I just read that Steve Irwin, otherwise known as The Crocodile Hunter, died from a stingray attack. He was filming a documentary in Queensland when he was hit in the chest by a stingray barb. As a Discovery Channel addict I feel that I need to at least pay my respects to the guy, though admittedly I never really enjoyed his shows.
Two nights ago HK experienced a sweet little lightning storm from 10pm to 2am. During that time I took a few (around 200 after deleting a third of them) photos of the storm, inadvertently creating a time-lapse of the tail end of the storm. I've put the album up on my Picasa Web Album. I only managed to capture a few lightning flashes, but it's still amazing to see it captured on film.
Fortress can go kiss my ass. A few months back I saw a double decker advertising the "new" fortress website. As a web developer that was exciting to see...Did they adopt web 2.0 features? Did they introduce an online store (thus becoming the first local major e-commerce store)? I immediately surfed over the www.fortress.com.hk, only to be utterly disappointed by the ridiculous "upgrade" they so triumphantly claimed on several dozen buses in HK. It turns out the new website merely included a facelift, and the most technologically progressive feature they included was a comparison chart (which they stupidly claim as a "new, powerful function") and a locater. The last feature's probably the most useful thing the site offers.
The site's really just a glorified brochure site. It does nothing extraordinary, doesn't enhance the user experience, and doesn't really offer anything to improve the brand. To make matters worse, if you go to several of the categories (for products) you'll find that they only display Fortress products. We all know they sell Miele washers, or Hitachi fridges, but no where on the site does it indicate that such brands are sold in any Fortress stores. So essentially, we have a severely incomplete site, that does nothing more than allow "you to compare up 4 products (wow Fortress...so high tech)" and let you find a store. And to think they probably paid over HK$100k for all this.
I hate the Fortress site.
My parents have been on the hunt for a new place for several months now. Our current apartment at The Astrid just doesn't live up to the grandeur of living in a duplex unit in HK. The gross sq footage is around 1500, but when you throw in those cataclysmically annoying bay windows, and ridiculously large bathroom, and a stairwell, the net sq footage ends up being closer to 1,000. Throw in the lack of built-in closets and you're lucky if you have 900 sq ft.
With the above in mind, lets fast forward to two weeks ago, when our property agent (a wonderful Pheobe Tang from Midland) gives me a call claiming to have a unit to show as at Wylie Court. To give more weight to the importance of this call, I should tell you that my family and I have been sweating Wylie Court for several years now (we used to live there over a decade ago and have never forgotten how great it was). I immediately scheduled an appointment and the next day we were at the apartment complex, waiting to be shown the place. As we walked towards Block D she described the unit.."Unit 1A, Block D" I heard her say. Excuse me? That happens to be the very apartment we sold 10 years ago. Holy shit. Now that's just weird. Here we are, desperate to find an appropriate place within our budget, and of the 80 apartments at Wylie Court the one that happens to open up is OUR OLD PLACE? What are the chances (mathematically, 1/80)? We checked it out, felt surprised more than weird, and as we slowly came to terms with the situation grew to immediately like the place. Needless to say we signed a week later, and we're moving back in at the end of August. Word.
I take back most of the bashing I did a few posts ago about Coldplay. Their cheesiness was overwhelmed by their showmanship, alerting the senses and getting the entire stadium on it's feet. As expected, they put on a brilliant show, and the fact that my section was gated off and in centre front made the concert that much more enjoyable. As Andrea mentioned, we did run into some trouble getting those guys into the pseudo-VIP section, but once they were through we were able to enjoy the show to the fullest. To make things even sweeter, the section wasn't crowded, allowing us to be within a few rows from the stage. Chris Martin is one sweaty bastard.
I have to admit, using the Mac has made me feel like an idiot. All these years hating Apple seems so immature and judgmental. I simply cannot believe how much I've been missing out on all these years. I still think the culture behind Apple is annoying as hell, but the fundamental truth is that the proprietary and third-party software simply just work. My life is easier and more enjoyable to manage because of Quicksilver, Textpander, and Expose. My eyes can relax and feel good about placing their gaze on what has to be one of the most well designed systems on the market. Even something as simple as a instant messaging program (Adium) just works better than those available for the PC.
That said, I have to say the hardware leaves a few things to be desired. For starters, my first MBP came with a bent screen, so the laptop wouldn't close properly. I measured a 3mm gap when closed...large enough for something to wedge itself in and snap the screen off. Next is the heat. What's left to say, other than the fact that when I take my hands away from the keyboard I leave a puddle of sweat behind and my hands and forearm feel numb from the excessive heat. I'm probably going to have to return this and either wait until the conroe based ones come out, or have this "fixed" (read: setup so the fan runs more often) before I start slow-cooking my arms.
To explain the sporadic posts these past few days, I have a few links for Mac users. I've been busy installing and playing around with all the wonderful software so I've been neglecting Kowloon. Sorry.
So, several days ago I bought a Macbook Pro, and naturally it took quite a bit of my time away from The Kowloon. I received the mbp sometime on the 2nd of July, and immediately noticed that the ghetto screen didn't shut all the way. I called Apple and they offered to do an exchange straightaway, no questions asked. All I had to do was repack everything and give the delivery guy the old one in exchange for the new one.
Jump forward a few days, and the delivery guy comes along with a brand new mbp and asks me to sign a few documents. I then offer him the repacked old one, but the guy seems taken aback and proceeds to tell me that he's not responsible for the old one. He then takes the documents and leaves.
Here I am, left with TWO mbps, and the devil on my shoulder telling me to keep them both. Naturally (or unnaturally) I decide to keep the old one until Apple calls me. So that ought to explain the image for this post. And yes, you're seeing Windows Vista Beta 2 running on the old one (on the right). Personally, OS X kicks the crap out of XP, and seems to do a pretty good job of fighting the good fight against Vista. In fact, after playing around with Vista for 5 days, I'm absolutely convinced that OS X is a way better environment. How sad is that? MS has billions for R&D and the best they can come up with is something worse than OS X.
So, to sum things up, I've been gone because I've been unlearning over a decade worth of Windows habits, and familiarizing myself with Mac. So far, it's been an absolute joy. More on this later.
This is a little late to post, but it had to be put up. That look pretty much sums up the end of the Korea vs. Switzerland match. Asia's last hope perished before our very eyes. Long live Portugal.
Is it just me and 23,000 other people who are happy about this bit of news? I was trudging through Digg when I came across this. Yes it sucks we have to wait until 2008, but come on, one of the wittiest shows on tv's coming back on the air. If you're not convinced either go buy the DVD, maybe use BT though that's naughty, or visit YouYTube and watch a few clips. It really does deserve a second chance.
In case you missed it, the first link leads to a /. poll indicating that at least 22,000 people would want to be a bending unit, the type of robot Bender is from Futurama. I know, I'm just a little nerdy.
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