Chan's Personal Blog

Well, I just finished demoing my final programming project to the teaching assistants about an hour ago, and this concludes this week's work. I scored a perfect on the demonstration, so huzzah! I also had a midterm this morning that went really well. I'm feeling a little exhausted, but all in all, the battle goes well, thank God.

My wonderful weekend is filled with more assignments and what not, but hopefully after that, it will conclude this major phase of combat.

I got this Bible verse via e-mail, and it seems very appropriate right now:

"Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony. My soul is in anguish. How long, O Lord, how long." -Psalm 6:2-3

In either case, I'm going to Sabbath tonight and do no work. For a brief instance, I am free. That sounds pretty good right now.

Well, I'm in week three of my fight to the death against midterms, quizzes, assignments, and projects. It has been a relentless wave after wave of stuff on every front. On Friday I have a term project due and a midterm. However, there is hope as things should start winding down after this Friday. I'm looking forward to a sense of normalacy and sleep. I'll also be able to get that long overdue haircut. I don't like my hair long ... it's like having a perpetual bad hair day.

Anyways, I'm done whining. If you don't see many blog postings this week, you'll know why. Hail to those who have fallen in academic battle.

On a positive note, I am glad that I did get my grad schol application in early. It's one less thing to worry about at the end of the month.

Off to bed for me.

I was surfing on the net and came across this awesome site that features official John Kerry photos with some not so official captions.

My favourite one is this one. (Dedicated to you Ryzuk.)



More of these photos found here. And to you pro-Kerry nuts that are going.... OH MY GOODNESS, you're being so anti-Kerry, you just cost us the election! Relax... laugh a little.

This news article caught my eye today. The provincial sales tax is being lowered from 7.5% to 7%. This takes affect this Thursday. Huzzah!

Now I'm sure the political pundits will cynically say this was a election year stunt by the BC Liberals in an effort to buy votes. After all, the next provincial election is on April 19, 2005, which is about 6 months away.

I say.... hurrah for lower taxes. I'm going to enjoy my extra 0.5% thank you very much.

// Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't watched the season premiere of Enterprise.

Introduction

I was watching the season premiere of Enterprise on the weekend. The season starts with Enterprise arriving back at Earth, but at the wrong point in time. They've travelled back in time to the 1940s during the height of World War 2, except the timeline has changed.

In this timeline, Lenin was assassinated in the early 1900's which prevented the rise of communism in Russia. Therefore, there is no Soviet Russia in this timeline. The implication is, Germany isn't drawn into a two-front war and doesn't need to attack Russia. In this situation, Hitler is able to concentrate on taking over The West.

At the start of the war, France falls and so does Britain (which doesn't happen in our timeline). Soon after, the Nazis are able to launch an invasion on the American homeland, and is able to take the northeast, principally New York and the capital.

Anyways, the story revolves around Captain Archer getting help from insurgents in New York which consists of both civilians and members of the Mafia. The insurgency tries to sabotage and disrupt Nazi plans as much as possible.

This story line was really fascinating to me as I read a lot about war history. I know that the Americans were trying to crack down on organized crime in the decades prior to the war, but here we have two enemies working together against a common enemy, the Nazis.

The Facts

I did a little research about Mafia involvement in World War 2, and it's interesting to find that the U.S. Navy formed a secret alliance with the Mafia. (Yes, this is in our timeline now, this is not fiction.) I found this article and this article which was very informative.

The article talks about the U.S. Navy using the Mafia to safeguard their ports in New York. America was the lifeline to the Allied forces in Europe, a lot of war materials were shipped to Europe through the eastern ports of America. The Allies were concerned about Nazi agents sabotaging shipping in the ports of New York, so the Allies got the Mafia to help protect the ports. The Mafia had many eyes, ears, and muscles working at the ports already, so this made a lot of sense.

Another interesting thing was that the Mafia controlled the supply of seafood in New York. They were able to use their fishing boats to spot German submarines and relay the enemy positions back to Allied forces.

The Mafia also had many ties to the Mafia in Italy. During fascist rule in Italy, the secret police were cracking down on the mob, so the Nazis were no friends of organized crime. The Mafia in America was able to convince their Italian counterparts to aid the Allies when the invasion came. The mob in Italy was able to convince many to support the Allied cause. This gave the Allies an easier time when they liberated Italy, as they could rely on support from much of the populace.

Summary

In either case, this was interesting to me as I've never heard about the Mafia supporting the Allies. In all my history classes and various readings, this is the first time I've come across this.

I guess the old saying stands true, "my enemy's enemy is my friend." In desperate times, this was especially true.

Anyways, this is an awesome start to another season of Enterprise. If you're interested, Enterprise is on at 8pm PST, channel 14 (UPN), on Fridays and Saturdays.

Today at work we were talking about diamonds because one of my co-workers was thinking of buying one for his girlfriend. We got talking about man-made diamonds, and I mentioned that man-made diamonds are now as good, perhaps better than the real thing.

My source for my claim is this interesting article from Wired Magazine entitled, "The New Diamond Age." It's a six-page article that's well worth the read. The article talks about an American company who is able to create diamonds for a few hundred dollars. The diamonds that are produced are absolutely flawless, and trained professionals can't tell them apart from diamonds created by the earth.

Wired does a good job of covering the issues surrounding diamonds, from social to technological implications. They talk about the social implications of diamonds caused by the evil De Beers cartel. Technologically, they talk about the benefits that will come with the rise of cheap diamonds.

A snippet from the article:

"Diamond, it turns out, is a geek's best friend. Not only is it the hardest substance known, it also has the highest thermal conductivity - tremendous heat can pass through it without causing damage. Today's speedy microprocessors run hot - at upwards of 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, they can't go much faster without failing. Diamond microchips, on the other hand, could handle much higher temperatures, allowing them to run at speeds that would liquefy ordinary silicon. But manufacturers have been loath even to consider using the precious material, because it has never been possible to produce large diamond wafers affordably. With the arrival of Gemesis, the Florida-based company, and Apollo Diamond, in Boston, that is changing. Both startups plan to use the diamond jewelry business to finance their attempt to reshape the semiconducting world."

I've been calling Thanksgiving Day, Liberty Bird Day in support of our American friends. This was inspired by this funny comic that came out during the run up to the Iraq war. The Americans didn't like the French because they were against the war, so the Americans renamed French Fries to Freedom Fries.



(Explanation: Turkey did not allow the Americans to invade Iraq from their soil which bordered northern Iraq, so the Americans were not pleased.)