Even animals don't do that!

You know how sometimes you read about child abuse cases and then hear people say "So cruel, even animals don't do that to their young!". Well, that is so untrue. Read the story below from The Star.

Tiger mum picks the best


JOHOR BARU: The law of the jungle applies even in the zoo – a tigress ate three of her newborn cubs at the Johor Zoo here recently.


The seven-year old tigress, Juli, gave birth to four cubs on Saturday, but the joy of the zoo personnel was short-lived when she killed and ate three of the cubs in the following two days.


Zoo chief assistant secretary On Jabbar said the tigress could have eaten her cubs for several reasons, including the cubs’ health and physical condition.


Three of the cubs looked feeble and one had a limp before they were killed by the mother,” he told journalists when met at the zoo here, adding that a tigress would also kill its cubs if instinct told it that the cubs would not have a chance to reach adulthood.


On said this was the third time that 100kg Juli gave birth in captivity after mating with Jeli, weighing 150kg.


She also ate her litter after giving birth in 2006 and 2008.


He said the zoo was hoping that Juli would spare her remaining cub, which he said would be separated from Juli when it is about six to 12 months old.

Here's a picture of Juli

So... in the wild, animals are all about survival. However, don't get me wrong. I'm not condoning child abuse. I'm just saying that even animals can be vicious by the standards we humans apply to ourselfs. In the animal worlds, there are no morals.

Who's next?

Tunisia, now Egypt... Which country is next?

All authoritarian rulers must be really worried.

For the Tunisians, although they got rid of their old ruler, it's going to be a few years before they see any significant improvement. Creating jobs and building infrastructure takes a long time.

Break-up service

Check out this cool advertisement form Adidas. This guy runs a break-up service in Japan. Hehe, I love the mini story in the advert.

Just a day in his complicated life.

vigilantes

The hunt for the poodle abusers is getting out of hand. It's turned into mob justice and the rabid mob can be easily manipulated to hurt anyone. Just take a look at the story below from The Star.


Man receives over 130 nasty calls on poodle abuse case


PETALING JAYA: Businessman Johnson Kang (pic), 44, had the shock of his life when he received a phone call on Wednesday accusing him of abusing a poodle.


Kang’s wife Christina Ng, 40, said her husband told the caller that he had the wrong number.


That was the beginning of a nightmare for Kang and Ng who live and work in Johor Baru.


“Johnson has received more than 130 calls since, with some even threatening to kill him for allegedly abusing the dog,” said Ng.


Meanwhile, Kang, who is an SPCA Malacca life member, said the calls started coming in after someone created a Twitter account with his phone number under the name of an individual believed to be the one who had abused the poodle called Sushi.


“I don’t know who did it. But I have lodged a police report and I’ve also gone to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission,” he added.


A YouTube video showing a man using brute force to train the poodle to stand on its hind legs recently has raised public ire.


Many people tracked down Kang through the Twitter account created with his number, but bearing the alleged perpetrator’s name.


Kang, who owns two dogs adopted from the SPCA, said he too wants the culprit caught and be dealt with.

If there is someone you don't like, you can easily just put their phone number or picture saying things like

"this is the phone number of the brother of the dog abuser, he also abused 3 dogs!"

Then those who don't bother to do any investigation of their own will immediately call the phone number and hurl abuses.

This is another variation of the anonymous sex callers. Guys (and even women) would post phone numbers of people who jilted them on swingers or singles sites requesting for one night stands. Then the victim will get all sorts of calls and harassments from people.

Anyone can be a victim. My advice to those hunting the poodle abusers, don't take justice into your own hand unless you are willing to bear the consequences of what you will do. In a mob mentality, it's so easy to beat up the person accused of being the snatch thief. Only when they discover they beat up the wrong guy, the mob just melts away pretending they didn't do anything at all. No apology.

transfer iphone contacts & new life for iphone 2G

Spend most of the evening trying to transfer the contacts from one iphone 2G to another iphone 2G. See, both my iphone 2G's don't have working wifi. The one that my wife uses has a problem with the screen (LCD crack at corner). So I wanted to switch her phone with the other phone.

The only problem with her phone was that itunes kept asking for the phone to be restored. If I did that, it would have erased all her contacts (and also broken the jailbreak). I couldn't SSH into the phone because the WIFI was out too.

So I spend almost an hour searching google for an answer. Previously, I used iphone tunnel suite and tethered the phone to get into it but that didn't work anymore. Finally, I found a replacement, iFunBox which immediately tunneled into the phone.

From there, I could copy the address book, SMS and history into the other phone. I think there's still some bugs though because when I tried to sync the other phone into itunes, it kept saying the phone cancelled the contacts sync. I only managed to sync the contacts into Outlook once. Probably the database in the phone is messed up already. I guess copying it directly didn't work.

Now I have a phone with a slightly damaged LCD screen. I'm in the middle of loading all sorts of games onto it. I'm going to turn it into a mobile gaming device. It's got no WIFI so I figure the only it's good for is gaming, listening to music and taking a few crappy pictures. Since the camera is only 2MP, it just doesn't cut it anymore compared to the iphone 4.

I think I can probably use it as a presentation kit too. I hacked the recognized device file in the phone so I can plug an AV cable into it. The phone can output movies to a LCD TV. Great for when I want to play a showreel onto a TV. I just copy it into the phone and play it back. Easier than carrying my notebook around.

Anyway, these games aren't going to last long. I get bored easily playing iphone games. They just don't last as long as PC games.

happy new year! Boom!

Check out this story from the Telegraph.

A "Black Widow" suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year's Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.



The unnamed woman, who is thought to be part of the same group that struck Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday, intended to detonate a suicide belt near Red Square on New Year's Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds.
Security sources believe a message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her at a safe house.


Islamist terrorists in Russia often use mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.


The dead woman has not been identified, but her husband is apparently serving time in jail for being a member of a radical Islamist terror group.


Security sources believe the New Year's Eve bomber and the airport bombers may have been members of a suicide squad trained in Pakistan's al-Qaida strongholds which was sent to target the Russian capital's transport system.

Nobody has been arrested in connection with Monday's bombing, which left 35 people dead. Police are trying to identify the severed head of a male suicide bomber recovered from the scene.

Now I can just bet her handlers are going to modify their operations to only allow the bomb to trigger when they receive SMS from a particular number. Anyway, the telco probably saved a lot of people with their new year greeting!

Panorama!

Whoa, check out this story at Gizmodo about a very elaborate panorama shot.

I began the shooting the morning of December 30, 2010, taking photos with my camera on a tripod facing east. The day portion of this shoot is composed of a dozen shots covering the landscape from east to west as well as the Sun's course across the sky, from sunrise to sunset. I recorded the Sun's position exactly every 15 minutes using an intervalometer, with an astrosolar filter adjusted to the camera lens. In one of the shots, when the Sun was near its maximum altitude, I removed the filter in order to capture a more dramatic shot that showed the Sun's "glare."

After sunset, I took various shots with the camera facing west-northwest in order to achieve a more smooth transition from the day portion to the night portion of the image. The night portion is also composed of a dozen landscape shots but this time from west to east. After the transition" shots, I took a short star trail sequence of approximately half an hour duration, with the camera facing northwest. At 7:30, I turned the camera to the north and started taking the "all-night" star trail shots — lasting almost 11 hours. After accomplishing this, I then turned the camera to northeast and shot another short half an hour star trail sequence, and then finally, with the camera now facing east-northeast, I took a series of night-to-day transition shots.



Now, I still don't understand why the shot is spherical, maybe he just stitched it that way so it's 360 degrees. Anyway, I don't think I'm going to try anything like this anytime soon. Waaaaaay to much work.

Bad review

I've been following this story about the curry fish head restaurant that sued a blogger.

Google to retain ‘offensive’ contents on fish head curry outlet

KOTA KINABALU: Search engine giant Google has said that it cannot remove Internet contents deemed offensive to a fish head curry restaurant here.

A company spokesman said in a statement that Google’s policy does not allow it to remove contents provided through its searches except for illegal matters such as child pornography among others.

Furthermore, the search results Google provided to users reflected the contents available on the Internet, the spokesman added.

“In these cases or in cases where we are compelled by local or international law to remove content, we make these actions transparent using public, third party sites such as ChillingEffects.com,” the official added.

On Monday, the director of a fish head curry restaurant that is recommended by Lonely Planet, sued a blogger and Google for defamation.

Jothys Sdn Bhd director Tharumaraj Sivaperumal filed a RM6mil civil suit at the Kota Kinabalu High Court.

He named blogger Poh Huai Bin as the first defendant and California-based Google Inc as the second defendant.

The suit was over allegedly defamatory statements made about Jothys Fish Head Curry Restaurant here which was posted in May last year by Poh, who is originally from Sibu, Sarawak and who now resides in Kuala Lumpur.

The company, which is represented by counsel Marcel Jude Joseph, is seeking exemplary or punitive damages and an order to restrain Poh from defaming the restaurant on the Internet.

The company is also seeking an order from the court to remove the offending articles from Google and other popular search engines used on the Internet.

Tharumaraj said he felt very let down when the blogger demeaned his fish head curry and banana leaf restaurant and urged the people to “avoid it like a bad case of herpes.”

He added that if one used Yahoo or other search engines, the offending blog does not appear immediately but in Google, it would show up first.

I did read his blog on the google cache and he wrote a bad review of the restaurant. Now normally, most restaurant owners would just brush of a bad review but this review must have really gotten onto his nerves.

I think they would most probably reach an out of court settlement.

My solution? Improve the food and service, invite a bunch of bloggers over and see if they write a better review. Now everyone knows your food really sucks because they're probably like me, reading the google cache of the original bad review of the restaurant.

Sade!

How come Sade never grows old? She still looks hot. This music video was made in 1992.

This is what she looks like today.

London 2012 music video

Ah! No wonder this song sounds familiar, it's the London 2012 theme song. I like the music video. A lot of familiar London sites in it. Now for some strange reason I want a bowler hat.

AVID in a music video

Hey, this is so cool! They actually use AVID as a prop in this music video. Hehe... I wonder which version of AVID is this. Probably a Media Composer but what edition?

Anyway, Tom Jones still rocks!

British comedy

Wonderful song!

I've been watching the BBC series Miranda and one of the character sings the chorus from this song in the show. I don't think I ever heard this song before.

Anyway, if you never heard of the show Miranda before, here's an episode.

Part 1 of the episode "Dog"


Part 2


Part 3


I love British comedy. They leave a warm feeling in me after watching it. They have a quirky sense of humour. I don't know why, but every time I watch a British show I get nostalgic. I'm not even a Brit and I've only been to the UK twice.

I wonder how my brain associates the BBC with nostalgia?

Panorama sunset at Tawau

One of my favorite things to do is to take panorama pictures. It's when you stitch a few pictures together to form a larger one.



I took this sunset in Tawau. Beautiful place. It was 4 pictures taken on my Canon IXUS stitched together on my iPhone. Normally I would use Photoshop but this one isn't too bad.

The Thundercats are back!

Check it out, the Thundercats are back!

Not bad looking at all with the anime look.

Link to report here from comicbookresources

movie prop

The British Ministry of Defence (MOD) is going to smash up a £3.9bn spy plane because it's obsolete. They can't sell it because no one will buy or those who would be interested, they can't sell it to them because they're the bad guys!

Why smash up a brand new spy plane?
Unite's John Fussey described the dismantling as 'barbaric vandalism'

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is taking £3.9bn worth of new spy planes and smashing them to pieces. Why?

One of the very first cuts Prime Minister David Cameron announced in October's Strategic Defence Review was to terminate the construction of nine Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance aircraft.

Three of the planes are 90% finished. One is complete and ready to take off.

But these Nimrods will never patrol for submarines. Instead, they will be stripped of their components, sliced up in an industrial shredder, and their aluminium melted.

The MoD has begun sawing the aircraft into pieces. It says it will save £2bn of operation costs by axing the Nimrods and using existing aircraft to perform their duties.

But why could these new planes not be sold? Or at the very least, mothballed? Is the UK, to quote one defence analyst, "flushing £4.1bn down the toilet"?

The answer is that the most expensive aircraft ever made for the RAF has almost no commercial value.

"These planes were designed 10 years ago. They are no longer state of the art. Cheaper alternatives are emerging," says Keith Hayward, head of research at the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Continue reading the main story THE ANSWERIt will save £2bn on running costsSelling the planes would be difficult, and mothballing too expensiveScrapping Nimrod fleet 'perverse'
"Who would want to buy them? The only countries who might be interested, we would never sell them to."

Iran, for instance, would not be the ideal customer. And Nato countries are unlikely to need a plane designed to patrol long distances over the Atlantic.

India might be an option. But even so, they would be buying an aircraft "effectively without a warranty", says Tim Ripley, a defence analyst at Jane's.

"If something goes wrong, you need someone back at the factory who can fix it for you. So unless you buy all those engineers back at BAE Systems and the RAF test centre, you are buying a plane without a guarantee."

Mothball costs

Another option - popular with campaigners who are trying to save the Nimrod - is to mothball the planes, keeping them in storage until such a time as the MoD can afford to fly them.

But while the ministry is preparing to do this with an aircraft carrier, it will not keep the Nimrods on ice.

"Storage still incurs a lot of the costs associated with the capability," said an MoD spokesman.

"It was therefore not a cost effective option."

The Nimrod was to patrol for submarines in the Atlantic
The trouble with storage, is that you can't just put the planes back in the hangar and fill them with foam. You also have to pay to keep their crews trained up, says Peter Felstead, of Jane's Defence Weekly.

"Not only the dozen aircrew for each of the nine planes, but also the supporting engineers, plus full technical support and spare parts for all the systems," he explains.

"That cost might be plausible if the Nimrods were part of a larger fleet, some of which were still flying, but they are not."

More importantly, by the time the MoD could afford to bring the planes back out of the hangar, they would be virtually obsolete, says Keith Hayward.

"The electronics on these Nimrods are already out of date. You wouldn't put them in last year's Playstation," he says.

"And of course, the targets you wish to spy on may well have changed. They could have a greater degree of stealth."

For the money it would cost to restore the Nimrods, the government might be better off buying a new generation of spy planes, says Elizabeth Quintana, of the Royal United Services Institute.

"In the not too distant future, you could do the same job as a Nimrod with a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)," she says. "There may be cheaper alternatives."

Scrap metal

So what is to become of the Nimrods - the last British combat aircraft ever to be built?

Are there any nuts and bolts from 100,000lb (45,000kg) of hardware that can be salvaged, re-used, or sold on?

"Not a great deal, I'm afraid," says Hayward. "The Nimrod's electronic systems are not very advanced compared to what is available today.

"That is the paradox of military development - you will always be outpaced by civil technology."

You might be able to "cannibalise" the engines, he says. "But basically there's nothing there of value bar scrap aluminium."

Continue reading the main story WHO, WHAT, WHY? A part of BBC News Magazine, Who, What, Why? aims to answer questions behind the headlines

Once the insides are gutted, the remains of the aircraft will be taken to an aeronautical "abattoir", says Tim Ripley.

"First, you take a giant industrial cutter, like a pile-driver. Then you hoist it up on a gantry, and smash it down onto the airframe," he explains.

"You gather up the pieces, load them onto lorries and drive them off to the aluminium smelter.

"A few weeks later, they are baked bean tins."

The images of £4.1bn of British engineering being mashed into a pulp are likely to cause consternation for some.

"The government... don't want this to become their iconic image - the sight of this plane being chopped up - like the BSE cull," says Ripley.


I have another idea, instead of smashing it up, why not sell it to the James Bond movie producers? It would make for a nice movie prop to destroy. How about that?

Link to the BBC story

Emergency

I was just reading the Lonely Planet's guide to Malaysia section history. It mentioned that the Emergency was not called a war solely for insurance purposes. Since insurances don't cover acts of war, they still allowed claims on policies that didn't cover riots or civil commotions during the 'Emergency'.

Interesting.

hehe

Quite happy my little project took of. Now that I have started it, this would be fun. Want to see how far I can take this.

anonymous blog

I think I should start another blog where I can really say what I want to say with anonymity. Sometimes there are things I just want to say I also don't want to bear the consequences that comes with it.

It's very different from telling your troubles to a small hole in a tree. No one hears you.

I want to write it and leave it on a blog. I don't care if no one reads it, but if someone does read it... then they would know what I have to say.

Going to do some research on how to do a super anonymous blog.

taking time of facebook

I've decided to take time of Facebook. I have deleted all the bookmarks in my browsers. I've also deleted the FB app on the phone. I was going to suspend the account too but I think I'll leave it as it is for now because some pictures in there are linked to other stuff and people.

Instead, when ever I feel the urge to write or comment on something I'll do it here.

I want to see how long this can go on.

Internal monologues

You probably wouldn't like me if you hear my internal monologues. When I talk to myself, I say the most un-PC (politically correct) thing which I find really funny... well, to me anyway since I like my own sense of humour.

Just today, I was in the elevator and this family with a small girl about 2 years old walks in. After they stepped out and as the door was closing, the girl waved bye to me and smiled. I waved back and smiled back at her.

Then the voice in my head said "oh, as cute as a monkey".

"A monkey!? What? Where did that come from?". There I was, comparing someone's daughter to a monkey. I couldn't hold it in and started laughing.

Mind you, these conversations take place in an instant so before the door closer, I bursted out laughing. The girl's last sight of me was probably me waving at her and smiling and then laughing. Good thing I was the last one in the elevator.

So if you ever see me laughing or smiling to myself, I must have heard something funny in my head... only I can't tell you what it is. It's probably about you... you cute little monkey.

Proton Saga BLM power steering problem

Last week, I finally got my power steering repaired. It took almost a month to get it changed.

A few months ago, I started noticing that my car was making wierd sounds when ever I took a corner. After awhile, the sound started getting louder and louder until I couldn't take it anymore and I made an appointment with Proton at the Mutiara Damansara service centre.

The guy said it was the power steering and it they will change it for free since it's covered under warranty. It was leaking fluid and the resevoir was almost empty. The only problem was that they didn't have the spare part and told me they would call me back when they had one. They topped out the brake fluid and said that should last.

So I waited... and waited. After forgetting about it I called back a few weeks later and the guy said he tried calling me a few times but could never get through. He said, they had the parts for a few weeks already and if I didn't come by the next day, they would have to give it to someone else and order another one. So on the day same, I rushed to the place by 1PM to get it changed.

So after they changed it, I asked the Proton service personnel what happened to the power steering, he said it was probably a manufacturing defect and it was ejecting fluid everytime I made a turn. They also did the alignment for me for free. If I knew they were going to do the alignment for free, I wouldn't have paid for it the last time.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the Proton service. I would rate it 7 out of 10 but I'm only speaking about the Mutiara Damansara service centre. I never been to any other service centre. I find that the staff are always courteous. Even during their lunch break, they take the trouble to find the person I'm looking for which I really appreciate. I'm lucky I guess that I never had any bad experience with Proton.