Mid-Brain Activation, Full Brain Deactivation

Last week, a message came through my IM from my cousin. He asked a simple question, "Do you believe in this mid-brain thing?". I've read something about it, because it seems to be all the rage nowadays here in Indonesia, and I replied (always the sceptic), "No, looks completely like hokum to me." He agrees.

His question did spark an interest in me to investigate more on this matter. So I went to thelocal mid-brain activation organisation website, and read about their claims of creating little geniuses, with their proof being the ability to read blind-folded (BFR for short, and includes coloring pictures while blindfolded) and Dermo-Optical Perception (DOP). Well, coincidentally, I've done some (totally unscientific) experiments of my own a few years ago about DOP (I'll share the results later on).

In short, they claim that humans only use 3% (THREE!!!) of their brain, and activating the mid-brain will magically increase that number. See here for the source (in Indonesian language. Bad Indonesian language. Bet you expected a bunch of geniuses to be able to write well, huh?). Synopsis in English: Outrageous claim here, outrageous claim there (all claimed to be very scientific, of course). Add some misspelled names of some experts that have nothing to do with it to add credibility. Add some more outrageous claims of success all over the world (for which I haven't seen a single proof - not even one linky). Basta!

Now, of course all those claims don't mean anything without pics. You know, the interwebs demand it (Pics, or it didn't happen!), so here we have some nice pics, courtesy of Indonesia's finest forum. I wanted to take some from their own gallery, but they seem to have taken every pic out of their site. Anyway, here you go:

Blind-folded bike riding.

Coloring pictures while blind-folded

Using the computer blind-folded

Notice anything strange in the pictures above? *Wink, wink* I bet their accuracy would drop to nearly 0% if you exchange their blindfolds with opaque-painted swimming glasses. It seems all they "activate" is your child's cheating and lying skills... Wow! Teach your kids how to lie and cheat, only for $350! That's a bargain...

OK, then. Now to my experiment about DOP. Far from their claim of being able to "sense" color with their fingertips, I found out that I could "sense" light not just with my fingertips. The downside is that it must be done at night. It doesn't work in bright daylight. I could sense a small lightbulb with my skin from about 1 metre away. Or a bright LED light from about 2 metres away. No sensing of colours on a piece of paper though. How does it work? The small light bulb in my experiment emits heat and light in a focused direction. Therefore, my skin is able to feel the small heat radiated by the bulb, and the bright LED light is bright enough to penetrate my eyelids, so i see a faint light, even when I close my eyes. No fancy tricks needed, no brain activation needed (and it's certainly not DOP in the literal sense).

Regardless of what these self-proclaimed "experts" say, I use 100% of my brain (no activation needed, thank you). Just not all at the same time. That's why you won't see me reading, writing, solving a math equation, inventing the next best thing since sliced bread, playing football, and reciting Cicero's Catiline Orations all at the same time. Not that it would be a pretty sight to see anyway...

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?

How long, O Catiline, are you to abuse our patience? And for what long duration will that madness of yours mock us? To what end will you throw your unbridled audacity around you?

iPhail, Mr. Jobs?

Got an e-mail from Apple this morning. The same that millions of others also get, iSuppose. Apple's launching the iPad. I've heard (or read) the rumours about it for quite some time. It was supposed to be the next best thing since bread came sliced. "This Will Be The Most Important Thing I've Ever Done." said a certain Mr. Jobs. "Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price". O, rly?

Reading up about this magical and revolutionary device that has Apple's most advanced technology (at an unbelievable price to boot!), iFound nothing magical or revolutionary about it. It's nothing more than an oversized iPod Touch. Yep. Mr. Jobs said this thing was supposed to be better than a laptop at doing several key things and better than an iPod Touch at everything. iDon't think so. Unless the key thing is weight, of course, but then it wouldn't be better than an iPod Touch (which weighs a lot less than the iPad, obviously).

I haven't had a hands-on with this thing (nor am I even interested), so I've gobbled up some points from the interwebs as to why iThink this device is an iPhail.

1. Name.
Whoever in their right mind would name a product iPad? Do they even know what people would associate it with? And the way Mr. Jobs said it's more "intimate"... So, iPad and "intimate". What's the first thing that comes to your mind? MadTV's spoof from way back in 2006 seems to have it bang on. Time to hire a new marketing team, Mr. Jobs? Maybe look for someone who actually does research before deciding on a product name?



2. No multitasking.
One question to 1 Infinite Loop: Why? iCan't work while listening to music and having IM applications running in the background? Or maybe not even be able to work effectively at all?

3. Keyboards.
'Nuff said.

4. Storage Capacity.
Wait, isn't this device supposed to be "the best way to experience the web, email, photos, and videos"? Where do I plug in my memory card from my camera? Where do I save my 8GBs a piece HD movies?

5. No Flash support.
I hate flash. But the fact is, almost every site on the interwebs uses flash. So, the best way to experience a flash ridden website is to not show it at all. Way to go, Apple! Apparently, even Mr. Jobs' keynote showed error boxes instead of flash animations when he opened up The New York Times.

6. iTunes.
How does this work? Can i sync other devices from the iPad, or is it just a giant, oversized iPod that syncs from a computer?

7. Price.
Yep, it's unbelievable, alright... In the sense that iCan get a netbook for half the price and do more with it too...

8. Etc...
Google, anyone?

All in all, it's a beautiful device. But it looks like that's all it will be. Beautiful. I'm not an Apple hater. iHave and use a MacBook Pro. Before that iUsed an Acer TravelMac. I even have Mac OS X running on my AMD desktop. But that doesn't mean iHave to be a Jobsian fanboy who buys everything that 1 Infinite Loop churns out.

The iPad is nothing more than an oversized iPod and e-Book reader to me. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure Jobsian fanboys will bash me and say that the App Store will add more functionality to the device, just like it has done with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Sure, but just like the iPhone, why buy a half-baked device at an "unbelievable" price and spend even more for apps that add capabilities that should have been included in the first place? iThink I'll pass, thank you.

As an end note, iThink Youtube Hitler sums up the iPad nicely... ;)

=p~

Never thought I'd drool over a keyboard, but this one is f***kin' awesome! Go check it out. Too bad it's too far from affordable to me... :(

Your room is not a good workplace.

Some reasons why your room isn't fit to be a good workplace (at least, not from my experience).

07:00 - Wake up, take a shower to freshen up, eat some breakfast.
08:00 - Turn on the PC, play some music.
09:00 - Start working.
12:00 - Stomach starts to rumble.
13:00 - Grab a bite, it starts to rain outside.
14:00 - Stuffed. Get back to work.
14:15 - Feel really stuffed (ate a bit too much for lunch), plus it's really raining hard outside.
14:30 - That bed starts to look more and more tempting with each passing minute...
14:45 - Zzzzzzzzzz...

I really need to move my working space out of my room...

General Election and Overall Indifference

It’s been almost a month since the election for Members of Parliament, and since the results started to take shape a few weeks ago, we can clearly see what a total joke the whole political & election system in Indonesia is.

From the fiasco of the voters list to the behaviour of failed candidates, from the campaign period to Election Day, everything is one big joke. The only reason I voted was to keep those radical parties out of the parliament and government.

The list of voters published by the Election Committee left several million people stripped of their voting rights. Although I doubt that it would have severely altered the election results, it is still a problem that needs to be fixed before the presidential election. Otherwise, the Election Committee would lose all credibility they have left (which, at the moment, is already at a record low). And to show how indifferent people are about this election, even 40% of those registered as voters don’t show up to vote. Go figure…

And then we have the whole campaign period with every political party and MP candidates revealing all their programs and promises. Of course, it’s not like everyone believes what they promise anyway. But beside that point, this country’s government runs on a presidential system. The MPs have jack sh*t to do with deciding what the government programs will be. That’s up to the president and his ministers to decide. Those candidates can promise all they want, but none of them will ever be possible unless they get elected as president. Even if they do get elected president, it’s not as if they will live up to their promises anyway.

The candidates… Aaah… This is one touchy topic. Every candidate promise heaven on earth, but how true are their promises? To date we have seen failed candidates committing suicide, failed candidates going into shock and cardiac arrest, failed candidates signing up at mental facilities, and failed candidates repossessing the gifts they’ve given out during the campaign period (which ranges from computers to water pipes to mosque carpets). Not to mention candidates that have been caught red-handed being involved in theft, extortion, fraud, robbery, etc during the campaign period. Again, there is no indication whatsoever that those who DO get elected into office are any better. And those same politicians wonder why everyone is so indifferent about elections.

This country is moving closer to being a failed state with each passing day…

Once upon a time...

... I had a 384kbps internet connection that didn't have an unlimited quota. Somewhere along the line, the ISP decided to upgrade the connection to 1Mbps for the same price. And it was good, except that their price for unlimited quota still sucks (about US$75/month).

Thus I went and signed up for another ISP (in addition to my existing connection), because sometimes I needed to be online for longer than 50 hours/month... Okay, that's a lie. Not sometimes, always... :) And since it was a wireless connection, I could bring and use it anywhere I want. It's also cheap (by internet rate standards here), at around $10/month ($11 if you include VAT) for unlimited usage, although the speed varies from 64-256kbps (256kbps for the first 2GB of usage). And it was good... At least for the first few months.

Then came along the need to download MySQL Server 5.1, because the old 5.0 version that I had lying around in my hard drive didn't work so well with Mac OS X 10.5.6, which comes to no surprise because it was a 10.4 binary package. Since my usage is well under 2GB, I figured I'd better use my wireless connection, rather then let it go to waste. It's cheaper anyway, and I'm not so much in a hurry to get said database server. And while I'm at it, I'd better download the 10.4 binary too, because some of the systems I work with still use 10.4.9.

WTF? It should run at 256kbps! OK, maybe the server is overloaded, let's try again after a few moments...

A few moments later...

OK, that's much better, but still, I don't have a whole week just to download a database server...

WTF? It just timed out. *Hit retry*...

Timed out again? !@#$%^ *Hit retry again*...

5892379862397 retries later...

It just seems there won't be cheap (quality) internet here in Indonesia at the moment... *Sigh*

(Disconnects wireless connection and turns to broadband cable connection)

Between Hamas and Israel.

Ever wondered why it's so hard to have peace in the Middle-East? No, not just between Israel and Palestine, but in general. We have seen so much bloodshed, not just on the Israel-Palestine front (or other Israel-Arab conflicts), but also between Arabs themselves. Look at Iraq and Lebanon for recent examples.

This is just my personal observation, but it seems to come down to a few things:

1. Every warring faction in the Middle-East (not just the Arabs), view their faction as the only faction with the right to rule (and most of the time, they bring up stuff about a divine right to rule the lands they claim). All other factions beside their own are viewed as infidels and demons.

2. The Middle-Easterns have no concept of defeat. Every conflict ends in a "major victory" for everyone. Sounds too good to be true? It is. Just look at the history of conflict in the Middle-East. To mention some of the recent ones:

The Israel - Hezbollah conflict of 2006 ended in a victory for Israel, because they don't have anything to destroy anymore in Southern Lebanon. And for sure, Hezbollah also claimed major victory, they claim that despite the destruction of Southern Lebanon, it has not weakened Hezbollah (of course the destruction doesn't count).

The recent Israel - Hamas conflict also ended in a major victory for both the Israelis and Hamas. For the Israelis it's the same reason as above, for Hamas it's the same reason as above (and of course, the total and utter destruction of Gaza doesn't count).

But you don't have to take my word for it. It has been like that since the 6-day war of 1967.

In short, everything in the Middle-East easily results in religious zealotry and a "major victory" for everyone. It might be easy to claim "major victory" for all the leaders who sit safely away from all the conflict areas. More than just claiming victory and creating more conflict, they should go to the affected areas to see for themselves what their "victory" looks like up close.

My heart lies with all Israeli and Palestinian citizens alike who have been victims of all these conflicts for decades.

Can't they all just make some compromises and get along?