100 days without Search Engine - Day 2 - the last day

I am kidding myself! This is not working!

I tried to install some windows updates, searching it on Microsoft's website. No way I can get to the information I need without search engine.

I tried to find a phone number of a company's local office, tried to look for it on their website, cannot. I have to google.

So my day proved that my idea of not using search engine is impossible.
I am setting up new rules:
(1) using search engine only after I can not figure it out with my brain after 5 minutes.
(2) blocking news and some discuss forums I often check during the day.

100 days without Search Engines - day 1

Motivation:
Tired of the endless searching without using my memory, or spending 80% of time searching, without in-depth thinking, I've decided to try to live a hundred days without search engine, yes, no google, no bing, the only exception is specialized acadamic searching tools.

Rules:
When a question in work or research pops up, I am going to rely only on textbooks, electronic books, manuals, asking collegues or experts, then wikipedia. (Wiki is a great tool, but sometimes, it still provides 'too much' information than necessary, and leave me very little time to think or solve a problem myself. But for now I will have it on parole)

Day 1:

I need my bank's statement. OK, I usually type the name of the bank in search engine and search, no, I can not do that now. My bank is Chevy Chase Bank, so, is it 'www.chevychase.com'? I typed it, no (OMG, I have never memorized my bank's website name!!!), now try 'www.chevychasebank.com', 'Bingo!' To avoid forget it again, I created a folder called Person in my favorite menu, and bookmarked this page. I customize the bookmark, so I can use the hint to remember my ID and PW. Why? I usually use three different user names, and 5 different combination of PWs, which are 15 different combinations. (Do I want to do it, no. This is often because of the specific sign-in requirements of a website: the first must be a capital letter, it can not be your name, etc... So at the end of the book mark name, I typed A1, which means ID type A (from A, B, and C), PW type 1(from 1~5). Then I did the same for all the other personal website including credit cards, banks, youtube, etc. Wow, I am feeling organized!

I was able to handle most of the task without much struggling today. The only thing that cost me sometime was a USGS tool called Weasel GIS. I tried to find the tool from the USGS main page. But after about navigating on this site for 10 minutes, I had to give up and used the search tool on USGS main page (powered by google). I considered this half-cheating.

Well, still, I found myself quite focused and organized. The cons are that I may have spent a bit more time navigating on a certain website, or spent time on guessing a website name. But hopefully that guessing process will cut down when I orgnanize them into the favorite folder and getting familiar with my most visited sites.

Something from - Moon and Sixpence

Cross this book by accident, but loved it.
Here is THE most famous quote:

"I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a home they know not. They are strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest."

Here I am ... ... but where am I?

Groundwater Model - 1 Parameters

K - Hydraulic conductivity (L/T)
Vertical K - (L/T), also = K/Anisotropic ratio
Conductance = K * A / L (L^2/T)
A - Flow cross-section area, L - Flow distance
Vcont (Vertical conductance) = Vertical K / L (1/T) (Also called leakance)
L - vertical distance
Effective leakance = 1/[sum(1/Vcont_i)], i = 1, n effective leakance of n layers
Transmissivity = K * aquifer thickness (Top - Bot) (L^2/T)

About the recent suicides in Foxconn

Having been reading a lot of news about the frequent suicides in FOXCONN, a Taiwanese Iphone/Ipad manufacturer. A total of 11 "jumps," 9 death, 2 injuries, this factory seems to be haunted.

So many theories and analyses exist about these death, some people called Foxconn a “Blood and Tear” factory; some say that Foxconn just has an extremely regulated management system - a semi-military system; some concluded that this is the unfortunate outcome of being at the end of the production chain; some blame it on the brittle nerve of the new generation of countryside workers, whose parents where the first generation workers; some say it is the unfairness in the society that brings no hope to the "poor second-generation;" some even say that the high death compensation (approximately 30K to 50K) to the family served as an incentive. There are more analyses, but the truth is still behind the scene. Maybe it is an outcome of all the above.

I am just feeling sad, not seeing the truth with my own eyes made me no better than another speculator, here I just want to provide a list of Facts

- the first known death of a Foxconn staff is Yonggang Sun, who was subject to internal investigation on lossing an Apple 4G sample phone, jumped out of a 12th floor window to prove his innocense, in September, 2009.

- Since 2010, in a short period of last 5 months, there were 11 suicides in Foxconn causing 9 death and 2 injuries. The youngest is only 19-year old, the oldest is 25-year old.

- For one iphone, Apple pays approximately 5 dollar to the manufacturer in China, For one ipad, Apple pays 11 dollars to the manufacturer in China

- Foxconn is a Taiwan company hires over 900-thousand employees. The owner Taiming Guo is currently the Richest man in Taiwan

- In Foxconn, a manufactory worker receives an average of $150 dollars per month, free lodging in a 8-person room, free food in the dining hall, and free laundry –better than the average conditions in many manufactories in China

- Foxconn worker works an average of 10~12 hours a day (8am ~5pm regular time, 6pm~8pm overtime), and also working over the weekend as overtime. The average pay for overtime is $1.1 per hour. You may choose to not work overtime, but few employee do, and they faces pressure from their supervisors.

- The investigation of the local labour department has concluded no-wrong-doing in Foxconn's conduct after the "10th jump"

Writing exercise - 1

My dear boss kept complaining about my technical writing skills. So here I am, back to this blog again. Perhaps I will take a couple of hours a day to write something again. It is another way of meditation, where I have to concentrate, produce cohesive thoughts, and then use proper language to express them.

Time, always time, it seems that there is plenty, but when I think of the tremendous task list I have, the time I have for developing other skills always seems so scarce. However, I can not really ignore the other developments because of this task list. There is a Chinese saying: "Read ten million books, and walk ten million miles," which is a requirement for the ancient intellectuals. I wish, in my limited life time, I can do something similar to it. Walk the miles, read the books, opening my eyes, and maybe finally opening the mind.

Can't write much now. I have been reading Russell lately (In Praise of Idleness), can not say I am completely agree with him, but he was such a good man.