Related link for the previous blog post

In case you are not from Singapore, I need to provide a little context for the previous blog post. National Kidney Foundation is one of the largest, if not the largest charity organisation in Singapore (by the amount of donations collected per year). Recentl investigations show that there were many wrongdoings by the ex-CEO TT Durai and it is summarised in this report and detailed in NKF's website

Durai and Qin Hui

I wrote to the Straits Time Forum today with the following letter. Regardless of whether they are going to publish it, I am publishing it here:

In Chinese history, there was a man Qin Hui who was responsible for the execution of the national hero General Yue Fei. From the About.com article on Yue Fei, Qin Hui is someone "who wielded real power at court", and he managed to convince the then emperor to execute Yue Fei by imposing a "mo xu you" (fabricated charge) crime on the general.

Only after the next emperor succeeded the throne did the truth of Yue Fei's execution come to light. By then, the only way to punish Qin Hui was to (1) build a statue of him and his wife (still in a temple in Huang Zhou today) for people to spit on; and (2) write the story into the Chinese history books so that generations to come will know of the deeds.

TT Durai's deeds has uncannily mirrored that of Qin Hui. Wielding his power with the old NKF board, he made up many ways to pay himself excessively, and eventually brought Singapore's national pride, the NKF to become the national shame. Now the new board has succeeded the old board, and the wrongdoings come to light, there is no immediate way anyone can punish TT Durai.

We probably cannot erect a statue of TT Durai for public spitting, but we can include the wrongdoings into the Moral Education and Singapore History syllabus so that every generation of students will learn about the wrong deeds. This approach will achieve both the effect of educating our future generations, and also to punish TT Durai, without having to wait for the authorities to figure out whether any criminal charges can be brought against him.

supercalifragilisticexpialidociousgooglegame

Michael Barnsdale picked up an idea in my blog and turned it into a game. He asked me to give it a name, so I thought of using this word "supercalifragilisticexpialidociousgooglegame" as the name.

Filed in: fun

Longest Word with valid search results?

Just for fun. I wonder what is the longest possible string (with no space) that will return valid search results from the common search engines like Google and Yahoo. One search term that turned up in the web traffic report for my other blog is "AbstractTransactionalSpringContextTests". A total of 39 characters, any one with suggestions of a longer search term?

Filed in: fun

1TB Email!

MailNation Solutions Blog > 1TB Email!

Unbelievable? Believe it. :)
But I think I will still stick to GMail. I don't need that much space for email. (Maybe Adam Curry will need it, he is the first person I hear of maxing out his GMail box.)

Filed in: coolstuff

TiddlyWiki

Once in a while I would come across something that is so addictive that it blows me away. TiddlyWiki is a self-contained HTML file that has the many functionalities of a Wiki, and there are a number of extensions and plugins that make it interesting.

I have not started playing with it, but the process of understanding it is already interesting enough. More details in days to come. :)

Filed in: wiki tiddlywiki coolstuff

My first GreaseMonkey script

Following yesterday's post on editing comments in Blogger, I took some time to write a greasemonkey script for adding a link to edit comments.

Filed in: blogger hack greasemonkey

Editing blogger comments

Ok, once I am a little more active about posting to this blog, I get spam comments. I did not want to block anonymous posting because I have previous feedback from friends saying that they want to post comments but don't want to log on to Blogger. So do I have to put up with spam comments?? No, but all I could do previously was to (rudely) delete the whole comment post, leaving some others scratching their heads about why a comment was deleted (it only shows up in my blog as 'comment deleted').

By default Blogger does not have a link to allow me to edit comments, it only has a trash can icon allowing me to delete comments. Google brought me to the Blogger templates site, which has a quick hack to bring me to the edit comments page.

On closer inspection, basically the hack works on the fact that comment posts are also identified by blog ID and post ID. The trash can icon link contains these information, but it is for the delete-comment.g URL. The Blogger template hack simply replaces the URL to post-edit.g. Hmm, maybe I can try my hand at writing a simple GreaseMonkey script to add the edit comment link beside the trash can icon. That will be for later. :)

[update] Found a blogger comments editor at userscripts.org, but it seems to only add the link to the page for adding new comments.

[update2] Ok, I was ignorant, just learnt that Blogger has a feature to turn on captcha (word verification) feature for comments.

Filed in: blogger hack

del.icio.us as a cognitive engine?

del.icio.us is a popular and good site for tagging, and many people have devised many different ways to use it. The categorisation method I have recently started using in this blog is also based on the tagging ability of del.icio.us, a blogger hack I learnt from FreshBlog.

As I stumbled on Typo just now, I suddenly discovered another use of del.icio.us : when you come across a new site and don't know what it is all about, the fasted way to find out about it is not to read the description on the site, but to try to bookmark the site using del.icio.us. This is because when you try to bookmark the site (typically using the 'remember this' bookmarklet), del.icio.us will display the form for you to tag the site, along with the recommended tags that del.icio.us thinks that will be relevant for this site (I guess this is based on tagging by other users).

As a result, at a glance you will know the possible tags that this site could fall under, and this can tell you a lot about the site. Take the Typo site for example, when I clicked my bookmarklet, the recommended tags are:

ajax blog blogging blogtool development engine framework opensource programming rails ruby rubyonrails tool tools wordpress

Apparently these are tags taken from my existing tags, but the important thing is that del.icio.us immediately told me a lot about typo based on tags I understand - tags I use. Within 2 seconds, I can conclude that Typo is a blogging tool, opensourced, based on ruby on rails and is somewhat related to wordpress (substite or enhancement, that I will have to find out by reading more on the Typo site).

So del.icio.us can sometimes even be turned into a cognitive engine to tell me about a site before I need to read anything from the site, and the best part is it tells me this by using tags I use.

Filed in: del.icio.us

Nokia N91

My mobile contract expired this week, and I started to look around for new phone models I can buy (hopefully), and I came across the Nokia N91, which is really a phone that has EVERYTHING I ever wanted (so far) in a phone. Too bad Nokia also just announced recently that this model is going to be delayed to early 2006. The price is going to be too steep for my liking to, judging from the estimate I see from this article from infosyncworld (look for the estimated price at the last paragraph.

Scott Laird has been tracking N91 pretty well, a good reference site for knowing what has been happening with this phone.

Another thing I learnt from Scott's blog is that there is this new blogging engine known as Typo based on Rails (maybe even RoR) with quite a lot of good features out of the box.

Filed in: nokia n91 typo blogging tool

Playing with GreaseMonkey

Just installed the GreaseMonkey extension today and browsed userscripts.org to look for scripts to play with. Came across this script that allows me to add tags to my blog, pointing to del.ico.us and technorati, effectively creating categories in Blogger. Let's test it out. :)

Filed in: tagging del.icio.us technorati greasemonkey

Approached by a friend on network marketing

Ok, I try to keep my mind opened and go listen to a presentation again. Still I walked out of the presentation thinking these guys are only a bunch of motivation speakers wannabe reusing the same descriptions over and over again. "So-and-so is a great guy to help you build your passive income business because he has good work-ethics", "so-and-so is such an amazing couple", "do you want to achieve your dream", and other sentences like this peppered the whole evening's presentation.

They always talk about building a business and being a business owner, but I really wonder how many of them talk about a business in terms of revenue, expenses, costs, gross profit, net profit, tax etc etc etc. Isn't the bottom-line what people always look for in a business?? No, in the network marketing world, it is the down-line you are concerned with, nevermind that only that few blessed individuals who started the network are the only case studies you can show with the multiple down-lines which you always dangle as carrots to the prospective recruit.

Maybe I don't understand the business of network marketing, but no-one who approached me has bothered to explain the mechanics to me. They are always too concerned with rehashing the rhetorics. Ok, history has proven that network marketing company works, but shouldn't the recruitment process be more pragmatic and appeal to people's power to reason and identify a working business model, than to appeal to people's greed (disguised as 'dream')??

To make matters worst, I have to receive an SMS followed by a phone call at 12.30am from this friend after the session, asking for more of my time during my precious weekend to sell me more about the idea. Oh, and the CD they passed me for reference in my own time, they need it back in two days...... I really wonder what is the hurry, don't they know that such pressure tactics scare people off?

NeoCOUNTER by NeoWORX - The only web counter that displays your online visitors by country

Then again, blogexplosion give me an exposure to site that I would not otherwise have known/gone to. Quite a lot of things to learn from other blocks, like this tool I saw off one blog.
NeoCOUNTER by NeoWORX - The only web counter that displays your online visitors by country

TotallyConfused

Just joined blogexplosion. Initial impression is that it is a site that use mechanisms to make people click on other people's site. Not too much of a use. I will click on the surf button, go do something else, and come back half a minute later to click on the "GO" button. Actually quite waste of time because the traffic coming to your site is not really reading, just surfing.

Crying, while eating

Another example of people being too free.
Crying, while eating

OfficeGuns - Guns - Double Maul

Some people are really too free and have a lot of time on their hands.

OfficeGuns - Guns - Double Maul

Blogging fom PocketBlogger

another way to blog - from my ipaq

Acronym Hell

Someone was telling me foreigners cannot understand Singaporean speaking English (even when the accent is not beng-ish or PCK-like), because we pepper our sentences with too many acronyms. Guess Dilbert would feel comfortable when he comes to Singapore.

Cancer-causing Fried Chicken Rice

Bought fried chicken wing rice from Rivervale Mall's food court today. The stall owner re-fried the chicken wing before bringing it to be packaged in the styrofoam box. When I returned home and opened the box, I realised that the heat from the chicken wing melted a part of the box. You can see from the image above that the mark is obviously from the chicken wing. Did not dare to eat this part of the wing.

More photos of the fried chicken wing rice. See the hole that was burnt through on the right hand side? Too bad I chomped on the part of the chicken on that side of the box before I saw the hole. Now some chemicals must be working in my body to give me some sort of cancer in years to come. 

Paper Rulers

We rarely own stationery nowadays, since the PC/notebook has already taken over most of our needs for writing. Today I was looking for a ruler, and realised that it is an item that has disappeared from my desk for a very long time.

As always, the Internet is here to the rescue, and Google is the hero of the day again. A search for "print ruler" led me to a page with printed rulers. Great!

If you are reading this entry, read it from the bottom up, it makes more sense that way
pic posted using

Guess IM blogging is not for me.
pic posted using

Worst still, with the reverse chronological order of blogs, the readers will read the later emotions before reading the earlier emotions, for all the entries in the same day
pic posted using

Maybe this is why some personal blogs degenerate into mindless complaints and bore most audiences ... entries and not thought through before being penned.....Everything that readers read are simply emotions that flow into the IM box
pic posted using

With IM blogging, blog entries tend to get shorter, since every piece of thought that crosses the mind can get blogged within the seconds of writing the IM message.
pic posted using

Ok. Short
pic posted using

Testing blogging from hello
pic posted using

Free Wireless Access

MacDonald's used to offer free wireless access at all outlets across the island (or so I was told). I only realised this some time in May, although the marketing materials metnion that the free offer is a time-limited trial ending on 31 Apr. I was gladly surprised when I attempted to connect to the wireless networks at Mac's Siglap and Mac's Jurong East both in the same day (sometime in May), I was able to get internet access.

It was pretty easy, simply go to a browser to access any page, and the technology offered by ANTLabs will redirect the browser to a log in page asking for my name and email address.

After the log-in page, the network will be connected and I can use the internet connection just as I was at home. Another good service from MacDonald's

Some weeks ago, when I tried to hook up to the wireless network at Mac's Jurong East (entertainment centre), I was greated with a different login page. Apparently they decided to start charging, and I had to pay some charges (I vaguely remembered it was about $5 an hour). So I chose to do some offline work instead.

Today, I happened to have an hour between appointments to spare, and thought that instead of wasting the time to commute to my office just to leave office 20 mins later, I might as well spend the $5 at Mac's Suntec. (In my mind the productivty gained should outweigh the $5 spent, but of course when I get on to a network, I start doing unproductive stuff like blogging.)

After paying for a regular coke and a large fries, I sat down and started up my browser. Typed google's url in the browser, and waited for the login screen to arrive. To my surprise, I was greeted with the login screen that I saw the first time I tried this service -- free access! Gladly I entered my name and email address, and here I am blogging. :)

Two things I don't understand here though: (1) Why is it that at some Mac's outlet the access is chargeable, whereas at other outlets it is free? (2) In the first place, since it is 'morally mandatory' to spend on Mac's food when sitting in a Mac's restaurant, why start charging for the wireless access?

Although I have been driving my own car for the last 3+ years, I have always been clueless about what I need to do to maintain my car to make sure that it can continue to operate properly. I always thought that if I just simply go for servicing religiously at the pre-determined intervals I would be free of any problems with the car.

However, the truth is that, as will all machines, after some time wear and tear will set in. The same goes for my car which has passed its 3-year-mark. Some months ago, it was the battery that went flat, and more recently (last Saturday), it was a flat tyre.

In a way, I guess it is a blessing in disguised that I had a flat tyre, because when I went to the Shell servicing centre near my place (ok, I know I waited for almost 4 full days before I did anything about this, but I am a procrastinator. :P ), I was told that the set of tyres I have are quite worn out. The guy at the garage told me honestly that the tyres are not totally worn out, but because I did not rotate the tyres (and I assumed that my regular services at Nissan would take care of that), some parts are not as good as before. He also pointed out that certain parts of the tyres have some sort of split lines, which could possibly be due to me hitting curbs. True enough I had made that mistake of hitting curbs a number of times, and thought nothing of it.

I took his advice to change all four of my tyres, since it has been about 2 years since I last changed them. I don't know the market rate, but they charged me $345 for four Bridgestone tyres (made in Japan, but do I know the difference?). In any case, I left as a satisfied customer with my problem solved. ;)

If you are Singaporean, you would be interested in this.
http://www.petitiononline.com/nkfs/petition.html

I am a big TV addict, and last night's Amazing Race 7 finale had both my wife and I have our eyes glued to the TV set. It was really amazing how Uchenna and Joyce manage to catch up all the way from behind. I thought that when Rob and Amber managed to board the earlier flight, and ground crew told Uchenna and Joyce that the flight is closed, it was the end of the race. It really took a good-hearted pilot to allow the last-minute couple on the flight.

Rob and Amber were amazing and I wanted very much for them to win. Despite Rob's cunning plans and notoriety, I think the best thing about this couple is that they never seem to kick up a fuss or quarrel or blame each other when things don't go their way. Rob did not get mad at Amber for not being able to find the way down to the diving platform; if it was any other couple, like Ron, it would be the start of another fight. In any case, they have won their first million, so being second was still not that bad, considering they won most of the individual leg awards - did you notice that they almost always seem to be the couple to win the individual leg when there was an award at the end of the leg? They are good, and have been lucky for most of the race. The only piece of bad luck they got was the cabbie at the last task, and some pedestrian who mis-guided them to the wrong street.

Uchenna taught us never to give up. When he and Joyce had to go begging at the Jamaica airport for their cab ride to the Onion Shack, we wrote them off the competition. It was Uchenna's persistent and optimism that made them carry on and catch up with the rest. It was also the stroke of good luck they get in the last task of finding the cigar shop when they managed to get a good cabbie who knows Spanish. And not to mention the cabbie was the same one that did not get violent when Uchenna started to go around begging for money to pay him. I think given any other cabbies, the couple would have been left to flag for another cab when they were still on the highway.

The Amazing Race is amazing, cannot wait for the next season.