Tux-Hacker

Real Betis 1-2 Liverpool

2005-09-15T15:47:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

Our first Champions League group stage match ended in a 2-1 win over Real Betis in Spain. Stevie was not in the team. Yes, it's true. We won. I'm delighted that we won without Stevie. Not that he was not playing, but rather we're not a one-man team. The miserable plight of England has been splashed all over the newspapers. And the most important reason is the tactics of Sven being built around David "celebrity" Beckham. A one-man team ain't going to succeed, period.

We took an early goal lead through a curling Pongolle lob over the Betis keeper. 2-0 up when Garcia got one from a Zenden low cross. The Betis fans were playing a huge role throughout the match. The atmosphere was pressurizing but our Spanish players were coping very well. We were playing a really good team game despite people questioning Rafa's tactics.

Betis grabbed one goal back in the second half. Our defensive line suffered a sudden lapse, allowing Arzu to get an easy goal. We were in a defensive siege during most of the second half. Stevie came on in the late stages and we held on. This is a great win for us. Real Betis is a team that could frighten even Real Madrid when on home ground. Keep it up, lads!

Tottenham 0-0 Liverpool

2005-09-12T13:21:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

We were played to a goalless draw at White Hart Lane on Saturday. Our midfield were clearly outperformed by the presence of Davids, Carrick and Jenas. I really wonder why Tottenham could get so many midfield talents while Liverpool only managed to sign a few youngsters and so few quality players. Let's just hope Rafa can get some more players in during Christmas. Joaquin should be a good signing. One more centre-back and one more quality striker who can get more than 20 goals per season.

Crouch played his first competitive game of the season. He could have got a debut goal if not for the bizzare corner-kick. Two goals were disallowed in this game due to strangely taken corner-kicks. Tottenham could have got a goal first. But the ball curled out and back in. The linesman decided it was a goal kick. Then Stevie took a corner and the same decision was taken. It was like a conspiracy to end the game 0-0.

WCG 2005

2005-09-09T14:14:00.000+08:00

filed under Singapore

The World Cyber Games 2005 started yesterday. It'll be held in Singapore @ Suntec City from 8 Sept to 11 Sept. I'd wanted to join the Winning Eleven 8 event but no friends wanted to join me. I really hate people saying that they won't win when it comes to competitions. So nobody would bother to try at all. Fcuk it.

Rapture Gaming is building the game rigs for this event. At a discounted price. I'm tempted, especially when the rigs are tested powerful enough to run all sorts of games. Anyway, I've sent an email to Rapture Gaming and placed myself on the booking list.

These are the specifications.

AMD Athlon64 S939 4000+
DFI LanParty UT nForce 4-D
AData DDR400 1GB CL2.5(Dual Channel 2x 512MB)
Sparkle PCI Express X16
Nvidia 6600 256MB
Samsung 80GB HDD
4KUS DVD Writer Drive
Vantec Stealth Casing(350W PSU)
Vantec Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Creative Audigy2 ZS
Windows XP Pro
Creative Inspire 5400 5.1

Unforgiving Katrina

2005-09-06T14:08:00.000+08:00

filed under World

Human beings have always suffered under the unrelentless force of Mother Nature. The recent natural disasters have made me realise that life is just so fragile that you are gone before you know what happened. The deadly tsunami just took away so many lives when the waves came in a split second. This hurricane came at 225km/h and took more innocent lives.

The aftermath of Katrina has been a spate of unhumane actions, with people questioning the government's competency.

All these seem like a Hollywood movie, but reality speaks for itself.

VICTIMS of Hurricane Katrina have returned to pick through their battered homes as President George W. Bush promised to fix bungled rescue efforts after a disaster in which the mayor of New Orleans said as many as 10,000 may have died.

Shocking death toll.

"We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. "They (federal officials) wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."

Couldn't everything be done simultaneously? I don't know what the hell is an organizational chart. But I do know that human aid and food supplies could do more help.

``Katrina has been just the opposite. It has been a vacuum of leadership and a failure to take the nation and the people of the Gulf in his arms.''

Bush was a great leader when dealing with the Sept 11 attacks. But he has failed in every sense when dealing with this natural catastrophe. The slow response, the lack of governmental action, the poorly organized rescue operations, ...

Countries large and small have offered aid — from tiny Luxembourg's beds and blankets to half a million food rations from Germany and Britain.

It's heart-warming to see the enormous amount of aid.

A paramedic traveled two days to hurricane-ravaged Mississippi to bring his terminally ill brother home to die.

When disaster strucks, the most cruel thing is to separate a family into life and death.

Discriminatory Remarks

2005-09-03T14:14:00.000+08:00

filed under Singapore

I was browsing over a popular local online forum and there were a whole load of posts about the Project Superstar winner. The finale garnered a viewership of over a million, which is remarkable. I guess this is the only way Singaporeans can have the right to vote. That's why the show is so popular in our so-called "democratic" country. A visually impaired man won the competition, and harsh criticisms came along. In particular, there were discriminatory remarks towards people with disabilities. I was fuming when I saw a post titled "Are we gonna be anticipating a "Disabled Idol" competition anytime soon?" I see the need to reply to this immature threadstarter.

Threadstarter,

"Disabled" is a very sensitive word that shouldn't be used often. I can sense from your posts that you are trying to show that you are very proficient in the English language. But I'm shocked to see that you have no knowledge about the usage of sensitive words.

Your question could be interpreted in a number of ways. So I don't see the reason why someone can be an "idiot" or "retard" (Note: sensitve words) if they interpret the question in a different way from you. And this is a public forum, everyone have a right to say anything they want. I assume you support free speech.

I'll now try to provide an answer to your question. I guess everyone now knows that the winner of "Project Superstar" is a visually impaired man. This issue would definitely spark a series of debates on how he could be a superstar. Young people with physical challenges would see this as a motivation and participate in next year's competition. I assume that the preliminary stages would only be dependent on singing abilities, similar to this year. If one could sing well regardless of their physical abilities, why should we set aside another independent competition? Nobody is perfect. Why should there be a classification for people like Wei Lian? Such classification is a manifestation of discrimination.

I understand that you are worried that a large influx of people with physical challenges will be in singing competitions next year. But we will not be anticipating a separate "Disabled Idol" competition, for sure.

From your posts, I infer that you are trying to show that you are intellectually superior to people here. And I assume that you are physically superior as well, since I don't see that you or your friends or your family members have disabilities from the phrasing of your words. I urge you to use your superior abilities to help the less-abled society in Singapore in one way or another. I really hope to see a more open society over here. We are a far way back from our counterparts in Europe or the U.S where they see these less-abled people as normal people who go on with their lives like anyone else.

The competition is over, go on with your life and we go on with our lives too.

Off To Pluto

2005-08-30T12:41:00.000+08:00

filed under General

NASA is sending the New Horizons spacecraft to study Pluto. We can send our names to Pluto too. I sent mine and got a participation certificate.

Here's an excerpt from the certificate:

Thank you for joining the first mission to the last planet! A compact disc bearing your name will be included on the New Horizons spacecraft, set for the first voyage to a new class of planets on the solar system's farthest frontier.

All you need to do is to submit your name to NASA here.

The probe will launch January 2006 and return in ~50,000 years later. Then our names will return to Earth and people will know that we are the pioneering generation to explore Pluto.

IM Google

2005-08-29T12:23:00.000+08:00

filed under Web

Skype is making Google jealous. Google now wants to step into the IM market.

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free.

Google Talk Beta is available now. It looks very promising. But competition would be fierce among these two heavyweights. Skype has already about 150 million downloads to date. The customer base is huge. Google, on the other hand, is leveraging on the popularity of Gmail. Anyone with a Gmail account is automatically registered.

Link

Liverpool 3-1 CSKA Moscow

2005-08-27T16:13:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

We got our first silverware of the season with a 3-1 extra-time win over CSKA Moscow in the European Super Cup final. Stevie was a huge miss and we fail to dominate in midfield.

We went a goal behind in the 28th minute when Daniel Carvalho rounded Reina to finish a well-taken goal.

We sparked a comeback when Cisse came on to grab two crucial goals. Cisse scored a lucky goal eight minutes from time and took the game to extra time.

We clearly dominated extra time and bringing on Cisse and Sissoko proved vital. Cisse got another goal when his powerful shot on goal rebounded off the goalkeeper. Garcia scored a free header when Cisse went down the flanks in a counter-attack and provided a great cross.

This first trophy will be a great boost to the team's confidence, especially the new players. Anyone seen the Super Cup trophy? It's a bit too small, isn't it?

We Drew Chelsea

2005-08-26T12:03:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

The Champions League group stages were drawn yesterday. We really drew Chelsea. Murphy's law is true: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." But we could see some very exciting matches in this most competitive group G. 4 matches against Chelsea this season, and it could be more with the FA Cup, Carling Cup, and probably the later stages of the Champions League.

Liverpool's Group G Champions League games

Tuesday, September 13th. Real Betis v Liverpool.

Wednesday, September 28th. Liverpool v Chelsea.

Wednesday, October 19th. Anderlecht v Liverpool.

Tuesday, November 1st. Liverpool v Anderlecht.

Wednesday, November 23rd. Liverpool v Real Betis.

Tuesday, December 6th. Chelsea v Liverpool

All kick-off times are 2.45am Singapore time.

Liverpool 0-1 CSKA Sofia

2005-08-24T13:37:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

Six games played, we're finally in the Champions League group stages. But we had to scrape through the third qualifying round tie on aggregate with a shock 1-0 home defeat and a 3-1 away victory.

We have to improve a lot in order to repeat last year's triumph. There's still no goal from open play since the start of the EPL campaign. This is very frustrating for us. Get Owen back and let the goals flow.

World's Lightest RC Plane

2005-08-23T13:32:00.000+08:00

filed under Wishlist

This incredibly light remote controlled plane is sheer fun to play with. It's bundled with a case so that you can carry it everywhere. It's called the Butterfly and butterflies could very well mistake it for their mutated friend. US$239, someone buy it for me!

Link

IceRocket Beats Technorati

2005-08-23T12:45:00.000+08:00

filed under Web

What? Technorati lost?

Technorati currently says that 19 sites have linked to me in the past 6 days while PubSub has returned 38 fresh, unrepeated results during that same time.

kottke.org had enough of this. Link

Technorati has always been slow but I wonder why nobody complains. Well, I never complained too. But soon, we'll be going to see the downfall of a blog search giant that's really in a mess now.

There's always something good.

Link

A Very Satisfied Amazon Customer

2005-08-23T12:23:00.000+08:00

filed under General

This is the first time purchasing a book from Amazon. And I'm pretty satisfied with the delivery speed. It took only a week. The US$10 delivery charge was worth it, I guess.

National Day Rally 2005

2005-08-22T13:30:00.000+08:00

filed under Singapore

For those of you who missed the live broadcast yesterday, you can get the relevant podcasts and audio files here.

Liverpool 1-0 Sunderland

2005-08-22T13:06:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

It was a disappointing start to the first home game of the season against newly promoted Sunderland. We won the game by only one goal, but most fans had expected to see more.

Xabi Alonso scored a spectacular free kick to settle the win from 30 yards.

Two games and we only got a goal from set-piece. It's rather frustrating to see the strikers not getting the goals from open play. It would be great if Owen do come back. And I hoped Crouch could do well when he comes back from suspension.

Stevie limped off during the match. Hope it's not serious and he'll be able to lead the team for the Super Cup Final in Monaco.

A bizzare red card decision from the referee ended a not-so-exciting match. John Welsh was sent off for making a slight contact with Garcia.

Kapo Super Monkie

2005-08-19T20:49:00.000+08:00

filed under Gadgets

This cute monkey with a hilarious name is actually a radio. An embedded system in a monkey, hmm.

Link

Designing A Website

2005-08-19T20:22:00.000+08:00

filed under Project

I was busy designing a website for my honours year project for the past 2 days. Thought a website would be great to record my research and development and resources. I'm trying to grasp the idea of pure CSS while designing. And I sort of got the gist. My project website uses only CSS for styling, albeit a simple one.

While finding colours for my site, I came across a great website for colour schemes that are web-smart. Check it out here.

Voting Denied

2005-08-17T13:47:00.000+08:00

filed under Singapore

Just when I thought I could vote for the very first time, I was denied the chance. So much said for democracy, Singaporeans have not been able to vote for President since 1993. Yes, President Nathan has been doing very well in nation affairs. He's well-loved by Singaporeans too. But a change of face may be beneficial. We would love to have a say in choosing our President.

I'm afraid the criteria for presidential eligibility set by the Presidential Elections Committee may be too strict. So strict that maybe only people from PAP are eligible; I'm only joking, really. Andrew Kwan was a very hopeful candidate until the local media revealed some "facts". True or not, I don't know. But we know the local media, don't we?

Middlesbrough 0-0 Liverpool

2005-08-15T14:11:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

We got off to a disappointing start to the season with a 0-0 draw at The Riverside Stadium on Saturday. Stevie was left frustrated with what could be a 5-0 thrashing or more.

Middlesbrough were running on their luck throughout the match. Ugo Ehiogu was sent off for a last-man tackle on Stevie. But it was unfortunate that we couldn't take advantage of the situation.

Even though we only managed a point, it's great to see that we kept a clean sheet. I really hope we could improve our away form this season. Having a clean sheet for the first away game is important.

In another match played yesterday, I was absolutely gutted when Crespo scored an injury time winner against Wigan. It just wasn't a fair reflection on the game. Wigan was giving Chelsea problems that the champions didn't face last season. In what might be the biggest surprise of the season, Chelsea scored a very late goal. I just felt that Wigan deserved a point. But this is football.

Support Wei Lian

2005-08-12T13:47:00.000+08:00

filed under Singapore

Even though I thought Project Superstar was a flop, I still watch it every week. And in fact, I called to support one of the contestants. Yes, the money goes to Mediacorp and Singtel. But it'll be money well spent if that contestant wins and gets a recording contract.

I'm not sympathising with Wei Lian. I admire his courage and singing talent. It's sad that he's visually handicapped but I believe he could be a superstar. Nobody is perfect. He lost his sight but he got a very special singing ability. His singing touches people.

Most Singaporeans should have seen him singing in the streets. But it's hard to be a street artist in this place, and it's even harder for a disabled person. It'll be easy to imagine whether someone would give 10 bucks to a street artist.

Look at Ray Charles. He's such a great singer even though he's blind. So let's give Wei Lian a chance to cut an album. I'll definitely grab a copy.

P.S. Wei Lian, you have improved a lot this week. Keep it up and do the disabled community in Singapore proud.

EFF15 Blogathon Winners Announced

2005-08-11T15:20:00.000+08:00

filed under Web

The winners have been revealed in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 15th Anniversary Blog-a-thon. I didn't win anything though. But guess what. My post is hiding somewhere on the awards announcement article. The first paragraph's "free speech in Singapore" link.

Link

CSKA Sofia 1-3 Liverpool

2005-08-11T14:51:00.000+08:00

filed under Liverpool

We are closing in on the group stages of the Champions League after a 3-1 away win in Bulgaria. Stevie stole the limelight from 2-goal Morientes by setting up Liverpool's all 3 goals.

After 24 minutes, Cisse got Stevie's through ball and placed a low shot through the keeper's legs.

Our lead doubled at the 30th minute with a cool Morientes' header from Stevie's free kick. I believe he could be Liverpool's Champions League most lethal striker this season.

Morientes got another goal in close range after a superb play from Stevie and Cisse.

We conceded a goal due to a defense lapse at the stroke of half-time. But it was still a classy display from the lads. And we saw the club's youngest ever foreign player Antonio Barragan made his debut.

But it was very unfortunate that Cisse suffered racial abuse from the CSKA fans. This shouldn't happen in football and it should disappear from the world too.

Blogger Survey

2005-08-10T12:48:00.000+08:00

filed under Web

There's a Blogger survey going on now. I added a comment to include categorizing features and I'm sure most of you guys want this. Go fill up the survey and Blogger may very soon include categories.

Link

Beautiful Fireworks

2005-08-09T21:31:00.000+08:00

filed under Singapore

The fireworks this time round were beautiful. I could get a pretty good view of the fireworks from my place. The loud thud, followed by the sparkle, were too good to miss.

Didn't have the chance to take pictures though. I would browse around for uploaded pictures tomorrow. Hope some kind souls would upload to Flickr.

Happy Birthday Singapore!

Podeejay

2005-08-08T20:42:00.000+08:00

filed under Podcasts

It’s What You Want, When You Want It.

Podeejay will be launching August 9. It's featured in the Youthink column of today's Straits Times.

Support Singapore's first podcasting network.

Link