Max Soe

Lately I've been getting a lot of random people commenting on my public posts. They don't have livejournal accounts so I have no way of contacting them. I don't know how they find me or end up at my posts. It's the weirdest thing. Damnit, I can't remember what it is now, but if you type in this absolutely normal word in google, one of my livejournal posts is the 6th hit. Pretty good for something random.

Wow, this is a random post.

My career is in the field of "Human-Computer Interaction", or in layman's term "Usability Analysis". We have to solve problems in the computer industry when translated to layman's terms sound a bit like this:

There is a blind man. He wants to stay fit and before he was blind, he would often go cycling to stay fit. He is substantially wealthy so he has asked you to design a bicycle for him. How would you design a bike fit for someone visually impaired?

So that's the question I impose upon you dear readers, just how would you design a bike fit for someone who is visually impaired?

You're allowed to think/design outside the box.

http://www.arcadetown.com/gateway2/gameonline.asp

It's such an awesome game. Great time waster.

hey, I need some anonymous data on how much people are earning. If you could make an anonymous comment about how much your salary is, it'd be awesome.

If you're only working casually or on a contract, how much would you be earning if you were working full time? For those of you who are getting paid casual rates, you can transfer that to a salary by calculating your annual income as working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and 48 weeks a year.

Warning: This story is rated I-1337. It is meant to be read by people with an imagination score of 1337.

Once upon a time, there were two young applications; Word and Excel. Word and Excel have been working in the same Office since October 25th, 1983. It was love it first byte for them. They wrote love notes, actually, just oneNote to each other. Word declared that Excel will always have Access to his heart. Excel, being the naughty little vixen, wrote back about how she'd like to be spread on her sheets.

Things were hot and heavy between Word and Excel until the summer of 1990. There was a hot new intern in the Office. Her name: PowerPoint. She was smooth, yet edgy. She was flirty and integrated well with the rest of the office.

Soon enough Word started to notice her fine lines and exotic background. He noticed the way she moved slides between presentations for executives. It was a very hot that day and it wasn't the weather.

Meanwhile, Excel's brother was caught selling pirated copies of the newly released Microsoft Windows 3.0. She rush to the police station to sort things out but alas he was already thrown into a cell.

Defeated and disappointed, Excel returned to the office only to catch PowerPoint in a compromising position on top on Word's desktop. And there was Word, on top of PowerPoint completely speechless.

Excel stormed out, Word chasing after her. "Honey.." he said to her, "it has been seven years. I needed something different. We need to go in separate directions for awhile"

Teary eyed, Excel couldn't calculate what was happening in her life. Things were tough for Excel but a year later, in 1991, she started dating Word's Publisher. Publisher used to be Word's best friend until Word refused to share the profits on his international best-selling autobiography "There is only one Word you need to know."

Word had been oblivious of Excel's new romance but gossip quickly spread through the office infoPath. Lately things have been stale in bed between Word and PowerPoint. Word, believing that he was the ultimate playboy decided to confront Excel and pretended like there was no history between them.

"Hey baby, how could you cheat on me with him?" He bellowed in Excel's face.

Excel just smiled and replied. "You cheated on me a year ago. What Publisher and I have, www.itsnotcheating.com.au, BABY"

To this day Publisher and Excel are still together. PowerPoint has been with everyone else in the Office, including the Business Contact Manager.

Word however, has totally reformed. He got a new haircut, was revised by Usability Experts and now has a completely fresh, friendly interface. Office management was so impressed with Word's new Outlook so much that they got the entire Office to follow suit.

And that's how everyone lived happily ever after.

It's been a while since I've written on Livejournal. It simply means I've been keeping busy.

Had exams, only three of them this time.

Went down to Jim's beach house over the weekend. The weather was the usual; crap. Ironically, it was awesome on the day we had to leave. It's always like that.

The week prior to that was the CSE Revue Roadtrip. It was a bit of a treasure hunt and we came second. Not bad for a team of 3.

Man... I wanted this Bluetooth Headphone adapter thing for Christmas and I thought I wrote it in livejournal last year but it's nowhere to be found. If anyone knows of a Bluetooth device that lets you use any headphone on it, please let me know. I want to play MP3s off my phone onto the Bluetooth device and listen to it using good quality headphone that I already have.

... is the number of hours that has elapsed since I last slept. Odd. I don't feel tired. I SHOULD get some sleep though. Apprently I wasn't myself at soccer. We drew 0-0. I was disappointed. Everyone said we played well. I can neither agree nor disagree because I was so out of it.

I've been so busy. Assignment after assignment. Special Project is killer as it's practially a group Thesis. So that's why I haven't had any sleep. Very rewarding though. It has come together as a really cool project.

Rocked up to soccer late and worse, my socks got lost when I got there. Floor (that's a girl's name, she's Dutch) accidently put them in her bag thinking they were her socks. It was only at half time that we realised this. She was nice though and let me use hers while she sat it out. Unhygenic yes... but it's soccer. If you're a fan, you'd understand.

We played the top team in the division today. The weather was torrid. They scored in the first half, we scored in the second. Jack got yet another goal. Good on him. Richie came close, as did I. We really should put these half chances away.

We're climbing up the table baby.

woooooo!!!!!! Looks like it's gonna be another awesome year of yellow shirts. The BBQ was just so much fun. It was so good to see those faces again. I was on a high the entire time. Haven't felt that way in a while.

The Zodiacs are as cool as ever. Unfortunately we have lost our extremely admirable, somewhat dorky but 100% lovable squad leader, Zev, to the real world. We've also lost Emma, I really should find out where she is... There's Rosie missing, she's in France and sounds like she's having a blast. And of course, who could forget young Anh? Who's going to tell me to shut up now? It's just not going to be the same.

Because things just wouldn't be the same without Anh, we've decided to make an Anh sized doll, which isn't too big, write her name on the shirt and have it perminately attached to Ed. Ed, if you're reading this, you've already agreed and can't go back on it.

hmmm, what else?? oh yeah, there're sooooo many CSE revuers in yellow shirts for 2007. It's crazy. There were only 4 CSE people in shirts the first time I did it. How times have changed.

John and Derek are as awesome as ever and it was so good to just be myself around them again. Russ is also as lovely as ever. I FINALLY got to see Nikki, who's always busy. Crazy girl. Love her to bits though.

There's also this weird guy, I can't remember his name, that keeps following me and Derek around... weird.

Loz, if you're reading this, you look totally hot with your new hair. I'm sure whatever bag you get now will look good.

Yay!! excited.

Must also remember to apply for consulting job Clara told me about. Mmmm HCI stuff, sooooo easy!!!

Life is so full of ups and downs. My 'group' has seen a lot of friends leave the country lately. The whites went a while ago and now Cheong's gone. Sure there are others around but these are the guys that I ALWAYS hang around with.

The up in my life is that 6-a-side soccer is starting next week. Woohoo!!
The down is that I'm in a fight with a friend. I hate fights.