Humpty Dumpty

Today's events in the country reminded me of a childhood nursery rhyme - Humpty Dumpty.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.  

View image | gettyimages.com

 

A Villa in Days

Here's how to build a double storey villa. Prefabricate modular pieces off-site using 3D printing and then assemble at site in less than 3 hours. All done in 10 days vs. half a year while being able to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake. Fireproof. Environmental friendly. That's technology. That's a progressive China.

via Inhabitat.

A Coconut Tree in Sunway Pyramid

I really like this coconut tree. Despite being fake, the trunk really attracted my attention. Part of Sunway Pyramid's Hari Raya decor, this "coconut tree" appeared to be reaching for the "orange sun". The original photo only captured the tree as a silhouette but using Pixelmator for iOS, I've lightened the trunk and cropped the image in 16:9 aspect ratio.

Spectre Will Return

If you're a James Bond fan (especially the Sean Connery - George Lazenby - Roger Moore era), you would know that SPECTRE is a prominent criminal organisation in the film franchise. It's unsurprising that the people behind the Daniel Craig reboot would bring the organisation back, much more updated, no doubt.

Official press release and latest trailer:

A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organisation. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE.

The trailer has all the Bond elements and implies an unusual connection between James Bond and the villain. Can't wait.

Golden Ketupat

I've been meaning to post these golden ketupat in conjunction with Hari Raya but I've only managed to get to it now. A belated Selamat Hari Raya to all the folks out there that celebrate the festival and to those who don't, I hope you had a great rest.

Treated differently with both the flickr and Instagram versions. Both cropped and enhanced using their respective mobile apps on iOS.

A photo posted by @ionbuck on Jul 22, 2015 at 6:37am PDT

Radiation Drink II

The radiation drink returns! This time in the form of chilled cucumber with a sour plum inside. Together with some light streaming in from the back, voila! Recipe for a glowing green drink that's full of "radiation" goodness.

Return of the glowing green drink.

A photo posted by @ionbuck on Jul 18, 2015 at 11:19pm PDT

Batman v Superman Comic-Con Trailer

I've been meaning to post this a few days ago since it came online but time wouldn't allow it. Finally, here it is for those few people who do visit this site, and who still have not watched it. It's definitely much more than the teaser (pretty oxymoron if you search the meaning of "teaser") a few months back:

What could be the cause of this versus between two of DC's greatest superheroes? Why is Wonder Woman in the picture? And what is the all new Lex Luthor's plot? I dare not speculate.

I would share with you X-Men: Apocalypse and Deadpool teasers, too, but there's no official ones on YouTube that I can find. Bummer.

It's a Leaf

Didn't know this big leaf texture can look so interesting when cropped in the 16:9 ratio. Converting to B&W using the "pigeon" filter together with the "magic wand" in the flickr app made it look even better.

Transformers: Devastation Brings Back the Gen 1 Guys

It's amazing that someone out there actually do know there are people that love the first generation Transformers after Michael Bay's "devastation" of the series with his own version. Hence, the upcoming game Transformers: Devastation by Platinum Games and publisher Activision. The short story from its official website:

Optimus Prime and the Autobots face off against classic Decepticons when Megatron discovers a way to harness the enormous power of Plasma Energy to Cyberform Earth. Fueled by the Plasma Energy, the Decepticons are stronger and more powerful than ever. Can the Autobots stop them?

Based on the trailer, it's a hack and slash kinda thing in 3D with cell shading. I'm not into this genre but would love to play the original Transformers. Unfortunately, it's only available on Windows, XBox and Playstation platforms. None of my current Mac nor iOS platforms are included in the launch. I doubt there will be a Mac but one can hope a mobile port to iOS (and if there's iOS, most likely there will be Android) in the future, no? I'm quite sure the current generation of hardware can cater to those graphics. Well, I'll just watch the trailer again and again while waiting for an eternity.

The game will be released to those lucky people on 9 October 2015.

Durian... Wine!

View image | gettyimages.com

My colleagues are going crazy over durian all of a sudden and there's a special Whatsapp chat group all about organising an event (yeah, totally agree that Whatsapp should be used for this and not for work!). For no apparent reason, I went to search for fermented durian and came across a Time article about a university in Singapore having created durian wine years back.

Just in time for this year’s durian season, a research group at the National University of Singapore’s Food Science and Technology Programme has announced that it has cultivated a clear durian wine with 6% alcohol.

And even, papaya wine.

Those not brave enough to stomach durian wine might consider papaya wine, which the team has also been cultivating over the past five years and expects to be more widely accepted.

Volkswagen Has A "Bug"

Who wouldn't love a Volkswagen Beetle, especially when it's yellow and it's a special "Bug" Edition?! Posted both on my Instagram and flickr, they were the same car back and front but with filters and edits unique to the apps.

A photo posted by @ionbuck on Jul 4, 2015 at 2:23am PDT

Hung Up On Mac App Store Updates

View image | gettyimages.com

Since yesterday, I had some problems updating to OS X Yosemite 10.10.4. Once after launching the Mac App Store and selecting the Updates tab, the pinwheel will kick in and spin forever and ever with the 10.10.4 and GarageBand updates hanging there longingly to be installed into my Mac Mini.

Many restarts proved unsuccessful. The same scenario will appear. I also noticed that my Mac Mini actually became quite warm. Very uncharacteristic from its usual cool self. After a few searches, I finally came to a solution from CNET that worked. There are a few steps and here they are. Hope it works for you. For a more comprehensive explanation, visit the CNet link.

Disclaimer: Remember to backup all your data before proceeding! Don't hold me responsible for anything bad that may happen!

1. Look for the Macintosh HD/Library/Updates folder and delete everything in it.

2. Open Terminal, type and run this command: open $TMPDIR../C 

When the window with all the cache files opens, search for folders beginning with com.apple.appstore and send them to the trash.

3. Repeat #2 but this time open the Temporary Files folder: open $TMPDIR../T

4. Launch Disk Utility and Repair Permissions for the Macintosh HD root drive.

5. To be on the safe side, I restarted the Mac and software updates functioned as normal. My Mac is also cool again.

Phew! I was worried I needed to resort to reinstalling the whole OS... something I've done a few times while using Windows.