two roads divered in a wood.....

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

"One server can fail, but a fleet of servers will never fail"

sure, the guys from AWS were essentially here to "sell" amazon web services, but I really appreciated how they took into consideration that we were students, and did less selling and more sharing and teaching.  i especially liked it when simone shared his experiences in order to put into context some of the concepts which wouldn't have made much sense to someone who has little understanding of the whole business of maintaining data centers

"If it ain't broken, don't fix it"

management of large companies with small foresight may not want to switch over to a whole new system.  they are afraid of failure or perhaps resistance to change? the ground people probably don't have the guts, motivation or power to push for these changes.  after all, why make your own life more difficult if everything is working right now.  i too believe in the old adage.  when things are going fine, why risk problems by fixing it?  i mean, after all, the current way of doing things is most likely a process or framework that has been perfected after many runs and iterations. right?

maybe not.  based on what little i know and what i've learnt from cvwo, when you develop a workflow, you're more than likely going to stick with it and live with it.  only during the starting honeymoon period, where the workflow is being developed is there incentive for improvement and changes.  once you've kinda settled into it, that's probably set in stone.  you'd never want to risk a change whenever you couldn't afford it.  an example would be as simple as getting from home to work/school.  if you're used to a certain route, would you dare risk it on a day where you have an extremely important meeting/presentation?

The first mover's advantage

in business, this is damn important, apparently. this concept was first formalized to me by my econs tutor in jc.  and in this scenario, like simone puts it nicely, it is the economics behind that is forcing the change into cloud computing.  i think while we're focused on not fixing unbroken things, we should also look breaking new ground.  in a way, thats WHY i'm here on this voyage - to sail into waters uncharted, to see lands unexplored.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

on a last note, nice to know that amazon has set up camp in the little red dot.

I destroyed my hands :)

Alright! I totally destroyed my fingers using with the Adobe Pen Tool. But I'm still very unsatisfied with my end product.  Looks terrible kiddish, and unprofessional. Bah...



So I took a break here: Gametrailers' Angry Video Game Nerd: Hydlide Review


The video is part of a series which runs at Gametrailer.com.  Essentially, a vulgar, angry dude picks out terrible old school games on old systems (Atari, NES, etc) and complains about them .  In this episode, the target of his wrath is "Hydlide".

 If you're allergic to vulgarities, you might just want to skip to 6:30min for the gist of the whole video.  Why I'm sharing this video is because I felt that he actually said something that made some sense.  He noted that essentially, this crappy game was just as cryptic as the first Zelda (for those who don't know what this is, Zelda is one of the all time most popular console game series) in terms of how to progress in the game.  However, what made the difference is the design of the game made it fun for people to play, so people were willing to collaborate and discuss it, even though the game's puzzles were extremely difficult and cryptic.  In order to beat Zelda, fans collaborated to come up with guides and game world maps (it was considered massive at that time) using game magazines. (obviously there was no Google then)



In days where collaboration was no mean feat, the design of Zelda managed to bring about such huge steps in their players.  Today, Google makes this process so much easier.  In some ways, I think this idea is rather important for facebook apps.  As long you manage to earn some form of leverage over the users (be it a great design, addictive gameplay, essential services), users might actually be willing to help you back.

Of course, its not going to gain that form of leverage nowadays, since users can simply just SWITCH to alternatives once you can't deliver.
Anyway, i must do a disclaimer on my statement from my previous post.  Its GOOD that Prof Ben keeps repeating himself.  Why does he repeat himself? I think that it could be for two reason...
1) He really believes in what he says (in that its important for us to hear it)
2) People don't listen/People forget to what they hear

I had lots of fun (and pain) getting the version one of whoisthemonkey's UI done.  Too bad I'm not paticularly pleased with my end product. Well, enough 3216 for the weekend.

when you come to know that you dont know much....

...you work even harder... (after spend some time feeling sorry for yourself)

sat's workshop on AWS might have been a little daunting for people with no real background with web development (including me).  the aws lesson and start up guides are excellent in telling you the HOW aspect, but if you want to get a basic overview on WHAT is happening and WHY we are doing all this, you might want to take a look at a newb-friendly guide (the title says it all really). so you might want to check it out if you're still pretty lost on whats happening.


the advent of scrum/agile really isn't all that surprising.  after all, we are in a world where change is so rapid.  i think its a cool approach to doing things, not just big projects.  the software development lecture on a whole was enriching, interesting and funny.

on an unrelated note, i just felt inspired to talk about prof.

1) prof often says the exact same things many times.

2) prof loves to pick on people (of course, its all in the name of fun :) poor angad)
3) dont ever walk in on him teaching if you're not in prof class. well, if you do, you could always come back with a witty retort.
4) there is an inner army regular in prof that surfaces rather often. (especially in his speech)


anyway, back to the topic.  i especially enjoyed the sharing sessions.  just from their presentations, i could see how and why they were project lead, production managers or team leads.  i found myself sitting on the edge of my seat excitedly to be listening to their sharing on how work is like in those organizations.  too bad there wasn't time to ask more questions.


the past week was interesting.  for the first time, i got to REALLY try my hand at design.  i was awfully disgusted by my product.  i present my proud achievement:

( i'm sorry NUSSU SAVE.... i'm a proud tree killer, just like how i won't give up eating meat)

after this past week, i've come to know how much i don't know.  i may be from computing, but i think i might be easily one of those who know the least. and being surrounded in such knowledgeable company, is just like staring at the wide horizons and knowing how small i am compared to it.  and these people are probably only the tip of the iceburg.  i mean, sure, prof always says these are the best around in NUS, but there are definitely lots more talented people all around who didn't chose to take cs3216.

(which happens to be the EXACT same thing that prof ben said in his 1101s "last lecture"... though he din do any pushups)

also, my whole body is aching TERRIBLY from my physio sessions....to top everything up, my first assignment is not going as well as i hoped it would be, but i'm glad to have such experienced and cool team mates.

BUT i guess this presents an opportunity for me to learn from the wealth of experience and knowledge available around.  and i think the question is whether i can pick all these up fast enough.

so to sum up.... its been a terrible week....

...or not...



well, too bad life is not long enough to be mopping over your inadequacies.  i deeply apologise for the apparent gloom and doom phase i seem to portray.  the truth is, i'm not feeling particularly sad or anything. not that i have any time to.  but i think its important to have this self-awareness to conquer greater heights...

a trip to the doctors

so i just came from my physio session in the afternoon.

while i was waiting for my turn, i saw this giant of a doctor talking to a patient, who had a cast with a special shoe over his right foot.  the doctor was trying to explain something to him.  the patient obviously felt that talking to him while seated was either uncomfortable or discourteous, so he stood up. the doctor then asked him to be careful and sit down, and then proceeded on with their discussion.

within seconds, the patient stood up again, before the doctor asked him to sit down again.  after two more times this happened, the patient finally lost his balance and tripped.  fortunately, he only fell back onto the chair, sustaining no injury.

so i was watching this spectacle rather curiously.  why didn't the doctor just sit down beside the empty sit beside the patient, who clearly was NOT going to stay seated to talk to the doctor?

of course, i could say all i want, because
1) there's no guarantee i won't overlook the exact same thing if i were in his shoes, like the saying goes 旁观者清 (which means things are clearer to someone spectating)
2) maybe the doctor was REALLY REALLY busy at the end of the shift

anyway, my point is, i think if we remember to apply some common sense, and try to see things from the users point of view, we would be able to provide a much better user experience.

ship out!

Main Entry: ¹voy·age
Pronunciation: \ˈvȯi-ij, ˈvȯ(-)ij\
Function: noun \
Etymology: Middle English viage, veyage, from Anglo-French veiage, from Late Latin viaticum, from Latin, traveling money, from neuter of viaticus of a journey, from via way — more at way
Date: 14th century

1 : an act or instance of traveling : journey
2 : a course or period of traveling by other than land routes
3 : an account of a journey especially by sea

i’ve chosen to name my blog gran viaje, which is spanish for grand voyage. was feeling particularly adventurous when i created the blog.

i think cs3216 is gonna be like a voyage. you kinda know the general direction what you're going towards, but you're basically heading into the uncharted waters. there will be no shortage of adventure, blood, sweat, tears and joy.

the funny thing is, i don't exactly know what i want to learn from this course. i mean, sure, there is going to be no shortage of hard web development skills, teamwork etc etc, what i truly desire is the experience of the unknown.

its just like what was said in the talk by tina seeling. there's no way of teaching things like creativity and entrepreneurship in a strictly classroom setting. we have to get our hands dirty. i love getting my hand dirty :)

so, i cant come up with a WHAT WILL I LEARN FROM CS3216 list, but i am hungry for the gran viaje that awaits me.