Next Time

LEE Chong Wei (MAS) lost to LIN Dan (CHN) 12-21, 8-21, in less than 30 minutes. There goes our dream of Malaysia's first ever gold medal. Nevertheless, the 12-year Olympics medal drought has ended. Word of encouragement - we Malaysians are proud of you, Chong Wei, for being the first single player to obtain a medal. Till the next round, Chong Wei... though very unlikely for he'll be in his 30's if he ever makes it to London in 2012.

P.S. Ya, I've been shooting at fed gomen people like mad, but that doesn't mean I'm not patriotic. I still love Bolehland, and I really wish we could be proud of a medal. I just hate the way the gomen people (whom I never vote for) ruin the whole country.

Tonight

Awaiting the great match tonight. LEE Chong Wei (MAS) vs LIN Dan (CHN) in Badminton Men Singles Final (Beijing Olympics 2008). If Lee wins, Malaysia will grab her first ever Olympics Gold medal.

Ganbatte, Chong Wei!!

IQ Test

Recently, I was invited by Wilson to his blog for an IQ Test. According to the originator of the test, the one who partake the test needs to have IQ score above 140 in order to get the answer correctly. Haha... tell you what, my Facebook's IQ Test application states that I have a score of 143. I was indeed able to answer it, but it took me one day! With two tries. Wilson got the answer within 2 minutes, and he said his IQ score is below 140. I guess there are a few explanations to it:

1. Wilson is lying on his IQ score.

2. Wilson did some similar test(s) before, so this one - sap sap sui la...

3. This is very true... I actually ignored part of the dialogue, the part where Q said he knew that P didn't know. Yes, I ignored it, and screwed up my first try. After getting past the understanding of the whole dialogue, then only I could solve it. Lesson: Never ever ignore the details of every IQ question - be vigilant.

In order to give credit to Wilson's blog, I would not post it again here. Go and visit his blog in the above hyperlinks.

WYD Sydney 2008

I missed a great deal of the World Youth Day (WYD) events. I did not even log in to EWTN to witness the event live. I was a poor Catholic who was oblivious of what had actually happend in Sydney. I felt bad, very bad.

However, I got to know a little bit about how God worked on the youth through Andre's sharing during SWYF meetings. According to his summary:

1. There were peace across the whole city. The police was on the alert and standby, but they were amazed that, with a million Catholic youths gathering at teh city, there were a record of low crime rates during the WYD week. Only 2 recorded incidents happened - a Catholic assaulted WYD protesters, and a seminary was broken into due to teh reason that all seminarians were out attending the WYD events.

2. Priests were hearing confessions across the streets of Sydney. People were seeking repentence and reconciliation everywhere.

3. Every event seemed like a charismatic event. People are experiencing the strong manifested presence of the Holy Spirit everywhere in Sydney. Even through the monitor screen can the presence be felt.

These testimonies did increase our faith on how God worked on the youths who, of every nation and tribe, were united under one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, under the leadership of none other than our Pope Benedict XVI. Definitely the work of God brought alive through the willing hands the faithful ones who does according to His will.
______________________________________________________

Many anti-Catholic people out there were quick at spotting things that are seemingly pleasing to them in heavily attacking the Catholic Church. One particular attack comes right on the WYD website being an OCCULT website. I happened to notice it (quite some time ago) when I posted "Receive The Power" YouTube Video. This YouTube user by the name of "whilechildrenstarve" has seemingly justified himself in using the website's CSS code to sort of "reveal" all "OCCULT" numbers within the website. You can view the YouTube video here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdXbKzdwCEM

Well, I could say that the "revelation" is bullshxt. Just to begin with, the number six is NOT a Satan's number. It is a mere number created by God. You may then argue, simply by quoting the infamous Scripture verse from the movie "Damian: Omen 2", which is Revelation 13:18. The number 666 is there. Well, many people have been caught up with the reverse hence the wrong order of cause-and-effect argument. We know that everything God created is good. Numbers are created by God. Thus, there are no particular numbers that is marked as a "bad" or "occult" numbers. We all know that God created the universe in 7 days. God supposedly created everything in 6 days, but creation is not considered complete without a rest day, or a holy day (of Sabbath). With this, the Hebrews have been observing the number "7" as a number symbolizing completion or perfection. "6", being a number short of "7", symbolizes a step short of completion, or rather, incompletion or imperfection. Satan, being the fallen angel Lucifer, who always wanted to be God, can never be perfect because of his pride, hence eternal imperfection - we use "6" to symbolize Satan. See the cause-and-effect argument?

WRONG: 6 = Satan's number/Number of Satan. 6 was created for Satan, hence called Satan's number.
CORRECT: 6 was created by God, hence it is good. It is just being used to symbolize Satan for being an imperfect trying to be but can never be perfect.

Cannot accept it? Think of another way. We all know that in Genesis 3, the serpent symbolizes Satan. However, in Numbers 21, Moses was commanded by God to place a fiery serpent on a staff, so that those bitten, by looking at it, would not die. Can we say that serpent = Satan? Definitely NOT! It is just a case where Satan appearing as a talking serpent (in Genesis 3)! God created serpent not for Satan's sake. It is Satan's choice to appear as a serpent.

So many numbers that was being put up in the video, including 3, 9, 11, 13, and even the letter "F". For God's sake, every single website contains CSS code that contains "FFFFFF"! It is a 24-bit color coding for white background! Tell you what, YouTube uses white background. The video was posted into a white background. And guess what... you are attacking the so-called occultish website using a website that contains the "occultish" "FFFFFF" coding. Gotcha... Sorry pal, all websites are full of 6's and F's! 毋上网啦,笨!

Saying "3" as an occult number is a blasphemy. One true God in 3 persons - Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What say you? 毋信天主啦,笨!

Saying "11" as an occult number means that the 11 Apostles who does not sell Jesus to the Pharisees form an occult. Don't ever use font size 11, moron!

Saying "13" as an occult number means that you are demanding God to stop blessing us with sunshine and rain whenever Friday the 13th occurs. Why not just erase Friday 13th from your own calendar, moron! Btw, there were 13 people at the table of the Lord's Supper.

To a skeptic, every number is cursed. Living a life like that, a life that constantly avoiding numbers, man, is a suffering. An unnecessary suffering which was supposed to be taken away by Jesus' suffering on the cross. Rather, an unnecessary agony at things that are created by God - things that are supposed to be used to glorify God.

The video also asked to "boycott WYD08, feed starving children instead". Isn't it the same argument of the disciples when the woman anointed Jesus' head with an alabaster jar of ointment (Mark 14:3-9)? The disciples argued that the expensive ointment could be sold to get money for food for the poor, but Jesus refuted them. She had just done great work for the Lord. And, with the youth willing to give to the Lord by going to Sydney to do great work for the Lord by serving in WYD, is there not a revival happening?

And one last thing. In Acts 1:8, Jesus promised us to receive the power from the Holy Spirit. Never does the WYD theme state that we receive the power from WYD! Get your facts correct, moron!
____________________________________________

Just to recap, the testimonies shows that it is through the Goodness of God that all these things in WYD happen. It is out of God's love that He works in awesome ways. The love that only God can give. The love that Satan can never be capable of giving.

Stewardship / Longing For Jesus

Last Friday, during SWYF sharing, Andre talked about stewardship - how we Christians are appointed mere stewards of God. This is an interesting topic especially in an era of materialistic world, where we Christians tend to forget that we do NOT actually own whatever we are having now.

He began with mentioning that he is proud of himself being a Chinese, especially after watching the movie Red Cliff, which talks about loyalty, courage, and teamwork. He also mentioned that he is also proud of being a Catholic because of what Aussie people in Sydney experienced during World Youth Day - there were peace across the land, and signs of revival were observed in the land. And, all these happen because people are willing to give themselves to the church.

However, many Christians do not understand the art of giving. As observed in the local churches, many Christians concentrate in receiving or wanting to receive the blessings from God. Most of the time, we would see people holding on to what we already own, as if the very thing we own gives us comfort - sometimes we cast blame on God for failing to achieve what we seem to be rightfully ours.

This led to the sharing of a Scripture verse - Deuteronomy 10:14. It stated that "Behold, to Yahweh your God belongs heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that is therein." The direct meaning to the verse is simple. Everything belongs to God. No exception. Period.

So, who are we in terms of our relationship with our property? Do we really own the pocket money we earn every month/week? Do we possess our apartments? Do we really possess our own car? Deuteronomy 10:14 says all these belong to God. So, who are we? We are mere stewards. If I die tomorrow, I will leave all my 'posessions' behind - nothing will I bring even to the grave.

Fast-forward to Sunday Mass. During the Homily, a visiting priest - Fr Mark - told us a story that went like this. There was an elderly man who had a vast collection of beautiful paintings from some renowned artists. He had a son who was out in the battlefield. The son eventually died because he had saved the life of one of his comrades. Later, this soldier who was saved came to this old man's house, and out of gratitude of the old man's son having given his own life to save himself, he handed the old man a portrait of the son that he painted. The old man wept, and yet he thanked the soldier for his mindfulness. He hung his son's portrait in front of his house, and would invite his visiting friends to admire the new portrait before he allowed them to look at the rest.

Later, the old man passed away. He left a will, where it stated that all his portraits was to be auctioned. The auctioner, acting on the will, began with the auctioning of the amateur painting of the dead soldier - the old man's son. The guests were appalled at the decision, for they thought that they should not waste their time placing what was seemingly worth least to be auctioned first. The auctioner just responded that it was part of the old man's will. At last, the portrait was sold to a poor farmer sitting at the back of the hall - the farmer could only offer a small amount of money, which was apparently whatever he had. After that, the auctioner closed the auction session, and revealed to the rest of the outrageous guests that, in the old man's will, whoever takes possession of his son's portrait would inherit his entire collection of portraits.

And this is the message - the person who receives the Son, receives everything (from God).

It is amazing that, under God's providence, the talk during SWYF meeting and Mass Homily were pretty much connected! We do not own anything. Rather, we owe our stewardship of worldly material to God. However, if we long for Jesus Christ, we would receive everything from God! Rather, we would be entrusted with many things from God.

Our challenge is how are we going to use the everything that God provided. Use it for the building of the Kingdom of God, or just leave it there to rot? Multiply the gifts, or leaving it alone? Allowing the gift to benefit others, or holding on to it as if it is too precious to be let go?

The parable in Luke 16:1-12 stated clearly that the one who invest the gifts (talents) and multiply it will be entrusted with more by God. However, there is also a danger - if one is unwilling to invest the gifts and make it fruitful, God will take it away from him, and God will keep His presence from him forever (eternal separation, Hell, gnashing of teeth...).

Pseudonyms No More

I have been having problems creating funny names for my friends in my past blog posts. And I think I want to stop it, due to five reasons:

5. I want to give credits to the people that I blog about, especially those who gives great impact, positive or negative, to my life.
4. A person should be proud of his/her name, so hiding real names kinda dishonor him/her.
3. I'm lazy to think of pseudonyms.
2. I'm lazy to think of pseudonyms.
1. I'm lazy to think of pseudonyms.

Yeah... and did I mention I'm lazy? I am indeed! So, no more false names. From this blog post onwards, I will use real names. So, to my fellow brothers, sisters, friends, acquaintances out there, please let me know if you want to remain anonymous - I will continue crack my head and give funny names or just ignore you in my blog posts. :-P

3x3 Rubiks Solution

Before reading, you need to understand some notations that I use here. This notation is actually borrowed from the contents of the leaflet found in a 3x3 Rubiks Cube that I bought from Toys R'Us.

[ In addition, I have posted some pictures below, in between the steps. for easier illustration. ]

Diagram	Notation	Description
	F	Turn the front face clockwise (if you have the cube in your hands so that that face is towards you - this also applies to the turns below).
	F'	Turn the front face anti-clockwise.
	R	Turn the right face clockwise.
	R'	Turn the right face anti-clockwise.
	L	Turn the left face clockwise.
	L'	Turn the left face anti-clockwise.
	U	Turn the top face clockwise.
	U'	Turn the top face anti-clockwise.

There are 12 steps to solve a 3x3 Rubiks Cube, which are listed as follows. And mind you, one step does NOT mean one movement on the cube!


Step 1:
Make one side same color. Also, make the row nearest to the side same color.
FYI, no specific formula to this. In short, you have to think 3-D!! :-P


Step 2:
Make the center of the 4-sides same color as the row nearest to the side that you fixed in Step 1.



Step 3:
Make one of the center cell in row furthest to the side you fixed in Step 1 same color as the center in Step 2.



Step 4:
Use this formula to make the cell in Step 3 fall in place.
- U’ F’ U F U R U’ R’ (Frontside's top row center cube falling to Frontside's center row rightmost cube location)
- U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F (Rightside's top row center cube falling to Rightside's center row leftmost cube location)

U = Upside, R = Rightside, L = Leftside, F = Frontside. With prime (‘) counter-clockwise.



Step 5:
Continue step 4 till the row that crosses the center of the 4-sides have the same color.


Step 6:
There must be an L-shape with same color on the Upside. Orientate the L so that the edges of L is pointing Leftside and Backside.
- If there is no L, but an “I”, skip steps 6 and 7. The “I” must be horizontal and pass through the center of the Topside.
- If there is 4 L’s (a cross), skip steps 6-8.
- If there is no L, nor “I”, nor cross, add one additional step 7 to form an L or a “I”.



Step 7:
Use this formula to make a horizontal “I” that passes through the center of the Topside.
- F R U R’ U’ F’



Step 8:
Use the same formula in step 7 to make 4 L’s (a cross).



Step 9:
Make one leg of the cross match its side. Then, use this formula to rotate the other 3 to make the 4 legs of the cross match their sides.
- R U R’ U R U U R’ (counter-clockwise)
- R U U R’ U’ R U’ R’ (clockwise)
- Tip: 2 counter-clockwise = 1 clockwise



Step 10:
Find one corner where the 3 sides of corners have same color with their corresponding sides. If all corners are found to match, skip step 11.



Step 11:
Orientate the corner in step 10 so that it is on your top-right-front. Rotate the other 3 corners to make them match by using the formula:
- U R U’ L’ U R’ U’ L (counter-clockwise)
- L’ U R U’ L U R’ U’ (clockwise)
- Tip: 2 counter-clockwise = 1 clockwise



Step 12:
Use the following to rotate 2 corners at the same time.
The 2 corners must be on your top-right, one front, one back
- L U L’ U L U U L’ R’ U’ R U’ R’ U’ U’ R (front clockwise, back counter-clockwise)
- R’ U U R U R’ U R L U’ U’ L’ U’ L U’ L’ (front counter-clockwise, back clockwise)



P.S. I was caught in action solving the 3x3 cube. :-P

Unbelievable I's

I was working halfway on one fine Friday (yesterday lar), when my colleague sent me a hyperlink to one of TheStar news, which stated that MIMOS will be launching the Bolehland's basement priced laptop and PC, named i-Dola and Jean-i respectively. I read and re-read the news, and ended up having stomach muscle cramp laughing!

For those lazy to click, let me quote the news here. I hope I won't get charged for copyright, the website is FREE anyway!!

--Quote--

LUSAKA (Zambia): Three months from now, Malaysians will be able to buy the i-Dola laptop and Jean-i personal computer (PC) at basement prices.

Mimos is now ready to licence the production of the Malaysian computer codenamed Mak Cik, which it took two years to develop. The laptop and PC are named after the Prime Minister and his wife.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili said the laptop would cost RM1,000, and the PC RM500.

“I have tested the computers and am happy with their performance,” said Dr Ongkili, who was here to attend the Global Southern Africa International Dialogue.

“They are wireless, Internet-based designs and need not be connected to fixed lines. To reduce costs, they do not have hard discs. You use a thumb drive instead.”

It is understood that the i-Dola and Jean-i will be as fast as computers using Intel Pentium 4 processors.

Dr Ongkili said that the King and Queen have already been presented with a pair of i-Dola laptops, which were previewed at the WCIT in Kuala Lumpur recently.

He added that several manufacturers were keen to make the computers, and were targeting selling about a million of them.

“The computers require broadband access and I have told the relevant bodies to speed up the roll-out of broadband coverage,” Dr Ongkili said.

He said the computers are targeted at students, businesses and housewives.

He revealed that Zambia and five other African nations have expressed interest in making the computer. In Zambia, laptops cost as much as US$3,000 (RM9,600).

--Unquote--

Here, I just want to talk about the thumb drive thing. Since there are many blog posts 'hantaming' the notion on some other aspects, I won't be embarking on their same aspects of other bloggers in due respect. Let me elaborate how stupid is the thumb drive idea. The next four paragraphs would be an elaboration on my 4-fold points of the stupidity of the above idea.

I am working in a semiconductor company - although the product I am working on is not of Flash technology, I know a bit here and there from my other fellow colleagues on how a Flash write-read operates. Also, I had obtained a Certificate degree in a computer systems and programming course when I was in my high school, so I can still remember how fast a RAM, magnetic storage devices and EEPROM/Flash can store data. From what I learnt, Flash is super slow as compared to magnetic storage device. Which means, thumb drive is a snail as compared to a HDD. If you don't believe me, try copying a video, say 20MB of size from a your HDD to a thumb drive, and then copying the same video from your HDD back to your HDD. See which one is faster!!

Also, a HDD in a system (PC or laptop) uses the IDE transmission cable (or rather, ATA cable if you feel that the term S-ATA is more familiar). An IDE cable is made of 40 parallel cables. So, naturally I would assume that the IDE transmission bus would consist of >1 data lines... which means 8 at least, perhaps 16 or 32. I know, I should have done more research on this before I compose, but I just want to make a quick comparison. Meanwhile, a USB (short for Universal Serial Bus) is a 4-connection bus. And guess how many data lines are there? Make a wild guess. See, it is named serial for a purpose - all data is serialized. So, the answer is one. One data line. So, in comparison, IDE is faster than USB.

Third, we are talking about a gigabyte or even terabyte storage device. In current market, it is easy to find a 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB thumb drives. 16GB is rare, yet it is possible that we start to hear people talking about it in near future. On the other hand, HDD capacity ranges from 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 250GB, or even 750GB. Well, it sounds like in terms of capacity, thumb drive is out of the question. However, people do use thumb drive for two reasons - portability and convenience. If you want to store a PDF, or even a couple of folders of audio files, you would choose a thumb drive rather than a black box of mounted magnetic disks. On the other hand, if you want to install a software or game, say Warcraft III - do you use a 16GB thumb drive? No... You would no doubt install it in your C drive (HDD lar).

Lastly, price comparison. Just a quick assumption on local computer market (no research done). An 8GB thumb drive would cost, say, RM80. A 250GB HDD would cost, say, RM250. Well, these figures appear reasonable at this point of time, right? No? C'mon, just a few bucks difference. Now, let's do a simple calculation. RM80/8GB thumb drive, so, RM10/GB for a thumb drive. RM250/250GB HDD, so, RM1/GB for a HDD. Wow!!! See what I got? The storage of a thumb drive is relatively 10x more expensive than that of a HDD!!! Why? Simple - thumb drive storage is made of Flash, which is a semiconductor (you know, p-doped and n-doped silicon); while HDD is made of magnetic disks, which requires the technology of magnetic coating, and magnetic head reader. The latter technology is, no doubt, cheaper to-date.

And now what - the i-Dola and Jean-i are not using HDD, and instead we use thumb drive (Flash). Imagine, having our Operating System and all other necessary software in a Flash!! The system takes forever to boot up man!!! Also, do you really think that a Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 could fit into a 16GB thumb drive? Yes, in Dreamland, perhaps. Or, perhaps students, businesses, and housewives, which comprises of the market, would be advised to only use MSDOS and WordPerfect - oh my... you are asking people to time-travel back to 20 years ago!!! Sorry, doc, you are 20 years behind time!!! No wonder the code name Mak Cik (means auntie) came out.

And, what a bullshxt to say that thumb drive is used in order to save cost. Read above once again and find out yourself!

I don't want to talk about the Intel Pentium 4 microprocessor. Okay la, talk a bit. People are now talking about Intel Core 2 Duo, moron. And you are still comparing with Pentium 4. What la...

What a disgrace to our 'beloved' PM and First Lady, by naming a cheap and lame system after them! And what a dishonor to our late First Lady, as if those who are dead should be forgotten!!!

And oh, I forgot that I did mention that, to some Bolehlanders, Bolehland is Dreamland. Anyway, sorry la brader, this is not Dreamland. So wake up! As an ultimatum, I will not buy i-Dola or Jean-i. Try imposing difficulties in sales of ASUS, HP, Compaq, Dell and Acer - Malaysians will end up hogging Sim Lim Square!

Some other blog links:
http://www.chanlilian.net/2008/08/01/siapa-nak-beli-komputer-i-dola-dan-jean-i/
http://cry4freedom.fm/blog/2008/08/01/i-dola-and-jean-i/
http://mrbadak.com/2008/08/01/mimos-to-produce-cheap-computers/