Pkchukiss – Reality Wine

Do you remember how Tai Lake in Jiangsu, China turned all greenish with mucky algae floating around back in June this year?

Well, China might just be able to harvest all that algae into fuel for energy, if algaes ever come to pass as the biofuel of the future.

EnvironmentalGraffiti reports that a company has come up with a system of growing algae with simple agricultural components. The mucky stuff naturally produces oils and starches, which are then processed into biofuel for us humans to burn in our petrol guzzlers. As a side effect, since these stuff actually photosynthesise (take in carbon dioxide and sunlight to create the starches), it also helps to mitigate all that carbon dioxide that’s contributing to global warming right now.

When you begin to think about how algae blooms have always been seen as a man-made menace (these things thrive on the nitrates in untreated sewage to grow), now’s a chance for all the countries that don’t treat their toilet water to gain a cheap source of energy. Heck, they even save money from the costs of building a treatment plant; just find a dead body of water, pump the sewage in, pipe in the exhast from the nearby power plant, and wait for the harvest!

This is probably the first time that power generation will become this efficient, if this is ever done on an economical scale. We should watch this development very closely.

Scribbled under:
The Environment

Ok, Bing De was teasing me for going AWOL from blogging. I told him that it was a secret and all will be revealed soon. Now is the right time to reveal what I have been working on: a whole new blog-skin for this blog!

There’s a markedly difference between the other skins I’ve ever used, and this new theme: I did this one from scratch, all by myself. While trying to keep it a surprise makes it impossible for me to have it beta tested with accomplices, but I think I managed the design fine. Things might look a little bit confusing initially, but I’m hope you’ll like this fresh look.

I’m still not sure if this look conforms to the Web 2.0 outlook every tech geek on the Internet was gushing about, so I’ll appreciate any feedback on this extreme make-over!

This major project took me around one week to crack and code: one day of coding, and six days of debugging. You won’t believe just how many browsers refuse to play ball with code that should work in theory! In the end, I used quite a few hacks here and there to achieve this decently looking thing over here (at least it does to me). Imagine how many hoops professional designers had to go through to write website coding for demanding clients!

If you know what I’m talking about, there’s no reason to ditch using tables for your page layout, just because other people say so, if it does a better job at making your design work than doing stuff the hard way. It is a new light bulb turned on when I gave up trying to force the div layers to play ball.

Scribbled under:
General

It is a quiet day for a birthday. Anyone would have gotten used to it, if your birthday always falls during your unit’s evaluation test during National Service, primary and secondary schools’ term 3 mid-term test, and now, polytechnic’s end of semester examination. Yawn!

Nevertheless, I would like to thank Chamber, Bing De, Kester, Weisheng, Yong Siong, Wendy for having remembered this lonely boy. I’ve always celebrated my birthdays in low-key style, but that’s because I’m a penniless student (see the sidebar!). So after a KFC meal with my parents, I snagged a personality test that bases its results solely upon my date of birth. Upon entering the golden date (this date, many years ago), I got this:

I guess some of the points come pretty close to describing my personality. What do you think? Does birthday boy make you feel safe and relaxed, doesn’t sweat the small stuff, have a heart well-liked by many people, cool and easy going? You can take the test too: http://world.doubutsu-uranai.com/

There’s 2 more exam papers to go before the semester officially ends, so I’m going to burying myself in the books until at least Wednesday.

Scribbled under:
General

Here’s something that anti-homosexuals fear to see:

I wonder whether they’re wringing their collective hands and cursing to have their eyes befouled by this very act of nature! Oh the audacity of having it displayed in front of their eyes! They should call the police to have the author of the website captured and have the material taken down, lest more of their own kind be subjected to the same torture!

I came across another argument on how Homosexuality goes against the grain of nature. Once again, I commend some doctors, well respected public figures around the world for coming up with one of the worst proven arguments in the irrational crusade against human rights. Animals, just like humans, do exhibit homosexual behaviour. That means your pet hamsters humping their siblings with the same instinctive innocence as how a lion preys on a deer without hesitation (I regret to inform you that incest is found in nature too).

Would homophobes lock up their children if they turn out to be gays, just as how the Dursleys locked up Harry Potter when they realised that he could do magic? I don’t know, because my parents never had the chance to ponder over this question: pkchukiss has (to the despair of the now cognitively dissonant) heterosexual tendencies. In fact, pkchukiss would not want to have any romantic relationships with another guy, though he is not opposed to having gay friends.

What I do know is that all humans, be it Indian, Chinese, Malay; gay, lesbian, straight; jerk, criminal, super-hero; foreign-talent, local-talent, etc. all should have the same inalienable rights to live their own lives, as long as they do not interfere with other people’s rights to live their own lives. You wouldn’t like it if your neighbour petitioned to have your favourite pink underwear outlawed because she finds it offensive, do you?

Or have durians banned in Singapore because some people find that the lovely yellow fruits smell like a British sewer?

Get a life, homophobes; stop trying to dictate other people’s lives with your own fears!

Scribbled under:
General

Sometimes there are some things that you just can’t seem to get right, no matter how much you prepare for it. I’d say it looks like how you’re preparing for death. No matter how much you try, I can pretty much bet that the real thing is definitely different from what we’ve all been expecting.

You would think that at least somebody on (or in) this wide and round planet will at least get that correct.

That is what happened to my technical business communications module test yesterday. Lest you do not understand the incongruency between the study notes and the questions asked, here’s an example: Picture yourself being given notes on how a fish can be cut. Then imagine being shepherded into a slaughter room and asked to bring a fish that was mercilessly bludgeoned back to life.

Like we put it all in Singlish: No link lor!!

The least I could do for my conscience would be to satisfy myself with a 5 hour mugging session studying something that I might never understand, since lessons had ended.

Well, that felt better. I think I’ve forgotten all about that already!

Scribbled under:
General

Gee, this is one of the weakest argument that I find floating around the Internet. My guess is that the argument was made after he made up his mind that gay marriage is unacceptable.

So far, homophobics have been using the destruction of family values as one of the reasons why gay unions shouldn’t be legalised. What “family values”? Just what is affected? To be frank, the only compelling reason I have seen for not legalising gay marriage, is that of religion. If you are a believer of a religion that condemns you for being a homosexual, it isn’t logical to not at least pretend to be straight if you do not want to be burnt. But just how many people in the world believes in those religions? Not many.

I did a Google search on this matter, and there have not been any studies that found any link to ill effects of having a homosexual family composition. Either my research skills are really poor, or the problem only exists in the Right-wingers’ collectively closed minds.

A homosexual relationship looks abnormal to these people, who have a strongly entrenched view of what a “family” constitutes. This is always planted by their families, friends, and religions (if applicable). They are then taught to regard homosexual unions as unnatural, and then asked to oppose these marriages.

But have they even thought of the consequences of this interference? Discrimination is possible, and even encouraged by certain religions (of which I shall not name the guilty to protect their sheeps from having their minds broadened). Heck, the very act of opposition in this matter constitutes a blatant infringement to the rights of homosexuals. Already, 42 years of conservatives in power have led to relegation of gays to become secondary citizens: incapable of being married, are criminalised for sex intercourse, and are turned down for government jobs. What a huge farce it is to our national pledge?

“… based on Justice and Equality”? Let’s not kid ourselves. The entire nation has become a farce to the very spirit of the pledge.

Scribbled under:
General