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Mostly musings.

Malaysia 2011 Wrap-Up

Malaysia was just… a blast.

In somewhat chronological order:

  • Buying 12 donuts to take to Malaysia from Melbourne airport.
  • Playing DoTA with cousins in some random internet cafe/gaming lounge.
  • Riding a bike (sans helmet) across the streets of Sitiawan, both with a cousin and alone, to another cousin’s house to steal borrow his internets.
  • Having a bus breakdown in the middle of nowhere, and being stuck there for hours. Having a greasemonkey (in the purest sense of the word, literally covered in grease from head to toe) climb into the engine bay and fix it for us some three hours later.
  • Eating copious amounts of food in restaurants packed to the brim with people also celebrating Chinese New Year.
  • Buying four decks of cards for a couple of Australian dollars in order to play such games like Warlords and Scumbags, Cheat, Hold Em’ poker, Blackjack, and other assorted games for which there are no english translations for.
  • Finding out that two of the most popular shopping centres have seemingly shed a complete level of floor space, but also discovering that there’s now a whopping great big Tesco where there definitely wasn’t one before.
  • Marvelling at how awesome battery life is on the iPhone 4 when you don’t have to be connected to mobile networks.
  • Tasting the local KFC, finding it definitely isn’t as good as it is back home, but at the same time appreciating the cheesy wedges which aren’t available back home either.
  • Consuming many slices of bread for lunch while at the same cousin’s house. Pretty sure I cleaned them out, but they had such an exquisite collection of spreads it was hard not to.
  • Watching episodes of Nip/Tuck before sleeping.
  • Playing and reviewing iOS games before actually going to sleep.
  • Realising that the whole experience was infinitely better with almost all of my cousins there as well. I suspect it would have been quite boring otherwise.
  • Finding and commenting on all the broken English spotted in department stores, printed text, and everywhere. Continue Reading →

Reflections

Hindsight isn’t just the excuse you should be using when you get caught checking out some cute girl’s butt, it’s also something that can prove almost infinitely useful regardless of the situation at hand. Let me explain.

As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t really exercise all that often. Infrequently, but not all that often. Anyway, we were talking about this at work one day, and instead of asking me straight out why I didn’t exercise a co-worker decides to ask the question: “where and when do you have your own time? To reflect, that kind of thing?” The only answer that came immediately to mind was my time on public transport. Sure, when I’m home I’m usually alone for the most part (thankfully my sister and parents tend to leave well enough alone), but even when I’m “alone” in my room I’m usually doing something — surfing the net, chatting with friends via IM, smashing people in online games, that sort of thing.

Indeed, my time on public transport constitutes the vast majority of time to myself. Sometimes I write blog posts like this, sometimes I write small reviews of iOS games I’ve been playing lately. Sometimes I just tune out and let my mind wander, but I’m always listening to music. Not necessarily paying any sort of attention to the music, but the noise helps block out distractions.

As someone who doesn’t really associate that much with other people you would think that I’d have a lot of time to myself, but that’s not always the case. For example, I’m actually phenomenally lazy so any free time I have might well be spent snoozing instead of working on that assignment that’s due in a couple of days.

Reflection also happens at the most inconvenient of times, too. Like when I’m trying to get to sleep but I can’t stop thinking about one thing or another, or when I’m trying to concentrate on some insanely-important programming exercise but keep getting interrupted with thoughts that have nothing at all to do with programming in C.

Lately I’ve actually been using hindsight to gain new knowledge I previously didn’t have. There have been many instances just recently where I could have acted out and done something, but hindsight tells me those probably weren’t the best courses of action at the time. I guess the question then becomes whether I’ll regret not doing something (at that moment or later on), but hindsight is a bitch like that. I expect to lose many hours of sleep over certain actions or lack thereof, but I guess that’s life.

Personal time is important. I can’t really imagine a time where I’d go without it, and at a guess I’d start to have really insane dreams as my much-wilder subconscious wreaked havoc with my thoughts. I really can’t stress this enough: having time to yourself is a good thing. There’s nothing stopping you from going ahead and filling your social calendar to the brim with activities, and that’s all well and good, but don’t try and distract yourself from the person who really matters the most in your life — yourself.

Lie awake at night.

Take long walks.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it’s good to just stop and have a long hard think. If it helps, write your thoughts down to get them into some sort of meaningful order. If it helps, have music playing in the background. If it helps, do trivial tasks so you don’t get bored.

Reflection is one thing, ignoring yourself is another thing entirely.

Finally: no, I haven’t been caught looking (yet), so thankfully I’ve never had to use that particular pun at the beginning of this post. That’s not to say I’m not (looking), however. I’m sure that pun will come in handy one day! 😉

Making A Difference

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, so bear with me while I get this machine started up… *readies chainsaw*

“There was a man who was walking along a sandy beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore. As he looked down the beach he noticed a boy picking the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. He got closer and he called out, “Good morning! What are you doing?” The boy paused, looked up and replied, “Throwing starfish in the ocean. If I don’t throw them back in they will die. “The man then said, “Don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You can’t possibly make a difference.” The boy listened politely. Then he bent down, picked another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves. He looked at the man and said, “It made a difference for that one.”

– Author Unknown

via A Regurgitation of the Mind.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was this guy. This guy had the whole world on front of him — he wasn’t particularly good looking, but he seemed to have a decent bee in his bonnet, and he was always willing to apply himself. Like everyone else, he had experienced both the highs and lows of life — but being one to take things in his stride he barely bent down to pick up the pieces before he was on his way again. He had a good portion of his future all planned out, and everything was peachy.
Then life happened.
Fast forward a few years — that same guy is suddenly a lot less sure of himself, where’s he’s going, and what he’s going to do when he gets there. It’s almost as if things have just started unravelling over time, almost as if there’s suddenly a whole lot less people on his team.
The thing is, this guy still wants to do something worthwhile.
He still wants to make a difference, he’s just not sure how.

An arbitrarily numbered amount of things you (probably) didn’t know about me

“Because all the cool kids are doing it” is a good a reason as any, right? In no particular order…

  1. I listen to terribly varied music, and I can’t understand people who hate on other people for the music they listen to.
  2. I think that some things are better kept private. If you don’t tell anyone, no one will know! Besides, there are probably people that don’t care anyway.
  3. Once upon a time I used to know what I wanted to do “when I grew up”, but these days I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve begun to ask myself: “does it all really matter anyway?” I mean, as long as you’re doing whatever makes you happy, but even then, you can always do whatever makes you happy in your spare time…
  4. I have a not-so-secret love for waffles. I’m not sure where it came from, but damn, I love waffles.
  5. I enjoy a good argument. I see them for the intellectual battle they are, and if you think you’re smarter than I am, well… prove it.
  6. I enjoy writing, again, for the intellectual challenge it presents, as well as the opportunity to make someone else feel an emotion, or be educated by my writings.
  7. I used to shy away from my background; “fitting in” was one of the most important things to me all through high school. These days I don’t really care anymore. A sign of maturity, perhaps?
  8. I am starting to give more credit to people, starting to realise that people are probably smarter than I think they are — somehow this also relates to how intelligent I see myself compared to those around me.
  9. Conversely, I’m starting to realise that I’m fairly ignorant on a wide range of subjects, so it’s more than reasonable for other people to be so as well when it comes to things I’m really good at.
  10. I’ve really only wanted to be in a serious relationship with one other person before, but to this day I’m unsure whether it was really love or just lust — or even a combination of both, perhaps. Either way, I had/still have a serious infatuation with that girl.
  11. Up until a couple of months ago I couldn’t even tell you the name of the last book I read, it’s been that long. I have an excellent book collection of what some would call “crappy” fiction, but I really need to spend less time on the internet and read more.
  12. I think society is over-sexualised these days, but being of very average looks myself that may or may not have something to do with it. Other people don’t know just how good they have it.
  13. I played the piano a long time ago, and I was pretty damn good at it, too. This allows me to appreciate the highs and lows of a beautifully composed melody, or the dark sombre tones of a more macabre piece. Perhaps one day I’ll take it up again.
  14. When I do have a good gaming session, I then see myself as having to “catch up” on all my other “internet responsibilities”, like reading my feeds or catching up on threads.
  15. I have bought many a game and only reached 85% completion. Either because I can’t be bothered to finish it, or just haven’t had the time to do those last couple of hours.
  16. I try to do things to the best of my ability if I’m tasked with something to do. If it’s something I really care about, then you can guarantee I’ll put 110% into it. I have excellent attention to detail, but at the same time, I can be spectacularly lazy. Just call me Mr Balanced.
  17. If nothing else, Uni has taught me that while I think coding is awesome and you can do seriously amazing things with it (ooh, bubble sort!), I totally suck at it. Either that or I just haven’t actually tried ‘cos it just isn’t that interesting, man.
  18. In fact, I’m kinda ambivalent about all Uni. While I love the Uni lifestyle the apparent de-valuing of the common bachelor’s degree has me scared for my future job prospects.
  19. My self-confidence is fairly easily broken, but it takes a little while to get it back up again.
  20. It scares me that at any time, anyone can see what game I’m playing via Steam.
  21. I enjoy gaming in any form but these days have less and less time to do it.
  22. I work better independently, but I can also work well in a team provided everyone isn’t a complete douche.
  23. I enjoy being just a little bit quirky.
  24. I’m an excellent listener. Probably because I don’t talk much, but hey, whatever works.
  25. I’d love to own a cat, by my epic hatred of (cat) hair all over my stuff would drive me insane.
  26. I’m a pretty casual guy.
  27. I don’t think I have many friends, but a lot of close acquaintances.
  28. I enjoy being alone, but I don’t want to be lonely. There’s a difference.
  29. I like cheese. (I think that people need to learn to take things a little less seriously. Lighten up, people.)
  30. If I could be described in a single comic, it would be this one. Or perhaps even this one.

The HTC Desire Experience

I’m not saying iOS doesn’t have it’s downfalls, it does, and I’ll happily admit that there are things I’m not happy about – but to say that Android doesn’t as well is just blind, IMHO.

My only “problems” are preferences – maybe I don’t like that the user interfaces are inconsistent across applications.

Maybe I don’t like the fact that certain applications (eg, Skype) are limited to a certain carrier in the US. Yep. You cannot download Skype unless you’re on Verizon, and this recently happened with the NFL app as well.

Maybe I don’t like the fact that even though the Android Market is available in 46 countries around the world, only 13 of those countries can actually purchase apps, and only 9 countries can actually sell applications.

Maybe I don’t like the fact that a particular Android handset doesn’t let me use my camera provided my battery is above a certain percentage.

Maybe I don’t like the fact that on our version of the Desire that you can’t get turn-by-turn navigation by default (but on the Nexus one you can).

Maybe I don’t like the fact that HTC decided to remove the voice-to-text capabilities included as standard on Android. Oh, and they added voice search as a way of making up for that GPS bug a while back? You mean, they added a feature that was supposed to be in there as standard anyway?

Sure, workarounds exist for these things. Sure, you can mod away to your heart’s content, putting those things back in that HTC removed in the first place? The hell it’s open, manufacturers choose to do as they please. Oh, and how are those useless Telstra bookrmarks doing for you? How they double up on included Google applications? And Froyo? Which has already been released in Euro markets, but not for Telstra handsets because they have to mod their crapware back onto it?

Oh great, so you can see the source code of Android. Last time I checked though, HTC Sense wasn’t open source. Why the hell does this matter anyway? Open source doesn’t mean they’re not trying to make a buck, open source doesn’t mean they’re not evil. And that matters why? I’m damn sure you use at least one program that you can’t see the source code of.

Which other Android device, pray tell? The Nexus One isn’t bad, but that too is with it’s shortfalls. The Galaxy S doesn’t let me use the camera if my battery percentage is below 15%.

Had Apple released the Desire, I would have bought it in a heartbeat. Why? Because Apple’s user interface is consistent, and their user experience unparalleled. You yourself witnessed an issue with Android where it would not associate itself with a wireless network.

Sure, you can wipe that stuff fairly easily – by voiding your warranty. Uhuh.

Sure, don’t get it via Telstra – and thus, not have it work on UMTS 850 – you’ll get Froyo, but you won’t have reception outside of the major CBDs! Enjoy!

They’re inconsistent. Maybe you don’t notice it, but applications don’t work the same. Sometimes the back button will prompt you to exit the app, sometimes the back button will just put you back to a previous screen.

Not, not every single app looks like a 3 year old designed it, but a lot do. Compare the quality of apps on the iPhone to ones on Android and you’ll know what I mean. Case in point: Epic Castle.

Oh – and please, tell me you enjoy the pinkish tint on your screen. Visit HTC.com on your Android handset, and then visit on your desktop. Compare and contrast, as was the high school essay question of the time.

Dell SP2309W — 2048×1152 what now?

I spose the iphone4 would be a good subjective test of screen tech like this – Cramming relatively big res into tiny screens.

Er, no, no it wouldn’t.

Back story: there’s a pretty nice screen on that Dell makes. It’s the SP2309W, and for $279 you get a 23″ TFT Dell monitor that does 2048×1152, higher than high definition (but still at a ratio of 16:9).

I pointed out this monitor to a couple of my friends, and one made the comment you see above (along with something about a weird resolution for a computer monitor).

Before I continue I’d like to point out that most of this is a re-hash (albeit a pretty poor one) of Dustin Curtis’ thoughts on the issue — I’d suggest you go read his blog first, and then come back here when you’re done.

And that’s exactly where he’s wrong. It’s not like the iPhone 4, because while the iPhone 4 crams a relatively big res into a smallish screen, it does so in a way that doesn’t affect the size of on-screen elements.

Traditionally, what happens is that as pixel density gets higher, user interface elements get smaller. It’s got something to do with how large any specific UI element actually is, and how text has been traditionally rendered.

Over at his blog, Dustin explains:

This means that if you draw the letter “a” in 12pt Helvetica on any screen, it will take up exactly 8×9 pixels (almost all the time). As you increase the number of pixels on the whole display, the number of pixels that it takes to draw the letter “a” in 12pt Helvetica stays the same, the letter just becomes smaller.

More pixels crammed into a smaller space (that is, a higher pixel density), results in things becoming smaller. If you think about it, it makes sense — say you’ve got an image that’s 512×512, the size of an typical Mac OSX application icon. If your screen displays that at, say, 100ppi, it’ll appear to have certain dimensions on the screen if you chose to measure it with a ruler. Measure that same icon on a 130ppi screen, and it’ll appear smaller. Not because it’s lost any pixels, but because those same pixels have been jammed into a smaller space.

Then you hit the iPhone 4. It’s not quite resolution independence*, but what Apple have done works pretty well. Instead of using the same graphics resources as the iPhone 2G/3G/3GS, developers are encouraged to develop “retina-optimised” graphics — that is, graphics at double the resolution of their previous-generation iPhone counterparts. Why? Because such graphics will increase interface definition.

If you take that same icon that we had in above example, and instead of just scaling it up or down to suit different resolutions, what you can actually do is create a whole new version of that icon so that it displays at the same physical size — regardless of which screen you display it on. Obviously the icon will look vastly improved on a higher resolution display compared to the lower resolution one, but that’s only because we’re increasing image density alongside pixel density.

Dustin, again, sums it up best:

This means that when iOS scales the elements in physical size to fit the 3.5-inch iPhone 4 screen, they take up the same amount of space as the elements drawn on the iPhone 3GS but they use four times the number of pixels.

Four times the number of pixels, represented in the same physical space = incredible user interface definition.

If that’s not mind-blowingly awesome, I’m not sure what is.

The whole “retina display” mentality of the iPhone is not about representing more things in the same space —  it’s about showing the same stuff, just at a better quality. Contrast this to the display above — because whatever you use on that display (Windows, or Mac) isn’t resolution independent (Mac OSX is to a degree), things will appear smaller, and that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

* okay, it’s not resolution independence at all. Without getting too technical, Apple are actually using two sets of graphics resources for everything — apparently they found that ahead-of-time resolution independence offered the greatest performance/resource benefit. More reading available here on the matter (thanks, Bjango!).