Diamond Peak

Tahoe Sunset

Happy 50th Birthday!

Today, it has been exactly18,250 days since I was first introduced to this world. Yes, I have recounted it many times.

First of all, I am grateful to my parents, not just because they brought me to this wonderland but raised me up to whom I am today.

Secondly, I would like to pay my attribute to my grandma, who cuddled me when I was little and pardoned me for not being here to say goodbye.  

Thirdly, I would like to thank my brother and sisters who I shared so much when we had so little and divide so little when have so much.

Evidently, to my friends and relatives, colleges and classmates, thanks for being with me during this journey. 

Of cause, I want to hug my dear wife who said yes to my proposal when I was penniless and stays put no matter it rains or shines.   

Finally, I would like to cherish my lovely kids who bring so much joy and led me to the true meaning of my life.

I'm just slightly over the hill today. Tomorrow, I will start to pick up speed. 

Ski at Dimond Peak near Lake Tahoe

Hello

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http://efaena.cl/popular.php?death=1qru183s6vfyf


alfredcs

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Superbowl XLIX

Patriots defeated Seahawks and won the team's 4th Lombardi trophy with Belichick-Brady magic. The last play by Seahawks at Patriots' 1 yard line was a bad call by Pete Carroll and his coaching team.  With 43 seconds and 2 timeouts left, they could have tried at least 2 runs, not a pass which was intercepted. Simply put, Patriots was good, no doubt about that. However this time they were just a lucky team.

Katy Perry was just so-so for her half time performance.  The show had some 2008 Beijing Olympic opening ceremony elements. You can argue it's subjective.

The Budweiser commercial however was the best again this year. That is non-disputable.

   

I: Players on the winning team will be paid $189,000.
II: The Seahawks are the home team and will wear their dark jerseys. As the visiting team, the Patriots will wear white jerseys.
III: The Lombardi Trophy stands 20.75 inches tall, weighs 107.3 ounces and is valued in excess of $25,000.
IV: Robert Kraft has owned the Patriots for 21 seasons. The Patriots have reached the Super Bowl seven times, or in one-third of the season in his tenure.
V: The Patriots have the most playoff wins (20) this century.
VI: Tom Brady will be making his sixth start in the Super Bowl, most by any quarterback in history.
VII: Tom Brady has the most Super Bowl passing yards (1,277) in NFL history.
VIII: Tom Brady is two touchdown passes behind Joe Montana (11) for most in Super Bowl history.
IX: The six conference championships by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are the most for any coach-quarterback tandem in NFL history, two more than Roger Staubach-Tom Landry; Jim Kelly-Marv Levy; and Terry Bradshaw-Chuck Noll.
X: Bill Belichick is making a record ninth appearance in the Super Bowl. Six have come as a head coach, three as an assistant.
XI: Tom Brady and Vince Wilfork are the only active players still on the Patriots from the last Super Bowl championship in 2004.
XII: Patriots backup linebacker Jonathan Casillas won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints in 2009.
XIII: Brandon Browner owns a Super Bowl ring as a member of the Seattle Seahawks last season, but he did not appear in the game due to suspension.
XIV: In two postseasons with the team, LaGarrette Blount has set the Patriots record for rushing touchdowns in the playoffs with seven.
XV: Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is 10-0 in his career vs. Super Bowl winning quarterbacks.
XVI: Seattle entered the playoffs with a six-game winning streak. The last team to win the Super Bowl with a winning streak of five or more going into the playoffs was the 2003 Patriots.
XVII: Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski has more receiving touchdowns (55) in his first five seasons than any tight end in NFL history.
XVIII: At 63 years old, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll would be the second-oldest coach to win the game behind Tom Coughlin (65).
XIX: Bill Belichick has a career record of 52-63 without Tom Brady as his quarterback.
XX: The NFL has used a Roman Numeral for the big game since Super Bowl V (10). However, Super Bowl 50 will be represented by the number instead of “L”.
XXI: Tom Brady is appearing in his 29th postseason game, tied for second all-time with Jerry Rice and one behind former teammate Adam Vinatieri.
XXII: Seahawks kicker Steven Hauschka played soccer at Needham High.
XXIII: Bill Belichick is the winningest coach in NFL postseason history with 21 victories, one more than Dallas’ Tom Landry.
XXIV: The Patriots have the most overall wins (477) among the eight original American Football League franchises.
XXV: Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch is the only back to rush for at least 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns each season since 2011.
XXVI: Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman made the term “You mad, bro?” famous after defeating Tom Brady and the Patriots in 2012.
XXVII: Russell WIlson’s 15 fourth-quarter comebacks since the beginning of 2012 ranks first in the NFL.
XXVIII: Tom Brady and Russell Wilson comprise half the quarterbacks who won a Super Bowl title in his first or second season (Ben Roethlisberger and Kurt Warner are the others).
XXIX: Russell Wilson has 36 regular-season wins, most by a starting quarterback in his first three seasons.
XXX: The Seahawks are 14-12 in the postseason all-time, but are currently on a five-game winning streak.
XXXI: Since 2011, Richard Sherman has four Defensive Player of the Week awards, trying him with Houston’s J.J. Watt for the most.
XXXII: The Patriots lost Super Bowl XLII, 17-14, to the New York Giants in the stadium in which they’re playing Super Bowl XLIX.
XXXIII: The Seahawks became the first defending Super Bowl champion to win a postseason game the following season since the Patriots did so in 2005.
XXXIV: The Seahawks will try to become the first repeat champion since the 2003 and 2004 Patriots.
XXXV: Since purchasing the team in 1994, Robert Kraft’s Patriots have been to seven Super Bowls, the most in that span.
XXXVI: Julian Edelman’s 197 receptions over the last two seasons ranks third in the NFL, behind Denver’s Demaryius Thomas and Pittsburgh’s Antonio Brown.
XXXVII: Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski scored 156 points in 2014 to lead the NFL, marking his third straight season as the league leader.
XXXVIII: Last year’s Super Bowl averaged a record 112.2 million viewers.
XXXIX: Tom Brady set the mark for most consecutive completions (16) in Super Bowl XLVI.
XL: The Patriots are 3-4 in Super Bowls.
XLI: A loss today would tie the Patriots with the Broncos for most losses in Super Bowl history with five.
XLII: Super Bowl XLIX will feature the top two seeds for the fifth time since the current format was introduced in 1980.
XLIII: Tonight’s matchup also marks the second consecutive season that the top two seeds will meet in the Super Bowl.
XLIV: The majority of Super Bowl ads that will air tonight sold for $4.5 million each.
XLV: Russell Wilson made $667,859 in 2014 in the third year of his four-year rookie deal. A pay raise is likely.
XLVI: With a Super Bowl win, Tom Brady, 37, would become the second-oldest quarterback to hoist the Lombardi Trophy behind Denver’s John Elway.
XLVII: The Patriots and Seahawks each needed to overcome double-digit deficits in this year’s playoffs to advance to the Super Bowl.
XLVIII: The Patriots are tied for second with the Texans for turnover differential (plus-12) in 2014. Seattle is right behind with a plus-10. (Green Bay led at plus-14.)
XLIX: For the third straight year, Seattle’s defense gave up the fewest points per game in the NFL, allowing just 15.9 this season.

(By Tom Layman / Boston Herald)

The asteroid named "2004 BL86" is coming close to the Earth orbit

The asteroid named "2004 BL86" will come about 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Earth, about 3 times of distance between the Earth and Moon. The asteroid is about 500 meters in diameter and there is no chance that this space object will directly impact with our Earth for let's say another 1 thousand years when next time this asteroid will be visiting again. Since there is a widely discussed theory that water and possible life on the Earth were brought in by asteroids and/or meteors from outer space, scientists are jumping in to track and observe this asteroid with modern tools available such as radar or telescope and see what's on its surface. At least we can do our own mankind a favor by documenting this rare event today. Hope our future generations will be able to land intelligent objects or human beings on its surface next time and eventually develop a way to capture/divert/destroy any asteroids or meteors which post impact thread to the Earth. 

Sycamore Grove Park at Livermore California

Sycamore Grove Park is a local community park right in the heart of Livermore valley vineyards. Just like its name suggests, the park has the most beautiful sycamore and oak trees in Tri-Valley in San Francisco bay. Tens of different spices such as frogs, turtles, deers and wild turkeys call this park home. The park has a ~2.5 mile paved trail and a few unpaved trails good for hiking and leisure biking. This place has a few play grounds and picnic areas good for family get-together. Livermore has been working hard to change its public image. Cattle ranches and agriculture used to dominate the local economy not very long ago.  Livermore is no longer a cowboy town anymore and it's now rare to run into any cowboy boots or guns in the area. There are a few good wineries around this area such Wente, Bent Creek and Steven Kent Winery all together produce good quality wines from Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio to Shiraz. Even the overall wine quality and brand name recognition are not as popular as its neighboring Napa Valley wine country in the north, Livermore wineries have been emerging as strong players and most recently won big in the 2014 SF Chronicle Wine Competition.

George W Bush: "I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it."

Obama: "“I have no more campaigns to run. I know because I won them both.”

Hillary Clinton: "If I want to knock off a front page, I just need to change my hairstyle." -- If so then why run another campaign?

Little one turns 7 today. It has been extremely rewarding to raise good kids and see them growing up. Happy birthday son!

An effective way to silence a disgruntle company

Bank of America, the largest US bank, for becoming the latest institution to
halt financial transactions for Wikileaks after MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe
and others did the same, under self censorship or pressure from US government.
Can Chinese companies exercise the same strategy to cease relationship by not
running ads on any Google sites?

Setup ssh tunnel

ssh -f -t -L <locl_port>:<remote_host>:<remote_port>
<user_login>@<gateway_server>

pam_access(sshd:account): access denied for user `xxxx' from 10.10.10.1

Why?

User 'xxxx' has not been allowed by PAM access control.

Solution:

1. Update access.conf to ass user 'xxxxx'

+:user_xxx:ALL

2. Add pam.d/sshd following line if needed

account required pam_access.so

Now or never?

Once again, the home mortgage interest rates are near historical lows. Fed has signaled that they intended to keep the prime rates "unchanged" for the "foreseeable" future. Major lenders include Bank of America has maintained favorable rates.

Monthly Payment Rate % Points % APR %

30-Year Fixed Rate, interest only $4,725.00 7.875 1.250 8.021

10-Year Fixed Rate $7,680.78 5.125 1.000 5.413

30-Year Fixed Rate $3,755.86 4.750 1.000 4.866

3-Year ARM $3,865.12 5.000 1.000 3.858 (Variable)

5-Year ARM $3,334.43 3.750 1.000 3.618 (Variable) (Samples with a loan size of $729,000 for new
constructions)

With more than 2 trillions national debts, more than one full year of annual GPD, this country has no way to pay back. So dollar will depreciate and Fed will have to print more paper notes. Wall Street reputation has already fallen down the cliff. It's golden time to invest in real estate.

The question is if borrowers should take conservative approach for the 30-year fixed, or to go for 5/1 ARM?

If you intend to live in the same house for more than 15 years from today, you should consider the 30-year fixed. In contrast, you have multiple mortgages and want to downsize in less that 15 years, the 5/1 ARM will give you more liquid assets.

Google found a good excuse to pull back from China

Recent high profile thread made by Google to pull back from Chinese market has drawn applause, particularly from China bashing audience. However, the real reason behind this seems to be more of a business decision. Google has not been running smoothly in China in last 24-months or so. After another high profile legal dispute with Microsoft on alluring Dr Kai-Fu Lee to run China operations, Google had high expectation on the native Chinese native Lee hoping he will be able to expend the search engine market share in country with the most internet users.

Unfortunately, like eBay's terrible loss to Alibaba and Yahoo's to Sina, Google tails Bidu, the native Chinese owned search engine by claiming only 32% of the search engine market there. Another blow to Google was Dr Lee's departure after his short tenure with Google.cn which last less than 24-month.

Ironically, Google went to Chinese market when Chinese government had much tighter regulation and filtering on cyberspace. Google had been complying fully only until recently, after the revenue declined, market share tumbled and top executive departed. Of those 32% market share claimed, less than 2% comes from Google.cn, the Chinese version Google search engine.

While defying Chinese government and protesting cyberspace regulations, Google in Indian at the same time turned over dissident''s IPs and mailbox information to India government leading to at least two arrests and jail time punishments. Google has not made any attempt to defy NSA on secretly intercepting personal communication when using its Gmail. Google permanently stores user information matching individual IPs with search keyworlds which is a huge privacy violation.

If Google.cn contributes less than 1% to its overall revenue and used only by 2% in China and declining, then to shutdown Google.cn makes complete business sense. If Google is so against cyberspace regulation, then why it went to China to begin with?

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