Times Online - World

TODAY?S donation pushes Bill Gates into an even more exalted position as the world?s biggest philanthropist.

The Gates foundation, which is worth $30 billion, (?17billion), is now the largest charity to have been created by a single benefactor or private company by a factor of three, following a previous $3 billion gift from its founder last July. Mr Gates has stated that he intends to give away 90 per cent of his fortune, which is currently valued at about $50 billion.

Wow.

I wonder how many other billionaires are going to be so generous.

Thanks to Omar to suggesting SmugMug on his blog.

SmugMug is a $29 a year service ($24 with discount, read on!) that has these nifty features:

Shoot a million photos ? it’s unlimited!
Upload 100s of photos with a click
Organize at light speed
Liberate yourself from spam and ads
Make it easy on your friends with 1-click sharing
View more pics with less clicks
Buy top-quality prints and gifts
Sleep well with backup CDs & DVDs
Retrieve your original, high-res photos
Post photos in blogs & forums
Upload from camera phones
Create your own vanity URL
Track visits and watch your popularity grow
Be notified of comments
Crop the bad parts
Enhance the good parts
Password-protect the embarrassing
Create private ShareGroups
Create a bio
Flaunt your friends and family
Program it!

And it has a free 7 day trial.

But most importantly, you can save $5 to make the price just $24 for the first year:

You can save $5 on a smugmug subscription! It’s simple: enter this this personal coupon ( Yf7DDBaRvVPAI ) in the ‘Referred by’ field on the signup form!

Right now I’m in the process of upgrading the Hong Kong photos. It’s not clear which will win out: my custom site, or SmugMug - compare them for yourself. But at least SmugMug will be a nice back up!

Yahoo! News - Famed TV Entertainer Johnny Carson Dead

Legendary television entertainer Johnny Carson (news) has died of emphysema at age 79, the NBC television network reported on its Web site on Sunday.

Oh my! This is surprising especially since just 3 days ago there were a plethora of articles on how Carson was secretly writing jokes for Letterman.

Carson truly was the king of classy comedy. Look at where the Tonight Show has gone since. The all time low, IMHO was during the OJ trial, which ironically is when the Tonight Show rose quickly in popularity. Remember the Dancing Itos? Or any of the other schlock - all making fun of a murder trial? Unfortunately, while the Late Show tried to stay class by avoiding that low brow humor, it too have to cave in, in the end.

One of my favorite clips of Carson was when one of his jokes bombed - and this was before they amped up the audience so that there would be laughter at every joke, no matter how bad it was (Conan’s show still has this feeling), and how Carson would totally recover.

He’ll be missed.

On January 1, 2005, I took Cathay 520 (American Airlines 6113) from Hong Kong (HKG) to Narita, Tokyo (NRT)

Unfortunately, coach was not full enough apparently so I did not get an operational upgrade, and had to stay in coach while business class was empty. Darn!

Nonetheless, the food was pretty darn good for coach!

Lunch

Green Tea Soba Noodles

Stir-Fried Beef with Japanese Soya Sauce
Japanese Rice and Vegetables
Or
*Braised Fish Filet with Winter Melon and Red Dates
Steamed Rice and Seasonal Vegetables

Chocolate Roll with Icing Sugar
Bread Roll and Butter
Tea and Coffee

*A special selection from the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s exclusive Happy Valley Clubhouse restaurants

I think this was the first Airbus plane I’ve ever been in, and I must say that it was a bit less noisy than Boeing ones. It seems that the air circulation system just isn’t as obnoxiously loud.

There was no legroom under the seats, however, because of the inflight entertainment (IFE) unit. The box just chews up a huge amount of space, and I was unable to fit my backpack there.

Also, the coach seats did not use regular headset jacks, so you had to use the headsets they supplied. They weren’t bad, but it wasn’t all that great.

The flight actually went by pretty fast, probably because I was watching the bizarre and hysterical I Heart Huckabees on this plane.

All in all, it wasn’t too bad. Business class would’ve been better, but coach was plenty fine on this Cathay Airlines flight. It’s too bad that upgrading on an AA codeshare doesn’t upgrade you all the way.

So tonight I went to a speech and book signing by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell is on a tour promoting his new book Blink. Gladwell is most famous for his other book Tipping Point, and for his articles in New Yorker magazine.

He spoke for about 30 minutes, and then did about 45 minutes of Q&A. There wasn’t anything really special since most of the things he said apparently are in the book.

And of course, the first Q in the Q&A was by some dude who droned on for a good 6 minutes with a questionless statement. I love those people
Nonetheless, it was definitely neat seeing him in person. Now if only I could find time to read this book…

The Ecology of Stress

The point here is not to make you even more tense?really. It?s about arming yourself: Understanding the causes of stress takes you halfway toward winning your personal battle against it. And when you consider the ecology of stress, New York is like a psychological experiment designed specifically to test the bounds of sanity. Take a few million type-A strivers, jam them into tiny apartments and 50-hour-a-week jobs, deprive them of grass and nature, then have them drink way too much and travel around in cramped underground tubes: That is a nearly perfect environment for overwhelming the ?allostatic system??the scientific term for the bodily processes that help us manage stressful events. Every time someone steals that cab from under your nose at rush hour or the landlord jacks your rent up higher, your body reacts. As researchers like Pickering uncover the biology and psychology of stress, they?re discovering precisely how the city gets under our skin.

In fact, just crossing New York City borders is enough to set your teeth on edge. In 1999, Nicholas Christenfeld, a psychology professor at the University of California, examined the national rates at which people die of heart attacks. In New York, he noticed, the rates are 55 percent higher than the national average. ?It stands out like a red light on the map,? he says. Then Christenfeld examined the rates of heart attacks among visitors to New York. Amazingly, those numbers were also elevated?34 percent higher than normal. The reverse was also true?when New Yorkers travel to other parts of the country, their rates drop below the city?s norm by 20 percent.

Turns out your paranoid mother was right: The city really will kill you. ?It?s incredible,? Christenfeld marvels. ?Just by visiting New York, you pick up half of the stress effect of living there. And you can shed half of it by leaving.?

[snip]

?It really just boosts your ego to brag that you live in the most stressful city,? argues Jonathan C. Smith, founding director of Chicago?s Roosevelt University Stress Institute. ?If you say, ?Well, I live in the most screwed-up city, that?s why I can?t concentrate on my kids or my spouse or my job,? ??he laughs??it?s an excuse.?

Interesting read - check it out. I wonder what my chart would look like if I were in this experiment.

This part is interesting:

Part of what makes commuting annoying is the constant noise: the squealing brakes, the incomprehensibly barking speakers. And noise, all experts agree, makes New York an absolute carnival of stress. Gary Evans, a professor of design and environmental analysis at Cornell who worked with Wener on the commuter study, recently studied an elementary school in the Bavarian region of Germany, near where an airport was being built. (It?s tricky to monitor the effects of noise in New York, because it never lets up.) Evans examined the children before and after construction, which allowed him to see how the arrival of persistent noise affected them.

Maybe that’s why I find being in Terminal A of SJC so stressful - there are constant announcements (most of them stupid), it’s right near the jet engines because Terminal A is ghetto (You board the plane via stairs, like in the old movies), and people are on the cell phone. At the opposite end was HKG which was like being in a museum!

But also my office - if my G4 Mac is on, you won’t be able to do anything because the fans are so loud!

The results were unsettling. Reading levels declined ?to a significant degree.? Why? Probably because the kids began screening out ambient noise to protect their sanity. Unfortunately, they also began screening out ambient conversation?which helps kids absorb language. What?s more, the children were more likely to give up on difficult tasks. Before the airport opened, they would attempt an insoluble puzzle?a standard experimental test?7.9 times on average before giving up; afterward, only 6.3 times. Other studies have shown that children lose six months of development for every extra ten decibels added to their learning environment, Evans notes.

Argh.

So on 12/21/2004, I went from San Jose to Hong Kong via Narita, Tokyo. This is the first of a few posts.

Flight 129 left from San Jose on a 777. I spent 50,000 miles (well, 25,000 for one direction) and upgraded so that I could be in business class instead of economy. This was definitely money well spent.

Here is a picture of the airplane:

The plane departs from the International section of Terminal A, which is at the opposite end of where American Airline flights usually leave.

Fortunately, as a Platinum member of American Airlines’ AAdvantage program, and since I had upgrade to Business Class, I was able to use the Admirals Club lounge in SJC:

There were a surprising number of kids on the flight in business class, but they were all quite well behaved. Here is a picture of the seats:

It was a fairly uneventful flight, and along the way I ended up seeing Catwoman. Wow, what a big mistake and waste of time that was.

The food on this flight was interesting though - it offers lunch and dinner. However, what makes it unusual is that they offer a Western Lunch or a Japanese Lunch.

Western Lunch

To Start: An assortment of warm roasted Nuts to accompany your preferred Cocktail or Beverage

Appetizer: Marinated Daikon Radish and Carrot-glazed Chicken

Salad: Fresh seasonal Greens offered with creamy Garlic-Dill Dressing or an individual bottle of Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar Dressing

Bread Basket: Assorted Breads or Japanese steamed Rice

Entrees - Please select one of the following entrees:

Filet Mignon- Tenderloin of Beef complemented by a Mustard Caper Demi-Glace, accompanied by oven-roasted Carrot slices and Lemon Mashed Potatoes.

Fillet of Fish with Olive Sauce- Fillet of Halibut lightly breaded with a roasted Red Bell Pepper and Green Olive Sauce with fresh Cilantro, served with parslied New Potatoes

Miso Chicken- Seared Chicken Breast marinated with Miso presented with Japanese Eggplant, Red Pepper Saute and steamed Rice.

Dessert: Seasonal fresh Fruit Medley, Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake

Well that’s all fine and dandy, but I’ve had that before and decided to try the Japanese Lunch. To this day, I’m still not sure what was what. I thought the calamari was cole slaw! It was definitely an adventure. Here’s a picture:

Japanese Cuisine Autumn Menu

Appetizers: A selection of Sushi

Main Tray:

Kobachi Dish- Rice Wine-marinated Calarmari accented by Wasabi Mayonnaise presented with Flying Fish Roe on a bed of Radish Sprouts, Red and Yellow Cherry Tomatoes, julienned Jicama and Leaf Lettuce

Hassun Dish- Grilled Chicken topped with Carrot Paste, accompanied by Cauliflower with seared Dengaku Miso, sweet simmered Herring, Code Roe Egg Cake, and grilled Shishito Pepper filled with Cream Cheese

Simmered Dish- Japanese-style stewed Beef with Potatoes and Carrots

Entr?e- Stewed Chicken complemented by assorted Mushrooms, offered with Taro and Mizuna in Miso

Soup- Miso Soup with Wakame Seaweed and Tofu.

Accompanied by steamed Rice and an assortment of seasonal Pickles

The flight service also had Snack Attack where you could just go up and get bags of junk food.

There was also, available upon request, Japanese Soba Noodles and Fresh Fruit and fine Cheese.

For supper, however, there was only a Western Meal. I had the Garlic Grilled Chicken and it was quite tasty:

Salad- A mix of Field Greens with Cherry Tomatoes and Caesar Dressing

Entrees-

Garlic Grilled Chicken: Grilled Breast of Chicken flavored with Garlic, served with Spinach, Shiitake Mushroom, Carrots, and Asparagus Medley with crispy Wonton

Deep-Dish Pizza: An individual Chicago-styled Pizza topped with four Cheeses and served with a Green Salad

Dessert- Dulce de Leche Tart

Here’s a brief rundown of the alcoholic beverages that were available, but I did not consume out of fear of dying:

Pommery Brut Champagne
Buehler Russian River Valley Chardonnay
Kenwood Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc
Chateau Lynch-Moussas
Rosemount Diamond Estate Bottled Shiraz
Emilio Loustau Sherry
Choya UMESHU Plum Liquer “Excellent”
Gekkeikan Horin Daiginjo Sake
Graham’s Vintage Port

All in all, upgrading to Business Class on American Airlines flight 129 from SJC-NRT (San Jose-Narita, Tokyo) was well worth it.

Another MacWorld Expo came, and left. I’ve now been to 8 MacWorld Expos (6 SF, 2 NY) courtesy of Microsoft, in addition to the 4 I had gone to before (2 Boston, 2 NY).

And wow, am I exhausted from meeting so many customers, and answering so many questions. This was definitely a better year for me representing Microsoft Entourage - in the past, customers would ask (angrily) about what Exchange solutions for the Mac. With Microsoft Office 2004, we worked hard to deliver a good solution for our enterprise customers to use Entourage with their Exchange servers - and it’s clear to me that our customers have benefited.

As a result, there is definitely less angst about “How can I use my Mac with Exchange?” which is fantastic - and it reaffirms our Microsoft’s commitment to the Mac platform!

Heck, just check out all these articles about Microsoft and the Mac that showed up last week.

But most importantly, I can now finally reveal what I’ve been working so feverishly on since late July. [Note to friends: this is why you folks stopped seeing me around!]

If you click through some of those articles, you’ll see that coming soon, the MacBU will be offering:

-A tool to import .PST files from Mac Outlook 2001 into Entourage 2004. In fact, there’s a public beta for it today.

-Improved Exchange support in Entourage. Let me tell you folks, we’re Mac users here at the MacBU, and guess what - we use Exchange in our network. (Go figure!) So we really REALLY know what it is like to be a Mac user in a Windows world - and you can be sure that we know what you’re going through and that we’re hard at work on improving the situation.

Here’s what my General Manager, Roz Ho, had to say in this interview:

To address the needs of our enterprise customers, we’re excited to announce some important tools and enhancements at Macworld 2005. For example, we’ll be talking about the .PST Import Tool. This is something our customers requested to easily migrate data from Outlook 2001 for Mac to Entourage, so we’re pleased to say that it’s arriving in the next few months. We’ll be kicking off a public beta program as well to ensure our customers have a say in the final product.

Also, we’ve got a lot lined up to improve collaboration in the enterprise and deliver a much smoother experience overall. We’re upgrading Exchange support in an update to Entourage planned for later this year and will focus on a number of enhancements, including work on calendars and public folders, server/client synchronization, and permissions and mailbox quota management.

That’s a pretty good summary (and it’s actually a pretty good interview, so read the whole thing!)

Alrighty. Back to Program Managing those improvements out the door and to the customers with the rest of my fantastic team!

I swear, I’ve been more backlogged in email this one week of attending MacWorld, than I was going to Hong Kong for 1.5 weeks around Christmas/New Years. Figures.