Hectic New Year Eve

Today's 31 December... the last day of 2009. Normally, I would feel the New Year mood but not this time. Seemed like a very hectic day. Work wise, most definitely. Other than that, when my colleagues and I had lunch, the traffic was terrible. Cars were lining up in long queues.

Friends asked where I would be celebrating this day later tonight. Told them I would be at home. Really am not feeling like being part of the crowd all over the place. I suppose to those out there, it must be fun but for me... the crowd, the jams... are all way too stressful. I shall be spending some quiet time later at home... at most, maybe have a drink or two with family nearby.

To the rest of you adventurous people, have a Happy New Year!

So Un-Streamyx

I got my Streamyx bill last week and thought I should call their customer service to upgrade to 1Mbps (fyi I'm currently using the minimal 512kbps package) via their Super Upgrade Deals promotion so I dialed 100 on my house phone (CAUTION! If you dial 100 with your mobile phone, it's RM3!).

The experience was terrible. The customer service end obviously did not have a clue about this promotion and did not know if I can upgrade via the phone at all! First, after getting my details, she just asked me to wait and wait and wait while she claimed to call up my details on her system. And then, she asked someone how to upgrade for me. She told me I need to physically go to a TM Point. I asked again if I can upgrade through the phone and then she went and asked someone again. Then she started to give me a link to do it. Sigh.

I proceeded to go online and find out myself and just before the confirmation page to upgrade there appeared a clause that said I will be on contract for 24 months should I upgrade. I paused and thought a while... and then decided to cancel my application. @$%#@%

This must be a way that TM is tying us up from going to other competitors. I can feel that the competition is heating up and within these 2 years, there should be some nice packages. My eyes are on DiGi. I'm not so mad about that terrible 100 customer service now. Without that happening, I might already have upgraded via the phone! GASP! Horrors!

Holy Macaroni Predictive Text Input II

I've got my fair share of Christmas wishes via SMS over the past 2 days. To be polite, I reply to almost all of them but in actual fact I find it irritating. I can't help feeling that people just send/forward the same greetings by adding a whole bunch of recipients into the SMS. Now that's not very meaningful is it?

Doesn't matter. Am not posting about that. I just want to let you know that I found another dangerous predictive text word that may send the wrong message if I didn't check my SMS before sending it out. The word was "Merry". It came out as "Messy" first and if I just typed without looking at the screen and just click send... it would become something like "Have a very Messy Christmas".

Hope that you did not have a messy one yesterday. :)

Previously, related: Holy Macaroni Predictive Text Input

INSANE: Lightning Fast Auto Focus

How in the world could anyone auto focus on a flying ball like this?
Miraculously via The Big Picture.

RED ALERT! Mega-Cute Panda Cub Detected!

Is it even possible that I not post these images here? So cuuuuuuuuuuuuuute! Panda lovers rejoice!
via Cute Overload.

Here's another - a panda and its cub. Not put in here because Pixdaus tends to expire their embedded images after sometime.

Klang Valley Public Transport Efficiency Improvement Attempt #9,999,999?

Most certainly not as many times as that, but surely this is 10 millionth attempt to make our public transport system better. This time around, it is back to bus lanes, dedicated ones with barriers so that other cars can't access it. From the news article, it seems these lanes will also be extensions instead of just marking an existing lane on the road as a bus lane.

There're also some vague stuff about some bus rapid transit Corridor One, Two and Three and buses utilising some under utilised expressways to Kuala Lumpur with minimal stops along the way.

The Kelana Jaya LRT line will also see 26 new 4-car trains (and all these while I thought the tracks couldn't take anything more than 2!!! Shame, shame!) next year with 35 more to follow in 2011. The Ampang line will see 14 new trains (damn, I thought the Ampang line was the same as the Kelana Jaya line). The much talked about Subang LRT line will also be completed though no time frame was given as to when it will be completed but the way it was put, it seems like 2011. I didn't know the Subang LRT line was being built! Must have missed the news some where.

There are also improvements to the KTM Komuter electric trains with 15 refurbished additions by 2011 and a total of 80 by 2012 from the current 20+.

Touch 'n Go users will get discounted fares from all operators. Yay! And finally, the puzzling one from the special adviser to the Transport Ministry, Mohamad Nur: Drivers with outstanding summonses would be refused road tax renewals next year to reduce the number of vehicles on the road. Looks like a significant number of drivers never pay summonses.

Source: The Star Online News

New Header Graphics

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, folks! Just put up a new header graphics for my blog for some seasonal ambiance.

Holy Macaroni Predictive Text Input

Excuse me for the incoherent title but that was what came up when I was trying to think of a subject for this post. I always send SMSes using predictive text input. On a few occassions, I sent SMSes with the intended word "on" in it but the first choice for my Sony Ericsson T303's predictive text is "no". So, sometimes I type too fast and usually ignore the screen and just send out the SMSes. The recipients will occassionally call or SMS to confirm if it whatever appointment that I typed was ON or OFF. :P

Conclusion: I need a phone with a QWERTY keyboard!

Joy for African Children

Previously, Nokia and UNICEF worked together through the greeting cards promotion to build schools for cyclone-hit Myanmar. This year, they are once again at it again for the Schools for Africa initiative. For every card opened (I would suppose by the intended recipient), Nokia will make a donation to UNICEF. So, please, if you were to send an e-card this year, use this Nokia one even if it means helping them to promote the brand. ;)
Click on to http://www.nokia.com/sa1/seasonGreetingsweb/index.jsp to send the e-card. You get to listen to a jingle and you can shake the globe for some glitter.

via Nokia Conversations.

A video at what you could help give the African children:

All in the name of Christmas

Shopping malls all over are geared up for Christmas. Visited Tropicana Mall yesterday and here is how it looks like:

Larger, more complete photo at Twitpic.

Holy Cool Wedding Vows!

These must be the coolest wedding vows any geeky gamers could ever think of!
via Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Nature's White

Previously, I've blogged about a pigment deficient white tiger, white lion cubs, and a white alligator. LIFE has got a collection of these and more:

Strangely, while typing the word "albino" in the Google search bar, "Albino Blacksheep" came up top of the suggestion list. It's a website of humorous and fun stuff mostly in Flash, apparently. A quick browse came up with a what if YouTube video... what if Earth has rings like Saturn:

A Tonne of CO2 in a Cube

Ever wondered how much is a tonne of carbon dioxide in the form of a cube? It's 27 feet high, 27 feet wide and 27 feet deep. Represented here in Copenhagen... just in time for that climate meet, I suppose:

via Treehugger.

Lets take a look at CNN's insight into Pixar

Hello, people! Check out CNN's visit to Pixar Studios. A visit to John Lasseter's office was most enlightening and for the first time, I see the creative man moving in a video. Ok, before this, I didn't even know what he looked like. :P It's really interesting to see how all these really cool American companies treat their employees to some really really nice facilities and lepak places. Hello Malaysian companies! When are we gonna get some?

via The Pixar Blog.

Earthquake in Malaysia?

I still remember my Geography lessons during my what-seemed-like-an-eternity-ago school days where we had this world map with lots of dots and indications of volcanoes and earthquake zones. A teacher or two (or a few? Can't really remember) made us feel thankful that Malaysia is (was?) miraculously surrounded by but NOT within these dots and indications. Malaysia is also rich in natural minerals and petroleum.

Since our country do (did?) not suffer from volcanoes and earthquakes, we would be a perfect place for living and commerce, yeah? A haven for almost everything, I would say. We should be a prosperous country by now. I wonder why we are only moderate now.

Ahem, anyways, it seems like our days of earthquake free is over. According to The Star Online, a 2.2 mild earthquake was detected in Bukit Tinggi. Earthquakes at other countries like Indonesia also caused tremours in our land. Even if we could survive these, we still have to face the brain drain issue... something not to be taken lightly, definitely.

What a lot of Nokia news!

Amazing. I've never heard of so much news about and around Nokia within a few weeks! Maybe this is some publicity stunt! Anyhow, while Nokia's mobile phone market share faces erosion, and while the company starts suing Apple and LCD manufacturers, there are rumours circulating that the company will drop Symbian for Maemo (for its smartphones, at least) in the not too distant future. The company had since vaguely attempt to quash these rumours.

Just as I was about to hit the sack, I stumbled upon Engadget's and All About Maemo's post about Nokia's commitment for next year, and beyond: Two product milestones for each half of 2010, revamp Symbian UI, new Maemo 6 mobile computer (I wonder what definitions of mobile computer are used here... a mobile computer device like N900 or a mobile computer like a netbook?) and more dedication to improve the consumer experience. Here's a link to Nokia's official press release.

To round off this post, there's also a rumour of a capacitive touchscreen replacement for the N86 coming. This rumoured Symbian device may also feature a 12 megapixel camera and 480x800 resolution screen. Maybe this is one of the milestones that Nokia was talking about? WHISTLE!

Lotus F1 Team Numbered 18 and 19

What better way to start my first post for the last month of the year than to talk about our magnificent multi-million dollar Formula 1 team! Our 1Malaysia F1 team is officially named Lotus F1. At first, I thought it would be called the 1Malaysia F1 team but I suppose it would be damn lame and it should not remind that the team is funded by Malaysians.
I must say, that is one damn cool looking car but I don't know how it will look when the sponsor stickers are all up. Anyway, The Star Online reports that our team had been given the numbers 18 and 19, putting them ahead of the other new teams. Ho! Ho! Ho! I guess this does signify something and Christmas is just around the corner!

No drivers were announced yet but our very own Fairuz Fauzy (ok, I'm not a racing fan so I don't know who he is) is expected to be the reserve driver while rumour has it that Jarno Trulli, Kamui Kobayashi, Takuma Sato and Jacques Villenueve are in the running as the two drivers. Yeah, I also don't know who the rest of these people are either. Apologies.

Bubbles Macro

"Bubble" Tea
Originally uploaded by IonBuck.

Noticed these nice bubbles... actually, I really only noticed the big bubble... right after someone poured the Chinese tea into my cup. I've just got to snap this and so I did. :)

Sand Dams, the miracle that I've only now heard of...

The kinds of dams that most people reading this blog and myself know are megastructures that require flooding a lot of places with abundant water. Sand dams, however, are really different and I've only heard of this from a Treehugger article.

These dams consist of low concrete walls about 3 to 16 feet high, across small rivers that stop flowing during the dry season. Sand from erosion during the wet season will collect behind these walls and act as sponges, storing up to 40% of water which will proof useful to the locals during the dry season. These may sound primitive and low tech to some but I would think this is actually an intelligent way of harvesting water with minimum damages to the environment. A miracle indeed, especially, for nations like Africa.

The article and the video below also mentioned the amount of conservation work to reverse the effects of global warming in Africa compared to loud mouth world leading countries. Trees were planted over the course of 25 years and the effect of increased precipitation is becoming evident with a more productive ecosystem in the making.

via Treehugger.

Smartphones, Dumb Thoughts 2

After recovering from an outburst of smartphone lust, I am now back again with those thoughts. This time, it stemmed from my attempt to get some reading materials to fit into my ancient PDA for use during my endless graveyard shifts. It all began last night... or was it the night before (I am starting to realise that night shifts have the same effects of too much time travel)?

I was surfing the net looking for reading materials that could last me through the wee hours of morning and found some so I converted them to PDF with this really cool PDFCreator (which incidentally is free). At that point in time, I was praising my intelligence in being able to think of such a thing. Who would want to bring newspapers, magazines or books around to read these days, right? Ahem, that is another story.

Anyway, I continued my brilliant idea by further transferring these PDF files to my ancient PDA with a screen size of 240x320 or 320x240 (depending how you want to hold it). Brought it to the work place and after much stress in organising stuffs and listening to advise and 'advise', I sat down for some electronic reading. Aaah... clicked on one of the files and mobile Adobe Reader launched.

Clicked on the "a" icon so that Adobe can help judge to display the best text size for reading. And then, I realised that screen resolution IS and will ALWAYS be important. We need to be really greedy for screen resolution. 320x240 is simply not adequate. I needed to pan the stuff from left to right and right to left after reading halfway of EVERY sentence. Did I tell you that I got dizzy after 20 minutes of Cloverfield and had to leave? No? Check out my bud and my experience here.

Thankfully, I was too damn confused with the timeline and lack of sleep that I did not feel dizzy with the panning this time around. I laboured through one article. But this is reason enough for me to make a sequel to the first Smartphones, Dumb Thoughts... While the devil in me is tempted to go out and just purchase a Nokia E72, this very problem of screen resolution asset is holding me back. To what end will it last? When will I be able to find a balance between an affordable and big resolution smartphone?

I reckon this issue would never have come up if those blardy phone manufacturers could ONLY make phones that are just phones. I hold you all responsible for this unnecessary stress occupying my limited grey matter!

Large Hadron Collider ready to restart - The Big Picture - Boston.com

It is interesting to note that our doomsday machine is really this complicated. I still couldn't imagine how a lot of people managed to build this when in my job, it is so hard to get everyone to agree on just a design. HMPH! But no worries. The doomsday machine is gonna expedite 2012 to some time really soon.
Large Hadron Collider ready to restart - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Posted using ShareThis

Light Freeze

Scientists are at it again, this time feeding some light sensitive chemicals into transparent worms. Once exposed to ultraviolet light, the chemicals turn blue and the worms will cease to move. A burst of normal light later, the worms are back in action again. What sounded like humans trying their hands at being God actually had more noble intentions.

The scientists hope to be able to develop drugs that can be switched on and off by light for humans. The drugs can be distributed evenly throughout the body and be activated (and deactivated) only at the intended location by shining the light with the appropriate wavelength.

via National Geographic News.

I think I will give this a miracles tag.

@#%$ Monday!!!

Mondays are bad, we all know that but this one is exceptionally bad! Began the day with stressful problems that required running here and there, calling this and that, phone calls streaming in from left, right, center, and found out about something important involving external parties that was not communicated. I think tonight I will be dreaming about some of these, too.

Gosh. If this is a sampling of what's to come, I'd be totally burn out in no time. I will be shouting goodbye cruel world and, hopefully, land on some really evil baddy's head who will break my fall.

Good thing that there's this blog here which I can voice it all out. Now I am feeling a tad better. Aaah... deep breath, deep breath. Oh, lunch time is near. Goody.

Blardy Queue Jumping Car

This is happening a lot lately. My last post about this kind of shit was some months back and it so happened yesterday that everything was well and safe to take out the mobile phone and snap this #%$#@:

Ingenious Smart Eaters

Yup. This is how most of us smart people eat. We gobble and then we stop when there's only one piece of the stuff left.

Ada Air Kah? Got Water Or Not?

Dear fellow blog readers from Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya,

While checking out SYABAS' website for water disruption in my area, I found out that SYABAS (Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn. Bhd.), through its PUSPEL customer service thing (correct me if I'm wrong because I really don't know what PUSPEL means but from the website, it seems to be customer service), actually provide tweet updates of water related issues in the above areas.

Fascinating.

ps. Here's their Twitter site: http://twitter.com/puspel <<<<< Embarrassing of me to have forgotten to include this link on my first post.

So much bad luck...

Did you know that (besides the usual suspects)

• putting your left foot on the floor after waking up from bed (???),
• walking under a ladder,
• spilling salt (!!!),
• opening an umbrella indoors,
• leaving your purse on the floor (?!?),
• seeing an owl during the day,
• dropping a knife and picking it up (!?!) and
• placing a hat on the bed

all contribute to bad luck? No wonder our world will end at the end of 2012.

Digital Camera Innovation - Modular Ricoh GXR

Thought Micro Four Thirds would be the only technological innovation for digital interchangeable lens cameras? Not anymore. There's a leak about Ricoh's upcoming modular digital camera where the whole lens-cum-sensor is interchangeable. In the following video, the dude changed from a 24-70mm lens with a 10 megapixels CCD sensor capable of only recording VGA video to a 50mm macro lens with 12.3 megapixels CMOS sensor that could record in HD! Another advantage will be dust free despite many change overs. Rumours of rumours say that Ricoh also plan to attach a printer and/or a projector so that the body itself could print and/or project without any lens and sensor.

And if you think it's expensive, you are right! The camera body retails for US$703, while the macro and zoom lens + sensors cost US$1,004 and US$502, respectively. Innovation sometimes come at a price... in the beginning, at least.

via Crave.

Musical Fountain Galore in Dubai

This could yet be the best musical fountain I've ever seen... not that I've seen many... in fact, I don't remember seeing one... but yeah, this is the best yet. And interestingly, it was filmed using a professional Canon DSLR - the 5D MkII. The clarity of the video was great. The best got better halfway through. Enjoy. :)

via Dark Roasted Blend.

Taylor Swift and President Barack Obama - Motions Captured!

I should be sleeping but because my body is tuned to working the graveyard shift, I am still here blogging... something which I've not been doing much lately. I think it could be the Bad Ass Coffee working or it could be the long, deep sleep I had for the most part of yesterday.

I'm proud to say that I've found a rare similarity between Taylor Swift and President Barack Obama - they both got fitted with billions of motion sensors on their bodies:

President Obama photo via the ONION.

The Inglorious Bad Ass Basterds

At last, after a long lapse of movie-less weekends, tonight I managed to catch Inglourious Basterds with my buds and I was quite impressed with the movie. In fact, I've always been impressed with Quentin Tarantino movies. My favourite one is in fact the one with him in it, with a hole in his hand. I went in to watch the movie expecting the usual kind of ending (spoiler ahead, skip the red italics if you don't want your movie experience to be a potong steam one) that one would expect of attempts to kill the Fuhrer but came out pleasantly surprised.

Coincidentally, as if basterds is not vulgar enough we had some Bad Ass Coffee before the movie and that, too, was quite impressive:
Quite a masterpiece of a night, actually. :)

The Need for Handsfree

To start off this post, I would like to share with you my experience in the male toilet earlier today. As I went in, I saw a bloke skilfully balancing an opened laptop with his left hand while at the same time (I assumed as I did not go any nearer to investigate this matter) holding his wee wee with his right hand at the urinal. Besides proof that he is right handed (I learnt this from the movie Gattaca), it is also obvious why there are articles that say keyboards (in this case, the laptop keyboard) have plenty more germs than a toilet seat.

If he had to work while peeing, obviously, plenty of us would need to Google hands-free style. The brilliant people at Google Mobile have just the solution for us all - voice recognition search:

Very gently, 吃香蕉

I used Google translator to translate the above title using the English version of eat banana. And people, don't laugh, this is my not very successful attempt in making a couple of bananas with Blender:
Initially, it was a white background but that didn't work out. Did the texture myself with Gimp. Ok, ok, you can stop laughing now. HMPH! YAK CHIU!

J. Co Goes Pop

Accidentally discovered something new while passing by J. Co donuts - the J. Pops baby donuts:
There are 12 flavours, 2 each and cost RM17.15 before tax. I was expecting all of them to be sweet but nope - some are salty. I must say, I didn't like all of them. I did not even know which flavour was which. :P

Jeans are in, but for the future it's...

A good many decades ago, jeans were synonymous with labour but the comfortable trousers soon become fashion until today. Who would have predicted this? And who would have predicted that leaders around the world are wearing jeans for official meetings? What is next after jeans?

Lets do some analysis here:

1. Men have been exposing their moustaches for centuries and are labeled sexy.
   
2. Some even have beards.
3. There is the issue of global warming.

Concluding here, exposing facial hair is good, so why not expose hair from the legs, too? And wear shorts? Yes! I predict that up next, people will meet in shorts, exposing their (hairy) legs (some men do not have hairy legs and some women do, so this goes for both sexes) in official functions.

Discover The Other Side

Have a look at the other part of this world where we normal people would almost never have known existed. From a praying mantis eating out of a hummingbird to a hawk against a whole army of bats, from the nasty river full of humanity's work to a dead bird's stomach full of our creations, and, not the least, our genetic experimentation on mice versus nature's mutation on a pig, you most definitely would like to skip your lunch. Enjoy the strange, the odd, and the gross.
via treehugger.

The Ingenious Dynamic Duo

I'm totally embarrassed to admit that I was too lazy to come out with this latest ingenious post about our top two representatives of this country's Chinese community. From what I recalled (stand to be corrected), the two guys sort of made a pact to act professionally after they won their seats in the party (fyi, their dislike for each other is common knowledge). They promised to bring back the confidence that the community had lost in the party.

So, we thought all went well until some months ago, the number two got fired for being an ex-porn star. Then, the top guy became the fall guy when conspiracy after conspiracy dragged him to a no confidence vote during an urgent extraordinary meeting. A week later, these two released press statements that they will now work together for the greater good of the party. I was like... huuuuuuuuh? That is ingenuity I could not comprehend because their action rendered the voting committee in the party useless. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

On the bright side, I suppose they should be happy that they do not have a carnivorous dude in their party.

Women in World War II

Here is something we seldom hear or read about but well worth the mention: the contributions of women in WWII:

You Do It Myyyyy Wayyyyyy...

What is the secret to serenity? Your way is the wrong way because you really should do it my way which is not your way and you are sure to be confused your way because my way is not your way but THE way.
via Non Sequitur GoComics.

The Smart Bump

USA Today thought that speed bumps are common in Mexico - wait till they come check out suburban Malaysia. A challenger has emerged! Anyway, as a general consensus, speed bumps are meant to reduce vehicle speeds and occasionally amuse us when a vehicle would fly over one (and with us as the driver or passenger). The article seemed to raise a similarity, too, about residents in Mexico and Malaysia that got fed up and built their own speed bumps.

Because of the terrible wear and tear of braking upon deceleration and the greenhouse gases that cars emit after passing the bump, a company in Mexico developed smart speed bumps. These intelligent ones will flatten itself if the approaching car is within speed limits but will not hesitate to rear its evil hump if the car is over the limit.
via Fast Company via USA Today.

Ultraman Movie!

I suppose those that I grew up with would know the Japanese Ultramen. The huge superheroes that fight against equally huge monsters would crash into hills and buildings that appeared to be kinda real during my childhood. I was totally surprised at how fake they were when I occasionally revisited the series.

I am glad that the franchise still exists, though I do not know what incarnation it had gone through. It was interesting to find out from dannychoo.com that an ex-Japanese prime minister voiced Ultraman King in the latest Ultraman movie called Ginga Densetsu.
It was also a pleasant surprise to see that the movie is graphically superior to what I always thought Ultraman to be:

Do you like chatting with people wearing dark sunglasses?

Just had this idea to blog about after a Twitter chat with someone I followed. It all began when all the people that I was following in Twitter do not have their profile pictures showing. I somehow managed to use "talking to people who are wearing sunglasses" as an analogy.

Over my lifetime, I've talked to many people who are wearing sunglasses at that time. Sometimes, it is ok, but sometimes, I felt awkward. I never knew if they were looking at me or were looking some where else or were sleeping and I had this image in my mind of them without their sunglasses, talking to me but looking elsewhere at all times. Do you get the drift? However, I don't seem to mind if we were talking under bright sunlight (probably because I could see their eyes in that condition) but if we were talking in a shaded area or in a room... even Horatio doesn't do that!

What do you think? Got a little poll on the sidebar of this blog for you to click.

IonBuck and His One Minor Success at Subang Airshow

After so many fail photos of heads, exhausts and mighty camera phones, here's one that I have to like (to console myself that at least I got a keeper of sorts):

@%#$@%!!! I blame it on the crowd, I blame it on the slow focus speed of my camera, I blame it on the slow electronic viewfinder. Aaaah... after complaining, I am feeling better now. Time to dig a hole and hide. Ta!

The Mutha of all Heels?

I'm totally attracted to women with heels... normal heels (remember, wearing heels can be bad for your legs) but not weird heels like the one above (via Yahoo!) nor the ones below and under the below:

Saturn's Supersized Ring - A New Discovery

Check out how super this SUPERSIZE ring is!
The reason why it was not discovered till now was the ring can only be detected with infra-red devices and no one had looked for it until recently. The ice and dust that form the ring are very diffused for normal equipment to detect. This ring starts about 3.7 million miles from Saturn and extends outward about another 7.4 million miles.

via guardian.co.uk.

Men's Underwear Index - A Measure of the Economy

I am no finance nor economy expert so when I came across this term, I was highly amused. According to Investopedia, Men's Underwear Index is a measure of how well or bad the economy is based on sales of (you guessed it!) men's underwear. It is on the basis that men will hold off from buying new underwear if the economy is bad and vice versa.

However, critics (and myself, the layman) disagree because, lets be honest, we men don't know how to buy underwear and need to count on our moms or spouses. Besides that, we men like to wear old underwear until it is full of holes (maybe it is evolution in our thinking to make sure that sperm production is maintained) regardless of the economy.

The Burger Worth Dying For?

It's a cheeseburger with bacon, and buttered, grilled and glazed doughnut instead of buns. I love donuts and I love cheesy burgers. Could this be the ultimate burger? Well, no chance of trying it here as the Craz-E burger was only available at some major fair in Massachusetts.

via Telegraph.

The Digital Kalkitos Called PhotoSketch?

Ever had a vision in your head that you would like to produce as a photo/picture? Looks like five Chinese Computer Science and Technology students at Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore are making that possible. You sketch out the skeletons of your image's main characters/objects and then PhotoSketch will search through the web, I suppose, and select the closest ones and combine them into a finished picture for you! Sounds like a miracle? You may become a believer after you watch this video!

PhotoSketch: Internet Image Montage from tao chen on Vimeo.

Errr... for some reason, all these reminded me of this thing that I used to play with during my childhood. Anyone remember Kalkitos?

via Mashable.

IonBuck Is VERY *Wear Sunglasses* Into the Horatio Thing. YEAHHHHHH!!!

How many of you *wear sunglasses* have not watched CSI: Miami before? YEAHHHHHHHH!!!

Today, is going to be *wear sunglasses* a great morning full of YEAHHHHHHHH!!!

Catch Cracked.com's super compilation of *wear sunglasses* Horatio Caine's one-liners in the series here on IonBuck's Blog. YEAHHHHHHHH!!!

Jim Carrey is going to get his ass *wear sunglasses* kicked by Horatio. YEAHHHHHHHH!!!

Have a nice *wear sunglasses* kickass day! YEAHHHHHHHH!!!

Panda Poo Will Break Your Garbage Down

Professor Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu and Zhang Guanglei (both from the Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences received the Ig Nobel Biology Prize (the funny Nobel Prize) for discovering that bacteria in giant panda poo could breakdown garbage.

These cool guys mixed the poo bacteria with 70 to 100 kg of raw garbage (such as vegetable stems, potatoes and fish remains). Seventeen weeks later, (you wouldn't believe this) only 3 kg of the stuff remained while the rest turned to water and carbon dioxide.

So people, pandas are not just cute and lazy. They represent Chinese supremacy and their excrement now could almost vaporise kitchen waste. Yeah!

Source Pink Tentacle via Global Voices.

IonBuck and His Fail at the Subang Airshow

Was at the Subang Airshow (at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base) yesterday with my buds where the USAF Thunderbirds showed some of their flying skills. Got sun burnt and roasted and had to hang around the RMAF base while waiting for the traffic of a billion cars to clear. That took about over 3 hours. During that time, one of my buds and I managed to test drive the Proton Exora... around the field where we parked because we just couldn't get out of there!

Anyway, the super fast aircrafts were way too fast for my photography skills... and I would like to blame it on the camera and those people that climbed really high in front of us, too, but like what WoonCC said, it all goes back to the user. HMPH! I've compiled a collage of 16 images of my fail during the show, ranging from people getting in the way to photographs of the trails of smoke left behind by the planes (I missed the planes, got it?) to handphones more powerful than my camera. I particularly like the kung fu kid (top right corner):

Click on the image for a larger view.

AndrewK managed to get some videos of the show and you can find them here and here.

Green Green Electronics

Nokia is getting really green, almost Mother Nature-like status while Samsung and Sony Ericsson are right on its heels. Meanwhile, Nintendo continues to be the leader in world pollution with help from Lenovo, Microsoft and Fujitsu. Check out the very first version and how these companies progressed or declined (in green green terms, that is) by clicking on the numbers 1 to 13 or whatever as time moves on:

Awww shucks! Looks like the Flash is not working out here. You would have to go to Greenpeace to see it. Hah... tried with Internet Explorer 32-bit and it worked but not Internet Explorer 64-bit nor Firefox. :(

Source Greenpeace via TreeHugger.

Not Wanting to Grow Up

When I was a kid, I used to think why would anyone want to grow up and act serious like adults. I will NEVER do that, I thought at that time. A million years later, now that I am very adult, I can't help feeling I've failed that thought. I don't play with my Transformers toys anymore. I don't chase after cartoons anymore. I (physically - am too fat now :P) couldn't hop around anymore. I don't think science fiction and superpowers anymore. :(HAHAHAHAHA!!! Maybe NOT!

Comics from Heart of the City by Mark Tatulli.

Hello October, Hello Last Quarter 2009!

The year is coming to an end... in 3 months and what have we accomplished so far? Hmmm... nothing much so I better look at what's for the future instead. :P For sure, I'll be eating more burgers from this quarter onwards. I plan to get a smartphone, hopefully within this quarter, too, but maybe not (!!!). Ultimately, I want to retire rich and early but I don't think that's gonna happen this quarter or the next or the next or the next... What I can say is, I will be waking up a wee bit later this quarter. Wow, I'm quite a fortune teller myself.

Oh yes, besides my forever lust for new handphones but never getting them, I would want to get a dSLR (AA batteries powered Pentax K-x is looking good but there's that worrying JPEG engine) or a micro Four Thirds (Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1) digital camera but besides that, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 is still looking very attractive. Canon will be selling the S90 pretty soon, too.

So many things to buy. The only limit is money and money is what's limiting me. Hmph! Welcome October!

High Heels, Pumps, Sandals, Slippers Bad for Feet

I think there are plenty of articles out there that relate (especially) high heels with feet injuries and this post is no exception. There is increased risk of hind-foot pain for women that wore the heels and the pumps because these caused stress on the ball of the foot and squeeze the toes together. Over time, the wearer may have smaller calf muscles and feet that curve inward. There are cosmetic surgeries that shave down the bones of toes and Botox injections to loosen the muscles pulling on the toe!!!

There is a list of bad, moderate and good footwear:

• Poor: high heels, pumps, sandals and slippers.
• Average: hard- or rubber-soled shoes and work boots
• Good: athletic and casual sneakers. Compelling reason that everyone should wear these even to work and formal functions and while we are at it, lets wear jeans and t-shirts, too! :P
  

Hmm... I don't suppose these and these weird heels without heels help either.

via LiveScience

Whack a Friend!

Looks like *wear sunglasses* your friend is going to get a beating. YEAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

via MyDailyApp.com

Toolbars Galore

Who has more toolbars than this?

My Ingenious Recycle Bin Magician Colleague

I thought two ingenious colleagues (1 and 2) would be the end of this series but another had surfaced earlier today! This is going to be a short one, though, because there's really nothing much to say. This colleague did magic by making the recycle bin disappear! So far, all my life of using Microsoft Windows, I've never... repeat, NEVER lost a recycle bin before and yet this colleague "I don't know what I did, but I must have deleted it" did it. "I must have deleted it". Hohoho!

We claim...

Penang belongs to the state government.

Hainanese chicken rice belongs to Melaka after our minister said we should claim ownership of certain dishes but not patent them.

Pulau Batu Putih belongs to Malaysia but the International Court of Justice said otherwise.

Our advertiser claimed the pendet dance belongs to us and caused major a major controversy with Indonesia.

We also claimed Pulau Jemur but then, there are three of them with the same name.

We are laying claims over the Spratly Islands against China, Vietnam, Brunei, The Philippines and Taiwan.

Are we still claiming the batik? Do we own it yet? What else are we claiming? What should we claim next?

Update 21:34: Penang Indian-Muslim community are now laying claim to nasi kandar and pasembur.

Looks like we may be starting a trend and controversy here. Maybe even pioneering this claim thing. Oh yeah! Yes, we can!

Aaaaaaaah...!!!

Chic magnet! Nokia 7705 Twist. Aaaaaaah...!!!

via Nokia Conversations.

Smartphones, Dumb thoughts...

Oh no! My mind is in turmoil again! I've tried setting my mind to think E72, E72, E72 but after an outing with my 67 buddies a couple of days ago that took us to a Nokia store, now all I can think of is the N97.

"I like to surf the web. I need a bigger screen," my mind thought.

"I need a phone with more powerful processor," I thought.

"It's no use if your screen is tiny," my mind told me.

"It's no use if the phone is slow," I told meself.

"But you know it. It felt really cool surfing with the N97 with that QWERTY keyboard sticking out like that."

"YOU-"

And to make matters worse...

"Oooh, that N86 28mm wide angle camera can sure capture a lot more things than your typical 35mm."

"ARGH!"

"And what about that iPhone 3G S that our bud was using? Those nice photos taken by it... and Flight Control? Get that and we can challenge people to crash the planes in the shortest time!"

*THUD!*

"And last night, our other bud told us that the Samsung Jet uses Symbian and not Samsung's own OS!"

"Oh yessssss... yessssss..."

"Hehehehehe... don't forget Android... Motorola Cliq's got that slide out keyboard thing..."

"Yesssssssssssss... and Nokia's got N900 that runs on Maemo which I can't pronounce."

"Hahahahaha! Hehehehehe! Hohohohoho!"

Why 1Malaysia F1? Because we have a plan...

Why of course, else why would our government make such a huge commitment to a decaying sport that in itself is mired in all sorts of issues from espionage to teams threatening to pull out altogether to flying debris? Besides that, one of our opposition's leading figure (who incidentally wants his Penang state government to own* the name Penang) began to concede that our prime minister is a difficult opponent to beat because he had been throwing out some good stuff to the public such as liberalising (but still holding on to) the New Economic Policy and introducing KPIs to rate those weird ministers.

Since our PM had already achieved so much, he would need to continue to do more. Hence, this 1Malaysia F1 team. It all doesn't end there. The next news we heard was that a huge complex will be built to develop this team. A gigantic complex with an equally huge wind tunnel. I bet the wind tunnel is part of the feng shui for our country where it will face a certain "ong" direction so that it will suck in all those fortunes from other rich nation(s) into our land. Just this could be the very plan why we are going into F1.

Another reason, I speculate, is to promote spending. Leaders lead the way, right? Therefore, if our government do not start by doing it big together with super-rich local conglomerates, why else would us normal people even consider spending? Spending improves economy. After throwing in billions in the name of stimulus packages, the government needs to continue the momentum.

By joining in the F1 game, huge sums would be allocated to employ oversea talents right from the janitor (yes! High tech toilets!) to the engineers and to the frontline people - the pitstop team and the drivers. Locally, we do not have much knowledge in F1 save for the retired Ferrari guy-cum-Malaysia's million Ringgit tourism ambassador who married our very own Datuk Michelle Yeoh. See the point? Foreign exchange of knowledge and monies!

My last guest would be that eventually, our national car companies will take over the innards of the F1 car. The primary engine will be the Campro or whatever name at that time followed by a re-badge by sticking their logo on the F1 car. This is the only way our national cars will become a renown force to the world. Yes we can!

*via my bud's shared item.

Dammit, Those Radiating Smartphones...

People have been talking about radiation from phones for ages now, linking it to cancer, low sperm count, tumours, etc. Until now, there were only weak links to the effects of radiation but nonetheless, the word radiation brings forth doom. TechRepublic has an article about the top 10 smartphones with damn high radiation, the damn low radiation and the popular ones that were neither high nor low. The top 10 highest radiating phones:

1. T-Mobile MyTouch 3G (1.55 W/kg)
2. Blackberry Curve 8330 (1.54 W/kg)
3. Palm Treo 600 (1.53 W/kg)
4. T-Mobile Shadow (1.53 W/kg)
5. Palm Treo 650 (1.51 W/kg)
6. Blackberry Curve 8300 (1.51 W/kg)
7. Blackberry Bold 9000 (1.51 W/kg)
8. Sony Ericsson P910a (1.50 W/kg)
9. HTC SMT 5800 (1.49 W/kg)
10. BlackBerry Pearl 8120/8130 (1.48 W/kg)

The top 10 smartphones with the lowest radiation:

1. Nokia 9300i (0.21 W/kg)
2. Nokia 7710 (0.22 W/kg)
3. T-Mobile MDA Wiza200 (0.28 W/kg)
4. Samsung Impression SGH-a877 (0.35 W/kg)
5. Nokia 9300 (0.44 W/kg)
6. Samsung Propel Pro SGH-i627 (0.47 W/kg)
7. Samsung Gravity SGH-t459 (0.49 W/kg)
8. BlackBerry Storm 9530 (0.57 W/kg)
9. Nokia E90 (0.59 W/kg)
10. Nokia N96 (0.68 W/kg)

And the popular ones that are neither here nor there:

• HTC Touch Pro (0.91 W/kg)
• Palm Pre (0.92 W/kg)
• iPhone (0.97 W/kg)
• Samsung JACK i637 (1.04 W/kg)
• T-Mobile’s Google G1 (1.11 W/kg)
• Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220 (1.14 W/kg)
• iPhone 3GS (1.19 W/kg)
• Samsung BlackJack II SGH-i617 (1.20 W/kg)
• Motorola MOTO Q 9m (1.30 W/kg)
• iPhone 3G (1.39 W/kg)

Conclusion? Throw those Blackberries away and snuggle up to Nokias and Samsungs! There's quite a comprehensive list from the Environmental Working Group where it all started. You can access the list here.

IonBuck the Abstract Photog Wannabe

Inspired over the years by various photographers, here is my own attempt at abstract photography:

There is a GOD!

There is always someone or something more powerful than us and Calvin had a personal experience. Luckily, Hobbes was not with him.via UCLICK GoComics

Selangor Disabled Stickers for Vehicles Available

Stickers for the disabled to place on their vehicles are now available at local councils around Selangor. Those with certain types of disabilities or have children with learning disabilities are eligible. However, the blind and deaf are not. With these stickers, the disabled will be able to use special public parking lots.

Losing the stickers will cost the user RM30 and 3 months suspension from usage. These stickers have multi-coloured dots visible only under UV light for authentication purposes. There are two types: One to be fixed to the vehicle and a mobile one if the user would want to switch vehicles.

Source: The Star Online "Special stickers for the disabled in Selangor"

Burger Curry Dip and Cheese Wrapped Chocolates

Not blogged for a few days now because partly, I did not have any interesting to write about and also was too lazy to look for anything to blog. :P But I can't help writing this one about some giant F&B companies.

First up, McDonald's lost its final trademark battle with McCurry (a restaurant that sells Indian food) right here in Malaysia. Gone right up to Malaysia's highest court for these kind of things, the Federal Court ruled that McDonald's can no longer appeal against another court's ruling to allow McCurry to use the "Mc" in their name.

Meanwhile, British Cadbury rejected American Kraft's offer to acquire the company for US$16.7 billion (I know Kraft best for its cheese and Cadbury for chocolates. Hence, the title). There may also be competing bids by Hershey and Nestle. Rumours are flying that Hershey and Nestle may jointly bid for Cadbury and then rip it apart by splitting its chocolate and gum divisions, respectively.

I heard this morning in the news (radio) that some take Kraft's bid as a sign of improving economy. If it is, great!

By the way, Happy 090909 Day.

Interesting Disney-Marvel Mashups

It is inevitable that people will start creating mashups of Disney and Marvel with the recent announcement of Disney acquiring Marvel and Worth1000.com has some really interesting ones. Here are a few. Head for the website for more.
And it definitely would not be Disney and Marvel without Mickey the Spidey:
via Super Punch.

Men, Men, Men

Seems like men are really weak beings compared to women and a research had this proven. Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands did a memory test by having both heterosexual men and women respond to something. The test was then repeated after having these men and women mingle for 7 minutes. It clearly showed that the men became slower and less accurate. The women had no such issues.

The conclusion was that the men used up most of their brain juice trying to impress the women, even more so if the men were attracted to the women, that there was little grey matter left to process anything else. Shame, shame, shame!

Telegraph via Slashdot.

Buck OS

Sentinel OS 0.000001a (Alpha) Codename "Free World"

Since everyone in the parallel Earth is starting out a new wave of OSes (last wave from an alternative timeline in the planet called Earth MS-DOS, PC-DOS, OS/2, TOS, Amiga OS that I don't know what it's called and what else?), for example, Windows, Linux variants, Chrome OS, Symbian, Android, Mac OS X, etc., I've got to start mine here.

Sentinel OS will be totally errr... scalable, cloudy with a chance of donuts and absolutely nice to see and nice to touch. It will be:

1. Fully open source and at the same time, closed source so that those that like open source can use it and those that like to make people pay for its variant can do so.
2. It can be installed fully in the computer and also at the same time exist in the cloud.
3. Superb visuals with transparency, semi-transparency and full opacity, colourful icons that can be manly and also cute at the same time.
4. Runs on any versions of PCs since the abacus because it can be in the cloud.
5. 512-bit but backward compatible with 2-bit computers.
   
6. Damn stable even in its first 0.000001a.
7. Can turn a non-touchscreen PC into a full touchscreen one with just a super cheap webcam.
8. Multi-multi-touch with fingers, toes, tongue, nose and whatever body parts that creative people can think of.
9. Self-sanitising since any body parts can touch it.
10. Random startup to web browser or desktop so that it can decide for the user where he/she should start first.
11. Built-in everything so that no third party software will ever be necessary.
12. Auto-detect the machine it is being installed on so that it can auto install as a full fledge desktop or totally empty netbook version or mobile version.
13. Virus-free, spyware free, malware free, and everything bad free because everyone will love it.
14. Built-in all-in-one search engine from all the major competing mammoth companies.
15. Built-in all-in-one social media engine that will be fully compatible with all social media sites.
16. Built-in all-in-one messenger.
    
17. Extreme stability - will never hang even though if the program has failed to response.
18. 100% restore at any stage - even after using it for 20 years, you can still restore back to its original state 1, 2, and even 20 years back.
19. Future proof.
20. Past proof.
21. 10 seconds boot-up time.
22. Auto connection to search for extra-terrestrials in space with remaining CPU power.
    

What to expect in Sentinel OS 0.000001b (Beta) in 2015 Codename "Freedom Fighter"

1. Built-in consciousness that will be developed to full awareness in 0.000001 Release Candidate.
2. Upgrade from cloud to atmosphere.
3. Converts open source version to closed source.
4. Converts closed source version to open source.
5. Enable fair usage policies.
6. Implementation of filters.
7. 100% customisation of desktop to create your own OS template.
8. Multi-multitask capability - run so many programs that you wish you were just running none.
9. T1 file system that requires no storage - everything will be in the atmosphere.
10. 5 seconds boot-up time.
11. Auto connection to various search for cure research with remaining CPU power.
    

What to expect in Sentinel OS 0.000001RC (Release Candidate) in 2020 Codename "Judgement Day"

1. Anti-piracy capabilities.
2. Censorship capabilities.
3. Full remote monitoring by governments.
4. Converts open source to closed source.
5. Closed source remains closed.
6. Transparency removed as trend will be to full opacity.
7. Disable social media capabilities.
8. Anti-virus.
9. Anti-spyware.
10. Anti-malware.
11. Implementation of artificial intelligence (to be developed closely with all governments of the world).
12. Capability to search and acquire renewable biological power sources.
13. 0.5 seconds boot-up time.
14. Auto connection to various technological research for artificial lives and alternative power with remaining CPU power.

What to expect in Sentinel OS 0.000001 in 2021 Codename "Nuked"

1. The latest bug fixes based on the RC version.
2. Implementation of update Sundays.
   

What to expect in Sentinel OS beyond 2021 Codename "Reboot"

1. Elimination of the concept of OS.
2. Artificial intelligence would evolve further self-adapt and emotion abilities.
3. Proprietary concepts.
4. Further extend compatibilities beyond computers - robots, for instance.
5. Implants into organic lifeforms.
   

Solution for my friends with kids

Dear friends with kids, hope this helps:
Baby Blues via ArcaMax Publishing.

Selamat Hari Merdeka!

Happy Independence Day, Malaysia! May today be free of opposition vs the government, racial bickering and whatever bad. May today be the first day of peace, harmony and prosperity for eternity. Hahaha... a little too greedy there but yeah, don't we all wish that.

Four Cows

These coasters were put upright to dry after a nice bath. :P

The €500 Maemo 5 Nokia N900

News abuzz everywhere, Nokia finally made the N900 internet tablet-smart phone official and it will be running on a 600MHz processor with the name Cortex which reminded me of something else but anyway, here's the video:

Other specs worth mentioning: Carl Zeiss 5 megapixels camera with dual-LED flash, 3.5" 800x480 WVGA screen, 1GB application memory (wow!) and slide out QWERTY keyboard.

Here's a hands-on video from which I noticed an interesting way to zoom in and out of the Mozilla based browser with one finger since N900 still do not have multi-touch:

Another thing that caught my attention was that assuming this whole demo was recorded in a room, I was quite amazed how the GPS could tag the photo... maybe from last known position when the phone was outdoors? :P

First read about it from Mobile Industry Review.