Asian failings

23/11/2008

Death of a motherboard

Having purchased a terrabyte of extra storage yesterday, I did what normally follows and plugged it in.  Well, maybe not everyone uses a crude-looking 3-to-1 various hard drive interfaces to USB converter but it didn't give me any trouble... until now. Firstly, the computer froze. Then it wouldn't boot up - no display, no POST beeps etc. CMOS reset did nothing. Quite lame. Taiwanese-designed motherboard killed by USB device from a Hong Kong shopping site. Let's see how this 3 year warranty works (still got a year left). And later I tried the whole process again on a nearly 9 year old laptop... it didn't die. hmmpf Though it did look really strange opening it up after all that time. Wasn't quite real... hopefully it doesn't implode and take the house into the next dimension.

I suppose this will be a good opportunity to remove all the dust from the insides.

Chinese satellite ACA/TT programs

A young mother begs for money for a bus ticket home with her sick, young children on her back. After a few days she's still hanging around at the same location. TV presenter lady tracks down woman and starts screaming at her and even handling her for neglecting the kids and other stuff. The mother starts sobbing and TV host rounds them up to get the children looked at a hospital. Turns out she doesn't want to head home because the children's father is a wife-beater... Still, I thought the host was pretty bad. Plus they drag it out to a whole 30 minutes.

NOT recommended viewing. But a welcome change from those marathon 2-day dramas that I end up recording the middle bits for the parents at their request, but they watch on from whenever they get back anyway.

Still it got me thinking about where these false [no this isn't asian self-deprecation] notions of asians being smart/doing well in school and all come from, as well as asian pride etc. Well, I suppose asian pride can exist in the absense of rationalism. Perhaps it's just those that escape/migrate are ever so slightly brighter/trying harder for doing so and leave a larger proportion of bogan equivalents behind. Then those are left with 5 minute TV ads [really loud ones] about how a pillow will improve their child's studies and the like... Though I know TV isn't that great an indicator of things.

herrm

The Sole Problem

20/12/2008

After having the pleasure of the soggy sensation where my feet soaked up my socks which soaked up my shoes which in turn soaked up the rain and wet footpath (on closer inspection there was a 2mm crack), a new pair of shoes seemed like a good idea. The old pair had thin soles and had its inner reattached by superglue several times. While the new pair costs over double the old pair, it's pretty well-made...
+plush/squishier interior and sole
+slightly higher clearance
+laces not too long

-higher cost
-somewhat dorky colours
-correct physical size but misleading size labelling
-required effort to purchase them
-laces not of substance; feels flimsy
-some heel/back of foot chafing (could just be the way I walk or my socks)

Recommended (maybe not at original price though).

Hmm not a bad idea from the government this time about Christmas Eve free public transport. It might even get some more of those $1k handouts spent.

Settling into things

9/12/2008

Temp taxi calibrator

Week 2

Even in this job I’ve somehow managed to become an
office-bitch again – answering phone calls, taking bookings and some light
documents work. Ah well… it beats working in the sun or rain, though it gets a
bit boring. I’ve managed to put two printers out of action from running out of
toner and mechanical failure from printing manuals to be folded up. When I
tried to be proactive (having read a chapter about it from Covey’s seven habits the
night before) and asked for some alternative work (since the box of finished
manuals was getting quite densely packed), the response I got was that he will
use his own initiative to allocate new
tasks as he sees fit. Meh. But this is the same guy who delegates the refilling
of an auto-stamper to his manager.

At least 3 Indian taxi drivers from cars that I processed
have trained as chefs. I also had an interesting conversation with a veteran
driver (who wasn’t really dressed for work and seemed to have some alcohol
vapours in his vehicle) who advocated nuclear power for everything and
basically down with the green power movement.

Mobile telephony

After having a PDA for 23 months, I’ve finally bought a
converged PDA phone (on clearance of course). Some might call it the ultimate
phone, or at least I-mate marketing would like it to be so [I-mate Ultimate
8150]. It burns through battery like how an endurance laptop computer might,
but the screen is quite nice and handwriting/handwriting recognition is quite
doable on a 640x480 screen. I can remember running Windows 95 on that
resolution. :O

For those wondering… I bought it outright since a plan
really wouldn’t cut it for me… $12.08 over 116 days (of that, I-mate registration wasted $1.40 on international SMS services without telling me). Yea, I’m going to have
surplus credits at expiry. Perhaps I’ve been using smspup too aggressively… though
it is much easier to type replies on a qwerty keyboard. Maybe I’ll be more
inclined to reply to messages with all these input methods. Although my
preferred on-screen keyboard hides in the corner now since it was designed for
the old standard 320x240 screen and is now unusable.

Readings

A bloke called Bertrand Russell reckons that all physical
things are made up from a collection of sensations instead of atoms…. hmmm

Mosquito

They lasted about 5 days in the winged stage stuck inside
the jar. Froze them for 6 hours, followed by a natural thaw. One mosquito larva
was still good after all that.

Trains/transport

No citybound trains for 15 minutes from 7:45 to 8:01 from
Box Hill today – not even a stopping all stations service. There was barely
enough space to read my book whilst standing (without poking somebody in the
back). Even on normal days there’s really not much space to read a newspaper.
Taxi drivers also commented that business has been quiet with the downturn.

 

Happenings

2/12/2008

Having considered a request and been interrogated by a
communist as to what was ascending, here are some happenings…

Temp taxi calibrator

Reprogramming taxi
meters in preparation for fare increase

An interesting organisation: a CEO that looks like the
co-host of Mythbusters in beard and beret; a GM that looks like one of those
Nivea for men face-models looking after a grand total of 6 regular staff.

The CEO is always talking about doing things efficiently while the GM throws in nice words like "good on you"... perhaps this is scientific management versus human relations

Pretty much all the temp people are studying something at uni (there are undergrads and postgrads thre) and all are male. I suppose that's more efficient in fewer distractions hehe

Even more interesting were the taxi drivers… apart from the
grumpy older ones.

• There
  was a polite young gentleman completing his masters in electrical
  engineering at Latrobe.
• A
  very distracted science teacher from India (who had only taught for 6
  months). 
• Another
  gentlemen completing his masters in accounting. He also happens to listen
  to trance music.
• Also,
  an elder with a very thick European accent who was previously taught
  electronics at RMIT. He also mentioned that his son transferred out of
  Monash because of thermodynamics.
• A
  former security guard (seemed like he was in a permanent daze)
• An Indian man whose spouse is studying hairdressing... hmm perhaps the famous Sunshine college of management anyone?
• A frustrated dude with somethign equivalent to a diploma in mechanical engineering - his qualifications aren't recognised at all here
• A Greek man who wondered off to the shops and swears a lot, but seemed nice. Was even courteous enough to ask whether we minded if he urinated in the laneway...
  

Other things to consider: corporate ethics and
externalities. They use public laneways and streets for their business
operations, which attracts council parking inspectors and causes some traffic
issues. However, the CEO is concerned enough about the children at the nearby
primary school to avoid using streets near the school at transit times. There's also recycling of lead and copper scraps - sustainability perhaps.

A purchase at Dick
Smith Electronics

Obtaining a 4094 IC to
replace the one I had zapped

Having picked my part and noted the product code, I took it
to the register operator. After entering in the code, the operator turned
around to start searching through the batteries behind her.  About a minute had passed and then she did
something to lose that code. I showed it to her again and she looked through the
batteries again…

After another 45 seconds I ask why she is looking through
all that stuff... and her reply is that she thought I wanted a new one of
‘that’. Meh. It’s like they’re trying to drive away all their electronics
customers. Though it probably is unprofitable...

Mosquitoes

They’ve finally hatched after 2 weeks – they now fly around
inside a Moccona coffee jar… perhaps to be fed to a carnivorous plant. I wonder
how to kill them without letting them potentially fly out of the jar though…
maybe boil the whole jar?


Pictures here.