While I feel that a lot of what he says are possible, one point stands out that I really have to disagree with.
"The ticket price needs to be low enough that most people in advanced countries, in their mid-forties or something like that, could put together enough money to make the trip," he said, comparing the purchase to buying a house in California.
Colonization, IMO, takes a lot of physical work. Even with the aid of machines, physical strength is an excellent backup plan. Take for example, Antarctica. Scientists there have to go through regular physical examination and must be physically fit. And that's just a place that is a few hours away from the nearest civilization and has no transport only for a half a year annually.
Mars, in contrast, is months away from Earth. In addition, he does not plan to employ reusable spacecrafts in the initial phase of the colonization process. That means if shit hits the fan, everyone there is going to die.
The last time humans colonized a "new world", hundreds (or maybe thousands, I can't remember exactly) of people who believed themselves well-prepared starved to death.
What I'm getting at is that the first people to go there cannot possibly consist of rich middle-aged men. That's a new planet, not a resort. The new frontier is not going to be an easy place to live in. Yes they will need smart people, but mostly they're going to need strong, tough men. They won't need that many decision-makers, but they will need plenty of people to execute the decisions they make.
The first pioneers should be largely the hands-on people, not millionaires. Construction workers, technicians and etc. The smarter ones, of course. They're also going to need to be able to cover one another's job whenever the need arises.
Maybe instead of buying tickets for themselves, those wealthy people should "invest" in tickets for these pioneers.
So I cleared up some stuff in my office when I installed the printer. At first, I only wanted to find the power outlet for the old fax machine so that I could replace the plug with the MFC's.
Then when I found it, I had dug through so much old stuff I just couldn't stand leaving them as they were. That's why I spent much of that day sifting through them.
Everything was so dusty, the dustballs were longer than my fingers.
Worse still, the old carpet that covers only my part of the office was so ancient it was coming apart in such a way that whatever holds all the threads together was crumbling into a yellow powder.
I have no idea what it was but I really hope it was not asbestos.
Anyway, all I could find was a broom so I swept everything away as well as I could and threw the dust into the same bag as the carpet and dumped them all at the dustbin at the lift lobby.
There was so much dust I decided it would be a really good idea to cover my nose and mouth with a towel halfway through the day. Not that it was really effective but it was better than nothing.
I keep several clean towels in a bag there for those times when I do the heavy work.
Despite the towel, my throat and windpipe are still irritated right now.
Hence yesterday, I asked my staff if we had a vacuum cleaner. I didn't expect there to be one but I had to ask, just in case. Otherwise, the plan was to get a cheap one.
Turns out there was one and it was the same heavy-duty model as the one we have at home. Clearly, my mum bought two of those when she was looking for one that could suck away the water that was leaking from the air-conditioner back then.
Also bought a box of masks that had this wire on the upper edge to shape around the nose.
Today, I went back, put on a mask, and vacuumed as much of the entire workplace as I could. Some parts I couldn't reach but I did what I could.
The whole place desperately needed it. As I uncovered more areas to check for dust, I began to believe nobody ever did any vacuuming at all since they moved here in around 2003.
Even the walls were dusty; it was just incredible how everyone could stand it all these years.
Took over 3 hours to vacuum the place but the higher stuff like the curtains and the top of them I had to leave alone. Same with all the corners I couldn't reach and didn't feel like moving boxes to get to them.
I do not want to know what is in the paper bag within the machine now and I really don't feel like changing it at all. I'll just it... gather dust there.
Now the office is still dusty compared to my home but at least dustballs aren't normal anymore. The next step would be to wipe everything with a damp rag but I'm too lazy for that.
But while I was cleaning the place, I realized I had forgot to pay my staff last month (I'm old-fashioned and use real cheques). As I was writing the cheques, I checked the date and noticed that I had remembered the wrong date for my Korea trip next week.
I wasn't leaving on Tuesday; I was leaving on Monday!
Oh shit!
By then it was 3pm. Banks and money-changers mostly don't open this late on Saturdays.
Banks don't open on Sundays either. With some googling, I also learnt that the exchange rates at Arcade were not very good on weekends. Since most of them close for the weekend, I suppose the ones who were still working would take advantage of anyone who has to change money on a weekend.
If these people weren't in need of this urgently, they would have waited for Monday, wouldn't they?
Thus my conclusion that I might as well change it at the airport. I'll buy stuff using my card (yea I know there's a 2% transaction fee) and get some wons in cash for tips or train tickets.
Since I have no idea which airport is better, I'll withdraw S$2000 and change half at each airport. This will not only even out any disadvantage I might get but will also show me which side has the better rates.
I've already checked the opening hours and Changi Airport's are open 24/7 while Incheon Airport's are mostly closed at 9pm except for Hana, which closes at 11pm.
Good enough.
The other thing I planned to prepare but forgot was the portable modem. Upon checking the SK website, I recalled that I had to reserve it 3 days in advance.
Since it was 2 days away, I had to check to see if I still could get it. Apparently, I could, but I would not get the 50% discount... but I'm not sure if that discount was even applicable for the modem.
It won't be expensive at all. The rate is just 8000 wons a day, which is around S$10, and the deposit is just 200k wons for the flatter version, around $60.
It would have been much more worthwhile if this was a group trip, since the modems could handle up to 10 devices, but there's also the 500MB limit to consider.
There are also cheaper options but those need Windows OS, like the Wibro modem that costs only 5000 wons a day and has no data limit. The only catch for that was that it was only usable in Seoul.
Anyways, I feel prepared despite still not knowing a word of Korean. Hopefully I'm not overestimating myself but just in case, I've included a Korean keyboard in my iPad. It's just a few days of shopping anyway and I no longer plan to buy from the wholesalers this time.
Planetside 2 is significantly more fun after the beta. I guess everyone had stopped playing back then since the beta was ending when I first joined.
It's fun when there are lots of people, but that's not constantly happening.
When we're outnumbered, it's not fun at all.
Chose to play the Vanu Sovererignty without knowing the difference between the 3 factions. With that kind of graphics, I thought it was low budget enough to have 3 similar factions using different colours.
Turns out I was wrong. While the Terran Republic had the most ammo capacity and the fastest vehicles and the New Conglomerate had the toughest armour and strongest weapons, the Vanu had agility and infantry weapons with no recoil.
Like in real life, bullets in the game have a trajectory. Not the VS. The catch is that the power reduces a lot over long distances, so it's pointless to snipe from too far away.
TBH I don't feel that the VS is strong as a faction. Sure, the Magrider's awesome but that's about it. In contrast, TR Mosquitoes pretty much rapes everything. Although it's fragile, its speed makes it really hard to hit and its missiles are so OP.
Meanwhile for Natural Selection 2, the horrendous onos nerf made the Singaporean servers even harder to play on as the Kharaa. Now that we need three hives for the Khamander to drop onos eggs, onoses are so rare these days. Most of the time, the games don't even last long enough for me to get the 75 res to become an onos.
The better Singaporean players appear to prefer Marines most of the time, so this nerf does not improve the situation at all.
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