Monday, October 20, 2025

6 Rules for Success - Daily Improvement 5% daily.

    Clarity of My Goals

   Have clear goals. Set the goals early, start small and work at it every day.

   Discipline to Take Action 

   Show Up. Do the work day in day out. Do not shirk.

   Communication to Connect with People

   Do more

   Talk Less

   Listen More

   Connect 

   Emotional Control to Stay Balanced

   Improve this. Keep your tongue and ego in check 

   Never let your emotions get the better of you.  Keep your emotions  in  check

   Many things are meaningless 5 days, let alone 5 months from now.

   Practice Mindfulness

   Practice Gratitude

   Ability to Learn and Adapt with Circumstances and People. 

    Never stop learning. Every single day.

a) Go for classes. Read Listen Observe. Ask Questions. 

b) Learn to swim in new waters.

    Be like bamboo.

    Learn from mistakes.



     Have a Sense of Urgency to finish day to day week by week month by month goals 

    This is self explainatory. Go for it my readers and friends. 



  

Saturday, October 18, 2025

When we were born, we came with our body and our brain - and no user manual

 



I realised something just the other day. Our bodies and brain, when we were born, we did not know the first thing we had with us. 

Our cognitive awareness was around the age of 5, where we knew we existed - this is as postulated by Carl Jung.

And from that day onwards, we knew like we know now that we have a brain, and the cognitive functions which go along with it. We know we have something called memory, logic, and sensory awareness, which for a large part cant be controlled,  the 5 senses, sight sound taste smell and hearing and as we aged, we knew things like emotions which are human and can be muted or amplified. 

The amazing thing is that for our brain, each of us has one which is totally hardwired to who we are, and we take a lifetime to first understand what our brain is like, how powerful or weak it is, how adaptable it is, whether it has capability to learn new things - for 99% of us we can learn new things - its whether we want to learn new things.

I am still learning how best to maximise my brain, that is the wonderful thing. Coupled that with the years of earned or lived experience and I put than earned or lived experience in my data bank, called wisdom, it is indeed a wonderful thing.

So we create each and every one of us, a personalised user manual of our brain and our body which is only best operated by ONE person. YOU.

If your brain and your body is put to optimal use, feed it the best nutrients, put in the best servicing (exercise), give it enough rest, in theory your brain and your body - like a machine will last a lifetime.

Sounds so simple and rudimentary isn't it ? 

So why oh why do we abuse our body and brain ? 

 

Sales Manager Makes the 1st order, the Service Engineer helps ensure the 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th order

 



Here is a video of Jason, our Service Engineer onsite at a client's location providing service support to an equipment. We offer the following services at very competitive prices :

1. Warranty - warranty for both parts and labour is offered up to 3 years for every new equipment we QRA sell to clients in Singapore and overseas. The client has complete peace of mind knowing that his machine will function in tip top condition for as long as he requires, and sometimes as long as 10 years.

2. Preventive Maintenance  (PM) - We offer PM for the equipment we sell after the 1 year warranty is over. It is very competitive and one of a kind in the markets which we serve.  

3. Calibration - Calibration is recording the readings of the client's equipment and benchmarked with sensors and recorded down for auditing purposes. This means that the reading set at (say) 50 C is actually within an acceptable temperature (normally +/- 1 C) when measured with an audited thermocouple instrument certified according to ISO 17025 or Singlas Good Certification Standard. 

Therefore, when you purchase your equipment, no matter how good the brand of equipment you purchase, do remember, it is the quality of the after sales service which matters so importantly at the end of the day. 

For more information ; visit 

https://www.qra.com.sg/our-services.

or Email : mark@qra.com.sg





Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Why do Environmental Testing for your Products ? Watch this Video.

 


Why do Environmental Testing for your Products ?  3 Reasons.


1. To enhance your product's quality.


2. To lengthen your product's reliability.


3. As a result your Brand will be boosted through good customer reviews and word of mouth engagement. 

Sunday, October 12, 2025

Sudoku End Game Tactic 1 - Gwendolin's Thread

 


Here is one end game tactic which I use pretty successfully after correctly filling in 80% of the blank spaces in the 9 x 9 sudoku game. Its called Gwendolin's thread. Gwendolin was a little girl who went into the forest to pick some flowers. As she went deeper and deeper, she realised she was lost. 

Rather than panic, she used this tactic whereby she pulled out a spool of thread (OK, I know its far fetched, who goes into the forest with a string of thread, but you get my point right ? Its just a fairy tale !).

So she walks with the thread, ties one end at a random tree, and walks in the direction where she thought she came from. The moral of the story, if she came to another junction and there was a thread, she would quickly realise that she was walking in circles ! So she would backtrack and where there was no thread, she would then continue in the opposite direction until she made her way out of the forest. OK its just a fictional fairy tale but the concept is to use markers, and thread so that you know if you had made a wrong choice, you can BACKTRACK your move and try the opposite direction or use the alternate number.

For the Sudoku game, if the square is a 50 / 50 (50% either a certain number or the other), then I will use shortform LETTERS in place of numbers and play along.

So in the game above, I have about 18 unfilled squares, an then I can choose ar an unfilled square to use either (for example) a 9 or a 7. I would proceed with 9 and then write in that box the number N. This is the arbitrary number which I have taken as a 50 : 50. Each Uncertain Number I will put in the 50% chance of that number (a guess)  in LETTER format. 

Therefore 

1 : O

2 : D

3 : T

4 : F

5 : V

6 : X

7 : S

8 : E

9 : N.

Try it. If there happens to be to of the same letters on the same line or column you realise you have the wrong path (say 2 Os)  So I will backtrack and change ONLY THE LETTERS from when you started. The key is note down which square when you put in the first letter, and once you encounter a wrong path, backtrack and replace the letter with the other possible letter.

So, the rule of thumb should be, for me anyway, is when I have a 50 % chance it could either be the number One or 50% of the number Nine. 

I will start with using One, or O and play on. If I reach the end of the game with no duplicate, essentially I have WON the game. I will then replace the letters with the number and that is the end game.

if I reach a line where there is 2 of the same letters, I will backtrack to the first square where I put the O, and delete that, and add in the other possible number, say Nine or N.

If my earlier steps were all correct, that should lead me to the path of winning. 

This is called Gwendolin's Thread.

Enjoy your Sudoku readers ! 



Life is like a Sudoku Game

 


I have been playing Sudoko for close to 20 years now. In the blink of an eye, 20 years has elapsed and I still enjoy the stimulating challenge of a diabolical Sudoku, sometimes every day. 

First developed in Japan I believe in the mid 80s to help the bored salarymen and women who take the train rides from their hometown into Tokyo or another major city, this game helps develop and maintain cognitive abilities such as :

a) logic

b) deduction

c) good guesswork

d) Charlotte's thread

e) elimination

f) perseverance

In many ways, like today's game which I have just finished, Sudoku reminds me of life. Yours and Mine.

1. In many ways it can and does get complicated

2. You make mistakes and you mess up the game

3. You make mistakes, check back where you went wrong and continue

4. It gets too hard to finish and you abandon it

5. You fly through it

6. You muddle through it with a lot of perseverance, grit and bloody stuborness.

7. It gets messy (like above).

At the end you either 'win' and finish all the 81 squares with all the numbers represented in each box and every single row and column.

Or you lose, when you a) run out of time b) make some error and there are duplicate numbers along the same row or column.


Do play it ; I play this, mental maths, wordle (NY Times) and Spelling Bee. I am now learning 

a) Mahjong.

Life's learnings never ever stops. 



A review of my most dramatic marathon finish in 2005 when my body gave out !

The date was 5 December 2005 morning, I can still remember the incident as clear as yesterday. This was the 3rd full marathon I was attempti...