No sooner than I had made a mention somewhere ...
of problems occuring and facing up to the challenge that naturally presents ...
yes, you guessed it.
Specifically, something in the back-end of this
website breaks crap.
What started as appearing as an innocuous
single-line warning notification message with seemingly no ill-effects on the
navigational experience comfort of this site blew up into the dreaded
site downtime upon carrying out the seemingly simple remedial
procedures (which required interpreting some code. Or just faking
it.)
Yes, the Universe is very kwai lan*
one.
Anyway... learnt somethings out of that... as
usual. (Still doesn't change the preference that I'd rather not know and be
blissfully insulated from even knowing that such troubles even
exist)
And so total site downtime grand total was about an
hour...
And yes it must happen during an ungodly
hour.
Managed to solve it quite quickly... and everyone
can go to bed soundly after that...
.............But ssshhh... don't say it so
loudly...
(* Just quietly told between you and me only
arhh... don't tell anyone else, ok? *)
Anyway... it's a rather uncharacteristic morning...
in that I woke up this early...
I burn with Battle Hunger.
Good morning folks! Say hi to me axe !
* How to translate this arhh...
Naughty, mischievious... or sth like
that.
The more you want it to do sth, the more it wants
to do the opposite...
The purpose of this post is to record a
Special Appreciation to my friend...!
I am not sure whether he would want to be directly
identified here, but I can tell you that he is the webmaster of
Ayumi Hamasaki's most popular unofficial fansite -
going by his Google Pagerank of #3 - which is the highest attainable Google
Pagerank nowadays, given that #1 and #2 are always pointing to the Official
Website and Wikipedia.
And, as they say, imitation is the
highest form of flattery... thus, here are two
techniques that were unselfishly shared by him ^_^
One right here
- the effect looks like this, but the technique I used is different
(due to the unique properties of my web editor, which is different from the software that he used) nevertheless the
influence of the idea lingers... And the other one, the usage will be
seen throughout this blog... wait for it... hehehe
U Bill says: Everyone needs their contribution recognized 1nce in a while.
1. Do everything that your self is
screaming at you to not do.
2. Do everything different from what you
have done before.
I find myself doing as the above at certain points in
time, for numerous times, already.
The tradeoff for this level of masochism
is the long-term reusable benefits. The downside is that the
stress stat increases.
Well as in all things that is the challenge in
raising stats.
To decrease the stress stat, REST is
needed.
Also, a long period of time is required to raise
stats to an appreciable level - so as long as you're putting in all that you
can, you can't be in a hurry to become owning.
The solution to that is to start as early as
possible, rather than trying to force expedition of the
process - which should be enjoyed as much as
possible.
The good thing is that it you get better faster, the better you get. As a natural consequence.
About the "Two Things":
It is said that everything there is to know about anything can be distilled into two things - that will completely describe the whole of the subject matter.
For other examples an Internet search for the Two Things will do. Here I can instantly present you one though:
U Bill's Two Things about Human Motivation:
1. Survival.
2. Comfort.
Enumerated in descending order of precedence.
Indeed, these two things, for all animal life (including hamsters and earthworms.)
The Sir Arthur C. Clarke, probably best
known to the public today for having authored the Space Odyssey series
of science fiction novels (or probably not even that well known to our
generation, in this corner of the globe.) To regard his contribution as only
being a mere novel author would be much too limited however; he truly is a
visionary for some of his ideas made it into reality and became the basis for
many of the technologies that we use and take for granted today.
He did win a Lifetime Achievement Award in
recognition for, but never pursued a patent for his idea of geostationary
satellites which form the hub of telecommunications today, instead nonchalantly
referring to it as such:
He laughed. “I'm often asked why I didn't try to patent the idea of
communications satellites. My answer is always, ‘A patent is really a license to
be sued.' ”
In recent years (since 1956) he
had retired to Sri Lanka and was an avid treasure diver, capable of holding his
breath up to 3 minutes despite having suffered from
polio.
“He was a good diver, very calm. He could hold his
breath for a long time, sometimes for 3 minutes,”
His last dive was a number of years ago—Ekanayake
thinks it was when Clarke was in his early eighties
but isn't quite sure. “We took him down to 100
feet,” his friend noted. “He loved it.”
Since the
1980s, Clarke had been afflicted with what is known as
postpolio syndrome (PPS), which is characterized by
muscle fatigue, joint pain, and some
memory lapses. It is a consequence of the polio episode he had
in 1959 (from a vaccination). He had
to use a wheelchair for years. Yet at the time I met
him, he was still keeping a pretty full schedule and answering e-mail
quickly, with the help of his secretary.
“In my time, I have been very fortunate to see many of my dreams come
true,” he noted. “Growing up in the 1920s and
1930s, I never expected to see so much happen
in the span of a few decades.”
I would be of the opinion that he didn't set out to
come up with some earth-shaking idea to revolutionize travel and communication.
Rather, following his interests led him into
it:
After high school, unable to afford a university
education, he decided to join the British Civil Service in 1936, at the
age of 19. His main motivation: he wanted a job that
allowed him plenty of leisure time to devote to
writing and other pursuits that might interest him.
(Incidentally, though:)
He ended up doing very well in the examination, ranking 26th among
approximately 1500 applicants. Because he aced his arithmetic exam, he was
advised to take a job in the exchequer and audit department. He was given the
task of auditing teachers' pensions, which took him no more than an hour
or so per day.
So what then, were his other
pursuits?
Clarke was always very optimistic about space travel. Right after the war,
he became heavily involved with the British Interplanetary Society, which was
instrumental in popularizing ideas of rocket travel among the
public. He was even the society's president for a while. He remembered those
days.
“I don't know if the society
ever enrolled a hundred members. In fact, I am not sure if it still
exists.” He laughed. Clarke had previously said that “we space cadets of the
British Interplanetary Society spent all our spare time discussing
space travel. We didn't imagine it lay in our own near
future.”
In fact, the time that such ideas were proposed,
people would even say that "you are crazy" - the British having an elegant
phrase for it - "poppycock!" (which sounds like referring to a
fowl high on opium)
Hmm... it seems that in today's advanced society,
there are many options and accessories for cat owners and their
masters... as a random Internet surf reveals. Let's
take a look at some:
How much is the kitty in the window? $22,000 Forget about Labradoodles,
Puggles and Schnoodles. Costly crossbreed felines are the latest designer hybrid
to hit the catwalk
The Ashera, an exclusive product of Brodie's firm, Lifestyle Pets, resembles a little
leopard and can weigh up to 30 pounds. But it's more suited for lounging than
stalking prey.
...
Brodie used a "secret recipe" to mix an African serval and Asian leopard
cat with a domestic cat, to create the world's most expensive feline
hybrid.
Although an Ashera costs $22,000 (plus
$6,000 for the premium placement option, which will expedite
kitten delivery by about six months) ...
In Malaysian Ringgit terms, that means about
RM66,000++ for some exotic companionship.
Well I certainly hope their owners will give them
lots of genuine care and affection.
Alright, that's it for exotic cat hybrids, next we
take a look at some products..
.. looking at some of the wide selection of items,
I would say that I would never even have thought that such products
would even need to exist. However, it appears that such items
in fact meet owner demand, being much-needed solutions to some intriguing
problems. Case in point:
Recommended Cat Products: For-Bid 12
Doses
(intriguing name, isn't it? Which made me read
on...)
Do you have a dog who enjoys visiting the litter box for
some snacking? As unpleasant as it may seem to us, the stools produced by cats
can actually be appealing to many of our canine companions. Unfortunately, it’s
an unhealthy, unsanitary, and downright unpleasant habit. Forbid can be
sprinkled on the cat’s food in order to make the stool unpalatable. The
ingredients in Forbid work in the digestive system to give the
stool a very unpleasant taste.
The short product blurb evokes an
OMG! effect.. Note especially the last line: "work in the
digestive system... to give the stool a very unpleasant taste". (As if stools do
not already taste unpleasant.)
General
