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And I was saved by my tire! It was my front tire which hit his rear left bumper, thus stopping the car from banging into my front door. There’s no way to explain this except protection from shoten zhenjin! Saturday morning, I took the girls for breakfast in our usual joint around Aman Suria. You know how at times things just don’t go your way - and in these moments, you are careless and reckless. Early this week, after piano lesson on Tuesday evening, I turned out of CentrePoint and was very close to getting my front left bumper to scratch the sharp corner. My front sensor was in red and the alarm was blaring very loudly. I told myself I have to be careful. And the following morning while parking near Taman SEA, I got too close to the curb. It’s like this is a bad week for driving as I was not careful and was always gambling. And it’s almost the same this morning. I was driving along the Pet shop and Restoran 747. I passed by an empty parking slot on my left. Then I stopped and d...

Apple announced a new MacBook Pro 16" a couple of days ago. They had a small event for reporters to show off the new MacBook. It replaced the 15" model, so there are only two MacBook Pro models for sale starting today - the 13" and the 15". There are a lot of enhancements to this model but all I read from the tons of news coverage are the new scissor-switch keyboard! As a mechanical keyboards aficionado, my head was nodding at every review talking about the importance of keyboard to the overall user experience. There's a podcast over at Upgrade where Jason Snell interviewed the product manager of MacBook Pro and they discussed about the research work which went into designing the new keyboard. The topic covers area like the feel when typing, getting your fingers oriented by feeling the layout of the keys, the sound that typing made and how it sound to you and people around you. They also discussed why the gap between keys are wider in this new keyboard and th...

The Great Blue; Kinetic Auto Relay 100M I have a 15 year old Seiko watch which I love very much. It's a Great Blue series and kinda one-of-its-kind, because Seiko discontinued it as soon as it was launch. So, there are very limited number of units. The watch I own is a Kinetic Auto Relay which means it is powered by my arm movement. And the nice thing about it is that if I don't use my watch, it hands will not move but the Kinetic capacitor which stores energy (up to 4 years of inactivity) will continue to keep track of the time. When I picked up the watch and shake it a bit, it will wake up and auto adjust to the correct time whether it is AM or PM. But my watch is 15 year old. At that age, the capacitor cannot hold a lot of charges. These days if I left my watch unused for 2 days, the watch stopped keeping time. I need to get the capacitor replaced. But who is the official service center for Seiko? The thing about luxury watches is that if you don't send it to ...

iPhone 11 was launched yesterday. In a surprising an unexpected twist, Apple reduced the price of iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro Max. I suppose they learned their lessons from iPhone Xs a year ago. How much can they continue to squeeze from their loyal customers? It's a good news really. Just as a comparison, before the 10 Sept launch day, an iPhone Xr 128GB sells for RM3,849. The new iPhone 11 with 128GB is now selling for RM3,599. That is a RM250 reduction (around US$50)! That's great news. What is EVEN better news is that today, right after the launch of iPhone, the same Xr is reduced to RM3,099, a RM750 (US$150) reduction on the old model. Last year, Xr is considered the most value for money, especially the 128GB model. Today, while stock lasts, it is a STEAL! If you are considering an upgrade from 7 or 8, now is the time to do it! Edit: This excellent article by Ben Thomson is worth a read : That means that this year actually saw three price cuts: First, the...

Hong Kong Leader Warns of ‘Ruin’ With Strikes Snarling City, Airport Demonstrators hampered the financial hub’s busy morning commute with actions that left traffic snarled, subway lines inoperable and airport operations disrupted. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd . said it canceled more than 140 flights coming to and from the city, while Hong Kong Airlines Ltd . scrapped 30 flights. This is getting out of hand.. are they asking for military actions? In the article, one man lied down in between the doors of the MRT train to prevent the train from moving. Goodness gracious!

After weekend of violent clashes, Beijing to address Hong Kong unrest - World | The Star Online : What began as a movement to oppose the extradition law has taken on broader demands. They include the resignation of Hong Kong's Beijing-backed leader Carrie Lam, calls for full democracy and an independent inquiry into what some say has been excessive police force against protesters. It’s amazing to see this development simply because Hong Kong IS a developed nation. It’s not like this is a country being oppressed economically or a third world country suffering from hunger. This is a country which is the 3rd largest financial exchange, after New York and London. I also read else where that some MNC companies have started moving their HQ from Hong Kong to Singapore, seeking a more stable country. Singapore is reaping this benefit.

Apollo 11 anniversary: Astronauts left their poop on the moon. NASA ought to go back for that shit. - Vox :  But the bigger human footprint on the moon is, arguably, the 96 bags of human waste left behind by the six Apollo missions that landed there. Yes, our brave astronauts took dumps on their way to the moon, perhaps even on the moon, and they left behind their diapers in baggies, on humanity’s doorstep to the greater cosmos. The bags have lingered there, and no one knows what has become of them. Now scientists want to go back, and answer a question that has profound implications for our future explorations of Mars: Is anything alive in them?

Once a Model City, Hong Kong Is in Trouble - The New York Times : if you are curious about the recent series of protests in Hong Kong, this is a great article that’s worth your time to read. Caught between rival modes of rule — Beijing’s dictates and the demands of local residents — the authorities have allowed problems to fester, including an affordable-housing crisis, a troubled education system and a delayed high-speed rail line.

I have always wanted a native iOS Blogger app, so that I can blog on the go. Ideally, it should come with a Mac companion app. I found one a couple of years ago called Blogo , but the app was now dead and was not supported, as far as I know.  Today, in Daringfireball podcast, I heard that @Gruber is actually using a native Mac app called MarsEdit. I downloaded the trial and is using it now. Not sure what I think of it but I don’t see why I needed a native Mac app when I could very well type these words through a browser. And saved $50!  There must be something good about it. I will report back! Update: so I cannot drag and drop photo from the Mac into MarsEdit and the reason was that Google shutdown Picasa API, which allows 3rd party app to upload photos. Hmm.. looks like MarsEdit is not for Blogger.. bummer!  

In the past 2 months, I have dug out my old iPhone 5s, put in a data only SIM card and leave it connected to my CarPlay. It was glorious! The moment I went into the car and start my engine, CarPlay instantly (and I meant, super instant! ) connects and continue my playback - if I were listening to podcast, the episode continue where I left off. If I were on Spotify, the songs continue to play. Most convenient though, Waze auto starts. I don't have to reach out to the compartment and pull out the phone and launch these app. It just restored to the state I was when I switched off the engine. Beautiful. The nice thing about this set up is that the phone fits nicely into the compartment just below the middle arm rest, with lots of rooms to spare. The USB port is inside  this compartment, so there is no ugly wires dangling about. And when you closed the compartment, no one have any clues there is a iPhone inside it. However, iPhone 5s is a bit old and long on the tooth. Sometimes...

Yesterday, my favorite Twitter client, Twitterrific, released V6 . I have been using Twitterrific for years and while I sometimes try other clients, I always end up with Twitterrific. So, I am extremely happy to see it still being actively developed. One of my favorite features of this release is the introduction of new themes. There is one theme I really like. It's called Parakeet and it's almost based on the Solarized Dark colour scheme. However, there is no Solarized Light and so, I was delighted to learn that there is a way to change the theme manually by changing the .plist file. Twitterrific syncs the theme file to iCloud Drive under the Twitterrific folder. There is a Themes folder and inside it is a Day and Night subfolder. They also nicely included a sample theme file, named Sample.twitterrifictheme. All you have to do is copy the file and drop it to the Day subfolder and magically, Twitterrific client will pick it up. The theme files for all the included 6 themes...

This charger came with the 2018 super slim iPad Pro, the one with Face ID and have magnets for the Apple Pencil to stick to. It is a USB-C charger. It is small. As small as the 5W iPhone charger that was shipped with every iPhone since the iPhone 3G. It is also slight fatter than the iPad Air charger. The legs can be flatten - this is the same charger design that shipped with Apple Watch Series 3. Some really thoughtful and delightful designs. Here are a couple of comparison pictures. Top: 5W charger that came with iPhone. Middle: this USB-C charger. Bottom: iPad Air 2 charger The charger is 18W. And yet, it can charge a MacBook Pro 13” (without Touch Bar)! You read it right! This little guy can charge a MacBook Pro, albeit very, very, very slowly . The MBP shipped with a 61W charger that’s three times in size. Fully charged a MacBook Pro 13". Impressive! The charger is so tiny compare to the MBP's 61W charger, which is SOOO bulky to carry ...