Posted by Jerry
Mon, 25 Dec 2006 15:39:14 GMT
Ah, sweet sweet broadband. I miss thee too much. (crosses fingers and hopes Ghost in the Shell – Solid State Society will be done by tomorrow morning... Dear BitTorrent Peer, please do give me all thy bandwidth. Love, A Peer.) Quite an uneventful Christmas too, I must add. I did want to write a little bit of something on Ruby, but at the point of writing I believe half of my brain has just turned itself off under effects of jet lag. Thus this blog post which is utterly devoid of point and insight. Ah well, Merry Christmas to anyone who still happens to live on the other side of the globe. I must bid thee good night for now.
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Posted by Jerry
Wed, 20 Dec 2006 15:13:40 GMT
Sweet! Migrations to Typo, on Ruby on Rails, seems to work pretty well at the moment. It took a while to hack Typo’s Wordpress importing script to work with my old Blogger posts though, looks like the engine doesn’t quite enjoy the presence of untitled posts (bloggers don’t write no titles in 2002 dagnammit)... Ah semantic heterogeneity and the likes of dirty data concepts from Advanced Database. :P
Anyway! ‘Tis just a quick preview (indicator? premonition? I’m at a loss of correct words to use.) of hopefully more frequent blog posts to come. But not longer under ol’ It’s A Buggered Life. Not Grayscale either. It’s libcoffee.net.
Stay tuned for my… uh, two-year backlog!
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Posted by zanglang
Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:39:00 GMT
While considering the design of the NFCChat server, one of the components in our little Software Engineering project, the choice of Java struck me as odd. I might be biased, I might be pro-Microsoft, but still – considering that the server is purely console-based, does not accept any input whatsoever, and is, pardon my language, a pain in the ass to use, Java seems to be a bad choice.
Why? Firstly, the server runs off just-in-time compiled code as well as within a Virtual Machine, so that’s a -1 in speed and efficiency. Then the application is purely console-based – completely missing out on the “cross-platform GUI” key feature of Java. And Java being a language designed specifically for network communications isn’t a good reason, there are more languages out there that would have offered more advantages. Safety? The program doesn’t even need user input, why bother? And not to mention the need of installing it’s JRE in each and every computer you need to run it on. Customers don’t like being told, “Oh before this, you need that, that, and that too!” They want to hear, “Throw in the CD, push a button, BAM up and running!”
Guess what I would use? C. Yes, it’s the same language guys 20 years ago use, but it’s good enough for most jobs. Want cross-platform? Check. Speed and efficiency, check. Fast sockets management plus safe code? Oh sure, just be careful. I’m not experienced enough to suggest C++ or even Perl, but yep, they’re viable alternatives too.
It’s worthy to note that a lot of times, coding languages shouldn’t be picked just because you can, but you should – simply judged by a criteria of effectiveness or suiteability. It’s like choosing between a box of matches, gas over and blowtorch to cook a chicken: All of them do the job alright, heck, it’s even quite a feat itself if the fowl turns out edible… but, surely there’s the best tool for the occasion, no?
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Posted by zanglang
Fri, 26 Aug 2005 13:27:00 GMT
Sturgeon’s Law says “90% of everything is crud (aka crap)”. I agree, but this is what I wanted to say: 90% of the blogosphere is crap. Internet enthusiasists says that the word ‘blogosphere’ itself is overused/overrated/crap. I agree too.
If you’re a fellow blogger, no offense. I’m just pointing out the obvious. Heck, to you this post might’ve got categorized into the 90% litter bin before you’ve even finished the first paragraph too.
Maybe I haven’t been venturing into a lot the top crusts part where higher blogger beings rant about things of a higher purpose enough to see that there’s actually more than a 10% worth reading, in fact, I suspect my rating of 90% is way underrated – but look, I’ll just let you see an example.
Time since release of Google Talk = 3 days.
Look for posts in Petaling Street about release of Google Talk. Noticed a pattern?
Now look for unique posts about Google Talk – i.e not something that goes “wow its true!!11one”, “me like”, “it’s good”, “it does not work gripe gripe” as so on and so forth, but perhaps comments about its useability, musings about how the rumours came true, et cetera.
Caught my drift yet?
The internet was designed as a cache for information, a repository of digitized knowledge. Pockets of mini-networks build up over time around topics of interest, such as our dear aforementioned Google Talk. My point is, there is way too much duplicate and, depending on how you see it, pointless information. To like-minded peers each of the 10,000 reviews from Paris Hilton fan blogs may be invaluable. But to the rest of the non-pop-inspired population, would you care about the 1000th post of her pet dog Tinkerbell getting dumped?
When was the last time you’ve Googled for something, and the first page shows completely irrelevant results, with a whole page of them being blogs? Quod erat demonstrandum, that is.
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Posted by zanglang
Thu, 04 Aug 2005 01:01:00 GMT
Ideal for the average stuck-in-foreign-country Asian student, who’s either looking for a 5-minutes lunch that doesn’t even need heating up, or too stingy to buy effing-expensive instant noodles!
Ingredients:1 bowl massaman curry left some time in fridge
(dhal or any thick sauce frozen until jelly-like works as well)
2-4 slice sandwhich slices (white or wholemeal)
Preparation:- Hunt in fridge for curry. Sniff to check if it’s gone sour.
- Spoon out frozen curry and smother generously on sandwhich slices.
- Enjoy. Wash down with strong coffee to mask the possibly bad taste.
Not for the weak-stomached though.
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Posted by zanglang
Wed, 20 Jul 2005 04:40:00 GMT
It’s hard tuning my old ‘ADSL Junkie’ habits while adapting to life down here. Going back on dialup is like trying out a surfboard in the community’s kiddie pool. I’m already itching for more Trinity Blood, Speed Grapher, Naruto (Before anyone starts ranting about how bad the anime currently is, yes yes, I’ve heard it a thousand and one times, but shrug it’s a bit of a waste not to catch up after watching 100+ episodes, no?) and Bleach (ditto), but Bittorrent on dialup? Forget it.
I’m still looking for some alternatives for me to keep updated with Podcasts. Using my own account – Bad idea, unless I want to exhaust my quota just over a week of Adam Curry. Bringing my laptop over to Xan’s place is no longer viable – the unquota-ed proxy he found got busted. Found nifty little Podcatcher-on-a-Stick, but it doesn’t work in-campus unless they add a HTTP Proxy option anytime soon.
And I don’t want to download any software and install it on the library computer I’m on now… god knows what other ‘thou shalt not download any content unrelated to thy course’ rules have I broken by now.
In other news, apparently most of my University study plans are pretty fubar-ed. I cannot choose a major, as most of the subjects taken in Tolong aren’t specifically credited, and if I still insist, would have to take a handful of extra subjects. Another AUD$1xxxx? No thanks, but I’m broke. I’ll still have to see Janet, my advisor, on Thursday, and Paul, who (no offense) didn’t seem to offer any help during consultation, on Friday.
Oo-er. Starting to feel a bit chilly as the couple on the computers to my right start to warm up.
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Posted by zanglang
Sun, 17 Jul 2005 04:08:00 GMT
Sorry for posting late, if you’ve known me long enough you wouldn’t be too unfamiliar with my habit of delaying things until the absolute necessary. =P It’s not as if I could help it though, I don’t get internet access at home yet (read Internet), and it’s an awful long walk from my cousin’s to university. Anyway, back to topic:
Food: You do not know how torturing it is when you’re especially fast with math… all the while just walking down a supermarket aisle, or browsing food stalls, or just looking at anything that has a $ sign on it. A Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King, only with a different name. Apparently the name Burger King was taken) meal costs $15 (ringgit), a Subways sandwhich around $20, a 325ml Coke costs $2, a pack (no, not the buy 5 free 1 pack you see in Giant, the 80grams packet) of instant noodles costs $1, and an egg, the most basic of all protein sources… 60sen! Look, I’m no miser, but I’m missing my $3.50 Burger Double Daging Special, $2.50 Nasi Lemak, $0.99 Coke, and $0.50 Roti Canai already. =P
Internet: I’m limited to a quota of only 150mb a month, where I have to purchase more bandwidth if I still want to surf. If I were using Streamyx I’d have used up the same pathetic amount in an hour. Worse, I can’t check POP3 mail, I obviously can’t afford to use P2P, I think I’m not allowed to use IRC, and I have to manually configure proxies for each and every darn program I’ll need. The semi-good part? I can use the same account in campus with wifi, at home with dialup or at the school with their computers. Convenient? Think again. They’ll be all using the same quota. The only good part? It’s free. =P However, I haven’t acquired my home telephone line yet, so no internet access unless I walk 1km++ to university. Which sucks.
Weather: oh man it’s cold! It’s usually around 25 degrees and fairly cool in the day, but goes as low as 5 degrees at night. It’s a good thing they usually have water heating built-in, but I wonder if anyone ever gets frostbite from the tap water just doing dishes after dinner. It helps to throw on an extra shirt or jacket… which reminds me, I wished I’ve just ignored that darn luggage weight limit and brought more clothes. Looking at a half-empty wardobe sucks.
Toilets! No, they’re usually exceptionally clean, I’m not enough of a obsessive-compulsive to moan about hygiene. If you are though, you should skip this paragraph. You’ve been warned. =P Anyway I found myself thinking: when Aussies go about doing their big business on the throne… are they actually content with only using toilet paper to… er, unstick, unmoisturise and polish themselves afterwards? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to have an extra water faucet? I mean, surely dealing with leftovers au naturelle (sp?) by the power of hydraulics would be wayyyyy more efficient than the law of geseran. Just Imagine! What if some, er, particles were too… attached to the… walls that mere paper would not suffice, and while walking out when you think you’re done the… cheeks would be rubbing any said particles against each other…
(cough) Sorry. I’m always been told I have too vivid an imagination. Now where was I?
Ah right. And the life. Fellow Kuala Lumpur-ians are probably all too familiar with 1am mamak sessions, but it almost seems like there’s no such thing as night life here. Shops close really early. Not a soul in sight on the streets. Right here in the suburb it’s so quiet at night the only sound I ever hear is silence echoing in my ears. The fact that my cousin and fiance do not watch TV or listen to radio / music makes it worse… It’s so quiet I swear I would go mad if I don’t put on some earphones, turn on Winamp, turn up the volume and blast myself silly with techno mp3’s.
And it’s just too hard to turn in at 12pm when your subconciousness keeps trying to convince your body
it’s-only-10pm-no-I-think-my-watch-is-correct-
aiyah-yours-ciplak-one-of-course-2-hours-fast-lah-
come-on-the-night-is-still-young
.
By the time I do wake up it would be 11am. Sigh, looks like it’ll still be a long long time before I’ll get used to things.
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Posted by zanglang
Fri, 15 Jul 2005 02:47:00 GMT
Survived my 5th day in the Outback! ... Okay, so I’m not exactly living in the Great Sandy, but it’s amazing I haven’t died of boredom + jet lag + everything not Malaysian yet. Meanwhile, my laptop battery is halfway to dying and my belly’s a bit eager for chow, so be right back, I’ll continue posting in a jiffy.
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Posted by jerry
Thu, 07 Jul 2005 05:28:00 GMT
Sorry for the lack of blog posts this week, been too busy preparing for Sunday. My visa’s finally done, so is my plane ticket, now the only thing left is packing. (shudders) God, I hate the stuffing-everything-nicely-somewhere part of traveling. Who said all Virgo men are tidy bespectacled white collars who’d categorize their socks by the pattern? The stars were right about the obsessive perfectionism part at least: I absolutely obsess over perfecting my art of untidyness, a practice so subtle so Zen-ish it is an art form no mortal man can comprehend!
But I digress.
I’m still a bit worried about the check-in-check-out part, me being the kampung boy who’s never travelled overseas alone before (driving over to Thailand when I was living in Penang didn’t count, I was too small to remember that anyway). I just hope my luggage doesn’t suddenly decide it would like to drop by pre-Olympics London for a quick visit while leaving me stranded in the terminal for 13 years.
It’s always amusing to read the referral keywords that lead to your own site, especially those you’ve never intended. There’s the notorious Holiday Plaza, Star Wars in hokkien, Gloomy Sunday (The thought of Bjork always reminds me of the ‘limp swan look’... amagad! My eyes!!), and my Super-Duper 1000-horsepower Triple-Razor Shredder-Blender-Whatchacallit-Cutter, whatever the original context was. What’s next? Vogon Trillian Orgy Buttsez?
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Posted by zanglang
Fri, 01 Jul 2005 13:19:00 GMT
Lugging behind myself a bag stuffed 3-feet high with the last of my wardrobe, cables and adapters and boxes of various gear I’ve acquired over the 4 years of undergraduate life, and a whole Metro plastic bag full of random junk (I probably looked hilarious enough: A young man, with the stature not unlike a household bamboo pole, walking along the Pudu streets slinging an insanely-huge luggage over his shoulder), I left cozy Bangsar 8am in the morning and board the KL-JB bus. Though I haven’t been really attached to the city, it still feels a bit sad. If plans go well I probably won’t be back in the near foreseeable future.
Ahh~ the things I’ll miss (glorious glorious food, the geek’s heaven in Low Yat, the malls, the clubs, and the food! Have I mentioned food?)... and things I surely won’t miss (horrible city air, horrible city buses, horrible crowds every single inch of commercial land). Crossing my fingers and hoping for the better in Perth.
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