News headlines are back to political talks. This is GREAT news, because much of such news can be ignored. That also means there are no more cold blooded killers stealing the headlines, for now.
The Virginia Tech massacre occupied the headlines for America for the last couple weeks. In Hong Kong, the cause-of-death trial of the cold blooded policeman who stole a colleague's gun and killing 3 occupied the headlines there.
The question is this: just what are the killers thinking? What is the motive? Sometimes, there is no clear motive.
We may never fully understand the mind of the killer, or we may as well become one.
In the Virginia Tech killer "manifesto" video, we know he WANTED to be heard, though he appears to be a poor kid with autism most of the time. He want to solve the problem of being picked on by rich kids by killing them. Yet he doesn't quite understand his "solution" gets him nowhere except his own death, along with 30+ innocent people. Unfortunately, the poor kid does not realize there are ways to be heard, without just broadcasting your last words.
The killer HongKong cop appeared in a pro-democracy protest in HongKong. He wanted a full democratic election for Chief Executive. He also wanted to be heard. Well the communists aren't going to let this happen easily. So in his notes he revealed that he has been following some government officials. It is still not clear what's the motive of killing some of his fellow policemen. Perhaps it is just showing he is capable of doing things others are not capable of? Like stealing colleagues guns? One perplexing question in his notes was this age-old question: "What's the purpose of my life?"
Not everyone is going to read and praise the hot selling "The Purpose-Driven Life". I don't know if that particular book could help him. Obviously he didn't know his purpose. So he took the "superman" approach. He was going to solve problem in his own way.
So the killers are poor lost souls who don't realize what's their life's purpose, and therefore wasted his own life, and that of other poor victims', and broke hearts of the families.
There are many ways to solve problems and often it does not involve violence. Unfortunately these minds simply don't find such solutions, and they have guns.
They want to be heard. I wish they talk out their concerns and had some listening ears to go to and prevented tragic shootings. But, everyone has their own issues, you are lucky if you can find someone to listen to you.
Part of life is to learn to deal with issues peacefully. After all, this is not quite a perfect world and things don't always go our way. We must realize this. Kill all those we don't like is not a solution because killing them all will involve killing yourself. What good does that do if you're dead?
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Vain Goals Talk
Motivational "business" books that talk common sense sell. "Have a goal, work on it, achieve it, celebrate". Wow, million copies sold. Other great books hardly sell at all and end up in discount bin. What idiots do not know you need a goal before you can achieve. The Dilbert comics is known for laugh at stupid vision statements. This is especially true in large companies. Why do you laugh? because you know they are stupid.
Just what "goals" you need to define? Other than "Have a successful, bugfree product that generate revenue." Employees have goals too: do enjoyable work, earn a living. Don't ask me for a goal every year.
I was asked to attend a company meeting with a roomful of employees to listen to each other's progress and status of some giant project. What a waste of time. An email of status will do. After long rounds of for-loop of project managers talk we were asked to watch a kids soccer video, followed by a speech from a motivational business strategy book author. So a bunch of 6-year-old kids surround a soccer ball and try to have a game. Some kid is even chasing a dog instead of the ball. It even tries to create laughter by having one kid finally able to lead the ball, but to the wrong goal. Cheap way to generate a smile, didn't work for me. The kids clearly do not have a strategy to win. It tries to make the impression that we are just like the kids when we are without goals.
The coach offered a chart with arrows leading to the winning kick. The kids didn't understand, and then the not-so exciting game went on with a disappointed coach. The author comes in, saying you need goals clearly communicated to acheive great results (scenes of World Cup players with GOOOOALs showed) or you look like a bunch of kids.
Look, we are not kids anymore. We don't play soccer (or work) like the kids do.
I didn't need to watch that video.
However, does the top-level project manager have a clear vision like the coach in the video? It is often NO. This is harder than a soccer game. It takes knowledge of hardware/software and knowledge of all moving parts. It is not just assign impossible tasks to some poor guys at the bottom of the coporate ladder.
It is not just putting timelines where the only possibility is success either. It is not drawing diagrams about parts that you don't know anything about either.
The successful project is SMALL, meaning small team and small scope. Focused. Then you build bigger projects with proven components. You should be absolutely sure certain things are possible before doing. Hire "architects" who actually know how to code and not just producing impressive diagrams. Endless talk and year long cranking out useless documents get you nowhere. Start working! Get prototypes out fast. Get everyone understand whole process. Use solid technology and not flaky new technology unless you know it will work.
Stop talking. Get Moving. Make the "architects" actually do the work.
Just what "goals" you need to define? Other than "Have a successful, bugfree product that generate revenue." Employees have goals too: do enjoyable work, earn a living. Don't ask me for a goal every year.
I was asked to attend a company meeting with a roomful of employees to listen to each other's progress and status of some giant project. What a waste of time. An email of status will do. After long rounds of for-loop of project managers talk we were asked to watch a kids soccer video, followed by a speech from a motivational business strategy book author. So a bunch of 6-year-old kids surround a soccer ball and try to have a game. Some kid is even chasing a dog instead of the ball. It even tries to create laughter by having one kid finally able to lead the ball, but to the wrong goal. Cheap way to generate a smile, didn't work for me. The kids clearly do not have a strategy to win. It tries to make the impression that we are just like the kids when we are without goals.
The coach offered a chart with arrows leading to the winning kick. The kids didn't understand, and then the not-so exciting game went on with a disappointed coach. The author comes in, saying you need goals clearly communicated to acheive great results (scenes of World Cup players with GOOOOALs showed) or you look like a bunch of kids.
Look, we are not kids anymore. We don't play soccer (or work) like the kids do.
I didn't need to watch that video.
However, does the top-level project manager have a clear vision like the coach in the video? It is often NO. This is harder than a soccer game. It takes knowledge of hardware/software and knowledge of all moving parts. It is not just assign impossible tasks to some poor guys at the bottom of the coporate ladder.
It is not just putting timelines where the only possibility is success either. It is not drawing diagrams about parts that you don't know anything about either.
The successful project is SMALL, meaning small team and small scope. Focused. Then you build bigger projects with proven components. You should be absolutely sure certain things are possible before doing. Hire "architects" who actually know how to code and not just producing impressive diagrams. Endless talk and year long cranking out useless documents get you nowhere. Start working! Get prototypes out fast. Get everyone understand whole process. Use solid technology and not flaky new technology unless you know it will work.
Stop talking. Get Moving. Make the "architects" actually do the work.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
New Planet
Another exciting new triumph of astronomy discovery in a long while: scientists found a planet 20.5 lightyears away which may be suitable for earth beings. There may even be water there. I am skeptical. We are not even sure what's on Mars. Manned mission to our neighbor Mars is still far away if not impossible. So don't even imagine landing on that planet until science fictional items such as beaming by Scotty is real.
Planets are hard to detect. After all, they don't give off light like stars. Even our own planets in the solar system is hard to detect. Astronomers spent countless sleepless nights to track the stars. Even Mars is unthinkably faraway in human terms. Much of what we know about planets and stars come from analyzing the light we detected, and that is hardcore science that is probably more than a typical science fiction fan can handle.
Look folks, we are talking lightyears. If anything we detected from the planet it is 20.5 years old. Even if it blows up we won't know about it until 20.5 years later. Even at earth we have timezone differences, it is hard to understand the concept of time isn't it?
No one's life time is long enough to reach there even if you have infinite fuel. But wait, time may slow down if you reach close to speed of light. But in reality, what can come to even close of speed of light? Time is actually a difficult concept.
Scientists can even tell you how big is the mass of the new discovered planet compared to our Earth. How do we even measure the mass of our own planet? let alone a planet lightyears away? It is by calculating gravity. It is fairly amazing that we know so much about our universe given we are puny little beings. There is still a lot to be learned about our universe.
Space is the final frontier.
Planets are hard to detect. After all, they don't give off light like stars. Even our own planets in the solar system is hard to detect. Astronomers spent countless sleepless nights to track the stars. Even Mars is unthinkably faraway in human terms. Much of what we know about planets and stars come from analyzing the light we detected, and that is hardcore science that is probably more than a typical science fiction fan can handle.
Look folks, we are talking lightyears. If anything we detected from the planet it is 20.5 years old. Even if it blows up we won't know about it until 20.5 years later. Even at earth we have timezone differences, it is hard to understand the concept of time isn't it?
No one's life time is long enough to reach there even if you have infinite fuel. But wait, time may slow down if you reach close to speed of light. But in reality, what can come to even close of speed of light? Time is actually a difficult concept.
Scientists can even tell you how big is the mass of the new discovered planet compared to our Earth. How do we even measure the mass of our own planet? let alone a planet lightyears away? It is by calculating gravity. It is fairly amazing that we know so much about our universe given we are puny little beings. There is still a lot to be learned about our universe.
Space is the final frontier.
Drought in Programming
Software development is a short-lived industry that experienced much breakthrough. In the old days people were programming with punch cards and fought with bytes of memory. Programming methodology has grown from sphaghetti style to structured programming to object oriented programming. Programming tools have jumped from plain editors to full blown IDEs. Gaming have gone from Pong to ultra realistic cool games. Yet it has been a long drought for new real breakthroughs in (non-gaming) programming.
Let's take a time warp and go back to the DOS days. You can still experience 80x25 screen in a command prompt (Start->Run, type 'cmd') Use Alt-Enter to make it full screen. Yes, people ONLY had that in the older days. Boy how that has changed with mouse and windows. If you have not programmed things like interrupts on DOS, you don't know how to appreciate the modern programming tools. We are talking late 1980s.
Then there is Windows programming. If you programmed in raw C in Windows you know how difficult it was. Visual Basic and other tools such as Delphi revolutionized it. No longer you have handle the individual messages and you focus on functionality instead of the nuts and bolts. Programmers want to emphasize on functionality, not nuts and bolts of the underlying system. We are talking early 1990s.
Languages itself has matured from 'goto' codes to better things such as structured programming. A real breakthrough was object oriented programming. It lets you organize your entities. Programming suddently become some sort of art work. Of course, it can also be misused so you may see ulta difficult mess of objects too. The most popular language for OOP was C++, and gosh it has just too many advanced (or arcane) features that can be confusing and easily misused.
Then, the web and HTTP catch on like wild fire. People are content with simple forms and submit buttons. No longer do we focus on heavyweight client side code. Simple forms will do. People focused on parsing HTTP responses with little programs.
Enter Java. Now that's a real preferred language over psuedo languages such as Visual Basic. It has great libraries and had the promise of cross platform. Unfortunately Java applets does not have the graphic capability like Flash, so it is pretty much dead. Only the server side Java remains viable. We are talking middle 1990s and early 2000s.
Then the world is hyped on XML. Create-your-own-tags and the arcane DTD syntax became a big hit. People are obsessed with popular tags that there is a transformation language (XSL) that looks like a programming language, and guess what, it is itself an XML. There are all sorts of libraries and tools for this hype.
People then focus on frameworks, or using a set of library functions. People make use of custom tags which pretty much defined their own JSP and gone wild with wild XML configurations with particular frameworks.
It has been a long drought. Nothing really revolutionary come in. Until a rediscovery of AJAX.
AJAX is actually nothing new, was with us since IE5. People finally tired of simple HTML forms and demand some interactions. Wow, look at what this simple idea can do. See for yourself in google map vs old yahoo map. This is a rather exciting new change, but basically same technology. Note that the BACK button no longer works with AJAX, because your actions with AJAX is not logged like pages loaded.
People are hungry for new paradigms after OOP. Enter aspect-oriented programming. It tries to append functionality. So you write a bank app, and write some logging for debugging. Then your banking app will be littered with debug statements. How about adding debug statements afterwards. Ugly syntax to make this happen. We have abandoned easy-to-follow codes with wild ideas like this. Is that revolutionary? No.
Then there are little new languages like Ruby on Rails. Ooh make a new webapp fast, with our LISP like pseduo language. ASP apps are easy enough. There is no need for new psuedo tools. Not so revolutionary.
Flash is cool but it really isn't a programming language in the sense of code-compile-build. It is a totally different animal.
Besides AJAX, it has been a rather long drought in regular programming.
Let's take a time warp and go back to the DOS days. You can still experience 80x25 screen in a command prompt (Start->Run, type 'cmd') Use Alt-Enter to make it full screen. Yes, people ONLY had that in the older days. Boy how that has changed with mouse and windows. If you have not programmed things like interrupts on DOS, you don't know how to appreciate the modern programming tools. We are talking late 1980s.
Then there is Windows programming. If you programmed in raw C in Windows you know how difficult it was. Visual Basic and other tools such as Delphi revolutionized it. No longer you have handle the individual messages and you focus on functionality instead of the nuts and bolts. Programmers want to emphasize on functionality, not nuts and bolts of the underlying system. We are talking early 1990s.
Languages itself has matured from 'goto' codes to better things such as structured programming. A real breakthrough was object oriented programming. It lets you organize your entities. Programming suddently become some sort of art work. Of course, it can also be misused so you may see ulta difficult mess of objects too. The most popular language for OOP was C++, and gosh it has just too many advanced (or arcane) features that can be confusing and easily misused.
Then, the web and HTTP catch on like wild fire. People are content with simple forms and submit buttons. No longer do we focus on heavyweight client side code. Simple forms will do. People focused on parsing HTTP responses with little programs.
Enter Java. Now that's a real preferred language over psuedo languages such as Visual Basic. It has great libraries and had the promise of cross platform. Unfortunately Java applets does not have the graphic capability like Flash, so it is pretty much dead. Only the server side Java remains viable. We are talking middle 1990s and early 2000s.
Then the world is hyped on XML. Create-your-own-tags and the arcane DTD syntax became a big hit. People are obsessed with popular tags that there is a transformation language (XSL) that looks like a programming language, and guess what, it is itself an XML. There are all sorts of libraries and tools for this hype.
People then focus on frameworks, or using a set of library functions. People make use of custom tags which pretty much defined their own JSP and gone wild with wild XML configurations with particular frameworks.
It has been a long drought. Nothing really revolutionary come in. Until a rediscovery of AJAX.
AJAX is actually nothing new, was with us since IE5. People finally tired of simple HTML forms and demand some interactions. Wow, look at what this simple idea can do. See for yourself in google map vs old yahoo map. This is a rather exciting new change, but basically same technology. Note that the BACK button no longer works with AJAX, because your actions with AJAX is not logged like pages loaded.
People are hungry for new paradigms after OOP. Enter aspect-oriented programming. It tries to append functionality. So you write a bank app, and write some logging for debugging. Then your banking app will be littered with debug statements. How about adding debug statements afterwards. Ugly syntax to make this happen. We have abandoned easy-to-follow codes with wild ideas like this. Is that revolutionary? No.
Then there are little new languages like Ruby on Rails. Ooh make a new webapp fast, with our LISP like pseduo language. ASP apps are easy enough. There is no need for new psuedo tools. Not so revolutionary.
Flash is cool but it really isn't a programming language in the sense of code-compile-build. It is a totally different animal.
Besides AJAX, it has been a rather long drought in regular programming.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Don't let your kids be the next troubled poor soul
More shocking details may be revealed from the Virginia Tech killer as newsreporters unfold the life of the horrifying troubled soul.
The video he sent was the shocking new information about this guy. He WANTED to be heard, worldwide. But when he was given opportunities to talk to his classmates, all he gives is one word answer. Everyone knows he is a deeply trouble psycho kid. Yet no one is able to help him.
His English professor offered to teach him one to one. Good. He was in psychiatrist hospital. Good. Yet that didn't prevent it.
He could have provided one of the "hundred billion reason" to prevent the rampage. Unfortunately he had the wrong zip code.
What I am really afraid of, this is tip of iceberg. The extreme introverted pyscho minds out there may copy this, or vent out the angers in their own way.
Unfortunately we are quite helpless against terrors like this.
I am no psychologist or psychiatrist, but I am absolutely sure he did not have a pleasant childhood. His parents may have neglected him, or he may be bullied or abused. He may be pushed too hard to do well in academics. He may be in a broken family. Who knows. We will know more as the media learn more. Such a child is largely the parents fault.
His disturbing video revealed he hated the rich with Mercedes. Did anyone tell him: he CAN become one driving a Mercedes if he knows how earn good money. Part of becoming rich is having ability to get along with people. With such personality he is not so likely to get rich. By the way, why did he attend a college with wealthy kids?
His English speaking ability is good. Better than many immigrants.
This perhaps means he works hard to fit into the American mainstream. He also majored in English, another hint at he trying to be a "true American"? This is atypical for Asian Americans, where most go for math and science and medical. What did he want to do with a English degree? What does he enjoy about studying English? I'd like to know too: what are his grades?
How does he become like this? Did he exhibit violent and ultra introverted personality when he was 3 years old? How was he taught?
What kind of family did he live in? Did he get attention from his parents? Did his parents neglected him while busy running that dry clean shop?
Ok, perhaps we should not blame it all on the parents. He himself needed to figure out how to interact with others. After all, we don't live in an island all by ourselves and we must learn how to work with one another. There are and will be people you can't get along with. It is ok. Don't have to kill them all. Killing even everyone in the campus still does not change the fact that the rich still drives Mercedes and drink vokda and cognac. He should think of a better solution to class discrepency. His killing-a-few-dozen-and-himself is a poor solution. So having done all that he didn't solve class imbalance, just causing incredible pain to victim's families and perhaps his own.
The saddest part of this is: he can get guns. With a knife and a hammer he can probably only hurt a handful.
He had too twisted thinkings. But did anyone care about him? Of course he think not. Of course it is hard to care for someone who can't communicate. Did he feel loved? Of course he did not feel loved. He did not even love himself. There should be at least a few individuals that love him: his family.
Parents please give kids a warm home. Talk to them. Try to understand them please.
No one with a good family in a right mind would do something like this. Oh wait he didn't have a right mind.
The video he sent was the shocking new information about this guy. He WANTED to be heard, worldwide. But when he was given opportunities to talk to his classmates, all he gives is one word answer. Everyone knows he is a deeply trouble psycho kid. Yet no one is able to help him.
His English professor offered to teach him one to one. Good. He was in psychiatrist hospital. Good. Yet that didn't prevent it.
He could have provided one of the "hundred billion reason" to prevent the rampage. Unfortunately he had the wrong zip code.
What I am really afraid of, this is tip of iceberg. The extreme introverted pyscho minds out there may copy this, or vent out the angers in their own way.
Unfortunately we are quite helpless against terrors like this.
I am no psychologist or psychiatrist, but I am absolutely sure he did not have a pleasant childhood. His parents may have neglected him, or he may be bullied or abused. He may be pushed too hard to do well in academics. He may be in a broken family. Who knows. We will know more as the media learn more. Such a child is largely the parents fault.
His disturbing video revealed he hated the rich with Mercedes. Did anyone tell him: he CAN become one driving a Mercedes if he knows how earn good money. Part of becoming rich is having ability to get along with people. With such personality he is not so likely to get rich. By the way, why did he attend a college with wealthy kids?
His English speaking ability is good. Better than many immigrants.
This perhaps means he works hard to fit into the American mainstream. He also majored in English, another hint at he trying to be a "true American"? This is atypical for Asian Americans, where most go for math and science and medical. What did he want to do with a English degree? What does he enjoy about studying English? I'd like to know too: what are his grades?
How does he become like this? Did he exhibit violent and ultra introverted personality when he was 3 years old? How was he taught?
What kind of family did he live in? Did he get attention from his parents? Did his parents neglected him while busy running that dry clean shop?
Ok, perhaps we should not blame it all on the parents. He himself needed to figure out how to interact with others. After all, we don't live in an island all by ourselves and we must learn how to work with one another. There are and will be people you can't get along with. It is ok. Don't have to kill them all. Killing even everyone in the campus still does not change the fact that the rich still drives Mercedes and drink vokda and cognac. He should think of a better solution to class discrepency. His killing-a-few-dozen-and-himself is a poor solution. So having done all that he didn't solve class imbalance, just causing incredible pain to victim's families and perhaps his own.
The saddest part of this is: he can get guns. With a knife and a hammer he can probably only hurt a handful.
He had too twisted thinkings. But did anyone care about him? Of course he think not. Of course it is hard to care for someone who can't communicate. Did he feel loved? Of course he did not feel loved. He did not even love himself. There should be at least a few individuals that love him: his family.
Parents please give kids a warm home. Talk to them. Try to understand them please.
No one with a good family in a right mind would do something like this. Oh wait he didn't have a right mind.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Gun violence frustration
Since the dawn of civilization there is violence. If you believe in Bible the first murder case happened with the children of Adam and Eve. The Bible did not go a lot of details of the jealousy/anger of Cain that triggered the murder. But yikes, jealousy/anger can have devastating results.
This result is amplified in modern world when people have guns.
It is even more amplified when there are people with psychological issues with access to guns.
The shocking rampage of a peaceful Virginia Tech campus once again raised serious problem in America: rampage can happen anytime, anywhere. The offender would self destruct afterwards. There is nothing we can retaliate against it. We can't torture the offender in years-long trials and jail. We are simply helpless.
Look folks, the gun laws don't work. The waiting period doesn't work. The background checks doesn't work. Nothing prevents YOU being the next victim of random rampage.
Though the motive of this particular case of Virginia Tech shooting is not clear at this point. Definitely this guy has some pyschological issues. An explanation perhaps can never be satisfying.
So-called expert psychiatrist get paid huge sums may say obvious things such as he is neglected by parents or frustration with relationships.
Parents: you MUST look after your kids, make sure their mental well beings. Relationships: it is not the end of the world if the girl dumps you. We must get over past hardships. Shooting people randomly solves nothing ok?
Sad fact: there are wierdos who cannot express themselves, who don't think logically, and otherwise mentally deficient. And no one is willing to listen to them. What do we call them? defects of society? There are also poor people who were grown up incorrectly (due to parent neglect or whatever), had sad past or whatever.
But the sad fact is these guys can get access to guns.
The solution is not wearing bullet proof vest to class.
The solution is not everyone carry a gun like in Star Trek.
The solution is not keep a metal detector in every building.
I see no solution in sight.
Crazy shooting and bombing is happening everyday in warzones. Are we thinking of solutions in those places? These guys have a motive: revenge.
This result is amplified in modern world when people have guns.
It is even more amplified when there are people with psychological issues with access to guns.
The shocking rampage of a peaceful Virginia Tech campus once again raised serious problem in America: rampage can happen anytime, anywhere. The offender would self destruct afterwards. There is nothing we can retaliate against it. We can't torture the offender in years-long trials and jail. We are simply helpless.
Look folks, the gun laws don't work. The waiting period doesn't work. The background checks doesn't work. Nothing prevents YOU being the next victim of random rampage.
Though the motive of this particular case of Virginia Tech shooting is not clear at this point. Definitely this guy has some pyschological issues. An explanation perhaps can never be satisfying.
So-called expert psychiatrist get paid huge sums may say obvious things such as he is neglected by parents or frustration with relationships.
Parents: you MUST look after your kids, make sure their mental well beings. Relationships: it is not the end of the world if the girl dumps you. We must get over past hardships. Shooting people randomly solves nothing ok?
Sad fact: there are wierdos who cannot express themselves, who don't think logically, and otherwise mentally deficient. And no one is willing to listen to them. What do we call them? defects of society? There are also poor people who were grown up incorrectly (due to parent neglect or whatever), had sad past or whatever.
But the sad fact is these guys can get access to guns.
The solution is not wearing bullet proof vest to class.
The solution is not everyone carry a gun like in Star Trek.
The solution is not keep a metal detector in every building.
I see no solution in sight.
Crazy shooting and bombing is happening everyday in warzones. Are we thinking of solutions in those places? These guys have a motive: revenge.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
I am not upgrading
I saw Office2007 ads all over the CTA. "It's a new day. It's a new office".
Microsoft is very smart at innovating naming its products with a year like a car starting with Windows 95. So you know how old your product is. For instance: I use Office2003 at work, and Office2000 at home. The year tells me even my work Microsoft Office is 4 years old.
We have been little lemmings at upgrades to Microsoft products, it seems like we must upgrade eventually. But I won't this time!
I do only basic word processing, and even Word 2.0 for Windows 3.1 provide all the functionalities I need. I don't need another version of Word. Good old Powerpoint95 suffice for all my presentation needs. I don't use other apps often. So I am not upgrading. Enough. I am not shelling out anymore money. I am sticking with Office2000 until no computers can read my files anymore.
And I won't bother upgrading to Vista either. I have XP and it is good enough for me for now.
Let's go back to the old days of computing where we must upgrade. Back in the days of DOS. Everyone is fed up with the limited 80x25 interface. Upgrading to Windows3.1 was a recommended move. But yikes, Windows 3.1 was such basic Windowing system. We deserve something better, and the windowing experience was revolutionized by Windows 95. Then it was followed by patch after patch. Then followed by 2 flavors of Windows98 and there was the forgotten Windows ME. And there was another line called NT. Everyone was tired. Then NT was gone, replaced by XP. First I have the regular XP, and gosh it cannot run IIS. I need to run ASP! Nope, must go to the Professional version. I hated that. With XP Pro, finally we have a fairly ok system.
What does Vista bring? ooh a new windowing system, but that's mostly cosmetic? Other things are just bells and whistles? I need a REAL reason to upgrade.
I think computing has evolved to the point where there is no real need to upgrade. For example, my stove can let me cook stuff, I need no new stove. Unless there is rocking new innovation with some must-have features (which I can't think of any), I won't buy another Microsoft product.
Microsoft is very smart at innovating naming its products with a year like a car starting with Windows 95. So you know how old your product is. For instance: I use Office2003 at work, and Office2000 at home. The year tells me even my work Microsoft Office is 4 years old.
We have been little lemmings at upgrades to Microsoft products, it seems like we must upgrade eventually. But I won't this time!
I do only basic word processing, and even Word 2.0 for Windows 3.1 provide all the functionalities I need. I don't need another version of Word. Good old Powerpoint95 suffice for all my presentation needs. I don't use other apps often. So I am not upgrading. Enough. I am not shelling out anymore money. I am sticking with Office2000 until no computers can read my files anymore.
And I won't bother upgrading to Vista either. I have XP and it is good enough for me for now.
Let's go back to the old days of computing where we must upgrade. Back in the days of DOS. Everyone is fed up with the limited 80x25 interface. Upgrading to Windows3.1 was a recommended move. But yikes, Windows 3.1 was such basic Windowing system. We deserve something better, and the windowing experience was revolutionized by Windows 95. Then it was followed by patch after patch. Then followed by 2 flavors of Windows98 and there was the forgotten Windows ME. And there was another line called NT. Everyone was tired. Then NT was gone, replaced by XP. First I have the regular XP, and gosh it cannot run IIS. I need to run ASP! Nope, must go to the Professional version. I hated that. With XP Pro, finally we have a fairly ok system.
What does Vista bring? ooh a new windowing system, but that's mostly cosmetic? Other things are just bells and whistles? I need a REAL reason to upgrade.
I think computing has evolved to the point where there is no real need to upgrade. For example, my stove can let me cook stuff, I need no new stove. Unless there is rocking new innovation with some must-have features (which I can't think of any), I won't buy another Microsoft product.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
On Infinity
Infinity is not within our reach. After all, we are finite beings and even the earth and the sun will one day not here anymore. But wait, though infinity is such abstract concept, we actually deal with it quite frequently. My first experience with infinity is when my sister hold up
two mirrors facing each other and told me when I was about 6: "look, there is mirror within mirror and it goes on forever!" I was fascinated by this simple pathway to infinity.
Young kid's encounter with infinity
When I was in third grade I also experienced infinity. It is fairly easy to turn some fraction into a decimal. For example, 1/2 = 0.5. 1/4 = 0.25. The trouble comes in when trying to use long division to turn 1/3 into a decimal. All the paper in the world cannot represent 0.3333... I run
into infinity! Infinity is reached whenever there is a repeat. Same thing happens when I tried to convert 2/3 (a more fascinating repeat is discovered when I tried to convert 1/7).
Infinite joke
An old computer science student joke: Why does the programmer died in the shower? That's because the shampoo bottle say: "Wash. Rinse. Repeat."
Bad BASIC program
Old school programmers know this BASIC program
10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
Ooh it writes HELLO indfinitely. You get to infinity easily when you had to always repeat (and has no mechanism to break). This demonstrates the power of programming: computers will follow your instructions even if it is stupid. Now it is considered bad practice because all programs should have a graceful exit.
We not only deal with infinitely large, we also deal with infinitely small.
Zeno's Paradox
You may have heard of a paradox known as "Zeno's paradox". A guy wonders: if I have to walk 1 mile. I first have to walk half mile.If I have to run half mile, I had to run 1/4 of a mile. And so on. So there are infinitely many tasks to do! But yet I have sucessfully done it. So this is a paradox. Zeno was a bit confused.
This is a classic introduction to calculus concept of the limit.
The derivative (slope of the tangent line) deals with the infinite small. It is a slope, of a very small (infinitely small) value dy divided by infinitely small dx. Strange concept maybe, but we now know calculus work well. Though mathematically we do not work with infinity directly. We can talk about approaching to it using the limit.
We also add up infinitely small rectangles to determine area under a curve with an integral.
Infinite Hotel
Here is a famous thought experiment and puzzle concerning infinity, known as the Infinite Hotel. So suppose there is an Infinite Hotel that can host infinite number of guests. One day there is an Infinte Convention nearby and the Infinite Hotel can accomodate all the guests, no problem. But on the same day there is another Infinite Convention and they want to come to the Infinite Hotel. You are the manager. Are you able to accomodate 2 conventions?
The answer is this: you tell the guests from the first Infinite Convention to move to odd number rooms, and tell the guests from the second Convention to go to the even number rooms.
Some math students may enjoy such thought experiment. Just about everyone else will think this is a stupid problem as there is no such thing as Infinite Hotel and Infinite Conventions.
two mirrors facing each other and told me when I was about 6: "look, there is mirror within mirror and it goes on forever!" I was fascinated by this simple pathway to infinity.
Young kid's encounter with infinity
When I was in third grade I also experienced infinity. It is fairly easy to turn some fraction into a decimal. For example, 1/2 = 0.5. 1/4 = 0.25. The trouble comes in when trying to use long division to turn 1/3 into a decimal. All the paper in the world cannot represent 0.3333... I run
into infinity! Infinity is reached whenever there is a repeat. Same thing happens when I tried to convert 2/3 (a more fascinating repeat is discovered when I tried to convert 1/7).
Infinite joke
An old computer science student joke: Why does the programmer died in the shower? That's because the shampoo bottle say: "Wash. Rinse. Repeat."
Bad BASIC program
Old school programmers know this BASIC program
10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
Ooh it writes HELLO indfinitely. You get to infinity easily when you had to always repeat (and has no mechanism to break). This demonstrates the power of programming: computers will follow your instructions even if it is stupid. Now it is considered bad practice because all programs should have a graceful exit.
We not only deal with infinitely large, we also deal with infinitely small.
Zeno's Paradox
You may have heard of a paradox known as "Zeno's paradox". A guy wonders: if I have to walk 1 mile. I first have to walk half mile.If I have to run half mile, I had to run 1/4 of a mile. And so on. So there are infinitely many tasks to do! But yet I have sucessfully done it. So this is a paradox. Zeno was a bit confused.
This is a classic introduction to calculus concept of the limit.
The derivative (slope of the tangent line) deals with the infinite small. It is a slope, of a very small (infinitely small) value dy divided by infinitely small dx. Strange concept maybe, but we now know calculus work well. Though mathematically we do not work with infinity directly. We can talk about approaching to it using the limit.
We also add up infinitely small rectangles to determine area under a curve with an integral.
Infinite Hotel
Here is a famous thought experiment and puzzle concerning infinity, known as the Infinite Hotel. So suppose there is an Infinite Hotel that can host infinite number of guests. One day there is an Infinte Convention nearby and the Infinite Hotel can accomodate all the guests, no problem. But on the same day there is another Infinite Convention and they want to come to the Infinite Hotel. You are the manager. Are you able to accomodate 2 conventions?
The answer is this: you tell the guests from the first Infinite Convention to move to odd number rooms, and tell the guests from the second Convention to go to the even number rooms.
Some math students may enjoy such thought experiment. Just about everyone else will think this is a stupid problem as there is no such thing as Infinite Hotel and Infinite Conventions.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Classical tunes as ring tone
A familiar music tune plays... That's "Waltz of the Flowers!"
But soon it was interrupted..."Hello?"
Another famiiar muisc tune plays... That's the "Turkish Dance!"
It was also interrupted by a "Hello."
That's my experience on the train ride home. I have no idea the person using the phone knows anything about the tunes on the phone. The classical music comes from phone ring tones. Nowadays masterpieces are now used as temporary signals to phone users for incoming call. This is like spanning great literature works in testing font displays like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.", or like using great art works in decorating the throw-away bags of carryouts. This is a misuse of great works.
In general, anything classified as "classical" has its values to be called a "classic." Of course, classical music is one of those. I do not qualify to talk about classical music. My lack of education prevents me from telling you much about this great subject. How I wish I have taken a course in college about appreciating music without the pressure of midterms and finals.
Besides mathematics, music is the true universal language. Play the tune of "Joy to the world" to the most uneducated person, the person can tell you it is a happy song. Play a tune with a minor key and everyone can tell you it is a sad, moody tune.
Each piece of classical music may involve an orchestra with all sorts of instruments. The
composer arrange each instrument to contribute their own part to a great masterpiece. It is such daunting task and multi-dimensional that this can be much more complex than writing plain text. Music can convey different type of message than text. It may be hard to write a piece of music to convey an instruction such as "open the door", but no amount of words can fully describe the music of "Waltz of the Flowers". Music is truly a different type of language.
Nowadays classical music do not have to be listened in concert halls. Rather, they are now freely avaiable through phone on-holds and ring tones, and of course radio stations.
Listening to classical music through modern technology don't quite match the experience of going to an actual concert. People actually listen, quietly, and not jumping up and down going to rock concerts. The conductor, and each and everyone of the performers need to focus and play each note: the right note and right rhythm. It takes tremendous amount of coordination and practice for each performance. Music ought to be appreciated. It is a triumph of human accomplishment.
Playing ANY of the instruments used in an orchestra takes tremendous time and effort to learn. It takes years of practice to get good in any one instrument. If anyone has ever attempted to learn any instrument such as the piano you will know what I mean.
Each piece of music has its own story to tell, and yet not easily describable in plain text. One has to listen. Each composer has their own unique backgrounds that influence their work. It is a tremendous subject to dwell in.
It seems like classical music are so long ago that it becomes out-of-style. Only time can tell if the current music of today becomes the classic of the future. I encourage young people to learn an instrument and appreciate classical music as great art work.
However, sometimes parents may discourage kids from majoring in music. Musicians, along with pure mathematicians and artists, may have trouble looking for work beyond school. This may be true, but don't let that deter your will to pursue your learning! Worry about bread winning when you are done studying. Perhaps you CAN be a professional musician, or a professional mathematican.
But soon it was interrupted..."Hello?"
Another famiiar muisc tune plays... That's the "Turkish Dance!"
It was also interrupted by a "Hello."
That's my experience on the train ride home. I have no idea the person using the phone knows anything about the tunes on the phone. The classical music comes from phone ring tones. Nowadays masterpieces are now used as temporary signals to phone users for incoming call. This is like spanning great literature works in testing font displays like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.", or like using great art works in decorating the throw-away bags of carryouts. This is a misuse of great works.
In general, anything classified as "classical" has its values to be called a "classic." Of course, classical music is one of those. I do not qualify to talk about classical music. My lack of education prevents me from telling you much about this great subject. How I wish I have taken a course in college about appreciating music without the pressure of midterms and finals.
Besides mathematics, music is the true universal language. Play the tune of "Joy to the world" to the most uneducated person, the person can tell you it is a happy song. Play a tune with a minor key and everyone can tell you it is a sad, moody tune.
Each piece of classical music may involve an orchestra with all sorts of instruments. The
composer arrange each instrument to contribute their own part to a great masterpiece. It is such daunting task and multi-dimensional that this can be much more complex than writing plain text. Music can convey different type of message than text. It may be hard to write a piece of music to convey an instruction such as "open the door", but no amount of words can fully describe the music of "Waltz of the Flowers". Music is truly a different type of language.
Nowadays classical music do not have to be listened in concert halls. Rather, they are now freely avaiable through phone on-holds and ring tones, and of course radio stations.
Listening to classical music through modern technology don't quite match the experience of going to an actual concert. People actually listen, quietly, and not jumping up and down going to rock concerts. The conductor, and each and everyone of the performers need to focus and play each note: the right note and right rhythm. It takes tremendous amount of coordination and practice for each performance. Music ought to be appreciated. It is a triumph of human accomplishment.
Playing ANY of the instruments used in an orchestra takes tremendous time and effort to learn. It takes years of practice to get good in any one instrument. If anyone has ever attempted to learn any instrument such as the piano you will know what I mean.
Each piece of music has its own story to tell, and yet not easily describable in plain text. One has to listen. Each composer has their own unique backgrounds that influence their work. It is a tremendous subject to dwell in.
It seems like classical music are so long ago that it becomes out-of-style. Only time can tell if the current music of today becomes the classic of the future. I encourage young people to learn an instrument and appreciate classical music as great art work.
However, sometimes parents may discourage kids from majoring in music. Musicians, along with pure mathematicians and artists, may have trouble looking for work beyond school. This may be true, but don't let that deter your will to pursue your learning! Worry about bread winning when you are done studying. Perhaps you CAN be a professional musician, or a professional mathematican.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Browser wars
Netscape vs Microsoft. This is real real old news. In the beginning there was the first widely used browser: Mosaic. Then there was Netscape. Soon, everyone wanted to be hooked up to the internet and read webpages via Netscape. That was the boom of the 90s. Only people living under the rock with dumb terminals on Unix prompts were using any other browser such as the text browser Lynx.
Then Microsoft comes up with a browser known as Internet Explorer. Initally IE 1.0 to 3.0 are inferior products compared to Netscape. Starting 4.0, IE becomes a usable product starting to win Netscape's market share. This is classic story of Microsoft-will-beat-you-up-if-you-have-a-good-product.
One reason for popularity of the web is that the browsers are fault tolerant. If I enter an HTML page without closing my tags properly it will still render without error, although it may not look exactly what I want. Forget a semicolon or a parenthesis in programming languages you get a compile error. Forget to check error conditions you get a crash. Forget to clean up your pointers in C++ will make you reboot your machine. HTML is much much easier. HTML is simple and fueled the boom of IT industry and browser warfares with more and more bells and whistles.
Microsoft beats other competitors up by integrating its Windows dominance into the browsers. Unfair tactic maybe. Soon there is ActiveX stuff that drives out any platform compatibility. Then the yellow bar come in to prevent loading APPLET tags which spell the death of Java applets....
Then Netscape 6 is a real disappointment. The pages don't render right. Big fat download. It is a loser product. Then most people jump to IE. Now I don't know anyone still using subsequent version of Netscape. IE is the clear eventual winner in Netscape vs IE.
Enter Firefox. It is quick and innovative with the everybody's favorite tab browsing. It has so many plugin and stuff that takes the original Netscape concept much further out.
The latest round of browser war is IE7 vs Firefox. I've seen IE7. Where the heck are my menu items? I am in disgust with IE7. Yes finally Microsoft added tab browsing that people liked.When I install Yahoo/AT&T DSL at home, it dares to upgrade my IE6 to include tab browsing. The bad news is, it crashes all the time. Now I am a Firefox user.
Then Microsoft comes up with a browser known as Internet Explorer. Initally IE 1.0 to 3.0 are inferior products compared to Netscape. Starting 4.0, IE becomes a usable product starting to win Netscape's market share. This is classic story of Microsoft-will-beat-you-up-if-you-have-a-good-product.
One reason for popularity of the web is that the browsers are fault tolerant. If I enter an HTML page without closing my tags properly it will still render without error, although it may not look exactly what I want. Forget a semicolon or a parenthesis in programming languages you get a compile error. Forget to check error conditions you get a crash. Forget to clean up your pointers in C++ will make you reboot your machine. HTML is much much easier. HTML is simple and fueled the boom of IT industry and browser warfares with more and more bells and whistles.
Microsoft beats other competitors up by integrating its Windows dominance into the browsers. Unfair tactic maybe. Soon there is ActiveX stuff that drives out any platform compatibility. Then the yellow bar come in to prevent loading APPLET tags which spell the death of Java applets....
Then Netscape 6 is a real disappointment. The pages don't render right. Big fat download. It is a loser product. Then most people jump to IE. Now I don't know anyone still using subsequent version of Netscape. IE is the clear eventual winner in Netscape vs IE.
Enter Firefox. It is quick and innovative with the everybody's favorite tab browsing. It has so many plugin and stuff that takes the original Netscape concept much further out.
The latest round of browser war is IE7 vs Firefox. I've seen IE7. Where the heck are my menu items? I am in disgust with IE7. Yes finally Microsoft added tab browsing that people liked.When I install Yahoo/AT&T DSL at home, it dares to upgrade my IE6 to include tab browsing. The bad news is, it crashes all the time. Now I am a Firefox user.
Monday, April 2, 2007
On Einstein
Einstein is the Man of the Century. He is probably THE most well known scientist of all time. His relativity theory and E=mc2 is so revolutionary that it changed modern science ever since. He has outshined Newton, the man who gave us classical physics and calculus. Yet Einstein has not completely figured out all the laws of the universe... We still have a fairly long way to go for the Theory of Everything that he has long seeked. Yes, Einstein is remarkable because he is the icon of science, the genius everyone admired, we even equate the word "Einstein" with "genius." And he is.
There are even "Baby Einstein" toy products in department stores to attract parents who want to have genius kids.
However, unlike many other accomplished scientists, Einstein didn't display his genius ability when he was a kid. He was slow to start talking and his parents thought was retarded! Slower students often defended themselves saying "hey I don't like school and so was Einstein". The true genius may be able to think beyond regular schooling and boring drills. So do you really want your kid to be a baby Einstein?
Personal Life
Einstein is a celebrity and therefore his personal life got exposed. He had an illegitimate child with his classmate. He eventually married this classmate with objection from his mother who think she is physically unattractive. Despite this objection, they eventually married. Later Einstein had an affair with his cousin and he ended up divorcing the first wife and marrying the cousin. But that's not Einstein's only affair...
Religious Views
Einstein was also famous for "God does not play dice" when disagreeing about quantum theories where little particles have "uncertainty principle" about its location and velocity. Yes, relativity and quantum theories do not play well together. Few has mentioned the response of Bohr: "Don't tell God what to do".
Einstein was deeply religious, but in his own way. But he has his own set of believes. He did not believe in "a personal God", and viewed ethnics as "human concern with no superhuman authority behind it" (and he many more unique views).
Nevertheless Einstein is still a very, very distinguished scientist. His personal life does not influence the theories he discovered. He seeked understanding of the universe. Perhaps if he devoted his genius into understanding how families and human relationships should work, his family may be enjoying more than the eternal fame associated with scientific discoveries.
Scientific affairs sometimes is easier to work with than human affairs.
There are even "Baby Einstein" toy products in department stores to attract parents who want to have genius kids.
However, unlike many other accomplished scientists, Einstein didn't display his genius ability when he was a kid. He was slow to start talking and his parents thought was retarded! Slower students often defended themselves saying "hey I don't like school and so was Einstein". The true genius may be able to think beyond regular schooling and boring drills. So do you really want your kid to be a baby Einstein?
Personal Life
Einstein is a celebrity and therefore his personal life got exposed. He had an illegitimate child with his classmate. He eventually married this classmate with objection from his mother who think she is physically unattractive. Despite this objection, they eventually married. Later Einstein had an affair with his cousin and he ended up divorcing the first wife and marrying the cousin. But that's not Einstein's only affair...
Religious Views
Einstein was also famous for "God does not play dice" when disagreeing about quantum theories where little particles have "uncertainty principle" about its location and velocity. Yes, relativity and quantum theories do not play well together. Few has mentioned the response of Bohr: "Don't tell God what to do".
Einstein was deeply religious, but in his own way. But he has his own set of believes. He did not believe in "a personal God", and viewed ethnics as "human concern with no superhuman authority behind it" (and he many more unique views).
Nevertheless Einstein is still a very, very distinguished scientist. His personal life does not influence the theories he discovered. He seeked understanding of the universe. Perhaps if he devoted his genius into understanding how families and human relationships should work, his family may be enjoying more than the eternal fame associated with scientific discoveries.
Scientific affairs sometimes is easier to work with than human affairs.
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