The Lollipop Gloss

There is nothing more mainstream-looking nowadays other than the reflective and translucent look.

It all probably started with the Motorola donning their mobile phone device with highly reflective mirror cum screen. When any there is incoming calls or pending SMS comes, these flat area acts as normal 65k colour LCD displaying phone numbers and names of caller.When the device is in its standby mode, the piece if display surface turns into a highly reflective ala handheld vanity mirror. Wau! Obviously, there is nothing amusing or spectacular about it, since, I find it handy to monitor facial petrol levels or any new pimple breakouts. duh.

The trend also lingers to other gadgetry where LCD screen played a pivotal role. Digital cameras for instance. Some of those point and shoot happy-go-lucky thin profile cameras even spot some of those highly-reflective LCD’s. Someday, it would take over those 22-inchers LCD screen for computers. Placed in avant-garde hair saloons to entice their visitors with visual feast rather than backdated fashion magazines during long perm sessions.

Highly reflective or reflection trends spanned beyond the manicure, pedicure realm. Operating systems are amongst those who resort to reflective look to enhance user experience. Apple for instance, starting with their Mac OSX Leopard released in October 2007 begun to spot reflective dock. In which any application windows that hovers above the dock shall be reflected by the dock. Like sunrise reflected by waters along the seaside. Then the concept of ‘reflection’ is further applied in other software such as the infamous iTunes and its propertiary cover flow. The album covers can be seen animatedly moving left to right according to our command, and along the black background, there would be shadows of the album reflected on the dark background. Like a collection of album art hovering on top of thick slimy glossy black liquid. More shockingly, the OSX Server version also features the reflective and translucent rich interface which puts some graphic-glamourina into the business software.

The Microsoft camp which proudly retains their ‘serious and cooperate software’ image now started to have second thoughts on reflective interfaces and icons. You would have slightly a bit of idea how Windows interface were designed. Look at the flop and bug ridden Windows ME which buttons and icons were rather flat-out,2D, inanimate compared to Mac OSX’s Aqua interface and Carbon graphic engine . Luckily, by now, the Microsoft did move away from serious and cooperate look to a more eye-candy Vista interface. The Windows Mobile6 also started to tweak its graphic codes to enable animated, translucent and reflective rich interface in a palm of hands. The Mobile6 drastically differs from Mobile5. Like a whole new system altogether except for the ‘Start’ button on the top left. What made Mobile6 made this kind of paradigm jump? The iPhone interface looks young and vibrant. We all have to admit that though.

Material wise, I saw a Samsung printer clad in highly reflective glossy plastic sometime ago. It was really suave and neat design. With its blue LED blinking, the matching is rather casual and at first glance, the printer is likely to be assumed as a mini beer fridge than a set of rolling, squirting and sliding mechanism in a mass-produced plastic casing. I was impressed. Samsung, the Korean electronics giant would be the flagpole holder in glossy plastic device. Admittedly, I’m not a big fan of Samsung which had less Zen compared to its Japanese counterparts in terms of mobile phone design. But, Samsung did throw a stone to create a ripple effect on a lake. The Samsung LCD’s had utilized the reflective and glossy look for one of their LCD frame series. I think it became a quick hit for LCD hunters. Rather than ordinary black and textured light-absorbing black or grey plastics, Samsung showed the possibilities of using glossy plastics in variant of black and white for its LCD, plasma frames. It was just simply brilliant. I visited one of the electrical appliances shops and quickly took a hold on those shining 42-inchers. Ahh! A popcorn, Forrest Gump Blu-Ray, a fun-loving girlfriend and one of these LCD would complete me – my mind drifted away.

Other electronic giant which seems to follow suit in reflective design would be HP. This American electronics giant had quick hit products like the Pavilion DV laptops which upper casings were made of glossy, reflective plastics with intricate lines and graphic motives. Pop one of those at the college library, and the material would brilliantly ‘bend’ lights at its curves as if it’s a powerful light sucking black hole. Although its not reflective enough to be able to watch any pimple breakout on the face, still the surface finishing had a certain class of personalization which differentiate it from other seriously boring ThinkPad-esque laptop.

Graphic wise especially printed one also sees the sudden interest in reflective and translucent features. Typography in website or printed-ads now is having shadows on its own, as if those letters sits on a ceramic floor. Browse the dailies and you would probably stumbled upon a few advertisements like slimming therapy which models flaunt their body on top of its reflective shadows. Factories which had obtained their ISO’s made their certificate floating with its exact twin reflected directly underneath it without any skew or distortion. Companies selling their products with the physical superimposed in mentioned above manner. Its everywhere now!

It all boils down to production technology which allowed more vibrant colours and smaller droplets of ink to be printed. Allowing effects of transparency, translucency, opacity, and gradient possibly appeared more robust and realistically. Material research and production made highly reflective LCD a trendsetting and giving a multirole for this already important element of electronic devices. Giving it a personal touch. Operating systems were not just cranking up codes 1000 lines long to create translucent, glossy and beautiful eye-candy windows, but the advancement of colour display from 16-bit to 32-bit to 64 and beyond dilates the possibilities of creativity. From the days of our fathers ATM screens were mere black and green Tron-like display, now, we are seeing more colourful ATM screens with animations and stuff. What next?

The Fishy Ballistics

Machines of war. They never fail to capture the imagination of big boys. From aeroplane to tanks. Rifles to RPG’s. What caught mine are rockets emerging from the deep blue sea. Woosh!

Admist Malaysia preparing to acquire their first and second submarine around next year, I have found out that the neighboring countries has been operating a number of them for quiet sometime. Singapore has 4 (or probably more) submarine vessel. While Indonesia had six so-named Cakras subs running in their waters. Our northern neighbor, Thailand has got an aircraft carrier in its naval fleet, but never acquired any subs. While Brunei has plenty of patrol and gun boats, they have shown no interest in operating a subs to guard its water.

Malaysia has repeated its stance for many times of its armed acquisition as preparation for defensive to stave off any external offensive. This is somewhat being ruled out in Laws of Engagement as deterrence. In an event of war, Malaysia would let the fellow enemy puncture a wall or break the window first. Much like letting another person push your forehead before you deliver him a clean compact punch on the face. But, when the war drum starts rolling, the most we could do is all of our assets could survive and serve to protect and produce an effective counterattack.

Most of capable and heavy assets such as artilleries, MLRS (multiple rocket launcher ) and SAM ( sea-to-air missile ) were placed in military store which are pretty much vulnerable to attacks. These store locations are fixed usually known by enemies, and movable assets stored there may have their movement carefully calculated by enemies in the event of war it can be pinpointed at near perfection. Perhaps a thickly fortified store shall provide resistance against most strikes, but how long? So, lets picture that our heavy tanks has been pulverized that kedai potong wouldn’t want to accept the scrap and MLRS has been turned into dust and our MiGs and Shukois rendered useless as airstrip being bombarded. Almost all land based weapons rendered useless. What shall we have to strike back since this land and air defense has been virtually paralyzed.

I like the idea mobile ballistic missile placed inside the belly of submarine. And yes,they do exist. It is called the SLBM (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile), they are stored vertically inside submarine belly and launched through tubes that houses them. The idea of launching something from a submarine is really interesting, since subs moved around and in an event where fixed assets were rendered useless during war; these may provide the best counterattack measure. The improved stealthily design and radar jamming equipment on modern submarines allowed it to dive near target without being spotted.

SLBM’s are specially deployed ballistic missile. They’re as tall as 3 storey building ( 9metres high). Propelled by liquid propellant which were fueled minutes before launch. When launched, it saperated into stages which finally the tip of the whole missile that will contain explosive, chemical, biological or atom to scourge enemy into oblivion.

What attracted me towards SLBMs are the mechanics involved. Since, rocket science never work inside water (try lighting a lighter inside a tub full of water), the rockets bottom were encapsulated inside an airtight retractable casing. These casing were pumped with gas prior to the launch. When the launch hatch tubes opened, these pressurized casing together with the missile will ‘impatiently’ move upwards towards the surface (try to release air from a deflated balloon submerged), once at the surface, these airtight casings will go apart, thus allowing the rocket engine to start firing in the normal air. The missile will gracefully start to soar into the sky to its designated target at speeds nearly breaking the sound barrier. It is known that the whole submarine would shake and tremble when this 59,000kilogram mammoth start spitting fire from its booster stage. Reminds me of how powerful the rocket engine until it is capable of affecting the submarine which lays under the water.

Together with this entry I have included a video related to show in detail how rockets emerge from the ocean horizon. The juicy bits of this video begins at 2:13. Really appreciate your patience.

Ballistic Missile Submarine - For more amazing video clips, click here

The range of a single mid-SLBM can go up to 4000kilometres depending on its warhead load. This means, our sub could be diving near the Mariana Trench of the Philipines Bay and launch a missile to Pulau Batu Puteh south of Johore in a matter of minutes. While the mobility of submarine as SLBM carrier advantage can be gained by silently placing the submarine near the enemy coastal line to initiate a quicker ‘surprise’ attack. For instance form southern of Malacca strait to Pulau Batu Puteh. The phase of a ballistic missile allows it to travel to the upper part of atmosphere where the air is less dense. Thus allowing it to dodge radar detection better and also makes enemy countermeasures more difficult.

Due to the complicated mechanism of SLBM which requires high level of engineering precision and technical reliability, the cost of single SLBM could reach up to 1billion ringgit. Each subs were be able to carry minimum of four SLBM at certain time (advanced subs were able to carry up to 18 of these). It can be loaded during the subs landing on its berth to our only customized subs berth of Sepanggar coast of Sabah. A total of rm 4billion of nation deadliest and precious asset lugged around the South China Sea. Yet the roaming submarines with its deadly weapon in its belly are relatively vulnerable too. Missile carrying subs are usually slow and heavy. They’re no match for fast moving torpedo armed frigate or gun boats which hovers on the surface like electric eel in swampy paddy field.

Expensive it is, that is the exact price for peace loving nation of Malaysia who has got the deterrence to let itself being hit before hitting back. Like I mentioned before, machines of war, they capture big imagination of big boys.

The Ignorance

My 50-year-old dad always reminds me about the importance of making ‘informed decision’. A decision which is made based on knowledge of a particular matter. But, too much knowledge can be a bit confusing though.

I was looking through computer component pricelist from Low Yatt Plaza trying to figure out the best combination/configuration of specification to set up a whole new CPU. There was a mix matching session going on inside my brain since different combination results in different performance. Unlike a desktop PC package sold by branded names like Hewlett Packard or Dell, a self-assembled desktop requires you to choose each hardware and components according to requirement.

When it comes to this part there are many things to consider in layman term such as:-

• Processor – The brain of a PC. Perform baulk of the computational calculations. Currently there are two rivals competing in the consumer processor market, Intel and AMD. I have sided the latter one, because I have a tendency of choosing ‘second-best’ rather than the best. Technology of microprocessors has pretty much improved until it has become possible to include multiple cores ( of 2 or 4 ) inside a single chip. Imagine Einstein with double brain under his white hair and thick skull. If he does, maybe today he has figured out on how to reverse the fabric of time and space. At any point of this article which makes you yawn or dizzy or this all is just not your stuff,do skip all points to the green coloured paragraph below.
  

• RAM ( Random Accessed Memory ) – Often confused with Hard disk, this component acts like a temporal memory. Let’s put a scenario where your mom ordered you to drop by the nearest sundry to get some grocery stuff, she will describe the stuff that you need to remember such as: bunga kantan dua kupang, kelapa parut putih saja, daun karipulai, etc.etc.. RAM is like a lobe in within your brain to remember things that were never mend to be kept for a long time. A computer component which influences the speed. The bigger sizes of this memory the better it is. Which means an almost lag-free handling six to seven camwhoring photographs of removing pimple/blemishes on a single Photoshop session while YM, MSN,Word or other app remained ready at the bar waiting in-line along the ‘Start’ button.

• Hard disk – or in short termed as HDD. Hard disk stores your saved data. Your photos, videos, documents, mp3’s and everything else is located here. Consists of rotating disk plates which rotates at a very high speed. Over ram your vehicle till the tachometer (rpm) hits 7, that’s the speed of a rotating hard disk during its operation ( Advanced HDD can go up to 10k rpm ). Considered as the slowest equipment inside a computer due to its rotating nature.

• VGA card– or known as 3d card. Video Graphic Accelerator cards provide computational calculation to emulate graphics on the LCD. For architects/engineers who are familiar with 3d projection software, a VGA-card played a major role and perhaps may save them a few seconds/minutes/hours worth of time if they get their hands on high-specs cards. Also, with the miracle of PC gaming and ever growing size of LCD panel, VGA is an asset which makes a desktop the jewel crown of gaming machine. Like processor, there are currently two rivaling big players of VGA card. Those are ATI and nVidia which cards are in tight race to have higher points in benchmarking indexes with new models announced weeks after the other. Who benefits when these horses raced? Us.

• Motherboard - The backbone of a PC. The fundamentals and the basis of a computer. The part of which you see lots of capacitors and chips, sockets and slots, pins and silver/gold lines. A motherboard plays the very vital role of managing all of the above mentioned components. It handles communications between those devices. Like a translator, it reads and writes many different languages. Or you can regard motherboard as the medium/organizer of single’s blind dating cum matchmaker. It utilizes itself just to see two or more individual component communicate well. How noble.

• PSU – If human consciousness exists as wholly spirit. Then PC reason of existence is electricity. With electric signals moving back and forth at bajillion rates, then, it is important to have a Power Supply Unit a.k.a PSU. It used to be lightly regarded component of a CPU internals, but with the advent of multi-core processors, performance-RAM, Hi-rpm HDD’s and scalable-VGA, the PSU has become a particularized item which are given higher attention. A PSU manages power input which the wall AC provides. Its wire then spreads like an octopus dexterous arm into different components and parts of PC internal components. Being the frontline of electric supply management, guess you already know which CPU internal will smoke first during unexpected thunderstorm electric surge?

Okay, Finally, all of the above components were surveyed. Never mind about mouse, keyboard and speakers, they all just work pretty much the same.

With the spirit of making an ‘informed decision’, I dived deeper to find info about each component. With each survey you found out those processors ranges in speed, motherboard varies in chipset, VGA-card differs in memory and bit rate. RAM have a selection of architectures. Forums mentioned about unstable combinations? Websites stated about upcoming series of advanced components, while pricelist were swinging crazy with price increasing or mostly decreasing. Hoe about DVI and HDMI ports, which one is better? Which LCD has support for the mentioned above ports? Are their refresh rates (GTG) worth the price? Should I go for Crossfire? Oh no! Have I studied too much of computer stuff!?

If you have skipped a whole paragraph of technical verbs and adjectives, then, I’m glad and wished to be in your position. As the saying goes ‘ignorance is bliss’, I imagine of being a person who knew little about computer component and stuff which can make a whole lot of difference. If I had no interest to dig deeper into the technicality there shouldn’t be a problem since I would accept any PC configurations as long I switch it on and start displaying something on the screen. There wouldn’t be any guilt since the ignorance will make the low-spec PC an equal PC and won’t bother me.

In quest of making ‘informed decision’, here I’am tangled with many uncertainties. I doubt my future assembled PC is going to down perform. Apart from that instabilities and incompatibility concerns were taken into account too. Sigh