Nov

28

Aquarium of viruses and malware goodness

Filed Under geeky, humor, ideas, security research, websense | Leave a Comment

I love pets but am too busy to tend to one. I could take care of a plant, but I can’t take a cactus for a walk. This, seems to be right within my realm! I do security research for Websense, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier!

(click for bigger)
xkcd-network

xkcd is my kinda comic. It’s funny and nerdy. Hmm.. I wonder how I can implement this.

The flatscreen LCD would be the most expensive. Then I’d need a pretty beefy machine (as host) to run that many virtual machines. For visualization, I guess I need to translate their actions into a network graph; for instance, if one machine DDoS’s another machine, the graphic would show one node firing small bullets at another machine rapidly. This sounds pretty cool, actually! MMmmmmm …………..

Update: I liked it so much I stuck up a print out of it on my cube wall:

IMG_2227

Nov

28

Failure quotes roundup

Filed Under failure, fear, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

As many have noticed, I collect quotes and live by them.

Many are afraid of failure, myself included. That’s why I take comfort in these quotes. May they inspire you and change your outlook on failure like they have done to me!

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.
–Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Failure is an event, never a person.
–William D. Brown, Welcome Stress!

The only time you don’t fail is the last time you try anything - and it works.
–William Strong

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
–Thomas Edison

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Nov

25

Take pride in how far you have come, and have faith in how far you can go

Filed Under fear, stanford, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

Take pride in how far you have come, and have faith in how far you can go!
– Christian Larson

This quote here today is for a very dear friend of mine. She is very direct/honest, a meticulous planner, and she makes for a great project manager. She measures progress, foresee roadblocks (drawn from experience), and delivers a hundred and one percent, on time.

Recently, we were talking over after hearty meal, and I noticed that she was self-limiting herself inadvertently by planning too far ahead. The lesson here however, is one that many people can learn from, and I’m writing this here to remind myself of this as well. Just as I have previous written here, Vinod Khosla (famed Silicon Valley fellow) has said that he has seen so many brilliant teams limit themselves by self-imposed limitations (they couldn’t think big enough).

Not that she was narrow in thought, but sometimes I feel she plans too far ahead. Just like my dad. He plans too damn far ahead. And I know he reads this blog. Just to put things in perspective, this is a person who would literally “book” me to come over for Thanksgiving dinner a year in advance (ok, so I’m exaggerating–but I dont mind it at all actually, I was just trying to illustrate a point). Sometimes when you plan so far ahead, then you just never get anything done, period.
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Nov

25

London to Bruxelles, Belgique

Filed Under backpacking europe, travel | Leave a Comment

Update 2 DEC 2007 - My attempt to upgrade WordPress has left some formatting on this post messed up. I am aware of it, and I’ll fix it as soon as I find some time. I’m kind of busy at the moment.

london-to-bruxelles

Wow, I have been super busy since I last blogged about my Europe backpacking marathon. Oh where was I? Oh that’s right, I was in London on my way to Brussels, Belgium. In French, Brussels is “Belgique” and Belgium is “Belgique”, so if I interchange the words, I still mean the same thing. Personally, I think the French equivalent sounds better on the ears :p

I got to meet up with my ex-girlfriend Caroline, from my college days in Louisiana. She showed me around the country a bit. It’s a small country, so we covered a lot of ground in just a few hours.

Belgium, among other things are known for their waffles. Here you see me munching down a Belgian waffle in the middle of some really important historic building. I did it for the waffles. And the priceless picture.

Picture 010

Here’s the building again, from a distance. I really like the flag flapping in the air. It almost looks like a little flame, just suspended in mid air by magic. The grass is very well kept, and it’s nice to just sit down and enjoy the scenery.

Picture 014

Downtown Bruxelles, the streets abuzz with people and food, enjoying the good Belgian life! Notice the pavement: someone had to arrange those bricks by hand. This was very common throughout Europe. Some of these places had to bricks laid there since hundreds of years ago.

Picture 022

A building, designed by a famous architect in all Belgium.

Picture 017

Caroline and me.

Picture 021

What do you eat in Brussels? You eat mussels and french fries, of course!! Did you know, french fries was invented in Brussels? (If it wasn’t, then all the Belgians just lied to me)
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Nov

23

If at least one person on this life has breathed easier, ..

Filed Under changing the world, microfinance, quotes, san diego, startup, things to remind myself, wokai | Leave a Comment

And today’s quote is .. *drumroll*

To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!”

–- Ralph Waldo Emerson

And on a related quote, by an unknown author:

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.”

Speaking of changing the world, the non-profit microfinance startup, Wokai, that I am currently assisting on a volunteer basis is having it’s inaugural meet-and-greet for the San Diego team (and anyone interested). We’re hosting it tomorrow at Roger’s place at 2pm PST. Contact me for details (I’m not going to randomly posting someone’s home address on the web!)

Nov

18

Ubuntu touchpad fix

Filed Under howto | Leave a Comment

At work, my company issued me a Dell D620L laptop. For whatever reason, the touchpad moves the cursor painfully slow in Ubuntu (but not Windows). As a quick stop-gap measure, I just stick in a USB mice and use that. Today, I forgot my mouse so I decided that I’d look to see how I could fix it.

After some digging online for documentation, this is what worked for me:

  1. Open xorg.conf for edit (I found mine in /etc/X11/)
  2. Look under “synaptics” and add the following options 
       Option	"MinSpeed"	 "1.5"
   Option	"MaxSpeed"	 "1.7"
   Option	"AccelFactor"    "1.8"
  3. Tweak these three numbers as necessary to suit your taste

Here’s a screenshot (click for larger):

ubuntu-touchpad-fix

I hope this helps anyone facing the same annoying problem I did.

On shameless-promo note, check out my cool wallpaper :p The scenery is a picture I took when I was in Grindelwald, Switzerland.

Nov

18

Quotes: Invention and execution

Filed Under execution, things to remind myself, uncategorized | Leave a Comment

One thing I feel most passionately about: love of invention will never die.”

–Karl Friedrich Benz

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back– Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Prelude at the Theatre,” 1983

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Nov

18

Wyclef on 1 world, 1 race, and the American Dream

Filed Under changing the world, did you know, passion | Leave a Comment

Did you know that Wyclef Jean (yes, the rapper) was appointed as a goodwill ambassador to Haiti and was awarded a diplomatic passport?

Famous performing artists wield quite a bit of power, and it’s not surprising that they sometimes help drive political agendas. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. Who would have guessed that he would one day become the Governor of the great state of California?

Leaders are great salespeople. They can tell a great story, to move people. Here’s Wyclef’s 7 minute story of 1 world, 1 race, and the American Dream.

This land is the land of opportunity. There’s books, there’s libraries. You get a bus card. You can take the train.

Wyclef, thanks for keeping the dream alive.

Nov

16

What would you die for?

Filed Under changing the world, fear, passion, quotes, stanford, things to ponder about | Leave a Comment

And even if he tries to kill you, you’ll develop the inner conviction that there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth dying for. And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
– Martin Luther King, Jr., Speech at the Great March on Detroit

MLK would willingly die with no regrets for a cause worth fighting for. Do you know what cause you are fighting for? What would you die for?

From the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford

Nov

13

Wallstrip

Filed Under uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I’ve been kinda busy lately, so this is just a short post. I watched Wallstrip when it first launched .. then sort of lost interest in it and stopped paying attention. Recently as I was cleaning up my RSS feeds (”delisting” the feeds got stale), I checked it again and it sure has been a lot more entertaining. Today’s report on TIF (that’s the ticker symbol for Tiffany & Company) was just flat out entertaining. I think this is as good as it gets for reporting on a company’s stock (of course I hope for better!).

I mean, they have really added value here by taking something as mundane as reporting on a company’s stock to a whole new level. I honestly don’t care about TIF’s stock but if they do another video like this, I would totally want to watch it. For the uninformed single bachelors like myself (hmm .. maybe there’s a reason for this), Tiffany & Company is a jewelry company whose goodies girls go nuts over. And they’re not cheap stuff.

But my readers, let’s not get carried over the shiny rocks. The real star here is Wallstrip :p I know it’s old news that this startup got acquired by CBS, but I’d say happy belated congratulations anyway.

Is the company’s product providing value to end users? Check!

From Kuala Lumpur to Brussels? Now I can TOTALLY relate to that ;)

Nov

7

Be foolish enough to try make your dreams come true

Filed Under changing the world, innovation, passion, people i like, perseverance, quotes, stanford, startup, things to remind myself | 2 Comments

An entrepreneur is someone who dares to dream the dreams and is foolish enough to try to make those dreams come true. Innovative bottom up methods will solve problems that now seem intractable- from energy to poverty to disease. Science and technology, powered by the fuel of entrepreneurial energy, are the largest multipliers of resources we have to solve our many social problems.

– Vinod Khosla, founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, former partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, partner at Khosla Ventures

An interview of Vinod, from iinovate. I found this podcast by accident from browsing the iTunes store after purchasing my new iPod nano. I’m impressed by it, and I love having access to the audio and video podcasts on the go. It’s like having a small TV on demand wherever I go. Do watch the video clip below, and visit iinovate

Here are some of my notes that to me are the key takeaways:
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Nov

4

Where the hell I have been for the past month

Filed Under backpacking europe, photos, travel | Leave a Comment

* The title of this post is inspired by the “Where The Hell Is Matt” project. I have wished I could travel like him, and I am thankful that I now have this opportunity to see the world.

This is my first full weekend in San Diego — after a week since I got back. Technically, I got back late Sunday night and had to work the next day .. so needless to say, didn’t have time to write much. As I have previously mentioned, I was backpacking western Europe. This is the first of my deferred blog post series on this little life-changing experience of mine, where I’ll wrap up in a final post on lessons learned, etc. I would have liked blogging live while I was actually traveling but am faced with certain constraints, such as: internet access wasn’t too easy to come by (I veto’d against taking a laptop at the last minute), I have to pay for ‘net access in euros (uhh, weak US greenback doesn’t help), the time writing and searching for access is wasted instead of exploring Europe.

So why go? Why backpack Europe, why travel alone, how do you justify this expense, what is the return on investment here? Why go on a vacation anyway? Aren’t vacations for people who are lazy and can’t stand what we call “working in the real world”? When I first started working, I pooh-pooh’d vacations. I loathed what was to me, a waste of precious time and money. Needless to say, after 3 years of “real world work” just right after my bachelors, it was really tough for me to admit that I was losing my sanity, and a vacation *gasp* was in order.

My doctor didn’t _explicitly_ recommend that I take a vacation, so it was even tougher to justify. I couldn’t say “oh, my doctor recommended it”. In the end, I read this great story here, and decided that enough is enough. My sanity is far more important than any job I will ever have in my life. What’s the point of having a great job if you are insane? You can’t function anyway. And so that justified the expense, I bit the bullet and paid for my flight. *I highly recommend workaholics to click on that link to the story

At this point in my life, money is nothing more than an enabler for me. If I don’t use it to enable me to do something, especially when it means to heal myself when I am sick, then why make money in the first place. Money making is just a skill. If I use up that money today, I can make that money back with my skills. I am confident in my skills. You could rob me of my money, but not my skills. Sanity, I rather not risk, since I don’t know if I can get that back. (Lack of sanity also means loss of skills?)

The backpacking trip was pretty much a marathon: 3 weeks, 12 places (2 repeats). Yes, I traveled alone — and I lived the pros and cons of that (cons include having to negotiate with a mugger/extortionist in Amsterdam, more on that later). I was careful though, to pace myself and take a breather, to say smell the flowers, and actually enjoy the scenery. Last thing I want is a vacation from my vacation. I wasn’t going to “work” myself just to hit up all the places I had on my mind. I was going to relax and enjoy this.

Since I was making the trip up as I went, I didn’t know what my final journey would look like while on the trip itself. I only planned a 24 hours ahead, sometimes only a few hours (like3-4 hours) ahead. The joys of unpredictability and randomness ;) In my normal life, I am very structured and I plan meticulously. Being this ad-hoc and unpredictable was not easy, but I got used to it, and look, I got back home in one piece!

I flew out of Los Angeles to London because its much cheaper than flying out of San Diego. My drop off point for my sprint across western Europe was London. I would land there, and depart from there. In case you’re wondering (I get asked this a lot), I got a return trip from LAX to London-Gatwick for about US $560 (from www.priceline.com’s “name your own price” game — which I must say, wasn’t too easy to game :/ I tried).

Just to mention, London has multiple airports. The London Heathrow (LHR) airport is probably the main one, and was a bit more expensive than if I were to land in London Gatwick (LGW), hence I took the latter. The Gatwick airport is a 30 mins train ride away from downtown London, not that much further than Heathrow. The train ride (Gatwick Express) takes you direct from the airport to the Victoria Station in downtown central London, a good starting point for backpackers. Each train ride costs about 18 pounds sterling, or about US$36.

Here’s my final itinerary:

  1. Arrive in London from Los Angeles
  2. Bruxelles, Belgique (Brussels, Belgium)
  3. Paris, France
  4. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
  5. Interlaken, Switzerland
  6. Venezia, Italia (Venice)
  7. Nürnberg, Deutschland (Nuremberg, Germany)
  8. Berlin, Deutschland
  9. Hamburg/HafenCity, Deutschland
  10. Amsterdam, Netherlands
  11. Bruxelles, Belgique
  12. London, UK
  13. (and back to Los Angeles)

Here’s a map of my route (in orange). I went in a counter-clockwise direction. The places circled in blue was the places I had hoped to hit, but could not — did not have enough time, and as you can see .. were a little bit further from the circle around Europe I was taking. (Sorry I couldn’t make it to visit you in Sweden, Mathias! Rain check?)

countries_europe_map

Alright, so .. get on with the pictures already and stop babbling!

I arrived in London, but my trip really began with Brussels. I arrived in London in the morning, fought of a bit of a jet lag (stayed just 1 night), and took the “Chunnel” — a super high speed train across the English channel to Brussels. Cost was 60 pound sterling, and took 2.5 hours.

The beginning of my “Watch out world, here I come” 2007 western Europe backpacking trip. Yes, I do it like Hans Solo — me, myself, and I ;) If nobody wants to do what I want to do with me, then I will do it myself!! (I decided that “Watch out world, here I come” would be my motto for this little trip of mine)

Chunnel station

Looks like an airport, does it not? Security was about as tight as US airports, when it came to boarding:

Chunnel station, looks like an airport doesn't it?

Me and the “Chunnel”:

Me and the "Chunnel" itself!

.. and some Canadian chicks!

Picture 008

Next stop .. Gare du Midi, Bruxelles! “Gare” means “station”, “Gare du Midi” means “south station”. My first time in a non-English country. Wow-wee, should be fun fun fun.

Nov

1

String theory in 2 mins

Filed Under regular reads | Leave a Comment

I’m a big fan of using technology as an enabler, and today we see the use of web video to lower of entry for education. In this clip below, the introduction of a complex topic (and perhaps scary for non-physics type) of String Theory is explained in a simple 2 min clip. Made just for kids! (and adults too)