A story goes like this:
One British officer found a strange thing in a maneuver. That when the soldiers fired cannon, one soldier would stand still before the cannon but do nothing. This was a requested routine but really wasted. He did some investigation and finally found it was because in the early time, the cannon were dragged by horses, so one soldier must stand before each cannon to tame the horse and ensure it stands straight forward.

What you've learned? Some people learned that we should challenge the old world. That's right, and I learned something more:
Behind an obviously ridiculous thing, there might be some details you've missed.

In the JavaChina 2005, I found some very interesting details.
The process to enter the conference hall seems silly. In gate 1, we had to show our tickets, and the gatekeeper would give a ticket to each of us. And we should immediately hand it back to another gatekeeper in gate 2 which was only server meters away from gate 1.
"Why not just show our ticket and let us in?" I heard someone behind me complained.
I think I've found the answer in the 2nd day. That Sun has sent out more tickets than the seats to ensure there won't be a lot of empty space. With a "silly" process, it could ensure the hall wouldn't be over crowded. After all, many of the audiences are students from the colleges who have gotten the tickets for free. Sun can give them little gifts but not allow them to enter in case the hall! Really smart! (Sorry, but seems not all later comers are students and they are unhappy.)

Another detail is meaningless. A short movie was repeatedly casted on the screen before the conference. One people in the movie would say:" SUS, SUS is an organization that ¡­." Why he should repeat the "SUS" twice? The answer is simple. He actually didn't speak in English. From the second "SUS", it's somebody spoke a translated version!
This little founding gave me some pleasure in the boring waiting time.

Tag: selftraining 

"Door to Door" is one of my favorite movies. The story is about a man who has cerebral palsy. What can you expect for a man with cerebral palsy? I am not sure. Maybe many people just expect him bring less trouble to the family.

But that's not Bill Porter. He survived from the disease; he got a job as a salesman; and he became the best salesman in his company!

I was really moved by the movie. But what shocks me is in the end of the movie, I was told it's based on TRUE story! You can visit http://www.billporter.com to read more about him.

I always remember one scene in this movie. When Bill Porter was refused by everyone, he sat in the bench to have his lunch, a sandwich made by his mother. He found she had written two words on it. "Patient, Persistent".

I think myself is kind of patient and persistent. But I must confess I was a bit down last month. I'm sorry, I'm lost. (-- "Six feet under")

But I am back now, ready for new challenges. My goal? To be a better man.

Tag: selftraining

IPO of Baidu is such a great success!
I even feel a little bit lost that I was watching the "super girl playoff" but missed such a great show.

I've heard so much whisper that Baidu is a dirty player. I still like Google better, but seems that I should improve my business sense.
I used to think to succeed is to do right things at right place and right time. But definitely Baidu has done something "effective" in the right place and right time.

I will keep an eye on the consequence.

And I will keep an eye on myself, do not be attempted!

Tag: baidu google
 

According to several Siemens employee, they didn't see Motorola staff when they had lunch.

Maybe it's just a rumor. or maybe it was canceled for unknown reason?

Next time when I heard such news, I will check it more seriously.

As Benq announced it purchased Siemens Mobile Division this month, there is predicable brain drain in Siemens MD. I feel it very interesting to witness the merge process and strategy from all sides.

Motorola announced a recruit session for mobile engineer would be hold in last weekend (June 18). The war broke out!
Siemens reacted quickly. As far as I know, one team had team building last weekend, so all staff left Beijing.

I don't know the result of the recruit session, but it's very clear that Motorola is asking for more. Tomorrow launch time, another recruit session will be launched, and guess what? It will be hold in the employee restaurant of Siemens!

I don't know how Motorola managed to do this. But apparently the landlord of the Wang Jing Tower shows no respect to its biggest client. Anyway, Siemens will move out that building soon.

Hope I can bring you more information tomorrow.

P.S. I don't work for Siemens or Motorola. And I respect them both.

I'm pretty busy this month, even worse, I have to see dentist for the next several weeks. So maybe I can't update my blog very often. But I will try to post at least one blog per week.

According to blog from Wang JianShuo and Xiong Jie, I should post a notice when I can't update my blog on my usual frequency.

It's really hard to be a good blogger. It reminds me two impressive word from movie "Door to door".

Patience, Persistence. 

Last year about this time, I took training on communication skills. One important thing I learned is: There is an emotion bank in everyone's heart. We have an emotion account in every fiend's emotion bank. We must keep saving emotion dollars into our account to make the friendship last.

Sound dirty, how could friendship be sold by dollars ?!
Let's forget the dark side, I feel there are something true in these words.

So my friend, how are you today?

Man not always knows himself well. Take myself for example, I used to think I'm a modest guy while my wife strongly disagrees.
OK, data will tell.
I wrote a little java program to study JDK 5.0 new features. With this tool, I checked all my previous blogs.

Below are the top 10 frequently used words:
Word Counts
=================
I 72
the 65
to 42
in 36
a 33
and 30
it 23
of 23
my 20
is 17

OMG, word "I" appears 72 times and "my" appears 20 times! The only other meaningful word in the top 10 is "it", with a poor count of 23.

Well, Maybe I'm not that modest, but at least I am frank. right?

[Sam] It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was... when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing... this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you... that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going... because they were holding on to something.

[Frodo] What are we holding on, Sam?

[Sam] That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.

I opened TV this afternoon and 2 seconds later I found it's "Lords of the ring - the 2 towers". I was deeply moved (again) by the story. Can't help but posting the lines on.

A little more words about Sean Astin (AKA Sam in LOR). I think he is a great actor. And he will be even greater in the future. "Rudy" is another great movie starring by Sean Astin, it's based on a true story and like LOR, it's a story about people who never give up!

I watch little TV, but I learned several things from it in yesterday.

Lesson one:
NBA playoff, Dallas Mavericks vs Houston Rocket. The 4th period. Only a couple of seconds left.
Everybody thought Rocket would take the foul tactic, but Mavericks avoided it by passing ball quickly between players. I know little about the rules, but does it mean only foul on the player with the ball will save time?
I was even more surprised when Mavericks took foul tactic to waste time. Why can't I think of this?

Lesson two:
The historical meeting between Lian Zhan and Hu Jintao.
I won't comment much on it since it's off topic of this blog. For sure I'm so exciting to witness the history.
So what I've learned from the meeting?
The speech, the announcement, and the agenda.
The first 2 are related to communication skills. I want to focus on the agenda.
In the original agenda for Lian is to taste roasted duck in Quan Ju De. But they never showed up. Actually, they had dinner with Hu and other leaders. I think the agenda has been well designed. If the meeting in the afternoon is unhappy, Lian can still smile in the restaurant.