Chatter Of The Squirrel

Cherries, an iPod, and Happy Days

I just discovered the music of Ai Otsuka.

Her best hit was Sakuranbo, that stayed on the top 100 charts for 2 years. The chorus ends with “…Atashi Sakuranbo”, which when translated means, “I am cherry.”

But hey, that’s J-Pop. I am most delighted by “Happy Days”. There’s just something unbelievably delightful hearing a shrill young Japanese girl go “HA-Pee Daze! HA-Pee Daze!”

I only came across this song when listening through someone else’s iPod playlist, on my iPod.
Yup, I just bought a 2nd hand iPod.

For RM 80.

That’s no typo! I’ve got a 20GB 4th generation iPod. The monochrome one that doesn’t play video, but it’s still a freaking bargain.

I browse through the LowYat.net forums every once in a while, especially to dig around the Garage Sales. Who knows what kind of bargain you can dig up?

I’ve got a very new Zanussi oven + 4-hob cooker for RM550.

And just a few weeks ago, I bought a refurbished 21″ Triniton flat-screen monitor. For RM 259.

A few days ago, I saw this guy selling his broken iPod.

In the description, he claims that iPod still plays music ok, but has problems loading new music up and would crash every 10 songs or so.

But for RM80, that’s still interesting. But I found it late, and the item was already reserved by someone else.

Two days ago, I rechecked the thread. Item still reserved. But the seller mentioned that he’ll give priority to anyone who would buys both the iPod and the speaker accessory together. I gave it a little thought, and went for it and made an offer.

Got an SMS reply a few hours later. Made the meet for 7pm at SS2, and there’s my iPod. For RM 80. But also had to shell out RM 150 for his Altec Lansing InMotion portable speakers.

My reasoning was, that it’s most likely the harddisk that’s damaged. So the harddisk can always be replaced. And if it’s the iPod electronics that’s dead, then hey, a 20GB harddrive for RM80 is still good.

The iPod works. But some music files were corrupted. Possibly due to incomplete file transfers when the unit crashed and the guy had to reset it.

When I plugged the iPod into the comp, it didn’t work all the time. Most times, the harddisk won’t be detected. The iPod just makes buzzes and clicks and nothing happens. (Having a stethoscope is handy while I was figuring out the diagnosis.) I even stuffed the iPod into the freezer for a couple of minutes to see if that helps the harddrive.

So, next step will be to crack the case open and take a look at the harddrive. Google turned up a few guides. Tried to look for a nylon pry-tool in SS2 with no luck. Need the nylon tools to crack the case without scratching it. I know where to buy them in KL, but didn’t feel like going so far to get them. Finally went ahead and used a switchblade and managed to open the case with minimal scratches.

And that’s where I got quite an education. The iPod uses a 1.8″ harddisk. Gosh, they really make them that small? I has assumed that it was using the 2.5″ disk that notebooks use. Well, it should have been obvious that it’s impossible that the iPod can fit a 2.5″ disk. But I’m just not that good at eyeballing dimensions.

This 1.8″ thingie… I won’t be able to source for the part cheaply.

Miscalculation.

Ah well…

Last night, after my tenants had finished watching Blood Diamonds (with my 21″ screen), and gone to sleep, I took another crack at the iPod. Still making clicks and whirrs, but I managed to get it to behave long enough to start formatting the drive.

Took almost an hour, but I was able to reformat the whole drive. Used iTunes to restore the software onto the disk.

And I started loading up some songs into it.

First, an audiobook by Agatha Christie. 88 files went it without a hitch.

Grabbed a few more albums. They synced perfectly.

Loaded up almost 2 Gigs of tunes. And everything’s still good.

Woo~~Hoooo~~~~!

Fingers crossed… But it looks like I’ve repaired my RM80 iPod!!

If everything goes sweet, then I can christen the iPod and give it a name so I won’t have to keep referring to it as “the iPod”, and truly welcome it into the family. I’m partial to naming it Munin (Memory), one of Odin’s ravens.

Starcraft 2!!!

I speculated on what Blizzard was doing, when I found out that Blizzard hired Andy Chambers as Creative Director last year.

And then, the VP of Business Development of Blizzard Entertainment said something interesting.

“I’m a StarCraft player myself and I hope it’s not a decade, and we launched StarCraft in 1998, before I’m standing here again, celebrating the next game in the series.”

[Reference: http://www.pro-g.co.uk/news/15-01-2007-4502.html]

Is that a reason for us fan-boys to get our hopes up?

Maybe not…

But how about this? [Link]

Watching that 3 minute clip, I think I could understand how a father might feel, when witnessing his mate squeeze out his first spawnling.

That’s STARCRAFT! In 3-D!!

Terran Marines. Goliaths. Siege Tanks. SCVs. Command Centre. Bunkers. Turrets.

Protoss Dragoons. Photon Cannons.

A Zerg Ultralisk

A Xel’Naga Temple.

IT’S WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!

But, it was too much like the old Starcraft, just on a 3-D engine. There’s all the familiar units. With the instantly recognisable sounds of clashing Psi Blades, purring Zerglings, burrowing Drones… But where’s the new stuff?? Why make a trailer, if you’re not showing off some new stuff??

And then I found Project Revolution, and also Acathla.

It’s quite likely these guys, or some such similar projects, put up that teaser video that got my hopes up.

The video you just saw, impressive as it may be, was a fake.

Kinda like that fake Star Wars Episode 2 video with Leonardo DiCapprio playing Anakin Skywalker.

R.S.I.

Repeated Strain Injury.

My index finger feels plenty strange now.

But it’s probably worth it.

I’m #2 on the Global Standings for Desktop Tower Defense.

Tower Defense - All Time Best 19!!

After I found the link for Desktop Tower Defense, I immediately infected Kuan, who’s renting a room from me for a month while he’s attached to Sg. Buloh Hospital.

At the same time, Kidd was online, so I sent him the link too.

And all three of us lost a weekend. We played all Friday night up till 3-4am on the Saturday.

Then we woke up late. Skipped breakfast, and played some more till a late lunch at 3pm.

Saturday evening, Kuan and I drove down to Seremban to visit Kidd. And we spent the whole night discussing build strategies, further refining our designs. Pushing our scores ever higher.

This is an incredibly simple game that rewards creativity, and ingenuity. We kept redesigning our mazes, balancing economy, efficiency, timing, and risk-taking to achieve our goals.

Kidd came up with the first map using 2 paths to juggle the land creeps. And using keyboard Hot-keys. This is a big help.

Kuan determined the minimum fire-power necessary to take out the lvl42 Bosses.

I did away with the Typhoon Towers altogether, and focused on using multiple Dart Towers to kill multiple waves of creeps at a time.

And tonight, I finally refined my ultimate design. Starting off with 2 Dart Towers with the initial 80gold, and one of them even upgraded to lvl 1. They’re positioned such that they are effective from the very first second the game begins. After that, building the bare minimum maze to juggle the creeps. Building the Swarm Towers up to the minimum needed to take out the next wave of flyers, so that I can swamp the maze as thickly as possible to squeeze efficiency from the Dart Towers’ splash damage.

With this, it puts me at 19th All Time Global Ranking!! There are only 6 names above mine!!

Woot!!!

And there’s still some timing issues that I can optimize. I’ve got the design, and some of the build-order. If I can find where I can trim some more fat, or strike the right balance in Dart upgrades vs Swarm upgrades, I should be able to go up a few more notches.

But until Kidd or Kuan top my score… I am content for now.

Most Interesting Website

Take a look at this company website.

Particularly at their company’s stock price ticker at the bottom left.

Their stocks dropped to US$0 in less than 2 months.

And what business are they in? They’re mortgage lenders. And a pretty big one too. Carrying something likeUS$23 billion of debt.

And in this “booming” real-estate market, what could have precipitated this disaster?Read this.

And learn some sense.

Even Homer Simpson (in a recent episode) has learnt that bankruptcy laws had changed in the US.  You don’t get a clean slate anymore by declaring bankruptcy. Your debts will still be collected.