Comments on comments

Thanks to everyone who gave their comments, all comments are appreciated and it make blogging fun...:) The comments do give some insight what others think and also a reflection of what i wrote. Some comments contain good advice as well, thanks thanks.

Yes, i will definitely asked for "Teh Kurang Kurang Manis"...normally I would say "Teh Sikit Sikit Manis"! Sometime I forgot to ask for that, I could pour half the cup of the tea to another cup, then ask them to add water to both cup, and it is still too sweet!

BTW, it would be nice if you can leave your name or nickname so that I know who you are, but anonymous comments are still always welcome.

Here are some other comments about the comments:

A real wise person is someone who know the limit of his wisdom and the limit of his knowledge. I just felt that Stephen Hawking, great genius and knowledgable man as he is, had somehow failed a little of my respect when he speak with such absolute term something he did not fully understood and something not within his own domain of expertise. Yes, I am talking about the sensitive issue of the origin of the universe, i fully agree with him that theologian who try to talk about science often got it wrong about science, but the same is true when scientists treat scientific speculation as scientific facts. To think natural science alone especially physics can answer all questions there is regarding the universe is only a wishful thinking, and there is no law that says it has to be the case. Carl Sagan (the scientist that wrote the story that became the movie called Contact) is one of the great scientist that have written many books (which I also bought some) exploring the origin and the future of the universe, I did not agree with him with many issues, but yet his openness gained my respect. I will probably write more on this in the future if i have the time. Please do not flame me if you do not agree with my views..:) My views could change, so are the views of others, I sure hope we could be more open, but that is not easy.

Just imagine also, if we are able to figure out a Unified Theory of Everything (if one indeed exist), does it means that we would be able to understand everything about human existance, the meaning of the universe and the meaning of life itself? Would we be able to understand the nature of what make us human? Would we be able to understand what human consciousness is? I really doubt so.

Just imagine that be able to fully understand the AND, OR gates, ones and zeros etc. alone would not get us anywhere near understanding the computer as a a whole. To know every C/C++ language constructs is simply not enough in understanding a program or system with hundreds of thousands, and even millions lines of code.

On Einstein, I did read about (but not in detail) the story about his wife contributing to his theories, I think this probably is true. A scientist does not normally work in isolation, to work out a scientific theory, given all the equations in the past, one need to have lots of ideas and creativity to see beyond what others could not see, a lot of helps and inspiration probably need to come from somewhere, or some other people, for Einstein, he was only a patent official, not even attached to any university! So, i won't be surprise if his wife actually gave him a lot of insight. In fact, for him, all the scientific theories and experiments (Newton, Maxwell, Michelson-Morley etc.) before him were leading to his theories, even some formulas already there, but Einstein happened to be the first person who were able to put all these together in such a non-conventional way and derived such an elegant formulation.

Okay, coming soon......

1. My favourites - so sorry I did not get the time to write, will do that soon. right now, I am feeling a little bit sick and tons of work waiting for me to do. Btw, what other type of favourites should I include?
2. Beijing experience - oh...I started writing after I came back from Beijing, but I stopped because of other priorities.
3. May be a list of what i hate...!!! No promise there....hate is not a good thing!
4. May be I will write a bit more on faith (I do not like to use the term religion) and science. Many theologians get the science wrong, and many scientists get the theology wrong, that is sad.
5. Probably would write some recommendation on some good books on Computer Science !!

So, please be patient.

Thanks for reading.

:)

Katrina, Katrina...

Katrina, Katrina, why are you so cruel...?

Nope, Katrina is not somebody's girl friend, it is the Hurricane that strucked USA (over the gulf of Mexico) a few days ago.

I asked someone if he knew what is the biggest news in USA this few days, he replied "Iraq?", I said "Nope!". After a few tries and given a hint, he said "oh...a big wind?".

It is not just a big wind, it was the worst natural disaster USA has ever encountered so far.

The worst hit area is New Orleans. It is so sad seeing the news at CNN that so many people lost their lives and homes due to this disaster. The whole city is a total mess, It is so unbelievable to me, as I was there in year 2000 during SIGGRAGH2000 !!!

So, for the benefit of those who do not know about this, I just thought I would write a blog about this.

Thank goodness that because of the satelite and weather forecast technologies to forecast this, the city mayor ordered a mondatory evacuation ahead of the hurricane.

However, those who do not have the mean to leave, particular the poor, are stucked in the place. Many people lost everything that they have, even their lives. New Orlean is actually below sea level and is protected by walls from the water, unfortunately, part of the wall also broke due to the wind presure and water rises even after the hurricane. Fortunately, this seems to have been solved. The whole city is now flooded, since it is below sea level, the water will not go away unless it is pump out, but how do you pump the water from a whole city?

The latest news says one million people believed homeless now, without
electricity, no drinkable water, no phones (no cellphones working too), not enough police and rescue and relieve workers etc., thousands have already died, it is total anarchy there right now.

And to see all these sorrow, suffering and people dying, crying in the news, I can't help but to be thankful that in Malaysia, we do not have any serious disaster of this magnitude. What is our small flood compare with this? What is our man-made haze compare with this?

So, if you did not get bored with this blog and have managed to read until this line, please do say a little prayer for these people over there, and a little prayer for ourselves to thank for what we have, and also a little prayer for ourselves to be more content and to be more thankful for what we have.