Are you kidding me? Citi raisedemployee salary by 50%

Even i have a lot of friends working in investment banking, I still can't believe it. Citi just got bailout money, and it is just using this to compensate its employees. Come on, the excuse of losing employees doesn't make sense, since right now there are so many bankers on the street begging for a job. oh, poor US taxpayer.

How different between Facebook and Kaixin

I am a daily user of two social networking websites: Facebook and Kaixin(kaixin001.com). Facebook is for networking with my Stanford friends, while Kaixin is for networking with my friends in China. Kaixin is said to be the copycat of facebook of China; however, it is not true just in terms of my behavior.

Difference 1: name.

I use real name on facebook, and all my friends use real name. However, I use fake name on Kaixin, while I know there are plenty of friends using fake name too(amazing we can still find each other)

Difference 2: activities
I usually look at the news feed on facebook to learn what my friends are doing: I leave msg to them, comment on the pictures, as well as upload photos; However, I don't often change my status on Kaixin, neither do my friends. I never have a profile photo there, and don't upload my vacation photos. I spend 90 % of the time on playing games with friends. We buy and sell each other, plant garden, and raise a lot of pigs, rabbits and cows as pets.

Difference 3: interactions with the site
I get plenty of msgs in my facebook account; I never communicate with facebook system. On kaixin, most of the message I get are from the systems, such as "your friend just bought you in 60000 dollars", or "you was just award 1000 dollars".

It will be some interesting research topic for academia on why such difference is generated. I am sure there is something related with different culture, or different user behavior. This may suggest that social networking website may have a hard time to expand globally. And there is always some opportunities for companies who work hard on learning local behavior.

How to create and implement a policy?

China issued a new rule on requiring PC makers to include filtering software in new PCs recently, quoted to filter the harmful pornography content from the youths . I am confused by where it came from and the way it implemented the policy.

Three questions:
(1) If this policy only targets at youths, why every PC needs to include this computer? not every household has a young kid.

(2) If parents are worried about this, then why don't give them the option, say put a CD in the PC pack, to let them set up themselves?

(3) Curing a disease has to cure from the fundamental. Why don't spend more money on regulating those pornography website, instead of making a national-wide expensive policy like this? I would be curious to know how much taxpayers' money is spent on this? and is there any open/transparent bid on who is going to be the software provider?


If those questions can't be answered, then this policy is destined to be a bizarre.

M&A still going on in Silicon Valley

When things are cheap, everyone is moving, especially big guys, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel....

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 4, 2009 – Intel Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wind River Systems Inc, under which Intel will acquire all outstanding Wind River common stock for $11.50 per share in cash, or approximately $884 million in the aggregate. Wind River is a leading software vendor in embedded devices, and will become part of Intel’s strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server market segments into embedded systems and mobile handheld devices. Wind River will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and continue with its current business model of supplying leading-edge products and services to its customers worldwide.