Done with taxes

Our family has been using TurboTax to prepare taxes for years now, but I’d blanched at the thought of giving Intuit even more of my money for electronically filing my tax forms. This year I decided to give e-filing a shot. The verdict: dang, that was convenient. No printing out 50 pages of tax forms, making sure I signed in the right place, attaching W-2s, buying enough stamps, blah blah blah. Laziness has trumped cheapness this time, and will probably do so from now on.

Travelers gets its red umbrella back

Another chapter in the long story of corporate rebranding: a couple of weeks ago the Travelers insurance company regained its iconic red umbrella logo after its former parent Citigroup decided to stop using it and sell it back. How did Travelers loseWeight Exercise it in the first place? Here’s a nifty diagram I put together, starting with the 1998 merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group to form Citigroup:

Timeline of the Travelers logo

By the way, if you haven’t noticed before, you can see where Citi’s red arc logo comes from. The red arc with the “t” kinda looks like an umbrella…

Taiwan or China? answers

    1. China Airlines: Taiwan
    2. Air China
    1. China National Petroleum Corporation
    2. Chinese Petroleum Corporation: Taiwan (now called CPC Corporation, Taiwan)
    1. China Post
    2. Chunghwa Post (chunghwa means “Chinese”): Taiwan (now called Taiwan Post)
    1. China State Shipbuilding Corporation
    2. China Shipbuilding Corporation: Taiwan (now called CSBC Corporation, Taiwan)
    1. Central Bank of China: Taiwan (now called the Central Bank of the Republic of China)
    2. People’s Bank of China

Taiwan or China?

A few days ago, several state-run companies in Taiwan removed “China” from their names. The old names date back to when the Taiwanese government claimed to represent all of China. Mainland China wants that practice to continue, lest anyone think Taiwan is separate from China. The Taiwanese government claims it simply wants to reduce confusion, and it has a point.

I’ve listed the names of some companies and institutions (in some cases, the old name before “China” was dropped). Can you figure out which is based in Taiwan and which is based in mainland China?

    1. China Airlines
    2. Air China
    1. China National Petroleum Corporation
    2. Chinese Petroleum Corporation
    1. China Post
    2. Chunghwa Post (chunghwa means “Chinese”)
    1. China State Shipbuilding Corporation
    2. China Shipbuilding Corporation
    1. Central Bank of China
    2. People’s Bank of China

The first person to post the right answers gets the satisfaction of knowing that these facts are cluttering their brains (just like they’re cluttering mine)…

This blog has moved… one more time

This blog has already moved twice before, but I expect this move will be the last. I’m posting all new entries right here:

http://blog.jameslin.name

I bet you didn’t realize .name existed, eh? That’s right, I have my very own domain, registered with directNIC and hosted by Dreamhost. I’m still using WordPress software for my blog (which I highly recommend), but now I have full control over it.

I’ll eventually redesign my blog so that it fits with the rest of my personal web site. But that means I need to learn how to create WordPress themes, which isn’t a one-hour job. But otherwise, it’s good to go.

Cheap books

Recently I scored great deals on a few books. At Moe’s Books in Berkeley I bought:

And then at Compass Books (owned by Books Inc.) in San Francisco Airport, I bought:

Total amount:  $73.83 $22.98. Saved over $50. Sweeeeet.

Visiting Orlando

Mickey Mouse plush toyLast week I was in Orlando for a customer conference, Lotusphere. For 3½ days straight I manned a demo station in the Innovation Lab on one of my research projects, which was worthwhile but tiring. But there was a payoff: the conference party was at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Jeff and I spent Thursday afternoon at the Magic Kingdom. Here’s a tip: go to Disney World in January — no one’s there. It helps if it rained that morning. In less than 4 hours, Jeff and I were able to circle around the park and go on 6 rides, and then circle around again and go on 5 more. When it came to dollars per ride, we definitely got  our money’s worth.

Before the conference, I went to visit my old Connecticut neighbors, who I hadn’t seen since I moved to California almost 20 years ago, and drove through the town of Celebration, a new urbanist town planned by Disney. It looked very pleasant. Almost too pleasant…

My photos from the trip are in two sets: Lotusphere 2007 and Walt Disney World and Celebration.

China From the Inside

Last night, Jon, Jerry and I finished watching a four-part documentary on PBS, China From the Inside. The documentary was very well done, and I was surprised by how outspoken the critics of the government were. The overall conclusion: China from the inside is in bad shape. The four parts were about politics, women, the environment, and the law. You can guess that there isn’t much good news on any of these fronts. And it all boils down to one basic cause: the government isn’t accountable to the people.

Next up in our Friday nights of learning: The History of the Supreme Court.

Way too many editions of Office 2007

I thought five editions of Windows Vista was a bit much, but then I saw that there are eight editions of Office 2007. Take a look at the comparison matrix from Microsoft’s web site:

There are holes where you wouldn’t expect*, and there is no single edition that contains every Office program. Office Ultimate lacks one program — how is that “ultimate”? I understand the theory of market segmentation, but there’s also the reality of human confusion.

* In one way, it’s not quite as strange as it first appears — for example, Office Professional doesn’t come with Outlook, but it does come with Outlook with Business Contact Manager. But still…