Jan
5
2018
Firstly, I do subscribe to the idea of the power of wanting something so much that the universe will provide.
That’s from the book “Secret” where you can want something so much that some how you will get it very soon…or after few months.
It’s not like people can wish to be a billionaire and can turn into one without really putting in effort.
Wishing & wanting is two different thing.
If you have a kid who loves a toy so much that he keeps talking about how great this toy is, how others have it and he doesn’t, how happy he will be if he have it & own it how he will be the happiest kid in the neighbourhood. He told everyone around him, his parents, friends, neighbours, grandparents and everyone around him and guess what? within a few months later he got it as a gift either birthday gift or other reasons.
But if nobody give it to him, do you think he will still get that toy? Yes, he will save money or work for it or even sell stuff to get it.
If this story resonate with you, it means you have already experienced the power of wanting.
However, the power of wanting comes with some risks. Just like any horror story, if you want something so much that you are willing to do anything including crime…it may end rather badly.
But if you follow the rules of the law, put in the hard work and tell everyone that you are wishing for it…the universe will provide it for you eventually.
Keep thinking about it, sharing your ideas about it, capture that passion about it and eventually it will be in your hands.
After I joined a dumpster diving Facebook group recently, I realised that everything is within my grasp and all I need is to look for it in the trash where people threw away.
e.g. My fan cover got rusted badly, it gathered lot’s of dusts & it’s kind of affecting the flow of the wind. Guess what, someone threw a WHOLE fan of similar size & shape and the fan cover is like totally CLEAN!
My guess is they washed it & install it back way too early causing the water to damage the fan internal electronics. But I got a brand new fan cover that is not rusted & now my fan have a super strong flow!
Then come this problem of my spectacles slipping off my face when I bend down to do things like dumpster diving, one DIY hack is to put rubber bands on the arms of the spectacles to prevent the spectacle from slipping off but I find the normal colour of rubber bands are kind of weird on black colour arms.
Guess what? I found black elastic bands for tying hair during my dumpster dive and exactly two of them which I need!
And instantly my wanting is fulfilled, a less weird looking solution to prevent the spectacle from falling off my face.
Yes, even if I didn’t go for dumpster diving…I may end up buying from the store just to fulfil my needs.
However, the feeling is almost magical when you found things you need just as you want it.
Do try it sometimes, don’t give up on what you want! Hope you will too find what you want in life!
Happy 2018!
Dec
21
2017
Yet I smile. :D
Knowing that I am almost out of cash in the bank, it’s almost to the last penny…after the insurance deduct it via Giro.
Note: only this month is terrible because of that ^&*$$^%#@ web hosting decided to charge me this month for bi-annual charge for 2 years of hosting my websites which I seldom update LOL!! >_<
No, I’m not writing to get your attention for pity.
In fact I am smiling from ear to ear that I can afford to go penniless for once in my life, because of my new found “hobby” or should I say passion.
Yes, it’s dumpster diving…oh no I don’t dive into the dumpster per say but I have a tongs to pick stuff up when needed…but yeah I have to find out more longer tongs to reach to the bottom of the dumpsters.
I had just started dumpster diving (Thanks Colin Lau & Daniel Tay from Freegan in Singapore Facebook group) and still a newbie to this, at first it’s really fun like a RPG game that you can grind for stuff in people’s trash like opening treasure chest in every trash dumping location.
You will never know why people threw away stuff that’s still clean & usable like a perfect pillow with just some water stains, super thick bed mattress that’s almost new, working rice cooker, dehumidifier, fan, steamer and more.
I have seen broken chairs that can be easily fixed with a few metal plates & screws and will look brand new, tables that are salvageable with a table mat, android tablet with dead battery that can be repaired with battery replacement which can be purchase cheaply on taobao.com.
With every trash, there is some value.
I had sold stuff on carousell that nobody think there are valuable like old cassette tape casings for phone stand, used badminton rackets, repaired cat scratching pole and more.
The feeling of giving out stuff that’s usable is really amazing,
I had given out vegetables, toys, stationaries, iPod Mini, book stand, ladies high heels shoes, N95 masks, and more!
If you are interested in some of the stuff that I am giving away feel free to message me at Facebook.com/simontay78 or twitter @simontay78 or telegram @simontay78.
Dumpster diving pushed me to use some of my old skills to repair stuff like electronics, reinstalling computer, DIY repair on chairs & tables, reuse old stuff in other ways like those trashed ikea white board as a notice board on my room door for my dad to issue errand instructions.
There are pros & cons to this passion.
Pros: you get all the freedom in the world, able to recycle & reuse trash while enjoying the process is a great feeling, I never exercise that often because of my Asthma but dumpster diving is really a great workout but is the satisfying type.
Cons: I have yet to find 100% ways to earn enough to pay all my bills, my house is being overwhelmed with stuff and almost borderline hoarder now. (Ok ok I’m full fledge hoarder now)
Sometimes waiting for people to collect stuff that I give away can be tiring as I don’t sleep at normal hours and they can cancel the collection at any time since they think the stuff is free.
I solved the problem with a collection area outside my house but I do need a better storage method to share stuff for people like a big cupboard with combination lock so I can give the lock combination to people I want to give to….like those lockers…HMMMmmmMMmm Time to find a trashed locker! :D
Dec
21
2017
Yesterday evening, my sister passed me her HP Envy X2 PC and say if I managed to get it working…delete everything and it’s yours.
Challenge accepted!
After getting her password to the laptop tablet….I gingerly started the process of recovering it.
It’s the beginning of my windoze insomnia LOL
You see, I had been a Mac user for almost a decade plus I think and windows now had significantly changed over time but one thing that didn’t change is how TROUBLESOME & COMPLEX the operating system is for recovery compared to mac.
Problem 1. The keyboard starts going crazy every time I tried to type something with the laptop keyboard, researched online to find a million solutions & hundreds of videos each solving a different problem from changing the language input, replacing the keyboard to using external keyboard which defeat the purpose of having a portable laptop.
My solution is to temporary use my USB keyboard that almost cannot make it as the USB is kind of dirty after many years of neglect…as you see…I had been using my Logitech K480 wireless keyboards for years but without the ability to key in the password to activate the bluetooth pairing, I had to use the wired keyboard first before setting up my K480 wireless keyboard.
Problem 2. Delete everything please (priority mission)
The obvious solution is to reset the Windows back to factory settings deleting every file, apps and settings but I failed to realise how time consuming it is to do it.
Steps taken
- Reset windows – delete all files only
- Realised windows 8.1 just got downgraded to factory settings of windows 8! Proceed to update any windows upgrades…found 100+++ essential upgrades and some optional ones.
- Didn’t know if the download of updates are over or not, proceeded to “update & restart” and found 92 updates ready to be installed.
Problem 3. There is a pixel line cutting down the screen on the left which is a bit tat annoying.
Researching on windows laptop or HP laptops on the issue seemed to be either a software or hardware problem, if it’s just a software problem…simply check the BIOs to see if the line still exist…if no then updating the drivers of the graphics card or BIOs may soft the problem.
So far, I haven’t fix this screen problem yet as I had just install few of the Windows 8 update and yet to get to the real solution yet.
One thing I realised in windows 8 are the various different options can appear in tablet mode & desktop mode and many online windows 8 support also shows screenshots of slightly different user interface adding to the confusion.
I heard windows 10 fixed that but I’m still not sure if upgrading it will it removes the HP support as many things I still need HP assistant software to figure out what to do without lurking online to find many “free” app to assist but end up have to pay to unlock the app’s full features.
I know many online windows expert probably screaming at me now but I know I had been away from Windows for so long that makes me appreciate my macOS so MUCH MORE!
macOS doesn’t suffer from malware or virus that much or at all, the whole system don’t get bogged down with multiple antivirus, firewall and other applications claiming to help you get rid of malware or other scary stuff.
Yes, there are some such apps in the wild but as long as you don’t install them…you are fine.
Dec
15
2017
I haven’t been a full time job for many years and I had to sacrifice lot’s of things to become full time on my hobby.
1. Passive income
– I rent out 2 rooms and partitioned my living room with HDB approved gypsum partition wall (those office type) that are sound proofed…and stay inside my living room.
Cons: You need to deal with problems like sudden breakage of stuff like aircon, washing machines, fridge, or stuff like that. You need to spend LESS on expensive stuff like movies, expensive food, taxi or other stuff.
Pros: You get to do anything you want in your free time.
– Google Adsense – Making a blog & youtube that’s linked with Adsense that put advertisements on my blogs & videos does make money for me however it took many years to even start to earn money but as long as you have passion keep making content. Content is like a property rented out, they make money as long as there are people reading or watching.
Cons: You need to take up web & video editing skills along the way and constant upgrade of knowledge.
Pros: you get to do what you like and get paid for it.
2. Self employed – sell stuff online like Carousell, sell used items below half the original price. If need to travel to deliver, add transportation cost before accepting the deal.
Cons: Sometimes you get annoying clients that keep pushing the price down or say stuff to make you cut price even further, ignore them and say “Thank you for your interest, unfortunately I can’t deal at that price for now” but reject so you can avoid selling at cost.
Pros: The sky is the limit, sell until you can eat for free.
3. Freegan – Only discovered dumpster diving by coming across “Freegan in Singapore” Facebook group like less than a month ago to realised many untapped resources nearby. I know by now you have lot’s of “shopping” but it’s not easy to get money to pay bills so only do freegan when you have solved the money problems first like rent out room(s) or deliver food for uberEats… or get local charity to help out.
4. Local free food religious temples – I haven’t tried this but some religions center are cooking up meals daily for needy people.
5. Get better in your condition – Overcome your situation with passion with a new hobby like dumpster diving, helping others, giving free stuff to others and enjoy. Once you are ready, get back to work on something you like. Find a job that you love is important as you will stay longer regardless of the amount you earn.
6. Get to know more friends, brainstorm more solutions to cut cost. Reduce non-essential spending immediately. Maybe get M18 card and only use free WIFI from starbucks until you can afford monthly subscriptions, or only use home wifi and use pre-paid card outside. Reduce utilities bills drastically by using less electricity, water and gas.
7. Prioritise – Use your money on only important things first like bills & food…if food is too expensive, find out cheaper food…or free food. Find out if your phone contract is it over if yes, renew at lower price contract.
Important thing is to take action immediately, don’t hesitate.
P.S. Lower down ego, don’t care what other people say and move on plus bread is your best friend when in need.
Dec
10
2017
Youtube is slowly killing itself by limiting small content creators from earning their money by putting yellow $ icon on ALL new videos based on faulty algorithm without telling the content creators WHAT exactly is the problem with the algorithm…that flagged the video in the first place.
The guide by youtube is a bunch of vague words that DOESN’T really mean anything specific to individual videos that was flagged.
The algorithm is basically looking for keywords in the title, descriptions & meta to determine if it violate any of the guidelines…but most of the time the algorithm get triggered by innocent words that have multiple meanings.
We the content creator cannot use lot’s of words that deemed vulgar, violent or sexual in nature…but what is entertaining on major television networks nowadays?
Yes, walking dead have extreme violence…Game of Thrones have nudity, incest, violence and more…many new television shows have sexual contents that are deemed NOT suitable for advertising.
What about Netflix, Hulu, Amazon? Why youtube cannot SIMPLY just limit the AGE of viewers and call it a day?
Yes, terrorism and fake news videos…why limit advertising on them? All you need is to LABEL them based on votes by viewers that if it’s a hoax or misleading or fake that allow them to put relevant news URL or fact checking website link as sources.
Obviously Youtube have to approve the link before appearing beside the video as proof of fake news to ensure it’s not some blogs or small websites created by trolls.
That way, advertisers can choose what videos that have “x” numbers of ratings & choose if they want to to advertise on that.
The responsibility will end up at the adwords settings for advertisers to choose to put their ads at the right place.
What youtube is doing now is to limit money earning ability by small content creators is like trying to region lock DVD/BlueRay disc, people who bought the disc legally but from the wrong region are punished while pirates continue to rip the videos out and share online…that contributed to the downfall of DVD/Blueray and move towards a global streaming platform.
In the near future where all online data & websites are Peer to peer…and no longer hosted in individual server…data like videos & informations will flow freely without any oversight or censorship, that will eventually bring down youtube or google as information list as ANYONE can be google or youtube without huge investments.
As long as you host the P2p seeds & data, you can potentially be limitless in sharing data globally without huge server farms, all advertisers need by then is a online ad company to embed their advertising to allow content creators to embed advertising codes.
Adsense may end up be just one of many such companies…that the advertisers can invest their money to.
obviously that’s in the future…when google realise retaining content creator’s trust & loyalty now is the most important and setting up the algorithm to punish small content creators are setting up for failure.
Loyalty can switch instantly once there are a better video host that P2P stream their videos and get advertising at the same time without youtube…once that future p2p platform gain momentum…youtube will be going the same path as AOL or Yahoo or Friendster…and become obsolete with OLD content and less new videos.
For now, there are limited number of video hosting companies that have the same capability as youtube that can upload huge amount of videos.
Vimeo, Blip.tv (closed), twitch and many more…are not as flexible on uploading any kind of videos.
ALL the world need now is embeddable codes to stream p2p torrents in their own websites that uses viewer’s internet browser cache to p2p share the same video to others when the page is open.
The more people open that page, the faster it will be…and obviously the owner of the video must host a copy or seed of it’s own video to share on one server or computer and as long as someone open that page or set to share that seed of video permanently probably with incentives like ad revenue sharing a few percent…the video will forever live online without a large server farm.
Obviously advertisers will have to select which participating websites to put their advertising and a advertising company can spring up ANY DAY NOW to capitalise the future of peronal p2p videos websites.
What P2p videos now need also is the ability to be social without a single major social network, that means anyone can create a ever updating list of similar topic videos to form their very now channel similar to HBO, CBS, HULU or Netflix.
Next is P2p Chat, P2P messages, P2P internet that break free from telco companies.
Soon everyone will be WIFI router for everyone using their ever powerful tablets, smartphone and more…without needing the use of 3G/4G LTE/ 5G or future networks.
The first company to come up with such devices with long battery life will be the most profitable company in the world.