facebook

After receiving comments on my blog and hearing about it all over the news, curiousity finally got the better of me. I got a facebook account.

What intrigued me most was the ability to install application extensions to your page. That's quite cool, and there are certainly some pretty cool applications out there. Photo sharing and tagging looks pretty fun too ... once I get off my lazy butt and upload some photos.

Add me.

trading

Sometimes, I think about what my dream job is. Going by my favourite subject in school, I've often thought it might be consulting; Mckinsey perhaps, or Bain? Alternatively, I could also join the crowd and be an analyst at some investment bank.

Other times, I know that what I would really like to do is be a trader. After all, that's how my grandfather made his fortune. And I really wouldn't mind just reading the news, surfing the net and putting in a few trades from day to day. The best part is probably no need to deal with difficult people, nor having anyone's happiness on my conscience. And it's one of those jobs you can almost turn pure intelligence into money, that has an appeal of its own too.

But of course, you need a sizeable starting capital before you can live off trading. Unless you go for high leverage, in which case the risk might also lead to sleepless nights or worst, roofless nights. Perhaps the main reason I figure I could never be a trader is because you really don't contribute anything to society. It's like gambling, but with a bit more skill thrown in. At the end of the day, you may have money to show for your success, but you haven't built anything, touched lives, or made the world a better place in any way.

Maybe that's why Warren Buffet donates so much money to charity.

synctoy

The harddisk saga was finally concluded when I took the external casing back to the shop and got the defective unit replaced. Triumphantly, I plugged the new unit into my computer and watched gleefully as it was auto-detected and finally showed up in the system. I pulled up the disk management tools ... and discovered that the software RAID option is only available in the server edition, not my Windows XP Professional. Oops.


I also realised that the Backup tools built into Windows are designed more for tape backup, not for mirroring to drives. Double oops.


So instead, I found Microsoft Synctoy to do the job. It's a very simple software that allows you to synchronise files or folders (or even whole disks), on anything from handphones and PDAs to external hdds. It comes with most of the synchronisation options mobile computing users would be familiar with, allowing a few options to customise the sync relationship. In my case, I just chose to echo one drive onto another and scheduled a weekly synchronisation, to ensure I never have to worry about losing precious data.

Microsoft SyncToy v1.4 is a free download for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Users of XP systems may also need to install the .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package which is also available for download.

badonkadonk

There are two birthdays coming up in the next few months: the middle sister and the fiance. And a great gift suggestion from the baby sister. Well, she didn't exactly propose it as a gift idea, but it is so timely the implication is obvious.
"So what on earth is that," you may ask, obviously never having seen one of these beauties before. The answer, as clearly stated on Amazon.com, is that this is a Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank, retailing for US$19,999.95, and there are only two left in stock. Better grab yours now.

The applications and advantages of this baby are obvious, especially with regards to my dearest sister. A cursory glance through the 151 raving reviews posted by users shows how this could really benefit a new driver:

Considering the driving habits of the locals in my area, I decided that trading in my sedan was probably a good idea, in fact, something that would improve my health more than eating broccoli and drinking green tea. For one thing, there is little armor on my riceburner, and one local past-time here is for SUV drivers to trundle aimlessly through stop signs while clamping their cellphones tightly to their ears, probably to avoid hearing my horn blaring and some choice swears, too. One woman in a silver SUV seems to have a fatwa against me or else a death-wish--she's run the stop sign right by my house twice while I was in the intersection and once it was on a very rainy day and she had her kids in the car. Rather than call child protective services or the police, I decided to drive more defensively. Now I cross intersections with confidence, knowing SUV's, women ignoring the road while yapping into their cell phones, possums and even Hummer limousines are hapless against the front prow of my Badonkadonk. The cow catcher design is not only aerodynamic, it is quite effective at lifting stray cattle right out of the way.

Now the only question is, how much would the COE cost?

harddisk from hell

About a year and a half ago, when I first put my computer together, I decided to stinge a bit and only bought one hard drive. I finally decided that it's about time to complete my plan of mirroring it, before I run into problems of data loss. So I went out and bought another drive ... that was more than a month ago.

Mirroring my hard drive has got to be the most frustrating hardware issue I have ever faced. I remember when I first mentioned my intention to the Funan salesman and he said, "Software RAID of an existing drive? I'm not sure if that would work..." Well, I decided to try it anyway.

So I bought another 250 GB drive and brought it home, opened the casing and realised that unlike the IDE drives I am more familiar with, the motherboard does not have spare dangling SATA cables. Neither did the new hdd come with one. So I closed it up, went back out to a computer show and bought a SATA cable. Might pleased with my ingenuity not going all the way back to Funan for a simple cable.

The next weekend when I had time again, I opened the computer up and ripped open the anti-static bag. To my horror, an IDE drive was staring back at me. So the next weekend I went back to Funan to change it.

And the next weekend I opened the computer again and stared at my computer's inerds in disbelief when I realised there were no more free 3.5" bays. Cursing myself for not realising this earlier, I shifted the DVD drive to free up room on the 5.25" slot. Then it was back to Funan again, and while most stored told me they no longer sold the brackets to fit a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" slot, I finally found one that did. But when I got home I realised it didn't ... all the holes didn't match and the brackets didn't quite fill out the extra space.

So I finally threw in the towel and went back to Funan to get an external USB 2.0 hdd case. I didn't have high hopes that I could configure a software RAID with an external drive, but what the heck I just wanted to get it over and done with. But when I plugged the USB jack into my computer ... the computer did not detect it. What the hell. I don't know if the problem was with the hdd or the casing, but I was a little bit too tired of the whole thing to figure it out just then.

Part of me refuses to be defeated by a stupid piece of metal and a bundle of wires. Part of me wants to go back to Funan and just throw the problem at them. Most of me just wants to write off the whole thing because I don't have time for this nonsense. If my hdd crashes now it would just be hilarious!

I guess I'll never know if you can do a software RAID of an existing drive.

being a boss

Some bosses can really be assholes. A good friend never fails to remind me, each time we meet, that I failed to warn him what an asshole my ex-boss was. Because now he is suffering under the same person. In my defence, I didn't know he was going there, and in fact I warned another good friend not to go. But eventually someone has to do the shit job.

So recently we met up again, and I told him some of my own fears - that I was beginning to see in myself some of the traits I hated most in abovementioned asshole.

To begin with, I wouldn't say he was a bad person. Just overly demanding. Usually this involved attaining unecessary levels of perfection, usually in the wee hours of the morning. Or preparing contingencies for contingencies for contingencies, at the expense of of other valued personal opportunities. Over time, I came to the conclusion that whatever other bad things I had to say about him, I could not accuse him of being a hypocrite, because if he was in my position he would probably have done everything he demanded of me. So he was merely expecting me to be as committed as he. I rejected this line of argument because if he wanted to stay in the office until midnight, that was his own business. I was going home.

Fast forward a few years, I'm still in the office at midnight a lot too. I suppose one could say I have a choice these days, but of course there are responsibilities to fulfill. And when I see the people under me cracking under the pressure I have transmitted to them, it makes me wonder if I am becoming anything like the man I loathe. Obviously I will never be as demanding as him, but then I'm also not sure if my people will be as tenacious as I was. And then I can't help but wonder if they don't hate me like I once did.

I'd like to take my foot off the gas pedal, but then I still have bosses to answer to too. The bottom line is that I actually do enjoy my work too, and the people around me. Else I would certainly not allow myself to be subjected to all this.

saved by firefox

I almost fell victim to a phishing attack.


Utterly careless, I didn't even notice that the email came from a gmail account and the website is not a paypal address! It also does not include my name. This is exactly the type of fraudulant email we are always warned about, but I never ever got one before so I guess I placed too much faith in gmail's spam filter. I must be getting old and tired.


Fortunately, I was saved by Firefox.

ndp 2007 song

Heard Kit Chan's There's No Place I'd Rather Be (theme song of NDP 2007) on the radio for the first time today.

It really sounds like a cross between her own Home (NDP 2004), and the classic I've Never Been To Me by Charlene. In terms of words, melody, and even the singer's voice. And even without being told, you know it has to be an NDP song.

This is ... home truly where I'd rather be ...

fatty

Maybe this is why I'm getting fat.

Obesity Is Linked to Stress Hormone, Scientists Say
By Simeon Bennett

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Scientists say they have found a link between
stress and obesity, which offers hope in treating the 1.6 billion adults who are
overweight worldwide.

The brain under stress releases a hormone that activates a gene in fat cells, causing them to grow in size and number, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Medicine. Scientists found stressed mice gained twice as much fat as those fed the same high-calorie diet. The stressed mice didn't gain weight when the gene was removed or blocked.

read more

I'd better stop working so hard.