"Wir lassen nie vom Suchen ab, und doch, am Ende allen unseren Suchens sind wir am Ausgangspunkt zurück und werden diesen Ort zum ersten Mal erfassen."

The maestro on risk management
With all its mathematical sophistication, current financial and economic risk management breaks down. In an FT article, the maestro explains, "The most credible explanation of why risk management based on state-of-the-art statistical models can perform so poorly is that the underlying data used to estimate a model’s structure are drawn generally from both periods of euphoria and periods of fear, that is, from regimes with importantly different dynamics."

Adult neurogenesis
The orthodoxy is that we constantly loose our neurons as we age. Here's a heterodoxy. Plus, the idea that poverty could also be a matter of biology is something "free will" guys might not want to live with.

"Art will become a crucial source of scientific ideas"
So says Jonah Lehrer who himself has impeccable science credentials. See how Marcel Proust could be a neuroscientist!

Subprime woes
Here's the best comical presentation ever on the subprime crisis.

UC Berkeley lectures now online
For friends who have just come out of their batcaves, pick your courses here. Ironically, one of the lectures seems to suggest that face-to-face lectures are much better. "You can't beat the live performance," the professor says.

Economics professor as homo economicus
Watch him live la vida loca!


He is no other than Robert H. Frank of Cornell.

Economics has never been this funny!





If you can't get enough of the video, the text adds value.

Smart teens don't have sex (or kiss much either)
Here's the study, and a discussion. Now I know why I survived high school without losing it. :)

Science vs Religion, one more time
Religion wins, hands down. The Scientific American concedes. :)

Harry Potter and Economics
I've been looking for excuses to procrastinate on reading the last installment of the HP series. Once I missed a class because I was so engrossed reading the 3rd book that I totally forgot my class schedule. Now here's for the bashing and possibly my excuse too. Continue until you finish reading the comments as well. Probably the odds are not exactly in favor of my not reading it. Here's a piece that says exactly the opposite about HP not making any economic sense. Talk about economics being a dismal science.

Engineer vs Philanthropist
Who contributes more for the society's well being? An engineer or a philanthropist? Bill Gates the software engineer or Bill Gates the Philanthropist? It depends how you calculate their contributions. This guy has it his way.

Lead Exposure and Criminality
If you're a fan of Freakonomics that attributes the drop in criminality in the US to the institution of abortion, here's even more freakish link to criminality: lead exposure. Surges in crime correlate with heights of lead exposure in population. The evidence appears to be more solid than what's used to support the Freakonomics thesis on the abortion-criminality link.

Politically Incorrect Truths
Psychology Today (not exactly up there in academic reputation) published this nonetheless amusing article on "truths" about human "nature": why suicide bombers are Muslims, why men prefer sexy blonds, and so on.

College Buddies
The Harvard Crimson chronicles two college buddies who turned out to be stars in the same field.

Facebook v MySpace
I started using Facebook back when it was only for one school. MySpace, for me then, was just "there". Now here's an ethnographic account (sorta) of the two social networking sites and the kind of people who tend to use them, basically reflecting class division.

Diaspora calling
My intersecting interests in both Filipino diaspora and information technology recently got engaged with a report from the Economist [7 June 2007]. With the falling cost of IP telephony, everybody should be calling, right? Not so fast. It looks like in general there's really not much increase in the time we spend calling other people. But look who's dialing who over the Internet? Peoples in diaspora. Hmmm... no surprise there for me, since I myself spend a great deal of time talking to friends and family abroad. But other than the fact that these people are using Skype or Yahoo or what-have-you more than other groups, availability or accessibility of the VOIP technology doesn't automatically translate into its increased use.

"Scientific Consensus"
Here's one for my friends teaching Science, Technology and Society. "Scientific consensus" is supposed to be a good thing. But what if it stifles dissent and fosters false finality in debates over issues? Is science about consensus, to begin with? The Czech president makes his point.

Booked in NY
When I'm in New York, I stay with my sister. So this is probably something I can't experience for myself. But for my literate friends who are looking for a place to stay in the Big Apple, the Library Hotel is an enticing proposition.

Internet--the biggest generation gap since rock-n-roll
NY Mag has done a wonderful piece on Internet being a dividing line between Before Netters and After Netters. After Netters, the generations that grow up with the Internet, may complain that Before Netters, the folks who might know or not know how the Internet works, are clueless what privacy entails today. Do you have a Facebook profile? A YouTube video? A MySpace account? Oppss... don't tell. What you say might give away your age.

Blogging about blog
Everybody seems to be into blogging these days that it practically lost its novelty already. Here's something to note for my American blogging friends. For the rest of us, we can basically sleepwalk into blogging.

Watch this clip of an interview showing what has to be one of the most mind-blowing distinction from a blonde [www.videoplink.com]. Not that I have anything against blondes, but see for yourself if this woman has helped at all.

An honest wage for a day's honest work
In saying this adage, people may only be agreeing verbally. Reality can't possibly be that easy. Take any computation of *real* wage. You'd expect it to be as straighforward as your pay slip. Not so fast, if we look at this calculator of real wage. Indeed, real wage is function of many things, and your wage, brother, is not even real, much less honest.

Writing your mom a paycheck?
O, well, mother's day, and society is abuzz with mushy adverts on the *idea* of momhood. Momhood, however, may represent opportunity cost. Isn't it better if someone actually compensates your mom?

Bike to work
Sometime ago we did a class report on campus biking. I bike to school and to work 99.99% of the time. Elsewhere the idea is getting more hip everyday, and the Americans are riding along. "Maki-bike ka! Wag matakot!"

Americans are sicker than Brits
so says this story. How do Americans and Brits differ with respect to health? Well, one: vacations! Government mandated time-off is much greater in UK than in America. There could be other more nuanced factors, of course. Skim through a /. discussion on this.

Be able to kill your students
Oops, that's just a quote from the Ninja master Masaaki Hatsumi. How I wish I can truly appropriate that for certain students. :) But before you really get too serious about this killing stuff, go ask a Ninja yourself!

Structured Procrastination
Not all procrastination is bad. One can efficiently structure it to be productive. It may in fact be key to great work.

Elements of Style Now Online

I've always depended on Elements of Style as a grammar book. It's now online.

'Nerds make better lovers'
- so claims this article.

Free Mac mini Desktop
Recently I've been making this pitch to my friends and their friends:

Hi friends and friends of friends! We're close to getting a free Mac mini Desktop, and we're sure we'll get it with a little help from you.

Yep, we're kuripot, they say. Recently we got free DVD rentals. So my partner Helen and I have been watching a lot of movies these days. If you want to know how, email us and we'll share the info with you. Good things are meant to be shared. :)

So here's the 'title belt' I'm going for this time: Free Mac mini Desktop! Of course it's a promotional stuff, but you don't have to eat their marketing bull$%17 nor spend a dime. How? Just choose the trial subscription of eFax, for instance, and cancel it before it expires if you think you don't need it. There are other offers, like the Blockbuster DVD rental that I got. But you decide for yourself.

So the promo is for FREE Mini Macs! No kidding! we've joined and we think you should as well... even if you don't need a Mac. :) Get it here:

http://www.FreeMiniMacs.com/?r=14202315

Thanks for your help in advance!

peter


PS
If you're still skeptical, my middle name is 'skeptical' myself. :) Isn't the deal too good to be true, I asked. Doesn't Economics tell me 'There's no such thing as free lunch'? Isn't it just another pyramiding scam? So I did research on this. Well, it turned out that the deal, IN FACT, is real. It's coming from a marketing company that's been handing out free iPods. See, for instance, the accounts from Wired Magazine and New York Times:

http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,64614,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A13F63A540C758EDDAB0994DC404482

After reading those accounts, please tell me if the deal still doesn't make any economic or marketing sense. Ok?

Reductio ad absurdum in computing
This Kerneltrap interview with Richard Stallman notes of a technique (called 'dependency-directed backtracking') in programming that basically deploys reductio ad adsurdum:

'You make some assumptions, and with those together with some given facts you draw a conclusion. You may reach a contradiction; if so, at least one of your assumptions that led to that contradiction must be wrong. You also record which combination of assumptions actually related to the contradiction, so you can deduce that that combination of assumptions cannot all be true. Then you backtrack by changing assumptions, but you never try a set of assumptions that includes the combination that you know are contradictory.'

Barnyard Economics
Some people just toss this term around without much thouhght about its meaning. A friend of mine, who took an exam where this term appeared, tried to google it without much success. So I thought I'd do the googling myself and see what would come up.

Barnyard economics

Sense 1:'practical economics' as opposed to one influenced by inclinations and desired. Relevant article: "Barnyard Economics" by Denise Eby Konan, Associate Professor of Economics at University of Hawaii. URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://www.colorado.edu/Economics/newsletter/summer01-konan.htm . Relevant book: Everything I Needed to Know About Business I Learned in the Barnyard by Don Aslett.

Sense 2: 'real world' economics as opposed to textbook economics. Textbook economics, for instance, says markets equilibrate; 'barnyard economics' denies it. Sample passage: "The real basis of economics was detailed in George Orwell's Animal Farm which made the astute observation that equality is variable. Nowhere is the application of such barnyard economics more obvious than in the stock market. Though laws have been passed to keep the large predators at bay, there is still enough size difference between the inhabitants of the barnyard to illustrate the fundamental Orwellian principle that some animals are more equal than others" (Dallas Brozik, Sharks and Lemmings: How the Stock Market REALLY Works. URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://webpages.marshall.edu/~brozik/sharklem%20web.pdf

Sense 3: 'fundamental economics' taught through engaging methods other textbooks or classroom lectures. Relevant project: 'Barnyard Economics'. URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://www.oup.org/pubs/curentp_2/vol.html . Sample passage: "Bill began a talk 'Barnyard Economics' as a hobby became popular with church groups, lodges, school, civic service and foreman's clubs. This talk was made throughout the Eastern half of the United States. "Barnyard Economics" took the mystery out of the principles of economics by reducing them to the shopman's language." URL (accessed 16 Dec 2004): http://www.communities.ninemsn.com.au/MorganCountyKentuckyGeneology/johnston.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=137

Math and Sex
What a /. read! An interesting juxtaposition here. :)

"People who boast about their I.Q. are losers." - Stephen Hawking (quoted in NYT, The Science of Second-Guessing, 12 Dec 2004)

Amish experience
Here's a NYT account of a family's experience with an Amish community. O, well, close. They were there as tourist. I wanted to experience Amish living myself, not for its religion but for the way they appropriate technology.

Links to touristy Amish experience:

Rocky Acre Farm: www.rockyacre.com
Green Acres Farm Bed and Breakfast: www.thegreenacresfarm.com
Country Gardens Farm Bed and Breakfast: www.thecountrygardensfarm.com
Lancaster County Farm Stay: www.afarmstay.com

Coffee addictive?
A study in the journal Psychopharmacology shows that coffee is addictive. Hmm... addicts anyone?

The Barbie stereotype and lust
Here's a piece on how men's preference for shapely women may actually have a biological basis.

Still in the area of sexuality, this article thematizes the notion of lust. Actually, it's a plug for Simon Blackburn's book Lust (Oxford).

School ranking
Another ranking that's causing a stir is Academic Ranking of World Universities 2004 where Harvard tops. The Economist picks it up, and all hell breaks loose.

Death by overwork
A word that came into general use in Japan in the late 1980s, "karoshi" means death brought on by overwork or job-related exhaustion.

It's probably heart attack, stroke, asthma, suicide due to to psychological stress. As a possible counterpoint to this phenomenon, a French writer recently urged workers to be "radical" in the workplace by doing as little as possible. Changing the system is futile, and going against the system will only strengthen it. So why work hard? :)

'Bread & Breakfast'
It's summer in Europe and many Europeans are backpacking. I kinda underestimated the volume of backpackers when I decided not to make any reservation way ahead of schedule. So there I was dragging my luggage in the streets of Stockholm, without a definite place to stay. To the rescue is this newly established inn:

STF Vandrarhem Fridhemsplan
Adress :Sankt Eriksgatan 20
112 39 Stockholm
Telefon : +46 8 653 88 00
Telefax : +46 8 653 89 20
E-mail : info@fridhemsplan.se
http://www.fridhemsplan.se/

Tip was given the good folks at Af Chapman, itself a very popular place among backpackers.

Following rules and breaking them
"Rules" in photography are meant to be broken. Here's a compilation of rules and tips as well as an encouragement to break them.

Canon EOS 300D (aka Digital Rebel) vs Nikon D70
I'm thinking of buying a digital SLR cam. It's been a while since I let go of my manual Nikon SLR. Prize-wise, Canon appears to be winning. On the geek side, Canon still wins, since it's got a hack already. Reviews: EOS 300D vs D70. Company blurbs: EOS 300D vs D70.

Ridiculous E-Mail Disclaimers
A friend of mine, who works for a media company, sends email with a footer. The footer is a disclaimer that's rather ridiculous. He can't help it because it's something that's attached automatically to his email everytime he fires one from his company computer. Here's a Slate piece analyzing the legalese of such ridiculous disclaimers. El Reg notes of the longest, the most PC, and the most incomprehensible of them.

Behold, Methuselah is coming!
... at least according to de Grey of Cambridge.

"Surviving on the mean streets of Washington on two dollars a day--that's a hack!"
says Hacker Adrian Lamo in this interview. An ealier piece on this kid: 1

Health illiteracy
90 million American adults have "limited health literacy," says this report. They have trouble understanding medical terms and directions.

Go, whack yourself!
Frequent sex or whacking may cut cancer risk, says a study. Here's report from Forbes, and reference to original JAMA article.

Drug dealer gives out drugs
Here's a Yahoo News story about Micro$oft giving out $1 billion worth of software to developing countries. In a recent move, the drug dealer hands out "good will" licenses to charity cases. Good will, of course, means obsolete software.

Threat to open source
Bruce Perens warns that the greatest threat to OS is software patent [ beebs report ]: "We're looking at a future where only the very largest companies will be able to implement software, and it will technically be illegal for other people to do so. "

How to do things with sleep
Aside from conserving energy, sleep actually does things... or so, says a cbs reportage on a recent Nature article.

IM for parents and kids
Today, NYT features a story on how IM could be used to promote parent-child relationship. The same feature, however, warns about the limits of such form of communication. Face-to-face communication still rules!

Smaller is better
Indeed, if you're talking about champagne: the smaller its bubbles are, the better. Here's a bit more from a fellow blogger.

Information Overload
If gigabytes of data don't do you in, the paper they're printed on will.

Software v Beer
You guessed it right! Beer won hands downs.

Man vs Machine
Kasparov, there you go again! The last time K won over Fritz. Will he win the second time around? Maybe not as what happened to him when he went up against Deep Blue... but not so fast, according to this account that benchmarks the historical performance of computers against humans. Elsewhere, chess is regarded as a "game that generates examples and analogies relevant to a broad range of intellectual concerns."

Blogging is dead. Long live blogging!
El Reg notes the report that although blogosphere is growing in size, it's made up mostly of abandoned or dead sites. Blogging is typically an activity of teenage girls who want to keep their friends updated on their otherwise uneventful lives. However, teeny boopers don't have a monopology of blogging. Even Lawrence Lessig blogs. :-)

The Business That's Church
Forbes reports how churches are acting like business corporations (with matching ads and all). This is not inherently bad, if one thinks of the Christian origins of capitalism. Max Weber would feel vindicated.

Linux and Beer
Here's an illustration on what people can do with "comparison and constrast." :)

Solipsism delight!
If solipsism were to be in this form, I don't mind wearing it. Harold Bloom also speaks of Shakespeare as "the true mulitcultural author." I wonder how this guy is related to Alan Bloom, another great defender of the classics.

Multi-valued logic
Here's a piece on the possibility of the introducing multivalued logic in computing. There's nothing new about the idea of course. The Russians might have started it.

Nanotech Not?
While some corporations are rushing to nanotechnology, here are a few words of concern: 1 | 2

Movie flops due to txting?
Yes, you heard the excuse right! Or it's a good time to reassess movie marketing basics.

Market Failure 101
A central argument for government intervention in public affairs and the economy is
market failure.

Lights Out Please!
One segment of Korusawa's "Dreams" is "Watermill Village" where a city guy shows up asking questions about the lifestyle of the villagers (perhaps he's a sociologist :) ). One of his curiousities concerns the villagers' lack of electricity. The guy asked to the effect, "Why don't you have electricity? Wouldn't it be so dark at night?" To which an old villager replies, "The night is supposed to be dark!"

Only in the dark will one appreciate the beauty that is darkness and all the things that go with it: stars, fireflies, the moon. The downside of having too much light is this.

Elvish Language
Next item in my To Do List: learn Tengwar!

Process Linux

Linux is a process, not a product, says Debian founder Ian Murdock.

Designer Babies, Anyone?
Two days ago was the birthday of Louise Brown, the first 'test tube' baby. Since Brown, reproductive technologies have have changed, and it's interesting how public opinion changed as well. Here's an account of such opinion.

Cantenna
An Antenna made out of a tin can, this geeky stuff is practical to build. I'm constructing one, with the help of some info:

- orig diagram
- a good guide
- a "how to" guide

Porn Gore
Just when I thought I knew pornography, this Guardian reportage on the rough trade came. Pop Quiz: what's the diff between a feature and a gonzo? Read on...

Technological Gobbledygook
is a definite turn-off. Here's a BBC report on how new technology jargons have inhibited some people from reaping the benefits and wasted advertising money.

The Tragedy of the Anti-Common
The New Yorker writes about how America has "always had a vibrant patent system," and "managed to strike a balance between the need to encourage innovation and the need to foster competition." "In the past decade, the balance has been upset," says the writer James Surowiecki in an article. "The scope of patents has been expanded, copyrights have been extended, trademarks have been subjected to bizarre interpretations." Such is the tragedy of the anti-common.

Computing Power On Demand
I have yet to get my hands dirty on Beowulf. Notably, distibuted computing (Beowulf's an example) is the next wave of cheap supercomputing. Case in point: SETI@Home. It's the world's fastest distributed computing, and--best of all--it's freely provided for by millions of people with extra CPU power and time. "Put the computation near the data," thus urges this Microsoft research guy in his article on the economics of distributed computing.

[ more from IEEE Task Force on Cluster Computing ]

File Swapping Rules (or Not)!
Even threats of lawsuits couldn't stop filesharing. Stats shows that after RIAA announced its strategy to sue people sharing copyrighted music files, online file swappers increased in number. This is contradicted by a news article from CNN saying it actually decreased.

On its flip side, P2P is seen in the future as an instrument of freedom, passing news and information beyond the reach of censors.

Future of Open Source
Divining the future isn't exactly my cup of tea. But this interview Tim O'Reilly got me thinking about what I've been doing along IT lines. Tim predicts EBay will buy up Oracle, as Open Source lincenses don't work.

On the other hand, while OS licensing doesn't work, OS software development model just might. Linus compares it to biological diversity. Micro$oft is likened to a shark... or a turtle:

"You have the Linux approach that is fairly diverse and all over the map. Maybe it is not very efficient. But it works very well in the face of complexity and changing circumstances. Changing circumstances will really show that part of that diversity really works. Biology on the other extreme is a very mono culture, which works very well as long as the circumstances stay the same. To some degree they are seen as very efficient and they can live on for a long time. A perfect case in genetics is sharks. They are very stable but they also don't evolve anymore. That works, but if you want to go past a certain point, it's a problem."

Free Encyclopedias Galore
One readily stands out: Wikipedia.

Vitamins, Anyone?
There's little evidence to support the use of vitamin supplements (like the anti-oxidants A, C, & E) to prevent cancer or heart disease, says this report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Rage Against Word Attachments
Some people might think attaching Word and Powerpoint files to emails is pretty cool. Well, NO! Avoid Word attachments like hell. Here's why.

Home Networking
This Guide details how to build network from scratch. Caveats: it's just a guide. Follow it closely only if you have money to burn. Some products mentioned are not locally available. But as far as guides go, this is a good one.

Technology Without A Cause
This essay in the Guardian reminds us of technology's downside (if not downright meaninglessness):
[IF...,] "one of technology's ends is to reduce our lives to such blob-like stasis that we hardly ever have to interact with other human beings. Another is to distract us from the shame we feel about our decadent lifestyles. Our response to being bored and rich is not to discard our possessions and live more simply, but to buy more stuff to reduce the space in which we might contemplate our shame."

And while Nokia boasts of connecting people, it does so with people discussing what their cellfons can do rather than what they REALLY DO WITH the technology. Too much technology can even compromise personal relationship.

Technology Evangelism
A sort of a zealous follow-through of Information Rules, Tech Evangelism examines how Micro$oft could churn out technology that becomes an industry standard. As the book puts it, "Evangelism is war," and Micro$oft appears to be the victor--for now.

Edison and "Music Piracy"
Here's a series of articles (1 | 2) that might predict the outcome of the battle against "music pirates" by RIAA, the mafia-like body that has assumed "a retrogressive stance to [innovation in the industry]."

Good Ol' Adam
Notes on the range of intellectual sensibilities of Adam Smith, as exemplified by his two books:

The Theory of the Moral Sentiments (1759). Part II: Of Merit and Demerit; or, of the Objects of Reward and Punishment Consisting of Three Parts, Section II: Of Justice and Beneficence:

-Chap. I: Comparison of those two virtues: "the violation of justice is injury"

- Chapter III: Of the utility of this constitution of Nature: "All the members of human society stand in need of each others assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices."

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (1776) The Modern Library edition, New York, 1937:

-"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer and the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages" (p. 14).

Globalization blues
I thought I never have to blog anything on this topic, apart from my school assignment. But the temptation of a good site, like Yale's, is hard to resist. YaleGlobal is Online Magazine is a goldmine of info relating to globalization.

Indian Take
"Take on Gates!," an Indian president tells techies at the Indian Institute of Information Technology. Here's the text of his speech where he also outlines his vision of technological convergencies as well their uses to power rural life.

Txting in America
is relatively new, but Americans are catching up. By 2007, there will be as many as 75 million American SMS users. Hmm... better remind them that txting hurts. :)

Aristotle got it wrong again!
His 'Great Chain of Being,' in which animals are arranged in scales according to their degrees of 'perfection' beneath humans, collides with a recalcitrant fact: Chimps belong to the human genus. They may even have culture, social behavior, language, and other things we consider "human."

Further info from: Jane Goodall Institute | Discovery Channel

Care for tea?
--the very words of my partner Helen every morning. Turns out that tea, especially green tea, is good for dental health (in addition to its vitamin-like substances).

Is Math a Young Man's Game?
the Slate asks.

Grade Inflation

Professors of Harvard and other leading universities have reportedly been inflating the grades of their students for various reasons. But who really cares? Perhaps Bush does not. But Mansfield does.

In Search of a Distro
I've been dealing with linux since the second half of the 1990s. Started with Slackware, tried Caldera, RedHat, Mandrake. Lately, I've tested CD-based distributions like Knoppix, Dynebolic, and Freeduc. Gentoo is by far my choice, and here's why.

Sydad's Moral Dilemma
What if in the course of a syad's job of tinkering with computer files he'd stumble into a faculty's hoard of illegal materials, would he blow the whistle as was done here? And the boss's response?: Fire the whistle blower! The "official" word here.

Human Free Will as "computational irreducibility"
What if the human free will is just a consequence of a "computational irreducibility" (its maximum complexity), and, just like other systems, the only way to know what it will do is to just let it be? Our minds, if not our souls, claims Wolfram, are computational consequences of simple rules and are the "computational equivalence" constitutive of the actual states of affairs. Allegedly the most complicated behavior imaginable arises from such very simple rules.

The principle of computational equivalence necessarily puts limits on science itself. Many questions simply could not be answered a priori, since the only way to discover the consequences of many complex processes, like the human free will itself, is to let things proceed naturally. There's no shortcut, maintains Wofram, "since our own computational tools are at best only as powerful as the complicated systems we hope to study."

[ Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]

Neo Metaphysics
How about film as metaphysics? Or 'Neo' as the One? Hmm... I'm really tempted to list in the census with 'Jedi' as my religion. :)

[ more Matrix-religion stuff... and more. From NPR | NY Times ]

Philosophy of Language
Or, is it 'taste' of language? This article accounts for the eccentricities of programming languages and hazards that, in the final analysis, they're all the same. Meantime, I'll practice my Klingon!

Neo Metaphysics
How about film as metaphysics? Or 'Neo' as the One? Hmm... I'm really tempted to list in the census with 'Jedi' as my religion. :) [ more Matrix-religion stuff ]

BOFH
Here's one reason why you should be kind to your sysad, even if he sometimes acts like a bastard operator from hell. On seccond thought, though, BOFN (a sampler) is now a passé, isn't s/he? :) Mwahahahahahahaha!

SARS and AIDS
What do they have in common? Obviously both kill! But they came at different times: the latter at a time of less openness and less sharing of information; the former at a lot more open time. It took years to discover the causative agent of AIDS while it only took months to uncover the "bug" for SARS. Hail the Internet!

Meanwhile, there's anecdotal evidence that garlic helps prevent SARS.

[ Science Mag's SARS page ]

Sonya's Garden
N 14° 05' 16.7" E 120° 50' 55.9" -- This unpretensious place serves veges and stuff straight from the garden. No menu, no fancy food. Just great dressing that comes with fresh, organic green edible stuff. It's supposed to be "slow food" (as opposed to "fast food," I suppose). We went there yesterday (which happened to be a holiday and people where wondering in the garden while waiting for their turns to dine.) When we were finally sitted, first there came the salad. Then pasta, mint tea, dessert. And that's it! Sonya's Garden really made my day.

What people have to say about the place: 1 | 2 | 3

Winsock Problem
Darn Micro$oft! I was doing some network stuff using my HP laptop to try out new Wi-Fi connections when I got this stupid winsock problem:

An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket

Well, this wasn't even apparent as I had to do some digging before I could uncover this error message. And that's 2 days! 2 days wasted, Bill! Your Knowledge Base was not even of any help. What helped me was some guy's patch somewhere in Canada. Tsk, tsk, tsk... I'm really not suprised why some people are having so much MS rage these days.