Google's Chrome on MacBook

Well, I've managed to install Chrome on my MacBook and this screenshot shows how it looks like:


Of course, I'm not supposed to be able to do this because Google said that a Mac or Linux version of Chrome is not available yet. But hey, it won't stop anybody with the Parallels program on their Macs from installing Chrome inside their Windows XP or Vista, right?

True to Google's style, Chrome is very minimalist. Where are all those dropdown menu items? I miss them. And the bookmarks? Oh, there's a little folder icon in the top right corner. It says "Other bookmarks." It's a great paradigm shift after using Internet Explorer and Firefox but I'm sure the menus won't be missed before long.

Now, I'm wondering whether Chrome has beaten the record set by Firefox 3 as the most downloaded program within a single day.....

P.S. Light blue. I still don't like this colour!

Correct or not??

Chess pieces

"Off with her head," said the Queen of Hearts.
From an email, I received this fabulous picture of chess pieces modelled after Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Malaysian fuel price flip-flips

These are the types of comments that only reinforces the growing suspicion that we have a federal government that is paralysed with indecisions. Or is it a matter of too many cooks spoiling the broth? Anyway, the cooks are making flip-flop announcements at their whims and fancies , as one joker after another comes out with contradictory statements. One says Burnt Rice is good, another says Salted Fish is better, and yet another says Vinegar is sweet. Saay, fellas, don't you talk to one another? Don't you read your own newspapers?

Just see what is printed in today's mainstream newspapers: an announcement that the petrol prices will stay unchanged until the end of the month. The excuse? “Since the last review was only 12 days ago, the next petrol price review will only be done at the end of the month," according to Shahrir Samad.

This is in total contrast with a statement on 23 Aug 2008 by Ong Ka Chuan made strategically two days before the Permatang Pauh by-election that fuel prices would be reviewed every 15 days.

Of course, a day earlier on 22 Aug 2008, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had surprised everyone by announcing that fuel prices would drop. Whether it was done with sincerity or not is debatable but people were saying that this "generous" drop was a ruse to buy over the voters in the by-election. Uncannily coincidental? Here's how I had blogged about it then.

Nobody will believe his flip-flops any more. After all, it was only on 2 Aug 2008 that he insisted that the next pump price review would be reviewed monthly from September only. From now on, we'll take the fuel price movements in our stride. You want to increase? Increase lah. You want to decrease? Decrease lah. Do whatever you want. We'll also know to do whatever we want.

Google's Chrome

Do a search on "google chrome download" and you'll see that Google has already soft-launched their browser. Frankly, I don't like the colour. It's light blue and it's missing some vibrancy.

I've just heard that Google is launching their own Internet browser called Chrome from tomorrow. Chrome is supposed to be so easy that even monkeys can start using them.

Chrome is touted to be lightweight and fast, and able to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely heavily on graphics and multimedia. The new browser is also supposed to work even better with Google's suite of web-based applications such as Documents, Picasa and Maps.

More than challenging the traditional desk-top programs, I sincerely believe that Chrome is going to give Internet Explorer and Firefox a serious run for their money! Where will it leave them? But too bad that Chrome won't be available for the Mac or Linux yet but I'll be looking forward to it.

Want to learn more? Visit Google's Chrome comic book and read the first few pages. Frankly, I got bored after the first six or seven pages.

Saving ourselves from the MCA

Earlier today, I noticed that The Malaysian Insider had carried this interview with Theng Book of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA). Theng's 15 minutes of fame came earlier this year when he launched the “Save MCA” campaign. I've no interest in what's going on inside that political party but I was rolling on the floor, thoroughly amused, by this last question posed to him:

When you look at the history of MCA presidents, there has never been one with a moustache. So do both Tee Keat and Soi Lek have a chance?

Yes, our presidents have never had moustaches. So both Tee Keat and Soi Lek have a chance but those with moustaches can only run for deputy like Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy and Datuk Chua Jui Meng. But in any case, Chua Jui Meng has no base support with or without his moustache.

I showed this to a friend and he remarked to me: "Such has become the state of Malaysian political analysis." Couldn't agree more with him. Sigh....

Penang downpour

Hurricane Gustav? Hurricane Katrina? Oh, that's an old one. Anyway, I hope everything will be alright in Louisiana. However, all I 'm concerned about locally right now is the totally wet, wet, wet, wet afternoon in Penang. I look outdoors and all I can see is the pouring rain. It's heavy....

The splashing of rain on my gate

Distorted view from rain on my bedroom window

Water droplets on my plants

Almost lost in the mist: transmission towers atop BM Hill

Another view of BM Hill. This time, no more towers in sight

Deodato's Also Sprach Zarathustra

I don't know why but in the last 30-odd years, I've always been under the impression that Eumir Deodato was Greek. Well, he's not. I've just learnt that he's Brazilian! A bloody good, brilliant Brazilian jazz musician in my opinion, because lately, I've not been able to get enough of his interpretation of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. It's kind of like rumbling out of control in my head.

And it's all because of Dave (the VinylMorpher man) who included this track of Deodato's in his Pure Jazz Funk radio show recently. Since then, I've been listening to this song over and over again - at least 10 times yesterday in the car, over the home hifi system and on the Internet - and I've been threatened with civil disobedience on the domestic front should I continue with this obsession. You see, my family has told me that they are already quite sick of this piece of music. Nevertheless, it's wonderful music.

Celebrating Merdeka

I am appalled by the lack of civic-consciousness among the youth.

A group of them - in their late teens or early twenties - were seen camping at the foot of the Bukit Mertajam Hill at Cherok To'Kun during the weekend and this was the mess they left behind:

What's even sadder was that I had noticed some adult leaders and organisers among the litterbugs. Were they expecting their grandfathers to clear this after them?

Millipedes: creepy crawlies

Well, it has been an interesting weekend up the BM Hill. My fascination with millipedes continues. I've seen so many of those monster millipedes now but have been quite hesitant to hold any of them. I know they cannot bite and are harmless but their defence mechanism is a body secretion that can supposedly irritate the hell out of predators.

But on Friday while hiking up the trail alone and coming across one of these millipedes again, something caught hold of me as I thought to myself: what the heck, here's a good time as any to get it out of the way. So I gingerly picked up the millipede at its mid-length section. At first I was surprised by its resistance as it tried to struggle free but I held it firmly. This is about the best shot that I could get with my mobile phone's camera.


It turned back to look at my hand. I was rather positive that it wanted to crawl up my hand. Anyway, you can see that my fingers were stained orange. Luckily, I was able to wash it off in the stream nearby.

And yesterday while going up the same trail with my wife, we came across our first sighting of a flat-backed millipede. It was about three inches long. This one proved to be less aggressive; in fact, it froze up when I tried to disturb it. You can see how it measured against the 50 cent coin.


Later, it apparently had enough of me and decided to curl up tightly with its head buried among its legs.

Merdeka spirit is still bottled up

What d'ya know? Today is Merdeka Day, the 51st anniversary of the day that Malaya obtained our independence from the British.

Last year's 50th anniversary was celebrated with great excitement everywhere and the Merdeka spirit really filled the air. But I don't feel the same this year. Do you? Have you really felt like celebrating this year? Where's the Merdeka mood? Somehow, it's way too quiet. When I drove around town, yes, I did see establishments flying the Malaysian flag. But it's kinda muted, if you know what I mean. It's as if the businesses here have been forced to fly the flag out of some obligation.

Of course, I'm glad that tomorrow is an off day, a replacement for Merdeka Day which falls on a Sunday. It's an extended weekend which I'm using to visit the Buddhist Hermitage in Lunas later this morning and perhaps take the family to the new shopping mall in Perda tomorrow. But that's about all that I'm going to do!

uTorrent

I've given up on using Deluge, the bit-torrent client. I thought I could get away from the run-time error messages after I had reformatted my computer and reinstalled everything. Apparently not. The annoying run-time error message kept coming back and back.

So last night, I decided to uninstal this problematic, "chay kai" program and go back to uTorrent. One good advantage of uTorrent is, of course, its size. Only 263Kb compared with Deluge's over-bloated 40Mb-plus. Who wouldn't want to use a nifty program like uTorrent if you can save so much disk space? The only downside I could see was the hassle to set up port forwarding but once it's completed, the program works fine.

P.S. On my MacBook, I'm using Transmission.

Re-education through labour

I'll be very sad if these two old ladies are sent to a "re-education through labour" camp. That's what they have been threatened with by the Chinese authorities. Reason? During the Beijing Olympics, they applied for a permit to protest against eviction from their homes due to construction work for the Olympics.

Before the Games began, the Chinese authorities said they would allow demonstrations in accordance with Chinese law. They opened "a demonstration area" in three Beijing parks for people to speak freely but none of the 149 applicants for a demonstration permit were given approval.

Among them were 79-year-old Wu Dianyuan and her neighbour, Wang Xuiying, 77. Instead of the approval, the authorities told them that they would be sent to a labour camp for a year. Sad.

World cyber games Malaysia championship 2008

When I was at the MidValley in KL recently for the Malaysian Chess Festival, the World Cyber Games Malaysia championship was taking place in the hall directly opposite from us.


Out of curiosity, I did pop over occasionally to see the WCG2008. The main hall wasn't as gloomy as it seemed from the photo above but the stage was darkened because some cybergame demonstrations were being displayed on two large screens beside it. Next to this hall, there were a few hundred computers all lined up for participants. Unfortunately, every time I crossed over to look, the games had either not started yet or they had finished. Trust my luck!


The highlight of the WCG2008 was the Samsung booth. There were three or four of these sweet girls moving around to cajole visitors to play games. I was one of several people who were trying to take photos of them on the sly.


Until .... I received a dare from a friend who challenged me to ask the girls to pose for a photograph. I couldn't pass up the challenge that easily, could I? So, after mustering all my courage, this is the result. All you got to do is ask. Open your mouth and ask. Chances are, you will get it. Like this photo. Nice, right? Blue hair, right? The sweetest smile, right?

How to swat a fly

Solved: the mystery of why flies are so hard to swat.

Researchers in the united State think it's all due to the fly's fast-acting brain and an ability to plan ahead. They made some high-speed, high-resolution video recordings that showed the insects quickly working out where a threat was coming from and preparing an escape route.

So what's the best way of swatting a fly? According to California Institute of Technology Professor Michael Dickinson, just creep up very slowly behind the critter and aim ahead of its location. "When it comes to striking the blow, it's not a good idea to aim at the fly's starting position. It's best to aim a bit forward of its location and try to anticipate where the fly will jump when it first sees your swatter."

Permatang Pauh: Puzzle in Seberang Jaya results

It's interesting to note that Seberang Jaya is not only the main urban town centre in the Permatang Pauh constituency but it also lends its name to my polling station, the Sek Keb Seberang Jaya (SKSJ). The Taman Siakap area is the oldest part of Seberang Jaya (the town) and while the Seberang Jaya mosque, the Seberang Jaya public swimming pool and the Sony-sponsored sport recreational centre are just a stone's throw away, the biggest landmark here is the SKSJ where both my daughter and son had their primary school education.

The People's Parliament revealed Tuesday the details of the voting pattern in Seberang Jaya (the polling station). I was surprised:

Box 1 : Anwar 158 / Arif 97
Box 2 : Anwar 258 / Arif 7
Box 3 : Anwar 335 / Arif 201
Box 4 : Anwar 369 / Arif 141
Box 5 : Anwar 356 / Arif 161

Box 2 was where I cast my vote. Remember, I did observe in an earlier post that my queue was especially long that morning. Everyone was complaining about it. Also, when I was waiting in the line, I could see that there was a good mix of voters of all races, both in front and behind me. So this type of result comes as a big surprise. Was the BN candidate so overwhelmingly abandoned by the very people he was supposed to champion or was this figure simply a misreport or a mistype? I cannot believe that there were only 265 voters registered for this line the whole day through whereas Boxes 3 to 5 contained at least 500 ballot papers each. It is also unbelievable that he had the support of only three percent of the Box 2 voters when in all the other boxes, he was consistently the choice of some 30 percent of the voters. In the interest of fair reporting, I think Haris Ibrahim (The People's Parliament blogger) should try to verify this result.

Permatang Pauh: Three wise monkeys

This cartoon is too good to ignore!
But tell me ... who can these monkeys portray?

Putrajaya Today

This is PUTRAJAYA calling!

Malaysia Today

Raja Petra's Malaysia Today website has been blocked by local ISPs on orders from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). However, you don't have to fret. Malaysia Today is still accessible from http://mt.harapanmalaysia.com/ or its IP address, http://202.75.62.114/. They'll still take you here:

Permatang Pauh: what's right, what's wrong?

It had to happen, don't you think so? Just think very hard. What's this month all about, according to the Chinese lunar calendar? Why, the Month of the Hungry Ghosts, that's what! So it wasn't all completely surprising to learn that late yesterday afternoon:

Police arrest for MP and sons who helped to detain two empty buses suspected of ferrying phantoms to polling stations