I wanted to blog something yesterday night, but my splitting headache discouraged me from doing so. The whole of today, I've been trying to figure out what was that thing I wanted to blog. I still remember nothing about it. Even linking the conversations I had just before going home didn't help. It's quite sad because I remember feeling a bit pumped up about writing it. I know it's an opinion-related topic... I think.

Anyway, today was quite a day. Woke up a bit late; and when that happens, time would snowball. Basically almost everything was so perfectly timed such that I had to rush in order to catch something. Work was as usual, rushing up stuff in order to fix what we can in the limited amount of time before the system crossover. Going home was quite the same as going to work. Had to dash a bit just to catch whatever transport I had to take. Just before my stop, the bus driver jammed the brakes at the last minute of the red lights and everyone literally jumped out of the seats for that moment. Someone dropped his books and I was using my left hand's four fingers to grip on a small gap. Thankfully that gap existed or else I would probably end up flying into someone (probably the ezlink card checker). Thankfully no one got hurt.

Air Conditioning vs the Internet

Hi. Today, I'm about to break from the usual chatter of my own life and go on a different direction. Kind of like I tended to do back then I guess. It's more like the chatter of what went on in my mind today.

Today on my way back home, I heard a bit of a conversation between a teen and an mid-old age woman. They both don't know each other, yet the boy really warmed up to her conversation. I wasn't near enough to catch a lot, but they did bring up something about the convenience of the Internet.

It made me think about what a teacher said that Lee Kuan Yew said about the air con. That it was possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century. Then I thought about it, and despite the air con's longer running history, the Internet probably did better.

The modern air con was invented around the early 1900s and entered homes in around 1950. It helped to regulate temperature and humidity in an enclosed space, helping workforces combat heat that is detrimental to productivity. It also helps us manage seasons of heat.

The Internet started around the late 1950s and was originally intended to be an information array for the US to fight against Russia's technological advances. Nobody knew it would become such a worldwide phenomenon 40 years later. It improved information transfer to the point of literally having information at one's fingertips.

Both inventions have made great contributions to the modern world today, but I'll go into why I think the Internet is no contest compared with the air con. I could start by saying that the air con brought more people indoors, which created other problems like sick building syndrome, but the same argument could go to the Internet as well, so I won't use this argument.

Imagine two parallel modern-day universes; one without the Internet, one without the air con. The one without the Internet would just be like today, at the workplace, there may be no email, but there probably will be in an Intranet. Not much will be different, except for the obvious lack of information each people from each country might suffer from. Possibly the only good thing that comes from this is that you don't face the little annoying things that come along with the Internet, like annoying people (or people acting annoying) or chain mails and false information. You don't have to manage viruses and all, you may spend more time outside or watching TV since there's not much point using the computer except for work or playing games (by yourself, which is a boring and antisocial thing to do), which is probably a good thing for the well-being of human health.

Then we look at a world without the air con. We would have open windowed environments instead of enclosed spaces. Generally we would all die of heat here in Singapore, but of course, dying is just a figure of speech since our ancestors survived without air conditioning. However, the concept of information at your fingertips just overwhelms the concept of climate control. With the Internet, we have super fast data transfer in the form of emails, instant messaging, websites; and data retrieval from search engines, wikis... I wouldn't be here sharing this information right now in this alternate universe. It gave a new generation an easier, earlier and more detailed exposure to different cultures, genres; opening each others' minds up, helping everyone to understand each other from different nations. Besides, I'm guessing with all these things encouraging people to use computers more, someone would eventually have thought of controlling climate in a room, then the Internet would help out in information retrieval and dissemination.

This is why; despite the Internet's relatively young history, I think that it is no comparison for the air con. Lee Kuan Yew probably said that a long time ago, so he probably took back his earlier words already (or my teacher might be vastly misinformed).

The random ramblings of a crazy mind.

Quick Week

Hello again, my friends!

This week has dashed by relatively quickly, yet it has been quite an eventful week.

Something happened on Monday... but I forgot...

Tuesday, I remembered that I should blog about Monday, but I left work late, had stuff done like cut hair and nails and all then I forgot. By the time I remembered, I just felt like unwinding instead of writing something here.

Wednesday was the slowest day of the week. I was the only perm staff manning my side and it was surprisingly calm. However, everyone in the office felt like the day moved by so slowly...

Today was relatively fast. I was once again the only perm staff manning my side, but the first half of the day was so hectic with all the callers calling in about their application statuses and an disgruntled parent which I thankfully didn't have to handle much. Files being requested here and there; work to do, then I was reminded that we had a course to attend today. Had to eat lunch in 20 minutes and the course lasted the whole afternoon till evening. Then got a call and had to grab some documents to give someone. Fortunately, I got a ride back so I didn't have to face the final wave of crazy commuters. Then reached home, worked on something briefly, and now I'm here.

1145PM. Time to sleep. I've been sleeping for maybe 4 hours the past 4 days. Tomorrow is already Friday. That's gooooood.

(P.S. I really gotta keep to my blog timings. I think I'll ignore the Sunday schedule. I'll just blog as often as possible. Oh, and goodbye again, my friends!)