Melancholia

These few days, I was and am feeling pretty down with a melancholic feeling. I guess it was the time in London that has reminded me of much of my sweet memories of the past, of being able to spend lots of quality time just chatting the night away with my closest friends.

I guess all the time that I have spend way too much time over here in Germany alone, more than 4 years to be exact. While I also have German friends, they are never the same with my close friends who are now scattered all over the world, with their own business to deal with. 

I so miss the times when I was doing my A-levels in INTEC. That time, even if my schedule was sometimes hectic at times, being with my friends totally made up for it. That time, we ate together, laughed together, studied together, went for outings together, and chatted away the night until sunrise together. Needless to say I savored and enjoyed almost every moment of it. To add to that, I have also met Jen in INTEC as well.

It has been quite a number of years since I left INTEC, and embarked on a journey to Germany to continue my studies and get my first degree. The experience has been unpleasant at the least. I have not been able to integrate myself properly into the society here, and have spend most of my times alone. Having most of my best friends from the other programs in INTEC didn't help as well, since I am not close to all of them. 

The experience can be considered as harrowing at the very least. I realized that I have not been the ultra optimistic and happy-go-lucky person that I was in INTEC. It is said that loneliness can eat away one person slowly from the inside. I became moody, and became settled down with depression. The worst part of it is, I have lost my optimism totally. Any kind of advise that I get, I counter with probable negative results and why it can't be done. I probably shouldn't be surprised if I ended up with no friends now...

They say that true friends will stick around through bright and dark times. I have my friends to thank for sticking with me all this while. You guys were fantastic in your support. There are almost always ears to for me to speak into when I need it the most. I may have lost my mind if not for you, and probably somewhere in the netherworld already. Well, here's my big thanks! Thanks to all of you for being there! Thanks for everything!

Special mention to Jen, for still sticking around despite all my negativity, and for being there to push me up, and for lending an ear whenever I need to sleep, despite her heavy schedule. Well, you just see, I am going to be better than the 1 million guys in the line!

Before I end this post, here's a particularly sweet song by Kymm and JJ that happened to one of my favourite songs at the end of my time in INTEC:

Cheers,
seehua

Hardware Accelerated Adobe Flash Plugin for OSX

After using OSX for one and a half years now, there is one thing that I notice. The Macbook tends to get very hot while watching Flash videos (YouTube and Vimeo are two popular sites that use Flash technology) and while visiting Flash heavy sites (Fashion sites, I am looking at you!). Apparently, it is Apple's reluctance to provide low level APIs to the GPU that causes this problem. The current version of Flash decodes video using the CPU. This method is taxes the CPU heavily, and thus making the Macbook able to fry some eggs while I watch Susan Boyle proving Simon Crowell wrong over and over and over again...

The good news is, Apple has provided just that API along with the OS X 10.6.3 update some weeks ago,. Adobe took advantage of that update, and has provided a beta of Flash Player 10.1 Gala for public testing.

Once I know of this, I immediately downloaded this version, installed it, and use my (still favourite) Firefox for a spin in YouTube. Well, I have a positive feeling about this. CPU usage dropped, and my thighs aren't charred while watching the videos. While Adobe said that it won't be go out as part of the Flash Player 10.1 release, I eagerly await the final, refined release. Until then, I will continue to use this beta version.

CJ

Living Here and Now: Reboot?

It has been quite some time since I last updated this blog. During this time, I was busy with my thesis, preparing for my final two papers in my examinations, being depressed and being happy.  Yea, it has been quite a semester for me.

As of now, I am busy looking for places to do my masters (somewhere bigger than Aalen, hopefully). While doing this, I am also trying to clear my huge backlog of articles in my RSS feeds, spamming around in ReCom, and designing a new interface for ReCom Wiki.

Life has been pretty good to me so far, with many of my old and newly found friends being so supportive on many of my predicaments and being patient while listening to my rantings. (A big salute and thank you to the all of you out there!)

Anyway, to the main issue of this post. I will be doing a reboot of this blog, and hopefully, I will again be able to post regularly in topics ranging from local and international hot issues, computer tips, politics, discussions in ReCom, and my own musings on random things that always seemed to pop up in my head. I have always wanted to be able to  communicate my points properly to the others by speech and words, so it is my aim to improve myself in this aspect by writing and posting stuffs here again. If there is anything that you would like to comment on, feel free to do so =)

It is good to be back again, hope you guys will enjoy reading what I have to say all over again!

seehua