Monday, February 27, 2006

Life...

I remember when I was in secondary school, my form teacher came into the class one day and gave us a long lecture on how fragile life is, and how we should cherish it. At that time I was just happy that she did not give us any homework that day. Didn't really care what she was saying.. But for some reasons it stuck in my mind...

Over this weekend I realised the truth in what she said. It is true, life is really fragile. You never know when it will end, and where! Not that I am afraid of a life ending, I am just afraid, that it would be an incomplete life. When one regrets not having done something before the end.

This is kinda what my teacher said too, "You should never hold back your kind feelings for any person, cos you never know you may be able to express them later. You should put off a good dead, lest you never get to complete it. And you should never wait to appologise, else you may never get a chance to."

Every beginning has an end. Something that no one can run from. One should strive to live a life such that when the end comes, he/she should not wish it had not.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

I give up...

This is freaking annoying. I absolutely hate stuff like this. I have been doing this stupid lab for one of my courses for the past week, and it doesn't want to work. Not that it is very important, just 5% of a final grade that I don't really care for. But it doesn't work!!! Ahhh...

Theoretically, it is supposed to work. I tested all the individual components, and they seem to work. I even tried to model it and simulated the model. It give perfect results. But, when I implement it on the freaking hardware platform, it does not want to work.

Whats worst is that the problem, that I get is because of bouncing in push buttons. Something that we learnt to deal with in 2nd year courses.I know a sure shot solution to it, but I can't use it here. Damn it. For the 1st time in my life, I actually feel the need to use analogue electronics over digital. How I love RC ciruits!!

I don't wanna give up. I want to nail this one. but it leaves me no choice...:'( Wasted too much time on this stupid SodaMachine... FYP and 2 projects still to do...

Sigh...

Friday, February 17, 2006

IPTV in Singapore!

Just saw this on the news yesterday! Mediacorps is starting IPTV service in Singapore. That mean you can download your favourite Mediacorps TV shows legally (hehe.. I know) for a small sum of money. Its basically like iTunes but for Mediacorps shows.

I think this is really cool. Hopefully if they manage the DRM stuff properly and we can time-shift and place-shift well enough, I can see this technology picking up. Especially since Singapore has so many mobile devices.

But, then again, they could really screw this up. And that will not be a surprise. We have seen it happen before. OK OK I will not complain about stuff... But they should really care about the quality of the videos they are offering. Or maybe a few options for the types of format and size for the user to choose. Also different DRM options so we dont have to download the same thing many times. I mean if they are going to get money for it, might as well do it well. I am sure people are willing to pay for it if they provide good service. I am....Are you??

Currently, I checked the website and the service is beta. Seems that it mostly doesn't work, but you can see the DRM options and costs. 1 episode of Police and Theif was S$3. Of course single view and the user cannot move the file, which sucks, but for S$3.. hey why not!




I also hope they put up some really cool TV shows from the past. You know like Under One Roof! and maybe PCK...especially the very first few seasons. Would be really fun to watch them again. For the sake of TheWeed, I have to mention Triple 9! And maybe the really old school stuff like MDIS!! and The RaRa Show..






Personally, I would do anything to get my hands on the whole season of Chase. That was one of the best local show I have watched. It was simple and sweet. OK lah, sometimes a little bo liao, but quite funny! And I guess TheWeed would want the final episode of Tiramisu that he missed..

Monday, February 13, 2006

Nihira Joshi...

Update.. Just read that Nihira is gonna sing for either Ismail Darbar and/or AR Rahman (yes... the man himself) in the movie Baajirao Mastani. Seems that both of them are directing the music for the movie... I can't wait to hear Nihira and Rahman!!




This is sort of the continuation of my previous post aboutReality TV Well, more about one reality show and a specific participant. I have been thinking about posting something about her, but never got down to do it.

Nihira Joshi was one of the participants of SaReGaMaPa Challenge 2005. 'Was' since she got voted out a few weeks ago. Now I won’t go on about how she was the best and should have won and stuff. That has already been done a lot on the >India Forums. But personally I felt, as a singer, she is really great. All throughout the competition, she sang without going out of tune/note (besur). Well, almost. I remember her going a little besur just once. Her voice is clear and sweet. And most importantly does not waver. That may not be really useful in certain types of music (like arabic music where u need that fluctuation), but more often than not it sounds great.
























That's her.... (Photo from madhaparia.com)

Personally, I loved her courage. Not only did she take on some really difficult songs, but also took on the most difficult parts of the songs. Let me exemplify, I remember when she sang the song Chalka Chalka from the movie Saathiya, I was thinking, "she can take the easy stanza/verse/kadva or the difficult one, the one with Richa Sharma's vocals. If she takes the difficult one, god bless her." Too my surprise, she took the difficult one and rendered it, making it look sooo simple.

I got this clip of her singing Kehna Hi Kya from the movie Bombay. This was recorded off TV by another fan of the show. For that reason the quality is not great. Also there seems to be some distortion towards the end of the clip. I personally think that that aalap that she sings is amazing. In the original song, it is sung by AR Rahman himself and that too really beautifully. I feel that Nihira has done justice to that song. Here is the clip









and here is the original.(Unfortunately IE only... :@)

I don't care if she lost in the SaReGaMaPa Challenge2006. She is just 17!! and I am very sure we'll hear here again. Actually, she has already 'sang' (If you could call it that) in Bunty Aur Bubbly and supposedly has an album coming up. There is also a rumour that she might be coming to Singapore to perform!!...Can't wait for that... :p

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Updates for Minty...

Alright...

Seems that our Minty Mp3 player project will happen afterall. Currently, we have all the 'raw materials' including the PCBs and all the ICs and components. We just need some good soldering tools (which I hope to buy) and some good debugging tools like multimeter and oscilloscope (which I hope I wont have to buy...).

Oh and the most important, the PIC programmer. We actually built a Pic-Key. But I am not so sure if it works. Plus, we dont have any extra PICs to burn...:p Whats worst Microchip has stopped sampling many PICs... So there is no way to get the PICs other than buying... :"(

Anyway, just the other day I found this. PIC-PG1. Its by sparkfun, and its only US$ 11 + shipping. Seems a better alternative to our Pic-Key..

And I also found Eagle3D. Eagle is a really great circuit CAD tool that I have been using since I took EE3208. Really good for all student projects. It can produce gerber files so that you can fab the PCB at any fab. I am pretty sure it will work in the NUS PCB fab as well. It takes a little time to learn, but once you get it, its really cool. Its free and you can create your own device if the libraries don't have the one you want. And do check their libraries, cos they have many many user submissions....

Eagle3D is like a macro for Eagle that allows you convert your Eagle Board layout into a 3D rendering capable file format, through a Eagle ULP. Really cool stuff. The generated file can be viewed through POV-Ray. I did a quick rendeing for Minty, and here are the results.

This is the board layout of Minty...

And this is the 3D version. Cool huh??

Now only if I had more time.....

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Marché and more temptations....

Went to Marché today.... TheWeed belanjahed us there... :D Thank you dude... It was great...
Though I must say that I dont like Marché. Don't get me wrong, we had a blast! But, I just don't like the concept of the restaurant.. All the food on display, is a huge temptation. I am spoilt for choice when I want to get food. I walk around and around...and I can't decide what I want to get.. Ahhhhhhhh... I hate that feeling...

I have been subjected to many tempations recently...


Sigh... how I wish I could don't write this #*@^%@# speech for tomorrow and do one (or more) of these things....

But, I will resist.. and I shall wait. In the words of TheWeed, "Wait untill time dilates...".....

Thursday, February 02, 2006

The reality of Reality TV...

I have never been a sucker for reality TV.. Well almost never... I kinda used to follow Survivor during the 1st and 2nd seasons.. But, recently with the renewed zeal in reality TV shows, I have been thinking of them again..

Seems that Idol fever hit India last year, and soon after there were 20 other shows trying to sponge off Indian Idols popularity. Unfortunately, in that fray, one of my favourite TV shows was tainted with the reality stamp.

I have been watching SaReGaMaPa, since it started. It used to be hosted by Sonu Nigam, and then by Aman and Aayan Ali Bangash and now by Shaan. It was a good show. Though most of the times the people who won were not my favourites, the show did bring forward some really great talents.. Shreya Ghoshal and Kunal Ganjawala to name a few..

Last year, succumbing to the hope of great ratings and more (I will come to that..)they changed it to an Idol like contest. So basically, there are no judges and the 'public' vote for their favourites. Well, I won't go into the details of the 'drama shama' that unfolded. It was so much that they would have to make like 3 Hindi movies out of it, just to do justice to the drama. For those who have no idea how much drama Hindi movies have... just try to catch one..

My interest lies in the financial aspect of reality shows. It seems that every SMS vote you send costs Rs5. (That’s like 20 cents). And they have been getting votes in hundreds of thousands every week. That the best part of running a show like that in India.. The sheer amount of people makes it a huge money earner. So it’s like they make millions from just these votes every week. There is not much expense though. Only 1 participant gets the final prize and the other stuff is probably paid for by the sponsors. That's good business...

So I have decided if I can’t find a job, I am going to start a reality TV show. Just imagine, a reality TV show on students studying in NUS!!! The winner gets CAP of 5!! And the weekly challenges are assignments!! Their answers of the assignments are put up on the website for the viewers to see and vote accordingly.

So who wants to participate?? Contact me asap!

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

I should learn LaTeX...

After what I went through today... I say I have had enough of M$... Though I do save almost all my reports and other written articles as pdf files, I was still using M$ Word to create them. It is easy and I have been using it for years now.

However, todays episode is the last straw. I dont want to deal with unopenable files, unprintable files and stupid "Oooops your file is now corrupted, your data is all lost. Thanks for using M$"...

LaTeX seems to be the way to go. Though it's difficult to learn it seems very flexible. It also seems to have some kind of style sheets. I dont know how and what... That is what I should find out now... And you can make pdf projector slides as well with LaTeX and stuff like that. That mean I can say "good bye" to M$ Office.. I will only need it to open things....never to create anything.

Haha... freedom at last.... Just need to explore and read... A LOT!!!