Microsoft Word In Linux

Windows In Linux
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.

I installed Windows in a VMware virtual machine so that I could use Word to complete my interim report.

As you can see, I am also using Internet Explorer to login to sites that are sadly browser-dependent, even for important pages such as online recontract pages.

I got rid of all the Windows eye-candy. I feel less worried when Windows looks more like an app instead of an entire OS running within Linux.

Here's the nice bit. Most of the time, I will only suspend the guest OS (ie. I won't exit Word, IE nor shutdown Windows) and exit VMware when I don't need it. When I need to use Word or IE again, I will simply launch VMware and resume.

I am able to get to a usable Word in approximately 15 secs which is very handy.

The following is a simple tip to allocate time to tasks. It's more of a reminder to myself.

Scenario:
What to do if you have a report and a project to complete. Both are important but the report is due within a week whilst the project is due a few months later.

Approach:
Spend 2 days on the report, then 1 day on the project, followed by 2 days on the report again and so on.

Adjust the ratio accordingly. Feel free to apply other scheduling techniques.

Psychedelic Flashing Disco Dance Floor

Psychedelic Flashing Disco Dance Floor
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.

The geeks at MIT made a really cool dance floor!

1,536 LEDs.
128 square feet.
4,096 colors.
30 frames/second.
20,000 hand-soldered connections.

Can you imagine the parties we could have?!!! Woooo! Awesome!

Now I wish I had a dance floor like that.

Call On Meeeee... CALL ON ME!

Ok. Watch the first video.




Ooooh. Not bad eh. Now watch the second video.

Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!
Call on meeeee... CALL ON ME!

Hamachi

Hamachi
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.

This is going to help with playing Need For Speed Most Wanted with my friends over the internet.

It's possibilities are endless and best of all, it works in Linux as well.

I still have got work to do so I can't try it out now. Thankfully, I find my work interesting so I ain't complaining!

Hamachi is a UDP-based virtual private networking system. Its peers utilize the help of a 3rd node called mediation server to locate each other and to boot strap the connection between themselves. The connection itself is direct and once it's established no traffic flows through our servers.

Hamachi is not just truly peer-to-peer, it is verifiably secure peer-to-peer.

Believe it or not, but we are able to successfully mediate p2p connections in roughly 97% of all cases we dealt with so far (few tens of thousands as of early March). This includes peers sitting behind different firewalls and/or broadband routers (aka NAT devices).

Dodging Bullets

Bullet Time, pretty fun reflex game that has you dodging the moment you hear the gun fire. At least the concept is better than javascript games that have you clicking a button when the background color changes.

Most bullets move at speeds greater than the speed of sound but there are bullets that travel slower than sound. So here's a quick calculation.

s: speed of sound, 330 m/s;
b: speed of slow bullet, 180 m/s;
r: reflex time;
d: safe range where d = (rbs)/(s-b);

For finger reflex:
r = 0.25 s
d = (0.25*180*330)/(330-180) = 99 m

For a head shot:
r = 0.6 s
(a head has got more inertia, greater distance to cover since getting shot between the eyes and getting shot in one eye are both detrimental to your overall well-being. I didn't go around wearing a stopwatch shaking my head like a madman so this is another estimate.)

d = (0.6*180*330)/(330-180)= 237.6 m

Basically, if I were in the game, I should be pretty safe at 237.6 m and very dead at 99 m. This reminds me of the movie Daredevil where he hears an oncoming bullet and pulls Bullseye's hand into it's path.

That bullet is definitely slower than the speed of sound. Now if someone could just watch the movie again and tell me the distance from which the bullet was fired, we could estimate Daredevil's reaction time!

My score is rather lousy at 10303 and I am currently ranked 13194. Here are some guys using Audacity on a laptop to record the speed of a bullet.

Marguerite Perrin From Trading Spouses

This is a clip from one of the funniest Trading Spouses episodes ever. Marguerite Perrin returns home after the exchange and just goes ballistic!

Can you say "dork-sodded"?!!
I'm a GOD WARRIOR!!!11111

You would think that with her devout faith in GOD that she would have just prayed to lose a few hundred pounds. Apparently that didn't work out either.

Watch it till the end for the punchline and feel free to laugh along with the comments about this clip here.

Xuejun, Benny, Me & Waikong

Xuejun, Benny, Me & Waikong
Originally uploaded by Arnold Ho.

Went for dinner at Crystal Jade Takashimaya and a little clubbing at Club Momo with Xuejun, Waikong, Benny and Grace on Saturday night. Pictures here.