Down down down

Work is getting boring, for this month. Integrating with other people actually means helping to test their code with my code. I am like on call from 9am to 6pm, everytime they made changes to their code, I will be called upon to run the application. Hope this stage will get over soon. Looking forward to new projects, learning new platform and coding other modules.

Besides that, my Master is on the rocks. My supposedly research topic has to be changed. Another research organisation are planning to launch that product next year. So I got to look for another topic. Both my boss and supervisors are leaving that task to me. Heh, if I know what to research on, I would have taken my phd last year.

Then my boss really disturbed my peaceful and simple mind by suggesting that I might want to apply for the company's scholarship to take my Master overseas. Taking scholarship is a NO NO for me. I dun want to be bonded for more than 1 year. US is out, (at the moment),dun feel like studying for GRE. My first choice now is in fact Japan. But sadly, the application deadline for their scholarship is end of this month, which is way too rush. So if I were to go for it next year, that means I will give up my NTU master half way? How should I tell my boss??? (NTU master is using project fund) 

Sigh… sianz.  

Doumeki’s voice = Zoro = Mugen = Karasu!

In the anime xxxHOLiC, I am particularly attracted to the character Doumeki, the friend of Watanuki who is constantly protecting him. I like Doumeki’s personality and voice. I find his voice very familiar, very much like the swordman, Zoro, in One Piece.

And yes, I am right! Doumeki’s voice is by Kazuya Nakai, who also voiced as Zoro. Interestingly, he is Mugen in Samurai Champloo and Karasu in Noein!!! All these are my favourite characters in that anime. Yeah, I think I have become a fan of him liao.

xxxHOLiC – by CLAMP

Introducing a new anime xxxHOLiC (pronounced -holic as in alcoholic, as the ‘xxx’ denotes a variable), from the famous CLAMP manga.

About the title
It has an interesting title, widely accepted that in the ‘HOLiC’ part, each letter is capitalized except for the ‘i’. In the original Japanese title, the ‘xxx’ are not letters at all but multiplication signs. In Japan a cross is used to indicate a relationship or crossover between things. The title refers to the addictions or compulsions that many of the characters suffer from, and also the theme of their relationships with objects.

About the plot

The leading male character, Watanuki Kimihiro(四月一日君尋) is a high school student who is continually plagued by supernatural monsters and spirits which are magically attracted to him. These creatures are invisible to all but himself. Interestingly, his name is also an obvious reference to his date of birth, April 1st, two key bits of information that will inevitably give someone the power to discover everything about him (from his name) and control his destiny (based on his birthday). This is one of the recurring theme of CLAMP works. On top of this, the D.O.B April 1st is also the D.O.B of Sakura Kinomoto in Cardcaptor Sakura and Syaoran’s in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

The other leading character is Ichihara Yūko (壱原侑子), a witch of many names and esoteric reknown. She offers to grant Watanuki’s wish to be rid of his ability to see spirits. However, a price equal to the power required to grant the wish must be paid. So Yūko forced Watanuki to perform housework and odd jobs until he has done enough work for his wish to be granted.

Another recurring theme in xxxHOLiC is hitsuzen, the idea that an action is inevitable because without it, other related events in the future could not happen. (sounds like the butterfly effect right). According to this idea, all decisions and actions are related, and there can be no coincidence, only hitsuzen. One thing to note is Hitsuzen has been mentioned in Cardcaptor Sakura by Kaho Mizuki as she remarks that “there are no coincidences, only hitsuzen“.

The style of drawing is like rather unique. All characters are drawn like “stick man”, long and slim. There’s also quite a bit of humour in it. I’ve only watched 2 episodes, and it has given me enough motivation to carry on watching it.

Why Google is obsessed with mathematics

There is an interesting report about Google in The Economist magazine this week so I decided to share with you.

On the highway leading to Silicon Valley, there is a billboard that read : "{first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com" The number in question is 7427466371, which is the 101st to 110th digit of e, the base of the natural logarithm. Those who managed to work this out and made it to the right website are then greeted with another riddle. Solving it will led them to another webpage where they were invited to submit their CV. Google is obsessed with mathematics!

On top of this, in 2004 when Google filed the regulatory documents for its stockmarket listing, it planned to raise $2,718,281,828, which is $e billion to the nearest dollar. A year later, it filed again to sell another batch of shares – precisely 14,159,265,which represents the first 8 digits after the decimal in the number pi (3.14159265). 

There is a reason why Google is so obsessed with mathematics. Mr Brin and Mr Page (the founders of Google) realised that the chaos of the internet (chunks of information) had an implicit mathematical order. By counting, weighing and calculating the link structures between web pages, Google is able to return search results more relevant than those of any other search engine. 

Amazing right! 

Mushishi – Another interesting anime

 Mushishi is an anime adopted from a manga which is one of the award winning works in the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival.

The reason for the award is (taken from the internet) :

"This comic book depicts with fine feeling the world of good old Japan where nature was thriving everywhere. Rain and snow falling over a village located deep in the mountains, people and animals living quietly veiled with a drifting fog and morning haze, and strange insects half-hidden among them. The author's accurate description and expression irresistibly engage readers into her unreal, fantastic world."

The kranji for Mushi-shi is 蟲師。Mushi, defined in the anime, are like primitive life forms which cannot be seen by normal people. Ginko, the mushishi, is borned with the ability to see these mushis and travels around to treat people who are suffering from strange illness caused by mushis. Each episode is an one-off story about Ginko, who acts as a mediator between humans and Mushi. He is unable to stay at a place for long as he attracts mushi. The story slowly reviews why one of his eye is blind, why he is constantly travelling and why his hair is white. 

It's a very peaceful anime, with some tension and humour now and then.

SoundTrack Cover

 

Another point to note is its sound track! The background is extremely soothing… I'm determine to buy the sound track!

Cannot see the subtitle

If you had downloaded Rescue Wing from "yu" fansub, you might encounter the problem of subtitles not coming out. I did some search around anime blogs and found this link. http://www.animesuki.com/doc.php/help/playback.html

My recommendation is to watch the anime using Media Player Classic (MPC). Take special note that filters such as AVI, Matroska, MP4, Ogg Source Filters are disabled.

Enjoy.

やっばり”よみがえる空”は最高だ！

Just watched Rescue Wing episode 5-7. I must say its the best! I really like it a lot. Highly recommended.
It talks about the dilemmas and challenges of a pilot in a air rescue team. The uncertainty in continuing this career due to the harsh training and heavy responsibility of the job. The guilt faced by the rescue crew when they failed to save the victim. The mixed feelings when the victim may be disabled even if he survived. The regret and guilt faced by the survivor when his partner died in the same mission and etc.

Lastest update on my thumb thumb

Monday:
Throbbing pain, as frequent as my heart beats. Piercing pain, once in a while. Thumb nail turned black. Right thumb 2x as big as my left one.

Tuesday:
Numbed, piercing pain once in a while. Surroundings of the nail turned black as well. Swelling continues…

Wednesday:
Really black and big. Thumb a bit out of shape. Went to work, scared off all my colleagues and was pressed to see doctor again and take x-ray. Okay, so I went off in the afternoon to take x-ray and see the doctor again.

Doc: wah! You should have came when you see blood clot. Must be really pain right?
Me: I thought the pain is usual… (Daddy who has experience with 2 fingers and 2 toes told me it is normal)
Doc: Ha… You really can tahan pain ah.

Then he took out an injection needle, grabbed my thumb and began poking holes into my nail.

Doc: Tell me when you feel pain.
Me: Ok. Ah. 2sec later Ah ah. rest a while… ah ah ah.
Doc: You watch King Kong?
Me: (Recoginising his efforts to distract me from the pain) No. But I watched MI3.
Doc: Heh, I don't watch that kind of show. Go watch King Kong. Really nice.
Me: Ah. ah.

I must have been quite loud cos I saw the nurse peeped through the small window curiously.

Me: Don't remove my nail hor. (Cos I felt him pressing my nail and shifting it)
Doc: I'm not removing lah. I trying to shift it in place. Anyway your nail is loose already ah.

When I stepped out of the room, I was quite embarrassed, I believed everyone would have heard my cries. hehe. Doc gave me another day of MC! So I officially declared this week is my MC week. From Monday to Thurs and Friday is holiday. Ok… I wonder what my boss is thinking right now… Lucky I went to work and show him my thumb today… But frankly speacking, I can work since I can blog… hmm… except for the fact that I need to wipe off some blood coming out of my nail every 5 mins.

My deardear is so sweet

My bf dropped me an email yesterday with a get well card made by hiimself. So sweet right… In fact I've a collection of such cards over the years. Thanks dear! Here's a shrinked version of the card just to share my happiness. 

Today is not my day!

First I am the big loser in the mahjong game at my colleague's house. Then I fractured my right thumb!

I am sooooo stupid. My colleague sent me home, when I was closing the car door, I slammed the door onto my thumb. Till now I still cannot understand why my thumb is there. I count myself lucky that my colleague did not drive his car off after I closed the door, else I might have lost my thumb!

It is really painful. The whole of my thumb is now black and swollen. The doctor told me to go x-ray if the pain does not go off tomorrow. He told me that my nail is dead already, and there might be a possibility that my nail might not grow anymore! It is really scary. I hope that will not happpen…

Design Patterns

Last week my boss passed me a book on Design Patterns since I am supposed to handle UMLs in the next project. It is a famous book titled "Design Patterns", written by 4 people. My colleagues who went to the course on it gave me a piece of advice.

KW: This book is not for reading. It is a "reference" book.

Me: Before I know who to refer to it, I must first have a brief understanding of it right?

So I decided to read chapter 1 only. If there is a need, move on to later chapters.

Here's a interesting point.

"One thing expert designers [Object-Oriented software designers] know not to do is solve every problem from first principles. Rather, they reuse solutions that have worked for them in the past." — and that makes design patterns.

Then I think all SCE students must be expert designers as well! We do not solve problem from first principles (do assignment/tutorial ourselves), we reuse solutions (senior's or peer's) that have worked for them (scored A) in the past.

We are expert designers! We are going to make it big one day! Banzai!

Nightmare over.

Last Friday, I almost had a heart attack when I found that my application failed to work. It was perfectly fine on the day before! I was quite worried as this project PC, is shared by a few of engineers and costs a bomb. (It’s definitely more expensive than my value in the computer, even after I work for 4 years).

On Thursday, I played with the system’s files while trying to make a MFC application works. Then although I didn’t manage to get anything out, I think I corrupted the files. Ok, I was really quite stupid to not backup the system files. 真是赔了夫人有折兵。

Today, using trial and error, I copy some files here and delete some files there to finally get it back to work again. Went through a lot of trouble to identity the files that cause the problems. (Re-installing is not possible as I might delete some other important files on the way) Phew… I’m not going to do anything rush to make my MFC application to work already.