It is now 2013. Technology seems to be advancing in an increasing pace. Even now there is already talk of 8-core in our smart phones to come out later this year. Just imagine I am typing now on a 6-core AMD-based system, which I assembled only a short 2 years ago!
Anyway here is a video of a Physics teacher exploring the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland – designed to investigate the beginning of the Universe, you know!? 🙂 Geeky as hell, but I sure would like to be in his shoes!
A nice infographic which summarises the strengths of WordPress vs Joomla, accurate as of beginning of 2013. I wish there was something like this when I first started blogging many years ago and had a hard time deciding the platform!
Recently came across a story set in the Medieval town of Carcassone – which was recently made into a TV mini-series – called “Labyrinth” by Kate Mosse. What is the significance of this place you may ask? For starters this was was the setting for the extermination of Cathars in the so-called Albigensian Crusade (which incidentally led to the Inquisition eventually). I first heard of this place in the by-now well-known “Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, in connection with the treasures and the Grail brought to France from Jerusalem many decades previously. An interesting story – a fiction – in itself but the historical backdrop gives a sense of silliness which took place all in the name of religion.
The garage where Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded HP had its own core set of rules:
Going through the Drafts folder trying to clear out some old posts. Didn’t realise that this has been sitting there for the past 7 years!
During my “recent trip” (2005) to Europe, managed to finish another book by Liu Yong – one of my favourite Chinese authors by the way. I bought this book over 6 months ago, had started reading it soon after, but had not gotten more than halfway through the book. This time, I finished in one sitting.
This book was something of an autobiography. Main thing which impressed me was the description of the development of his philosophy of life. He started off by describing a book he once read when he was still in secondary school. The book mentioned that there existed 3 distinct stages in development of the human psyche:
That is, starting from the hard-working camel, to a brave lion who is willing to strike out on its own if necessary, we then proceed along our life journey back to the contented state after living a full life and having realised the immateriality of things.
Although these were not his ideas originally, Mr Liu has lived by them throughout his life. For example, when he was on top of the world as an award-winning journalist in Taiwan, he bravely gave it up to become a poor postgraduate student to pursue his passion for art in the USA. Subsequently once he had established himself as a noted lecturer in a well-known college, he again decided to take time out for travelling, writing and setting up charity funds. For him, the cycle simply kept on moving.
One central point he made, which I fully agree with, was that the stages should not be skipped. That is, without having experienced the “world”, there is no true baby at the end. The true realisation comes from going through all the stages.
Who do you want to be? Camel? Lion or just giving up and be a baby now?
Now that I have just finished “A Dance with Dragons”, the last book of A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series by American novelist George R. R. Martin (which incidentally has been on TV since last year), I am not sure if I can live with the cliffhangers for another 3-4 years before the next book comes out!? This is a fantasy series comprising of numerous characters (whom the author is unafraid to kill off, I might add – even the likable ones!) and in my opinion rivals in its breadth with Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” which I didn’t manage to get through even one third of Book 1… However, given that the first three books were published in a 5-year span (1996-2000) and the next two in the following decade, I hope for his sake that Mr Martin remains in good health to complete the remaining two books he has promised.
On my way to work yesterday, while absent-mindedly looking out the train window, it suddenly hit me that despite travelling along the same route for close to two years now, it seemed like ages ago since I last paid attention to what I saw!? Too long, in fact. When did I stop seeing the crispness of morning air, or the subtle light changes as clouds moved past overhead, I wondered? When did I stop seeing things anew, fresh as if to a child? When and how did I become oblivios to the place I have been living for the past few years, even if it is not my country?
Looks like it’s time to clean up the posts here (as in, reorganise them, not remove past posts) since what I post these days seem quite different to what I used to write.
Anyway, for the past week, I have been drawn to using Amazon Web Services (AWS), or specifically EC2, as a potential candidate to host my blogs in future – once my contract with webfaction completes. Webfaction has been a fantastic host by the way, but I see AWS not so much as a cost-saving alternative given that the costs involved in shared hosting really really are very low these days but more as a learning experience to take advantage of the flexibility of cloud computing. So far, I have managed to
We can be told the truth about many things
but they do not have any value
until we realize them by ourselves.
There are no shortcuts.
Each step of the way has to be walked.
Nahsti
Found out about a friend’s husband’s passing two days ago. Apparently the illness was only discovered a couple of months ago, but it was already at a very late stage. So little time to prepare, so little time to mull over things undone, perhaps many things yet unsaid. She is brave and strong and I hope that she finds peace to replace the grief and loss…