Lei’s official Weblog

This video is so funny, I thought I just have to put it here. Seriously, this girl has made some fantastic videos.

I wonder why not many people doing video-blogging at the moment. Apart from those already doing videos on regular video sharing sites, like YouTube, you really can’t find many people maintaining their blogs in a video rather than written format. I mean, isn’t talking a lot more easier than writting? You can talk about something for only 5 to 10 minutes you would normally have to spend an hour or so to write about it. It’s simply much more efficient and personal in conveying information than writing, and it is also super-easy to do it. All you need is just talking about some random shit (or whatever on your mind) in front of a webcam, and then upload the clip on any video sharing sites, such as YouTube, and link it back to your own blog. Im actually thinking now if I should start videoblogging myself. But there is one problem, Im worried that my Chinese English accent will make all my videos practically incomprehensible to anyone who watchs them. But I guess I can still do it in Chinese, hmm.. it sounds like a good idea to me.

Only a few hours ago I uploaded this very short video which I filmed almost three years ago in Boston. I did it only because I just opened a YouTube account and wanted to see how it works. But strangely enough, I have just been informed through email that two people have already subscribed to my videos (so that they will get notified whenever I upload new videos). But why did people subscribe to my videos in the first place, it’s just so weird that people subscribe to everything.

I’ve just had a check of my order history of the last few years on Amazon.co.uk. The earliest I can trace back was an purchase I made on 17th Sep 2003, I bought a textbook on that day. Im not so sure if that was actually the first purchase I made on Amazon, I’ve always thought that I started buying online a bit earlier than that. I have made another 36 purchases (a total of 72 items; mainly books of course) over the last three years since that order, and I spent somewhere between £1000 and £1500 during the period. In fact, the amount I spent on Amazon turned out to be much lower than I expected. Of course, apart from purchasing online I’ve also bought many books in real bookstores. I think in total I’ve probably spent around £2000 on books over the last four years, roughly £500 each year. That may not sound like lots of money, but I’ve always been very selective in choosing which books to purchase despite this is the area where Im most subject to impulse buys. Surely, the expenditure would be much higher if I had much more money in my pocket. My mother has always blamed me for wasting money on books, understandably, she’s worried that books are too heavy that I won’t be able to bring them back to China easily in the future, but I think buying books is at least much better than wasting money on clothes and cosmetics. I’ve known many friends who regularly spends a big portion of their monthly income on clothes and cosmetics costing over £200 per item, I once asked one of them why he spent so much money on clothes, he told me it’s because it shows his status, I found that response hilarious!

I thought this is a futuristic concept hotel when I first saw it on Shanghaiist, but it is not. In fact, this five-star resort hotel will be built within a beautiful water-filled quarry in the Songjiang district close to Shanghai in China. It’s also said this cool hotel will integrate lots of green features ranging from using green roofing for the structures above the ground level to geothermal energy extraction. Read more about it from this article.

Recently Channel Five showed an documentary about this conjoined twins. Unfortunately, I missed the documentary, but was struck by their incredible story after I read about it.

According to Wikipedia, each of the twins manages one side of their conjoined body, controlling her own arm and leg, and receives no sensation from the other side. Yet, by coordinating their efforts, they are able to walk and run normally. They have many hobbies, including digital photography, internet, social networking, and talking on the telephone. They also enjoy playing sports like volleyball, basketball, kickball, swimming, cycling. They even successfully passed their driver license exam, though they had to take the tests twice, once for each twin.

Here is an interesting article titled ‘Not all successful CEOs are extroverts’. As you probably have guessed from the title, it says lots of nice things about introverts. Yes, I am an introvert so I liked it. Below are some parts I found particularly interesting:

“It seems counter-intuitive, but introverts and closet introverts populate the highest corporate offices, so much so that four in 10 top executives test out to be introverts, a proportion only a little lower than the 50-50 split among the overall population age 40 and older.

There are many ingredients to success, and one of the most obvious has always been an outgoing, gregarious personality that lets fast risers stand out in a crowd of talent. But successful introverts seem to have mastered the ability to act like extroverts. Some liken it to an out-of-body experience that lets them watch themselves be temporarily unreserved. They remain introverts to the core, and if they don’t get down time alone or with family, they feel their energy being sapped.

The list of well-known corporate CEO introverts reads like a Who’s Who, starting with Gates, who has long been described as shy and unsocial, and who often goes off by himself to reflect. Others widely presumed to be introverts include Warren Buffett, Charles Schwab, movie magnate Steven Spielberg and Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes.”

…and…

“Former Sun Microsystems executive Jim Green, now CEO of Composite Software, has jogged the streets solo from London to New Zealand to recharge. SkyeTec CEO Chris Uhland was at a wedding recently where he snuck off by himself to watch golf on TV. His wife was not happy. Patricia Copeland, wife of former Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu CEO James Copeland, understands. She told USA TODAY three years ago that even at family get-togethers in Georgia, her husband will soon be found taking refuge in a book.”

…and…

“Research on introverts and extroverts in leadership goes back at least to World War II and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a personality test now given to about 2 million people a year.

Introverts are not shy by definition, but they become drained by social encounters and need time alone to recharge. Extroverts, on the other hand, are energized when with people and find time alone to be draining. Extroverts typically have many friends. Introverts prefer to know a few people well, which fits many CEOs who often say that it’s lonely at the top and that they confide in a small circle of friends.

It’s not fully understood why some people are introverts and others extroverts. The ratio is changing over time. CPP (formerly Consulting Psychologists Press) is the publisher of the Myers-Briggs assessment and has testing data going back 50 years. It plans to release research showing younger generations are becoming increasingly extroverted. Those born before 1964, including baby boomers, are split about 50-50 between introversion and extroversion, but 59% of Generation X (born 1965-81) are extroverted, as are 62% of Millennials (born after 1981).”

…more…

“Jim Collins, in his 2001 bestseller Good to Great, was one of the first to dispel conventional wisdom that successful leaders climb to the top because they’re naturally outgoing. He found that the most successful companies rarely had so-called celebrity CEOs, but rather had CEOs who were self-effacing and humble to a fault. Charisma was a handicap, he concluded.

A study of 2,300 people in 12 industries released last week by Cleveland human resources firm PsyMax Solutions looked at “sociability,” or the ability to relate to others in a “highly-engaging, expressive and lively style,” says PsyMax CEO Wayne Nemeroff. Extroverts would score high in sociability. “They’re almost the same thing,” Nemeroff says.

The median sociability score for division heads and vice presidents was 72.2, slightly higher than the median score for all workers. But sociability among the 242 CEOs was much lower at 57.9, suggesting that if sociability leads to early success, it may be an impediment to those trying to take the last step up the ladder, Nemeroff says.

A separate PsyMax study of 240 presidents, CEOs and chief operating officers found creativity to be the one trait most common to highly successful executives. Past research, not associated with PsyMax, has shown introverts to be among the most creative people.

The sociability study also found scores vary widely by industry. Those in the insurance industry scored a median 78.8. Those in research and scientific industries scored a median 18.4.”

A funny picture I found today. A US baseball player instead of hitting the ball had probably threw out his bat. I just love the facial expressions of the people in the photo.

Now people in the west are becoming increasingly aware of the Chinese new year, tomorrow is the new year’s day, so I will expect some people saying ‘happy new year’ to me, and asking how Im going to celebrate. In fact, I rarely celebrate for any festivals, I have not given much thought for this new year neither, it’s likely that I won’t do anything for it tonight and tomorrow. But it’s annoyinng that I have to try to come up with some fake answers in order to sound not too anti-social when people ask. I have already been blamed by my mother for being too cold-blooded because I don’t keep contact with my relatives and call them to wish them well on festivals. I already said to her that I really don’t care about any social rituals, they are all superficial to me. But she told me that what matters is that other people care and I should consider their feelings, and should not be too selfish. In fact, she even got so angry the other day while talking to me on the phone, said ‘if the whole world is full of people like me, then there would be little warmth and care between people, how sad that would be!’ Maybe she’s right, but Im also sure that if there were more people similar to me, the world would have much less mindless materialistic pursuit, less pollution, less mass psychosis, and will probably also end up with fewer terrorists as a consequence. How wonderful would that be!

But the question still is — should I make any phone calls to wish them well? But I really don’t know what to say, and how to talk appropriately. Even if I called, I must sound so fake and they would probably think that Im insincere anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I do care a lot about my relatives and friends that are close to me, but it just feels so awkward and unnatural to me to follow all the rituals. There are people who are masters of human relations, and are proficient at dealing with these sorts of things, I think they should carry on their good work. But for me, I have never been good at it, and not sure if will get any better in the future, it might be wise to focus on the things Im good at for the moment. Anyway, the whole thing has just become too silly to me, I cannot be bothered to think about it anymore.

I found this design of Thinkpad from a recent post on DesignMatters weblog (a Lenovo blog on its product designs). As you can see this design combines both the portability of a laptop and the advantage of a desktop user interface. The author of the post made a poll to gather votes from its audience on whether the company should move the design from idea to reality. Although the poll is closed now, readers can still comment on the post. In fact, people have already made some interesting suggestions and raised good questions. It seemed to me a good way for the company to get some useful feedback on its product designs. The blog on the whole is also very well written and informative, I actually learnt few things myself after reading some of the posts.