Thoughts that cross my mind
Listening to May speaking at Florence, Italy, on the reasons why UK will leave the EU sinking ship. EU driven by only one large propeller (Germany) and two minor ones (France and Italy) will soon run aground.
So far, her points are in alignment with Lee Kuan Yew’s observations made some 30 years ago. The new observations he made before passing away in March 2015 (Lee Kuan Yew reflects on Europe, immigration and politics)
Things will be interesting.
Last weekend’s F1 race in Singapore saw a dramatic crash which took out the Ferrari team. Lewis Hamilton who started in 5th position, roared past other drivers to take podium while racing in the 1st wet night race in F1 history.
After the race, a British couple got onto the track and took selfies. Usually that would not bring any notice, except this F1 fan had to broadcast his enthusiasm on the Internet and of all, insisted he had bribed the security guard to get onto the track.
Bribe. The 5 letter word. BRIBE.
Probably lost his mind when he said the ‘Bribe’ word in the context of a high security sporting event.
Apart from these controversies, I read on the local online papers and saw this report (76% of Singaporeans positive towards new F1 deal)
An excerpt of the article as follows:
“A report by global media intelligence firm Meltwater — which tracked online reactions in the lead-up to and during the race weekend — showed that 76 per cent of Singaporeans had reacted positively to news of the deal, which was announced by Formula One, Singapore Tourism Board and race promoter Singapore GP last Friday (Sept 15).”
Keywords noted here. tracked online reactions, the lead-up, during the race weekend, 76 per cent of Singaporeans had reacted positively to news of the deal.
For the uninitiated, the F1 deal was renewed before race day. The last renewal was a standard 5 year contract but this renewal was one year less than the standard.
Remains to be seen whether was the positive reaction attributable to the renewal of the the contract, or one year less of suffering to be experienced by 76% of Singaporeans.
Lastly, the misleading title by TodayOnline shows how Journalism in Singapore has gone to the dumbs.
By skimming the headlines and not reading into the lines, anyone could be have mistaken that 76% of ALL SINGAPOREANS agree to have the F1 race renewed. Let’s run some numbers here.
Statistics showing the estimated number of Singaporeans online, we get 4,699,204 (estimated) online users. Using these numbers, 76% react favourable to F1 race. This gives 3,571,396.
With the mid year estimates from Statistics Singapore, the total population in Singapore is 5,607,300. This gives 63.6% which is more than 10% difference from that headline number.
But the foot note in the statistics indicate “Total population comprises Singapore residents and non-residents. The resident population comprises Singapore citizens and permanent residents.”
So let’s look at the resident population only – 3,933,600. Doing the calculations gives an estimated 90.7%. 90.7% on the Singapore online population approved the F1 race? Even if the the calculations from the “global media intelligence firm Meltwater” is off, its more than 10% off from the reported numbers.
This begs the question. Are the numbers provided by “global media intelligence firm Meltwater” correct? If they aren’t correct, why are this ‘news’ being reported?
One last thing – Counting 4 years, the next contract review will be up in 2021. Ahh, another big event coming up there. Care to take a guess?
I came across an Bloomberg interview with Jack Ma about Alibaba. Pretty much firing a salvo across the broad side of most global payment providers, despite what he said.
Looking into Alibaba’s payments platform, Alipay, I was not surprised to find it has bought out HelloPay in Singapore. But what caught my eye was the blurb at the bottom of the homepage.
If you have registered multiple Office 2016 (standalone) to only one email address, Microsoft activation is likely to deny your second or subsequent activation even when you have valid product keys.
Why so? The reason is simple -> Microsoft Office activation was written by a bunch of kindergarteners.
if any of the microsoftie kindergarteners are reading this, go check out McAfee AV’s activation as a model to follow.
Here’s the steps to reset the second or subsequent activations, assuming you are comfortable with the Windows command line.
1. Determine whether 64bit or 32bit version of Office 2016 was installed. To find out, look for the OSPP.VBS file in the Office16 directory.
Go to the Program Files -> Microsoft Office -> Office16. There’s either “Program Files (x86)” or “Program Files”. If you find the OSPP.VBS file in the “Program Files (x86)” directory, means you are running a 32bit Office 2016.
2. If you are using the 32 bit version, go on to step 3. Else jump to the bottom then back to step 3.
3. Run the following to get the existing Product key
Look for the last line that says “Last five characters of the installed product key: XXXXX”
cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /dstatus
4. With this five chars, run the next command to remove the (incorrect) product key currently registered with, XXXX refers to the 5 chars from the above /dstatus output.
cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /unpkey:XXXX
5. Next, run this command, substituting the xxxx with the new Product key which you can find on the Office 2016 subscriptions page.
cscript “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS” /inpkey:xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
6. Then activate the licence
cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS" /act
If you are running the 64bit version, replace
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS"
with
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\OSPP.VBS"
I was watching the nightly news when I saw an interview with a Urban Planning expert say Orchard Road needs to do this, Orchard Road needs to do that.
On hindsight, I realise humans don’t treasure free and well intentioned advice. As such, there has to be a price tag on the advice. Ah. I’ll be charging consultation fees then.
Retail is dead. Don’t you get it? I got it, most people got it. Perhaps those hadn’t gotten the memo would be th marketers, full time influenzas (sic) spreading their shopping disease around and those who will die if their money doesn’t leave their purse.
Here’s the ST link to the same interview.
My electric oven had stopped working after a long period of disuse. I hadn’t got time to troubleshoot the reason for it being out of order, (Out of order: (of a device) not working properly or at all. Conversely, what do you call an equipment which is in working order? In order? It’s called ‘working’)
Repair man says he will be arriving during the afternoon from 4 to 6pm. Does that mean I’ll need to roll out the red carpet while waiting for Emperor Repair Man’s grand entrance?
Considering there is a charge of $60 for a onsite diagnosis (no repair or parts) and I’ve still got to take time off from work to let this guy in. This is becoming quite an expensive endeavour.
Is there a way/method to fix a specific time (ie. 6pm) for the repair man to arrive?
I thought I had left the Spotify app running when I shutdown the Mac. It turns out that Spotify set itself up to start up after login.
The more interesting thing is that you can’t disable this automatic startup from the Spotify app.
The method to stop Spotify from starting up after login, is to:
and click on the 
(minus) icon.
Caught my eye when reading the online news this morning.
Antidepressants found in brains of fish in Niagara River
The discovery of antidepressants in aquatic life in the river raises serious environmental concerns, says lead scientist Diana Aga, PhD, the Henry M. Woodburn Professor of Chemistry in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.
“These active ingredients from antidepressants, which are coming out from wastewater treatment plants, are accumulating in fish brains,” Aga says. “It is a threat to biodiversity, and we should be very concerned.”
Wastewater treatment facilities have failed to keep pace with the growth of Americans taking anti-depressant drugs, which has risen 65 percent between 1999 and 2002 and 2011-2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Treatment plants typically ignore these drugs, which are then released into the environment, Aga says.
Link: http://wivb.com/2017/09/05/antidepressants-found-in-brains-of-fish-in-niagara-river/
I had an inkling of this madness when a study found drugs in the River Thames but this takes the cake since Red meat is bad, Vegetables has levels of pesticides.
Now, does the AVA test for these? I would think the risk of drugs found in sea-dwelling fishes is much lesser than those caught from rivers close to human inhabitation.
Went running last week and tripped on uneven ground. Superficial skin trauma and hurt the left side of the hip real bad – no bone fracture though.
I guess I’ll be out of action for the next couple weeks.
Ugh
Went Macritchie for the treetop walk last weekend. It was a short walk, with a fair bit of people on the trails.
I saw a few Gurkhas walking the trails as well, with a backpack behind them. I’m sure it’s part of their training regime.
I recalled jungle training during my army days and kinda missed the navigation in jungle bit.
Feeling inspired, I reached out to my army buddy and found he’s part of a group organising such trail walks.
I’ll be starting with the walks on the following weekend. I’ll be reusing the old army fieldpack (no webbing) still in serviceable condition. The fieldpack took me from Singapore to Brunei to Thailand, sustaining only superficial cuts.
On a side note, I can’t fathom how a person can get his fieldpack damaged beyond recoverability. Did I get my fieldpack from a good batch? Hmm…