F Line Street Car in San Francisco

F Line Street Car in San Francisco
Originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher

This is really vivid & I just love it. It'll be really cool if I could go to SanFrans now and wander the streets. Stand in this place and just soak it all in for a few seconds. Shiok.

Johann Pachelbel wrote 'Canon in D' in the 17th century(1600 plus).

Why is it that many Singaporeans still want to buy a car when our public transport is so well connected?

Such a simple question; why is it the answer hasn't been found yet? Or rather, why hasn't the solution been had yet?

In my opinion, it's not just the convenience of getting from point A to point B. It is the comfort level. If I could stroll into a train, engage in my own thoughts peacefully, or perhaps have a quiet conversation with my friends, would I still want a car? You know what? Yes, I still want a car. But I would not drive it out as often. Traffic wouldn't be a problem then if more people owned cars but took the trains half the time.

The answer is simple, make the trains less stressful. Make the trains wider. Too expensive to change the width? Make the stations longer so that more carriages can be attached per train. Increase the train's speed so that people don't feel impatient with the perception of taking forever to reach their destination. Increase the frequency of trains.

Without a doubt, the running costs for SMRT and SBS will go up. This is why the problem has not been nipped in the butt despite endless campaigns to switch to public transport. It's not about efficiency only; it's about a more comfortable and less stressful ride.

Marketing. Do you want to have a profit maximising strategy or do you want a market penetration approach? I think we should be adopting a market penetration approach in that we are trying to lessen the roads' load by getting more passenger ridership on the trains. Market penetrating strategies often mean less profits. So what does this mean? Spend more on operation costs to lessen ridership stress. Earn less. Get more passengers on board. Roads are less congested. Business transportation efficiency increases. Singapore's economy improves. Citizens are happier because more can own cars and have an optimal level of income dedicated to maintaining it (costs now offset by interchangeability between cars and trains according to their daily preference).

And please, provide more midnight and early morning public transport options. It's insane to spend 1 to 2 hours on the midnight buses to get from town to the neighbourhoods. Sure I'll take them because I'm don't have alot of spare cash to take the taxis. Satisfied I'm most definitely not.

Very interesting.

Which brings me to a thought I had recently. You know how people often complain about government red tape and long processing times for administrative procedures? I believe that having some sort of a lengthy chain (which definitely leads to longer waiting times
) is actually necessary to combat corruption.

Can you imagine if government organisations worked like private companies? Well, you get what I mean. Think enron and adm.

Paid the deposit for the car.

Honestly, the amount I have to pay per month is a little stressful.

It's a 1.6 litre car. All in all, I've set aside $1700 per month to bao ka liao.

It's not that I will incur this cost every month, but I've factored in maintenance (tyre changing, fluids changing, wheel alignment, etc), road tax, insurance, and the unfortunate private settlement in the event of an accident.

I think I'll start to drop alot of hair real soon. On a positive note, I can feel the motivation to pia and earn enough commission to cover a significant portion of the car expense. I feel that eking out a living when one is tight as compared to when one is comfortable, affects the work attitude level between good and excellent rather vastly. For example, if I start to feel sian about a client who is not showing much interest despite much efforts, the car expenses will serve to slap me 2 times in the face and wake up my idea.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/01/singapore/jacobson-text

I will do what is right. No way am I screwing it up again.

I've thus far rejected 2 offers after I left my previous job. Reasons are that I feel apprehensive when I just consider the packages as a whole and I'm not going to enter any job where there lies such doubts again (as much as I can help, unless I'm starving).

It's of utmost importance to start off the career on the right track. "Never know till you try" -yes, but there's a limit to it; can't just blindly anyhow whack.

So I've been talking to my dad sometimes regarding the job offers. At first, his explanations make sense. However, I realise he changes the tune of his rationale with each new job interview or offer I inform him of. Basically, I feel he's just rationalising based on his experience and old-fashioned mentality, rather than sound logic. I just brush off the topic as quickly as I can now whenever he enquires about my career search.

Sometimes I wonder, will I be the same kind of dad to my kids. What if my son told me he wants to be a painter. I sure hope I don't follow in my dad's footsteps, but I sure hope my son will at least like some well-paying jobs instead so that I have no worries in that aspect. Well, if my daughter says she wants to be a painter, I'll say "SURE! go ahead". Not being sexist or what here. The fact is, she just needs to hook a good guy who can support her, so that she can paint in happiness and still live a comfortable life.

It's not a matter of a sugar daddy or whatever you call it. Even men buy 4d and toto in the hopes of striking it rich so they can retire or live a better life. It just happens that 4d and toto are not categorised into sexes, if not these men would be classified as sugar mummy hunters too.

look at that..

Fire-Fighting

It's simply amazing!

A fire can actually be put extinguished with sound waves - more specifically lower frequency sounds.

The basis for this is the compression and disturbances of the air molecules by the sound waves. Fire needs oxygen to undergo combustion. Therefore, the air disturbance disrupts the process.

Similarly, a huge-ass explosion next to a fire will remove the oxygen, thus stopping the combustion too.


Another amazing fact is our memory of past events increases significantly under hypnotism! Imagine how useful this would be in solving crimes which involve witnesses.

Why do I always screw up when I want something too badly. I presented myself wrongly a couple of times during the interview and couldn't help it even though I was aware of my wayward approach.

DAMN!!!

And whenever I go to interviews with a more carefree mood, it always goes better.

SUCKS MAN. Brooding over it the whole evening. I think the last time I had this feeling was when I walked out of the exam hall knowing I screwed up big time and that it counted greatly to my GPA.

Posting this in a whim and probably deleting it soon. Been doing this for the last few posts. Got nothing interesting to blog about nowadays man.

Oh, The fibonacci sequence has an interesting aspect to it.

Before I get into it, there is a golden ratio 1.618, which is naturally occuring in many aspects life. In a nutshell, we tend to find things made in this ratio are pleasing to the eyes.

Now the fibonacci sequence is very simple; take the numbers beside each other and add them up, then place them in the proceeding number position. So it goes like this - 0,1,1,2,3,5,6,13,21,34,55,89,144,..

So what is the interesting thing about this sequence? If you take any of the numbers and divide it by the preceding number, you'll find that the ratio tends towards 1.618 as the sequence advances.

This magic number is known as PHI.

I'm just about going to bed now, but you should google about this amazing ratio. Even the early Egyptians used this to construct their architecture. I would deduce that we can apply this ratio to our daily lives too. Say you want to segment a unit of anything (line, etc), take the length of it as a unit '1'. Afterwhich, segment the unit into 2 parts, where one segment is '0.681' of '1' and the other segment is '1-0.681'.

This morning, whilst in the cab on the way to soccer, the driver yakked away.

He was telling me about his 4d exploits (or rather aspiring exploits) and how he bought a number '7889' and the 2nd price came in as '7888', or something along that line. He said he felt like jumping when he saw the results. I told him that maybe it was a sign that he should stop playing. On his side, he intepretes it as having a close shave with victory and therefore, he should buy more. On my side, I was trying to tell him that maybe God was telling him, "look, you ain't gonna stike the prize, so I'm telling you that even if you come extremely close to winning, you'll still not"

I hope he remembers today whenever he feels the itchy-backside-near-miss-and-want-to-bet-again impulse.

Carrying on, he was telling me how driving a taxi is good and he can earn $2.4k to $2.6k a month. He even urged me to consider driving one next time once I hit 30 (or was it 35?).

I suppose from the way I talked to him, he really felt like I was sussing out the taxi driving market for a potential career. I told him eventually that I had just graduated and was working in a white-collar job. My intention wasn't to gloat(if it even was anything to gloat about in the first place anyway), but rather to see what kinda reaction I would draw from him.

From that instant of reaction from him, I could suss out what his impressions of me were before my telling him.

Interesting. I discovered the stereotypical views of another taxi-driver in his 50's (possibly).

Tip to bargain hunters: chat with the taxi driver more and he'll probably round down your fare to the nearest dollar if it's a few cents above.

I need to start doing entreprenurial stuff and not just task specific jobs.

I've learnt a couple of things about myself during these 2 months. I'm good at sieving out the appropriate answers to cut to the chase such as to alleviate the concerns of the clients. I'm NOT good at presenting an amiable & charming persona. Gotta work on it.

shucks.. hahaha.. OH WELL~ what to do.. shucks..

My company has a good environment. The people are nice, there's a good work/personal stuff balance, and there's even a bible studies session for an hour every week(if time permits that is).

Now here comes the cognitive dissonance I'm facing now.

See, I would call myself a Deist. A Deist is not an Atheist. He believes in a God, albeit an impersonal one. What does that mean? - It means (according to my own beliefs) that God created everything as it is now. The laws of science applies to our humanly lives. What we know now is as real as it is, in this world of ours. I do not believe that if I pray to God, he will help me on a personal level. What I do believe is that He has given us the gift of life as humans and the ability to make the best of it, to carry out his intentions for us (which I hope is for the longer survival of humankind).

I do believe that when a christian prays, it does bring positive help to his/her life. My rationale is that God has given him/her the ability to have faith in him through that religion and thereby helping himself. Rationale. We all rationalise what we want our lives to be. Rationale is not Logic. It can be, but it is not absolutely always. Most importantly, it always seems logical to us on a personal level.

In bible studies, I go in with an open mind. But there lies a problem in that because the pastor preaches to the majority of whom are christians inside, he is teaching, well, christianity. I do not believe in the religion, yet.

I give you an example. In last week's session, the pastor mentioned that Jesus was the only way to heaven. To put things in perspective, if I truly went into bible studies with an open mind, I would not like it if I am told to have absolute faith in a belief because the pastor tells me so. I really want to find out more about christianity, but because I want to believe, I have to be fair to other religions and ask myself, "why not other religions?". An objective mind will always look at both sides of the coin. A subjective mind will have an inner inclination subconsiously and it will be easier to convince(depending on it's biaseness).

As such, I practise selective hearing when I'm in bible studies. When I hear something that deals with absolute faith, I just tell myself, "ok, this is for the christians." But if it is an open discussion, I'll perk up. For example, someone asked today how do christians hear God. Nobody could give a convincing answer. Thank god for that. I felt that their spiritual credibility had gone up because, yes, they are just humans and to fully understand God might be out of our grasp in our lives.

On to the issue of going to Heaven. Which is more important if there were 2 choices. Making more people's lives better with an objective mind, or, evangalising so that those who believe go to Heaven.

Therein lies the dilemna. Should one be shrewd but law abiding so that he can earn more money to help the less fortunate in the future, or should he be all nice and satisfied with an average income but volunteering at a charity to help a few.

Cold Call Lesson number 1 : When sensing a rejection, don't stop talking and try to squeeze in some more good stuff. Just keep talking. It's a matter of probability that you hit a sweet spot.

TOO BUSY TO BLOG. THANK YOU FOR COMING IN. WILL BE BACK SOON.

Stimulating enough?

Poor Obama and his team. 5 months after the first stimulus bill and his people are complaining that things are getting worse; asking for a second stimulus.

5 months. When the stimulus was supposed to produce a result at the end of next year.

See, this is the issue with American culture. The common consensus in their attitudes is this - "We can do it."

Which leads to - "We will do it."

Which means that because America is usually successful in its workings, this attitude will spill over into most of the arenas within the people. The problem is when results don't come fast enough, and this might seem like the plan has failed (it might not have because it could just be a long term goal).

It's not like Obama could say things differently whilst garnering support for a green light on the stimulus. Had he sounded less impactful about it, the bill might not have been passed.

And then again, this 'can do, will do' spirit could be what makes America what it is today. So the question is, should things be said and done differently? I don't think so. It's tried and tested.

The same goes for Singapore. As tempting as the thought of having a more competitive political scene locally might be, we are indeed GOOD now. Should things be done differently? Maybe yes, maybe no. But baby steps. Baby steps so that we know what works and what doesn't, without too damaging consequences.

I think deep down inside us, we know what is good for us. See, a person might think that it would be better to have more opposition members in parliament. When he's entertaining that thought, he's kinda detaching his own personal life from the bigger picture to evaluate what might be good for the general population, theoretically as in competition benefits textbooks.

But I think that when voting times comes, many of us realise that the current political scene has indeed made life good for ourselves, and well, vote for the status quo.

Brand Loyalty

Amazing.

A study has shown that consumers’ brand loyalties are tied to their insecurities. The products at hand in the study were mp3 players.

To cut to the chase, the more afraid a person is of dying, the more attached he/she is to their mp3 players. It’s like seeking comfort in the brand’s social status.

There is a correlation but it is not outright obvious in an average person’s rationalisation. Of course, when consumers play with their ipods, death is probably not on their minds. It’s like asking someone why he loves his partner. He can state the more obvious reasons but he would probably take much longer to dig into the roots to find out the humanly basic reasons.

Anyway, the important part is how to make use of this study result - Emphasize your brands feel good qualities.