They come, they hang around for a while, and then they disappear. There's something about online communities that spark people's interest but rarely keeps it. A lot of people want to meet others, or want to get in touch with friends in different ways; and in the past few years, online communities have been an effective medium for that kind of action. But their novelty seems to taper off rather quickly. People tend to get bored with being in the same chatrooms. What's the longest standing on-going active membership do you have with an online community? But weren't they so cool when they first came out? Here are a few that have entertained me over the years.

EdNet: the School Board's BBS, which closed shut down in my first year of university... many moons ago
Six Degrees: they started, they had success, they died, they relaunched, tried again, died again. According to their website, they're relaunching soon!
eCircles (Adobe): similar to Six Degrees, but with photos. Their site no longer exists.
College Club: still doing well - 149,449 members online, I just checked.
Asian Avenue: apparently still alive and kicking, but I can't log in because I don't remember my account or password - where's WhipCream?
Friendster: ah, the newest of the bunch. But let's face it, friendster's a bore. It was only fun when you had new people to add all the time. The fact of the matter is, while the website was conceived as a way to meet new people, getting messages from people you don't know on friendster makes you think they're desperate. I wonder how long this new "fad" will last. I happen to log in once every month at most, just to see that nothing has changed.

Any other "hot and happenin'" communities you'd like to share?

And then, there was a time when disk space sites were the newest thing. Some of them would give you 10MB, 50MB, 100MB (!!) of free online space. But somehow, these companies came to realize that there were actually quite a few people out there who WANTED free space online and that it would be expensive to accommodate them. So they shut down.

So what's the next killer online app? More interactive Internet games? Video (non-XXX) chatrooms? How does one keep an idea going so it doesn't suffer the fate of some of these other online communities? How do you attract people while continuing to get paid for your work? Will banners and advertisements really do it? I wonder.

Woohoo!! We saw it about a week ago, and as time ticks away towards the end of the NHL season, we're getting closer to the possible scenario where all six Canadian NHL teams will make it into the playoffs. That's frickin' AWESOME!

For years, The Simpsons have topped the ratings charts... perhaps only because they lacked the competition. BEHOLD THE SINGHSONS!!

An hour and a half past midnight (last night), I was dropping my highschool buddy Joe off at his mom's place off Georgia Street. Across the street from his mom's building was another building with a fountain in the front. It looked as if someone had put some dishwash soap in the fountain, so there was a chain of sud mountains. Then, a car pulled up and a bunch of people jumped out and started playing with the foam. The whole thing was kinda neat, and naturally, I had my camera for a video.

Don't you hate it when you have the urge to read a 600 year old book, but you don't have it handy? I know, me too! Well, Chadwyck-Healey's Early English Books Online (EEBO) database, which can also be accessed through SFU's Library, has electronic copies of the earliest published English books. Anyway, I randomly picked a couple books and browsed through them, but they're really of no interest to me. Of course, you might find them interesting.

Today, I am hogging four lab computers to do my work. Three of them are Sun machines running my simulations, one of them is a Windows PC where I'll be documenting and blogging. I would take more, but the distance to pedal my chair would be too long and tiring. Nevertheless, I already feel like a member of an elite national security faction... as if I were the brains behind the infiltration of an enemy plant.

Except that I have time to blog while doing it.

I saw the cutest thing, yesterday. I parked at SFU next to an older maroon BMW. The front right corner of the car was crumpled from a collision, and there were two band-aids at two places with sad faces drawn on the middle pad. I thought it was cute and creative, and deserved some emphathy.

A census bureau reports that by year 2050, the world's population will grow by 50%. In this article, they state that the rate of reproduction will slow down in spite of high fertility rates in underdeveloped places (such as in India and parts of Africa). Two reasons for this slow down are: women in North America and Europe are having less children, and AIDS is taking its toll on the world's population. The survey also indicates that "there are at least 100 million women in the world's developing countries who would like to space or limit their pregnancies but are not using contraception." So my question is: why not give them condoms? Make them free or charge them a bale of hay or a cow every year. This seems to be a rather simple solution to the spread of babies and the spread of AIDs (not that they should really be mentioned in one breath). It's not just that having babies will increase the human count on an already over-populated planet, but most of these people can't even afford to have kids, let alone five of them. Anyway, that's my two cents.

Before heading to school on Saturday, I watched all but the first 30 mins of Spellbound, an oscar-nominated documentary by Jeffrey Blitz of kids (ages 10 - 14) with their hearts set on winning the 1999 Scripp's Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. It was a good watch, and I was rather amazed at how diligently these kids studied to make it to the national competition of 249 spellers, and how much stress they must go through. The documentary follows 8 competitiors who make it to the "big show", and it's surprisingly fascinating and captivating.

One of the spellers' name is Harry Altman, and he's just about the most annoying kid you could imagine, but not in a mean-hearted way. Just about every review I've read has something interesting to say about him. Here's one of my favorite quotes: "Harry is an Uber-nerdy Jewish kid in New Jersey who, like many too-smart boys his age, thinks he's 1,000 percent funnier than he is." which is funny, because it echoed my thoughts as I watched Harry ask if the boom mic was edible and answer a question immitating a robot. To top off the documentary, Blitz also interviews some previous winners of the competition, including the first-ever Spelling Bee Champion (won in 1925). As I watched, I couldn't help but to try to test myself with some of the words given to the spellers to spell out. Anyway, it's worth a watch - although I wouldn't expect too much excitement or entertainment value out of it... it is, afterall, about spelling.

This reminds me of a Frasier episode where Fredrick (Frasier's son) won the National Spelling Bee and then had his title taken away accused of cheating. And they ended off the show with an implied spell-off in the alley between Fredrick and some other boy.

I've been working hard on my M.Eng. project these days trying to get my report submitted by the April 15th hard deadline. But I've been struggling quite a bit. I've upgraded to the newest Microsoft Word (picture), and I'm finding it hard to adjust to this version. I'm thinking it was a bad move, because I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to finish my report on time the way things are going. The autocorrect feature keeps "fixing" my words. I write "802.11 stations are grouped into basic service sets." and it corrects it to "Yo check it, 802.11 stationz are grouped into basic service sets, ya heard?" It's slowing me down so much.

To add to my previous post about the extra handle bar, here's a picture I took in China. It's a handicap urinal in the washroom of the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel in Shanghai. Never seen this anywhere else before.

As for the newly installed automatic toilet flusher, my last experience with it seemed to prove to me without a shadow of a doubt that they should have stayed with the manual lever. The darn thing flushed when I sat down after lining the seat with toilet paper, flushed three times while wiping, and flushed once I stood up after I was done, but before I could push the toilet paper off the seat into the bowl. Five flushes when only one well-timed flush would have done the job. I think the problem stems from the fact that the sensor points at the right shoulder of the s(h)itter, so as s/he bends forward for any reason (say, to read a newspaper or to wipe), the shoulder dips below the sensor's path.

Anyway, enough on that subject.

Chen Shui-Bian wins the Taiwan Presidential election (6,471,970 votes to 6,442,452). Lien Chan complains about results and wants a recount, and suggests that the assassination attempt got Chen sympathy votes. Whatever, Lien, maybe you shouldn't have put the hit on him then, huh. Either that, or blame your trigger happy supporter.

- CNN
- MSN

And in other tragic internation news, Britney Spears injures her knee and cannot continue with her next concert date! [The crowd falls silent awaiting the latest news....]

Mayhem in Taiwan. The Taiwan President Chen Shui-Bian and Vice President Annette Lu were shot only a couple hours ago during a political rally. This is causing a stir in Taiwan (obviously) and amongst a lot of Taiwanese people here in Canada.

Here're a couple news articles:

- CNN
- MSN
- [new] CNN

The election between the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party and the Nationalist Party is tomorrow (March 20). Some friends think there'll be riots in Taiwan whichever way the election goes. Freakin' Nationality Party.

The washroom outside my lab had an upgrade recently. Automatic toilets. Similar to the sensor-controlled urinals. An interesting concept, but my first thought as I was sitting there doing my business was... what if it doesn't work properly? With normal toilets, you can always count on the cause-and-effect consequences when you pull the lever. But as soon as you add the "convenience" of a sensor-guided flush, you can't help but to wonder. Besides, I sometimes like to flush before I sit just in case of splash-ups. Well, it's toilet water either way, but I'd prefer to think that it's cleaner water after a couple of flushes. I tried getting the sensor to trigger by flashing my hand in front of it, but it won't go.

I also noticed another handle bar behind the toilet. Whew! I can't tell you how many times I've needed to reach back there for support after a mad weight-loss session... this is on top of the support provided by the handicap bar next to the toilet.

You see, deodorant should be applied to avoid smelling bad. This application should be in moderate amounts. There's a guy working in the lab where I am doing my M.Eng. project who must be feeding an entire deodorant stick into his armpit every day. He reeks of the smell. Every time he walks by me, I feel like gagging from the fumes emanating from his "fresh smelling" body. Ick. If companies advertise that their deodorants provide 24 hour long-lasting protection, this guy must be protected for 5 days from the same application. Maybe it'll be more barable on Friday.

I heard on the radio yesterday that a 97 year-old woman was arrested by the police for having pouches of cocaine in her wheelchair with the intent of selling. Haha, too funny. Apparently, this is the 2nd or 3rd time the old lady was picked up for this reason. See? Old people ARE good for something.

I went to see a retina specialist today to have a retinal tear examined. In the mere 4 minutes I met with the doctor, he managed to shine an insanely bright light into dilated pupil, squeezed my eye ball to the point I thought it would pop out of its socket, and put some little apparatus to my eye (I think it was a magnifying glass or lens). He wasn't a very friendly doctor either, but came very highly recommended by my optomotrist. Hope I never have to go through that, since it took a good hour for my eye to stop hurting. I should go back and punch him in the eye.

After massive promotional efforts, The Mike Bullard Show was axed by Global TV after lacking viewership. It's about time, really. At first, I supported the show, being Canadian and all. But let's face it, Mike Bullard's not a very funny guy, he doesn't have good writing, and he can't deliver his lines to make them work. Canadian or not, the show's end was a long time coming, and it's probably better to kill it now than to make people like me put in effort to avoid his show as I channel surf.

Woohoo! My last exam for this degree is OVER as of last night at 6:45pm.

For SFU Engineering Alumni:

Most of you know that the ENSC program changed a year or two ago such that there is now an Honors program and a non-Honors engineering program. The Honors program requires a thesis defense and a certain academic standing at graduation. The Non-Honors students don't need to fulfill those requirements. Hence, retroactively, all past students are B.A.Sc. Honors.

If you care to do it, you can have a new degree parchment created for yourself with the updated designation. Here's how:

1) You can go to SFU's Academic Resources counter and request it.
2) You can fax the following information to 604-291-4969:
REPLACEMENT PARCHMENT
Your name
Your student number
Whether you want to pick it up or mail it (address)

Credit Card #
Name on credit card
Expiry date
Signature

The cost is $21.50 (CAD) and processing time is approximately 5 business days.

Furthermore, if you had a 3.5 or above GPA, you are a Honors First Class graduate -- otherwise, just Honors.

If you have any questions, you can call Judy at 604-291-3206.

This has been a public service announcement.

It's just disgusting. Sometimes things can get out of hand and get real ugly, real fast. Vancouver Canucks star forward Todd Bertuzzi committed a nasty act on Colorado Avalanche's Steve Moore, who had a somewhat questionable hit on Markus Naslund two meetings ago. I was going to link to a video, but that link doesn't seem to be working anymore. Anyway, already down 8-2 on an already hideous hockey game, Big Bert grabbed Moore's jersey as they were skating down the ice and clocked him in the side of the head with a big right-hander. Moore's body seemed to slump right after, and I think Bert was trying to get on him after the punch. Moore's head tilted down, and his body followed suit, with Bertuzzi coming down on top of him from behind. Moore goes head-first into the ice, with most of Bert's weight on top; probably made worse by having another Avalanche player jump on Bertuzzi giving him a few shots. Blood spilled from Moore's head as he lay there unconscious and motionless. Then the medical staff poured onto the ice, and eventually wheeled him away on a stretcher. It was a sick thing to watch.

Bertuzzi's suspended indefinitely until the league gets a chance to review the event, and he's also being investigated by Vancouver RCMP for criminal assault. I hope he gets it. I know he didn't intend to do that much damage, but even a cheap-ass sucker punch from behind (when you're that big and that strong) is uncalled for. That shit's just not right. Anyway, he gets his NHL hearing on Wednesday.

Moore, on the other hand, is staying at the Vancouver General Hospital after suffering a concussion, 2 cracked vertebrae, and a broken jaw. I already felt sorry for him before this happened, because he was the target of the Vancouver bench since two games ago. I didn't even think the hit on Nazzy was really intentional, even though Naslund did miss 3 games with a concussion. Each shift he was on the ice, he had challenges. Takes the game to a whole new level, does it. Anyway, I hope he's able to recover quickly, and won't have to end his career this way.

[ more canucks articles ]

I've been dreaming a lot lately. Basically, dreams every night. I wonder what they mean. They aren't weird cryptic dreams of floating elephants, of falling, or of being chased. They situational. They involve people I know, or sometimes people I don't. Occasionally there are social gatherings, other times just other events or activities. The fact that I'm dreaming means that I haven't had a good deep sleep in some time, which is a little frustrating, because I know I'm tossing and turning through the night. I wonder if they are signals of the things my subconscious believes lacking in my life -- things my conscious mind aren't admitting to. Maybe it's time to take some drugs.

I went for an eye exam today, and decided to visit a new optometrist. Since it was my first visit there, I had a dilation done, which involved putting some drops in my eyes to relax the pupils, so that the optometrist could get a better look into my eye. Essentially, when your pupils are dilated, they are more or less in the state that they will be when you're 55 years old. It takes a while for the drops to take effect, and I was told I would have blurring and sensitivity to light. After 10 minutes, I didn't feel much different... until I noticed I couldn't read close up! I couldn't focus on letters closer than about 15 inches from my face. Totally trippy!! But it's different, farsightedness and nearsightedness. Nearsightedness has far objects blurred. Farsightedness doesn't blur close objects, but you can't focus properly on them. I guess I'll have something to look forward to when I'm older. Bifocals or reading glasses.

Now THIS is the most lop-sided highschool basketball game I've ever heard of. 96-point differential. Ouch. I thought school sports was supposed to be as much for fun as for competition.

Vancouver Sun, March 4th, 2004
==========================

BROOKSWOOD 113 CALEDONIA 17

The No. 1-seeded Brookswood Bobcats of Langley established a tournament single-game scoring record with their victory over the No. 16-seeded Caledonia Kermodes of Terrace. The Bobcats connected on 51.2 per cent of their field goal shots and were 47.1 per cent from the three-point range as they eclipsed the scoring record of 104 points, set by the New Westminster Hyacks on March 4, 1987. Brookswood's Grade 12 post Danica Boyce led the scoring parade with a game-high 23 points despite playing only 18 minutes as head coach Scott Reeves went with his bench players most of the second half. Boyce was joined in double scoring figures by six teammates -- Candace Morisset (13), Kendra Carrie (12), Sasha McKinnon (11), Kelsey Adrian (11), Niki McKay (11) and Tara Watts (10).

Vancouver weather is ridiculous. Yesterday, the sky was clear, the sun was out, and Vancouver was looking much like the pictures I look of SFU two days ago. Today, it was raining and dark. Up at SFU, it was foggy and there was a little bit of snow on the grass. Silliness.

I think the best way to live without regret is to not make any bad decisions. What do you mean, "it's not that easy"? Good decisions are made by taking a step back, thinking about the options carefully, and not letting your feelings get too much in the way. Small things are the least to worry about. You can make a bad decision there and not care about the consequences. I've made some bad stock purchases in my life, and those sucked. But I'll live and they don't affect me now. Small. Life decisions aren't so forgiving. How do you pick between your wants and needs when they conflict? Even more confusing are your needs and must haves. To me, there is always the obvious right choice and then the other choice, which is staged by sentiments and feelings. But with enough persuasion, your feelings will learn to accept the "right choice". Or not. But then again, I'm a cold person whose decisions are driven by my brain and not my heart. I don't care about the wishy-washy part.

Tim Horton's versus Krispy Kreme: The Hole Story on Donuts

Everything reminds me of Krispy Kreme donuts after wolfing down as many as I did, from the smell of the Chinese medicine on my friend's injured ankle (smells like the maple dip) to the Jones Cream Soda (which tasted like the original glaze). Sigh...

Since more than half of this blog's readers are SFU Alumni (a good number of them Engineers), I figure most people haven't been to SFU's Burnaby campus in a while. To continue with my posting earlier today on changes at SFU, I took some pictures of the on-going development. The first image is a map of SFU with arrows indicating the location and direction of the photos below (in numerical order). Here's a brief description of what I see driving around the top of The Hill:

• Last year, a through-road was paved from University Drive directly to B-Lot. This makes getting to B-Lot less round-about (photo 1). The end of the bottom lot, where most engineers parked, has a new flight of wooden stairs (photo 2), possibly temporary.


• The Pit was covered and excellent lighting installed (photo 7). There's no echo like we used to have, and it's more study conducive. The grad area is now a computer lab, housing 30 fairly new PCs (photo 8).


• With the Pit covered, offices are being built on the floor above (photo 6) -- a 3rd floor is being constructed on top of that (photos 3 - 5).


• A new building is going up above B-Lot (photos 9 - 11). I wonder if this is the new CMPT building.


• A couple large complex is being built for UniverCity, just down from the Water Tower (photos 12 - 15).


• A number of large residential buildings and a dining hall are under construction in SFU Res (photos 16 - 18). I wonder if they're going to have underground parking, because the buildings eat up some of the small parking lot already there.

The map.
B-Lot Parking [1 - 2]
The ASB [3 - 6]
The Pit [7 - 8]
Above B-Lot [9 - 11]
UniverCity [12 - 15]
Residence [16 - 18]

Looking for Krispy Kreme Doughnuts?

I noticed in my blog tracking that there's been a recent gush of hits referred by search engines... all with the same search keywords.

In google, try looking up: "krispy kreme delta bc" and see who's site is the first to return!

Okay, since most of you are probably trying to find the address to Krispy Kreme in Delta BC, I'll do you the favor and post it here:

Krispy Kreme, Scottsdale Centre
7153 120th Street (at 72nd)
Hours: ?? - 12am
[opened Tuesday Feb 24th,2004 at 5:30am]

There's a McDonald's nearby if it's any help. The KK store has a spotlight that points up in the sky. Very visible on cloudy days.

Now go stuff your face. ... and drop a comment if you actually came here looking for directions to KK. :)

It was a gorgeous day up at SFU today. The sun was shining, the clouds were few, the sky was solid blue, and everything was so perfect that you'd forget it was the first day or March. However, the smell of tar filled the air in certain areas of the campus, and it's hard to ignore the noise of construction, the unsightly construction vehicles, half-made buildings, and the butt crack of your nearest construction worker. SFU is getting a major upgrade. UniverCity is happening big time.

UniverCity: The Community at Simon Fraser promises to enrich the lives of SFU students and create a living society up on Burnaby Mountain. To be honest, it's pretty cool! I took a flip through the UniverCity Development Guildlines which will give UniverCity a clean and simplistic look and feel. I'd be pretty excited to see what the campus looks like between now and 2010. It will give SFU the kind of environment it's always lacked and that UBC has always had. Change is good.