Picross

I have been looking for a windows mobile port of this Nintendo game when I come across this web site. Nice.

泳兒, Vincy Chan, used to be a Singapore PR. She is from Hong Kong. She can sing very well. Few years back, she took part in the 1st Project Superstar, a competition which public voting counts for a big portion of the scoring. She was eliminated in the 1st round despite having the 2nd highest score from the judges. Kelly Poon, the eventual female champion, got the highest score fromt he judges for that round. The reason is probably because in the early rounds, where the public has not know you that well, you need votes from family and friends to push you into the next round. Her parents were not in Singapore at that time, thus her votes were quite limited. But that's only speculations.

Anyway, she went back to Hong Kong after that, where she took part in another singing competition. This time, there's no public vote, and she got 2nd. She was signed up by a recording company who promptly save no effort in pushing her into the charts. Suddenly she is in a lot of variety shoes and advertisements. She guest perform in the concerts of some of the more established singers.

She is not a superstar, yet. I hope she will. I am really impressed by her singing, though she doesn't have what most people call a pretty face. But with proper makeup, she'll look pretty decent. I was disappointed in 1 of her earlier MTV as it makes her look ugly. I thought that when you don't look good, you should at least try to make yourself look better, and not make it worse.

Anyway, she has just released her 2nd or 3rd album recently. This is her new song.

Link

My friend was commenting on the way a certain application increment it's row IDs. They have 1 sequence generator to share among all the tables. He was commenting that this runs a danger of running out of numbers. There should be 1 sequence for each table.

I show him this:

Generators store and return 64-bit values in all versions of Firebird. This gives us a value range of:

-9,223,372,036,854,775,808 .. 9,223,372,036,854,775,807

So if you use a generator with starting value 0 to feed a NUMERIC(18) or BIGINT column (both types represent 64-bit integers), and you would insert 1000 rows per second, it would take around 300 million years (!) before it rolls over. As it is pretty unlikely mankind will still walk on this planet by then (and still use Firebird databases), that's nothing to be really worried about.

So there. No worries about running out of numbers.

He acknowledge this. Then we saw that the application not only shares the sequence numbers, it jumps 100 when the server is restarted. He said that it's a waste of numbers. Again, I reminded him of the article. He still not feel comfortable about it. So I gave him this analogy:

You are not a rich man. You are used to getting the most for your money. You tried to get a good bargain for everything you buy. You evaluate if you really need it. You tried to look for cheaper alternatives.

Then you met a rich man. He never bargain. He doesn't look for cheap alternatives to what he want to buy. He just get what he want with no second thought. You know that the money spent is chicken feed to him. He can use his time looking for bargains in more "meaningful" stuff. But that will not stop you from feeling the "waste".

Shrugs.

Early in the 2nd day, Alex's friend, Lim, came and bring us for a dim sum breakfast. He brought along another friend, Harry, along. Alex had only talked to him for only 5 minutes before. These 2 guys actually worked for Alex back in his previous job and he want to give him a treat. And guess what, he doesn't have any ringgit, and Harry paid. Haha!

Then we went shopping. Guys kind of shopping. Nothing to write there. We went back to the hotel after the shopping to take a break before coming back out for a late dinner. Nothing exciting about that as well, and that wraps up the day.

The 3rd day is when my training starts. I went for breakfast in the hotel at 8am and leave at abt 8:15am. I was told the journey may take 30min. In the end, I took only 15min. It's a public holiday in Malaysia, and there's not much people on the road. It cost me $20. Later Alex told me it should cost me only $10 if I go by meter.

The course is quite interesting. I met Lai, an ex-colleague. The instructor is a nice guy. Knowlegeable. Overall, it's a good experience.

The taxi back in $15. Harry and Lim came with Eng tonight, and bring us to some ulu place in PJ for a seafood dinner. We had 4 crabs! And that's it for the day.

I took a 7am bus to KL yesterday (13/10). I got Alex to book the 18 seater bus. I quite like it as there's a lot of space, and the seat can recline quite a lot. However Alex thinks that it's crap. The reason is that the design is so old. With cheaper tickets where the space is smaller, there's less crap. With big space, there's more crap. What crap.

They have inflight entertainment. They have a number of movies and games. It's all hosted on a Linux machine. The stupid thing thing about this system is that after playing a game, you can't get to main menu. You have to hard reset the machine.

After reaching KL, we took a short walk from the interchange to the hotel. My hotel is Swiss Garden. It's a nice hotel. And it's in the middle of Petaling Street and Bukit Bintan area, so it's quite convenient. When I booked the hotel, there's 2 kind of Deluxe room. Prepay on booking or post pay on check out. The prepay option is cheaper, but the post pay option comes with free upgrade to Premier Deluxe room and free internet.

The bad thing is that as we check in, they say that my confirmation order did not state anything about upgrading to Premier Deluxe room. Even though I printed the web site to show them, they said that they can't give me the free internet until they confirmed with the agent company that process our booking. It took them 1 day to settle this as the agent company were not working that day.

I think this is really bad. Whatever the cock up, it's between the hotel and the agent. The hotel should have given us what we pay for and then settle with the agent. Making us wait 1 day for them to confirm the thing means wasting my money for 1 day. This also reflects back on them. After this debacle, how can I trust them again? 1 of the manager, Derrick, attitude towards us is quite bad. I have the impression that he sees us as 2 idiots trying to cheat the hotel. However, in the view that he managed to help us settle the thing in the end, I forgive him a bit. Another manager, Charles, is quite patient.

I am glad that the issue is now settled. Hopefully, the hotel learn something from this. They should have a standing order with the agent that they'll fulfill whatever the customer can prove in print and charge the agent accordingly. Making the customer wait like that gives the hotel a bad name and should be avoided at all cost.

I am involved in a project for my company that uses this 3rd party product that I am not familiar with. My company decided to send me to go on a course on the product held in KL. Everything is fine until I discover 1 thing. There is an allowance to be claimed by staff going overseas on company matters, excluding training.

The purpose of the allowance is to:

1. Compensate the staff for having to spend more on meals
   When the staff is in his home country, he could have home cooked food. But while overseas, he's definitely have to eat out and it will probably cause him to spend more on food.
2. Compensate the staff for extra transport cost
   When a staff is travelling in his home country, he can use public transport. But when he's overseas, he's probably have to rely on taxis as he's not familiar with the transport system. This excludes travelling on official business, which can be claimed separately
3. Compensate staff on phone calls
   When a staff is overseas, he needs to call his family and friends. This will incur roaming charges. Calls made on official business can be claimed separately as well

These reasons are what I can think of. There may be more. Anyway, I was surprised to find a clause that staff going on overseas training is not eligible for the allowance. So the extra incurred due to food transport and phone calls are to be bourne by me alone. The reason given to me is that when a staff goes on course, the company is already paying for the course fee, and the course also benefit the staff as it enhance his value. Whereas, when a staff goes on a business trip, it is to generate revenue to the company.

This got me puzzled. When I go on course, isn't it to acquire a skill so that I can perform a job for the company so that the company can deliver to the client and thus realise it's revenue? And while going on course enhances a staff's value, doesn't business trips enhances the staff value as well. He improves on his contacts as well. Moreover in my case, going for the course does not enhance my value at all. My value has already been enhanced when I am put in this project that uses this 3rd party product. Whether I go for this course will not make a difference to my value. Somemore, the course that I am going for may not be what I wanted but I have to do because my projects needed the skill set. And lastly, what if my course is in the USA or Australia? The cost of meals is not that high in Malaysia, so it won't cost me too much to pay on my own. But if it's in USA, then it's very different. How can a staff in expected to pay that on his own?

I don't know who come up with this idea. "The staff is now using company money to go on course, so good. We should not give him any allowance". 1 reasonable reason I heard is that the course should have provide the meals. Well, the hotel provide the breakfast, the course should provide the lunch and tea breaks. But that still leaves me dinner. I'll not mention supper. How about my transport and phone bills? If they have an lower rate for this, I still think it's ok.

In conclusion, there are some welfare rules that should be given. eg. Compassionate leave. A company can chose not to give compassionate leaves to staff, but doing so will only give it a bad name. This issue is similar I thought.

Update:
My company has not changed their policy to allow staff to claim allowance on overseas training. Yipee!

My phase 2 RT is supposed to be restarting this morning. I deferred it last time due to my 1 week Hong Kong holiday. Next Saturday, I am going overseas again. This time to KL. I'll miss another 4 sessions, which will mean I will not be able to complete this phase 2 if I don't defer. So no RT again for the next 2 weeks at least.

I've been following the story of Da Tou Fen for some time. For those who are also followers of DTF, you'll know that there's this Jackie Tan who likes to post his experience in the comments of every article. Why is posting comments about own experience bad u ask. That action in itself is not bad. However, he repeat the same comments in every article. And it's not short 5 liner paragraph. It's a very long comment. And at 1 point, he increased it to 2 long comments. The same 2 long comments every article. He's boring people to death. And deleting his comments wouldn't help as he'll just post it again.

Recently, I discovered the use of comment moderation of Blogger. The feature has been there for sometime, but I never used it. So I refer Peifen (author of DTF) to it. I wonder if it's really due to my recommendation, but soon after that, the comments is really moderated, and DTF fans are now free from the bore of Jackie Tan. Haha!

This morning, Kelvin asked me to play badminton tonight. It's a bit last minute, but since it's at Clementi Sports Hall, I agreed to go. As it's only Kelvin, his girlfriend and me playing, I wanted to find 1 more person to make it doubles. Kelvin only booked 1 court for 1 hour, so I don't want more than 4 persons going. After asking around, I managed to get Felyn to go. She did not bring her racket and her place is too far for her to go home to get it and then go Clementi to play. Since my racket is quite old, I told her I would buy a new pair to lend her. I might as well make use of this opportunity to buy me a new pair of racket.

This session is ok. I felt I did not have much of a workout. Maybe I was too lazy and Felyn was doing most of the running. Anyway, at the end of the game, I discovered the strings of my old racket has torn. I thought I could 2 rackets, the old 1 as spare. Looks like it's not willing.

I created 2 shortened url for this blog. 1 at tinyurl and another at urltea. I have always known of tinyurl. I only come to know about urltea recently. As they use codes to to map to the your actual url, I assume they must have increase the code sequentially, which means, as more people uses their service, the code gets longer. I can see that urltea's code is only 4 characters long while tinyurl is 6 characters long. So urltea must be new. And the fact that urltea is 1 character less than tinyurl, urltea is a better choice for now. :P

Original: StupidGenius blog
Shorten 1: http://tinyurl.com/33llnq
Shorten 2: http://urltea.com/1n9u

For now, urltea is 3 characters shorter than tiny url.

Just on Saturday, after my bike 3rd 4.02 lesson that it's my first time witnessing a bwang in the E-brake section. I thought it's easy, and everybody had no problem with it.

Today, during my 4th 4.02 lesson, I bwang in E-brake. Twice. ARRGGHH!!

The first time is I was on the left lane and I found myself moving too close to the left side and I tried to adjust my bike back to center and then I reach the braking line. I jammed the brakes immediately, but my bike is not straight. Hence I bwang on the left side. No danger there, except for the instructor who came to help me. He was standing on the right side, and another bike was charging towards him. He moved away in time of course.

The second time is quite exciting. I think it's due me grabbing the front brake too tightly that I moved my handle bar a bit. I was on the left lane and I fell on the right side. Immediately I heard a scream. I knew a bike is coming on the other lane and I am in the way.I tried to move out of the way, unfortunately, the instructor who tried to help me is in the way. I can feel the bike hitting me at the back of my right shoulder and I quickly move in the direction the bike is moving. Luckily the speed of the bike is slow, and it's slowing, and I am able to take away most of the impact and I am not hurt at all. The lady on the bike is not hurt as well except that she's shaken by the experience. After we moved my bike away, 1 of the instructors saw a hole on my pants. Gasps! I had only 2 work pants, now I only have 1.

I went for another try at E-brake again. As I was waiting, I felt a phobia creeping up. What if I bwang again. Luckily, this time all goes well. And the instructor passed me. Partly I guess due to my good performance in the other sections, also partly due to my being able to execute it nicely at the end and at my 1st try.



* Note to the girl on the bike on the other lane when I bwang: I don't think you'll be reading this. After all, how many people read this blog? But if really you do, I want to say thanks. It's your scream and your calm reaction that saved me from some injury. If I didn't hear you, I won't be able to act in time. If you had panic and bwang like me, I'll be hit worse. I wish I had stayed behind and say this to you personally, but this will have to do for now. Thank you.

• I moved the pets to the bottom
• I moved my SMS twitter to it's own account
• I restored my twitter and put it at the top
• I enabled my comments feed
• Individual post comments feeds is available in the respective page links as well

All In

All In is a pub near Boat Quay, along South Bridge Road. I was introduced to it by Daniel, who has a colleague who is a shareholder in it, some time back. It's like most KTV pub, but I am not very impressed with the people there. The boss, despite spending considerable time at my table due to Daniel, do not recognise me when I go there a 2nd time. Did not acknowledge me at all. Did not come to my table at all. Not that I yearn to be recognised, or that I liked him to come to my table, but I feel that's not a good way to run a pub. You want to keep your customers, and you do that by making friends with them. The waitress also didn't spend any time at my table at all. They are only interested in going to their friends' table.

Last night, I went there again. I had a bad experienced. Feeling bored, I asked the waitress that comes fill up my mug to play some games. Her answer to me is that there is too much customer, she can't sit down. Funny, I just saw her playing game at the arcade machine. Later she come back and sit down. So I asked her again. I only have beer on my table, and she said she don't like to drink beer. For those trying to figure out what does drinking beer got to do with playing games, it's because the loser got to drink as forfeit. So I told her to get something that she wanted and I"ll pay. Her answer was that she only drink Martel. Idiot. But later I found out that they do not have commission for Lady's drink. Just on bottles opened.

There's another waitress. Though she did not talk to us much, at least she recognized me from a previous visit which was almost 2 months ago. I can't even recognize her.