Interloper View

For Christians, Easter is the day when Jesus rose again, three days after he died on the cross. During mass today, our priest asked us a question, what do we do in the 50 days of Easter season. Our priest mentioned that we Catholics are very good at celebrating suffering, during the 40 days of Lent season, many make sacrifices and our churches come up with many programs. However, nothing is done for the 50 days of the Easter season. In fact, I have never really thought of the Easter season except for the first day of Easter (known as Easter Sunday). What we do for Lent is for us, helping us to join the suffering of Jesus. Easter is the celebration of Jesus’ triumphant return to God, our father. So how do we celebrate Easter, celebrate our resurrection with our Lord Jesus Christ? Our priest asked if any of us have ever experienced resurrection and also for examples, none of in the congregation could. He then shared with us, for the poor and homeless, when members of the church ...

I was looking forward to watching this movie since it was announced and finally watched it this afternoon. The first part of the movie was used to help us understand the reason why Batman decided to go up against Superman. It was a nice to have Luther explain how he staged various events to push Batman and make him want to kill Superman. It is surprising to see the Kryptonian technology lacks basic security and how easy it was for Luther to take over the ship and use it to create Doomsday. The system appears more secure in the Man of Steel movie. It could be that Luther more tech savvy compared to Lois Lane. The subtle introduction of Diana Prince is effective, I thought she was working for Lex Luthor when I first saw her. She had not intended to join the fight, but changed her mind upon seeing the news on the plane about to leave the city. The secret file stolen from Luther provides an opportunity to introduce characters for the future movies without them actually appearing i...

A new museum opened in Penang on Mar 6. I came across the museum in Komtar while I was around the area after watch Zootopia. It was interesting to see how comics evolved in various countries around Asia. There are similarities and yet certain uniqueness in style. The tickets are day passes permitting multiple entries. Here are some of the pictures I took while I was there. The tickets:   The entrance: Weapons from the comics: The museum ends with a small store where you could buy some of the comics and memorabilia. While I was there, Zunar was visiting the place hosting a talk and signing session. This is another activity for my children for the holidays. Disclaimer: I was not paid to write this.

“We get what we measure”, that is why I want to measure my cash flow to make sure that I am spending within my means. Quicken has been helped me do that for a long time, but I wondered whether that is any open source solution able to replace Quicken. GnuCash and KMyMoney are close enough to fulfilling my requirements but there are gaps. Encryption and password Files created with Quicken can be protected with password. I am able to do that by encrypting KMyMoney file using Gpg4Win but not for GnuCash. KMyMoney recognizes the encryption will prompt for the password when I open the file. No such feature is available in GnuCash. Accounts and category Quicken and KMyMoney support both accounts and categories. However, GnuCash supports only accounts. In Quicken and KMyMoney, when a new category is entered, the software will prompt with an option to create it. Categories can be organized as subcategories of other categories. For KMyMoney new account or sub-account have to b...

I had this book for a couple of years but only started reading it a couple of weeks ago without any expectation. The story starts with a young maiden (Edyt) standing over her dying father as the Norman invaders entered the gates of their castle. Edyt then hid in plain side as one of the maids to avoid marriage with the Norman Lord (Alain De Crency) - Rufus, the king of England had promised her as a bride to him. It was fascinating to see how she attempted to protect Alain while pretending to be one of the maids in the castle. Even after her identity was revealed, new elements were introduced to keep me interested. It was obvious that the knights and servants of the castle loved her and would anything for her and that she in turn wanted to keep them save even though she expected to be killed at any moment. She believed that she was evil and was a daughter of Satan and if her secrets were discovered she would be burned as a witch. The pace of the development of the ...