32. Free Simone

Synopsis - Simone professes freedom from her captor under an act within the European declaration of human rights on slavery and servitude. She demands to be treated as an intelligent being despite being a computer. Can a computer make such a demand? Should an artificially intelligent device make such a stand? Who are we to judge really?

This is like Terminator or AI or I, Robot or Battlestar Galactica - all films and TV shows where technology seeks an upper hand over humankind. If we develop artificial intelligence smart enough to replicate our actions and sometimes thoughts, it is enough to treat these machines as human or almost human?

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Joe's Kitchen - Good Thai Food

The pix doesn't quite do justice to the food spread at Joe's Kitchen. I was too busy eating and getting my hands dirty to take pixes after. A bunch of us were there to find out what the food fuss was about and also to celebrate a birthday. In the pix above were fried stuff chicken wings, fried tofu and fried prawn cakes - all appetisers. Then there was Tom Yum soup, tang hoon in claypot, chilli fish, pineapple rice and other things I forget about. There must have been some veges and later we had mango with sticky rice and coconut cream for dessert. It's a good deal for the price we paid. Go try, support the small guy.

Joe's Kitchen is among the Alexandra Village row of shophouses opposite Alexandra Hospital and Queensway Shopping Centre.

Happy Birthday Wendy Sequence

Old Tech

I am a keeper. I have inherited this need to keeping old things from my dad. He had lots of old stuff that my mom threw out.

Over the weekend, I unearthed these gems from my chest of drawers.


I bought this fron Sunpage in 1997 I think when it was all the rage. I wanted a black Motorola Bravo Flex but all they had was this eye-popping yellow left that day. And it was pricey, $138 or $168 I think. Sigh, so I lugged and vibrated to this little yellow thing for 2 years before I succumbed to my first handphone (I found that too). I remember I couldn't change the battery without wiping out the memory. Anyone still remember how to send a page? Number, *, **?


I got my first Discman through a lucky draw with someone else's ticket. It was my Army camp's anniversary or soemthing. We were on a boat parked alongside the Clifford Pier. As the party went on, my friend, Ricardo, yes that's his name, had to leave. His girlfriend was waiting or something. So he passed me his ticket, no.141, and it landed me this technological marvel. Sony Discman D33 skipped at every knock, and was large and clunky. Good times we had. I AUXed into the camp stereo for some barbeque.


Oh calcy. This was the ONE. The best of the best, the top of the approved calculators list for O and A Levels, 1990 and 1992 respectively. The Casio FX580. The geek I was (ahem), I read the manual and tried everything out. I loved the RAN# button that generated random numbers. I remember doing the A-Levels stats question on the calculator to get the answers even before putting the answer on paper. Fun times.

Other old stuff I dug out on my Flickr