Why I Watched 24 and Heist Movies and Think SEAL Team 6 Is the Shit

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I started watching the television show 24 in March. I continued watching despite lackluster dialogue and absurd plotlines for the same reason I enjoy heist movies and welcomed the news of bin Laden’s death: I love a well-executed plan.

If you haven’t seen 24, don’t bother watching past the first season, which is relatively the most believable. The show ups the ante every season at the cost of reality until Bauer is thwarting not one but three to four terrorist plots/corporate conspiracies/government coverups that include presidentiaal assassination attempts; nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass desctruction; and cyber attacks. And, yes, he does this all within 24 hours. Sometimes after just having been released from a Chinese prison where he’s been tortured for nearly two years. All on no coffee.


One of the Saddest Movie Scenes I’ve Ever Seen

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I recently watched the movie Chinese movie The Road Home directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Zhang Ziyi. It’s a movie about two lovers set in the countryside of 1960s China whose courtship is interrupted by greater political events shaking the country. If you want to watch a happy, care-free summer movie, don’t pick The Road Home. It’s quite melancholy. While watching, I wrote down the absolute saddest scene of the film.


It’s Been a Great Week for Infidelity

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This has been a hallmark time for tawdry exposes of cheaters, mistresses, love children, and alleged sexual aggressors. If you have any skeletons in your closet or lewd photos in your Twitter account and are a public figure, now’s the perfect time to bring them out. There such a media firestorm going on about the current scandals that hopefully yours will fly under the radar.

Here’s a recap of the biggest infidelity stories over the last two years:



Internet Security, Lessons Learned From Sony

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What’s happened to Sony has been extremely costly. Millions of users’ account information including credit card numbers stolen and the Playstation network crippled. Millions in revenue lost not to mention a crisis of customer trust. It’s still not clear who’s the culprit. Sony has indirectly accused the hacktivist group Anonymous who deny responsibility.

This incident shows that in an age where more and more products and services are dependent on technology, companies, individuals, and governments need to be ever more vigilant against malicious crackers/black-hat hackers. This means constantly testing vulnerabilities against exploits and making sure to practice best security practices. One doesn’t even need to know the difference between Java and Python to be able to crack or attack websites. There are free, open-source software available on websites, hacker forums, and torrents for script kiddies (pejorative term used by real hackers to denote noobs) to cause mayhem and destruction.


Centennial Park Journals

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I described my hometown’s local parks in a previous post. In that post I mentioned a communal journal in the back of the park in which visitors would write down their thoughts as they admired the view and stillness. These anonymous entries are touching and sometimes painfully honest.


Funny Fortune Cookies

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So what do I do when the moment comes?
I don’t have any clean party clothes

This Is How Fast I Can Ride My Bike

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Okay, so not enough people have seen this awesome video I made of myself biking around Manhattan with a camera on my head. It was filmed with a GoPro camera and then sped up eight times.


I Am Internet’s Number One “David Xia”

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seconds since I’ve been #1

That’s right. I’ve known (and relished) for a long time the fact that I dominate Google’s top search results for “David Xia.” But being a winner always feels better when the losers concede defeat. Here’s a blog post by another David Xia who laments, “I’m no longer number one.”