Google: It's a dangerous world out there

I was searching stuffs for my essay this morning, and suddenly this happened. In fact, every single result was flagged by Google as a site with "malwares". The glitches lasted for about half an hour.

Google fixed and explained what was hapened quite fast. According their blog, when they were updating the blacklist, the value " / " was accidentally checked as an identifier for sites with malwares, and of course, every URL got that slash.

next hubble image

As part of celebration of 2009 the year of Astronomy, NASA is letting people to decide where the Hubble Telescope should point next. There are 6 options for people to vote before march, 1st.

They've done something like this back in sometime around 2001 ... if my memory serves me right.  But I do remember the winner, it was Horsehead Nebula. As the result of that, Hubble produced an astonishingly detailed photograph.

BTW, for those who are interested, I recommend you to put this site in your RSS reader.

mind-reading game...

I don't usually recommend websites, but this one's quite interesting.

http://en.akinator.com/

My friend forwarded me this site today. It's an interesting mind-reading type of game, the computer asks questions on what character you have in  mind and then tries to guess it. It's amazingly accurate, I tried like twenty times, and the character I had in mind ranged from auntie Helen Clarke to Lin Daiyu (an character in Dream of the Red Chamber)  - the computer never missed a shot and can usually done the guessing within 20 questions.

It's not a mindreading game, seriously, it works more like a decision tree in statistics. It's fun to play though.

Fonterra knew the milk was contaminated

I am actually very surprised to find out that today's the first time many in New Zealand  know this fact. The current evidence shows that Fonterra learnt the whole issues sometimes in Augest last year,  a month ealier before the whole thing made public.

As the Herald reported today, Fonterra confirms that it has sent Sanlu an European Union "provisional statement" on health effects of melamine, the file states a safe level of concentration below 20mg/kg . I blogged this  in my Chinese blog month ago, but forgot to mention it here:)

This changes the whole situation a bit though, what I knew was an "EU standards", not "provisional statement". One of the reasons why Sanlu kept selling tainted milk powders even after contaminants were discovered, is because that its boss, Tian Wenhua was confident that the "standard"  provided by Fonterra shows there's a safe level, so Sanlu mixed good powders with bad ones to keep the concentration of melamine in individual packaging below that level. To this date the evidence shows that they really did well to control the concentration of melamine below 10mg/kg for products after August.

As reported by Chinese media, Fonterra directors did not "reject" the whole idea of the controlling measures - this tells me Fonterra not just knew the contamination, but also did not try to stop production of melamine contaminated milk.

Now this directly contradicts to what Fonterra said today:

" ... However, he (Andrew Ferrier) said Fonterra was "vividly clear" to Sanlu that the only acceptable level of melamine was zero"

Really? So what happened between August and September? They dodgy Chinese did all without Fonterra's knowledge? Well, we are talking about common sense here, if you got a 43% stake in  a large company, and you know it is in trouble, will you keep your eyes shut on your investment?

I still maintain my position, although none of Fonterra directors faced court in China, they should at least face investigations here at home.

The Northwestern Motorway shooting

I'm not an expert on police procedures so just a little bit of my opinion.

Herald got a nice illustration on how the whole thing happened.

First, under certain circumstances police in this country has the right to shoot to incapacitate or  kill. In this case, the offender is armed and fired shots, dangerously speeding, threatening the safety of the general public, I would guess this is one of  the circumstances that justifies the use of firearms.

So the death of an innocent civilian, 17 year old Halatau Naitoko  is a case of whether the police should took more care, not the case of whether the police should fire shots in the first place.

As the Herald report shows, Naitoko's van is stopped just behind the gunman, and within the line of fire.  The situation looked like this:

Police/AOS |------|Gunman|------|Naitoko in his van

I think the key is, whether the AOS knew the car behind the gunman got  people in it or they were just too concentrated on the gunman. The police probably should took more care but I cannot see any wrongdoing in this case - police or even AOS are not Naval Seals so you should expect some of their shoots to miss, and unfortunately, Naitoko was caught in the line of fire. Gun battles may look exciting in the American TV series and Hollywood movies, but in real life, police need, and pressured to make  split-second and sometimes random decisions, and that could lead to tragic consequences.

I don't think  there's the need to charge  whoever fired that shoot as AOS were simply doing their job. This is rather an unfortunate case for both police and the Naitoko family - if the police and gunman swap places, then Naitoko could be killed by gunman rather than the police - will that make the this case easier to swallow? Probably not, as some would still blame the police for not doing enough to protect the public.

This is one of the things that happened in the wrong place, probably in the wrong time as well.

If we blame police for doing their job then next time if something similar pops up, officers will be more hesitate to fire, worrying that if he/she got wrong then he/she may end up in jail, and put themselves and general public in a greater danger.

The Naitoko family are more than entitled to receive compensations from the crown as the police is responsible for his death, police should also apologise to the family, but hold someone accountable for doing their job is bit of a step too far. You may argue that AOS and police officers should receive more training, but that's the problem of the Police as a whole, not the responsibility of individual police officers.

Best new year wishes to everyone

Tomorrow marks the start of another new year in Chinese lunar calendar, most people translate it as "the year of ox", but I prefer to say "the year of bull" for obvious reasons:)

There aren't many of celebrations happen in New Zealand and the weather isn't spring-like at all, but luckily, this year's new year's day coincides with Auckland anniversary, which means that I can spent the new year's day to do what ever people are suppose to do in new year ... I don't know really, my family tend to keep it very simple by just gather family friends and dine together on New Year's day.

What you do isn't that important anyway, the important thing is to maintain that cultural tie with your root.

I understand for many, last year was "a year of chaos", financial crisis, earthquake in China ... I think the best thing to have in new year is not necessarily a bank account with a substantial total, but a healthy body and peace for every family members and friends.  The earthquake in My home province, Sichuan taught me that I should cherish whatever I got at the moment and every moment I have with my family - you just don't know how lucky you really are.

My heart is with all the people who lost their loved ones in the earthquake, as I understand, most of them will spend this new year in temporary housing, with worries that aftershock that may strike anytime.