Hola

A Break

2007-03-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

I am going to take a one week break or vacation to get some inspiration, so I will not be posting any new stuff for one week or so....

Till then.

Walking on water

2007-03-25T04:03:00.000-07:00

I've found a website on this crazy invention that allows one to walk or roll on water:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/inflatable-human-beach-ball-138380.php

It is a gigantic inflatable ball thats fits one to two humans in it. To gain control of the steering of this ball, studs are placed on the surface of the ball (The studs are crucial if you do not want to be swept away by the ocean current) and all you have to do is just to roll the ball to move around - Genius. Now you can be Jesus and walk on water, although you still cannot turn water into wine. This invention is only available in Australia.

crainiarc

PageRank - The core of Google

2007-03-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

In this entry, I will introduce PageRank (PR), and give a few tips on increasing your PR.

What is PR?

It is just Google's measure of your page with a scale from 0 to 10. Why do I call it the core of Google? It is because it determines which sites do display first when a keyword is being searched, unlike other search engines, where the ranking of a site in an query is determined by other means.

How PR works?

To calculate a site's PR, GoogleBot crawls the web to find links that point to your site. Each link is like a vote being casted to the target site. However, it does not mean that a site with many links will get a high PR. The importance of the site linking to the targeted site is also taken into consideration. For example, a site with 3 PR8 sites linking to it will definitely have higher PR then a site with 3 PR0 sites linking to it. I bet some of you readers will want to find some high PR site to link them now, but wait, relevance is also counted in PR. A site on flowers linking to a site on cars doesn't have an efficient vote cast.

So how do I increase my PR?

To increase your site's PR various tips can be taken:

Have a proper and established linking system to link within your site (Intra-site linking).
Do not link to link farms that appear to have high PR. Link farms are depreciated in PR calculations.
Submit your sites to various site directories and search engines with high PRs
Personally email webmasters for a link exchange, higher PR should be prefered.
Exchange links with sites with related topics.
Have quality content in your site.

That's all.

I might be wrong about the PR, so just pop in a comment to correct me.

28 Hour day concept

2007-03-23T05:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.dbeat.com/28/ shows the concept of having or adopting a 28 hour day practices which can sort of increase productivity. For those of you who just don't want to go to the link a read the whole text, I will post a summarized version of of the text. (Mind you, I'm not using the Mac OSX summarize tool as I could not afford a Mac).

The time system we currently use is 24/7. That is, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means in total, we have 168 hours a week. 24 hours only gives you 8 hours of sleep, 16 hours of work and play, over 5 days, and 48 hours of weekend. For most of us, or probably just me, its not enough. I personally need more than 8 hours of sleep and I always wanted a longer weekend. But it is impossible to slow down the time on weekends right? So how are we going to get longer weekends and longer sleep?

Now if you were to divide 168 hours by 6 days, you will get 28 hours a day. This gives you 9 hours of sleep, more time on work and exactly 56 hours of weekend due to some weekend extension drafted by the editor of the web page. But how is this even practical? In the past, we defined a 24 hour day system as it is vital that we have light, from the sun, to do our daily work, like hunting etc. However, now with technology, one can use artificial light to illuminate your day (or night).

And that's the concept of adopting a 28-hour day time system.

Folding@Home

2007-03-22T04:43:00.000-07:00

I refer to the previous post at:

http://crainiarc.blogspot.com/2007/03/playsation-3-major-firmware-update_21.html

Where I mentioned that I would go in detail of Folding @ Home and here it is: Folding @ Home (FAH) is basically a computer project that simulates protein folding steps, to study the misfolding of proteins, which is the main causes for cancer and Alzheimer's disease, by using the relatively new distributed computing method. Unlike traditional methods of scientific computer simulations, where calculation programs are run on supercomputer with tons of processors, distributed computing uses ordinary computers to perform parts of the complex calculations, and linking them up with the use of the Internet. You might ask why would anyone donate their computational power to such projects. Statistics might be the answer. Donators can view how much they had contributed and work in teams, moreover, its for science....

About protein folding
This is a process where long protein chains starts to fold into various shapes to be used in the body. As long as there is one misfolding step in the process, the cells will mutate and start to behave differently. FAH calculate what actually happens before and after the misfolding step to study the causes of such diseases.

How to get FAH
To get FAH, one can download at this website:

http://folding.stanford.edu/

Or use a PlayStation 3 to compute. The good thing about PS3's version of FAH is that one can see real-time graphics on the current processes.

PS: If you are intersted to join my FAH team, you can easily join to through the program. my team number is 41362.

For Science!

Playsation 3 major firmware update

2007-03-21T00:30:00.001-07:00

Scheduled to be released on the 22nd of March, 2007, there will be more new features added to the all new PS3:

Folding @ Home participation

You can now participate the distributed computing simulation on protein folding using a PS3 instead of a computer. Not only is the a cool comtribution to humanity, it also enables the real-time generation of the simulation graphics that computer version of the software is unable to do. I will cover more on this topic in future posts.

Internet Browser Pinpoint Zoom and Resolution Settings

You can now choose to zoom into a portion of a website with the PS3's integrated web browser. This enables more advanced web browsing with a better user experience.

Full size on-screen keyboard

Although PS3 allows you to connect a usb keyboard to one of its four usb ports, a full on-screen keyboard will be useful for those who just do not want to buy another keyboard, making its messenging and web browsing ffeatures easier to use.

Background Downloading from the PlayStation Store

If you don't know, you can download demos and games that you bought form the PlayStaion Store directly to you pS3's harddrive. However, you are unable to do anything else with it while its downloading which is really a pain in the arse. With the update, one can now download stuff from the store while doing something else with the PS3.

Of course

There are more features that comes with the update that I will not mention.

That makes me want a PS3 even more...

Do you know who I am?

2007-03-20T05:11:00.000-07:00

Excuse me, do you know who I am? A funny and creative method to get away when you hand in your exam papers late, as shown in this video:

Before I go...

I found a website thats contains scans of essays from this student who think that he is funny, quite hilarious is you read it, while in your mind, you know that he is just ruining his life.

http://stupidessays.googlepages.com/home

Essays could be faked though..

A brief introduction to the fourth dimension

2007-03-19T06:34:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that most of you readers know the third dimension very well. It is practically everything that u see in this world... However, what is the fourth dimension? In this entry, I will give simple explanations on the null to the fourth dimension.

Null dimension
Null dimension just mainly a point in space. It doesn't describe, nor does it create.

First dimension
The first dimension is just one line. If you are to draw a dot on a piece of paper, the drawing on the paper is first dimension. In the real world, one dimension only refers to the linear distance (length) between two objects or two point. It is unable to create objects in the first dimension.

Second dimension
Moving up, the second dimension requires two paremeters, namely length, from the first dimension, and width. With these, an image is created and cordinates can be plotted within the same plane.

Third dimension

If you aren't exactly clear about the third dimension, an additional paremeter is required: height. With this, positions in space can be ploted out and a real object can finally be created in space.

Fourth dimension

Finally, our last and main topic, the fourth dimension. If u see the previous examples, as the dimension level increase by one, an additional paremeter is required. So what is this new paremeter? Well, the answer is Time. Confused? Ask yourself this question: Can an instant cube exist? That is, can a cube exist for an instant that doesn't even last for 1 pico second? No. Not only must one have the dimenstions of an object, one also must define the amount of time it's created, and destroyed for an object to exist in the universe. Moreover the with time, the position of an object is that able to change.

So ask yourself, are we living in the third or fourth dimension?

300, The movie review

2007-03-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

I've just watched the comic-turned movie, 300 in the theaters recently, therefore, I shall write out my thoughts for the movie (Spoiler Warning).

The movie starts with the narration of the Spartan practice of selecting warriors, mainly focusing on a boy who is probably Leonidas, later the king of Sparta, main character in the movie.

Leonidas is pictured as a proud and good king who is willing to sacrifice himself for Sparta. In battles with Persia, he is always seen leading the 300 soldiers in front, unlike most kings, including Xerxes the villain king, who leads their army in safety.

Although the graphics are mostly computer generated, the Spartan fighting moves choreographed to make them look superior, which is the best that I've ever seen.

However, Xerxes voice doesn't seems to match his body and most of his actions seems a little queer. I did some research after the movie and found that Xerxes scenes were taken separately, and that Xerxes always look at where Leonidas is supposed to be, but not at him.

Overall, the movie is good - nice storyline, superb fighting scenes and good sound effects. This movie is best watched in theaters that have a big screen.

One reason to buy a Mac

2007-03-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

For those who are stubbornly unconvinced to buy a Mac, I present to you an OSX feature that some mac owners don't know about: The Summarize Tool. Basically what it does is that it takes in a selection of text and generates a rather precise summary of it - a great tool for those weak in summary homework, or too lazy to read long passages from the Internet and here is how to do it in three simple steps:

Highlight the text to be summarized.
Click on the program name beside the Apple logo at the top.
Find the services section and click on summarize.

So what are you waiting for? Unless you have no money like me....

One more thing...

I found something cool from the Internet. It is a door mat that reads "Come in" in one ways and "Go Away" in another. Since a picture's worth a thousand words, here's the link to the website:

http://www.suck.uk.com/product.php?rangeID=66

So long farewell, auf weidersehen good-bye....

Epitaphs

2007-03-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

Was just browsing in Wikipedia when I came across the topic on Epitaphs. For those who don't know what is an epitaph, it is just some words inscribed on a tombstone or plaque in order to honour the dead. Here are some of my favorite epitaphs mentioned in Wikipedia:

Simonides's epigram at Thermopylae to honour Leonidas I:

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
that here, obedient to their law, we lie.

An Allied WWII memorial epitaph:

When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,

For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today

William Shakespeare:

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Mel Blanc:

That's all folks!

Spike Milligan:

Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite
Translation: I told you I was ill

I hope that I would come up with one cool epitaph for myself, but for now, live life to the fullest! - That's all folks!

First Post - Hello World!

2007-03-15T23:50:00.000-07:00

Why do I blog

If you did not read my blog in the first 7 days or creation, you would have missed the first edition of this post. Anyway, the reason I created this blog is to post random things on my head...

Link exchange

I'll be more than happy to exchange links with someone, if you are interested, just drop in a comment. And don't tell me to place a shout box in my blog as I really don't want to.

PS: Just support my site. Thanks in advance