3102729    สรีรวิทยาระดับเซลล์ขั้นสูง    Advanced Animal Cell Physiology

โครงสร้างและหน้าที่ของเยื่อหุ้มเซลล์ การขนส่งสารอินทรีย์และสารอนินทรีย์ผ่านเยื่อหุ้มเซลล์ เมแทบอลิสมของโปรตีน คาร์โบไฮเดรต และไขมันภายในเซลล์

(Structures and functions of cell membrane; the transport of organic substances through membrane; cellular metabolism of protein, carbohydrate and fat.)

(3102729 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

3102737    สรีรวิทยาขั้นสูงของเซลสัตว์    Advanced Animal Cell Physiology

โครงสร้างและหน้าที่ของเยื่อหุ้มเซลล์ การขนส่งของสารอินทรีย์และสารอนินทรีย์ผ่านเยื่อหุ้มเซลล์ การส่งสัญญานติดต่อกันระหว่างเซลล์ และการทำงานของเซลล์ในระดับโมเลกุล เมแทบอลิซึมของโปรตีน คาร์โบไฮเดรต และไขมันภายในเซลล์ การควบคุมการสร้างโปรตรีนและคาร์โบไฮเดรตโดยเซลล์

(Structrues and functions of cell membranes; the transport of organic and inorganic substances through membrane; cell signalling and transduction pathways; cell functions in molecular level; cellular metabolism of protein, carbohydrate and fat; cell protien and cartbohydrate sysntheses.)

(3102737 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

From/De: Namco Bandai Games America

NAMCO BANDAI GAMES TO RELEASE SERIES OF FREE DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT FOR DRAGON BALL®: RAGING BLAST

 NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. will release a series of free DLC packs for Dragon Ball®: Raging Blast for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. The first pack in the series is now available on PlayStation®Network and will be ready for download from Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for Xbox 360 on Nov. 26, 2009. The series includes customized character packs that will be released as free downloadable content every two weeks between now and April 2010. Each pack will include customized versions of popular characters, each with different powered-up abilities, which can be used in exciting versus battles in the game.

The following customized Dragon Ball character packs will be available for free download on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for Xbox 360 and PlayStation®Network biweekly (note: packs will be available on same days for both platforms, except holidays as noted):

• Nov. 24, 2009 (PlayStation Network): Warriors on Earth Pack – Krillin, Yamcha, Tien and Chiaotzu
• Nov. 26, 2009 (Xbox LIVE Marketplace): Warriors on Earth Pack – Krillin, Yamcha, Tien and Chiaotzu
• Dec. 10, 2009: Alien Warriors Pack – Vegeta (Scouter), Raditz, Nappa, Zarbon and Dodoria
• Dec. 22, 2009 (PlayStation Network): Ginyu Force Pack – Captain Ginyu, Recoome, Burter, Jeice and Guldo
• Dec. 24, 2009 (Xbox LIVE Marketplace): Ginyu Force Pack – Captain Ginyu, Recoome, Burter, Jeice and Guldo
• Jan. 7, 2010: Androids Pack – Android #16, Android #17, Android #18, Android #19 and Dr. Gero
• Jan. 21, 2010: Warriors of Justice Pack – Kid Gohan, Gohan, Kid Trunks, Goten and Videl
• Feb. 4, 2010: Revived Warriors Pack – Majin Buu, Kid Buu, Broly, Super Gogeta and Super Saiyan 3 Broly
• Feb. 18, 2010: Saiyans Pack – Majin Vegeta, Trunks (Fighting Teen), Vegito, Bardock and Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta
• March 4, 2010: Ultimate Warriors Pack 1 – Goku, Teen Gohan, Piccolo, Bardock and Super Gogeta
• March 18, 2010: Ultimate Warriors Pack 2 – Majin Vegeta, Frieza, Android #17, Android #18 and Cell
• April 1, 2010: Ultimate Warriors Pack 3 – Vegeta (Scouter), Vegeta, Trunks (Sword), Vegito and Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta
• April 15, 2010: Ultimate Warriors Pack 4 – Majin Buu, Super Buu, Kid Buu, Broly and Super Saiyan 3 Broly

Recreating the popular Dragon Ball Z series’ epic combat in all its glory, Dragon Ball: Raging Blast includes a host of exciting gameplay options including powerful and customizable attacks, stunning HD graphics, and a variety of gameplay modes including online or offline versus and tournament matches. Dragon Ball: Raging Blast features more than 70 characters, including transformations, facing off against each other in iconic battles throughout the Dragon Ball Z series’ sagas as their favorite heroes and villains.

New interactive and massively destructible environments lend an enhanced layer of intensity to the battle as characters can now take immense damage from being smashed into mountains, buildings and debris during heated battles. On top of classic signature moves, characters also benefit from a new “Super Rising” move which allows players to quickly fly upwards throughout large-scale battle stages, adding a new layer of strategy and tactics to the melee. As players progress through the game and win more battles, they receive items and Super Attacks as rewards. Players can then utilize these with the Ultimate Customize option to configure up to three customization profiles of each character, which can then be used in versus battles. Dragon Ball: Raging Blast is set to deliver more explosive fighting action than ever seen before!

Developed by acclaimed game studio SPIKE, Dragon Ball: Raging Blast is rated “T” for teen audiences by the ESRB and carries an MSRP of $59.99.

So we had to leave Merritt because the guy that was generous enough to let us stay at his motel, Peter, lost his job.  I blame Brian.  It definitely wasn’t my fault ’cause I didn’t sleep in the motel that night.  I woke up in somebody’s backyard.  That’s when I lost my guitar.

The people whose yard it was were concerned for me having somewhere to sleep.  I dazily explained I was staying at the Double D Inn and made my way off their property.  I somehow found my way back to the DoubleD and slept about an hour before Peter came in and told us we had to go.  Apparently his boss was coming back into town and Brian had been knocking on peoples doors the night before.  Peter had two jobs and he lost both of them somehow, if that’s even possible.  Poor Peter.

So now I’m realizing I don’t have my guitar so we retrace our steps from the night before, if that’s even possible.  The bar we were at said I had it with me when they kicked us out.  Hopefully that’s a last call kind of kicking out but I’m afeared it wasn’t.  So now we’re looking for the house I woke up at when a van pulls up asking if I’m Trevor Porter.  I am and I’m reunited with my guitar to my extreme relief.

So today’s ride is a generalization of Merritt locals, Natives, fellow travelers and random friendlies, driving us to the fire camp and back.  But, yeah, the fires don’t need any more volunteers.  So here we are in Merritt with nowhere to stay and nowhere to go.  Both of us barely slept the night before and we’re exhausted.  We even went into the police station and asked if we could sleep in some cells.  Nope, we had to break the law.  We looked around for something illegal to do but everything was too much effort so we continued down the street out of town..

3105773    เทคนิคการเพาะเลี้ยงเซลล์    Cell Culture Techniques

การเตรียมอุปกรณ์ และสารซึ่งจำเป็น การเตรียมเซลล์เพาะเลี้ยง การเลี้ยงเซลล์ในลักษณะเซลล์ชั้นเดียวหรืเซลล์แขวนลอย เพื่อการเพาะเลี้ยงเซลล์ของสัตว์ที่มีกระดูกสันหลัง

(Equipments and solutions preparation for cell cultures; preparation of cell culture and maintenance of cells as monolayer or suspension for cultivation of vertebrate cells.)

(3105773 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

So once again I find myself sleepless, but not in Seattle. Never the less, it’s about a boy. I did not intend for this blogspot to be my diary on line, I very much loath those people who do that, but it seems to be working better than therapy anyways so what the hell. We are all failing humans. If it helps, the function of me writing here will help fulfill my dream of becoming a writer some day, so I feel that makes up for my shortcomings in the world of love. So once again I will bug you with the Andy blog, with a promise of that next time I will write of something different… Like a job I have wheeled in whist bitching and moaning about my long lost nemesis.

Apparently my stop start and again blog did not work quite as well as I hoped in the telepathic department. Being a complete mess after leaving him behind, I slowly started to shed my shell of anger after only one week. Feeling rather good about that, since I originally had lesser thoughts of myself, you cannot believe the panic I went through when I saw his name come up on my phone a slow Sunday afternoon, about four weeks later. Why the hell would he call? The thought have been running through my mind ever since I pressed the little red button and hoped to God he would only try once before giving up. He has always made me aware of his pride in leaving people behind, and I know I am not special, he has made that perfectly clear. So what diagnoses does the doctor then have left? A lie maybe?

I have always known I am a bit of a, well I will not brag here, but those of you who have read my blog must at some point have thought “why does she bother with this”. For that question there are so many answers, but first and foremost: I am driven by curiosity. Nuts as that makes me, I cannot control it and the text blinking back at him as he regretted his phone call said “what do you want?”. His response: “nothing”. See this really bugs me by now, I know he is lying because he will never do something he does not profit from, and he rarely even does that so what on earth would possess him to make this phone call? I’m a slow thinker. So I let a day pass and sent an “I’m not mad, but still want you to piss off”-kind of message. Of course he responds in the same manner as your mirror image would scratch its head if you scratched yours. If he agrees, then why? It is getting quite clear to me that I am dealing with a monkey dressed up in a cool hat and socks. It sucks.

So you see my problem: endless curiosity mixed with repetitive head scratching ends up like a meeting between five philosophers discussing whether trees make noise when they fall in the woods even if you not there. It’s going nowhere, or nowhere smart for that matter. The last week I have spent trying to date other people, but since I am writing about Andy and not them you can guess the success I’ve had, and wondering if I should be mad and not forgiving in this situation. Anger is like the extra kilos in your bag, it will only weigh you down, but if the weight is lighter than his words maybe I should give it a go?

I did. Boiling up trying to save everything for the next time he would have another lonely moment, my bubble burst and I decided there will not be a next time. I was not pleasant in my writings, but he deserves no less and if anything would ever get through his thick and remarkably resistant scull I was going to make sure that it was this. Pond the replay is apparently his thing, though the text was broken (by the love of God I presume, or I would yet again have crumbled for his…. I’m all out of words) and I resumed down the path I had chosen, bombarding the unknown enemy with an order for silence. What he meant to say, I have realized all too late, does not matter because I don’t understand his line of thought. I will never grasp the phenomenon which he articulates because I am sane (enough) and reasoning this with the fact that I would understand a sane persons line of though any other day, I find he must not be. Or it’s all a lie. Curiosity is getting the better of me in this downward spiral. Lie or not, I know my own stands and views in this chaos and if I do not let go I will spend all my time in front of the mirror, scratching my head like any other monkey. Let this telepathic thought be sent from all of you to the most stubborn man in the world: “Get a life”

Upon that I beg your pardon for all the ponds I have showered you with. I will refrain from quoting movies and song titles next time.

Hey guys so I recently got the new Blackberry Curve 8900 from AT&T and had to do a review of it against my main phone the iPhone 3Gs. Now even thought I’m doing this review let me first say that the purpose of the phones are soooo different. The iPhone is main purpose is for users who want a fun and entarining phone where as the Blackberry is more of a right down to business phone. So here we go my break down of some of the main features of the phones.

Browser  iPhone

To me the iPhone has a browser like no other. The curve browser is generally slower and takes a lot more to get to a site like zooming in to click links as well as not as full featured browser as the iPhone.

Music     iPhone

The main reason the iPhone has the best music is because its made by Apple which started the entire music player trend. The blackberry really comes no where close.

Signal    iPhone

Now the Curve is currently not 3G for AT&T but even with that calls on the Curve are not ever pleasant and you can hear a lot of background noise like the wind and the calls aren’t very clear. iPhone has a much better call quality.

Speed  Draw

This is actually a tie both phones offer quick responses to opening different functions on the phone.

Apps   iPhone

The iPhone wins hands down with apps. Blackberry has nothing close to the ease of the app store and apps on the iPhone. Even apps like Tweetie and easiser to launch and use then lets say Twitterberry. Apps on the Curve are not as full featured like iPhones Apps.

Design  Blackberry

I have to say Blackberry has a much nicer design then the iPhone. Its sleek and holds nice in the hand and looks more valuable where as the iPhone looks rather simple and plain.

Keyboard Draw

I have to say I enjoy both. iPhone touch keys are better spaced but can be a little hard to judge where as the Blackberry keys are nice to have an actual key but are a little too close together and cramped.

Camera  Blackberry

The Blackberry Curve 3.2 Megapixel and flash camera out do the iPhones camera and provide the better picture.

I need to take you a bit back in time, before I can explain, why I am writing this today. Please bear with me.

During my last year of Law school I had to focus all energy, innovation and intellect on the writing of my thesis. Sometime around my third year in school, I realized that law might be just too black and white for me. You see in life I have been always so fascinated by the colorful zones (as opposed to the gray zones, legalists refer to with extreme fascination.)I had to find a topic of focus that was extremely difficult and challenging (to get me going as sadly, one of my many disadvantages is that, only hard-to-conceive and out-of-the-box concepts get me going) and…colorful. My legal expertise by then was International Law and International Humanitarian Law, so the natural choice of subject-matters would have been Rwanda, the Nuremberg Trials, Yugoslavia, the Balkans etc. Instead…I have always, always found fascination in the analysis of international affairs and/or phenomena based on the assumption that in Waltz’s threefold of sources of actors in the international arena (see: System, State, Man), man was the most psychologically challenging for me. I refuse to accept that man is the ‘victim’ of the system or the way that the state operates, simply because both the state as well as the system consist of men. If we can change the man, we can change it all. Better yet, if we can understand the man, we can then, interpret his reactions in a much more meaningful way.

I had found my topic, which was much more Criminal Law-oriented than international. How on earth would I make it to convince my Yale and Harvard-educated supervisor, to allow this youthful and stubborn Arian kid, to pursue a topic that was so ‘don’t go there’ in such limited time and with such limited resources? She and I, have always had a special relationship. I am not sure I can detect its beginning, but for some reason, I could feel she expected a lot from me. I decided to stop by her office. An archaic,  two-story, roman-like building dressed in Renaissance paintings and even sculptures. Her office was warm and challenging at the same time – nothing intimidates me more than distinguished intellectuals that remain unbelievably humble.

I had sweaty palms, a knot in my throat, my heart was racing like crazy…how on earth would I pull this through? When I told her…she swallowed a couple of times, got up and said ‘Let’s go for a walk, Mr. Schott.’ Am I getting expelled for trying?

We are walking amidst the greatest constructions of mankind, the sun is staring me right in the eyes, and I can’t help but lower my head in the direction of my footsteps. My hands were in my pockets and it almost felt as if they were in a tanning cylinder.

“Mr. Schott, Christopher, under my capacity as your professor and supervisor, I am going to say your topic is suicidal and very difficult to present from an international law perspective. In fact, it’s purely criminal law and I cannot see how you will put the two together. Under my capacity as a person though, I want you to do it, knowing that you remind me of myself and my drive when I was your age. And I will tell you something else Christopher. Unfortunately you are so intellectually and good-heartedly gifted that you will never have true friends in your life. Unfortunately you will always be envied and the people who will surround you, will never be able to understand your extremely giving nature, one that requires nothing in return. All great men died alone, but their art, was good enough to make them content. Unfortunately and I hope I am wrong, you are too special and too gifted for anyone to understand.”

Back then, I was too happy that I got her approval on my topic, that I never really understood why she had to go ahead and tell me all those other things. I had memorized them, simply because anything I cannot fully analyze, I register in my mind to play again and again until I do. My professor was American, she came to Greece to follow the love of her life (an attorney whose office was right above hers), when I asked if she had any regrets following him and leaving her family and life back in Boston, she answered quickly “No, my life is here, with him, besides, where in the US would I be able to have a 3-hr coffee and just look at people walk by every day in the sun?” She became my first mentor, right then and there, and for the next 365 days of my life, we became inseparable: I was working on my thesis at least  6 hours per day and when I would take a break from it, I’d try and focus on other classes as well. I had a specific cubicle in the library -no.8- every morning, I’d wake up, make my coffee, gather my notes together, get my laptop and establish myself in cubicle no.8, one that was right by the window facing the yard of the University (so I could people-watch occasionally, and think of my Professor’s remarks ‘My life is here, with him’. I would leave the library when they’d close the building, and I’d go home only to continue working on how to synthesize what I was trying to prove. My friends wouldn’t get it -they thought I was neglecting them- and the girl I was seeing back then (another law student) whose main concern was to just have me as the date she could show off every Saturday night, was not the person I wanted to share all this epiphany with. I broke off the relationship and I asked for some ‘time off’ from my friends…and then the letters began…

The Death Penalty. That was my subject-matter. And how could I understand the why’s and the how’s and even the when’s, without becoming acquainted with the protagonists of Death Row? I searched and searched, until I found my way to them: letters. An organization based in the UK, a non-profit, who began a system of correspondence between the inmates and anonymous friends, the inmates and the families of their victims, the inmates and God…letters each side would forward to the headquarters of the organization and then the authorities of the organization would forward to the respective recipient. To the scare and disapproval of my mum, who by then had started going to Church pleading for my soul’s salvation, I started reading the letters of inmates.

Until then, I was very pragmatic, harsh and legalistic when it came to the execution of the murderers and rapists of children, helpless women and honorable men. Assault and slaughter are two phenomena I have yet to accept or understand. The doers of these acts, I have yet to characterize as ‘human beings’. Yet they are…

And so, I synthesized my message from Huntsville to Mississippi to London. I got the highest possible mark for the defense of my thesis and two university presses have been wanting to publish it since then. I never published; I never will. But here’s a letter- as we are approaching Thanksgiving, and Christmas, as we are re-thinking of what we did over the last year, as we are realizing who we love and why and as we are putting aside all that’s been keeping us apart, all those stupid and silly reasons, here’s a letter, from a man who cannot change his future.

“I’m sorry it has taken so long to answer your letter. This has without a doubt been the most difficult letter I have ever written in my life and I wanted it to be ‘right’. I’ve done my absolute best to convey my thoughts and feelings to you accurately. If my thinking seems disordered or jumbled on occasion, please bear with me. There is a lot that needs to be said and deciding just what order to put it in is difficult at best. Thus, the delay in answering you.

Before I go any further I would like to assure you that no matter what I say to answer your questions or explain things, Nothing is intended to Justify my past conduct. (In the words of Kind David in Psalms 51:3, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”) There is no justification for what I have done and I accept full responsibility for my actions. What I did was wrong, Horribly wrong, and it cannot be justified. This letter is not an ‘excuse.’

For the killing of your Papa, I am as sorry as a human heart can be, and I apologize from the deepest depths of my soul to you, and to your entire family. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t feel and agonize under the immensely heavy burden of what I have done. (And this is as it should be!) I know words are so inadequate in a situation like this, but the truth is: I did it, I am guilty, and I am sorry. I would gladly do anything in the world, make any sacrifice, to bring your Grandpa back to you. As God almighty is my witness I swear to you, if my execution would bring your Grandpa back to life, I would willingly walk the green mile in an instant. But sadly, there is nothing that I can do. My death won’t bring him back. It will only create another grave, another funeral, another set of mourners overburdened by their grief. (My family. I deserve whatever happens to me, but my family doesn’t deserve any punishment, just as your family didn’t deserve what happened.) I am sorry that I can’t bring your loved one back to you. I sincerely wish I could.

In March 1989 I have my heart and life to Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and was baptized in the prison chapel. This is not a case of “Jailhouse Religion” as there is no purpose to that “scam” on Death Row; I am not up for parole and religious conversion is not considered by the courts in appeals. It is something I had to do for myself and in response to God’s promptings when the Holy Spirit convicted my heart. I write this letter hoping that my words will be of some help to YOU, and that you and your family will find peace for your own souls and be reconciled to Christ (not letting hatred or vengeance rule your hearts and lives), and I hope that you will then be able to move beyond your pain and go on with your lives.

Grief, anger, hatred, vengeance…all of these things eat at a person from the inside. They must be dealt with for the sake of your own health, both mental and spiritual. Also, I would encourage you to go get in touch with members of an organization called Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation. They are victims’ families, just like you, and they can help you with your grief and pain. They put out a newspaper called The Voice.

Many things have happened in my life that have caused me to become so remorseful, caused me to be honest about my past, caused me to attempt to make my feelings known to you. And some of it has given me some insight into how you and members of your family might be feeling. While I have been living here on Death Row, locked in this little cage called a cell, both my Father and Grandfather have died. I was adopted as a child and these were members of my adoptive family who helped raise me. In addition, while here on Death Row, I have found my original biological family, the people who gave me away as a baby; but by the time I found them, my biological Mother and biological Father were dead. My real father put a pistol in his mouth and killed himself when he discovered my mother was pregnant with me. He was not her husband…they were both adulterers…I am the product of an illicit affair that had been going on for years. I am a bastard. My mother was killed, murdered, by a drunken second ex-husband in 1979. I never had the chance to know her. He broke in the home, chased her and beat her as she tried to defend herself first with a cast iron skillet and then with a butcher knife, both of which he took away and used against her, and then she fled into a bedroom where he caught her, beat her severely, tied her to the bed, breaking her arm as he bent it around the headboard so that bone was sticking out (it was from this hole in her arm that she bled to death), and he then proceeded to beat and rape her and finally raped her with a bathroom plunger handle and left her for dead. One of her other sons came home later that day to find her dead on the bed this way.

I never got to know my Mother, and a murderer like myself took her from me (Poetic Justice?), so I think I have some thoughts as to how you feel. (In addition this man served only 10 years in prison and has already been granted parole.) I understand your anger, your deep sense of loss, the dark hole you feel deep in the pit of your stomach when you think about it, and I understand your endless questions of ‘why?’ (Why was I never allowed to know my mother? Why was I not loved or wanted by my real family? Why did they abuse me? Why were so many of them dead (Mother, Father, three Brothers, two nephews) by the time I found them? I too have questions of ‘Why?’)

I can also tell you that all answers to your questions ‘why?’ won’t make the pain go away. They will explain things better, but your grief will still exist. They can execute me (and most likely will), and in three months your pain will still be there. (Every follow-up interview with condemned men’s victim’s families bears this out). There will only be another set of mourners, and still you will hurt. There are only two things that can ever make your pain go away. And in the memories of your loved one, a portion of that pain will always be with you, just as the pain of my mother’s loss will always be with me.

I will explain all that I can, answer all your questions ‘why’ and anything else that you may wish to ask. I will do all that I can to help you- but until you deal with your grief and let it go, your pain will never end. I know that sounds harsh, but it is also the truth and I would be doing you a disservice if I did not share this truth with you. As I’ve said, I want to do all that I can to help you, and to help ease your pain. I am sorry for what I’ve done, and this is the best thing I know to do to try and make things better.

And now I will try to answer the rest of the questions in your letter. I will start with a specific question before going on to the next one.

Why did you choose to destroy my family?”

I am not sure whether I should continue writing this, as it gets more intense with time. Let’s allow the readership to decide. I will gladly do so, if you want me to.

In the meantime, I owe you an explanation: how did this come about on this fine Tuesday morning?

I was sitting in my childhood room, browsing through documents, books, items and memories from that era. On the very last shelf of one of the bookcases, I found a publication that was untouched, one I was unfamiliar with and one someone had sent me a few years ago (while I was in Venice trying to help launch two Human Rights NGOs). My mum had forgotten to tell me about this package that had arrived years ago from London. From an attorney, who managed to put together plenty of letters from inmates and publish them. I turn the book open and in its very first page, in blue ink stood a small, handwritten dedication:

“May you capture the Abyss.”

Today of all days, I bumped into a forgotten package from years back, one whose existence I was ignoring, about a chapter in my life that had closed years ago with my graduation, to find a dedication that referred to the name I chose to give to the muse and soul of Matthew, my protagonist just a few weeks ago. A name, my bestest buddy, suggested to begin with.

Now what? Am I supposed to “Give time…time?”

Isn’t the entire sum of existence, the magic of being needed by just one person? Isn’t to live like to love – all reason is against it, and all meaningful instinct for it?

If there is one sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life and true love, as in hoping that another will come and replace it, and in thus, eluding the implacable grandeur of this life, of our destined love.

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you…It is, after all, by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of our existence. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. Where you bleed, there lies your heart.

]]> http://chibichan86.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/comparison-samsung-blackjack-ii-and-rim-blackberry-bold-2/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:19:07 +0000 Deuce http://chibichan86.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/comparison-samsung-blackjack-ii-and-rim-blackberry-bold-2/

The first smart phone I had was the BlackJack II.  While this phone served its purpose for me, I wanted a Blackberry.  I decided to list what I liked and disliked about each phone.  I tried to keep a neutral tone through this, but I had a few more problems with the BlackJack II than I’ve had with the Bold.

Samsung BlackJack II

For a Windows mobile phone, this isn’t a bad phone.  It has its fair share of headaches and set-backs, but it is running Windows software, so there’s bound to be glitches.  Overall, with this being my first smartphone ever, I hardly knew what to expect as far as usage and whatnot.  I’ve come to love bigger, spacious phones with full Qwerty keyboards, so my experience with the BlackJack II wasn’t terrible.  I’ve only had a small handful of technical issues with this phone, and a slightly larger handful of headaches.  I’ll list them in a minute.

Technical Issues

1. Battery life
With any smart phone, having your battery last a decent amount of time seems to be an exercise in futility.  From what I’ve read, Samsung users with the first BlackJack had a sleuth of battery failures.  Supposedly this was corrected in the II, but personally I disagree, and I never owned the first BlacJack.  The battery life would probably be my biggest complaint.  I’d lose half my battery life by noon after charging it that morning.  In some cases, depending on use or how often I was out and about, I’d have to charge my phone more often.  I got used to using my car charger 100% of the time I was driving.

It may sound fickle, and I’m sure other people have the same sort of issues, but it was more of an annoyance thing than anything else.  To literally watch my battery drain before my eyes was nothing  short of daunting.

2. Trackwheel
Online reviews of this phone told me the trackwheel was jumpy and free-moving before I had even gotten the phone.  Live and learn, right?  Well, obviously I didn’t had much idea about what I was getting into before I had the phone in my hand and was actually using it.  The trackwheel feels cheap and flimsy, and if I’m looking for something and I receive a text message, scrolling (and just about everything else) freezes until the message comes through, by that time my cursor has jumped to the bottom of the page.  Again, this was mainly an annoyance issue, and the Samsung Jack (and Epix) have certainly taken into account such frustrations.

3. GPS
My biggest rant for this phone, ever, would have to be the utter failure of the GPS system.  It may just have been my particular handset, but GPS absolutely, positively would not work on my phone.  First I started with Google Maps; but with the 6.1 software, and the fact the II wants to work with Telenav software to begin with, it couldn’t connect to the satellite.  Actually, it didn’t even try.  I found a patch to help it connect, but the patch only worked with Windows mobile 6, not 6.1.  Failure #2.

Failure #3 came when I tried to put AT&T Navigator on my phone.  Yes, you have to pay for the service, but surely GPS would work, right?  Wrong.  AT&T Navigator didn’t even want to install on my phone, which led me to another headache I’ll cover next.

After clearing the failed apps off my phone, I put Bing mobile on next.  Bing mobile has a GPS app built in, but Failure #4 happened when I tried to connect to the satellite.  The upside to the downside was that the Bing GPS actually made attempts to find the satellite.  Even after changing some settings, it tried, but it just couldn’t do it.  Finally I accepted the final defeat, deleted any remaining semblance documenting my attempts at GPS, and closed that chapter for good.

4. Applications
Another headache is the painfully limited applications for this phone.  Half the fun of wanting the BlackBerry Bold is knowing I’ll have so many applications to choose from.  The first annoyance came when I discovered how biased Pandora mobile is for certain phones.  This was rectified when my friend discovered a working Pandora app for my phone, but overall the gross limitations is daunting.  Some of the apps that claimed to work on my phone wouldn’t.  AT&T Navigator being one case in point.  I find this odd because my phone already had it pre-installed, yet it didn’t want to work in the least bit.

5. General technical failures
I only had the phone freeze on me three times since using it, requiring a hard restart.  The most common problem I had with the phone was synching issues when connecting to my laptop.  Other issues were general internet problems, both of which were fixed after restarting the phone.  Small headaches, but still annoying nonetheless.

Likes

It would seem pretty hard to find things to like about a phone whose issues stemmed from basic usage, right?  Well, kind of.  There’s a few things I actually liked about using Windows mobile even if they’re only small things.

1. Word mobile
I only liked Word mobile after I figured out how to get a blank document onto my phone, that is.  After that, I was sold.  A majority of the time writing ideas come to me when I have no pen and paper handy.  This leads me to #2.

2. OneNote mobile
For the same reasons I enjoy using Word mobile, but I could say I liked using this better because I didn’t have to load a blank Word document into my phone first.

Others

1. Bluetooth
I enjoy using bluetooth, but on this phone battery life was sapped quickly.  It became more of a love/hate relationship.

2. 3G Network
Probably the best thing AT&T could do (aside from making the iPhone fail less) was getting the 3G Network up and running.  In the areas I can connect to 3G (Edit: which now includes areas I work in, thankfully. Previously rural Georgia only had Edge), I love it.  There’s no comparison in the processing/loading speed, and this phone handles 3G perfectly.

3. Headset jack
Who’s bright idea was it to give the II a headset jack that has the same retarded end as the charger itself?  Why couldn’t there have been a 3.5mm jack?  Sound quality for certain things was shoddy at best, which leads me to #4.

4. Sound quality
Call quality was good/okay, depending on where I was.  People kept telling me in most places they either couldn’t hear me or it sounded like I was underwater.  I text more than I call people, anyway, so after a while it stopped being an issue.

RIM BlackBerry Bold

Having a friend with a BlackBerry Curve gave me insight as to how a BlackBerry handles.  I adapted quickly to navigating through the phone and typing, thanks to the BlackJack II’s Qwerty keyboard.  Design for the BlackBerry is nice, and while the Curve and Bold are different, I still find them both equally enjoyable.  Before acquiring my own Bold, I not only tinkered with my friend’s, but I also made frequent trips into different AT&T stores, just to play with the phone.  I’ve had mine for a while now, and I’ll list things much in the same way I did above, I’ll start with Likes this time.

Likes

1. Applications

I knew in advance that App World was going to be my friend, but all I can really say is wow.  I was amazed at how many apps are for this phone, and I was so relieved, to put it simply.  The main app I wanted for this phone was UberTwitter, the Twitter app my friend had.  After that it was a matter of fiquring else what else would be nice to have.

2. GPS

I’ll keep this section short, but being able to use Google Maps and have it work properly is nothing short of amazing.

3. Typing

The phone itself (let alone the keyboard) is decisively bigger than the BlackJack II.  Yes, this does make the phone look a bit more “masculine”, but I adapted to the phone fairly quickly.  I could never see myself using anything other than a full Qwerty keyboard now, to the larger keyboard was a dream for me.  I’ve found my texting speed has increased, leaving friends and family staring at me in awe as I churn out a novel-like text in under a minute.

4. Battery Life

Like I said earlier, all smart phones tend to die faster because of the usage.  But I’ve found the battery life of the BlackJack II to be 3x longer.  Depending on usage, there’s been times where I can charge my phone every other day.  This is something I could never do with the BlackJack II.

While there’s not much about this phone I don’t like, I’ll cut this section short and move on to the dislikes/technical issues.  I’m grouping this section together because I’ve had only a small number of problems with the phone.

Dislikes/Technical Issues

1. Phone Freezing

I haven’t quite figured out what makes this happen, possibly a space issue.  I’ve found it happen more frequently when I’m using the camera to take video.  In a particularly annoying move, while I was recently on vacation in the Caribbean, I took a 20-minute video of my taxi ride around Antigua.  My phone froze and didn’t want to save the video.  It did save it, but it was in a format that wasn’t convertible, and the video is now unplayable and irrevocably lost.

2. Themes

After putting Theme Builder on my computer and trying to customize my phone to look “cool”, I came to the conclusion this was no longer worth the headache.  Obviously if you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing, nothing will look right.  Hence why I gave up on that endeavor.

3. Call Quality

Overall rating: Decent.  In some areas call quality is of course terrible, but I can say the robotic sound that happens when signal is great is more annoying than anything.

4. Storage Space

I realised from the beginning that my 4g card was going to be very useful.  The space on the phone itself isn’t much, and I have a lot of music, videos, and pictures.

Overall judgement: Well, I knew from the beginning this comparison was going to be mostly biased.  I did give both equal amounts of time (although condensed the Bold’s section). Both phones are great, but as a former user of the BlackJack II and current owner of the Bold, my heart does lie with RIM now.  I think they have done a great job with the Black Berry line, making vast improvements as new phones come out.  That being said, I am basing that opinion on what I already know about their older phones, and with AT&T alone.  Although the things I’ve heard about the Storm are less than stellar, but I digress as I do not use Verizon.

3200104    เซลล์ชีววิทยา    Cell Biology

โครงสร้างพื้นฐานของเซลล์ อวัยวะเซลล์ การสังเคราะห์และหน้าที่ของอวัยวะเซลล์แต่ละชนิดและเนื้อเยื่อ เมทริกซ์นอกเซลล์ การติดต่อระหว่างเซลล์กับเซลล์ และปฎิกิริยาระหว่างเซลล์กับเมทริกซ์นอกเซลล์

(Basic structure of cells; cell organelles; syntheses and functions of cell organelles in cells and tissues; extracellular matrix; cell-cell communication and cell-extracellular matrix interaction.)

(3200104 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

New World’s Fastest Supercomputer Named : Discovery News

I posted this awhile ago on my Facebook profile as a link.  In the latest version of a semiannual “Top 500″ list of supercomputers, a new machine has been crowned with the top honor… and it’s built on some interesting technology, very similar to what many are running in their own desktop computers these days.

The Cray supercomputer, Jaguar, is built off of 6-core AMD Opteron processors (very similar to the AMD “Phenom II” branded processors you can buy for your desktop), codenamed “Istanbul”.

Jaguar took the top spot away from IBM’s “Roadrunner” supercomputer, which is now at #2.  [EDIT] Hmm, the IBM Roadrunner supercomputer is a hybrid system built off of IBM PowerXCell 8i processors (like in the Sony Playstation 3) AND AMD Opteron 2-core processors.

For AMD’s own blog write-up of the story (click here)

LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT

Are You a Victim of Hurry Sickness

By

VIKRAM KARVE

A central element of lifestyle management is the skill to creatively balance achievement and work success with leisure activities, family life and social involvements.

Another critical aspect is the ability to feel comfortable at work and at home and to enjoy the experience of whatever is being done at that moment.

But nowadays, most of us are obsessed with getting results or completing one’s task. When task completion becomes more important than enjoying and understanding the work or activity one is doing at the given moment, a sure victim of “hurry sickness” is born.

The resultant constant sense of urgency is the trap of hurry sickness. One rushes to “get things done” to the point where it becomes an obsession.

Breaking this syndrome requires that you learn to enjoy experiences for the pleasure they give. When you gain pleasure from an experience, there is no need to get things done painstakingly.

Enjoy experiences, not rewards, and things will get done automatically without any constant stressful sense of urgency.

As defined from a psychological perspective, Hurry Sickness is:

“A pervasive and progressively urgent need to complete task in order to obtain rewards at completion without regard for other aspects of the work experience and by using maladaptive time strategies.”

They key causal factor in hurry sickness is the progressive need for task completion.

Enjoying what you are doing is neglected with a morbid urge to getting it done as quickly as possible, no matter what the activity.

The obsessive need for task completion extends to non-work involvements and activities like eating, playing, romance, making love, sex, leisure, having fun, loafing, taking a stroll, recreation, entertainment, leisure, sports, pastimes, hobbies, holidaying, exercising, lazing around, dozing, enjoying music, cooking, gardening, meditating, enjoying “doing nothing” and delightful timepass, what you consider “wasting your time” with your family, wife, kids, pet dog, friends…

This attitude of Hurry Sickness interferes with the enjoyment of these activities and experiences because of the persistent inclination to hurry up and finish it off.

Getting things done has become such a strong need because the payoffs or rewards for completion have assumed primary importance.

Your work experience has taught you that rewards always come at the end of the activity after you have put forth great effort to achieve a goal. You do not realize that happiness is not a destination but the manner of traveling.

Not only do you feel a sense of personal satisfaction from your achievements, but tangible rewards, such as promotion, cash incentives, awards, and advancements are given to you as well. With time, these rewards have become clearly linked with your self-esteem.

Each time you “succeed”, your ego, your inner self, sends a message to you which says, “You have done well. You are a commendable person because you succeeded again.” Your need for this kind of reassurance has become stronger than you would care to admit.

Time-Urgency quickly becomes a strong internal driving force towards task completion. Your life becomes a frenzy of completing one task after another. You are obsessed with time and wasting any of it becomes almost a mortal sin.

You strive to maximize your productivity by using time ever more efficiently, but you also have a sense that you are controlled by time and you don’t like it. Time is both your challenge and your enemy. A telling sign of hurry sickness is that even while relaxing, you are constantly fighting time-urgency and this that causes you unrest and never allows you to totally “switch off”.

Another way to seek to increase your output is to adopt maladaptive time-strategies. These questionable tactics do help you get more done over the short run, but you pay a heavy emotional price.

You now do everything faster, you have learned to “multitask” or “double up,” to do two or more things at once, and you are constantly preparing for what is coming next before you are finished what you are doing now.

The insidious trap is that you get something done quickly even when there is no reason to get anything done at all.

You hurry when there is no need to hurry – even when you have all the time in the world.

Because of your emphasis on task completion, you focus on finishing without regard for other holistic aspects of the experience.

In short, you have lost the ability to enjoy yourself while doing anything because of your incessant drive to get to the finish line.

Because you are afflicted by Hurry Sickness, you have lost the ability to emotionally rejuvenate yourself. Chronic fatigue and pessimism are symptoms of this malady.

SIGNS AND SIGNALS OF HURRY SICKNESS

Here are some behavioral signs, symptoms and signals that indicate hurry sickness:

1. Eating.

You now eat in the office while continuing to work or you just skip meals altogether. You multitask while eating. At home, you eat fast, gulp your food, finish meals well ahead of everyone else and eat in bigger bites without savoring the taste of food. Sharing pleasantries at the table is minimal because you cannot sit long enough. Ask yourself – are you eating mindfully and relishing every morsel of your food?

2. Sex.

Relaxed romantic sex and unhurried love-making is but a pleasant memory. The frequency has reduced and even when you do indulge in sex, it is a quick encounter and you are off to sleep or on to some other more “important” or “urgent” activity. Sex is less spontaneous and more mechanical these days. Love-making has become another hurry-up-and-get-it-done-with activity. Worse, you often indulge in “faking it” in order to get it over with in a hurry so you can quickly get on with the more “important” and “productive” things in life – your “high priority” activities!

3. Communications.

Your communication patterns now focus squarely on the negative. Feedback to others emphasizes mistakes and failings and you rarely compliment or offer sincere support to anyone these days. You don’t take the time any more for pleasant chat with family and colleagues. You have stopped listening. You make demands instead of working cooperatively with others or team-building. And hey, are you on your cell-phone most of the time?

4. Leisure.

You put aside less time for relaxation and you enjoy it less when you actually try to relax. Time-off is now more of a hassle than it is worth. When you sit still, you feel uncomfortable almost immediately. You have lost the ability to “do nothing” – it’s difficult for you to loosen up and enjoy an idle hour relaxing, doing nothing. Ask yourself why you work – reflect, contemplate, think about the fundamental reason why you work and realization will dawn upon you that the primary reason you work is to be able to enjoy your leisure, so why aren’t you taking a vacation every day and learning how to enjoy your leisure with full awareness?

5. Family.

Family members now “report” events to you, but you share little of yourself with them. You and your spouse argue more than you talk. The satisfactions of family life have diminished in quality and quantity. Your impatience is just as strong at home as in the office.

HOW TO CURE HURRY SICKNESS

Because you have hurry sickness, your initial tendency is to effect and expedite your “cure” in a hurry too.

But this hurry-up-and-get-it-done attitude may actually sabotage your recovery. What is required is patience, perspective and the ability to deal with setbacks in healthier ways.

It is easy to blame hurry sickness on the pressures of your job, the stress of daily living and what you have to do to survive in the fast paced world of today and on the insensitivity of the complex modern world. While each of these perceptions has a grain of truth in it, the fact remains that most of the responsibility for hurry sickness lies within you.

Your drive to get ahead is the real root of the problem and the fact is that you have lost all sense of perspective. Until you accept personal responsibility for your present state, you will not be in a position to confront and reverse the real mischief, damage and harm caused by hurry sickness.

Remember the well-known story of the hare and the tortoise.

Decelerate your life a bit, slow down, walk leisurely instead of driving and do not carry or switch off your cell-phone where you can, don’t multitask, do one thing at a time with full awareness and mindfulness and learn to enjoy the experience of whatever you are doing.

Do you believe in multitasking?

Are you a victim of Hurry Sickness?

Why don’t you rid yourself of this malady and enhance your quality of life?

Sure, you can get rid of Hurry Sickness!

Just stop multitasking and focus on whatever you are doing at the present moment.

Remember: HURRY BURRY SPOILS THE CURRY.

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2009
Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

vikramkarve@sify.com

http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karve

http://www.ryze.com/go/karve

For sentimental reason, as always, I have been using the same cell phone number during the last ten years. I have changed my cell phone for several of times, but I still use the same number. Up until this very second.

The existing cell phone numbers nowadays are usually twelve until thirteen digits. But once I witnessed with my own eyes fifteen digits cell phone number which not humanly possible for anybody to memorize it. Epic!

Then I get people wrongly call to my number so many times, in search for others people’s name but mine. I got piss off big time, but then I have some kind of theory in mind:

So my guess is: This people, who accidentally dialed my number, were they who intentionally dialed someone who has the same exact first ten digits cell ph number as mine. Then for some reasons that I don’t know, when then wanted to dialed the 11th digit, they paused too long and the computer was automatically connecting them to my number.

Trust me, it is not me complaining. Just random stuff and have sometime to kill.

Cheers,
Cloe.

X: “Hello, Asan?”
Me: “Nope.”
X: “Who is this?”
Me: “I am not him!”
X: “I know. Then who is this?”
Me: “Sir, you have dialed the wrong number and I’m not Asan!”
X: “Then who?”
Me: “Hmm… ASIN*?!?”
X: Click!
Me: Shit, he hung up on me!! Damn you old man!

*Asin: Salty [in Bahasa]

It’s a rule that didn’t exist 10 years ago, but now the 24hrs rule, although an unwritten rule, governs our etiquette regarding email, SMS text messaging and phone calls. Unless you are ill, on holiday or unexpectedly put in prison, you are meant to reply to this type of electronic message, to a friend or colleague, within 24hrs, anything longer and it is considered rude and an apology would be expected with the message.

Before the predominance of the internet and mobile phones, communication was limited to old fashioned landline telephone calls and snail mail. Now that we carry around electronic devices on our person and engage in social networking several times a day, we fully expect a response to our message within a reasonable time frame, which is no more than 24hours.

If a message goes over 24hrs without a response, then we get very annoyed as it is disrespectful to behave in such an impolite way. Even as the 24hrs barrier approaches we start to get annoyed that the person dares to get close to a contemptible reply time.

We are increasingly becoming more and more impatient and the 24hr rule is starting to become socially unacceptable for text messages and that a response within 12hrs (inclusive of sleep time) is expected. A good friend of mine was even upset the other day that I took 6hrs to reply to her text message and I was ill at the time!

It’s only in the dating arena, as per my previous blog post, where communication is acceptable over the 24hrs period otherwise it seems too keen. More and more we have to communicate with people over different mediums, but also be conscious of how quickly and often we do it. We also learn whether our friends are more responsive to a particular form of communication, some prefer texts, other emails and some even (can you believe it?) actually prefer talking on the phone!

I’m quite happy with the 24hrs rule but I worry that we are moving towards a world where instant responses are required. I am not a fan of that and that is why I don’t log into instant messaging systems unless I have arranged to chat to somebody.

The U.S. government wants to monitor bus operator fatigue, ban driver cell-phone use and require the installation of seat belts on buses to improve highway safety.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who helped ban federal employees from texting while driving, proposed the commercial bus safety steps in a plan posted today on the Transportation Department?s Web site.

Motor coaches carry about 750 million travelers annually, with about 19 passengers dying each year on average in crashes for the past decade, the agency said. American Bus Association Chief Executive Officer Peter Pantuso said the government could improve safety by better enforcing existing laws.

?He?s obviously looking at enforcement as a big cornerstone of this,? Pantuso said today in an interview. ?I think we?ll see additional regulation, whether it?s seat-belt regulation, onboard recorders, fire-suppression systems,? at a ?tremendous cost.?

Requiring features such as seat belts, reinforced floors, roofs and windows and data recorders on buses may raise the cost of a motor coach more than 20 percent, Pantuso said. A new vehicle costs about $450,000, and the proposed requirements would add $75,000 to $100,000, he said.

?That?s a very big cost difference in an industry where margins are very tight,? he said. ?It certainly will have an impact on the industry, without question. But everybody?s got to be operating on a level playing field.?

Board?s Recommendation

The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates transportation accidents, last month called for better federal oversight of motor-coach operators in a hearing on a 2008 crash in Sherman, Texas, that killed 17 people when a bus plunged over a highway guard rail.

?The safety board has long looked at the issue of motor coach safety,? NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman said today at the National Press Club in Washington. ?We?ve seen crash after crash after crash.?

She praised the Transportation Department?s announcement as a step forward.

?Any progress that can be made to protecting passengers in all scenarios is an improvement that needs to be made,? Hersman said. ?It isn?t rocket science. Other countries have done it.?

© 2009 Bloomberg, L.P. All Rights Reserved.

U.S. teens report ‘frightening’ levels of texting while drivingSingle-vehicle crashes cause most Del. road deaths