Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The Mornings have come upon us like a swarm of locusts

You know, I enjoy driving. I really do. Spending more than nine to ten months in a country where my driving license doesn't really mean shit to them locals, hasn't granted me an opportunity to show my skills behind the wheel. Not that I have any skills to shout about, with the exception of having spent three years on the road, legally that is.

Well, so there I was driving, doing an errand, and I make a remark to my mom. I say, how long are you going to take at the Telekom's? How many thousand years, given the great bureaucracy of the Malaysian private-public system.

She gives me this look and tells me five to ten minutes. And that I should have some faith in the local system. Its getting somewhere, she replies, though slowly. The system, not her words. And it does happen. Ten minutes is all that it takes.


Very slowly, if you live here. But then again, I have little faith.

Little faith in the way things are here, as compared to the First World Nations of the eh, World. Earth. Granted, we are a developing nation with its quirks, and already do we think we're New York (courtesy of Arrogant Worms' comments on Canada).

So how are we expected to change, if all we do is complain. If all I do is complain and sit on my ass all day and expect things to change for the better. Aside from the occasional noise I make when I sound others through the Information Superhighway. Is that what they call it? I always feel content with naming it the Big Electric Lawnmower Man Universe Thingy, as is with my fondness for bombastic titles and the like.

So it is not only necessary to have faith, but so must one act upon it. God isn't going to do everything for you, you know.

Have I gotten lazier? For some reason, I seem to loathe writing as compared to what I once liked to do before.

Monday, November 14, 2005

I was rifling through my stuff today, and spotted four unopened angpows from about last year or the year before that. 40 dollars in all. Yay me.

Eh

Heineken, Carlsberg, Tiger. Suck.


Watered down drinks. Egh.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Test in the morning

Now that I'm back home after a year in Melbourne, and I return to use TMNet once again. I'll let the test speak out for itself.



Dan Elwell's Broadband Speed Test (unregistered)
Speed Test Report 05/11/13 09:23 - Full test

Test conducted at: 13/11/2005 09:23:21
Test sequence: Full test

Please note that these results are a snapshot of this particular moment. Run the test a few times to ensure maximum accuracy. Although the test has been constructed to be highly accurate, no guarantees can be made to the level of accuracy experienced in everyday use.


Test 1: Ping times to UK servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 300 ms (lower is better)

bbc.co.uk: 396.5 ms
vantage.myby.co.uk: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
f2s.com: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
gnu.teleglobe.net: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
The results of this test indicate no problems.


Test 2: Ping times to European servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 300 ms (lower is better)

rediris.es: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
sunet.se: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
tu-berlin.de: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
Too many server errors occurred therefore this test is inconclusive.


Test 3: Ping times to east-coast USA servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 350 ms (lower is better)

mirrors.ptd.net: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
cs.columbia.edu: 435 ms
dulug.duke.edu: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
rutgers.edu: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
The results of this test indicate no problems.


Test 4: Ping times to west-coast USA servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 300 ms (lower is better)

mirrors.tds.net: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
math.utah.edu: 403 ms
mirrors.tds.net: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
cybertrails.com: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
The results of this test indicate no problems.


Test 5: Ping times to east Asia servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 30 ms (lower is better)

apache.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
meisei-u.ac.jp: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
zentek-international.com: 209.8 ms
opensourcecommunity.ph: 164.3 ms
This result shows serious problems with your ping times, and should be investigated.


Test 6: Ping times to Australian servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 150 ms (lower is better)

froggy.com.au: 128.7 ms
planetmirror.com: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
planetmirror.com: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
mirror.pacific.net.au: 221.5 ms
The results of this test indicate no problems.


Test 7: Ping times to central Asian servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 150 ms (lower is better)

apache.rin.ru: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
oynasana.com: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
apache.fresh.co.il: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
apache.fresh.co.il: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
Too many server errors occurred therefore this test is inconclusive.


Test 8: Download speeds from UK servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 1024 Kb/s (higher is better)

apache.rmplc.co.uk: 59 Kb/s

This result shows serious problems with your downloads, and should be investigated.


Test 9: Download speeds from east-coast USA servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 1024 Kb/s (higher is better)

mirrors.ccs.neu.edu: 64 Kb/s

This result shows serious problems with your downloads, and should be investigated.


Test 10: Download speeds from east-Asia servers
Ideally, you should get a result of around 1024 Kb/s (higher is better)

zentek-international.com: 343 Kb/s

This result shows serious problems with your downloads, and should be investigated.


Test 11: Upload speeds to the Speed Test Server
Ideally, you should get a result of around 384 Kb/s (higher is better)
Not conducted: You must register this software in order to perform this test.


Test 12: Packet loss en route to a UK server
Ideally, you should get a result of around 0 % (lower is better)

linx.net: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.

0800dial.com: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
Too many server errors occurred therefore this test is inconclusive.


Test 13: Packet loss en route to an east-coast USA server
Ideally, you should get a result of around 0 % (lower is better)

dulug.duke.edu: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
unet.brandeis.edu: 38 %
An unacceptable level of packet loss has been detected which should be investigated.


Test 14: Packet loss en route to an east-Asian server
Ideally, you should get a result of around 0 % (lower is better)

stu.edu.tw: 42 %
apache.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw: This test failed due to a server timeout or other error.
An unacceptable level of packet loss has been detected which should be investigated.



End of testing.

This report was collated using Dan Elwell's Broadband Speed Test. For more information or to download, please visit www.broadbandspeedtest.net.

Generated 13/11/2005 09:23:28 using test version 3.0.316 - unregistered COPY




TMNet. Gah.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Guess and figure out

Okay, so they haven't stopped going to mamak. No young Malaysian adult with a right mind would do that. They just stopped going to the usual drinking hole that we would have frequented about a year ago. Not much of a loss.


Now, I'm branded as an alcoholic. Isn't that sublime?

Thursday, November 10, 2005

To come and fall short

I'm disappointed. A little.


My friends here have stopped going to mamak. Waaah!

Friday, November 04, 2005

In the Name of the Banner

I found a name, ooh ooh!


Blue Hand and the Single Medium of Perception.



I'm going to name things this way. It sounds so much cooler.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Writings on the Wall

There used to be a few posters on the walls of my rectangular-sized room, starring the Ministry of Silly Walks and Bruce Willis as Hartigan. Metallica's Ride the Lightning sits near a corner, the graffiti palm sits on the table to my left, a couple of Planetshakers posters in sporadic parts, a seventeenth-centuryesque map of a Spanish main near the bed, some stuff drawn by a friend, concept art you'd find on a graphics card -RADEON-, some intruiging bottlecaps stuck near the light and the Dancing Badger to my right.

All taken down with the exception of the graffiti palm, which isn't hanging but resting against the wall with the table for foundations.



I have yet to give it a name, being original and all, though I wonder what the artist had in mind when he drew that thing. iPalm, just sounds a bit too corny, and nerdy.


But why am I taking them all down? Well, I'm moving, of course. Away from this place where I don't have to share a kitchen and toilet(s) with a host of perhaps 17 others.


And I'm tired. So, so tired.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

And then there are some

There seems to be a bit of a scandal over the Net these days, and it has to do with a number of web journalists in all their worth saying what they want and how they feel like it.

Well, not everyone is saying what they want, but rather just one or two very outspoken ones that seem to spark flames with their posts. And then because these few not only have very fulfiling lives, this uses the term "Putting out flames with gasoline," simply because a lot of people are jealous and have a sense of prick pride.

Oh, and did I mention that this particular one who not only is outspoken and has a seemingly-very-fulfilling life have no prick? Whatever makes you happy calling it a Peter, dick, cock or pet dragon. A she, mind you. And there is a disturbance in the blogness of the world (or at least the Malaysian-Singaporean side), where some dislike to her happy happy life, telling her that it isn't right for her to make a daily report on how happy she is, because she reminds them so much of the unhappy lifestyles that they have.

While some of them are indeedly jealous, there are some that are unhappy with her such as this particular fellow, who recently took offense to her opinions on whether the normal should use handicapped toilets or not.

While it isn't much of my problem to highlight the situation concerning, it is interesting to note how far we have come in the Internet and the purposeness of blogging. Once, blogging was limited to HTML pages written out by very aspiring people back in the old days where Google was limited and porn was in an abundance. These days, Google has grown and so too has online porn.


Everybody these days has a blog.


Yup, nothing to it. You leave the technology and design to the webmasters, and you can set away typing whatever you feel like typing with freedom at your fingertips. Well, maybe not so anymore, but in every aspect, you have more power of expression than lets say a column in the newspaper and still have the potential to be served to more than just the local populace.

And in every form of media that has come to pass, there has always been a sort of crisis surrounding it. Or a revolution as you might say. Like the transition of monochrome televisions to full-colour, smoke signals to FM, Morse to the Internet, stone slabs to newspapers. And so has blogging come a long way, if has taken not more than a number of years to evolve.

And there are crisises, problems arising from the idea of blogging. Freedom of speech, the one reason that separates the natural world from the virtual. Now that barrier is vanishing, turning into a thin red line where governments seek to control various portions of the Internet. After all, aren't the servers located in their own country, and wouldn't they have every right to limit what should and what should not be?


And so begins the blog wars.


There are many sides to this. There is no Axis and Allies, Warriors of Light and Darkness to this, really. A sign of times that when a conflict arises, there is no such thing as the good guys versus the bad guys anymore.

You have on one side the fellows saying what they want (1), speaking the unwritten rule of the Internet: Say what you want. There are those who feel that the former should be like them (2), and say things within their boundaries, that not everything is to be said, that the Internet should apply to the conforms of society. And then you have another group (3) that seeks to speak on the politics of the real world, such as Malaysia-Today, for example (which are in my opinion, very news-worthy sites. Will speak more on this some other day). Lastly, you do have the majority of mild-mannered (4) (those who aren't involved, such as I) people who just make their way day-to-day.

And then you have the government(s) (5).

So you have Party Number One at war with Party Number Two, and vehemently so. Then you have Party Number Three engaging in an interesting guerilla war with Party Number Five, and the latter trying what they can to stifle the former. In both fronts, you have the members of Party Number Four who are really residents of neutral countries but are more than willing to become mercenaries or supporters of one of the other four parties, most likely because they believe in a cause, or are just there to toss more gasoline on the fire.

Of course you have those that are ignorant of this and seem aloof, but nobody really cares about them or writes about them because they aren't very interesting. Boring people aren't much fun.



So what is the moral of this story? Well, nothing yet. They say history is written by the victors, so we're just going to see what comes next then, eh?