kaiyen: pepper

Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts

why is recycling so hard? oh wait, it isn’t…

We have 3 recycling bins – as big as large rolling trash cans – at our apartment complex.  There are 3 sets of these located next to each dumpster area for about 100 units.  That’s a pretty good ratio.  The bins are clearly labeled:

  • Mixed paper (does not include newspaper, laminated paper, or cardboard)
  • Newspaper (does not include cardboard, laminated paper)
  • Bottles and Cans (PET 1-7, includes glass bottles)

Pretty straightforward, no?  And the fact that it can do PET 1-7 is impressive.  Lots of places can only do PET 1-3 or 1-4.

Yet, this is what I saw this morning:

  • Cardboard in both newspaper and especially in mixed paper (note that none of these allow cardboard)
  • Plastic and glass bottles in plastic and paper bags in the bottles and cans bin (not sure if that’s allowed, but I at least bother to empty the bag out)
  • Newspaper in the mixed paper bin

And I often see even worse dumping of the wrong types into the wrong containers.

Now, I’m sure that in all reality the recycling centers know this will happen and sort everything that comes in accordingly.  They just hope that we stick to some kind of system.  But it never ceases to amaze me how wildly off the placement of all that stuff is.  I try to breakdown cardboard to go by the dumpsters (where it says “Cardboard here, please breakdown any boxes”) but even when I’m lazy I at least put it there.

August 20, 2009 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts, On the Way to and from Work 1 Read more >

The mindset of the Class of 2013 « Feral Librarian

The mindset of the Class of 2013 « Feral Librarian.

I worked with Chris, the “owner” of Feral Librarian, for a number of years.  Closely for perhaps the last 2 years at Stanford.  She is a very intelligent person with great insights on a number of topics.  Yes, she’s a librarian, but she sees the bigger picture quite well.  That’s a rare combination – specialization and competency in one focused discipline and the ability to look at a much broader scope.

This post is notable for a lot of reasons.  First, check out the full list from Beloit College.  Second, note that even I was surprised with #34 – [Today’s students] have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.

Always?  That’s a long ways from “usually” or “often.”  Wow.

August 19, 2009 Articles from the Web, Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 1 Read more >

the career (life?) journey

  1. Birth (you gotta start somewhere)
  2. Go to elementary school, spend the afternoons running around like idiots.  Do things only idiots would do.
  3. Go to middle school, be mean to each other
  4. Spend high school first feeling lost, then concentrating on getting into a good college
  5. If you’re luck enough to get an admissions officer to take pity on you, you head off to that good college, and learn about life
  6. Start a career.  It need not be high up, it need not be the career for the rest of your life.  But hopefully get into a job that could lead somewhere.
  7. Move up the ladder.  Challenge yourself.  Get noticed
  8. Perhaps pick up an advanced degree to really let them know that you’re serious
  9. Achieve a management level position (or whatever it is that you “want” to do in life – maybe it’s being a top-level consultant)
  10. Keep moving around, be more successful, transition from a mode of ambitious drive to a calmer mode when you’ve reached the first of hopefully several major career points
  11. Retire, die happy.

This is a pretty basic sequence of events, of course.  But it’s also roughly what I want to do in life.

My question is:  are there ages that are associated with these various waypoints?  Can one not move from one step to another, or perhaps gain respect at particular steps, if one is too young?

We all hope that the answer is “no.”  That we live or at least work in a meritocracy and we will be rewarded for our hard work and achievements.

But lately it seems that I can’t get respect from others.  Lately I feel like just a kid being treated as such.

Tons of fun.  And it sure does feel unfair.

August 15, 2009 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 0 Read more >

I still have faith in e-mail

In the age of 140 character tweets, super-bloggers that post just a few paragraphs at a time (hey, Paul Krugman – for a Nobel Prize winner, I really wish I could get more from you than a link to someone else’s article and a few nuggets of commentary), and facebook status updates that are at most 2 sentences, the power of e-mail seems to have lost its luster.

E-mail has never had a very good rap.  Between viral forwards, the fact that its a transport mechanism for viruses themselves, and its quick reputation as “merely” an electronic replacement for written letters, and you don’t get very far.  Plus, there has always been this issue of “tone.”  Yeah yeah, we have all written an e-mail where we meant one thing, and the reader has gotten something completely different at the other end.  Often, that misread has been a big one – you write what felt like a nice, diplomatic missive with a simple question, and the recipient takes offense and all hell breaks loose.

Twitter and Facebook status messages don’t have to deal with this, for the most part, because they are so darn short.  How can someone take “feeling down today” the wrong way?  There isn’t even enough text there to misread.

Obviously, this is leading to a personal situation, so read on…

(more…)

August 15, 2009 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 0 Read more >

How To Lose a Job Via Facebook In 140 Characters or Less | Applicant – Job Tips And Advice

How To Lose a Job Via Facebook In 140 Characters or Less | Applicant – Job Tips And Advice.

With every question in my head about whether to have this person or that person as a friend on Facebook, I think about the possibility of something like this happening.  Not that I post anything quite this emotional on FB, but who knows what would happen if I really got worn out and let my compulsions get the best of me.  Even for one comment.

Then again, the concept of “cyber-nudity” – letting one’s self just be out there, accepting the fact that everyone can see what you say, feel, write…I don’t think that’s all bad, either.

August 9, 2009 Articles from the Web, Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 1 Read more >

can a shape be green?

I was staring at the box of 24 or however many bottles of Arrowhead water we recently bought at Costco while eating my morning yogurt, and noticed the big graphic that said:

“Eco-Shape!  Less Plastic, Better for the Environment.”

This struck me as very intriguing.

  1. Can a shape be eco-friendly?  Does it fit better into recycling bins?  Does it take up less room in landfills?
  2. Do bottles with more plastic take more…energy to recycle?

First, if the point is that it takes up less room in landfills, then Arrowhead has some dark development and marketing teams.  If it takes more energy to recycle a thicker plastic bottle than a thin one…I think maybe that needs to be addressed.  We’ve been recycling plastic for decades now and it turns out that we could have saved energy all along just by making bottles with thinner walls??

August 7, 2009 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 0 Read more >

The President needs to shut up (or stick to the important stuff)

Twice now, while watching the Daily Show I’ve wanted to get up and write something about the idiotic, stupid, waste of time that is this whole affair with the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr.  Why did the President of the the whole freaking United States have to make any comment whatsoever on the actions of the police on a charge of disturbing the police in Cambridge, MA?  Now I see this on CNN:

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive – Beer choice at Obama meeting touches off new debate « – Blogs from CNN.com.

So the President invites them all to have beer, the white house has to releases press reports on what types of beer, and some Democrats are UPSET ABOUT THE TYPE OF BEER CHOSEN?  What the heck?

If the President make a comment about the possibility of racial profiling, that might be okay.  But the bottom line is that no one knew what actually happened at the time the POTUS made his statement that the police acted “stupidly.”  Heck, I didn’t know, and he seemed to know even less than I did.

What I want to hear from the President is how he intends to fund universal heatlh care long term (and no, I don’t think he’s trying to kill old people, sheesh).  I support it entirely, but I want to know how we’ll handle those costs in the future.  And I want to hear about how Treasury and the Fed will work to unwind themselves of all this debt and the increase in the monetary base over the next few years.  About whether the stimulus is enough or not (is it just me, or have people begun to forget about the stimulus and some of the major macroeconomic issues at play here?).

Obama, IMO, has proven that he is bad, plain and simple bad, at extemporaneous comments.  And that he makes comments more often than he should. Of all the things a President should  be doing, apologizing for a “poor choice of words” is not one of them.  He just shouldn’t have made that comment in the first place.  Obama needs to learn when to shut up and just say “no comment until things are clear.”

This is just so frustrating.

July 30, 2009 Articles from the Web, Getting Political, Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 0 Read more >

facebook is not everything

A couple of days ago, I was invited by one group on LinkedIn to join its group on Facebook.  For those that aren’t familiar with LinkedIn, it’s kind of like professional networking.  Whereas social networking sites like Facebook attempt primarily to bring friends and those in our social circles together, LinkedIn connects professionals.  So on Facebook I have many of my high school and college friends, but on LinkedIn I have people with whom I work, with whom I used to work, and with peers at other institutions.

Of course, there is considerable overlap.  Some of my friends on Facebook are excellent professional connections, and some of my connections on LinkedIn have become friends.

The idea of having a Facebook group dedicated to an existing LinkedIn group, however, kind of misses the point.  While there is a lot of overlap between my respective circles, I use the two sites very, very differently.  More importantly, while Facebook may be the networking site these days, LinkedIn provides a very different kind of connectivity.

I know person X, who works at company A.  Someone that knows me wants to work at company A.  I’m the connector.  I’ve actually been the middle-man for I believe 3 people looking for jobs – just letting people know that there is a connection, and via a general LinkedIn recommendation.  This was specifically cited after the person was hired.

I’m going to a conference, and am wanting to meet up with a counterpart at another university.  We have a mutual connection on LinkedIn, and maybe that gives us a starting point for a productive conversation.

Facebook does offer connections – “you and person X have 3 mutual friends” – but how do I reconcile a bunch of high school friends where we’re reminiscing about our youths in our status messages with a desire to create professional connections?

Someone suggested that this Facebook group is an indication that the LinkedIn group will transition over to the former.  I think this would be a mistake.  Even though I go to FB everyday whereas LinkedIn once a week or so, they serve very different purposes, and I think both necessary ones.

July 23, 2009 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 0 Read more >

anyone else think Palin’s resignation speech was less than stellar?

Palin’s Resignation: The Edited Version | vanityfair.com

First – I got this off someone else sharing it on facebook.  Sometimes this whole social networking thing is useful.

I wanted to comment on Palin’s resignation when it first happened, because it made so little sense and, on a more superficial level, if one listened to the speech itself one wondered what kind of speech writers (or even proof readers) she had. 

Vanity Fair had a little fun with “editing” her speech, but overall this stresses the importance of having good speech writers.  There are great speakers – those that can deliver a stirring, moving, and motivational message – and there are great writers – those that create the spirit of the message through the deft use of the right words built on a solid foundation of proper grammar.  sidenote:  it is amazing how good grammar has such an impact on most listeners and readers – something as simple as that can raise any letter, speech, or other message to another level, yes shouldn’t we all know good grammar?  I certainly violate those rules all the time.

Of course, there have been great speakers and speech writers – I would have to think that Lincoln was one, though I guess, having never heard him speak myself, I cannot say for certain.  I don’t know how much of Obama’s speeches are his original writing versus editing and crafting from speech writers.  But I do know that Ted Sorenson did a lot of writing for John F. Kennedy, and I also know that JFK could deliver one heck of a speech (the Peace Speech is some powerful stuff, and if you listen to how he delivered important yet somewhat dry messages such as those surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis, one certainly leaves, even today, with a sense of the situation’s gravitas).  It’s quite possible that JFK wrote an original that ended up as the majority of the speech, and that he was in fact a great writer as well.  But the bottom line is that few orators don’t utilize the skills of others to craft a truly magnificent message. 

And less than great orators with less than stellar speech writing skills with which to start can come off as awkward to even the most casual of listeners.

July 21, 2009 Articles from the Web, Getting Political, Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 0 Read more >

watching what you say onilne – google really changes things

“Back in the day,” I used to have a pretty strong online presence as either myself or, much more frequently, as my alter ego, kaiyen. If you google “kaiyen,” you still find me mentioned here and there. That’s interesting since I have not gone by that in posts or discussion forums for probably 8 years now.

However, if you google “Allan Chen,” the first links are, in order:

so 7 of the first 8 are me, yet none are my blog, and only one is a page I created myself.  All the rest are big “social networking” sites.  I’m not worried about any of them – I keep the “public” facebook profile pretty clean, for instance, and the rest are designed specifically to be simple and/or professional.

However, this speaks to a larger issue.  With photo.net, for instance, one can see where I have posted and therefore what I have said.  If I were to ask a question in, say, the wedding photography forum that could be traced back to a particular client, I could be liable in some way.  Also, if I didn’t keep specifically the Facebook profile clean (the profile picture in particular), then that would not look very good either.

The fact that a component of Google’s search algorithm is to prioritize links based on the number of other sites of a certain relevance that link to it has some pretty serious repercussions.  Something like Facebook or photo.net is going to get a lot higher ranking than my personal page (or my blog, apparently).

July 16, 2009 Musings, Rants, and Random Thoughts 0 Read more >