Posted 9:39 AM by Blah blah

Creativity. Mate Choice. Personality. (Psychology)

Marriage and children kill creativity in men (ABC):

"Men do their best work in their younger years, but getting married and having children stalls their creativity, according to a New Zealand study of successful scientists....Kanazawa suggests 'a single psychological mechanism' is responsible for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and gain the attention of women. That craving drives the all-important male hormone, testosterone. After a man settles down, the testosterone level falls, as does his creative output, Kanazawa theorises."

Mate choice: Opposites don't attract (ABC):

"When it comes to finding the right partner in life, the old adage that 'opposites attract' is wrong, according to a new U.S. study. In Western society at least, young adults prefer someone who is most like themselves...

The researchers cite other studies that have found men and women really do tend to choose marriage partners with many attributes similar to themselves, and that people who choose such a partner tend to be happier and enjoy more stable marriages."

Personality - a lifetime's work (ABC):

"Rather than being stuck with the same character we're born with, our personalities change throughout our lives – in some cases more as we get older – a U.S. study has revealed.

A team of psychologists led by Dr Sanjay Srivastava from the University of California, Berkeley, surveyed a huge sample of 132,515 volunteers on the major groupings of personality traits known as the 'Big Five': conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extroversion....

'Average levels of personality traits changed gradually but systematically throughout the lifespan, sometimes even more after age 30 than before,' the researchers wrote.

'We believe adult personality is characterised more by plasticity than by increasing calcification, and the mechanisms of personality change can be understood best by considering the life contexts that accompany change,' they concluded."

Posted 7:56 AM by Blah blah

Unexpected High School Reunion (Ouch)

Saw Mark's horror movie Claustrophobia last night. Didn't find it that scary (sorry, Mark!)

The really scary thing was meeting, besides Mark, three other people I knew in high school! All of them, including Mark, are some years older than I. One guy used to hang out with Mark in junior high and high school. He still seemed to talk the same, counterculture way. He was one of the first computer geeks I ever knew. Another guy, the Jewish competitive lawyer overachiever type who used to do Speech and Debate competitions with me, was there with his black wife. I also knew him at Berkeley my freshman year. A blonde girl, who used to be one of our cheerleaders, was there with her man. Her blonde hair was cropped short and I just did not recognize her until she shouted "Raymond!"

What was amazing was how physically some had changed. Mark and I were the only skinny people in that group. The others had all grown...ehem...they had grown!

I talked to Sandy about this last night. Sandy had gone shopping with me in San Francisco last Sunday, and I had finally visited her cute place she shares with Brent. I do have one Japanese guy friend in Niigata, from Berkeley, who (from a more recent wedding photo) has grown...fat. But for the most part, the Asians I knew from high school don't look SO much different physically now. People still tell me I look like an undergrad.

It must be my Asian genes and all those years of broccoli and bok choy. In fact, recently, I've actually LOST weight without really trying. I'm about 10 pounds lighter than a few months ago, due to me eating less, playing tennis thrice a week, and rollerblading. Next week I'll start swimming a few times a week again. God, do I miss swimming. Last summer I swam thrice a week, 30-50 laps each day. I get in a trance when I swim long distances. I feel so relaxed.

Can someone please make a graph of how the white people you knew from high school change physically vs. the Asians? Gulp.

Posted 3:00 PM by Blah blah

Internet Ads (Advertising)

Why online ads do not work (BBC).

Shh...I'm actually getting paid a monthly fee for those text links I have at the top of this page. How can we deliver online ads more effectively so that they reach people who are actually looking for the product in the ad at the time and place they wish it?

Posted 9:52 AM by Blah blah

MixerMixer: The Next Three Days (Events)

Sign up for MixerMixer, a new site for making friends. It lets anyone easily create and post activities. Started by two new UC Berkeley grads a few months ago (Annie and Kavin), this site has grown quickly. What I like is that many of the people here are from my city, San Jose.

Mariah said hi to me through this site a few weeks ago. She just graduated from Yale University in history and political science and was the captain of their ballroom dance team. She wanted to find people who liked salsa and swing and plans to arrange a dance event when she comes back to the Bay Area. She found several people on MixerMixer on the Stanford Ballroom Dance Team, who are also interested. She's incredibly accomplished (we talked for a few hours by phone) and is now in Taiwan teaching English. She's studying SIX languages now and wants to go to law school.

She and a friend were so psyched about MixerMixer that they made posters about it and splashed them over the Yale campus, drawing in a bunch of Yale students.

Here's my life for the next three days, all on MixerMixer. If you live in the Bay Area, please feel free to come! Email me if you want to meet up.

Tonight:
- Santa Clara, 8 pm. Free showing of my director friend's thriller movie, Claustrophobia. I'll meet a bunch of filmmakers.

Saturday:
- San Jose, 7 pm. "Silent Party," the weirdest party I'll have ever attended. "The SILENT PARTY is a totally unique experience. There would be absolutely NO TALKING or conversation(s) of ANY nature! All cellular phones and pagers need to be turned off. Cocktails would be provided and there would be light music in the room to help people kick in the euphoria! We shall provide paper & pencils to all. And the ONLY method of communication would be to pass notes around!"

Sunday:
- Mountain View, 10 am. Weekly rollerblading lessons taught my friend Patrick. I am focusing on developing hockey skills and improving my backwards skating now.
- Afternoon: spending time with Patrick's friend Adrian, whom I visited in Berkeley last Sunday. Adrian is a psychiatrist. Also meeting Bobby of SVChinese.org and perhaps my friend Sally. Later Patrick will teach me some hard-core hockey.

Posted 11:45 PM by Blah blah

Dr. Phil Test (Psychology)

Huang just sent me this psychology test that Dr. Phil supposely gave on Oprah. He scored 55 and she scored 38.

Ha! I also scored 55! I guess it doesn't say "amateur Dr. Phil" on my Friendster profile for nothing. Take it with a grain of salt, kids.

51 TO 60 POINTS: Others see you as an exciting, highly volatile, rather impulsive personality; a natural leader, who’s quick to make decisions, though not always the right ones. They see you as bold and venturesome, someone who will try anything once; someone who takes chances and enjoys an adventure. They enjoy being in your company because of the excitement you radiate.

Some of the questions could have gone any direction, like "What's your sleeping position?" Here are my answers:

1. c = 6 points. I'm definitely more of a night person. But I can wake early if needed.
2. c = 7. It's either a or c. I generally walk fast. Even faster than some New Yorkers when I was in Manhattan.
3. c = 5. Between a, c, or d. If I really feel a vibe with someone, I touch him or her.
4. b = 6. Either b, c, or d. This seems like a dumb question. I'm not Sharon Stone here!
5. b = 4. Between a, b, or c. I enjoy laughing, but I'm not a braying horse.
6. b = 4. I'm not shy at parties, but I think people who feel they must make a "loud entrance" can be a bit showy.
7. c = 4.
8. a = 6. I like the color of fire and sunset the most. :p Note this blog's color?
9. a = 7. Dumb question. Entirely depends on how much Chardonnay I drank.
10. e = 6. Between e and f. I rarely remember my dreams and try to sleep deeply enough to drool.

Posted 7:10 PM by Blah blah

Great American Speeches (Rhetoric)

For all who love great public speaking, both in public life and in the movies, check out this wonderful site:

American Rhetoric.

Includes their online speech bank of 5000+ speeches, famous movie speeches, and more. Read transcripts as well as listen to their MP3 and RealPlayer recordings.

Posted 6:25 AM by Blah blah

Silicon Valley Chinese Blog List (Blogs)

I'm the first and only blog Bobby has listed on his new Silicon Valley Chinese blog page. His SVChinese.org is, as I said before, a Craigslist in Chinese for the Bay Area. Add your Bay Area blog. You don't need to be Chinese, and you can reach Chinese speakers this way.

It cracks me up to read the posts by mainland Chinese guys on the Love in Silicon Valley message board. They are so blunt and crude!

Mr high blood pressure says:
"I agree with an earlier post: good men tend to be snatched fast by quality girls even in this lope sided market of SV.

So, if Mr SouthBay is still single, since he has Citizenship, he should have been here easily around 10 years or more, then he probably will be single for a while ... he is either still dreaming, or he is just too in love with himself. Either way, he need a reality check.

From his post, it seems he have not dated much. Sound like he is still a virgin, still keeping himself pure for the true love. Are there any great female teacher want to teach him the basics?

Be honest, even if you are such a politically correct, well behaved fellow in public, you got to be dirty in bed. Any objections? That's the key. Can Mr Southbay change 180 degree in bed? If he can. Girls! go for it, he got both world covered."

Posted 4:59 AM by Blah blah

Lack of Privacy for You on Your Company Computer (Privacy)

Ouch! Beware how you use your corporate computer, guys. Dear Abby Column:

"DEAR ABBY: Allow me to give your readers a heads-up regarding a potentially embarrassing -- and possibly illegal -- situation they may encounter at their places of employment. I am talking about employees using their work computers and networks to conduct personal and private business.

As an information technology ('IT') security specialist, I can attest to the fact that almost everything an employee does on his or her work computer is monitored very closely, due to heightened security.

One of my responsibilities is to monitor e-mail that crosses the networks and investigate Web sites employees visit during the day. Believe me, I've seen it all! A few examples:

(1) Details between couples going through nasty divorces, as well as torrid love affairs. (The dialogue from even one of those messages could fuel a soap opera storyline for years!)

(2) The personal 'measurements' and private 'requirements' of individuals seeking a potential mate while checking out dating Web sites. (I will never look at certain employees the same way again.)

(3) The ridiculously overpriced items that people 'had to have' on auction Web sites. (I could outbid individuals by a dollar each time they made a bid online and they'd never know.)

(4) How much money employees have in their checking and savings accounts, while conducting their online banking. (On more than one occasion, I knew that someone had bounced a check before he did.)

(5) Employees exploring pornographic Web sites. (You'd be amazed how many times I've had to begin an investigation into an employee because of something like this.)

Abby, IT security specialists are not nosy people. We are employed by the corporate and government worlds to ensure that highly valuable information and equipment is kept safe and secrets are not leaked.

-- IT SECURITY SPECIALIST ON THE EAST COAST

Posted 6:10 PM by Blah blah

New Science About Women (Pregnancy)

Whoa!! Women May Ovulate More Than Once a Month, Study Says (Reuters):
_____________
No wonder the rhythm method does not work so well for birth control -- scientists in Canada said on Tuesday they had found women sometimes ovulate several times in a single month.

Their finding, if verified, would overturn the traditional wisdom that women produce an egg cell once a month. It would also help explain why "natural" methods of birth control, based on the idea that ovulation can be predicted, often fail.

"We are literally going to have to re-write medical textbooks," said Dr. Roger Pierson...

Standard medical science says a woman has a cycle running roughly 28 days in which an egg ripens, is released by the follicle, drops into the fallopian tube, and then is either fertilized or shed during menstruation.

Writing in the journal Fertility and Sterility, Pierson and colleagues found this did not always happen.

"We weren't expecting this. We really weren't," Pierson said in a telephone interview.

In the study, Pierson, veterinarian Gregg Adams and graduate student Angela Baerwald did daily, high-resolution ultrasound scans on 63 women for a month, which allowed them to see the follicles very clearly.

"We had 63 women with normal menstrual cycles. Of those 63, only 50 had normal ovarian cycles," Pierson said.

Thirteen of the women ovulated multiple times, in various different ways. And of the other 50, 40 percent had up to three waves of activity by the follicles, any one of which could result in the production of an egg.

The women's hormone levels did not match this activity, Pierson said. "Hopefully this will help women explain how they got pregnant when they really didn't want to be pregnant, and it certainly will help us design better fertility therapies."

Apparently, measuring hormones in the blood is not enough to predict what a woman's reproductive system is up to.

"The hormones do what they are going to do and the ovaries just follow their merry path," Pierson said.

"We always thought that menstrual cycles and ovarian cycles were one and the same. It turns out they are just like two political parties -- sometimes they go along hand in hand for the good of the country and sometimes they go along their separate ways."

Posted 11:59 AM by Blah blah

See Mark Kines' New Movie, Claustrophobia: July 11, 8 pm! (Entertainment)

From my writer/director friend Mark Kines (read his online journal about his filmmaking). I know Mark from junior high and high school, and I wrote about him here in detail. The first movie he wrote, directed, and produced was Foreign Correspondents.

Now he's finished and just begun to show friends his latest film, Claustrophobia. Come Friday to the screening and meet Mark, me, and some of his filmmaking friends! He's here from Los Angeles.
_______________
I'm in San Jose this week, happy to show you my new thriller "Claustrophobia." A friend of mine is generously allowing me the use of his college to show the film, so here's the scoop:

CLAUSTROPHOBIA

Friday, July 11, 2003 - 8pm
International Technology University Auditorium
1650 Warburton Ave
Santa Clara, CA 95050

It's near Scott Blvd. and El Camino Real in Santa Clara.

This is a HUGE auditorium (300 seats) so feel free to invite all your friends - this screening is free.

If you cannot make it on Friday, please let me know if you'll be available to watch it on Thursday, Saturday or Sunday nights. If there's enough of a response I might arrange a small TV party at somebody's house on one of those dates. Otherwise, see you there on Friday at 8pm!

-Mark

Posted 7:11 AM by Blah blah

More on Emotional Maturity (Psychology)

Esther really enjoyed that list I mentioned about what is emotionally immature vs. mature behavior. Click her pic for full-size.

I'm so glad you found that page valuable, Esther! As someone who has had to live and deal with emotionally immature, older people throughout my whole life, I'm very familiar with that internal conflict you go through about that person. You care about him/her, but all your efforts to change or improve his/her maturity seem to fail. How long do you keep gnashing your teeth trying to change that person?

It took me a long time to learn to let go and move on to new positive relationships, to not get too personally involved in someone's immaturity. Like you felt with your ex, I found that the longer I was stuck there trying to "fix" that person, the worse I began to behave myself.

Nowadays I can be very unemotional about cutting off relationships with emotionally draining people, precisely because I used to be the opposite way. I used to care and invest my heart in it and come away feeling exhausted and foolish. Now I think of the good I'd rather be doing with people who are worth it. My life became much smoother and happier once I made that decision.

With immature coworkers, family, and relatives, of course it's hard to "cut it off" with them. But I've learned to accept them as they are much more, for my own sanity. I just hold back somewhat and keep relations at a more superficial level. And I keep our lives separate.

Posted 4:03 PM by Blah blah

Yeti Dating Blog. How Long Do Women Wait to Call? (Relationships)

For my link list, here's another excellent dating blog, by James (aka Yeti) in St. Louis. Incredible writing: Tales from a Yeti Suit. His old blog (also excellent, and full of flirtatious dialogue).

James is a smooth talker, though he pleads innocent:

CuteBrunette: You’re so fun to talk to. Do you come up here a lot?
Yeti: Not as often as I’d like. I didn’t realize you were here.
CB: Oh stop it.
Y: Stop it, or is that an invitation for me to keep going?
CB: You’re quite the smoothie. Why aren’t you married?
Y: Women are intimidated by the skill with which I cook and clean.
CB: You are a man, aren’t you?
Y: I’m a football fanatic. And I like to punch a punching bag. Whether or not I’m a real man, well you get to make that decision.
CB: I’ll reserve judgement.
Y: I can flex if you like.
CB: Maybe later. I’m kinda trapped in your eyes.
Y: What do you think of them?
CB: They’re so mysterious. You look like you hide a lot.
Y: Do you want to know a secret?
CB: I love secrets.
Y: I’m a coward.
CB: You’re a coward.
Y: It’s true – I’m afraid to talk to women. Afraid they’ll laugh at me, afraid they’ll emasculate me.
CB: I find that hard to believe.
Y: It’s true. I get nervous talking to women.
CB: You don’t seem to be.
Y: You make me brave. I think of you and every word that pours off my lips is romantic gold. You inspire me. The thought of not sitting here, listening to your voice, not holding your hand, that makes me bold. It makes me brave.
CB: You’re dangerous.
Y: You have nothing to fear. While I stand here, I’ll protect you.
CB: Do you think I’m in danger?
Y: Not the physical kind.
CB: Now I’m a little afraid.
Y: The French believe there is one solution to every woman’s problem.
CB: And that is?
Y: This.

Yeti leans over and kisses her.
ed. Due to the graphic nature of the rest of the story, this post has been edited to promote ethical values.

I found him from Edie, the Manhattan girl who writes like Bridget Jones on steroids. Edie just moved her site here.

Something that happened to Edie in May:

Calling all men (and boys): Let me give you a hypothetical situation: You meet a girl at a party. You hit it off. You suggest to her that she comes with you when you leave to go somewhere else. You hang chat and have fun with her over drinks. After you two close down a bar, you suggest you move on somewhere else rather than end the night there. You continue your great conversation. You walk her home. You kiss passionately before saying goodbye. You ask for her number, even though she gave you the perfect opportunity to not ask for it by saying simply, "I'll see you at the party next Saturday." She did not ever utter the words, "So, when can I see you again?" In fact, she has exhibited at every turn that she is easy going and will not apply pressure on you. I ask you: Why do you not call? And also: Under what conditions do you actually call. You must sometimes or you would never go on a date. Lastly: Why ask for a number at all if you have no intention of calling? Especially in a scenario as outlined above, when she gives you a great out from asking it?

I would turn that around and ask, under what conditions after a great date would a girl call a guy? Ladies?

Yes, I know most women prefer to wait for the call. But how long would the average woman wait? What would make her call the guy? Kiki tells me that since the average man waits FOUR DAYS to call, the average woman will wait FIVE DAYS to call the man.

But then, I feel rules like this are arbitrary and people like Edie overanalyze them. I don't follow them.

Posted 1:05 PM by Blah blah

Love in Silicon Valley (Relationships)

From the forums of Silicon Valley Chinese (SVChinese.org), a "Craigslist" in Chinese for the Bay Area, see what various Chinese guys think about the male/female imbalance here in Silicon Valley, gold digging mainland Chinese women here, and more.

I introduced Bobby, the creator of SVChinese.org, to Christine's Oriented.com company and said maybe they could do a cross-promotion. Christine loves his site. I think Bobby reads my blog now.

I just talked to Bobby! He plans to meet Christine this week. He wants to meet me, her, and my friend Sally (who introduced me to this site). Yay for the Internet. He also plays rollerhockey, Patrick. Yeah, I invited him already. I'm turning into Patrick's main salesman.

Read the Love in Silicon Valley forum. Bobby says I have a "party face."

Very useful: How to set up Microsoft Windows to accept Chinese character input.

Posted 12:06 AM by Blah blah

Emotional Maturity (Psychology)

Here's a good list of what makes someone emotionally immature vs. emotionally mature. The large amount of emotional children on Rice Bowl Journals helped cause me and others to leave. It's just not worth wasting time on them. If I want to deal with children, I'll go help out at a nursery. But adult children? No thanks.

Posted 7:35 PM by Blah blah

Bad News for Business Schools (Economy)

Thinking of getting an MBA?

A bear market for business schools (MSNBC): "As the likelihood of a hot job fades, so does the MBA’s allure....But the big reason many twentysomethings may be hanging on to their jobs, however unrewarding, is that the once-coveted MBA no longer comes with the implicit guarantee of a big-bucks job offer on graduation....It’s easy to see why America’s fledgling manager class is balking these days. Over the past two years, potential MBA candidates have watched many B-school grads flail upon re-entering the real world. Consider that some 30 percent of grads at BusinessWeek’s Top 30 MBA programs had no solid job offer at graduation in 2002."