Despite a difficult draw, she beat top seed Lindsay Davenport in the quarter-finals, and No. 4 seed Maria Sharapova in the semi-finals, both coming back from a set down, only to retire in the finals without much of a fight from an illness.

Justine was so promising in her return to the Australian Open after her absence for the last year.

What a pity, but such is life.

Here’s a pop quiz for all you l33t c0d3rz out there, so if you’re not one then this post is not for you.

I was modding a component for a web application written in PHP and came upon this little problem. The application stores user access levels not in an enumerated type but as a plain string say $usertype. The user levels are in fact supposed to be enumerated say 5 levels: “Administrator”, “Manager”, “Editor”, “Registered”, “Anonymous”, where of course privileges of the higher level would encompass the lower ones.

Now I have to modify a function called has_priv($priv, $usertype) which takes in two strings and return true if the given $usertype does indeed have privileges under the given $priv and false otherwise.

For example, has_priv(’Editor’, ‘Manager’) will return true as Manager is above Editor, and has_priv(’Manager’, ‘Registered’) will return false.

Come up with a quick and easy way to implement such a function and post it in the comments. My purpose is to investigate how different people will solve this simple problem, and to find any cleaner solution than mine. I’ll be posting my solution after I gathered a few feedbacks.

This is coded in PHP but pseudo code with standard functions will suffice. Let’s see your l33t 5k!llz!!!

WelcomB: did you get a tutorial results email from cors?

Enigma: lolz
ignore it, and dun worry
it said u nvr get wad u want rite?

WelcomB: yah i know…
i’m not worrying

Enigma: some glitch

WelcomB: but you confirmed it’s a glitch?

Enigma: pretty much grounds for complain

WelcomB: kekeke

Enigma: i didn’t
i figured
either way, i dun worry

WelcomB: me too… i just wanna see who got it

Enigma: hee

WelcomB: ok let’s blog about it

Enigma: i went to ur blog to see if u had an entry on this though
haha
i went too early

WelcomB: haha
i’m a procrastinator leh

Enigma: exactly

y muz hv a violin playing goat? i too lazy to google

WelcomB: haha…
as in i’m laffing at your google comment

Enigma: i know la!
lolz

WelcomB: cos i told everybody who asked to google

Enigma: lolz
i think at times, we share an uncanny chemistry

Checked my email this afternoon and found an email from CORS with the subject ” Tutorial Allocation Results” informing me that I was not allocated any of the tutorial slots I chosed, which made perfect sense because the round is not closed for balloting yet!

For a moment there I did consider being so suay as to not even get my first choice, which I wouldn’t know what to do now given that I only put down one choice. A quick check at the CORS website does again confirm that the tutorial balloting will take place on Tuesday.

Just when I thought that this time CORS would go smoothly without a glitch. ;P

Received coffee as a souvenir from Osaka from Peiwen. Thought I had to use my french press in club but looking at the box it seemed that the Japanese has thought of everything.

Left in the club office with a lovely post-it stuck on

Drip Coffee Box without the post-it

From looking at the pictures on the back of the box, it seems that each sachet comes with its own filter holder. Tearing one open confirms it.

The bag with its paper holder

Tearing it open at the top

Flipping out the “wings”

Prop it over your cup and just pour water

And when you’re done, just stuff it back into the sachet packet and throw it away. Hassle free. That is if you were careful not to spill any grounds on the table.

Only problem is the flow is too fast so I had to tarik it a second time. And drip coffee aren’t very strong but I guess that’s still ok for most people, but this is really a novelty. =P

面白いですね. Peiwen-さん、ありがとうございます.

It has been raining every day since last year. Literally.

Ubin outing planned last Tuesday was cancelled due to the bad weather in the morning. Was itching to take my bike out since I returned Dongxi’s bike on the 31st. Parents were bugging me to return it months ago and I did promise I’d do it before the new year. Heh.

Wet weather plan wasn’t so bad after all and we got to watch “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D” in 3-D. It really is a kid’s kind of show but somehow it ended up with us “bigger kids” hogging the 3D glasses and watching the entire show while the small ones were just playing by themselves in the room.

Wanted several times to join the “old froggies” outside watching Batman Begins on the big screen but somehow the need to see how “ridiculous” the story can evolve kept us with SB & LG. And the occasional 3D effects like snow and water splashes brought out the childlike awe in us. Plain old kiddish fun.

More rain these days. Back then we would be catching tadpoles in puddles and sailing paper boats down drains. These days it’s just school and work. Decided to go around in shorts and slippers to avoid the discomfort of wet shoes. On the other hand it’s already cold enough to want to cover up, but knowing how much colder wet shoes would be, slippers is a better choice.

Not that I’m complaining. Cold and dry weather is much better than hot and humid. The rare times when I can actually sleep with my windows closed through the morning, only to oversleep and miss the weekly hyp meetings with my supervisor.

I Want To Be Where You Are
Don Moen

D Em7 G
I just want to be where you are,
A G D
Dwelling daily in your presence.
Em7 G
I don’t want to worship from afar,
A G D
Draw me near to where you are.

D Em7 G
I just want to be where you are
A G D
In your dwelling place forever.
Em7 G
Take me to the place where you are,
A G D
I just want to be with you.

Em7 G
I want to be where you are,
A Bm7
Dwelling in your presence,
Em7 G
Feasting at your table,
A Bm7
Surrounded by your glory.
G A
In your presence:
D A/C# Bm
That’s where I always want to be
G A
I just want to be
Bb C D
I just want to be with you.

D Bm
Oh my God,
Em7 Asus-A
You are my strength and my song.
F#m Bm
And when I’m in Your presence,
Em Asus-A
Though I’m weak you’re always strong

Brief background on the song.

Went down to see the admin officer personally. Main intention was not to fight against the wrong information we were given (to which I have attained a piece of incriminating evidence) but more so to gain through discussion a better idea of how the system works. And also to ensure that I can graduate given all the disclaimers on the official confirmation.

So for now we can consider my case settled, and I should be able to FFG hopefully without needing to resort to a drastic showdown.

But the piece of evidence will still be brought up for discussion at the undergrad meeting, not so for fighting any cause but to highlight this problem in the administration and to prevent future disputes.

There are people who wonder why I bother, as this will no longer affect me when I graduate. But you see that’s where all the problem lies. If everybody thinks only of themselves and nobody is willing to inconvenience themselves for the sake of others, the world will then truly be a sad place.