２４歳まで

It is the time again, though this time around it is slightly earlier, before I get overwhelmed by other things.

This is the time I list down small milestones for the past biological-year.

I have to admit, it is quite difficult for me to recall…

 

November 2012: Distant Worlds Live in Malaysia

A very memorable orchestral concert, streams of memories filled with emotions gushing into your head. Distant Worlds is a definite must for Final Fantasy fans.

 

December 2012: Surviving the “Apocalypse”

Apparently we survived the so-called “apocalypse”. Yay.

 

2013

I couldn’t recall much about the events this year.

For this period of time, up until now, I am occupied by my career. Apart from sleeping and resting, most of my time is spent on work.

Most of my explorations this year are in fact circled around my field of work – virtualization, Java card, smart card OS reverse engineering, TWAIN, UX, MVC, ORM (Entity Framework), web services, web security, image processing, setup and deployment projects…

Though, I really hoped I could spend some time on other skills such as cooking, music instrument, language studies, electronics, interpersonal relationships…

I’m still struggling to squeeze them in, but my available time resources are frequently occupied by ad-hoc tasks until I somehow feel like a virtual resource pool that could be dynamically provisioned at any time.

To tell the truth, I would love to meet up with friends and listen to them talking about their lives, stroll around in malls, or watch the latest blockbuster in theatres, but what’s left of me is fatigue – social interaction became a stress to me (unless I’m only required to listen and don’t talk) and I rather coop inside my room to recharge myself, until the beginning of next business week arrives.

 

April 2013: Passing of Grandma

Witnessing the passing of grandma, whom has lived with us for the past 4 years, up to her final moments in life, had left an impression into my mind. The experience was as close as death itself.

It is not death (that scares me), it is the thought of death. It is probably not my death that I am afraid of, but the passing of people I care for, people that occupies the large part of my memories, people I depend on.

In the end our proof of existence is only the fragments of memories left in the living. If the memories are gone, so does the existence of the departed individual…

 

May 2013: Change

Putting Malaysian politics aside (don’t boo me please =w=), it is time for me to change my core principles.

I want to put emphasis on what I could do for people, and not what people should do, or could do. Death is a promise made to me from the moment I was born – my purpose of living is what I could do with the limited time given to me.

The world does not revolve around myself – I am a part of the world, I am a part of a whole, I am not the world, I am not everything.

I want to eliminate my inability to translate thoughts into actions; I want to wipe out shadows casted by my past that is preventing me from making a change.

 

May 2013: First Nendoroid

Seriously, it was a very huge surprise indeed :D

とある物語 III

Last week I met up with a product engineer for lunch. His company is producing Android phones, and somehow their latest product is suffering from the lack of public interest.

“People seem to prefer the sleeker iPhone over our product. How could we compete with the likes of iPhone with this product design? It’ll never get bought in stores,” he ranted.

Well, I’m not a fan of Apple products (my apologies Apple fanboys/fangirls), they may have good looks, but they just lack the features I’m looking for. To me, Apple over engineered the looks, in expense of features.

He then showed me a sample of their latest product. In all my honesty, indeed, the product designers could have done a better job. His concerns about the marketability of this product is real.

The phone’s firmware though, felt remarkably snappy; hardware is reasonably well equipped – NFC, dual-core SoC, 802.11n, SiRF III, 2GB RAM etc. He agreed, if not for the physical design, the product would sell very well in the market.

“Why not improve the product design?” I suggested.

The enclosure injection molds were already bought, changing the molds would be extremely costly to be practical. While the engineering team is currently trying to trim down the thickness of the phone, although it is definitely helpful, in my opinion is perhaps not enough to capture the hearts of consumers.

“We did a lot. We’ve fixed the occasional lock-ups in the kernel, zip-aligned the executables to conserve memory, and improved the UI architecture. But no, the response is still disappointing. Is this product not good enough? In the end consumers are all after the looks,” he replied.

In other words, they fixed the bugs and glitches.

“I’m pretty sure the situation will be worse if the lock-ups were not fixed. Have you tried adding magnesium finishing and companion accessories to make the phone look good? Man, even old cars could look good with the right body-kit and paint job.”

“It’s no use. Once they remove the accessories, they’ll be turned-off by the design. Even you are all about the looks, this phone will never sell,” he argued, as if the world, including me, had turned against him.

What he have yet to understand is the fact that in the market full of competitors, what does the product has to offer to stand out from the rest? I agree, the product indeed have competitive features – but to find a consumer that only looks for features is pretty rare; if the company plans to only sell their products to niche markets, that’s fine – but if they wanted to sell to the mass market, they have to change their strategy.

Little did he think about users bringing out their product and comparing with other products – will they be confident enough to state their phone is better than others? Is it worth an investment to buy a product from a company with no intention of putting all possible effort in improving the physical design of the product?

As a user, if he is given a chance to choose between a bunch of sleek phones, and his product as it is, will he choose his product? Reality is people almost definitely go for the looks first, with accessories or not, then understand the features; even if the phone doesn’t look anything special at all without the accessories, it has the potential to look good, as well as the features to keep the attention – it’s a keeper.

Perhaps not all consumers think this way, especially Apple fanboys (whoops!). But there are Android fans out there, this product has potential.

パンドラ箱の中には…

Many things going across the mind, and emotions beyond my linguistic capabilities to describe flooding the heart.

Disgust, hatred, disappointment, anger… The harsh reality thrown at me is too difficult to comprehend, with my thought process going into and endless limbo.

I am at loss of words trying to contain the explosion inside myself.

箱の中には…絶望

Check out my #ChallengeforChange idea and help me improve the lives of fellow Malaysians.

Check out my #ChallengeforChange idea and help me improve the lives of fellow Malaysians.

印象：遠い世界2012マレーシア

It all started when Yuki told me Distant Worlds is coming to Malaysia a couple of months back. WOW! Distant Worlds is coming to Malaysia? Hell yeah I'm going!

For those whom are in the dark, Distant Worlds is an orchestra concert series conducted by Arnie Roth, based on arrangements of music from Square-Enix's Final Fantasy series (mostly composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu). The concerts' music arrangement mostly follow the 20020220 concert held in Japan (that was conducted by Taizou Takemoto, performed by Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra).

In a nutshell, the current concert is a mix of arrangements from Distant Worlds I, II and Returning Home, performed by Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, Az Samad as guitar solo, Dithyrambic Singers for the choir, Stephanie van Driesen for the solo vocals (soprano), Ho Chi Mei, James Long and Mak Chi Hoe as the soprano, tenor, bass opera solos respectively.

The musical journey kicks of with the all-important Prelude (a variation of "The Final Fantasy Song") you usually hear in most of the title background music in the FF series. Listening to the brief harp solo entrance really gives me the goosebumps - the experience is nowhere comparable to listening to FLAC recordings (or maybe just my DAC sucks).

This is immediately followed by FF8's overture - Liberi Fatali, accompanied by a variation of the FF8 overture FMV, with the choir performing remarkably, though voice texture a bit thinner than recording. The arrangement is exactly the same as the previous Distant Worlds concerts, except with a very slight variation in tempo and attack (performed by humans after all).

After a brief introduction by the composer, "the most important song" must be played - the classic Victory Theme 9 seconds short (not in any particular FF variation).

After that came the Final Fantasy 2010 Medley, a collection of music from the classic series (FF1, 2 and 3). This is very similar to the Final Fantasy 2002 Medley, with a few song replacements, notably the removal of Chocobo tune and introduction of more music from FF3, and the others which I couldn't recall with just a single pass of listening in the live concert. 

To Zanarkand from FF10 was very beautifully performed. You could witness how well it was performed by the wet eyes of my friend sitting beside me. =w=d

Epic Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds from FF11 was epic, the entrance by the choir was superb, though I have no idea what Latin gibberish they were singing. The first movement of this piece is one of my favourites of the entire concert. Stephanie's voice is slightly different from the recording (of course, they're different people; recording is sung by Susan Calloway, silly me)

No Distant Worlds concert is complete without Mr Desperado - Laguna Loir's battle theme - Man with the Machine Gun. No surprises here - it sounds very similar to the recording I listened N-times, except a bit of variation in placement of instruments and difference of timbre in the jazz drums (first music with jazz drums in this concert by the way).

Another classic from FF5, used in the NDS remake as the introduction music - Theme of Love, slowing the excitement down with a bit of romance, with FMVs from the NDS remake as the final icing on the cake, portraying Cecil's path as a Dark Knight towards Warrior of Light.

An unusual appearance of You're not Alone, a piece never before performed on previously, in place of the usual A Place Called Home (which I prefer more), both from FF9, caught me completely off guard.

Roth said we seemed to have missed something before the interval - Chocobos (!) and gave us Chocobo Medley 2010 (a mix of Chocobo theme from FF14 and Swing de Chocobo, said to be both Roth and Uematsu's favorite), with a cute and amusing animation of chocobos across the entire FF series.

After the 20 minute interval, the original opening of FF7, along with live performance of Opening: Bombing Mission is performed. To be honest, the percussions and brass did slack a little bit in this one. If you like this piece, I recommend listening to the recordings.

Dear Friends from FF5 came right after a brief introduction to the solo guitarist, letting the audience catch some breaths. Unfortunately the usual guitar timbre you get from recordings goes unnoticed with the hall's set-up (naturally). Az Samad played it safe by following the recording's style of playing faithfully.

The real deal is finally here - Vamo alla Flamenco from FF9, whereby Zidane played a mock sword fight on stage in attempt to please the queen. There was a bit of confusion between the solo and the rest of the orchestra, leading to a bit of dissonance due to going out of synchronization. Az Samad yet again, played it safe by following faithfully to the previous Distant World's recording, too faithfully, which in my opinion, was an inferior one compared to 20020220 concert - a few technical bars of the piece was mysteriously slowed down for no apparent reason, which in my opinion, sticks out like a sore thumb.

The only non-Uematsu piece in this concert, Lightning's battle theme - Blinded by Light from FF13, composed by Masashi Hamauzu was greeted by a roar of applause. To a usually infinite-loop battle theme, he orchestra arrangement gave it a twist in the ending,

I'm surprised by the sudden silence, with Roth staring at the screen and sudden audio output from the usually-mute video. An excerpt from FF8 in Deling, during the evacuation, followed by a battle sequence... and the orchestra came into life with the de-facto battle theme - Don't be Afraid took the audience into a high trance. I would've yelled "YEAAAHHHH" if I was allowed to do so. There was one thing missing in the orchestra though... A bag of rice or something that was in the recording.

We were greeted by another battle theme - Clash on the Big Bridge of FF6. Personally I don't quite like this piece, maybe it's just me.

Things then slowed down with Aerith's Theme from FF7, with summary of how Cloud met Aerith, up to her final moments in the shrine praying for the ultimate white magic. Don't worry, the "bad" scene was somehow censored. The piano was a bit too bright for this piece though.

Initially I thought Opera: Maria and Darco from FF6 was boring. The vocalists trio exceed my expectations - they were many times better than the dull and old sounding voices in the recordings. Kudos! Now I feel like playing FF6 (using an SNES emulator of course) =P

El-classico credits (similar to the original FF6 introduction credits) rolled as Terra's Theme (Tina's Theme in Japanese version) played in the background - a very nice touch to the usually boring credits indeed. This final piece marked the end of the concert... or not.

Roth hinted us with an encore piece of Sephiroth, but he played us (one of my favourites in Distant Worlds) Suteki Da Ne from FF10 instead. If you've listened to the vocal entrance sung by Susan in the recordings before, you wouldn't settle for anything less. Though Stephanie's rendition was very good, Susan still has my vote for this one.

What could be a more epic finale than One Winged Angel from FF7? Roth even invited the audience to sing (more like yell) "Sephiroth"! HELLL YEAHHHHHHH! It was so epic some girl sitting behind me start chanting the entire lyrics of this piece loud enough for me to experience surround sound. =w=d

So that pretty much wraps up Distant Worlds 2012 Malaysia folks! RM122 well spent, but I'll get a seat 5 rows or so behind next time (next year maybe?). 

Final note:
Don't trust public transportation in Malaysia - they close earlier than what they've published. If it weren't for munchkin, I'll be camping in KLCC for the night =w=d

Vsonic GR07 MK-II

Now that I’ve lost my last surviving earphone (an unauthorized ownership transfer, if you get what I mean), I’m no longer accompanied by my Westone 3. Still, a portable pair of earphones is needed, as bringing full-sized headphones out is a no-no for me.

Designed and manufactured in the land where most of our stuffs are made, Vsonic’s GR07 has a surprisingly good reputation in the audiophile community. Those who seek this pair of IEMs are mostly looking for the best bang-per-buck ratio available in the market.

In a nutshell, the GR07 is a dynamic IEM (as opposed to balance armature, or BA drivers gaining popularity lately). What makes it stands out from the rest is the use of bio-cellulose diaphragm, for increased sound quality, as well as its (patented) variable angle adjustable nozzle, for a better fit.

The MK-II (usually pronounced as mark two) is the latest product revision for GR07 – spotting cabling made out of 40 strands of silver (yep, Argentum) core for each of L/R channels, and 82 strands for ground.

Packaging

The GR07 MK-II comes in a minimalist white box (ala Japanese products). What’s interesting is it came with a self-sealing synthetic leather carrying bag, in place of a zipper pouch in the previous version.

The bag is generally more preferred over a pouch due to its ability to fit inside any standard sized pocket, in exchange for lower protection of the contents inside.

The GR07 MK-II comes with a generous amount (15 pairs) of ear tips, which one of them is Comply foam, and 3 pairs of hybrid foam-filled silicone eartips (interesting…)

Build

The jack a standard L-shaped gold-plated 3.5 mm TRS jack with strain reliefs. One must be extra careful with L-shaped jacks as putting it inside your trousers would strain the cables.

The silver cables are insulated with soft silicone, which doesn’t seem to offer much protection against tugging and other kinds of physical torture. Extra care is advised when handling the earphones (bah, I broke even Kevlar wrapped cables last time, boo-hoo).

Sound

Now, to the interesting part of this review – the sound. At the time of writing, I have yet to complete the recommended 300 hour burn-in, so the following perceptions might vary with a pair of fully burnt-in GR07 MK-II.

The sound stage is kind of standard for an IEM, slightly bigger than Westone 3 in my opinion, but definitely a no-match to a pair of full-sized headphone.

Treble extension is surprisingly good for IEM of this price (less than 1/2 the price of Westone 3, just to let you know), I do not perceive any difference in extension when compared to (my memories of QwQ) Westone 3 -  the highest of highs are finely reproduced.

The only complaint I could give to the treble response is the instability when it comes to the sound of crashing cymbals – they are very harsh and grainy to my ears. “Sibilance” is perhaps the term that I should coin here.

The mids are very smooth with just the right amount of clarity, making this pair of earphones perform exceptionally well in vocal tracks. No complaints here!

Good extension is achieved in the bass, the GR07 MK-II is able to deliver the deepest of bass without a hitch. As for bass quality, “natural” is what I put it – not as tight as most BA drivers which lacks the timbre of good ‘ol bass, but all within good control.

Bass-heads will probably not be satisfied with the bass quantity, as this pair of earphones is designed with neutrality in mind, which is a good thing especially when listening to classical instruments. For a phatter bass response there is always an EQ away, anyways – as the GR07 MK-II will not fail to deliver if you really demand it.

Conclusions

“No surprises” is what I would give if you ask me for a verdict. It’s definitely a good pair of earphones – cheaper ones like Fischer Audio Silver Bullet would not even come close in terms sonic accuracy, but then again, they’re just around 1/3 of the price of GR07 MK-II =P

For a pair of IEMs at half the price of Westone 3, it came with only one drawback related to sibilance, I would say it really gave an awesome bang-per-buck ratio.

Recommended.

シフト！

No, it doesn’t necessarily go faster when you step harder on the gas pedal, unless you’re (a lucky kid) driving an automatic or simply afford a kick-ass engine.

On a 1.1 ton body equipped with a very modest 1.3 litre powerhouse, shifting technique could make it between totally un-drivable to a arguably fun-to-drive machine.

Driving an ICE requires gradual shifting, jumping queues (unless you know what you’re doing) will not get you anywhere and might even stall it.

Driving with the throttle wide open, unless in very specific conditions, will not go any much faster than an optimized throttle, but burns fuel like igniting a bucket of petrol.

There are two types of shifting techniques – early shift and power shift.

(all techniques are based on Mitsubishi 4G13 SOHC EFI on a 1.1 ton chassis)

Early Shift

This is the most economical way of shifting, suitable to be used in city driving conditions where it is unnecessary to accelerate rapidly. It exploits the low RPM torque of the ICE, right before the torque dip.

Basically has the following mappings on flat terrain:

1. 0 – moving slightly
2. moving slightly – 30 km/h
3. 30  – 40 km/h
4. 40  – 50 km/h
5. 50 km/h and beyond

In the case of congested traffic, reduce all numbers by 5 km/h.

Power Shift

This is to get you moving as fast as possible, suitable for sprinting from toll booth into the highway and overtaking. It is also the most fuel inefficient method (besides bad shifting).

Mapping on flat terrain:

1. 0 – 40 km/h
2. 40 – 60 km/h
3. 60 – 80 km/h
4. 80 – 100 km/h
5. 100 km/h and beyond

Throttle Levels

For congested traffic, keep your throttle at 10% or less. 20% throttle for city driving and normal highway acceleration. 50% throttle in highways if you don’t plan to burn your pocket. If you reach 80% throttle and you’re below 4000 rpm, you’re doing it wrong. 100% throttle when you’re doing it at near redline at 5th gear.

Increase throttle only when you feel the RPM is rising with the opening of throttle (responsive). If it doesn’t (sluggish), either keep your throttle that way (if you’re comfortable with the speed), or try downshifting (if you’re trying to accelerate).

Additional Notes

Shifting and throttling heavily depends on the vehicle. My numbers are based on everyday commuting of 100 km for a year while monitoring the fuel consumption.