The write stuff

Colleague recommended this online service, damn cool. Allows you to use a word processor (ala word) on a browser, but the best part is you can collaborate. Meaning 2 or more parties working on the same document. Just the thing for tight dead lines. Check it out, its called, Writely (http://www.writely.com).

Dengue

Sad to hear that as of today, 11 people have died to dengue in Singapore. I never expected dengue to rear its ugly head again, this is the year 2005 not the 60s. Gone are the kampung days with muddy tracks and puddles.  With our modern walk way and housing, where do these mosquitoes breed? The authorities are blaming residents.  But I’m sure by now, with the national campaign and inspection from NEA officers, every household would know what to do.  But yet, the statistics tell the truth. 11 has died and more cases are reported daily.

My guess is it is the public areas (drains, vacant land, parks, etc).  Are they checked and cleaned properly?  But who cleans and check?  Outsourced cleaning companies.  Most companies have down sized and implementing cost cutting measures to stay afloat or to beat the competition, I am guessing cleaners are over worked and probably have  to clean more streets and drains.  Upfront this saves the company, but in the long run wouldn’t quality of work be affected?  Furthermore, these companies have to bid aggressively to win tenders put out by various government agencies and statutory boards. Cheapest wins. But at what cost?

Perhaps it is time for the relevant authorities to rethink on their tender system.  But I hear in order for an agency to not award the tender to the cheapest bidder, they have to write a long justification. Now which officer would want to spend the effort, stick his neck out for that?  Isn’t it easier to just sit back and just go with the flow?  It is the safest thing to do, if anything fails, the officer is just abiding by the rules.  Sure they can hammer the vendors, but remember these vendors are struggling to make ends meet. But hammering these vendors is too late as in this Dengue case. How many lives must be lost before somebody re-look into this?

Redirected traffic

Chuckle. Its amazing what foot prints can lead to. I commented on Mr Brown's blog awhile back (last week?) and should not have left a url link. One url link and suddenly I get 56 visitors from Mr Brown. So much for keeping a low profile, eh? Anyway, page loads have come down. Only visitors are the random ones directed by blogspot (when you click on the next blog button above).

Referring links
56 www.mrbrown.com
2 www.blogger.com
1 firetide.blogspot.com
1 xmengax.blogspot.com
1 mfeld.blogspot.com
1 fistfulofthink.blogspot.com
1 lutiesong.blogspot.com
1 blogs.feedster.com
1 notesfromtheheartland.blogspot.com
1 feedster.com
1 yiwennie.blogspot.com
1 www.sea-garfield.blogspot.com
1 technorati.com
1 tablebayman.blogspot.com
1 karsmarski22.blogspot.com
1 trendythird.blogspot.com

Dead beat fliday

Slept at 4.15am last night. Tired. Work is still undone. Wish I could just let go, sit back and relax for a week. Anyway at this rate, the axe should fall on my head soon.

Discovered a blog from tomorrow, am surprised that people are so open these days. Then again we are a developed nation and our values are very much westernised or at least the younger generation, I suppose I shouldn't be, but still it surprises me that she is Singaporean. And besides, its her journal, despite it being public. But hey, I believe she has the right to write anything, as long as she is comfortable about it herself. Just hope the authorities don't clamp down, especially when local media start reporting on her blog.

Beng and Bangla

This may be hilarious to some, but I find this beng a big bully. Listen to this conversation.

Kick the habit

Many a times I wanted to. I know it is wrong but time and again there is always a reason. Minutes to hours, hours to days, days to weeks and weeks to months. It is now the 3rd quarter of the year and today, yes, today is the day or rather tonight, I ended it. Yet, during dinner I still hear that voice, an excuse, just one more time, it is only one last time. I quickly tried to clear my thoughts and decided to end it, before the excuse got louder. The voice as if in desperation, gave me an excuse, ‘finish your dinner first’. And so I did it. Yes. Finally. Enough. How much more of the year will you ruin? I know it is right. I should breathe easier now, but I don’t. Is this the withdrawal syndrome? Probably. Like the past habits it took awhile to get over it. For now I will focus on other important tasks.

I now have 1.3GB of free space. Yippee!

A Woman's Secret . and her Prayer

An email my dear wife forwarded to me.

There was once a man and woman who had been married for more
than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked
about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other
except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top
of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to
open or ask her about. For all of these years, he had never
thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got
very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. In
trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took
down the shoe box and took it to his wife's bedside. She
agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the
box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a
stack of money totaling $25,000. He asked her about the
contents. "When we were to be married," she said, "my
grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to
never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you,
I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll." The little old
man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two
precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with
him two times in all those years of living and loving. He
almost burst with happiness.

"Honey," he said, "that explains the dolls, but what about

all of this money? Where did it come from?" "Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling all the dolls.

A Prayer. Dear Lord, I pray for Wisdom to understand my man;
Love to forgive him; And Patience for his moods;
because Lord, if I pray for Strength, I'll beat him to death.

Supply and demand

Heh. Just found this in my mail box. An interesting supply/demand concept. But I don’t think it will work. Singaporeans aren’t the type. Besides those who drive do need to drive or can really afford it. Anyways here is the “concept”.

This is a rather lengthy story but if the concept is applied to the petroleum industry en masse, it just may work.

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the grocery store he pays 60 cents a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at a time. One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to 72 cents. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are 76 cents a dozen.

When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "The price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly". This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. He checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices.

The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven out of business. The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on.

As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there. He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.

Then week before Thanksgiving the price of eggs shot up to $1.00 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "Cakes and baking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen.

This pattern continues until the price of eggs is 2.00 a dozen. The man says, " There must be something we can do about the price of eggs".

He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs.

Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need. He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.

The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs. Maybe wouldn't need any all week.

The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.

At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs. To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price.

The distributor said, " I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free". The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying again.

The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time. Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers would start buying by the dozen again".

The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those chickens just kept on laying. Finally, the egg farmers lowered the price of their eggs. But only a few cents.

The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen."

Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers.

The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.

And those chickens kept on laying.

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell.

The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price.

And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled to the pump? The dealer's tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the oil fiends.

Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down.

Think about it.

As an added note...When I buy $10.00 worth of gas that leaves my tank a little under quarter full. The way prices are jumping around, you can buy gas for $2.65 a gallon and then the next morning it can be $2.15. If you have your tank full of $2.65 gas you don't have room for the $2.15 gas. You might not understand the economics of only buying two eggs at a time but, you can't buy cheaper gas if your tank is full of the high priced stuff.

Also, don't buy anything else at the gas station; don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down..."

Awake you animals!

Has anybody wondered why our train operators built lifts? It is to make traveling slightly easier and more pleasant for the disabled, old and young. But strangely, I see able bodied people rush to these lifts and worst do not even offer their place in the lift when there are people who most deserve it, waiting to enter but could not, because the lift is full. Filled with these likeminded animals folks.

I constantly wonder what goes on in their heads? I try to comprehend, many a times I look at them in the face. Most have these blank looks, just like when they sit comfortably in the train or bus and a pregnant or old person is standing in front of them. Totally spaced out or choose to ignore. I try to get into their psych and I think their sub conscious mind must be saying, “My comfort is most important, what matters is I beat them to it! Hahahaha.. I manage to catch the lifts while the losers get the stairs or take the escalator. Hahahaha losers!” Or “Ah ya, so many people in the lift, let others offer their spot in the lift la. Quick la.. close the door, hurry, I want to be the first one to make it out of the station! Cannot lose!”

Kiasu is not all bad, but please people, do have a heart. And please be more pro-active, yes it was a long day, but don’t you think that these disadvantaged folk are having it any easier? Or worst? Pregnant and having to go through work stress and stand all day in trains or buses? Or old and fragile while I take the escalators or stairs because I am not fast enough to beat the herd at the lifts… so tired after spending 8 hours behind the fast food counter. Come on!

What’s to lose? You are able, stand a little, walk up a flight of stairs or climb the escalator. Its faster, I guarantee you. You will be able to be the first to leave the station and best of all you will be much fitter. Leave the lifts for the disadvantaged so they do not have to compete with you for the lifts.

Sadly at an MRT I frequent, the operator put up a poster near the lifts, but yet these animals folks choose to ignore. I guess we are still a long way to becoming a gracious society. And sadly village folks are more courteous, helpful and kinder to their fellow man. Has our rapid rise from 3rd world to 1st done this, most likely.

But I think these animals folks can be kind, perhaps somebody needs to question them and awaken their conscious mind, chase away that animalistic subconscious. I think there is hope. But who will awaken them? Another campaign? My mom? I know she wakes them up rudely by flashing her senior citizen pass (hee hee hee), and loudly asks if they would give her a seat. Most embarrassingly do give up their seat even when they are pretending to sleep or read a book. And she does this to animals folks only. Even a senior citizen like her (84) would voluntarily give up her seat for another younger old (72) person so why can’t they?

Balance is Ki

Balance. My life is out of balance. Was I ever balanced? Should I be still, relax, close my eyes and find my centre? I remember these words of wisdom from my former sensei, “focus on your ki “.

They say a journey begins with a single step or somewhat to that meaning. So today I shall at least be sensitive to my centre, maintain a good posture and be physically balanced. Stay relax and focus so that my blood vessels can open wider and clear any stagnant chi/ki and in turn allow me to think clearly and work on a holistic approach to balanced life.

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port)

Today, I realised that the graphics card AGP port is not as standardised as previously assumed. Friend bought an AGP graphic card recently so he could play more current games but got a rude shock when he discovered that the card could not fit into his motherboard AGP slot. On searching Google, we found that his card was an AGP 3.3v keyed card. Whereas his motherboard slot, has an AGP universal slot. This prompted another colleague to say that his board is not straight and is probably a Fatherboard, just not meant to insert a normal card. Bring out the lube!

Spider Hantu

Wow! According to this blog, spiders can be found in our local waters. Fantastic! But if only you could spot them. Visibility in Singapore's local waters are bad, most times, you can't even see your out stretched hand. Its like muck diving at another level.

Spotted a spider at the bottom of a wreck off Pulau Tioman. Tried to take a picture of it, but my entry level camera just couldnt focus on the subject, then again the subject itself is so hard to spot especially when the spider is covered in silt and visibility below the stern was bad.

First time daddy

Today was my first time alone with my son. Yes, I told my wife, no problem I will manage. So I drove her to the office and off I went to Carrefour to get some grocceries.

While browsing through the baby foods section my son decided he was hungry and about time to test his father. So he let out a cry which quickly climaxed to a bawl. Off I went in search of a seat or a table, a place to prepare his milk. Finally found a collapsible chair near the checkout counter. Prepared his milk.. after scalding my hand and dropping a few empty bottles from the bottle bag and spilling milk powder all over the floor. Fed him 90ml which he sucked it all in no time and cried for more.. but sorry kiddo, daddy spilled the rest of the milk powder. Yup, thats right you have to learn to share your milk with the floor.. uh.. some times. Ok.. don't tell mummy, ok? Now lets get back to the baby section for some ready made apple juice because everyone at the checkout counter is staring at us .

So now I'm back at the baby food section, scrutinising the labels of each product and wondering why the heck does processed organic carrots have so much sodium and even more sodium if it comes with mixed fruit. Then it hit me, but of course! How else would they be able to leave it on the shelf without refrigerating? Salt is a natural preservative. And yes. The label did declare, all natural all organic. Heh! What they forgot to say was, Die naturally the organic way!

But oh well, bought 6 bottles of processed food with the lowest sodium content. After all these are food for emergencies. Times when my baby sitter simply cannot manage to look after my son and prepare a meal, these instant meals will come in handy. In the end I settled for Apple, Carrot, Sweet Potato, Apple/Prune juice. Carrot and the juice being the only ones with some sodium.


Just did a search and found that carrots do contain sodium, aside from being rich in Vitamin A and Beta Carotein. For more nutrition info on carrots, read this, http://www.uhhealthsmart.com/tools2/vegetable/carrots.lasso

Text Massage

Sigh. I am so obsolete. Today I wanted to massage some text on windows. Didn't know how to do it the quick and dirty way, as usual, had to telnet into a unix box to do it in shell. Trusty old shell scripts never fails me in times of desperation. Here's my quick and dirty script, to list each line and add a before and after string of text.

for I in `cat p.txt`; do
echo " <servlet-mapping>"
echo " <servlet-name>${I}</servlet-name>"
echo " <url-pattern>/${I}</url-pattern>"
echo " </servlet-mapping>"
echo
done

I wonder if there are any easy to use windows applications out there, that can do the same. Hmm come to think about.. I just recalled that I could do it with Excel's VBScript. Yeah!.. heh heh. But then again, that would mean having to open Excel.

The thing is, these days my stoopid machine is taking forever to open files, something about WinXP's persistent drive? Have yet to find a solution. So telnet is faster.. thus the scripting.

Yeah TGIF! DOTA session in .. perhaps in an hour? Whee... owning.. or be owned :((

Comex 2005

Found some cool and cheap gadgets at Comex today.

1. Benq DVD ReWriter, 16X +R/16X-R, 8X Double Layer, S$89
2. Luxpro Top tangent, 1GB with FM radio, S$199
3. Akira X Studio 9-in-1 personal media assistant (with 1 GB of mem, records 1.1hrs of mpg4 video), S$349
4. Consus HDD player with USB OTG (add S$99 for a 40GB HDD), S$199
   (S$149 without OTG (on the go, copies flash card content without a PC)

Hmm.. so tempting, but I think I will restraint. Ok, maybe just the DVD writer.

Sis-inlaw was there too, too bad didnt get to see her. Her first day at work, heh.. hope she's not worn out by the end of the day. Well, I'm sure mum-inlaw will be ever ready to pamper us with her chinese tonic soup. Yummy.. I better head home now.