Life Explorer @ Heart

DING! LEVEL 28!

2006-11-29T00:08:00.000+08:00

You have reached level 28!
+1 constitution!
+1 intelligence!
+1 wisdom!
+1 luck!
+1 strength!
You need 365 days to reach the next level!

MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Offline Role Playing Game

2006-11-23T20:21:00.000+08:00

A good friend recently reminded me all the good principles that I have forgotten. I guess we all need to be reminded once in a while, because we are forgetful.

I have to admit that I have not yet master the human psych, but I believe that we all can, with consistent practice.

In the meantime, it's back to the level grind :)

Of course, leveling up provides motivational boost. :)

More campaigns

2006-11-20T14:22:00.000+08:00

Recently, Singapore had the "Four Million Smiles" and "Flag The Bus Early" campaigns. I wonder if there will be a "Free Hugs" campaign :p

What does 7% GST mean?

2006-11-14T13:02:00.000+08:00

Well, it seems that the GST in Singapore is going to be raised to 7%. What does it mean?

Let's do a simple calculation. Assuming each month, a person spend SGD300 on food and SGD100 on public transport. So, in a year, he will spend SGD4800 - which I think most people would have spent more than that in a year for food and transportation.

So, for the first year, he would have paid SGD336 in GST.

Now, let's assume that this money were to be invested in some mutual funds, say for an annual return of 6%, which I think is pretty conservative, for 10 years with the profit going back to investment. As a comparison, Warren Buffett is getting average 24.7% annual return from investment.

Over 10 years, this would have compounded to about SGD567.66. While the absolute figure is not big, it is a whopping 68.9% increase from the initial capital of SGD336!

And this is only based on 1 year's worth of GST. :)

Update #1: It seems that 6% ROI per annum is too low, in relation to the 7% GST that will be charged!

October O-Six

2006-10-30T23:17:00.000+08:00

October is a pretty interesting month. Missed both Ocktober fest and Halloween, haha.

Instead, went for a short trip to Desaru over the weekends with a couple of friends. Came back with a karting bug bite. So, who wanna go karting? :p

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On a more serious note, I learnt from Kenny Sia's blog about a fellow Malaysian lady, Yvonne Foong who is having this battle with Neurofibromatosis type II. She wrote a biography entitled, "I’m not sick, just a bit unwell". It's not out in Singapore yet, but maybe in JB? Anyhow, I'd like to wish her a success for her surgery.

So, what have you done lately and will you do it?

2006-09-28T22:34:00.000+08:00

Lately, I've done so much thinking that I thought I was going crazy.

The other day, a good friend of mine was lamenting on how he thought he was not suited to be an entrepreneur. Deep down, I felt the same way, and yet at the same time, I was also thinking that everyone could be if he chosed so - yes, there's duality in me! The questions are why and why not?

"The price of a dream" is an excellent article which gives a very frank insight on why someone wants to take the road less trodden. On the contrary, it also implies reasons as to why people take the common path.

I once told another good friend of mine that I felt I had another chance to do something radical (read: extreme) before 30 because I felt that 30 marked the boundary when one would become jaded. Well, I was right and wrong. After reading this article about genius, it seems that there are 2 kinds of geniuses - conceptual and experimental. There is a shorter version over here. And so, it seems the age old phrase "It's Never Too Late" is still applicable. There is hope since technically we still have at least two peaks unused, haha.

The contributor for the first article, Daniel Pink, has also written a book entitled "A Whole New Mind", which is about the change of Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Kinda exciting that things are moving so fast.

A quick search on BookJetty reveals that there are only two copies at the National Library. Well, let's see if it's still there this weekend, otherwise, I'll have to get it at one of the book stores.

Please Insert Disc #24

2006-09-27T22:14:00.001+08:00

While searching for the floppy discs for the WinWedge purchased eons ago, I uncovered an ancient treasure trove.

Behold the set of installation discs for Microsoft Office Professional. Sadly, disc 1 and disc 15 were missing from the set.

Anyhow, a nice spiral staircase to the past. I don't recall installing with floppy discs, guess I'm not that old :)

most del.icio.us soup

2006-09-26T21:07:00.001+08:00

If you eat out all the time, you'll find difficulty in deciding what and where to have your meal. You either decide for yourself, or follow someone's recommendation. Today, my colleagues decided and I got the chance to savour the best soup I've ever had so far (with the exception of mum's soup, nobody does soup better than mum).

Presenting...the Healthy Chicken Soup - that's what's written on the menu.

Is it "healthy" chicken soup or "healthy chicken" soup? No matter, the soup was just so thick with goodness of the chicken and herbs they used - it's actually the 6-flavour chicken soup (loosely translated from Cantonese). It came with the house-specialty, cabbage rice, which consisted of cabbage and shrimps cooked in rice.

The stall is located at block 22 Sin Ming Road. The Char Kway Teow there is also quite good.

The Long Queue

2006-09-22T22:40:00.000+08:00

Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail, discuss about how the Internet has opened up the market and added new rules to the game of business. Companies will have to adopt new strategies on the upgraded playing field or be perished. It is very insightful and I recommend reading it.

One example cited is, on the Internet, useful information co-exists with the useless junk. Google very cleverly uses the wisdom of crowds to display the search results. And it works!

In Singapore, one is spoilt for the choices of food and the convenience of getting them. Food critics such as Makansutra compile the best of food places around. In the event that we just want to have a meal wherever we happen to be at that moment, how do we choose from the many food stalls? Clearly, there is no signboard around showing the ranking of all stalls.

Today, while having my dinner, I encountered this phenomenon. The photo didn't turn up too well, but there were almost 20 people queueing before the stall which was not opened for business yet, although the stall owner was preparing the food at that time.

Either the wisdom of crowds, herd behaviour, Kiasuism or a combination was at work. I shall call it simply, The Long Queue.

I'll probably try the food from the stall sometime next week if it opens and I have the time. By the way, the stall is Hup Seng Hainanese Curry Rice, and is located next to a wet market at Lorong 8 Toa Payoh.

Introduction

2006-09-19T22:11:00.000+08:00

Currently, I am a software development manager working in a company dealing with distribution and servicing of cash handling devices in Singapore. At the moment, we are developing customised self-service kiosk applications as well as cash management solution. Our preferred choice of development platform is Visual Studio .Net using C#. We found that the tools allows for rapid prototyping and development.

I'm very much more interested in the actual coding itself, hence, in my free time, I do some coding for fun.

Right now, I'm picking up PHP and also looking at CakePHP, which I think is quite a powerful framework, as well as AJAX. I experienced web application development at my first job, developing EJBs and JSPs on the J2EE framework about 6 years ago. I still remember using notepad to edit the source codes, sure bring back memories.

Anyway, I found that there's much advancement in the realm of web application development, and a clearer understanding of what the internet is all about, giving birth to the term "Web 2.0". What this means to me is I need 48 hours! :p

Recently, I signed up for vocal lessons, which happen every Saturday in the evening. I guess I need to try and get out once in a while. :)

I'm moving from my original blog to write here so that I can share ~~some of my personal experience in software development~~ my adventures in life.