Corporal Punishment, Capital Punishment and Island State

Caning and hanging is some form of punishment in country that I live in. People who commit vandalism and people who violate the immigration law may face caning. People who possess firearm and who traffick drug (more than 15g of heroine) will face mandatory death penalty.

However, people have individual view on those issues. Some people think it is inhumane and some people think it will deterred criminal from potential offences. Some people said "Nobody has right to take other people lives". Some said "Death sentence is the best way to prevent people from committing crimes". For me, I simply think caning is totally unfit for today society and mandatory death penalty for non-violent crime is too harsh.

I felt really sorry for Nguyen Van Tuong, Vietnamese Australian who was executed on same island that I live in less than 24 hours ago. One of the reason is that he is only a few months younger than me. He got caught in airport when he was about to board transit flight to Australia.

The words he told to his lawyer in his last week really touched me. Life should be go on as usual. He even did not want the country that executed him to effect by his death. I can feel forgiveness and peace in his soul.

I really applause his courage to face the dead calmly. He embraced prison superintendent when he went to gallow. He live his life to fullest before he died. I doubted myself whether I can face the situation calmly like him if I encountered this situation.

I deeply wish from the bottom of my heart that his soul can rest in peace. I wish all the families around the world can avoid similar situation that his family is facing.

Yann Arthus Bertrand "Earth from Above"

• In the last century, the population of our planet has been multiplied by 3, the world fresh water consumption by 6.
• 20% of the world population lacks access to improved water supplies.
• 40% of the world population does not have access to electricity.
• 826 million people are under-nourished in the world.
• The amount of oil consumed in 6 weeks, half of which is used in transportation, would have lasted 1 year in 1950.
• Total world military expenditure: US$839 billion
• Official Development assistance: US$51.4 billion
• 11 0f the 15 major fishing zones in the world are decline today.
• Half of humanity lives on less than $2 a day.

The above facts are extracted from the brochure of Yann Arthus-Bertrand "Earth from Above" photo exhibition. The exhibition is currently held outdoor in Orchard Road, Singapore. The aim of the exhibition is to promote sustainable development. The photos can be viewed online at http://www.yannarthusbertrand.org . The photo were taken across all continents which include Madagascar, Indonesia, Iceland, Niger, Kenya and other countries.

As we can see from the above facts, the resources in the world are declining since people used the resources inefficiently without practicing sustainable development. The demand for those resources are increasing as the population of the world as well as the urban population is increasing. Unless we change our consuming habit, our future generation will face the shortage of essential resources such as fresh water, oil and food for their living. The photographers highlighted those fact by showing amazingly beautiful photographs with the related facts.

Sony, DRM and Rootkit

I am late to blog about that issue.

The news of Sony Digital Right Management system which acted like spyware and cause a great security leakage in Operating system is ubiquitous on Internet. Blogging community brought it to the attetion of media. The first blogger who found out about rootkit was Mark Russinovich. You can find out how he detected that malicious intent of Sony CDs in the post of his Sysinternals Blog.

Sony had put in XCP, the copyright protection software in their latest copy-protected CDs. When users run those CDs in their computer, Sony forced the users to install Sony music player to play their CDs. Apart from installing music player, they installed other software called rootkit without the knowledge of users.

When the rootkit was running on the computer, it would take root privileges from the system and took hidden space in computer. It would monitor user activities such as copying and playing music. It will cause security hole in operating system and vulnerable from hackers' attack. The users who found out about rootkit felt very unhappy because that software tried to contact Sony from their computers without their knowledge.

After the complaints from users, Sony released another patch to remove the rootkit. Before users could download the patch, they needed to provide personal information like name and e-mail address to Sony. Still worse, the ActiveX control in their patch caused another security hole in system. The hackers who know about their ActiveX could take control of computer when the users are visiting their malicious websites and even have the privileges to delete entire harddisk.

Now, Microsoft Anti-Spyware team released the patch to remove all the software installed by Sony DRM. Securities companies also treated Sony DRM software as Malicious software and tried to release patches to completely remove them from system. Sony also released uninstaller to remove their software to soothe the angry users. They recalled around 2 millions CDs from the shelves. But they never publicly apologize for their action.

First4Internet was the company that developed those malware for Sony. Some software researchers claimed that First4Internet copied some part of source code from LAME to develop music player for Sony. LAME is and OpenSource MP3 player released under LGPL.

Though they want to control their properties, they have no right to do in that way. Now some people files law suit against Sony in US court. That event is really a debacle for Sony.

How to get rich and beyond

I recently read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and I really like the idea in it. I like the idea about "Pay yourself first" and "Get passive income".

Now I realize that I need to build financial intelligence. I have already passed one-third of my lifetime but I still cannot get out of financial struggle. Currently, I am struggling for my further studies.

Some of my friends recently persuaded me to invest in Network Marketing. They said I need to invest $15k and get back that money back after I can persuade another five people to invest $15k.

No. I am not a greedy fool. Your company is not Microsoft or even far from Fortune 500 listing. If I can persuade people to invest $15k, I would rather start my own corporation instead of pumping money to your pocket. Besides, there is no guarantee or whatsoever about money. If you run away, it would be end of story.

I have attend network marketing or Multi Level Marketing seminar in Rangoon 7 years ago. The speaker openly admitted that a lot of people had got failure in MLM due to cheating.

I am not pessimistic but I am cautious. I don't trust any stranger when it come to money matter. I have been cheated 3 times before.

Be careful when you sign the paper and when you do not have any paper. It is the precious lesson that I got from my own experience.

By the way, I can recall some books that I read before which also pointed me out about financial intelligence. They are "Richest man in Babylon" and "How to get and use Money" .

Quit Smoking

I am trying to quit smoking now. It felt like hell for last two days. It is not easy to overcome craving desire for cigarette. Finally, I felt relieved when I went to shop to buy "nicotine substitutes".

The symptoms of quitting is more serious than I expected though this is not my first time to quit the smoking. I tried more than ten times in nine years of my smoking life. But, I relapse after three weeks at most.

It is a lot better than I expected. All of my irritation caused by lack of nicotine gone instantly. I only have a problem with those things. Since I bought gum type of nicotine substitute and its chewing pattern is not same as normal chewing gum, I felt like overdose with nicotine sometimes.

Improvement can be seen in a short time. All my morning cough nearly gone. No blood in morning cough anymore. I have stronger appetite for food currently. However, I need to control it since I have already overweight.

Smoking cessation articles from Yahoo health categories help me a lot. I read another helpful articles from QuitAssit. I have strong reason to quit currently. My health seem like deteriorate over time. My mother also advice me to quit because she said weight and smoking should not be at the same place.

Let's see how long I can stand without cigarette.