Wednesday, November 28, 2007

How-To-Talk-Like-a-Politician: Blind Talk

Introduction:
My apology for my readers for delaying the writing of this how-to series for so long. Counting using an advanced calculation apparatus, namely my fingers, it seems I wrote the first installment for almost 4 months ago. Should disappointed readers want to fume their frustrations, may I suggest them to throw Euro dollar bills (No US dollars, no ringgit), PS3, laptop computer (at least core 2 duo, 1 GB ram and a 8800GTX graphics card), or even a few pretty girls at Cuppa. I don't mind to defend the right to free speech with those gadgets and babes.

Today's topic is called "Blind Talk". In more plain word, it is 'bull-shit'

Examples:
1. "Our universities are competitive because we are still in the world top 5000. The slip is due to the ranking is calculated differently" - a politician commented on the slip of overall rankings in local universities

His point: As long as we are in top something, we are fine. Nevermind the slip, because it is the ranking committee's fault, not ours. However, it is trivial to achieve that aim, for any number n, we are assured of in top m by making m >= n. For example, if there are 400 universities and we are ranked 399, we are still in top 400!

2. "There are no discriminations in our country. There are a lot of doctors, accountants and engineers as well as rich people in those races. This shows the government treats ethnic Chineses and Indians fairly." - a politician commented on the recent strikes

His point: Ethnic chinese and indian must be on the edge of starvation or in extremely dire situation to show they are being discriminated, anything less than that doesn't warrant a complaint.


Now the more interesting part: Application.

How to Apply:

"Cuppa is handsome. This is a candid self-assessment, well, as candid as the BolehLand politicians say they are holymen"

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Top Three Characteristics of A Good Cat

3. It doesn't give anything a damn
2. It doesn't give anything a damn, including the owner
1. It doesn't give anything a damn, including the owner, except it is time to eat

Act like a cat

Monday, November 26, 2007

Cuppa's Broadband Era

With an interesting twist, broadband internet has arrived Cuppa's humble abode.

The story is initially Cuppa's housemate, Alfred, who is also Cuppa's landlord, didn't want to have Internet because he doesn't know about computer at all. However after knowing a girl abroad, Alfred was calling that girl on a daily basis and soon the phone bills were killing his wallet mercilessly.

Thereafter the need of VoIP was mounting, until a point Alfred bit the bullet to get broadband and a computer. Also note that he wants not only voice, but also video, therefore the calling cards are out.

The Cuppa Blog will be updated more regularly from now onwards (I hope).

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Good Boss, Bad Boss

All these years, I have had quite a few bosses. Their backgrounds are vastly different, and naturally their preferences and how they manage people are also diverged. To protect the guilty I shall not disclose the gender as well as the name of those concerned. Instead I will refer each of them as 'he' in the most non-sexist way.

1. Manage-Till-You-Die Type

Characteristic: Knows little or no technical knowledge but has excessive zeal to pursue the privilege and the title of a manager. He will try to exert his pressure until you recognize his 'authority'.

Typical Conversation between him (H) and his staff (S):

H: Can you give me an update on what your plan for this week is?
S: I thought I just updated you yesterday?
H: We have been in a churning* frenzy and basically my full time job is working on the MS Project and pressing you for updates from time to time to show that I am working
S: WTF...

* Churn refers to 'change'. 'Feature-churn' means changes in product features

2. Step-on-Your-Head Manager
Characteristic: Reasonably good technically, but has no consciences and treats subordinates as stepping stones and/or tools to achieve his personal goals. The consequence is you die or not is none of his business

Typical Conversation between him (H) and his staff (S):
H: I don't care, this project must be done and you must finish before tomorrow.
S: Since this project's delay is not the team's fault, can we claim for dinner for staying late?
H: Yes, budget is RM10 per person and you should not go out to eat. You should stay in office because the objective is to get the job done
S: I need a sleeping bag....
H: You can have a few rolls of toilet papers if you really feel cold in office

3. Do-All-You-Want Type
Characteristic: Just don't care, as long as you deliver

Typical Conversation between him (H) and his staff (S):
S: I will be off half day tomorrow because my pet ant is sick
H: Sure, go ahead, no worries
S: Btw, my project is delayed for 2 months because I spilled coffee on the only prototype board in office, burning the lab as well because electric short-circuits
H: Really? That is interesting

Note: This type of manager doesn't really exists...

Friday, November 16, 2007

Low SNR Articles

Recently I find myself become lazier or lazier, or in another perspective, more and more efficient.

I just give up reading lengthy articles with low signal-to-noise ratio.

Life is short.

To see what I mean by the above, I invite you to read this article on embedded design here.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Let's Be Very Very Paranoid

Recently there was a covert test on airport security in the states. The result shows the investigators managed to bring liquid explosives and detonators on board and this generated a lot of ammunitions for some politicians to push for higher military budget.

However how long can a nation pay for such unproductive expenses? Although some people may argue precautions must in place to protect the innocent, to prevent the re-occurrence of 911, and blah blah blah.

I just feel all these are really stupid. One end there are people who claim they defend democracy and police the whole world, while at the other end there are people who fight in the name of religion. And the fighting itself basically nullify everything these two camps stand for.

You don't invade others to get democracy, and you don't kill others to get to heaven.

Last but not least, you don't need to show others how to wipe your ass 'the correct way' in space to prove you are a developed country.

Crazy world.

The news on airport security is: Here

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Meeting of Four

YC's visit to SG marked the gathering the four handsome and available engineers.

This time the venue was Clarke Quay and the topics were as usual, on work, on beer, on women, and large doze of drowsiness.


Cherish the time we gather, as it's hard to predict where we are tomorrow. Let me finish sucking sipping my beer.

Thoughts of the day:

Malaysia's UTM is ranked 415 by THES and surprisingly some people are still 'satisfied' with the result, arguing there are over ten thousand universities in the world, and 415 is really not that bad.

Well, this kind logic will give UTM enough slack to slip down to 500 while still claiming to be in the top 5% universities in the world. Go ahead with self-congratulatory mode.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Sharpening the Saw

Today is a lazy Sunday.

Though I have a dead line to meet in 2 weeks, I try not to think about work today.

Instead, I am doing what Steven Covey said, "Sharpening the saw". In other words, I am doing things that normally I have no time to do, but nevertheless they do contribute positively to my productivity and overall well-beings.

A good example will be cleaning up of my humble abode. I swept and mopped the floor, and tidied up the stack of newspaper, purging the older ones for recycling.

A clean up doesn't limit to physical stuff; I also scanned my work computer for spywares and viruses, as well as ran the disk defragmenter to ensure disk access time is optimum.

Down to my heart, all these scanning and defragmenting are unnecessary taxes we pay for using M$ products. Some people may say why don't you use Linux/OS X/Solaris? Well, these OSes have their own problems. In fact, there are a lot of news that viruses and malwares are starting to targetting Mac OS. Why? Because the user base for OS X has grown so much that now it is profitable to write a malware for it. I believe we will live with M$ for sometime to come. Linux? Nay, it is a good candidate, but I don't see it as a viable main-stream OS contender for another 3 to 5 years.

A picture tells a thousand words:


No, let's not talk about politics today. What can I say anyway?