Vegemite Not for Birds

Vegemite truly tastes awful. I bought the smallest bottle I can find, and still took me months before I ran out of things to spread on my bread, and was forced to try it.

I have this habit of walking down to the Pyrmont Point and eating my breakfast on one of the benches along the promenade. Today's bread is a bit tough on the edges so I peeled part of it and threw it to the bird waiting on me. He had a hard time, too but managed to break it into smaller pieces. The Vegemite spread was so bad, I decided to share some of it with my bird friend. He walked near the piece with the Vegemite, took a whiff, and walked away. Didn't even look back once.

The Importance of Being Focused

Not much use being earnest with a server like an IBM xSeries 335. What you need when installing software on a pizza box is focus. The server knows when you're not concentrating and it'll do it's own thing if you don't pay attention.

The first time the x335 booted, I was reading emails, so I didn't get to press F12, which will force it to do a network boot and fetch the primary OS from the FEWS laptop. Second time around, I was able to press F12, but went back to my emails while the kernel is loading. I forgot that the priOS will prompt for the hardware type. The server got tired of waiting, so it chose the cp1 option when the right one should be x335. In the middle of the install process, I noticed that some important files were missing. A quick check of the previous commands showed that I missed a parameter, which meant a re-installation.

Sometimes I feel the more we try to multitask and maximize time, the more time is wasted.

Book 2005.11.27: Digital Fortress

Believe me, if you're a geek, you wouldn't want to be reading this book. Having read Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and now Digital Fortress, I simply can't understand why Dan Brown became so famous.

Da Vinci Code is a wonderful book - I'll give him that. The prose is not the best, but he's a good storyteller, even though it is not really his story per se. All the conspiracy theories in the book about Leonardo da Vinci, Mary Magdalene, the Holy Grail, the Priory of Sion, Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, etc. have been tackled before. Dan Brown was the one who collated them and spun a thrilling tale out of them.

With Digital Fortress, he's obviously out of his element. Knowing a little bit of NSA and public-key encryption and Enigma and Skipjack and hardware keyloggers and mutation strings does not a crypto expert make. The storyline is very basic - everything else is fluff. I don't mind fluff, but there's just too many inaccuracies and plot holes in this one. NSA is not the ultra-top-secret government agency like MIB that Mr. Brown makes it to be. Nobody names their supercomputer TRANSLATR. What next, a sysad called z3r0c00l? The idea of a supercomputer that can break any code in a matter of minutes is flawed. At the very least, you'll have to know the algorithm used. And how did Node 3 become the nerve center of Crypto? All hell breaks loose, and nobody on the outside knows about it? How did those firearms get into Node 3? No surveillance cameras? No security checks? And a supercomputer that blows up because of a cooling system malfunction? Even the lowly PC knows enough to shut itself down in such a case.

I have a complaint about Mr. Brown's writing style, too. The guy is not writing a book, he's writing a movie transcript. Imagine 128 chapter in 429 pages (paperback). He's got three or four simultaneous plot threads, and every few pages he would make a switch. Tolerable at first, but I tell you, it gets tiring very fast. Cardboard characters, cheesy dialogue, convoluted plot twists. The last scene where everyone is trying to guess the passphrase to deactivate the worm takes the cake. Somehow this worm is uber-smart that it can take down the multiple levels of firewall/antivirus/anti-spyware/anti-adware software protecting the NSA databank. As the script kiddies and crackers burrow deeper into the database, the cream of the NSA crap, I mean crop run around shrieking and waving their hands in the air, "10...9...8..." Listen guys, just disable the port, all right? Or get a pair of cable cutters and cut off (literally) all external links, ok? Jeez. As for the "prime difference" clue, I immediately got the hint. No points for the "brilliant and beautiful mathematician" Susan Fletcher with an IQ of 170.

Just to be cute, Mr. Brown included a code at the end of the book. I didn't even try to solve it because I'm sure it's a pathetic newbie attempt at cryptography. I still have Deception Point on my bookshelf. I think it's another filler Dan Brown cranked out so that bookstores can sell those collector's edition foursome in a special box. I'll probably read it when I'm feeling down - to get a few laughs.

Top 20 Geek Novels

Informal survey was conducted by Jack Schofield, resident computer editor of The Guardian, through Survey Monkey. Results shown below:

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
3. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip Dick
5. Neuromancer - William Gibson
6. Dune - Frank Herbert
7. I, Robot - Isaac Asimov
8. Foundation - Isaac Asimov
9. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
10. Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
11. Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
12. Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
13. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
14. Consider Phlebas - Iain M Banks
15. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
16. The Man in the High Castle - Philip K Dick
17. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
18. The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham

Not so happy that I've only read 5 out of 20. I have Neal Stephenson's books stashed somewhere and Microserfs, so those are next on my reading list.

Question of the Day

Imagine you're a pretty systematic driver. After parking, you put the gear in park, engage the handbrake, take your foot off the brake pedal, switch the airconditioner to fan, turn off the car stereo, switch off the fan, switch off the engine, unfasten your seatbelt, disengage the lock, open the door, step out of the car, close the door, and engage the car's security system.

What would you have thought/felt when you get back to the parking lot after a few hours to find your car unlocked with the engine idling?

Becoming an Australian

I'm truly on my way to becoming a true Australian. No, I still can't sing Advance Australia Fair or the other national anthem, or applied for a passport, but I did buy a Victa lawnmower from KMart last weekend (after months of letting the lawn take care of itself). I'll make sure the immigration officer knows about this when I go for my citizenship interview next month. I might just buy an edge trimmer or a barbie for additional brownie points.

Thank You, John Safran

Tonight, the Australian Socceroos take on Uruguay at the Telstra Stadium for a spot in next year's FIFA World Cup in Germany. Just to give you an idea of how important the game is, Australia hasn't seen action at the World Cup finals since 1974. To win a place, the Socceroos need to win by two clear goals in this second leg of the qualifier.

Watching the game (on SBS), one can see that Uruguay is definitely better than the Aussie team, who kept passing the ball around. Things started to pick up when Harry Kewell came in. All of a sudden, there was renewed spirit and a sense of direction. By half-time, it's 1-0 Australia, courtesy of Marco Bresciano. The Aussies never let off the pressure, but the Uruguay defense is tight as a drum. So at the end of the 90-min. regulation time, it's still 1-0 Australia (1-1 aggregate), forcing a 30-min. extra time.

Lots of tries and misses and saves, but no solid goals, and so the match goes into a penalty shootout. After the smoke has cleared, Australia beats Uruguay 4-2 on penalties with Harry Kewell, Lucas Neil, Tony Vidmar and Jon Aloisi scoring successful goals. Special mention goes to Mark Schwarzer for pulling off two spectacular saves.

But let's not forget John Safran. Rumors has it that the Socceroos had a curse placed on them when they were playing Zimbabwe in 1969. They got a witchdoctor to put a curse on the opposing team, so the Aussies won the match. They left without paying for the witchdoctor's services, so he then placed a curse on the team. Since then, it's all downhill for the Socceroos. In John Safran vs. God, Safran tracked down the same witchdoctor in Mozambique, and offered to pay the fee (plus interest???) in order to lift the curse. Aside from that, he had to undergo a ritual, where he is sprayed with chicken blood.

Australia, say thank you to John Safran!

Black Books in The Office

Dropped by the library this afternoon, and was fortunate enough to find a copy of The Office: The Complete Second Season DVD on the racks. I've watched Season One and the Christmas Specials before, so this is the missing link I've been looking for. What will happen to David Brent after the branch merger? Will Tim and Dawn become a couple? Will Gareth ever develop a sense of humour?

A few weeks ago, I was watching another British comedy series - Black Books. It's about this grumpy, sadistic bookshop owner named Bernard Black, whose only purpose in life is to read books, get drunk, torture his assistant (Manny Bianco) , and drive away all the customers. Fran, who is their next-door neighbor, acts as the mediator. The whole series is quite entertaining as the episode plots are over-the-top ludicrous and the slapstick is hilarious.

Just noticed that Dawn (Lucy Davis) and Bernard (Dylan Moran) play as Dianne and David in the movie Shaun of the Dead.

So That's How They Do It

There are two things you can do to boost user traffic to your blog:

1. Make a controversial comment. Say, something like (paraphrased): "Handicapped toilets shouldn't be for the disabled only. Having a physical disability is their disadvantage, but their bladders are still working, right? They should queue up for the toilet just like everyone else then." Guaranteed to generate lots of comments and discussion on the other blogs and forums, thereby boosting the site statistics.
2. If it's not in your character to be tactless or rude or crass, do as I do. Write about the offending article, or link to it. Better if someone will actually link to your post. One way or another, some of the user traffic will come your way. Just a day after writing about Miss Cheng, my daily hits trebled.

My site statistics has since dropped down to normal, which explains this post. :-)

Movie 2005.11.09 - Grimm

Only for the open-minded and people with too much time on their hands.

This movie is supposed to be a retelling of the famous Hansel and Gretel fairytale by the Brothers Grimm (hence the title), but it's only true for the first few minutes. Story is about a pair of incestuous brother and sister (Jacob and Marie) and their misadventures after their Dad abandoned them in the forest. To survive the night, they barbecue a dog caught in a trap. For that, the farmer forced Jacob (Jacob Derwig) to "service" his corpulent wife. They managed to escape by knocking the farmer and his wife right through the wall using a swinging table.

The pair hitchhikes to the city and takes up residence in a makeshift tent under an overpass. Searching around the tent, Jacob finds a pistol. The next day, he comes back with a moped. A gentleman comes a-visiting and Marie (Halina Reijn) offers to "service" him. While they're at it, Jacob pulls out his pistol and demands his money. The man puts up a fight and had to be subdued with a thick piece of wood. With the man dead, they ride the moped all the way to Spain.

They make inquiries and find out that both their uncle and aunt are dead. Marie later hooks up with a rich surgeon named Diego (Carmelo Gomez), who lives in a remote villa with his ill sister and two servants. Distraught at seeing Marie flirting with Diego, Jacob makes a nuisance of himself at the villa. Diego harvests one of Jacob's kidneys for his sister, and leaves him for dead at a roadside. Jacob steals a pickup and goes back to the villa to save Marie. Right at that moment, Marie kills one of the servants and escapes from her prison room. They make a run for it, while Diego gives chase. Diego's car falls down a ravine, and that's the end of him. Or so they thought.

They drive to a Western ghost town, where Jacob recovers from his operation. One day, Diego drops by for a visit with a shotgun. Jacob shoots him through the heart with his bow and arrow. They bury him under the sand, but forget to cover his head. The local police came to check on them, so they hastily covered his head with a bucket before hiding under a house.

For some reason - maybe they got tired of the lousy script - the two decided to go back home. The end.

flickr Off

Keen-eyed visitors to my blog will notice something new. Amid the past post links, the Adsense ads, the Google search box, and the mini-banners, you'll find my own flickr Zeitgeist. Actually, that's the only reason I signed for a flickr account. Everybody's been raving about the service, but I don't really get what the fuss is about.

It's a site where you upload digital photos. That's it. What makes it different from other services is that it has a vibrant community of users who actively views and comments on pictures. A free account gives you only 20MB of uploads per month. High-resolution images are resized or scaled down. Only three photosets and the photostream view shows only the last 200 images. Upgrading to a pro account eliminates these restrictions, but you have to shell out US$24.95 a year.

Thanks, but I'll stick with the free account. Enjoy the Zeitgeist while it lasts.

Movie 2005.11.06 - Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (a.k.a. Xiao Cai Feng)

One of the very few feel-good Chinese art films I've watched. The story is set in 1971, in the China of the Red Brigades. Two university students, Luo (Kun Chen) and Ma (Ye Liu), were branded as "reactionary intellectuals," and banished to a remote mountain village called Phoenix in the Sky to undergo "re-education" by the local peasants. They work the mines and transport human fertilizers to the fields. Both men fall in love with the illiterate granddaughter of the local tailor, known only as the little seamstress (Xun Zhou). With her help, they steal a cache of subversive books from another student called Four-Eyes - novels of Honore de Balzac, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Kipling, etc. The guys spend their time reading the novels to the little seamstress, narrating stories to the community, and playing "Mozart is Thinking of Mao" on the violin. Through Balzac, the little seamstress aspires for a better life, so one day she leaves town. The boys intercept her, but she has already made up her mind. (And they know better than to argue with a woman.)

Years later, Ma is an accomplished violinist, and Luo is a directory of the dental institute or something. Ma finds out that Phoenix in the Sky is one of the many villages that will go underwater once the construction of Three Gorges Dam starts. So Ma goes back to his place of re-education for one last visit. He hopes to find her during the Hungry Ghost celebration, but she doesn't show up. The men have a reunion, and talk about love found and lost.

DSL Dreams

Lately I have been in the habit of working in the dining room while watching TV. If a good show is up, I'll ditch the laptop and hop on the cushy couch. By the middle of the show, I'll be sound asleep only to wake up at 2am or 3am. No a good way to prepare for the next working day.

One time, I dozed off to sleep again and dreamed that I was working on my laptop. As I am wont to do, I surf over to my DSL provider to check my online usage. What the?! It's only the start of the month, and I've used about 600+MB already. Just yesterday, it was less than a 100MB. Must be all those nights of leaving the laptop on and Wi-Fi activated. What with all the auto-page refreshes and keepalives and retransmits. I woke up from that nightmare and realized it was just a dream. I put my laptop in suspend mode and went to my bed.

Ni Hao, Wendy Cheng?

Who is Wendy Cheng? She says she is Singapore's top blogger. A digital lifestyle magazine I picked up during my recent trip to Singapore seems to agree. Recipient of the 2004 and 2005 Weblog Awards for Best Asian Blog, xiaxue.blogspot.com gets 20,000 hits per day. Is it really that popular? The hacker who hijacked her blog seems to think so. What makes a blog good anyway? If I knew, my blog wouldn't be getting only 10 hits per day.

I try not to read other people's blogs, but I read one page of hers (a long one). Definitely not a role model for her visitors, but interesting and loud and R-18 enough to get them coming back for more. Surprisingly (in Singapore), she uses a lot of swear words. She blasts to pieces anyone who crosses her path or criticizes her. I would've thought that the government would've shut down her site by now. Anyway, I feel the blog's a bit commercialized. She mainly talks about parties and events she's been invited to. She models clothes and other products and services, and posts bazillions of pictures. She actively seeks out invitations and endorsements, and readily admits that blogging is her main source of livelihood. (Never ever fault her for that, so she says.)

I'll say one thing, if one day she decides to get out of the blogging business, she should become a make-up artist instead. Seriously. Just look at the before and after pictures, and tell me I'm wrong.

Movie 2005.11.04 - The Recruit

Billed as a psychological thriller, this movie stars Al Pacino as the CIA recruiter and Colin Farrell and Bridget Moynahan as his recruits. The plot is quite simple. Pacino recruits Farrell to join the CIA. He, together with a bunch of newbies, gets trained at The Farm. For failing a torture test, he was discharged. Pacino picks him up again, and gives him a mission to expose Moynahan, who's trying to steal the Ice9 computer virus. However, as the tagline says, nothing is what it seems.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. The same goes for this movie. Either the script is so ingeniously-written that it keeps the audience guessing till the end, OR it's shot full of plotholes that anything goes. When Pacino recruited Farrell, was he already working for the "enemy"? Like he said, "I'm a scary judge of talent." If he knew Farrell is so good, it should've occurred to him that there's a chance that Farrell might eventually expose him. Why not just get an unthinking agent who'll blindly to his bidding? Who is Moynahan (and Zack) working for? Were they simply doing their jobs, or were they being manipulated by Pacino or the Iranians? Why involve Farrell in the first place? At the end of the "mission", Moynahan will hand over the Ice9 virus to Pacino anyway. Is the Ice9 really a deadly virus as Farrell alleges, or is it just a dummy software Moynahan is smuggling out to test CIA security? If it's the real thing, then why can't Farrell make the reconstructed code work? Given how smart Pacino's character is, why is he so stupid as to make an unprovoked confession, and not notice that all the guns are trained at Farrell initially instead of him? But did Pacino's character actually die? Is Zack dead? Is it all part of one last test to see if Farrell's good enough to be the NOC?

Lots of questions, but here's what I think. Pacino's character is definitely the bad guy. After years of working for the CIA, he's tired of everything and wants the easy ($3M) way out. He's trying to sell the Ice9 computer virus, but he needs someone to get it out of CIA, and he needs someone to take the fall. Early on in The Farm, he has already started pairing Moynahan with Farrell. Moynahan was later tasked to to smuggle out a dummy software to test CIA security. Pacino switches the code, so Moynahan ends up taking out the real virus. Pacino convinces Farrell that Moynahan is an enemy sleeper and his mission is to intercept her and bring him the code. Stupid CIA agents that they are, everything is going according to Pacino's plan. Trigger-happy Farrell accidentally kills Zack and freaks out. Pacino tells him a cockamamie story about everything being yet another test, but this time Farrell is too paranoid to believe anyone or anything anymore. In another stupid move, Pacino falls for Farrell's I-just-webcasted-your-plot-to-the-whole-world ruse, and makes another incriminating speech in front of the assembled CIA agents, and down he goes.

This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test.

Back to Regular Programming

It's been more that a month since I last updated my blog (not counting the Nybble posts). It's always a busy time after coming back from two weeks of overseas training. There's the backlog of office work and emails that need to be dealt with. Bills to pay, mails to read or throw away. Photos to sort, select, annotate, and upload. Blog entries to research, write up, and publish.

Two weeks after I came back, our group leader decided to take a two-week breather in HK. I was made acting group leader. No wonder the guy needed a break. There's almost one meeting I have to attend every day. For any issue that pops up, people go to me instead of dealing directly with the concerned engineer. I start getting calls and emails from people I don't know inquiring about the status of stuff I have no idea about. Our customer calls me for every question they can think of, and each of them is urgent. Just the past two weeks alone, my group received something like half a dozen emergency calls.

I'll be real glad when my colleague comes back from his vacation.