Thursday, June 24, 2010

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The drama of Shifting

Yesterday I finally managed to shift to my new place after soloing the moving efforts of packing and ferrying my essential stuffs such as my PC. Lots of drama but I THINK I've finally settled down a little more calmly...

Although I'm in the computing industry and I know that the computer is dumb and its just a box of electronic chips and circuits, sometimes my PC tends to let off some kind of "fear" aura which makes me think its got a mind of its own and its out to play a fool of me! I have HORRIBLE experience in "Migrating" PC's from 1 physical location to another physical location. (Note I used physical because I'm not referring to my divestment project when I migrate machines across domains!).

In all my experiences of migrating desktops physically, every time they arrive at their destination, they would almost certainly refuse to start, or would start and crash! From JB to INTI Hostel, it refused to start because the RAM was loose. Ok, thats simple to diagnose and fix. Then from INTI Hostel to Desa Casuarina house, it refused to start again. This time, it was the power supply, so I have to replace it. And then from Casuarina house 1 to house 2, it refused to start again. If i remember correctly, I think the Graphic card was loose.... And that was my Hyper Threading PC, the blue I-Cute casing.

So okay, when I started work at Shell, I bought a new PC as well after a couple of months. This time I changed to a Cooler Master casing, in hope that I don't get "Loose" problems. When I was moving my PC to my new place, I thought to myself... "damn... got a feeling the PC's gonna screw me up again...".

And damn I was right! Stupid PC! After several hours of messing around my PC, I managed to fix my OS, fix my DVD Rom, fix my display.. However.... I have to declare the death of my Leadtek Nvidia GeForce 8800GT...

Thanks for serving me the last 2-3 years and wasting my 800 bucks! >.<

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Drunk Parrots aka Lorikeets

Source : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article7142337.ece

It is usually the locals who go ‘troppo’ during the tropical wet season in Australia’s Northern Territory, however this year it is the native parrots.

‘Drunk’ red-collared lorikeets have been found stumbling around, falling out of trees, or simply passed out around Darwin after being struck down by a mystery illness which causes them to display classic signs of human drunkenness.

Concerned locals have discovered the ‘pickled parrots’ all over Darwin’s roads, yards and parklands and taken them to The Ark Animal Hospital in Palmerston, where veterinarians have been treating up to eight birds a day for the past few months.

“They act quite like a drunken person would,” Lisa Hansen, a veterinary surgeon at the Ark Animal Hospital told The Times.
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“They stumble around and are very uncoordinated. Some have even fallen off their perches in the aviary.”

Earlier today one of the lorikeets was found in the bottom of an aviary at the clinic leaning up against the mesh.

“He looked just like a drunken person leaning against a wall to keep himself upright,” Ms Hansen said.

Another glassy-eyed bird was lying on the floor of a cage, looking like he had just had a big night out. Others have been found with their heads under paper seemingly trying to block the world out, or wandering aimlessly around in an apparently intoxicated state.

Ms Hansen said another symptom of the bizarre illness which is similar to human drunkenness was the change in attitude of the usually “obnoxious” birds, which suddenly become “really friendly and jovial”.

They also appear to suffer hangovers – including headaches, disorientation, lethargy, and feeling generally unhappy – for a few weeks after they are sick, and some take months to recover. Others have died from the illness.

Ms Hansen said there are many theories about the cause of the mystery illness – which Darwin vets have dubbed the ‘drop lorry’ or ‘drunken lorikeet’ disease – including fermented nectar from a plant they are eating, or an outbreak of a mystery virus.

Veterinarians at the Ark Animal Hospital, a community clinic which is seeking donations, feed the lorikeets the equivalent of avian hangover food: sweetened porridge and fresh fruit. They then care for the birds until they are ready to be let back into the wild.

According to Ms Hansen, the drunken lorikeet phenomenon regularly occurs at the end Darwin’s wet season, which typically lasts between November and May each year, however this year there has been an increase in the number of birds that have appeared sick, with over 200 treated so far.

Red-collared lorikeets are a native bird of northern Australia and are a sub-species of the better known Rainbow Lorikeet. The red-collared bird, which is distinctive for an orange stripe over the nape of its neck, is found in the Northern Territory, the north of Western Australia, and far north-eastern Queensland.