Yep, I am still alive and kicking. Nope, I wasn’t swiped away by the Tsunami. I was in the highland Genting in the Resort Hotel which is designed poorly specifically to keep you outside the room and spend more time in the Casino¹. With no CNN and BBC, pardon me when I asked ‘what earthquake?’ to all those who messaging me and asked me if I am alright. But thanks for your concerns.

Anyway, I am now in Kuala Lumpur with proper cable access. I am amazed at the death toll so far (lastest from CNN is 26,000) but I expected this to double easily once they classified those missing people as death over the next few days. Just when we thought we could leave 2004 without any disaster, something like this hit us. *sigh*

¹ I didnt even managed step into the Casino so their trick didn’t work. The main reason I am in Genting is because of my younger bro who is working in Genting (assigned to help setup the newest Casino up there) and he really wants to see his little niece.

And the stories he tells me is sound more like out of a television shows :- people carrying 500k cash to exchange for chips, special rooms for people gamblings 20m or more (betting 500k or more each hand) etc. And with many of these regulars are from Singapore so go draw your own conclusion about Singapore latest debate on Casino.

²I have dinner with a group of friends last night and one of them made an interesting observation: the hardest hit would be the travel industry…again. First, there is 9-11, then when it looks like it is coming back, we have Sars…then when it looks like it is all clear, this happen.

Okay, seem like bad week isn’t over yet. My dry throat now developed into a full blown cold.

Nevertheless, with my running nose, I managed a 5hrs bus train to Genting Highland so now I am blogging this from the ‘top of Malaysia’.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone. Hope next week is better for me.

I have a terrible week – I was terrible tired for in the last few days, running out of energy often. Then I ran my car into another car last night damaging my car pretty badly (luckily no one was injured). And today I developed a cold, vomitting, dry throat and with a bad headache. Argghh :-(

Wonderful story of how Blogging is going to change the world (via Michael Everson via Email :-)

Finally, comment spammers has found trackback spams. I got a dozen of them today. Well, I suppose it is obvious. Perhaps it is time for me to do something about it. I have a simple idea against it. Watch this space :-)

Engineers on TLDs: Do You Want Me With Fries? on CircleID by Vittorio Bertola:

This is why engineering solutions are not carved in stone, and young engineers have always been eating up old engineers since gave engineering to the world. That’s not because the old solutions were better than the new ones, or the opposite, but because new needs and new expectations arose among the users of the technology.

One word: Lovely!

I was one of the 30-something engineers who “ask” for (IDN) TLD.

While I can sense some consensus on stage and off-stage of the need of IDN TLDs, the response I get from 60-something engineers (whose status is close to been ‘God’ right now) revolves around trying to get things 100% right before proceeding.

Don’t get me wrong: I have great respects for elderly engineers who has contributed so much to make Internet what is today – and I always value their wisdoms and advises. But seeking perfect solution is no difference then say ‘no’ – at least to the one making the request.

Confessions of a Civil Servant : Lessons in Changing America’s Government and Military – by Bob Stone

I got a pleasant surprise this morning: Bob Stone emailed me to tell me his book is available in paperback. (PDF is also available on his website but hey, please go buy the book!)

Actually I blog this book sometime ago and I absolutely love his quote “Some people look for things that went wrong and try to fix them. I look for things that went right and try to build on them.“

lol (via MrBrown)

After waiting for nearly 2 years, the innovative virtual keyboard (called BTVKB) finally arrived in Singapore stores! Guess what I am getting for christmas? Ho Ho Ho!

Update: Damn, it does not work with any of my current portable gadget/phones yet :P

I have a wonderful dinner with David Weinberger (of Cluetrain Manifesto fame) and Meng Wong (of SPF fame) last night. David is in town to give an 8 hours (poor guy) talk for a Knowledge Management event and Meng Wong (who is a Singaporean) is back for to attend a wedding dinner.

Anyway, we have a lot of interesting discussion: from Meng Wong work with Microsoft SenderID¹ to the discussion of universal taxonomies.

And before we know it, 3hours has pass. Time just flies when you are in good company.

¹ Late Raymond Cheung has been the champion of KM in Singapore. He would have enjoy the meeting with David. *sigh*