GBB: the Tulips are back

Just received this from GBB. The Tulips are back :-) We are going to make many dates with it.

Actually we already knew because the daughter's former form teacher was looking for volunteers to help plant the many bulbs that had arrived earlier. Unfortunately in the end they had so many volunteers she wasn't needed to be there to help. GBB gave priority to CSR types.

Manful Job and 'Boyful' retraction

Boy, the good Dr. Lim Wee Kiak is once again caught with his foot in his mouth. It is not easy to be an PAP MP because you cannot be yourself but you are told to be. Also how could you get a perfect record of second guessing the big bosses. Senior civil servants have the same unenvious task as well. I never got close to the political big shots but I have seen up close some of the small LKYs and how their underlings also mightily struggled with what to say or do to please the boss.

This is a terrible habit which is guaranteed to bring us down if we don't break it. In the past the top man can hold everything or enough in his head, these days we are experts in our areas and the top people must take advice or we would fail.

Why not Lim Wee Kiak do a manful retraction of his 'boyful' retraction. Give us some hope eh?

Not a chance. Most PAP MPs are just Yes-men and that's why they aren't getting the respect they crave for.

Movie: The Railway Man

I usually just swipe delete to an email like this but something told me to hold. I went to the mail from the NYT on my PC and I understood why. I must try to make time for this movie. If the family is interested that would be months from now otherwise it could be years. There is simply no time.

Heartbleed bug in routers too :-(

I have been somewhat worried about the security compromise over SSL over the last couple of days and was wondering why are our authorities so slow in responding. Nothing I have read give me any assurance on how to effectively protect against this vulnerability. The best response is to do nothing which is the equivalent of hiding in a cave until danger passes.

Good grief, even the network hardware is vulnerable. Fortunately I quit using Cisco products long ago but fixing this is a real headache. IT departments must be cursing under their breath with so much extra work for nothing.

Complaint to Premier Taxis

Nearly had an accident with a SilverCab this morning and decided I have had enough. Too bad this unlucky fellow happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

I lodged a complaint with Premier Taxis with low expectations and was surprised to get this automated response which they promised to even bother with detailed investigation. Wifey had often complaint about these silver cabs but I mostly ignored them until this morning. I am just glad their fleet is small.

I told them they can have the video evidence if they want to. And if they don't nay be the TP can have it but I am not sure I want to make that trouble. To put things into perspective this sort of near misses are very common, too common for comfort actually. This is a number game but why add them up in a hurry to an accident?

Last Day of Windows XP

We still have one intermittently functioning PC running Windows XP. I guess yesterday was its used by date. No point buying another Microsoft OS for it. Also my hobbying days are long gone, no point trying to install some open source OS and conduct experiments. For many years now I don't even get the time to play computer games. I have even quit watching others play.

Bad Doctor Woffles Wu

Read this in the ST yesterday. Bad doctor Woffles Wu. Sure he received the punishment but hardly would he be disciplined. He is going to enjoy his four month break and then will return to his thriving practice and continue to make big bucks. On social media I could tell most people believe his clients do not care about his brush with the law.

Medicine isn't about healing to this one. It is just business. I am afraid this is true for the majority of doctors too if you believe our docs are not different from their American counterparts. How often have docs here asked if we are claiming against insurance and they will bill 'appropriately'. Forget about the gate keeping interviews into medical school, I don't believe it work.

Nothing works. Just life. We gotta to learn to cope and I have my ways of keeping them honest. Sadly I have had to serve it on them a few times.