Justifying myself

Claim: There is a creator for everything.

1. We haven't seen a single thing yet that can create itself from nothing, transformation like (E = mc^2) included.
2. So supposedly everything we see in this world has been created by something else.
3. And that something has to be an entity outside this world (as the world cannot create itself).
4. Hence there is a creator, a higher authority (or authorities) than anything in this world.

Suppose there is a creator. Why are we here? Here are the possible answers:

1. Why we are here has nothing to do with this creator.
2. Why we are here has something to do with this creator.

Okay, let's say our existence has nothing to do with this creator. What is your purpose of life?

1. Do some good to this society.
2. Live a happy life.
3. Search for the purpose of life. If you don't live to find the answer, get your descendents to do it.
4. Something else.

Those who picked #4 can stop reading this blog already, for nothing else I say will get to you. Let's focus on #1. History has just been repeating itself the whole time. You may have done a good deed here. But soon or later you'll find that the world gets back to the same state, if not worse. Take the example of disease control. New drugs save many lives, but a new disease with no cure may be found at the same time. The more civilized are we, the worse the world's pollution has become. We are running low on natural resources. We are speeding to our end faster than anytime in the last few thousand years in history.

Those who chose #2 as their purpose of life, I feel sorry for you. We, as human, are pessimistic in nature. New and old researches showed that we remember more sorrow than happiness. And we are more capable to express sorrow than happiness. I am not saying that we shouldn't make ourselves happy. But chances are you won't get what you look for.

If you've picked #3 as your answer, consider this. We created computers for fun, for our jobs, and to simplify our daily lives (or to make our lives more complicated). And we are far more superior in design than computers. Don't you think our creator would know best why we are here?

Getting old

Many times I wanted to convince myself that I am still young. But I certainly look like an old man to the new generation. Nothing on me is fashionable. Not many kids on the street wear turtleneck these days. None of the songs nowadays have I heard of. And I have kept quoting things over ten years ago. Vision is getting blurry. Hearing is losing fidelity. Memories are constantly fading away. I once heard a coworker calling himself the youngest old man. I'd like to steal that phrase and call myself the oldest young man. How nice if I were still young... By the way, who are you?!

Optimizing your computer

When it comes to boosting the performance of a computer, most people recommend defragging the harddrive once in a while. There are a few other tips I want to share with my fellow reader(s):

1. The page file on your harddrive is one the system uses to "page out" the memory resources that are not being actively in use. Your computer system gets slow if it needs to read from a heavily fragmented page file. This file is one of those that the system cannot defrag. The free PageDefrag tool from SysInternals.com can do that job for you.
2. One major reason for a low computer is that you have knowingly or unknowingly installed a bunch of junk onto it. Take the time to go through what you don't need from the Add/Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel (given you are running Microsoft Windows). One other place you want to check is the Manage Addons screen from the Programs tab in the Internet Options applet within Control Panel or Microsoft Internet Explorer.
3. If you know well about your computer, go over the started services on your computer. You can get to the list by running services.msc. There are a few running services that most home users don't need. And some of them could even be security concerns. I am not going to list which services I mean here. If you know well about your computer, you should already know which ones I referred to.
4. Many times a computer becomes slow simply because the legitimate software it runs was not written well enough. One example is a resident service that polls information in a tight loop. Two typically used resouces are registry and files. You can monitor the activities of the running software by using the free RegMon and FileMon tools from SysInternals.com. You will be surprised by how many activities that happen on the background while you use your computer.

If you have other good and rarely known tips, please share with others here.

Welcome back, laptop!

My laptop keyboard has had bad keys (i.e. Left-Ctrl, Fn, Z, Left-Alt). I called the product support of Toshiba but I was told that could be a driver conflict issue. However I knew too well that it was nothing like that. But I had still been living with this defect for over a year, as the extended warranty I got on it would last till 2006. Then recently a harddisk corruption happened on the cluster that was used for the ntuser file of my user profile. I could still log on as myself but the system couldn't load the associated user profile. I called the product support number again and again I was questioned about my own observation. I waited for another month and finally shipped the laptop back to the manufacturer, as they agreed to pay for the shipping both ways. Before I did that last week, I set up a PII 550MHz machine so that I could at least connect back to work. Surprisingly, I found the shipping box sitting in front of my door tonight. I didn't expect it would be this quick. Skeptically, I looked around the box for signs of a bounced shipment to no avail. And I found a new shipping label on it addressing to me. So I eagerly cut opened the box and found my good old friend inside. On the work order sheet, it said that both the keyboard and the harddrive were replaced. As one would expect from a new harddrive, it was re-imaged. The laptop looked almost as clean as new. I will no longer use it to do overnight downloads (I used to be a big BT fan). Instead I will start bringing it back to work as there are quite a few meetings to attend these days. After I booted up the system, I found America Online 8.0 installed on it. I went to the Add/Remove Programs applet to try to get rid of it. Funny enough, the AOL de-installation program said that was launched said the program wasn't installed! Then how did such entry show up in ARP? I tried looking up the Internet for a way to cleanly de-install the software but in vain. So I went through the pain to regsvr32 /u all the DLLs under "%ProgramFiles%\Common\AOL*" and "%ProgramFiles%\America Online 8.0". Then I went into regedit.exe and removed most (if not all) of the CLSIDs, IIDs, TypeLibs and AppIDs that had anything to do with "AOL" or "America Online". Only by then I figured there were so many of them. So I went ahead to get rid of them one by one. Also I found that AOL had installed two drivers into the system WANATW (i.e. WAN Miniport (ATW)) and another one that starts with "ATW". It took me hours to carefully dispose the AOL-specific reg entries but not other shared references they referred to. I rebooted the system and saw that it still ran in good shape and no longer showed the AOL drivers. If this turned out to cause other problems, as I don't really have anything important on it, I will certainly rebuild the box. Right now I am installing XPSP2 onto it. It will be a few more hours, if not days, to set it up for all the applications I once had on it.

Flu season

Apparently this is a new flu season. Quite a few of my friends have got the bug. I hope they will get well soon. If you've got flu yourself, stay at home for a couple of days and make sure you don't carry it around. In the meantime, relax and take a lot of rest. And remember, 4/15 is around the corner so get your taxes filed!

Take care!

Insight for Living - Mar 17-18

Chuck Swindoll told a story about "what goes around, comes around" from Esther 6.

"When all seem lost, they aren't
When no one seems to notice, they do
When everything seems great, it isn't
When nothing seems just, it is

When God seems absent, He is there"

Vienna Choir Boys

There was no fellowship this Friday. A few of us in CCF went to the Vienna Choir Boys' performance. I hadn't been to such kind of events. All I knew before I went there was that they were supposed to be the world's top choir.

To my surprise the venue was not full, in spite of their fame. The boys, uniformed like sailors, entered the stage from both sides. My guess was that they were between seven and fourteen. Then a tuxedoed man, leader of the choir and their pianist, came to the center. They deeply bowed to the audience and began the night of event.

The first thing that amazed me was the pianist. He brought with him no sheets and yet he replayed more than thirty songs, without a missing beat. At the same time, he was able to signal the boys with his body and head movement as he played and sometimes he did so with an idle hand! He was confident and his performance was lively. I coulnd't exclude the possibility, for my lack of exposure to these, that all pianist on the stage were this good. There was no doubt that he deeply impressed me.

The boys were nothing short of excellence. Their voices beautifully intertwined among themselves. I tried hard to measure accuracy of their timing. While unsure, I found no audible mistakes (well, again I might not be good enough)! Their professionalism at such a young age was an eye-opener to me. They stood on the stage and stayed unmoved unless needed. Not even their shoulders were raised. A few of the twenty-six who had a cold or flu tried really hard to suppress their coughs or at least the disruptive noises. Their range of voice was wide. The younger ones of them could reach very high notes without difficulty. Their pronounciations were very good, given they didn't understand many of the languages they sang in. I was delighted to find them singing a few English songs as a homage to their fans. And there were songs that so many words were jammed into them. But that wasn't a matter to these well-practiced little singing machines. Their occasional moves and clapping added to the effect of their singing. And they also sang one song with no music. Fabulous! Whenever not distracted by the noise coming from behind, I closed my eyes and enjoyed their beautiful voices. Then I understood why they were the world's top choir.

At the end of the performance, the choir submitted to audience's non-stop clapping and sang four extra times! What more can I say about their professionalism?!

Choir practice

There was choir practice for ACM's upcoming local performances as usual. Though being a member of the choir just like anyone else in the group, Winnie had great musical talents and volunteered to lead the practice. I am sure everyone was grateful for the efforts and time she spent to ramp us up. I, in particular, was one of those who lacked musical sense and made the most mistakes (in lyrics and rhythm). And my voice was obvious for it was loud. Yet she showed her patience towards me and anyone alike and helped us review our parts. We have to learn the moves that go with one of the songs. Though practiced many times, I still couldn't come up with the right moves at the right time. I didn't know choir was this tough before. But it was at the same time as fun for me, as I love to sing. And most of all, I glimpsed a sense of unity in us. There is still a lot of room to improve. It's my hope that our efforts will turn into pleasing aroma for our purpose.

Welcom to my blog!

I created this blog as a little experiment to find out what's fun and special about blogging. Though not a senior, I am not unfamiliar with their moments. Guess it'll also become a handy spot to archive my momentary thoughts.