Life on One Wheel

How to be a programmer.

2010-05-11T10:38:00.002+08:00

I estimate that, if I really understand the problem, it is about 50% likely that we will be done in five weeks (if no one bothers us during that time).

really means:

I promise to have it all done five weeks from now.

Taken from How To Be A Programmer.

Lots of truths in there.

Pendantic Post

2010-03-15T10:51:00.000+08:00

So there I was. Past midnight and hungry like a hippo since I skipped dinner. Deciding it was a matter of life and a slow starving death, I decided to venture out into the wilderness to look for something to eat. Deciding that since it was a Sunday night, pretty much only Macdonalds would be open.

I headed over to Marine Parade since I remembered seeing a sign there that said that the Mac there would be open 24 hours.

Horror of horrors, it was! But only if it was a Friday, Saturday or eve of a public holiday. Bah humbug.

Close to verge of collapse I crawled back to the car desperately thinking about where I could grab a bite. Vultures circled overhead. It was that bleak.

And then I remembered that there was a drive-through at East Coast Park. Surely this would be open?

Driving fast so that the black cloaked figure would not be able to catch up, I made it to the drive through.

"Good morning, Sir", said the server.

I was delighted. Past 12 midnight and she said good morning! Even more delightful was the glorious food she passed me for free. In return I gave her a bribe to keep her quiet about the whole transaction.

And then she said, "Good night!"

OMGWTFBBQ! Don't confuse me like that! So was it morning or night?!

Insidious Macdonalds servers trying to confuse me! The indignation! I should complain to Macdonalds for that or perhaps write to the Straits Times forum. Cause that's what it's for isn't it?

2010-03-07T18:34:00.000+08:00

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Taken from Cymbeline.

Jabberwocky

2010-03-06T00:29:00.000+08:00

I was rather surprised to see the Jabberwocky, Bandersnatch, Jubjub bird, vorpal sword in Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland. I had previously assumed that it was a separate poem not in Alice in Wonderland canon. However a google search turned up the wiki which shows that it was actually part of the Alice in Wonderland world.

Still my first exposure to it was in the excellent graphic novel Fables, where Blue Boy used the vorpal sword to snicker-snack his enemies away. Hence it was to great delight to see this nonsensical poem get more airing.

I hereby present Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Fun is

2010-02-20T00:00:00.000+08:00

-watching people walk the wrong way onto escalators and seeing their embarrassed faces.
-watching the grimaces and expressions of pain as you watch people climb stairs after a marathon and then realizing that you actually have to do the same.
-remembering the feeling of jumping out of a plane and falling and grinning yourself silly when you think about it.
-looking at the sunsets in Singapore and remembering that even in an urban jungle, you can see the beauty of nature as well.
-eating nutella + peanut butter sandwiches.
-spiking that volleyball after countless attempts.
-seeing the priceless expression on your friend's face when he hits the post when playing "inbetween" despite having an ace and a king.
-drawing a smiley face on a fogged up mirror or a dirty piece of glass.

Brilliant Idea

2009-12-20T23:31:00.000+08:00

It seems Adidas are going to team up with Lucas Arts to come up with some truly brilliant stuff.

For example:

Taken from igeektrooper.com

<3

2009-12-14T13:25:00.000+08:00

42.195km bitch!

2009-12-06T20:07:00.000+08:00

As of now, I am in pain. A whole lot of pain. I am also in a new found relationship. I love/hate relationship. With marathons.

I'm pretty sure I do not want to do another marathon. But the feeling that you get when you run it, well, you have to do it to experience it. The feeling of accomplishment when you complete it. The feeling of camaraderie you have with all the other suffering runners. The "runners high" you get for pushing yourself to the limit. I can see why people would run it again and again.

Shout outs to:
-Girl in pink top and white cap who some how always appears in front of me despite me overtaking her countless times.
-Guy in Santa hat, you made my day.
-Guy with hairy upper arms. I kid you not. I thought they were tattoos until I got close enough to see it was all long curly hair.
-Girl who decided to keep pace with me for the last 500 meters after I encouraged her to "Come On!"

All the other nameless strangers who were there running, walking, cursing beside me for the whole 42.195km.

Also thankful for the conspicuous amounts of powergel that I consumed that allowed me to push all the way to 30km before I hit a wall and had to run/walk/jog/curse the rest of the way.

It better be only half-marathons from now on. Someone stop me if I try to sign up for another marathon.

Running

2009-11-23T00:55:00.003+08:00

It has sort of crept up on me unnoticed. 6th Dec 2009. D-day. Call it whatever you want, but that is the day I will fulfill my 2008 resolution. Yes, it's one year late, but better late then never, yah?

In 2008, I made the resolution to run a marathon. I wanted to do it before I got too old and sort of fell apart. Unfortunately, work dealt me a cruel blow, sending me into exile in Melbourne just before I was due to run the Run.

This year, I'm back and I've set a date for my showdown with the beast. All 42.195 km of it. And I realized I'm woefully unprepared. The furthest I've run is around 16 km. I don't really feel too bad doing it and to be honest it's a little no-kick these days, albeit really really mind-blowingly boring. I plan to do a 20+++ km run next week and then it should be time for the moment of truth.

If you don't see me after 6th of Dec, you will know I have fought the good fight. I will not go quietly into the cold dark night. I will go down fighting. Or I will emerge victorious, and never have to stare down a 42.195km beast ever again.

Optical Illusion

2009-11-23T00:33:00.001+08:00

You all know how this works, but when you see it for that split second, it's seriously freaky.

Taken from here

Nice quote

2009-11-10T13:42:00.002+08:00

"present perceptions of past people are not at all the same as past people's perceptions of their present"

Broke

2009-11-10T11:55:00.002+08:00

I can forsee myself being dead broke in the months to come as I plan for 2 getaways.

One to Europe and another one to New Zealand.

Thankfully the Europe one is where I get sent there on course by my company and hence the tickets will be covered. Taking an additional one week to hopefully tour Amsterdam, Brussels and *fingers crossed* get to catch a match at Anfield. But the traveling within Europe is still going to cost moolah.

New Zealand will be to attend Unicon 15 in Wellington. This one, the tickets will be coming out of my own pockets leading me to come to the conclusion that I will be pretty much broke come Feb 2010.

Ah well at least it should be a blast.

South Park - Pun Hell

2009-11-10T11:54:00.003+08:00

South Park came up with another pun that will send their writers to pun hell.

Firstly, they defined Fag, not as a gay person, but rather an obnoxious person who drives loud motorcycles around, much to the annoyance of everyone else.

Next they said that someone who was just intrigued by loud motorcycles, but had not bought one yet, and instead just checks them out in stores as... wait for it... bike-curious.

In case you haven't got the memo

2009-10-27T12:45:00.002+08:00

My Primary School Teacher

2009-10-21T10:42:00.000+08:00

I have no idea why I'm writing this post, but was just reminiscing about some stuff and my thoughts happened to turn towards my English teacher in Primary school. Her name is Miss Lean. She was pretty much an old spinster that was left on the shelf and probably decided to take it out on children like us.

I still remember her pinching this girl so hard on the cheek that the poor girl started to bleed from the nose. Imagine that, twisting the cheek skin so hard that something tore in the nose and blood started spurting out. But that was old school and teachers were welcomed to hit and beat submission into the students. I can't imagine what would have happened today.

I still remember her expounding her Christian beliefs. About how evolution is a load of tosh. The most distinct one being "Are you telling me that the monkeys in the zoo are going to turn into humans one of these days?!". A sad lack of understanding in evolution.

But still she was my English teacher and without her, I wouldn't have been able to write this about her. She gave me a percious gift, the gift of literacy. But she shall still haunt my nightmares forever.

Irritating Habit

2009-10-12T19:22:00.001+08:00

Find myself replying to emails via phone when my laptop is just in front of me. Gah.

Star Jumps aren't easy

2009-10-05T10:35:00.002+08:00

Mounting

2009-10-02T12:28:00.002+08:00

Sneak Peek At Kota Kinabalu Pics.

2009-10-01T19:02:00.001+08:00

More to come soon.

The universality of performances

2009-09-27T22:45:00.000+08:00

I'm watching this TV show right now. It's a Taiwanese magic show.

Which brings back memories when I went to watch this magic show when I was in Melbourne. The show was pretty good, the performer putting on quite a show. However, there was something about that performance that was pretty interesting.

He did one whole section in Mandarin. He's Australian, so he has to put in quite a bit of effort. Me, being able to understand Mandarin, could tell what he was asking for. However, the majority of the audience weren't able to. And yet every time he did something, he was able to get an appropriate response from the audience.

Which I thought was really interesting as, a lot of it wasn't about what he was saying, it was about his body language. He could be speaking Gibberish and he would still be able to get a response out his audience.

Moon

2009-09-26T16:30:00.000+08:00

Managed to catch Moon yesterday. I think it's going to be taken off soon and I'm really glad I managed to catch this movie. It wasn't really mind blowing, but in a sense, it gets you thinking about morality and ethics.

The basic premise is that Sam is on the Moon. He is working for this corporation that is harvesting stuff from the Moon to provide for clean energy on Earth. He has been here for close to 3 years, with 3 years being the length of his contract on the Moon. After that, he'll get to go home. He struggles through each day, and due to a communications failure, he can only receive recorded messages from his wife, messages that seem to be the only thing that keeps him going on.

On a routine maintainence mission, he hallucinates and sees someone standing beside a harvester. Being distracted by that, he crashes into the harvester.

The next scene shows him in the infirmary, in pretty good condition. How did he get there? Why does he not have any injuries? These questions are answered when Sam gets out of the space station to investigate the harvester. Beside the harvester, he finds a crashed space vehicle.

If you want to enjoy the movie, don't continue reading, just go watch it. If not spoilers ahead.

*SPOILERS*

In the vehicle, he finds a person. That person is Sam. He carries the body back to the space station and struggles with an identity crisis. He's a clone. What he knows are all memories implanted in him. How does he react? What should he do? Why is the company that hired him doing all these? Can he still go back home? What will happen when the other Sam wakes up? Is the other Sam a clone as well?

*SPOILERS*

Suffice to say, I won't be talking too much about the plot but it's really good.

But this movie does raise some interesting thoughts, especially regarding the ethics of cloning. Will there be one day in the future where corporations do this? Built clones and send them out to do work. Are the rights and feelings of clones of no consideration? Sam considers himself a human, but the robot that is working with him says that they're all just programmed. It's a strange moral tale.

Another interesting thing brought up is how much the clones differed from one another. They were all bases on the same person and at the point of creation had the same memories, but at the end of 3 years, they had wildly different hairstyles and mannerisms. It begs the question, if there was a clone of Hitler, but he was brought up in different circumstances, would that clone do what Hitler did?

The acting of Sam was top-notch, bringing out the desolation, isolation and eeriness of being stuck in a space station all by himself. The despair and anguish that he finds himself in when he realizes he is a clone. The overwhelming sadness he feels when he realizes that all the videos he saw were just recordings and that his wife is dead and his daughter is all grown up.

All in all, Moon is a gripping sci-fi tale, well paced and thoroughly terrifying.

Excited

2009-09-25T12:15:00.001+08:00

I'm going Kota Kinabalu!

After another hair brained idea by JH, we entered this contest by Jetstar. In this challenge, we would be tasked to go to Kota Kinabalu and complete 5 things. We will be traveling there via Jetstar light where there will be no check-in luggage and only hand carry luggage is allowed. Using the money saved on what would otherwise be spent on paying for the check-in luggage, we will instead use this money to do 5 things in Kota Kinabalu. We will then have to blog about our experience and the winning entry will get a 500 dollar voucher.

We've checked out some of the previous entries and it seems that everyone just goes to eat. We've decided to be something different. Oh yes, we're going to do the opposite of eating! We're going to exercise! And on one wheel! So many exclamation marks!!!11one11eleven!!

So our plan is to actually try to squeeze a unicycle (20") into a bag that can be carried on. As mention by JH this is probably going to be as fun as the whole trip itself. The next challenge will then be to bring said carry on luggage on board, while simultaneously trying to convince all security we are not trying to clobber anybody with it. Happy days.

This should be lark and hopefully everything will turn out well. In the mean time, I've got a unicycle to disassemble.

HTC Hero - The sequel

2009-09-23T19:20:00.000+08:00

As I alluded to in my previous post, I was eyeing the HTC hero. On discovering the exclusive price that www.singtelshop.com was giving (298SGD), I was ecstatic. However, I wanted to wait 1 day for me to think about it, so it wouldn't be an impulse buy.

When I checked again in the evening, it was sold out. Infuriating. What one cannot have, one wants more. And I was pretty determined to get one as soon as it was available.

A cursory check into various forums, indicated that there would be a restock within the next few days though no one had any idea if the price would remain as such.

Surprise, surprise. On an obsessive, compulsive check today, it was back in stock! I have since placed an order for a white version of the HTC hero that will be delivered on 1st Oct night.

I am beside myself with excitement.

2009-09-23T09:44:00.001+08:00

Taken from here

HTC Hero

2009-09-19T17:36:00.002+08:00

Surprise surprise. The HTC Hero with a 2 year plan with Singtel cost just 298SGD. Think I might get mine tomorrow...