No more tablets in 5 years?

The Blackberry chief predicts, No More Tablets in 5 years. Ok, let's see how well this prediction holds. But I predict there will be no more Blackberries in 5 years and no more job for this gentleman in 5 years.

If the gentleman do not believe in tablets, why does Blackberry bother to make one (the Playbook) and it failed miserably while iPad's sales soar? Now, everybody likes to make predictions such as the death of the PC... and Windows 8 certainly makes it die faster. (Well it may not, if the Windows 7 interface comes back with some real improvements)

The tablet is great for couch browsing, casual reading, and casual gaming...and is here to stay, more than 5 years. An attachable keyboard turning it to laptop is great idea... unfortunately Windows 8 just didn't do this right.

Android is natively in java, Windows native is in its wacky every changing .NET things, Apple in wacky Objective C. Blackberry is in C++. This is nice foundation.. but what's up with months and months of delay with that new Blackberry phone? I hope you meet Microsoft in getting 3rd place in the phone world.

I promise to buy a Blackberry if Heins's prediction is right. I hope I can find one by then, not in junkyards.

xkcd: integration by parts

Came across this xkcd comic:

No, it should be integral of v du that you want to see if it is easier.

For the record, I haven't need to do this once after high school.

u-substitution and by-part are the only 2 general methods to evaluate integrals. People came up with all sorts of techniques to integrate expressions for certain patterns... and therefore you got the table of integrals on the back of your calculus book.

omg, now you can do just about everything with calculus on the web. See this powerful Wolfram site: http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/Calculus.html

Now, should we let kids use calculators on their test? What if they fire up their phones online and cheat that way?

Letters containing Ricin

Yikes, letters of poison sent to government officials right after an act of terrorism. This is basically a repeat of 9/11 pattern a dozen years ago. See here for a reminder of the details.

President Obama got one of these. Glad he does not need to open his own letters. See news details here. However, what I don't understand is this. How come no news report tells me what the letters say?

This time it is ricin. There are so many deadly plants and things out there, and people thought about this as chemical weapon. Poison is supposed to be banned in some national treaties that nobody follows anyway. Ok it is harsh to kill with chemical weapons of mass destruction. Is it not harsh to kill somebody with a machine gun?

I hope we soon get to the bottom of the poison letters and to the Boston bombing.

Boston Explosion

OMG, terrorism strikes America again! This is the biggest act of terror on America after 9/11 at the Boston Marathon. How sad is this... At this point no one is responsible yet. Don't jump to conclusions too quickly. It may not be the al Queada, it may be some mad man right here in America.

I do believe people will eventually find out who did this.

I frequently check the news lately. Is North Korea actually sending nukes at someone? at its intended location? Alas, there are actually many bombing and killings around the world around this time too. This news is in boldface big font because it is occurring in America. and there is an earthquake killing dozens at the Iran-Pakistan. We cannot prevent natural disasters.. but human disasters... come on, what gain do you get when you kill a few innocent marathon athletes and their supporters? The guy is got to be mad at something... or insane. or want to revenge America for something. That 8 year old and other victims didn't harm you, you hear? Killing the innocents does not solve your problems!

The CTA has this sign all over the place: if you see something say something.

Unfortunately, hundreds of people at the marathon still wasn't able to see something, say something, and prevent such thing. We are so helpless against the next disaster.

Google honors Euler

What a pleasure to see Google honors my favorite mathematician Euler:

See more about Euler here. He is one of the greatest mathematicians ever known. Few people has a number named after him: e. That's right, the base of the natural logarithm. Your calculator has an e^x button. You must be dozing in calculus or had a professor who can't speak English if you don't know what's so natural about the natural logarithm. (Yes, d/dx e^x = e^x) It is invincible for differentiation.

But wait there's more... that Euler formula in the lower-right corner connects e, i, π, and also 0 and 1 together. Such relationship is a beauty in the eyes of the mathematicians. I have a great book on this fabulous formula (I wish I understand all of it).

See that bridge over there in the google image? It is the Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem that opens a new chapter in math: topology.

That V - E + F = 2 is also known as Euler's formula for shapes and stuff.

Rick Warren's son commits suicide

Rick Warren's son committed suicide, apparently because of depression.

You may have heard of Rick Warren's famous book "The Purpose Driven Life". Millions of copies sold. I've read this book myself. This book is well written in clear language, highlighting the cash cow important verse Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I can see how this book may even transform lives for it supposedly have give the hopeless hopes, and the purposeless with some purpose. I certainly admire people who can sell millions of books...

How many people actually zoom out of the verse and read just the chapter? The LORD is talking to those who were taken exile... not to you.

Yikes, Rick Warren's own son was in depression, despite having a loving family, prayers, and the best medical personnels and counselors available... Matt still can't climb out of the depression. Some depression perhaps can trait back to a cause... such as Miss Right decides to go with a lessor being, friends betray you, couldn't get to the school/job you want, or growing up without loving parents... alas sometimes we can't trace to the source and resolve... I guess depression can be something beyond what current medicines can fix... but yikes how much are the not-so-helpful doctors and counselors charging Warren? That bill can cause someone who don't make as much money right into depression.

Not even faith can help him... now that's depressing.

Read the next verse in Jeremiah, "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. " I am sure they did. How come the LORD doesn't actually step in to help?

Now, here is a another tough theological question... is Matt going to heaven? He has violated "thou shalt not kill (yourself)"

Who understands the pain Matt has to go through? Who understand the pains that some people with horrible diseases who wants to go to Jack Kevorkian-style suicide go through? This is a tough question.

Goodbye Roger Ebert

The legendary acclaimed movie critic Roger Ebert is gone... sad for Chicago and for the entire movie industry. I liked watching Siskel and Ebert... both are gone. If they end up in heaven I hope they can still view movies on earth... but they probably have even better things to do there.

I agree with most of Ebert's reviews. I sometimes need to read Ebert's review after a movie to try to understand what I watched.

Alas, if you go to rogerebert.suntimes.com to dig out an old review, you will get some embarrassing error:

SOSEScript: bossV2Searchjson.php5 failed executing with the 
following error: Error on line 954 position 1: 
Invalid argument supplied for foreach()

"Powered by Yahoo". This is EMBARRASSING. Fix it!

Alas, cancer stole his jaw.

My dad at one point says, "look, you don't need to excel in all subjects to become a legend, if you do ONE thing well, very well, you can get all the dollars and fame you want" and he pointed to some legendary comic artist. Ebert watch movies and be able to write about and talk about it intelligently and voila become a legend. Others tried and just never quite achieve the status of Ebert.

I suppose those who miss Ebert's reviews would want to search for it. Sun Times better fix it. Come on, how hard is it to do a search in your php?