Moved out!

I have officially moved out of awardspace and also (rather unfortunately but inevitably) out of blogger!

Come over to my new website at http://yuenhoe.com/ and my new blog at http://yuenhoe.com/blog !

The Ubuntu Girlfriend Experiment

el w00t0s! Lets take advantage of this short short period of time, which I hereby christen "time-in-which-I-can-blog-whenever-the-hell-I-feel-like-it", to finally make another post about linux!

And so I was sticking around some of my long-forsaken haunts, like the holy dota forums and linuxNUS, and stumbled upon this blog post about the Great Ubuntu Girlfriend Experiment and found it pretty darned interesting. Basically this dude went and made a fresh install of the latest version of UbuntuLinux (8.04 Hardy Heron) then sat his un-linux-y girlfriend in front of the newly setup box and charged her with a list of tasks to perform, presumably to discern Hardy Heron's usability for your run-off-the-mill windows user, and not because he had some sadomasochistic inclinations :P

Anyway, the results were pretty insightful, I think. Pretty interesting how little little things that veteran users overlook can end up being a big help (or an insurmountable barrier) to novice users. Still, it is evident that Linux (or at least Ubuntu) has come a very long way. I think the results of the experiment are actually pretty good (with the exception of YouTube and flash, that one is a pain alrite =.= I blame flash for being proprietary!! xD) and it actually looks easier and more intuitive than ever to just start using Linux for almost any common task. Of course, I guess it cannot be helped that some of the potential barriers that need to be cleared results from the virtual synonymous relationship between 'Personal Computer' and 'Windows'. It'll unfortunately take some basic knowledge of operating systems to appreciate why '.exe' files won't run on Linux =x

It may be because when I started using computers we were still fooling around in horrid ol' DOS, but I find I disagree with the author on his final comment : "Linux won’t truly be ready for the desktop until someone computer illiterate can sit down at a the computer and with little effort do what they want to do." I think that even now, any kind of computer usage - DOS, Windows or Linux - requires a little literacy training - people don't just appear in front of the computer and magically start single clicking things to select them and double clicking things to execute them. The problem is the literacy training you usually get is heavily windows-biased, and shifting to Linux ends up being precisely that - SHIFTING. I don't think it will be more difficult to teach a WHOLLY computer illiterate user to use modern Linux that to use Windows. In fact, I think that if everyone started out using Linux and had to shift to Windows halfway through, the list of complaints will probably crash through the roof (like how I cannot stand not being able to move windows by alt-clicking them now xD)

General update

Whew! And so its finally time to do a general update after a semester's worth of endlessly being screwed over and slaving over projects around the clock. I feel like the effects of the incredible amount of stress I accumulated over the past half a year will take an eternity of rest to diffuse, but oh well, I guess a week and a half at home is still a hellalot better than nothing.

Home sweet home, with nice food, (almost) no homework, and air con(!). Bliss it is, but one made imperfect by the nagging knowledge of its fleetingness.

It'll be back to work soon enough =(

Ah wells, lets talk happy stuff while we can. I have (finally!!) begun long-postponed, massive reconstruct/redesign work on my poor neglected webbie! I'm planning to move out of Awardspace, which unfortunately seems to block Malaysian IP's =( A shame really, their features are near-unparalleled. All of the considerable number of alternate hosts I've been hopping and shopping around for are giving me trouble because they don't allow me to pull stuff out of remote sites for my feed readers =( So it looks like I will be forced to move out of blogger too, and host my own blog with Wordpress instead. Well, on the bright side, all my experimenting and playing around has culminated in a prototypical design for my new redefined web site! Go stick around and give me some feedback :P

And after being completely detached from the events transpiring beyond my little little world of work, I've finally been able to pick up a newspaper again! And WAS there news to read! I don't usually care much for the local news section, but recent developments in Malaysian politics were so delightfully delicious that I found myself glued fast, and having uncontrollable periodic tendencies to cackle and giggle and emit high-pitched squeals of utter delight. Yes! It does seem likely that we may be standing on a pivotal moment in regard to the fate of this country, and I must say I am quite excited about whats gonna happen next. This country has been sitting under the cyclic lock of retarded policies long enough. All these squabbling and unusual occurences are bringing alot of healthy attention to the local political scene, and, if we're lucky, may serve to create enough of a jolt to allow big things to change, or at least come into direct question. The surfacing movement to abolish the ISA seems to be a promising sign. Either way, I guess the bonus is that all these news and events are just so darn entertaining ^^

Interestingly, I find I have been discussing anime with, *ahem*, skeptics, alot lately :P But while I argue firmly and fervently that much of the perceived shortcomings of anime (as compared to regular shows) are mythical, I have to say that I kind of empathize with people who are unable to appreciate anime like they do other normal shows - for the simple reason that I feel the exact opposite. In this I suppose I must concede there IS a concrete difference somewhere, a difference I am yet unable to define. Well either way, I must say that I've grown to like anime with a depth close to passion. Anime has been one of the major life-lines on which I have been leaning my battered spirit during the hardest times of the semester. There is something about it that is oddly therapeutic, makes you relax and allows you to draw breath and go on.

Well, the good ones of course. There is a formidable enough amount of anime out there for there to be a good score of bad ones :P

Anyways, think that's all for my random crap for now. Till next time! (if till then I live!)

Irony and Prejudice

There are some things which some people would hold with outright and honest contempt, and that some others would embrace with casual and simple liberalism. Yet those who are careless in embracing are often also smooth and crisp in releasing, whilst they who resist, fight and reject often struggle endlessly on, inexorably and hopelessly trapped by their own subject of spite.

We sometimes find ourselves perplexed over this, even contemptuous, calling it hypocrisy. And this clearly illuminates the feebleness of our appreciation for the true order of things in this cosmos. We haven't anything even close to an acute sense of causality, only fold upon fold of irretrievably knotted preconceptions, predispositions and prejudices, that perhaps can never be undone.

OOXML - now an ISO standard.

If you can spare the time, please read till the end. I spent alot of very very scarce time writing this up :)

Okay, so I started out this morning on the innocent task of finding myself a converter for Microsoft's new OOXML format, being sick of having people just absently sending me .docx formatted documents and having to ask them to resend the regular .doc format. 5 minutes into the Google search and I found myself in a whirlpool of news, comments and outcries because just yesterday, the ISO (international organisation for standardization) has approved OOXML as an international standard. (story)

I find myself a little angry at this, and that's why I am actually taking the time to type this out. Microsoft, its history, present practice, core business model and de-facto company philosophy is as far removed from the concept of an open standard as the bin in my room is from Pluto. An open standard means each and every detail of its components are released in full, so that it can be implemented/supported by anyone, ie an open standard is platform and vendor independent. Everything Microsoft has produced that I am remotely familiar with does not come remotely close to this. I cannot, for example, name a single piece of Microsoft software that isn't exclusively tied to Windows by design.

The case is hardly different for OOXML. There is a petition here with a list of arguments against OOXML being an open standard.

I think its important for everyone to get an appreciation of what exactly is going on here. We have Microsoft pushing hard for the international adoption of a broken 'open' document format which, among other things,

• Is inextricably linked to their (insanely expensive) office productivity suite, and hence cannot be easily implemented or supported in full by any other parties.


• Does not come with any legally binding assurance that Microsoft cannot sue parties attempting to implement/support OOXML fully or partially (ie, potential competitors) for patent violations.

These are not oversights. These and many other issues with OOXML has been harshly criticized and loudly denounced by many parties including national standards committees, large software companies, and figures in the IT industry. The fact is these are engineered into the OOXML specifications by design.

So how in blazes did Microsoft manage to get OOXML approved by ISO? Microsoft is not only smart, they also have a lot of power, and are ruthless when it comes to exercising their muscles. There are many and consistent accounts of irregularities in the ISO evaluation process, involving lobbying and political moves by Microsoft on the standards committees in many countries. From the NoOOXML website : "Microsoft has compromised the International Standards Organisation (ISO) during the rush to get a stamp for their Office OpenXML (OOXML), using unfair practices such as committee stuffing in several countries and political interventions of ministers in the standardization process."

A (huge!) compiled list of details on alleged irregularities in the evaluation process can be found here.

Why does this matter to us? Because we are software users, and because Microsoft, with this latest bid and countless others before it, is aiming for absolute monopoly. Absolute monopoly in the software industry (Microsoft's overpoweringly obvious goal) will be to our great detriment because choice and competition will be eliminated. When you are forced to go back to one single vendor for all of your software needs, bugfixes, and feature request, that vendor has the freedom to charge for simple stuff like patches, upgrades and bugfixes - even if it was their fault that the upgrades and fixes are needed in the first place! They are also free to sell their products at ridiculous prices. In fact, given Microsoft's present dominance over the market and the extensive vendor-locking net they employ, this is to a degree already happening. (think how much does the ms office suite cost?)

What's more, Microsoft has a history of hitting for the pinnacle of market dominance not by trying to produce the best software, but by using the underhanded tactic of locking users inside of their (often inferior) software by preinstalling everything with Windows, preinstalling Windows with many more things, and then locking everything up with a web of patents and intellectual properties.This is not natural and destroys the merits of a free market by allowing inferior goods to survive through the death of other, superior goods from lack of support and awareness.

The open source community has shown us that software is nothing big, that you can churn out software of incredible quality and give it out for free. This is a powerful and crucial factor in the software world that places alot of pressure on commercial vendors like Microsoft, because people know what can be produced for free, vendors will not only be forced to keep up and make sure they produce quality for the stuff they are selling, but also to think thrice before ever attempting to overcharge. Stuff like OOXML carry the potential of severely handicapping related open source projects! Because of the incomplete specifications and the lack of protection against lawsuits, related open source software projects will never know when they would be stepping on one of Microsoft's intellectual property when trying to support OOXML, and so if Microsoft decides, it could legally sue all of its competitors for patent infringement, forcing free software developers to either charge their users so that they could pay Microsoft (destroying the notion of free, in more ways than one), or to close the project altogether.

What I hope to accomplish with these four hours or so that I ripped out of my very very tight schedule is to do my part in the effort to raise awareness about what is going on in the software market. I'm not saying everyone should go out of their way to boycott office2007 or any other Microsoft product for that matter. My hope is for you to understand and keep these issues in mind when using Microsoft products, and be aware of the alternatives Microsoft will try to blind you to, even if you don't want to use them. Also, I hope that you are now a little angry at Microsoft, and a little more sympathetic with the people who are involved in/using open source software. These are software communities that truly care about the software and the user, instead of the the money you can get out of both. At least, perhaps you can contemplate installing an ODF plugin for your poor long suffering friends who use OpenOffice.org :)

PS : In the midst of all these I was also pleasantly surprised to discover that Malaysia is actually quite a pro-open source country! In fact, just last week, the Malaysian government has officially decided to migrate to ODF and OpenOffice.org! Some other articles about Malaysia and open source are here, here and here. In fact, both of two Malaysian standards committees tasked with evaluating the OOXML proposal decided to submit "Disapprove with comments", but were both suspiciously overruled by the central government with the result that Malaysia abstained from the voting -.-

PS 2 : In the very remote chance that any of you are on Linux and use OpenOffice.org, I managed to get it to read .docx files by following instructions here.

Yes

Exultation. Is when all your hard work, all your carefully drawn-out planning, all your delicately administered prods and nudges, all your blood, sweat and soul spent on bringing things BACK in line.

Pays off.

Hi Team 14,

Congratulations, you fail only 4 test cases (out of 85) – 1 incorrect result, 3 exceptions. This is comparatively a very good result, and puts you in the top 25% of teams. You have made tremendous progress, as you were in the bottom 25% to begin with.

Starting to look up, starting to look up, things starting to fall into place, just some way more to go, just gotta keep going...

OMG I NEED TO GET BACK INTO DOTA!!

I KNEW I should not have peeked at the conversation going on in the damned dota draft group halfway through Work (with teh capital 'W'!!), but I did. They talk alot of crap in there and they don't usually discuss the international dota scene but it SO happened that they were doing just that at the exact point I peeked.

Result : I make that long-forgotten pilgrimage to the hallowed dota forum, to find out I've missed out on SO much! Urgh! Urgh! >.<

Even the long lost Fear has returned to dota. When will I? :'(

ALTHOUGH

..McDonald's at engin has played an enormous role in preserving my sanity by providing delightfully, sinfully, unhealthy-ly salty french fries..

ALTHOUGH McDonalds has always been there to nourish my spirit with fragrant oils that abundantly flow (.. forth from within a McSpicy chicken fillet) when my mind and soul are stranded in the darkest mires of stress...

Tonight, TONIGHT, I must stand up and say, with deepest, most profound honesty....






... that KFC is still better.

Lost

I once knew an incredible lady
who was graceful and fair
And to me she took a fancy
and all her riches shared

She listened to my every call
She bought me gifts so fine
She showered shreds of brilliant flair
of many forms and kind

And when she spoke her voice was thunder!
For Power was her name
But when she smiled her breath was sugar
That mastered wealth and fame

As we flirted we skewed the paths
of meaning, true love, sworn
outspoke the word of rule and law
reigned with might and scorn

And all those times I worshiped her
kept her pleased and sated
Until the day I did the error
of taking her for granted

Now she turns her back on me
and heeds no cry nor tears
sheet by sheet my grief and pleas
they fall upon deaf ears

Oh were that I had treasured her more
Is all now in vain?
Oh what would not this poor soul give
To ride her whims again?

Adrenaline!

Three days! Fixed up a basic wall on day one, magicked into being a working skinning mechanism on day two, and spent the third coaxing the app into interacting nicely with my teammate's remote script, to finally complete the talk-back-ing, skinnable Living Wall. I have to admit, amidst all these massive amounts of coding I have been doing, I can actually feel myself getting better at this shit. Better at planning my code, modularizing them in increasingly smart ways, and later reaping the fruits when I have to hack in an unforeseen feature. I have been doing insane amounts of work per day, and having loads of fun at the same time - a feat only possible because I am running on overdrive.

The Adrenaline pumps, and now that I am finally ready to go to bed, I lie awake in dread of the inevitable time when my energy must run out.

An act of observation...

...inevitably and irretrievably disturbs the state of the observed system.

Anyone who has had an elementary introduction to modern physics knows this. What takes me by surprise, though, is that this little idea has managed to pop itself out of the realm of books and thought experiments to land squarely in front of me now, upon this awkward crossroad on which I have somehow unwittingly found myself standing. A principle in the world of the microscopic suddenly musters the audacity to strike at some very very macroscopic issues. And all I find myself capable of doing at this moment is to sit around in futile waiting for answers, or some hint thereof, that I know are quite simply not forthcoming.

Hurrah for the head-in-the-sand solution.

Ah wells, I'll get over it somehow. I always do. The big question ends up being whether I'd be able to get over this without having to regret in the future.

But then again, from a philosophical point of view, one has to wonder if that is even possible.

Kindly ignore my ramblings.

Eyes on NUS

In a bid for precious CCA points I was giving out flyers this morning at the business and arts faculties, and to my surprise it turned out to be a pretty pleasant experience. How often in the hectic life of an NUS student does one find an opportunity to simply stand somewhere early in the morning, strolling about greeting and smiling at strangers? It may perhaps be because it was early on a morning of excellent weather, but a gratifying proportion of the students already going about their daily businesses were willing to pause their stride and smile back.

It is the start of semester again and while I do not have any specific plans or resolutions for the new beginning, one of the first lectures I attended (for the new course CS3216) has perked my attention. Apart from CS1101S, NUS has been, for as long as I have been here (and probably centuries before), about as inspiring as a teaspoon. There has been nothing here except the regular sorts of co-curricular activities and plain old studying. The transition from Junior College to this place has been nothing more than a rise in the competency level of the teachers, and a jump in the levels of sophistication of the subjects of study. There has been nothing to mark, to imply or suggest, to give even the mildest sense that we have transcended into something beyond the realm of spoonfed knowledge and test-oriented thinking. NUS to me has been a university of straw.

But now it seems, there are forces at work to change this. Only small ones perhaps, little jabs and pokes to nudge things into better shape, but welcome and immeasurably needed nonetheless. The question of interest now is how will the NUS population respond to these carefully administered stimuli. Change requires both brilliant initiatives and favourable responses. I am glad that some have stepped forward with the former. We shall see if we are capable of the latter.

In anger, despair, and more than a little cynical pleasure I cried "NUS is not a university!" While I still find no reason to eat those words, I find myself interested, right now, in the question of whether NUS CAN BECOME a university.

We shall see.

If you were ever in AJ

And, like me and a mountain of other people out there, hate the damned place, then you MUST go here! I insist ^^