Do not rush to buy the item on promotion...

...especially if it's a tech product, no matter the price and promotion.

Because within 1 month there will be someplace else with the same promo, or better.

There should be a theory for this I think. If not, I'll declare it under wwenze Shepherd Strategies.

Top 30 highest paid politicians in the world

http://http://www.xtremeplace.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=67992.0

Clean sweep by tiny Singapore to be in the Guinness Book of Records!
Top 30 highest paid politicians in the world and they are all from Singapore.

1. Elected President SR Nathan - S$3.9 million.
2. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong - S$3.8 million.
3. Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew - S$3.5 million.
4. Senior Minister Goh Chok Thong - S$3.5 million.
5. Senior Minister Prof Jayakumar - S$3.2 million.
6. DPM & Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng - S$2.9 million.
7. DPM & Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean - $2.9 million.
8. Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo - S$2.8 million.
9. National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan - S$2.7 million.
10. PMO Minister Lim Boon Heng - S$2.7 million.
11. Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang - S$2.7 million.
12. PMO Minister Lim Swee Say - S$2.6 million.
13. Environment Minister & Muslim Affairs Minister Dr Yaccob Ibrahim - S$2.6 million.
14. Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan - S$2.6 million.
15. Finance Minister S Tharman - S$2.6 million.
16. Education Minister & 2nd Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen - S$2.6 million.
17. Community Development Youth and Sports Minister - Dr Vivian Balakrishnan - $2.5 million.
18. Transport Minister & 2nd Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim Siang Kiat - S$2.5 million.
19. Law Minister & 2nd Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam - S$2.4 million.
20. Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong - S$2.2 million.
21. PMO Minister Lim Hwee Hwa - S$2.2 million.
22. Acting ICA Minister - Lui Tuck Yew - S$2.0 million.
23 to 30 = Senior Ministers of State and Ministers of State - each getting between S$1.8 million to S$1.5 million.

Win liaoz lor...

"Be sure your foil hat has a good low impedance ground"

Thanks to Tweeker for this creative quote.

If the shield is not grounded, it will not act as a shield. It does, however, if wired incorrectly such that it becomes return ground conductor, act as a bigger antenna for the EMI.

But I guess some audiophools don't get the concept. But I guess you don't need science to make some audio stuff.

Shielded home speaker cables, heh heh.

This is why you don't need fast internet:

1mbps plan gives ~100kB/s real dl speed

100kB/s x 60s/min = 6MB/min

= 360MB/hr

= 8640MB/day ~ 8GB per day

How often do you dl 8GB worth of stuff?

And if your dl speed is slow (~10-20kB/s) due to various reasons, all the less reason you should subscribe a faster plan.

Unless you enjoy paying more than $60 per month for the bandwidth and free gift that you don't need.

Things pple say in their signatures:

"I MAY BE A NEWBIE AT here BUT IM A 3 year VETERAN at vr forum
so trust me on my sales :)"

Here - meaning HWZ

First, 3 years = VETERAN (with the caps)?

Second, VETERAN = trustable?

I see most people with lots of experience in trading are dealers, and rule #1 - never trust dealers

Furthermore, most people who claim to be trustable turn out the opposite.

He may be honest, but his sig yields the opposite effect.

Would you buy from him?

I, for one, wouldn't.

Because noobs tend to overprice their items too.

Hypocrisy: Animal rights

(Note: This post is not specifically directed at anyone, but rather at a huge group of people, I used the link because it was available and because it gave me this topic to talk about)

http://forums.vr-zone.com/pets-lovers-corner/499367-warning-please-have-the-heart-watch.html

Once in a while, this kind of thing pops up.

Arguing for animal rights via sick videos.

Ok, lets see what's sick about this.

The gore?

Have you ever cooked before? Have you ever chopped a head or gutted something?

With your bare hands. Does the videos show anything more gross than that?

Some people go further to eat brains. My mom isn't that extreme, she only eats the eyeballs of fish and opens up the head to eat the meat.

Or, what's sick in the video is the treatment of the animals, how they were killed or left to die?

Ever been to Jurong fishery port? And looked at the fishes lying on the floor trying hard to breath? Occasionally you see a fish flop, amazing how high they can jump. But those are the lucky ones, the ones at the bottom of the pile are not so lucky.

Go to any meat farm, what you see there will not be any better than what you see in the above videos.

Because of this, I don't consider killing Chinchilla for fur any more brutal than killing animals for meat. Some people may care, because of preferential treatment - Chinchilla are cute, cows are not. And these people are hypocrites. I find chickens and ducks cute, as well as most other species of birds. But I still eat chicken. Well's that's their job. Better than let them extinct.

If you're a vegetarian because of this, than it's ok, because you're walking the talk.

What about household pests then. I find mice cute, though women (and some men/'men') may not. Does being a pest mean I can use rat poison and see them curl up, shiver and die? That's like what happened to the Chinchilla in the video. Chinchillas are also rodents btw.

How about a more extreme example - contact of a cockroach means immediate action of an overdose of neurotoxin sprayed directly in the face - I don't think there are many people opposed to that. Then you see the cockroach run a little, flip over, shake its legs like crazy, gets sprayed with more neurotoxin-in-yer'-face, stops moving.

Oh, so, that's not wrong. It's only wrong when you do it on something other than cockroaches and rats.

See, preferential treatment.

There are people who keep cockroaches as pets.

And rats are cute too.



I don't like dogs, does that mean I can shoot them?

Then all the world's dog lovers will turn against me. And there are probably more of them than animal rightists.

So, if you're not supposed to kill animals, you're not supposed to kill animals. Doesn't matter which and what way they're killed.

No point trying to discourage people with sick videos. After all, humans have done more sick things than that.

And does that mean it's okay if we don't see the sickness? Then why bother showing these videos in the first place?

Quote of the day:

"Spending $200 to mod a $200 product does not make it into a $400 product, what you get is still a $200 product with $200 spent on modding."

Did I say that before?

More on this issue to come later...

Random though of the day: Fake Monster cables

So I saw Monster cables selling on Chinese auction sites for 20RMB or less. (that's less than what we pay for normal cables in Singapore)

So it's definitely fake.

But even if you fake a Monster cable how worse can it sound? Who knows, it might even sound better.

Okay, that was a total suanage of the brand which sues everybody, including baby clothing companies.

Chinese-Made Stereo Has a Meltdown - Made by Monkeys

Chinese-Made Stereo Has a Meltdown - Made by Monkeys | Blog on Design News

That was strange!

I just cut and pasted a file when it was playing in WMP!

O.o

Or r u supposed to be able to do that? Like, deleting a file while it's playing.

PURE SONGS＠DREAM C CLUB - FINALLY!

This is probably the longest I've waited for an album - half a year, maybe more. When I saw the opening video for Dream C Club I had to get that song when it comes out.

This album is nothing spectacular, not even for its best song which IMHO is (and I believe it's supposed to be) the opening theme for the game, but that song is still above averagely good, and good songs are already hard to find. And around half of the songs are good or at least listenable, which is actually quite a feat, since most of the time I don't go for more than 3 songs in an album, and that's when I'm lucky. 1 to nil is when I'm unlucky.

Having heard all the short versions of the songs before does kill freshness, the "wow this's good" feeling you get when you first hear a good song.

Things people say on their sales thread:

"Battery life still normal(80min)"

Normal for a 3-yr-old notebook or a desktop replacement with a power-hungry gfx card

Not normal for a netbook - EEE PC 701

Any netbook without at least 2 hours of battery has no use.

I might have mentioned this before, my laptop has more than 3, probably 3-and-a-half hours of battery life. And from what I see, most laptops less than a year old have high chance of hitting 2.5hrs - playing videos. At least an Acer Extensa 4620Z managed that.

If you really want this worn out piece of crap, you can get it for $300 here, though I have a gentle reminder that this thing only cost $400 when new.

On bad soundcards (onboard) and cheap speakers -

So the Realtek onboard in my laptop sounds muther-f**king gay with its obscene bass boost that the norm consumer (and some 'audiophiles') will say "wow".

Like, you'd think people would be idiots to degrade the already bad sound even further.

Well, shoot me, because when I plugged my bro's Creative Inspire 2600 directly to my laptop's analogue out (without going through the external DAC) it actually sounded better - more full, more mids, not as whiny as usual.

And that's why more bass should definitely help for the huge majority of users on small whiny speakers $20 to $200 (and there are exceptions - I've seen speakers costing over $2-300 and still sound gay) - the overpowered sub with overtiny satellites results in two peaks and no mids. The extra bass from certain "upgrades" of soundcards/audio devices help compensate for this, hence making the sound better.

But of course, use this with any half-decent system, and you'll shouting "OMGWTF" maybe add a BBQ behind.

So, lessons learnt today:

1) System matching (synergy) is important - cheap source goes with cheap speakers, expensive sources goes with expensive speakers

2) Never, never think you're smart and others stupid, you aren't as smart as people getting paid to spend their time working on this

However, exceptions include products that are made in -

- USA
- Eastern Europe
- Middle East
- Australia (including New Zealand)
- South Africa
- Some products from China (you have to check the sources to see if they're not cheating your money)
- Hong Kong
- Singapore - all audio products that are designed in Singapore by Singaporeans are bound to be bloodsuckingly overpriced and have extremely poor performance

That leaves us with -

- Great Britain
- Germany
- Japan
- China (the good parts)
- Taiwan
- Canada
- And a small part of USA

Which is where most of the world's audio came from in the first place or where most of the current audio stuff and technology are currently being designed and produced in.

"All your speakers are made in China"
(Usher - made in Taiwan, Wharfedale - owned by IAG, the list goes on...)

But, then
"All your PSUs are made in China"
- lots of people don't realize this fact - that Delta, Seasonic, Enermax, HiPro, Acbel etc. all are Taiwanese companies with their production in China

"All you phones are made in China"
- ...this should be a given. That, or Taiwan

"All your MP3 players are made in China"
- some people can guess, but there are others that strongly believe that all the good MP3 players are not made in China. Well, wonder what'd be their expression when they know that they're still manufactured by Chinese and to some extent, designed by Chinese

With all these, speakers being made by Chinese doesn't seem bad at all.

Quote of the day:

"Noobs are more dangerous than frauds, because frauds know when to stop talking crap"

Over 9000!!!!

From this:



To this:


Wait for it...

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Rock speaker for you sir...?

No this is not a joke, nor is it a scam. It's a real, high-quality outdoor speaker:

https://www.wilmslow-audio.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=23_128&products_id=358&osCsid=3d6b2bd9e9559a8ec05ddfb41be91c34

You know something is wrong

when they give you 5 examples on the same operation in the lecture notes.

Fuk... fuk FE1006 Maths, fuk integration.

A reply to a post:

"fat tiger: hey great blog. I'm a music lover in Sg too. J**** is really overpriced for some stuff. Wish i had more knowledge of electronics to DIY"

Firstly, thanks.

Onto topic, you don't need a lot of knowledge of electronics to DIY. And what I observe is that ironically, it tends to be the case that those who DIY don't have a lot of knowledge, and those who have a lot of knowledge don't DIY because they know that a good product requires months of research, calculations, simulation, measurements (and the required associated equipments), and at least a degree in electronics engineering plus a few years of actual hands-on experience. And so in the end, most don't bother, save for a few really pro ones that aim to achieve something that is better than what their money can buy (and usually having the above mentioned requirements).

And those that really have knowledge AND time, they're getting paid to design for companies, it couldn't count as DIY.

Those that DIY - most of them don't come up with their own designs, all they do is follow (free) instructions from someone else. Like, the Mini^3 amp for example, just follow the instructions and have some soldering skills. Or, some (possibly useless) things like swapping of op-amps, adding capacitors, which again, requires little real knowledge.

It's like, a car repair technician don't need to know how to design a car. Just learn how to hold the spanner.

Sad to say, I probably needn't mention that most DIY design jobs by novices tend to turn out sucky, even those that may be repackaged and sold at obscene prices to suckers.

Yup, so you don't have to really know electronics, just need to know enough to know that buying DIY-ed stuff from others is generally stupid unless they're charging you just the construction fee. Meaning a cable should cost at most as much as what you pay if you order one from LHS. And modded items are worth at most the item + the mod. I've seen too many J****ites trying to sell overpriced stuff either out of ignorance/self-delusion or actually trying to make money by tricking suckers. A certain few trying to act pro actually go around asking for receipes then make the product to sell to said suckers. They have no dignity. So it's best to avoid when you see one.

Subtitle Fail