SSX's Blog

Start the Engine

2011-05-12T00:55:00.000+08:00

My life is very colorful now, so I declare that I will (try to) blog again.

First up, I will update my blogskin with up to date cool stuffs, namely all the fb/twitter link. Gosh my blog is so yesteryear. Time to learn programming.

2010-07-04T00:06:00.003+08:00

You're watching a world cup match at the comfort of your own living room with a bunch of family members or friends. All is well and Germany is steadily advancing into Argentina's field. Out of nowhere, loud roaring came from your neighbours' houses, from the Macdonalds outlet nearby and all around you. Your heart sank. It means that Germany is going to score in another 5 seconds on your Mio TV. Instant spoilers are being presented to you real time when you subscribe to Mio TV and Singtel aren't doing anything about it except blaming the football fans for their stupidity and loyalty.

The 5 seconds delay on present Mio TV setups are tremendously reducing Mio TV football fans' excitement when the rest of the world are receiving their transmission in real time. Singtel, however, is turning a blind eye to this problem and offering no form of compensation to the fans. Now that the world cup is already approaching the finale, the only relation Singtel has made to this problem was an irresponsible two liners amidst an article detailing its many Mio TV faults.

The quote is as follow:

For SingTel's mio TV, the enhanced features and advanced technology of the Internet Protocol or IPTV platform require conversion of the original TV footage from video signals to IP packets, resulting in this delay.

The spokesperson added that SingTel's customers are informed of this at the point of sale and sign up.

Source: CNA

That was a sarcastic remark by CNA right? The advanced technology Singtel is using slows down the transmission when other technologies are gearing towards reducing lag time. This is not the point, however, as the spokesperson's comment is the dubious part.

A quick survey of a few households who signed up for MioTV just before the world cup reveals that they did not know of this delay neither "at the point of sale" nor during "sign up". Perhaps they are just addressing the media for the sake of saving their own face, just like how Odex chairman claims to be an avid anime lover forced by circumstances. If one looks at the comment from another perspective, the spokesperson is simply implying that these recently-converted Mio TV users are just being stupid for signing up for the slower service when Starhub is offering theirs without this delay.

Obviously something is wrong here, since nobody in their right mind will sign up for the slower service of the two if they are making informed choices. So, are the masses lying or is Singtel lying? I shall leave it to the reader's perception.

Singtel's late entry into this market segment has been fraught with many difficulties. Their challenge on breaking their perceived starhub monopoly has led to Singtel winning exclusive rights to broadcast the popular Barclay league on their fault-laden (refer to earlier post) advanced technology and at the same time, increased the cost to consumer by a whooping 400%. It does make one wonder whether monopoly is truly the lesser of the two evils here.

This post may be late, but I am sure Singtel had more than enough time to address this properly. To any readers, please make informed and wise choice next time.

My take on MioTV for the world cup.

2010-06-13T15:34:00.005+08:00

The air horns in the background are really irritating.

Plus, on friday, the jitters were really bad. I heard people exclaiming but hey, my screen FROZED. After HALF AN HOUR of automated calls and call transfer and waiting, the singtel guy on the phone told me that everybody without HD TV are experiencing that problem and that they will fix it by the next match. I didn't check because I wasn't interested in the next match.

Then come Saturday. Voila, I couldn't get any image for the first half of the S.Korea match. I thought it was the modem warming up so I waited. After 10 minutes, I figured something was wrong.

First thing I did was to call the technical helpline again. This time, in addition to the automated calls and waiting, the lady over the phone REFUSED to transfer the call for me. I kept going "Could you transfer the call for me?" and she kept going "Please call 16881(blahblahblah)" which is precisely what I did to get to her. Okay, I admit, I may have pressed a wrong number somewhere because I couldn't wait for the automated voice to finish announcing all the choices. Seeing how useless this is going, I called again, while fiddling with the set up box. I got to the correct guy after another 5 minutes but he was more concerned with getting my particulars right than helping me solve my problem. Frustrated, I pulled out the power cord and plugged it back, essentially doing a hard reset.

Next comes the infamous 3 minutes to switch on, 2 minutes to warm up waiting time and in the meantime, I was filling that guy in as requested with my name, the number I was calling from, whether I was calling from the number mioTV is connected to, whether I am using Singtel internet services (which I am not), etc etc, and finally the state of the box (i.e. colours of the light). Finally the screen came on and I told that guy I fixed the problem on my own already. Damn, I should have done that in the first place.

The saleslady confirmed with me that their "new enhanced MioTV layout" won't have such problems too. I only asked this after it is set up though, since I was kept in the dark by my parents until to my horror, a dubious white box appeared near the computer and an evil twin appeared beside the Starhub box and I see a hot pink screen (it still looks hot pink no matter how the technical guy insists its magenta). Thankfully the internet light on the white box wasn't blinking as well.

I regretted telling my parents to fully utilise the new box and buy World Cup package from MioTV though. I wonder if it's better if I stuck with the green camp.

Good job Singtel. Excellent CRM. :thumb2:

EDIT: BTW, I did not know that we were informed that there is delay in footage receiving "at the point of sale and sign up", contrary to what Singtel spokesperson claimed.

sturdy SSD

2010-02-08T20:22:00.003+08:00

Solid State Drives (SSD) is a relatively new technology that uses non-moving parts and proves to be potentially superior to the current hard disk in many aspects. Current hard disk uses a spinning disk and a mechanical arm to read data which makes it relatively fragile compared to SSDs. SSD also has higher read speed than HDD but the main characteristics of an SSD is usually the low read latency, which implies faster loading times. Right now this technology is still expensive and glitched though, so we'll have to wait a year or two before it gets refined into a beautiful product.

Anyway, kingston proved it's sturdiness in the video below:

It's said to be able to withstand a G-shock of 1500 G, whatever G-shock means. Couldn't find it on google, but it simply means the product is very resistant and hard to spoil. =D

That being said, a hard disk of this level of resilience would mean that your data would still be there after you drop your laptop, but it's very likely that the other parts, especially the LCD screen would be damaged beyond repair such that you won't be able to do anything to it anyway. ^^". But preserving data is probably more important, isn't it?

More of such videos at KingstonSSDNow Youtube channel

source

The behaviour of little Lee Kuan Yews

2010-02-01T20:27:00.000+08:00

After The Online Citizen broke the story of homeless people camping out at Sembawang Park, all hell seemed to have broken loose. The authorities which, with all their resources could have helped these homeless people, instead seem bent on making life more difficult for them.

This article is an account of what took place on the ground after The Online Citizen’s revelation of the Sembawang Park homeless on 16 January.

The Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS), Dr Vivan Balakrishnan, was reported to have visited both Sembawang Park and Changi beach. We were told he did not speak to any of the homeless at Sembawang Park but he did take time to chat with those at Changi. Both times, he was accompanied by a posse of officials from Nparks and MCYS.

The homeless from Sembawang Park were told to dismantle their tents and were issued summons. They were also ordered to leave the area immediately. After TOC suggested that they be given more time, the officers from MCYS promised to give them a further three days to leave the park – this despite some of the campers having valid camping permits. (You can read a more detailed account of what happened here.)

The campers had, on that following Monday, gone to the MCYS office to discuss the matter of alternative accommodation with the officers, as previously arranged. After the discussion, they returned to Sembawang Park to pack up their belongings. They were greeted with the presence of workmen at the camping area who apparently were there to seal off the site. Indeed, Nparks seem eager to have the homeless leave the area as soon as possible, given how swiftly it had arranged for the workers to be there. The day after the campers left, the camping area at the park was cordoned off for “maintenance”.

Over at Changi beach, the homeless were treated just as badly. After the minister of MCYS’s visit, the campers were harassed for days, sometimes two or three times a day by Nparks officers, the campers told us. It is believed that these officers included those from other Nparks branches, such as East Coast, who were roped in to help rid Changi beach of the campers and the homeless, apparently.

The verbal threats by these officers were more blatant as well. “I do not want to see your face [here] anymore,” one lady was told by an Nparks officer. She was there to visit her friends who were fishing. She refused to oblige and has continued to visit Changi beach.

The “rules and regulations” and conditions as laid down by Nparks officers which the campers had to adhere to seem ridiculous at times. The campers were told that they had to be by their tents when Nparks officers come round to conduct their checks – at any time of the day. If they were not by their tents, the officers threatened that all their belongings would be confiscated, including clothings, tents, fishing equipment. If they wanted to retrieve their confiscated belongings, which would include children’s clothings as well, they would have to go to the Nparks office and pay S$300, the campers were told.

“How can we be by our tents all day waiting for them?” asked one of the men who was there to fish. “I told them to let us know what time they would come round to conduct their checks and we would be here to meet them,” he said. However, Nparks officers rejected this and insisted they did as they were told. “How can we go out and fish then?” the man asked. “We can’t even go to the toilet like that,” he added.

On one occasion, three Nparks officers demanded repeatedly that he packed up and leave immediately. “We told you to leave right now!” the officers kept shouting at him.

According to the men, other “rules” issued by Nparks officers were that it is illegal for the campers to leave anything outside of their tents and also that children were not allowed to be inside the tents, even if they were taking shelter from the rain.

On another occasion, one of the fishermen had booked a permit at the AXS machine which was located just outside the Nparks office at Changi beach. When the officers demanded to see the permit, the man told them that the machine had run out of paper and was not able to issue a paper permit. He asked the officers to check with the machine and they would see that his application was approved. The officers, however, refused and ordered him to pack up.

The Nparks officers also issued summons even to those who had valid camping permits, we were told.

One of the most puzzling and outlandish abuse of authority perhaps is the action of Nparks officers unzipping the tents of these campers without permission or warning. This have riled the campers, which included women. “How can they do this?” asked one of the men. In the past, the campers would use locks to secure their tents whenever they went out to fish. However, after they found their locks were cut by, they believe, Nparks officers, they no longer lock their tents.

Several of the campers believe that they have been “blacklisted” by Nparks when it comes to applying for permits through the AXS machine. One of them has been trying to do so for the last six months without success. Some of the homeless campers at Sembawang Park have also told TOC of similar experiences.

Yet, these may not be the worse that the homeless had faced.

One of them, a seven-month pregnant lady, had approached MCYS for help earlier, before we came to know of her plight. She told TOC that when she was at the MCYS offices, she was, quite incredibly, told to put up at a hotel in Geylang as it was “cheaper”. This pregnant lady, who has two other small children and a husband who had quit his job so he can be with her at the park to ensure her safety, held back her tears and her anger. After hearing what was told to her by the MCYS officer, she got up from her chair and walked out of the office.

A couple who had approached their Member of Parliament for help, told us what this MP advised them: “You can go sleep at the beach since there are many people doing that.” [Update - 1 Feb 2010, 13.23 hours: TOC has contacted the MP in question and received this reply from the MP: "I would never ever reply to anyone who comes to seek help in that manner." ]

On one occasion last week, the Nparks officers were again doing their rounds and were particularly demanding that a couple packed up and left Changi beach. When TOC came to know of this, we asked to speak to the officer in charge of the group, over the phone. When he was told that “Andrew from The Online Citizen” was looking to speak to him, the officer could be heard saying dismissively, “Ahh! We don’t entertain!” It was the same answer we got when we tried to speak to another officer by the name of Anthony whom we believe is in charge of the Nparks office in Changi beach.

1927 350250TOC wrote to the Chief Executive Officer of the National Parks Board, Mr Ng Lang, and to its Chairman of the Board, Mrs Christina Ong, on 27 January. Our email was copied to Dr Balakrishnan as well.

Our email asked for clarification on the rules and regulations regarding the use of public parks in Singapore, particularly those which were issued by Nparks officers to the campers at Changi beach. Since these rules were issued by Nparks officers, it was only natural that the public should be made aware of them. Thus, it was a matter of public concern.

Nparks has not replied to our query.

It would seem that the authority given to Nparks officers on the ground are either extensive – to the point where they can issue arbitrary and ridiculous orders – or that the officers on the ground are abusing their authority and powers, along with their blatant and rude behavior bordering on contempt for the poor and homeless.

Nparks officers, and indeed all public servants, including those from MCYS, must keep in mind that they are public servants and not “little Lee Kuan Yews” in charge of their own little domains – issuing orders and rules and regulations according to their own fancies. Public parks in Singapore belong to Singaporeans. Nparks officers are merely custodians of these parks.

But what really gets your goat is that the authorities have known about these homeless people for months. At least one MP, as mentioned above, had actually recommended that the couple set up home at the beach. Yet, why did the authorities, especially the MCYS, not do anything until TOC reported the situation?

And when it did finally do something, it was with a posse of officials, policemen and the minister himself descending on the parks in an ostentatiously threatening manner – with police cars and officers issuing summons and barking orders to the homeless.

“I am a Singaporean, you know?” one of the campers told TOC. “I come here to fish. What is wrong with that? Why they treat us like this?”

Source: The Online Citizen (TOC)

Sharing an interesting article since I haven't been exactly active. :P.

thumbs down to linksys.

2009-12-11T18:18:00.003+08:00

Recently bought Linksys router WRT610N together with 2 USB adapters WUSB600N at Sitex. I would say it's a huge disappointment and totally not worth the cash invested in it.

I'll start with the Linksys router. The 5.0 Ghz connection, which is supposed to provide faster connection in a less congested network, has a pathetic range for decent home usage. The signal degradation is so strong that after 5 meters and a wall, my connection to the network becomes intermittent. Sometimes it would connect, sometimes it drops the connection. The transfer speed to the router in that wireless range itself is pathetic too. After tweaking the settings, my files transfer speed to the router still hovers at around 1 MBps, even though the theoretical maximum is much higher. The 2.4 Ghz (the one most people are still using) works even better than my old one in terms of speed and range but that wasn't what I paid the money for.

I would've thought the USB adapters will be easier to configure than a new router but man, I was totally wrong. Since I recently installed a Windows 7, I decided to use one of these sticks for that computer. I spent about an hour troubleshooting the whole thing because it wouldn't connect to the internet and because I couldn't find an official update to the drivers. I thought there's a problem with my settings but it turned out linksys is the one that screwed up. After visiting its community forum, I found a lot of users with the same problems and a few workarounds. I tried one of them, which is using the vista updates for another adapter version and somehow it worked. Pretty much wasted a lot of my time there with the inefficiencies.

And while searching for driver update for that stick, I stumbled upon an official update to the XP driver. So I went ahead and updated the drivers for my XP computer's USB stick. Guess what? This time the stick couldn't talk properly to the router and the router refuses to issue the machine an IP address. In the end, I reinstalled the old driver in order to use the internet. Good job on an official driver that creates more problems, linksys.

With that being said, I'll end this 15 minutes entry. I'll probably jump over to D-link the next time I do an upgrade and I advise anyone reading not to buy either of those products I've mentioned.

Sitex 09

2009-11-26T00:59:00.003+08:00

Sitex'09 is going to start tomorrow and I have a pretty long list of items to buy, namely wireless n-router, a blu-ray drive, and probably some parts for a new computer I am going to setup.

Took a look at Sony VAIO CW price tag in the flyer. Pretty disappointed because the HDD is only 320 GB and it is about SGD300 more than the initial price. Don't think I am getting one anytime soon.

AFA 2009

2009-11-22T01:36:00.005+08:00

As with last year, I went to Anime Festival Asia '09 as part of putting a bit of effort to stimulate our economy. IMO, I didn't stay there enough. I originally intended to explore the place for about 2 hours and catch some events, such as this, but in the end I was there for only about an hour or so and then attending the concert for the rest of the time spent in Suntec. That's because I went to catch Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance before heading there. I actually planned an hour half of Suntec hall exploring before the movie but due to unforeseen circumstances, namely serious traffic jam outside Orchard and long queueing times in Cineleisure, I sulkily skipped that exploration. Eva 2.0 was good by the way. :).

Anyway, here's all that I have in that short hour. Missed some pretty good stuffs, but the things on display can wait for me. It's quite image intensive, so click on the entire content button to reveal the rest of the post.

ZETSUBOU DA!

And some cosplay I was lucky enough to see.

Mio (K-On!)

Zero/Lelouch (Code Geass)

Hatsune Miku (Black Rock Shooter)

The concert was next. I was so tempted to snap a photo or two but my seat is so exposed to those AFA officials I decided not to. There were a lot of Gurren Lagann songs being sung by shokotan which is one of my main motivations for being there. Things would have been better if there were an actual band though. (And for miku's performance, I'd rather they give one fully rendered animation such as this than give three half-assed jerky and polygonal music videos.) Wasn't as great as I like it to be but it's still a worthwhile experience.

That's my only photo of the concert. I found more at shokotan's blog though.

The crowd:
http://ameblo.jp/nakagawa-shoko/entry-10393692311.html

And the gurren lagann's believe in me who believe in you:

P.S. The kamina figurine is not from the festival

That's about it for the first day. There's K-On! experience on the second day but ah, I couldn't make it. Gotta find pictures online tomorrow.

Current/future technologies to look out for

2009-10-14T16:36:00.026+08:00

I feel like doing up a post about upcoming relevant technology advances for 2009 and 2010 in layman terms. It might be because I am acutely aware that I have a desire to revamp my computer when I ORD next year that these changes become apparent but nonetheless, they are still pretty big changes that imo, are worth noticing.

Here are some of the things you should look out for if you are looking to buy a new computer or upgrade your computer, be it now or in the near future.

1) Windows 7 Operating System

It's coming out around the end of this month. If you are using Vista, it's going to be a must to upgrade it. If you meet the conditions,Microsoft can send it to your house at a low cost instead of having you buy the OS (which will cost over a hundred). If you are using XP, it might be time to consider upgrading it (perhaps giving it a few months to iron out any remaining problems).

There was a pretty huge beta testing for Windows 7 and most of the reviews came out positive, claiming Windows 7 to be the smoother and friendlier version of Vista, with a lot of clutters taken away to be replaced by a non-demanding sleek system. Looks like the time for XP to retire is coming close.

2) IEEE 802.11n (A.K.A. Wireless draft-n)

Are you still using the ugly Linksys blue and black router that looks like some out-of-place plastic casing among all your sleek black equipments? (The D-Link one looks better but I am assuming most people uses Linksys router here anyway) The new wireless-n router has not only a much nicer design but also 2x the range and up to 7x the speed. It's the new standard, superseding the 6 years old G protocol, which is what most of us are using now. And yea, this is only an upgrade if your internet surfing is powered wirelessly. If you're using LAN cables, they are still faster than wireless setups.

Wireless draft-n has been out in the market for a short while and many places now sell wireless-n routers. It's definitely worth the upgrade if you have several PCs connecting to the router wirelessly. If you are going to opt into the broadband upgrade (elaborated below), this should be a worthy investment.

3) USB 3.0 source: USB.org

Yeps, your ever convenient USB hub is going to get an upgrade in speed too. Currently every system around is installed with USB 2.0, which is already in use for 9 years. The USB 3.0 is going to be 10x the speed, transforming from "Hi-speed" to "SuperSpeed". The time taken to transfer your files from your camera to computer is potentially 10x faster if USB SuperSpeed is adopted globally. It's backward compatible too, so fret not, all your old devices are still able to connect to USB SuperSpeed.

USB 3.0 is slated to be available in early 2010, but there's really no point waiting for USB 3.0 if you are waiting a new machine because it's estimated to take about 1 or 2 years after release before it will become mainstream and utilized properly. It may be a slow transition but watch out for it!

4) Blu-ray

Heard of this term before? If you haven't, here's what it is. Blu-ray refers to a kind of disc that has an even higher storage space than DVDs. It's relatively new, having just came out early last year, and it's way more powerful than the DVD. Anyone into HD (High Definition) videos or audios would have certainly heard of this term by now. A normal Blu-ray disc can store up to 25GB as opposed to 5GB in a normal DVD disc and it can also be read faster than a DVD. As far as I know, PS3 has games being sold in this medium already.

What's more, machines aimed at multimedia consumers such as the vaio I was drooling over before are increasingly being fitted with a Blu-ray player with DVD/CD burning capabilities. With this level of penetration, Blu-ray is only going to get more popular. Just one downside, if you want to fully enjoy the wonders of this technology, your screen needs to have this logo.

5) Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network source: IDA Singapore

Here's some local news.

Even if you haven't heard of that term before, you will have surely read from somewhere in local news that several districts are having their fiber optics upgraded to higher speed. They are the same thing essentially. It's a plan to upgrade Singapore's broadband speed, which is lagging behind many countries. If all goes as planned, our maximum download speed can potentially be increased to 1GBps, 10x the speed now, but taking all the factors into consideration, the value is probably overly exaggerated and we should just deem it as a modest speed upgrade until proven otherwise.

Despite having a broadband penetration rate of near 90%, our speed requirements barely reach current demands, ranked at 28th of 66 analyzed countries in a study conducted by Cisco. It's time that we have a proper hardware upgrade if we were to stay competitive globally.

The upgrade is a opt in thing though, and they have to install a small gadget in your house for you to access the upgraded connection. More can be read here. It says that the services is slated to be provided in 2010 so things still seem pretty vague to me. Do we have to terminate our current subscription and subscribe to their services or are they going to let us upgrade our current internet subscriptions? How much will we have to pay and what kind of jack are they providing for the connection? They either didn't cover these questions or have hid them pretty well because I haven't read any of such things thus far. Well, it's still more or less in its infancy stage so that can wait.

As I have said, I am not satisfied with our local ISPs and still remain skeptical about their provision of services. We badly need the upgrade but if our service providers aren't going to maintain the quality of the link, the investment is as good as a lost cause. I am gonna wait and see.

That's about all the main stuffs I wanted to say. I still ended up typing a bit too much when it comes to our local internet but W/E. The list is by no means exhaustive but I believe it covers most of the important upcoming developments we'll see.

Sony Vaio CW

2009-10-08T22:18:00.002+08:00

Holy, I want a Vaio CW.

It's specs?
Less than 2.5kg, 23cm by 34cm
2.2GHz dual core processor
4 Gig RAM
500GB
Nvidia GeForce G210M with up to 512MB VRAM
Blu-ray compatibility (Something better than DVD)
Built-in Card Reader, Wireless compatibility up to draft n
Sleek Design!
Less than 1.2k SGD

If you have no idea what that information above means, it's (in my opinion) a pretty good deal for a consumer laptop and with the specifications just suited for multimedia (and still upgradable). It's won't be laggy watching the high quality videos or doing those intensive rendering, plus it has about all the most up-to-date technology that I've known of. In case you didn't know, it comes with Windows 7 too, which is the latest Windows Operating System available.

If nothing else catches my eyes I might just buy this laptop for my uni usage. :D. There's still two years though, but I do want that limited edition blue color laptop (see above).

PSP-Go

2009-10-04T11:41:00.006+08:00

source

The PSP-Go is available in Singapore as of a few days ago at a price of S$412. It's feature? It's also going to be smaller and lighter than the standard PSP we are used to, which IMO, doesn't really matters as long as the PSP can fit into my bag without weighing too much. It has bluetooth capabilities too, so the transfer speed between the consoles or computer should be decent.

The other very important feature is the removal of UMD (the small disc thingy at the back of your PSP) driver entirely. Yeps, you need to download all the games online via the Sony Playstation Store. It's going to be purely digital with the exception of a Memory stick. And by the way, the PSP-Go is going to use 802.11b protocol, so I wouldn't bet on downloading games using PSP-Go unless I have that much time to waste. (If you have no idea what's that protocol, you're probably still using the G protocol for your wireless internet connection, which is about 4x to 5x faster than the B one that PSP-Go is using)

I am going to cross my fingers for now because I doubt PSP-Go is going to be a hit in Singapore. Our very slow broadband speed isn't going to help sales at all. Just in case you didn't know, currently we are behind our developed Asian counterparts and already 3x slower than the internet connection in South Korea. Maybe the going-to-be installed fibre optics cables will help our speed (but then, it may not help because our dear local companies actually limit our internet speed.

Opps, I ended up bashing Singapore's infocomm companies. Coming back to topic, no, don't buy PSP-Go unless it's been proven that the "upgraded internet connection" is really 10x faster than our current speed. I am not even hoping for 40% of the cited "maximum speed of up to 1Gbps!!!!". I am looking at less than 10%. Hopefully we can even reach a 100Mbps. Oh shi-, I'm bashing them again.

Source: PCWorld, VR-Zone

Windows 7

2009-09-30T22:56:00.002+08:00

Yo windows vista users, this is a piece of good news for all of you if you haven't already heard about it.

Windows 7 Operating System (OS) is coming out and Vista users can get this upgrade for practically nothing (except the mailing fee). All you have to do is visit this Microsoft website and follow the instructions given. If you are a Vista user, I would recommend ordering one now, and by that I mean right now even if you intend to wait till the OS is proven to be stable. This offers only extends till Jan 31 2010 and who knows if it will end earlier, since it seems to be only available "while stock last" as quoted.

Some hardware requirements your computer needs before it can run Windows 7 without a hitch:
1 GHz processor or more
1 GB of RAM or more
16 GB of Hard Disk Space (My C drive doesn't have this D=)

It's obvious why you want to upgrade to Windows 7 because Vista is ~~crappy~~ not in season anymore. Windows 7 claims to be faster, more user friendly and hmm, customizable. It probably patches up a lot of loopholes Vista users experienced but I can't say much since I have not tried it. Read the full windows official article here.

Order one now! (BTW, I decided I am sticking to my XP till NS is over)

Tremors?

2009-09-30T18:34:00.003+08:00

I was lying on my bed about 20 minutes ago and arching my back like a lazy cat when I felt a jolt. It felt like my body involuntarily twitched from my stretching so I decided that it's not the best position to stay in. Thus I turned my lazed body slightly and have it facing the ceiling such that I am laying on my bed staring at the ceiling like some stoned individual. It was pretty comfortable in that position and then this perpetual wave of seemingly very mild seismic activity set in. Okay I sort of exaggerated. It wasn't perpetual. It lasted for less than a minute I guess. I lay there wondering what it was and sort of enjoying it in that indolent mode. It wasn't my heartbeat since the vibration was so faster and it wasn't vibration caused by resonance. I couldn't care less though until my dad broke my surreal state of thought by asking me whether I felt the tremors. I certainly did.

But hmm, earthquake somewhere near Singapore again? Probably. I have never felt the tremors that vividly before since I live somewhere in the middle of the west area, not near the coastal areas. Thankfully for us, we will never feel the full impact of the earthquake because Singapore doesn't lie on the boundaries of plates, as taught proudly by our Geography teachers in lower secondary levels. Still, any tremors felt is sure to instill some degree of fear in some paranoia citizens (no offense intended if you were one of them) as proven times and times in the past. Just google "Singapore earthquake" and you will know what I mean. I still don't know the cause though so I stepped into the shower while others were investigating the cause (through the news I predict).

According to my mom who heard this from the news, this was caused by the earthquake in Sumatra which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale. I visited ChannelNewsAsia and the news proved to be true. We were definitely blessed to be only feeling tremors. Those in Sumatra are far worse off. May there be minimal casualties.

The news:

source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1008365/1/.html

Twitter?

2009-09-06T18:22:00.005+08:00

Let's face it. Twitter is seriously overrated here. I might be a bias source but no matter what marketing ploy twitter uses or how about publicity they get, I don't see people around me using it.

It's been proven quite a while back that teens don't tweet. (Refer to readings here) But that survey was more or less targeted at US. What I want to state here is that we asian (or maybe just Singaporeans) don't do it either.

As of now, I know more adults (people aged 25 and older) using facebook that using twitter. Most of us probably only knew of twitter or only created a twitter account because it was very hyped in magazines and newspapers in that period of time. But really, it's like overhyped, and more like a play of reverse psychology where they try to rouse the public into thinking that twitter is very popular instead of it being popular among the public first. Just ask around, how many people do you know actively uses twitter? I logged in to my twitter account just now (Yes I do have one, but I don't use it), I can safely tell you that I can only find two active twitter accounts, in which one of them is created only after TIME's oh-wow-its-the-next-big-thing article is published. After probing around a bit, I found at least two more who admitted that they only created their account only because of the article.

Another thing is that I don't see why people will choose twitter over facebook as stipulated in some articles. Twitter has limited functionality and can only provide news feed. These are stuffs that facebook can already do and facebook provides higher interactivity compared to twitter. In my opinion, facebook remains a superior alternative to twitter in about every aspect.

Despite all these, there are still people deluded into thinking that twitter is the next 'in' thing and that corporations should embrace it without fail. These claims are quite unsubstantiated and without a decent percentage of Singaporeans active on that social networking site, these firms are just going to incur losses through this medium of advertising.

My take is that twitter is just a US thing, just like how the MySpace fad didn't get to Singapore. Who knows, maybe it's just a matter of time that people start using it but without a substantial improvement I doubt that will happen. Without your friends on a social networking site, it's not going to become popular (unless everybody wants to follow the celebrities to know what they are doing).

My external hard disk

2009-09-03T16:40:00.003+08:00

Here's an image of the external hard disk I am using. It was bought in July last year and has been acting funny since November. And for the past few months, it cannot be read by any of the computers I tried so far, be it windows or mac. Upon googling this product, this is what I found:

Quite negative eh? There's more of such comments here but I couldn't be bothered to upload so many of them. It seems to common for Imation hard disk not to be detected by computers and I've found similar problems posted on tech forums on the same brand in the not-so-distant past. It's irritating especially when you have your pictures, songs, videos and everything stored inside. The warranty only covers replacing of the product, but not the repairing, so it means your data is going to be lost forever if you don't fork out the cash from your pockets.

Oh well, lesson learnt. Don't scrimp on your external hard disk especially when you are going to use it to store your precious information. Buy one with a good brand name, like Seagate and say, Western Digital. Maxtor used to be pretty faulty but since it's bought over by Seagate it should be better. Imation may be cheap but it's certainly not worth the value. (Not gonna buy their products anymore)

Dissolving bikini

2009-08-27T20:51:00.003+08:00

Came across this article that made me laugh a great deal. It describes an item that dissolves after about 3 minutes in water. Probably doesn't sound special except the item in concern is none other than a bikini. I don't know whether to describe this as ingenuity, amusing or humiliating.

Here's a cover picture I got from google,

The supposed target audience is basically heartbroken males. Beware of the black bikini, girls!

source

The Lost Generation

2009-08-26T22:01:00.000+08:00

Hey wow it's a live performance!

2009-08-25T10:02:00.001+08:00

Trojan Horse Small.BOG

2009-07-25T22:36:00.003+08:00

Since yesterday, AVG has been identifying my iTunes as a trojan horse. I initially thought that the day where I accidentally downloaded an infected music file has finally come but it was not to be. I tried reinstalling iTunes but the same problem occurred so I did a google.

There was apparently some problem with the latest virus definition update (24/7/2009) that cause AVG to erroneously identify itunes as Trojan Horse Small.BOG as I found out. Did some changes to AVG settings, but it seems like everything will work fine if you update your AVG virus definition.

All's solved. =).

Blog revived!

2009-07-17T20:02:00.002+08:00

I decided to start posting again because I clearly don't have any important things to do. I mean, if the top priority in my life is completing the games on my PSP, it really says a lot about how I am leading my life now. So I decided that instead of doing all the pointless facebook quizzes, I'd rather type crap and post them here and HOPE that it still gets visitors. Really, at least I won't have to complain that I am bored that much.

Thankfully I am in a stay out unit though, it gives me the ability to feel bored at home on my computer instead of turning to my PSP all the time like what I do in camp. Been pretty free these few days too now that I passed the military driving test. Did a decent amount of things I suppose, like buying a Sonic Gear Tatoo 333 then find out that the 1 metre wire is so short that I can't place the speaker in any favourable positions, and fixing my computer by clearing CMOS (it was an overclocking problem, not any burnt graphics card or capacitors)

Oh, and I removed my tagboard too.

Lost

2009-03-22T12:55:00.003+08:00

Anyway one of the reasons I stopped blogging is that I lost direction of what I want to do with this blog. I never really had a direction to begin with but now it is just worse than before ^^.

Leaving this to rot until I decide that I want to do something about this.

Confinement week over

2009-01-26T20:40:00.003+08:00

I didn't really feel like blogging but since I am able to catch a breather from everything, I might as well post a small entry here.

First thing first, my company is part of this trial batch thing and we are supposed prepare for some GP style presentation using old-school methods (marker and vanguard). That is in addition to some essay writing competition too. I don't really like all these thinking things too. It consumes my already short break before I go back in. D=.

Okay enough ranting. One thing I really missed in the past weeks is nua-ing. It just feels like I haven't nua-ed enough and I am looking for more. ~-~. Just can't find a time for it.

On a side note, those whom I have met up with recently would have noticed that I suddenly have a fetish for wearing hats. I think they are comfortable to wear. Slight change in my preferences. =).

Lol, this post is quite random.

Byee

2009-01-07T22:45:00.003+08:00

On a secret agenda to uphold every man's pride and honor and to play my part in defending the country. Mission code: 080108 0930 GMT+8

D= I want to nua.

【鏡音リン】ココロ【オリジナル曲】

2009-01-06T17:10:00.001+08:00

One of my personal favourite vocaloid song! (With translated lyrics)

Dragonball Evolution

2008-12-23T16:36:00.002+08:00

Here's one of the most discussed topic on the internet:

All of the comments seen online on this Hollywood movie are negative, if you happen to find a positive one drop me the link somewhere around here. xD. I might just watch this movie to see how bad it can get.

And by the way, I am getting a little too lazy to blog. When I get the inspiration/motivation to do so, I'll probably start advertising this blog. Meanwhile I guess you can consider this blog dormant. Tada!

Sitex 2008

2008-11-29T23:57:00.007+08:00

I was pretty much in Sitex for nearly six hours earlier. This is the 20th year running for this annual electronic fair, and whao, you do get a lot of good bargains there that you can't get elsewhere.

Just take the set of speakers I bought today as an example. It's only an entry level speaker but at around 25 bucks, it is just too good. It's only twice the price of those rubbish speakers but it's definitely wayy better than them in terms of everything(and most importantly, sound quality). That set of computer speakers is sold at almost half price though. If clearing stock is their purpose, they have definitely achieved it because what I bought was one of the last few available sets.

That's not the only good bargain too, there's a lot of vendors selling laptops there with plentiful of free accessories. Heck, almost every item you buy there comes with free accessories.

Many will think that in a severe recession (source) such as now, and with future prospect looking bleak, such electronic fair will not be well received because consumers lose their confidence and fear a loss of buying power in the near future. That is however, not the case. At 11 when the fair has started, the halls were already crowded, but by 2, there were so many people at the fair that everybody is squeezed like sardine and moves together. When I say squeezed like sardine, it is not an exaggeration at all because at some places, it was so crowded that you can't even squeeze through to the opposite side. I will not make any blatant comparisons though because I do not have relevant information pertaining to past Sitex success.

Perhaps it is more appropriate to use another example. Now that people are poorer because of the recession, they no longer buy 16 gig iPod Nano. Instead, iPhone are sold out and 8 gig iPod Nano goes nearly out of stock at one Apple reseller and 8 gig iPod Nano starts selling out in the other. And you have to queue 20 minutes or more to buy an iPod too. Yea, people are "switching to cheaper alternatives" now that the economy is bleak. :). And did I mention there were a lot of people lugging a HD ready TV set each home?

Hmm, maybe people are bringing forward their expenditure for the sake of the discounts and see MP3 players as a necessity in our technologically prolific world.

Anyway, I have nothing against them since I am one of those people. I won't know whether sales of Sitex will drop this year but if it didn't, then that's good news (for the economy), maybe more so if private consumption doesn't make up only a small percentage of our GDP.

Hoho, I bought quite a lot of good bargains today. ~-~. By the way, the AFA post is updated with links to pictures already.

Anime Festival Asia '08

2008-11-22T16:42:00.007+08:00

I've just reached home from Suntec, where the AFA is held. (It's open today and tomorrow from 10am to 9pm.) I intended to spend some money there initially but instead came home empty handed because they ran out of stocks. There's still lots of Gunpla around and other random stuffs like the mecha san guo things though. Man, they sure run out fast, maybe I should have been in the thousand man long queue in the morning to grab the goods.

Some of the figurines I could have potentially bought:

Okay, they are all Miku figurines. =/. Some other nice figurines on exhibit (most of them are either not on sale or sold out):

(The cloud figurine above is on sale for a hundred bucks from what I can remember)

Yeps, quite a lot of popular titles there. Haruhi Suzumiya, Shana, Lucky Star, Death Note, FF7, Gundam, etc. Next up is some cosplay spotted at the festival, there should be more cosplayers tomorrow since the cosplay competition is on tomorrow. ^^

Lenalee & Road (D.Grayman):

Tobi & Deidara (Naruto):

Sasuke & ? (I am not a big fan of naruto =x) & Sakura (Naruto):

One spastic Ranka (with the wrong eyes color?) (Macross Frontier):

Gundam Exia:

There should be more of these cosplayers tomorrow. I came home early so I missed the Ichiru Mizuki performance. And there's going to be a May'n concert tomorrow too!

EDIT 30/11:
Here are the promised links!

http://www.splifearts.com/2008/11/afa-cosplay-photos/
http://www.darkmirage.com/2008/11/24/anime-festival-asia-2008/

A levels part 3

2008-11-20T00:12:00.003+08:00

These were my necessity of life for the past months, my faithful belongings that accompanied me through the most enduring period of my life (so far).

It's a little sad to see them go, but...

They are gone now!

Looks like I won't be mugging for quite some time from now. To the biology, arts, and all others, good luck for your remaining papers!

A levels part 2

2008-11-09T18:06:00.007+08:00

While camping in front of the ~~computer~~ study table all day, one needs to have a healthy dose of entertainment and leisure to impede the unhealthy weight gain, if it actually helps.

I seem to be approaching the end of A levels (19th's going to be my liberation day). Biology students end on 20th. Ha. After that I expect myself to lose my motive in life and idle around my house like a parasite 'cos I have nothing to look forward to or work for after that. xD. I don't see that as a bad thing. Looking forward to it!

And oh yes, part of the entertainment and leisure I was talking about.

Click the blue link below for more!

A levels part 1

2008-11-04T22:02:00.006+08:00

Alright, one subject down, And about half of another two subjects done with today. SOON, I will be free from the ___ of exams. I can't think of a good word to fill in that blank.

And, here are some pictures!

These are done by uploading the photos onto a server. Visit Photofunia.com for more!

I love this. xD.

Cat in the box

2008-10-29T15:39:00.001+08:00

Cute video to destress for the needy. Why cat? Ask the internet.

AFK

2008-10-15T21:17:00.002+08:00

Now that I am less than 3 weeks away from the start of A levels, my activity here is probably going to go lower than what it is now. The probability that cutting down my activity is going to help me in my end of year is pretty much near zero but hopefully it's going to give me a sense of dedication to studying, albeit a false one.

I uploaded some not-very-relevant humourous pictures to commemorate the coming of A levels. They are quite outdated but meh, they're still a good laugh occasionally. Enjoy! (As usual, click the link below to see full post)

Anyway, just for your information, I do not own any of these images. I found all of them online.

First, to describe us, who are (finally) dedicating appropriate lengths of time to our full-time jobs as students,

Now for some intellectual images,

This is to describe the rest of you who've finished exams,

List of nice Autumn 08 animes

2008-10-07T02:15:00.004+08:00

Hello, as this is a great anime season, I personally feel that I should recommend some to anybody who happens to read this post. Probably not for the J2s, but as for the others, you can check them out if you are free. xD.

Click on "read entire post" below to see the whole thing.

Romance
1. Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka
	The primary reason I watch this anime is because of its talented cast. By cast, I mean that it has very good voice actors. I don't really know if the plot is going to be good though. The gist of this anime seems to be the relationship between the protagonist and his unwilling tsundere fiancee and if the storyline is good, this will surely be a success.
2. Clannad ~After Story~
	A continuation to Clannad, this is expected to be as good as the first series. Just ask anybody who has watched Clannad, you are bound to get a positive response. Enough said.
3. ef - a tale of melodies
	The sequel to ef - a tale of memories. I love ef for its element of bittersweet love so I am probably following this one. It's not really a continuation of the former though, speculation says that it is going to focus on the development of the remaining characters seen in "memories".
4. Nodame Cantabile Paris Chapter
	Yet another sequel. It's prequel, Nodame Cantabile, is really an enjoyable anime. Both series incorporate music into its storyline, with Orchestra and Piano being the mode of music in question here. Being able to appreciate classical music isn't a prerequisite for you to enjoy this anime, however. According to my past impression, it's soothing and slow to moderately paced. Expecting this to be good.

Shounen (It means that guys are the primary target audience)
1. Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Season 2
	The highly anticipated season 2 is finally here! I have just watched the first episode a few hours ago and it's excellent, in terms of quality of designs, actions and screenplay. I don't have to elaborate on the popularity of the gundam series and this one has the potential to defeat its previous franchise, gundam seed.
2. Kurogane no Linebarrels
	Another mecha anime airing this season. Honestly speaking, I don't really have high hopes for this anime since it's by Gonzo. I haven't watched the first episode, but it didn't receive good review as far as I know. It seems mildly interesting, which is the reason this is mentioned. Although Gonzo allowed online streaming on CrunchyRoll, it is, sadly, not available in our region. It seems tedious to find a fansub group on this project, so I may drop it altogether instead. Wait, why did I mention this anyway?
3. Tale of the Abyss
	Being an anime adaptation of Tales RPG series by Namco, this should be familiar to RPG lovers. Seems good and interesting enough. The protagonist "gained the freedom he's been dreaming of" and "what awaits him in the outside world will shatter everything he's ever known about himself" or so to quote from the synopsis.

Other nice animes
1. Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae
	Literally meaning Hell Girl 3rd series. It's probably the kind of anime I am looking for since I have been somewhat looking for psychological animes ever since Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I need to watch Jigoku Shoujo and Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori before I can really comment on this though. By the way, Jigoku Shoujo is showing on Art Central every Wednesday at 11pm for those ignorant ones. =P. They are showing two other animes from this season too, such as Casshern Sins and Skip Beat!. Casshern is a mecha anime and skip beat is a shoujo anime, both seems interesting too.
2. Vampire Knight Guilty
	For some reason, a lot of girls seem to like Vampire Knight and have been waiting for its sequel. It finally aired today so these peeps can feast on their Kaname and Zero yet again! Nonetheless, it's quite entertaining to watch because the settings involved are rather dark (sinister?), which happens to suit my taste.

There are probably other good animes around like Ga-Rei -Zero-(action), Toradora!(Tsundere romance), Shugo Chara!! Doki(magic), but it's gonna take me ages to finish all of them. Those listed above are, in my opinion, the best of their respective genre this season anyway. And as to why I chose to blog about this, hmm, I guess really just felt like it. ^^.

Post Prelims

2008-10-04T10:42:00.003+08:00

I ~~am lazy~~ have ran out of creative juices and is thus posting random stuffs pertaining to recent happenings. I was hoping for something intellectual out of this blog but I fail hard at it, seeing that I have been posting nothing but YouTube videos recently. So, I am going to blog about something lighter and ~~make this mugger here seem not so like one~~ prove that this can be a normal blog.

Nothing much going around, except post prelims schedule has been quite slack with lots of break in between. That's good, ain't it? Just yesterday, I have a 3.5 hours break between my second last and last lesson. I could have spent that time doing something exhaustive like playing ball (which I haven't done so for a long time) but instead, I spent that time so ever wisely by doing a VJ prelims paper. I didn't intend for it, I used my Chemistry and Physics revision lecture preparing for the last lesson because I haven't started on it. I have almost finished the RJ paper after Physics but alas, RJ paper is for next week. Damn. Oh well, at least it means I have lesser to do next week.

Wait, that's not right. I am exactly 30 days away from A levels. Definitely not a time to reduce my workload. Zzz. Haha, I am so hardworking. -_-.

Anyway, my prelims result are quite exhilarating. Okay, the grades are decent but that's not what I am refering to. My all-time-constantly-bordering-on-fail GP is now my best subject (according to school ranking) without me devoting all my time to it unlike another subject (which is now first runner-up, losing to GP by 1% in percentile). HAHA. Talk about getting lucky.

I have to stop procrastinating and start revising for real soon! Good luck all!

Funny animal video

2008-09-21T21:46:00.002+08:00

To make up for my absence. =). If you don't have 9 minutes to spare, watch this 1 minute video.

Vocaloid's newest video

2008-09-01T00:31:00.009+08:00

【ニコニコ動画】VOCALOIDでニコニコ動画流星群【完成版】

Okay, this is to make up for my current and future lack of updates because I have decided to wholeheartedly dedicate my time to studying. Presenting to you the 14 minutes long music video featuring the stars of vocaloid (obviously with Hatsune Miku in the limelight most of the time) with many classics and (jpop) top hits.

Here's a little background information on Vocaloid first. It isn't a company for your information. It is a software by Yamaha, a singing synthesizer software to be exact. So hatsune miku isn't a real singer, just a virtual idol with Saki Fujita's voice. So Vocaloid is this program where you type in lyrics and melody and volia, you get the song. Apparantly there's settings you can adjust to improve the dynamics of the song too.

Anyway I heard some of the songs off YouTube before. I can't really say I like the voice of Miku but this one is pretty good in my opinion. Listen to it if you are bored or something. I am just going to end my post here because my brain is not really functioning in this tired state.

Here's some pictures of Hatsune Miku to end my post. The video is released yesterday by the way, which coincidentally is the day Miku was born!

By2

2008-08-09T17:31:00.004+08:00

So today as I was helping my aunt search for an oldie on the Internet(okay, I admit I downloaded music, but none of my computer can rip songs from a LD), I chanced upon this banner featuring two young female singers, Miko and Yumi, with the kind of generic cute face. Out of interest (purely, I swear), I clicked on that link and it auto-played some music that wasn't too bad. I liked it actually. I was like "Hey, who are By2? Never heard of them." And there, this is By2:

Like I said, they have generic cute faces. You (fans) can differ, but that's not going to change my stance about that anyway. Well, that's not important anyway.

There's a few reason I chose to blog about this pair of sisters.

1) They are Singaporeans

As a dutiful and country-loving citizen, (lol) I feel that it is important to support fellow countrymen in their path to stardom. Okay, I am half joking on this point.

2) They are merely 16

Yeps, they are younger than me if you haven't realised. And this is the relevant part.

Just for your info, they are no longer studying and have quitted school. It seems that they were from Yio Chu Kang Secondary School according to this link.

I gathered the following information from their blog. It's totally in chinese and thankfully, singlish is almost non-existant (except for the usage of a few hokkien words). Here's an excerpt:
今天就要把休学的信交给学校的主任老师，由于公司要求休学原因尽量保密，所以我们心里有点紧张，担心老师会问太多问题。放学后朋友们陪我们一起去见主任老师，说关于我们休学的事。老师问原因，我们就很简单的说要去国外念书，老师接着问了很多问题，幸好有朋友们帮忙cover-up，才没有被老师看出破绽.

Their resolve deserves some applause. Not many people would have dared to take this step of quitting school, especially when they aren't even in tertiary education. Initially, I wondered if their parent supported them doing this. But upon further reading of their blog, I realise their deceased father encouraged them to pursue their dream of becoming singers. So yea, they got support from their parents, though it's hard to imagine parents letting their child quit school to work so early. (Okay, maybe that's only applicable for mine.)

Not only that, they have decided their direction in life at that age too. Quit secondary education at 15, professional singers from Ocean Butterflies International (OB-I) by 16. That is, again, something that I won't be able to do because I am sitting here, trying to do my homework and totally unsure of my future, whereas this pair made up their mind at 15 or younger. I believe most of us are just studying for the sake of the promised place in the working population which we don't even know of (or changes sporadically) too. You would probably think that being in the working class is still something quite distant at that age.

And many people seem to think that they have quitted school because they were forced by OB-I. Well, they have to quit school if they were to take proper lessons on singing, isn't it? And another bunch has this misconception that they lied to their teacher or something (refer to the excerpt above). That is not true though: 最后一天，当老师当着全班宣布这件事，看到同学们脸上惊讶的表情。但最让我惊讶的是，老师竟然当着全班说‘玮芬和玮玲要休学是要去当明星！’ This statement has already clarified that their teacher knew of their choice. By the way, I had to type this because it's a damn common misconception if anybody only read the first part. I conceived similar ideas when I was looking for information pertaining to them too.

With that being said, they have chosen an unconventional path (for Singaporeans at least), done what people their age shouldn't be doing, started working before everyone. I wish them luck in their career for they'll need it on this risky endeavour.

Anyway, their debut album is titled 16岁未成年 NC16. The songs are pretty nice in my opinion.

By the way, from this layman's point of view, they certainly dance well.

Okay, back to my homework!

Lesson in Economics

2008-08-03T01:50:00.003+08:00

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20, "declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

Source : snopes.com

Well, I chanced upon this online but couldn't find the original source. Not that it matters anyway. A humorous attempt to explain tax system generally. If this isn't cynical enough for you, you can visit here for politics infused into this explanation. I found the latter too cynical (and crappy imo) for my taste so I'll rather stick with this story.

The Dark Knight

2008-07-25T20:45:00.009+08:00

Title: The Dark Knight

Genre: Action, Thriller

Length: 2.5 hours

"This city deserves a better class of criminals."

the Joker

Definitely a must catch of this season. Christopher Nolan and his team did an excellent job in writing the screenplay and directing this movie. It is impactful and everything fits together very nicely. The cast must be applauded for their (major) contributions too. Christian Bale (Batman), Heath Ledger (Joker), Aaron Eckhart(Harvey Dent), Gary Oldman (James Jordan), Michael Caine (Alfred Pennyworth) and Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) fit their roles almost too well. And of course, not forgetting the special mention to Heath Ledger for his hideous portrayal of Joker, combining high pitched laughter, dodgy eyes, stiff movements, lip licking, and maniacal behavior all into one character. Joker is undoubtedly one of the most loved and hated character for seasons to come.

So, what makes the Dark Knight really good? The first thing is its script and screenplay. The opening scene left a deep impression on the viewers about what kind of character Joker is -- an intellectual homicidal sociopath who has no regards for his underlings (or no fixed underlings). Even that description might be an understatement, considering what he has been doing throughout. His character can somewhat be exemplified by his appearance, which makes him a unique villian as well as a frightening one. I digress, so pertaining to the original point, besides the grand opening by joker, the plot proceeded off smoothly, with each successive arc more interesting than the last.

Why did I say that each arc is more interesting than the last? Well, I am sure most will agree that the real action starts after joker begins killing people on a daily basis. However, that still isn't the peak. Things do seem like they will conclude after joker got caught, but the viewers are brought on another roller coaster ride as the life of rachel dawes and harvey dent are endangered and Joker ingeniously escape from the prison. And then there's Joker's "social experiment", aimed at exposing the ugly side of humanity, which Joker claims is the true face of humans that they reveal when their own life is at stake. The whole plot just builds up and keep you glued to the big screen.

I still have some issues with the plot, however. Joker just mysteriously disappeared from the Harvey Dent fundraising party when Batman jumped down the building to save rachel dawes without killing Harvey, and batman didn't try to track him down either. Everything just proceeded on to the next morning, which I find a bit unsettling. And, why did they have a security guy inside the interrogation room, and Joker left untied inside anyway? The security is a bit dumb there in my opinion, or is it that these corrupted officers actually intended to let Joker escape? (But Joker blasted all of them up anyway)

And when we talk about this movie, there's definitely one character that must be covered. It's not batman, he's just the standard superhero with cool weaponaries (and I want that Batmobile and bat-pod). I don't find anything that special with Batman, maybe except for his persistent principle of not killing anyone (not even Joker). And you probably know which character it is. Afterall, the hot topic now is on Joker. A really one-of-a-kind villian. He's not like Jigsaw Killer from Saw, though I see similarity in their fetish for mutilation and torture. Joker is more extreme, and is very actively involved in the stunts he pull, which really puts him in the limelight for he executes his plans almost personally. Joker is permanantly delirious and has really warped thoughts. Kudos to Heath Ledger for the excellent acting, but unfortunately we won't be seeing more of his films anymore. If you still don't know, he has died from an accidental drug overdose in January. Nonetheless, his acting is superb. Okay, to lighten the tone here, let's bring up a few of joker's quote here, starting with his epic "Why so serious?". And then, there is one "Madness is like gravity, all it takes is a little push." I commend joker for all his well executed plans, from robbing the bank to planning the arrest and escape from prison as though these are his playthings.

Anyway, here's a short video from the movie.

Notice that at about 5s into this short clip, the truck says "Laughter - The Best Medicine" with a red S drawn before laughter. What does that spell? Slaughter, you got it. It reminded me of this inspirational poster, featuring Shion from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni

Overall, this is one of the best action films I've watched so far and The Dark Knight has transformed from a kid's superhero to a movie this deep and dark, and no longer suitable for the younger audiences. It deals with themes such as the meaning behind power, politics and the true face of humanity.
My rating: 10/10 Must Watch!

"He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. He's ... The Dark Knight"

TTGL Parallel Works 2

2008-07-13T01:06:00.007+08:00

Original Net Animation (ONA)

Theme: BafBaf! Sonna ni Moeru no ga... Suki Kai (Bafbaf! Do You Like Being That... Fired Up?)

Anime: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Summary: Featuring viral and the pachinko machine! Content highly related to theme.

It's an ONA of the anime Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. It's just like another video where the scenes are planned out according to the music if you don't know the original story but you'll get more of a laugh if you do. And speaking of which, Parallel Works 1 offers the characters in a parallel universe and a whole different storyline, featuring the theme "Rap is a Man's soul!", which you will enjoy better probably if you watched the anime. Rap is a Man's soul is the piece with "Row row fight da powah!" epic phrase by the way.

Anyway, Gurren Lagann is a very good anime regardless of whether you like mecha or not. It's been described as epic by many and a guaranteed entertainment for that whole 20 minutes every episode. It's still at the top of my favourite list, and I'm not exaggerating. It's a gar anime with good character development and good storyline. But the most important thing that makes the anime epic is the way the protagonist can somehow overcome their situation no matter how and what. (Think power ranger or pokemon, but infinitely better.)

Jung Personality test

2008-07-08T01:22:00.000+08:00

ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.

Take Free Jung Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Main type	Variant

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Hello world!

2008-07-08T00:42:00.000+08:00

Hello, this blog is now re-opened! This is ssx here, bringing to you uh, interestings posts (hopefully).