Puta and Neko's Sweet Home: 2011

Thursday, 22 December 2011

Merry X'mas~

Merry Christmas, boys and girls! Here's a little card from us to you~

Love,

Neko

Merry Christmas peeps! Hope you have a wonderful and bountiful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Puta.

Thursday, 17 November 2011

The Freecycle Network

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". If anyone is familiar with me, they would know this is my personal mantra. "One man’s trash is another man’s treasure" -- This is The Freecycle Network's mantra.

The Free what?

If it's any easier for you to imagine, you can think of The Freecycle Network as a free version of eBay. As in, you have something free to offer to a stranger, or you want to get something from a stranger for free.

The items can be anything. I saw requests for orchid cuttings, old books, and even a piano!

If you've thrown away anything that is still working just fine and felt that pang of guilt before, you'll understand the great thing about Freecycle. Stuff that are still usable gets a longer life-span, and this in turn reduces the amount of garbage that goes into our landfill. Sometimes, you might just need something (doesn't matter the condition of the item), but the price of a brand new one is just not worth it.

We are running out of land for dumping our garbage, which could be

better put to use by recycling them.

Most cities in the world have their own local Freecycle network. You can check for yours through the main website of Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org/).

I've joined my local group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freecycle_kl/). I highly recommend everyone to join too!

Blue sky and green grass. With less garbage dumps in the world, it's not

hard to see this view everyday, everywhere.

Friday, 28 October 2011

Colours of Melaka

The whole Neko family went to Melaka city for a trip recently. As I was looking through my album, I found that the colours of the historic city is so exuberant, that I decided to share them here. If these are the colours I caught with my not professional camera, I wonder how they would look with those high quality babies.

Number two makes me proud.

Finding a Volkswagen mini van in the streets of old Melaka brings me joy.

It is at night that the vibrant colours of Jonker Street comes alive.

World Heritage Park, to commemorate our Melaka City being recognized as a world heritage.

Mr Melaka / Malaysia / World / Universe, Mr Gan Boon Leong, and his fitness centre.

I love this!

Every pillar in front of every shop has its name on it. Love it.

Jonker 88 cendol shop. Arguably the best durian cendol in town, so they say. Seems like the owner is a Chairman Mao fanatic.

We have the same taste for antiques.

Hang Kasturi's tomb. Smack in the middle of shops in Jonker Street.

Stop Hunger Now

Do you know that currently, there is actually ENOUGH food to feed EVERYONE on this planet?

And, do you know that there are still more than 20,000 people dying of hunger every day?

Data on 7:12 pm 10/16/2011

If there is enough food to feed everyone, then why are there still people dying?

The answer is politics. Without a fair government, there isn't sufficient food to reach the people at the lowest level. Ultimately, rich people still rule over the roost of poor. [1] [2]

Fortunately, there are groups that are active in changing that. One of them is Stop Hunger Now. I had the privilege to join them in one of their food-packaging event. Apparently this event has been held successfully elsewhere for quite some time.

Stop Hunger Now website

The plan is simple. Get a large enough venue, get a large enough crowd of volunteers, and Stop Hunger Now will provide with the ingredients and items to pack the food into packets, which will then be put into boxes, and then transported over to places that need help.

Date: 16 Oct 2011, in honor of World Food Day
Venue: Taylor's University (four campuses around Klang Valley)
Goal: 1 million meals packed
Beneficiaries: Somalia and local feeding programs in Malaysia

Ray Buchanan, founder and president of Stop Hunger Now, up on stage giving the volunteers pep talk before the start of the event. You can see the four campuses real time through the webcam. It was fun to see students from other campuses proudly showing us their progress throughout the event.

Volunteers come in all ages. Even kids as young as eight was seen helping. Everyone is required to wear a hair net or cap and use hand sanitizer to ensure the hygiene of the food packaged.

The procedure is easy. Take a packet, put in the vitamin pack, put the packet under the funnel, put in a spoonful of dried vegetables, a cup of dried soy, and a cup of rice...

...then a runner will bring the packet to the sealing team (Puta is in this picture, he's the stupid-looking one :p), who will weigh and seal the packets...

...which will then finally be packed into boxes.It's all very organized, and it certainly works. If you strain hard enough, you can make out a gong on the stage, which was hit (by a kid in our venue) to announce every 1,000 boxes packed.

I think that day, we astonished the Stop Hunger Now team, because we reached our goal ahead of time. And I mean really ahead of time. We were hearing the gong once every 10-15 minutes. They even had to politely stop us, because they want to give the chance for other volunteers scheduled after us. Actually, everyone was having so much fun that we were reluctant to actually stop!

Puta and I only worked for one hour and half, which was pretty short. We'd actually wouldn't mind doing longer shifts, but apparently we hit our targets far sooner than expected, so we were allowed to end earlier. Of course it was a wonderful experience, one that I wouldn't mind doing again soon. Anyone want to join us on the next round?

Saturday, 23 July 2011

The Awesome Designer's List

Phew, the things you can find on the interwebz! Nowadays, you'd most probably wouldn't need a book to learn the ins and outs of designing anymore. And tutorials for making awesome effects are many aplenty!

And then I thought, I need to make a list. And this list will be ever growing as well, if I can find more awesome designer stuff on the webz. Let's just name this list, "The Awesome Designer's List", and leave it at that :D

The Awesome Designer's List - 23 July 2011

Brushes

Free fonts

http://designbeep.com/2009/11/15/stunning-free-fonts-for-professional-designs/

Freelance

http://designbeep.com/2010/01/05/44-must-follow-job-boards-for-designers-and-programmers/

Logo designs

Photoshop effects

Product packaging

http://designbeep.com/2010/06/06/30-product-package-designs-showcasing-amazing-high-quality-package-graphics/

Resume

http://designbeep.com/2010/08/18/54-impressive-and-well-designed-resume-designs-for-inspiration/

Typography

Vector drawings

http://designbeep.com/2011/01/18/70-high-quality-and-very-detailed-adobe-illustrator-object-tutorials/

ver. 110723 - Mostly from designbeep.com. This site has a lot of awesome tutorials and showcases of the best in designing.

Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Diablo Tetris

Hear ye, hear ye, all Diablo fans! In celebration of the upcoming and long-awaited Diablo III, I bring to thee from the wonderful world of interwebs -- Diablo Tetris!

Beware, there be a twist in the game play!

Play with the directional keys : Press up to rotate, press down to move quicker.

Diablo Tetris link

Friday, 17 June 2011

Left 4 Dead 2, Starring - Crazy Dave~~

Today I had a great time playing Left 4 Dead 2. It was my first time playing advanced level on 'The Passing' (single mode); I played 'Still Alive' on a jukebox (not that it was hard, just needs a bit of patience); I saw Midnight Riders' bus drive through, and that was pure luck (it was only my third time playing through the level. I heard some people took twenty times).

And then, this.

Finding out that Crazy Dave, who may or may not be the same Crazy Dave from Plants Vs Zombies, surviving on selling kick-ass stuff in the Left 4 Dead 2 universe -- I could cry happy tears of joy.

Never mind that I managed to startled the Bride Witch by shooting on a propane tank a few feet beside her, and leaving my teammates (albeit all AIs) to die during an attack by a Tank ambush in a bar.

BEST. DAY. EVER.

Monday, 16 May 2011

Samovar (Russian Cafe)

How many of you have eaten Russian food before? Puta and I couldn't resist buying the coupons we saw on MYDEAL, and boy we weren't disappointed.

Samovar, a Russian Cafe that has only opened since several months ago, is located at Solaris Mont Kiara, one of my favorite hangouts.

(A quick Wiki: A samovar "is a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia, as well as in other Central, South-Eastern, Eastern European countries, and in the Middle-East.)

The cafe was quaint, with an outdoor section with a nice KL view, and an indoor section, with a choice of either sofas and coffee table or dining table and chairs. Eating on the plush sofa was difficult originally, but to be able to lounge after a full meal is a plus. That was what we chose.

As we used coupons, our menu selection was limited. However, the pictures look scrumptious enough, and we happily placed our orders.

First up was Borsch soup, the quintessential Russian starter. Borsch is a broth that is usually made of beets and tomatoes, with addition of other vegetables such as carrots, spinach, and maybe even meat. The one we had had a potato or two coupled with cheese and onion, with a few slices of bread to dip. I enjoyed the soup. I thought it was a tasty start to our meal.

Puta was fooling around with my handphone and taking pictures of the soup, but when I checked, there were none at all =.= I had to use this one from Wikipedia, which is pretty much similar to what we had.

Then came the salads. This one is named Olivia Salad, which is made up of chicken, potatoes, eggs and cucumber. Basically it tasted like potato salad, but with a nicer name. No complaints from both of us.

This is Season Salad, a mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage with olive oil. Those sprinkled on top must be bread skins, and the whole dish somehow reminded me of veggie rojak. We think they used vinegar as well, as the dish was tangy and pretty fresh-tasting.

Cooking time didn't take long. My piping hot Manty was served pretty soon. Manti are dumplings consisting of a spiced meat mixture, in this case chicken (with a choice of beef). My first impression was, it tasted a lot like Shanghai xiaolongbau, but with a tougher skin, and less soup in it. The chilli sauce condiment was weird, and I didn't bother with it because it tasted good on its own. Not as good as the Shanghai dumplings, but good enough.

Puta's entree, named Maria pie, was a bit disappointing at first glance. It looked like two thin pita breads, and nothing more. But of course, it was filled (albeit thinly) with cheese, chicken (or you could have it with beef) and spices. Again, with a weird condiment of chilli sauce. What Puta found was, this 'pie' tasted great with Olivia Salad, which I agreed (Maria and Olivia, great children names). The chilli sauce was left untouched.

We originally thought this would not fill even half-way of our stomachs, but we were wrong. Oh, so wrong. Before we could even finish the two 'measly' pita breads, we were already seriously stuffed. That would teach us to never look down on starch, ever again.

Personally, I think the food we had was the perfect combination. It was (very) filling, with the right amount of carbo, protein, and a lot of fibre. Perhaps, if you have the chance to try out the food, you might want to order what we ordered.

Out of curiosity, Puta asked for desserts, and we were shown the only desserts they served in the cafe - eclairs. Not that we were hungry for desserts, but I wished they could have a lot more selections of dessert. Perhaps some Russian pastries?

Would we recommend Samovar to other people? Yes we would. Good food, good environment, friendly staff. The only thing we couldn't be sure was the original price of the food, as we weren't shown the menu. But if some specialty is what you're looking for, then this place is worth the visit.

Samovar (Russian Cafe)

K-01-08, No.2,

Jalan Solaris, Mont Kiara,

50480 Kuala Lumpur

(Google map)

Tel: 016-230 4534 (Zina)

Operating hours:

Mon-Sat: 3pm - 12am

Sun: 4pm - 12am

Wednesday, 4 May 2011

Save Kuantan!

Heard of the Three Mile Island accident? How about the Chernobyl disaster? Surely you know what is going on in Fukushima right now. What do these three have in common? They are all nuclear disasters.

Closer to home, have you heard of the Bukit Merah, Perak incident? This happened twenty years ago on our land. The same thing is repeating itself now, in the year 2011. If you haven't heard of the commotion going on at Kuantan yet, now is the time to learn about it. This is you and your children's future we're talking about.

First you need to understand what is rare earth. Rare earth elements are actually a set of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table that have many important uses. However, rare earth processing plants are notorious for leaving behind radioactive waste. And now, our own government gave the go-ahead for Lynas Corporation from Australia to build the world's largest rare earth processing plant on our precious land.

This article I read has the best summary, which I am going to reproduce here word by word.

"Save Kuantan

I understand some of you in Kuantan will be attending various forums & meetings to discuss / appeal against this sad decision and I guess what I'm trying to do here is to perform analysis of all the available data, try and compile it and provide as much useful information to you guys as possible so you have more than enough facts to fight the case.

As you all in Kuantan already know, Lynas Corporation from Australia is going to open the world's largest Rare Earth processing plant in Kuantan. Rare Earth processing plants are notorious for leaving behind radioactive waste / by-products which contains Thorium - something they say is slightly radioactive, but slightly doesn't mean it's safe, especially the significant amount (22,000 tonnes per year) they will be dealing with at this "largest plant" in the world. In fact this has happened in our country before at Bukit Merah, Perak which is crowned the "LARGEST radioactive waste site in Asia", and due to serious health issues (Cancers, birth defects etc) & pressure from local residents the mine was finally forced to close in 1992 but the secretive $100 million radiation cleanup is still going on until today, quietly not to cause any panic. The Kuantan plant will be the first of such dangerous plant built outside China in the past 30 years! NO other country in this world is willing to allow this sort of plant to be build in their land. Is Malaysia that desperate??? Even in China, the largest of such plant is located in Inner Mongolia, far away from major cities. The Kuantan plant is in Gebeng, only 25 km away. The Kuantan plant is in the final stages of construction and is planned to start operation somewhere between July-Sep 2011. We certainly do not need another contaminated town /toxic dumpsite but if nothing is done about it - Kuantan will be a disaster waiting to happen. Increased low level background radiation aside, possibility of radiation slowly seeping into the air, rivers, sea water & the fishes you eat aside, if an accident / fire / natural disaster ever hit the plant, of it the container ship ever sinks it will be a major tragedy for all people living around the area. The Tsunami in Japan today re-validates this strong point, with major oil refineries caught on fire & nuclear power stations on emergency shutdown fearing radiation leakage caused by damages from the Tsunami hit. Oh, and if they don't store the waste, they are considering plans to recycle the radioactive waste to be converted into materials used for building roads. Either way, good luck!

Don't believe if they tell you that no radiation will be released into the air or water. Maybe not significant amount but certainly not 100% zero, especially when accumulated over time. Thorium has a half-life of 14.05 billion years, which means it emits radiation forever. What the plant will be processing is rare earth dug up from underground, not sure how much dust will be generated in the factory / released into the environment / how much close contact the workers will have with the rare earth dust during processing. What we do know is that the plant will release waste water (equivalent to 3 olympic sized swimming pool) back into the surrounding rivers EVERY DAY. They say the waste water fill be filtered / decontaminated and also the surrounding air monitored for radiation. But who does the reading & monitoring? Someone from Lynas? Someone from the government? Do you trust their readings with your life? The only people you can trust are "independent" environmental scientists hired by the Kuantan community itself. Best to do a baseline radiation reading now BEFORE they start operating, then continue measuring the levels periodically and properly document all results. (If the radiation readings does go up over time then this can be a very powerful evidence to use for future complaints / negotiations / even court cases)

Now the golden question why Malaysia and why Kuantan. There is no way Lynas would be allowed to open this sort of processing plant in Australia, they probably would spend the next 5 years waiting for it to be debated in parliament. So naturally the next best choice is China since it's the "only" Country in the world to be processing Rare Earth at the moment. So Lynas originally applied to open the processing plant in China but China imposed all sorts of restrictions & taxation on them (so as to protect their local industry).

So Lynas had to look around for any other countries willing to allow them to built the plant there. Remember this, NO one else want this kind of dirty work in their country. No one until recently Malaysia, possibly too desperate for foreign investment to a point where the government offered Lynas Corp 12 YEARS TAX EXEMPTION for opening this dirty plant in Kuantan! YES 12 YEARS TAX FREE for dumping toxic waste in our land! And do you know they originally wanted to open the plant in Terengganu but was totally rejected by PAS due to concerns of the people's health & safety there? Makes you wonder how much the politicians in Kuantan actually cares for the people who voted for them. Oh, and the 2 MCA reps who got a free tour of the mining site in Australia back in 2009 (hosted by Lynas of course) and they came back from the trip all smiling and giving the all OK it is absolutely safe, nothing to worry about. So many people in the internet forums have challenged these 2 MCA reps to move their family to Gebeng next to the factory since they claim it's totally safe. So far no answer from them.

Maybe the politicians are thinking it will benefit the local community? What benefit? The gigantic plant only creates 350 jobs (for those who's willing to work in there), and we're NOT charging Lynas any TAX at all for doing the dirtiest work in our land, not for the next 12 YEARS!!! If the Government is not collecting any tax for this huge operation than how is this all gonna benefit the local community???? The profit from the business entity is not public spending money one would imagine.

This might just be a start. Kuantan has recently been designated as Malaysia's first Special Economy Zone (complete with tax exemptions, import and export duties exemptions etc.), all designed to attract super heavy (and sometimes questionable) industries like Lynas to setup plants in the area especially Gebeng & Pekan. The main concern with this tax free bring in whatever approach will attract more and more high environmental risk industries such as Lynas, Toxic Chemical plants, high polluting industries, basically anything that will have trouble opening / operating in developed countries. Also remember first choice for western companies to setup any manufacturing plants will be China. Malaysia can never beat China in terms of cost tax free or not and it's only when China rejects then only we get the leftovers (or riskier ones) like Lynas. And if the local politicians continue to have their way who knows one day Kuantan may even be used as toxic waste dump site for heavy metals, toxic chemicals or radioactive waste coming from developed countries.

But here is something more scary to think about the "possibility" of Kuantan's future. It is already clearly mentioned in the news that Malaysia is planning for Nuclear Power Plants. And remember the waste element generated by the Lynas plant, Thorium? Well it appears that the next generation Nuclear Power Plants being developed runs on Thorium (google it). If you put the 2 together, doesn't it make sense for the government to build Malaysia's first Nuclear Power Plant near the Thorium source, in Gebeng? Scary thought for Kuantan's future isn't it?

Lynas can say they have all the strictest safety policies & procedures in place, but the plant will mostly be operated by local Malaysian (famous for tidak-apa attitude & not the best work ethics in the world). Lynas need to understand that Malaysia is different from Australia in the sense there is not a strong occupational health & safety culture / it's loosely enforced. Unlike Australia where they take health & safety and environmental issues extremely seriously to a point every business is so scared of being fined or sued for the silliest little things. In Malaysia things may be a little more "loose" at times. Malaysian workers sometimes do not follow the rules by the book 100%. A tiny mistake or slacking or someone forgetting a tiny procedure may end up in disaster, especially in dangerous plants like this.

Plus in one of the video news reports below, somewhere it mentioned that it only took MPK (the city council) 1 day to approve this hi-risk mega project. Makes you wonder how much feasibility study, environmental impact & community safety evaluation was done. Or they just based their decision on whatever paperwork Lynas supplied them?

Another key concern is that Lynas in Australia even though a public listed company, is considered small compared to the real big miners like BHP & Rio Tinto. Lynas has been a mining exploration company and this is only their first real mining campaign. In other words they are NOT an experienced mining company with several mega mining projects running around the world. If this is their first real life mining production project, we better hope nothing will go wrong in their first ever processing plant in Kuantan. What's worst they are losing money. Lynas Corporation reported negative cash flow of $23.91m for quarter ended 30 June 2010, possibly because they haven't started making any money. And their dream is to challenge China who already monopolised the Rare Earth industry globally. I guess the point with all this economic data is that IF the business doesn't work out and the plant in Kuantan needs to be closed down, or they decide to move the plant to another even cheaper country then good luck with cleaning up the radioactive waste. Japan's Mitsubishi Chemicals spent $100million decontaminating Bukit Merah plant, not too sure what sort of obligations Lynas has if they go bankrupt / change focus into mining something else.

It would also be a good idea to work with others who are already fighting the case, help educate the public and gather more support from the general population in Kuantan (who mostly may not be as well informed / educated or just plain ignorant). Once there is enough people from the population supporting the cause, everyone can sign a formal petition to the Malaysian Government, Lynas Corp and even the Australian Green Party (who I believe is being contacted by Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh to help pressure Lynas Corp). It is good that the international media is already providing a lot of coverage on this issue and if the signed petition is made known to the media internationally it will be made very very public and it will be much harder for the parties involved to not seriously consider the local residents' petition. Lynas Corp for one will need to be very careful when handling such a public issue as they are a public listed company and the last thing they want after they start operation is for every single cancer / birth defect case in Kuantan after that to be a lawsuit for compensation. Open long-winded public lawsuits like that can't be good for their brand & business and definitely won't be good for their share prices. As for the local state government in Kuantan, the last thing they want is to lose power in the next election so if enough people in Kuantan sign the petition, they will probably think twice before making any further decisions which will make them very unpopular.

Here are some key people already campaigning hard for Kuantan and they really need more support:

Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh

Dr. Jayabalan A. Thambyappa (experienced in the Bukit Merah case)"

Despite the rakyat objecting the project, the plant is being built and set to start operation in July-September, 2011. So much for democracy.

Najib refuses to accept petition from Kuantan residents to stop Lynas

At least, there is still hope among the people.

Puta and Neko's Sweet Home