Author: Grievous

Humor: The ‘Wisdom’ of the Lycan

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The first seven ‘gender-war related’ comments are also known as ‘The collection of Drunken Men Talk’.

  • 1. When a man agrees with everything a woman says, he simply wants to fxxk her. 😛 (Incidentally, that is also true when you want to have sex with a prostitute. You need to agree to the price she set.)

  • 2. Women are not illogical. They simply understand only one logic that is unfathomable to all men: Her own.

  • 3. Men don’t care if you have cellulite on your thighs, women! They won’t be looking at that when having sex!

  • 4. Women, as a rough guide, you are too fat only when your tummy protrudes more than your breasts (when you are NOT pregnant).

  • 5. Never ask a guy “Will you ever lie to me?” Because when he answers no, that will be the first time.

  • 6. The perfect man written about on female magazines is but a figment of the imagination of old spinsters.

  • 7. Natural selection gets a free hand in eliminating stupid women when they think bony models is the standard.

  • 8. Language evolves. If it changes not, this invective would read “methinks ye should sucketh p***s mine, language nazis”.

For Laughs:
Battle for the Blood : Werewolves vs. Vampires.

Random Discourse – Macintosh and Apple Products

4 comments

I ‘have been a PC’ since my first PC/AT Compatible in 1987, and I have witness its progress from DOS to Windows and from Windows running on DOS to Windows 7 today. Back then, installing a new peripheral is a nightmare a it may require one to have some understanding of what are interrupts (IRQ) and I/O address, while manually configuring the peripheral with jumpers. It was a far cry from the true plug and play systems we have today where the BIOS and the OS does everything for you. Few would remember the horror days of ISA and VESA bus before the PCI bus standard was introduced.

I also witness how we progress from slow analog modems connecting to a jumble of BBS, to the broadband modems connecting to the Internet today. Not to mention how Microsoft’s NT server products and its descendants displaced Novell Netware from the corporate world to become the new standard in Local Area Networking.

As such, I have rarely been in touch of any Apple hardware, except in one instance back in 2000 when I had to support 2 companies (one into designing and the other into magazine publishing) as a system integrator. Even then, I had minimal contact with a Mac, as another vendor handles them and my job is simply to coordinate with that vendor. Since I don’t even use any of its products, I wouldn’t have been critical of Apple if not for all those Apple ‘evangelists’ and advertisements disparaging the PC. These people and ads annoy me to no end as they apparently have no touch whatsoever with reality.

FACT: PCs are the real workhorse in the world.

As far as I am concerned, when I stepped into the office, the only machines that is doing much of the real work, are PCs. In fact, in the bank I worked, 100% of the trading activities are done on PCs. There is no Mac in sight. It doesn’t matter the spin doctors in the advertisement firms are using Macs to create those nice ads you see on TV or the Internet, the fact remained that it is probably a PC running the CAD/CAM software designing the machines that produce the Macs, and the building that Apple, Inc is situated may even have been drawn by an architect using Autocad on a PC, while the employees of the bank which Apple does most of its transactions are also using PCs. All of which run on Windows!

FACT: The Mac is not superior in engineering to a PC

For those of you who might not be aware, the PCI-Bus was first introduced on the PC before Apple incorporated it on its Power Macintosh. So now who is disparaging PC as being inferior? Frankly, while Macs may have the allegedly more superior Firewire, it is the PC’s USB standard that dominates and even Macs have some USB ports built in. Meantime, Macs today use Intel processors and so do PCs – which have been using Intel CPUs all these while.

Some argues that it is true that a Mac is superior because the Mac version of the software runs faster and better on a Mac than on the PC. Well, that is a fallacy. Consider this, a game would probably run smoothly on the XBOX but a PC version will never provide the same experience. Consoles are thus superior than PCs since the same game runs faster on them? By no means is that true because the consoles have very specific range of hardware and are specifically designed for that purpose. While a Mac is not designed specifically for a particular purpose, the available range of Macs with limited variation in specifications makes it easy for Apple to optimise code of its OS for these machines. Now consider a PC which is a product of a Sim Lim Square Ah Beng Shop, with parts ordered by an enthusiast with ‘the best components’ he reads about on forums and magazines, or the myriad of so-called ‘state of the art’ PCs and laptops produced by a branded manufacturer. Need I elaborate further?

FACT: The Mac OS is not superior to Windows

Mac users often felt more superior than Windows users. I can still remember the term ‘Windows 95 = Mac 86’ when that version of Windows hit the market, and I have heard remarks as ridiculous as “I can code better with Java on my Mac than on my PC”. Doh!

I will concede that the Mac OS may have more user friendly features considering some of the reviews I have read. But I would disagree those makes it superior to Windows unless those features are something you use constantly, which translates into a remarkable improvement in productivity over time. However, other than the features, is there anything else a Mac User can boast about? In fact, this is my challenge to Apple, let Psystar or anyone put the Mac OS on any machine other than just those Apple make, let it go onto machines with configurations as diverse as those supported by Windows and let us then see how will it holds up!

Stability? I have seen Windows XP machines running for months on end without crashing. Now, take a moment to consider the easily available number of peripherals out there for the PC – display cards, sound cards etc – how of often do you change or add any of these things in a Mac? A bad driver from one of these, or a component with some inherent flaws in the process of manufacturing, can produce a remarkably bad experience for a user. And if you want to talk about Windows vulnerability to exploits, malware and virus, it is of no surprise malware writers worked overtime to exploit Windows when the PC is the real workhorse of the world. After all, that is where it make the most impact. I personally wouldn’t be surprise if Mac users would just double, they would also see an increase in such attacks on their systems.

FACT: The iPhone is nothing great

Yep, nothing great. It first came without an MMS feature, and only after several upgrades of the phone’s OS did Apple finally put that feature in grudgingly. In fact, in earlier versions of the phone you can’t delete individual SMS. You either leave them alone or you delete the entire thread of SMS you have exchanged with a friend. On top of that, for a long time, you can’t use it as a teethered modem. If I am not wrong, you can configure it as a modem over Bluetooth, but if you are using an old Bluetooth dongle then the transmission speed will be atrocious. That’s not mentioning you also can’t transfer a file directly over bluetooth. Yet, all of these features are built into the phone, but denied to the users. Users can gain access to these features only after they ‘jailbreak’ the phone and install third party software which might not be approved – all of which will nullify their warranty.

Can you imagine Toyota building a car that comes with an airbag that you can’t use? Or an anti-lock braking system that you must find an shady mechanical to enable before you can use it? That’s not mentioning that it comes with an internal battery that is not replaceable. Is it a surprise why some of those iPhones explode?

Now, talk about a phone that Apple claims the screen would shatter because the user exerts too much force on it. How preposterous! Remember this, while it only take a touch for one to type on the screen of an iPhone, one needs to actually press the Blackberry Storm’s screen down when typing a message. Now have you see any of Research In Motion’s Blackberry Storm with its SurePress touch screen exploding in the face of its users?

With all of the above, I am convinced that everything about Apple is nothing more than hype. Now, when I also consider also some of Apple’s anti-competition business practices, I continually find myself looking unfavorably on Apple. In fact, do you know you can’t play songs you buy on iTunes anywhere else other than on iTunes or an iPod? Whatever happened to choice? In fact, while I may frown on Palm’s method in impersonating its Palm Pre as an iPod, I find Palm’s intention in providing users with a choice admirable and noble. I could only pray for Palm to find a better method in doing so without bringing itself into conflict with the USB Implementers Forum, a standards group.

Surprisingly, you don’t see people complain about such monopolistic and anti-choice practices from Apple. I shudder to imagine what will happen if Microsoft does something like that. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised that the courts in Europe and the U.S. haul Microsoft in and slaps it with a hefty fine in a jiffy. Talk about double standards.

Random Discourse – Ignorant Youths

2 comments

Fellow blogger Chillycraps heard the following nonsense during his daily commute a few days ago.

China 没有 economics,
China 没有 civil engineering,
China 没有 mechanical engineering

When I asked Chillycraps on Windows Live Messenger where he heard those comments from, I was surprised that those comments came from several youths who looked like university undergrads. I sincerely hope these frogs in the well are not a reflection of the sad state of our education training system. The so-called social media revolution clearly hasn’t benefited these youths. It amuses me to no end when some talked about how this new form of media can supplant traditional ones when perhaps this would be an example of how the lack of contact with the traditional media led to these youth’s ignorance. After all, China is always in the news these days!

Anyway, even if these comments were made in the 1970s, I might not agree. If I am not wrong, the People’s Republic of China back then built an ICBM force from scratch, detonated her first atomic bomb after the Soviet Union withdrew its assistance and launched the first satellite on her own. So for the record, I must point out that China is currently the third largest economy in the world after Japan, and is expected to surpass Japan in 2020. Justin Lin Yifu, the World Bank’s Chief Economist, is from China. If you need any evidence of China’s civil engineering you can look at the Three Gorges Dam, the Shanghai Jinmao Tower, and the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. And what about all those new Chinese tanks and J-10 interceptors on display during their national day parade if not a sign of their mechanical engineering prowess? Not to mention the Chang E Probe orbiting the moon and their recent first space walk?

My diatribe against our youths, and not just these few youths in particular, would have ended here. But this particular post reminded me of another comment on Plurk by some young people which started with: Dear Old People Who Run the World, My generation would like to break up with you. It apparently was in reference to a blog post here.

In light of the recently crisis in the financial systems, I personally have no problems with some, if not all of the points (or ideals) in the blog post. In fact, it is an admirable blog post and I ain’t writing this blog post to rebut it. In spite of that, I still agree when Plurker miccheng said this in response: One day you’ll get old too. Let’s see how you’ll fare running the world..

The main reason I agreed with miccheng is simply one of the Plurkers who plurked about the blog post is an irresponsible individual. For an authentic, deep democracy everywhere to come about with such irresponsible riffraffs would be disastrous. Imagine such an individual causing rifts within the community and then disavow of having any responsibility in doing so while blaming the people who sided with her or those who opposed her for it! Furthermore, it is almost ludicrous for the ‘iPod and Macintosh generation’ to demand small, responsive, micro-scale commerce when they would mindlessly disparage another product or anyone who criticise Apple. Frankly, can anyone make a reasonable guess just how these people would actually make some of the things in the blog post happen when they are themselves slaves of consumerism? We are talking about a generation which gather mostly in TCCs or Starbucks, change mobile phones and laptops faster than they change underwear, falls into the trap of branding as being hip and cool and go gaga over idols and stars living a decadent lifestyle.

革命要流血，改革要牺牲。i.e. A revolution requires bloodshed, and a reform requires sacrifices. Are they even aware that they would need to completely relive their lives to make things in that blog post happen? Talk about brainless and I won’t even bother to lambast everyone who repeated the link when some of these people are self defeating!

To think of it, I cannot even imagine how such people can run the world as it is, much less change it! In fact, this impression was further reinforced when I was queuing to get my Ezlink Itchy-Link card checked because it wouldn’t work at the MRT station a few days ago. As I was fuming at the long queue which is moving rather slowly, there was a few full-time NS SCDF personnel queuing behind me and one of them said this:

I think we should just cut this queue and go right to the counter. We are civil servants and should be given priority in this queue.”

I was speechless and I hope it was just said in jest. First of all these guys clearly have no idea what the strictest meaning of the word servant meant, not to mention that the role of a civil servant is to serve the public. My friend Ed has said it best when I shared this to my fellow Plurkers: “That’s the whole point. You are civil SERVANTS… not civil LEADERS.”

I shudder to imagine what will happen if some of these people with such a wrong sense of entitlement end up in high level management in an MNC or even the real civil service. In fact, when I looked at all these youths I seriously think there is a complete failure in their upbringing. These days it is easy to find a blog post where they bare all their animosity against their parents, siblings or even teachers, colleague and bosses to the general public. Sometimes you might even see people re-post some of that nonsense in Facebook, Twitter or Plurk – the so-called social media. At times, you even see them ranting about an anonymous member of the public and it is not even about the usual things that the general public detest (like someone spitting in public, or blocking the entrance while one is exiting the MRT etc). Evidently, these people seems to have no idea how to live responsibly as a member of society while they have much angst, hatred and anger against family or society in general.

For these people to ask for a break up with the elder generation is a joke because they reminded me of juvenile elephants without a pack and the guidance of an matriarch or adult elephants. Often these young elephants are shot dead by their human handlers or the park rangers. I personally won’t feel sorry seeing some of these people being put down, be it by law enforcers or another member of the general public.

To end, let me share this:

Former President Reagan was telling a group once about his tumultuous days as governor of California during the rebellious sixties and early 70s. He said he had a meeting with some of the organizers of the protests. They came into his office wearing t-shirts and jeans, and some were barefoot.

Their spokesman began, “Governor, it’s impossible for your generation to understand us…. You didn’t grow up in a world of instant electronic communications, of cybernetics, of men computing in seconds what once took months, even years, or jet travel, nuclear power, and journeys into space….”

When the young man finished, Reagan said, “You’re absolutely right. Our generation didn’t have those things when we were growing up. We invented them.”

Recommended Reads:
The Secret Political Blog: Why Singapores social divide is inevitable
Chillycraps: Crapital Finance
Mong Palatino: Singapore plans to require bloggers to reveal sponsors

Interesting Facts:
Countries with the Biggest Gaps Between Rich and Poor: No 2. Singapore

Random Discourse – Disclipining Children

3 comments

I read with amusement the news of Australian mother Claire Davidson being reported to police by a school support worker for disciplining her child with a wooden spoon. Ms Davidson said she grew up with a wooden spoon in the house and admitted she and her partner, Joe Oravec, used it – sparingly – on their daughter Anna. She was warned by the Australian police that hitting her daughter with a wooden spoon on the bum is considered assault with a weapon.

Well, I have no idea how big the wooden spoon is and I hope it isn’t as big as an oar *laugh*. I’ll admit, while we are expected to keep a lookout and report cases of suspected child abuse, this is not the case of a poor child turning up in school with unexplainable injury regularly. It was only revealed when Anna told her classmates in school her mum had hit her with a wooden spoon.

When I shared this news with my friends, all of them were incredulous. Regardless whether we are parents or not, we felt that some spanking is always necessary when a child is out of hand. As kids, most of us have been spanked with bare hands, or thin rattan canes and the handle of feather dusters when we are naughty. In certain more extreme cases, some of us have been whipped with belts. I certainly remember the days I get laughed at during my lower primary school days when I go to school with ‘char mee’ [fried noodles] – i.e. cane marks – on my legs. (Talking about rattan canes, has anyone seen one these days? I used to be able to find one in a neighbourhood provision shop but not anymore.)

While I certainly resent being caned, there is no doubt some of it was justified. As a result, my cousins and I generally are well behaved at the dining table and we are all less choosy about our food. Running around during meal times and refusing to consume our meals is a definite no-no. That explains my disdain with this case here because as far as I am concerned, it will never happened to any of us.

Spare the rod and spoil the child is our common understanding. All of us felt that getting spanked for our mischief or bad behavior has taught us to be better people. A lack of spanking does nothing to make children better people. If you do not do your job in spanking your kids to correct them when they misbehave, then somewhere down the road someone else will do that job for you. Is a wonder why some parents suddenly found their kids dead or arrested? My friend one told me that his dad once said this when he was getting spanked: “Better I beat you than an outsider beat you.”

It is high time some parents be a little more discerning over some of the “modern parenting myths and advice” being propagated. Here’s a site you might want to look at regarding those myths. You can always take the risk and experiment on your own kids and see whether those methods are better. I’ll rather not believe in that bollocks, and trust in the one and only proven method that worked – the one my parents used to raise me where I certainly turned out pretty alright. It is also my considered opinion that a happy family works like an army unit – the officers (parents) make the rules and the privates (children) follow those rules.

That being said, I do object to spanking under these two conditions: public and / or excessive spanking. Good army officers never abuse or ill-treat their soldiers. I noticed that many parents felt a loss of face when they are told their child is misbehaving. Many often take it out on the poor child right there and then. Parents ought to learn that people are not informing them to humiliate them. After all, would they prefer that the general public bypass them and take upon the role of disciplining the child on their own? Furthermore, public spanking does do harm a child’s self esteem. If you don’t believe, I’ll beat openly beat the crap out of you in public and see whether you feel humiliated.

As for excessive spanking, remember this: when someone beat a dog or cat half dead it is considered abuse and even that could end you with a fine or jail term. So you know the seriousness of abusing a child. Excessive spanking may teach a child that violence is a solution to everything. In my opinion, this is the kind of abuse that the school worker should be reporting.

Surprisingly for a Western country, the majority of Aussie parents agree that some spanking is necessary. Take a look at the result on the surveys conducted by major Australian papers.

  • dailytelegraph.com.au – 95% in favour of smacking, 5% against
  • couriermail.com.au – 95% in favour, 5% against
  • news.com.au – 94% in favour, 6% against
  • heraldsun.com.au – 92% in favour, 8% against
  • adelaidenow.com.au – 92% in favour, 8% against
  • perthnow.com.au – 92% in favour, 8% against

Well done, Aussies. The majority of them certainly are not as ‘fxxked in the head’ as some of the losers out there who are letting their kids turn into brats and causing the world to be turned on its head!

I just wonder where Singapore will stand on the discipline debate.

Random Discourse – Crime Prevention

2 comments

While it maybe true that violent crimes in Singapore such as robbery involving firearms or deaths, or exchange of gunfire in public is almost non-existent, it appears to me that the general low crime rate here has given Singapore citizens and residents a false sense of security. Just like a lack of exposure to germs and virii would result in a low resistance to disease in a person, the lack of exposure to crime has made many Singaporeans increasing complacent and lacking in crime awareness.

Three weeks ago while having coffee at Starbucks at Raffles City with an old friend, a lone teenager left his notebook and mobile phone and just walked off to the counter to get himself another cup of beverage. He was away for a good 10 minutes at least, and everything was left unattended. While I looked around, no one was actually making an effort to keep an eye on his items.

Anyone who has been at the recently renovated Starbucks at Raffles City would know that there is now a barrier that demarcates its premises from the main thoroughfare between the main exit of City Hall MRT Station and Raffles City itself. Technically a thief can inconspicuously walk up, grab the phone or even unplug the notebook and then walk away slowly. No one would have realised that anything was amiss until the owner return to the table to discover his items gone. By then the thief would be gone in any direction. This is not the first time I notice a lone person leaving items unattended and expecting it not to be stolen. When I was in Hangzhou two years ago, the waiters or a kind-hearted patron would have reminded me to take my items with me. Even if I just leave it on the seat beside me while I eat, the waiter would have taken a piece of cloth to cover my items so that they will not attract any attention.

When I mentioned this with another friend a week later during dinner, he pointed out that even senior citizens, those who has gone through more turbulent times, have also lost their crime awareness. He remember a flail old man, after withdrawing some money from an ATM, start counting his stack of $50 notes as he walked away. Is he not aware that someone could have just followed him until he’s some where deserted, then beat him up and take his money? When I was in Malaysia a decade ago, I got a scolding from my Malaysian friend for counting my ringgit notes in his car after I made the exchange at the money changer. His exact word was: “Are you stupid? Keep your money and count discreetly. If someone smashes my windscreen to rob you now, I’ll beat you up after that if we are still alive.”

To add on, I recalled a female blogger complaining online about being stalked and allegedly molested by a stranger on the way to her rented place in Aljunied about a year or so ago. This female blogger has been known to love wearing mini-skirts, and shorts that is not just in name but in fact. If someone is wondering whether I am now suggesting that ‘she deserved it because she dressed like a slut’, my answer is no. As far as I am concerned, when a female dresses to bring attention – regardless whether it is complimentary or unflattering – to herself, it also include undesirable attention from lechers, perverts and sexual predators. It becomes even worse when one is alone in a deserted and dark place where there is no one else to divide the attention.

These examples made me suspect that because so few of us have been victims of crime, we no longer have crime awareness. So I did a quick survey on Plurk to see whether we are that fortunate. Surprisingly, out of the 9 of my friends who responded, only 2 of them have never met with a crime of any sort. The other 7 have met with crime of some sort, from theft of personal items like mobile phones to getting stalked by strangers. One of them even has the most unpleasant experience of witnessing a taxi driver getting beaten up, knowing a friend who is a victim of a hit and run case, losing an expensive flip-up full face helmet and even a pair of stinking old army boots, and accessories getting stolen from his bicycle. In fact, when I was a teenager I was once accused of staring by some hooligans and end up getting accosted before they took the miserable $13 from my wallet as ‘punishment for my audacity’. That’s not mentioning that I had even lost a Siemens S40 Mobile phone while I took a nap! And among all places, that happened in the church bookstore!

Simply put, even when there is a low crime rate in Singapore, it doesn’t mean there is no crime. Above which, I recalled being told that generally crime rate in most cities is the same (around 3%). The reason we believed Singapore is safer is due to an exaggerated exposure of media reports of violent or gruesome crimes in other cities. While 10 people taking a quick survey don’t make convincing statistics, and those friends who responded to my survey may simply be some of the most unfortunate souls in the country, it is my considered opinion that everyone has the same potential of being a victim of crime – in specific crime resulting in some form or harm or loss of possession. There is no reason why we should increase that potential by bringing the attention of criminals upon ourselves. To put it in an analogy, when everyone has the same potential of being hit by lightning, the person who walks in the open or on the ceiling of a building is simply asking for it.

Don’t blame the police for ‘not doing their work’ or the government gahmen for not letting people arm themselves adequately against criminals when one is seemingly oblivious of crime and simply asking for it. Crime prevention is more important than one’s own ability to fight off criminals, or the ability of the police in apprehending them.

Truthful Reviews:
My Food Sirens II : Obolo

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