Baby Pull-Ups

See what I mean about Vanessa being a gym kind of person? I went to the “fitness corner” (it really is in a corner…) with Vanessa. There was a proper pull-up bar for me, and while I was doing my own pull-ups, Vanessa copied. No need for coaxing or any prompting. She just pulled up on some other bar that she could reach. Alright, she isn’t pulling yet, but she can hang from the bar and swing quite well.

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Dance Class No More

Vanessa had her last dance class today. At least for now. We’re not continuing her class because she doesn’t seem very keen about it. In fact, most of the time, she simply doesn’t follow the class at all, except for the one or two activities which involve something that she likes. Running, and jumping, for example. Stomping her feet with her tap shoes too. But even then, she makes up her own variations of the routines. It’s a difficult time accompanying her for the class when she doesn’t want to listen.

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Failing Nasi Lemak Standards

We were going to be at Lucky Plaza this morning, and I was looking forward to the Nasi Lemak there. It was the famed River Valley Nasi Lemak located in the basement of Lucky Plaza. It has been there for quite some time actually, and I’ve eaten there several times previously. It was quite good. But it seems standards have dropped tremendously since. The rice wasn’t fragrant. The egg was dry and hard. The chicken was tough. The fish was was tasteless. There was not enough ikan bilis (the peanuts were plentiful but the ikan bilis were a rarity). Even the chilli wasn’t nice either.

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How to Copy a 8GB File in 1 Second

Sounds impossible. But it is. That’s if you have about US$60K to spend on a PC. Yup, just one PC. Patriot built a PC with 40 TorqX SSDs and demonstrated copying a Blu-ray rip in 0.9 seconds. That’s really super fast. This is probably the year that SSD is going to come of age in consumer devices. It has been around, first becoming quite well known with its introduction as an option to the MacBook Air. It was too costly. The price has come down a lot. Perhaps by the end of this year, it might become competitively priced against a traditional rotating hard disk.

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Realtime Traffic Information

One of the worst things about driving in Singapore (and perhaps many other cities in the world) is getting stuck in traffic jams. It’ll be really nice if we could all somehow have detailed realtime traffic information about all the major roads in Singapore. The Traffic Watch announcements on radio doesn’t work out very well. You can’t get the information when you want it, because you have to depend on the deejay of your chosen radio station to read off the information. Checking on the Internet isn’t always very convenient, particularly when you are already on the road.

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Today’s Special – Warm Sushi

It’s Sakae Sushi’s latest special. At least at the outlet in Junction 8. Warm Sushi. We dropped by this evening for dinner and were surprised by their new sushi servings. First it was one plate that we plucked off the conveyor belt. Our teeth felt a warm sensation as they sank themselves into the sushi. Hmm. The second plate we plucked off the conveyor belt had the same warmness. We weren’t the least pleased with the new sushi. I wonder, had the sushi been going around the conveyor belt since lunch time?

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NUS Wireless Setup on Nexus One

I figure that anyone who uses a smartphone like the Nexus One is going to have a 3G data plan, so being able to hook onto a wireless network isn’t going to be so important. But anyhow, I thought I’d just make a small little community contribution by sharing how to configure the Nexus One phone (I suppose just about any Android 2.0/2.1 phone will work the same) to connect to the NUS wireless network in, well, NUS. But first, credit goes to the information posted in Answers@Comp. The GUI isn’t enough to get the config done.

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N97 vs Nexus One

I’ve used the Nexus One for a little over a week now. I think the biggest thing I will miss with my previous Nokia N97 is its camera. It’s quite capable of taking some really nice photos, like this shot of the Nexus One (as well as that in the previous post). This is one area that the Nexus One is trumped by the N97. Both phones sport 5 megapixel camera sensors, auto-focus, and LED flash (dual LED on the N97). But the bunch of photos I’ve taken with the Nexus One have been unimpressive, at least in terms of quality. The Nexus One is fast, though.

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Switching to the Nexus One

When Google announced the Nexus One last month, I felt it was an interesting development that has begun to change what an Android phone can represent. Some people will know that I have been, until then, rather anti-Android. There were two reasons: unimpressive hardware features (and uninteresting design too), as well as an open source development environment that I felt didn’t quite live up to the spirit of what open source was supposed to stand for. But, the first reason was beginning to fall apart with the launch of the Motorola Droid in end 2009, and now somewhat invalidated by the Nexus One. Finally, this is an Android phone that boasts features and hardware specifications expected of any decent smart phone of 2009 and what will come in 2010.

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Rain, Finally

It’s finally raining now in the afternoon of the second day of this Lunar New Year. I think this must be about one of the hottest ever Lunar New Year. It’s been so hot I already feel uncomfortable the moment I step out of the house to go anywhere. So thank goodness it is raining now. Oops. It seems it has stopped. But well, hopefully that brief shower cools down the ground a little, otherwise it feels as if the whole of Singapore was a giant frying pan.

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