Harry Chen Thinks Aloud

The legal immigration system of the United States is extremely complex. The typical process for obtaining a Green Card (i.e., becoming a Permanent US Resident) is lengthy and sometimes adventurous. If you plan to go through this process, hire a lawyer and don’t try DIY.

Here is a story from the law offices of Carl Shusterman.

After marrying a foreigner, instead of hiring a lawyer, Mr D. who is a US citizen tried to applied a Green Card for his wife. With an everything DIY mentality, he followed every steps of the application. Close to the end, the US Embassy notified his wife that she would be barred from entering the US for 10 years. The reason was because his wife had studies in the US and stayed in the country after her student visa was expired.

Now what? It turned out that the wife could file for a waiver if she can prove that a 10-years separation from her husband can cause the couple to suffer “extreme hardship”. Sounds easy? Not really.

After filling for a waiver, they received a letter from the government:

… the applicant’s situation, based on the record, is typical to (sic) individuals separated as a result of deportation or exclusion and does not rise to the level of extreme hardship.

It’s time to hire a lawyer. At the end, the lawyer solved the problem for the couples using some legal maneuver. The wife got her visa to enter the US and joined her husband.

Read the full story… Read the rest of this entry »

Next month, Nintendo Wii Fit becomes available in the US stores. The Web is full with speculations and rumors about Wii’s future prospect. This includes a conspiracy theory on how the company sells its Wii products in a weak US economy.

Some speculates that we will continue to see a shortage of Wii console in the US stores, at least for another six-nine months. New advertising of Wii Fit will likely drive up the console demand. On Ebay, Wii continues to sell for above the typical store price. One month before the Wii Fit release, bids for the pre-orders of Wii Fit are also selling above the store price.

Some people asked why it’s so hard to find Wii in the US, but not so in other countries. For example, if you live in Japan or Germany, it’s not hard to find Wii in the stores. Some speculates that Nintendo has intentionally reduced its Wii console shipments to the US. The theory is that Nintendo can profit more by selling the consoles in countries with a strong currency.

I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen this X’Mas. I wonder if Wii will continue to be out of stock in Best Buy and Amazon? Maybe the current console will eventually be available to everyone once Nintendo releases Wii 2.0.

Spotted on:

• Wii Fit to Spark New ‘Boom in Demand’ for Wii
• Wii Fit Release to be Turning Point of ongoing Wii Shortage?

No democratic society can progress without giving people the right to free speech. Unfortunately, people in democratic societies often abuse their rights to the freedom of speech. Here is a typical example. Supporters of an independent Tibet raged strong protests in Paris as the Olympic torch travels through the city.

Whether or not Tibet should be free from China is an issue requires serious debates. This problem doesn’t have a simple solution. Exploiting the 2008 Summer Olympics as an opportunity to impose an extreme politic view on the issue is both irrational and uncivilized. Violent protests can’t solve any problem. They can only create more violence and more disagreements.

The Olympics is a world event that promotes peace and unity. Through the Olympic Games, nations put aside their culture and political differences, and participate in one united sports competition. We celebrate the Olympics as a united human race.

Preventing China (or any other countries) to host the Olympic games is an active destruction of world peace and unity. While the Tibet issue is an important issue, but it’s far less significant comparing to a successful completion of the Olympic Games.

If you’re interested in world peace, you must accept that Tibet and the Olympics are two separate issues.

Updated (April 9, 2008):

• Non-violent protest turned violent? (Paris, France).

Facebook is a social networking application. Unless you are a teen who tries to show off your 100+ social networks or a business person who tries to profit from the latest social networking trend, Facebook seems to be a waste of time. After playing with the service for two days, I conclude that while excessive use of Facebook can be a tremendous drain on time, but if the usage time is managed well, Facebook is a valuable tool for maintaining healthy social networks that otherwise is difficult to do in the physical world.

I was an anti-Facebook person. I used believe that for a great part of my life I was able to maintain my social networks without tools like Facebook and MySpace, there is simply no good reasons to use them. This thought is no longer valid.

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Priceless.com, a site owned by MasterCard, features some of my Flickr photos taken at the Camden Lock Market in London. The originals can be found tagged camdenlockmarket. Other photos from the same trip are tagged london.

I read The Economist religiously. With the new audio edition of The Economist, I think soon I will also listen to it religiously. For those who are unfamiliar with The Economist, it’s a weekly magazine (or newspaper as it calls itself) that discusses politics, economy, business and science and technology. I like it because it gives a good overview of what’s going on around the world every week.

The audio edition features download-able MP3 of all articles in the weekly magazine. These files don’t come with DRM protection, so you can play them on your computers or save them in your MP3 players. Because this service is still in its early stage of development, all MP3 files are free for download (for now) even if you don’t currently subscribe to the magazine.

These days investors of the stock market are happy because the Dow is at its all time high. However, US consumers are not very happy because of rising energy costs, grim housing markets and possible inflation and stagflation crisis.

This situation looks odd to many people. If the US economy is doing well, shouldn’t it benefit both investors and consumers (remember the age of dot-com)? If the US economy is not doing well, how is it possible for many companies to report record earnings?

Answers to these questions can be found in Robert Reich’s podcast — Wall Street’s up, Main Street’s down.

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AAAI announced a video competition that is aimed to promote and document exciting research and applications of artificial intelligence. Winners could receive prizes up to $3000 US. This competition is running in part with AAAI-07.

For more information: http://aivideo.org

AI videos from YouTube:

• Robot doing dishes
• Android woman giving a presentation
• Honda Asimo
• AIBO vs. Lizard