dimanche, août 29, 2004 Well, what do you expect of the company which acquired Google? Unfortunately, it's not too funky right now, and it suffers the problem of large-scale corporate blogging - your basic "who the hell is blogging now?!" phenomenon, which doesn't happen when a dot.com blogs - with just two employees, it's easy to keep things personal.Anyway, something interesting up on their blog: fancy yourself a great mathematician (like, first class honours from Cambridge University? How about it, PM Lee?) Solve this problem to get to an even harder one - and then they'll invite you to interview for their company. Nifty? Yeah, I thought it was kinda geeky-cool too.
It reads {first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com. It's the URL for that harder question, and the interview invite. Geek-cool rules! [Google has a blog!] |
samedi, août 28, 2004 Dear QY - A Story about a Bus Freak Hi Qy,Yes, I've been blogging a lot more lately. Life has been unpredictable while yet maintaining its usual routine - you know, get up, get to work, force myself to take my one-hour lunch break instead of donating it to The Company, work some more, watch the clock, get off at 5:30pm exact so that I don't donate any more time to The Company than necessary, get home, (maybe!) jog, surf around, read read read, sleep. And yet like I mentioned, it's unpredictable. Like what happened when I fell asleep on the number 10 bus while on my way to a dinner with a friend. I normally brace myself against the spines of the seat in front of me - you know, the sides? - so that I can maintain my balance on my seat without bopping to every single red light, while yet not giving the person in front of me that horrible "leg kicking my back" feeling. On that rather unfortunate day, I fell fast asleep, exhausted from meeting a famous professor that day, balancing myself on new high heels (C&K), wearing a So I fell alseep - very tak glam, head lolling about, hair all over my face - thank goodness not drooling (I wasn't that unconscious!) I woke up somewhere around Clifford Pier, with the vague notion that I should be somewhere around Suntec (my destination.) I look around, and decide, yes, it's time to sit up straight and get my ass in gear. Then I become aware of the person in front of me, who was behaving in a rather strange fashion. He would sit forward with his back away from the back of the chair, and then forcibly SLAM his back into the chair. I watched him do this a couple of times, all the while feeling a little perplexed at the masochistic behaviour, and then it dawned on me - my knee had slipped while I was napping, and was now giving him that knee-in-the-back feeling. I removed the offending knee, after which he turned around and glared at me. My hair was still in my face at that moment, so I couldn't get a good look at him, but the look he shot me was rather poisonous, which marred his features, which were decent. (Not excellent, just decent, like normal.) And I just sat there, a little bemused, and thinking about that morning's radio discussion, about how Singaporean men just couldn't make the cut. I don't think I have the right to be angry at him for glaring at me - after all, it really was my knee in his back, but to behave the way that he did - that was rather disgraceful really. I really was asleep, so he should have just tolerated it, or just woke me up to tell me. SLAMMING yourself into the seat just makes you angrier as you work out physically, and by the way, also inconveniences your seat partner, who has to tolerate your perpetual earthquakes inflicted on the chair. Anyway, I got off at the next stop (my stop), and he had a good look at my face and my butt as I stepped down from that double-decker bus. Then, he came running off the bus just as it was about to get off. I turned around because I heard someone tumbling down the bus stairs, but when I saw that it was him, I just walked to Raffles Place. It's possible that he wanted to apologise, considering that I look remarkably different (from an undergraduate mess) when I stood up and straighted my hair and clothes out, but then again, I might be flattering myself. But hey, when you have a good hair day, and are dressed to match, you're entitled to stroke your ego a little, no? ;P With men like these, is it any wonder a lot more Singaporean women are willing to risk loneliness, 50% higher risk of breast cancer, living with parents forever, and forgoing the baby bonus package? I'm not against relationships and marriage, but so far, incidents like these aren't a particularly good sign for anyone's love life in Singapore, least of all a Christian's. And before you say that "maybe this guy is good boyfriend material, you never know, he might be different", then I ask you - do you really want a Jekyll and Hyde creature around you? One who's nice to you, but mean to the waiter and slaps his mother around? Well, this has been a depressing enough post for me, I just wanted to say HI to you for missing out on your birthday this year (coming to the quarter-life crisis period! Picked out your personal crisis yet?), and to dedicate this post to you. Happy 23rd Birthday, babe. love, your DGL. 28 Aug 2004 p.s. I'm not saying that he didn't have a reason to get mad at me, I'm just flummoxed by the way he chose to show his displeasure. Body-slamming the bus-seat is a real mature way of acting. [Dear QY - A Story about a Bus Freak] |
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(taken first by Leon)
Death, the second of The Endless, you are responsible for ending all lives and taking them to your realm, from which no one ever returns. You are bright, positive, happy, optimistic and enjoy everything about life, but that does not mean your silly or stupid. You can lay the smack down when you have to! Everyone loves you, and they don't know why. (comment for the bolded words - riiiight.) [I Am Death] |
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UPDATED - All Your Base Are Belong To Us Aaaaaand... I've done more "research" on this subject, and it seems that there are SONGS dedicated to this, translations done in multiple languages of the original text, a dvorak card game (think of Happy Families and Snap) made from the screenshots, and finally, to cap this meme's glory, a wikipedia entry on it.(22 Aug 2004 12:36AM) I don't know if I posted this before, but here it is again - All Your Base Are Belong To Us! I probably mentioned it before, but it's been a while now, and I want it to be remembered! "In AD 2101. War was beginning. What happen? Somebody set us up the bomb. We get signal. What! Main screen turn on. It's you!! How are you gentlemen. All your base are belong to us! You are on your way to destruction. What you say! You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha ha ha ha."
In case you want to read about the phenomenon, Wired Magazine has a pretty good analysis of why the *bleep* it's so fun. [UPDATED - All Your Base Are Belong To Us] |
vendredi, août 27, 2004 Memes and memes and more memes A rather interesting discovery, which I think many of you will appreciate for its sheer monstrous dedication to locating crossing fads - e.g. Lego & Star Wars, Microsoft and Star Wars (Microsith), and some others.What is a Meme? (pronounced /meem/) /meem/ [coined on analogy with `gene' by Richard Dawkins] n. An idea considered as a {replicator}, esp. with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do. Used esp. in the phrase `meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion. This lexicon is an (epidemiological) vector of the `hacker subculture' meme complex; each entry might be considered a meme. However, `meme' is often misused to mean `meme complex'. Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably obvious reasons. from chapter 35 of www.worldwideschool.org For other definitions, I pre-googled them for you here. [Memes and memes and more memes] |
jeudi, août 26, 2004 Why #5*? Because today gets a distinction for business. I ran away from work at 5:30pm on the dot because it was such a hairy day.Got to work as usual, and within 10 minutes of my sitting down, checking email, I hear this angry knocking at the door. I open my office door, and "COME AND SEE! I SHOW YOU!" suddenly explodes in my face. I follow two suitably angry students to one of the rooms, and oh.my.gosh. Someone spilt tea mixed with cigarette ash into another Yamaha C3 piano. Brilliant. It's in even worse condition than the piano with coke in it. I go off to spoil my boss's day - I give him a call, and it turns out, he's not having that great a start to the day either, and I'm just another thing in his Inbox - labelled Code Yellow. (because Code Red would be the building catching fire, and this thing just doesn't seem to match up.) I call up our piano technician to check the piano out, and he says he can't come till the evening, because he's meeting this famous German technician from Australia, who's flying off tomorrow. I tell him to get in as soon as he can, before the damage gets any worse through seepage and absorption. I look for my boss frantically because he mentioned in the Tuesday staff meeting that he wanted to talk to this German bloke, whom the school consults when doing piano-ey things. He told his secretary and the Office B**** (Bug-Eye) to find out, but I bet Bug-Eye's ever-expanding ass that she didn't do an iota of work on this. Unfortunately for me, by this time my boss is halfway back to his office, forcing me to run after him with the news, which I convey to him in 38deg sweltering heat. After this physical exertion (is it any wonder I'm getting fat?) I spend the rest of the morning watching the video feed for the security camera, trying to catch students who brought in tea or coffee in a cup when they weren't supposed to. Horrific eye-strain from that, due to extremely unergonomic placing of the TV, the chair and the controls. Midway through that, my boss emails me (damn me for checking mails! Down with multi-tasking!), and tells me that he wants the log files of the contact card access system too. A couple of weeks ago, I hooked up the laser printer with the computer which keeps tabs on the cards and access to the building, but for some strange reason, it wouldn't work. I was going to leave the problem for when I had more time to fiddle about with it, but no, TODAY had to be the day where I needed to print out these reports. I tried printing again and again, to no avail, so I decided to reinstall the drivers - on another port instead this time. The computer required a restart, but I didn't want to take the computer offline, not today, so I decided NOT to restart it. By this time, it was already 3pm, and I had to go out of school to run some errands - pick up some posters etc. I come back, and the computer is not responding - it's offline, and not receiving any of our input commands. My colleague, at the same time, tells me the office b**** is looking for me (Bug-Eye). *deep breath* First things first - I try to fix the computer problem, fail, and tell my colleague to call the vendor. Next - I ask why Bug-Eye is looking for me. TO LOOK AT THE LIGHTS. History Lesson! Lights. They change lights frequently because they want to test the different types of lighting available for the new building. Out of four lights, three were installed WHEN I WASN'T AROUND. A couple of weeks back, she emails me and asks me stuff about the lights. The email ping-pong was something like this: Bug-Eye (BE) - Are the lights installed? Where are they? Me - Room 11. BE - Are they okay? How is the feedback? [blah blah some other info to show me that she's very big lah - WHATever.] Me - Students have found that it's okay, that it's good. BE - Did they install all the lights? Me - I don't know how many they installed or took away or removed. They are in one corner of the store room. BE - How many did they leave behind? Where are they? Can you take a look and see? Me - (super pissed off by now) Dunno. A lot. Come and see for yourself. BE - Okay, I will. (she proceeds to come the following WEEK. B****.) And the computer vendor can't come today, so it'll have to be tomorrow. But my colleague has apparently fixed it mysteriously. Oh well. They're still coming tmrw. [KillMeNow #5 - The Piano*] |
mardi, août 24, 2004 I, Nerd - I hung out a lot in the library during my undergraduate days. Those days (oh, to be younger that this would not count as a reminisce!) the library entrance was situated at a special 5th floor entrance, which you had to climb up one level from the "common" 4th floor. Then you would walk down two storeys, to the 3rd floor, where all the books were kept, thinking (for the upteenth time to yourself) how ridiculous the system was that you had to climb up 2 storeys to go down one.On the third floor, where the bookshelves are - row by row, they would swing by as you walked past them, smelling vaguely of musty books being slowly eaten by silverfish, mixed with a rusty whiff of metal bookshelves. You would take your seat (choosing between the uncomfortable floppish brown, square-ish chairs with a huge seat, or the equally uncomfortable small, tight, black chair with less cushion) and stare into the huge blankness of the wooden table division, reading yourself for the gruelling mugging session you planned for yourself. No more. Now, the library looks like some coffee hangout place, complete with light pine-brown shelves, modern browsing chairs, and tables with shoulder-high divisions. Nope - the library now looks like... like it's been remodelled.
[Shih's All About The Library] |
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On Sunday, Adeline performed at a recital her teacher (Ms Lena Ching) was putting up. 22 August 2004 7pm YMS SPH Auditorium.
Amongst Ravel (dead), Debussy (dead), Schubert (dead), Meldelssohn (dead), Moszkowski (dead) and Chopin (dead), she played... Sculthorpe. Born 1929. (Not dead.) (yet.) [Adeline's Mountains] |
dimanche, août 22, 2004 Sucking up or a good sign? Either way, we win! SATURDAYS OFF! My vote is cheap to buy. I like Lee Hsien Long already as PM... Didn't get home in time to listen to the stuff about the young and the teachers (I'm sure I'll be hearing about this soon from all my teacher-friends quarters!), but apart from the obvious incentives of having Saturdays off, I'm also encouraged by the linguistics of the speech. Words like "funky" (used to describe Zouk in Shanghai or somewhere else, I can't remember), catchphrases like "the Force is with Singapore", mentions of The Matrix Revolutions, LucasArts films and other technological blather - is this PM happening or what?Okay, I know it's a trite thing to mention, and I'm pretty sure it was deliberately worked into the speech to make him seem like a hip and happening guy - but hey, at least he's trying, right? Like Li Jiawei tried? (Darn shame, but hey, she's 4th - that makes her part of the top 10 players in the world, and only nine others can claim that right.) Another thing which I noticed also - he speaks a lot a lot a LOT faster than Mr. Goh. Chok. Tong. Who. Pauses. After. Three. Words. That makes the speech sound a lot livelier, and go a lot faster - but even then, he still took four(?) hours. (My dad was sitting at home in his pyjamas, and remarking "Lucky thing I'm not important enough to get invited, I think my bladder will explode.")
[Sucking up or a good sign? Either way, we win!] |
jeudi, août 19, 2004 Because this is so true:I know that this life is short - you're up and born, and then you're off. You're sitting in class, staring at the walls, walking down the halls and goofing off. Then before you think (before there's time to blink), you've got a job and you're on your own. Then you get a wife, you get a "life", and you wish that you could be back home.
[Another musical gem - FFH] |
mercredi, août 18, 2004 Okay, here's what you do. Go to this site and tell the chicken what to do. Just type it in. Dance. Sing. Do a split. Lie down.Like it? There's more - download and use the CHICKEN MASK - be sure to use it exactly as the directions state. Still need more of a fix? How about watching some SUBSERVIENT TV? What on earth is this? SUBSERVIENT CHICKEN - an online marketing strategy of Burger King, used to promote their chicken burgers. [Chikin Fun!] |
lundi, août 16, 2004 Oh, and some student defecated on the toilet floor again. This is the 4th time this year. Oh, and while I'm dealing with this, I just want to mention that my education cost $24,000. Same shit, day in, day out.[KillMeNow #4] |
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Why Cheryl always comes out the winner Because after spending almost a year in France, getting all frenchified and elistist (NOT!), she comes back and gives me a GREAT gift, made all the more special because it seems to be psychic:Un film de Quentin Tarantino: Reservoir Dogs, avec sous-titres Français! Here's what it says on the back cover: Six malfaiteurs s'associent pour un casse qui tourne mal. Le jour du hold-up, la police est sur la place. Qui a trahi? Quentin Tarantino reinvente les codes du film noir et signe là son premier film qui le révèle au monde entier. Je pense je suis trop chanceux (chanceuse?) pour avoir une amie comme Cheryl. Merci pour ton ((painstaking)) faites :-) [Why Cheryl always comes out the winner] |
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Wired magazine's review of AVP - without plot spoilers! You have to read it because it's pretty objective, as far as reviews go.
AVP - Fancy Meeting You Here Halfway through this movie you realize that the title monsters, the Alien and the Predator, have no reason to be in the same place at the same time. This ridiculousness ruins whatever else may be cool about the movie. Jason Silverman reviews Alien vs. Predator. [You have to read this] |
samedi, août 14, 2004 I promised Ben that I'd bring him to a good tiramisu place next Thursday, but the trouble is, I tried out what someone promised me was the best tiramisu in Singapore (Spageddies), but I'm not sure if it is - HELP! Suggestions, people![Gastronomic Aid Required] |
vendredi, août 13, 2004 A lifetime ago, I saw a little girl playing in a church. It was after a play that the church put up, during the post-production tear-down and general buzz that comes from conversations around. She was holding a rose (remnant prop from the play), and dancing with it. Then she knelt down on the pew with the rose clasped between her hands, in a posture of prayer. After a while, she tired of kneeling, stood up, and started dancing again. By this time, I was intrigued enough by her actions to keep a distracted eye on her. During one particularly slow twirl-around, I caught a glimpse of her face: she was a Down's Syndrome child.
Life was never meant to be complicated. Yet living makes it so. [Be still my soul] |
mardi, août 10, 2004 You know you have to quit your job when... ... ... you find out that the movie by one of your favourite writer-directors you've been waiting AGES to see was released and had its run in Singapore, and you didn't know. At all. Total blank. Until the topic just happens to come up in a chance conversation with a friend, and you say idiotically that you "can't wait till Kill Bill 2 when it comes out," and he gives you the answer worthy of an idiot - "it came out already. In APRIL." *sob*[You know you have to quit your job when...] |
dimanche, août 08, 2004 Oh my, this has to be one of the funnier articles I've read recently regarding Mac geeks. The Apple Product Life cycle - highly educational for people who are totally uninitiated into the sort of frenzy millions go into when talking about the newest, coolest gadget in town. Thanks go to Marcus for the link.[MacHeads iDiocy] |
samedi, août 07, 2004 Handphones installed with all the latest bells and whistles have always been the rage anywhere you go. I've got people telling me that I should quickly trade in mycurrent 6220 for the 7610, but even with a $200 trade-in and 2-year contract signing, it's still a freakishly expensive $600 - that's madness! 
But Thiong Wee was telling me all about its functions, saying how great it's 1 MPx capability was a great asset, not to mention "the screen very large leh," which earned him a "Eh, how come now so worried about LCD screen big or small? Old already ah?" from me. Not deterred, he continued on extolling the virtues of having a telephone with Bluetooth. "Then when you have it then people can send you message mah. Next time you go lim kopi, then people send you message, ask you to be their friend mah..." I told him to check out this article on the huge gaping hole in the front of Bluetooth technology("cavity" belongs to Wired.com) [Blue Phones] |
vendredi, août 06, 2004 Today, a close colleague - one I consider a friend - told me that yesterday, she didn't talk to me much on purpose because I had gotten her scolded for something which was my fault - I increased the number of locks that we ordered by one, and this made Bug-Eye jump and grumble at her.The scary thing is that I had NO idea that she was mad at me the previous day. I noticed that she was quiet, but I thought that was because she had a late night and she stays in Tampines. She told me that I should have informed her immediately about the change in the number, so that she could change the number on the computer system that we use for payment and prevent Bug-Eye from scolding her. Firstly (to my defence), I didn't know that it was THAT big a deal - I knew that some adjustments would have to be made to the order, but I didn't realise how ngieow the paperwork really is. Secondly, although it was my fault (I took all the blame for it), I can't help but feel this is a symptom of a larger problem within my workplace - both she and I are excellent workers - we don't slack when there's work to be done, but we're both just so overworked that there's not much time to be nice, and there's not much brain space to remember to tell people what they need to know. Of course we'll end up making mistakes - we're only human. Thirdly, I think it was rather unfair of Bug-Eye to take it out on my poor colleague. All Bug-Eye could have done was to call us and complain, and not scold someone who had absolutely ZERO idea what she was ranting about. But it's still my fault, and therefore am to hang on the morrow. [KillMeNow #4] |
mardi, août 03, 2004 I am now toilet cleaner.Over the last academic year, we've been having a problem with the ladies' toilet - there seems to be bits and pieces of toilet paper all over the floor at regular intervals - like someone has regular anger fits at the school and throws a tantrum. (Hey, don't look at me! This started even before I came on board!) Someone trustworthy found the culprit out today - it's a student from To make matters worse, the parent cleaning company has just changed, and they are stinting on the number of cleaners. They just fired the Malay lady who used to clean the toilets for us, and now we are "sharing" toilet cleaners with another school block - we get cleaned in the afternoon. So now I have to sort this out too, because we need our toilets cleaned in the morning, no thanks to stewpeed students who squat on toilet bowls, crap OUTSIDE and ALL AROUND the toilet bowls to the floor, throw tissue paper all over the toilet, etc. if you've got crap on the toilet floor who you gonna call? *insert my name here* if you've got toilet paper thrown everywhere who you gonna call? *insert my name here* if you've got footprints on your toilet seat who you gonna call? *insert my name here* I really have to chronicle all this crap I'm doing, and look back 30 years later, and [KillMeNow - #3] |
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The day finally arrived; Forrest Gump dies and goes to Heaven. He is at the Pearly Gates, met by St. Peter himself. However, the gates are closed and Forrest approaches the Gatekeeper.
--- Zibing, thanks for the smiles on a bad day. :-) [Forrest Gump] |
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[I quit - part deux] |
lundi, août 02, 2004 I'm updating my Secondary 4 class list, and man, people areI've also got the odd person (two, in fact, so it's more "even person" than "odd person", but we can't ignore the turn of the phrase of course) who can't be contacted, like Peijun and Rouxian. Old telephone lines are not working, or I don't have any of their details - it's like they fell off the face of the earth. But all is good - everyone else can be contacted, and it is exciting to hear from people who spent two years with you. [Where did the time go?] |
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