Wing To The Beat

Several years back in the middle of a frentic project implementation week I sought for some temporal escape from tension. Being multi-lingual, songs originally in English being translated and sung in Mandarin / Cantonese / Hokkien and vice versa always cracks me up. Top it off with contemporary and top-of-the-charts tracks and I can laugh my esophagus out.

Folks, let me introduce the internationally-acclaimed and warm-hearted Kiwi singer, Wing! Also known as Wing Han Tsang, this charming lady migrated to New Zealand from Hong Kong and found a modest amount of fame by belting hits from my favorite musical, The Phantom of the Opera, Elvis, and even AC/DC. I first spotted her several years back on her website when I could sample her songs, but now you have to pay a membership fee to do that.

Wing has a unique style to singing these English songs and that always puts a smile on my face. IMHO, the best from her are "Music of the Night" and "It's Now Or Never". Now that I've rekindled my fandom for Wing, I think I'm going to buy some of her tracks.

Folks in NZ have it good. AFAIC, the IT industry is in demand there, and the environment is beautiful and peaceful. Very conducive place to relax and bring up kids. Wing is an example of a foreign talent that is mutually beneficial with the country. I'm sure she is having a good time sipping hot Earl Grey and munching Weetbix with the kids all over the porch right now.

New Zealand will probably be my earthly Promised Land. Blue skies, clear beaches and WingTunes on my Musical Fidelity Tempest. Ahh, theys beckons me...

<URL:http://www.wingtunes.com/>
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Han_Tsang>

Technorati Tags: wing, wing han tsang, wingtunes, music, songs, new zealand, phantom, musical fidelity

How You Deal With Differences

I chanced upon a local wind of discussion about the strong views of a Malaysian blogger, MENJ. He is a young man studying in a local college with very polarized opinions on several issues, including the differences between religions, gender and political figures.

<URL:http://blog.menj.org/2006/05/17/the-christian-conundrum/>

During my teenage years, I thought about the single thing that caused the world so much death, destruction, pain, wars, losses, and general discomfort. In my Christian teachings, I know that it is humankind's sins. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, committed the ultimate sin, which is to the desire to be God.

My personal theory of the cause is: difference.

Humans are blessed (but often misuse) with the power to think, to rationalize, judge, opinionate, and react. No other living thing has this much complex processing ability. Over the course of human history, we see that wars, arguments, and crime are all caused by differences.

• One man felt that Jews should be wiped out.
• The wife thinks that the husband is too lazy to do any useful work at home, but the husband thinks that he has been working too hard to provide for the wife.
• I don't have that flashy and expensive mobile phone that you're carrying, and I want to take yours.

The case of this young Malaysian writing and exerting a lot of his views on a wide scale is disturbing, to say the least. He has proven that he has been judgmental of the current Prime Minister's wife, women in general, and Christians. Several bloggers have been highlighting the potential dangers that this man can incite and personally execute.

There have been lessons in history that show us how much destruction one man can cause, if his consistent actions are not kept in check by authorities. Authorities as in, parents, social groups, and the government. Remember the Germany, Vietnam, Somalia, and most recently, Iraq.

My stand is that if you believe or oppose something fervently, keep it to yourself. The human race, and many other smaller scale groups, works best as a united and cooperating lot. We already fare very badly at managing ourselves (check with your ultimate authority, whether it is God, Allah, Buddha, human government, etc.), and we can't survive long if we have people who do not respect one another's differences.

Come on, it's already difficult enough to make a living and live a happy life.

Technorati Tags: menj, malaysia, blog, difference, discrimination, religion, sexism, danger, government, belief, respect, muslim, christian

Global handset market to reach $250 billion by 2011

Global handset market to reach $250 billion by 2011 by ZDNet's ZDNet Research -- Global wireless handset market grows 23% in 2006 and will reach $250 billion by 2011, In-Stat says. The market for wireless handsets was $110 billion in 2005. In-Stat predicts that it will grow 23%, to exceed $136 billion in 2006. It will continue to grow but at a slower rate, exceeding $250 billion in 2011. [...]

Technorati Tags: handset, mobile, wireless, phone, growth, billion, market, statistics

Da Vinci Code Movie

"... solve an ancient mystery so shocking it could shake the very foundations of society." - The Internet Movie Database

The highly-anticipated and well-debated movie of the year has arrived this week in cinemas worldwide - The Da Vinci Code. With Ron Howard directing, the film aims to visualize the words of the famous author, Dan Brown, who has been the center of issues on the relationships of Jesus Christ and how Christians have fought to protect them.

Was Christ a married man? Did he have children? Wasn't he the anointed Son of God? Does Dan whip himself often?

Brown stated that his story is a fictional one but is based on actual facts. I've watched a BBC documentary that impartially sought to verify the facts, but none were. My take on this point is that Brown has successfully won more fame and readership, whether he is telling the truth or not. And it's so lame to have his main characters being able to solve every ancient and mysterious puzzle and clue to save the human society. Blah.

As a Christian, I'm offended by the kind of ideas that Brown is trying to entertain and sell to our guillible generation of people. It could have been any other religion or culture and the end results would be the same (remember Salman Rushdie). What I would like to emphasize, among all the flurry of criticism and jabbering about the movie, book and Tom's ridiculous hairline, is the unprecedented amount of interest in the subject of Christianity. This, to me, is a significant Truth. I'll leave it at that.

I don't support the story and everything related to it (except the cool puzzles like those in Zork!), so I'm going to encourage you to keep an open mind and react soundly. As for me, I won't be watching the flick on the big screen. ;)



Links yo!

<URL:http://www.sodarktheconofman.com/>
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Brown>
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Rushdie>

Technorati Tags: da vinci code, dan brown, hanks, howard, movie, christianity, christ, bible, jesus

Things Are Heating Up

Do you realize that Year 2005 was full of weird natural disasters and Just Generally Bad News? Did you feel it was significantly hotter and uncomfortable throughout the year and even until today? Remember these?

• Hurricane Katrina
• Asian Tsunami
• Influenza
• Rising Oil Prices
• Reclining Animal Populations
• African Droughts
  

Earth is going overtime and getting overused. We have been taking too much and too quickly from it that our ocean food supplies are depleting, sea levels are increasing, energy prices are increasing, more people are starving and getting sick, more disasters occurring in the last decade than in the entire last century. Time is running out for us and our children if we want to continue our human existence on Earth.

Energy demand and supply is one of the root issues of the environmental problems. Because of our growing need of energy, the Earth and our wallets are exploited. Prices of transportation, food, healthcare, public services increase. At the same time, most of us have been ignoring alternative and renewable energy sources, such as solar and chemical recycling.

I drive an automatic petrol car in the city, the Honda City 1.5 VTEC. Among many other reasons, I chose this car because of its fuel efficiency (15KM/L average) and low environmental emissions. The next car my family will drive and what I'll recommend to others to buy will be hybrid cars. Such cars use less petrol and emit less junk into the atmosphere, and will help in our monthly expenses.

Here are some tips on how you can save using petrol in your vehicles:

• Don't run the engine idle for more than two minutes.
• Do pump fuel early in the morning or at night when the fuel is more dense.
• Don't lose the fuel cap.
• Do practise engine braking, avoid braking and accelerating unnecessarily and maintain constant speed.
• Do clean and check the air intake filter and spark plugs regularly.
• Do maintain adequate air pressure in the tyres.
• Don't carry extra weight, e.g. bags, bottles, boxes.
• Do choose a hybrid as your next vehicle.
  

On May 24 2006, an excellent movie is opening, called "An Inconvenient Truth". I've watched the trailer and true to its taglines, it shocked me. The movie will reveal and promote awareness of the effects of global warming and how crucial it is for us to take action. Watch it (instead of Mission Impossible III) and do what you can to save our existence.

<URL:http://www.climatecrisis.net/>

Technorati Tags: disaster, energy, recycle, renewable, earth, environment, warming

Know the World

When the first CD-ROM drives came out for the PC, a world of multimedia opportunities opened up. 600MB of storage was very interesting and promising, especially at the time when typical hard disk drives were about 200MB in size.

One of the most academically sound title I had was the World Book Encyclopedia published by IBM. As I grew up with a hardback range of encyclopedias at my disposal, I reckoned this CD-ROM would be a good learning tool for myself and my younger brother.

Twenty years later, the Internet has again given us the chance to enjoy a Good Thing once in a while. This is known as the Wikipedia.

Offered in various languages, this self-maintaining website contains over a million articles on many subjects around the world. Access to the articles is free and the content is provided, maintained, edited, and quality controlled by contributors and volunteer publishers. These are some of the topics covered:

• History
• Science
• Politics
• Geography
• Technology
• Current Events
• Entertainment

The great thing about Wikipedia is that the wealth of information available is unlimited, open and easily accessible. This is one of the few examples of the benefits of the electronic world that exist today.

I hope all our children will be able to study from such valuable sources and fill their minds with useful information that can enrich their lives.

If you agree with my views, support Wikipedia by promoting it to your friends and loved ones. Then, make yourself feel good by contributing in the running costs of Wikipedia. It is worth it; I did.

<URL:http://www.wikipedia.org/>
<URL:http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising>

Technorati Tags: knowledge, encyclopedia, wikipedia, news

Google Trends and Desktop

The Google machine has gave birth to two new/updated services: Google Trends and Google Desktop.

Trends shows the volume of search and news of any topic over time. You could see how often you are mentioned on the web by enterting your name. So far, no one has bothered about me, but why do I still get 50+ spam mail per day?

Search concentration is also sorted city, region and language.

I did a trend comparison between Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Click here. Before Firefox 1.0 was released, interests about the browser increased tremendously. Goes to show what folks are looking for an answer to a better web experience.

Another fun search I did was this. Scroll down and click "Regions". Yeah, we Malaysians think about it all the time. :)

Google Desktop is a cool nugget of a software that I've been missing. It could replace my de-facto way of local searching (Windows+F) and aggregation of news (Serene Klipfolio). On top of that, it has the fancy photo and Google Earth integration. Yeah, you can keep your Mac, I'm still not interested.

I have an idea, maybe some of you may know that it actually exists. How about a Desktop plug-in that analyzes your computer usage patterns (frequency, duration, types of files accessed, speed and pattern of typing) and helps you organize information and pop you new presentations of your data. I've always been impressed with the cool crap flying around computer interfaces in movies like Minority Report and I, Robot. I think I've read about it before and it is being developed by an upstart using some natural algorithms.

Here are the links:

<URL:http://www.google.com/trends>
<URL:http://desktop.google.com/>

Oh, while you're fiddling with these goodies from Google, don't forget to buy a lot or two:

<URL:http://finance.google.com/finance?q=GOOG&btnG=Search>

Technorati Tags: google, trends, desktop, software

Cleaning The World, One Robot At A Time

If you ever watched Wallace and Gromit or Inspector Gadget, you'll remember how fun it is to build machines to help you in daily life. Something like Woof the Dog, who not only fetches your newspapers and eats your shoes, but something that can do a chore so that you can relax and rot.

Keeping the house floors clean is a tough chore. You bend down, soak in the humid sweat and dust of it all to whack a stick on the floor to clean it. Now, what if you had one of this?


Meet Roomba, from iRobot. The answer to my laziness and more time for my family and Half Life 2. Only about 2 inches tall, this humble little plastic robot scoots around using two rubber wheels and a whole lot of infrared sensors. Its butt is one sucking machine where the rubbish is stored. Can you vacuum the living room for one hour? Roomba can, and will cover places more than once and where you can't reach easily without losing a vertebrae or two.

I ordered one American Roomba and have been using it in my 220VAC home for a few weeks. The adapter works with 110VAC, so I had to put a 220/110VAC 80W transformer between it and the wall socket. Both of these components are warm to touch and are quite a messy sight.

If your area has 220VAC, you can either use a AC transformer like me, or replace a capacitor with a higher voltage rating in the circuit board inside. For details, check out RoombaReview.

Now the schedule for Roomba (haven't got a warm fuzzy name for him) is:

1. Clean living room daily in the morning after the family goes out
2. Clean entire second floor every third day in the evening when we return
3. Clean kitchen twice a week whenever Roomba feels more free

My regular vacuuming has been reduced to keyboards, vertical corners, car upholstery and tabletops. Not too bad for USD200+ :)

Think about it. Wouldn't life be even more sweet if we had these?

• Toiletba
• Showerba
• Feedba
• Windowba
• Nappyba
• Toyba
• Moneyba

My vote goes to Toiletba. It will keep me busy as I have my snacks while I'm making the big ones.

Technorati Tags: irobot, roomba, vacuum, house, chores, 220v

Firefox Into the Sky!

Firefox 1.5.0.3 is out. Take it and sock it to Mr Gate's face.

I personally use these extensions. Give them a try here.

• Adblock Plus
• Adsense Notifier
• Download Statusbar
• Fasterfox
• Google Web Accelerator
• ReloadEvery
• SessionSaver
• Update Channel Selector
• User Agent Switcher

Mozilla Firefox is a much better web browsing experience. Just like how you felt when you sit in your colleague's bigger car.

Technorati Tags: firefox, mozilla, browser, extensions