Mingshern’s Blog

    Birthdays… Everyone has a birthday… Some people celebrate their birthday every year… Some don’t really care much about birthdays… To them, its just another day… Public holidays are given on the day of the King’s birthday (although I’m quite sure it isn’t their ‘real’ birthday, its just a day choosen for celebration), Country’s Birthday (Independence Day), state Governor’s birthday and so on… And of course, our friends have birthdays too… And, on our friends’ birthdays, we would wish them happy birthday, maybe buy a birthday card, or buy a present, or even celebrate for them… But sometimes, you just cant help but to forget one or two or more of your friends’ birthdays… In such cases, it really makes you feel really bad and guilty after you discovered that your friend’s birthday have passed… (or at least, thats how i feel) And it feels even worse if that friend is someone close, or used to be close to you… Well, it happens to me… Sometimes the worst is like, you actually remember his/her birthday a few days, or even weeks before the birthday, but on that day itself, or the day before, you’re just too preoccupied with something that you forgotten totally about it… Then after it’s over, even if you try to explain that you actually remembered the birthday even before the day itself, its kinda hard to convince people, rite? hehehe… But sometimes, even if we would really like to wish the person Happy Birthday, we might not have the chance to do so… Or sometimes, we might not even know when is that person’s birthday… ><! Well, and even though sometimes I do forget my friend’s birthday, that doesn’t mean that i forgotten about him/her rite? Just that i forgotten the day itself… So, for all my friends who i forgotten or missed the chance to wish you all happy birthday on the right moment, I would like to say sorry for it and hope I’ll remember it this year… =)

    Ok, thats about birthdays… what does it gotta do with passwords? Well, for one, some people just seem to choose their birthdays as their passwords… I guess that its just common rite? I mean, I used to do that too… some of my accounts, emails, friendster, online games, etc… I used to use my birthday as my password… And i know that some of my friends used their birthdays too… for example, a person who was born on the 1st of January year 2007 might set his password as 010107, or 01jan07, or 1_jan and so on… Therefore, it is actually kinda easy for people to log into their account once they know their birthday… just have to play around some combinations… Well, this might be ok for accounts which are not so important… (you know, the type of account where you register just because you need to register, like forums, ICQ, stuffs like that…) But I think that most people prefer to keep and use only one password for all their accounts… Which means that, if you got the password, you have access to all their other accounts… This is actually quite dangerous… Although for people like me, even if other people do know the password i used for all my accounts, it probably wont be that useful… I mean, i dont have online bank accounts or credit cards and stuffs like that… Im just a student… But it can still be used to cause some havoc… Imagine, someone broke into my friendster account and start sending nonsense messages to all my friends, or maybe even start typing nonsense in my blog (haha, as if its not crap yet…) I know a few person who have been victim of these kinda things, usually done by their naughty and cheeky friends… Or people can enter your email account and read all your private messages… Or log into your MSN account and do all sort of nonsense… So, passwords are still important…

    So, how to prevent these kinda things? Of cos, one of the ways is to have a different password for each of your accounts… And each password should be easy for you to remember, but hard for other people to even guess about it… But, I’m sure many people, like me, dont like to remember many passwords… It can get confusing at times, where you dont know which password is for which account… So, here, I would like to share a way of creating easy to remember passwords which is hard for people to crack… In this method, you create an acronym as the password… For example, lets say you wanted to create a password for your friendster account… maybe you can come up with timfp as the password… timfp? What’s that? It looks nonsense rite? However, to the person who created the password, it actually means, This Is My Friendster Password. Add a number behind, or before the acronym, (again, i think most people might use their birthday =P), lets say 10, and the password will be timfp10. Then, for more security, maybe you can add some other characters, or maybe some capital letters to it… Lets say, !timFp10, and you have a password which is hard to crack, because it seems
completely nonsense, but it is still easy for you to remember it. But, what if you wanna do the same for all other accounts? Maybe some people might say, its hard to remember where the Capital letters or the special characters are… Remember, you can create a logic or formula to it… for the above password, !timFp10, I choose to capital the F (not because of the F-word =P) because it stands for Friendster. Its a name, so it makes sense to capital it. Maybe for other accounts, lets say for an email. Perhaps you can use the same format, !timEMp10 (capital EM for E-Mail), or maybe you can change it around in other ways… In this way, you created a password that seems like its computer generated and totally nonsense (you know, like the first password assigned to you in some accounts), but if you know how to read the password, it actually makes sense and easy to remember. Of course, !timFp10 is only a simple example, maybe you can make it more complex by creating something like 8titPiufF&. Maybe some of you wanna know the meaning of that password. It actually stands for, this is the Password i used for Friendster. Number 8 is choosen because thats the number of letters in the password. The & character is used because its the character that appears if u press Shift+7, 7 is the number to the left of 8. So, you see, you have successfully created a password that looks nonsense but does have a logic to you. =)

    Ok, I guess thats all in this post… Hopefully someone will find this method to be useful… And for those who are using their birthdays as their universal password, i suggest that you change it soon… =)

    Yesterday, 16th January 2007, I had my first blood donation. Well, the blood donation is held in KDU, room 201, organised by the Health Club, the Student Service Department of KDU and the Penang General Hospital. It started at about 10 am and finished at about 3 pm. I am one of the committee members organising the event… And well, i decided to donate my blood as well… =)

    I had classes since morning 9 am till 1 pm… And after class, me and a few of my friends went for lunch first before donating. After lunch, which is about 2 pm, we went and register for the blood donation. Some of my friends freaked out looking at other people donating their blood and started to think twice. Well, i must admit that i felt nervous too, but i’ve decided that im gonna donate my blood so i go ahead. After filling the forms and stuffs, they prick my finger to get a small sample of my blood to test my blood group and if my haemoglobin level is enough. Well, yesterday is when i get to know my blood group surely. My blood group type is B+. Before this, i’m not too sure about my blood group but i had a rough feeling that its B. =) After that, a doctor conducted some checks to make sure that i’m suitable to donate blood. Then, I lied on the bed and that’s where it all begins… hehehe…

    Well, first they took out a little needle with some liquid inside. I’m guessing its some anesthetic. I dont really know about it… I’m kinda scared actually, so i turned the other side while trying to stay as calm as possible. It sting a little bit… and then its over… i felt he pulling the needle away so i turned and look… Then he took another larger needle thats connected to a tube, which connects to the blood bag… Woahh… The diametre of the second needle is like, 5 to 10 times bigger than the first, and i thought to myself, "This gotta hurt…". So again, i turned to the other side, expecting pain any momment… However, i did not feel anything AT ALL and after a while, i turned and looked, and i saw my blood already flowing through the tube… Hahaha… Then i just lied there for about 10 minutes until its over, then the guy come and do all the stuffs, pull the needle out… Then he asked me to rest a few more minutes before getting up. And then its done… Finished! =)

    How do i feel after donating my blood? Great! I do not feel any dizziness or anything… I do, feel a little sleepy however… But, i dont think its because of donating blood. As one of my classmates said, even if i do not donate blood also i’ll be sleepy wan la… Hahaha. =D To me, donating blood is a very good thing to do, and in future, i would really wanna continue donating my blood should the condition and situation allows. =) And i would recommend everyone to donate their blood. It is a good practice and it is painless... I think most people would like to donate too, just that a little scared of the needles. Well, it just stings a little, but after its connected to the bag, its not pain at all. Just be like me, look away when they poke the needle… =)

    When I was young, (I dunno how old I were that time… probably about 8-9 years old…) I’ve wondered about this something… then later I remember that during my Form Two year, when I’m 14... when we were studying about the human eye in science… i remembered about the thing i wondered about and i wondered about it once again… in fact, i remember sharing it with one of my close friend that time… i remember him saying that i wondered too much… and so… i forgotten about it after sometime… and now… i remembered about it again… As i was thinking on what to blog about, i suddenly remembered about this little thingy that i wondered about since I’m young… So… what is this thingy that i wondered about? Thats what I’m about to tell in this post… =)

    Well… we all know that we see through our eyes rite… and our eyes can recognise the different colours… rite? However, the thing i wondered about is… what if different people will see the same colour differently…? For example… lets say i take a red card and show it to two person, lets say A and B. What if like, A will see it as red… but B will actually see it as another colour, let’s say blue… However, to both person, they will still say that they see the colour ‘red’, because, to both A and B, the colour they saw is actually called red. Even if B actually saw it as blue, however, since his birth, everything that looks blue to him is called as red… therefore, he has come to know the blue colour he sees as ‘red’.

    When i was young, the thought came to me as like, what if everyone’s favourite colour are actually the same colour? Well, for your information, my favourite colour is blue (yeah, i know… its so common). I wondered like, if everyone see colours differently, but they are named in the way they are named, it might be possible that the ‘blue’ colour i see to be the ‘red’ colour someone else see rite? And if that someone’s favourite colour is ‘red’, it might actually be that his favourite colour is actually the same as mine rite? its just that it has been known as ‘red’ to him since he was born, because everything that looks blue to him is called ‘red’. Even if i purposely get a blue card to show him, point to the sky and tell him thats blue, or do anything to show him what blue colour is like, but it will still look as ‘blue’ to him, which will be a different colour to him and not the blue that i see.

    If people do see colours differently, will it affect people’s life? I thought about it and i think that it wont. Let’s take that someone from above again as example. He will probably see the sky in different colour, see anything ‘red’ as the blue i see, but it wont affect his life in any way rite? Because, even though the traffic light may actually look as blue-green-yellow to his eyes, but to him, it is still ‘red’-'yellow’-'green’ rite? Therefore, when the ‘green’ light lights up, he will actually see it as yellow light, but he will still understand it as, ‘Its green and its time to go…’ rite? Therefore, i think that even though people may look at colours differently, but life is still the same. The only difference is perhaps, he wont like some of the colour he sees and like some other colour he sees. So, perhaps, back to my thought, he might actually like blue colour very much, but to him, its known as ‘red’ and therefore his favourite colour is ‘red’ and not blue. =)

    Is there anyway to test this? Is there anyway to find out how people actually see colour? I don’t think there is a way. First, this might be because even though people might see colours differently, but it is still the same wavelength of light that they see. Therefore, two person may actually see the same wavelength of light as two different colours, but it is still the same wavelength. It is how the brain interprets it that gives it colour. Therefore, unless we can tell how the brain processes the light, i don’t think we can tell if people actually see colours differently. Secondly, we cant show to people that the colour they see is different compared to us. Like the example i said above, even if someone sees blue colour as ‘red’, there’s no way we can point to something that looks red to him and tell him that its ‘red’. Because everything red to him will look in a different colour to him. Or if we try to tell him that the ‘red’ he sees is actually blue, how can we show him that it is blue? Everything blue we show him will be known as ‘red’ to him, so, its still ‘red’ to him. However, even if people do see colours differently, it still wont affect them rite? =)

    Well, looks like i wrote really long this time… I dunno if people reading this will get it… I think its kinda confusing… And plus the way i write it, it might not be clear… I hope that you will get the same idea as i do. Anyone having any thoughts about this, do leave me your comments. Until now, you can say that I’m still wondering about it… hehehe. =)

Hie. Just wanna spread the news about a blood donation from Penang GH that is to be held soon in KDU College Penang. Details are as follows:

Venue : Room 201, KDU College Penang (32, Jalan Anson, 10400,
Penang)
Date : 16th January 2007 (Tuesday)
Time : 10am - 3pm

Conditions for blood donation:
1. Anyone above the age of 18
2. Body weight above 45
3. Healthy and not under any medication
4. Enough sleep and rest the day before (at least 5 hours sleep)
5. Have eaten before donating blood
6. (For ladies) Not pregnant, or having period

A doctor will first conduct some checkup to confirm if you are fit for blood donation. Please come and donate if you have the time. A simple 10-minute blood donation can save life of others. Thanks. =)

*The activity is co-organized by the Student Service Department and the HEALTH club (Hug the Environment with Altruism, Love, Togetherness and Humanity) of KDU College, in response to the call by the General Hospital Penang for blood replenishment to prepare for victims of emergency cases, particularly during the impending festive seasons.*

    Ok… First… let me tell you that this is another nonsense, boring and lousy post and it might be a waste of your time to read it… However, if you do not mind, feel free to read it. =)

    Well, theres many times that i wanted to blog… but in the end… i didnt post anything… Why? Because there’s just nothing good to blog about… I’ll just like… log into here… look around… think of something nice to blog about… cant think of any… decided to blog the next day… log out… Hahha… Yeah… well… thats actually a reason why i update my blog very… un-regularly… ><!

    Or sometimes, its the other way round… i thought of something nice to blog about (ok… maybe not that nice, what i meant was something that i wanna blog about), but in the end, cant find the time for it… or… too lazy to log in here… and… after some time… forgot totally about it… hehehe…

    I’ve read other blogs… most of them are so good as compared to mine… which makes me feel really lazy to blog… i mean… i only type nonsense here… and its like so crappy… and when i look back into my posts… i felt like its so shallow and lousy as compared to others… Some of my friends wrote wonderful posts… And even if its crap-stuffs, its still very nice ideas… which makes me more unmotivated to blog… In comparison, i felt like my posts are so… laughable… its like someone telling me, "HUH? Like that also you wanna blog about?" Hmm…

    Then sometimes i think back to myself… How do i want my blog to be like…? Comical with funny stories in it everytime? Educational? Informative? A blog about daily events? Philosophical ideas? I dunno… I just like… wanna blog about anything i want… any time i want… Yeah… thats the type i want it to be… hehehe… (yeah… i know i crapping…)

    But still… the thing is that sometimes i cant think of anything to type about… Sometimes i’m free and wanted to update my blog… but… i just cant seem to think of ideas to blog about… Ok… this is just the repetition of paragraph 1… Hahaha… =)

    Okla… i’ve just blog something today… blogged about ‘nothing to blog’… Hehehhe… yeah… i know its really something stupid… but… thats really how i feel… Hehehe… Okla… i’ll try to think of something better and more interesting to blog about next time… ><!

    For those who actually read it till here, thankz. =)

    Well, today’s the 3rd of January 2007, and yeah… College lessons resumed… =) and… i woke up late today… overslept… ><! I’ve actually woke up earlier than 7 am… About 6.40 to be exact… I remember seeing my alarm clock showing about 6.42, if im not wrong… My class starts at 9 am, so usually i’ll wake up about 7 am, bathe, have a light breakfast (which i usually skip) and left house about 7.40 am to go fetch NiYi (or sometimes she fetch me), and then head to college together… However… i was still kinda blurr that time and instead of heading to the bathroom like i should, i just lie on the bed and felt that its still kinda early… and decided to sleep a while more… and… the next time i check the clock… its already 7.40… ><!

    Well… I was really shocked and pissed at myself… Thats the time im supposed to leave man! I took a quick bath (and i mean really quick, like 2 minute or shorter), skipped breakfast, dashed out and drive to NiYi’s house… When i reached her house… its already 8 am ++… ><! Well… then i drive to college using the Penang Bridge, as its already late to use the ferry… Usually we’ll use the ferry to college, but… when we’re late… we’ll use the bridge… =) although the bridge is actually further and we have to travel more (travel more = waste more fuel), but using the bridge is usually been faster than using the ferry… especially if you reached the ferry terminal (or known as the jetty) after 8 am. And well… we did reach college on time… in fact, we’re about 12 minutes early… hehehe… =)

    Ok… thats about the beggining of the day… =P Well, classes started… timetable changed slightly… classes going on like normal… Lunch… back to classes… finish classes… Hahaha… ok… so i dunno how to describe my day… ><! Well… thats about all le… =P Then after class went and discussed with my coordinator about application of UCAS and other stuffs… Hmm… guess thats all for the day la… Hey… why am i talking about my day in college like this is my diary? ><!

    Hehehe… yeah… guess thats all… Well… finally back to college… and feeling nice about it… (although this also means that my final A Levels exams are also approaching nearer… ><!)

Huh? What? Its the year 2007 ade? Omg… it’s been so loooong since i last blogged…! ><! I just checked… my last post is on 31st January 2006… Thats like… almost a year ago… Hahaha… Well… its to be expected… i guess… i’m someone who has a very low discipline when it comes to these stuffs… Hehhehe… not only blogging, even my own personal diary… When i first started my diary back then at about February 2006, i wrote in it everyday… writing about what happened through-out the day and so on… however… it slowly turned into two days once… twice a week… once a week… finally, i only write in it when something BIG happened… but after some time, i finally stopped altogether… ><! My last diary entry was in… end of June 2006… hahaha… (however, i must say that im actually kinda proud about it as for the first month, i’ve successfully wrote in my diary everyday… and in total, i’ve used up about 75% of the whole diary… =P)

Ok, enough about the diary diary thingy… Since this is a new year… I’ve made a… well, i wouldn’t call it a resolution… i dunno… Ok… it might be a resolution after all… =P Well… cutting the crap, i’ve decided to re-start blogging once again… Hehehhe… although i do not know how long can i stay in the spirit of blogging… =P Well, usually its not that i do not want to blog, its just that… Im too lazy… ><! (sorry guys… or girls… but… this is my blog rite? I’ll blog whenever i want to… =P
) And sometimes… maybe because im busy with college stuffs… (Ok… thats like an excuse to justify my lazyness… hahaha…) Anyway… from now on… whenever i have some free time… and some stuffs to blog about… i’ll try my best to blog it here… hehhehe… =)