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.

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!

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 .

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.

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.

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. :-)

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.

I think it’s working, don’t you say?

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

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.

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

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, 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!

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. :-)

States I’ve been to…

create your own personalized map of the USA

1) Alabama – went to the space camp in Huntsville during middle school and high school.
2) Illinois – my home state
3) Iowa – boring state – bunch of Amish families there – from what I remember during early family trip
4) Missouri – most of my dad’s relatives live there.
5) Wisconsin – my good friend has a cabin there near Dells, many lakes there. Good for outdoors.
6) California – SF Bay, Santa Cruz, Brubank,
7) Las Vegas, Nevada – flight stop, got delayed, had to stay at a hotel, temperature was 120 degrees, damn.
8) Oregon – YLC 1997
9) Minnesota – flight stops there many times but never even went out of airport.
10 Hawaii – flew there four times. Rich diversity there.
11) Kansas – Gallaudet Academic bowl – 1998 – should have won the regional there but got jeopardized BIG-TIME. Our lead was almost doubled, 120 to 65. Missouri team had to bet all their points and they got it right, we wrong. The score became 105 to 130. That was one of the sickest moments in my entire life. We also found out that we answered the most questions compared with other regionals. That next year, they changed the game format, no more “gambling” on the final question. Also, we did beat the Missouri team in the first round and then they fought to advance to the finals and beat us and they got to go to the Deaf Nationals in Washington DC. Damn. I was pissed off.
12) Indiana – their deaf school is our biggest rival
13) Detriot, Michigan
14) New York – NYC, Buffalo, and Rochester.
15) Florida – my parents’ good friends live there, interned in Miami, Walt Disney in Orlando, Tampa Bay, Clearwater, Daytona Beach. Probably my most vacationed state.
16) Atlanta, Georgia. Had my IBM interview there.
17) Denver, Colorado – my freshman roommate lives there and recently got married.
18) Ohio – went to the Cedar Park amusement park, which is one of top 5 parks in the US. Is a middle point between Illinois and Washington DC, so I usually stay over a friend’s place there.
19) Pennsylvania – Had to drive through PA to get into NY; just tons of forests there. Sylvan means wood or forest in Latin. (I took Latin class in college). Also went over a friend’s who lives in Philadelphia.
20) Virginia – my uncle lives there; can’t miss it if u drive to DC.
21) Maryland – same as above, the latter one.
22) Delaware – had to drive thru to get to Ocean City.
23) New Jersey – drove through it.
24) Kentucky – drove through it
25) Tennessee – dropped my friend off at his brother’s home, who was in the army.
26) West Virginia – drove through it.

So, 24 more states to go! Dang, still a lot of states to visit. Wanna go to Vermont for snowboarding this winter season.

create your own visited country map

South Korea – 2002. Cities: Incheon, Kwangu, Seoul, HamYong. Would like to go back and travel more.

China – 2001. Cities: Beijing – visited the Great Wall; incredible sighting! Highly recommended. Also went down to Tian Jin to visit their Deaf college technical program. Would like to visit Hong Kong next time I go to China. FYI, the distance between Beijing and Hong Kong is farther than NYC and LA, so the people and cultures are vastly different even they’re Chinese.

Mexico – 2001 – Cancun – Spring break, what else? That place is entirely americanized. Full of bars and clubs. Did go to Chichen Itza. It was fun climbing up the pyramid there. Highly recommended too. Heh, we were able to get a rental car under 25 years or older policy (I was the one doing all the negotations) and cost only $50 dollars for an entire day. Definitely beat staying in Cancun all week. You get to see the real side of Mexican life and saw homes that were just a shack with a bed sheet as a front entrance and you could see the entire family inside.

Canada – went to Toronto many times, close to Rochester, about 3 hours drive. Been to Niagara Falls; gorgeous sight, highly recommended.

Still haven’t gone to Europe yet. I really love to travel but work keeps getting in the way. Hope I’ll have more opportunities later.