I just came back from a week long business trip to Beijing, China. One of the most memorable events of the trip was a variety show at a Beijing teahouse called Lao Tse teahouse climaxing with an exceptional face changing routine typical of the Sichuan Opera. With remarkable slight of hand, the performer will change masks seven to ten times during an approximate 3 minute performance; often right in front of you. Some may consider it as an illusionist or magic trick, but more rightfully, it’s an art form developed in southern China that takes years and years to perfect. While not the actual Sichuan opera performance I watched, here’s an example clip of Sichuan opera. Continue Reading »
Posted in China, Entertainment, Travel | Tagged Amazing Face Changing, China, Face Changing, Lao Tse teahouse Beijing, Mask Changing, Sichuan Opera | 2 Comments »
On Saturday evening August 8, I attended a concert called Explosion 2009 in Oakland, California which featured popular Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam. Also included in the show were rising female singer Sunidhi Chauhan, rap group Hard Kaur, and a bhangra competition featuring California bhangra teams (primarily teenagers and twenty-somethings). I thoroughly enjoyed the show—some of my highlights and lowlights were: Continue Reading »
Posted in Entertainment, India | Tagged Desi Girl, Moonwalk, Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan | Leave a Comment »
I just finished reading the recently released book The Defector, by Daniel Silva. Silva is the best selling author of thriller and espionage books, having written 12 thriller novels, many of which have reached the New York Times best selling list. A fan of the thriller genre, I’ve read and enjoyed Silva’s previous 11 books and as usual, quickly purchased The Defector when it was released in July. The Defector continues the Gabriel Allon series, the Israeli intelligence hero that Silva has used in his last 8 books. Here are a couple of initial thoughts, without giving away the entire story. Continue Reading »
Posted in Book Review, Entertainment | Tagged Daniel Silva, Gabriel Allon, Moscow Rules, The Defector | 1 Comment »
I recently attended a local Indian dance program and really enjoyed the live music, mostly from musicians who had flown to California from India. Along with the violinst, I particularly enjoyed the tabla player. Being a very amateur (and I mean amateur) photographer, I took some video of the performance. Here is some brief video I call Hands of a Tabla Player. Continue Reading »
Posted in Entertainment, India | Tagged Sivamani, Tabla | Leave a Comment »
This month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a comprehensive health data report, comparing health care statistics across OECD countries. Their website and study can be found here and an excel file with a sampling of their data is also available. With the recent flurry around the Obama administration’s health care proposals, it feels like a good time to look at some of the more interesting data sets to me:
- Healthcare Spending as a % of GDP
- Doctor Consultations, Number per Capita
- Hospital Beds per 1000 Population Continue Reading »
Posted in Public Policy | Tagged Health Care Spending as a % of GDP, Hospital Beds per 1000 Population, Jacob Weisberg, Obama Health Care Plan, OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, The Healing of America, TR Reid | 3 Comments »
Recently, there has been lots of coverage and discussion about netbooks. Netbooks have been flying off the shelves, along with iPhones- perhaps the only consumer computing or communications device that is actually selling well. It seems that everyone in the carrier, software, computer, and internet space is excited about netbooks. But at a price point of less than $300, can everyone really be happy and make money? Here are some recent news stories from a few of the major players.
Google- Google announced this week plans for a Google Chrome based Operating System to be targeted to Netbooks. This is on top of previous plans to have Google Android based Netbooks available, a few of which are already available (Skytone (China based company) Alpha-680 Google Android Netbook). Clearly, Google is targeting netbooks from multiple angles and ultimately wants to get more users on the Internet using non-Microsoft based devices and software to eventually view and click on Google based advertisements. Continue Reading »
Posted in Internet, Technology | Tagged Google and Netbooks, Google Chrome, Intel and Netbooks, Intel Atom Processor, Microsoft and Netbooks, Netbooks, PC Profit Pools, Profit Pools: A Fresh Look at Strategy, Verizon Netbook offer | 4 Comments »
The Facebook news feed has become an essential component of many people’s daily online activities—a key element to the social media experience. Through the news feed, people now know more about their friends and co-workers lives than ever before. For example, many people may have only really known about a colleague before Facebook through their professional persona and superficially about some of their hobbies. Now, through Facebook, they may see that they travel often to exotic places, or have children with numerous after-school activities, or participate in impressive feats like marathons or triathlons. Or on the flip side, they may find out that these colleagues’ lives outside of work look and feel remarkably like their own. In either case, Facebook has created more awareness of the details of the lives of many of the people in one’s professional and personal network. Continue Reading »
Posted in Internet, Technology | Tagged Facebook, Facebook News Feed Motivation, News Feed | Leave a Comment »
When thinking about ways to reduce the usage of traditional paper beyond simply changing usage patterns, some of the technologies that can contribute to that goal include electronic paper, erasable paper, erasable ink, and alternative resource (besides tree) paper. There have been exciting developments in each of these technologies, but want to focus on two technologies: electronic paper and erasable paper.
Electronic Paper
Electronic paper (e-paper) is a display technology that is designed to have an appearance of ordinary ink on paper. Electronic paper reflects light like ordinary paper and is capable of holding text and images indefinitely without drawing electricity, while allowing the image to be changed later. Continue Reading »
Posted in Environment, Technology | Tagged EInk Corporation, Electronic Paper, epaper, Erasable Paper, Kindle, Prime View International, Xerox Erasable Paper | 1 Comment »
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