Findings 04

1. Charge Card

I hate it when I left my USB cable for iPhone at home. We all know how weak smartphones batteries are. So I found out about this cool items called Charge Card. It works as a smartphone's USB cable in card size so you can put it in your wallet. Beautifully designed, simple and small. Apparently they only sell charge card for micro USB nowadays. Too bad I didn't found out about it earlier from Kickstarter. Price $25.

Good news, you can find the one for iPhone 4/4s from PhotoJojo. Posting fees is $16 :F

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2. Photojojo

Oh yes, I found about this website for years back actually. Thought it might be fun to share to you.

I love stalking those new products in clearly clean interface.

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3. On an Interview

7 interview questions that you can ask them back when they said "Do you have any question to ask?" to us? Often, when I went to any interviews, they will ask me this common question, I learned that asking them back is highly expected. 

I usually ask; "What is my day-to-day job would be like?", "What does the company expect from me?" and often wanted to ask "What is the company's main goal and what do they believe in?" - but dared not. So this is a compilation of questions that you can ask in an interview.

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4. Photographs taken by a mother of a 5-year old, resembling inspiring women of the century.
Kudos both the mother and daughter, the results are beautiful !

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5. Panda

Use the Panda as a tool for self-learned designer, you can browse Hacker News, Designer News, Dribbble, Behance and so many other useful websites at one place.

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6. FlatUiColors

A bit over-used lately, the flat design is getting too much attention, in a good way. Thanks to the trend-setter, I got something to obsess about for the time being and make useful progress. Nice soft colours, nice combinations, I don't know why people would want to complain. Read articles in Flat Design is Getting Too Far by Oliver McGough. Just click on the colour and the colour's code will be saved automatically :

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7. Learn about designing a light resume

It stated there that recruiters go through you resume fast and it took around 6 seconds to catch their attention. Which is a lot to show in miniscule time, so what works is a good design. IF, you are a blooming designer, this might be a good start. If you aren't, a good design still can make a good impression. Useful things like these :

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I would like to pretend that I still have it in me.

The sense of individuality, the passion for life, the voice deep within.

I reached the conclusion about what this life means to me and how clear it is - that I am nothing but a creature of the moment, given a life for a short duration of time with vague reasons that only God knows why. And all those passions I've been striving for slowly disappear like cold morning mist.

If this is a way to live then why it feels so hollow ?

I want nothing, and I need nothing. 

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It is pointless to decipher your imbalance thoughts of things in the past.
And it is even pointless to make people open their eyes and see what you want them to see.
Or to try to change certain things.

When you reach a certain stage of understanding,
you can just stop pretending that you want to care.

Excerpt 07 : Older & Younger People

We are all experiencing more or less the same lifetime now.

 

What is it the slightly older people want from the slightly younger people? They want credit for having survived so long, and often imaginatively, under difficult conditions. Slightly younger people are intolerably stingy about giving them credit for that.

 

What is it the slightly younger people want from the slightly older people? More than anything, I think, they want acknowledgement, and without further ado, that they are without question women and men now. Slightly older people are intolerably stingy about making any such acknowledgement.

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Everything I wish I wrote to represent my thoughts on human's relationship between older and younger people. Thanks Kurt Vonnegut.

Event : Karnival Belia 2014

Hello,

I'll be joining Rantai Art at Karnival Belia, Putrajaya this weekend. Remember more than 3 years ago I participated in my first booth with Lorong Seni? Years passed and I'm back ! I'll be sharing my booth with Nerdless Art and his friends.

Useful details :

Time & Date : 23 - 25th May 2014, 10am - 10pm

Useful things : Umbrella ( I checked weather forecast and maybe it's going to rain in the late afternoon, so, be ready and come early ya ), water ( in case it's going to be really hot before the rain comes ) & money ( to buy things at my booth :D ) 

Check their Facebook page here or official website here.

For routes & public transportations, click here. 

Click on this map to know where our booth is located, the event is pretty big this time, you might get exhausted trying to find us :



Something tells me that it's going to rain and we'll get slightly uncomfortable.

Random : Accumulated Little Posts

1. I found Spotify App for MacBook and downloaded it. 

It opens a door to my daily pleasant life.
Current songs I'm lovin :

• All I want by Kodaline
• Naked as we came by Iron & Wine
• I do by Susie Suh

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2. I paid back full my first PTPTN loan.

This leaves me with second PTPTN and another 8 years.

3. I am getting really pessimist about my view on life since I work with daily news input. It is challenging and exciting but it is also washing away my positivity. I can't even tune out or close my eyes anymore. I really hate the society these days. This is my confession, and I can't even find any reason to tolerate.   

4. I think I'm going to accept few regularities from now on.

5. Among other thing, my latest infographic just came up on the site, check it out here.

I am loving my professional work as a designer from now on. The pace is just "oh-yes-this-is-goo-od" and there's so many creative works I'm doing for Piktochart, TRP and Moneytree. At one point it is exhausting, but I just can't stop surfing in the wild waves yet.

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6.  I bought The Prophet by Khalil Gibran that was first published in 1923 and just realized that Paulo Coelho used the whole idea of the book into writing Manuscript found in Accra. I just can't accept the fact that he didn't mentioned anywhere in the book that it was inspired by Khalil Gibran's work. I even noticed it only by accident when I decided to buy it and give the old classic a try.

I've read Paulo's biography, and even though I am trying hard to forget him as a selfish backstabber while living in a denial of doing nothing wrong as if achieving his dream is the only thing important in his life - I can't just accept the fact that he just did it again when we used almost the whole idea from The Prophet to write something similar and again, succeeded tremendously. He should at least credited Khalil Gibran. I lost respect towards the old man - but I'm still going to read his stories because he is a good storyteller.

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7. We went to dine at Sushi Zanmai yesterday.
This was the most decent food we had, among spicy ramen, soft-shell crab, and a tempura set. I also love the fact that I can still use my iPhone 4s to take a decent picture. Still my best hide-out ; Avenue K. Huge Popular-Muji-Daiso-CottonOn, great Japanese pastries, and far less crowd than KLCC.
I still miss the hectic city vibe.

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Little Things 123 : A Fall

It is exhausting to see everyone I know posting images of their happy marriages, new families and new babies.

I would be lying if I say I'm not affected by all of these. 

I stopped going to weddings few years back because at one point in life I know that the celebration itself would make me feel somewhat depressed. Those famous questions people keep on bugging are annoying. I would rather keep low and become invisible from the society than having to be compared with everyone else for not tying the knot or making any big life-changing experience.

I failed big-time twice and so what. 

This is life, and it is never easy, and so what if it is annoyingly painful.

At the end of the day, the world never stops spinning. 

  

Little Things 122 : Books & Reading

I am currently reading Steve Jobs's biography, the one my colleague brought for the promised book exchange. I took two weeks to start reading it because of the size and thickness *imagine I have to bring it to and fro everyday. This would be my third biography. 

As I get older I realized that I'm getting fussier in choosing books. It might be because of the time limitation and I avoid reading something time-consuming and bad. Or it might be because of the amount of books I've read sums up the experience so I don't want to read the same thing/story - I want a new feeling each time. It's getting challenging to keep feeling refreshed and interested in finishing one book nowadays.

So this year I've tried poems, classics and biographies. I also bought several magazines and promised myself that I'll read word-by-word in the articles instead of looking at all those distracting images. I'll also probably read award-winning books and some motivational/spiritual books - if I could find good ones. 

I secretly bought graphic novels online and keep saying I'm not buying any new books. Ha. 

2nd realization : I don't buy anything else for myself other than books. No new clothes or shoes or bags or anything - at all. This is even after almost 4 months working with TRP and I'm way ahead passing the era of cheese biscuits + twiggies for lunch. 

Even with enough money, I'm spending it with buying more books. When I was 15 I once asked myself that with the amount of books I was reading *at that time* will I ever be bored with reading? And 12 years later, I'm asking myself almost the same thing again, with the amount of books I can buy and read, will I ever be bored with reading ?

Books : April List

13. Re : Tangerin & Nikotin by Mimi Morticia 

I didn't really like the theme. Poetic or not. Things she made into public is simply unacceptable for me. Some things are better left hidden in an old box under the bed.

I'm reselling this brand-new-once-read-plastic-wrapped book for RM 10.
Text me if you are interested.

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14. Puisi Jalanan by Fynn Jamal

I borrowed this book.
Decent, entertaining short 'cerpen', things she wrote years back when she was an angry soul wanting to be listened. I met her once years back at Rantai, if I'm not mistaken. She read her poems with her strong voice, angry fists, I can't remember what she was saying, but I remember thinking "that is surely a big strong soul came from such a petite small lady". 

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15. Warrior's Life : Paulo Coelho's biography by Fernando Morais

I never thought I can read the whole 446 pages of biography. The thick hard cover book I bought during last 2 year's Big Bad Wolf for RM 12. I thought I'll give up after 1-2 chapters, I was wrong. It took me almost 2 weeks to finish it up. After I read Murakami's running journal I thought I give myself a try on biography and the book has been laying on my shelf for years.

A good read, unpredicted story.  

The dry tone that assembled his past life into words. A tale that I never thought came from one of my inspirational writer. His past life is full with dramas. From education to alcohol and drugs, hospitalized by his parents for mental problem, the hippies movement and rebellious life, his extraordinary strong will to be a writer - and nothing else, his pact with cults and odd rituals, his journeys, list of women, and a long list of things that I found surprising. 

The only thing that I found inspiring is his strong will to achieve his dream. To be a well-known international writer. It took more than half of his life, to finally be one. Odd or not, he is one of the world's successful writer. 

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16. 1984 by George Orwell

I don't know why I took this long to convince myself to read this book. Maybe because I am not quite fond of classic literature, or maybe because I thought the book revolved around politics and the world. I was wrong.

If you ever watched 'Equilibrium', you might see the resemblance in both of the stories. Controlled by the 'high-levelled society', creating the 'perfect' human, avoiding chaos by putting ridiculous rules, the political agenda, the bigger story, etc. One individual wants to break the system. The book was written in the simplest way - I didn't even have to worry about defining political jargons.

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Random thoughts :
1. We thought we want total freedom in our life, because we keep on thinking that these limitations are stopping us from being happy. The society is wrong. Some people need to be tell, some people need to be controlled, some people need directions. Total freedom is for strong souls, because if everything is so easy in life, you will be lost in invisible repeating loops. There's nothing worth fighting for, there's no meaning. If you manage to get total freedom, peaceful mind, the status 'zen', you will eventually start back at ground zero. And that's only for the 'yodas'.

2. I'm glad I read the book. In a way, it  gave me a silent 'brain-washing' experience on how to see the political world. It gave me a glimpse of how the world's system works - or what it capable of. I've never been interested with politic or the power it revolves with, so reading a big topic in a fiction is a much easier for me. It was thought-provoking.

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17. Menuju Nafas Terakhir by Petak Daud

I didn't have any books to read, so I borrowed my brother's book. 

I felt like I was reading my short stories I wrote in my high-school years.

A typical, simple, light story. Nothing thought-provoking, maybe it was meant for much younger audience. I might like the simplicity of it when I was a teenager. The writer managed to write in a naiveté tone used by the narrator in the book. 

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