ChanKelwin.com

I tried solving the Rubik’s Cube when I was in my early teens. I have to admit that I wasn’t very good at it. I did manage to solve it a couple of times although it took me all night to do it. How did I do it?

Well, there was a paper with the instructions in it that came together with cube. I positioned the Rubik’s Cube as it was in the diagram and followed the steps provided. That means I was looking at the piece of paper the whole time without actually looking at the cube. That is why I don’t even know how it was done.

I saw this YouTube video on how some people manage to solve the Rubik’s Cube in seconds! I am simply amazed. Just look at how fast they turn the damn thing. I could never turn it fast enough because if I don’t turn it precise enough, the next turn will be “stucked”.

Have you tried solving the Rubik’s Cube? Did you succeed? What is your average speed taken to solve it?

Here are some tips and solution to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

One of my friends knew that I was blogging and was making some money out of it. He contacted me the other day when he was in town and we met up to further discuss this.

Just to prevent any rumors that I am making a fortune from blogging, I am not. It is nice to be able to make some extra side income every month just by blogging. I am tracking my earnings since last month and currently, I have earned more than previously. Things could have been a lot easier for me if the Big G awarded me a ranking for this blog. I wonder when that day will come.

Anyway, I told him how much I am making and although it wasn’t much, he sound interested. After some discussion, he listened to my advice and registered two domains for himself.

Since he isn’t familiar setting up and handling the web hosting and blog, I helped him to setup everything. His blog is now good to go. He is currently busy so I don’t think that he will start blogging anytime soon. When he does, I may introduce him to you guys.

I have no idea what he will be blogging about though. I wonder if he does. Hehehe.

I am experiencing very slow connection for the past few hours when I am trying to access Google. GMail doesn’t seem like it wants to load. Google Adsense barely made it. Most importantly, my Google Reader is all choked up.

Browsing other websites seems to be okay, not super fast but at least they are loading. I am not sure if my Streamyx broadband is acting up again. I don’t believe Google is having server problems, are they?

Anyone else having the same problem the past few hours?

Kimi Raikkonen’s championship crown was insecure when stewards found that the BMW Sauber and Williams teams were using illegal fuel. The fuel samples taken from all four cars from the two teams were between 12 to 14 degrees centigrade lower than the ambient temperature. The rules state that the fuel must never be more than 10 degrees lower.

The two teams were obviously having illegal fuel onboard and a penalty should have been imposed on them. If that happens, three of them who finished ahead of Hamilton would have dropped out of the points thus allowing Hamilton to score three extra points. That would effectively made Hamilton the champion instead of Kimi.

However, it did not happen. None of the drivers from the two teams were penalized and the result is final.

I am not one bit surprised at all. If anything, this further proves that the championship was fixed.

Read the article from F1Live.

To look at the bigger picture, neither the McLaren drivers deserve to win the championship. Stripping off their points would mean that the remaining races are nothing but crap. The whole season has been spoilt by the stolen data McLaren got from Ferrari. The championship ended the way it did was probably to fuel some excitement in the fans. To let the fans have a great show. If only the mechanics and the drivers were better actors, I’d say they had a better chance in fooling us.

If only the McLaren team was this strong without the entire spy scandal, I’d say Hamilton deserves to be crowned the world champion. Unfortunately, he has benefited from the data and that is a fact.

McLaren’s 2008 challenger will surely benefit from the extra knowledge that they have. Despite this illegally obtained advantage, I hope all teams compete fairly in the next season.

Didn’t I tell you that this season’s Formula One Driver’s Championship has been decided off track? Ok, I said it could have been decided off track, but still. Kimi Raikkonen won the championship despite being 7 points behind Hamilton and another 3 points behind Alonso. It would have taken a miracle for Kimi to win but he did. A “miracle” did happen. Or did it?

A brief summary of the race

Kimi had a great start at the start of the race. Hamilton was literally blocked by the two Ferarri and had no where to go. He ran wide and Alonso was right by his side. He later lost more places after having some fun time on the grass. At that point, he was still very well in the points. A few laps later, he “miraculously” had a gearshift problem causing him to lose drive. As miraculously as the problem occurred, it vanished after some time. However, this problem has dropped him to 18th on the grid.

Due to his problem, the McLaren team sent him out on super soft tyres on his first pit stop with a light fuel load. This was possibly to help him recover some places and allow him to attack at the end. It was assumed that he will be filled up until the end of the race on his second pit stop but strangely, the team decided that to switch him on a three stop strategy.

As for Alonso, there really isn’t much to talk about. He tried “his best” and finished third. Even so, that wasn’t enough to beat Kimi.

What is the problem?

Although it may not be true but I have a strong feeling that the championship has been decided off track. That Kimi Raikkonen will rise up as the champion. Why do I say so?

Firstly, McLaren’s involvement in the spy saga is a serious legal issue. Not only were they stripped off all constructors points and fined $100 million, I read that those involved could face jail sentence as well. Although the drivers may not have been directly involved in the spy saga, they have benefited from the stolen data. Therefore, it is safe to say that they wouldn’t have been as fast and scoring the amount of points they did without them. That means that even the drivers’ points should be stripped off as well.

Why didn’t the FIA strip off the McLaren drivers’ points?

Do you remember what happened at the 2005 United States GP? If you don’t, this YouTube video will definitely refresh your memories. Here is a full text report on the grand prix by itv.

The Michelin tyres could not cope with the flat-out banked turn 13. Ralf Schumacher’s set of Michelin tyres failed causing him to crash heavily on the Friday’s practice session. To make a long story short, all 14 cars running on the Michelin tyres boycotted the race by diving into the pits after the installation lap due to safety reasons. That left only six cars to start the grand prix. The FIA didn’t like what happened. However, the most important part is that thousands of other fans trackside hated it as well.

People started boo-ing. I believe some people even left the circuit. Some people got so angry that they started throwing water bottles over the fence onto the racetrack. I remember one car going over a bottle causing it to burst in a big splash.

After such a long post, what is my point?

Can’t you see? The McLaren drivers’ points must be stripped off. However, doing so meant that both the championships have been decided off track. How do you think the millions of Formula 1 fans out there would feel about that? There were a few more races left in the season. If both the championships have already been decided, why should anyone continue to watch the race anymore? People will start to boycott F1 once again. Don’t be surprised to see empty grandstands in every single race after that.

Instead, we have everything nicely panned out now. Alonso dropped off in the rain a few races ago and Hamilton lost it in Shanghai. The final race saw even more hiccups with the two McLaren drivers.

At the end, Kimi won the championship over one point. This must have been the greatest season in the past few years. I don’t remember seeing a championship where the drivers finished so close to each other.

The funny part is that although Kimi won, he was basically (almost) emotionless. If that isn’t bad enough, even the Ferrari crew members wasn’t as ecstatic as they should have been. They have just won the driver’s championship for god’s sake. That is a bloody damn miracle. Where is the joy? Where is the craziness? Where is the excitement?

Maybe they know something that we don’t?

Having said that, I enjoyed seeing Kimi winning the championship. I was no less nervous than anyone else in the Ferrari team after he has made his final pit stop with over a dozen laps more to go. All this could have been pure coincidence but what if it wasn’t?