Seems like a pretty basic thing, but this is a really great slideshow that explains Histograms VERY VERY clearly…

See: histogram_sly.ppt

原文（英语）在 tmt.interfaxchina.com

这些天在娱乐场所要确认预定好了。订位时可能要付押金。

－万圣节 (Oct 31st Halloween)
－圣诞夜 (Dec 24th Christmas Eve)
－圣诞节 (Dec 25th Christmas Night)
－元旦前夕 (Dec 31st New Years Eve)
－春节（春节中有几个日子很热闹）
－情人节（Feb 14th Valentines)
－国庆节（Oct 1st)

等一下会添加更多节日。。。

See: http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2808%2901020-9

Summary

We often change our decisions and judgments to conform with normative group behavior. However, the neural mechanisms of social conformity remain unclear. Here we show, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, that conformity is based on mechanisms that comply with principles of reinforcement learning. We found that individual judgments of facial attractiveness are adjusted in line with group opinion. Conflict with group opinion triggered neuronal response in the rostral cingulate zone and the ventral striatum similar to the prediction error signal suggested by neuroscientific models of reinforcement learning. The amplitude of the conflict-related signal predicted subsequent conforming behavioral adjustments. Furthermore, the individual amplitude of the conflict-related signal in the ventral striatum correlated with differences in conforming behavior across subjects. These findings provide evidence that social group norms evoke conformity via learning mechanisms reflected in the activity of the rostral cingulate zone and ventral striatum.

Translation: Agreeing with people makes you feel high.

I’ve been missing in action from my blog lately… but lots of pictures, stories and such to start getting caught up on.

November, December and January have been too busy and too cold…

This was a great article. My list would be a little bit different, but I mostly agree… I would add some speeches from Boiler Room, Training Day and most certainly Fight Club to the list, and probably remove some of the older films as I haven’t seen them — maybe afterward I’ll have a change of mind

See the complete list:

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3362603.stm

Wow! Today’s my lucky day! I managed to tack down instructions for enabling Japanese language input on my iPhone. Choose “Expert” instructions or “Step by Step” instructions. Basically, there’s a file in your home directory called: ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

Just edit AppleKeyboards key to add “ja” after “en_US”. If you’ve installed the Developer Tools you can do this real easily just your iPhone’s SSH along with Transmit and the Property List Editor. Save that file, reboot your iPhone and enjoy typing in Japanese!

There are some instructions for configuring a Korean keyboard input that I’m pretty excited about, but it replaces the japanese input with the Korean, and I need Japanese every day… Korean just occasionally, so I’ll just be sticking with the Japanese until Korean support is improved. Once the iPod touch is released with korean input, it should be also be available in the iPhone firmware… Stay tuned to the Korean “Apple MacGeek Pro” to know for sure

The first two of these were written by Ben Mezrich – who did an interesting job on the “Ugly Americans” story about some traders in Japan. All 6 of these are a little outside the scope of what I would normally read, which I suppose is all the more reason to give them a shot

• In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4 x 6]
• Bringing Down the House : The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg 4 x 366]
• Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg 2.5 x 39]
• Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4.5 x 208]
• Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4.0 x 97]
• Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today’s Cluttered Marketplace (Audible) (Amazon) [Avg: 4.5 x 31]

Ever being the contrarian, the premise of “Rigged” sounds interesting and the score is so low, I’m going to give it a shot. Most of Amazon wrote that they hated it… Will I? We’ll give Ben a chance…

UPDATE: Completed reading all of the above that I’m interested in. I’ve stricken ”Chasing Cool” from the list as it no longer seems so interesting and I’m fortunate enough to have a very wise and experienced “Marketing Mentor”

Of the books above, “In the Ruins of Empire” is an absolute must read. Bringing Down the House, Rigged and Liar’s Poker are each interesting stories, Liar’s Poker probably being the most educational of the group. Each was entertaining.

I’m trying to decide if I should read “Legacy of Ashes”…

Today I got a good call from my good friend Markie… Oddly enough, he’s now fallen for a Korean girl. Been down that road before – good luck brother Mark

Mark used to call me Waysian… a Caucasian (white) Asian. Personally I blame it all on him and his family. I always liked the food that they cooked so much, and enjoyed their family restaurant so much (Another Thai Restaurant) that I just “soaked up” a lot of asian culture. Of the 5 close friends I had from childhood up until I was in my early 20′s, 60% were asian. Never noticed it at the time, but it surely had an impact. Today, don’t even ask… Something like 99% asian…

Today Markie thought of a new one: Winja sort of Erwin, White and Ninja all in one ~ that’s pretty funny, now that I’m learning Japanese

Do you have a few books that you’ve bought recently, but you haven’t finished reading cover to cover? I can’t stand that feeling — There are two cinematography and a few tech books that I’ll feel really good when I finish up

Simultaneously, I find that I’m nearly always able to finish BOOK ON TAPE / Audible / 有声读物 versions of any book that I purchase. With my iPhone it’s more convenient than ever before!

Since I started LISTENING to books via Audible.com, back in May 2005, I’ve listened to 118 books with a combined time of 26.6 days. There are a few of these (Adventure Capitalist, first and all time favorite) that I’ve listened to end to end several times!

Of course, the downside of the audible version of books is that the selection is so small ~ but I’ve also found the limit in scope to be a pleasant diversion from the routines that I frequently find myself settling into…

I was quite excited tonight to find:

Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World

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AUDIBLE LINK — AMAZON LINK

I listened to the sample and it sounds extremely interesting….

Other books in audible form that appear quite interesting include:

• Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur – An Adventure Story (Audible) (Amazon)
• Marx’s Das Kapital: A Biography (Audible) (Amazon)
• The War That Made America: French and Indian War (Audible) (Amazon)
• Storm and Conquest: The Clash of Empires in the Eastern Seas, 1809 (Audible Only)

Additionally, I noticed a whole “Books that changed the World” series is available, not completely yet in audible form, but if you’ll occasionally settle for the wikipedia version of history, you might want to check out these…

• Homer’s the Iliad and the Odyssey
• Plato’s Republic
• Darwin’s Origin of Species
• The Qur’an
• The Bible
• Clausewitz’s on War
• On The Wealth of Nation

My new niece – Tara’s little sister just arrived a few hours ago. Nobody’s even told me her name yet, but my little brother forwarded me this picture. So cute!

こんにちは！

I picked up a nasty case of Acute Laryngitis this weekend. I can just barely whisper. What a pain… Doctor said by Thursday or Friday should be back to normal. In the mean time, just DO NOT TALK. Easier said than done…

Laryngitis is an inflammation of the vocal cords causing speech to become hoarse and/or whisperlike, and often inaudible. CAUSE: excessive use of voice

When I get my regular workaholic routine interrupted, I like to read. Picked up an interesting story called: December 6th, set in Tokyo just before the beginning of World War II.

Main character is a caucasian, son of american missionaries, who traveled frequently a left him to be raised by the nanny in Japan. He’s primarily american in appearance. There’s an interesting line when he’s still a boy and crosses paths with one of the generals who lead Japan in the first Great War… The dialog goes…

It’s one thing to have a woman. It’s another thing to be in love with a woman. To love a weaker person, what does that do for you?

To mix inferior steel in a sword, does that make the sword weaker or stronger?

True love can only exist between equals

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/December-Novel-Martin-Cruz-Smith/dp/0671775928 Audible: audible.com: | December 6

Wow, if you’re a spammer – please add my xxx@xxx.com email address to the list of people you want to SPAM. I’m setting up my new SPAM filter and I need to make sure none of your mail gets delivered, yet legitimate email all goes through.

If you’re reading a blog that is supposed to be about an american business geek trying to be chinese in shanghai… well, it’s a long story. The update on that subject is be careful what you wish for, you might get it. When I’m traveling to the US, I’ve already noticed that the lack of chinese characteristics (high population density, disregard for regulations of any kind, wide variety of chinese foods and ingredients) are somewhat unsettling. Listening to audible books in Chinese is now not difficult, but is still not as automatic as listening to english versions. It will be interesting to see the change after another year…

More copy to come….

Up until now, this posting to the openldap-software mailing list by Apple employee Gary La Voy is by far the most complete description I’ve ever seen of the LDAP fields supported by Mail.app. I suppose this is all there is to know about LDAP and Address Book – unless of course more has been added in Leopard.

Just now, I stumbled across this Ethereal dump of Address Book’s query to an LDAP server which is extremely valuable. This O’Reilly page also has a useful summary if you’re just getting started, but it’s really the Ethereal dump that’s going to save you. (You can install Ethereal via MacPorts)

Here’s the complete dump of the LDAP Connection from Address Book:

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
    LDAP Message, Search Request
        Message Id: 2
        Message Type: Search Request (0x03)
        Message Length: 291
        Response In: 8
        Base DN: (null)
        Scope: Subtree (0x02)
        Dereference: Never (0x00)
        Size Limit: 0
        Time Limit: 30
        Attributes Only: False
        Filter: (|(givenname=carmo)(sn=carmo)(cn=carmo)(mail=carmo))
        Attribute: givenName
        Attribute: sn
        Attribute: cn
        Attribute: mail
        Attribute: telephoneNumber
        Attribute: facsimileTelephoneNumber
        Attribute: o
        Attribute: title
        Attribute: ou
        Attribute: buildingName
        Attribute: street
        Attribute: l
        Attribute: st
        Attribute: postalCode
        Attribute: c
        Attribute: jpegPhoto
        Attribute: mobile
        Attribute: co
        Attribute: pager
        Attribute: destinationIndicator
        Attribute: labeledURI
        Attribute: IMHandle

I just did some OpenLDAP debugging and got this list of attributes for Leopard 10.5.1:

givenName sn cn mail telephoneNumber facsimileTelephoneNumber o title ou buildingName street l st postalCode c jpegPhoto mobile co pager destinationIndicator labeledURI IMHandle

Once you get all of these popped into an LDAP directory entry, the result is something like this:

Note that IMHandle, buildingName, commonName, pager, ou and co fields do not get displayed on the contact card. Additionally, only one email address will be displayed (the first one) regardless of how many email addresses exist on the contact record. I’ve spent several hours trying to get IMHandle to work (apple-imhandle), but it never seems to populate. Apparently, I’m not the only one with this issue. Save yourself the trouble – don’t bother.

Apparently Mac OS X Server is required if you want to serve up Instant Messenger contact info.