Bravo

Incidentally, it’s a lousily done scam. The domain root has a directory listing (feel free to browse the rest), the yes/no links run through a series of redirects, which eventually lands you on a page with some fine print. They’ll only charge you up to S$40 a month, up till December 2008!

Very profitable for Wixawin, Sybase 365 and all the other dodgy related entities.

Their FAQ page is quite defensive.

Differences

I can’t believe I missed this:-

The situation in Myanmar now is “far from perfect”, but Mr Rumsey told Weekend Today that World Vision has “signed an in-principle agreement with Myanmar’s Department of Social Welfare that all aid brought in by World Vision will be distributed by World Vision”.
—TODAYonline Weekend, May 17, 2008

(I don’t think I need to add emphasis to this, do I?)

I haven’t seen anything to substantiate this yet – but maybe World Vision is trying to keep its collective head down to avoid triggering petty people’s kneejerk reactions. It’s a bit unexpected, coming about a week before the UN Secretary-General parted the curtains and apparently secured access for international aid workers into the delta region.

Curiously, the goods issue isn’t mentioned in the UN press releases nor paper articles – just international aid workers and their visas, (civilian) boats and ships, and airport logistics.

In other news, Wikipedians are raging about ‘Myanmar’ vs ‘Burma’. Does it have to do with locale? ‘Myanmar’ seems to be more commonly recognised by Singapore students, since it’s the name used in primary school Social Studies on ASEAN.

Punned

I finished reading Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (CC licensed text online) before lunch – and I am freaked out. To say that it’s an up to date 1984 would be an understatement, and it’s just as thought-provoking.

Go read it. Really.

Oh, and Doctorow might be better known as an editor at boingboing.

RSS

I am very annoyed. Third poweroff in recent weeks, this time on 45% charge remaining, so it shouldn’t be the battery.

The charging cycle looks weird.

Pink-red

Hate vs dislike – one involves some intensity. I guess I don’t actually hate anyone right now. Just dislike and the occasional disgust that flares up and dissipates with unwanted contact.

—

Rising rice prices makes demand go up, most obviously in (short-term) panic buying, hoarding and so on which everyone prefers to pretend doesn’t happen. Fine – but why does it reduce supply? I know governments want to make sure their own peoples have rice to eat, but wouldn’t it be more profitable to export more (instead of less), charge Malaysia lots, then buy other stuff for your people to eat?

OIL

Foiled, by a demand for an executive summary about the past and overdue, a planned timeout, and this finicky thing called “1162 Chinese”.

I think can make it in 4 weeks.

Rails is fail for many situations, not to mention (un)performance in many scenarios. Plone/Zope is incredibly powerful, in Python, has a ridiculously steep learning curve, and performs so bad it’s unbelievable.

Django is still coming along fine. Eventually most of my time will be spent dealing with the design of the interface, rather than the underlying magic. It’s that nice and easy, when you’re trying to do things well-supported by Django.

Now I just need someone to handle the aesthetics and usability side.

Learning

I am attempting to learn how to read/write/think in Rails, Django and CodeIgniter, at (nearly) the same time. Just for a week – after which I’ll pick one and learn it a bit more.

I challenge myself to do what took a group of people 3 months to produce, in 3 weeks. Just to prove a point.

The word is ‘crazy’.

Stainless

Iron Man has no plot, and pretty CGI. Go watch.

XFN

Blip blip

I was walking home today when I saw one of those price signs outside petrol stations flashing and displaying weird things.. and spotted a attendant holding a printout and pointing a remote at it.

Amusing.

—

I’m constantly stuck in a cycle of being swept away in the school’s currents, forgetting who I am, what I do, why I do, and then being jolted back to reality. It is sobering but yet it is always easy to get drunk on the sweet draught of success.

So, here is the text of an interesting sermon from The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, talking about balancing humility and being proud of what has been done, and revolves around A.M.D.G.

There is more significance and meaning in “To God Be The Glory” than is sketched by its overuse in school. It is a timely reminder before the competition season comes round.