Vader goes to Japan

Recently there seems to be a flood of home made short clips and movies featuring Darth Vader in funny roles and situations, onto the internet. It seems that Vader has lost his direction and is aimless wondering around and re-building his goal in life. We see Vader as a supermarket manager, a father, etc...

These 2 hilarious clips features Vader in a japanese police station.

The Love of the Cross

This is really touching and good. The music flows with the scene.

Dear frens, I can identify with that big robot. Having someone close that is dying slowly, it is heartbreaking and extremely painful. It affects my soul and bone, and eats away at everything I had created and save up for. It becomes unbearable when you finally understand that there is nothing you can do to save the situation. Day by day, bit by bit you see everything melting away. Until memories are left.

Memories too can become diluted, when the waves of time finally washes whatever markings and treasures from the sand.

Only the maker of the world is permanent and all-loving.

Jnana

There is a new and interesting software in town, by the name of Jnana. According to the description at its offical website, Jnana offers non-programmers to build applications that provide guidance and advise online. This is actually tapping into the power of congregated expertise and putting them in consultant booths online for greater accessibility by the general public. Everybody is an expert in something, some in C++ development, some in accounting, book keeping, cooking pasta, baking cookies, sex, hitching a ride, kung fu, sweeping the floor, ballet dancing, complaining to your credit card company, cars, dogs, reptiles, etc, etc. And by allowing such individuals to create applications that web sufers can called-up and tap into, this will really bring the internet into a higher level of content provision.

Now what makes this all the more interesting is that Jnana is now available in Second Life! Yes! That is great news to us Second Lifers. According to the this writeup of the Second Opinion newsletter, Jnana in SecondLife will allow players to build virtual booth, selling real life products and providing advices and research to buyers. Taking a quote from the article in Second Opinion newsletter :

"Let's say you're advising someone who wants to buy a digital camera in your store in Second Life," Fred says. "They're trying to decide which camera is right for them. As it happens, you're passionate about digital cameras and have done copious research in the process of purchasing your own." Jnana allows you to upload your own research as an interactive questions/answers system which then prompts visitors with questions related to your topic.

In the case of the digital camera store, Jnana asks your new buyers questions such as: "Will you be using the camera for business or personal photos?", "Will you be taking photos mainly indoors or outdoors?", and "Will you be filming action sports or still-life?". All of those questions help identify the right kind of camera for the person making the purchase decision. So that individual benefits from all the research you've done. It's like a personal recommendation coupled with expert knowledge, which is what makes it so valuable."

My guess is that this will open up more business opportunties to business who wants to exploit virtual active worlds, and Second Lifers who wants to cement their virtual assets to real world operations.

Of course, in my next login, Limkopi will be flying down to the Jnana Island for a look. Hopeful I can fixed up a booth of some sort and start my operations.

A Lack of Time and Breathing Space.

It had been such a busy time for me during these few months. Except to post a few interesting YouTube videos on this blog, I have had the time to sit down and run proper articles. I don't even have the time to write articles for the now 2 month old site www.workingtribe.com .

So much had happen within these months. Here in Singapore, we were sadden by the man who jump down the MRT (subway) track, killing himself, so that attention can be thrown on him and his family's plight. Apparently his family were suffering from extreme poverty, with sickness and much emotion distress. When all efforts on seeking help proved to be without avail, the man decided on the ultimate sacrifice and end his life in a rather terrible manner to bring the society's spotlight to his family. This man really broke and touched my heart. His love for his family put him in the number spot for any heroic fatherly figure position.

One the other side of the scale, a rather immature Wee Shu Min made the headlines (at least on the net, not the mainstream news) when she shot a rather arrogant reply to a heartlander, Mr Derek, who was commenting on some of the difficulties of maintaining a living in modern Singapore, where the standard of living is rising rapidly, and job security is dropping the other way down the axis. In her reply, she bombarded Derek, mocking him and picturing him as a whining lazy creature, with the language in her article reflecting her thinking as an "elite", rich, and on the high side of the local society. What made the matter worse was when her Minister father declare in the local newspaper an apology, and also that he "stand by her view". This placed the local blogosphere into Defcon 1, with retaliation from almost every single major and popular, local blog account. People seemed to be more taken back by her father's reply and stand rather than his teenage daughter's blog article.

On the international scene, North Korean had detonated a nuclear explosion, almost putting the North-East Asian backyard into a cauldron of high blood pressure responses. Even long time ally, China, was rethinking on their position and some news even reported that China had dispatched additional troops to their border with North Korean. Apparently more concern with an influx of refugees, should the regime implode, rather than to create an invasion threat.

Finally we have the mid-term US elections. And boy oh boy, the evil gang of grouchy old men, the so call neocons, finally have their power broken. Many of these powerful, rich, and heavily backed figures were from the "secret society" like (at least in terms of idealogy and thinking) organisation, The New American Century, which avocates militarisation and turning the US into a hyper-power, and putting down all threats and nations in its path, through military, economical, or political means. The organisation thinks that american leadership is good for the world, which seems to put them on the same nut-case mentality as the Emperor in the Star Wars series. Fortunately, with the vast and almost total swing of votes to the Democrats side, the senate is now finally secure by moderates, and the world can now finally breathe and hope for a much saner, fairer, and peace-oriented US foreign policy to kick in. Puppet figure, George W Bush, can finally detached himself from his puppet masters, and shift into a more moderate gear.

Ha, so much for writing about current affairs online. Now to find the time to write some inspiration articles ...