Obstruction of justice

New Paper reports a concerned parent performing "investigations" into daughter's accident. I'm not sure if the dad knows that he's perverting the course of justice (obstruction of justice in US legal terms).

Update: Tip of the hat to Axl who found the background on this. The incendiary headline does not help matters.

Toyota Premio

Been driving a Toyota Premio[1][2] lately and I think it's pretty nice... mid-size sedan between a Corolla and a Camry. It has 1.5L, 1.8L and 2L engine configurations and the one I drove is a 1.5L (1NZ-FE), rated at 81 kW or 110 PS @ 6,000 RPM. Peak torque 140 Nm (14.3kgm) @ 4,400 RPM.

On the road price of about 62K. Leather, keyless entry and reverse camera, only problem is the touch-screen display is in Japanese and Japanese radio band. Lots of cabin space and in the trunk. I'm impressed with the fuel economy though, 16.3 km/L mixed (the onboard computer stated 15.9 km/L)... it's due to the CVT. Main complaint is the rear drum brakes. But I would still recommend this car.

[1]http://toyota.jp/premio/
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Premio

Occam's Razor

So Tim sent a link that claims North Korea digitally doctored a photo to prove that their leader is in good health. It now turns out that Scientific American actually bothered to seek an expert's opinion and he is of the opinion that the photo was unlikely to have been faked.

Sometimes we think too far ahead... why would North Korea bother to do this since Kim supposedly has body-doubles anyway? It would be far easier to get a double to stand in for him in the first place.

Greed and iTunes Music Store

When iTunes Store first debuted in 28 April 2003, it took them 8 days to sell 100K songs.

The one billion song milestone was reached on 22 February 2006, or 1301 days since the store was launched.

For the period between 22 Feb 2006 and 6 Jan 2007, or about 318 days, 1 billion songs were sold. Now, between 27 Feb 2008 and 19 Jun 2008, or 113 days, another billion songs were sold, marking the 5 billion song milestone. That is exponential growth. To put that in perspective, Firefox set a Guiness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours... 8,002,530 in 24 hours or 5,557 per second at its peak.

iTunes Store is moving 6,145 songs per second every day, and is still growing.

If the projections hold up, the 6 billion song milestone was passed sometime in late September 2008.

Yet at approximately that time period, the RIAA was asking Apple to increase the royalty fees for each song sold despite making 70 out of every 99 cents[1][2]. Apparently earning US$4,300 per second was not enough for them.

Webkit aka Safari Version 3.1.2 (5525.20.1) vs Minefield aka Firefox vers 3.1b2

Update: The current Webkit nightly r37894 is even faster than Minefield when it comes to the SunSpider Javascript benchmark.

TEST                   COMPARISON            FROM                 TO             DETAILS

=============================================================================

** TOTAL **:           2.03x as fast     1511.6ms +/- 3.7%   745.0ms +/- 0.4%     significant

=============================================================================

  3d:                  1.07x as fast      142.4ms +/- 2.5%   133.4ms +/- 0.8%     significant
    cube:              1.27x as fast       62.6ms +/- 3.6%    49.4ms +/- 3.8%     significant
    morph:             *1.55x as slow*     33.2ms +/- 4.9%    51.6ms +/- 1.3%     significant
    raytrace:          1.44x as fast       46.6ms +/- 1.5%    32.4ms +/- 2.1%     significant

  access:              2.66x as fast      182.2ms +/- 18.6%    68.4ms +/- 2.1%     significant
    binary-trees:      5.17x as fast       47.6ms +/- 1.4%     9.2ms +/- 6.0%     significant
    fannkuch:          5.68x as fast       89.8ms +/- 38.1%    15.8ms +/- 3.5%     significant
    nbody:             *1.15x as slow*     31.2ms +/- 1.8%    36.0ms +/- 2.4%     significant
    nsieve:            1.84x as fast       13.6ms +/- 5.0%     7.4ms +/- 9.2%     significant

  bitops:              1.36x as fast       53.2ms +/- 24.0%    39.2ms +/- 2.7%     significant
    3bit-bits-in-byte: *3.00x as slow*      1.6ms +/- 42.6%     4.8ms +/- 11.6%     significant
    bits-in-byte:      -                    9.8ms +/- 44.3%     7.2ms +/- 7.7% 
    bitwise-and:       -                   13.4ms +/- 53.9%     8.8ms +/- 6.3% 
    nsieve-bits:       1.54x as fast       28.4ms +/- 16.6%    18.4ms +/- 3.7%     significant

  controlflow:         8.71x as fast       36.6ms +/- 1.9%     4.2ms +/- 13.2%     significant
    recursive:         8.71x as fast       36.6ms +/- 1.9%     4.2ms +/- 13.2%     significant

  crypto:              1.50x as fast       65.0ms +/- 10.7%    43.4ms +/- 1.6%     significant
    aes:               2.54x as fast       34.6ms +/- 2.0%    13.6ms +/- 5.0%     significant
    md5:               1.53x as fast       23.0ms +/- 27.3%    15.0ms +/- 0.0%     significant
    sha1:              *2.00x as slow*      7.4ms +/- 9.2%    14.8ms +/- 3.8%     significant

  date:                3.55x as fast      265.6ms +/- 0.4%    74.8ms +/- 0.7%     significant
    format-tofte:      4.73x as fast      148.4ms +/- 0.7%    31.4ms +/- 2.2%     significant
    format-xparb:      2.70x as fast      117.2ms +/- 1.4%    43.4ms +/- 1.6%     significant

  math:                *2.02x as slow*     50.0ms +/- 5.0%   100.8ms +/- 0.6%     significant
    cordic:            *1.45x as slow*     24.2ms +/- 9.2%    35.0ms +/- 0.0%     significant
    partial-sums:      *2.91x as slow*     17.2ms +/- 6.0%    50.0ms +/- 0.0%     significant
    spectral-norm:     *1.84x as slow*      8.6ms +/- 7.9%    15.8ms +/- 3.5%     significant

  regexp:              6.15x as fast      237.4ms +/- 0.6%    38.6ms +/- 1.8%     significant
    dna:               6.15x as fast      237.4ms +/- 0.6%    38.6ms +/- 1.8%     significant

  string:              1.98x as fast      479.2ms +/- 6.5%   242.2ms +/- 0.7%     significant
    base64:            1.04x as fast       20.6ms +/- 3.3%    19.8ms +/- 2.8%     significant
    fasta:             3.91x as fast      134.6ms +/- 22.6%    34.4ms +/- 2.0%     significant
    tagcloud:          1.30x as fast      112.8ms +/- 0.9%    86.6ms +/- 2.4%     significant
    unpack-code:       2.90x as fast      160.0ms +/- 0.5%    55.2ms +/- 1.0%     significant
    validate-input:    1.11x as fast       51.2ms +/- 2.7%    46.2ms +/- 4.4%     significant

They weren't joking when they said Javascript performance has been improved. Safari Version 3.1.2 (5525.20.1) as a comparison.

============================================
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
--------------------------------------------
Total:                 3082.4ms +/- 0.2%
--------------------------------------------

  3d:                   375.2ms +/- 0.4%
    cube:               122.2ms +/- 1.1%
    morph:              129.8ms +/- 0.8%
    raytrace:           123.2ms +/- 0.5%

  access:               486.4ms +/- 0.6%
    binary-trees:        63.8ms +/- 1.6%
    fannkuch:           230.8ms +/- 1.0%
    nbody:              135.4ms +/- 0.5%
    nsieve:              56.4ms +/- 2.5%

  bitops:               425.4ms +/- 0.7%
    3bit-bits-in-byte:   62.6ms +/- 1.1%
    bits-in-byte:        94.4ms +/- 1.2%
    bitwise-and:        164.2ms +/- 1.6%
    nsieve-bits:        104.2ms +/- 0.5%

  controlflow:           82.6ms +/- 0.8%
    recursive:           82.6ms +/- 0.8%

  crypto:               221.6ms +/- 0.5%
    aes:                 73.8ms +/- 0.8%
    md5:                 74.0ms +/- 0.0%
    sha1:                73.8ms +/- 0.8%

  date:                 265.8ms +/- 0.5%
    format-tofte:       122.6ms +/- 0.9%
    format-xparb:       143.2ms +/- 0.4%

  math:                 417.4ms +/- 0.6%
    cordic:             161.2ms +/- 0.6%
    partial-sums:       179.6ms +/- 0.9%
    spectral-norm:       76.6ms +/- 1.5%

  regexp:               199.6ms +/- 0.3%
    dna:                199.6ms +/- 0.3%

  string:               608.4ms +/- 0.5%
    base64:              89.2ms +/- 1.5%
    fasta:              167.4ms +/- 0.8%
    tagcloud:           122.4ms +/- 0.6%
    unpack-code:        123.8ms +/- 0.4%
    validate-input:     105.6ms +/- 1.1%

My setup: iMac 2.4 GHz/4 GB RAM/OS X 10.5.5

Download the latest Webkit nightly builds here.

Download the latest Minefield nightly builds here.

So it seems the Webkit nightly is now about 4x faster than Safari. :D