Credit Cards without Foreign Transaction Fee

Schwab, Chase Sapphire Banking (75,000), CitiGold (200,000)
No ATM fee Schwab vs Fidelity, Fidelity Cash Management Account ATM/Debit Card (1% FTF), Charles Schwab Debit Card

Credit/Debit/ATM Cards and Foreign Exchange
International and Foreign Conversion Fees: Credit Card Company Comparisons

Best Credit Cards for International Travel: Transaction Fee Survey Results
Citibank and Chase drop foreign exchange fees on some cards

What are the best debit cards for ATM withdrawals overseas? Charles Schwab, E-Trade
debit cards with no foreign transaction fee, no atm fees, no monthly fee  Charles Schwab, Capital One 360 in USA

* Capital One, including Venture Rewards
* American Express Platinum and Centurion
* Citi ThankYou Premier and Citi ThankYou Prestige
* Chase British Airways Card, Chase Priority Club Rewards Signature, and Chase Hyatt Card
* State Farm Bank Debit ATM
* Schwab bank Debit
* HSBC Premier Debit, Premier World Cards

Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage vs Nvidia ION2 platform + Intel Atom

Compison of low power CPUs
Intel GMA Graphics Media Accelerator
List of Intel chipsets
Nvidia Next Generation ION with Optimus

Atom System 27.1W
Intel Atom Processor with Intel NM10 Express Chipset (Pine Trail)
+Intel Atom D525 (Pineview) 13W
.GMA 3150, DirectX 9.0c, OpenGL 1.5, Benchmark
+Intel NM10 Express Chipset (Tiger Point) (CG82NM10 PCH Platform Controller Hub) 2.1W
+Nvidia Ion2 GeForce 9400M G GPU, 512 DDR2 DDR3, DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 3.2, 16 Core GT218 12W Benchmark

CULV System 24.5W
Intel Duo Core Low Power CPUs
Intel Core Duo Mobile Processor with Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset 24.5W
+SU9600 SU9400 SU9300 SU7300 (Arrandale) 10W
+GS45 Express Chipset (Cantiga) (Intel 82GS45 Graphics and Memory Controller Hub) Overview with 4500MHD 12W
.GMA X4500MHD, DirectX 10, OpenGL 2.1, Benchmark
+Intel 82801IUX-SFF I/O Controller 2.5W

Zotac ZBOXHD-ND22-U SU2300 + ION
Quick test:GeForce 9400M against GMA 4500MHD about 2X

AMD Fusion comparison
C-50 HD6250 Benchmark 9W
E-350 HD6310 Benchmark 18W

Comparison of AMD E-350, D525, SU2300 with ION2...
Atom/ION靠邊站 AMD E350 APU深度評測

New Second Generation Core 21.4W
Intel CPU with Integrated Graphics Arrandale 18W, Sandy Bridge 17W
Intel Core i7 Mobile Processor with Mobile Intel QS57 Express Chipset 21.4W
+Platform Control Hub
+QS57 Ibes Peak BD82QS57 PCH 3.4W
+QS67 Cougar Point BD82QS67 PCH
.Intel HD Graphics HD Graphics 2000, 3000, DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 3.0, Benchmark

3DMark 06
HD Graphics 3000 (20.4W/5053) > HD Graphics 2000 (20.4W/3162) > AMD C-50/6310 (18W/2136) > ION2 (27.1W/2042) > AMD E-350/6250 (9W/1740) > Intel HD Graphics (21.4W/1508) > GMA X4500MHD (24.5W/740) > GMA 3150 (15.1W/152)

Scientific Evidence Supports Effectiveness of Chinese Drug for Cataracts

CATARACTS: Prevention and Treatment-with Reference to Chinese Medicine
吡諾克辛 Pirenoxine

Pirenoxine Sodium

比麗明點眼液 PIRENOXINE FOR OPHTHALMIC 0.005%, NITTO Medic 日東
柯寧優尼點眼懸液 KARY UNI OPHTHALMIC SUSPENSION, SANTEN PHARMACEUTICAL 參天
克泰寧─凱點眼液 CATALIN-K FOR OPHTHALMIC, SENJU PHARMACEUTICAL 天壽 by TAKEDA 武田

Stainless steel

SAE steel grades
Stainless Steel
Austenitic - non-magnetic
300 series, type 304 18/8 Chromium/Nickel (ISO 3506 A2), slightly magnetic
300 series, type 316 18/10 (ISO 3506 A4) (Marine grade stainless) corrosion resistant
300 series, type 316L low carbon
Ferritic - magnetic
400 series, type 430 (less corrosion resistance)
Martensitic - magnetic, carbon, hardness
400 series, type 410 (less chromium, high-strength iron), 420 (Cutlery Grade, rustless steel), 440 (higher grade of cutlery steel, Cutlery Knife steel, more carbon, hardened)

Surgical stainless steel 316, 410, 420

How to choose Stainless steel flatware and cookware?
Types of Stainless Steel
Frequently Asked Questions about Stainless Steel

Shun knives SG2 vs VG10 powered Damascus steel 

SG2 vs VG10 Comparison 

Steel Charts & Guide by a Marine ZDP-189 M390 

Japan 真久作 MAC MTH-80 Chef's knife, MAC Knife Professional series 8" Chef's knife w/dimples MTH-80 

Bone Cleaver

Effects of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation in the United States

El Nino Impacts on California Central Coast Rain
Nov-Dec, 6.04 -> 6.43 (106%) max 9.18, 6 wetter 5 middle 2 dryer
Jan-Mar, 11.49 -> 16.12 (140%) max 23.88, 7 wetter 2 middle 1 dryer

La Nina Regional Statistics Maps West Coast, Southwest, a little bit below average

ENSO Impact on United States, Winter Precipitation and Temperature

Getting to Know El Niño: Five Things to Understand

El Nino Will Big Probably Won't Kill Drought
Strong 1982-1983 (rain in California)
Strongest 1997-1998

Atmospheric River Information Page
What are atmospheric rivers?

Free Web Hosting Services - Ad-Free

List of top 10 best website builder to create your own free website

Webnode
Weebly
Yola
edicy

The Best Website Builder for Small Businesses
Wix
Weebly

ski 2010-2011

ticket,rental                                           7,4      8,5      9,6    10,7
Tahoe Donner 236Mi $39,$30 7-12 $19,$25 0-6 $0,$25      $97      $97      $97    $116
Holiday rate unknown 12/18-1/2; 1/15-17; 2/19–27; 3/19-3/27
Soda Springs 222Mi $35,$39 0-12 $22,$28                $112     $112     $112    $112
Donner Ski Ranch:  $42,$36 7-12 $13,$25 0-6 $5,$15     $102     $102     $102    $110
(224Mi)            $25          $10 non holiday Tue, Wed, Thu 11/25-26, 12/20-1/2, 1/17, 2/21-25
Boreal (223Mi)     $49,$38 5-12 $15,$25 0-4 $0         $113(81) $128(96) $128(96) $128(96)
$56 holidays 11/25–28, 12/25-1/2, 1/15–17, 2/19–21
Dodge Ridge 167Mi  $59,$38 6-12 $16,$28                $118(98) $118(98) $150(122) $150(122)
Lucky Savemart discount tickets $49 $12 black out dates, 1/15-16 2/19-20
Bear Valley 186Mi  $62,$42 6-12 $19,$31 1-5 $5         $148(125)$148(125)$162(136) $162(136)
SportsBasement, REI discount tickets $52 $16

Tahoe Donner
Soda Springs
Donner Ski Ranch
Boreal

2009-10 Lake Tahoe
2008-09 packages

wide shoes

Running Warehouse Wide Shoes
endless 2E 4E 8 8.5
6pm EE
6pm 4E
Eastbay 2E
Eastbay 4E
The Finish Line

Road Runner Sports Wide
Road Runner Sports Extra Wide

Apple Mac OS X Softwares

QuickTime Components

*Perian is an open source QuickTime component that enables Apple Inc.’s QuickTime to play several popular video formats not supported natively by QuickTime on Mac OS X. The swiss-army knife for QuickTime

*Windows Media Components for QuickTime Microsoft WMA/WMV Compoments by Flip4Mac

Xiph QuickTime Components XiphQT for ogg container with Theora (video), FLAC (loseless), and Vorbis (audio) codecs

Apple Downloads of Unix and Open Source Softwares, OSX installer, download
Install Xcode first for Homebrew and MacPorts/Fink source install

Fink uses Debian dpkg and APT, Fink Project 12048 packages in 25 sections. has newer ffmpeg, but many very old and most with binary packages, apt-get to get binary distribution

*MacPorts 12143 ports, Uninstalling, direct binary packages - python3.4.3
*MacPorts GUI: Pallet (sudo port install Pallet), Porticus 1.8.1 2009/12/31

*? HomeBrew Build from source, The missing package manager for OS X, 1258 packages formulas

Rudix Unix ports and packages for Mac OS X delivered the Right Way - 145 dmg packages available

Bitnami Free, easy to setup wikis, blogs, forums and many other web applications that you can run locally or in the cloud

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 10.7 Lion

*FFmpeg
*1. MacPorts 0.7.8, Fink 0.8.9, Homebrew 0.10
2. Apple Downloads - x264Encoder 1.2.17 QuickTime component 2010/10/21 x264 git-1745 ffmpeg SVN-25512
... Datura-0.3.8 2010-02-20
3. FFmpeg on Mac OS X HOWTO - 2006, ffmpegX shareware 0.0.9y 1/26/2008

FFmpeg information on Apple.com

> ffmpeg -i input-file.mts -vcodec copy -deinterlace -acodec libaac -ab 256k output-file.mp4
> ffmpeg -i input-file.mts -vcodec copy -acodec copy output-file.m4v

MEncoder
Using MEncoder to create QuickTime-compatible file
> mencoder input.mts -oac faac -faacopts mpeg=4:object=2:raw:br=256 -channels 2 -srate 48000 -ovc copy -o output.mp4

Other softwares
LyX WYSIWYM GUI for Tex/LaTex
Celestia
Stellarium

San Francisco Parking

SFMTA Parking
Garage and Lots, location, spaces, hours, metered lots, rates

Downtown Garages

Meters: Meter Hours/Rates, Holiday Enforcement Schedule, Parking Meter Locations

Nike Women's Marathon Parking
Sutter Stockton Garage $1,$3,$4,$18
Ellis O'Farrell Parking $2,$3,$3.5,$32
Mason O'Farrell
Fifth and Mission $2,$3,$3.5,$32

El Niño-Southern Oscillation

El Nino

NOAA La Nina Page

IRI Net Assessment Forecasts

Climate Prediction Center, Seasonal Outlooks

ENSO Impacts > Previous Events (1951-present)

Long Term/Range Weather Forecast/Climate Forecasting 

Jua, Atmo, Google DeepMind GraphCast, Nvidia Earth-2 FourCastNet, Huawei Pangu-Weather
Should we trust AI to predict natural disasters? 
Jua raises $16M to build a foundational AI model for the natural world, starting with the weather 
AI’s First Big Test; Predicting the Path of a Major Hurricane 

Trekking Poles

** Black Diamond Trekking Poles Distance Carbon Z-Pole, 120cm 290g
** Fizan Compact, superlight 316g, adjustable length 58-132cm good review
* CAMP Xenon 120cm 47" 9.2oz 260g lightest, 3 folding sections, not suitable for skiing, weak, Trekking 135cm 53" 17.6oz 500g
* LEKI Micro Vario Carbon with aluminum insert for strength, 110-130cm, 15", 13.6oz 414g, Carbonlite AERGON 135cm 53" 12.8oz 362g, Thermolite AERGON 135cm 53" 14.8oz 420g
Grivel 125cm 49" three sections adjustable pole 16.84oz 478g

crop/resize pdf/postscript page in linux

pdftops -paper letter orig.pdf new.ps

edit new.ps file

BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792

90 rotate
-116 -675.28 translate
0.57 0.57 scale

ps2pdf new.ps new.pdf

Blender

Blendtec Total Blender 13 Amp 1560 W WideSide Pitcher 3 quart, 96 oz
WARING Pro 3 HP MX1000R 120 V, 12.0 Amps, 3 HP motor, 30,000 RPMs Hi, 26,000 RPMs Low, 64 oz capacity
Vita-Mix 5200 120v 11.5 amps 1380 Watts 2HP motor, 64 oz container

Comparing Vita Mix, Blendtec, Waring, and the Health Master Blender

Large zoom spotting scopes

Spotting scope telescope

Barska 30-90x100mm WP Gladiator Spotter USA straight with table top tripod and soft carrying case 77oz 19" $250
Barska Benchmark DFS Spotter 8-24x58 WP wide angle, field of view
Celestron Ultima 100 - 45° Straight USA 22-66x waterproof with soft carrying case 72oz 19"/22" $280, digital camera adapter
Konus KONUSPOT-100 20-60x100mm Italy 45° angle photo adapter 84.7oz 19.2" $300
Yukon Advanced Optics 6-100x100 Russia 6-25x25 25-100x100 rotating eye piece with table top tripod and carrying case 53oz 16.7" $350, camera adapter

GPU accelerated web browsers

Firefox Web Browser Grand Prix : memory usage
Tom's Hardware: Web Browser Grand Prix
FavBrowser
Browser Wars: Chrome vs. IE9 vs. Firefox

Firefox:
about:support
about:config to enable WebGL and acceleration
Mozilla Firefox 4 with Direct2D and DirectWrite, Hardware Acceleration on Windows 7, Windows Vista with Platform Update, and DirectX 10 graphic cards (check with dxdiag command)

Operation	Linux	Windows XP	Windows Vista/7	Mac OS X
Content	XRender	None	Direct2D	Quartz
Compositing	OpenGL	Direct 3D	Direct 3D	OpenGL

Blocked Graphics Drivers

IE9:
IE9 -> Tools -> Internet Options -> Advanced tab -> accelerated graphics -> use software rendering instead of GPU rendering
Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, ie9 uses Direct2D DirectWrite on Windows Vista, Windows 7, The Architecture of Full Hardware Acceleration of All Web Page Content
Force Enable GPU Hardware Acceleration Graphics Rendering on Old GPU in IE9

Google Chrome: statistics
chrome://memory shows memory usage of all running browsers
chrome://gpu graphics feature status
chrome://flags to enable hidden features and experiments, GPU compositing on all pages failed windows XP
GPU accelerated compositing in Chromium (Google Chrome), Web Graphics – Past, Present and Future, WebGL, OpenGL ES 2.0 API, to DirectX 9 (Direct3D) (through ANGLE)
Chromium switches/options, --enalbe-gpu-plugin --enable-gpu-rendering --enable-accelerated-compositing --enable-accelerated-2d-canvas

Opera Next: uses Blink layout engine
opera://gpu
opera://flags

Opera:
opera://gpu
Opera 12 Alpha with Hardware Acceleration


Safari:
how can I disable hardware acceleration in Safari 5.1 ?
Enabling the debug menu on Safari for Windows
 
Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive Psychedelic Wheel

Opera Blogs desktop
Chromium Blog
Mozilla Firefox Blog
Chromium iOS
Chrome Multi-Device iOS Blink/WebKit UIWebView, no Nitro for JavaScript

Consumer Reports Car Reliability Charts

A snapshot of long-term reliability


Automaker Report Cards test scores vs. reliability

iPod iPhone iPad lithium-ion polymer battery

iPod touch 3G 3.7V 2.92Whr, ARM Cortex-A8 833 MHz (underclocked to 600 MHz), video 6hr, audio 30 hr
iPhone 4 3.7V 5.25Whr, 1 Ghz Apple A4, video 10hr, audio 40hr, talk 7hr 3G, 14hr 2G, standby 300hr, internet 6hr 3G, 10hr Wi-Fi
iPad 3.75V 24.8Whr, 1 GHz Apple A4, internet 9hr 3G, 10hr Wi-Fi, video 10hr, audio 140 hr

convert web page to online document sharing

Print...
Microsoft Office Document Image Writer - Preferences - Advanced - MDI
Page Range - 1 page at a time
File name - file.mdi
Save as type - Microsoft Document Imaging Format (*.tif)
View Document Image

Microsoft Office Document Imaging
File - Save As...
File name - file.tif
Save as type - Tagged Image File Format (*.tif)
Options... MDI compression - Optimize compression in favor of Better image quality

repeat for all pages

Microsoft Word
Insert - Picture - From File...

Google Docs - good image quality
Adobe Acrobat.com - image quality is low
Docs for Facebook - image quality is very low

Shin-Biofermin S vs. Strong Wakamoto

新ビオフェルミンS

Shin-Biofermin S information
Shin-Biofermin S [tab]
欣表飛鳴 錠 [Shin Biofermin S tab]

欣表飛鳴
3 x 3/day
Bifidobacterium bifidum 2mg per tablet
Lactobacillus acidophilus 2mg
Streptococcus faecalis (Enterococcus faecalis) 2mg

強力わかもと
Strong Wakamoto
若元錠
Aspergillus oryzae NK (microorganism producing digestive enzymes)
Lactobacilli
Dried Yeast

Nature's Plus Tri-Dophilus Probiotics Bacterials
Lactobacillus Acidophilus 143mg
Bifidobacterium Longum & Bifidobacterium Bifidum 44mg
Streptococcus Faecalis 38mg