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Showing posts from 2014

iPhone 6 Plus

w00t! I received my iPhone 6+ last Friday, by chance. The iPhone 6+ is very much in demand and both the 64GB and 128GB model is out of stock. It was by pure luck that I was able to get the 64GB Space Grey - both the memory and colour are my target, so I didn't even have to compromise at all. Pretty excited about this. What I want to cover today and which caused me to post in this blog is a underrated feature of the iPhone 6 which is called Display Zoom. The main reason I am buying iPhone 6, and many of my friends/colleagues are hunting for one, is because of the screen size. And the reason we love big size is because we are all of middle age and our eye sight are not as good as before. So, we think that the iPhone 6 size will help us see better; bigger fonts, bigger interfaces, etc. So I was really surprise when setting up the iPhone, and the setup wizard actually asked me if I wanted to set it up with Standard View or Zoom View. I went with Standard and after the setup was ...

Incompetence

That's the word in the mouth of everyone in regards to Malaysia and how we handled the MH370 disappearance. The authorities are incompetence to lead such an important search. They have been led through wild goose chase - forged passports, searching in South China Seas, searching in Straits of Melaka, transponder being switched off one by one. What is going on? And then there's the haze issue. We are so badly shrouded by this poisonous smoke that it's a wonder people don't drop dead. And water rationing. What the hell is going on? It's like the worst ever to be a Malaysians, to live in Malaysia. And it is so embarrassing when we are under the scrutiny of the world.

Flight MH370 Disappearance

I really cannot wrap my mind around how a plane could disappeared. If my crappy iPhone could pin point my location with such accuracy, how can we lose a plane in this modern interconnected technological world? What about the famous aircraft black box? And aren't all plane designed to float in water, that's why the passengers are trained to wear the lifejacket and to show you the exit so you could slide your way down to safety. This would gives you the impression that if something happened to a plane, the sea is the preferred way to land vs a jungle. Many said that the pilot have enough time to broadcast an emergency message but none came. So it suggest a sudden incident - an explosion perhaps? Or someone murdered the pilots and crash the plane.. if it is the former, is it because of our Malaysian substandard again? From CNBC: Arnold Barnett, a longtime Massachusetts Institute of Technology specialist in aviation safety statistics, said that prior to the disappearance of Sa...

Haze, Hazy, Volcano Ash, Whatever...

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I bitched about Haze back in 2005. This is the post . Since then, we have been getting haze every year. Today is no different. WHAT EVER!

I would never quit if I were Flappy Bird developer..

As an avid gamer for 3 decades, I have always dreamed of making games. Back in the 1988, my friend and I wanted to make a game. We built a website in anticipate to promote the game (that was before blogs were popular) but we didn't really have the energy, passion and technical know how to write a game. At one point, 2 years after iPhone was released and many people are making money writing apps, we wanted to tap on that platform to write games. I bought a Mac with the main intention of studying iOS programming. Last year Dec, we even planned to take a week off and take a iOS programming course. So, it is with envy that I see successes of Flappy Bird, a game so simple, it boggles the mind on how it became so popular. And the natural thoughts of the developer quitting despite potentially making US$50,000/day is that he must be insane.. or weak. If I had $50K a day, I would shut off internet and go to the beach sipping premium coffee.. or I would buy a bungalow in Cameron Highlands ...

The incredible rise and fall of Flappy Bird

Over the past two months, a phenomenon happened in the mobile app world. A game came out of nowhere and took the world by storm (it has 50 million downloads and there are 16 million tweets about it!). And it is not a AAA game. It is made by one person, one developer from Vietnam. The game is called Flappy Bird. This is a very simple game but it was very addictive - because of its simplicity and yet difficult to play, it became the game people are obsessed to beat, or be better than their friends. Many people have a love-hate relationship with it. They hated the game but they can't do without it. That sounds like drug - could this be the formula to build a mobile app? The developer told  TechCrunch in an interview: "I don't know how my games can be so popular. Most of my players are kids in schools. I would like to thanks them for playing my game and sharing it to other people." This is the issue with mobile games these days - so many of these addictive games are...

Exodus

CNY is round the corner. But the mood is not as bright and happy as befit a New Year. What to do, this year of 2014 is a year where we will see price hike in many things. Life is going to be hard. Business is slow. The feeling is worse than 17 years ago when we had a recession in '97. 17 years ago .. that means instead of progressing towards a developed country of 2020, we are regressing. We are going back to Ice Age. Our neighbours (apart from Thailand, who is now kinda sick due to their state of emergency) are progressing well: Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, etc. Many more people are contemplating migration. Even more brain drain. The sentiment in the office is not that good either. With so many expense cut worthy of Edward Scissorhand, this company I am with has devolved into something worse than a Chinaman company. All in all, a gloomy year.

Life in Malaysia

I have lived in Malaysia all my life - 40 years of it. We are all bracing ourselves for a tough 2014 - electricity tariff is increasing, so is toll rate, petrol, sugar, GST is coming .. all these are bound to create a lot of hardship for the citizens. It's almost like we are going backward, back to the olden days when life is hard for everybody. But the strange thing is, we are seeing a lot more foreigners in our country. We are importing a lot more skilled workers. Talent Corp is getting Malaysians from abroad to come back to work for the country. I often wondered why skilled foreigners and Malaysians want to return here to work? Is it the opportunities .. or is it the weather.. or is it because Malaysia sounded exotic and how often does one get opportunities to work in Asia and experience the culture? A word of advice - the country is generally safe but there are many petty snatch thieves around. I'd think that things could get worse in 2014 when life is hard. One mista...

Ringgit is in Google+

So I have now created a Google+ profile. Follow me there. The problem is, I am more active in Twitter than Google+ so I am not sure the point of the profile yet. And I wonder if every blog post I made appear in the G+, if it does that will be great. We will see how it goes.

9 Level of Consciousness

In our practice, we believe that when you are in rhythm with the Universe, things will go smoothly for you and you will meet people who will do the right things for you. It's very much what feng shui will teach you. When things are aligned, your life will go smoothly. So, if you can just employ a feng shui master to fix up your house, why do you need to spend hours chanting and meditating? A friend once asked - if I am a very positive person, such that I truly believe that I can do things, do I still need religion? Sometimes, you see CEO of big companies. They are very positive guys. They can do big things and make lots of money. Do they need religion? Another friend was reading the very popular book "The Secret" which says that when you focused your mind on the positive things, on things you want, you are harnessing the environment around you to move along that path you are focusing and thus you get the stuff you wished for. So why do people need to then spend hour...

Perks

Yesterday in Facebook, I posted a simple status update: "Thirsty, no paper cup to drink water" . The post was in jest of my company removing paper cups in the guise of being environment friendly and asking us to bring our own cups. But I was surprised when one of my FB friends actually asked me to bring a cup. That statement made me wonder whether I have over-reacted? Perhaps this is a common thing among other companies out there. But I wonder which company: 1. does not provide any stationaries - no pen, pencils, staplers, rulers, tape, etc. As a new employee, you have to bring these at your own cost 2. does not provide coffee/tea - you have to use your money on the vending machine they allocated 3. does not provide paper cup for water 4. at one time, decided not to include paper to dry your hands in the toilet and instead use toilet paper rolls to dry your hand. If this sounds to you like I am working in a Chinaman company or a local Malaysia Sdn Bhd company -  I ...