Yesterday, I cycled to Coton for a second time (the first time I arrived, I turned back, having thought that reaching there was enough). When I reached the picturesque village, there were so many different intersections to choose from and explore. How liberating it is just to travel aimlessly, to choose any random path you feel like on the road, without the fear of straying "off-track", at the same time never knowing what is around the next bend.

The feeling is so different from travelling to reach a defined location, where I am always rushing to reach my destination on time. Just like in real life, we are often caught up in a busy schedule of projects and assignments - we always want to cycle faster and keep on striving to reach that final destination, which turns out just to be merely a stopover in preparation for the next one. There is so little time to let ourselves off the main avenue to go and explore those unfamiliar path branchoffs in life.

And it is in these small paths and capillaries where we find those hard-to-find gems which are whole new worlds in themselves, so worthy to be immersed in. But is it really worth becoming lost in it?



Unfortunately, I set out late - by the time I had ventured deep into in this peaceful village, it was already 9pm and the sun was setting fast, so I had to turn back before it got too dark to travel back through the unlit Coton path. Had there been more light, I would have continued.

I guess sometimes, even when we let ourselves go, we must acknowledge that the further we go, the further we are from the 'main' path which we left behind and the longer it takes to return. Will the excitement of the unknown remain novel? Unless we really do want to keep on travelling into the uncertain, the unknown, we should always be able to retread our steps and find our way back to that bustling path.


rabbit colony sighting!

For you gamers out there, no doubt you know about the E3 electronic entertainment expo in Los Angeles, which i believe ends today. Anyway, the PS3 made its debut there, and it is snazzy!

The graphics on the PS3 will blow Xbox 360 out of the water to be sure, but the Xbox 360 will have a wider appeal to non-gamers with all its bundled functions like Tivo capabilities and DVD burning (didn't factor this in, in my previous more skeptical comment). Wow, Do I love inter-firm competition!

Not going to say much else about it - check it out for yourself!

Hanger labels - illuminating or illogical?

A cautionary tale and proposal to vastly improve revenues of retailers across the country

Today, I visited the Tesco's on Newmarket road (past Grafton Centre) and was once again impressed by the product range and choice on offer, which puts Sainsbury (in town, that is) to shame.

I found a section selling very cheap shorts (another thing which always impresses me about Tesco's). I chose a pattern and took one off the rack which wrote "S" (small) on the hanger. When I got back home, I realised it was actually an "L"! great... (okay okay, maybe I should have read the tag after all).

This is not the first time this has happened to me - this problem is very widespread. The thing is, although they may help people locate their sizes easily, the size label on the hanger is extraneous especially when hangers are so often inadvertently swapped by customers or even by careless staff. There is no easy way to inspect mismatches either.

Often, it gets so disordered that the labels become entirely pointless, and serve only to mislead the customer. You’ve all been there before - just go shopping in London during the peak of the 50% off summer sale and the letters on the hangers might as well be in Greek. You think, "Oh look here, that's a small size! Better grab it before some other diminutive person does!" (Another complaint - retailers make way too many clothes in big sizes) and then "oh shucks, yet another XXL..."

Standardised hangers without labels will not only improve customer satisfaction, but it presents a good business case to retailer all around the UK: the manufacture and handling of hangers and clothes on hangers would be simplified. I’m not going to go into guesstimates now, but just imagine the stupendous number of "S", "M", "L", and “XL"etc. stickers that get saved each year! Well... maybe we can try one out: turnover of 50 hangers each day x 500 stores (say, in the UK) x 365 days = about a saving of 10 million stickers each year and that is not considering the extra cost of hiring the poor labourer who spends his/her life sticking these stickers onto hangers. And what about the 10 million awful little cubes that come attached on top of hangers of NEXT or Topshop? Those must cost even more...

Add to that the detrimental impact to customer service (and thus total sales) and you get a formidable amount of potential savings. SO... if early next year you begin to see standardised labelless hangers being used in Tesco's, you will know exactly who to thank. Meanwhile, remember to read the real label before you buy your clothes!

haven't blogged for over a week and have several things to write...

wow, the XBox 360 which came out last friday looks pretty sleek. it has some interesting things too: wireless controls, "skinnable" cover, 20GB removable hard drive (to rip music onto for example)

it also attempts to be an entertainment center with its ability to stream files from cameras and mp3s, tune in to FM and internet radio, deliver video conferencing and act as an extender to any Windows XP Media Center PC.

wireless broadband connection - Microsoft continues to use more online use to "redefine" the gaming experience while diversifying their revenue streams (eww i sound like a stuckup financier). Xbox Live marketplace enables the user to download things like new episodes and upgrades directly onto the xbox, whereas previously, it was only possible to do this on a PC (these consoles are after all actually just specialised versions of PCs which are starting to gain functionality that the generic PCs have done for years).

Convergence anyone? it tries to be a bit of game machine, PC, TV, photo album, video and music player and even online store. its interesting but at this point, i think i would rather continue to depend on my PC for many of the Xbox 360's bundled functions simply cuz the PC is more versatile (yes, call me a skeptic)... but, i just might be convinced otherwise when it comes out this christmas.

meanwhile, i'm even more looking forward to what the PS3 will deliver next year, with the special Cell technology...

at time of writing, the election votes are still being tallied. i finally voted, for the first time ever! although the experience was not exactly life-changing, it was still exciting to experience being part of a democracy.

(hmm... i was a bit confused with the voting - 2 votes were made, one for the MP of Cambridge, and a "Parlimentary" one, with four names but not Tony Blair, Charles Kennedy, etc...)

i admit it is a bit dated now, but i checked out this site, recommended by Geoff and my results were:

	Labour 24
Conservative -6
	Liberal Democrat 27
UKIP -18
	Green 21

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

incidentally, according to the times online, although half of the people in this survey said that they expected to be told to vote Labour or Conservative, the results gave only 12 percent recommendations for Labour, 11 percent for Conservative and a whopping 43 percent for Lib Dems. so, are the questions asked merely biased? or are people's perceptions of their alignment with their respective parties incorrect? there are so many different policies that each party need to consider and i would guess that more often than not, a voter will not be able to find the party which matches perfectly with his/her ideal. just a few examples here where people found that they were not thinking what they thought their party was thinking.

another interesting thing to note is the political orientation of each party, which you can check out at Political Compass - the Labour party started out on the left but has now since joined the ranks of the Conservatives on the right.

here, the more to the right you are, the more liberal your economic policies are... there is also another scale which judges social policies. taking this quiz, i have found my self to be in the center on economic policies, and much more liberal in social policies, putting me squarely between the Greens and Lib Dems. to look at the different policies in detail, check this out or FT's rundown.

never thought UK politics would be so fascinating huh? neither did i...*

*okok, i promise not to bore people about more politics next time!

Update: Liberal Democrats take over Cambridge! David Howarth 44% Anne Campbell 34%

i am reading "The Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping" now - it's a really interesting read! the issues it deals with are things that we as consumers face - how exactly does GM food affect developing nations? does organic food really need to be that expensive? (ok, I've only read into the food sections, but there are other sections it explores like clothes and finance).

the great thing is that the author presents all sides of the argument, and lets you to make up your own mind. often, other 'popular culture movement' books like "No Logo" or "Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate" have a sensationalistic bias and are evangelistic about what must be done to solve world problems (the former more so) while also very long.

in comparison, from what i have read so far, this book is balanced, enlightening, comprehensive and concise, while doing a very good job in highlighting the influence we exert as consumers.

China and Taiwan have come pretty far in the past few weeks with the talks between Lien Chan (KMT) and Hu Jing Tao. Here is an encouraging press communique released as a result. I feel really upbeat about the situation, as personally, i think eventual reunification is the right way to go.

China and Taiwan's negotiation seems mainly one way though - despite some concessions (lifting the ban on tourists heading to Taiwan along with fruit imports) and two cuddly pandas, China still refuses to budge about Taiwan dropping its pro-independence stance (held by the ruling DPP party).

In a way, China hopes that the talks, the concessions and the pandas (if accepted*) will undermine support for Chen Shui Bian and the DPP. It is not hard to imagine the KMT winning presidency in the next election!

I used to be really proud of living in Taiwan, and shuddered at the thought of this mainland gobbling up the island (ok, i might a kid then, but it still reflects broadly the pride Taiwanese take in their country). Put it this way, with Hong Kong - before the reunification of 1997, people were leaving and immigrating to countries like Canada, worried that things would change when China took over. The mentality is very similar in Taiwan.

Today, however, things are changing: increasingly, Taiwan views China as a place to invest - almost like the symbiotic business relationship between Japan and China (but because of the language and culture similarities, mainland Chinese are more comfortable working with Taiwanese). The continued success of Hong Kong also shows that a "one country, two systems" policy does work pretty well.

At the end of the day, as long as China does not threaten the democracy on the island, i think it will be to Taiwan's (mainly economic?) advantage to reunify with China. It would interesting to see... if I never left Taiwan, would I feel the same way as I do now?

*reading in between the lines at the panda situation, it is a bit of a double edge sword. Pandas are part of the CITES convention which restricts exports of endangered animals. So by accepting them, Taiwan would be implicitly acknowledging they are a province of China. Anyway, Taiwan has turned down panda offers in the past several times too on similar fears.

researching on what to do during a year out, i have come up with a few potential leads. i found that there are literally loads and loads of organisations out there which specialise in providing packaged (or not) experiences or seek out gap year students: these are just a few... i-to-i, cultural destination nepal, habitat for humanity, mondo challenge, and many, many more...

...which is encouraging, as at least i know that applications to these should definitely be less 'competitive' than those to investment banking!

South America, India and Nepal currently top my want-to-go list. and i'm most interested in either volunteering or teaching English rather than plain backpacking and travelling (although backpacking through New Zealand or visiting Malaysia for a few weeks appeal to me as well).

the downside is that most of the programmes require quite a bit funding (it varies), and you don't know exactly where that money goes. anyway, the main thing is to whittle down the many choices and plan my travels, keeping budget and support provided in mind, which will be a chore in itself! for example, it would take a lot of planning to be able to fit in all of those places i mentioned above in one year. one year almost seems not long enough!

i have to say, though, most of the people who help out (in the photos) appear to be white and British - i wonder how many people who go to these places are not? rephrase... most asians i know are not as interested in gap years. maybe it is related to the hard-working mentality - "if i take a year out, i will fall behind others" or because in general, we are a bit less daring and want to stick to the proven (and well beaten) path without any diversions from it. (sorry if you find this too bold a generalisation as i know that most of my audience are asians!)