Bad news! Somehow, Liangliang's visa to Australia doesn't get an instant approval through the online application. This means that she'll need to contact the Australia embassy in Malaysia to sort it out with the officers there.
The flight is on Monday morning. And the embassy is closed during weekends. Time will be extremely tight on Monday. Hope it'll work out fine and she can get on the flight on time. Fingers crossed.
Good things take challenges to realise.
Firefox cache keeps eating up my profile space. It's very annoying to see this:
So I searched and found a fix on Freeware Forum > Firefox Cache:
* Open Firefox
* In the location bar, type about:config and hit enter
* Right-click in the white-space, and choose New->String. Enter the name browser.cache.disk.parent_directory and click ok.
* In the next box, enter the full patch to the directory you want to store your cache in. I used E:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\
* Close Firefox.
* Delete your old cache directories in
C:\Documents and Settings\%username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\%randomNum.default\
* Restart Firefox. It will create the directory specified above, if it doesn't already exist.
This same technique can be used to move your cache to a larger or faster disk."
--------------------------------------
That's not it, the history.dat is huge as well. So I searched again and found out a way to move the whole profile. Well, not actually moving but create a new one at a new location and copy the old data over.
First close all FireFox browser windows. Then go Start>Run and type in the following (or the path to where you have FireFox installed).
"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -P
This will let you create a new Profile without destroying the old one.
Thanks to FastEddie's post at broadbandreports.com.
It works generally, except for some extensions like googlebar, it can't find some elements. I'll worry about that later...
If you ever wonder what we PhD students do in labs, here's one of our crazy/silly activities.
Shih Ching digged out some toys from our vision research old-junk cupboard and we just instantly have our age -20. I played for a little while, went out, came back and saw this nice setup left on the table. Can't help but to document it. Pretty good eh?
I got an email with a WORD attachment. Read it, searched the web and found the source, posted in April here:
Malaysia Today: MT-MMblues: The NEP in the Islamic perspective
Fellow Malaysians, some food for thoughts.
It's great to know that the computer is doing work when you're not working on it! This probably explains why I have this protein folding stuff on my computer.
My computer finished the first small piece in 2 days. And on the website, it generates certificate. Pretty cool!
Well, this is the first week of teaching in Computing for Engineers and Scientists (CES105). I had a tute at 10am and lab from 11am-1pm.
The lab is really simple this week, just log on and getting familiar with the Linux environment and firing up Matlab. Several students has problems with account not available due to late enrolment.
Quite a lot of them wants to change their password. I couldn't remember the passwd command, tried with chpw, pwchange, etc. =.=!
Then a student pointed out that it can be done under Redhat > ControlCenter > Security&Privacy > Password&UserAccount > ChangePassword. And somehow one student can't change it until he changed the new password to have a leading uppercase?! Finally a student pointed out the passwd command and it's like a lightbulb lit up in my brain. Haha! :)
By 12pm, half the lab is empty. Now 12:30pm, I'm dead bored. There are still 3 students working on next week lab (probably already finished) and they don't want any help. So, here I am, blogging in the lab. :P
The source of previous post is actually from
Interactive DOM scripting.
Heaps of stuffs. It's under 2D > lately.
It's important to acknowledge the source.
Cool! shake the skeleton!!
It must have some code running, Firefox doesn't show it properly...
Have to use the unsafe IE.
Anyway, enjoy.
Le squelette danse... Chez Maya !
Part 1:
Monday night I got several missed call and SMS asking me whether I'd reach Margaret River accommodation that night. I was wondering what's going on!! Then I went to check the internet booking I made with that place for next week. To my astonishment, it showed that I actually booked it to be Monday night!!!
So I SMS back and forth with the manager and told her I had no idea how it turned out like that and I was very sorry to had her waiting for me. I also begged her not to charge me a big fee for that... But eventually she said it was my fault and too bad, I got my deposit forfeited! $33 flushed down the toilet!
Well, it was my fault but I really didn't remember anything wrong about the date when I booked. Well, maybe I rolled the scrollwheel right after I chose the date? I don't know.
Anyway, the next day I called her again as requested to make the booking on the right date. No drama, just made sure the date was right and that was it.
At night when I checked my email, the manager wrote "Great news! I was able to transfer your deposit to the new booking! You don't have to eat bread and water." I guessed my sincerity works. I was so very happy! It's like striking a $33 lottery! :D
Part 2:
Today, bad luck stroke on me. I parked my car in front of my carport on Monday because my housemate took the place in the carport already. There are always cars parking in front of the carports although there's a no parking sign on the footpath in front of the carport. So I thought it's not right to park there, but my housemate hasn't got a parking lot and other tenants always park like that... (bad bad bad assumption)
And it turns out that it's ok to park in front of the carport as long as it's not on the footpath!! So I got a $80 parking infringement!!
Sad sad sad! I try all my life not to break laws and ... (sigh)
What's "better" is that one of my housemate told me "Oh, I saw you parked there, but I thought you know, so I didn't tell you."
=.=!!!
It really took me many deep breaths to get over this. Haven't had this kind of emotional challenge for a long while... Eventually, it took me about half an hour to be alright with this event.
But to be frank, I really didn't know about the footpath thing. Or didn't paid attention I think... I've actually park there like that for many times but just nothing happened. So I guess I deserved this, and it's probably a late one already.
Right after that, I was shouting:
This is an era of information, knowledge is money, and the lack of it, costs!"
塞翁失马 焉知非福
A seemingly good thing may not lead to goodness, and a seemingly bad thing may bring new openings for goodness to come.
My two high school seniors are getting married!
I'm so happy!!
Beautiful wedding photos
Chinese version of the post here.
Have a computer?
Love giving?
Love to be a part of science advancement?
But don't want to forge out $$$?
Here's a great opportunity, Standford University has a distributed computing project which studies protein folding here:
Folding@Home Distributed Computing
Just go there and download and run the client software. It'll only run when your computer is idle.
And it has a cool visualisation of the protein that can be used as screensaver... :D
I'm writing a paper for DICTA conference this year. Deadline is 31st July which is this coming Sunday. This is a no life week.
.......
Wish me luck. Give me mental support. Need them all to get this done!
=.=
A good movie/documentary I recently watched, the name is "What the Bleep do we know?"
Using quantom physics to explain thoughts and emotion. It challanges the relationship between our state of mind and the material reality.
Can the state of mind affect the material reality?
Is the material reality the same before and after it's observed? Or do us, the observers, have any influence over the state the material reality turns out?
Check here for more information:
http://www.whatthebleep.com/
It's well worth to watch!
My photo of the Pinnacle was selected in the 2005 July issue of Greenpeace's Making Waves newsletter.
TzuYen Wong - The Pinnacle
© T.Wong
Happy!! :D
Still waiting for the reward T-shirt to come... :)
Ascii Text / Signature Generator
Gotta check this one out!!
_____ __ __
o O O |_ _| ___ _ _ \ \ / / ___ _ _
o | | |_ / | +| | \ V / / -_) | ' \
TS__[O] _|_|_ _/__| \_,_| _|_|_ \___| |_||_|
{======|_|"""""|_|"""""|_|"""""|_| """ |_|"""""|_|"""""|
./o--000'"`-0-0-'"`-0-0-'"`-0-0-'"`-0-0-'"`-0-0-'"`-0-0-'
Stumbled upon this good document, the name says it all:
An Introduction to Digital Image Processing with Matlab by Alasdair McAndrew
Chand's Home Page
This guy is a PhD student at Stanford. There are some good summary of graphics papers on his page. Good way to break down a paper!
He has a good sense of humour as well. An example here.
I sold my body for $25 today. Haha!! click here if you want to sell yours. :)
UniSA is collecting 3D body dimension data for a research to build aircraft. So I went for the scan.
It took only 10 seconds to scan but more than half an hour filling up forms, briefing and putting markers on my body. At the end, I got a copy of my 3D body data as .obj file and a 3D rotating movie like those character overview you get in video games. Haha!!
And they'll give $25 to me in post as well, bonus! :D
Below is the obj file loaded into anim8or:
(my standing posture is not very straight hey?)
topleft: David Chen Derong, bottom right:Luo Zheng
Two new housemates moved in straight after ex-housemates left. They are both from Guangdong, China.
There were a lot of house cleaning and furniture moving.
We decided to share food and take turn to cook dinner.
A very good start for a warm home, instead of a cold shelter.
From left: Kazuhiro, me and Akira.
My housemates left to Sydney this morning. We took this last photo just before we headed to airport together. We all look really happy, don't we?
Is sphere the only object that has circles as plan, front and side views? Check it out here! Pretty Cool shape! From the legendary Paul Bourke.
Intersection of three cylinders
Some website I used to get my maths right, just for records.
CS184 Berkeley, Conversion euclideanspace.com, codeguru.com, UIUC.
A week after the PSA Research Week, the Presentations are up in the website.
Lots of useful documents on things related to research! And there are some photos of the cocktail party there which was from my camera. Hehehe!
If only I have this kind of focus in my first or even second year.
Working like this, I think I'll eventually graduate.
I'm glad that I'm getting off wandering around but actually start hitting the hard bit! Just feel a little bit late. So much to do!!!
Another peak of working hard frantic is here since the Yanchep Conference last September. I found myself getting in early most days and staying late. Coming in on Sunday afternoon felt like normal as well.
The generalisation of a small bit of codes seems to bring up lots of dirty hacks I can't even remember I did. So the last 2-3 weeks was on heavy code battling. Now still have the last two bits to get done. Then hopefully rainbow will come out. ~=.=~
When that happens (better happen soon), it'll turn into another phase - writing it up. Can I get it sorted out in 2 weeks?! Peter is on leave this week... I got stuffs to ask him... Hmm.. smells like my something is burning behind...
Nu li (努力)!!! Fen dou (奋斗)! I can do it! Ah~~~~
OK, I think I'm stressed!
My two Japanese housemates, Kazuhiro and Akira are moving to Sydney this coming Saturday. Now the house is full of boxes and debris.
As they are flying to Sydney, they don't want to bring too many things over. So I was asked to help to chuck a whole big box of books and DVDs to Cash-converter or secondhand bookshop. The good news is they read some good books that I actually wants. Since they didn't really expect to get much out of that box through 'recycling' them, I paid them the money first and I can read or watch or lend them at my leisure.
Stargate SG-1 DVD anyone? (I wish I have time to be a couch potato...)
The new housing agent, Suzanne is great!
I called her yesterday morning about the leaking taps at my place. I got a call from the plumber later the evening and this morning, the handyman came along and got 'em all fixed! Yeah!!
No more twisting the tap-cap 5 rounds with both hands and all my strength just to keep the leaking to dripping level. (sweat!!)
I felt like having Bakuteh and called a dinner party. Adam, Kes, Angie, Chris and Tone joint me and we had it at Adam's apartment.
Adam made the best pie(top left), I love it! I cooked the vegi(top right) and bakuteh(middle). Kes made the choux with chocolate and custard fillings(bottom left), yum!! And Adam's toasted sponge cake with xxberry fool and dark chocolate(botttom right) was good too even when I was very full already.
We played some tennis games on Xbox and watched a weird Japanese movie after the food....
To 'celebrate' Alessandro's departure back to Italy on Saturday, we went to the Deen in Northbridge for a night out. It was actually my first clubbing event in Perth.
It was great to be on the dance floor, but the blasting music was killing my ears and the smoke was killing my lung. I enjoyed it, but it's not a place to frequent for me.
Now you can even calculate the distance of the route you normally walk using this Gmap Pedometer!!
I found out that from my house to CSSE is ~160m, so my estimation of <200m is fine tuned. I can brag how close my house is to my office even better next time! Hahaha!!!
Found a very empowering question to ask myself:
Am I being the best I can be in doing whatever I'm doing now?
This week is the Postgraduate Students' Association (PSA) Research Week, there are a series of seminars about research issues related to postgraduate students, with a finale of cocktail party tomorrow night.
One of the best topic today is Dealing with the rudest question of all: 'How's your thesis going?'. One of the speakers Sajeesh, whom I know from a research workshop we attended together at the beginning of my candidature, shared with us his view on the phd life. He's very inspiring in his approach to just stick his neck out and do the thing he feels right, it's simply life oosing out of him. He got tremendous publications, even co-authored a book, started several local activity groups and even founded and chair international research group!!! But what really touch me was, there's no a sense of bragging that he's achieved so much in this 2 years as an international student in his warm and down to earth conversation.
Something he said at the very end:
What is Luck?
Luck is doing the RIGHT THING at the RIGHT PLACE on the RIGHT TIME.
I've been looking at using SVD (Singular Value Decomposition) to understand matrix components and analyse error. I had a meeting with Peter yesterday and he taught me more on it and got me very interested into really undertand what SVD really is.
So I search on the web and had a read on Singular Value Decomposition by Todd Will and watched a video lecture by Gilbert Strang in MIT. I also found some Matlab teaching codes that may be useful to help me fully appreciate some basic maths.
SVD is so useful! It's a good friend, not a threat! :)
My poor car. Need to get it fixed!
Anyone knows where to get it done cheaply?
:`(
The story was my housemate drove it to Northbridge one night. He found out the damage when he came back to the carpark!! So, no one to claim insurance from! :(
If you think Google Map is cool, Google Earth will blow you away!! Here is my house and CSSE, UWA on the 3D map.
Check it out! http://earth.google.com
Fuel price is ever increasing! I found this link on Screenshots
about the predicted economical catastrophy that will have when the fuel production of the world gets to its peak (and starts dropping) which is predicted to happen in a very near future (~10 years)!!!
Go and have a read:
Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash
The current economy and monetory systems are really not build on sustainability!! It cannot last when cheap fuel is no longer available! It's alarming!!!
I was procrastinating after dinner reading phdcomics. And I found this two songs! Pretty cool! Click on the song name to download from its original website: http://www.phdcomics.com
p.h.d records - Tajel "Closer to fine"
p.h.d records - Tajel "Who will grade your work?"
