Jobs for foreigners, NS for Singaporeans

FOREIGNERS are coming here in unprecedented numbers, contributing to the largest swell in Singapore’s population in more than two decades.

The foreign population, which includes professionals, workers, students and their family members, was an estimated 1,005,500 in June this year – crossing the one million mark for the first time.

This is a 14.9 per cent rise over a year ago and represents the highest jump in at least seven years, according to the Department of Statistics.

The previous year’s increase was 9.7 per cent.

The number of Singaporeans and permanent residents here also grew 1.8 per cent, the same as the previous year.

These increases lifted Singapore’s total population to 4,680,600 as of June this year – a 4.4 per cent rise over the previous year.

This is also the largest increase since 1982’s 4.5 per cent.

The figures, from the Department’s annual report on population trends released on Thursday, also covered statistics for marriages, divorces, births and deaths.

Economist Song Seng Wun said the surge in the number of foreigners reflects the nation’s broad- based economic recovery.

‘Foreigners are lapping up job opportunities for sectors across the board, from financial services to teaching to construction,’ he said.

External factors figure too.

‘Many neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, have been on a strong growth path, so their companies have been setting up shop here as a base for regional expansion,’ he added.

Liberal immigration policies also play a part, said consultant demographer G. Shantakumar.

‘We are attracting not just workers, but also students, in the hope of getting more foreigners to settle down here,’ he noted.

Source: The Straits Time

This came through to my email:

We always hear “the rules” from the female side.
Now here are the rules from the male side.
Please note:

# 1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down.
We need it up, you need it down.
You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

# 2. Sometimes we are not thinking about you.
Live with it.

# 3. Sunday = sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides.
Let it be.

# 4. Shopping is NOT a sport.
And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

# 5. Crying is blackmail.

# 6. Ask for what you want.
Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work!
Strong hints do not work!
Obvious hints do not work!
Just say it!
We’ll get it for you, but just LET US KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!!!

# 7. We don’t remember dates.
Mark birthdays and anniversaries on the calendar.
Remind us frequently beforehand.

# 8. Most guys own three pairs of shoes.
What makes you think we’d be any good at choosing which pair,
out of thirty, would look good with your dress?

# 9. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
Please pick one.

# 10. Come to us with a problem only if you want us to help solving it. That’s what we do.
Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

# 11. A headache that lasts for seventeen months is a problem.
See a doctor.

# 12. Let us know about that funny noise in your car engine as soon as you hear it.

# 13. Anything we said six months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
In fact, all comments become null and void after seven days.

# 14. If you won’t dress like the Victoria’s Secret girls,
don’t expect us to act like soap opera guys.

# 15. If you think you’re fat, you probably are.
Don’t ask us.
We refuse to answer, but still love you.

# 16. If something we said can be interpreted two ways,
and one of the ways makes you sad or angry,
we meant the other one.

# 17. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

# 18. Christopher Columbus did not need directions,
and neither do we.

# 19. The relationship is never going to be like it was the first two months we were going out.
Get over it.
And quit whining to your girlfriends.

# 20. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings.
Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color.
Pumpkin is also a fruit.
We have no idea what Mauve is

# 21. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

# 22. We are not mind readers and we never will be.
Our lack of mind-reading ability is not proof of how little we care about you.

# 23. If we ask what is wrong and you say “nothing,” we will act like nothing’s wrong.
We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

# 24. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to,
expect an answer you don’t want to hear.

# 25. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine.
Really, you look fine!!!

# 26. It is neither in your best interest or ours to take the quiz together.
No, it doesn’t matter which quiz

# 27. Football is as exciting for us as handbags are for you.

# 28. I AM in shape. ROUND is a shape

Java Sucks
Been doing hardcore EJB3.0 because of my CS3214 and boy I have never been more pissed off with Java than this. As usual, I just hate it when Java threw an exception, because whenever I do a printStackTrace(), it will fucking give me error lines for files that is not even in my project, those are files belonging to Java itself. It is useless for an average end user point of view.

When there is an exception in your JSP (not compiling error), it will throw you an error line of the compiled version instead of the error line in your JSP, and they expect me to find that error line.

Java has always slowed down my programming especially when it comes to web programming in Java like JSP and servlet. I can archive the same thing in ASP/ASP.NET/PHP with just 1/2 or even 3/4 the time required for me to do in Java.

Debugging Java is hell.

I have no fucking idea why schools in Singapore is so Java oriented.

Underdog
The show was quite entertaining and it is better than what I have expected. I expected it to be quite lame but it turn out to be quite humorous. I love the tagline for the dog, “There’s no need to fear. Underdog is here!” LOL

Rogue Assassin AKA War
Its working title was Rogue. It was changed to avoid conflict with another film with the same name. It was re-titled as Rogue Assassin in Hong Kong, Singapore and several European countries.

I thought Jet Li said that Fearless is his last fighting movie and he wanted to act in more heart warming type of movie, but apparently that is not the case, there is fighting in Rogue Assassin but it is quite minimal. Personally I find that the movie storyline kinda sucks and it is a bit confusing for me to understand or maybe I am that dumb. The twist at the back made it worst, but nevertheless it was a clever twist

MAGIC #1
An Indian discovered that nobody can create a FOLDER anywhere on the computer which can be named as “CON”. This is something pretty cool…and unbelievable… At Microsoft the whole Team, couldn’t answer why this happened!
TRY IT NOW ,IT WILL NOT CREATE ” CON ” FOLDER

MAGIC #2
For those of you using Windows, do the following:
1) Open an empty notepad file
2) Type “Bush hid the facts” (without the quotes)
3) Save it as whatever you want..
4) Close it, and re-open it.

Is it just a really weird bug? ?

MAGIC #3
Microsoft’s crazy facts

This is something pretty cool and neat…and unbelievable… At Microsoft the whole Team, including Bill Gates, couldn’t answer why this happened!

It was discovered by a Brazilian.. Try it out yourself….

Open Microsoft Word and type

=rand (200, 99)

And then press ENTER then see the magic…….

If I am WOLS, I apologized for it. But nevertheless, I tried all of them and it works for me.

I am not that interested in the Extreme version because I do not overclock my computer and no point paying more for a unlocked clock multiplier when I am not going to use it. I am hoping Intel will have 3000 MHz for the normal edition as well or even more as I am targeting at least 3GHz and above.

And yes, Yorkfield will support DDR3.

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650

• Extreme edition features unlocked clock multiplier
• Frequency: 3000 MHz
• L2-Cache: 2 × 6144 KiB
• FSB: 1333 MT/s
• Multiplier: 9x
• Socket: LGA 775

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300

• Frequency: 2500 MHz
• L2-Cache: 2 × 3072 KiB
• FSB: 1333 MT/s
• Multiplier: 7.5x
• Socket: LGA 775

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450

• Frequency: 2833 MHz
• L2-Cache: 2 × 6144 KiB
• FSB: 1333 MT/s
• Multiplier: 8x
• Socket: LGA 775

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550

• Frequency: 2667 MHz
• L2-Cache: 2 × 6144 KiB
• FSB: 1333 MT/s
• Multiplier: 8.5x
• Socket: LGA 775

Source: List of future Intel Core 2 microprocessors

Nokia E51 was announced yesterday, somehow I was expecting a E series phone being announced after Go Play as there were many rumors floating around Mobile Review forum.

I think the E51 reminds me of a candy bar version of E65 which is a slider phone. The only think I dislike the E51 is the 2MP camera, I mean even though camera is not the main feature of this phone, they should at least put in a 3.2MP camera instead.

Here some of the features for it:

• Nokia Office Tools 2.0 including Nokia Team Suite, In-device Search, Quickoffice, Macromedia PDF reader, Zip manager, File manager, and Active Notes
• Nokia Maps application integrated into device
• 2 megapixel camera with 4 x digital zoom for high quality still imaging and video capture
• Integrated WLAN (IEEE 802.11g)
• Bluetooth 2.0 specification with enhanced data rate (EDR)
• Mini USB connector, USB 2.0 full-speed
• 2.5 mm Nokia A/V connector
• 2″ (240 x 320 pixels), active-matrix color display supports up to 16 million colors
• Up to 130 MB of user data memory
• Expandable up to 4 GB with hot swappable microSD card
• S60 3.1 Edition Feature Pack 1

- Nokia E51 Press Release
- Nokia E51 Full Specifications

US started airing Prison Break Season 3 last night! Been waiting for months for it! Get it off your nearest friendly site, but careful not to get ODEXed.

Parkour is an activity of French origin, the aim of which is to move from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body.

Just watch finished District 13, it is a French action film which features Parkour and starring David Belle, the co-founder of Parkour. The movie is not bad but the movie is in French and the worst part is that the English dub sucks.

- Wikipedia on Parkour
- Wikipedia on District 13
- Wikipedia on David Belle

Here is a clip from the introduction of the movie featuring David Belle:

My Pentium 4 3.2GHz desktop will be reaching 4 years old in 2 months time. 2 days ago, my power supply unit (PSU) decided to give up on me by automatically cutting off the power to my computer and hence my computer is prone to shutting down anytime.

2 days ago, when I woke up, I was like how come it is so quiet (my computer is noisy due to the PSU also) and then I realize my computer was off. As I am going to school, I did not on it till I came home at night. When I came home at night, I on it, everything seems to be normal. But about 2am after finishing talking to Li Xiang on the phone, I witness my computer turning off by itself. I was like WTF? I immediately try turning back on, but it will automatically off after passing BIOS (I tried it like 5 times). I decided to let it rest and then after 15 minutes, I turn it back on again and it works as per normal. I check whether the bottom of my PSU’s fan is spinning and to my horror, it is not spinning. I took a sharp object and twirl the PSU’s fan to get its engine started, it spinned by itself eventually after a few twirls. I went to sleep after that.

Again, when I woke up, it is so quiet, then I realized it is time to change my PSU. Went to Funan’s PK Computer in the afternoon to get a Cooler Master 430 watts PSU for $70.

At night came back home from school, dismantled my old PSU and fixed the new one in. This time my computer is so much quieter and I managed to play 2 games of C&C3 without my computer automatically restart. Previously, whenever I play 3D intensive games like C&C3, CS and even DotA, 15 minutes into the game, my computer will automatically restart. I tried many ways to debug this issue, but apparently it is due to my PSU not giving enough power to my ATI Radeon X800 and hence it decided to ask my CPU to restart.

Moral of the story is never to get a cheap PSU and always get a PSU with higher watts.

Ratatouille
It has been a month since I caught a movie at the cinema due to our busy schedule, but finally found some time last Friday to catch a midnight show, Ratatouille, at GV VivoCity.

The show was not bad bad but a little too draggy, it is about 2 hours longs but nevertheless Pixar animation is always outstanding, I am really amazed by how they did the water effects. Imagine the algorithm and mathematical calculation behind it! That was what is going through my mind when I am watching it. LOL

Facebook
Ever since I registered for Facebook, I stopped going back to Friendster. LiXiang is always the one updating my profile with ugly pictures of me. Facebook can win Friendster just about in every way, applications, APIs, design, AJAX, tagging and my personal favourite is the intuitive interface done in Java Applet for uploading multiple photos.

I have also updated 2 of my simple Facebook Applications to display this blog and my WordPress Plugins blog statistics, recent posts and comments.

Check it out here and here.

If you want the source, it is available, just drop me an email and not post your email address in the comments. With that source, you can create an application to display the statistics, recent posts and comments of your blog and fans of your blog can add the application to their Facebook profile. Do not ask me how to go about it, instead go and read the Facebook tutorial on how to create a simple Facebook Application.

By the way, Java Sucks Period.