I made my 30th blood donation long time back. Since then I didn't write about blood donation for several months. What happened?

I did go for a donation drive held in Tesco Extra Cheras on 27-Apr-08. The response to the drive was overwhelming, and I needed to queue for about an hour for my turn. I spent almost two hours there but donated 450ml of blood smoothly and successfully. Everything is fine except for one incident: I lost my donation record book just before the drive!

I put my record book in my pocket and drove to a few places before I went for the donation. It somehow just lost. I think it must have dropped somewhere but I have failed to find it back. I didn't lose anything else. When I registered for blood donation, I got no choice but to tell the girl that I just lost my book. She gave me a new record book, and told me that I could go to PDN to retrieve my old records and have them recorded in this new book. I also donated for UMMC besides PDN, but they did not share the same database. So I need to make a separate trip to UMMC if I want to retrieve the old records there.

Haha... I felt a bit sad about it... and I decided to write about only when I have settled this thing by retrieving the old records. I finally went to PDN on 17-Sep-08 (Holiday for Nuzul Al-Quran) to retrieve my old records. I had made 9 donations for PDN and they were enough to make my book look 'good'. I will go to UMMC only when I have the time someday. I didn't make blood donation in PDN that day as it was late and I got to attend a dinner that night.

一直都喜欢看甲斐谷忍的《欺诈游戏》，每个游戏及计谋都设计得精采且严谨合理。在最近的第70话里，看到了一个数学概率问题，但作者没展示其算法就说其概率是约62%了。这其中的算法其实不太重要，毕竟故事里的计谋都设计得蛮有深度，而许多角色都是数学高手，这点小算法也真不太值得一提了。但我忍不住想验证这数字，并想想如何速算这概率。

先说明，算出这概率只需涉及高中程度的数学。没兴趣者请快离开，別留下无聊的留言！真有兴趣者，还可看看我对另一游戏的分析，并涉及到较深一点点的概率分析。

问题是这样的（应该无剧透吧！）：以上的12张扑克牌中有三张A。现从其任意抽出三张牌。请问抽中至少一张A牌的概率是多少？故事中的高手如何算得这么快?

你动了脑筋吗？ ☺ 我的分析如下。

Official References (From the online PHP Manual):

• Classes and Objects (PHP 5): http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.php
• Type Operators: http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.type.php
• Class/Object Functions: http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.classobj.php

Basic

I turn on my Xubuntu box and fire up konqueror. I press Ctrl+F2 to switch to another workspace, do something there, and then press Ctrl+F1 to switch back to the workspace with konqueror. Behold! The last Ctrl key has summoned several small yellow boxes (with letters in them) waiting to serve me. The status bar of konqueror tells me what happened: "Access Keys activated". I don't want any of them. What can I do?

• Press Esc key every now and then to send all these boxes away; or
• Disable it once and for all!

  $ kwriteconfig –file konquerorrc –group "Access Keys" –key Enabled –type bool false
  

Restart konqueror. Behold! Ctrl key summons nothing from konqueror now!

I happened to come across an interesting and probably the geekiest conversation in the TV series Veronica Mars [www2.warnerbros.com]. The conversation is from the Episode 18 of Season 1, and is an argument between Pete, a male geek, and Cindy, a female geek:

Pete: Wait, how can you even have an opinion on Ubuntu if you haven't tried it? Two six kernel, Live CD, they even had GNOME 2.0 the day Warty Warthog came out.
Cindy: I'm sorry, I'm perfectly content with OS X. I have all the awk/grep-ance that I want without any need for that pitiful font de-uglification.
Pete: But the fonts are de-uglified, and it's free! You know, fine, you know, living in the dark ages.
Cindy: I know what I like! And I like what I know.

I counted about 9 geek terms here if you want to fully understand the conversation: Ubuntu, Two six kernel (2.6), Live CD, GNOME, Warty Warthog, OS X, awk, grep, font de-uglification. (^_^) How many do you know?

Here are the things I normally do to prepare my GNU/Linux box. I will update the post for the latest GNU/Linux distro I install on my computers.

Last Updated: 4-Jun-2008

1. Requirements

My requirements for my GNU/Linux box:

• Do not compromise system performance for fancier graphics
• A comfortable environment for software development + entertainment!

Over the years I find that the excellent Xfce provides me the best user experience. So I stick to a user-friendly GNU/Linux system with its GUI powered by Xfce:

• Distro: Xubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)
• Installation CD: Xubuntu [PC (Intel x86) desktop install CD]