My company just had a small layoff today. All the R&D people of the microprocessor division in Sanata Clara site are let go, including my friend Suzanne. We had quited the custom MIPS processor market and the remaining few guys are working on printer processors ASIC for HP. We all had expected this day will come just the matter of time. The margin of doing ASIC out-source from other company is really low and we have too many people here in Burnaby, so it is quite nature to move the jobs back to the HQ. There is no company wide announcement about this layoff, not even a single email. However people still somehow know the news thru different channels. I don’t feel bad for those guys, I heard that they have a good saverage pacakge, and the job market in Silicon Valley is doing fine. They should able to find another job without any problem. The most puzzling move is the company is offered to hire some of them back as contractors to finish the project they are working on. Why can’t the company wait until the project finish before letting them go?

In order to take courses in SFU, one must register in an acedemic program, either credit or non-credit. Since I am looking into what to study after my M.Eng degree, I need to register into a program. Having a ph.d. is one of my goal, but probably not in the area of engineering as it is too differcult. I am highly interested in philosophy, which would be an field worth to pursuit as an interest. I thought about applying for philosophy grad school directly, but that would be a sucide mission. After I talked to the department advisor and first-hand experience from my first philosophy class, I know that I need to build a good foundation from sratch. High-level undergrad course is a good place to begin with and I can read the textbook of the low-level by myself. SFU offers post baccalaureate program for student with a bachelor degree. This program which lets you take any undergrad courses or even some grad course as you like. The only problem is that there is no information on how to apply for this program on the university website. I have been kicking like a human ball among the advisors of the registration office, the arts office and the philosophy office hunting for the answer. Hopefully I will land on the one advisor who knows the process at the end of the beauacracy chain.

I am checking out volunteering oppertunities in Burnaby and Vancouver today. Pat complains I am not “good” enough because I am not doing any volunteering work. From my previous forced volunteering in highschool, I have really bad experience. Under my impression, most of the volunteering work are mostly boring or out right dumb. In the highschool, the only reason to volunteer is to get the credit. Ok, maybe including learning whatever skills, work experience to write on the resume or simply want to know girls. Now when I am old enough, I give a thought on the question on why volunteer again. I found all the external rewards are not the primary reason, nor out of charity, which doesn’t justify the effort comparing to donation. The sole reason is that I want to make a difference. Browsed through all the volunteering position in govolunteer.ca, I filter out all positions related to first, old folks, who are boring, second, fund raising or back office works, which is dumb. I like jobs in tutoring small kids maths or sciences. I especially like the mentor program for gifted children on special topics. Kinda like big brother, just that the kids seems to have better potential. Other than that, servicing in the board of non-profit organization looks fun, but I am afraid I am too green for that. I will look more closely into volunteering after things settle down a bit, my goal is spend 3 hours per week to change the world one small step at a time.

I am the type of person who cannot study at home, except I have to work with my computer. It usually end up surfing the web or watching TV. Thus, I went to Bread Garden to study my philosophy reading today. Finished first two of Descarte’s meditation before my brain got stuffed by the materials. I decided to move to SFU library to continue my reading and at the same time look for some introductory books on philosophy of ethics and aesthetic. First, I came across a book “Free market never fails” in the new books section. It takes a super strong neo-classical view point on the economy of capitalism. I found it quite interesting and decided to borrow it. Then I moved to the journal sections to look for philosophical journals. I end up browsed the whole bookshelf on all journals. There are quite a few philosophical jounrals, but none of them are particularly interesting. I found a journal on”Receational Mathametics” is kinda cool. It publishes many fun maths problems, like the solution to tetris or how to make equations to calculate number 1 to 100 from 4 fours. Then I end up reading 3 issues of Popular Science, in which the articles are mostly BS or on the vague of being sci-fi. I went down to the B section and found there are simply too many philosophy books on those two topics. I don’t know which one are good to begin with. I should allocate more time and narrow down my search next time. Liberary is as distracting as home, especial to someone as curious as me.

Tomorrow is the federal election of Canada. Out of the three parties, NDP is the one I like least. It’s policy is too far into the left, held hostage by the unions and tends to harm the middle classes. The name NDP almost equal to more tax more welfare, which only the poors can benefit. I am indifference to the economy policy of the Liberal and Conservative, both looks pretty much the same to me, maybe there are minor difference here and there. Liberal has been in rule for too long and suffer from the common problems of all long-time ruling parties. Conservative seems a good choice except I hate they play the gay-marriage card. I oppose to gay-marriage myself, but I oppose letting single-issue pressure group hijack the election even more. Out of no choices, I will probably vote Liberal again, at least it is the devil I am familiar with. However from the pre-election survey, it seems the Conservative will have a minor government this time. In another word, which means we will have yet another election in a year or two.