Month: March 2020

Worry Doesn’t Solve Anything

Source: Pastor Rick Warren

BY RICK WARREN — MARCH 31, 2020

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”

Matthew 6:25 (NIV)

Worry is essentially a control issue. It’s trying to control the uncontrollable. We can’t control the economy, so we worry about the economy. We can’t control our children, so we worry about our children. We can’t control the future, so we worry about the future.But worry never solves anything! It’s stewing without doing.

Jesus actually gives four reasons you don’t need to worry in his Sermon on the Mount.

1. Worry is unreasonable.
Matthew 6:25 says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (NIV).

Jesus is saying, if it’s not going to last, don’t worry about it. To worry about something you can change is foolish. To worry about something you can’t change is useless. Either way, it’s unreasonable to worry.

2. Worry is unnatural.
Jesus gives us an illustration from nature in Matthew 6:26: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (NIV).

There’s only one thing in all of God’s creation that worries: human beings. We’re the only things God has created that don’t trust him, and God says this is unnatural.

3. Worry is unhelpful.
It doesn’t change anything. Matthew 6:27 says, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (NIV). When you worry about a problem, it doesn’t bring you one inch closer to the solution. It’s like sitting in a rocking chair—a lot of activity, energy, and motion, but no progress. Worry doesn’t change anything except you. It makes you miserable!

4. Worry is unnecessary.
Matthew 6:30 says, “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (NIV). If you trust in God, you don’t need to worry. Why? Because he has promised to take care of all your needs: “God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19 NIV).

That includes your bills, relational conflicts, dreams, goals, ambitions, and health issues you don’t know what to do with. God will meet all your needs in Christ.

Don’t worry about it!

Seachem Root Tabs Review

Just added 1 Seachem Flourish Tab next to my Alternanthera Reineckii Mini (AR Mini). Some “fizzing” or bubbling is observed. Not sure if that is due to the root tab, or maybe I disturbed some gas pockets in the substrate.

I am still continuing the growing of AR Mini in low tech tank (see Alternanthera Reineckii Mini Low Tech).


Seachem Flourish Tabs Growth Supplement – Aquatic Plant Stimulant 10 ct

My dog Charlie curious about the Seachem Root Tab.

Seachem Root Tab Review

The below review video is rather convincing proof that Seachem Flourish tabs are one of the best root tabs in the market, despite having low macro nutrients (nitrogen and phosphate). The purpose of having low macro nutrients is for preventing algae.

Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong Mentions Tropical Fish Shop in his speech on COVID-19

PM Lee Hsien Loong on the COVID-19 pandemic: “I am in this for a very long time to come. To sustain this, I need everybody’s cooperation – safe distancing, personal hygiene, cooperation when we are contact tracing and discipline when people come back, stay home notification, stay home.” (Video: PMO)

 

Something interesting in this speech is that PM Lee mentions the plight of a tropical fish shop owner in Singapore.

Time around 5.22:

PM Lee chats with a Tropical Fish shop owner in Teck Ghee, who has been there for “donkey’s years”. She says her supplies come from Malaysia, and Malaysia has locked down. Tropical fish is not an essential item, how does she get her business going?

 

 

 

Home Cooked Food for My Dog Charlie

chinesetuition88's avatarCooking For Fun

My husband and I got this poodle Charlie last month. Ever since this little cutie came to our house, our life completely changed.

I feel so lucky to have such a little playful buddy as our family member.

Most time, Charlie has dog food which was bought from pet store. But sometimes, especially on some big occasion, I will cook for him.

Actually, cooking for dog is much easier than cooking for human, as there is no need to season or to make different flavor. Home cooked dog food has a very simple rule – boil.

Ingredients I use are always chicken breast, potato and carrot. Charlie is only 3 kg now. He was 1.5 kg when he first came. So Charlie has very little appetite. He can’t eat too much.

The very simple way to deal with ingredients is to chop everything into small dices. You can choose 1…

View original post 236 more words

Buy surgical mask online Singapore

Just bought this Dotafa (4-ply surgical mask made in Vietnam) mask from Qoo10.

The quality is good, with good thickness (see picture below). Delivery speed is fast as well (just 2 days using Qprime delivery). Only issue is the expensive price (around S$1 per mask), but that is the market rate nowadays…

The consensus is that made in Vietnam & made in Indonesia (3-ply or 4-ply) are the best options to get nowadays. This current batch may be the last batch since the respective countries are cracking down on the export of masks.

[S$28.90](▼52%)SG LOCAL STOCK SURGICAL FACE MASK MASKS 3PLY HAND SANITISER

WWW.QOO10.SG

Photo of the “Dotafa” surgical mask (4-ply). There are other equivalent Vietnamese manufacturers as well on Qoo10.

See also:

Where to buy surgical mask in Singapore

This is an update to the earlier post: Where to buy surgical mask Singapore.

Summary:

  • Basically, surgical masks are totally sold out in pharmacies like Watsons, Guardian, Unity, etc. Hand sanitizers are still in stock though, if you are interested to buy.
  • Korean masks on Qoo10 are mostly out of stock.
  • Currently, Qoo10 carries mainly Indonesian and Vietnam surgical masks, market price is around S$50 per box of 50 masks, i.e. around S$1 per mask.

The below Qoo10 shop (local stock) carries masks made in Indonesia and Vietnam masks (3 ply), with certificates. Basically, according to the reviews, the masks are genuine, only issue is that it is quite pricey. Apparently, the high price is set by the mask manufacturers and suppliers, it is not entirely the fault of the Qoo10 sellers that the price is so high. (Basic economics: High demand + low supply = High price.)

[S$26.90](▼56%)SG LOCAL STOCK SURGICAL FACE MASK MASKS 3PLY HAND SANITISER

 

WWW.QOO10.SG

Example of certificate for made-in-Indonesia mask:

[S$29.90](▼58%)⏰⚡ [SG Ready Stock 16 MAR] Surgical Mask 3ply ★ OneMed Sensi Masks ★ Ship within SG n to Overseas

WWW.QOO10.SG

According to the above Qoo10 seller, the current batches would be the last batches as Indonesia has crackdown on export of surgical mask. Vietnam has also banned export.

Shrimp Videos

I find that shrimp are just as interesting as fish to keep in an aquarium. Shrimp are very good at tidying/cleaning up the aquarium; it is a great idea to keep some shrimp whenever possible.

The easiest shrimp to keep are cherry shrimp (and its color variants), and also the Amano shrimp. The biggest cause of shrimp deaths is due to molting problems. Below are some videos of the shrimp I have personally kept.

Easy to keep shrimp: Amano shrimp, cherry shrimp (Neocaridina davidi).

More difficult shrimp: Bamboo shrimp (aka Wood shrimp), Bee shrimp (I have not tried these yet), Sulawesi Shrimp (not tried yet either).

AR Mini Low Tech Day 50

Read more at: Alternanthera Reineckii Mini Low Tech

Day 50 (12 March 2020): The aquarium light was upgraded around 10 days ago on 2 March 2020. It has helped the AR Mini in my opinion, making it slightly redder. The AR Mini is very much alive in the low tech tank! I think this dispels the myth that Alternanthera Reineckii Mini requires CO2 to live.

Ryo Watanabe Fish

In this video, popular fish YouTuber Ryo Watanabe is featuring the famous Clementi 328 (C328) Fish Store, arguably the best aquarium in the west (along with its neighboring shops in the stretch of Clementi Block 328).

Clementi Block 328 is my favorite fish store. Chances are very high that you can find whatever you are looking for in one of the shops in the stretch. Other than C328, other notable shops in the area include Polyart, and That Aquarium, and more.

Each store there has its own characteristics, they are unique in their own way (the fish/plants/equipment they carry are all different, it is clear they have different suppliers):

Polyart Clementi: Large collection of fish, including some saltwater. They do carry plants. Their equipment collection is very extensive, and notably they are cheaper than other Polyart outlets (the uncle will often give you a discount off the stated price without you even asking). I usually buy equipment/medication/anti-chlorine from this store.

That Aquarium: Features some of the more exotic fish (I once saw freshwater seahorses, aka pipefish) and shrimp (some black King Kong shrimp or similar that costs up to $100 per shrimp). They do have collection of a lot of “high class” food and equipment that may not be found in other shops.

C328 Aquarium (featured in Ryo Watanabe Fish Video): This store is crammed full of fish, plants and equipment. Notably, the plant section is more extensive than other shops in the Clementi 328 stretch, including frequent sightings of Bucephalandra and other rarer plants. Most of my plants are bought here.

LFS Aquarium: This store is the first fish store on the left. I have good experience buying their fish, so far their fish tend to be healthy without disease. They have good collection of nano fish, which I am interested in. For example, mosquito rasbora, lambchop rasbora are often spotted in their store. They also have Betta in their community tanks, which means that those Betta are proven to be less aggressive and can live with other fish.

Ryo Watanabe Fish Video

Ryo Watanabe also does Fish Videos in Japan, where he is based at currently. Ryo Watanabe’s fish videos center on freshwater fish, including aquarium plants and aquascaping.

Related posts:

Pinterest Update

Previously, I tried using the automatic Pinterest RSS Feed but to no success. I even tried posting on the WordPress.com forum but again it did not address the problem. (To be fair, this is probably a problem on the Pinterest side.) Hence, the conclusion is that currently the WordPress.com to Pinterest automatic posting does not seem to work. (It apparently works for WordPress.org users according to my search on Google.)

Thus, I have manually added some pictures from Mathtuition88 (including reblogged content) onto Pinterest. Feel free to share it!

Manually adding pictures onto Pinterest is quite tedious and time-consuming. I will be monitoring how much effect Pinterest has, in terms of channelling traffic.

Free COVID-19 Insurance (DBS/POSB customers)

I looked through this free insurance by DBS, there seems to be no “catch” to it, i.e. it is really a 100% free insurance for you.

Maybe only “downside” is that you will have to provide your contact information which can be used by DBS/Chubb to “contact you via email, SMS and phone calls in respect of promotional offers”.

Sign up using the official link below.

URL: https://marketplace.dbs.com.sg/insure/personal/2019-nCoV/coverage/

  • Exclusive to DBS/POSB customers

    Free hospital income coverage for you and your family

  • Daily Hospital Cash Benefit

    Receive SGD 100 per day, up to 14 days in the event of hospitalisation due to COVID-19

  • ICU Hospital Cash Benefit

    Receive SGD 1,000 one-time lump sum payment, in the event of hospitalisation in ICU due to COVID-19

  • 30 days of free coverage

    Your cover starts immediately once you submit your application, and expires automatically at the end of 30 days

The Secret of the Sweets (Sweet Distribution Problem)

Mrs Smith has some sweets to distribute to her students. If she gives each student 3 sweets, she will be left with 24 extra sweets. If she gives each student 5 sweets, she will be short of 42 sweets.

How many sweets does Mrs Smith have?

This is part of a series on Homeschool Math Challenging Puzzles, suitable for Grades 2-4. (Of course, students of other grades are also welcome to try them out.) The questions are suitable for:

  • Homeschooling for gifted kids
  • Preparation for GEP (Gifted Education Programme) screening and selection tests
  • Preparation for Math Olympiad
  • Puzzles for kids interested in math but find school work too easy.

Solution

This is quite a tricky problem for Grade 2-4 students. The main problem is that the number of sweets, as well as the number of students is unknown! Many students will not know how to even start solving such questions.

We can reason as follows:

From 3 sweets each to 5 sweets each is an increase of 5-3=2 sweets each.

From having 24 extra sweets to being short of 42 sweets is a difference of 24+42=66 sweets.

Hence, to cause the above difference, there must be a total of 66/2=33 students!

Then, we can conclude:

33 students x 3 sweets each = 99 sweets

99+24=123 sweets altogether.

Answer: 123 sweets

We can also check our answer using another method:

33 students x 5 sweets each = 165 sweets

165-42=123 sweets.

Anubias Rhizome tied too tight

Anubias tied too tightly

I think one of my Anubias rhizomes died (rotted) due to it being tied too tightly. The Anubias rhizome is supposed to be hard and green, if it is soft or brown, something is wrong.

For Anubias, the rhizome is the most important part of the plant, if it is dead, the whole plant will die.

Another reason for the Anubias rhizome rotting is the dreaded Anubias disease, but I don’t think it is the case here because another rhizome just next to the rotted rhizome is perfectly healthy.

Hence, the conclusion is that the Anubias rhizome most likely died from being tied too tightly by the string. It was at the back of my tank so I didn’t really notice it at first. I only noticed it when I saw a new leaf sprout out from the rotting rhizome, but the new leaf melted soon after. Usually, when new leaves melt, it is a sign of something wrong. Upon taking the entire Anubias plant out, I then realized that the rhizome had turned mushy.

The original Anubias was tied (by the seller) with thick string. I don’t really blame them for tying too tight because it is not easy at all to tie Anubias (too loose and it will not stay in place). I cut off the old string, threw away the rotted rhizome, and re-tied the healthy Anubias lightly with sewing thread.

Probably the same problem can occur for Java Fern, Bucephalandra, the rhizome may rot if tied too tightly.