What I mean is that there is a certain continuity in some of my dreams once in a while that I do not recall in reality, like in one dream I see and hear certain things that led me to the memory of the events in a previous dream, yet I usually forget about it when I'm awake.
There are only 2 instances that I can think of right that in which I remember this false memory long enough wake up to think about it and conclude that it had happened in a previous dream and wasn't real. Therefore I bet it has happened more often than that.
It goes something like this: long ago in a dream, something happened and the story of the event went from point A to point B. Much much later you dream again, this time from point B to point C, and you remember the last dream thus recognizing this to be the sequel of the previous event, which, right now in the dream, is also recognized as a true event instead of a dream.
Or at least this is how the first one went.
In the other, I overheard something in a dream or something happened. I'm not sure. In the next dream (chronologically not close at all), someone says something to me or something happened that made sense only because what occured in that previous dream.
I don't think it's common to remember another dream as if it's actually happened while in a dream. It's normal to mistake a dream as reality, everyone not into lucid dreaming does, but mistaking a memory of a dream as reality while in a dream? The memory isn't even part of the dream, not in the way that a person can detect with his five senses.
Don't dreams fool only those?
TBH this also feels kind of creepy because I'm almost completely out of any sort of theory to explain this phenomenom.
How does this work at all?
How does a dream mess with memory like that? Like most people, I almost never recall any dream after waking up, so not only does it dig up something completely forgotten but it also convinces my conscious mind that it was real. Is this even normal?
I'm thinking about this because this morning, I woke up with a question in my head: did my father go to China for treatment?
In the dream, I thought he did only because I saw it happened in another dream (or at least I think that's how it went).
As I woke up it felt stranger and stranger. Did he really?
I had to jog my memory a bit to realize that it didn't actually happen and that it came from a previous dream.
I just hope this isn't some kind of amnesia. Memory loss can sometimes lead to the creation of false memories to "fill up the gaps". I'm too young for this.
Today on my way to work my wandering mind came across the idea of a new kind of hawker centre.
Usually, these open-air places have rows of hawkers separated by tables and stools.
I feel like although this is an efficient way to spread the attention of the customers, it is an inefficient use of space.
You know, like if they can share a large washing area and frozen storage room, so much space can theoretically be saved.
In addition, they can even share servers.
My first idea was to use a tablet. A tablet on every table so that everyone can just sit down and make their orders there, then food will be served from a combined kitchen.
This was too easy to exploit. Beyond the issue of possible thefts, there is also the problem of costs, filthy hands and breaking down of the machines.
In addition, this will likely be run on a wireless network, and it really isn't too hard to find out how to hack into any commerically available router.
To improve on that, I thought about having the machines at the entrance. They don't have to be tablets, just something that has buttons. Every hawker and their individual dishes can then be assigned a letter or number and people can just type it in, pay, and then be assigned a table number before being allowed to enter.
The menus can be placed outside on a giant wall or on multiple large TVs split into different cuisines.
The problem here is how last-minute orders are handled. Like sometimes, people would order more stuff halfway through their meals.
To counter this, I thought the order kiosks (sounds about right) can be placed at regular intervals between multiple tables, kinda like how mics are placed in auditoriums or lecture halls for the Q&A sessions.
The problem here is then back to the menu. Large menus are going to be needed for convenience so that people don't have to walk to the kiosks to find out what is available.
Or maybe this isn't an issue at all. It's not like we can see all the food available on every stall right now without walking to the stalls anyway.
The kiosks will also require everyone to state that number of seats required to accomodate groups of people who want to sit together before they can make one unified order for the entire group. Only after ordering will they be assigned a table number.
If there aren't enough tables, the system will give them a queue number instead.
Obviously with an automated system the whole process of getting people seated will be more efficient than letting everyone find their own seats.
The problem will then be how the system is notified of the departure of someone and it is not simply just a person who needs to answer the call of nature.
Maybe that should be scrapped. People will find their own seats and the machine will instead issue a queue number.
While queue numbers usually mean the person will have to collect the things himself, this isn't what I have in mind because this isn't always necessary even now.
I thinking all the hawkers will share the expense of hiring servers to bring the food to the customers, like a restaurant but on a larger scale. These servers will only be in charge of bringing food around and not for taking down orders so that anyone can do the job. The cost of hiring them will become part of the rent.
Since every order is also recorded, the wage of a server can be performance-based and hawkers only pay when a server successfully brings their food to a customer.
How will the servers know where each customer is seated without a table number assigned automatically?
Maybe every table will have a tall stand and the machine will issue a large reusable card with the number printed that can be placed on top of the stand. This stand will have to hold multiple cards in case the people seated there have consecutive numbers. At the same time, the card will be taken by the server as a record of the number of serving jobs he had completed.
Colours and shapes can also be used to further differentiate the cards to make them easier to spot.
This still feels too complicated.
A keypad on every table will work too. People will be issued a queue ticket and they type their queue number into the pad when they are seated down and the servers will be notified of the table number and queue number.
I just don't like having too many machines because they are harder to repair when they break. A simple stand would be easy to replace in a few seconds.
The entire thing is based on the assumption that the long-term cost of a unified automated ordering system will be cheaper than having waiters like restaurants (or "assistants" for each stall) and be worth the benefits of having a larger seating capacity and greater system efficiency.
Come to think about it, maybe it doesn't even require automation. You can just get a few people to stand at the order kiosks instead to take down orders and as these cashiers key in the digits and letters that stand for the hawker and food into their cash registers, these will also be displayed in the kitchen together with the order-cum-queue number issued to the customer.
More reliability, and it cannot be too complicated to hardwire a cash register somehow to a LED text display in the kitchen.
Then I realize the kiosks can be combined back into... a single counter like in certain restaurants and most fast food restaurants.
This will change the concept of a hawker centre into something closer to a restaurant except with a more down-to-earth "community" kind of feel in the kitchen because of the way the hawkers share so many things.
Found a free app called "Spreadsheet" that allows me to make charts using specific values.
A little clunky but it does the job.
Thought I should plot some sales graphs for individual items so that I can see more clearly.
Takes a long time to input all the numbers from all my delivery invoices from March. Including breaks, this could take the whole weekend.
For some reason I couldn't find the invoices for the period between Dec 2011 to Feb 2012. Got to try harder next time.
The Blogger app on the iPad sucks. It's just the iPhone app enlarged. I can forgive the lack of functions but I can't rotate it and the button above the keyboard blocks the words.
Whoa! Gilt gave me US$10 in credits because I complained in the post-purchase followup survey about how the shoe's manufacturer undercut them by $9.
I appreciate the gesture but TBH I really have nothing I want that I'm willing to spend a lot of money for. It's not about the money but the principle, and this $10 credit has satisfied that to some degree.
Gilt didn't even have to do it and I certainly didn't expect it. Nowhere does the store state that it will match the pricing of anyone.
On the other hand, even if I spend it it's only as if I had bought the shoes without discount. Worse, on the manufacturer's website I have even more customisation options like shoe width.
Paypal's exchange rate is horrible.
It's about 0.787USD per SGD today but Paypal's payment conversion rate is only about 0.75USD.
But the CNY is at 5.01CNY per SGD. Damn! I don't owe anyone any money right now! I bet I can get like 4.9 if I remit money today.
The ice brick is awesome. Better than the soft pads that are for sitting on.
When I'm sitting, I wrap it with a towel and put it on the back of my chair to freeze my lower spine. Today I tried sleeping on it as a pillow and it works with 2 layers of towels.
Somehow having a cold head or tailbone makes the rest of the body feel cool too. The ability to spread heat (and hence a lack of heat) in my body must be greater than I thought.
Just asked my insurance agent aka financial consultant about the Prudential policy my mum left me. Apparently it's an investment-linked life policy.
My priority now is to know about the premiums, and it's actually quite easy.
The premium term is for life but I can stop at any time to use the money inside to pay for me temporarily. Obviously it's not so good but it doesn't treat is as a loan and charge interests for it like a certain other policy I have do.
I can also stop paying premiums permanently and just let the money inside work its magic, presumably with the insurance part removed.
The funds are directly invest into any of the many investment funds available but my mum clearly didn't know anything about them so everything's been invested into one Singapore-based fund.
I don't know what that means but it made me read about the different funds and the details of such investments.
One major issue is the initial investment charge and the continuing investment charge. They charge you for putting money in there and for letting it stay there. I didn't know about it but it makes sense.
I forgot to ask if I could throw in more money at one go rather than through the monthly premiums.
Anyways I also realized that I have only about 20% of my money in such medium-to-high risk investments and another about 60% in low-risk ones aka fixed deposits. This is, of course, discounting my business's networth and my liquid capital for the business. The final 20% covers my tuition fees for a while and my living costs. I haven't taken any money from the business for some time now.
Sounds like the portfolio of an old man.
...
Oh fuck I only have a thousand in my business account right now! I must have transferred too much to my remittance account. Oh boy monthly fee here we go. I don't really want to transfer money over because payday is coming anyway.
Bought some suede waterproofing spray and suede eraser from Amazon because they're kinda hard to find here and I can't bring my previous orders to Singapore yet.
Then my bro reminded me that there was a chance I could have gotten them from someone not half half the globe away by using Ebay.
Damn, too late.
As for the things I bought previously, they're waiting at Vpost because the promotional code has been fully redeemed for this month. Fortunately my stuff can be held for 21 days for free so I can try again on the first of July. My new orders would have arrived a week before that.
Fed the terrapins some raw baby squids and fishballs. The old one liked them as expected because we've fed those to it before. The young one loved the squids too. Took some work to gut the squids though. Didn't want to risk choking it with the cartilage nor dirty the water with the ink. Not really worth the effort but it's fine to spoil them once in a while.
Also testing the shelf life of those fishballs in the freezer. In the previous weeks, I tested raw ones unintentionally and found out that they last only half a week before the texture change to something bubbly and tough.
This time, I cooked them before placing them in the freezer as per the advice of the seller who didn't sound like she was confident about it because she never had to keep them in the freezer for that long (Captain Obvious strikes again!). Kept two packets so that I can open one after half a week and one in the weekend.
If this works, I can buy a lot more at one go! 100 raw fishballs for $20 this time, so I wonder if the seller would lower her price next time when I visit.
These things are versatile as human food and very convenient as turtle food. I can cook them with vegetables, in soup noodles and even in curry. I like versatile ingredients because I never know what I will do with the food I buy when I buy them. One day I could feel like making minced pork in oyster sauce and the next day I could feel like making hamburger patties.
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