Skip to content

To sleep

From the BBC:

Encephalitis Lethargica was a devastating illness that swept the world in the 1920’s.

It attacked the brain, leaving victims like living statues, speechless and motionless.

During the outbreak, nearly a million died, and millions more were left frozen inside their useless bodies, in institutions.

Noone knew what had caused it, or how to treat it.

Austrian neurologist Constantin von Economo noted:

To look at these patients, one would suppose them to be in a state of profound secondary dementia. Emotions are scarcely noticeable in the face but they are mentally intact.

You may have heard of the disease through the movie Awakenings which was based on a book by Oliver Sacks.

Encephalitis Lethargica also has distinction of being one of the few neurological diseases to have songs inspired by it. Fittingly, the three songs (count ’em: 1, 2, 3) I found online were soporific.

(Link obtained from Neil Gaiman’s site.)

Posted in General.

Comments Off on To sleep

By Gobi – Tuesday, August 10, 2004

To T|E or or to T|E2

I’m having second thoughts about getting a palmOne Tungsten E as My Very First PDA.

Now I will concede you tend to get a distorted idea of the quality of hardware (or software) when browsing online forums because posts complaining about problems tend to outnumber posts gushing about how the product works flawlessly and as advertised.

But I find it interesting that there are a couple of T|E owners (1, 2, 3) who’ve gone through three or four units in the 10 months the model has been available. I suppose that’s encouraging in the sense that T|E owners are sufficiently impressed by it to get another unit and it’s alarming in the sense that the model seems to have serious enough flaws to warrant replacement.

(The negative reviews on Amazon are particularly dismaying. I’m suspicious of some of the reviews, though. One reviewer claimed [screencap] to have removed the batteries from his T|E after having problems and that’s fishy because the model has a single battery and replacing it requires a soldering iron.)

Aside from the screen buzzing problem I mentioned earlier, there are reports (1, 2, 3) of the navigator button being flawed and furthermore, the model seems to have a data corruption problem (1, 2) when syncing data with some third-party apps.

The database problem doesn’t bother me since it’s highly unlikely I’ll be using any third-party database applications. (I doubt I’ll be relying on the T|E’s PIM functionality all that much.)

The hardware problems, on the other hand, do worry me. However, I’m encouraged by the fact palmOne Malaysia is offering a one year warranty—oddly, palmOne USA is only offering a 90 day warranty—and replacing a defective unit seems relatively straightforward.

I could opt to wait for the rumoured follow-up to the T|E. According to scuttlebutt, the T|E2 will have a 320×480 screen and it will include Bluetooth connectivity. Is there anything to the rumour? I think so. The T|E2 rumour popped up at the same time as the Zire 31 rumour and the latter was released four months later. Will Palm release the T|E2 in October? It would mark the one year anniversary of the T|E and the current T|E promotion—an attempt to sweeten the deal to get rid of existing stock?—ends in September.

I’ll mull things over the next few days before making up my mind. This is going to set me back 200 or so dollars and I want to be sure before I plunk down the moolah.

Posted in Uncategorized.

Comments Off on To T|E or or to T|E2

By Gobi – Monday, August 9, 2004

Reyes catches the eye

Ah, it begins anew.

John Dykes is as enthusiastic as ever.

Shebby Singh is still overusing the phrase “very, very.” (Everything is very, very this and very, very that.)

Steve Darby is still dour.

Martin Tyler is, as ever, a pleasure to listen to.

Andy Gray, as always, does a disturbingly good impression of a Japanese man slurping his noodles whenever he breathes loudly.

And the match itself? Well, humble pie was served but sadly, it was United who had to swallow it.

Reyes starred as Arsenal beat United 3-1 (pix) to lift the FA Community Shield. It was sobering to see United torn apart by some young Arsenal players. Fabregas, Clichy and van Persie might not be household names just yet but they will be soon enough. The Gunners could have scored six if their forwards were sharper in front of goal. Reyes somehow conjured up a strong candidate for Miss of the Season in the very first match of the season and that was after the man-of-the-match did brilliantly to get into a goal-scoring position.

United, on the other hand, looked very ordinary out there today with two exceptions. The first exception being Smith’s fantastic volley for United’s only goal of the match. The other exception was Bellion and his mutant-like ability to get caught in offside positions.

I don’t think August and September are going to be pleasant months for United fans. United should be much stronger when van Nistelrooy, Ronaldo and Ferdinand return to action but until then it looks as if the team is going to struggle. And even at full strength, I feel the current squad lacks the kind of creativity and unpredictability necessary to win the Champions League. Ferguson needs to spend when the January transfer window opens.

Posted in Football.

Comments Off on Reyes catches the eye

By Gobi – Monday, August 9, 2004

Storming end

The Tournament of Champions came to a premature end when the United-Urawa match was abandoned because of adverse weather conditions. Ferguson noted it was the first time in his long career he had a match cancelled due to lightning. It was also the first time I had a live telecast of a match cancelled on me after I had stayed up until 4 a.m. for it. (Oh, how the expletives flew.)

Looking on the bright side, United’s players will be fresher for Sunday’s Community Shield match against Arsenal. The season curtain-raiser might be meaningless on the grand scale of things but I’m looking forward to United feeding Arsenal some humble pie.

United will have to attempt that without some big names, though. Van Nistelrooy is out for four weeks and Ronaldo is on Olympic duty. This is an opportunity for Saha and Smith to prove their worth to the manager. Both strikers are strong in the air but I’m concerned they might not get the kind of the supply they’ll thrive on. Here’s hoping Giggs and Fletcher have practised their crossing.

Posted in Football.

Comments Off on Storming end

By Gobi – Saturday, August 7, 2004

Dust and shadows

This is why I need to clean up more often:

Dust

I completed the first NWN expansion, Shadows of Undrentide, today. I was expecting it to be longer than it actually was (20+ hours according to the manual) but I can’t complain much.

How does SoU compare to the others? I think HotU>SoU>NWN sums it up nicely.

I was keen on trying out the Prestige Classes introduced in this expansion and gave the Shadowdancer a try for my first campaign run. I was a Rogue 7/Shadowdancer 6 at the end of the game and I found the Rogue’s abilities much more useful than the Shadowdancer’s. The Hide in Plain Sight feat, which the Shadowdancer gains at the first level, does lend itself well to the kind of hit and run tactics the Rogue specialises in but I didn’t find the Shadowdancer feats gained at higher levels particularly useful. I ended up relying heavily on the Rogue’s stealth attack ability and this meant I was often in trouble when faced with opponents who weren’t susceptible to that. Fortunately, my henchman of choice, a dwarven Rogue 4/Cleric 9, proved to be quite helpful in those situations.

Technically, the game ran fine with the exception of one area in Chapter 2’s Crypt Tower. The area in question is quite large and featured a maze with walls that would randomly disappear and reappear. It was an interesting design but it was so resource-heavy the game almost became unplayable.

Posted in Games, NWN.

Comments Off on Dust and shadows

By Gobi – Thursday, August 5, 2004