Sunday, February 22, 2009

Yup.

@ Saint3Zero:

Yup, it does have real strawberries. BUT you failed to mentioned the sourness!!! Or is it just my expired milk?

Saturday, February 21, 2009

GEEZ...Kids these days!

[Edit: 22 Feb 2009 w/ news article]
Remember that post below? WELL THAT'S FAKE. Piece of shit. Apparently, that 'meme' has been circulating since last night. According to the radio news (I'll put up a link when I find it.), it was started by some 19 year old kid who apparently has nothing better to do. SERIOUSLY GUYS, YOU WANNA JOKE ABOUT TERRORISM?! MAN, this got me all stirred up. On the first look, I already know it's fake.

NO 1: "This message was forwarded from my sister's close friend's army friend." Yeahhhhhh. Might as well say that the President told me. (Though, that will just ruin it.)

NO 2: It's quite hard or rather impossible to make a bomb out of everyday items. Your main 'bang' ain't there duuuuuude. P.S.: To those who think of using Mentos and Coke. You're just lame. -_- Secondly, the 'bang'-ful thing I can imagine that could be use is a firecracker. Hmm...

NO 3: Of all places, they choose Bugis. I think they should know that the GLOBAL recession had forced everyone to keep their cash safe in their pockets. From what I know, no one's even window shopping there. (Man! The economy's bad.)

******

On a much much serious note, this shouldn't be passed as a joke. Yes, I know some will say that I'm overreacting and I do sometimes wander over that 'joke-able' line, always adding sarcasm into a conversation. But when you see that many innocent lives have been taken just because of conflict of ideas, it's no joke. People can die because of terrorism. And to circulate a message and say that there's a bomb threat? That's just too far.

Think.

Kids nowadays are easily exposed by everything. Theretically, it's a good thing. It somehow presents itself as an experience and teaches the child valuable lessons such as of what to do and what not to do. However, children are left to intepret that information by themselves. Busy parents, the Internet, unmonitored activities. Recipe for disaster. Sometimes, I feel that these kids are missing love.

Back in the old days, I could only imagine a strict pair of parents relentlessly scolding their child when he gets into trouble. The child will hand his head down and be silenced by their words. Even for a stranger, you could sense the child's guilt as it passes through his body. But in the end, the parents lift the boys head, revealing a pair of teary eyes, and hugged him. Where's that love now?

The number of children, or rather teens, caught breaking the laws is steadily rising. Remember the 13 year old father (link)? My first thought was a mislabelled headline. Or just another hoax. What has the world gone to? Where are the parents? Why is this happening? Were they thaught about the birds and the bees?

I'm no expert in this. But I do know that there's a limit to everything. We are always graced with so many questions, but entertained with so little answers.

Seriously?

Seriously? You wanna joke about terrorism?

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

English And All His Friends

Just borrowed a book today. I wonder if I am able to AT LEAST understand this book let alone finish it. Sigh.


There are some debate if I would like to increase traffic to my blog. Of course, which author wouldn't want that!? But it seems that the increased traffic would cause more of 'harm'. I mean, c'mon, who would want to read some random asian dude's blog. I can't even stir up traffic between friends, why would strangers from all over the world read rants of my life. (Same concept of Twitter here.)

A step towards that was moving my focus in creating this space into another tech blog of sorts. After all, I did thought of pursuing a career in journalism. Not till I found out my disrespect of English herself. I basically slaughtered that language, ignoring periods, grammar and even ideas! Looking back at my previous post, How Perfect Plans Need Perfect Execution (link), it would be a loooong road before I reach a footing of journalism. But of course, when there's a will, there's a way. [Writing this paragraph just demonstrated my slippery grip in English.]

For once, I can't even sit down and write a blog post explaning the video post(link) i did back then. GEEZ.

But this blog started as my *personal* space. So it's kinda hard to see me depart from my natural shell. Futhermore, I won't be really productive if I'd just focus in a area. I LOVE TO MULTITASK! (Or is it that I an just easily distractable.)

We'll see about that. Maybe I shall mix Tech news with my non-Tech rant, professionallism with whack-ism.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

How Perfect Planning Needs Perfect Excution

(Above: At least we got the fire started!)
I don't feel too well. It's like a post-sugar galore at Willy Wonka's factory. GEEZ. My eyes are watery and heavy. I feel slightly top heavy and there's this distinct BBQ taste that resides in my mouth even after a brush. Yuck. I'm all over BBQ-ing now.

Last night, we had a belated birthday-BBQ-party for one of our friends. He just rang us up and offered a party. They did something similar last year, though without the BBQ, but I was not available on that day. Guess I had some extra classes or something. Looks like they wanted to up the ante since all they did the last time looked more of sports day then a party. What supposed to be a group of 10 teens hungover from an extensive meal of nature's abomination and a day of reminiscence from our secondary and soccer days became a battle just getting it going. Sigh. First of all, the event wasn't a disaster but it certainly had the taste of it. Well, at least we ate something in the end. Our plight even before it started.

I guess the biggest no-no in our various stages of events was the timing. It just scrapped from someone's idea pool about a week before the event day. All seems just ok with a 'flawless' plan 2 organiser wannabes meticulously scratched but even time will rust the hardest of steel. Even if you have a perfect plan that will resolve any problem to the tiniest detail, as long as you don't control every tiniest detail, your plan ain't perfect! And with a window of just 3 days, things can get pretty ugly. Let's look at what happened. As such, late timing creates unconfirmed guests that leads to uncertainty in purchase which also brings about more dead weight which could also be affected by miscommunications, financial instability, weird location, missing host and guests (gonna be real soon) and zero knowledge of BBQ. That should sum it up.

At any rate, we decided to order our food from BBQ Wholesale Centre because none of us has the knowledge nor mindset to prepare BBQ food. Furthermore, they even promised a "hassle-free bbq!" Well, at least that made the decision. After all, I was supposed to engage them in my Class Chalet/BBQ but that too suffered similar fate with last night's. Upon collection, it was obvious that none of us had any idea where 95 Frankal Ave is. If another lesson was to be learned, ALWAYS BRING A MAP! Or a GPS for that matter. I guess we have to say that it's vital to know where you're heading metaphorically and literally! Also, always check your receipt!

Did I mentioned about guests too? The power of the people is such an odd thing. Even with the silliest parties, it can just be awfully perfect with a room full of party goers. Unfortunately, the untimely party became so untimely constrained that our 10 men party became 6. A small drawback? Maybe not BUT WHAT IT THE HOST DIDN'T COME? Without the guests and host, what right do we have to call it a party? Maybe another glitch, LOCATION. Wasn't it weird that we had a BBQ at some ulu HDB estate.

Finally, I guess I have to state this, lack of closeness. Now now, before anyone flood me with Dude, what you talking mannnnn or WHAT's that gotta do witha a BBQ? I did remember stating the power of the people and how a room full of party goers could get the worst party going. Taking a great example, Wikipedia. Look at the power of people and how it has unified that power to become one of the top visited sites for information. I wouldn't want to engross you any further in why Wikipedia is not bluff-pedia. Maybe some other time. Instead, watch this documentary Truth In Numbers and that might sum up my arguement. The point is that everyone should chip in. If there is this air of animosity, everything tends to be done half heartedly. Well, that's at least for me only.

In the end, the show must go on. Looking at how BBQ declined I am, maybe anyone could offer some tips for me?

Whatever, Dad.

Geez, I'm all negative when it comes to my Dad. I've just received my polytechnic enrolment package just today and after a quick skim of it, I told him that he should read the package too so that he would be able to help me. Someone that could bounce my queries. UNFORTUNATELY, my Dad says, "Nah, I'm too lazy to read your package."

-_-

I could feel my blood boiling. And so I tell myself, "You know, Dad is kinda old. So he might just need some assistance." But that too also brought up the validity of him using such a comment on me. "But Zul, you're just overreacting!" Oh yeah, I am. From the days of Sec 3, I was never a real fan of my parents, let alone my Dad. I always wanted to be that son who aspires to be his Dad. But not in my lifetime.

AND so, I am reading this instructional booklet that unveils 15 pages of instructions. You know me, I'm no good with instructions. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a grip of all the important details and refuse my carelessness from making this a complete mayhem. I've got a few weeks before the 14-17 March window opens for my registration. So no hurry there.

I'll swing back later. I hope.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Maybe I should let you know that my heart still wanders for you.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Google Google, do you think that you're are doing too many things?

How lame can Google Maps be? Firstly, I wasn't really able to get the Pin man to appear. I was hoping that I could get a distance out from my earlier morning run. So I said, hey, why don't I use Google Maps to check out the distance. (I rarely use that path so I wasn't familiar with the distance it holds) My first surprise was that I couldn't see the path. I was puzzled to see that as that path is a park connector. A asphalt laid park connector that stretches over 5KM from Kallang to Bishan. Man, Google could get my house but not my park connector! And then, I sturggled to get the pin man out. I wondered if I could manually drag the path so that I could get a read on the distance. Nope, that didn't happen. Eventually, I got a winding path that encircled my destination and would probably take me an hour and 13 minutes to walk there. Sigh.

Eventually, I remembered the words from my Geography class 3 years back. With a string lying around and the scale at the corner of my screen, I got the distance off my screen. Finally, something Google did right. Giving me a scale! Also, I'm proud to say that I clocked a 2.2 KM run under 14 minutes. Wow. I can't believe after a long absence from the asphalt, I can still run!

Woots!

[To be cont later.]

Monday, February 09, 2009

How To Make Teachers Great

An excellent speech by Mr Bill Gates, Chairman of MicroSoft. Doesn't mean I'm an Apple Fanboy, I always play down anything with realtions to MicroSoft. I'm not evil you know...

In the video below, he talks about how he sees the many problems of the world and explains how we can consolidate our efforts once more, especially in these trying times, to combat and eventually eradicate these problems. A thing to note, he only talked about 2 since only 20 minutes could give so much. I became really interested in his speech 7 minutes in. Take a look.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Passwords? AGAIN?!

Technology: Positive or Negative? That question has received many many views from many people. Sure it has left some boggled but today, let's dissect the issues at hand and understand TECHNOLOGY!

*********

GOSH! I hate passwords. Though they are the only thing that protects you from account hacks, trojans and maybe total humiliation, don't you find it a pain in the behind to just remember them? And being THE internet, a system that allows millions of computer users around the world to exchange information, in a moment you ACCIDENTALLY posted your GF's nude pic to Flickr and the next thing you know, your future father-in-law is sharpening his machete. Dang.

It's really extraordinary to see how the internet has really matured for the past few years. I think like 10 or more years? I'm looking up in Wikipedia and here it says that it really started in the 1990s. Whoa. In just a mere 18 years, it has become such a big part of many people's lives. See that? That's perfect example on how the internet has revolutionised our lives. (For me that is...) Wikipedia has become more of a newspaper source to me. Even though I can 'easily' edit in that Macs rule the world and PCs sucks, there are still people who live by Wikipedia to keep trolls like me at bay. (I AM NOT A TROLL!)

In the case of humble passwords, I just hate it when I have to remember another set of password for another website account that I know that I would not be using anytime soon. Sigh. Firefox's built-in password management and a FF add-on called Roboform might be a great solution. Hear me out, I'm not like stepping all over the existence of passwords, I'm just saying that our lazy-better of us has encourage many individuals to make programs like RoboForm. But at least it's making jobs. Backtrack: Basically, both of them just remember your passwords. You can hook up a master password to both programs and you can basically kiss the times good bye when you burn your brain cells to just remember a password to your favourite porn site.

Now now, this is ok but don't you guys see the bigger picture? Even if the connection is secure and if you have a master password, all it takes is just one password to be forgotten/unveiled, one hacker to break that encryption to just get the goodies.

I still remember the time where I made my first email. It was a Hotmail account and I wasn't really into tech. (I don't hate Hotmail. I HATE THE PROGRAMMERS AT HOTMAIL who can't even let it load in Mac's FF. Bi**h) C'mon, I was like 13 or so then. My password was like my Identification Card number, something like a Social Security number, and I would save it in my crappy phone in the saved messages. Not only my password was easy to crack, I SAVED IT IN MY PHONE! Just imagine the joy in the thief's face as he rejoice. THIS SUCKS.

No, this is not an invitation to hack my account. PEOPLE, I've changed the password since my intellectual prowess rose as the security threats rose. Ok, the point is, aren't we all just to lazy to remember all those passwords? Yeah I know there's like a hundred to remember but c'mon, if you are a troll, at least do yourself some justice. We need some program to remember them. Geez.

Future thieves of my phone, do not rejoice for the fact that NO passwords reside in it. BUT still, don't take it away from me! I do still have the nerve to REMEMBER every single password, long or short. Hackers beware, you gotta be in the CIA and be Google's engineer if you wanna breach my privacy!!! But it's a necessary evil if I may say. No password can keep your privacy. As long as it's on the internet, you're doom.

OpenID, Facebook Connect or whatever. YOU STILL HAVE TO REMEMBER teh PASSWORDSSS!!!

(credit: Cnet)

There's Something In Adobe's AIR

It would be such a crime to not talk about any tech news on my beloved blog of mine. After all, the blogosphere was the brainchild of the internet which has stringed all the web antics, controversial, movements and many many more. I think it's safe to say that the internet saved the world.

Nah, whatever.

You know how easily distractable I am. I can imagine the many pranks you all pulled on me as I am knee deep in them all because I was not able to keep an eye with my focus. (I can't focus on my focus. Sigh.) AND so, I got myself a Twitter account after much hype from CNet's Buzz Out Loud and The 404. I know I'm a little late but c'mon guys! I was DISTRACTED earlier. See?

Anyway, the real reason why I got myself a Twitter account was my curiosity in Twhirl which acts like a desktop application for me to update my Twitter. Being a desktop applicatiion, I would not need to go into my Firefox, see it bounce about 10 times (I'm on a Mac btw), load up my Apple homepage that takes a DREADED 2 seconds to load (Felt like 2 minutes!), load up my bookmarks sidebar and click on Twitter, enter my account details, log in and finally Twit. DID YOU SEE THAT?! It would waste half of my life in those 6 instances! YIKES! But with Twhirl, All it takes is 2 clicks. The dynamics behind this 'Twhirl' is that it is a Flash programme that actively runs without a browser. Let's just put that Adobe AIR becomes a web browser, but for Flash applications.

This is GREAT news for netbook users. As you may know, netbooks are becoming quite a thing nowadays. Since Flash applications don't need to use as much processing power as a full fledged application, it can just run smoothly. Less processing power = Less lag = More Productivity. However, in this side of the world, sunny Singapore won't get much of this fanfare as netbooks still cost a bomb here. $800 for a Eee PC? MIGHT AS WELL GET A HP!



I'm really psych about this 'technology'. Would you just imagine all the Flash games that you could play? But maybe not that. This could just eventually transition us all into the world of Cloud. It's all about using less for more productivity. I can't wait!

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Sunday, February 01, 2009

You just don't give up

We fall, we cry, we get up as we heal as we regret. And what happens next? We just walk away and fight on.

It's like some kind of a natural instinct that is embedded into every muscle, every bone, every cell, every gene. We just don't give up.

Well that's how it happened to me. I got myself into electrical engineering at Ngee Ann Poly. Did it dash my hopes? Nah, not really. It's more of a signal than a demoraliser. Did I regret so much that I became suicidal? C'mon guys! That's so cliché. There must be another way to close a chapter! Well, I did become regretful but it comes and goes. Note my use of the 's' to show it's habitual nature? But I guess the most important question is what happens next?

Right now, I'm looking for a new hope. Since I've lost that reason about 2 years ago, I got to have a new reason now. I can't live aimlessly. I don't want to live just 'like that'. I want a new reason to live. I want a new goal to answer why I wake up every morning and go to school studying. I want a new reason to breathe in this air. I want a reason to live the next day. I want a new reason to hope.

For you all out there, show me a reason and I'll show you my world. We just don't give up.