Chan's Personal Blog

A few months ago, a really creepy Tom Cruise Scientology video got leaked onto the internet. The Church of Scientology began trying to censor the Internet by suing websites and trying to take the videos down. That action really ticked off hackers (who tend to be very anti-censorship), and they've declared war on Scientology.


Wired Magazine has an article entitled, "War Breaks Out Between Hackers and Scientology -- There Can Be Only One


What's interesting is that one of my friends, who's a federal agent, is caught in-between the two warring factions.

For a while, I've been pondering about North America's obesity problem. I've watched a few shows like Jamie Oliver's School Dinners that point to our diets as being a big part of the obesity problem. One of the conclusions he had come up with was that generally speaking, it's more expensive to eat healthy. Therefore, it's an economic disincentive to eat healthy, and people on the lower rungs of the economic ladder will have a harder time getting healthy food.

Case in point. You go to a McDonalds, and you can get a Big Mac Meal with fries and a drink, or a chicken salad for the same price. In terms of value, the Big Mac meal seems more appealing and filling. That got me thinking, why is it that junk food and such is cheaper than wholesome real food?

I came across a blog with an article entitled, "Why Eating a Big Mac is Cheaper than Eating a Salad"

So, I've finished moving my photos off of Facebook and into Flickr. I've added a widget on my blog that pulls in a feed of my latest photos that I've taken. I still have two months worth of photos that still need to be put up, so it's going to be a while until I catch up. However, please enjoy checking out the pictures.

I have a total of 350 photos for now, and probably another 600 more to go. Stay tuned! If you're a Flickr user as well, drop me a note, and I'll add you to my contacts.

Flickr absolutely rules. It's probably one of my favourite Yahoo applications.

You may have heard in the media that Yahoo has laid off approximately 1,000 people last week. To answer everyone's question, yes I am still at Yahoo. I have survived. These are definitely strange and interesting times though. The day after the layoffs, the dust was still settling and we were still trying to get a grasp of who the survivors were. It was definitely very hard getting an e-mail from an international team member who was asking why Ms. X wasn't responding to her e-mail; I had to explain that she wasn't with the company any more.

With Microsoft at the gates of Yahoo, it's definitely hard not to wonder if those who were let go were the lucky ones. Microsoft is definitely doing what it's good at, and that's spreading FUD. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

At this point, the only certainty is uncertainty.

In either case, let me salute those who have fallen. There were some people who should have been let go, and others who definitely shouldn't have. We shall continue the fight, until we can't.

I just came across this really neat project where researchers have visualized Yahoo Search queries. It shows what people are searching for based on their geographical location. This project was created by the Yahoo! Design Innovation Team.


There's a video (requires Quicktime) here of this in action. The visual representation Hurricane Felix searches are quite remarkable and pretty. It'd actually be interesting if they showed the hurricane coming in on the globe, and see how that affected search queries. For example, as the hurricane hit, queries suddenly start lighting up around the world. Another interesting query would be to see what happened search wise after 9/11; however, I doubt they keep search logs from that long ago.

Probably one of the funniest clips I've seen in South Park. A safe and drug-free way to treat kids with attention deficit disorder:


Whenever you see a plethora of video clips on my blog, it means I'm quite busy at the moment. Hopefully I'll have posts with more substance later in the week.

I found this awesome video of a guy giving Jerry Yang (Yahoo CEO) some tips on negotiating a deal with Microsoft. Enjoy.


Funniest line ever, "Liberia, lets see you monetize Liberia."