Yearly Archives: 2008

Daily Scribble

Biofuel

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Fossil fuel will eventually runs out, one of the solutions to the environment problem is switch to biofuel.  Biofuel is produced by convernting plants into ethonal.  Plants is 100% renewable energy.  As long as there is land, water and sunlight, plants will grow every year.  Although biofuel is a clean energy, there are controversials about biofuel will disrupt food production.  I believed in this myth in the past and have doubt about the use of biofuel.  It turns out that is only true for 1st generation biofuel made from grains or corns.  The 2nd generation biofuel made from cellulor plants like grass or algae will have a 100 fold increase in efficiency.  We can produce enough biofuel to fill up all our gas tanks without affecting food production.  According to a news report, the effect of biofuel on food production is less than 1%.  Developed countries already waste more than 1% of food, so making biofuel should have virtually no impact on the food price.

I quoted the news in an online discussion about renewal energy and environmental problem. My view point is the Earth have more than enough energy for our consumption, only that we don’t have the technology to harvest the energy.  It contradicts with the view point of most environment people that we should simply use less energy.  I think the best way to solve the energy problem is through technology.  You can never solve the problem by conservation, it can only buy you some more time until the technology is ready.  Some people challenge the 1% number and accuse me posting misleading information.  I don’t know how the number is arrived, so I decide to work out the math myself to prove I am right.  After some research, here is the math:

US has 938 million acres of farmland (from US Dept of Agriculture website)
US use 138 billion gallon gas per year (from US Energy Statistic)
The highest efficiency of biofuel production is 15000 gallon per acre (from Wiki entry on Biofuel )
938m * 1 % * 15000 = 140.7B > 138B

Therefore, if we can produce biofuel with the most efficiency future technology, we will only need 1% of US farmland to produce enough gas for all the cars in US.  With the best technology today, we can only produce 1000 gallon per acre.  (BTW, grains, corn or soybean’s efficient is less than 200 gallon per acre.)  Biofuel is a pretty new technology, there are lots of room for improvement.  If it can follow the pattern of the Moore’s Law, 15 fold increase in a few decades is totaly feasible, at least according to the theory.

電影

Speed Racer 極速賽車手

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Mach 5 還記得小時候放學回家﹐其中一套最愛看的卡通是《賽車小英雄》。看著那架可以上天下海法寶多多﹐白色車身紅色M字標記的麥克五號﹐就會幻想那是自己的坐駕﹐在賽車道上打倒敵人。想不到差不多二十年後,憑Martix成名的Wachowski兄弟﹐竟然把這套經典卡通搬上大銀幕開拍真人版。可能主角不再是小孩子﹐片名不能叫小英雄﹐名字順帶改為《標速賽車手》。

真人版在戲院上映時﹐影評己經是劣評如潮﹐不論是故事還是畫面﹐被人批評至一文不值。很不幸我真的同意那些影評的看法﹐這齣電影是名乎其實的垃圾電腦特技電影﹐若不是靠Wachowski兄弟和麥克五號的金漆招牌﹐觀眾才不會入場觀看。我已經很寬容地放過這電影的大部份缺點﹐反正的卡通改篇對劇情就不會有嚴格要求。情節白痴是因為受制於原著劇本﹐在角色和設計定上其實頗為忠於原著。主角毫無演技可言﹐大部份時間影著他拉屎般的表情﹐不過真正主角是麥克五號。可惜這齣電影的最大敗筆﹐就是竟然最重要的賽車場面超級爛。電腦特技太多太花巧鏡頭飛來飛去﹐又加插無厘頭茄厘啡的大特寫﹐背景太過眼花潦亂干擾視線﹐完全看不清楚賽車道上發生什麼事。賽車不停地彈來彈去轉來轉去﹐我連架賽車是什麼樣子也看不清楚。觀眾入場的最主要原因就是看賽車﹐難道有人會認真地欣賞演員的藍幕演技﹐被夾硬堆切的父子情兄弟愛的故事感動號﹖

我承認會看這套電影﹐完全是因為小時候的情意結。 諷刺的是看電影的製作花絮﹐竟然電影本身還好看。電影公司為宣傳﹐不惜工本造了台麥克五號出來。這台車子不單能跑﹐還很神奇地製置電影中的法寶﹐有防彈玻璃電鋸伸縮跳槓。看這台麥克五號真車在公路上飛馳﹐比在電影中的賽道漂移還好看。這齣電影另外還有一個驚喜﹐原來飾演女主角Trixie的Chrisitina Ricci﹐就是以前愛登士家庭的小女孩﹐怪不得她樣子這樣面善。據說Wachowski兄弟是日本動畫迷﹐所以才會重拍這套經典動畫。不知道他們近年還有沒有看日本動畫﹐有沒有看電腦賽車場面出名的《頭文字D》。或許他們應該向《頭文字D》學習﹐明白什麼才叫做緊張刺激有迫力的賽車場面。說起來港產片 《頭文字D》的賽車場面﹐比《標速賽車手》的賽車場面還好看。

Daily Scribble

Plane Crazy

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Recently, I am addicted to this silly facebook application, which is quite not myself.  In general I keep my distance from uselss facebook applications.  I naturally ignore most of the application request and actually spent time delete all the useless applications from my profile.  Somehow this application had a click on me and turn me into a patient of compulsive disoder.  I log on facebook loyally and play this little application every day.

The idea of plane crazy is pretty simply.  You got a photograph of an airplane on your profile.  You start off with crappy hang glider and work you way up to A380 or Air Force One.  Each day, you have a quota of 10 races with other players.  If you win, you get points.  You can use the points to upgrade your airplane.  I like airplanes since I was a little kid, so I spent my 2 minutes with this silly application, then wait for my turns until the next day.  I am working my way up slowly.  I just got to the level of business jet.  My goal is to get reach some decent fighters, like a F-14 or F-22.

I wonder why I am so addicted to this silly game.  I guess it probably the same reason why people are addicted to fluff friends.  It is just a mystery.

Daily Scribble

Indian and beef

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When I worked in India, I made friends to a few colleagues in the Bangalore office.  They shown me show me around town on weekends and we had lots of fun together.  One of them is visiting Vancouver for work, so it is my turn to be the host and show him the city.  We had a welcome lunch with other team member at Cactus Club today.  This friend of mine is a rare Indian because he eat beef.  He is the one brought me to try the illegal off-menu Indian deep fry beef in Bangalore.  We recommended him to have steak for lunch.  At first he wanted have the steak well done, luckily we stopped him or his steak would be like shoe leather.  It would taste best with medium-rare, but we afraid he may not like the blood juice, so we ordered him a medium instead.  This is his first time travel outside of India, so this is his first time to have a real steak.  He like the steak a lot and complain that he could not find  such a good steak in India.

When I was in India, I told him about my guns and I promise to bring him shooting when he come over.  So tonight we went to shooting range after work.  Due to various delay, we had dinner at McDonald to save time.  It turns out having a hamburger in McDonald is a new experience to him.  The McDonald in India don’t serve hamburger, they only have chicken, fish or veggie burger.  The funny thing is somehow he think hamburger is made of ham instead of beef.  I have to explain to him hamburger is not made of ham.  The name comes form where it is invented, which is Hamburg, Germany.  Other than serving hamburger, our McDonald is pretty much the same as the Indian McDonald.  The next food I will get him to try is sushi.  He still haven’t overcome the idea of eating raw fish.  I guess we should start with California roll then slowly work the way up to sashimi.  It is always fun introducing new cuisine to people from different culture, whether he like the food or not.

Daily Scribble

Ineffective incentive

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Today we have our department quarterly update.  The director flew in town to give us overview of how the department is doing.  My project is the only project in the department, so it has very high profile and no room to fail.  Thanks to the stupid decision of close down two design centers in Canada, lay off many experienced engineers and outsource the work to India, the project is quite behind schedule.  Now the management finally wake up and realize the problem, they are all scrambling and try all means to pull the schedule in.  They try to add more resource in India, but they simply could not find any qualified engineer.

They try to hire back ex-employees from the closed design center as contractors.  It is pretty much admitting last year’s decision to close down the site is stupid.  One desperate measure to they try is by making us work hard and longer hours.  This idea won’t work if they use the stick because it would only demotivate us and further lower our productivity.  They try to use carots and lure us to work overtime.  The director said if the project is finish on time, the whole team will have a special bonus as incentive.

This idea sounds great, the only question is how much is the bonus.  The director did not give us any number or percentage, so the incentive won’t work.  No one would work harder if they don’t know roughtly how much we will get in return.  After the meeting, some of us did a rought calculation, we all agree that the bonus has to be at least $10k to be attractive.  Judging from previous record of the company, the so call special incentive bonus could be merely a few thousand dollars, which won’t worth working your ass off.