21: Monty Hall problem

An interesting problem raised in movie 21:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

The answer is somewhat counter intuitive: switch gives a 67% chance of winning while stay with original only has 33%. The way to best understand this is to give up your intuition, use the more fundentmental "decision tree" to evaluate the probabilities: (picture linked from wikipedia):

Another interesting probability topic of the movie is card counting in BlackJack...

Tibet Diary

Meet Katy and Moge, two Californians about to make their first journey to Tibet.

Follow in their footsteps – from the moment they figure out their backpacks are a little too small to their final farewells from the beautiful city of Lhasa. Armed with cameras and a sense of humor, Katy and Moge brave bumpy roads and oxygen-deprivation to visit several of Tibet’s most breathtaking monasteries, temples, and palaces. They encounter a colorful cast of characters, from playful Buddhist monks and beer-drinking folk dancers to the friendly hosts of an afternoon tea.

For these two travelers, each day sheds new light on Tibetan society and culture in a way that challenges their assumptions, and may raise more questions than they can answer in the pages of… Tibet Diary.

ONE CHINA: Make our voice heard

Make heard.

• ONE CHINA: Toronto Chinese peaceful assembly
• Protest in Silence against Biased German Media

The Wall Street Journal's Web site is already (secretly) free

The Wall Street Journal's Web site is already (secretly) free.

Tibet WAS,IS,and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China

Architect

Nothing to desire

From a subway poster:

If there is something to desire, there will be something to regret.

If there is something to regret, there will be something to recall.

If there is something to recall, there was nothing to regret.

If there was nothing to regret, there was nothing to desire.

Bridge to Terabithia

Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open.

                                ---- Leslie Burke, Bridge to Terabithia

Thanks to the very deceiving trailers, I thought Bridge to Terabithia was just another average fantasy movie at the time and skipped it. It couldn't have been further from the truth.

I was totally unprepared for the sad ending when I finally watched it yesterday. In every possible way, I liked Leslie and her mildly crazy personality (even for a fifth grader). And that's why the final tragedy was a bit shocking and, kind of depressing.

But then, I guess that's what a truly moving film should make people feel...

How To Hook Up Your Home Theater

Went to see the new National Treasure today. The movie wasn't very interesting but a short animation film before it was brilliantly funny. "How To Hook Up Your Home Theater" by Walt Disney Pictures.

You need to have the experience to setup a home theater to really feel the irony. I especially liked the surround-sourround speakers (and the subwoofer came with it, of course) and the super universal remote. You should go watch it, trust me, this animation itself is worth the movie ticket.

See a clip of it here.

Photos from Trip to Hawaii

• Snorkeling Shots
  
• Island of Oahu
  
• Big Island
  
• Island of Maui
  
• Island of Kauai
  
• Pride of Hawaii
  

The Office

Noticed a link to Dunder Mifflin somewhere.

Wonder why I can't find gaydar in the Shop. Oh, I forgot, it's only sold in Sharper Image...

Bear Mountain

Some pics from my trip to Bear Mountain this past weekend:

Dow down more than 366 points

A nice way to pay tribute to the 1987 crash on its 20^th anniversary.

Certified Scrum Master

Got certified this passed weekend. The training course was taught by Ken Schwaber, the master himself. The case studies were very well organized, the benefit and challenge of implementing Scrum in an organization are cleared delivered to the trainees.

That being said, there is the part of me that doesn't completely agree with the "certification" process. Base on my observation, there are about a third of the trainees either have no clue about Scrum or have only read about it on paper. Another one third implemented some half baked version of Scrum (i.e. Backlog but no daily Scrum meeting, Assigned ScrumMaster but no clear role of product owner, etc). And only the one third left being hardcore Scrum practitioners. Besides, there is really nothing stopping one from have nice chats with people during the two days, enjoy the food and "woof" your way out of the door being "certified". It's hard to believe that all these people can now take the responsibility of being the change proxy for the organization. In my mind, being "certified" implies there is going to be a bar set to be cleared. Well, maybe it's just me...

Warren Buffett's comment on Investment in Gold

Read this from someone's blog today:

If Martian were to to observe the activity of human beings for many many years, they would not understand what these humans were doing. They are digging the gold out from the ground, proccess them and put them in the vaults and never touch them again.

A true value investor should only invest in businesses Martians can understand.

Worst Credit Card in the World

Behold, the Continental Finance MasterCard (Read more about it here, and apply for it here --- if there is a severe leakage in your brain):

• Account setup fee: $99
• Program participation fee: $89
• Annual fee: $49
• Account maintenance fee: $120 (charged @ $10/month)
• Purchase APR: 19.92%
• Authorized user fee: $30 (great! seems like $53 credit is a bit too much for a single person to handle)
• Credit limit increase fee: $25 (and you don't even have to ask for it because they automatically increases it by $100 every time!)
• Internet payment fee: $4 for each authorized internet payment.

After all the predatory fees are factored in, your initial credit limit is only $53:

Your initial Credit Limit will be $300.00 and you agree to pay the following fees, which will be billed to your Account and will appear on your first monthly Billing Statement: a one-time Account Processing Fee of $99.00, a one-time Program Participation Fee of $89.00, a monthly Account Maintenance Fee of $10.00 and an Annual Fee of $49.00. Your available credit after these charges will be $53.00 at Card issuance.

Here is a youtube video critisizing the same card:

The Ultimate Steal

Microsoft is selling its Office Ultimate 2007 for $60 to college students.

You will need an email address ending with "edu" to get the product key. Also the promotion is supposed to start today but obviously the website isn't functioning yet.

Law and Order: Arthur Branch for President?

I watch "Law and Order" quite a bit. And that's why I was surprised when seeing Mr. Branch's face turning up on TV, running for U.S. president.

Of course, I didn't know that Mr. Thomson was at one time a real ADA, among many other things.

It gets more interesting: base on this report, NBC now can't air any "Law and Order" featuring Mr. Branch because of the equal time consideration.

You, investor, are a sucker

No, I won't say this kind of harsh things to our fellow active investors. It's the author of a blog posted here. No matter how much you disagrees, it's still a good read.

Data Visualization

They rule is a web site that visualizes the network of the largest corporations and their boards of directors. An useful and fun way to look at the business world.

I got the link to website from visualcomplexity. The site provides a host of data visualization projects. Some of them are quite interesting:

• Windows Server V.S. Linux
• "The big picture" of CNet
• NYC Subway Map Redesign