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These are the things I wished someone had told me before my first time in Europe:

• Never carry your wallet/your 'big' notes in your pockets. If you want to be extra safe, get a money belt where you can safely carry your big notes, credit cards, etc. Then you can carry about $20 - $40 in your pocket for general spending.
  
  
• If any friendly stranger comes up to you (esp on the streets of Paris or Barcelona) and asks if you can speak English, just shake your head and walk away. 9 out of 10 times, it's a scammer.
  
  
• Speaking of scams, I would list out the most common ones but I'm sure you can look it up yourself. I have experienced about 80% of them and was fortunate to not lose any money / get scammed because people had warned me beforehand. This is a good read that lists most of the common scams.
  
  
• Not sure if you're male/female, but generally it's safe for women to walk around at night. However, YMMV: I usually don't stay out beyond 11pm. Also, use common sense and don't wander down dark alleyways or hang around the red-light districts.
  
  
• Now that we covered the issue of safety, I'm just going to tell you that you're going to have an awesome time. Europe is easy to travel around because there are excellent transport links. Budget airlines like Easyjet and Ryanair offer great flights (make sure to check that they don't fly to/from some ulu airport) and trains are also clean and economical, if you buy in advance. I've made quite a few friends in European trains.
  
  
• If you are/look Chinese, people are going to assume you're PRC. Sorry, that's just the way it goes. It helps to learn 'Hello' and 'thank you' in the native language, it works wonders in getting the locals to warm up to you.
  
  
• If you're flying into France at any point, be warned that the immigration officers might insist on speaking French to you even though you obvs don't look French. I found that it really helped me to say 'Sorry, can you speak English?' ('Pardon, parlez vous Anglais?') in French, because they will then be nice and speak to you in English. Having said that, the French are some of the nicest people I met. Not all the stereotypes are true, but I added in this bit because many of my friends kena before.
  
  
• If you have a bigger budget, hit the bigger cities first for your first backpacking trip. Smaller budget? Consider Eastern European cities like Prague, Budapest, etc. However, English may not be spoken as widely as in Germany, Scandinavia, etc.
  
  
• Most European hostels, especially the chain ones like St Christopher's Inn or Generator Hostels, are usually quite good and VERY well-located. Bear in mind that some ang mohs are quite rowdy and will smuggle alcohol into the dorms, or even shag in the bunks. Bring earplugs, or splurge for a private room if you really can't tahan.
  
  
• The food in Europe is so, so amazing. If you're saving money, please don't eat McDonald's or fast food! Try street food or local bistros. You can find amazing, cheap meals!
  
  
• If you're going to Scandinavia, it's going to be crazy expensive. However, the Scandinavians are the most warm and welcoming that I've met! I didn't experience racism in any of their countries at all.
  
  That's all I can remember for now. Just PM if you need more info! Have a great trip!

As someone who has alot of friends who received the NIS previously and it has been rebranded to SG:D scholarship, I can you tell that almost all of them want to break their bonds if they could afford to.

Therefore my advice to you is to not take up the scholarship unless you need to for a various reasons:

• Unnecessary stress to maintain your grades to fulfill the scholarship requirements. Especially in tech, grades may not be the best indicator of your capability as many companies have been enlightened about that. Instead of joining hackathon, doing some side projects, a number of my scholar friends would rather focus on mugging and studying for grades.
  
• While a job is typically secured after your studies, you might not get to choose exactly what you want to do. Some agencies with better HR department might get your input and allocate a position for what you want to do, but that is not always possible depending on the manpower limitations or the projects going on.
  
• Lastly if you are really that good, then getting a job is the least of your concerns, and you are likely to get better opportunities than what you signed up, which is what my friends are complaining about but they LLST because they don't think it's worth it to pay 10% compound interest over x year for the liquidated damage.
  
  If you really want to take the scholarships in government agencies, there are some perks too:
  
  
• Little to no financial burden on your parents for your entire college education + exchange
  
• Scholars in agencies tend to receive all the high profile projects/opportunites first (however do prepare to work hard too)
  
• Due to the high profile projects, scholars tend to be fast tracked and promoted wayyyyyy faster.
  
• If you like the public sector, scholarship does help alot.
  
  To be honest, the first 5 years of your career is extremely important because they setup the stage for your career advancement. My (biased) advice if you are serious about tech and developing skills to do awesome work is stay out of public sector, typical MNCs, banks and consultancies because there's just too much wayang than doing the actual work. Most consultancies in Singapore are just sweatshops than doing good work. Go work in tech firms that are known for their engineering processes and build stuff.
  
  And if you want to get into FAANG, it's not that difficult if you put in the effort to prepare for it and try to do as many internship as possible. You should be willing to work through one of the following books
  
  

1. https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

I usually buy this textbook series. While they aren't very in-depth, I find that reading all of the example sentences and doing the worksheets helps in reinforcing the stuff I've learnt.

These are the main resources I use for different areas:

Grammar - A dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. Highly recommended by many people because it gives an in-depth explanation of grammatical concepts and corrects many misconceptions. If you master this book, you're pretty much set for N3 grammar.

Vocabulary - Core6k vocabulary list. This is a list of the most frequently used 6000 words in newspapers (I think?). I write down words I don't know on name cards, along with their meaning and reading on the other side and use them as flashcards. ~1500 is around N4, ~3500 is around N3.

Listening - I don't really actively train listening outside of using the listening workbook from the series mentioned above, but just consuming Japanese media and picking out vocab/grammar you've learnt helps.

Writing - lang-8 Really important to work on this constantly since you'll learn how to sound natural and things not taught in textbooks.

Kanji - The grinding of flashcards for vocabulary helped me recognize them. Knowing Mandarin helps a lot since kanji is basically just traditional chinese hanzi.

Reading - Reading is a really important aspect as well since it helps you better retain information in longer sentences and make sense of them. I used to read a lot of NHK Easy News and Japonin blogs. Now I mainly read junior novels.

However, if you're looking for a place to start, I would suggest starting with Tae Kim's guide to start from the very basics like Hiragana and Katakana which is the Japanese alphabet. It's recommended by many as a great starting resource. I started off with a mix of lesser-known resources from the library which somehow worked out for me, but I wouldn't recommend them. Also, check out /r/learnjapanese if you haven't.

I got charged about $4K the replacement of every exterior window. The contractor took care of all the permits. This was probably the most restrictive part of the job and made up the vast majority of my improved insulation costs. If you are dealing with HDB, my experience was that while it was somewhat expensive, things were relatively smooth. If I had to do this again, I would have done just the bedrooms. I roughly estimate that if I were to expect these windows to repay themselves with my reduced PUB bill, I estimate my repayment time is going to be around 10-15 years.--Not great, not terrible.


I do wish that HDB would allow homeowners to take a course on safety precautions and then have them pay a fee for liability insurance and then allow us to do it ourselves. It did not look very difficult. It would save people money and make this sort of renovation much more accessible to Singaporeans. I went on Amazon and calculated that the actual cost of all the windows I installed was about S$1500 if I were in the US, so a lot of money went into the labor and permitting process.


If you don't want to do this, there are still options. My original HDB installed window frame did not have very good weather sealing. This was a significant source of noise and heat gain. Fixing this was easy with a caulking gun. I found that some heavy curtains were quite helpful, I still use them even after the new windows were installed. There are high thickness anti-convection Insulating window films are around. I tried them on one window and it was actually very effective with the thick curtains at cutting down the noise. To my ears, only slightly worse than the double-glazing. I think it would have given me almost as good energy saving if I used it on every room with aircon.--I don't have hard numbers The downside was that this solution was ugly and needed to be replaced often. Application needs a bit of practice, but if you get it wrong, the film is easy to remove. The film itself is very cheap. IIRC I used something like this.--same brand. As you can see, if you are willing to put up with the disadvantages this might actually be the best choice financially.

https://www.amazon.com/Duck-Strength-Insulating-3-Window-284351/dp/B015PY2BY8


As before, there are a quite a few things you can do to get a decent amount of sound reduction. In any case, if you are going to pay for new windows, they will not help you much unless you have good weather sealing and well insulated doors. There are things you can do that will improve things even if you don't want to spend that sort of money. And if you do, there are things that you MUST do in order for you to enjoy the best benefit from what money you do decide to spend. Don't give in to that sinkie learned helplessness where everything also cannot do! It is 2019, we have so many options to make our lives better.

When evaluating a cat food, the first five ingredients can tell you a lot about the quality of a product as they make up the bulk of the product. Ideally, you're looking for quality protein sources with a minimum of cheap starches, fillers or by-products.

Continuing down the ingredient list, look for ingredients that resemble real food with a minimal number of unpronounceable chemicals - the same as you would for human food!

Also, look for Taurine in the ingredients as it is very vital for a cat's vision and digestive system.

I wouldn't recommend Applaws (PLC's own brand) even tho cats seem to love them because you have to feed Applaws in addition to other food - in other words, it's more of a supplement. Idk what's your budget but you can take a look at Wellness Core. It is a step up from Whiskas nutrition wise and price wise; Wellness Core retails for about $4.55 a can in PLC.

Ofc if you have the time to spare, you can prepare fresh shredded chicken and fish for your community cat. He/she'll definitely love you for that. Dry food is definitely cheaper and more convenient - you buy in bulk but cats generally have a low thirst drive (they normally won't really drink water on their own) and wet food is a great way of getting water into their system

Great lists you two. For OP and others interested, check out the list by /u/1xjialatjialat - he/she has good recommendations that have books related to the ones in these lists, but the post doesn't seem to be getting as many upvotes.

On my own part, for behavioural economics and decision science, I'd recommend reading Thinking Fast and Slow first. /u/rrrandomrants is right that the experiments and findings discussed in the book provides a lot of the foundation that sees application in Nudge. Might be cool to read these after reading the more general economics or investment stuff. While I haven't read any of those, so I can't say for sure, behavioural economics is a nice next step after reading about economic theory driven by assumptions of rationality.

If you're looking for a more accessible take on Kahneman and Tversky's work, or the more human side of the story, try The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis.

When you're done with those, I'd move on to Nassim Taleb's books for a more logical rather than empirical take on irrationality. They are a good read for a critical look at human irrationality in investments and other decisions, but he gets annoyingly arrogant at points. Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise, is a great introduction to statistics, particularly Bayesian statistics. It will help you see everything the others have been talking about in a more quantitative light and help you think about/express their insights better for yourself and others.

Finally, check out books by Gerd Giegerenzer. He is Kahneman's and Tversky's intellectual rival and provides a different spin on decision science. Good read to challenge and grow the ideas you would likely have built for yourself after reading all the other books.


For general interest on developmental psychology and life - David Brooks' The Social Animal.

They're alright - not too popular that you'll see people eating it where ever you go, but not unpopular enough that you won't see anyone eating it. IMO people buy it because they're pretty tasty (it has to be, with all that seasoning they throw in). They're come out of the machine piping hot with really tasty gravy (chicken flavor, i think) so they're alright to eat. They're also really cheap @ about S$1.20 each.

Yes, mash potatoes were the staple of our nation before rice took over - Singapore was basically founded on the stuff. This is a throwback to the old times so that we'll never forget... or not. No, there's no damn cultural significance. It's not a part of any of the major cultures' diets, but people know about them because KFC started serving them with meals.

They started showing up in about 2006 IIRC. Right now the machines only dispense mashed potatoes, but in the past the same machines dispensed mushroom/corn soup as well. But those served unpopular as they were more expensive, and were just flavored liquids in cups compared to the awesomeness that is mashed potatoes with gravy.

It's not black magic or some super machine like some people think, but this stuff inside the machines. They're actually pretty common in the food industry as they can be stored for a really long time and are much cheaper to ship in bulk than regular potatoes. It's also easier to get the final product from this. I know of a certain pizza company here which uses this for their shepherds/cottage pie. My guess is that there are several tanks inside the mashed potato machine. Hot water, potato powder and gravy powder. You press the button, the stuff comes out in sequence (much like a cup drink vending machine where syrup is mixed with carbonated water when you order). Nestle probably has their own mix of potato powder which they use in the machines but don't sell. Think of it as this stuff inside a machine.

TL;DR: Magic potato dust in a machine; not that special.

> In the 2013 Singapore Miss Universe, there were no Indian or Malay women in the top twenty.

This actually felt a lot like cherry-picking to me. She didn't pick the most recent one (2014). She picked one in 2013. When I read this line, I started wondering whether she started cherry-picking her statistics (or points) to fit her view point (and she therefore conveniently ignored 2014). It strikes me as slightly dishonest (especially since she seems to be writing as an academic), but without more, I wouldn't say that she is actually being dishonest.

In any case, the net result of her picking 2013 is that I wonder whether it's a trend that few Indian or Malay women reach the top 20, or if she just picked 2013 because there was the only year that no Indian or Malay women reached the top 20 in that specific beauty pageant. In any case, I don't feel strongly enough about this to fact-check.

> Lazy Natives: The Myth is something that the Government is still implicitly pushing, with the continued disenfranchisement of the minority races.

... I feel like you've missed my point here. I felt annoyed because this would be a good juncture for her to insert a reference to actual Southeast Asian research - specifically, the book "The Myth of the Lazy Native". But she didn't.

> Are they writing for academics or general audiences?

I felt Thanapal was quite clearly writing for academics, actually. Her writing was filled with what I think of as "buzzwords" - words that could use with unpacking. She's writing for people who understood vaguely what "privilege", "intersectionality", "post-colonialism" meant.

> Why does the state constantly racialize us and pit us against one another? This also obfuscates the intertwinement of race and class.

This quote jumped out to me, because it's exactly the kind of tone I've read in a quite a few Western feminist works. Rhetorical questioning, dense language. The second sentence can easily be reworded as "It also blurs how race and class affect each other" - and it wouldn't lose its meaning. I personally find writing in such a dense style pointless and unnecessary.

On the other hand, Singapore academics tend to write in a more accessible style. I like Eric Thompson and Daniel Goh; I love Theresa W. Devasahayam, I love Teo You Yenn's writing (she makes it almost worth going to NTU)... I've seen some of their books in the bookstore, and also in the national library at Bugis. Some specific books of note that explore race or gender that Thanapal could have mentioned: 1, 2, 3, 4 - has a specific chapter on Singaporean Indian women, 5, 6. These are mostly recent books; I'm not even linking journal articles (which, as an academic, she should have some access to). (Also, this linkspam makes me feel that I'm doing Thanapal's research for her. Maybe she would like to hire me on as a research assistant?? Except if she keeps writing like this, I wouldn't want my name associated with her. :( )

For other academics writing on Singapore, I would also like to recommend Lenore Lyons - a few years back, she wrote a chapter in a book about being Malay in National Service (the book is Men and Masculinities). She writes a lot on Singapore and Gender.

I feel that these authors do a much better job at writing for general audiences than Thanapal has. The language point is a big factor. The downside might be social media angle. :(

You know, for some weird reason, Thanapal's writing style really reminded me of American academics, not British ones. Prominent American academics (specifically those that focus on social sciences) have a writing style that tends to be less... hm... accessible (although that's not quite the word). So I was surprised when you told me that she's studying in the UK.

tl;dr: Fuck me, I spent too much time writing or thinking about this. Apologies if I sound slightly incoherent (but only slightly)!

>I don't have a drive for career success. I aim to have a respectable job which allows me to better myself and others.

I recommend this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-They-Cant-Ignore-You/dp/1455528048. You can also 'find' it online in ebooks format. In short, passion and 'drive for career success' are vastly overrated, in my opinion. Be really good in something, and money and interest will follow naturally.

Also, what is your diploma btw ? With only 5 sems remaining, might as well finish it.

I think very poorly of the cyber security courses offered (except NUS) in Singapore, as the things they teach are not aligned with the industry practices - either outdated or just not practical enough.

Having said that, if you have the time, I would suggest taking the SIT degree instead of the diplomas (waste of time IMO) and hopefully it provides you the fundamentals (programming, network and system administration) and be exposed to some other topics in cybersecurity.

If you are doing a career switch, I suppose you want to get up to speed fast by focusing on the need to have knowledge as a baseline. I would suggest taking the time to go through these stuff in details, setup your labs and practice the stuff

1. https://www.cybrary.it/course/comptia-network-plus/
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Kali-Linux-Revealed-Penetration-Distribution/dp/0997615605
   
3. https://www.amazon.com/Network-Security-Assessment-Know-Your/dp/149191095X
   
4. https://www.amazon.com/Web-Application-Hackers-Handbook-Exploiting/dp/1118026470
   
   Other wise, there are hands on courses and industry certifications that you can take online at your own pace and employers look out for such as:
   
   
5. https://www.elearnsecurity.com/training_paths/ (eLearnSecurity is good because they have a progression path from student onwards )
   
6. https://www.offensive-security.com/information-security-certifications/oscp-offensive-security-certified-professional/ (I don't encourage going for this as a starter unless you already have some fundamental knowledge and skillets for system administrations but this is highly recognised in the industry)
   
7. You can also go for SANS or what not, I think it's just too expensive for my liking.
   
   There is no one path to becoming a good pentester. However from my observations, folks who tend to be more in demands (with or without certifications/formal educations) are those who can display the ability to learn stuff on their own. This is an industry of skills and continuous learning. For employers that pay top dollar and provide time for training, learning and research, they are looking for folks who can display those stuff through actions.
   
   ​
   
   Source: Pentester

I’m living in an executive so slightly bigger than you. I got myself a Orbi RBK50. So it’s not exactly mesh but more of a hub and spoke model and it’s great. Full bars everywhere!

https://smile.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Orbi-Ultra-Performance-Whole-System/dp/B01K4CZOBS

Just had to go to Mustafa to get 2 cheap travel adapters for the US plugs and good to go.

I recommend the book "Rich by Retirement: How Singaporeans Can Invest Smart and Retire Wealthy" by Joshua Giersch. You can read the preview of the book on Amazon ("Look Inside" link). The author has been giving personal finance advice on Hardwarezone for SG investors since 2010. You can also get the PDF version of the book for USD$8.

​

I have no affiliation with the author. I bought a copy of his book on the recommendation of others for my own research and found it useful. I refer to it time to time. Basically, the author tells you:

• exactly what to invest in
• how to do it in Singapore
• what ratio of ETFs and bonds you should be having in your investment portfolio (depending on how old you are.)

Hi guys, I've never bought a laptop before, always been building DIY PCs. Any shops to recommend? Looking to get a cheap one for the wife to browse the web and watch streaming dramas.

Is it cheaper to get one from Amazon? This looks like a decent price - big screen, long battery life.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-i5-8250U-GeForce-E5-576G-5762/dp/B075FLBJV7

> Anyone know some good ear phones for running?

Not earphones, but I'm using Koss KSC75 (it's also available in Sim Lim Square, but at a premium). Cheap and good.

[repost of same comment from that other thread]

i don't care for PJ Thum, and wish Kirsten Han would fuck right off to Malaysia forever. If I were a Singaporean politician or member of the SAF I would never trust Thum or Han. As an ordinary Singaporean I do not believe Thum and Han to be fighting for the interests of Singapore or Singaporeans.

However, this kind of 'Malayan' sentiment is not new. LKY accepted that our separation is not cast in stone. ["They have got all the resources. If they would just educate the Chinese and Indians, use them and treat them as their citizens, they can equal us and even do better than us and we would be happy to rejoin them," Lee said.]


Former foreign minister George Yeo considers himself a Malayan.

That's not to say George and Harry are traitorous scum like Thum or Han, but that for all these people, especially Thum and Han, their past conduct, and the context surrounding their statements and beliefs provide important perspective.

repay the favor by giving them this next time:

https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Flying-Spaghetti-Monster/dp/0812976568

I dunno should if i should put my money on a GW5000 https://www.amazon.com/Casio-Shock-GW-5000-1JF-Multi-Japan/dp/B00272NBJQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550496691&sr=8-1&keywords=GW5000

Second thing is I saw the steel case for the 5600 on Lazada, they are from China, I wonder if they be trusted.

I learnt a lot from reading Shiny Thing's thread in HWZ. And I went on to buy his ebook; it's also available on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Retirement-Singaporeans-Invest-Wealthy-ebook/dp/B01JXW17ZM