I'm beat!

I'm extremely tired now. I know, in fact, I didn't work too hard today.

Mm, so what the heck did I do today?

Firstly, I bought my lunch at a nearby department store. It was very important for everybody as well as me, right?

Secondly, I printed out a document, proofread the document and discussed with a brilliant founding partner which part of it should be changed or what should be added to it. Then I went to meet a patent attorney and asked him to correct it in his office.

Lastly, I ate junk food and continued to draw up an One-Page proposal related to a patent. To be honest, I tried to make the proposal an One-Page. It was too hard to condense it into only one page. Finally, I made a compromise with condensing it into a Two-Page proposal.

Sorry, the One-Page Proposal!

I believe

I believe
sung by Soo-Young, Lee in 1999

Ode October 2004

The very Ode magazine's just arrived on my table. The main topic in it seemed to be "organic" I'm interested in. I glanced roughly at its contents including other themes "Nuclear Power", "Muslim" and the like. I'm dying to read it;however, there are some must-read books "Linked", "The Wisdom of the Crowds" and "Alchemist" in my backpack sorrowfully.

Have you ever heard about Chuseok?

There are just a few people on the streets in downtown Seoul. While I headed for my workplace, I saw some people that look like foreigners, rather than Korean especially in COEX MALL and as well as McDonald's inside. So I felt as if I were in Burnaby's Metrotown Mall on Thanksgivings Day. You know Koreans are likely to cater for Chuseok Festival each their own place with their family members or drive for their hometown on a long journey. Even though today is a big holiday, I worked in order to create a business plan to apply for a BM patent. Thus, am I allowed to look forward to harvesting great fruits in my industry, Jesus?

Hm, tomorrow it could be a good idea to visit Insadong or Korean palaces after Charye.

Chuseok, which falls on August 15 of the lunar calendar, is perhaps the biggest national holiday in Korea. This year Chuseok will fall on the 28th of September. Chuseok is also called Jungchujeol. This literally means "midautumn" day. Chuseok is a period where separated family members gather to discuss their lives while enjoying the newly harvested grains and fruits. The most important activity done at Chuseok is to give thanks to ancestors and also to give thanks to Mother nature for providing a bountiful harvest. After changing into the hanbok, the family busily prepares dishes with the newly harvested grain. Then this is offered to the ancestors as a way of saying thank you. This rite is called Charye. When offering Charye, you will always find certain kinds of food such as: Kimchi, meat, walnuts, persimmons, dates, pears, apples. And chuseok wouldn't be completed without Songpeyon. After the Charye, all the family members gather to go to the graves of their ancestors. They go there to pay their respects and afterwards they clear up the surrounding area by pulling weeds.

The Wisdom of the Crowds

Lately I'm reading a book "The Wisdom of the Crowds" written by James Surowiecki on a subway train during my commuting. Although there are only 30 pages of it I read, I think it seems to be awesome. The main reason I'm reading it is that it could be terribly helpful for my business activities.

I forgot telling about what it is about. Hm, its title will be sufficiently able to explain that.

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations

I'm just gonna introduce it to you guys right below.

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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly

While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." To support this almost counterintuitive proposition, Surowiecki explores problems involving cognition (we're all trying to identify a correct answer), coordination (we need to synchronize our individual activities with others) and cooperation (we have to act together despite our self-interest). His rubric, then, covers a range of problems, including driving in traffic, competing on TV game shows, maximizing stock market performance, voting for political candidates, navigating busy sidewalks, tracking SARS and designing Internet search engines like Google. If four basic conditions are met, a crowd's "collective intelligence" will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, Surowiecki says, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally. "Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions. The diversity brings in different information; independence keeps people from being swayed by a single opinion leader; people's errors balance each other out; and including all opinions guarantees that the results are "smarter" than if a single expert had been in charge. Surowiecki's style is pleasantly informal, a tactical disguise for what might otherwise be rather dense material. He offers a great introduction to applied behavioral economics and game theory.

[from Amazon.com]