Nov 23

So, I’m done.

No more school, ever.

We’re going to be continuing with the “I don’t want to leave school” theme, ‘cos after reading some comments on previous “I don’t want to leave” posts, I found I have some more things to say…(a rare occurence, indeed).

So if you’re too lazy to click the links, Jawapro said:

What’s really odd is coming back to your old school after a few years have passed. There’s a few faces you remember (who were much younger when you were at school) but it’s just not the same.

5 or 6 years later – and so much has changed that it’s hard to imagine. Teachers have moved on – classes have changed buildings (so has one of my old schools) – and only the very youngest people you knew are still around as students. It’s quite moving – and slightly depressing. That place you remember as being the best part of your life (if it was) no longer exists, and never will again.

I’m not sure if this is true, but really. I’d hate to see Calvin turn into some unrecognisable place, just another blot on the kingston landscape.

Now that school’s over (for college students, as well as year 10s), I have a lot of time to do a couple of things that need to be done.

I have made a facebook account. You can search for me, I’m Benny Ling, obviously. Add me as a friend, invite me to join a cool group, whatever.

I’ve heard that Social Networking is the best thing since sliced bread… I’ve also heard that it’s highly overrated.

I won’t make my decision until I’ve experienced more of facebook, though. It’s currently very cool, and a HUGE step in terms of interacting with friends. All sorts of friends.

I’m yet to figure out any sort of “facebook code of conduct”, which contain rules on who you can become friends with, what sorts of groups you can join, etc. Actually – I just saw this on Digg: Facebook Etiquette: Five Dos and Don’ts. Nice! Perfect timing. After looking over the list, I realise that it’s more or less common sense anyway – the only things I didn’t know where about business friends… Pfft.

Initial impressions of facebook include: hard to get used to. Complex interface makes simple tasks more complicated than they have to be. Far too many configurable options. A hell of a lot of Ajax and Javascript powers those pages. After a full day of facebooking, still unsure about certain features. Still unsure about the chat system. Ram usage high, or that could just be me. Facebook app on iPhone is awesome. Don’t understand how people would use both Twitter + facebook at the same time – seems like an overkill of social networking, if you ask me…

Oh well. The night is still young.

A quick shout out to Joe W – congrats on your 18th. Hope you didn’t get too smashed.

Radi8 news: apparently, my non-attendance has been marked. Apologies – I was working.

Our Year 12 Leavers Dinner is tomorrow night. Should be good. Afterparty? Meh. Pics to come (either on facebook or here, haven’t quite decided yet). Also need a camera.

I think that’s it. Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , ,

Oct 19

So along the same lines of last fortnight’s post, “iPhone, therefore I am“, as well as the very old “OSX > Linux > Windows“, I though I’d tell you why I use Mac.

So I saw this post that was comparing either Android and the G1 vs iPhone and it’s iPhone OS, or Android vs the iPhone OS, or the G1 and the iPhone, or Windows and Mac, or Microsoft and Apple, or any combination of the above. For the purposes of this post, we’ll assume that it’s the comment has been said comparing Android and the iPhone OS.

You can obviously tell that I can’t find the actual article/post that I’m talking about – if I could, I’d show you in a heartbeat. Anyways, what the post (or commenter on the post/article) said was:

“…polished and shiny? As opposed to what? Dull and lacklustre?”

Yeah – you can obviously see how that ties in to comparsions between Android and the iPhone OS, or Windows and OSX.

You can obviously tell that OSX is all polished an shiny, as compared to Windows which is, for the most part, dull and lacklustre. I’m all for Windows when it comes to gaming (damn Steam and they Windows-only stance), but for general productivity and what-have-you, OSX for the win.

I’m going to take another quote here, this time from Slashdot, Chris J’s favourite site in the world. Well, apart from the obligatory…

If someone is happy using, say, Word and Photoshop, what’s attractive in hearing that Linux can’t run Word and Photoshop but they can do pretty much the same things with Openoffice and Gimp, once they take the time to learn how to use them? Why should they do that when they can keep on using Word and Photoshop?

Like I said, i used Linux for ten years. I switched to Apple a few years ago because I wanted wireless to work. Now, I need to buy new hardware. I could easily save a few bucks and run Linux on something. But, why should I? I like Apple software, I’m accustomed to using it. Everything I did in Linux I can do on a Mac, often with greater ease and reliability. Why should I care if Linux allows me to do the same things once I learn how to use it and a bunch of new programs? Where’s the incentive? There are tens of millions of Windows users thinking the same thing.

You know what? I agree totally. People shouldn’t have to change their choice of Operating System just because it’s “the next best thing”, similarly, people are as entitled to their Win-Mo smartphones just as I am to my iPhone. I’m not happy with Windows Mobile, and as a consumer I get some sort of choice over what OS I use on my phone – obviously, I could have chosen between Symbian, Palm, Blackberry, Win-Mo, or the iPhone, or even Android if I was feeling ambitious. However – I like Mac, I use Mac – iPhone OS was the obvious choice.

A little further on, it says:

Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, people coped perfectly well with competing computers and operating systems. Sure, an Amiga was a bit different from an Atari, which was a bit different from a PC, which was a bit different from a Mac, which was a bit different from an Archimedes… but so what? People coped, just like they cope with the way every washing machine or DVD player today has a different interface. When you started using computers, you became computer literate, just like everyone’s more or less washing-machine-literate and DVD-player-literate. And once you’re literate in a technology, you can learn to use any form of it relatively easily.

What the Windows monoculture has done is to destroy computer literacy among most users. Now, instead of learning to use a computer, people are trained to use Microsoft Windows. Instead of learning about launching applications and using word processors, they’re trained to click on the big button at the bottom left of the screen that says “start”, then to click where it says “Microsoft Word”. And so as soon as that button turns into a picture of a foot at the top left of the screen, and the icon they’re looking for says “Word Processor”, they’re left bewildered and uncomfortable.

Of course, this has now bitten Microsoft too: it’s one reason why Vista and Office 2007 are so unpopular.

It’s doesn’t get any better – now you have someone to blame for this mess! Handy, no?

Microsoft.

Leaving that aside for a bit, I know nothing is perfect. Certainly freshbytes isn’t (a few more readers wouldn’t go amiss :D ) and neither is Mac OSX, the iPhone, or any beloved Apple creation. The iPhone itself has crippled bluetooth, and it’s battery life isn’t exactly spectacular – not great, better than other 3G smartphones, but still rubbish compared to my old dumbphone(s), Mac OSX has strange quirks which leave some users utterly bewildered as to why it would perform in that apparent non-sensical way, and the iPod, well, it doesn’t have as much codec support as your nearest Rockbox player does. Hell, there are even entire websites devoted to telling the boys at Cupertino about what’s what, and what the end-user would like to see. (Disclaimer – I write for DearCupertino.com – and that was yet another shameless plug…)

I was in the PC lab one day and the same person who asked if the iPhone could text asked a teacher why he was using a Mac in a room filled with PCs. The teacher responded: “It’s because I like to live on the edge.” – GOLD! Now, I’m not suggesting that using a Mac is living on the edge in any sense of the phrase, but at the end of the day, it’s not about which OS is better than the other for whatever intangible reason – it’s about what OS you’re most comfortable using.

For many of you reading this, that would mean Windows undoubtedly. For many others that would mean Linux exclusively. And then, OSX whole-heartedly. I was once asked to decide which OS was “the best” – and I couldn’t. I’m intelligent enough to see that there are merits to all OSs – not one OS is most suited to any one task, be it productivity, entertainment, business, or otherwise.

In my opinion, Linux should stay on the supercomputers, in the Cicso routers, the embedded devices (and their derivatives), and the web-servers. For those purposes, Linux does an excellent job – an example of this is Wikimedia (and, by extension, Wikipedia) changing their servers over to Ubuntu.

Windows can be relegated to gaming only and the business sector – even though there are more and more businesses changing to Macs, I’d say over 80% of people are most familiar with Windows – and market share goes a long way in determining how popular something is. Internet Explorer is a great example of this – it’s complete rubbish, yet it’s the most-commonly used web-browser in the world, simply because it comes pre-installed on each and every single Windows machine.

Mac OSX, on the other hand – I’m happy for it’s market share to stay roughly where it is. One by one, I’ve seen people turn from the Vista juggernaut, and those basic consumers (who only word-process, access YouTube and MySpace) who are sick of all the viruses, turn to Mac OSX. And I”m fine with that.

You won’t hear me preaching the gospel according to Jobs – similarly, you’ll won’t hear me singing the praises of Ballmer.

However, I reserve the right to cringe everytime I see someone using IE.

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Oct 12

So I have this thing about apple juice – especially the local kind. I love it, it’s great.

If you’re not aware, Lucaston apple juice is the best there is. I’ve only found a couple of places that actually sell it, and yeah – it’s not cheap when you buy 330mL of it at some $4 a pop.

If you pop down to Margate to Meredith’s fruit place, you can buy it in relative bulk – $4.40 for 2L, WOW!

However, what I’m here to talk about today is friendship…

So when I was younger (think year 8/9) a couple of the guys from my grade (Dave L, Aidan J, Liam B?) who all lived in blacker’s would all come around, and we’d go biking together. This wasn’t hard-core downhill trailbiking, it was just “get-on-your-bike-and-pedal-around” biking. We never went anywhere in particular, just sorta hung around Blackers and surrounding areas.

There was this one time I remember, though, were we all went to Aidan J’s house and drank his apple juice. His sister wasn’t very happy about it (apparently because it was for their dinner or something) but it was a sign of Aidan’s friendship at the time that he let us drink his apple juice.

Now, I’m not sure how much this means in the grand scheme of things (especially seeing as it was apple juice, for crying out loud), but we were thirsty at the time, and Aidan gave his special dinner-only apple juice when

he could have easily given us water, or told us to go down the the beach to satisfy our thirst.

The fact is, he didn’t – he gave us bona-fide apple juice.

Now I recently went to see Wall-E with another friend. He’s a friend, but also a colleague – he’s an excellent guy.

Now William L and I now have this scheme on Saturdays where we pack our lunch and take it to work, therefore saving the $10 or so dollars that we would normally spend on lunch. Now, Will’s taken that $10 a week and bought a DSLR (a 40D, at that), and I’ve taken it to pay for my iPhone bill :P

Even though we pack our lunch separately, we take it in turns to buy the liquid nourishment. We’ve only just started, and Will was first – can you guess what he bought?

Apple juice? Nope.

If you guessed orange, you would have guessed correct.

There’s a pic of this orange juice below.

I have no idea how I managed to write link apple juice and friends, but hey – it’s tasty, and also informative = win-win.

On to the normal stuff, and I’m totally disappointed that Dean has decided to CAN THE 2008 DIGITAL VIDEO SCAVENGER HUNT for Radi8! Oh noes!
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out our video that I posted on YouTube here (or the freshbytes post that contains it here)- otherwise, join me in lamenting the loss of the week…

Juicy comments below, thanks. (Wow – the puns just keep getting better and better around here…)

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sep 28

Haha, very funny.

No really, very funny.

How is it so hard to believe that I have an 3G iPhone? Well, it’s not so hard – you just have to think about it.

However, there is a couple of funny stories about my when I tried to acquire my iPhone 3G – but that story is far too epic to post here so I might leave it for now.

So, why Telstra? Their coverage is indeed, second to none. I went with Telstra as I knew I was always going to have coverage (unless I ventured into the 2% of Australia that isn’t covered by their excellent NextG network), and unlike some Optus users, I wasn’t going to have massive headaches with 3G/GSM coverage in capital cities, for instance.

Sure, I’m in total agreement of the fact that I do pay a little more than I would if I went with Optus or any other carrier – but seriously, in Tasmania it’s probably worth it. How much more I do pay isn’t as much as people think it is. No, I don’t have to sell my firstborn son/kidneys/any body parts to pay for my iPhone.

However, if you take a look at Google, you’ll find that there are multitudes of forum-ites (forum-goers?) who are complaining that the government shouldn’t have sold Telstra off as a whole company as it did – as now that non-government owned Telstra has complete monopoly of the telecommunications network in Australia, leading to the fact that shiping data from Melbourne to Hobart costs SIX TIMES more than it does than from Melbourne to the US. I blame Telstra.

The iPhone itself is awesome. Sure, over time the novelty will wear off, but for the moment, it’s by far the best phone I’ve ever owned. The App Store totally makes it so much better.

Worst things about it so far are battery life – I’m a light user and I find I have to charge the battery every couple of days. With my old phone I could go a full week without charge.
No Bluetooth file transfers from phone-to-phone, or from computer-to-phone, or vice versa. Which sucks. It has bluetooth, but it’s crippled – apparently, it lacks the OBEX protocol which phones require for file transfers.

To borrow a phrase from Now We Are Talking (ironically, the Telstra telecommunications blog), “iPhone, therefore I am.”

If you visit freshbytes and it isn’t here, I’ve probably got some sort of C&D from Telstra themselves for ripping off their blog post title. Oops.

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , ,

Sep 21

Sheesh. If only I had a honey :(

Look, it’s the opening line and I’ve already digressed! That has pretty much set the mood for the rest of this post…

So, if you’re asking where the games are, the answer is, gone. I’ve removed the games. Not such a popular move I know, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find them on the internet, if you know what I’m saying…. Just gotta click!

If you’re looking for the snow and wondering where our snow day had gone like I was, I’m happy to announce that I found it. I’ve found the snow!

Most of the snow is currently located on the slopes of Mount Field, in Mount Field National Park. I went up there from the last Thursday and Friday of the holidays with the Radi8 Youth Group, and it was cool. Actually, scratch that, it was ice cold – Top Gear references for the win. This was the day after I bought my iPhone – more on that later.

For now, though, just read the report on the snow below.

So Thursday morning found myself and some 25 other people arriving bright and early at the Radi8 headquarters. From there, we packed the trailer full of our gear, and then it was just a small matter of fitting everyone in some form of transport.

Naturally, yours truly missed out on the “good seats” in the Patrol with all the guys (well, the guys that I was friends with), so I had to bus it up with the ladies. Of course, this might sound glamerous/lucky for me, but it was far from it. Screaming Year 7 girls isn’t anyone’s idea of fun – and it certinaly isn’t mine. My only solace was the awesome music, leading to my purchase of Break Me Down by Christian City Church, from their album For Your Glory (iTMS links).

I hid behind my sunnies until we arrived at New Norfolk. Here, I stocked up on supplies and the like, consisting of two packets of Starburst and a morning tea of an egg and bacon pita with BBQ sauce from Banjo’s. Mmm…

We eventually arrived at the Mount Field huts, where we the unpacked our gear, and so on. Frugus was the order of the day, being the name of the hut that Stephen M stayed in. Lunch then consisted of simple buns with various fillings. It was nice, the but real highlight was what came next: the snow.

We all got dressed for the snow. Some had ski-pants, others still had jeans and (Dunlop) Volley’s. We drove to the car park, and began our ascent up the mountain. Onwards and upwards was the motto of the day as we struggled though a clear feet of snow. Powder snow is really, really cool – you think you’re stepping onto snow that will hold your weight up, but it doesn’t and you get your foot stuck. Dangerous, but fun.

On the first day we hiked all the way up to the base of the ski slopes – a long arduous journey that involved a lost camera, an inner tube, 4 toboggans, a body board, and the mother of all toboggans. At the base, we made camp around some rocks, and while some others journeyed further up, a couple of us stayed behind to make tunnels in the snow, freeze our fingers off, and have an awesome time doing so!

When we were all freezing/had our fill of snow, we journeyed back down – whilst it was still difficult going down (we could fall on our faces at any time) it was far easier than coming up. It was then back to the camp to dry off and down some hot chocolate, and dinner was prepared. After a scrumptious dinner of burritos, we enjoyed a small chapel service by candle light.

It was then time for the most extreme Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournament. Yours truly got out really early due to a couple of failed bluffs – All In doesn’t have the same effect in real life that it does have in the Texas Hold ‘Em game on iPhone/iPod Touch – when you go All In on that, usually the other people are scared off and fold…

Redemption arrived in the form of a second life – someone dropped out, and asked me to take over for them. This time I wasn’t so callous with my money – I managed to win a couple of pots. However, the inevitable happened (got beaten with an open ended straight, WTF!) and I came around 5th. Nathan dH managed to take out the cup – snagging an ace-high four-of-a-kind along the way.

Bed ensued at 10:30. I think everyone slept far better than they thought they would.

Early the next morning, we had breakfast and then proceeded to pack our bags. We had to be out of the campsite at 10, so we hurried off to the ski carpark for more snow fun. This time, I didn’t journey up, but those that did were rewarded with snow. Instead, I stayed at the lodge and played poker with a couple of other guys – this time, I was doing really well – but I eventually dropped out to play Catch Phrase! with some other guys who had dropped out of poker beforehand.

It was then time for a creamy chicken soup lunch, with bread rolls and various fillings again. Tomato soup was also on offer, but chicken seemed more enticing. After we had packed up, it was time to leave the snow.

We arrived at the Russell Falls/Mount Field National Park info centre – and we walked to Russell Falls. A quick snack in the park followed, and by that time people were wanting to go home. So we did.

The girls were even more rowdy on the way back, requesting the infamous Do Wah Diddy song by Manfred Mann. While it is quite a good song, I couldn’t find it on Katrina’s iPod. The girls then had to wait until we hit New Norfolk for Dean’s iPod – and when it was finally playing, they didn’t even sing along!! The nerve! After that I ended, I managed to choose For Your Glory and stick it on repeat all the way back…

None too soon, we hit Hungry Jack’s Hobart – I had a double Stacker. It was sort of like a double cheeseburger, but nicer. That was dinner.

Finally, we arrived back at Radi8 HQ – a massive amount of R&R awaited us once we got home.

Apart from the aforementioned Winter Camp, school holidays have been great. Now it’s time to knuckle down for the last 31 days of school – the last days of school for me, ever.

I’ll finish with a joke -

Roses are red;
Violets are blue,
In Soviet Russia,
Poems read you!

Apologies if you didn’t get that. Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Aug 04

I’m sorry about the delay in posts, once again you can blame Chris. Oh well, moving on…

If you missed the last post, head here to read it, or click the previous post button down after this post.

I’m fully aware that the iPhone 3G is a gadget in massively high demand, but it’s sometimes hard for Apple as a company to predict how much stock they’ll need for a particular product. Sure, the iPhone 3G has been described as “the second coming” or “the be-all and end-all”, but does it really come as surprise that the iPhone 3G is one of the most highly-anticipated smartphones to come out on the market, possibly being the best thing, EVER?!

Well, Apple apparently underestimated how popular the iPhone actually was.

ArsTechnica says:

There was a hilarious explanation given regarding shortages of the iPhone 3G. While Apple is “confident” in the ability create supply, it apparently is “difficult to predict demand.” Nonetheless, Apple is preparing a roll out in 20 more countries on August 22nd, and will be selling the iPhone 3G in more than 70 countries by year’s end.

Hilarious, indeed. How could Apple have mis-underestimated the popular iPhone 3G? Didn’t they go to all the trouble to create massive, massive speculation, “leaked” spy shots of the new model, awesome new features such as 3G, GPS, new design, the iPhone 2.0 software, and so many other cool features – it’s laughable that Apple couldn’t anticipate this. And they said Apple had “genii”….

Anyways, the weekend was pretty mad, if you haven’t already read my post at my other website, then you should go and read it now. I went to two 18ths, but three people had birthday parties – congrats to Felicity, Paul, and Ashley. I don’t know how much you drank, but I actually used my bottle-opening belt to open a bottle. I felt really tough after that, like I had just fulfilled another chapter in the Benny Ling saga. Truth be told, I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking when I bought that belt – it was a good four years or so ago though, so it’s not like it’s a new belt, by any means. Aidan just wanted something to open his Corona with, and I suddenly realised that my belt had a bottle opener. Handy.

Radi8tion07, “NagFest”, was a massive hit. Sure, Black team didn’t win – Adam wasn’t there, so maybe that was why – but we had loads of fun, and maybe even learnt something? I for one didn’t know that a horse was called a Nag. Sure, whatever. Since we’re talking about horses, I’m going to go ahead and wish them a happy horseday or whatever, because August 1 is the official horse day. No horsing-around, thanks!

The radi8 winter camp is coming up soon. It’s a winter camp, so it means lots of Skiing at Mount Field. It’s from September 18-19, and it costs $40/person. I’m not totally sure if I’m going or not – sure, it sounds like fun, but not really if you don’t have any friends that are going – and places are limited to 25, so hurry up and book!

Today’s parting video is brought to you from Paul’s bday party – video courtesy of Emily’s phone camera. Apologies in advance for the utter rubbish quality, my phone didn’t do so well either, and the iPhone, well, it can’t do video at all! :(

This firework was as big as your thigh, but about half as long, and it was called the “Underwater Fury”. It wasn’t actually underwater – and it was also far cooler if you were actually there – but you went to Flicks’ instead, didnt you?

Enjoy, comments below.


written by Benny Ling \\ tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,