No discrimination in the United States

Nov 10, 2006

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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.


A new feature of Gmail?

Nov 9, 2006

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Sometimes you are viewing the conversation in Gmail while just a new mail is coming. Maybe you will find that the number of unread mails in the Inbox is updated. However, maybe it is my carelessness, I haven’t noticed the image below before. Is is a new feature of Gmail? It is easy to implement but very convenient to the user.

It appears on the right-bottom side of my Gmail windows. (I am using MacOS + Firefox)


How to use remote desktop access on RH

Nov 7, 2006

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I have a server in the lab equipped with RH Linux and 4 Intel Xeon 3.0G CPUs, I would like to make full use of the computational resources. So usually I will employ the server to compile kernel for me, or just submit a large-scale tasks to it. However, every time I must use SSH to get the job done. Now as we have a MATLAB on the server and it is terrible to use MATLAB without any UI. (Maybe you can do that, but I will get mad.) So I decided to use remote desktop access to the server.

It is quite easy, I just follow the [I have a server in the lab equipped with RH Linux and 4 Intel Xeon 3.0G CPUs, I would like to make full use of the computational resources. So usually I will employ the server to compile kernel for me, or just submit a large-scale tasks to it. However, every time I must use SSH to get the job done. Now as we have a MATLAB on the server and it is terrible to use MATLAB without any UI. (Maybe you can do that, but I will get mad.) So I decided to use remote desktop access to the server.

It is quite easy, I just follow the](http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/desktop-guide/ch-ddg-remote-desktop.html) stated on the RH website. However, this is a little

bit confusing as it said that

These tools only allow you to connect to a user’s existing session. If the user is not logged in, the connection will fail.. </p> But how can you login without touch the machine. (The machine is locked in a black room and always buzzing.) In fact you can try to ssh and start a session manually like:

vncserver -depth 16 -geometry 1024×768

to start a new vncserver, then RH will automatically configure the others for you and return you a desktop address like XXX.cse.wustl.edu:2

Thus you can use vncviewer on the client side, like

vncviewer XX.cse.wustl.edu:2 &

BTW, in Ubuntu, you can use this command to apt-get the vncviewer

sudo apt-get install xvncviewer

I will try to install VNCViewer on Mac too :)

On Mac, you can simply download VNCViewer from here. Now the only problem is: How secure the communication is? Hey, I want to use a SSH-like tunnel. Of course Linux/UNIX can do that. Just bind your local port to the remote port using the commands like:

ssh -L 1116:XXX.cse.wustl.edu:5902 youxu@XXX.cse.wustl.edu

This command will bind your local port 1116 to the remote port 5902, which is the the port for your VNCserver. (Just add 5900 to the two digital number that VNCSever reported to you during booting/starting).

Congratulations, now you have a secure X client. Come on and make the full use of your server:)


If you are reading this today from US

Nov 7, 2006

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En, I am sorry, it seems that you are probably not going to vote:)

It is election day, why not go and vote :)

I am not the citizen of the United States, so I just stay at home and write this post.

恩,假如你身在美国并且是今天读到这个帖子,看上去你今天没去为选举投票。

今天是美国中期选举日,主要选出各级议员,为明年/后年的总统选举做准备

哈哈,俺们不是美国公民,幸灾乐祸在家看美国人忙着选举,我就写Blog提醒他们去选举吧。


理还乱,剪之断

Nov 5, 2006

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众所周知,感情问题是困扰我们年轻人的一大重要问题。少年怀春,古今中外无甚不同。至于个别为情所困留下一段佳话的鱼馆事件也历历在目。以我生活了22年的经验,这个事情如果处理不好那是“相当”的麻烦。简单的用switch-case语句来说无非有这样几种可能:

(A)way. 从此成路人

(B)reak. 从此反目

(C)arry the torch. 从此一方单相思, 或者自杀或者为另一人终生不婚, 或者造成严重刑事犯罪被法律制裁 或者放纵生活从此堕落

(D)efault. 继续暧昧并转A, B, 或C

以上几条都有正反两方面的教材。“侯门一入深似海,从此萧郎是路人”,”莫道不消魂,帘卷西风,人比黄花瘦” “人生自是有情痴,此恨不关风与月” “小舟从此逝,江海寄余生” “曾经沧海难为水, 除却巫山不是云” “今宵酒醒何处,杨柳岸,晓风残月” 这些诗词都把该说的说了,我就不废话描述失恋一族的感情了。这次好不容易也让我经历了一次失恋。这个东西无论大小,古往今来的人大部分人都会经历一次。在我饱受摧残的时候,我把人间词话又读了一遍,宋词的婉约风格是疗伤良药和有病呻吟的良好教材。 读词的同时我就忍不住小考证了一下这些词人和他们所爱的人之间的一些感情最后怎样,就我对古往今来所有在恋爱中失败的诗人词人的个人感情考证来看,我发现凡是诗中写了的人最后都没成,要不就是亡妻亡夫的,要不就是偶遇歌妓一夜情,歌颂自家老婆的鲜有名篇。于是我先大胆假设任何爱情故事能不能成的先验概率是一样的,于是可知忘不掉一段感情并不能使感情本身变的伟大或者接近实际,相反会让感情成功的概率显著下降(这个推理本身逻辑很不严谨,我只是说我的谬论)基于以上观点,我得出这样一个结论:“想要使感情保持其本来面目,最好的办法就是理不断时一刀两段”

人是感情的动物,所谓 “不思量,自难忘.” 有时候就算不想都很难忘掉,何况再去想呢? 而且感情不是加加减减,不是最后算出一个净收支平衡以后就能快快乐乐。不是积分为零回忆就为零,往往在此中计算的是绝对值,是平方后的积分。所以与其老是挂在心上,还不如干脆狠点,既不要抽刀断水举杯消愁,也别老是风花雪月活在回忆中,就用刀硬生生把不属于自己的那块狠很割掉就是。虽然副作用是把以前的好也全扔了,对方也会从此误会你;可是当你发现以前的那种伤疤放在那儿永远也不可能恢复的时候,不如外科手术全部切除。

这样做显得绝情,这样不管好草杂草一律刈除。或许之前有过很多的美好回忆,也一下子被刈除了,很伤害对方。可是我都懒得解释这种误会了,或许懒,就是忘的前兆了。

最后,在此祝天下有情人终成眷属
祝世上无缘人各赴前程

洒家此言,不是诅咒,是真心的祝福;但愿有人有同感。