Touch Pro 2

Year 2009

2009 is a year that many important changes took place, some good, some bad. Then again, good and bad are pretty relative, as it is dependent of who's perspective you took. I will blog more about it in time to come. Right now, I am test blogging this article with iPhone.

Selling Acer laptop (SOLD)

Specification:
Model: Acer 4920
Window Vista Home Premium
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 @ 2.00Ghz
RAM: 2 Gb
Drive: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7560A ATA
Sound: Realtek High Definition Audio
Graphic: ATI Mobility Radeon X2500 (256MB)
HDD: 280 GB

The Real Reason Behind Destiny

As I stared into the lifeless form of one of the baby hamsters, once again, it made me ponder about the meaning of life..

Why are we alive?

Before we look at that, let us examine the "definition" of alive.

1.	having life; living; existing; not dead or lifeless.

2.	living (used for emphasis): the proudest man alive.

3.	in a state of action; in force or operation; active: to keep hope alive.

4.	full of energy and spirit; lively: Grandmother's more alive than most of her contemporaries.

Here are some of the (common) views of life...

-Why bother to look so far ahead? Enjoy your life while you can.
-Set a goal and aim to achieve it. The goals of our life.
Such goals may include
-Strive to work together to improve and bring mankind to great height (Love the "grandness" of such statement).
-To build up relationships with family/friends/etc
-To spread your personal/group/religious/"truth" to the other people
-To obey God (people with religion)
-To look for God (people without or have just left another religion)
-To look for alternative explanation beside those provided by religion (such as science etc)

Earplugs Review. No-Roll Foam Earplugs. Hear no evil...

Let those who want to hear, hear. For those who do not want to, well, you can use an earplug as an aid.

I've been busy studying for my exam for the past few days (maybe weeks) and I realized the importance of SILENCE.

Not only silence is important to me during my studies, but also during my bedtime. Why? Certain sound such as the footsteps of your family members, or the noisy revving of your neighbours' Subaru/Evo, or even the mating mourns of stray cats can disturb/disrupt my sleep.


To counter this, I use my faithfully foam ear plug, the EAR Taperfit2.

This is a extremely soft and gummy foam ear plug. Very effective at noise control. (More on that later). For foam earplug, you need to roll it into a small piece so that it can enter into your ear canal and expand to effectively block out (a certain level of)the noise. One slight disadvantage of Taperfit2 is that it expands rather quickly when rolled, hence you need to insert into the ear canal quickly (With 2sec).

For those who are new to earplug, I would like to say that foam earplug is the best available portable noise controlling equipment. Even active noise cancellation technology, custom fit silicone earplug and ear muff cannot beat this. Of course if you use a ear muff and a foam earplug, it is more effective than using any of the mentioned above. However, singular noise control, it is still foam.

However, there is the hygiene concern. If you roll the foam earplug with unclean hand, your ears may get infected. As such, I recently got a few sets of no-roll foam earplugs that do not require the use of hand to roll the foam into the ears, I will test out the effectiveness.

For sound reference, here is my control variable.
-Ear Taperfit2
-Window XP, full 100% volume
- Youtube Comedy Talk show @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOWlpvOPKXc 100% volume at the youtube software.
-Creative Gigaworks T3 @ 40% of the volume (considered loud)
-Sitting 1 m away from the speaker

So using my Taperfit2, the noise level was reduced approximately by 40%.

Note: I have average size ear canals.


Now let us take a look at the performance of no-roll foam.

1) EAR Express Pod Plugs (NRR25 - Higher the number, theoretically the better.)

The foam are soft but expand very fast. Small round head means that it does not go deep into your ear canal. In fact, it does sit just inside the ear.

Noise Reduction: 10%

Comfortable.



2) EAR Push-Ins ComforTip (NRR26)


Spongy big head with the foam characteristics the same as Express Pod. I cannot insert them inside them into my ear without them sliding out. As a result, they sit just outside my ears. Maybe these are for those who have HUGE ear canal. And I mean HUGE.

Noise Reduction 2%

Not Comfortable.



3) EAR Push-Ins (NRR28)
Slightly smaller head than Express Pod, again, same foam characteristics as Express Pod (not surprisingly since they are all from EAR). Cannot go deep into my ear canals.

Noise Reduction: 20%

Comfortable


4)Peltor Next No-Touch (NRR29)

Very soft foam. Softer than the above three. And more meat/foam. Insert deeper than the previous three.

Noise Reduction: 35%

Very Comfortable


5) Peltor Skull Screw (NRR30)

Interesting name. Not as meaty/foamy as Next No-Touch, but use the same foam as Next. Insert as deep as Next, but with a slight pain.

Noise Reduction: 35%

Comfortable


6) EAR Push_Ins With Grip Ring (NRR30)

Almost the same as Peltor Skull. Skull have a softer foam. Slight less deep than Skull.

Noise Reduction 30%

Comfortable.


7) EAR Softouch (NRR31)



Softest Foam among the EAR brand. Even though its head is bigger than skull or Grip Ring, it has a foam tip head, hence it is comfortable.

Noise Reduction: 35%

Comfortable.


Here are all 7 of them.






To conclude: out of all 7, I would choose Peltor Next No-Touch as it is the most comfortable among all of them and offer the highest noise reduction among the no-roll foam earplugs. Second in place are EAR SofTouch and Peltor Skull Screw. However, both their sizes mean wearing them overnight to sleep may not be comfortable.

Still, roll-down foam, in my opinion, is better. But still, if you have problem with hand hygiene or do not want the hassle of rolling and inserting the foam, no-roll foam can be a good alternative.

How to get rich without much repercussion

Previously,

Get the Green Card,

Join a major "nationalized" bank.

Work your way up.

Invest using banks money in extremely risky assets etc.

Pocket fat bonuses and perks if the investments turn out well.

Ask government to use taxpayer money to aid the bank if the investments incur heavy losses.

Either way, you will not lose much...

It will not work now since everybody is aware of the situation.

Wait for 4 years, when the economy recovers, then you try your luck again.

GOOD LUCK....

and look out for taxpayers hunting you down by means of golden bullet envelop threat, stabbing you from behind with penknife etc..

Sincerely,
Shengjie - "Small fry Economist"

The Blind Side of Blandishment

To those who had a religion,

At times, you were (or still are) surprise(d) or truly amaze(d) at how "obstinate"(subjective) some people can get when you tried to tell the good news of your religion to them.

Some people may give you the friendly nod or (Duchenne) smile, some may brush you off, some may even reverse the process by telling you about their own views.

I've experience many of such encounters and I come to a realization that there are certain issues that were never brought on the table.

First - Some people simply do not believe in external life. I've many friends whom when probed(asked), told me that. Death, is just like sleeping. 75% of my non believer friends told me that.

Note: Before I continue, I wish to clarify that what you encounter may differ from mine.

Now, imagine that you are an insurance agent. You are trying to sell a saving plan to Mr X. This saving plan requires him to set aside $500 per month, and continue to commit to do so for 25 years (Total commitment = $500 x 12 x 25 = $150,000). In return, he will get one lump sum of money at the end of the 25 years, and this sum is greater than $150,000. Once he signed up for the plan, failure to commit(perhaps due to financial crisis), will incur a penalty fee and may end worst off than his initial position.

Will he buy?

Going back to my point, if Mr X did not believe that he will (or have a high chance) live beyond 10 years, persuading him to take up the plan due to the higher pay-off is not going to work. In fact, in real life, I've come across insurance agents enticing me with this carrot of high payoff.

Instead, the agent should try to convince Mr X that he will live for the next 25 years or more.

How to convince? Well, that is the difficult part....

One thing for sure though, try sleeping without breathing, and I think sleeping may not be pleasant after all.

Second - Social forces are more visible and evident than "religious forces".

Try telling Mr X that God will hunt or punish (angrily/lovingly/benevolently) him for his sin by striking him with a bolt of lighting or sending an earthquake with the epicenter directly below his feet. Mr X will label you as "off-the-mark".

Telling Mr X that the mysterious incurable disease that he had was due to God's punishment or even that God is sending his 'crusade' from Country Y to kill him have a higher 'impact' than the natural forces.

(Some) people tend to look at the olden history of religion and associate them with the natural forces. It is understandable. Ancient people worshiped many natural elements of the earth. And a good portion of ancient people also worshiped God that control such forces. In olden days, people could not understand why natural disasters happen to them and how it happen.

Nowadays, people studies and know why and where is can occur, so they can be "unreachable".
Which may explain why no one or perhaps(more optimistically), some still worship the Sun in the modern day.

The notion 'almost everything is in our own control' is a difficult barrier to break...


Third - The negative/false impression of religious leaders.

I understand from some, that is also one of the barrier that they had.

Inevitably, quite a number of non-believers create some sort of money "flowchart" - people do offerings -> religious institution gets the money ->religious people who control the institutes get the money-> religious leaders needs more money -> preach and ask people to give more/be faithful -> Repeat cycle. Admittedly, this is a generalized and perhaps narrow view and there may be a better flowchart to incorporate a wider range of views.

(Some) people expect religious leaders to be frugal, humble etc... somehow similar to Muhammad Gandhi, Mother Theresa, _________(fill in the blank).

But, sorry to disappoint.

Leaders do have the freedom of using the money that was given to them. But if the religious leaders, especially those that are earning directly from the offerings of the people, have the wrong motive and use religious reasons to cover up or (sugar) coat such motives, then I believe it is not right.

It is hard to discern and distinguish between the white and black sheep...

And on a further note, I've come across religious leaders that say(somewhere along the line): In the secular world, with my qualification and capability, there are many better paying jobs that I can take up, yet I choose to work as a lowly paid religious leader.

What are they trying to invoke? It will only add more layers of barrier.......


Once again, I'll like to end off with this: What I saw or encountered may differ from yours. After all, we live in a diverse world, and you may be living in a world that is culturally/ethically etc different from mine, and you may not see or feel what I see or feel. You don't have to agree. :)