Rant 320 / I Am The Solution To Your Problems.

This is pretty disturbing. In the US, half of all start-up businesses closes within four years, and 71% are gone by the tenth year. Wonder what the stats are like in Singapore and the rest of Asia.







Spent $33 on a Mcdonalds breakfast delivery today (Sunday). 2 X $15 for 2 sets of breakfast bundles, $3 for delivery charge.

It was actually not too expensive compared to eating at Mac. Each bundle contains:

1 Big Breakfast
1 Hot Cakes
2 Hashbrowns
1 small Coffee (in a red and white cup, so it was probably one of those McCafe Premium coffee or something)
1 medium Milo
1 Sausage McMuffin w/ Egg

It's basically 2 set meals plus the McMuffin.

If we order a Big Breakfast set, a Hot Cakes set, upgrade one of the drinks to a medium Milo and add an extra Sausage McMuffin with Egg, I think it'd be quite close to $15. A Big Breakfast set meal costs $7.90 and a Hot Cakes set meal costs $6.90, if I remember them correctly. Haven't been to a Mac restaurant outside of NTU in ages.

Anyway, those 2 alone would cost $14, let alone the Milo and McMuffin.

Even if my memory is wrong and they don't really cost as much, the price still isn't unreasonable given my mum has bad knees and cannot take buses (she can't handle stairs very well). If my whole family goes out for a McDonalds breakfast, it'll definitely cost more than $5 for the transportation. And let's not forget the change of clothes and the effort to walk to the restaurant from the pavement. :P

It was quite fast, even though they made me wait on the phone for more than two mins before someone took my order. Since it's McDonalds, I'll assume that it's because they were swamped by the number of calls, mostly not from my area. The receptionist told me the wait would be 30 minutes long, but the delivery man arrived in less than 20mins. I've never seen that from Pizza Hut.









The freedom to choose creates waste. Because we desire to choose, we demand a large selection of goods that are more than enough for everyone. The problem is, most goods have an expiry date.

Let's take food for example.

We are given a huge array of breads each time we step into a bakery or even a supermarket. It can be taken for granted that not all will be eaten. To maintain the quality of their products, most breads in Singapore are disposed of one day after being put on the shelves. I think it's the same for most developed nations. Bread is a sensitive product, especially those from the better bakeries because they contain less preservatives (trust me, I know).

There you have it - waste. All the bread we didn't buy is waste, created just because we want to choose.

I'll give you a hypothetical situation here. Think of your favourite type of bread: white sliced bread, baguettes, wholemeal or etc.

Imagine that ever since you were born, you were only allowed to buy this bread. No one in the entire world sells any other kinds of bread. Not even shortbread despite the fact that it's not a type of bread.

Would you still like it? Or would you try to create/find new recipes of bread?

Here we have another price of freedom. On one hand we pity those hungry children around the world and wish we could waste less, then on the other hand we want to choose which type of bread we eat each day.

The only way to solve it is to allow everyone to pre-order their food everyday. Every single person can only get their food by ordering them days/weeks in advance from companies which will then collect only the necessary ingredients.

This way, animals will not be slaughtered only to end up in a dumpster wholly untouched. Meat and dairy products, especially meat from large animals like cattle, cannot be left unharvested. You have to pump milk from the udders everyday so that it will continue to lactate indefinitely. You can't slaughter a pig just for some cuts.

With the pre-order system, all the excess food can be stored right from the start, not having to be exposed to warmer environments for display purposes and reducing their freshness for nothing.

The ultimate efficiency can be achieved if the whole world orders their food from a single supplier. There would be no waste at all except from accidents and prices would be able to go as low as possible. Food wastage would be reduced to the absolute minimum.

At the next level, efficiency can be improved if all food are mass-produced. No one cooks at home and there are huge factories that cook food for everyone. Throw in a universal delivery system and you have a sci-fi idea right there.

Everyone would eat meals akin to airline food, all pre-cooked and just need a microwave oven. If the system requires the customers to state their mealtimes, it'd allow a balance of choice and efficiency. Of course, removing the "choice" part and forcing everyone to eat at the same time will create the highest efficiency achievable. There would be no need for individual heating devices and will just require one giant microwave oven.

Obviously this isn't going to happen in the near future. Politics is, after all, politics. It's just like the idea of a space elevator. If we place it in one country, everyone else will fear that it would give the country an edge over them, a bargaining chip during negotiations. Politics.










I knew that power plants are inefficient machines, but laboratory-scale power plants are total shit. The natural gas steam turbine in my thermo lab, combined with its generator, has an efficiency of less than 3%!!!! What the f*ck?! The larger steam power plant that runs on diesel has an efficiency of about 8%...

It means that the amount of electrical energy we get is about 8% of the amount of energy the fuel it consumed had contained.

Of course, real power plants aren't that bad. A real steam baseload power plant would have to have an efficiency of 40-50%, at least, to be commercially viable. Much energy is lost through conduction through the pipes and stuff, and as waste heat when the steam has gone past the turbines. Steam that has been used does not contain enough heat and isn't pressurised enough to be useful, hence it is condensed into water and reused.

Still, 50% efficiency is way lower than what I used to imagine.

Then there is the inefficiency of the transmission methods. Though the transformers built all over Singapore help reduce this loss (that would have cost millions of dollars a year), they do not prevent it. Sucks, doesn't it?







To advise/teach someone to do something, you first have to appear to be proficient at it. When you're correcting someone's spelling, make sure you're spelling your words correctly. It is somewhat amusing to see lines like "Its spelled 'fish'." The mistake isn't with "spelled" since both "spelled and spelt" are right. Another funny one is "Your an idiot." Right away, the following image comes to mind.









Just in case you haven't noticed, each part of my rants isn't always typed at the same time (or even on the same day) as the other parts. Some parts aren't even typed in a single day.








So Fallout 2 does require some grinding. If anyone is playing the game, you will either need a decent level of Doctor skill or spend months resting during the early game. This is because Stimpaks are incredibly expensive even if you have a high level of Barter skill, and they're quite rare among the early merchants. The Herb is handy but each use lowers your PE by 1, which limits the number of uses per battle.

Stimpaks in Fallout 3 is much cheaper, so affordable that I've always had excess without trying to save any. In addition, players can pause at any time and use Stimpaks without any penalties while in Fallout 1 and 2, using them requires 2-4 APs depending whether you opened your Inventory to use it or you've equipped it in your hands already.

I guess modern RPGs in the 3D Age are made to be easier than the old school games in which grinding is a necessity.

Anyway, in Fallout 2 the game changes a lot once I entered Vault City. Suddenly money became a trivial matter and my most pressing problem was finding more Stimpaks to buy. There just isn't enough out there!





Droughts! Australia's been suffering for quite some time now, though I've seen little mention of it except in the reports of the recent bush fires. Now the US West Coast is getting some too. Schwarzenegger has declared a drought emergency in his California, and water rationing is being planned in LA.

When is Dubai going to run out of money (and hence, water)? I mean, cities like Dubai and Phoenix are built in the middle of deserts, which is why they should be the first to suffer seriously when a serious drought occurs. And in Dubai, their blatant displays of obscene amounts of wealth through the excessive use of water seem insane compared to what is happening Down Under.

It's not that global warming is boiling off all the water from the surface of the Earth, because as seen recently in the UK and China, global warming is capable of more than just drying up the land.

It's hilarious when someone tries to deny global warming is happening because "if the world is heating up, why is it getting colder here?" Then others argue that global warming is part of the natural cycle of the world climate and has happened many times before. True, that, until we look at other data and not just the temperature.

Another interesting point about the drought in California is that there are those who think that desalination is going to be cheaper than building more dams. Makes sense, given that there are so many groups of people (nearby residents, environmentalists and etc) that they'll need to appease before a dam can even be planned these days. Plus, good rivers suitable for dams are probably running out too.








I've always thought that the National Geographic Magazine has a somewhat alarmist attitude towards environmental issues. They always seem to state the worst possible outcome predicted by various scientists. For example, in the latest issue regarding carbon diets, the writer quotes from an expert that the US needs to reduce 100% of its carbon emissions now to stop the world from reaching the point of no return in terms of climate change.

Dude, GG?

Even planting f*cktons of trees won't save the world then.

Then again, maybe they're right and the world is screwed. Farmers cannot possibly adapt to the obvious changes in our weather system fast enough. Food prices go up, social unrest always follows. Already, Australia's rice export is dropping dramatically.

Or maybe, there won't be riots. If all the governments everywhere convince their citizens thoroughly that global warming is to blame for there troubles, the shit storms won't occur! Who knows? I'm no sociologist!







A recent interesting debate was sparked in /r9k/ (4chan) recently. At first, it was just some guy asking for tips on how to download stuff safely. Eventually it became a war between the Rapidshare and Bittorrent users. Usenet was mentioned a few times but it seems like few people even know about it.

Rapidshare, apparently, is a safe way to do it. It has a very good selection of files and it's a direct download system between you and Rapidshare. The logic is that since Rapidshare, based in Germany, practically lives on piracy, it would do everything it can to protect the interested of Internet pirates. I'd trust it more if it were based in Sweden though.

The catch is, Rapidshare premium accounts aren't free. Affordable, and probably worth it if you're a hardcore downloader. Only your ISP is ever going to know what you're downloading, but they won't check unless the police is knocking on their doors with a warrant. Free accounts are just as safe but slower than a dead snail and is known to disconnect before completion if the connection is bad.

Bittorrent is the free alternative. It is free and that is the main benefit. It's selection is just as good. However, Rapidshare users claim that people often upload files to Rapidshare before Bittorrent. On the other hand, Bittorrent users claim that there are torrents for a much wider variety of files, like ebooks and classic movies. Plus you get the warm and fuzzy feel when you can see how many people are benefitting from your upload rates. And how many guys around the world are able to fap on those fantastic materials because of your generosity.

There are many cons to this choice. First, your IP is listed in the BT clients of everyone who is downloading the same files as you. "Watchdog groups" may list your IP and send nasty letters regarding copyright infringement to your ISP. Theoretically the likelihood of this can be reduced by avoiding "hot" files, like blockbuster movies right after their releases.

Second, it's slow. Often there are torrents with few or no seeds, dragging the downloads forever and pissing you off in the process. Users can then either wait for a very long time or find a new torrent. Since this usually happens for obscure files, it probably means that it'd be extremely hard to find a new one with seeds.

Then there is Usenet. A little googling on my part led to me to this article. According to what was mentioned in the /r9k/ thread, it is safe. However, it doesn't check your files, so users may find corrupted files after the download is complete, which would totally suck if you've been downloading a 10gb .iso file.

Scanning through the guide, I find that it requires quite a bit of tweaking. Basically it's not user-friendly, compared to Bittorrent and Rapidshare. Unless you're very computer-savvy, you will have trouble migrating to Usenet. More googling is required to find a step-by-step guide on how to explore Usenet on Vista.







And on /b/, I found this picture that seems rather creepy to me. It's a guide with instructions on how to access private photos on Facebook. Any e-stalkers reading this would probably be delighted. Personally I've found no use for this but I thought it was interesting to see how Facebook can be hacked.






I've been going through some weird sleeping hours this past 2 days. Since 2 days ago, I suddenly feel extremely tired at 4pm, the sort of fatigue you cannot resist unless you can a good reason to do so, like your gf is blowing you or something.

So I slept. Naturally I woke up at 12am. Pretty healthy, 8 hours of sleep and adheres to my knack of waking up at midnight for no reason. But at 4am I would feel very sleepy and thus rest again till 8am.

Now, what the heck was that?

Now at 5.45pm, my eyelids are heavy again. Not 4pm, but 5.45pm and it's not as bad as the first 2 days. I'm guessing I was really stressing my body when I tried to stay awake in the day for the previous week despite feeling sleepy only after 7am (been trying to force my sleep cycle to something more normal), and the extreme fatigue 2 days ago was the result of all that shtty rest.

Now I'm approaching a normal sleep cycle again, almost 6pm and able to stay awake. Eventually it will hit 10pm. My only worry now is that it may keep getting later and later till I'm back to those nights when I feel totally awake at 5am in the morning.

If only I don't have a fixed schedule, this wouldn't be a problem. Working online may work for me, but no one can survive on internet income alone. The only way you can live on nothing but what you earn online is if you're a successful founder of some famous website like Google or Facebook. Simpler jobs like advertisment clickers and such don't make near enough to buy food.

Gaming can make some money, but there are only 2 routes here - pro leagues and farming. Farming in MMORPGs doesn't earn enough for the amount of time you're going to spend online, especially if you're living in a developed country. Joining a pro league takes talent.

A very rough gauge of your gaming talent is through the calculation of your APM, or actions per minute. The latest versions of DotA are able to calculate your APMs, so the next time you're playing, you may want to type -apm during the game. Here's a basic FAQ to APM.

Personally I've only checked twice during DotA games and it's been between 40-60. Take note that the guide I've linked the above text to is about RTS (Starcraft and Warcraft 3), which requires a lot more clicking and key spamming than DotA.

Just like what the FAQ says, a high APM doesn't necessarily mean you're godlike in games. I believe there is a link between high APM and gaming champs, but you have to click the right stuff at the right time to be good at it.

For example, renowned Starcraft legend SlayerS_`BoxeR` has an apm of about 320 (220+ according to some sources), and he's one of the slower players in the competitive scene. At 300 apm you'll have to click 5 times per second and maintain it for a minute. Of course during a normal game your apm would fluctuate, so his apm must rise beyond 320 at times. When those competitive SC players are in a game, all those constant clicks must sound like a buzz.

If you've been playing SC or WC3 lately, you may want to download the BWChart or W3Chart to check your apm, just for fun. If you haven't been playing, then your apm is probably around 50.






I just noticed something incredibly interesting today. It should be very interesting to you too, if you're a straight guy. The part-time housekeeper my mum hires is an amazing girl. This is the story.

This morning, I was home because I have no class till the afternoon. She comes to clean my home on Wednesdays (today), 8am-12pm. For the first 2 hours, I stuck to my normal habit of keeping my door closed. But at 10am when I went out of my room to get another bottle of water, I saw that my mum was absent from her computer.

I figured she must have left for work (self-employed = flexible hours) and she trusts the housekeeper to do her job and leave at 12. Since she's been working here for months already, I thought that was totally fine. But I was around anyway, so I thought I should just keep my door open just in case anything happens. Maybe she would break something and I wouldn't hear it under my headset and behind the closed door.

So for the first time I kept my door open while she was around. Hence I was able to see her work, and hence I was able to see what I am about to describe.

In my home, we have small carpets in front of each door so that we can wipe our feet before entering any room. Usually I'm the only one who's fussy about cleanliness, so I have one outside my room, one in front of my bathroom door in my room and one next to my bed. The housekeeper would have to take these carpets away to clean before putting them back just before she leaves.

But first, let me describe her attire. White V-neck T-shirt, denim shorts and black bra. It's very obvious she's wearing a black bra because of the thin fabric of her white top. I think I've mentioned this before somewhere.

Anyway, the interesting part is when she replaces the carpet in front of each door, she doesn't squat down. She bends down to put the carpet neatly on the floor. Better still, she doesn't use her hand to push her collar up when she does it, so it opens up and reveals... well, you know what.

Most girls keep their collars up with a hand when they have to bend down, unless it isn't loose enough to open up. And most girls would rather squat down to pick up something from the floor. That's what I see most of the time anyway.

Here we have this young lady in the mid or late-twenties who doesn't protect her modesty even though she's bending down facing me. And yes she does have a nice figure with a decent cup size. Too bad I'm not familiar with the local scale for cup sizes (can only recognize the Japanese G, H, I and J cups LOL!), so I can't tell you which letter it is.

I've to admit, I've never seen someone reveal that so close before (less then 2m away). It wasn't that she was doing it deliberately in front of me since she bent down the same way when she was putting down the carpets for the doors opposite my room. And yes, good view of the ass too, but the denim shorts that weren't short enough covered everything.

I don't know, maybe it's the norm in whichever part of China she hails from. I know some girls don't mind revealing their bras, but they usually express that by putting on a suitable outfit. By wearing a T-shirt, you're expressing a more conservative demeanor, and by not trying to cover up when you bend down contradicts the original message.






Am I a good storyteller yet???