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..

First post~!

Hoorah, first post~!

Hm.. yet another new blog.. when i'm free i'll migrate the posts here and delete them for good.. i don't like the idea of having my stuff scattered all over the place (though sadly that's the state of my room and digital data)..

Don't you just hate the abuse of ellipses? it's the "..." punctuation in case you were wondering.. and its singular is ellipsis, not ellipse, which happen to share the same plural form.. confusing isn't it? anyway i'll be using ".." for most of the time, for good measure and for a reason which i prefer to keep private.. let's just say it's between a period and an ellipsis, so you get to guess which it actually means, not that it makes a difference since this is just a blog and not a novel by virginia woolf..

Subtle protest display boards at Clementi Interchange

At around 1230hrs yesterday (Sunday, 5 Feb 2006), I was walking from Clementi Bus Interchange to the MRT station when I heard some serene Chinese-sounding music being played. Being a curious person who likes Chinese music, I ventured to investigate to source of the music, whether it was from a busker or some performers (this being the Huayi Festival).

What I discovered was around six laminated boards and that the sound emanated from behind the boards. A small curious crowd had gathered around the boards, drawn by the music. The boards in both English and Chinese criticized the Chinese communist party, with headings like: "CCP caused 80 million unnatural deaths...", "Suppression of Falungong...” etc...(I lacked the hindsight to copy down the headings, so the headings were contrived by me but of the same effect) Apparently no one was manning the store but it appeared that a man with a hand phone in his hand standing close to the boards might be linked.

Who were the people behind this display? I can only guess that they were Chinese nationals in Singapore studying or working...

Who then is the target audience? Singaporeans, Chinese nationals and other foreigners. A lot of students of the National University of Singapore pass through Clementi Interchange everyday. So do Japanese and Australians who live and study here.

Why do this? Being oppressed and unhappy, they want to make a statement. If they were caught doing this in China, they would most probably disappear (as my friend suggested) without a trace.

If white elephants mocking the unopened status of an MRT station were reason enough for the police to intervene, I suppose that this being somewhat of a political issue will warrant serious attention from the police, and I suspect that it would be removed within one hour either by the silent demonstrator(s) or the police.

P.S. It's a pity that I am not in the possession of a camera phone or a digital camera (I should be getting them soon), as otherwise I will be able to take some photos. If you happen to have any photos of the incident, feel free to let me know.

P.P.S. In retrospect, this may very well be some kind of social experiment by university students, unlikely it may be.

The law mandates police permits for outdoor assemblies...

International Religious Freedom Report 2005 (Singapore)

In April 2005, two Falun Gong adherents were found guilty of illegal assembly and distribution of video compact disks that had not been certified by the Board of Film Censors. The two women chose to serve a prison sentence rather than pay fines of $12,092 (S$20,000) and $14,510 (S$24,000), respectively. They were released after a week once their families had paid the fines. The offenses were alleged to have taken place between November 2002 and March 2003. The law mandates police permits for outdoor assemblies of five or more persons and prohibits the distribution of films, including videodiscs, without a license.

Old news I know but I wonder what are the implications on my Linux Social Experiment plan. Anyone knows if a permit is needed to distribute software in Singapore?

Nice Social Experiment

Tis a nice social experiement with a touching twist at the end. I might try this someday.
Linux Social Experiment…People have NO clue

How I set my Firefox/Mozilla cookies setting (deprecated)

Cookies are delicious delicacies.

I'm using Firefox and I would like to share with you my cookies setting which I think is efficient.

Firstly I check the box "Allow sites to set cookies" and uncheck "from the originating web site only", and choose to keep cookies "until I close Firefox".

This way, you need not handle cookies by yourself. Most web sites which have cookies do so to keep track of visitors. By flushing the cookies, you will ensure that the information they have on you is gone whenever you restart the browser.

There are some exceptions to this and it is your personal preference. You can of course add sites to "Block" but there is no need to under this setting as cookies will be flushed.

There are some web sites which you will want to manually add to "Allow" list. This includes websites which you log in to and want to leave logged in. An example is del.icio.us which you have to leave logged in to enable you to post websites. Other websites which you do not necessarily log in to but want to keep your preferences include google, as you may not be a gmail user but want to keep your search preferences. If you host a web page where you use trackers, you will of course want to add your tracker site to "Allow" too as you do not want to inflate your page views. So as I'm using sitemeter.com, I have it added to "Allow".



The good thing about this cookie setting is that need not have to intervene in the handling of cookies. I don't need to block sites but just need to do the occasional allowing.(How many site do you really need to allow anyway?) Should I forget to allow, I just have to log in and overtime I will realize that I've not "Allow"ed the site. However, once it's done, I can sit back and relax and enjoy surfing the Internet. The downside to this? Companies that set their cookies to expire in year 2049 will not be able to track you down unless you leave your browser open all the time which should not be the case with Firefox as you will have to restart it after updating extensions or the browser itself. Other websites including your friend's homepage/blog will register your hits as unique hits. But who cares anyway? They don't care about your privacy so you are not obliged to provide them with accurate stats.

Cleaning the inside of your computer

Originally posted on 9 October 2005 (from one of my many abandoned blogs). I have moved it after updating it with photos. As such, the information may no longer be relevant or up-to-date, the photos and links may no longer exist. When I'm free I'll update these old posts.

It is essential to remove dust from your computer every now and then to prevent air ventilation problems which results in poor heat removal. The heat can cause your graphics card to be unstable, and will shorten your electronic components' lifespan. Start protecting your investments and data(of course you will have to backup your data as well...I might touch on it on another post) by cleaning your computer case at least twice a year.

Remember to discharge yourself of static electricity before and when handling electronic components by wearing an anti-static wristband orby touching the metal casing.

There are basically two ways to clean the inside of your computer. You can either blow or vacuum the dust out. To blow the dust out, you can use a can of compressed air or a hand pump. For vacuuming, the gurus say that you should use a portable vacuum cleaner instead of a standard vacuum cleaner which will produces too much static electricity.

As I am not in the possession of compressed air cans, hand pump or a portable vacuum cleaner, I've decided to use a standard vacuum cleaner. However the attachments are too bulky and are not able to reach certain areas inside the computer case. Hence, I've decided to make my
own attachment. What I do is to take a flexible tube with a small diameter and attach it to the end of the vacuum cleaner tube by using dust tape. With it, I am able to reach many places inside my computer casing without detaching all those cables and removing the graphics
card.

So there you have it. With duct tape, a flexible tube and a standard vacuum cleaner, you can clean the inside of your case with minimal cost.

As for the flexible tube, you can use anything lying around which you do not need instead of buying one. For me, I had extra length of CAT5E cable lying around and so I cut a portion which I need and pulled out the wires to get a flexible at minimal cost. As for the wires, they are still useful: they can be cut to your desired length and used as cable ties.

<insert photo here if i can find it>

Any flexible tube will do. I used a length of Ethernet wire which I cut and removed the wires inside.

<insert photo here if i can find it>

This adapter for the vacuum cleaner is hardly used, so I fixed the flexible tube to this adapter using tape.

Well, the computer which I cleaned using that the flexible tube method is still functioning which means to say that no great harm is done by static electricity or minimal damage is done. My reasoning is that since my vacuum cleaner is grounded, if I do not put the vacuum
cleaner too close to the computer, there will not be static electricity damage. I am not too sure about this so if anyone who reads this post have further insights on the static electricity issue please post comments.

Of course you have to be careful when vacuuming not to suck anything other than air and dust...you might want to remove the jumpers first.

That's basically all there is to vacuuming using this method. If you do use this method, remember to take the precautionary measures prescribed. But remember, do so at YOUR OWN RISK. At the end of the day, I think that the best method is to get a hand air pump to blow out
the dust as there is no way to vacuum out the dust in the power supply unit(do not open it even if you think you know what you are doing as high voltages are involved!). Getting cans of compressed air is just too expensive.

Edit: I've since gotten a hand air pump for cleaning my camera lens and now I use both the vacuum and blowing technique to get rid of the dust in my computer.