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~ xen ~ Leave a comment

SQ cut costs. The hot towel roll before each flight is now a cold disposable paper towel.

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None of my colleagues play Uno before. Taught them all the rules and they’re now like hooked on it. Every night also want to play.

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I was at Frys a little earlier today, and 2 men asked if I work there. I answered “Nawh I don’t”. But in my mind I answered “May I help you?”

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Photos for the past few days are uploaded. I didn’t manage to upload it during the conference earlier coz the speed was too slow. There seem to be an inverse co-relation between the interesting-ness of the topic and the speed of the network…

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Put my GPS to good use here. Downloaded the California maps for free from Nokia. Google Maps app could also use my GPS and calculate the route, but it requires a data connection. So I’ll have to plan using GMaps before the trip and track using NMaps during the trip.

blab

~ xen ~ Leave a comment

I’m quite sleepy now but I thought I should get this down or I doubt I will do it later. How do you make people understand: being a software developer doesn’t mean you can fix anything related to a computer? Like being a taxi driver doesn’t mean he always know how to fix the engine when the vehicle stops working.

And it doesn’t mean a software developer can create any software you see. There are two aspects: Like studying aerospace engineering doesn’t mean you can start building and selling airplanes (products have scale) and like being a chef doesn’t mean you can cook from Japanese to Italian cuisine, or a surgeon can operate on any part of your body (there is specialization within the profession).

I’m looking for a good analogy, that hopefully can be consistent for use across the different scenarios.

blab

~ xen ~ 2 Comments

i ought to sleep earlier. I still get through the day with less sleep, so i\’m not sure why i\’m thinking like this. Must be getting old.

When multiple people say i blog too chim, i guess that means its true. I\’d like to read some not-so-chim blog and see what\’s the diff.

But, like i keep saying, i\’ll not change my style to entertain readers, cos its my blog, for myself. You shall just read whatever appeals to u.

Finally, i\’m glad i can blog in bed. Good night.

Under the bed

~ xen ~ 1 Comment

OK I promised windy I’d write this today. It’s been a while since I last determined the amount of GST to increase to get free public transport. This time we figured out that the MRT tunnel between City Hall and Raffles Place goes below the river bed of the Singapore River.

From the SLA map, we can see this is the part of the MRT tunnel, which is quite close to Raffles Place station.

A critical clue can be found in this book “Tunnels and underground structures“:

The construction of a twin 70 m long North East Line tunnels, under the Singapore River, was the second such crossing of the MRT system under the Singapore River.

Now if we look at the Singapore River and the MRT crossing points, we can see that before the North East Line crossing of the Singapore River at Clarke Quay, the only earlier point was the area we identified earlier. There seems to be a third crossing point to be constructed under ECP, between the (future) Bayfront and Promenade stations.

That’s it! Of course this is just one piece of indirect evidence; it would be more convincing to produce a variety of evidence, especially direct evidence. However, the map, together with the statement in the book does tell us that the MRT tunnel between City Hall and Raffles Place crosses below the Singapore River.

blab

~ xen ~ Leave a comment

It’s good to be a programmer. When software don’t behave the way you want it to, you can always write it yourself.

Song of the Moment: 齊秦 – 紫雨

This retro song has been stuck in my head for 2 days. Time to change song.