Crypto currency - as a hobby

Daily job has been quite stressful lately. While sourcing out the potential business markets out there, came across the not so newly trending - cryptocurrency market.

Of course, i missed the boat on the global crypto currency market increase lately, but at some point, locally, i think still think that this is a good hobby to venture into, and perhaps with the right chess-play, it might turn out to be a potential source of passive income? who knows, right?

It's never too late to start, and personally, i think i should venture and simulate on how to obtain the best out of this new multi-billion dollar market trend.

Me being me, has always interested on how we can manipulate performance technology to somewhat benefits us. For this, i believe crypto-currency mining is the best platform to simulate on.

Although that it has been around for quite some time, it's not that until this recent that i think it's good to understand how it works, and perhaps try and simulate on how difficult it is to set up a mining rig.

Types of coins to mine?

For the time being, i'll just focus on the most popular ones, as these has got a lot of available source of reference and documents, and some proven workability on the established mining rigs.

My only choice is either bitcoin, or ethereum, which is two of the most common and profitable cryptocurrency as of now. As of this article is written, 1 bitcoin equivalents to 4412.29 USD.. or converted to my local RM via google exchange, equals to RM18666.19. wow. But, the downside of mining bitcoins, is that i will need a dedicated miner, which is ASICS-based platform, to do mining for me.

Ethereum in the other hand is pretty much easier to mine. The price of 1 ethereum is about 301.65USD now.. or equivalent to RM1276.13. Ethereum is also easier to mine compared to bitcoin, as for now, we can still do mining by using GPUs (powerful graphic cards) in a normal PC. Plus, i liked the name Ethereum better. Feels like a gaming currency, same like Zeny in Final Fantasy series.

What is mining?

In simpler words, mining means that we use our own personal computing power, and join with the grid of network, to calculate and solve complex functions. All of these computing power will solve each block of function, and when these blocks are combined together and if the functions are solved, we will get rewarded for the computing power that we provide so help solve the calculation. These reward comes in the type of either bitcoin, or ethereum, or whatever crypto currency offered for that mining pool.

Google will help you to understand better.

Establishing my own mining rig - as a hobby.

Some says that this is not a good time to mine. As the hardness level has increased, and the income is not as profitable as a year ago. Well, i missed the boat on profitable income, but surely, keeping up with the technology is what interests me.

I'm choosing to try and mine the Ethereum, instead of bitcoins, as bitcoins require special ASICS-based device, such as the Antminer to do the mining. Ethereum, in the other hand, the mining pool can be set up by using normal hardware, as simple as normal PC system, with a powerful graphics card. And seems like i've got these handy, i might as well just start to try to mine Ethereum today.

Ethereum mining rig.

After 2 days of trying to configure the mining rig, with various types of Eth mining software, can't seems to be able to produce any MH/S. MH/s are the measurement to measure the number of hashes, or computational functions performed per seconds. These are measured by:

• 1 kH/s is 1,000 (one thousand) hashes per second.
• 1 MH/s is 1,000,000 (one million) hashes per second.
• 1 GH/s is 1,000,000,000 (one billion) hashes per second.
• 1 TH/s is 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) hashes per second.

Apparently, my current display card does not support the size of DAG - in layman term, is the overhead needed to be loaded for the GPU to perform the calculation. Current DAG size is more than 2GB, so i'll need a graphics card that has got a bigger than 2GB of memory in order to be able to load the current DAG. Seems like people are doing it with multiple of 8GB of display cards nowadays. A simple browse on the local pc hardware price, 8GB display cards, costs at least 1.5k upwards, depending on model. 

This is too much of an investment for just to simulate.

So i researched further, and apparently, these Ethereums can be mined without loading the DAG into the onboard memory. But can only be done with the EthOS? In which a mining platform dedicated for Ethereum. It's Ubuntu-based specific distro, with miners and everything built in for Ethereum. But it costs around 39usd per copy. 

I'm considering for this distro instead, rather than having to fork out RM2k for a new display card.

Let's see how it goes.

:)

Life is like a wheel..

There are so many things that happened in life. 

Sometimes we must always remember that we're not always on top. 

Whatever it is, life must go on. 

#feelblessed

:)

T U R B O

Nostalgic, and absolutely true.


courtesy of my favourite reviewer, LGR

two zero one six

It has been a wonderful 2015. And looking forward for a greater 2016.

Life has just got better.

Happy new year!

New place, new environment.

After 8 years, i finally changed my job. Today I'm at my new place, new environment. Pray for all the best.

Em's first concert, Genius Aulad Pre-school Convocation day

It feels like only yesterday i was on my nerves, rushing to the hospital for the delivery of my first newborn baby, and without noticing, he's already performing on his first school concert? Wow, time really flies. He's a big boy now, and surely proud of him. Not because what he did up on the stage, but for his willingness to even perform something up there on the stage in front of a very large crowd for his school. Thumbs up!

Btw, he's a few of the 5 year old students up there on the stage, i think there were only 6 of them. The rest were 6 year olds.



Didn't manage to get a perfect shot, but i think it was okay. Vid was taken by using EOS7D and it was pretty heavy to hold after 5 mins of recording videos without tripods. That should explains why the video was a bit shaky.

Nevertheless, it was a good event, and definitely will be a memory worth keeping, forever.

Two thumbs up Emmir, Papa is very proud of you.

A phone worth keeping.

Okay, i know what most would think. The iPhone 5s? Wrong!. Well, indeed the newest gadget from the renowned company Apple has just been launched merely 24hrs ago, but this thoughts are not meant for them. In fact, the launch is what actually trigger these thoughts, and well it seems, that hundreds of people around the world has just got the same thought.

Can there be a phone, worth keeping? Not requiring us to buy a new one every half a year just to get in pace with the overgrowing mobile smartphone technologies?

What the market of today need, is a phone, that applies a modular concept. Which means, that, an upgrade able phone. Yes that's right! just like the PC boys would do it. They just upgrade the required parts, in order to keep with the pace with newer technologies or software, or simply customize it to their requirements of everyday use.

Imagine, buying a phone, and customize it to your need. Need a longer battery life, put a bigger battery, need a powerful GPU for gaming, get the latest in the market, or just take a plain phone chasis which only capable of answering calls. That's what the market need.

One of the concept is already out there, which is called Phonebloks. The concept is totally awesome, if being applied, would be simply outstanding.

Here's the concept video:


So, let's go and support the Phonebloks. Visit their web, and make this a reality.

Something to ponder..

Well, this is something, only for Malaysian, and only a true working-class Malaysian would understand.

Written in Bahasa Melayu, it is about the RM0.20 / liter price increase for Petrol in Malaysia on midnight, 2nd September 2013. Whatever their reasons for increasing the price, these thoughts, were definitely worth for us to ponder of.

Kita bising minyak naik bukan kerana kita benci Malaysia.

Kita bising minyak naik bukan kerana kita tak mampu bayar.

Tapi...
Kita bising sebab janji tak serupa bikin.
Kita bising sebab kesiankan rakyat marhaen.
Memang kita berduit.
Memang kita berharta.

Namun,
jauh di pelusuk sana,
ada yang menghitung syiling.

Ada yang bekerja teruk terkontang kanting.
Mereka tak ada slip gaji.
Jauh sekali socso mahupun kwsp.Kerjanya keluar pagi balik dinihari.

Dan kalian pula berbicara indah persis pujangga metropolis?
Hanya 20 sen?
Itu pun nak bising?
Kerja lah lebih kuat lagi?
Beribadatlah lebih lagi?
Untuk dimurahkan rezeki?

Ya...
Sembang kalian sembang mereka yang berharta.
Sembang kalian sembang orang yang penuh wibawa.

Sedangkan ada mereka yang facebook pun tiada.
Motor buruk hanya tunggu masa.

Kerja lebih kuat dari si sarjana muda.

Kerja lebih ikhlas dari si phd mahupun master.

Hanya untuk mulut mereka sekeluarga.

Ya..
Mereka tak berharta.
Salah mereka kerana tidak berusaha di zaman muda.

Tapi adakah kita berilmu untuk menjadi penindas mereka?

Kalau itu sistem kehidupan.
Aku rela jadi bodoh dari kalian.Kerana aku taknak hilang perikemanusiaan.

karya dari Redza Aziz

Introducing - Your Smartphone's new Phone.

Yes that's right. I recently bumped into this new product on the market. It's amazing how technologies evolved these days.

First, there were large ATUR phones, then it gets even larger with additional batteries so that you can make your call longer. Then with the introduction of GSM cell phones, the device gets a bit smaller, then it bulks up again with the additional battery packs. Then came the era of change-able cover phones, and then was taken over by the flip phone being made popular by The Matrix movie. After that back to change-able covers, and now with an attached camera. Now it gets bulky again with all those features like camera, and torchlights.

Nostalgic 80s DOS games - Tapper

Well, i was kinda bored today, and kinda feeling nostalgic, so i end up browsing the great games of the past.

Fortunate enough, i found this one game (apart from many other games) that really amuses me during my childhood years. Well, not exactly childhood, but hey, it was during the early 90s, hippie years for me!

Enough said, here's the screenshot of it when i played it today -

Well the game is called Tapper, or originally called Beer Tapper, and then renamed to Root-beer Tapper, it was a simple game of a bartender trying to fulfill those crazy beer drinking hoots' lust of drinking all the beers you got in the shop, or at least something like that. Well, you'll try to fulfill everyone's need for beer, else they'll go nuts and bash you (yes, the bartender) against the mystery door that they came from. Entertaining isn't it? It's like the 80s version of Diner Dash, but in CGI CGA graphics, and PC speaker sounds and music, it was simply amusing.

Had to run it in the dos-box though, as it doesn't run in Win 7 or anything similar, and as you can see from the screen shot, i'll need to adjust the cpu speed to below 500 cycles for at least a decent gameplay.

So for this, there's only 2 words to describe it - Awesome, awesome. (or was it one word multiplied by 2? or should i say it as totally awesome? or extremely awesome? whatever it is, if u r a gamers or a geek from the 80s, u'll understand what i mean).

Turtle terrarium renovation

It seems that my 2 red-eared sliders has gone pretty big nowadays, the swimming area in the current setup of my 3ft tank doesn't seems adequate for them to swim freely.

So the other day got a chance to visit a shop called Exoreptiles, and got a nice discount for a large Exo-Terra Magnetic Floating Turtle Bank. Martin, the guy from exoreptiles was a friendly guy, and helped me to choose the appropriate size for my tank and my turtles. He'd even gave me a good discount for the item!

And so, it's time to renovate my turtle's tank.

M.A.S.K™ .. the glory of the 80s.

Last weekend, got a chance to bring my kids to the Toy Museum in Penang. Its has moved to a new building, which now resides at Tg Bungah.

The toys inside are not actually some very old toys, like the tin can toys from the 50s or so, but more to a modern toys, i think beginning from the 80s, until recent years. At least the toys being displayed are from my era, and i think it is indeed very cool.

More pics after the jump!

Food for life, food for Arowana!

I think it's best to share how i kept the live food for my Aro. Perhaps it gives the idea to those who wanna kept an arowana at home, that keeping arowana is not just keeping a fish, you'll have to deal with the live foods for it as well, if you wanna have a happy fish of course. Some arowanas might have been trained to eat pellets, and taking care of such aro would be a breeze. All the necessary vitamins are ready in those pellets, such as Hikari sticks and so on.

But my aro is a different story. I tried to starved it for more than 2 weeks, still not eating up pellets, and even went for a hunger strike after that! tried it a couple of time, with no luck, so i give up. My aro seems to be very picky about food, which resulting me to have some variety of foods for it.

So after the jump, are the live foods that i bought, and kept for my aro:-

Thermoelectric Peltier Cooler for my Aquarium

Been working on a d.i.y project. It's a TEC water cooler project, in which i hope it will reduce the temperature of my 5 ft aquarium to at least 3 degrees below ambient. Hopes are high, since the waterblock is so small, i don't think it will have any effect at all to the water temp. Since i got all the things laying around, (except for the TECs). so i just built everything up and see whether it works.

I used 2 TEC peltier coolers, attached to a simple pump, and a PC power supply. Still in testing, or should i say "proof of concept" stage.

What a mess.

Bigger home for Aro (and turtles).

Just would like to archive a quick update on my Arowana's tank. My inital tank setup for my XB arowana was the tank given by my dad, with measurements of 3 x 1.5 x 2 ft. It was okay for the juvenile aro, but since i was planning for a 25 years of lifespan for my aro, the tank will definitely need an upgrade sooner or later.

The initial tank setup. The tank that started everything. It has a simple overhead filter, and i run one extra powerhead with aeration. 

So during the last CNY, there was a great offer by my nearby LFS (local fish shop) for a 5 x 1.5 x 3 ft tank. So the opportunity was grabbed, and so my aro gets a bungalow. lol.

iOS 6.1 all devices jailbreak.

This news might be a bit late, but, just happy to inform, that the iOS6.1 jailbreak is already out a few days ago. It's called evasi0n.

The jailbreak is pretty easy, reminds me of the last jailbreakme.com. Complete steps are self explanatory within the evasi0n web itself.

The passion for Aro

It was during the late weeks of December 2012, when my dad decided to clear the backyard of our home. It was then i noticed an old aquarium laying there without any purpose, except for taking up the storage space. A glimpse of memory flashes through my mind, on how when i was a little kid, my dad used to have a silver arowana (on a bigger tank), and how me and my dad used to go to the local fish shop, bought some mealworms, crickets and later baby frogs, and give it to the arowana for it to have a feast on. It was great, until a couple of years later when the grown up arowana (i think about 2 feet long) jumped out of the aquarium late at night, only for us to discover the dead fish in the morning on the carpet.

Manly library

This picture speaks for itself. Lol.

I still think he's a great sportsman though.

Semenyih Waterfall Mountain Biking

Here it is, the first offroad ride for 2013. Can be considered a relaxed ride. Probably because there were too many relaxing point during the ride.

The trail was just slightly over 9km. But it took us almost 2 hrs. The reason?

2013

Hello 2013.

Although it's already 2nd Jan, i guess it's still not late for a Happy New Year wish!

Guess what, i still have this on my table:

So i guess 2012 is not the end of the world, at least yet. I bought the book when one of my colleague was doing some kind of direct selling of books in my office, and i just wanted to somehow help to support him. That was in 2011 i think. So i ended up with this particular book since then on my messy office table, alongside with other "i dunno what" things that makes my table a mess everyday.

Oh yeay, and i still haven't finished reading it too. I just read, like 10 pages or so. Then it serves as the second purpose as a place to put my coins on since then.

And now since it's already 2013, i guess i will never read the book anyway.

Happy 2013 guys, may it'll be a prosperous year for us all.