By the time I finished my lengthy book education, I was already a grown-up and had enough experience to realized the hard truth, that years of schooling would not help a bit if I couldn’t deal with the real world. What a shocker! At school we love to deal with “ideal” systems and environments, where professors can easily dismiss any facts of inconvenience as noises and move on to demonstrate their pure theories. In reality, everything fails and successes are solely depend on our survivability against odds. I witnessed smart people of high learning ending up working for seemingly stupid and lazy bosses for wages, because they couldn’t make a living without being directed on what to do. I beg to be different.

I sell used items on Amazon.com from time to time. The first time I tried it was a failure. I confused my item to a very similar model made by the same manufacture and my buyer didn’t like it even my item is essentially the same as the correct model. He wanted to return my item for a full refund. Bad luck I thought. But it was my fault. I processed return and paid the return shipping fee. My second try was also troublesome. I sold a used book about job interview. A week later, the buyer emailed me about possible return. This time I figured that the buyer only wanted a refund because she probably just finished her job interview. I politely reiterated my policy of not accepting used book returns and recommend Amazon.com as a possible place for her to re-sell her book. Having both tries ended up having return requests, selling on Amazon.com began to look like a waste of time. Yet I believe the fairness of bad luck. If I got too many bad luck, then good luck could be just around corner. I kept selling and, interestingly, never met a single return request again.

This is the real world where failures are not if, but when and where. Yet by the end of day, it’s going to be just fine.

© 2011 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

Comparing with traditional Asian societies where you are who your social class is, the American society is wide open in personal opportunities and almost free of class identities. As long as you are not shy about paying enough blood and sweat, usually you end up somewhere more advantageous than where you have started.  Most people call this “American dream”. The founding fathers called it “the pursue of happiness”. To us who immigrate from Asia, it’s a powerful, liberating, but foreign principle. We grow up believing that only certain “respectable” careers deserving our effort. These are a cluster of “high esteem” careers that usually wow people by their titles. It doesn’t hurt if you also work for big government or famous company. Not unlike the old social class system, you acquire respect simply by taking certain hot careers or belonging to certain elite clubs. On the other hand, if you couldn’t find way to get into these careers, you’ll be automatically doomed. Individual effort makes little difference.

As a result, even in the land of opportunities, we agonized over finding “respectable” careers and climbing giant corporate ladders. We fall into depression for screwed opportunities of getting into the “decent career”. Since most careers are not worth doing, we can only feel happy and secure by possessing one of high prestige careers. We have all those great ideas. However if they are not within our narrow circle of “deserving” things to do, we couldn’t bring ourselves to do something with them.

How many great opportunities we have lost!

Consider the IT job I’ve been doing for all these years. A great many Asians are having a career in IT and considering it as a respectable career choice. Yet is it better than most other “undeserving” careers, such as operating a restaurant? Of course an IT career frequently demands a lot of high level technical knowledge. However no matter how much high level skill or knowledge we can show off, it’s still just a job, something we do to get paid. Like any other jobs, we sell our labor in exchange of a certain amount of greenbacks. It doesn’t make us more or less proud of ourselves.

In a free society, no matter how “deserving” a career is, as long as we do it under other people’s commands, as long as we do it day in and day out without making a difference, it’s no better or worse of a career at all. In contrary, the best careers are those that we own and able to make a difference. Too many of us have embarked on  “right” careers, be proud of ourselves for the fact that we are involved in something deserving or noble, but utterly fail to make any difference. We don’t own anything, for our careers and livelihood are totally at the mercy of our employers.

Let our kids go. They can accomplish anywhere.

© 2011 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

12:05pm, I realized one of my gmail addresses is not forwarding emails to correct place. So I opened a new tab on my Chrome browser, intending to login to that gmail address to update the email forwarding information. At the address bar I typed in “gmail”. Instantly a search page returned with a long list of results, having the familiar “Gmail: Email from Google” on top.

However, before clicking on the gmail link, I noticed an interesting headline several lines down on the search page: “Yahoo rolls out new e-mail service”. This is from CNET, which I trusted. I have an old Yahoo email address that I no longer actively send emails from but still receive tons of emails. I set up it to automatically forward any emails received to my main gmail address. Naturally I’m concerned. What are they doing? After several previous Yahoo Mail updates that added nothing but bugs and troubles to me, I have little confidence that this time around things will get better. I clicked on the link.

It turns out Yahoo is aiming on making social media updating easier as well as integrating things such as chat, SMS, etc. into the Yahoo email interface. Interesting I thought. Too bad my gmail already has pretty much everything they are intending to do here. This will likely not to bring me back to Yahoo’s fold. But what are other people thinking about this? I scrolled down to the end of article and into the comment section. “Their mail client WAS awful…”, one person lamented; “Still no full-time SSL”, another reader complained; “Can you now use an e-mail client to make a POP connection without upgrading to a paid account?”, yet another reader dreamed. Nice try. Yahoo would Definitely not to charge anything. Now I suddenly realized that 10 minutes had been passed without my notice. I quickly clicked the back arrow to return to the original search result. With the “Gmail: Email from Google” headline on top, I knew I was up to something with the gmail. But what did I want to do? Which gmail address I wanted to login? I began to scratch head like an idiot. Unable to recall my original intend, I closed the new tab.

I realized what I intended to do as soon as I closed the browser tab. Eager to finish the work, I opened a new tab again. “Player chases foul ball into George W. Bush”. Wow! I looked at the funny image on top of the Yahoo.com’s front page, which is my default. The former president, looked astounded, was sandwiched by one giant baseball player and a frighten red clad lady holding both hands over her head. The prize, which is a baseball, was high in the air and looked dropping into WGB’s lap. “This is amazing”, I told myself. Needless to say I clicked the link and wasted another 5 minutes figuring out details of this lovely encounter.

And I forgot what I was intended to do again!

Google should be mandated to post the following message on top of every search result: “Giant time waster. Use at your own risk!”.

© 2011 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

The other life changing factor of making yourself millions is to choose the right career. Had Bill Gates choose acting (which he’s pretty capable) instead of founding Microsoft, he might end up earning a decent living, but very unlikely to become the richest man on earth. Geographic locations matter a lot too. Moving to Silicon Valley gives you far better prospect of becoming millionaire than stay in rural Tennessee. However, unless you live in a very high cost-of-living area, you’ll have very little chance of striking gold by working for salary (unless you are a top executive). Most millionaires work for themselves. They are the owners and bosses. Moreover, they are most likely doing something out of passion. Passion is the best medicine you can ever find to extract more energy out of a lazy human body.

Therefore, if you have a life time and very supporting spouse, living in a promising geographic location, work for yourself on things that you are passionate, then you are likely to become a millionaire. Nevertheless, before you pat your own shoulder in self congratulation, you better know how not to blow your millions. For as much as you can make, you can always spend more. Most millionaires live very modestly compared to their level of asset. They live comfortably, but non of those extravagances. Instead of spending on fancy cars, clothes, and mistresses, most millionaire opt to spend less than what they make and use the difference on appreciating investments.

So how come you’ve done all of these things right but still struggle financially? Unfortunately this means the all mighty luck is simply not on your side. Sometimes it’s just bad luck. Fortunately, everyone gets equal chance of good and bad luck. If you’ve been having a lot of bad luck lately, keep trying, for your good luck may be just around corner.

© 2011 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

It used to be that there were few smart people around. Those days people lined up outside post office to ask a couple of smart guys to write letters. If you knew enough to be a professor, the salary you commanded would make today’s top managers envy. As of rest of the mass, they were pretty dumb and minded their meager businesses all their life, stupidly and uncomplainingly.

How much different today’s world has become! If you showed up to any gatherings of people lately, you’d know how many smart people are out there. Everyone looks educated and full of ideas. Everyone is bright looking and talk intelligently about far away countries and new technologies. You feel brighter too. Armed with decades of education as well as all the Internet can offer, you are two hands full of brilliant ideas and action plans.

Yet hardly anyone ever gets anything done anymore.

I’m especially full of ideas and feel very smart of myself. Years ago I invented earring-necklace cellphone, stylish jewelery phone that would surly be favored by women, during my lunch break. I talked about it enthusiastically for half an hour. And fashionable women all around the world today would surly love to possess a dozen or more of these beautiful jewelery phones as part of their treasured collections. I could have been a billionaire because of this tidy idea. Unfortunately by the time the lunch break was over, my contribution to this neat invention ended too. Years later I still thought about it from time to time. BUT I’VE NEVER DONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

A smart person could be blessed with a different idea everyday. All of them are brilliant.  All are worth pursuing. Each one is better than the idea of previous day. Yet non of ideas is given more than one day’s of attention. Nothing gets done.

A stupid person hardly has any ideas. Even they are lucky to get one, the idea is usually not that fantastic. However being stupid, the dumber knows nothing else but to do something about the only idea he ever got. Years later, the not-so-brilliant idea becomes something real, the stupid person collects his billions.

Twitter is a stupid idea. Who wants to be limited to 140 characters?

© 2011 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

A good goal will do magic. A bad goal will kill. A misguided goal is worse than having no goal at all. How to make a goal without breaking our heart?

First, a good goal has to be positive. None likes to be yelled at. So don’t let our goal stares down to us. Therefore, instead of saying “I’m not going to quit exercising”, say “I’m going to exercise two times a week”.

Second, a good goal has to be rewarding. No matter how hard we try, we are not going to stand on top of an Olympic podium anytime soon. We don’t withhold treat from our dogs until they finish learning a trick. Instead, we offer treat for every step of improvement. We should do the same thing to ourselves. A nice dinner, a gadget, a movie, a party, a day of doing nothing, etc. Anything that makes us happy will refill our energy tank and make us craving for the next step.

On the other hand, a good goal has to be challenging. If it’s a walk in the park, unless we are on crutches, there won’t be any tears and elation. Will we feel like pumping our fists skyward when we achieve the goal? If not, then better to make the goal a little harder.

However, if we decide to challenge ourselves to play golf like Tiger Woods (before his many other adventures), not only we are not going to achieve our goal, but we will most likely not to be bothered to do anything about it at all. Under every lofty goal there is a pile of crushed dreams, beautiful excuses, and bruised soul.

No one can reach the moon in one giant leap. If a goal is too hard, break it down to many smaller goals that are challenging but also achievable (if we try really hard). Any goal has to be specific and measurable. Never underestimate our capability to fool ourselves into believing that we have crawl over the goal line.

© 2011 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

Human minds are both fascinatingly effective and also spectacularly faulty.  If we were  machine, we’d never pass QA and surly be dumped in junk pile for recycle. There is no indication of any serious defects that render me so ineffective in cooking. It’s my phobia, the faulty believes that my brain somehow made up out of no reason.

I almost forgot that I was pretty good at biochemistry. In my long past scientist days, I’d spend hours mixing up all kinds of odd chemicals, cooking them on fire, or boiling them in solvents, or incubating them overnight. I’ve been cooking all along, only with something so toxic that I have to wear protective gears. Even in my current occupation of software development, all I do have been mixing various functional modules to cook up a product that meets customer’s requirements.

What if the kitchen becomes my lab or my computer? Am I still afraid it? Interestingly, once I start spending time in it, kitchen turns out to be a fun place. I like to pick up a cook book and look up for some general idea, then turn to my own imagination to make up something cute. There are so many fresh variations to try  everyday. Never a dull time. Sometimes I made something tasty, and everyone loved me. Other times I just have to apologize for my blunders. No matter how well or terrible I cook today, nothing will last overnight. Tomorrow will always be another adventure.

© 2010 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

Not this time.

Not even if I’m willing to pay extra for the privilege of a decent meal. The essence of “free style cruise” turns out to be a grand trip accumulating fat one grand buffet at a time. If you want to enjoy finer food, you have to forget that you just paid a load of money for the cruise, for they charge you on board eating in waited restaurants what you’d be charged on land in a similar restaurant. Unfortunately, even after paying up for better food, you’ll still likely be disappointed.

Before we walked into the big buffet “Aloha Cafe”, a guy in his lat twenty or early thirty greeted us cheerfully. We soon realized that the true reason for this guy to station here is to ensure us to wash our hands before entering the cafe, for he pulled out a spray bottle and spray on each hand without exception. The cafe was very large.  On both sides of the long aisle there were row after rows of carefully laid out chairs and tables on light green plastic backings.  There were plenty large windows for passengers to enjoy scenery while eating. Interestingly, one section of chairs and tables were entirely kid sized. This cute feature made a lot of small kids happy campers while their parents struggled to fold into the junior table and chairs. The buffet area was divided into eight food sections. The section along one wall was apparently aiming for all the junk food lovers. The usual french fry, burger, and pizza were on display. The section on the left served regular American style food that you could find in a typical American restaurant. The middle section provided “healthy” eaters with all kinds of salads and fruits, as well as some sea food. Over to the right there was an International section that served more exotic food choices such as Japan, China, India, Turkey, etc. Next to windows on the left was drink station for soda, beer, and wine. However you have to pay extra (on par with the price charged by a typical restaurant on land) for all drinks except water, coffee, and ice tea. Further down on the left was the bread and butter station which was surprisingly well stocked and nicely made. On the right side against window was the fruit station that offered supposedly tropical fruits but in fact served nothing other than what you could buy in neighborhood groceries. The desert station and water station rounded up the entire offerings. Although the sweets and ice creams were only as good as a local buffet on land and international foods were pretty much tasteless, the entire buffet was far superior than any of the previous cruises we took.

Those sit-in restaurants (extra charges) were entirely different story. And they were a disgrace to any cruise experience. The waiters were unskilled and unfriendly. The food made me wonder if there was any chef on board. The cocktail was so bad that any trainee could do a better job. After burning some cash in one sit-in restaurant, we decided to stay with the famous “Aloha Cafe” and cross out “dinning” from our list of cruise enjoyments.

© 2010 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

1. Make sure your business is not doing something that need professional license (e.g. law, medicine, accounting, financial service, etc.). You can not start a LLC for those things.
2. Google your state LLC law and filing requirement (usually at the secretary of state website).
3. Find a name that’s available in your state (test the name on the state website) and trademark it if you want.
4. Go to IRS website to get a tax id (EIN) for your company.
5. File the “Articles of Organization” with your state LLC filing office and pay fee.
6. Although you don’t have to, you better prepare a LLC operating agreement.
7. Although you don’t have to, you better update your business plan.
8. Create a LLC binder or drawer or other record keeping system.
9. Hold the LLC’s first organizational meeting to adopt the operating agreement and elect yourself as officers such as president and secretary. File minutes of meeting in the LLC record.
10. Open a LLC business bank account.
11. Get liability insurance coverage if needed.
12. Record all ongoing decisions with minutes or written consent forms.
13. Sign lease, agreements, contracts, loans in the LLC’s name.
14. File annual state LLC reports.
15. Pay estimated tax on allocated LLC profits during the year.
16. File annual tax returns.

It’s all about tax and paperwork, really. If you hate paperwork, don’t start business. Do it as a hobby instead. The only difference between a business and hobby is that you can not declare losses when doing a hobby. But again, you can not declare anything if you don’t have a good record keeping, even for a hobby. So suit up smart guy. Do your paperwork!

© 2010 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.

It turns out our hearts pump blood in the same fashion as pig’s heart. Our muscle also moves in exactly the same way as other mammals. As we survey our own body, from how we see, hear, smell, taste, move, digest, and reproduce, we realize that we differ very little from other mammals. We are built from same blueprint and materials.

If we abstract an “ideal body” much in the fashion of ”ideal object” of the physics, then we human are left with only three things unique: emotion, learning, and decision-making. This is not to say that other animals don’t have emotion, don’t learn, and don’t make decisions. We simply are expert on these three matters. While other animals making use of their emotion, learning, and decision-making largely to deal with the question of eat or being eaten, we build our entire civilization around this three things.

Ancient philosophers didn’t like emotion. They considered emotion as what make us act like animals. “Rational” and “moral” mind would behave much better if the mind could free itself from the bond of emotion. In the world of Plato, most people succumbed by what modern people would describe as “animal” emotions and wrack havoc with no apparent reasoning. No wonder Plato dreamed a world where emotion stayed in the back burner and all decisions large and small were made with cool considerations from logic and moral.

The modern understanding of the matter has turned decidedly mechanical. A chemical called “Dopamine” is responsible for our misery and happiness, as well as everything in between. This view is awfully simple to the point of being ignorant. As any Parkinson disease sufferer taking Dopamine imitating medication would testify, the remedy of certain symptoms always come at the cost of other weird side effects.

Comparing with other mammals, we don’t run as fast, we don’t smell as well, and we don’t fight as powerful. We fail on almost all bodily mechanics. What make us dominate are just a few intangibles. It’s not hardware. It’s the software that matters.

© 2010 Queenberry Labs, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.