dsng.net - the daryl sng blog

So my iPhone 3G was starting to feel very sluggish - I could literally start counting the seconds off between clicking on the Safari or iPod icons and when I could actually do anything in either app. Didn't remember it being this slow, but I thought it might be just me justifying to myself why I needed a 3GS, especially since neither powering off and restarting nor clearing the Safari cache didn't speed it up. But then I tried loading and force-quitting all the apps I use with any regularity, particularly Safari/iPod/Mail, and it has dramatically sped up the loading of each of these apps (based on the time-honoured method of counting off "one-Mississippi" between load times).    I wonder if that means the iPhone apps could be hogging some resources, even if they don't seem to be running? Well, whatever works.

There was something about how wild this landscape seemed, right in the middle of Singapore. That, and the dramatic leave-lorn tree.

I watched The Hurt Locker last night. A deserving Best Picture. Bigelow is a great action director. You always have a sense of space, where all the action is taking place, and where all the known threats could come from. The pendulum of the film's rhythm swings between tension and release, much, one supposes, like the work and life of the protagonists. Kathryn Bigelow, incidentally, turns 59 this year. James Cameron does seem to fall for strong, capable women. Staying with them - not his forte, apparently. Single transferable voting was used for the Best Pic decision. Hendrik Hertzberg over at the New Yorker predicted it would bode well for The Hurt Locker . Probably spot on in his analysis. Was this used for the other categories? Much has been made of the fact that there were 10 Best Picture nominees this year, but I can't get too worked up over that. There are 10 actors nominated, split by gender; 10 supporting actors nominated, again split by gender; and 10 screenpl...

The li'l bunnies. Toby's the shy one on the left. Amber's the impish one on the right. Okay, not that impish in this shot, but the number of wires she's bitten through is a veritable trail of destruction.

All right, this might not be of interest to anyone but fellow Blogger users, but Blogger basically is pulling the plug on FTP support , which this blog has hitherto been publishing with. And asking us to use Google Custom Domains. Which is all fine and dandy, since they made a Migration Tool for it. Except - wonder of wonders - the Migration Tool pretty much is crap if you're publishing on www. Groan. The long and short of it: tell me if any files appear missing!

I love GPS, and I love Google Maps, and I'm the first to think that there could be more done with location-based services in Singapore. (Aside: Some day I'll do my own Google Maps mashup to find out where I can take my recycling. In the meantime, I managed to get the number of the local karang guni man.) I like the idea of using something as non-geographical as the Internet to promote hyperlocal things, such as figuring out restaurants near you and the like, and I like the idea that my phone can help me do that. But even so, I don't get Foursquare or Google Buzz for Mobile, which I played around with for a while. Via sparklette , I found "Please Rob Me" , which figures out who's not at home using foursquare. (Technically, since it tells you where people aren't, not where they are, it should be "please burglarise me", but I guess that's not as catchy a name.) It may be facetious, but it helps make a good point - why do you want to broadcast yo...

Lillian Ross on her friendship with J. D. Salinger in the New Yorker . A lovely portrait of the man as man, not recluse. Also some photos .