One of my child appeared lethargic, has runny nose and cough one fine mid-Q1 2021 Saturday morning. I felt chest pains at about the same time. These are not a happy sensation to have as we near the wider distribution of a vaccine for this pandemic that has killed half a million people in the United States of America so far. So I made appointments to get tested.

Before going, my child asked me if it was painful. I told her I think it is. This assessment is based on every single image of a nasal swap I have seen on TV evening news. Every reporting of this shows the insertion of a swab up into a person’s nose until only a small length of it, long enough for the administrator of the test to hold between their thumb and index finger, remain outside. A particularly alarming observation from the perspective of an Asian man, is that this happens even on very large white noses. I say that with no intention of offense at people with large, or white, nose. It’s just that what seems uncomfortable to insert into the nostrils of a large nose must be horrifically painful for our smaller Asian noses.

So, after much deliberation, we went and got swabbed. Perhaps it is due to the media reporting, but the parking lot where we got our swab test in Stanford, CA was nearly empty. The single patron driving up behind us was very impatient and honked for no obvious reasons. Other than that, the swab test was very very easy. There is no pain. My child, who has even smaller and smaller nose than I, for now knock on wood, enjoyed it more than I. I think adult nose hairs make the swabbing very very itchy where as children who do not have nose hair experience less tickling. The depth of insertion into my nose was at most an inch and half. There was ample length of swab’s stick outside. My experience of the swab test definitely differ from those shown in TV reporting. IMHO, what’s seen outside on TV is what I got on the inside.

And we’re negative.

Honestly though, living in California is a little nerve racking during the pandemic. We have been blasted with daily news report of physical attacks and robbery of Asian people by attackers of a variety of non-Asian profiles. Older victims may die. Businesses may close down after an attack. Police chiefs or mayors may make a speech.

But recently, a new trend has emerged. Immediately after multiple reportings of different race and country-of-ancestral origin based attacks in several locales (SF/Oakland/LA/other cities), the news will then proceed to announce the opening of a mass vaccination site. On two separate occasions, I built up a determination to brave the crowds and bring my older parents to these vaccination sites for the shot. On both occasions I ultimately decided not to take them there fearing physical assult in the cities where violent crimes against Asians were just reported. (Side note: my parents are over 65 but their insurance Kaiser Permanente does not have sufficient supply of vaccines to administer to patients over 65 as the state of California recommends. This is why we have to resort to mass vaccination sites. They are eager to get the vaccine because they enjoy their health, and they help out at home shopping and caring for younger children.)

I do not want to disparage news reporters and their teams for making the news during this harrowing time. They brave the onslaught of covid viruses to bring us informative news. I live in San Mateo county, and have personally experienced physical attack by a vagrant in a public library in the center of a city here. I was holding my young child and she swung bags of stuff at my head. She yelled that refrain “go back to where you came from!” common in our culture prior to Biden administration. Above all else, her attacking me was in genuine anger. I do not see many situations where the person is that angry. I was able to deflect the blows with my forearm and back up away from her. The librarian helped me to hail the police who walked over from their HQ next door to arrest her. The police officer noted that I might have rammed my child into the wall as I backed away from her while charging her. I still had a foot or so of room, but I did not notice this danger until it was pointed out to me. Thankfully, we were not reported in the news as we were not severely injured like those Asians in the more recent news reports.

Sadly, the reality of our lives is that, well into the Biden administration taking power, we are still afraid to access these public healthcare resources due to the abundant manifestations of physical violence against Asians in the cities where mass vaccination sites are opening.

The good new is, after several months of living in fear of the virus, and in fear of the process of vaccination, living with all these uncertainties, we did manage to get them their first shot with San Mateo County based mass vaccination site mid-Q1 2021. We did make the appointment at 4:30am in the morning for the first slot of that day, but we did not hesitate in fear of physical violence.

Today, I am thankful for things to be going well near me. I am thankful that the wider rollout of vaccination growing the community immunity. I am thankful that we are headed towards a safer and more cohesive society. I hope we can quickly make this a better world where people do not need to fear illness and physical violence.

Just saw a rumor about Star Wars building a film about ancient stories in its universe. The rumor hinted “like Ben-Hur”

This is a very strategic move. Trek verse has experienced resurgence in blockbuster movies and many TV series. But the one thing that Trek really can’t do is to go back to pre-technology pre-space-faring ages. The stories would simply not work for a sci-fi show.

But if Disney-Marvel move is directed at Trek, then one would have to also think that maybe Star Wars, mythology and all, is not able to match the story telling of modern sci-fi franchise.

I certainly feel that way, and I’m not biased at all. Mandolorian is all thrill with droplets of Disney year-jerkers. I feel an innate connection to the stories, but I don’t feel any serious innovation. Not really new stories, not really new myths and nothing really anything absolute. It’s just another small story buried inside big stories, like Star Wars Rogue One. Touching to an end.

Trek is on shaky grounds… But the recent jump to future in Discovery, and the jump to artificial substrate in Picard, these explore new topics that people have not really seriously thought about.

But Trek can never go back to ancient times and tell a serious story without being elements of future to that past. Star War is uniquely positioned to tell stories like that. I guess the pre crawl “a long long time ago…” should have given this development away a long long time ago.😎

A most definite and absolutely solid .

Absolutely a must watch. This story is beautifully updated to possibly provide role model for little girls, and their “allies”, that it’s okay to support the growth and prosperity of the society that we are already in, sex and race discrimination and all, that even while advancing it we can, yes we can, advance our minority selves in great leaps and bounds not imaginable prior to our effort.

The Chinese subtitle is a great script, however the spoken Chinese does not match the script at all. Kinda sad, the written words “sounds” so much better, more poetic, more respectable, and basically just more normal Chinese. The is based on the subtitle.

I’ve never did really liked Liu Yufei, the actress now portraying Mulan, before this film. In the past she’s acted in many many Chinese action movies. I don’t know why, honestly, this American bred actress ought to be like just right to my liking, but unfortunately in the past she’s targeted her Asian fans much more than American audience. In this film, she has mature quite a bit. Also her appearance is more balanced towards masculinity. This is so much better than all the previous characters. I just can’t explain it. Jet Li is so old that I had to rewind after seeing the post scroll credit him as emperor. But these older actors look so authentic! Absolutely mesmerizing to watch.

Honestly, at some moment, you just have to ignore all the stupid anti-Chinese shit in America! Yes, it is possible that the story completely covers up centuries Chinese military atrocities, up to and including this century. Yes, the movie may have caused some people pain and suffering to make. Yes, it had to be especially adapted to show in PRC. Whatever. This enduring story is about the spirit of an individual Chinese person who fought insurmountable enemies all the while overcame traditional stigma in the pursuit of what she believes to be most noble: loyalty, bravery and truth. Anyone who stands in the way of this story might as well be the invading mongols of Mulan’s century, doomed to be decimated by the righteous and civilized, doomed to be demonized by future filmmakers for eternally.

We recently had some work done on our water system. Several jobs that required us to interview half a dozen plumbers all of whom, except for one company, came free of charge to assess the problem and give written estimate for the cost of their work. We ended up hiring a company whose employees all spoke Spanish.

The work was done very well. The plumber kept at working for most of the day. They were quiet and clean. They are so professional, it makes me jealous. How come we can’t find a Chinese plumber who worked so honestly and kept at his job until he finished? How come we couldn’t find a Chinese speaking plumber who charged the same amount or less?

The perception to many Americans that Chinese people somehow charge low price for their product and work to gain unfairly from America is just absurd. America had a competition driven economy. For every job, there is another who will fo the same work for money. And that’s not just programming. Every single product and job in this economy has competition and Chinese humans also must compete.

The end result is that I am a happy consumer. If I have to learn some Spanish (I didn’t have to) for it, I will learn it.

But I do hope that Chinese Americans can gain the respect they deserve–the respect I have for my recent plumbers–after their respective long day of work, that yes, it was the cheapest plumber but they were clean and quiet and professional in every way. They are honorable hardworking competing people in this free market economy worthy of other humans’ respect.

Thoughts are meaningful.

The unthinkable is meaningless.

Thinking is meaning.

Only thinking is meaning.

One cannot think the meaningless.

Those that I cannot think of or about have no meaning.

I can think of all that are meaningful.

All that are thinkable have meaning.

The only meaning the unthinkable have is that they are unthinkable.

I’m having severe headaches today. I find it to be correlated with looking at my iPhone XS Max.

Imagination runs wild as always. Is this yet another ploy by Apple, Inc. To nudge me towards buying a new phone? Every time I look at the screen my head hurts now.

Let’s suppose for a moment that Apple actually did that. In a recent OS update, the surreptitiously introduced a bug that gradually changes some refresh properties of this screen so as to accidentally cause eye strain and subsequently headaches. What exactly is wrong with that? Given that apple settled the court case admitting to have slowed down iPhones, it seems reasonable that they may be doing it again. There is nothing wrong with doing something sneaky and then later paying money for it. I don’t for a second imagine that any human felt any remorse for having caused or facilitated that slow down. The lack of such expectation sets my mind on a slippery track to imagine the worst about this recent experience. Apple needs sales, and my head, and maybe a few hundred million dollars paid at a later date, is acceptable to the people doing it.

Sure, you can say that my class in that class action lawsuits settled too low. The payment apple makes is hardly punitive. If we had fought harder, Apple would have paid more and they be more hesitant to do it again.

It pains me to think about these things. I recall the first night I spent with my brand new iPhone XS Max. The screen was one of its biggest features. I remember looking very gently at the screen, as if in fear of damaging it if I looked too harshly. The brilliant colors shone gently back at me. Everything looks so clear. There’s some kind of light being emitted or reflected from the screen that uplift my visual senses. I am made to see more clearly. It isn’t quite as brilliant and welcoming as the body of a new girlfriend, but definitely makes a world of its own and pulls me into it.

I share with it all my most intimate thoughts, unfinished thoughts, and FAM blogs. I get all my information through it: news, entertainment, sms, messaging,… I entrust it with full access to my banks and investments and subscriptions to stuff I pay. I even pay it a monthly subscription fee so it can be happy.

But now, that display technology magic may have been reversed to attack my eyes and make my head ache. It throughs a constant tantrum. I can’t even get the most basic thing done without a grimace. Man, how far has our relationship sunk that the mere sight of… I should stop, my head hurts too much to anthropomorphize further.

I hope I’m wrong about this!

That’s a great season! I cannot believe this show evolved so much. In many ways it is an evolution for Trek: capitalism with family on board will be an interesting thing to explore.

I suppose I should kick myself for noticing but not thinking about Saru being too by-the-book in this season. Trek has always had a distain for rules and regulations. From its first capitain till last, doing the right best thing has always been a key feature of successful Trek leaders. Saru didn’t get it… Burnham is born with it. Done!

I mean seriously, ejecting the warp core and waiting for Book to figure out how to zap them out of there… that’s some serious fly by the seat of her pants leadership.

The personal growth experienced by each member of the crew is well developed and now established. Burnham from pointing a phaser at deadly departed captain Georgio to being named captain a thousand and odd years later AFTER she revived the whole of Federation… wow!

I suppose it is still premature. Purportedly, TNG didn’t really get established until season 4, where as TOS only lasted 3… We’ve surpassed TOS and heading towards Enterprise’s 4, and then only Trek legend status of 7 seasons. I guess season 4 is really make or break season.

I pointed out previously that TOS spend a lot of scenes admiring humans. like you’d watch it and there would just be 5 seconds when the camera is staring at a nurse in a miniskirt and she holds pose but not completely still. TNG likes to admire the beautiful ship that is the Enterprise D, and some other spacial phenomenons. Here you will just find scenes of D flying at warp, or another one is Picard staring out his ready room window at the beautiful stars. DS9 too loves to just orbit the space station I. Super high resolution and watch background stars rotate, and warm hole opening and closing…. DSC, I have to say, does retain a lot of TOS’s human study shots. I do enjoy admiring the characters in almost-poses, they move, but largely the lighting, their skin and facial expressions are largely the same (at 4K, these people look terrific!) in these shots, but the extended focus help the audience to fully appreciate the character and their feelings and thinkings. I do think we have lost the TNG’s wonderment about beautiful ships and DS9’s love for spacial phenomenons. And DSC is a little too posh to have Enterprise’s quick and dirty (and mainly small) feel. So DSC can’t really put that small-but-hyper-functional visual on display.

I would suggest stop the progression of decreasing episodes (15,14,13), and make something like 20 episodes and take the time to show us something grand and beautiful. True, the spirit and the principle is what we truly want to show, but the imagery of a proud starship with power throbbing through its veins and plenty of machinery to skip along in space, it is well provisioned to easily resurrect a whole civilization… show us this visual slowly and beautifully as an expression of hope and strength.

Alas, Picard will surely take care of my needs here, it already has. But it would be a bit of shame for DSC to not have enough of that.

Anyways, looking forward to season 4.

Just lost a round $32 to the Atlantis Casino Reno. I had wanted to come to a corner of this casino and mope about landscaping. That’s right, landscaping. Today, I finally admitted to my wife that I have never before understood why so many people plant so much vegetation near their houses, and by near I mean touching. Why do people do so when it has been well known for decades that trees pull up moisture and rots wood used to build the house? The phenomenon is quite prevalent in the Bay Area. People do landscaping to their houses all the time like people do drugs to their own bodies.

And then it dawned on me today that they do it out of hedonic needs. The trees and flowers, so close you can touch and smell, they make people happy. So what if the house will fall down in 20 to 30 years? What comparison can you make with the happiness of the house’s residents for those number of years? A modern human being would always choose happiness of people over the happiness of dead wood. An ancient human being may also argue that since god created everything for humans, that this destructive servitude is most holy. There is no why. It just happens, by will of God and Humans. There is no why.

But I choose not to mope about soiled by my realization of how normal people think. Another idea to write about is the wonderful buildings of casinos. The Atlantis has two gigantic torches outside that blows 5-stories-tall flames every 30 minutes. The other casinos are also decadently extravagant. The artwork, the fanciful lighting, the domes, arches, fountains,… a single casino could have many architectural and distinctive features that come from centuries of history and art. Combined with modern day lighting, they look fantastic. The casinos here look like the originals of buildings and paintings that belong to a future museum. How do they get white walls so white? How do they make yellow walls work?

But this fantasizing is colored with the lens of twenty-teens. We go to museums to see these historical buildings because they are beautiful, difficult to create, and original (when they were created) in a few centuries time, what will actually attract humans to museums? It is not going to be casinos for sure. I mean, they won’t be able to get the smoke out of these buildings for another millennium.

Occasionally, some of us has the experience of being reminded that classic, museum-worthy, privately collectible and perpetually appreciating, transcendental art works from the past, they might have been nouvo and scandalous at their time of production, and they might have taken hundreds of years to gain their due desert of acceptance and appreciation. What we know for sure is that some sufficient number of human beings, at some remarkable times in the past, found such works appealing and decided to preserve them and propagate appreciation for them. Here and now I remark upon Reno casinos… I appreciate these whole buildings that art art.

Museum put on display historical intellectual arguments: who said what and influenced whom… visualized or represented in multi-media ways. We can watch great historical debates about politics and sciences. We can watch humanity decide what it wants to believe and wants to do. We can put on display Creationist Science versus Evolutionary Sciences, Climate change spectrum, Bayesian versus Frequentists, Empirical risk minimization versus… We can put on display the battle among titans of industries–IBM versus Apple, Tesla versus the rest, Intel versus Asia, AC versus DC, Amd versus NVIDIA, Ford versus Ferrari, … possibly many other struggle for dominance or survival. Perhaps these will be the legacies we will be remembered by. Our modern marvels will be the process that got us to that time and place where we are museum-worthy relics.

Eentsy weensy spider climbed the dragon’s ’nout,

Down came the snots and washed the spider out,

Out came the fire that dries up the snots, and the

Entsy weensy spider went up the snout again.