Don't Panic!

Indubitably Festive

2009-11-26T00:06:00.008+08:00

Anime Festival Asia 2009 was last weekend. Attended two days straight, just the evening on Saturday and the whole day on Sunday.

Saturday: I was supposed to be there only for the I <3 Anisong concert, but somehow it got delayed, so I got to survey the ground a bit, but no story is interesting enough from it, especially compared to Sunday's whole-day expedition.

So, the concert start at 7, supposed to be 6, but whatever. First up was Shoko Nakagawa---shokotan---did a cover of Zankoku na Tenshi Teeze, then Gurren Lagann's Sorairo Days, then it became weird. The school got older and older until she came back to the near past and sang another three Gurren Lagann songs. Made me realise how new my school is.

She seemed not to speak much English, but screams a lot of these: "I love anime" and "We are Otaku". Heh, painfully true?

Next up Hatsune Miku. Considering she is digital and a figment of our collective imagination, it was not surprising that the performance was really a screening of some pre-rendered video. At least it ended before waving light sticks at a non-existent songstress became too awkward.

In the end came Ichirou Mizuki---I really should have said launched---Hassha! He is the singer for tokusatsu, sentai, and giant robot anime. A little trivia: his career has been 40 years long with about 1200 songs in his book, has big hair, wears frilly shirt, tight pants, and flashy, reflective trench coat, also, we're supposed to call him aniki---gladly. His school is very, very, old, and of the awesome kind.

Guess what, for encore, Aniki revealed that Shokotan is a big sentai fan ...and offered her a duet for some of his songs; she obliged, and the result was awesome. They see that it was good and proceeded to sing some more songs, before the day must finally end.

I picked a large otaku* along the way home and waited for the next day.

Sunday: We, me and mister otaku, arrived early, made a little round around the festival ground and remembered: we gotta go to the maid cafe first! So there we went, maid cafe. We were given menu with nasty prices at the gate, and greeted with "Okaerinasaimase goshujin-sama" on our way to the table.

One maid per table, ours was named Hitomi, supposedly a meganekko but her glasses are always on her apron, except when taking photos, tsk. Waited a bit took a photo, got served our meal, with an ...enhancement mantra---"Hitomi no rabu-rabu"---yeah. Had our meal and got out, kinda underwhelming, but here's the photo:

Smug-looking goshujin-sama, the maid, and the pet cat. Guess who's at home when goshujin-sama's away.

Sooo, the rest of the day was a total dork-out. Taking photos of figurines, drooling over Gundam models, looking at people trying out the karaoke machine, having a go at dubbing; I voiced Edward Elric for a minute! My timing sucks big time, so let's not talk about it.

Something I never tried before: gashapon. We had a deal: it was an Evangelion set, we would try the same machine twice; if any of us got Ayanami, it'd go to mister otaku, but if it was Makinami, I'd get to keep it. The mister got Kensuke and I got Makinami. He tried again later in the day and got Shinji, I refrained, didn't want to spend all my luck at one shot. Here's my loot, by the way:

Pretty well-made for a capsule toy.

Now, 2nd day concert started on time. Today's menu: Yoshiki Fukuyama and May'n. We knew May'n, she sang some (many) songs for Macross Frontier, but Fukuyama seems a bit unfamiliar. When I heard him sang, however, I felt compelled to hand over my nerd badge for failing to recognise the man; he was the one behind Overman King Gainer's theme, and Busou Renkin's Makka na Chikai, follow through the links to see what those are all about. He also sang for Macross Seven, but I didn't watch that.

Now, he actually got a guitar and sang with it on stage. It made me realise something: the performances so far, from shokotan and aniki, were like a glorified karaoke exhibition, but this is different, this is ...more raw.

Then came May'n. And her dancers. Just after Yoshiki Fukuyama, her performance seemed ...manufactured. I was actually more looking forward to the encore where Fukuyama would, hopefully, come back on stage---at least before she started singing Lion.

The expected happened on encore. Fukuyama back on stage, and dueting with May'n; might be more interesting if they were dueling, but whatever.

End of dorking-out. Would do again. Signing off.

*Don't try this unless you know what you are doing. Seriously.

It's kinda like that

2009-10-20T23:03:00.005+08:00

To grow old is inevitable; to grow up is variable. Besides, old-fashioned grown-upness is a deprecated measure of a man; the measure of man is the hardness of his core and the oldness of his school.

派手に暴れようぜ！

If sleep debt can be traded

2009-10-05T23:51:00.002+08:00

Who're going to get rich, those who sleep a lot and sell tons of sleep credit or those who buy them up so they don't have to sleep and can work some more?

Penguin, I'm making this kind of thing up instead of _not_ putting off all sleep debt to weekend.

Four Wheel Drive? (out of six)

2009-10-02T01:40:00.002+08:00

I find that some double deckers here have 3 pairs of tyres, one in front, two at the back. When such bus turns, the front wheels turn, and the first pair at the back turn too. I never knew.

Pokey

2009-09-27T02:13:00.003+08:00

Was having an adventure in the Indonesian capital the past week.

Gaming nine-to-five, in the evening; the kind of vacation I go for.

Organ Harvesting

2009-06-04T00:11:00.005+08:00

Been a while. No, I'm not dead yet.

I had a USB gamepad lying around. It mostly worked, but if I remember correctly one of the shoulder buttons went bonkers sometime ago. It hadn't been used for months that I guess it's about time it'd have some kind of existential angst.

Being a good person I am, I dusted it and opened it up, perhaps there'd be things of interest inside. My response to quite a lot of things I saw inside: "Hey, I can use this!". So I heated up the soldering iron, wetted the sponge, and began working. Sometime later, my small haul:

This might've saved me a couple shopping trips. That's pretty nice, considering the grocery store next door doesn't carry ferrite beads. Notable things:

Small electronic components, resistors, ceramic and electrolytic capacitors, ferrite beads, and transistors.

DC motors! They have each a half-circle metal stuck to the shaft, the vibration from them spinning is the rumble pak. The transistors were used to drive these motors, maybe I should put them to similar use.

They don't have model number printed anywhere, but I tested them on 5V/650mA power supply and they work. They'd serve as good toys.

Potentiometers! I got two of those, from each analog stick. Actually four in total, as one of those has a pair of potentiometer -for left-right and up-down.

Remember that you usually can press the analog stick in most gamepad? (They're usually called L3/R3 in PS gamepads). There's a push button attached to the case of the potentiometer. That's the button you push when you press the analog stick. I pried one off and here it is:

It fits on a breadboard and would make ideal general-purpose button when I'm testing a program for a microcontroller.

Now, harvesting organs from a working gadget is an entirely different thing from doing the same from a healthy person. I like to think that way because that's easier for my conscience.

...at least before the robot overlords began writing the law.

Katamari Life Lessons

2009-04-12T03:40:00.001+08:00

A warning: this is going to be long and (_perhaps_) educational.

A little intro for penguins not familiar with Katamari Damacy, or refresher for penguins who are familiar:

One crazy evening, The King of All Cosmos was drunk. In his majestic drunken frenzy, he destroyed all stars in the sky, plus the moon. Citizens of earth got confused. Being a good king, The King of All Cosmos mandated his son, the prince (of all cosmos) to descent to earth and roll things up to be made into stars. It involved intense struggle and unrelenting willpower, but the prince finally returned the starry night sky (and the moon) to rejoicing citizens of earth.

Yes, that picture on the upper left is The King and The Prince (small). Don't you wish to have a king as fabulous as that?

Wise as he is, The King didn't let his son roll around quietly; he provided soundtrack for his entertainment, and to impart some life lessons for passing by earthlings to ponder upon.

First lesson: sanity is overrated. Listen to this:

Katamari On The Rocks

In the beginning, it was just about someone learning to roll things up. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na, roll this, roll that, sing all the while! Then the rolling went out of control and he began to question "Why must we roll things up? Can't we just leave them be, maybe it's better to just let them be". Of course, normal rational people would think that way.

But then he got ideas: maybe it's fun rolling things up. Few minutes later he's singing proudly that he can roll like a pro! That's a message from The King, roll your sleeves and begin rolling, no point questioning, no mind can escape the temptation.

Second lesson: Keep your heart in the Starlight Jamboree. But what is Starlight Jamboree? This:

Starlight Jamboree

In Starlight Jamboree, evaluation equals much rejoicing, examination equals festival. When things are going tough, play the drums in your heart 'pam-pam-pam-pam', then start the jamboree inside 'Staaaarlight - Staaaaaaarlight -Staaaaaaaaaaarlight - STAAAAAAR-LIGHT!' Nothing to be feared, the jamboree's raging inside!

Repel all exhaustion and worry with the jamboree. It's easy, it's just 'Staaaarlight - Staaaaaaarlight -Staaaaaaaaaaarlight - STAAAAAAR-LIGHT!'Don't panic if it gets stuck in your head, it's not because it's a catchy tune, it's because the jamboree has just began in your mind.

Third lesson: Look forward to the future. Don't be chained by yesterday. Keep on trying new things, be a challenger. Challenger to the death, challenger forever. The King wouldn't agree to make a star from a katamari made by someone who doesn't have it in him to challenge himself, because such star wouldn't shine!

Tsuyogari Katamari

Bluffing Katamari

I was defeated by the magic of alcohol
it was such a sweet spell, and I couldn't resist
but that's all in the past now
I don't need it anymore
no more, ain't needing it anymore

I'm gonna change from now
refresh  re-fresh
I'm not gonna turn back, I'll press on forward
I wanna do new things,
things I never see, things I never hear
I'm always a challenger
my rival is myself

I used to long for strength,
the power to reduce everything to zero, such strength
but that's exactly what weakness is
and I don't need it anymore
no more, ain't needing it anymore

I'm gonna change from now
refresh  re-fresh
I'm no gonna lose anything, I'm making things
I wanna do new things,
things I never see, things I never hear
I'm always a challenger
I can go anywhere

But when I look around,
nobody's there, I'm alone
anxiety spins 'round in me
let's sing with words I've never heard before
la-la-la-la-ma, la-la-la-ma-ma
I'm not gonna worry
la-la-la-na-na-na-na~
anxiety's kinda fun
my heart's pounding, flutttering
I'm always a challenger
boredom is my enemy

I'm gonna change from now
refresh  re-fresh
I'm not gonna stand still, I can keep on walking
I wanna do new things,
things I never see, things I never hear
I wanna keep being a challenger (I wanna keep being a challenger)
when I die, I'll die a challenger (when I die, I'll die a challenger)
I'm a challenger forever (I'm a challenger forever)

Fourth lesson: and final lesson for today. I can't possibly catch all lessons The King of All Cosmos was trying to say, and it'd be unwise to just unroll them all in one go; it'd make me run out of material. The lesson is:

love nature,
eat properly,
get enough sleep,
go outside in the sun sometimes,
seriously, be nice to people

Then shine bright as a constellation. Surprisingly sane, considering it's from The King of All Cosmos? Maybe, look at the video:

Katamari Love

Sunset

2009-03-25T23:55:00.000+08:00

In one of my past expeditions, I tried to capture sunset from Nanyang House; thwarted by weather. I mostly forgot about that until last Saturday. I was near one of the libraries and there it was: the sky glowing orange in the distant. Good thing I had my camera with me.

One thing: sunset is really an ephemeral thing. During the time it took me to walk along the rooftop walkway to get a better view, most of the sun had been below the horizon. By the time I'm finished keying in some settings to the camera, it had practically sunk under the horizon of trees.

Still, wasn't it beautiful! Click through to see the photos in its original size, these small ones don't do it justice.

UPGRAAADE!!!

2009-03-22T19:15:00.000+08:00

I have had memory problem for years. Even if I don't have a bloatware as operating system, 512MB of RAM is pretty weak nowadays. Unless if I'm running something really lightweight, which I don't plan to. Now, 4.5 years are a pretty good time to put off upgrading, right? I'm discounting replacing monitor, adding HDD, and getting a working power supply.

So I took the liberty to get a pair of 2GB RAMs in the recent sardines-fest, ehm, IT show. Cool, memory deficiency solved, huh? Well, no. I have another deficiency: selective lack of attention to detail. I didn't remember the spec of my motherboard and didn't bother to review it. So I was in front of my computer, casing open, trying to fit the chips in, then enlightenment happened: my board was so obsolete it didn't support the new memory chips.

Fine, I've been contemplating upgrade for-ever anyway, might as well. Couple days later I found myself walking home, a bag in hand with a new motherboard, cpu (Intel Core2Duo E8400) , and gpu (NVidia XFX GeForce 9500 GT) inside. Predictably, the next step should be: disconnect the old board, mount the new one, connect all the peripherals, and boot, maybe skipping dinner while enjoying the new, bleeding fast, machine. Not so easy. Over the years, something clever happened and the power supply connection to the motherboard changed. I couldn't just plug in my old supply and fly, instead I was left with an agenda for the next day: get a power supply.

Next evening, all's in place. Time to boot, the moment of truth. Guess what: it mostly worked. Only, mostly wasn't quite there. Here's the problem: if I install the proprietary driver for my new gpu, the thing would just fail and I'd be thrown to low graphics mode. Let's go directly to the lesson: I was booting the wrong kernel version and the driver didn't work with kernel header from that version.

It was surprising. I update my system whenever there's an update, including kernel update, so how can I be booting the wrong version? Turns out it's a side effect of a sloppy patchwork I did months ago. I'm booting 2.6.24, while I actually have 2.6.27 (x_x). I have two HDDs, my system is installed in the second one, the first one has an emergency OS. The computer uses the grub on the emergency disk, which knows I have an OS on the second disk, but that grub wasn't updated whenever I upgrade the kernel, the grub on another disk was, and I couldn't use that due to some penguin-up I did some time ago. I can't remember what.

The fix was simple though: just put lines describing the new kernel on the emergency disk's grub list. It's in /boot/grub/menu.lst on the respective disks, don't forget to back it up first. After that, the gpu driver installed in a breeze and mad giggling ensued. I used envyng.

Some other practical lesson:

Ctrl+Alt+F1...6 for a command line in case the GUI hates you. ☆☆☆
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg to restore your X settings in case something goes fubar there.
htop is very useful, I relied on it a lot to search and kill processes during the driver snafu.
Keeping your computer running with barely passable patchworks would backfire eventually.

Now I can say to Firefox to go ahead and eat all that memory (but really, it shouldn't!), and all my HD videos run without slowdown, I don't even have to close any other program before playing them too! Goodbye framedrop. Maybe I'll try some games when I have the time.

Next, I should think up some use for the old machine. Obsolete or not, it has got enough juice to do many neat things, and as long as it's not used, it's just crampying up my cramped place.

Keeping Count

2009-03-19T19:47:00.001+08:00

Rain. Once I got rained pretty generously in the middle of a run. It felt kind of nice, but the novelty wore off soon after I got soaked. Luckily, hot shower got me off flu just with a little sneezing the next morning.

I still run, though unfortunately, not so disciplined. Still, I'm making progress. When in the beginning I could only do one lap on the running track before walking, I can do six now, but there's a problem. I said running is great because I can't think much; that get in the way of something: keeping count. It's useless to say I could do six laps if I lost count in the middle. Here's what I do then:

Strings. I tie them around my fingers and take one off after each lap. Problem solved. They're slightly distracting though.

Island Bound

2009-03-04T00:30:00.001+08:00

Sea. What kind of thoughts does it invoke? It used to be not so much; salty water, sand grains hard to shake off sandals, weird fishes, blazing sun —heat, sweat, ice cream!

Looking at the sea is kind of like looking at a clear night sky: sometimes I just can't get my eyes off it, even when it stays practically the same for minutes, then I take my camera.

This one's from East Coast, Singapore. Point-and-shoot didn't seem like the right stuff to point at cargo ships deep in the night, so I waited until sunrise, riding around on a bicycle talking to myself.

This one's from the sea near Fjaltring, somewhere in western Denmark. The wind was so strong I was bombarded with sand, and my glasses ...weren't the cleanest after.

From the same place, same time, though the sun does look heavy and ominous in this one.

Another one, I just like the scenery so much.

Digital Beethoven

2009-01-31T19:17:00.001+08:00

A case: you have to look at a measuring instrument every few seconds for some long minutes but don't want to use stopwatch because you want to concentrate on something else, what then? Also there is a laptop available.

In my case, I made a python script to play a sound file every few seconds to interrupt me from whatever I was reading or discussing, and look at the instrument. The sound file would say something like "take measurement", "take reading", or "look at the meter", just because. I used winsound from python standard library, it's simple. It's a Windows specific thing, but as I'm stuck with windows at work anyway, might as well.

The fun wasn't actually in getting the script work and getting the experiment done more effectively, it was in discovering how easy it is to make a sinusoid beep at (almost) any audible frequency. So, something has to be done during the wait times and it was this: Für Elise in beeps.

import time as t
import winsound as w

#musical scale. Some are off by some hertz, don't protest
middle = {'C': 262,
         'D': 294,
         'd': 312,
         'E': 330,
         'F': 349,
         'G': 392,
         'g': 416,
         'A': 440,
         'B': 494,
         ' ': 37}

#the duration for a quarter note in miliseconds. Arbitrary, don't complain
beat = 498

#the score, believe it
elise = [('E5',0.5),('d5',0.5),
        ('E5',0.5),('d5',0.5), ('E5',0.5), ('A4',0.5), ('D5',0.5), ('C5',0.5),
        ('G4',1.5),('C4',0.5), ('E4',0.5), ('A4',0.5),
        ('B4',1.5),('E4',0.5), ('g4',0.5), ('B4',0.5),
        ('C5',1.5),('E4',0.5), ('D5',0.5), ('C5',0.5),
        ('B4',1.5),('E4',0.5), ('E4',0.5), ('E5',0.5),('E4',0.5),
        ('E5',0.5),('E5',0.5), ('E6',0.5), ('d5',0.5),('E5',0.5),('d5',0.5),
        ('E5',0.5),('d5',0.5), ('E5',0.5), ('d5',0.5),('E5',0.5),('d5',0.5),
        ('E5',0.5),('d5',0.5), ('E5',0.5), ('B4',0.5),('D5',0.5),('C5',0.5),
        ('A4',1.5),('C4',0.5), ('E4',0.5), ('A4',0.5),
        ('B4',1.5),('E4',0.5), ('g4',0.5), ('B4',0.5),
        ('C5',1.5),('E4',0.5), ('E5',0.5), ('d5',0.5),
        ('E5',0.5),('d5',0.5), ('E5',0.5), ('B4',0.5),('D5',0.5),('C5',0.5),
        ('A4',1.5),('C4',0.5), ('E4',0.5), ('A4',0.5),
        ('B4',1.5),('D4',0.5), ('C5',0.5), ('B4',0.5),
        ('A4',2)]

#this code plays the score
for elem in elise:
   freq = int(middle[elem[0][0]]*(2**(int(elem[0][1])-4)))
   dura = int(beat*elem[1])

   #this is what makes the sound
   w.Beep(freq, dura)

   #a blink interval between notes, so the same note played twice would
   #still have a pause in between
   t.sleep(0.002)

Go ahead and dissect it, maybe something interesting would come out. To try it out yourself: save the code into 'something.py', get python interpreter if you haven't, open your 'something.py' in the interpreter, pull your hair out after listening to the robotic piece

Something similar can be done with wave library, which is not windows specific, only I still can't be bothered to read the documentation

Exquisite Breakfast

2009-01-30T07:00:00.001+08:00

Sliced bread and peanut butter for breakfast. How ordinary, follow that and maybe you can claim that you comply to some obscure international standards, maybe intergalactic. Then again, who blogs about breakfast these days and age? Would someone please send Ryan the memo saying penguins dislike meal blogging except at a culinary blog?

No way, this is about a discovery, or maybe a rediscovery of common sense. Which of course is not so common and occasionally not making any sense at all. It begins during my internship two years ago, early morning and me weren't in friendly terms and I had to catch a bus before sunrise. Skipping breakfast was a no-no, so I came up with a plan: I'd make breakfast, which was just bread and whatever spread I had handy before sleep, wrap it nicely with tissue papers and enjoy it in the few minutes I had between waking up and falling asleep again (only in bus). Only, 'enjoy' is just not the right word.

Firstly, leaving sliced bread all night makes it dry, so my breakfast tasted more like sponge and chocolate most of the time. Secondly, the minutes there are to enjoy it were just not there, and again that first reason. Well, I braved through it because there wasn't much choice.

It turns out the solution isn't complicated. Not about the time though, just the drying part. If I put the dry bread on top of a mug full of something like milk or milo, and microwave it for 3 minutes, then eat it after dipping into whatever I have in the mug, it actually works fine. Nice even. Now I can push more overhead to the night and have some extra minutes to snore in the morning. Fabulous!

Go ahead and make yourself a sandwich if you just marched through the text.

Sleepy Logger

2009-01-27T17:00:00.001+08:00

My senior high history teacher once said that he only sleeps 4 hours a day. He said if you sleep 8 hours, you'd spend 1/3 of your life sleeping, and when you sleep, you don't get anything done. That inspired my sleep-pinching ways during university. Though people who know me would testify otherwise and they wouldn't be lying; I managed only to implement it halfway. I stay awake late (to increase uptime) and try to still get up early (to reduce downtime), guess which part always fail.

Along the way, I've compromised that principle and chose to get enough sleep so as not to be on the verge of drop down snoring all day. Yes, having a defined working hours contribute to that. Still, I found out I keep logging into dream world pretty late anyway. So here's an idea: let's be somewhat accountable and log my bedtime and wake up time everyday, maybe some interesting pattern would emerge. besides, looking at some numbers might (significantly) reduce the ambiguity in 'enough sleep' and 'not enough sleep'.

So how's the result? After 3 weeks, I see an entirely not rare pattern. Not much sleep in the weekdays, and quite much during the weekends (and holidays). In numbers:

average weekdays: 5.89 hours
average weekends: 9.13 hours

How healthy it is, I'll decide when I finally break down.

While I'm at it, I also log what kind of meal I have everyday. Nothing fancy like how much sugar or fat or awesome each have, just what it is called. Two interesting result so far are: I habitually skip breakfast in the weekends, and the later I get off work, the more snack I have.

Unwelcome Runaway

2009-01-18T03:00:00.002+08:00

I hated running. It's tiring, it makes me all sweaty (and that would result in higher pile of laundry) among other things. I thought it's a thing that one do only to chase buses, when getting chased by penguins, and some other isolated cases. Anyway, my opinion was that as long as I can run at decent speed for decent time to occasionally chase buses all is well. I don't expect to be chased by a waddle of penguins anytime soon anyway.

Then, the year turned. I went back from holiday at home stuffed. You see, at home anything could be dessert. Some nights batagor was dessert (don't argue this), other nights pempek was (don't argue this too), and some other nights good ol' ice cream was. Wait, not just nights, day too! Also, always as dessert; I had a proper meal before as far as I can recall.

After all that, I was feeling ...unwieldy. I needed to move, burn things down, stuffs like that. Then idea struck: I always visit NTU every week, why not run while I'm there? The air's good, the scenery's okay, and again I always visit anyway. With the right preparation maybe running is not so bad; right preparation, but what's that?

Running with full gears on—phone, wallet, keys, pens, notepad, etc—would be horrible. Add bag to the picture and it would be doublerrible. It would be like chasing after a double-decker around the university (and never catching up). So the first step is to contact some friends who live in the dorms and try to get one to agree to harbor my equipments for a couple hours [Wowies, Ryan unequipped things: STR -10, DEF -10, AGI +30, call for help, penmanship ability disabled]. Actually, the first step is to patch that iron-burn hole on my old high school training pants, but let's not go into details. Next step is go for it. Good penguins, it's only two steps long!

I decided I would take a long route around the campus first, finish at the running track and do a few run-walk cycle there, closed with a short sprint (as if the bus is actually a race car and I'm waaay late for work). The whole thing would be in the evening, don't want to fall down early in hot weather. First thing I realised: I overlooked NTU's hilly terrain. Any route I take would involve some uphill and downhill. That's easy to cheat: walk uphill, run downhill; don't protest I did admit it's cheating. Second: my run to walk ratio is pretty disastrous. Any worse and I would be obliged to call the exercise "Walking and occasionally simulating a bus chase". Well, I'll see if there'd be improvement over time, but I'd have to have the resolve to do it regularly first. Third: regular glasses get in the way so I leave it with my other stuffs (Oh no, SIGHT -2), I'm a little myopic so places with very low traffic and plenty space for pedestrian is best. Well, NTU is one.

Tell you what, it felt great. It's a time for myself (which I most of the time happy to have). I can have that kind of time just by sitting on an empty bench somewhere, or by walking. The amazing thing is, by running my mind is occupied by keeping breath pace and putting one foot in front of the other, I don't worry about anything else, I can't. Even if anything would come to mind, pain and fatigue from my joints would distract me, it's in a way liberating (I remember being told that by someone, but only now I'm convinced). Simple running can actually be a real running away, cool.

The activity is two weeks old now, with one session a week. I should really wait for more data before saying this, but I can feel myself improving. The run to walk ratio in the second week is better (my feeling, I don't actually quantize it), and I can run around the running track twice before walking for one round. Still it could be environmental and not really an improvement at my side. This reminds me of my Karate training when I was a junior high student, the Senpai would make us run one cycle more each week, no excuse, no walking phase either.

Now for a little story. Most lights were turned off in the center by the time, on the second week I noticed that I could see quite some stars from the track, so I lied down on the side after running to get a closer look. It's a solemn moment, I might keep running so that I could do this after. No photographic evidence, try it out yourself.

In closing, good habits are frail; I don't know how long I can keep this up—hopefully long enough. If frailty is not enough problem, I tend to treat myself to some chocolate afterwards. If you just read the whole thing, it might not hurt to treat yourself to some too!

Hi from Home

2008-12-23T14:30:00.001+08:00

Good to be in the Future Capital of Fun and Great Justice. Being able to sleep on average 10 hours a day being one reason.

Here's something interesting: I told my flatmates I'll be flying home on Friday, and for some reason I decided to get a ticket for Thursday instead. I imagine they'd be wondering where had Ryan gone after some time (they would at least do that!), so I posted a notice. Of course, it's no fun if there's not any hint of playfulness on it, so here's what I came up with:

One of them called at night, just after I left the airport for home, telling me to explain myself.

Now, here's another one of the family cats. Tutu:

Does he sleep with one eye open? Only if there's a suspicious looking person pointing a camera at him.

Remember the Lego turbine? I decided to take it home and just build it there, even taking into account the risk of feline attacks. It started with this:

After a couple hours, two instruction books, and some photographing:

It can move too, if fed 6 (six!) AA batteries. What it can't do is generate power to charge my gadgets or transform to a giant robot.

Another Sample

2008-12-18T16:30:00.000+08:00

Okay, that small snippet as sample output from the botched code last time wasn't so satisfying. Also, Blogger seems to hate html entities in compose mode, or I'm just too lazy to fix it manually (the acronyser function was bonkers). So, if anyone's going to use that code, be sure to debug it first, have fun trial-ing and error-ing.

So, next showoff output: Hitorigoto from Bump of Chicken. Hitorigoto means talking to one's self. That's one of my many hobbies, but let's not talk about that. Video right after the lyrics.

Hitorigoto

nee yasashisa tte nanda to omou boku sukoshi wakattekita yo
kitto sa kimi ni watasou to shitara konagona ni naru yo

nee kimi no tame ni ikita tte boku no tame ni nacchau nda
hontou sa boku ga waraitakute kimi wo warawaseteru dake nanda gomen ne

hito ni yoku omowaretai dake boku wa boku wo oshitsukeru dake
yasashiku nanka nai sou naritai narikata ga wakaranai

nee kokoro no naka ni nai yo boku no tame no mono shika nai yo
sou janai mono wo watashitai kedo watashitai boku ga iru

nee yasashisa tte nanda to omou sakki yori wakattekita yo
kitto sa kimi no shiranai uchi ni kimi kara moratta yo oboe wa nai deshou

minna yoku omowaretai dake jibun jishin wo urikomu dake
yasashiku nanka nai sou naritai boku ga ichiban hidoi

atama hen ni natta kamo iyaiya itatte matomo dayo
nozomi wa nozomanai koto boku ga shiranai uchi ni kimi no tame ni nareru koto

aa un iwarenakutatte kizuiteru boku chotto kangae sugi
arigatou warattekureta okage de boku mo waraeru

nee yasashisa tte shitteru nda watasenai noni moraeta nda
kitto sa hito to hito no kokoro no soto no naka dake ni aru nda
hitorigoto

kimi ni yoku omowaretai dake boku wa boku wo oshitsukeru dake
yasashiku nanka nai nare ya shinai naritai to omowanai

hitori de wa muri na koto dakara dareka to no aida ni aru kara
dochira no mono demo nai namae no nai sore dake ni deaitai

nee yasashisa tte nanda to omou mou kangaenakutatte ii ya
hontou sa bokura shiranai uchi ni bokura de tsukutta yo

futari deatta yo

Right, the video:

Next, the translation. See if it looks any similar to the word by word translation. The similarities decide how trustworthy are my posted translations so far. Of course, I disclaim accuracy.

Talking to Myself

hey, what do you think kindness is? I think I came to understand it a bit
surely, if I tried to hand it over to you, it would crumble to pieces

hey, even if I said I live for you, along the way it became for me
truly, it's just because I want to laugh myself that I made you laugh, I'm sorry

I want to look nice to people, I'm just pushing myself to them
no way I'm kind, I want to be, yet I don't know how

hey, there's nothing in my heart, there are only things for me
I want to give things that aren't so, but there's myself asking for them

hey, what do you think kindness is? I think I got it just now
surely, I must've gotten it from you when you didn't notice. See, you don't remember it

I want to look nice to everyone, I'm just marketing myself
no way I'm kind, but I want to be. I'm the cruelest

maybe my head's gone bonkers. reluctantly yet intensely, I'm sane and proper
my wish is to not wish, that when I don't notice it's all become for you

ah, yes. I noticed, you don't have to say it. I'm just thinking a little too much
thank you, it's because you laugh that I too am able to laugh

hey, I know what kindness is. It can't be given, but it can be received
surely, it exists in the space between people's hearts
I'm talking to myself

I just want to look nice to you, I'm just pushing myself to you
no way I'm kind, now way I can be kind, I don't even want to

for it's impossible to achieve alone, for it exists between people,
it doesn't belong to anyone, it doesn't even have a name. I want to meet you just like that

hey, what do you think kindness is? Nah, you don't have to think about it anymore
truly, we must've made it ourselves when we didn't notice,

then we met

The comment section of the Youtube page is filled with people saying they cried listening to the song, or something along the way. I guess there's no helping it, the song's pretty charged; I was actually pretty relieved the ending is somewhat a happy end.

Vandalising Words

2008-12-16T22:07:00.010+08:00

With Python

Some less cloudy evening, I got a little idea: how about posting a song lyrics that if I hover my mouse on a word, I would get the word translation as a tooltip text. Then the idea grew a little: given a lyric and a file with word and translation pairs in it, how about automating the process? The next logical step would be: how about not a file with word-translation pairs, but lookup to one or another web dictionary, how about stemming? Super!

Yet, those logical steps weren't taken. I like instant gratification, so I just set out and try to get my tooltip text without the fancy lookup, stemming, and fancy ribbons. Anyway, with a goal in mind, it's Python time!

The idea is simple: open a lyrics file, break it down into words list. open a diction file (that word-translation pair), break it down into pairs and put them into a dictionary. For every word in lyrics word list, check if there is a data in the dictionary with that word as key. If yes, put it around acronym tag and write to output file, if no, just write the word to output then move along.

Now, at the risk of getting ridiculed by how sloppy it is, the code:

#everything here is put into a function,
#so the module can be imported nicely in command line

#head() is the main function.
#Then we have conditioner() for input conditioning,
#translator() for word lookup and writing output,
#and finally acronyser() that just fill acronym tags with the contents

def head():
  #first get an input romaji and diction file, and decide a name for the output
  inp = raw_input("input file: ")
  dic = raw_input("diction file: ")
  out = raw_input("output file: ")
  #try our best to open it and...
  try:
      inpfile = open(inp, 'r')
      dicfile = open(dic, 'r')
      outfile = open(out, 'w')
  #cry when something goes wrong
  except:
      print "Something went wrong with opening files :("
      return
  #condition the data see conditioner() for details, contains no shampoo
  inpdata, dicdata = conditioner(inpfile, dicfile)
  #we don't need the input files anymore, might as well close them
  inpfile.close()
  dicfile.close()
  #now the fun part, translation and writing output
  translator(inpdata, dicdata, outfile)
  #done! go look at the output and be satisfied

def conditioner(inpfile, dicfile):
  inpdata = inpfile.read().split('\n')
  i = 0
  while i < diclist =" dicfile.read().split('\n')" dicdata =" {}" line =" line.split(None,"> 1:
          dicdata[line[0]] = line[1]
  return (inpdata, dicdata)

def translator(inpdata, dicdata, outfile):
  for line in inpdata:
      for word in line:
          if dicdata.has_key(word.lower()):
              outfile.write(acronyser(word, dicdata[word.lower()]))
          else:
              outfile.write(word+' ')
      outfile.write('
')
  outfile.close()
  return

def acronyser(word, title):
  return "%s " % (title, word)

A little sample of the output from L'Arc~en~Ciel's Anemone:

azayaka na kisetsu aa hana ga saku no matsu koto naku fune wa yuku mada minu basho e shizuka ni moeru honoo wa dare ni mo kese wa shinai kara

Regardless if it's such a good idea in the first place, I had fun doing it.

Escher Puzzle?

2008-12-13T17:15:00.001+08:00

Here's a story: I was looking at jigsaw puzzles, thinking which one would generate the least "what the penguin!?" reaction if a sane person would randomly receive it. I was thinking seriously at getting something with pieces count on the order of 2000 or 3000 before noticing large, framed finished puzzles on the wall and asked how many pieces are they; they're the ones with 2000-3000 pieces, and they're HUGE.

Okay, if I would get one of those, at beginning of 2009 there's a chance I'd be crowned that one mister who ruined someone's holiday because he spent it all assembling a penguined puzzle, so I got a smaller one. That's not the end, of course.

As I was deciding which scenery is the prettiest and hardest to assemble, little boxes at the other end of the store caught my eyes: Ball puzzles, their complete form is a sphere. Now, I just have to try building one of these. My vote was for one with pictures of some of M. C. Escher's works (one of the most potent flummoxative agent known to civilization) on it. Here it is:

The pieces:

This puzzle can't be too hard; the pieces have numbers on the back, see:

I know, blurry picture and all. Believe me, those little black specks are numbers. With that fact in mind, I proceeded with a plan. After all, to fail to plan is to plan to fail.

It's good strategy, not lowly cheating.

Half assembled. By this time I began thinking: They really should make a death star version of this kind of puzzle, I'd hang it above my bed!

Very soon now, very soon.

Here it is. The picture is 'Relativity'. The other side below has 'Day and Night'

My only qualm is that it ends too soon. Anyway, this is not a Gundam kit, I can disassemble and reassemble it anytime with little to no remorse. Yippie?

Castlevania Aftermath

2008-11-30T19:15:00.001+08:00

I haven't had much interest in Castlevania games before the store owner gave me Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin for free when I got my NDS. I tried it and quite enjoyed it, though the gameplay was pretty difficult for me, playing almost exclusively RPGs and all. Truth: I am still stuck at the final boss.

Then Order of Ecclesia was released last October. Two weeks after release, and I could hardly find a copy, whoa. Fast forward about three weeks and many hours standing in trains beating monsters, ghosts, freaks, robots, severed heads, vampires, ... (really, the game's enemies list is like horror creatures all stars), I finally beat the game. On a train too! Maybe veterans would laugh at me taking so much time beating the game in normal mode, penguins care not.

How does it play? It plays sweet, mostly. The protagonist attacks with glyphs attached to her left/right shoulders and back and you can have three sets of glyph configuration for quick strategic adjustment. Glyphs selection is pretty wide, variations in strength, elemental attributes, range, but anyone would expect at least that. Bosses can be difficult, but figuring out how to beat them is a lot of fun.

The game has some manner of story, it's not so thick and doesn't get in the way, but quite enjoyable. Well, you need an excuse to resurrect Dracula and another to put a non-Belmont as heroine, then things to hold them together.

Music is a lot of fun. Ear/headphone is highly recommended. Sometimes I found myself tapping to the tune (on train), or tuned out station announcement if I put the volume too loud, fortunately I didn't miss any station doing that, or played myself to Dracula's castle front door. Hmm, would Dracula consider a mass transit stop in the basement of his castle if he lived in 21st century?

Lastly, beating old mister Dracula unlocks hard mode and Albus mode. That should keep me distracted for a few weeks.

Oh, Vending Machines

2008-11-29T15:03:00.003+08:00

Happens all the time, but the irony just wouldn't wear off: Just after the festival is over, the vending machines around NTU LWN library are stocked with coffees again. All to drain the coins away from a suspicious person in need of caffeine :(

Undoubtedly Festive

2008-11-28T22:32:00.002+08:00

Okay, I didn't get to go to the usual six-monthly festival, but I did get to go to Anime Festival Asia 2008. First thing first, they charge you S$5 to get in, and the ticket queue was penguin long!

So, what'd one expect to find in an anifest report? Cosplay photos? Yes, I'll get to that. One thing that got my interest in the agenda: May'n concert. She sang some (many!) songs in Macross Frontier, and they were pretty good. Then I asked how much they charge for a ticket...

Talking about price, walking around there're just so many things I want, but looking around price tag was not a good exercise for my frail heart. Except maybe for Gundam kits, which are going for a discount, and really, one of my main agenda was to get a discounted Gundam kit.

There was supposed to be some 1:60 Gundam Exia in Trans-Am mode TRANSPARENT model on sale. Those that come in the afternoon can only gaze at one on display inside a glass case, no touching. Some other time Ryan, some other time. So for consolation, I got a Master Grade (MG is awesome. I love it) Infinite Justice Gundam instead, because Kira is a sissy and Athrun is a real man (put that rock down, I am allowed to have opinion!).

Also, Kunio Okawara, mech designer for the original Gundam series (and some of the recent ones) was there for a signing session. I wanted to get him to sign my new kit but... it was limited to 20 persons. Penguin.

Right, I'm done ranting, scroll down for the cosplay photos.

One pair of Lelouch x C.C. cosplayers that day. Pretty impressive.

HE _IS_ GUNDAM. Now that I know that ordinary men can BECOME GUNDAM... No armed intervention though.

Kamen Rider Black RX and Kamen Rider Shadow. My nostalgia circuit was on overdrive!

Kamen Rider Black! Now my nostalgia circuit is fried.

Holy Electrolytic Batman! Two of them!

Another Lelouch x C.C. cosplay pair. Dead by cameras.

A special appearance of the 98th Emperor of the Britannian Empire. All Hail Britannia!

End of report. Till some other time~

Retro Enough?

2008-11-26T23:20:00.004+08:00

I've been finding myself lately scouring youtube for Heino, a ...talented German singer, Ja. I better let the videos do the posting:

Die Schwarze Barbara

Yes, yes, the prettiest in the world is my Barbara
What I like about her, it's her black hair
She has a sky-sky-sky blue eyes and crimson lips
Yes, yes she is so wonderful, the black Barbara

Blau blüht der Enzian

Yes, yes, so blue blue blue blossomed the gentians
by the Alpenglow when we met again
With your red red red lips it began,
that I can't ever forget

Ja, ja die Katja, die hat ja

Yes, yes she's Katja, yes she has vodka in blood
Fire in heart, and eyes full of ember
Yes, yes she's Katja, yes she has only one thing in mind:
She looks only at you, and you at her!

Ja, ja Not all of them are that energetic and full of Ja though, for instance: Alte Kameraden:

I wonder what my German teacher would say if they find out about this.

Ja, don't blame me if you're infected.

A Festival from the Sides

2008-11-15T02:02:00.000+08:00

What happens when a Ryan doesn't get to join the festival? Interestingly, not much. Just that a Ryan would be seen lurking around in NTU library on a Friday evening, a Friday evening with a full moon. He didn't howl or hunt for fresh blood though —surprisingly civilized, but perhaps very much suspicious.

Short story short, Ryan has been visiting library two Fridays in a row now. One of his observation: coffees in vending machines are sold out. Coffees from tujuhsebelas still isn't friendly to the wallet, and Ryan needs at least two. Penguins.

He didn't notice the international standards shelf once as a student, tonight he browsed it intently because some spec sheet for some part from some manufacturer declares that they conform to some standard, and because he can't read the standard online for free.

Lastly, he took another photo:

Good Habits are Frail

2008-11-14T01:00:00.000+08:00

So one has to give it extra attention. Like if I decided to walk backwards one kilometer every night and did that for three months, then I had a week break and never started again. I know, I know everybody and their pet ice cube (where applicable) know that one has to maintain one's good habits ere one take a break. I have had my share of good habits broken like that, too many in fact. Also just to be clear, I didn't decide to walk backwards one kilometer every night (It was three kilometers -not).

I used to do some sit-ups everyday some years ago, took a break when semester break came, never resumed.

A glass of milk was the lullaby for my stomach. Was.

I kept track of my expenses, until about a month ago. Now receipts are piling on my desk, waiting their turn for entry. Guess what, the more there are the harder it is to start, and penguins know I don't have receipts for whatever I had for lunch two weeks ago.

My journal is gathering dust after weeks of procrastination. It kind of loses its point if not updated often enough. The less point it had, the less motivation to resume, the more time passed without update, the less point it had remaining. Holy electrolytic Batman, it's discharging!

And others that my brain might have just decided to wipe off to free up some space one sunny day.

Well, talking about it might actually kick me back into some of those habits. Say hi if you see me having my backwards walk some lovely evening in the future.