It has been a few months since the last post here. The major thing that has happened in my life is that cycling has become a consistent part of my exercise routine daily. I have tried everything to reduce weight. Nothing sticks better than cycling. I had a Christmas - New Year break over in December - January and I have been cycling consistently and almost daily. When I first went for my 15km bicycle ride back in November, I came back panting, muscles aching, head spinning from lack of air. Basically, my stamina was wrecked. However, what was good, is that the next day I feel better than usual. I thank God that my body heals quite rapidly. It's just my lung capacity was wrecked. I thought to myself that my Body is great, i can ractify my stamina. 

So I set out a plan to start cycling during my break in December. The first week was tough, but because there are not just measurable improvements to my fitness level, there are visible improvements as well. Everything gets better when you start exercising. So i am hooked. I kept going further and further and then the sky is the limit. Yes I have thought about using the bicycle to fly - Human Powered Flights were attempted as early as 1923 : Source: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_aircraft

The more weight I lose, the more I want to ride, the more I want to ride the more I lose. So in just 3.5 weeks. I lost 7.5kgs and in the subsequent weeks, I would lose another 2kgs. I also went further and further. The farthest I have been is 75kms around Singapore, East Coast Area. I also started to prep my bike to tour to Tanjung Pinang and got my panniers and such. Link - http://wecyclesg.com/2012011462-tanjung-pinang-ride-to-elly-kelong This was the ride to Elly's Kelong in Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia. You can read all about it there. The prep lead to me riding to work on a daily basis. More about that later.

Right now, I am planning for another bicycle tour. A one day 200kms loop from Singapore to Johor via Tanjung Pengelih by boat from Changi Village. Will update what, when and who of the trip.

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Intricate moments of passion,
through the posterity of your feelings and emotions
A drop int he ocean of your creativity
Let it fly, Let if fly

Let it take wings, hold nothing back
explore with childlike curiosity
Let go, Let is sink, set it free

Amaze our world, let us feel your soul,
your heart, your desire
your love, your losts,
your joy, your pain,
your journeys, your music

For in your thoughts, words and deeds,
these expressions of lasting impressions
brings life to life

- mf

So that's my excuse. What's yours?

Overheard in the train today, I only caught two words. I am amaze how
the brain works in the whole mambo jambo of a conversation two words
managed to cause my mind to pay attention to it and then in a sub
processing cycle came up with with a whole connection relating to the
human condition (eat your heart our A5+Siri).

The two words were:

"Human Planet"

What the brain derived:

"what would it be like if there is such thing as a human planet, where
only humans exists"

The earth we live in is an ecosystem. The flora and fauna provides us
with food and shelter. What happens when we do not depend on anything
else but ourselves?

Grim thoughts?

Maybe.

But we seem to live like that these days. Like we never depended on
anything in this world.

Each living creature no matter how big or small deserves our respect
even more so these days. We better, before they start building an
immune system for us. Before we become the plague to their existence.

Domo.

Hey guys, Need your help. I want to find out about what makes co-working spaces work in Kuala Lumpur. Please take 7.5 mins to help fill up this survey? Thanx Mike

I saw this on Sunday

Immediately I went to do my research and I have uncovered that there
are quite a number of platforms you can use today and found that the
quadcopter is actually steadier and easier to fly then then actual
twin rotors. I ha to check the range and it seems impressive as I
remember loosing an airplane because the transmitter range was too
short and it flew without a pilot. I never saw it again.

So I found that there are 2 popular quadcopters. The Walkera UFO#5 and
the Conrad 450 ARF. From my research the Conrad is bigger and carries
a higher playload. But I ordered the UFO5 so that I could practice to
fly a quadcopter before mounting everything else on.

Next up I research into the video mount and type of video cameras to
use. As you might have guessed the GoPro Hero HD are possibly the ones
opted by everyone. It records 720p and has a wide angle lens that will
fit most flight video recording needs. However it doesn't like
crashing without it's housing.

Then I knew I had to take care of vibrations and tilt/pan of the
camera. I could always fix it at an angle and let the quadcopter
record it raw or as I found there are actually gyros youcan by to auto
balance the camera in flight. The tough part is getting the proper
mount for it. There is no such guide so I will just have to
experiment. Will post updates to this.

Next up, it would be cool to have a flight point of view. So I have to
attach a wireless battery operated transmitter (like those you find at
a spy shop) to the GoPro Hero HD and broadcast to a a Sony Glasstron
Personal TV viewer.

I would have my own personal drone. Hoping to build it before 11.11.11
where I will be participating again for the one day on earth project.

The Walkera UFO #5 arrived yesterday. Understanding flight controls, I
tried to stabilize the quadcopter so it can just float up. I had all
but 2 mins of airtime and It crashed and broke a propeller. I tried
to glue the propeller back and it held on just enough to for me to
fine tune the controls but it couldn't handle the stress. It keeps
snapping off at a certain height. So I went and ordered parts. Looks
like I won't have the fun of flying this weekend. Below are the
pictures of the quadcopter and the broken propeller.

More updates soon.

(download)

Click here to download:

Video_fly_through_using_a_quad.zip (9.45 MB)

I took a look at my iphone location tracking file. While I would love to dabble into the consolidated.db file and extract all the information and plot it into a map, i rather rely on Peter Warden's iPhone Tracker app found here - http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

If you want to extract your own file you would need an XCode installation to execute the file. Then run it on the computer you have been syncing your iphone with. If you are trying out in another machine, just do a back up from iTunes and the file should be saved in your computer so you don't have to go looking for it on your iphone. You don't even need your iphone to be connected.

After lauching the application, it will read your iPhone Tracking file or Consolidated.db and creates a window that will bring up a map from OpenStreetMap, so you need internet access to view this. It has a player that will play your location based on the timelines.

i noticed that, although it stores all your location, it is not completely accurate and if you look at my locations in Singapore, you will see lots of huge blobs. I suspect that it is because i was underground or in a building. It is facinating to see what has been going on and yet, it reveals very little and they do get some of the locations wrong. I am also wondering if this will get any more accurate if technology enables it. Worse, if apple accidentally allows it.

This is something I want to do. Thanks to the inspiration by photographer Jamie Beck and Motion Graphics Kevin Burg who gave us these amazing pictures:

Jamie Beck calls in Cinemagraphs. I want to create cinemagraphs. I can imagine the possibilities with this and would love to see my own work on digital photoframes. I am finally seeing the possibilities. I am not sure if a digital photoframe can play animated gifs but if it works, i think this is one of those unique things that would make a digital photoframe worth it. For years i never really see the need for one. Now I do.. I need to go claim one that SingTel owes me. 

Otherwise. I will now research into creating an animated gif again. 

For more cinemagraphs

http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph

http://oh-so-coco.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph

Via:

http://laughingsquid.com/animated-gif-fashion-photography-by-jamie-beck/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+laughingsquid+%28Laughing+Squid%29

http://gawker.com/#!5795002/the-art-of-the-animated-gif

Those were the days when we still sailed the 7 seas and the captains have a ship log detailing their journey. In the modern world we call it web log or shorted to (we)B LOG and Television has captivated us with Star Trek whose captain also has a log of their journeys. It is however dated using the stars and called it stardate. I got no idea how that works. Maybe I will just do some research on it and post the inner workings of a stardate. I would love to talk to an astronomer. If you are one reading the blog, let me know if I can do an interview.

So let's dance, you and I. I have not really wrote about my stroke but I have spoken about it. Yes it was a mild stroke. Physically, mentally, asthetically I am fine. The only side effect from the stroke was that I lost feelings to my left side. My entire left side. I am like Harvey Two Face. Maybe I am and some memory lapses. There are days where i know the words but it just doesnt appear. You know the feeling where you know the words but it just doesn't come out of your mouth. There are parts of my memory that seems to have gotten lost somewhere. Faces and names, places and things, conversations. Ok i am going to explain this is a geeky kinda way, where you know you work on a version of a document on a a computer word processing software and then because of a hard disk or power failure you only manage to recover work that you have done up to last week. What you have done from last week up till now is gone. The bits are there, you just need to piece them up together to complete the picture. Some are truly gone, some are a like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle they are all over the place, you just need to join them up so that you get the complete big picture. It feels like that sometimes.

Act 1. This week been a busy week and i am stll uncertain where I will be. Someone is telling me to get out. Move on. Take the plunge and never look back. Need to cut those strings. So I produced another 3 videos I did not post since I was running Twestival. Got the Sony Ericsson Play and Arc Hands On demo out and an Interview with FlickEvents Founder - Yan. Which was recorded sometime back.

Act 2. Preparing for a Bi-Weekly Production of an Indi Musician Talk Show/Showcase. This is a bi-weekly event at The Pigeon Hole - a new cosy joint that I hang out pretty often just because of the company and the homely feel. It will be livestreamed and recorded. Also part of the network that i am producing.This would be the network's biggest live production and the first with a live audience. It will be hosted by Nicholas Chim. This is however not my biggest or the first with a live audience.

Final Act. Interviews, Interview, Interview. Spoken to an Asian German who started about 3 start ups. We started off such an interesting conversation that I decided to let it all sink in and left the recording for another day. It's the 3rd time I met him but the very first time I get to have a more solid one on one conversation with him. It's also interesting to have a conversation on the hardships of entrepreneurship. Unfortunately he won't be back for another 6 weeks. Will catch up with him then and follow up on our conversation and this time in a recorded format. 

I have another interview today. One with a good friend who has started a development house. 

Also I like this post - http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/bootstrapping-with-kids