Thie Cave

I encountered an interesting phenomena during the DICTA 2003 conference recently in the Macquarie Uni.

We connected the headphone port from a laptop to a power mixer. Suddenly, a huge buzzing sound came out of the speakers. Everybody was stunned. One of the research scientist from the CMIS disconnected the laptop from its power adaptor. Then, the buzzing sound disappeared. When he connected the power adaptor back, the buzz re-appeared. That was the interesting phenomena.

We tried to put the power adaptor away from the power mixer but the problem persisted. In the end, we let the laptop running on battery.

So, any suggestion of how the buzz was produced and how to eliminate it while still using the laptop power adaptor?

I received another email that offers millions dollars. It comes from Nigeria although the contact email is based on UK. Yep this appears to be one of the infamous Nigerian scams.

The main stream of the email runs like this.
- The email sender holds an account of a deceased person.
- Only the relative of the deceased person can claim the account.
- Rather than finding the real relative, get someone to pretend to be the relative.
- That relative is you.
- Once you get the money, split it with the email sender.

The truth of the matter is (according to some websites):
- There is no deceased person – especially the millions dollars.
- They get your money by asking you to pay for fees after fees and sometimes pay for their airfare to meet you in some countries.

Interestingly, I read an article (I can’t remember where) that one of the Nigerian scammers was considering a change of “career” since he was no longer getting any money from this scam. That is, more people are more aware of this scam and no longer fall into it.

Continue reading this thread to read the email.
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Recently, I received an email from the Westpac bank, asking me to validate my online banking account. What’s so strange with that? simply because I have no account with Westpac.

After going through email, it actually asks me to visit a website and enters my details for online banking. Well….an alarm bell is ringing in my head. This must be the scam that people have been talking about. A trick to obtain someone’s account number and password.

Here is the actual email that I received.
Open file

I received an email some time ago informing that I have won a lottery. It is worth US$500,000. But I never entered this lottery nor even heard of it.

Too good to be true. Perhaps it is.
I did some search in the internet about this lottery. I came across one webpage that shows this is a scam. Here is the link

Continue reading for the email content.
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This morning, I received a job advertisement in the email. The position is software test engineer in the gaming industry. The gaming industry is not about playstation or nintendo but it is gambling-related games, like poker machines.

I was thinking to myself. Should I apply for this position? Would it be a sin to work in this industry?

There are reasons which state it’s alright to take up this position. The first reason is that a job is a job. It is an honest work so long as everything is done according to the standard and regulations. Secondly, being in this position does not necessarily promote gambling. If the position were in the marketing/sales, that would be a different story.

There are also reasons which are against this. The significant one I could think of is towards other people. That is, would this be a stumbling block for other Christians? Just as there are Christians who think it’s wrong to have anything to do with alcoholic drinks, there are also Christians who think the same way towards gambling.

What’s the conclusion?

Still digging for more thoughts ………