归零

September 30th, 2008 at 1:44 · Filed Under Ada, Blogging, Chinese, Days in My Life, Essay, General · 2 Comments 

读了成彪登在新华网的作者文集，我对“归零”有很大的回响，也让我心中再次涌现了她的影子。读完文集，我热泪盈眶：

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祝贺“神七”

September 27th, 2008 at 23:03 · Filed Under Astronomy, Blogging, China, Chinese · Comment 

昨日在报章上看到“神七”成功升天，心里很高兴。原本要写这篇文章的，不过由于很忙也太累了，所以没写。刚才回到家，原本也很累的，但是在电视上看到中国宇航员首度出舱外进行太空漫步，高兴得连疲累也忘了，心里真的感到一种莫名的兴奋。我孩子也看到了中国宇航员太空漫步的画面。向他们解释了一些太空科学。不知道他们是否了解，不过他们也非常的高兴。

在此，我们一起祝贺中国，“神七”为中国人带来了骄傲！

最新：神七返回舱于28日17时37分在内蒙古四子花旗着陆。

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Two more kids get pox

September 26th, 2008 at 21:37 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Dietrich, Dmitry, Dominik, Health, Medical · Comment 

Well, Dmitry had recovered from his chickenpox and began schooling this Monday. Unfortunately, Rich began to get the symptom on Monday late morning when LA noticed some red spots and small blisters popping out on his face. By Wednesday, he had blisters all over his body.

And today, guess what? Nik begins to show symptoms. His outbreak is slow with fewer blisters. We are supposed to meet up with LY tomorrow but it looks like impossible. They are so afraid that their daughter (same age as Nik) may get the chickenpox too.

Well, all three of them have gotten their chickenpox.

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Land of opportunity

September 22nd, 2008 at 22:06 · Filed Under Blogging, USA · 23 Comments 

The America is regarded as the land of opportunity, there is no doubt about it. Tonight I watched the TV with my family and came across an interesting event. 80 year-old Ada Lynn appeared in “America’s Got Talent” and said, “We never know what will happen tomorrow. I say give it a try now.” Ada’s husband passed away a year ago. She was a singer and a humorist. Her voice was so beautiful and powerful, hypnotizing everyone. Of course, she passed the audition.

Another person who passed the audition was Kashif Meman from Pakistan. He came to the America 6 years ago and he wanted to try his talent in this talent searching show. He did Bollywood-styled dance and his amazing dance had mesmerized the audiences including the three judges.

That’s America, equal opportunity, where you prove your talent and make your dreams come true.

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没有“懒趴”的华人

September 20th, 2008 at 11:31 · Filed Under Blogging, Chinese, Critiques · 79 Comments 

读了《回教党将是变天的最大赢家》也续我那篇《自私自利的马来西亚华人》之后，我不只感慨也愤怒马来西亚华人的怯懦，被他人说我们华人是“寄居者”简直是罪有应得。

前几天，我到巴生一处送东西。那边全是回教党的地头。我没有怕，反而更好奇。我驾车长驱直入。我迷路了，看到有一伙马来青少年坐在机车上聊天，我就过去问他们我要找的地方。一眼看去，他们都像那种吃饱没事作的飙车族，对一些华人来说肯定吓到半死，不敢问就跑了。当其中一位回答我的时侯，他的确让我感到非常惊讶。他说：“Uncle terus pergi, belok kiri, lepas belok kanan. Rumah tu sebelah kanan uncle saja.” (叔叔直走，转左然后再转右。那间屋子就在叔叔的右侧）。这位回教青年，多么有礼。回教非常可怕吗？

当我找到那间屋之后，屋主不在。其邻居出来问个究竟，那位 makcik 很友善的请我进去她家里等。他的儿子也盛情的邀请。我不好意思，向她们谢了，然后告诉她们我还没有吃晚餐（其实那时快晚上十点了，午餐只是草草了事），问她那里有 KFC，她儿子马上向我说方向。我有点满头雾水，他看出来就说可以带我去。我不想麻烦他人，就谢了。

用了晚餐过后，我又回到那里，屋主还没有回来。那位 makcik 请我进去喝一杯水。我答应了。然后跟他儿子还有儿子的两位朋友谈话了。他们都在工艺中学求学。我们还打成一片呢。过不久也很夜了，那屋主还没有回来，我只好把东西留在该邻居家，请她转交。她很乐意的答应了。第二天，我太太至电给收件人问她有没有收到寄存她邻居的东西，她说有也非常感谢和深表歉意让我等这么久。

回教党有什么可怕？我倒觉得他们都非常诚实和充满人情味。华人呢？不用我说到出面吧？

很可悲的是，很多华人连自己的宗教都搞不清楚，就连拜什么也不知道。就好象，一些华人，口说要支持华教维护华人文化，要送子女去华校，可惜连自己的中华文化也搞不懂。举个列子，为何新年要挂“红彩”？有的华人随便拿条“红布”挂上就说挂“红彩”。真是天大的笑话！要知道，“红彩”布料非一般“红布”的布料。有很多华人在新年家里也没挂红彩，也不懂为何要挂。一些华小华文老师也搞不好正确的发音。比如说，“风”，有些华语老师说“fong”。其正确的读音是“feng”。连自己的语言宗教文化都一知不解，还要跟人争平等。连自己的宗教也模糊不清，难怪会怕回教。无知！

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自私自利的马来西亚华人

September 19th, 2008 at 23:30 · Filed Under Blogging, Chinese, Critiques, Malaysia, Politics · 1 Comment 

读了“916变天不成，安华应该交带！”之后，我写了“完成大事，要有耐心”（我也把它登在我的博客里，见：小不忍则乱大谋）来回应这妇人之见，希望大家能忍耐一下，继续齐心协力支持安华斗争到底。可是还有些持“妇人之见”人仕继续讽刺安华、要安华解释等等的来信。

看了之后，本人极度感慨马来西亚华人这种自私自利的态度。人家做得好，一声感谢都没有，要是有吗就随便说声”好！“。人家要是做不到吗，就踩到底，要人家解释等等荒唐之说。读了“安华好心没好报”和“应该体谅行动者”，我略有同感：安华欠了你吗？

好些马来西亚华人多是自私自利、怕事、不团结、自扫门前雪。举一项列子，一些华人看到他人被打劫，就快快躲起来，眼不见为净。有些还告诉子女亲人不要多管他人“闲事”惹麻烦。反观马来友族，要是一人被抢劫，整个kampung的人就会出来捉人。难怪会让他人看扁我们华人说我们是“寄居者”！

变天是一件国家大事，不是小孩子玩泥沙。变天如棋，安华正小心翼翼下这盘棋，一步错，全盘皆落索。安华一定要依照宪政程序一步一步来。要是安华直接觐见国家元首，肯定被对方咬定安华没照宪政程序，反被对方问为何安华不先在国会讨论，那时就连国家元首也帮不了安华。

安华除了依照宪政程序之外，他也正在打心理牌，让现今政府丑态百出，同时也试探国际社会对他的支持。安华比任何一位在朝或在野政客有更多的国际人脉网络，如果由他出任首相，肯定很多外资蜂涌来马。

变天这件事已经引起国际社会的关注。要是当今政府胆敢以内安法令捉安华，西方国家，由其是国际人权委员会肯定会大肆谴责当今政府并向其施加压力。

请大家先搞清楚才做指责。要是不知道宪政或法律程序，那请不要胡乱指责安华，于事无补，反而弄巧反拙。这样会让他人更瞧不起我们华人！

这种态度要是不改，不管有位多么好的首相，我们华人在马来西亚不会有什么好日子过。

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Shield of virtue, sword of truth

September 19th, 2008 at 10:53 · Filed Under Blogging, Malaysia, Politics · Comment 

A noble knight, armed with the shield of virtue and the sword of truth, on his way to a kingdom barred by forest of thorn. May the shield of virtue protect him from harm. May the sword of truth fly swift and right to the heart of evil. The evil dies and the good prevails.

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小不忍则乱大谋

September 18th, 2008 at 12:43 · Filed Under Blogging, Chinese, Malaysia, Politics · 1 Comment 

至“当今大马”、回－－“916变天不成，安华应该做交待！”

老谋深算的安华自有他的策划。916过了两天还没“变天”，其中自有原因。安华要的是和平方式接任，也盼给阿都拉一个下台阶。觐见国家元首是最后一步。安华要接任之余，也避免树立敌人，乃大将风范。

大家既然支持安华，就应该对安华有信心。做大事，要有耐心。我们也不想有个粗心、鲁莽行事的首相，对吗？

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Nassi-Shneiderman Diagram

September 12th, 2008 at 12:44 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Software Development · Comment 

I came across a highly influential graphical representation method of stating algorithm while I was reading books of system analysis and design. This method is called Nassi-Shneiderman Diagram or NSD. It was developed by Isaac “Ike” Nassi and Ben Shneiderman in 1972. Isaac also helped design the Ada programming language.

Many people claimed NSD to be very easy to read and understand, especially for beginners. This is probably quite true but maintaining NSD can be a problem for system designers. Unlike flowchart, NSD lumps all the symbols into one large block and does not use connectors between the symbols.

Contrary to flowchart which uses connectors, NSD provides a better structural approach of design where Goto should be avoided in structured programming. NSD provides simplicity and a compact overview of a program that can show some relationship nicely. NSD, in particular, provides visual aid and guides thinking about nested conditional structures.

Personally, I find that NSD is useful for rapid prototyping. It is quite simple and easy to draw a conceptual design before expanding into a flowchart. Modifying a stage or symbol in NSD is rather tedious compared to flowchart. On the other hand, after a careful and thorough investigation, I find NSD most suitable for structured system analysis, design and programming. NSD was designed with structured system analysis and design in mind as mentioned in the above paragraph, it has many advantages over flowchart despite of problem maintaining it. I think it is worth to study and to use it.

Here is an example of NSD and flowchart stating an algorithm to find a summation given by the equation:

 

If S > 100, then display k and tell the user that k is in range.

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Hit the books

September 10th, 2008 at 23:32 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging · Comment 

I have eight books to gnaw in 4 weeks but I only found one and bought it yesterday. So far, I’ve managed to gnaw one and half chapters of all eighteen in one book. The list of the books that I need to chew is growing. Looking at the list and the progress that I have made so far makes me a little worry. It is one mission impossible.

Some of the books are available as ebook but I prefer a hardcopy. Downloading of ebook pages are quite slow. The other drawback of the ebook is that I am unable to flip between pages for cross referencing. Hence, I would rather to invest in hardcopy books.

Local bookstores have limited titles. I believe Borders and Kinokumiya may have titles which I am looking for. I have to travel to KL one of these days to search for the books I need.

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Pox Party

September 8th, 2008 at 12:17 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Dmitry, Health, Medical · 5 Comments 

Hurray! Let’s have chicken pox party! Wait a minute… Am I going crazy? Who wants to have chickenpox? Huh… You see. In the past, parents would throw a chicken pox party when their children got chickenpox. The idea was to let other children to contract the virus naturally rather through inoculation. Once a person has contracted chickenpox, he/she will have immunity to chicken pox for the rest of his/her life. The only drawback is that person will have a chance to have shingles when the immunity gets low.

Dmitry has got chickenpox this morning. I didn’t see any when I had bath with him yesterday. So, the doctor gave him one week medical leave and advised him to stay at home. Nowadays people are so afraid to let their children to get chickenpox. This is a sign of overly protective. Children should not be sent back to school. But I personally think that why not as long as the children have no fever and as long as personal hygiene is taken care of.

Lets go spread some virus! He…he… :D

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Math and Science in English: A failure

September 7th, 2008 at 22:31 · Filed Under Blogging, Critiques, Education, Politics · 6 Comments 

My recent post about our tertiary education has revealed a serious flaw in our education as a whole. I read in awe an article of the same title by Meeky-Meeky and really got very disappointed about the policy. As I commented in Meeky-Meeky’s post, our education system is very much driven and influenced by politics. Those ignorant fools who oppose to teach Math and Science in English are shallowed minded, short-sighted and politically retarded. It is imprudent to let politics to influence and chart the course of education.

If this continues, our country will be dumb-headed in a few generation to come. Our country is already losing competitiveness in so many areas. With the rise of China as a new economy in this region, the competition gets tougher. And soon, Vietnam will rise. What will be our future?

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Algorithmic art

September 6th, 2008 at 0:34 · Filed Under At Home, Blogging, Mathematics · 2 Comments 

Jean-Pierre Hébert, a 68-year-old French artist, is an algorist. This is a name, proposed by Jean himself, for artists who create arts using unique computer algorithms. Apple featured Jean and his works in May 2008. You can read about him here so I am not going to repeating writing about him and his works.

When I was doing shopping alone this evening, the idea flashed in my mind. I could use Mathematica to explore algorithmic art. So, I sat down in front of my Mac and explored. Here’s my first piece of algorithmic art . It is not comparable to what Jean has done but is definitely a good start. I can’t call myself algorist yet because I created no algorithm.

The following examples are two very simple mathematics equations. The plots demonstrate that mathematics can be visualized as art.

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Butterworth low-pass filters

September 4th, 2008 at 0:14 · Filed Under At Work, Call Me a Geek, Days in My Life, Mathematics, Software Development · Comment 

I was reading about Butterworth low-pass filters since two weeks ago. Signal processing was not my favorite but this particular linear analog electronic filter had somehow captured my attention. I have interns working on some projects. One project uses Butterworth low-pass filters to process signal acquired from some sensors.

I have to verify their works using Mathematica on Mac OS X for data modeling. But there is a problem with this software. It does not have a built-in function of Butterworth low-pass filter so I need to build one.

The gain G(ω) of an n-order Butterworth low pass filter is given in terms of transfer function H(s) as:

where ωc is break frequency.

The Mathematica code with break frequency normalized at 1 rad/s:


butterworth[w1_, w2_, o_] = 1/(1 + (w1/w2)^(2*o));

LogLinearPlot[
 Evaluate[Table[
   10*Log[10, butterworth[w1, 1, order]], {order, 5}]], {w1, 0.01, 100},
  PlotRange -> {-100, 0}, PlotPoints -> 100, ImageSize -> 400]
Export["butterworth.jpg", %]
Plot of the gain of Butterworth low-pass filters of the n-order 1 through 5.

Plot of the gain of Butterworth low-pass filters of the n-order 1 through 5.

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