i.justrealized

I recently ate these 2 food that contains mild contents of melamine. I ate Julie’s Wheat Crackers and Julie’s Peanut Butter sandwich biscuit. They contain 0.7 to 0.26 ppm and 4.9 ppm to 23.4 ppm respectively. They won’t kill an adult but it sure doesn’t feel too good after I read that.

(Julie’s Wheat Crackers.)

(Julie’s Peanut Butter sandwich biscuit.)

I generally feel that no one should be panicking like my mom. She thinks the world is going to end one day due to poisons in food. I corrected her by announcing, “the world will not end due to food poisoning; we’ll just poison our environment and we all die anyway.” I smirked. She gave me a confused look. “Well,” I sighed, “never mind.”

Here’s some information disseminated by the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore:

What is melamine?

Melamine is a chemical rich in nitrogen that is used in making plastics, glues and whiteboards. It was implicated in the recent cases of contaminated milk and milk products from China.

Are milk and milk products in Singapore safe?

Milk and milk products sold in Singapore are safe for consumption.

AVA has suspended the import and sale of all milk and milk products from China since 19 September 2008. Retailers and importers have been instructed to recall these products and these products will be withheld from sale.

Local food manufacturers have also been instructed to cease the use of milk and milk products from China as ingredients. Consignments which have newly arrived or are on the way will also be withheld from sale.

Why is it that only the “Julie’s” brand of biscuits have been recalled?

As a precautionary measure, all “Julie’s” brand biscuits are required to be withdrawn from sale. This is because 12 of the 17 affected biscuits that were just detected are “Julie’s” brand of biscuits. (Source: AVA Singapore, PDF file)

Well anyway, if you do have one of these Julie’s biscuit, you are advise not to consume it, to see a full list of food that contain melamine, click on Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore’s the PDF link.

Today going to university seemed to be a norm. Every parent wants their child to be academically successful. Have you given a thought that we, perhaps, don’t need too many university undergraduates? And that perhaps diplomas students are more than enough?

Suppose Singapore only needs 0.1% to have Masters, 10% to have Bachelors. But the population has this desire to push themselves to a university. In the end there’s just not much people with the diplomas, not much people willing to do the more labor-intensive work.

The solution is to bring foreign workers into Singapore.

So why are people complaining about foreign workers in Singapore? They are here because we have this perception that a university degree is most essential.

Getting a university degree to maintain competitiveness? Nah, that’s probably a misconception. Getting university degree simply increase competitiveness amongst the degree holders.

It’s the first Python User Group meeting in Singapore. It’s interesting to see that the number of people using Python in Singapore (we’re a population of 4.5 million when I last counted with my fingers).

Let me first say I’m not really a Python programmer developer. I work with PHP more but Python has always been interesting for me mainly because of the beauty in the syntax. I probably would blog more about it in future (not near).

Anyhow, the Singapore Python User Group is organized by several Republic Polytechnic lecturers, mainly teaching Diploma in Interactive & Digital Media. Two of the courses that in the diploma actually uses Python - Multimedia Programming I and II. I think Temasek Polytechnic has a little bit of Python in this shell scripting course too.

The first meetup is mainly a sharing session, the later part of the meetup broke in lightning talks ala Barcamp. There is also mention of PyCon Singapore 2010. I hope things would work out right. Things should be interesting.

I figured I should too mentioned that there are women present in this meetup and they are not PR people.

The meetup finished at 7 where I rush home for dinner. Met Jonathan on my way out of SMU and we chatted a little. And yeah, he didn’t know what’s Python.

Interestingly, there actually are people interested in Python in Singapore. Most Singaporeans are Java or .NET language programmers due to the things they teach in school. Java and .NET languages are great but alternate languages won’t hurt.

The Python User Group is on coming Thursday, i.e. October 9, 2008.

Venue: SMU, SIS (School of Information System) NSR 2.1

Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm

What’s the session about?

• Introduction of the group
• Sharing of Python initiatives (open invitation to anyone)
• 5 to 10 minutes each
• Please bring your own laptop, if necessary
• Sharing of PyCon Singapore 2010 initiative
• Invitation to participate
• Tea break

Of course you know I probably be there for the tea since Singapore Institute of Management have no more free tea breaks and we now have to pay a dollar seventy cents to get our own bun and coffee. To think Irene and I spend one whole semester complaining that the coffee sucked, the tea sucked, the plain water sucked and the flatten bun did not look at all appetizing. Now there’s no more. We only appreciate things when we miss it.

Rants aside, anybody going to the Python User Group meeting?

Wow dial up is still around:

Access Plan	Free Hours	Monthly Subscription Personal/Business	Monthly Subscription Student
I	13	$10.17	$8.03
II	35	$26.70	$21.35
III	90	$64.15	$51.31
IV	135	$90.90	$72.23
Unlimited	Unlimited	$107.00	-

(Source: SingNet) (more…)

I wonder if this would set a chain reaction affecting finance related organizations in the US. If AIG really goes bankrupt, it would be the largest corporate bankruptcy in terms of assets. AIG has US$1 trillion worth of assets.

AIG struggles to survive financial tsunami

Insurer American International Group Inc struggled for survival a day after a financial tsunami swept away investment bank Lehman Brothers and forced the sale of rival Merrill Lynch in the biggest financial industry shake-up since the Great Depression.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to review options for AIG — which has lost some 92 percent of its value so far this year — a person familiar with the situation said Monday.

Darkening one of the few bright spots from the weekend’s mayhem, Bank of America — which would surpass Citigroup Inc as the country’s largest bank by assets with the planned takeover of Merrill — saw its shares plunge. (Source: Reuters)

I have AIA policies. Regarding insurance policies, there likely be a takeover and the policy remains the same. If bankruptcy occurs for AIG, branches such as AIA (American International Assurance) probably be affected by value, but it doesn’t mean AIA would go bankrupt too.

I’ve been following the US finance thing a little, things don’t seem optimistic.

Chong Kok wants you to see this:

The JC Lightbulb Joke

Q: How many RJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 4 whole faculties. One to design the new bulb, one to
manufacture and test it out, one to write a proposal on it and one to market it.

Q: How many HCJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The whole school. To compete with RJC.

Q: How many VJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: The whole school. One student to screw it in and the rest to cheer and wave flags and banners to give him/her support.

Q: How many NJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They can study without light.

Q: How many AJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: They’re too busy trying to be one of the top 5 JCs.

Q: How many ACJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They’ll rather use all their money to employ YJC to do it for them.

Q: How many YJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Only one teacher to tell them what a light bulb is in the first place and to demonstrate how to change the light bulb. (So how do you think they’re able to change it for ACJC?)

Q: How many CJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: They’ll prefer it to be darker. (Hmmmm?*raises eye-brows* )

Q: How many JJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Their physics is so bad that they made their macho male physics teacher cry.

Q: How many TPJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. Would they even bother?

Q: How many SAJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They believe in praying for it.

Q: How many NYJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are still using oil lamps.

Q: How many SRJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Huh, what litebarb?

Q: How many PJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Heck the light bulb lah, the principal would do something about the rightbarbs. Let’s do 300 jumping jacks for not wearing the proper school attire.

Q: How many MJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are too busy trying to get promoted.

Q: How many IJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They are Innovians. They’ll find ways out of the dark.

Q: Who wrote all this?
A: A TJCian.

Q: How many TJC students does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. They think they are already very bright.