Oh, an unfortunate lizard was wasted by this boy.
After playing with lizard, he jumped into the drain and looked at me
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
On The Way To Office
This morning while walking to office, I saw this boy. Wondering what he was up to, I walked forward...
Oh, an unfortunate lizard was wasted by this boy.
After playing with lizard, he jumped into the drain and looked at me
Oh, an unfortunate lizard was wasted by this boy.After playing with lizard, he jumped into the drain and looked at me
Monday, October 15, 2007
Cargo Cult Science in Malaysia
Malaysia once again over-stretches itself by sending Sheikh to space. Even though the minister argued bitterly Sheikh indeed is a really cosmonaut and not a flight participant.
"Because the Russians said so!", he claimed proudly.
However little did he realize even though the Russians call Sheikh as cosmonaut, but in terms of rank, Sheikh is flight participant (aka Mr. Tourist). This naming is consistent with NASA's classification.
What are the differences? Simple, everybody in ISS is cosmonaut by the nature of their physical presence. The rank describes their job scope. Our Sheikh's job scope is as a tourist. Period.
URL here (Click on the UK flag to read the English version).
On the surface, Malaysia looks like an advanced country, because it is doing what advanced countries do. For example it is making its own car (but of inferior quality and finally has to beg a Mat Salleh company to bail it out), having someone to walk both poles, having a lot of tall and big buildings, and sending someone off to space.
The key question: will Malaysia truly become an advanced country by mimicking what those advanced countries are doing?
What are the ingredients of being an advanced country?
What I fail to see is steps taken to stabilize the economy, drive down the crime rate, improve inter-racial harmony, and raise competencies in universities.
Why? Because all these are hard to do, and the yields are so slow and marginal at any given time that you don't have 'the moment' to jump up and down and yell "Malaysia Boleh!" We want instant gratification, we just want that short moment of glory. What do we do for the upcoming endless darkness after the incandescence? Don't care, let's just raise the tax, up the toll price, and let hell loose. Who cares?
An article by Richard Feynman comes to mind, the Cargo Cult Science. Relevant excerpt:
Even though Feynman talks about the way to do science, and the context of this blog is on how a country should be run, the essences are the same.
Change all occurrences of 'scientific investigation' to 'advanced countries' and re-read:
They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
"Because the Russians said so!", he claimed proudly.
However little did he realize even though the Russians call Sheikh as cosmonaut, but in terms of rank, Sheikh is flight participant (aka Mr. Tourist). This naming is consistent with NASA's classification.
What are the differences? Simple, everybody in ISS is cosmonaut by the nature of their physical presence. The rank describes their job scope. Our Sheikh's job scope is as a tourist. Period.
URL here (Click on the UK flag to read the English version).
On the surface, Malaysia looks like an advanced country, because it is doing what advanced countries do. For example it is making its own car (but of inferior quality and finally has to beg a Mat Salleh company to bail it out), having someone to walk both poles, having a lot of tall and big buildings, and sending someone off to space.
The key question: will Malaysia truly become an advanced country by mimicking what those advanced countries are doing?
What are the ingredients of being an advanced country?
What I fail to see is steps taken to stabilize the economy, drive down the crime rate, improve inter-racial harmony, and raise competencies in universities.
Why? Because all these are hard to do, and the yields are so slow and marginal at any given time that you don't have 'the moment' to jump up and down and yell "Malaysia Boleh!" We want instant gratification, we just want that short moment of glory. What do we do for the upcoming endless darkness after the incandescence? Don't care, let's just raise the tax, up the toll price, and let hell loose. Who cares?
An article by Richard Feynman comes to mind, the Cargo Cult Science. Relevant excerpt:
In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas -- he's the controller -- and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land. Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school -- we never say explicitly what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -- a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid -- not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked -- to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Even though Feynman talks about the way to do science, and the context of this blog is on how a country should be run, the essences are the same.
Change all occurrences of 'scientific investigation' to 'advanced countries' and re-read:
They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Technical Deep Dive of P1i
After some investigation, this phone is in fact a miniature computer.
First of all, it will be more apt to call it "a computer with phone ability": it has all the characteristics of a computer. A display, inputs, a standard processor (ARM9 running at 200MHz), primary storage: memory (128Mb), and secondary storage which consists of in-built flash (256Mb) and external flash (M2 card, max 4Gb). On top of that, it even has Bluetooth, GPRS, WLAN (802.11b only...), and the standard USB connection. So from any angle, this is computer-grade piece of hardware. Full spec of this phone can be found here (2.62Mb PDF).
How about software then? It has a pretty robust OS - Symbian OSv9.1 with UIQ3 graphical user interface. Symbian employs a micro-kernel-ism approach with the core kernel only keeps the minimal functionalities while other features are implemented elsewhere and interact with the core kernel through message-passing. This contrasts greatly with monolithic kernels like Linux and Windoze. However, this OS is coded in C++, which is something Cuppa Chai not familiar with.
It turns out Nokia is very keen to promote the Symbian + UIQ combo (Nokia has 47.9% stake in Symbian Ltd.). The result is Carbide.C++.
Carbide.C++ is an Eclipse-based IDE targeting Symbian-based devices. It even comes with a variant with much-reduced functionality (read: nearly useless for anything serious) for free. To produce something more useful, you need to pay at least US$450 and purchase the missing essential functions like on-device debugging and real-time profiling. Even more advanced version where you can work on the ROM and do kernel debugging is available at a whopping US$6000 price tag.
Familiarity notwithstanding, C++ can't prevent me from having a shot at programming this device. Well, this is what the free Carbide.C++ can do anyway.
Here you go.
My salute to all my fellow nerds in this world: Hello World
First of all, it will be more apt to call it "a computer with phone ability": it has all the characteristics of a computer. A display, inputs, a standard processor (ARM9 running at 200MHz), primary storage: memory (128Mb), and secondary storage which consists of in-built flash (256Mb) and external flash (M2 card, max 4Gb). On top of that, it even has Bluetooth, GPRS, WLAN (802.11b only...), and the standard USB connection. So from any angle, this is computer-grade piece of hardware. Full spec of this phone can be found here (2.62Mb PDF).
How about software then? It has a pretty robust OS - Symbian OSv9.1 with UIQ3 graphical user interface. Symbian employs a micro-kernel-ism approach with the core kernel only keeps the minimal functionalities while other features are implemented elsewhere and interact with the core kernel through message-passing. This contrasts greatly with monolithic kernels like Linux and Windoze. However, this OS is coded in C++, which is something Cuppa Chai not familiar with.
It turns out Nokia is very keen to promote the Symbian + UIQ combo (Nokia has 47.9% stake in Symbian Ltd.). The result is Carbide.C++.
Carbide.C++ is an Eclipse-based IDE targeting Symbian-based devices. It even comes with a variant with much-reduced functionality (read: nearly useless for anything serious) for free. To produce something more useful, you need to pay at least US$450 and purchase the missing essential functions like on-device debugging and real-time profiling. Even more advanced version where you can work on the ROM and do kernel debugging is available at a whopping US$6000 price tag.
Familiarity notwithstanding, C++ can't prevent me from having a shot at programming this device. Well, this is what the free Carbide.C++ can do anyway.
Here you go.
My salute to all my fellow nerds in this world: Hello World
The Life of Having P1i
This is the third day I have my SE P1i, and let me write down some of my thoughts.Some of my friends questioned my decision of getting such fancy phone, arguing 90% of the time we will only use it to talk and sms.
Reading documents on the go? "You must be kidding" they said with both mouth and eyes wide-open.
Truth be told I would have been in their camp just a couple of months back, saying "I can buy 4 phones with this price!"
However I know I can't keep running away from technology. Now ubiquitous devices is the trend and as a software engineer, the least that I can do is to understand, but not necessary to embrace it.
Ok, the above sounds cheesy.
I admit I want a new toy :P
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Bye Bye Moto
With mixed emotions, I announce the demise of my Moto Razr V3i phone.
I am not happy because this stupid V3i died at the time where there wasn't any phone on the market that I like. In order to replace it, I had to bite the bullet and chose one that I hate the least.
The symptoms of its ailing showed on last Friday, which I suspected was a sickness called firmware-couldn't-boot-properly, which led to complications like all-white-screen and slow-to-start.
An engineer I am, I was quick to give it the highly complicated operations of removing-battery-and-put-it-back and also removing-sim-card-and-also-put-it-back, hoping to save its life (Thanks to LY for suggestion of the latter operation). It survived for another 2 days until the following Monday.
It was a fine Monday morning, I powered on the V3i as usual, but it responded very slowly. The air was filled with ominous aura, foretelling the withering life of V3i. After trying all the methods I knew, the phone went from bad to worse and it couldn't even power down properly.
"Must be the stupid bootloader can't boot without a proper prior shutdown."
With that hypothesis, I painstakingly boot the device without sim card and let it shut down, to make sure the shut down sequences were done in order. It proved this indeed again pulled the V3i from the brink of dying.
Like a hunter in a treacherous ground, I trust no luck. With the gait of a well-trained innocent wolf, I dashed out my house, phone in hand and wallet in pocket. I didn't need much anyway. I reached down, yes, my undies was still on. Good.
Time was ticking, I went to a few places where famous hunter-gatherers meet and weighted the bargains. The games were abundant: Sony Ericsson, Nokia, LG, Samsung, etc. My mind had purposefully filtered out any combination of "Moto" or "Rola". No, these terms freak me out.
I was considering Nokia and went to one of the shops, but there was a sign caught my attention:
"Our shop has terminated the 7-days refund and exchange policy. Kindly please inspect your new handset before leaving the counter. Any issue after the purchase please proceed to the Nokia service center."
Shit, I heard Nokia is having quality issue, but I never thought it is so severe. I backed out and there was only Sony Ericsson. When looking at the selections, I was thinking to get T250i which costs S$200+, but the camera is only VGA.
I had been the ardent advocate of "a phone only needs to be a phone, no more", but I start to wonder will a multi-purpose phone can boost my productivity? With that in mind, with a big round of applause, please welcome the new member to my humble abode, Sony P1i!!!!
P/S: What happened to the dying V3i? I sold it, together with all its accessories, for S$70. It would be worthless in no time if I chose to keep it. S$70 is better than a piece of junk, in my opinion.
I am not happy because this stupid V3i died at the time where there wasn't any phone on the market that I like. In order to replace it, I had to bite the bullet and chose one that I hate the least.
The symptoms of its ailing showed on last Friday, which I suspected was a sickness called firmware-couldn't-boot-properly, which led to complications like all-white-screen and slow-to-start.
An engineer I am, I was quick to give it the highly complicated operations of removing-battery-and-put-it-back and also removing-sim-card-and-also-put-it-back, hoping to save its life (Thanks to LY for suggestion of the latter operation). It survived for another 2 days until the following Monday.
It was a fine Monday morning, I powered on the V3i as usual, but it responded very slowly. The air was filled with ominous aura, foretelling the withering life of V3i. After trying all the methods I knew, the phone went from bad to worse and it couldn't even power down properly.
"Must be the stupid bootloader can't boot without a proper prior shutdown."
With that hypothesis, I painstakingly boot the device without sim card and let it shut down, to make sure the shut down sequences were done in order. It proved this indeed again pulled the V3i from the brink of dying.
Like a hunter in a treacherous ground, I trust no luck. With the gait of a well-trained innocent wolf, I dashed out my house, phone in hand and wallet in pocket. I didn't need much anyway. I reached down, yes, my undies was still on. Good.
Time was ticking, I went to a few places where famous hunter-gatherers meet and weighted the bargains. The games were abundant: Sony Ericsson, Nokia, LG, Samsung, etc. My mind had purposefully filtered out any combination of "Moto" or "Rola". No, these terms freak me out.
I was considering Nokia and went to one of the shops, but there was a sign caught my attention:
"Our shop has terminated the 7-days refund and exchange policy. Kindly please inspect your new handset before leaving the counter. Any issue after the purchase please proceed to the Nokia service center."
Shit, I heard Nokia is having quality issue, but I never thought it is so severe. I backed out and there was only Sony Ericsson. When looking at the selections, I was thinking to get T250i which costs S$200+, but the camera is only VGA.
I had been the ardent advocate of "a phone only needs to be a phone, no more", but I start to wonder will a multi-purpose phone can boost my productivity? With that in mind, with a big round of applause, please welcome the new member to my humble abode, Sony P1i!!!!
P/S: What happened to the dying V3i? I sold it, together with all its accessories, for S$70. It would be worthless in no time if I chose to keep it. S$70 is better than a piece of junk, in my opinion.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Let's Look At The Drain
If you have read more than one day of Malaysian newspaper, definitely you will always see our politicians (usually from opposition parties, those from BN are hibernating until the next election) in action: they are such a bunch of down-to-earth people in the sense they attend to matters as mute as clogged drains, burst sewage pipes, sunken pavements, or broken road signs. To make sure you know and see the problems, they will even pose by pointing to the structure in question, and of course, also make sure the photographers have filmed them in an unequivocal light.
Though this is already part of our (and their) daily lives, what does this imply to our societal health as a whole?
First, isn't these issues should be addressed by the individual municipal officers? Where are they, and why we must have high ranking MPs or state representatives to look at clogged drains? The most amazing thing is despite the glaring mis-steps and plain negligence, there is no one held responsible for the mess, and there is no change at all at the root of the problems. There is not even remedial steps taken, let alone heads rolling. If the government will take the step to fire a few of its useless staff (which actually comprises most of the staff anyway), I am sure those so called government servants will sit up and pay attention.
Second, when a country where those leaders are not addressing the real challenges, but only squabbling on making something tallest, biggest, or going on tour to watch belly dancing, or screwing other races for not singing the national anthems right, where is this nation heading? In Singapore, the government not only is able to identify the issues on hand, but it also looks pro-actively at all nascent trends. For example SG has invested like crazy in bio-technology 5 years ago, although the return of investment on this sector is hard to measure in near term, at least it has tried. Do I need to pan the camera back to our beloved government and see what it is up to?
I have had enough of 'setting up special committee' and terms like 'we will investigate this matter further'. Fine, after years of investigation, I can't see things getting better. With fuel price getting higher and higher, the inflation pressure hits hard on common folks. Salaries are depreciating in value due to inflation and the depreciation of the ringgit, further more, with falling foreign direct investment, job opportunities also shrink (FYI, Inventec withdraws from Penang now), I foresee the people will have to endure a double-hit: ever-increasing prices for almost everything, and sky-high crime rate in the months to come.
For those in Malaysia, good luck (trust me, you need that)
Though this is already part of our (and their) daily lives, what does this imply to our societal health as a whole?
First, isn't these issues should be addressed by the individual municipal officers? Where are they, and why we must have high ranking MPs or state representatives to look at clogged drains? The most amazing thing is despite the glaring mis-steps and plain negligence, there is no one held responsible for the mess, and there is no change at all at the root of the problems. There is not even remedial steps taken, let alone heads rolling. If the government will take the step to fire a few of its useless staff (which actually comprises most of the staff anyway), I am sure those so called government servants will sit up and pay attention.
Second, when a country where those leaders are not addressing the real challenges, but only squabbling on making something tallest, biggest, or going on tour to watch belly dancing, or screwing other races for not singing the national anthems right, where is this nation heading? In Singapore, the government not only is able to identify the issues on hand, but it also looks pro-actively at all nascent trends. For example SG has invested like crazy in bio-technology 5 years ago, although the return of investment on this sector is hard to measure in near term, at least it has tried. Do I need to pan the camera back to our beloved government and see what it is up to?
I have had enough of 'setting up special committee' and terms like 'we will investigate this matter further'. Fine, after years of investigation, I can't see things getting better. With fuel price getting higher and higher, the inflation pressure hits hard on common folks. Salaries are depreciating in value due to inflation and the depreciation of the ringgit, further more, with falling foreign direct investment, job opportunities also shrink (FYI, Inventec withdraws from Penang now), I foresee the people will have to endure a double-hit: ever-increasing prices for almost everything, and sky-high crime rate in the months to come.
For those in Malaysia, good luck (trust me, you need that)
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