A manager's story

The manager of a large corporation got a heart attack, and the doctor told him to go for several weeks to a farm to relax. The guy went to a farm, and after a couple of days he was very bored, so he asked the farmer to give him some job to do.

The farmer told him to clean the shit of the cows. The farmer thought that to somebody coming from the city, working the whole life sitting in an office, it will take over a week to finish the job, but for his surprise the manager finished the job in less than one day.

The next day the farmer gave to the manager a more difficult job: to cut the heads of 500 chickens. The farmer was sure that the manager will not be able to do the job, but at the end of the day the job was done.

The next morning, as most of the jobs in the farm were done, the farmer asked the manager to divide a bag of potatoes in two boxes: one box with small potatoes, and one box with big potatoes.

At the end of the day the farmer saw that the manager was sitting in front of the potatoes bag, but the two boxes were empty. The farmer asked the manager: "How is that you made such difficult jobs during the first days, and now you cannot do this simple job?"

The manager answered: "Listen, all my life I'm cutting heads and dealing with shit, but now you ask me to make decisions."

Why Blogging?

According to Wikipedia:

blog is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Modern blog are evolved from online diary and it often provides commentary or news and information on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news.

Ok, back to today topic, why blogging?

It's complicated. But I simplify it into two categories.

First category is to share the happiness, ideas, talents and secrets.
For example, you have a very nice joke, what will you do. Tell yourself? Or tell the whole world about this funny joke? Or you have a very good idea but none of your friend understand you genius idea.

Blogging is one of the best ways to share these information. The more people share with you, the happier you are.

The second group of people do blogging is to share their sadness, pressures, sorrows. Complain about the government, how stupid your boss is, or how stupid you are. Telling to friend may have some risk because they will blog it. They will get happier but not you.

Thus, the best way is to just put a nick name and express all you dissatisfactions to the world. The more people share your burden, the more lightly you are.

No matter which type of blog you are having, just blog it and you may cheer lot of people out there.

p^_^q

If this is your boss?

A Chinese man walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer.

He tells the loan officer that he is going to China on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer tells him that the bank will need some form of security for the loan, so the Chinese man hands over the keys to a new Ferrari parked on the street in front of the bank. He produces the title and everything checks out. The loan officer agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.

The bank's president and its officers all enjoy a good laugh at the Chinese for using a $250,000 Ferrari as collateral against a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then drives the Ferrari into the bank's underground garage and parks it there.

Two weeks later, the Chinese returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41. The loan officer says, "Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out and found that you are a multi-millionaire. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?"

The Chinese replies: "Where else in New York City can I park my car for 2 weeks for only $15.41 and Expect it to be there when I return?

What can I say? orz boss!

Corporate Lesson

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there miserably in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was.The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Moral of the story:

1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.

2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.

3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

Corrporate lesson: The crow and the rabbit

A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?" The crow answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story is:

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Am I alone?

An electronics engineer working in air conditioning contractor firm is lonely. It's difficult to express yourself or maybe I should say it's difficult to apply your knowledge in this area.

The most happiness moment is when I see the control system is running perfectly, hmmm..... maybe not 100% perfect. Then the remaining suffering day is to go to client site to help them to power up tripped MCB / switch or restart the PC. I hope one day I can do it remotely.

All the while I'm thinking I'm alone but until today I found out a genius hidden inside my office. At last I got someone can talk to using same language / protocol :)

It's personal

Do you ever thinking buying a car with GPS, leather seat, nice interior and exterior design, with only 1300cc engine to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/hr within 6 sec? This will be a best of the best. How about this car got only 2 tires?

OK, for me this is motorcycle not a car.

How about now, a mobile phone with 3G, slim design, multimedia ready, with expandable memory capability, and not only colour screen but large colour touch screen. Isn't it best of the best. How about I told you that this phone do not have camera, not even a 300k pixel.

OK, for me this is an useless 3G phone. Surprisingly, someone is coming with this design.

The main objective behind 3G is about video streaming not data. Data is a bi-product of 3G. The main technology focus on data transfer are High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and 802.16e (mobile WiMax).

I can't really understand the designer behind all these phones. Just a small camera and these phones will dominate the market.

Well, I'm an engineer. As usual, engineer don't talk about money but features. No matter how good is the "car", if it's 2 tires, it just a motorcycle.

A 3G phone without a camera is just a rubbish that used to fill up sea level. Please donate all these phones to Singapore.

p.s. by a very disappointed engineer that want to buy M600i.

A meaningful story

A man went to school to learn chinese writing. The first day, the teacher teach him to how to write one. "One is a horizontal line", said the teacher. The second day, the teacher teach him to write two. "Two horizontal lines is a two in chinese", said the teacher. And the third day, the teacher teach him to write three. "Three horizontal lines is a three in chinese", said the teacher again. The man get excited and quit from school.

One day, he want to write a letter to his friend Wan (ten thousand in chinese). He had used a whole day just to write his friend's surname.

I still remember my teacher told me this story when I was in primary school. The story teach us to learn knowledge sincerely. Guess what, I saw someone is still haven't graduate from primary school working in my company.

Do you still want to tell the truth?

A chemist, a biologist and an electrical engineer were on death row waiting to go in the electric chair. The chemist was brought forward first.
"Do you have anything you want to say?" asked the executioner, strapping him in.
"No," replied the chemist.
The executioner flicked the switch and nothing happened. Under State law, if an execution attempt fails, the prisoner is to be released, so the chemist was released.

Then the biologist was brought forwards.
"Do you have anything you want to say?", asked the executioner
"No, just get on with it." reply the biologist.
The executioner flicked the switch, and again nothing happened, so the biologist was released.

Then the electrical engineer was brought forwards.
"Do you have anything you want to say?" asked the executioner.
"Yes," replied the engineer. "If you swap the red and the blue wires over, you might make this thing work."

Top Ten Things Engineering School didn't Teach You

1. There are at least 10 types of capacitors.
   
2. Theory tells you how a circuit works, not why it does not work.
   
3. Not everything works according to the specs in the databook.
   
4. Anything practical you learn will be obsolete before you use it, except the complex math, which you will never use.
   
5. Engineering is like having an 8 a.m. class and a late afternoon lab every day for the rest of your life.
   
6. Overtime pay? What overtime pay?
   
7. Manager, not engineers, rule the world.
   
8. Always try to fix the hardware with software.
   
9. If you like junk food, caffeine and all-nighters, go into software.
   
10. Dilbert is not a comic strip, it's a documentary.

CipherMail 0.2 Beta

New features added:

• Add password verification for message encryption.
• Add CipherMail extention for file cryptography and MD5 digest into shell.

View readme for more details.

Just extract the zip file to a folder and run CipherMail.

http://skding.googlepages.com/ciphermail.zip

Nothing business, just a birthday.















Happy birthday to Mr. Ooi (22/7).

Communication

Communication is difficult. Most of the communication related books told you that the main objective of communication is the clear transfer of information.

But Dilbert say

The real objective of business communication is to advance your career.

A successful manager knows how to conveys the message "I am worthy of promotion" without transferring any other information.

And

Clear communication can only get you into trouble.

Telling truth in bussiness world is prohibited, if you want to be promoted or make your life easy.

As for engineers, we don't tell lies as managers usually do. For us the best way is to keep silent, since say nothing doesn't mean lie, hence we don't go to hell at the end of the day :)

Maybe due to this reason engineers wouldn't be promoted at the end of the day cause we didn't pass the most important message to our boss.

How communication works in the business world? Read this.

Tribute to the company with managers > engineers

The French and the Japanese decided to engage in a competitive boat race. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day the Japanese won by a mile.

The France team was discouraged by the loss. Morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found, so a consulting firm was hired to investigate the problem and recommend corrective action.

The consultant's finding: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering; the France team had one person rowing and eight people steering. After a year of study and millions spent analyzing the problem, the French team's management structure was completely reorganized. The new structure: four steering managers, three area steering managers, and a new performance review system for the person rowing the boat to provide work incentive.

The next year, the Japanese won by two miles!

Humiliated, the France corporation laid off the rower for poor performance and gave the managers a bonus for discovering the problem.

Manager problem solving method

We know how engineer deal with problem, but how about manager? Read this.

A new manager spends a week at his new office with the manager he is replacing. On the last day the departing manager tells him, "I have left three numbered envelopes in the desk drawer. Open an envelope if you encounter a crisis you can't solve."

Three months down the track there is a major drama, everything goes wrong - the usual stuff - and the manager feels very threatened by it all. He remembers the parting words of his predecessor and opens the first envelope. The message inside says "Blame your predecessor!" He does this and gets off the hook.

About half a year later, the company is experiencing a dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. The manager quickly opens the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize!" This he does, and the company quickly rebounds.

Three months later, at his next crisis, he opens the third envelope. The message inside says "Prepare three envelopes".

The engineers and the bulb

How many first year engineering students does it take to change a light bulb?
None. That's a second year subject.

How many second year engineering students does it take to change a light bulb?
One, but the rest of the class copies the report.

How many third year engineering students does it take to change a light bulb?
"Will this question be in the final examination?"

How many civil engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to do it and one to steady the chandelier.

How many electrical engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They simply redefine darkness as the industry standard.

How many computer engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
"Why bother? The socket will be obsolete in six months anyway."

How many mechanical engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
Five. One to decide which way the bulb ought to turn, one to calculate the force required, one to design a tool with which to turn the bulb, one to design a comfortable - but functional - hand grip, and one to use all this equipment.

How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
Seven. One to install the new bulb and six to figure out what to do with the old one for the next 10,000 years.

and the mangers:

How many managers does it take to change a light bulb?
"I want a detailed memo about this issue till tomorrow's morning."
"You were supposed to have changed that light bulb last week!"
"We haven't got a policy on that".
"I am on my way to a very important meeting, so we'll discuss it some other time."
Three. Two to find out if it needs changing, and one to tell an employee to change it.

CipherMail 0.1.1

Just update the software.

Introduce shortcut key.
Encrypt Ctrl-E
Decrypt Ctrl-D

Save some copy and paste time :)

CipherMail ver.0.1.1

======Added=========
Sorry for the stupid link, meanwhile looking for a better place to put my file, you can try this link.

http://rapidshare.de/files/25650620/ciphermail0.1.1.zip.html

Ciphermail

If you need email encryption but PGP is too heavy for you, that the idea of Ciphermail.

This is a simple software by me. Free to use and distribute. Report the bug to me, I will be appreciate it.

Ciphermail ver.0.1

Just copy the text below (including the header and footer) and decrypt it (the password is: password). You will get a welcome message.

-----BEGIN CIPHERMAIL MESSAGE-----
Cipher: Blowfish
Version: 0.1

4UmQvwWNsM2sS+TPl+Jzo079XxPXddz3

-----END CIPHERMAIL MESSAGE-----

The monkey and the policy

This story tell you about the company policy. Enjoy your day.

Start with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not? Because as far as they know that's the way it's always been done around here.

And that, my friends, is how a company policy begins.

Proving Dilbert's Principle

I'm Dilbert's fan just like most of the engineer/technical guy out there. We done most of the task just to make our management happy.

The Dilbert Principle said that:

The most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.

Since I'm an engineer, we would like to know how true is this statement.

Profession	Tasks/Contribution	Risks/Dangerous
Scientist	Create atomic bomb	Extreme high
Chemical eng.	Build reactor	Very high, scientist best partner.
Mechanical eng.	Build weapon	High
Civil eng.	Build target	High, team with mech. eng.
Electrical eng.	Build power supply	High, the black hand behind everything
Policeman	Rescue / kill human	High
Lawyer	Kill / rescue human	Low
Doctor	Rescue / kill human	Low, form the three musketeer with policeman and lawyer.
Management	Create policies	None

As showed by the table, we know that the management main contribution to the world is create policies which need not proves, reasons, or logics. They mainly base on statistic, where statistic itself is a big lier.

Policies basically wouldn't hameful to human life, but create lots of unexplainable actions which are not logic.

By then, we proved Dilbert Principle.