Let it be

It was the Jan 2008, I felt a bit exhausted of my job. I decided to have breakthrough of my career, in other words, to get another one. Even though it was not a new idea, I had a similar thought last year. When my manager moved myself to test team, of course that was something I would not have expected to happen to me. I was the only one person moved to there for 1 month. Having no choice I had to accept such arrangement and extremely unwilling at the same time. My boss was never a man who had good project planning skills, let alone to take care of their employees. I started to hate this person as well as the company, why would they let such thing to happen. It seemed the managers were not interested on this and gladly to let it happened. I started looking for new jobs but things did not go well. I went to a new start-up house who does index trading, however, having only 1-2 relevant experience on my resume, they certainly were not amazed. I told myself unless I found something I interested, I would not change my job simply because I hate my boss and the company. In June 2007, I participated in a large scale exchange project, my role was a software tester, again!? Yes, it seemed it was the only skill that I had in their mind, and of course I did not enjoy it at all. It was boring and repetitive. I discussed to my line manager that I would like to change to a programming role and, again, they could not get the message. My mind was gradually changing, I was more willing to change to a job just for the sake of changing. I could not care less about what would be happened, it was inevitable to me. I could not wait any longer and leaving this company asap. I started looking for jobs again at the beginning of 2008, I don't want agency jobs, they are just bullocks. I would apply any jobs as long as it is not an agency job. I changed my mind and my level of expectation were low. There are simply no jobs match my skills. The technologies that I know are all yesterday's if not decades ago. We are still sticking to servlets and html.

Newly bought CD

I’ve just recently bought a cd first time in 2 or 3 years. The reason of buying is a simple one – to support your singer. It’s so hard to put a cd into a hi-fi (if you still have one incidentally) because most people like me listening music from a computer. Immediately after I’ve ripped the cd into mp3s it will stay in my wardrobe for some years and the next time I ever see it again may be when I moving house? I’ve noticed that the cd protection has disappeared and I’ve no problem whatsoever ripping it using some freeware which surprised me. It was first appeared in pc-game titles and they’re still on the market. Why are there no more protected music cds? Perhaps distributors are well-aware of the fact that people are listening to songs thru their iPods. Data-protected software requires constant update to keep the hackers out of the competition. Finding the best data-protection method is a never-ending race. Easy ripping is always listeners delight.

A Planet or Not?

A piece of news which caused a lot of astronomers to talk about is the Pluto nightmare. It’s a very controversial one because of the definition of a word “Planet”. It certainly caused a lot of discussion at the IAU General Assembly and only a handful 4% of the total member has cast a vote, I don’t know why but are they too busy or some other reasons for that? Now many of them saying they are against such a declaration and the definition has made the matter worse. My thought – Do Not use the word “dwarf”, it worries the people who respects the history and the average people understanding. Let’s call all of them planets. Anything which is rounded and orbiting the Sun is called Planet. Instead we have a new definition: Eight-Biggest Planets in the Solar System, it doesn’t include Pluto, because we’ve found a planet that is bigger than Pluto. Remember the current planet at the ninth place (UB313 or Eris) could be challenged by some other Kuiper-Belt objects in the future, we are also very unlikely to find a object bigger than the eight planets. My solution makes every planet (called) a planet and not demoting them by any means.

Losing

Losing is something unavoidable, whatever you are doing: golfing, tennis, running, doing business and football. Most of the players of the England team are from top clubs in Europe. Although they are top class losing is still something inevitable and they have already got used to. We know the fact that sadly only 1 team in the World Cup can avoid losing, and that’s the winner.

Look at Argentina. They lost in the penalty shoot out.
Look at Switzerland. They lost in the penalty shoot out.

Losing is the road which leads to winning. I mean the Euro 2008 here.

Nightmare of an inkjet printer

Hey, listen up. I know what you know. I wish I could throw my HP printer straight out of the window. You must be thinking the same right? Yes and yes, it’s a money hog. Just a quick few notes:

1. If you are printing black and white document, having the black ink isn’t enough, without the color ink you are a million miles away from printing. So you got to have both black and color ink to print……a B/W document.
2. Inks are extremely and ridiculously expensive for such a little amount of ink. I paid HKD 120 for a sadly 8 ml of black ink. Why?
3. The paper jam rate of an inkjet printer is VERY, VERY HIGH.
4. Back in the old days, when we were still very dumb to believe that an inkjet printer worth the money. We bought 2 printers and found out they died too easily.
5. Sooner or later, we started to believe using an inkjet printer was such a dopey decision; we bought a laser printer and found out that we were given a free HP inkjet printer from a credit card gift.

You will thank yourself when you get a laser printer.

Surging U3O8 demand

Energy is an important commodity in the 21st century. It has become so important that so many countries are now worrying about it. After the September 11th, the America has told the world they want the oil so badly, which is no doubt for being the largest consumer of crude oil in the world. Until now, China becomes another economy that growing so rapidly who is trying to buy oil fields from all over the world, but of course this is not easy due to their strategic values. Looking around, you will see not just oil, but almost all of the commodities trading freely on exchange are rocketing, like gold, silver, sugar, and many more. In terms of energy, Bush has already warned the obsession of the dependency on crude oil as an energy source has turned into a disaster. Other source such as wind and hydro power are not adequate for today’s consumption, so nuclear power is becoming an inevitable outcome of this deadlock. I found out that 16% of world’s electricity is generated from uranium in nuclear reactors, and uranium is so commonly available on earth’s crust and even in seawater (although the density is very low). The largest deposits of uranium are found in Australia (28%), Kazakhstan (18%) and Canada (12%), so the next round of energy conflict may appear in these areas. Actually, Canada dollar has reached its years high, Russia and China are both actively seeking business relationship with Kazakhstan as their priority, eyeing its mouth-watering energy fields. Two days ago, Australian signed an agreement to export 20,000 metric tons of uranium to China each year, beginning in 2010. Uranium is not a standard commodity like oil, but according the data from the largest miner Cameco, uranium spot price has picked up and never look back since the middle of 2003 (War of Afghanistan?), from merely $10 to almost $41 (03/2006), the company’s stock price resembles the picture. Ultimately, Uranium price will replace oil as the energy price for future, I think.

A Tiny Update

Ages since I last updated the blog. In terms of work, I am now working in a company that meets all of my criteria, including writing software in Java. Another piece of good news to me was the passing of my first Java Programming Exam back in February. My score was 70% (not bad, huh?). A few days after exam I thought that would be it for me, because I got a Java job which is more important than a Java Cert. But now I changed my mind and decided to attempt an exam (Java Business Component). Right before I went to bookshop I typed the book name and searched if there’s a PDF version for download (piracy). I found it which saved me a lot! My target date for the exam will be 4-6 months away from now.

HK has been smoggy (or foggy, if u like) for the most of this month. I think there are 2 reasons behind of this, the first fact is due to the air pollution from China, and the second reason, as you may guess, comes from our city.

My grandfather has passed away in February, he has been strong during his life and I will not forget the moments with him when I was a kid. I wish him enjoy his new life on the heaven.