gorgeous, but maybe not too practical.

… isn’t shipping to Asia, for whatever reason.

Fossil’s Metawatch uses bluetooth radio to pull email & facebook notifications, weather forecasts and god-knows-what-else for US$200. It comes in digital and analogue versions.

more functionality for less $$$

The Nano alone – without the TikTok (US$39.95) or LunaTik (US$89.95) kits – will set you back S$228 for the 8GB version. No brainer… if only it’d ship here!

Somehow, he managed to walk away from this. (click on image for story from metro.co.uk)

You can see the looks of shock, dread and eventual relief on the faces of the Audi team in the course of this video.

I actually interviewed Allan when he was in Singapore 4 years ago. He’s really passionate about the motor racing and you hear it in his voice, which is why I uploaded the audio. Incidentally, he went on to win the 76th edition of Le Mans the following year (2008).

1) Allan explains the difference between Le Mans and Formula One
2) Allan talks about what else he hopes to achieve
Other soundbites

After getting a clean bill of health following the accident, he made a video to thank everyone for their well wishes and that he’s looking forward to Le Mans in 2012.

He sounds slightly shaken, but he’s got it in him to get back in a car and race.

(photo: George Achorn)

Better luck next year, Allan! (Visit Allan McNish’s official website)

BMW X3: X marks the spot
Six reasons why you should have chosen the new X3 as your election campaign vehicle.

the 2011 BMW X3 (pic by M 93)

Just as the dust settles after Singapore’s most exciting voting exercise in a long time (far more thrilling than even the first season of Singapore Idol!), we’ve sadly just discovered how the BMW X3 would have been the almost-perfect motoring companion for many a politician.

REASON 1: It projects the right image

If a politician mirrored the car he or she drives, the driver of the X3 would be determined (the grunt when you floor the accelerator), responsive (although it’s a SUV, it almost drives like a car), re-assuring (the X3’s solid build-quality) and trustworthy (the BMW badge of approval). If this were the case, I’d vote for the chap who drives the X3 in a heartbeat. Looks are, of course, a bonus. In the X3’s case, it’s more “Daniel Craig”, less “Robert Pattinson”. The 2011 X3 looks like it’s been pumping iron and found a better stylist. The X3 is now taller, longer, wider, with an air about it that says “I’m hunky and I can kick butt.” (See earlier reference to Daniel Craig) The X3’s been upgraded on the interior as well, with the finishings taken up a notch to feel much more “Holland-Bukit Timah” and less “heartlander”.

REASON 2: It will help you move people and propaganda

Seating is comfortable, as long as you don’t have a 6-man GRC team to ferry around. Five passengers is do-able, though four is a lot more comfortable. When it comes to the boot-space, whether it’s campaign posters or Kate Spade shopping bags you need to stow, the 550-litre boot becomes a 1600-litre cavern once you fold down the rear seats. Just how many golf bags is that?

REASON 3: It would be the most stylish noise-maker on wheels

Seeing how most parties modify pick-up trucks and other less sophisticated into perambulating vehicles (the technical name for those annoying, slow-moving trucks equipped with loudspeakers) to blare their campaign messages, you could pull back the X3’s sun-roof and roll down the windows to blast your own multilingual greetings or manifestos in between “Yam Ah Mee” techno remixes. The stock HBAS (Harman/Becker Automotive Systems) sound system is capable of high volume and bass without losing clarity. If you eventually win, you might can even stick your head out the sunroof and wave to your supporters, though I’d suggest remaining stationary and making sure you have all the permits filled out first.

REASON 4: It would get you to your rallies in a jiffy

To get you from meet-the-people sessions to rallies, the turbocharged 3.0 litre engine sitting under the bonnet will whisk you from 0 – 100km/hr faster than you can say “Gerrymandering”. OK, I exaggerate, but at 5.7 seconds, the X3 will outrun (on paper) the Audi Q5, Lexus RX450h, VW Touareg and even the Mercedes ML500 – albeit by a hair. If you’re in a real hurry, a non-descript rocker switch sits to the right of the gear stick, that says “SPORT” or “NORMAL”. Two presses of “SPORT” puts you in “SPORT+” mode. This basically stiffens the suspension and unleashes the 306 horsepower engine with engine revs flowing freely with any twitch of your right foot. You can now trample any foolhardy heckler in your path, though it probably won’t help your campaign image. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to have been driven up north to Kuala Lumpur in the previous iteration of the X3, with the journey taking less than three hours (faster than a flight if you consider check-in, check-out and the city commute). With a current top-speed of 245km/hr and 8 gears to get there with (it used to be 6), the new X3 could mathematically warp itself to KL in under two hours. That’s very useful if you do get elected and land a cabinet position requiring regular meetings with your Malaysian counterparts. (Tough luck, George!)

REASON 5: It would help you navigate through your constituency

If you’ve just discovered that the area you were considering running for has been absorbed into a GRC (Group Representation Constituency), you can get navigational information and an interactive map with a few twists and pushes of the knob on BMW’s proprietary iDrive system, which now comes as a standard feature on the X3. On the same note, Bluetooth connectivity coupled with the useful thumb-controlled, steering-mounted buttons get you on the speakerphone with any of your running mates without you ever taking your hands off the wheel.

REASON 6: It feels familiar (only for those with a military background)

If you were former top brass in the airforce – you would likely appreciate the “Heads-Up Display” (or HUD in geek-speak) that projects useful information like current speed and satellite-navigation instructions onto the glass of the windscreen, just like a jet fighter. The add-on comes at a price of $4,200 (missiles not included).

BUT…

There are some minor issues that need to be considered, like the $264,800 price tag. This isn’t exactly within everyone’s reach, so you might have to answer to allegations of not being “in touch with the common man”. But probably nothing a heartfelt apology can’t fix.

While online searches brought up internet connectivity as an option for the X3 in some parts of the world, Performance Motors says this currently isn’t available in Singapore. This doesn’t help if you’re thinking of going up against Nicole Seah in a Facebook Fanpage face-off. Oh well… there’s always 3G.

Also, treehuggers might accuse you of not being environmentally-friendly with the X3’s thirst of fuel resulting in mileage dropping to as low as 7.4km/litre in urban conditions, according to the sales brochure. (The testdrive numbers were even lower) Still, you could point out that the X3 sports some advanced technological features that help conserve fuel, like the auto start-stop function that turns the engine off when the car comes to a stop. This can feel slightly disruptive in heavy traffic, more so if you don’t have your foot firmly planted on the brake pedal, but this feature is easily turned off at the touch of a button. The other feature to point out is Brake Energy Regeneration, where the alternator kicks in during braking to capture kinetic energy that is then stored as electrical energy in the battery.

Party Colours

So, with all things considered, and you’ve made up your mind to get the X3 for the next elections, you would probably want it to sport a livery that’s in line with your party’s colours. Spotted in the catalogue, “Vermilion Red”, “Bluewater” and of course… “Alpine White”.

The new BMW X3 is available in two variants: The xDrive28i ($234,800) and xDrive35i ($264,800)

Not this one.

No, not the jolly green ogre, but a rather unfortunately-named sheep in New Zealand. Still, this sheep had a fascinating back-story.

The mother of all afros

This supersheep had apparently evaded capture for six years while living caves. By the time he was captured, he had 27kg worth of wool on him, enough to make 20 large men’s suits. The average merino fleece weighs about 4.5kg. Shrek’s overdue haircut was telecast live on television, and he even met the NZ prime minister shortly after. The castrated celebrity then went on to do charity work, commanding $16,000 appearance fees

“He didn’t really see himself as a sheep. He had an unbelievable personality. He loved children, and he was really good with the elderly.” – Mr John Perriam (Shrek’s owner) from The Independent

Sadly, Shrek was euthanised on advice from a veterinarian this morning. Thankfully, he won’t be served as kambing soup, but cremated, with his ashes scattered on Mt Cook, New Zealand’s tallest peak. His memorial service will be held at the Church of the Good Shepherd (for real!) in Tekapo.

Not quite in the ilk of Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, but still, two identities stuck in one package. Rather than being equipped with super powers or kick-a$$ car, I’ve had to do lead my professional life and personal life with one computing package i.e. whatever (usually piece-of-crap) computer I’ve been issued with at work.

At home, I got my folks a bare-bones PC that I grabbed for about $300 (I think) at one of those blue-light specials during one of the IT shows. It really doesn’t cut it when it comes to the stuff I normally do, like editing photos and (once upon a time) playing games.

So finally I bit the bullet and decided to get something with POWERRRR to call my own.

The ASUS G73JH

After some serious research and finding out a friend was in the states who happened to ask the unfortunate “Hey I’m in the states, do you need anything?“. I managed to get her to lug back this 3.4kg monster!! (Thanks DEE!!) Full specs HERE.

The design of the ASUS G73 was apparently inspired by this:

The F-117 Stealth Fighter (image links to wikipedia info)

They probably weigh about the same too.

But seriously, if you don’t have to lug this thing around too much or actually think of running this thing off battery for more than half an hour, you’re in pretty good shape.

It’s definitely not the perfect machine (nothing is!), lacking blu-ray, firewire ports, and bluetooth. The silly power cable also plugs in on the right for some reason, competing for space with your mouse-wielding hand, assuming you’re a right-hander like the most of us. Might have been better placed at the back or left side. But the 17.3″ screen, i7 processor, ATI 5870 graphics card, back-lit keyboard, rubbery matte finishing and S$1,600 price tag are pretty darn good redeeming qualities! There is a newer version of the G73 in Singapore, but retails for around $3K+. Not quite within my budget.

Since I got it some time in December, it ran decently at the start. Photoshop ran faster than I’ve ever seen it run. Call of Duty: Black Ops was creamy smooth! But then it started doing something strange, like crashing ever so often with this strange looking screen:

GSOD a.k.a. the Grey Screen Of Death

This really sucked.

But after some intense internet research, I found a fix that involves flashing your vBIOS in DOS, which is less perverse and complicated than it sounds (for me at least). For whatever reason, this fix is NOT officially supported by ASUS as far as I’ve read, so proceed at your own risk. Everything’s now hunky-dory for me, so fingers crossed it does it for anyone else who’s had the GSOD blues…

Maybe not everyone needs to go on full-geek and become the next Bill Gates, but knowing how “if-then” works, and the whole thought sequencing process would surely be useful? Helps the mind organise thought, and create logical arguments/processes. Not that I did very much programming myself, but the bits I remember still help me organise my thinking somewhat. On the other hand, I’ve never really understood why I had to study things like calculus and physics, given their non-relevance to everyday life. (Sorry teachers, for all the grief I gave you!)

Of course, someone brilliant has already talked about this at length.

From rockets to stock markets, many of humanity’s most thrilling creations are powered by math. So why do kids lose interest in it? Conrad Wolfram says the part of math we teach — calculation by hand — isn’t just tedious, it’s mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. He presents his radical idea: teaching kids math through computer programming.

See top right!

Took part in this contest some time back and forgot about it. They wanted to know why me and the people that I work with deserve a Brewerkz-sponsored beer party. Well that YOG thing was a pretty big task we pulled off, no?

Now to find enough (beer)camels to help finish it!

Please raise your hand in the comments section if you’re a thirsty camel. Office folks get priority of course…

Sent from another silly iPhone

Has it been that long?
Yes, actually felt even longer.
But no, it can’t have been. Where did the days go?

Lulled into a sense of comfort and complacency, like soft waves lapping on the beach. Slowly but surely eroding whatever it is it touches. Thankfully I remembered to wake up a little earlier this time.

Onward.

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