Star Trek Theme Park and the Captain's First Pizza

Star Trek's been making waves lately and soon people will literally be able to join in and ride on the sci-fi franchise's success - an environmental friendly $1.5 billion 74 hectare theme park in the Jordanian coastal city of Aqaba!

Meanwhile, Captain Jean Luc Picard recently had his first pizza. Yummy!

Apple on Wearable Devices

Tim Cook: It's an area where it's ripe for exploration.

And when criticised on Apple's lack of innovation of late, he said:

"We believe very much in the element of surprise. We think customers love surprises."

Can't wait for the surprises, if any. Hope they are affordable, too.

via Reuters.

Samsung Galaxy S 4 Stare Down

Oh yes. This is so Samsung.

A challenge to stare at the phone (that "stares" back) for an hour with all sorts of distractions including motorcycle crashes, arguing couple and irritating musician happening really, really nearby. Alas, someone did win!

via Android Community.

Interact with the iPad as you flip a physical book!

I'm totally impressed with this! Put the book next to the iPad, launch the accompanying app, then flip the book and watch the iPad screen change to the corresponding scene which the reader can touch the iPad for further interaction! You'll have to watch the video below to fully appreciate this stuff.

Best of all, it's as simple as magnets on the book working with the iPad's built in compass.

via Cult of Mac.

Holy Glass Cows!

These are some awesome cows!

And this is some awesome 3D CGI!

via John Nack's Blog.

Star Trek or Star Wars?

Looks like I'm not alone to think that there's a Millenium Falcon in Star Trek Into Darkness. And to top all that, FSR has compiled 8 other scenes that further strengthen our suspicion of the Star Trek - Star Wars similarity in the Captain Kirk and team's latest outing.

GIF Creator Honoured

For the first time today I found out who created GIF: Steve Wilhite.

Working at CompuServe in 1987, Wilhite used his knowledge of compression technologies to create the GIF format that allowed for color graphics to be used efficiently in the days of dial-up Internet access. 

He was just honoured a lifetime achievement award at the Webby Awards.

via DPReview.

Fast and Furious Review of the Sixth

With a movie with so many fast cars, this review has got to be quick. Vin Diesel and Paul Walker return together with The Rock in this mostly fast paced (somewhat slowed down a tad in the middle) movie where Dom's team were millionaires post the 5th movie and scattered all over, avoiding capture while enjoying life. Hobb had to entice them back to action to prevent a similarly capable team from, well, building a powerful technology that could wipe a country. Hobb had only needed to show Dom a photo of Letty who supposedly died and the team is back again, setting off a chain of fast and furious with a minor twist. This time, there's also a tank and a plane in the chase.

Looking for lots of super fast driving stunts? 3/5
Lots of cars? 3/5
Drama? Hahaha, there are some attempts but if you're a fan, I don't assume you'd expect much. 2/5
Plot? Cop recruits team to take on baddies that could potentially destroy the world. Period. 3/5
Would you enjoy the movie? If you're a fan of course! Michelle Rodriguez is back! 4/5 But if you're not a fan, it might just appear as an above average action movie to you. 3/5

By the way, it's already been announced that there's a seventh movie coming and the post end credits would tell you so... in somewhat nasty "Transporter" style.

The Fallen Leaf

Picked this leaf up and absentmindedly brought it back to my office so I photographed it on the first day both front and back. Was totally amazed that it dried and shrivelled up like the second column so quickly on the next day!

Tera-Flickr!

Yahoo! has just made some headlines! The company bought Tumblr and then announced a whole new Flickr! I was particularly stingy with uploading photos to Flickr because first of all I didn't have a PRO account so only my most recent 200 photos will be shown. Second, I won't be able to access those older than the 200 photos... I had complained about this awhile back here.

But all these have changed! Flickr now offers 1 terabytes of storage albeit with ads! I don't know if this is good for Yahoo!'s economics but it definitely is wonderful to me! Hence I uploaded one of my favourite photos that I had wanted to upload for sometime to celebrate this amazing day!

Besides that, Flickr removed or increased various limits imposed on its free account users. The photostream page is also upgraded to a more contemporary look. That's all I know for now, so Flickr users, enjoy yourselves!

Great job, Yahoo! You made Flickr relevant again!

Home Minister and Journalism Ethics

Our newly appointed Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to Malaysiakini:

"Please try to write according to journalism ethics, okay?"

I fully support your statement above. Please make sure it applies to all medias. Thank you.

via The Malaysian Insider.

Scott Adam's take on wearable computing...

Wally's conned his boss again.

via Dilbert.

Intel Inside Apple... Almost

Intel almost powered the first iPhone. Former Intel CEO Paul Otellini in an interview with The Atlantic:

“We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we’d done it,” Otellini told me in a two-hour conversation during his last month at Intel. “The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do… At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”

via Cult of Mac.

Star Trek Into Darkness Review

This is one Star Trek movie that all fans must watch and very likely will garner plenty of new followers, too! The flow of the whole movie makes one used to the series and movies at home with plenty of action that the younger generation seeks.

Chris Pine is just awesome as the young hot headed Captain Kirk with a heart and this new Spock is simply one to behold as he struggles with his half human side of things. No movie should go without its villain and here we have one that’s really cool with super human strength… and those set of eyes stare deep into your soul.

Meanwhile, the story starts off with Kirk breaking the Prime Directive in many ways trying to save a civilisation about to be destroyed by a erupting volcano and then some. After being warmed up by this, the story slows down just a wee bit, introducing the ruthless but highly intelligent and super human (hint, hint?) villain John Harrison that essentially acts alone as a one man terrorist that could work wonders.

After that, the movie goes full steam ahead and occasionally weaves in a bit of reminders to the original universe (remember that this is a sequel to the 2009 reboot that took us to an alternate universe with two Spocks and a destroyed Vulcan home world?) so that long time fans will have a sense of nostalgia…

This movie stands well on its own. That being said, for the full experience, I’d recommend watching at least the first few original movies and the 2009 one before this.

Looking for an action sci-fi? 3/5
An old Star Trek fan? 3/5 (you may not agree with too much action sequences compared to the originals)
New Star Trek fan? 4/5
Coming for the story? 3/5
The acting? 4/5
The ending? 4/5

Let me leave you with the trailer for those that’ve not seen the movie and for those that have, you’d probably want to watch it again anyway!

Post Malaysia General Elections 2013 Cabinet Line-Up

The prime minister Najib Tun Razak announced his new cabinet line-up today. The list is way too long to be included here but you can find it in the prime minister’s office website.

Liquid Cooled Smartphone

Sooner than I thought! A liquid cooled smartphone from NEC running Android Jelly Bean!

Weirder than I thought! Not that I'm sexist or anything but it's interesting to know that NEC would make a geek's liquid cooling thing more inclined towards the fairer sex.

via Engadget.

Wettest Place On Earth

With this kind of heat, it will only be right if I post something about the wettest place on earth!

Drenched with about 500 inches of rainfall every year, Kauai’s Mount Waialeale is considered one of the rainiest locations our world has to offer and hosts the “Wall of Tears.” It’s named for featuring thin, long waterfalls inside a crater wall of dense foliage. The spot isn’t easily accessed, so helicopters fly over and around the region to catch a glimpse of its beauty. The extreme precipitation routinely blocks visibility with clouds that hug the landscape tightly. But as you can see here, few photographers got lucky during their helicopter rides, giving us a peek at phenomenal Hawaiian tropical scenery.

Got to cool down and turn in for the night! Good night, folks!
via Flickr Blog.

This Is Water - a speech by David Foster Wallace

Life is not bad if we can some how see it in a different light...

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn't become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we've ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested.

Read the full speech here:
web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html

-The Glossary
theglossary.com

via Daring Fireball.

Rich Text Formatting for Blogger App... FINALLY

After so, so, so many years, the mobile Blogger app (iOS at least, not sure about the Android version) has finally been updated to incorporate rich text format and in-place photo embedding! Gasp! What took Google so long?! Since I'm almost full time blogging from my iOS devices, I'd been using the vanilla app and because I'm no HTML wizard, been writing on the app and then turning to the desktop version for formatting.

Anyway, don't think this update is much as I still can't seem to embed links nor insert photos from the web. Oh we'll, another few more years, then.

Malaysia General Elections 2013 At A Glance

A quick one because I don't really have much to say about the results...

Barisan Nasional outlasted but not outclassed the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat to form yet again the Malaysian Government by 133 to 89 parliamentary seats. Our Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya has the results tabled. Barisan Nasional also wrestled back the Kedah state while Pakatan Rakyat retained Selangor, Pulau Pinang and Kelantan. The opposition pact also made inroads into the Johor state spearheaded by Lim Kit Siang. Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya has it tabled out, too.

For a more detailed view, head on to this link for individual state or parliamentary seats.

Why do we vote?

Why? Because, among other things, we want peace and stability. So, please keep that in mind and not cause any disturbance whether the results are what we are hoping for! Lets keep cool!

General Elections 2013

Malaysians of all walks and races will be going out to vote in a few more hours. Stay safe and vote wisely, people!

Snow Over The Creek

Amazing photo with lovely details in the snow, HDR or not! Maybe it's also because of the full frame sensor! But most importantly, it's the talented photographer - Trey Ratcliff - behind the lens.

via Stuck In Customs.