Splash

Splash, originally uploaded by hchen1.

How to think about rich and poor

How do you explain to kids -- Are People Without Nice Things Lazy?

I like this simple answer a reader wrote.

Well, here's what my parents told me: Life isn't fair, and some people have advantages that others lack. People who have more nice things are often simply luckier than people who have less. So you should be grateful for what you have and not feel superior to those with fewer advantages.

Facebook is growing internationally

Facebook is growing fast not only in the United States but also in other countries. Not too long ago, Facebook was lagging behind other social networking sites in non-US countries. In the past 12 months, Facebook has grown eightfold in Brazil with 500 millions users, and it has as many users as Orkut's in India. According to Mark Zuckerberg, it's almost guarantee for Facebook to hit 1 billion users (i.e., ~1/7th of the world population in 2010).

Some analysts believe that Facebook is a threat to Google. Both companies rely on ads as a main source of income. While Google can learn a lot of about users' interests from search queries, but Facebook has far more usable personal data. Because Facebook can place more effective ads than Google, eventually Facebook will absorb some market shares from Google.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of these two companies in the next couple years.

Source: Facebook Makes Headway Around the World -- The New York Times

Snow Mountain Swimming Pool

Snow Mountain Swimming Pool, originally uploaded by hchen1.

Not your neighbor's swimming pool. Taken at the High Camp of the Squaw Valley Ski Resort -- 6200' feet above the sea level.

More record breaking skyscrapers

Two more record breaking skyscrapers are underway, one in Mecca and the other in Dubai. The Clock Royal Tower Hotel in Mecca will have an impressive height of 591m. The Buji Khalifa in Dubai will be even more impressive. Its height will be 828m, more than twice the height of the Chrysler Building.



I admire our human ingenuity, but I wonder if allocating a massive amount of resources to building the next tallest skyscraper is really the most effective way to encourage economic developments and improve the life of average people?

Next Step

Next Step, originally uploaded by hchen1.

My Flickr Photo of the Day: Seashell

Seashell, originally uploaded by hchen1.