Philip Khor

We played a game of Catan at Centerpoint just now.

Lukas went for the Mathematically best possible combination of numbers, double 8s, 5s and 9s. I was 2nd in position to choose my first settlement. I went for the 9,10 Mineral and  6 Clay, both of which were scarce.

Early game, my plan worked.. I quickly advanced to build 2 hotels and have another one on the way. But then Lukas manage to get the stuff to build more houses (despite his good numbers being on Wood and Wheat only). Once he got his Wood Port, he was flying.

John/me partnership got a lucky break by drawing 2 victory points and not those useless cards (Monopoly, Road Building, Year Of Plenty, Knight). Being the sole producer of Mineral, hotels were easy to come. We had the bare minimum of roads (far enough for a settlement to be built).

9 points a piece. Lukas monopolises Wood not realising he has most of the wood already. Costly mistake. Our turn, we were “fully loaded” with Minerals and Clay (3-to-1 for Wheat). We stole one of Lukas’ wheat and ninja the win.

What I’m trying to say is that in almost everything in life, the difference between first and second is so miniscule. Google has 70% market share while Yahoo! has only 15%. Both finds similar information and provide similar services. Yahoo had a head start, more features and a bigger team. Google dominates. Why such difference?

It is even more obvious in Formula 1 where first and second is separated by inches. Imagine, machines going at 250km/h across the start/finish line, and all that separates the winner from the runner-up is several inches. Back in the early part of the decade, there was one Qualifying session. 3 cars had identical times. For example, 1 minute 32.075 seconds (right to the THOUSANDth of  a second). And for the first race this year in Melbourne, if the winner were to open a can of Cola and drink as fast as he can, the 10th car would have passed before he finishes his drink. That is, after a 300 Kilometer race.

Success of a project, company or organisation largely depend on the minor details that most people overlook. I’m not asking you to micromanage employees or teammates. You have to trust their skills in certain tasks. But for mission critical areas (that you need to identify), it is BEST you do it yourself.

Same with knowledge. Mr. Ali gave a good talk on why people nowadays don’t have jobs. It is not that there are no jobs available, it is because graduates do not have the right skills it takes for the changing job situations. This is mostly true in technical subjects like Engineering and IT. So, it is wise to learn skills and techniques to solve problems that we do not yet know are problems.

Oh, Paroimia this Friday / Saturday 8am – 10pm. Basically, it’ll go something like this. Sing songs, speech and introduction by elders of the church, a 45 minute play, emotional music plays, pastor calls for people to convert, you go to convert to christianity, then supper. Ping me if its different this time around!

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