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@razman
Pi Day Post
A little post about Pi. I think I read somewhere that Pi (22/7) decimal points is endless. It can go on forever to infinity. Included in this decimal points are every combination of numbers in the known universe. Your mykad, your phone number, your date of birth, your address, your pin number passwords, your bank account etc etc etc all is within the Pi.
All within Pi.
Internet and open source.
The internet and its tools has open a vast opportunity for new startups like never before. Just about a decade ago, for new companies, access to a high spec server, tools to build software, tools to innovate are but all an impossibility. Today, all these tools are available virtually for free. This interestingly put a garage company software development house on equal footing with a medium sized company. Such is the environment today in the tech industry.
Simpsons are getting soft
The Simpsons needs no introduction. Having been on air for nearly 3 decades, it has been a part of my childhood, teenage and adulthood (basically my entire life). From the Bartman to El Barto, Simpsons has formed a huge part of who I am today.
So recently I got to watch the latest episode of the Simpsons. At the end of it, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The show has gone soft. Maybe to reach a younger newer audience, but this is not the same show that introduces Scorpio (my favourite episode of all time), monorail and many other crazy politically incorrect zany stuff to me. This is a completely whole other show.
Watch the reruns and tell me the show has not change.
Zakat vs YaPeim
So recently there were some mish-mash in Malaysia about YaPeim. YaPeim- Yayasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Islam Malaysia, is a charitable foundation established by Malaysia’s federal government in the 1970′s to empower Islamic economy in Malaysia. It is run by a board of trustees.
Recently, it was alleged that money contributed to YaPeim has been mismanaged. I won’t get into the whole matter here, but I guess you can google it up and find out.
What I want to talk about in this post is about the role of zakat (Islamic taxation) and how with zakat, problems arisen from the YaPeim alleged mismanagement can be solved.
Zakat is an Islamic taxation system since the days of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). It is based on 2.5% income and the value of all one’s possession. That’s it, 2.5%. Very fair and very simple.
Out of the 2.5%- a percentage will be given to the collector of zakat, while the rest will be distributed to the needy and the poor. This is very clear in the Quran and in most Islamic hadiths.
In Malaysia, from my understanding, it was made very clear that out of the 2.5%- 0.5% will go to the Zakat collectors. So there is no dispute as to what the zakat collectors are going to be doing, since they are being paid 0.5% out of the collection for their activities. You don’t see people jumping up and pointing fingers and shouting ‘mismanagement!’ at the Zakat collection bodies, because it is clear cut what is rightfully belong to the zakat collectors and what will be paid and who deserves of zakat money.
And did I mention that the Zakat system has been in place since the days of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)?
Unlike YaPeim of course, where this problem has arisen...
Modern Meadows- meat manufacturing
The other day I was reading Fortune magazine and on the cover was Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and the inspiration behind HBO Silicon Valley eccentric billionaire Peter Gregory. He was wearing what seems to be a typical leather jacket, but look again, and I quote (not verbatim): "...it's great to be wearing leather that's not from a dead animal..." Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's 'manufactured' leather. It's a grafted from the skin of a cow and 'printed' into a leather jacket. One of the companies he invested in, and I tell you he has a varied interest in interesting 'vertical concept'(read up on this guys) based companies; called Modern Meadows, is able to manufacture and print 'meat' through graft from the said animal. The concept is more Star Trek than real life, but it creates a vertical shift in meat production. Imagine, the best cut of meat 'cloned' each time. Animal rights activists infamous chant, "meat is murder" is no longer valid. Fact is, no animal is 'murdered' to manufacture meat. All put aside, comes my ethical concern as a Muslim. Being a Muslim, the question in my mind is, of course, is this halal? -I recalled an erstwhile tale my islamic studies teacher once told me: if a man travels through the desert with a camel, and slowly sears the animal bit by bit for sustenance, then the meat that has been consumed is not halal. You have to slaughter the whole animal in the name of Allah. So, based on this understanding, I conclude that it's not halal. But I can't conclude for sure whether it is halal or not since I myself am not an authoritative body on this matter. We'll just have to wait for Modern Meadows to explode to know for sure, which I'm sure will happen in the next 3-5 years.
First foray into big data with Amazon Kinesis
How do you analyse huge amounts of data? When i say huge, i meant humongous, an endless data stream that will never ever ever ever end. Just take the amount of data posted on twitter at any given moment for example. How do you sift through millions upon millions of data posted just this instant? How? You can take the data and put it into your database, but the thing is, there is only a finite space of database available. So what do you do? That is why you need specialised engine in a new fangled IT concept called 'Big Data'. Amazon's Kinesis is my first experience with big data. Sometime in late 2013, i was invited to Amazon Malaysia user group to a presentation about Amazon's latest kinesis engine. At the time I probably did not see any application to Kinesis, but after thinking about it, I can finally see how Kinesis can be of use in this new tech flavour called big data. In a nutshell: Kinesis is akin to a stream with a filter engine strap on it. The stream will flow without storing anything, but certain exceptions will be captured by the filters that have been put in place in the stream. These filters can then be used by the programmers and the powers that be for any number of purposes and these info can be sift through with a fine comb, a better prospect than storing a whole bunch of data that are not even relevant. I think Kinesis, as an engine in big data, is promising. While there are a bunch of ways that one can use huge amounts if data, Kinesis' implementation is by far the best and perhaps most elegant and within reach of the populace if compared to other big data techs out there.
In Spain, the Catalonia's state desire to be an independent nation will be tested in a vote, albeit a non binding one. The government is clearly unhappy with this referendum that they want to block it. My opinion: I know they are a big part of Spain, but I say let them vote. Let them vote and they might sling mud on themselves. If the Scottish referendum had taught me anything its that it might turn out differently than what you expected.
Ebola outbreak in Africa is a real threat to peace and security.
iPhone 6 rant
A friend of mine shared an interesting picture about the recently announced iPhone 6 comparison with Nexus 4- mind you, latest incarnation of Android's line of phone is Nexus 5 but I digress. The comparison is pretty clear. Nexus 4 has had features that Apple just introduced to a very excitable crowd to much fanfare. It begs the question, why are people still buying iPhone 6. Same reason why apple has more money than the US treasury. All about the hype. Their multi billion marketing machine can spin a tech that has been around for 2 years, into a 'mind blowing' tech. Consider the iPhone. When it first came out in 2007, pda has been around for awhile. I remembered doing some work on 1 HP pda back in the day. But apple's spin doctors were able to find the key differentiator. The ultimate unique selling point, which directly contributed to the success of iPhone. This formula has been repeated again and again with each cycle of the iPhone. Which basically proves a point that if you spend enough on marketing, you can sell a freezer to an Eskimo.
Interesting battle for the title 2014 BPL
I manage to catch the tail end of the Liverpool Chelsea game just a moment ago. 75th minute, Chelsea up by 1. Chelsea at this point was defending like hell. Everybody down except Ba, who was later replaced by Torres. A friend of mine commented via Tele.gram that Chelsea is 'building a multi level carpark in front of goal' And with only 30% possession throughout the game, they sure did... The game ended 0-2, with a last gasp goal by Chelsea's Willian, assisted by lone man Torres after a brilliant breakthrough. So with Liverpool losing this game, the title race is getting pretty tight. The top 3 teams- Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City are still in it with a shout. This season, like the 2012 season that Man City won through Goal Difference, will probably come down to the wire. Sideline: Kudos Giggs for reviving Man Utd. Next season, if giggs is still involved, would be very interesting to watch.
Under Pressure by the Queen featuring David Bowie
Most of this article from Wikipedia. The song 'Under Pressure' was written by the Queen together with David Bowie. An interesting 'scat' part in the song was totally improvised by the late Freddy Mercury. Later on in the 1990's, Vanilla Ice wrote 'ice ice baby' featuring the bass line sampled from Under Pressure, which resulted in a lawsuit. Vanilla Ice later claimed to have bought the rights to Under Pressure, which, not sure whether happened or not.
Twitter IPO: My thoughts
Twitter debut on the NYSE at USD 26 per share.
If you subscribed to Benjamin Graham’s idea of value investments, like Warren Buffet, Charles Munger etc, Twitter is not a hot stock.
It has yet to make a profit and is built upon minimal tangible assets, well at least from an analyst point of view.
On the flip side, one thing that you cannot deny is that Twitter changed our world in 140 characters or less.
Its citizen journo at its best. If one wants the latest news on something, look up on twitter.
It single handedly caused the arab spring revolution. Disorganise to organise groups. It drove Hosni Mobarak, once darling to the western world to 'close down' the internet in Egypt.
Xiomara Castro, leftist candidate in Honduras presidential election tweeted to claim victory. Never before in recorded history, a presidential candidate can bypass mainstream media in such a way
True, again I point out that Twitter has yet to make a profit, but for the record, never before has 'world changing' and tech used properly in a sentence. For that, I salute you Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone(who first coined the term 'blog' back in the day).
Maverick, u better be awesome. Dont disappoint me now
Creating a 2D platformer part deux
Last time I wrote, i stopped at writing about sprite sheets. Sprite sheets are important, more important than the programming itself. How important it is? Consider Mario and Sonic- two essentially similar games with similar architecture~ basically a 2D platformer with scrolling from left to right. Mario collects coins, Sonic collects rings. Mario is a 64bit era character (i think), Sonic is 128bit- perhaps, evident through it being less pixelated. Both games are mascots; nay, pillars of their brands; Nintendo and Sega respectively I know, I know, fan boys out there would point out a gajillion of difference between these two, but they are essentially the same kind of games, eventhough i want to point out here out of respect to Nintendo, Mario is a much more successful character than Sonic. But I digress... What I really want to point out here, the key difference between Mario and Sonic is the ART. Mario wouldn't be Mario without his signature red cap and tache. Sonic wouldn't be Sonic without his spiky blue back scales. How the character, the background, the objects, the enemies, even the bosses- these are all art of each of the game and the engine is basically a 2D platformer. That is why sprite sheets are important. It basically determines the look and feel of the game. There are tons of resources readily available: go google image it. But the question is will it fit your vision of the game. To be continued...
Creating 2D platformers using Kobold
My daughter loves to play games. One of her favourites- Mega Run on iOS. My father would have not understand the difference between Mario and Wario, but being a child of the 1980's growing up with console gaming, and then FPS gaming and the likes, I understood the concept of Mega Run straight away- a simple 2D platformer in the spirit of Mario, Sonic et al. One day whilst playing the game, since I was alway on my computer, she asked me if I could develop a game like Mega Run for her. I said: "Oklah abah cuba..." Partly inspired by the Donkey Kong game that a father developed for his daughter on her birthday, i thought oklah, maybe this can be my gift to her on her birthday. A 0.99 game specially developed for her. I asked her for a storyline. Since details are quite sketchy at the moment, all i got right now is that the heroine is a princess out to save her friends. I started researching for materials and possibly a software development kit on how to develop a 2D platform game. What i found is Kobold, an interesting 2D platform developer complete with sprites and development kit. Important thing to note: What are sprite sheets? These are typically png files (can be jpg too i think) that act as either the background or the character itself in a game. It works like this: Layer 2: character sprite sheet (hero, bad guy etc) Layer 1: object sprite sheet (boxes that u jump on etc) Layer 0: background (a single image, dimension depends on the level) On a typical 2D platformer, the background is usually constant. The boxes have a set of actions denoting environmental actions and each character has a range of sprite denoting its actions. To be continued...
....If u had one shot one opportunity to seize everything u ever wanted one moment, would u capture it or would u let it slip?
Eminem, 'Lose yourself'
If the government isn't working, we shouldn't pay any taxes
Former Gov/wrestler Jesse Ventura on the #usgovtshutdown