I bought a Seagate 160 Gigabytes Barracuda ATA 7200 RPM hard drive for $116 yesterday. The original price was $150 but an instance rebate brought the price down tremendously. The end price should hover around $60 after a mail in rebate that I plan to send out later this week.

160GB for $60 is a bargain I tell you. That is about 60% discount and price per space ratio is less than 30 cent per gig. Usually, the ratio would be more than a dollar per gig.

Despite the excitement of finding a great bargain with a help of a friend, I think I will encounter a possible problem.

On the manual, it says somewhere that my BIOS and OS need to support 48-bit addressing if I want to use more than 137GB. After spending some time on the net researching, I found out that it is related to Bill Gates’ infamous “640K ought to be enough for anybody”.

640K. Yeah. Right.

Anyway, what I do know is that this addressing stuff seems to put a limit on the volume of space that can be made available to the system regardless the physical size of the hard drive. I wonder why do that want to limit it anyway?

I am not sure whether my current system supports 48-bit or 24-bit addressing and I have no idea how to find it out. I honestly however, have not really made a thorough search on the internet about this addressing stuff. Any l33+ out there? Help this poor n00b out will ya?

But man, I did not even use all of my old 40 GB hard drive and now, with this new 160 GB hard drive, I don't know what I want to do.

200 GB definately sounds like great way to piss RIAA. 200 gigs dude. 200 gigs. Dude, this is better picking my nose, that’s for sure.

Maybe I should start uploading part of myself into my hard drive. Yeah, I'll do just that!

Yup folks! Three more bucks to $50 per barrel!

And there is no promise for the price to not go pass the $50 mark.

GOOG is what Google is known to the investors in New York and everywhere else. And on Reuters:

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Friday the 13th was decision day for investors weighing whether to bid for shares in Google Inc.'s initial public offering. The big question now is, how many of them were feeling lucky on an unlucky day.

Google is probably the initial public offering of the year. Google is the most successful search engine ever; not only it is big, it is profitable. Last Friday was the last day for interested investors to register for the Google's IPO auction. The price of the offering is expected to be announced today.

What is the most peculiar characteristic of this IPO, at least for me, is the auction itself. Now, auctions perhaps are typical when the issuer of IPO presents the shares to the underwriter. Furthermore, most IPO’s that I have heard of are sold at some predetermined price, if I am not mistaken. Google, through Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston as the lead underwriters, is doing something unconventional. The IPO will be sold to the public, not to the underwriter, using a modified Dutch auction, also known as single-priced auction.

I do not know which part of the method is modified but through my financial economics class, I do know that the winners of the bid will pay the lowest winning yield for the shares. Take note, the lowest yield means the lowest cost to the issuer (borrower of the money). Now, let’s say there are three bidders, A, B and C and there are 40 units issued. All participants make their offers known. A want 20 units and offers 5.0% yield. B wants 20 with an offer of 6.0% yield and C wants 20 with 7.0% yield. C will lose out and both A and B will win the bid. At the same time, both A and B will pay out 6.0% yield. If A were to pay its initial offer, that would make the auction as something known as multiple-price auction.

Regardless of the method of offering used, each Google share is expected to range between $108 and $135. At the same time there are 25 millions shares available, making a possible capitalization at around $3 billions. That is a cool $3 billions.

It will be traded on NASDAQ, the home of the tech bubble. And this is financial history in the making.

And Blogger is part of Google and this site is powered by Blogger. I am proud to be part of it. Hmm...

p/s - I've just received an interview request from The Star, Malaysia. I am not really sure the person that sent me the email was referring to ReCom.org or ReMag, but hey, this is going to be fun. And I bet the special branch would take notice too. LOL! I'm flattering myself. Damn me.

Ajax has just beaten Twente three to two and is currently placed third in the Eredivisie standing. PSV earlier won five against two against Roosendaal and Feyenoord won six to one against De Graafschap.

Ajax managed to take a 2 - 0 lead by halftime. The first goal was scored by Tom de Mul, a rising star in Ajax that was promoted from the youth team earlier this season. Ten minutes later, van der Vaart made it 2 - 0.

In the second half, on the 46th minute, Ibrahimovic scored Ajax's third goal. But Twente almost managed to catch up with Ajax. Two of their players, Karim Touzani and Blaise N'Kufo scored a goal each. Thank goodness their third goal never came.

Though I am a bit disappointed by Ajax's low number of goals compared to the other big three teams, I must say I am relieve to see Ajax won.

On other update, Ajax has taken two Argentinian youths on loan with an option to buy them after the loan period ends. I heard that the two Argentinians are exciting.

From the inside, some youth team members have been promoted to the first team. One of course is Tom de Mul of whom scored for Ajax. The other is Daniel de Ridder, said to be the next big thing in Ajax. But we will see. There is still a lot of time for de Ridder.

On the goalie position, the younger Stekelenburg has finally replaced Lobont. Stekelenburg has also been selected into the Dutch national team as the first keeper. The national team is currently under Marco van Basten, an Ajax and a world football legend.

Cronyism eh?

Across the channel in London, Chelsea has just beaten the Red Devils, courtesy of Gudjohnsen's goal. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Soccernet has this to say:

Mourinho seemed relaxed enough to lounge on the Chelsea bench, with his feet up and a wide grin on his face, an expression matched by his boss, Roman Abramovich, in the directors' box.

I trust, many of us are still grinning. I know I am.

p/s - Holy crap! Somebody is aunctioning B$1 trillion on EBay, currently priced at $46! 46 bucks! Damn! This is getting out of hand.

The Olympics has officially begun!


Thank goodness they managed to complete the Olympics Stadium.

And, just to show how unpopular Bush's foreign policy is, according to Wikipedia:

As a reflection of the unpopularity of the American-led War on Iraq, many audience members protested the entrance of the American delegation into the stadium by making a thumbs-down gesture.

Oh well.

p/s - Somebody just auctioned 5000 Blogshares chips on EBay. It is priced at $22.56 now. Damn, that is free money!

If the admins of Blogshares do not do anything, soon, real money will be used for trades on Blogshares. But damn! $22.56 for something that is not even real!

Singapore has just received its third Prime Minister, a sign that the region, Southeast Asia is moving into a new period. Roughly a year ago, Malaysia installed its fifth Prime Minister and Indonesia, from the look of it, should have a new President no later than this year’s end. I perceived this development as something positive as the region moves into the right direction.

Despite the change, a few things trouble me. In Malaysia, the currently Deputy Prime Minister is a son of a former Malaysian Prime Minister. In Indonesia, the current President is the daughter of Indonesia’s first President; in Singapore, the new Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong is the son of Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. Of course, in the United States, the current President is a son of a former President but the US obviously is not even an Asian country.

Nevertheless, Singapore’s new man has promised for a more open society. The tiny city state is one of the most developed areas in the world but politically-wise, it is almost a dictatorship, a beneficial one unlike in some places. Democracy is limited and its Parliament is very much comprised of just one party, which sadly, very much resembles the current composition of Malaysia’s lower house, the Dewan Rakyat. With this, the fight for a liberal society will certainly go through a long and winding road.

For the moment at least, Singapore is not a role model for Malaysian struggle for greater rights and freedom. Malaysian media probably has greater freedom than its Singaporean counterpart. Malaysia is ranked 104th in a 2003 report by Reporters Without Borders in term of press freedom. Singapore is placed at 144th. When it concerns gay rights, Singapore is probably ranked way higher than Malaysia given the fact that recently, a gay parade was held there.

However, if the liberalization of Singaporean society is successful (note the word is liberalization, not liberation though I do not doubt some people in Malaysia would love to see the liberation of Singapore from the Singaporeans), I believe it would have a wonderful effect on Malaysia. What better than having a model right at your doorstep?

Then again, with Lee Kuan Yew still in power, believing in an open Singaporean society is a little bit far fetched.

p/s - two hurricanes will hit Florida within this week and the next. And for August and the summer in general, it feels like November. It is climate change I tell you! (I'm kidding though I do feel the weather is a little bit crazy for the past few years.)

pp/s - Zinedine Zidane has retired from the footballing world. There go one more star. I will miss his flair. Hail to the football great.

ppp/s - It is $45 per barrel and going up still.

p^4/s - Damn! I love the sunflower in my new icon!

Athens 2004, the 28th Summer Olympics has unofficially begun, as in the first event, football, the host met South Korea. The match ended two all.

The opening will be officially held on August the 13th.


During the era of classical civilizations, all fractions within the Greek's influence agreed to stop all conflicts during the duration of the Games. In the modern world, such gesture is difficult if not impossible. In the modern world, if it gets too nasty, the world postpones the Games, not the war unfortunately.

I wish I were a Greek in the ancient world.

Nevertheless, let the game begins!

p/s - Did I say earlier that Juventus almost lost to Djurgården of Sweden? Too bad that Juventus made it 2 - 2 before the time ran out. And oh, did I forget to mention PSV lost to Crvena Zvezda 2 -1? And yeah, Club Brugge lost to Shakhtar 4 - 1!

pp/s - I have updated a few things for this site. Mainly the Et Cetera section, also the Creative Commons License and a RSS feed. The RSS feed is in the Et Cetera section. And psst,

ppp/s - Currently (reg. req.), Michigan: Kerry 49%, Bush 42%, Nader 3%, Undecided 6%.

p^4/s - Toys "R" Us are considering leaving the toy business. Hmm...

Last Sunday, I attended a party (okay, okay it was lunch) along with a few field hockey people somewhere in the town of Ann Arbor. The food was enjoyable; we had tandoori chickens with some spiced rice and an ice cream cake. This coming Friday, there will be a party for the field hockey people again and then, another party (or lunch) on Saturday a week later. I think the field hockey club is starting on a tradition (from now on, I will refer field hockey as hockey. Ice hockey is irrelevent as much as calling football as soccer). A yum yum tradition!

The lunch started to get interesting when the conversion started. The conversion at first was about the game that we played on the previous day. It was a good game under a fantastic weather. The sun was bright, the sky was cloudless and blue, neither too hot nor too cold. It was heaven. We even had two MSU people playing with us.

Then, we talked about hockey still. It should not be a surprise that we talked a lot about hockey. It was a sort of hockey lunch in any case. This time, it is about the Olympics in Greece. There was one Australian there and he said it is going to be Australia. But the Netherlands shares the same group with the Kookaburras. So does India. So, it is too early for me to have that Australian’s confidence.

For me, the most disappointing part of the Olympics hockey is the Malaysian team absence. It is simply too bad Malaysia lost to England earlier during the qualifying round. Malaysia should have beaten the English but pity that this is going to be Malaysia’s first Olympics game without a hockey team in a long time. I wonder whether Malaysian hockey quality has gone down (Malaysia was ranked 10th in the world barely four years ago) or we just got unlucky.

The topic then shifted to India, Bangladesh and the Brahmaputra River. The conversation started off with the current flood crisis in Bangladesh where more than 2000 people have died. A person asked a question about the high casualties number. Somebody explained that Bangladesh is merely a quarter of Michigan Lower Peninsula's size but has more than 125 million people in it. Therefore, if something happened, many would be involved.

After I got home, I did some research on that just to know more. By comparison, Michigan is about 250 000 km² with only 10 million people and Malaysia has a land area of almost 330 000 km² with only 25 million people. The contrast in density is drastic; Michigan 40 people/km², Malaysia 70 people/km². Bangladesh has a staggering 926 people/km²!

I did not make up the data, unlike the New York Post. All hail to Wikipedia, in my opinion the best online encyclopedia in the world. Give Wikipedia a visit and howl me at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Earth.

The person that asked the question earlier was not satisfied with the answer and pressed on for a better answer. He asked, if the river floods every time, why do people go there at all?

A depressing answer was given. The people of Bangladesh are poor. They have nowhere to go but the river. The delta is rich with alluvial, an extremely fertile type of soil. Their only hope of survival is the river delta. There is no other economic activity but agriculture.

Another question was fired, why don’t they migrate?

That is easy to answer. There is a cost to migration and poor people cannot afford expensive cost. Worse, nobody wants to accept too many Bangladeshis. In fact, nobody wants too many immigrants.

The last question, given the context of the discussion, strengthened my belief in globalization though I am not saying I agree with globalization with its current form. My notion of globalization is the free flow of capital and labor. The free flow of labor is possible for people from the first world and probably from the developing countries too. However, this is not entirely true for the Bangladeshis and the people from third world in general.

If only free flow of labor were possible for all of us regardless of countries, I believe poverty would be less of a problem, less of a crisis. I of course do think some restriction on labor is a must for the sake of the environment and sustainability.

I am thankful that I am not from the Brahmaputra delta. At the same time, I feel sorry for the people of the delta. It is heartbreaking to see people being stuck in such vicious poverty cycle. On the chessboard, it would have been an impasse.

I need to sleep well,
but sleep is a waste of time,
so I will sleep late.

I want to sleep late,
but I will wake up late,
damned be dilemmas.

Damned be my eyes,
why cannot it be closed now?
I want to sleep well.

Still open I see,
and I see everything,
I need not see it.

Close I beg you please,
to see sunlight ere I sleep,
is too much to bare.

p/s - the recycling culture in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Funny how the recycling culture opposition asserts that recycling is a waste of money. Pittsburgh city council on the other hand has this to say:

Costa said failing to recycle costs the city money. It's paid $11 a ton for glass, cans and plastics and $30 a ton for newspaper, Costa said. Statewide, the average cost to take municipal trash to a landfill is about $57 per ton, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Regardless of that, people who think recycling is wasteful usually forget about the main drive behind recycling: it is about reducing waste, not about making money.

And efficiency includes not merely greenbacks but also includes the utility of having a cleaner environment (unless you like an environment comparable to the dumpyard, maybe a cleaner environment is an griffin good for you) to name one. or the utility of having more trees to name two.

pp/s - BusinessWeek is running an issue on global warming. It is long but nothing is new except the part where the article claims the business sector is ahead of the Bush administration in term of policy and technology concerning global warming.

Today is the 59th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Approximately 80 000 people died on that day and many others in later due to deadly radioactivity. It was the finale of the greatest war in human history.

Let us hope that such weapon may never be used again. The first step to ensure that is to urge the US to adhere to ABM Treaty that it signed more than three decades ago. And the only way to do that is to remove Bush from the White House.

Go Ralph Nader!

Heh.

Anyway, I donated a few bucks to the local Green Party earlier. Hopes it is worth it.

p/s - there is a plan in California for a greater expansion of solar energy:

California officials are proposing that half of all new homes in the state be running on solar energy in 10 years, an effort spurred by $100 million in annual incentives paid for by electricity consumers.

Denmark is known for its wind energy, California will be known for its solar energy.

I have always believed that $50 per barrel of crude oil is possible but for the price reach that level before the year ends is way too soon.

p/s - a must read entry. Extremely hilarious. I had my first smile of the day because of that blog.

A few days ago, a pipeline in Sabah, a Malaysian on the northern part of the island of Borneo, ruptured, spilling crude oil into the sea. It was reported that an oil slick with the dimension of 2800 meters by 30 meters was observed. The pipeline was repaired quickly, preventing more spills and I am sure, cutting the owner of the pipeline losses, which happens to be Shell.

Though pipeline was repaired, slick was merely observed on the first day. A report in The Star, a local press has the exact wordings:

“One of our vessels is monitoring the oil slick,” the spokesman said, adding that there were no reports of casualties or immediate threat to people and facilities.

On the second day, Shell monitored again without doing anything. I was already agitated. Shell had this to say:

A Miri-based Shell spokesman said yesterday that the slick was “dispersing and disappearing” with heavy rains over the area while the emergency response team was also carrying out cleaning works.

“It is not a major slick, the amount leaked could have been about three barrels of oil,” he said, adding that the pipelines had been depressurised.

Three barrels. I do not really know how much is that but let say the thickness of the slick is one millimeter. We know the both the length and the width of the slick so, the volume should be 84 meter cube.

On the third day, or maybe it was the fourth:

“The situation is back to normal and the minor oil sheen has dispersed naturally,” according to a statement from Sabah Shell Petroleum Company.

What does that supposed to mean? Naturally dispersed? You have just responsible for tossing almost 100 meter cube of carcinogenic material into the sea and you call that being naturally dispersed?

It would only be natural if the spill were not there at all, you irresponsible dimwit! You should have cleaned your mess!

I wonder if passing the buck to Mother Nature is a culture in Shell Malaysia?