mrbrown's blog containing his popular and satirical musings on the dysfunctional side of Singapore life, and Home of the National Conversation since 1997.
This was spotted by my friend Evangion and me today, on Channel NewsAsia's site.
So, which story or angle or headline do you guys want to run? (You can click on the images for a larger version)
Is it "More jobs will go to PRs in a strong economy"? (spotted at 11am)
Or is it "More Singaporeans taking up PMET posts"? (spotted after lunch, about 2pm)
Or is it "More and more jobs created but not enough S'poreans to fill them"? (spotted at 4pm)
Three revisions in the space of less than five hours. Not only did the headline change, the copy was also rewritten. You can go to this URL to see the current headline.
"Hey!" exclaimed the wife, as we were getting ready to turn in for the night.
"What?" I said.
"Look at the light!" said the wife as she pointed to the table lamp by our bed.
"What about it?" I said.
"Look at the top. It must be Isaac's doing," she said.
I looked closer and realised there was a face drawn on top of the lamp, with a cheeky tongue sticking out from the side of the smile. Isaac had used the round opening of the top of the lamp as a nose.
And we didn't see it earlier because you would only spot it if you turned on the light.
We did not know how to react. Should we tell him not to draw everywhere in the house or be amused at his love of drawing?
I'll have a gentle word with him, I think, to make sure he doesn't get caned for vandalism when he grows up. Or he might draw on unapproved walls at school and get in trouble. Haha!
Anyway, it's hard to stay mad at a 4-year-old who keeps every piece of art he draws at the weekly neighbourhood art class "to show Papa".
A child's eye is fascinating. We see a hole in a lamp we use every day. He sees a nose for a smiling face.
27-year-old Amanda Baggs is autistic and doesn't speak, but she can communicate by typing 120 words a minute on her DynaVox VMax computer which then outputs the text into a synthesised voice. In this video, she gives a fascinating and rare inside look at what goes on in her head, and what her interactions with her surroundings mean to her. Amanda argues that these forms of nonverbal stimuli make up her "native language" and are just different from spoken language, no better or worse. And yet her inability to speak is seen as a problem or disorder, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.
Wired magazine wrote about this video and Amanda in a column entitled "The Truth About Autism: Scientists Reconsider What They Think They Know". This is an excerpt (read the rest of it at Wired):
"I've said a million times that I'm not trapped in my own world,'" Baggs says. "Yet what do most of these news stories lead with? Saying exactly that."
I tell her that I asked one of the world's leading authorities on autism to check out the video. The expert's opinion: Baggs must have had outside help creating it, perhaps from one of her caregivers. Her inability to talk, coupled with repetitive behaviors, lack of eye contact, and the need for assistance with everyday tasks are telltale signs of severe autism. Among all autistics, 75 percent are expected to score in the mentally retarded range on standard intelligence tests — that's an IQ of 70 or less.
People like Baggs fall at one end of an array of developmental syndromes known as autism spectrum disorders. The spectrum ranges from someone with severe disability and cognitive impairment to the socially awkward eccentric with Asperger's syndrome.
After I explain the scientist's doubts, Baggs grunts, and her mouth forms just a hint of a smirk as she lets loose a salvo on the keyboard. No one helped her shoot the video, edit it, and upload it to YouTube. She used a Sony Cybershot DSC-T1, a digital camera that can record up to 90 seconds of video (she has since upgraded). She then patched the footage together using the editing programs RAD Video Tools, VirtualDub, and DivXLand Media Subtitler. "My care provider wouldn't even know how to work the software," she says.
"I managed to get on the bus at about 1140am. And I did not know that, the nightmare just started…
The traffic jam started maybe 2 or 3 km from the location. The closer we get, the heavier the jam. It was the worst after the bus made the turn into the straight road leading to the venue. We saw many people taking cabs getting off their cabs and walked, and they were faster! But we couldn’t! The bus crawled and crawled and crawled to the designated dropping point. By the time it was already 1230pm. The Black Knights already flying! So, not wanting to waste time going into the venue, we all stood beside the big big longkang to watch. We got to queue again just to go into the place where the ticket house and security gantry are, and later queued to get through the security check. And I realized that, no one checked my ticket! No one! I saw a few staffs checking some other queues, but there were just none doing so for the other queues! Then what the hell I bought the ticket for if I can get in FREE?"
"The news said that the huge jam and queue was due to insufficient bus. This is highly laughable. They can easily determine the kind of crowd that is going to turn up before 12.30 for the Air Performance through their outrageous ticket sales (which I highly suspect they sold as many as they want without regards to their catering capacity).
The 2 and a half hour queue that I endured was still OK, if not the fact that there were NO CROWD CONTROL IN PLACE until at least about 2hours in the queue when I see some uniformed police personnel appear and tried to maintain some order. Cutting of queues, something which Singaporeans were remarkably good at, were at its full display at White Sands today. I even shouted at a rude Indian Family to not cut the queue infront of me, and they did not even turn around."
Isaac did his first tour of duty as a page boy this morning. We told him about it last week, and he was very excited about it even though he did not exactly know what it was. "I am a page boy!" he declared all week.
After the wedding rehearsal though, he spent the rest of this week saying, "Papa! I am a page boy! I walk slowly! I carry the pillow! I hold Miki's hand!"
Miki is the adorable flower girl.
Mommy told me after his rehearsal, "The boy is fearless, don't know what is shy, man."
He was very particular about his suit, and when we got into the car to go to the wedding, he was reluctant to put on his seat belt because he was afraid to dirty his jacket. Only when Mommy offered to carry his jacket for him did he agree to be belted up.
I think I was more nervous than he was. "Two hands, Isaac, two hands," I said to him just before the music started and the church door opened.
My worries were unnecessary though. The boy managed just fine.
Yawning Bread wrote this insightful piece, "Safety on trial" touching on public safety, the Tampines pavement cycling trial and the lack of bicycle infrastructure in Singapore:
"Why do we need a trial? Are our policy-makers blind? Do they pretend that nowhere else in Singapore do cyclists go onto pedestrian paths and an isolated experiment is needed? Why do we have civil servants with heads in such clouds?
You don't need a trial. Common sense should tell you there will be conflict, especially as our population ages and more old folks are found on the footpaths. Quite often, the bicycles come silently from behind, and if the senior citizen is hard of hearing, even the ringing bell may be missed. That's if the cyclist rings at all; quite often he won't bother.
Another reason why you don't need a trial: just look at how other cities have dealt with the problem, especially in Europe. There, dedicated bicycle paths are commonly provided, separate from pedestrian ways. Is it not obvious, the social benefits of that?
Why is public safety so hard to obtain? Not only are shop-owners and truck-drivers negligent, even our planners don't seem to give it enough priority without first running a trial.
That bicycle paths are rare in Singapore is another oversight of earlier planning that is going to take millions of dollars to rectify, like the failure to provide elevators at metro stations and failure to provide lifts that stop on every floor in apartment blocks."
I said this before, and I'll say it again. Make the roads safer for cyclists, and not try to shoehorn pedestrian walkways to work for cyclists too.
In the original report on the start of the Tampines trial, Ms Ng Guat Ting, the Traffic Police deputy assistant commissioner said that the study will help the tripartite committee to understand "if Singaporeans are generally ready to share the footways".
Ms Ng, how about finding out if the government is generally ready to let cyclists share the ROAD safely?
In the grand scheme of things, the Singapore government does not see bicycles as transport. They see it as "recreation" and something you use "to get around the neighbourhood". These are the words of Raymond Lim, our Transport Minister.
Until Mr Lim and his ministry sees cycling as a legitimate means of transport, bike paths will be the job of NParks, who have gamely tried to create park connectors but ultimately are concerned more with linking you to their parks rather than actual places you want to go to, like Shenton Way for work or Orchard Road for shopping.
The truth is that with our increase in foreign workers from countries like China and India, the number of bicycle commuters are actually increasing. Surely these workers who are depending on their bikes to get around, deserve public safety too.
A Park Connector Network (PCN) is nice to ride on, but there is a limit to its usefulness for getting around.
Firstly, the problem of speed. A typical rider can hit speeds of 20 to 25kmh fairly easily. Park connectors are not designed for those speeds. Because, as their name implies, you are meant to use them to get to the parks at a leisurely pace of say, 15kmh. In fact in some built-up areas, like Tampines, you will be lucky if you can get 12kmh. Depending on traffic lights and traffic conditions, you can get from Katong to Cathay cinema at Dhoby Ghaut (10km) in less than 30 minutes riding on the road. Or Katong to Clementi in less than an hour (22km). The only park connector stretch you can make that kind of time is East Coast Park to Changi Village via the Coastal Connector. Try riding around Tampines in their PCN and you will be dealing with pedestrians, bus stops, and even a giant Shell station with two huge entrances where cars drive through without looking for cyclists.
Secondly, the design of these park connectors are done by people who don't ride.
How else do you explain park connectors that will plunge into a steep incline and then end with a sudden 90-degree right turn? Or the newly done park connector path in Bedok Reservoir Park that travels parallel to the pavement, and when a tree is in the way, the bike path wraps tightly AROUND said tree?
I do notice the effort NParks puts in though. They have painted new lines and the PCN words on the Changi Beach Park stretch, and near the SAF Ferry Terminal, the broken slopes near the carpark entrances have been smoothed over so you don't land with a thud every time you need to ride there.
The third problem is integration. What would be cool to see are the park connectors integrated with bike lanes that go into the city so you could ride on park connectors part of the way and on the road with dedicated bike lanes for areas with no PCN. In Vancouver BC, they have an extensive network of "Bike Routes", which are a series of side streets that roughly follow the major arteries, but are shared streets with traffic calming features that make cycling safe and quick. In Paris they have Vélib’, a self-service "bicycle transit system" and extensive bike lanes.
I hope we don't wait till more people get hurt or die, before we decide bicycle safety is something that needs to be addressed, like the situation with MRT platform screen doors.
Check out in this 7-minute Streetfilms video, how Bogota in Colombia operate a Bus Rapid Transit (free feeder buses! All-day high-speed bus-only lanes! MRT-like bus stops!) and how they integrate bicycles with buses.
If you read the papers and local news, you will see the objective headlines:
"CPF Life annuity scheme to be 'fair and flexible'"
"Get a pay cheque for life, with 'CPF Life'"
"CPF Life - Making choices for life"
"Couple say CPF Life is fair, applaud flexibility to choose income payout age"
S'poreans are living longer
Headlines you won't see:
CPF Life annuity scheme: Sorry, it's still compulsory for most of you
CPF Life: So many options you will be too confused to remember it's still compulsory
Poor people won't live long, exempted from CPF Life
CPF Life: New name, same game
Bet your death with CPF Life: refund at age 65, 70, 75, 80, 85 or 90
CPF Life: because The House Always Wins
Also interesting is the evolution of the name:
Compulsory Annuity Scheme -> National Longevity Insurance Scheme -> National Life-long Income Scheme
Hey! How about calling it National Give Us Back Our Own Money You Assholes Scheme? That's a catchy name.
Strangely, the report stated:
"Manpower Minister Ng Heng Hen is expected to announce an incentive scheme on Wednesday, to encourage more to opt-into the longevity scheme."
But in the midst of the gushing coverage in the newspapers, tucked away in some quiet corner of a page:
5) Is it compulsory?
Yes, it is compulsory unless you are exempted.
Allowing people to opt out would have an adverse impact on this national scheme, and make it less viable.
But of course, we must not use "Compulsory" in any other part of the reports. We don't want people to get the wrong idea, you know. Anyway, there is such a thing as Compulsory Opt-in in Singapore mah.
"Yesterday I use then fug until halfway the condom slipped and stuck in the cheese pie. Then my GF panic until siao. Luckily I got enough skill to go and dig out.
I still go one more (Of course never use before one lah.). Who wants?
I can mail to you. This condom really not for me.
The condition is after you use must review here."
You can guess the most common reply in the 13 pages of replies to this thread starter:
"the condom too big for you?"
Doesn't help that the name of the brand of condom also a little dubious. Should check the espirary date.
Worse, someone pointed out that the copy for the condom reads:
"Espire. An innovative brand… An expression of high quality and great pleasure for the new generation…
...The condoms are designed to fit the Asian male size."
Er, what you mean "Asian male size" ah?
So really, I don't think you want to declare on a public forum that a condom designed for the "Asian male size" was too big for you. Quietly throw away and seek a better fit lah, next time.
The Singapore Armed Forces (abbreviated: SAF) is the most powerful military organization in the world because it has never lost a single war (although it has never been in any). The SAF relies largely on conscripted soldiers and comprises three branches: the Branch That Blows Up Things On Land, the Branch That Blows Up Things In The Air, and the Branch That Blows Up Things In The Sea. The number of active personnel in the SAF is estimated at 500,000 the most important of which being over 10,000 malingering chao keng kia PES E soldiers who ensure that Generals get their coffee on time and pipping hot. It is further estimated that another 100,000 or so soldiers are actually full-time 'Winning Eleven' Professionals - with evidence of numerous competitions held within the various divisions (3rd, 6th, 9th).
Eh, why that Taiwanese variety show say our England say until we liddat? But maybe we need to learn from their solid English, man! Like this reporter!
I feel it is because in Taiwan, they have this kind of program to teaching them how to speaking the good England, found on Youtu-bee.
But really lah, Singaporean must improve their England! Stop saying things like "irregardless" and pronouncing "sword" with the "w" (it is silent). "Japanese" is not pronounced "Jap-penis", there is no "port" in "Opportunity". and you "take" your kid to school, not "bring" your kid to school.
Don't let other country people make fun you your England, ok? Especially those not-England country somemore. Very lao-kui one.
...Jack Neo's Ah Long Pte Ltd, Stephen Chow's CJ7, Jay Chou's Kung Fu Dunk, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
I shit you not. Every hall is screening only these four movies (at least for the earthly hours).
So if you've already watched Sweeney Todd (or you hate musicals), and you don't want to catch the Chinese New Year Chinese movies, you're pretty much screwed.
Update: Someone analysed the spread of halls assigned to the three CNY movies.
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