With reports of new H1N1 cases in Singapore every day, it has starting to become a norm to the lives of Singaporeans. H1N1 no longer seems to be a fearful thing to most people in Singapore. At least it does't seem to be the case if you take a walk in Orchard Road or Bugis. Life goes on as usual as only the minorities will wear mask or Particulate Respirator (PR) when outside.

Speaking of wearing masks or PRs, I often find it ironic that families will only have their children wearing masks or PRs while the rest of the family goes without one. I certainly didn't know H1N1 only attacks children. Apparently, the adults do not think that they themselves are vulnerable to the virus, and if infected, they can spread it to their children even when they are at home. Funny that they didn't think of this.

Now like everyone here in Singapore, we all have one common dislike. Traveling during PEAK HOUR. Its a pain in the arse if you ask me. Be it private transportation or public transportation, its one of those problems that the Big Men (and Women) in Singapore have yet to be able to solved (or have they thought that they have solved it by the implementation of the money-sucking ERP???).

The problem with private transportation in Singapore is that there are too little road and too many vehicle. Also, there's too many reckless drivers.

Too little road? I think we just need to find out how to utilize out land better. The question should not be how to keep the number of cars in check better, but how to make more road and car parks with the available land? Is building of multi-level road a possible solution? How about more under ground roads? Too little car park? Even with multi-story car park? How about making the multi-story car park higher? And while we're there, let's consider adding lifts in the multi-story car park. Maybe we should allow cars to be part at the same floor as the owner, like a lift for the car so that the cars can be park right at your own home. These are options that we should look into more. The use of ERP does not provide any solution, neither does COE do anything but increase the car for people to buy. Not everyone earns like how the Big Men and Women are earning. Buying a car, although it is expensive, should be a transport tool to provide addition convenience for the family. This is especially so for homes with elderly or inconvenient.

What about reckless drivers? I don't really have a solution for that yet. Something extreme would be to install cameras and other sensing devices that records the speed and performance of the vehicle, the camera would probably place facing the front, sides and back of the car to record the car's surrounding condition. The cameras should also have the ability to record the speed of other vehicles, so if a car sees another car driving recklessly, the car can report to the authorities with the appropriate evidence and the reckless car can be punished. Another feature would be that if the car speeds, the information will be sent to the Traffic Police too. Heh, like I say, its an extreme solution.

So what are the problem with public transportation? Very simply, there's too many people and too little vehicle during peak hour.

I was up and early from my girlfriend's place and was going to take the bus home. It was around 8.30 a.m. when I reached the bus stop and when my bus came, there was only one problem. It was packed full. And when I said packed full, I mean sardine-style packed full. Of course, that means I have to wait 15 minutes for the next bus. And when that came, guess what? Its sardine-style packed full too. Which means I have to wait a further 15 minutes for the next bus. When I finally board the bus, the bus was still pretty empty due to the fact that the 2 bus earlier have already picked up most of the passengers. As the bus travel to the next stop, I saw a huge number of passenger wanting to board the bus I was in, I realised they were students from the next by school and all they wanted to do was to go to school. Naturally, not everyone could board the bus, and some people will have to wait for the next bus. This might mean that some of them might have missed the earlier 2 buses that I missed too. Which means they have to wait another 15 minutes. Which means by the time they reached class, their class was finishing already.

Its the same for trains too. During peak hour, the trains are sardine packed. People standing in front of the doors when the train door opens, squeezing their way in while people are trying to get out, making the whole process uncomfortable, frustrating and definitely not a good way to start a working day. Sometimes, a train appears to be packed, but in fact, its empty in the middle of the train cabin because people are so afraid of not being able to exit the train during their stop fast enough, or they just like to stand by the door. This is also evident in buses. Interestingly, when I see such things happening, it makes me think that we need to be trained how to take the public transport. These habits are imparted to our younger generations from us when we pull them along by our side.

I just boarded a bus and was moving to the back along with the flow, and then an aunty with a kid was standing behind me, saw a seat in front of me, and without waiting patiently, she just brushed past me from behind me and pull the kid along to take that seat. Of course, there were more than enough seats available so that aunty pisses me off a lot that day. Its weird that aunties like that have absolutely no manners. I can imagine the kid growing up to be just like her because she was brought up like that.

Back to the problem on the lack of vehicles. Well, during peak hour, the buses could be dispatched 2 at a time. Or more of those short trip buses could be implemented. I like those short trip buses because they seem to really solved the problem. In the course of a bus route, usually only certain stops have a lot of people waiting for the same bus and alighting at certain stops. Also, peak hour buses should only end when its an hour or two after peak hour. This is to make sure that it caters to people who end work at the end of peak hour too.

Transportation should provide convenience to people, whether it is during peak hour or non-peak hour. It should not caused any frustration or dis-comfort to passengers. There's no point saying we have a good transport system if the good transport system is only good during non-peak hour. It is only good, when it is good during peak and non-peak hour. In my humble opinion, it should only be good if it is excellent during peak hour, and great during non-peak hour. Sadly, Singapore's current transport system, at best, is only satisfactory or average. No where near the word "Good".

In a time where people are more afraid of losing their jobs, having no income, and being unable to find a job. I tendered my resignation, giving my company the required 15 days noticed. Now the thought of resigning has been on my mind of some time, and I felt that the time is right for me to put it into action. Having work and study part-time for some time, I have to say, it isn't really as tough as I initially thought it would be. In fact, aside from a couple of modules, the rest were pretty easy (at least that's what I think).

Of course, never do something without having at least one plan. Its always good to have three though. At least that's what I think. For me, the basic plan is to concentrate on my studies, while rushing out my final year project as soon as possible, and at the same time, carry out my own plans for an online business with my partners. Oh, and also get fit again since my reservist is coming soon (waste of my time if you ask me). With so much to do, and so little time, resigning became the best option for me. Of course, I did saved up some money to survive, and also know how I will spend during this period of time.

My girlfriend has been very supportive of me and I'm glad she understands my plans. Its great to have such a wonderful girlfriend when you seem to be doing something that is totally opposite of what everyone else is doing. Well, I always think that I'm not the kind of guy who will just go with the flow. To me, recession is an opportunity waiting to be exploited. Great people are often born from great disasters. Hopefully, I'll be good enough to be Great.

Into the darkness, here I come.

Give me a gadget that will looks good, is good, and feels good, and I will be very tempted to own it. Not that I'm a geek, but some gadgets are just so cool!

Yesterday, I came into the office and see a brand new machine on Kerbby's table. Its a beautiful Macbook. Apparently, boss bought the most basic specs for Macbook to open up a new area in our already vast domain of services, which is to build iPhone Apps. So since I have free time until my last day at work, I offer to help Kerbby set it up. The task is simple, install Windows Vista x86 into Macbook to allow for dual boot and set up the Windows Vista environment for developing purposes.

So I spent 2 days doing that (wasted one day cause boss did not bring the Mac OS DVD to install the drivers) and I absolutely love how the Mac responds to me in Mac OS X Leopard or Windows Vista.

Therefore, I conclude that the next machine I buy when my Fujitsu dies on me, will be a Macbook Pro. =)

Noise... that's something that irritates you... For probably at least a year now, there have been some lift upgrading work done on the few blocks surrounding me, including the one I live in. Every single freaking morning, as early as 8 am, somebody will start drilling, hammering, or whatever other work. It really pisses me off every single time. Then by around afternoon, all the noise would stop.

I really wonder, can't people plan such work better? Can't they be more considerate to the residents who do not wake up by 8am in the morning? I mean, what's their freaking problem, we paid to live here, paid for the upgrading of lift, so why are we suffering from the noise pollution? Can't such noisy work be done in the afternoon, when most people are awake already?

Noise pollutions raises stress levels in individual (this is proven, I've read this somewhere before), and living in Stressful Singapore, do we need to suffer even more stress by having inadequate sleep due to noise pollution? I know they have a tight schedule, but it does not mean they could not plan better, and work out a way to minimise the disruption of normal daily activity of the residents.

Please, somebody start using some brain and heart for once...

Recently, there have some complications happening in the office and I think I got "complaint" by a customer. Now in some ways, I thought I have a pretty decent relationship with this customer and that I have been very kind to him by allowing him to make quite a bit of changes and charge him cheaper for the stuff he wants. But I was wrong! I realised, at the end of the day, a customer is still a customer. Customers wants things to be done fast and cheap and good. Ideally, that's what everyone wants. So I got complaint that the stuff we(me and another colleague) did was slow, and that he felt that I did not care about him. So my boss decided to change the Project Manager of the project to my colleague. Seeing how my colleague responds to his emails, I started to think, maybe he is right.

Take a look in the mirror and what do you see? Are you able to push aside all the thoughts of how you think you are, and look at yourself from the views of a third person? Are you really as nice as you think or "know" you are? Are you really that hardworking? Are you really as bad as you think so?

I guess we do not really know ourselves until we told by others what they felt about us. But then again, its hard to find someone who will tell you honestly and directly what kind of person you are to them. Its hard to find anyone who can truly understand you and tell you everything about yourself. We are humans ultimately. We have feelings. We have brains. We tends to treat different people differently. You may be kind and helpful to some, and horribly inconsiderate and selfish to others.

Think about it the next time you look at the mirror... Am I really who I think I am? *shrug*

Have your other half (your lover that is) ever physically "touch" you in anyway during a heated exchange with you? By "touch", I don't mean holding your hands or boobs. I meant punch, kick, push you back, slap you (maybe not too much of slapping), pulling your hair, smashing your head against the wall, smashing you with a fan, etc. Well, the list goes on. Anyway, if your other half ever did this to you, then you're most likely suffering from dating violence.

Dating violence is violence that occurs between dating couples (Doh!). But these cases are usually not reported. Why? Because people usually blame themselves for provoking the other party to the point of violence. Ever heard you or your friends saying things like "Oh its my fault... I should not have said that to him. It's all my fault for starting it." Yes? Good. Then its time to wake yourself or your friend up, and tell yourself or them that violence is just NOT ACCEPTABLE. It NEVER HAS, and will NEVER BE.

Altough I think this is more directed at the males, I do think that even females "attack" their boyfriends or husband sometime. People generally have shorter fuse these days. Just a few words, and they will be provoked enough to flare up. I'm not sure about other countries, but I think in Singapore, this is due to the level of stress that people are exposed to. Even children are not spared.

Childrens these days usually start school by the age of 3 or 4. Some starts even younger. Either home schooled, or in some nursery or something. Sometimes, they go for art classes, or music classes, or dancing classes, or drama classes, or singing classes, or language classes, or all of the above. Kids are still at a learning phase, learning how to explore, how to behave, manners, moral values, etc. They have not even started actual schooling, and in actual schooling, I mean Kindergarden level, and they have to learn how to cope with stress. Don't you just pity them?

Growing up, we go through more stress. Parents compare us with other kids. Comparing our exam grades, our musical talents, our atheletic capabilities, etc. Well, if grow up at Singapore around the 1990s, you would know what I mean. Thank God that my parents were not like that. Then we go through relationship stress while growing up. Those who didn't do well might go work and then, there's work related stress. All these stress pushes human beings to the limit. It makes people more temperamental.

When these people get provoke, they get angry quickly, and loses all senses. They do not know how to handle it, and what they are doing. Their brain might hallucinate something that is not true, like thinking that their girlfried or lover is leaving them or that their girlfriends or lover are thinking that they are useless, etc. They may become desperate and threaten their other half, or just think of ways to prevent them from leaving, or just trying to let the other party know that they are the dominant party in the relationship. Thus, resulting in threats or violence.

Dating violence can be dangerous. People can be injured serverly in them, people might even die due to their injuries. Its not fun. Spread the word around. Don't let violence happen to you or your friends. The following are more articles about dating violence.

Straitstimes
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