Job market is really bad, huh?

Translation: if you can find a job — any job — go for it, even if it is not your field or much lower pay than you expected.

It must be quite bad if he has to appeal for people to keep calm. According to him, employment rate for graduating cohort of 2025 in in June 2025 was 51.9%. This is pretty low! (It was 47.9% in June 2024.)

(Note that the students have not graduated. The figure to look at is employment rate after 6 months of graduation.)

The issue now is that we are in the middle of 'change'. Tech is old now. It is now AI. But the current batch of graduates are not trained in that.

However, if you go into AI now, by the time you graduate 3 years later, it may have changed again.

A new shower head

My shower head has spoilt after 12 years. It still works, but it no longer shoots distinct streaks of water. It must be letting air in somewhere. Originally, I thought it was the hose, but it was the same with a new hose.

I wanted an identical shower head, but found something better — an all-chromed model.

When it arrived, I was surprised it was not round, but oval in shape. I quickly took a look at the product shot. It was oval. I had overlooked it due to the angle. Oops. (Can you tell it is oval above?)

Water pressure is good. Then I realize the water seems to cover a smaller area. No wonder, it has only 10 nozzles along the long axis (total 50) compared to 19 on the old one (total 10x4 + 9x3 = 67).

I'll use this for now. I found another suitable shower head (~60 yuan; S$10.72). It is all-chromed, round and has 14 nozzles vertically (total 70). Will get that when this spoils.

Using incorrect wheels

My IKEA Malkolm chair rolls very poorly. I don't remember if it was the case since day one, or it became worse over time.

I looked for a replacement and found that some people recommend rollerblade wheels for easy rollability, although there is feedback the chair legs can break because the weight is now pressing on the legs instead of the wheels. They also increase the height of the chair slightly.

It turns out there is also a dual wheel variant that uses sort-of rollerblade wheels.

This caused me to recall the time I bought the wheels. The original wheels were rubberized and they had peeled off. When I bought the replacement wheels, I was given a choice of rubber and non-rubber wheels. I chose the latter.

This was before TaoBao or Lazada. I had to visit a warehouse in an industrial area to buy the wheels — IKEA 10 mm wheels were not sold by normal hardware shops. Today, I just order them from TaoBao.

The wheels roll extremely smoothly. :lol:

The plastic wheels are only suitable for carpeted floors.

Electric bill 2025

^* Estimated.

My electrical usage is now quite reliably over 600 kWh per month. The top two contributors: air-con and dehumidifiers.

The old air-con uses roughly 10 kWh a day, its duty cycle is 70 – 80%. It is not efficient at all. I estimate a modern inverter air-con uses half its energy only. My experience with the new air-con is that it consumes the same energy during the cooling cycle, but it is very efficient at maintaining temperature.

150 kWh per month = $45 (at $0.30 / kWh). If a new air-con costs $4k, it will take 7.4 years to break even. It is almost never cost effective to replace a perfectly usable appliance.

I'm now running three dehumidifiers. :horror: The one in the master room is run for 12 hours. It uses around 2.5 kWh a day. Another one is run around 6 hours, so around 1.2 kWh/day. The last one is only run an hour a day, it is 'negligible'.

These two appliances add up to almost 400 kWh already...

An almost head-on accident

I was on my way to Desaru and was on this two-lane highway. A slow-ish truck was in front of me. It was not easy to overtake as there was another truck in front of it: truck - car - truck - me.

Finally, there was an opening and I overtook it. The car was underpowered, so it took some time to move past the truck. Meanwhile, a car was approaching from the opposite side. It flashed its headlights. I was considering if there was enough time to overtake the car, but it would be really close. I decided to slow down and cut in so it became: truck - car - me - truck.

In the end, it turned out there was no need to overtake. In just a while, we reached the end of the two-lane road.

I was thinking, I'll probably encounter the same scenario on my way back, I would be the one flashing my headlights then. :-D

I actually forgot about this on the way back. Suddenly, I saw a long convoy of vehicles approaching on the opposite lane. One car was in the midst of overtaking, but it could not overtake fast enough, nor was there space for it to cut back in. It flashed at me.

I was stunned momentarily. I quickly checked my left was clear and had enough space, then I nudged the car to the left. The overtaking car squeezed its way past me. A two-lane road had 3 vehicles side-by-side.

Soon after it passed me, another overtaking car flashed at me. It also could not cut back into its lane, or perhaps it did not even bother to. It again squeezed past me.

It was only after this that I recalled I wanted to flash overtaking cars. Instead, they flashed me! :angry: