Mother's Day

For my mum and all mums in the world. All of you are so lovely. :)

Have You Ever Thrown A Boomerang... In Weightlessness?

At first I actually typed the title as "Have you ever thrown a boomerang in zero gravity". And you know why I changed the word to weightlessness instead. :P

Anyway, this is Japanese astronaut Takao Doi, on board of the International Space Station, who has proved that a boomerang returns to the person throwing it even in the zero-gravity conditions. The idea came to him by request from his friend Yashuhiro Togai, a world boomerang champion. The result is exactly what the science behind boomerangs predicts.

Interesting huh. :)

RSS Feeds Now Available in Malaysian News Websites!

For a long time, I have been rather disappointed by the lack of RSS feed in local news. I know The Star does have RSS feeds, but its RSS is hidden in a separate page and is not auto-detected by Firefox or Internet Explorer. Most other news websites, notably all Chinese news websites, did not have RSS, making it hard for me to follow them daily. It's very disappointing as RSS has been widely used in all major international news websites for at least four years now.

To my surprise, when I visited SinChew's home page today, my browser detected the RSS feeds on the web page! Just go to any of the sub-categories (international, local, sports etc), and look out for the RSS logo.

I did some exploration, and found that Utusan also provides RSS feed, but Nanyang still doesn't feature it.

Note: If you have no idea what RSS is, visit this page for a brief explanation, and try out Google Reader for a feel of it. Needless to say, my blog has a RSS feed too, and if you read this blog regularly, you probably should try it out! :) This is how I read all my friends' blogs regularly.

U R...

In Royal Melbourne Hospital, there is this patient registry where every patient is identified with a reference number. The reference number is called the "UR number", which I believe stands for "Unique Registration number".

So one day, I was visiting a ward to look for a patient.

Me: Hi I am looking for Maria Levoski, may I know which bed she is in?

Ward Receptionist: *flip flip flip*

Ward Receptionist: I can't seem to find her now. Let me page the bed manager.

Ward Receptionist: *Open the software for paging and start typing out a query for the bed manager*

Ward Receptionist: You are?

Me: My name is Yang.

Ward Receptionist: No I mean the patient's UR number.

=.="

Image Credit: AP Photo

Of Happiness and State of Content

Be happy and be contented can be different.

Sometimes in pursuit of happiness, we let desire dominate our thoughts. In doing so, happiness often comes hand in hand with disappointment, especially when our desires are not fulfilled.

State of content, on the other hand, is a state independent of worldly desire, where you have a fulfilled psyche without the side effects of euphoria. So the state of content is arguably more desirable (pardon the adjective) than state of happiness in our life.

This may sound a bit like Buddhism philosophy (it actually is), but such attitude should be applicable for everyone regardless of your faith.

Image Credit: Blissful Travel

Night · Melbourne

Hardware Lane, Melbourne.
1/30s - f/1.8 - ISO 1600 - EF 50mm/II

Britain's Got Talent - Michael Jackson

I just have to share this: