End of 2011

Writing year end blog has become a must do on the new year eve for me. Looking back my previous new year eve's blog mostly are sentimental posts, a bit blue. So what about this year?

Most of the Chinese astrology have predicted 2011 an unpeaceful year, a year that will not stay calm. We saw the riots in middle east, Europe, and even US; the nuclear disaster in Japan; economy crisis everywhere; flooding at Thailand, and many many more. So what's 2011 mean to me?

First of all, the biggest changes to me is I finally promoted to father :) Thank to my wife for her hardwork to bring a lovely baby to our family, finally this year I can collect back some angpao when CNY came, wahahaha...

And finally I have resigned from the company that I have worked for 10 years. It's a bit difficult to make the decision, but once you have made up your mind, it's actually not really difficult. I always say I love the company but I hate the management, until the day I left, I still have the same feeling, especially with the new useless "top management". Anyway, as I said, I don't miss it but I will remember it.

Today I still working with my colleagues, from morning until late night. I think for the pass few years, I always working on new year eve. Anyway, it's not that bad working on new year eve if you are not alone.

So, I close my summary of 2011, and wish everyone I know and the reader a very happy 2012 new year, don't worry it will not be end of the world, and we hope for a peaceful and prosperity year. 

Full moon

Ok, that's a joke. Yesterday is my princess full moon, and thank you to everyone spending their time to attend the dinner, I hope the dinner is ok for you all. And not forget thank you for the gifts for my princess.

She still look like a boy T.T 

Hopefully she can become more feminine when she grow up 

Today is winter solstice, so I wish everyone a happy winter solstice, remember to go back early and enjoy a wonderful dinner with your family.

当我们同在一起

She got a very nice voice but too bad just doesn't get famous. Her name is 王羚柔.

Venus

If you look at the sky at west, you will see a bright "star", that "star" is Venus, the second plant from sun. It's always brighter than any star, so you wouldn't miss it.

It has phases like our moon, the picture show 87% of the phase. I can't really able to see the planet from my toy telescope since it is relatively small as compare to Jupiter or Saturn, slightly smaller than earth actually. It just look like a "star" shining brightly in the sky from my telescope.

Thanksgiving

I'm not very sure is thanksgiving is celebrate by regional tradition or because of religious. According to wiki, Canada, Liberia, Norfolk and USA celebrate thanksgiving day. Bolehland don't have thanksgiving day, so I have not much idea of what is actually being celebrated.

Again according to wiki, people celebrate thanksgiving day mostly after harvest day, to give thanks to the god for giving them a good harvest season. A very similar festival in Bolehland is Gawai Dayak celebrate by Sarawak people on 1st June.

Does Chinese has thanksgiving day? According to wiki again, winter solstice, celebrate on 21 or 22 Dec., is consider as Chinese thanksgiving day. This is really new to me, cause for the passed 34 years, I only remember winter solstice is a day that we eat tong-yuan, and school don't give holiday on that day.

Seriously, anyone knew about this Chinese thanksgiving day? So far, I only notice that Chinese festivals mostly are related to food. Like, 5th of month 5, we eat dumpling; 15th of month 8, we eat moon cake; Chinese new year, we eat new year cake. Chinese people is very good at eating, but they are very lousy at expressing appreciation.

We go to people's wedding dinner, we give money then we eat. After eating we talk about how good or how bad is the food, and complain about the event. Sound familiar? Ya, I'd done that before.

Do you ever thanks your mom for the dumping she made for you?
Do you ever thanks your mom for the lunch she cooked for you?
Do you ever thanks your dad for the CNY eve dinner he had cooked?

Or, you complain about the food?

So far, I didn't manage to thanks my grandmom for what she had prepared for me and thanks god I never complain, or else I will regret for the rest of my life. I miss those simple taste dishes, especially the dumpling, no one can make such delicious dumpling anymore.

Ok, please remember to thanks your family in the coming winter solstice, before it's too late. If you really feel shy to say thank you, at least please don't complain.

What Einstein has taught me

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. -A. Einstein

Lunar eclipse 2011

Luckily the sky is clear when the full eclipse happen. The moon is just so beautiful tonight.

Is green energy a new business?

FiT has just kick started in Bolehland, Seda has opened its counter for FiT application. We saw a tremendous excellence response from Bolehland citizen, within half day, the quota for PV has been fully taken up. According to the news, 50MW has been allocated for PV (2011/2012), however, from Seda webpage, the total allocated PV quota is 69.89MW (2011/2012). If you check again, now the total available quota for PV until 2014 left 5.76MW at the time of this writing and I believe it will go zero by end of the day.

Source: Seda Portal 7/12/2011 9am

According to the news, there are total of 229 applications for FiT and 201 of it are applied for PV. Let’s do a simple calculation. Total of 201 applications for 69.89MW, which mean average of 348kW for each application. You may say this might not be the case cause for solar farm, one application may reach up to 5MW. Ok, let’s re-do it again. Now assume that 201 applications are all individuals that want to install PV at their house, so 201 applications for 7.14MW, which come to 35.5kW per application. Does it look normal?

For those who don’t understand PV, let me explain something on the PV installation.

PV is one of the simplest RE, it does not require heavy maintenance and it is clean and safe to install at any place. But one of the major constrains of PV is that it require spaces. From current technology, it can only generate around 140-150Wp per m2. Now, let’s us calculate the space required for 35.5kW PV by assume that the PV module can generate 145Wp per m2, so for 35.5kW you need 244.8m2 (2635sq.ft). It’s almost double of my house’s land area.

Something is not correct here, something fishy.

I have talked to one of the PV manufacturer, and he was shocked seeing this situation. It means they can’t sell any more PV for the next 3 years cause no one want to install PV anymore, since the quota has been taken up. There is no way to sell this technology to household that really want to contribute to the environment by hoping that they can at least recover their investment through FiT. Only those really rich people can afford to install without consider the rebate. For your information, PV is still talking about RM15k++ per kWp of installation.

I personally do not agree on PV farm, it is not green technology; it's destroying our environment, our mother nature. Imaging a 1MW solar farm needs to take up at least 7000m2++ or near to 2 acres of land. How cans a technology is called green but it needs to chop the trees and destroy a huge jungle area in order to install the so call green energy? It’s just bullshit to me.

Bolehland authority is killing this wonderful technology of PV, a green technology that really available to us for us to share our effort to help to improve the environment. But someone just kill it for the sick of their wealthiness .

Maxis new plan - Value Plus Internet

For those who like to on their mobile online all-day but don't want to pay extra for data package, this should be the one that you are waiting for. Maxis finally come out with new value package for internet.

But is this plan cheap enough for you?

Lets say you are previously a Value Plus 80 plan, and each month you make 300 minutes of calls, and lets assume that 1/2 of the call is to Maxis and 1/2 is to other operator, and we assume the same to SMS.

So, 150 minutes x RM0.12 + 150 minutes x RM0.15 + 150 SMS x RM0.05 + 150 SMS * RM0.15, which total up to RM70.50. Look pretty cheap if I upgrade to the new plan, with additional of RM9.50, I can enjoy 500MB of data every month.

However, have you checked your bill? I checked mine, and I found that I seldom use SMS especially to those non-Maxis line, but I call a lot, sometime reach up to 400-500 minutes, the lowest I manage to go is around 200 minutes. So, lets calculate my bill,

200 minutes x RM0.12 + 200 minutes x RM0.15 + 100 SMS x RM0.05 + 50 SMS x RM0.15 = RM66.50

If I change to the new plan, what is the bill? Now we have extra 100 minutes to pay, which come up to RM15 on top of RM80 committed charge. Total of RM28.50 extra with new plan, if I manage to share my balance with my family members.

Relatively, it is still consider acceptable if you hunger for internet on your phone. Just study your bills and see is it acceptable for you.

By the way, please take note that the Value Plus Internet plan does not allow credit sharing among family members, but calling to family member is still free (if within the limited calls period).

The last lunar eclipse of the year 2011

This will be the last total lunar eclipse of the year 2011, and it is one of the most beautiful lunar eclipse since y2k. If you missed the 15 June eclipse, then make sure you don't miss this one, cause once you'd missed it, you need to wait until year 2014 and buy a air ticket to fly to the big apple land to see the event.

Just add 8 hours to the UT time, and that's the time you have to prepare yourself at your garden to witness the nature show.

Just pray that day will be a clear day.

Have you Chrome?

I got this news and I try to extrapolate the line, I believe in Sept. 2012, Chrome will overtake IE. Nothing personal here, just I think IE has been there for too long and it is time for her to go down.

I don't hate IE, I just don't like to use it. It's like Bolehland national car, it's just rubbish. Nothing personal here.

Introduce to you, the engineer's princess

Country of origin: Bolehland 

Manufacturer: SK & SY JV

Model name: To be advice

Type: Girl

Date of production starts: Feb 2011

Manufactured date: 21 Nov 2011 01:57AM

Length of production time: 40 weeks and 2 days

Dimension: 51cm (Length), 34cm (Head Circumference)

Wight: 3.4kg

My sister said she look like me, I'm not so sure about that, but if she look like me then I hope she will look like my sister, just don't behave like her will do :)

We just hope she can grow up healthily and happily, that's the only wish from us. 

My princess

I'm not going to write long post today, cause i'm nearly exhausted these few days. Luckily everything turn out at good site. My wife just gave me a beautiful daughter after so many 'scary' processes. Thank you for your concern and i appreciate that. And no forget to thanks Sam, Ng, Cheong, Peter, Huan, Toh, Ryan, Wong (CAD), Chin, Lum and Elaine, and JJ for the gifts

How to reset Toshiba Satellite L645 bios password

Just in case you are using this notebook, and you had accidentally set the bios password and unfortunately you had forgotten the password.

I have tried to search for a simple method from Internet on how to reset this model but what I got are methods for old models and they are using very odd way to reset the bios password. I really can't found anything useful from the Internet on this. So, I got no choice but to try my luck to reset the bios using very old way, disconnect the RTC battery.

First you have to disconnect the battery and the power supply. Then unscrew the two small screws below the power battery in order to dismantle the keyboard's.top cover. Once you have unscrewed the two screws, carefully take out the keyboard's top cover. Then unscrew the three small screws that holding the keyboard.

Once the keyboard can be detached, you can unscrew all the screws marked as F5 and F3 and three small stainless steel screws under the power battery. Remember to put all these screws at a proper place so that you wouldn't loss it.

Once it is unscrewed, you can easily open the notebook cover. The RTC battery is located under the keyboard, about the size of 5 cents Bolehland money. Use a small screw driver and take out the battery and let it discharge for few minutes.

After that, put all the screws back following reverse order. After done, on the power and waola, the bios setting has been reset.

I do not know is it work for other model of notebook of not, you may try it if that is the only you have. Good luck.

You are the apple of my eye

It's just so hot these days, the novel, the movie, the song and the memory. Just finish reading the novel, a very lovely story. Still not yet got chance to see the movie, but definitely a must watch movie for me.

There is always 沈佳宜 in our's memory :)

Jangan Ada Dusta Diantara Kita

A very old love song.

Does God Play Dice?

Just want to share with you all about a book that I just read - Does God Play Dice? If you search the net, you will found two books that have same title, one is from Ian Stewart with subtitle The Mathematics of Chaos, and the other book is from a China electrical engineer, 曹天元 Capo, with subtitle 量子物理史話. I haven't read Ian Stewart version, but I was very impress with this Chinese version. Basically it is two book, it is not the translated version from Ian Stewart.

The book is similar to Steven Hawking's The Brief History of Time, and it does not required complicated maths or physics to understand the contents. What impress me and make this book interesting is that, the author is Chinese WuXia or KongFu story way of writing to describe the history of quantum mechanics. It's not science fiction, nor boring physics theory book, it is just a science history with very interesting writing method. You wouldn't want to put the book down until you have finished it, especially for someone who like physics.

I do not know whether there is any English version of this book in the market now or in near future. But if you know Chinese, and you love physics, you should put this book on your book rack.

Canon Photo Marathon

I suppose to post this yesterday night, but I just don't have enough energy to move my finger, so I post it a day later.

After missed the event for the pass two years due to work, finally this year I managed to attend the event with my shuttermate. We all start with full of energy and "sure win" spirit. Well, sometime become photographer is not that as easy as camera owner. We end out with very miserable look. Without much experience and skill, I took tonne of crap photos, but the fire in my heart will never extinguished.

After looking at my crap photos on my PC, I got no face to upload it, so I only choose an easy group photo to share with you all.

 
Looking forward to next year event and hope within this year, we all can practice our skill so that we can take less crap photos next time.

Jupiter

It has been sometime I observe the sky, partly because busy and the sky is very cloudy at night. Today, I saw a bright "star" next to the moon, and I know it's time for me to look at Jupiter. So, I took out my toy telescope and point to the brightest star that next to the moon and I saw this.

There are four moons for Jupiter, Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa, now Jupiter is in the middle of these moons, two at the left and two and the right. I checked with wiki, the moons are so beautiful, too bad I can only see a dot on my telescope.

From left, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

For such a big planet, I can only see a bluish and brownish planet on my telescope, need a more powerful telescope soon ;) 

1:19:12

RIP Steve Jobs

We lost a genius today, he will be missed.

iphone 5?

Today Apple will have a big announcement on 10am Pacific time (1am tomorrow). Will it be the phone you're waiting for? I'm not Apple fan, but I'm excited to see what Steve Jobs has left for us. Hope it's a good news when I wake up.

========update========

Finally we know that the phone is call iphone 4S. Basically still the same iphone 4 but with higher hardware spec. An upgraded A5 processor (same with the ipad 2), an upgraded camera, now is 8M, a better camera lens, and with the latest iOS5 with 200++ new features. Will going to update my ipod touch to iOS5 soon, hopefully is stable enough.

Wanna Make More Money? Make Your Employees Happy

Copy this article from here, without permission :p

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Wouldn’t it be great if you could wave your magic wand and abracadabra, up go sales and profits? If you flunked advanced wizardry, don’t worry. Believe it or not, this is a trick for mere mortals. All you have to do is make your employees happy.

Happy workers perform

In a Gallup, Inc. study of over two thousand business units on “the causal impact of employee work perceptions on the bottom line of organizations,” researchers found a distinct link between employee attitudes and a company’s financial performance, employee retention and customer loyalty.

Research conducted by the Wharton School found that Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For in America” reported 3.5 percent higher returns than their peers (Harvard Business Review Daily Stat).

Of course there’s the chicken and the egg question. Is company performance better because its employees are more engaged or is it the other way around? According to the Gallup study, the answer is clearly the former—happy employees are productive employees.

But most employees aren’t happy

Unfortunately, for the majority of businesses, employee engagement—a strong indicator of satisfaction and morale—is in the toilet.

According to a study by Mercer, a global HR consulting firm, nearly a third (32 percent) of U.S. workers are seriously considering looking for a new job (up from 23 percent in 2005). Another one in five (21 percent) don’t have plans to leave but also don’t give a rat’s buttocks about what they’re doing—just the kind of people you want on the payroll. (Mercer’s What’s Working survey)

Similarly, Blessing White, a global consulting firm that focuses on employee engagement, found that only a third of U.S. employees are fully engaged. Their research, and that of other industry experts, shows that the most engaged employees are both highly satisfied and high contributors to the organization.

In their 2011 Global Engagement Report, they summarize the level of engagement of North American employees as follows:

• Highly engaged: 33 percent of North American employees.

• Almost engaged: 10 percent—high performers and reasonably satisfied but not consistent.

• Honeymooners and hamsters: 24 percent—either new to the organization in a kind of limbo or “working hard but, in effect, spinning their wheels.

• Crash & Burners: 15 percent—“disillusioned and potentially exhausted.”

• Disengaged: 18 percent—not contributing very much and not very satisfied; likely skeptical and may spread their negativity around the organization.

Millennials were the least engaged (only 23 percent were highly engaged and 25 percent were disengaged). Boomers were the opposite (36 percent were highly engaged and 16 percent were disengaged).

Looking at the numbers by department or function, employees in sales showed the highest engagement (38 percent in Blessing White’s highest engagement category) and IT and R&D workers showed the lowest (26 percent). Worse, 27 percent in engineering and 22 percent in IT were categorized as disengaged. Think about that next time you walk into a smart building.

So how do you make your employees happy?

Based on the answers to Blessing White’s question “which one thing would improve job satisfaction.” it was clear that employees simply want to do what they do best. Career development and flexible working conditions were also high on their radar.

• Opportunity to apply their talents 27 percent
• Career development and training: 20 percent
• More flexible working conditions: 15 percent

From their managers, the report showed employees want:

• A sense of belonging; feeling like they’re part of a team
• Regular feedback on performance
• Recognition for achievements
• Encouragement for them to use their talents
• To be treated like an individual
• To be asked for their input (and have it acted on)
• To not be micromanaged

Employees want their organization’s top leaders to:

• Create an environment that drives high performance
• Communicate honestly
• Act in alignment with the company’s core values and guiding principles
• Link the work of the company to a larger purpose

The Blessing White report observes, “Engaged employees...stay for what they give (they like their work and are able to contribute); Disengaged employees stay for what they get (a secure job in an unfavorable employment market, a desirable salary or bonus, favorable job conditions, or career advancement).”

Which kind of person would you rather have on your team, or for that matter, spend the majority of your day with: a giver or a taker?

Those days are gone

About a year back, when we clean our construction manager shit. I don't know how the management look at these sohais, but I use this photo to describe the word "teamwork", not on paper but in real life. Anyway, those days are gone.

Today we are going to learn a very simple Chinese word, 米. It may look like an asterisk "*", but this word is very important to human being, especially Asian people.

Ok, the word that we going to learn today is 米, pronounced as "mi". The meaning of this word is rice. We all know what is rice, something that we eat. Apart from it default meaning, it also has different meanings.

We like to say someone that rich, or seem to be rich, "有米", mean got rice. Why we say rich people got rice, but not got gold, got silver, or got grass, but we say the bugger got rice. To understand this sentence, we need to go back to few thousand years ago, back to Qing dynasty 秦朝.

At that moment, all the government workers are paid using rice. For example, the prime minister annual salary at that time is ten thousand stone rice. One stone is around 150 pounds of rice. Which mean, the prime minister was given 1.5 million pounds of rice as his salary. So, if you want to buy something, like fish or house, you can pay the vendor using rice. If you want to know the price of an item, you may ask "How much rice?". Therefore, the rich people are those who owned lots and lots of rice.

The story now go to Jin dynasty 晋朝 (the dynasty after the three kingdoms), the vary famous author named Tao Yuan Ming said a very famous idiom, 不为五斗米折腰, we can direct translate it as "don't bow for 5 pecks of rice". According to history, one peck of rice is about 15 pounds, so 5 pecks is around 75 pounds of rice. Tao Yuan Ming was resigning from his post because he did not want to put down his pride to please the higher post officer. A great person don't work for money, there are far more important things than money.

Ok, that's all for today about the rice story.

Thankew you

Finally is my turn to receive the pen from my colleagues and friends. Thanks to everyone, especially my wild horse for preparing the pen for all of us. Good job, he can be a purchasing manager next time.

I hope the resignation heat will cool down after this, although I'm very much doubt it. Anyway, that's not my war anymore. Good luck to everyone.

Someday I wish I can use this pen to sign a $1,000,000 cheque

Unfortunately, that day has come

What's hot nowadays? Owning an Android phone or an iPhone? The collapse of the market? The Bersih? Or the resignation?

The most famous resignation is none but the resignation of Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs. I personally have to respect and salute him for his talents and hardworking in bringing the Apple to the world. We all are going to miss this genius.

So, if my post ended here, I believe it will be too short for the day. Ya, finally I have decided to resign from my current company after 10 years of service.

It's not a sudden decision and also not planned. It's just happen that it is time for me to leave this company. The total number of staffs that resigned since beginning of the year is near to 20 people, and mostly are those working for more than 5 years, some reached 25 years of service. The totals of year of service add up to about 200 years, which mean average of year of service is around 10 years.

I totally agreed that whenever there is a change in the management, there will be someone resigned. But, I believe this series of resign is not because of people reluctant to change to accept new management, everyone will agreed with me that, we can’t see our future in this company anymore. Maybe I am a lousy management people, because I don’t know and I can’t see any action or planning to look for income to the company. With current overhead, I don’t think it can last long if there is no positive income in short time, which I really see none.

I can still stay in this company, if I want, to enjoy task-less salary, play facebook’s game, drink tea at mamak, watch movie. But as I said, working is part of my hobby, sitting and doing these unproductive actions will only wasting my life.

It’s really sad to see it end like this, but unfortunately, that day has come. Therefore it’s time for me to leave to search for better future.

I will not miss this company, but it will be remembered.

It's 10 years

Ok, so today is officially year 10th for me in my current company. Don't want to say too much since there is nothing special to say also. For the pass 10 years, I saw it grow, witnessed it reach to the peak and now I'm feeling it collapse slowly.

It's not the company that make thing different, it's the peoples in the company. It's a simple fact and people just don't want to acknowledge it. So, just let it be.

I will just continue to climb up by my own.

Simple maths

We are learned that a number divided by itself is equal to unity, which is 1, e.g. 10/10 = 1. The question, is 0/0 = 1?

Poor man Mac

It's a Vaio! It's a Mac! No, it's hackintosh!

I saw this today

Well, not that big, it's like Ø with my highest available eye piece (4mm), total of 150x enlarge thru FirstScope. Next target is Jupiter.

Puzzle of the day

One day, Wisely and Dinstein are running on the Olympic stadium running track. They started from same point with back -to-back position and running in opposite direction. Wisely finished 6 tracks in an hour while Dinstein only able to finish 5 tracks.

They started by facing away from each other and at the end of 1 hour they reach back to the same point and facing each other. Count how many times they have met on the running track in 1 hour.

My Astrophotography

I bought my telescope since last month, its look like a toy, but the image is definitely sharper than any toy scope available from ebay or Toys'R'Us. I get the telescope kits and a 2x Barlow lens.

So far I only manage to see the moon since that is the most easiest object in the sky for us to see. The image is very very crisp, I feel so close to the moon for the first time. So, in order to share with everyone, I decided to modify my old webcam to capture the image from the telescope. The modification is quite simple, just unscrew the webcam and remove the lens and put the webcam into 1 piece again and tighten the screw. After that, I cut the bottom of the film roll plastic container so that it become a pipe. Then I stick one side of the plastic container to the webcam so that it can be mounted onto the telescope.

So here is the moon video that I'd captured using my old webcam and Firstscope.



Will try to take the video of Jupiter and Saturn when the sky is clear enough.

七患 The seven causes of anxiety

An ancient article to share, even older than 2000 years after this publisher, it still meaningful to current world. Shared from Chinese Text Project.

子墨子曰：國有七患。七患者何？

城郭溝池不可守而治宮室，一患也。
邊國至境四鄰莫救，二患也。
先盡民力無用之功，賞賜無能之人，民力盡於無用，財寶虛於待客，三患也。
仕者持祿，游者愛佼，君脩法討臣，臣懾雨不敢拂，四患也。
君自以為聖智而不問事，自以為安彊而無守備，四鄰謀之不知戒，五患也。
所信不忠，所忠不信，六患也。
畜種菽粟不足以食之，大臣不足以事之，賞賜不能喜，誅罰不能威，七患也。

以七患居國，必無社稷；以七患守城，敵至國傾。七患之所當，國必有殃。

凡五穀者，民之所仰也，君之所以為養也。故民無仰則君無養，民無食則不可事。故食不可不務也，地不可不力也，用不可不節也。五穀盡收，則五味盡御於主，不盡收則不盡御。一穀不收謂之饉，二穀不收謂之旱，三穀不收謂之凶，四穀不收謂之餽，五穀不收謂之饑。歲饉，則仕者大夫以下皆損祿五分之一。旱，則損五分之二。凶則損五分之三。餽，則損五分之四。饑，則盡無祿，稟食而已矣。故凶饑存乎國，人君徹鼎食五分之三，大夫徹縣，士不入學，君朝之衣不革制，諸侯之客，四鄰之使，雍飧而不盛，徹驂騑，塗不芸，馬不食粟，婢妾不衣帛，此告不足之至也。

今有負其子而汲者，隊其子於井中，其母必從而道之。今歲凶，民饑道餓，重其子此疚於隊，其可無察邪？故時年歲善，則民仁且良；時年歲凶，則民吝且惡。夫民何常此之有？為者疾，食者眾，則歲無豐。故曰：“財不足則反之時，食不足則反之用。”故先民以時生財，固本而用財，則財足。故雖上世之聖王，豈能使五穀常收而旱水不至哉？然而無凍餓之民者，何也？其力時急而自養儉也。故《夏書》曰：“禹七年水。”《殷書》曰：“湯五年旱。”此其離凶餓甚矣。然而民不凍餓者，何也？其生財密，其用之節也。

故倉無備粟，不可以待凶饑；庫無備兵，雖有義不能征無義；城郭不備全，不可以自守；心無備慮，不可以應卒。是若慶忌無去之心，不能輕出。夫桀無待湯之備，故放；紂無待武王之備，故殺。桀、紂貴為天子，富有天下，然而皆滅亡於百里之君者，何也？有富貴而不為備也。故備者，國之重也；食者，國之寶也；兵者，國之爪也。城者所以自守也。此三者國之具也。

故曰：以其極賞，以賜無功，虛其府庫，以備車馬、衣裘、奇怪，苦其役徒，以治宮室觀樂；死又厚為棺槨，多為衣裘。生時治臺榭，死又脩墳墓。故民苦於外，府庫單於內，上不厭其樂，下不堪其苦。故國離寇敵則傷，民見凶饑則亡，此皆備不具之罪也。且夫食者，聖人之所寶也。故《周書》曰：“國無三年之食者，國非其國也；家無三年之食者，子非其子也。”此之謂國備。

Mozi said: There are seven causes of worry to a state and they are:

(1) When the outer and the inner city walls are not defensible;
(2) When an enemy state is approaching and yet one's neighbours do not come to the rescue;
(3) When the resources of the people have all been spent on useless enterprises and gifts all squandered upon incapable men, when people's resources are exhausted without producing any profit and the treasury is emptied by entertaining idle company;
(4) When the officials value only their salaries, and the sophists only friendship, and when the subordinates dare not remonstrate against the laws the ruler has made for persecution;
(5) When the lord is over-confident of his own wisdom and holds no consultation, when he feels he is secure and makes no preparations against attack; and when he does not know that he must be watchful while neighbours are planning against him;
(6) When those trusted are not loyal and the loyal are not trusted; and
(7) When the crops are not sufficient for food and the ministers can not be charged with responsibilities, and when awards fail to make people happy and punishment to make them afraid.

With these seven causes present in the maintenance of the state, the state will perish, and, in the defence of a city, the city will be reduced to ruin by the approaching enemy. Wherever these seven causes are found, the country will face calamity.

Now, the five grains are the people's mainstay and the source of the ruler's revenue. When the people lose their support the ruler cannot have any revenue either. And without food the people will not observe order. Therefore, food should be secured, land cultivated and expenditures cut down. When all the five grains are gathered, all the five tastes will be offered the ruler; when not all gathered, the five tastes will not be all offered. Failure of one grain is called dearth; failure of two grains is called scarcity; failure of three grains is called calamity; failure of four grains is called want; and failure of all five grains is called famine. When the country is in dearth, all the salaries of the officials below the rank of the minister will be reduced by one-fifth; in scarcity, they will be reduced by two-fifths; in calamity, they will be reduced by three-fifths; in want, they will be reduced by four-fifths; and when famine is in the country there will be no salaries beyond their rations. Therefore when famine and dearth visit a country, the ruler will omit three from the five items of sacrifice, the officials will suspend the courts, and the scholars will not go to school and the lord will not put on his robe to give audience. Even envoys from other feudal lords and messengers from neighbouring states are entertained with cooked food only, and it is not sumptuous. The side-horses of the carriage-team are done away with and the walks (in the palace) are not weeded. Neither are the horses fed with grains, nor are the concubines and maids clothed with silk. And this is the sign of extreme scarcity.

Now, if carrying her child and drawing water from a well, a woman dropped the child into the well, she would of course endeavour to get it out. But famine and dearth is a much greater calamity than the dropping of a child. Should there not be also endeavour (to prevent it)? People are gentle and kind when the year is good, but selfish and vicious when it is bad. Yet, how can they be held responsible? When many produce but few consume then there can be no bad year; on the contrary, when few produce but many consume then there can be no good year. Thus it is said: scarcity of supply should stimulate study of the seasons and want of food demands economy of expenditures. The ancients produced wealth according to seasons. They ascertained the source of wealth before they appropriated the products, and therefore they had plenty. Could even the ancient sage-kings cause the five grains invariably to ripen and be harvested and the floods and the droughts never to occur? Yet, none were frozen or starved, why was it? It was because they made full use of the seasons and were frugal in their own maintenance. The history of Xia says that the Deluge lasted seven years in the time of Yu and the history of Yin tells that a drought visited Tang for five years. These are the extremes of disasters. Yet the people were not frozen or starved. Why was this so? The reason lies in diligent production and thrifty consumption.

Therefore, famine and dearth cannot be prepared against unless there are stored grains in the granaries, and justice cannot be maintained against the unjust unless there are ready weapons in the armoury. One cannot defend himself unless the inner and the outer city walls are in repair, and one cannot meet emergencies unless his ideas are well thought out. Thus Qing Ji was unprepared, and he should not have set out on the journey. Jie made no preparations against Tang and he was sent to exile. And Zhou made no preparations against Wu and he was executed. Now, Jie and Zhou were both emperors in rank and possessed the whole empire, yet they both perished at the hands of rulers (of states) of only a hundred li square. What is the reason for this? Because they depended on their rank and wealth and made no preparations. Therefore, preparation is what a country should emphasize. Supply is the treasure of a country, armament its claws, and the city walls are the stronghold of its self-defence. And these three items are the essentials to the existence of a state.

(The present rulers) squander great amounts of wealth to reward the undeserving, empty the treasury to acquire carriages and horses, exhaust the labourers to build palaces and furnish amusements. Upon their death, again, thick coffins and many coats and fur coats are to be furnished. Porches and pavilions are built for them while they are living. and tombs when they are dead. By this the people are embittered and the treasury is left lean. While the amusements are not yet satisfying to the superiors, the hardship already becomes unbearable for the subjects. Such a state will fall under any attack and such people will perish by famine. And all this is due to the absence of preparation. Moreover, food is what the sages treasured. The history of Zhou says, "Without three years' food (in store) a state cannot be a state (as it is in danger of losing its sovereignty). A family being without food in store to be sufficient for three years its children cannot be its children (who are in danger of being abandoned or sold to others)." Such, then, is the preparation of a country.

Bersih 2.0

First of all, I would like to tell you that I'm not posting about politics here. So please don't use ISA or anything to catch me.

Second, I don't care who the hell are governing my country, but I do care how they governing it.

So, about Bersih 2.0, I really don't have much details on this, but you can read the wiki. Therefore, I can only tell you what I feel about Bersih 2.0 from my point of view.

Bolehland is a democracy country, so we do have some rights, although not really much, to express our view. If you ask me do I support Bersih? My answer is yes, and I hope they can do it in peaceful way. We want to tell our government that we are not happy with what they did previously and we want to tell them we want change.

The rally shall not be a politic tool for any politicians to promote them self or to condemn other parties. It should be a gathering of our people to tell the government of what we want and why we want that.

I just came back from Penang yesterday night and I'm lucky that I have avoided all the jams happen last few days. From all the messages I received, I can tell our government that the way they handling this issue is just making us more pissed and angry. I saw lot of trucks sending polices to KL to setup road block, even in Penang, they setting up the road block. What the hell these idiots are doing? They wasted all our resources including man power and money just to stop something which is allowed in democracy country. Why don't they put more effort to make it right at the first place so that we don't get pissed and come and tell you how lousy you are.

Today, there is no much different to declare state of emergency since we can't really go out, everywhere is road block and you will suffer in the jam for hours and hours. And guest what, we should inform Guinness book of records to record this event as the longest jam in the world, or the largest car park in the world.

Do worry about me if you think I will go rally, anyway I don't have yellow shirt and I'm kiasi people. But I will write here and tell the world that I'm pissed and disappointed with the morons and I will make sure I will vote the other party even they put a monkey since that make no different. But what really different is that we want tell the government that we are pissed, we are angry, we are disappointed, we are tired and we want change. We can't guarantee that the new comer will do better, but that's the only way to tell everyone that we can put you up there and we can bring you down if you don't do it well.

So, last word, if you plan to go to join the party, make sure you do it peacefully and come back in one piece. Deliver the message but not damage our lovely country.

Good luck.

Coming home

Finally, I going home tonight, together with my natural enemy, Mr. Toh. This trip will be his last trip to the desert since he going to leave us to the greener land soon. But please don't quote my word as I hardly can predict what his next move. My project manager also took the earlier flight to go back to Bolehland this afternoon, and this is also his last trip to this piece of desert.

So if you ask me when is my last trip, I can only tell you that I don't know since I always the last person who leave the battlefield. Anyway, I hope I can stand it until the completion of the project which I believe is still quite sometime to go. Again, don't quote me, cause I may leave sooner than you can expect. So, lets time record the history.

Staying here for two weeks this time and can't really do anything since there is no skill manpower to do my job. Anyway, I'm waiting until all the equipment have been installed, then I will come to complete the system, hope I'm still with the company that time.

So, everyone seem to be leaving this company which previously has nearly zero resignation over ten years. So what happen? Please don't ask me, I don't know. Anyway, it is none of my business also.

July will be a travel month for me. Next week, I will go to Penang to attend the manager training again. Thanks to company for spending the money to make sure we become a good manager.

Then mid of July we will have sport club trip to Medan. After so many years that we didn't have any sport club trip, finally we got one this year. Again thanks to the management for giving us this trip.

By end of the month, I will going to Krabi and Phuket with some of my colleague. I hope the company don't ask me to cancel my leaves or else I can't finish it by end of the years.

Ok, sign off now. 

The death of Symbian

This is now a latest news. On 11th Feb 2011, Nokia has announced that they will work with Windows and that day they officially certified the death of Symbian.

Source from Nokia.

You can read this interesting blog and how a Symbian supporter get pissed with the giant phone manufacture and the "used to be" best phone os.

Patapon 3!

My wife, she just crazy about this game series.

It's summer

So, it's officially summer today, 21st June 2011. We also call today as summer solstice or you can call it tropic of Cancer. So, what does it mean?

Some basic about the Earth. We know that our Earth is tilted 23 degrees and 26 minutes. Therefore, on the day that the sun reached the highest point in the sky which is 23d26', then we named that day as summer solstice. And on this day, we will have the longest day (shortest night) in a year and after this day, then length of night is growing longer and length of day getting shorter.

So, what does the summer solstice mean to you?

Inside Job

"Why should a financial engineer be paid four times to a hundred times more than a real engineer? A real engineer build bridges, a financial engineer build dreams. And when those dream turn out to be nightmares, other people pay for it."

Andrew Sheng, Chief Advisor of China Banking Regulatory Commission.

How much you should be paid?

Recently I start to wonder how much I should be paid. So, I google my question and I found the answer from Kelly Services' salary guide 2010/2011.

On page 25, second row, electrical & instrument engineer, degree holder, with 4-6 years of experience, the salary should be between RM4500 - RM6500.

Then I search for my current post, engineering manager, but somehow they don't have this position. The nearest position is lead electrical engineer, where his job function is to lead a team of engineers in design base environment. Quite close is it? So, how much he should be paid?

On page 24, first row, a degree holder with 8 years working experience, the salary should be between RM7000 - RM12000.

Ok, now is the serious part, before I become a manager with more than 6 years of working experience, my salary is much lower than the lowest paid of E&I engineer; and now I am a manager but my salary is still lower than the lowest recommended paid of lead electrical engineer.

So, when my company said they have adjusted our paid based on the market rate, it's just bullshit!

Hello Chinaman, you know what are you doing or not?

What's hot in the market today? I believe nothing hotter than Taiwan's food scandal and it make me reopen my chemical book.

So, what do you know about DEHP? Well, it's an organic compound, it's colourless viscous liquid which soluble in oil but not in water. It's widely used as plasticizer in manufacturing of articles made of PVC. In a layman term, it's plastic. Because of it's plasticizing properties and our genius Chinaman come out with a genius idea, "Why don't we use it to replace palm oil as clouding agent for our product?". In their mind, every single cent they saved, is a cent gain in their pocket, other than that is none of their business.

So, what will happen after you consumed these products? The most significant is the effect on male, it will feminizing a male. Now, I begin to understand why more and more gay, especially at Taiwan.

Do you still remember the melamine case? It's another type of cheap plastic that mixed with milk powder or dairy products in order to earn more profit.

I really need to thanks God for giving all Chinese great intelligent and evil mind. We can create anything, and we are as good as God. You heard about the man made egg? I can't understand how us Chinese can create egg from chemical compound. The creator shall be awarded with Noble prize. And I believe in very near future we can create chicken, beef, fish, and whatever food you can name it. It will be tasted as good as real food. You will never able to differential it until you use very precise lab instrument to decompose it into smaller element, then you will found plastic element in all these foods.

I don't know how many products in the market are really safe to consume, and I don't want to know also. You will dare not take any foods once you'd heard all the stories about food. You can start to do farming if you want to live longer, or you can move into jungle and share the house with monkey.

Anyway, don't worry, because we, Chinese, will destroy this world very soon. So you will only suffer for maybe another ten years and you will die with all kind of cancels.

So, to all the Chinaman, please continue your good work to produce more and more plastic foods, make yourself a billionaire and die together with all these dirty money.

Just an update

Well, it have been few weeks since I update this blog. Life become busy and busy after the only two horses run to a greener farm. Wish them good luck.

So, what am I busy with? Lots. From my work, to my family, and my hobby, I just wish I could have more time. Sometime, an afternoon nap is a luxury for me.

Last few days, I went to a training at Melaka with all the managers in my office. Quite an interesting training, just the food is too much. I got breakfast, then morning tea break, then lunch, then afternoon tea break, dinner and supper. So, now I have to reduce my meal since the food quota is finished.

Some very interesting knowledge that I learned from the training, first thing is about my preferred way of thinking or working and second is the preferred way I handle conflict. Basically I know who I am, but these test results really give me a chance to know the people around me more.

So, I am an introvert, a sensing person, prefer thinking in making decision and use perceiving to interact with outer world. In short, an introverted thinking with extraverted sensing. Some very interesting characteristic of these people is that,

... they are egalitarian and generally tolerant of a wide range of behavior - until their ruling logical principles are attacked. at that point, they can surprise others by expressing their firm and clear judgments.

It just sound like me. And this type of human often function as troubleshooters XD. Now I finally know why I'm so good at troubleshooting and cleaning shit.

Then I learned that I'm accommodate type when handling conflict. Meaning that you don't need to fight with me cause I going to give you what you want and leave me alone XD. It's true for most of the time especially talking about money, credit, and benefit. You just need to tell me you want that and I will give to you for free. So I'm a loser? You can always confirm that until you touch on my believes and step on my tail, then I can show you who is the loser this time XD.

Basically it is quite interesting to know how people look at you and discover something you don't know about yourself, like my conception about time, My boss and colleagues alway said I'm a 50% man, cause in their perception I always do half for my tasks although I finished it. But now I know that I'm a perceiving type, it mean I prefer flexible and adaptable life. Do I complete my job? Yes, but in the last minute cause perceiving type have a burst of energy in the last minute XD. So, I hope they can understand why I only do "50%".

I like psychology since I was young, I like to watch people, look at what they are doing, how they handling their work, how they talk, and analyzing of why they doing that way, thinking and talking that way. Apart from being interesting to watch people, it's actually let me study how these people behave and how dangerous they are to my life. Earth is a dangerous place, so for all the outsiders, please go back to your planet for safe XD.

Microsoft owned Skype

An USD8.5b deal and Micro$oft owned Skype. I was Skype user since few years ago and I used to use its VoIP when I was oversea to call to my family's mobile phone with about USD0.06 per minute, it's definitely very cheap solution if you found free wifi service.

So how Micro$oft will use this product? According to Micro$oft CEO, Ballmer, he said

"We're committed to optimizing Skype for the TV, with Xbox and Kinect, for the Windows Phone, and the Windows PC," he said. "We [also] want to extend the reach of Skype by connecting Skype users with users of our Outlook products, our Lync enterprise unified communications product, Xbox LIVE, and other opportunities like Messenger and Hotmail."

But everyone know that Micro$oft have a very famous product call Messenger and it is using different technology (client/server vs peer-to-peer), then why Micro$oft bought over Skype. Google walked alway years ago because owning Skype means either they have to rewrite Skype from zero, or rebuild Google current network architecture. I believe Micro$oft is facing the same problem now. Then why Micro$oft still purchase Skype?

I'm not graduate from business school, but from an engineer point of view, if there are two company that selling similar product/service, they are competing each other; but if one company selling similar product/service with two different name, they are helping each other to penetrate deeper into the market. At least now, Google have to fight harder to gain the market share.

Basically, as an end user, we always hope to continue to enjoy the free and better service provided by whoever. I always believe that Micro$oft is very good at long term war. With introduction of Win7 mobile OS, they really need something to regain the market from Android. Symbian is dead since Nokia itself has gave up on their own OS and jump into Win7 phone. Blackberry has nothing to scare about since their target is more for business and old man XD. iPhone is a very well designed phone, but they cant dominant the market also since only one factory in this world is producing the phone. So, left Android which can threaten Micro$oft to gain it market share in smart phone.

So, lets see what magic can our software giant show to knock down the internet giant.

Thought of the day

Received this from my wife, something for us to contemplate.

Germany is a highly industrialised country. It produces top brands like Benz, BMW, Simons etc. The nuclear reactor pump is made in a small town in this country. In such a country, many will think its people leads a luxurious life. At least that was my impression before my study trip.

When I arrived at Hamburg, my colleagues who work in Hamburg arranged a welcome party for me in a restaurant. As we walked into the restaurant, we noticed that a lot of tables were empty. There was a table where a young couple was having their meal. There were only two dishes and two cans of beer on the table. I wondered if such simple meal could be romantic, and whether the girl will leave this stingy guy.

There were a few old ladies on another table. When a dish is served, the waiter would distribute the food for them, and they would finish every bit of the food on their plates.

We did not pay much attention to them, as we were looking forward to the dishes we ordered. As we were hungry, our local colleague ordered more food for us.

As the restaurant was quiet, the food came quite fast. Since there were other activities arranged for us, we did not spend much time dining. When we left, there were still about one third of unconsumed food on the table.

When we were leaving the restaurant, we heard someone calling us. We noticed the old ladies in the restaurant were talking about us to the restaurant owner. When they spoke to us in English, we understood that they were unhappy about us wasting so much food. We immediately felt that they were really being too busybody.

"We paid for our food, it is none of your business how much food we left behind," my colleague Gui told the old ladies.

The old ladies were furious. One of them immediately took her handphone out and made a call to someone. After a while, a man in uniform claimed to be an officer from the Social Security organisation arrived. Upon knowing what the dispute was, he issued us a 50 Mark fine.

We all kept quiet. The local colleague took out a 50 Mark note and repeatedly apologised to the officer.

The officer told us in a stern voice, "ORDER WHAT YOU CAN CONSUME, MONEY IS YOURS BUT RESOURCES BELONG TO THE SOCIETY. THERE ARE MANY OTHERS IN THE WORLD WHO ARE FACING SHORTAGE OF RESOURCES. YOU HAVE NO REASON TO WASTE RESOURCES."

Our face turned red. We all agreed with him in our hearts. The mindset of people of this rich country put all of us to shame. WE REALLY NEED TO REFLECT ON THIS. We are from country which is not very rich in resources.

To save face, we order large quanitity and also waste food when we give others a treat. THIS LESSON TAUGHT US A LESSON TO THINK SERIOUSLY ABOUT CHANGING OUR BAD HABITS.

We all assumed that we are the owner of the world, but the truth is we robbed it from the nature. More and more human occupied this world, but the earth resources are limited. There will be a day when money is not able to buy an apple if we continue squander the resources.

Energizer Night Race 2011

Yesterday night I finally completed my very first marathon of this year after one year of rest. It’s a nice event but with a very lousy organiser.

First, the organiser didn’t inform us that we need to pay for the parking. I don’t mind to pay the parking if they mention early that the parking is not free. Luckily I bring some cash with me or else I’d to let my car summon by traffic police. And guess how much is the parking. RM10!

Ok, then I met Norie and her boy friend. Well, she don’t want to be runner that night, cause she want become photographer with no zoom lens and tripod. Only chit-chat with her for a while and we keep complain the stupid funshue for not attending this event because of his ex

To get into the race circuit, we need to pass through a tunnel. Ok, that’s a nightmare. Imaging few hundred sweating people and line up in the tunnel

Once I come out from the tunnel, I see people robbing the flash light from the box. No organiser people is there to distribute the flashlight. Anyone just grab whatever amount of flash light they want. What a none organised organiser is that. So I took one from the box and run quickly out because the flashlight boxes are just threw in front of the tunnel exit. What irresponsible organiser is that.

After walking around the carnival area for a while I went to the pit stop where the starting point of the race. The start is nice when everyone start to light up their flash light, you can see thousand of red/white dots reflected on the mirrors.

The race start from 42km, follow by 21km, 11km and 5km. 11km runner is the biggest group of the running category, I believe that is the most optimize distant that most of the human can do.

So the race started, and I run slowly because I don’t want to hurt my injured leg. I run for quite some distance and I still not yet see any drinking station. That make me puzzle, cause there suppose to have drinking station every 2-3km, but I have run more than 1/2 hour and I only saw a medical station. The drinking station on appear after 4km. Ok, the stupid organiser removed one of the drinking station. What the fuck!

After the first round, I can start feeling my leg is start complaining and my speed getting slower and slower. The last 3km I almost can walk only cause my left knee is K.O. But luckily I still able to finish it in 1 hour and 30 minutes. 10 minutes more than my expectation.

Basically you just need to run and go pick your goodies bag and go home. The organiser don’t really tell you that you have finished your race. What an unorganised organiser.

The best part is, because lack of man power, it takes years to distribute the goodies bag. So, guess what, they throw the goodies bag to everyone. Everyone pushing around. Suddenly, I start to respect Japanese. Even after the worst earthquake they still queuing to get their food. But us, robbing, pushing, yelling to get a stupid goodies bag. I believe our education got serious problems. We really need to revise the education method to educate our children.

Picture from facebook user

Finally I get my goodies bag after pushing by everyone behind and once I got my bag, I walk direct to get my car cause I don’t want to jam to get out from the car park.

Ok, my conclusion, I’d participate Energizer Night Race 2010 and It is a very organized race, but for 2011, I believe that is the worst race I ever attended. Ya, a great event but organised by a joker organiser, expose.com.my. I hope next year race can be organized by a more professional organiser instead by a joker.