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Tuesday 21 October 2008

Financial Jokes

Got these from the internet. Very funny, given the current finanial situation.

One of these days, I'm going to borrow enough money to get completely out of debt

I've determined that this financial downturn is worse than a divorce. I've lost half my assets but I still have my wife.

The stock market may be terrible, but I slept like a baby last night. I woke up every couple of hours and cried.

Q: What's the definition of optimism?
A: An investment banker who irons five shirts on a Sunday evening.

An investment banker said he was going to concentrate on the big issues from now on. He sold me one in the street yesterday.

A man went to his bank manager and said: ‘I'd like to start a small business. How do I go about it?' ‘Simple,' said the bank manager. ‘Buy a big one and wait.'

The credit crunch is getting bad, isn't it? I mean, I let my brother borrow a tenner a couple of weeks back, it turns out I'm now Britain's fourth biggest lender.

Q: What is the difference between an investment banker and a pigeon?
A: A pigeon can still make a deposit on a BMW.

Q: What is the difference between an investment banker and a large pizza?
A; The pizza can still feed a family of four.

Q: What does a hedge fund manager with no fund to manage say?
A: Would you like fries with that sir?

Q: What is the capital of Iceland?
A: About $3.50

I tried to get cash from the ATM today but it said “insufficient funds.” I don't know if that meant them or me.

Mark Twain was ahead of the curve: “October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”

Sunday 19 October 2008

Alarms

Home alarm systems are key to preventing crime. They will be the first system to alert you if anything goes wrong. However, it is only good if it is turned on. So, if you have one, please turn it on. It doesn't cost extra. Turn it on when you are out of the house, when you go to bed or when you have no intention of going out of the house for the next couple of hours - e.g. when you are having a romantic time in bed with your gf.

To select an alarm system is difficult. Chubb Malaysia used to provide some good ones, but rumors have it that they are no longer that good. The house alarm industry is a cowboy industry. Prices are cut, quality takes a dip. Bad systems are useless. They will have so many false alarm - crying wolf all the time, you just give it up. Criminals know that too!

Some critical success factors for home alarm systems:
  1. When it comes to wiring, make darn sure the wire between the panel to the sensor is one piece. Never allow the contractor to join wires. Imagine, after plastering the wires inside the walls, the joining breaks. You will have a hell time finding the fault and fixing it. Wiring is the most critical. If the panel is bad, change it - it is easy. If the sensors are bad, have them replaced. But you don't want to re-do the whole damn wiring.

  2. Ensure each cable is properly labelled. Else, no one knows what goes where after a year.

  3. Better still, have the wiring inside a plastic conduit, or pipe. This is very expensive, but can be worth it.

  4. There are motion detectors, or infra red sensors. Use them only for the roof / ceiling. For fuck-sake, please do not put it in the kitchen or living room. It will trigger tonnes of false alarm. You may also wish to turn on the alarm when you are cooking. No harm!

  5. Most suppliers no longer provide good vibration sensors because they are very expensive. Look for one that does. Vibration sensors are good to protect windows, especially when the sensors are installed on grills. Any knocking or drilling will set them off. This way, you can leave the windows open for fresh air - but please shut them if no one is at home.

  6. Ensure that the magnetic switches installed on doors are good. How to tell a good sensor? Quality ones will usually have CE, FCC or even UL approval. CE is a standard mainly for safety and emission of RF noise in Europe. FCC would be emission of RF noise for USA. UL would be the safety standard for USA. You get the idea. A sensor without any compliance to standards cannot be good!

  7. Check if the main panel itself has any certification / compliance to standards.

  8. System should have one internal and one external siren; and one external strobe light. For the sirens, have a switch - inside the panel. If you are at home, at night, you may not wish to have the internal siren on (but leave the external siren on) and scare the daylights out of you if it goes off. Similarly, if you are away for a long period of time - say a week, turn the external siren off but leave the internal siren on. Don't bugger your neighbour's Chinese New Year, for example.

  9. Ensure that the system has two panic buttons. Press it, alarm should go off. One in the master bedroom, the other in the kitchen is usually good. Same goes for the keypad - there should be two. Panic button can be and should be located away from the keypads. Keypads themselves should have a panic button. The panic button should have a key - that is, once activated, you need a key to deactivate it.

  10. Alarms usually have CMS feature - that is, it calls a Central Monitoring System if something happens. If you do not subscribe to CMS (since most of them is bullshit anyway), have the panel programmed to call you handphone instead. So, if there is no one home and your house calls you, at least you have a clue what has happened. You can then alert your local guards. That's what the guards are for, not for doing sentry duty and looking at cars driving in and out.

  11. When the system is designed, think like a criminal. Where would you break in? How? Then, secure those areas with sensors.
Another very important note. If your alarms, car or house, keeps going off without rhyme or reason - be on the alert. You could be already targetted. Criminals are known to trigger the alarm off - e.g., kick your car to cause it to vibrate - some cars can sense vibration. They keep doing it until you are fed-up and turn off the alarm. Never ever turn off the alarm!

Let me know if you have any other suggestions. I am rather sure I have missed out one or two critical items.

Lights

Oh boy. Spending the whole night blogging isn't doing much good to my beauty sleep. Hope I am not to tired when I meet H later. That would be a waste.

Visibility is a key factor in crime prevention. It's a fact that turning on lights at night prevents crime. It is cheap, yet very effective.

But, there's something you must remember - do not give the criminals any information. For example, if you only turn on the lights when no one is at home, that's a dead give away. So, do turn on the same lights even if you are at home. Worried about the waste of energy? Install and use a energy saving light bulb. They use less than 10W of power. In Malaysia, if it is 10W, it will be turning it for 100 hours before it will cost RM 0.30 (USD 0.08). It's a bargain.

When you leave the house, remember to deliberately leave one room light on, or the kitchen lights on. Give the impression that there is someone inside the house.

Hope it helps. And if you must know, yes, I do it.

Show of Force

OK. Back to the problem of Jeff. Besides providing proper toilets, what else is a more effective use of guards? The first is, carry out a show of force. This was successfully carried out by British soldiers in Somalia. Every morning, they would put a good show - marching, fire some shots and fire some big guns into the sea. Make hell a lot of noise. And it was effective. Prison guards do that. FRU (Federal Reserve Unit - the Malaysian anti-riot police) do that. They do? Yes - they march by stomping their boots. Beat their shields with their batons. Shout when they march.

So, if you have guards, do the same. Make them march. Do a roll call every morning. Get the police to show up occasionally during such 'parades'. Frankly, it is just a physiological thingy. I am not advocating for an armed force of private guards.

Residents can do their own show of force. In UK, they have the Orange Hat Patrol - the Malaysian Rukun Tetangga (RT). RT works well. A group of residents, on schedule, would petrol the place. This shows unity. Think about it - I am sure we all know. When driving through a kampung, the pre- PLUS highway days, always go slow. If you happen to accidentally run-over a chicken, do not stop. Why? Because we all 'fear' that the united kampung folks will beat us up.

In reality, the same 'fear' can be used against criminals. The community needs to be united. That's the key. Show them that we are united. That's why you never hear of crimes in kampungs. True - criminals caught will be bashed up. I do not advocate vigilantism. But facts are facts. So, we need to do it in urban areas - that is be united, not bashing up people.

Start a RT - and patrol in bright orange hats. Why the orange hats? It is some kind of uniform and yes, it is highly visible. You want to be seen at night, for safety.

Another method - imagine the scene if at night, everyone turns on the light - odd numbered houses with their front lights on, even numbered houses lighting up the backlanes. That would be a sight to behold. Residence uniting and that's a good show of force. The message will be - try and you will be sorry. Right now, the one or two guards does patrol in this area, but since most areas are pitch black, I am unsure if the guards are equiped with night vision for the task. Oops - another idea for Jeff to spend more money.

Another very simple show of force - how do we interact as neighbours. If everyone knows everyone, greets each other, talks to each other - that means we are united. It sends the same message. Trust me, the criminals would be watching.

Isn't this better than a few oil drums and residences are seen fighting with each other? Show of force, either by guards or residences, are perfectly legal (blockin up public roads are not) and guess what - "Hello. How do you do?" is free. Time to love thy neighbour - no, no, not in the 'hamsap' sense.

Under Attack!

The worst that can happen is someone breaking in when you or your family is at home. This is especially so when they are foreigners / illegal immigrants. Or some violent psycho.

But should that happen, and if you deem it safe - the first thing you do is to sound the home alarm system, if you have one. Also, press the panic button for your car alarm. Let your cars make as much noise as possible. Turn on all the lights. Call the police. Call your neighbours. Shout for help. Lock yourself in a room - it helps if your room has a solid door.

I sure hope it never comes to this. The house has many weapons. Putting toilet cleaner and splashing it on someone can lead to blindness. Your usual aerosol spray - such as the trusted Shieldtox - is a good flame thrower. Light up the spray with a lighter (careful! It can burn you.) and it will throw out flames. Will it explode? No. The flames will not go back into the can and cause it to explode. There is little to no oxygen inside the can - thus, it cannot burn and explode. Don't overheat the can though - that will cause it to explode! And please note - it only works on the NON water based type. If it is water-based, it won't burn. Please note.

Something to note - even if you lock yourself in your room, there is a chance they will force you out by setting the place on fire, for example. The whole idea is, buy yourself enough time for help to arrive. So, if you so wish to, call the fire department as well.

Some of these are dangerous but everything goes when the situation is 'in extremis'.

Another safety note, not related to security - never ever mix bleach (such as Clorox) with other cleaning agent (such as detergent). The reaction can be violent and it releases a lot of clorin gas - which is toxic. A joker of my friend made that mistake when he was cleaning the loo. Bugger. Not to worry, he lived to tell the tale.

Ring Ring

After knock knock, it is only natural to think about ring ring.

The policy here is the same. To commit a crime, information is important. So, limit the amount of information you give the criminals.

For the same reason as turning off the bell when no one is at home, you should be very prudent with who gets your house phone number. If they cannot ring the bell, they will call you. That's actually better - they won't have to bother showing up to ring the bell.

How often do we give out the house phone number when we buy a new air-cond? Or when buying a new plasma TV? Or like some idiots in this area, publish their home phone numbers on the community blog, together with their photo and address? Sometimes, we do it without even thinking about it.

So, as much as possible, do NOT give out your home phone number to strangers. Use your cell phone / mobile number instead. It is hard to figure out where you are when you answer your mobile - unless the background noise is like the fish market. But that will at least give the criminals a run for their money.

If you are really careful, get either call forwarding or an answering machine. That way, even for those with your number cannot get much info out of you. Just forward calls to your mobile phone. Or have a machine, with a sexy welcoming message, answer it!

Saturday 18 October 2008

Knock Knock...anyone home?

So, enough bitching about dummy Jeff. How do we make our place safer?

And knock knock won't be a dirty joke like:
Knock knock.
Hang on dear... I am cumming.

Hehehe. Ok, I could not resist that.

When there is no one at home, please turn off the bell. It is fairly usual SOP (standard operating procedure, some call it MO - modus operandi) for the criminals to send someone round to check if anyone is home. The criminals usually call up a fast-food delivery service and sends a fake order to your house. If they observe no one answers the bell, that would usually mean the coast is clear. Some would just ring the bell before they break-in. So, turn the bell off when no one is at home. The downside is, remember to turn it back on! Else, your visitors or the postman might be pissed.

How to turn it off? Check the fuse box - there is usually one fuse for the bell. Try the fuses till you get one that turns the bell off. It will usually be a low-amperage fuse - e.g., fuse of about 5A. The fuse should be only for the bell. If you find it, and turn it off, make sure it doesn't affect any other appliances - such as the fridge. You don't want a warm fridge when you get home. If you cannot find the fuse, just get a wire-man and add an additional fuse to the bell. Easy! Cost some money, but hey - it does work.

So, if you start receiving pizzas that you didn't order - be on the alert. You are already targeted. Inform the police. Tell your neighbors.

The Moving Barricades

After about 3 weeks of starting this gated community thingy, nothing much has improved. It does give a sense of being safer, but that's all. There has been very strong protest from disagreeing residents. Public has also complained that roads cannot be blocked. They are public roads! But alas, Jeff thinks he has the right to reclaim all the roads.

There was a robbery. After the gated community started. Came by bike, and robbed a group of friends. Guards didn't know about it. So, it is not all that well. Now, Jeff wants to fence up the whole place. I mean, eff - do you want your kids growing up in a prison?

Comments vary. Jeff keeps telling everyone that if there is no gates and guards, your family could be next. So, someone asks him - if there are guards and gates, would he guarantee that nothing will happen? Jeff calls them unreasonable.

More critically, there are serious shortcomings. Firstly, it is close to impossible from stopping motorcycles from zooming in and out. Snatch thieves are usually on bikes. Then, this area has about 4 or 5 entrances / exits, after blocking up half of them! This means that the six guards employed are tied up with sentry duty. No more guards on patrol. So, even if there is a fence - just climb it, or cut it, and you are free to break-into houses.

Then we started noticing a more serious problem. Imagine this as a housing area. Where on earth are the guards suppose to go to, when they need to go? Yup - they need to walk all the way to the shops - thus leaving their 'checkpoints'. The irony of this place is, they need to go to the shops that Jeff has openly declared that the shops are not part of our community.

What happens when it rains? The lack of proper shelter puts everything to a stop. Some guards have just an umbrella, others have a hut. Either way, that's not enough shelter to continue to verify vehicles into the area. So, it fails, yet again.

Oh, being Jeff - there is still no statement of accounts, no telling who are the signatories to the bank account and still no clue how many is actually against this idea. I am all for a safer community, but for fuck-sake, please do something that works. This is just too "Barisan National" for me. Another resident has commented - if you think a bunch of disused oil drums (the barricades) and a bunch of foreign workers (the guards) can actually make the place safer, think again.

Another matter - if you need to use oil drums to barricade a place, please make sure they don't collect rain-water. Dengue is more deadly than snatch thieves. And imagine - this is a fairly well-to-do housing area - now barricaded with disuse oil drums. This bloody place looks like a scene from Somalia. So, please have some taste and have something proper.

Will CCTV help? Bugger, no. Remember the footage of the guy dumping poor Nurin's body? The entire act was captured on CCTV. Polis DiRaja Malaysia even sent it to the FBI. Alas, nothing came out of it. Why? Firstly, the image quality is bad. Just imagine, if you need about 150 dots per inch (dpi) for a person's face - what's the resolution you need for your CCTV covering an area about 5 meters by 5 meters? That would be about a 10 mega pixel image. Not many CCTV, (mind you - not a camera with a still image) has that resolution. How the eff are you going to store the images? And for a moment, let's say all the technology is there - someone could put on a helmet with a full visor and commit crime on a stolen bike. You try to beat that! As usual, Jeff now wants CCTV.

The part I cannot understand is, instead of educating the public, instead of teaching your kids to be streetwise, they decide to fence themselves in. What more, the measures don't even half work.

Hot Air - All the Talk

That would be Anwar Ibrahim. Good grief. When it comes to empty promises, he should really lead BN! Gives the whole lot in BN a run for their money. Many deadlines have past, poof! Nothing has happened. No credibility. Once BN, always BN!

So, my utmost respect goes to DAP. Firstly, they have clearly stated that regardless, Abdullah Badawi has been elected by the people. And he should be voted out by the people. Not some handover of power, or walk over by MPs. That's what I call doing things right.

I think overall, DAP and PAS is doing a great job. PKR, has somewhat lost its credibility. Another of my hero is the guy called Citizen Nades - the assistant (?) editor for The Sun. His columns sure pack a punch. Better than the ACA reports. Hahaha.

My thoughts on politics remains the same. Politicians should be changed as often as diapers, for the same reason.

The grass is greener

How's my new job, I hear a lot of friends asking. Well, a Mr. Yoong puts it the best. The grass is greener on the other side, but it is also harder to swallow.

It is a new industry for me, so, there is hell a lot to learn. I am use to the international business scene - domestic is a new creature to me. New bosses have a high expectation, which isn't good - because it means I can no longer be Wally.

To make things worse, there is these new culture shock. The shock of switching from XP to Vista. I still think XP is better. Vista is really Windows for idiots (aren't we all idiots when we use Windows). Great for my grandmother but hey, for the engineers, etc - this is an insult to our intelligence. I still believe in good old UNIX / LINUX.

Then, I have the shock of using Office 2007. A very over-rated type-writer. Page break is in one tab. Section break is another. What the eff. The bloody page number is a nuisance. You can never get it to number pages you want - it just numbers it for idiots. (You try counting down from iii, ii, i - then Page 1!). The damn thing doesn't do it. Page 1 must always be the first sheet. Ok - now they allow the second sheet to be Page 1 - by starting count with Page 0. But guess what - the last page will be Page 9 out of 10 - coz, it starts counting from 0, but the total pages is actually total sheets. Bloody idiots.

Compounded with the culture of the small workplace - e.g. "one leg kick" aka doing everything on my own, it sure takes some adjusting. There is also the new software X1 (cool searching tool), Mozilla (tonnes better than IE), Googles Doc (hate to say it, but I prefer Office! Then again, I think LATEX is the best), and Google Mail. You know, Google Mail is just plain silly. You cannot delay a single email. Say, I have this long thread of business email. Then, I get some returned mail (wrong email add, etc) - and I just cannot delete those returned email. Who the heck wants some junk to polute a otherwise perfect thread of emails? Buggers me.

OK - enough of bitching. It's the weekend and generally, I am enjoying it. Will be meeting up with H tomorrow. Yummy!

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Farewell Nible2

Oh, and long last, I have left Nible2 with a heavy heart. The last day was last Tuesday, and yes, this is now Day 2 into my new job. For the past few weeks, there have been way too many farewell lunch and dinners. Putting on weight and not going to the gym often enough. Sure do miss my pals at Nible2. Cannot say I miss the problems!

Many have asked. How's my new job. Well, it is way too early to tell, but I do foresee tonnes of work to be done. It is not unusual for marketing to be lagging when the place is filled with engineers. It's just like all the Beckhams in a football team, but no goal keeper. Guess a team must just be balanced. Sure, we would love all-rounders, but really, I don't think such a person exists. All have our strengths and weaknesses.

The place is sure closer to home, but I am burning more petrol due to the traffic conditions. Bummer. Toll is slightly less.

Oh, colleagues, they are OK. One warning light though... most of them speak Mandarin. I will be able to work with them, but won't be great friends. More importantly, I sure as heck hope they don't have the china-man attitude. That would pretty much bugger me. Hahaha.

Enough about work. More later....