Thursday, December 15, 2011

Photo Recollection

A photo recollection of the MRT failure which affected stations between Marina Bay & Braddell.
It all started with:



via @Alumn


and via @humourboi



and the best, probably, via @existentialsoup


and the insensitivity from SMRT top management, via @boypianist



and the busstops, Town & Bishan, via @epitommy & @popzblue


and the mrt evacuation. via Mark Tan.


and via service resumed, it wasn't any better. via @melqi.

And to top it off, SMRT announced on the 12th of December that they too, will be revising their Taxi fares.  http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1170892/1/.html

Monday, August 8, 2011

What I want the NTU website to be V What the NTU website actually is

Ohai guys. Sorry for the lack of updates. I been running far too many things so far (ie 2 companies & 4 twitter accounts) and sort of forgot about blogging.

What the NTU website actually is.



 What I want the NTU website to be.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Voice of NTU's guidelines to Internship

With the holidays nearing and internship starting; its an issue of the students wanting to clear their prerequisite criteria, schools wanting their students to be good ambassadors for them, and the firms wanting cheap labour to leverage on, on the pretense of 'Internship'.


And under Ministry of Manpower regulations, interns (In fact all employees) are only required to work 8 hours a day, subjected to a maximum of 44 hours a week.   

That means, about 9am to 6pm on weekdays (with an hour of lunch break) and 4 hours on a saturday. Anything else would qualify as overtime, which entitles you to overtime pay. Which is 150% of your standard rate. Which means you can refuse to stay back!

In my accounting course, i learnt this, that compensation should be tied to the employee's productivity. And employee's productivity is tied to the effort he puts in. However, in the internships we students do, we know that the compensation is fixed. So the only way to get your money worth, (hey you pay peanuts you get monkeys) is to vary your effort level.

Okay. back to the accounting equation, compensation varies with productivity. and productivity varies with effort. So we can say compensation varies with effort. And since compensation is fixed? how much should effort shall we put in?

1) Rate as a tutor: $50 per hour (I was actually teaching jc chinese at this rate few years back so..)
2)  Rate as a freelance copywriter/designer: $20 an hour. (The people i work with in my company)
3) Rate as a admin assistant: $6 an hour.
4) Rate as a MacD server: $4.50 an hour.
5) Rate of an intern: Do your maths, at 44 hours a week for 4 weeks a month.

So with the wage comparison, the way to vary your effort function would be:

1) Lets look at Dibert again. Pick up smoking: (PS you dont light the colour coded end)

2) Short MCQ question -

When doing your internship, what happens if you finish your work on time? (At best, early) You will be rewarded with:
1) The Best Intern Award
2) A pay rise
3) More work

Take your time.

Are you doing an internship this summer? Share with us your bad internship experience, through an email! Voice.of.ntu@gmail.com. all contributions will be kept anonymous.

Do you have any other advice for interns? Let us know through a comment below!

(PS you can bet I'll be taking multiple smoke breaks this summer. do tweet me for a smoke break when you are around the bugis area)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Why not to date a designer

After much controversy from why engineers make good partners (see: http://therealfakentu.blogspot.com/2011/02/girls-get-yourself-engineer-as-ideal.html ) now lets talk about designers. On why designers make weird partners!

1. They are very weird people.
2. There are billions of them in the world, like colors on the screen of your computer.
3. They will analyse conversations in layers.
4. You will spend the day assembling furniture from IKEA.
5. They drink and eat all kinds of weird shit just because they like the packaging.
6. They hate each other.
7. You’ll come out the last out of the movies because you have to see the full list of credits.
8. They cant change a light bulb or without making a sketch.
9. They fuck up all the tables with their cutters.
10. They rather study the paisley pattern on your outfit than listen to what you have to say.
11. They will fill your house with magazines and whatever is out there that has drawings.
12. You never know if it is really an original or a copy.
13. They make collages with your photos.
14. They do not know how to add and subtract, they just understand letters.
15. They idolize people who nobody knows and speak of them as if they were his colleagues.
16. They take pictures almost daily and all are cut in weird shapes.
17. They ask your opinion about everything but they do whatever they want.
18. Everything is left justified, right or center unless they arrive late.
19. They hate Comic Sans with the same passion they love Helvetica.
20. They use iPhone for everything, because everyone has one.
21. You can not decorate the house without consulting them.
22. They steal street signs.
23. Always carry their hands painted with something.
24. They buy dolls unfinished for them to paint.
25. Everything becomes something other than what it really is: cards as tickets, cards as …
26. When arguing, you will be nicknamed like the OSX spinning wheel (not affectionately)
27. Do not know how to dress without consulting the Pantone book.
28. They hate Excel.
29. They read comics.
30. They want to save the world only with a poster.
31. You will spend the day brainstorming.
32. On vacation they will take you to countries that you do not know exist and have no beach.
33. Museums are their second home.
34. They know more positions than the Kamasutra.
35. They can’t go to a restaurant without secretly critiquing the menu design.
36. They listen to music you have never heard of.
37. They can´t cook a normal dish, they always have to experiment with new ingredients.
38. They read rare books: stories of children, Semiotics …
39. When you are going to tell you something, everyone has read it in their facebook and twitter.
40. They have own iPods before you knew they existed.
41. The orgasm they remember is when they heard that Adobe was acquiring Macromedia.
42. They have their own shops just for them and there are the most expensive in the city.
43. They want to spend all the money in the Apple Store.
44. You will never understand their gifts.
45. They see ordinary objects and laugh.
46. You wake up in the middle of the night hearim them screaming “When is the deadline?”
47. They see CMYK and RGB like Neo sees the Matrix.
48. They dream of the day nobody will make a single change to their designs.
49. They rather pay for a font than for a special birthday gift.
50. They are always sleepy because they work 24/7.

Taken off http://abourbonforsilvia.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/50-reasons-not-to-date-a-graphic-designer/

Are you dating a designer? What do you think of them? Let us know through a comment below!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Remember Rocksontan?

Remember in our first episode of Twitter Wars, we described the war between Mr Cheo, a YPAP member and a particular Rocksontan?
http://therealfakentu.blogspot.com/2011/02/twitter-wars.html

For a blogger and a tweeter who only blogs and tweets once in a while, he has definitely claimed his scalp of Mr Cheo. But this time, he goes on this time to the new PAP candidate, Tin Pei Ling.

http://rockson.blogspot.com/2011/03/tin-pei-ling-sexy-pap-xmm.html

What do you think about PAP fielding sucha young candidate? Let us know through a comment below!

Friday, March 25, 2011

We have hit our 1000 followers mark!

Okay, actually we hit 1000 followers on twitter few days back, but we have been swamped by too much workload, and backlog of work that we hadn't had the time to write, so, our apologies there :)

But our many thanks to all our fans on twitter and facebook, especially for all the follows and RTs, that helped bump us to the position we are today. We started off just early last december, with the purpose of ________________________ and ______________________ (Tweet me in private if you want to hear my reasons, not something to state here HAHA) and throughout these months, i made awesome friends via twitter, such @Merylzhanyee, @Kickthatmo, @cchockolate, @museoramuse, and of course people who i STILL don't know, like @fakeMOE and @realFASS.

So, to many many more years of rubbish on twitter! (but in fact, I'll be graduating in summer 2012, so searching for a successor would be a pressing issue. soon. )

Friday, March 18, 2011

Did you choose business as your major?

After much buzz about why engineers, lets move on to about business graduates.

In NBS, the business undergraduate has been over glorified. Ties, blazers and tailored shirts may make one look smart, but what do they mean?

Clothing/regulations                             Symbolism
Necktie                                              Leash
Metallic watch                                    Handcuffs
Business cards                                    Monkey identification number
Tight leather shoes                              Leg irons
Cubicles                                             Money cages
Styrofoam Starbucks cups                  Pet dishes
Commission-linked salary                   Extra peanuts

(PS btw weeks back, a friend of mine wanted to know about why we thought bankers made good partners, here's our reason: They know the penalty for early, and premature withdrawal. So you can bet they can give quality sex.)

Did you choose business as your major? Let us know through a comment below!