Archive for the 'General' Category

creating a time capsule

Quite some time ago (about late 2007) I saw this documentary called “21 Up Japan” which is similar to the “Up Series“. The idea of the documentary is the follow a group of children from when they were 7 years old, and then every 7 years they go back to them and see how they are going. The interviewers had a set of semi-structured questions which they asked, and it was very interesting to see how everyone’s answers changed from when they were 7, 14, and 21.

Time Capsule

After seeing this documentary I decided I wanted to do something similar - make my own time capsule :) However it wasn’t until a few months later in early 2008 when I found an old exercise book which had some short stories that I had written in 1995 that really got me started. Reading those stories made me realise how much can change in a few years (and how much we can forget!). My time capsule is bit different to 21 Up Japan - it does have a set of questions which I plan on answering once every year or so, but the majority of entries are more diary-like entries of times when I feel like something important has happened.

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upgraded to WordPress 2.5

On March 18th when I saw the sneak peak for WordPress 2.5 I was amazed and couldn’t wait till the release date. Not long after, comes March 30th when WordPress 2.5 was finally released :) Unfortunately, the first week of April was a super busy week, so haven’t yet had a chance to upgrade until now.

Write Post in WordPress 2.5

So here it is - the new and shiny WordPress 2.5 with K2 RC5. This time the upgrade went much smoother than upgrading to 2.3, no more drama with file permissions - FileZilla is wonderful. Though this time, since K2 wasn’t quite ready for WordPress 2.5, there have been a few minor bugs (though so far easy to fix).

For those who are still unsure if they should upgrade to 2.5, I strongly recommend you do! The upgrading process is simple (I recommend you use FileZilla), and even though the Dashboard (in admin) looks a bit foreign to begin with it soon becomes very nice and easy to use - especially when writing posts :)

For those who are also using 2.5 and K2 RC5, here are the two small fixes that I’ve found so far after the upgrade.

theloop.php (line 12)
original:

require_once( preg_replace( '/wp-content.*/', '', $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] ) . 'wp-config.php' );

change to:

require_once( preg_replace( '/wp-content.*/', '', $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] ) . '/wp-config.php' );

rollingarchive.php (line 10)
original:

require_once( preg_replace( '/wp-content.*/', '', $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] ) . 'wp-config.php' );

change to:

require_once( preg_replace( '/wp-content.*/', '', $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] ) . '/wp-config.php' );

The other bug which I am still looking at is with the plugin dDeviantArt which doesn’t seem to quite work with version 2.5, hopefully it’ll be a relatively simple fix.

As the adversary is always out there to get us, I’m sure there are more hidden bugs/broken pages etc. So if you do find something that is broken please tell me! Thanks :)

ps. not a bug, but I’m definitely going to have to find a plugin for formatting code - the above 4 lines look horrible! anyone have good suggestions?

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blutack pig

On Sunday I decided to make a small pig out of blutack :) Probably sounds very random, but it was because earlier in the weekend I had saw similar small pigs at Paddy’s Market and they just looked so cute! Here is the result of my procrastination:

blutack pig

The pig itself is actually quite small - about 1cm in diameter, though I think that is what makes it cute. At first I was worried that using blutack would be very hard since blutack sticks to itself (and your fingers!), but in the end it wasn’t that bad. A toothpick is a must though - not just to poke the holes for the eyes/nose but also to push and shape the ears.

Since the pig was quite small it was rather hard to take a nice close-up photo, so as usual I took several shots. However, this time while flipping through all the blurred photos I remembered a Stop Motion Video tutorial I had read on Photojojo few months back - so alas, more procrastination…my first stop motion video attempt!

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happy chinese new year!

image from rinian.deviantart.com

Just wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year :)

Hope the year of the rat is nice to everyone - and as I saw in a powerpoint slide…

Year year got fish,
New year faster happy!

Yes, it is a literal translation from Chinese: 年年有魚(餘), 新年快樂!

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motivation and time

It’s probably safe to say that pretty much everyone has problems with motivation and time - if not, I certainly do! This problem has meant there are many things I want to do (and should do) end up not getting done. A simple example…the last time I blogged was November 16th 2007! A few months ago while uni was still on I would’ve blamed it on lack of time, however I now blame it on lack of motivation.

It probably sounds weird that I have no motivation to blog as it is something that I want to do. However, over the holidays I’ve discovered something that is annoying me. For many things (especially those you want to do) when you are tight on time your motivation levels are quite high - it’s just that there isn’t time to do it. While given the same objective if you have plenty of time motivation levels seem to drop so low that it just gets put on the back burner again. Of course there are exceptions, but to me it feels like a good majority of things that I want to and need to do are neglected because of this.

To me, the most logical reason for this is when you are short on time, chances are it’s because there is something you don’t really want to do, but have to do is taking up your time - so anything that is slightly more attractive will be high on your “must do” list. On the other hand when you have heaps of time it is probably just easier being lazy. While the other things you’ve always wanted to do seemed super-interesting and you’ll do it just when you get some spare time, doing nothing is even better, so nothing ends up getting done.

Having said all this, I think the main problem of the two is motivation. The problem for me is finding a way to get motivated. Given enough motivation and determination, it should be possible to get pretty much anything done. Last year, I was having a conversation with someone and complained that I had no time - he replied with “We all have the same amount of time, it’s just how we use it.”

Apologies for the rather mashed up, nonsensical and late blog post, but I’d like to see what other’s think about this problem.

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