Sybreon Ones Nought

As I had feared – the dubbing leaves much to be desired. The range of emotion is just not there! While there are plenty of experienced anime voice actors in Japan, Square probably could not afford to hire top Hollywood/Broadway/West-End English voice actors. Sadly, they have got the money so I don’t see why they could not put more effort into the International version.

However, the graphics are spectacular! The teardrop at the beginning of the trailer really shocked me. I wonder how much time someone spent on coding that piece of trick. I don’t recall seeing such beautifully rendered tears in any game. I hope that this is a sign of games to come and that developers have begun to come to terms with the console hardware architecture.

I asked around and the Japanese version of FF13 is retailing for almost RM400 in Malaysia. These local vendors really know how to make money. I will probably buy it from the UK when I go back there next time.

I have a favourite saying that my colleagues have begun to use – stupidity does not discriminate.

I am currently attending a short course conducted by Dr Bradley Jensen from Microsoft. I like him already. He was really honest when he stressed to us that CMMI is only good for one thing – documenting failures. That put our Director of Quality on the defensive. He added that this did not just apply to CMMI but whatever else we had in place – whether it be Six Sigma and what nots.

Everyone in the room laughed. You see, those of us that do the actual development have known this for ages. The only people who believe in the religion of Quality and pray to the God of Six Sigma in the temple of CMMI are people who have never done any sort of actual development. I liked what a colleague of mine once said – the Quality people know just enough about engineering to be dangerous!

I will blog more about why these things don’t work in a later entry. It is very simple to understand and Dr Bradley Jensen actually mentioned it as well. Unfortunately, during the break, poor Dr Bradley Jensen got accosted by all the senior staff of the Quality department. Shame on them!

This machine is the perfect Mac mini Server killer! Curiousity got the better of me today and I decided to see what Dell had to offer in terms of a small form factor machine that might be useful as a Net-serv. When I hit the website, I was instantly drawn by the Inspiron Zino, the perfect net-serv device – and it is only retailing for RM899!

The base configuration comes with:

CPU: Atom 230
RAM: 1Gb
HDD: 160Gb
GFX: GMA 950
ODD: DVD-RW
OS : Ubuntu 9.04!


That is right, you saw it! Dell is officially selling machines pre-loaded with Linux, in Malaysia!

This machine is only 899 and if I can use the RM80 discount coupon for this week, that goes down to RM819 only! And it is so small that it sits in a nice 8″x8″ space, which will fit nicely into my server rack. However, I do think that this might be a little pricey considering that it only comes with such entry-level specs. It would have been killer if it came with an Atom330, 2Gb of RAM and at larger hard disk. That would have just sealed the deal for me. I tried customising the device but it was not possible on the Dell website.

As it is, for an additional RM300, you can get the HD version that would be splendid as a HTPC! The Inspiron Zino HD comes with the following specs:


CPU: AMD 2850e
RAM: 4Gb
HDD: 500Gb
GFX: ATI 3200 (780G)


For an additional RM300, that is an excellent buy. Even the RAM and HDD upgrades alone would already be worth RM300, not to mention the better processor and better graphics including HDMI output. Excellent! Either of these machines would be wonderful as a little server sitting in the corner. However, I get the feeling that this machine just doesn’t want to stay quiet in the corner.

Let us all take a page out of science fiction – Babylon 5. Watch the whole thing. The message to take away is this – let us all rejoice in our diversity instead of trying to stake a claim of rights over certain words or burning down certain buildings. As a self-professed religious atheist, I do not see the logic in such madness.

Delenn: Exactly what sort of demonstration does he have planned?
Lt. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova: He just said it’d showcase Earth’s dominant belief system.
Cmdr. Jeffrey Sinclair: All right, we’re all set. If you’ll come this way.
Cmdr. Jeffrey Sinclair: [shaking hands or bowing or giving the appropriate gesture] This is Mr. Harris. He’s an atheist. Father Cresanti, a Roman Catholic. Mr. Hayakawa, a Zen Buddhist. Mr. Rashid, a Moslem. Mr. Rosenthal, an Orthodox Jew. Running Elk, of the Oglala Sioux faith. Father Papapoulous, a Greek Orthodox. Ogigi-ko, of the Ebo tribe. Machukiak, y Yupik Eskimo. Sawa, of the Jivaro tribe. Isnakuma, a Bantu. Ms. Chang, a Taoist. Mr. Blacksmith, an aborigine. Ms. Yamamoto, a Shinto. Ms. Naijo, a Maori. Mr. Gold, a Hindu. Ms….

Just so we are clear about the meaning of the word hide in English: be or go into hiding; keep out of sight, as for protection and safety; “Probably his horse would be close to where he was hiding”; “She is hiding out in a cabin in Montana”. Now that we are clear about the meaning of the word, I’d like to quote this article from TheStar that says,

Raja Petra, who was earlier reported to be in London, is now believed to be hiding in Poland based on a recent posting on his news portal.

Unfortunately, this is an inaccurate use of the word – hiding. It does not look like RPK is hiding anywhere. Now, the more appropriate word to use would be visiting or vacationing because that is obviously what he is doing. The photo’s exif information indicates that it was taken at 1022pm on NYE. Odd!

A colleague of mine asked me a while ago, how could I possibly love Malaysia? In return I asked my colleague what is the definition of Malaysia and therein lay the difference between us. To me, Malaysia is not a country but a nation. While it is very difficult to fall in love with a country, it is very easy to fall in love with a nation.

Our nation is not bound by Thailand to the north, Singapore to the south and Indonesia to our west and east. Our nation is not 330 square kilometers. Our nation does not consist of 28 million people, which are made up of 54% Malay, 25% Chinese, 7.5% Indian, 11.8% other Bumiputra and 0.7% of dan lain-lain. All these things make up our country, Malaysia, and even I would find it hard-pressed to love these things.

However, our nation is another matter altogether. Actually, anyone can fall in love with a nation. A nation is bound by a common language. A nation is constructed around a common history. A nation possesses a shared culture. A nation has its own set of ideals and ideals are extremely easy to love. I think that this difference in definition sometimes catches us. People can mean many different things when they use the word “Malaysia”.

Alright, I am not crazy. Some people may think that I am an idealist or a romantic. I am probably guilty of both. However, let us just be clear that when I claim to love Malaysia, I mean the nation and not the country.