Minimum wages + ObamaCare + Unemployment = ???

This is the awful monster that you get when you put minimum wages (aka maximum wages), Obama's Affordable Care Act (aka national insurance plan for everyone that no one wants to pay for) and Unemployment Insurance (aka insurance against trying to find work).

For the majority of you who don't read US news, this is basically a combination of three "well intended" populist vote buying laws that had morphed into a horrible monster that forced employers to...

1. Pay the minimum wage since there is no incentive to pay more.
2. Convert as many permanent staff to temporary staff as possible to kill entitlements such as bonuses and benefits.
3. Restrict working hours to 29.5 hours per week as you must pay for the ObamaCare if you go over 30 hours or risk a hefty fine.

And the net result is let's say you are working in New York, you get $214 per week (29.5 x $7.25) flipping burgers, assuming you can land yourself a job in the first place.

And so how does the employee responds? Simply reduce productivity since there is no prospect whatsoever for conversion to a permanent position, pay raise or bonuses.

Oh why even bother to try to work when you can collect your unemployment benefits at 60% of you last average weekly wage which is $128.40 doing nothing at all for 99 weeks?

Source : http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-08-19/obamacare-strikes-forever-21-which-forcibly-demotes-some-workers-295-hours-week

Reading tea leaves

Have you notice that DBS has been changing the denominations and minimum withdrawal accounts at their ATMs?

First, ATMs with a minimum withdrawal of $200 appeared. For the folks trying to withdraw the bare minimum amount of $20 for whatever reasons (don't lie, it is because they are broke and/or didn't have financial discipline), not because of the fear of loss), sorry, you are out of luck.

Then with time, even more ATMs dispensing only $50 appeared. And lately, they started to dispense $100 notes as well.

How I interpret the bank's actions is that these are the bank's reaction to inflation. When inflation is creeping upwards, customer draws cash in ever larger amounts and therefore forced the bank to refill the ATMs at a higher frequency.

Moreover, it makes little sense to spend more to employ more Certis Cisco guards for more ATMs refilling runs.

What I am expecting is that inflation will be rearing its ugly head again and MAS is likely to strengthen the Singapore dollar to rein it in.

And so our overseas holidays will likely to become even cheaper in the future.

Random thoughts on why Singaporean don't make babies

1. When people were poorer than, their retirement plan was their children who will support them when they are old. Nowadays, things had changed. The parents do not need financial support or didn't expect the children to. Thus the people no longer are willing to have children.

2. There was no reliable birth control or safe abortion then. No way to terminate once the act was done.

3. There was no TV or internet. No distractions in other words.

Hence the fastest way to make babies is to destroy TV, internet and make people all dirt poor. Tada! We don't need any more FTs...once the new babies grow up.

Trying to swim is really hard when ...

I was trying to go for a swim in the evening last week and I arrived at Ang Mo Kio swimming pool to stare at a notice that it was close for 3 days due to maintenance. Undaunted, I cycled to Bishan swimming pool and I realised I had forgotten my towel. After the swim, I had to dry myself using my stinky shirt but found that the towel wouldn't have mattered anyway because I had to cycle home in the rain.

Today, while changing into my swimming trunks, the elastic strings snapped from the inside and I had to go home instead.

Wow, it's not easy to swim these days.

Adding to the flaming topic of population growth of Singapore.

I came across an interesting article posted on the Worker's party website, "A Sustainable Singapore with a Dynamic Singaporean majority" by MP Low Thia Khiang which was delivered in Parliament on 7 Feb 2013.

A PDF document titled "Table of Different Solutions to the Problems" caught my eye. Within the document, a summary of the solutions supported by the Worker's party and PAP were listed.

Without permission, I copied and pasted the content of the PDF here and added my own comments. As this is an article and document written by the Worker's party, any of the solutions supposedly coming from PAP should be taken with a ton of salt because it is bound to be bias. Let's objectively go through the content of the PDF file.

1. Low birth rates
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Institutional reforms to remove obstacles for young couples and set birth rates on path to recovery.
   
   
   
   PAP Government solution
   Use monetary incentives to entice young couples to have more babies and hope birth rates will improve.
   
   My comments.
   Worker's party solution using institutional reforms will also unlikely to work, along with the monetary incentives employed by the PAP government. My take is that the diagnostic made was wrong in the first place. It made several assumptions that the problem was caused by high housing costs, lack of family and social support, lack of quality childcare options, and bad work-life balance that are preventing young couples from marrying earlier and having more babies.
   
   What I think that the cost of a country with a large middle class. The problem was the mindset of the new generations. Let's face this, there is no incentive to reproduce as people get more and more materialistic. Why saddle yourself when you can enjoy the world with your love?
   
   Back in the days of 1950s, housing costs was cheap but the young couples were typically living in with the husband's family, so they didn't have to move out and get hit by any housing cost. But now, the expectation is that you can never place more than two female in the kitchen without bloodshed, so young couples prefer to move out upon marriage. Contributing to the lack of family support, the parents of the new couples were also questioning why they are expected to look after their grand children when they are already so old. Maybe taking care of the first grand child was fun, how about the next?
   
   Work life balance is a personal choice most of the time. The better your own productivity, you can work less and get more. The reason why work life balance is out of whack is the fact that the young couples were chasing dollars in order to maintain a higher standard of living and unwilling to let it go. Just two decades ago, dining out was considered a luxury and was only done for celebrations. Take a look now and I believe this is true.
   
   The mindset of the people towards the family has to change. Unless institutional reforms includes forcing people to get married and have children, none of this is likely to work. On the flip side, think about the conditions that made my parents. My grandparents were not rich, there were no TV, no Internet and no condoms. Two generations were living under a single roof but there were children everywhere. Maybe those are the right conditions for high birth rates. Thus does having a couple with no distractions, no entertainment and no contraceptive methods may yield better results? Maybe throwing in a free porn channel can help too.
   
2. Shrinking citizen core
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Focus on recovering citizen birth rates to maintain citizen core; grant citizenships to foreign spouses .
   
   PAP Government solution
   Give out new citizenships to immigrants to top up shortfalls to meet birth quota.
   
   My comments.
   Both solutions are not exclusive and are necessary. I am not a big fan of the idea of defining "The citizen core" as locals versus foreigners. Historically, the demographic of the island is changed with every successive generation. Every since 1819, foreigners have arrived in mass, worked, lived and integrated with the island's original population over time. I came to the conclusion that the term "local" in Singapore is nothing but a contemporary thought. With globalisation, this process of de-localisation and the internationalised identity of the local population is inevitable.
   
3. Immigrant integration
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Promote integration through family ties and educational institutions
   
   PAP Government solution
   Integration through online course and participation in PA activities
   
   My comments.
   Again, none of these will likely to work. Promotion of integration through family ties? Unless you are talking about a foreign spouse, family ties are useless. In the case of a foreign spouse, they have to integrate or the marriage is over anyway. This makes the point made by Mr Low meaningless. Similarly, educational institutions and PA activities are unlikely to help much either.
   
   However, I must admit that this is not an easy thing to do and I do not have any solutions on this one either. The time required for integration for every new citizen can take decades with varying results. From my observation, by the time the next generation, when their Singaporean children are born, the integration is as good as done as the children are raised and educated like most children in Singapore.
   
4. Ageing population
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Senior citizens are a resource and could be encouraged to work in appropriate occupations
   
   PAP Government solution
   Elderly citizens are a burden to society that needs to be supported by immigrants
   
   My comments.
   The only way senior citizens can be a resource is by re-entering the workforce and ending the idea of retirement. This will increase the manpower pool and drive salaries down for jobs that they can perform.
   
   I had always scorned the idea of retirement, thinking that this is a way to remove headcount from the workplace by "natural" attrition or a chance to slash their ever-growing salaries which must have grow over the years while in employment. Probably when I am near the age of retirement, I will be faced with the dilemma of not saving enough to slack till I die,or to accept a lower salary to for the same job, assuming my employer still wants my services.
   
   Therefore, as a voting citizen upon retirement age, I have the option of either continuing to seek employment for a low wage or to get immigrants to support my retirement. Since I will not be squeezing in the peak hour trains if I am retired, why should I vote for the Worker's Party?
   
   And yes, senior citizen is a burden to the country if they did not save enough for their own retirement. Strangely, Mr Low asked "Is the government admitting that the CPF scheme is causing insufficient savings that our senior citizens will become a burden?" I had no idea what is the basis of CPF being the cause of our senior citizens becoming a burden because it sounds like an oxymoron. Preparing for your own future is everyone's personal responsibility and the CPF was never meant to allow you to retire at your current lifestyle.
   
   "The government sees our senior citizens as fiscal and healthcare burdens."
   How is this not the case? Again, if the senior citizen does not save sufficiently for their health care, the load has to be passed to the taxpayers or we can leave them to die on the streets instead.
   
   "The government’s solution is again immigration, as though by increasing the support ratio, our senior citizens will be magically supported."
   There is no magic. It call creating a larger tax base to pay for the current cost. Yes, this is a Ponzi scheme involving getting the new comers to pay for the people who are already in the scheme. The only way not to continue the Ponzi scheme is to remove entitlements, remove subsidies and basically reduce cost to the point that you no longer need to do so.
   
   Otherwise, we can print more Singapore dollars or sell more debts and pass the ensuring hyperinflation bill to our future generations. Somebody got to pay the bills someday.
   
5. Slowing economy
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Promote resident workforce growth through greater labour force participation of women and seniors
   
   PAP Government solution
   Promote foreign workforce growth
   
   My comments.
   This is a right answer to the wrong problem. If the answer is for promoting a greater local workforce to meet the demand of a growing economy, increasing labour force through a greater participation of women and seniors is a good idea.
   
   However, the reason of the slowing economy is Singapore is not because the labour force, local or not, cannot meet the demands of the economy. The economy in Singapore is driven by foreign trades, and that is declining due to the on-going global economic crisis. Increasing the labour force does not address the underlying issue of decreasing demand.
   
   I don't think the PAP is promoting foreign workforce growth as the solution to the slowing economy. The foreign workforce are for filling gaps that the locals cannot fill at a reasonable price or speed.
   
6. Infrastructural
   
   Workers’ Party solution
   Build for the quality of life of current population
   
   PAP Government solution
   Build to prepare for worst-case scenario of immigration tsunami
   
   My comments.
   Referring to my comments in problem 2, we are actually part of an older immigration tsunami and we are in no position to deny the next. Why are we always talking about a "current population" when it is not something you can make static in today's world? Either we prepare for tomorrow or we will be left behind in the world.
   
7. Workers’ Party solution
   For Singaporean families
   
   PAP Government solution
   For Immigration
   
   My comments.
   For integration. Immigration is inevitable, is a part of our history and our national identity. There is never a point in history since 1819 that we had deny immigration and we should not do so just to put a show of nationalism which is meaningless in a globalised world. This sounds more like hypocrisy and double standards to me.
   
   From a hundred local folks in 1819, we had grew to 5.3 million today. Seriously, do you think that a bunch of locals suddenly decided to reproduce themselves since then? It was all through immigration.
   
   Not to worry, the immigration tsunami will stop as soon as Singapore becomes unattractive to them. Probably at the same time, our "locals" will also be joining another immigration tsunami, going for the next best country of the time.
   

Last words before I get flamed.
Given a choice, there is nothing to stop you or me from migrating to another country doing the immigrants are doing and facing exactly the same issues as they do.

We are not Japan and will never want to be. Read the following Wikipedia article for an idea of what is to be expected if we following the path of what the Worker's Party is advocating. Aging of Japan.

My take on sustainability is that none of what we are doing or going to do are sustainable. Like it or not, we are in the greatest global Ponzi scheme ever in human history. There is little room for moral values, nationalism and protectionism. Our future as a national depends on how much you can grab now, not how much you can grow in the future.

Is Trust Built, Earned Or Given?

Often, we hear the phrase, "you have to earn my trust" when establishing any relationship but in reality, what people tend to do is to give it away blindly.

Personally, i believe trust is neither earned SMS certainly not given, it is built.

You may ask, doesn't earned and built actually the same thing? It is not. Earned imply the concept of doing something and getting something, in this case, trust in return. So can we spend trust? No!

That's the difference between building trust and earning trust. Building trust as with earning trust takes time, but the quality of the trust varies and it is put entirely at stake every time. You can't spend a bit of trust, you either build more of it or lose it all in a collapse.

Giving trust blindly is even worse, because this is an open invitation to disaster. I am pessimistic to human behaviour, and if left alone, self interest will rule their actions. When you give away trust freely, and you have a resource in demand, you will probably get abused because you are not protecting it.

So this is what i mean whenever i says, "trust is built, not given".

Post mortem of an epic disaster that almost happened

Seldom do I blog about work but I can't really resist doing an entry on the most miserable failures I have seen in my career.

All names are falsified to protect to guilty and innocent alike.

Ahem. Here I go.

People who know me will find me pretty confrontational at times, because of my stance at drilling down to the most painful spot to address problems at it's root, while people prefer to sweep the dirt under the carpet to maintain the status quo. I learn that from history that it is a timeless truth that ignoring a problem or pretending that it doesn't exist will never solve a problem. But instead, when left unchecked, the problem will snowball into a hollywood-class disaster that will make Fukushima seems like paradise.

Although some short term pain may be unpleasant and unavoidable, it is my prerogative to steamroll over the problem as long as it in my interest to do so. At work, I do somewhat run a team of contractors and vendors as part of my job in IT infrastructure department. Learning from a couple of negative examples, I knew that it is important to keep morale high and the way I do so is to let my team know that their contribution is important and recognised, never to be taken for granted. The team needs to be properly protected from external parties from abuse and misuse. This will give me a reliable team which will be willing to go for the extra miles whenever needed.

This is somewhat lacking within my organisation. We engage many contractors and vendors to support our operations but they were often treated unfairly as outsiders and the bias is obvious throughout. However this is not the topic of this blog entry and the spotlight is on what happens when you blindly treat them as resources and not your arms and legs.

The star in this story is one of the developer in the application support team who is in charge of several key systems, which are crucial to the operation of the organisation. Let's just call him developer X, who is supplied by a vendor for close to a year by the time of writing.

Over the course of the year, there were a number of incidents on one of the key systems. As I dug deeper, the investigation showed that there were multiple errors generated by the application and the IT infrastructure systems are working perfectly. Developer X took a short little peep at the errors and did not proceed to investigate further, saying that the errors did not cause the failures so far. Troubled by the lack of evidence that the troubleshooting was done properly, and more importantly, being sick of wasting my valuable resources on handling application failures, my patience finally ran out. Instead of treating the failures as isolated incidents, they are properly grouped a chain of incidents and brought to the attention of Developer X's manager, the business owner and the VP. Even so, the glacial progress was miserable at best, with the case running into triple digits in downtime. I don't understand why did the business owner didn't tighten the screw on Developer X when they are paying for the application.

Unfortunately, the fun had just begun. Due to a company restructuring exercise, changes are required for two of the key systems. The deadline was to be two months before the deployment to the production environment. Towards the last few weeks of the deadline, it became apparent that Developer X did not understand the requirements of the exercise. There were so many missing and incomplete deliverable that it would have be a complete disaster if not that the restructuring exercise deadline was extended by another month due to other reasons.

Getting really worried and convinced that we were going to have a couple of major deployment failures and serious data integrity issues in the production environment,  I decided that hopium wasn't in my diet and the stakes were too great. Despite that it is not my job to meddle with application development, I had to divert attention to this exercise to prevent a perfectly preventable catastrophe on multiple key systems.

It turned out to be a case of a bad apple, with the manager unaware of the situation and a tub of worms to be sorted out. Things got more and more amazing as we went go. The developer didn't understand how the applications functioned and didn't know what was needed to complete the project. It got even better when Developer X wanted to deploy the solution into the UAT environment when the solution was not approved by his manager nor the business owner. Further more, the deployment process was not followed, without proper documentations and testing.

It didn't help when we have a problem understanding Developer X because of conversation problems and Developer X's comprehension skills is blindly poor.

This was a major red flag as this is a recipe for disaster. At this point, it was obvious that we have a severe competency issue and the problem had to be escalated all the way to the VP. I could see that there was a high risk of data corruption due to the design of the solution and deployment failure due to poor documentation.

The vendor has to send in

The deployment plan turned out to be problematic as well, with important activities being overlooked.

Things wa

3G Sucks In Singapore

Perhaps the most common complain that you can hear these days is the woeful state of the mobile 3G service in Singapore. No service provider is spared from the scorching comments from their customers.

So what had happened? Simply look at your favourite Telco's mobile phone offerings. Almost every phone offered these days are smart phones. The explosive popularity of smart phones in Singapore has completely outstrip the telco's ability to provide 3G data to then. Remember, Smart phones in Singapore uses the 3G service to quench their ever growing thirst for more data bandwidth.

For every user checking out their Facebook walls, whatsapp messages, words with friends, draw something, and twitter feeds, the more data bandwidth is required to connect to the internet.

Now the interesting part is that i suspect that the telco are using the same base stations that they has already previously installed all over Singapore for GSM service, for the 3G service. For each base station, it has an independent link to the internet. This link is shared among all the users in the area connected to the base station.

This means if there are too many smart phones users in the area, the base station will simply run out of data bandwidth while still showing full bars for 3G. Remember the bars are meant to show signal strength, not speed.

This is based on something that i am observing almost everyday. During peak hours, every time a fully packed train pulls into the station, internet days traffic went from ok to totally dead. As soon as the train pulls away, my internet connection confess back to life. Also every time I stray near AMK hub, my data connection drops dead as well. In both scenarios, the 3G bars are at a healthy max level.

So the i hope this explains why your mobile device simply don't hook up to the internet during peak hour in the train or stall in a busy shopping centre.

This might also be the reason why i never came close to busting the 12gb data limit imposed by my data plan from Stinktel.

As every telco had the same issue, the only solution is to move on to 4G as Laghub and M1 fare no better either. Or maybe we can force the telco to stop charging us a premium for 3G when they cannot provide sufficient data bandwidth at their end of the bargain.

Will you trust your wealth to financial advisers?

It's a straight up "No" for me.

I got a general distrust of the financial advisers and planners I have met so far. Generally, they claim to be able to help with your financial but end up trying to sell a load of financial products to me. This is the hallmark of the typical salesman.

Let's apply some common sense and see why I don't think all these add up at all.

1. Qualification and experience
   Slapping a CFA (Chartered financial analyst) certification on top of a salesman doesn't make things better. A CFA certificate is valuable in basic understanding of the financial markets but doesn't not mean that the CFA holder is able to help you to manage wealth.
   
   Things are worse when the financial planners are fresh graduates with little wealth management skills to speak of. Reciting lines from seminars and presentations does not imply true understanding of the subject.
   
   Further more, I find it hard to accept advice from someone without actual experience in managing wealth successfully.
   
2. Conflict of interest
   Having little true financial analysis skills, many of these people claim to have an army of researchers performing all forms of analysis to find the best product to ... help you instead of maximising profits for their company and to get a larger commission in returns.
   
   However the problem is that the advisers and planners is not independent and is inclined to sell products offered by their employer. With the majority of the financial advisers and planners coming from the insurance and funds brokerage and their resellers, it makes sense that they will be interested in selling various forms of their primary products to you.
   
   Think about it, the more risky or lousier the product, more commission is needed as an incentive to promote and push the hot potato to the customers. A good product needs little promotion. Do you need a salesman to tell you that the iPhone is a great product?
   
3. DiversificationOn the topic of investment, whenever some adviser or planner tried to discourage me from going into stocks and instead, diversify my risks my buying mutual funds, I always have this urge to ask them what is their understanding of diversification. In a nut shell, buying a couple of funds is not diversification, even it's across industries and countries.
   
   True diversification requires investment in difference asset classes, which are the following: equities (stocks), fixed-income (bonds) and cash equivalents (money market instruments), commodities and real estate.
   
   
   Putting all your money in mutual funds as your "investment" is generally a bad idea because the money is heavily vested in the equities and bonds market. Any shock to the economy typically sinks both of them together, albeit at different rates of decline. Any actual gains will be subjected to a million management fees conjured by the funds management. I got enough of the bullshit and took out every cent from these vampires.
   
   A FX coach, Thomas said this: "There is nothing mutual about mutual funds. They don't make losses when you do."
   
4. Making the sales pitch
   The financial planners and advisers I had met so far are quite a disappointment in this expect. The usual approach will be a courtesy call to arrange for a catch up session in an attempt to find out your current ability to purchase more of their products.
   
   Usually they will have this new great product(s) that they are offering and you should sign up immediately. It can be a insurance policy that you do not really need, an upgrade to your policy, a new fund etc.
   
   The data presented will almost try to put the product is a positive light but a fair comparison with a similar competing product will never be provided.
   
   The sales pitch for funds can be really bad too. There is no market timing involved. Market timing, an important and key factor in any profitable trade is played down as not important or hard to do. Instead, dollar cost averaging is advocated instead. This completely goes against the common sense of buying low and selling high. Why will anyone buy something close to the historical high? The risk of going down is so much higher and typically not worth the possible drawn down ahead to realise a possible tiny gain. Using a chart without showing 2008 data is as good as lying.
   
   Oh wait, does these guys actually know how to read a chart? We go into that next.
   
5. Charting
   I learnt that when dealing with anything to do with the financial world, charting is the number one skill required. For most of the general public, a chart with a positive trend line is all you need to know that the product is going to make you millions. Didn't everyone said that the trend is your friend? Unfortunately, that's also why so many people are losing money in the financial markets.
   
   Without going into details, let's stick to buying low and selling high. You need to know where was the historical low and high, and where you are now. If you are not sure where the market is now, get your favorite chart showing 5 years of data and get a 5 years old to answer you.

That sums it up my rumblings.

Disclosure: I had exited all my investments in mutual funds a couple of years back. Too much drawn down and a little net gain is not something I am interested in. I am a speculator in the spot FX and spot precious metal markets.

I want to save $10,000 a year.

I have this conversation with my Mother last night which makes me wonder whether personal finance should be taught to everyone.

It started with my Mother coming into my room, pondering aloud whether it is worthwhile for her to continue working at her job while complaining about the high cost of public transport in Singapore. I walked her through the maths and came into conclusions that transportation cost does not eat up her whole salary.

Knowing that my Mother isn't financially savvy, I continued to probe further on what is her expectations and learn that she is trying to save $10,000 a year when her basic annual take home salary is $9600.

From there, I tried explaining that in order to see an increase in personal wealth, you need to do the following:

1. Cut expenses.
   Going on 2 overseas holidays a year is not exactly the best way to do so.
   
2. Increase gross salary.
   Not possible for an uneducated worker near retirement age.
   
3. Alternative income.
   Frankly, investment is not for everyone and speculation is even worse. Another part time job will kill her. The best I can do for her is to convince her not to put $50,000 in a fixed deposit for a measly $900 bucks. That's 1.8% interest in an environment that is expecting 2.5%-3.5% inflation rate in 2012.

I went on to say that going by the advice by financial planners is good but typically useless. You can find out your income and your expenses, but the will power to perform the 3 items above is all she needs. As long as she is proactively doing the 3 items, her bank balance will grow.

As expected, she ended up walking out of the room looking confused. This reenforce my conviction to teach my kids if any in the future the importance of financial education.

The non-IT guide to buying a home wireless router

How do you know which home wireless router to buy? It's easy! Just follow the 8 golden rules below.

Honey, this is what we want.

1. The bigger the size of the retail box, the better it is!
2. The retail box must be attractive, preferably with a gloss shine. It looks more impressive and turns head.
3. If the retail box is heavy, it means it has quality components and thick manuals. Good quality components are heavy and good products have thick manuals.
4. It must have a foreign sounding name. Home grown companies is a no-no.
5. Big numbers and the number of features matters. Plug and pray is a must. 
6. The more wireless antenna it has, the better it is. Wireless radiation may cause brain cancer though.
7. It is the cheapest router on the shelf. This has the highest priority among all the rules. Remember your home financial controller will not increase your IT budget.
8. Refer to rule #7.

Reality sucks though.

Misadventures in audio land

The prelude
After waiting a decade for my Altec Lansing XA3021 to die a natural death, I woke up to the fact that it had simply refused to do so and may never do. I had bought the bombastic looking speakers during the period when I was dead broke. At $129, the sound quality was pretty decent but still falling behind the Altec Lansing ACS48 that I had passed to my sister.

  

Altec Lansing XA3021 aka Da bomb. Stripped off it's position and now sits in an environment friendly (body) bag.
0.5 / 5star for serving me for a decade.

And so dissatisfied with the poor quality of the sound I am getting, I decided to shop for a better pair of speakers and sound card.

The sound card

It wasn't so long ago when I scornfully questioned everyone who asked whether they should buy a sound card. Who the hell will pay for a sound card nowadays when it is provided free on every computer. AC97 is good right? My last sound card was the Creative Vibra and Creative Live Value, which was like an era 15 years ago.

After doing some research, I had to eat my words when I realise that the truth is, I didn't have the speakers to tell the difference between on-board sound and a good sound card. The difference lies mainly in the DAC which is important as I had opted for an RCA connection over a SPDIF connection to the speakers. And so I ended up buying a Asus Xonar Essence STX.

Asus Xonar Essence STX. $235. 

Speakers galore

After consulting Ronald, the guru on the subject, I arrived to the conclusion that I will need to acquire a pair of active speakers. An active speaker setup helped to rein cost in while providing the best bang for the buck.. A set of high fidelity audio setup will cost an arm and leg, and have an insane learning curve before it can be tuned correctly.

To be fair, the best bang for the buck should go to a good pair of headset. But as I find them to be uncomfortable over a prolong period of usage, I decided to get a bookshelf type speaker as all I need is a compact near field speaker.

I had also stopped craving for the deep bass from a sub woofer as I found that the cheap ones that comes with the sub $500 2.1 speakers usually just make a flat tone and make everything sound bad. As most of my media is in stereo format, there is also no need to get surround speakers.

With the era of CRT monitors long gone, there is no longer any more need for a magnetically shielded speaker, and I had also included non-PC speakers for evaluation.

Next, I went to The Adephi with Ronald to look for a pair of speakers. Ronald has a better set of pampered years than I do, and his experience with audio equipment helped me greatly.

 

Audio Engine A2. $199.Verdict. 1 / 5 star for making some noise.

Kelvin recommended that I should check out the Audio Engine series. I started out with the A2 which was underwhelming. In a nutshell, it has poor sound reproduction and no sound clarity. I lost interest in about 10 seconds into the demo track.

Audio Engine A5. $449.Verdict. 1.5 / 5 star for making better noise.

Next, I tried the A5 which was an improvement over the A2 but still lacking in the same department. I spent more time evaluating this unit compared to the A5. At lower volume, the sound reproduction quickly deteriorated to unbearable levels.

 

Epoz Aktimate Maxi. $1480.

Verdict. 5 / 5 star for being the best but still it cost too much.

On the urging of another customer in the shop, I went on to check out the Epoz Aktimate Maxi. This baby is above my budget as I was actually interested in the Epoz Aktimate Mini. However it was out of stock and the shop owner insisted that I should try the Maxi instead.

This unit is quite impressive. It scored a full points in all departments except for the price tag. For an active speaker, this is the best speaker I had heard so far. While I had little use for the I-everything dock as I run Android based devices exclusively, it has an array of computer friendly features such as DLNA, Internet radio and FM radio functionality. If you want a great pair of book shelf plug and play dummy proof speakers, you should seriously consider this baby. 

I had to take a sanity check via a lunch break to think over whether I should be getting this baby back home.

  

Elac AM 150. $960.

Verdict. 4.5 / 5 star for being the best bang for the buck.

The dark horse of the day was the Elac AM 150. Unlikely the other speakers, this was meant to for home entertainment system, not the PC. It has two class A/B amp per cabinet, one for the tweeter, and the mid/woofer. As each cabinet is independently powered, this meant the Elac AM 150 has no trouble dishing out serious power. It also has cross over controls at the back of each cabinet, which according to Ronald, is a welcome but uncommon feature.

I couldn't actually nail it but somehow the sound reproduction wasn't as impressive as the Epoz Aktimate Maxi. There was something different it wasn't bad either. I wasn't using the same disc for testing but I could tell that the Elac AM 150 is slightly behind the Maxi.

However at 2/3 the price of the Maxi, it is definitely the best bang for the buck. Even at low volume, sound reproduction is crisp and pleasant. In the end, I decided that this will be the work horse I am looking for.

The horrors of high(er) fidelity

After the setup of the new rig, I tried a couple of MP3s and quickly found that...

1. Good singers sound better. Their vocal range is now expressed properly.
2. Bad singers sound worse. Their vocal range is so flat that a plane can land on it. Seems like nothing can save a bad singer.
3. The difference between bit rates used to encode the MP3s is now apparent. I tried 128 to 320 KBPS MP3s, 900 KBPS FLACs and the few audio CDs that I own. Anything below 256 KBPS sounded terrible now and there is no way to upgrade my MP3 collection. At lower bit rates, the higher and lower frequencies got cut off.
4. Because of point 3, you can actually hear more instruments and tones in the same music. Listening to old tunes is actually refreshing now.
5. It doesn't seem to help make Team Fortress 2 any more fun than it already is.
6. My mom still treat my music as loud noise.

Conclusion
I have no regrets with this rig as it had vastly out performed the Altec Lansing XA3021 and completed all my objectives that I had initially set out to achieve.

However, I doubt that anyone will be interested in burning up cash for audio equipment for the PC even after reading this blog article especially you can buy a computer with it.

Update 20 Feb 2012
I switched the setup to digital mode and it seems that the output sounds better. In digital mode, instead of using the RCA cable for analogue output, they are used for digital SPDIF. This effectively bypass the internal Asus Xonar's DAC which is based on the Texas instruments pcm1792 chip. This leaves the important job to the Elac AM 150 which has an internal DAC.

Paying for pain

After receiving numerous recommendations on how to be more handsome, I had decided to bite the bullet and went for dental braces to correct my ever widening gap in my upper front teeth.

Since the decision has been made, I got my sister to hook me up with her friend, Wei Song who is a great dentist, for the job.

So here is what happened so far.

20 Oct 2011

After several X-rays and inspections, it was found that my lower jaw is slowly moving forward overtime, and is pushing my upper teeth apart. Thus, the gap in the upper teeth started to widen, and in the worst case scenario, it will cause me to lose my bite due to the misalignment with the upper and lower teeth. The good news is that I do not have any extra teeth that needs to be extracted before the braces go in.

I guess this gave me the go ahead to draw up the budget for the procedure as now I have a practical reason rather than a cosmetic reason. To sweeten the deal, Wei Song gave me a discount over the official price of $3800. The discount is so good that I must give him free advertising on my blog! Need a good dentist with steady hands? Look no further!

26 Nov 2011

To prepare for the braces, 4 rubber bands were placed in 4 of my molars. The rubber bands  will create a small gap for a set of metal rings encompassing the molars which will be used as the anchor of the braces.

The rubber bands gave me sore gums and molars for a week. Pfft...unknowingly to me at that point of time, that was just the start of the hellish journey. This journey will be a long long one. It will take up to 2 years before the braces can come off, and a retainer is "recommended" to keep the teeth from misbehaving for the rest of my life.

3 Nov 2011

The rubber bands were extracted and the braces went in after an hour of work. It felt alright for the next few hours, but slowly the braces started to make its presence felt.

1. Food got stuck everywhere after a meal. I hate to eat rice even more now.
2. My gums became sore for a week.
3. My teeth felt sore and the only working teeth are my molars. The scissors became my best friend during meals and the inter-dental brush for after meals.
4. Whoever designed dental braces did not take into account that the human mouth don't like sharp metal ends.
5. The time needed to brush my teeth increased several times due to the fact that the inter-dental brush needs to be used to cover the places where the toothbrush cannot reach.

FX Trading Diary 2 Nov 2011

USD/CAD

Trade 1 : Buy 0.9907, SL 0.875, TP 1.0123 (Manual Close For +104)
Price went on to 1.0224, after coming near the starting demand zone and ended up bouncing off 0.9922.

Trade 2 : Buy 0.9988, SL 0.997, TP 1.019

Leading time frame : H4-H1.
Supply zone is at 1.0185-1.0225
Demand zone is at 0.9975-0.9998
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 2/2. Strong move from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 19 pips, Reward 202 pips.
Big Picture : 1.5/2. H4 trend is down and H1 trend is up. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. 6 hours of basing.

Arrival : 0/1. No idea.

Total score : 8 /10

EUR/USD

Trade 1 : Buy 1.383, SL 1.379, TP 1.414. (Stopped out for -40 pips)
Price based for hours and hours and finally broke downwards in a big way.

Trade 2 : Sell 1.3932, SL 1.3957, TP 1.383. (+102 pips)
Took a sell when price was leaving the demand zone and reached the next demand zone. Price actually punched through for another 170 pips.

Trade 3 : Sell 1.3935, SL 1.3973, TP 1.366

Leading time frame : H4-H1.
Supply zone is at 1.393-1.3967
Demand zone is at 1.3797-1.3839
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 2/2. Strong move from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 38 pips, Reward 275 pips.
Big Picture : 1.5/2. H1 trend is down and M15 trend is up. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 1/1. Based for 4 hours
Arrival : 0/1. No idea
Total score : 8.5 /10

AUD/USD

Trade 1 : Sell 1.075, SL 1.079, TP 1.054. (+210 pips)
Trade almost never triggered and went on for a home run.

Trade 2 : Sell 1.0544, SL 1.057, TP 1.024

Leading time frame : H4-H1.
Supply zone is at 1.0535-1.0565
Demand zone is at 1.02-1.0245
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 2/2. Strong move from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 26 pips, Reward 304 pips.
Big Picture : 1.5/2. H4 trend is down and H1 trend is up. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. 7 hours of basing.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea.
Total score : 8 /10

FX Trading Diary 31 Oct 2011

USD/CAD

Trade 1 : Buy 0.9907, SL 0.875, TP 1.0123 (Manual Close For +104)
Price wasn't gong anywhere, so I decided to kill the trade and take profit. The price action is getting choppy, so there is no new trade. I am expecting the demand zone is at 09881-0.9934 to be exhausted on the next hit.


EUR/USD

I am looking for a sell at the supply zone for a entry to continue the downtrend. This might be tough considering the strength of the move upwards. This will be an confirmation entry.


Trade 1 : Sell 1.4135, SL 1.416, TP1.3884. TP2 1.3969 (Order was cancelled and would have been stopped out)
Price was charging in too fast, so I killed the pending order.

Trade 2 : Buy 1.383, SL 1.379, TP1.414.

Leading time frame : H4-H1.
Supply zone is at 1.4136-1.4174
Demand zone is at 1.3797-1.3839
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 1.5/2. Strong move from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 40 pips, Reward 310 pips.
Big Picture : 2/2. H1 trend is down and M15 trend is up. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. Based for 4 hours
Arrival : 0.5/1. It tool a hit and gave a nice bounce.
Total score : 8.5 /10

FX Trading Diary 27 Oct 2011

USD/CAD

Trade 1 : Buy 0.9907, SL 0.875, TP 1.0123

Leading time frame : D1-H4.
Supply zone is at 1.0123-1.0186
Demand zone is at 09881-0.9934.
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 2/2. Strong move away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 32 pips, Reward 216 pips.
Big Picture : 1.5/2. Daily trend is up and H4 trend is down. This might be an impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0/1. Long 1.5 days worth of basing
Arrival : 0.5/1. Decent move down.
Total score :8

This might take a while before it takes off if it ever triggers.

EUR/USD

I am looking for a sell at the supply zone for a entry to continue the downtrend. This might be tough considering the strength of the move upwards. This will be an confirmation entry.


Trade 1 : Sell 1.4135, SL 1.416, TP1.3884. TP2 1.3969

Leading time frame : H4-H1.
Supply zone is at 1.4114-1.4153
Demand zone is at 1.3942-3968
Entry Type : Market order
Strength : 1/2. Strong but wicky away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 30 pips, Reward 172 pips.
Big Picture : 1/2. H1 trend is down and M15 trend is up. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0/1. Not much basing, and it is a wick where the move started.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 6 /10

EUR/JPY

AUD/USD

FX Trading Diary 18 Oct 2011

USD/CAD

My sell has not triggered, and the levels are still good. So, I had refreshed the orders for another week.

Trade 1 : Sell @ 1.032, SL 1.0352, TP1 1.015, TP2 0.995

Leading time frame : D1-H4.
Demand zone is at 1.0322-1.0348.
Supply zone is at 09881-0.9934.
Entry Type : Market order
Strength : 2/2. Strong move away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 32 pips, Reward 170 / 370 pips.
Big Picture : 1/2. Daily trend is up and H4 trend is down. This will be a correction wave.
Retracement : 1/2. This level is not fresh but not penetrated deeply each time.
Time at level : 0.5/1. Short nice basing for 6 hours.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 6.5

Trade 2 : Sell @ 1.0404, SL 1.0433, TP1 1.015, TP2 0.995

Leading time frame : D1-H4.
Demand zone is at 1.395-1.42.
Supply zone is at 09881-0.9934.
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 1/2. Reasonable strength of move away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 29 pips, Reward 254 / 454 pips.
Big Picture : 1/2. Daily trend is up and H4 trend is down. This will be a correction wave.
Retracement : 1/2. This level is not fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. Short nice basing for 4 hours.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 5.5

EUR/USD

I am looking for a sell at the supply zone for a entry to continue the downtrend.


Trade 1 : Sell 1.372, SL 1.3738, TP 1.358 (Stopped out @ Break Even)
It went +60 and it reversed to hit my stop at break even. /wrist 

Leading time frame : H1-M15.
Supply zone is at 1.3712-1.3728
Demand zone is at 1.355-1.36
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 1/2. Decent away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 18 pips, Reward 140 pips.
Big Picture : 2/2. H1 trend is down and M15 trend is up. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. About 90 minutes of basing.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 7.5 /10

Trade 2 : Sell 1.378, SL 1.381, TP 1.358

Leading time frame : H1-M15.
Supply zone is at 1.3768-1.3806
Demand zone is at 1.355-1.36
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 1.5/2. Decent away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 30 pips, Reward 200 pips.
Big Picture : 2/2. H1 trend is down and M15 trend is up. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. About 90 minutes of basing.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 8 /10

Previous trades
14 Oct 2011 : Buy @ 1.3652, SL 1.364, TP1 1.378, TP2 1.391 (Stopped out)
14 Oct 2011: Buy @ 1.3596, SL 1.3553, TP1 1.378, TP2 1.391 (Stopped out)

Stopped out !

FX Trading Diary 14 Oct 2011

Sorry to whoever was reading my FX blog, there wasn't much entries lately because I was tired. My sister is in hospital for an operation and I got a truck load of work to finish.

I have updated the format again, hope whoever is insane enough to read this will like it.



USD/CAD

I am looking for a sell at the supply zone at two levels.

Trade 1 : Sell @ 1.032, SL 1.0352, TP1 1.015, TP2 0.995

Leading time frame : D1-H4.
Demand zone is at 1.0322-1.0348.
Supply zone is at 09881-0.9934.
Entry Type : Market order
Strength : 2/2. Strong move away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 32 pips, Reward 170 / 370 pips.
Big Picture : 1/2. Daily trend is up and H4 trend is down. This will be a correction wave.
Retracement : 1/2. This level is not fresh but not penetrated deeply each time.
Time at level : 0.5/1. Short nice basing for 6 hours.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 6.5

Trade 2 : Sell @ 1.0404, SL 1.0433, TP1 1.015, TP2 0.995

Leading time frame : D1-H4.
Demand zone is at 1.395-1.42.
Supply zone is at 09881-0.9934.
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 1/2. Reasonable strength of move away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 29 pips, Reward 254 / 454 pips.
Big Picture : 1/2. Daily trend is up and H4 trend is down. This will be a correction wave.
Retracement : 1/2. This level is not fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. Short nice basing for 4 hours.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 5.5

EUR/USD

I am looking for a buy at the demand zone at two levels.

Trade 1 : Buy @ 1.3652, SL 1.364, TP1 1.378, TP2 1.391 

Leading time frame : H1-M15.
Supply zone is at 1.391-1.394.
Demand zone is at 1.345-1.366
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 2/2. Strong move away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 12 pips, Reward 128 / 258 pips.
Big Picture : 2/2. H1 trend is up and M15 trend is down. This will be a impulse wave.
Retracement : 2/2. This level is fresh.
Time at level : 0.5/1. About 90 minutes of basing.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 8.5

Trade 2 : Buy @ 1.3596, SL 1.3553, TP1 1.378, TP2 1.391

Leading time frame : H4-H1.
Supply zone is at 1.391-1.394.
Demand zone is at 1.3557-1.3597
Entry Type : Pending order
Strength : 1/2. Reasonable strength of move away from level.
Risk/Reward : 2/2. Risk 43 pips, Reward 184 / 314 pips.
Big Picture : 1/2. H4 trend is down and H1 trend is up. This is a correction wave.
Retracement : 1/2. This level is not fresh. There is a light penetration.
Time at level : 0.5/1. Basing for 5 hours.
Arrival : 0/1. No idea yet
Total score : 5.5

FX Trading Diary 2 Oct 2011

EUR/USD

2 Oct 2011 2300 Hours:

The price action on last Friday was a full day slow burning of all the demand levels. This kind of slow burning of levels is the hardest to bet a bounce off. I lost 40 pips in a failed buy at 1.3537. If the pattern continues on market open, the demand at 1.336-1.34 will be burnt through as well, possibly reaching the next demand at 1.325-1.328. Will market push without a retracement and continue in the tight downward channel? No idea.

Gold and Silver buying opportunity is here

Ever plan to buy gold or silver? After the big drop at the end of last week, the prices had dropped to very attractive levels. My itch for owning physical silver is driving me nuts. Holding a physical silver coin in your hand is indeed very different experience. I just want to have some. Urgh !! It's like a craving, and it might just be a new addiction. It's shiny, shiny shiny.

I was looking at how the prices of gold and silver falling on Friday, and it reminded very much of what had happened in 2008 when the financial crisis exploded in full force. This article does a very good job explaining things. Whether that the drop is caused by hedge funds liquidation drive or a CME margin hike, it doesn't matter, this just created a good entry for buying gold.

How Gold Performs During A Financial Crash

Copper is on the verge of breaking down, perhaps similar to the previous 6 months drop in 2008 to the bottom. With the Euro zone threatening to blow up, this might be the indication that the next 6 months will not be a happy one, unless we are hedged accordingly. And so, this is another piece for copper.

Recession or Pessimism: A Look at Economic Indicators