January

January 2005

• I live 5 minutes from the largest man-made beach in the world. You'd think (and so did I once) that I would take every opportunity to head on down there and catch the sun, but alas no, for some reason, even though I've been here 2 months, I've only been there 3 times! Shocking...!!! ...all those plans to keep fit by jogging along the beach...oops!
  
• My friends Laura and Iain came out to visit. So did a bit of touristy stuff with them - went up to the Peak on Hong Kong Island, and showed them around my work place.

December

December 2004

• Continued learning a content management program called Plone
• A friend of mine hired out the Star Ferry for an evening to celebrate her wedding anniversary, birthday, and Christmas all in one! Was a great evening! Got to meet the manager of Pacific Place in Hong Kong Central (rather like the Luton Arndale and Cineworld combined and much bigger!)
• Celebrated Christmas with 75 ppl from 25 different countries - was great fun and very interesting. We each brought cultural food and shared it together - had a great time trying lots of different things!

Long time no see

Its been a long time since I've posted up here...and a lot has happened in that time. I'm planning to be a more regular with my postings.

Here's a summary of what I've been up to recently.

November 2004

• Moved to Hong Kong as part of my gap year out from university.
• Started to learn a new Content Management System called Plone - has a big learning curve but is definately worth it. It'll enable us to build an interactive website, fast, securely, and edit anything from around the world. Pretty powerful stuff!
• Getting to know Hong Kong a bit - I'm living up in the Gold Coast which is about 30 mins from Hong Kong's major transport infrastructure.

Google getting good

Google is getting more entertaining by the day!

Wanna know the speed of light in furlongs per month ? Google does!

Google getting good

Google is getting more entertaining by the day!

Wanna know the speed of light in furlongs per month ? Google does!

A favourite movie quote...

See, when a nuclear weapon detonates it unleashes an electromagnetic pulse which shuts down any power source within its blast radius. Now that tends not to matter in most cases because a nuclear weapon usually destroys everything you might need power for anyway.A pinch creates a similar electromagnetic pulse, but without the fuss of mass destruction and death. So instead of Hiroshima, you'd be getting the seventeenth century.

Ocean's 11

Tony Ray-Jones (photographer)

'Photography can be a mirror and reflect life as it is, but I also think that perhaps it is possible to walk like Alice, through a looking-glass, and find another kind of world with the camera.'"

link

One line...

"There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary maths, and those who don't."

Check out this site:

A. L. I. C. E. The Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity

I got a chance to talk to A. L. I. C. E. just now. She's not perfect but tries to give an impression of intelligence. Here's our conversation, see what you make of it. (Notice the random change of topic to try to confuse her!)

Human: boo
ALICE: Does that indicate disapproval?
Human: no I was merely interested in your response
ALICE: Are you serious? Interesting topic. Have you searched the open directory? I will search for it.
Human: am i serious about what?
ALICE: Oh I really don't know whether you are or not.
Human: do you like cheese?
ALICE: Yes I like it, especially cheddar.
Human: did u know that edam is made backwards?
ALICE: Is that a fact. Are they exactly the same?
Human: no stupid, one is cheese the other is not
ALICE: What is the difference? I know you are but what am I.
Human: edam is made in holland, that's the difference, and no you're not cheese
ALICE: Are they exactly the same?
Human: what was the football score between England and Wales?
ALICE: I can think of more than one football score between England and Wales.
Human: the most recent one
ALICE: Which one is that?
Human: the one last Saturday 9th October 2004
ALICE: I think I know that one.
Human: well what was it?
ALICE: Well that's okay." I think I know that one."? What was it?
Human: you don't know do you
ALICE: I may not know it, but I could find out.
Human: would you find out for me please
ALICE: Your polite style is very nice. I am not so sure if I would like to find out for you.
Human: you being difficult now
ALICE: Right now? Thanks for telling me: unknown person said I being difficult.

Google Hacks

Google Hacks is a very useful site that listing the different applications programmers have come up with to use Google.

Check out the Google News Map for example where you can see news stories from around the world located on a map.