Ok, so I have a new favorite show. It’s currently filling the dead time slot of Sunday evening at 9 P.M. on ABC. It’s called “The Shark Tank” and it’s absolutely delightful. The premise, enterprising entrepreneurs come and present the “Sharks” with their business plans or products, offering a percentage of the business for putting up Capital. Sounds hokey, I know. That’s what I thought too. I thought that it would be oddball types presenting in front of “Simon Cowellesque” business characters. Boy, was I wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
Globalization damages the nation state on numerous fronts. Like termites in a healthy log, globalization deteriorates the connections that allow nations to have control over their economy. Furthermore, globalization imposes a new culture on societies along with economic constraints that creates a greater social and economic inequality in a society. There are groups of people who see globalization as a positive thing as it promotes unity and downplays indifferences but I do not agree with them. As I will show later on, the perceived advantages of globalization are actually hurting our world. In the following essay, I will provide explanations and examples of these arguments. I will also provide a theoretical explanation to why I think the notion of globalization promoting democracy is a misconception. Read the rest of this entry »
Westphalian system was derived from the treaty of Peace of Westphalia between Osnabruk and Munster. In a Westphalian state, interests of an entire nation-state are much more important than any individual’s interest. This system is based on 3 points: territoriality, sovereignty, and autonomy. Territoriality denotes that all humans are organized into exclusive territorial communities. Read the rest of this entry »
Bodies from the Air France passenger plane that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil have been found by search teams.
SKYNEWS - The search for the missing plane goes on. Debris from the flight has also been located following days of intensive searching by air and sea. Read the rest of this entry »
So IBM is working on developing an intelligent system (Watson) which they claim would own humans at the game of Jeopardy! I’ll let Alex Trebek explain. Ken Jennings needs will eventually reemerge for a duel with Watson.
Today, I attended my required orientation for my gym membership. The gym is called IBM’s Active Blue. The session lasted about 5 minutes and there was a group of people attending it. Let’s talk about the gym, it is probably one of the worst gyms I have ever been into. All the machines are crammed up together in a small area. There are two rooms, one with free weights and machines, and the other is an exercise room with mats and other accessories. I didn’t like the gym at all. Some free-weights are outdated and rusty. I haven’t tried out the treadmills yet but there are only about 3-5 of them. It just doesn’t feel right.
On another note, I missed a meeting today. It was the first meeting for me for that particular team. It was my Lotus Notes’ fault, I swear. I still can’t beleive a gym being that crappy.
I arrived in Markham a day before my start date. I was required to get to the IBM lab on 8200 Warden avenue at 8:15 am. I prudently followed my directions from Google maps and arrived at the lab at 7:50 am thanks to a fellow intern I met at the bus stop.
The facility is pretty neat. There are four buildings annexed together via smaller buildings. The buildings are surrounded by greenery, ponds, and parking lots. All in all, a refreshing environment.
A French philosopher named Destutt de Tracy first used the word “ideologie” in French to define a science of ideas. Then, Karl Marx suggested that ideology is false consciousness that leads the poor class to their demise. In our time, ideology is something that consists of a system of ideas, values, and concepts that helps us to understand the current socio-political scene. Read the rest of this entry »
Pipes and Filters
- Each component has a set of inputs and outputs.
- Component takes in data streams and reads it and then produces data streams for output
- Output begins before input is consumed
- Filters are connectors and they conduit data streams.
- Filters are independent entities and do not share states with other filters
- Filters do not know the identity of their upstream and downstream filters
- Bounded pipes restrict the amount of data that can reside on the pipe
- Typed pipes require that the data being passed between filters be well-defined
- Unix Shell programs are best examples of Pipes and Filters
- Compilers are also an example (lexical analysis, parsing, semantic analysis, etc.) Read the rest of this entry »
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