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bert's blog v1.21 Powered by glolg Programmed with Perl 5.6.1 on Apache/1.3.27 (Red Hat Linux) best viewed at 1024 x 768 resolution on Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ entry views: 2996 today's page views: 75 (10 mobile) all-time page views: 3242673 most viewed entry: 18739 views most commented entry: 14 comments number of entries: 1214 page created Wed Apr 9, 2025 07:23:09 |
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- tagcloud - academics [70] art [8] changelog [49] current events [36] cute stuff [12] gaming [11] music [8] outings [16] philosophy [10] poetry [4] programming [15] rants [5] reviews [8] sport [37] travel [19] work [3] miscellaneous [75] |
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- category tags - academics art changelog current events cute stuff gaming miscellaneous music outings philosophy poetry programming rants reviews sport travel work tags in total: 386 |
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- current events - Computer Level Up Didn't mean to upgrade my computer, but after a couple of good years, it has begun taking several minutes to boot (probable motherboard issue?), and has occasionally required random reseating of the graphics card/RAM to do so. Things came to a head on New Year's Day, when, exasperated after a fruitless hour of fiddling with unrepentant electronics, I resolved to put my TA income to good use. The procedure has become fairly ingrained by now - I extracted the (relatively new) graphics card, DVD-RW drive and the still unused floppy drive and hopped on the train to Bugis, and thereupon to Sim Lim Square. As I wasn't in the mood to hunt about and save a few bucks on the side this time (not helped by not wanting to lug loose boxes home), I made a beeline to Fuwell and picked out the components I wanted, and had their affiliates assemble the system (which includes OS installation, and takes about an hour) for S$20. The deed done, I took a cab home (amazing how having some extra disposable income changes behaviours), transferred all my other hard drives and a case fan over from my old machine, and took stock:
...which should about cover it.  Mr. Ham considered moving in, having come into some money, but decided that real estate prices hadn't hit bottom yet, even though he managed to get exempted from stamp duty Part-by-part comments: CPU - It was this or the i7, given that AMD hasn't quite been keeping pace (and might not even be trying too hard to), and the additional perks of the i7 don't seem worth an additional S$150 or so to me. RAM - Having finally resolved to move to 64-bit Windows, I couldn't quite stay with 4GB, and since 8GB goes for less than S$100, why not 16GB? I've never regretted having more RAM, what with intense graphics processing/editing (and possible video editing) on the menu. Ah, for the days when I tinkered with MagnaRAM, collected free email accounts and installed loads of startup programs of dubious utility circa 1997 (alright, I still do the startup apps thing) There's more - recall the (kinda) new fad of solid state drives (i.e. glorified flash drives) for that extra bit of speed during bootup and gaming? Well, some freeware can convert 4GB of RAM into a virtual hard drive, which in theory smokes SSDs in speed, and moreover doesn't have the issue of limited write cycles, which can be a concern when used as a (web browser) cache/scratch disc. RAM avoids all this, though at the cost of longer bootup/shutdown times if the disc contents are to be conserved when the computer is powered down. Mobo - I've got to admit that I haven't been keeping up with motherboards, other than that it is possible to drop a few hundred bucks more on something that can support multiple graphics cards. Having no plans to do that, I asked for a recommendation, and this "Military Class" specimen with four USB3.0 ports and six SATA ports (including two SATA 6Gb/s ones) does the trick. Also, it comes from the same manufacturer as my graphics card. GPU - See here. Running fine, the problem was with the old mobo after all. PSU - My previous CM 600W Silent Pro was still going strong, but I decided to upgrade to be on the (very) safe side, having had a few 500+W (though brandless) PSUs smoke out on me at most inconvenient times. Case - I've always been partial to cases which look easy on the eye, and this was it, and it wasn't too dear either. In a notable departure from all my previous cases, the PSU is now situated at the bottom, with its fan venting air downwards, made possible by the moulded feet which lift the casing a couple of centimetres off the floor. There are plenty of fan mounting positions available, and I cannibalized a mobo fan from the old casing, and got a couple of cheap 120mms to suck rising hot air out the top, in addition to the included blue LED fan at the front, producing a negative pressure setup. So far, it seems to be working, judging from the recurring blasts of warm air I feel up my legs. Internal temperatures are running at about 40 degrees under normal load. Hard Disk Drives - Ultimately, the value of a computer lies mostly in its data, and this is where the data is held (which, like the Ship of Theseus, allows me to claim that it is still "my" computer). There wasn't too much choice, with the Hitachi (now part of Western Digital) 2TB out of stock, and there only being three manufacturers left (Toshiba is the third). Gone are the days when I could muse over the merits of Iomegas versus Maxtors versus the Quantum Bigfoot (N.B. the latter two are now part of Seagate, as is Samsung's HDD division) The 1.5TBs are probably only a couple of years old, with the ancient Seagate 200GB dating back to 2004, when it was my main drive; now, it's used purely for archival purposes.  We were spinning both ways on Sundays before you young punks were blueprints in some electrical engineer's heads! A moment's silence for the Samsung Spinpoint P80 SP1614C (on the left above), which was to have been the archive drive, but developed the click of death after being subjected to more writes than it had for years (it was previously the scratch disc). It shall be dearly missed.  Cool heads prevail [N.B. This, however, may be too much] Seeing as it had no irreplaceable data, and I certainly wasn't about to shell out the cost of a new system for recovery, this looked like a swell opportunity to test out the freezer method. I double-bagged the drive and left it for about 30 hours behind some frozen fish (though I don't see why waiting for longer than the duration needed to reach thermal equilibrium helps), before plugging it into an external enclosure. No dice, the knocking reappeared; well, it was worth a try - perhaps I should place frozen peas on top of it next time.  Shiny new 6-32 screws And that was why I ended up purchasing a second 2TB drive, and since I happened to have a sudden craving for kebab (from the days in Spain), I dropped by to sample Sultan Kebab's S$8 Rice Chicken kebab at Peace Centre before the second trip on Thursday (What's gotten into me, spending S$8 for dinner? Well, it was tasty if not quite the same). Bought thirty mounting screws at twenty cents apiece after that, with the proprietor discussing the local educational system with me while I was picking them out. DVD/RW - Long, long ago, manufacturers strove to push faster and faster drives onto the market - single, then double, then 8X, 16X... even 72X CD-ROM drives! In comparism, they are basically commodities now - youse pays your thirty bucks, youse pick your drive, and then use it to rip ISOs of your most-used DVDs onto your hard drives for software mounting. So far so good, but as it was a clean install of Windows, I had to reinstall all my needed programs - and it may be surprising how many of them are freely downloadable. In fact, there's not much use in keeping CDs around, given how quickly a new version gets released. For the sake of it, I compressed all the installers I felt necessary to get myself up and running, and came up with a file of just over 1GB. No links provided, since they will just go outdated: Antivirus - The first thing that gets installed. Been using avast for ages (64MB), nothing that hasn't happened because of boneheadedness on my part since. Academic/Programming - MikTex 2.9.4 (167MB) [who would have guessed?], OpenOffice 3.3 (150MB), JDK 7u2 (90MB), Ubuntu 11.10 (55MB, dual-booted, very useful if only to access files when Windows conks), ActivePerl 5.14 (27MB), Apache Web Server 2.2 (5.8MB), Notepad++ 5.9.6 (5.5MB), openVPN 2.1.1 (1.7MB) Browsers - Firefox 9.0 (15MB), Google Chrome (600KB) CD/DVD Rippers/Drive Emulation - Alcohol52 2.0.1 (8.8MB), ISORecorder v3 (800KB) [for actual burning I generally use Nero, but that comes with just about any DVD writer nowadays] Data Compression - 7-zip 9.20 (1.4MB) [bye bye WinZip and WinRAR] Download Managers/File Transfer - Free Download Manager (7MB), BitTorrent 7.6 (6MB), FlashGet 1.96 (4.6MB) [don't like the the latest versions], FileZilla (4.5MB) [how long has it been since I switched from WS_FTP?] Drivers - NVIDIA's take up some 200MB, but it can't be helped [N.B. Warning - good stable driver versions can be hard to find, and should be treasured], Nokia (40MB), RaZer DeathAdder's (20MB) Gaming - Steam Installer (1.6MB) [The Civilization, Total War and Simcity series are all on Steam, as will Dota2, 'nuff said - note that each title is perhaps a 10GB independent download...] Image/3D Processing - Google SketchUp (39MB), GIMP 2.6 (20MB), ImageMagick 6.7.4 (18MB) Messaging - Windows Live Messenger (1.2MB), Skype (1MB) Miscellaneous - Google Earth (600KB) [someday...], GPU & CPU Meter desktop gadgets (below 500KB) [ah, when there was Active Desktop - something like it will be back soon enough] P2P Streaming - SopCast 3.4.7 (7.9MB) [I feel entitled to watching EPL streams online, given that I pay Singtel mioTV every month to not make HD channels available for more than ten seconds at any one time] Video Codecs - K-Lite Codec Pack 5.6.0 (9.7MB) Utilities - EASEUS DiskCopy and Partition Manager (52MB together) for moving entire partitions, Dataram RAMDisk 3.5 (3.5MB), TeraCopy (2.9MB) [N.B. For some reason I still prefer it to Windows' inbuilt copy], Gmail Notifier (2.8MB), MyDefrag 4.3.1 (2MB), 4t Tray Minimizer (1.4MB) On the subject of computers, an NUS server has been hacked. Well, it's probably more serious than this, but as a rule of thumb it's pretty pointless to try and steal from academics. We Have 30%! The independent ministerial salary review committee has independently done its job, producing recommendations of such quality that they were immediately accepted by the sitting government, no questions asked. Reproduced are the key figures, as published on Page Six of the January 5 edition of The Straits Times:
...which is the cue for resident political analyst Herr Ahm to make a triumphant entrance.  Oops, there goes my mustache Herr Ahm: Danke, danke! Kindly refer to my prediction, made last September:
Herr Ahm: The changes above are almost all within 5% of the 30% suggested, and if the removed pensions are factored in, they rise to an average of about 35%; therefore, splitting the difference, I was spot on in calling the outcome. I even got the bigger cut for the President right! Me: As indeed you were. Here's your performance bonus, a bag of honey stars. Care to share your wisdom on how you arrived at the numbers? Herr Ahm: May I direct your attention to a quote, on the same page, by the chairman of the completely independent ministerial pay review committee:
Herr Ahm: First questions first - you believe this? Me: I see no reason to doubt... what are you doing, opening your eyes so wide? Herr Ahm: I was attempting to raise my eyebrows, and then I remembered I had none; well, if you believe that, you are more or less accepting that the committee started from a blank slate, and after months of no doubt headache-inducing deliberations (and "kinesthetic checks"), come up with an effective 30% cut ("whatever formula is used", as I sagely mentioned) over the current situation. Me: Well... Herr Ahm: Or, you might alternatively consider the hypothesis that they (briefly) considered the effect of various magnitudes of cuts under the current political climate - 10% or less says that they aren't changing, which would seem unpalatably arrogant and provide massive ammo for the next elections, while 50% or more says that they were obscenely overpaid for decades and are now desperate to regain goodwill. Splitting the difference, the nice round figure of 30% comes up, and then the tedious process of figuring out how to justify it working backwards can be slowly dealt with. Me: Come to think of it, that doesn't sound totally impossible. Herr Ahm: Well, despite the size of the cuts not being the point, the national broadsheet has found it prudent to publish the percentages in bold red letters on the front page, so make what of that you will. And now let us look at what the new formula is: 13 months of guaranteed fixed pay (including the ghost month?), and a variable pay of up to 13.5 months, comprising of a maximum of 1.5 months of Annual Variable Component, 6 months of Performance Bonus, and 6 months of National Bonus. But first and most importantly, how is the monthly pay determined? It is now pegged to the median pay of the top 1000 Singaporean earners (i.e. the 500th highest earner), discounted by 40%, instead of the median of the top eight earners in six sectors discounted by 33%, which works out to a reduction from S$1.58 million to S$1.1 million. Me: Hmm, does this not mean that salaries at the top are quite a bit flatter than expected? Offhand, assuming that the sector leaders have approximately equal earning power, this implies that the 500th highest earner gets about 70% of the 25th. Herr Ahm: Details, details. Cutting to the chase, as the NSP has pointed out, it still means that the benchmark is set to the top 0.03% of the private sector, who at least have to weather the attendant risks of business, and may or may not manage to earn this much year in, year out. Having settled on a meaty base pay, we come to the multipliers. The AVC is a minor dessert, while three months of Performance Bonus should be a given assuming the minister doesn't make the news too much. The National Bonus is more interesting, comprising four factors: real GDP growth rate, real median income growth rate, real growth rate of lowest 20th percentile income, and the unemployment rate. I assume that these metrics were chosen to provide proper incentives - but considering it carefully, what do the incentives actually say to a self-interested (as was the fundamental rationale behind it all) minister? Here's my list:
Me: Cynical little hamster, aren't you? Herr Ahm: Well, they started it. Alright, from one perspective, as your former MM famously said, the entire Cabinet costs less than one fighter aircraft, and who's really counting if the Air Force orders ten or twelve and then bases them in America? If everybody were doing well, I daresay few would mind that much. The fact that some ministers may have taken a pay cut to enter politics is also often mentioned, but after awhile one realises that it's usually the same few names. Not everybody's a Schwarzenegger, yes, we get it. Unfortunately, from another perspective, that of international benchmarking (which has been accepted in just about every other sphere), the salaries are still crazily high. Yes, apologists can argue that this is because you offer a (very high) "clean wage" with no hidden benefits, as opposed to say the President of the United States, who actually gets to live in the White House for free (which is a very strange example to use, given that your President not only got paid nearly ten times more, but also gets to live in the Istana for free, with a S$2 million household expenses budget on top of that) And then there's the reference to the UK expenses scandal. Well, the worst offenders benefited to the tune of maybe S$1 million over years, with most of the offences being frankly peanuts - S$10000 for one-time repairs? S$800 for food monthly? In any case, the action taken was to punish the guilty minority, not to hand them the money, and more, outright! It can easily be understood how the rank-and-file see this attitude as disgracefu. Me: Thank you for your penetrating insight, as always, Herr Ahm! Herr Ahm: Oh, that's too much praise. I'm not certain on the retained dignity part of the prediction, come to think of it. By the way, here's my name card - the next time your government needs to adjust salaries to deal with angry mobs, drop me a line and I will come up with a comprehensive package within 24 hours, and for a very reasonable fee. (Source: the mrbrown show) Next: Credit Where Due
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