Pioneer SE-NC31C

Took the Pioneer SE-NC31C earphones with active noise-cancellation for a test drive on the daily commute. Happy to report that it works as advertised. Instead of simply blocking out everything, it merely cancels out (up to 90% of) the constant noise. That means it doesn't really eliminate the engine revs, but the constant bus hum is gone. Great when you still need to be aware of your surroundings. Audio quality is pretty good but not as good as my Brainwavz M4 IEMs. In terms of controls, there is an on/off switch to enable/disable the noice-cancelling feature. There's also a monitor button to temporarily turn off the audio, so you can "monitor" your surroundings. One AAA battery is supposedly good for 120 hours of noise-free audio.

SlimJB Issues

A few things I noticed after a day of JellyBean. Battery usage is higher than normal and getting a few softboots. Nothing too bad that would force me to go back to SlimICS though.

Discovered two faults. One, can't view CJK characters anymore. Following the advice here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=30568986&postcount=1425, I managed to restore the Asian character support. You basically download a CM10 nightly, extract the Droidsansfallback.ttf file from system/fonts and whack it into the same folder on your phone. Two, the Google search bar/widget doesn't work. For this, I had to flash the VoiceSearch/GoogleNow addon to get it working again. Mighty impressed with Voice Search. It was already working fine in ICS, but now the answers are presented in the new card format and spoken out. I also noticed that the clock doesn't display AM/PM, even when configured to do so. Not a biggie.

SlimICS to SlimJB

Two months after the official release of Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), I took the plunge and upgraded form SlimICS to SlimJB. SlimJB actually came out a few weeks ago, but I took my sweet time and waited for the more stable v2.1.

For the upgrade, you'll need to download your device package and the common pacakge. Enter CWM recovery (that's VolUp + Home + Power), wipe data, format system (under mounts and storage). Flash the device zip, then the common zip. If the flashing happened too quickly, remove/replace the battery, and do it again.

The intial bootup took longer than usual, and there is the initial lag, but quite impressed that my old SGS can still run Jelly Bean quite well. The UI feels very responsive, and the overall performance is as fast as ICS.

Movie 2012.08.04 - Pour elle

French suspense thriller. Anything for Her is about an average high-school teacher who springs his innocent wife from prison. She was sentenced to 20 years prison for murdering her boss. Left with no legal recourse after trying to prove her innocence for three years, he hatches a desperate plan to rescue her. He basically falsify her medical records, so that she would be sent to the medical clinic. There, he disarms the cops and they make a run for it. With falsified papers and money he robbed from a drug dealer, he and his wife and kid starts a new life in El Salvador. The plot can be unbelievable at times due to the numerous unexpected coincidences, but somehow it works.

Hacking the Dettol Automatic Dispenser

This must be the bargain of the month. The Dettol No-Touch Hand Wash System sells for $19.99. That includes the battery-operated automatic dispenser, a 250mL hand wash refill, and 4xAA batteries. Woolies is currently selling it on special for $9.99. A discount of 50% sounds nice. I did some searching and found a special edition Ice Age 4 package hidden at the back. For the same price, you get a free children's movie voucher. Considering that movie tickets are now around $15, this is a steal! Better still, the item checks out for $8.49 at the counter!

The only complaint for this automatic dispenser is that it dispenses a lot of hand wash, and the refill is quite expensive. Good thing there's a hack/mod to make it dispense less. Video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRfLlz0EA4k
Basically, you take off the 4 screws inside the battery compartment. Press the refill-release button to remove the upper compartment. Disconnect the feed tube and the sensor, so that you can safety take off the base unit. Pry off the plug located in the middle of the unit. Invert the orange stopper. Put everything back in. The dispenser should now dispense less.

Movie 2012.08.03 - La doppia ora

A.K.A. The Double Hour. A psychological thriller about a hotel chambermaid who meets a security guard in a speed dating event. The two strike it off quite well, and one day Guido brings Sonia to his workplace - a mansion in the middle of a forest. Just when the couple went to the woods for a quick snog, a team of robbers swooped in and cleaned the place out. Guido tries to protect Sonia from the gang leader's advances, and a shot is fired. For three days, Sonia was in a coma. We see her visiting Guido's grave. We see her colleague committing suicide. We see her meeting up with her boyfriend, who turns out to be the gang leader.  We see the police inspector taking a strong interest in her criminal past. We see her being drugged by her manager and buried alive.

Sonia wakes up from her coma, and Guido is there by her bedside, and she is confused. In the end, Guido discovers that everything has been planned by Sonia and her boyfriend from the very beginning. He had them in his sights and could've alerted the authorities before they escaped to Buenos Aires, but he let them be.