Saturday 31 August 2013

Rant 1169 / Bacteria, Bugs, Bed and BO

Yep, just a horrendous amount of dust mite and/or dust mite shit that caused the allergic reaction.

Now my spray's getting close to empty. Probably should call Allercare for more and probably get a mattress casing too.




















Why isn't Dettol considered a household necessity? Not the other newer Dettol products, I'm talking about the brownish concentrated solution, the original stuff. Heck, most of the soaps we use are unnecessary when we have Dettol.

After using it for a week or so, I've come to the conclusion that all BO easily be removed just by using Dettol once a day. That liquid is the most effective antiseptic stuff I've ever used on myself.

All Wikipedia says is that it's toxic to animals and can be toxic to human through ingestion or inhalation. "Inhalation" made me worry at first but then I read that the one man who might have died from Dettol inhalation habitually placed buckets of that stuff everywhere in his flat.

Yeah, no problem there.



















I hate it when I have to play against competitive players in NS2. They are just so hard to sneak up to and their aim is always so awesome. The only way skulks can kill them is through sheer numbers, which makes early game particularly hard given that the usual pub strategy is to divide and conquer. Rarely do skulks ever move in a pack.

Similarly, they really know how to use lerks and fades and those creatures are incredibly hard to master. Used properly, they are practically unkillable because how can you kill something that can't be hit?

 On the bright side, marines are a lot more fun now with grenades. Annoying to the aliens but definitely awesome for the marines.



















I somewhat regret being so cheap as to subscribe to M1's 3G now. It is just worse than Starhub's to the point where it sometimes doesn't even work when I'm at the office.

Now I'm considering subscribing to another 3G plan and use both simultaneously. Maybe leave the M1's in the office for my fax machine so that I can print stuff from home.



















Spent another $56 on another 3 MSW durians. Packing it into styrofoam boxes is free so it's cool. Now I'm having one a night, causing my home, my fridge and my burps to smell like durians. The constant exposure to various degrees of the durian smell is making me realize why some people think durians stink.

I don't but sometimes, at certain concentrations, the durian smell indeed smells bad. My guess is that that was their first whiff of the durian and now all degrees of concentration of the durian smell reminds them of that first smell.

Another thing is that the mao shan wang durian may not be worth the price just because it has tiny seeds. In terms of volume, the seeds aren't as small as the prices imply, so it is probably possible to get more durian flesh from cheaper durians for the same price.

Finally, the transportation of durians is so inefficient. Why can't they pack it in boxes before bringing them to the market? How fast do durians rot? Because from what I've seen, the durian flesh can easily last three days in my fridge.

It's just like how coconuts are usually chopped all around so that only there is only a thin shell around the core before they are sold. The husk is worthless and heavy, so that makes as much sense as the use of concentrated juice for the production of packaged fruit juices.

So why not do the same for durians? Since durian flesh can be easily removed whole from the shell, it cannot be a difficult task to pack all durians in sealed boxes right at the plantation. Not having to transport the shells would save them a lot on fuel.

Thursday 29 August 2013

Rant 1168 / BEST NS2 UPDATE EVAH!

After playing quite a bit of NS2, I've finally come to the conclusion that at least for 12v12 matches or larger, the balance favours the Kharaa team greatly.

Unless there is a really awesome Marine team, Kharaa almost always wins.

I'm not sure why this is so.

 ...

Then the latest update arrives...



HOLY CRAP I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!

New alien nightvision! Dual railguns! Onos boneshield that blocks ALL FRONTAL DAMAGE! FADE'S VORTEX THAT WORKS LIKE DOTA 2'S IO'S ULTI! Gorge webs! Marine catalyst pack!






















A couple nights ago, I'd turned an particularly dusty corner of my room upside down trying to find the invoice for the installation of my router. Now I think I've released a group of dustmites that hadn't been affected by my anti-dustmite treatments in the past.

Vacuumed the place this morning and brushed and wiped a lot of dust off various parts of my room, followed by a thorough spraying of the anti-dustmite chemical on my mattress.

Hopefully the tiny welts all over me is indeed caused by dust mites and not bedbugs. Bedbugs would be expensive to get rid of but the symptoms don't match. Apparently, bedbug bites follow the veins and usually form circles, while mine are all random. In addition, I find no white stuff nor black dots anywhere, hence my conclusion of dustmites that were previously untouched.

Maybe they had been hibernating under all that stuff for months in that corner. Regardless, I'll know for sure after tonight.

Tuesday 27 August 2013

Rant 1167 / We Require More Durians!

Happy mood tonight.

My jacket supplier actually replied within 24 hours, an unusual occurence given how he had neglected to check his email for more than 2 weeks... twice!

Moreover, this order was sent late so this gets some weight off my shoulders.


Also have a hearing test on Monday. I've always thought I might have some kind of mild hearing problem and when I saw that promotion for PAssion Card members at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, it seemed like a good opportunity to find out once and for all.




















Payday 2 is being turned into a farming game. First, the short missions were being farmed. People were farming the shortest mission to gain experience and items, mainly through the Ukranian Job which could be completed in less than a minute.

Now, after the recent tweaks to the experience rewards to make the longer missions more worth the time, people are farming the Rats mission by rushing through it. No cooking at all, brute force through the rest and etc.

:(














Since it's close to the end of the durian season, I think I shall buy a lot of durians the next time I visit a durian store, then store them in the fridge.




















So during one of the last RT sessions, the trainer explained that one of the types of diabetes involves our body growing "numb" to insulin. Does that means that my current habit of skipping breakfast is actually a good idea? Because there will always be more than 12 hours everyday when my body gets cold turkey from insulin.























So I went for the hearing test at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Good news is that my ear drums appear to be fine but I'm kinda sure there is a problem, so she recommended another test that involves the same stuff but in a noisy environment. Apparently, there's a chain of steps so this is the next step.

Although it's considered "private" and hence gets me an unsubsidised price, it's just S$40 so I booked an appointment for it immediately.

The most important thing she told me was that it's completely unnecessary to clean my ears unless the wax is blocking it, not even by pouring water in with my head tilted. In fact her facial expression said it was bad, so from now on, no more cleaning of ears unless it's blocked. Apparently, the skin in the ears grow outward so wax sticking to it is gradually shifted out of the ear anyway.























Woohoo! All is done. I'm all set for the peak season. By that I mean there's really nothing more that I can do about everything now, despite the late order.




















Ordered a floor protector mat from Aliexpress. US$40 for a 90cm*120cm 1.5mm-thick transparent mat, shipping included. I could also have bought from IKEA but they sell it for S$47 and I would have also spent about S$15 on taxi, so this is actually a better deal assuming they're both of similar quality.























My mobile router died. It's working perfectly except the USB port no longer functioned properly.

The backup isn't working very well either. For some reason, it's impossible for my iPad to connect to its WiFi network, and it keeps dying when connected to my PC via ethernet cable.

I guess this is what happens when we only buy cheap stuff.

Saturday 24 August 2013

Rant 1166 / XCOM + Elevator Music

Dettol is a better product than I thought. Just bought a bottle of it from a budget store and was planning to use to clean my desk, keyboard and mouse once in a while but when I recalled that it can also be used for personal hygiene, I decided to use it as soap.

Now I have almost no BO. It's just incredible! No wonder it got so famous in the past. Now I wonder why it's not as popular these days. This stuff is just awesome.

Dettol has a new fan now.
















Finally went back to white rice after finishing the brown rice.

The thing about brown rice is that it has a much stronger flavour that interrupts the flavours of dishes it is eaten with. No wonder they only use it in desserts outside.

So after the brown rice was finished, I went down and got myself a more expensive brand of white rice. No more brown rice ever again.



















The last RT session finally is over and I failed the IPPT of the last session miserably as usual. Looks like I improved my slow jogging only to return to the same level as I had last year at this time of the year, completing the 2.4km in 24 mins (6km/hr lol).

That is the best I can do without exerting so much that I end up walking.

Regardless, this window is completed for the year and I celebrated with... a box of durian. $15 for a box of Mao Shan Wang (Cat Hill King?) durian and although I have no idea what it's even supposed to be like, I have heard of this name before. Without knowing how it's supposed to be good, I can't say for sure if it was indeed worth the $15 for a box of Mao Shan Wang durian.

What I do know is that it's worth $15 for the durian, regardless of type. The seeds were small, shrunken even, so it was almost all flesh and no seed. All durians taste as awesome to me since I very rarely buy any so I can't say anything about the flavour except that it was fantastic.

In fact, I don't think I've ever eaten a durian with such tiny seeds before, so it's probably the best I've had so far.




















Now I want more durians :(






















Ordered jackets late. Ugh. It was a really stupid mistake partly caused by procrastination.

Now they will miss part of the peak season. At least I have plenty of sweaters this year. Too much even, but that's fine.

Sunday 18 August 2013

Rant 1165 / Supersonic Download Speed

So I'm doing an experiment.

And also because it's been hot.

I'm switching on my air-conditioner 24 hours a day at the lowest fan speed, 27-29 degrees Celsius and always aimed at me. I've taken a photo of our electric meter on the first day so that I can get a clearer measure of our electrical usage than what is shown on the bill.

And it's not on Auto-mode. For some reason, although everyone seems to be saying that it's better to use that mode so that it will automatically cool the room to the specified temperature and stop, I find that simply keeping it down to the lowest fan speed lets the compressor outside run even lesser.

It's true that the temperature of the room may never reach the temperature I want but since it's always blowing at me, that doesn't really matter.

What I really want to know here is how much more this will cost compared to switching on my fan at full blast 24/7.

The best way to find out is probably to do this for 2 months, since they come over to check the meter every fortnight, and it also serves the purpose of getting myself slightly more ready for the cold temperatures of my overseas trips in about 3-4 months.

But that may be too expensive.


...


Stopped after 3 days. According to my photos, it spiked quite a bit. My bill, which stated that the latest reading was taken after the three days, was also higher than previous months by about 100-150kWh.

A rough estimate would be an extra 30-50kWh per day. Seriously.

At the current month's rate of S$0.2595/kWh, if I leave my airconditioner on 24/7 for the entire month, I'll be paying an additional $230-390
























Installed Cat 6 LAN cables in my home. My bro found a guy who does it cheap and doesn't provide invoices so probably a side job.

Now I'm surfing the net at the speed of light. Not really, just getting the advertised speed of over 150Mbps for both my bro's room and mine. Using a CAT 5 cable to connect from the socket to my PC.

Strangely, the speed does not improve if both wireless and cable were used simultaneously. With both my download speed was over 60 instead of 150. Really counter-intuitive.

This really wasn't important to me since 60 is more than enough for my usage but my bro's been getting really bad signal despite placing an antenna outside his room. For some reason, 2 concrete walls really make a huge difference, and the antenna doesn't help because it's blocked by a corner.

So it was really for him. Since he was needing two points in his room, the guy offered him a cheaper rate for the third one and so I took it too. Now the wireless connection shall be for mobile devices only.

One thing that didn't turn out as expected was that my bro didn't get a cable that was long enough, so now it's kinda ugly.

























Payday 2 is awesome with good pub players. Did the Rats missions twice. First time, I had never done it before even though I was already level 21, so the host gave me a thorough briefing before every mission.

Turned out fantastic. Over half a million dollars after each Rats run and all of my 7 skill points could  finally be spent till there was more money than points. Now I am equipped with faster drills and a more accurate sentry gun.

The sentry gun does have a huge limitation though - ammo. The skill tree allows me to upgrade its health before ammo capacity, but health is the last thing anyone needs to worry about because it always survives long after it runs out of bullets. It cannot be repaired not replenished.

However, that thing is awesome in large open areas when it's active. After it was set up in one mission, all my teammates just stopped firing and watched the massacre. For a while, at least. Then it ran out of ammo and we had to resume shooting again.

Now it's obvious it's meant to provide covering fire when we need some, like when we are trying to run to the escape vans.























Removed the two old RAM sticks that were taken from the old computer. After installing them, I had a few crashes and sudden shutdowns once in a while. There should not be any from now on, but if there are, the sticks will go right back in.

Thursday 8 August 2013

Rant 1164 / Who You Have To Be VS Who You Want To Be

So just for my cousin's wedding I have to spend another two thousand dollars on airfare to NZ.

The worst part about this whole thing is not the price but the timing - the day right after the wedding I've already booked a flight to Seoul some months back.

Initially I, for some reason, confused the time of departure of that flight with that of the flight to China and made me panicked a little because it was near impossible to get a flight back in time for a 1.30pm flight out. I'd have to arrive by 11.30am that morning and I could only leave the ceremony at 8pm or it would have been pointless to go. Getting a flight in that period of time was ridiculously hard unless the budget is greatly increased.

Fortunately, the mistake was discovered just now when I took another look at the itinerary of my Seoul trip and realized I was flying off at 4pm instead of 1.30pm, meaning the arrival time from NZ can be up to 2pm.

That made life so much easier. Still, I tried to book directly with the only airline that had late-night flights arriving in Singapore by 2pm - Cathay Pacific - and reconfirmed that it was more expensive than booking through Expedia.

No idea why because my bro told me it was cheaper for him to book directly with Qantas. Maybe single economy seats just get absolute the worst treatment from airlines while online travel agents don't give as much of a damn.

Regardless, the same flight I paid $2300+ for on Expedia would have cost me $2700+ on Cathay's site for absolutely no reason. No thanks.

The time of the flights also makes the entire trip more challenging.

Just the original flight from SG to Seoul was going to be tiring enough, departing Singapore in the afternoon, stopping in Vietnam for over 5 hours before arriving in Seoul at pre-dawn. The plan was to have a second dinner in Vietnam somehow and then stay at Incheon until about 11 while having a really really long breakfast. Alternatively, there is the option of trying to leave my luggage at the check-in counter and taking a long walk till 2pm. Maybe try their breakfast somehow. I still don't have any idea what Koreans have for breakfast but some googling will be done before the flight. Guessing porridge.

Anyway, now the flight from NZ will begin at midnight and arriving at noon. Hopefully sleep is possible on the 11-hour flight from NZ to HK because that's the absolute best time for it.

Basically, my entire first of December will be dedicated to travelling from New Zealand to Seoul. Despite the obvious fatigue it will cause, the idea is kind of exciting.

Total time that will be spent in airports:

HKIA: 2 hours
SIN: 4 hours
HAN: 5.5 hours

Looks like half of that day will be spent walking and sitting around in 3 airports.

Someone also reminded me about showering. In the current plan, I'll be going for more than 24 hours without even a shower and that's very bad.

I'll be needing an extra set of clothes and either one of the following:

1) shower facilities in either Changi or Noi Bai
2) a bar of soap and a towel

No idea how much a shower costs at Noi Bai or if there is even such a facility but Changi's going to cost S$9. Otherwise there's always the option of wiping myself with a soapy wet towel on the plane. I've seen a roommate do it in the past and it's not hard to figure out.
























Went back to DotA 2 again while I wait for Payday 2's release.

After looking through the current list of heroes, Io seemed to be the best choice. First, Io's strength-based so logically it should be tougher than agility- or intelligence-based heroes. Second, he's support so nobody will be expecting me to gank or carry.

Used this guide right from the beginning to get myself used to the orders at which I level up my abilities and buy items.

First game was horrible but I was playing co-op against Medium bots so it wasn't too bad. Second game felt better as I got the hang of the game mechanics and controls but was still pretty bad because I fed the Sniper bot a lot. Third game was tough because only one teammate was decent. It felt like a good idea to partner with Phantom Lancer but he turned out to be as noob as I was.

Fortunately, all three games were won so it was a nice consolation for my own performance, ie the 11-13 deaths in each of the three games versus a single kill in each game.

All in all, Io's an epic support. It can kind of heal, it can speed up allies and it can buff up allies. In exchange, its offensive capabilty is severely limited and its ultimate ability is ridiculous hard to use.

First, its attack ability. Yea, it's got only one, and it involves balls revolving around Io that damages enemies it touches. These balls hurt enemy creeps, and against enemy heroes, they explode and deal area damage. The only form of control Io has over them is that it can control the radius of their revolutions. I'm only starting to get the hang of using that to my advantage.

Second, its ultimate is probably the hardest to exploit among all ultimates. It teleports me and an ally to anywhere on the map after 2.5 seconds and teleports me back after 12 seconds. I've tried to use it to chase enemies but in pub games, allies don't know when I use the it so they get confused and waste it. I can also use it to escape but the 2.5s delay makes it almost useless and enemies know where I'll be returning to.

Therefore, the easiest function so far that I've found for it is to use it to teleport back to the fountain to heal and get items without waiting for the courier. That, IMO, is probably one of the worst ways to use an ultimate, but it's also the only way I can use it successfully so far.

Still, it's a good hero. Its basic ability is to tether an ally. This tether increases the movement speed of both and any healing done on Io is also done on the tethered ally at 150% effect. In other words, Io and Pudge are awesome partners.

The Overcharge ability buffs the attack speed and resistance of Io and its tethered ally while causing constant damage to Io. This ability is not only for the obvious purpose of buffing the carry but for keeping Io's HP below maximum so that it can be healed at all. At full HP, all healing is 0, so nothing goes to the tethered ally. Overcharge's second function is to make sure Io gets healed, and therefore the ally gets healed.

All these makes Io the team carry's best buddy.

However, using Io also requires a different mentality compared to using other heroes. For example, when you leave the fountain, normally you would look for enemies to gank or lanes that need defending.

With Io, you look for the best teammate to buddy up with, and that's usually the carry.






















So an astronaut almost drowned during a space walk.

The strange thing about this was that unlike on Earth, water does not have to fill the helmet before drowning the man inside.

First, there is the surface tension of water that causes it to stick to surfaces. Without gravity to pull it down to the ground, it can stick to any surface, including the astronaut's entire head.

Second, the water got blown around by the air ventilation inside the helmet. This ventilation works by blowing air from behind the head to the top and then down the front.

Hence, the water stuck to the back of the head, got blown up into the hair and then back down the front onto his face. Following the surface of his face, it flowed into his eyes, ears and most importantly, nose.

The helmet didn't even need to be anywhere close to being full for him to drown.

It probably also covered the entire surface of the inside of the helmet but that wasn't important.

Things like this remind us about how unprepared we are for space travel. Here, we're just talking about a couple guys up in space. If civilian space travel becomes bigger, we're going to see hundreds and then thousands of people up there living without gravity. How many accidents will it take for them to learn how to properly live in space?

Monday 5 August 2013

Rant 1163 / Noodles, Games And Brain Activity

Not much to talk about these days. My order of instant noodles from Groupon just arrived, so now there is a ton of Nongshim noodles of various flavours and shapes that is rather hard to store in my home.

They came in two boxes. Very light, probably to prevent everything from getting squashed.

Whoever was in charge was way too concerned with the cost because they used second-hand cartons. This type of packaging is not bad because my business uses second-hand cartons only, but we sell my stuff to retailers so the actual consumers never sees them.

The thing is that packaging is important - using second-hand boxes shows that the product is cheap.

Sure, these noodles were indeed cheap, but Groupon is an international brand, so I expected a little more.

Anyways, the Groupon deal was:

For $28.90, you get 18 Assorted Packs of Nong Shim Noodles with Free Courier Service (worth $55).

Each 18-pack set includes:

  • 3 Bags x Champong (4 packets x 134g per bag) - 3 Bags of Spicy Korean Seafood Flavour Premium Noodle Soup
  • 9 x Big Bowl (117g) - 3 Ramyun Spicy Mushroom Flavour, 3 Kimchi Ramyun, 3 Korean Claypot Ramyun
  • 6 x Cup Noodle (70g) - 3 Shrimp Flavour, 3 Shanghai Noodle Chicken Flavour

A pretty awesome deal IMO, so I took two after checking out the prices outside. 24 packets, 18 bowls and 12 cups for $57.80.




















Also backed another KS project, the Emotiv Insight.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tanttle/emotiv-insight-optimize-your-brain-fitness-and-per

It's really a wireless EEG headset that detects your brain activity and understands simple mental commands, so it's like a controller for the brain.

Previously, this sort of thing only appeared in the media but now it's out and perfectly affordable at US$199 per set, plus $30 for international shipping.

I backed it without hesitation and I can't wait for it to arrive.

It was admittedly pure luck that I spotted the project within 24 hours of its launch and by then, there were only about 100 slots remaining for the cheapest pledge level that includes a headset. Not that anything was going to stop me from backing me if they had run out - the non-early-bird version of the same pledge level only cost US$30 more.

US$229 for a brain controller? Fuck yeah! There is no reason why anyone with $200 to spare would ignore this project! IMHO, this is the KS project of the year!

It's also evident that I'm not the only one excited about Emotiv Insight.

First, it hit its goal of US$100,000 within 2 hours during the first day. TWO HOURS!

Second, National Geographic has already done an article on it by the second day!

...

In 4 days, it has hit 400% of its original goal. That's an averate rate of $100k a day. Sure it's slowing down but that's normal, and the real issue is how slow it will get.


















Preordered Payday 2 and now waiting for it to be released next month. Found some guy who could get it for me for S$22 instead of the US$30 on Steam, so I got it through him instead. I remembered him from the Summer Sale where he volunteered to help a few other guys to buy some games for even cheaper than the Summer Sale prices (I think), so since there weren't any complaints, he's probably legit.

My guess is that he buys them from the Russian or Brazilian sites and passes them over to us, but the Russians are kind notorious for cybercrimes so I'm not to interested in buying from Russian game stores. Brazilian sites, those are already bookmarked so there's no need to go through him in the future.




















Found ants on my desk. For some reason they just appeared and were spreading quickly. Initially, only one ant was spotted and two nights later, they were swarming my bowls that were left on my desk for a few hours after dinner.

So I tried the baking soda trick again. It didn't work so well last year and against Einstein's wisdom regarding repeating action that did not work the first time, I did it again.

The following night, not a single ant was spotted, not even a dead one.

Who's your daddy now, Einstein?




















People spend ridiculous amounts of cash on Game of War. My alliance leader is a real life friend of the strongest player in my kingdom and when I poked her about how much he has spent on this game, 3 digits or 4, she told me 4.

That's way more than what I've ever spent on games!

No wonder there are so many games using the exact same formula! Those guys who are serious about this game are just crazy.