So this video has been making the rounds, I thought I’d just post it here. At least it gets *some* of the Christmas story right, and isn’t about some fat dude in red get-up. 
Blessed Christmas everybody!
The Nativity Story 2.0
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The preoccupations of 19th century people
In the 19th century, people were really preoccupied with the “end of the world” and the “apocalypse.” These days, not so much – but the “apocalypse” is starting to rise in popularity again.
How do I know this? Google Ngram Viewer.
The idea is so simple, and yet, genius. Google’s scanned nearly 2.5 million books as part of its Google Books Library Project, and the blokes at the top must’ve understood that as part of the process, they’ll also be getting tonnes of data through the centuries.
What Ngram viewer does is basically run a search through books published in the timeframe specified by you, and count the number of times the word appears, of course, with weightage towards different genres, eras, distribution etc. giving you an interesting comparison chart as to the popularity of the word at that time.
It’s really an interesting way to look at culture, and how that’s developed over time, but you also need to take into account that this only covers books… and culturally, books were in its heyday in the 19th century, but have declined since the 20th century as the primary means of disseminating information. Newspapers, TV, and now the Internet have perhaps become bigger indicators of what is culturally relevant now.
But hey, Google’s the master of the internet right? What I’d love to see is a mashup of Ngrams with an algorithm that weights and measures online media, social conversations against scanned books. Something like Zeitgeist + Ngrams.
Then, we would REALLY be able to know what was popular when.
Malaysia run by competent politicians – really wan…
Can’t help but feel a little bit sad when our leaders feel the need to justify themselves this way. Competency isn’t proven by just stating it. It is reflected by the way our country is run.
Also, you aren’t competent just because you said it. Someone else has to call you competent, and the most important people who need to call the politicians competent are the rakyat. So, Malaysians, what do you say, are your politicians competent?
Rethinking this blog
Time to blow the dust away from this blog again.
Clearly, I haven’t posted as much as I should, or would have liked to. It’s not that there haven’t been plenty to comment on – oh, there have been plenty – but I realise I’ve started putting a lot of content into other places. Like my two columns (fortnightly on Wednesday in The Star‘s R.Age, and fortnightly Tuesday in the iPad edition of The Star.) Or the podcasts I get on regularly – TechBeat and LoLShow.
But the other brain-dump for me in the past year has been Twitter (sure blame it on the bird). Did being forced to give an opinion in 140 characters in rapidfire speed douse my desire or mental stamina to write long-winded posts? Somewhat, I guess. The fatigue does set in, and I find that I’ve already said what I wanted to say and wouldn’t like to repeat myself.
Wonder if this is a trend. I have seen other bloggers also reduce the frequency of their posts – perhaps with varying reasons – so I suspect there’s some fatigue actually setting in.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Blogging’s changed for me. I want to get back into the groove. I’ve given thought to it, and I think I know what to do. Too often I’ve held back posting thoughts because I felt they were not well thought out enough to constitute a meaty post. I dawdle, hoping for some time to fill in those blanks and put out a post, but the time never comes. Or, I end up using the gumption stored for that elusive post for a column instead.
So the blog needs to serve a different purpose. And as you might have noticed, I’ve gone for a much simpler theme this time. I intend davidlian.com to be where I post thoughts that might be half-baked, hoping some kind commentators will fill them in. Thoughts that are too long for Twitter, but ones that I’m unwilling to let dissipate because I wanted something longer. It will also become a repository for columns I can republish (with my good editor’s permission) and podcasts I can cross-link. It’ll be about the content I’m creating, meshed up together on one site.
This place is about to be brain dump.
And I hope you’ll love it, because you loved me for what my brain cooks up in the first place, didn’t you?
Yeah, I bought one.
Okay, I’m a bit flattered / stunned / surprised (?) by the interest and incredulity some of you have shown. It’s just an iPad, guys. =)
For what it’s worth, I’ve got a legit use-case beyond fanboism. It’s called reading the Bible and taking notes digitally. And maybe a spot of Plants vs Zombies occasionnally. Anyone with apps to recommend?
The Digital Edge turns 50 episodes
In what seems like a long, long time ago, The Edge Malaysia’s Assistant New Media Editor John Lim asked if I’d like to come on to do a tech show together with him and South East Asia’s veritable podfather Mike Foong.
I said “Yes.” (Rather more enthusiastically than the preceding sentence might imply). And so, the three of us, dreary eyed from waking up a 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning more than a year ago, gathered at John’s apartment, politely waited for John’s family to “give us the living room” and started recording the first ever episode.
It was a near disaster. The idea we had – recording separate streams on three mics and then combining the streams together, kept John up for days trying to eliminate cross-talk and echos. But boy, was it fun and exciting.
An early recording session at the Text 100 office.
Today, John’s got a nice little studio in TTDI, professional microphones and a mixer. But we’ll never forget the times we’ve recorded in all kinds of places including, my house, a bar, a restaurant, at the Text 100 Malaysia office, and even at the living room at my parent’s place.
We’ve finally reached 50 episodes, and the hope is that there’ll be 50 more to come. I thought the 50th episode was such a blast and we had a great guest in the form of Dinesh Nair that I’d post it here for your listening pleasure
Privacy and the Ice-cream man.
Taking the fight to Google, US’ Consumer Watchdog has launched a website called InsideGoogle that’s meant to raise awareness about privacy issues on the internet today – with a particular focus on Google.
Along with the site, there’s also a pretty slick animation of a Google Ice Cream truck with a caricature of Google CEO Eric Schmidt gathering children’s data while giving them “free” ice cream. Now, I’m not sure if Google’s ever given out free ice cream but would the over-the-top video make you think twice before taking free email, free search, free translation and oh…free Android… from Google?
Buy from ThinkGeek + Get free shipping to Malaysia
Okay, I normally don’t post twice in a day, but I’ve just stumbled across an awesome deal on the internet that I think might not last too long, so check this out.
Firstly, I was already kinda drooling over the ThinkGeek Wifi Detector T-shirt ever since Suanie told me about it a couple of years ago. Well, in a completely random off-chance way, this weekend I discovered the T-Shirt which normally costs US$29.99 was on 30% off sale right now.
Then I also spotted another deal when I went to make my order at ThinkGeek today: a Grab Bag of a random T Shirt at just US$ 5.99. Awesome!
Before I checked out finally, I spotted yet another deal: it so happens its ThinkGeek’s birthday and they have a special sale just until 15 August 11:59 p.m. for a US$10 off any purchase above US$30. I’ll add another Grab Bag here.
As I checked out, I came across a problem. Malaysia wasn’t an option. A little bit of discreet tweeting and a wonderful coincidence from David Wang pointed me to HopShopGo – a new site that’s just launched providing re-shipping services to anywhere in the world! And he’d just found out about this site via an email blast.
Feeling rather awesome, I proceeded to give HopShopGo a try. As coincidences go, it turned up pretty awesome that they were also giving a promotional launch offer of 2kg free shipping internationally! Caveat is, you’ve got to use Paypal to pay for the goods from the original site. No issue by me, plus the site was really easy to use.
So the nett result –> Three ThinkGeek T-Shirts shipped to Malaysia for a grand-total price of…. US$29.66. Awesome deal, no?
I had to post this up quickly so other geeks like me in Malaysia can take advantage of this wonderful set of coincidences and grab their shirts fast before either deal runs out.
So, share the love. If you happen to stumble upon this post before the deals run out, go tell someone. It might just brighten their day.
I want to cast magic missile
Was just surfing YouTube when I came across this old skit and, feeling very nostalgic, thought I’d post this here:
If someone would please run a D&D campaign now, I want to be the mage.
Beyond Limits.
How do you make your life worth more than it is? Would you rather live short with high impact, or live long, but fizzle out?
As you might know, a dear brother Soo Jen Ruw passed away last week suddenly at the age of 19. The amazing thing is that no one could deny the power and impact of his life, though so short.
The above picture is one I will always remember. It was a game we played in Camp Transformation ’08. The idea was simple, brothers carrying brothers, we needed to chart as far a distance as we could without giving up. Going Beyond Limits.
That night, Jen Ruw was the backbone encouraging the team to go further than we physically could. Today, he’s challenging us to go further with our lives than we ever thought we can.
The key? Make the most of every opportunity to love one another and build each other up. So if we’re here on earth, “this will mean fruitful labor” (Php 1:21). And this is the kind of labor we put in for each other in love, so we know others can benefit from us.
At the end of the day, like Yow Looi said, no one’s going to care what your SPM results were when you pass on. Only that you helped others and touched their lives. Made disciples. Encouraged them. That’s what really counts. That’s what makes your life more than what it is.
I know Jen Ruw understood this best. Perhaps its apt to end with his last status message to me:
So, what are you doing with your life today? Are you doing what counts?