dready blog v2.0

For V-day, Tiff and I caught the show at Dendy Opera Quays - simply brilliant! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, go catch it if you can. Synopsis:

Finbar McBride, a man born with dwarfism, is trying to live life on his own terms. Lonely without wanting to admit it, he retreats into a shell of isolation, finding sanctuary in a passion for trains and the hobby shop in which he works. When the owner dies, Fin inherits a tiny train station in rural New Jersey where he moves to set up a solitary home. Looking only to be left alone, he finds himself reluctantly becoming enmeshed in the lives of his neighbours, Olivia, an artist struggling with a personal loss and Joe, a hot dog vendor with an insatiable hunger for conversation. Winner of the Audience Choice Award at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, THE STATION AGENT is about three people with nothing in common except their shared solitude, who forge an unlikely bond, ultimately revealing that even isolation is better shared.

Today, Windows XP automatic updates service greeted me with two new updates waiting to be downloaded. One was another of those serious enough to allow a remote attacker to completely take over and wreck your computer, the other was about a font! A font? It says that the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font that is included in MS Office 2003 “has been found to contain unacceptable symbols”. Well, that’s some interesting stuff…

So I fired up the symbol browser included with Office (from Word, Insert -> Symbol), selected the font and took a screenshot. Then I proceeded with the update, rebooted the machine, and did the same thing again. Voila! 3 symbols have been removed - 2 Swastika’s and a six-pointed star.

Here’s the old font:

and here’s the new one:

I began googling around for it and found some references to the Swastika being removed in this update, see this post on J-Walk Blog.

What’s more interesting is that no one ever mentioned the Star, it’s not even in Microsoft’s press release.

The six-pointed star or Hexagram, is called the Star of David in some religious context (Jewish?). Some Christians believe that it is the Mark of the Beast in the Revelation. Some reading here too.

The car just wouldn’t start due to a completely dead battery. Called NRMA roadside assistance, the guy came, filled up the battery water, jumpstarted it and told me to leave it running for an hour to recharge the battery. But after 20 minutes, it just stopped.

Called NRMA again, another service guy came, checked the charge again, less than a Volt left in it. It’s simply not holding the charge. The only option would be for me to get a new battery, which would cost a bomb.

Arselucked, I had to cycle to Chatswood centre to get ourselves dinner and grocery.

I’ve been using dready as a personal handle for at least 6 years now. Many people have expressed their confusion of the word “dready” whenever I spelt it out to them. They don’t usually ask me directly what it is but I can tell by the look on their faces, I can see it even over the phone:

XYZ: Can I have your email address please?
Me: Sure! It’s wil _at_ dready _dot_ org, ‘d’ ‘r’ ‘e’ ‘a’ ‘d’ ‘y’.
XYZ: …
Me: Have you got it?
XYZ: .. yes.
Me thinking: you sure?

Yet, some have called it d-ready, or mistaken it for “already”.

So, what exactly is “dready” and how should I pronounce it?

Well, I was inspired by the character on the record bag that I was using. Later, I discovered www.dreadybrand.com and is accompanied by Sista too! As you can see, they’ve got dreadlocks, and that’s how “dready” got his name. Pronounce it as \dread”y\.

Eventhough I don’t know where the bag is right now, I can always go see dready and get that warm, nostalgic feeling.

This is my first ever blog, and what better way to kick start the inauguration with a few quips about myself?

I’m currently studying at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Before this, I spent a large part of my life in Singapore, and another chunk in Malaysia earlier.

The pie chart of my waking hours would be something like: 50% in front of the laptop, 30% with Tiff, and 20% misc.

My computing interests are web engineering, open source development, Internet standards and network security.