直补、良种补贴、农机具补贴等标准，增加农民收入。提高低收入群体等社保对象待遇水平，增加城市和农村低保补助，继续提高企业退休人员基本养老金水平和优抚对象生活补助标准。

九是在全国所有地区、所有行业全面实施增值税转型改革，鼓励企业技术改造，减轻企业负担1200亿元。

十是加大金融对经济增长的支持力度。取消对商业银行的信贷规模限制，合理扩大信贷规模，加大对重点工程、“三农”、中小企业和技术改造、兼并重组的信贷支持，有针对性地培育和巩固消费信贷增长点。

See how much business opportunities you are capable of deriving from those policies that takes effect immediately after they are released. Of course, as always there is going to be a bunch of people complaining about opportunities are only reserved for those who know the inside.

Isn't politics again?

Here we are, the Foreign Secretary of UK - David Miliband on behave of the UK government has officially recognized China's sovereignty over Tibet (aka 西藏自治区 in Chinese),news article from Telegragh.

Interesting enough, a sovereign country's "internal affair" needs a foreign country with hundreds of years of colonization, black slavery and opium trafficking (forget Opium War already?) to recognize.

As much the recognization is a political stunt as Dalai Lama is a politician rather than a spiritual leader. For the sake of self-interest who truly believes Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader besides those stupid Hollywood celebrities.

Barack Obama for President?

He is popular, not just in America, but around the world. Around the world that even countries like China where no one cared about who wins the American presidential election. So he is truly popular.

His ethnic background dictates he is from a minority group -- black/Latin American. Now if he is elected, the world will have minority president leading the majority, majority -- the class that still dominates America today. How does Obama cement the support from his minority while blast any doubt coming from the majority to retain in the post? It is likely he will introduce some "radical" policies, not too extreme, but still radical enough to touch every American. He is likely to be stiff towards the developing countries who are not subject to the rein of the might U.S. too, China included. Likely to be stiffer than W. Bush as he needs that more than Bush to seal the mouth of Republicans.

It is more unlikely than not Barack Obama will change anything how Ameica is run and rules over the world, not in this short term of four years.

You cann't swim, but you are ordered to save someone drowning

Almost everyone has been touched more or less by the current economic turmoil. Who caused the crisis and who are suffering from it has gradually faded from public's eyebrow. Instead, the media is being filled with who is going to be savior this time. China along with its weak middle-east oil rich countries has made constant headline, tipping by the western media and most importantly government (government and its media, can you separate them?) for those nations's massive foreign reserve should and "must" contribute significantly to the redemption of this world-scale crisis.

For someone who cannot even swim, I am here ordering him to dive into the water and save the hundreds drowning in the water. Indeed, one doesn't need to know how to swim to save someone in the water as the one in the water is merely needing a stepping stone to pop head up sucking some oxygen and then swimming away to survive and recover. A stepping stone doesn't need to know how to swim as no one cares when asking the stone to be thrown into water.

Great Quotes

Thanks a colleague from CustomWare for sharing these great quotes, again no ideology involved but all pragmatic distilled from quoter's years of hard work and experience.

• We are truly unlimited, if we only dare to try and have faith."
  - Sri Chinmoy
  
  
• "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
  - Mahatma Gandhi
  
  
• "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
  - Martin Luther King Jr.
  
  
• "When I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things... I am tempted to think there are no little things."
  - Bruce Barton
  
  
• "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten."
  - Anthony Robbins
  
  
• "Being beaten is often a temporary condition, giving up is what makes it permanent."
  - Marilyn vos Savant
  
  
• "I have more respect for the fellow with a single idea who gets there than for the fellow with a thousand ideas who does nothing."
  - Thomas Edison
  
  
• "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
  - Albert Einstein
  
  
• "Ideas without action are worthless."
  - Harvey Mackay
  
  
• "Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well."
  - Josh Billings
  
  
• "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change."
  - Charles Darwin
  
  
• "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it."
  - Isaac Newton
  
  
• "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
  - Will Rogers
  
  
• "If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don't bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking."
  - Buckminster Fuller

Expressions of Inspiration

• "Always ask questions - it means you're serious, not stupid."
  
  
• "Things happen to us, but it's our reactions that matter."
  
  
• "The more that I know, the more that I know I need to know."
  
  
• "Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped."
  
  
• "I'd rather be at the bottom of a ladder that I want to climb, than at the top of one that I don't want to be on."

In the market for consumer goods, the speed of releasing new models reins

Sydney's weather is as unpredictable as usual, four seasons in a week becomes a norm. Does that imitate what current economic situation is like?

Buying a new Sony laptop at moment, and again dazzled by the varieties and models this greatest electronic gadget maker offers. Dazzled as Sony slabs are as stylish as usual but most importantly also confused as a noticeable portion of models are priced differently despite almost-identical look-and-feel and very similar in specs.

Almost true for any electronics, consumers tend to wait after a new model coming out. They wait for the price to drop as it usually drops after a few months when the new becomes old while the old is no big different from the new. In a fiercely competitive market where price can only go down, how does a company maintain a healthy margin while not wasting their assembly line erected for a new model? They create a bunch of models through the same assembly line with a little tweak to the shape and specs. Then drop the price for one for sale while releasing another claiming a new model has born.