This is pretty fascinating…

Drinking ice water actually help you to burn calories. Really!

Let’s figure out exactly what you’re burning when you drink a 16-ounce (0.5 liter) glass of ice water:

* The temperature of ice water can be estimated at zero degrees Celsius.
* Body temperature can be estimated at 37 degrees Celsius.
* It takes 1 calorie to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius.
* There are 473.18 grams in 16 fluid ounces of water.

So in the case of a 16-ounce glass of ice water, your body must raise the temperature of 473.18 grams of water from zero to 37 degrees C. In doing so, your body burns 17,508 calories. But that’s calories with a little “c.” Your body only burns 17.5 Calories, and in the grand scheme of a 2,000-Calorie diet, that 17.5 isn’t very significant.

Please iconize me

http://www.iconizeme.com/

Damn, I wanna do that but I won’t pay $50 for it. I gotta find myself a photoshop tutorial and create one!

An economy car vs a hybrid car: which car would you save more?

Wow, someone has taken a scientific approach to examine if you really saved more with a hybrid car. The conclusion? hybrid cars are still too expensive, gas prices aren’t high enough (hard to believe, I know), and you actually save more if you bought an economy car (even better if you bought it used) than a hybrid, at least for now. The point of this? wait 5 years when hybrid cars become more mainstreamed, gas becoming more expensive, and when you are in market for a new car. The link here.

Oh yeah, anyone has seen this link? It’s awesome, you now can track who’s visiting your blog and how much traffic you get a day. Google is on a roll. And I can see it’s slowly developing into its own brand familar image, other than the google search. Google Analytics and Google College .

Beyond Google

As we all use Google for our search stuffs—let they be a scoop on latest celebrites, cars, toys, games, even for research papers, and other countless things, but some have used Google more personal, like finding an instruction to perform a CPR, a Heimlich maneuver on a dog, or finding your father you never met before, as told at this link: Google User Testimonials. There is one funny story that one student actually cited Google in his research paper. :-)

Another one here that someone used Google Maps to prove that the street was two-way lanes, not one way street and his case got dismissed from the court.

Google is not only just for common people like us but help businesses too, like this. Using Google search engine help “the National Park Service, where website complaints declined by a factor of 20.”

Google also entered in a language translation competition with other companies participating like IBM, Cal Tech, U.S. Army laboratory, and came out first in accuracy. Tough translation from Arabic to English and Chinese to English.

Finally, as an employee for Google, I find this story funny. Yahoo employees sneak into Google for a free lunch.

“the shot heard around the world”

I just got back here from jason lamberton’s wine n cheese party. All I can say is that 2008 Politics has begun and if you thought the 2004 Election was crazy, the 2008 is going to be even more insane. That’s cuz both parties are up for grabs. Everything is at stakes. What we have voted in 2004 might be different than we would vote in 2008. That’ll be the biggest debate ‘cuz that is a generation shifting; it’s our time to make the call. Secondly, if we ever agreed on anything, females will get the most attention. It’ll be Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party v.s. Condoleeza Rice of the Republican party. It’s gonna be one hell of a race, nothing like the 2004 election between Kerry and Bush.

However, in my final opinion, it’s gonna be the Democratic party, even though I might vote for the Republicans. Another debate at the tossup: who would come first? black president or female president? I think a white female president.

The 2008 Election has begun.

Tags: 6 comments

GM tumbles 6% to 23-year low

GM tumbles 6% to 23-year low

Ouch, I feel sorry for those shareholders. Better start buying Toyota and Honda stocks. Toyota Corp. is on pace to overtake GM’s status as the largest automaker. Toyota says they will put hybrid engines in all of their vehicles. When a 4runner comes out with a hybrid, I’ll be the first on the list. :-)

Tags: 5 comments

NBA dress-up

Now that the NBA season is back in a full swing, finally there’s something to watch during late nights. If you ever watched a bit of sportscenter, there was an outcry among the league about the new rule this year: players have to dress up in a suit. Quite naturally and expectedly, Allen Iverson was the first to protest. Even one player complained he will need stipends to help cover the suit costs, despite his minimum contract is $250,000 a year. The commissioner, David Stern, said the reason for this is to make the NBA look sharp and professional. Well, look at those pics and tell me what you see. If you’re looking for the best laundry product to use for washing jersey clothes go to OdorKlenz Sport detergent for work out clothes and they will give you what you need.

Carlos BoozerRichard Hamilton

Lebron JamesSteve Nash

Scott PollardDavid Stern

I think it’s working, don’t you say?

Tags: 3 comments

Man, this is so sick!

Oh my god, seeing this pic nearly made me go off…you know, down there. *panting* I already have a mini ipod and was actually satisfied with it, despite the new Ipod Nano. But this pic, holy shit, this is reason enough that I’m gonna go the next day and buy the Nano and this headphone!!

RIT in Doonesbury!

It’s not everyday that my alma mater, RIT, got mentioned in a national syndicated comic strip. When I first entered RIT, RIT was not considered as a first-tier like MIT, Cal Tech, etc. But it has been building and growing and this comic strip shows that RIT now shares the same list with other premier technical universities.

‘Geek-heavy’ RIT draws a few ‘Doonesbury’ chuckles

My dream chair

My dream chair, Posted via Sidekick II by natech.

Gotta have one of these in the future. =)

If you don’t take pics, you’re missing from your past.

First one is the earliest pic I have although my family has more earlier pictures like baek-il, which is a celebration for babies that turn 100 days old, but they wish to keep it. I’ll need to fly back and scan more pictures.

Second one was when I arrived in America and ofc, as any proud happy parent, took me to my first photography session.

Third and fourth were the day I officially became a U.S. citizen. Now, I heard there is a new law signed by ex-President Clinton that all children who got adopted automatically became US citizens, as if they were born in the US. No need to wait for seven years to become one. The man in black gown I stood behind, I believe, was Governer Thompson of Illinois.

Last pic – my high school graduation.

my Korean family

Here are some pics of my Korean family when I visited in 2001. Cool fact: my sister is deaf.

Good Friday – cookout

Good Friday, Posted via Sidekick II by natech.

Drank 2 Coors, 40oz Hurricance malt, 32oz Mickey malt. That’s the total of 96oz or 8 beers. All in abt 2 hrs. :-)

Oh yeah, foot bag makes a great ice breaker. I noticed people like doing multiple things like talking, trying to hold their beer in their hand, stuffing burgers into their mouths and playing footbag all at the same time.

Oh yeah, I finally got my free Google t-shirt, :-D

Workout

Workout, Posted via Sidekick II by natech.

Managed to get myself out to workout after finishing work at 7 pm, then 45 mins drive back home (should be 30 mins but not in dc traffic.) :-(

Did supersets, then got out on the track. I started on the lane one as first lap, moved to second lane as second lap, and so on. Toward the 8th lane, I was panting hard and the eastern wind was blowing at me. I feel good, able to get “knots” out of my body. Hope to keep it up.

Tomorrow’s Friday, hooray!

The Solar System

I’ve been always fascinated by science—it’s probably my best and fave subject in high school before computers overtook me. I still read scientific books, loved Bill Bryson’s book on Short History of Nearly Everything, Genome Project, etc. I was just browsing and found this really mind-blowing link. The Solar System. It might take a while for your web browser to fetch the image since it’s a big one. To echo Bill Bryson’s words, it’s just impossible to imagine how big the Universe is. We can’t even fathom how big at all. It’s larger than any bigs you can think of.

In this pic, I can’t even find Earth using the horizontal scroll. I’d just miss it as it’s too small to see. I have to use the link to see it. The creator was really clever to use pixels as a scale comparison. 1,000 km = 1 pixel. This is far more accurate and make a better example than the fake planets on wires that are in every science classroom. Jupiter and Saturn make fascinating planets; would love to visit there if we ever have a such technology, which we will but not in our lifetime, probably and instead of trying to build a space station (still not finished), they’re starting a project to build a base on the moon that will serve as a launchpad to Mars and once that is achieved, other planets come next in the line.

Pluto – all the way to the right. Imagine, we’re all pulled around Sun, all thanks to gravitiy. If not for gravity, shit, we’d be completely wander-less and lost.

Hope you enjoy the image as much as I am. See if I can somehow shrink this image enough to fit on my widescreen panel. :-)

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