[the nest] home design handbook

I was killing time at Times Bookstore when I chanced upon this book [the nest] home design handbook by Carley Roney.

Home design is one of my favourite casual reading genres. I flipped through this book and saw that the author has made home design "systematic". Or some sort of "formularised". Unlike interior design magazines that show you photographs after photographs of examples, this book shows you diagrams that suggest things like how big a flat screen TV should match what distance from the couch, certain kitchen layout should have certain positionings and orientations, etc. I really like the section when it talks about the pros and cons of various sofa arrangement, such as which will facilitate casual conversation, and so on. They also show classic furniture designs throughout the years, so you don't have to worry if the book will go outdated.

Too late, I just finished one kitchen design project.

job vacancies

While I am very much employed, I think it doesn't harm to know more about how the job market is like. I chanced upon the Job Vacancies, 2009 by the Ministry of Manpower's Manpower Research and Statistics Department and find it quite informative, especially for job seekers out there. It shows the job market trend, which sectors are hiring, which positions are unfilled, what qualifications do they need, etc.

Some of the numbers caught my eyes. Firstly the number of vacancies. In 2009 they had 330 slots for software engineers, 140 for mechanical, 100 for electronics and 100 for computer engineers. For teaching they had 2760 slots which was quite openly reported by the media. However when I looked at the column "Gross Wage($)", it says that the 25th percentile for mechanical engineers is 3148. Entry level most probably can't hit that much, since I was actively job-seeking in 2009 so I know, but I also know of some mechanical engineers who have been working for years but still can't hit the 3k mark. On the other hand, Ministry of Education is quite transparent with regards to the salary of teachers, and again it isn't quite the same as the number in the report ($3412 for 25th percentile)

*shrug* I'm not here to question the report.

the thing about being a diy guy

I think during the festive season I overworked one of my household appliances (not gonna name it here) a little, and it refused to work last week. Me being the hands-on engineering type, I unscrewed and opened it up. With multimeter in hand I did some troubleshooting. After some 10 minutes of probing, I located the problem. Faulty part. Had the component been easily available I would have replaced it myself. However it is one of those very specialised parts which I don't think you can easily find on the market. So I had no choice but to call the service centre. By the way the appliance was still under warranty.

The repairman came. Without doing a thorough check he claimed it was some circuit contact problem, which I knew it clearly wasn't. Knowing clearing where the problem lied but I couldn't tell it to the serviceman, lest he blamed it on me for opening the set up myself or voiding the warranty. So I watched the repairman. He put the screws back, tested the unit and it didn't work. Unscrewed again and repeated... think he took 5x longer than me to locate the problem.

All I needed was the part replacement. One black little box half the size of your palm.

Lesson learned: don't bother DIY.

inclusive design

The 27 Jan issue of Professional Engineering magazine mentioned about "inclusive design" in the article Get a grip. One of the examples cited in the article is the OXO Good Grips which is like the textbook example in product design. If you have the chance, do read up on its design process and the difficulties faced.

I first heard of the term "inclusive design" in my product design course back in university days. When they say inclusive, it means you try to design a product suitable for most if not all of the population. It is not "exclusive" like designing only for the silver generation. You design it such that both old and young can use the product with ease.

Another example in the article is the cordless phone, which reminds me of something at home. There was once my Old Man had finished a phone conversation but forgot to press the hang-up button. Technically I'm not sure if the timer at the telco would continue ticking, but at least I know incoming call couldn't get through. I think the idea of pressing a button instead of physically hanging up the handset needs a bit of getting used to for the older generation, which I think can be solved by an auto hang-up function when the handset is put back into the cradle.

To make everyone happy has always been challenging.

*poot*

The version of the ad I found on youtube is slightly different from the one we see on TV here.

I really like this ad, cos I visit the supermarket quite frequently and it shows ultimate bochup-ness of the cashier. I like. And well I did think of the idea of making the *toot* sound when tapping the ezlink card.

Are we all working like a machine?

food for thought

The workers want to get paid without working.
The bosses want workers to work without paying.
But in the real world, that is not quite possible. (except investing)
And so a balance has to be struck somewhere in the middle.
The workers work a bit.
The bosses pay a bit.
The workers will take every chance to slack.
The bosses will take every chance to cut pay.
And so it continues...

(have been thinking about career and job issues lately...)

what the fat

Mahjong is like one of the popular games played during Chinese New Year. So yesterday we went to visit some family friends and they had set up 2 mahjong tables in the 5-room flat.

I know how to play, but I'm not a big fan of it and so I didn't join in the fight. But the others were. They played whole afternoon, they played after dinner. 3 of us in the family were like falling asleep on the sofa at the family friends' place at midnight cos The Old Man was still at the table, pitting against others. The interesting thing about mahjong is, you can't leave as and when you want to, you have to finish the "wind". And if someone can't stop winning consecutively, you can wait until the cow comes home and the "wind" is still unchanged.

That's the power of gambling (although some argue that mahjong is not really a gambling game). Yawwwnnnn

and so i complained

Went to have dinner at a particular Thai restaurant at Esplanade. Seeing that they were a bit short-handed, I went to pay the bill at the cashier instead of waiting at the table. (although I could have argued with myself that I paid the 10% service charge, and bringing the bill to your table is part of service)

And so I queued up at the cashier as there was another customer in front of me. Then a kiddo (aka early 20-something years old kid) came to the other end of the queue, and the cashier served him first. I kept quiet. After the cashier was done with him, the manager brought another bill from some table and the cashier went to process it first. My camouflage skill has levelled-up.

Ok, I could have voiced up when that kiddo was there, but somehow I didn't feel like starting a dispute between 2 customers and spoiling so many people's mood. Yet on the other hand I wouldn't be doing myself justice if I let the manager cut my queue. So I told the cashier I got jumped twice in the queue. She dropped the manager's one and did mine. With apologies.

I can't imagine had I asked for and waited for the bill at the table, how many more times would I have been jumped in the queue.

cny away from home

It's the eve of Chinese New Year today. This morning I went to the supermarket near my place and it was packed with many shoppers at every square inch, many of them were construction workers from China.

Busy-body me peered into their baskets and what I saw were baskets full of fish, crabs, etc. At the alcohol section many were deciding which brand of beer to buy. I almost went "Woah!" when one carried a whole 24-cans of Kingway Beer. Obviously they are going to cook up a feast tonight, and I think they deserve it. Having to be away from home and family to work in foreign land, and to be away even at the time for reunion, is not easy. Hope they can enjoy the occasion with fellow countrymen and even us from the host country.

As for us, let's treasure the opportunity to be with our loved ones.

Happy Chinese New Year to all!

the cashier queue

Today I went to this particular DIY store to buy some stuff. I don't know what was wrong with the cash register machine, but everytime the cashier had finished scanning the products' barcode, you had to wait for a minute or two before the drawer popped out and the receipt printed out. Obviously a technical problem. A queue slowly built up, and I have never seen such long queue at DIY stores before.

The funny thing is, there are 2 counters and the other cashier counter was not open.

I feel that be it supermarkets or shops, dispersal at the checkout counter is very important. For me one of the most disgusting sights at the supermarket is the long queues of full trolleys at the checkout. Sometimes you don't feel like waiting you just want to scream "ABANDON SHIP" and dump your trolley to one side and walk out of the supermarket. (provided you didn't deposit the $1 coin)

Maybe that doesn't justify the shop hiring extra hands and opening more cashier counters. Customers can wait.

high speed trains around the world

It doesn't really bother me if California is going to have high speed rail or not, but I quite like this informative video clip on the high speed trains around the world. It shows how the speed has increased through the years, how high speed rails compare with travelling by car and by train, etc. Well, and I sure am glad I've ridden on one of the high speed rails featured in the clip.

brute force method at supermarket

A lot of the times when I was at the perishables section of the supermarket, I saw some shoppers (especially the males) trying to pull the perforated HDPE plastic bag with a forceful jerk perpendicular to the dotted line. I don't know if they were trying to show how macho they were, or they were plain toopid, but all one needs to do is to just gently tear along the pre-cut (aka perforation) and you get the plastic bag off from the roll. When they try to force the plastic bag loose, sometimes they damage the roll holder, or they end up hitting other shoppers.

It's got something to do with mechanics of material or material science, which I have conveniently forgotten most of the stuffs. Crack propagation?

Or just try breaking a piece of newspaper into two by 1) pulling it on both ends; or 2) tearing it like how you tear paper. Just see which method uses less force.

engineer's guide to cats

yihao shared this video "An Engineer's Guide to Cats" after I wrote about cocktails. It's quite funny, and hopefully they are teaching the right thing about cats.