On the Net

with Chris Goh

Great expectations

I remember one day when I was playing with kids after a computer class I asked a boy if he was excited as his birthday was just around the corner. His response was surprising but at the time it reflected my own way of thinking. He said that he never expects anything so he won't be disappointed. Two years later I would come down to Sydney, and there was a woman who was leaving after 15 years to retire and I asked her, wasn't she excited that she finally didn't have to come to work. Again, her answer was she never had expectations about the future, so she wouldn't be disappointed.

Expectation in my language is the human forecasting system - we either use all our senses, learned knowledge and overall perception to predict or simply have an emotive response that we put value in. Our expectations can range from an instant forecast to long term, but most importantly, I realised that regardless of how many of us claim that we don't like to expect things, in short, we need to, to make key decisions in our life.

Without going further into expectation, which is much more complex than my mere summary, the most important thing we need to know about it is we need it in our life. Loose the ability to expect and we loose our ability to focus on where we want to be in our future. Like all forecasting systems, we are prone to misjudgment and that is why we continue to learn about ourselves, the environment around us and develop our morals so we can better hone our expectations, not only of others, but more importantly of ourselves. Why expectations impact on us so much and why we want to hang up our human forecasting system is because, paradoxically, we value it so much. So much of us and who we are is tied into this human prediction system, and when we realise it, many of us don't like it. This is where we need to weight how we value our predictions/expectations and be sensible about what outcomes we want. I can tell you that if you don't have expectations of yourself, your ability to achieve goals and live from day to day becomes questionable, and from friends who I have seen as suicidal, they don't have expectations, ironically, because they believe expectations are a reality and can't see that their reality can change.

Hotnews

In an astounding breakthrough that has rocked the security world, Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA1), which is the basis of current commercial cryptography, has been successfully broken by Chinese researchers. This has sent ripples through the industry but at the same time it sets the basis for the development of new security encryption technology.

Employee 31, Jef Raskin, who died this week, led the team that created the graphical interface (yes the one that allows you to use the mouse) that led to the Apple Macintosh. Apparently the branding of the Macintosh (though slightly changed) was named after his favourite breed of Apple.

Sticking with Apple, the 4 Gig iPod Mini recently released has already been updated with a 6 Gig version coming out. Apple also released news that it also intends to release an iPod Photo edition, which will have a 30 Gig capacity.

Hotsites

www.educationindex.com

This portal shows that being a great index of sites is less about flashy colours and cool imagery than about how up to date, accessible and comprehensive your site is. This education index is exceptional, should be in your top list for educational resources.

www.musesmuse.com

Okay aspiring music writers, with the XFactor and Australian Idol wannabe's here is a site dedicated to the aspiring songwriter in all of us, with some useful resources.

www.dreamtime.net.au

The Australian Museum has put together this excellent resource that explores the culture and Indigenous Australians. Rich in content and well put together.