Archive for the 'Thoughts' Category

Reality Virtuation Saves Money

Published by
James
at 11:55 UTC Sep 24, 2007 in Computing, Family and Thoughts. 0 Comments

It is coming to the festive season now. In the old days, people traveled a relatively long way to visit friends and relatives during major holidays bringing gifts for everyone. To this date, the in-laws still go through the whole nine yard every Christmas decorating, exchanging gifts, turkey and all. With cars and airplanes nowadays, traveling is no longer such a big issue; except for 3 things, gifts well thought out, time to shop, and the money to spend. In a big family, this yearly chore has become quite a numbed burden. Add friends to the equation could drive many up the wall.

The Internet has been bringing many conveniences to the web surfers. There have been email, instant messaging, eCard, online purchasing, and many more. It’s been a couple of years now since we have entered the “Web 2.0 Age” which brings us Social Networking.

In a social network, friends not only can send greeting messages but send virtual gifts like a drink, a growing plant, a giraffe, items for the house; draw on friends wall; give them hugs and kisses, lick them, or drop-kick them; put a tattoo on them, or even Vampire bite them!

Virtually speaking, of course. None of these cost a dime. Well, except for the ISP service charges and the time to watch that growing plant grows into something unexpected like a shoelace hanging a rotten Godzilla (no, u can’t really do that yet but perhaps in version 64.13.2b service pack XI you could – that’s if the distribution date isn’t going to be postponed for the 5th time).

With all those widgets available, one saves a lot of money which they don’t have to begin with and perhaps regain some long lost friendships a long way as well. What can be easier than doing the “let’s not and say we did” without actually having to say it out loud to your friends and not needing to actually dress-up, go out the door, spending 8 hours in search of the ultimate gift of all time… repeatedly every single year, attend the gathering for an hour and a half, and then never even call each other for another year minus 2 weeks.

The chilling thoughts make we want to quickly grab that “Festive Gift” widget and start sending the latest trendy festive gift before they became cliches.

Alpha Mike Foxtrot (or AMF – Pick this acronym up from the movie Flight of the Intruder). Gotta lrn mor abbv wuds, RdaYs u cant r8 2 kids & Xpec ‘em 2 undastan u on da Net no mor.

Feeling Nostelgic?

Published by
James
at 0:22 UTC Sep 18, 2007 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

I was googling some of my long lost contacts and stumbled upon one of the exs.

My advice is… don’t google your exs.

Self-destructive Telemarketing

Published by
James
at 12:25 UTC Sep 17, 2007 in LoadACrap and Thoughts. 6 Comments

I don’t know why company keep using telemarketing and why would any consumer give out vital personal information over the phone to a complete stranger with or without listing their Caller IDs.

I have made myself very clear to most telemarketers that I do not accept any promos, any new services, or phone sex over the phone. (If you must, show up in person and I’ll stick your phone into your…)!

HGC has been calling my cellphone as well as my company phone, for the longest time I can’t remember when they’ve started, to asked me to switch my landline service provider over to their company . I have tried telling to them nicely not to call again and take me off their contact list, just hangup…. but to no avail. I am not blaming the telemarketers for it is their job but it is the company’s responsibility to comply to the basic Telecommunication Ordinance and to fulfill (potential) customer’s requests.

Last week, when HGC called again. While I tried to tell I do not want them calling me ever again, the nice lady said that I would need to call their hotline to request a form and file the form with HGC. When I told them it is not my responsibility to go through their procedures when it is clearly their violation of my privacy as well as the Telecommunication Ordinance, and that if I need to file anything I’d file a complaint to the OFTA instead, she said nicely that there is, unfortunately, nothing else she could do that would remedy the situation.

I can understand that since most of these telemarketers are not with the said companies. They are with telemarketing companies hired by the said companies to do their own dirty work.

So I filed a formal complaint to the OFTA last week stating that my intention (being a part of the standard online form that I have to fill out) is to have HGC comply with the basic Telecommunication Ordinance and to allow and accept customer requests through their telemarketing should anyone asks to have their contact info removed from their list and to never contact them again. Another part of the standard form was to ask if I want to disclosed my personal info to the said company, to which I denied, since I am not requesting anything special, just for the said company to comply with their ordinance.

Today, I received an email from the OFTA. A standard email, I believe. Saying they have accepted my case and would like permission to disclosed my personal info for the “go ahead”. I denied.

No wonder the telemarketing lady said there is nothing she could do and that many had made such complaint but also to no avail. Nobody cares they have violated the basic Telecommunication Ordinance and privacy of those they are calling!

While I have not gone as far as a friend has to never deal with any of the companies related to the Li’s family, this has reconfirmed my decade long decision to never use HGC or their affiliated companies’ services ever again.

Yes, that includes “3“.

More modern communication breakdown.

Published by
James
at 3:15 UTC Sep 12, 2007 in Computing, Science and Thoughts. 0 Comments

After I have blogged about VoIP , I now have MSN and GTalk permanently installed on my work PC; GTalk through web GMail permanently, with Gizmo Project and Mercury occasionally on my Powerbook. The problem is, MSN and iChat offers video chat, audio chat as well as IM but GTalk offers audio chat and IM only. While there are methods and applications that offer crossed platform IM, audio and video chats are seemingly only available with the same application on both ends. Adding the different computers and OSs, Gizmo Project is pretty well the only application that can do both audio chat as well as IM when both ends have it installed or IM only when just one end has it installed with the other end having some other IM client install; and GP works on both PC and Mac.

Here comes the Web 2.0 age.

Well, actually social networking services have been around for a couple of years. While I have only just been invited to join my first social networking service, I found out there are many of them around such as Facebook, Windows Live Spaces, MySpace, Google orkut,…… The list goes on and on. I don’t want to have to join 50 services just to be able to do one thing with all my friends and colleges.

It would be nice to be able to consolidate different types of applications into one suite like that of Windows Live or Google. Still, not everyone are installed with the same suite.  While I am using GMail, GTalk, and GCalendar, I could use G.orkut which would integrate at least the “contact” (email address book) very well; but no, friends used MSN Live Messenger and/or Facebook (Hey, which one has most babes anyway?).  Just like we have many languages in the world, modern communications are just not as simple as the plain old landline telephone.

So what do we have now? Direct SMS/MMS (video calls with 3G phone), SMS relay notification, over cellphones; Push Mail, mobile web, IM, VoIP over smartphones? Then there is the different cellphone systems over the 5 Continents. Unless you have the top end cellphone nowadays, you may be carrying 2 or every 3 different cellphones if you travel around the world often. Many many ways but all with different hardware/software.  Carrying chargers alone could back your back.

Ohura! Scotty! I want that universal translator online and I want it now!  I kiss all humanoid  females, alien or otherwise!

Don’t try to lick your own elbow…

Published by
James
at 21:18 UTC Sep 11, 2007 in Facts and Thoughts. 0 Comments

Some amazing facts here.

“Artificial Intelligence is no match for Natural Stupidity”

Published by
James
at 10:11 UTC Sep 11, 2007 in Funnies and Thoughts. 0 Comments

Funny church signs [pics here].

And now a bit of 21st century wisdom

Published by
James
at 17:31 UTC Sep 9, 2007 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

Here is what I received in the email this afternoon…

Subject: FW: U2 Concert In IrelandAt a U2 concert in Ireland, Bono (the lead singer) asks the
audience for some quiet. Then he starts to clap his hands
slowly. Holding the audience in rapt attention, he whispers
into the microphone: “I want you to think about something.
Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies.”

A voice from the front of the audience yells out: “Then
stop clapping, ya dumb fuck!”

To be Decisively Indecisive

Published by
James
at 9:11 UTC Sep 5, 2007 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

That’s basically what dad wants in me without being self-aware.

I may seem to be idling a lot. So even when I am obviously busy working on something, people ask me to do other things and expect me to do them right away which I have either already planned on doing them while still being on schedule without any foreseeable delay or have done so already; either of which I am not about to stop whatever I am doing at the time and just so these people could watch me doing them (again).

This is not a matter of flexibility or inflexibility. It is about planning. I have idle time because, unlike dad, I have my chores well planned. In an event of discrepancy, I either already have a contingency planned or my modified decisions would also be well planned no matter how short a time I have but I would never make any adhoc sporadic changes just for the sake of changing which dad always do. That’s why it took dad over 10 days instead of 2-3 days just to finally have the unit selected as our new office while we were in a tight schedule to vacate our old office for the neighboring tenant as contracted – x/F… y/F… x/F… no z/F… yeah y/F unit A no unit B, yeah that’s it, unit A x/F… no z/F, yeah Unit C (ehhh, dad… we don’t have a “unit C” on any floor)

I have been changing registered names with the power company, CLP, for electricity meters back and forth between tenants and landlords for over a decade. Last time dad had done such a thing was probably way back in or before 1993. Since then, CLP has changed from a small deposit receipt, which was needed in case of a deposit refund, to a large one, and now to without any need for a receipt at all and only refund deposits in accordance to their records on computer. Meter reading for the meter register user charge over cut-off point is only checked by CLP agents. Customer read outs are no longer accepted. Dad insisted on me reporting the meter reading to CLP (just as he had done so back in ‘93) while I was busy printing invoices for the month which simply cannot be delayed whatsoever even though his indecision on choosing the unit for our new office had set back our relocation plans for more than 10 days right till the last day of the month before we could move the office.  Which left me no choice but to work on the invoices ahead of regular schedule. It wasn’t a problem at all except that the useless meter reading job, which would have only taken less than 2 minutes to do, would not be of any use at all since we would still be using electricity in the old office for at least another 4 days. Even if I had read the meter right away, what then? Read it again in 5 days when we have finished moving?! No wonder things never get done by such likely people!

It is precisely these on going jerkiness that have been driving me up the wall!

Perhaps I should just stop doing anything whenever dad’s not around and then just wait for his presence and his commands.  Hey, that would force me to go overtime just like everyone else in local large companies does!  The good thing is, I too could then do some major mining to clear up my sinuses.

Just Exactly How Much

Published by
James
at 17:12 UTC Aug 30, 2007 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

the rice is worth these days?

Why?

Question of the Day

Published by
James
at 14:09 UTC Aug 29, 2007 in Thoughts. 0 Comments

Why must I do the researching and checking and take the risk of losing everything for everyone, just so you (would think you) could irresponsibly earn some big bucks quickly for yourself?

The spirit of most local entrepreneurs – start with minimum to zero risk assessment and continue on with zero risk management, screw the rest of the world, and (dream of) earning the big bucks for themselves.