International Standard of Units

This is for my own future records more than anything.  What comes after, mega, and giga and tera?

Kilo = 3 zeroes
Mega = 6
Giga = 9
Tera = 12
Peta = 15
Exa = 18
Zetta = 21
Yotta = 24

Mathematically, if anyone remembers from high school/college statistics class, anything with over 26 zeroes is same as infinity and with over 26 decimals is same as impossible... I think.

Now, when will I get my 1 PetaByte hard-drive!

25 years ago I remember a commodore 64 (that's 64 kilobytes of RAM)

20 years ago I remember buying an IBM computer with 512 kilobytes of RAM, with no hard drive. Running at the lightning speed of 4.7 hertz (not mega/gigahertz)

1 year later, I had a 20 megabyte hard drive.

10 years ago I think I had a pentium with something like a 250 megabyte HD running at 200 megahertz... Nothing that I recall in detail. But I do recall buying a 40 megabyte compact flash card for $100, and that was a good deal. (btw you guys remember the Iomegas Zip Drive? Watch a high tech movie from the 90s and they are all using it haha)

Now computers are easily running 3 gigahertz, with 1 terabyte drives, 4-8 gigabytes of RAM.

So in 2020 I think i'll get my computer that runs at 5 terahertz, with 10 petabyte drives and I bet i'll still run out of space.

No there was no research involved in any of this so numbers and facts are just based on my faulty memory... In case you read this far.

--
Chris Hwang
http://www.offstandard.com/ (my blog)

Casual Day...

Decided I needed a break for myself and ended up watching TWO movies I wanted to watch for a while. "Monsters vs. Aliens" and "Wonder Woman" an animated movie produced by Bruce Timm (Batman Adventures, Superman, Justice League, Batman Beyond).

MvA was a real disappointment, it had some pretty big name actors, but the first half of the movie it seemed like half the scenes were specifically composed for the "3D" effect with some random objects flying into the screen, or panning in/out, etc. Sadly, it did nothing to me as I was watching on blu-ray and not a 3D screen. Which made me think every other set-up scene go "well, that was a waste of time" as it didn't add or subtract anything to the story or character development.

From the get-go things happen fast but because of a lack of character development, you don't feel anything for the characters and they seem seriously... two dimensional. I guess if you're a kid you might enjoy the graphics and be entertained nonetheless.

However, I did enjoy "Wonder Woman". I guess I'm just a sucker for anything created by Bruce Timm, although this movie is not part of the famous "DC Universe" created by Mr. Timm, it is nonetheless a very well developed, animated, and told story. It has a very short but good character development and you start to bond with Diana and Steve from the beginning and as the story progresses even more.

It has some very witty dialogue and comedy as well, like most of Timm's shows. My favorite part ***slight spoiler alert*** being when Steve starts by telling that he is not a very good example of a "man" to Diana, then apologizes saying that he is actually a pig and a womanizer and goes into a sad mood as he says that it is because he is afraid of being hurt and thus puts on a strong facade... he suddenly stops and says "why am I telling you all of this?" looks at his feet and realizes his feet is on top of the "Lasso of Truth" and he jumps back and screams "Oh Crap! I hope you Amazonians are never able to mass produce this thing!!!" (my paraphrase from what I remember) LOL.

This movie also has some big names as Alfred Molina (Dr. Octavious) plays Ares the God of War, a small part by Oliver Platt as Hades, and some others as well. As I was looking at the credits an old friend of mine caught my eye in the Storyboards: Sam Liu. Haven't seen or heard from him in a while but I guess he's still going strong in the animation industry. Last time was I think during my Anime Expo and OCAD days 10 years ago. How are you doing Sam? Good to see you are involved in good shows still.

I wish Bruce Timm would continue to produce "DC Universe" related shows but I guess the main audience is now too old, as most Bruce Timm fans would be around my age. But hey! We are the ones with money and can buy all the blu-rays!!! I want my Justice League/Unlimited seasons on blu-ray! That would be great!!! Who can forget that line when Wonder Woman is flirting with Batman, and Superman is clueless what's going on and Green Lantern says "For a guy with 20 different kinds of vision, you sure are blind!"

Anyhow, gotta go do my laundry and get ready to attend a Wednesday Bible Study in portuguese...

Humbling Experiences...

Paul speaking to the Corinthians, gives them a little history lesson regarding the mistakes the Israelites made in the past, telling them they became proud to the point of challenging God in their sins. He says in 1 Cor 10:12

"Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."

It comes as a somber reminder how "pride" can sneak in little by little on you and sooner or later you feel pretty "proud" of what you can do.

Most of you know I speak 5 languages. So, I thought I spoke my languages pretty well. I could say "I can carry on a conversation in those languages fluently" hanging around with people who mainly speak English most of the time. However reality was a little different.

The past two weeks was quite an experience in my LACK of fluency in the languages I spoke. First, I was able to speak in Japanese to a REALLY fluent Korean-Japanese person (job is translating Korean Drama into Japanese), and my pronunciation was less than stellar, to say the least, as the person was continuously helping me along, haha.

Second, speaking to a Korean only speaker, I was having trouble coming up with vocabulary words to explain things because some words I would say in English and the other person would have no idea what it meant. And comedy ensued as I gestured and hunted for ways to explain in Korean.

Third, attending the Spanish School of Ministry and being around native speakers and trying to speak my Argentinian Castellano which I hadn't used regularly for 20 years stumbling with vocabulary and stuttering along as I spoke Spanglish (or would that be Enpanish? hmm... sounds like Enpanadas... I'm hungry now...)

Fourth, yesterday I was able to attend a Bible Study group of Korean-Brazilians and guess what? They greeted me in Portuguese and they ALL spoke REALLY fluently and I was so shocked... I guess I hadn't thought that everything would be in Portuguese, even the worship, and message, and prayers... and there I was adding English and Korean words as I spoke my broken Portuguese.

Not to mention that I'm reminded every week of how I butcher the U.S. Language when I speak in front of my church, creating new pronunciations of common words and constantly pronouncing God as Gad...

Yeah, I should compare myself with better speakers to constantly improve the languages I speak instead of just saying that I am fluent, because if you dropped me off in any of those countries, I bet my language skills would not be defined as FLUENT.

So, in the same vein, let us consider ourselves, so we may stay humble and never go down the path of getting too proud of ourselves that we end up challenging God in our mistakes.