the 'turbo' button

After my Primary School Leaving Examinations, I bought a Sega Dreamcast gaming console [with the support of my mother but not my father, leading to a cold war between him and me lasting a month]. The console was sold in a package, which included a second controller, because back then when online gaming was not introduced to consoles yet, nobody bought a console with only one controller.

So the shopkeeper asked me, "The second controller, you want the one with the 'turbo' button or without?"

At the innocent young age of twelve, I had no idea how the 'turbo' button was going to help in any games, but since turbo == fast, I thought somehow it must be good, so I got the one with the 'turbo' button.

Later it turned out, that controller was simply a non-original one [which means it was made by a third party and not by Sega]. And the 'turbo' button didn't really had any effect on anything [with the exception of Street Fighter 3 if I remember vaguely, the 'turbo' screwed up the gameplay -.-||]

As time went by I had more encounters with the turbo, mostly in games where a single press of the button gave me a short burst of acceleration that put me far beyond the reach of my opponents.

Then as I grew older and learnt more I realised the 'turbo' function was something unrealistic that existed only in the virtual world; one don't find turbo buttons in real world family sedans; one cannot make himself run at supersonic speeds suddenly, because one can't create energy out of nowhere realistically.

The closest thing that comes to it was nitrous oxide, but the gas runs out pretty quickly and it cannot be refilled unless one is playing the Need For Speed series of games, which are, well, games.

Until this season's Formula One!

With the start of this year's season comes the introduction of Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or KERS. Basically KERS stores the energy released from braking, usually wasted as heat, and stored it so drivers can use to increase their speed for a short while, at the press of a button, something right out of the virtual world.

I think KERS has already being in existence for quite some time, but the first time it was brought into Formula One. Still its an expensive system, so only the richer teams carry it.

I usually find Formula One boring because the strategies employed by the teams to win are the number of pit stops, the positions on the starting grid, the point system, the safety car, which all had nothing to do with racing at all; overtaking is far and rare in Formula One. And I haven't mention how budget is proportional to the number of wins.

Now with KERS, together with numerous other changes, like reduced downforce, slick tyres that reduce grip, overtaking is much more possible. Already I saw many splendid overtaking maneuvers during the first race of the season, the Melbourne Grand Prix.

Then again, maybe I watch too many dramas or play too many games haha.

Hopefully the rest of the season is going to be as exciting as the Melbourne race, and that the appeal on the diffuser problem will not affect how the rest of the races are going to turn out. I can't wait for the Singapore GP!

One day I should get back to watching World Rally Championship again, still my all time favourite racing event. And how can I forget DiRT 2!

my little contribution to Earth Hour

Well the song is not exactly about saving the Earth, but since it depicts what everyone is encouraged to do later at night, so here it is!

全世界都停电 - Tank

连你都会残忍隔绝
我的心能要谁了解
眼中烛光摇晃着熄灭

为何把我推向边缘
被砸坏了的一切
卡住了我让我无法往前
囚禁在距离笑声最远的房间
单独隔离 寂寞地盘旋

全世界都停了电 全世界都封了街
我所有窗子外面 被贴上黑夜
我呐喊思念 却没人听见
绝望到极点剩的是疲倦

全世界都停了电 全世界白雪满天
才发觉在我心间 有回忆碎片
一作梦翻身 就刺痛流血
我卷着身体缩成一个圈 像一个句点

连你都会残忍隔绝
我的心能要谁了解
眼中烛光摇晃着熄灭

为何把我推向边缘
被砸坏了的一切
卡住了我让我无法往前
囚禁在距离笑声最远的房间
单独隔离 寂寞地盘旋

全世界都停了电 全世界都封了街
我所有窗子外面 被贴上黑夜
我呐喊思念 却没人听见
绝望到极点剩的是疲倦

全世界都停了电 全世界白雪满天
才发觉在我心间 有回忆碎片
一作梦翻身 就刺痛流血
我卷着身体缩成一个圈 像一个句点

Save the Earth!

Do you want to win S$200,000 in the OCBC Happy Savings Draw?

The new 2009 MSN Live Messenger.


Fulham 2 Man U 0


New layout; not used to it yet. They reduced the difference between the person's nickname and the actual messages, making the entire conversation window look like one wall of text. The main messenger window too.

There are only four different statuses now; Available, Busy, Away and Appear Offline, differentiated by four different colours.

The "What's New" thingy at the bottom gives updates on everything one's friends have done in their Live.


Quite useless in my opinion; but luckily can turn it off.



An icon will appear at the top right hand corner of the main window when one rests his pointer there, allowing one to change the look of the main window. Again useless in my opinion.



This new Messenger feels more like catching up in the looks department so it looks more like an application in Vista. So in short, no big deal.

如烟 - 五月天

我坐在床前　望著窗外　回忆满天
生命是华丽错觉　时间是贼　偷走一切
七岁的那一年　抓住那只蝉　以为能抓住夏天
十七岁的那年　吻过她的脸　就以为和她能永远

有没有那么一种永远　永远不改变
拥抱过的美丽都　再也不破碎
让险峻岁月不能在脸上撒野
让生离和死别都遥远　有谁能听见

我坐在床前　转过头看　谁在沉睡
那一张苍老的脸　好像是我　紧闭双眼
曾经是爱我的　和我深爱的　都围绕在我身边
带不走的那些　遗憾和眷恋
就化成最后一滴泪

有没有那么一滴眼泪　能洗掉后悔
化成大雨降落在　回不去的街
再给我一次机会　将故事改写
还欠了他一生的　一句抱歉

有没有那么一个世界　永远不天黑
星星太阳万物都　听我的指挥
月亮不忙著圆缺　春天不走远
树梢紧紧拥抱著树叶　有谁能听见

耳际　眼前　此生重演
是我来自漆黑　而又回归漆黑
人间　瞬间　天地之间
下次我　又是谁

有没有那么一朵玫瑰　永远不凋谢
永远骄傲和完美　永远不妥协
为何人生最后会像一张纸屑
还不如一片花瓣曾经鲜艳

有没有那么一张书签　停止那一天
最单纯的笑脸和　最美那一年
书包里面装满了蛋糕和汽水
双眼只有无猜和无邪　让我们无法无天

有没有那么一首诗篇　找不到句点
青春永远定居在　我们的岁月
男孩和女孩都有吉他和舞鞋
笑忘人间的苦痛　只有甜美

有没有那么一个明天　重头活一遍
让我再次感受曾　挥霍的昨天
无论生存或生活　我都不浪费
不让故事这么的后悔
有谁能听见　我不要告别

我坐在床前　看著指尖　已经如烟

reduced intelligence

In an attempt to find out why VJC did not win anything in this year's National Olympiad in Informatics, I went to try out the problem set myself.

This year's problem set had been reduced to four, instead of six in previous years. Therefore, instead of giving progressively difficult questions, this time out of the four, only the first was a giveaway. The second problem was a story so long I could not understand; the third was a simplified Traveling Salesman Problem which I tried but had quite forgotten how to code it out :/ The last problem was on ciphers which I had no idea how to solve.

Two years of National Service had had its effect on me; I have become more stupid now. Although I should say I did not have a good knowledge on the various algorithms in the first place. Haix.

The rain is coming! I love rain!

看病难，养老难，上学难

Caught a repeat of 焦点, and those were the 三座大山 that many people in China are facing now. Quite an apt description, not just to the Chinese but to everyone too. I remember there was a dumb Channel 8 television drama which I watched in the past, and the character in the drama was saying in Singapore, its better to die than fall sick.

The show talked about millions of graduates in China who could not find jobs. And today's news mentioned tens of thousands of graduates in Singapore who are jobless.

And there were the Singaporeans who put their aged parents in nursing homes in Johor and even Malacca because the nursing homes in Singapore were too expensive to afford.

I loved the watch! Thanks to all yet again. Must have cost quite abit, felt bad that you all are spending money on me. Have not worn a watch for a long time, and still not used to an analog watch. A little too formal. Hehe.

The best birthday wish I had came from my very good friend in primary school. Although since primary school we had both moved on with our respective lives and seldom talk to each other anymore, even on MSN, the birthday wishes to each other still carried on year after year without fail. To 15 years of friendship!

My house is now bright again! Some time back my father decided the original round fluorescent light tubes were too expensive, so switched to the really small type that one normally uses for toilets, and it made the entire living room looked really dark.

I guess my mother complained about it, so now its back to the round light tubes again, but with a smaller radius, most probably cheaper as well. Nevertheless the living room looks like a living room again.

When I was much younger, and when the family was warmer then, the living room was always lit with both lights at night, and I really loved the very bright living room. Now, in the name of saving electricity and the cost of replacing the light tubes, only one light is on at night, and sometimes when I come home at 7.30pm the living room will still be in pitch black. I don't like dark living rooms.

Then again, even if the lights are still there, the noises aren't anymore.

narrow and complicated

That's how my mind works sometimes.

I finally solved the problem with my MIO router that had plagued me since day one when I gotten it, by a fairly simple method that had eluded me for so long because, as the title says, my mindset had been too narrow and complicated.

As mentioned before, my desktop would be disconnected from the router, and hence the internet, whenever I played games; any game, with the unexplainable exception of Company of Heroes which I could still play. Also I had no problems with other activities like web surfing and MSN-ing. Even my most bandwidth intensive activity, torrent-ing, worked without any problems.

So I tried all sorts of methods to my LAN card; reading up tons of articles, turning off power saving options, updating drivers, disabling IPv6, etc. I reset my router, tried to bridge it to my Asus router :S, installed Microsoft Network Monitor and monitored my network traffic, then installed a Linksys LAN card, just to describe a few.

Couple of days ago I realised, to my stupidity, that besides LAN cable, I could actually connect my router to my desktop via USB cable too. For a long time all I had in my mind was LAN, LAN, and LAN, because that was the case when I used Starhub before I switched over [and then there was my two years of National Service where it was even more LAN]. And people these days don't connect routers to computers via USB anymore, because it requires installation of the router.

Problem solved, at least for now. Tried half an hour of Left 4 Dead and I'm still connected. And there's one more light blinking furiously on my router now. Ha.

Of course that did not come easy. Apparently there was no installation software to get my desktop to recognise my router, so I had to comb the Internet for a while before I managed to obtain it.

Haha I laugh at myself.

disappointment

1.

2. So turns out past two days I was not the only one to experience the [very] frequent Internet disconnections; there were a few others who had the same problem too, and we all lived in the same area, meaning something is wrong at the service provider's side.

I sent an email before I realised I was not the only one, so a technician has already been scheduled to come down to my house next week. Its ok, for even without the disconnections for the past two days, I still have other problems [together with tons of evidence to show] for the technician to solve.

How interesting it is that when I was in National Service, I was the 'technician' who went around solving problems that users encountered.

deception

Another Wallaby 2008 photo. Its the Rockhampton Post Office, which I thought was in use but turned out it wasn't anymore. Obviously the building had been given a facelift; looked new and nice.

Add a film grain and a sepia overlay, and...


Couple of days back, the news carried a report about an economic rice stall that was selling food at $2.20. The stallholder when interviewed talked about a regular customer who could not even afford $1 economic rice, and fell to his death, probably because he was too weak from the lack of energy.

And then there was this organisation that managed to raise $19 million in less than 24 hours, for construction of its new building. 22,000 people donated, which means on average each person gave more than $800.


Again overdone.

And what the hell is wrong with my Internet tonight?

discoveries of a mountain tortoise: widescreen

Being in a poor family means that I am usually not among the early birds when it comes to playing with new gadgets. I only get to use them when the ones I have finally break down one day.

So, despite widescreen technology already being in the market for years, today was the first time I got to play with one, because my LG 4:3 LCD monitor is still running perfectly well. My father, perhaps out of his mind, came home with a China-branded LCD TV [apparently he bought it because it was cheap -.-']. Happily I borrowed it to hook up to my desktop.

Switching from standard 4:3 resolutions to widescreen 16:9 there is nothing to 'wow' about simply by looking at the Windows desktop [there's just more space] or watching a movie [there's just no more black bars on top and below]. The awesomeness comes in when playing games haha.

Games, unlike those from years ago, support widescreen natively now. Instead of having fat-looking monsters or out-of-proportion buildings and vehicles that arise from using standard resolutions in widescreen monitors, the graphics now turn out correctly.

I tested out Company of Heroes, still one of the favourite games yet.

Standard 4:3


Widescreen 16:9

More space by the sides, and no obese looking soldier!

Standard 4:3

Can only see two buildings =(

Widescreen 16:9

Can now also see my engineer squad busy with their work! =)

As one can see widescreen monitors do not stretch graphics, but really allow players to see more when playing. The screenshots above are resolution-dependent and monitor-independent, so one cannot see standard graphics being stretched in the widescreen TV.

Of course if anyone thinks the extra screen space doesn't seem to help much, that's because its only 19inch wide. Apparently if one wants to get a widescreen, one should get one that's >20inch.

Its a pity my graphics card does not come with High Definition input, otherwise there will be even more fun! Makes me gian to get a widescreen monitor hehehe.

Sorry if this doesn't excite anyone. It excites me lol.

perspectives

Perfect Cut 2 is quite a nice drama. Moving away from the issues around cosmetic surgery it now involves other touchy family and relationship problems too. Or maybe the first series already included them but I never watched haha.


Went down to take a look at this year's Career and Education Fair, which was, as pointed out by a friend, more like a education fair than a career fair because other than the highlight of the entire event, the Integrated Resorts, and a couple other companies like Sakae Sushi and Mediacorp, that were offering jobs, the entire floor was filled with private schools and institutes offering courses for people to sign on to 'retrain' or 'upgrade' or 'reskill'.


In the narrow circle of friends I had when I was back in secondary school and junior college, when we talked about 'furthur education' we usually meant NUS, NTU, SMU, or prestigious overseas universities like those in Ivy League and Oxbridge. Now that my circle of friends have expanded through National Service, furthur education now also includes SIM University, which offers degree courses by UOL[where the godly London School of Economics is part of!], RMIT and University of Wollongong. And then there is UniSIM, University of Melbourne, MDIS, Digipen, and many other academic institutions that may sound lesser but not a doubt, still provide decent education to people who found themselves at a disadvantage due to society's obsession over academic grades.

sharpening by unsharpening

I had some fun with GIMP, which is a free alternative to the godly but expensive Photoshop. Used a photo which I really liked alot taken during last year's Wallaby.



Couldn't achieve much with a compact camera shot through a windscreen, so I used the Unsharp Mask in GIMP and dragged the various sliders around...



Haha. Its just for fun. I think I overdid it lol. Maybe should get down to some serious reading on image manipulation sometime.