The Devel!

Navigating, instead of Browsing

With the release of Gnome 2.6 it seems that the spatial desktop concept is The In Thing... or rather, the discussion of.

Spatial desktop.. what's with the space thingy.. it seems that findings has it that (yes, i'm quoting from MS.. i don't believe in their business practices, but i sure believe they hire capable people who knows what they're talking about) the human has enormous capacity to remember things in their places.. or rather "the ability to remember where you put something".. I mean.. hey, from the looks of my own desktop..


.. I'd say YeaH! And let everyone that (had) wanna keep my table tidy know that too!

How about the web then? Search is great, I mean Google's already my best friend.. but the Web is still just a collection of loosely connected, stand-alone sites.. they are not location, spatially, organized.. you remember places by their names, spelling.. check on something via the History list (which I still find wieldy on browsers)... and in most cases, I'll look for my best friend to find that page again.. Ya.. the Gmail mantra, Why organize [into bookmarks and history] when you can search?

But then again, why not organize them spatially.. render a "World'" to represent the web.. SoulKool did a pretty kewl job with their site.. so well that they need no website, just their isometric world. Everything is accessed via there.. But why stop at 1 site? If all sites can be represented as parts of a map.. where walking to a outermost tile would lead you to load the next map, Diablo style, and maps upon maps you traverse.. wouldn't that be pretty neat too? And meeting people who is visiting the same site.. I mean, "physically" there, your Avatar. Strike up a converstion, ask for help on topics, look at ongoing discussions.. forums are dead!

Of cos, not all sites are suitable for such scenarios... can't imagine standing in a room of Slashdotters.. Avatars will have to be 1-pixel wide!

Still, this is something that I would like to see come true.. on hindsight, my genius friend Kian Sheng did send me something on interconnected sites before.. something that more resembles the text-based mud.. with "Exits: north, east" navigation.. between sites.. but that was a discussion more purely on the underlying (web services) protocol to "discover" each over and connect.. not the spatial, interactive connectivity i'm talking about.

I'd sincerely wish to embark on getting a reference implementation out.. a combination of light-weight, flash isometric engine... irc backend with bots... (actually I'd already implemented something very close for my present company.. but i just don't want to stop there!) Not everything is for the money ya?

How many crazy ah-bengs can you meet in a single drive home?

Must've been the brief rain.. rustled the weeds.. and awaken the pesty flies. Extremely moist night tonight.. and I was sending Love home. And how many crazy speedster did I meet? Six! Three of them almost got me into some kind of mess... one stupid blue car even slowed down (middle lane onna highway) just to take me on.. KAOS.. Get on my nerves?! Stupid. Wish they'd all died crashing into a drain... I know that's a very evil thought.. but that's what's really on my mind then.. I beg for forgiveness to hold on to that thought.

Another Blackout?!

Deja Vu? The lights went out today - again - but this time its broad daylight (approx 3pm) and I'm at work. The monitor did flicker for a moment before everything went... I'm just too slow to press Ctrl-S to save my last changes - luckily I'd saved often. Initially, i'd thought it was lousy Gateway's building management short-circuiting my office.. then it turns out.. the whole building is out.... then it turns out.. Suntec (across the road) was also out.... then an anonymous SMS asked, 'Eh the part of Nicoll Highway that collapsed, is it near there?' - Huh? Simi wako?

Turns out, it was my ex-colleague Eric (i'd changed phone and lost his number), and indeed there was an accident and part of the highway collapsed - totally unheard of in peaceful ol' Singapore.. the collapsed caused the blackout in our area.. Shorlty after.. calls and SMSes began to stream in... each from concerned family members and friends asking us if we're ok, and quite importantly if we can see the Nicoll Highway from our office -tsk-

As of now, there's 1 dead and 3 missing... :-( Its a tragedy this Circle Line (MRT) has caused.. Not so long ago, I'd already saw a news on TV where a shop-owner complains cracks in his old shophouse near there.. the SCDF inspected and concluded that the building was structurally sound (cracks are so big, you can pass your hand through!) but still did set-up some temporary support for the old man..... and now, this.. Damn.. makes me feel so sad..

Note to self: Better get moblog up and running real-soon-now.. then don't hafta wait to coming home to blog..

I pray all who mourns are comforted.. my heart goes out to them. Life is so brittle and everything just transient..

Much Ado About Nothing

Over the weekend, the company went for a Kelong trip in Malaysia. Though we're all very busy, rushing for deadlines (and me rushing to finish my stuff on hand, to hand over before taking on my new job - damn.. should've placed a few days of rest in-between stop and start of work.. ) the trip was a go ahead.. probably because we know we'll never go anywhere if we'd delay it for any occasion.

Its never been so HOT!? 34 degrees I think.. but it surely felt more.. adding to that, there were - not surprisingly - nothing to do in the Kelong.. plus the sweltering weather making you too sticky to play or rest... it was not exactly a blissful trip.. However, there were pockets of fun.. I'd guess its the people that counts, not the destination.

Anyways.. any idea how a kelong is built? Anyone?

Y-Anime internal version 1.10

Disregarding the version number.. its actually more of a alpha product.. Still, I must say.. this iso-metric flash engine is starting to look more promising now.. [ shall provide demo link soon ]

Though it doesn't look very different from the first release.. its definitely brushed up internally.. frameworks has also been done for the object's to be event-based.. e.g. "on_WalkedOn" event is played by the above sample's walkable tiles.. whenever it is walked on.. it will drop.. and climb back up when nobody is on top..

Until I'd created a SourceForge thingy for this.. pls email me for source codes (FLA).. don't worry, i'm not some email/info harvesting business shrewd... this thing is FREE (read: GPL)... I'm just too lazy to setup something convenient for anyone to download..

Cheers! And feedback is always welcome.

Good Beginnings

Much has happened.

At long last, I have (1) switched my mobile subscription from M1 to StarHub. Not that I love SH that much.. but M1 was starting to piss me off (read: money-money-money).. I took the chance to (2) change my old, vietnam-veteran-looking N6510 to a nice, sleek LG 7100.. Love picked for me -grin-.. Though I'm still largely a nokia guy.. but I must admit LG is a breath of fresh air.. shall upload the many many many (3) pictures I took with it - soon.. (However, forgot to save some new contacts before passing my old phone for trade-in -awww-)

When I was driving home yesterday (4) the whole estate blacked-out.. and I'm only left with my 2 shining headlights.. feels damn strange man! Managed to crawl into the super dark car-park.. and make my way up the super dark stair case.. safe and sound! Luckily my LG is a good light source! The night was damn hot though.. bathed with handphone lighting and slept onna floor - until I heard very very nostalgic cheer - the kind you hear back when Singapore was still playing in Malaysia Cup! - then I noticed: the street lights were back.... my thoughts.. Air-Con!

Few days back, my friend told me of an opening in Ecquaria, I jumped at it - gone through a *pant* 2+ hr interview.. and blessedly I got the offer call today.... *Wee!* I'd felt happy and also vulnerable - its only a 1-year contract.. though there is verbal agreement that it may jolly well be converted to perm position (no terrorist attack pls! let economy grow!.. ) But.. oh well! Its a good step forward in any case... better to be the apprentice amongst the skilled, than be throned as King amongst the apprentices. I'd prayed and (5) went over to signed the papers today. Felt so good.

(6) Broke the news to Bosses today.. they took it unexpectedly smoothly.. I'm gonna busy myself this 2 weeks.. before crossing over.. so that'll mean even less time for Love.. :-( Sorry hon. So happy she's very supportive and caring to me.. can't ask for more!

Life is great.

four and a half years

A standard boring interview question would be... "what do you see yourself doing in 5 years time?", or "what do you want to achieve?". To that, my answer had been (and still is) "doing an open-source project.. doing something to contribute back to the society". It may sound almost cliche, like a Miss Universe answer (especially the society bit).. but that is the truth.

Nothing pleases me more than seeing that I've made someone's life easier with technology (software to be precise)... No I'm not talking about a client-vendor relationship.. projects irks me a lot.. usually accompanied by stupid users too... but rather i'm talking about a helping hand, developer-to-developer. Commradie. Its like letting your friend copy your home work - you know he CAN do it.. its just boring work.. and surely he'll do the same for you - the net effect is that everybody progresses, nobody has lousy grade and none of you do repeated boring work - the time saved can be used to do the real interesting stuffs!

I've been in this line for four and a half years already. Some projects are interesting but most are not. I guess keeping the fire of passion for programming remains largely how much one can motivate himself to learn other things, apart from work. Its of totally opposite agenda, businesses and me. It is to the businesses (short term?) interest to want engineers to use the known and produce quality milk like a cow, whenever squeezed. But it is to the interest of all serious engineers to chart the unknown, master the unfamiliar and try out the new. Only in the unknown, the new, holds potential. Unleashing potential must be the most satisfactory thing an engineer can do.

Oh i'm blabbering again.. so sleepy! Still at client's place....

"They say in the Army.. the food is very nice;
you ask for chicken drumstick.. they give you chicken backside;
....
I don't want an Army life.. Sergeant I wanna go; OC I wanna go;
Mummy I wanna go homeeeee"
- army song

iso-metric engine

Was looking around for an isometric chat engine (using flash, specifically).. and am quite perturb that isn't any serious projects that is freely available. How sad.. to think that one has to create his or her own isometric thingy -from scratch - everytime there's a need to use it?

Anyways.. got my lazy butt off to doing a scratch bit.. if anyone's interested, see if my program (download Y-Anime) would be a useful kick start.. Hopefully I'll get around improving it often. You can preview here.

Its late and I'm famished!!!

My Demise

Wasn't home yesterday -grin- to write somethin here. Hmm, i should get moblog feature up soon.. and perhaps get a camera phone while i'm at it.. and perhaps change my phone subscription to StarHub too...

Anyways, was havin dinner with Love and she gave me a lovers-ultimatum (yet again). This time the test for our Hero was to recognize the tasty, black, ring thingies you see at the frontmost of this plate of left-over pizza


(Sorry folks, forgot to rotate this pic before uploadin.. gotta tilt ur head to the right)

Anyways.. silly me went on to guess.. of all things?.... Anchovies?!? How would I know that's fancy angmor for plain-old gang-he-kia? All I knew was that I heard Michaelangelo mentions it a lot :-( Guess I should've learn how to cook then..

And to make matters worse.. a second ultimatum floored our Hero as well! What fruit juice has orangey sourness.. peachy pale color.. How could anyone have guessed grape-fruit? -doh!- ... And that's how "we decided" to embark on our a-fruit-a-week tutorials so that Hero can learn of all the fruity goodies..

Anyways.. hungry now and going off for dinner soon. -Yum yum-

Late nights

I could've sworn I told myself I'll never work late, nor work weekends ever again.. Been quite a while since I'd tasted my own noodle delicacy.. though 2 packets at this hour would perhaps be a bit more than necessary..

*eat* *wash*

Its incredible how much money one can spend subconsciously.. its 1 Apr and I'm out of cash a week ago... even in the bank! I mean.. I don't even shop? Poor until even have to tolerate lousy no good money changer Singh @ Shaw Tower who wants to eat my 65 RMB for 7 SGD?!?! Heylo, Earth? No thanks, I'll rather keep my RMB.

Perhaps will have to live on credit tomorrow again - if the GIRO fail to complete before hunger strikes.. Or maybe I should just bring maggie mee to work. Thank God for instant noodles!