Visiting The Old CMPB Image via Wikipedia For the older people among us, we remember the days when we used to dread the journey up to Dempsey Hill, the site of the old CMPB, or Central Manpower Base, to report for our compulsory 2 year stint in the SAF (Singapore Armed Forces).(Yes, male Singaporeans are required by law to serve 2 years in the army here in Singapore).We remember the lost looks most of us have on being sent away to an ulu island, for our BMT (Basic Military Training, or "Boot Camp"). The luckier few among us, get to do their BMTs on mainland Singapore up in Yishun (or "Nee Soon" in the old Hokkien dialect).We remember the waves of goodbye and tears shed by parents and girlfriends as they waved us off to our various locations for BMT.Tonight, however, we went back to the old CMPB location for a totally different reason - to eat and drink.The intervening years have transformed the place. The whole place is now something like Holland Village (located not too far away) or Boat Quay. The old buildings have been renovated and now sport restaurants, bistros, pubs and spas.First stop - Harry's Bar. Now, I have never been to any of the branches of Harry's Bar, and this is my first time in any of them. The place feels nice, but not really cosy. Drinks were ordered and we settled in pretty quickly.Yeah more pictures of drinks only. Sorry we're pretty camera-shy :) Somehow I can't bring myself to "camwhore" on my blog. You will see lots of pictures but hardly any showing us in embarrassing poses.The "band" that was playing there was actually very good. Well, more like a one-man band. It was just a single performer, using a host of digital equipment to provide music and entertainment for the pub goers there.Seriously he is good. Not so much as he can tap the keyboard on the ground with his foot at the right time to bring up the drums or bass, but he is able to croon tunes of songs with his own style, and yet manage to not mangle the song. Now that is an achievement indeed!We did notice that the bar next door, Quarubar, was deserted as we walked into Harry's. Later it was revealed to us that the owners of Quarubar were people without scruples, and it was probably why people avoided the place. I will not relate the story here, but suffice to say, it may contain a hint of truth, for people to avoid the place like that.Anyway, we rounded the night off at a nearby MacDonald's outlet for ice cream. My Free Samsung VP-MX10 Camcorder I just got myself a nice spanking new Samsung Camcorder, FREE, just because I am such a loyal Starhub customer :)Ok I'm kidding. It's only because I just renewed my contract with them for my Internet services. Seriously speaking, I don't take a lot of videos. Yes I do MAKE alot of movies, but they're all machinima's. For real-life stuff, I hardly record anything on video. Even when I do want to record on video, my Canon Digital Ixus 60 already does video pretty dang well, as can be seen from my video uploads on Vimeo.The camcorder is a "memory camcorder". In other words, you don't need a DVD, or a DAT tape or anything. It has 4GBs of memory (like a thumbdrive) to record your videos. All videos taken with this camcorder is 720x576 resolution, ie PAL DVD standard. However, you can drop it down to 352x288 (PAL VCD size) if you want. Therefore, the length of video you can record onto its internal 4GB memory depends on the size you set.The camcorder compresses the videos you record automatically, depending on the setting. You can choose from "Normal", "Fine" and "SuperFine". These settings only affects compression quality, not video resolution. "Normal" gives best compression while "SuperFine" gives the least. The tradeoff is that, the more you compress, the worse the quality is. Even at "SuperFine" setting there's still some compression. I would have preferred one more setting - no compression.You can also use a SD card as a memory storage too, and you can select the target media before you record your video. It is supposed to be able to use a SDHC card (SD cards over 2GBs), and it says so in the manual as well as the box. However when I stuck my 4GB SDHC card into it, it tells me "card error" and refuse to recognise the card. The card works fine on the PC when I checked it. Pretty dang weird. I will probably borrow an 8GB or a a16GB SDHC card from someone just to check the camcorder for technical defects in not being able to detect a SDHC card.On average, you should be able to record about 2 to 3 hours worth of video on the camcorder, depending on the various settings you have selected. The battery life itself, is just 2 hours. With that in mind, I configured the settings on the camcorder to record just about 2 hours worth of video onto its internal 4GB memory (besides I don't have any SDHC cards bigger than 4GB anyway).The videos taken with the camcorder are, to put it mildly, disappointing. First of all, they look ok on the LCD screen when you're recording them. However when you view them on the PC, they're all too dark.After running the video through VirtualDub to brighten it up, you start to see artifacts when the video is playing, due to the compression. I have no idea what sort of engine they used to compress the video, but it's very badly done in my opinion.The camcorder does come with video related software but I never installed any of them. I already have my own tools to edit and make movies, I don't need yet-another-beginner-friendly one cluttering up my harddisk.Comparing the video quality taken with my digital camera, it's nowhere near. My digital camera can take videos up to 640x480 resolution, and because it has no compression whatsoever, the pictures look CLEAR and SHARP on the PC. The downside is, the camera is a pre-SDHC one, so the maximum size card I can stick into it is a 2GB one. The camera itself does not have any internal memory. Generally though, I have it set to a 320x240 resolution - NTSC VCD size, so that I can record more minutes onto the 2GB card in the camera. Even so, at 320x240, the quality is pretty good. You can see the quality for yourself here at Vimeo - all (except the upside down fish) were taken with the Canon digital camera at 320x240 resolution.Actually I had wanted to upload a sample video taken with the Samsung camcorder to compare the quality of the video from it, to the one taken with my Canon digital camera. However Vimeo was doing some work on their website and I couldn't do it last night.However, trust me. The video quality from the Samsung camcorder is disappointing. As a dedicated video recording device, the picture quality is ho-hum. I would probably continue using my Canon digital camera to record video.Good thing I got it free - if I had spent money on getting this camcorder I would have kicked myself. A True Alternative To Streetdirectory.com Some time back I wrote that Streetdirectory is somewhat back, minus some useful features that us Singaporeans have come to take for granted. When it went offline, I am sure many of us must have felt really lost.Until recently, I have been manually using Google Maps and cross referencing with SBS and SMRT manually to find out how to get to a location.After reading dk's post on his thoughts on Streetdirectory.com, I feel I should introduce a website which, thanks to Krisandro, has been brought to my attention.The website is called GoThere. It sports the same features that used to be available on Streetdirectory.com - the bus guides, the driving instructions etc. In fact, I find it easier to use than Streetdirectory.com. You can easily enter a local name for a place, like "Raffles Hotel", or "Bugis Junction" into the search box, and it'll show you exactly where it is. You don't need to know the road name or even the postal code.The "Get To Here" and "Get From Here To" box works the same. Just enter a name, part of a name, postal code, or just a local name, and it'll calculate the distance for all 3 modes of travel - driving, bus only, or bus+MRT. In fact it's so spot on, that the colleagues I have introduced this website to, have bookmarked it. As you can see from the screenshot of the page, I only typed in "Bugis Junction" as a location. No address, nothing. What was returned was the full address of the place. If you look at the map carefully, bus stops are clearly indicated on the map.Yes, you can click on the numbers to go directly to SBS IRIS and get more detailed bus information. Yes, you can even query when the next bus is coming too (although IRIS has been known to be inaccurate especially during peak hours).In the bottom left corner you can also see a searchbox to look for nearby locations. Unlike in Streetdirectory.com, you are not limited to searching only for nearby ATMs or 7-11 stores. You can search for ANYTHING. Even "Boon Tong Kee" chicken rice if you want to.Which brings me to another point. With Gothere.sg you don't need to search for a specific location. You can search for eating places, shopping, whatever. The site is kind of like "open source", where everyone contributes. If you liked a shop, a stall or whatever, and it's not listed, you can add it in. Other people can come and add comments and rate your selection. An example is shown in the screenshot above. I looked for a Boon Tong Kee Chicken Rice store near Toa Payoh, and it offered the Balestier branch as the result. Here you can see that people have left comments for that particular branch of Boon Tong Kee.The best thing about gothere.sg is - it's FREE! No need to sign up for membership even. You can contribute pretty much anonymously like Wikipedia. No ads, no clutter.The conclusion is, for me anyway - I don't need Streetdirectory.com anymore. Gothere.sg does everything I need and much faster too. Happy Birthday Singapore! Singapore is 43 years old today!  Happy Birthday Singapore! Remember To Check Your Cables! You know, I never fail to amaze myself at how forgetful I can be at certain things.In IT, one of the first and most basic form of troubleshooting any network connectivity problem is - to check the cables! If it's not plugged in, you won't see anything. Of course this doesn't apply to wireless networks that is so prevalent now.Anyhow, recently I had thought that the battery charger for my Canon Digital Ixus 60 camera had died. I slipped in the battery, and .... nothing. Nada. Not even a blip. The charging light didn't come on.After hammering on the charger for abit (hey it just might work you know?), it still didn't work. So, I resigned myself to the realization that I'd either have to buy a new camera or to get in touch with Canon and see if they have a replacement battery charger for sale.So I shot an email off to Canon support. They called me back promptly (next business day, pretty dang prompt if you ask me) and informed me that regretfully, the charger isn't covered by warranty, but they would be more than happy to sell me a replacement battery charger for a mere pittance - $99.00. Not only that, they'd "reserve" it at the Canon Service Centre in Vivocity for me till Friday.I did a double-take.Wha-?! Ninety-nine bucks for a charger?Ok so I told them thanks, hold it for me till Friday. If I don't turn up to grab it, they can feel free to release it.So, I ran off to Plurk and asked if anyone knew of a cheaper way to get a charger. Soon enough I was pointed to Alan Photos, and I called them for enquiries. I was told a "3rd party" charger was available for $35.00.It was a no-brainer. $35 beats $99 any day. So right after work, I trotted off to the shop and got myself the 3rd-party charger.As a quick aside, I must say that the service at Alan Photo's is great. Although I was just buying a cheap $35.00 item, they didn't treat me like a second class customer. The guy was helpful and gave me advice on camera and battery care, and such. He also told me that he has never heard of a Canon battery charger dying - ever. Mine would be the first time he's heard about it. He mostly sell these "3rd party chargers" to people who travel alot and want to bring a compact charger along with them.So, I got home. As I was dismantling the Canon charger from the power outlet, I remembered what the guy at Alan Photo's said, and I thought to myself - why not try it once again? Could he be right?For some reason, I didn't use the original power cord that came with the charger. This time I used another power cord, and plugged it right in. Then I slipped the battery in.THE LIGHT CAME ON!So I swapped the power cord again, back to the original one. No light. Swapped out to another power cord - light came on.And I kicked myself. I could have saved myself $35.00 if I had just swapped power cords!On the bright side, I could have wasted $99.00 on another Canon charger only to realise it was just the power cord that was the problem. I took it that I bought a spare charger for "travelling", so I don't have to bring the original one out with me. The "3rd party" charger was more compact and had foldable power pins, which made it into a nice snug rectangular brick.If you ask me how a power cord could fail I have no idea. I thought they're basically just copper wires encased in rubber, that's it. They conduct electricity. What can fail? Well, other than the copper wire actually breaking inside the rubber. I find it highly unlikely since I have never subjected the power cord to any extreme movements. Once I had set it up, I had left it there.Well after learning this $35.00 lesson, I packed the "3rd party" charger back nicely into the box, and kept it in storage. Then, I charged the battery on the original charger. Now, if only I had charged the battery a couple of days ago. Then, the previous post could have had nicer pictures.Ah well, lesson learnt I guess. On The Last Day Of Barfly Normally I don't hang out at Clarke Quay. However, recently a friend told us that Barfly was closing down (whether for renovation or permanently, I have no idea). It was important to her to visit it one last time before it does, have have dinner while we're there.On the appointed date, we congregated at Clarke Quay. The original plan was to hang out till the wee hours. As we all know, plans normally don't work out the way we planned.This time around, I didn't take too many pictures. For one thing, battery power was low on my digital camera, and I couldn't recharge it because I thought the charger had died (more on this story in another post). So, the only camera I had left to rely on was the one on my phone. Now, to most people, having a Sony-Ericsson Cybershot phone means having a good camera. Well, technically yeah. Cybershot phones have one of the best cameras around that is available - on a phone. Comparing it to a true-blue digital camera is like comparing a duck to an elephant.(On the other hand - if phones could have built-in cameras, why not cameras have built-in phones? I wouldn't mind if the phone wasn't as good as other phones - I'd have a great camera!)In my previous posts you can see the quality of the pictures taken with the digital camera. On this post you will soon see the quality of pictures taken with the Cybershot phone camera, and you be the judge.Note that part of the reason for the lack of pictures is also that I was busy eating too.Yeah well sorry, by the time I remembered to stop eating and start snapping pictures, we'd already had soup. Well at least the bread was still around on the table...I completely forgot about taking pictures during the main course. I only remembered right after, when we're leaning back patting our tummies. Then, the women wanted to order dessert, and they wanted a tiramisu. The picture above was when it just arrived.The picture above is the same tiramisu taken a few minutes later. Me and my buddy had to control ourselves or else the tiramisu would have disappeared within 7 seconds of it arriving at the table. Since the ladies were at the "Little Girls' Room" for 15 minutes (what the heck do you women do in the washroom anyway?!), we had to take tiny itty bitty nibbles at it. The picture above shows the amount of cake we have managed to save for the girls.....After dinner, we hung around the very nicely decorated smoking room and chatted (sorry no pics! Forgot again dammit). After like about 30 mins or so, the ladies made up their minds and decided to head for the Lunar Bar again. This time around, we heard from other friends that the second floor of Lunar Bar had tabletop dancing, so we decided to check that out.On reaching the bar, we were told that "there are tables available for us, but no chairs", which struck me as pretty dang odd. No matter, we probably didn't need chairs anyway if the music was hot enough.So drinks came, and lined the table again. Only this time, not that much drinks. I think it was because dinner was really fulfilling, and we didn't really have the room in the tummy to drink too much.Oh yeah there was indeed tabletop dancing up on the second floor of Lunar. The dancers were pretty good, some were just good to look at, and not for their dancing. Anyway, if you've been overseas and seen THOSE tabletop dancing, this pales in comparison. In other words, nothing too fantastic.I think it must have been the dinner, as well as one of us having just recovered from flu, that we decided to call it an early night at the stroke of midnight, and we left Lunar for home. Streetdirectory.com Is Back.... Kinda.. Image via WikipediaI received an email today, pretty late in the day actually. It was from the PR firm of Streetdirectory.com, and it says, in essence, that Streetdirectory.com is up and running with new maps and satellite pictures.So I went over and had a look.I came away pretty indifferent. Well you can't really blame me. In its current state, Streetdirectory.com is nowhere near its former glory. Bus and MRT guides return error results. Driving directions return a blank page.Google Maps, at the very least, gave you driving directions (oh you didn't know it could? Yes it does, pretty accurately too). Just look at the pic above.In fact I believe the site is still pretty buggy. Here's how you test.At the main page, search for any road in Singapore. I tried to look for "Orchard Road". At the map page for the result, scroll down to the bottom and locate the tiny little combo box under the heading of "directions to:". No matter which you choose - Bus & MRT, or Driving Directions, it will always take you to the Driving Directions page. Even so, after filling in your start and end destinations, no results are returned. Just a blank page listing your start point and end point.To test the Bus and MRT directions feature, you have to get creative to work around the bug. I clicked on "to here" link, and went up 1 level. It will bring me to this page. From there, I clicked the "Singapore Bus and MRT Guide" link, to get to the right page.By doing this, however, you have to fill in both your start and end point information. It's not a problem, since I just wanted to test it. The result that is returned is this: Sorry, we are terribly sorry, there are technical difficulties when processing this routing page. Our administrators has been notified. Please try again later. Ah well.At least the maps are back. Still, I'd be using Google Maps over Streetdirectory.com for now, just because at least the driving directions work, and Google Maps have less ads and clutter, hence load faster. Besides, Streetdirectory.com is currently using the satellite pictures from Google Maps anyway (but the maps aren't from Google, just to clarify). I may as well go direct to the source instead of coming here for my usage. Yes I'm weird. I always load the maps with satellite pictures because I want to get my bearings by looking at nearby buildings for landmarks.As it stands now, Streetdirectory.com is a pale shadow of its former self during its hey-day. As soon as the driving directions and bus/MRT guides are fixed, people will start to come back. Right now though, I don't forsee anybody jumping for joy.Update: In a plurk response by Krisandro, he mentioned a site called "GoThere". It does indeed provide directions on which bus to take from your start point to reach your end point. Why Do Women Do This? Relax, this isn't a woman-bashing post. It's a genuine question.See, recently a newly-acquired female friend started to want to hang out with me during my weekly sojourn to sleazy pubs. "Newly-acquired" meaning she only just managed to get my number and we have no friends in common. She's totally from outside of my normal circle which I "hang out".Initially her SMSes were along the lines of:Her - "Hey where you at?"Me - "Boat Quay, pub name is xxxx"Her - "Who's with you?"Me - "Uhhhh you don't know them... Dave, Steve, Soon Hock, Angeline"Her - "Oh, I dunno them".Me - "That's what I said"Then she didn't turn up. Understandable.A few weeks later, she did the same thing again:Her - "Where r u?"Me - "Duxton, pub name is yyyyy"Her - "Who's with you?"Me - "Same lah. I don't have many drinking kakis ok?"Her - "Oh, I dunno them"And she didn't turn up. Again, understandable.A couple of days ago, she did the same thing again:Her - "Where are you?"Me - "Clarke Quay, at zzzzzzz"Her - "Who's with you?"My question is, Why is it so important she asks "who's with you?" all the time?! We have no friends in common, none of the names I tell her will be familiar to her. Some other female friends have told me that she just wants to know if the pub is too far or too inconvenient.Fine.If the place is too far, or too inconvenient, you can already tell from my first reply - I always reply with location, pub name. You can decide to come or not from that information. "Who's with you?" is an irrelevant question. It has no bearing on your decision to come or not to come.Anyway, this time I did this:Me - "You decide to come then I tell u"Her - "Yah I want to come."Me - (gives directions, did not mention who was with me)Her - "ok I see first. if I decide to come then I SMS you again"What the hell? "I want to come" and "I see first" is a total reversal. Just because I didn't mention names?No I'm not pissed or disappointed she didn't turn up. I'm more irritated by her constant "Who's with you?" question. I just don't get it - why do women need to know WHO are with me? Is it generally the same for most women, or is she just weird?Guy friends are so much easier, by the way. The moment I reply with location and name of pub, they'll reply whether they're coming or not. Short, and sweet.So ladies, enlighten me please. Why the need to know "who's with you?" if we have ZERO friends in common? Birthday Bash Of The Year Saturday, 19 July. A date where many people will remember for other things. My drinking buddies and I however, remember this date for a different reason - the birthday of a drinking buddy.The original plan was to have a nice simple dinner, after which we'd adjourn to a nice quiet pub somewhere and just chill and recount tales of yore when we were young.Of course, everyone knows that plans made for "birthday parties" never work out exactly as planned.We practically gorged ourselves at dinner. Lotsa yummy food (sorry no pics! Too busy eating to take pics!), and I had heaps of helpings of the pork ribs, toufu and whatever that was on the table. Yes, sorry too. I was too busy eating to learn the names of the dishes on the table :)After dinner, we all felt kinda bloated. However the night was still young, and the first stop after dinner was Balaclava, at Suntec City. After settling ourselves down at a nice spot, drinks quickly appeared at the table.The band was very good, and we enjoyed the rendition of several songs by them. After which, The Cake (tm) appeared.Ok, it's just the box of the cake in this shot, but here's the cake unveiled.Yeah it's full of chocolaty goodness. Enough to put on a few pounds on you if you are heroic enough to finish the whole cake! That's why our friend can be seen here praying before she lifts the knife to cut the cake.There she goes, cutting the cake!For some reason, women appear to have a very high metabolic rate. The Cake (tm) wasn't enough, and they just had to order the "special dish" of Balaclava - the Sweet And Sour Pork. Ok I only ate a piece of it, and it's nice, but heck, my senses could have been numbed by the drinks already.Being women, she just had to show off her gifts.That was gift #1. Now for gift #2.Then drinks ran out. Then they said "Let's go to MOS". Ah well, 2nd place then, off we went! MOS was crowded as usual. Lots of chio bu around. Yeah no pics of them, because I don't wanna be pummeled into tiny itty bitty pieces by their escorts. It's also a good thing that we skipped the long queues and went directly into MOS without any problem, due to their (the women) good relations with the management and staff.More drinks magically appeared on the table, and within seconds the table started to become crowded.What's even more amazing is that after my buddy and I had gone to the toilet and back, even MORE drinks appeared on the table. Seems like the women just wanted their lychee martini fix and they appeared right there.By now it was almost 3am. The party was still going strong, and the women decided MOS was boring, and wanted to hop over to Barfly. Now, the previous time I was there, I was pretty far gone and didn't remember much. This time however, I was alert and sober (well, more sober than the rest of them anyway) and I managed to get some pics.Yup that's the headless mascot of Barfly. Never noticed it the first time I was there heh! Amusingly, the manager of Barfly decided to surprise the birthday girl with a novel drink - The Flaming Waterfall! Here's a pic of it getting set up.And here's the video of the whole process, from the lighting up to the drinking by the birthday gal. Flaming Waterfall Drink from FoxTwo on Vimeo.Sorry but I had to increase the brightness of the video. My digital camera doesn't have a built-in lightsource. Most digial cameras do not have it anyway.Needless to say, no mercy was spared on the birthday gal. She was woozy after the drink and had to sit down. Soon, Barfly had to close, and the manager offered to bring us to Luna, another club near Barfly. Like little troopers we went off with them. The manager posed for a pic at the entrance of LunaHowever, what caught my eye was the cool walkway inside Luna itself.By now it was getting close to 5am, and it was time to call it a night.Yeah I got home nice and tingly, and no, I wasn't plastered or anything. Just a nice feeling to hit the sack and sleep soundly till whatever time I wake up on Sunday. Birthday Bash Of The Year Saturday, 19 July. A date where many people will remember for other things. My drinking buddies and I however, remember this date for a different reason - the birthday of a drinking buddy.The original plan was to have a nice simple dinner, after which we'd adjourn to a nice quiet pub somewhere and just chill and recount tales of yore when we were young.Of course, everyone knows that plans made for "birthday parties" never work out exactly as planned.We practically gorged ourselves at dinner. Lotsa yummy food (sorry no pics! Too busy eating to take pics!), and I had heaps of helpings of the pork ribs, toufu and whatever that was on the table. Yes, sorry too. I was too busy eating to learn the names of the dishes on the table :)After dinner, we all felt kinda bloated. However the night was still young, and the first stop after dinner was Balaclava, at Suntec City. After settling ourselves down at a nice spot, drinks quickly appeared at the table.The band was very good, and we enjoyed the rendition of several songs by them. After which, The Cake (tm) appeared.Ok, it's just the box of the cake in this shot, but here's the cake unveiled.Yeah it's full of chocolaty goodness. Enough to put on a few pounds on you if you are heroic enough to finish the whole cake! That's why our friend can be seen here praying before she lifts the knife to cut the cake.There she goes, cutting the cake!For some reason, women appear to have a very high metabolic rate. The Cake (tm) wasn't enough, and they just had to order the "special dish" of Balaclava - the Sweet And Sour Pork. Ok I only ate a piece of it, and it's nice, but heck, my senses could have been numbed by the drinks already.Being women, she just had to show off her gifts.That was gift #1. Now for gift #2.Then drinks ran out. Then they said "Let's go to MOS". Ah well, 2nd place then, off we went! MOS was crowded as usual. Lots of chio bu around. Yeah no pics of them, because I don't wanna be pummeled into tiny itty bitty pieces by their escorts. It's also a good thing that we skipped the long queues and went directly into MOS without any problem, due to their (the women) good relations with the management and staff.More drinks magically appeared on the table, and within seconds the table started to become crowded.What's even more amazing is that after my buddy and I had gone to the toilet and back, even MORE drinks appeared on the table. Seems like the women just wanted their lychee martini fix and they appeared right there.By now it was almost 3am. The party was still going strong, and the women decided MOS was boring, and wanted to hop over to Barfly. Now, the previous time I was there, I was pretty far gone and didn't remember much. This time however, I was alert and sober (well, more sober than the rest of them anyway) and I managed to get some pics.Yup that's the headless mascot of Barfly. Never noticed it the first time I was there heh! Amusingly, the manager of Barfly decided to surprise the birthday girl with a novel drink - The Flaming Waterfall! Here's a pic of it getting set up.And here's the video of the whole process, from the lighting up to the drinking by the birthday gal. Flaming Waterfall Drink from FoxTwo on Vimeo.Sorry but I had to increase the brightness of the video. My digital camera doesn't have a built-in lightsource. Most digial cameras do not have it anyway.Needless to say, no mercy was spared on the birthday gal. She was woozy after the drink and had to sit down. Soon, Barfly had to close, and the manager offered to bring us to Luna, another club near Barfly. Like little troopers we went off with them. The manager posed for a pic at the entrance of LunaHowever, what caught my eye was the cool walkway inside Luna itself.By now it was getting close to 5am, and it was time to call it a night.Yeah I got home nice and tingly, and no, I wasn't plastered or anything. Just a nice feeling to hit the sack and sleep soundly till whatever time I wake up on Sunday. It Is Truly The Dark Knight Image via WikipediaHave you wondered why the latest Batman movie is titled "The Dark Knight"?I'm a comic fan. I grew up on Superman, Batman et al. Even so, when DC Comics revamped Batman in the 80's (or was it the 90's) and came up with the Dark Knight series, I never did follow that. All I knew, was that Batman become moodier, broods, and the whole atmosphere of Gotham became "darker".In other words, Batman is no longer seen as a black and white hero. I must say that the latest movie does indeed convey that feeling.In the movie, The Joker appears in Gotham. He starts going on a rampage, and Batman is kept busy foiling each of the crimes.Right at the end when Batman finally catches him, The Joker finally revealed his true plan. Batman realised that each time he foiled one of Joker's crimes, he's setting the government up for a political backlash. Bit by bit.The only way to preserve the integrity of the government, was to shoulder all the blame. Let everybody think it was The Batman that was behind all the nefarious deeds, so that the police force, the senate and everyone else is "cleared".Batman becomes an outlaw vigilante. Wanted by the cops. Hated by the crooks.Batman thus becomes a Dark Knight. Alone, he fights for justice, but is seen as an outlaw, a wanted fugitive.(If you didn't "get" this part, you need to re-watch the movie again)Ok that is the gist of the story.Heath Ledger, the late actor who played the role of The Joker, gave a really incredible performance indeed. Although the behaviour was different from the comics, he does effectively convey that The Joker was "crazy". No incessant laughs, but right at the end when The Joker revealed the true master plan, you somehow start to doubt whether The Joker was crazy in the first place. If anything, Heath Ledger should win the posthumous Oscar that the Academy is nominating him for.I would go as far as to say this movie is all about The Joker, rather than Batman. In the end, Batman was "defeated" anyway, since he had to assume the blame for everything. Joker technically won, even if he was caught. Even Two-Face (Harvey Dent) was a pawn in The Joker's plans, and Two-Face truly thought he was "fixing" the problems when he started going around killing people.One of the more lighthearted moments in this mostly grim and dark movie was where a junior employee of the Wayne Enterprises managed to dig up blueprints of the Batmobile and showed it to Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), and demanded $10 million in yearly salary. Morgan Freeman's reply was classic:"Now, let me understand this. You think that our billionaire owner secretly dresses up in a bat suit, goes around pummelling crooks at night with his bare hands, and YOU want to blackmail him? Good luck".That had the entire cinema laughing.As I mentioned, the movie was mostly dark and grim. When I left the cinema, I actually felt sad for The Batman. To be played like a fool, and then to be hunted by the law enforcement. He must have felt totally alone and set up.Related articles by ZemantaBatman: Dark Knight who rules the box officePreparing for The Dark KnightSpoiler Points for The Dark Knight (2008)The Dark Knight Triumphs and Disturbs It Is Truly The Dark Knight Image via WikipediaHave you wondered why the latest Batman movie is titled "The Dark Knight"?I'm a comic fan. I grew up on Superman, Batman et al. Even so, when DC Comics revamped Batman in the 80's (or was it the 90's) and came up with the Dark Knight series, I never did follow that. All I knew, was that Batman become moodier, broods, and the whole atmosphere of Gotham became "darker".In other words, Batman is no longer seen as a black and white hero. I must say that the latest movie does indeed convey that feeling.In the movie, The Joker appears in Gotham. He starts going on a rampage, and Batman is kept busy foiling each of the crimes.Right at the end when Batman finally catches him, The Joker finally revealed his true plan. Batman realised that each time he foiled one of Joker's crimes, he's setting the government up for a political backlash. Bit by bit.The only way to preserve the integrity of the government, was to shoulder all the blame. Let everybody think it was The Batman that was behind all the nefarious deeds, so that the police force, the senate and everyone else is "cleared".Batman becomes an outlaw vigilante. Wanted by the cops. Hated by the crooks.Batman thus becomes a Dark Knight. Alone, he fights for justice, but is seen as an outlaw, a wanted fugitive.(If you didn't "get" this part, you need to re-watch the movie again)Ok that is the gist of the story.Heath Ledger, the late actor who played the role of The Joker, gave a really incredible performance indeed. Although the behaviour was different from the comics, he does effectively convey that The Joker was "crazy". No incessant laughs, but right at the end when The Joker revealed the true master plan, you somehow start to doubt whether The Joker was crazy in the first place. If anything, Heath Ledger should win the posthumous Oscar that the Academy is nominating him for.I would go as far as to say this movie is all about The Joker, rather than Batman. In the end, Batman was "defeated" anyway, since he had to assume the blame for everything. Joker technically won, even if he was caught. Even Two-Face (Harvey Dent) was a pawn in The Joker's plans, and Two-Face truly thought he was "fixing" the problems when he started going around killing people.One of the more lighthearted moments in this mostly grim and dark movie was where a junior employee of the Wayne Enterprises managed to dig up blueprints of the Batmobile and showed it to Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), and demanded $10 million in yearly salary. Morgan Freeman's reply was classic:"Now, let me understand this. You think that our billionaire owner secretly dresses up in a bat suit, goes around pummelling crooks at night with his bare hands, and YOU want to blackmail him? Good luck".That had the entire cinema laughing.As I mentioned, the movie was mostly dark and grim. When I left the cinema, I actually felt sad for The Batman. To be played like a fool, and then to be hunted by the law enforcement. He must have felt totally alone and set up.Related articles by ZemantaBatman: Dark Knight who rules the box officePreparing for The Dark KnightSpoiler Points for The Dark Knight (2008)The Dark Knight Triumphs and Disturbs I Finally Joined Socialspark Ok I'm really late to do this. Seems like everybody has hopped on the bandwagon and joined a relatively new "blogging network" place called SocialSpark except me. Well I finally got around to doing it and signed an account up on SocialSpark.At first glance, Social Spark seems like a revamped "Pay Per Post", but that's only the first impression. If you actually browse the "marketplace", which is the new name for the "open opportunities" section, you can see several types of "opportunities".The first available is "Sponsored Posts". This is the usual type that is normally available. That means, you write about a service or a product, submit it for the sponsor to review, and then the sponsor pays you. Something like an advert.The second type, which is new, is a "Blog sponsorship". Personally I find this category the most irritating of all, and I never will take part in this. What happens is that a blog/website/company will "sponsor" your blog for a time period. To have the sponsorship, you have to install a small piece of code into your blog, which (to me) is irritating and pops up whenever someone visits your blog. If the code contains animation and sound and video, you can imagine how much it'll slow the loading time down! Plus if it's annoying music or video, the visitor has to hurriedly close/cancel/stop the music or video.Fortunately, you are free not to utilise this portion of the functions if you don't want to.The third (and final) type of sponsoships available to you is just called a "Spark". Essentially these don't pay you in monetary terms, but in traffic exchange. It really depends on what is offered. Some might review your blog in return, some might link your blog for a month. You have to read the terms before you accept the offer. Some don't even offer anything in return, but to rally support for a specific cause, or for promotional awareness efforts.Well since I'm still relatively new to Socialspark, I need to explore it much more before I can give a more complete run-down of it. I Finally Joined Socialspark Ok I'm really late to do this. Seems like everybody has hopped on the bandwagon and joined a relatively new "blogging network" place called SocialSpark except me. Well I finally got around to doing it and signed an account up on SocialSpark.At first glance, Social Spark seems like a revamped "Pay Per Post", but that's only the first impression. If you actually browse the "marketplace", which is the new name for the "open opportunities" section, you can see several types of "opportunities".The first available is "Sponsored Posts". This is the usual type that is normally available. That means, you write about a service or a product, submit it for the sponsor to review, and then the sponsor pays you. Something like an advert.The second type, which is new, is a "Blog sponsorship". Personally I find this category the most irritating of all, and I never will take part in this. What happens is that a blog/website/company will "sponsor" your blog for a time period. To have the sponsorship, you have to install a small piece of code into your blog, which (to me) is irritating and pops up whenever someone visits your blog. If the code contains animation and sound and video, you can imagine how much it'll slow the loading time down! Plus if it's annoying music or video, the visitor has to hurriedly close/cancel/stop the music or video.Fortunately, you are free not to utilise this portion of the functions if you don't want to.The third (and final) type of sponsoships available to you is just called a "Spark". Essentially these don't pay you in monetary terms, but in traffic exchange. It really depends on what is offered. Some might review your blog in return, some might link your blog for a month. You have to read the terms before you accept the offer. Some don't even offer anything in return, but to rally support for a specific cause, or for promotional awareness efforts.Well since I'm still relatively new to Socialspark, I need to explore it much more before I can give a more complete run-down of it. I Am Home Again! It's very rare that I write about mundane things happening to me in my "subsidiary blogs" before I write about them here. However, I did write about how I found my long-lost drinking kakis recently here.About a year ago, my regular drinking place closed. As such, us regular customers (who have been patronising the place for years) suddenly lost a "home". My buddy and I spent the past year flitting from pub to pub, trying to find a new "home". We thought we found a place somewhere in Chinatown.Then a couple of days ago, an old friend and fellow pub patron from the old place, told us that one of the bartenders have found a job at a new place, and gave us directions to the pub. My buddy and I just thought we'd pay her a visit and check the new place out. After all, we haven't really decided on a "home" pub yet, although the one at Chinatown is currently serving as one. There's still something..... missing...So we popped by the new place.The first feeling that hit us was - ok this feels familiar. The decor, the lighting. Then we walked towards the bar counter. Yup, she was there (from the previous pub). She was happy to see us. We were pleasantly surprised to see a few more familiar faces - patrons from the old pub, a couple of waitresses from the previous pub (who are now working there). It was then that even more was revealed to us.The owners are former regular patrons of the old place. They have even gone to the extent of contacting all the previous staff of the old place and offering them a position at the new pub. We can even see that some efforts were made to "preserve" the ambiance from the old place. It was no wonder that the place felt familiar the moment we walked in.As we sat at the bar counter (our old positions at the previous pub), we started to feel more and more comfortable. Yup, this indeed felt like the old "home pub".That got me to thinking - why didn't the Chinatown one feel like home?. The decor was pretty close to the old pub, so that wasn't it. The ambiance was almost the same, perhaps that was why we decided to frequent the pub in Chinatown.No, it was the people. The community, so to speak. Same people, from staff to patrons, all talking, laughing, playing. It almost felt like nothing has changed. We're all still here.So it didn't really matter where the place is. The location may change. The decor might suck or be better, but, the most important factor in the whole equation: the people.It's even more omen-ish that a similar event happened in the virtual world to me recently though, and I think this is a real-life lesson to be learnt, and apply, to the virtual world.Yes, I am home. I Am Home Again! It's very rare that I write about mundane things happening to me in my "subsidiary blogs" before I write about them here. However, I did write about how I found my long-lost drinking kakis recently here.About a year ago, my regular drinking place closed. As such, us regular customers (who have been patronising the place for years) suddenly lost a "home". My buddy and I spent the past year flitting from pub to pub, trying to find a new "home". We thought we found a place somewhere in Chinatown.Then a couple of days ago, an old friend and fellow pub patron from the old place, told us that one of the bartenders have found a job at a new place, and gave us directions to the pub. My buddy and I just thought we'd pay her a visit and check the new place out. After all, we haven't really decided on a "home" pub yet, although the one at Chinatown is currently serving as one. There's still something..... missing...So we popped by the new place.The first feeling that hit us was - ok this feels familiar. The decor, the lighting. Then we walked towards the bar counter. Yup, she was there (from the previous pub). She was happy to see us. We were pleasantly surprised to see a few more familiar faces - patrons from the old pub, a couple of waitresses from the previous pub (who are now working there). It was then that even more was revealed to us.The owners are former regular patrons of the old place. They have even gone to the extent of contacting all the previous staff of the old place and offering them a position at the new pub. We can even see that some efforts were made to "preserve" the ambiance from the old place. It was no wonder that the place felt familiar the moment we walked in.As we sat at the bar counter (our old positions at the previous pub), we started to feel more and more comfortable. Yup, this indeed felt like the old "home pub".That got me to thinking - why didn't the Chinatown one feel like home?. The decor was pretty close to the old pub, so that wasn't it. The ambiance was almost the same, perhaps that was why we decided to frequent the pub in Chinatown.No, it was the people. The community, so to speak. Same people, from staff to patrons, all talking, laughing, playing. It almost felt like nothing has changed. We're all still here.So it didn't really matter where the place is. The location may change. The decor might suck or be better, but, the most important factor in the whole equation: the people.It's even more omen-ish that a similar event happened in the virtual world to me recently though, and I think this is a real-life lesson to be learnt, and apply, to the virtual world.Yes, I am home. Deciding The Fate Of People You know the saying, "Power Corrupts, and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely".Interviewing people for a position is kinda like placing incredible amounts of power at your disposal. You alone decide whether he "lives" or "dies". Your decision alone dictates whether he's gone, or he can come back.Also, normally I am not the one doing the interview. I generally shun meetings and interviews because simply, I just don't like them. Interviews and meetings are what bosses are for - they handle them :) Us grunts just do the work and be done for the day.Anyway recently I was asked to interview some candidates for a position. Most of them are internal staff, and the interviews were quick and fast. However even among internal staff, it was quite surprising at some of the answers I get. Like I said before, these people know what they are doing - some of them knows more than I do even.Yet, as I said, some answers I get are pretty interesting. A very good example is below:Migrating from one mail platform to anotherSet up new mail platform, copy all the user information over. At designated time, change DNS records to point to new server.Now that's a novel way to do it. No messing around with parallel runs, no confusing of users. Best of all, no mucking about with mail redirects and what-nots (which, by the way, is listed as the "correct answer" in official support documentation). Short, quick, and no weird helpdesk calls about "missing mail".This method should work with ANY mail platform migrations too.I'm actually kicking myself why I never thought of this when I was migrating my users from Exchange to Notes too. Darn it!Unfortunately, the candidate that proposed this solution flunked on other questions, some of which were fundamentals (setting up domain controllers, configuring DCHP etc). Not that surprising since he's "live" on the job and his current job scope has him handling other stuff. It is however, a little surprising that he either forgot or doesn't know how to do those fundamental stuff, and those were actually the "predefined requirements" we need to have.Inside me, I was actually rooting for this candidate to get the job though. However I had to be honest and rate him accordingly, and from the way it looks, it doesn't seem very likely he'll get the job. Sigh!The good thing is, I'm not holding the "absolute power" to decide his fate. All I can do is give an assessment of his technical capabilities. My boss is the one deciding his fate, and he was right there in the interview too, but asking him other non-technical questions (soft skills). I can't give this candidate an assessment that is "too good" since my boss is also a techie guy, so he knows this candidate fumbled on the fundamentals.Ah well, the good thing is, we probably have interviewed enough candidates and there should be no more left to interview (not by me at least). I really don't like having to interview people and giving them a grade.ps - My current "official" designation is a Unix Admin. When it's "crunch time" I'll be deployed to handle the Unix servers. However I also know Wintel Admin. My boss was saying I'm a "steal" given what I know and can do (salary vs skills). I should have asked for $10K salary mannnn!!!! *kick self* Deciding The Fate Of People You know the saying, "Power Corrupts, and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely".Interviewing people for a position is kinda like placing incredible amounts of power at your disposal. You alone decide whether he "lives" or "dies". Your decision alone dictates whether he's gone, or he can come back.Also, normally I am not the one doing the interview. I generally shun meetings and interviews because simply, I just don't like them. Interviews and meetings are what bosses are for - they handle them :) Us grunts just do the work and be done for the day.Anyway recently I was asked to interview some candidates for a position. Most of them are internal staff, and the interviews were quick and fast. However even among internal staff, it was quite surprising at some of the answers I get. Like I said before, these people know what they are doing - some of them knows more than I do even.Yet, as I said, some answers I get are pretty interesting. A very good example is below:Migrating from one mail platform to anotherSet up new mail platform, copy all the user information over. At designated time, change DNS records to point to new server.Now that's a novel way to do it. No messing around with parallel runs, no confusing of users. Best of all, no mucking about with mail redirects and what-nots (which, by the way, is listed as the "correct answer" in official support documentation). Short, quick, and no weird helpdesk calls about "missing mail".This method should work with ANY mail platform migrations too.I'm actually kicking myself why I never thought of this when I was migrating my users from Exchange to Notes too. Darn it!Unfortunately, the candidate that proposed this solution flunked on other questions, some of which were fundamentals (setting up domain controllers, configuring DCHP etc). Not that surprising since he's "live" on the job and his current job scope has him handling other stuff. It is however, a little surprising that he either forgot or doesn't know how to do those fundamental stuff, and those were actually the "predefined requirements" we need to have.Inside me, I was actually rooting for this candidate to get the job though. However I had to be honest and rate him accordingly, and from the way it looks, it doesn't seem very likely he'll get the job. Sigh!The good thing is, I'm not holding the "absolute power" to decide his fate. All I can do is give an assessment of his technical capabilities. My boss is the one deciding his fate, and he was right there in the interview too, but asking him other non-technical questions (soft skills). I can't give this candidate an assessment that is "too good" since my boss is also a techie guy, so he knows this candidate fumbled on the fundamentals.Ah well, the good thing is, we probably have interviewed enough candidates and there should be no more left to interview (not by me at least). I really don't like having to interview people and giving them a grade.ps - My current "official" designation is a Unix Admin. When it's "crunch time" I'll be deployed to handle the Unix servers. However I also know Wintel Admin. My boss was saying I'm a "steal" given what I know and can do (salary vs skills). I should have asked for $10K salary mannnn!!!! *kick self* I'm Very Lucky A couple of weeks back, I started work with a new company. I wrote that it's a very nice change to finally work with people that know their stuff and are very proficient at what they're doing.In fact I was slightly incorrect in my initial impression. These guys are GOOD. Some of them know stuff I don't and they are very, very detailed. So anyway, I'm part of a team that is still currently looking for people. Thus I was given some resumes for Windows/Intel administrators (commonly referred to as "Wintel Admins") to vet through and pick a few for interview.Some of these guys are internal staff. In other words, they are ALREADY staff. Now we're just deciding if we should pull them off their current assignments to join us. Looking at their resumes, they are impressive indeed. Many of them have a very wide exposure to many different platforms, and some of them, I have to go "interview".Hell, these guys probably know more than I do!But it's not really a problem since the scope of our requirements is pretty defined, and whatever extra skills they have are bonus - we just require these few specific skills, and if they fit, we'll pull them over.It's gonna feel a little strange asking a guy who probably knows more than you about a specific platform "how to do this" or "how to do that".Now why do I say I'm lucky?Because I'm not asked to interview external candidates. Interviewing internal staff is easier since there probably won't be any tension. The guys will be relaxed and they'll just let their experience show, and we ARE looking for experience rather than skills stated on paper. I don't have to explain pay structure, working hours and all that other junk - they already know.I expect the interviews with them will be quick - 20 to 30 mins tops. Once I get a feel of their experience, it's a done deal.The hard part is to choose among them all.... I'm Very Lucky A couple of weeks back, I started work with a new company. I wrote that it's a very nice change to finally work with people that know their stuff and are very proficient at what they're doing.In fact I was slightly incorrect in my initial impression. These guys are GOOD. Some of them know stuff I don't and they are very, very detailed. So anyway, I'm part of a team that is still currently looking for people. Thus I was given some resumes for Windows/Intel administrators (commonly referred to as "Wintel Admins") to vet through and pick a few for interview.Some of these guys are internal staff. In other words, they are ALREADY staff. Now we're just deciding if we should pull them off their current assignments to join us. Looking at their resumes, they are impressive indeed. Many of them have a very wide exposure to many different platforms, and some of them, I have to go "interview".Hell, these guys probably know more than I do!But it's not really a problem since the scope of our requirements is pretty defined, and whatever extra skills they have are bonus - we just require these few specific skills, and if they fit, we'll pull them over.It's gonna feel a little strange asking a guy who probably knows more than you about a specific platform "how to do this" or "how to do that".Now why do I say I'm lucky?Because I'm not asked to interview external candidates. Interviewing internal staff is easier since there probably won't be any tension. The guys will be relaxed and they'll just let their experience show, and we ARE looking for experience rather than skills stated on paper. I don't have to explain pay structure, working hours and all that other junk - they already know.I expect the interviews with them will be quick - 20 to 30 mins tops. Once I get a feel of their experience, it's a done deal.The hard part is to choose among them all.... Indifference Is Key Sometimes, being indifferent does indeed have its advantages.For example, I'm in mybloglog and blogcatalog. You do see people there making friends, talking to each other at the shoutboxes of each other, talking to each other at the forums, but I never did any of these. They are both supposed to be "communities", yes, but I never really "got into" them.In Facebook, for a while, I was actively engaged in buying and selling, having fun and so on, with my friends, pingsters and non-pingsters alike. Slowly but surely, Facebook burnout got to me and I started to log in to Facebook less and less. In fact I hardly log in to Facebook nowadays and my friends have to SMS me to chase me to log in so I can hep them do some stuff or give them money to buy their pets etc.When I joined Entrecard, I see similar levels of activity there. People there frequent the forums. They drop cards, they make friends. I did almost none of these, except for dropping cards and SELECTIVELY making friends by leaving comments on their blogs (I made some great friends this way, such as Aronil, Jasmine and Jade).In all cases, the "community" was there, but I didn't really actively take part in it, since they are based so far away - in the USA. The selective people I befriended slowly via the means mentioned above usually are Singaporeans or based in Singapore, or at the furthest, Malaysia (Aronil).I only decided to become more active in ping.sg, a local organisation, based in Singapore, with Singaporeans, or people living in Singapore, forming the core members. I thought it was be preferable to interact in this kind of environment compared to the others mentioned above.Alas, recent events have shown that it was the wrong thing to do. Indifference which I have shown above in the other "communities" would have insulated me from the impact of recent events. Seriously, if I had been as indifferent in ping.sg as I was in the others, I'd probably be totally unfazed at what's happening within the "community".Perhaps it's time I backed away and not invest anymore efforts.Indifference is key, I guess. Indifference Is Key Sometimes, being indifferent does indeed have its advantages.For example, I'm in mybloglog and blogcatalog. You do see people there making friends, talking to each other at the shoutboxes of each other, talking to each other at the forums, but I never did any of these. They are both supposed to be "communities", yes, but I never really "got into" them.In Facebook, for a while, I was actively engaged in buying and selling, having fun and so on, with my friends, pingsters and non-pingsters alike. Slowly but surely, Facebook burnout got to me and I started to log in to Facebook less and less. In fact I hardly log in to Facebook nowadays and my friends have to SMS me to chase me to log in so I can hep them do some stuff or give them money to buy their pets etc.When I joined Entrecard, I see similar levels of activity there. People there frequent the forums. They drop cards, they make friends. I did almost none of these, except for dropping cards and SELECTIVELY making friends by leaving comments on their blogs (I made some great friends this way, such as Aronil, Jasmine and Jade).In all cases, the "community" was there, but I didn't really actively take part in it, since they are based so far away - in the USA. The selective people I befriended slowly via the means mentioned above usually are Singaporeans or based in Singapore, or at the furthest, Malaysia (Aronil).I only decided to become more active in ping.sg, a local organisation, based in Singapore, with Singaporeans, or people living in Singapore, forming the core members. I thought it was be preferable to interact in this kind of environment compared to the others mentioned above.Alas, recent events have shown that it was the wrong thing to do. Indifference which I have shown above in the other "communities" would have insulated me from the impact of recent events. Seriously, if I had been as indifferent in ping.sg as I was in the others, I'd probably be totally unfazed at what's happening within the "community".Perhaps it's time I backed away and not invest anymore efforts.Indifference is key, I guess. 72 Hours Later... ... everything's quiet on the western front.Not a mouse peeped.Not a cat leaped.And the atmosphere feels strained.It's kinda like a wake. You know, where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking, but nobody's saying anything. To be polite, to attempt to move on.I logged into Plurk today, after so many weeks of not logging into it. Why? Well many of the regular people disappeared from the usual place. Exactly what I feared. Exactly what I wrote - the harsh action taken will have an effect, and it may not be the one intended. But, I found them all there on Plurk.Interestingly though, suddenly one of the Plurks became a mini-shoutbox. Everyone congregated there, and everyone talked.Talked.Something which should have happened before The Incident.I still think it's not too late to Talk.While I doubt things will return to like what it was "in the good old days", Talking will go a long way to help that process.For now, the place feels like an empty house. Kids have all left home, and I'm just wandering around the empty halls.It's a lonely feeling. 72 Hours Later... ... everything's quiet on the western front.Not a mouse peeped.Not a cat leaped.And the atmosphere feels strained.It's kinda like a wake. You know, where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking, but nobody's saying anything. To be polite, to attempt to move on.I logged into Plurk today, after so many weeks of not logging into it. Why? Well many of the regular people disappeared from the usual place. Exactly what I feared. Exactly what I wrote - the harsh action taken will have an effect, and it may not be the one intended. But, I found them all there on Plurk.Interestingly though, suddenly one of the Plurks became a mini-shoutbox. Everyone congregated there, and everyone talked.Talked.Something which should have happened before The Incident.I still think it's not too late to Talk.While I doubt things will return to like what it was "in the good old days", Talking will go a long way to help that process.For now, the place feels like an empty house. Kids have all left home, and I'm just wandering around the empty halls.It's a lonely feeling. I Am Saddened By Recent Events In Ping.sg People who know me, know that I generally keep a low profile. I do not aim to be popular, I do not aim to get special treatment etc.Yes I do know cliques will ALWAYS form in any social environment. Humans are gregarious - we always seek out like-minded people and connect with them. That's how societies develop. That's how villages and towns and cities are built.Giving a label to a group of people will always happen. The "popular", the "bad", the whatever. In your own email client, or even in hotmail and gmail, you can create your own distribution list. In this list, you normally put the people you connect with regularly on it, so you can share jokes, funny pictures, or anything with your friends, ALL your friends, by just typing a label. It's not a bad thing to get a label. Even among friends, you have "best friend" and just "friend" labels, to denote how close they are to you. Not everybody is your friend, and certainly you should have very little, or just one, "best friend".I know Daphne meant no harm in her original post about "in-groups". She was just putting a label on something, to better describe a group of people. I mean, it's going to get tedious naming the said individuals time and time again. Was it a mistake? I don't know. I have no opinion on this. I just understand that Daphne was just attempting to describe a group of members.Then, there is the original ideal of ping.sg - to be a platform for everybody, regardless of your popularity or how "in" you are.It just appears that some members feel that the original ideal should be upheld - one platform for all, and not to segregate members into various groups. Personally, I think this ideal should be upheld too. Equality for all!However, the recent debate about the use of the label "in-group" got way out of hand too quickly. I personally have made many friends when I joined ping.sg. For want of better words, I belong to the "lim jiu" group of pingsters (*grin*). Although I seldom join them for their outings and activities, that by no means imply I elevate myself above them or I am an "elite" (or otherwise). I just do not forsee the said activity to be interesting to me, or I could be otherwise engaged during the timing of the said activity. Usually I appear for activities that involve liquor (*grin again*), and one should not be surprised that the same people will turn up for such an activity - not everybody drinks, just as not everybody likes the colour purple.The sudden ban of dk from ping.sg really will adversely affect the image of ping.sg. To any outsider, a ban of a long-time member of ping.sg without some sort of formal announcements as to the reason why, shakes the confidence of the masses. Right now speculations are rife that the ban was due to the disagreement of ping.sg and dk's opinions. Without some sort of formal clarifications, such rumours and speculations will take on a life of its own, and will, very likely, be counter-productive to ping.sg. As we all know, word-of-mouth rumours spread like wildfire and soemtimes, have a greater impact than any official "advertising" or PR campaign.For all we know, dk could have been banned for a totally different, and possibly unrelated, reasons. For now, we don't know. From the way it looks now, he got banned for caring. Then in this case, should I start to be more aloof? Should I start not to care, because if I care too much, the same might happen to me.I love ping.sg. I love the virbancy of the whole thing, the people, the good times (and the bad). I identify with the ideal too - to be a platform for everyone. I really hope to see some form of clarifications, because I truly want to know where I (and everyone else) stand. I Am Saddened By Recent Events In Ping.sg People who know me, know that I generally keep a low profile. I do not aim to be popular, I do not aim to get special treatment etc.Yes I do know cliques will ALWAYS form in any social environment. Humans are gregarious - we always seek out like-minded people and connect with them. That's how societies develop. That's how villages and towns and cities are built.Giving a label to a group of people will always happen. The "popular", the "bad", the whatever. In your own email client, or even in hotmail and gmail, you can create your own distribution list. In this list, you normally put the people you connect with regularly on it, so you can share jokes, funny pictures, or anything with your friends, ALL your friends, by just typing a label. It's not a bad thing to get a label. Even among friends, you have "best friend" and just "friend" labels, to denote how close they are to you. Not everybody is your friend, and certainly you should have very little, or just one, "best friend".I know Daphne meant no harm in her original post about "in-groups". She was just putting a label on something, to better describe a group of people. I mean, it's going to get tedious naming the said individuals time and time again. Was it a mistake? I don't know. I have no opinion on this. I just understand that Daphne was just attempting to describe a group of members.Then, there is the original ideal of ping.sg - to be a platform for everybody, regardless of your popularity or how "in" you are.It just appears that some members feel that the original ideal should be upheld - one platform for all, and not to segregate members into various groups. Personally, I think this ideal should be upheld too. Equality for all!However, the recent debate about the use of the label "in-group" got way out of hand too quickly. I personally have made many friends when I joined ping.sg. For want of better words, I belong to the "lim jiu" group of pingsters (*grin*). Although I seldom join them for their outings and activities, that by no means imply I elevate myself above them or I am an "elite" (or otherwise). I just do not forsee the said activity to be interesting to me, or I could be otherwise engaged during the timing of the said activity. Usually I appear for activities that involve liquor (*grin again*), and one should not be surprised that the same people will turn up for such an activity - not everybody drinks, just as not everybody likes the colour purple.The sudden ban of dk from ping.sg really will adversely affect the image of ping.sg. To any outsider, a ban of a long-time member of ping.sg without some sort of formal announcements as to the reason why, shakes the confidence of the masses. Right now speculations are rife that the ban was due to the disagreement of ping.sg and dk's opinions. Without some sort of formal clarifications, such rumours and speculations will take on a life of its own, and will, very likely, be counter-productive to ping.sg. As we all know, word-of-mouth rumours spread like wildfire and soemtimes, have a greater impact than any official "advertising" or PR campaign.For all we know, dk could have been banned for a totally different, and possibly unrelated, reasons. For now, we don't know. From the way it looks now, he got banned for caring. Then in this case, should I start to be more aloof? Should I start not to care, because if I care too much, the same might happen to me.I love ping.sg. I love the virbancy of the whole thing, the people, the good times (and the bad). I identify with the ideal too - to be a platform for everyone. I really hope to see some form of clarifications, because I truly want to know where I (and everyone else) stand. Hancock Is A Good Movie First off - there will be NO spoilers in this post, so people who haven't watched it won't see things they don't want to see.I managed to get a couple of free tickets to this movie and thus I caught it tonight, 3 July 2008 (same release day as US, ie 2nd July over there). Initially from the cinematic trailers found everywhere, it seemed to be a story of a downtrodden super hero, played by Will Smith. However, the story is not so straightforward.Needless to say, I was engrossed throughout the movie and I bet I wouldn't even have to munch on any snacks if I did buy some. The lead character, Hancock, is so named because he has amnesia. He has no memory of how he got his super powers nor his name. He woke up in the hospital and decided to discharge himself, and the nurse at the counter requested for his "John Hancock" before she could release him. A "John Hancock", in US slang, means "signature". It is derived from the famous underwriters, John Hancock, where their signature is proof enough that the item is legit or worth what is written out to be. So, the lead character decided to adopt the name John Hancock for himself.You can really identify with the super hero lead character because he's an ass, and is hated by people. While he might save people's lives or foil robberies, he does so with total disregard to property, and usually ends up demolishing half the city while trying to bring crooks in. Hancock behaves like this because he is all alone in this world - the only one of his kind.He does not see himself as a hero, merely a lonely man in this world. He doesn't wear a costume nor a mask. Since he's alone, he has nobody to protect. Thus he has no need of a secret identity. Everyone knows who he is. He the "a**hole" to everybody.His life changed when he saved the life of an image consultant. The man is so grateful to Hancock that he decides to help Hancock change his public image, and sets about bugging Hancock to be more "heroic" than just being an a**hole with super powers.As the movie unfolded, there were many funny moments to break the sometimes sombre mood when Hancock is alone and reflecting on his life. I really would not want to bring up any specifics lest it spoils your enjoyment. Needless to say, I find them funny. One example would be his super-hero costume (which you'd have seen in trailers anyway). Just listen to the dialog when the image consultant friend first presented it to Hancock. Personally I find his costume too much like the X-men movie costumes - mostly black with some light coloured trimmings. Not very super-heroic, but cool.Towards the end, you will find that the story isn't what it seemed. Hancock cleans himself up, and then starts to get the adulation of the general public.I was a little disappointed not to see Will Smith topless in the movie. Would have loved to look at his rippling body to motivate myself for my workouts. Ah well.This is a movie where I'll definitely buy the DVD to keep and watch again at a future date.Oh yes, do stay a bit during the credits. There's a funny scene right in the middle of the rolling credits. Don't just stand up and walk out. Hancock Is A Good Movie First off - there will be NO spoilers in this post, so people who haven't watched it won't see things they don't want to see.I managed to get a couple of free tickets to this movie and thus I caught it tonight, 3 July 2008 (same release day as US, ie 2nd July over there). Initially from the cinematic trailers found everywhere, it seemed to be a story of a downtrodden super hero, played by Will Smith. However, the story is not so straightforward.Needless to say, I was engrossed throughout the movie and I bet I wouldn't even have to munch on any snacks if I did buy some. The lead character, Hancock, is so named because he has amnesia. He has no memory of how he got his super powers nor his name. He woke up in the hospital and decided to discharge himself, and the nurse at the counter requested for his "John Hancock" before she could release him. A "John Hancock", in US slang, means "signature". It is derived from the famous underwriters, John Hancock, where their signature is proof enough that the item is legit or worth what is written out to be. So, the lead character decided to adopt the name John Hancock for himself.You can really identify with the super hero lead character because he's an ass, and is hated by people. While he might save people's lives or foil robberies, he does so with total disregard to property, and usually ends up demolishing half the city while trying to bring crooks in. Hancock behaves like this because he is all alone in this world - the only one of his kind.He does not see himself as a hero, merely a lonely man in this world. He doesn't wear a costume nor a mask. Since he's alone, he has nobody to protect. Thus he has no need of a secret identity. Everyone knows who he is. He the "a**hole" to everybody.His life changed when he saved the life of an image consultant. The man is so grateful to Hancock that he decides to help Hancock change his public image, and sets about bugging Hancock to be more "heroic" than just being an a**hole with super powers.As the movie unfolded, there were many funny moments to break the sometimes sombre mood when Hancock is alone and reflecting on his life. I really would not want to bring up any specifics lest it spoils your enjoyment. Needless to say, I find them funny. One example would be his super-hero costume (which you'd have seen in trailers anyway). Just listen to the dialog when the image consultant friend first presented it to Hancock. Personally I find his costume too much like the X-men movie costumes - mostly black with some light coloured trimmings. Not very super-heroic, but cool.Towards the end, you will find that the story isn't what it seemed. Hancock cleans himself up, and then starts to get the adulation of the general public.I was a little disappointed not to see Will Smith topless in the movie. Would have loved to look at his rippling body to motivate myself for my workouts. Ah well.This is a movie where I'll definitely buy the DVD to keep and watch again at a future date.Oh yes, do stay a bit during the credits. There's a funny scene right in the middle of the rolling credits. Don't just stand up and walk out. Increase Your Traffic with Scoutle It's starting to become a norm isn't it? Yeah I'm talking about my usual wanderings and stumblings and surfing the net and stuff. I just started with a new company recently and that took time away from blogging.As an aside - yeah I'm plunging headlog into work. The new place wasn't really what I expected when I went to be interviewed. It was MORE. In other words, better.Anyway, during my random surfing and stumbling around, I came across yet another Increase-Your-Blog-Traffic website called Scoutle. To describe it, it's similar to Blogrush in that you install a widget and then the traffic is supposed to start coming in.However, that's where the similarity ends. In Scoutle, you create a robot, a web-crawler called a "scout". You program your scout to start scouring the web and "connect" to sites which you programmed it to. The scout then will trawl the web and hit websites with the widget installed, and "make contact". They call the widget "a stage". The different versions offered at the Scoutle website offers differing levels of traffic when installed, and it's up to you to select the levels of traffic you would want.I think of this as a sort of "robot social networking" where the bots talk to one another, and then shows the URL and links up in your dashboard on the Scoutle site. What you do is to visit the Scoutle dashboard every couple of days and check up on the new "connections" made, to discover new blogs and interesting websites.I'm still new in Scoutle, so my connections aren't alot right now. It's been just a couple of days and I can't really tell if Scoutle's worth the hype right now. I will post again a couple of weeks later to see how it goes with Scoutle. Increase Your Traffic with Scoutle It's starting to become a norm isn't it? Yeah I'm talking about my usual wanderings and stumblings and surfing the net and stuff. I just started with a new company recently and that took time away from blogging.As an aside - yeah I'm plunging headlog into work. The new place wasn't really what I expected when I went to be interviewed. It was MORE. In other words, better.Anyway, during my random surfing and stumbling around, I came across yet another Increase-Your-Blog-Traffic website called Scoutle. To describe it, it's similar to Blogrush in that you install a widget and then the traffic is supposed to start coming in.However, that's where the similarity ends. In Scoutle, you create a robot, a web-crawler called a "scout". You program your scout to start scouring the web and "connect" to sites which you programmed it to. The scout then will trawl the web and hit websites with the widget installed, and "make contact". They call the widget "a stage". The different versions offered at the Scoutle website offers differing levels of traffic when installed, and it's up to you to select the levels of traffic you would want.I think of this as a sort of "robot social networking" where the bots talk to one another, and then shows the URL and links up in your dashboard on the Scoutle site. What you do is to visit the Scoutle dashboard every couple of days and check up on the new "connections" made, to discover new blogs and interesting websites.I'm still new in Scoutle, so my connections aren't alot right now. It's been just a couple of days and I can't really tell if Scoutle's worth the hype right now. I will post again a couple of weeks later to see how it goes with Scoutle.