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Head vs Heart

2006-07-06T18:34:00.000+08:00

After four weeks of explosive football, the World Cup 2006 is coming to a ceremonial close. The South American favorites are back home early and the Berlin stadium awaits an aging France team, which was not even regarded as capable of qualifying the group stage. Well, that's football for you and I am sure the excitement is not over, just yet.

The Italians, masterminded by a cool Marcello Lippi and inspired by a determined Totti will prove formidable opposition to the French, led by back-to-form Zidane. The midfield doubles battle involving Vieira and Makalele against Pirlo and Gattuso alone is enough to wet anyone's appetite. Most fans will also crave the prospect of an Italian goal mouth, shielded by a steadfast Buffon and guarded by a drilled defense led by Cannavaro, confronted by a speedy Henry looking to prove a point.

However, excellent individuals do not necessarily sum up to an excellent team as clinically proven by Real Madrid. Team tactics and motivation will be equally important and that's where, in my opinion, Italy has a slight advantage. The quick counter-attacking game displayed by Italy throughout the tournament is expected to prevail over the flashes of brilliance presented by the French. The scandals plaguing Italian football might just be blessing in disguise to motivate the azzuri in edging out the les blues team that still includes six members from the 1998 winning team.

My heart is still in favor of the blues. It's a classic head vs. heart, logic vs. intuition situation that I very much enjoy.

Dark horse in the Gaming Race

2005-12-07T16:59:00.000+08:00

With the gaming websites beaming with news of Xbox 360 launch, it is easy to forget what's coming next in line. Although Sony and Nintendo have lost out to Microsoft in reaching the market early, it is too early to see if the "early-bird" advantage is really important. Market-leader Sony's PlayStation 3 has more raw power than Xbox 360 and boasts support for high definition blu-ray discs and compatibility with vast array of existing PlayStation games.

Nintendo, on the other hand stays away from performance comparisons and have stressed that the current games have reached saturation in terms of graphical effects. Instead, Nintendo will focus on innovation and gameplay when it unveils its "Revolution" console. Although the specifications and features are still unknown, Nintendo managed to surprise everyone with a distinctively bold new controller design. Although the new controller gives the first impression of a TV-remote, its motion-sensing and extensibility features give insights into the path that Nintendo is taking with its upcoming console.

A brief look at the history of gaming industry will convince any doubters that Nintendo is never to be underestimated. Starting from D-pad to the touch-screen on the latest Nintendo DS, all major gaming interface changes have been credited to Nintendo. And now, they believe it is time for another change. Are they right this time ? Time will tell.

Lactose Intolerence

2005-09-10T12:02:00.000+08:00

Even if diary products are so popular, approximately 70% of world population cannot digest lactose( milk sugar ) in adulthood. This is because the production of the enzyme lactase ceases after breastfeeding period. The explanation is that humans in the past normally required lactase only during the lactation period.

This changed when humans in some parts of the world started diary farming and were dependent on milk for their entire lifetime. Some of the people were lactose persistent, that is, they were able to continue digestion of lactose even in adulthood. Gradually, diary products became so widespread and lactose persistent were able to get nutrients easier than lactose intolerant ones. After several years, lactose intolerent were virtually wiped out of these regions due to natural selection.

More details here and here.

Apple in 1998

2005-09-06T17:08:00.000+08:00

While testing the Wayback machine, I stumbled upon the Apple homepage from 1998.

And now, Apple is switching to Intel. Wonderful!

Assorted Jose Mourinho quotes

2005-09-03T14:18:00.000+08:00

Samples from the uber-confident coach:

"If I wanted to have an easy job... I would have stayed at Porto - beautiful blue chair, the Uefa Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me."

“If you have at home in the garage one Bentley and one Aston Martin, if you go every day to work in the Bentley for six months and leave the Aston Martin in the garage, you are not very clever. You have to use the Aston Martin.” on making six team changes for match against West Brom.

“I know that the questions will be around the amount Chelsea had to spend to bring him here but that is the reality of modern football. Big teams only want big players and big players are only in good clubs. Good clubs want to keep their big players and they want a lot of money for them.” on the huge fee paid to bring Michael Essien from Lyon.

“I told him it was unfair, you can do nothing at that time. The goal is there and unbelievable, and the points are in our side. At that moment the game is over. I am only saying what he already knows - the result is not fair to them.” on winning the match against Wigan through a magnificient extra-time goal from Crespo.

“I will give you an answer but only if you use it as intended, as a joke. The mascot was very important because against Bayern Munich I was the mascot.” on why the Mascot stolen from Stamford Bridge was so important. ( He was serving a touch-line ban during the match against Bayern Munich. )

“I spoke to him once about the situation because I was curious, and I believe in what he told me, and what he told me was: ‘That’s football.’ At half-time they were focused, they were concentrated, they were not jumping, they were very serious. His comment to me is that it’s not easy to score two goals in a final of the European competition and lose, you should be the hero. So he’s one more, he’s never done it, one more who wants to win it.” on his conversation with Crespo after Milan lost to Liverpool in the Champions' League final.

“We want to win everything. If we win two out of four it’s again fantastic. If we win a big competition like the Premiership, or the Champions League, or the two Cups, if you win then it’s good, it’s always good to win. If we win nothing, I don’t know. I’ve never experienced it. It will happen one day and I will have to cope with it.”

“Some are treated as devils and some are treated as angels. I don’t think we are so ugly as to be treated like devils and I don’t think that Mr. Wenger and Mr. David Dein and so on are so beautiful to be treated like angels. I went to Brazil for holiday. I didn’t go to Brazil to chase players and speak with players behind clubs’ backs, but when I read the papers it is completely different." accusing Arsenal of illegally approaching Julio Baptista.

“A person who works in clubs shouldn’t work in the FA. The FA is the FA, clubs are clubs. I think with the money I had to pay them last season they should sign somebody else for that job.” criticising on how the premiership fixtures favour Arsenal whose chairman works in the FA.

"Even if you don't need it. In reality I could say I don't need another midfielder, I have enough. If you don't need it from the football point of view, you need it from the mental point of view. A player cannot think that because I was good, I have my place and because I have my place I don't need to have the same commitment. For a manager it is difficult, especially after success. You can think you don't need new players and you don't push. You can't be emotional, you have to think of the most important thing and you have to think about the club." on why it is important to strengthen the squad for next season.

Tokyo

2005-06-27T10:17:00.000+08:00

Last week, I was in Tokyo for a 3-day trip. It didn't start off well with the flight starting at about midnight from Singapore, which meant I couldn't get any sleep that night. Moreover, it was no longer the executiveconomy flight I used to take to Los Angeles - that means lesser leg room and messier chairs.

The highlight of the first day was the lunch. The restaurant served only one dish, so there was no menu, patrons just came in and took a seat. There was no business of taking orders, queuing up, etc. Nice. Also, there were only seats for 8 persons at a time. My host explained to me that the rental prices are very expensive in Tokyo, so large restaurants are a luxury. The food was good, but expensive, like everything in Tokyo.

The dinner was at a very traditional restaurant with waitresses dressed in Japanese style clothing that resemble the sort of clothing worn by classical dancers in India. I didn't care too much about what I ate, and my hosts took great pains to explain me about each dish that was served. The dinner took 3 hrs and I was back at the hotel very late. Since I had to get ready early in the morning for work, it was another night without proper sleep.

The next day morning was the real work. Things went pretty well at the client-site and we headed down to a Sushi restaurant for lunch. The highlight of the day was dinner at Ginza, supposed to be like Orchard Road of Singapore which essentially means very expensive and "classy". I learned that the term used by Japanese for "Cheers" before sipping a drink literally means "Tired", but it is intended to sound like "Good Job, Well done". Strange! Then we took the subway to Shinjuku, to witness the night-life situation in Tokyo. After walking around for few hours, we took taxi back to hotel, at 3am.

My flight back to Singapore was at noon on the third day. Since my colleague had an earlier flight, I had to accompany him earlier to the airport. Overall, the trip was a good experience except for the fact that I slept only 8 hrs in 3 days.

Google Maps

2005-05-13T13:56:00.000+08:00

Everyone's favorite company is at it again. This time with Google Maps. This has been around for quite some time, but only recently I had a good chance to look at it. I was impressed!

I tried a few addresses including the hotel I stay in Glendale, CA during my LA trips. Very nice, the routing and satellite options are cool. The cutest thing about it: When entering a location for search and display, a popup window appears over the map. And, there is a SHADOW for the popup window on the map! It looks better on the satellite view. I liked it.

I also tried out Google Suggest. Start typing and Google will suggest your possible search. It looks like all non-vegetarian terms have been filtered out. For example, try the f-word.

Soccer

2005-04-01T19:12:00.000+08:00

I am a Soccer* fan. I follow the european matches quite closely. Initially, I used to watch them just to kill time and now, a lot of my time is spent on soccer matches, news, highlights, previews etc. It is one of those things that I look forward to every week.

One of the things I like about Soccer is the unpredictability. Last week, there was a match between Barcelona and Real Betis. Barcelona were clearly the favourites and clearly they had all the possession in the beginning. After 12 mins, in a counter attack, Real Betis took the lead against the flow of the game. Barcelona responded with a penalty and in the foul that caused the penalty, one of the Real Betis players were sent off. At this point, with score at 1-1 and Betis down to 10 men, everyone would have expected Barcelona to go on and win the game.

It was not to be! Betis scored twice again! And towards the end, Barcelona got another penalty which Eto'o scored. So, in the last 20 secs. of the game, score was 2-3 and Betis was soo close to a very important away victory. Then came the long ball from Deco to substitute van Bronckhorst and he raised the ball above the keeper into the Betis net to spoil the party!!

Wow, nice match and this is the unpredictability I was talking about. But there is nothing unpredictable about my favourite team**. They have been growing in strength match after match this season. Yesterday they scored 4 goals against Bayern Munich who have conceded only 7 goals in 8 matches so far in this season's Champions' League. Incredible result, but things will be different in Munich next week. Hopefully the blues will go through.

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* Everybody understands what is 'Soccer'. Not everyone has the same idea on hearing 'Football'
** Yes, the color-scheme of the blog is a hint.

Books I read

2005-03-17T19:08:00.000+08:00

If I really try hard, I can count all the novels I have read. Reading novels was never my hobby. Now I am trying to change that. After starting work, I have started to read novels, mostly fiction. Now, two of the books I read recently are being made into movies. The DaVinci Code and The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy. I can't wait to see them.

I liked The DaVinci Code. It felt like this book was written to be made into a movie. I think the director of Beautiful Mind, Ron Howard is really suited for this movie. Although Tom Hanks does not potray my vision of his character, I would expect him to adapt to any kind of role. I mean, look at the roles in The Terminal, Forrest Gump and Saving Private Ryan. Three entirely different roles all acted to near perfection. Sophie Marceau is my choice for Sophie. Even the name matches! Hmm.

What to say about Hitchhikers' ? Probably this FAQ will help.

Hope the next book I read will also be made into a movie :)

SHA-1 broken

2005-02-20T01:03:00.000+08:00

Talk of the Cryptography town is that SHA-1 has been broken. The current drafts of SMPTE Digital Cinema Specifications use SHA-1 as the hash algorithm for signing content. Using this hack, now it will be much easier for someone to provide a digital movie to a theatre pretending it is coming from a studio like Disney.

So, what's this hack about ? SHA-1 uses 160-bit hashes. So, in a brute force attack, if you take two documents, calculate the hashes, the expected number of tries for finding a collision is 2^80. This is known as the Birthday Attack on cryptographic algorithms and is related to the Birthday Paradox.

The new discovery claims that it is possible to find collisions in 2^69 operations. This again proves that mathematicians are inherently naughty :) Why is it neither 68 nor 70 ? More seriously, this new hack makes it 2048( 2^11 ) times easier to find a collision. Read the article on Bruce's blog for more details.

SHA-1 has been the defacto hash algorithm for digital signatures especially after SHA-0 and MD5 were broken. The most widely used cryptographic libraries, Windows Cryptographic API and OpenSSL have no implementation of better hash algorithms in their release versions. Hopefully, this attack will push the developers to implement better hash algorithms.

All persons have the same fortune

2005-02-19T16:11:00.000+08:00

Consider person A born in Month Ma, Year Ya and a person B born in month Mb, year Yb.

Now assume that at least two persons are born every month. So there is always a third person C born in the year Ya and the month Mb.

The Moon signs say that persons born in same year have same fortune. This implies that persons A and C have same fortune.

The Sun signs say that persons born in same month have same fortune. This implies that persons B and C have same fortune.

So, persons A and B have the same fortune. Since this works for any two persons chosen arbitrarily, all persons in the world have same fortune.

-quod erat demonstrandum

Confused about what to write

2005-02-18T10:51:00.000+08:00

Past few days, I've been thinking a lot about what to put in this blog. After hours and hours of thinking, I decided not to think too much about it :) So, this blog will contain nothing in particular, but just bits and pieces of information I learn from my daily life. I hope to look back at these posts sometime in the future and probably have a good laugh :)

First Post reloaded

2005-02-07T18:30:00.000+08:00

Finally, I am into blogging. This time, really ! Honest !

First Post!

2004-05-13T04:45:00.000+08:00

Finally, I am into blogging!