My Hummingbird Neighbor

There is a big American Elm outside of my apartment window. The big green umbrella it forms covers almost half of the yard. During the summer, the big tree becomes a playground for the birds. From daybreak to dusk, birds, big or small, are chirping, jumping, and chasing among the branches and leaves.

Among them, I often see some hummingbirds. They sometimes visit the planted hanging baskets on my deck, suspend in the air like a helicopter, probe the long beak into a flower, and suck the sweet liquid. They are such fascinating little creatures, that always make me want to take some pictures.

But it's very difficult to approach such sort of alert bird. For many time, when seeing a hummingbird coming, I brought my camera out, and tried to move close to it with tipping toes... but before I focus and press the shutter, the little thing has already gone!

Once my cousin visited my home. I told her about the hummingbirds and my attempts. She said, "It looks like you have to build their trust little by little. Go and buy a hummingbird feeder". "What can I feed them?" "Simple. 20% sugar water".

OK. The next day I went to the Home Depot and bought one, filled with sugar water, and hanged it on my deck at a location easy to spot. Do the hummingbirds know it's food specially prepared for them?

One week passed, the water level in the feeder just dropped a little, perhaps due to evaporation. It seems the food was almost untouched. I was busy at work, and didn't check if there's any hummingbird came.

One day after two weeks, I saw a hummingbird circling around the feeder, and probing its long beak into the feeder. "Ha! Now he found the food finally!"

From then on, the consumption rate of sugar water increased quickly. The first bottle of sugar water was consumed in three weeks. But after a few weeks, I have to fill the feeder every three days. Also, the hummingbirds seemed get used to my existence--sometimes they just came to drink while I was watching them closely. Slowly, I could estimate the variation of hummingbird population by the amount of sugar water they consumed each week.

After a few weeks, I noticed that the food consumption rate suddenly dropped to around one bottle per week. What happened?

I started to observe the visiting hummingbirds more carefully, and study their interactions to each other. Then I found a big, red-headed hummingbird had claimed the feeder his own territory! Every morning he came early for food, then settled on a branch nearby, singing, and guarding the feeder. Once he saw other hummingbird approached, he would rush to the intruder with angry yelling "Cha!Cha!Cha!Cha!!!" Such sneak attacking and angry guarding kept happening, I often saw the red-head chasing another hummingbird, dashing into the leaves, like two F16 fighters. Soon just from the sound he made, I could distinguish whether the red-head was singing peacefully or was yelling angrily.

One hot summer afternoon, I saw three hummingbirds challenged the red-head together. At the beginning, one approached the feeder with a gesture of fetching the food. The red-head started attacking the intruder immediately, both birds rush away like two arrows. Then two other hummingbirds came to the unguarded feeder to enjoy the food. After a few seconds, red-head came back. Before he starting to sing the song of victory, he saw someone else were stealing the food again. Angry, he rushed to the new intruders. At the same time, the hummingbird who was chased away came back and joined. What a big fight! Sitting on the deck, I could only see four birds dashing up and down, and the only sound was the noise made by their wings.

After the fight, I bough another feeder and hanged it on another corner of my deck. I thought, "Red-head, if you do believe that feeder is yours, fine. Now this new one is for other hummingbirds. Please, share some food with your friends!" But a few days after, I saw that the red-head was guarding both feeders!

Oh, red-head, are you sure you want spend all your wonderful bird life to guard the sugar water, with the cost of losing friendship and the enjoyment of flying and singing together with other hummingbirds?

From then on, I stopped filling the feeders.

The Secret in the Hanging Basket

I have several planted hanging baskets on my deck. For a while I didn't water them regularly because I was busy at work. Thanks to the occasional winter or spring rain, the plants didn't mind my neglect. Perhaps also because of nature selection, those that needed care had long been eliminated, what's left are thriving on their own and enjoying the California sunshine.

On the morning before my European trip, I thought I'd better to water my plants. So I got on a chair and took down the baskets one at the time, and put it in a plastic basin so it got watered thoroughly.

Wow! Look what I found in this basket! Under the dense leaves of the cascading geranium, there was a small bird nest and four delicate eggs! Lying in the cozy nest, the eggs looked like four babies sleeping soundly and dreaming sweet dreams. Excited, I brought out my camera and began taking pictures, all the while thinking, "I'd better be quick, and put the basket back before the parents come home."

Photo taken, I carefully hang up the basket and tidied up the deck. Then I sat down in a chair to read articles online. I deliberately turned my back to the basket to make it seemed that no one had noticed the secret. But in my mind, I was happy and excited: "Ah ha, I will soon find out what the parents look like. It would so much fun to watch them feeding the baby birds and teaching them how to fly."

Some time later, I heard some noise behind me. Apparently the parents had come back. From their reflections of my laptop screen, I saw one bird landed on the edge of the basket, and another perched on a rafter next to the basket.

What's the matter? The bird in the basket suddenly let out a scream. Did she notice something wrong? The wet soil? Or, did I hang the basket incorrectly?

I wouldn't know. The two birds kept tweeting. Although I don't understand their language, I could sense they were worried and alarmed. They are the kind of songbird that normally sings softly and sweetly. But now, they sounded like an angry couple quarreling.

I became afraid, and dared not to move in my chair. I silently repeated "I am sorry". After a while, the tweeting faded away. The two birds were gone. I prayed in my heart that they would come back to look after their eggs.

After the three-week vacation, the first thing I did when coming home was rushing to the deck to check the eggs in the basket. Alas! They were all gone! Only the lonely, empty nest remains.

I didn't know what happened to the eggs. Then I found a half of an egg shell in a flower pot underneath the hanging basket. It seemed the parent birds had moved house, but during the process, one unfortunate egg was dropped and broken.

Now, I still often hear the same kind of songbirds chirping in the trees outside of my window. I don't know whether the two parent birds and their children are among them. I hope the remaining three eggs all hatched, and the little birds are with their parents, flying and singing happily in the trees and under the sun.

Google Chrome OS--Will it be able to Replace Windows?

Google announced yesterday that they are going to introduce an open-source, light weighted Operating System "Google Chrome OS" into the market in second half of 2010. Their first target is consumers who use netbooks.

This is an exciting news, though I'm not surprised at all. It seems a nature step of evolution of cloud computing.

Yes, when the OS was first invented, people did not know much about web, and how powerful the web could be. So the OS was designed as a set of programs that can management and support applications running on our local computer, such as text editor, calculator, spreadsheet etc. Later, the internet came into our life. A browser appeared in our PC desktop, searching and reading news from browser, writing and checking email become more and more important way for us to keep contact with the world. Now, it seems we can find the corresponding web services to provide the desktop application functionality that we use everyday. So, is it the time to move to the web, completely? Is it a time that we no longer worry about virus, malware, and security, as Google announced?

I don't think so. Yes, it is a unavoidable trend to move to web. But, moving to web will cause new security concerns. Say, do you know if your data files stored safely on the web? Who can access them? While I'm transferring my files to internet, who else can see them besides me? Will there be some new types of malware be created to infect the data center storing the data?

I believe that not everyone would feel happy and unconditionally trust the web services to take care of their data. And not everyone would be satisfy the services and functionality provided through web. Like people have different tastes on economical or luxury cars, people have different tastes and concerns when they selecting their computers. So, I think the future personal computer market may split to two levels: one is super cheap, and super simple netbook market for students and general users; the other one would be high end, powerful, cool, expensive, highly personalized personal computers for geeks.

What the silicon valley will look like after 10 years?

"The world is getting more and more flat". This is something we often hear and talk about recently. What's the consequence?

We keep seeing technical job outsourcing from a couple of years ago. First in computer hardware, chips manufacture, then software, from coding to design... More and more engineering jobs are moved to China and India...

"What the silicon valley will look like after 10 years?"

This was a debate topic in a class I attended in college 10 years ago. Some students said, of course, the silicon valley would still be the center of new tech startups and creative ideas, so it would become more and more prosperous. Some other students said the house price and living cost here would go so high that few people can afford, so people and companies would start to move out--eventually, silicon valley would lost its charm.

After exactly 10 years, the interesting thing is that now it looks like both sides are right. We are now facing the challenge everyday: "The same technical position can be filled with just a quarter of your salary in India, why we would hire you here?" "What unique value you can create in silicon valley?"

Thanks for the invention of internet, nowadays people can easily communicate without being limited by the geological condition. The salary level is more determined by your true value than the geological location of your job. Having the same technical job in a high cost area means low competence. In another word, for engineers living in the silicon valley, there are only two choices: either move to a low cost area, or improve your competence.

So, what's the value of the silicon valley? What kind of people will stay here after another 10 years?