SUCKS. And NS.SG is damn slow when it’s supposed to be hosted locally. It loads even slower than overseas websites. What the hell are the money spent on? Dual cores to surf the web? Stupid consultants that SAF engages. Probably the decision makers on SAF side knows what the hell is going on but couldn’t care less as their budget are ever growing and it’s not their own money anyway.

And so, my house was rewired.

Electrical power, tv points, telephone lines, lights. And added in Cat6 ethernet cables.  All the electric points were completed in one day (very fast I must say), ethernet cables completed the next day. Total time took: 2 days.

Spent the next few days cleaning up the whole house instead. As of now, only the bedrooms are cleaned. Downstairs is in a horrendous mess. Hopefully by the end of next week, everything is back in order. Further reconstruction to the kitchen will come later.

The ethernet points are good, I highly recommend for everyone. But if you feel that wireless is enough, so be it. I’m for wire, now my wireless is officially turned off. Desktop and laptops all booted up properly, network devices all ok. Xbox finally plugged into the wall and streaming videos I’ve downloaded to the TV. Perfect, just cannot play real media files. That’s a bitch. I’m definitely not impressed by the speed and price of powerline solutions or the recent coaxial tv points solutions. Too slow, too expensive, too few TV (coaxial) points.

I saw an email in my mailbox from school today. It says “looking for part time who are expert in Linux OS and C++/C Programming…. The pay is negotiable. “

If someone is an EXPERT I would really expect a high pay. I always felt that university (professors) looking for part timer job are requesting for a lot, yet paying very little. Exploitation, exploiting young minds who didn’t know the market rate, yet worked hard for whatever little money they can get. Some of them I noticed are the professors’ own companies, which I’m not sure if they have sought the right approval to look for people through our email system.

I hope they do not justify their acts by saying that the students need the money anyway, and are willing to work for the amount specified. Urgh.

Just when I was about to pop over to ubuntu, this news came up. But it really does show that the “millions of eyeballs” that look at the codes are just relying on automated tools, and really… eyeballing the codes instead of thinking through it. I feel rather sad for the state of programming, mostly codes that are relying on libraries and optimizers than coding from scratch, which of course is impossible for huge projects.

I’ll stay on Windows for a while more then. It would be interesting to see if more viruses/exploits are found in this episode, Linux/Mac.

It’s been quite a while since I met up with Onn Ray. Last night we had a fabulous Dang Gui Duck at Dian Xiao Er. 2 people whack a 4 to 5 people portion. We ordered another plate of abalone mushroom with broccoli. Dian Xiao Er side dishes are not that fantastic in my opinion. So we just whack the duck with the 1 side dish and rice. Ray even had a second bowl of rice.

It was a quick dinner since we are both hungry. So we sourced for a place to drink and talk cock. I’ve never been to Dempsey Road before, heard some friends say it’s nice but inaccessible without a car, so I suggested since Ray was driving.

He took me on a tour inside, it’s really a place that do not remind me of Singapore at all! I’m really impressed that such a hangout place existed. Indeed as Ray mentioned, places where expats crowd really tend to be good. He recommended the Korean BBQ. I think I will be back with my family., probably in a taxi.

We went to PS cafe, crowded, left our names and went to look around while waiting. First to Ben and Jerry’s, lots of people. Then walked past harry’s, to Jones’ Grocery, which is like a high class marketplace, selling some stuff that can’t be found outside I suppose. Dwindling around, we went back to PS cafe, had a seat outside while waiting for Ray’s gf to come. Great place to chat. The drink I ordered, Iced Wildberries is … acquired taste. Ray had a peach lime fizz? Strong taste as well. Ray’s gf had a digestive drink, which according to the 2 of them who tasted it, it’s ginger tea. The cake we had, double chocolate blackout cake (I think that’s the name) is thick and nice, but somewhat a bit too thick. Sitting outside and chatting is really good as our loud (or rather my loud voice) do not send echoes and weird stares if indoors. Air is somewhat fresher too.

Quickly it was already 1 am in the morning, and we headed back home. Having friends who stay close and drive helps. We decided to go to Ma Maison next. Either at Bugis or Clarke Quay. Either will be good I guess.

Much as I pity the many people (because of high density population?) who died or injured or left homeless by the earthquake in Si Chuan, China, I can’t help but be amused by one point.

Some weeks ago, I saw on the news, chinese students protesting in china that CNN apologize (I read that some even demanded compensation in terms of money), shouting “We want to show the world that China is united!” So it seems like this earthquake is the test to really show the world IF china is really united. Bodoh people. I’m sure there will be lots of cock up in the recovery process. I can’t help but felt this is super amusing.

Then I read that my country, Singapore, raised sgd $200k for the china people and they said we are misers. I never donated, luckily. Crap. Always rendering aid but at the end of the day, we are scolded, shifted blame on, suppressed. Crap. You can just sink for all we care.

I feel the cause of the earthquake could just be linked to the Three Gorges Dam that China built. It was predicted during the project that it may trigger earthquakes due to the sheer mass of water accumulated upstream. Oh well. If they felt that flooding is worse than earthquakes, so be it. Your country, you sink in it. I just felt bad for all the foreigners there in China now, you don’t have to go through all these. I felt bad for the good chinese people who just wanted a simple life, I’m sorry but your country is seriously overpopulated.

I kept getting this stupid message from Google. It’s either Google’s fault or Starhub’s stupid transparent proxy. I think it’s Starhub. I understand why they have the proxy, and understand they should have the proxy, but I’m still pissed. Because of this transparent proxy, those megauploads, rapidshare also affected.

Hope it goes away soon… Blogspot is totally stuck in this crap each time I tried to access.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 reboot problem

At first I thought this is an isolated case to the HP laptops installed with intel chipset files for AMD based chipsets. But apparently my cousin’s compaq presario with intel chipset seem to be cocking up with this problem as well.

Totally unable to enter safe mode to apply the registry change which is supposed to solve it. So I just took out the harddisk, copied the data files, and simply restored the original image of the harddisk.

Problem solved. But I wonder what triggered the sp3 install, auto update probably. I hope another Windows Update don’t kill it again. And I think it’s a HP/Compaq problem, rather than a Microsoft one.

Talking to some people on msn is like talking to a wall. Might as well talk to their wall on facebook.

bad day. sigh.