Chiam See Tong and Lina Chiam leaving SPP rally (Potong Pasir, 30 Apr 2011)

I just feel emotionally compelled to post this.



I was there too and witnessed the crowd following him all the way past the coffee shop to the carpark. We know what he has done for us. First time I've witnessed such outpouring of respect, admiration and support for him. I'm still reeling from a shouting-induced headache, but it is nothing compared to the humiliation the incumbent gave him and all the things he had gone through. Don't mistake this as an anti-incumbent post. It is mentioned only incidentally. This post is all about Mr Chiam.

Comment to "Response to Experts Exchange blog post." disguised as a post

This is supposed to be a comment for this blog post made on the inter-webs:

The low barrier to contribution and asking questions is what makes SO succeed.

It's difficult with fight with free and good. I doubt a paid model for getting information is viable anymore now that the free models such as Wikipedia and Google are pretty much entrenched in the minds of most internet-savvy people. By information, I'm actually referring to summarized (can't think of a better term now) information: information which answers one's question and/or provide links (usually free, unless it's a book or a paper) for deeper understanding. It's also concise, yet precise.

SO also aims for its questions to be as general as possible so as to be relevant to more questions, yet specific enough for the question poser to benefit. I don't know about EE, but the ability to refactor questions and answers in a democratic fashion as opposed to locking/closing threads is the way to go.

Democracy is sometimes the tyranny of the majority. Also, people can be lemmings, influenced by the herd mentality or idol/rock-star worship. However, most of the time it turns out good. The site owners make decisions on their own, albeit after sometimes consulting the users. It's not a pure democracy, and I doubt that one can be possible. I wonder if an anarchist question-and-answer website in the style of 4chan will succeed or not.

Important too is that SO implements and change features relatively quickly so it can stay ahead on the curve.

Notice that I didn't mention EE much above. I'm equally annoyed like many others who have to scroll all the way down to get to the answers, but I understand that they (EE) have the right to do so. It's their website after all and I don't feel the need to contribute more to criticising a site that seems to getting out of the equation.

Singapore Census Advertisement FAIL

I saw this advertisement at the bus stop today and spotted a FAIL. Can you spot it too?



source: http://www.singstat.gov.sg/c2010/Census%20Poster.pdf

Tiger Woods dream

Dreamt of Tiger Woods training for golf by hitting balls into a hole from about 5 metres away many times a day. Was very impressed as the hole is a raised surface with vertical slopes. Or rather, the area around the hole is concave downwards, and there is no sloped path to hit a ball in. In other words, the ball can only enter the hole by chipping (not sure if this term is golf-technically correct or not) it through the air. Imagine the precision needed. It's probably tougher than hitting the white line or edge when playing table tennis. And I actually talked to him, I think (more details get lost the longer I delay penning my dreams down).

Then I woke up and realised that it was just a dream, and that I don't even watch golf in the first place. So it wasn't impressive as it's a dream, and few things are impossible in dreams.

SoC printing problem

So SoC is currently having this printing problem where if you print wirelessly, the spooling gets incredibly slow (20min for a lecture note).

I'm not the sort of person who waits for "someone else" to do it (todo: sci lib com lock, soc missing mag, laser, recycle), so I decided to do something about it.

I visited the technical helpdesk:

Firstly the person suggest for me to map \\nts27\pc to my netbook as a network drive. It makes no sense to me but well she's the expert and I'm no system admin. It doesn't help.

Next she claims that my file is too big, too many pages etc... I proceed to print a 22kb pdf file with only two pages. It took a long time. So she called the technical guy and they spoke over the phone. The guy says that my file took 36mb on the spool and that he had cleared it. (*) They didn't give any explanation, nor any timeframe for which they'll solve it (not that they owed me one), and only say that this issue has been known for quite sometime and that they recently changed the printing mechanisms.

I'm not satisfied. I mean this is the School of Computing for goodness sake. If there's a problem related to computing, one would think this is the last place in the school where it'll happen. The irony. I'm not angry about this, just amused and inconvenienced.

So I asked, "So what can be done?" She asked, "Do you want to speak to the technician?" and I answered in the affirmative, "Yes I would like to". What happened next made me really angry. She told the other person on the line, "Quek ah, got someone want to speak to you. .... he insisted to speak to you" and mentioned not just once, but at least thrice that "I insisted". What an false allegation! For the record, she suggested and asked if I would like to speak to the technician and all I said was a simple "Yes I would like to". On top of that, she was blatantly lying while I was just in front of her.

I could sense that the technician was kinda unwilling to speak to a "student" and she somehow wanted to absolve herself of any association to me wanting to speak to him, hence this lie. But sorry, this is not a white lie. It is black.

I am not angry that the wireless print spooling takes a crazily long time and that it is not fixed to date (can't blame people for their incompetency). I can always print from the programming labs. But I am infuriated that I get accused by someone of saying something which I didn't say, especially when I'm just in front of accuser. My straight face didn't reveal that I'm angry or anything. There is no emotion, there is peace.

In retrospect, I should have recorded the entire conversation to prove that what I said in this post is true. But hindsight is 20/20, and you have the choice whether or not to believe in me.

(*) I did some experiments later. A regular .txt file spools immediately from wireless, hence .pdf (and the printer driver installed on wireless devices) is most probably the culprit.

Later I printed a .pdf file using the exact same print settings, once wireless from my netbook and another time from a programming lab. As usual, it took a very long time to spool wirelessly, and it was very quick from the programming lab. I suspect that there's a problem with the printer drivers (settings) on wireless devices (I have deleted and reinstalled the printer drivers prior to the test) causing the filesize to be extremely large when spooling. However, as I do not have sufficient privilleges on the school's printers, I'm unable to select "Pause printing" for the printer to check the size of the file in the spool. When I tried printing it at home using the same settings, the filesize is just 181kb in the spool for the 22kb .pdf file. I have a different printer (and hence different printer driver) though, so it doesn't really say much.

I don't think I'm going to experiment further with .ppt and other file formats (to get the classes of documents for which this is an issue. probably happens with postscript printing). It's not my job, it's theirs. It's not worth the effort, and they're not going to be grateful. I have my projects, homework, tutorials to do, and books to read and study. For now, I'll just print from the computer labs.

I was angry then, I'm not angry now that I'm typed this out. Peace out.

Internet Explorer Fail

At Clementi POSB Branch, around 10:15pm

Caveat Emptor: Miracle Laundry Ball

Saw a "Miracle Laundry Ball" advertisement at Carrefour, Suntec. I found it interesting and took a photo of it, thinking that I may one day get this incredible invention when I have more money so I can save even more money (on detergent). It didn't occur to me to do more research (though I may actually do so if I were intent to get it) on this product when I'm free, as I though mistakenly that this advertisement is endorsed by Carrefour, and that if it's endorsed by such a big company, it must not be making fraudulent claims.

Today I saw this post: Diary of A Singaporean Mind: Great Singapore Sale : Miracle Laundry Ball (thanks for the heads up)

Now I look at the photo I took and noticed that there it is actually an advertisement by the company selling the ball, McCoy, as opposed to a promotional advertisement by Carrefour.

From this, I learnt that we must not trust advertisements even if they're hosted by companies with a reputation to protect.

And I guess I can save $59.90. Yay!

The pedant in me: Facebook UK Fail

For a company recently valued at $3.7 billion, I would expect their employees to have better grammar. Such a rich IT company should have the resources to check the language in their interfaces with more than just spell check (the bare minimum for any work in English produced or parsed on a computer).




Screenshots taken from http://www.facebook.com/people/Bill-Gates/502040841 at SGT 9:42 PM Monday, May 18, 2009

I like Cats

Don't know why my sister is mortally afraid of them though.

This is the resident cat at my block. He took the lift up with me.

This post is actually just an excuse to use the 'cat' tag because there's already a 'dog' tag.

NDP Balloting and My Strategy this Year

Ticket application is from 16 May 2009 to 25 May 2009 and is NOT based on a first-come-first-served basis.

P(ballot x tix on y) = P(ballot x tix on z), where y and z are between 16 May 2009 to 25 May 2009

Each applicant must choose one out of the two choices given, either NDP or Preview Ticket. (NDP is on 9 August 2009; the Preview is on 1 August 2009).

I'll ballot for the NDP ticket as I prefer it over the preview.

Each applicant must choose 2, 4 or 6 tickets. The chance of obtaining 2 tickets will be higher than that of obtaining 4 or 6 tickets. Similarly, the chance of obtaining 4 tickets will be higher than that of 6 tickets.

P(2 tix) > P(4 tix) > P(6 tix)

As usual, to maximize the chance of getting a ticket, I'll ask my parents and sister if I can use their NRICs to ballot for the tickets. Last year I balloted for 2, 4 and 6 NDP tickets and didn't get it. It was a flawed strategy, based on what I hope to get. I do not want to get as many NDP tickets as possible. I just want to get 2 (at least 1, but they come in 2s anyway) NDP tickets. Let's analyse why my strategy last year was wrong and what balloting strategy I will be using this year:

First of all, we have to make a few assumptions:

1. They are using a pseudo-random generator to select the winning ballots. There's no need to rush to ballot since any time within the given time will have equal chance for same ballot. This means that no one can game the system. Incidentally, the company that is running the ballot system is 10tacle Studios, a game development company. Gaming the system, game company.. both got game.. mm.. OK nvm, I'm just being lame.
2. P(2 tix) = 2*P(4 tix) = 3*P(6 tix) = d, where d is a small positive number closer to 0 than 1. I guess that this is a reasonable assumption. It satisfies "P(2 tix) > P(4 tix) > P(6 tix)", and it's somewhat intuitively fair since the mathematical expectation are the same: E(2 tix) = E(4 tix) = E(6 tix). I mean if I were to set the parameters, I would set it as such.

So last year I balloted for 2, 4 and 6 tickets as I felt since E(2 tix) = E(4 tix) = E(6 tix), it doesn't really matter which I ballot for, and 2, 4, 6 sounds nice and fun. WRONG! I was a weakling who went along with my feelings without thinking logically. I hope I'm better now. The flaw was as result of misusing expectation. Mathematical blasphemy!

Expectation is mostly useful only when dealing with many many many trials. In this case, I only had three ballots. Also, I was seeking to have at least 2 ticket instead of having as many tickets as possible. In fact, with a fixed number of ballots at one's disposal, one cannot improve the expected values of tickets possible based on assumption 2. So what's my strategy for this year's ballot? It's to shoot low in order to maximize P(having at least 2 tix with 3 ballots): P(2 tix) + P(2 tix) + P(2 tix) >= P(a tix) + P(b tix) + P(c tix). There you have it, my NDP ballot strategy for this year~!

Of course, a yet better strategy is to ask around for the tickets or for people to ballot with their NRIC for you. But I don't know many people and don't like to ask for favours.

Have you balloted?
http://www.ndp.org.sg/
Promoting the ndp website actually reduces the value of d, so I should not do it if I were really desperate to get a ticket. Then again, the value of d is already so small, and my blog probably has a readership of 1 (me) at the moment.

A Pleasant Dream

In my dream I bought a tube of nutripet. I was thinking about licking a bit of it (it's delicious!) and looked at the label which read:
for dogs and cats,
and humans who want to eat it.

I then went to visit my dog. And I hugged him because I missed him so much. He looks and feels the same. In this dream there's no smell though: In my other dreams of him where there's smell he smells the same in the dream. This time around as I hugged him, I tried to elicit a look of empathy from him, and twice he gave me the look that shows that he understands. It greatly comforts me. In real life though, he's the most unfeeling dog.

As I left the kennel, I sternly told him to stay, reflecting my insecurities about him escaping and getting into trouble (him fighting and me punished). Everything I did in the dream is typically what I might have done in real life (this is not one of those dreams where I'm in space or I can fly). Once outside his kennel, I turned his feed bowl in. I noticed that all the other feed bowls were already turned in except for his. I guess the others knew that I wanted to do it by myself. =) Seeing that the construction of the gate is not secure enough, I decided to clip the leash on the gate, but dang. Someone clipped the leash so high up that I couldn't reach it normally.

Then I woke up. I pressed a button on my handphone to see the wallpaper. Yeah, it's him alright.

Use the Correct Tool(s) for the Job

Yet another "aha moment" I got. My moments of insights are as usual, mostly super obvious. But I feel that even though there are many things (1) which we say we know, we don't usually do enough (not all, because we are only human) things in a way that shows we know them (1). In fact many times we do silly things that are appear contrary to the knowledge we purport the have. Okay, I admit, maybe I'm the only silly person here. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "we". Nonetheless, I like to re-iterate such maxims followed by a personal anecdote.

There probably exists correct tools for each job. If you use the wrong tool, you run the risk of damaging the things you're working on. For example, if you use a larger-sized wrench, you risk rounding the nut. It may also be less efficient, taking up more effort (time, strength), and even produce inferior results compared to using the correct tools.

So what happened was that my house was repainted last November iirc, and my chin-up bar was taken down. I saw my dad de-rusting the bar using autosol and I took over the job from him, as I felt that I had more experience in using autosol (from my NPCC days). Sure, I think did a decent job but it was too much effort (and painful fingers) just to de-rust a small area, so I set it aside.

One fine day I went to Daiso and saw this "sanding sponge" and I bought one for "de-rusting metal". So just now I used it and it was almost effortless. Using it, I took probably less than 2 minutes to de-rust the entire bar using just a little strength, as compared (using autosol) to taking 30 minutes to de-rust < 10% of the bar using much more strength. Haha, and hoorah for Daiso.



This sounds witty but I guess it's just plain nonsense:
“All of life’s problems can be solved with two things—duct tape and WD40. If it moves and it shouldn’t, you need duct tape. And if it doesn’t move and it should, you need WD40.”—Unknown

Clothes for fat people in Singapore

I used to be an avid forumer and a very helpful one at that. So I took this photo and posted in a few threads where bigger-sized forumers were asking where can they get clothes. Now that I've quit foruming regularly, I'm posting it here, hoping that those who need it can find it, and also delete the photo. Sorry I'm a tad too lazy to digitize the text.


Source: Urban, Straits Times

The pedant in me: Speaking good English != Writing good English

Let me first qualify my post by saying that I do not speak nor write perfect English.

Of all places I found this at an exhibition at the Central Public Library (Bugis). On top of that, there were "Speak good English, yes I can" (can't remember the exact words) flag banners (sorry, no pic) outside the library adding to the irony. Or maybe the banners were literal (see post title).

The pedant in me: Where are the figures?

Where are figures 1 and 2? I thought that when one puts "figure 1" it means that there exists a figure labelled 1? Or are we to infer that the figures are implicitly labelled? I am more inclined to believe that this is the result of copypasta without checking what one typed/pasted, and the editor not catching this error.


Source: Straits Times

The pedant in me: RM60,000 == SG81,000?!

Such a glaring mistake, simply unacceptable coming from the national broadsheet. Since the source is Malaysian, I suppose it's the news people in Straits Times who added the currency conversion thing.


Source: Straits Times

sad day for me but i'm happy for my friend..

it's a sad day..

woke up with a painful right foot.. i must have kicked the wall while sleeping.. 'tis the second time it has happened to me.. probably too stressed..

just before noon, as i was walking down the stairs making my way to the computer lab @ the basement, i saw her and i think she saw me too but i got just couldn't recognise her from a distance.. as i walked closer i didn't bother to look her way as i don't like to look at people.. when i passed her i suddenly got a feeling that it's her so i stopped and did a double-take.. it was her indeed and now she must think that i ignored her on purpose..

trying to use wikidpad more extensively to manage my life.. will be installing on my desktop soon.. hope to fully migrate to my desktop asap..

i might change blogs yet again.. just don't like windows live spaces.. too much ajax's overkill n makes it feel laggy..

not all was bad though.. when i reached home i wanted to send some useful past year paper to my schoolmates so i opened msn and i saw my good friend's msn nick.. he's going to intern @ mountain view in 2 months' time to work on iGoogle.. i'm really happy for him.. i consider him as one of my best friends..

Good and Bad Customer Service

My preferred method of communication with people I don't know is using the email. You'll realise that most big companies have a ticket tracker system in place. Whenever a customer has an issue, a unique ticket is created, and the ticket is closed when the issue is resolved.

Here's an example of a good ticket:
------------------------------------------------------------
** This email is sent via the MySchool Ticket Tracker system. If you
** reply this email, please avoid including quoted text. For more
** information, check: https://MySchool.sg/ticketreply

Hi me,

Glad to hear that. I shall close the ticket.

Regards,
SvcRep
> Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:41:09 +0800
> From: "Me" <me@me>
> To: SvcRep2 <techsvc2@svc.sg>
> Subject: RE: [TKT:11444] POSTSCRIPT ERROR(Me)
>
> Hi,
>
> I tried printing yesterday and it was okay.

Dear Me,

I have just tried and it is ok.

Can you please try again?

Regards,
svcRep
> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 15:57:19 +0800
> From: "Me" <Me@Me.sg>
> To: <techsvc@svc.sg>
> Subject: RE: psl212-dx prt: POSTSCRIPT ERROR
>
> Hi,
>
> I tried to print this file:
> http://somefile.pdf from a
> programming lab but got the below message.
>
> Please advice.
>
> Yours truly, Me
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: daemon@school [mailto:daemon@school] Sent:
> Friday, November 09, 2007 3:41 PM
> To: me@me
> Subject: psl212-dx prt: POSTSCRIPT ERROR
>
> Please correct the Postscript errors in the file and resubmit the job.
>
> Postscript error: %%[ Error: stackunderflow; Offending Command:
> exch]%%
>
>
>
> Job Name: Remote Downlevel Do
> Job Id: 35
> Printer: psl212-dx
> Time processed: Fri Nov 9 15:40:31 2007
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> ---
> Note: Please contact techsvc@school for further
> advice.
------------------------------------------------------------

Basically I had a printing problem in November 2007 so I emailed the tech support at school. I kinda knew it was an isolated issue but anyway the next time I tried to print it was January 2008 and out of courtesy I replied to them. And they replied to me and said they will close the ticket.

Let's examine what makes this good customer service. Firstly, they have a ticket tracking system. Secondly, even though there's a lapse of two months, the ticket was not pruned. Thirdly, they replied to all my emails. Lastly, by closing the ticket (and by having a ticket system in place) it signifies that they take are committed to resolving and tracking all issues.

This is a bad ticket though:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for contacting the HP Customer Care Centre. This is an automated acknowledgement that confirms receipt of your e-mail. Your e-mail enquiry is logged as Ticket ID: 424868

One of our Technical Support Specialists will be responding to your enquiry. Usually this is within four (4) business hours of receipt.

To ensure we track and manage future correspondence correctly, please use the Reply function in your email application when emailing us about an existing ticket ID – this will assist in tracking your enquiry correctly. It is important that the identifier below is included in all correspondence.

It is our pleasure to be of service to you and thank you for choosing Hewlett-Packard, as your preferred vendor.

Please check out our tools and resources to support your products, http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/eng/support.html

In addition, you may visit our web-based tool that provides diagnosis and resolution of your computer hardware and software issues http://instantsupport.asiapac.hp.com

Yours sincerely,
Regional Customer Care Centre
Hewlett-Packard
----------------------------------------------
Please include the following identifier in all future correspondence relating to this ticket.
TicketGUID: {3E24FDC9-25CA-45D3-A150-622D239A5FEF}

I had a driver issue and I explained it as best as I could. It was dated 12 July 2007 and I've not received a single reply to date even though there's a ticket tracking system in place. I couldn't have missed any email as I download all my email to my Inbox and I move unresolved issues to the @Waiting folder or flag them if the action required or waiting time expected to be relatively short. I've since reverted from Windows Vista to Windows XP and don't need the reply anymore but it's just wrong of them not to reply to me save for an automatic ticket acknowledgement system.

Digg.com does not seem to have a ticket tracking system. I've always have had this IP address issue whereby I'll get automatically logged out when I switch from using my ISP's proxy to using a direct connection. The first time it happened, I had it resolved. Recently, Singnet (my ISP) used other IP range and the issue returned. This time I sent digg.com an email again and the reply was (same as the last time): "Please go to digg.com/iptest and reply back with the result (not on the proxy)."

So I went to digg.com/iptest and replied the email on 23 January 2008. I've not received a reply or solution to date and I suppose I won't be getting any. Of course one can always assume that my reply email got lost but seriously, what's the probability of that?

Amazon.com has a pretty good customer service. They always reply to my queries. My shipment didn't arrive over two weeks after the estimated date and they assumed that it got lost and cancelled my original shipment and made a reorder. However, this time the shipping for the reorder was changed to expedited mail and I was charged the difference. I didn't ask for an upgrade but as I was too tired of waiting for my books I just chose not to contest this issue. Eventually the original shipment arrived and I refused delivery of the reorder shipment (so that it would be returned to amazon at no cost of mine). It remains to be seem how much I'll be charged for this ordeal though. I do hope that I'll be charged (rightfully!) for the original shipment which is cheaper. As of now, I'm being charged for the new shipment and I realised that when they refunded me, they did not refund the gift certificate which I used. I shall wait a few more days before taking the issue with them.

I'm pretty happy with SingPost's customer service too. After sending them a parcel enquiry, I got an automated email acknowledging receipt, but most importantly, I got a call from them reassuring me that they'll keep a lookout for my parcel.

RecordTV has a satisfactory customer service too.

SBS Bus

Ever been in an SBS bus before? If your answer is yes, you'll probably be able to identify with my grouses, and/or perhaps you're an offender.

One of the thing I hate most is that of people sitting behind me placing their kneecap at the back of my seat, making my back feel uncomfortable. To make matters worse, some like to move their kneecaps periodically. I know some of you have long knees, but please spare a thought for the fellow sitting in front of you!

The second thing I hate is that of the free fallers. This is especially irritating. I normally sit closer to the window so there's a seat near an aisle. I could, of course take the aisle seat and offer them the window seat but I'm just too kind. But these free fallers, they're just plain inconsiderate. If case you have not realised, the seats in SBS buses are of the rubber type, meaning that they semi-trap air. What these free fallers do that irritate me is that when they're taking the seat beside me, they suddenly go weak in their knees as if I'm some kind of superstar they swoon over (far from it. ) and let gravity do the work. The end result? The sudden displacement of air under their stinky bottoms is forced to my side, jolting me in the process. Why can't they sit normally? I don't see people doing that when sitting on wooden benches?! It a good thing that I do not have a slipped disc, otherwise I'll probably strangle them on the spot.

Anyway last Friday I was taking the bus home and the lady who sat next to me sat down gently. I nearly wanted to shake her hand and thank her for being such a considerate person but figured out that I don't want to be labeled as a nutcase.

A few days ago, while taking the bus to school, I saw someone who looked and dressed like Hebe. Heehee.

Warning — This post may be redundant!

I have many pet peeves.. One of the more irritating one is related to people doing redundant things.. Do note that there's a difference between repetition as a form of exercise and plain ignorance, which stems from the unwillingness to think..

Since young, I've noticed people pressing lift and traffic light buttons redundantly.. Among this group of redundant people, they can be further sub-divided into a few groups — one, two, three.. (this reminds me of a funny incident which I shall blog about later).. There are many variations between these group of people, namely, the different non-conflicting combinations of:

• pressing the button when there's explicit sign(s) of the button having been pressed: lighting confirmation, seeing in person the button being pressed etc..
  • I sometimes find this very rude as if the person's not acknowledging the button presser's existence/effort..
• pressing the button when there's implicit sign(s) of the button having been pressed: someone waiting for the lift/traffic light and standing reasonably close to the button..
  • slightly more forgivable than the above.. after all, it's just to play safe..
  • sometimes people understand the logic in the below point, hence they choose not to press the button..
• pressing the button when it's a given (or highly likely, just to pre-empt the possibility of failure) that the event which you wish to evoke is guaranteed and its happening time is independent of pressing the button: a HDB lift that only stops at the 1, 6, 11 level is on the way down from either 6 or 11 level.. you're waiting at the ground floor level.. it's almost guaranteed that the lift will go all the way down as most people don't take the lift from the 6 to 11, so there's no need to press the lift button.. having lived in my flat for close to 20 years, I would hazard a guess that at least 99% of the lift trips are from 1 to 6/11 or from 6/11 to 1, instead of between 6 and 11..

So last week I was at the forum waiting for the lift to take me to the fourth level.. so basically this single lift services only the first and fourth levels, and at that time there were many people waiting to take the lift for both directions.. so I missed a turn and as the lift was on it's way up, some guy pressed the lift button.. I almost fainted from the sheer stupidity and redundancy of that brainless act.. needless to say, the lift went back down with a liftfull of people, indicating that regardless of whether or not that guy pressed the button, the lift will come down (given) and the speed will not be compromised (event independence)..

So why do people still do such things???

Habit.. habits can be useful.. they allow you to operate on auto-pilot, freeing your mind for the more important things.. good habits include but are not limited to: switching off the lights when you leave a room, flushing the toilet after use, washing your hands before and after your meals.. But when a habit makes you do something irrational or redundant (let's not consider whether the cost is negligible or not as that's not the point I want to make here..), it's time to rethink whether that particular event should be institutionalized as a habit, as a conditional habit, or to be treated as a unique event each time (I am current of the belief that most things should and can be classified to free our minds)..

Flashback to circa 2003, it was the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) period and I was a student.. Everyone was given a digital thermometer to log our temperatures twice a day whenever a lullaby was played over the public address; once in the morning during assembly and another in noon.. So we were in the midst of our physics tutorial when the lullaby was played.. almost everyone took out the thermometers and popped it into ours mouths.. Later, our physics teacher told us a story about conditioning and Pavlov's dogs which salivate whenever it heard the ringing of a bell.. It was at this moment when I got inspired not to do things without giving much thought..

Of course there are also psychological reasons as to why people press the button.. sometimes they're in a hurry and pressing the button repeatedly is like some sort of nerve-calming exercise (or could it be the reverse? haha).. Sometimes I wonder if this people know that pressing a lift or traffic light button repeatedly will not hasten the event change.. I believe that most educated people are able to observe how the black box works through empirical observation and conclude correctly.. Perhaps some people hail from a land where the more you press the button, the faster the traffic light will turn green.. hey, that's an idea.. I'm gonna patent it..

And of course there're other reasons too..

So last Thursday after my haircut I bought a cheese waffle after a lovely girl who bought a peanut butter waffle.. Above the waffle machines was a printout that read, "Always put on gloves before handling the waffles", presumably for hygiene reasons.. So the lady who made the waffle put on the gloves as instructed.. But she collected my money with the gloves still on, making me wonder what's the difference between wearing a glove or not in the first place for her case.. So my moral of this story is: always think about the reason for doing something in a particular way.. you may just think of it once for the initial time (avoid redundancy, no need to keep thinking if it's always going to be the same.. remember?)..

Anyway the shop assistant thought that we ordered together as when the girl repeated her order she could not be heard and I helped to relay the message, and bagged our waffles in the same plastic bag.. *(act) shy* Hm.. and I said something like bag seperately.. we ordered seperately.. I don't know her.. ouch.. sounds like I'm trying desperately to disassociate from her.. that's me for you.. :( And I felt ripped off as there was so little cheese..