Scott Yang's Playground

At work. Cranking out source code. Then my old Nokia beeps. Missed call. I brought out the caller ID, and it read 0284042215 Aargh. Not again. Someone might call them spams, but I’ll rather call them scams. They call you up — usually with a 03 or 028 number — but then hang up after [...]

Via TUAW, where can I get a letter box with PowerPC G4 inside? We seriously need a new letter box, as someone has vandalised our a few months ago, to a point where it can’t open properly. After seeing something like this, I don’t think I will be interested in anything offered in Bunnings.

Here’s a Franch saying. “L’amour de dieu est folie”. — “Love of God is foolish”. Ian Powell used it in his Wednesday talk at the City Bible Forum on John 3:16, with strong emphasis on God SO loved that world that he gave his one and only son… While many have taken God’s love for [...]

Thank you all for posting your latitude and longitude for my little FOCUS Map project! However, so far I have only had three account created on the FOCUS website with coordinates filled out, and I myself was one of the three. :( Anyway, here is a little preview of what it looks like now: Basically [...]

Last couple of nights I have hacked a generic URL-based cache for Gravatar, the globally recognized avatar. If you have been blogging or reading other people’s blog, “gravatar” would not be foreign to you, as it has been implemented on many blog sites of various platforms. Gravatar Cache is an implementation to cache both positive [...]

Via Google Maps API, ZDNet: Pictures of Googleplex in Sydney. Interesting but plain interior design. Looks like it is in a high rise somewhere in Darling Harbour, from the surroundings through open window. I wonder where are they on the Google Maps :)

Via Kenneth Carlson, “Why The Mona Lisa is Smiling”, appears on Investors Business Daily editorial cartoons dated May 19, 2006. Well, that pretty much explains it. I think she should probably be laughing out loud instead. On a related note, is there anyone other than me myself that have not watched the movie nor read [...]

Someone needs some help with building a church. Actually, not building the actual church, i.e. the people, but building the church building. GL from Shandong rang me up today asking whether I know anyone that knows about constructing church buildings. Apparently due to town planning, his church meeting place in China is scheduled to be [...]

Unichurch Together — Extreme Makeover last Sunday, and it was all good. It was fun seeing how each fellowship “impersonates” one another (and how pathetic when we are trying to guess). It was great seeing many brothers and sisters in the same church whom you have never met, because they meet in the evenings but [...]

Saw it on Victor’s blog that Bible Gateway has released new Bible reading plans — you can either read through the whole Bible systematically in 365 days, or read through key passages in 61 or 121 days. That reminded me a blog post from ESV Blog a few days ago. Their one-year reading plan is [...]

Via Rechorded (Tom’s new blog), SoundTech Lightsnake is an analog to digital audio signal converter on a cable, with 1/4″ jack on one end, and USB connector on the other. One end goes into guitar/bass/keyboard, and another end goes directly into your computer, which can then run realtime signal processing software. Very very nice. When [...]

Dries Buytaert, the head mocho of Drupal the PHP-based content management system, talked about software backward compatibility, and how it crosses Drupal’s core value. He left the dilemma for everyone to pounder. But what to do if many of your users slowly force you to change one of your core values? It seems inevitable that [...]

WordPress.com has opened registration so you can get an account without blog attached. Useful if all you want is an API key so you can use products like Akismet, a centralised comment/trackback spam filter (which I previously reviewed here).

Via SMH, Google Maps can now serve not just the satellite images, but also street maps and “hybrid” maps. Friends in the States have been using that for ages, and now folks from Down Under can finally enjoy the same privilege. Well, not quite. First of all, the street name searching is not working so [...]

I run a small community blog site FOCUSer.net, who hosts WordPress blogs for members or ex-members of FOCUS. It also has an aggregator that tracks other FOCUS-related blogs, hosted on my box or elsewhere, and merge them into one single page in chronological order. I do not go around the web trying to search out [...]