UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

The Star, 29th Aug: the strained relationship between Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the Proton management has taken a fresh twist with the former prime minister returning the seven Proton vehicles given to him.

…used by Dr Mahathir personally and by his staff…

Sources said the vehicles included the VW Touareg, a four-wheel drive, and the VW Phaeton, which the Proton adviser often used for travelling. The other five are apparently all Proton Waja.

pic of the touareg, courtesy of vw.com
price starts at around RM140,000; before add-ons and tax. probably will cost RM400,000 OTR.

pic of the phaeton, courtesy of vw.com
price starts at around RM250,000; before add-ons and tax. probably will cost RM600,000 OTR.

update 3rd Sept:
clearer pics at senandungsemalam.blogdrive.com.

A funny comparison between the correct and incorrect way to wear the national flag here.

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At least, this provided something different for this year’s national day celebrations
pic courtesy of bharian.com.my:

Rather than do the usual thing like planting as many miniflags as possible on your car, Aida Khurniah, 23, air stewardess cum part time model created history by being the first person to do “hot poses” clad only in the Malaysian flag, exposing her thighs and part of her chest.

It’s featured in the local magazine “Sensasi Lelaki.”

The article in which the Kuantan lass was featured even has an appropriate title, in more ways than one: “Nyalakan Api Patriotik - Aida”.

It has incurred the wrath of the funny-sounding Kimma (Malaysian India Muslim Congress). I said funny-sounding because Kimma is short form for an expletive in common use.

Its sec gen, Muhammad Ali Naina Mohamad said the pics are “obscene and erotic.” I dunno about obscene, but at least Naina acknowledges that the pics are indeed hot…the Internal Security Ministry (KKDN) has been urged to outlaw its publication.

Do you know what this means? The publishers of Sensasi Lelaki will enjoy this nice surge in sales for a while and…QUICK! Get that magazine NOW!

Aida proved to be a feisty girl by defending her actions, saying that the move was to create awareness on the importance of showing patriotism, what with National Day around the corner.

pic courtesy of chosun.com

As category 5 Hurricane Katrina approaches, 1.4 million residents ordered to flee New Orleans

only three cat 5 hurricanes have ever struck the US since record-keeping began

Quotes:

“this is a once in a lifetime event”
“i hope i have a home to return to”

those unable to leave is put at shelters, including the superdome, a 72,000 seater american football stadium. at last check, parts of the roof has been blown off, hence rainwater spilling onto the field and flooding lower parts of the structure.

pic courtesy of stadiumsofnfl.com:

pic courtesy of americanantigravity.com:

laser based non-lethal immobiliser.

unfortunately not available to the general public yet. us army recently bought some for use in Iraq.

costs USD1000+

looks like a normal laser pointer

seems perfect for self defense

update 2nd Sep 2005:
even DJ Impian only charges 45 sen per sms, and i think it offers even bigger prizes than Sabah Idol - RM15k cash, a Kancil amongst others for the champ.

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85sen per sms! compared to 65 sen for af3.

no t&c, no info on sms (just top 3 contestants’ percentages), no web, no nothing.

final supposed to be 27 august at kdca.

if not for contestant 0341, i wont even take a 2nd look.

lilypie.com and daisypath.com, as utilised by Lee Cheen Siong’s blog.

namecheap.com: RM34 per year (ad free i suppose) - this is used by project petaling street.
at yahoo.com, i originally got mine for about RM20/yr but with ad at bottom, but when i moved to exabytes, it was gone.
the average price seems to be about RM55/yr

project petaling street is hosted at lunarpages.com (362/3/40 - in comparison exabytes is 199/2/20)

first no: price in RM/yr
2nd no: space in GB
3rd no: bandwidth allocation in GB/mth

of course there are other considerations…like track record, testimonials, awards, no of databases, no of subdomains, easy hosting provider moving, whois guard etc, but keeping it simple

Datuk Azmi Khalid (pic courtesy of bharian.com.my):

Normala Shamsudin (pic courtesy of thestar.com.my):

It’s official: Home Minister Datuk Azmi Khalid (Perlis), 64 and divorcee-with-3-kids Normala Shamsudin, 23 years his junior are to be married 26th August 2005 (ref: The Star, 25th Aug).

Akad nikah (marriage ceremony) to be held in Johor.

trivia: Normala’s father, Shamsudin Md Zin, at 65 is only a year older than the groom.

Normala has been dubbed the most beautiful Malay woman in Malaysia. Yes, even more beautiful than Camelia…

Azmi’s wife, Datin Yasmin Abdullah, died of leukemia aged 62 5 months ago on 24th March at SJMC, after a 2-year battle with the disease.

A Roman Catholic bishop on the Spanish island of Tenerife has ordained a man as a Catholic priest despite the fact that he is married with two children.

The 64-year-old former Anglican pastor, David Gliwitzki, was ordained in La Laguna on the Canary Island.

The Bishop of Tenerife said the move was a unique exception within the Spanish Church.

According to Church rules, priests are supposed to be celibate.

But the ordination was approved by the Pope.

How so? Read more here.

Update 25th Aug:

According to The Star/Utusan Malaysia (24th Aug) and various online sources: it was love at first sight for the Sultan.

Altogether now: “OOOOooohhhhhhhhh…..”

Close friends of Azrinaz told the daily that the Sultan fell in love with her when she went to Brunei two years ago on a news assignment. “During the event, the Sultan of Brunei glanced at Azrinaz and immediately fell in love. After that, he kept watching her read the news on TV3,” said her friend.

Azrinaz won TV3�s most promising journalist award in 2000, was reading the morning and afternoon Buletin news before she resigned last May.

Images courtesy of bharian.com.my and various online sources:

Azrinaz,26 gets hitched to the man himself, formerly the richest man on the planet, the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah,58 after the latter divorced his 2nd wife in Feb 2003 after almost 24 years of marriage. The Sultan married Mariam, formerly known as Mariam Bell, a Brunei-Japanese-Scottish ex-flight attendant in Oct 1981 and they had 4 children.

Not content with that, his ex-2nd wife, Mariam Abdul Aziz’s royal titles were all withdrawn.

Filepic of Mariam taken in 1999, courtesy of cnn.com:

Azrinaz was never picked by TV3 to read the main primetime news at 8pm, but rather less glamorous slots like Berita Terkini.

Norman KRU and even Khairy Jamaluddin was once romantically linked to her.

According to Utusan Malaysia on 6th Aug, they were introduced when the ex-newscaster was covering the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Brunei last year

What motivates a man to marry a woman 32 years his junior? According to unconfirmed sources she’s already pregnant, hence the rush. If that’s true, then she’s bearing his 11th child.

She resigned from TV3 in May, citing the need to “try other activities.”

But his first wife, married in 1967 is still queen.

more rumours/gossip at cari.com.my forum.

trivia:
at least you know her car number - WMS 71. She won it after tendering for RM2K.

this is where it really matters. i dont care if you won the thailand open, swiss open, malaysian open, whatever open. your preparations should be focused on the biggest stage of all, do not peak at the wrong time! i would rate the all england as second, and the olympics third in stature.

Location: USA. Only there can u see a scene like this before a badminton match! Pic courtesy of thestar.com.my:

As usual, our Malaysian women are flops. our top women�s doubles pair, Chin Eei Hui-Wong Pei Tty�s hopes of bagging a first-ever medal in the World Championships were dashed when they fell to South Korea�s Lee Hyo-jung-Lee Kyung-won 6 and 5 in the quarter-finals at Arrowhead Pond on Thursday.

the star’s report excerpt:

The Malaysian pair crumbled under their opponents� relentless attack …

…should have played a smarter game by attacking the Hyo-jung, who was making more mistakes than her partner Kyung-won, in the first game.

…game fell apart and it was all over for them after 40 minutes.

Pei Tty said the Korean pair were a step above them. �Our defence was not too good. They returned all our smashes and we began to make more mistakes,� she said.

Although Eei Hui-Pei Tty were able to justify their top eight seeding status, national coach Cheah Soon Kit felt it could have been a different story.

�I do not know why they were so nervous because there was no pressure on them. They had qualified for the top eight after all,� said Soon Kit.

�The Koreans played at a fast attacking pace and our pair started to become nervous.

�That�s when they started to commit more mistakes. There was a good opportunity for them to beat them for a place in the semis but they failed to make the most of it.�

men’s singles
f
taufik bt lin dan (world no.1) 3 and 7. Taufik creates history by being the first man to hold both Olympic and World titles. Taufik is also reigning Asian champion.

Taufik’s comment: “It was a surprise that Lin Dan made so many errors in the first game.”

Lin Dan’s comment: “I never expected to play this badly. I made a lot of mistakes. Everything started going in the wrong direction”

sf
chong wei,23 lt taufik hidayat,24 3 and 12. failed at the biggest stage, but i like chong wei’s fighting spirit.
lin dan bt peter gade 2-1

qf
chong wei beat china no.2 bao chunlai 5 and 7

3rd rnd
all lost except chong wei, bt German easily
worst is Hafiz - no more excuses! lost to lee hyun il

excerpt from the star:

…Misbun Sidek said shuttler Mohd Hafiz Hashim only has himself to blame for muffing a chance to progress to the quarter-finals in his second World Championships appearance.

�Hafiz was not aggressive enough. He waited for Lee (Hyun-il) to make his move despite leading in the second game.

�He could not break his rival’s rhythm and paid for it in the end,� said Misbun.

He added that Hafiz lost his momentum in the second game when the flow of the draught was against him.

�He was trying to overcome the wind and not his opponent. This was his mistake and he has to learn from this experience.�

Hyun-il, the top Korean singles player, said: �I studied him as I knew he was one of those players I was likely to play against.

�In the first game, I thought it was difficult at first. But I had the better pace and consistency and was able to beat him.�

On the draught, Hyun-il said his strategy was to hit close to the net when returning Hafiz’s shots.

�It paid off as I was able to settle down fast in the second game,� said Hyun-il.

men’s doubles
f
gunawan/bach (Vietnam born) bt sigit/candra wijaya 15-11, 10-15, 15-11. This what you call fantasia becomes realitia! It was not a case of the Indons playing badly. It was a case of the home crowd lifting performances.

Bach’s comment: “Not in a billion, zillion light years. Who am I to be playing with legends like Candra, Sigit and Tony. And to beat them? It feels surreal right now. The emotions were running crazy but we had nothing to lose or to prove and we just followed our instincts.”

Gunawan’s comment: “I don�t know about Howard but I was already running out of gas. I tried to concentrate and the crowd helped me a lot.”

Candra Wijaya’s comment: “It was disappointing. We were confident because we felt that we had the better skills and talent. But everything changed on court. The crowd also supported them and that lifted their performance. They played extremely well.”

sf
chong ming/kean keat lt 2nd seeds and 1997 world champions Candra Wijaya and Sigit Budiarto (indon) 9 & 11
bach/gunawan bt luluk/alven 9 & 13

qf
new heroes: chong ming/kean keat bt experienced indonesians and athens bronze medalist flandy limpele/eng hian 6-15, 15-12, 15-9

3rd rnd
all lost except one pair: way to go Chan Chong Ming / Koo Kean Keat (8th seed)! upset All England champs, 2nd/3rd seed Fu Haifeng/Cai Yun (China) 11-15, 15-4,

The Star’s report excerpt:

Young doubles pair of Chan Chong Ming-Koo Kien Keat lifted the gloom for Malaysia when they stunned reigning All-England champions Fu Haifeng-Cai Yun of China to move into the quarter-finals of the World Championships at Arrowhead Pond on Thursday.

Chong Ming-Kien Keat, who were the last of the Malaysian pairs to take to the court, had lost the first game 11-15 and it looked like the doubles challenge at the world meet was coming to an end.

It was then that Chong Ming-Kien Keat came alive and did the unexpected.

They threw caution to the wind and put up a superb attacking display to win the second game 15-4.

The third seeded Chinese pair attempted to come back in the rubber but the Malaysians held on to win 15-8.

But I cant picture R2D2 holding this *rather large* display unit:

3d image of a swiss army knife floating above the unit:

pocket version:

more details at io2technology.com, ohgizmo.com and fraunhofer.de (German)

- dunno how much it cost
- will benefit porn producers most???

While Malaysia is still searching for her first Nobel prize winner, Sir William Lawrence Bragg (1890-1971) had already set an extremely high standard.

He’s the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner at the age of 25, in 1915. I have a feeling William was not the type to lepak around, unlike our many twentysomethings…

The English physicist was born and educated in Australia, then at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was professor of physics at Victoria Univ., Manchester, from 1919 to 1937. From 1938 to 1953 he was professor of experimental physics at Cambridge and director of the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1954 he was made head of the Royal Institution. He shared with his father the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies, with the X-ray spectrometer, of X-ray spectra, X-ray diffraction, and of crystal structure. In 1941 he was knighted. Among his works are The Structure of Silicates (1930, 2d enl. ed. 1932) and Atomic Structure of Minerals (1937). With his father he wrote X Rays and Crystal Structure (1915, 5th ed. 1925).

The second youngest is Carl David Anderson, who was 31 when he received his prize for the discovery of the proton. Nevertheless, this did not prevent his biography to claim that he IS the youngest ever - The Discovery of Anti-Matter : The Autobiography of Carl David Anderson, the Youngest Man to Win the Nobel Prize

Martin Luther King, Jr., received the Nobel Peace Prize at age 35. Marie Curie was 36 when she received her first Nobel Prize in physics and 44 when she received her second Nobel in Chemistry.

To make our task even harder, another title would be the first Malaysian to win TWO Nobel prizes. So far, Linus Pauling was the only person who received Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace. Marie Curie was the only person ever to win both the Chemistry and the Physics Nobel. However, John Bardeen and Frederick Sanger have won two Nobels each, in physics and chemistry, respectively.

Now…the only way for us to upstage these westerners is to win THREE Nobel Prizes, the first one at the age of 21, right?

Source: thedailystar.net

More challenges: not just to grace TIME magazine’s cover, but to be selected as TIME’s person of the year. And to make that task even harder, to be the youngest ever TIME’s person of the year. That record belongs to Charles Lindbergh at the age of 25 in 1927. Others:
2nd - Queen Elizabeth II, 26 in 1952
3rd - Martin Luther King Jr., 34 in 1963
4th - Jeff Bezos, 35 in 1999

How about Kadazandusuns? So far, the only youngish sounding record that I know is:
The late Datuk Peter Mojuntin was 24 when he became Penampang MP in 1963 (?)

i was trying to download MS ISA 2004 trial. See the following series of pics. Does not paint a professional picture of Microsoft.

Hey this error message looks familiar, I wonder whether it comes from microsoft (or its associates) or Firefox???

What? Test site?

When you go further back, this confirms that the site IS Microsoft-affiliated in one way or another:

update 25 aug:
as someone pointed out, not tmnet’s fault, but streamyx’s…=)

update 18 aug:

very sorry sans.org, this is not your fault. it’s actually the fault of our very own TMNet, as explained by liewcf.com and toxicle.org.

i was expecting that an organisation as esteemed as SANS would be more careful in its spelling, for even the smallest things.

Tomas Humar, 36 has just been rescued off a 6,000m ledge on an almost vertical face of the world’s most dangerous mountain, the 9th highest, 8,125m Nanga Parbat.

Humar, of Slovenia, is the world’s most renowned mountain climber, having completed 1,500 ascents.

Nanga Parbat claimed 31 lives before it was finally conquered in 1957. As if scaling Nanga Parbat on the usual route isnt hazardous enough, he attempted the first ever ascent on the daunting Rupal Face, described by experienced mountaineers as “only one in 1,000 climbers would be able to do it.” To top THAT off, he did it solo, WITHOUT any food.

In fact, Humar has attempted Nanga Parbat on a few occasions before, all without success. And this time it was no different. He got trapped on the ledge for a week, which then saw another record - the highest helicopter rescue mission ever - 6,000 m.

The only heli capable of such a feat is the LAMA sa315b. Reason why is stated here.

The following pic courtesy of bbc.co.uk & humar.com

So, what do you think of the pic above? The route looks slightly more difficult than our 4,095m Mount Kinabalu? Goodness, Tomas was trapped 2km further up! And he was still another 2km from the peak!!!

I think it’s safe to say that this could the first and last picture taken from that ledge.

Videos and more pics from Humar’s blog.

this is supposed to be a list of OSS solutions.

but what is no 24 doing there???

“secure webmail access”?
the security cert presented belongs to localhost.localdomain??
expired on aug 2003?!

hello?

nevermind it’s 256bits

as at 9.30 today
by 10am ok

but blogger.com is faster than www.sabah.gov.my from informatics kk!

Verbal skills, memory and speed of thought were all faster and better in people who drank moderately compared to heavy drinkers and teetotallers, according to a test done on 7,000 Australians.

And no, the tests werent done when they’ve had a few drinks.

The results were consistent across all age groups, even after considering external factors.

Yahoo! Audio Search

-currently in beta.
- allows searching of audio files
- Yahoo! claims to have 50 million music, voice, and other files
- searches across multiple mainstream music sites, as well as plenty of independent pages

Italian river ‘full of cocaine’

Scientists have found large quantities of a cocaine by-product in a river in northern Italy - suggesting consumption is much higher than previously thought.

The River Po was found to be carrying the equivalent of nearly 4kg (8.8lb) of cocaine daily. The Po Valley is home to about five million people.

The study estimated daily consumption to be about 27 doses (100mg or 0.004oz each) per 1,000 young adults.

The study was published by the web journal Environmental Health.

The chemical tested - benzoylecgonine (BE) - had arrived via the sewage system from the urine of drug users. A by-product of cocaine metabolism, it cannot be produced by other means.

The estimated daily consumption “greatly exceeds official national figures,” the report says.

“The large amount of cocaine (at least 1,500 kg/3,307lb) that our findings suggest are consumed per year in the River Po basin would amount… to about $150m (�84m) in street value,” the scientists wrote in the journal.

They said the figure of 4kg of cocaine equivalent carried by the Po daily indicated about 40,000 doses of cocaine per day for the region.

But official estimates indicated only about 15,000 doses per month for young adults in the region.

The team hope that in the near future, they will be able to develop similar tests in order to assess the true number of cannabis and heroin users.

pic courtesy bbc.co.uk

Hurricane caused ‘tallest wave’

Hurricane Ivan generated a wave more than 90 feet (27 metres) high - thought to be the tallest and most intense ever measured - scientists have revealed.

It would have dwarfed a 10-storey building and had the power to snap a ship in half - but never reached land.

The wave was recorded by sensors on the ocean floor as Hurricane Ivan passed over the Gulf of Mexico last September.

The observations suggest prior estimates for extreme waves are too low, researchers warn in Science.

Hurricane Ivan caused more than 100 deaths and left a trail of devastation as it swept over several Caribbean islands and part of the United States.

The distance between the crest of the biggest wave and its trough was 91 ft (27.7 metres) but they suspect the instruments missed some waves that were as tall as 132 ft (40 metres).

The waves were bigger than expected, suggesting theoretical models of waves whipped up by hurricanes may have to be revised.

“Our results suggest that waves in excess of 90 ft are not rogue waves but actually are fairly common during hurricanes,” lead author Dr David Wang, told the BBC News website.

He said that since hurricane activity is predicted to increase over the next few decades, more research like this needs to be carried out.

The 91 ft wave was the largest individual wave measured with instruments in US waters, he added.

It echoes the wave depicted in the film, The Perfect Storm, which was 100 ft tall. The story is based on the 1991 storm off Gloucester, Massachusetts, which was one of the strongest in recorded history.

happened just now

this is the 2nd time it happened in about 6 months…

update 11.20pm :
ok already

as of this morning

tried other pcs - same

but www.yahoo.com and mail.yahoo.com ok!

As quoted by saint-mike.org

“The Internet causes billions of images to appear on millions of computer monitors around the planet. From this galaxy of sight and sound will the face of Christ emerge and the voice of Christ be heard? For it is only when His face is seen and His voice heard that the world will know the glad tidings of our redemption. …Therefore,… I dare to summon the whole Church bravely to cross this new threshold, to put out nto the deep of the Net, so that now as in the past the great engagement of the Gospel and culture may show to the world ‘the glory of God on the face of Christ’.”
–Pope John Paul II

press release by priv asia in feb 2003 said that laman web puteri umno pahang would be launched on 1st march the same year.

But as of now puteridarulmakmur.com domain is on sale for USD248!

Even Puteri UMNO Malaysia website’s link to the state branches drew a blank:

“Not Found
The requested URL /sub.htm was not found on this server.
Apache/2.0.52 (Fedora) Server at www.puteri.net.my Port 80″

as of just now, the above error will come out if you click any link on this page:

http://www.jpa.gov.my/jpaemail/newemailjpa.asp

Daily Express 1 Aug 05

Sabahans have the habit of borrowing books from their friends or family members rather than buying them at book stores, said local author and lawyer, James lam lee Chee seng.
“I have been noticing that Sabahans tend to borrow books from their friends, or relatives and later pass them to the next person who has expressed interest in reading the books.”

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What’s so strange about this? Save money mah…

He might as well add: if they like the book so much, they’d get it photocopied at Bormas.