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There appears to be some technical problems over at DreamHost. Let’s hope they solve this as soon as possible. In the meantime, there is yet another animal abuser (Flickr). Most probably the work of another psychologically disturbed person. It makes you wonder: is it the person’s fault, or has it got to do with the pressures of living in this society? The Singapore government is extremely proud of its train network. With ever-increasing wait times, and more frills added for the usage of a minority that I hardly see as a frequent train passenger, the local transport system looks set to head for greater heights. The fare prices, I mean. But the bone today hasn’t to do with fare prices (which had already been done to death; to deaf ears). Rather, there is something that I have contended for a long time, even as the local population has tacitly recognised as acceptable. Introducing: the ban on eating and drinking on trains and buses. I have completely forgotten when the ban took effect, because I remember being able to eat curry puffs on the bus back when I was a young toddler. Then again, cockroaches were rampant, and you could get one creeping up your body if you were not careful. Of course, I feared that creepy crawlie, and could jump whenever there is one hanging anywhere within a metre of me. I would pinpoint it down to a phobia that I had when a cockroach crawled happily up my legs in the middle of the night. In those days, I slept on a sponge mattress laid on the floor. For some reason, the disgusting creature managed to sneak up on me in the middle of the night, yet dug so deeply into my flesh that I awoke with a start. I woke the whole household, and refused to sleep the rest of the night. I even went to the extent of lubricating the door gap with insecticide. Could you say that I, as a young boy, was MOLESTED by a cockroach? I was certainly scarred for life. Definitely, as a result of that incident, for a few years, I supported the clamp-down on eating and drinking on public transport. The years of self-centred thoughts soon gave way to an extensive re-think, back in my junior college days. There, we had to examine issues to determine the effiacy of policies, and the argument for, the state of the world. To hide all the mind-wrangling from outsiders, it was packaged nicely as a barricade, labelled: current affairs. I began to reconsider my earlier support for a complete ban on food consumption. After all, people do get hungry, and the hectic pace of life here means that many don’t get proper meal breaks. They would have to stave off their hunger on the move. While those rich enough to be driving their own set of wheels can eat inside their beloved, public transport users are left high and dry by the ban on eating. Surely the transportation companies were not simply being difficult to passengers with the claim? After all, the results were magnificent: I could safely sleep on a bus without being over-run by a mob of dark feeler-ed creatures; but the ban looks draconian, especially if you see that bus and train systems in many countries do allow grazing on buses. Perhaps it has something to do with an over-zealous attempt to curtail food consumption when the pest problem became too tough to curb? I would most probably call this an over-kill in theory, in line with typical Singaporean reactions to all things foreign to their comfort-zone. A better choice might be to opt for a law mandating the upkeep of public transport by users to make sure that they clean up after themselves. Not only would this allow hungry travellers to munch on the go, it will also fosters responsibility on their part to keep public transportation clean. Yet, underneath it all, I know that deep in my heart, such a theory would not work. Why? Singaporeans are far too selfish to keep their own public transport clean. What for? We have MAIDS! I cringe whenever I read perpetuated propaganda from the PAP controlled media: not only do they prefer to give a “positive” spin on any situation that should have been treated with seriousness, they make a big fuss out of small issues. Like the time when a blogger re-published some christian cartoons? The paper spent its commentary on a blogger whom was simply re-publishing the works of others, while keeping deafeningly silent on critical issues, like the IDA’s $388 million mess that was eventually written off and buried. For any self-centred Singapore who cares, nobody was held accountable for the huge financial loss of tax-payer’s money. The positive spin? It was an honest mistake. Honest! Where honest mistake lies, it can probably only be made by the ones who hold control of power. The rest of Singapore are clapped into irons for anything that goes out of the comfort zone for those living high inside their ivory tower. Surprisingly, hospitals make honest mistakes too! In fact, they make so many each day, it gets tiresome being so forthcoming about its mistakes, but may all Singaporeans rest assured: the medical service here is top notch! That is besides the miscommunication, and honest mistakes, of course. While doing their National Service, servicemen whom fall sick in camp have to approach their medical officers in order to be excused from injury-inducing activities. However, the same people whom have taken the Hippocrath’s Oath turns around and bite the population they have sworn to serve, dismissing real injuries off as a pathetic attempt by the patient to malinger. Oh dear! Is there a honest mistake somewhere? I think so. Singaporeans prefer to leave such issues well alone. They are more afraid of what may come out of a pandora’s box, and prefer to live with a monster they can see, rather than stare at problems for what they really are. I get breathless easily these days. Short of wheezing like a to-be-slaughtered pig, there is absolutely nothing I can do to keep myself going on my runs. Muscle-ridden guys in army running shirts didn’t help my morale. When you are the slow car on the highway, you either lose heart, or find some inner strength to keep on going. At least I wasn’t the slowest model. I managed to overtake a few businessmen in their polo running shirts, though I suspect they must have been walking. My writing course has finally touched down in Singapore, and I’ll start tearing into it soon, so I guess I’ll be writing more often? In case you were wondering, I wrote this because my boss is asking about my blog I am very glad that there are people interested in making SgBlogging the home for their blogs. After all, I did promise to offer free web space to the website-less on the Internet, but the least you could do would be to write more about the contents of your website. What is it going to be about? I want to know your idea, and more importantly, your approach to utilising the webspace! Right now, the most anyone ever got to was the request itself: “I hope to get hosting to host my blog.” That sounds pretty much like “I am going to sweep the floor if you get me the broom.” A procrastination without a plan for future action. It is as if the purpose of asking for hosting is for the pure sake of hosting the blog. I want to shift the focus away from the hosting process, and focus on the content. At least if you are applying for web space to host your blog, you could tell me something about yourself! So here’s the deal: the next person who comes in with what I want will get hosting free from me. No further questions asked, provided that it is all legal. The situation dire, and the creative process gets gummed up in the cogs. That was what happened these few days, and it had nothing to do with chewing Singapore-banned Wringleys. I felt literally milked dry when I poured all my mental energies into the masterpieces that were scheduled to go into a file that would be shoved into the deep recesses of a dusty repository, never to see daylight ever again. I don’t know how you writers can keep up with working for 8 hours consecutively, and still come up with bushes to beat around: that I reached my limit within just two really impressed me with your perseverence. That, and spell check. I got horrified after a few minutes of typing to see Microsoft Word faithfully pointing out “pursual” in bright squiggly red. It reminded me very much of school days, which soon led me to think about university life. It is kind of funny how something mudane like doing work can jolt you into full realisation of your life — the squandering, the regrets, the muddlings, the whole works. By the way, in case you don’t understand what this post is all about, I’ll explain: I simply don’t. This sounds like a lot worse than the rambling sessions that what I usually do with friends. Far worse: I am a sponge wrung dry of meaningful sentences, that’s what. At my workplace, we have a photocopy machine in the common room outside the office. That machine is shared by another department which rarely uses it. Maybe they are geeks who send e-mail to their colleagues in the cubicle next to them. In any case, the photocopy machine sits silently until someone from my department decides to do some — guess what — photocopying! At the command of a finger, the machine rumbles to life, blinking its many status lights like a disco machine. Most people understands what those blinking lights mean, but even with prior experience messing up the brand new copier in my office during my National Service time, I still had to resort to trial and error with the numerous settings on the LCD screen. It felt like my first foray into the world of geekiness, except that I feel years older now. The machine beeped happily at me while I experimented with the “Duplex” setting. The first piece of paper was a failure. It tried to print a portrait oriented copy onto a landscape paper, but there was a nice smell that reminded me of one of the chinese Siew Mai. It made my mouth water just taking in the smell, and I had just taken my lunch! I mentioned it to a colleague, who remarked that I had the face and sound of an acute narcotics addict. It was tempting to mince the paper in my mouth, but I couldn’t do it in front of one of the geeks in the next department during one of their rare forays out of their lair to use the photocopy machine. Do you have a photocopy machine that spews food onto paper? It really makes the stomach growl like a bear. Leechers are the bane of the Bittorrent world: they concentrate upon taking the shares from others, and immediately drop off the torrent the moment they get the complete copy of the file without re-sharing their copy of the file with others. The negative effect of this popular trend has caused many torrents to sport poor downloads, as the few morally upright people who leave their torrents open to re-share the download have to send to more peers who clamour for the file. Perhaps now, a new technique accidentally discovered while downloading from an incomplete torrent would force leechers to share more, whether they like it or not. I wanted to download a popular programme via Bittorrent, and had just started the download when my Bittorrent programme reported that nobody in the entire torrent has a complete copy of the file. Apparently, the Availability rating of 0.999 meant that most computers sharing in the torrent had only 99% of the file. The absence of any seeds (computers which can share the full copy of the file) made it obvious that nobody was able to finish downloading the file. It was then that I had a pleasant surprise: the torrent was dumping at an extremely high rate. I was reaching speeds of 300 kB/s effortlessly, and it required nothing more than just sitting there watching the bits download themselves — almost magically automatic. I remember that I don’t usually hit even the mid 100s, and the speed boost was a huge surprise to me. Apparently, the high speeds were courtesy of computers that had 99% of the file which were aimlessly sharing the file while waiting for a seed to appear to share the missing piece that would complete the download. Apparently, the leechers had left the torrent on to try to complete the download, and the side effect was that the newcomers to the torrent were able to achieve high download speeds. Eventually, my computer similarly hit the 99% ceiling, and kept seeding the available pieces of the file while waiting for the one magic seed that would complete the file. It felt good to know that leechers were for once sharing the torrent, even though it was through no willingness upon their part. Around early this morning, a seed appeared suddenly, and as if by magic, the number of seeders jumped exponentially, hitting 1055 in the first hour of the seed coming online. Come to think of it, if torrent sharers could formulate a certain algorithmn that would force leechers to be unable to complete the torrent unless their share-ratios hit a certain amount, it would have a major impact upon leechers who do not share their files after downloading their copies. Better still, it would do their karmas some good. |
. Previously, I’ve been obsessed with MapleStory to do any writing. Did this even make any sense?