Why the 1Malaysia Email Initiative is a Waste

I had too much time on my hands, so I did an analysis on Najib's recent 1Malaysia Email Initiative. ;)

http://www.2shared.com/document/sz7Y2lA9/Why_The_1Malaysia_Email_Initia.html

Kiang To Ho Mai Keh Kiang

My title in Hokkien, literally translated it means "Enough if you're smart, don't need to pretend to be smart". Or simply, no need to show off.

I was playing basketball (and testing my fucked up chronic left ankle) in the evening at a nearby court in SS18. While in a game, out of nowhere a ball flew into the left side of my face. And resulted in CARNAGE.

You can even see the outline of the frame of my spectacles!

Close up view of the damage. Quite a bit of blood flowed out.

The miracle that emerged out of this carnage was that my spectacles was perfectly FINE. It wasn't even bent or scratched. Now I know the question in your minds right now. Just HOW did it happen? Well, I know for a fact half of you all will get bored when they see a wall of text. So I'm presenting the chain of events in my self drawn Paint pictures!

The ball was flying out of the court, near my teammate (I'm the one with the specs, duh).

Smartass had the brilliant idea of flying out and saving the ball by throwing it back in play, only he severely overestimated his strength.

Now I can go on and on about Newton's Laws about Inertia and Momentum, but that'll take the whole day. Screw that, one generally knows that it is harder to throw a ball backwards when it is moving forwards, and it'll take much more to throw the ball HIGH UP backwards.

Because Smartass overestimated his strength, his ball went flying straight into my face instead of into the air and back into play. And because I wasn't looking at the ball at that time, I had no time whatsoever to react.

The lesson of the story, boys and girls, is do NOT overestimate your strength. Just because you saw me doing the same move doesn't mean that you can do it too. I have far more strength, smartass.
Anyways, boys and girls, do not overestimate your strength. It's better to let the ball go out of play than throwing a ball straight into someone's face and causing severe blood loss (ok, so I exaggerated a LITTLE bit). Kiang To Ho Mai Keh Kiang.

Coping Without Facebook: An Update

Not too long ago, I came up with the ridiculous (and some say heretical) decision of suspending my Facebook account indefinitely.

Most of my friends reacted the way I'd expected. Let's see, there was surprise, there was total and utter disbelief, and I swear to God I think there was some little bit of sadness. They just couldn't believe someone could let something as "important" as Facebook go just like that.

Yes, I do not deny that Facebook is a great tool for catching up with friends, finding long lost friends, or simply just chilling out (by playing some silly games). In fact, I'll probably reactivate my Facebook account when I go to Melbourne, just so I can communicate with everyone more easily.

Anyways, this is supposed to be an update on how I've been faring in these 11 days since leaving Facebook. And an update it shall be.

Many a people predicted SEFAWAS or Severe Facebook Withdrawal Syndrome (trust me, I love coming up with useless acronyms ;P ) To be honest I did too, but the transition period turned out to be pretty mild. There were times when my mouse pointer would automatically move towards the Facebook tab, but I'd always stop myself from doing any further damage.

As the days wore on, it became more and more natural [living without Facebook]. No longer would I unwittingly move my mouse towards the Facebook tab. I found other things to do. (One of them being being obsessed with defragmenting my computers' hard drives every other day to ensure the shortest boot time, crazy I know.)

As it turned out to be, my social life didn't go down the drain. In fact some of this year's funnest things happened during the period I threw Facebook away. Like I've said before, those that want to reach me will find a way to reach me, so I'm in no way disconnected from the world.

So why not guys, give it a try! Test your own resilience and self control and see how long you can survive without Facebook. ;P

Welcome to the Family!

As some (or most?) of you already know, I'm transferring to my university's main campus in Melbourne this July. This means preparations, LOTS of them. From getting my IC and passport done to finding accommodation in Melbourne.

A dilemma immediately comes to mind. I'll need a computer if I was to survive 2 years there. My new netbook that I got a few months ago? No, no, no can do. Netbooks are useful for light browsing and light typing, i.e emails, IM but DEFINITELY not doing any serious work. The screen is simply not big enough to handle documents.

So the netbook is definitely out of the picture. Now those who know me know that I'd take a desktop over a laptop in a heartbeat. Why? Because a desktop is simply more powderful than a laptop. But in this case I can't move my desktop over to Melbourne, it is simply not practical.

That leaves only one other option. I'd need a laptop then. Now what laptop could you get a stingy, desktop-preferring, power-crazy, big-screen loving, graphics whore? Well those list of adjectives pretty much sum up what the laptop had to have.

• Cheap
• Big screen (14.0" is small to me)
• Powderful processor
• GRAPHICS CARD

There wasn't a lot of choosing to do. Other laptops either had the hardware and a fucked up, obscenely high price, or obscenely cheap prices with no hardware.

So I ended up with this.

Oh YES, Yes I bought an Acer.

And yes, people have been giving me their opinions on laptop brands. And one thing was common, they ALL unanimously hated Acer, for various reasons I could never for the death of me comprehend.

On the cover: The unmistakable Acer logo, and anti-fingerprint contours

One of the side reasons I got the Acer is to prove to those Acer-haters out there that Acer isn't half as bad as they think it is. Like what I always say, the computer is only as good as its owner. Treat it well, it serves you well. Treat it like shit, it fucking dies on you.

Keyboard layout: Macbook, anyone? :P

The retail price of this piece of treasure was RM 2,999. All over Low Yat Plaza retailers were offering "free gifts" along with the laptop. You could refuse the free gifts and get a lower price. In the end, I found a shop selling this laptop for RM2,899. As a comparison, getting a Dell which has all my laptop's specs would cost RM3,730, almost RM1,000 more.

"What specs! What specs? What specs!!"

Intel Core i5-520M (2.4GHz with Turbo Boost to 2.93Ghz), Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, NVIDIA GeForce GT 320M

15.6" HD LED Screen (That's a 30cm rule)

Other info: 2.26kg(I think I read this somewhere), 4GB DDR3

It has a pretty big touchpad, not that I'm going to use it often, but here's a look at it.

Touchpad: Monolithic buttons

Because its screen is so large, there's enough space to put in a full-sized keyboard, INCLUDING the Number Pad, something which I find a lack of use for.

It might seem similar to the Macbooks' keyboard, but it's not. The keys might not respond if you press on their sides

The laptop is made of mainly tough plastic to save cost. Here it's been made so as to mimic brushed aluminum, and you can't tell the difference from a distance.

The laptop came with a lot of pre-installed junk, all of which I deleted the moment I got home. The boot time(the time it takes from power on to desktop screen) improved from 2 minutes to 53seconds. Which is still slower than my 4-year old desktop(45 secs). See why I love desktops now? :)