See what 5 builders are making with Gemini 4 Argon
16 hours ago
Jokes from beyond the Bridge
on Tuesday, 18 April 2006
This article from a Singapore news website is really really quite funny. Too bad the joke's on us. Can we blame them for making fun of us? I don't think so, since I believe that if the roles were reversed, we'd be doing the same thing, and probably in a cruder manner.
I'm playing Guild Wars!
on Friday, 14 April 2006
Yup, I'm playing Guild Wars. And it's been a heck of a fun time so far. Love it. I started playing at end of March, right after their preview event on the up coming Chapter 2, Guild Wars: Factions. Been meaning to post about it and add in some screenshots. But I've been stumped on how best to go about it. I've reduced the shots to slightly more than 1 MB each. Maybe I should just upload them all into Flickr. Hmm... I am loathed to reducing the size even further (the details! the details!) so... maybe I should.
Guild Wars does not charge any subscription fees, unlike most other MMORPGs, which is simply wonderful. You don't get that feeling of wasting money when you're not playing, compared to other subscription-based online games where you pay a fixed amount each month. So how do they make money? By alternating the release of new content and a new "expansion" every 6 months. Guild Wars: Factions is the so-called "expansion", although it really is a standalone game. You can play with both, or just one of them, and having access to the appropriate content. This makes it possible for players that own different chapters to still be able to play together. There are already naysayers on how long Arena.net can keep up their cycle of releases. I think it's possible and still too early to say it won't work. Work has already begun on the next two releases even before the upcoming Factions.
Anyone considered playing but didn't? You won't regret it, trust me (except maybe the usual sleep deprivation problem and the social costs, hehe). There's quite a few Malaysian players in there. Check my GW bookmarks for useful links.
Guild Wars does not charge any subscription fees, unlike most other MMORPGs, which is simply wonderful. You don't get that feeling of wasting money when you're not playing, compared to other subscription-based online games where you pay a fixed amount each month. So how do they make money? By alternating the release of new content and a new "expansion" every 6 months. Guild Wars: Factions is the so-called "expansion", although it really is a standalone game. You can play with both, or just one of them, and having access to the appropriate content. This makes it possible for players that own different chapters to still be able to play together. There are already naysayers on how long Arena.net can keep up their cycle of releases. I think it's possible and still too early to say it won't work. Work has already begun on the next two releases even before the upcoming Factions.
Anyone considered playing but didn't? You won't regret it, trust me (except maybe the usual sleep deprivation problem and the social costs, hehe). There's quite a few Malaysian players in there. Check my GW bookmarks for useful links.
My Homepage is Gone...
on Tuesday, 28 March 2006
Apparently, Yahoo! is very efficient in detecting violations of terms and contracts. Darn it. My homepage is no longer there. Oh well, there goes my favicon and tag clouds. I wonder where else could I host small files without hassle.
How to use the tags
on
I've been meaning to do this ever since I started tagging. Tag? What's that? Sites like Del.icio.us and Technorati offer bookmark and blog taggings for categorisation and organisation.
See that selection box on the left with the header "Topics"? Those topics are my del.icio.us tags. Selecting any one of the topics and clicking 'Go' will change the area below, headed by "Topic Posts" to display links to the most recent posts that are tagged with the selected topic. Neat eh? It's a multi-select box too, so you can select several topics and 'Go' for pages tagged with all the selected topics. Did I do do that? Of course not. The script is from FreshTags.
Isn't tedious to tag all your previous posts? Yes, it was. But I can't help it... :P A couple a day and now I'm finally done tagging. My blog posts anyway... now for all my bookmarks... Ugh.
See that selection box on the left with the header "Topics"? Those topics are my del.icio.us tags. Selecting any one of the topics and clicking 'Go' will change the area below, headed by "Topic Posts" to display links to the most recent posts that are tagged with the selected topic. Neat eh? It's a multi-select box too, so you can select several topics and 'Go' for pages tagged with all the selected topics. Did I do do that? Of course not. The script is from FreshTags.
Isn't tedious to tag all your previous posts? Yes, it was. But I can't help it... :P A couple a day and now I'm finally done tagging. My blog posts anyway... now for all my bookmarks... Ugh.
ajaxWrite - Word on the Web
on Friday, 24 March 2006
Looking for Microsoft Office alternatives? OpenOffice too much of a hassle to download and install and update? Or just plain not as good as MS Office? I think you'd want to keep an eye on the new ajaxWrite. A new word processor that requires no money, no installation, and probably no requirements except having a JavaScript-enabled browser. It uses AJAX, a new development technique for interactive web programming. Give it a try, it definitely looks promising, especially since the word processor is just for starters.
God's Debris
on
I just read a rather thought-provoking book by Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert. There's a banner on that comic page that links to a page offering the free download of God's Debris. It's apparently a really big success story.
Why is it a good read? Precisely because it's rather controversial and thought-provoking. It's like a cross between fiction and philosophy, where ideas are presented via a simple story. I find it a very interesting read and opens up my mind to several perspectives I haven't thought of. Although some of it might sound far-fetched, but for some reason, they just seem to click and sound reasonable. Go figure.
A word of warning though, DO NOT read if you're narrow-minded and easily offended by views and ideas that do not subscribe to the norm. The story is presented as a dialogue and the discussions touch upon religion, evolution, human nature, relationships, and reality. The best way to enjoy the read is to be open and neither accept nor reject the views, but to simply ponder... and argue (if anyone wants to argue the points, I'd be happy to oblige, I like to argue ^-^).
There's apparently a sequel, called the Religion War, that was hinted at near the end of God's Debris. My curiosity is definitely piqued. Unfortunately, the price at Amazon means it'll probably cost at least RM60 around here, if the government even approves of it... Oh well.
Why is it a good read? Precisely because it's rather controversial and thought-provoking. It's like a cross between fiction and philosophy, where ideas are presented via a simple story. I find it a very interesting read and opens up my mind to several perspectives I haven't thought of. Although some of it might sound far-fetched, but for some reason, they just seem to click and sound reasonable. Go figure.
A word of warning though, DO NOT read if you're narrow-minded and easily offended by views and ideas that do not subscribe to the norm. The story is presented as a dialogue and the discussions touch upon religion, evolution, human nature, relationships, and reality. The best way to enjoy the read is to be open and neither accept nor reject the views, but to simply ponder... and argue (if anyone wants to argue the points, I'd be happy to oblige, I like to argue ^-^).
There's apparently a sequel, called the Religion War, that was hinted at near the end of God's Debris. My curiosity is definitely piqued. Unfortunately, the price at Amazon means it'll probably cost at least RM60 around here, if the government even approves of it... Oh well.
A New Homepage is Born!
on Wednesday, 22 March 2006
Phew... I've dug around and decided to just set up a GeoCities account with a basic web template that I'll play around with when I have the time. Visit it here. It's not necessary to visit though. There's not much there at all. Why'd I do it? Well, so I have somewhere to host my "favicon.ico" file and a place to put my del.icio.us tag cloud. Hehe. Look at your URL bar. See that nice little icon next to my blog address? It's the third generation of it already. I just scrapped the earlier ones and just kept it simple, seeing that I only have 16 by 16 pixels to work with anyway.
Oh, and in case anyone's interested, in addition to the favicon converters/generators links I posted earlier, this logo generator is pretty helpful in producing simple word-based images with customisable size, font, and textures. Unfortunately, that page is loaded with ads and can be slow to load. Luckily, I use Mozilla Firefox with a nifty and very useful plugin called Adblock. It allows you to filter away ads from pages so the browser won't even load them at all.
Oh, and in case anyone's interested, in addition to the favicon converters/generators links I posted earlier, this logo generator is pretty helpful in producing simple word-based images with customisable size, font, and textures. Unfortunately, that page is loaded with ads and can be slow to load. Luckily, I use Mozilla Firefox with a nifty and very useful plugin called Adblock. It allows you to filter away ads from pages so the browser won't even load them at all.
Favicon Problems
on
Right after the del.icio.us tag cloud problem, I found out what a favicon is from here, and here. What's a favicon? It stands for "favourites icon". See that little icon that appears next to the URL in your browser window? It's that one. It's also the icon that appears when you bookmark a page. Apparently, Microsoft created it as a means to tracking who's bookmarking whom, but modern browsers display all the time, making it moot.
The icon has to be a 16 by 16 pixels icon by the name of "favicon.ico", for full compatibility (although Firefox and some other browsers still display it if you provide .png or .gif, but not IE). I actually had fun creating it... and have been trying to find a web host to put it in, since Blogger apparently doesn't allow uploading of .ico files. Darn it. I tried a couple of supposedly free web hosts, but they're usually meant more for online storage than web hosting, or they have some usage limitations. Oh well. I thought of Geocities as well, but they do have this clause saying you can't use it for hosting images. I kinda lazy to go set up a facade page just to let me link to a .ico file... oh well. I'll get around to it (*dlim puts appends a new task to his long to-do list*)
Oh, and in case anybody's interested, here are some favicon generators: this and that.
The icon has to be a 16 by 16 pixels icon by the name of "favicon.ico", for full compatibility (although Firefox and some other browsers still display it if you provide .png or .gif, but not IE). I actually had fun creating it... and have been trying to find a web host to put it in, since Blogger apparently doesn't allow uploading of .ico files. Darn it. I tried a couple of supposedly free web hosts, but they're usually meant more for online storage than web hosting, or they have some usage limitations. Oh well. I thought of Geocities as well, but they do have this clause saying you can't use it for hosting images. I kinda lazy to go set up a facade page just to let me link to a .ico file... oh well. I'll get around to it (*dlim puts appends a new task to his long to-do list*)
Oh, and in case anybody's interested, here are some favicon generators: this and that.
Del.icio.us Tag Cloud
on Tuesday, 21 March 2006
I'm half-way through adding tags to all my old posts. I'm just tagging along as I have the free time for. I've just added FreshTags to my template as well. It's a fun way to integrate my del.icio.us tags with my blog by providing filters and topic organisation. Granted that my blog isn't really so widely read at all and is rather pointless, I still like the organisation. I used to just prefix my post titles with a one-word description of the post. Del.icio.us gave me a really fun way of organising my stuffs (I'm a sucker for organisation), and FreshTags help with the filtering. Cool!
Oh, I digress. My main reason for this post is just to show my del.icio.us tags as a tag cloud. But, apparently, blogger blocks the script tag from being used inside a post. Which means I can't actually show my tag cloud inside a post... darn it. I suppose it helps prevent malicious scripts from being embedded inside a post. Oh well. I'll think of something.
Oh, I digress. My main reason for this post is just to show my del.icio.us tags as a tag cloud. But, apparently, blogger blocks the script tag from being used inside a post. Which means I can't actually show my tag cloud inside a post... darn it. I suppose it helps prevent malicious scripts from being embedded inside a post. Oh well. I'll think of something.
Another DDO Review
on Tuesday, 7 March 2006
Sigh. Look at this preview. Doesn't sound so optimistic for DDO. Even worse when the user comments mostly rant about the game. Sure, there are positive reviews, but I think the general conclusion is that it's not really a breakthrough. Just another MMORPG that adopts Guild Wars idea of instanced dungeons. Problem is, it's also charging a monthly subscription and has much less content and poorer graphics. Darn. Maybe I'll just wait for the Guild Wars expansion, Factions, and try it out with the prerelease invitation key a friend was kind enough to send my way.
EDIT 20060308-1757: It's funnny why review articles like this and this gives a very good rating, yet player comments are almost contradictory. Is it because the players who really like the game are too busy playing and have no time to rebute these nay-sayers? From all accounts, it's a very group-oriented game, almost exactly like PnP D&D. I wonder if all those nay-sayers are simply too used to the typical and numerous level-grinding MMOs available. But then again, the relatively small amount of content, plus the fact that some players are able to max out their level in a week or so does make the game quite repetitive. It might still be worth a try, perhaps much more so when more content have been released.
EDIT 20060308-1757: It's funnny why review articles like this and this gives a very good rating, yet player comments are almost contradictory. Is it because the players who really like the game are too busy playing and have no time to rebute these nay-sayers? From all accounts, it's a very group-oriented game, almost exactly like PnP D&D. I wonder if all those nay-sayers are simply too used to the typical and numerous level-grinding MMOs available. But then again, the relatively small amount of content, plus the fact that some players are able to max out their level in a week or so does make the game quite repetitive. It might still be worth a try, perhaps much more so when more content have been released.
What D&D Character Are You?
on
This really fun (if you're a D&D fan) quiz has been updated with more questions, options, and results! Personally, I think it's much more accurate, because the result is exactly my favourite character. The output:
I Am A: Neutral Good Half-Elf Ranger Druid
Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered 'normal'.
Race:
Half-Elves are a cross between a human and an elf. They are smaller, like their elven ancestors, but have a much shorter lifespan. They are sometimes looked down upon as half-breeds, but this is rare. They have both the curious drive of humans and the patience of elves.
Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.
Secondary Class:
Druids are a special variety of Cleric who serves the Earth, and can call upon the power in the earth to accomplish their goals. They tend to be somewhat fanatical about defending natural settings.
Deity:
Mielikki is the Neutral Good goddess of the forest and autumn. She is also known as the Lady of the Forest, and is the Patron of Rangers. Her followers are devoted to nature, and believe in the positive and outreaching elements of it. They use light armor, and a variety of weapons suitable for hunting, which they are quite skilled at. Mielikki's symbol is a unicorn head.
Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)
Well... maybe I cheated a little. I got an elf initially, then I just looked at the code and tweaked it slightly so I'll get half-elf. Hehe, all I needed to do was change 2 answers to be more human and less elf. But I couldn't get rid of the druid secondary class though, druid is quite tight with rangers. The alignment, deity, and primary class was perfect though. And from the detailed scoring, I'm least likely to be a chaotic evil gnome mage bard. It used to be halfing. Time to go update my sigs in the Wizards forum. ;)
Del.icio.us
on Friday, 3 March 2006
My friend was right. This Del.icio.us is really quite a useful repository of bookmarks. No wonder it's gained such popularity, and no wonder Yahoo! bought it. I can't help tagging all my links! A dozen or two down, several more dozens to go....
Oh and by the way, this post was made via email. I suppose emailing in my blog post makes it more convenient to post. Unfortunately, the post ended up only as a draft, so you'd still have to manually publish it. Auto-publishing via email would've been too risky I suppose.
Oh and by the way, this post was made via email. I suppose emailing in my blog post makes it more convenient to post. Unfortunately, the post ended up only as a draft, so you'd still have to manually publish it. Auto-publishing via email would've been too risky I suppose.
The First DDO Review
on Thursday, 2 March 2006
The first review of Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach (DDO) is out! And the review is excellent! I'm really really definitely getting it.
It's still not in Malaysia yet of course, at RM 189 (at the Software Boutique), it's much cheaper than World of Warcraft and Guild Wars when they came out. Still, as my friend pointed out, there's still the matter of a monthly bill. Oh well, I'm still trying to convince myself not to get it and buy the next expansion of Guild Wars (coming out next month or so) for the simple fact that there's no subscription fee involved. But... but... I'm a D&D fan, how can not play DDO? To buy... or not to buy. That, is the question. Heh.
It's still not in Malaysia yet of course, at RM 189 (at the Software Boutique), it's much cheaper than World of Warcraft and Guild Wars when they came out. Still, as my friend pointed out, there's still the matter of a monthly bill. Oh well, I'm still trying to convince myself not to get it and buy the next expansion of Guild Wars (coming out next month or so) for the simple fact that there's no subscription fee involved. But... but... I'm a D&D fan, how can not play DDO? To buy... or not to buy. That, is the question. Heh.
New Look
on Wednesday, 1 March 2006
Woohoo! First release of new look. Been tweaking this for quite a while, yet there are still quite a few tweaks I'll want to try out later. Aside from more hacking and tweaking of the template, still waiting for the time to check out del.icio.us, more Technorati stuffs, Google's AdSense, and Flickr.
EDIT: A bit more tweaks are in... ^-^
EDIT: A bit more tweaks are in... ^-^
5 Years for Manslaughter
on Friday, 17 February 2006
What?! Five years for manslaughter? Only? This is turning out to be another of those silly "Malaysia Boleh" thing again. What sort of justice and fairness is a simple 5 years sentence to the 5 Thais who beat one of our own countrymen to death? How can the court expect the victim's family to feel consoled by such a sentence?
Since when has the sentence for manslaughter be similar to the sentences of snatch thefts? While I do understand the point where the victim was most likely provoking the Thais and likely "digging his own grave" as they say, given the reactions of the Thais on hearing the sentence, it is obviously too light. A sentence doesn't give joy to the perpetrators, they should be dreaded of it and makes other people feel fearful, as a deterrent and lesson never to do it again. 5 years only is almost a mockery of the worth of a person's life.
Since when has the sentence for manslaughter be similar to the sentences of snatch thefts? While I do understand the point where the victim was most likely provoking the Thais and likely "digging his own grave" as they say, given the reactions of the Thais on hearing the sentence, it is obviously too light. A sentence doesn't give joy to the perpetrators, they should be dreaded of it and makes other people feel fearful, as a deterrent and lesson never to do it again. 5 years only is almost a mockery of the worth of a person's life.
Money No Enuf
on Tuesday, 14 February 2006
You know, I realised that given all the things I want to buy and own, discounting the really expensive ones, I can easily blow RM 10K in a book shop or a hobby shop. Sigh. Me and my possessive nature. "Possessive" is a trait my girlfriend identified. I didn't really think of it as "possessive" before; before she mentioned it, it was just a "want". Must... resist... temptations...
Juggling with the Time of your Life
on Saturday, 11 February 2006
I'm a loner at heart; which is the reason why news and gossip always reach my ears last (or not at all!). Is it a bad thing to be socially disinclined? In pure honesty, I'd rather play games or read a good book than go out on weekly or even nightly social activities. Disco? No thanks. Bar? Nah. Dinner? See-lah. Mamak? Maybe. I don't feel good turning down good friends. Sorry all.
Maybe I just need to trim away some of my interests. Perhaps give up on some things that I keep myself up-to-date with and focus more on other parts of my life. Which parts? Family and friends for starters. As life goes on, more and more people appear who'd need a share of your time and devotion. I know I've been neglecting alot of loved ones, especially the closer ones. Worse when I give unfair shares. Sometimes, I just feel reluctant to give out a share when my own share is already small. Or maybe I'm just blind to how much I'm hoarding to myself.
Life, I believe, is about personal enrichment and experience. But how do you specifically define that? By doing things that make you happy? By doing things that make others happy? Or somewhere in between? How much of your own life should be dedicated to others? How much is too much?
Religion aside, we only have a lifetime each. Is it really selfish and foolish to want to spend it to the betterment of the self? Is it really noble and praiseworthy to spend it to the betterment of others?
I think the corrects answers would both be yes. Without those who sacrifice, there won't be a better tomorrow. Life is not a lonely road. Life is all the more richer by the lives of others we enrich. Life is more about the giving than the receiving.
I'm still trying to convince myself. God help me.
Maybe I just need to trim away some of my interests. Perhaps give up on some things that I keep myself up-to-date with and focus more on other parts of my life. Which parts? Family and friends for starters. As life goes on, more and more people appear who'd need a share of your time and devotion. I know I've been neglecting alot of loved ones, especially the closer ones. Worse when I give unfair shares. Sometimes, I just feel reluctant to give out a share when my own share is already small. Or maybe I'm just blind to how much I'm hoarding to myself.
Life, I believe, is about personal enrichment and experience. But how do you specifically define that? By doing things that make you happy? By doing things that make others happy? Or somewhere in between? How much of your own life should be dedicated to others? How much is too much?
Religion aside, we only have a lifetime each. Is it really selfish and foolish to want to spend it to the betterment of the self? Is it really noble and praiseworthy to spend it to the betterment of others?
I think the corrects answers would both be yes. Without those who sacrifice, there won't be a better tomorrow. Life is not a lonely road. Life is all the more richer by the lives of others we enrich. Life is more about the giving than the receiving.
I'm still trying to convince myself. God help me.
English Problem
on Tuesday, 7 February 2006
When the government decided to steamroll the decision to have all Maths and Science subjects to be taught in English back in 2003, I had anticipated alot of problems, problems like this. There was simply not enough planning and consideration for the sudden switch from the national language to English. But the government probably thought this might force people to improve their English skills.
As it is, it's doubtful that it's been an effective move towards raising our national standards of English, Math and Science proficiency. It's rather shocking that our public universities, UPM, UKM, and UM are actually having problems teaching in English. The rub is that it's not the students who are facing problems, it's the lecturers themselves. Maybe these lecturers should attend English classes together with the students.
As it is, it's doubtful that it's been an effective move towards raising our national standards of English, Math and Science proficiency. It's rather shocking that our public universities, UPM, UKM, and UM are actually having problems teaching in English. The rub is that it's not the students who are facing problems, it's the lecturers themselves. Maybe these lecturers should attend English classes together with the students.
Not Enough Time
on Tuesday, 24 January 2006
Is it just me or do most people realise that time is an extremely limited resource? I have this ex-colleague who finds the time to read books, read mangas (Japanese comics), watch anime (usually Japanese animations), read ebooks, watch movies, watch TV series, watch reality shows, play games (PC and PS2), as well as find the time to work. Everything's appears to be done in a volume or quantity that's more than me. Is it really true that everyone gets the same amount of time? I'm starting to doubt that. Or maybe it's just because I have other time-consuming activities... like driving to and from house every week day, or going shopping (not fully my idea... :P ) Sigh.
Let's see... I'm currently reading 2 novels, with 34 more sitting on the shelf, following 4 mangas, catching up on 2 animes, with at least 5 more lining up to be watched, about half-a-dozen movies I wanted to watch but haven't found the time, currently playing 3 PC games, waiting for the time to play another 4 PC games (2 of them MMORPG), playing 1 PS (yes PS, I don't have PS2) game, have 3 other PS games lined up, 2 gaming news websites to cover, articles and forums for D&D and MtG to catch up on, technology news to watch, and development forums to check out.
And those are just my leisure stuffs. There are alot of chores I need to be doing. Dental checkup, checking up on my housing loan, wedding plans, cleaning up my storage space, preventing my cacti my really dying off, fixing a bad scatch on my car, keep my car washed and clean, spring cleaning, as well as keeping up a semblance of activity on this blog. That's all I can currently recall.
Sigh. How can time ever be enough. Or maybe I'm just trying to do too many things at once. Life is at such a fast pace. I should probably really sit down and figure out exactly what I want from it before it's over.
Let's see... I'm currently reading 2 novels, with 34 more sitting on the shelf, following 4 mangas, catching up on 2 animes, with at least 5 more lining up to be watched, about half-a-dozen movies I wanted to watch but haven't found the time, currently playing 3 PC games, waiting for the time to play another 4 PC games (2 of them MMORPG), playing 1 PS (yes PS, I don't have PS2) game, have 3 other PS games lined up, 2 gaming news websites to cover, articles and forums for D&D and MtG to catch up on, technology news to watch, and development forums to check out.
And those are just my leisure stuffs. There are alot of chores I need to be doing. Dental checkup, checking up on my housing loan, wedding plans, cleaning up my storage space, preventing my cacti my really dying off, fixing a bad scatch on my car, keep my car washed and clean, spring cleaning, as well as keeping up a semblance of activity on this blog. That's all I can currently recall.
Sigh. How can time ever be enough. Or maybe I'm just trying to do too many things at once. Life is at such a fast pace. I should probably really sit down and figure out exactly what I want from it before it's over.
The Daily WTF
on Friday, 13 January 2006
Here's a fun little blog I found out about while reading the comments on a post on a friend's blog posted by another friend. It's called The Daily WTF - Curious Perversions in Information Technology. A really funny read regarding the weirdos and "smart" people that happen to be in the same line of work I'm in. Technical, but classic, stuff.
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