Perennially Perturbed

Ever since our ancestors broke out of the African savanna, the enduring spirit of adventure is one of the cornerstones of human nature. Now, as I stand over the precipice of digital adventure, I question the fragmented goals and half-hearted purposes for the launch of this website and look back to it's early beginnings (yes the website has been "alive" for about a year now).

Picking a name was easy enough(weiquan.com is already taken! Curses! A blessing in disguise really...for the name itself does not hint at it's purpose beyond a personal site). Scythed. Suitably grimreaperish, without a too obvious reference to the reaper. Heh...

When it comes to something as precious as memories, I guess it's only a matter of time before one ponders the decision to leave their online journals to the hands of the cold, callous realm of cyberspace where the long term survivability of a bunch of bytes in a server is in question. It's about as nuclear-apocalypse proof, or dot com bubble burst proof as compared to a frantically scribbled in, hardly legibly book to survive the march of time.

Regardless of timelessness or durability, the question of ownership remains, and I, for one, would love to hold on to the little pieces of my cyberme strewn around the websphere. So the thought of actually being able to port my blog posts around (in sql format) reassures me immeasurably and spurred me on.

So, I got myself a server, tried unsuccessfully to port over my journals,  hatched a few half-baked ideas of games journalism and indie game publishing and got myself a website. Fast, quick and clueless.

Oh and for those who are interested, my new website and blog is www.scythed.net. All new blog posts beyond this date will be posted there. Do register if you want to access additional content not available to the public (who knows when nosey HR will snoop by and latch on to every complaint I made in the past).

Achievements

When a melting pot of (almost) complete strangers and cousins come together, following a melt of traditional and new methods, it's amazing how much fun we can have.

Neither fully a blast from the past or a rocket to the future, Mid Autumn '09 rocked!




This year's celebration was particularly special because Constance was here! :D

• Consuming for the pure love of learning is absolutely ok.
• Producing purely because you have a fire that won’t die until you do is fine, too.
• But don’t kid yourself about who you are.

Source: Software by Rob

I wonder when will I have the freedom/time to be free

What kind of world is it where men can be spent like coin?

When men march home from war, and confront not the faceless void of death or the visage of hated foes, but what they have been fighting for, they will find that it is all worthwhile.

It brings back the lost as though never gone, shines laughter or tears, with light long since shone. A moment to make, a lifetime to shed, valued when, but not when you're dead.

While the contents of the training were somewhat expected, the toughness and speed at which things are done are not. Trying to cram so many activities within a short week, throw in general lethargy and laziness(plus the oft-used: "We are young no longer") and a dose of inefficient, over-conservative kiasuism(while this is seemingly a contradiction on first sight, the meaning becomes apparent after further thought) and you get a rush-to-wait and wait-to-rush free for all.

Overall the experience wasn't bad (note: this is my 2nd ICT), and I learnt a lot more about what it feels like to be a cog in an immense wheel (albeit a slightly rusty one) and that conversation skills and good ol' fashioned back scratching is very much in place (screw the rank structure) and is very much greased by polite words like "pai say" and "knn".

Brilliant stuff.

I really do enjoy systems, figuring out how things work and being able to predict outcomes.
It's like living in a controlled science experiment.
However, with Constance, I am able to tap into my spontaneous side, despite my inner protests that such crazy and unplanned behaviour is the result of one huge lookup table filled with things that I've not mapped out.

I fully attribute that to love.

Here we go!















Guess what animal is next?
















A testament to my skills



















Modelling suits you, m'Dear









































Woah!























Constance likes ponies



















Splendid photography

In what appears to be the most audacious or perhaps foolish act in PC gaming history, a published game ripped entire game levels, art, words and even videos from a variety of other PC games and some speculate, movies.

Here's a list of games that Limbo apparently ripped from

Silent Hill 4
Painkiller
Return To Castle Wolfenstein
Diablo 2
Rune
Thief 3
Pirates of the Caribbean
Crysis
Spawn
BioShock
UT2004
Baldur’s Gate

Check out the link to GamePlasma here.

1. 36 Animations for the different outcomes
2. Sorting and placing function for numbers in series of 1, 5, 25 and 100
3. Odds calculation
4. MVC model server and client apps
5. Chinese Language translation via xml file?
6. Fix path stickiness problems! -> Fixed on 14th June, 2am. Called Invalidate and Update functions after path change to prevent stickiness.

Note: This may sound a little cryptic, but I'm under NDA (non-disclosure agreement)

One week left!

Well, I played my part in this huge techno-fetish fair by making the pilgrimage to one of the quarterly tech sale conventions at Suntec city.

The strangest thing is, why didn't I feel the almost obsessive compulsive urge to get a good' ol gaming laptop of my own? This is partly because the new models from ASUS are simply quite ugly and totally overdone with needless garish colours and little frills that don't matter, and partly because the new models aren't all that fast in the graphics department. Not the sharpest knives in the drawer... (I've been overusing this a lot)

Anyhow, Constance bought a brand new spanking Acer laptop, after much consideration (lasting for about 15 mins) and haggling with the salesman (who was brillant because he listened instead of spewing sales crap).

Congratulations, Dear for getting a new Acer TravelMate™ 6292-602G25Mn and for joining in the digital race! I look forward to our gaming sessions :)

Fold to the all-consuming hate.

All hail hatred.

When you finally realise that there's nothing left to fight for, you leave.

Omfgwejusthadawonderfulwordsharingvideosharingsessionbrainwavematchtogetherthatsjusttooawesometodescribeinacoherentsentence.

Results have been up to expectation so far, with Information Security Management leading the charge, but also disappointing (but really, not surprising) is maths, at the lower end of the scale and Business and Technical Communications at a decent level (Argh, I can't write spontaneously during exams. I make hundreds of tiny adjustments and tweak my documents like mad, which I can't do during the exam with just whiteout and a pen).

So...that's it for the exams!

On a whim following the previous video post, I googled for "Zero Punctuation Reviews" and hit upon a treasure trove of witty, in-your-face, acrid British humor.

4 happy hours later... I present you: The links!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/4-BioShock

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/16-Assassins-Creed

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

Note: The first two links are the generally less "gamey" ones that require no prior knowledge of the games in question. The last link is the link to all his videos, which if you enjoyed the 1st two like I did, you will devour. Eagerly.