The hype,


the teams,


the down,


the fans,


the weirdos,


the disappointment,


the equalizer,


the lobster,


the chicken,


the overtime,


the oh-my-god-more-overtime,


the final-overtime-in-progress,


and the celebration,


are all for the orgasm!


Sing it!

It's great, to be, a Michigan Wolverine!
It's great, to be, a Michigan Wolverine!
It's great, to be, a Michigan Wolverine!

For more information, please go to Yahoo! Sports. But, quoting Lloyd Carr:

"It was one of the greatest games I've ever been in. It's unfortunate somebody has to lose."

p/s - see you next year Sparties. Can't wait to kick your ass for the gazillionth time.

I went to see and hear Noam Chomsky in person today.

His lecture, entitled �Illegal But Legitimate�, was held at the Law School, which was a mere five-minute walk from my place. Hence, I left my place approximately six or five minutes earlier before the lecture started. For those of you who need an introduction on him, the excellent Wikipedia provides more than sufficient details of him. Support Wikipedia. Bookmark it.

Heaven forbids but I thought I was early. When I first got through the Law School's doors, I was surprised to witness an extremely large mass trying to take a peek into the auditorium where the lecture was held. When Ralph Nader came the other day, there was a big turnout but it was nowhere as large as Professor Chomsky�s lecture.

The auditorium has three doors and the doorways were packed. In fact, even the windows were packed. Many, having not the chance of getting into the auditorium, heard the lecture from outside and inside the windows.


Didn't your mother tell you to stop biting your nails? Ooo, shiny head...
I was rather discouraged upon seeing the state of the moment until I saw a few uncivilized folks standing on a sturdy wooden table located just outside auditorium, in front of one of the doorways. Badly wanting to hear what the professor had to say, I decided to join the uncivilized. Who cares about being civilized when one has the chance of being enlightened eh?

I saw the podium through a doorway, from the top of the table. Alas, I couldn�t hear anything. It was as if the auditorium was completely designed to prevent any sound originating from the podium from traversing outside of the auditorium. By this time, Professor Chomsky hadn�t given his lecture yet. Instead, some unknown person, probably some faculty member from Michigan, was probably giving a much unneeded introduction to the much celebrated professor. I didn�t know for certain what that person was saying since I simply couldn�t hear anything.

So instead, I had a conversation with a girl who was standing on the table right beside me until unfortunately, a lady came and shooed us off the table. Moments later, she and a few others removed the table to somewhere else. Sigh�

With the table out of the picture, I forced myself into the doorway. I got nowhere far since the doorway was packed. Despite my effort, I still heard naught though I managed to position myself in a way that the podium was in my field of view.

Worse, a f-guy was pushing me from behind! And I swear his dick was on my ass! And I am not sure whether he was interested in the lecture or me!

Uncomfortable with his intimacy, I intentionally elbowed the person. He was gone within minutes to my luck. Come to think of it, it would be ugly if there were a confrontation. But the end justifies the mean; he was gone and I was happily struggling to listen to the lecture.

Noam Chomsky later came up and a loud applause followed. In fact, the professor received a standing ovation even before he said anything. By this moment, I managed to get closer into the auditorium but I was still somewhere at the doorway.

For a good fifteen minutes, I was standing, watching the professor without hearing anything. It was a sad situation but I managed to take a few pictures from the doorway. Here is one.


I'm hearing Noam Chomsky! I think I'm in heaven!
There was probably a war of attrition happening among the pack of people but my resilience paid off. A few gave up and hence instantly allowing me to forward farther into the hall. More importantly, the resilience gave me a chance to hear the lecture.

When I got thus far, Professor Chomsky was talking about Nicaragua and how the US government manipulated the situation there via illegal means toward their advantages. I don�t remember the progression of the lecture properly but he also talked about the situation in Vietnam, Kosovo and Afghanistan. The conquest of Florida by the US was also mentioned. Somewhere along the line, he mentioned how and why the US refuses to submit itself under the International Court of Justice. The situations given in his lecture were to reflect the title of his lecture � illegal but legitimate. He argued that the current US administration truly believes in this �illegal but legitimate� ideology. This sounds like Bismark's realpolitik in a different light to me.

The lecture most likely went for an hour and 15 minutes with a questions and answer session lasting for about half an hour. One of the questions that were asked concerned Clinton�s impeachment.

The question roughly went: Why Clinton was impeached because of lying about his sexual misconduct but Bush isn�t being tried despite the latter lied to the public about the situation in Iraq?

The professor, whether it was by wit or by accident, replied by saying, roughly, lying to the public is not the supreme sin. The hall burst into laughter upon hearing that. You will need to watch the lecture to understand the joke because the supreme sin (or something like that) was somewhat defined in the lecture.

Once the Q&A ended, the crowd quickly dispersed but I stayed around to get closer to the professor. Apparently, there were a number of people thinking of what I was thinking - most wanted to get his autograph. Some merely want to shake hand. I merely wanted to take a picture of him.


The professor up close.
If you are interested in hearing the lecture, there is supposed to be a recording on the University�s server. However, when I visited the site, the link was bad. I don�t know when it will be up.

And tomorrow, the former Prime Minister of Norway, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, will be giving a lecture on sustainability. With all midterms done for the moment, I intend to give myself a treat.

p/s - this is what I meant by inside the windows.

The decision to join a group with a common interest may provide an individual with fascinating ideas. Some of the ideas are out of this world but yet, sound incredibly effective in reaching a common cause. I am currently with one of the local environmental groups and have been attending their meetings for a couple of weeks now. While there, one of the ideas presented with the goal of preventing excessive logging is the purchase of an acre of land somewhere in the jungle along with its logging rights. When I first heard the idea at the meeting, I was simply astounded by the effectiveness of the strategy.

Imagine there is patch of 3 by 3 acres of land somewhere in the Brazilian Amazon, Indonesian Borneo (or Malaysian Borneo for that matter) or the Russian Far East, with an acre square is considered as one unit with an acre square is the smallest available unit for sale. By simple arithmetic, there should be 9 unit of land plots. If you disagree, convince yourself for goodness' sake!

Logging activities, especially with the devastating clearcutting method, usually cover a lot of ground. With the 3 by 3 plots under consideration, with say A to C and 1 to 3 marked on each axis to make up a Cartesian coordinate system, moving in some line continuously (e.g. say A1 to A3 or A1 to C1) or continuously harvesting neighboring plot (e.g. A1 to A2 to B2 to C2, etc) would probably provide the least operation cost for the logger rather than cutting one plot and then travel from one plot to some other plot that is unconnected (say A1 and to then C3) to first plot. As a caveat, I am making an assumption on this though I believe it is rather reasonable. I am convinced moving jumping from one plot to some other unconnected plot has some cost to it � fuel for the machines to be transported is an instance.

As a result, a logger would probably try to obtain logging rights to the plots that border each other. Therefore, say if the logger needs four plots, he would buy 1 by 4 or 2 by 2.

Now, say there is a green group that wants to stop the logging, or at least makes logging harder. There are a few ways to do that. The most common technique is ecotage (a form of sabotage or monkey-wrenching) through tree spiking or a direct sabotage on the logging machines. Another way is through tree sitting. But such approach is dangerous and worse, it is against the law in most cases. Therefore, buying the logging rights might be the best way to counter legal logging. Illegal logging unfortunately can�t be stop through this method. The only way to stop illegal logging is the strong enforcement of a strong environmental law framework (of which, I�ll certainly have a wet dream if Malaysia is ever going to have this in the near future, really. It is more frustrating when corrupt officials are up there).

Nevertheless, assuming there is no such thing as illegal logging (however silly that might be), with 9 by 9 plot, along with all the relevant assumptions, the green group needs only to purchase 3 plots, in particular with a diagonal manner � A1, B2 and C3 - to effectively increase the cost of the logger.

Let's loosen up the assumption and say the logger needs merely 2 plots for his operation. In this case, the green group could buy four plots, A2, B1, B3 and C2 (notice the order) in order to greatly, if I may, screw the logger. With this, the logger will be forced to move to a plot away from the first harvested plot and thus, increase the cost of logging.

Indeed, the latter tactic, in general, buying odd or even horizontal or vertical coordinate in all vertical or horizontal plot or vice versa depending on the total size of the patch of land probably dominates all the other tactics, disregarding the cost of buying such rights.

With all these, there are probably a few scenarios worth mentioning if cost of purchasing such rights is considered in but I really lack the time to explore it given that I should be working with my international economics courses now rather than writing this entry. Another reason is definitely my inability to further explain such scenarios in a clear and concise manner.

However, there might be one or two problems with this. Financing such project in most possibilities will be costly since the only return to this effort is the satisfaction of knowing the existence of a guarantee of a few no-logging plots. Of course, unless we could have some influence on some legislators, assuming there is no corruption, another problem is illegal logging. With illegal logging, any private property in the middle of nowhere won�t be respected. I myself, if I found a binocular somewhere high up in the Sierra Nevada, I won�t sweat myself in returning it (this is a true story if you are wondering. Check this out if you are interested with my lame misadventure).

I wonder how much does it cost to buy a plot of land in the Amazon - it should be clearer in the future meeting I presume. I myself will probably be willing to help the group with its funding effort. Probably that is an understatement. I will be excited to assist the good work.

p/s - Today, the United Nations, probably the greatest symbol of our cooperation, created in the aftermath of our greatest conflict, celebrates its 59th anniversary. To eternity of peace, friends!


And due to my high regard of the United Nations (fetishism rather), I think I want to meet some people related to the local International Affairs Society because Model United Nations is going to be held in February next year! I've already contacted the society and we'll see what's going to happen from there.

This might be hot air but its worth the try. Wish me luck!

The Duma has ratified Kyoto with 334 ayes against 73 nays. All we need now is Putin's signature to signal approval of the Protocol. This for certain will happen soon thanks to Putin's explicit promise.

After the signature, 90 days later, the Kyoto Protocol, the dream that first gained momentum at the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, will be a reality.

And an excerpt from the article:

Washington said the pact was too costly and unfairly exempted large rapidly industrialising countries such as China and India.

But EU Commission President Romano Prodi said Russia's backing would put additional pressure on the United States to reconsider its position.

"The Kyoto Protocol may not be perfect but it is the only effective tool that is available to the international community," he said in a statement.

"The United States should not abstain from the one fight that is crucial for the future of mankind."

Bush asserts that war on terrorism requires global effort. How is he going to expect international cooperation while he himself refuses to work with the world is beyond me.

p/s - I somehow managed to mess up with my website template. I will not be able to repair it until next week at the very least.

Oh oh what are they?
Humans are they?
On two legs right there!
Coming right over here!

They're coming nearer!
we must run, brother!
or may I suggest rather,
into the bucket, brother!

van Gaal has just resigned as Ajax Techical Director amidst Ajax's victory in a Champions' League match. The reason for the resignation is unclear at the moment but I must say, I am glad van Gaal is out.

Inasmuch he was the one that brought Ajax to its 1990's European glory, I have the impression that van Gaal's presence in Amsterdam is not helpful for most of the times, especially when it comes to the surprise sale of Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Juventus a few weeks ago. In my opinion, the sale was done is a very disappointing way. Not only the timing of the transfer was unbelievable - leaving Ajax a mere 3-day cushion to find an extra striker - the amount of money recieved was way below expectation.

Nevertheless, rumor has it that van Gaal is resigning in order to get a shot at Koeman's job. I hope that is not the case and sincerely I hope he is gone for good. Even when he arrived, I didn't celebrate it as much. When Barcelona hates him to certain degree, you have to wonder why.

No more van Gaal. All I want is a rejuvenated Ajax and a revenge against Bayern Munich.

With the vacancy, I would very much like Johan Cruyff to be Ajax's new Technical Director. He was considered along with van Gaal for the post earlier this year.

In any case, Ajax reported a respectable level of profit for this fiscal year. Therefore, they are expected to buy new players to strengthen their offensive capability in the near future. I hope we will find a good player because with the miserable Sonck up front and Ibrahimovic gone, Ajax doesn't have any notable striker.

Regardless of that, a few exciting young players from the famous Ajax's youth academy are making waves. It should be interesting to see another van der Vaart or Wesley Sneijder or, if it is not too much, another van Basten.

p/s - something is on the roll in Myanmar. I'll just be an a-hole and say the military junta sucks.

pp/s - Unbelievable.

Newmont lawyer Luthfi Yazid told Reuters news agency that the study's verdict "strengthens our stance that our client did not damage nor pollute the environment" around Buyat Bay.

I rather believe the locals than a lawyer that represents a multinational mining firm. The trees won't sway if there is no wind blowing. Here, the trees were uprooted and they asserted the wind is not blowing.

I am compelled to allege that a few strings had been pulled off.

What is this current fad with radio jammers?

First, it was the French government allowing theaters to install jammers for the sake of eliminating unwanted ringing. Well, since cell phones nowadays are loaded with countless loud incessant noise, ringing might not be the right term. Nevertheless, jamming?

But I guess it�s not too bad. I myself hate people with cell phones that lack ethics. Hate is a strong word. Perhaps annoying is more accurate word to describe these goddamned unethical cell users. Then again, I�ll stick with hate.

Then, I read somewhere that churches in Mexico have installed these jammers. The situation is aptly described in the following excerpt:

MONTERREY, Mexico - It was the reporters who noticed first. Unable to call their editors while covering the weddings of the rich and famous, they asked the priest why their cell phones never worked at Sacred Heart. His reply: Israeli counterintelligence.

Very funny�

Anyway, that is not all. From the article where the excerpt was, err, excerpted, the Indian Parliament has been using such technology to politely discourage congressmen from receiving phone calls during a session.

Regardless the fact that I hate these goddamned unethical cell phone users, I don�t know whether this is good or bad.

For one, it is a blessing to us, the goddamned unethical cell phone users� haters. If the jamming technology starts to propagate to everywhere, no more ringing or whatever it is called right now in the middle of a lecture, an assembly or any situation that requires cell ethics.

However, isn�t this is somewhat erosion of freedom?

I want my freedom to hate!

If suddenly everybody utilizes this jamming technology, there will be no goddamned unethical cell phone users anymore! Imagine the horror of the goddamned unethical cell phone users� haters! The pain of no hate is unbearable! There will be no one left for us the goddamned unethical cell phone users� haters to hate anymore!

Maybe its time all the goddamned unethical cell phone users� haters start to concentrate on hating the Buckeyes. Then again, the people from a obscure place called Ohio just had one more loss and this time to the Badgers. Due to that, the marginal return to hate is so small; it�s not worth hating the Buckeyes anymore.

Wait!

There exists a subspecies of human that chatter loudly at light speed! Yes! A new found source of hate! Now, if the radio jamming technology is spreading everywhere at our expense, we should all evolve and become haters of goddamned uneducated people that incessantly chatter at a light speed!

Yet, there is a possibility that the government will restrict our freedom to hate the goddamned uneducated people that incessantly chatter at light speed. This is a problem indeed.

A ah! Friends, haters, countrymen!

It is Israel that is providing this jamming technology. It is Israel that is restricting our freedom! It is true then that Jews rule the world by proxy! Hence, we must hate Israel to secure our freedom to hate!

Oh, boy. Mahathir is going to be proud of me. Totally.

p/s - check this out. Via WorldChanging, my current favorite website.

A few days ago, the European Space Agency released its Envisat observations. According to the news on ESA website, Envisat is the largest environmental satellite at this moment. The most interesting finding is, at least to me, is the distribution of nitrogen dioxide in the world. Practically, it's the map.

From the map, there are a few large hotspots.


A larger map can be found here.
The location and the intensity of the two hotspots are probably expected. One is located somewhere around New England while another concentrated around the Benelux. However, I was surprised to see the size of China�s hotspots.

I know that China has been growing rather fast and has a somewhat questionable environmental record. Yet, I have never thought the pollution in China to be that bad. Though it might be premature to say the distribution of nitrogen dioxide represents the pollution spread on the whole, I do think it is safe to assume such distribution gives a picture of what is happening. After all, nitrogen dioxide is rarely produced in nature.

Another location that I didn't expect is South Africa. But that is rather because I don't know much about Africa. But I wonder, what is that big light blue blob near the Gulf of Guinea? What could possibly going on there?

Maybe oil, I think. I don't know.

The huddle has begun. Starting this week, four successive weeks onward, I'll have at least one exam per week. All upper level economics.


The first is game theory and boy, I thought game theory was easy. Nevertheless, it is an exciting class. In fact, all upper level economics classes are exciting. My favorite is currently international trade theory.

For the past few weeks, there has been an alarming rate of news related to the environment, in particular the melting of glaciers, coming out of China. When I first saw it via my usual news feed, I had thought it was just another report but almost everyday since then, the news from there doesn�t seem to give it a break. As right now, it keeps pouring out.

The report came out after a Sino-US team released the result of their observation of the situation in Himalaya near Tibet. The most important finding is that the glaciers there are shrinking at 7% per year and it is expected to disappear within 100 years. Previously, the glaciers have been shrinking at 5%. Seeing the first derivative as increasing is one thing, seeing the second derivative as increasing is another.

This immediately announces the danger of China facing great floods sooner or later, frequently, as mentioned in the report. China so far has been able to tame its rivers through a set of dams. However, I don�t think the dams will be able to control the rivers with the glaciers receding at the current rate.

Despite being concern with this news, I don�t know how bad 7% is. As someone once said to me, one cannot fully understand the statistics until one sees the real thing. But, I once saw a picture of a glacier in South America; it was probably in the Andes. There was a team of explorers wandering off somewhere and the place was full of ice. It was a huge glacier. Ten years later, the same team visited the very same site again and found that the place has been relinquished of its white background. The glacier has in fact receded a few kilometers away upward. If that is how bad 7% is, it is alarming.

Some time last week, Jeff Ooi, one of Malaysia�s foremost blogger, got into trouble. He was not the source of the turmoil but rather, the source was an unsavory comment left on one of Screenshots� entry, Jeff Ooi�s blog that, as some would say, degraded Islam.

A pro-government national paper caught up the news and sent a pretty calm crowd to indulge in a massive session of duckspeak. Shortly afterward, somebody in Ministry of Internal Security said that the Internal Security Act (ISA), an act that essentially allows detention without trial, could be utilized against the author of Screenshots for instigating racial harmony. While this happened, support for Screenshots was mounting from the blogosphere. Some of the support came as far as the other end of the planet. The famed Slashdot posted something on this too. Reason is, if ISA were used, the freedom of speech is being threatened yet for another day. More importantly, if a blogger is going to be arrested under ISA, it would be an unprecedented move in suppression of free speech. Well, not unprecedented. China has done that.

Luckily, the hoo-ha died out but, I notice something else.

Take note that, all the while this all happened, Screenshots was and still is rallying for a fundraising effort. In particular, observe at the figure of the fund. The fund was first officially announced by Screenshots on September 27th this year. The intention was probably first brought up on September 21st or earlier. Now, bear with me while I puke out the boring details.

Around the same day that the comment that caused the uproar was made, which was September 30 -- of which I believe the water was still as calm as Lake Tahoe -- the fund stood at RM818.68. A day later, the fund grew almost 100%; to be precise it was at RM1570.96.

Screenshots usually receives a lot of visitors per day by some standard. I would say the average, discounting the absolute maximum was around 3500 visitors. This rough estimate could be easily obtained from Screenshots.

Two days later, the fund stood RM0.69 short of RM2000.00. On the same day, the number of visitors was significantly different from the Screenshots� average of visitors for about 30 days. It was approximately 9000 visitors though I don�t know whether that 9000 represents 9000 unique people. From my experience, the counter that Screenshots is using doesn�t differentiate the same IP after some period of time. However, assuming that the 9000 visitors are indeed unique and on average, there are 3500 unique visitors, with the difference from the average and the actual visitor on each of those 30 days is less than 1000, 9000 is absolutely big and unusual. Screenshots refers to that 9000 as abnormal traffic. More data here.

On October 2nd, Screenshots was brought to national attention. With this, it is sensible for anybody to expect a spike in the number of visitors and this definitely explains, as a statistician would say, the error in the statistical model, if a statistical model were to be constructed. On the normal curve, that abnormal traffic figure will be at the very end of one tail (well, not really at the end of the tail for the mathematics junkies but you get the idea. The t-test is huge.).

Then the fund lingered at RM4181.61, another 100% increase. Looking back in time, that is a 400% increase from September 30.

According to Screenshots on September 5th, the number of visitors was greater on September 5th than the day before. As of today, the fund grew by about 50% to RM6779.37.

Now, there is a relationship with the number of visitors and the number of fund though my professor always asserts correlation is not causation. But if a statistical model were to be constructed, I strongly believe there will be a strong positive correlation between the two variables. More importantly, I don�t think anybody needs any lesson in econometrics to realize good marketing brings large customers and large customers translate to large sale. In this case, large contribution.

Now, consider a conspiracy theory.

Let�s say Jeff Ooi knows this. Also, let�s say Jeff Ooi has a friend at Jalan Riong (the location where the national paper resides in the real world. You see that something outside the window? That�s the real world. And no, not MS Windows you bastard, the window!), of which I am sure he does; a little bird at the very least.

Now, let�s think. Does it make sense for a national paper to care so much for the blog that, that particular national paper ran an article concerning that blog on the front page?

Rayden would say, I don�t think so. Well, it is possible for a blog to get onto a national paper, as proven by Instapundit. Instapundit got onto the New York Times but it was hardly in the front page. I mean c�mon, front page? Don�t you have any other f-news? If Harakah did it, it's understandable but Berita Harian? Dude, you need to uphold some of your reputation! (I'm not saying that Berian Harian has a lot of reputation to start with.)

A part of my want to say, some little bird at Jalan Riong wants to help Screenshots� fundraising effort. So, a little publicity doesn�t hurt, especially when the firm at Jalan Riong is one of the most influential (despite being excessively biased) media in Malaysia.

Either that or the people at Jalan Riong hate Screenshots so much that they really are trying hard to pin Jeff Ooi down to the ground, which seems to be apparently true and would probably explains the front page. Pure hatred is strong enough a reason to verify the front page.

If latter is true, then the plan is backfiring. Instead of pinning Screenshots to the ground, it only helped the fundraising effort by at most 720% increase from RM818.68.

Oh, well, met my academic advisor yesterday. She asked me whether I have anything after graduation or not. I said not yet. She then said, if you want, you could take a class in the B-School next semester. Sounds like a good plan for me. Maybe I could even convince my parents to sponsor me into B-School. But in any case, if I still can�t find anything, I�ll stay in school for one more semester. Graduating in December is boring anyway. It�s too cold and too early to graduate.

And yeah, the last time Minnesota met Michigan, Minnesota faced a rheumatic arrest after seeing Michigan rallying from a loss to a win in the fourth quarter. Tomorrow, Minnesota (ranked #13, one rung above Michigan) will get a heart attack immediately in the first quarter.

Go Blue baby!

p/s - I meant cardiac arrest, not rheumatic arrest.

It takes a nation of lizards to hold us back.
- one of the phrases on one of Sobe bottle caps.


And screw my I'll-post-an-image-once-in-two-days. I can't find any good shot (n00b level if you are wondering) in two short days.

p/s - Evhead is leaving Blogger behind. Thanks for everything dude.

Trees are the earth�s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
- Rabindranath Tagore


My eyes caught sight of one particular tree somewhere in Los Angeles. It was a moderately huge tree with extremely odd but beautiful roots formation. I hate Los Angeles. Perhaps, the only thing that I like about it is this tree, and a few other things.

p/s - unbelievable goal!