‘Karma’ is an Eastern religious concept in contradistinction to ‘faith’ espoused by Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), which view all human dramas as the will of God as opposed to present – and past – life actions. In theistic schools of Hinduism, humans have free will to choose good or evil and suffer the consequences, which require the will of God to implement karma’s consequences, unlike Buddhism or Jainism which do not accord any role to a supreme God or gods. In Eastern beliefs, the karmic effects of all deeds are viewed as actively shaping past, present, and future experiences.

One good example of this is how we interpret things we can’t understand.  “It’s a miracle!” After thinking about it, a western religious person would say “it came from god,” while an eastern religious person would think that it has some connection to their past or future.  In some ways, those two reactions aren’t very different.  However, when you start to want to influence or take control of things, in one you’d focus  back to god and in the other you’d focus on the present moment.  I think this is where the difference becomes significant.

Photo From: BAC*Photography

The lemon juice – garlic base is named Marvini and is pretty good.  Our favorite uses Parmesan cheese instead and it’s called Jamie Oliver’s Summertime Pasta.  This one uses shrimp and no cheese.

We’ve adapted a couple things from Jamie’s version.  First, we’ve substituted the pine nuts with bacon (3 slices).  Second, we’ve substituted the parsley with basil.  The herb doesn’t actually matter, both of which you don’t taste at all.   Hope you enjoy the pictures of our finished product

I have participated in two events where I’ve gotten to hear the President of Taiwan speak, in 8 months of living here.  It’s cool to be somewhere you can run into famous people from time to time.  BTW, yes that is another Wisconsonite pimping the Leinenkugels shirt

My first Chinese teacher in Taiwan gave me my last name, I got my first name from a nice Chinese lady in Porland (Thank you Carol !!).  I met her at the Portland Chinese Language and Culture Group, a free group that meets and practices chinese while having tea at the Chinese Garden in downtown Portland.

史	My last name: Shi (3) This character means history.  It is also a used as a family name.
哲	Zhe (2) This character means philosophy / wise.
瑞	Rui (4) This means lucky / auspicious.
哲瑞	These two together, Zhe + Rui sounds like “Jerry” which is about as close as you can come to Jered.

]]> http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/my-chinese-name/feed/ 1 http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/a-real-easy-button-photo-editing/ http://www.sleeplessintaipei.com/a-real-easy-button-photo-editing/#comments Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:15:50 +0000 admin http://sleeplessintaipei.com/?p=17 I recently downloaded Picasa 3 after reading this article, and as someone who already loves Picasa, this new version is great.  You can also download the new Picasa here (it’s free).

My friend Toto Vo is visiting me in Taiwan right now.  Toto is a semi-professional photographer and has 2 nice cameras at his disposal.  We took some great pictures this week in Taroko Gorge, and when we got back Toto was showing me how to tweak them so they look great.

While checking out the new photos Toto showed me the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button Picasa has for optimizing photos (which is on older versions of Picasa too).  Here are a couple of examples of how well it works, and 1 example where it doesn’t work so well.  BTW, you can also have Picasa apply this to an entire folder of pictures at one time, so you don’t have to do it over and over (see how).

Landscape Photo:

Close up with bright colors:

Flourescent Lighting / Yellow Tint:

All in all this is a great tool, and it was actually hard for me to find a case where it was bad for the shot.  Here’s one that looks worse though:

Night Time w/ Flash:

I know that a professional person could improve photos like this pretty quickly (and perhaps even make
them better), but I love that anyone can do this and it doesn’t take
any knowledge of digital images, etc.  I also like the Picasa makes it really easy to post your pictures online.

I heard about Chris Brogan through an article called “10 Thought Leaders Boiled down to 10 Words“.  Using some free IBM software (called Many Eyes), you can load all the text from your blog (or website or anything) and it’ll give you the most common words you use.  The article summarizes them by showing the 10 most common words found in their blogs.  Cool stuff, and some dynamic people.

A couple of articles from Chris’ website that have really been helpful for me in understanding what a blog is are Elements of a Personal Brand and When your blog is a Grand Stage.  I really like both of them because they are miles away from the “travel blog / journal” concept and get at what the blogging community is.

Other than a blog, and a facebook account, my main contribution to the internet is my del.icio.us account.  For those of you who don’t know what that is, you can read this post or check it out directly.  Comparing the words on my blog with those on all the websites I’ve ever saved, the 5 most common words on my blog are:

1. Taiwan
2. People
3. World
4. Called
5. Things

The 5 most common words I use when I save a website on delicious are:

1. Tea
2. Taiwan
3. Portland
4. Blog
5. Free

What to notice from that?  First off, they don’t match that well.  I my favorite website topic (tea) isn’t equally represented on my blog.  I can also see about my writing style with Called and Things on my blog.  I don’t know what else to say about the significance of it, but I think the question is: How Am I Represented Online?

Having been in Taipei, Taiwan less than three months, I can’t say that it’s easy get anywhere or talk to anyone; I still have trouble getting off
the beaten path and talking with people in mandarin.  Did I mention that the farther you get out of the city the more they speak another language, Taiwanese?  I’m not even going to worry about that right now..  However, each
week has gotten easier and more enjoyable since we arrived, and Taipei is a great city to be in.

So, this cheesy picture was taken on top of the Taipei 101, formally the worlds tallest building.  Nono and I went there on our 1 year anniversary a few weeks ago and had a nice Italian dinner in the neighborhood.  The Taipei 101 is in East Taipei (Xinyi District) and you are looking across Taipei to the NW. Xinyi for example has the tallest building in Asia (the Taipei 101), the largest bookstore in Asia, and is the most stylin part of town to live in.  It’s no Tokyo, but there’s a ton to do none the less.

So that’s my intro to my five favorite things about Taiwan.  Stay tuned…

It's so easy as a businessman to get caught up thinking
about the world as being about Google or making cheaper widgets in
China to be sold at Walmart.  There is so much more going on in the
world than what you read about in the NY Times.

Time: 32:00 (First 10:00 is everything; rest is Q & A)
Subject: Software that creates life using DNA; which consumes waste and creates usable energy

“Jered Stoehr will be taking a Leave of Absence from his position as Product Development Manager at Screaming Circuits, effective April 11, 2008.  Jered will reside in Taiwan, where he will begin studies in pursuit of an MBA degree in International Business.  Concurrently he will have the title of Asian Region Business Development Manager for MEC, and on a part time basis assist MEC in fostering business and supplier relationships in the Asian area.  Duane Benson will assume Jered’s current responsibilities on an interm basis as we assess the needs of the Screaming Circuits marketing department.”

I’m excited about Taiwan for a lot of reasons; Chinese culture, government, electronics industry, people, food.   I have heard many good things about Taiwan and the people who live there.  Nono and I will be moving there together and we are both very excited for the opportunity.

“…the
two general classes of learners—helpless versus mastery-oriented. I
realized that these different types of students not only explain their
failures differently, but they also hold different “theories” of
intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed
trait: you have only a certain amount, and that’s that. I call this a
“fixed mind-set.” Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they
attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to
change.”

“mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think
intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and
hard work. They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe
that you can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that.”

Good food for thought as you consider how you fit into the world.  Image from this Sam Savage article