This is new a real survivor reality show coming up in Dutch. The players are patients waiting for kidney transplant, the prize is a kidney transplant.  Put it simple, the winner can live and the losers are very likely be dead while waiting for a kidney from the national donor list.  Just like other reality show, the audience will vote off constants one by one.  Just that the audience are not choosing who can will a million dollars but decide who can live.  Some critics say the show is unethical, disrepect human life.  I think it would be a good show, since the players life is on the stake. 

Let’s face the truth, we don’t have enough fresh kidneys for transplant and artifical kidneys is still a few years away.  People will die from kidney malfunction unless we start harvesting kidneys from prisoners.  The question is how to allocate the limited supply of kidneys and save a few lifes.  The current system is on first come first serve basis mixed with somekind of kidney lottery.  Literally, the patients have no control of their fate, they can just wait in line until it is too late or hope being lucky.  We can’t say a system with inderterministic result and no inputs from the patients is fair.  In this contest, the patients take control of their fate into their own hands.  As long as the rule of the game is fair, the allocation of the kidney is also fair.  If  you are the patient, which way do you prefer to get your new kidney, sit back waiting for luck or strive you best to win your life?

Those who have worked with me know I love paper documents.  Everytime I transfer to a new project, I will tax the printer heavily by printing every document I may need.  My friends say that I am killing too many tree, and question me why can’t I just read the document on screen.  First of all, I use recycle paper, and the document will go back to the recycling bin when the project is done, so no tree is killed in the process.  Moreover, trees are just like vegetable, you grow them, cut them and then grow them back again.  Using more paper is good for BC economy, which is hugh in the forrestry sector.  Reading on screen can never compare with the convinience reading on paper.  Your eye is much more comfortable reading something real, you highlight the text, mark the paper and comment the document.  You can flip through the pages quickly without waiting the for the screen to reload.  You can carry the paper document around easily and it looks good.  In case you disagree on some certain thing in the document with someone else, you can simply point to the page and settle the dispute.   Paper document carries a mysterious authority that people tends to listen.  It is much harder to convince someone open a document, search for the information to prove them wrong.  Let alone it save you the embrassment if they are actually right.

Switching to a new department means ramping up on new technology and new product line.  However, I don’t expect the ramp up would be this steep.  Some one in the Santa Clara office is leaving the company in a month and I am assigned to take over his work.  This means another brain dump trip to the Bay Area.  I will be flying down to Santa Clara for two weeks only after joining the new project team for a week.  I only have next week to get myself familiar on whatever the guy is working on, so that I can ask some more intelligent questions when I am down there the week after.  I can foresee many hours of intensive reading in the next few days.  Actually, I already shoveled the 600 pages SATA standard into my brain in one day.  I wonder how many more pages I can take before my brain explode.

Things gets even more interesting that my cousin is getting marry in 2 weeks.  So during my two weeks stays in Santa Clara, I will fly back to Vancouver on Friday night, go to the wedding, then fly back down on Sunday evening.  If the weekend is not conflict with the wedding, I would rather stay down there and hang out with my old friends.  My boss seems to have no trouble giving me approval to come back for the weekend.  I guess it is cheaper to buy me the ticket than paying me for the hotel, car rental and meals for two extra days.

I will on loan to another department for 6 month starting next week.  My old department does not have any new project for the time being, so can’t really complain being on loan to the other department where has lots of work and short on staff.  Today we have the welcome meeting with the new project team.  The new department seems to have a bright future, the product line is ramping up and expect to have exceed 100 million revenue per year if the project I will work on ships on time.  Somehow I picked an interesting straw in task assignment.  I will be working on the SATA and SAS protocol, which half of the products in the new department are built upon on.  I will take over some work from some engineers who are leaving the company.  It will be a steep ramp up for me to learn the new standards in a short period of time.  No kidding, it is a tough and demanding assignment.

On the bright side, every crisis is also an opportunity.  If I step forward and did a good job, the result should will be rewarding.  This is mostly technical work, I can just do my best and not having to worry about stepping on someone’s toe.  It would be quite difficult to shine on leadership skill like I have done in my previous project being a loaner.  That would involve some politics and not familiar with the technology is definitely a handicap for me.  Strive to be the technical expert gives me more control on my own destiny.  I have acquire the domain knowledge so valuable to the new department, I will have the option to transfer to the new department after the on loan period.  It is better for me to be in high demand﹐ since I don’t see any future in my old department right now, at least not in the current ruin state.

The new department seems a nice place to work at, challenging work, good growth potential, everything sounds alright except one thing, the manager.  He is one of the worst manager in the company, well known for slaving his sub-ordinary without giving fair compensation.  On a second thought, maybe a permanent transfer is not such a good idea.  I would rather take my chance in the old department then working for a heartless manager.

There are two ways to use jargons, one way is to pretend being intelligent and the other way is really being intelligent. Jargon is just a short cut to express some complicated concepts using a few words.  Jargons originate from various sources, such as science, psychology, economics, military, literature, etc.,  Then the original meaning of the word expands and they are borrowed to use in different context.  If you use a jargon without any explanation and your audience have no clue idea what the jargon is about, then you are just an inefficient communicator.  If  you don’t even know the meaning of the jargon yourself, then you are just bluffing nonsense.  However when the jargon is used right, it is a very powerful rhetorical tool.  You can instantly grabbed the audience’s attention with a short phrase.  After you take control of the conversation, you can then go on with explanation of the jargon and relate the jargon to the context.  Express your position with the help of jargons adds authorities, which makes your speech more persuasive.  Most people won’t question the concept behind the jargon, they will simply swallow whatever idea represented by the jargon, as long as it makes sense on the first glance.  In order to make my speech more vivid and intelligent, I compile a small but growing list of useful jargons.  Please check it out at here