Unboxing My MacBook Pro

Tagged as: Mac, Pictures Sep 23

After following the MacBook Pro’s progress from before it even came out to the first edition with its problems aplenty to the future iterations that got better and better, here is the culmination.

I initially started to get interested in the MBP once I realized that Mac OS X was much more than I had thought. It had pieces of BSD (a Unix foundation) and that seemed to me to be worthwhile. I wanted to see what it was like, and the MBP just became more and more attractive as I looked at it more.

Hopefully my waiting will pay off and my MBP will be trouble-free. Now by this time these kinds of things will not be very exciting to most people. there have been countless people who have done such posts and have tread this ground. But that is all by design because I don’t want to be one of the first (and almost by definition get all of the problems). In any case, here are the pictures. They’re not too interesting, but rest assured that I have some future related posts that may be more so.

It looks so normal!

I’m glad that they make it as shock-resistant as possible.

Goodies, goodies.

And we’re off!

Stalker Style

Tagged as: Internet, Pictures Jun 22

or even better

Well that’s just fun. That’s how you Spell with Flickr.

Ah Summer!

Tagged as: Humor, Pictures, Seen-Around Jun 14

I was never one for pro con lists. But maybe I’ll start. Here is one for the season that is summer. And one caveat to this post is that must know that I live in sunny southern California, so if you live in some forsaken place then you’ll just have to wish it were different for you. Or you can bask in the cons that I experience and enjoy your freezing cold. Just know this: I wouldn’t trade places with you at all.

Pro:The sun gives us vitamin D which is needed for, among other things, calcium to be absorbed and used. It also gives you a nice healthy looking glow.
Con:The sun causes skin cancer. It also causes wrinkles.

Pro:Can make use of those expensive sunglasses.
Con:The reflection off of objects is sometimes glaring, especially if we forget to bring those expensive sunglasses.

Pro:Have more sunlight to play with (or in).
Con:Having nobody to play with.

Pro:Summer love.
Con:Not having anyone to love. Or more likely, having nobody to love you back.

Pro:Sitting out, enjoying a nice drink on the proverbial porch.
Con:The stupid bugs that will eat you alive.

Pro:Vacations to far off places.
Con:Not having any vacation time. Or having no job and plenty of “vacation time,” but obviously having no money to vacation with.

Pro:Cruising in your car, looking cool.
Con:Not having had any rain for a long time, so your car is dirty. Your speakers are not loud enough to make anyone glance again. Your car is laughably unimpressive. You look like a fool.

Photo courtesy of flickr user Storm Crypt and used according to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Behind The Words

Tagged as: Life, Pictures Jun 09

I was tagged for the Face Behind The Blog meme by Rory of hamelife.com. I enjoyed reading his, and I realize now that people might enjoy one that I did as well. I must admit that when I stopped to think, I realized that I actually had not put any pictures of myself on this blog. I am some anonymous (presumably) Asian male who writes for this blog. Well well well that’s interesting. So here we go!

I thought that I’d post pictures marking periods of change in my life. Oh and sorry that the quality is not very good. It was partly because I don’t have a quality scanner to get those prints that are only in hard form, and it is also partly on purpose because I don’t want high quality pictures of me floating around on the Internet. You never know what incriminating things people can do to you.

Ah young Derek, eagerly awaiting his birthday cake. I believe it was an ice cream pie. Those are good, indeed. Notice the obscenely large glasses. I believe the proper term for me back then was baller.

This was taken right before I got braces to fix those horrendous canine teeth.bicuspids. (That would be the canine teeth if you didn’t know.) I had fun during that time but boy did those bicuspids cut my lips!

A pictures of myself from high school. Thus marked the end of my strange (for the most part) days. This was taken sometime in the middle of high school. I didn’t like that time period in my life. But the pictures weren’t bad.

Here I am in China, and it is the most recent of the bunch. As you can see, I’m a much more interesting fellow. I’d like to think that I’ve come into my own and am comfortable in my own skin. Also notice the advent of the digital camera. Splendid!

So in continuing with this fun game, I’d like to tag Shelly at This Eclectic Life, Mat at matkishimoto’s blogspot, Ms. Q at qmusings, and HMTKSteve (strangely enough I don’t know if his name is actually Steve ) at Ramblings of the Marginalized. You are by no means obliged to do this. I just thought that these would be some interesting people to see what kind of “different” pictures they could put up of themselves.

Others who have participated include:

Gayla at Mom Gadget
Char at Essential Keystrokes
Paul at Reflections

Rob at 2Dolphins
Zep at The In-Sect

Ingo at Stixster
Stevie at Lost In Cyberspace

The Paper Bull at (oddly enough) The Paper Bull
Lisa Sabin-Wilson at Just A Girl In The World
Dawud Miracle at dmiracle.com

Wendy Piersall at eMoms at Home
Dennis Bjørn Petersen at Petersen Inc.

Randa Clay at Randa Clay Design
Drew McLellan at The Marketing Minute
Becky McCray at Small Biz Survival

Phil Gerbyshak at Make it Great!
Steve Woodruff at StickyFigure

Dave Olson at Live the GREAT life that you desire
Greg at Become a Remote Control SEO
Ariane Benefit at Neat Living Blog

Genesis at the At Home Mom Blog
Armen at iFFECT.NET

Mihaela Lica at Online Public Relations
Tara at Graphic Design Blog
Doris Chua at Home Office Women

Edward Mills at Evolving Times
Tony D. Clark at Success from the Nest

Jonathan-C Phillips at SmartWealthyRich
Karen at A Deaf Mom Shares Her World
Lisa Gates at intrinsic life design

Rammel Firdaus at rammelfirdaus.com
Carol at Pentimento

Adam Kayce at Monk at Work
Thomas at Technical Blogger
Tammy Lenski at I Can’t Say That!

Chris Brown at Branding & Marketing

Rory Sullivan at Hamelife

What? Ants?!

Tagged as: Amazing, Entertainment, Learn, Pictures, Read-It, Television May 11

I really like watching The Discovery Channel. That makes me think of another show that I really have started to enjoy: Man vs Wild but that is a whole different entry.

Tonight I watched parts of Killer Ants and Ant Wars on The Discovery Channel. Of the Formicidae family, ants are infamous around the world. Now I am definitely no fan of these pesky insects, but I am most comfortable watching them from the safety of my home.

On the shows that I watched, I learned about an ant that I had not heard much of: the Siafu Ant. Apparently this is a very well-known ant from Africa. Why is it well-known? Well here are some highlights:

• They do not stay in the same place for very long, they have to up and move more than once a month. Imagine having to do that!
• They form highways before they actually move. The lead parties will stake out a new location and lay a chemical trail for others to follow. They will then clear the path of obstacles and actually create a trench for the new highway so that it will be easier for the large mass to navigate.
• There are at least 3 different classes of Siafu besides the queen and the male. They are differently sized and have different strengths. They range from the large soldier ants with crushing jaws to the small utilitarian ant that can perform any number of duties including cleaning larvae, hunting, and forming the walls of the colonies!
• They have to hunt in order to feed the millions of larvae that are produced by the queen monthly. Millions!
• To hunt, they will basically spread out along the forest floor and sweep around the area near the colony. They sense the carbon dioxide that living beings emit in order to find them! As soon as one ant encounters prey, it will release a chemical signal so that others will immediately come to help. They win by sheer power in numbers.
• Oh yes, and many of them do not have eyes. They do all of these things just using chemical signals.
• Not on the show, but reading about them online I found that they can intentionally hunt and prey on much larger (well larger than insects) animals! It’s not necessarily common, but it also definitely seems like it happens. Rabbits, vipers, and even a drunk with a broken leg were stories that I read about.

The bulldog ants are not as prominent in the world perhaps, but they are still pretty well known in their native Australia. They are large and independent ants that are in many ways opposite of the Siafu. One of the most interesting things about them is that they have venom that can cause anaphylactic shock! Apparently their venom is one of the most potent of any insect! (Of course this means that it doesn’t include snakes, spiders, etc) However, their nests are small and they will hunt almost strictly individually. However, because they are unafraid of human interaction, there can be literally once a week hospital emergencies on account of a bite.

Why??

Why do I care about all of this? Well besides the fact that it is simply amazing to see these creations doing what they do, I feel like there is so much to learn from them!

1. They are diligent in their work. You don’t see slackers messing around when they should be working.
2. They are willing to give their all for something bigger than themselves.
3. Trust is something that they can inherently do with ease.
4. Aspiration to be the greatest (although an admirable trait in some humans) is nonexistent with these creatures. We can learn to be a bit more satisfied with who we are, what we have, and so on instead of always being dissatisfied with every aspect of our lives.
5. They get their friends to help them out. Okay so that is just the Siafu…
6. But the bulldog ants are also good as they are so aptly named because they will refuse to let go once they bite. Once you get something good, you don’t let that go.
7. Don’t be afraid to up and change things around if it’s not working. When the ants run out of food, they will move. Just because you do something that you’ve always done does not mean that you are constrained to continue doing it.

There are many more I am sure. I enjoy finding life lessons where there are seemingly none. I also enjoy watching The Discovery Channel.