Random memory access. Can't recall exactly when was the last time I visited San Diego. Maybe, in about 2012 the time before dispatched to China. But never did take a long-haul train ride in the States. Whichever country I visited, I must have taken either their tram, bullet-train, light-speed rail or underground. Just how I am. Train ride is always joyful allowing me to sightseeing a different side of town, how real people lives there, not the tourists like myself. However, that's a fun 2+ hrs ride on Pacific Surfliner. Very relax & comfy. Of course, as usual, like anywhere I go, I yelped a high-rated specialty coffee shop for trying the local coffee (latte) and speculating the local Barista's latte art making style. And the West Bean Coffee didnt fail me at all. A great cup of latte's delighted by micro froths and strong coffee aroma. With the San Diego sunshine, I had a good time roaming around the city walk and pier to visit the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier (Last visit there was for the ATI Radeon 9800XT graphics launch event in 2003, if not wrong). Love the ambience in this modern town and definitely coming back for another visit.
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
- Abraham Lincoln
Beside that, I had an interesting experience to share. On my way back from San Diego in Surfliner, the first passenger sat next to me was a gentleman in his 50s, dressed like a sales executive. As any professional would do, he pulled out his laptop from the briefcase, a really old, bulky Toshiba 15" unit, running with Windows 7, took me in a surprise he didnt take advantage of free opportunity to upgrade to Windows 10. The most stunning thing had happened when he signed on his email service provider.
Guess what? Ding. "You've Got Mail!"
I was once a loyal customer of AOL dialup service in the early 90s while still being a 'young' student. That familiar sound notification is no stranger to me (Of course, its chatroom as well, where you tried to 'hookup' a date), but I was in shock when heard that in this millennium, especially now AOL's no longer independent, but a part of telecom tycoon Verizon. My curiosity has cued me to ask for his profession and give him some technology advices, but I withdrew from that idea. Not too long then, he packed up and got off to continue his next journey at the Irvine stop, many would know the city as the little 'Silicon Valley' in SoCal. Then, a second passenger, a mid-aged man, had filled in the seat from the same stop. Probably, just finished from work. His dress code could surely tell you he's an engineer, with a pair of geeky glasses and a baseball cap on. Same as the other gentleman in before, he took out a laptop from his backpack for some productivity. In contrary, that's a shiny armor, MacBook Pro, and the first application he immediately signed on was the Slack. Not only that, he also pulled up the Github to review his lines and lines of code, and also wiki some coding references. I was totally impressed. The same thought popped in my mind that I wanna to know what his occupation is and what programming language he's writing there. Unfortunate that he's so focused on his work and I didn't feel like bothering him.
On today, technology knowledge among all Americans is so diverted; Many doesnt yet have any internet access (even though it's affordable to them bc I, early on, saw a well-dressed old couples at San Diego Station was still using an old LG 'Flip-phone'), and let's not mention those cant afford. Sadly and disappointingly, the US average internet connection speed isnt ranked in the top 10 countries list (South Korea has the fastest internet access among all countries). If US wanna continue its leadership in technology segment (especially in Fintech), the government required tripling its current resources to build stronger and better infrastructure (including communication, education and policy).
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