Brian @ Wongside

We’re in the throes of wedding season (I’m so glad we got married in February, during the off-season) and I found a couple of interesting articles from Bakersfield and San Jose. Both of them focused on the impact the faltering economy has had on wedding season. What I found seemed pretty counter-intuitive.

In general, I would have assumed that the poor economy would have decreased spending across the board, and particularly in a region like Bakersfield that isn’t particularly known for its affluence. But it turns out that my intuition is incorrect. It seems that weddings have been harder hit in San Jose, and while things aren’t great in Bakersfield, they’re actually not that bad.

This seems really counter-intuitive to me, and I can’t figure out why it is so. I guess I’ll have to think about this some more.

The world’s oldest man has died.  Henry Allingham was born June 6, 1896, making him 113 years old. I can’t imagine living through that many changes in our world. As a point of reference, the article points out, “Transportation was horse drawn, coal was the primary fuel, street lighting was gas and in the financial heart of London, there was same-day mail delivery.”

Whenever I hear these stories about really old people dying, I’m reminded of Methuselah, who lived nearly a millennium. I have a hard time with the concept of living 100 years, much less living an order of magnitude longer. If I was born 969 years ago, I would have been born in the year 1040, pretty much in the middle of the Dark Ages. Crazy, and really quite unfathomable.

I finally bought my grill yesterday. It’s a Master Forge, and it has four main burners with a side burner. Now I’m ready to Grill! It! Up!

Summer at the Wong household can finally commence.

Andy and I are going to assemble it this morning, and we’ll cook dinner on it tonight. I already went shopping at Costco and Safeway for our dinner. We’ve got to inaugurate the grill in style, so I’ll be cooking up the following:

• Grilled Butterflied Chicken
• Tri-tip
• Kielbasa
• Zucchini
• Mushrooms
• Roasted Potatoes

The first five items will be on the grill. The last one will be in the oven, but if I get a little crazy and adventurous, I might try some on the grill as well.

Can’t wait!

Verses 4-5:

Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
have the wisdom to show restraint.

Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,
for they will surely sprout wings
and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

I love this advice. More people in Silicon Valley need to follow this admonition. There are too many people here who strive for money, power, and prestige. Unfortunately, it’s contagious. But this verse is a good reminder that it is wise to show restraint.

The second verse is quite appropos to our current economic situation. Housing valuse, stocks, bonds, jobs–you name it, they’ve disappeared in the last year. I wouldn’t say they’ve “flown off to the sky” as much as they’ve plummeted like a rock, but you get the idea.

I think the good thing in all of this is that many people are finding satisfaction in things other than riches and work. I’ve heard of countless people for whom the economy has been a brutal wake-up call. To paraphrase the All State Insurance commercial, we’re finding that who’s gathered around our TV is more important than how big it is, and that game night with the family is more fun than going to the latest Broadway show.

I think this is a good thing. It’s a societal reminder of the things that are really important. We need these reminders sometimes. That’s why the Proverbs are here.

Verse 6:

Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

I’ve come to realize two things about this verse. First, it’s a general principle, not a biblical promise. That is to say that great parents can have horrible kids, and horrible parents can have great kids. I’ve seen it both ways, in both my friends and my friend’s kids. But the general principle is that the child needs to be trained properly, and thus be on a “trajectory” from which he will not turn.

The second thing I’ve realized about this verse is the importance of recognizing “the way he should go.” Parents have a duty to influence their kids in positive ways, and to encourage them to strive for greatness. But at the end of the day the definition of “greatness” is not up to the parents, it’s up to the kids. At some point, the children need to find their own way, their own purpose, their own direction in life. And the parents need not meddle in that.

Here’s the classic example I’ve seen in my friends, particularly my Asian friends. Their parents want them to be doctors, or nothing else. Not even lawyers. But the child has an aptitude for something like art, or dancing, English, or business, not chemistry, biology or medicine. So what ends up happening? The child goes to college as a pre-med student (at a prestigious and expensive university like Stanford), has a miserable four years, decides to assert his or her  independence, and either quits the undergrad program at the last minute, or finishes out the bachelors degree only to head off to art school afterwards.

To what end was the parent’s prodding, admonition, and distress? To no end. It was all for naught. Had the parents led the child “in the way he should go” it’s likely that much weaping and gnashing of teeth could have been avoided.

Last week, Goldman Sachs announced some pretty impressive numbers, especially in light of our horrible economy. A lot of people have a tendency to lash out and claim that it’s disgusting and unfair. Rick Newman, the author of the article “Why We Should Cheer Goldman’s Fat Profits” argues otherwise. He says that Goldman is doing exactly what it should have with the government’s money.

The last thing we really want to happen is to hear that all the banks lost more money in the last quarter.  On the contrary, the fact that Goldman made billions of dollars last quarter shows that the TARP money accomplished its purpose (at least at Goldman).

Full Disclosure: I do have long positions in GS.

Taken from Driver’s Ed.com:

Spurs and loops extend from a primary interstate. A spur is a short route that extends to the primary route at only one end. It has a three-digit number that begins with an odd number. A loop is a route that meets the primary route at both ends. It’s three-digit route number begins with an even number. Loops usually bypass cities or congested areas.

In light of that, can someone please explain to me how highways are numbered in the Bay Area?

• Highway 85 is a loop that only has two digits.
• Highway 101 is most definitely a primary interstate, but has three digits.
• Highway 280 runs north south.
• Etc.
• Etc.

See what I mean? It makes no sense.

In case you haven’t been following the news lately, microblogging company Twitter was hacked last week. As a follow up article, Tech Crunch has a great article on “The Anatomy Of The Twitter Attack“.

I think it’s really interesting how the Twitter attack wasn’t so much the hack of one system, but of the entire technology ecosystem. The article calls out

The list of services affected either directly, or indirectly, are some of the most popular web applications and services in use today – Gmail, Google Apps, GoDaddy, MobileMe, AT&T, Amazon, Hotmail, Paypal and iTunes. Taken individually, most of these services have reasonable security precautions against intrusion. But there are huge weaknesses when they are looked at together, as an ecosystem.

So what do we take away from this? I think the article sums it up nicely:

So for a start, reset those passwords and don’t use the same passwords for different services. Don’t use password recovery questions that can easily be answered with a simple web search (an easy solution is to answer those questions falsely). And just in general be paranoid about data security. You may be happy you were.

This is a really good reason to keep those passwords secure and distinct. Use a random password generator, and don’t reuse the password across services. I wonder what, if any, implications this has for password managers like RoboForm or Keepass, which make one’s passwords all centrally located.

These conclusions also seem to advocate a stronger system of two-factor authentication in online services. E*Trade is the only company I know of that makes use of RSA keys as an additional layer of security. Bank of America offers a service called SafePass that sends a text message to your cell phone to add a layer of security similar to using an RSA key.

I’ve never used either of these services so I don’t know exactly how they work. My concern is that if these security features are “optional” it makes them easy to bypass, and provides only a false sense of security for the end user. And that’s definitely not a good thing.

Gahh! I’m so far behind on these.

Proverbs 18

Verse 10:

The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
the righteous run to it and are safe.

A great reminder that God is our protector and provider. If we are in His will, we are safe.

Verse 13:

He who answers before listening—
that is his folly and his shame.

Reminds me of James chapter 1. We need to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.

Verse 22:

He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.

I definitely found what is good. I’m a very favored guy!

Proverbs 19

Verse 7:

A poor man is shunned by all his relatives—
how much more do his friends avoid him!
Though he pursues them with pleading,
they are nowhere to be found.

A stark reminder. It seems almost a bit unfair that the Bible mentions this. What, with all the talk about grace, mercy, the forgiveness of debt, the admonition not to pursue money and wealth, and the reminder of our value in Christ. But Proverbs is nothing if not practical. I’m not sure what the takeaway is. Don’t be poor?

Verse 11:

A man’s wisdom gives him patience;
it is to his glory to overlook an offense.

This is definitely a character area I need to work on. I totally see it in Charlene, but it’s an area of weakness in me. It’s interesting that the patience flows out of the wisdom. Maybe its the realization and wisdom that the “small stuff” should just slide.

Verse 14:

Houses and wealth are inherited from parents,
but a prudent wife is from the LORD.

Well, I definitely haven’t inherited a house from my parents. I have inherited wealth, though, especially the wealth found in an upbringing in the Lord and a good education. But I’ve definitely received a wonderful wife from God. She’s definitely not something I could have inherited from my parents Come to think of it, that’s a really interesting point. In a time and culture where arranged marriage was so common, the writer of this proverb still acknowledged that a wife was from God. Interesting…

Verse 21:

Many are the plans in a man’s heart,
but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.

Love this verse! Yet another great reminder to surrender all we plan and do to God.

Proverbs 20

Verse 10:

Differing weights and differing measures—
the LORD detests them both.

Can you imagine if we applied this to our Post-Modern, relativistic society? “Well, your truth is your truth, and that’s fine for you. But I have my own, and that’s fine for me. We can both be right.” I wonder if God detests such philosophies. It seems that he must.

Verse 13:

Do not love sleep or you will grow poor;
stay awake and you will have food to spare.

Hmm…one time a friend asked me what I would do if I had more time. I told him I’d sleep. Hope this doesn’t apply to me.

Verse 23:

The LORD detests differing weights,
and dishonest scales do not please him.

Twice in one proverb. I guess He must really mean it.

Proverbs 21

Verse 3:

To do what is right and just
is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

I go back and forth on this. Sometimes it seems like God asks us to be obedient because He’s God and has the prerogative to do that. Other times, I feel like He’d rather us do it because we want to do it. But it definitely seems that He’d rather have our hearts and our heads than our “stuff.”

Verse 5:

The plans of the diligent lead to profit
as surely as haste leads to poverty.

An interesting reminder in the face of our rapidly changing economic climate. Diligent planning leads to profit, and haste makes waste. Interesting that it uses the word “profit” rather than success. That seems to be indicative of monetary accomplishment here on Earth rather than something like “godly success” or “Kingdom riches” for eternity.

Verse 9:

Better to live on a corner of the roof
than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

Unmarried guys take note, better find a wife who isn’t quarrelsome, otherwise you’d be better off living on the corner of your roof.

Verse 14:

A gift given in secret soothes anger,
and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath.

Yet another verse I’d never imagine was in the Bible. This may not be an admonition to bribe someone, but the great truth that it often works.

Verse 19:

Better to live in a desert
than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.

Unmarried guys take note again. This time it’s better to live in the desert.

I got a Blackberry Tour last Tuesday from Best Buy. After playing with it for a week, here’s a random assortment of impressions, some good, some bad:

Pros:

• Google Apps are amazing! Super easy to set up E-mail for Google Apps as well as importing my Google calendar.
• My calendar was sync’d in about 10 minutes.
• Love running multiple apps at once, like Pandora in the background while e-mailing someone, or having music fade when making a phone call.
• Amazingly enthusiastic, even fanatical blackberry community. Many answers are only a google search away.
• Browser is pretty fast.
• Blackberry App World has some pretty nifty programs, especially Pandora.
• Applications are easy to download, install, and uninstall.
• Not necessary to get all applications through one central store (a la Apple App Store), you’re free to get them from the vendor if available.
• Video playback capabilities are amazing.
• Nice to be able to record video. Not sure about the quality.

Ambivalents:

• Has a flash for the camera, but takes forever to shoot.
• Keyboard is a bit small.  Takes some getting used to. Nice to have tactile feedback, though.
• Wish I could nest folders for apps, settings, etc.

Cons:

• Confusing how certain programs show up in the manual, but don’t show up on the device.
• Noticed that about 2 hours after purchasing, more icons automatically showed up: browser, My Verizon, etc.
• Annoying that every program has a Terms of Service
• Confusing how sometimes you press the menu button for something, but others you press the trackball.
• Wish I could put more icons on the homescreen.
• No wifi, would be especially nice at home.
• Annoying how I have to pay for turn by turn directions to Verizon for $10/month.
• Weird to receive a text message each time I get a voicemail.
• Recent calls is a bit confusing. No easy way to get there.  Why do I get a message each time?
• Unable to show more than 12 icons when inside of a folder.  Seems like a lot of wasted “white” space (it’s really black).
• Annoying that the phone can’t be in standby and locked mode with one key.  Requires two key presses.
• Typing passwords is complicated because it’s hard to know what entries are being pressed, e.g., 1 vs W or 2 vs E.
• Browser leaves something to be desired.
• How do you dial letters? It’s not immediately obvious, and the intuitive thing to do (actually pressing on the letters themselves since it’s a QWERTY keyboard) isn’t the right thing to do.  It’s close, but not quite. The answer is to press the ALT key while typing the letter, so to dial GOOG-411, you would type press and hold the ALT button while typing “GOOG” and then release the ALT key before pressing 411.  Not the most intuitive way to do it.
• Silencing the phone doesn’t really silence it–the alarm will still go off in silent mode (huh?). Can’t seem to find any documentation on this. Looks like I actually have to disable the alarm in order for it to be silent.

Unfortunately, that’s a rather long list of Cons and Ambivalents. I’ve got 30 days to figure out whether or not I really want to keep this thing. After being without my Handspring Visor for a few years, it’s really nice to have my calendar on me at all times.  It’s quite convenient.

I keep going back and forth in my head about whether or not to keep this. Part of me really hopes that the iPhone comes to Verizon in 2010. If that’s the case, then I’ll likely return this thing and wait another few months. If it gets pushed back to 2011, it might be worth my while to keep this Blackberry and use it until the new iPhone arrives.

Hmm…I guess I’d better take really good advantage of my 30 days.