Today after work I went to check out ski equitment with my friend.? The guy whom I just converted from snowboard to ski thanks to my ski lessons.? He has a budget in mind, looking for some bargain deal on boot and ski.? The sales let him try out different boots and very cleverly let him try out a few expensive models.? The feel of wearing a nice boot is much better than wearing a cheap boot.? Once you have tried them out and notice the difference, it is hard to go back to the cheaper model.? Now he got a nice boot, he is tempted to get a nice pair of ski to match his boot.? A pair of $200 ski doesn’t look good on a pair of $300 boots.? At the end, the sales almost sold him equitment doubled his original budget.? Luckily my friend is not planning to get it today, so he can think again tonight and hopefully he will realize he don’t need such a fancy equitment. The next time a sales ask you to try on something above your budget, saying you don’t have to buy it, just try it out for a comparison.? Don’t falls into the trap!? You have to remeber the increment improvement does not always justify the price tag.? Buying a cheaper model and replace it every 2 years is better than buying an expensive model and use it for 4 years.

I just heard the news one of my friends at work quited PMC and joined BRCM. Most people congratulate him that he can leave the living hell of ESD. I have been talking to a few people about this news. It seems everyone agree that we don’t have to ask him why he leave, instead we should ask ourself why we stay. So the consensus is that people stay because there is no better offer out there. The golden handcliff symdrome. High pay is the only reason not leaving the company. I have talked to this friend. He said that he had a struggle before accepting the offer. BRCM is a remote office in Vancouver, while PMC is the headquarter. In case of a down turn, remote office have a higher danger being shut down than the HQ. He have calculated that BRCM should be safe for another year, while PMC is safe for another 2 years. The problem is if the company is going down, it is not safe in even in the HQ. After he hands in the resignation letter, usually a normal boss will say a few words to wish him luck and try to perusade him to stay half-heartly. His boss has the reputation being one of the worst manager in the company, he actually spent two hours trying to talk him out using FUD. At the end, the conversation more or less ended in his boss cursing him taking the new job will be worse than staying here. If I were him in this situation, instead of passively listening to all the BS, I put up my best arguments to convince my boss that he is wrong.

I just received the comments from my philosophy professor on the second draft of my final essay.? I think my paper is in a much better shape.? I don’t get any paragraphics crossed out by the professor.? He only asked me to elaborate some of my points that need clearer expression.? He also points out a few logically fallacies I had made.?? Actually, those are not real fallacies.? It is just my wording is unclear and makes them look like fallacies.? I rewrote those few points and my essay should be bug free.? The professor had hinted that if I can fix all the problems he pointed out and do not introduce any new problems, I may get a A for the essay.? In other words, the essay already worth a B.? I have no confidence to tighten up all the loop holes in my arguments.? Especially when my professor shows sympathy to socialism where my arguments in the paper all comes from the capitalism point of view.? In the first draft, I criticize the arguments from Marx makes no business sense.? The profossor replies that of course Marx has no business sense, he is a communists!

I have been posting my articles and discussing social and political issues in HK indepedent media for a while. I was attracted to that place at first for its ideology. It aims to report different voices in the society that the mainstream media usually ignored. It is good to know more about the marginalized groups. It was a fair and open platform to discuss government policy in the beginning. However, slowly I found its nature changed, it is no longer indepdent. It become an alternative reality for the exterme leftist social movement supporters. Political discussion often turns into flaming war, using ad hominem attacks instead of valid arguments. I am one of the few supporters for rightist policy and became their target. If the leftist won’t compromise and unwilling to discuss logically. By using verbal violence to shutup different opinions, they are essentially committing the same mistake they are accusing the mainstream media. I am not a pacifist, I believe in force is only way to deal with the barbarians who can’t reason with. I finally understand why their voice are systemically ignored by mainstream media. If they are unreasonable to begin with, it is only a waste of time to disscuss with them. The only problem is how can we prevent the indifferent majority in the center being misled by their false ideology.

Today I went to Whistler first time for the season.? We have early snow this year in Vancouver, Whistler has some good powder runs.? I figured that leaving 1 hour early and come back 1 hour early actually give us an extra hour of skiing time.? We left around 6:30a.m., by 9a.m. we are already having our first run.? 1 hour earlier make a big difference.? There is no line up at the gondola, which save us at 30-45 minutes.? We are having a early lunch around 11p.m., again there was no line up in the cafeteria.? We didn’t try to sqeeuze in the lift for the last run, we just took it easy and ski down at 3p.m.? Leaving Whistler around 4p.m., when there still some sun light.? The traffic is not very bad, we arrived home around 6:15p.m.? What a perfect day!? I gave some ski lesson to one of my friends.? I only gave him 1 excerise to work on, compare to 2-3 excerise in a normal 2 hour lesson.? I can see him improved quite a bit in just one day.? He never learnt how to ski properly, so he built up quite a few bad habits.? Now he likes skiing so much that he decided to convert from snowboard to ski.? I just did a good thing by saving a poor soul from the dark side.