Visit to NEWater plant in Bedok

We visited the NEWater plant in Bedok today as part of an initiative to bring about awareness of things uniquely Singapore.

NEWater is about recycling used/waste water into water that can be used again, either in the industries or even for subsequent drinking. The waste water is first processed to rid it of big particles and other unwanted elements somewhere else. Then it is sent for ultrafiltration to remove the larger remaining particles. Reverse osmosis is then used to extract the water out, and then it is sent for sterilisation using ultraviolet light.

Recycling our waste water reminds me of the stillsuits in Dune, in which the body's water is recovered and made ready to drink again. Frank Herbert, author of the series, really had good ideas on how to recover precious water from the environment. Another example is the windtrap, which tries to recover water from the air. Science fiction may one day become fact, though it may still be years before we see them.

Busy busy busy

So much to do, yet so little time...

Sometimes, life just throws everything at you at one go. Now I know how a clown feels juggling many many balls... you have to try to watch all of them, keep enough attention on each just long enough to keep it from dropping, yet not long enough that you ignore the rest.

Farewell, fair winds and following seas

Today, we bid farewell to someone who was with the organisation for 30 years, contributing in his own ways to improve the organisation and bringing about transformation to the way we work. Thank you sir, for all your service these years, we will carry on the fine tradition from here onwards!

San Diego Apr 10

I was at San Diego for a week on work, but also managed to squeeze in some time for sightseeing. The main attraction was USS Midway (more on that later) but I managed to meet up with an old friend, so a Mexican dinner.

Ever had a fried ice cream? I had one. It was ice cream wrapped in egg and cereal, deep fried for 2 minutes.

On to USS Midway. I had the fortune of having a tour guide that served 4 tours totaling 8 years onboard (yes, that's my old friend) so he was able to not just bring me around the aircraft carrier but threw in stories that no one else knew about. Like the CO was not relieved of duty after the carrier was hit by a merchant hit. How his stateroom has a carpet and a TV. Sneaking up on the Soviet coast during the Cold War.

Here's a view of San Diego from the island of the carrier.

A view of the flight deck, with an assortment of aircraft that served the US Navy.

The enormous laundry... imagine washing clothes for 5000 people.

The galley where food is served, and the all too familiar metal trays.

The forecastle where the anchor is.

Plus the "toothpick" used to turn/untwist the anchor cable.

Casualty power cables...

Sliding stairs. The sides of the stairs can be folded down to form a slide, very useful when you need to slide things up and down the stairs, such as a stretcher with a casualty onboard.

A wonderful tour, an eye-opener, and all because I had a great tour guide.

Fedora 12 on new laptop

I finally managed to install Fedora 12 on my new laptop. It dual boots into Fedora 12 and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

Laptop specs:
Toshiba Satellite A505-S6040
Intel i7 720QM
6GB RAM
Nvidia GT330M with 1GB VRAM

The main problems installing Fedora 12 were the installation itself, USB, wireless and video. Let's tackle one at a time.

The first problem is with installing. Video is a problem, so I had to choose the installation option to install with a basic video driver. The next problem was with USB, could't get it to work, so I ended up having to use the touchpad instead of a USB mouse. But that should see you through the installation from a DVD.

To solve the USB problem, after installing, I added the following to the kernel parameters (in /etc/grub/grub.conf):
acpi=noirq

For wireless, Fedora 12 doesn't support Realtek RTL8191 (the wireless for the laptop), so I downloaded the Linux driver from Realtek (as of today, the latest is the one for RTL8192SE). Then all I needed to do was to (as superuser) make and make install (after uncompressing the tarball). However, everytime you have a new kernel, you will need to redo this until kernel support for the RTL8191 is in place.

Last was Nvidia video. I followed the instructions here to install the proprietary drivers. But that was not enough. The system kept hanging. I searched the forums and found that I need to add the following line under the Device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
Option "UseEvents" "False"

There are some other good tips on installing Fedora 12 that you can find here.

So now I am back to being a Linux user!

By the way, these instructions should work for most Toshiba A505-S60XX especially since they share common hardware. Good luck!

Edit: For computers with Intel processors having more than 3GB of RAM, you will need to add "iommu=soft" to the kernel options to prevent X11 from hanging.

Happy Birthday Ren (one year old)

Happy birthday to baby Ren! One year old already! Time really flies...

Earth Hour 2010

This year's Earth Hour is on 27 Mar, at 8:30pm local time. I have written about it last year, and this year is no different. We didn't go out of the way to turn out the lights because it is something that we already do on a daily basis. The important thing is not to join the crowd in that one hour per year, but to make it a part of your life and practise it on a daily basis.

Turning out the lights but holding a concert seems to be contradictory... a concert does use up quite a bit of energy, with lights and sound. But I do know that the concert's aim is to gather attention, not save energy. Still, I just can't seem to accept using all that energy... but that's just me. Some would just enjoy the concert and not think too much about it.

JapanToday's report on Earth Hour

Flying business

Just a thought... there is a reason why business class is called business class. It is meant for people who are flying because of business. Because unlike flying for holidays, when you fly for business, you want to arrive fresh and ready to work (since you are being paid to travel, you need to be productive). So while business class is going to cost the company more, it maintains the image of the company (you arrive fresh and professional, rather than yawning away fighting jet lag) and in the end, is more productive since you are in the working mode (rather than the jet lag mode).

Saving money for the company is important, but there are some things that we shouldn't scrimp on.

On monogamy and polygamy

An article in The Straits Times published in the Review section on 18 Mar 10, titled "Blame the woman, spare the man" (read it here is you are not a subscriber of The Straits Times), caught my attention and set me thinking about societies that advocate monogamy and those that allowed polygamy.

We are humans, all the same species, yet why did we develop differently?

My own pet theory on this. Not backed up by research since I am not any authority on this and not getting any degrees out of it.

Maybe it is because of food? No one will deny that in general, men are stronger than women, and that men have generally been the ones who bring home the food. The amount of food than a man can produce thus determines the size of the family that he can feed.

In an agricultural society, the supply of food is steady (you reap what you sow) and thus a man is able to properly feed a certain family size based on the amount of food that he can produce. This steady supply of food means that he is able to maintain a sizeable family. He can thus feed more wives and more children.

In a hunter/gatherer society, the supply of food is not constant. A man may not be able to gather enough to feed a sizeable family, and thus it is best to keep the family size small and manageable. He keeps to one wife and has less children so that they don't starve.

In societies living under harsh conditions, men die off easily as they go about their business of getting food. It thus makes sense for a woman to have multiple sources of food, so that she maintains a supply of food to feed her children. We thus see the reverse in which a woman has many husbands.

Just my own thought on this, actual research may yield totally different conclusions.

Scribblings from the plane

Just some scribblings while flying around...

书上读来终难解
不如一睹万法清
------------------
东奔西跑不能挡
四处留情欲难拦

Zoo trip Mar 2010

We went to the zoo, first trip for the baby, though our last trip to the zoo was a year ago with his cousin. But unlike his cousin then, the baby still can't walk, so we pushed him along in his stroller and carried him around once in a while.

Got stopped in our tracks by a heavy downpour. But that didn't deter us from completing the trip to the zoo. Once the rain let up, we continued to press on. By then, the baby was a bit tired, and he ended up sleeping in his stroller.

Here's a shot of a black jaguar. Full black coat of fur, real cool!

On misunderstandings

Just a thought... was watching a Japanese drama (will be writing on that one in the near future) when this thing about misunderstandings came to me. Misunderstandings probably result from lack of communications. When two persons don't talk enough to each other, and only try to piece together little bits of information from here and there, that is when misunderstandings can grow. The solution is actually to sit down, and talk to each other to fill in the missing pieces. It is easy to get angry over misunderstandings, it is harder to find the strength to sit down and talk things through.

USA Trip Feb 10

Took a trip to the USA in February (San Diego to be exact), here are some pictures. It was a short trip for work, so I didn't go around much, even though San Diego is famous for Sea World, the zoo and Legoland.

Sunset over San Diego

Gaslamp Quarter at San Diego

Me and my cousin's son, Jayden. Taken when I visited them in Los Angeles, on transit during the flight home.

A trip down memory lane

On Chinese New Year's eve this year, I took a walk at the floral centre at Tampines Road, where my father used to have his shop (my uncle is running it now). It brings back memories of my younger days, when I would help out at the shop selling plants. Especially during the few weeks leading up to Chinese New Year, when we would be busy selling festive plants till late at night. It was usually the busiest on Chinese New Year's eve, where we would be selling plants till the wee hours, shouting "lelong lelong" as we cut the prices to clear stock. Besides selling plants, I would also help deliver them, sitting at the back of lorries as we whizzed through the roads at night delivering plants.

I haven't been doing this for many years now. Walking around and taking in the festive mood this year, I can't help but feel nostalgic about the memories of my younger days.

Sometimes, our roots run deep and hidden, that we ourselves may not be aware how deep they run.

Happy Year of the Tiger!

It is the Year of the Tiger. Here's wishing everyone a great tiger year ahead!