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I happened to be looking through the server archives of ‘Grapevine’ chats in the office and I found this little prediction I made on June 5th. (Time is in GMT.) Damn! Why didn’t I go to bet on this? I would probably have made some money there. Anyway, looking at the way Russia gets its clocks cleaned, there’s some speculation that both Turkey and Russia are out because of some match fixing. |
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After all… it would be a little hard on bookies to come up with the payout odds for Turkey to meet Russia in the finals. Too much uncertainty, and too hard to predict who will win. And well, considering that if I was the bookie and I won’t leave that much to chance… such speculation is not hard to imagine. |
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Category: Others
Sh-italy OUT!!!
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Spain 4 : 2 Sh-italy (on Penalty) Buffon must have used all his luck saving that late penalty against Romania, or else these shitheads would have been out already. But yes, Sh-italy is OUT, finally!!! It’s a pity it took so long and these bunch of charlatans didn’t crash out with zero goals and zero points in the first round. I have waited long and hard for this day. These undeserving swines shouldn’t even be there for the quarterfinals. Romania would have been more deserving of that position but unfortunately they simply didn’t play well enough against the Netherlands. Keep up the string of bad luck, Sh-italy, for there is nothing more joyous for me to see you bunch of divers, actors and thieves of the 2006 World Cup get the retribution you so deserved!! |
Netherlands 1 – 3 Russia (aet)
Yes! Russia!
A deserving loss for the Netherlands for not letting Romania through so the blasted Shitalians can go back to do some Alfresco dining eating Spaghetti and coffee drinking!
Are we looking at the possibility of a Turkey vs Russia finals?
(If you need to sing the Russian Anthem patriotically… watch the following Youtube video and karaoke on your own. It might have been the ‘Hymn of the Soviet Union’ but then I don’t know better…)
A ruckus about a $8.15 cab fare
The above is a screen capture from Google Earth showing the general area of Clarke Quay, Boat Quay, Circular Road and the Golden Shoe area. For the map showing the direction of travel of the roads in the above photo, please refer to (the copyrighted maps at) SLA Map Service.
The purpose of this post is for everyone to better understand the road conditions in that area, and to see for ourselves if a $8.15 cab fare during peak hours in the CBD is reasonable, or whether the cabbie has indeed taken his passengers for a joy ride to cheat his passengers earn a few more dollars. Do note that boarding a cab during evening peak hours in the CBD would carry a $3 CBD surcharge (until 12 midnight), plus a 35% surcharge on the metered fare (until 9:30pm). That means, upon flag down it would already cost the passenger at least $6.80 [$2.80 flag down, 35% on $2.80 = $1 & $3 CBD surcharge], and it might cost more than that if you flag down the wrong kind of cab – e.g. a Mercedes Cab or even a Sonata.
From the drawings indicating the roundabout route the cabbie took, my guess is that the two ladies boarded at Central, and the cab then turn left and went down River Valley Road. It then make a U-turn either at Clemenceau Avenue, or somewhere near Liang Court, come back to junction where the MITA building is, make a right turn and then took a left down Upper Circular Road. The distance I measure in Google Map was about 1.28km, which means the cab had some stoppage time – either waiting to make the u-turn or at the traffic lights.
Frankly, this is really one of the two shortest route possible. I personally can’t think of a better one which would cost less because anyone who works in the CBD would have known taking a cab and have it move to the opposite side of the road is not such a straight forward task. It’s not everywhere one can make a u-turn, and some of the roads at the next junction allows left turn only because the traffic of the intersecting road heads only in that direction. (Worst yet, in some places the LTA has forbidden right turns – e.g. the junction of Victoria Street & Bras Brasah Road.)
In other words, a $8.15 cab fare is about just right, and it could have been worse if the cabbie act like a complete bastard and go all the way down to Middle Road near Bugis and make his u-turn, or go past River Valley, turn left at Clemenceau Avenue, then left again down Havelock Road, pass Church Street and around Collyer Quay into Battery Road and drop the ladies at OCBC Building.
In short, it is my considered opinion that the cab driver did not deliberately take a roundabout route to ‘cheat his passengers’ . However, he could at least have shown his passengers some courtesy by telling them that their destination was just across the road, and only take them when they insist on the ride.
Anyway, I personally won’t begrudge the cabbie for the money he has made out of this trip. In fact, the real people to blame is the LTA. Consider this, after you take out the $3 CBD surcharge and the 35% peak hour surcharge, the trip would have cost just $3+ or $4+. The purpose of all these surcharges was never to help the cabbie make more money, but just a means to make it so expensive, it ‘prices some of the demand out of the market’ .
An Uneducated View on PDA / Smartphone Reviews (II)
This is a typical PDA / Smartphone product review found on Cnet.
But before I begin, let me first emphasize that this is not an attack on the quality of Cnet’s review because it has always been my opinion that Cnet’s editors do some of the most balanced and objective, if not the best, technical reviews that can be found on the Internet. Very often I recommend that my friends read them up, and I also read up a Cnet review before making my decision to purchase a particular electronic product – be it a digital camera, PDA, laptop or even a mobile phone.
Take a look at the example of the HTC Touch review given above. As with all Cnet reviews, it gives you an overview of the specifications of the product, the features available, the good and the bad and even showing you the quality of the pictures taken with the built-in camera. I have come across a review of the iPhone which even some of the known gripes and criticisms from those already using a product is mentioned. For e.g., I quote: “CNET users have also reported volume problems, and a few people we called said they heard a slight background hiss.”
Unfortunately, this is where my praises for Cnet’s reviews end, and with all due respect to the Cnet editors, this is no fault of yours.
I am quite sure many of us has bought a product after comparing the features and taking the one with the most features usable for us, and also on performance, but ultimately found the product unwieldy and hardly of use for the purpose we intended it for after purchase. (That is also why I have completely sworn myself off PDA smartphones, with the exception of the Blackberry. The reason was that this is the one product that best suit my uses in the corporate environment, given to me free by the company because I am one of the Blackberry Enterprise Server administrators.)
Anyway, what good is a review telling you how good the sound or the quality of the picture taken is, the range the WIFI built in etc when there are so many similar products out there with comparable features? When our decision making is solely based on comparing features and specifications, is that not the very reason we found ourselves in want – not in need – of an upgrade, or desiring a better phone in the near future? In the end we end up trying to chase the technology and because our current gadget was only the best – a has been – until the next one comes along.
So what is the point I am trying to make here? What I am doing here is presenting my uneducated view here on how a product review can be further improved. For e.g. it might help us if the review tells us how the HTC Touch can integrate with the work of users of a certain profile, and there’s a short video or a presentation featuring a real user showing us what he has done with it etc. And I don’t mean looking for fan boys to sing the praises of a product and try to convince us just why a pile of stinking iDung or the iFart from Steve Job’s ass maybe fragrant.
I mean, don’t we all at times discovered we wanted something because our friends flashes us their gadgets and tell us just what he can do with it and how cool that might be because that’s something we are looking for all along? And wouldn’t that save also help save us a lot of money because this will be one product that will serve our purpose and last us for a long time to come?
I thank Endoh for giving me the inspiration to this article. And to Chaosdingo: ‘this is the article I told you I wanted to write sometime back on WLM. It is finally here.’