Geeks Unite! @ BarCamp Malaysia

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate term to describe a large gathering of tech geeks to describe the BarCamp events, so I’ll just keep it simple and call it a “geek orgy”.

Starting out in California in 2005, Barcamp is largely an informal get-together among folks in the tech industry, particularly the “web 2.0 crowd”. There are presentations, games, demos, talks, etc – but mostly it’s a great place for like-minded folks to get to each other and have a lot of fun in the process!

This July 26-27, KL gets its own Barcamp Malaysia, and from the looks of it, it’s gonna one fun-filled weekend. We’ll see you there!

More info @ www.barcamp.my

Demolishing A Skyscraper, One Floor at a Time

When tearing down a building, many of us have an idea of how it’s done – explosives are placed at strategic points within the building, and the implosion causes the building to collapse onto itself. Neighboring buildings are left untouched, except for some massive clean-up work the day after. Very impressive, no?

A Japanese firm has taken up the process another level with an astonishing innovation that’s not only faster, but also good for the environment too!

The process is almost Lego-like in its simplicity. Firstly, computer-controlled mechanical pillars are placed at ground level. Then, the crew carefully demolishes the entire floor manually – leaving the structure resting on the “replacement” pillars. The mechanical pillars then lowers itself until the entire floor is at ground level. The process is repeated until the whole building is demolished, one floor at a time.

The new technique, known as daruma-otoshi results in less pollution, makes recycling easier and speeds up the entire process by 20%!

Credit: http://freshome.com/2008/07/18/how-to-demolish-a-skyscraper-one-floor-at-a-time/

Elevyn progress update – what we’ve been up to

Heya folks!

Sorry for the silence the past few weeks.

We’ve been keeping ourselves very busy for a beta-internal launch of the system within this week. We’ve managed to rope in a couple of programmers and designers to help us out on a part-time basis – and they have consistently been burning the midnight oils trying to fix things up. We really appreciate your effort guys! Web development seems to be a never-ending cycle of bug fixes and enhancements. Throw in some CSS-browser-incompatibility isses and we’ve a real recipe for growing white hair!

Development aside, we’re also been in contact with several communities, NGOs and social entrepreneurs in and out of Malaysia with plans to getting them onboard when the platform is ready. The potential is huge, but the major hurdles remain the groundwork that needs to be done.

Sze Ning, our field consultant has been clocking up her flight mileage to and from rural Sabah, coordinating with the NGOs and indigenous communities there on plans to getting them onboard Elevyn. It is hoped that our model of enabling their crafts to be sold online could at least help alleviate the economic woes that some of them are suffering from, especially with the escalating price increases in fuel and daily necessities.

Devan Singaram, meanwhile, is swimming in tasks and to-do’s, but thankfully his head is still above the water! I hope the same too for his overworked IBM laptop that’s been spinning like crazy and starting to sound like a train gone off its tracks.

That’s a brief update for now; will post more updates soon. Now back to work!