The Moon's Face

Top right: photo by me 6/8/2009
Top left: photo by NASA 11/5/2012
Bottom right: photo by NASA 5/2/2012
Bottom left: photo by NASA @Paris 7/5/2012

No matter where or when we look up to the Moon, we always see the same features. In other words, there is no way on Earth we can see the other side of the Moon. You might think that the Moon doesn't spin. WRONG! Incredibly the Moon takes exactly the same amount of time to orbit the Earth and to spin on its axis. That is why we can only see one side of the Moon from Earth. Many refer the other side as 'the dark side of the Moon' just like the title of Transfomers 2011.

Talking Bout Human Evolution

Yesterday my 4-years-old niece asked me if human beings are evolved from ape, why are there still gorillas around? Will they become human someday, somehow? Okay come think of it, do you believe mankind evolved from ape? If not so and if the first human is an infant, can he raise himself in the wild? Or just like the stories of feral children who raised by the animals in the wild.

Many in the past and today still believe that mankind was created by God. In Greek mythology, Prometheus were given the task of creating man. The Sumerian believes their God, Anunnaki is responsible for human creation. In the book of Genesis, God created mankind in his own image. There are also many other deposits claiming that the God created human race.

Today there are people who believes that God didn't really create man, but man created God. Sounds ridiculous right? But hell lets put it this way. The Gods that our ancestors described as, are they the ultimate God who created the universe? Or they are actually extraterrestrial beings that came from the sky a.k.a. aliens. They explore the universe just like we do today. They found earth with the ingredients of life. They started their genetic experiments and viola, here we are. These aliens has super intelligence, high-tech weapons and flying sorcerers that our ancestors had misinterpreted them as the Gods.

Due to the human beings are so special compared to other animals, came the idea of a human creator, either the Gods or aliens. Anyway if you are looking for a creator, nature created human. In fact, we were not created. We evolved. From microorganism to bacteria to fish to amphibian to mammals and now here we are. Asking about whether we could raise ourselves in the wild? Yes we could coz we were once from the wild. So are we going to continue to evolve? Hell yeah coz the purpose of life in the universe is all about evolution.

You might also wonder what will we evolve to. Well over billions of years, from bacteria we became what we are today. We might not live long enough to witness what will we evolve to but life can only get more sophisticated over time. That is the rule of the game.

Why Are We Recycled Atoms

What are we made of? Tissues and cells. But what are tissues and cells made of? They are actually molecules and atoms. Atom, from its original name Atomos in Greek which means uncutable, indivisible or couldn't be further broken down. The smallest particle that builds everything in the universe.

All of the atoms in the universe was created during The Moment of Creation, The Big Bang. Through the process of physics and chemistry, they were recycled over and over again since 14 billion years ago when the universe was created almost instantly.

The oxygen that I breath in now might be the oxygen atoms that was once breath out by Isaac Newton or even a dinosaur. When I die and if I am buried, part of me might find its way into an animal or a plant. The animal or the plant might be consumed by a human being. If my body is burnt and my ashes are thrown into the sea, I might even reach farther.

Many religions always told us that we are made of earth's dust and eventually our body returns to earth when we die. True but that is just a small part of a story of the universe. Some of the minerals in my body might be from the asteroids that punches Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment about 4 billion years ago. And during the early age of our solar system about 4.5 billions years ago, our planet collides with another planet of a size of Mars, called Theia. Most of Theia's mass ended in Earth and the rest of its fragments were ejected into the orbit around earth and later formed the Moon.

Not only we are part of the Earth, we are part of the universe. One day we will eventually return to the universe. The recycling process will keep on going until The Big Rip, the ultimate fate of the universe, the end of time.

iOS vs Android: Hardware Compatibility

When we are talking about iOS vs Android, we are not barely talking about the hardware. We would wanna focus on the firmware itself and how your hardware can benefit from it. Lets take iPhone 3GS and one of the best Android phone in 2009, HTC Hero for comparison. Both are the best phones released in year 2009.

iPhone 3GS 16GB
RRP: RM 2490 (when it first launched)
Released: June 2009
CPU: 600MHz
RAM: 256MB
OS: iOS 3.0
Upgradable to: iOS 5.1.1 - May 2012

HTC Hero
RRP: RM 2399 (when it first launched)
Released: July 2009
CPU: 528MHz
RAM: 288MB
OS: Android 1.5 Cupcake
Upgradable to: Android 2.1 Eclair (official ROM) - May 2010
                        Android 2.3 Gingerbread (custom ROM) - April 2011

By looking at the comparison above, there are not much difference on their system spec and released price. However you can see that there is a big difference in their firmware support. Yeah this is what I am talking about, software/firmware support. The latest official firmware for HTC Hero is Android 2.1 which was released in May 2010. The developer has stopped providing firmware update less than a year after the phone is launched. Thanks to CyanogenMod who has released it's custom ROM for Android 2.2 Froyo and later Android 2.3 Gingerbread. But if you are not an IT savvy kinda person, you'll find that flashing a custom ROM for Android device is quite a hassle. Even if you have successfully flashed to the most stable CM7 ROM, the good looking GUI in Gingerbread will eats your 256MB of RAM like a hungry shark and eventually suffers from performance issues.

If you bought an iPhone 3GS when it first launched, it is now about 3-years-old. Probably you can see a lot of wear and tear on your phone. However you are still getting software support from Apple until present. By only a few clicks in iTunes, your 3GS will be updated to the current latest iOS 5.1.1. You can see how a 3GS user appreciates the release of iOS 5.1.1 as it fixes hell lot of bugs experienced in previous iOS and the 3GS can now benefits from some of the new features in iOS 5.1.1. Apple is now working on iOS 6 and i believe iOS 5.1.1 will be the final supported firmware for iPhone 3GS.

Anyway, what mentioned above are almost history. The recent development of smartphone OS is what we are more interested to know. Apple has been doing a pretty good job over the years and we can only expect they will do it better in future. As for Android, will they focus more on device compatibility or continue with their fancy new features which encourage users to frequently purchase new devices. We'll see...

Remove Live Security Platinum

In any case if your computer is planted with Live Security Platinum, never ever trust what it says. Basically it looks like an anti-virus software where it scans your computer and threatens you with a long list of virus/malware infection. Eventually asking you to purchase the software and all of these is actually a big scam. Itself is a virus/malware instead. Follow the below steps to remove Live Security Platinum;
1. Identify Live Security Platinum location / directory. Right click the Live Security Platinum icon / shortcut on your desktop and click properties. It usually stores at Application Data or ProgramData and in a folder which has filename of random characters (creepy).
2. Open IE (Internet Explorer). Enter 'http://live.sysinternals.com/procexp.exe'.
3. Download the file and move it to your desktop.
4. Run the file. If you're unable to run the file coz Live Security Platinum is blocking it, rename it to 'iexplore.exe' then try to run it.
5. Find the actual running file. Its name should be the same as the random characters as in step 1. Right click the file and choose 'kill process'.
6. Now go to its directory to delete the entire files. Example C:\ProgramData\The Random Characters as in Step 1. Delete the whole folder and you're done.

Okay by now little more or less you might doubt that your computer is not completely clean. You may download and install Malwarebytes Anti-Malware to clean up some malware or with any other reliable anti-spyware or anti-virus software.

A Kiss 2011 Goodbye

 The greatest moments of 2011