1. 买了几张贺卡，感恩节前寄给在美国的各位我知道地址的同学，还有国内的父母。感谢同学的帮助和父母的养育。国内其他朋友和老师有些地址不详的我会在接下来的一个月中问清楚，新年的时候补上我的问候。

2. 上MITBBS, 看到一则呼吁帮助国内失学儿童的帖子, 虽然自己也没什么钱，$50也有，对于我就是少了一次外出吃饭，对一个孩子，可能是莫大的帮助. 希望自己微薄的一点努力，能够改变某个孩子这一年的境况。如果每年都这样，我希望能用一点力量改变一个孩子的一生，而不是只是在百合上被丛飞和蹬三轮车的老人的精神所打动。

懂得感谢别人，帮助别人的人生很舒服，活的很高兴。

These days I am trying to collect the contact information of my classmates in north america, I’ve almost finished the work. Yesterday I just came across the “world.dem” file in the demo of GNUplot, an idea suddenly struck me: why not plot the position of all the classmates by simply changing the data file. Em, it sounds good.

It is not hard to find the corresponding longitude and latitude of some universities with powerful Google Maps. En, this is the byproduct and I am now quite proud of it. Maybe I can collect the contact information of all the classmates and title the graph as “O2 Math-er, all around the world” :)

OK, I will do this later, do not worry about that.

To my classmates: I will mail you the contact list soon. :)

[Background: GFW is the firewall build by Chinese government, which can block wikipedia, gmail, googlepages and a lot of useful websites when you want to surf on the Internet in China]

GFW is funny now. You can not access gmail, but you can access wiki.

But, GFW can not block HTTPS, so you can try this link to access gmail:

[[Background: GFW is the firewall build by Chinese government, which can block wikipedia, gmail, googlepages and a lot of useful websites when you want to surf on the Internet in China]

GFW is funny now. You can not access gmail, but you can access wiki.

But, GFW can not block HTTPS, so you can try this link to access gmail:

](https://mail.google.com/mail/)

Again, try this to access wikipedia.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/zh/wiki

GFW is funny. Come on, GFW, can you tell me a list of websites besides playboy that you usually block? You know, you are just like a kid, you even can not tell what kind of candy you want and what kind of toy you DO NOT like. You just find a toy, play it, and block it or allow it. But no one knows exactly what kind of website you like.

Oh, come on, who can tell me the G-point of GFW?

［说句少儿不宜的话：“谁都摸不到GFW的G点”。这句话不是我首创，是借用连岳先生一篇“谁都摸不到GDP的G点”, 得了，咱们英明的党做事，什么时候让咱小民摸到过G点的。要爽的同志在家自己带Tor 自己爽，f**k GFW的时候千万不要试图找G点。这个和这个都是教训呀］

Seems Sun Microsystems has finally relented under pressure to open source its Java programming language and associated software.

Today, the company will be releasing the first Java code under version 2 of the General Public License (GPLv2), which governs Linux and other open source products.

According to Sun, this move will promote Java and make it easier to bundle with Linux.

The Sun-hosted Java.net Web site will offer access to Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) software for mobile phones and Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) software for desktop applications.

Commenting on the development, Rich Green, Executive Vice President of Software, Sun, said, this is a milestone for the whole industry, and that not only are they making an influential and widely-used software platform for the Web available under open source, but that they are paving the way for a paradigm shift in how software is enhanced and developed.

While additions to software available under GPL have to also use the license, Sun is making an exception in the case of Java Standard Edition (Java SE). Meaning, programmers creating applications using Java SE will not be required to use the GPL license, and can instead opt for any other license for their applications.

Also, Sun will continue to offer commercial licenses that give other software vendors legal indemnification and official standards certification.

All in all, Sun’s move comes as a pleasant surprise, considering the company has continually resisted calls to open source Java, citing fears that such an action would cause incompatibilities among “forked” versions of the code.

[Added by me:] After SUN opened the Solaris x86 edition, now SUN make the JAVA, another weapon on its left hand open. It’s the winning of the Open Source Movement, and of course we can anticipate a more stable GCJ in the next year. Now everyone can redistribute Java with Linux and other GPLed code. We can anticipate that Python+Java will be the two most popular programming languages in the future based on the *nix platform including MacOS. I can also image that Jython and other combinations of Java+Python will flourish again. Java can never be so powerful as it is now.

I was just reading the IEEE Spectrum and it was the first time that I paied attention to the recruiting advertisements of the companies in the United States. Here are some texts cited from it.

Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate and Carnegie Mellon University is required not to discriminate in admission, employment or administration of its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex or handicap.

Smiths Aerospace is an Equal Opportunity Employer promoting diversity in the workplace. We invite and encourage response from women, persons of color, veterans and disabled.

NSA is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants for employment are considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or status a a parent.

MIT Lincoln Lab.

As an equal Opportunity employer we are committed to realizing our vision of diversity and inclusion in every aspect of our enterprise.

Lockheedmatin, SAIC:

An Equal Opportunity Employer.


I had some experiences in finding a job in China, even when you want to enter the top companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, as well as P&G, Goldman Sachs, GE, or you just want to be admitted by top universities like Peking University, usually you can feel some kinds of discrimination:</p>

</span>1. You need fill a form about your national region(In China we usually call that “Hukou“) when you apply a position in IBM, P&G, etc(I can not find the page because you can’t access it before entering the online apply system). Usually when you want to be a clack of local government agency, it requires a local Hukou(the current-year collage students can also be admitted, but it is indeed a lie, quite few student can get the opportunity. Additionally, it is only a superficial policy to solve the unemployment of college students in China), which can not make sense! Why a person born in the West can not serve as a clack in the government of East? It is a whole country, not a United Provinces. The discrimination upon national region is especially obvious in China. People live in the big cities look down upon people live in small cities; but people live in small cities look down upon peasants. Shanghanees usually look down upon people from other provinces except Beijing; all the people around China look down upon people from Henan Province. What’s wrong with China?

2. A lot of companies do not want to hire unmarried female employee, as they usually will get married and probably would quit from current job. HR will ask every question about your personal affair including the question like “If your husband want you to quit from job, what will you do? or Do you have a boy/girlfriend in a different city?”(cited from here). If P&G ask me the same question in the United States, I will argue for the discrimination and refuse to answer such silly questions? It is totally personal affair and you have no right to know this. (Well, I shall not apply P&G after graduate study.) The question is: they ask the question in China!

3. The person with disability even can not enter the university. We have the example in China.

4. You must speak fluent English, even you can speak Chinese well and you will never speak English during the whole career, a high level of English ability is required and there is a discrimination upon the English ability. (Every Chinese know this. Even you study traditional Chinese culture or Arts, you need to learn English. What’s wrong with our country?)

5. You must be in a Top 5 university, otherwise Peking University, GS, Google and Microsoft probably would not admit you despite of your distinguished ability. They usually do not give the opportunity to the other universities except top 5. Let’s take Peking University for example, when I was taking the graduate entrance interview in PKU, a guy from another university (maybe from Geoscience University) also got the opportunity to have the interview, but the committee said that you were not from the top 5 university and your undergraduate major was Geoscience, why you came here to study Computer Science and Bioinfomatics?. Well, even though I came from a top 5 university, they asked me about the occupation of my parents, my family financial status.(You know, we have full scholarship, the family financial status is not a factor in admission.), and why did you come to PKU to study CS and Bioinfo as your undergraduate major was Math. OMG, why can’t? Well, I must admit that Peking University is the best university that emphasis the diversity of students among all the universities around China. Usually the worse the university is, the more emphsis putted on the rank of your original university or the silly GPA despite of your ability. GS, Google, Microsoft and IBM even do not post any campus recruiting advertisements in the universities other than top 5. Why? I know that they want to recruit excellent person, but a top 5 ranking equals to excellent ability and vice versa? Well, do not say that I am a cynicism. I finally got the offer from Microsoft, passed the final round of Google and got the admission of Peking University. I just want to show my opinion on the discrimination.

6. If you do not have a straight sexual orientation in China, well, it’s too dangerous. Tomatoes , eggs and words can drown you to the hell, you’d better do you best to come to the United States. (And do not forget to mention the reason when you are applying your visa)

7. In China, a lot of people are infected by a strange virus called HBV. Usually HBV is not dangerous and will not affect others during daily activities like huging, shacking hands and having dinner together. However, a lot of companies like Huawai (its biz scope is about telecommunication, I refuse to link it) refuse to hire employees with HBV. Huawei is really suck. (You know, it just copy a lot from Cisco, we know that.)</p>

In one word, although we all know that discrimination is everywhere in the world including United States, to be honest, I must concede that </span>the discrimination in China is really quite quite serious.