失却

跟着岁月的流逝，以为应该是越积越多的东西和事物，怎么反而是渐渐减少、失去的？

除了年龄和腰围，拥有的越来越少，失却的越来越多。

那感觉很强烈，甚至有点诡异。

为什么？

是不是一切本该化为零，生不带来，死不带去？尘归尘，土归土？

心语细述 |系列|

More than double

I feel like a fool for providing a reward offer for my kids if they could keep their mobile phone usage under 2 hours daily. A pure reward system, all for their gain and nothing to lose.

For the record, the 2 hours daily average is not a number from thin air, my daily average is 30 minutes or less for more than a year running now. Figured that most people probably cannot be like me so gave a generous 4x multiplier, also factored in that they have around 8 hours of useful time after school, spending 25% of that on the phone is already plenty.

Rather they spend the time on their studies or some other form of entertainment really, but what to do, phubber pandemic is real and deteriorating the society. Phone addiction is serious issue but way too many willingly embrace the rot.

But I digress. Anyway, to me, the MYR1000 reward is money well spent if the kids developed their self-discipline, self-control, and time management. All useful skills that will benefit their whole lives.

What did they do instead? They train their deceit and dishonesty on a daily basis, by cheating, manipulating the screen time, excluding frequently used apps and games, turning off the screen time tracking apps, et cetera.

And showed me the fake screen time week after week without shame or guilt.

Well, let's just say parents are not the fools the kids think they are, and truth always prevails. So based on last week's fake and real data, my kids actual usage were 2x and 2.7x what they showed me.

Needless to say that the reward offer is now cancelled. The disappointment is real. Massive and hurtful.

Other |sane side| category entries.

SoulBot-VIII

SoulBot-V, the gaming machine built in 2014, has finally been put to rest after its faithful service all these years.

Like I mentioned in the previous entry, it has outlast SoulBot-VI, the NUC I bought for wifey in 2017. Yes I know, the Skull Canyon NUC is not really a gaming machine but I just named all the computers I owned SoulBot anyway. =P

So, I bought a Lenovo ThinkCentre M70t Gen 5 to replace SoulBot-V. It arrived a few days ago but I only really had time to do the necessary hardware installation, software installation and set up yesterday (Saturday), been working way too many overtime lately...

While wifey is indifferent to the delay, the kids were dying from not being able to play games. Funny, it's supposed to be wifey's computer.

Following my naming convention, this new computer is called SoulBot-VIII. It has 14th Gen Intel Core i5 CPU and 16GB of DDR5-4800MHz memory. I opted for a 512GB SSD as primary harddrive for all the programs and games, and installed a 3.5" 500GB and a 2.5" 256GB SATA harddrives myself for wifey and the kids to use as data storage.

I also bought an Intel ARC A750 graphics card, thinking to install that into the system, not knowing this ThinkCentre M70t is actually a mini computer that cannot fit in a full-sized graphics card.

My bad. So much for wanting to make the kids happy with an upgrade in graphics card compared to when they played on SoulBot-V, oh well.

Since it's a shorter graphics card, I salvaged the GeForce GTX 1050Ti from SoulBot-V and installed it into the new computer instead. Sorry kids, no upgrade in graphics card.

In fact, the 500GB SATA harddrive is also from SoulBot-V, after I copied the necessary data, I formatted it and repurposed it as a data drive instead of an operating system drive.

May you rest in pieces, SoulBot-V.

Finally got everything installed and set up yesterday evening, and handed over to wifey her new computer. She hasn't used it yet thus far, the elder son is the first to use it instead. First thing he asked after waking up this morning is whether the games are installed, so I proceeded to do that and as soon as I am done he has been playing till now. Oh well.

As a thermal engineer, it crossed my mind that the existing cooling solution for the mini system may be a bit lacking after I installed all those additional hardware. I have asked the kids to keep an eye out if they encounter temperature issue while they game.

Other |hyped up heads up| category entries.

Twenty percent

It's natural to expect improvement from one generation to another.

That's progression, evolution.

However, there are also physical laws that govern how fluid dynamics and heat transfer work.

So from the things they changed from last generation to this, it's no surprise to me when the cooling capability became worse.

To me it's very straight forward, we were already pushing the envelope in the previous generation, and when you shrink the useful envelope for thermal solution in this generation, naturally the cooling capability becomes worse.

But my words and gut feeling are not convincing data, so while the others were busy harping on changing this and that for very subjective aesthetic reason, I just concentrated on finishing the thermal model generation based on the not-so-mature-but-finally-available CAD.

The lower than previous generation cooling capability projection from thermal simulation results got the attention, and lent me the focus on working on things that improve cooling capability instead.

Through some creative solution, finally managed to improve the cooling capability by around twenty percent, meeting the higher than previous generation target the management set.

Truth is, while the creative solution does help, the relaxed customer specification this year round is the major factor in that improvement in cooling capability. Like I said, there are physical laws that do not yield to the arbitrary goal set by the management.

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

Random thoughts

Did too many overtime continuously for too many days. This is how passion is destroyed.

*****

Sharing is caring, but perhaps I shouldn't care so much?

*****

Talk is cheap. Show me actual action and commitment instead.

*****

Graphics card arrived. Computer arrived. Monitor not yet. Not aware it's a mini tower, graphics card does not fit. Will do proper blog entry some other day.

*****

Need more love. Quantity and quality.

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

Does not compute

Many years back the company recognition reward points could be used to get Amazon voucher.

And since I was still going on business trips to the States back then, bought many books and board games using the recognition points.

Good old time.

Now, Amazon is no longer listed in the reward list and I no longer go on business trip to the States.

Actually, I no longer go on business trip. Period.

So when I found out that I can use the recognition points to purchase the graphics card the company produces through the employee purchase program, I jumped straight in.

The free shipping is icing on the cake.

The lounge computer has quit, I haven't had time to look at it and see if it can be resurrected. I have been working through the weekend, and last two days I worked till 03:00 hours and 02:00 hours respectively.

Not very keen on repairing the lounge computer though, primarily because it's an aging computer that cannot support Windows 11 as is, and Windows 10 support is ending soon. Plus it is not worth the upgrade to make it Windows 11 ready.

Also because the main users, the kids, do not take care of it and installed just about whatever they want. Last time it died I walked the kids through the debug process and brought it back up.

Now they break it again and just twiddle their thumbs. So since I am working overtime like no tomorrow anyway, they can continue to twiddle their thumbs.

Bought a new desktop instead, but it has not arrived. The graphics card is for this new computer.

The international shipment for the graphics card incurred a tax. The tax is MYR61, the courier service charge for handling the tax is MYR50.

Ya, bollocks!

Other |runaway rants| category entries.

Gathering

The supposedly Chinese New Year gathering with colleague friends finally happened yesterday.

Despite my many attempts in recommending a restaurant on the island, the dinner was at mainland.

Took me slightly more than an hour to get there, "contributed" to the puasa traffic.

And yet when I got there, many commuting from mainland were still not there yet. Shame on them!

The gang of colleague friends who ate together, played together, and had interactions outside of work. Yes, I wasn't so antisocial back then...

Food was good, but that's not the main point. The main thing is the laughter, I had a great time. =)

Other |enjoyable events| category entries.