Ok, better get this post up before IE9 Beta hits and I miss my chance for doing it. The recent IE9 Platform Previews have demonstrated that MS is able to put new features and enhancements into IE just as fast as Chrome and Firefox can. Contray to how people has always viewed IE as being the slowest to evolve and react to changes in the web landscape.

But how was this possible? It was because the IE9 preview was deployed as a separate app, instead of upgrading the internal browser component that is in Windows. AFAIK it's a Microsoft policy that if you fix or update something that was delivered in the core Windows OS, you'll have to run a full test suite AGAINST Windows OS again. This would severely hampers speedy updates and feature enhancements such as needed for a web browser.

With Windows 7, a bulk of non system essential apps were already decoupled in the form of Windows Live Essentials. While leaving the core Windows 7 with some basic tools, this allows the programs that make up Live Essentials to be updated faster and without the bulk of testing that's required if it was considered part of the OS.

So.... what if IE9 was delivered as a separate program as well? Moving forward, what if IE8 becomes the standard included browser that comes with Windows, and then on install, you get to choose IE9 as well as the other browsers from the browser candidate screen (*sarcarsm* Thank you EU *sarcarsm*) to use the latest and greatest web technologies vs the standard no frills browser of IE8.

IF this does happen then most likely for us developers who use the IE browser component in our applications, we'll be given a COM shim that's about to use either IE9 if it's installed, or previous versions of IE if it's not.

It's an interesting scenario and proposition when I think about it... cause if IE9 does sit outside the "Included in Windows" category, the ability to quickly add features and functionalities to it would make it a browser to be reckoned with.

This is just my guess of what might happen. We'll know on September 15th 2010 when the IE9 Beta is launched to see if my prediction is correct.

Of course.... it's possible someone already mentioned this before, but I thought about this idea the moment the first Platform Preview was launched, just took awhile for me to write this.

It's time for another Marauderz movie rants, this time for the current Best Movie Of The Year candidate Inception. Ok... so for those of you who are still planning to see this movie, you need to stop reading NOW.

Ok...

Seriously.. this is the last line of spoiler warning I'm giving you.

Ok... let's go. Here are my rants about the movie that everyone seems to be calling bloody fantastic.

• Cost Of Dying In The Virtual World - When I heard of the basic premise of the movie, I immediately brought up a list of things one would put in a movie like this, on top of that list. YOU DIE IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD, YOU ARE SCREWED. My thoughts were put at ease in the beginning when they said that dying would just wake the guy up, but HELLO... SUPER STRONG DRUGS FTW!!! I'm personally super sick of the notion that if someone made some kind of virtual world system which you plug into and experience that they wouldn't TRIPLE check it to make sure that a hard disconnect wouldn't just leave you disoriented.
• Spending a lifetime in a shared dream - Wow.. what a great concept... spend a lifetime in a dream, building the world with your every thoughts. But wait a sec! Weren't we told that the subconscious projections, the white blood cells, they're able to sense the intruder, and even if they aren't highly trained military assassins whose aiming is as good as a storm trooper, they'd just maul you to death like a pack of zombies. Of course... some would argue that limbo is DEEEEEEEEEEP within the subconscious and thus there are no projections. Ok... that leads me to the other rant
• A lifetime to build a world with your imagination - You spend 50 FARKING YEARS in a virtual world which you can mold with your VERY THOUGHTS, and all you could come up with was a plain cityscape that Wall-E could have made? COME ON!!!! A couple of dreamers... happily in love with each other (at least in the oh... first 10 years?), able to build with their VERY THOUGHTS!  And all we get are plain, gray skyscrapers?!?! Gheezzz.. where's the giant Ferris wheel the size of KL Towers (at least) Where's the weird buildings which... oh... never mind I want this to stay PG... SEE!!! I just put a picture of a structure which you could build in your imagination... But what do we get with this pair of idiots? Skyscrapers... plain..  gray... skyscrapers..
• Tourists - "I need to come with you to ensure you done the deed" First of all... you CAN'T ensure the deed, after all. They're supposed to be planting an idea, how it actually matures from there you can't guarantee that. Second of all, You didn't actually witness the deed cause you were DEAD! SLEEPING! LIMBO!!! Oh whatever...
• The Ending - Like my brother said the moment De Caprio pulled out the top "As if you didn't see that coming!" The top kept spinning at the end. Here's how that ending could have been made much much better, and all it would take is just a few more seconds, show the top wobbling yet about to fall, but doesn't. Then get someone to knock it over. You can STILL build a sequel from that if you wanted to but at least it's much better a book end. Oh.. that little after piss shake the top does seconds before the fade to black doesn't count.

First Avatar... now this, why do I have this feeling I won't be able to

On a side note, there was a little scene over at GSC Tropicana City where a father who brought in bread for his child to eat got acosted by the staff on their no outside food rule. Dad got so pissed he flattened the bread, mom got scared, son was heard screaming that he didn't want to go in and watch the movie anymore.. Seriously GSC... it's just for the kid. COME ON lar!!!

I had to go to a team building camp recently.... I HATE team building camps. To me it's more like having group therapy about how to best work together than anything else. Something which I feel should be possible to do without having to go through some painful and excruciating exercises. We went to this place called the Eagle Ranch resort, which according to Google Maps is here.

View Larger Map

At least it's there when you search for it in Google Maps, it's actual location is SOMEWHERE near here.

View Larger Map

This error caused one person to get very very lost trying to drive there himself.

I got the shock of my life when I entered my 'room' for the first time.First of all, it looks nice and cosy like a little bandwagon on the outside.

But on the inside, well I'll let this Photosynth tell the story. (Which surprisingly I got it to be 100% synthy even though that wasn't what I was trying for)

Summary is... it's a damn small room, with a PADLOCK acting as a door lock making it very inconvenient to be stone drunk and your roommate not wanting to sleep yet.

Anyway before heading for this team building training I told myself I'm gonna do my best to gunk up the works of the events as much as possible. So I ensure I had all my tools on me in preparation for whatever task they threw at us. In one event where we were supposed to use anything on ourselves to form as long a line as possible, well... even though I brought a TAPE MEASURE with me, we weren't able to beat the team which brought a COIL of rafia string.

But... in the event in which we were supposed to use 3 opened ended pipes with holes in them to fill up a barrel of water. I waited for the organizer to say "You may use anything on your body to plug up the holes" Before producing my portable duck tape roll and proceeded to sealing up the holes in the pipes. Unfortunately I couldn't do a better job of it because as I was finalizing the seal on one of the pipes I cut my finger on it, the person who prepared the pipe didn't bother to smoothen out the cut edges of the pipe and left sharp edges on it. Which can easily cut whoever was handling the pipe in a hurry. I learnt that at least one other person also got cut by said pipe.

Did I have a fun time? Well I can't say I didn't feel a slight sense of satisfaction when I saw the expression of the organizer's face when I produced the duct tape from my pocket! But overall I still hate team building events and I really don't understand why anyone would think it's a good idea to submit the general populace of a company to competitive events that might well likely to get hurt or injured in. :P

After how everyone who went to saw the movie was twitting about how great the film was, bla bla bla. I finally caught Avatar today and boy was I disappointed! I wasn't expecting cinematic gold here but I was so surprised when Dances With Wolves kept coming up in my head as I was watching the movie. As my brother mentioned this was from the "Go Native" formulae of the movie playbook. ie. Guy comes from one advanced background, joins up with native people, learns to love the land, love the chick, then choose to fight against his own people.

Ooops, did I just spoil the movie for you? It's not like you wouldn't have seen how the story was going to end coming from a mile away.

From my twits I can see how people keep talking about how great the graphics are, and how James Cameron DESIGNED AN ENTIRE WORLD to fit the story in. I play next gen video games so seeing entire lush beautiful worlds that have been DESIGNED for the story? I see them all the time.

Since the pretty pictures can't distract me from concentrating on the story. Here are my nitpicks following in the vein of my Star Trek nitpick post. Oh yeah... stop reading if you want to try and spot them yourself.

• The humans keep talking about how dangerous the planet and the people are. It makes you think that the humans have been fighting the Navi for at least 10 years. (one way trip to Pandora takes about 5 years) But considering the technology gap (We're talking poisoned arrows vs armour plating here) and the WAAAAYY too well equipped military force the humans have you'd have to wonder why the humans haven't already WIPED THE NAVI OUT!! ALL OF THEM!
• Since they were talking about how dangerous the Navi are... do we hear of Navi raiding parties on the mines? Do we see guerilla assaults on the mines by the Navi?
• It is mentioned the Navi are hard to kill, hmmm a few bullets seem to do the trick. When the humans were fighting the battle never once did you see this Navi that's pretty hard to kill actually getting an upper hand.
• Rape a dragon into submission so you can ride it... What a nice way to put it. (Why rape? Our censors spared it for us but think about the hair connector for a second. First time Sully plays with it Grace says "You'll go blind if you touch it" The act of connecting 2 connectors is called a link. If there was a way for 2 creatures to share a bond greater than physical, how do you think they'll have sex?)
• A venerable FLEET of flying dragons vs a FLEET of helicopters with vulnerable propellers, and the best tatic Mr Marine could come up with was slam into them and hope you can toss the helis aside? I was expecting death from above, rocks, tree trunks... Heck.. even the Ewoks tried to throw rocks at AT-STs! I can't believe I just said the Ewoks are better than something!
• "We are familiar with these lands" but instead of planting traps to try and entrap the giant mech suits approaching your hideout. You decide that the best tactic against mobile artillery with escorts is a cavalry charge? But you don't even have HORSE ARMOUR!
• Against an enemy that's holding out in an OPEN AREA, you decide that even though you have SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGICAL advantage against your enemies you'll just charge straight into their front door and BOMB THE PLACE TO HELL! Even though you know that that area is strategically disadvantages to you. You have SPACE FLIGHT capability, ever heard of Orbital Bombardment or heck just mere Kinetic Bombardment. You want shock and awe? Isn't a MESSAGE FROM THE SKIES shock enough?!?

Yes.. I'm just disappointed with the flick.

ps. In case you're wondering I didn't lookup on anything about the movie before watching in. So I had no preexpectations of it.

An XML Schema is a contract you don’t change it whenever you feel like it without telling people. And if you still don’t understand the rules of XML, like being case sensitive… only have one root node.

GO GOOGLE IT!!!!

FUCK!

KFC isn't alone in the bastardization of their food, here's McDonald's contribution to making you hate them.

This year they decided to put the burger in a cardboard box, along with a sheet of err... was paper? What a BIG mistake!! The prosperity burger is a dirty burger, it leaks, it drips, and it doesn't help that during preparation they get the pepper sauce all over the bun.

The full paper wrap made it a much easier burger to eat than it is now.

This is a Wacom Graphire 4 Digitizer Tablet, but of course you can't be blamed if you can't tell since it seems to be still wrapped in it's shipping packaging. It's hard enough to read the box to see what it is, and it's impossible to read the features list off the back of the box.

When I told the workers that I needed to take a look at the box and thus I needed to rip up the shipping packaging. He said "we can't open it unless you want to buy."

Wait... you mean it'll be like a lottery then? I buy something that I don't even know exactly what it is?

Ghheeeezzz....