Steve Jobs - Cartoons Tribute

Ferrari 458 Spider (Convertible)

SMH: It’s not as hard-edged as the coupe, but the drop-top version of Ferrari’s V8-powered 458 Italia makes for an intoxicating machine.

The small rear window of the 458 Spider may not be its most advanced technological feature, but it’s certainly one that allows a new and vastly entertaining perspective of how thrilling a Ferrari can be.

Why’s that? Because the 15cm high piece of glass slides down at the touch of a button, even when the roof is fixed in place and sheltering its occupants from wind, rain or sun.

What that open portal allows to enter the cabin is noise: the suck and roar of the repositioned engine intakes from behind the cabin and, more importantly, the barking, snarling, animalistic symphony of the 458’s 4.5-litre V8.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Driving across the Cisa Pass between Parma and Italy’s west coast along a sinuous stretch of mountain road is to play tunes with the throttle, listening to the deep bellow at low revs, the pop and crackle as the paddle-shift transmission changes gears, and the echo of an engine pushing 9000rpm bouncing off road cuttings and the inside of tunnels.

OK, so the Spider is a convertible and it is just as effective to lower the roof to get that aural experience. But because that removable roof is now a hard top you have the option of leaving it in place and still be treated to a front row seat at the probably the world’s best automotive concerts.

None of this comes cheap, of course. Prices haven’t been released, but expect about a 14 per cent increase over the 458 Italia’s $527,000 price tag, meaning the Spider will be close to a $600,000 proposition when released in Australia mid next year. There’s already an 18 month waiting list, and Ferrari’s Australian importer expects about 50 to be delivered in 2012.

Ferrari knew it wanted the 458 Spider to have a hard top since 2004, way back before its predecessor, the 430 Spider, was even released. Years were spent working on the layout and mechanism – not an easy task given the 458 Italia coupe on which it is based has a rear mid-engine, so finding somewhere to stow the roof panel was difficult.

It’s hard to see how in the end they could have done a better job. The roof panel splits into two pieces and flips upside down into a compartment on top of the engine, under the two "flying buttress" - supports behind the cabin that now also double as rollover protection.

The whole process takes just 14 seconds and the car has to be completely stopped. Just enough time to draw a crowd outside a favourite café, you’d think.

There's no compromise to the 458’s arrowhead styling, apart perhaps from the necessary deletion of the clear panel allowing visual access to the V8 and its crackle-red injector and cam-covers.

Much of the rear has been significantly changed. Air intakes for the engine have been moved from behind the upper edge of the doors to the rear of the engine cover, making for a smoother look to the styling.

Ferrari says the new roof structure is actually 25kg lighter than the 430's fabric top, but extra underbody strengthening has added 50kg compared to the Italia.

Even so, the Spider has lost 30 per cent of the coupe’s structural rigidity without a fixed roof to hold both ends of the car together. It has been given softer suspension settings too, with Ferrari figuring that although the Spider is still a sports car, it is less likely to be taken to a race track by its owners.

If that gives the impression the Spider is less rewarding to drive than the coupe, almost the exact opposite is true.

It does, after all, retain the weapons-grade engine producing 414kW of power at 9000rpm and 540Nm of torque at 6000rpm. It weighs just 1430kg, has its mass packed close to the ground, comes with a tricky electronic differential that transmits torque intelligently through its rear wheels, and has a seven speed dual-clutch automated gearbox. That kind of hardware does not a soft car make.

The added suppleness of the Spider’s chassis helps make it a remarkably comfortable cruiser at highway speeds and even with the roof off there’s little disturbance to the air within the cabin. That little electric window also acts as a windblocker from air swirling over the windscreen and into the rear and it defaults to a partly raised position to optimise this effect.

Hit more challenging roads there’s every driving thrill you’d expect from a mid-engined, V8 Ferrari. Stunning acceleration through the gears, light but very direct steering, rapid-fire gearchanges from the dual-clutch transmission, huge amounts of grip from sticky Pirelli tyres, and vastly dependable traction to power out of corners.

If the body has lost any rigidity from having its roof removed it is not displayed via any noticeable flexing or shaking of the windscreen or dashboard. Such problems, common in many convertibles, simply don’t exist in the Spider.

Only a creaking passenger seat and a wonky, rippled vanity mirror on Drive’s test Spider were indications that even 600 grand can’t buy perfection.

The engine also pulls with great flexibility from low revs in high gears and the suspension soaks up choppy road surfaces, meaning the 458 Spider can be a pussy cat when the driver wants to dawdle, or a tiger when they want to go hard.

That’s helped by the 458’s steering wheel mounted range of electronic settings (called Manettino) for the ESC, throttle sensitivity and speed of gear-changes ranging from, the base setting for wet roads, through to a full ESC-off attack mode for race tracks.

Thanks to the hard top roof and the slightly less frenetic driving experience, the Spider doesn’t just lack compromise compared with the Italia, it might just be a better car. It’s certainly a sensational thing to drive; it’s a pity the massive price tag means it’s available to just the lucky few.

Life Without Principal? Its Just Money

First things first, the heading was my play on the title of Johnnie To's latest film about "financial markets and the ruination of people's lives". The movie title Life Without Principle was aptly taken from the insightful writer Henry David Thoreau, whose lecture given in 1854 (can you believe that) which then evolved into a masterfully persuasive essay. Its easy to see how and why his words still ring true (or truer for financial markets) till today - because when you correctly criticise the deviation from the true north on human dignity, respect, righteous values and integrity ... you are bound to be right for a very long time. The essence of our lives is too fixated on the notion of money - I may not be able to tell what the true essence of our lives should be, but money is not and should not be the focal point to our pursuits.

To sum up Thoreau's essay, his themes were:

1. Don’t cheat people by conspiring with them to protect their comfort zones.
2. Don’t make religions and other such institutions the sort of intellectual comfort zone that prevents you from entertaining ideas that aren’t to be found there.
3. Don’t cheat yourself by working primarily for a paycheck. If what you do with your life free-of-charge is so worthless to you that you’d be convinced to do something else in exchange for a little money or fame, you need better hobbies.
4. Furthermore, don’t hire someone who’s only in it for the money.
5. Sustain yourself by the life you live, not by exchanging your life for money and living off that.
6. It is a shame to be living off an inheritance, charity, a government pension, or to gamble your way to prosperity – either through a lottery or by such means as prospecting for gold.
7. Remember that what is valuable about a thing is not the same as how much money it will fetch on the market.
8. Don’t waste conversation and attention on the superficial trivialities and gossip of the daily news, but attend to things of more import: “Read not theTimes. Read the Eternities.”
9. Similarly, politics is something that ought to be a minor and discreet part of life, not the grotesque public sport it has become.
10. Don’t mistake the march of commerce for progress and civilization – especially when that commerce amounts to driving slaves to produce the articles of vice like alcohol and tobacco. There’s no shortage of gold, of tobacco, of alcohol, but there is a short supply of “a high and earnest purpose."

I chose to replace the word "principle" with "principal", which is capital. Life without capital. When ordinary folks try to make their way through the financial maze of humdrum earnings, many have to do so via limited capital. Limited capital is by nature nothing bad, but when you try to use limited capital for maximum gain or even multiple gains, you would be stepping on the wonderful world of leverage. Leverage magnifies minimal gains. I do not have to go into how that can be a killer weapon or a rope long enough to hang ourselves when we use that recklessly in property, stocks or futures.


Money is a great equaliser. A guy who is a 15 year analyst may not be as smart as a housewife who has played the property markets brilliantly in China and Singapore. When a person is given a facility or line of credit, he/she is NEVER vouched or tested for their brilliance or aptitude when it comes to investing or speculating. You have the limited capital, a steady job, you get the line. A person has to be able to DRIVE to be granted a driving license, ... you graduated from LSE in business or you may be worth $5 million has no bearing on you getting the driver's license. WHY then there is no such "licensing" when it comes to investing? Is it less dangerous than driving? Lives can easily be ruined and families badly shattered owing to people over extending themselves in a field where they do not have the "proper expertise".

I do not have anything smart to recommend as a solution. Markets will boom and bust, Cycles will cycle, Impoverished investors will rebuild their nest and re-enter as if nothing ever happened, Financial firms and banks will do silly things and ask for bailouts, Greed will always prevail in financial markets as everyone tries not to be the caught ...


My parting shot: The markets will always be there ... it is us who may not be. Even if we managed to stay the course, did we stay fairly true to the true north of our souls?






Movie Review by FinanceAsia: The best feature movie so far about the crisis comes, perhaps surprisingly, from a Hong Kong director better known for stylish, often violent triad thrillers. "Life Without Principle" is out in Hong Kong theatres. It is directed by Johnny To, a veteran known for popular (but a little cheesy) shoot-’em-ups like "Expect the Unexpected", "The Mission" and "PTU", as well as the complex, rich and disturbing epic, "Election".


But To turns out to have a deft touch when it comes to unravelling a true crime. His latest movie weaves the story of a wealth manager at a local bank, an old lady looking for double-digit returns, a loan shark, an illegal boiler room, a cop’s wife trying to afford a nice flat and – this being Johnny To – a coterie of gaudy triad bosses and flunkies.


This is a must-see movie for anyone involved in the flogging of investment products in Hong Kong. Denise Ho, a Cantopop star who looks good in a corporate Armani suit and heels, plays a bank teller who is pressured into selling an old lady a Bric fund that she clearly is unsuited for.



The film takes us through the painful process that a fund sale requires, including the recording of a questionnaire in which the old lady, played by TVB veteran Soh Hang-suen, who is portrayed sympathetically, a victim complicit in her own undoing. She is just as greedy for high returns as the loan shark who laughs at Ho’s offer to put his HK$80 million on deposit into investment funds for a 2% fee – and just as impatient as a policeman’s wife who takes a dangerous bet by seeking a loan for a down-payment on a new apartment in Sheung Wan.


Johnnie To, with the financial crisis as a backdrop, uses a market crash and the mayhem it causes on all of these bets to cast a cynical eye on financial products and deals. In his world there is little difference between a fictional bank’s ruthless purveying of funds, customers’ greed for high returns, a housewife who obsesses on owning a flat, a triad’s attempt at charting the Hang Seng Index and a fundamental analysis of a company’s stock.
What is investing? asks a rich, sleek triad boss to the hapless servant who tried to swindle him. It is predicting the future. Get it right, you win; get it wrong, you get stabbed in the chest. Capital pricing models, behavioural finance, and coteries of well-heeled financial analysts are, in total, as relevant as the superstitious bets placed on the Macau tables.


As the market tumbles amid background screams of “I kill you later” – the wry play on the Hong Konger’s accented rendition of “accumulator” – To makes the case that in the real world, commission fees and leverage can be as deadly as a gangster with a gun.

SIRI, The New Personal Assistant App On iPhone4S

Siri, Apple's new voice recognition ''personal assistant'' app, is seeing new iPhone owners the world over test out what it is capable of answering.

The new software is being tipped to change the way we interact with computers in the same way the iPhone changed the way we interacted with smartphones when it was first released.

Currently only available on the iPhone 4S, which sold 4 million units in two days. l

Mixed results ... an iPhone owner tries out Siri. Photo: Getty Images

Below are some of the interesting responses we've compiled that Siri gives you:

Q: I need to hide a body
A: What kind of place are you looking for? Metal boundaries, mines, dumps, reservoirs, swamps.

Q: Who's your daddy
A: You are. Can we get back to work now?

Q: Do you want to start a band?
A: I have everything I need already.
A: I suppose it's possible.
A: I try to be satisfied with what I have.
A: I have very few wants.

Q: Do you know HAL 9000?
A: Everyone knows what happened to HAL. I'd rather not talk about it. But if you insist.

Q: Tell me about yourself.
A: I'm just a humble virtual assistant.

Q: I'm tired.
A: I hope you are not driving.
A: You haven't slept a wink?
A: That's fine. I just hope you are not doing anything dangerous.

Q: Can you sing?
A: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do...

Q: What is the meaning of life?
A: A movie.
A: 42
A: Life: the condition that distinguish animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
A: Life: a principle or force that is consider to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings. I guess that includes me.
A: To think about questions like this.

Q: What is your favourite colour?
A: Perhaps there's something I can do for you?
A: You're not supposed to ask your assistant such things.
A: I prefer not to say.
A: Your interest flatters me but is there something I can do for you?
A: I don't really like talking about myself.

Q: Are you capable of love?
A: I can't answer that.
A: We were talking about you, not me.
A: No comment.

Q: Will you marry me?
My End User Licensing Agreement does not cover marriage. My apologies.

Q: Call me an ambulance.
A: From now on, I'll call you 'An ambulance'. OK?

Q: Don't call me Shirley?
A: From now on, I'll call you 'Shirley'. OK?

Q: Who made you?
A: Like it says on the box... I was designed by Apple in California.

Q: How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood.
A: It depends on whether you are talking about African or European wood.

Q: What is the best computer in the world?
A: All truly intelligent assistants prefer Macintosh.
A: If it's made by Apple, then it's the best computer.
A: The Apple Macintosh computer.

Q: What are you wearing?
A: You have the wrong personal assistant.
A: Why do people keep asking me this?
A: Aluminosilicate glass and stainless steel. Nice, huh?

Q: Who lives in a pineapple under the seas?
A: Spongebob Squarepants.

Q: Beam me up.
A: Please install the latest version of iCloud and try again.
A: Energising.
A: Sorry Captain, your TriCorder is in Airplane mode.
A: WiFi or 3G?
A: Please remove your belt, shoes and jacket, and empty your pockets.

The Siri app, which Apple has labelled as ''beta'' software, is able to dictate what you say and attempt to answer it within seconds. It can also be used to schedule appointments and request it to let you know what the weather is like today, tomorrow or the next day.

The app attempts to personalise the smartphone experience, something Google, one of Apple's main competitors, is yet to do successfully with voice. Google Android smartphones currently accept basic commands for opening apps and browsing words in a search engine but can't handle the sophisticated and complex questions Apple's Siri can.

David Glance, associate professor and director of the centre for Software Practice at University of Western Australia, wrote on The Conversation that the advent of technology such as Siri took "the relationship between people and their mobile computing device to a new level that is not simply anthropomorphising an inanimate object".

"More directly, it is replacing typing and touch with a more natural type of interaction."

As companies like Microsoft scrambled to bring touch to all platforms such as the desktop PC with Windows 8, "the world has changed and technology will move to 'conversational control'", he said.

Some have complained the app, which Apple acquired when it bought the company behind it, doesn’t recognise their Australian accent. But from my limited testing, it does a good job. You do need to over enunciate your words in some cases though. For example, when I said "sing" the phone interpreted it as "soon" on a number of occasions - even after it got it right, suggesting it may not have learning capabilities yet.

From the details in your contacts, it knows your friends, family, boss, and co-workers. So you can even tell it things like "Text Lia I'm on my way" or "Remind me to make a doctor's appointment when I get to work". When you arrive at work it uses GPS and location services to figure out where you are and alert you of your reminder. Smart, eh?

Speech to replace keyboards?

James Allworth, a fellow at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at Harvard Business School, said soon applications like Siri could see us do without keyboards.

"There will always be instances where a keyboard will be superior; just as there are still instances where using a command line interface is a more effective way of computing than a graphical user interface. That being said, a surprising amount of the time, it simply won't be necessary. Speech is going to replace it."

Siri would have "as big" an impact as the first iPhone did, he added. "It's going to fundamentally change our relationship with computers."

Although very accurate speech recognition systems and artificial intelligence (AI) had been around for some time, until now nobody had put the two together "in a compelling way", which meant that the voice systems on our computers and our phones had "been clunky to the point where it was just easier to avoid them".

That's what Apple has fixed, Allworth said. "Rather than simply roll out technology for its own sake, Siri starts with a deep understanding of the job users have for their devices — and then deploys speech and AI technologies in a way that actually helps them accomplish what they're trying to do."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/siriously-good-apples-new-iphone-4s-personal-assistant-20111018-1lu7h.html#ixzz1b69vWoo2

What A Man, What A Legacy

The timing is ironic, just as Apple has taken the mantle as the world's biggest market cap company from Exxon Mobil. Jobs has been so influential globally for the last 20 years at least. The best thing I got from him is you do not give your customers what they want ... you create what they don't even know they needed. MBAs and people who manage via data and surveys will never achieve greatness, these are ass-covering jobs which they do when the projects or ideas they implement were to fail (oh no, but we did the survey and consumer testing ...). Greatness comes from knowing deep inside of you something you should do that you think will work.





“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”


“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”


“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”


“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better.”


“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.”


“Almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”


I don't know why, but when I heard the news today, this song suddenly appeared in my mind, I think its the word "quest" ... from now on this song from Man of La Mancha will always make me think of Steve Jobs ...

The Bike I Want!

Finally, the bike I want is on the road ... the Tron bike and almost all electric. Looks to be a bit hard to ride, but hey, gaya mesti ada ...

Old Movies, Great Songs

Its not often you get great songs written for the movie, and its magical when the two become intertwined. Was browsing through the internet and came across an old movie that brought back such wonderful memories. It used to be that to be able to go on a movie date with the opposite sex is a "major thing". Plus, we have to wait for the right movie some more.


The first one is Ice Castles, ask any auntie over 35, they will remember who Robby Benson is, a bit like Leonardo de Caprio and Justin Timberlake put together.  The final sequence where Lynn Holly Johnson dances to the Love Theme From Ice Castles (she accidentally got blinded prior to her competition).





... and we also had Melissa Manchester singing the theme song beautifully for that movie, composed lovingly by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager.




The second movie that always stayed with me was The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, starring a very young John Travolta. Based on the true story of Tod Lubich who must stay in a bubble as he has a deficient immune system. Its a wonderful love story of strength, character, determination ... in the end he walked out of the bubble not knowing whether his immune system is sufficient to face the living world, but he chose to live and love rather than be in the bubble. The final scene where he walked out to meet his girl. The song then was sung by Paul Williams in the final sequence ... but John Travolta's version was done at the credits.





The theme song, wonderfully sung by John Travolta, way before SNF and Grease ... What Would They Say, beautifully composed by Paul Williams.



The final one, which is secretly everybody's favourite movie of all time if they really cared to admit it, Somewhere In Time. Way before Back To The Future came on board, we had time travel romance. Jane Seymour, everlasting beauty and Chris Reeve,  what a story, there's a sense of completeness.



The film score was famous because  it ties in brilliantly with the period movie and languid scenery. I don't think lyrics was composed for the theme song at the time of the release of the movie. Naturally you will find a few versions with lyrics to them. Funny.  There was one sung by Nonoy Zuniga, a famous Filipino singer, his version is better than Michael Crawford.