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One word, stunning, I’m still stunned by the fact that its done in 6 years and 4 months (a bit long), its 22 feet long, 3 feet wide and weighting more than 300 pounds. A Japanese studen has built the legendary Japanese battleship – Yamato. He built it section by section just like real world ship building. The main turrets can turn as well! Talk about attention to detail, I totally didn’t expect him to put motors underneath them.

At the end of the movie trailer, there was the futuristic Yamato battleship from the famous anime as well. This guy is definitely a talent. He is pretty much the best non-professional Lego builder I’ve seen.

GPS tracking technology is like a double edge sword. While it can save you when you bump into life’s glitches, it can also become a source of annoyance. Sure my wife can know my whereabouts when I’m stuck in traffic or can send help immediately when mishaps happen, but then what if she begins to breathe down my neck and check on my location all for the sake of watching my every move? Wouldn’t that be much like having a stalker or having my privacy violated?

This technology is so powerful and enabling that it almost comes across as something abominable to me. Having the feeling of being watched by someone is already burdensome, but what’s even more alarming is having someone closely intertwined in your life wielding the power of a GPS. No matter how much you put logic into the benefits of having this technology, it still presents itself as a nuisance. It would make me feel like I should always be on my toes, not to mention feel conscious about my actions and destinations.

Instead of strengthening ties, having the power of a GPS tracking technology would only give more rooms for doubts in a relationship. Instead of bringing me closer to my wife, I might even feel more alienated because spontaneity in my actions would be, to some extent, affected. In the end, my wife and I would both feel restless about having the power to know each other’s locations and having the feeling of being monitored anywhere we go. GPS is definitely not a good idea for couples because it might only bring them to the brink of hitting the rocks.

Finally, a trailer of the Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete which shows a few new scenes that weren’t in the original CG animated movie from Gametrailers.com. I have been waiting for the Blu-ray version of FF 13: AC for so long and what makes this a must buy is the fact that the demo for Final Fantasy 13 will be bundled with it according to Wired.com.

Just three more months!! I will probably get the Japanese version from YesAsia or ebay just incase the North American version isn’t released around the same time though.

I just read news, or rather rumors from DailyTech that Walmart will be selling the 4GB version of the ever popular iPhone. If the rumor is infact real, then its no brainer about seeing more people with iPhones. Hack, even I am tempted to get one myself now. I was tempted to get the 8GB version from Rogers AT&T when I saw the 8GB version for $199 with 3 year contract. For $99 you get a 4GB version, size doesn’t really matter to me here really. And I think 4GB is more than enough for me anyway. iPhone is more of a cool gadget to have and chances are I won’t be using it for heavy gaming, as a multimedia player, checking emails or surf the web even though it is capable of doing so. Most likely just like any other cell phones.

And there is this data plan that I have to worry about because as I said it comes with a 3 year turn, that’s the price to pay when you can get an iPhone for $199. The minimum cost for monthly cost is $35 (Voice Plan) + $25 (Data Plan) which equates to $60 + all that tax and other lame charges. Which is probably going to end up being 2-3 times more than what I am paying now.

Either way definitely a great move by Apple if in deed the rumor comes true and great news for those that crave for an iPhone but cannot justify buying the 8/16GB versions or without contract.

[update] Looks like the rumor will remain just a rumor. According to WIRED Appl WIll start selling iPhones through Walmart but not the $99 version like in the rumor. But will be selling the same 8GB and 16GB ones that we are seeing now.

Oh well, it doesn’t hurt to dream right?

If you are into real life poker, then you should be interested in online poker as well. One advantage of playing online poker is the fact that you don’t have to be IN the casino physically to enjoy the poker thrill (although its certainly a different feeling). Say its Winter time and you are snowed in and you cannot drive to your favorite casino or to your friend’s house to play some friendly poker. You don’t have to worry if you play online and you can also play with your friends as well.

Online Poker Tutor provides a large selection of tutorials from Basic Poker Rules and Basic Poker Strategy for the beginners to Advanced Poker Strategy for the more experienced players. There is also a detailed list of top 14 online poker rooms when you are ready to start testing what you have learned.

Everyone wants to make an extra buck or two, who doesn’t really? If you got a hang on the online poker field, you can try to monetize your newly obtained poker skills and check out the Make Money Playing Poker.

Aside from the information provided on the site, you can also ask the poker tutor specific poker related question and the answer will be posted on the page as well.

Overall, although the site is plain, but that’s not its selling point. This is more than made up by the sheer amount of helpful tips and information provided on the site. If you are a poker fan then you must check out Online Poker Tutor because you will never know what you will learn or discover!

I normally don’t blog about the auto industry unless its tech related but I just felt like blogging about this at the time of this writing because this is something that you don’t see everyday. You pretty much don’t want to see this happen anyway.

I’ve been reading news about the big three auto makers – Ford, GM and Chrysler asking for bailouts with GM needing the bailout asap because it will run out of money at the end of this year. More than 50% of the people oppose that idea. I too agree with these people mainly because I believe that if a company fails, it is its responsibilty to manage its own mess either by some form of restructuring and job cutting instead of simply asking for the government’s help. I think all these reason bailouts are really spoiling these bailed out companies. So people running businesses will now think that failing is ok because our government will always bail us out. As much as I don’t want to see any company fails, these companies, specifically the big 3s, need to accept failures. And I can imagine why people are opposing since the bailout money comes from tax payers.

With ever increasing operation costs that businesses need to endure these days, every dollar saved is a still a dollar saved. For businesses that operate with a fleet of cars, trucks and vans for example, which can be very daunting tasks and the operation costs can increase as there are more vehicles to manage. With GPS Fleet Tracking solutions, which allow businesses to monitor all their vehicles and other assets from a single computer. This will greatly reduce the operating costs for them and eliminating unnecessary cost and wasted time. There are a lot of benefits of using these fleet tracking systems with with different features but the common feature is they can all monitor fleets of vehicles with ease.

Some key features are:

- location updates with option to pick update interval (2-15 minutes)
- breadcrumbs trail, trails of visited locations can be displayed on the map so the owners know where their employees have been to
- vehicle maintenance monitoring such as vehicle check up reminders
- vehicles’ idle times, engine on/off monitoring

As you can see, these GPS Fleet Tracking systems are pretty much “Big Brother” for the businesses. I think employees of a business should not feel that their privacies have been or will be violated. Although the systems track your performance of driving a truck, for example. They are not meant for tracking their personal privacies if used properly. I believe the reason why business owners with working ethics is soley for monitoring their cost of operating their fleets. If someone feels violated by driving vehicles that have one of these “Big Brother” systems installed, he or she should not agree to the job offer in the first place anyway. And besides, why should he or she have problems with being monitored by these systems for operating the owners’ assets unless that person has something to hide. Its not like someone is sitting beside the person and monitoring him or her!

What if I was the owner of a fleet of a thousand trucks? Certainly I think GPS Fleet Tracking systems will certainly reduce my operation costs. Its common sense really because, again, I can monitor my entire fleet with a single computer. Although it probably makes more sense to monitor them with a few computers because I think its more efficient for mulitple people to monitor when I have a large fleet. But either way, I don’t need to personally keep track of all of them one by one by say, calling on them? Now I can track multiple of them all at once.

These systems also work for parents tracking where and how their teenage kids drive. I mean if they don’t like being monitored, then they don’t get to drive, simple as that! Parents really just want to make sure their kids are not speeding and/or driving to somewhere their parents don’t know about. Then again to each of its own. This is going to sound contradicting but I would feel uncomfortable being monitored while driving. But then again I guess the systems are more suitable for teenage kids that HAVE to be monitored.

GPS Fleet Tracking Systems are definitely great ways to monitoring businesses’ fleet of vehicles by tracking them from a single point, a computer in this case. With the extensive features offered by these systems, businesses can no doubt benefit and greatly reduce their operation costs.

Image source: GPS Fleet Tracking Systems

I finally had the time to get back to my architecture/interior design hobby recently. I’m actually not too happy with the exterior design of my previous design – Basic Blocks – Contemporary Home. It was just way too plain and I admit I didn’t put too much thoughts into it and spent nearly 100% to interior design.

  

This time I focused on the exterior just as much as the interior and based my idea on the Digital Beijing Building by the talented Studio Pei-Zhu.

I love how the blue lights are “escaping” from the gaps between the columns which really gives the digital as well as the “Matrix” impression to the whole design. In addition to having those blue lights on both sides, they are also visible and extend from the front of the building all the way to the back of the building.

  

The building consists of two floors with each floor measuring approximately 40m long, 20m wide and 10m high. The prim count (the number of objects) is a bit more than usual mainly because of the “digital” design on the two walls on the sides. The two entrances are well hidden so people will not be able to see them and makes the “digital” flow from front to back without the entrances interrupting it. I have also made heavy use of the “glow” effect both inside and out for the extra lighting effect.

Overall I am very pleased with this design (finally) and hopefully my next project will be just as fun and satisfying to design and build as this one. Hope you guys like this one as well!

Comments and feedbacks are always welcome