Amiram Hayardeny's My China Experience

Concluding One Full Year in Beijing

I arrived here on April 20 last year.  Just myself, with two suitcases and a laptop.  The kids were in the middle of the school year, and my wife who's a teacher, wanted to finish her school year as well.  We decided that I will start my job in Beijing, get settled, and travel back to Israel at the end of June, to pack the house and the family to move to China.  I remember clearly, that when I left the house I already knew that there was no way that I will be able to not see them for over two months.  I had a bonus ticket from El Al, and even before I left I made the reservations to spend a weekend in Israel at the very beginning of June, coinciding with my daughter's 7th birthday.

I landed straight into a welcome party in honor of my arrival.  After dinner, I went to the hotel - a brand new hotel whose name I can't remember, but the name was changed to Somerset pretty soon after that anyway.  Next morning I had to meet with the real estate agent to look for a home...  My wife and I already made up our minds that the kids will attend Beanstalk International Bilingual School of Beijing.  I went to look for an apartment in the vicinity of the school.  It was clear to me that it is important that the family is comfortable with the house and the school.  As for me, I can take the long commute.

After a day of searching, I found the apartment I wanted.  It was five minutes away from the school, with a playground, many trees and flowers, a small shopping area, and a small river running just downstairs (I don't know what liquid runs in the "river", but I'm pretty sure it is not water).  On April 24, I went for my first day of work.  At the end of the day, I checked out of the hotel and went home.  My new home in Beijing.  It was an empty home.  Yes, there were furniture, and a TV, but it was still empty - after four days of running around, I sat down and quietly missed the family.

There was a lot to learn.  Coming from Israel to be Director of Engineering for an American company in Beijing, I had a lot of catching up to do.  Not only I needed to learn my new functional area - Solaris drivers and certification, I also had to learn a new language (I can now hold a conversation with an average three year old kid), the culture (both Chinese culture and Sun culture - not sure which is more complex), the daily life (taxis, stores, bargaining, dealing with the government and the property management office).  One of the most frustrating things for me was that for the life of me I couldn't explain to a taxi driver where to go to get me home.  I had to flash a piece of paper with the address on it and hope/pray/cross fingers that he will recognize the place and get me home.  Often, the prayer helped.  I now can get into a taxi and get to anywhere I want without flash cards...

Another vivid memory was going to the local Chinese supermarket.  Standing in line I realized that I was an observer.  I wasn't really taking part in this reality.  It was surreal, I did not understand anything, yet there was a lot of talking noise around.  I can't say I understand everything now, not even close.  But I feel part of the reality now, no longer an observer.  Beijing is my home.

May 31, I flew to Tel Aviv.  I woke my daughter up on her birthday.  She first hugged me, with her eyes closed.  Then she practically jumped out of her skin realizing it was me.  We shall both remember this moment for as long as we live.  A couple of days later I flew to California to take part in the New Directors' Class.  I had my batteries full from seeing the kids and my wife, and I was already counting the days to end of June, when we were to see each other again.

There were two periods in my life that are vague in my mind, as if I didn't really experience them.  One was basic training in the military.  From November 1980 to February 1981, I have very few basic memories - running, lifting, exercising, training, and being tired all the time.  It was a time of stress, pressure, it was extremely unpleasant.  I was there but I can't really remember it all that well.  The period in Beijing without my kids and wife was not as bad, but it was close.

It's a year later.  My kids, who could speak only Hebrew when we first came here, can now chat in both English and Chinese.  At home, it is still Hebrew.  We all learned to love China, love Beijing.  We are big fans of Chinese food, embroidery, and people.  Beijing is our home.  We have no plans to move from here.

The following is what I communicated to my team here in Beijing and to others who take interest in our site:

In trying to summarize my first year at Sun, and my first year at Sun Engineering and Research Institute (ERI) in Beijing, two American proverbs immediately came to mind: "Time flies when you're having fun", and "Good things come to those who wait".  It has been a very challenging yet very satisfying year for the team and for me.  But I can say with absolute certainty, that we have removed obstacles, built confidence and trust, delivered on time and with good quality.  Our communication and presentation skills improved significantly, while our bug count shrunk.  Our management skills have improved.  We have provided more coverage for more devices in more Solaris releases, we have supported Sun Tech Days and Open Solaris days in our region and outside it.  We have struck a friendly relationship with Intel both in the US and in China.  Our developers are accepted as experts in their respective functional areas.  We have hired and are coaching nine bright interns from the top engineering schools in China.

In short, while there is more work to do, we are making headways.  This time, I would use a Chinese proverb from Lao-Tzu: "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step"  (千里之行，始于足下).  I believe we have taken a few steps forward.

April here was particularly exciting.  I attended Sun Tech Days in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The event was very well attended, and successful beyond expectations.  Standing room only in Jeff's keynote summarizes it.  Later on the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) took place in Beijing.  Sun was a sponsor, and we had quite a few people either speaking (Sin-Yaw Wang), attending a booth or running a demo.  We had Scott McNealy(!), Crawford Beveridge, Bob Porras, Marc Hamilton, Mimi Hills visiting here, all recognizing the potential of the market here as well as the engineering skills at ERI.

My family, my team and I are all looking forward to another year of challenges and great satisfaction.

Posted at 01:18PM Apr 27, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[2]

Determinism Vs. Coincidence

As a scientist I am trained to think logically, to make a hypothesis, test it, and then draw an educated conclusion based on the results.  I am not a conspiracy theory fan, and I don't believe that God (or His counterpart) is after me for something wrong that I have done (or haven't done).  But there are phenomena that I simply can't explain, and occasionally I get drawn into some really weird explanations.

Take this for example.  How is it possible that whatever lane I choose is always the slowest?  The cashier I choose for checking out at the supermarket, always has that little old man with the check book and the thick glasses?  The harshest security person at the airport?  Is it a coincidence?  I have a regular driver who drives me back and forth to work every day.  I took a mental note of the following: he always takes the left lane to get to the Fourth Ring Road (one of the busiest freeways in Beijing).  I noticed further, that the cars that are in the right lane, always get to the light ahead of us.  Way ahead.  Finally I couldn't hold it anymore.  I said to him with a semi-angry voice: "can't you see that everyone always gets ahead of you?  Why don't you take the right lane"?  So he did.  Guess what, the next day, and ever since, the left lane is way faster.  I see his face in the rear view mirror saying without words: "you asked for it..."

Sometimes I try to be smart.  After I finish collecting the groceries, I take a look at the checkout lines.  I quickly identify the checkout line I want to be on: the shortest.  And I don't go there.  Because I know that the person in front of me on line will have forgotten an item or even worse: the lady at the cashier will realize that he has bought a chicken on sale and it comes with a second chicken for free.  She will announce on the loudspeakers throughout the store: "poultry, please deliver a free chicken to cashier 3, and please take your time, Mr. Hayardeny is here" (second part was not explicitly said), and then we will all stand there until someone from poultry will show up with the chicken.  Guess what, I go to the next checkout line, and after a few minutes I realize, the chicken winning bastard is ahead of me...

So is it coincidental?  Yes of course.  Then why does it seem that it isn't?  Simple: our memory is more inclined to record the exceptional rather than the regular incidents.  I must have been in the fast lane numerous times, but I was busy not noticing that.  I probably did pick the faster checkout line at the supermarket many times, but who remembers?  I remember much better the times I made the wrong choices.  Doesn't everyone?

Posted at 07:07PM Apr 24, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Vista Service Pack?

Is there a Microsoft service pack for Vista or isn't there?  A mystery?  Looks like the cat is out of the bag, or rather the service pack is out...  Paul Otellini was asked how Vista fits into Intel's plans.  Otellini said he expected Vista's deployment to pick up in the fourth quarter, "When the service pack for Vista comes out around October/November".  (http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3672811). 

What's the big deal you ask?  All software have bugs, operating systems too.  Windows too.  Service packs, patches, fixes, whatever you want to call them, are part of the deal.  Everyone understands that.  So why hide the fact that a service pack is expected by end of the year?

Windows may have the lion's share of the market.  The client market anyway.  The server market is a different story.  But some interesting things are happening.  The market is redefining itself.  The term "computer" has to be extended to include devices which can run applications.  Cellular phones, PDAs, game consoles, and others.  There are alternatives.  Better ones.  Look at this site (http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P1059), and you will find that Microsoft has quite a lot to worry about.  Open Source, Linux, Solaris, Symbian, to name a few.

Is it possible that admitting to a service pack so soon after release suggests some quality problems?  Security holes?  Is MS worried that potential buyers will wait until the service pack is out before purchasing Vista, hurting the bottom line?  Your guess is as good as everyone else's.

Competition is good.  Good for everyone, not only the customers.  Competition is an incentive to do better, to deliver more and faster, to drive quality and innovation.  I am confident that Solaris is up for the competition, and that may the best OS win.

Posted at 08:21PM Apr 21, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

A Special Day at Sun China

Special day today.  On multiple fronts.  The first is pretty straightforward.  I upgraded my laptop to Solaris Nevada latest version.  Are you an engineer?  A developer?  Just a home user of computers?  Look me in the eye and tell me that you take upgrading the operating system lightly.  I know I don't.  In fact, I dread it.  I will postpone it as much as I can and only do it if I absolutely have to.  So I had to, and you know what?  It didn't hurt, it didn't take long, and what I got in return was worth it in so many ways.  I now have a computer which boots faster and runs faster, with a much friendlier user interface, better performance, better support for wired and wireless network.  In short, I am a happy camper.  And what happened to all the settings, the data, the little things which my computer my PERSONAL computer?  I got it all back in place (and a lot better) in a matter of less than an hour. 

If you insist, you can call it a sales job - I am after all a Sun employee.  For me though, it is just a testimony of a satisfied customer.  Now that's an interesting concept, you must admit.  I am my own customer.  I run a team of developers who contribute significantly to the development of Solaris.  I am also a user of Solaris.  That does qualify me as a Solaris customer, does it not?  In fact, I am a very critical customer.  I get worked up for the simplest of bugs.  Stating that I, the customer, am happy means a lot to me, the engineering director.  Wait, I think I may have taken it too far.  Seriously, though, for the first time in my life, and career, I feel that the installation of a new operating system on my computer did not wreck my week...

The other front is a little more sentimental.  Feel free to make fun.  Being a person who cries in movies, I can live with it.  There was a Town Hall today at Sun China ERI (Engineering and Research Institute).  We had a special guest.  Scott McNealy, co-founder, veteran CEO of twenty two (22) years, and current chairman of the board of directors visited with us.  How often do you get to meet an industry legend?  Shake his hand?  How often do you get to hear from someone who was voted one of the 100 top executives in the computer industry?  How often does one of the most influential people in the history of the computer industry tell you that you are in the right place?  That the China market is the fastest growing, the biggest opportunity?  Scott McNealy was at ERI today, spoke enthusiastically about Sun, Sun's bright present and  brighter future, praised the current CEO, and speculated that Sun is in best position to lead.  It was a short, yet exhilarating speech.  He gave a short, but extremely interesting example.  Next year, China Mobile subscribers will outnumber the citizens in the USA.  Need I say more?  Scott mentioned that Intel chose to OEM Solaris, and did not choose to OEM the "others", and suggested that this was a strong message.  Obviously the applauds could have been heard outside the auditorium...

All that was expected.  But what I didn't expect was that Scott is a very funny guy.  He was thanking his good fortune for not having to sit in staff meetings anymore... 

It was a special day indeed.

Posted at 08:32PM Apr 18, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]

More Russia Observations

I will try to summarize my trip to Russia.  Professionally it was excellent.  I listened to some really educating presentations about Solaris, OpenSolaris and Java.  The keynotes were educating as well as entertaining.  The venue was nice and the organization was outstanding.  Participation was beyond expectation.  There is something exhilarating about seeing the technology you are involved in developing being used in another country.  I was impressed with the level of knowledge, the level of interest which was displayed by our Russian partners, colleagues and ultimately customers.  I got to meet some interesting people, a colleague from France (nice to have met you Frederick Pariente who shares some of my familial background), and from Norway (Bernt Johnsen, you are a cool guy, and we share many family values, it was great meeting you).  Again, the professional side - great.

On the personal side, I have some mixed feelings.  I saw some unbelievable places: The Hermitage Museum, the Church on Spilled Blood, the St. Isaac's Cathedral, The Bronze Horseman were absolutely beautiful.  Indeed, I tasted Caviar (overrated), and Russian bread (outstanding).  I also had additional understanding for things I grew up with.  For example, Powidel.  Powidel is a prune jam or jelly.  I guess there's nothing special about jam, but it was always present in my childhood, and it makes it very special to see it again after so many years, in fact it reminds me of my late grandmother.  Same with Halva - a candy made of ground sesame seeds and sugar.  In short it was a taste of home.  Speaking of home, I come from a very mixed background: my father was born in Israel, and so was his father.  Originally the family was from Spain, and they spent years in Morocco.  My father's mother was born and raised in Turkey, but her family originated in Spain as well.  My mother was born in Romania, and the family had roots in both Romania and Russia.  I could say half jokingly, that everything reminds me of home...

Let me talk a little about my airport experience in Russia.  In short - the worst.  No offense meant.  Arriving in Sheremetyevo International Airport is not a pleasant experience to the non Russian speaking tourist or businessman.  The signs are confusing (when they are present) and the lack of direct help for transfers makes the occasional visitor an excellent prey for the entrepreneurial taxi drivers, who are lurking just outside the arrival area.  But that stems from the interesting idea of placing the domestic and the international terminals a few miles away from each other.  (You can tell that I am bitter about getting skinned coming in.  I bargained a better deal going back...).  But aside from that, the airport is in complete disarray, there are a few X-Ray checkpoints at the various entrances to the airport.  I was standing at one of them, when suddenly the security person decided that the line is getting too long, and just opened the gate for everyone to go through without a security check.  There's another checkpoint before checking in.  X-Ray again.  Then another one entering the gates...  So security is taken seriously, then again, not that seriously.  The place is far from clean, the attendants whose help I asked were less than nice or helpful.  Again, this is a very local and individual observation, I will not be surprised if others has a completely different experience.

But there was one thing I saw for the first time in my life.  A guy was standing right in front of me, checking in at the domestic terminal in St. Petersburg.  His suitcases were obviously way over the weight limit.  I could not understand the exchange between him and the attendant, but what followed was amazing to me: he left the counter, stepped into the nearby store, came back with a large package of chocolate, handed it to her, and the suitcases were cleared to go into the plane.  I have heard about it, but never in my life have I actually seen it.  Please note: I am not being judgmental here, just playing observer.

The Beijing Capital Airport, is years ahead of its Russian peer.  It is well organized, not only for Chinese speakers.  I can say with confidence, when the airplane touches the ground in Beijing, I feel like I am home.

Posted at 05:55PM Apr 16, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]

How To Say "I Miss You" in Childish?

When my son Guy was born, a little over four years ago, I right away started calling him "Matok".  Which in Hebrew is "sweet".  As time went by, "Matok" became "Matoki", then "Toki" and finally, and that's his nickname today: "Tuki", which in Hebrew is "Parrot".  He must have been no more than six months old, when I started playing this game with him.  I would throw him up, then down and say: "Where's Tuki?".  Guy would giggle and laugh.  When we were done, I would put him on the ground, and he would always say: "one more time".  Again and again, until we were really done.  Guy was convinced that this game is a common game and everyone knew it.  He once asked his grandmother to play "Where's Tuki?", and got extremely frustrated when she said she has no clue what he was talking about.

Today, we have a few games.  "Where's Tuki" is still the favorite, but there's also "Toad on my Back", in which Guy gets to ride on my back upside down, and me turning around screaming "What is it that I have on my back?", to which he would answer "a Toad...".  And of course, the tickling game, in which I tickle him so hard that he laughs out of breath and begs me to stop.  When I do, of course, he asks for more...

Guy "Tuki" Hayardeny

And why am I writing all this? simple, I spoke to him today, and he said that he misses me using the following phrase: "Dad, when you come back, I want you to tickle me, and to play with me "Where's Tuki?", and "Toad on my Back".   Who said children can't express themselves?

When I go places, the kids always remind me to bring gifts.  There's a small ceremony when I come back.  The unpacking ceremony.  The suitcase gets to be on the bed, and so are the kids.  I deny bringing anything, but they know better.  Then I take out things one by one, and no matter how young they were, they always knew if the other got more...  I am in Russia now, and looking for gifts I have realized that this time, I will really bring no gifts.  I thought of bringing a "Babooshka", that doll which has another inside and another and another... Can you guess how much a "Babooshka" costs?  I saw one at the supermarket for $100.00.  You can get in China for a fraction of the price.  I decided to go with chocolates.  Swiss chocolates.  They love it, and for $100.00 you can get quite a lot of it.

Things here are expensive to the extreme.  Particularly coming from China, but even from the US.  I am staying at the Corinthia Nevskij Palace Hotel.  The room rate is over $200.00 per night.  Granted, very generous breakfast included.  But this is only the beginning.  WiFi, which is free almost everywhere these days, will cost you $34.00 per day, or $8.00 per hour.  If you want to make phone calls from the hotel, which is next to free now given Skype, Jajah, and other providers of VoIP, it will cost you a little over $8.00 per minute!  The assumption is that guest are either businessmen - for which the company picks up the tab, or tourists, who don't care for Internet connection.  Is this still true in the age of cutting costs?  My old boss used to say the following: our travel budget is a given.  We can fly business and go to more expensive hotels - as long as we are in compliance with the company guidelines.  But if we save, we get to travel more.  And traveling more is good for business.  I rarely agreed with the guy, but in this case, I agreed, and I still do it that way.  I try for my business trips to be modest.  Being in a remote site, travel is a lifeline.  Not being able to travel is like slow suffocation.  I'd rather stretch my travel budget as far as it can get.

Posted at 11:03PM Apr 14, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[2]

St. Petersburg

 

 It's 21:00 at night (?) and the sun is refusing to set here in St. Petersburg.  It is a beautiful city, much like Budapest, but prettier.  Here are a few photos.  The church below is probably one of the most beautiful structures I have ever seen.  Maybe the most beautiful.

 

 

Posted at 01:03AM Apr 13, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]

About Trust and Trsuting

Did you ever have the feeling that you are being ripped off as it was actually happening? Yet you played along since there appeared to be no choices? Here is how it played out. 

I landed in Moscow on Tuesday evening, with plenty of time to make my connection to St. Petersburg. As I got out of the overcrowded Immigration area, and collected my beat-up trolley, I went to look up the domestic airline with which I was supposed to continue my trip. Looking at my airline tickets, I suddenly realized that I have no clue what the “FV” part of flight FV160 stood for. I asked around, and this was when I got the first impression that I am taking part in a well rehearsed show. A distinguished looking guy was standing there, wearing a seemingly official badge. He took a short look at my airline ticket and immediately said that I needed to go to the other terminal, which is 15 kilometers away. As I felt something was a little off, I said I was going to look for an information booth first. He followed. The lady at the booth confirmed what he said and recommended to me that he was the person who could help me.  I don't think they were strangers to each other.

I followed him out, and I asked for the price. 2000 Rubles, he said – about $75.00. I didn't feel like I had a choice, and I did have a plane to catch, so I agreed. Out of nowhere showed up another guy in an old broken down Lada, took my suitcase, and we drove away. In about ten minutes we were at the other terminal, and unless he was driving a space shuttle, I doubt it was 15 kilometers...  I got on the flight without a problem.  By the way, I still have no clue what "FV" stands for.  I actually flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg on an airline whose name I don't know...

Lesson: indeed, Moscow has a few airports.  Air China comes in at one of them, but the domestic flight to St. Petersburg departs from anbother.  Also: people who wear badges are not necessarily officials, nor are they guaranteed to be the good guys.

A day later, I headed to the hotel from the convention center. I stopped a taxi and asked to go to the hotel. The driver said OK. I asked how much, and he said 800 Rubles  I agreed and closed the door. The driver got out of the car, took off the little yellow thing from the roof which states “Taxi”, and shoved it in the trunk. Slammed the trunk and got back in. We drove off. I realized that this was not an official taxi, that I have been conned again.

Lesson: little things are used to establish credentials and credibility. Assumptions are made based on very little information. It is almost ridiculous, how many assumptions we make based on next to nothing.

But thinking about it, this is what society means. Uniforms, badges, airport booths, all establish credibility and credentials for people who are supposed to be helpful, that potentially represent authority and the authorities. I will continue to allow myself to get fooled by these small tokens of credential building blocks. The alternative is inconceivable.

Think about it for a second: how much trust are you giving to people you don't even know?  When you drive your car, you trust the people who are driving next to you to respect the driving laws.  When you drive through an intersection, you assume that the other guys are going to respect the red light, and stay clear.  When you go to the store, you trust that while people want to make a living, they are not out to get you.  You trust that the airline pilots aren't drinking, and that the technicians really check the airplane before you take off.



So, despite of the two clowns who betrayed my trust, I will continue to trust people, at least until they prove not to be trustworthy.  Fool me once - shame on you.  Fool me twice - shame on me.
 

Posted at 05:33PM Apr 12, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[1]

Sun Tech Days - St. Petersburg, Day One. GAAP, PPP, and the Big Mac Index...

I hope that my Sun colleagues will forgive me for the following paragraph. I have worked for a very large competitor in different positions for almost nine years. I worked for a development organization which was geographically located within a research facility. I later on managed this development organization. Part of my job was to find ways in which the Research part and the Development part could collaborate. Over the course of the nine years, I have witnessed an incredible amount of ideas: project ideas, innovative ideas, leading edge technology ideas, disruptive technology ideas.  More than I can remember.  Many of these ideas either failed to become products or were abandoned due to lack of investment.  But certainly, there was a lot of ideas, and even more idea talk.

This morning it dawned on me. As I was sitting through the keynote presentation at the St. Petersburg Russia, Sun Tech Days.  Jeff Jackson, Senior VP for Solaris spoke of the many features of Solaris, for the enterprise, for developers, for cellular phones and for big servers.  Suddenly I realized that at Sun, these ideas are not just ideas.  They end up in product.  In many cases, they are incorporated in the various OpenSource projects that Sun is involved in. It is free, you can download it, use it, change it, enhance it, make a contribution, deploy it.

Solaris is a fascinating OS.  It is very rewarding to be part of its development.  Jeff was comparing the evolution of Solaris to that of insects and elephants. While insects evolve during the course of minutes, elephants evolve over the course of hundreds of years. Solaris is an operating system which evolves slowly and carefully for the enterprise, and quickly for the users and the developers.

Over the course of the day here, I have listened to various presentations, given by Sun's top engineers and executives.  The richness of the offering is truly incredible.  From development tools to performance metrics and measurements.  From training to support.  From product to services.  From hardware to software.  Much of it is given away for free, with the encouragement to explore, to use, to deploy, to contribute.  Naturally, as Sun is a business, payment is involved.  But face it, where do you get top product for free trial at the enterprise level?  Where else do you get the seven years backward compatibility guarantee?  In short: nowhere.  Solaris is it.  Solaris is Unix.

Every time I attend the Sun Tech Days, I see this video, and this video, and the music and the subtitles - they all get me even more excited about my work.  It is truly cool.  I kept asking myself why in the world this excellent video doesn't make it to TV as commercial advertisement.  I am not sure what the answer is, but for those of you who are intrigued by the description, I looked it up and found it on YouTube (naturally).  Here it is: Sun Vision Video.  Watch it, it is great.

A few months ago I wrote about the Chinese economy, and that according to GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices), China is the fourth largest economy in the world.  At that time I also mentioned that according to PPP (Purchasing Power Parity), it could be claimed that it is actually number two (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power_parity).  How's that?  The assumption is that identical goods must have the same price, no matter where they are purchased.  This calculation creates a different exchange rate between currencies.  For example, if can buy a single tomato for $1, and then take the 7.7 Yuan the bank had given you and buy 3 tomatoes, it will make the PPP exchange rate 1$ roughly 2.56 Yuan.  Keep in mind that identical goods are hard to come by, since different countries consume different things.  This is what's behind the "Big Mac Index".  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_index).  Big Mac is an identical good, and it's price can be served to compare exchange rates.  Here are the Mac rates for 2003: http://www.2bnb4.com/big-mac-index.htm.  I thought it was interesting.,

Posted at 12:48AM Apr 12, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]

Passover Impressions

About four millennia ago, so the story goes, the Jewish people lead by Moses left Egypt. Unfortunately, they left in a big rush, and therefore didn't have time to bake real bread for the long way to the promised land (40 years in the dessert). They only had time to make this tough, crispy, hard on the stomach cracker called “Matzoh”. Ever since, there are a few things we have to do every spring: we have to clean the house of leavened bread (usually called spring cleaning in other cultures), we have to eat Matzoh for seven (or eight) days, and we absolutely have to have a big family fight over who is going to host the big festive dinner on the eve of the Holiday. The “Seider”.

I have to admit that it's been quite a few years, in fact since the divorce from my first wife, that I haven't been seriously keeping the first two parts. Our maid takes care of the spring cleaning all year round, and in all honesty the Matzoh has some serious disagreement with my stomach, so we agree to disagree, and we simply don't see each other often anymore...

The only Holiday related activity left for me is the big family fight before it. In previous years, it usually happened as follows. We would try not to think about it for the longest time, but right around a month before, when everyone knows that plans must be made, the question gets thrown to the air: “where are we going to make the next Seider?”. There is no mistake: the Seider is the festive meal on the first evening of Passover. Everyone turns quiet, people suddenly look for their cell phones under the table. And then starts the usual: “if aunt Minnie is coming – I'm out”. “I am not having Harpo and Bella this year, they never invite us”. “Lets just go to a hotel and save the big headache”. (names are fictitious to protect the real identities of the people involved).

Needless to say, we usually have a very nice family get together, in which we have lots of laughs, in which Grandpa gets drunk – just a little, in which the kids trash the house. But we love it. We love getting together with the family, it's always fun. Obviously, once the first couple leaves, they become the topic of the conversation, and the fun continues...

This year, being in Beijing, we really had very little choices. My sister and her two sons came to spend the Holiday with us. We had a quiet festive dinner, it was fun.

On to a related, though not directly, topic. Living in China, I am much of aware of my size than ever. Face it, I weigh roughly twice the average Chinese person, I most certainly stand out in a crowd throughout Asia. I can't buy clothes here (XXL is comparable to American Medium...). That's why I love the airport in Beijing: I get to see people my size and bigger. I am sitting in an airplane on my way to Sun Tech Days in St. Petersburg, Russia. The plane is full of Russian, and how should I put it – I don't stand out that much.

I always wonder what the secret is to keeping the weight under control. It is my theory that the 20^th century was probably the first one in human history in which too much food was available for consumption. The human body does not exactly know what to do with overfeeding, and hence the weight gain. It is very unfortunate that in this day and age there are still billions of people who do not have sufficient nourishment, while others, yours truly included, are looking for ways to eat less all the time. Unsuccessfully...

I am looking forward to St. Petersburg. For a few reasons. I have never been there, it is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and in the world. Apparently, the Hermitage Museum, housed in this city is the largest and richest museum in the world. Louvre included. I am eager to meet some Russian Solaris developers. I have attended Sun Tech Days in Beijing, China, and in Seoul Korea. One of the days is dedicated to OpenSolaris. Jeff Jackson, Sun Senior Vice President, will be delivering the keynote address. There will be workshops, lectures, booths. It is guaranteed to be a great event. I will write daily reports from the conference.

When I get back, on April 18, the Intel Developers Forum will take place in Beijing. Sun Microsystems will sponsor the event. I will attend, and so will many people from Sun China. Our site VP, Sin-Yaw Wang will speak, and we will have quite a significant Sun representation in the event. Looking forward, not only for the event, but for a productive and fruitful relationship with Intel.

Posted at 09:21AM Apr 11, 2007 by Amiram Hayardeny in Personal  |  Comments[0]