Halloween Death Star

Now that's what I call "Edible Art" .. =) thanks to my friend who forwarded this cool thread to me.

shopping == materialism?

Ok, I wouldn't go that far, but the article does bring up certain points about what is it that we really need in daily life? I hate to admit it, but I do agree with the author that TIME is what's wasted when we try to shop for the better deal or try to "save a little $" by price comparison..

remember, TIME == MONEY, but $$ can be earned and increased, but TIME is GONE forever!

So maybe I should free up my life by living a simpler lifestyle...



===========

Quotes from the article

Get off the spending treadmill

...

The benefit to your bottom line

The best part of not keeping up with the Joneses isn't just financial, Levine says. Although she did pay off almost $8,000 in credit card debt, she felt that the main gain she experienced was in her personal life.

"One thing about not buying stuff is that you end up with a lot of time," she says, pointing out that even shopping online is a time drain. "Once you have more hours on your hands -- you can give more time to people," she says.

Ducking out of consumer life also gave her a much-needed sense of calm about money. "It gave me a sense of control and optimism about my financial future," she says. "I learned that by not spending so much money I wasn't sacrificing a full or happy life."

...
"You not only learn what you can live without but what you really want to spend your money on."

Transform --> Vending Machine?!

This is hilarious!!! thanks to my friend who forwarded it to me.. =)

Japanese Anti Rape/Mugging Dress Transforms Into Vending Machine Disguise

We were under the impression that Japan was so awesome crime didn't exist there. Unfortunately, it does. To ward off criminals, fashion designer Aya Tsukioka has conjured up some neat transforming clothes/accessories to deceive potential muggers. Whether there would be time to get your kit out in an attack is probably something we would not want to test out, but the concept makes for one kick-ass gallery; check it out below:

Examples include a skirt that transforms the wearer into a nondescript vending machine (yes, seriously) and the unfortunately titled Manhole Bag, which converts a lady's handbag into what appears to be a sewer cover with the contents kept safe inside. We think it is a bit ridiculous, but we just can't help thinking that Frucci is cruising the streets as a big red vending machine. Classic Frucci.

GoodBye Comcast Cable Modem!

Comcast really does block BitTorrent traffic after all
Posted by Declan McCullagh

For a few months Comcast has been the subject of scattered reports that say it throttles BitTorrent traffic.

TorrentFreak said in August that Comcast was surreptitiously interfering with file transfers by posing as one party and then, essentially, hanging up the phone. But when we contacted Comcast at the time, it flatly denied doing it.

Thanks to tests reported Friday by the Associated Press, however, it's clear that Comcast is actively interfering with peer-to-peer networks even if relatively small files are being transferred.

The tests involved transferring a copy of the King James Bible through the BitTorrent network on Time Warner Cable, Cablevison, AT&T and two Comcast connections (in Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco). Only the Comcast-connected computers were affected.

This is significant. The Gutenberg version of the King James Bible is only 4.24MB, which is relatively tiny and indicates that Comcast was singling out even small files.

Now, even though there's been some musing that Comcast can't do this, I'd be surprised if a court would say that it was somehow unlawful. Comcast's Terms of Service says: "You further agree to comply with all Comcast network, bandwidth, and data storage and usage limitations. You shall ensure that your bandwidth consumption using the Service does not exceed the limitations that are now in effect or may be established in the future. If your use of the Service results in the consumption of bandwidth in excess of the applicable limitations, that is a violation of this Policy...if the Service is used in a way that Comcast or its suppliers, in their sole discretion, believe violate this AUP, Comcast or its suppliers may take any responsive actions they deem appropriate.

Which is pretty broad.

The danger for Comcast is twofold. First, its hyperactive filtering may zap perfectly legitimate file transfers, which seems to have happened in one case involving a customer using Lotus Notes.

Second, it encourages countermeasures such as obfuscating BitTorrent traffic or encrypting it. That means that future efforts by Comcast to manage its traffic may be far more difficult. (If Comcast had merely slowed down BitTorrent transfers instead of cutting them off completely, users wouldn't be escalating this arms race as quickly.)

Probably the best result would be tiered pricing. BitTorrent users who are heavy users of bandwidth would pay more, while average home users would pay less. It's not perfect, and lots of Internet users may not like a tiered pricing model, but it's probably better than escalating a technological arms race, or not being able to use BitTorrent at all.

"Hell Theory"

Funny forward from SilePai:

HELL EXPLAINED BY CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look a t the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then th e temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct......leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Model Minority Mentality

I was participating in a debate with some friends the other night regarding some very UN-PC issues. I think this article sums it up nicely about the Asian culture, along with statistical data, gives a strong credence to my point of view.

N.Y. Chinatown Emerges as Major Banking Center

BY A. BALLA, October 12, 2007 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/64428

It looks like the real Wall Street is on Canal Street.

With nearly $6 billion in deposits spread across three-dozen retail banks, Canal Street has some of the wealthiest branches in New York City.

"There is no doubt that we have become a bit of a retail banking center," the City Council member representing Lower Manhattan, Alan Gerson, said.

Banks in Chinatown are some of the largest in the city. While many branches across New York have less than $100 million in deposits, and $500 million is considered colossal, Canal Street is royalty. Four bank branches on or near Canal Street have more than $500 million worth of deposits. Citibank, for example, has $842 million in deposits at its branch at 124 Canal St., and has $1.7 billion in its three branches in that ZIP code, or 30% of the entire retail banking in the area, according to the latest available data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

By comparison, the commercial district near City Hall at Church and Chambers streets has $2.4 billion in bank deposits, and Harlem and its 125th Street commercial district have just $652 million. There are about $3.5 billion in deposits in the Upper West Side. Brooklyn Heights has about $3 billion. The Upper East Side has $8 billion in deposits.

"Chinatown is a great neighborhood and we have been there for a long time," a spokesman for Citibank, Robert Julavits, said.

HSBC, which has $526 million in deposits at its 254 Canal Street branch, also said through a spokeswoman that Chinatown is a key strategic market.

"Way before you saw seven-day banking in other parts of the city, the banks that rent from me on Canal Street were asking permission to operate seven days," a landlord of commercial properties in the area, Michael Salzhauer, said.

Driving forces behind these deposits include a cultural history of saving large amounts of money within the community, and cash infusions from Chinese Americans and other Asians who live elsewhere but prefer to do their banking at this commercial hub where they have linguistic and cultural ties.

"Culturally, Asians have much higher saving rates than the average American," the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corp., Wellington Chen, said. "And because of language issues, they feel more comfortable here."

It isn't just Canal Street that is seeing a growing banking industry.

While there are $5.8 billion worth of deposits in Manhattan's Chinatown, in Flushing, Queens—another area with a large population of Chinese immigrants—there is $3 billion in deposits, according to the FDIC. And while Manhattan's Chinatown boasts 32 branches of 19 different banks, Flushing is not far behind with 25 branches of 18 separate banking companies.

When City Council member John Liu participated in the opening of yet another bank branch in Flushing in June, it was the latest in more than a dozen such events.

"I've been cutting ribbons left and right," he said. "Many places see Flushing as just a place to eat — it's actually a financial center too."

For example, Royal Asian Bank and Abacus Federal Savings Bank, both based in Chinatown, opened new branches in Flushing this year. Commerce Bank has already approached Mr. Liu to help find some space to open a new branch.

"Many of these people have come here and work really hard, and they want to keep their savings safe," the chief financial officer of Global Bank, which opened this spring along Chinatown's East Broadway, Norman Jardine, said. "There is no better place than America to do that."

T6320

Sun launches UltraSparc T2 servers

Las Vegas (NV) – Sun is rolling out the first three servers based on its 64-thread UltraSparc T2 processor, previously code-named Niagara 2. Sun T5220 The first systems integrating the T2 CPU will be the rackmount servers T5120 and 5220 as well as the T6320 blade module. All three systems will be available with T2 processors clocked at 1.2 GHz or 1.4 GHz. While the 1.4 GHz model is only available with eight cores, the 1.2 GHz version can also be purchased with six or four cores. ALL CPUs are capable of running eight threads per core and up to 64 different operating systems (8 cores x 8 threads) in virtual containers. The T5120 is a 1U server that can be equipped with up to four hard drives and up to 64 GB of memory; the T5220 comes in a 2U form factor and provides space for eight hard drives. The new T5000-series systems are Sun’s first servers that can be “instantly” discovered on a network via Sun’s “Connection” technology. The single-wide blade T6320 also can integrate up to 64 GB of memory and four hard drives. In either case, Sun said that the T2 systems are about twice as fast as T1-based models. According to Sun, the 65 nm T2 processor can be configured to run at speeds between 900 MHz and 1.4 GHz for power consumption levels between 60 and 123 watts. The T2’s successor, code-named “Victoria Falls” is expected to be introduced sometime in the second half of next year. Victoria Falls will offer twice as many cores (16) and support twice as many threads (128), resulting in what Sun promises to be almost twice the performance of T2.

"Le Petit Prince"

This is one of my favourite books of all times. It's not the Bible, but the childish perspective certainly struck a cord within the currently "grown-up" version of me.

• Complete text in English online
• another Framed English version
  
• Wikipedia has a good short analysis/summary of this wonderful book
• SparkNote if you are too lazy to form your own perspective and rely on the short cut.