Just Another Day In School... #11

At a lecture, the lecturer taught for a few short minutes, and then posed a question to the class.

The class kept quiet, so he pointed at a student sitting behind his laptop screen at the far end of the lecture hall, instructing him to answer his question.

The student kept quiet, and didn't answer.

Lecturer: "Are you listening to me behind your laptop?"

This time, the student spoke up, with a heavy Indian accent, "Yes I am. I didn't hear your question."

Lecturer: "Why don't you move foward to these few seats here so that you can hear me?" *and he points to the first 5 rows*

Student: "I am comfortable here."

Lecturer: "What did you say? Why don't you move forward since you can't hear me?"

Student: "I am very comfortable sitting here."

Lecturer: "..."

Just Another Day In School... #10

Another day in school, another lecture.

An empty row is available. I take a seat. My bag is placed on the neighbouring seat. Some other fellas fill in the row from the opposite end, right up to before my bag.

There are plenty of other seats available in the lecture hall.

Girl comes in halfway into the lecture, late. She walks to the row where I'm at, and saunters around up and down the row, her friends pointing this way and that way at empty seats at the other end.

She lingers in front of me, and I look up at her. I give in and remove my bag.

The girl sits down, and begins chattering away like a M2 .50 calibre machine gun.

Kind enough to offer a seat (I was not obliged; there were plenty other seats around), yet not kind enough to keep the bloody trap shut.

--------------------

The next time somebody asks me to remove my bag, I will ask "ARE YOU JUST SITTING DOWN, OR ARE YOU GOING TO CHAT WITH YOUR FRIEND THERE?"

No prizes for guessing what my response will be.

On The Bus... #15

There seems to be a growing trend of passengers who likes to press the bell just as the bus is 30m away from reaching the next stop.

There also seems to be a growing trend of passengers who have trigger-happy fingers, pressing the bell just as the bus is pulling out from the current stop. They intend to press the bell for the next stop.

For the first type of passengers, they are the ones whom you can tell a joke on Monday, and they'll laugh at it on that coming Wednesday.

For the second type of passengers, they are the ones who are already laughing when you are just about to tell a joke.

Sony Discman, Well, The D-FJ787

Yeah I own one of those sad pieces of crap ever devised by Sony.

It comes with a remote tuner with FM capabilities. What's the problem with it now? Well, in a nutshell:

- Pressing the buttons on the remote gives no response.
- Sometimes when there is a response, the RADIO button starts to playback my CD.
- Sometimes when there is a response, the CD button starts to playback my RADIO.
- Sometimes when there is a response, pressing the STOP button doesn't stop playback nor the radio.

So, with the warranty over, and scared off by Sony's $40 service charge + $15 cleaning fees (I bought this for $259), I went to dismantle the remote for the Sony CD Walkman D-FJ787...

Here's a picture of the front of the remote:

Opening up the inside of the remote, reveals a huge piece of copper film that covers nearly 90% of the PCB.

Closer inspection reveals that this copper film is used to connect some buttons across and over the PCB, without the need for wires and/or circuits on the PCB.

Given that the copper film is so huge, it seems that little thought was given to the design of the circuitry lay out. Mind you, I am only a typical layman with no knowledge of circuity design. But this, this is just so wrong...

Here's another picture of the second part of the remote. Wait... SECOND PART? Yes! It's a second piece, connected via the white connector to the first part you see in the picture above.

Again, it doesn't take a genius to comprehend that using a PCB-PCB connector gives a window of opportunity for the connector to become loose in the long run, leading to inherent problems.

This is again obviously a design fault.

Now look closely at this picture of the back of the second part of the remote, and compare it with the previous picture (the front of the second part). See that bit of shiny reflection in the picture?

Yes, you are correct, no prizes given, Sorry. That IS a piece of plastic that is wrapped around the WHOLE piece of the remote.

You: "What is that plastic for?"

Me: "I have no idea.... wait.. hmm... OH! It seems like the plastic wrapping is there to prevent the second part of the remote from shorting with the first part of the remote! Remember? The SUPER BIG piece of copper film?"

Again, another obvious design fault.

And here is a picture of the remote with its cover off, showing how the remote looks like when pieced together:


Upon closer inspection of the remote, I see a sneakily familiar logo on the PCB:

Yes... yes... that looks like the Wearnes Logo!

If you didn't know, Wearnes made CD-ROM optical drives for the PC market about 10 years ago. Their drives weren't the best out there, and in fact, they were the best in the worst rankings.

I had thought they went bust after they disappeared from the optical drives markey all of a sudden without reason. But I wasn't surprised when they did the Houdini act.

Now they've made their appearance again, and in a Sony product.

That explains it all. No more Sony for me, and never Wearnes.

Sony D-FJ787. Damned-Fucked-up Job Number 787.

Just Another Day In School... #9

30th January (Monday) was a holiday. The lecturer instructed all students from Monday's lab class to attend either Thursday or Friday's lab classes.

I went to my original class on Thursday.

Upon entering the laboratory, I realised that two other fellas and me (that makes for three of us), did not have seats in the labs because for some "strange reason", the laboratory class was full.

The tutor remembered the lecturer's instructions, and asked "Who is not from today's (Thursday) class?"

One sneaky-looking non-local fella had been sitting there quite comfortably for quite some time, behaving just like anybody else, raised his hand.

The tutor then asked him, "You are from Monday's class?"

Sneaky-pants says, "No. I'm from Friday's class."

No sense of shame, no sense of common sense.

What is WRONG with you? You bloody moron! Do you think that you have the right of way just because you are what you are?

On The Bus... #14

Another day, another trip back home from school.

Bus is packed full, unusually full. Bus driver stops at the bus-stop, refuses to open the front door. He only opens the rear exit for passengers to alight.

Rowdy bunch of Caucasians and a couple of Indian women tries to board the bus from the exit.

I was standing near the entrance, with my friend right at the entrance. I exclaimed to my friend, "Sui wor (dialect for "Nice", in a sarcastic tone of course), boarding from the exit!"

I suppose the bus driver heard my exclamation, for he stood up and turned around and started shouting at the "illegal passengers" who tried to board from the exit.

They reluctantly alighted from the bus, and made their way to the entrance.

Stupid bunch of ill-mannered people.

PS: This is Singapore, not some developing country where you can get a ride so long as you can attach yourself to any part of the bus. The next time you smart alecks want to try boarding from the exit, don't try to tap your stupid cards at the exit machine, because you will just alert the driver and the rest of the passengers on the bus, that you're an ill-mannered moron.

Just Another Day In School... #8

Another day in school, another lecture.

A girl comes in, dressed to the nines. She has her hair dyed reddish brown. She sits down.

A few moments later, she starts scratching her head like there's lices in there.

***** One hour later *****

An ominous "PuUUuuuuuuuu" comes out from her direction.

She speaks with a weird accent.