My Books are in hot demand...

For those who already know, I have given out a list via email to my close friends.

This morning, I sent out the remaining list to my whole office (about 65).
Lo and behold, 20 out of 26 books were taken up within an hour ! Some books even had multiple bookings.

Haha. Was joking with one of my colleagues that if only my work-related emails get such fast and good response. He mentioned that it was my title "Knowledge to be shared" and the list of good books that attracted such reactions.

Of course, things like A-Level physics had no takers.

So good, I don't have to make a trip to sell at 2nd hand bookstores..

I want to be Hospital Adminstrator...

I said I was playing with Command & Conquer , right ?

Being the fickle minded me, 2 days ago I was packing my software and games collection and I installed this game in my Vista - Theme Hospital.

Pretty funny and interesting. Hooked on to it now.. Damn...

Found Home ... Don't Go...

Finding new home for my old pets

Find new home for pets - a dog and a bear.

Nostalgia ...

As you would have known, I have gotten a new computer, running on Windows Vista Home Premium.

So, while in a weak attempt to clean my room, I started installing old games onto the machine.

So now, I am playing with "Commando" and "Command & Conquer : Red Alert For Win95".

Some other games just cannot be played.

I can't get "C&C : Tiberian Sun" to work. Though search round the net found that there are ppl who got it working in Vista. Maybe I haven't searched deep enough.

So its playing a Win95 game, on my nice screen, but at resolution of 640x480.. hahaha..

But sometimes, Cheapo is still quite good !

So I finally got my cable working, and I have managed to do some tests - Transfer Speed.

So for technicality, I will have to put my PC specs here :

Dell Inspiron 6400, with Intel T5600 chipset, 120GB SATA HDD (Now, I am not sure if it is SATA 1 or 2), USB 2.0 and 1394a ports.

Tested by copying almost 8GB of video files from my HDD to the External HDD and back. With Internet and other applications turned off. Timed with my handphone stop-watch.

So comparing the few external HDD I have :

(1) Cheap S$39 USB to IDE/ATA External HDD Case, with 120GB 3.5" Samsung IDE/ATA HDD (5,400rpm) :
Average Reading Speed : 15.5MB/sec (That is MegaByte per Second)
Average Writing Speed : 19.6MB/sec

(2) iCute brand $49 USB to IDE/ATA External HDD Case (with fan), with same 120GB 3.5" Samsung IDE/ATA HDD (5,400rpm) :
Average Reading Speed : 18.4MB/sec
Average Writing Speed : 20.6MB/sec

(3) WD MyBook Premium (USB and Firewire Combo, without fan), with its own 500GB 3.5" HDD (also 5,400rpm and SATA I assume) :
Average USB Reading Speed : 15.9MB/sec
Average USB Writing Speed : 19.2MB/sec

Average Firewire Reading Speed : 17.6MB/sec
Average Firewire Writing Speed : 20.4MB/sec

Surprising results, I have to say. MyBook Premium performs worse off than the cheap $49 iCute casing. Though I am not entirely sure if the larger capacity HDD is supposed to be slower than the smaller capacity ones.

Usually reading from a HDD is FASTER than writing. So my results of Writing into external is faster than Reading from external basically means that the bottleneck is at my laptop HDD.

But one thing is for sure : Performance is increased by having a fan.. hee hee..

And just out of curiosity, I compared it with my portable USB 2.5" Casing with 120GB Samsung HDD (5,400rpm) (and I am assuming it is IDE/ATA and not SATA) :
Average Reading Speed : 11.7MB/sec
Average Writing Speed : 11.2MB/sec

Well, I guess I will need a better performing PC instead of a notebook (whose HDD should be slower than the 3.5" HDD) to really bring the transfer speed faster.

My Gadgets and My Luck...

I have recently purchased a WD MyBook Premium edition. Got it at the PC Show with more discounts.

Yesterday, went to buy a 1394 cable (4p-6p) to use on my notebook.

And it is always my luck that my newly purchased IT products are never perfect.

First, my notebook had a strange "smear" on the screen that I cannot clean.
It was replaced by Dell on Monday afternoon. The new replacement had a similar defect, this time, it looked like a short strand of hair was stuck there.. Had it replaced again yesterday morning. At least this time it seems fine.

Then I went home last night and found that I cannot use MyBook with the new 1394 cable, even after I have installed the driver for it.

Then I thought : MyBook is faulty, the cable is faulty or my notebook is faulty.

So I brought the whole thing to my office.

I tried in on my office notebook's 1394 port - not working.
I asked around for other 1394 cable - none.
I asked around for any other 1394 devices I try with my notebook - none.

I was almost at my wits end. Then I spied the eMac sitting at someone's desk.

I took the MyBook's bundled 1394 cable (6p-6p) to try it out on the Mac. It works !
So MyBook is ok !
And unless both 1394 ports of my own notebook and my office notebook are faulty, it is now 95% chance of faulty cable.

*Sigh*

Maybe next time I shouldn't buy el cheapo cables... ?

Update as at 4.30pm :

I went down to the shop, tried out other cables of the same brand (rather, the same non-brand). All didn't work. At least the shop was good enough to refund me, as they do not have stock for their "higher-end" cable.

Went to another shop, bought a slightly more expensive looking cable, tested it on the spot with MyBook. IT WORKS !

Moral of the story : Really, do NOT get el-cheapo cables to save a few bucks. AT least, make sure the cable is of good quality (read : not as flexible, with knobs at the end that is supposed to be EMI shield).

Harry Potter = Star Wars ????

Got it off the net

Missing my new Laptop

I got my new Dell Inspiron 6400 (with 2GB RAM, Truelife Screen, Vista Home Premium, blah blah) over the last weekend and was exploring and admiring .. AND LOVING.. my new machine.

Hey, gimme a break. Its my ONLY Computer purchase for the last, what, 7 years ? I have been using old machines and upgrading with spare parts that other people threw away.

Anyway, to cut the story short, Today is the first day I am separated with it. (I brought it to office yesterday to solve some performance problem with Outlook.) And by lunch time just now, I am already missing it.

I miss the large screen (as compared to my office one)...
I miss the WIDE screen...
I miss re-organizing my data (photos, documents, videos, etc)...

In short, I felt love-sick.. craving to touch my sleek and sexy machine quickly.. hahaha..
Ok.. this is getting pathetic..

Now I am filling up by HDD space, and I have barely 30GB left in my laptop. And I haven't even transferred my porn-videos.. hahahah... I need more storage !

:)

More Jobs taken from Older Singaporeans ?

I'd learnt about this small bit of information from my course of work.

You know those small kiosk at bus/MRT interchanges, where you have the uncles and aunties sellnig drinks, newspapers and magazines ?

Well, seems like SPH will be buying them over on phases, and franchising out to youngsters. Why youngsters ? So that they can also start to sell technology products (like mobile phones, etc) as they want to showcase wireless hotspot as well (allowing people to surf the web while waiting for buses/MRTs).

So, another small group of jobs taken away...

Sleepless, on a cool rainy night...

Had an enjoyable day. Went out for picnic. Then I was back home very late, showered and tried to sleep.

Once again, I am lying in bed, tossing and turning.
After about 2 hours of failing to make myself sleep, I finally turned on my PC.

What is keeping me awake now ?
D has flown to Australia.
Reminded me that time has drawn closer for me to execute my plans to move over as well.
Something that I have logically and rationally decided to do.
(And I think this is the first time I admitted this ?)

But logic and rationale usually always fight big battles with emotions.

This time, I experience first-hand the fear and apprehension that KOP had faced, and what D must be facing now.

I can only imagine it growing in time to come...

Starting life in a new place, having to re-establish everything all over again ?
What if I can't make it ?
What if I become miserable ?
Am I stupid to throw everything that I have now ?
What if this is the worst mistake I will ever make in my whole life ?

These are the things that kept on running through my head...

And the rain is pouring outside...
Lightning flashing frequently...
Wind howling through my window...

I think I will have darker eyes, bigger eye-bags, and whiter hair for the next few months...

RTA Update

I heard more about how my relatives' RTA happened.

They were travelling along (probably a not-so-familar route) and at a turn or slope, there was a puddle of water.

The vehicle skidded and slammed into a pole (or lamp post). They were injured and shaken, got out of the vehicle. Apparently, they were hang around there for a while (how long, I don't know) and along came another car and a it happened again.

This time, the car slammed into my relatives.

Uncle and auntie died on the spot. My cousin-in-law died either on the way to hospital, or at the hospital. My cousin is stablized but require multiple operations.


Moral of the story, if accident happened, please stay away from vehicle and stay clear of the road.

More Bad News

I just heard that today, my auntie and uncle (who were staying in Malaysia) passed away in a RTA in Malaysia. My cousin is still in hospital, not sure of her condition, while her husband died as well.

Still not sure of many things, but appears to be skid gone awry. Not sure if other vehicles were involved...

Interesting moments...

Yesterday evening, I went to my car dealer's launch of Chevrolet Captiva in Ubi.
Looks nice... like what I wanted before... But the pricing is ooooooo.... :)

Didn't get a chance to take any photographs as I didn't have a chance to be with the beauty alone. Many people around. Probably will go for a test drive later when the buzz has died down a little.

*~*~*~*~*

On another note, someone pointed out to me that I should have gone into the civil service instead of the private sector. With my "three-leg" capabilities, I can easily have gotten the kind of pay I am getting now (without all the "hard work") years ago. Furthermore, I would have a much higher chance to get into the SR9 pay scale. Wow.

I think private sector is definitely much more difficult.

http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2007/yax-726.htm

I like these 3 parts :

There are 24 private sector individuals whose income, by definition, would be higher than the 25th person used to obtain MR4. But the Singapore government has 15 ministries. This means about 15 ministers and another 15 permanent secretaries. Not to mention Supreme Court justices and a few others whose salaries are also pegged to MR4 or higher. That makes perhaps 40 people. That means there are more people in the public sector with that kind of income than in the private sector.

and

Taking the age-32 cohort alone, we will see something like this pattern, where there are 15 individuals in the private sector earning SR9 or more, and perhaps 8 in the public sector earning SR9 or more.

The ratio's not so bad compared to the MR4 level. However, whether it is excessive for the public service to be responsible for 1 in 3 top earners aged 32 can still be debated.

and

The question we should be asking is why is SR9 unchanged while MR4 has gone so far up? What kind of society is this where even those 3 or 4 rungs from the top (the SR9 group in the public and private sectors) have stagnating incomes, while those at the summit of summits fly off the chart?

*~*~*~*~*

Looking back, it really was silly of me to put my ideals above money...

I know I should not talk about politics, but....

Saw this just now :

http://youngpapblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/bill-gatesgeorge-sorosmother-theresa.html

I am not going to argue for or against the pay rise for ministers or civil service. But I probably just want to have some thoughts in my blog. Afterall, I am not paid peanuts, I am paid calamari (thus the blog title, hahaha)....

Similarly, if we want Singapore to stay on the “Best Of” world list for a lot of things, we jolly well got to pay top dollar for the best people who can keep us right up there.

Oh really, so being ministers now is just plain mercenary ? Political power, loyalty, recognition and connections for future business potentials, etc, are useless ?

Let me see, it was long ago in China, where there are commoners who are willing to PAY to be a court official... But those were the times of long ago...

Spore isn’t like many other economies like the States, Britain or even Hong Kong where their economies can still remain alive even if their politicians are not making the best decisions.

and

In many of these first world nations (whose Ministers’ pays have been “pegged” to ours), their economic engines are matured and almost self-piloting. These governments have inherited the fruits of their political forefathers and are now able to concentrate on improving the social and non-economic welfares of its peoples and say, spend time to build international relations with countries like us.

Wow ! Self running economies created by their forefathers... a mature, self-running economic engines that does not require high-paying ministers and geniuses running at the top...

Is she saying our forefathers (aka founding father) is incapable of creating such economies ?

I am just wondering, were the forefathers of these nations among the best paid in their nation ?

This government put Singapore, a country with no resources, with no historical ties or allies to begin with, on the world map in less than half a century. But will this last forever?

Were our founding fathers lured to improve Singapore by high-pay ?
Why aren't the attributes, found in our leaders of yesterday, found in our people today ? What does this even prove ?

Today, we have the PAP with a number of good men. Will we have the same people tomorrow and always? I’m not sure. I find it rather myopic and sadly presumptuous for so many of these forumers to assume that Singapore is forever going to be where it is, and that we will forever have exceptional geniuses willing to throw their lives to keep Singapore on its feet.

I think the writer has (maybe unintentionally) brought up a very interesting view. Why is it that we need "a few good men" to run our country, while others do not ?

All that matters to me is for Singapore to stay ahead of the game becuase I choose to stay here. We sorely need more than a few Good Men to continue serving at the top so that our economy will continue its bull run. With a flourishing economy, Ministerial pay increments will pale in comparison to the prosperities and fortunes Singapore will be able to bring to its people. Because then, the man on their street will get his pay raise too.

Oh, we have, for the past few years, grown the economy. We have seen those whose pay raised with the growing economy. Have we also just recently seen the group where their pay has not risen ? So when it comes to raising the economy, we put the responsibilities on those few good men at the top. When it comes to stagnant poor, we blame them for not helping themselves, or improving themselves...

But every job requires certain attributes. Civil service should be for those who feel for the country, who feel for their countrymen.

I am not saying that the civil servants have to live a life of poverty to serve the country.
We, as recipients of these public services, must make sure that civil servants are well-fed and worry-free to serve the public, but not make them top earners in the country.

Is there a perfect formula ? I probably can't propose one...

But another calamari for you to think about :

Being opposition doesn't pay, doesn't do good for their reputation, but why are so many ? Why are they opposing a party that is paying their ministers so much ? Why not just join them ?

We may or may not agree with their (opposition) ideas. It may or may not work. Some may seem like lunatics. Some maybe short sighted. But they do it out of passion for their countrymen and most probably loyalty to Singapore. Probably even for their ideals. Heck, they sure are not doing it for the money.

Now if this bunch of not-so-good-men have these attributes, why aren't there more better, smarter geniuses with these attributes ? Why must they be mercenaries ?

Or is the author saying that loyalty, passion, and ideals are only for the poor and stupid ?

The life of a Minister is not attractive. How many are willing to sacrifice every evening either at Meet the People Sessions, chairing Review Committees and carrying another baby in a HDB kopitiam even on precious weekends?

Hey, then we should be paying top dollar to those road sweepers, construction workers, 24-hour call centre agents, retail shop assistants, etc...

They have to work odd and long hours, many a times hazardous locations... They are sacrificing...


Lastly,

I’m not sure. I find it rather myopic and sadly presumptuous for so many of these forumers to assume that Singapore is forever going to be where it is, and that we will forever have exceptional geniuses willing to throw their lives to keep Singapore on its feet.

Oh, Abraham Lincoln is an exceptional genius, and America till today still has all the geniuses running the country, that is how US is now still the worlds #1 super power....

Australia is founded by exceptional.... er... geniuses..... and their economy is also matured....*scratch head*

Which is a better genius ? A genius who creates a car that only other geniuses can drive and use, or one who creates a car that any competent person is able to use it well ?

Why do I raise this question ?

"Because we are a unique country, and our system works"

Just my "questions". I am not going to debate this.

*~*~*~*~*

On another note, should I justify to my boss why I should be paid more, or is it his job to justify to me why I shouldn't be getting double my current pay ?

Disgusting Anti-Smoking Ad

Recently, there has been a spate of complaints to the authorities about the airing of anti-smoking advertisement on the TV recently. Most of them fall into the following :

(a) Its scary for youngsters and children - nightmares and stuff that parents need to deal with.
(b) Supposed to target smokers , so scaring the general public is not really effective. Those disgusting pictures on cigarette packets are good enough.
(c) After a while, people will be desensitized and the shock factor will no longer be effective.

I have just seen the ad on TV, and I think it is scary. I have seen the pictures on the cigarette packets. They definitely do not produce the same emotions as a video.

And here is why I think it SHOULD be aired to the general public :

(1) It reminds children of the nightmares, so that when they grow up they will not smoke. And if they still smoke, then it means the "scare" didn't register in their mind, then what is the worry of scarring them for life with this scary ad ?

(2) Parents are used to using scare tactics, so what's wrong ? It gives parents a chance to tell them facts, rather than using "If you are not good, the Police will catch you" kind of mental-threat-masquerading-as-discipline messages.

(3) The purpose of these ads is not just targeted at smokers, but for non-smokers but MIGHT be smokers in future. So what is wrong with telling EVERYONE the scary thing about smoking ?

(4) Yeah, I agree that people will be desensitized after a while and the effectiveness will drop. But so what ? I am desensitized to drink driving ads - They are silly, corny and ineffective to me. Why not stop them ?

I think there are kids who are scared of old people who look so frail and ghostly... or those amputees without arms or legs... should their parents protect their kids and not "scare" them ? These are facts of life, I think it should be taught to kids...

Nice but not so nice...

For the past few Sundays, I have been going for morning walks along the tracks of MacRitchie reservoir. (An attempt to lead a more healthy lifestyle.)

It has been nice to have breakfast and then a brisk walk along those tracks, seeing monkeys, lizards and fish.

For the last 3 walks, I have had nice encounters - people who greeted "Good Morning" or "Hello". I have counted that these nice smiles and greetings are from Caucasian (about 4 or 5), Chinese (1 or 2) and Indian (1).

As a comparison, the majority of people that I have come across are Chinese (probably about 60%), followed by Caucasians (about 30%) and others (I don't seem to have noticed many Malays... Probably not that different from darker Chinese. Afterall, I am just basing these statistics on my memory. I didn't pay special attention to counting them.)

Of course, I also have not-so-nice encounters - people who inconsiderately hog the tracks.
Yes, the couple (Chines- Chinese man with Singapore-Chinese girl) who was holding hands walking side-by-side and forced a Caucasian jogger to stop in his track and squeeze by the them.

And the bunch of Singapore-Chinese aunties who were chatting among themselves and taking more than half the track, oblivious to the walking and jogging traffic around them.

Parents who brought children and not teaching them to keep to one side to let others pass, instead letting them run amok amongst the legs of other users of the park.

Nice View in Singapore

Though I always say Singapore doesn't have any nice views or places that can make me relaxed, once a while, I will stumble upon some interesting places or views that will brighten me up. Even if it is for just a while.

A while back, I went to an office for an event. While resting at the pantry having coffee, the scene from the window looks good (not great, but still good) :



A few hours later, the view changed to :

Plural of Antenna

I have always thought the plural of Antenna is Antennae. Somehow, I remember this for a long time.

When other people use Antennas, I always thought it was wrong.

Only until recently, I found both are actually correct.
Antennas is used when describing equipment, and antennae is used when describing living things.

From http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antenna

an·ten·na (ān-těn'ə) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. an·ten·nae (-těn'ē)

1. 1. Zoology One of the paired, flexible, segmented sensory appendages on the head of an insect, myriapod, or crustacean functioning primarily as an organ of touch.
   2. Something likened to this sensory appendage, as in function or form: sensitive public relations antennae.
2. pl. an·ten·nas A metallic apparatus for sending or receiving electromagnetic waves.

Sian again...

Quarreled with my boss yesterday.

Throughout the whole thing, I get this message from him : "If the sales person(s) is not capable of ensuring that customers order enough for a product launch, it is the marketing dept's duty to be the check-and-balance... To check on the sales person(s)'s action to ensure marketing campaign is a success."

An entirely right "assumption", except for the facts that :

(a) Some sales people can do this "part" of their job automatically (also a logical thing to do), while others can't get it into their heads. I wonder why...

(b) My boss has shifted the entire "blame" to (i) me, for not "reporting" these lapses in the sales people to him and (ii) another sales person (and pretending to scold her in front of me) for failing to do her part, thereby diverting attention from what his 'favourite subordinate' has done (or in this case, has not done).

(c) My boss is passing sarcastic comments at me when trying to shift the blame to the marketing for not having enough stocks for a particular model.

What I am pissed at :

(1) The primary person who was supposed to do it didn't do it well, so the fault is with the "backup" for not (i) ensuring that the primary person did it and (ii) for not reporting it up to higher authorities.

[I mean, why wasn't the primary person reprimanded for not doing her job in the first place ? And passing comments like "I tried my best to train her, but she just can't be trained anymore. So I have to rely on you guys to monitor" is just passing the buck to me. Yet when one of my subordinate made a mistake that caused him to lose face in front of management, he wanted me to fire that guy by asking the "Do you think he is 'trainable' ?" question.

Still dare to end that comment with a "Do you want to try to train her?".

In case you are confused, the "her" I am referring to is the other poor unfortunate scapegoat sales girl that had her mistake discovered by my boss. Not my boss's favourite "her", who was never mentioned during the entire arguement.]

(2) Management by Sarcasm is a new management technique that I am sure my boss can be the authority to write a book on.

[And yet question why I am so defensive. If he can be passing sarcastic remarks to his subordinate (me), I think my basic entitlement/right is to defend my entire dept, who also happens to be HIS subordinates.]

(3) The sales people are supposed to be "Country Managers" and good business people, makes business decisions, who are highly-paid. (There are no "sales executives" types in our company.) My marketing dept people are just a bunch of back-end support staff who are not even paid commission.

If we screwed up, we have to be blamed. But if the sales people screw up, we STILL have to pick up the blame for not monitoring them ?

(4) When none of the sales people dared to forecast/commit to the qty of stocks they needed, we took the risk and the initiative to order more, based on our gut feel. And this is the thanks we get at the end of the day...

(5) His ability to pass comments that we came up with a campaign, spent money advertising, and not have enough stocks to get the revenue. (And if we had based on the oh-so-capable sales people's forecast, there would have been ZERO revenue.)

While he , just few weeks ago, wanted us to book 2 x half-page ad per month, on a major local newspaper, for a whole year (amounting to at least 2 times what I spent on the entire campaign). When asked why, he just wanted to "increase exposure" and "raise our image", and told us to come up with sometimes to put on the ad.

*~*~*~*~*

And oh yes, is this the right way to promote team-work between sales and marketing ? (That we inform higher authorities that the sales are not doing their part ? We just try to trash things out and if we work it out between us, why is there a need to complain ?)

Marketing is just a team of cheap labour to push every job and blame to ? And only keep the "high-class job" of entertaining, getting PO from customers, etc, as a sales' job ?

(And before you even dare to comment about me not knowing how hard it is to do sales, let me just state that I have been doing the same sales job-scope for more than 2 years, out of which 1.5 years has been with this current company. So I can safely say "Been there, done that ! I know what are my responsibilities.")

Oh wait. This episode just told me that even if the sales didn't get enough PO from the customers for a particular campaign that we planned, its our fault too !

Throughout all these years, The sales decides WHAT gets launched, WHEN it gets launched, and HOW MUCH MONEY to spend for the launch, for their countries. Not the marketing ! So isn't it a logical progression that they have been making such decisions therefore they should KNOW what needs to be done ? (And shall I say again, if they didn't do what needs to be done, it still is our fault for not checking on them?)

*~*~*~*~*

Time to start looking for another job... My peaceful times never lasts more than a month.
I can't do my job. Let see HIM find a "check-and-balance" backup for my job. Who can it be... the Logistic people ?