11 hours and 10 minutes. A friend from Beijing is visiting Los Angeles. She is flying on Asiana Airlines, and they transit through Inchon/Seoul. This second leg of the trip takes about eleven hours, and the plane is about to land in a few minutes.
I used to travel to Asia often about twelve years ago. The flights were long but did not seem onerous. I do not know if I can survive that long in an airplane anymore.
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I received a WeChat text that my friend has arrived at LAX but nothing for the past three hours. Hopefully she is not stuck in immigration or customs.
In a historic decision, the Supreme Court severely limited, if not effectively ended, the use of affirmative action in college admissions on Thursday. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the admissions programs used by the University of North Carolina and Harvard College violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which bars racial discrimination by government entities.
Ever since I moved to the US almost forty years ago, affirmative action has been a thing. At UCLA, I was a tutor for the Academic Advancement Program, which was just another name for affirmative action. The freshman class for engineering was diverse, but over time, it became mostly white and Asian males.
UCLA Electrical Engineering Class of 1990
During that time, I also applied to Harvard University. I never considered Harvard, but I received a letter from the Asian Alumni Association encouraging me to apply. I was not accepted. In hindsight, with the recent lawsuit, and the fact I ended up with three university degrees, I will always wonder if I was rejected admission because I was Asian.
Affirmative action is bad. The intention behind it may be commendable, but it is just identity politics and racial discrimination. From the photo above, there are a lot of Asians. However, that fact is not beneficial to me at the individual level. What if UCLA decided there were too many Asians, and I was next in line for acceptance? It is not like the Asians that were accepted are going to support me going forward. How is this not using racism to “fight” racism? During orientation at UCLA, I was told the graduation rate for electrical engineering students was about one-third. That means the admission process is totally broken. Why did I need to tutor basic math to students that were accepted into a internationally ranked engineering program? Did we just fuck over a bunch of qualified Asian and white applicants for a social experiment that mainly produces college dropouts?
That is why I am happy with this SCOTUS decision. If you want to increase the number of black and brown students in STEM, clearly define success standards and admissions criteria. Then help those students in need to acquire the skills and knowledge required to compete. In other words, provide every opportunity so there is an equal playing field. This pursuit of outcome equity by racial preference is stupid and evil.
Ugh. I hate insects. The second Indiana Jones movie with that irritating Asian kid was difficult watch, especially the part with all the bugs. Eww!
Anyway, in the past week, the motion sensor on my front door camera has been triggered often. It turns out there is a small wasp next right next to the camera.
Since it is still small, I feel I need to deal with it before it gets bigger. I had a fairly large wasp nest at my prior house and there were a lot of wasps flying around. I eventually got rid of it, but it was quite stressful. I did go and get a can of wasp spray so I will need to deal with the nest during the next few days.
No, I am not going to her concert. I barely know any of her songs. My Spotify playlists are either K-Pop, Christian worship, 80’s music, or jazz. I know she is super famous, but this seems ridiculous:
That is like $15k with fees for you and your date. For the average American, that is about five months of salary after taxes.
I have been getting a lot of Band-in-a-Box emails about their latest 2023 version. A new license costs $129 for the base software.
As you can see from their website, there are significant discounts if you upgrade from a previous version. I am on their email list because I purchased BIAB a long time ago. It was so long ago that I do not even remember the year, just that it was suggested for a worship band I joined. I searched through my emails and found that I purchased version 12 Pro way back in November of 2006. Yes, almost 17 years ago.
Just to be sure, I did a text chat with a customer service rep at PG Music. There was a long pause after I told him what I had previously purchased, but he said I would get the upgrade price. Yay! I paid $88 for the software back in 2006. Accounting for cumulative inflation of ~50% since 2006, that come to $132.75 in today’s dollars. It must have felt more expensive since I was making a lot less back in 2006.
I think I will purchase the new 2023 version with my upgrade pricing of $79.
I got a few strange emails this morning from Twitter. I signed up for an account in May 2008, but I hardly ever use it. The first email said someone logged into my account using a new device. It was not me. That was quickly followed by an email that said my password was changed.
You recently changed the password associated with your account @xxxxxx. Based on this change, please be aware that additional changes to your account may be restricted temporarily.
I definitely did not change my password. I used to be able to go into my account via the iOS app, but now I was locked out. How? I did not receive an email on the linked email account. I clicked the “forgot my password” link and was able to change my password again. This time, I did get an email. Very strange. Was my account hacked? Since my account is very old, it was still using an old and likely compromised password. Once in, the person that broke into my account changed the password.
Why? I do not use the account and there are no followers. They will not be able to scam anyone with the account. Since I was logged in, I checked the list of accounts I was following and there were lots of old K-Pop groups and soloists. Most of the groups have disbanded so I ended up unfollowing about two-thirds of the list.
I went to a funeral this past Saturday for my uncle. He suffered a serious stroke eight years ago, and his situation deteriorated quickly over the past year. My uncle’s family decided on a viewing instead of a full service, so we were at the Rose Hills Visitation Center for about an hour and a half. Everyone in the family showed up except a few cousin-in-laws that were not local. Along with some friends and coworkers, there were about 30-40 people at the viewing. My dad got up to speak first, and was followed by a handful of other people, including my cousins.
It was a sad occasion, but since my uncle’s condition was getting worse, I think he is in a much better place. I am not sure what he believed in with respect to religion, but he did visit a church a few times. He will be cremated and placed in a wall cubby at Rose Hills. Both my grandparents on my dad’s side are buried there, and my parents purchased two additional spots next to them when it is their time to go.
I have not posted anything about Ukraine since it is a terribly sad topic. The situation is almost identical to what the CCP is doing to Taiwan, where a large country ruled by a dictator is threatening a smaller country. Many political analysts have pointed out the similarities and predict that Emperor Xi is taking notes on what not to do when and if he decides to invade Taiwan.
Sitting behind a computer with zero military experience, I really cannot do all that much. I did do a few things:
I received a letter from Tau Beta Pi (TBP) this weekend. It turned out to be a fundraising letter. TBP is the engineering honor society. I am unsure what the criteria is to join, but I must have qualified during one quarter while at UCLA. I graduated with a 3.35 GPA, so I was not really an honor student.
The only interesting thing is that I have not heard from them since graduation in 1990. I believe I have moved six times since graduation so TBP must have purchased an updated spam marketing list and matched my name to their membership roster.
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Each chapter sets their own membership requirements. UCLA’s chapter site says top one-fifth of senior class or top one-eighth of junior class. I am quite sure I joined as a junior. Hmm… they probably changed the standards since a B+ GPA should not be in the top 12.5%.
I got my bass back from Guitar Remedy. It took about a month and ended up costing about $575 to replace all the electronics. There were some additional issues when Paul finally got to work on it, and I had to pay an extra $75 during pick up.
Here it is. Probably would have been cheaper to just buy a new one. The bass is much louder and the two pickups sound very different as intended. I like the first/top pickup better but will need to play with it to get the sound I want.
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Hmm, prices are higher than I remembered. If I had to buy a new bass, I like this one:
It is a Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass. One of the churches I played bass in bought this bass for the worship band. This was a long time ago and the price was around $700. The list price is now $2,250 and costs $1,250 at online music stores. So maybe my $500 used bass that cost $575 to repair is not too bad after all.
It seems that a dead or removed battery will severely impact the performance of a MacBook. I replaced the battery in my MacBook Air about two years ago, but it is not charging and is sitting at 1% charge.
From the drop-down status, the battery is still normal, but is not charging. I downloaded another app that said the replacement battery only when through 17 charging cycles. That means the battery is still new. I am not sure what to do now. I cannot get the MacBook to start charging the battery, and replacing the battery likely will not solve the problem. I did a complete factory reset on the computer, so it is not a virus or other malware. The CPU throttling makes the computer useless since everything takes at least ten times longer to process. I also do not want to purchase another computer when the ten-year old MacBook was running fine just a few months ago.
I purchased a new MacBook Pro about 18 months ago since my mid-2012 MacBook Air was close to ten years old. At the time, the MacBook Air was running fine, but a bit slow. It also did not qualify for the newest Mac OS so I decided to upgrade. I also backed up the entire hard drive on to a USB drive.
Since then, the old MacBook Air has been sitting next to my desk, plugged-in but never used. As I am reshuffling the furniture from my office, I decided I would use the MacBook Air as a music production computer. I tried turning it on last night and received numerous errors. Also, the battery has apparently died and is stuck at 2% charge. After messing with it for several hours, I decided to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. Well, that took another six hours. The progress bars always lie about how much time is left. After everything is done, the computer is surprisingly slow. I did not feel the computer was sluggish when I used it a year ago, but now, every click or even scroll will take seconds to minutes. Since I deleted and reinstalled everything, there is plenty of room on the hard drive. Right now, I am trying to download and install Chrome browser, but there are constant errors in Safari so I cannot even download any apps.
I do not know what could have changed. Would I be in this predicament or worse if I did not buy the new MacBook Pro? Are these issues caused by the computer sitting unused for over a year? Whatever it is, it is frustrating to keep staring at the rainbow wheel.
I moved some furniture from the office to the spare bedroom yesterday, and today I set up my very old PlayStation 3 on an even older Visio VU42L TV. The PS3 still works, but unfortunately, Sony shut down many dedicated game servers so those games will not work online anymore.
This is part of the opening for Gran Turismo 6. I am only at 54% progress completion. The game server went offline in March, 2018.
I have an older PS2 that I want to connect to the same TV so I can play even older games.
I like IKEA furniture. Their products are functional and inexpensive. In return, I know I am getting cheap furniture made from particle board. No one expects most IKEA products to last more than a decade.
About a month ago, I posted that I bought some KALLAX shelves and a desk. I have since assembled everything, and I am now in the process of moving stuff to the new furniture. One way to use the shelf is to place it horizontally on a. base with legs The end product looks like this:
The nearest IKEA in Costa Mesa did not have any stock, so after church on Sunday, I drove all the way to Carson to pick one up. It is made of metal and cost $30. Unfortunately, the older KALLAX shelf I wanted to use with the base did not fit. The newer version of the shelf is made of thinner material. You can see the difference when the old and new shelves are placed side-by-side.
It is evident that the newer shelf (left) has thinner walls and ends. The difference made it impossible to fit the old shelf on the base, so I had to use one of the new shelves. The overall construction is cheaper as well. The particle board is now covered by a thinner veneer that came off more easily compared to the previous version. 😡
When we agreed on what needed to be done for my bass, I told Paul that I was not in a hurry since I am not currently playing for church. That was a month ago. I do not know how long it takes to order the pickups and install everything so maybe a month is normal. I did pay the entire amount in advance even though Paul only wanted a deposit. Maybe that takes away motivation to get the repairs done and receive the payment balance? I sent a message on the webform so hopefully I will get a reply soon.
I was looking at the IKEA website for a small nightstand. I am trying to set up my old bedroom into a studio/gamepad. The furniture I have are a bit too large, so I needed a smaller nightstand to make everything fit. I saw this nightstand and it fits perfectly.
It is a bit pricy for $50 but everything is expensive nowadays. When I first saw the item, I thought the name was scurvy. The name is actually SKRUVBY so it sounds like scurvy when you say it aloud.
The definition of scurvy is:
a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, characterized by swollen bleeding gums and the opening of previously healed wounds, which particularly affected poorly nourished sailors until the end of the 18th century.
In my previous post I wrote about my ChargePoint adventure. The reason we were at Irvine Spectrum was to pick up a new iPhone 14 Pro Max for my mom. That is an expensive phone.
I have not visited Irvine Spectrum in a long time. Many years ago, I went with my dad to the Apple Store there to pick up an iPad Pro. I remember there was a lot of construction. I believe the current store was part of the new construction.
There is a reflecting pool right outside the store. Very pretty and lots of open space.
The store facade was all glass. I wonder if the sun shines into the store floor at some point during the day.
Lots of employees in green shirts. Most were just standing around chatting with one another. It looks like you need to have tattoos to work there. I wonder how much Apple pays their store salespeople. Maybe I can work here after I retire; I just want the emplopee discount.
I went with my parents to Irvine Spectrum yesterday to pick up an Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max. My mom wanted a new phone, so I ended up buying it for her. I think I have purchased all my parents’ Apple devices over the past five years. We got the gold-colored phone with 256 GB of memory, and it cost $1,199 before tax.
Since it was early Saturday afternoon, the Spectrum was packed with people. After circling the parking lot then parking structure, I finally found an open spot, but it was for EV charging. No problem, I thought. I was driving my Tesla Model S. However, the charger was from ChargePoint. I set up a ChargePoint account when I got my Tesla in 2016 but have never used it to charge my car. Regardless, I put the card on the reader, and it said ready to charge.
Since I have never used ChargePoint before, I did not know how much it would cost to charge my car. At this point, I did not really care. I was simply happy to park somewhere. I then got a bunch of emails and text messages and saw this:
$0!? That is great. I thought Irvine Spectrum was paying the charge fees to attract shoppers. I also received an email saying the rate will go up from $0.00/hour to $3.00/hour after five hours. This was not the total cost.
This was a level 2 charger with output of 199 volts at 30 amps or about 6 kW. Since we were just picking up a purchase, I would not be parked long enough to get a meaningful charge.
In the end, I charged 25 minutes and received 2.16 kWh. I was still charged $0.63 for the electricity, but my card was charged $10 so I have some credits on my ChargePoint account. The charge cost works out to about $0.29/kWh, which is about the same as what it costs me at home. It appears that Irvine Spectrum adds a surcharge of $3.00/hour if you are parked for more than five hours to deter charger hogs?
It was a positive charging experience overall. If you are there less than five hours, the charging fees are reasonable. I still think Tesla should put an urban 72 kW Supercharger station in the parking structure.
Life with chronic diseases 