The tale of Sir P

As I've said before, I love it when programmers have a sense of humour.

At work we have a "release notes" page to keep track of people who have modified what in our code. Today I saw this:

(sorry for the small size, click to enlarge)

At the bottom we have the older integration by Sir P, titled "[MR16] Introduction to randomization for calls by Sir P" (he actually put his full name there, by the way). P is Polish, but is currently working with us in Penang. We were off work last Friday on the 16th of September for Malaysia Day, and it seems that a colleague in Krakow found something wrong with his code. Hence the later integration of "Fix for impressive development made by Sir P" :D

Okay, so it's nothing much, but it made my day!

Google bugs

As I have mentioned before, in the office we use Google Hangouts. When we have a group conversation on Hangouts, the pop-up notification at the bottom of the screen will show the icons of up to four other people in the conversation (excluding yourself). For example, if you are in a conversation with two other people, the pop-up notification will contain the icons of those two people, but not your own icon. (by icon, I mean avatar or profile picture, whichever word suits you better)

So the other day, we were in a conversation of three (myself and two other people), when suddenly the pop-up notification showed this:

The icons on top and on the left are the people in the conversation, but I have no idea who is the third! It happened a few times... but then we stopped using the conversation because one person was on leave and we didn't want to spam him.

Not long after that (I think it was on the same day but I'm not sure), a pop-up came from another group conversation. This one is strange in a different way; the photo was of one of the participants of the conversation, but not the one sending the message.

And the thing is, S was a guy. So I sent them the screenshot and asked, when did S become so pretty? But no one had an answer... :P

Tamago attempt

I heard of Japanese omelette (which is simply called tamago most of the time, even though tamago only means egg in Japanese) a long time ago. They said that we could make it by folding the egg into thirds in a frying pan. But luckily I didn't try it out at that time, because recently I saw a couple of videos showing us how to make them, and that was not really true...

In the first video they do it like a pro. The egg looks lovely and golden all the time! But I'm glad I saw the second video too, because the chef actually tore the egg a bit and browned it here and there as well. So when that happened while I was making my own, at least I didn't have to worry about it being ruined!

Basically the omelette is made by pouring the egg mixture (egg plus water and various seasoning) into the pan, then rolling it up as the bottom becomes firm. The top is still slightly liquid so the roll will stick together. From the videos I linked above, we actually have to make small folds in the beginning, because as you go, the roll becomes thicker. That's what I mean about not folding it into thirds. Because if I were to fold the first layer into thirds, the subsequent layers would not be able to wrap around the omelette any more because of its increasing thickness.

They used a rectangular pan to make the omelette in the videos, but since I don't have one, I used an egg frying pan (you know, the one for a single egg?) I thought of using a normal frying pan, but my smallest one is 24cm, so that would make the roll a bit too long. Hard to handle, and also, the edges would be a lot thinner than the middle. Whereas with a small pan at least the difference won't be that huge.

Anyway here's the end result, with three eggs and roughly 20ml of water per egg (the two recipes I saw used largely different amounts of water, so I settled for something in between).

On the left is the first attempt, which explains its raggedness. Then I got better at it (left the bottom to get firmer before trying to fold it), so the second and third ones look better! And finally the last one on the right, which is of course smaller since I had run out of egg.

Then here is a photo with a cross-section of the omelettes, since that is probably the most important part of a Japanese omelette - why go through the trouble of rolling it up if you don't want to see the layers?

All in all, the taste was quite okay, the texture was slightly soft, which I guess is the way it should be. I could probably do better with the seasoning. I was thinking, what if next time I chopped up tiny bits of ham or sausage and scattered it in between the layers of egg while making the omelette? Or cheese... But then, whether I will make this again is another question... because it is rather tedious! Maybe it's because it's my first time making it, though. Would the process be quicker once I master it properly?

How can this taste so good?!?

That was my reaction when trying out this recipe that I found at the back of a pasta packet.

When I saw this recipe, I thought, okay, I can try this. I'll just omit the zucchini since it's hard to find and I'm not a big fan of it anyway. I didn't use bay leaf or chilli pepper either (I don't even know whether they mean an actual chilli pepper or just the powder or flakes).

I always feel like pasta recipes lack flavour when I use already-cooked ingredients (for example, they taste better when I use fresh chicken meat instead of chicken sausage), so I didn't expect much from canned tuna. I suspected that the flavour would come from the anchovies, so I went searching for anchovies in oil.

But I was unable to find any in the two supermarkets I went to, so I ended up using dried anchovies (I soaked them in water first). Since I wasn't using bay leaf, I also omitted the first step of cooking the bay leaf in water. I also added in some pepper when putting in the tomato sauce, to make up for the absence of chilli pepper.

The result:

Actually it didn't look especially nice, just normal. But when tasting it, I was pleasantly surprised... somehow it is quite flavourful! I still attribute it to the anchovies... By the way, I sliced them into thin slices but I still felt they were a bit chewy when I bit into them (I think they are supposed to "disappear" into the tuna), so maybe next time I will put the anchovies in the way they told us to put in the bay leaf. Let it simmer for a while... maybe that will soften it!

Another note: I had a minor oil explosion when adding in the anchovies, probably because I had soaked them in water and they were not dried (oops). Maybe that is why they asked us to use tuna in oil and anchovies in oil, so that there would be no explosion? I did wonder why they didn't ask us to use tuna in water, since we were going to drain the tuna anyway... (but then tuna is added at then end, so there should be no explosion anyway... hmm....)

Anyway, I still have tuna left, so I will try it out again soon... and the next time I go to some larger supermarket I will look out for anchovies in oil!

How to respect your colleagues' time

(This post stems from my frustration of being interrupted at work.)

1. Respect that they are in the middle of doing something

Some people seem to think that other people should drop everything that they are doing once they come calling.

I can't count the number of times I have been interrupted in the middle of typing code, or an e-mail, or an instant message (read: IM) to someone. You know how it is when you drop your train of thought; later you have to try and get it back, and it's not always easy!

There are so many reasons why you shouldn't interrupt someone and demand their full attention immediately. Even microprocessors need to do something called "saving context" before handling an interrupt. This allows them to restore the context after handling the higher priority task at hand, and continue whatever they were doing before that.

I have been interrupted while reading an e-mail, and then forgot to finish reading it (the e-mail had been automatically marked as read, and I didn't recall until later that I had only read it halfway). I have been interrupted while writing a piece of code, and then had to search again for the variable or function that I was going to use (for non-programmers, consider that a word I wanted to use). I have been interrupted while typing an instant message to someone, and sometimes that is the worst, because unlike an e-mail where you write everything fully before you send it out, in IM you will write short sentences and send them one by one. If you were going to write three sentences, and you are interrupted after sending the second one, then the third sentence which may serve as a clarification of the first two sentences is gone. While you are handling your interruption, the recipient of your IM might read your two messages and not be able to make head or tail out of it.

After being interrupted numerous times, I printed out a notice saying something like "Please give me 60 seconds to save my context before interruption" and stuck it around my cubicle. (I actually printed out three, because there was no perfect place to put one) I don't think more than five people have noticed the paper that I stuck up. A few times, I had to gesture to it when people came to interrupt me, just so that they would allow me my 60 seconds.

That is not to say that I always need 60 seconds, of course. If I can "save my context" in less time, of course I could give my attention to you sooner. And if I need more time... well, I don't believe that it is not possible to at least stop for a while just to let a person tell you what they need, even if you are rushing for a deadline. As long as you get to save your context first...


2. Respect that they might have more urgent things to do at that moment

Like I said in the first point, someone might not be able to give you their attention immediately, but I feel that 60 seconds is enough time to stop what they are doing momentarily just so that you can tell them why you came looking for them. But depending on what you need from them, what they were doing might actually be more important/urgent.

So it is okay for them to tell you that they will come back to you later. It is okay for them to do so, and it is okay for you to tell people that you will get back to them. It works both ways, if the person being interrupted is busy, they can ask, "Can't this wait?"


3. Respect their working hours

We need to understand that our colleagues might want to go home at the end of the day, even if we are staying late.

This has happened to me so many times. Sometimes I am staying late just to finish up something, and hoping that I can finish quickly and then go home... but then someone sees me there and assumes that they can come and have a lengthy discussion with me. :(

This happens especially in a flexi-hour working environment, because some people come in late and stay late. So even if you came early, as long as you are still in the office, you become "fair game" for people to come looking for you. And who would want to come and talk to you about banal things but these people who are staying late because their working hours hasn't ended? That is not to say that it does not happen when there are fixed working hours... after all, no one chases you out of the office after working hours, right?

That is why, when I go and talk to someone after 6pm, I will try to ask whether they have time or whether they are going home soon. If I know that a person usually leaves earlier than that, at 5 or 5:30, then I would do the same around that time.

Unless if the matter at hand is super-urgent, of course. That is always a reason to interrupt someone no matter what they are doing. But we need to compare the urgency of what is interrupting and what is being interrupted, don't we? Like preemption on Tetra radios... heh. (work-related analogy)


Actually, this works for everyone. Not caring what rank you are, you need to show some respect for the people you are working with. It is hard for me to tell off managers for interrupting me, though... :P 

The bone dilemma

I went to this restaurant and ordered mee kuah tulang. It came in a large deep bowl. Since it is a "tulang" dish, it came with large chunks of bones (with meat and tendons attached). As I was eating, I faced a dilemma: where do I put the bones after getting the meat off? Usually the table would be a good place, but this place had placemats on their tables. Not just any kind of placemat, but some plastic lace kind. I can't put dirty bones on holey placemats... if it were without holes then I would gladly put the bones on them, because I expect they would clean the placemats after each customer. But in this case, if I were to put the bones on the placemats, I would be dirtying both the placemat and the table. Not a good solution, in my opinion...

I ended up putting the bones on my brother's plate (he ordered nasi lemak). But I wonder, where did the restaurant owner expect us to put the bones anyway? It's not like everyone comes with a companion who orders rice... What would you have done in my place?