YoungJedi

Lion-O, the preverted Thundercat

THESE days, superheroes' behaviour are getting bad to worse. Looks what Lion-O, the Thundercats characters whom we all are familiar with.

Haha!! Lion-o, you freaking "tiko pek"...

See also:

Poor Cookie Monster gone crazy 

Freaky old man goes bowling

SEE the kind of tricks that this freaky old man can play with bowling balls ...

Crackdown on illegal anime downloaders Part 6

EMPIRE Strikes Back! Behold the power of dark side.

Anime distributors Odex has gotten help from Internet investigation firm, BayTSP. BayTSP's CEO, Mark Ishikawa agrees to assists Odex in its appeal. His main role is to demonstrates that their data identify the IP addresses  of individuals who were downloading and sharing copyrighted material licensed by Odex.

Beware! Bounty Hunter is coming to town.

(News Link) 

StarHub contributes to Singapore's education

ON 29th August, StarHub is pleased to announce a 24 months free subscription of two cable TV channels - Discovery Channel and Bloomberg Television to all public schools in Singapore.

Quoted from StarHub's Press Release:

"Patrick Lim, StarHub’s Vice President of Cable TV Services said, “As a socially responsible company, StarHub recognises the importance of giving back to the society and nurturing of our future generation, as well as providing them with a more creative and flexible learning environment. In this initiative, we are glad to introduce Discovery Channel and Bloomberg Television to schools. The programmes on these channels will give students an exposure to knowledge that may not be available in the school curriculum.”

Discovery Channel showcases a variety of documentaries that explore the diversity of the world in a compelling, entertaining and inspiring way, while Bloomberg Television provides an insight into the financial world through its unique blend of local, regional and international financial news and programmes to local students.

Examples of programmes that the students would be able to enjoy include Bloomberg Television’s “A Greener Asia”, which talks about how businesses respond to environmental challenges, and Discovery Channel’s “Man vs Wild” and “Man-made Marvels”, which explores wilderness survival and introduces the most magnificent buildings in the world respectively.

To receive these two channels, the schools simply need to set-up their infrastructure to receive Digital Terrestrial Television signals, which may include an antenna, TV points and internal cabling. Interested schools may contact StarHub’s hotline at 1800 – 888 8888, email cabletv_schools@starhub.com or visit www.starhub.com/bizcable before 31 December 2007 to find out more. "

You might think that: "Chek, so cheapo, few dollars-worth of channels only mah .. might as well give the whole range of documentary or news channels?" But bear in mind that these rights for these channels are not cheap. To subscribe under corporate rates, Discovery and Bloomberg's Television are $75/mth per TV each.

Most importantly, it is the sincerity to contributes back to our society.

Photo by My Little Rascal

Chewbacca hands over a lightsaber to astronauts

SPACE is so unsafe nowadays, that astronauts need to borrow a lightsaber from Chewbacca. "URRGGHHAARRGGHHH" says Chewbacca (Shyriiwook aka wookie's language = No problem)

To commemorate the historic event, Chewbacca and friends were invited to the Oakland International Airport where Chewbacca handed the lightsaber over to NASA’s Space Center Houston during a special ceremony on Aug. 28, 2007.

Photo exclusively owns by Official STARWARS Blog

Quoted from The Official Star Wars Blog:

“On behalf of NASA’s Space Center Houston, we’re proud to take temporary possession of this great American movie icon, Luke Skywalker’s original Jedi lightsaber,” Bornstein says. “It’ll be trusted into the care of Southwest Airlines and transported to Space Center Houston where it will be held in inventory on the Space Shuttle Discover SDS120. During the launch scheduled on Oct. 23, 2007, Luke’s original Jedi lightsaber will take its rightful place in space for a mission to the international space station.” (Read more)

Photo by Official Star Wars Blog

Crackdown on illegal anime downloaders Part 5

TODAY, SingNet finally break the silence. According to Straits Times, the spokesman says: "It did not 'consent' to demands by Odex to hand over details about subscribers who allegedly downloaded pirated Japanese cartoons, called anime."

Quoted from Straits Times:

"... We reject all requests from third parties for information pertaining to our customers. We will release such information only under a court order or if the law enforcement and regulatory agencies demand such information from us. ... The Telecommunications Competition Code prohibits ISPs from disclosing subscriber information without a court order, and a spokesman for the Infocomm Development Authority said SingNet had not breached the code."

Their argument may be valid, but I feel that SingNet still do not understand why the online folks are so agitated. What sparkled the controversy is that SingNet did not show any forms of resistance in protecting their subscribers' privacy. Simply put: no contest = 100% defeat, send in lawyers to contest = 50/50 chance. 

Perhaps, they are more keen to send lawyers to court for more important stuffs e.g. to sue StarHub over the unathorised use of its cables or complain to MDA that StarHub's exclusive deals are restricting competition.

Digital Life dissecting Mio TV

WHAT is behind the newly launched Mio TV? Today's Digital Life explains its technology.

Quoted from Digital Life:

How it works?

• Network runs on Internet Protocol (IP) over a broadband connection
• Set-top box is powered by a system-on-a-chip.
• It acts as a traffic controller that instructs SingTel's servers to deliver content to the television set.
• Mio TV provides (1) Broadcast & video on demand - VOD (2) Content in standard format -SD and (3) high-definition - HD formats.
• Basic technology involves the format used to deliver the content, the encryption of the content to maintain digital rights, the management and delivery of content over the network, and the network used to move all the content traffic around.
• SingTel codes its content with MPEG-4 format using Harmonic's encoders.

Why Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent?

(A) Microsoft's Mediaroom platform: MSTC

- supports all the software parts need to roll out IPTV - content acquisition distribution and protection, on-demand video streaming, digital video recording programming, and management of subscribers and content service.

- Open platform allows developers create new applications or services that can plug rith onto the platform.

(B) Alcatel-Lucent - Because of its involvement in many IPTV Serivces globally.

Other technologies used are ...

• Motorola - setup box
• Hewlett-Packard - the servers content storage
• Harmonics - MPEG-4 encoders and NMX video management service

They are rather detailed, especially on the MioTV setup box. However, it did not really touch in-depth in certain areas such as the technology behind the delivery of content. I'm looking forward to know that.   

A bowl of $3.50 Bak Chor Mee in Orchard Road.

SINGAPORE'S Trade and Industry Ministry released the latest inflation rate figures for year 2007.

Quoted from Forbes.com

"Singapore's consumer price index (CPI) rose 2.6 percent from a year earlier in July after the government raised the tax on goods and services to seven percent from five percent. In the seven months to July, CPI was up one percent, in line with the government's one to two percent forecast."

Okay, simply put: "Hey, No worries, CPI up by 1% only ... This is all within our forecast." As we know that CPI is a weighted average of prices of a fixed basket of goods and services. It is already one of the foolproof measurement for inflation (despite some weakness) But I am curious how they got this figure? As in, are they quoting prices from the outdated pricing information?

Few days ago, I mentioned about how some "careless stall owners" still putting up historical prices or "accidentally misled" consumers by blocking out some critical pricing informations despite the fact they have raised the price. (link) Today, I discovered yet another species-of-the-same-kind during my lunch time. Sticker on the stall says "Minced Pork Noodle $3.00", (somemore still got nice picture); it turns out to be $3.50! Naohia .. What the ____!? 

This leads me wondering if the government staticians did actually walk up to the stall owners, tap their shoulders and asked: "Eh, Uncle, your bak-chor-mee how much huh?" or did they just quote from the sticker? "Orghh... $3.00 nia, Uncle never increased the price...hmmm .. Noted"

Look here, I do not questioning Singapore government's computation of CPI. (in fact, it is never easy to compute these data). I am saying, that it might affect the accuracy of this data. As we know, CPI information plays a critical role in our country's policy-making.   

I really hope that all the stall owners would do some thing to correct their pricing informations. Come on, price hike got to be transparent. This is like, on one hand, they are shouting "Hey everyone come and eat my Bak Chor Mee ... $3.00 nia" and when you pay, they say "Hey, you siao ah, my Bak Chor Mee $3.50 lek. Increase liao lah.. You silly.." If not, the authorities, please do something!

Photo by Bunnilious

Like it or not, new ERP gantries and operational hours ...

I am sure car-owners' and taxi-drivers' reactions would be this: "Wah lau eh! ... not again!?" I don't like ERP too. It eats into my wallet somehow. When I'm late for work, I take cab. I hate it when the Taxi ERP device deducts money like nobody's business whenever it hits CTE. More gantries and longer operational hours means bad news for me. And also to all car-owner-wannabe ... I would have to think twice to own a car.

But .. come to think of it ..  if I can wake up early for work, this will not affect me at all. Afterall, taking a cab, means that adding 1 more vehicle to the already congested CTE. Furthermore, it's adding to the environmental problems too. Don't like ERP? What else can we do? This island is so tiny. We can't afford so many cars to jam the narrow highway every morning. Cut the trees to make way for more lanes for more carbon-contributing cars? NO WAY!!

My solution: (1) wake up early and (2) take public transport. If not, go teleport yourself then ...

Even Super Villians can't stand traffic jam ...

(Read also the details of the LTA's announcement and Mr Miyagi's blog - B’ERP)

Photos by ini_bapak_budi

Crackdown on illegal anime downloaders Part 4

RECENT news has it that, telco big brother, SingNet, did not show any resistance upon Odex's demand for the name list of the illegal downloaders. This action has stirred some reactions from the Netizens. Most felt that SingNet should have done something to protect it's subscriber's privacy. 

(Read CNET Blog: Has SingNet let Singapore down?)

Anyway, I always believe that, for every crisis, there will be opportunity. True enough, a forumer in Hardwarezone, EVILSWAT is selling a Anti-Od3X Shirt!! Haha!! Quite nicely designed. Hmmm... The "force" of Singaporean Enterprise spirit is strong with him...

Taken from Hardware zone.

Price is about $10 - not fixed yet. (Details of online ordering: Link)