PRACTICE

New home

2006-03-25T17:59:00.000-08:00

My blog is moved to http://lmeimei.com.

Come to visit me!

From China, with love

2006-02-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

From China, with love

I go to an event of Asian Engineer Association with Bin yesterday. The head of Microsoft Asian Technology Center holds a session introducing employment in China. To lure the attendant hearers to come to work in China, he shows some pictures of landscape of Beijing and Shanghai-new skyscrapers stretch to horizon, comparable to any international cities, the brilliant city light that hurn your eyes, stylish pubs and coffee houses, and the deep alley and old house near Forbidon cities (cultural needs), followed by a stack of photos of colorful Chinese dishes; finally a not-so-artistical photo with the complacent man had his feet massaged by a young lady, which, the speaker claimed that “you can only afford 10 minutes at the airport in the US”. That’s quite a presentation in terms of showing the country’s charm. Eat, drink and massage. When I was growing up in China, we were told that the evil capitalism tried to poison our pure mind with materialism and consumerism. Heck now, seems my mother country nowadays knows exactly how to buy the heart of people overseas.
Those static image of food really makes me very homesick and want to fly home the next day. Maybe it’s just my stomach and month that got homesick. What depresses me the most is the frustration of finding some good Chinese food in Seattle (not able to go to Vancuver yet), and the damage is even bigger than the gloomy winter. Well, maybe it’s the combination of the both that kills the cow (me, and I don’t know why I will invent such expression)… Anyway, guess, if not my heart, at least my stomach is bought by this presentation.

Links reminder

2005-12-14T17:21:00.000-08:00

Links reminder

Alexa Web Search Platform (free web crawler) via Alex

Touchgraph (ego-centric network) via inforsthetic

brandimensions (marketing intellegience) via Datamining

Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?

2005-12-05T23:20:00.000-08:00

Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere? via Kevin

Higlights:

**a Euro RSCG Magnet and Columbia University Survey of the Media in 2005 found that 51 percent of journalists view blogs regularly.

**Have a distinct focus and goal. For a (corporate) blog to deliver value, it has to be created with a specific purpose in mind.
"You need to set expectations very carefully as to what a corporate blog is going to be about. People will expect you to discuss everything about your company, but you need to stay on topic as explained and introduced," says Michael Wiley, the director of new media at GM.
Robert Cox, a blogging consultant in New York, says that a company should carefully identify the corporate marketing objectives of any blog. "You need to ask: Are you trying to showcase your employees? Are you using the blog as a recruitment tool as Monster.com does with their blog? Or is it more of a product support tool? You have to determine what it is you are trying to get done."
**"Don't let the PR department write your blog. Bloggers will sniff it out, and when they do, you will lose all credibility"
In your blog, express your enthusiasm and passion for your work and your company's product, with occasional asides on topics that reflect your personal interests. The latter will keep your voice authentic and increase the linkability of your blog.
**Permit both positive and negative posts on your blog, and reply to comments made on other blogs pertinent to your area of focus. Respond in a professional and businesslike way. If you don't want to hear from your customers and critics in a public environment, don't blog.

Da Vinci ain't get no Ph.D

2005-12-05T00:52:00.000-08:00

Da Vinci ain't get no Ph.D

History channel is playing a documentary about Da Vinci. I thought he was most famous for his painting, but hack, that’s something he’s got so bored that he would rather be sued by his patrons than finish his commission. To escape the boredom he left for Milan and started his phase of military design for Duke Sforza. This is one of his designs that were so beyond his time that it was not realized until 400 years later. However, Duke Sforza was more interested in using Da Vinci’s artistic talent to serve his own pleasure and build his own legacy. So poor Leonardo had to paint such uninteresting objects as the Duke’s Mistress (The lady with the ermine) or the “last supper”. Because he tried to experiment some news painting material which turned out not that successful, ‘Last Super’ had been dampened and disintegrated within the first decade of its completion. Sforza horse, the tribute to Sforza was destroyed by French while it’s still a clay mold. Fleeing from Milan, his military innovation, including the Diving suit, paddle boats, or semi-submersibles on water was not particularly interest to Duke of Venice neither. Finally appointed by Cesar Borgia as the Chief General Engineer (sounds not very artistic), Da Vinci however was repelled by his cruelty and left for Florence to explore gentle side of human nature. While Mona Lisa forever a work in progress, he switched his interest again to designed wings for human being, which by the way was the prototype of today’s airplane. And of course he did not make one it because he develop another new profession-autopsy…

As a tribute to the Great Da Vinci, I left this post unfinished… Poor Leonardo, he could’ve never get his Ph.D becourse he had nothing complete for his committee. Have I mentioned that he was blogging too (kinds of, he kept 15000 pages of notes, whose contents ranges from his design and the laundry he’d done) and they were in “mirror writing”?

2005-11-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

A MIX OF MASH-UPS via Seattle Intelligence Post Intelligencer

wash-up:" Web sites combine ingredients from different online sources to create intriguing hybrids."

SAMPLE SITES
www.analygis.com (census data + maps)
www.aytozon.com (Amazon.com + eBay)
www.celebrity-maps.com (celebrity homes + maps)
www.cellreception.com (cell phone towers + maps)
www.fboweb.com (flight location + maps)
www.homepricerecords.com (home sales prices + maps)
www.housingmaps.com (maps + housing listings)
www.simplyhired.com (job listings + social networking + salary info + maps)
www.trachtenberg.com/emgm (eBay motors + maps)
www.weatherbonk.com (weather + Web cams + maps)
SITES WITH LISTS OF MAPPING MASH-UPS
www.googlemapsmania.blogspot.com
ws1.inf.scd.yahoo.com/maps/applications.html

20-years of ‘Pride and prejudice’ complex

2005-11-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

20-years of ‘Pride and prejudice’ complex

I could not remember what was the last movie I saw in theater, which means it must be long long time ago. But since long long time ago, I’ve been looking forward to seeing this ‘Pride and Prejudice’. I can’t wait to see a young and perky Elisabeth Bennet (that doesn’t mean I don’t like BBC version and the one with Laurence Olivier). I was so excited with the approaching of its’ opening, that I felt I was back to the 13-year-old girl again, whose heart bouncing so fast when turning every page of the book (in Chinese at that time). For a very long time, I don’t know, or believe in any love other than the one between Darcy and Elisabeth, the one built on the parallel of two similar spirits, as well as the enjoyment of intellectual clash. I read and again all the chapters where two of them fight so hard to outwit each other buth underneath the conflict it was such intellectual satisfaction. I remember the sunny Saturday afternoon when my best girlfriend and I read together “if your feeling still are what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affection and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever”. It sounds like Bach. We sighed and laughed at her small bed, dreaming about the days when someone will speak the same words to us.

Now back to the movie, I think it’s doing very well on such love-fight relationship and the chemistry is real between the two; some sexual energy is just right, except at the end the audience burst into laughter when Mr. Darcy showed his bare feet. Talking about the audience, the late show at a rainy night (So Seattle!) was surprisingly sold out and the room was so crowded which only reminds me the audience size for “Fahrenheit 911” or “Lord of Ring’. (Maybe people read more in Seattle?)

It’s very interesting to see the director moved the setting of some important conversation from living room out to the wild. It adds a nice romantic touch and infuses more nature of force to the love in a very conservative era. Some of the scenes feel so “Wuthering Heights”, another favorite book of mine. It’s such a imaginative and bold move to ahve Lizzy standing at the edge of cliff with long hair blowing in the wind, and Darcy and Lizzy kissing against the morning sun in the prairie. I don’t remember too much wild sprit, which is quite typical in Bronte, in Austin's books. But the movie pulls it out very well. Darcy in the movie was presented convincingly as someone incapable of socializing and small talk, which is very charming (where to find a rich and handsome young man who doesn't flirt with othe women?). Kightly’s Lizzy is close to Lizzy I envisioned, with crooked teeth though, which looks very naughty. I only wish them were in nicer costumes, and it would've fulfill perfectly my fantacy of the perfect love (God, how shallow I am!)

When I was 13, I could not wait to grow up to have my own Darcy-Lizzy story in real life. When I am 30 something now, I wanted go back to a younger years, when love is much simpler thing-an exchange of witty words, a brush of love one’s hand, an evasive glance and an unexpected encounter can lighten the day up like in heaven. I guess I am very old fashioned in heart.

better than never

2005-11-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

Better than never

Google finally launched blog search engine (not fair, it's two months ago). I asked the Google research director after her talk two years ago in San Jose when google would have search engine for blogs, since my blog often got readership referred by google; a lot of search terms are amusingly strange and total irrelevant to my blog . She was not quite prepared for that question and told me they did not have such plan since Google tried to include as many WebPages as possible in their search results. hmm, I wonder if I could get credit for the reminder.

I'm worried, for I'm a lady

2005-11-01T11:14:00.000-08:00

I'm worried, for I'm a lady...

(So that's what happens when you mind is not creative-blogging turns into some reading notes-or in a more fashionable term 'knowledge management'.)

Now, this one is from newsweek-an interview with Robert Leahy, a psycologist writing a book called 'the worry cure'.

Why do women worry more than men?
Because, simply put, women are better human being!

"Worriers tend to be more concerned about how other people feel and are better at empathy than nonworriers. Worriers also overempathize, and I think women are more likely to do this than men. In other words, they are concerned with the effect a particular action might have had on another person. Women also tend to ruminate a lot. They tend to go over something over and over again to be sure it’s the correct decision. Men are more willing to fail--or perhaps men have more of an illusion that they’re not failing. "

Does worry get worse for women with aging?
good news!-and how wonderful to get old: " Anxiety and depression are most common in women between the ages of 18 and 33. ...There are a lot of life changes, a lot of uncertainty and unrealistic expectations about what you have to look like, what your job has to be, what your romance has to be. As people get into their 30s, 40s and 50s, they have adjusted their expectations and have stabilized in terms of work and friendship. You wouldn’t have “Romeo and Juliet” for people in their 50s; it would be called “The Honeymooners.”

learn a new term (or two):
Amygdala-'where all your anger, anxiety and arousal come from'.
agoraphobia -'the fear of being in open or crowded public spaces'

In a nutshell

2005-10-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

Flashback & Snapshot

I could not blog too often recently. Work is always lagging behind (housework and schoolwork..dissertation is a kind of homework too I assume). On top of that, I started an internship with a PR company in Bellevue. Since I am working with the research group, it doesn't feel too different from graduate school. I think that's pretty good combination of my research skills and my interest in business world. Driving is a constant headache; traffic is always slower than 20 miles on 520, from 4 :30 to 7:30 pm, kind of frustrating. In my opinion, there is nothing more than being stuck in endless traffic that makes you feel the hardship of life. Glad the company has this flexible work plan available.

Went to Chicago for AOIR 6.0 earlier this month and presented my paper on blog links within American cities. Staying in the 42nd floor at Marriott Downtown Chicago, I felt I was in a different planet from my cabin deep in the woods at Seattle when I looked down upon the giant and bright city (on iron shoulder?)every night.

I lost my Cannon powershot s400 on the plane back to Los Angeles for Pavoratti's concert. I bought a SD410 later, and found none of my old accessories, from battery to charger, from memory card to leather case, compatible to this new little thing. That makes me not very happy about Canon. I would bought the exact same S400 should they continue the model, which, I believe, is like only 2 years old. I don't see the huge difference of these two models, but nothing work together. That's ridiculous. Quoting Bin's favorite words-Capitalism is sucking my money.

why do you blog?

2005-10-12T16:05:00.000-07:00

Why blogging?

Edelman PR has a survey on bloggers. for the first question: what is the primary reason you blog?" I wonder if they forgot to add an option for me: Blogging for writing practice-in foreign language. Anybody out there?

but of course- the survey is for PR popurse. Other intersting findings: bloggers trusted other bloggers most (62%) when looking information about a product-another good reason for corporate to hire some professional bloggers to talk about their companies or products; however, blogs are not that trustworthy if endorsed by a company (only 6.68% say it's VERY trustworthy).

And, Surprise!- about 60%(!) of bloggers interviewed have been contacted by PRs. Now I can't help wondering if the blogger samples are kind of skewed to those top bloggers.

I will be back

2005-09-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

I will be back

I will be concentrated on wraping up my dissertation and getting my degree. Blogging will be back in mid October.

Unexpected

2005-09-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

Unexpected

I must admit I haven't' paid too much attention to Katrina at Louisiana for past few days, not close to half as much as I had for Tsunami in South Asia. How bad could it be, I thought, the richest country in the world, who dealt with hurricane/flood on annual base, who spent billions of dollars fighting terrorism and protect its people, how bad could it be?! I didn't pay much attention until I overheard an angry anchor ranting on CNN while I was cooking my lunch. I don't understand. How could the major rescue force there consists of Red Cross and local policemen in the face of large-scale death, famine, epidemic, looting and shooting? Where is the capable governor that can draw millions of federal funds and the caring president who passed sandbag on the dan, like what happened in Florida last year? I hope it is not because this is not an election year, or because Louisiana is certainly not a swing state, or because 60% of New Orleans are Black.

Rainy days and Mondays

2005-08-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Rainy day and Monday

It's Monday and it's a rainy day, and the song from my younger days sounds in my head all day long. The teenager-appealing lyrics starts to make sense to me again and actually it fits my current situation quite well. Blues. nothing seems to fit. lonely clown.

It's the first rain and overcast day I have in Seattle, and it happens in a Monday (actually starting from late Sunday evening). It feels like the party is over... (though I'm not a party person at all)

I used to live in Buffalo before my Californian days, I don't expect the weather change could do so much on my mood this time around. But it does. Those warnings about 90-day straight raining season in Seattle start to make me worry.

I need to be strong.

2005-08-22T16:57:00.000-07:00

old bottle, new wine

An interesting research done by University of Michigan gives an empirical foothold for the old theory of high context / Low context culture. What's newly revealed in this study is that such differences may be natural born, which could be a quite a blow on the notion of "culture is learned".

"Nisbett .... asking Japanese and Americans to look at pictures of underwater scenes and report what they saw. The Americans would go straight for the brightest or most rapidly moving object, he said, such as three trout swimming. The Japanese were more likely to say they saw a stream, the water was green, there were rocks on the bottom and then mention the fish. The Japanese gave 60 percent more information on the background and twice as much about the relationship between background and foreground objects as Americans."

"the researchers tracked the eye movement of the Chinese and Americans as they looked at pictures. The Americans looked at the object in the foreground sooner Â? a leopard in the jungle for example Â? and they looked at it longer. The Chinese had more eye movement, especially on the background and back and forth between the main object and the background, he said."

I met a biologist from UCLA not long ago and he predicted in our lunch that social science will eventually have to find answer in genetics. That's quite a bold statement. But if you read the recent bestseller Freakonomics, you might discover a newfound territory of eugenics in social science researchtolerantnt abortion policies correlates with the declination of crime rate (because potential criminals do not get chances to be born); who the parents are, rather than what parents do to the kids are highly correlated with the children's school performanceNumbersrs don't lie, that's what the Levitt, thauthorer believe. That reminds me that the whole regression theory starts with Galten's (he's Darwin's cousin) passion on eugenics. He was the one who stood at London street to measure the beauty of women passerby, and who set out to collect heights of hundreds father and sons. I guess social science does start with, or at least with intent to understand, genetics, and there might be a trend today that revives this dangerous tradition, which can be easily labeled as racism.

sweet home Maple Leaf

2005-08-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

Sweet home Maple Leaf

This will be hard to beat, we found a house in three days. We will have our first home in Seattle. Hidden in the woods, however, it's only one block from the bus stop. No famous attractions or cultural center, but everything interesting is within 10 minutes of driving, and a coffee house with free wi-fi is a few blocks away. The house is a little older than we've expected, but we can't complain too much-Seattle is such a hot market today. The view of cascade mountain is just irresistible.

Leadership

2005-08-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

Leadership

I had my first telephone job interview today. I think it went well and my background kinds of impressed the recruiter. But I stumbled over one question about leadership. I don't even remember how the question was asked, but I remember I was very surprised to hear the term. It's not that I never heard of that, I did, actually, too many times everywhere, and came across it every time when reading interview tip. I don't know why I just skipped it every time and think no one will really ask such abstract question. Maybe I've been in academia too long and the word sounds so strangely corporate to me. Or, I just realized, maybe I am never comfortable with the question because of culture background? Maybe deep inside, I was more conformed to the value of teamwork and collectivism and never wanted to be the one that look above all others? In Chinese, we said the bird that stands out will be shot first and there are lots of other proberbs on keeping low profile. Even I've heard this term 'leadership' thousands of times, the value associated with it makes me turne back on . When I got off the phone and eased down, I realized the question is just about a set of management skills, not about principles. I should have mentioned the teaching experience (I think I was given a cue by the recruiter, then I forgot), how to manage a class, how to keep litseners' attention and how convey message effectively. I will remember it next time. And I should not skip any popular question on interview tips anymore.

new data on Blogosphere by comScore

2005-08-11T00:58:00.000-07:00

new data on Blogosphere by comScore
key findings:

"· 50 million U.S. Internet users visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005. That is roughly 30% of all U.S. Internet users and 1 in 6 of the total U.S. population
· Five hosting services for blogs each had more than 5 million unique visitors in that period,and four individual blogs had more than 1 million visitors each
· Of 400 of the biggest blogs observed, segmented by seven (nonexclusive) categories,political blogs were the most popular, followed by "hipster" lifestyle blogs, tech blogs and blogs authored by women
· Compared to the average Internet user, blog readers are significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, be younger and connect to the Web on high-speed connections
· Blog readers also visit nearly twice as many web pages as the Internet average, and theyare much more likely to shop online"

For the last finding, it will be convincing if T-test is available. And I would also like to see how top 400 blogs are categorized

The research has quite impressive sample size: 2 Million internet users.-"The comScore panel includes representative samples of home,work and university users and closely reflects the demographic composition of the general U.S.Internet user population."

remembering Peter Jennings

2005-08-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

Remembering Peter Jennings

I was quite shocked to hear the news about Jennings’s death today. It felt like yesterday that he announced in ABC about his lung cancer. He came to my attention during 9/11 in 2001, when most of news anchors went way too emotional and he remained his composed and caring gesture. He gave an impression of news insider, who does homework and actually knows what he talks about; and his presence gave a star power of TV personality. I saw him the other time on PBS hosting one of the opening night of Carnegie hall. He transformed himself into a classical music expert without trace of trying, and kept it cool and charming. He reminds me those old-time movie stars like Carry Grant, warm and assuring, but with much more brains and knowledge. And he has the best voice, before he got cancer, in all those veteran anchors of his generation.

Santa Barbara

2005-07-15T02:19:00.000-07:00

Sanata Barbara (Click to see large image)

Santa Barbara

2005-07-15T02:07:00.000-07:00

Santa Barbara (Click to see large image)

lost in Santa Cruz

2005-06-25T01:42:00.000-07:00

Lost in Santa Cruz

I love watching ‘curb your enthusiasm’. Life is filled with so many embarrassing moments, and you are guilty of innocent crime any moment. One of the biggest embarrassments, I find, is the “emperor’s gown”. We are forced to follow some inexplicable social norms and fashions, so we don’t look stupid. In one of the episodes, David Larry was dragged by his wife to beach front to spend the day. He was so reluctant and said ‘I feel anxious here because I don’t know what people are enjoying’. Well, this blog is not about the TV show; what David Larry said is just how I felt about Santa Cruz, though I do enjoy a walk on beach most of times.

The hotel for the weekend was sold out at some insanely high rate. The price we paid for this small inn can buy any a 4-star hotel in any big city, but the quality is outrageous poor (what about ragged and ropey blanket for $170 a night, and NO air conditioner). We assume the place outside hotel must be somewhere like heaven to level this price. Then we got really anxious when we drove around the little town looking for miracles. It was colder than LA’s winter, literally. Cliffy beach has tall pine-trees with long-reaching boughs. It is quite picturesque and has much more natural appeal than Santa Monica, but not as good as 17-mile drive at Monterey. Cloud was so thick at dawn that not only view of sunset on sea is not possible but the falling sun can not even paint a slight color on the clouds. That’s a big turnoff to us the sunset chasers. Bin joked that the hotel room here is like real estate in Los Angeles-any crappy room can be a hot buy because everyone buys for the fear of losing something big. And who knows what that ‘thing’ is.

We are told by a local student (who looke hurt when we said, mistaking her as a conference attendee, we felt the city was overrated) that Santa Cruz is a city with natural wonder and steer of commercial vain. And we were told by the others that this city is like a home or resort for high brows in Silicon Valley. For those who hate the idea of home in San Jose and who are very rich, they buy a home here. For those who hate the idea of home in San Jose and who are not that rich, they come here for weekends as gateway from that hideous place(actually, we have felt hotels in San Jose are always best deals and incredibly comfortable). Santa Cruz is said to be a great place to get outdoorsy if you are outdoorsy type and good at those expensive recreations (golf, surfing…). When you get here, hopefully, you are automatically a member of the Yippie club who tried to escape from the hectic city life and stressful jobs with handsome pay. If you get that feeling, you get it and you will not feel Larry David’s anxiety, I guess.

UC Santa Cruz is hidden deep in the mountain. They say campus buildings are not allowed to be seen from the city; so when you drive onto the out ring of campus you see, on the one side, giant grassy plains with a couple of cows wandering and on the other side, a magnificent view of the town by the sea. When you drive really deep inside, you start to spot small industrialized-style architectures sitted in the woods. Behind the engineering building, there is a warning sign detailing tips about how to react when encountering violent animal such as lion: like raise your hands and make yourself look bigger and taller, or fight bravely. Certainly it is a very special campus.

From Seattle, with love

2005-06-11T01:17:00.000-07:00

From Seattle, with love

First, I do not travel as much as it appears in my blog. But, I just came back from Seattle. That’s the second time, and Seattle has never been overcast or gloomy to me. In the contrary, it’s been sunny, green and sweet-aired both times I was there. I stayed by the Lake Union this time. Daylight is so long at this time of the year. We sat in a sushi restaurant by the waterfront about 8:30 in the evening, and just in time to catch the sunset and its flowing colors on the water, very nice.

Downtown Seattle is warmly chic instead of threateningly cosmopolitan. White people is very white (compared to tanned Californian), yellow is not very yellow and black is not very black. I got a bottle of ‘water for peace’ from a street vendor and its label instructs how to send a message in a bottle to White House. Later I took a bus to Capitol Hill and see a lot of coffee houses with people reading in front, a lot of colorful hair and a lot of men holding hands.

Public transportation is not the most convenient one, but luckily I got friendly locals for help. Just coming back NYC where everyone looks busy and focused, I was flattered when not only one people come up to offer help when I stood dazed at the middle of the road. While you are ordered to get out of bus for short of a dime in LA, the Seattle driver only wanted to accept one dollar even you paid him two. Both town car drivers (I should say graceful gentlemen) that drove us from and to the airport are both emigrating Seattle from the Northeast, and they talked like Seattle ambassadors, even to us two Californians who they say are responsible for the rising house price in Seattle these two years. Is it just me that feel the security check in Seattle is the friendliest and most thorough, however, consequently, the slowest one, among all these big cities? Well, being slow is better than being perfunctory and inhuman, I guess.

I love New York in spring

2005-06-04T01:45:00.000-07:00

I love New York in spring

I had been to NYC 4 times before I moved to LA, none of the trips was as good as the one I took last week to attend ICA. I’m lucky to wrap up my presentations on the first two days, and I was a free bird for the rest of days . The weather is the best of the year. After long rainy and cloudy season, sunshine and breeze came back to town.I walked around the town and felt very reluctant to go underground for subway. I just discover the joy of traveling alone: no need to compromise to group interests and wait long line for those landmark sites, and I can take as much time as I liked in museums.

The trip is pretty much about museums, and it kindles my interests at modern art. My knowledge on fine arts had never gone over 1910, and most stayed in renaissance, impressionism, no more than cubism. I never knew it is so much fun in paintings from 20th-century avant-gardes such as Magritte, Munch, Klimt, Rousseau but I have not grown enough insight to appreciate Kandinsky and Pollock. I was very much captivated by Marc Chagall’s work, they are so imaginative and rich, with all the floating and upside downs that I can relate to my own dream scenarios. Hopper is another painter that I just knew and liked very much, and to my surprise, he is an American and had only one wife for 50 years. I like the way he conceived and portrayed America, silent and often static at an unexpected moment, leaving much space for imagination and speculations. Some of his painting reminds me a lot about Hitchcock’s movies, but with colors. I guess both Hopper and Chagall enthrall me for their abundant innuendos to Freudian notions that have universal appeal. Frick Collection is the only place I visited with classical works. A splendid Athenian white mansion facing east side of the Central park, with hundreds of paintings ranging from medieval age to Monet (only a few impressionisms, and no further), Frick has fiber collections than any museum I’ve seem in Los Angeles, including LACMA. There are Ingre’s Countess d’Haussonville, Vermeer's Mistress and Maid, a whole bunch of Gainsborough, and a Rembrandt’s self-portrait. My personal favorite in Frick is Bellini’s St. Francis in the desert. The color, the scene and the gesture feel so theatrically transcendental. MOMA is just great great place that I will go back again and again, I believe. Sitting in the middle of the midtown skyscrapers, the building has the huge glass window all around through which visitors get magnificent views of the urban landscape. MOMA has wonderful collections of cubism, surrealism, expressionism, abstracim, so do Guggenheim and Whitney. Before my plane took off, I rushed to Pier 54 by the Hudson River for the ‘Ash and Snow’ photo exhibit. Thanks to the almighty NYC metro, I was able to see these stunning pictures, hung in a intentionally-made crude and ragged hall enclosed by hundreds of shipping boxes, at the last moment of my stay.

After my last presentation in the Sheridan at Midtown, I walked two streets downto the half-price ticket stands at Time Square trying to get a ticket to see Monty Python’s Spamalot. It’s sold out, so I went to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels instead. Not bad, very hilarious. Using pop culture to mock pop culture, the show feels like a good sitcom, a smooth slapstick with nice music numbers. The next day is the Memorial day, I went to St. Johns Cathedral to see a concert featuring Tchaikovsky and Korsakov. I was stunned by the sound of symphony reverberant in the huge church, totally surreal. No wonder early music were only dedicated to God.

East village is a new-found treasures in NYC. A lot like Adams’ Morgan at DC, the village demonstrates wider variety on cuisines. My friend, Chi, works for a Peruvian client recently; so we went to a Peruvian restaurant at the corner of 2nd Ave. and 7th street. Tried Ceviche for the first time, even better than sashimi. We also had a lovely outdoor brunch at Café st. Bart’s by Saint Bartholomew’s dome. A trip to NYC without going to Chinatown sounds incomplete, but the city is definitely has much more to explore.

Press fights back

2005-05-09T12:52:00.000-07:00

Press fights back

New York TImes has two articles on Sunday that explore the problem of blogs as new media. on Week in Review section, Adam Cohen discussed the ethics policies that should be imposed on political blogs in 'The Latest Rumbling in the Blogosphere: Questions About Ethics'.

Cohen notes that bloggers will be hold accountable someday for what they publish on line. While bloggers often criticize MSM for violating journalistic ethics, they seldom apply the same rule to themselves:

"The thing about influence is that, as bloggers well know, it is only a matter of time before people start trying to hold you accountable. Bloggers are so used to thinking of themselves as outsiders, and watchdogs of the LSM (that's Lame Stream Media), that many have given little thought to what ethical rules should apply in their online world. Some insist that they do not need journalistic ethics because they are not journalists, but rather activists, or humorists, or something else entirely. But more bloggers, and blog readers, are starting to ask whether at least the most prominent blogs with the highest traffic shouldn't hold themselves to the same high standards to which they hold other media. Every mainstream news organization has its own sets of ethics rules, but all of them agree broadly on what constitutes ethical journalism. Information should be verified before it is printed, and people who are involved in a story should be given a chance to air their viewpoints, especially if they are under attack. Reporters should avoid conflicts of interest, even significant appearances of conflicts, and disclose any significant ones. Often, a conflict means being disqualified to cover a story or a subject. When errors are discovered or pointed out by internal or external sources, they must be corrected. And there should be a clear wall between editorial content and advertising. Bloggers often invoke these journalistic standards in criticizing the MSM, and insist on harsh punishment when they are violated. The blogs that demanded Dan Rather's ouster accused him of old-school offenses: not sufficiently checking the facts about President Bush's National Guard service, refusing to admit and correct errors, and having undisclosed political views that shaded the journalism. Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, resigned this year after a blogmob attacked him for a reported statement at the World Economic Forum at Davos that the military had aimed at journalists in Iraq and killed 12 of them. Their complaint was even more basic than in Mr. Rather's case: they were upset that Mr. Jordan said something they believed to be untrue."

Cohen notes that reformers should 'held themselves to higher standards thatn the institutions they attacked': "Many bloggers who criticize the MSM's ethics, however, are in the anomalous position of holding themselves to lower standards, or no standards at all. That may well change. Ana Marie Cox, who edits Wonkette, notes that blogs are still "a very young medium," and that "things have yet to be worked out." Before long, leading blogs could have ethics guidelines and prominently posted corrections policies." Some blogs have begun the self-regulation; an example is http://cyberjournalist.net/

The second article is 'A blog revolution? Get a grip' (May 8, 2005, BU1) on Business section. Discussing the business model of Gawker Media, a network of teens of blog, including gawker, fleshbot and Wonkette, Zeller, the author implies that blogging is just adopting the traditional media model and publishing on line. With the strategy of grouping of blogs, like what Gawkers do, Advertisers are treating them more seriouly. " "There are too many people looking at blogs as being some magic bullet for every company's marketing problem, and they're not," he (Denton, Founder of Gawker) added. "It's Internet media. It's just the latest iteration of Internet media." "