Electrifying Stats

"Don't stand under a tree when its raining, or when there's lightning!"...
We used to hear that when we are young. That still holds true now....

However, a year or even just months later, you may hear parent's telling their children: "Don't listen to your iPod when its raining!".

What's a phenomenon and deemed as a music revolution has lately become a target of nature. It has become an electrifying experience for a few users. And thats not about the tunes either. Rather, its related to rain and lightning.

Recently, according to the newspaper, a Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums, and a broken jaw when lightning traveled through his music player's wires. And furthermore, it wasn't even raining, but only a storm in a distance.

"Yikes! more hazards" may be one pertinent thought now. A questionable thing is that, if electronics was to blame here, why is this happening only to iPods? Last summer, a Colorado teen also ended up being struck by lightning when he was listening to the iPod while mowing the lawn.

In fact, any of these could happen to anyone bearing an electronic device on them. And frankly, everyone would have at least one on them nowadays. Maybe they were the tallest in the area? I don't by that argument. What I can accept is that now, with the huge success of iPods, majority of the people own one, whether its an iPod, mini, nano and so on. (Sadly, I don't have any of them). Thus with such a large sample, the chances of lightning striking a person with an iPod is very high.

For all we know, its just an unfortunate accident and a case of bad publicity for it.
However, I guess its best to err on the safer side and keep that music player in your bag or pocket (if you feel safe enough) when its raining, lest it becomes too electrifying to handle.

ODEX anime case

You must have read the papers about Anime downloading. Well, for better or for worse, its already happened. Someone has been warned. Letters are sent out.

In the recent case, ODEX has sent out a letter to an anime fan. Judging from his letter, he was a Bleach fan.

Those who take an interest in that letter, it can be found on Riuva (http://www.riuva.com/?p=628).

These news are already circulating the internet for a while now. A fellow STOMPer has even posted it on STOMP's Media Club "Hot Stuff" Section. That article can be found at http://www.stomp.com.sg/mediaclub/hotstuff/hotstuff_12.html.

Many commentaries can already be found on the net. There isn't a need for me to add another one. Anyway, the backlash to this recent action has yet to be seen. I wonder what will happen to the anime community in Singapore.

Furthermore, an appendice with a list of the titles downloaded was also attached (pictured below)..


After a look at the letter, it makes me wonder how they are able to obtain such confidential client information from the ISP. That include the time of download, Anime, IP address (dynamic) as well as the port which happens to be a port used for torrents...

Blogging Code of Conduct should be a Guideline NOT Mandate

I guess this is something we all know this will come sooner or later...

In the Straits Times Digital Life Section (May 8, 2007, Page 31), an article titled: "Do bloggers, and readers, need a code of conduct" is very apt and pertinent.

I for one has asked myself this when I first heard about the drafting of the blogger's code of conduct over at blogging.wikia.com

Indeed, there are now threats being made via anonymous comments and also the intolerable advertisements post via the blog's comments system or some chat or tagbaord system on the blogs.

However, the question is, why do we need one? The allure of blogs is its openness, "anonymity" as well as it free-flowing nature. Any comments are posted and aired. Would this code of conduct then turn against the very foundation which blogs are built on?

In this digital age, the internet is used as a personal haven as much as a business tool. With the increasing affluence of the people, and the ease of internet use nowadays it is no wonder some sort of code of conduct is need. That is however, usually covered by a country's law.

However, there has been an increasing need to put some sort of guidelines for blogs. Blogging has seen an exponential increase these few years. With many companies also moving into the blogging scene. With such a trend, and the simplicity of opening up a blog, it is no wonder that many incidents are also happening which are related to blogs.

The online nature of blogs has exposed itself to the internet pits. The list includes (but isn't limited to): flaming, Bias comments, Unwarranted accusations and so on. And with the increasing use of blogs as a media for information, the question on the privacy of one's sources also come into play.

I personally feel that the code of conduct is definitely a good thing to have. However, knowing the nature of blogs and being a blogger, I think that it shouldn't be something made compulsory. Anything made compulsory especially on the web always have an effect of turning people off. Whats more, the web usually presents a snowball effect on the simplest of things.

So in conclusion, I do welcome a "code of conduct guideline" but not a "code of conduct mandate".

OH, OP and others

Since I have not blogged for sometime, this would be a longer post.... Let me go backwards, from wide to narrow... GP style.

Global

It seems that situation is still quite unstable with North Korea. They are threatening the global committee by saying that their response on the development of the Nuclear Warheads will be linked to American Action.This is really bad as you can be sure that the United States would definitely not back away.

With the probe still ongoing on whether the nuclear test was real, it no doubt be a matter of grave concern as it may threaten to split the world into two camps again – against and for camps. It really reminds me of the 1955 Warsaw Pact and the 1949 North Alantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as well as all the appeasements policies during the war era. However, this time, I do not think we will see appeasement being used very much.

With the war on terrorism still ongoing, this is going worsen the feelings of unsafty of the global committee.

The feeling of safety has again plummeted. The recovery from all these problems and war does not seem to be anywhere near the visible horizon.

Home

Global problems are one thing, but closer to home, the indonesian forest fires caused haze does not seem to be slowing down much. Though the situation has certainly improved, the Pollutants Standard Index (PSI) is still fluctuating

It is irritating to note that this happens every year... I shall not comment further already as actions have been taken against it.

OH: Open House

The TJC open house was held today. Oh man.. I spent so much time updating the bowling blog to reflect the open house event, up to the extent where I opened a new blog just for the open house details.

The actual open house was quite uninteresting to me. With all the expected stuff that can happen. Probably because I've past that stage... But oh well... at least the brochures were all given out.

here is my design for the brochure:

OP: Oral Presentation and other exams

The PW oral presentation and other A Level paper – Chinese, is drawing nearer... and with the ending of our promotional exams, it is a mark of the start of another stress period...

The Written Report is due next friday... Chinese A Level is coming at the end of the month....

And just last thursday (i.e. Yesterday), there was a talk... Asking us to think about our Epitaph....

oh what are we going to do....Arrrrgh

More chaos and something else...

On Thailand

Martial law.. Never thought I will hear the phrase out of the history class context.

For those who are unsure, "Martial law is the system of rules that takes effect (usually after a formal declaration) when a military authority takes control of the normal administration of justice." (source: Wikipedia)

Whats even more surprising.. Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Wednesday, 20th Sep 2006, endorsed coup leader to head the new governing council, according to a televised announcement. (Source: International Herald Tribune)

That was something quite unexpected... Endorsement of a coup... I am curious what's going to happen next...

On a SideNote

Quite a remarkable download speed... Didn't believe my eyes... Too bad its a one off thing.. Never happened again since then.

Anyway, for those curious, xampp is a integrated installer for a WAMP setup (i.e. Windows, Apache, MySQL and PHP). I was setting up a development server on my computer to test my websites...

Starting Soon

Promos are starting soon.. I really need to find time to mug...

oh well

-jz out-

A ring tone meant to fall on deaf ears

Yup... its on the Straits Times today.
Its was a small article though. However, this ringtone (here) has been on international news. New York Times published an article on it on June 12, 2006 (Article).

Handphones are supposed to be switched off in class. However, in these settings where cellphone use is not allowed, these ringtones which the adults supposedly cannot hear is perfect for signalling the arrival of messages. Studies have shown that adults (most) would gradually lose the ability to hear high-pitched sounds

The ringtone that is an the offshoot of an invention called the Mosquito, developed last year by a Welsh security company to annoy teenagers and gratify adults, not the other way around. It is an ear-splitting 17-kilohertz buzzer.

However in face of younger teachers, this method may fall short, only irritating the teacher further. I for one would not try it. I doubt this ringtone would work with our teachers who are only in their 20s.

Sheesh.. sick again

Sheesh... fell sick again. NO thanks to the hot weather which we had in the past few days.

Just some recent news:

Opposition Party Member Mr Chee was found guilty for contempt of court. He was jailed a day and fined $6000. But because he failed to pay up by 5pm yesterday, he will serve and additional 7 days in jail.

The General Election is coming soon. Wonder if the current ward will have a walkover.... I am still ignorant of the details.

Sianz...

NO mood at all...

sick.

maybe next time.

cya.

More Copyright Laws

Here are more Copyright laws governing what we put in our blogs. Rates stated are said to be "competitive".

But seriously, paying $1000 a year (the amount you have to pay to put 10 songs or less) to put background music on your blog is ridiculous especially when majority of the bloggers who would actually put music on their blogs would be students. And they are expecting students to pay for it too.

Ok, you can say $1000 a year, which translates to about $84 a month is reasonable, but most casual student bloggers would not be able to find the money to pay for it. I think the easier way out for students would be to get it off their blogs.

Ultimately, the decision lies with the bloggers themselves.

Below is the a Channel News Asia Article taken from their website
(for bloggers take note of those in bold)

The Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (COMPASS) has set up a one-stop centre to license music works for digital distribution.

COMPASS helps to protect and promote the copyright interests of composers, lyricists and publishers of musical works.

The move is seen as yet another move to reduce the spread of illegal music downloads.

To provide songs for downloads, a company like SoundBuzz needs to first clear the copyrights for them.

Previously, it had to obtain separate licences from nine different music publishers.

The new one-stop centre, up since beginning of the year, allows the company to just apply for a single licence.

But bloggers need to take note.


Dr Edmund Lam, CEO and Director of Composers and Authors Society of Singapore, said: "Currently, the trend is that we see an increasing number of bloggers that copy music into their web pages without obtaining the legitimate corporate licenses.


"We would encourage such bloggers to come to the one-stop centre to apply for the necessary licence. We are charging a rate of $1,000 for bloggers that does not exceed the usage of 10 songs."


(p.s. The following values are quoted from the January 12, 2006 The Straits Times, Home Section, page H7:
$5000 for 11 to 49 songs. $10000 for over 50 songs.

COMPASS plans to introduce two new technologies to identify illegal music websites in about six months.

One technology is called the webcrawler where it will go through the net and search for sites that have exploited musical works.

The other technology is called fingerprinting. What it does is it identifies the type of music that has been downloaded, and checks if the musical works have the appropriate copyright licences. - CNA/de