Figures~~

I've always love figures, especially kawaii girls. Recently found myself hooked up with 2 figurines

http://www.moeyo.com/2010/12/figure_kotobukiya_shining_maxima_sample.html

http://www.moeyo.com/2011/02/figure_kotobukiya_kunoichi-irufa_sample.html

There are so damn pretty in design and build. But the price tag is high and really need to think twice to get them.

Life is short, so appreciate it

Recently there are a lot of sad news around me, and it usually involve the worst matters in life: Accident, Sickness and even Death. Yes, death of someone dearing, death of someone who is not bonded relationship, and even the death of a young one that even didn't ever see sunlight. It actually did surprise me that this year (in fact just within this 2 months) that there are so many life and death issues that surrounds me.

Believe it or not, the matters of life and death always happens around us. I'm not in the medical line, where everyday death is just a matter of life itself. And I would actually ponder on the fact that everyday there are a lot of people tries to suicide by taking overdose panadol (thank you Katherine for sharing this with me). All these incidents, do really makes me rethink of the value of life.

Keeps on thinking, is life short? Ants usually live around 90 days, dogs around 7 years, panda around 20-30 years, and human beings? Well, you know for yourself. Some might say, life is still short, and not enough time to do whatever they want. Some might say vice versa, that the life is too long, and they wish to end it to move on to the next phrase. As for me? I would be in the first group.

Think of your love ones and those in care for you. Take care. And may those beloved ones Rest In Peace.

Life is Short, by John Reuben
Come on everybody, it's about that time
Come on everybody, it's about that time
Come on everybody, it's about that time

This life is short, don't waste it
This life is what you make it
This life is short, don't waste it
This life is what you make it

Don't call it jiggy
Call it danceable
Throw out a beat to fill the dance floor
I'll be on the side just sittin' and watchin'
Happy and content vicariously rockin' 
It's great to be alive and well
Still in the capitol where I reside and dwell
So tell me if you hear me loud and clearly
Reality's just a bit more near me
So we make the most of every given minute
Here's a jam for the world and the 7 billion in it
Limits we know not
Don't really want to stop
Go-getter's get what they got by goin' for it
Caught in this crazy mix over the years
Learned some tricks
Throw 'em on my records just for kicks
And it's obvious that if it's what God gives
See we gotta keep the energy positive 

This life is short, don't waste it
Don't waste it, I hope that you appreciate it
This life is what you make it
What you make it, I hope that you appreciate it

Hey, every new day brings a new day
To say thank you and relay my gratitude
For the time I've been given
Listen been given permission to embrace the rhythm
So live a little
Come on, breathe a little
Tell me, who wants to rhyme for close-minded people?

Not I 
Okay good, me neither
This here feature won't follow procedure
Instead, the forecast includes a brainstorm
With elastic thinking to help me stretch the norm
Life's too short for me to conform
Daily renewal helps me transform
And live life to the utmost
Here's a toast to the future
Faith, love and hope
And all the things that truly remain and exist
It goes a little something like, like

This life is short, don't waste it
Don't waste it, I hope that you appreciate it
This life is what you make it
What you make it, I hope that you appreciate it

Come on
Yeah
So, I'm thinkin' life... is... anyways... bring it back

Life's too short 
To have enemies
I make no apologies for being friendly
Life's too short 
To live in poverty
I'm not talking money, I'm talking mentally 
Cause I've been broke and at the same time happy
I'm well aware of my history
So I approach life a little more humbly
Cause being full of yourself will leave you empty 

This life is short, don't waste it
Don't waste it, I hope that you appreciate it
This life is what you make it
What you make it, I hope that you appreciate it

This life is short, don't waste it
This life is what you make it

This life is short, don't waste it
This life is what you make it

What's Up

It always seems took me forever to update blog, and if anyone notice, for the past few years it seems that I only post it once a year (and some times no post at all). Haha... it does seems so long ago...
So what's up? Recently been hook up with web technologies and was rethinking to revive this blog. Yes, you heard me right. This blog was previously mearnt for a story line that I had in mind years ago, but I seems to be too lazy to write all of them up. Well, the story of P still lives on in my mind (at least to a stage that his secrets starting to review), and I'll still continue to write more story down when I got the time.
So what I'm planning to do is to merge all my blog together. Sounds like many but in fact only 2. Old live blog is no longer available but they migrate it to Wordpress. Dun really like WordPress though so I'm considering migrate all the old post to here.
It might mean a lot to me. Got some plan to do here but will need more time and effort. It's been years ever since I touched any web programming and even just now I've totally forgotten about HTML tags. Haha... guess it's back to ABC again.
Stay tune and check here from time by time.

Live Goes On

How many years has it been? It's been a while ever since I login to live account and notice that live space is no longer available. Anyway, will try out the wordpress and see how it goes.

Recent News

What have I been doing? Might not guess that I've been hooking up in cracking and hacking some games, especially the recently released 箱-はこ- .The game play is not really what I've been expecting, but never the less it's still a good game. I'll talk more about this later on.

Just to share some cute and nice little image that's good to put in your blog. Please note that they're actually promoting the Da Capo game, but hey, they're cute.

More from:
http://circus.nandemo.gr.jp/sakuhin/dc2pc/index01.html

~LONG TIME NO C~

Wow, I must be getting old, or I'm forgetting how fast the time flows. It's been more than a year since I update anything in the blog!!!! Oh my my...
I'll get myself busy to get some updates here...

Evangeline A.K. McDowell

Evangeline, one of the main heroines in Magister Negi Magi, is one of my favourites apart from Konoka or even Nodoka. Being a 600 years old monster (dracula) and always in her chibi form, who knows what else will Ken Akamatsu (the artist who make the series up) add into her character. Recently, I manage to grab a sip from the latest manga, and found there're others (who like me) also love Evangline. One of my favourites, in fact, is the translator's view on Evangeline's new look.



Cool? Cute? Moi? Can't wait to see the latest season of Magister Negi Magi.

Eva's portfolio at Wikipedia

Glitches glitches!!!

I was browsing around the net the other day, searching for a solution to stop that annoying activation prompt of MS Office around. Nope, my company is using Action Pack, so we actually got the license, but I just wanna test out some MS Office components (especially Visio and Projects) before I request a specified license for my own use. Anyway, instead of an way to stop that prompt, what I found instead is a funny glitches that exists in our little MS Word.

Try typing this in a blank MS Word document.

=rand(200,9)

You'll find your system hang abit, and a lot of words coming out row by row. I won't mention the actual results here (have the fun yourself). This glitch might be one of the ester eggs in MS products. xD

Fedora Linux! Finally!

Currently really got hooked up with Linux, especially Fedora Core 6, which I manage to grab from my just joined company. It was a good idea to start moving from WinXP -> SuSE, but is it wise to go from SuSE -> FC6? Read on.

My first impression on Fedora. Not pretty enough. SuSE manage to grab a lot easy to use modules into their Yast. End result,  Yast manage to be a good installer + configuration tools throughout SuSE. It's simple, yet was a good start for windows migrate. Fedora on the other end falls back abit. Although the Anaconda offers gui configuration, yet it's pretty limited.

Talking about installation, Fedora's yum need to get online in order to get something installed. For someone who installed Fedora on a laptop (like me) this is not a good idea since my laptop doesn't always got internet connection. SuSE on the other hand offers repo installation from the DVD itself. However, SuSE doesn't include online repo for update or patches. Odd, as most Linux distro updates via web.

Why Fedora then? A word. Stable. So far with my laptop, I used to get a lot of hanging sessions with SuSE. It sometimes hang while loading some modules, in which I couldn't really figure out where the problem lies. So far I didn't manage to *hang* my Fedora, although occasionally I manage to struck my X Windows, due to the use of Beryl effect...

Nice or not? Bottom line, quite nice. I'm trying to test server functionality on Fedora right now. So far I manage to get Bugzilla up and running (but ignoring some security issues) and hosting never been this easy before (even simpler than doing it in WinXP). I'll look further into it and maybe will share more sessions on my FC6 box.

Use your old PC

You got some old PC hanging around. Can't use the latest Vista? (surely can't use, and I don't recommend using it as well) Or even worst, can't use the worthy Win XP (Pentium 2 anyone?) Anyway, here's a good article to tune up old pc for office and personal use.

Pretty nice. I think I still got my old PII machine hanging around...

System Recycling with Xubuntu

The meet 2

Everyone is hoping for a free show in the bar. With the war around entertainment has been less meaningful in this quarter, save for fights and tournaments that determine the top ten ratings. It wasn't easy to find someone dare to take on one of the top ten these days, especially Baret.

"Ain't you going to stop them?" The bartender, Jackos said.
"Well, looks like everyone hopoing for a show." P said, while finishing his last drop of drink, with his back against the fighting arena that was about to take place.
"P... You're a cruel man..."
"Hey, she can look after herself. Besides..." Taking a snip on the young lady behind her, P continues "it should be Baret who needs to be careful"
"Well then, P. In that case you'll have to help clean up the bloody mess later."

P pause. The last time a fight bagan, the whole bar was in a battle riot and was turned upside down. It took him more than a week to get everything back right on. No more of those days...

"Ok ok, I'll go and see what I can do" P puts his empty drink down, and head towards the middle of the crowd...

***

Sam look upon the big guy in front of her. Big, ugly and smelly, Sam thought. With Baret almost 2 times her size, she won't have a 100% chance of winning. 50-50, Sam murmured, yet it was a chance for her to test out how good she was comparing with the top ten.

And perhaps, she can make it into the top ten as well.

Sam's hand slowly reach for her katana on her back. It won't be easy to make a move without notice. I should have prepared, Sam thought. Now all the she needs to do is to wait for Baret's attack and make a counterattack...

Before Sam manage to reach for her katana, Baret already make a move. His left hand's punch already on his way to Sam's face. He's faster than I thought, Sam blinks. Preparing to take the hit, as there's no other place for her to dodge in the small bar.

Then suddenly, a shadow shows up between Sam and Baret. Baret's big metallic hand came to a pause, while Sam's hand, which was already grasping the katana and waiting for counterattack, was halted by a strong grab by the wrist. Not really hurting her, but the grab is strong enough to stop her movement.

Baret's angry eyes stared on the man that stops his punch. "P!!! This is none of your bussiness! Move away before I punch you as well!" He shouted.

"Oh Baret old friend. Since when you like hitting ladies?"
"Move away before I..."
"Comeon Baret, don't make this place a bloody pool alright? Jackos will had a hard time to clean it up" P said, and he murmured inside him "And I had to clean all these too"

A strange look appeared on Baret's face. He finally put his hand down, and said "Pussy, you're lucky this time. Team, let's prepare for our mission" Baret left the bar with his team.

"Phew, that was a close call, girlie" P said, as he move to face the little girl.
"Would you mind to let go of me?" Sam said, still stuggling to get her hand free.
"Promise you won't chop me to pieces?"
Sam pause. She had hidden her katana well behind her back, and it won't be easily to see it. But how would this guy knows? Sam nodded his head, and release her hand on the katana.
Her hand was also released from P's grab.

***

Who would have ever thought, this is the first meeting of the two, which marks the begining of the story itself.

Les Propheties

Nostradamus, a world well-known writer of prophecies. Perhaps the name might seems stranger to most of us, but if you think back the few years back when people keeps talking the world's end during the millenium celebration, that's a part of Nostradamus' work (or was interpretted that way). I recently watch a special programme on Nostradamus on Discovery, and it does sound interesting on his work.

Or so it seems to be, till I looked at his work, Les Propheties.

With the help of the internet, it was quite easy to find the old work around. Take a look at here Yowusa The site is nice enough to host the original transcript and even a translated version. Certainly I can't read the original version (Spanese?) and I can't even figure out the translated one as well. Hmm... prophecy or not, seems like it will only know when something happens.

Wiki's article on Nostradamus

ASM, everyone?

Tech savy... ASM is actually means Assembly Language (or Assembly Machine Language... can't remember) is among the lowest level of programming language nowadays. In a recent article I read just now Slashdot | Is Assembly Programming Still Relevant, Today? I notice that the debat is more or less focus on the usefulness of ASM. I've seen ASM codes (but I'm not the coder) and they are quite programmer's nightmare if they do not know ASM well (like me) ASM is useful for direct comunication with the hardware, and normally are used to speed up or obtimize certain routines that are slow in other higher level language. There's a point that I like mentioned in the thread, a lot of people are coding their programs to run in multi-Ghz machine. This is a kind of trend that I actually notice quite long ago, that people are always aiming to make program for latest machine.

Not really to blame them (because I'm used to be the same), since it was fairly simple to ignore the optimization coding that was pretty hard to maintain, and sometimes it was more fairly simple (simpler readability) to write a program than to build a program that's optimize for speed. I remember someone post a solution for a simple routine to check wheter input receipt is letters. The *stupid* routine is to loop through all the input characters and check their ASCII codes. Well, not exactly wrong, but there's simpler method for such solution that are proven faster in ASM. For most of new programmers nowadays, ASM is not learned (except for some courses and engineering) and so they do not know the importance of ASM.

Master wooo....

Was preparing for the final phase for my Master right now. Back and fought I went to settle bunch of things, sending up to 6 copies of my thesis here and there. Well, Master is not that cheap, and I've been rethinking back whether I should have done it at the first place (Kinda late to think about that right now)

My lecturer thinks that my project is a simple go. Hmm... I would have say it was fairly simple, except that you had to deal with the DICOM file formats yourself. There're a bunch of tools which I can use, but at most case, the tools normally need extra $$$ or are simply too complex to be used. So instead I just make myself a fairly simple DICOM reader that could handle most of the common DICOM format. Sounds simple? Yet my lecturer recommend 2 firsr degree students to do something similar. I don't mind helping them, but they really need to do some extensive reading (er... 1000++ pages of DICOM documentation) and some low level file checking (via Hex Editor) or even some stupid trial and error (which I like and hate) Other than that, I do not really know how to help them.

Apart from master submition, I'm still waiting reply from my job agency about a job that I applied. Hmm... I was interested in the job (as the agent descript it as a interesting job). Still waiting her confirmation on interview. For the meantime I'm still a jobseeker, anyone got some nice jobs to recommend? xD

Just received a (fairly short) SMS from a old friend, mentioning that she's going to marry. Wow! Finally, some close friend of mine are getting married. Haha, although I did receive a number of invitation from my friends before (close and not so close) I didn't manage to go either of them (mostly I'm not around or fallen sick) Hopefully I should be able to go to hers since she book me so early for now. xD

Speaking of marriage, seems like a lot of people around the mid 20s are either thinking or worried about it. Well, the question is, Do we really need to get marry? Hmm... if we look back to the history, marriage is actually just a ritual to bind 2 people together (in order to give birth to new generation, etc) Alas, the world is now suffering from overpopulation, so why do we need to keep on reproducing? LOL, I'll certainly be killed by my parents if they sees this. xD

What's Up Lately...

Wooo... Signing into Live Spaces and only found that I've been missing for quite some time (about a month? ) So what have I been up to? Most of the time the geek inside me is doing a programming project (unfortunately, it's not my master project, or even a project that can be sold, more on that later) Never thought that I'll be hooked up to it for so long.

Anyway, one day John manage to drag me out from my programming missery, to go for a big sale event on computer parts. Nice, who wouldn't like to have a Bluetooth connector or a 1GB thumbdrive for 1 bucks? Yet, it wasn't so easy to get into the mall. The Digital Mall was so crowded that it was almost impossible to get in. And yeah, both me and John hate the staffs arrangement that only selected people can get into the mall, while the rest will have to wait outside (aa... WHAT?) To get an idea of the crowd, check out these two photos... an hour before and an hour later...



An hour before...

An hour later...

Hook myself recently on Linux. John manage to grab a Linux cd for me from his company. Nice... been wanting to port to Linux for sometime now. It was years since I touch Linux (back when Linux is still a baby, and I have to write my own driver to get it to work) Installation process is simple and smooth, only need some customization and driver fetching, and there we go, my testing Linux platform. KDE and Gnome sure looks so much better than they used to be, and I got whole tonne of new stuff to learn. Think I'll be missing for another month...

My catalog program that was built for my own use is more or less completed. Ability to make my own catalog field, adding disc's info seems to be working nicely, however due to SQLite that tends to lock up the whole database whenever writing table etc. Maybe I'll try to rewrite the writing process to make sure things go much smoothly (and hopefully I can speed things up for large records) Anyway, that'll will have to postpone till I'm free next time...

Phone OS?

Phone OS? I believe anyone who owns a smartphone will know about this. An OS is the very base software that communicates with the hardware, and is basically the most important piece of software that you'll need (without it you can't operate your smartphone at all xD) Anyway, alhtough I didn't own a smartphone (poor me) but I do know that the major smartphone's OS nowadays is Symbian. Before reading the article I never thought that Symbian was such a bad piece of OS. After all, it's been on the market for such a long time, and was dominent all these years. Really odd seeing how things turns up...

Read more: Readers Write About Symbian, OS X and the iPhone

Challenge

Hook myself lately in building a flexible database system. The mai challenge in the system, is the term flexible. User specified which data to store, when to retrieve, and even design own GUI on what to show and what should hide. Deciding which part should be given free for user to play with, and which part should only be maintained by the system was pretty much difficult (at least for someone who isn't database based). Yet, the real fun is to maintain both flexible and performance together. Yes, it's both hard but fun. xD

Found myself loving a old theme song for an old anime, Brain Powerd. The ending song (literally "Field of Love") has that strange kind of feeling that suits my taste. xD

愛の輪郭

歌手：KOKIA
作詞：井荻麟
作曲：菅野よう子

愛し合う心を
育てていったあなたが
その腕を枕に
お眠りと耳にささやく
昼の言葉など忘れていいから
聞いて free fly free fly
果てなく

父とその母が
歌えなかった唄が

弾む free fly free fly
愛をまさぐる唄
信じあって 語りつげば
もっと心 滑らかになる

欲深なまどろみ
身を任せて 夢見る
子供たちの心の
灯になって欲しいと

愛する作法を
ちりばめていけば
それは free fly free fly
慈しむ海原
あなたという星 つかめば
永遠という刻にかわって

愛し合う心を
育てていったあなたが
その腕を枕に
お眠りと耳にささやく

夢に見る銀河を
まどろんだまま旅する
その瞳と唇
それだけで何もいらない

Time flows...

Is it just me or it is a fact that time flows faster this year? A new year just started and now I'm busying cleaning the house. Though, I should've clean my stuff long before now, but the my lamer side keeps holding me back. xD

Decide to dump a lot of stuff ~ old magazines (piles of them), old CDs (piles of them, mostly free CDs that comes with the magazines) and perhaps I should dump myself? 

My final project can be said is finished. Anyone wish to see what I came up with can download and install it from Sendspace. I've included some components (.Net Framework 2.0, and Win Installer 3.0) which is required for the project. Also I've included a sample to play with. It might not look too good, coz I didn't optimize anything and just generate it on the go. Give some comments if errors or bugs are found.

Pushing myself on a project for personal use. It's suppose to be a catalog program to keep track of the stuff I got, but since I'm not a 100% database student, the design itself keeps changing (LOL, coz I do not strictly follow any design methodology, and just follow my instinct) Anyway, SQLite draws my attention as a standalone database, and it's preformance are pretty nice for my own use. Target the project to be done in a month or two.

Woo... New year...

It's been quite some time that I come back here. Without me knowing, it's already new year.

So what's up with me for missing so many weeks? Let's see. Hooked up in finalizing the addtional part of my project at first. Although I'm still checking and debuging some mysterious bugs, I would officially say the project is finished, and I would be awaiting for my viva later. It's about time I finish with this project, and hopefully no more upcoming.

Currently hooked up in doujin names. An IRC friend recommend a nice doujin fighting game Fatal/Fake. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal/Fake) The game mimic the original story quite well, and it's a really good action paced fighting. However, I was drawn to another doujin RPG game (Yeah, I'm a serious RPG fanatic). The Action-RPG Chantelise (http://egs.cug.net/circle/chantelise.html) is a simple yet addictive RPG game that draws my heart. But what I really hooked up is to search for all its secret treasures and go fishing :p

Last week when over for 2 movie in a row. Eragon (http://www.eragonmovie.com/) is a classical dragon myth tales. A young farm boy was choosen to be a dragon rider, and slowly becomes a saver for the people. Basically nothing too fancy about the movie, and as expected, it's a classical story.

Sinking of Japan (Nihon chinbotsu) in the mean time, offers some additional interesting CGs. Watching each part of Japan sinking slowly, and to see the last action hero struggling to save Japan proves that Japan did it again. Just that I keeps wondering, y the hero's clothes always so clean whereas all his surroundings are covered with volcano ash? xD

Drawn by Astro new China channel, I found myself catching an everyday 10 minutes programme. The show is about China's relic, and revealing the stories behind those >1000 years relics. It's informative, and it makes you wish to have one of them for yourself. xD Check out http://www.chinarelic.com/ for more information

Life Smash!!!

Recently due to HF downtime, I was hooked up with IRC. For those who doesn't know, particularly those recently using the net, IRC is an old chatting network (that exist together even before the net, I think). Anyway, not much new user like to use IRC, since everything is command-like, and without any fancy UI like the famous MSN or Yahoo. I used IRC before, not pretty much on chatting but to fetch some Nipponsei release, which only feasible there.

IRC is pretty much fun for discussion. Since I've join in part of the modders team (as a translator that is), the debate on modding and translation does happens some time, and it's fun to watch the discussion. Some of the folks I met are geeks, and I even found myself a Sensei / teacher who's also part of the team as translator. :p I think I'll hook up in IRC for now on.

Found myself an interesting blog. Gaijin Smash is about an English teacher who teaches in Japan. His point of view of Japan, as an outsider (which Japanese call gaijin) is slightly different than what we normally sees in TV. Anyway, some of his post is pretty fun, and you'll find yourself seeing Japan in another angle.

Damn hooked up with shaders programming. I intend to add shaders into my project. A last minute rush to enhance the project, but I'm only possible to program low level shaders. Yeah, it's low-level enough, that Ill have to play with ASM instructions. Dunno what ASM is? For example to declare a variable A = 3, you'll got to

TEMP A;
MOV A, 3.0;

That's the easy part. Sometimes in order to do some simple calculation, the instructions can be quite long. And don't forget that the number of instructions are pretty much limited, and with version 1.0/1.1 (which I'm programming), conditional checking (if/else) ain't available. The newer versions, such as GLSL and HLSL would surely ease things up, but unfortunately, I do not have the resource to program them.

Phong shading is complete, though I'll need some experiment on material to get the best result of the vertex shading. Nope, I'm not going with textures. Now on my way to testing out GPGPU's concept on programming GPU. Nice ideas, but I don't know how many of the concepts apply to my old GPU...