Saw this webpage about the study of eye movement on search engines such as Google.

A new study has added tangible evidence to the widely held view that top-ranking search results get the most attention from users, and that lower-ranking results are all but invisible to most people.

The joint study conducted by search marketing firms Enquiro and Did-it and eye tracking firm Eyetools examined the eye movements of users viewing Google search result pages.

The study found that most viewers looked at results in an “F” shaped scan pattern, with the eye travelling vertically along the far left side of the results looking for visual cues (relevant words, brands, etc) and then scanning to the right, as if something caught the participant’s attention.

The researchers called this pattern a “golden triangle” at the top of result pages. The triangle extends across the top natural search result, then angles back to the left of the page down to the bottom-most “above the fold” result, typically in the third or fourth position on the page.

This article

This is quite funny. No wonder we have a battle of the sexes going on infinitely.

Nine out of Ten Would be Adequate

Researchers at Alabama’s Auburn University say they have determined what men want in the “ideal woman”: she is sexually inexperienced but likes sex, has a career but is a full-time homemaker, has a slim build, is athletic, and has pretty eyes, dark hair, good complexion and a firm butt. Large breasts are nice, but not all that important. The study’s lead author, Erica Gannon, says the specifications are similar to what is found in the Bible. “Our participants, whether knowingly or unknowingly, espouse a view of the ideal woman that is very similar to the views held by individuals thousands of years ago.” However, she adds, “It’s hard to be this woman.” (UPI) …About as hard as being the ideal man: strong yet gentle, powerful yet sensitive, has a great career yet helps clean the house and raise the children, in control yet cries, and a sex expert who’s only been with one woman.

While looking for plugins to enhance the use of WordPress, I stumbled onto this plugin that allows you to “cross-post” in your Xanga post. It was designed for Xanga users who prefer to stay in their own world. They even call themselves Xangains, or something like that. Think of it as a simultaneous tool so that you don’t have to post twice. Post in WordPress, then it’ll post in Xanga too. Hopefully, they’re brave enough to get out of their world and pay someone a visit. ;-)

The plugin is called Croissanga. Doesn’t that sound like a nice name?

*note: there is another similar plugin so I’m currently testing it to compare.

*updated* Couldn’t get the second plugin working due to some error in HTTP request, so this will do it for now. I notice a little longer delay as it sends a transmission to Xanga website. Well, hope it’s worth the posting.

I wrote this story last summer and I thought of this story while I was running. Is that called inspiration? Anyway, I have been meaning to publish this story somewhere because I think it’s one of the better stories I have written by myself. Then I realize, “Why not publish my story on the www? on my website?.” So, here’s the story. It’s about a young guy who went out for a run.

At the far side of the wall, the green LED on the alarm clock showed that it was a quarter to nine o’clock, well, 8:46 pm to be exact. He never really liked that alarm clock because for one, the LED was a tad too bright and two, the green color made him feel as if he’d been abducted in an alien spaceship. But he didn’t really have a choice when he first bought the alarm clock because it was a special kind of alarm that vibrated the bed like a motel bed in Las Vegas, so he could get out of the bed more convincingly. When he saw what time it was, he knew it had already begun to become late…

He’d promise himself that he would do his daily run, not exactly daily but about four times a week and today would be his third of the week. He glanced outside the windows, just behind the alarm clock and he could see the sun separating itself from the blue sky into the horizon. He wondered if he should postpone the run till tomorrow and the darkness crept to remind him that not one but two vehicles had come close to him in the past week and he had to retreat to the gravels on the side to avoid the contact. It wasn’t even dark as it was in a broad daylight, he thought to himself. While he was thinking that, one of his legs was already into the running shorts. He went on to put his Asics and he was still thinking if he should run. A devil on his shoulder told him that he should run so he could burn off the Whopper burger he’d ate for lunch. He could feel his stomach quenched when he thought about that but he told the devil that it’s not really his fault because he forgot to bring his own lunch and he only had three dollars in his pocket and the Whopper was the only available sandwich that both fit his budget and satisfied his hunger as he didn’t even eat breakfast the following morning. He had started a diet a few weeks ago after he noticed the flab hidden in his lower tummy. He tied the last strings on his shoes and felt motivated that he needed to slave off some calories. He stepped out of the front door and tested the humidity to see if he needed a tank top first. He could see the clouds piling up together and it told him that it’d be a bit of a breeze, so he went back into the house and put on his tank top.

There were two routes that he had mapped for himself and he disliked one-way routes in which he would have to turn around and run the same path back. Those two routes were like two blocks that if you put them together, they would be like a rectangle sharing one same street in the middle. One square was a little bigger than the other square, by about a mile. However, the other square had a more steep elevation and would give him a good stability workout whereas the first square has a smooth elevation, testing his endurance. As late as it already was, he decided to take the stability route and his average time was roughly twenty minutes. That should give him an adequate time before it becomes too dark.

When he first hit the street with strides, he felt like he was straddling through the mud water. “Must be the whopper I ate.” he said. As he had been running for some time now, he knows that that feeling would fade away, like a car needs a warm-up first. He got through the first leg of the block rather slow and he told himself that he’d increase his pace when he turned the corner. The corner somehow felt farther than usual but he stayed with it and finally arrived at the corner. The street was going downhill, so he could start a faster pace with longer strides. He imagined he was like a Kenyan running with incredibly long strides and galloped like a deer. However, he couldn’t hold that pace long enough when he arrived at the bottom of the hill and had to shorten his strides as he worked on his way up the hill. He could feel himself panting and had broken up a sweat. At the top of the hill, he could see the stoplights, which showed passing cars. He knows he had to be careful when he got there because that’s where he almost got hit by cars.

The stoplight turned green just before he reached there. “Perfect.” he thought. So he didn’t have to stop his run and look out for any passing cars. He peeked over his left shoulder and his eyes said it was all clear, he moved to the left lane and proceed to turn the corner again. The street changed into two lanes with rock gravels on both sides. He didn’t like running on the rocks because it somehow felt slippery and he had to be more careful, which changed his strides. He’d try to stay on the white line as long as he could. His shoes were pouncing onto the white line, and already, several cars were coming at him. He remained on the line, seeing if cars would move a little to let him pass. He could see the first car starting to move away from him and the second car followed the car but the third car didn’t move at all. He jumped to the gravel just before the third car passed him. He tried to look around and see who’s the driver. It was a teenage girl yapping on her cellphone, apparently not even seeing him at all. He shook his head and continued with his run.

The outside suddenly looked much darker after three cars went past him and the sun had already dipped below the horizons and he now only could see the sun’s rays, painting the blue sky orange. Meanwhile, he was relieved to see that he could not see any headlights in the far sight, so that means he could keep running on the white line.

Several minutes later, as the corner came approaching, so was a car. But the headlights looked almost too big for a car. He was right; it wasn’t a car’s headlights—-it was a semi-truck roaring along. He knew…that he would have to step off the line and tiptoeing on the rocks far from the road. His face was illuminated with bright white lights and he used his arms to cover his eyes from the semi-truck’s big headlights. The truck swooshed past him and he could feel himself spinning but that was just the air effect circling him. He closed and rubbed his eyes from the dust. He tried to turn around and catch the driver’s face but it was too high for him to see over the windows. It didn’t really matter because he kind of already imagined that it was an overweight, unshaven man with a cigar, wearing a cowboy hat, and yet worse, it wasn’t even his fault that he didn’t see him because two big fat dices were hanging from the mirror, blocking his marginal view. Finally, the air was back to a calm quiet air, like he was sitting back at the front porch. He wished he was sitting there instead of running like he was right now. His tanktops were drenched with sweat and he wished he didn’t put on his tanktop in the first place. Now, he saw the corner coming and he gladly turned.

This time, it was going uphill and he was really panting now. He wished he hadn’t eaten that whopper; he wished he didn’t run at all. He would give anything right now to be back at the house and be watching sportscenter from his bed. “Stop it, you have started running and you are more than halfway to the finish now.” his mentality told him. “You’ve come this far; finish your run.” He willed himself to keep running, not even realizing that his strides were now reduced to stutter-steps.

In spite of everything, with the stupid teenage girl, the semi-truck driver, and that darned uphill, he was glad to be back on the street and his shoes by the white lines. Now running on the third leg of the block, he tried to stay near the curbs so that the pole lights would illuminate him below. He kept running and he started to realize that he had been running at a slow pace but he needed to be patient if he wanted to finish the run without stopping. He reached the top and that would be the last uphill he had to run. He took a big breath and started to run downhill. His strides becoming longer and longer, like a Kenyan again he imagined during his first leg of the run. There weren’t as many as pole lights on that fourth leg of the block, unlike the previous leg he ran on. He was focused on his fast pace now and his sole concentration was to finish the run strongly. Little did he know, a car had turned the same corner he recently turned and was rolling on the same street as he was. With the heart pumping hard, sweats dripping like there was a rain, he did not see the car coming, so was the car.

The person driving the car was an old lady who decided she wanted to see his husband at his grave. The street was curving and they were coming up on a short bridge over the creek. By the time when the old lady’s headlights saw him, the old lady saw him too and tried her best to steer the car but it was all too late. The physical corner of the 1988 Buick had already caught him and sent his body falling toward the white line on the street. He had no idea what had hit him and he laid flatly on the bridge with his arms open and you could already tell, he looked like Jesus Christ on the cross. The sweats that were dripping like a loose faucet had slowed down to like a tear on Mary’s face. But his heart was still beating, though not as fast as it was a moment ago. His body began to stir and then he opened his eyes. He noticed that the grounds were not under his feet but right under his cheek.

“What in the heavens did just happen to me?” he thought. He managed to get himself up and back on his feet. He checked his body for any wounds or injury but there was none. He had expected something painful would pop out somewhere on his body like a warning signal would flash in the car instrument panel but there wasn’t any signals. He remembered he was running, so he tried to run again. He started slow, testing his body again, but nothing seemed out of place. Now, he could see one more corner, so he ran straight to the corner. When he got there at the corner, he stoop down and panting. Then, he saw an old lady walking in arms with her husband. He thought they looked like nice sweet couple who’s been together for a long time. His attention was turned to this man in robe.

“Welcome, you made it.” He said.

Kimchi is the most famous korean food. It takes a role for Korea what Scotch did for Scotland, and what pizza did for Italy. Next to boiled rice(bab), kimchi is the most important component of a Korean meal. It is spicy and fiery, yet earthy and cool.

I realize I haven’t really told about myself as I’m slow (or is it a habit) to complete this website design. I’m 24 years old who shares same birthday as George Washington, currently working for U.S. Dept. of Agriculture as IT specialist. If you think the title is a bit vague, that’s because I do different things around here—from working on a website to making some SQL queries in databases for those managers who want some statistics. As for my own identity, I was born deaf in Korea and obviously, that made me Korean. However, I was adopted at age three by deaf parents—Wayne and Pam. That would make me Korean-American but there’s something wrong with this picture—I was never raised as a Korean-American but as an American solely. I’ve never heard of a Kim-Chi (a very popular spicy side dish in Korea or in other words, you’re not Korean till you eat one) till I was about 18 years old. My very first meal when I got here in America was a happy meal at McDonald’s. I’m dead serious and not kidding you.

A few hundred happy meals, big macs, and quarter-pound cheeseburgers later, I’ve played every sport that is popular in America—football, little league baseball, soccer, basketball, track/field, and ice hockey. That sounds very American, doesn’t it? I went not to a public school but a deaf institution at Jacksonville, IL. I wouldn’t call it a school because I grew up there since I was 4 years old and my parents graduated from there too. I was the only Asian there for the most part of my life, though there were some Asians but weren’t in the same class with me. So, I grew up being American without having an Asian friend till I get into a college…

It so happened that I know a friend named Christine who was a college student working at my institution and she received free board/room in return. She was dating a guy who was a Korean. Yes, a rare occurence when a white girl actually dates an Asian guy, not the other way around. On my long road trip to Washington, DC, I stopped by her place in Columbus, Ohio. It was during that time when she asked me if I ever ate Kim-Chi. When I said “nope, never”, her eyes practically fell out of her sockets and her jaws dropped. She thought I was kidding! Then slowly, she started to realize that it all made sense. She’d meet my parents back at my old deaf school and that I didn’t have a lot of exposure to other cultures, so there wasn’t a reason or even a chance for me to eat kim-chi. So, she took me out to a small Korean grocery store that was near her apartment the first thing we got out of the doors.

When she opened the jar, a strong smell came out of the can that only said one thing: it’s very spicy. I was afraid I wasn’t going to like it, despite I was a Korean myself but Christine assured me to eat it with rice as it helped the taste or at least make it less spicy. I took the bite, chewed, and shallowed it. My first thought was that it was unlike others I had eaten. It doesn’t have the same spiciness that you would find in hot salsa or eat hot buffalo chicken wings. Because it’s served cold, it’s cool to the touch and after you chewed it, it became spicy but not to the point where you have to run for a water foundation. I took another bite, then another bite and before I know it, I was already halfway through the jar. Christine had to laugh at me–I’m not sure if she’s proud cuz she was the first person to introduce me to kimchi or that she can’t believe I was instantly hooked to the dish. When it was time for me to go back on the road, she was kind enough to wrap the jar in plastic and told me to take it. My first kimchi.

Today, I turned 24 years old. 24, just like the Fox show, 24. If you’re Chinese or an avid lover of Chinese astrology, you know I’m a Rooster. That’s something I learned today that you can easily figure out somebody’s age by just asking them what’s their Chinese horoscope. Unlike horoscopes which are monthly-based, it’s based on a year and Chinese has twelve different animals, so there are 12 years. (Duh!) Unless you’re really lousy at guessing people’s age, you have up to 12 years as a margin of error. So, if you were to guess my age, I can be 36, 24, or 12. I don’t think I look that young at 12 nor old at 36, so I’m 24. I dare you to ask someone and ask her or him if they know what’s their Chinese astrology and you shall have their age. :-) (so rude, I know.)

I remember someone who got so distraught after she turned forty years old. It kinda surprised me that she would get upset. Did she just wake up in her bed and say “Oh my god, I’m 40 today!!”. She oughta know that it’s coming, no matter what, and she’s gonna break out in tears when her birthday came? Well, she should know that she’s getting older not by every 40 years but every second. We all are getting older by this sound of tick-tock, tick-tock. What are you gonna do about it? Let each second passes? No, I don’t think so and we all should make every second counts. Life’s a game and you only get one chance.

It wasn’t a week ago that the temperature here was 70 degrees in middle of January. 70 degrees! I pretended I was a groundhog and didn’t see my own shadow and announced that there will be no more cold weather from now on. We’re gonna have early spring and let’s see these cute legs showing when girls start wearing super shorts, or is it short shorts? Whatever, you know what I mean. I made plans to play disc golf that weekend and will not need to wear a jacket, maybe I’ll even wear shorts myself. Then the next day… the temperature sunk like the Titanic ship, literally, to like 30’s. Waah. And a couple of days later, my little blue number in the system tray says it’s 17 Fahrenheit and feels like 2 with the wind chill, dew point, baromoter and whatnot. :-( Too cold to play disc golf. And the weather forecasts say it’ll get a tad warm between 30’s and 40’s. Still not warm enough to see these cute legs to come out.

I glance at the alarm clock by the bed where I’m lying on, with my left swollen foot propped in ice and the clock just turns past 11:00 pm. Ok, the Sportscenter is on now, flipping the channel to the show. Ah, basketball highlights. The Lakers are playing against the Cavaliers. Oh, Kobe is down? The video clip shows that after he rebounded the ball, his shoes fell on an opponent’s shoes and his ankle bent 90 degrees. Out of the game indefinitely, with only six minutes left in the first quarter. Then, I looked back to my left foot…

Two days ago, I sneaked myself onto Gallaudet campus, with my silver car and my youthful face that could easily belong to one of the freshmen, even I’ve graduated from college and one more month left to having lived 24 years of life on Earth, to play basketball at the gym. I got into the gym and saw a bunch of blacks already playing basketball. Every time I’ve been there, I see but blacks players there. Where’s the others? They must be busy playing poker or in a drinking game somewhere. Anyway, I warmed myself up by just shooting jumpers, from the free-throw line, three-point line, the corners, use the glass, fadeaway jumpers. Then, I was stopped by a black guy who asked me if I wanna play scrimmage with dem. I said ok sure. We took turns to see who could make the three point first to be the captain. One big black guy with “power forward” body made the first three-pointer, and I was next. Swoosh—I was the second captain. Time to pick the team. I picked the white guy who thinks he’s Eminem. No, I didn’t pick him cuz he was white—I picked him cuz he’s a hustle player and has some touch to his shooting. The rest of the team, I let “Eminem” make recommendations cuz he knows them better than I do, then I picked them. Time to play ball. Except they were arguing whether if we should play full-court cuz only 4 vs 4, not five players. The “power forward” obviously didn’t want to run on long court and he insisted on playing half-court only. None of us wanted to mess with him so we went ahead his decision to play half-court. After a couple of baskets scored between us, one guy on my team lost his man and he was wide open at the corner; he got the ball and he’s gonna shoot the ball. I wasn’t going to give him an easy look so I left my man, ran to the opposite side and tried to block his shot. The ball just sailed over my outstretched arm. As the gravity welcomed us back, my left foot dropped on his f—- shoes, whacked!. I arrived onto the floor lying. “Son of a b—” I said. Sprained ankle, god, I hate sprained ankles. I couldn’t get up—the pain was too great, so I crawled like a baby to the wall and told my team to get a substitute. Out of the game indefinitely.

The latest report on Kobe Bryant’s sprained ankle showed that x-ray was negative but he will have MRI tomorrow to determine if ligaments are torn. I looked at my ankle again. The only treatment I gave my foot was an ice and two pills of advil. I didn’t have a damn crutches or aircast to hold my ankle upright and I have to limp all the way to work yesterday, today and tomorrow too. I ain’t surprised if five or six doctors have already looked at Kobe’s ankle by the time I make it to work. Eh, the superstar and me.

Now, the Sportscenter is showing NFL playoffs previews…

For some reasons, I seem to have a severe deficiency, or severely lack the ability to complete a project. I get started on something yet I never finish it. It’s as if there is no finish line for me to finally cross and say “Yes, I finished it.” I started designing my new website when I bought a domain address under my name last summer—around July or August. And it’s been in “construction” ever since. I changed from movable to blogger, back to movable, then changed to WordPress. I have to re-learn codes since they differ in publishing and functions. Now, it’s been a week since I’ve started digging into WordPress after I decided that it will be my primary blog tool (the best part is no waiting for the static pages to be updated). The current progress is somewhere between 40% and 50%. I realize that since design is an appearance, you have to spend an exceptional amount of time on tweaking your look. You don’t try on one dress and said “Yes, this is the dress.” You try on different dresses ( I hope to God not in a number of hundreds) to find the look you think is the best. So, this applies to web design that I’ve been playing and experimenting with different designs. But the problem is that while you can get in and out of the dress and put on another, you can’t do the same with design. You have to come up with ideas and create a rough draft in Photoshop or Fireworks, then implement the design into CSS and see how it looks. If it doesn’t work out the way you’d like it, then you go back to square one and start all over. This can take up a lot of time and factor that with my lack of ability to finish a project. Now you see why it’s taking up so long. :/

So far, I think this design is the one. I hope to finish this design soon and hopefully, at last, to cross the finish line.

Since I’ve started working at the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and getting steady paychecks, I’ve 6 month bad credit loans and become conscious of my cash flow. I want to be more financially responsible and grow my wealth. So I went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore and browsed through aisles. Found this bestseller and bought it. Man, I really learned a lot from this book—-common sense, advice, and wisdom make up the most part of this book. The book explains that being rich and being wealthy are not the same thing. It’s “Income vs. Consumption.” You may be earning more than 100k (only 5% of all Americans earn more than 100k) but you spend on a lot of things (consumption), such as 60 inch tv, fancy house, 2 or 3 different luxury cars, pool, and so on. These prevents you from becoming wealthy. You may look “rich” to your peers but inside, you’re really not.

The book has a formula of how wealthy you should be. (I left my book at home so I’ll look up the formula again) The big key to become wealthy is to “live below your means”. That means don’t overspend your income earning and try to have the widest margin between spending and saving as much as you can. The less you spend, the more you can save. Then your money begin to accumulate and build wealth. That’s all there is to it. But we are in the capitalism world and we’re surrounded by marketing—billboards, tv commercials, even competition with your peers who just bought a brand-new car or a big screen tv.

It also talks about Offense and Defense. We have to defend ourselves from those marketing pitfalls. Offense is accumulating wealth while defending against spending on items. I learned more about taxes and why people are always trying to avoid paying taxes. I realize that the government really takes a big chunk of your money (approx. every 30 cents of a dollar goes to the government), so the best you can do is to minimize your income taxes.

To do that, start investing in tax-deferred accounts such as 401k, TSP (Thrift Savings Plan for those who work for the Federal), IRA (Individual Retirement Account). Your paychecks will be deducted first before tax is charged. I plan to invest in these accounts as soon as I build up my savings account first (for emergency).

Finally, if you’re 25 years old or less, like I am, USE YOUR AGE AS YOUR ADVANTAGE because the younger you are, the more you are able to accumulate your wealth over time. So that’s what I’m gonna do. Start investing early and live below my means. That’d be a struggle for sure and takes some time to become used to it. My goal to be financially independent before I become 50. When it comes to investment, I’m focusing on building a diversified portfolio, including Top ETF Providers UK. :-)

You know the famous logo of Fedex, right? The first three letters are in blue/purple, the last two orangish. You’ve probably seen it a countless times but do you know that there is something more to the logo? Look at the logo again and more carefully. See anything? No? Look at the empty space between E and X. You’ll start to see the shape—yes, that’s right, an arrow. I discovered this by stumbling on one of the billion web pages and this blog talks about the man who designed the logo for Fedex. This logo has become one of the most recognizable logos in the world, along with Mcdonalds, Nike, Adidas, IBM,, etc. The logo was conceived when the founder of Fedex wants something strong that can be seen from five blocks.

When I see the Fedex logo again, I’ll always look at the arrow, not the words.

Welcome to WordPress. This is the first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!