When Generations Collide

While surfing around blogs back in September, I came across this interesting post by FongPC titled Are you Generation X or Y? That was an interesting post as it shows the change in mentality of folks of different ages. For those who care to know, I'm firmly planted in the Generation X category. Kinda the sandwiched-in-the-middle generation, if you asked me!

Anyway, I started looking around for more information about that and came across this piece of work by Lynne Lancaster and David Stillman, authors of the book When Generations Collide (hence the title of my post today!)

Basically what was interesting for me was how this study changes the way I look at things. It used to be that we think people think a certain way because of their age. And when we too reach that certain age, we'll too would think like that as well. Well, the study says we won't. How we think is not just dependent on our age but on what we experience in our lives.



Gen-Xers ('65 - '80) went through events like the fall of the Berlin wall (and subsequent thawing of the cold war); Contra war and Iran vs Iraq; the dot-com boom; AIDS; MTV; Reagan, Gates and Madonna -- and in a way, these events and people shape our generation.

Gen-Xers were the 'me' generation who learned to rely on ourselves. We were the original latch-key kids who grew up being independent, resourceful but at the same time skeptical and even aggressive.

In contrast, the Gen-Y ('81 - '95) youngsters grew up with 9-11 and two Gulf wars; the dot-com bust (dot bomb); cellphone, IM and all things digital; Clinton, Osama and Buffy.

Gen-Y have started entering the workforce, and if you ask the older guys, they get uneasy around Gen-Y 'kids'. The study tells us why we feel like that. Gen-Y are smart, very tech-savvy; multi-tasking and multi-networking (i.e connecting with people). They thrive on learning and excitement and is not afraid of authority (Don't command me, collaborate instead!).

Most of all, Gen-Y is the instant-everything generation. They demand instant feedback, expect instant results, have no problem seeing themselves as tomorrow's leaders. Nothing is fast enough for these folks, yet, value work-life balance.

Granted, these studies have a decidedly US slant to it, but you have to admit that wherever you may be, you should be able to identify with those traits associated with 'your' generation.

Chances are most of you reading this right now are either an X, or Y. Perhaps some Zs too? And hello there if you're a Baby Boomer, glad to see you here!

Interested to learn more? Check out a good presentation and even download it here.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 - launching!!

When the first pictures got out early this year, I told myself this is one cool phone to have in my pocket. The crunch came in the WAIT! This phone, would not be available until end of Q3 08 :(

Here's a quickie on the X1's features.... (in no particular order of 'foo-yoh'-ness)

• Sliding form factor, with a curved, sliding QWERTY keyboard
  
• Runs Windows Mobile 6.1 with its unique Xperia panel interface
  
• Displays all that in the full glory of a crisp, 3 inch, 800 x 480 screen
  
• Uses the really useful optical joystick OR touchscreen for flexible navigation options
• Spots a zippy Qualcomm 7200A CPU running at 528 MHz
  
• Carries an auto-focus 3.2 megapixel camera with flash (LED unfortunately, methinks)
  
• Uses Assisted GPS for rapid positioning even when indoors
• And carries the usual 'must-have' features you've come to expect of a killer gadget like the X1: Bluetooth A2DP (stereo bluetooth headphones), WiFi (of course!), Memory Stick Micro slot (another report claims it is MicroSD???), FM radio, 3G quad-band / HSDPA / HSUPA, Opera browser with RSS reader

If you haven't already seen it, here are some pix of the X1... see if it makes you drool (I'm proud to be a tech geek, ok!).

The good news is... for the lucky folks in UK and some parts of Europe, the wait ends tomorrow, as the official launch for the X1 is 30th Sept 2008! For the rest of us in Asia, Latin America and other parts of Europe, we'll have another agonizing wait until the end of the year before we get out grubby hands on this hottie. Friends in the US, AU... sorry, no news on when this babe phone is coming out.

Oh yeah, the above pix were from Sony's Xperia website. If you want to see more of it, they have a series of videos ala-Jason Bourne, where the hero, Johnny X uses the X1 to figure out his true identity. Check it out at the Who is Johnny X site.

Digital Convergence

I've been down with a bad throat these couple of days. Throw in a mild fever and body ache, and my weekend's pretty much stuffed. So what's a guy to do when he can't take his kids out for the usual weekend spin or swim?

The boys have been very understanding ... and between catching up on some school work, a couple of siestas, their sunday school and a bit of PSP, they were actually quite happy to stay at home!

As for me, it was a good excuse to catch up on some office work, some Astro and to check out the blogsphere. You'd be amazed at the interesting things you find people talk about! From games, to papayas, to recyclable wallets.

Then I spotted this advertisement featured in WongPK's blog.

How safe is your favourite bottle?

About 22 years or so ago, soft drink manufacturers started replacing their large glass bottles with lightweight, and hip-looking plastic bottles. These PET bottles quickly gained public acceptance and was soon seen in every supermarket shelf.

Along the way, some smart guy figured that these nifty bottles would make cheap and perfectly practical water bottles, in place of the much more expensive Tupperware bottles. Before you knew it every other student was toting a PET bottle. Some manufacturers even made straps so you can fasten onto these bottles and make carrying these around easier.

Fast forward 10 years later, and the public started warming up to the idea of drinking mineral or filtered water out of bottles as well. These were also made of PET, and soon replaced soft drink bottles as the 'even hipper' water bottle.

By now, you'd have to have been hiding under a rock this past decade if you don't already know that re-using PET bottles for all drinking liquids is a big NO-NO. Studies indicate these bottles may leach DEHP into the water. DECP is a suspected cancer-causing chemical.

Of course it all depends on which side of the story you hear. PET manufacturers' FAQs will say this is a load of baloney. And some people will tell you if you listen to every warning, you won't even be able to breath, let alone live to the next day. Go figure!

Back to our history lesson. About 5 years or so ago, along came a new wonder bottle, made of polycarbonate (PC for short). These were touted to be the perfect medium for water bottles -- they were very tough, durable, looked pleasant, were recyclable, heat resistant, odour-free, and most importantly, perfectly safe.

Most, if not all of us, fearing for our health, ditched our PET bottles in favour this new, 'space age' bottles in an instant! The considerable take-up factor was also aided by the fact that for all its benefits, these bottles were still much cheaper than Tupperware!

PC is a really versatile plastic. It is actually clearer than glass and can transmit light better. Because of these qualities, it is used to make high-end reading lenses. This stuff is also used for making CDs and DVDs. You find them in baby feeding bottles, tough plastic appliances, car head- and brakelights, skylights, display cabinets, ... the list just goes on!

With so many wonderful uses, you'd imagine you can't go wrong with this stuff! Unfortunately, recent studies have found that with regular use, PC can leach BPA (bisphenol A), a hormone messer-upper. Some studies link it to breast and ovarian cancer, while others warn against dangers to infants.

2 days ago, there's even a news report about a class action suit againt the manufacturors of baby bottles and sippy cups for a host of health problems like prostate and breast cancer, diabetes,
premature onset of puberty in females, lowered sperm count and
infertile sperm in men, developmental toxicity, attention deficit
disorders.

So how do you identify which bottles are safe?
The trick is to look at the bottom of plastic ware, for the triangular recycle signs.
The look something like this:

So far, plastics with the number 2, 4 and 5 have yet to be reported to be dangerous or known to have caused any harmful effects. So your safest bet is to go with plastic products with these numbers.

Numbers to avoid:

• #1 - The soft drinks or mineral water (PET) bottles
  

• #3 - for PVC, which is not a food-grade plastic and should be avoided

• #6 - The familiar white 'styrofoam' boxs used when we 'tapau' our food. These contain a harmful neurotoxin

• #7 - PC falls under the miscellaneous plastics category, along with other classes of plastics
  

To be fair, PC bottle makers like Nalgene have come up with BPA free PC bottles now. Similarly, you can also find BPA-free baby feeding bottles in the market -- you just to be on a look out for these products.

Forestgrovelive.com has published this simple reference card that you can easily use as a guide. It doesn't specifically pick PET out as a danger, but like I said, there are lots of people have either support or reject this.... so its your choice!

Stay healthy ya!!

Robot Trivia #2 - The answers and results

I just realized that I had forgotten to give a closing date for this round of Robot Trivia. (grin!) But I had been looking at the comments and it is quite clear that anybody who has anything to say has either said it or, well, won't ever!

So here are the answers to the trivia....

#13 -- Asimo, by Honda. This is the most articulate robot I've seen to date. He made a brief appearance about 2 years ago here at Midvalley Mega Mall. Did a simple dance and a bunch of other movements which other robots would have trouble managing. If any company has a chance at making real, useful and practical domestic robots, I'd put my money on Honda!




#14 -- Pris from Blade Runner. According to the movie, this is a 'military/pleasure' model. Hmm, dominatrix, anyone??!!



#15 -- QRIO by Sony. Pronounced 'Qu-rio' and short for "Quest for cuRIOsity". Too bad you won't see future models of him anymore as Sony has pulled the plug on his development. Bye bye QRIO, we'll miss ya!



#16 - C-3P0 and R2-D2 from the Star Wars saga. Did you know these 2 guys were inspired, in part by an Akira Kurosawa film titled Kakushi-toride no san-akunin (1958) (The Hidden Fortress)?



#17 - Sonny from iRobot. The first time I saw this movie, I was quite convincend this was the badguy.... at least for the 1st half of the movie! :)



#18 - Twiki, carrying on his chest Dr. Theopolis, Both from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.



#19 - Voltron: Defender of the Universe. Fans watch out, there's a Hollywood movie on this robot in the making!



#20 - Lance Bishop 341-B from Aliens. Prefers to call himself an 'artificial life form'. Was the executive officer on board the Colonial Marine vessel Sulaco.



#21 - EVA-01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Piloted by 14-year-old protagonist, Shinji Ikari. Wikipedia states this is "commonly regarded as one of the greatest anime of all time."



#22 - Sorry, that other guy from Lost in Space had already made his debut in Trivia #1. This bulbous fella is Robby, originally from the movie Forbidden Planet. And check this out, this 7-foot-two robot has actually made appearances in more than two dozen movies and TV shows!



#23 - RX-78-2 from the highly successful Gundam franchise. He was piloted by Ray Amuro, which, like the heroes in many robot stories, is a guy who 'happened to be there' at that time.




#24 - VF-1 Variable Fighter from the Macross universe. Piloted by Skull Squadron leader, Roy Fokker.

So here comes the part where I announce who's the super-geek for this round... and the winner is... a sort-of tie between STING (or Mr. Gundam) and Robotboy!! Both of them gave a bunch of really good answers, as you've seen yourselves, and deserves to win!

Thanks to all for participating... and to show of you who are non-fans of robots, thank you for your patience...

Next post... dangers lurking in your plastic bottles... learn to tell which are safe, which are not!

More robots (Part 2)

Hello there folks, the fun robot trivia is back!!

Hopefully this lineup is more fun for you ... lets see how many you can get right this time.... and then we can find out who's the ultimate robot geek! OK, OK, if you're not too proud of that title... then we'll just keep it low key, how about that? :)


HERE WE GO AGAIN....

#13 -- Its the first ever robot capable of running too!




#14 -- Way cool when she dipped her hand into the boiling water.....



#15 -- Harro! Too bad they've discontinued its development



#16 - No list is complete without these two blokes!!



#17 - Complete with extra dense alloy and independent processor



#18 - Bidibidibidibidi (anybody ever figured out what he is saying??)



#19 - "And I'll form the head!"



#20 - "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid"



#21 - If he fights Angels, does that make him the Devil?



#22 - You have to be really, um, grown up, to know this one!



#23 - The original model -- nothing fancy, but it works!




#24 - Wait till you see me fly! Hint - I talked about it in Part 1

So there you have it.... 2 dozen fine specimens of Robots!! Its quite a shame only 3 amongst the 24 are real. So start posting your comments, and see if you can name these remaining 12!

I'm quite sure I must have missed out some other note-worthy mechs. Oh ya, like the Mechwarriors or the kid from AI. Do let me know too, if there are others which you feel strongly about that was not included in this lineup.

Robot Trivia #1 - The answers and results

The 'contest' is over, finally! And wow, what a non-event. :(

(Alton, Mr Gundam, where art thou?)

Looks like either the robots I'd picked are way too obscure, or this subject is just not your cup of tea. I'm seriously wondering if I should go through with part 2!?!? That's meant to be slightly more challenging ... i.e. likely more obscure!

Anyway, a MILLION THANKS to those of you who participated. Hope it was fun for you. Unfortunately (or may be, fortunately), nobody was geek enough to get all of the questions right... but there were a few good attempts. I'll announce the 'winner' at the end of this post.

But in the mean time, for those of you who are dying to know just what or who those familiar-looking characters are, but can't quite place them, here they are again, in the same order...

#1 - Astroboy by Osamu Tezuka... came out as a comic (manga) in the 50's and then had his own cartoon series (anime) in the 60's... look out for the brand new CGI movie in theaters near you in the future.




#2 - B9 from the 60's SciFi TV series, Lost in Space.




#3 - Cylon Centurion from the 80'x TV series, Battlestar Gallactica. Remember, the constant pain in the rear for Starbuck (the pilot, not the coffee joint) and Apollo?




#4 - Commander Data, from Star Trek: The Next Generation TV series. He was the logic-driven advisor to Captain Picard as Spock was to Captain Kirk (original Star Trek TV series).




#5 - The Daleks, bad guys from arguably the most successfuly British sci-fi TV serial, Dr. Who. Its also *the* longest-running sci-fi TV serial in the world. Their favourite word: Exterminate!




#6 - ED-209, the highly-lethal but buggy law enforcement droid (i.e. 'ED') in Robocop. As dumb and as clumsy as they may be, you still won't want to mess with those 2 pairs of machine guns!




#7 - Aah... the Fembots from Austin Powers... I think these ladies pack both a pair of machine guns and flame-throwers! Gentlemen, you 'd want to be very careful with them!!




#8 - The Iron Giant, from the full-length movie of the same name. I didn't expect many to get it right... but if you love a good movie with 'soul', and don't mind feeling soppy at the end, this is the show, you *must* see this movie! The director is Brad Bird -- same guy who did the Incredibles and Ratatouille!!




#9 - Johnny-5 from Short Circuit, the military robot that achieve self-awareness when he got his circuits zapped by lightning. Doesn't Wall-E look similar to him?




#10 - An obscure robot from an equally obscure movie. This is Marvin, the clinically depressed and pathologically paranoid robot from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That movie was almost as brilliant as the original BBC radio series, but sadly didn't do well at the box office.




#11 - Mazinga-Z (マジンガーＺ）... or Tranzor Z to the North Americans. Created by Go Nagai, and had its fair share of popularity as both a manga and anime TV series in the 70's.




#12 - Megatron, in his original form from the first of many Transformers TV series. Leader of the Decepticons, the bad guys who always almost kick the butts of the softie good guys, the Autobots.

OKAY, so there you have it, all 12 of the robots, named and shamed! :)

And the WINNER IS ROBOTBOY (yay, yay, cheer!!!) He/she didn't get all of them right... but frankly, I think I liked some of the alternate names given as answers... bubblehead, LOL!


Should I still continue with Part 2 soon? Would the world care? Would it help achieve world peace and fight world hunger? Naah.... it would just be pointless but fun -- for me, at least!

I should probably get back to blogging about some useful tech in the mean time.... Cheers!

More robots (Part 1)

Tell you one specific thing about technology that I love -- robots! I have always been fascinated with them -- both real and fictional -- ever since I was a kid.

Yeah, grew up reading Mazinga-Z comic (rocket boosted fists, wow!), and later on, watching videos of Macross/Mospaeda (light years ahead of the Transformer franchise). Do you remember watching on RTM2 the Malay language dubbed Macross? "Bersedia untuk bertukar.... aaar, berdebar betul!! Eh, itu dia, Min Mei!"

I especially love robots with lasers and rockets shooting out of every nook and cranny (think: a fully decked-out battloid, or 'The Sumo'). There's something about opening up a full magazine and letting loose a couple dozen guided missles on some distant enemy. That spells.... G.E.E.K!


At the other extreme end, I also love the more whimsical robots like Doraemon (of course, back then he was just called by his Chinese translated name, 小叮当). He's a mechanical cat who's terrified of mice, sent back from the future to help his owner's loser of a great-great-great-great granddad. He pulls out all manner of inventions from his hyper-dimensional pouch (八宝袋) and almost always manages to save the boy's sorry behind.



Watching Wall-E brought back lots of fond memories of the robots of yesteryears and not too long ago... So I thought it would be fun to dedicate today's post to some of the robots of popular culture. Tell you what, lets have a simple contest, and see who is the first to name all the robots and where they are from.

Post your answers in the comment area... and I'll announce the WINNER in my next post!! The winner goes home with the bragging rights that he/she can out-geek people on robot trivia :)

So, its trivia time.... PART 1. Lets see how many you can get right... Post your answers in the comment section. I'll not publish your answers until this is over... then we'll see who knows their robots more! :)

HERE GOES.....

To get the ball rolling... here's ole Arnie....

#0 - Cyberdyne Systems Series 800/850 model 101 from the Terminator movies

#1 - Oh boy, you should know him right?




#2 - don't get lost looking for him




#3 - Mr hypnotic eyes himself




#4 - Here's looking at you, evil twin!




#5 - Who's that?




#6 - Lay down your weapons... or else!




#7 - Groovy, baby!




#8 - Seriously, you don't want to make him angry!




#9 - Need input....




#10 - Oh what's the point of this trivia!?




#11 - Talk to the fists




#12 - I liked it better as a big gun

Remember.... put in the name of the robot (character) and what movie/series or company is he/she/it from!

So post your answers.... and there'll be PART 2 coming up soon as well.