Alex Le’s Blog

“The rate at which the Google computing system has grown is as remarkable as its size. In March 2001, when the company was serving about 70 million Web pages daily, it had 8,000 computers, according to a Microsoft researcher granted anonymity to talk about a detailed tour he was given at one of Google’s Silicon Valley computing centers. By 2003 the number had grown to 100,000.”

Hiding in Plain Sight, Google Seeks More Power, Published: June 14, 2006, nytimes.com

100,000 servers?  Holy cow!  I also have a copy of this artilce in PDF format if you’d like to read it.

Mine is determined to be Mesomorph asd after taking the BodyBuilding.com Quiz.

Your score is 2.17.

Your body is closest to a Mesomorph. You have a naturally fit body but to maintain it or improve it you should exercise and diet correctly for your type. Strength training can be done more often and for longer sessions then would be good for an Ectomorph, but you must still be carefull not to overdo it. You should train with moderate to heavy weighs and at a moderate pace, not resting too long between sets. You will find you gain muscle quite easy (some women and even men might not want to get too bulky, but this won’t happen suddenly. When you are happy with your muscle size simply train to maintain it). Stick to a good healthy diet to keep you lean and muscular, and watch for any slow creeping fat gains. Engage in and enjoy aerobic activities, sports, etc. but do not overdo
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BodyBuilding.com’s Quiz

 

It’s time to get some exercises done.  I’m gaining about 5 pounds for the past 3 weeks since graduation because I’ve had really good meals.  During my time in college, either lunch or dinner was such a drag as I tended to skip it especially when I was working on some projects.  I was constantly hungry or craving for some authentic Vietnamese food.  Now I have it all!  Yay!  I’m thinking about starting to work out to get rid of those fat around my belly.  I don’t shoot for a 6-pack abs, just having enough exercises to keep myself fit.  A healthy body will lead to a healthy mind, right?

I’m working on customizing this component for Joomla to use for my business venture with my friend Syed.  It turned out that VirtueMart’s code is pretty crappy - badly written I mean.  Yes VirtueMart (may) works but customizing it is like separating black and red beans from one another.  If I can rate the readability of the code, I’d vote for a -1:  PHP code is mixed with HTML and with a bunch of tables, for instance the file shop.browse.php.   VirtueMart also lacks the flexibilty in terms of front-end module customization.  I have to write a few custom modules just to format the categories listing the way I’d like.  The bundled category listing module is just too bulky to be rewritten.  Looking at the code I have to go through to customize virtuemart for my template, I can only say #$#$%@&.  I wonder why there are still so many people using VirtueMart out there.  Or it’s just the least sucky of the worst?  VirtueMart needs to be rearchitected if it wants to be more popular.
Compared VM to the Hoavui.com e-commerce engine that I co-written with my friend last year, Hoavui’s code is much better.  Currently we used a MVC approach with OOP design from the ground up.  My plan for later is to convert Hoavui.com’s code to Joomla to take advantage of the CMS features of Joomla.  The missing parts of the engine is taxation, more payment gateways (Hoavui.com only supports PayPal IPN for now), and a more modular architecture.

The VirtueMart site I’m currently working on is http://www.refillprinting.com.  Come have a look and leave me some comments.  I like the logo most, took me at least 5 hours to get it.

http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html  by Paul graham
This is a great article argueing the comtetitiveness of America compared to other countries in terms of starting up a startup.  I agree one of the great reasons why there are more startups in the States than anywhere else is the US is rich. In the US, people do not have to worry about their everyday meal - even in the case they are out of work, the government will support them.  Tax dollars go to work.  Back home in Vietnam, pretty much everyone has to work like crazy to support themselves and family.  It’s easier to work to feed yourself than to find something to feed and work on some other ideas.  You will be so starving that you will fall dead eventually because noone will try to feed you — frankly, other people are trying to take away your food!  Social security in Vietnam is just bad, bad, bad.
I love every seconds here in the States, even though I have had more ramen than I’ve ever wanted (US college students are in fact a different species)  I’ve had much stress and worries but being in the States opens up my eyes and allows me to grab the next opportunity out there.