一种值日生的奇想篇。用着吸尘器，还是会流连扫把畚斗。i
有时候，复古也需要勇气。
Smelling the roses
一种值日生的奇想篇。用着吸尘器，还是会流连扫把畚斗。i
有时候，复古也需要勇气。
郁闷，是一种创意精神的体现。
#FFFF00. Indeed!
寂寞，也许是种奢侈品。
There is nothing quite like the exquisite, triumphant moment, of waking up in the morning and suddenly finding the precise word for exactly what went wrong in your relationship.
Bingo. =)
And help exists! Love + Academia
Though in all likelihood, I may be belting out advice instead. That is, when I get some time to goof off.
I had all but left it as a cobblestone down memory lane, but tracing footsteps back, it seems that my earliest brush with a tech startup dates back to 2001. I was bleeding-edge enough to have gotten my feet wet with Linux, know enough C programming, and exuded sufficient enthusiasm for learning to hack the Linux kernel, so I was offered an internship position on the spot. I liked the company too, as this was the first Singapore technology company after Creative which has released a product that even got a mention on PC Magazine. And they liked it.
Of course, I passed up on the job offer. The shallow reason was that I did not want to travel 60 minutes each way from Clementi to Macpherson. The less shallow one was that I like people who play hard-to-get, and getting an immediate offer, probably by the engineer co-founder himself no less, was just too easy.
Fortunately, the company survived the loss of a superficial intern, and moved on to technology mecca. Celestix relocated to Silicon Valley, received two rounds of funding, and has a market capitalization of $15 million.
Anyway, I re-discovered Celestix not through their product line, but rather as one of many case studies on tech start-ups outside the US. Or if the Singapore government would have its way, "technopreneurship", a word which may have risen above its pidgin status if only the government had more role-model technopreneurs to wave around apart from Sim Wong Hoo.
With apologies to my Singaporean friends, I would like to share a quote from the Singapore case study in David Rosenberg's "Cloning Silicon Valley - the next generation high-tech hotspots".
People: risk-averse
Singapore's otherwise enviable pool of high-tech labour suffers from two critical shortcomings: there aren't enough Singaporeans and they are too obedient for the rule-breaking culture of high-tech. With only 2.1% of the population engaged in or thinking about starting a new business, the country has one of the lowest rates of new business start-ups among the 21 countries survey in the Global Entrepenurship Monitor 2000 survey.
For nearly four decades, Singapore's educational system has been geared towards training competent and efficient team-players for multinational corporations and the state bureaucracy. On a pure skills basis they excel but when it comes to the special needs of the technological sector, especially companies in the early stages of growth, the typical Singaporean doesn't have the right mindset. [snip] Indeed, except for a brief welling-up of interest at the peak of 1999's internet craze, Singaporeans have preferred the predictable career ladder and financial security of working for an established company over a smaller, newer business, even one with significant upside potential.
Now, if only I could claim exemption simply because I am Malaysian by birth... =)
If there were a cosmic accounting program for everything that went on in the world, I imagine this to be the day when the column associated with 1337 skills to go up by a small margin. The column for ethics to fall by a corresponding amount. And the entry for net love in the universe to remain more or less the same, though there has been some wild numbers in both the debit and credit columns.
To a first approximation, it feels like googling your date before your first meeting. =)
reminder to self: never count your first dates before you have them.
Katsumoto: You believe a man can change his destiny?
Algren: I think a man does what he can, until his destiny is revealed.
- The Last Samurai
Sybilla: There will be a day when you wish you have done a little evil, in order to do a greater good.
- The Kingdom of Heaven
The curse of seven strikes still. And since an attractive, quick-witted heroine is the quintessential element of any adventure, I dare say we are still missing a Stella Bridger. But the heist is being mapped out. We are starring a second-time buccaneer at the steer, green but sturdy hands at the steer, and yours truly as the obligatory greaseman. The clock starts ticking.Ought to get some sleep and stop mixing movies and metaphors. Good night.
- Me
Samantha: It's my birthday! Where's my present?So, web huh.
Bacon: Um. Under my bathrobe?
Samantha: I was expecting something bigger.
第十七章－滅絕老尼猴耍無忌三豐．
In group settings, the Delphi Technique is an unethical method of achieving consensus on controversial topics. It requires well-trained professionals, known as "facilitators" or "change agents," who deliberately escalate tension among group members, pitting one faction against another to make a preordained viewpoint appear "sensible," while making opposing views appear ridiculous.Using the Delphi Technique to Achieve Consensus
How much do I have in the bank?
My heart rate monitor died.
I was tinkering with it, holding down combinations of two buttons to find out how to reset the stopwatch, when the display went blank. As if it was saying, too much fiddling, I give up. Or perhaps it knows better, that there is nothing left to monitor. (And it would be right.)
But monitor or no monitor, the running goes on. Besides, Black Hill's my bitch, still.
"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Jack jump over the candlestick." Which is to say, when there is a fire beneath your collective butts, you had better be quick on your feet.
Remember: the million-dollar bullet point.
And my ordinary is in the spectacular. Behold.
N = 1 => P = NP
Sitting ducks. *quack*
Hypothesis: the conflict between religion, reality, science and fiction is hardly consequential. It is merely a matter of time before one catches up with the other. In that order.
Jimmy's Shoe Repairs:
I will heel you,
I will save your sole,
I will even dye for you.
Do it again! This (Microsoft) is a company that looks the world's roughest, toughest anti-trust regulators in the eye and laughs. Compared to anti-trust people, copyright lawmakers are pantywaists. You can take them with your arm behind your back.Microsoft Research DRM Talk, Cory Doctorow
- Hitchhiker's Guide of the GalaxyTuring Test: A test for artificial intelligence suggested by the mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing. The gist of it is that a computer can be considered intelligent when it can hold a sustained conversation with a computer scientist without him being able to distinguish that he is talking with a computer rather than a human being.
Some critics suggest this is unreasonably difficult since most human beings are incapable of holding a sustained conversation with a computer scientist.
After a moments thought they usually add that most computer scientists aren't capable of distinguishing humans from computers anyway.
To climb the ladder of success, work hard and you will reach it.
Lucky numbers: 36, 14, 25, 37, 18, 2.
All physics textbooks should include this warning label:- Warning: Gravity is only a theory"This textbook contains material on Gravity. Universal Gravity is a theory, not a fact, regarding the natural law of attraction. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
Informix, at least in terms of name recognition, ranks third among the three major relational database vendors. The company has spent the past few years sitting on the sidelines as its two arch-rivals pummeled each other in the marketplace. Sybase and Oracle have spent inordinate amounts of effort on engineering bullet-list features that relatively few of their customers actually use, while Informix has concentrated on clean architecture, outstanding OLTP performance, and robust 4GL-based development tools. Its ad blitz seems to be limited to a billboard on northbound Highway 101 in Redwood Shores, CA, just past Oracle's ever-expanding corporate campus, that says, "You have just passed Oracle. So have we."
"To distinguish between edge nodes and internal nodes, the number of gateway brokers is fixed at 20% of the network size."
I still have a job today, because...
Life's a bitch, and then you die retaliate.
Good morning sunshine.
Woe betide me. What have I done to deserve friends like this?
"She is one of the good ones."
"How do we always manage to fuck up the good ones?"
In the fine tradition of engaging an otherwise dwindling audience, may I invite those among you who will read anything I post to kindly step up to the plate. The reasons for this curious phenomenon may vary from person to person, and may include
You know who you are. And now that I have your kind attention, may I kindly present my newest discovery in the senseless murder of time, Creating a password to convince yourself you have travelled back in time As with all discoveries, this one was accidental. I was originally reading up on the ramifications of Gödel's theorem, Russell's Paradox and Occam's Razor in theological arguments. Honest.
At times, school can be rather to the point. For example, how much more direct can you get than naming the hardest class in graduate school "Complexity"? Which explains why I was paying attention and actively asking questions in class.
Me:*raises hand* So is there a reason why there are
complete problems in NP, but no complete problems under Turing
reduction for the class of all languages?
Daniele:*confused* There are no complete problems for
Turing reducibility..., because you all provided a proof for it
in your first homework! What are you looking for? A
philosophical reason or something?
Class:*laughs*
And thus I came to understand, beyond the morass of Greek letters, laboriously meticulous proofs and fiendishly elusive insights, Math can be pretty straight-forward after all.
The perfect winter Saturday is sauntering down Black's Hill to the beach at noon. Meandering through the rolling span of greenery, turning around a corner to see the speckles of yellow daisies hinting at the impending spring. Pausing at the first sheer drop, beholding how the adjacent hills frame the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. To notice the looming shadows on the cliff walls, look up and find the paragliders cruising downwind, streaks of red and yellow silhouetting the brilliant Californian sun and unsullied blue skies. Greeting the surfers who are heaving their boards uphill, entranced, talking in child-like wonder about what little, and how little, we know of this beautiful world. To discover in unexpected glee at the end of the terrain treat, that the mass of surfers have actually conglomerated here for a contest. And to simply sit down amidst all the primed telephoto lenses, dangle our feet, and laze away the afternoon fully contented that all we can see are distant black specks dotting the white foaming waters.
That Saturday never happened, and I am not sure if it ever will. Yet, despite its non-existence it has taken up a life-form of its own, taken its shot at posterity, and is sealed in a time capsule of ever-lasting perfection.
Geek in training, or how to be more gracious at accepting compliments.
Coach: Good job! I like the fact that you have your own
pace.
Me: *wheez* *smile* (Actually, I am chasing Lorenzo, but
you would not know that judging from the distance between us.)
Coach: You are very explosive on slopes. Keep it up!
Me: *wheez* *smile* (More like, I only have an initial
burst of energy, after that my lungs feel like they are going to
spontaneously explode.)
And by the way, you know that your muscular control is not exactly the sharpest of knives, when you have to take instructions on how to run downhill.
As a side note, I cannot help but think that the Wachowski Brothers were actually reading much of Turing's bibliography while they developed the scripts for The Matrix trilogy. It would appear that they conceived of the Matrix as something of a Turing machine, with the Architect as the personification of the ultimate universal Turing machine. The Oracle is an oracle of exactly the type described here, in that she directs the evolution of the Matrix by giving humans like Neo choices whose consequences cannot be foreseen, and are in a sense non-deterministic, and thus attempting to tap into whatever formal language is represented by humans. The exploration of the relationship between the philosophy of the Matrix and these questions at the foundations of mathematics is the topic for another node...via Everything2
So perhaps no one should be above rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty. Nor would any task be above methodical study, meticulous measurements and rigorous analysis. In fact, as any optimization guru would have it, successful optimization relies on delving into the dark bowels of complexity to come face to face with raw, unadulterated data.
God is in the details.
And since it has obviously been some time since I have gotten some...
How to
insult a Computer Scientist
Two different theories exist concerning the origin of children: the theory of sexual reproduction, and the theory of the stork. Many people believe in the theory of sexual reproduction because they have been taught this theory at school.
In reality, however, many of the world's leading scientists are in favour of the theory of the stork. If the theory of sexual reproduction is taught in schools, it must only be taught as a theory and not as the truth. Alternative theories, such as the theory of the stork, must also be taught.
Evidence supporting the theory of the stork includes the following:
The more you know...
swizzle: to convert external names, array indices, or references within a data structure into address pointers when the data structure is brought into main memory from external storage (also called "pointer swizzling"); this may be done for speed in chasing references or to simplify code (e.g. by turning lots of name lookups into pointer dereferences). The converse operation is sometimes termed "unswizzling".
What I did not know:
Personally, I was rather impressed by Direct Relief International. Their numbers show over 99% of their incoming funds going towards medical supplies for relief efforts. Additional brownie points for not using telemarketing for fund raising purposes, and making their financial statements easily and visibly available on their no-nonsense website.
As a side-note, I think for the time being BBB only has evaluations for organizations with US offices. Among other considerations, one significant practical implication would be the inability to make your donations tax-deductible. Depending on whether the deductibles are significant at your income level, you may have to do some additional homework. (Just don't dilly-dally as I did.)
Whenever my mum calls me, there would always be this curious, obligatory question: "So, do you still keep in touch with [your girlfriend]?"
Bizarre, if you ask me.
For the very first time in my life, I have been labelled as a sprinter.
Well, I am going to take the comment in a bad way and assume that he meant psychologically and not mechanically. In the meantime, I would have to work on my strides. The reality of short legs is that one has to break into a full gallop just to keep up with the lanky jocks who appear to be merely shuffling their feet. For those in the audience who are still in puberty, please take some advice - get off the computer and go play some basketball.
On the bright side though, the view is not too bad when I do lag behind. Lalala.
Day 4. I think, someone left some pretty large Mary Janes to fill.
Surest way to sell glue? Break things up more than imaginable pieces. Perfectly unimaginative.
Postscript: Andy says "Take care dude." I guess that is geek speak for "You are so fucked. But I feel your pain."
The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? Death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch and you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities. You become a little baby, you go back into the womb, spend your last nine months floating ... and you finish off as an orgasm.- Sean Morey (via Shay)
Emotionally primed. Lock, stock and barrel.
I wonder how appropriate it is to philosophize about a particular assigned reading for class. After all, it does seem rather far-fetched to be able to draw life lessons from papers titled like "On the Duality of Operating System Structures."
Or maybe not. I am going to work in an industry where positions like "Chief Evangelist" are pretty high up the food chain. Flamewars erupt routinely between zealots who disagree with each other's tools. And let us not forget the Mac fanatics who make converting platforms sound like switching religions. =)
So perhaps for every polarized, emotionally-charged argument about two (or more) diametrically opposed entities, we need only look a little further along the timeline for some insightful luminary to shine some light and sense on the topic. If you are on either side of the debate, you may fantasize about that day when your claims are vindicated. But I suspect, more often than not, the best possible outcome can only be "You are both correct." Or "It really does not matter." With higher probability, "All of you are idiots. Here's the real deal." After all, the only cosmic constant is but human stupidity.
So the only useful question we can ask ourselves before that day when we are proven dunceheads, is what do we do in the meantime. I say, everybody should just get along. Amen.
My very first night in a foreign place, 8500 miles away:
Betty: One question.Somehow, this is already starting to feel like home.