Welcome to the phishbowl with a net!

Recently went for an interview for a job (yes I’m still working, if you are curious).

Some of us might have met with the worst interviews ever. I’m sure mine is mild compared to a lot out there. But I just feel like writing it down for future references and the world to see. Shame them or whatever. Too bad I couldn’t put the name down.

I was asked to go to a Starbucks outlet for the interview citing “the interviewer prefers to interview out of office”. It felt a little suspicious right away. I was thinking “is it that bad that you cannot show your office to just an interviewee?”. I went anyway.

So punctually I was there; after riding through the rain with my rain jacket. I bought coffee and sat down wondering how the heck am I supposed to figure out who the hell is the interviewer? So I call the company’s line. A lady picked up and I told her about the situation.

me: Hi, I’m here for the interview today. But I do not know how am I supposed to know who is the interviewer?
lady: Oh, I’ll call him and get back to you.
me: Okay.
lady *hangs up*
She didn’t even get my number.

I tried to call back after and couldn’t get through for a number of times.
Then suddenly this guy, the interviewer, sprang up from behind me. He apparently tried his luck as I was trying to call back to his ‘company’ on my phone. Well, he had some.

I shall not go into details about the interview except a little bit of the conversation. I’m too lazy to keep spelling i-n-t-e-r-v-i-e-w-e-r, he’s not worth the energy, so I shall label him i* (it really doesn’t matter how you want to think of the letter; but I really would prefer id*ot).

i*: … I would never outsource (*snobbish look*).
me: It really depends what kind of project you are doing.
i*: Yes, for small projects. I am not doing standard things.
me: You are not doing standard things? What are you doing then if it’s not standard things?
i*: *Thinks for a while* I will tell you if you (are selected and) join us.
me: Okay.

I already felt like walking off at this moment. A company that doesn’t show it’s office to the public, a website that looks like a last minute build, and projects that are ‘non-standard’ and couldn’t even reveal the sector it belongs to. Yeah I would work in that company. It sounds too good to be true and Project ‘Everything Non-standard’ would be cool. Although he had expressed that I most probably wouldn’t be selected because he is looking for a detailed person (he is telling a developer exactly that), I really hope he does pick and calls me. The only reason being that I can REJECT him citing “I’m really not into a company named after bullshyte”. No pun there.

Recently I had heard about the idea of increasing GST for free public transport.

First thing that came to my mind was the superficial “Woot! Free transport!”

Then next comes the natural - try to calculate whether it is beneficial to me or not.

And then a look at whether it benefits the people who are in need especially in times like now.

I concluded at that point in thought that it could really be a good idea.

Imagine a Singapore with free transports. No MRT gantries. No annoying beeping of card readers. No stress of having to walk home when you spent every penny and realise you had an EZ link card that is negative and forgot to bring out your ATM card. Just the sound of opening and closing doors. Ahhh feels like fresh air. Beautiful city it is!

What’s more, in a way, part of cost of transport is diverted to those who can afford; those that do not take public transports. I say part of because everyone eventually pays for GST. But it is more controllable. The more you buy, the more GST you incur. Of course vice versa.

Some might even say the needy would be the least affected. Well, to that, imagine you have say 2000 dollars for the month. You would get by comfortably perhaps without worry of getting fed even if the GST rate is increased. You would gain more frustration of having less money to spend. But imagine you have only 500 dollars for the month. Every damn dollar counts now doesn’t it. The GST seems to determine how much food you will have it seems now. I need not elaborate further.

So I guess I have come to the point where I realise the potential problems that sparked me into writing this post in the middle of the night in the first place.

The first negative picture on my mind in a free public transport Singapore is an MRT packed with students who are sitting around playing cards and games when they are free after school taking up the spcae of the already tuna packed like train. Sounds familiar eh.

Back to the more serious point.

Now, we all know that the cost of public transport had increased for a few times; even recently. And at least once time they cite fuel costs. I think, in a lot of our minds are thinking “Hey, the fuel costs has already went down so much. Why are the public transports still sticking to their prices?”. I obviously ask the same question. I shall leave that to the proper people to answer. But from there it is evident that public transport costs are also driven by fuel costs. At this point of writing, the cost of oil per barrel is at about $35. But that doesn’t cover the fact that peak oil is still there. The only reason it is so much lower compared to the over $100 per barrel is the decrease in demand due to the economic downturn as we all know so well. But we do not have to even guess that the economic downturn would resolve in time. By then, I wouldn’t dare imagine how much oil would cost.

In that perspective, if the public transport is made free by increasing GST, I only hope that they wouldn’t use the same methodology again if oil prices rise to an all time high again when we are out of the crisis.

That aside, as a last note, I would say I had not forgotten about the lower oil prices right now. Perhaps we should get a more reasonable public transport adjustment against the oil prices BEFORE we think about the free public transport idea. I sincerely hope it is not a mere for us.

The writer is a person who has no deep economy skills or knowledge trying to write his thoughts down.

Edit: I totally forgot that a link is important (after I read Xen’s blog)! I read the idea here after I heard and blogged about it. (Yes I admit I should have done some research)

The idea set GST to 8.5%.

Use MPlayer!

I have to reiterate that I am now using Intrepid Ibex (Ubuntu 8.10).

Ok, less crap and on with it.

Install Mplayer:

sudo apt-get install mplayer

Next install the much needed codecs (I’m using a shortcut command which installs the codecs and the usually used fonts and such):

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

You are done!

Now just use the mplayer command and have fun! It’s pretty much straightforward.

Examples:
To play a streaming radio (I’ll use my favourite local radio channel Class95 for this):

mplayer <streaming URL> (i.e. mplayer mms://202.172.226.199/FM950b)

You could even play your music files the same way by specifying the path of the music files.

Mplayer even allows you to play video files in fullscreen.

mplayer -fs <path to video file>

It’s really clean and really fast.

Recently clean installed Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on my machine from 8.06 (Hardy). I realised the usual shutdown button located on the top right hand corner of the screen is now a logout button. I figured it could be easily ‘reverted’ by right-clicking on the panel.

Select Add to panel… -> Shutdown…

Then just move it to where you want it to be.

If you do not like the logout button, just right-click it and remove it from the panel.

Now if you click on the shutdown button, it gives you a number of choices or if you leave it alone, it will shutdown in 60 seconds.

After I had typed so much on this post complaining about Smack not supporting BOSH, sad raw XMPP churning and all, I wiped it after-all. All I wanted to do was this:

To connect to Openfire using BOSH on port 7070 (the OpenFire default and assuming no other servers are using the same port), use the URL:
http://yourdomain:7070/http-bind

Using http://yourdomain:7070 will not work.

Then follow XEP-0124 examples and that should get you through. XEP-0206 would be helpful too.

But in short, after making the initial connection, grab the sid, generate the rid and make sure you increment it every time after you make a request. Right after the initial request, you could already send registration requests. But I recommend negotiating SASL first.

I had gotten the HP2133 mini notebook for free by extending my contract with Starhub since I figured I’m not changing the connection anytime soon.

The notebook not only doesn’t have a CD drive (not that I’m complaining), it didn’t come with a recovery CD. But what the heck, it’s free.

The notebook came pre-installed with Windows Vista. I came home, booted it up, checked the hardware and immediately went ahead with formatting and pure boot Linux on it knowing I didn’t have a recovery CD. Oh what the heck, it’s free.

After using it for a while, I realised it’s just not suitable for me; the battery life, screen and all. So I decided to get myself an EEEPC 1000. I have not regretted buying it till even now; the battery life, screen and all. I decided to give the HP2133 away. Since I no longer need it, plus someone I know could make good use of it, why not. Plus, what the heck, it’s free.

The only problem was, she could only use it with Windows. And I recommend Windows XP with that node. After reading through forums, I found that it was, and still is, possible to go through the HP online help chat channel to ask for a recovery CD in the states. So I tried the same. After about 15 minutes of talking to what seemed like a robot, the technician figured that I had to call the service center in my locale. So I did the next day.

After a 14 minutes conversation with the technician in my locale on the phone, he figured they could get me a recovery CD. Though contented, I went ahead and ask for a Windows XP CD version of the recovery CD if there was one. Turns out I could get hold of that and the technician immediately went ahead and ordered me a piece of that CD to be delivered to my doorstep right from Texas; FedEx-ed. They even sent me the tracking code. Yeah… the time of pickup, departure location and even where it has been; country-wise.

All that, and what the heck, it’s free.

Away from the stressful road, I took a bus ride to run some errands.

It was peak hour that working day.

Unsurprisingly, approaching was a bus that was about to be so full it looks like it was going to burst up launching people in all directions in the process. I boarded it anyway.

Trying to be a considerate passenger, I moved to the back of the bus whenever I had the chance to.

I shifted to the door area where they removed the seats to allow for more standing passengers.

Then I found my way to this really cute lady in front of me. It was so squeezed up that we had to stand near each other face to face. Add the fact that we had about the same height and I had nowhere else to turn to. It made the journey that much more enjoyable.

The moment went backwards when she was alighting. It was really not because she was alighting.

*Ding dongggg*

*Bus Stopping sign lights up*

*Sounds of people rushing to alight*

Lady in front of me: “Skewwwwwws”

me: *shows an expression when we go thinking “Ooou… my… gawd…”*

Just awhile ago I was reminded about choices by someone. The exact phrase that reminded me of another ‘interval’ (I shall call it) was “It’s all about choices.”; and that sparked me into writing this post in the very early morning halfway through my work.

Quite some time ago, there was this friend of mine. She and I were having a conversation that would eventually lead to her selling me her company’s ‘help’.

That aside, what really got a little on my nerves was her repeating the phrase “Life is all about choices” or, “It’s all about choices” with a snobbish and confident smile. I admit I’m tasting my own medicine on that last part. Really, she is right about the choices part. But with a person saying that with an agenda, nausea sets in.

I agree with anyone who claims life is all about choices. Anyone could say that. But knowing that doesn’t change a single thing. MAKING the right choice is what really matters and sets things right.

Thinking back, what she really was saying is “make my choice, it is the right one” from her perspective. Well, all I should say is it is definitely right for her.

I’m beaten hands down to a person who knows the amount of air I take in my every breath.

I am an overly cautious person and breathing for the past 27 or so years.

And of most of my choices? I am cooking with gas; I say that with confidence.

The rest were mistakes I have not, and will never, repeat again.

I had wanted to give her some food for thought.

But that gesture would not be relevant anymore.

I was at Starbucks in a neighbourhood looking for a seat to have a cuppa with a friend.

So I saw this untaken table with all the emptied cups and tissue paper.

I tidied up the table by shifting the cups and stuffs aside and then sat down.

2 minutes later, this guy came up to me and said “Erm… did you see the tissue paper on the table?” while looking for the packs of tissues (2 in fact) on the table. He then gave me a look that supposed to mean “This table is taken. Can’t you see my tissue paper?!”

So immediately I know this guy actually ‘reserved’ a seat using the “put a tissue paper pack and assume everyone knows it’s taken” technique.

And so I replied “Oh is that tissue paper supposed to represent you?”.

He then got pissed off and in that pissed off tone, asked me “I am just asking you if you saw those packs of tissue paper”.

Me: “I thought that was rubbish so I threw it in together with those cups. But you can have your seat back.” (smile and walk away)

PS: That guy had another friend with him. And guess what, we got a seat just right next to them immediately after I walked off. In case you don’t get the joke, think “rubbish”. Oh yeah I’m mean to such deserving people.

I had been trying ways to get compiz working on a HP 2133 laptop.

For a while I thought “damn, it just couldn’t work!”.

Only just I came across a post in a forum that I am finally able to get it to work.

In short, here it is:

1. Open a terminal.
2. Backup /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
sudo mv /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.bak
3. Make a symbolic link of libGL.so.1.2 to libGL.so.1
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
4. Enable compiz (got to: System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects tab -> select Extra)
5. Enjoy.