Archive for August, 2005

XBOX and Forza

Published by
James
at 14:41 HKT Aug 30, 2005 in Entertainment. 0 Comments

Forza, XBOX’s car racing “simulation” game.

As a game, Forza is fun and has some nice and some not so nice user interface. Default’s double “gun trigger” gas and brake control is nice to be able to apply brakes and gas at the same time as oppose to the either-or PS/2 style joystick control.

As a simulation, it isn’t much of it. Perspectives are wrong. One can either sit in a car as high as on top of roof or as low as a F1 in a regular sports sedan. When the high view is used, the car runs by the sceneries very slowly with the speedometer going faster than the sceneries. In the low view, the sceneries is much faster; however, the acceleration of the car as indicated on the speedometer seems to be much slower than the actual car could do. When you hit the side wall at any speed, the car always turns at least 180 degree on a dime right against the wall every time as if there was no engine compartment at all! Engine sound is not so realistic.

All-in-all, PS/2’s GT4, as it should be, is a much more mature simulation than Forza. Forza however does have a much better game save management for individual players though.

Technical Jargons

Published by
James
at 16:03 HKT Aug 29, 2005 in AudioVisual. 0 Comments

The Altec Lansing FX6021 2.1 speaker system has what it is called the 1” “Neodymium” micro drivers.

What would they have called their woofer? “Babastreisonic“?

Bastards!

Published by
James
at 11:47 HKT Aug 26, 2005 in News. 1 Comment

It is reported last evening, a 7 year old boy was walking home with his grandma after his tutorial session when two 20 year-ish old men armed with knives pinned the boy on the ground and slashed the boy 6-7 times as if they were trying to chop off the boy’s arm(s). The boy is hospitalized in critical condition last night to serious condition this morning. Police are investigating the boy’s father’s heavy betting habits and loan situations. The two men got away with only the two knives found in the woods.

Find the bastards and give them the chair or the guillotine!

Feed the dogs!

I’m not grumpy, I AM PISSED OFF!!!

Building Guard

Published by
James
at 11:28 HKT Aug 26, 2005 in misc. 0 Comments

The guard supervisor of our office building is on sick leave due to a heart condition which he will decide whether he will continue working or retire in another 2-1/2 month’s time. So we hired a new guard who is responsible for the 7-4 morning shift.

Every morning when I come back to the office, this new guard would see me half a block away, sitting there waiting for me to get close to the building entrance and get up to press the button for the lift for me. He would just sit there and wait for me until I almost get to the lift doors and beat me to the button by 2 inches.

In hopes of saving energy, our lifts stay on the last stopped floor until the next call. This morning, the closer lift was on the 9/F - not far different from most other mornings.

VoIP

Published by
James
at 1:50 HKT Aug 25, 2005 in Computing. 0 Comments

Update (25 Aug 11:38am) : OK, found out why I was only able to make that one single 8″45 free call to my friend in Vancouver, Canada. The answer was right in front of Gizmo’s front page too. Each new account user gets a 25 cents (US?) free credit to try out the Gizmo to conventional phone quality. After that, one must purchase more credits to make calls to conventional phones.

Although Gizmo can be used to call other VoIP and SIPphone systems, some for free, some with charges depending on how the middle of the line is setup, I still haven’t found a way to send and receive calls to Google Talk. Gizmo has some pros and cons over Google Talk.

Plus - Gizmo can record calls and assign subject title to each recorded calls for future references. It has a way to call many other VoIP systems as well as conventional and cell phones. Sign up for the service and installation of the client is very simple - even more so than Google Talk where Gizmo accepts new account applications instantly right on the client and Google Talk requires a gmail account which may still be by invitation only.

Cons - Gizmo takes much too long to login to the system after a logout whereas Google Talk’s login is almost instantaneous. Gizmo has no link to your email client whereas Google Talk in linked to your gmail account and can be accessed with just a touch of a button. Google Talk also has live typed messages along with the voice call at the same time making it easier for dual media communications.

Update (25Aug 02:13am) : While I have no other Gizmo members that I can call to at this moment, I made a call to my friend’s mobile phone who currently resides in Vancouver, Canada. The first attempt got disconnected as soon as my friend answered his mobile phone. The second call worked so well that it was connected much faster than the conventional mobile to mobile long distance call and clearer reception as well! It ended with a message saying my call requires a call credit account after about 8 min 45 sec of a free call! I haven’t been able to reconnect again at this moment and it’s getting late. Will try more tomorrow.

——————-

Upon Tin’s recommendation I have tried Google Talk momentarily. It’s great but it doesn’t have a Mac client.

Here is Gizmo. And according to MacSlash, Gizmo is supposed to “interoperates with other VoIP clients and messaging protocols (including the new Google Talk)”. What’s more, while Gizmo is also free with a PC version it does also have a free Mac version which I am currently downloading.

We’ll see how Gizmo works.

Wolves. Wolves. Wolves.

Published by
James
at 23:39 HKT Aug 24, 2005 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

Every time the fire alarm sounds, several tenants call me and ask what’s going on. I work on the second highest floor with the fire alarm control panel on the grand floor. If every time the alarm sounds I had to answer say just 5 of these calls simultaneously and immediately, how am I suppose to call my guards to find out which floor sounded the alarm and in time to go check it out? My answer to them each an every time was “I don’t know, get the hell out while you still can.”, as I go down the stairs myself only to find out even after 15 minutes none that called came down. I am no prophet, nor am I Mr. Incredible. I don’t want to spend the possibly last few minutes of my life worrying fools’ lives.

This afternoon was no different. A smoker’s live cigarette triggered the smoke detector. The fire alarm system worked precisely what it was designed to. They called, I told them all to get out of the building, only one out of no less than 50 did. As I got to the first floor, two guys came up the stairs. I asked them where they are going and they simply said the lifts were not working when they wanted to go upstairs while the fire alarm rang loudly though out the building that the entire block was made aware of it. Lifts didn’t work - no kidding! There is possibly a fire in the building, get the hell out!

The fact is, not only does the fire alarm works fine with only 3 true faults in its 13 year life span, it had gone through a full yearly system checkup and maintenance just a month ago which everyone is aware of.

A fire alarm to me works when it sounded and warned off whatever anyone was doing which triggered the alarm before one kept doing so and resulted in a true fire - not after a fire has started. So, in ideal situation, when an alarm sounded there should be no fire at all to be found. In case of a true fire, it could have been too late to call me, and I am not in my office 24/7, sorry.

Tenants replied they are too busy to worry about false alarms but their sense of “real” alarm could have been fatal. Truly “have time to die but no time to get sick”? What good is the last few minutes of one’s life is to the business over having the rest of one’s life to work on it? - Well, it would be no difference if those few more minutes happened to be truly the last few minutes of one’s life, I suppose.

They all reminded me the Cry Wolf title. What bothers me is that while they all seemed to remember the first half of the Cry Wolf story, no one remembers the second half of the story - in comparison to a fire alarm, everyone would have been dead by ignoring the alarm.

There is no false fire alarm if and only if everyone treated every single fire alarm not as such.

Mystery Talent

Published by
James
at 16:20 HKT Aug 24, 2005 in Entertainment. 2 Comments

Update (29 Aug 13:57) : I have just received an email from TVB stated that the female vocalist is 閻一格. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have much info on her on the Internet. Thanks TVB for replying my email.

———————–

Last Saturday the 20th at 9:00am on TVB Jade, there was a young female vocalist on a show called “文化新領域” (Visual Art?) which I’d missed her introduction and only got a glimpse at the second half of her performance. We haven’t had any real talented local young vocalists in the past few years and although I have no idea whether this one is from HK, she sung well. Her voice was a bit raw but her techniques were Mariah Carey well!! Unfortunately, there was no farewell to her performance and I couldn’t stay to watch the end credits. So I tried emailing TVB right away inquiring about her name and which record company she might belong to.

It’s been 4 days and I have received nothing from TVB. So I tried calling them this afternoon. The phone rang for about 5 minutes before an auto switchboard answered the phone. After going through a set of switchboard menu it rang for another 5 minutes before another recorded message answered - “We are sorry that we are still very busy at the moment, please call back later”, doooooooooooooooo…

Don’t Buy It

Published by
James
at 14:46 HKT Aug 24, 2005 in Vehicles. 0 Comments

… unless you are prepared to drive it hard. But don’t drive it hard unless you are prepared to have it fixed. That’s how it goes for having hired an American designer to do a German job.

The new BMW M5 as it is reported by Top Gear.

So Which One it is?

Published by
James
at 1:41 HKT Aug 24, 2005 in News. 6 Comments

Ming Po and other news media reported all samples from 10 kinds of fishes were tested negative for malachite green.

WYM started his speech by saying all samples were tested positive for malachite green.

Possible iPod Mini CF

Published by
James
at 20:48 HKT Aug 22, 2005 in Gadgets. 2 Comments

That’s Compact Flash replacing Micro Drive.

I encode my songs at least in 256kbps instead of the default 128kbps. I did try encoding in 192kbps for a while but I found a couple of chokes in a few of these encoded songs. I currently have about 3.6GB of songs on my PB17 which I still find not having enough songs. However, the iTune radio channels save me from forever converting my CD’s. So it would appear that a plane jane 4GB iPod mini might not be enough for me.