I never realize Volcano is such a big threat to mankind that it could doom all of us. My impression of Volcano are those cone shape mountains with lava flowing in Hawaii or Japan. Actually those kind of Volcano are quite harmless, only affect area on the way of the lava rivers. Mount St. Helen near Portland is a different kind of Volcano. It does not have an open top, so pressure builds up inside the mountain. When it erupted in 1980, the shock wave and ashes kills everything within a few kilometers. Towns as far as 30km are covered with ashes. I remember there was a movie called Volcano in which the fire fighters heroicly blocking the flow of lava and save the city. Actually in an eruption, the lava is the last thing you should worry about. It moves so slow that it is only a logistic question to let everybody escape. The most deadly things from an eruption are the ashes. Near ground zero, the high pressure ashes will cut through anything on its way. When the shockwave dies down, the ashes in the air is so thick that it is unbreathable. For a large area, although there is no immediate danger, the ashes covers the land. The ashed land is not suitable to grow crops for many months or even years.? There are so many ashes from St. Helen that it can bury Manhatten under 20 meters of Ashes. The damage caused by St. Helen is very bad but not fatal to mankind. The whole Yellow Stone national park used to be a super volcano millions of years ago. When it last erupted, the ashes makes lands within 1000km radius unlivable and affect people on the other side of the globe. It has enough ashes to cover California 6m deep. If a super volcano erupt today, at least half of the world’s population would die. Unfortunately, with our current understanding of Earth and technology, we can’t do much about the super volcano except pray for it wouldn’t happen.

I have been a long time fans of the Gundam vs arcade game. I have played since the first generation based on the One Year War. I followed almost every generation, DX, Z Gundam, Z Dx, Seed and the latest one Seed Destiny. I would say I am an above average player of this game. In solo mode, I can go up to phase 6. I am able go all the way to the final phase if my partner is stronger than me. At least my skill is good enough so that I won’t be his burden. I am so happy that I finally finished this game for the first time. There are lots tricks to learn in this game. The rule of thumb is don’t attack first, wait for the enemy make a mistake then attack. There are over 50 gundams you can choose in the game. Here are my favourate picks: Large MS: Strike Freedom, Medium MS: Strike Launcher, Strike Noir, Force Impluse, Small MS: M1 Astray. Occationally I use some other MS just for fun. However, I perform the best selecting these MS. I am praticing how to connect shots for maximium damage. I am not very fond of close combat, it is too dangerous. I perfer sniping the enemy from medium to long range. I rather play safe, take my time and kill the enemy MS one shot at a time.

After flying way to Hawaii to have fun last weekend, I have to pay back in this long weekend.? I asked for an extension for my philosophy essay which suppose to due last Thursday.? So I spent most of my time home writing my assignment on John Stuart Mill and his political philosophy classic On Liberty.? The essay requires 1800 words.? It is the longest philosophy essay I have ever written.? The professor is very kind.? He outline the structure of the essay for us.? First we have to define Mill’s thesis and repoduce his arguments, then we have to criticize his arguments and come up with his potential responses.? At last, of couse we have to conclude the essay by stating whether Mill successful defense his thesis.? The criticism part is not hard, the potential response part quite tricky especially when your mind is pre-occupied with how to defeat his argument.? I think the ability of arguing back and forth inside one’s mind is must to be a philosophor.? You can’t always throw your half baked thesis to your opponents to test the water.? At first I thought writing 1800 words would be really though.? I found that by breaking up the essays into managable chuck of 200 words each make it easier to write.? At the end I have to leave out quotes from the text and two of my four arguments to meet the word limit.? I have enough material to develope it into a 3000 words essay.? Another trick to make writing essay easier is format the essay only after you are done.? Write the essay in single space not only allow you see more of your arguments on screen and help stimulating your train of thoughts.? It has a positive psycological effect makes you feel like you are not writing an assignment but merely writing your blog or replying in internet forums.? It is less stressful to B.S. in the net than write for grades.

This issue of economist has an article on synthetic meat, which is growing animal muscle in the lab. When this technology is commercialize, it will give the term meat factory a new meaning. I think this would be the biggest revolution in argiculture since the introduction of genetic modified crops. I can envision synthetic meat would be a hugh bussiness and become the main source of meat supply in the future. First, it will develope a niche market amount vegaterians. Since growing meat in test tube or in meat tree doesn’t involve killing of animals, they will make those animal right hypocrits ease the guilt of enjoying tasty meat products. Then the syntheic meat will move down to main stream market, not only compete with traditional meat on the cost front, but also on variaty. As the technology mature, syntheic meat not only getting cheaper, it will have additional vitamin and nuituition or the food scientist can energy different meat textture. The holy grail would be syntheic meat of endanger animals, so we can have a taste of them without causing extingishing the species. Just like any disruptive technology, it will face heavy resistance from the incumbents. We gota watch out for the FUD attacks from the traditional meat farms. They may even pull political strings, influcence the science of food safty to protect their fat profit. I wonder what side of the fence will the animal right activities and the green movement will stand. Synthetic meats seems the perfect solution to the world’s food problem. It may even solve the problem of meat supply in deep space mission. The astronauts can grow their meat supply inside their spaceship.

In my previous project there was a tradition.? Every friday afternoon, the team get together in a meeting room to drink Scotch.? The first few bottle is by the generosity of the manager, later people take turn and contribute the bottles, especially when they travel.? This fun and team motivating event stopped when the project becomes very busy, then later everyone move into different projects.? A few team members join my current project, and one of them won a $50 spot light award for giving ideas to increase productivity.? He kinda donated the award money to a fine bottle of Scotch, and the friday afternoon drinking is revived.? I still have half a bottle left from the previous project, so I bring it to the meeting as well.? The whole team just sit by the table, drink and chat.? It has really good atomsphere.? The manager and even the director join us by hearing our laughters and smelling the drink down the hallway.? Those come to the meeting early bring their own glass.? The few people come in late has no glass.? First they say they don’t want to drink, just join us for the chatter.? Then I took the trouble to bring over some glasses from the cafeteria and everyone start drinking.? Not drinking is just an excuse of having no glass.? Unless those who are allegic to alcohol, no one will stay dry on this moderate social drinking event.