Sewer-pipe homes in Hong Kong

Space is always a premium in Hong Kong. I remember when I went there for a visit and holiday, the hotel room in the hotel I stayed at was tiny…very tiny. While searching on the Internet to see if Hong Kong had solved its housing problem, I came across this article about sewer-pipe homes called OPods.

They look pretty comfortable, with all the very basic amenities. Check out the photo taken outside…they look very chic too. Apparently, each pod includes such amenities such as a bench that converts into a bed, open shelf storage, a mini fridge, microwave, bathroom, and shower. All you need really for a home that you can crash into at night. You do not need an elaborate home. It may cause issues for people who are claustrophobic but for me, it will not affect me.

Check out the YouTube video below. It shows what they look like. For me, I like them. They do the job of housing people and that in itself is good.

Synchronised fountain pumps

Have you ever seen those “synchronised” fountains in some places? I do not know what is the proper name for them but I will try to describe them. You know, those fountains that can spurt a steady stream of water, all synchronised and is just a beauty to watch? Well, I happened to come across one of those kind of fountains being installed and being the curious person that I naturally am, I decided to take a photo of the pumps that make those jets of water spurt. I have to post a video of it in its completion…

Fixing a lamp in mum’s place with Kramer BC-2S speaker cable

My mum had an old, antique desk lamp that had an issue with the power cord. It was old and sometimes the lamp could not turn on. So I decided to use some leftover cable from a project that I am working on. We have a lot of this cable lying around and so I took about three metres of it. After replacing the cable with this Kramer speaker cable, the lamp has a new lease of life. Thank you Kramer…not only do your speaker cables work nicely powering speakers, they also made my mum a very happy lady.

New police cameras

Many HDB (Housing and Development Board ) flats have police cameras installed in the premises. I think that this is a great idea and it helps to keep crime levels down. The police cannot be everywhere and anywhere all the time and cameras like these do help. Their cameras of old were the normal dome-like cameras that look pretty ordinary. Then I saw this. I do not know what these “flying-saucer”-shaped cameras are capable of doing but I dare say that they look menacing to any would-be thieves or low-lifes present around the area. Hey, I am all for this if it helps the police to do their job!

OBike to exit Singapore market

I read this news yesterday that OBike was leaving the bike-sharing market here in Singapore. They said that they were pulling out due to new regulations imposed by LTA, which will make the bicycle-sharing business model not a “viable” one for oBike and will cause the company “further losses”.

Bu this is not the bad part, according to this article. Their app went offline and there are many that want a refund. OBike claims that there are over 1 million people using its service so the refunds could go into the millions. I just hope that they do the right thing and not leave people hanging because that is a bad thing to do.

Romelu Lukaku’s class act

Lukaku arguing it’s NOT a penalty is amazing… pic.twitter.com/PNfSi2ndrU

— Jay Motty (@JayMotty) June 23, 2018

Seriously, we need more players like him. That is the honesty that is missing from the beautiful game. You are a class act Romelu Lukaku

Temperature reader in a server room

If you have ever been inside a server room, you will see how hot it can get when the air-conditioner is turned off or not working. That is what happened a few weeks back when the aircon in the server room did just that…failed. When I went in the server room because the alarm was ringing, I got to see the temperature of the room. There it was…plain as daylight…35 degrees Centigrade. Ideally, this temperature gauge is supposed to turn on both the aircons but it could not for some reason. So the alarm was triggered. That is when I got into the room and physically turned on the aircon myself. I had to get the aircon technician to come down and fix this. But honestly, if it was not for this temperature sensor, the servers would have overheated and got into thermal shutdown.

Restaurants still charge for drinking water

Remember I did a post about a week back about this restaurant in Sengkang Compass One? Well, I will hide it no more. The restaurant is named Canton Restaurant and I was charged $2.40 for four glasses of plain, hot water. That is about 60 cents per glass of water. Then in TodayOnline I see this article in which I find out that I am not alone in thinking this way.

Some time back, there was this lady named Veron who runs this blog named Sparklette who went on a crusade (with the support of many of her readers) against restaurants who charged for plain drinking water. Looks like that she may have to update her list to include Canton Restaurant as well

Honestly…some of the excuses given by these F&B outlets is simply ridiculous. And some very conveniently chose to charge for water after the water tariff had been raised but still can vehemently deny they did so because of that factor. Let us hope that people see this post of mine and make that decision themselves

Sixth month after quitting

I told myself that I will update this blog with a post on the very day of the month that I quit smoking, which was on the 22nd of December 2017. To be honest, as I have said in previous posts, I now feel healthier. I no longer huff and puff when I climb stairs. I can run quite comfortably and my cough has abated…for the longest time. If you are smoking and want to stop, look no further than me, as an example. I just felt like quitting and I did…just like that. Cigarettes will kill you. I am amazed as to why I did not stop smoking earlier. was it for style? Nah. Was it to fit in with the gang? Well…maybe when I started I suppose. We all do stupid things in our lifetimes and live to regret them. But no matter what…quit. Just stop. You will be thankful.

Upgraded my MacBook Pro to High Sierra

I finally made the plunge and upgraded my MacBook Pro operating system to MacOS High Sierra. It was only a matter of time really. I was on Sierra and I kept getting updates and if I did not upgrade soon, I would be mussing what the new OS had to offer. I did not upgrade when it first came out though. There were lots of bugs and I decided to wait it out and make sure all was OK before I upgraded. So after upgrading yesterday, I tried out the MacBook Pro and all seems OK. The only thing I had an issue with was the version of Serato DJ 1.9.10. When I tried to open it, it just gave me an error message, saying that it was not optimised for this version of MacOS. Oh well, I do have Serato DJ Pro installed and that ran with no issues. Looks like Serato DJ 1.9.10 has to be uninstalled. In any case, my DDJ-SB3 does not run on Serato DJ 1.9.10 so it is pretty much redundant. All I can say is, welcome to 62-bit computing!!