Passion and Curiosity

I agree totally with what Prof Peter Ng, director of Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research at NUS, said about the work mentality here.

A short quote here:
I do not believe good scientists can be 'developed' and 'planned' for. I also do not agree that the best scientists have the best grades in school. The best scientists are those who started with passion and curiosity - asking questions and solving them. Regardless of whether the questions involve a dollar sign. These are the men or women who will change the world.

That is what is wrong with the mentality here. All the recent government initiatives always involve a dollar sign. You will save $x if you implement this technology. You will earn $y if you bring in this attraction. When you try out something new, how on earth can you guarantee its success 100%? Come on... Even trying out something tested and proven do not give you 100% success rate. One example is our famous Windows Blue Screen of Death.

So in the end what happens? Singapore is always a follower of technology, not an enabler, because they do not have people who are serious in seeing the final outcome, but only interested in having a name on their resumes. Ok, I admit the corporate world is like this, but if you're really serious in changing the culture, then things must be done differently. There always pros and cons on doing things differently, and if we're destined to be only efficient, and reliable, then so be it. You cannot have everything without taking the pros and cons of every choice made.

I've also known some people who said they are "passionate" about their job, and yet, when I ask further on how "passionate" they are, they fail outright. When you're passionate about something, you enjoy it. That's the key word. That means if you're passionate about the job, you enjoy going to work, you enjoy going the extra mile to see that the final product is almost perfect, you enjoy the journey, you enjoy reading up on it with no strings attached, etc...

To enable this kind of work culture here, you must first have 2 groups of people. 1 group who is willing to think ahead, and do things that are not done before, even if its only locally. Another group, which is the most important, is the people who are willing to accept that things can be done differently. Over here, you can never get the latter group. Why? A hint... Who's the biggest consumer of services here?

Singapore can be efficient, but we will never change the world, at least for now.

What's wrong with working your way up??

Friday's paper was mentioning about the 4th university, and how it should be different, and yet the same. However, I take offense on what the minister said about working your way up. He mentioned that the 4th university should not train "salaryman" who spends their whole life working their way up the corporate ladder.

What is wrong with working your way up? Working your way from the ground is the best way to learn and train yourself in the ropes. Whatever you learn in schools are only the very basic foundation of working life. The problem now with most jobs is that people are skipping levels.

For e.g., in software, people are designing software without being involved in the development process at all. They have absolutely no experience in developing an application, and yet they are managing one. And people wonder why projects have a high failure rate...

I mean even MM Lee has mentioned that to train the next PM, it takes more than 10 years. Why 10 years? Because he/she has to work their way up. Earn their stripes so as to speak.

Now a minister is saying this is not encouraged??? What the world is coming to? Am I going to meet more of these kind of people who know nothing of what they are managing??

Every little thing makes a difference

I quote this from the Slice Of Life:

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."

How often are we guilty of this? Thinking that it would never make a difference and finding excuses for ourselves? Very often we get caught up in the frantic pace of life that we sometimes forget the little things that we use to do, thinking that it won't make a difference. Dinner with parents for e.g.

It's good to slow down once in a while.

Adding Safe Mode to Boot Menu

You might ask why do you need to add this option into the Boot Menu. Well, first of all, some people might not be fast enough to press F8 to see the boot menu, and with the introduction of the Intel mac, the F8 key doesn't work. Therefore, I would say this option is quite useful. With the boot menu, you can actually press F8 to access more hidden options.

To enable safe mode in the boot menu, please do the following:

1. Goto Control Panel > System
2. Click on the Advanced tab
3. Under the Startup and Recovery section, click on the Settings button (The 3rd button from the top)
4. Click on the Edit button
5. Locate the line that has the /fastdetect in it. It should be the last line
6. Copy that line and paste it to the line below it
7. Add the word "Safe Mode" to that new line that reads WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP ... ...". E.g. WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Safe Mode"
   
8. Add this to the end of that new line: /safeboot:minimal/sos/bootlog ( = leave a spacing)
   
9. Save it and exit. You can opt to change the minimal to network if you wish to go to safe mode with network option
   

This tip also works for WinXP Home Edition. I've tried it on both. The default option should still be the normal mode Windows mode. You can change the default timeout in the section from Step 1 to Step 3 if you think 30 seconds is too long.

Reboot and you should see the changes. Hope it helps.

Macbook is not Windows friendly

As of BootCamp 1.4, I don't really like WinXP on the MacBook. Sometimes, you get rare cases of blue screen when you're just copying files. The worst part is when you go into Safe mode, your keyboard and trackpad will be disabled! Unless you have an external keyboard or mouse, you cannot do anything in Safe mode on the Macbook. However, my colleague told me that Bootcamp 1.2 is ok in Safe mode. Hmmm...

The most irritating is the time problem. My time keep screwing up, and I have not found a way to resolve it permanently, unless I change my time zone to GMT.

Other than the above, Windows function quite okay on the Macbook. I was able to do development on it, and play some games on it. However, all these things are quite irritating. I wonder if Leopard will have this problem too.

CPF not a cheap source of funds??

I read with great interests in our Minister's rebuttal on why CPF is not a cheap source of funds. Their reasoning is that CPF has no need to buy up the bonds, and people in the open market will always fill up that vacuum. I believe he is not economics trained?

Interest rates depends all on demand and supply. Lending $1,000, and lending $1,000,000,000 is very different. If I lend someone $1,000 for 1 week, I might not charge interest rate if I know this person will definitely pay me back, and I don't lose much interest for 1 week. However, if I need to lend $1,000,000,000, this changes alot. I would demand an interest because this amount is huge, and the risk starts to become higher. Even then, I might not even loan that amount.

Fast forward to the bonds issued by the government, yes. You can always issue the bonds at 2.8%, to be locked in for 10 years. Question is, will any fool buy the bonds where some banks will give you the same interest rate for far lesser amount?? Granted, its risk free, but banks have a much shorter lock-in period than bonds. In order to attract the investors, you would have to increase your interest rates. Therefore, you have the right to issue the bonds at 2.9% for 10 years, but don't expect the take-up rate to be high.

Come on... 2.8% for bonds stretch for 10 years?? Do you know that inflation hit 2.9% in August in just 1 year alone?? GST increased from 3% to 5% in 2003, and 5% to 7% in 2007. Which fool will lock-in their money and see their purchasing power being eroded away with that measly interest rates on the bond??

Not a cheap source of funds?? You're kidding me.

Do HouseKeeping on Your Macbook Wireless Connections

Have you ever wondered why your MacBook's wireless takes longer and longer to connect? I've finally found the configuration in the Mac for you to "prune" the number of wireless networks you have connected, and set the priority in which the Mac should try to connect to those networks. In addition, you can set it such that it will connect to preferred networks first, before attempting to connect to other networks.

Please do the following to activate the above change:

1. Click on the Apple Logo from the top left hand corner
2. Goto Location > Network Preferences
3. Click on the AirPort and Click on Configure (Airport is your wireless for the Mac)
   
4. Under By default, join , choose Preferred networks. That means you prefer to connect the networks indicated in the list shown
5. The list of networks shown in this screen are all the networks that you have connected to so far. The network on top will be the first network the Mac will try to connect to. You can re-order the list by clicking on the network name and dragging it to the top
6. To add a network, click on the + button
   
7. To remove a network listed, click on the network, and click on the - button
8. To edit the network listed, click on the network, and click on the Edit button. You will be able to change the password
9. Click on the Apply Now button at the bottom right hand corner to save your changes

That's all to it. I've been searching for this feature high and low because I was wondering why my wireless takes such a long time to connect. :)

Cherish your time

I quote this from the Slice Of Life:

Give allowance of time. Avoid tight schedules and aim to arrive early by 15 minutes or more for all activities. Too often, stress is created by my ambition to squeeze too much activity into a limited time.

Plan time for things that matter. Plan time to enjoy my hobbies, time to spend with my loved ones, time to go on a vacation and time to play my favourite sports.

Spare time for little things. Spare some time talking to a child, pouring myself a good cup of coffee, comforting someone, cleaning the toilet, learning to cook Mee Siam from Mommy, helping the old lady to cross the road, marvelling at the sunset, or just watching the street busker performing.

Why some people just have a habit of being super late? This creates additional stress to yourself. Maybe that's why I'm usually smiling. :D

Empowerment

I quote from the Slice Of Life:

Empowerment arises from the three Cs: choice, courage and change. They are yours to claim. You have the opportunity to create a future that's very different from your past. And remember, not choosing is also a choice.

You can always do things if you first have the courage to believe that you can do it. Next is to have the will to do it, which will most probably lead to changes.

CPF Changes Update

I have updated the CPF Summary post based on the ministerial statement provided by choozm. Thanks choozm...

Basically, the updates include the amount that cannot be used for CPF Investments (the sequence of lock-in), and the draw-down age and bonuses for the elderly.

The CPF changes are really confusing. I'm not even sure if I have got it all right. It doesn't help that the newspaper reported it differently from the ministerial statement.