Kai, The Informologist

Who knows security can be a hassel?

Back in the days, we think those chubby security guards at Tampines Mall is sufficient in to keep shoplifters out and the mall secure.

Not anymore, the Internet has grow far beyond the label of normal adversary. It’s like a virtual revolution, or more likely civil war that most people are unaware of.

On some counts, I have quite a few spyware/adware running on my machine but they themselves fail to work at times and causes trouble. It is especially bothersome when reinstall is impossible.

Heck it.

Springy – I gladly welcome such weather and color back in our lives. – Jose Ferreira Jr

In a semester education system, there is Fall, Spring and Summer. No winter.

But for the past four month of ‘Spring‘ we had minus beside our temperature and white snow instead of rain.

And now, 3 days short of April, while still on the ‘Spring‘ calendar, we are having a summer blast.

Like I said, its always a joy to relieve your skin (and hair) off their winter clothing and waking them up from their 6 months long hibernation. Heck, it even felt weird without those layer of clothes in the beginning.

But that’s not the reason why I decide to put on a sweatshirt today. Looking back, through hindsight, it was still not a smart decision. I first left the house for check up on my tooth at 7a.m. in the morning, by then the rain was drizzling and the wind was brief, it was around 60s. Very nice weather that could maybe use a sweatshirt.

It turns out (like so many times) to be not a very smart decision after all. The humidity increases as the sun slowly rose off the horizon (so poetic sia, except the humidity part). Now a protection (the sweatshirt) has turned into a burden, and its a burden that I can’t easily get rid off. You see, my body is not yet ready for summer and the t-shirt that I’m wearing is amplifying that vote of confidence.

Nonetheless, I’m glad the bad weather is past us (except for maybe thunderstorms and hurricanes) and summer is finally here.

Colorful Library – K Santos

If you are a poor college student who wants to improve your English by reading storybooks, you can now do so without spending a dim, in front of your very own computer.

The reason that Project Gutenberg is able to offer free books is because “copyrights for these books has expired in the United States.” So review your country’s copyright law before distributing/sharing the text.

I’m currently reading The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells and here’s some text I picked out that I think is cool (excuse my English):
- a morning star of hope,
- green with vegetation and grey with water,
- apostles of mercy
- by-the-bye (from Wheel of Fortune??)

They even have a 400+ pages of The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Colorful Library – K Santos

If you are a poor college student who wants to improve your English by reading storybooks, you can now do so without spending a dim, in front of your very own computer.

The reason that Project Gutenberg is able to offer free books is because “copyrights for these books has expired in the United States.” So review your country’s copyright law before distributing/sharing the text.

I’m currently reading The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells and here’s some text I picked out that I think is cool (excuse my English):
- a morning star of hope,
- green with vegetation and grey with water,
- apostles of mercy
- by-the-bye (from Wheel of Fortune??)

They even have a 400+ pages of The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci.

Almost 8month old now.

Thx, Seattle. Jon Madison

Snow Patrol, Chasing Car.

Somehow, the music reminds me of my favorite lady.
With her in mind, driving to Alki beach.

Do you remember the lighted clouds, or the shooting star?
The drive from I-5 is quite rightly a way to ease the visitors into the view.
And walking the plank even got me nervous.
One of the nights that we were there, I think we got closer.

The view is nothing spectacular, its in every major cities.
But ours, the ones we have in Seattle is not trying to overwhelm you with all the lights,
but just being itself -laid back,
its Sleepless Seattle.

Romanticized idea.

Listening to any slow music at 5am is romantic. The skies is almost lit.

Thx, Seattle. Jon Madison

Snow Patrol, Chasing Car.

Somehow, the music reminds me of my favorite lady.
With her in mind, driving to Alki beach.

Do you remember the lighted clouds, or the shooting star?
The drive from I-5 is quite rightly a way to ease the visitors into the view.
And walking the plank even got me nervous.
One of the nights that we were there, I think we got closer.

The view is nothing spectacular, its in every major cities.
But ours, the ones we have in Seattle is not trying to overwhelm you with all the lights,
but just being itself -laid back,
its Sleepless Seattle.

Romanticized idea.

Listening to any slow music at 5am is romantic. The skies is almost lit.

Too often are we ignorant about the massiveness of the technology industry out there.

Despite being in a technology related major (and having a very pimped-out Firefox), and using tons of freeware on my system, I have no idea there’s so much more.

While looking at the internship opportunities for summer, I came across Google Summer of Code 2007. Sounds interesting, even though I’m not much of a programmer, except when using Visual Studio while Googling.

Listed are about 60 companies or organization putting out their projects proposal, while at the same time welcoming such submission from student applicants. These are open-source projects that will, by the end of August become real-life programs (assuming that all’s cool and all’s well).

Example: Modzilla (founding company for Firefox)

Give it a shot if you are interesting in writing programs for the company.
You get paid too! If the programs gets written from your 3-month assignment, the stipend is $4,500.
Best part: working on it at the comfort of your home (or wherever you may be traveling to).

Good deal if that’s your interest.

Spring in Seattle – almost too heavenly. Cherry blossoms first came to Seattle, WA as gifts from Nippon. – Jonah James Ellison

After month of being tormented by the weather (2 more days of thunderstorm to go), let it be snow, wind, chill, fog or just rain, we are finally through.
WE MADE IT! We are finally in Spring, finally and officially (the reason that the Daylight Saving Time was pushed forward).

Something bizarre – a plumber company in Seattle called me a couple of times to buy my cell-phone number. He offered a couple hundreds of dollar. Isn’t it weird? If you know my number, try spelling the last 7-digit into something plumbery (fix-something?).

If I was hoping at all, I was hoping that some coffee company to want my number.

For those who cares, I ordered JJ (sub) over Avers’ (pizza) after my Excel coin-toss machine told me to.

Popsticles

The temperature is finally up in the 60s.
Spring is finally here together with shorts and tees.
As gross as it may sound, the hair can now get a fresh breath.

Yea yea, all is good and well, yet I was dumb enough to wear a sweatshirt without checking the temperature.

It’s hot.

Popsticles

The temperature is finally up in the 60s.
Spring is finally here together with shorts and tees.
As gross as it may sound, the hair can now get a fresh breath.

Yea yea, all is good and well, yet I was dumb enough to wear a sweatshirt without checking the temperature.

It’s hot.

Rarely do I get excited over such ideas since Yahoo! has been doing it (forcefully) for quite some time now.

But you can’t distinguish the significance of the ability to add ‘How to of the Day‘ or ‘Calvin and Hobbes‘ or a Live ‘To-do List‘ or even games such as Tetris (Block by Google’s term). Nor can you not be amazed (and overwhelmed) by the tons of Stuff that Google allows you to add. Since there’s not a limitation to the number of Stuff you can add (I don’t think), you can in-fact make a page so long that its against the law (best I can came up with).

Also, another awesome feature is the ‘Theme’. Unlike other programs which allows you to alter or apply themes to the original design. The Google Homepage’s theme changes accordings to the weather. And from what I learnt this semester, this is one of the few occurence that pervasive technology [IU's Pervasive Technology Lab] is being put to use on a large scale.

Lastly, if you want to be real organized, do the Tab. I just added a ‘Game‘ tab, and you feel like you are lucky, go for it and Google will fill up the page with Stuffs related to the name of your tab (of course, you can’t be too far off).

All in all, this is a Google approach of Yahoo!, and its turning out to be rather practical. I love the theme feature which is very instinctive, especially for people who rarely sees the day. I think the tab feature made the difference, as it is not predefined like Yahoo! does, but can be truly customized to one’s wants.

I was going to declare the quantity of free stuff to be a con for the website, but its significance is very much distinguished by the tab.

Have fun exploring!

Link

Went to the usual place to take a nap. I had my camera with me. Therefore this post.

Went to the usual place to take a nap. I had my camera with me. Therefore this post.

Maybe I just miss Seattle – John Cornicello

Since returning from the break, it has been downer day #003, except the surprise that all the fishes survived a week-long diet.

I thought I would be glad to return home to my bed, but I’ve had better times with the pillows.
I was excited to receive those Netflixes, but I can’t really count on ‘Ray‘ to cheer me up and ‘Scrubs‘ are starting to feel draggy, especially when Dr. Cox start chanting.
I even brought home the surprisingly-tamed Pipi from Yuanyuan’s place (and letting him sleeping outside for once).

This might just be one of those weeks that I feel so sorry for myself, that I should just mug myself up in some cafe and read about other people’s success. Preferably with a cup of coffee, not that I like it.

Come to think of it, I’m probably just sad that I’m kinda behind on my work, and it might turn out to be a hassle to land an internship in Seattle. BUT…

There’s joy to be seek and there’s joy to be found.

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? – Romans 8:32

P/S: I’m not depress, and this doesn’t happen monthly. It’s probably just a post-break-and-immediately-put-into-assignments-while-missing-home kinda moment.

The reason that I had disregarded board games has nothing to do ‘nerdy‘, but everything to do with ‘ignorant‘.

You see, I live in a town where Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights meant poker and drinking. There’s a limited input of players who chooses little wooden bricks over say a shot of vodka. I had rather play with my cat instead.

I’m glad that among the many lessons learnt during the spring break trip, was playing Settlers of Catan.

Gameplay

Settlers of Catan is a board game where players has to assemble the board where the game will be played. The board is made up of 6 elements – water, desert, bricks, lumber (or log, as Yogi calls it), sheeps (or meahh, the sound that sheeps made), wheat and oar, forming a hexagon with water outlining the inlands.

Without expansion, the basic gameplay allow up to four users.

The goal of the game is to accumulate points by building settlements and cities (through upgrades) using the element cards collected. Combination of elements (except water and desert) will allow users to do one of the following: build a road (0 point), build a settlement (1 point), upgrade to a city from a settlement (2pt) and drawing a development card (random points).

For more detail about the game – wikipedia has it all.

Personal Experience

The game requires a lot of interaction between players as trade and manipulation are frequent during gameplay.
I think you will find it fun, if not amusing to play the game with Singaporeans, or at least those who can speak Singlish.
I played it with Indonesians (the ones who introduce the game to me) who used to study in Singapore.

‘Walou eh… how can lidat’.
‘Dun lidat lah, he’s winning leh, close him lah!’
‘Ok lor ok lor… you take lor, you take, I so poor liao, only one card leh. But you take, you take…’

Yeah, a lot of manipulation. It’s almost a mind game.
If you want to win, do not just be quiet and think only for yourself. Always on the lookout of what is going on, on the board.
As Willy said, “People may get points for having the longest road or the largest army, but look out for those available points on the board – those are the dangerous ones.”

Beware, the game takes about 1~2 hours to complete and if you (and your friends) are going to get hooked onto it, please include your teachers too. Poor grade will be expensive at the end of the semester.

Rating: 8.5

You can find this game for about $20 on the web.
And for expansion (to allow up to 6 players), just fork out another $15 or so.

For a mere $35, you can now have a healthy addiction.
Go wild!

Reading reviews have helped me quite a bit in the past to understand how users perceive the product.

I was inspired to start writing reviews as I played the game of Settlers (of Catan) in the town of Madison, WI. Both are new to me, both gave me good experience, and both are unusual in the sense that we don’t go to college town for spring break and we don’t play board games on Friday night (which we did, without feeling like nerds).

This is something new that I’m gonna try to do. Let’s hope it works out.

Sunset in ‘busy’ Seattle – Dave Kugler

As the sun set behind us, we were almost 2 hours away from home and marking an end to the week long spring break.The trip brought me to places in Wisconsin, including Madison and Milwaukee as well as Chicago; although for much part of Milwaukee and Chicago, I saw nothing much other than the restaurants (thumbs-up for all thee restaurants!)

I’m planning on doing a review on the places I have went to, the games I have played, the food I have eaten and the movie I have watched. Great way to start a new string of blog posts. But then, I realize that, being one-and-half month away from the end of the semester (ahhh, finally), things are piling up, especially with works still lingering from the break.

To-dos:

• I308 Assignment & Midterm II
• I211 labs & project
• I433 Assignment
• I330 Project (Work plan & outline)

Back to the grindline now.

Sorry for the lack of photos, still in the process of uploading/selecting. Too much food.

The bear & tweety bird – large

Final 15 minutes or so in UW-Madison’s Memorial Union, thanks to the wonderful English written by the Badgers (squirrels, come get them Jason).

I had a wonderful 4 days and 4 nights of eating (surprisingly), playing (we actually played basketbal, and eh, Settlers of Catan) and inspiration to go to the gym (after watching ‘300′ and got addicted with the saying of ‘Spartans’).

I’m thankful for all that who came and entertain me – Yogi, Sunario, Willy, Rizal, Kelvin, etc. I had fun.

And thank God for the wonderful weather that He had given us for the past few days (I’m sorry for the wind and rain that came after me).

More photos coming.

Like the Elephant Car wash in Seattle, this is quite unique, to my senses. – Todd S. Klassy

First impression: Wah, not bad sia.

Trying to keep my cool while blindly walking around in the Memorial Union seeking for some T-Mobile signals. The luggages are no fun to carry, I need to get in touch with my friend soon.

It’s day (night?) #3 in Madison now, so far, I’m really enjoying it. Relative to my expereince, the buildings are nicer, the food are (much) nicer, and the landscape is cooler (they have a lake?).

I went to their finance class and the professor is from England, I feel smart just listening to the accent.
I played Settlers and basketball, and it was all well and fun.

I’m hoping to upload some pictures asap since there’s no WiFi from where I live. Away to Milwauke tomorrow evening. I think I might miss this place.