The Rape of Nanking

A movie documentary of the Rape of Nanking is said to be very popular these days. Just watched it, nothing really new. It supplied lots of old photographs and footage related to the Rape of Nanking, however, none is crystally clear that the photo or footage is taken during the Rape of Nanking. And many of them are old photos, old photos means the same photos have appeared in different media numerous times. There is no new discoveries.

That aside, what the documentary portraits is nothing than a living hell. People living in the current peace time will never be able to imagine such inhumane actions would be taken so lightly in war time. Humans had been reduced back to barbarians. War crime is shocking!!!

In addition, this documentary explicitely points to the Japanese Imperial family for their direct involvement in the war crime, especially Emperor Hirohito and his uncle. The documentary accuses Emperor Hirohito being the mastermind behind the instructions/directives of the Japanese invasion and the inhuman treatment of POWs and Chinese civilians.

Every Chinese should watch this documentary, to remind us that if we don't have a strong defence force, that is what you will get in times of war. Under the current financial crisis, and the wealth of the new China, it can't be ruled out that again someone is eyeing China, even at the risk of starting a war, to grap the wealth. And don't forget that the last Great Drepression only ended with a war, prior to that, all the so-called economic policies to save the economy actually failed.

Time to ponder...

Endurance

Endurance, I always wonder how do people handle unfairness in the work place. Let's say if you are assigned to a low priority department or project. From the start, you know as you are assigned to a low priority project, now matter how you try, the best you can get is just average performance, even if you make a great success in that project. The projection of the project itself has already decided that the best amount of money it can bring in is only so much. Nothing you do will make any change, unless you can change the total value of the market in the whole world.

How do you deal with unfairness such as unfair resource allocation? Unfairness in support? All these unfairness should not be stranger to many, these unfairness is happening in almost every work place. What I want to know is how people actually deal with it, and continue to work happily, living with the unfairness.

I am always very lousy when it comes to deal with such unfairness.

How Low is Low? How Cheap is Cheap?

Somebody admitted that they 'bottom fish' too early, too greedy. Now they are left with a substantial paper loss. Ok, they are the 'experts'. The experts are wrong this time. Not only those experts are wrong, but many many experts are wrong, even Warren Buffet is wrong this time. He made some dumb mistakes, as he admitted in his letter to the shareholders.

How low is low? How cheap is cheap? What do you think the current financial crisis compared to the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997/98? Which one do you think is more severe?

Back in 1997/98, US was still enjoying a boom in tech sector. If you walked around Singapore, the shopping centres were jam packed, food courts were jam packed. Very hard to believe there was actually a crisis going on. Then prime minister, Mr Goh, commented on the use of Singapore's reserve as totally unnecessary. Did you remember anyone saying Singapore's economy may contract by 8%, 10%?

This time round, drawing from the reserve is like a 1st resort, not the last resort. Now Senior Minister Mr Goh said if now is not the rainy day, then he doesn't know when is a rainy day. Do you see jam packed shopping centres? Do you see jam packed food courts?

Then you look at the STI, what was the STI during 1997/98? In the range of 800 plus. What is the STI now? Still 1500 plus. It is really not too difficult to figure out there is still plenty of room for STI to fall, the first target should be in the range of 1200~1300. After that, nobody knows, maybe the 97/98 low of 800 plus is a good indication.

How low is low? How cheap is cheap? Mmmmh.....



Disclaimer: For personal entertainment only, no liability in whatsoever form is assumed or born by the authoer.

Japanese Part-time Pay

This is an advertisement I saw at a shop in Japan. Basically it is looking for part-timers, the pay is also indicated in the ad. The hourly rate is 1000 yen; for high school students, the hourly rate is 950 yen. Minimum 3 hours per day.

Well, by part-time standard, it is really not too bad. In Singapore, the part-time is more like S$3.50 to S$10.00 per hour (more on the S$3.50 end than the S$10.00 end). 1000 yen is about S$12, which is much higher. By Japanese standard, it is still some good money to be made, especially for a student who just need some pocket money. No wonder Japanese youngsters can afford some funky, trendy stuff.

History Repeats Itself

History repeats itself. In my case, it has repeated at least 3 times, and I fall at the same mistake 3 times. If once is an incident, then 3 times is systematic.

You start a project, and build up the team, then your boss comes to you and say hello, your project is a low priority project. It is setup for fun only and keep you guys busy for a while. Now, I have another high priority project that needs manpower, I will take all your guys away, you project is cancelled. This is what will happen with scenario 1.

Scenario 2 is the boss comes to selectively take away some people, the good ones. You will either be left with the lousy guys, or the vacancies will be replaced with lousy guys. And then if you manage to turn some lousy guys to good guys, then those good guys will be re-assigned to somebody else's project.

Scenario 3 is you bring your whole team to work on other's project. After you do all your best to complete the project, if the project is successful, that project's leader can claim good credit for the work; if something goes wrong, all faults are yours.

Scenario 4 is that someone takes up a new project, enjoys the honey moon period with the customer. Just when the project goes into some actual work, that someone disappears, and leaves all the hard work to you. And worse, that someone makes 'good' decisions to please the customer but he/she him/herself can keep up the promise, you have to deliver the impossible. Typical 'shit-cleaning' work. I work as a janitor!!!

Lighting Setup for a Studio Shoot

I received a message asking me how I did the lighting setup for the above photo. I sketch the setup as below.

I placed a light at 45 degrees to the model at the back on the right as my main light. A second light in the front left, again 45 degrees to the model, as my fill light. The backdrop is a piece of simple black cloth. The output power ratio of the main light to the fill light is 4:1 so that I can have good contrast.

I used a light meter to check the output power of each studio light individually first, then the combined power. The final camera setting is based on the light meter reading plus some on-the-spot adjustment by looking at the preview photo at my Canon 20D. I actually over-exposed the photo by 1/3 ~2/3 stop, and then I brought it back in photoshop, again this was done intentionally to have a bit more contrast.

The lens I used is a Canon 28-135mm zoom lens. I like to use this lens for my studio work as it is very versatile, the optic quality is not bad too.

There is one draw-back of this lighting setup. As the main light is coming from the back, it will easily cause some lens flare, especially when your lens is a bit dirty. For this particular shoot, I had to remove my UV filter to reduce the lens flare.

I hope this short write-up is useful to you :)

Slumdog Millionaire

At first, I had no intention of watching this movie, as it is a movie about the life of people living in the Mumbai slums. I don't like such movies much, as they are depressing, I always feel very upset after watch such movies.

Then I can't resist my friend's persuasion, I watched it. Actually it is pretty good. I don't feel depressed at all. People living in the slums, they have their worries, hardship, but they also have their way of finding happiness, their way of surviving the hardship. Look back at our own life, it is about the same. We just worry as much as they do, and we experience the same kind of emotions. The only difference may be their living environment is worst, they live in a slum! Our city, to a certain sense, is nothing more than a 'clean' slum :P

The story is interesting, the acting is natural. You don't feel the actors/actresses are actually 'acting', like what you see in all those MediaCorp CMI TV series. There is no self-righteous judgements or criticism. Oh, yes, they did portrait a bit of the stupidity of American & Asian tourists to India :)

This movie is all about India, but you can tell it is not an Indian movie by the distinct difference in that there is no Indian dancing and singing scenes, like what you see in a typical Indian movie.

My rating: 4.5/5

Watch it if you can. Nice movie.

Merlion Struck by Lighting

The icon of Singapore, the Merlion statue at Singapore river, was struck by lighting yesterday between 4-5pm. The statue is damaged with a football-sized hole in it.

Alama, bad omen. The last time the pump in the Merlion malfunctioned and then we got tech bubble burst & 9.11. After that, they moved the Merlion statue from the bad Fengshui location to its current location for better luck, then we got SARS! Now we got a lighting strike, don't know what we are going to get this time. Anyway, whatever will come will come.

The only concern I have is why there is no lighting protection facility installed for the Merlion statue? It is a hot tourist spot, if anything happens, it may cause serious consequences to the tourists flocking to the Merlion, ie. public safety is in danger!

You can read the more detailed report on the lighting strike here.