Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by dafreak

Is Malaysia really the "laziest" country in SEA?

dafreak — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:14:54 +0800

QUOTE

Global – An international study has apparently found Malaysia to be the most sluggish country in Southeast Asia, and the 10th "laziest" nation in the world. However, Singapore was not included in the survey, which could raise a few questions.

The study, published in medical journal The Lancet, noted Malaysia has often been accused of malaise, which has been attributed by many to the hot weather, supposed lack of educational opportunities and its struggle to compete with other countries.

The “affirmative action” policies spawned from this has created a generation of youths who believe it’s the government’s duty to owe them a living, the Malaysia Chronicle reported.

According to the survey, Malaysia scored 61.4% on their index, beating out other regional countries like Cambodia (11.2%), Myanmar (12.7%), Vietnam (15.3%), Thailand (19.2%), Philippines (23.7%) and Indonesia (29.8%). Singapore was not included in the survey of 122 countries.

It is not clear why Singapore was not included in this particular survey, but the Malaysia Chronicle suggested it could be due to its small size.

“It is not something to be proud of and it is time for the health ministry to get cracking on making Malaysians more aware of where we stand instead of giving the usual excuses and denials which do no one any good," PKR vice president Chua Jui Meng, a former health minister, told Malaysia Chronicle. "A healthy lifestyle and an active and bright mind go hand in hand. So if we are fitter, the tendency is that we won't be so lazy mentally either.”

According to the survey, Asian powerhouses China scored 31% and India 15.6%, while the US came at 46th on the list.

The top three laziest countries were Malta (71.9%), Swaziland (69%) and Saudi Arabia (68.8%).

SOS

Wat say /k/?

Marehsia full of lazy pipu?

Gunung Lang with Canon Malaysia

dafreak — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:25:34 +0800

1)

2)

3)

4)

More:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3...=3&l=7964251877

C&C welcomed..thanks

Secondhand book shop

dafreak — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 09:55:42 +0800

Anyone knows whether there is any secondhand book shop in KL (like Novelhut Ipoh)??

i want to get some uni books..

OCZ leaves ram market

dafreak — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 00:49:35 +0800

QUOTE

OCZ has surprised the industry by announcing its departure from the DRAM market in order to concentrate on the increasingly lucrative SSD sector.

In figures unveiled as a part of the company's regular earnings call, OCZ explained that it made a mere 22 percent of its revenue from DRAM products in the third financial quarter of this year.

Ryan Petersen, chief executive officer at OCZ, explained that 'we have focused on building the OEM and enterprise segments of our business, and last month we announced a mass production order from a Tier-1 OEM for our enterprise-class SSDs, reflecting the reliability, speed and total cost of ownership solid state drives provide over traditional mechanical hard drives.

'We believe the market opportunity for SSDs is significant, and to that end, we will continue to invest in research and development to extend our leadership position, and we also plan to increase our sales and marketing efforts in order to facilitate continued revenue growth and increased market share as SSDs gain adoption in all segments.'

The move out of the DRAM market comes after an announcement in August last year that the company would no longer make entry-level DRAM, and would instead concentrate its efforts at the higher-performance - and therefore more profitable - end of the market.

The company's exit from the DRAM market is expected to be completed by 28 February, although it will take time for stock to work its way out of retailers' inventories.

With DRAM prices continuing to fall globally, OCZ might be picking the right time to leave the market. However, the loss of its well-regarded products, including the recently launched Blade 2 and XTE series, will be a blow for some overclockers.

SOS

ExternalHD show as empty?

dafreak — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:42:14 +0800

I installed win7 x64, all drivers updated

but when i connect my externalhd, it shows up empty

tried plugging in to another port still like that..

so i recovered the files and retransfer them back. then i unplug and replug it shows as empty again!

why is that?

Avatar Trilogy

dafreak — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:54:57 +0800

QUOTE

By now everyone knows that not only is "Avatar" a huge hit, but also director James Cameron never expected it to be anything less than a blockbuster. So it's not a huge surprise that the director confirms this week that he has always planned to do an "Avatar" sequel, and hopefully even turn the franchise into a trilogy (you hear that, George Lucas?).

"I've had a storyline in mind from the start - there are even scenes in 'Avatar' that I kept in because they lead to the sequel," Cameron tells Entertainment Weekly in this week's issue. "It just makes sense to think of it as a two or three film arc, in terms of the business plan. 'The CG [computer graphic] plants and trees and creatures and the musculo-skeletal rigging of the main characters - that all takes an enormous amount of time to create. It'd be a waste not to use it again."

In other words: Cameron is taking a kind of "green" approach to the blue-skinned characters: Recycle, reuse, and reduce what might otherwise be underused filmmaking.

Directors often hint about sequels that never come about, but the fact that "Avatar" star Sam Worthington has already signed on to reprise his role as Jake Sully suggests the plans look pretty solid. And Cameron has had good luck with sequels in the past: "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" made more than seven times as much money as the original "Terminator"; and "Aliens," Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's "Alien" may not have outpaced the original at the box office, but it was by all other metrics a solid hit.

As for other cast members returning for an "Avatar" sequel, actor Stephen Lang, who played Colonel Miles Quaritch, the baddest guy in the movie, thinks he could make a return: "You think those two arrows in my chest are going to stop me from coming back?" Lang told EW, "Nothing's over so long as they've got my DNA."

Whatever Cameron imagines for the planet Pandora in the sequel, he'll probably stick with an environmentalist theme.

When asked this week at a private industry screening of the film in Los Angeles about the film having a "political agenda," Cameron said, "I don't know if there is a political agenda exactly, but as an artist I felt a need to say something about what I saw around me. I think we all need to take stewardship of our planet," adding: "I think everyone should be a tree hugger."

If the "Avatar" sequel does happen, it'll be a few years before audiences can lay their 3D-glasses-enhanced eyes on it. Cameron is currently in pre-production on his next movie, "Battle Angel" in which he'll use some of the same CG technology he created for "Avatar." That film is slated to hit theaters in 2011.

Sos

Doomsday Deferred: End-of-World Clock Set Back

dafreak — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:22:54 +0800

QUOTE

The Doomsday Clock has been set back 1 minute for the first time in its 63-year history. In moving the clock from 5 minutes before midnight to 6 minutes before midnight, scientists expressed optimism for humanity's future.

This end-of-the-world clock, set up in 1947, is meant to convey how close we are to the end of the world via catastrophe caused by nuclear weapons or climate change, among other factors.

The Haiti earthquake was not a factor in today's decision.

A news conference announcing the change took place this morning at the New York Academy of Sciences Building in New York City. The actual clock is housed at the Bulletin of Atomic Sciences (BAS) office in Chicago, Ill., and so a representation of the clock was shown at Thursday's news conference.

"We moved it back by just one minute, and what that means is there's great potential for it to move in either direction," Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist on the BAS Board of Sponsors, said at the news conference. Krauss added that for both nuclear weapons and climate change threats there has been "a sea change in attitude, an opening up of possibilities, but not yet a lot of action."Krauss is also at Arizona State University.

The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2007, when it was pushed forward by two minutes, from seven to five minutes before midnight. The change was meant to reflect two major sources of potential catastrophe that could bring us closer to "doomsday," according to the board of "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," a magazine focused on warning the world of the dangers that the invention of the atomic bomb helped to unleash.

According to the board, the looming dangers included: the perils of 27,000 nuclear weapons, 2,000 of them ready to launch within minutes; and the destruction of human habitats from climate change.

State of the world

Today's announcement focused on both the positives and negatives surrounding ways to stem nuclear weapons and global warming, while not mentioning much about biosecurity, another threat that has come into play when determining which way to move the clock's minute hand.

"For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material," BAS scientists said in a statement. "And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable."

These unprecedented steps are signs of a growing political will to tackle the two gravest threats to civilization - the terror of nuclear weapons and runaway climate change."

Clock history

In December 1945, University of Chicago scientists who had helped to develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project created "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists." The Bulletin's board of directors then in 1947 came up with the idea of a Doomsday Clock to symbolize these threats. The message is that humans are "a few minutes to midnight," where midnight represents destruction by nuclear weapons, climate change and emerging technologies in the life sciences.

The hands of the clock move in response to changing world events, marching forward or back depending on the state of the world and the prospects of nuclear war.

When the Doomsday Clock debuted in 1947, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was occurring, with the time showing seven minutes to midnight. The time has since changed 18 times.

The closest approach to Doomsday occurred in 1953, when the clock was changed to two minutes to midnight after the United States and the Soviet Union each tested thermonuclear devices within nine months of one another.

And the biggest jump occurred in 1991 when the minute hand moved seven minutes, from 10 minutes to 17 minutes before midnight, to reflect the end of the Cold War when the United States and Russia were making deep cuts to their nuclear arsenals.

Since the "clock is ticking," BAS scientists urge various actions, including:

* Completing negotiations, signing and ratifying the new U.S.-Russia treaty providing for reductions in deployed nuclear warheads and delivery systems.
* Adopting and fulfilling climate-change agreements to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
* Transforming the coal power sector of the world economy to retire older plants and to require in new plants the capture and storage of the carbon dioxide they produce.'

The Bulletin scientists also encourage much greater investment in developing alternatives to carbon-emitting energy sources, such as solar and wind, and in technologies for energy storage, and sharing these results worldwide.

SOS

DDR2/DDR3 dilemma

dafreak — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:41:48 +0800

Is it advisable to go for DDR3 ram or stay with DDR2 ram now?

AMD Southbridges

dafreak — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:43:18 +0800

is there any difference between sb710 and sb750 besides sb750 supporting raid 5?
do both perform similarly when overclocking?

16 cores in 2 years!

dafreak — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:57:17 +0800

AMD Promises Sixteen-Core Microprocessors in Two Years.

AMD Plans 12-Core “Magny-Cours” Chip in 2010, 16-Core “Interlagos” Scheduled for 2011
[04/23/2009 11:06 AM]
by Anton Shilov

As AMD Opteron turns six years old, Advanced Micro Devices is gearing up to start shipping six-core flavor of its server processor for revenue in several weeks time. In addition to making a rather symbolic announcement on Opteron’s sixth birthday, AMD also revealed its new server roadmap that includes twelve-core processor in 2010 and a chip with whopping sixteen cores in 2011 along with brand-new DirectConnect Architecture 2.0 server architecture.

The new DirectConnect Architecture 2.0 (DCA 2.0) has a number of benefits, including dual or quad-channel DDR3 memory controller, which enables unprecedented bandwidth (up to 51.2GB/s per socket in case of PC3-12800 memory); four HyperTransport links per processor, which allows to connect additional accelerators to a processor; AMD-V 2.0 virtualization technology that allows to run more virtual machines per server and virtualize more applications, something particularly important at the dawn of cloud computing; AMD-P 2.0 power trimming technology that promises to further increase performance while maintaining the same power consumption.

AMD completely understands that far not everyone needs extreme amount of processing engines or additional expandability, therefore, starting from 2010 there will be two platforms for different types of servers: one – featuring one or two processors – aimed at file and print servers, email servers, Web servers, high-performance computing clusters and so on; another – featuring two or four chips – designed for enterprise-class machines that run databases and other tasks.

In 2010 AMD will bring two platforms onto the market targeting two different market segments and designed for different types of microprocessors:

* AMD G34 “Maranello”: AMD Opteron processors 6000-series with up to 16 cores, quad-channel memory interface, 2 or 4 sockets, up to 12 memory modules per socket.
* AMD C32 “San Marino”: AMD Opteron processors 4000-series with up to 8 cores, 1 or 2 sockets, up to 4 memory modules per socket.

Next year AMD plans to release its AMD Opteron 6000 “Magny-Cours” processor with eight or twelve cores made using 45nm process technology as well as AMD Opteron 4000 “Lisbon” chip with four or six processing engines.

In 2011 the Sunnyvale, California-based chip designer will refresh the Maranello server platform with AMD Opteron 6000 “Interlagos” processor with twelve or sixteen cores and San Marino platform with AMD Opteron “Valencia” chip with six to eight cores. Both code-named Interlagos and Valencia will be made using 32nm process technology and will be based on code-named Bulldozer micro-architecture.

Based on an image provided by AMD as well as the fourth HT link found in the new chips, the high-end 6000-series will consist of two dies found in 4000-series on the same piece of substrate.

Sauce

Is this ok?

dafreak — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:49:26 +0800

i overclocked my processor a little using ntune and the rams are clocked at 800mhz..everything is stable

just wondering is this ok?

How does Samsung measure up..

dafreak — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:31:55 +0800

How do Samsung compact cameras measure up to brands like Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Olympus, Sony etc?
I've never heard of Samsung cameras before. Only in 2008 i see them promoting.

*edit..should be easier to understand now

Wanna ask...

dafreak — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:28:20 +0800

1)is it the same way as cleaning cpu?

2)when putting back the heatsink the thermal paste apply like how it is applied to cpu?

Cleaning thermal paste

dafreak — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:18:49 +0800

where to get the solvent to clean it??lowyat got sell??

Can help me fix this...

dafreak — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:18:54 +0800

Anyone knows wats wrong with my modem....suddenly it cant detect the DNS
weird thing is..i can connect by using windows dailer..but the modem wont auto connect even when i enter the DNS manually. The DSL light is stable..everything is OK but i dont understand why it suddenly cant detect the DNS. Reset/Restart/reinstalled firmware still not working:(

Bottleneck

dafreak — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:26:59 +0800

How do I know that my comp is facing bottleneck?Will there be like sudden short(very very short) freezes/lag then run smoothly for a while then the freeze/lag again?
If it is not like that then why is my comp like that since i upgraded my ram?

edit: i think i post wrong place liao.. ..can mod please move it..thx

Need opinions

dafreak — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:41:06 +0800

I need u guys opinions on this

Current PC:

Proc: AMD Sempron 3800+(2.2Ghz)
Mobo: ECS-Iris8 (Soc AM2)
Ram: 2GB (1 GB x 2) AENEON PC2-6400 800mhz
PSU: CM Extreme Power Plus 460W
GPU: FORSA 9600GSO 384MB
Use: Casual gaming, movies etc

Originaly this PC is from the Citibank Credit Card promo(parents buy..cant say anything)..tats y mobo n proc sux

I was wondering whether to just upgrade to a better proc(eg: AM64 x2) until Nehalem comes out or change the whole thing to Intel set. Not sure how much budget yet coz planning to do this upgrade during sem break.

Upgrade proc so that can make use of the 800mhz of ram..maybe amd64x2 5000+?...sempron can only go until 667mhz...nehalem..who knows how much its gonna cost

Which would be much better? Upgrade proc n wait for nehalem or upgrade whole thing?

[wta]Reverse atx

dafreak — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:25:02 +0800

I came across that term in this forum. Just wondering what is the difference between normal atx. The casing available is made by which company?Cheap/expensive?

I think i'm having one right now because i saw all the pics of the cpu in the forum the gpu fan all face downwards but mine is facing upwards

[wta]Atx and micro-ATX

dafreak — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:17:07 +0800

What is the difference between the two besides the size/dimensions??