The importance of a good keyboarding posture

It has nearly been about 3 years since the last time I really worked on a desktop computer. It wasn't until a while back where I recovered a desktop computer from the dumpster at the University garbage disposal area that I decided to build myself a Linux box running the Ubuntu distribution of Linux to give it a try.

I like the idea of free software which is just as good or even better than commercial applications that is out there right now. Spreadsheets? Word processing and etc? There's open office. Need to do programming but don't want to shell out for the expensive Microsoft IDE? Linux has several nice options all available for free. You just can't beat that and I have also decided to try and learn more about the Linux OS and play around with what they've got here.

A long while back, I got used to working on a laptop keyboard. I still remember getting wrist cramps the first time working on the laptop just because I wasn't used to working on a laptop keyboard, though I don't have a problem with it now. The problem is getting back to the traditional keyboard. I bought a really cheap one a while back that doesn't support my wrists and found that almost after 30 minutes of typing, I was getting some mild cramping. There is just absolutely no way that I want to develop wrist problems in the future so I've opted for a better keyboard and changed my typing posture actually, my wrists don't rest on the table below or on the keyboard and I find this the most comfortable typing position.

Suffice to say that most of our activities revolve around using a computer and it would be simply crippling (in more ways than one) should we not be able to use a computer due to wrist injuries.

Finally, Internet

Been a while since the last post. Not having internet in the room does tend to slow things down, but finally, that has changed.

Internet in Japan is vastly superior to what I used to work on in Canada. Most apartments are now equipped with fiber-optic connections (usually shared) allowing me to go up to about 800 kB/sec (I am talking about kilobytes here!) on peak (when I am really pushing it) or easily to 200 kB/sec on a few downloads. I used to share a connection with my roommates when I shared an apartment and it would only cost each of us $15/month ($45/month total).

Since relocating to the company dorm, I have opted for a shared internet connection going for about $15/month. This time, it being shared with about 100 other people, I think. I decided not to bother with a dedicated connection to my room since I don't have any plans on using my connection that heavily and large downloads can be completed with the computer running while at work.

The cell phone carriers in Japan are working on putting together full coverage of high speed internet to the cell phones here. We are looking at about 250kB/sec on bandwidth... though the packet charges are going to be insane if people really start downloading hoards of material onto their cell phones. Phone carriers here offer a $15/month unlimited packet service to the cell phones in addition to the basic package plan. If I had it my way, I'd opt or the cheapest cell phone package and see if I can hack Skype onto a cell phone to make phone calls over the net. I predict that full-blown high speed internet to mobile devices will eventually be available to hand-held devices in the near future.

Work so far, has been quite good. I have lots of freedom to do whatever kind of work want and the organizational structure for my research team is very flat, making getting access to superiors very easy (especially for Japan). I have so far been supplied with a brand-new Sony laptop since my first day in the company. I have a few thoughts about working in large corporations but I will leave those for later.

Time to enjoy the internet!

Another short update

I've now moved into the company dorm at Sony. Fortunately, I lucked out and got a room in the newer dorms and have a fairly spacious room. The rent I pay is $160/mo for the room plus $20/mo for the water and electricity is metered, so I expect to be paying about $220/month in total.

The starting salary for new grads in Japan is quite low where most people make approximately $30k/year. I hear, though, that salaries rapidly increase over several years to be on par with salaries in developed countries. I will be looking to see how things turn out on the financial end.

Laptop Woes:

It has been over a month since my ACER laptop has broken down. With the warranty being 1 year out of date, I am now running on the extended warranty I purchased. Customer support without the original warranty is terrible.

I have so far sent my laptop for repairs at the original store (Yodobashi), with them estimating a 3 week turn around for the laptop and that repair costs up to $850 will be covered. I know that my laptop has a motherboard problem and the last time I checked was that repairs was in the $600-$700 range. After 3 weeks of waiting, they finally quoted me with a repair bill of $1200 and that I would have to cover the additional $350 extra over the $850 coverage.

This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit.

I went to great lengths to figure out what company they sent my laptop to and requested that they give me the contact number so I can figure out why the repairs cost so much. Yodobashi refused my request and told me that they would relay my message to them and they also told me that laptop parts were expensive to justify the tepid explanation of the cost. I was furious.

I would have loved an audio copy of the conversation just to show how ridiculous the situation was. And at first, they told me that if I did the repairs anywhere else that I would be on my own, they've since reversed that position and that I would get store credit for the costs of the repairs.

When it comes to customer report, I am now going to take the stance of recording my calls using external software through Skype to have concrete evidence if I need to make a complaint. It's much better than just making arguments based on hearsay.

I have since sent out an e-mail to the ACER guys in Japan to get a quote on the repairs a few days ago and have yet to hear from them. The computer has been out of operation for over a month now and I am quite annoyed about it. Has this computer been a desktop, I'd have it up and running within a few days for a fraction of the cost.

Laptops are useless if they aren't reliable and repair fees are exorbitantly expensive. It would be very nice to have a website that could rate the reliability of the laptop sold to help the average consumer out on choosing a good company to buy from.

On another note:

The moving company that shipped my scooter from Sendai to Kanagawa busted something with one of my brake handles and I have no front breaks for the time being. I am going to have to get that repaired and see if the moving company can have it covered.

Ugh... headaches.

A short update

It's been a little while since the last post. This post will be a random mish-mash of topics.

Moving:

Moved out of Sendai to Kanagawa in preparation for working with Sony. Will have a physical check tomorrow and I think my belly has gotten a little bigger this month as a result of lots of eating out with friends (farewell parties).

Moving is a bit of a pain and it amazes me with how much stuff I have. After traveling for 3 months I definitely want to cut down on personal belongings to the essential (stuff I use often). The rest just clutters up the room and I find that I lead a more focused life when I restrict myself to only having the essentials for what I want to do.

Stock Market:

The US is going to go into a recession. The FED is eventually going to run out of space with their interest cuts and will have nowhere to run. They are just prolonging this slow decline. I recommending holding gold and minimizing your USD unless you're good at investing in this climate, either finding companies that thrive or good stocks to short sell.

Prediction Market:

I've also started getting into the prediction market with contracts $700 bet for a $300 return that Obama will win the Democratic nomination and contracts at $290 bet for a $130 return for a US recession by the end of this year.

Rescinding the CPU+GPU argument

Andrew and I have been having quite an interesting discussion through the comment section of the the last article about the future of CPU+GPU processing and I have been taking a much closer look at the topic over the last few days to develop a better understanding. What I have found out so far has led me the opposite conclusion of my previous article, that there will not be big benefits from the CPU+GPU combination in terms of processing power.

I have taken a closer look at CPU and GPU issue closer and have come to the realization that a CPU+GPU combination is likely a bad combination, unless one is designing system on a chip (SoC) processors for embedded or portable systems, though I expect the performance characteristics for these devices to be far less powerful compared to the desktop variant.

The main reasoning behind this realization is the high memory bandwidth demands most GPUs have for rendering frames. The memory used in most video cards consist of high performance RAM; of either DDR2 or the more expensive GDDR3 (5.6~54.4 GB/sec) or GDDR4 (64~156.6GB/sec) variants. The necessity for such high bandwidth is a the nature of graphics rendering where large datasets including textures, skins, masks are stored in memory and often pasted or multiplied onto a surface, not to also mention 3D geometry transformations as well. It is thus very necessary for a very parallel GPU to have fast access to the memory to perform a variety of calculations to render a 3D environment. This level of bandwidth is generally not achievable on your standard motherboard front-side-bus (FSB).

To get an idea of this problem, one simply needs to look at the amount of bandwidth the FSB provides, somewhere in the ball park of 4 GB/sec for a Hyper Transport 2 specification on an AMD based motherboard (I expect about the same performance on an Intel based chipset). The bandwidth provided by the FSB pales in comparison of the data bandwidth of a video card. This is also a core reason why integrated graphics processors on a motherboard fare so poorly when it comes to 3D rendering.

The obvious solution to this problem is to provide these integrated graphics processors access to a specialized memory controller and high speed RAM to to counter this problem, however I expect that incorporating this hardware into the motherboard will increase complexity and cost easily by $50 to $100, which may make a motherboard look incredibly expensive to a purchaser. There is also the problem of the on board graphics hardware becoming obsolete and therefore useless when the user ends up buying a plug-in video card to maintain parity with the demands of new 3D software.

There are possible workarounds for this problem as both ATI/AMD and Nvidia are working on their respective Crossfire and SLI platforms to allow paired video cards or even a video card + integrated GPU to work in conjunction to improve processing power. This technology is still in its infancy and it remains to be seen if significant improvements can be had by offering this as a possible upgrade path.

On an interesting note, I have been thumbing through the bandwidth capacities of various components in a computer while looking at this topic and I will summarize what I've noticed so far (this information is accessible from wikipedia at its list of device bandwidths page):

FSB: 4GB/sec (up to 22GB/sec, future)
PCIe 1.1: 250 MB/sec for each channel. One device may have up to 16 channels or 4GB/sec
PCIe 2.0: 8 GB/sec (16 channel), 16 GB/sec (32 channel)

RAM:
For DDR2 800, 1000MHz (dual channel): 12.8GB/sec ,16.0GB/sec
For DDR3: 21.2 GB/sec ~ 25.6 GB/sec

HD BUS:
For UDMA 133: 133MB/sec
For SATA 150, 300: 187.5 MB/sec, 375MB/sec

HD devices:
For Solid State Drives: 170~300 MB/sec read, 105 MB/sec write
For Normal Hard Drives: 44.2 ~ 1114 MB/sec (depending on RPM and location of read)

DVD Drive (16x): 21.1 MB/sec
USB 2.0: 60 MB/sec

So what does this all mean? While looking at this data, it becomes very apparent to me that the bandwidth for RAM and FSB is quite sufficient for current computational applications. I find it rather unlikely that the average user will come close to maxing out this bandwidth unless doing very intensive simulations or gaming.

However, it becomes quite apparent that the main bottleneck of most computer systems lies with the mass storage components of the computer, mainly the hard drive with read and write times 2 orders of magnitude slower compared to the faster RAM and FSB. The solid state drive is obviously much faster than your standard HD but it still lags far behind to what the rest of the computer can handle.

When considering this, it becomes easy to understand why it may take upwards of a minute to boot up your computer. Assume that your OS has 3 GB of files to read and your HD can put out an average of 50 MB/sec. This alone will take approximately 60 seconds and as a result, the hibernate feature has become an attractive feature compared to completely shutting down the computer-- most of the data is left in RAM, thus removing the need to reload everything from HD.

Thus, I do not see any major advantages to be had for GPU+CPU integrated chips on desktop systems. Even if GPU+CPU combinations are putout, it will be necessary to incorporate a dedicated memory controller memory for the GPU, which might be better off accomplished on a separate video card. The GPU+CPU combination may be useful in portable devices, though I highly doubt that the GPU in this case will be doing any high performance rendering. A second possible application for the GPU+CPU combination might be in research applications using Stream calculations as seen at the folding@home project. Researchers at Harvard have shown that GPUs are 20 to 40 times faster at processing their data sets as compared to a normal CPU. A large cluster of GPUs or GPU+CPUs in these research endeavors may be incredibly useful, though I would think the market for these computers might be small.

As of this moment, I think the best performance gains are to be had from developing much faster mass storage devices. As a result, I will most definitely be pursuing a computer with a more modest CPU and going after a dual HD system in a RAID 1 setup, offering me data redundancy and better HD read throughput.

The Future of Computing: Integrated GPU and CPUs

For those that might not be as well versed in the realm of computer lingo, a general processing unit (otherwise known as a GPU) is the heart most video processing devices. Its difference from a CPU is its ability to run several processes in parallel compared to a CPU that runs a single process at a time but very quickly.

The GPU differs from the CPU as a result of application, where the CPU is designed to run single program quickly versus a GPU that is used at performing many calculations simultaneously to render graphics on a computer screen. What we will be seeing in the future is a merging of these two chips into a single processing unit and the company that is probably the best suited for this is likely AMD should they work out the kinks in their merger with ATi.

Several years ago, the computer industry was obsessed with improving computer speed by ramping speeding up the CPU clock cycle, or the number of calculations a single set of computer circuitry can handle per second. Unfortunately, further advancements in this area provides diminishing returns as CPUs require more power the faster they operate, which is something undesirable considering that many CPUs are now being used in battery operated Laptops. In addition, it is also becoming increasingly challenging to continually push the clock speed faster. So what the computer industry has done instead is go through a simpler route; the integration of several processing units into a single silicon package to reap further performance gains. This is possible due to patterning technologies allowing makers such as AMD and Intel make smaller and smaller CPUs making it cheaper to design chips with several integrated processors on a single chip, resulting in multi-core CPUs being currently sold on the market. I believe that this trend will change in the coming years.

A new revolution in computing devices is occurring with a push to smaller and more portable computing systems. My previous post covered touched lightly on the growing trend of ultra-portable computers-- expect to see more of them in the future. With computers moving in this direction, there will be a need for tighter integration of computer parts to achieve further miniaturization. I have covered this before in a previous post but will reiterate some of the important points here.

Components for both desktops and laptop computers are made of discretized parts. In the desktop case, the computer parts consist of modular cards that can be swapped into a mainboard. If you want a new video card, simply buy a newer version and swap the parts. Laptops, on the other hand, do away with the modular design to focus on integrating the video, sound and networking chips onto a single mainboard for a compact design. This miniaturization will continue, but this time will occur on the silicon chip level as opposed to the circuit board level and I believe that simply adding more processor cores to a silicon die is the wrong solution.

I predict that the next leap in processing technology will be the integration of a CPU and a GPU core onto a single die. I believe that this will be a very big step in the development of smaller ultra-portable hand-held computing devices.

The CPU and the GPU are the most computationally intensive chips in a computer system, quite often with the CPU continually communicating with the GPU to render graphics on to a computer monitor. A communication lag exists between the CPU and the GPU as a result of current computer design architecture. The following graph illustrates this issue:


The northbride/southbridge configuration of a computer (source: Wikipedia)

Computer chips and peripheral devices are connected using memory controller chips, otherwise known as the northbridge and southbridge chips. Data between devices flows between data lines, otherwise known as a "bus." Video cards, as a result of the amount of data they continually process are generally given a fast bus to allow the video card to transfer data quickly between the CPU or on-board RAM (which is not often as most video cards come integrated with their own RAM). Unfortunately, the data transfer limitation of the bus between the CPU and GPU is a bottleneck, especially for high resolution 3D rendering as sufficient data cannot reach the GPU quickly enough, sometimes resulting in choppy video at higher resolutions. The obvious solution is the tighter integration of the CPU and the GPU together resulting in superior data transfer rates and processing capabilities. The combination of these chips would also remove the need for a northbidge chip, thus simplifying the computer architecture further.

There are also other advantages to having a GPU core integrated with a CPU. Primarily for the reason that a GPU is a parallel processing unit, though somewhat slower than a CPU. Most operating systems operate using several concurrent processes running at the "same time." In reality, this is because the CPU operates very quickly; it rotates between running these processes giving the illusion that it does these things at the same time. Unfortunately, this is not an ideal solution because the computer must either save it's memory of what it was doing and for one process while it switches to another process. This memory swapping business is what often slows down computers running many concurrent programs. However, this is fine for processes with some little time lag; so that it can run off and do something else while it waits for data or commands to arrive.

Unfortunately, in other cases, this might not be possible when multiple processes require continual CPU attention and since a CPU has the equivalent of a one track mind, it becomes advantageous to have other computing components to deal with these continual demands. This is originally why discrete chips were often used for specialized functions including video, sound and networking. Enter the GPU, the silver bullet.

Because of the parallel design of the GPU, integration of a chip like this in addition to the CPU will allow for significant performance benefits, allowing a computer to handle more processes simultaneously while having a main CPU for computationally intensive processes. The GPU in it's current state could replace the sound chips with all processing done directly by the GPU. This is advantageous since sound and video often go hand-in-hand in video applications.

This design mirrors the architecture of the human brain and body as it should be no surprise that our sense of sight, hearing and taste are kept close to the brain reducing the lag time in processing and responding to important sensory data quickly. The sense of touch is somewhat different since it encompasses the whole body, but it is interesting to note that the body has a spare processor in the spine for reflex responses from sudden dangerous touch responses.

The future of computing will go in this direction and the integration of multi-core CPUs are a crude step in this direction-- expect more eloquent GPU-CPU chips to come out in the next few years with solutions in the works from both Intel and AMD.

I believe AMD is in the best position to accomplish this after acquiring ATi and it's portfolio of design expertise in developing video card technology. Unfortunately, the merger is not going very well at the moment, causing AMD to stumble. AMD's current offering of CPUs are somewhat inferior compared to Intel's offering in terms of maximum computational power, but AMD offers a better price/performance compared to Intel chips. What I am certain of is that Intel has limited design experience with their motherboard integrated video chips as they provide the poorest performance when compared against ATi and Nvidia's solutions. As Nvidia currently does not have the same close working relationship with Intel as ATi has with AMD, I doubt that and Intel-Nvidia CPU-GPU combination will be produced in the near future unless AMD-ATi dominates the market with their offerings.

The target for AMD's new CPU-GPU chips will most likely be for the growing mobile computing market segment and I believe this to be the wisest move. The next few years in computing technology will be quite interesting.

Cheap computers will not be good for Microsoft

Earlier I made some predictions on the future of computing, with the rise of ultra portable systems last year in August. That prediction came to fruition late last year with the release of the EEE PC (my short review) and then Apple's Air.

With every passing year, computing technology advances with incredible leaps and bounds, pushing the envelope of performance upwards and the cost of a computer unit considerably down. We are now entering a phase where computers are becoming ultra-cheap. The EEE PC sells for approximately $400 for a "7 portable computer. Basic bare-bones desktop systems can be had for as low as $225 and there is going to be more of this in the future. One thing is obvious to me with these prices in mind, Microsoft and it's Windows platform is going to be in trouble over the coming years. The point I make should be obvious when I start talking about the price of Windows.

"The price of Windows!? Since when was the last time did anyone buy Windows?" might you wonder. For the most part, most people do not make a conscious decision to buy Windows, but Microsoft's business model is partly based on earning revenues from OEM computers with a pre-installed version of Windows. Current prices of windows online indicate that the cheapest version of Win XP goes for a price tag of $99 and the more expensive Windows Vista goes for $140 to about $190 depending on the flavor of Vista you get.

Before when the cheapest computer systems ran for at least $1000 the price of the included OS for approximately $100 was not very noticeable and most people just gritted their teeth and bit the bullet when making a computer purchase. However, things have now changed. As prices for a complete system hit in the sub $400 range, it is apparent that the relative price of the operating system has balloned into the ballpark of 20%-50% of your computer purchase. This will be unacceptable to a consumer considering their options.

Consider the following. A $300 system with a $100 (minimum) Windows OS for $400 total compared to the same computer with a Linux operating system (costing $0) for $300 total. I think that many people will now start thinking twice before buying a computer with Windows. In addition, I also believe that computer vendors are going to be very conscious about the competitive price point and will likely start dropping Windows in the ultra-cheap computer market segment. Microsoft will invariably have to reduce the relative price of their operating system to stay viable while taking a hit to profits. The only thing they have going for them at this point is the familiarity of their operating system vs Linux or Apple's OSX acting a barrier keeping the Windows market segment alive; but even this will be eroded with time.

For those of you not very familiar with Linux and it's capabilities, I recommend that you take a chance to check out the power of a Linux desktop. The compiz fusion desktop is very impressive, though still in development. Though this desktop is somewhat computer resource hungry as it is beautiful, there are plenty of other configurations that will allow a cheap computer to run with ease. All of this software and the majority of applications can be had for free.

With my recent troubles with laptops, I will definitely be investing in at least one desktop system (and perhaps a second cheap system to experiment with Linux). Linux will be making its way into the mainstream. It is only a matter of time.

iPod nano (3rd gen) does not work with 3rd party software

I bought a new iPod nano about 2 weeks ago, before I had to send in the old computer in for repairs. I didn't think that was too much of a problem considering that I had a back up computer to operate from, since I could just charge the iPod off of the EEE PC, that wasn't so.

So it seems that Apple has decided to try and lock people into using iTunes only for uploading and downloading music to the newer generation iPods. What Apple has done is implement a hash check on the files in the iPod whenever files are synched. A hash check basically creates a code using the contents and the sizes of several files that must pass a test within in the iPod. If this hash file does not check against the files uploaded, the iPod does not list the songs as available to be played. An quick news posing on slashdot is here.

The big problem is that there is no iTunes for Linux and it's Linux variants for the time being, leaving people to hack the interface to work (it has been done) the problem being is that with the nature of Linux, one will find themselves needing to compile files for them to work... unfortunately in my case, the EEE PC does not have a C compiler to save space on the HD (which is theoretically downloadable, but I have yet to figure out how to do that yet). I have also yet to find any other players that will allow me to work the iPod nano with my EEE PC.

So, I am very unhappy with Apple for the time being. As soon as an easy to install hack is available, it's getting installed and that will be the end of the matter.

Legos and the political structure of a 3rd grade class

I was just reading an article entitle Why we banned legos, which is a critique of a power struggle over the communal set of lego bricks that morphed into a "lego town" where certain students got early into the game controlled most of the pieces and came up with finding interesting ways (or excuses) to pick up more pieces for themselves.

I highly recommend a read of this article purely for interest sake because the raw and honest perspective of a child is something that is something quite rare to find, especially when it comes to a political power system and finding ways of getting control or power in it.

Children are very well aware of power and ownership (ie. this is mine!), though this is obvious, it is not a point that pointed out very often. The students whom have founded "lego town" naturally were in control of many pieces and were very reluctant of relinquishing ownership or control of the pieces they used. Very interestingly, these students were very good at using "political" speak at the age of 8. I have excerpted a conversation from the article to illustrate this point:

Several times in the discussion, children made reference to "giving" Lego pieces to other children. Kendra pointed out the understanding behind this language: "When you say that some kids ‘gave' pieces to other kids, that sounds like there are some kids who have most of the power in Legotown — power to decide what pieces kids can use and where they can build." Kendra's comment sparked an outcry by Lukas and Carl, two central figures in Legotown:

Carl: "We didn't ‘give' the pieces, we found and shared them."

Lukas: "It's like giving to charity."

Carl: "I don't agree with using words like ‘gave.' Because when someone wants to move in, we find them a platform and bricks and we build them a house and find them windows and a door."

These children seemed to squirm at the implications of privilege, wealth, and power that "giving" holds. The children denied their power, framing it as benign and neutral, not something actively sought out and maintained. This early conversation helped us see more clearly the children's contradictory thinking about power and authority, laying the groundwork for later exploration.

I found it very interesting how clever these 8-year olds were when it came to framing their power control over the lego pieces as something insignificant, especially when it comes to telling other students that they get to use lego pieces at the leisure of the ones in control.

In another except, some of the students were asked about what power meant to them and they responded with the following:

Marlowe: "If your parents say you have to eat pasta, then that's power."

Lukas: "You can say no."

Carl: "Power is ownership of something."

Drew: "Sometimes I like power and sometimes I don't. I like to be in power because I feel free. Most people like to do it, you can tell people what to do and it feels good."

Drew's comment startled us with its raw truth. He was a member of the Legotown inner circle, and had been quite resistant to acknowledging the power he held in that role. During this discussion, though, he laid his cards on the table. Would Drew's insight break open new understandings among the other members of the inner circle?

I found this part of the analysis very interesting, as it is something that few are willing to admit when it comes to power.

Finally I'll include one more excerpt:

Issues of fairness and equity also bubbled to the surface during the animated discussion about the removal of the Legos:

Lukas: "I think every house should be average, and not over-average like Drew's, which is huge."

Aidan: "But Drew is special."

Drew: "I'm the fire station, so I have to have room for four people."

Lukas: "I think that houses should only be as big as 16 bumps one way, and 16 bumps the other way. That would be fair." ["Bumps" are the small circles on top of Lego bricks.]

This brief exchange raised issues that we would revisit often in the weeks ahead. What is a fair distribution of resources? Does fairness mean that everyone has the same number of pieces? What about special rights: Who might deserve extra resources, and how are those extra resources allotted?

Needless to say, I find what these educators found while watching a bunch of 8 year olds play with a lego set is something quite similar to the political power scheme we see today. The next question get begged to be asked is whether if we have grown up from our elementary days.

The ACER laptop dies again!

Unlike a cat, my ACER laptop does not have 9 lives. With the basic warranty just expiring last month, the computer decides to crap out again. This time, I press the power button, the computer powers up but the monitor does not power up. After waiting a day and powering up the computer again, it was obvious to me that there was a hardware problem as the clock on the BIOS had froze and was 7 hours behind compared to the current time.

I decided to give the computer another go to hope that this problem would not occur, but alas, it did and this time after a day of waiting the computer did not boot up again. In the span of about 2.5 years and over 2 different ACER computers, I have had 3 hardware failures. Long story short, these computers are about $100 cheaper than the other brands, but it certainly is not worth purchasing ACER computers because having a computer puts you out for several weeks while the computer is repaired and in the worst case scenario, you have to fork out some extra cash for a new working system.

Based on my experiences with ACER computers, I am never going to buy another one again. I have paid too high a price working on their computers.

Currently I am working off the EEE PC which I was very fortunate to pick up during my travels. I am going to see how long this computer lasts me, lasts longer than my ACER PCs, then ASUS definitely puts ACER to shame.

Of an interesting note, thanks to having Linux installed on the EEE PC, I get to play around with Python while waiting for my usual computer to get repaired. Hopefully, I will be able to write out some interesting software in the mean time.

Understanding Money as Debt

The US economy is now falling into a recession as a result of US-debt spending and the sub-prime loan problems. Essentially, the US has been financing most of their purchases with debt, including credit cards, mortgages and US government deficit spending. So, what does this mean? I will set out to explain what is money and it's impacts on the economy, society and you.

Money is a bank loan, IOU or just simply "debt"

The world operates on a fiat monetary system, where we use a paper currency backed by essentially nothing that represents wealth. What money is essentially debt, in other words, an IOU or a promissory note of a debt that must be paid off.

Most of us have been educated that money is regulated and printed by the government as we are often shown videos of a government mint manufacturing money. Unfortunately, this is only partially true-- the real manufacturers of money are the banks. How does this work might you ask? Allow me to explain.

It is commonly assumed that banks make their money by lending money deposited by the average person, where in actuality, banks lend a multiple of the amount of the money you deposit. For example, should you deposit $1000 in cash, the bank would be able to lend out $10,000 of cash (depending on the regulations) at a 7% interest rate (for example) to someone else looking for a loan to buy, perhaps, a car. The bank submits an order to deposit $10,000 in cash to the car retail dealer and then takes your car as collateral until you pay off your debt to the bank. The end result is that instead of making $70 at 7% yearly off of the $1,000 you deposited, the banks make $700 off the $10,000 it lends and all it had to do is conjure up an additional $9,000 to give to you.

When looking at the situation in this manner, money is an IOU which the borrower gets from the bank to spend to buy things. Eventually, this $9,000 must make its way back to the bank in sometime in the future to release the borrower of their obligations to the bank.

The large majority of money is created in this manner, whether be it loans for cars, houses, companies and etcetera. Quite often, all a bank needs is a down-payment on a loan to be able to loan the rest of the money required for the purchase. Thus, the majority of cash in circulation represents an IOU or a promissory note to repay the bank at in interest.

While money is loaned, the money supply must exponentially grow

Banks create money for circulation and nearly all cash in circulation is loaned out to people at interest by the banks. Should everyone stop taking loans and pay off their debt, the money supply shrinks, profits shrink and people run into a dizzying panic worrying if they will have enough cash to survive on. In order to keep the circulation of money going, the banks must encourage borrowing to keep the economy afloat. There is a fundamental problem with this model.

Suppose that the money supply is at $100 trillion and the average loan interest rate is at 7%. With the idea that all money is debt, an additional $7 trillion in value must be produced in value and paid off to the bank. But where does this money come from? It must again be loaned from the bank for people to make their interest payments and the money supply grows to $107 trillion and continues growing every year at 7%.

The money supply must grow every year because the money in circulation is all debt and incurs a cost to society at interest to the bank (both in the financial and literal meaning of this statement). $100 trillion this year becomes $107 trillion next year at 7% interest. To make up for the next $7 trillion in interest, $7 trillion of value must be created which is thus backed by the bank in collateral and loaned to society for consumption (actually, banks generally loan money faster than we can produce wealth, resulting in some inflation somewhere in the ball park of 3%). As a result, money as debt demands that production must increase exponentially to satisfy our debt obligations resulting from the money we use.

Losing the race against interest payments leads to recession

Society is locked in a race against money; to out produce what the interest rate demands. Unfortunately, there will be times when the interest payments demanded from society is less than what we can offer. Society loses wealth as the banks start to call in our collateral, fear spreads as people lose confidence in their earning capacity, they take fewer loans, the money supply shrinks, profits drops, production slows and people are out of work not knowing what to do. This process is the fundamental mechanics of a recession.

Fortunately, with the right economic policies, recessions are temporary. The burden of interest payments are reduced with interest rate cuts with the hopes of the economy/society regaining confidence, taking on loans, going back to work to continue it's race against interest payments.

Why do recessions happen?

I have partially answered this in the last section, but I wish to give further detail here. The answer to recessions happening I proclaimed is "losing the race against interest payments." Now, let me explain how the economy can lose this race.

The first way of going into a recession is by productivity not keeping up with interest rates. By default, society must continually produce more and more to meet the interest obligations of our money to the banks. This requires the economy to continually grow to meet these targets. If you ever wondered why the news reports that growing economy is a good thing is implicitly for this reason and by definition a recession is "an economic contraction."

The second route to a recession is simply not just by production not keeping up, but can also occur by taking on too much debt. This is the case for what is going on in the US sub-prime mortgage crisis that we see going on today. What occurred is society taking on far too much loans and not being able to meet their obligations. When this occurs, borrowers no longer have sufficient cash to invest in themselves or the economy to allow it to continually grow.

Exponential growth is unsustainable, both economically and ecologically

Though a "healthy economy" is considered as continually growing, this debt based (or fiat) monetary system demands that we produce wealth exponentially, year after year. Perhaps a company produces 100 houses this year, next year it must produce 107, then 114, 123, 131, 140 and 150 houses year after year. After 6 years production capacity has been increased by 50% and 865 houses have already been "consumed," and yet demand must be kept up some how to keep the economy running smoothly to meet its debt obligations.

Unfortunately, as most of us realize, the production capacity of an individual is not capable of exponentially increasing without bound year after year and society makes use of ever advancing technologies and growing human numbers to expand our production capacities. Though our creativity to continually push our productivity may seem limitless, the size of this planet and the resources it can provide is obviously constrained.

Should an economic collapse occur from a lack of resources, no changes in monetary policy will be able to solve this problem. By this time, the fundamental concepts of our debt based economic system must be changed to something sustainable.

Working and Living for Money

Explicitly, most people in general do not live for money, though implicitly this is what our activities have lead our society to do. As a result of our debt obligations to the money circulation, it is required that the economy continually grow and that we must continually produce and increase our economic productivity. In short, paying off financial obligations to the bank now or in the future will play a very significant part in our lives.

I find it rather unfortunate that we cannot enjoy our free time more, despite very impressive technological advancements giving the average person productive capabilities that far out stretch what a person might have been able to accomplish 100 years ago.

Financial independence and Freedom

Perhaps this is the topic for another essay but I would like to leave this idea with you for the time being.

With all this talk about debt and obligations of our society to this monetary system, it should be noted that a society is not necessarily free so long as it carries a financial obligation, which is largely impossible under this monetary system, that we are required to work to pay interest the loans which society has placed upon it self.

I believe that the biggest restraint on us as a society is our obligations to debt instead of living our lives on a surplus. This is probably the biggest barrier that most people have when it comes to having the freedom to do what they love versus working for money (the best case being doing what you love for money and taking the chance to try).

Further "Reading"

Much of this essay and my studies has been inspired by a variety of sources and I have found many good videos online regarding this matter. I would only consider this essay to be a primer to understanding economics, currency valuation, the stock market (booms and crashes), the roles and goals of companies, the fundamentals of the monetary system and more.

For those that are interested in learning more and perhaps some history behind how the current monetary system works I recommend the animated video Money as Debt, a 47 minute documentary on how banks posted at Google video.

Free from money, free from taxes

We are taxed, and we are taxed so heavily.
Depending on what we earn,
we are taxed from 30% to 50% of our money.
12 to 20 years of our working lives go to running the government.

They tell us that it's for our health,
to keep us safe,
for us to be educated,
and for our roads to be maintained.
Do we really need to work all these years to maintain all these things?

I'd rather not pay taxes,
Because I can't believe these costs.
I'll build my own house,
grow my own food.

I'll make my own things
and still be just as happy.
I'll stop working for money,
and they'll have "no-thing" to take.

They'll come to my door in panic,
because they're getting no cash.
They'll demand that I work,
It's my income they want.
I'll tell them "no way,"
because I'm not your slave or for money.

Asking ourselves the wrong question

Today, I will keep it brief because I wanted to try something different. I've noticed while reading on the internet that there is just so much fluff in writing online that just bores me. "Get to the point" I keep on thinking, but the article just keeps on meandering to make it's point, mostly these end up to be multi page articles posted online so that people have to click through to be bombarded with more ads and I abhor it. So I was wondering if I could materialistically write and see if my point still gets across, or even better yet, stimulate thinking instead of me explaining everything. I could write a whole essay, but I will hold off this time around.

Today's thought is:

I think we've been asking ourselves the wrong question. We'd always get asked "what do you want to be when you grow up" and we'd answer with "doctor," "firemen," "pilot" and more. But we've missed the point of it; it's not about what do we want to be, it's all about what do we want to do. What we turn out to be is just a by-product of the things we are doing.

The joy of living out of a suitcase

It has now been about 10 days since I got back to Japan. I've finally unloaded my suitcase, stashed all the things I bought while on my trip in various places in the house and in while doing so, I came to the realization that a lot of the things in my room, I never really use.

It's kind of an interesting feeling moving from living out of a suitcase/backpack to a room with closets, shelves and more. The only things I needed while traveling were my clothing, maybe a guidebook, something to read, my camera, toiletries, wallet and passport. That was it. Everything I needed to survive on was packed neatly into a suitcase (which was only 1/2 full). I carried a backpack and a small shoulder bag for short day trips. Everything in the bags I carried, I used nearly every everyday and it was amazing how few things I needed to get by on.

I look at my room right now with books, tools, a printer, a map, a closet full of dressy clothing for special occasions and more. The interesting thing about most of my belongings is that I don't use them all that often. They sort of sit in my room collecting dust most of the time, till the point where I might pull it out and use it once in a few months or so; the rest of it all is clutter.

When thinking about my belongings in this manner, I can't seem to understand how our culture is so wrapped up about shopping or going out and buying things. Take a walk in city and look around, what you will see is that nearly all the activities of people out there is for shopping or shopping related (ie. delivery vans, people tending stores, etc). My experiences living out of a suitcase for the past 3 months has been a great eye opening experience when it comes to looking at my belongings. I find it strange that spending both our time and money to buy things is so important, even just for keep's sake when we can easily get by on so much less, leaving us with so much more to do many other things.

My life living out of a suitcase was entirely different-- I didn't have the luxury (that is, if I can still call it one now) of keeping many possessions; I wanted to be unburdened. If there were things that I didn't need any more, like a traveler's guide, I'd be pretty willing to give it away to some other traveler that can make good use of it. Or gave away the cell phone cards or things I didn't need anymore.

Since coming home, I also noticed that having so many belongings made it harder for me to focus on the immediately important things. While traveling, I would only be concerned about making sure I had a place to stay, having my clothes washed once in a while and making up a plan as I went. It was amazing living a life so focused on exploring different countries, finding out what they had to offer, the different ways of life and even just finding simple ways of enjoying myself while on a budget. Everyday, I knew that I wanted to get up and go off somewhere to find something interesting to see or experience. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do (even if it was random wandering) and had everything I needed to do what I wanted.

After getting home and being around my apartment for the past week, my life has been filled with all sorts of distractions. Mainly the internet, computer games, shopping, getting called out for hanging out (not that it's a bad thing) and more. There's just so many things that could aimlessly play with (I actually spent the last few days just playing computer games). I wake up bored, sometimes not knowing what I want to do and just find something in my room to go play around with.

With these thoughts, I postulate that many of the things we do in life is about killing boredom, whether be it games, shopping, eating, watching movies or whatever. It was never often that I had the chance to wakeup with purpose every morning to find something I was really interested in doing. This is something that I want to focus on more and maybe I can start by getting rid of the things that I don't need, while only keeping the things that are important.

All I need to do is choose what is important to me.

It has been a while

It has been a while since the last time I have done any real writing. over the course of this journey, I havve been traeling and writing short notes on what I have been doing in a hand written journal, of which, I am about 3 weeks behind in writing, something that I will need to complete after I return to my home in Japan.

During the time I have been traveling, I have not had the opportunity to do much essay writing, though I had many interesting ideas pop up and had them written down in a note book. It was not until recently, that I had the chance to take a look at some of the notes and ideas I had and write them out into an essay. Unfortunately, my efforts have yet to bear fruit.

What I realized is that I have a limited time frame to write out my thoughts before they fade. Quite often, ideas simply strike me out of the blue, often while observing the surroundings around me. The idea will often have a central concept and my mind will run through the idea, making a variety of connections. In the end, I may end up with an essay idea crystalized in my head which I am able to hash out into a post.

Unfortuately as of recently, I haven't had the opportunity to do much of that and as a result, my writing capabilities have dwindled somewhat as it becomes harder for me to put words into my thoughts. After returning to Japan, I will have to get back into the grove of writing to bring my ability to articulate myself back up.

For the time being, I will have to shelve some of the ideas I've had during this trip for writing at a future date. What I've noticed sometimes is that some ideas that I don't write about get “redicovered” and I may have a second chance to write about them in the near future.

Cairns, Great Barrier Reef and Mission Beach

I've managed to cover 5 cities in the span of just 2 weeks and attended a whole slew of activities. Traveling is hard (and fun) work and at the same time, I am sad to say that I only have less than 3 weeks before ending this trip and making it back to Japan. I still have yet to cover what I've been doing since leaving Airlie beach; and I have a lot to cover after going through my photos. After sitting down for the last 2 hours writing and realizing that I still have to cover my trip to Adeliade, Sydney and touching down in New Zealand, I will have to wait for another time as this post will get ridiculusly long!

Australia – Cairns

I hopped on a late night bus from Airly Beach to Cairns to arrive in the morning. I had no idea what to expect out of this city at first, but all I knew was that this was a great place to catch a boat to dive the great barrier reefs.

Cairns is a cosy town, situated right by the waterfront with an assortment of palm trees and nice parks near by. A botanical garden is situated just out of the town cetner and a few zoos are near by but I didn't have the time to catch a bus to make it all the way out there.

I came in and got a place for $19/night at a backpacker's hostel and booked myself on a 1 night 2 day diving trip to the great barrier reef the next day. The trip set me back $270, a little on the pricy side but it's just one of those things that I've have to do while in Australia.

While killing time in town, I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow backpacker by the name of Franz, a guy in his mid 30's from Switzerland that just recently quit his job working at an oil company to do some traveling. A very interesting guy as he can play the digeridoo and knows some poi. A really friendly guy. He has also been in town for the last few days and was really nice to show me around town. Especially to the grocery store.


Franz, the Swiss digeridoo player!

In the afternoon, while walking around the lagoon, I stunbled upon an Australian guy by the name of Boyd, practicing poi and is currently an aspiring fire spinning professional. As I approached him he was quick to greet me. I really like friendly people. At the time there were also some young Japanese people around practicing juggling, poi, the digeridoo and the african drum as well. I knew that this was a really cool crowd of people so I naturally dropped my stuff, pulled out my poi set from my bag and started practicing with them.

I ran into Franz by the lagoon and naturally invited him into join the fun, and so he did as he brought out his digeridoo and came to join up with us. We hung out outside until the evening and had a great time practicing. I took a photo to commemorate the event. I really enjoy the gathering of random people doing something they enjoy doing together. I do believe that sharing and helping is what brings people together. As the evening drew to night, we eventually packe up our stuff and headed home in preparation for tomorrow. For me, my adventure would take me out to dive the great barrier reefs.


An afternoon of african drums, digeridoos and more!

The Great Barrier Reefs

I made a booking on boat going by the name of the Rum Runner. It looks like a sailing boat but it's powered by a motor. The mast and sails were there mainly for asthetic purposes. There were 16 people on the trip including myself. The boat was run by 2 deckhands and one divemaster. I got to meet all sorts of people on board, joining from the UK, Germany, Columbia, Switzerland and more. A very international group of people and I had a great time hanging out with them. The food on board was pretty good too. The ocean was clear and it was a bright sunny day. the sun was exceptionally hot and I kept on applying sunscreen to prevent myself from getting burned.

On the first day, we did 3 dives, 2 during the day and one more night dive. The great barriers reef were very beautiful and there was plenty of aquatic life to be seen. I caught sight of cray fish, a hermit crab, an assortment of clown fish and more. My best description of diving would be like swimming in a very large aquarium. Personally speaking though, I thought that the dive sites of Sipidan in Malaysia, where I got certified, had nicer corals, but still the great barrier reefs was something to see.


Top: Jumping off the boat, BottomHanging out



Left: Dinner time! Right: Roast beef, it's what's for dinner!

The great barrier reefs can also be easily enjoyed while snorkeling. Just that diving lets one go a little deeper into the waters, the experience is pretty much the same (and even a little cheaper). For those that have a chance to make it out to the Cairns, I would highly recommend having some fun on a boating trip out.

Of an interesting note, I was thinking about how much money these diving boats were making. The dive boat I was on took 16 people onboard at about $200 gross a person. The hostels that book these tours seemed to take about a $30-$40 cut and then there is a $10/day reef tax to pay for people going out to the great barrier reefs. Doing the math, a boat like this brings in $3200 over a 2 day period, operated by 3 people and the boat is owned by someone else that manages the business.

Doing the math, I let's assume that the deckhands might get $200/day and the divemaster might get $350/day. For the 2 days, we are looking at about $800 total for the 2 deckhands, and day $700 for the divemaster, or about $1500 in costs for manning the ship. Say that food for 16 people over 2 days costs about $200 extra so the that would bring the total expenses up to $1700, leaving about $1500 for the 2 days for the owner of the boat. I don't think that's too bad of a deal to be running an operation like this.

I did some research into prices for boats while in Australia (after passing by a marina for the boats) and used small live aboard boats go for about $40,000 ish or even cheaper. I would guess for a boat of this size might run into the $120,000 to $160,000 range and estimating at about $750/day for the owner and a $160,000/day price tag on the boat, I believe that the boat would pay for itself in about 7 months. I did not include mooring fees and maintenance into the equation but I would guess that a boat like this would end up paying for itself within 2 years (assuming that business is good during the high season and business might be slow during the slow season). Sounds like a good and fun business to run to me!

Mission Beach

Mission beach was introduced to me by Franz before leaving on my diving trip. I did some reading into it and learned that it was a beautiful 3 km stretch of beach about 2 hours by bus out of Cairns. It's a sleepy little area and not many people go out there, but I decided to go there, just to be off the beaten path.


Mission beach, 3 km of beach. It just keeps going and going
I arrived at the bus stop at Mission Beach after a morning bus ride and got picked up at the bus station by a car taking people back to a backpacker's lodge called “Scotty's”. The place ran at $24/night but it was a really nice place, complete with a pool, lounge, kitchen and more. The city around the area is a little quiet but a really great place to get away from it all. I walked the beach and along the streets back to find all sorts of resort houses in the area. I found out that there were a few companies in the area offering skydiving packages where people got to skydive onto the beach. Sounded like a lot of fun, but I didn't have the time to participate.


For $24/night, it's like staying at a resort!

I did meet up with Franz at the backpacker's lodge to find him doing some part time work, a night shift job just watching over the place in the evenings and then he changed over to cleaning the pool and doing some odds and ends for free accomodation and an extra $40/day. Not bad if you just wanted a place to hang out and relax. I also found some other people working at the local bar, getting paid $20/hour in the evenings and working for about 5 hours.

It's not bad working here and I think it is a great way of funding a trip through Australia. Doing something like this in Japan, unfortunately, is simply impossible as bar work pays about $7~8/hour. It's a different world.

I walked the beach and hung out at the backpaker's lodge before catching a bus back to Cairns as I would be catching my flight to Adeliade and a fire show. But this is all I'll write for now. Will have to catch up on my writing another time!

Australia – Airlie Beach

Airlie beach is a backpaker's haven, where nearly all backpackers traveling along the East coast of Australia to make a stop, as this place is the jumping point via boat to the Whitsundays Island, known for the whitest and finiest sands in the world. Word has it that the sand is so fine on the Whitsundays, the sand was used to polish the lenses on the hubble telescope before sending it off to space. Naturally, upon heading such a story, I had to make my way up there to see the sands for myself.

Taking the plane from Brisbane to the Porsipine airport, I covered 600 km in an hour to arrive at Airlie Beach. I checked into the Youth Hostel by about 5 pm and grabbed some groceries to whip up some food. The nice thing about the youth hostels in Australia is that many of them are equipped with kitchens, making cooking your own meals a viable option. As I noted before, a decent meal will run into the $10 range, now with a kitchen available, the cost of eating drops down to $3 a meal or up to $8 if you're on a splurge (excellent for whipping up a nice dinner after a long day of trekking).

I had the fourtunte of meeting a fun variety of people at the hostel I was at. There were a bunch of people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan I met up with and had dinner with them. The included picture is a group shot of us enjoying a beer outside trading stories of our adventures.

The interesting thing I learned from them is that finding work while traveling in Australia is very easy. Actually, the jobs they have out here are very interesting and I'd consider them fun! Work for travelers as a deck hand or diving assistant (with training up to dive master) on a sailing ship / tour boat is readily available. Fruit picking, hostel work and restaurant work is also available but I would consider the jobs on the boats to be the most fun. The pay isn't that bad either with wages starting at $16.30/hour, way better than the minimum wage in Canada or Japan. Working while traveling in Australia is very feasible to earn cash while traveling and a chance to meet other interesting travelers.

Of another interesting note, if one were to look up the bulletin boards in Airlie beach, there are plenty of messeges to be found for people running boats looking for some crew to help out while they travel up and down the Australian coast. All you need to do it help out with running the ship and you'd have a free ride on a boat (with some chances to stop by some interesting islands, go snorkeling or diving). The options for traveling through Australia is nearly endless. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't able to take advantage of these offers since most people are heading South to Brisbane or Sydney for Christmas or the New Years.

Over the weekend, I took a 1 day tour to the Whitsunday islands, which included some snorkeling, hiking to a view point and a visit to the beach with the incredibly white and fine sand. The Whitsunday island is very beautiful, with surrounding ocean having a clear blue hue, surrounded by shining white sand. When I made it out to the Beach to play with the sand, I found it very fine, like playing with powder. The sand dissapears after just taking a handful and throwing it into the air. As a cautionary note, people have had problems with the sand getting into their cameras, gumming up the gears that move the lens around. I kept my camera on the boat for most of the time and brought it out for a little bit to take a few pictures; and even then, I still got a little sand in the camera. Fortunately after some use, the sand seems to have fallen out.

For those that are making a trip out to Australia, I recommend making Airlie Beach one of your stops!

Oh, and I ran into Santa in Australia. :)

The news and Freedom; some comments about Malaysia

I have for the most part stopped paying too much attention to what that the news says. There are problems with it in the US and even other parts of the world. Election coverage of the US election is biased, where even the news pundits themselves are going out of the way in dubious manners to to defame certain politicians.

I have traveled to Malaysia where I have had the opportunity to stay at guesthouses run by local people living the country to learn that similar things happen here. One of the guesthouse I stayed at is partially managed by a journalist and I have heard from him that he is limited in the kinds of articles that they can publish. Especially ones that are critical of the government.

He would tell me that should the newspaper publish a critical article of the government, they would be called up by a member of the government and have “tea” with them where they are reminded that their charter to operate could be nullified. Also, to keep the officials happy, newspaper would be encouraged to let go of the reporter to show their sincerity. It would seem to me that Malaysia too, lacks a completely free and open press.

In Kuala Lumpur, I had an interesting experience with a Indian taxi driver while being transported away from the batu caves (a very large cave near the city). he would get a phone call from one of his buddies letting him know not to use certain roads back to the city as they are blocked off in anticipation for an upcoming protest. The protest is about the marginalization of rights of the Indian ethnic groups. I am not entirely sure about the details, but the one things that was certain was that the ethnic Indians were not happy with the way the government treats them.

I would read the local English newspaper (the Star) days after the protest. The newspaper paints an obviously biased picture for the government, calling the protest “illegal” and that the government found it unfortunate that the Indians could not use the system to voice their concerns. My opinion is that the system is likely broken.

The Chinese in Malaysia

I have read from one of the SE Asia Lonely Planet guide book that though the Malays run the government, it is the ethnic Chinese that runs the economy here. I have traveled through several cities in Malaysia and have had the opportunity to meet many Chinese Malaysians (technically, the Chinese born in Malaysia refer themselves as Malaysians and the Muslim population is regarded as the Malays). What I would learn about the co-existence between the Chinese and the Malays was quite fascinating.

Malaysia is a country that has not signed the Charter of Human Rights and that officially means that the government does not have to guarantee the equal rights or treatment of it's citizens. The laws in Malaysia prevent ethnic minorities from running for positions in the government, barring both the Chinese and the Indians from cabinet positions.

Though the ethnic Chinese do not have a say in the government, they more or less have a strong voice because should the government treat them poorly, Malaysia's economy would be sure to suffer.

The Chinese Malaysians I met are 3rd generation Chinese and they are caught in an interesting and yet odd predicament-- they would consider themselves foreigners in both Malaysia and China, a people without a homeland. But I would find this fascinating because they harbour little anger for the government so long as they are able to go about their business and make a living for themselves. Should things turn for the worse in Malaysia for them, some of the people I've met would simply consider leaving.

I find this mindset fascinating because in other places in the world, I believe that there are ethnic groups that would fight a bitter and often fruitless battle with the government to attain these rights-- if the game is rigged against them, it is simply just better to not to play it and look for a house with better rules.

I believe that if more people played by these rules, the government might become more responsive instead of the typical elections held approximately every 4 years, because ordinary people can vote with their feet at anytime.

Singapore

Since starting off my journey in developing countries such as Thailand and Vietnam, landing into the metropolis that is Singapore was an incredible shock to me. Getting out of the airport and onto their rapid transit system, the first thing that struck me was how developed and clean the city was. The buildings, roads and and was exceptionally well kept. I would even say that Singapore is cleaner than Japan.

The skyline in Singapore is scattered with all sorts of incredibly nice skyscrapers and had the look of a cutting edge city. The first question I had to ask myself was, “how was a metropolitan city built in the middle of south east Asia on such a tiny island?”

Shipping and Finance in Singapore

Though an engineer in training, I have a strong interest in economics. The key factor for the development of any city, is that there must be an economic value a city produces that allows it to thrive for the population to grow and the development of infrastructure. What Singapore thrives on is the shipping and banking industry.

What is fascinating about Singapore compared to it's neighbor Malaysia is that Singapore has a port which does not charge tariffs on goods passing through the area. The location of Singapore position at the tip of Malaysia allows for easy access of ships to deliver their goods to Oceania and Asia. From what I have been able to learn from the people I've met there is that Singapore is also able to easily acquire a wide variety of goods from the ships that passes through her ports.

Though I am not entirely sure how the financial industry developed in Singapore, I am very curious as to how it developed.

Multi Culturalism and Breaking the Language Barrier

It is interesting to hear that Singapore isn't all that interesting from many other travelers. What these travelers may mean by this is that Singapore just seems to be another modern city to them. Fortunately to me, there is a whole slew of interesting beneath the surface of Singapore that fascinates me.

As a person that has lived in Japan for the last 2.5 years, one of the largest challenges that Japan faces is the English language barrier. No matter the number of years students in Japan have learned English Japan, their proficiency is generally rudimentary at best. The general Singaporian can probably speak 3-4 languages. Those of the Chinese descendants will speak Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Malay. The Indian descendants will speak several Indian dialects in addition to English. The the diversity in languages spoken in Singapore makes it perfect as a base for international trade. Many multinational companies operating on the Pacific Rim prefer hiring people from Singapore instead of Hong Kong because of their language proficiency, and they don't speak with a thick Chinese accent.

It is oft quoted by the Japanese that it is hard for the Japanese to learn English because it is an isolated island country, though Japan is also heavily involved in international trade in a similar way to Singapore. What I believe that needs to be pointed out to the Japanese is should they want to become proficient in English as a nation, it is crucial to create an environment where English can be used in a common and daily situation.

During my travels to Denmark in September, I learned from the students that it was only recently that some classes were being taught in English at school and University. As a result of this, there is an interesting language gap between the current and older generation, with the younger generation being very proficient in English and the older generation (ie. grandparent generation) with limited English skills.

My Experience

I had a particularly great time in Singapore. The Singapore doller is about 0.7 to 1 Canadian dollar, making things in Singapore 30% cheaper than buying things in Canada or Japan. The interesting things is that Singapore is touted as one of the most expensive countries to travel to in SE Asia. Though this is true, when we are talking about meals going for $1 or less in Vietnam or Thailand, traveling through Singapore is still entirely affordable.

I was able to afford a guest house for about $17/night for a dorm room in the city. Meals were in the ball park of $3-4 and still very reasonable. Transportation using the rapid transit or taxi was also very cheap. I was able to have a great time sampling the food in Little India, shopping in China town and going through the more expensive shopping district on Orchard Street. In the evenings, the nice restaurants and watering holes along Clarke Quay were usually fairly busy.

I wasn't able to experience the wild night life however, since I was traveling light and had no dressy clothes to get into the fancier party places. But from what I saw from the outside was that the Singaporeans definitely knew how to party it up.

I had a great time hitting the national library, which held plenty of interesting events, that included a a drama performance by young children, an evening aerobics session held outside, an art show and more. I even found some massage chairs that operated for free in some of the lesser traveled areas in the library that I used for a good 30 minutes to relax. Who would have known that I'd have so much fun checking out a library.

Of another interesting note, I stumbled upon an Indian rock group singing in Punjabi. I had a hilarious time listening to them call out to the crowd in a thick Indian accent. I never would have thought that I'd be listening to a Indian rock performance in Singapore.

I ended up staying about 4 days in Singapore before moving on to Malaysia. In the future though, I would consider moving to Singapore for a while for fun. It seems like a pretty nice place to live. Though the only thing that might irk me about the place is how some of the people I've met there are somewhat money driven, but I guess it is to be expected for the financial capital of SE Asia.

Back Online

So it's been a while since the last time I posted to this blog. The bad reason for this is that internet access is sometime hard to come by and if I do want to some writing, my writing often occurs when I have nothing better to do (usually at night, after I am pooped from traveling around). This problem has now been rectified as I have invested myself into a ultra-portable laptop. Running in the $350 range with only 4 GB of hard drive space.

I am now operating off the Eee PC computer developed by ASUS. We are now on the way to ubiquitous portable computing as I have mentioned before. I am now working off the wifi network at the guest house I am staying at writing this post from the comfort of the dining table.

A shot of the Eee PC is depicted here for reference and a quick outline of the specs are as follows:

4 GB flash memory
7" size
1 kg in weight
512 MB ram
Xandros Linux
3 USB ports
approx 4 hours battery life
External monitor connector
Memory card reader
Wireless internet
Web camera


This ultra-portable computer is perfect for a traveling person like me with minimalized size and a rich set of features. I am now able to easily fit this computer into a hand bag and pull it out whenever I have a free moment. Though one of the limitations of this computer is the small HD size, (approx only 1 GB of free space to use), I am currently hooking the 60 GB external HD to this computer for all my storage needs (ie my pictures and loading new sets of music into my iPod mini).

As a result of my experiences with this computer, I am very confident that ultra-portable computing will be the next big thing to hit. The next big thing to happen in the coming years is the development of an extensive wifi wireless network to supplement internet connectivity to these mobile devices. What me will see in the future is the development of a roaming wifi network, allowing computers to connect between different routers seamlessly. I believe that these networks will eventually either supplement or replace cellphone networks in the future.

Commercialization of these wifi networks will likely happen and if the cellular carriers are on the ball, they will eventually transition to equip themselves to develop a high speed cellular internet system to keep up with ultra mobile networking devices. Interestingly, if a large wireless internet platform were to be developed, I believe that such a network will be very cheap as wireless routers only cost in the $100 range. What we may find is a wifi network consisting of open routers allowing for either free or very cheap internet access.

Deployment of wireless networks is significantly cheaper and easier than deploying ground lines and these networks will piggy back off these ground lines. The wireless ultra-portable revolution will likely have been started by Apple's iPhone but it is the computer makers of ASUS, Intel and the OLPC initiative that will drive the creation of these networks.

Watch out for companies developing full coverage of wireless internet networks and applications them. This will be the next multi-billion dollar market.

Oh.. and I forgot to mention that postings will be more frequent from here on in :)

Mastercard Secure Code!?

For the last 3 hours, I have been trying to book an airline ticket out of Thailand to Vietnam. The problem is that the company I am booking though (Air asia) requires a secure code for my card before accepting payment.

Well the problem is that I had never heard of it before and the website they kept on redirecting me to is something called www.securesite.com which is mighty suspicious by my standards. After aborting the transaction several times, it appears that my credit card is now locked and in accessible. Fortunately I carry a second credit card which is not on me at the moment and I am going to have to go back to the hotel to fish it out and do the transaction again.

I have called mastercard and it seems that the site is legit. When it comes to putting financial details online, I tend to be very cautious. It seems in this case, it has bitten me in the rear. Today is a Sunday so I am going to have to wait till the offices open up to make an international call via skype to sort things out. Grrr

Planning my Next Leg

Still in Thailand at the moment. I am here much longer than expected, nearly 2 weeks into my trip and currently planning my next leg of my trip.

Right now, I am hanging out at the resort island of Koh Phangan, famous for the Full Moon Party that happens every week. I saw about 5000 people on the beach dancing to a variety of tunes. I've also tried my hand at fire poi, something that I've been working on in Japan. Suffice to say, I got through 2 sets of fire poi without getting burned. Will be looking to buy a fire poi set for myself before leaving Thailand (very cheap, at about $10 for a set!)

I am planning my next leg of the trip and it is probably going to be Vietnam. My original plans were to take a bus to Cambodia and spend some time there, realizing that I am going to be spending about 2 weeks in Thailand, I will be spending something of that magnitude in Cambodia and probably Vietnam where I had initially budgeted about 24-28 days in total for Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

My main goal for Cambodia is to visit the Angkor Wat temples. The problem is that there aren't many cheap flights that I can find from Thailand to Saem Riep. I can find cheap flights from Bangkok to Hanoi for about $90 and will take that because I have a 1 month visa starting on Oct 28th for one month and decided that it would be prudent that I get to Vietnam first. I can make it into Cambodia later on with some cheap flights from Singapore or Malaysia, about $90 one way.

It seems a little pricey to just head in to Cambodia for just the temples in Saem Riep, costing me at least $200 there and back. I have heard from the parents that Cambodia is a little dangerous in the capital of Phenom Penh. I have run into some other travelers that have been there that have told me that it is rather run down and fairly dingy, but there is something to be said about being able to walk and observe all plains of human existence. If I have some time to spare, I will make a trip out there.

Pictures to follow later on!

Thailand so far

It ha been 5 days since leaving Japan and arriving to Thailand. I spent the first 4 in Bangkok and decided to get out to the countryside to for a while to see something different. The countryside is very nice and I am glad that I made the move out, though I can only spend a few days out here.

In a few days, I will be heading south of Thailand to the Phuket area to relax and sample some of the very nice beaches over there. Though I have been uploading my pictures to the intenet daily, I haven't had the time to write any indepth article as of yet since I am at an internet cafe and it does take a good while for me to write my posts, though I am keeping a travel log.

For the time being, the photo albums I have been making will have to suffice for now and I've provided links to them below:

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

I am very happy that I made it out here. The country is very fascinating and I had the chance to make some friends that were willing to show me around and teach me the culture. I will go into detail, but that will have to wait for another time (ie. when I am not too busy having fun, then coming home late to download pictures and have to get to bed early for an early start the next day!)

Denmark Pictures

I have finally had the chance to upload the Denmark pictures to my Picasa account online. Denmark was a really nice place to visit. The buildings had plenty of character, though I did find them somewhat boxy and rectangular.

The conference I attended in Denmark was the Micro-Nano Engineering 2007 Conference to present some results I had on a electron beam emission device I have been working on and had some good results with (ie. current leader in published literature with lowest field emission voltage and novel fabrication of carbon nanotubes). I had the opportunity to meet researchers from around the world and got mistaken for a PhD student quite often!

The conference experience was great and I was no less honored to be selected to do an oral presentation, which only about 20%~25% of all the accepted applicants are selected to do and that I would stand on the same stage to talk about my work with other world class researchers, as a masters student. I had done my thesis defense without even getting nervous or breaking a sweat, but to stand among these people, I definately got a few jitters. The unfortunate thing was that I spoke exceptionally quick and ended my 15 minute presentation in 10 minutes, leaving plenty of time for questions. In the end, I didn't do too badly as the chairman of talk series (fro Cambridge University) took time out after the talk session ended to congratulate and compliment me on my work. In short, I was pretty happy about how things turned out.

At the end of one of the evenings, we were invited out to a wonderful dinner show that would easily cost $200, but was supplied as part of the conference package. We ate a wonderful 4 course meal and treated to a series of 6~7 performances on stage. The show was nothing short of amazing and those pictures will be posted online.

I should make some comments about Denmark however, their cost of living is exceptionally expensive. A bag of peanuts (100g) will run you over $3, same with a small bag of chips. A steak dinner (with steak not that incredibly good!) ran me $40. It's incredible how expensive things are over there, even more than places in the UK. Of an interesting note, Denmark has a 180% tax on cars (waived for commercial vehicles, though) to encourage people to take public transit or ride bicycles. There are even lanes with traffic lights for bicycles, which I thought were pretty interesting.

I also had the chance to say hello to my friends in Switzerland after taking a quick jump-skip-and-a-hop via a 2 hour flight to Geneva and traveled by train to Neauchatel. Switzerland is an incredibly beautiful place with nice lakes and friendly people. The Swiss are particularly interesting as most of them speak either French or German due to it's proximity to the respective countries. I have to say that the Swiss cheese is pretty good!

Anyways, with out further adieu. I present my pictures from Denmark. Click on the town hall to check out the album. I hope you enjoy it.