Structural Re-organization!!

Guys, I've come to my senses finally.

Maintaining two blogs at one time is a very tedious task. Traffic is divided in half, so I don't really get enough readers. So starting today, fw:this is decommissioned. All traffic shall be redirected to Apalancho! automatically. OK maybe not, coz the Blogger template only automatically redirects to domains outside Blogspot. Anyway heres the link.

Apalancho!
An engineer looking for fame and fortune in all the wrong places

Not to worry, I will still be posting 'intellectual stuff' at Apalancho! occasionally. Please update your bookmarks! Thank you~~~

See ya!

Control

A post on Planet Green recently highlighted the use of praying mantis as an alternative to pesticides.

This concept is not exactly new in the agricultural industry but has taken a back seat to pesticide usage. Reason being? Pesticides are much cheaper and easier to deploy than natural pests. Its just that simple. Agriculture in essence is a business and businesses talk about money. The less time you spend on the solution, the more monetary returns you get.

Now this post brought back some hypothesis which I made up back in 2004 when the tsunami hit Malaysia. We have natural predators to control pest population i.e. praying mantis for aphids, owls for rats but what about humans? What is controlling the human population? The answer is simple. Nature.


Map courtesy of Wikipedia.

The human population has been growing exponentially ever since mankind was brought to life. Currently we have hit 6.6 billion with most of the concentration in China, India, USA and Indonesia in that order (globalhealtfacts.org). With the unexpected population boom, the basic demands for living like proper shelter and sanitization are getting harder to meet. As a result, the immune system of the population drops and viruses jump from their animal hosts to humans. Cases like the AIDS and SARS virus are the exact representation of this state.

Is this a classic example of uncontrolled population? I would believe so. The population growth of these countries have overshot their development, leading to unequal wealth distribution which is mainly concentrated in the economic regions. What happens to the people outside this region? They are forced to live in inhumane conditions; tight crammed living spaces coupled with unhygienic food and water supplies thereby leading to the immunity disasters mentioned above.












Now imagine if you were a cattle rancher and your cattle was infected with some deadly disease, leaving half the herd dead while the other half awaiting judgment. What would you do? I'd say burn 'em all, cattle n' ranch altogether. This way you eliminate the source of the disease and the carriers itself.

Cruel? You bet. Thats the exact approach Mother Nature takes to problematic populations. Let me list down a few examples of natures wrath for the past 10 years for your reference. (Disasters sourced from cbcnew.ca)

Oct. 26-Nov. 4, 1998. Hurricane Mitch was the deadliest hurricane to hit the Americas. It killed 11,000 in Honduras and Nicaragua and left 2.5 million homeless.

Dec. 26, 2003. An earthquake devastated the ancient city of Bam, in central Iran, leaving between 31,000 and 43,000 people dead.

Dec. 26, 2004. A magnitude 9.0 quake struck off the coast of Sumatra, triggering tsunamis that swept through the coastal regions of a dozen countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The death toll has been estimated at between 225,000 and 275,000.

Oct. 8, 2005. At least 80,000 people were killed and three million left homeless after a quake struck the mountaineous Kashmir district in Pakistan.

And just recently on May 3, 2008 Cyclone Nargis, swept along by winds that exceeded 190 kmh and waves six metres high struck the Burmese peninsula and may have left as many as 100,000 dead, according to U.S. estimates.

The facts alone make a pretty damn good conclusion. Nature herself is controlling the human population by sending natural disasters to clean up the mess we have made. How else did she get rid of the highly inefficient dinosaurs? Some might say that all this was the act of God but its really up to you to decide. As for me, I'm sticking with this hypothesis. I'm not quite sure if there are any laws or theories out there which have already cited this hypothesis of mine. If there is, do let me know.


Happy Mother's Day Mother Nature!

Vision

This picture was contributed by a friend of mine Wiling Tan who is a great mentor and also a fellow blogger. Visit his motivational site here.

I have finally decided what to do with my blogs FW:This and apalancho!

Starting today FW:This will serve as but not limited to an information hub for various materials ranging from articles on sustainable living, new technologies, gadget/food/tourism/car reviews and entrepreneurial tips.

The aim is to make your life better and when you live your life better, the people around you will benefit from it. I am a strong believer of karma and also of the concept of pay-it-forward. That is why good things must be shared hence the blog is named FW:This. If you find the knowledge useful and think that your friends might benefit it, forward my link to them or at least save the article and send a copy to them in email.

I have too many interests but not enough specialization, which makes me a jack of all trades. The benefit of transforming FW:This into an information hub is that I will be able to contribute my knowledge in those areas I am adept at. As for other categories, I will might open up to other writers but at this moment I am welcome suggestions.

My vision is to consolidate FW:This and apalancho! into one site. The name of the site is yet to be established. I would like to have this future site to be as popular as lowyat.net or even Treehugger. As per the 7 Habits by Steven R. Covey, begin with the end in mind. For the short term, this is what I want to do. The Law of Attraction also tells us that if you can put your dream on paper and spell out the details, one day you dream will come true indefinitely. Everyone should practice this concept as it is very very important to know what you want in life.

As for apalancho! I will still be updating it and will use it as my personal blog, mainly writing about my daily escapades and experiments.

Who knows maybe 5 years down the road my vision may come true? Let's see how things goes. I'll need your support to make this dream a success! As for now, apalancho!

Wend-y

Yesterday as I was sifting through the Treehugger posts recently, I found this post on a magazine called Wend.



Wend is an outdoor magazine which is 100% committed to a sustainable lifestyle and is inspired by biking, kayaking, climbing and surfing. One of their rather interesting green initiatives is by selling their online edition for only half the price of the printed version. This month's issue is offered free online. Click here to read the free issue.

Its really nice to see extra effort to promote green living. Green products are usually marketed at least 3 times the price of conventional products. Wend slashes their online price by half. I wonder if other magazines like Time, National Geographic or even FHM would follow suit?



P/S: I am very into environmental issues lately. Maybe I should write more about green stuff. Hmmm....

Bloggin'

Its difficult to blog.

At least its difficult to set up a blog. Do you agree with me? What do you really want to write about? Your life? Your hobbies? Gadgets? I mean can you imagine the time you need to spend on content creation?

Do you want to use your blog as a source of income? Or do you want it to be a personal low profile emo-blog?

Do you have the right tools for setting up a blog? Have you identified you blogging platform?
How much time are you willing to spend on the blog?

These are basic questions you need to ask yourself before you start blogging. Every blog needs to have a purpose, be it for bitchin' about the secretary or about how to green Mother Earth.

Only YOU are able to answer the questions above.

Here's a site I found which highlights some of the things I mentioned above. Hopefully it will help guide you on your way in your blog, or even LIFE! Note that this link is biased towards business blogging. Later on I will publish my own guidelines so stay tuned!

The Checklist: Getting Started
Link courtesy of MOVABLE TYPE

Happy blogging!



P/S: I've yet to find my purpose for this blog yet, but I do find a sense of accomplishment by providing useful information to others ;)

AddThis!

***Updated on 5/5/08***

Forgot to add in that AddThis also provides a comprehensive tracking tool so you can monitor where your posts are going! Isn't that great? Coupled with NuffNang analytics, you can see which audience you are reaching and in a way show if you are writing the right stuff!

Happy blogging!

***End of Update***

I have just added The #1 Bookmarking & Sharing Button on the Internet, AddThis to both my blogs apalancho! and FW:This.





No idea what it is? Have you heard of digg? What about del.icio.us? Hmm how bout innit by NuffNang? All these are bookmarking and sharing applications which can boost the traffic to your site dramatically!

digg and del.icio.us provides a button on your post where readers can click and add a reference to your site. Your post/site is now automatically broadcasted to readers in digg and del.icio.us! Can you imagine the possibilities? Instant traffic boost! There are thousands of bookmarking applications out there. If you were to add all the buttons to your blog, your blog would end up looking a junkyard for buttons. With AddThis, you blog is kept N-E-A-T!

How to get it? Just head on over to the AddThis homepage.



Click on GET YOUR BUTTON.


Choose either Sharing/Bookmarking Button or Feed Button. Next select the button design of your choice followed by the type of site and site platform. Then hit Get Your Free Button to proceed.




















Click on either Add the Regular Button to my Blog or Add the Dropdown Button to my Blog and customize your location. If you are html savvy, scroll down and you can copy the html code and place it on any location you want!

Thats it! You are good to go! Next, watch as your blog traffic explodes!

Happy blogging!

Did God Create Evil?

I got this in today's email. Couldn't resist posting it immediately.

A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."

The student became quiet and did not respond to the professor's
hypothetical definition. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "May I ask you a question, professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never
been cold?"

The other students snickered at the young man's question. The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name -- Albert Einstein

A true story.

Save

So what have I been up to for the past 2 months? Sorting pieces of my life out, I would say. One of the things was reorganizing my cash flow. I stumbled across this book by David Bach, titled "The Automatic Millionaire". What I read in that book actually reminded me of my saving habits when I was still a kid and how I slowly deviated from those habits once I began my university years. And it got worse once I started working.

















As a kid, my ma always told me to save for a rainy day, and being the good boy I was, I did. And it was no surprise to her that I eventually saved up quite a large sum just by putting a small portion of my daily allowances away each day. Every 50 Ringgit I saved, I would deposit it into my bank account. When the total came to 500 Ringgit, my ma would get me a fixed deposit account. And this would go on and on. By the time I was 18, I was having at least 10k in my FD. Shhhhhhhh!!! Not too loud okay? Its just between me and you ;)

The concept of elaborated by David Bach in his book is similar. The earlier you save and the more you save in the early years, the more returns you get later on. Just take this case for example. I started saving at 8 when I started having my allowance of 50 cents a day. I took 20 cents as savings and the remainder would be used for break time or snacks. So in a week I would already have 1 Ringgit in savings (based on schooling days). Now multiply that by lets say 40 weeks and you have 40 Ringgit in a year. (Of course this amount is just for assumption, coz I definitely need more money for food at that time).

Savings in a week = 20 cents x 5 days = 1 Ringgit

Savings in 40 weeks = 1 Ringgit x 40 weeks = 40 Ringgit

Now assuming I deposited the 40 Ringgit yearly into FD with 4.5% interest per year. Heres a table summarizing the calculation.









If I had diligently saved up 40 Ringgit a year and put it in FD, until now I would have 1074 Ringgit. If I had continued that up to 40 years, I would have 4281 Ringgit. Imagine that. Total investment is 1600 Ringgit (40 Ringgit x 40 years), with a capital appreaciation of 166%. Did I hear you say WOW? Lets put in a little bit of reality. Lets say you start off at 1200 Ringgit and invest 100 Ringgit every month, which translates to roughly 1200 Ringgit a year.



Look at the results. The numbers alone tell the whole story. This is what our parents meant when they said, "Save for a rainy day".

Now go do your own math.

Amazed with the numbers yet?

Lesson learnt here is whatever you do for a living, no matter how old you are, it is never too late to save. It gets better if you invest the money in mutual funds or any other sort of investment schemes (not skim cepat kaya of course :P).

In fact, governments all over the world have enforced ruling for all companies to have an employees provident fund (EPF/KWSP for Malaysia, 401k for U.S.) where they take a cut off your pay to force you to save! My parents used to complain about that, but when they realised the company was contributing an additional percentage on top of the cut, they kept with that plan. In David Bach's book, it is even recommended for you to max out the contribution amount so that you save more!

I'm sure those who read this are saying, "I have no money left to save at the end of each month." I'm quite sure you do. Just take it slow. Start SMALL but start NOW. If you really are up to it, invest in a copy of The Automatic Millionaire now. I did and I can tell you its money well spent.

I believe it is important to be in control your own life. Being financial savvy is one of the ways I can achieve that. You can do so too ;) Trust me. Or better yet, trust yourself ;)