Countdown Timer

Suppose you are the meeting organizer. The schedule is tight. You want everyone sticks to the session duration assigned, and remind him/her at the end of session. You also set the break time between the session. This Countdown Timer is right for you.

The binary jar can be download from here.
The source code can be download from here.

Right click to save it. To run the Countdown Timer, use
java -jar CountdownTimer.jar [session in minutes] [break in minutes]

南洋理工大学里吃饭的地方

南洋理工大学就是NTU了, 是个正经的大学. 不要和南洋理工学院(Nanyang Poly)搞混了. 上回那个手机作爱录像的女生是南洋理工学院的.

言归正传. 因为天气热, 新加坡人一般都在外面吃. NTU地处新岛的西边, 出去不是很方便. 所以在学校里面吃是最适合的了. 好处是学校里人简单干净, 而且饭还有补贴, 比外边相对就便宜一些.

如果想吃餐馆, NTU里就一家, 叫五月花, 味道不错, 干净宽敞. 自己人去吃, 没有小费, 还有打折, 在NEC边(不是日本的那个, 是Nanyang Executive Center, 新加坡把Executive真的叫烂了. 里头主要是从中国来学习培训的官员).

稍微便宜点儿的, 有几个Cafes, 其中一个叫QUAD. 位于南洋大礼堂附近. 吃喝的东西和食堂差不多. 里头的小姑娘大概是雇来的. 因为不是自己的生意, 也都不热情的样子.

其他都是食堂性质的了. 叫做Canteen. 这个词很有意思. 按拼音, 也发成了餐厅.

Canteen 1和Canteen 2离的比较近. 中间还有一个去Jurong Point免费的车站. Canteen 1里面的中餐很不错. 据说有人还专门周末从外面来吃. Canteen 2则里一些商店很近. 吃完可以买些东西. 价格也很公道. 有的比外面的还便宜.

Canteen 3在NIE(南洋教育学院)附近. 里面有个小炒的摊位. 这三个都有空调. 吃饭比较舒服一些.

Canteen A, B位于工程学院, Canteen A里有家麦当劳. Canteen 4, 5里Canteen 1比较近, 其他还有Canteen 9 , 11, 13, 14, 都没有空调, 去的比较少. 去过Canteen 4一次, 蚊子很猖狂, 被咬的不行. 再也不敢去了.

Google Desktop is good

Google Desktop is very handy when you want to dig some files on your desktop. I really like it. The first time indexing maybe time consuming, but afterwards, type something in the search box, all the info pops up in a snap. It searches Outlook, browser cache, and all kinds of documents. Some Google Gadgets come along with Google Desktop. I usually remove them all to make my desktop tidy.

http://desktop.google.com/

Childcare centers to extend hours

I heard on the radio, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports suggests childcare centers to extend their office hours to help both-working young parents. In the news, it mentioned some already extended the close hour to 8:30PM. 8:30PM, gosh! Life sucks if someone really needs pick up the kids that late.

Another related is about some Malaysia children. In order to study in Singapore school here, they get up at 4AM in the morning because it takes a while to pass the Malaysia-Singapore border. Even the Singapore local kids, they get up very early in the morning.

Church Wedding

We attended a friend's church wedding during the weekend. We saw church wedding dozens of times in movies, but it is our first time to be really there.

The new couple both are Christians. The ceremony is well attended. I don't expect so many guests, colleagues, friends, and Christian brothers/sisters.

The program is ordered as
- Arrival of Guests
- Processional
- Songs of Praise
- Exhortation
- Solemnization
- Special Item 1 (Song)
- Special Item 2 (Dance)
- Song of Commitment
- Recessional
- Re-entry of couple
- Appreciation Speech
- Prayer of Blessings
- Photo Taking
- Buffet Lunch Reception

It lasts 2.5 hours. Everything is good. Just during the lunch, it is reeeally hot.

Bravo! Blessing them.

Check memory and swap on Solaris

On Linux, use free to check them. One Solaris, no 'free' free.

To check memory, run /usr/sbin/prtconf | grep size
To check swap, run swap -l

If some applications need more swap to install, add swap as below

mkfile 1000m /var/newswap
swap -a /var/newswap

To make this swap permanent, add a line to /etc/vfstab
/var/newswap - - swap - no -

店小二@Marina Square

进了Marina Square, 一定不会错过这家店.整个餐馆布置的好象宋朝酒肆的感觉. 门口还挂着三个酒幡, 分别写着茶, 鸭, 酒.里面的服务员也穿着古代店小二的对襟. 桌凳都是古朴的风格.菜单上来.我们点了药材烤鸭, 东坡肉, 古法蒸鱼, 长生不老汤, 都很有特色.两到三人份的盘子, 一般是12新元左右. 给我们点菜的小姐也不知道是故意的还是本来就那样, 说的都是儿化音, 很有意思.

黄山

Jurong East Swimming Complex

The swimming pool in NTU starts at 1.4m, not suitable for small kids. We went to Jurong East Swimming Complex. This complex facilities look very similar to the Wild Wild Wet in the east. The ticket is just $2 per entry while that WWW costs $15. Because it is cheap, this complex has much more people inside. I saw quite a few with tattoos. Cool.

Pariss International Seafood Buffet@Marina Square

We ate there once as group gathering. The price after those small ++ (10% service charge, 5% GST tax) can range from $40 to $50, depending weekend or not, dinner or lunch. I ate the raw oyster for the first time there. Otherwise I don't know if I can eat that much to justify the price.

No more such cigarettes

- cheap brand, just one or two bucks cheaper, but smells awful.
- menthol blend, it covers up the original smell.
- strong flavour, the tar and nicotine is so high.

No smoking sign

Watch out this sign before you light the cigarette up. SGD 1000 fine! However, I wonder if someone had really paid so much for violation.

CPF

Good or bad, there are tons of acronyms in Singapore. One is CPF. Something like social security fund, but is much better. Only Singapore citizen and PR can have it. There are 3 type CPF accounts associated with you - Ordinary 2.5% APR, Special 4% APR, and Medisave 4% APR. The interest is good, if you consider the normal local bank's 0.2% APR. A percentage of your salary is automatically put into these accounts. Event better, the employer will put the same amount of money as while, so it is just as salary raise.

Because it is so good, you can't put in your money as much as you want. There is a cap. Only SGD 4500 of your salary is eligible for CPF. The percentage for CPF starts low, and increase year by year. Mine starts with 5%.

AYE@9:20AM

Oh-yah! Free to go. The expressway in Singapore has very good quality. Because of the frequent thunderstorm, they use some special paving materials which is very good - even in the rain, the road looks dry. Look the trees along the roadside. How nice :)

Hollywood

Chinese Theatre and Kodak Theatre.

That main street is actually very dirty and shabby. Along the street, there are dozens of small stores selling cheap hollywood souvenirs. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is very impressive. It also shows a very big culture difference between east and west. In Asia, no celebrity wants his/her name on the sidewalk, kissing strangers' shoes, hiahia.

Pawn Fishing

The pawn fishing place is located nearby Jurong Bird Park, another side of parking lot. We actually watched other people pawn fishing. It seems very easy. Put some raw meat in hook, dip in, wait 1 or 2 minutes, a pawn is hooked. After watched for a while, we rent 2 fishing poles to try. $13 for a hour, with a fishing pole, some raw meat.

Pawn fishing now...

After a hour, we get ZERO pawn hooked! That is very frustrating.

Some luxury car brands over SGD 500K

Aston Martin DB9 Volante ---------------SGD 725K
Bentley Continental GT ------------------SGD 700K
BMW 7 Series 760Li ---------------------SGD 538K
Mercedes Benz SL 55 AMG --------------SGD 525K
Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet 4S --------SGD 535K

Laksa

Post a blog about Laksa before. It is still one of my favorites. Yummy.

新达城和财富之泉

就是前面Google Earth里面的那个地方了. 这一带是新加坡的甲级办公楼区, 大多是欧美日本公司. 另一个甲级办公楼区在市中心, 大都是新加坡本地的大公司, 银行电信什么的.

Singapore National Day

Today Singapore is 41. Happy birthday. Not easy for such a small country achieves such a large, and the ball's still rolling.

Winter in Singapore

Singapore is located on tropical. Winter can only be found in two places, so far as I know.

One is Snow City, located nearby Singapore Science Center. It is really chilly cold. Visitors can rent the winter clothes/shoes there, and enter the world of snow. You can play snow sliding on rubber tire, or snowballing there.

Another is Fuji Ice Palace, located on top floor of Jurong Entertainment Center, nearby Jurong East MRT. This one is nice cool. Yes, ice-skating is what to do. Bring some extra clothes, but some just wearing polo and jeans.

Weekend in West Mall

Yesterday evening, tired of Jurong Point and IMM, we drove to West Mall. These 3 malls are the only 3 malls in Singapore west area. Jurong Point is next to Boon Lay MRT. West Mall is next to Bukit Badok MRT. There are much more residents around West Mall, which is Jurong East area, than Jurong Point, which is Jurong West area.

It is totally crazy. Because so many residents live around this tiny West Mall, the whole mall is packed with people. There are 2 restaurants in second floor, one in third floor. Every restaurant has at least a dozen of people waiting outside the door. We don't want to wait, so go to food court in fourth floor. You can guess, it is very crowded. You have to wait to find some place to sit. We bought fish noodle, SGD 4.00, taste okay; chicken rice, SGD 3.20, soup is not so fresh; korean BBQ, SGD 5.50, rice is not fresh; handmade noodle, SGD 3.50, noodle is not fresh.

Back from West Mall, we agree not go there anymore, especially during the weekend.

Google Earth

This is the satellite image of Singapore Suntec City in Google Earth. Based on Feng Shui, it is a shape of hand grabing fortune.

Google Translate

Google Translate translates the following blog from English to Simplified Chinese.

http://kunwei2005.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_kunwei2005_archive.html#115310280965725171

新加坡对这个问题很现实. 卖淫是合法的. Geylang地区是著名的红灯地区. 我听到香港官员正在考虑这件事在香港也合法化. 新加坡人不容许卖淫. 也许还特别方案资源. 妓女是外籍劳工,主要来自穷国的海域,如印尼、泰国、印度、马来西亚、中国不是. 特别是他们在2年的工作证、健康的,必须通过考试,当然,以防止艾滋病等性病、爱滋病等. 妓院混有正常的房屋居住. 妓院的房子是红色的灯光. SGD价格从50200SGD. 非法色情业也存在,有些按摩诊所. 最近一宗案件,十分有效的新政策作出特殊的社会群体中妈妈陪同孩子学习热再度流行媒体.

My translation

新加坡对这个问题很现实, 卖淫是合法的. 芽笼地区是著名的红灯区. 据说香港政府也正在考虑将这一行业在香港合法化. 新加坡本地人不容许卖淫. 新加坡永久居民也不可以. 妓女都是外籍劳工, 主要来自东南亚比较贫穷的国家, 例如印尼、泰国、印度、马来西亚. 但是不能从中国雇佣. 这些 妓女必须通过一系列的性传播疾病的检查, 例如HIV, AIDS, 并取得2年有效的特殊工作签证. 妓院往往和普通居民住宅混杂在一起, 妓院的屋牌号装饰红灯以做区别. 价格从新元50到200不等. 非法色情业也在此滋生, 包括有些按摩院. 最近一宗致命案件和刚生效的新政策, 也使一个特殊的群体 - 陪读妈妈成为媒体讨论的热点.

No blog for almost a week

Suddenly feel nothing to write about in the blog. I guess my excitement feeling as a newcomer is fading away. Everyday is the same day - wake up, drive to office, some work, cigarette, oolong tea, lunch at food court, drive back home, play with kid, watch TV and sleep. I need plan to go some other places.

One thing interesting here is, Singaporean uses one word 出国 for all travel, which is true, if you trip is 1 hour plus, you are out of this tiny country.