Did Creative just dug its own grave?

Just recently Creative sold its building in a sell and lease back scheme. News here. Some claims that Creative is just building capital for its next launch of products etc but I feel that it is the downfall of the company soon.

Shocking recent news reveal that Creative is probably going to sue a driver modder who actually helps Creative product consumers to be able to use Creative Soundcards on Windows Vista properly. The issue arose because the products were claim to be Vista compatible but not at all. While IP rights etc may be violated by the modder, afaik, he did not place his name all over the driver etc. Asking for donations to those who valued his work properly overstepped the mark.

However, instead of doing damage control, they are now just sort of 'hushing' the issue over it.
Infer your own views over this issue, kindly read the Creative forum and you will know more about it.

News obtained here. Creative forum here. Another online news site.

Rising costs!

Just to show how much living costs have increase
From Business Times article.

Rising costs

Education

June

Some NUS course fees up by average of 14 per cent

Utilities

July

Electricity tariffs up by almost 9 per cent for Jul to Sep

September

Electricity tariffs up by average of 0.86 cents per kilowatt-hour for Oct to Dec

December

Electricity tariffs to go up by nearly 6 per cent per kilowatt-hour in January this year, the highest increase since 2001

Housing

July

Resale price index for HDB flats up 2.9 per cent from three months before HDB rents at 10-year high

September

As at end-September, HDB resale price index up by about 11 per cent since start of year

October

Private home prices up 8.3 per cent between Jul and Sep to highest level in 10 years

November

Annual values of HDB flats to be raised in Jan 2008, meaning property taxes (4 per cent of annual values of owner-occupied homes) will rise

Annual values to increase by average of 18 per cent for four-room and executive flats, 20 per cent for one-, two- and five-room flats, 25 per cent for three-room flats

Transport

July

Vehicle owners who park in CBD pay 20 per cent more than last year in monthly season parking charges

February

ERP rates at CTE, PIE & ECP up by 50 cents

April

Petrol and diesel prices up by 10 cents a litre

July
Pump prices up by 2 cents a litre days after a 2 per cent point GST hike sent petrol and diesel prices up by 0.23 to 0.33 cents a litre

August

ERP rates for cars passing Orchard Road, YMCA and Fort Canning Tunnel gantries up 50 cents

October

Adult EZ-Link bus fares up by 1 to 2 cents

Petrol and diesel price up 3 to 5 cents a litre

November

ERP rates up. New gantries built

Petrol and diesel price up to five cents, pushing all but one grade of petrol above $2 mark

December

Taxi fare hike

Health

January

NUH's A&E fees up from $70 to $80

February

Private fees for specialist outpatient clinics at SGH up by $5

KKH raises private fees for specialist outpatient clinics and ward treatment fees for all patients. Estimated impact on bill size is 0.2 per cent to 4.3 per cent

April

SGH's C-class patients pay $1 more. Those in B2 wards pay $3 more

May

Subsidised patients at four public hospitals pay $24 or $25 for visit to specialist clinic, up from about $21

NUH's ward charges for B2 & C-class wards up by $2

Polyclinic consultation fees for adults, which used to be standard $8, now $8 to $8.80. $4 to $4.50 for elderly and young children, up from $4

July

CGH's A&E fee up by $10, daily treatment fee for B2 and C-class wards up by $1, daily ward charge for B2 wards up by $1

Food

June

Prices of milk up, according to Case survey. Price of condensed milk up by 10 to 50 cents, 15 to 47 cents for evaporated milk, 10 to 55 cents for four brands of fresh milk

Two price hikes for Malaysian eggs in one week, bringing total increase to 1 cent per egg

October

Fresh chicken prices up by 30 to 90 cents per kg

Flour prices up 30 per cent

November

Over 100 bakeries to raise bread prices by up to 20 per cent after jump in flour prices

Noodle prices up 20 to 30 per cent

Others

July
GST hike from 5 per cent to 7 per cent

Hike of 1.5 to 1.8 per cent for Nets transactions

Oracle hangs during importing

When an import session hangs, it is important that the underlying problem is
identified to be able to solve the problem.

First identify the session in the database serving the import :

select sid, user, program
from v$session
where upper(program) like '%IMP%';

Then verify the wait events for that session :

select sid, event, state, wait_time, seconds_in_wait
from v$session_wait
where sid = ;

This query will list the event that is being waited on, hence it will reveal
the underlying problem. Then act accordingly to solve the problem. Typically
this will be events like :

27 Workers will be injured today

Nice attention grabbing headlines I must say. It is almost like cursing people that they will be injured today. It should be an average 27 workers got injured daily. Straits Times is becoming an attention whore, like a tabloid. Perhaps it does deserve its ranking in press freedom. Ranked 141 on Reporters without borders. Ranked 154 on Freedom House.

Funny blog

Got this blog off a forum i frequent. Hilarious. I like to take such stories with pinches of salt and treat as jokes rather than real life stories

DD, not trying to imply anything but I feel that I might be an idiot husband in times to come hee.

Falling asleep on the job can improve your memory

Hee, the elusive noontime nap can prove to be real and coming soon hee.

Source.

Hamburg, Germany - Falling asleep on the job for a few minutes can improve your memory and mental performance, according to a team of German researchers. Dr. Olaf Lahl at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany, has shown that simply falling asleep does more than refresh the brain - it can improve recall and mental efficiency.

In fact, a six-minute nap can have the same effect as nighttime sleep on memory.

Dr. Lahl's team asked students to memorize a list of vocabulary and tested their ability to recall the list after an hour of playing solitaire.

Volunteers were asked to remember a list of 30 words. They were then given an hour's break before the memory test. During the break, some volunteers were allowed to nap for six minutes, while others had to stay awake.

The researchers found that those who had been allowed to nap displayed "superior recall" in the memory test compared to those who stayed awake.

The researchers said this was the first time that a very brief sleep has been shown to improve memory.

"To our knowledge, this demonstrates for the first time that an ultra-brief sleep episode provides an effective memory enhancement," Lahl he writes in the Journal of Sleep Research.

His researchers found that it was possible that falling asleep triggered a process in the brain that continued regardless of how long the person stayed asleep.

"It seems much more is happening during the initialization of sleep than we once thought," Dr. Lahl says.

"Maybe much of sleep's functional aspects are accomplished at its very beginning," writes in the article.

Too many server connections

Keep having this problem of logging into remote server and too many connections already.

A quick google on the issue revealed to me only just 2 connections are available at any time. So pathetic. Found a way to terminate inactive connections, credits here.

NS.. so many lives destroyed....

Sad NS story here.
I am sure there are many who are also affected by NS and stuff.

take care and stay healthy.

Olympics clean-up Chinese style: Inside Beijing's shocking death camp for cats

Not unexpected from the China government.

Cruel roundup and killing of cats as China sought to portray themselves in a good light.

Source from dailymail.

Thru to the quarterfinals!

Was quite surprised that Arsenal managed to beat AC Milan at San Siro in the second leg of the round of 16.

Way to go~! Now for all the way to the finals and be the Champs~!