Rant 927 / Firestarter

So every morning when this man Mark Easton goes to his balcony, he's going to have a slightly different but still beautiful view.

Like 18inches would have made any difference from that distance.

This guy just managed to piss off his neighbour without accomplishing anything.















Our PAP is going for brains, and our opposition parties are going for heart.

The former wants the best minds in the government; the latter wants the most sincere.

That's the impression I've been getting from all the political crap that's being forced into my eyes.

All heart and no brain won't help the country to excel. Case in point: CSJ.

All brain and no heart is risky but when it works, it works wonders. Even if a politician is all about the money, if he's smart he will still see that a prospering country is the way to go.

Of course, if the defecation hits the oscillation, then he becomes totally unreliable.

That's exactly what the PAP risks, although they obviously are trying to minimize the probability of that with the amount of brains they're trying to attract with the money.

The worst part of the article was really the last line:

"Of course, we would like to see capable men and women in the cabinet, but we do not believe that our best people for political office are only those who make the most money,"

I'm frankly surprised that Chen Show Mao could say that. Most people would be more subtle about it but this guy just goes for the ears of the lower income demographics blatantly.

That's not a bad thing, just... lacking in sublety. Opposition parties just don't have a chance at attracting the support of the upper and upper-middle class here, and obviously they need to start somewhere.



Personally I just think that too many people out there expect quick changes and instant gratification when there's a change in leadership. It's the same everywhere globally.

The more people involved, the greater the inertia.

Hence the key is to watch out for the smallest issues before they grow into big ones.

This is the reason why too many politicians fail IMO. They wait till problems become visible to everyone before they try and solve it.

This is also the reason why the current government is receiving so much flak these days. Some of them just didn't manage to solve issues before they become issues, and the PM is responsible for picking them in the first place.

But a change of ministers doesn't make things happen immediately. Trains need time to get built. They don't make them and store them in some humongous warehouse until someone comes over to buy them.

I think the best example would be Obama. The Americans seemed to have been expecting a frickin magic show when they voted for him.

It's just sad that so many Singaporeans seem to be hell-bent on getting the PAP out of the arena.

But all these anger wouldn't have been voiced so often if the global economy was better. Wealth silences issues. When your bellys are full, your wallets are fat and your families are able to get easy well-paid jobs, who cares about... anything?

Just look at Brunei!

Prices of daily necessities, especially food, affects everything. When they go up, it exacerbates any and every issue. Notice how politics changed everywhere when the global economy began to screw up in the last few years?

You can blame China for jacking up the prices of everything, but that wouldn't solve anything.

The world just needs to adapt.

And Singaporeans need to understand the fact that since we have no natural resources, we need to be better than the rest just to be as good as the rest.


I guess it's also about trust.

Simpler people like people they can trust.

People who are more complicated do not need to trust - they just manipulate. Manipulated people are trustworthy to a certain degree, and the manipulator knows exactly how much.

Hence the difference in views.

In the case of the ministerial pay, it's about manipulation using money. Greedy people are the most trustworthy when you can afford their services - you can always trust them to do their best when you have the cash.

Reality is reality. The rhetoric about serving the public being something people want is nonsense to the majority of the world. There are far easier ways to do that that have less impact on their private lives and their public image and are just as gratifying, like offering pro bono law-related services for the poor (apparently they do exist in Singapore and they visit my mum's hospice regularly).

Why else would Mother Teresa be considered as such a great person? People who purely desire to help others are just too rare. They're like perfectly rounded white pearls, or huge natural pristine diamonds - it's just wiser to assume that they're not real until verified by someone you can trust.

I guess this is my way of saying that I just trust greed more in this capitalistic society I live in. It's simply a fact that there are far more greedy people in this world than honest ones.















I'm almost done with Skyrim. I've defeated Alduin once and I think it's going to be the end soon.

Hence I'm diverting my attention to side quests.

I've just completed the quest line in the College of Winterhold. Now I also have this mysterious wooden mask that I found someone out in the open near the entrance of the final dungeon of this quest.

I think I'm supposed to wear it to start a quest.

Also finished the quest about Crimson Nirnroots. Totally wasn't worth the effect but the exploration was fun. This quest basically makes you comb the entire cavern for red light.

At one point I felt too lazy to find the elevator to Blackreach so I used the tcl command to fly. As a result I found some Dwemer treasure up on a mountain near the Alftand Rift Entrance. The weight wasn't worth the price (25 for 888g IIRC), so I just left it there.

I found it intriguing because most Dwemer treasures are indoor, but those stuff were left exposed to the elements.

...

Nvm. Killed Alduin. He's nothing compared to the two dragons guarding the portal.

The only reason I had to reload a single time for this fight was because the Storm Call shout apparently attacks my allies too.














Wow!

I didn't care much about SOPA before, but now I really do!

I depend on the various wikis hosted by Wikia for all my games, and Wikipedia for everything IRL, so when they're down, it's like I've reverted to the ignorant retard I once was.

I think I'm going to have to get used to actually asking someone about things I don't know now, instead of just googling everything.

D:

I feel so... primitive.

Yea I'm against SOPA, not that it actually matters since it's a US law, but I'm against anything the Wikimedia Foundation feels so strongly against.

Hosting a 24-hr blackout worldwide is a serious gesture. I now feel the magnitude of how they feel about SOPA.

Apparently 4chan is also blacking out... in a very different way. Every post made on 4chan is completely blacked out. Only by pointing the cursor on the words or by hitting Ctrl-A can they be read.

Oh wait... Wikipedia is still accessible. It's just a redirect, not a shutdown.















Foreign workers have indirectly widened the income gap in Singapore.

What will the PAP do about that?

“If the middle-class feels that you work so hard and then you try to move up the income ladder but then lo and behold, you‘re competing with all these permanent residents – where’s the home court advantage?”

I think this is the most important issue that they need to deal with now. The lower income groups have never received much attention from them. That's like the opposition's territory.

But the middle and upper classes are where the ruling party tries to get its votes from, so they'd better improve this "home court advantage" asap.

As much as we want this country to prosper through better efficiency, we must remember that this is a country, and a country will always have the burdens that a private corporation does not.

For one, it is one of a country's duties to provide jobs for its people, including those who are less able than the rest. A corporation does not need to care about jobs, just profits.













Holy cow!

My home's electricity consumption just dropped to a level I've never seen before in Dec!

Double digits!

What the heck?!

Of course it isn't exact. It's entirely possible it was reduced from a higher reading to compensate for an overestimation in November. The readings are taken only every alternate month, and November's reading was an estimation based on our records.

It's mainly because my bro and I didn't turn on the air conditioners at all since somewhere in November till Monday. I still have yet to do so even though it's been getting warm again.

I had no idea it makes such a huge difference.

I've tried not switching it on at all myself but the drop was nowhere as large.

I guess the main thing is the compressor. If one of us turns it on, it doesn't really matter as much whether the rest of us follow suit.

Another thing is that this proves that the electricity consumption rates of our computers are nothing compared to those of our air conditioners because our computer usage has not changed dramatically. At most it's only gone down by half.

Rising cost of living?

Pfft...

This month's reading rose so much because it's an estimate again. However, it may turn out to be close or even too low because it's getting too warm on some nights now. Pretty early IMO. Shortest "winter" I've ever seen.

Last year I remember complaining about warmth only in March or February.














I guess CNY is the only long holiday I'll be getting from now on.

The official public holiday for this festival in Singapore only lasts for 2 days, but unofficially plenty of people have holidays for much longer.

For example, the boss of one of the transport companies we work with is only coming back on the first of February.

For my side, my employees are off from tomorrow (half day) onwards till the 30th, although personally whether these days are holidays depends on what crops up when and how urgent they are.

I'd love to state what happens if everything goes smoothly, but after these few months of handling the business, I can safely say that it never does.

After all, a large part of being a boss is to solve problems, while the people under him does the actual work. If problems rarely appear, bosses would be unnecessary.

In my case, I won't have anyone doing anything for me till the 30th, so that makes things a little worse.

I also see any potential issue during this period as a test to see if I can actually handle things without my workers, something which I've always been curious about.