Given its location, one can easily find a lot of technical books there. Its magazine section covers finance, photography, travel, and IT. It contains major financial newspapers, such as Barron’s, IDB, and Wall Street Journal.

Though, there are two drawbacks: first, it is a small, cozy library; second, it doesn’t provide free wireless Internet access. Now, the situations will be altered! At top-right, there is the library concept design of the future. A new main library building will be built near the current library building. I am very happy to see that “my library” has a bright future!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. Get detailed driving directions from either Yahoo Map or Google Map. It would be even better by carrying along a GPS device.
2. Do research beforehand and understand the road condition and the local weather. Google Earth could be a good source. A lot of roads are closed during winter due to heavy snow. Depending on the location, winter could be very long. That’s what I learned when visiting Glacier National Park in late May, 2004.
3. Carry enough food and water in the snow country. Energy bar is a good source of food and easy to carry. During winter, a snow storm could hit you at any time. When that happens, depending on where you are, you could be completely on your own for quite a long time.
4. Leave your itinerary with a trusted person and notify the person from time to time. For example, before leaving Merlin, James could call his father, which could reduce the search area for the rescue team.
5. Carry a compass. Unless you are pro backpacker, compass is useful when you have to walk long distance for help. It prevents you from walking in circles or getting lost. It is better if you have a watch like Casio Sea Pathfinder Atomic Solar Watch, which is solar powered and contains a digital compass, and a barometer.
6. Carry a PLB (personal location beacons). A PLB is a pocket-sized emergency beacon, a scaled down version of the EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) and ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) that boaters and pilots, respectively, have had available to them for years. When activated, a PLB sends a distress call and location data via two separate satellite systems to the U.S. Air Force Rescue Center Coordination Center in Langley, VA. From there, your exact location goes to local rescues. It is more reliable than satellite phone, not to mention cell phones, and it only costs $500-$700, which is much cheaper compared to your precious life and the rescue cost.
7. Carry a singal mirror or learn how to use the mirror in your car. That’s how Kim family finally got rescued. The mirror flashes can and may be seen even when you can not see the airplane, just sweep the horizon as there may be someone out there who will see your signal. Further, strong reflections can be achieved even on hazy or overcast days. Most importantly, it is free to use a mirror as far as there is light.

Any more tips for survival?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

About 99 percent of Google’s revenue comes from advertising. …… Not only does Google depend on ads, it relies on one source—AOL—for about 12 percent of its AdSense revenue. If AOL terminated its contract, Google would feel some pain and its stock price could take a significant hit. …… For a company that depends so much on a single type of revenue, Google has stretched itself awfully thin.

However, Adam missed an important point, which is that online ad revenue is growing faster and faster, from 25% in 2007 to ~40% this year. As the market leader, Google could enjoy the growth even without doing anything.

The second article — Google love waning: Has Google peaked? — is from Donna Bogatin at ZDNet and is published in October 14th, 2006. Obviously, Donna missed the fact that Microsoft’s financial success is based on its monopoly position. If Google behave as bad as Microsoft, Google will do very well financially in the next few years. Every company would behave like Microsoft when they have monopoly positions. which has been approved by the history. That’s why we have anti-trust law. Donna is right that Google is not the Good Witch. As its position secured, it starts to play evil.

Google’s biggest problem is on its own success. First, it grows too fast. According to its own public data, it has grown from 682 in 2002 to 9,378 in Q3, 2006. Any company growing that fast could have management issues in the long run. The company could end up lack of necessary processes for a sustainable long-term growth. We had Gmail Disaster near the end of 2006, which caused the loss of user emails. The good news is that the fast-growth issue is not only for Google, but also for Microsoft. Techcrunch has a good article about it.

Second, Google needs to upgrade adsense to 2.0. The problem for the current version of adsense is that it requires that one homepage ONLY contains one topic. Otherwise, the homepage wouldn’t be classified correctly. Thus, I keep getting useless ads on this blog site.

All the above concerns are for the long-term. Google’s near-term future is very bright. Its stock chart shows that it will break through in this year, at least reaching $600. What’s your bet?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

China and India are NOT the cause of oil price hike. China has bypassed Japan last year, as the second largest oil consumer in the world. However, Beijing relies on overseas producers for one-third of supplies and accounts for ONLY about seven percent of world oil demand. The truth is that we have to wait as late as 2025 for China to double its oil import, which would be 14% of this year’s oil consumption world wide. India consumes less than half of what China does. It would keep in that way. That’s why Steve Forbes said that increased demand from China and India counted for only a small part of oil price hike from $25-$30, 3 years ago.

In the meantime, oil inventories are built up. US Energy Department said in Nov 2 that commercial crude oil inventories rose 2.7 million barrels last week to total 319.1 million, which is 12% above the level a year ago. Gas price would go down as refinery capacity recovers. It has been gone down from $3 per gallon to $2.55 per gallon in gas stations near my home.

In its World Energy Outlook 2005, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that oil price would drop back to $35 in 2010 and would rise a little bit to $39 in 2030. The recent high oil price is the direct results of underinvestment in oil production and the refinery sector. For 29 years, there is no single refinery ever built in US.

What would happen after oil bubble burst? We would have another stock bubble a decade down the road. This time, remember to cash everything out in time!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Prince Charles started his organic revolution in early 1980s, which resulted in UK’s leading premium organic food brands – Duchy Originals. The Prince leverages the profit from his organic empire to fund his fundation – The Prince’s Charity Foundation.

In 1993, he developed a model town called Poundbury, which is built of native or recycled materials where people of all income levels live side by side. Cars are not allowed within the town. People have to park off-street in rear alleys.

He said in the interview: “I would list it (duty to the country) as worrying about this country and its inhabitants. That’s my particular duty. And I find myself born into this particular position. I am determined to make the most of it.”

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This year Apple has made strategic steps towards its future successes. We have seen a broader line of iPods, including video iPod, and a deeper line of macs. Mac mini will become THE entry level PC. It is so small and quiet. I am seriously thinking to build a home Mac mini cluster. The boldest move from Apple is the marriage with Intel. For a long time, Apple has failed to deliver products on time due to the shortage of components, especially CPUs. Geeks have complained for years for Apple to leverage Intel CPUs, which would reduce the CPU shortage. Further, rumors have already been spreaded that Mactel computers are actually faster than normal PowerPC-based Macs.

The result? Apple stock has jumped from $25 to $55, which outpreforms Google, not to mention DELL. According to its recent earning’s report, it has shipped 48% more Macs and 220% more iPods over the year-ago quarter. I would expect its stock to reach $70 sometime next year based on projected $2.01 estimated earning per share.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

One of my hobbies is photography. So, I visit dpreview.com a lot. People there would start threads talking about Katrina. There are good pictures. There are talks about gas price. Locally in Silicon Valley, the gas price has gone up from $2.73 to $3.00. Price was stabilized after the government and other foreign governments release reserves to help the whole country. Governments are more powerful. This is a perfect example to show that once governements are moving towards the right direction, things would be improved dramatically.

But, what if people in charge are clueless? A lot of catastrophes have happened in the last century and historically through the whole human civilization. It is also important to be prepared in some degree, mentally and physically. It would be good for ourselves and for others who live around us.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.