Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Category: General Updates

Commentary on people, places, things, the news, current events, etc.

  • I Guess It Couldn’t All Make It Through Shipping OK

    One of the running jokes about having things shipped by the military is that you’re bound to have something get broken.  When I was a kid, we did a military move from Hahn AFB in Germany back to the US and the movers managed to lose a whole section of a German wall shrunk, as well as damage some other stuff.

    German-Shrunk

    This is an example of a German wall shrunk.  How do you lose even a section of something so big?

    I thought I’d left that behind along with my service to the Army, but I guess mistreatment of shipped goods is a universal problem.  My HP F2120 All-In-One didn’t quite survive the trip.  The glass on the scanner bed was shattered in one corner.  It’s a shame too, because I was hoping to get started on scanning stuff and now I have to see about getting reimbursed.  I have no idea how to start the process.  I guess we’ll take the receipt and pictures of the broken device to an LBC office to find out what the procedure is.

    DSC04871

    This is what’s left of my HP F2120 All-in-One. Thanks a lot guys!

    The real issue is that there’s a huge price difference in these types of things between Singapore and the Philippines.  Even if we get a full reimbursement on the scanner, it wouldn’t cover the cost of the exact same scanner in Manila.  There’s a mark-up.  Singapore is one of the cheapest places in the world to buy electronics, so unless we get a one-for-one exchange where they give us money to cover the purchase cost of a new unit, we’re just SOL.

    Can’t win ‘em all I guess.

    Speaking of that, I’m still engaged in an e-mail battle with Philippine Airlines to get a reimbursement on the pet carrier that they damaged during the fiasco where one of my cats wound up running around on Changi’s tarmac and in the belly of the plane before take-off.

    Tomorrow (or later today) I’m heading to the Bureau of Immigration in Manila.  I have to get my Visa taken care of before I wind up being here illegally.  Hopefully that all goes smoothly!

  • Finally Replaced My Dying Beast of A Laptop

    It’s been a busy couple of days, filled with long talks with my wife about plans for the beginning of next month, when I’ll be moving to the Philippines, along with our cats.  It’s also been busy because I finally picked up a new laptop.

    For those of you that have been keeping up with my blog for a while you’ll remember that about a year ago I started complaining about issues with my MacBook Pro.  I’d originally bought the thing in March of 2007.  I guess you could say it was a birthday present to myself, so I went all out and got the best specs and I wound up dropping about 3500 USD on it.  3 years on, I think it was a waste of money.

    I first started noticing a problem with it about 5 months after I bought it, in August of 2007.  At the time I was still in the US military, on a deployment in Kuwait.  I was staying in a very quiet, nicely air conditioned barracks. It was an open bay barracks, meaning the whole thing was one big room, so noise was kept at a minimum out of respect for people who were working different shifts and may be asleep during the day.  I was able to hear a faint clicking noise coming from the left internal fan.  Being in Kuwait and locked down on an Army camp I had no way to do anything about it until I went on leave (vacation) in October.

    As soon as I got to NYC I went to the 5th Avenue Apple store and dropped it off to be serviced.  Roughly 6 days later, I had to go up there and demand that it be returned because they’d kept it longer than they said they would and I had to leave to go back to Kuwait.  When the guy came back with it, he said that they’d found some dust inside the laptop, but there was nothing wrong with the fan.

    The clicking noise continued and later research on the internet showed that it wasn’t an isolated problem.  Of course, by the time I got back from Kuwait, finished the mad rush of paperwork, picking up my car and household goods, and going through all the medical processing, my warranty was expired.  Not to mention that there was no Apple store around to take it to again anyway.

    Additionally, during the last few months I was in Kuwait the DVD “Super” drive failed.  It no longer recognized discs and would make some ‘clack, clack’ noises and then spit the DVD (or CD) back out.  The only disc it seemed to accept properly was my Leopard installation disc.

    A few months later, shortly after arriving in Singapore in February of 2008, the Express Card 34 slot broke.  I was trying to insert an eSATA adapter and instead of hearing the familiar sound of the card seating, I heard something snap and break and the adapter just sat there, loose in the socket.  The locking mechanism must have gotten stuck in the wrong position and been broken off when I inserted the card.

    Thankfully, the thing held up well until May of last year.  The noise from the fan started to increase but that was all.

    May was when it really started to go bad on me though.  The OS started to slow down considerably.  Fresh installs did nothing to help it.  Shortly after that the left fan finally gave out.  Whenever I started doing anything that would generate a high amount of heat, like using 3D programs or watching Flash videos, the left fan would spin up and make a sound like a lawn mower dying.

    Since then I’ve been putting back money when I was able and I was finally able to afford and justify the purchase of a new laptop.

    Given my past experience with my MacBook Pro, I decided to go with something far cheaper and hopefully far more reliable.  During that long ordeal with that beast of a machine I found out that Macs are plagued with hardware issues.  I guess I really should have coughed up the extra money for the Apple Care Extended Warranty, but I figured that having spent so much on a premium product it would be reliable.  That obviously wasn’t the case.

    So, now I have a Lenovo Y450.  It’s got an HD screen, an nVidia GeForce 210M video card, a 2.13 ghz dual core processor, 2 GB of RAM and it even sounds good.  It has Dolby Home Theater software that’s supposed to make it kick ass.  It’s also running Windows 7, which is taking some getting used to.  I’ve primarily used OS X and Ubuntu for the last few years.  The whole thing has a nice, solid feel to it though and the only trouble I’m having so far is finding programs to replace the ones I’m accustomed to.  Oh, it came with freebies too: a shoulder bag and a wired mouse.  The mouse works well, even without a mouse pad, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with the bag.  It’s not a bright idea to walk around in Manila advertising that you’re carrying a laptop with you.

    I also think that I’m done buying Apple products.  For a long while anyway.  I’ll use the iPods we have until they die and then maybe replace them.  There’s probably a cheaper alternative that’s just as nice and supports more formats.  I don’t think I’ll get another iPhone after this one either.  It’s nice and all, but I hardly use the majority of the apps on the thing, the camera is crap and it seems to stay behind in functionality compared to competitors.  That’s a story for another post though.

    One last photo:

    Dapper, The Great Investigator, examining the laptop box, perhaps to see if it’s suitable for use as a cat bed.

  • Singapore Should Endorse, Not Ban, Smokeless Nicotine Products

    Singapore’s Health Minister, Khaw Boon Wan, recently made the following statement in a blog post:

    These are chilling words for the anti-tobacco population. Some describe the dissolvable products as nicotine candies designed to appeal to children, making them life-long addicts. Reynolds have already found these products to be more appealing to women, besides allowing smokers to continue their habit in smoke-free locations, like offices.

    That is why I am amending our current Tobacco Control Act to arm ourselves for the era of these new tobacco products, including e-cigarettes (yes, there is such a thing!).

    Even the title of the current Act, Smoking (Control of Tobacco) Act has to be amended to reflect the new reality. The Bill will be introduced soon. I look forward to Singaporeans’ support for the Bill.

    Whether it creates smoke or is smokeless, tobacco is highly addictive and it kills.

    This statement was made in response to a new series of products being produced by Reynold’s American Inc., the makers of Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes, including strips, lozenges and dissolving wafers.

    The blog post this quote is from redirects people to the Health Minister’s Facebook fan page for commenting, and the few comments left there seemed to be in favor of his initiative to ban these items from Singapore.

    I’d like to highlight a perspective of this that everyone seems to be missing. Smokeless tobacco items like the ones mentioned in his post could be used as, and should be marketed as, ways to assist smokers in breaking the habit.  He didn’t go into detail, but the products he’s describing seem to be nicotine releasing items that don’t contain tobacco at all.  Often these products don’t contain the carcinogens that produce cancer as well.

    The hardest part of getting over smoking is finding a new thing to do, other than putting a cigarette in your mouth. If you replace the habit of puffing a cigarette with an item that’s like a candy, you stop mentally associating the pleasurable feeling from nicotine with a smoke-producing cigarette. Eventually you can wean yourself off of the nicotine lozenges and switch to real lozenges. It helps ease the psychological burden of quitting.

    As a smoker of 15 years, I can tell you that from various attempts, it’s always the psychological part of quitting that’s the hardest to resist; the association of pleasure with a smoke producing cigarette. There has to be a substitute item to break that association.  A bag of nuts isn’t going to do it, and chewing gum isn’t even legal to be purchased in Singapore.  I think by banning these items, Singapore wouldn’t be making the streets safer for anyone. It would, in fact, remove viable options for people attempting to quit.

    The biggest threat from and to smokers is the smoke, whether it be first-hand or second-hand.  If that’s the case, then the government should promote the use of smokeless alternatives for the benefit of everyone.  If smokeless options, especially these items which simply release nicotine, become more popular than cigarettes, it would greatly reduce the number of cancer cases caused by cigarette smoke.

    From a monetary perspective, smokeless tobacco products offer the government another avenue for collecting taxes.  The same taxes that apply to cigarettes could be applied to these new products, preventing the government from losing their revenue stream.

    I’d love to have access to these types of items for my own benefit in trying to quit smoking.  I’d feel a lot better about myself if I popped a lozenge after a meal instead of lighting up and inconveniencing everyone around me, as well as ruining my lungs.  It could also help me to finally be successful in quitting entirely.  I think it’s a shame I don’t have access to them while in Singapore.

  • Al Jazeera English Is Still Available in Singapore

    I was reading a blog post on Al Jazeera’s ‘The Asia Blog‘ about a correspondent’s experience in Singapore in 1994.  He was saying that though Singapore has grown in leaps and bounds, some things don’t change in terms of media censorship.  He questions whether or not the removal of Al Jazeera English was truly a commercial decision and whether or not StarHub would be allowed to make its own decision about whether or not to carry the station.

    I’m not an expert on this, but just from my general impressions there is still an atmosphere of self-censorship for fear of lawsuits and other legal actions here. I think it’s mostly due to the government’s zealous use of libel laws to maintain a pristine image. So, people still tend to be very very careful about what they say in regards to the government or any government entity.  I’m not writing this post to debate whether or not the practice of libel lawsuits is a valid method of ensuring government stability.  I’m merely responding to what the correspondent said in his blog post and affirming that, from a foreign perspective, the atmosphere is still a bit like what he said it was in 1994.

    That being said, it’s very easy to get outside news in Singapore through world-wide traditional news networks online. News via internet is not censored here, and Singapore is one of the most ‘connected’ countries I’ve ever seen. Internet service is very affordable here.  Not having access at home is also not a deterrent to connecting to the rest of the world.  Anyone who has a device capable of browsing the internet can gain access for free through the wireless@sg initiative, which places free public wi-fi in almost all public facilities, including malls and libraries. So, if people want an outside view it’s very easy for them to access it, including Al Jazeera content online.

    I was first exposed to Al Jazeera English in Qatar, when I was stationed there as a US Soldier. I was a little skeptical of the station at first, due to its name, but after getting over my bias, I’ve recognized it as one of the best news stations available. It offers a unique perspective on the world and while I don’t subscribe to the idea of believing everything from just one station, I use it as a balance against the other news stations I consume.

    In short, I love Al Jazeera English. I love the stories it covers. I love the diversity.

     

    I also love how I can still watch AJE streaming live via its iPhone app, even though it has been taken off the air in Singapore.  It looks a little fuzzy blown up in this image, but on my iPhone screen it’s clear.  The sound is clear.  It streams easily over home wi-fi.

    So, if you love AJE programming and have an iPhone, you can still watch it.  The app is free.  Just make sure you’re using wi-fi or you might go over your monthly data allowance.

  • Why Such A Light Sentence For Vicky Herman Quek Bee Lan?

    Vicky Herman Quek Bee Lan, a 44 year old woman, was recently arrested for spiking the drinks of male targets and then robbing them, racking up a total of over 21k in stolen goods and cash between August and December of last year. This woman has a long criminal record, having been arrested for theft in 1994 and 1996 as well as serving a 6.5 year long sentence in 1999 for similar crimes to what she’s being charged with now.

    The prosecution said this woman has no remorse for her actions and an evaluation said that she is likely to engage in similar criminal activities in the future, since her previous 6.5 year sentence didn’t act as a deterrent.

    This is a woman who has stolen tens of thousands of dollars from victims, most of which has remained unrecovered, since it was used for services like botox treatment and laser surgeries.  This is a woman who is sure to strike again.

    So, what I want to know is, why was she sentenced to a lesser sentence this time around than she was in 1999?  If the 6.5 years didn’t deter her, why would 6?  Shouldn’t the time she spends in jail, thinking about where her crime landed her, increase, rather than decrease after repeat offenses?  The article I read on the Straits Times said that she could be imprisoned for up to 14 years, so I wonder why it is she received such a light sentence?

  • Heathrow Airport Body Scanner Abused; Employee Takes Picture of Woman’s Scanned Image

    Back in January, when talk of putting body scanners in airports was running at full steam, I posted my opinion on the whole matter, which is, in short that it’s a horrible idea that offers up way too many opportunities for abuse of the system by less than ethical employees and the government.  I pointed out how accurately the body scanners portray people’s forms and how some countries had even banned the use of body scanners on children because it was a violation of child pornography laws that state that nude images of children cannot be created.  Additionally, I pointed out ways in which the images could be removed from the area, and even how simple photo editing could reverse the colors to create accurate color nude images of people.  Here are the example images I posted:

    There were a lot of naysayers in that debate, talking about how it could never happen, how there would be preventive measures put in place to keep people from abusing the imaging system.  As with all systems, there are always holes, and the first one just cropped up.

    A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “Police received an allegation regarding an incident that happened at Heathrow Terminal 5 on March 10. A first-instance harassment warning has been issued to a 25-year-old male.”

    The BAA employee took a photo of his co-worker, Jo Margetson, when she inadvertently went through a scanner.

    “I can’t bear to think about the body scanner thing,” she told the Sun. “I’m totally traumatised. I’ve spoken to the police about it. I’m in too much of a state to go to work.”

    via guardian.co.uk

    I’m not going to drag this out, because I’m sure most of you have read both sides of the argument already, but just keep this in mind the next time you’re taking your wife and young daughter through the airport.  One last thing I’d like to reiterate though, is that these body scanners would not have detected the bomb that was used on the December 25th, 2009 attempted airplane bombing that these scanners are being installed as a reaction to.  That’s all of our tax dollars, hard at work buying things that wouldn’t even have solved the original problem.

    Update: This is my favorite quote from the news article (linked to from the quote above):

    “Air passengers already tolerate a large invasion of their privacy and we do not feel that full-body scanners add greatly to this situation. Privacy concerns should not prevent the deployment of scanners.”

    Essentially this guy is saying that because they already violate your privacy, it’s absolutely ok for them to continue violating it. Get ready for invasive probes after the next terrorist hides a bomb inside their rectum or vagina. It’ll be ok, because they’ve already invaded your privacy greatly by virtually strip searching you, so why not go a bit further?

  • MyTransport.SG: Why LTA Really Killed the ‘Park-a-Lot’ iPhone App

    A few days ago I wrote a post about how LTA had told Park-a-Lot developer, NiiDees, that his wildly popular iPhone app could no longer access real-time parking information from garages.

    The reasons cited were that the information leased to LTA was only allowed to be shown on its site, and not through iPhone apps.  They also said that they would consider leasing the information out, for a hefty price I’m sure.  Thinking about it now, that in itself is a contradiction.  If the information was only licensed for their site, how could they license it out?

    From an article in today’s online edition of the Straits Times titled “Mobile service for commuters”:

    “There is also information on premium buses, Electronic Road Pricing gantries and rates as well as updated information on available car park lots, among other things.”

    via StraitsTimes.com

    I suppose the truth of the matter is that they were blowing smoke.  It seems as though they were killing free competition in advance of their release of a new web portal called MyTransport.SG which was launched today and will provide parking information, among other things.  If LTA were a public company I could understand if they wanted to limit competition or use of public data that’s being paid for by citizens, but that’s simply not the case here.

    MyTransport.sg standard browser incompatibility message
    MyTransport.sg standard browser incompatibility message.

    Regardless, I took a look at the new mobile site, which is only accessible via a mobile browser, and it looks like they did a fairly good job with it.  The design looks like an iPhone home screen (lawsuit pending?) with the functionality of a native iPhone app, including a “Home” button and a “Location” button along the bottom of the screen.  Here are some screenshots:

    MyTransport.sg Homescreen
    MyTransport.sg Homescreen
    The Parking Guide
    The Parking Guide, and probably the reason why LTA shut off Park-A-Lot’s Access
    MRT LRT Station Search
    MRT LRT Station Search

    You can use it to find the nearest MRT or LRT station.  If you don’t want to enter a search term, you can press the location button towards the bottom of the screen (crosshairs icon) and then allow your location to be broadcast to automatically get results.

    Allow MyTransport.sg to use your location pop-up.
    Allow MyTransport.sg to use your location pop-up.
    Nearby Bus Stops
    Nearby Bus Stops

    The results are really accurate.  It gave a good list of all the bus stops near to where I am.

    I’m not sure I like LTA’s questionable business practices, but I have to say they did a good job with their web interface for this data.

  • LTA Trying To Scam Singaporeans’ Money?

    The Park-a-Lot Lite app, developed by local developer NiiDees, has removed its live parking data feature which displayed which carparks had vacant lots, following a notice from the LTA.

    via zdnet asia

    Park-a-Lot Lite is an iPhone app that was previously able to pull data from the LTA’s website, which then showed Singaporean drivers, through a convenient interface, what parking garages around the city-state had open spots.

    However, LTA ordered the developer to disable that function of the app, which more or less killed the app’s usefulness.  It was one of the most popular iPhone apps in Singapore prior to this move.

    So, what’s LTA’s reasoning?  Money.  They want more of it.

    That said, the LTA is open to licensing the data out, the spokesperson added.

    via zdnet asia

    LTA says that this data is collected from garage operators to be displayed only on the LTA website. I assume that means they have a contract set up with these garage operators, paying them citizens’ tax money to have this information made available for display on their government website, which is itself also funded by citizens’ tax money.

    Now, this offer to license out the data is where I think LTA is trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes in an effort to create a double-taxation. You see, citizens are already paying for this data to be made available to them via the website.

    When you think about it that way, you could in fact say that LTA has failed the public and is misusing tax money.  I looked over the LTA and OneMotoring sites briefly and didn’t see any prominent links to this service, and until now I didn’t even realize it was available.  I wonder how many other people in Singapore were in a similar situation?  Doesn’t that mean the revenue that was being used to license that data was being misused by LTA?  Doesn’t that mean they failed to make the data properly available to the public when the public was paying for it?  This is a useful service that was being paid for and that the public obviously wanted easy access to, yet they were denied.  And now they’ve been denied again.

    What Park-a-Lot Lite did was package that information into a convenient, easy to use interface that allowed citizens to use data that they were already paying for with their tax money.  There’s really no difference between an iPhone app accessing the data on LTA’s site, and a web browser accessing the data on LTA’s site.  The same amount of data is transferred.  Less actually, since only the data is requested, which puts less strain (not that there was much strain before) on LTA’s web host and any bandwidth limitations it might have.  One could argue that the data was only licensed to be shown on LTA’s website, and I would argue that the App isn’t a website and is merely acting as a window to LTA’s site.  Additionally, I would argue that with the rapidly changing tech scene in Singapore, and with more and more people going mobile, LTA should have taken the initiative to amend their contract to specifically allow for mobile access to the data from their site.

    Instead, what’s going on here is that LTA has recognized an opportunity to try to shaft people out of more of their hard earned money by making them pay for something they’ve already paid for and is moving quickly to capitalize on it.

    Shameful, and it should be illegal.

  • Blood Trail Leading Through Downtown East and E-Hub (Pictures)

    My wife and I were in Downtown East tonight when we noticed this trail of blood leading past the entrance to Sakura.  At first, I thought that perhaps some poor girl was having an unfortunate night, but then I realized it was way too much blood for that.  The trail led to the door going out of the mall.  In the other direction, it headed down the stairs into the lower level of the mall.

    As I started taking pictures, three police officers walked by, following the blood trail out the door.  I went the other way, following it further into the mall.

    This is the handrail on the steps that go down from the entrance of Sakura into the mall.  You can see blood splashed on the wall and on the metal railing.

    This is the post on the wall by the ATMs, just past the Indian restaurant towards the sliding glass door where the long escalators are that go to the 2nd level of E-Hub.

    These are pictures of the stairs that lead up to the 2nd floor of E-Hub, between the escalators.

    At this point I ran into a guy that was wearing a mall uniform who was taking pictures of the blood trail. I asked him what had happened.  He said there was an incident outside the mall.  He also kept saying “8 plus” “8 plus”.  I couldn’t quite understand him, but what I’m thinking is that 8 kids attacked a 9th kid, who fled into the mall for safety after sustaining heavy wounds.  The photos only tell a bit of the story.  There was a LOT of blood on the ground and walls the whole way along.  I wonder, can this much blood come from a broken nose, or is it a knife wound?

    These three photos are from the landing at the top of the escalators, where you enter the E-Hub mall.

    This is inside, in the “alley” area where the walkway skirts the children’s playground.

    This is right in front of the virtual reality arcade game that sits under the escalator that goes to the movie house and arcade on the third floor.

    This was the last bit of blood we saw.  I wonder if this was another incident of gang violence, like the gang fight masked as a lion dance reported in the news, or if it was “schoolyard” bullying taken to an extreme.

  • To My Dearest Wife, On Valentine’s Day

    We’ve had so many good times together and made so many wonderful memories, like getting caught in the rain on the lift at Sentosa, walking along Patong Beach at night in Phuket, and you chasing me around the dining room table in the Philippines with ‘balut’.  These are memories that I’ll always cherish and, even more, I’ll cherish the fact that we have a lifetime together to make new ones.

    I couldn’t have asked for a better wife.  You’re kind, loving, beautiful and patient.  You’re good to animals and hard working.  You have a great sense of humor and you’re fun to be around.  Whether I want to watch a movie and pig out or go jog for 3 miles you’re up for it.  You let me have my choice more often than you have to.  You’re always there beside me, supporting me and motivating me to do better, whether my goal is to learn another language or gain the next level in Cafe World.

    Even when times have been tough, we’ve stuck it out together.  No matter how grim the situation, I always knew that things would be better because you were there beside me.  At the end of a hard, stressful day you were there to lay down next to.  In the morning, you greeted me with a smile.  Oh, and you always had cheerful words to keep me going like, “Stop complaining.  Life is harder in the Philippines.”  Ha ha!  So true!  You always remind me of what it is we have to be thankful for and it helps me to focus.

    So, on this day, and every day, I want you to know how much I love and cherish you’re being in my life.

    Happy Valentine’s Day darling.  I love you.

    You’re my best friend, my love, my life.