yjblog

A tribute to my new Linux box (essentially a $700 impulse buy) running Ubuntu (Hoary Hedgehog).

Previously: Dracula hearts oranges

Tags: dracula

Previously:

Chicken vs Mime

Chicken vs Nuclear Warhead

Chicken vs Commie

Tags: chickens

Previously:

Chicken vs Nuclear Warhead

Chicken vs Commie

Tags: chickens

Previously:

Chicken vs Commie

Tags: chickens

Might be relieved with some meebo, an AJAX-based instant messaging web application that supports ICQ, AIM, Yahoo and MSN. Unless, of course, you’re in our civil service and IDA filters every single internet plugin known to man before any web content reaches your terminal.

Created by three Stanford alum, one who I recognise from CS-teaching days. What’s really interesting are their progress reports and descriptions of occasional newbie mistakes documented on their blog, including things like scrambling to find new servers to cope with the overload, realising public issues on privacy in taking IM account passwords, applying for a Verisign cert… Fascinating stuff to watch develop.

It’s been at least four years since I’ve had to write 12-page fuzzy papers. As it stands, I have 24 hours to write this damn thing on “creative and critical thinking”, and I’m out of practice from my days of being able to generate a page of reasonably intelligible nonsense every hour. Also, I’ve only written one page in the last four days.

Ooh, the excitement! It’s been so long since I’ve had so much fun procrastinating and then having to regret it on the day before an assignment is due.

Everyone: Microsoft Office can’t possibly get any uglier after that blue-gradients-gone-wild travesty that was Office 2004!

Billy G.: Heehee!

Office 12, for Windows Vista:

Aagh! Stop, you’re burning my eyes!

I hesitate to even call this bastard-son-of-brushed-metal-and-Aqua UI a rip-off, because… well… even the ugliest OS X brushed metal apps don’t look so bad. More optical-combustion-inducing pictures here [neowin.net].

Also, “learn what an expert behind the new Office 12 UI has to say about the new design” here [microsoft.com]. They took three years to come up with this?! I suppose it takes quite a bit of effort to make your product even uglier than the open-source version.

Quote, from designer Julie Larson-Green: “Another design principle was driven by the desire to make it easier for people to discover the capabilities that achieve a desired result”.

Umm. Yeah. People will definitely be driven to discover the capabilities of the “exit” option.

Via TUAW.

At some point this week, I realised: maybe I don’t have to get the hell out of this country when the bond is up. I can’t even remember what triggered that thought, but it’s a first for me.

Right after that, came along two opinions (well, more of an opinion vs. a mass of unfettered ravings — let it not be said that I didn’t state my lack of impartiality outright*) to contrast:

Slashdot Article on Singaporean bloggers charged for sedition. Filtered for comment rating 3 and above, for sanity’s sake. Choice quotes:

Ah my, but it isn’t just darling to see governments that are so cowardly that they fear their own citizens. Of course, such vile oppressive governments will always defend themselves via that pathetic “society must be protected” defense, but they are vile and wicked never the less.

Conflict in my central processor…
Racism…
Freedom of speech…
Freedom of speech overrides natural desire to slowly boil racists…

Well, if Singapore doesn’t allow free speech, eventually, everyone worthy of it will leave, leaving Singapore an empty hunk devoid of any significance.

Singapore and Katrina, Thomas Friedman, New York Times (thanks for pointing it out, Suzie).

It may roll up the sidewalks pretty early here, and it may even fine you if you spit out your gum, but if you had to choose anywhere in Asia you would want to be caught in a typhoon, it would be Singapore. Trust me, the head of Civil Defense here is not simply someone’s college roommate.

The discipline that the cold war imposed on America, by contrast, seems to have faded. Last year, we cut the National Science Foundation budget, while indulging absurd creationist theories in our schools and passing pork-laden energy and transportation bills in the middle of an energy crisis.

Then again, even if we were caught in a Katrina-level typhoon, the media would somehow manage to spin it into something positive. “Looters demonstrate use of NS skills”, “Stadium converted into refugee hub”.

* On second reading: Wow, a triple negative. Me 1, intelligibility 0.