If You Really Want To Do Something, You'll Find A Way. If You Don't, You'll Find An Excuse.

This video is so helpful. 😅 It isn’t straightforward to fit the EarPods back into its case, and doing it haphazardly can damage the cable.

Building Better Backgrounds – Zack Krida – Medium

Approaches to stacking css background images on mobile for improved readability, using object-fit and ES2015+.

This post is so helpful. It covers the basic of CSS coding in order make a good, responsive website. 😃 I actually applied the newly acquired knowledge to my Tumblr blog and it works‼  😄

My Apple Music 3-month trial is ending, and I’ve dedicated a detailed review to Reddit that the Internet is missing regarding Apple Music vs. Spotify. Although it isn’t very well-received by the Apple community, I hope it serves as a helpful reference to future users who are looking for advice whether it’s worth to give Apple Music a try.

I’m very disappointed by Apple Music’s missing of essential features and plagued with bugs/glitches.

Nevertheless, I’m glad there’s a strong case for me to switch back to Spotify now since by right I hate copycats and I feel indebted to Spotify because it gave me a chance to get into music with its free streaming service model.

How to dominate class politics?

Whether in class or workplace, it is inevitable that there will always be a struggle for power (specifically social dominance), regardless of whether you want it or not. Those who are unversed risk social isolation or marginalisation in their respective environments.

The problem of taking an apolitical stance is its potential to affect you, especially an impediment to your goals/achievements. Even if it isn’t the case, it needlessly increases your liability and competency, forcing yourself to be at the highest standard of conduct all the time. This is stressful and an unrealistic expectation because no human being is perfect.

1. Be fierce and firm

This is easier said than done. If you carry yourself wrongly, you may inadvertently portray yourself as something more unfavourable than expected.

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to resort violence or act like a hooligan to create such perception.

First impression matters. This is scientific. Within the first 7-30 seconds, your appearance and actions are being fastidiously scrutinised to deduce your personality and characteristics. Whether it is accurate or not, we can always manipulate their presumptions to make them think the way we want them to… such as your strong eye contact, authoritarian voice and tall, open posture.

Cause a deterrence effect. Before anyone undermines you, take the first-mover advantage and unleash fury on them. Limit the scope of the victim(s) to the minimum and the audience to the maximum. It may seem pointless to just victimise 1 person, but its effect is far-reaching to the rest of the watching audience. This is human’s instinct to learn and adapt, to prevent such nasty incident from potentially happening on them in the future.

Exert your authority. Don’t stay quiet and give in. According to the broken window theory, for every compromise that you make, it diminishes the perceived fear you instilled and immediately expose yourself to subversion. Hence, eroding your dominance.

NB: Be as original as possible. It’s OK to re-use certain phrases/actions that you’ve picked up from elsewhere, but not re-applying them to the environment with the same audience.

2. Be charismatic

This is often overlooked when discussing this kind of topic. Charisma is power; leadership is authority.

Successful people are leaders; they have the ability to get people around them to help them achieve their ultimate goal. It’s not what you do; it’s why you do it -- that is what gets people behind you. They are able to articulate a compelling or captivating vision, and are able to arouse strong emotions in their followers.

Source: https://www.elitedaily.com/money/entrepreneurship/charismatic-people-successful

I’ve seen people who are ostracised due to their stern moral high ground stance. Their heartless attitude lacks empathy, which makes them more hated and excluded than those who are anti-social.

When many people like you (from any spectrum), you gain enormous amount of soft power (leverage). The leverage that you have enable you to easily seek help whenever you need and a biased defence when you are provoked.

In fact, if your charisma is high enough, you don’t need any leadership at all. Because authority comes from power, if you’re charismatic enough, you automatically have the influence of authority to the person in-charge.

3. Do not tussle with the authority/superior/in-charge

This is common sense. It’s suicidal to mess up with your discipline master or your boss  — generally anyone above you (seniors). Those people are in position to immediately act in reprisal, with guaranteed risk-free to retributions.

“A friend is better than a foe.”

Since so, it is worthwhile to make them your allies instead of adversaries, even if it is a need to be submissive/acquiescent to their unreasonable demands or unfair comments.

4. Pick the right side.

This is actually the least important, but it can be very effective if you’re affiliated with influential persons. It’s like a start boost, but you still have to build your image up from scratch, but you’ll have very high tolerance from the rest. They won’t pick on you often or as much as you would if you were alone.

Your initial affiliation is very important, and unfortunately, it’s very difficult to pick the best affiliation during the first encounter.

Remember, not everyone can dominate. There can only be 1 true dominant (can be shared) at any given time. If there’s already one, your best bet is to be the Second instead of having an endless conflict. Additionally, a defeat risks being shunned forever.

“War is expensive. Peace is priceless”

Disclaimer: This analysis is based on my personal experience in a harsh school environment. It may be different from yours and you need to apply the strategies wisely. Overuse or invalid use of strategies may have deleterious effects. You’re forewarned.

My 3km Road Run Yesterday

As a non-sporty person, it was a remarkable feat to have constantly ran throughout the race with minimal walks. It was all thanks to Iskandar, my close friend, who kept pushing me to keep on running non-stop. It was a fantastical moment to see that as a result of his encouragements, my speed was on par with some fitter students that I have known.

His physical push only helps by ⅓ in effect, its success is purely symbolic

Initially, I thought that Iskandar’s physical push would be totally helpful because I had never really gotten someone to forcefully motivate me to run. Only to realised that despite his aid—his physical push to support my run—did not help solve or reduce the effects my physical exhaustion because it still requires tremendous effort to/maintain accelerate.

The continued efforts to run was largely attributed to my desire to keep up with his motivational demands as I did not want to disappoint him. The physical effect of running with and without his aid, would have been mostly the same such as physical strains and fatigue.

For the first time, I could feel a discomfort from my heart

As Iskandar forced me to keep on running, he also pushed me beyond my physical limits. For the first time in my life, I could feel a subtle sensation of pain from my heart. It was a very unusual feeling. Normally, when I am tired or during peak performance, I would expect a tingling sensation — a feeling that my heart can’t breathe any harder, but this time, it’s a real pain.

It was negligible, before gradually becoming more obvious. This was totally unexpected. I always thought those who often complains “heart pain” was exaggerating, but this time round I personally felt it as I pushed my natural limits that I am accustomed to.

Self-imposed a 10-second rule xD

Yes, yes, I know that it is better to strive for a constant run as opposed to short walks. However, that is easier said than done. It was not practical to set that standard to an unfit person like me. It was just a matter of when will you eventually give up and walk.

This is probably because of my natural limits that my heart is not used to work at such rate and so it would be difficult for me to maintain that good, constant pace. Additionally, the early symptom (subtle sensation of pain) forces me to be mindful of a potential fallout.

Hence, I responded to this challenge with a 10-second rule. I could intermittently take a break of up to 10 seconds, so that my body could re-calibrate itself and to relief the discomfort of my heart then continued running. It worked very well, and I managed to complete the entire 3km run with little to no walking at all. Much impressive compared to my 2.4km practice, which I will usually walk ≈0.5-1 round.

This Road Run is significant to me because of this rare moment of a close friend, who truly cares about me, tried his best to encourage me to try my best and effectively sacrificing his potential medals or achievements. He concurs that friendship triumphs achievements.

I feel so proud of myself. 😆 What happened was that I had created a Tinder account to explore the then "new, trending social network" before it was closed down for <18yo users. It was viral in US among teenagers that's why. 😅 So Tinder disabled my account (they gave deadline when it wouldn't be available for <18yo, I was June I think) before I even deleted my account. This is actually a huge concern. They "disabled" my account, means it wasn't deleted just that I couldn't log in. I confirmed with Tinder if it was the case and the response was positive. 😮 The moment I received their response, I immediately requested them to delete my account. Few weeks later, they denied my request and said I can log in again when I'm 18yo to delete myself. 😠 I was so irritated. Met with such resistance, I recalled a law that I had read before regarding personal information. So I went to find out more and used the law against them. I formally issued them a legal request, to delete my account in pursuant to the Online Privacy Act. 😛 Few weeks later, they retreated and passively assented my request. 😄 I honestly love laws. I like reading laws. It's fun. 😋

It's the last year I'm taking art. Yayy!!! 🎉(It's rubbish to me🤕) I scored 64/100 which is good enough to me. Hahaha, I actually appealed for sympathy😆: Done by amateur. Pls be lenient. I guess it worked because I scored higher than a friend whose drawing is more complex 😅 Then the Mr Bean one I got 5/10. 😕 Yet, honestly I think it's one of the best portrait I could ever create 😶

I find this app #digime is so cool! 😎 It collects and organises all my data in 1 place, putting everything at glance 😍 Totally free.

This is one of the most heartfelt moment in my secondary school life. 😌 Coming from a neighbourhood school, it’s a privilege to be a participant and I’m truly contented just with that. 😇 Different people have different achievements/pivots (whether in games, sports or academics), I’m really happy to formally become an Olympiad medalist in Biomedical Science. (It’s not the best Olympiad as compared to other ~5 Olympiads, but I’m still vv delighted) 🥉🎊🎊🎊 PS: I sacrificed Informatics Olympiad (N.O.I) though. 😅 (at Loyang View Secondary School)

Wow, seems like this “first impression” thing is scientific, known as the Halo Effect. So conversely if you’re late the first time, that negative trait will form an overall bad impression of that you.

This means that the unmentioned bias is real…… if you seem clumsy during the very first encounter. 😝

The halo effect

People who are nice are often perceived as being more physically attractive, due to a cognitive bias known as the Halo Effect. This is because being exposed to a single positive trait of an individual causes us to form an overall positive impression of that person.