Geekdom

Feisal's Law of Internet Opinions

The Recycled Bits Factory — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:58:00 GMT

Feisal's Law of Internet Opinions
(with a tip of the hat to Sir Isaac Newton)

Everyone has one, and will keep having the same opinion regardless of what anyone else says
Sometimes, a strong force of indisputable fact may be able to change an opinion
For every opinion there will be an equally strong opposing opinion

Inter cathedra et pulpitus...

The Recycled Bits Factory — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 17:37:00 GMT

Inter cathedra et pulpitus reae culpae est ;)

Calendaruminations

The Recycled Bits Factory — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:21:00 GMT

Let me say first off I have nothing against cows. Love 'em, especially bar-b-cued ribs ;) I don't mind them alive either they are generally benign creatures and go about their business without bothering anyone. And those warm brown eyes can melt anyone's heart (so long as they aren't working in the abbattoir)

The other day I was just around Borders - and being close to the end of the year they had a calendar stall outside of the shop in the main lobby of Wheelock. Most of the calendars on display are beautiful - especially the dragons. Scenery, sunsets are OK. The Dilbert calendar is great.

But the Cow Calendars have me completely stumped.

I mean, who is the target market here?

Farmers? so they can hang one in the barn where Betsy sleeps? (yeah, like they'd bother)

Housewives? so they can hang one in the kitchen to gaze fondly at when they slice up.. er, Betsy.

Maybe steakhouses. "Your T-Bone was in THIS cow!"

Oh, maybe you can hang one in the living room so that when your friends come to dinner they'll know who they are carving up.

Seriously folks... Cats and Dogs are pretty cute, horses can be elegant and beautiful, but I'd prefer not to have that cow looking over my shoulder when I'm digging into a steak. Especially when some months feature nude udders.

I'd really really love to see the sales figures of the calendars... and I'm really curious. If you do buy one, let me know where you hang it? Oh.. you gave it as a Christmas present! For heaven's sake what were you thinking? Probably not, is what I think.

The Global Café years - The Interview

The Recycled Bits Factory — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 01:22:00 GMT

Back in 1996, there were very few internet cafés in the world. One of the first few well known ones - Cyberia - opened in London in 1994, but it would be a few years before everyone would become used to the internet. One of the owners of Cyberia, Nigel Foster, told me this story:

"I invited one of my ex-colleagues at IBM to have coffee and look at the WWW. By way of a demonstration I pulled up a weather map from Australia and showed it to him. He refused to believe it was an actually on a computer in Australia, and suspected instead, that we had a file server in the back office serving up the maps."

Nigel later sold his shares in Cyberia and started Global Café, and this was where I came into orbit. I had joined a company in KL which had acquired the franchise for Global Café in Kuala Lumpur, and went to Genève — ostensibly to observe the operations, but ended up helping them set it up.

Genève is a brilliant place for Global Café to start - it's the birthplace of the WWW, and hugely international community surfing right on the edge of the technology. Being Genève, the clientèle wasn't just anyone either. One day the Peruvian UN Ambassador walked in and was hooked for the whole day.

Plus they had the International university there, so all the café assistants (not only to serve coffee, but more importantly help people start surfing) were students at the U. There were girls from Sweden, Mexico, US, England, Spain, Venezuela — so that anyone who walked in could easily be speaking their mother tongue.

Back in KL, (and to our story…) I started interviewing candidates for the positions available in our setup. This particular interviewee is a diploma holder in computer science with experience in F&B (specified in the advertisements, and the CV fit)

Me: OK, what are you doing now?
Interviewee: I'm studying in a Computer Science degree program at ITM. The course is better than any local university computer science course.
(Me, thinking) really.. I graduated in Computer Science from a local university
Me: Has this course started, and can you take on the job, if you are offered?
Interviewee: Yes it started 3 weeks ago, and it will be half days so I can spend afternoons at the café
Me: What were you doing after graduation and before this course?
Interviewee: I worked in a hotel
Me: In what capacity?
Interviewee: Programmer
Me: Doing what, exactly?
Interviewee: Writing programs
DOH!
Me: (exasperated) Yes of course, but what systems - front office, back office, F&B, reservations?
Interviewee: Uh, I can't remember
what? this was just 3 weeks ago!
Me: What language were you using?
Interviewee: English!

Who was the smart aleck?

The Recycled Bits Factory — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:14:00 GMT

<rant>Tell me. Who was the smart aleck that told everyone computers could do everything for you automatically on a press of a button? Worse still, everyone believed him. I'd like to give him a tight slap upside the head. Twice.

I know its a tiresome analogy, but… imagine this, your average car salesman tells you that there's this new car you should buy, just fill in petrol and you can go anywhere. So the average Joe buys the car, fills in gas and gets inside. But the car doesn't go anywhere! Huh??!! Bloody lying bastard salesman.

Nooo, you gotta fill in gas, turn the key, start the engine press the pedal and drive. Keep an eye on the speedometer, fuel gauge and oil level, temperature gauge, listen to the radio and yak on the spanking new mobile phone at the same time. And, the car doesn't even tell you what's happening all in one place. The gauges are all over the dashboard, plus you have to keep your eye on the road. Oh, and by the way, you have to have a driving license.

What is amazing is most people can manage this not even having to think about it. How many times have you driven somewhere and only noticed you are there and not remembering how the drive went?

So, anyway… same guy buys a computer and what happens? The salesman said… oh, sure.

Don't bother to learn to drive. Don't start the engines. Don't keep an eye on the speedometer. Don't bother to look at the gauges. Don't even bother to fill in gas.</rant>

What is not a diary?

The Recycled Bits Factory — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 14:01:00 GMT

Mankind discovers blogging

Years and years ago, when caveman Ugg discovered he could make marks on the stone wall of his cave he decided to write down what he did that day. Not everything of course, though I wonder why — there are tons of cave drawings depicting killing animals, but i'm pretty sure they did a lot of screwing around those days too. Fortunately there was no TV, or the human race would have gone extinct then.

I mean lets face it, there wasn't much else to do. Sleep, find food, eat, f*ck. Before fire, there wasn't even cooking involved. Maybe the paleontologists are keeping quiet about these other prehistoric cave doodlings to themselves, you think? But I digress…

Anyone and his brother could walk into the cave anytime and peek at these drawings and see what Ugg had been doing — even without the concept of dates, they could probably tell when Ugg did what. Even though mostly these drawings were of interest to just Ugg himself everyone moseyed along, read his blog and sometimes even admired his work of art.

Pretty soon however, Ugg decided he also wanted to doodle some private thoughts he was having about Ugee, but he didn't want anyone to be able to see them. The back of the cave was no good… not enough light and if anyone should ever discover them it would be difficult, to say the least.

Ugah: Interesting drawing.
Ugg: Er, mmm uh.. erm
Ugah: It's turning me on just looking at it... hey, is that my sister? Why, you...!!

Worse, he could get killed by Ugee's maniac neanderthal big brother, Ugah.

Ugg just had to find something else to write his dirty thoughts on, and the concept of diaries was born. He got quite good at hiding them, although if Ugah ever found one both Ugg and his diary would be er, history. We might never know, as no paleontologists have ever discovered a diary. All they keep finding are blogs.

We're Live!!!

Feisal Kamil — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 03:10:00 GMT

Yeah! it's finally live. Games Xtreme League (v3.0) is finally launched. Not without a last minute scare though ;)

If you read the GXL mechanism, you'll see why this project was interesting. or maybe not…

The terminator project

Feisal Kamil — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 21:02:00 GMT

ugh, ever have any one of those? the ones that — despite you putting them to bed once (and you cheerfully think) for all — opens a glowing red eye and growls ominously “I'll be back”. I haven't seen a weekend for months, and God knows how CK put up with me not being mentally at home (oh wait…)

Tonight I'm hoping that it's out the door, finally (hope I'm not speaking too soon!). It's not that I won't be working on it ever again, but post launch support isn't like being interminably in development, chasing shadows calling themselves “targets”. Let's not start on Project Management cr*p, now ok? Everyone knows no-one's to blame in these cases and the client, bless their damned souls, is always right.

Actually it'll be three websites this week, hopefully. The AFC Champions League from the day job launched yesterday in its new livery, and starts a new season tomorrow. Not quite the European Champions League, but the talent is there. After last season's awesome comeback by Saudi Arabia's Al-Ittihad in the two legged final, this seasons matches are surely going to be as fiercely contested.

It's a lot different in Europe, the countries — and teams playing each other in the UCL — are but a stone's throw away (even then a certain Mr Bergkamp refuses to fly, so there goes the retirement plan in the J-League). The ACL spans the whole of Asia, which is why the initial group stages have been set up regionally. And the final has to be two-legged… even if you are a die-hard Persebaya fan, you're not likely to make the trek to a pre-set location halfway across the wrold.

Then by Friday the new-look Standard Chartered Singapore Sevens 2005 (to call it by its full name) website goes live. Haven't played rugby for years and much less than football, but I have more memories of rugby games than I do football. (reminder to self: must put them down somewhere, sometime before I totally lose it).

It's generally philosophically a much less serious affair, rugby. During the opening ceremony of the Hong Kong Sevens, all the teams march past in their national kits etc. The last group out will be wearing dark glasses and carrying a blind-man's stick each. These, of course are the “Oi!! Are you blind??!!?” refs. Ever see this in a world-class football tournament? Thought not.

But I digress.. uhm... yes.. the terminator project. grrr! whew! pwease pwease pwease launch! I'll post the URL if ~~when~~ if when we go live.

Oh, no I'm stuck...

Feisal — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:18:00 GMT

.. think I shouldn't have started this. Now I'm stuck in the blog engine and wanting to find out how everything works. (loads of fun, by the way, but it'll lead to sleepless nights)

Maybe a skin or two in the meantime ~ the current skins are nice but somewhat too geeky for CK ;)