Phone Review: Huawei Ideos X5 Pro (U8800)

I recently purchased a new mobile, Huawei U8800 pro. I bought it through an online store, as the brand is not sold commonly in shops. The major plus of the phone is the price and it is from the world's largest telecom manufacturer. Although all phones are made in China, there is a mindset that Chinese products are inferior.

The phone is well built. Not too large like Micromax canvas series or not too small like the Sony xperia series. It fits your pocket and if you have a large hand like me, you can easily use it single-handed. The phone lacks any physical buttons in the front. Only volume keys and power/lock buttons are the physical keys in the phone placed at left side and top, respectively.

Screen:

The phone has a 3.8 inch capacitive touchscreen. The display is good and vivid. The screen is scratch resistant. I am using without screen guard, and not yet have any scratches. Resolution is 480 x 800 px.

Sound:

The sound quality is relatively good. Ringtones are loud enough to be audible. FM radio is also there. So there is no need to carry a hefty memory card filled with songs always.

Camera:

Camera is not up to the mark. I have expected a better camera. Video 720p recording is available. But quality is 50-50. No front camera. That's ok if you are not in to making video calls.

OS:

Comes bundled with Android 2.3. I updated to Android 4 (This is an official update). It is smooth and works like a charm. For those who are not satisfied, check XDA developers site for other ROMs.

Other Hardware Specs:

1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, 1 GB for apps, 1.6 GB internal storage, microSD up to 32 GB  (I got 8 GB free). Comes with a charger and headphone. Headphones are not in-ear type. But quality is good.

Battery:

This is the best part of this phone. It lasts for 3 days with moderate usage (1 hour calls, videos, music etc) but without internet. With internet connection, it lasts for 1 to 1.5 days.

Update(December 2013):

After 1 year, this phone has lived up to the expectations. I am completely happy with this phone. :) :)

State of Fear - Book Review

Introduction

I am a fan of Michael Crichton's work from my college days. That was when one of my senior in college said that I should read Michael Crichton's books. I asked him who was that. He said, the guy who wrote Jurassic Park and gave me his book. WOW! That was awesome and I read that in just 3 days. Then I started to read his works. The latest book of his I read was "State of Fear". It is an awesome novel and it is a good mix of science, skepticism, action, detective, sex & violence and information. No wonder anyone who starts reading this book gets lost inside it and couldn't be found by friends and family until he/she finishes it!

About The Book

The book is a 600+ page paperback edition and come with Author's Message, an Appendix and Bibliography of extensive references about the sources of data and quotations used in the book. The book also has lot of graphs and foot notes to enhance the readers insight on the details given. You don't need to worry about yout lack of knowledge in "climate science", because if a climate n00b like me can understant it, then you too can! The novel is organized not as chapters but as Place/Date/Time chronological logs of events. That was really cool. The book is published by HarperCollins. I bought the Indian Subcontinet version, which is cheap indeed!

Plot Overview

A rich philanthropist funds an environmental organization. There are murders and other doubtful purchases of exotic weapons and machines in various places. An NSIA agent and his assistant with the help of the philanthropist's lawyers try to unravel the mystery. Ultimately they find that the fear-mongering tactics used by the environmental organization to create the "state of fear" among people to milk their cash! (Hint: You can get the full plot from Wikipedia or many other sites. But if you read such plots, you are losing the chance to read one of the best novels of Crichton.)

The Moral

I myself, being a hardcore anti-corporate and anti-pollution guy, don't exactly believe in what media say about man-made global warming, but I fully accept that humans are contributing to ongoing global warming. I have some reservations in both sides and my opinions is mixed on that. But where I agree with Michael Crichton is, when he opposes the fear-mongering tactics used by these eco-friendly gangs to milk the cash from people as well as corporates and to lobby governments to accept their unruly demands without a second thought. For example, you can see Greenpeace guys standing in railway stations and IT parks in India handing out tracts and forcing you to sign-up for a monthly donation through credit card. People who are brainwashed by their scaremongering tactics opt in to donate. But they seldom care about that blind old man selling peanut burfee or that poor old man without leg begging in trains.

From PeTA to Greenpeace, these organizations are founded and run by wealthy nations which have a higher share in polluting the environment. But these organizations try to steal the money of people all over the world and try to impose crippling laws in developing nations that can slow-down or stop or reverse their progress. People are fed with fear and distracted with dubious facts and are made to believe that they have done some thing terribly bad. At this point they will show their membership form and the gullible person will sign. I have been told absurd stories like Kit-Kat is manufactured using Orangutan finger bone, Indian cities will drown in another 20 years (this they told me in 2004) and so on. When I confronted them with some facts, they will say I have been brainwashed by corporate media!

This is what Michael Crichton explores in his novel. Most of these organizations are themselves funded by corporates. They demand people to submit to their views without asking question, much like the religious leaders force their followers to submit without doubting. Moreover, like fake religions which demand money or favors for atonement of sins, these organizations seldom talk about population control, reducing car usage etc but they always ask you to donate. One day, I was walking out of an IT park. There was a bank stall offering car loans and a car company stall displaying their new model car and giving test-drive. The Greenpeace guys were there giving out tracts. I called them to join me to tell the bank people and the car company people to stop selling cars and automobile loans so that we can cut back carbon emission. But the Greenpeace guys were asking me to leave. As I insisted and more people joined me in that request, they just left the place and started giving tracts in some other corner! This is their real face. They are not here for nature. They are here for business.

Conclusion

If you want to read a good story and also know how these organizations cheat people, this is a very good book. I am not asking you to deny global warming or increase pollution. I am just asking you to stop believing blindly and start asking questions. In the long run, we can expect the unaltered truth to surface.

Atheism and Rationalism

There are many people who claim that they are Atheists for various reasons. Some people simply lack faith in supernatural, some have lost it after a catastrophic event in their life, some choose it as a mask to attack other religions they don't like and very few come to that conclusion after skeptical and rational analysis of things. The above statement is true for every other religion too. In case of other religions, most people follow a religion only because they are born in to families practicing those religions. Now what makes Atheism special?

Most of the religions claim that they are the oldest, only true religion, most scientific, have proof etc. Likewise Atheists also suffer from a problem, “rationalism”. Few of the prominent Atheists were/are rationalists. That won't make all Atheists rationalists by default. So let us see the how good rationalism of Atheists fare.

Type 1: I don't believe in anything supernatural

This is sufficient to make one Atheist. But this includes people with differing level of intellect, critical thinking and rationalism. For example, I know people who believe in Homeopathy, but say that they are rationalists. “Wait sir, you are an Atheist, but believing in Homeopathy is superstitious.” But if I tell them that Homeopathy is fake, then, the following argument will be like telling a religious person that his/her religion is fake. So there is no rationalism in their Atheism. They just lack any religious belief may be due to brought up or because they thought it is fancy. There are lot of Atheists I know, who believe in alien invasion, astrology as science, some races are superior, moon landing never happened etc.

Type 2: I lost my faith

Losing and gaining faith is a matter of personal choice. I am not here to say no one should lose their faith. But losing your faith won't make you a rationalist. You are only an Atheist, only when you critically examine things, you become a rationalist. I have seen a very religious person who lost his faith in supernatural after a miserable event in his life. But he still believed some incorrect things taught by his religion. And whenever he faces some big problem, he will softly revert back to his religion and after the problem resolves back to his lack of faith. These type of people just argue against existence of a deity in only one line. “If there is a God, then why there are so many sufferings and troubles in the world?” Other than this, they don't know anything else. So their lack of faith too is not about rationalism but about pessimism.

Type 3: Hiding The Truth

There are some popular figures in media and politics, who act like they are atheists and use that cover to attack religions they don't like. There are some directors and actors who claim that they are Atheists, but attack other religions while softly criticizing or in some cases, militantly supporting their own religions. These people may or may not lack faith in supernatural. But they claim that they are Atheists, only to avoid problems while attacking other religions. These are the worst type of Atheists. They too lack any rational thoughts, as rational thoughts prevent one from doing morally evil things, while what these people do is outright immoral. Like the religious wear secular mask, these people choose Atheist mask to avoid counter attacks while criticizing other religions.

Type 4: Rational Atheists

They are the minority within Atheist community. These people are the only one who are suitable to be called rationalists. But most of them can't be seen or heard in public. They are the one who works on science and technology. They are the one who try to makes law and society neutral from the grips of religions. But wait! There are such rational minorities in every religion. But I have to accept that Atheists have a higher percentage of such people. Chances are high that a person lacking in faith can question things easily without fear or angering a deity or hurting their own sentiments. But how many Atheists move to this step apart from simple lack of faith?

Conclusion:

Buying a laptop without OS won't make you a Free Software supporter. Only when you install a Free Software OS, you become one. Likewise, lacking faith won't make you rationalist by default neither associating with a religion makes you irrational, unless you partake in superstitions. Only when you critically think and examine things around you, you are a rationalist. In olden days rational minds stayed religious. In recent past great minds had belief in supernatural yet remained rational. They called themselves Deists. Even today, many people culturally associate themselves with a religion but in practice remain rational. These type of people are encouraged by their society and education to free their mind from shackles of superstition. Such cultural change can produce even more rationalists than simple lack of faith.

No matter whether we believe in supernatural or not, it is better to keep such beliefs personal and try to apply critical thinking in whatever we do in our life. By that we can can serve people and God (if you believe in one) better.

Good Quotes from St. Augustine of Hippo

• Love the sinner and hate the sin      
• Nothing conquers except truth and the victory of truth is love      
• To sing once is to pray twice      
• Hear the other side      
• To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation      
• Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are      
• The violence which assails good men to test them, to cleanse and purify them, effects in the wicked their condemnation, ruin, and annihilation      
• Anger is a weed; hate is the tree      
• He who created you without you will not justify you without you      
• Singing is loving      
• Charity is no substitute for justice withheld      
• For what is faith unless it is to believe what you do not see      
• God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering      
• God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist      
• God loves each of us as if there were only one of us      
• God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails      
• He who is filled with love is filled with God himself      
• I want my friend to miss me as long as I miss him      
• Love is the beauty of the soul.      
• Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature      
• Patience is the companion of wisdom

Noah's Ark Wager

There are lot of people who take a literal interpretation of Bible, especially the first book, Genesis. I have seen lot of educated people believing in creation legends as literal truth, word for word. There are lot of refutations on this subject available on the Internet. But here I am presenting a wager that "If you take Noah's story literally, then you must believe in evolution"

First, to give an overview, there are more than 3,500 species of mosquito, more than 6,000 species of lizards and more than 43,000 species of spiders. After the level of species, we have sub-species in many animals/insects and at last, we have lot of breeds. For example, there are around 400 breeds of dogs and nearly 100 breeds of cat.

There are 6,000+ lizard species identified as of now

According to science, formation of one species from another takes millions of years, let us assume, at least ten thousand years. But the problem with ark advocates is, they claim that the ark is just 4,500 years old. So for example, if we consider Noah took one pair of spider with him, then each year, there should be 10 new species of spider evolving to match the number of species identified today. If some one claims that Noah took a pair of all the 43,000+ species with him, then there should be 86,000+ spiders alone on the ark, which will result in lack of space when we extrapolate this to all animals.

Feeding 86,000+ spiders needs another 100,000 insects at least!

The ark will have space and "float" only if the argument is one of each "kind", not one of each species. If ark advocates are to say that it is only one of each "kind", then, there are other problems like how polar bears and grisly bears came in to existence as polar bears can't live in temperate climate and grisly bears can't live in polar climate. So, the only logical solution for the arkeologists is to accept either Noah's ark is practically impossible or there was evolution of species after the flood.

There are some religions and sects which try to escape arguments say that the flood is local. But then we have to laugh at them that, why God didn't advise Noah and his family to move to some other safe place instead of ordering him to build a ship/ark? So this argument is nothing but a lame face saver for their interpretation of religious texts.

Noah's story can be a good bed time story or a theme for Sunday school skit. But not as a hard fact historical lesson! Finally, my intention is not to hurt sentiments of any religious group or individual. My intention is to tell others what I understand and encourage critical thinking. So, instead of believing literally what religious texts say, it is better to use God given common sense to understand things properly. God is not glorified by blind faith, but by good understanding.

Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.  Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. -Proverbs 4:6-7 (Holy Bible)

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. -Saint Augustine (A.D. 354-430)