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Is Sperm Nutritious?

This is for those who cannot decide to spit or to swallow.

Seminal liquid is made up of:

150 mg. protein
11 mg. carbohydrates
6 mg. fat.
3 mg. cholesterol
7% US RDA potassium
3% US RDA copper
3% US RDA zinc
300 million spermatoza

And some people just don't know when to stop asking questions.

[Source]

How to Make a SpeedCube

Cubes that you buy from Toys 'r' Us won't break any records for you. They're tight and hard to turn and "sticky". Sometimes they jam when you're turning them too fast thus breaking your concentration. Good news is, you can easily modify those cubes so they're easier to turn so you can go through your moves faster. It's also less frustrating because smoother cubes are less prone to jamming and they're easier on the fingers.

First you'll need to disassemble your cube. Turn any face 45 degrees and lift the middle piece up. It may take some force but don't worry, you won't damage your cube. If they can put it together, you can take it apart.

Take out all the pieces. Rotating the cube will speed up the disassembly process.

Next, put all the middle pieces together. We'll need to file off some plastics from these pieces. You can use 200 grade sandpaper or a wood file. I personally prefer the wood file because it's way faster.

You'll need to trim these areas. Make them lower by 1-2mm.

This is the face that you must sand/file. See the score/wear marks? They're there because the parts are rubbing together. By removing a bit of material from there, we can greatly reduce the friction.

After you're done filing all the middle pieces, gather all the cube pieces together. We're now going to use silicone lubricant (check the automotive section in any hyperstore) to lubricate the pieces so they won't generate so much friction when they move against each other. The good thing about silicone lubricant is that it is not oily so your fingers won't slip on the cube.

I aligned the pieces so the sticker face won't come in contact with too much silicone lubricant.

Make sure you lubricate all sides of the pieces except for the sticker side.

Then put your cube back together again. Make sure you put it back in the SOLVED position. If not, you'll never be able to solve your cube. Your cube will feel LOOSE but it will not fall apart. More importantly, it will be easier to turn and you'll notice that you can cube faster. Congratulations! You now have a speedcube! Perhaps it's time to read Solving Rubik's cube for Speed?

Unrelated:

Speed brakes activated while coming in to KLIA.

Gunung Gading: Conquered: Part 2

Naturally, after climbing a mountain, we went to grab something to eat at Lundu town and then headed off to Lundu's Pandan Beach.

ET posing for the camera.

High tide. We went looking for a place with more sand.

Story behind the log?

We found it washed up to shore so we pushed it back in. Works as a float.

Love is in the sand.

The spades we bought for the trip put to good use.

See how blue the water is? It's blue because it's deep. How deep?

Tan and Kin Chern are standing on ground. Where I am, I couldn't touch the bottom with my feet.

We were at a cove-like area on the beach where the water is relatively calm and waves are almost non-existent. It's deep so it's good for swimming but the sand is quite rough so attempts to build a sandcastle were not successful.

Pandan beach is a nice place because it's no commercialized so the beach is very much untouched and there's not many people. Good place to wind down and enjoy.

You don't mess with the Kin Chern. That's a coconut in the air. Probably on it's way to Mars right now.

Then it started getting dark and we had to go back to Kuching.

There are 2 places to shower at Pandan Beach. I recommend the one further away from the beach (about 20 steps further, with tiled floors) because it's clean as opposed to the one near the beach which is overgrown with algae. Will cost you 50sen for unlimited shower time.

Was craving for KFC since getting down from Gunung Gading so we went to the Sarawak Plaza KFC after a good shower at home. The lady behind the counter was probably high on something because she was finding it hard to concentrate on what she was doing, pausing all the time to figure out what to do next. When we wanted to customize our order (spicy thighs), she blanked out. In the end she managed to get some of our orders right.

As predicted, I had to rest 2 full days to get the pain out of my legs. My kneecaps felt like they were going to pop out. Next stop: Bako.

Gunung Gading: Conquered: Part 1

People involved: me, Tzy Shih, Tan, ET, Kin Chern.

Our Bako National Park plan was canceled because of fears of capsizing boats. There have been recent incidents and we're not taking our chances especially during the monsoon season so we opted to go somewhere that didn't require the use of a boat.

We decided on Gunung Gading National Park instead.

After a long breakfast with Jas and Angela at Golden Arches (laksa totally overrated), we headed off to buy some spades. And then it was off to Lundu to the Gunung Gading National Park.

Gunung Gading trails. The trails lead to waterfalls and the summit.

The main purpose of the trip was to go hiking. Me and Tan decided to take the trail to the summit of Gunung Gading which is 950m above sea level, compared to Santubong Mountain which is only 810m. Since we have conquered Mount Santubong twice already, we figured that this should be just a bit harder. Damn wrong we were.

The start of the trail to the waterfalls and the summit.

The reason why Gunung Gading is more difficult is because it took us only 2.5hours to get to the summit compared to 4 hours for Mount Santubong. The path was very steep and slippery. It was tiring as hell. Didn't stop much to take photos but there are a few here and there when we stopped to rest.

We're in the clouds. This was taken near the summit.

A very big tree.

We actually took the longer way up, passing by the Sesco water dam, which was the restricted area. The restricted area sign shown in the previous post was located at the end of the trail. So we've went in and came out of the restricted area before knowing that it was a restricted area.

Dam for catching rain water. The water is then piped down through pipes. You can actually hear the water gushing inside.

Gunung Gading Summit, 3.8km from the base camp.

Didn't have much time at the summit because some bees turned up and we decided to make a mad dash down the mountain. I decided to slide down some parts of the trail because it was easier to do so. I'll definitely bring a wok next time for that. I also managed to get ourselves lost because I was descending too fast and didn't keep an eye on the markers on the trees. But we backtracked and managed to find the trail.

While coming down we stopped by waterfall 7.

A waterfall shot with a "rockpod".

And to complete the trip, a macro shot.

We started climbing at 11:50am and reached the top at 2:15pm and got back down at 4:30pm. Total time taken is about 4.5 hours. Seriously, I will not lug around my D40 and the SB600 the next time I go serious mountain climbing. I'll bring chocolates/food and drinking water instead. And studded boots.

But overall the Gunung Gading Summit trail was a good adventure. Not for the faint-hearted though. If you really want to get the thrill of climbing a mountain, go for this. My advice: start early and take your time. Bring lots of water and make sure you have enough food. Travel light.

Coming up: so what happened next?

Backlog

I've been busy yesterday. Some photos of things to come (probably tomorrow):

A car?

Distance from Kuching?

Mountain?

Restricted areas?

Walking on pipes?

How to Watermark your Photos using Photoshop

Or specifically, how to easily watermark a lot of photos without going crazy. Putting your name or signature on your photo is a good way to let people know that the photo/artwork belongs to you. If you put your website URL as your watermark (like me), people will know where to find and contact you if they ever need to use your photo. I started watermarking all my photos since I started shooting with my D40.

So how do you watermark a lot of photos at once using Photoshop? Easy. We use the Actions and Batch function built into Photoshop. The following will teach you step-by-step on how to do this. But before we begin, let me just warn you about the limitations of this method. This method will only correctly watermark images of a fixed dimension. For example, if I programmed the actions to watermark a 640x426 photo, photos other than this size will not be watermarked correctly. To watermark differently sized photos, do it manually instead or create actions that are specific for that size.

First off, open one of the photos that you wish to watermark. I'll use a photo of the 50mm lens. Photo has been resized it to 640x426.

Next, this is a very important step. Take note of the resolution. It's 300 pixel/inch here. You will need to make sure that all other photos are of this resolution. Normally they will be if they come from the same camera. If not, manually set this or you can create another action to do it automatically for you. If the resolution value of the other photos are different, they won't be watermarked correctly.

On the right hand side under the Actions tab, click on "Create new set" (circled in red). If you cannot see the Actions tab, press ALT-F9.

You will be prompted to enter a name for the new set. Here we'll use "watermark" because we're dealing with watermarks. Click OK.

Next, click on "Create new action" (circled in red).

You will be prompted to name the new action. We'll name it as "put watermark" because that's what the action is going to do. Put it under the "watermark" set. Click Record.

Once you click record, you'll see the red record button (circled red bottom right). This shows that whatever you do now is recorded. So now is the time to create your watermark.

First, click on the "Type Tool" (circled red left hand bottom). Type any text you want. Here I'm using "tzywen.com". You can customize your text's size, font using the text toolbar above (circled in red). Once you're done, click on the green tick (circled red right hand top).

Once you click on that, a new layer will be created. Now you can further customize your text using the blending options. Notice that Actions is still in recording mode.

Here I give it a bit of drop shadow so it can be seen under white backgrounds. You can do anything you want here to your text. Click OK when you're done.

Next, go under Edit -> Free Transform. This will enable you to position your text as you like.

For me, I dragged the text all the way to the bottom right corner. You can put it anywhere you want. Remember, this will be the position where all your future watermarks will appear. Once you're done, click on the tick (circled in red).

If you want to put more than one watermark, go up and repeat the steps above. When you're done, click on the square "Stop" button (circled in red). You'll notice that under your "put watermark" action set, you have several actions recorded already.

Now that your action has been recorded, it's time to test it out and put it to use. For this example, I will open up 3 images. All images have been resized to 640x426 (or whatever size you used when you recorded your actions).

All 3 images without watermarks.

Again, make sure that the resolution is exactly the same as what you used just now during the recording. If not, correct it. When changing the resolution value, the image width and height values will change also. Just change them back after you've done changing your resolution value.

To watermark all 3 photos, goto File -> Automate -> Batch.

It will being up this menu. Select your set (watermark) and action (put watermark). Under source, we will use "Opened Files", meaning photos that are currently opened in Photoshop. Click OK.

Tada! You've got all your photos watermarked in just one click! Note the drop shadow effect is present. You can do this for any number of photos that you want provided that they are of the same size!

To make things even simpler, you can create a new action set that saves your photos automatically into one folder. So one click will give you watermarked photos saved in the folder of your choice!

Now whenever you want to watermark your photos, just open all of them up in Photoshop, make sure that they are of the same size (640x426 in my case), goto File -> Automate -> Batch, select the correct set and action (watermark, put watermark), click OK and you're done!

If this doesn't work for you, be sure to check the following things:

Check that the resolution is correct.
Make sure the photo size is the same as the one you used during the initial recording.

If you have an easier way of putting watermarks to your photos, do let me know. I'm always looking for ways to do less work :D

Back in Cat City

I'm drooling over a wide angle Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. Too bad it costs as much as a D80.

Early morning flight got me back to Kuching. The airport was unusually packed. Even the A330 was almost filled to its brim, although I think I did see one or 2 empty seats. Festive season is not a good time to be on a standby ticket.

I hate shooting though glass, it gives a hazy effect to the photo. This is how you should shoot a plane: while sitting on the tow truck.

Uneventful flight. Came back and slept till late afternoon. Dentist appointment tomorrow. BBQ at night.

In the Matrix they used this phone with a auto dialing device that automatically turns the wheel to dial a number. I've bought 2 of these phones to date. Both were in great condition. You can probably get a good one at Amcrop Mall on Sundays for not more than RM100.

And what's Kuching without cats? This cat has used up some of its 9 lives. Was recently squashed by the closing automatic gate because it was taking its own sweet time. But the gap was pretty big. Then again, this is a very fat cat.

I'm back to cubing, thanks to Jas who told me that she's going to start cubing.

Cycling

Ok, I was supposed to cycle to 1U today but I woke up at noon. I have cycled there twice already but I have always wanted to try cycle there on a Sunday morning at 7am just to see the place without all the people and the cars. Maybe next weekend.

So instead in the evening I cycled around my neighborhood. Halfway out I regretted not bring a camera because today's sunset was amazing. Hardly can you see clear skies in KL. So sunsets are normally non-existent.

I took the shortcut way so the whole journey was only 9.5km +-500m. One way to 1U is close to 12km. Now I know why people like to sweat it out at the gyms. Instead of feeling drained and tired and lifeless, you actually feel refreshed after a hard workout.

Time to pack for Kuching.

Death Row

Cool game that I found on one of the blogs but I can't remember which.

My personal best: All stats full! With 100% work ethics, he's generating money like no tomorrow!

My best score for this game: 106520.

Wireless Flash Fun

Virtualmystic came over and brought his SB800 so we can try out some wireless flash. After hours of trying, we're still trying to figure out how the camera sends the flash level compensation data over to the flash units wirelessly. If anyone have any idea please let me know. It'll save me from having to open up a SB800 and spill its guts.

Side illumination. With a few flashes, good combination of lighting effects can be achieved. There's a photo with 2 flashes on either side of the bottle. One firing at +3.0 flash level compensation and the other firing at -3.0. I don't have the photo because it's in the D80.

SB 600 firing at full power.

Bounced from ceiling. Shot with Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 @ 200mm.

Direct flash with wide angle diffuser. Shot with Nikkor 80-200 f/2.8 @ 200mm. I was sitting on the floor shooting at the box on top of my cupboard.