Challenge me
Thursday, November 10, 2016

The title ended up sounding more aggressive than it really is but that's what I want. Lately I've been getting pretty frustrated over discussions with my group mates. It's not that they are always wrong, in fact, they often have better ideas than me; but they are not willing to argue about it.

They either just let me have my way, or ignore my protests thinking that I'm wrong. Neither of which really helps us get things done effectively. I really don't know if I'm overly aggressive when it comes to arguing points, but I hate it when people think I'm wrong but are unwilling to step up and tell it to my face. Just convince me and the rest that you are right, and we can change course immediately.

It's really not that hard is it?

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Insomnia: Gray area
Monday, September 08, 2014

I've been thinking lately. Correction, I've been thinking about this for a rather long time. How can I better myself each day using reasonable amount of effort? You know, without putting in too much; note my awesome tag line. (Scroll up if you don't know what that is)

Sometimes it's not who you are that determines what you do, but what you do that determines what kind of person you are. (Maybe it's not sometimes but all the time, just bear with me for this rant) It takes quite a bit of will power to do something I don't want to do, even when I think it's right. Which summons this same thought every single time, "who gives a shit?". Am I the only retard caught up in his own self-righteous crusade?

"What matters is what you do when no one is looking."

I've seen that quote many times over. It makes sense morally, but honestly? I find it extremely hard to accomplish. We've all seen articles about the unsung heroes of society; but the fact that such a thing is written is that someone noticed. If what you can do something that is beneficial to others, but not a single soul knows about it, would you still do it?

Not many people seems to appreciate that nothing bad happening is probably one of the best things that could happen.

For example, if you see a slippery banana peel that's on the floor and someone could slip and fall on it; would you pick it up and throw it away? (No one will ever, ever know)

If you answered yes, then how far would it have to be before you go, "nah that's much effort", even though you wish someone else would do it? Maybe a pile of dog poop?

If you've ever dropped bits of food accidentally on the table while eating, do you clear it up when you're done or fuck it and "let the cleaner do his job"? Little things like this where no one will ever notice. Occasionally, I fall prey to my own laziness as well.

For some reason I feel like I'm starting to side track. Anyway the point is that lately it feels like I'm spending way too much time balancing between being awesome, and fucked up.

Why am I even doing that in the first place you ask?
There's too many to choose from and there really isn't a main reason that is good enough. So I'll try the closest ones.

I don't like being taken advantage of. I also can't stand idle while my friends slog away. So I do what I can just enough to be helpful/useful, but not so much that I'm essential. And the fact that I can rationalize that so clearly makes it pretty screwed up in itself. I really hate my ability to judge myself from a 3rd person's view.

Maybe it's also because of all the fucked up kinds of people around me lately. They are definitely not making me want to try any harder. Cue my judgmental self again. Just because someone is shit, doesn't mean I have to be shit as well. Sounds simple enough, ain't it?

No it really isn't.
(At least for me)

Imagine you have a friend who is constantly late, do you still arrive on time for him or do you come later? Just because he is late doesn't mean you have to be. Just because you got hit doesn't mean it's okay to hit him back. That is probably one of the hardest thing for me to do. There's something innate about retribution, or as I call it ,"instant karmafication".

But there are times when I managed to hold back. The times when I ask myself, "really? REALLY?!" My morals and self-righteousness ain't worth two shits. It's hard letting someone off without seeing them get bitch slapped to the face with a giant steaming hot rod of justice.

I'm just frustrated recently. Or maybe I'm still high from all the flu medications. Or maybe its just my insomnia acting up again.

In the end, does it really matter what you do? If you were to trample all over someone, look back in retrospect and say to yourself, "I did a great job" and give yourself a pat on your back;

If you're satisfied,
ain't that good enough?

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Random thoughts at a random time
Tuesday, September 02, 2014

I was originally going to sleep, and free myself from all the fatigue and muscle aches. However, after watching the season one finale of Gokusen, it kinda kicked me back into this thinking mode.

The mode where I wonder, "What the hell am I doing with my life?"

I feel like I have these internal thoughts way too often, but when you're stuck in the army doing things that you don't want to do; thoughts like these have their way of creeping up to you at the most unexpected timings.

The show Gokusen is about a teacher leading her delinquent class through graduation. Firstly, it really made me miss my school days where I had fun and did stupid things with all my friends. Secondly, it made me think about where I should head from now in life. The things that I should really put effort in instead of just stumbling  through the days.

Fortunately, I was assigned some projects that allowed me to stretch my rusting skills a little, bringing me back to my passion. But that also made me realize how long I spent not putting any effort into my passion. Interestingly, because of the project requirements, I picked up a new programming language: C#. Along with some .NET stuffs and SQL.

I guess there really isn't any point worrying about it. After all. I am at a crossroad in life. I simply have more time to think about it rather than making that important choice quickly like most people have to.

As much as I can't wait to get out of the army (9 months and counting down), the life ahead out of this place really isn't the heaven I envisioned it to be. The chore of making
decisions that could make or break your life, I really need to start working on it.

Fight on!

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Daily Photo #141 - Random bridge and this morning
Monday, June 30, 2014

The red bridge at Punggol

Skated with J couple weeks back and totally forgot that I took this shot. I also totally forgot that I have a blog. The feel to type things down that happens daily has pretty much died. It's not that there aren't any interesting things happening at all; it's just so specific that everything feels like an inside joke.

I'm also losing my motivation to do/learn things inside of camp. The mundaneness of life has totally taken control over me and I feel like I'm just looking forward to the weekends where I do nothing at all and just lie down.

Anyway, my life has been pretty occupied by table tennis right now. Skipping work left and right thanks to training and shit. The official competition is this week, pray that I don't fight some YOG player and get owned. (seems like the trend for me these days)

Express way

Shot the above picture while I was travelling to Yishun Sports Hall for my training today. This month marks the one year anniversary since I've enlisted in the army; a super wordy post in the writing but it seems to be taking forever for me to have the mood to complete it.

Oh right, hit a milestone last week. Finally passed my IPPT. I know I know, physical strength really aint' my forte. (more of finesse and skill, hah!)

On a random note, I can't believe that it's already end of June, and yet I could scroll down to see a post back from March. Well, as much as I don't want this blog to be all about my army life, I guess there's no helping it if that's all I'm doing, right?

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Busy man
Monday, May 19, 2014

Man, I have so much stuff to blog about I just can't seem to find the time for it. Let's start with 2 weeks ago, where I flew off to bangkok on Thursday and came back on Sunday.

Followed by cohesion on Monday at sentosa, one day to rest on Tuesday (Vesak Day), work on Wednesday, followed by my ATP(live firing) from Thursday to Saturday; which I didn't get marksman for and was really kicking myself for it. Reached home really late, woke up on Sunday with half the day gone and by evening I have to get back to camp again.

Which brings me to today, the start of the new week where our busy schedule is set in stone, all thanks to the 2 audits we're having next week. Its going to test the entire team to get everything done.  Fortunately, thanks to table tennis and guard duty I get to avoid quite a bit of work.

I'm just going to ramble on a bit because I don't have any (edited) pictures to post.

I'm about 1 month away from being a 1 year soldier. I can't believe that it had taken so long for one fucking year to pass. Definitely going to write a post about being in the army for a year. It would be really interesting to read back my old posts and see how I've grown as a person.

Oh I'm not sure if I've already written about this but I'm playing table tennis for CSSCOM (my mother unit); the competition isn't until July but there's a SAFSA(SAF Sports Association) opens that I'm playing in, individually. The awesome part is that they've entered me for both doubles and singles. I must say that I am actually quite excited for this as I've not played competitive in years.

But, and I hate how there's always a but; I'm paired up with a useless imbecile as my partner. Hopefully he won't read this but if you do, come on man, you really suck.

On another note, I finally managed to play a match with the YOG player and it was a rather close match. Though he probably isn't playing at his best but at least I got a feel for how a "professional" player plays. Hopefully I'll be able to win some matches at the competition and secure some off days!

Anyway I think that I've sunken into a bad habit of speaking about doing this and never getting around to doing them. The worst part is that I actually tell people about it. I'm getting quite annoyed and frustrated at myself. The mountain of to-do lists I have on my phone just keeps getting longer by the day and it seems almost impossible to clear them out.

But I'm going to try. One fucking thing at a time.

The Bangkok trip post will probably take a little longer though. I've taken over 150+ short videos and it'll take a rather long time to get them done.  Trying to relearn Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects all over again.

Sometimes people get amused/impressed by the amount of things I can do, or trying to learn to do. Sometimes I just feel like they have the wrong impression because I do so many things so half-assedly.

Meh, I have about 1 year left to put all my free time to good use.

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Daily Photo #138 - Wow when was the last time
Friday, December 27, 2013

Fish n' Chips while I'm sick probably isn't a great idea
Headed down to AMK to play pool with my bunk buddies yesterday. It has been forever since I took pictures for the sake of taking it man. So uh, everything is shot on my phone; wanted to test out it's low light performance, and it did pretty well!


Fierce

Hand held, I'm a giant btw.

I like this shot idk why
Anyway it has been one week since I fell sick and I still haven't fully recover yet. This is really really getting on my nerves. I hope it totally goes away tomorrow, I want to play some balls man! (basketball)

Hopefully I will also be able to take some interesting shots tomorrow and uh, hopefully go skate in the evening and bask in the setting sun. Life has been really uneventful lately. Maybe I should start making things happen rather than waiting for some shit to burst out.

In any case, been rather hard at work with my coding stuff. Hopefully I can show it off soon; been testing quite a lot of new things!

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Caught up in my own pace
Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Merry Christmas Eve! 

It has been an entire month since I've posted on my blog.

I can't believe that this has happened when I had almost posted everyday religiously in the past. Well, there's many reasons but put simply, I've been more caught up with doing things than recording down the things that I have done.

However, there is something geeky that I've been doing recently and have made quite a bit of progress so I'm here to share it!

Python Programming
a type of programming language

I've wanted to learn it before I enlist in the army but haven't really got round to doing it; one month after getting posted to Kranji Camp, I realized that I have enough free time to actually start studying something I want to, so for the past couple of weeks I've been "indulging" myself in learning Python.

Back to the basics

After getting down all the essentials, I've decided to start writing a game to see how much I have learnt can be applied realistically.

A game?! Yes.

It isn't anything overly complicated though. It's a text based game. You interact with it by typing commands and see what happens. Of course, it runs on the world's most powerful graphic card, your imagination. It's like the old school text based game from the 80s-90s. Kind of like Dungeon and Dragons if you've played before.

Regardless, it's hard to explain what it is until you've seen it before. I'm roughly 30% done with it? Gotten down some of the basics functions like movement and tracking of movement and the end goal. Being a game, there's going to be monsters you'll have to defeat, weapons and whatnot. Oh well, I will write more about it when I'm close to finishing it. Oh and by the way, I have been doing all of these on my phone. The learning, writing and executing of the programs can all be done on Android. This is why I love Android so much. Typing code on a phone can be a hassle, so I did bring a bluetooth keyboard to camp and use it when I can.

So... it's the 24th of December, 7 more days before 2014. I feel like this year passed by without me noticing, I've already been in the army for 6 months. Just another 1.5 years to go.

If there's anything that I've learnt in Kranji Camp, it's that tanks are really heavy. It always feel like one wrong move could sever my fingers. On the brighter note, everyone improves in sports when they are in the army. During my free time in the evening I have been playing basketball almost every single day. Hopefully there's some sort of improvement by now.

Anyway, I have gotten my new phone last month and I am almost ready to write all about it. It's my best/favourite phone thus far. Anyway, here's a random shot that I took today to test out the camera.

iso50 | f/2.0 | 1/500s (post processed)

Haven't really had the chance to play around with the camera much but I will try to do it asap. So far the images gives me somewhat of a film feeling so it's a double thumbs up from me.

Moving on, it's Christmas eve. I've fallen sick so I'm just... trying my best to recover. That fucking flu vaccination that gave me flu, the irony of it man.

Garh, I'm just too tired to write shit now. Soon man, once I get my thoughts over the month organized.

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FFT: Fuck the Fatties
Sunday, November 03, 2013

The title is my conclusion, not my feelings towards them. 

After passing out from that dreaded place, I have been posted to Kranji Camp as a mechanic. Shall write more about the place in another post. The thing that I want to bring up is that there is an abundance of overweight people in that camp, people who have been marked as unfit for combat.


How overweight you ask?

If F=MA is legit, then he would only need to punch 1/3 as fast as me to deliver the same amount of force. If I am a zip file, then he would be what raw uncompressed data looked like. I'm avoiding literal descriptions because I don't want to paint something your mind canvas can't fit. But just imagine that if you punched him, his bodily armor would absorb your punch and dissipate the energy in the form of ripples.


Now that we have the setting established, let me talk about the point of this post.

There are obese females, and males I observed, who have the potential to become models. But instead they hide their beauty behind a vault of carbohydrates. I don't have anything against people who literally bite more than what they could swallow, but I am superficial enough to say that their body outlines isn't what I deem as ideal.

They can look better, and some of them do have the intention of cutting down the chomp. Some of them succeed, some of them don't, some couldn't follow through.

Why?

From what I have seen from the people who have succeeded, you just need strong motivation, and a crap load of will power. I'm hypothesizing that the people who failed lacked either or both. I'm thinking that if life is going on well and there's nothing to change the flow, there would be little motivating factor to change anything at all. Will power can be found when you really want something, or if you got fucked over so badly that you gain the mental strength to make things happen.

This is why we shouldn't be nice to fatties. Laugh at them, insult them to your heart's content. Indeed, they will hate you to the core with their clogged hearts. But it is a very strong motivator. Not wanting to lose is a really strong feeling, and a common motivator for sports people alike. I'm not saying that pissing off people will make them want to change, but you know, it is a good enough reason when the whole world point their fingers at you. This may seem evil, and it is. But it's just a more direct version of how some people got their motivation.

For example, getting rejected because of your looks will motivate to improve on your looks through either cosmetics, clothes or whatever. There will most probably be resentment towards the person who rejected you. My point is just a distilled version of this example.

Side tracking a bit, there has been a thing that has been bugging me. Let's say that there is a female that likes me, but I am a superficial bitch and basically don't like her face, or whatever. Let's say that she went for some amazing make over and became an eye-turner. If I went for her, the relationship is fucked because it's obvious what it is based on. If she rejects me because I'm a bitch and she has her pride, the relationship is fucked. If I had accepted her in the first place, there will be little reason for her to become prettier. So fuck, looks must become a second factor to personality; this is somewhat of a downer.

But anyway, back to the topic, for the sake of humanity and raising the bar for looks;
Fuck the fatties.
Give them a reason to look better. Give them the motivation to change.


Well... I'm not saying all fat people must slim down. But it isn't that bad of an idea, is it?

Okay before you run out and start dissing all citizens of the obese, calm your tits. This utilitarian method is clearly too cruel to work in real life. It's just a thought I had from all the hours of sitting around. Obviously there are kinder ways of motivating people, but those take too long and it's a pain in the ass. So well, if you don't mind being a target for rocks, go ahead and fuck the fatties.

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Quick update
Sunday, August 25, 2013

I have been so unbelievably busy ever since BMT started, to the point where I haven't posted anything for 10 days, 10 freaking days! (yeah it's like forever by my standards)

So the thing is that ever since the 5 day holiday, I have finally regained some form of social life. You might remember this little diagram.
replace "good grades" with "things I want to do"

So... I kind of stopped doing a lot of things for the past couple weeks? Plainly due to the lack of time. (booking out on Saturdays) I miss tinkering with my computer oh-so-god-damn-much! Thankfully, this week's RT is catered for the people who missed their route march so I regained a couple hours of my life back.

Anyway, the thing is that I am lagging behind by many weeks in my posts; 6 weeks in fact. And in these 6 weeks I have written 20 (double sided) A5 pages of stuff. So I'm a little uncertain of how I'm going to go about doing this.

Moving on, I am currently seriously considering signing on. Yes, the money is good and that is a major reason. However, my motivating factor is that there is a vocation in the Army that fits my interest and skill set. Military Intelligence Expert. I have thought about going into this line of work before I entered the Army, but lacked the details on it. I still don't have enough information to make that decision yet, but there will be someone coming down to have a in-depth talk with us 2-3 weeks later where I can learn more about the life style and restrictions I will face in this kind of job.

The perks are very attractive though.
- Quite a bit of money
- Training provided
- Chance of advancing my studies FOC
- Not wasting the remaining time of my service
- Get a slight head start on my friends

The cons are pretty obvious
- Somewhat regimental
- Less freedom
- Might be boring/repetitive
- Lose out on opportunities outside

Well, there's still quite some time to think about this. No rush to commit 5 years of my life to this. The only thing that is nagging at me is the money they are offering, the money that I can get right now.

Ah... time passed too damn bloody quickly. I shall try and write something up before I book in tomorrow. But for now, time for some gaming before I start yet another tiring week.

On a random note, here's a quote from a video I watched recently.
"Life is like peeing into the snow on a dark winter night. You probably made a difference but it's really hard to tell."

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The Guard Game
Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Our sergeant announced to us that there is guard duty this Saturday, next Wednesday, and next next Wednesday. Obviously getting guard duty on a weekday is the best you can wish for when faced with such a situation.

Not surprisingly, the two Wednesdays' name list was announced without much commotion or drama. But when Saturday's turn came, everyone was silent, wishing intensely that they wouldn't be the ones to receive the strike from the hammer of misfortune. My sergeant(SG) saw this as an opportunity to mind fuck us, we could tell his intentions immediately from the gleam in his eyes. Saddistic fucker. (no offense if you're reading this)

Nonetheless, he made it almost like a gameshow and it was really exciting to see who is the next to get it.

He called out the name of the first guy after a long pause. That guy looked like someone has just stepped on his balls. My SG asked: "Why you look so scared? Also not like I say you kana." He then proceeded to say, "You *pause* never kana!" I could hear his sigh of relief from meters away.

As fate would have it, he called my name next. Being the second guy, all I could think was: "well, fuck this, die already." As I raised my quivering hand, he turned and said, "Don't worry, you also never." Daaaaaaaamnnnnn that was a little too close for comfort. Thank you, for not burning my Saturday, but I am going to have RT so... oh well.

Oh wait, I think I forgot to mention why Saturday guard duty is bad news. Basically your job starts on Saturday 6am, and ends on Sunday 6am. It's almost as if you got confined over the weekends, and with time as precious as it is right now, it is a downright torture to the people who had the luck of getting it.

Anyway, the game went on and he would call someone, telling him that he didn't get it, but that his buddy did. It was really mindfucking and everyone gets really tensed even if it's not their own name getting called.

Fortunately, I wasn't selected. I will give my all for the IPPT this Thursday. If things go well, you would see me online on a Saturday morning. Else... this month is going to be really weary for me man. That's all for this random little rant, time to get back to training.

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NSD #5 - RT is no joke man
Sunday, August 04, 2013

No post last week. No post during the week either.

Well, seems like my life is picking up pace. Finally fully recovered from my sickness and managed to regain what little social life I had left during the weekends. This week passed by relatively quickly as we were kept on our toes throughout all 5 days. 

I am going to fast forward to this week because of something important.
Remedial Training (RT)

Because of that bullish two words, I had to stay in for another day. Meaning that I couldn't get out on Friday, only around Saturday noon. You might think: "it's just another 12 hours!" Nonono, it's not just another 12 hours, it's ohmygodwhatthefuckisgoingonwithmylife 12 hours. And that's excluding the few remaining hours from the previous day.

Honestly though, even though staying back feels like someone has slapped you square in the face with a sack of testes, it's not the worst feeling of all. The worst feeling is when you see some of your friends leaving earlier with a wide smirk on their face. They get to avoid all the extra crap that we get after they leave.

Oh, and if you didn't know, RT is for people who failed their IPPT; which I am a glorified member of. I  can't seem do pull ups and run long distance for nuts. Maybe I just ain't trying hard enough, so I'll just try harder and see how it goes. I certainly want to claim Saturdays for myself.

Anyway, out of the 7-ish weeks that I've been there, I swear that RT is the worst training of all. It's relatively short, but it is intensive as hell. Having to sprint, then do static exercises, and repeat that many times over almost killed my heart! 

Actually that's all there is to it. There really isn't much to elaborate about a training that eats up your free time.

On a random note, I finally rooted my INO One Plus, still unsure about what I can do with it for now, but it sure does open up a world of possibilities. Also unlocked bootloader and rooted and flashed my Sony Xperia V. Oh I think I haven't written about that phone, oh well, I shall write the rest in another post.

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FFT: You are special
Sunday, May 26, 2013


"Everyone is unique, that's why no one understands you."

A random thought spurs from the many cliche lines about how you are special/unique/different from everyone else. I have also always heard about how "no one understands me".

In fact, I seem to see "no one understands me" written all over the internet, on many blogs/tweets/posts that I see.

I think that both of them are true. Because no matter how similar two people are, they are still different, even if they're twins, the atoms making them up is different. No matter how similar the experiences are, it is still different for everyone.

Even though I don't expect anyone to truly understand my feelings or thoughts, it doesn't mean that it cannot be done. You see, the thing is: humans are rather fucked up.

There may come a time when someone is able to truly understand me for who I am. However, will I be able to accept "myself" that is projected by another? Questions like, "is this really who I am?", "who am I really actually?" are bound to surface, either you refuse to accept that your friend is correct about who you are, or you simply aren't sure about yourself in the first place.

Thing is, I find the concept of "self" rather confusing. Conscience and freedom of thought is a really confusing thing for me. Because it just seems to go no where when I think about it. (it's like the brain trying to define itself simply by thinking about it)

So here's my thought.

Our feelings are essentially our motivation to do things. Sometimes that feeling doesn't have a name for it, that's why we sometimes do things with the reason of "Because I felt like it." And from time to time, another person would be able to understand that feeling of why you wanted to do something.

The whole point of this post is to say that everyone is different, and it doesn't make them all the same. Just because everyone is a different fruit, doesn't make all them into an apple. Therefore, don't worry about not having someone to understand you inside out. We change all the time, just having someone who is able to tolerate you is good enough.


Additional note: Have you ever been at a really high building, and felt like jumping off?
Some people understand that feeling, some don't. There'll always be a unique situation/feeling that only you will understand.

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The week of zero motivation
Friday, May 17, 2013

There are days where you filled with an abundance of motivation and feel like you could conquer the world, there are also days where you want to sit back and watch your hair grow.

Apparently I've been kinda down for god knows what reasons. I tried to ram in some motivation by waking up early to exercise, and it did work, for a while at least. Now I'm back to this worn out shell of me.

On the other hand, I could be feeling depressed because my days of freedom will be over shortly in less than a month. Where I will enlist in National Service. I'm not looking forward to it, but neither am I repulsed by it. Though I could subconsciously be dreading it, like a hell lot.

So a little update nonetheless, I am progressing somewhat with Day 4 and 5 of the video. Haven't started on Day 2 writing, there's another FFT in the writing but it's a really hard topic and I'm not sure whether I can make it make sense, so I have rewritten like the first page 3 times and it still didn't feel right. We'll see how it goes.

Meh, here's a video.

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Writer's block?
Wednesday, May 08, 2013

I realized that I haven't written anything in 5 days. It's not like my mind is completely cock blocked, but I just didn't have the inspiration to write anything at all.



But anyway I went to Johor Bahru last Saturday[4th May] to play Go-kart and Paintball, which... obviously will have a post of it's own, someday. Maybe I've been doing too many things that I don't usually do and my brain is simply taking its time to process all these experiences.

Either way, I need to find back my motivation in life (yet again); and probably learn how to concentrate better on a single task. Maybe I will be able to write something proper if I go off the internet.




p.s. I realize that whenever I reach a point of total boredom, I start pouring all my efforts into my blog. My life must be really shitty now.

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Desktop April
Saturday, April 13, 2013

Running Windows 8

It has been a really long time (years maybe) since I've bothered customizing my desktop, because I want it to perform as quickly as it can and didn't want to waste valuable resources beautifying it. However, I noticed that I have a surplus of computing power so I decided to make use of it.

But I still didn't want to tweak the system files for maximum stability, so all I did was change the icons on the taskbar and used Rainmeter for the clock and system monitor (bottom right).

The desktop icons are hidden using Stardock's Fences. Double click to show or hide the icons, which eliminates unnecessary clutter.

Anyway you see that little arrow on the bottom left?

Start menu FTW

Yeah, it's a friggin' start menu on Win8. I'm using a program called StartisBack. And I actually paid for it. I got a bundle so I could give 3 licenses out for free if any of my friends asks. Though I don't usually like to pay for little programs like these, I think it's worth it for the low price and the functionality that it brings.

Alternatively, you could use Classic Shell to emulate the experience but it's just not as clean speaking from my own experience.

I don't know if it's because I'm a power user or anything, but I really can't stand the "Modern UI", especially when I'm actually trying to get some work done.

Example of Win8 default start screen

That UI makes no sense on a desktop environment. If not for the slew of improvements under the hood, I would've stuck with Windows 7. As many have said, Windows 7 is the new Windows XP. It just works, and it works the way you expect it to.

Oh well, I have tweaked my Win8 to work like Win7 as much as possible, and so far everything is awesome. The minimalist approach towards my desktop simply satisfies the my OCD. Speaking of which, I really cannot stand it when people have cluttered desktop or unorganized folders.

I need new hard drives. And on that bombshell it's time to end.

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Rant: There may be no more rants
Tuesday, March 19, 2013

This blog has always been my go-to place whenever I have something random that I want to talk about; and it will continue to be so.

However, I'm at an impasse. Couple years ago, I choose the name Lord of Geeks because it's awesome and for another reason I haven't disclosed. As you can tell, the acronym of it is LOG. This is a LOG of my thoughts and life. Thoughts are generally abstract, they bear no specific reference to my personal life. If you didn't know, I am very paranoid. 

Which is why I keep personal stories to a minimum on this space, which has long been a thorn in the butt.

Hence I have created my personal wordpress server. I have also been writing regularly on it, because I could bitch about anyone I want to. It is simply called log.com. However, only people within my home network will be able to access it, so it's as secure/personal as it can be.

But there are questions that arise,
Is there any point in writing anymore personal things here? Should I just keep things "professional"?

I know that there are still bored friends who come here and read from time to time. But they take up less than 20% of the traffic. Maybe I should simply try to write interesting things that has no relation to the events in my life.

I don't know. Any friends who read this, some opinions will be nice.


p.s It's 3AM. I can't sleep though I'm tired as hell, so I'm typing this with my eyes closed.

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Rant: Basketball and playgrounds
Thursday, March 14, 2013

I'm starting to have a little bit more of a social life, though interaction with the obvious lack of opposite gender is a bit of a bummer. The downside to social interaction is that I don't have the time to do my personal projects; I could use a break though.

Celebrated C's birthday yesterday. Played ball today. Had supper as usual, then they decided to go play Crocodile at a playgronud nearby. We are all young adults

In case you have forgotten how to play Crocodile like I have, let me refresh your memory. There is 1 catcher and he can run around the playground and step on anything except one color that the victims  chose. The rest of the victims can run around the playground using whatever method, but their legs cannot touch the ground.

I didn't join them, for 3 reasons.
1. It's really embarrassing
2. I don't have the energy after sports
3. I have a slight phobia of jumping around high places
(I was injured rather badly in the past

I must admit that it is a really fun game and I really wanted to join in, but I'll prefer to have less injuries today. 

C, on the other hand do not give a crap about being childish. Which is a good thing in this case. He even started playing with the 2 kids that happened to be at the playground. However, I realized it's a very delicate situation, it's very easy to be misunderstood as a pedophile, or a bully. That said, kids these days are really very different from our generation.

It was over 11pm, the 7 year old boy was running around a playground with a little girl. I must say that I'm a little jealous of his skills. He possess the aptitude to be a pimp in the future. 

Well, I am really tired, have been reaching home after 12 recently. Finally have an entire day off tomorrow for myself. I must get something productive done. 



p.s hopefully all these running around will put me back in shape.

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She Had The World - Panic At The Disco
Tuesday, March 12, 2013



I had been lazy, and had been out and about, sorta.

I'm writing another random FFT that will probably quite awhile. So here's a song that I'm recently re-addicted to. The lyrics ain't really meaningful, but I love the melody.



Lyrics
She held the world upon a string
But she didn't ever hold me
Spun the stars on her fingernails
But it never made her happy
Cause she couldn't ever have me
She said she won the world at a carnival
But she could never win me
Cause she couldn't ever catch me

I, I know why
Because when I look in her eyes
I just see the sky
When I look in her eyes
Well I, just see the sky

I don't love you I'm just passing the time
You could love me if I knew how to lie
But who could love me?
I am out of my mind
Throw an old line out to sea
To see if I can catch a dream

The sun was always in her eyes
She didn't even see me
But that girl had so much love
she'd wanna kiss you all the time
Yeah, she'd wanna kiss you all the time

She said she won the world at a carnival
But I'm sure it didn't ruin her
Just made her more interesting
I'm sure it didn't ruin her
Just made her more interesting

I, I know why
Because when I look in her eyes
I just see the sky
When I look in her eyes
Well I, I just see the sky

I don't love you I'm just passing the time
You could love me if I knew how to lie
But who could love me?
I am out of my mind
Throw an old line out to sea
To see if I can catch a dream


Actually I've been starting to write on my own private blog hosted on my network. Because it feels much better being able to type away without being afraid of disclosing any information I wouldn't want people to know. Sure, I might be fine writing some things down now, but couple of months later, I'll probably wonder why the hell I write something like that in public.

Well, for now I guess I'll play some games with my friends.

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Geek Rant: My head is full
Wednesday, March 06, 2013

I haven't written much about my own life ever since exams started, and ended last week. Sure, I might have procrastinated almost every single day, but that'll depend on how you define procrastination!

I am pushing in as much information as I possibly could, regarding computers of course. I have learnt the syntax and basics of Python (programming language), there are a ton of tutorials online. Going to get further into it when I feel like I'm ready.

Installed a Windows 7 virtual machine in VMware and made it as barebones as possible. It only takes up 350MB RAM at boot up. Used to experiment applications in a sandboxed environment. (was testing Spoon.net, check it out!) Also using it to run jperf (GUI version of iperf). jperf is used to run a network load test, which I used to test my router's wireless throughput with my laptop. (it's working, but I haven't collect the data yet) Reason for doing this virtually is because Java is generally buggy, I refuse to install it on my main system.

Started to try running pre-built virtual machines, which are known as Virtual Appliances. Got a LAMP stack up and running pretty quickly, going to use it to try and do some sort of management interface for my home network.

Got started on a Wordpress server as well.



As you can tell from the address, it is hosted locally via a Virtual Machine.

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and there are many great documentations about the Wordpress platform. I am a little tempted to try hosting my blog on my own server, hesitating as it entails leaving my computer on 24/7, which is something I didn't build it for.

However, I am considering doing a test run, then throwing it up to AWS (Amazon Web Services) to host my Wordpress server. Which comes at a monthly fee. Something I am not quite sure if I'm ready to commit to yet.

That said, my paranoia is working it's magic and I kinda feel like having a private blog, within my private network. So there's a 0% chance of anyone discovering it. I could even assign a proper URL to it that only my home network could access, the possibilities are endless.

Unfortunately, that's all I had time for so far. There's still a personal email server I want to try hosting, and an online collaboration platform. Virtualization is just splendid!

I say that this is "procrastination" because well, I really do need to find a job to fund my interests. Having such a powerful CPU is a wonderful head start, but it never hurts to have more and better hardware, does it?

Man, my head is so full now.

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