Movies and Books

Just finished watching Once. It's this indie movie about musicmaking, great, great music, and watches more like a documentary than a movie at times. I typically don't watch the commentary, but was compelled to watch this one afterwards. I guess despite all the jadedness about the movie industry, there is something magical about believing in your movie idea strongly enough to be willing to shoot it on a micro budget w/ some friends, which was kind of how this movie hapened. Very cool. I also got around to watching The Beat that My Heart Skipped, great movie as well. Darker than the other ones, but Dupri really gives a fantastic performance and I liked the whole nature vs. environment angle.

Also just read a book called A General Theory of Love. It's one of the more scientific book on love and relationships I've read in a while (though I do think some of the discourse on neural networks could be more rigorous). It's similar to some other books I've read before like Can Love Last and Necessary Losses, but I think more rigorous and scientific, which the engineer in me really appreciates. It basically tries to analyze why and how we love using multiple disciplines, such as neurology, evolutionary biology, as well as traditional psychoanalytic techniques. Their thesis is basically that human beings relate not only on an emotional level but also on a biological level (they refer to it as 'limbic'), and essentially what therapy does is the therapist tries to go into the patient's world without losing oneself, and synchronizes their rhythms not unlike how two people could synchronize breathing, but instead focusing on emotional patterns. By resonating on similar emotional frequencies and patterns as the patient, the therapist can help to gently guide the patient to break out of unhealthy patterns. If one accepts the book's premise of limbic connection, i.e., that by being together human beings do not only affect each other emotionally but also physiologically, then this is certainly one of the more scientifically sound explanations of psychotherapy I've come across. Interesting thoughts indeed.

Life and movies

Just finished watching two great flicks - J'taime Paris and Russian Dolls. Both movies elicited such strong emotions that I feel like I have to let some of it outpour onto this page. First, I guess since Paris is the major location for both of these movies, it really brought back a lot of past memories and emotions for me. I suppose the older you get, the more place you've been to and relationships you've been in, the more likely this will be. Still, there is something magical about Paris. For J'taime Paris, I can't help playing back my memories of what the various locations are like and what I was doing, at the same time as the characters are going through their scenes in the movies. It's kind of weird, kind of like parallel universes, at the same time it almost blurs the line between fact and fiction, movie and reality. There are the stone steps outside the Louvre's glass pyramid, where she laid her head on my knees and napped. I remember the sky was grayish-blue, with a slight breeze, and sound of running water behind us. Some tourists were nearby, but for that moment it was just us. At the same time on the screen, I see the characters from J'taime going through all the places I went to in Paris. The Montmartre where we looked over all of Paris in her splendor, the jardin de luxembourg where children play among the statues and where we held hands and looked for postcards, the cobblestone streets of a street market where the housewives buy their cheese and jamon...too many memories. And the

Both movies reminded me strongly of the places I've been to and people I've been w/. I remember meeting Matt in Prague in the summer of '05, when Russian Dolls first came out. He was one of the few (literally two or three) Americans I met on that trip, and we both loved L' Auberge Espagnol, the prequel to Russian Dolls. Despite having never met before, I really felt like we were kindred spirits (and I would meet many more in my subsequent trips - it's hard to express how special that bond is among the community of solo travelers). He's a few years older, but we've had similar struggles when it came to work, love, and life in general. Hence our strong identification w/ l'auberge espagnol. He had the chance to watch Russian Dolls while in Prague, while I missed out, and so now two years I've finally caught up. I think Russian Dolls is quite a bit messier than l'auberge espagnol. I wouldn't say the character Xavier is particularly lovable, but he's realistic. He's a bit schmoozy, womanizing, and weak-willed; but so are all of us. I think there's a little bit of him in every guy - who doesn't occasionally fantasize about landing one (or more) gorgeous woman? When we meet a great girl, we are all torn by the internal dilemma of deciding to settle on this one or continuously pursue an even "better" woman out there? It's like opening a set of Russian dolls - when do you know this one is the last one? Just so happened that Matt and I both encountered this decision at different points, and our different decisions have led us down very different paths. Now a couple years later, and looking back, I guess the only takeaway is there's no clean answer for love is there? There will always be multiple people, intersecting at different times, and no one is ever so right that it begs the obvious. Instead most of us eventually make a decision - "this is it, this is where I draw the line and 'make' her the one." Not passively accepting her as the one, but actively choosing her to be the one. Because even though you damn well know there are or may be better ones out there, this is where you learn to stop opening up Russian dolls.

And I guess marriage scenes are always touching; no matter how jaded we become, I suppose there's a part of us that always wants to believe in "till death do us apart". And yet now knowing what we know, clearly it's not realistic to expect that. So what do we expect? Is it just the best-faith effort at the time? That we will sincerely give it our best effort, even though knowing too well that we humans are too imperfect and transient to promise anything everlasting?

At any rate, highly recommend these two movies. Onto a L'Enfant and Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter tomorrow.

totally random

finally found something that was worth writing about on facebook, saw this on somebody's wall today -

---------
This is weird, but interesting! =)

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

-----------

At first I was like, "Ugh, I can't read that." Then I tried a little bit and found that wow, I actually could, and fairly easily too! Crazy huh?

You can run, but you can't hide

Three years...three long years. Yet I'm still not as far along as I thought I would be. Running from my past, but not quite far enough to forget it. When will it stop? When will it stop haunting me?

Wow, does anyone even still read this?

I think this is the first time I've been home in close to two months; the last time I was in the bay area was 7/12 I think, except for a brief night layover in Aug, though I don't exactly remember. Walking outside of SFO, aside from the 10-degree cooler wind, I'm not sure exactly what "home" is to me anymore. While I would like to say that "home" is wherever I am, and I'd like to think that I'm adaptable enough that I should just be able to shrug it off, it does nonetheless feel odd. I don't quite feel home - but then I'm not exactly sure what home is supposed to feel like. I'm back in my room, though the bed feels strangely alien. I look at my room, at the pile of accumulated mail, and it feels eerily familiar yet distant. I go downstairs to boil some ramen, since I really don't feel like eating out, despite being hungry from the crappy food. Maybe I'm just tired from being "out", though "out" would imply there is some "place" to be "out" of, no?

I'm sure there are plenty of people who fly around all the time like I do, who make strange, remote hotels their homes for months on end. The consultants, ibankers, PEers of the world, many of my friends actually. I'm sure many of us are strong, resilient, adaptable; we make friends where we are, learn the local scene, explore the new city, try strange food, and we can check off another city in our been-there, done-that list. I'd like to think I am too, yet the longer I spent away, each time I come back it feels a little stranger. When I decided to move back to the Bay last year, I was so excited because I thought I would be coming home; as close to a "home" as there would be for me anyways, since no where is really home. It hasn't quite felt like that. It's been great, I've reconnected w/ some friends, and the environment is definitely familiar, but it's not quite the homecoming I expected. Obviously everyone is older and we're all taking our different paths now, but it's nonetheless been more remote than expected. Of course Taipei doesn't feel like home either. It's great, I'm really getting to know it and like it better, but it doesn't feel like a place I see myself living in. I sometimes wonder how John does it, whether Beijing or Seattle feels like home to him. Perhaps having your own place helps.

And next year? I don't quite think I've mentally prepared myself to move to Beijing yet. Shanghai, yes. But BJ? That was not what I expected, though things are where they are now. I do think I'll look forward to exploring a new city, yet at the same time this wasn't what I planned. I had never envisioned going to BJ, and I guess maybe it won't be as comfortable or glamorous as Shanghai, but maybe it will be interesting. Regardless, I'm sure I'll learn a lot.


***********

And I feel like I've gone through a mini relationship (could I call it that?) within these few weeks, at least some of the similar type of drama. The excitement of ambiguity, the highs and lows, the arguing, the inevitable reality and acceptance of reality, and the aftermath. I sometimes am not quite even sure why I like her - it feels a bit irrational. She's not exactly the type I've liked before, though there are things that really endear her to me. That said, I can't quite bring myself to do what I need to do - road to a women's heart is littered w/ the bodies of many nice and sweet guys, and I'd like to avoid becoming yet another one. I would like to just flip a switch and be that cocky, funny, aloof guy that every men's rag tells you to be, yet it feels like going against nature to me. Funny and cocky, yeah, that's not too hard. Aloof is where I find real difficulty - it's hard to stay away when I genuinely want to know how her day was or what she's feeling, or seeing a trinket that reminded me of her. Yet this desire for open myself up and to be close will be the death of me, I'm sure. I think it's human nature to value what is difficult, and I've already made it too easy. Sigh. Well, I'm sure this month long break will end things very quickly as it should.

*********

Garry's recommended photography books came today - I'm excited. It's high time to get more serious about photography instead of posing around and shooting on probability. Time to get disciplined and stop dicking around. And to start another project too. I think the thing that's most disruptive about constant work travel is disrupting your personal time and rhythm. People always ask me whether the jetlag gets to me; actually, it doesn't bother me much anymore. I've gotten to the point where I can sleep almost anywhere, anytime. It's the social disruption that bothers me the most. The inevitable distancing from friends and lack of time to do my own thing that makes one tired of traveling. Well, I should be here for almost a month this time, hopefully I can do a thing or two on my own.

Organizational behavior 101?

I used to think studying organizational behavior and management was all bullshit. A bunch of guys sitting in the ivory tower thinking they know how to run a multinational? What a crock. But the more I work the more I realize how important organization--loosely defined as in how you organize people, structure reporting, allocate time, reward & punish behavior, etc--is. I'm still not convinced of the value of sitting in an undergrad class with 200 other people to read a 800pg textbook on organizational behavior. It just doesn't strike me as something you can learn in a classroom. Without lots and lots of work experience, you just won't understand. And even if you do, each situation is highly unique and nuanced, and once you abstracted it into a case study it just seems to lose the subtleties that make org problems difficult.

At any rate, now I am quite convinced that how you organize a group of people, has a huge effect on how productive they will be. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to quickly become good at it.

Exhibit #1 -

Suppose you are the country PM for country X. you have been charged, ultimately, to win this market (let's use search market share), where you're currently getting your butt kicked. You need to convince engineering with your the overall strategy and product roadmap, deliver the products, and hopefully win lots of users. Suppose now also that your engineering office in X also opened recently, so you've now scoured the country for a bunch of top-notch engineers, all eager and excited because they want a chance to work at G.

Great, since a technology company absolutely have to hire the best damn engineers, you're off to a good start. No argument about that. But brilliant engineers don't necessarily sign up to crush some competitor or win a market. Few smart people join IBM thinking, "Gee, I'd really like to help Big Blue crush Microsoft or Sun or Oracle today." Smart, talented engineers join a company usually because they want to solve really challenging problems, enjoy the environment, want freedom and resources to pursue what excites them, and in general try to build cool shit.

Now you have a dilemma. You know (or think you know) what you have to do to win. Build product X, partner with Y, syndicate Z, improve infrastructure W, on and on. But the engineers may not at all be interested in X, Y, Z or W. Maybe your most talented UI engineer happens to
really get off on tweaking the subtleties of image search. But you just know that working on image search is useless for winning traffic right now, doesn't move the needle. What do you do? You can't force great engineers to do what they don't want to do; it'll be a disaster. At the same time, having him work on low-priority projects is just waste of talent. And maybe he's not the only one. Maybe some other senior engineers all want to work on a different skunkworks project, because they've all vested, and now only want to work on some pet projects.

So out of an office of maybe 15 engineers, you might only be able to convince half to really put their hearts into what you need to do to win. That's 50% efficiency, a terrible waste of eng talent and time. At the same time, you can't throw rank and ask the eng director to just crack that whip and get everyone in line; it might work elsewhere, but not at G. And even if it works, it would ruin the team culture and camaderie, so that option is out.

So, how do you reconcile the two? The easy answer might be, "Oh well, just find what people are interested in, and define Y projects in such a way that each person finds what they're looking for. So you can have your cake and eat it too." I think that works up to a certain extent, but it's not so easy, since it's kind of like sanding a square hold to fit a round peg. You can kind of do it, but it's not optimal. I think engineers are most motivated and productive when they find something they are really passionate and inspired about, not when you retro-fit a project to match their needs. You don't have as much of this problem at startups, since they are usually self-selective; people who don't identify w/ a startup's mission usually don't join it, unless there's a good chance of a good exit. And you can screen people out based on their stated interests. But in the case of G, where we're just trying to hire the damn smartest people we can find, it's not like we screen people based on their passions, especially in a remote office. In fact, we're known for only interviewing for ability, rather than work history or interest.

So what exactly do I do then? I need to win the market. But I also need to build a high performing, happy, and inspired eng team. How do I make the two work? I don't have a good answer for this, and I'm thinking about it every day. Comparatively, writing specs weren't all that hard...

Now I understand why good managers certainly earn their pay.

Ladies, do you know what you're missing out on?

Word! lol...

Great, I'm going to completely fail my OKR this quarter, god I suck. Have had zero time to write. Lack of discipline. This is pathetic. So much to say, but so little energy to say it. John, I know how you feel now.

Have you ever been in it so deep that you don't even know which way is up anymore? There are nights when I've just completely worked so much, so much so that when I'll go into safeway at 2am to grab a bottle shampoo, but end up wandering up and down the aisles lost. I'll walk in circles not be able to find it because I can't shut my mind off and I continue to think about work. So I can't focus and am just wandering aimlessly in this gigantic empty Safeway, w/ a couple of graveyard shift boxing boys staring at me with the "WTF is this retarded guy walking around in circles at 2am in a Safeway?"

Since I just got home and I need to get up at 9am, I should probably head to bed but then again, since it's 5:15am already not sure it matters anymore. God, I hate it when the damn birds are chirping before I get to bed.

Am I learning a lot? I supposed so. I don't know. I alternate between feeling great knowing that I've done more in six months than I did in two years at MS to feeling like shit knowing I really still haven't done anything, and that the bar for distinction here is set nice and high. I pretty much feel like I can run anything after this, but then I don't know if that's my hubris speaking or actually some well-earned self-respect?

Holy shit, there are some big names in this thread...Jakob Nielsen? http://battellemedia.com/archives/003413.php. Great points raised - maybe video play isn't really about monetization at all...ok, must stop writing. Damn it, see even now I can't turn it off. I just damn well can't.

Almost famous...

http://chalain.livejournal.com/43015.html

wow, I am speechless. I came _this_ close to working on the feature that made Digg frontpage. Just a hair away and it would've been me, I don't know how I would've felt...

Fireside chat with Hillary Clinton

We have a program at work where they invite famous people to come speak, and Eric would interview them. Today we had the rare opportunity to hear Hillary Clinton and that was definitely a treat. It's hard to imagine having these kind of opportunities elsewhere, though I really hope they'll bring Obama in too at some point for a good compare & contrast :)

So I'm blogging this live a la wonkette or dkos style -

Interesting notes so far

- Her policy cornerstones really seem to focus on universal health care, education, alternative energy and climate change. I'm not convinced this will work nationally, i.e., to win the election, but then again she could be tailoring it very much to the G audience. Personally, I'd rather hear more about Iraq, the economy, and redefining our foreign policy in general.
- Key message - restore confidence at home and respect abroad
- No escalation of troops into Iraq. Wow, that's surprising.
- No continued unconditional funding of the reconstruction unless
- A few nicely placed snipes at W and Cheney, me likes :)
- Wants to start dialogue with states such as Iran, Syria whom we're not talking to now.
- Will extricate us from Iraq if W doesn't get us out.

Unfortunately, Eric lobbed her some softball questions in the beginning which ate up all the time, so the only serious question she took was on Iraq. Would have loved to hear some more.

Thoughts afterwards -

Hillary is a great, great public speaker. Probably way underestimated when compared to her husband. But her style is quite different, I feel she's much more formal. She's incredibly intelligent and eloquent, but lacks that little bit of warmth or informality to really connect with the audience. It was kind of like listening to a grad school lecture. Bill, on the other hand, was great at making you feel like he was speaking to you personally, even though he may be delivering the State of the Union. It's interesting - it's as if you don't want to be too perfect in your delivery, because then you lose that personal touch. A little bit of colloquialism actually goes a long ways in establishing trust and credibility, and invoking emotion. I've heard Obama is also a phenomenal speaker, though I haven't had the time to watch an entire speech. W, for all his faults, is also an underestimated public speaker. He has an uncanny ability to project sincerity while speaking, But unfortunately since there's nothing upstairs, and his language command is so pathetically poor, it's hard not to laugh at his fluff after a while.

To be or not to be?

There are moments in one's career, inflection points, where people's opinion of you are formed, careers are made or broken, and decisions truly matter. Unfortunately, I just had one this morning, and I royally fucked it up. Rarely do I want to retract a past conversation as badly as I want to now. Unfortunately, I don't even know how I let it get to this point, it all happened so quickly. I think it's the first time that I've yearned for the simpler days at M, where I did not have to face situations as I do now. Things weren't easy then, but it was straightforward how to build one's career. Where as it's not clear to me now what to do next. Never do I feel as old as I do now - being all of twenty-seven I feel I am no longer a naive fresman when it comes to navigating the labrynth of the professional world and should know a hell of a lot better. But I don't. Damn my ignorance.

Before me lie two options - one to be the country PM for T/H, where I am in essence driving all the product strategies and decisions for these two markets, the other to be an international search PM, where I run and maintain the system that improves our core product for all intl markets. It's very much a depth vs. breadth tradeoff, and unfortunately while I committed to the intl one, I am very much having second thoughts now. Unfortunately now that I've committed to both my managers I don't see a good way of backing out of this w/o a major hit to my professional credibility. I don't want to appear fickle, indecisive, and frivolous, and yet by changing my mind within 24hrs I manage to achieve all three. I really wished I had thought through carefully before I made my decision and spoke up about it, unfortunately I did not get a chance to reflect and seek some senior advice until today. Which has really made me change my opinion a whole lot, albeit a bit too late.

Unfortunately, I am where I am now. No point in bitching about how stupidly I handled myself up to this point. What to do next? Should I continue on my current path? Should I speak up and announce a change of heart? Despite talking with some friends, ultimately it is my and only my decision to make, and now I understand the terrifying pressure and loneliness of choice and consequence. Only I am responsible for me and what happens to me, no one else. Wasn't that what aging was supposed to bring? The type of self assurance to handle oneself confidently and competently in such situations? Why do I still feel so clueless and inept?

My Q1 OKR

Now that my blog readership has completely dwindled to zero, I guess it's a good time to do a reset and wipe the slate clean. Sadly, I haven't been able to write much here, due to work completely leeching away any illusion of my having free time. Working with three time zones - EU, Asia, and US does wonders for your sleep schedule. I've flown 6 times within the last three weeks (Taipei, London, SF) and haven't had any jetlag at all, I guess my body has slowly realized that resistance is futile, and it has given up complaining.

To be honest, I'm not happy with this. I haven't quite figured out what to do yet, since I've never been quite so overwhelmed. Nonetheless, here is one thing I do commit to do to regain my life back. I want to start writing seriously. After reading The Woman at the Washing Zoo (Big props to Huat - one of the most well-read literati I have ever encountered), I was tremendously inspired by how much she cared to write, even when she was on her deathbed. I also enjoyed the expository essay format very much, it showed me a glimpse of what could be done with non-fiction writing. I've always struggled to find a home for my writing "voice" - I don't quite have the wit or charm to do any sort of column writing (though if you ever want a great example, check out Domi's writing), and I lack the elegance and variety to do topical writing, like travel writing, justice. But writing essays to argue something? That, I think I can do.

I'm not a fan of New Year's resolutions; their time horizon is much too long to effectively hold oneself accountable, and most inevitably end up unfulfilled. However, there's something I'd like to borrow from work. At G, we do this exercise where every quarter we set something called OKRs - Objectives and Key Results. Basically, this is the report card that we get graded against every quarter, and it is public for all to see. G gives us long guidelines on how to properly write OKRs, but one basic point is have actionable, measurable key results that justify how the said objective was achieved. So here's an experiment - to truly hold myself accountable, I will start creating personal OKRs this quarter, starting with this one.

Objective: To improve my writing in a disciplined manner, and through writing, regain some balance in my life.
Key Results:

1. Write two essays that I feel are good enough to post publicly
   
2. Dedicate at least two hours/week to improving my writing

Let's see how this goes.