Monthly Archive for March, 2007

Why pay more?

Published
by
acroamatic
on Wednesday, 28 March 2007
in Musings
. 1 Comment

Because they serve the nation.

Because we are a pragmatic and meritocratic society.

Because we don’t really want to think for ourselves.

Because we empower them to make the hard decisions for us.

Because we believe that the Old Guard avoided corruption through passion alone.

Because Finland, Iceland, New Zealand and Denmark’s leaders are paid less.

Because $1.2 million per annum is only worth about two peanuts (where 1 peanut = $600,000).

Because it will take a man earning $2000 a month 50 years to earn $1.2 million.

Because Frederick W. Taylor assumed that men are motivated primarily by economic incentives.

Because “PMETs must also downplay their career expectations. They must be realistic that the economy is changing. Old jobs are no longer available and they must be prepared to accept new jobs.” (MP Halimah Yacob, NTUC Assistant Secretary-General in The Straits Times, 27 March 2007.)

Because they might flee if there is no raise. (And there won’t be any worthy replacements. First time I beat Mr. Brown to an idea!)

Because at the end of the day, we are complicit in forging a society where we just shrug our shoulders and say: they won’t listen to us anyway, just raise their pay loh.

Because their will be done.

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Blogging Nexus 2007

Published
by
acroamatic
on Saturday, 24 March 2007
in Tech
. 8 Comments

… even though I can’t be there.

Yup, I have a bad cold and sore throat. So, I’m home. (Already worked through half a box of tissues since waking up.)

So, this is my attempt at being there without being physically present. At the end of the day, that’s what Nexus 2007 is supposed to be about - enabling technologies. Let’s see how enabled we can be!

As I type, Siva is giving me SMS updates, which I’ll be blogging. (He can’t liveblog today.) He’s sending them faster than I can type! Also, there’s Twitter, a concurrent chatroom and a Flickr photostream (rss).

Siva’s Live SMS… err… feed:

Continue reading ‘Blogging Nexus 2007′

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Heroes

Published
by
acroamatic
on Wednesday, 21 March 2007
in Personal
. 10 Comments

heroes

I usually don’t follow TV series, especially those ‘reality’ shows.

The last one was House M.D. (AXN, where is Season Three??) That was the first TV show that I followed faithfully in a long while. I ended up buying Season One, which I missed because I started watching it in its second season.

Now Heroes has me hooked.

The premise of the show - humans with mutations which give them super abilities - is straight out of X-Men. That’s about where the similarities end.

(Ok, I don’t know much about X-Men beyond the three feature-length movies. So, spare me if the comparison is faulty.)

Heroes is a lot more, well, like The Incredibles. I don’t mean to say that it is cartoon-like. Heroes deals with the more human aspects of the superheroes lives. The characters are very nuanced. There are hardly any cardboard characters on the show.

You can empathise with most of them as they have down-to-earth problems. The situations they face and the solutions they find are rarely black and white. There’s plenty of grey. In the backdrop, there’s the looming destruction of New York.

Why? How? Who?

I don’t know yet, but I can’t wait to find out.

P.S. Check out the spoof, Zeroes. A cunning marketing move by NBC.

P.P.S. It’s only on Star World at the moment.

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Here lies the former National Library

Published
by
acroamatic
on Monday, 12 March 2007
in Heritage and Musings
. 8 Comments

[20070120] Here lies the former National Library

In today’s TODAY, NMP Siew Kum Hong writes about the tunnel I love to hate.

The space the tunnel freed up should be used as a park. SMU will probably beg to differ, but I feel we are sorely lacking in open green spaces in the city. As it is, the open space above Orchard and Somerset MRT stations are giving way to yet more mall (and office and residential) area. The Uni students should have the opportunity to smell the roses (or at least the grass) and be able to contemplate life in the Garden City. In an actual garden.

Why does the figure 6,500,000 ring in my head?

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Btcar.com Hijacker Infection

Published
by
acroamatic
on Monday, 12 March 2007
in Tech
. 4 Comments

Recently, my family computer got infected by the Btcar.com hijacker. When I clicked on search results in Yahoo, it redirected me to btcar.com, instead of the to website I want.

After some searching, I found BleepingComputer.com, a computer forum which deals with helping the average computer user with their computer security problems.

First, I followed the steps in this tutorial. Side note: Steps 3 to 8 are actually quite useful if you think you have a spyware/malware problem. If you follow those steps and the problem still exists, you might want to join the forum and follow all the steps in the tutorial, as I did.

So, I started a thread and posted the log of a programme which shows what’s really happening behind the scenes in your computer. If you see the thread and you don’t understand what I’ve posted, don’t worry. I don’t understand it either.

But the Bleeping Computer guys do, and one of them went through the problem with me. David (aka D-Trojanator) was really helpful, and his instructions were crystal clear. I just followed his instructions. I felt that he was always one step ahead, almost knowing what issue I was going to face with each step that I took.

So, if you think you’ve got a spyware problem, perform the steps listed in the tutorial I mentioned earlier. Failing which, the good people at BleepingComputer are on hand to provide fast and friendly assistance. I was going to say ‘free’ - and it is free - but they accept donations. I’m seriously thinking about donating.

P.S. Yes, yes, I know. Get a Mac, and you won’t have to deal with these kind of problems.

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