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Google Virgle- The Adventure of Many Lifetimes

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Google Virgle- The Adventure of Many Lifetimes
Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.

You will be able to learn and apply on how to become a Virgle Pioneer on their website as well.

Remembered around the same time last year, Google brought us Google Tisp– Wi-fi from your toilet.

C&C3 Kanes Wrath – The doctor vanishes mission walkthrough (Hard Difficulty)

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There had been lots of word going on lately on a particular C&C mission being rather difficult to complete, namely the 7th NOD mission known as “The doctor vanishes”. I’ve completed the mission myself, so why not share my own experience and how I went about it in this mission walkthrough. I’ve completed the mission on hard difficulty so what you experience in your game might be different at a different setting. There are many ways to play this mission, I went for the superfluous, covert approach, so here goes!

Behold the superfluous beehive!
First off you start on the Southeast corner of the map, with a green tiberium field on your left. Immediately start building up your base defenses starting with spider then laser turrets all facing the ramp. You will need a crane as well as 3 harvesters going to keep yourself and your cash flow busy.

My left kill zone (C&C3 Kanes Wrath The Doctor Vanishes walkthrough)
My left kill zone
The right kill zone (C&C3 Kanes Wrath The Doctor Vanishes walkthrough)
The right kill zone
Makinâ?? short work of enemies (C&C3 Kanes Wrath The Doctor Vanishes walkthrough)
Makin’ short work of enemies

Do take caution when placing the turrets too near the ramp base as enemy tanks and rocket squads can use the height vantage point over your defenses and hit your them out of your range. A good indicator will be like as shown above with a good level “kill zone” for enemy troops to engage your turrets.

Technically, it would be ideal to position both kill zones at the ramp, the 2nd one being directly above your start point expanded with a mini forward base, but given the fact first wave will come in less than a minute time, you won’t be able to counter their large forces in time- mostly comprising of predators and rocket soldiers, making jello out of any armoured tanks they can possibly encounter. The enemy is also smart into not attacking your turrets but it’s nerve control center, so always keep repairs in handy. The best bet is to have your right kill zone just above your starting power plants as shown above. Having more spider than laser turrets is a good choice, but they won’t hold out for long either, quick leveling up your tech level and have at least 2 obelisks up on each kill zone, then you are really safe.

DSTA scholarships 2nd assessment

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It’s April fool’s day and man there is no other way to spend a day in the DSTA assessment center. It comprises of literally a half day line of events, 3 main ones to be exact which can be rather mentally taxing. But as most of the information there are largely confidential as told, there’s a limit to what I can share here.

The tests are more of a situational life skill test, so there is nothing you can prepare yourself beforehand on it. Actually spontaneous reactions are also one of the main gist of the test- your ability to think fast on your feet and handle anything they throw at you. I can just say that it was rather fun and you will just love or hate it. Come to think about it, what I got to do there was largely similar to what I usually do as part on my freelance design jobs, that (in my case) meant meeting clients, handling people and being your own boss at the same time. And ummm, role-playing with the staff there is damn fun as well, not to mention impromptu tasks to prepare for a very short notice.

I think I made it, only time will tell whether I get shortlisted for the 3rd and final interview. *Crosses fingers!*

Got a call from my SAA officer about the 2010 Youth Olympics dialogue session (held this Saturday) attire ready for collection, apparently the attire are shirts with printed alphabets on them, so when I line up with my friends in the group, I will make up the letter ‘S’ in the word Singapore, (or S for Shaun! so as the student officer there exclaimed). Made my way thereafter in the afternoon before slumping back at home for some well deserved rest, man it’s was a long day!

April’s Fool Day!

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April’s fool! got your fools yet? Oh wait my DSTA 2nd interview is today… uhoh!

Negative side of Advertlets – the bad and the horrible

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Update 02/04/08
Got a rather constructive followup call from Advertlet’s Josh Lim discussing on this dated post issues, you can read more of it in my future blog post here.

Collected my Advertlets cheque today, it came in registered mail from HSBC KL office, they underpaid me about 5 times lesser than what I’ve cashed out in total, about 5 months late too. I wasn’t amused either, after all, previously drenched with a daunting sense of incompetency in their job so I didn’t set my standards too high for them in the first place.

I have read quite alot about this less than a year old startup company, with so many complains coming in and out around town I slowly learnt that I wasn’t very much alone. I won’t be bragging about this just because of the trivial fact that I was not paid or feeling cheated- it is part of a constructive argument and comparison I will bring forward my point and perspective on the issue, highlighting my personal viewpoints as well as including relevant external references and experiences.

Extremely slow customer response
Advertlets took 2 weeks to a month to reply my support emails, even if they do, it’s largely automated or based off templates from my experiences, it’s like the staff are afraid to discuss any issues with you, even if you do, their extremely long reply time will simply turn you off. This is contrary to Nuffnang (their direct competitor) where I can get a real personalized human response with my message forwarded to their relevant departments within 1-2 days.

Extremely long payouts
Based on feedback, 2 months is the fastest, for those in Singapore. It took 5 months from me, even if they do pay, as I have learnt, your earnings might be audited. I have a feeling that their ad fraud system is not fully mature to the extent of paranoia, given the fact that why blog advertising had not caught on in the US is due to the fact that unlike traditional media, there are no reliable ways to measure the ad effectiveness or to even verify if a blog has as much traffic as it claims. Nobody uses their demographic polls on my site and I felt they were obligated to send me a cheque possibly to fill me up on my previous comment on them about their rather slow payments. It’s also worth noting that there are people who are not paid at all. For the record with Nuffnang, they does theirs by a full month from cashout.

Unprofessional
This is a whole long bit. The first part reminds me like comparing 2 detergent brands, brand X & Y- Instead of business and relations building, well, Advertlets is widely known in the community to pillowfight indirectly against their competitors, something bloggers like myself come to detest Advertlets for (also as supported by this Cnet.com article). The ultimate laugh for most bloggers now would being able to name a company anytime who runs a notorious online business who failed to avoid domain renewal problems while still in active operations, this will go into history.

I won’t be digging up old past issues of vulnerability, bugs or claimed hijacks they previously had on their site or during their downtime, neither on the controversy of them forgetting to pay for their blogger’s gathering event, due to the questionable creditability of the stated resources. But these are worth highlighting if you want to know a little more history of Advertlets.

However, I can commend them on some of their rather effective but rather notorious motion into paying bloggers (sponsored posts) to write constructive blog posts to review/advertise their website- a rather good way to get incoming links, traffic and increase search engine rankings from robots especially from high traffic blogs. The catch is that you have to get the post up live with a set of requirements (i.e use certain images and must have a link to their site) and though some freeform content is allowed, ultimately only approved posts meeting their interests will be paid, so these posts will usually spot a biased and unnatural sense of positive energy towards them.

Overall, it’s the whole picture I am taking about, the whole package from the blogger and advertiser perspective, the professional company- customer approach. Speaking from a web developer point of view in dealing customers and more than 10 years of web creation experience, if they were to treat bloggers in such a lowly manner, I won’t see that to be much different to their advertisers either, remember it’s the overall package I am talking about, not only making or giving preferences only to the hand which feeds you.

It is sad to see how such a company starting to stray away from their users, I had high initial hopes for them. Only time will tell how they will do in the future, given their recent promising partnership with SPH media.

Disclaimer: The author of this post will accept no responsibility to the possible causes, actions or events (including bodily harm or even death) arising from the content of this post. This post aims to serve as information based from actual and unbiased experiences with no defamatory intentions. This post is written from a neutral point of view and do not reflect the opinions of either ad agency in any other way.

P.S I appreciate constructive viewpoints, please do not post masquerading posts in the comments.

Rediscovering SAT and my NBL local library! Whoa they have flippy book thingies?

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Shaun visits the Library! whoa!

In this age of the internet, anything (literally) is almost a Google away. I always had the impression that you can always find anything you want on the net, let be research stuffs, etc, then come the ugly part of the internet- you will never find valuable or information useful too you. The ability to determine information and knowledge from raw data (i.e your searches) is also a part of the the work and skills needed to get stuff for decision making. Then there is also the commercial part aspect as well, having to pay for any additional research information which don’t always turn out to be what you want.

So there must be a catch to relooking back to print media in this technological age. Something writers having spend countless hours writing and going through the hassles of publishing will definitely spot something more critical than what any broke can post or publish on the net at an instant (which also comes the questionability of creditability and factuality). So those stuff called books are worthy to check out right?

Armed with shovels and my archaeological hat this morning, I raided my area’s Bukit Merah community library since I last stepped foot about 5 years ago. Mainly for information to prepare myself for my SAT and college entrance essays and any possible anvils of death the college boards can throw at me.

Searching for books there was quite a pain though- it’s not like click-to-a-shelf, their PC search there directed me to other libraries like Bukit Panjang by default unless I specified a local search. It’s like “what the?” Can’t the computer acknowledge the essence of me and IT being right here in Bukit Merah? They should implement a local search for the books right here and not simply uplink to default NBL’s website. To make matters worst, they do not have a call number/ISBN number floorplan layout, so you have to raid almost every shelf to check the numbers… Grrrrr. I remembered searching for books in SP library was less of a tedious feat, and that library is almost 3 times bigger!

Nevertheless, simply homed onto “the educational” shelves and found an SAT book in no time, together with few other US college prep books like “Getting into the elite college of your choice” (yea!) I will be sinking myself into, don’t think I can find all these stuff from collegeboard on the net as readily and royalty-free. On a sidenote, I never saw myself revisiting the SAT since my JC days, man I hope I do score much better this time.

The library on the contrary was a rather nice place to chill out for the afternoon as well, caught up in the computer section to learn a few new skills or two in Photoshop CS2 and optimizing Windows XP, and literally borrowed the whole PHP5 codebase with me as well!

Whoa me reading!

Dead ipod Song

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Something funny about ipods and questions about their unreliability. Say if you “broke” your iPhone, “get a new one” said jobs. So that will very much go in line as the iPod as well as shown in this video. I think the thing which sets the stereotypical iPod and PC user is the difference in the buy and throw away style, while “PC’s” will opt for more practical devices based on spec-wised (like to the refresh rate and the number of horizontal pixel on their LCD screen) or repair them when they are spoilt, on the contrary. In short, pure nerdy.

“Don’t you all have songs uploaded to your brain?” “No we all have ipods, lots of em!”

Safra Sheares Bridge Run & Army Half Marathon (AHM) 2008 Details

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Race Expo (Collection of Race Pack)

Date: Friday, 15 Aug – Sun, 17 Aug
Time: 10am – 6pm
Venue: SAFRA Toa Payoh

This race is also known as the Singapore Bay Run as well.

Well just as always, the Army Half Marathon (AHM) aka Singapore Bay Run aka Sheares Bridge Run 2008, held around the third quarter of the year.

Date: 24 August 2008
Start Point: Esplanade Drive (One fullerton area)
End Point: Padang
Distance: 21km / 10km / 6km

This year’s event is rather similar to last year’s the Singapore Bay Run – SAFRA Sheares Bridge Run & Army Half Marathon, to reflect the Marina Bay flavour as participants run through iconic landmarks, such as the Esplanade.

Running Route
(To be confirmed, but will be similar to 2007 route with endpoint at Padang and some detours at the Singapore Flyer area, given F1 Pit Construction and road widening in progress)
Click here for image of the running route (opens in new window)

21km Army Half Marathon
The route starts from the Esplanade Drive and heads to Collyer Quay, Marina Boulevard, ECP, Benjamin Sheares Bridge, Fort Road, East Coast Park Service Road, Marina East Garden, Marina Barrage, Central Boulevard, Collyer Quay, St Andrews and ends of at Padang

10 km SAFRA Singapore Bay Run
The route starts from Esplanade Drive and heads to Collyer Quay, Marina Boulevard, ECP, Benjamin Sheares Bridge, Rochor Exit, Fountain of Wealth, Temasek Avenue, Republic Boulevard, Raffles Avenue, Connaught Drive, St Andrews Road and ends at the Padang.

6km SAFRA Singapore Bay Run
The route starts from Esplanade Drive and heads to Collyer Quay, Marina Boulevard, ECP, Sheares Bridge, Rochor Exit, Fountain of Wealth, Temasek Avenue, Republic Boulevard, Raffles Avenue, Connaught Drive, St Andrew’s Road and ends at the Padang.

Carnival of Opportunities at Henderson Secondary

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Carnival of Opportunities at Henderson Secondary, our carnival booth!

Today is the MCYS carnival of opportunities event day held at Henderson Secondary itself. It consisted of an array of events held in a big tent pitched right in the middle of the school field. Inside was an array of game stores (dart, mini basket ball, typical carnival games), self help booths (such as recycled paper weaving, St John, etc and food stores.

The event is called carnival of opportunities as it’s also a job fair with quite a few employers there as well to offer jobs and places for seekers. Was down in the morning to help out with the parent’s teacher’s association (PTA) booth, where mum was there for the day as well. We had lots of ummm, fried food such as Japanese seaweed chicken, wings, fries and chicken nuggets all going in packs for a dollar each. Not excalyt good for us athletic believes. Money raised goes out to help needy students in the school’s pocket money fund on top of funding the and running for such events by the PTA itself. The town council mayor was there as the VIP as well a few distinguished guest of honor.

There were lots of performances by the CDC line dancing club and singers, who were not bad I say, there were free balloon sculptures as well lessons and lectures on employment on top of the job fairs (where I heard many people got jobs too at the event itself). The event ended round 5pm with a gathering of the helpers and with the principal for a closure and ARR for the event, of course with plans up for a bowling gathering at Safra Mt Faber next week!

Fast & Furious 4 the Movie in the makes

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Fast and Furious (FF) 3 was Tokyo Drift and there is a 2009 sequel coming up right too, was actually in the theaters. Unlike the old dumpy FF2 which was descent and the given fact that FF3 simply screwed up the whole series, FF4 will feature the original cast from FF, well most of them… Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and some new ones. One of the featured cars in the show will be the BMW E92 or the 335 we mostly come to know it as and it officially becomes a Ricer in Fast and Furious 4!

Apparently news of the confirmation of the movie was revealed after some spy shots of filming and the sudden concentration of few tuner vehicles out of the blue. I hope this 4th series won’t be as disappointing as the rest, only time will tell when it hits the silver screen 2009.

For upcoming movies, “21” looks kind of a nice show with a nice twist of Harvard grade students versus the Casino system- perfect entry movie for “who knows what will happen” with our textbook stricken students and upcoming IR Casino developments.

Ace Award Interview with Principal & Directors, DSTA 2nd stage of selections!

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Yesterday was an interesting day at the SP admin block, specifically at the Principal office and meeting room. It was the interview and shortlisting session for students nominated for the SP ACE awards.

The session started with me meeting up with the other top students from the various courses/schools who arrived at the venue in staggered 10mins intervals. Met few familiar faces including Andrew, the top DARE student there as well. Apparently few of us there were SAA SP award student winners as well, so we were definitely not strangers to each other with the exception of few new faces from courses not usually within proximity from our school of MM. Was told this year there are fewer people shortlisted for the awards, namely the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Award, Toh Chin Chye Gold Medal, Low Guan Onn Gold Medal, Chua Chor Teck Gold Medal and lastly the Tay Eng Soon Gold Medal (for exceptionally well students who came from the ITE route), so if you are here, man you are good!

Ultimately, the Lee Kuan Yew award is the one I will be strongly pushing for.

The main interview was conducted in a rather casual setting with 5 interviewers consisting of our Principal Mr Tan himself as well as distinguished members and heads from the board itself. The setting is rather good I can say and it really paints a relaxed casual setting and encourages constructive conversation, something few jumpy candidates can definitely benefit from. My interview as rather good from my perspective and I believed the interviewers enjoyed their time there with me as well.

The main interview followed by a second 1-1 interview with the SP Media Communications department where the staff will go through details of each candidate where a personal writeup for each student will be done and published in the event of selection. While most just take about 20 minutes on average for this, unknowingly, we got so engrossed in our discussion that we didn’t know that we went into over 2 hours for the interview! With namecards offered from my interviewer at the end, which makes you simply go: “whoa that is actually something the others don’t get!” A photo taking session was one next which saw candidates back in our respective schools or workshop posing for rather professionally taken photogenic shots – IPC galore!

The results of the awards will be out mid April, wish me all the best!

Met up with my old Eng Materials II lecturer Mrs Lim for the day on her invite for the upcoming SP flag day as a volunteer, come to think about it, its was a rather hectic week and it will be so for weeks to come as well, so mind me if I do not update my blog as regularly as before. Will also be busy over the weekend for the MCYS fund raising and AIDS/HIV awareness program at Cathay Cineleisure as well.

On an interesting note, got an invite for the 2010 Youth Olympics dialogue session from the SAA as well, that will be interesting to attend. Oh yes, last but not least, got shortlisted for the 2nd of 3rd stage of interviews for my DSTA scholarship too! Yea!

Today’s My 24th Birthday!

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Yea a year older, a year wiser! 😀

Thanks for all your greetings! Let be from online or text message greetings, esp those on the dot at 12mn wahahha spammed!!