18 Feb 2017
And this is why when it comes to money, you can't trust anyone to do anything that won't benefit them.
Got an Xperia XZ. Transferring stuff from the iPhone 6 to this phone has been a pain in the butt, regardless of whatever is said about switching from an Apple to an Android on the Internet.
There are guides for this, yes, but not everything works as described!
For one, the mobile transfer app that came with this phone for the purpose of bringing old data from a previous phone over does not support the 2-FA that the iPhone requires, so it disconnects when it reaches the point where I am supposed to enter the code that is displayed in my iPhone.
Another issue is how not all my contacts are syncing through the Google and Hotmail accounts, so there are some important ones that had to be emailed over.
Also, Whatsapp on the iPhone does not like it when you are trying to bringing it over to Android. Seriously, when you can only backup your chats on iCloud, how else am I supposed to interpret that? Those backups aren't even visible via iCloud.com on my browsers!
Anyway, I'm seeing why we pay extra for an iPhone now. Getting used to the occasional lags in the keyboard will take a while more.
But never am I returning to Apple anymore. It's not all Apple's fault, but it remains a fact that it's annoying as heck to move from an iPhone to another OS.
27 Feb 2017
The Xperia XZ, if nothing else, is good for its display. So alive, the pictures look. My gf's LG G5 may take awesome wide-angle photos and my old iPhone 6 may take much sharper pictures, but it is on my Sony phone that they can be best appreciated.
So someone from Artsy asked me to post a link on my blog to a page on the website featuring the works of Yayoi Kusama. While not a big fan of either Ms Kusama or polka dots, I appreciate that they are working towards making art more accessible to everyone.
Not that the US$1500 pumpkin plushies by her are particularly accessible, but hey, it made me read up on her and realize that not only do I not know jack about modern artists, she is also quite a renowned artist who seems to be fascinated by polka dots.
I don't get her, but if polka dots are your sort of thing, the link is on the right, under my bio in the blog.
And here too: https://www.artsy.net/artist/yayoi-kusama
The Hangzhou/Yiwu trip was kinda unfruitful but it did let me learn a few things.
First, for decorative stuff and all sorts of jewellery, Yiwu has a huge market complex for them. It is probably the closest thing to Paradise that I know of for anyone dealing in these two categories of goods.
And that's including chokers that my girlfriend is trading as a part-time business. Seriously, there is two entire floors on four blocks that are just filled with shops that sell them in more forms than I imagined... in bulk.
Yes, I got rejected for trying to buy a few. Apparently, retail sales are frowned upon and tiny amounts like 50 pieces are only allowed if you're willing to accept double the price one might find from Chinese merchants online, and even that's only when the shopkeeper is in a generous mood.
Hence I deduce that if I were able to take several hundred pieces at one go, the prices they could accept might have been surprisingly low.
And as for myself, the biggest wholesale market for clothing in Yiwu is under renovation, and prices in Hangzhou were not competitive compared to what I am used to.
At least it was nice to check out these cities. The large proportion of Muslim population and shops in Yiwu was a surprise and allowed me to further explore the Chinese Muslim cuisine and Middle Eastern imports. It's my first time getting Jordanian canned food - not a huge deal but exotic enough for a trip that was supposed to be quite bland.
As for Chinese Muslim food, they got a little monotonous after a while, probably from using the same spices in all their dishes.
Or maybe it's just that what is available in the menus are limited to what outsiders can accept. I wouldn't know.
Anyway, the hotel at Yiwu was surprisingly good for the price and for a hotel in a small city.
The worst thing about it was only the crowded breakfast where we all had to share tables. The continental breakfast buffet spread was good with an egg station and a noodle station, just that the seating space needed an upgrade. However, the staff was well-trained and very friendly, so when I tell them something has run out, it didn't take them too long to refill despite clearly being understaffed (nobody manned the entrance till the end so it was free access for all). They also gave me one of the best rooms on the level, judging from the fire escape map on the door. There were a few other rooms of roughly the same size but none of them were at the very end of the corridor like mine was.
Having a coat room was amazing because of the need to wear an outer layer that doesn't get soaked in sweat like it would in Singapore, and it was a convenient place to leave the shoes at.
On the other hand, the hot tub was quite pointless because the water was nowhere near warm enough. At 4 degrees and without a strong heater in the room, the water cooled too quickly for the tub to be enjoyable. They improved the water heater by the last two days but the water, at best, could only be described as "quite warm" to me instead of "lukewarm". Not enough.
The staff made all the difference though. The doorman did his job and the front desk staff were surprisingly friendly and responsive for a hotel of its price level.
Monday 27 February 2017
Wednesday 15 February 2017
Rant 1236 / It Has Been THREE Months Already?1
24 Nov 2016
Wanted to buy a few cheap games in the Steam Autumn Sale but decided not to. I don't need any new games urgently and the USD is still pretty strong despite slowing down its rise after Trump's victory.
A cockroach found its way into my laundry and got disintegrated when I started the washing machine. Now some of the clothes had bits of cockroach that I have to vacuum off the floor after flapping each piece. This is bloody gross and hopefully the only time it will ever happened.
Was wondering what those plastic-like bits were and thought maybe someone left a packet of tissue paper in a pocket. Picked one up and realized despite the plastic-wrapper-like sounds and weight, it was most likely a cockroach head.
At least it was clean and smelled good.
Went to the Philatelic Museum yesterday because Van wanted to see the Harry Potter exhibition. It was just a small one but since it's free for citizens and PRs, I'm not complaining. Neither am I a Harry Potter fan so that wasn't even the reason I was there.
I am an amateur philatelist who have never been to this museum before, so her wanting to go gave me a good reason to check it out.
Turns out they do have some interesting cheap stamps to buy, like some from Iran, Benin, USSR, Czechoslovakia and even a mix of 500 stamps from around the world. The most amazing ones were the Malayan stamps produced when we were occupied by the Japanese, and they were selling at $24 for just 6-7 of them.
Didn't buy them though because it felt like I'd just ruin them by keeping them in my albums that I can't guarantee will stay mould-free.
Wanted to buy some first-day covers too but I didn't feel like splurging so it was just that 500-stamp set, some Iranian stamps and some Czechoslovakian stamps. Iranian stamps because it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever visit the country, and Czechoslovakia because it no longer exists as a single country.
04 Dec 2016
I play games just to see new things, so now it looks like I'm done with Fortresscraft Evolved. Spent like 10-13 hours in a new map and pretty much seen an Overmind, a Hivemind underneath its hard resin shell, a Tunnel Nuker, a Worm Boss, the waves of mobs except for heavies and bosses, all the layers of biomes and their ores up to just over 1000m deep and get burnt to death in the magma... but not before collecting a few units of that stuff in my inventory. Seriously though, how does one store fluid magma in any form of space suit?
The Hivemind was the last thing to be seen since it took a while to ablate and liquefy enough of the resin to make a hole through. Underwhelming though, since in the Holobase mode it looked it it was moving but in reality it was just a static model floating in a bubble inside the resin. When I peered through the first hole, I kinda expected it to start lashing its tentacles at me, so the still creature was just boring.
05 Dec 2016
Felt like listening to them again and the Protectors of the Earth brought so much nostalgia that I almost teared.
The Mass Effect trilogy was truly epic, and so hopefully, Andromeda will live up to expectations.
Anyway, speaking of old games, Huxley was a game I was interested in many years ago when it was first announced but never seemed to have gotten released. So after a decade of occasional search, I have finally found closure to what seemed like a potentially great game - it was sold to a Korean company which developed it all the way to beta stage before it was shut down just a few years ago.
Maybe they realized that with just two factions, it was never going to beat Planetside 2, a game that hasn't really done too well over the years IMO after the few attempts at marketing it. Such a waste. So much must have been invested into it.
Welp that settles it - speed reading is nonsense. You can read really really fast but your brain just can't catch up, causing comprehension to get compromised beyond certain speeds.
So last week, both my bro and I agreed that the likeliest cause of all our internet issues is the router they gave us. First, our wired connections directly from the modem are always fine while only the wifi from the router is inconsistent. Second, the Linksys router only costs about US$50 on Amazon so it's clearly not a particularly durable one. Third, my wifi from my pc that is using one of the wired connections never has any issues.
The only problem here is that we came to this conclusion just after Cyber Monday.
Next year will be tough. Specifically, the arrangement of the flights to and from Canada/US will be different from the routine - again.
She will fly to Vancouver (YVR), then to California for her externship, followed by Toronto and finally back to Singapore. I will fly to Vancouver, back to Singapore, then to Toronto (YYZ) when she's leaving the US and back to Singapore again. How will I be able to arrange these flights so that we sit with each other between Canada and Singapore? Separate reservations tend to result in separate seats, presenting the biggest obstacle in this situation, yet I have never booked such flights in a single reservation before.
Will I finally have to call the airline, for once, to make a flight booking?
Seems so.
At this point, I am tempted to spend my miles on a business class upgrade because we will very likely take CX to go to YVR via HKG. First, there are no direct flights in this route. Second, CX is the best airline between HKG and YVR. Third, my Asia Miles membership is holding some miles that will expire in 2017.
15 Feb 2017
Just went for a recontract with M1 and their Fonecare+ is now quite different from the past. Not only is it a subscription-based service for some sort of insurance for phones, it also allows for contract renewals annually.
This means it makes far more sense to sign up for the phone with Fonecare+. Using the MySim plans to calculate how much my phone costs, it seems that it's cheaper to pay for this service and recontract after 12 months as compared to the usual 20-month-recontract practice.
And that's 20 months because of the existing early recontract fee waiver.
The difference between a 3GB plan with a phone and a 3GB SIM-only plan is $22 ($42 vs $20). Yes, the mySIM plan actually has 1GB more for the duration of the 12-month contract but I need 5GB anyway and a small data upsize costs $11.80 a month instead of the $5.90 rate for the normal with-phone plans, while the next bigger plan is a $10 upgrade.
So anyway, $22 a month difference. The Fonecare service is $8.50/month.
If I don't sign up for the Fonecare, I recontract at the 20th month. By then, I would have effectively paid $(22*20) = $440 for the phone.
With the Fonecare annual recontract feature, I pay just the 12 months of $22 and $8.50 = $(22+8.5)*12 = $246.
This is a difference of $194.
Of course, this is on top of the lump sum that was paid for the phone just now, so my Sony Experia XZ is costing me S$(398+194) = S$592.
Wanted to buy a few cheap games in the Steam Autumn Sale but decided not to. I don't need any new games urgently and the USD is still pretty strong despite slowing down its rise after Trump's victory.
A cockroach found its way into my laundry and got disintegrated when I started the washing machine. Now some of the clothes had bits of cockroach that I have to vacuum off the floor after flapping each piece. This is bloody gross and hopefully the only time it will ever happened.
Was wondering what those plastic-like bits were and thought maybe someone left a packet of tissue paper in a pocket. Picked one up and realized despite the plastic-wrapper-like sounds and weight, it was most likely a cockroach head.
At least it was clean and smelled good.
Went to the Philatelic Museum yesterday because Van wanted to see the Harry Potter exhibition. It was just a small one but since it's free for citizens and PRs, I'm not complaining. Neither am I a Harry Potter fan so that wasn't even the reason I was there.
I am an amateur philatelist who have never been to this museum before, so her wanting to go gave me a good reason to check it out.
Turns out they do have some interesting cheap stamps to buy, like some from Iran, Benin, USSR, Czechoslovakia and even a mix of 500 stamps from around the world. The most amazing ones were the Malayan stamps produced when we were occupied by the Japanese, and they were selling at $24 for just 6-7 of them.
Didn't buy them though because it felt like I'd just ruin them by keeping them in my albums that I can't guarantee will stay mould-free.
Wanted to buy some first-day covers too but I didn't feel like splurging so it was just that 500-stamp set, some Iranian stamps and some Czechoslovakian stamps. Iranian stamps because it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever visit the country, and Czechoslovakia because it no longer exists as a single country.
04 Dec 2016
I play games just to see new things, so now it looks like I'm done with Fortresscraft Evolved. Spent like 10-13 hours in a new map and pretty much seen an Overmind, a Hivemind underneath its hard resin shell, a Tunnel Nuker, a Worm Boss, the waves of mobs except for heavies and bosses, all the layers of biomes and their ores up to just over 1000m deep and get burnt to death in the magma... but not before collecting a few units of that stuff in my inventory. Seriously though, how does one store fluid magma in any form of space suit?
The Hivemind was the last thing to be seen since it took a while to ablate and liquefy enough of the resin to make a hole through. Underwhelming though, since in the Holobase mode it looked it it was moving but in reality it was just a static model floating in a bubble inside the resin. When I peered through the first hole, I kinda expected it to start lashing its tentacles at me, so the still creature was just boring.
05 Dec 2016
Felt like listening to them again and the Protectors of the Earth brought so much nostalgia that I almost teared.
The Mass Effect trilogy was truly epic, and so hopefully, Andromeda will live up to expectations.
Anyway, speaking of old games, Huxley was a game I was interested in many years ago when it was first announced but never seemed to have gotten released. So after a decade of occasional search, I have finally found closure to what seemed like a potentially great game - it was sold to a Korean company which developed it all the way to beta stage before it was shut down just a few years ago.
Maybe they realized that with just two factions, it was never going to beat Planetside 2, a game that hasn't really done too well over the years IMO after the few attempts at marketing it. Such a waste. So much must have been invested into it.
Welp that settles it - speed reading is nonsense. You can read really really fast but your brain just can't catch up, causing comprehension to get compromised beyond certain speeds.
So last week, both my bro and I agreed that the likeliest cause of all our internet issues is the router they gave us. First, our wired connections directly from the modem are always fine while only the wifi from the router is inconsistent. Second, the Linksys router only costs about US$50 on Amazon so it's clearly not a particularly durable one. Third, my wifi from my pc that is using one of the wired connections never has any issues.
The only problem here is that we came to this conclusion just after Cyber Monday.
Next year will be tough. Specifically, the arrangement of the flights to and from Canada/US will be different from the routine - again.
She will fly to Vancouver (YVR), then to California for her externship, followed by Toronto and finally back to Singapore. I will fly to Vancouver, back to Singapore, then to Toronto (YYZ) when she's leaving the US and back to Singapore again. How will I be able to arrange these flights so that we sit with each other between Canada and Singapore? Separate reservations tend to result in separate seats, presenting the biggest obstacle in this situation, yet I have never booked such flights in a single reservation before.
Will I finally have to call the airline, for once, to make a flight booking?
Seems so.
At this point, I am tempted to spend my miles on a business class upgrade because we will very likely take CX to go to YVR via HKG. First, there are no direct flights in this route. Second, CX is the best airline between HKG and YVR. Third, my Asia Miles membership is holding some miles that will expire in 2017.
15 Feb 2017
Just went for a recontract with M1 and their Fonecare+ is now quite different from the past. Not only is it a subscription-based service for some sort of insurance for phones, it also allows for contract renewals annually.
This means it makes far more sense to sign up for the phone with Fonecare+. Using the MySim plans to calculate how much my phone costs, it seems that it's cheaper to pay for this service and recontract after 12 months as compared to the usual 20-month-recontract practice.
And that's 20 months because of the existing early recontract fee waiver.
The difference between a 3GB plan with a phone and a 3GB SIM-only plan is $22 ($42 vs $20). Yes, the mySIM plan actually has 1GB more for the duration of the 12-month contract but I need 5GB anyway and a small data upsize costs $11.80 a month instead of the $5.90 rate for the normal with-phone plans, while the next bigger plan is a $10 upgrade.
So anyway, $22 a month difference. The Fonecare service is $8.50/month.
If I don't sign up for the Fonecare, I recontract at the 20th month. By then, I would have effectively paid $(22*20) = $440 for the phone.
With the Fonecare annual recontract feature, I pay just the 12 months of $22 and $8.50 = $(22+8.5)*12 = $246.
This is a difference of $194.
Of course, this is on top of the lump sum that was paid for the phone just now, so my Sony Experia XZ is costing me S$(398+194) = S$592.
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