Harvey Norman 15cents digital 4R print is back! Yeah!! I just went there this afternoon and printed 80 photos which I prepared last time but missed out last time.
It's half price!! Until 28/5/2006.
I may go back for more. Haha!!
Check out their website to confirm if you like:
Harvey Norman
Google launch another interesting tool Google Trends
Shih Ching told us that and we tried some searches like Beijing 2008, terrorism, bali, etc. and Perth turned out quite high in the ranking!!
Then even more absurd is when I tried searching for mahathir, Batu Pahat came out as the top?! A small town in Johor, not even the capital, why is that? Does Batu Pahat has a national internet exchange or what?
By the way, it's not the number of search but the ratio of number of search divided by the total search give the ranking. So, I guess it's because that's the thing that we are familiar with and search, that's why it's the "trend" in town...
I'm reading David Suzuki's books "The sacred balance" and "Naked apes to super species" and came across this document it mentioned in the books.
1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity
I went to AMWA luncheon at Satay Fiesta at Mt Pleasant. Today's event is general network plus meeting with actor Craig Fong.
Craig is born and raised in WA but spent his past 10 years in Asia (mainly KL) as an actor/tv host. He recently also published 3 books on romance titled "The adventure of Jerry and Jane".
His highest profile movie is Entrapment that's shot in KL twin tower by Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Can't remember there's this Craig Fong guy in that movie? Or don't even know this movie? Haha! I knew this movie but don't remember Craig is in it. He shared a brief moment with Catherine Zeta-Jones as a character (kaylayfair?) Cage.
He's got another better movie which he played lead called Spinning Gasing (a Malaysian production) which won some awards. A nice guy, pretty charming in real person too.
The satay and curry at Satay Fiesta is great too. I like it. And if you had read this and wonder if it's vegetarian, no it's not. It's my first big chuck of meat in 2 weeks. Tasty! But I was very sleepy later on when I got back to office. :P
The owner of the small Satay Fiesta is a light hearted uncle, Teddy Lim. He used to be a lawyer, now retired to Perth and started running this satay place since last year. Cool uh!
Got a photo with Craig, maybe can show off later when he really become famous!! Wish you best of luck, Craig! 
More photos are at AMWA Photo Gallery.
I was plotting some graph in MATLAB (R14) and was using the Show/Hide Plot Tool button.
When I toggled between show and hide plot, suddenly the mouse pointer become a smiley face!!! 
I later found that I need to use the Rotate 3D function first, then toggle show and hide plot for it to happen. Is it an easter egg in Matlab? It's funny.
In order to get this screenshot, I tried to use PrintScreen but the very mouse cursor that I want is not included in the captured image. So I did a quick search and found ACA Capture, a shareware that does the job.
More screen capture softwares can be found on download-by.net.
I'm obsessed with 3D modelling! And the new Sketch Up 3D modelling software released by Google is a great tool to use. It's a lot easier to model than anim8or I used before. Though it lacks the precise dimension and placement functionality in this version (not sure if it is included in the comercial version), general modeling of house and stuffs is pretty easy. And it has some sample texture that is good enough to make the model look real in an hour or first trial.
I started learning it and tried modeling my old house in Malaysia from memory. It turned out to be very satisfying. Simple, clean and the file size is manageable (~1MB) so far.
Here are some picture of it to show off my ~15hours of work.
Same view but different rendering modes
Non-perspetive view of floor plan and standard engineering drawign views
A view from my parents' room into the living room. Doors, windows and furniture haven't been modelled.
I'll have to stop being so obsessed with it otherwise my phd will be at stake. No more suicidal 5 hours straight late night modelling!!! Good night.
I was coding up perspective transformation for my research and it turns out to be quite handy at doing my own photos.
When you take a photo of a painting or some flat pattern on the wall or on the floor, it's never easy to line up perfectly perpendicular to the object, so the result is usually a slightly side-on view. The square is slightly skewed and circle not really round.
Here's what it does.
Original photo:
Rectified and cropped version of the artwork from my grandma. 
It's very useful for getting texture to put on 3D models. More on this later.
I shall post the matlab source code to my matlab page when it's up to release standard.
It's unreal!
Imagine on the bank of Swan River, second floor fine restaurant besides the Bell Tower.
Imagine beautiful basmati rice, spicy curry, fresh vegetables, fine indian cuisine.
Imagine endless helpings, eat to your heart's content.
How much do you think a meal like that will cost you?
On the front page of Annalakshmi brochure it writes
Eat
to your heart's content and
pay
what your heart feels
You cannot put a price on the food prepared by a mother or a wife, and this is why at Annalakshmi you - eat as you like and pay as you feel.
This is the Welcome back to Perth present I get (stuck on my wall) from Shih Ching and Danno. It does look like me if I am to appear in South Park. Haha! My 'lightning' yellow jumper, yellow nike cap (it'd be perfect if the tick is there), and my green pants. And yes, I'm too lazy to shave every day.
I like it, I like it a lot, it's a good picture.
You can draw one for yourself at South Park Studio.
