I'm going to China again

With the same people, I'm off to Shanghai again tonight (or tomorrow morning) at 2am. I'll be back on 11/12.

I may post some photos here if I have the time there.

My new camera phone

I can't believe it. But it is true. I upgraded my mobile phone from the Nokia 3315 which I have been using for 3 years to the SonyEricsson K800i. I got it on Tuesday afternoon, posted straight from Hong Kong, after I bought it off ebay a week ago. Yeah, from winning the bid to getting it takes 7 days. I thought it's alright.

It's bundled with an extra battery, car charger, 512MB M2 memory and a plastic case that makes it looks like it can go underwater. And it is brown colour instead of the normal black.

I'm happy with it so far, the camera is freaking awesome! And it's pretty light too, comsidered it's a 3.2MP Sony Cybershot camera. But the battery only lasted me playing with it for a day and needed to recharge. Recharging takes about 2 hours from 10% to full.

Heaps of features that I haven't got around playing with them yet. But I'm excited and pretty happy with it. :D

Haven't got the software and drivers installed with my computer yet, so I can't judge how good the picture really is on screen, and I can't transfer any songs to it to enjoy yet.

Daylight saving for WA

Western Australia is introducing daylight saving for a trial period commencing December 3, 2006 for 3 years, with the period shown below:

2 a.m. on 3 December 2006 - 2 a.m. on 25 March 2007
2 a.m. on 28 October 2007 - 2 a.m. on 30 March 2008
2 a.m. on 26 October 2008 - 2 a.m. on 29 March 2009

Note: Both the start and end time are specified in standard time, so the end time is 3 am daylight saving time.

So Perth will be 1 hour ahead of Malaysia during daylight saving time. And there'll be more daylight in the evening.

For people in WA, here's a link to fix up your MS Windows system clock.


Update:
Just stumbled upon a post last year that I actually wished for Daylight saving:

It's almost summer now. It's broad daylight by 5:30am! It rather strange to be driving on such a bright day and have very light traffic. W.A should have daylight saving!! Then I can play basketball or go jogging till 8pm and still see. :P
posted by Tzu Yen at 3:50 PM Saturday, November 19, 2005

The 25 Funniest Analogies

Thanks to Phil for the overdose of my daily laughter today.
The 25 Funniest Analogies

I really like the contrast between the serious and elegent language usage the first half and then the analogy that follows which I can totally relate to but just so wrong in the context. Good laugh!

PhD comics vs nick

Haha! This reminds me of Nick's last year Yanchep Talk - You found out someone did the research you're doing and "cry like a baby". Also couple of months ago I got comments from my supervisors that my research results seem like good screen saver, I must be close to finishing based on Nick's talk again. Haha!

Sad truth about Malaysia

My fellow Malaysia countrymen should read this:
While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry
by Michael Backman. Thanks Albert for pointing it to me.

Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city — Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.

Why? Because Malaysia's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 — that's just five years away.

So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.

It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.

That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid).

Update: Michael Backman had a follow up that gives a bit more of context of where he was coming from.
Read here

One twenty is back with new cleaner look

Planet onetwenty is back with new cleaner look. I like it. And finally my blog is rendered properly without all the tags being exposed.

There is a feed that Nick put together as well. Mostly graphics or techy stuffs. I thought PhD comics should make it to the feeds.

What The Bleep Do We Know

I was looking at an email about What The Bleep Do We Know and google ads on the side lured me to these sites:

Know that by which everything else is known. Maharishi University, USA
Maharishi University of Management
Watching What The Bleep Do We Know? Change the world with us on Zaadz!
http://www.zaadz.com/


Interesting sites, but I'm a bit skeptical though. Transcendental Meditation on MUM is interesting. There are good pointers to good enlightening books on zaadz, and movies like Matrix, V for vendetta are among the most liked movies in that community. Cool.

Wikimapia

Danno pointed this out to me. It's really cool! Now the map really comes alive!

And I'm delighted that my search on my hometown Yong Peng returned the correct place. And I quickly added some places I can make out from that birds-eye resolution.

Fantastico!

Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II - The Domino Effect

The guys from EepyBird are back, with 251 bottles of Diet Coke and over 1,500 Mentos mints. In Experiment #137, they did a mint-powered version of the Bellagio fountains. This time, it's one giant Coke & Mentos chain reaction that has to be seen to be believed.

See here for the science behind.

Hobart live webcam

Live webcam of Hobart, Tasmania.



Oh, so much memories there.