Trappist Rochefort 8

Belgian ale. Dark brown in the cup. Terrific foam. Fruity and chocolate aroma. The foam is sweet while the beer is more malty. Overall, a well balanced beer.

1996 Château Tirecul La Gravière Cuvée Madame

Dark golden color. Honey, acid, mineral and a little spicy. Well balanced.

Robin Hood

Not a blockbuster like Black Knight, but not a disappointment either.

Trying out Diigo

Seems to be an interesting tool and can replace delicious. Check out the link below:

http://diigo.com/0b185

What would be announced at Apple WWDC 2010?

iPhone III is in sight. What else can be expected?

AAPL performance (using closing prices) during the WWDC for past five years:

2005   Jun 6-10  37.92-35.81      -5.6%
2006   Aug 7-11   67.21-63.65    -5.3%
2007  Jun 11-15  120.19-120.50  +0.26%
2008  Jun 9-13  175.75-172.37   -1.9%
2009  Jun 8-12  143.85-136.97   -4.8%

Will Diablo III be a big disappointment?

Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo are no doubt the big three for Blizzard. However, the latter two now live in the shadow of WoW since it has become the indisputable profit engine for the game developer. Now, finally, the players are welcoming the sequels, SC II and Diablo III.

I like SC II though it's definitely not going to replace the old version. The animation is cool and I believe Blizzard is going to keep what has been proved to be the success recipes for old SC. However, I also believe there will be negative things, and the fun from old SC is not upgraded simply by a cooler animation.

But for Diablo III, what I get is disappointment. I haven't seen anything to be excited about. It has a different story line but that's not enough. Maybe I am a little bit too harsh and honestly, I don't have very concrete ideas about what should be added. But what I can say now is from the trailers, the game does not give me that feeling.

Anyway, it's good to try. SC and Diablo are classics, and that's not about to change.

My first port

Graham's 2003 Vintage Port. Too sweet for me. Stop me from feeling other layers of the wine. Not my style.

旧片重温

Le Comte de Monte Cristo 1998 starred by Gerard Depardieu.

悲惨世界连环画

张定华创作的插图，非常有表现力，他还创作过罗曼罗兰的约翰克里斯多夫的连环画。

http://comic.tom.com/vw/2101.html

2005 Sine Qua Non Atlantis Fe2O3 1b

My first SQN wine. Didn't decant it but I can sense its greatness upon opening. The wine has it all, and shows the delicate presentation of every layer in its complex flavor. I can feel sweet and silky tannin, as well as the typical pepper for a syrah wine. Also, there is some fruity hint which demonstrates the young and easy-going side of this wine. Really a master piece for the wine maker. I will give it 19/20 (leave some room for more surprise from SQN).

西门庆和弗洛伊德

最近，网上热炒的一条消息是山东安徽多地争当西门庆故里，开发金瓶梅经济。这里，先放下这背后的刻意炒作，眼球经济，以及西门庆本人的历史价值不谈，用唐太宗的话说，以人为鉴，可以知得失。

西门庆是本我，众生为自我，而中国传统则推崇超我，如此一来，便形成了一个两头不讨好的人格分裂，一方面被超我与自我的巨大差距所苦恼，一方面与本我和自我间备受煎熬。概而言之，超我再非理想，而成为了被人利用的工具。一个简简单单的西门庆，也成为了超我和本我两方角力的对象。

这种弗洛伊德式的社会人格分裂放之四海而皆准，只是中国社会尤为严重，西门庆早已灰飞烟灭，但众人心中的西门庆又在哪里？

We Rule

http://werule.ngmoco.com/

An interesting SN game developed by famous mobile game developer ngmoco:).

RPG+Movie?

http://www.ninokuni.jp/

Studio Ghibli, the famous Japanese animatior, is cooperating with Level 5, a Japanese game developer, to produce a RPG game with fantastic pictures. This is interesting. Hollywood has already  been quite into this movie+game mode.

I like Ghibli's past works. It would be great if they can move all their movies online to make a cloud-like virtual world.

I like this quote

In his review for the Hollywood Reporter, Frank Scheck wrote, "it may finally be time to let Shrek and Fiona live happily ever after."

Frankly, I have lost much of my confidence in Dreamworks. From the Shrek case, it gives out a mercenary image to the public.

How to train your dragon (HTYD) sequel

Not surprisingly, Dreamworks is going to roll out a sequel to the new "blockbuster". But whether it can be successful is highly suspicious.

First,  HTYD's success cannot contribute to the movie itself alone. There are many exogenous factors, such as release time, movie review, that all together result its success. The sequel may not be able to replicate those factors.

Second, Dreamworks is different from Disney. Disney movies are more traditional style, and the high quality is consistent. Dreamworks is more maverick, and unpredictable. It can produce witty Shrek I and II, while can also produce rubbish Shrek III and Monsters vs Aliens. There is no guarantee of the quality. Surely there can be upside surprise, but downside disappointment more likely.

HTYD is not as good as its box office seems to be. Its success may be totally accidental and not replicable. Given past experience, there is high probability Dreamworks will screw up its sequel again.

从生榴莲想到的

一不小心，从超市买了一个还没熟的榴莲，虽然果味清香，别有一番风味，可惜的是果肉还很木质化，不得已，包上报纸继续让榴莲"被熟透"。

晚上，伴随着弥漫的诡异的味道，思绪如榴莲般缥缈。

第一自然是为何我会买了一个未熟的榴莲，这是思维惯性，在超市买榴莲基本不用自己挑，买的都是开包的，而若是开包的则默认是已经熟的，所以当时只注意了果肉的颜色而未注意到软硬，脱壳与否等环节。由此想到的是经济学里面的general equilibrium理论，以及金融市场里面的有效市场假说，所有的理论都依赖于市场参与者的信息集，而这一点正是社会多样奇妙之处。从另一个方面说，则是黑天鹅理论，在一个小概率事件下面隐藏的是与次贷危机同类的机理，只是并不是每一个黑天鹅都可以像榴莲放熟，但几乎每一个黑天鹅又都蕴藏着机会，比如生榴莲，就带来了我对于榴莲的进一步认识。

生榴莲带来的第二个层面的思考主要是生物层面的，生榴莲到熟榴莲所产生的变化非常奇妙，而非简单的数学模型可以描述，所谓生生相息，而又生生相克，榴莲树，果肉，内壳，外壳构成了一个完整的生态系统。小而言之，这类技术完全可以用在生物农业，物流保鲜，包括生物医学领域，大而言之，在生态环境危机的今天，为何不从物理方法转向生物方法，找到解决之法。正如当年对于中医的去医存药，伴随着现在日新月异的生物技术，能否制造出更为精细的黑盒子？

Black swans are rare, but black-swan hunters are abundant

Just read an article on thestreet.com on AAPL.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10731991/2/why-apple-gets-a-sell-rating.html

I don't want to criticize the report itself, since two pages are definitely not enough. Many of the analyst's points can be found groundless, but I suppose that they will be much refined in a more complete report.

Of course, AAPL is on the run now, and given its fabulous performance in the past years, such a bearish call is dismissed and slammed. It's not like the Enron case, AAPL should be able to have solid sales support, and that's more transparent than Enron.

Mr. Bulkey is a black swan hunter. Of course, he only says AAPL is not as good as investors think it to be. The whole analysis is problematic, but a black swan is still possible. That's the interesting part of financial world. The reasoning is always decoupled from the result.

Citibank Hong Kong e-banking

I have accounts with four banks in HK: Citi, HSBC, Hangseng and BoC. Citi has the best customer service, but also gets the worst online banking system.

The whole system seems a disaster to me. The speed is slow, and the display of information is usually messy and not clear. It does not provide a convenient interface for investment services either. The security trading through Citi e-banking is very much like a torture. On this metric, BoC and Hangseng stand out as leaders.

Hope Citi would improve its system soon.

Reading time

Bloomberg mentioned five books on the crisis, among which I find some familiar names.
  I like his The Liar's Poker and Moneyball.
 The author of When Genius Failed.
 13, a very special number.
  This topic is toooooold. Let's see if this book can talk sth new.

 As an insider, Mr. Paulson must feel it's a responsibility to give a personal account of the story.

Will find some time to read these books and post the detailed reviews later. Stay tuned.

What a way to finish the ogre

Read an article from Bloomberg on the latest Shrek movie - Shrek: Forever After (probably the last one). Not surprisingly, the review is not good. I have watched the trailer. What disappointed me most is that now, not only the plot, also the picture quality become third-class. No doubt that the 3-D wave gives Shrek a final push.

Farewell, Shrek.