Philip Khor

2009 has been very kind to me.

It was my 4th year in a 3 year degree.

My pool skills improved exponentially (Thanks Melvyn, YW, Pat and “The Team”!)

And physically, my weight maintained / reduced slightly from Jan 09 – Dec 09. Yes people, I believe I was at 95kg in January and now I’m 93kg!!! There were ups and downs, but all in all, it is ok lah. Technically I’m “obese” but I’m not having any of that worldly standards! I wanna be up against the “ogre / boomer scale”.

I got some nice Melaka pics to show but I couldn’t find the sync cable for my phone.

Job hunt. Hope to get into a good company and learn some stuff.

Resolutions for 2010:

1. Lose weight 5kg.

2. Exercise 4 times a week (badminton / jog)

3. Eat 4 meals a day (Max)

God seems to be in everything (good). When good things happen, praise God. When bad things happen, blame the devil. The comments say it all [via Digg]

When you put it like THAT…

Should we take literature literally or metaphorically or symbolically?

[Source: Wikipedia]

Have a good long weekend, everyone!

The Facebook platform is awesome.

So awesome that it is the new Internet sensation which causes kids severe addiction to such games as “Farmville” and “Restaurant City”.

We need something new. Something where invitation is limited. So here’s the plan:

1. Port existing active users to Facebook Eleet™ beta.

2. Educate users on the new rules:

a. Keep in touch, or die! (Relegated to facebook basic)

b. Ask before eaves-dropping (I had a wild party last night and lotsa hot chics tagged me. No you cannot see them unless I approve).

c. The News Feed will show that a message has been sent between Eleet ™ users but again, permission is needed to see who is involved and what the message said. Group bulletin options will be available.

d. No stupid games, but good ones. Popular games will be ported over to the new site. Get Steve Jobs to approve all new app submissions.

3. Steal technologies from Google Wave. Add participants onto a conversation mid-way. Better chat system. Storing of all history like Google Talk / Chat / Gmail. The system has to be FAST.

4. Niche specific features like super huge file transfer (with limits).

Implementation:

1. I log in to Facebook.com as usual.. I see all those farmville requests and news that I really don’t need to know.

2. Click on “Eleet ™ beta” icon.

3. The page simplifies to my favourite contacts. It suggests who I haven’t keep in touch with and offer gift suggestions. User’s postal address is stored secretly so friends can send gifts (option to disable is available).

4. Your personal details are extremely secure. You log on with a screen name, and contact me option. That’s it.

5. Your “message center / inbox” will be very interactive on how you can select your options.

Objectives:

1. Communicating experience.

2. On the go (mobile) experience has to be good.

3. Twitter / Youtube / Digg news integration.

4. Use front cameras on 3G phone to record video. Somehow, lots web apps (java based) don’t seem to tap this facility!

5 years down the line, what people would want is a simplistic interface with high security settings. They can have twice daily updates on their friends on their Blackberry or iPhone or for more busy people, 2 levels of notification, URGENT and “party pics urgent”.

Photographers want high resolution photos to be shared for printing, and file sharers need a decent platform for secure transfer of files.

Make those features the strength of Facebook Eleet ™.

3 things I wanna update you guys:

1. I had an awesome time with my family in Melaka. Met some beauty peagants from many countries around the world. Finland and Indonesia smiled at me!!! :) England and Wales were tougher to get (their attention). They were all freakin’ tall weh~!! Went to Eye on Malaysia and Melaka River cruise. Used coastal road to Port Dickson, but had to make 100 km detour back to the Highway due to heavy traffic to PD. The hotel was nice (Bayview Hotel) and the Chicken Ball Rice was just a gimmick.. something like.. the new mobile phones nowadays. We know those sneaky Marketers are getting paid overtime, and we laugh about it, but still we want it!

2. The new Apple tablet on January 27th? iSlate or Magic Slate (source: MacRumors) Save up US$700 (RM 2800?) The new multi-touch gestures will surprise you! Remember the awe we were all in back in January 2007 during the iPhone announcement? Expect similar jaw-dropping salivation this January (cough, graduation gift?) – watch District 9 [1 h 40] min when the alien prawns configure the computer to go home, yeeah.. that’s coming SOON :)

3. Christmas church was good (DULC) new year’s eve Thursday 6pm, we see you all at DUMC? Ok?

Yesterday night, I went pool with Kate, Jamie and Joey. They were expecting Pat, but Pip showed up instead. Boy, were they disappointed! lol.

The nice people at Club 9 gave us free buffet dinner for their 1st Anniversary. Safe to say, we clocked in hundreds of cumulative hours “working” there (on our pool skills, of course!). Ahh, the good times, of waiting til the wee hours in the morning for “promises of a free laptop, motorbike, what else?”

Taylor’s graduation will be 31 Jan 2010. The UniSA peeps won’t be doing it with us :( instead we at UTS are paired up with guys from Foundation and Diploma. Wonder how that will pan out!

I overheard them saying that its Chinese Christmas soon: December 22nd is a big occassion for many Chinese homes. It is celebrated with the making of tongyuen (cantonese), tangyuen (Mandarin) or kueh ee (Hokkien dialect). In the olden days, the grandmothers are very strict with the making of tongyuen.

During our session just now, it was funny to hear Kate’s dream wedding would include the Wedding Entrance Dance [Chris Brown - Forever]! lol. Just curious to hear other girl’s wedding dreams. Me? 3 options:

A – Garden party, buffet style where whole kampung shows up, cham cha, the end. kthxbie we off to manchester for huneymoon!

B – Traditional Chinese event at restaurant / hotel, do it 2nd time at “her” town. Objective: Make parents / relatives happy.

C – via the Internet… get 100s of ppl to come “online”, do it via video, .. then Catan and Monopoly at a good Mc Donald’s restaurant! Then of course, air lifted via helicopter.

Let’s do something crazy today! Coney Tuesday, Mr. Koay?

Here to put a smile on your face! 20th birthday at Shamla’s place at Old Klang Rd. Rushed back from Penang (2 box of Him Heang P’neah as evidence)

Dad making arrangements for me in Vietnam back in ’06 :) WOOHOO!!!!

Was at a family dinner yesterday night.

I happen to have a lighter to light the candles.

“Have you started smoking?”

I casually jokingly replied, “Yes!” (And I showed my teeth)

“Yeah, can see it has turned yellow!!!!! The stains are there.” <– said in the most serious of tone!

Sigh~ I need to get ‘em whitened!!!

Happy birthday to daddy, Mr. Peter Khor =)
awsm dad.

Was browsing through Friendster, now that Vincent tan (aka Toto boss) has bought over it..

Yahoo Finance:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Malaysian-tycoon-buys-apf-3015049590.html?x=0&.v=1

Malaysian tycoon Vincent Tan announced a deal to buy Friendster, a social networking site that still retains a strong following in Southeast Asia after losing in global popularity to Facebook and MySpace.

 

Went over and felt nostalgic as the old memories flood back! Ahh.. HSC @ INTI in 2005.. and before that. (KDU engineering in 2004)

Batu Ferringhi beach party marking the end of the year long Pre-U program

Good friend Chin Aik aka Nottiboy. There’s always a fat kid, a skinny kid in the picture!

That’s Marcus, and Kenny (3rd from right) who plays really like Maksim

The gang.

Ahhh.. update more soon. Feeling hungry now!

Here’s a little teaser.

Say, you save RM 500 per month of your hard earned money. Diligently, without fail. I’m 99% sure 99% of you would find it quite difficult, whether you’re earning RM 2000 a month or RM 5000 a month. For convenience sake, lets say you got the discipline to put aside RM 500 after taxes, bills, repayments, etc.

Question: How long will it take for you to save up RM 1,000,000 (one million ringgit)?

Points to consider:

1. Interest rate is at 2.5% (per annum) for low risk investments (FD)

2. Inflation rate is at 6% (possibly more)

3. RM 500 today might not be worth RM 500 in x years.

Well. The answer?

2000 months (or roughly 167 years).

High returns is cancelled out tremendously by the rising costs of goods as well as inflation (escalating at increasing rate for the past century).

It is really scary, I tell ya~!!

Moral of the story: Use all your money today, and don’t worry about tomorrow (source: 2012 movie)

Update: As of mid March 2010, the grooves on these Crocs are totally gone. They are bald! Maybe I overused them! Time for new ones?

Tomorrow, I will be collecting a pair of Crocs sandles, thanks to my lovely sister, Olivia :) [edit: here it is! in yellow]

Tonight will be a good night, where Liverpool and Arsenal will draw 2-2 with Torres to score first. United to dive to the lead with a convincing win and a Chelsea slip up. [edit: epic phailure. the game in sunday night and man utd fail to capitalise on a chelsea cock up]

Ah.. one can dream, can’t he?

5 things I wanna comment on tonight:

1. Astro HD, step in the right direction. Football in HD = win. But does the RM 20+ premium justify 2 extra HD sports channels? And don’t get me started on the rain fade issue.

2. Wow, 25 points for Winner of a Formula 1 grand prix race. Very nice, but will it screw things up? Nice to see many cars on the grid. Wow, this time, I think I’ll go with the Hamilton-Button british team! Mmmm…

3. Nice to meet the OUG CG of 2006 again, after such a long time. It was truly heart warming.

4. It would be nice if we can make a trip to Genting or Penang in the next 10 days! Anyone up for a trip?

5. On a short term, low key thing, how about a bowling or cycling trip (Bkt Cahaya, Shah Alam)? Or, even Go-kart?

Oh, and went to Taylor’s lakeside with Patrick. Discovered the wonders of the Machine they call an iMac. The iChat feature was awsm.

srsly, GG

What the heck.

What the heck.

What the heck.

The 27″ iMac on the new Taylor’s lakeside labs? That’s freaking insane. The business IT guys are here looking now.

But the wireless keyboard is awesoem

Ok, forget it (about any laptop purchases). Lets get the iMac 27!

[update: in the Dell lab now.. not as sexy but when < 50 users on the uni internet line, it is awsm]

That is 1,300 KB/s (about 10 megabits)

Tracing route to philipkhor.com [202.190.176.100]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     5 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.101.64.3
  2     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  10.99.4.83
  3     5 ms     4 ms     3 ms  192.168.115.2
  4     7 ms     7 ms     5 ms  203.176.151.254
  5    60 ms   231 ms   220 ms  mmdc01-gw.clearcomm.com.my [203.176.144.1]
  6     8 ms     7 ms    11 ms  203.176.144.26
  7    13 ms    11 ms    12 ms  jaring.myix.gov.my [218.100.44.66]
  8    11 ms    10 ms    11 ms  te3-0-1.bkj2.jaring.my [61.6.10.26]
  9     8 ms     9 ms    11 ms  silver.centralmalaysia.com [202.190.176.100]

Trace complete.

Results for my last 2 UniSA papers will be made known on the 19th. Meanwhile, it is a bittersweet period of my life which involves transition of sorts. Traditionally, I’m awful when its time to change. Just look at these occasions:

Age 0 – Getting out of my mother’s womb. The breath of fresh air didn’t suit me as I rather have food and from the fallopian tube.

Age 1 – Jabs scare me. It really does.

Age 4 – Did I say that how scared I am of needles? Visit to the doctors is like being condemned to communistic torture.

Age 5 – The first real test, Kindergarden. BOOM. Teacher Shanti had eyes like the fierce Hindu god of hades! It was as if she could eat me up!

Age 7 – Making friends both in the playground and in Standard 1 in a Chinese school. My Mathematics multiplication table, yes, I learnt it during my 18 months in a Chinese school. It is still useful today. Other than that, the experience hasn’t been memorable. Every time failing my Chinese spelling tests.

Age 8 – Shift to Brunei. At first it sounded like fun, you know, escape from the torture thus far. Reachedthere,  it was a totally new different experience. Lining up for assembly, lining up after recess to do a “headcount” before the class teacher comes back. Being taught by Ms. Pushparani about being humble and not talking big. It is always shameful to be pulled aside, but looking back, it was good that it happened!

Age 10 – Swore in Sunday school (very very mild word lah, but it was church, so…) I think they called it a “time out”. Brunei has lots of UK influence. Transition from Primary 3 to 4 also got emotional. Our class were really close knit. Primary 4 meant a new faces, new lessons, new teachers. Mana tau, we stuck with pretty much the same people. I was in the RED house.

Age 12 – Primary Certificate of Education (PCE). Straight As. Good times… A good friend got 4A 1B and she was really upset. A lot of students got that coveted Straight As. One thing I admire about her is that she overcame the disappointment, and tapao’ed everyone in the Form 3 exam. It shows her strong character of resilience and determination.

Age 13 – SEA Games 1998 opening ceremony dance. I was a bee. What a good way to start bonding with new friends than practicing at night up to 2am??!! We worked hard throughout the whole year (effectively skipping Form 1). We prepared a basic 6 minute dance and a finale (which requires you to stand in the field for, say, 1+ hours). Due to the powers above, the dance got shortened. I learnt about compromise and how to adapt to situations even at this early age. Of course its frustrating to put in 4-5 months work just to get cut in the final minutes. All in all, the friendship really does make it worth it.

Ok, off to breakfast. Will continue tomorrow.