Heading to DB

I think this is a very special place and one that I'm particularly fond of.

• DB D-Deck dining

Workload

It's one of those moments when you felt your intuition is correct and you have put in significant effort to start the process, but all of a sudden you have been told your intuition will not lead you to the usefulness people see in you in the future.

Now I'm taking a step back and make sure I will not lead myself astray but trust the guidance of an expert more experienced than I am.

Anyway. It's complex.

How do you get gigabit per second over the air?

This question is still keeping my awake during the night.

• Multiple bits per symbol is a given; there is simply no technology out there that can digitize at gigasample per second.
• Multiple antenna - how do you pack up to four antenna to a device? I can picture that being possible on a decent sized laptop, at 5GHz or more, over short distance with a favourable channel.
• Getting gigabits to the home. This becomes a question of what type of infrastructure is required to do just that. Fiber to the home, and a wireless access point (femtocell). A cell tower managing hundreds of gigabits of data over the air will be challenging.
• A lot has to take place, similar to idea of fuel cell vehicles. Infrastructure is a significant issue.

Simulations

It appears most simulations are done in a Linux environment. Research tools are both open and actively worked on by the academic community as well as the industry.

However, a fair amount of practical implementation tools are developed on Window.

Survey of the disciplines in communications research

The study of communications encompasses the following theories

• Information theory
• Coding theory
• Dectection theory
• Control theory
• Network theory
• Computation theory
• Game theory

The underlying fundamentals consist of

• Linear systems and signals
• Statistics and random processes
• Antenna & wave propagation

Simulations

• Large Deviation Theory
• Importance sampling

Implementation level

• DSP and alogrithms
• RF/Microwave circuits
• Embedded systems

Illustrations in Latex documents

I've searched around for tools to help with creating diagrams. The closest contender seems to be something that is vector based and supports importing and exporting eps format.

One expensive choice is Adobe Illustrator + MathType. Even at student price, Illustrator is still prohibitively $$$.

A good contender is Inkscape but it's not mature enough for dealing with importing eps equations and editing them in place.

Library barcode system

Keeping track of the details for our library setup.

• My old Toshiba Portege A100 laptop
• Metrologic MS9540 (part of Honeywell) - $150
• Barcode labels (1000 labels) -$28
• Gaylord
• Brodart
• Demco

Barcode details

• Symbology: code 3 of 9, 5-6 Characters, no check code
• Heading: "Mira Mesa Chinese Baptist Church"
• Sequence: nnnnn (n = 0-9, e.g. 01234)

Testing formulas

This is a cool way of adding formulas to email/blogs. However it's not supported natively on the browser. Under the hood, it makes a request to a server for an embedded gif image.

The LaTex Equation Editor website is here

UCSD planning

• Take first quarter at $8,000, no-support.

Winning moves

A very good cheat sheet on Winning Eleven (PES)'s moves.

Thought record

Now is the time to blow the dust off my blog and start something substantial. I'll have to see what I want to place on here. I'll start off probably by writing what I've learned during the period.

Hair Stylist

Stylist: Maki
Muse Beauty Salon
7710 Balboa Ave. Suite 125
San Diego, CA
92111

LA Restaurants

Maxim Cafe

Hong Kong style western dishes

18904 East Gale Ave,

Rowland Heights, CA 91748

626-913-7777

A&J Restaurant
Taiwanese

14805 Jeffrey Rd. #D
Irvine, CA 92720
949-786-3585

July 19, 2008
The Kitchen
203 West Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, CA 91801
626-289-4828
Upscale chinese cuisine, relatively speaking. Great food.

Tasty Garden
288 West Valley Blvd.
Alhambra, CA 91801
626-300-8262

July 4, 2008
Din Tai Fung
1108 South Baldwin Avenue (First store)
1088 South Baldwin Avenue (New, larger, modern looking)
Arcadia, CA 91007
626-574-7068

Phoenix Food Boutique
1108 South Baldwin Avenue
Arcadia, CA 91007
626-284-2388
Beside the drinks, casual food, it has amazingly tasty curry fish balls, not to be missed.

SD Restaurants

This is where I will compile a list of restaurants and how their fare.

Chedi Thai Bistro
737 Pearl St. Suite 110

La Jolla, CA 92037

858-551-8424

Lanna Thai Cruisine
4501 Mission Bay Dr.
San Diego, CA 92109
858-274-8424

Extraordinary Desserts - Little Italy

1430 Union St.

San Diego, CA 92101

619-294-7001

Tajima Japanese Restaurant
4681 Convoy St
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 576-7244

Curry House - Japanese style curry and spaghetti
3860 Convoy St. #102
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 278-2454

Ichiro Japanese Restuarant
4344 Convoy St # Q
San Diego, CA 92111
(858) 565-8603

Lorna's Italian Kitchen
3945 Governer Drive
San Diego, CA 92122
858-452-0661

Dae Jang Keum (Korean fine Cuisine)
7905 Engineer Rd.
San Diego, CA 92111
858-573-2585

Sante Ristorante (Italian) - May 17, 2008
Located at an inside street in La Jolla, not that busy compared to the ones along the coast. But this is a Gem that cannot be missed. Excellent seafood pasta, and delicious tartufo. Highly recommend.

7811 Herschel Avenue
La Jolla, CA
858-454-1315

KI sushi - May 14, 2008
I like the atmosphere and lunch is not bad for the price you pay.

Costa Verde Shopping Center
8650 Genesee Ave
San Diego, CA 92122

Cafe Coyote - May 4, 2008
Great taste of Margaritas and Mexican food.

2461 San Diego Avenue
San Diego, CA 92110

Osetra - May 1, 2008
Gorgeous and modern ambiance with a spectacular 3 storey wine collection and suspension lift for getting the wine! Expensive place, but well worth a visit. Thanks Shirley for bringing me there!

904 5th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101
Gaslamp Quarters

The art of moving...

Don't let anyone tell you moving is not stressful; when you have to cross the border that complicates the matter even more.

I understand now how much my dad had to go through when he moved our entire family over. That must have been a feat of enormous proportion. He moved into a completely new culture with a different governing system. But I had no idea at the time, since I was still trying to understand why we moved and coping with adjusting to yet another move in my young life - I was 14 and rebellious.

From HK to England, to Toronto, to Waterloo, to Ottawa, there was not once that I had company while I moved. From Ottawa to Waterloo, and now Waterloo to San Diego, I'm going solo. The lesson I learned from this is that a modern mercenary has to be mobile as ever. You simply cannot keep too many things.

Piotr Wozniak's prescription to becoming a genius

When someone spends his whole life mastering the technique of learning, you listen...

Clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition, preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption, and never resist sleep when tired. This should lead to radically improved intelligence and creativity.

Last glimpse of the Compaq Portable

Items for sale

This is a list of stuff I want to unload, I'm willing to give away some of them if I find a suitable owner.

• Black and Decker Toaster oven
• Car pedal lock
• Propane camping lamp
• Little Green portable wet vacuum
  
• Cricket stuff
• 2 Supersoaker water guns
• Hockey Gear
• Fishing rod
• PS2 steering wheel
• 2 Sleeping bags and mats
• camping chairs
• 6 foot folding table
• Inflatable sofa and mattress
• Camping tent for 4
• Bauer Roller blades size 8 1/2
• Michelin Pilot Alpin snow tires on steel rims 195/65/15 + hubcabs
  
• Broil-Mate 50K BTU Gas barbecue (Natural Gas) with stainless steel utensils
  
• Worx 13A 16" Mulching and bagging electric lawn mower, handle folds down
  
• 16 foot extension ladder
• Lawn rake, leaf scraper
  
• 2 Snow shovels
• 2 SnowZinger magic carpets
• Volley ball, basketball
  
• 2 Weight adjustable Dumbbells
  
• Stand-up vacuum
• Wine glasses
  
• Camera tripod
  

Peter Drucker on the Individual in an organization

• Effectiveness must be learned
• Focus on contribution
• Know your strengths and values
• Know your time
• Effective decisions
• Functioning communications
  
• Leadership as work
  
• Principles of innovation
  
• The second half of your life
  
• The educated person
  

Reflections on 2007

2007 is another challenging year for me.

I have to fight another severe episode of depression. Luckily, I have the help of my dad's friend and a renowned psychiatrist Dr. Wong. He came to the rescue in April and I was fortunate to receive treatment immediately in April. I have been doing quite well now, continuing taking anti-depressant, and I have also kept in constant contact with a local psychiatrist and a very good psychologist in case I needed immediate attention. It's funny how my doc parallel this condition to a diabetic, but again, I am more fortunate than a diabetic because I don't necessarily have to be on medication all my life.

At work, I have created a comfortable environment for myself and I am working quite autonomously. I have gain much respect from my peers so there is now synergy at work, I am spending much less time working on issues.

I have been continuing my goal to establish myself in the soccer field. I am happy to say I have succeeded by being promoted to captain for our dept soccer team for next year. Although my ultimate goal is to coach little kids, not big kids, but it's one small step closer to my goal.

I am continuing my work helping people around me and helping the students at KWCAC. They are a handful but I think I am now enjoying my time helping them. It's a very satisfying experience.

Lucinda has been my big sister and continue to have strong influence on me in my quest to become godly. She is a wonderful person and I will learn much from her.

All my brothers are now in North America, within an hour flight from each other. I think this is the start of something tremendous as we can co-ordinate our activities with much more efficiency than before.

I am looking forward to 2008 as I believe this will be the turning point of my life and the lives of the people I care and love.