rant, self, singaporeans

Why There Shouldn’t Be “An Alternative Government” in Singapore

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Now that elections are coming, and for me personally, the first time I can finally vote since reaching adulthood. I live in an area where, in past elections, the default mode was “walkover”.

For the first time in years, we finally have candidates from ruling party as well as opposition contesting this sacred area. That piqued my interest a little. Now, friends of mine know I generally am apathetic to 2 things – religion and politics. Why I don’t normally touch these 2 topics is because there is no way to win. You have your opinions and you will not be swayed by “proof”, or lack thereof, in these 2 topics. As a quick example on religion – you can’t prove the existence of God, nor can you disprove it. No one knows for sure, with concrete, measurable evidence, whether God exists or he does not exist.

In the same way in politics, or at least as far as Singapore goes. The ones in power usually say things like they have a track record, the opposition are untried and untested etc etc. TRUE, I agree! But, if you don’t get the opposition in, how will they have a track record? How can they be battle-tested?

Then there is this phrase, which has been used in the past but I never thought much about till now. That is “alternative government”. The ruling party has always challenged the opposition to do this, ie form an alternative government, to prove they are sincere and have the capability.

Now, without going to consult dictionaries and other references, what does “alternative government” mean to you, the general layman?

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hardware, internet

How-To: Combine 2 ISPs into 1 home network

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In my home, I have 2 ISPs providing internet service – SingNet and Starhub. I won’t get into details as to why I have 2, but the fact is, I have 2.

For a long time, these 2 ISPs have remained separate. PCs and laptops connected to one can’t see the other, and vice versa. When one ISP fails, we’d have to manually go to the router and plug the LAN cable into the other one, to continue having internet service. Now, we’re (meaning the people in my household) are naturally lazy. The thought of having to walk to the routers, sort out which cable is the right one, and plugging it into the other ISP, is a headache that we dread. It was made even more apparent recently when my ISP seemed to be having some minor lag issues with an online game I’m playing, and by swapping my cable over to the other one, I confirmed that the fault lay in the ISP and not in any of my PCs or laptops.

During the troubleshooting, I had to plug, unplug, replug the cables many times, and as you can imagine, it’s tiring.

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hardware, self

So I Went And Got A New Monitor

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Wow, it’s been 9 months since my last post!

Yeah well I’ve been busy doing other stuff… you know, mundane stuff like “work”. Oh yes, I got into Star Trek Online too, but that’s another story. The topic of this post very conveniently has references to the previous post made here, 9 months ago. Yeah, my HP monitor died. Truly dead. As in, “no sound no picture.”

As a quick recap, the monitor suffered a weird red-dot syndrome and I had to call in for servicing just a few days before the warranty ran out. Now, 9 months after the monitor was replaced, it truly died. I was just surfing the net, then I moved away from the PC and fiddled with something on my phone. Now, I had set my PC to blank the monitor after 10 minutes of inactivity, as a power-saving option. So, as I was fiddling with my phone, I saw the monitor blanking from the corner of my eyes. No big deal, it’s just going to sleep mode.

So, when I was done with my phone, I turned back to my PC. I shook the mouse as usual, and waited for the monitor to come back on. Nada. Hmmm, strange. Ok, so I pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard. That should wake it up nicely.

Nope, the monitor stayed blank.

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Rants and Ramblings of a Typical Kiasu Singaporean