My "Review" of "Reading Reviews"

Chin Fei's Minolta Dimage Z3 with a backdrop of my enthusiastic expression.

I remember that I bought my first and only digital camera in year 2003. By that time, digital camera was just about to boom in Malaysia market, so the promotion and the choices were not as wide as today.

As the saying goes, "when in trouble, always Google". So there went my first voyage into online research of camera reviews site and also the sprouting of my keen interest in photography. After googling for some time, I stumbled upon many websites, among others were Digital Photography Review, Steve's Digicam and so on. At that time I was still rather amateurish, so when I read through the reviews, I couldn't figure out most of the contents. Duh, who cares about aperture priority and manual focus, right? (although I do care a lot about them now)

Then there I went and I perused pages after pages, and almost every camera was GOOD. I mean, all those reviews, they either RECOMMEND it or HIGHLY RECOMMEND it. No real helps, actually. So I turned to user reviews.

You see, the situation became worse. In this ungoverned territory, there are countless gazillions of unknown street pundits from around the world who thronge these forums to voice their opinions, tryint to sound "professional". Hell knows who they are or whether they are speaking the truth. So all these pundits aren't as good as they intend to be perceived. Most of them simply shout out freakishly, "Wow, it is the best camera i have ever had!! I love it so much" or other equivalent sentences. Nahh, every camera is a favourite camera, how was I going to choose?

Thoroughly confused, I decided to take an alternative measure. Instead of counting the accolades, I decided to read ONLY the criticisms. Well, from my brief scan of the review sites, I noticed that Powershot A70 (which was quite new at that time) received relatively fewer criticisms, and what more all of them were minor ones. Therefore I went for it and it turned out to be superb. Or in other words, a steal for its price.

Therefore the lesson is that all cameras (or other stuff in online reviews) are good if you only look at the glorious exclamation by the fans. Count the disapprobations, only then you would get the real and clearer picture. With that I sign off.

My Pictures Online

I never thought that I could stumble upon my own pictures on a non-affiliated website, but I just did! In a surge of reminiscent urge, I checked out the IMO 2001 and 2003 websites, and guess what, I was in the picture!! Here are them:

See, I was sitting right in the middle, the guy with red jacket. This one was taken in IMO 2003 Japan, in the exam hall where I was facing gruelling hours of tackling god-know-how-impossible-it-is hard mathematical problems.

This one pula in 2001, in Washington D.C., USA. I was the little boy with the flag! Standing in the line was 6 of us in Malaysia team and our guide (Shien Jin) who was one of the first bronze medal winners in Malaysia. The other line were the Australian contestants, it so happens that it's the country I am flying to in this February!

Being in a part of Malaysian IMO team is but a distant memory, but I really treasure those moments! I would say that it had enriched my experience and broadened my horizon, both mathematically and socially. I miss you, mathematics and my friends in those pictures! Wish you are doing well...

About Genius

Edgard Varese

"Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes."

An assiduous net-stumbler I am, I found this quotable quote. As I have said before, not everyone unearths their latent capabilities, and fewer of them use them to the fullest, and even fewer keep them. So most of the people fall to the category of followers and trainees.

p/s: Notice that I have updated the sidebar. In fact I spent the whole night on it. Do find out more about the banners at the bottom of the sidebar, all these are geek's favorite. Last word: Switch to Firefox!

Creationism

Creationism works like this. God is infinite. Therefore, to represent God, we will use an infinite series:
0 + 0 + 0 + 0 +

.... = 0 1 - 1 = 0, so logically it follows that: (1 - 1) + (1 - 1) + ... = 0 Removing the parentheses: 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + .... = 0 Adding new parentheses: 1 + ( -1 + 1) + (-1 + 1) + ... = 0 Simplifying: 1 = 0 Thus, God can create the universe out of nothing. QED God could not be reached for comment.

No blasphemy or religious attack implied. Just found the punch-line hilarious.

Online Personality Test

Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it. You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle. You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

An online intelligence that I did. I expected this result. :-)

Jokes With Racism Hints

I do not endorse racism by all means, but just enjoy this joke without thinking of the races.

A situation arose when Malaysia was invited to send one Malaysian to the moon!

As there were 3 finalists and this was most probably going to be a one way trip only, the Prime Minister then...the previous one la...called all three of them to ask one question of each of them. What their price was.

First the Malay chap..he said RM500,000 cukup. will need to take care of his family and second wife as well.

then the Indian astronaut wanabe. He asked for RM1 million. Well, he had family, father and mother and widowed sister to look after you see...

Finally the Chinese chap....and he wanted RM3 million. Of course PM very shocked. He ask how come he want so much more compared to the rest. So this Chinaman said...well Datuk, of the RM3 million, Rm1 million I keep. On more RM1 million is for you.eheheh....and the last RM1 million we give the Indian guy and we send him to the moon la!.

Show how sly some Chinese are, actually.

Tsunami Compensation

I thought that my maths was pretty good. Until I see this post: [click on the "Tsunami Compensation above]

Yup, it made me realise maths is blind without logic. One plus one is not necessarily two.