Saturday, October 24, 2009
at
5:00 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 5:
I thank God for students that I learn to be humble and patient while imparting knowledge and be an influence to them.
There is a certain Baptist church in North Carolina that is going to have a book burning on October 31. What's strange about this book burning? They are burning various versions of the Bible that are considered by this church perversions of the "God ordained" Bible, the King James Version (KJV). Some of these "heretical" Bible versions are like the NIV, NKJV, Good News etc. On top of that they are burning books by contemporary Christian authors such as John Piper, James Dobson, Billy Graham etc. As well as "ungodly" music like rock, rap and pop, which is probably understandable, but also country, gospel, jazz and so on.
The funny thing is that open burning is prohibited by state laws but they are still going ahead with it. The church may be fined up to $25,000 for the apparently 40-strong congregation.
I don't know whether to label this as ironic or cannot see the wood for the trees.
Friday, October 23, 2009
at
7:00 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 4:
I thank God for the numerous teachers that are or were in my life, both educationally and spiritually. Without them...well, they wouldn't be called teachers, would they?
I saw someone on the street who looks and dresses quite closely to the famous 80s singer Rick Astley complete with 80s styled sunglasses. And he was with this high school girl, presumably his girlfriend. The Rick-rolled maneuver does not fail.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
at
6:53 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 3:
I thank God for the talents of others because it is not just about me.
I just bought the Wicked music album after being converted when listening to it at a friend's friend's place. I should be kicking myself for not going to this musical because it's so damn good. The last (and the first) musical I went to was when I was in London in 1996 watching Starlight Express. Can't remember much, probably because I had no feeling for music back then.
Apparently, I'm not the only one getting Mac-scooped. Welcome to the boat, peoples!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
at
2:37 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
Day 2:
I thank God for the immense opportunities to do something that I like and/or passionate in. These opportunities express the gifts He has given to me graciously.
Just been reading the new stuff that have just come out of the Mac production lines and while I thought everything was cool, I was also a bit annoyed. This is also synonymous with the time when I got my iPhone as well. Just when every store dropped their price about 2-3 weeks before the iPhone 3GS came out, I took the opportunity thinking that a) it is unlikely that the new iPhones will be kept at roughly the same price as it was now and b) they wouldn't be selling it to more mobile providers. Lo and behold, both my assumptions were wrong. The iPhone 3GS came out with just a few dollars more on the plan than what I got for the regular iPhone 3G. That was quite annoying.
Now coming back to the new iMacs that have just been rolled out fresh from the Apple oven (or rather orchard). Just barely 2.5 months after getting my iMac, the new iMacs boast of higher specs at an even more affordable price. I got mine at a 2.9GHz Core 2 Duo, 24 inch screen, and a upgraded graphics card to a NVIDIA GT 130. Now for the price I paid for that, I could have gotten a 2.8GHz i7 Quad Core, 27 inch screen, 8GB RAM and a ATI Radeon 4850 on the new iMacs. And that's the full price, not the student price I got for my iMac. Don't get me wrong, I still love my iMac to bits but the sudden upgrade in specs and sudden drop in price is quite painful over a span of 2.5 months. That was really quite annoying.
It somewhat goes to show that I will not make a good financial analyst, stock broker or actuary despite my so-called love for math and numbers. I can't act well according to the market or maybe that I can't predict the market well enough to make an informed decision. Regardless, I always seem to miss out on every market conceivable and not just on tech goods. Education, relationships, food and the list goes on. Gives a whole new dimension to the term "loser"...
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
at
4:38 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
It has been an awful few weeks. Assignments piled up within days of each other and thanks to my procrastinating nature, that means sleeping at 8 am and hours in front of the computer. But having said that, there is a certain satisfaction that comes with finishing the assignments, especially the programming ones. It feels good when a program you code can withstand any stupid behaviour from the user. On a tangent, I find that it is really easy for you to come up with a smart algorithm to do something but it is really hard to think "stupid". As in you'd have to lower your intelligence down to that of a monkey so that your program doesn't crash when random clicks or random inputs are done. I think I now understand the meaning of the term "code monkey". Maybe it is why I noticed that most of the computer science, software engineering and IT are all crazy in some way. *gasp* That means I'm going to be next. YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!! *shake fist*
Definitely one of the most frustrating but I'd have to say most satisfying was the Java one. Yes, I know that I've been complaining about it for the whole semester but on hindsight, I really understand why not many people are doing this subject. This is an accelerated Java subject which is meant to cram 2 semesters worth of Java into 1. So with that, we learn stuff fast and we have to do stuff fast. The thing that made this one satisfying is that we have now the ability to do GUIs (Graphical User Interface). It is the single most frustrating thing about Java, not so much of the difficulty of creating GUIs but the tedious nature of layout. Java goes to town about layout. Once the GUI is done and start using them, you've jumped from a code monkey to a regular everyday, completely oblivious about the backend program user. That's satisfaction.
With all the assignments out of the way, I can finally breathe a little easier. There is still quite a number of things to be done like studying for the exams and the super-long-overdued post-processing of Fernando and Onna's wedding. Probably the most pressing need to meet right now is cleaning up my room. It's like a pipe bomb went off my room. Not to mention the dust and...erm...other stuff.
In just a span of a few weeks, the number of couples and/or potential-couples have sky-rocketed. Like mushrooms sprouting after a good rain. This is nuts. It's almost the same as the year when I came to OCF except that was about medicine students. Back in 2004-5, if you stand in the middle of the back hall of the church during supper and where ever you look there is at least 5 medicine students in your direct line of sight. Now it seems that if you stand in the middle of the hall, you're bound to hit at least 5 people who are in a relationship or testing water in your line of sight. It may be an exaggeration but it's still pretty damn a lot. I don't know what to make of this but my first thoughts was that this is going to be very awkward. I don't know, I don't think I can be in a room (a large one for that matter) that is populated with couples or publicly known water testers and be myself. I find that the number of identification links among friends diminishes and that is no good socially. A classic case of birds of a feather flock together. Sure we can joke around about people who are together or water testing like primary school children but to be exposed to this environment every time gets pretty dull. Gone are the days when I'd never have to worry about such things and everything would be peachy. I guess my age is showing.
On that note, I realized that I am avoiding quite a number of people for more or less the same reason. I know what you are thinking, I'm in a self-fulfilling downward spiral. Well, maybe. Frankly speaking, I don't think we as a whole are as accommodating anymore. I can't step up to their level because of a clique-ish behaviour and they don't seem to step down to my level because they are either too busy or too distracted by other things or other people. Quite sad actually. If this continues on, then I think it may be high time for me to go serve elsewhere.
On a slightly brighter note, I know that Thanksgiving is not for another month or so but I've decided to give thanks for one thing for 25 days. I've been pretty depressed and/or negative that I think I should take the time to reflect on what are some of the good things that I've overlooked given my depressed state. It is also an attempt to get blog posts running normally again. And so here is Day 1:
I thank God for the second chances He has given me that has saved my bacon so many times. He is Grace, Mercy and Love.
And now, the short news of the week: Damn, I don't have any of these. No wonder I'm not loaded. Perhaps my children will have a better head start than I did. Also to get an even better head start, should try for children only in the month of January. =P
This is not one for the faint of heart or easily disturbed emotionally.
Uni using Twitter for their course. Interesting but is there a point to it?
Amazing what you can do with cardboard boxes. Kudos to Daniel.
Everyone out there, keep surfing the web. It's good for you. A very good excuse to give to your boss =P
Saturday, October 10, 2009
at
2:41 AM
| Posted by
Juwen
Wow, that past week was hectic. Had 3 assignments due this week and the busy part is now over. I still have 2 big assignments left, one on Monday and the other one on the following Monday. The first one is nearly complete, just need to write another 2.5 functions and it's done. The other is to fit a GUI on the previous assignment so it's just a matter of fixing the connections.
Also, had slow internet for the past 4 days and it was excruciatingly slow. Loading mail and news is snail-like let alone some videos. It was so slow that I refrained from reading my Google Reader because so much stuff comes into my Reader everyday. And it doesn't help that this week I had an exceptionally numerous of news tabs opened on my browser.
Lightroom came and soon I will be able to edit the wedding photos soon. I am quite amazed how fast it installs on my computer. Barely a minute and the whole thing is done and ready to get a-processing. But having said that I really don't want to be like this guy. I'm scared.
There's been quite a number of things on my mind lately but I don't have the words nor the time now to verbalize it. I think I have been doing too much thinking for my own good. Unfortunately, these sorts of thinking doesn't benefit me in whatsoever way. Just to satisfy my intellectual side, but no applicational use. It will all sort of make sense when I do get around to saying it.
News of the week: This popped out on The Age and immediately caught my attention. The arguments are all for the wrong reasons which further shows how far we can go to justify such bad ideas just because it's "beneficial" in some odd way. But it doesn't stop there. Oh no, it doesn't. Few days later, another link came up as sort of a follow-up on why polygamy shouldn't be a bad thing. A link to a forum of a site which is primarily for expectant mothers and/or mothers with very young children. Their responses to that article in The Age were, by and large, shocking. Sure some of them joked about it but some were like "I don't care as long as people are happy with it". Seriously??!! Mothers having this kind of response? This, folks, is hedonism at its core. Have we gotten so liberal about sex that we've stooped this low? Sure I'm not surprised about such things happening but it is still a pretty big deal when you do hear about it.
I am now living in the second best place to live. Nice.
Without these 3 people, we would still be using crappy internet services and no digital cameras. I'm OK with no digital cameras but internet...oooh let's not go there.
Richard Dawkins is coming to town. Possibly, just possibly, it may not be good.
So, does that mean if I glued the chip from a PS3 on my uber 40 inch LCD TV, I will get better TV recordings? Awesome.
It's interesting that 20-30 years of personal computers that design slowly crept in to PC makers to make things functional and stylish at the same time. Same with handphones, laptops etc. So basically, it goes like this "Make it work properly, then make it look nice". Too bad Windows didn't get that hint well.
Would you use it if you happen to be standing next to a person wearing this when a gas attack goes down?
The recent sex scandal on David Letterman was a very interesting one. From the way he was talking about it in his show, he knew what he was doing was wrong all the long but it's not wrong unless someone else caught him. When the heat's getting too hot for him, his senses came back on and confessed. There's a lot to learn from this, especially when it comes to self. Do we have that same mentality? It's not wrong until someone catches us in the act? Are we getting away with sin just because no one catches us?
There are some perks living in an underground nuclear missile bunker/silo. For starters, you'd never have to worry about a nuclear apocalypse.
It would be quite funny to see 550 geriatrics bowling on the Wii simaltaneously.
Daymn. I eat these fairly regularly. What foods are not considered dangerous any more?
If nonsense can sharpen your intellect, that may explain a lot of things. So, if I keep watching episodes of Spongebob Squarepants, Fairly Odd Parents, Family Guy, American Dad and other non-sensical shows, will I become an Einstein? And if that were true, what sorts of nonsense did Einstein have when he was growing up?
Saturday, October 3, 2009
at
3:13 PM
| Posted by
Juwen
I figured I'd do another blog post. One is to get rid of all the tabs on my browser. Second is that I've got an extension on one of the assignments so I've got an extra hour to kill before I slave away.
Lots of things happened but didn't have the time to write about it because I was so caught up with doing more wishy-washy Java assignment. In particular a few interesting, intellectually stimulating, self-examining conversations that have caused me to think about a lot. Well, apart from assignments...
First up, a slightly bigger comment on the wedding. I was supposed to cover the preparation done at The Willows for the reception. People are supposed to be pouring in at 10:45am (ideally) so I figured that people might be around the venue roughly an hour before people start coming in. So I went there at around 9:30. And it was empty. I'm like "What the...?" There were literally no one else apart from the people working there so there I was looking very stupid with my overpacked camera bag with tripod. But soon realizing that there were some small things going on around the venue, I'd figure that I should be shooting. Manage to get some relatively OK shots of the venue, the little itty bitty things for the wedding and so on. It also gave me ample time for me to test my flash as the weather didn't look like we were going to have the reception outside. It was then that I noticed something wrong with my flash unit. I was taking some shots around the room and I had my flash pointing slanted up and away from the subject and when I fired the flash, this gargantuan flash of light came out and I'd dare say it nearly blinded me. This was very unusual and as you'd expect it burned the picture. This was cause for some concern but it didn't happen all the time so I thought it was just a tiny glitch. Also came with the glitches were that the flash sometimes doesn't respond even when it is charged up. But it was OK. Or at least that's what I thought it was.
People start pouring in and it looks like we were about to start. Only thing missing is the bride. Melvin gathered the rest of the wedding planners and Fernando to pray and in particular pray that the weather would hold to have it outside. The moment he finished praying, the rain came in. Talk about quick denial. But the sun came out briefly when the bride arrived which was always a good thing. Reception procedure went on as usual but for most of us photographers, it was exceedingly difficult to take pictures with about 80+ people around in a small area. Finally we moved to the conservatory for a brief speech session and canapes. There at least there was most space so I can whip out my 100mm for some candid portraiture. Flash problems continue to plague me as a lot of good shots came out burnt by the occasional gargantuan flash. And sometimes I don't get anything because the flash wouldn't fire. But the ones that do come out good were good.
Reception over and back home for a short nap before heading to the dinner. Because it was Grand Final Day, a lot of trams were redirected elsewhere so I ended up walking to Docklands for the dinner. If anyone remembers that Saturday, it was freezing cold with nail-biting winds. Nearly died there. But during the dinner there was nothing much going on. Again it's not easy to take photos but not as bad. Brandon seems to be doing fine doing the group shots as always without us.
Now the interesting things happened. I had a chat with Lydia and Yen Ping about our current problems with people, in particular OCF. There were a lot of things that we discussed but they have managed to come up with a possible solution for my problems. And I genuinely agree with this almost on the spot which is something rare for those who have been reading the blog for awhile.
I need a mentor.
Not like a teacher or something formal like that. A mentor. A Christian mentor. All this while I've been subjecting myself to giving and giving to the rest of the OCF entity but nothing comes in. That's where a mentor can help. Help heaps apparently. All my life I've never had a mentor for anything. Not in my Christian walk, not some of the sports I play fairly seriously, nothing. I don't know why but I think it's shocking. I've known so many people who have had mentors at one stage of their life and I never had the need for a mentor. Or at least that's what I thought. I didn't need anyone to show me the ropes or go to when I have a problem because I've always been able to imitate just by observation. Some things can be learned formally like a teacher or Bible studies but it lacks the depth of having a mentor mentoring you. We have follow-ups in OCF (which I guess it's the equivalent of mentoring) but it is lacking. I feel that I have no one to fall back to whenever I have problems. There were a lot more things on this subject that I thought about but I forgot a lot of them thanks to my assignments.
Bottom line is that, I somewhat now recognize the need for a mentor. And not just a Christian mentor but ideally a mentor for some of the other things I'm involved with. Photographer mentor. mentor. Intellectual mentor. There is only so much you can learn from observations and trial and error but they can't take you to an intellectual and expressional depth of the subject than with a mentor.
That gave me a lot of things to think about over the past few days. Particularly on the whole mentoring side of things. Why didn't I have one? How was I able to get away with a lot of things just because I see how it is done, indirectly? How was I able to be an island that just kept exporting? Questions indeed.
Before I knew it, the day was over. Great but tiring day it was.
Sunday was another conversational afternoon. This time it was on media, organization and management related things and somehow connected with our church's second service, among other things. Was very quiet for this one but still actively listening. This is not one of my areas that I have any knowledge of but nonetheless it was interesting. That also gave me a lot to think about though the exact details of it has been lost somewhere between FireStation.java and java.util.ArrayList. Sigh.
I wonder, with the advancement of technology in particular to how much time we are connected to social networking sites, does it really hamper our ability to converse? This what I mean. I know it has happened before several times already but it does say something. We seem to be going in this trend that we can know a lot about what goes on in a person's life based on one sentence on Facebook or under-140-characters on Twitter. That may be alright but are we stopping at that? Are we content knowing just one sentence about a person? Is this a case of the much talked about information overload in the information age? Hmmm.
There is also another thing I would like to comment about OCF that I think the trend seems to be moving in that direction. I don't think I am going to outline it yet because I feel that people are going to take this the wrong way, much like the few things I have said here. May be I should have gone to Wordpress so that I can protect some of my posts. All I can say is that, OCF seems to be returning to the trend it was just a few years before I came to OCF. Only with slight dynamics modification.
And now the news of the week: Don't you wish you'd had memory like these guys? And not becoming a savant?
Such oxymoronic titles only make us to read even more. 10 ways how to enjoy doing nothing.
Xbox on fighting heart disease. That can't be good especially since they haven't fixed the red ring of death (analogous to the blue screen of death for PC users)...
Hmmm, to the can-count-with-one-hand-girls reading this, is this true?
A very touchy subject but one that has huge implications. The right that religious groups can reject a person to work in their establishment on the basis that they do not observe their doctrine/beliefs. That right is still in play here but rest assured that there are many other people who will fight to dissolve this right under the banner of discrimination. We do not discriminate women or even the homosexuals in the general workplace but this is starting to get messy when we talk about religious grounds. I can't further comment on it simply because I do not have much knowledge or arguments on it but we should be careful. Those who fight for this right to be abolished would almost definitely be of the mind that religion has no part to play in our society and should be treated as any other workplace. Keeping religious institutions would now just be out of novelty. There is no difference.
Hate customer service of your favourite product or service provider? Do what this guy did, sue the Bank of America for 1784 billion trillion dollars.
Great way to get up, wash up, dress for work, have breakfast and leave in 5 minutes. Some great things for us guys to learn
Why are we not surprised at this survey? We've been complaining about the broadband service in Malaysia for years and now here's concrete evidence for it.
Two of my favourite entries in the Strobist Assignment here and here.
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