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I’m confused about the Island of Tioman. I am not sure if it is part of Pahang or part of Johor. It is really odd. Supposedly, it belongs to the parliamentary constituency of Rompin, Pahang. However, the school seems to belong to the district of Mersing, Johor. Aside from that bit of geographical brain-teaser, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time on the Island and more so in its surrounding waters. Tioman is a beautiful island with fine white sandy beaches and crystal clear emerald green waters.

It was a family trip and we decided to go there by air. That itself was an interesting flight, particularly on approach. Our plane basically flew straight into the mountain and made a sharp turn to the right and immediately landed just before actually hitting the mountain face. We landed and immediately made our way to one of the places where we were staying – Paya Beach. The atmosphere at the beach reminded me of a UCPA youth-hostel kind of environment. There were plenty of young people there as well as families. The food and service were both pretty good.

The next day, we went off on a snorkeling excursion in the sea. We hired a private boat to take just our family out to a couple of good spots. Our first visit was to a place where the fishes were colourful and corals were bright. I had never done any snorkeling before and as a virgin experience, this was a good one. The fish were excellent sport and kept coming around. They seemed not to be afraid of people.

After that, we were brought to a beautiful beach on one of the out-lying islets. The water there was crystal clear and the sand smooth and white. While the kids were busy playing in the sand, I decided to go out snorkeling around the beach instead. The fish were a little less colourful but just as interesting as they were further out. We were the first to arrive at the beach. Unfortunately, lots of other people began arriving about half an hour after us and the place turned into a giant boat park. At one point, I was even chased out of the water because a boat was trying to come in.

Then, we went to the marine park. Oh, I forgot to mention that Tioman collects a sort of ‘marine tax’ at the airport. All visitors are required to pay a small fee that contributes to the maintenance of the marine park. That is where the fisheries department takes care of the fish. Snorkeling there was fun too. The fishes there were huge and obviously well fed. I particularly liked swimming smack into a school of fish and have them scramble for cover.

That very day, I discovered what a whole day of snorkeling in the sun could do to you. I had blossomed into a bright red fruit. I was totally sun-burnt and it hurt as hell. Thankfully, the very next day was my last day on the island. So, I could limit the damage. If I had another whole day of swimming in the sea, I think that I would have probably turned brown instead. I have trouble practising self-restraint.

Anyway, I spent my last day at Japamala and boy is that a beautiful resort. It is nestled in amongst the trees and everything is constructed out of nature. The sea breeze was also excellent and never stopped blowing. The staff and services were par excellence and I would really recommend that place for anyone considering a nice quiet getaway in Tioman. It is a little pricey but totally worth every last sen spent.

Well, I guess that I have said enough and it is time for photos! I’ve not done any retouching on any of these as I do not have the time to do it. Just imagine things a little less grey and a little more gay.

http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf

If anyone has been trying to visit this blog over the last few days, you would have gotten a 503 Service Unavailable error. I have experienced some unscheduled downtime due to some problems on the server. I’ve replaced the server and will hopefully have fixed the problem now. However, things may still be a little bumpy over the next few days while I iron out any kinks that may exist. I am actually testing out a new distribution architecture for this blog.

Anyway, it took quite so long to fix simply because I was away on vacation! I’ll have photos and an update after this.

I am seriously in love with my ergonomic keyboard. It is so much easier to type on the new ergonomic keyboard. I have noticed that my hands and brain begin to have clear division between left and right hand functions. There is less muddle between the two. I think that I will go buy myself a new ergonomic keyboard for home use at some point.

I have too many key-maps in my head at the moment. I have the ergonomic key-map for my office machine. Then, I have the non-ergonomic key-map for other computers in the country except my home computer, which uses the GB keymap because it was bought in the UK. So, I have to constantly switch between the different key-maps in my head.

I have also noticed that I can type more efficiently on an ergonomic keyboard. It takes a while to get used to the work division between the two hands but after that, it is far easier to type on an ergonomic keyboard. Finally, the QWERTY keyboards begin to make some sense. The two hands work separately off each other and hit only the keys that they are supposed to hit.

I wonder how much these ergonomic keyboards cost. I won’t pay and arm and a leg for them though. I know that the high-end ones cost something like RM300 each. I’d be happy to pay around RM50 for one. These things should not cost more than RM100.

I have recently subscribed to a new icecast channel on the Internet, XAMFM, at work. I have always relied on music to help me to work. So, instead of ripping a bunch of OGG files or bringing some CDs to work, I decided to just exploit part of our uber-high-speed network to listen to some online streams. One of the songs that really gets me dancing in my cube is Lies by T-ara, a k-pop girl group.

Interesting dance moves, yes? Another song that gets me moving is I hope by F.T Island, a k-pop boy group.

And my sister wonders why I like listening to foreign songs – that’s because I listen to music!

I don’t even know where to begin. This is just the stoopidest thing that I have heard today. Actually, I lie. It is the stoopidest idea that I have heard of for a long time, and I have heard a lot of dumb ideas in my life. Our country is planning to form a 1Malaysia Formula 1 team. Whoopee doo! Seriously. According to this article in TheStar, “the 1Malaysia F1 Team, a joint venture between the Government and private sector, will participate in the F1 race beginning next year.”

Formula one is an extremely competitive sport with high-budget teams competing against each other. According to the article, we have managed to secure the participation from several of our richest businessmen – Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes, Datuk Kamarudin Meranun and S.M. Nasarudin S.M. Nasimuddin. Alright, so maybe we have enough money to throw around and these people can secure some bragging rights to owning an F1 team.

Formula one runs at the cutting-edge of technology with the latest and greatest technology making its way into the cars. According to the article, industry and academia have signed up including Proton and Lotus, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS as well as Composite Technology Research Malaysia. Alright, so maybe we have the wherewithal to come up with the latest technologies.

Unfortunately, the article glazes over a few facts. Let’s look at the technical aspect of this entire venture.

We need an engine. PETRONAS worked on its own engine design at one time, the E01 but even Proton did not use that engine design. In the end, the team ended up using re-badged Ferrari engines as PETRONAS one. Maybe our F1Malaysia team will continue to use re-badged last season Ferrari engines and we will be none the wiser. This ensures that we will never win an races, but we would at least have enough engine power to get a good run around the track.

While Lotus were once kings of formula one, Team Lotus’ heydays were a long time ago. According to the wikipedia article, they were dominant players in Formula 1 during the 60s and 70s. I highly doubt that many members of the original successful team are still around today, much less actually still working at Lotus. All Lotus has now is a brand name and legacy to live up to. As for the chasis of the car, I don’t really know much about CTRM to speculate if they have the necessary technology to make things work.

And then the driver. Our own Alex Yoong had a short stint as a Formula One driver in which he was consistently out-classed by the rest. I was happy if he actually finished a race, even if he ended up coming in last. I’ve heard that we have another young driver currently competing in the F3 series and he might be upgraded to the F1 series with team F1Malaysia funding his super-license. So, with them two, we will at least have two drivers for the team.

Honestly, while I can see the F1Malaysia team actually happening, I highly doubt that it would be competitive enough. Even a well funded team, with the necessary motivation and drive as well as technology – Toyota – still struggled in F1. It is not an easy competition to break into. Unless of course, they know something that we don’t – like most of the major teams might be pulling out of the competition next year or something like that.

A good friend of mine has recently started a book club and since I was more than supportive of such a venture, I got roped into it naturally. The first book that we are supposed to read is Air by Geoff Ryman. Since I did not have the book, I opted to go buy a paperback instead of downloading an online PDF version of it. I am quite particular when it comes to these intellectual property things.

Air is the story of a town’s fashion expert Chung Mae, a smart but illiterate peasant woman in a small village in the fictional country of Karzistan (loosely based on the country of Kazakhstan), and her suddenly leading role in reaction to dramatic, worldwide experiments with a new information technology called Air. Air is information exchange, not unlike the Internet, that occurs in everyone’s brain and is intended to connect the world. After a test of Air is imposed on Mae’s unprepared mountain town, everyone and everything changes, especially Mae who was deeper into Air than any other person. Afterwards, Mae struggles to prepare her people for what is to come while learning all about the world outside her home.

Anyway, hunting down the book was a small adventure on its own. I was in KLCC last weekend and decided to drop by my favourite book-store in the country – Kinokuniya. Unfortunately, they were out of Air. No worries right? Yesterday, I went to Mid-Valley and visited both Borders and MPH. Neither one had any Air in stock. The information counter staff at MPH was happy enough to check out their other branches for me but told me that none of their branches nationwide had any Air in stock.

I remarked that the book must be a good one, seeing that it was sold out nationwide. So, I sent my friend an SMS saying that it was really difficult trying to get hold of the book. I hope that the next reading assignment would be a book that is easily available. Anyway, I went to The Curve today and found two copies of the book rotting on the shelf at Borders. Their paper had all turned brown by now. Finally, I could breath easy now that I had found Air.

The timing could not have been better either. I had just finished Inversions by Ian M. Banks yesterday. So, I was just about to start Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds. Instead, I will start reading Air and hoping that it would not bore me to end. I think that a book club is probably a good way of exploring different authors. I have this habit of sticking to the authors whom I am already familiar with.

I hope that I will learn something new from this book.

David Waitzman published a Request for Comments (RFC) 1149, titled “A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers”. In his RFC, he introduced what he terms an “experimental method for the encapsulation of IP datagrams in avian carriers”. Essentially what Waitzman is talking about in his paper is the use of homing pigeons as a way to transfer data from one point to another. He expanded on his theory on the 1st April 1999, with the publication of RFC 2549, a Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers, with Quality of Service information.

The rules of the competition were simple:

1. No Cats allowed
2. The same amount of data will be sent on the landline and via the pigeon, on a SD card ( 4 gigabytes)
3. The race is from Howick to Hillcrest
4. The Pigeon flies from Howick to Gillits, and then will be transported via car to the finish site ( where the landline data will arrive)
5. The day will be announced closer to the time
6. Birdseed must not have any performance enhancing seeds within.
7. Data is not to be compressed.

Guess what? The verdict is in – and the pigeon won! Seriously, the South African ISP – Telkom, has been shown the bird – quite literally. Seems like they often race pigeons in South Africa. I reckon that it gives their pigeons an advantage over ours. They would probably have race breeds.

I wonder how our main broadband provider – Telekom – would stack up against a trained pigeon in terms of speed and cost.