Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Perth virtual tour

I found this migrate360 website with lots of Quicktime VR virtual tour of Perth . These guys had took some good photos of Perth. It'd be quite a nice job, running around the country taking nice 360 degree photos.

Teh site requires registration to view. If you can't be bother signing in, use this bugmenot account I created.
Username and password are both "bugmenot". :)

Here are some nice ones:
Perth: from Kings Park|London Court|Belltower
Freo: Round House|Maritime Museam|Townhall
Water: Cottesloe|Hillary|Burswood

Run Danno Run

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Working @ Google - Software Engineer, Computer Vision and Graphics

Software Engineer, Computer Vision and Graphics - Mountain View

I think working at Google is really cool! And I do love organising information.
I'm delighted to know that they want some Computer Vision and Graphics experts. Maybe I'll work there one day.

Damned C/C++! I don't have extensive experience with that!! :(

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Friends theme song

Shih Ching showed me this. It's funny!

Friends theme: I'll Be There for You by the Rembrandts

It's like you're always stuck in second gear,

I'll be there for you, like I've been there before.

You're still in bed at ten, the work began at eight.
You've burned your breakfast, so far, things are going great.
Your mother warned you there'd be days like these,

That, I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour.
I'll be there for you, like I've been there before.

Seems like you're the only one who knows what it's like to be me.
Someone to face the day with, make it through all the rest with,
Someone I'll always laugh with, even at my worst, I'm best with you.

It's like you're always stuck in second gear,

I'll be there for you, like I've been there before.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Do-Gooders With Spreadsheets

I read this from MM's Rantings. I thought it's worth re-posting it on mine.

Do-Gooders With Spreadsheets

Published: January 30, 2007

DAVOS, Switzerland

The World Economic Forum here in Davos is the kind of place where if you let yourself get distracted while walking by a European prime minister on your left, you could end up tripping over a famous gazillionaire — and then spilling your coffee onto the king on your right. But perhaps the most remarkable people to attend aren’t the world leaders or other bigwigs.


So what’s a social entrepreneur? Let me give a few examples among those at the forum in Davos.


• Nic Frances runs a group that aims to cut carbon emissions in 70 percent of Australian households over 10 years. His group, Easy Being Green, gives out low-energy light bulbs and low-flow shower heads — after the household signs over the rights to the carbon emissions the equipment will save. The group then sells those carbon credits to industry to finance its activities, and it is now aiming to expand globally.

• In the U.S., Gillian Caldwell and her group, Witness, train people around the world to use video cameras to document human rights abuses. The resulting videos have drawn public attention to issues like child soldiers and the treatment of the mentally ill. Now Ms. Caldwell aims to create a sort of YouTube for human rights video clips.

Social entrepreneurs like Ms. Caldwell resemble traditional do-gooders in their yearning to make the world a better place, but sound like chief executives when they talk about metrics to assess cost-effectiveness. Many also generate income to finance expansion.

“We’re totally self-sustaining,” said Mirai Chatterjee, a dynamo who is coordinator of the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India. “From Day 1 our idea was to run a strong economic organization.” Ms. Chatterjee’s organization now has nearly 1 million members, owns a bank, runs 100 day care centers, trains midwives and provides health insurance for 200,000 women. It is empowering women and fighting poverty across a growing swath of rural India, and its down-to-earth approach is characteristic of social entrepreneurs.

“Politics is failing to solve all the big issues,” said Jim Wallis, who wrote “God’s Politics” and runs Sojourners, which pushes social justice issues. “So when that happens, social movements rise up.”

Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, demonstrated with Grameen Bank the power of microfinancing. His bank has helped raise incomes, secure property rights for women, lower population growth and raise education standards across Bangladesh — and now the success is rippling around the globe.

One of those inspired by Mr. Yunus, for example, was Roshaneh Zafar, a young Pakistani economist. She quit her job and started Kashf, a microfinance institution that now gives hundreds of thousands of Pakistani women a route out of poverty.

Ms. Zafar also received help from Ashoka, a hugely influential organization for social entrepreneurs started by an American, Bill Drayton (who describes social entrepreneurs as “the most important historical force at work today”). Ashoka is one of a growing number of donor groups that offer the equivalent of venture capital for social entrepreneurs.


When I travel around the world, I’m blown away by how these people are transforming lives. A growing number of the best and brightest university graduates in the U.S. and abroad are moving into this area (many clutching the book “How to Change the World,” a bible in the field).

It’s one of the most hopeful and helpful trends around. These folks aren’t famous, and they didn’t fly to Davos in first-class cabins or private jets, but they are showing that what it really takes to change the world isn’t so much wealth or power as creativity, determination and passion.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Blog Archive Bug?

Is this just my blog?

What happen to my 2007?

I'm stucked in 2006!!


How's it going?

Man! I was so like this guy!! It is not funny. I was so scared that people find out what is really going on, they might not think highly of me anymore... Yes, I have a huge pride to feed! :b
I'm glad I learnt to say things aren't so good when they really aren't. That makes the answer to "How's it going?" so much more meaningful. And it is liberating too. Pretending things are going well all the time is such an effort, not that I am consciously pretending it, but somehow, I do that to survive something, to look good I guess. Being able to put that aside and just express how things actually are and how I actually am, is like a tensed muscle releases. It's a great feeling.

But sometimes I find people say "How's it going?" instead of ask. Well, sometimes I find myself do that too, :( like I have no intention to listen to the answer anyway...
Hope I can catch myself on such behaviour!

Or is it because a lot of time "How's it going?" is treated the same as "Hi!"? Is it treated as just a form of greeting and not actually an invitation for a conversation?

So, to you, How's it going?