Piece be with you

In America, where gun rights are almost a religion, one should not be too surprised to read this report:

Gun-loving pastor to his flock: Piece be with you

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.

New Bethel Church is welcoming "responsible handgun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a Saturday. An ad says there will be a handgun raffle, patriotic music and information on gun safety.

This headline goes straight into my Headline Hall of Fame. Kudos to the writer or editor!

Also, who could resist gun-toting pastors?

UPDATE: My pal Riggy, an arms expert of sorts, has identified the pastor's gun as a Walther P99. It seems the pastor has James Bond aspirations! In recent Bond movies, this gun has replaced Bond's classic Walther PPK.

(AP Photo/Aaron Borton, The Courier-Journal, Story by By DYLAN T. LOVAN, Associated Press Writer)

"New Media" Business Template

This Non Sequitur comic strip by Wiley Miller nicely summarises the problem with many "New Media" business models.

(click on the thumbnail for the full strip)

Don't forget to deduct your balls

Sorry for the crude headline, but I couldn’t resist ;-) If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, don’t forget the new tax deductions for sports equipment, following the amendments for 2008. By “sports equipment” I am assuming that LHDN (Inland Revenue Board) means items like tennis racquets and tennis balls. In fact, the LHDN website specifically mentions golf balls and shuttlecocks.

From the LHDN website:
“An amount limited to a maximum of RM300 is deductible in respect of expenses expended by the individual for the purchase of sports equipment for any sports activity as defined under the Sports Development Act 1997. Sports equipment includes equipment with short lifespan e.g. golf balls and shuttlecocks but excluding sports attire, e.g. swimsuits and sports shoes.”

Among the sports covered in the Sports Development Act are tennis, football, basketball, badminton, golf, and squash. In all, 39 sports are covered (see below).

Unfortunately, the new exemptions exclude sports attire; the LHDN notes (see below) specifically exclude swimsuits and sports shoes! So you can’t deduct those Hush Puppies or Manolo Blahniks (nice try). That also means you can’t deduct that Speedo Fastskin LZR Racer swimsuit that you bought (as used by Mark Phelps, et al. Costs around RM2,200).

I was also quite amused by the inclusion of shooting and archery in the Sports Development Act. If I’m reading the LHDN exemptions right, that means you can deduct the cost of bullets and arrows!

Remember that you will need to have receipts for items you want to deduct, plus you’ll need to keep them for seven years. If all you have are the credit card receipts, remember to photocopy them, because they have an annoying tendency to fade over time.

Here are some useful links:

LHDN: Explanatory Notes for BE form 2008 (Income Tax of an Individual, PDF file. It’s in English!)
http://www.hasil.gov.my/english/pdf/Explanatory%20Notes%20B%202008.pdf
Go to this section:
D8C - Purchase of sports equipment for any sports activity as defined under the Sports Development Act 1997. Also check out the other sections for stuff you can deduct.

Sports Development Act 1997 (PDF file)
http://www.parlimen.gov.my/actindexbi/pdf/ACT-576.pdf
p. 23 has a list of activities regarded as sports for the purposes of the Act.

Your tax queries answered (The Star)
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/3/22/focus/3527810&sec=focus
Star’s column basically rehashes the Explanatory Notes for sports equipment. But you may get some useful info about other deductibles.

Image ganked from AlterMedia România.

A quick test for Conficker

Wondering if you've been hit by the Conficker worm? Here's a "Conficker Eye Chart", an ingeniously simple web browser test created by Joe Stewart which takes advantage of the way the worm works.

Just follow the link above, which loads a webpage with six logos. If you can't see one, or any of the logos in the top row, then you are almost certainly infected by Conficker or other malware. This is because the Conficker worm (or other malware) will attempt to block any connections to anti-virus software company servers.


Stewart originally hosted the "eye chart" on his own server; it is now hosted by the Conficker Working Group, which is led by Microsoft and a number of anti-virus/ computer security software companies.

I was quite amused that Stewart had the opportunity for a little Unix advocacy. The other test images on the "eye chart" are the logos for Openbsd, Linux, and FreeBsd, and are linked to their respective websites. The worm, BTW, only infects Windows boxes.

If you suspect an infection, try using any of the repair tools from the Conficker Working Group.

In related news, there was some Conficker-themed geek humour going around on April 1.

(Thanks F-Secure)

My God.. It's full of books!

MPH Stock Clearance

Ongoing till 7pm Sun, Mar 22 at Mayang Plaza, Jalan SS 26/2, Taman Mayang, Petaling Jaya. This was formerly the Limkokweng building.

PROS: Serendipitous discoveries. Huge price cuts. Efficient checkout.
CONS: Crowds. No A.C. Little organisation. Some parking problems.

Darwin Award nominees (Malaysia)

The Star: Fisherman dies, four others warded after eating puffer fish
>>DUNGUN: A fisherman died in mid-sea after having puffer fish for lunch on Saturday while four others have been warded for food poisoning at the hospital here.<<


Never mind that puffer fish are the second most poisonous vertebrate in the world, and it takes years to become a licenced Fugu chef!

The Darwin Award, in case you don't know, is given to people who "do a service to humanity by removing themselves from the gene pool."

OMG it's a tourist, what do we do?!

Startled Iraqis welcome, sort of, their first tourist (NYT/IHT)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/06/mideast/falluja.4-424637.php

A quite amusing story about L. Marchio, who is apparently Iraq's first tourist in more than five years. Panic ensues, and border guards, embassies, the media, the police and the U.S. Army have to be alerted!


(Photo credit: Michael Kamber for The New York Times)

Firefox 3: Lost bookmarks file

I was trying to synchronise my Firefox bookmarks on two systems when I realised the old bookmarks.html file was no longer being used. Firefox 3 now uses the "places.sqlite" file to store bookmarks.

To confuse matters, the old bookmarks.html files were still on my two systems. It was only after I checked the "last modified" date when I realised they were no longer being used by the current version of Firefox.

More details here:
MozillaZine: Lost bookmarks after Firefox 3 upgrade

Barack Obama could be fittest US president ever

At 47, Obama sure doesn't look his age, and he's buff. He places great importance on physical fitness, and tries to work out at least six days a week! More details in this Washington Post feature:


As Duties Weigh Obama Down, His Faith in Fitness Only Increases
Quote:
>>Obama has gone to the gym, for about 90 minutes a day, for at least 48 days in a row. He always has treated exercise less as recreation than requirement, but his devotion has intensified during the past few months. Between workouts during his Hawaii vacation this week, he was photographed looking like the paradigm of a new kind of presidential fitness, one geared less toward preventing heart attacks than winning swimsuit competitions. The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.<<

Now, I had to qualify the headline to say "fittest US president". For the fittest head of state, I don't think anyone can beat Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia. He was also the country's former President and a former KGB agent. At 56, he looks about as young as Obama, and is in great shape for his age. Plus, Putin holds a 6th Dan Judo Black Belt. If Obama and Putin were to go mano-a-mano, I'd put my money on Putin.
So, if the leaders of the two largest superpowers can find the time to exercise and maintain high levels of fitness, then there really is no excuse for anyone else. I am inspired by Obama's and Putin's discipline and commitment to fitness.

Happy New Year to all, and may you have a healthy and fit year ahead!

Photo credits: Hawaii Magazine; RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Presidential Press Service/AP Photo

Identity Register for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Malaysia

The NRD (National Registration Department, or Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara) website FAQ is full of hilarious grammatical errors and Borat-like language. There are waaay too many gems on that page, so I'll just reproduce the whole text here. All errors are from their website:

1. What is NRD's website?

NRD website is abbreviation to official web National Registration Department. NRD website make major world to information and national registration department service through Internet.

2. Why this website been created?

Latterly, information and service majority National Registration Department has been prepared by online and NRD website been created to provide convenience to the public find information and service that are provided.

3. Whom were allowed surf and use this website ?

Generally, this website could be achieved by all society. However, there were some information and service that need registration.

4. What is privacy policy for this website? Am I been recorded or not?

All access and your use up on this website shall not be recorded. To further information, please visit to 'Privacy Policy And Safety Policy' in bottom of each page.

5. What method for I contact National Registration Department?

You can contact us:-
Public Relations Office
Tel: (redacted)
Fax: (redacted)

6. How should I sent my feedback to Goverment Agencies?

You can fill form in the division "Public Complaint System" In NRD website. It would be channelled to the divisions relating.


(Thanks for the tip, Medaline.)

Update: A screencapt for posterity

Update Dec 9, 2008 : The webpage has been removed. Good thing I made a screencapt.

Excel 101: Add/Remove carriage returns in a cell

I keep running into people who insist on using MS Excel to create tables. This is a fairly common situation in Malaysia, AFAIK. Now, I'm referring to just plain text tables for things like timetables, schedule lists, address books etc - there are no calculations or formulas involved.

For such tasks, one should obviously use MS Word instead of Excel, because Word has far superior table generation and manipulation capabilities. Plus, text entry is a whole lot easier when you use Word tables.

I suppose some people just don't know any better, or maybe it's because Excel already has all those nice little boxes up on screen. Or maybe they just don't have Word available. Anyway, everyone has their own preferences, and every company has their SOPs, so I'll just go with the flow.

The main problem with using MS Excel for tables is that text entry can be a real bear when compared with the proper tables in MS Word. For instance, let's say you want to insert carriage returns to create new lines within a cell, for things like three-line street addresses. It's not immediately obvious how to do so; if you press the Enter key after the first line, the cursor will just jump to the next cell. Here's the solution:

If you want to add a carriage return within the same cell, press ALT-Enter instead of Enter.

Removing a carriage return is more straightforward. Just place the cursor on the next line and hit Backspace - just like in Word. But if you need to remove all carriage returns in a spreadsheet which has hundreds or thousands of cells, then you should use a macro. That's beyond my capabilities, but you can find answers by Googling this phrase (include the quote marks):

"remove carriage return" in cells excel

Please folks, don't ask me Excel questions. I don't like Excel. I never learned to use Excel because I'm a wordsmith (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it). So, if you want to generate text-only tables, please, please use Word instead. Data entry is a lot simpler and straightforward with Word tables, and modifying the tables is a snap. Plus, Word is an actual word processor, so you get a lot more text formatting options.