I was introduced to this series by a colleague of mine recently. I have not had as much fun watching a series as this, for a long time. The last series that made me laugh so much was Firefly, which has the same lead actor, incidentally. Nikki Heat is pretty hawt too!
PS: They even have his books on Amazon – nice gimmick!
I watched Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows last weekend, the last installment in the Harry Potter series. Boy was I disappointed. Not that I was a fan of Harry to begin with (I am partial towards Emma Watson), but the last installment was way below expectations.
First, the acting was not up to snuff. One would imagine that since the kids have had so much more acting experience since the first film, they would have learned to act better. However, it was not only an emotionless affair (they had to rely on an animated character – Dobby – for that), it was down-right condescending since the kids seemed to just be having fun.
Next, the imagery was ripped. While the previous installments have been accused of ripping off plot-lines from other books, this one is straight-up day-light robbery. You can tell that much of the imagery conjured up in the film is a tribute towards LOTR and several SciFi films. Some say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but unfortunately, they did not enjoy the beautiful scenery of New Zealand.
Finally, the one-liners in the film. Some of them were just too familiar – seemed like I heard them in some other film. I could actually speak out the lines before the actors on screen.
That said, fans of the franchise will still go see the film. People with nothing to do, will still go see the film. Everyone else will still go see the film. I have no doubt that it will be a box-office hit.
What can I say.
PS: My niece and nephews must’ve liked it though, since they stayed awake throughout the film! It must appeal to a different demographic.
Yeay!
Malaysia emerged the overall champions at the World Robotics Olympiad, again, this year! From the official results we managed to win 2 golds and 3 silvers across the six categories in competition. The hosts, Philippines, managed to bag 2 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze. Malaysia also managed to win the bid to host the World Robot Olympiad in 2012!
The reason that I am so excited about this is because I played a role in helping out the organisers. I was one of the judges for the zone and national level competitions. I am also going to be involved in the WRO 2012 for sure. If I have enough resources, I will also get my company to provide technical support and help.
During this year’s competition, I was particularly impressed with the cute robot from SJKC Jalan Davidson (located close to the soon-to-be 100-storey eye-sore). The students made a LEGO robot that makes muruku and pulls a cup of teh tarik quite splendidly. I was quite impressed and hope that the students will go on to become engineers in the future!
I am always supportive of out-reach programmes like this, that try to inculcate a love for engineering in our children. Engineers build the foundation that a society stands on towards progress. It is always important to have plenty of good engineers in the country.
Yeay!
I was surprised this morning with a text message from an old classmate of mine, that our former class-teacher, Mr Tan Aun Tony, had passed away yesterday. This saddened me a bit as I liked him as a teacher. He was also our Physics teacher and he was one of those few teachers who set me on the path to engineering. I have many fond memories of him.
So, I decided to go to Nirvana Memorial Hall this evening and pay my last respects. When I got there, a family ceremony was under way and I decided not to intrude on it. I contributed some white gold on behalf of my sister and myself. Then, I did some transference of merits and left as I was beginning to feel over-whelmed and there was nobody there that I recognised.
He never skipped a class, which was saying something, at my school. He taught us our foundation in Physics and since many of us turned out as bona-fide engineers, he must have done it right. Physics had always been my favourite subject in high school. He was also a wise class teacher who had a way of giving us advice without being strict nor condescending. He was always patient.
Cool dude. Peace.
I attended the recent dinner lecture by Azmi Sharom on Our Constitution and whether it is dead or comatose. It was the first dinner talk that I had ever paid to attend. The food was just average but that was not the reason why most of us were there. The talk itself was extremely entertaining and fairly informative. I learned a lot of new things about Our Constitution that evening.
The message to take away from that evening’s talk was, that we need to retake our country and reaffirm Our Constitution as the supreme law of the land and that we are a land of laws, not madmen. Unfortunately, I think that things will need to get a lot worse first, before they can possibly get better. I am still hopeful that there are a lot of good people within the system, who can and will do the right thing, when the time is right.
Our Constitution is sacred, that is the third line of our national creed – Keluhuran Perlembagaan. It has been raped and plundered for decades and those who are charged to defend it, have given up the ghost. Therefore, it is up to us to defend Our Constitution instead of waiting for others to do our jobs. As someone suggested, we can start by calling it “Our” Constitution and taking ownership of it.
This got me wondering recently – why do our local experts seem to fail at the most fundamental knowledge? I had the occasion to attend a training on network forensics and by the time we had our first exercise, I had to correct the instructor because he was explaining something fundamentally wrong to the audience. His explanations actually violated the basic rules of networking.
I am not saying that he was stupid. In fact, I gave him a good feedback at the end. I would consider him as someone who actually had practical experience in the field and knows both the technical and non-technical stuff. However, what caught me was that a renowed expert in the field could actually get his fundamentals wrong to the extent that a practitioner like me could spot it immediately.
This was not a case of lack of preparation because after I raised the issue and pointed it out to him, he actually argued it with me and I had to prove that he was wrong. I certainly hope that I do not get caught in such a situation in the future but I have learned from him how to handle such blunders, gracefully.
After the short training, I actually got to learn a few new things, which was good. It was also an interesting training because we got to actually do some network attacks and see the results of other network attacks. We managed to hijack each other’s traffic, learned how to steal accounts and listened in on VoIP conversations. Some of us were tempted to try the techniques over lunch at a public hotspot!
It was quite fun and I may integrate some of that learning into my future projects.
I had just bought her debut album today in support of local artistes (shame on me!). It’s really good! Took out my FTIsland album and started listening to this instead.
Sybreon Ones Nought 