Best Tiramisu EVER!

If you have some time at hand, go ahead and make this, I promise you that it is honestly the best ever! However, it truly does take a lot of time, energy and money, but it is really really really worth it. I have probably made a total of four for different occasions.

Here it is….

The California Pizza Kitchen recipe is a lot of work, but definitely worth it. According to the contributor (unknown), the recipe is a bit confusing because some parts of the recipe refer to other parts. Make sure you keep things straight and double check what you are adding. Serves 6, preparation time is about 35 minutes, waiting time is about an hour, and cooling time is about 12 hours.

A speech to change your life

If only I was given this speech when I was in still school, I wonder how different life would have been.

Palo Alto High School Baccalaureate Speech 6/11/95
“Hindsights”
by Guy Kawasaki

Speaking to you today marks a milestone in my life. I am 40 years old. 22
years ago, when I was in your seat, I never, ever thought I would be 40
years old.
The implications of being your speaker frightens me. For one thing, when
a 40 year old geezer spoke at my baccalaureate ceremony, he was about the
last person I’d believe. I have no intention of giving you the boring
speech that you are dreading. This speech will be short, sweet, and not
boring.
I am going to talk about hindsights today. Hindsights that I’ve accumulated
in the 20 years from where you are to where I am. Don’t blindly believe me.
Don’t take what I say as “truth.” Just listen. Perhaps my experience can
help you out a tiny bit.
I will present them ala David Letterman. Yes, 40-year old people can still
stay up past 11.

Should I take the MBA pill? (Long post)

As promised, here is the summary of the “Should I go to Business School Panel Discussion?”
*Due to the nature of the event, please excuse me for not naming names and official titles*
Panelists:

• 1 Harvard Business School – Director Level
• 2 Stanford Business School – Director Level
• 1 Kellogg Business School – Director Level
• 1 Undergraduate Degree – Upper Management Level

The post turned out to be way too long.

I don’t care, I am getting my Mac etched!

Look at how cool and sexy they are!

Now if only I can come up with $200 dollar from somewhere. Maybe I should etch a big “Google” right across it and hope they are willing to reimburse me for it or maybe “Yahoo!” as long as someone pays the bill.

Cheers!
-aL

Should I get a MBA?

I just had a great opportunity to sit through a panel consists of highly successful people giving their 2 cents on whether one should get an MBA. It is truly insightful and I will try to write it up in a day or two.

Cheers,
-aL

PS. Just curious, do you have or don’t have a MBA? If you do, how has it helped? If you don’t, why not and do you think of getting one?

If I control the internet…

“If I control the internet, you can auction your broken heart on eBay….”

Rives is brilliant, simply brilliant. And if I do control the internet, I would do everything exactly like he said…

Cheers,
-aL

Let’s go Club Noah Isabelle!

I want to go Club Noah Isabelle. It is an amazing resort island that belongs to the Palawan Province of Philippines.

Isn’t that nice?! Well it is still $210 a night, not exactly the the cheapest of a resort.

There goes one more place to add to my already endless list of places I wanted to visit.

• 7 wonders of the ancient world
• 10 wonders of the modern world
• Dubai
• Paris
• New York
• China
• Endless….

There is one more place I really wanted to go, which I have no idea what the name is. It is an island that is inside and surrounded by a mountain like outer island, off the coast of Thailand. To get into the inside island, you would have to travel to it through a cave of the outter island, which shows itself only during the low tides. It is said that the inside island is made of white powdered sand with an amazingly beautiful resort that sits in the middle of it and nothing in the world comes close to what you see and feel inside.
Cheers!
-aL

Do you Google Hack?

Back in college I wrote a paper on Google Hacking. Until now, I still find it a very fascinating and interesting topic to discuss about. Below is the introduction of the paper.

The introduction of Google (Google) has revolutionized the way people use and interact with the Internet. First time in human history has a system become such efficient in retrieving complicated and difficult to locate information with such high relevancy that it has become the de facto search engine people use to seek any sort of information. We can be rather certain in saying that Google has definitely brought a positive contribution to the society.

However, with great power comes great drawback. The powerful searching ability that made Google what it is today is also exactly the one that made Google an extremely popular and powerful tool to search for sensitive information in the hands of a malicious Internet user. These information, such as credit card numbers, personal information, server vulnerabilities, network exploits, usernames and passwords, that is on the World Wide Web which used to be hard to access, confidential, and discreet, suddenly through Google, became just one click away. Furthermore, with the use of automated tools, it makes parsing through the immense returned information and to gather specific results easier than ever. On top of that, malicious programs have been written, which uses Google to locate vulnerable hosts. These mentioned methods of using Google to uncover sensitive information is commonly known as ‘Google Hacking.’

To test the validity of Google hacking, I ran a few rounds of Google hacking to observe the returned results. Within a few minutes of basic Google hacking, I was able to locate about 60,400 returned results of individual’s Curriculum Vitae, most containing very detailed personal information. I was also able to locate about 17,500 returned results of server password. Last but not least, I was also able to identify about 23,400 returned results of a certain popular free forum that has exploits that is well known to allow manipulation of arbitrary server files. I also tried to locate social security numbers, credit cards, and such sensitive information, but am not successful due to my limited Google hacking skills at the time of this experiment.

I have been able to locate many resources regarding this topic, for the largest Google hacking repository being run by Johnny Long, a well known authority in Google hacking and the author of the book “Google Hacking: For Penetrating Testers.” Most of these resources out there are aimed at teaching the basic of Google hacking, in hope to educate administrators and the general publics the possibility of Google hacking, so that we can better protect ourselves. It has gained a lot of momentum throughout the years, and security experts have already started to act with it. Security groups such as Seattle’s Agora has also set up conference competitions in the past to educate and inform Seattle’s security experts this vulnerability and the possible harm it could cause.
So what exactly is Google hacking and how is it done? Is it just hype with no real effect or does it live up to its name and proved to be dangerous? In this paper, I will explore and teach the different aspects of Google hacking, and hopefully come to a conclusion to better educate and protect us from the Google’s crawlers.

——————– To be continued ———————

Cheers!
-aL

The Great Happiness Space

The Great Happiness Space, winner of the Best Documentary Award from Edinburgh International Film Festival 06, is one amazingly interesting documentary on the life that revolves around a few Japanese hosts from a well-known host club, where they entertain women, Cafe Rakkyo. I really did enjoyed watching it. Although I am already familiar with the male host club culture, since I had a friend back in high school days that looked like one, aspired to become one , and also lived a life very close to one, where he entertains girls all day (or you can call him a player), it is still hard to imagine how the life of a host truly is. This documentary is indeed very eye opening.

My friends have been asking me about my opinion on how I felt about the people involved in this documentary, mainly the customers and the hosts. To be honest, I have a hard time coming up with an answer for that. I think the director sums my conclusion of the movie up nicely:

“I felt no need to be judgmental. People exposed so much of their lives and emotions for the film that I had only respect for their candor The extent to which there are parallels between female prostitution and male host culture is left up to viewer, but everyone in the film is paying a price one way or another. I think that people come away from viewing The Great Happiness Space feeling that a window has been opened through which one can see culture evolving and a little of ourselves in the people of host club Rakkyo.”

Jake Clennel
Osaka, Japan 200

If you have the chance, I do recommend going to the theater and watch it to support the director, there is a lot to be seen and learned. However, if locating a theater that plays documentaries like this is a problem, I know it can be hard, here is the BT link, though it seems like it would take a while, since there are not many seeders nor leechers .

Here is the trailer in quicktime format for the viewing pleasure.

BTW, I do have one comment about the hosts: the mid-level hosts make about $10-20,000 USD a month, while the top hosts make upward of 40-50,000 USD a month! That is a good $100,000 USD to $600,000 USD depending on their skills, which is equivalent if not better than lots of top managements in the corporate world. Now that is something I am truly amazed and still find it hard to swallow.

Cheers!
-aL

Another BBQ feat

First I BBQ for 2 people. Then I BBQ for 10 people. Next I BBQ for 20 people. Finally, yesterday I pushed that limit and BBQ for 60 people. It was awesome. So my company decided to have a team off site for all of us beloved coworkers who have been working hard this quarter. We rented out a large area right next to a lake, did some team bonding games, gave some prizes away, and had some major BBQ action on a 4″ by 2.5″ grill. It was the first time I ever had to light six bags of 2.5lb charcoals on fire and cook (or burn) 60 people worth of food, it was surely a scene to remember. At the end of the day, we were left with so much food that they made me bring home two full trays of beef patties and fruits. Life sure is good, thoughI did have a minor headache at night from trying to smoke myself to perfection with that huge grill going on.

I of course also did discuss with a few coworkers the possibilities of quiting our daytime job and go start a BBQ outsource for IT companies full time =) Well, if not, at least now I can put pro-BBQ chief on my resume as part of what I did in the company.

However, I have to say that the BBQ culture in the States is very different from what I experience back in Asia. The majority of the BBQ I have had here are usually filled with burger patties, hot-dogs, and kabobs, at the fainest, probably some ribs and prawns. Back in Asia, a BBQ meal is equivalent to a full course of exotic cuisine, we have “stuffs” ranging from sliced meats, Chinese style sausage, chicken wings, chicken ass, chicken organs, cow tongue, oysters, clams, tempura fishcakes, other random vegetables all the way to the old favorite stinky tofu. Pretty much there is nothing off limit on a grill as long as someone eats it. To be totally honest, I still do prefer the old classic Asian style BBQ so much more. Asian style BBQ for 60 people? NOW that would REALLY be a scene.

Cheers,
-aL