How To Charge Fees

I came across a post on how to charge for consultation fees and it is so funny and interesting that I can't resist to blog it. The text is here.

Interesting excerpt:

He (Author's friend) says, “If, when you tell them your rate, half the people don’t say ‘Fuck you’, you aren’t charging enough.”

It seems I am charging far too low for my salary. Shit.

Guide On Resume Writing For SW Engineers

Steve Yegge has an enlightening blog entry on how to write a technical resume properly here.

On one of the tips "Don't say 'Expert' unless you really mean it", what follows is an excerpt of it:

If you say you're an expert in something, many interviewers take it to mean you claim to have a bigger penis than they do, metaphorically speaking of course, and they're going to pull out their still highly metaphorical measuring stick during the interview and size you up. I employ this metaphor in its most gender-neutral possible interpretation, needless to say.

VPost

[Updated: 26 Sept 2007]
Let me elaborate on how this works:

1. Customers will set up an account with vpost and they will be given an account number
2. When the customers order some merchandises, instead of entering their Singapore addresses, they will enter vpost's collection point address in U.S. and their respective account numbers
3. (Guessing) Vpost will send the collected parcels in batch mode thus getting a cheaper bulk rate
4. Once those stuff arrive Singapore, Singapore Post will relabel those parcels according to the account number and send them off.

Or in networking terms, vpost encapsulates the individual shippings into a jumbo shipment and reroute those shippings upon arrival. Tata

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I just ordered some books from Amazon, and found an ad on my parcel from vpost

It claims to be able to offer reduced postage from US and Japan to Singapore by aggregating the shipments.

I haven't tried this service yet, but I found this is a pretty innovative and win-win business model. Plus, it is environmental friendly, too. :)

Intel Reopens Jerusalem Chip Plant

This story isn't something extra-ordinary, but the following line caught my attention:

Intel's decision to reopen the plant follows additional tax benefits it would receive from its Israeli operations, the paper said, noting that the company plans to move some production lines from southeast Asia to Jerusalem.

In which southeast asian country Intel has production line now?

Interesting, no? ;)

Jokes

These are classic Chinese jokes on conversations between cell phone buyers and sellers. :)

买家：请问欧版和行货为什么要分开卖？
卖家：因为粘在一起不方便使用。
买家：……
买家：老板，你说欧版质量好，还是行货质量好？
卖家：也许是欧版的吧！
买家：为什么？
卖家：因为我只见过行货有专门的维修中心。
买家：老板，这个手机的铃声怎么样？
卖家：绝对能响！
买家：掌柜的，这个手机的最大优点是什么？
卖家：可以打电话。
买家：哦！有什么缺点呢？
卖家：不能剃须。
买家：……
买家：老板，我同学说的，你们这里买的手机，即使从四楼掉下来摔坏了，你们也可以换的，是这样吗？
卖家：你们应该多关心一下这位同学，不要让他一个人呆着，多陪他说说话，参加一些集体活动。如果还不见有什么好转的话，可以送到医院观察一下。
买家：哦！
买家：老板，有巧克力吗？
卖家：有，德芙的，还有金帝的。
买家：我是说手机！
卖家：哦，经你这么一提醒我才知道我是卖手机的。
买家：老板，那你再给说说怎么分辨原装电池和组装电池。
卖家：你把电池扔到火堆里，原装的爆炸声音更响些。
买家：这么贵的手机，我还不如买个笔记本电脑
卖家：也对，我想你站在人群中，把笔记本翻开，贴在耳朵边听电话的造型一定很酷。
买家：有人吗？
卖家：不好意思，我只卖手机！
买家：老板，这个手机的通话质量好吗？
卖家：三星的一般都很好的。
买家：我已经买的好几部手机都不行，听不清楚别人说什么。
卖家：哦？
买家：你推荐我应该买什么？
卖家：助听器。
买家：老板，问你个问题。大陆行、港行、亚太行、欧行的，哪个质量更好？
卖家：都一样，行行出状元嘛！
买家：老板，有什么手机最耐用？
卖家：只有相对耐用的，没有绝对耐用的。
买家：为什么？
卖家：你见过谁家有祖传的手机？
买家：哥哥，你给我说说智能手机和非智能手机有什么区别啊！
卖家：就以闹钟为例，一般的手机到点就闹，闹得醒闹不醒不管，智能手机见闹不醒你，会打电话给你们单位领导请假。
买家：哦！
买家：老板，你们卖手机赚钱吗？
卖家：那是相当的赚。
买家：那一个月能赚多少？
卖家：你先买部手机，让我先赚点钱，把昨天的饭钱结了再告诉你。
买家：老板，我们这里不到快递，还有什么办法能更快送到吗？
卖家：你包个飞机，然后空投。
买家：有MOTO的998吗？
卖家：不好意思，我不是收藏家。
买家：老板，这个手机大概有多重？
卖家：60多克。
买家：哎！其他都好，我就是嫌太轻了。
卖家：你可以绑在哑铃上使用。

Decisions Made Or Not Made

Story 1:
SCO is nearly dead, now filing for bankruptcy and it blames Linux for its demise. Story here


Story 2:
US automakers in shit, really deep one. Most jobs now go to Asia and South America. Story here.


What do the above stories have in common? What is the lesson?

Complacency kills

Look, SCO was the king in OS in 80's, at that time MS was a small company with MS DOS practically not usable. That was the heyday of SCO with most backbone computers running Unix. At that time, the open source projects didn't exist yet, and Richard Stallment was still hacking happily in the MIT AI lab.

The problem is SCO just has been sitting in its laurel for too long, oblivious to the ever changing world outside. The computing landscape is changing very rapidly, and an 'Internet year', is arguably much shorter than a dog year, let alone a normal calendar year. When SCO finally woke up, it already in shit. Game over.

How about US automakers? They are not dead yet, but they are beaten so hard that they have to cut costs and move to places with cheap labors to survive. For so long US cars have been producing bulky and fuel-inefficient vehicles, and then the gas was dirt cheap and there was no competition, so everything was rosy and glory. But when the underlying factors (i.e. cheap gas and no competition) changed, it was thrown in shit.

What struck me was the quote of Mark Fields, president of Ford's North and South American Operations, on the current situation:

'It's a manifestation of decisions made or not made years ago.'

What is the remedy? I have no ready answers for that, but Steve Job has a very thoughtful pointers here.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Let 'Em Pay

What do you do if you want something that is expensive, but can't really pay for it?

Pessimistic Solution:
Think "I can't never buy it", instead get some wine and get drunk. Fine

Conservative Solution:
"I will start saving today and buy it when I am rich."

Think-Lucky Solution:
Go and buy a lot of lottery tickets, hoping to be lucky

Patek Way:
Go and buy it, and claim that your children will like it as well. What happens if your children don't like watches? Well, who cares? (at least Patek hopes you don't)

Here is the advertisement line from Patek Philippe, a very expensive watch maker

"You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation"

Right. It will be even better if my next generation will pay for the outstanding balance as well. Grin, I will get a dozen of these then. :P

Kill with Environment In Mind

Russia recently successfully tested a 'dad of all bombs'. News here

What amazes me is the following excerpt from Alexander Rukshin, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

"It [The bomb] is environmentally friendly, compared to a nuclear bomb, and it will enable us to ensure national security and at the same time stand up to international terrorism in any part of the globe and in any situation."

I like the remark of 'It is environmentally friendly', which implies "I will kill you, but won't pollute the environment."

Thanks for keeping our environment clean.

Why University Sucks Nowadays

I came across a short article on the shortcomings of higher-education systems in UK.

He was a professor in a UK university, but after got fed up with the university system, he threw the towel and quitted.

Interestingly enough the points he delineated were strikingly the pain I felt while in graduate school. Among those:

1. The incoming students are vastly incompetent, and grades were everything according to them. I recalled I had a student who was on the borderline of 'A' and 'B', however his obsession of ensuring to score 'A' really pissed me off (for the record, he had been getting straight A's then). During the final score tally, he was a few points short of getting an 'A', and as an instructor I had 5 points to dispense for class participation. I decided to give him only 1 out of 5 and thus, he was given 'B'. He did make a lot of noise, but after an email from the grad office, he was silenced. I hope he would learn a lesson that grades aren't everything.

2. The need for papers. When I was doing my master's degree, I just felt very weird of the need to churn out papers, especially journal papers. Imagine a room full of highly-qualified, intelligent people and kept debating how much we should put in ("not too much, as we could put that in another paper" proclaimed one participant in the room) and what we should not discuss in the paper (usually weaknesses in the theory or thorny issues that were not tamed). Truth be told I highly suspect if those papers will be read by anybody except the authors and the reviewers. For myself, I doubt there was third person who ever finished reading my master's thesis. I and my advisor did and that is it. I am not even sure the rest of the committee members did.

Moto Hoo-Haas

A few months ago, I complained long and loud when I got my Motorola Razr V3i because it is such a piece of crap. I am not the lone unhappy owner it seems.

Recently a poll on Moto handphone owners reveals more than 75% of Razr owners will not buy Motorola handphone again. News is here.

Count me in please.

Warm, Wet, and Nice

I had a great experience with something wet, warm and thrillingly nice on Saturday.

When I first into her, I could feel the warm sensations rushed throughout my body, and I was sweating profusely. I tried even harder and harder, and .....

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I was covered in dirt because I was cycling through a lot of muddy terrains at the Ubin Island.

Ubin Island is 10 minutes of boat ride away from Singapore island and the beauty of it is it has nothing at all except trees, trees, and more trees. This is a god-send to me because I have quite enough of Singapore's shopping complexes, and this is a break that I need and appreciate.

I and Mr. Snail met around 10:30a.m. at Tampines bus exchange and reached the island around noon. After some strolls there, we got ourselves mountain bikes and rode around. Even though it rained that morning, but the afternoon sun was strong. I felt I was nearly baked under the sun.

We sped through ankle-deep water, mud-filled pavements, single-file bridges and rocky roads. The experience was very unique and fun. Though it would have been much more fun if there were a few more people. :P

The Granite Quarry, we were around 30 feet above the water level

Pose for a shot after hitting dead-end. Scratching my hand, mosquito is small but powerful...