Recent Events

I can’t believe there’s a post filed under both “Humor” and “Rant”. But sometimes things just happens to be both stupid and crazy and I dig that.

So the first thing that caught my eye today is the news that the “former” head of China’s food and drug administration is dead. He was the dude that took bribes that approved bogus pharmaceuticals and some killed people.

No he wasn’t a vicim of a hit job. He was merely sentenced to death.

To quote Dilbert:

Now THAT is a country that’s serious about quality control!

With the Olympics coming, things must not go wrong. Death sentence never deterred anyone who was in the mindset to commit crime (like robbing) but it does help to be a strong weight on the minds of politicians when accepting bribes.

Then I saw another headline on Digg saying “Vista no more secue than XP”. You all know how much I like to diss headlines. This is no exception.

I hate headlines in general. Their very nature to generate sensationalism requires it to bend the truth; but not to distort facts but to make it catchy. Anytime a headline gets it wrong and does the opposite and the editor usually gets screwed.

Like the headline above. First impression people would get is: “Vista is not secure”. Nerds read it as: “XP is more secure than Vista”. Geeks read it as: “Vista has the same security as XP”. I read it as: “not as secure doesn’t equal bad security”.

So what Vista is “no more” secure than XP when XP security is fine. Don’t fix what is not broken.

Reading through the article and the comments on Digg shows more. Seems like the review is biased anyway. Installed Vista and start benchmarking. Didn’t update, didn’t install additional antivirus protection.. it’s like buying a house and saying the locks are not good enough.

A reader on Digg says the same people that uses Linux will not have security problems on Vista but the people who has a virus infected Vista will flame it and jump to Mac. Moral of the story is: When you are geek enough to tweak the Reg, any OS is secure. Otherwise, jump to something that’s tightly controlled and lose yourself there in your illusion of security.

DO YOU KNOW: There are no more anti virus software for mac than for your handphone?

I’m just waiting for the big one to strike a Mac, and it will be BIG. No script kiddy will know how to code in Unix assembly. And those who do, don’t make lame viruses.

*a long post, time to relax a bit*

Enough ranting for today, found this in my mail box and just want to share it out. An oldie but goldie joke:

Teaching Math In 1950
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His
cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his
profit?

Teaching Math In 1960
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His
cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What
is his profit?

Teaching Math in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His
cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His
cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your
assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 1990
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is
selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the
habitat of animals or the preservation of our
woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of
$20. What do you think of this way of making a living?
Topic for class participation after answering the
question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the
logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong
answers.)

Shows how far (and lame) human collective thought as a whole has fallen.

Working pattern

…

I didn’t realize it myslf that I had this pattern when I work until my friend pointed it out to me.

She said whenever  I work, she’d know when it’s easy or hard.

When I asked how she knew about it she said when I started to listen to songs when I work, it usually means it’s easy. When I’m not listening to any, it usually means I’m deep in thought.

Looking in at myself, I sort of knew this pattern too. In fact I can even say listening to different types of music has a different effect on my work. Techno beats blocks ideas but allows faster writing of facts. Orchestra’s get the ideas coming and pop songs are just neutral. Also, when deep in thought, keyboard sounds (as in key taps) are very soothing.

Many probably wouldn’t notice too but no one ever works in complete silence unless you are in a library! *shock* So sometimes when you say you prefer to work alone, you actually are listening to white noise. Helps to clear your mind.

FedEx is still faster than the Internet

I recall giving this example in a technical meeting that at some point in data transmission, the internet just isn’t enough.
I gave an anology of HD/s (Hard Disk per Second) versus TB/s (Terabyte per Second).

Somehow, hard disk’s are going to reach past the current 1TB rate and sending hard disks over by FedEx Express is going to be faster than overnight file transfer.

A very nice explanation given by Royal Pingdom writer:

When you need to transfer very large amounts of data over the internet, sooner or later you will hit a limit where it will actually be faster to send that data on disks over regular mail (often called sneakernet). Internet transfer rates are simply not enough for large data sets.

Imagine a company with two offices in different cities, perhaps even in different countries. Each office has a 100 megabit internet connection. If the company needs to send a large amount of data from one office to the other, theoretically a 100 megabit connection can muster about 45 gigabyte in one hour if there are no bottlenecks on the way. This ends up being just over one terabyte of data in 24 hours.

In other words, for anything larger than one terabyte, it would be faster for this company to just send the data on disks for over-night delivery.

Sums it up nicely.

The Elephant

I don’t usually like these heartwarming stories, but this one is truly interesting…

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.

Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son.

As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.

The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe’ s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn’t the same elephant.

Starcraft 2 is OUT!

Just like they say it would happen, IT HAS!

Starcraft 2 has been announced just earlier. Screenshots are out. Check it out below…

^ Starcraft2 CGI Intro Video

In my opinion, it looks like SC1 but MANGA-fied. Cute round missiles, chubby Battlecruisers, high contrast backgrounds.

Seems like EA is going on the realism path with C&C3 while Blizzard has gone for the comical WoW style.

Ok… I’m a leecher. But at least I didn’t use up IGN’s bandwidth. :P
Anyway as a token of thanks, you all should go HERE for the live updates. IGN’s got a crew inside the convention.