Tuesday 19 May 2015

Rant 1214 / When Laser Weapons Become Common, Mirrors Will Be All We Need.

It's funny because the more that happens in my life, the less I blog. This ends up turning this blog into a record of nothing - a compilation of over a thousand posts of insignificance.
























There is a task you have to outsource and by word of mouth, you found this company in another country that constantly does a terrific job while charging only the local price, ie a pittance.

Do you go," Hey, you guys are awesome! You can easily charge [price level in your country] for the quality of your work! Here, go to this website and advertise there," or do you simply keep hiring them?

There are a number of consequences for this, and neither is good or bad, depending on your perspective.

Option one, their opinion of you improves; you help to alleviate their poverty; they end up finally getting paid fairly for their sweat; your costs go up unless you find another company which is risky because in those countries, quality is inconsistent and you were just lucky that you found one that was that good, hence in most likelihood you become less competitive, your profits shrink immediately, your future becomes less stable.

Option two, status quo persists; they get far less than they deserve, maybe someday someone else will do the above for them; you give them regular business so it kinda improves their situation and maybe lets them expand.

You know, when I describe the situation this way, it actually feels like the more selfish option is the better option.





























Walked 8km the other day to a big local temple I've never been to before. Very posh, I have to admit. Beautiful building. The items in there were rather ridiculous though.

This temple was supposed to be about a tooth from the Buddha, but on the third level, I found what was described as bits of his brain, muscle tissue, bone and etc, all of which appear to be tiny gems. This is what I'm confused about; they may have been supposed to be some representation of his body parts and not the actual bits and pieces of his corpse, unlike the tooth the temple was named after.

The tooth itself was housed in a platform within a glass enclosure. It was too tiny to be visible, tbh, but it was also magnified in LCD screens nearby.

That was just a walk of 8km, and I decided not to walk back. Not sure why because I would have walked back if I were in another country, like I did in Taichung recently. Pretty sure I walked 15-20km the second day during the trip.

Today, I walked 13km to some sort of farmers' market called Farmart Centre at Chua Chu Kang. Most of the shops were closed since it's a weekday and the animal enclosure was closed by the time I arrived in the early evening, but the quail shop was opened.

Apparently the owner does farm trips or something too, but what I was interested in was the quails and quail eggs.

I haven't eaten quails in probably a decade, and the shop offered spring quails and old hens, all frozen, so I bought 10 spring quails on the spot for S$18.



Timing was epic during this walk. For about an hour before I got there, there were a few drops of rain here and there, not even a drizzle, but just cloudy. I arrived, found the washroom, took a leak, got out, and it was raining. Wow.

So I looked around, found nothing interesting but that quail shop, booked a cab, and sat down to chat a bit with the quail shop owner before the cab arrived.

























So I backed the Halfbike II and it should be arriving in August later this year. I don't expect it to arrive punctually though because all Kickstarter projects I've backed have been delivered later than the stated delivery date.

It's probably got to do with the crazy confidence all entrepreneurs need to start a business, except these guys can't stick to a deadline to save their lives.

In any case, the Halfbike II looks pretty interesting, and I've just picked the Black/Yellow colour combination for it. Really excited and looking forward to riding it outside.

It's really a tricycle without the seat, I feel, and it's foldable and not too heavy (over 8kg), so I thought it will be fun to use outside in the urban landscape. Topped up a bit for the gears too, so that I can climb slopes with it. It's going to be great!





















So far so good with Vanessa. It's been three months and the friction seems to be mostly gone. I think we were just adapting to each other, and I, in particular, was adapting to life being attached, so the difficulties were not surprising.

The trip to Taichung about a fortnight ago also raised my metabolic rate, making me much more energetic, so it seems I became a much more loving boyfriend even though I didn't love her more - it's impossible for my love for her to get any greater; you can't add anything to infinity for an even larger number. I think it just appeared that way because I became more attentive and more talkative and maybe even more thoughtful with the increase in energy.

This is why I'm trying to keep it up through these walks.

She deserves the best from me, being the sweetest girlfriend that she is. It's just crazy that she would come out to see me on her one free day even though she's been living on 4 hours of sleep every night for a week before that.























I've come to the conclusion that I cannot control my diet. This is bad. Every time I visit Taiwan, my appetite increases, yet it never decreases after I return.

Something needs to be done.