O' Yee Of Good Faith

Greetings,

Well its all over the news by now, but those fake Apple 'Stores' in China are being closed down as we speak. Oddly, they are being closed because some of them do not have a license to operate, and not because they are infringing on any rights of the principal company.

Is this a case of 'creative license' gone too far in terms of mimicking an Apple store, or is really more of "imitation is the best form Of flattery"?

Kudos to the original blogger that brought this to light, but I'm pretty sure this was already known by the locals though no one really bothered to act on it.

Strangely so, Apple has also been mum on this. As long as they are selling genuine products maybe?

*shrug* Welcome to the new world order.

Dav out

Greetings,

The recent news on people brought up for wrong doing (during work at an ex company location) has me thinking, is there even a statute of limitations on what you've done, and if there is, how long back does it go?

Alcatel Lucent, NoW and other companies are feeling the brunt of these issues, but its the people working under the management that's being offered as sacrificial lambs. I'm not saying that these people DIDN'T know what they were doing, but in some cases its what you do on a day to day basis at work and never really think about it later.

No, I don't go around bribing people nor do I hack phones. Haxx0r!



Its just, how long back in time do the need to look before they find something incriminating? I don't want someone to go back 15 years in my past and say they found me drinking a can of Coke at my first job as a store boy just because someone dusted off a VHS of a security cam.

Its an interesting notion, but its something I'm trying not to dwell on.

Dav out

Greetings,

The latest news is that the PlayStation 3 will now come out in a slimmer, sexier footprint.

From whats being thrown out on the Interwebs, seems that the new slim PS3 will also be a little cheaper when compared to the older PlayStation 3.



More comparison pictures of the PlayStation 3 slim and a few other game units here.

Though I'd wonder on what they had to toss out to make the unit so much more slimmer then the original PlayStation 3. A quote from one of the websites:

The PS3 Slim is powered by a new 45nm version of the Cell processor, which runs at the same speed as the 60nm processor in the "old" PS3 but is smaller and more energy efficient. According to company reps, power consumption for the Slim has also been cut to two-thirds, "helping to reduce fan noise," which is important.

Something I've seen (mostly with computers) is that a smaller footprint always leads to heat issues or issues with upgrade.

The one feature missing from the Slim is the ability to install another operating system (i.e., Linux)--Sony is doing away with that feature.

Woah, hold up, you cant mod / install Linux or anything else on it? Well that might be a huge issue with it comes to some gamers. I've seen the videos of having Linux on the PlayStation 3, and I must admit, it looks pretty neat. Much like having a different OS on the XBOX 360.

Wonder if I'll get one.

Reference Sites:

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/08/18/playstation-3-now-299-slimmer-version-coming-september-1st/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10312144-1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_on_the_PlayStation_3

Dav out

Greetings,

I love Monopoly. I'm not sure why, but it could be the draw of earning loads of money and causing other people to go bankrupt.

The problem is, the bunch I play Monopoly with sometimes come up with very interesting outlook on the rules of Monopoly. Truth to be told, I'm not even sure if the rules I have in my head are the right ones, but enough people agree with me, and that makes it ok (majority!)

1. If you land on the 'Go' space, and you get paid the $200 right away.
2. This one is related to #1 above. You roll and get a Chance card. It says, advance to 'Go' but it does not say the usual "Collect $200 if you pass Go". Because of this, you can not collect your $200.
3. When you land on a property space that's not owned, you can go ahead and buy it (no duh!). When you buy the property, because you're a rich poopy-head, you're allowed to go ahead and build 4 houses and a hotel. No, really.
4. Free parking - when you land on the space marked as 'Pay tax - $100 ' or 'Income tax - $200' you put the money in the center of the board, and when a player lands on the 'Free Parking' space, he/she gets to take all the money accumulated in the center. Awesome!
5. Players in jail can not collect rent (oh I vetoed this one right away!).
6. The "I don't know what you're talking about, I've just rolled the dice so no one owes you any money" rule - when a player lands on someone's property, and that person forgets to look up the fact that they own the property (I blame TV), and another person goes ahead and rolls the dice, then the game goes on. No one pays anyone.
7. If you roll a double 3 times in a row, you go to jail (two same values 3 times in a row - trust me, it happens)

Well, this is what I have to put up with. I'm not saying all of the above 'house rules' are wrong, but some are!

Dav out

Greetings,

Last night the Govt announced that the price of petrol at the pump will go up from MYR 1.97 to MYR 2.70 (roughly by 40%). I was a little taken aback with the announcement because I would have thought the Govt would have pushed the price up a little at a time till it reached a value they were ok with.

If you didn't know, here in Malaysia, the Govt spends a huge chunk of change on subsidising petrol for everyday consumers. They've been able to keep the price low and stable for a long time now, but with the new price hikes and other issues coming in, I think re-organizing the petrol subsidy is a good idea. The new plan to redistribute the subsidy and other changes are shown below, taken from the Malaysian newspaper The Star.

The Changes

Price increase

Petrol – RM0.78/litre
Diesel – RM1/litre
Electricity:
Commercial and industrial – 26%
Retailers and small restaurant operators – 18% (for first 200kWh per month)
Residential – new pricing structure for users above 200kWh per month

Prices effective today 05/06/2008 (per litre)

Petrol – RM2.70 (previously RM1.92)
Diesel – RM2.58 (previously RM1.58)

Rebates

> RM625 per year
For private vehicle with engine capacity of 2000cc and below, including private pickup trucks and jeeps with engine capacity of 2500cc and below.

> RM150 per year
For each private motorcycle with engine capacity of 250cc and below

> RM200 reduction on road tax
For private petrol and diesel vehicles with engine capacity above 2000cc

> RM50 reduction on road tax
For private motorcycles with engine capacity above 250cc

Streamlined diesel subsidy
(for approved transportation companies, vessel owners and fishermen)

> Diesel – RM1.43 per litre (previously RM1 per litre for fishermen and RM1.20 per litre for vessel owners)

> RM200 per month for every owner and employee of Malaysian-owned vessels registered with the Fisheries Department

> 10sen per kilo incentive for every kilogram of fish caught by registered vessels

> 10sen per litre for every litre of diesel used by river transportation operators according to approved quota

Gas subsidies restructure
(for Peninsular Malaysia)

> For power producers – from RM6.40 per mmBtu to RM14.31 per mmBtu

> For industrial users (consuming less than 2mmscfd) – from RM9.40 per mmBtu to RM24.54 per mmBtu

> For industrial users (consuming above 2mmscfd) – from RM11.32 per mmBtu to RM32.56 per mmBtu

Electricity tariff restructure

> Households using 200kWh and below every month will not be affected. This covers 59% of households in Peninsular Malaysia with a monthly bill under RM43.60.

> Commercial and industrial users face 26% increase. Small retail and business outlets consuming under 200kWh per month face 18% increase.

Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Natural Gas for Vehicle (NGV)

> No change. Prices remain at RM1.75 per kg (LPG) and RM0.635 per litre (NGV)

Oil palm windfall tax

> For Peninsular Malaysia 15% for every tonne of CPO exceeding RM2,000

> Sabah and Sarawak 7.5% for every tonne of CPO exceeding RM2,000 > Abolition of cess tax

Service tax threshold for restaurants and eateries

> Service tax now for restaurants with annual sales of RM3mil (previously RM500,000)

All in all, I think its a positive move by the Govt. Sure, prices are going up, but its not as bad as other countries. We need to buckle down people!


Dav out

Greetings,

Just an update for Hurk who's the only one monitoring my PC status (home PC). Due to a power outage and short, the store has called me up and told me that the items below are shot:

list of stuff that's dead:
1. processor p4 HT
2. Mobo
3. PSU
4. RAM
5. Video graphics card 128mb

:( I'm now left with a black box, 3 dvd drives and a HDD (maybe)

Screwed.

Dav out