Rants & Ravings

Man's 'pants' password is changed

The bank apologised to Mr Jetley in a statement
A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it's not".
Steve Jetley, from Shrewsbury, said he chose the password after falling out with Lloyds TSB over insurance that came free with an account.
He said he was then banned from changing it back or to another password of "Barclays is better".
The bank apologised and said the staff member no longer worked there.
Mr Jetley said he first realised his security password had been changed when a call centre staff member told him his code word did not match with the one on the computer.
"I thought it was actually quite a funny response," he said.
I tried 'Barclays is better' and that didn't go down too well either
Steve Jetley
"But what really incensed me was when I was told I could not change it back to 'Lloyds is pants' because they said it was not appropriate.
"I asked if it was 'pants' they didn't like, and would 'Lloyds is rubbish' do? But they didn't think so.
"So I tried 'Barclays is better' and that didn't go down too well either.
"The rules seemed to change, and they told me it had to be one word, so I tried 'censorship', but they didn't like that, and then said it had to be no more than six letters long."
'Very disappointing'
Mr Jetley said he was still trying to find a suitable password which met the conditions.
He said his dispute with the bank started over some travel insurance, but that issue had been dealt with by managers independently.
A statement released by the bank said: "We would like to apologise to Mr Jetley.
"It is very disappointing that he felt the need to express his upset with our service in this way. Customers can have any password they choose and it is not our policy to allow staff to change the password without the customer's permission.
"The member of staff involved no longer works for Lloyds TSB."
Lloyds TSB stressed there was no security lapse in this case.
A spokesperson said: "On the majority of transactions advisors cannot read customers' passwords.
"In this case it was a business banking customer using a system where more than one person from a business can check their balance.
"In these cases an advisor can read the full password.
"But if such customers require more complex transactions, then full security procedures apply and advisors cannot read secure information."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hereford/worcs/7585098.stm

Haha... oh those crazy Brits..

Labels: humour

Was talking to Veg online today in between intense bursts of work and extreme lag at work due to the new database being.. well extremely sucky. Been awhile since we've talked, partly cause she's always not in the country and now that I'm working I have to keep to more regular sleeping hours. Anyway asked her how married life was treating her and she said it was tiring. Tiring because of all the chores that had to be done such as laundry and housekeeping. Which does make sense cause most of us (talking about myself here) don't really do chores at home. And once you're out of the house, you're on your own. Cleaning, washing, cooking etc etc..
So I gave her this piece of advice: drop your standards of hygiene. Which oddly enough she agreed.. haha.. that was actually meant to provoke some form of disgust from her, but she actually agreed.

Maybe it is true, once you get married, your personal standards of living fall until.. well either it starts to smell really bad and one of you falls sick very often, or you all have kids. Then your standards of living will have to go up for the sake of your kids, then your kids will have those standards until the cycle repeats itself again.

Laundry and House Keeping: Not going to sell the idea of marriage to anybody anytime soon with those 2 concepts :)

Labels: rant

http://izreloaded.blogspot.com/2008/08/osims-uvibe-is-every-girls-best-friend.html

They had the rather suggestive igallop and it seems there was another product after that called the ivibe.. anyway now they have the uvibe.. which.. well words are not enough. Read the article.

Labels: weird products

She seems to be asking the questions that people should be asking but are not.
http://www.straitstimes.com/Singapore/Story/STIStory_271908.html
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/272917.asp

Where as Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon seems to be becoming the next Vivian B... must be a MCYS thing.. all lose their souls or something..

Labels: Politics, stupid policies

Here's an interesting read about how our neighbour across the straits is screwing its people over.
http://cowboycaleb.liquidblade.com/index.php/archives/2008/08/24/cowboy-caleb-chats-with-some-kuching-geologists/

And to be fair, here's how our side is lying to us (or rather just white washing stuff)

http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2008/08/inflation-headl.html#comments

Labels: current affairs

http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/19/how-to-win-a-fight-against-twenty-children/

Labels: humour

http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/2008/08/devil-chua-lee-hoong-harry-lee.html

Interesting article. It's not that long. Read it. Especially if you've read Lord of the Flies before.

Labels: current affairs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7557107.stm

Labels: current affairs, Politics

From Channelnews Asia:
The political problems faced by many countries in Asia can be traced back to two words: Money politics.

And the reason such troubles have not taken root here? There is no “money politics” in Singapore, and “we have a Division One team in charge”, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew last night.

In many Asian countries, money politics is simply the “code word” for buying votes to gain power, and after that is done, “to recover your expenses plus some profit for the next round of vote-buying”, said Mr Lee at the Tanjong Pagar 43rd National Day Celebration Dinner.

“One of the big problems they now face, in other countries, is the people in power want to reserve the money, keep it for themselves. So, they exclude young able people who want to join their team ...

“The result is, there is no talent inside the existing parties.”

Contrast that to Singapore.

“In other countries, elections do not put up a Division One team. They are a Division Three, either a B team or a C team in charge. In Singapore, we carefully select our candidates ...

“Over the years, with each election, we see the quality of the MPs, their education levels, their competence, their abilities, their energy.

“Their youthfulness is renewed and we have a leadership that’s able to meet the rising standards of the population,” said Mr Lee.

But today’s younger generation does not understand all this, the Minister Mentor said.

“They say, oh, let’s have multiparty politics. Let’s have different parties change and be in charge of the Government. Is it that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside within three, four years. Finished.”

Such proponents should study Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines, where rotating party governments have led to more mismanagement. “And a ‘freewheeling paress’ has not cleaed up corruption, although according to American ‘liberal’ democracy theories, it is designed to do so,” Mr Lee said.

Even in the face of a global recession, Singapore has enough long-term investments to buffer the setbacks, noted Mr Lee.

“Why are we on top of our problem? Because there’s a Government that’s planning ahead, seeing ahead, calculating ahead, making the right decision. Yes, there will be recession around the world. But we will have enough investments already going on,” he said.

As a mentor and advisor to the younger policy-makers, he cited how he backed Singapore’s hosting of the Formula One in September, even though he himself was not a fan. “We cannot stay still. The world has changed – there’s a jetset that travels all over the world because they are interested in the Formula One races. Why? I don’t know.

“I find very little excitement in it. They wheel around and around, and it’s over. And there’s an accident – so what? But I’m told there is tremendous exitement in the way you get the cars, the way you change wheels, the way you drive, and so on,” he said, drawing chuckles from the audience. - TODAY/ra

Yup, we don't buy votes in Singapore. It's just convenient that we give away money to those who are of voting age before an election. Nope, no money politics here. Doesn't his hand ever get tired of patting himself and his team on the back? Division 1? Ok fine.. Division 1 with no heart. No understanding of the situation the ground. The only thing that I agree with in this whole article are the last 2 paragraphs. Everything else is just more of waving fear to the younger generation (which surprisingly doesn't scare as easy as the older generation). I think he's worried. Cause the new generation is quite different. They respond differently. We don't like threats. We don't heel just because some guy who's out of touch with the world tells us to. Just like they've lost touch with the people, they've lost touch with the younger generation. They think that having dance and rap videos is what it'll take to connect. Laughable.. division 1 indeed...

Labels: current affairs, Politics

Another kind of transformer..

http://www.myrelaxplace.com/2007/07/20/this-girl-is-beautiful-and-cute/

Labels: quirky

http://www.myrelaxplace.com/2008/05/25/yamahas-wearable-motorcycle/

Man machine interface... Human vehicles..

Labels: tech

http://www.myrelaxplace.com/2007/08/24/strange-fish-with-crocodile-jaws/
Seems my fish which I released into the wild a few years back found it's way to China.. nice..

Labels: quirky

Something funny for mid-week.. (Warning some rather foul language.. but it's all subtitled..)

Labels: humour

Came across 2 articles on the Olympics today. First one was about how some of the fireworks shown on tv during the opening ceremony was fake. Most of it was real, but the one where the helicopter was flying over (or something like that) was a computer generated image. The reason being that they didn't want to accidently hit the helicopter. Which makes sense.. well more sense than the next one..



Coming out of the news was the fact that the small girl who sang the chinese song during the opening ceremony pulled an Ashlee Simpson. She was lip syncing to a pre-recorded track. This was revealed by the art director of the event who posted up this piece of information on the internet before it was removed. I bet he and his family have been mysteriously removed as well.. The reason for the lip syncing is because the girl who can sing doesn't look as good on camera and wouldn't potray China well enough to the rest of the world, so they got another girl who looks good but can't really sing..

Updated: See pics above.

Still don't really get all the hype about the Olympics. My colleagues seem to rave about it every day, about how it makes them proud to be chinese.. duh.. Guess National Education has failed again.. Such hypocrites are people.. one side blame FT (PRCs) for stealing jobs and all, then on the other hand, proud to be chinese...

Labels: current affairs

As a Malay, I've always been told that I have to work twice as hard to prove my worth
by Nur Dianah Suhaimi

When I was younger, I always thought of myself as the quintessential Singaporean.

Of my four late grandparents, two were Malay, one was Chinese and one was Indian. This, I concluded, makes me a mix of all the main races in the country. But I later realised that it was not what goes into my blood that matters, but what my identity card says under 'Race'.

Because my paternal grandfather was of Bugis origin, my IC says I'm Malay. I speak the language at home, learnt it in school, eat the food and practise the culture. And because of my being Malay, I've always felt like a lesser Singaporean than those from other racial groups.

I grew up clueless about the concept of national service because my father was never enlisted.

He is Singaporean all right, born and bred here like the rest of the boys born in 1955. He is not handicapped in any way. He did well in school and participated in sports.

Unlike the rest, however, he entered university immediately after his A levels. He often told me that his schoolmates said he was 'lucky' because he was not called up for national service.

'What lucky?' he would tell them. 'Would you feel lucky if your country doesn't trust you?'

So I learnt about the rigours of national service from my male cousins. They would describe in vivid detail their training regimes, the terrible food they were served and the torture inflicted upon them - most of which, I would later realise, were exaggerations.

But one thing these stories had in common was that they all revolved around the Police Academy in Thomson. As I got older, it puzzled me why my Chinese friends constantly referred to NS as 'army'. In my family and among my Malay friends, being enlisted in the army was like hitting the jackpot. The majority served in the police force because, as is known, the Government was not comfortable with Malay Muslims serving in the army. But there are more of them now.

Throughout my life, my father has always told me that as a Malay, I need to work twice as hard to prove my worth. He said people have the misconception that all Malays are inherently lazy.

I was later to get the exact same advice from a Malay minister in office who is a family friend.

When I started work, I realised that the advice rang true, especially because I wear my religion on my head. My professionalism suddenly became an issue. One question I was asked at a job interview was whether I would be willing to enter a nightclub to chase a story. I answered: 'If it's part of the job, why not? And you can rest assured I won't be tempted to have fun.'

When I attend media events, before I can introduce myself, people assume I write for the Malay daily Berita Harian. A male Malay colleague in The Straits Times has the same problem, too.

This makes me wonder if people also assume that all Chinese reporters are from Lianhe Zaobao and Indian reporters from Tamil Murasu.

People also question if I can do stories which require stake-outs in the sleazy lanes of Geylang. They say because of my tudung I will stick out like a sore thumb. So I changed into a baseball cap and a men's sports jacket - all borrowed from my husband - when I covered Geylang.

I do not want to be seen as different from the rest just because I dress differently. I want the same opportunities and the same job challenges.

Beneath the tudung, I, too, have hair and a functioning brain. And if anything, I feel that my tudung has actually helped me secure some difficult interviews.

Newsmakers - of all races - tend to trust me more because I look guai (Hokkien for well-behaved) and thus, they feel, less likely to write critical stuff about them.

Recently, I had a conversation with several colleagues about this essay. I told them I never thought of myself as being particularly patriotic. One Chinese colleague thought this was unfair. 'But you got to enjoy free education,' she said.

Sure, for the entire 365 days I spent in Primary 1 in 1989. But my parents paid for my school and university fees for the next 15 years I was studying.

It seems that many Singaporeans do not know that Malays have stopped getting free education since 1990. If I remember clearly, the news made front-page news at that time.

We went on to talk about the Singapore Government's belief that Malays here would never point a missile at their fellow Muslim neighbours in a war.

I said if not for family ties, I would have no qualms about leaving the country. Someone then remarked that this is why Malays like myself are not trusted. But I answered that this lack of patriotism on my part comes from not being trusted, and for being treated like a potential traitor.

It is not just the NS issue. It is the frustration of explaining to non-Malays that I don't get special privileges from the Government. It is having to deal with those who question my professionalism because of my religion. It is having people assume, day after day, that you are lowly educated, lazy and poor. It is like being the least favourite child in a family. This child will try to win his parents' love only for so long. After a while, he will just be engulfed by disappointment and bitterness.

I also believe that it is this 'least favourite child' mentality which makes most Malays defensive and protective of their own kind.

Why do you think Malay families spent hundreds of dollars voting for two Malay boys in the Singapore Idol singing contest? And do you know that Malays who voted for other competitors were frowned upon by the community?

The same happens to me at work. When I write stories which put Malays in a bad light, I am labelled a traitor. A Malay reader once wrote to me to say: 'I thought a Malay journalist would have more empathy for these unfortunate people than a non-Malay journalist.'

But such is the case when you are a Malay Singaporean. Your life is not just about you, as much as you want it to be. You are made to feel responsible for the rest of the pack and your actions affect them as well. If you trip, the entire community falls with you. But if you triumph, it is considered everyone's success.

When 12-year-old Natasha Nabila hit the headlines last year for her record PSLE aggregate of 294, I was among the thousands of Malays here who celebrated the news. I sent instant messages to my friends on Gmail and chatted excitedly with my Malay colleagues at work.

Suddenly a 12-year-old has become the symbol of hope for the community and a message to the rest that Malays can do it too - and not just in singing competitions.

And just like that, the 'least favourite child' in me feels a lot happier.

Each year, come Aug 9, my father, who never had the opportunity to do national service, dutifully hangs two flags at home - one on the front gate and the other by the side gate.

I wonder if putting up two flags is his way of making himself feel like a better-loved child of Singapore.

Copied from http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/Our%2BColumnists/Column/STIStory_266543.html?vgnmr=1

Labels: food for thought

Labels: Movies

We had a national day observance ceremony/celebration at work today. Had the singing of the national anthem, taking of the pledge etc etc.. However the main event was changed due to the chiku fever. Originally supposed to go out and do stuff, but then was changed due to the outbreak of the chiku fever. So in it's place? We all went to watch a movie. Not a movie of our choice mind you. In fact it's a movie called "Mad About English". It's actually a documentary on China and the Chinese people's drive to learn how to speak English in view of the Olympics (which incidently opens today). The movie itself was ok I guess. It's not a movie that I would actually pay money to watch, much less go on a Friday and pay $8. An interesting point to note is that we weren't the only people in the cinema watching this show. There were about 4 other people there. Why would anyone, given a choice of any other movie currently in theatres, pay $8 to watch this documentary?

Anyway another amusing thing was how we made our way there. We hired about 3 tour buses and we all wore national day colors (E.g red and/or white). So all of us hopped on the bus, went to the cinema, got off the bus as one large group of easily 80 people and flooded the escalators of Isetan. We were like some really weird tour group who decided to watch a movie.

Labels: humour, quirky

Labels: humour

http://www.insanepoly.com/blog/?p=552

From the ever insightful Insane Polygons..

Labels: food for thought