Ian On The Red Dot

I’m not sure how many people noticed this and even whether this is something worth noticing, but Starhub’s latest marketing materials boast of a speed boost for their users when they visit Partner Sites.

Over in the States, there is a raging debate with regards to Net Neutrality. Basically, there are those that want to allow companies providing Internet access to be able to give preference to the packets of information from companies that pay a premium and those that want the infrastructure delivering the packets of information to be blind to source and destination.

I’m not sure how Starhub is implementing their promise since maybe they have excess capacity that they can allow high speeds to access other sites, and even higher speeds to the partner sites ( and whether the partner sites are paying for all this ) but sooner or later, network bandwidth is going to be a zero-sum game - giving precedence to one group of information packets is going to be at a cost of others.

Via Kottke.org, I discovered this site of beautiful photos of people in everyday situations.  Haven’t found anyone picking their nose in any of these pics.  And it seems people don’t really smile a lot.  And yet, the pics somehow look beautiful.

Bill Sullivan’s 3situations.com 

I remember fondly the years of my life from birth to sec one. Those were the days when my mom was still a stay-home mom and I got to spend a lot of time with her. I rarely see my father because he was the sole bread-winner and would always come home late. The only quality time I spent with him was when he was standing over me with a cane or lecturing me while I was kneeling down. He, as you can tell, was the disciplinarian.

I soon learnt that if I wanted something, the best person to ask first would be my mom. It would be unlikely that she would say ‘No’ if the amount wasn’t extravagant, so whenever I wanted something I would ask her first and not my dad. That’s how I got the extra toys, books and sweets outside of Christmas and my birthday. And that was something my father did not like.

It wasn’t that my father didn’t love me but more that he was old school - ‘teach him to fish and not give him fish’. So, he would constantly disagree with my mom about how he felt she was raising me spoilt. In any case, I soon learnt to start asking him more and my mom started directing me his way. Of course I got less ‘treats’ but my mom and dad started disagreeing less and my dad got rid of the image where he was just seen as the disciplinarian which I think he didn’t like.

In the end, they came up with a system between themselves on how to deal with me. Of course, it would have been better if my mom had learnt the principles in which my dad would have used to ’spoil’ me so that at least both of them would be the ones dispensing goodwill and not just my dad.

Today, in the money section, was an article about the fines and back fees that iTV, a company owned by Shin Corp has to pay. The fine is up to around 100 billion baht according to the article. That is almost 2/3 the amount of money Temasek spent in getting Shin Corp. I wonder if they will pay the fine. I hope not. I think if they do, they will just have shown a willingness to pay and be whacked for more money further down the road.

Was what Temasek did wrong? I don’t think so. It was probably just not very sensitive and smart to the realities in Thailand. In any case, the issue the Thai government seems to have with iTV stems from what happened before the company got bought over by Temasek; it concerns certain concessions that were given to the company when the ousted Prime Minister was in power.

Anyway, reading the article reminded me of how my parents settled the way they would raise me between themselves and displayed a consistent front to me and my dad didn’t come to punish me just because my mom gave me some sweets.

Discovered this really cool video on YouTube via Digg.

In the comments section, there was more info about the creator of this video and you can see the rest of his work at this site called Newgrounds. The creator of the video is proxicide.

I wonder whether any of us in Singapore (which aspires to be a digital hub) can do this.

I didn’t know this case even existed until I read Aaron’s post. Learnt more about the case from gayle and alex.

I grew up being taught that the death penalty was necessary because it was an effective deterrent as well that from a biblical perspective, we should apply ‘an eye for an eye’ doctrine.

I have come to disagree with the ‘an eye for an eye’ doctrine. That is the Old Testament, and the New Testament has different commandments. I have come to believe that the ‘an eye for an eye’ doctrine appeals to our instincts and is something we are naturally inclined to, while loving those who sin against us is the harder path yet the one God would want us to take. I do not mean we should let the criminals roam free, because for the safety of society, sometimes its best to keep them locked away. But life is sacred and it is only for God to take.

Anyway, I am digressing. Today is the day that I am formally aware that in Singapore, the law presumes you guilty and you need to prove your innocence.
And I can’t help but think of something I read once somewhere. And I believe it gives us all food for thought about why we shouldn’t be so flippant on this issue and just say ‘hang him’ (as some of the comments have) however strongly we may feel about the war on drugs and the use of hanging as a deterrent.

I googled for it and would like to share it with all of you.

When Hitler came for the Jews… I was not a Jew, therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church — and there was nobody left to be concerned.

Pastor Martin Niemoller

(Updated:

Interesting discussion going on at “theonlinecitizen” (29/01/07).

Questions we must asked ourselves when discussing this issue (29/01/07).

Interesting point about deterrence in Yawning Bread’s article (29/01/07).

More Information on the Tochi Case (30/01/07).

The War On Drugs (30/01/07).

)

I am abit late. I believe most of the other bloggers who went for Barcamp Singapore has already shared about the event.

First up. Thanks for the free T-Shirt!

I came late for the event because I was at the National Museum before that. When I reached there, I was surprised to see a few familiar faces. Singapore is really very small.By the time I was there, the Half-Baked.com session had already started so I wasn’t part of any group. The ideas that were presented were hilarious and the first two teams had ideas which are the kind you get when you put virile technosavvy guys into the same room.

Choon Keat gave the best quote of the presentation when he said,

“Our company has no business model because it is Web 2.0“

I can’t remember if those were the exact words, but you get the drift.

The first presentation was by the people from Text 100 and they shared this really interesting video entitled EPIC: Evolving Personalized Information Construct. The video was made in 2005 and some of the things they predicted has come through in some form or another.

The people from Text 100 moderated what was an interesting discussion and they did throw quite a few interesting questions to the floor. The example about how Ford’s video was modified and spread virally leading to a subsequent fallout in brand value provoked some interesting comments.

One thing that was asked was how Ford dealt with the issue and I think the people from Text 100 tried really well to answer that question.

But I think the point was missed. The point was not how Ford tried to mitigate the damage to their brand. The point was why no one online seemed to rally around the brand and Ford had to use traditional means to address the damage done by the video by releasing press releases and the works.

I believe that answers Su Min’s question about who owns the brand. The people do. The company can only release the brand out into society and make it worth loving and worth taking ownership of. If the company fails, then when a viral video like the one that Ford had to deal with it comes along, then the battle has already been lost. The company can try to own the brand but they will fail in defending it. But if they share ownership of the brand…

Some other thoughts about the Text 100 presentation and the discussion that followed. I dont think the advent of highly customized peer generated media will mean the death of traditional journalism. There is so much information and we would still need people who can help us separate the signals from the noise.

What the internet has done is allow more people to share their opinions and give us a wider range of choice but from studying my own habits, I realise that I tend to only return to a few sites regularly. The size of that list I follow will wax and wane as I remove some sources and add others, but the point is there is a core group that I depend on even though I never stop searching and discovering new sources.

I have gravitated to the model of depending on a central authority although this central authority is not the type that we would have identified as such before the internet. Take the example of the creator of the Treonauts site. He is very much what we might consider a peer but he is an authority of an area which before the Internet might have been the purview of the company who created the device.

The reason why his site succeeded and the same reason why other such sites do succeed is because they do not just create content. They actually do engage in what is considered traditional journalism at its best: there is investigation, research, data collection and interpretation and analysis.

So the question is then if our peers can do this, do we still need companies who engage in traditional journalism (i.e. the big news companies like the Straits Times). I believe the answer is yes, but they would have to focus on certain competencies which only a company with resources can do. One such competency is investigative journalism of the sort which brought down the Nixon administration. I believe that such journalism can only be possible if the journalists have the resources which can only be provided by a news company because they can afford time to pursue a story.

Of course, the argument that with the Internet now, Deepthroat could easily find an audience and would not need the two intrepid journalists that broke the story. But the Internet is very prone to hyper-reactive posts/comments and reputations can quickly be destroyed before it can be defended. In such an age, the calm voice of reason can be provided by the news companies and their investigative journalists.

In the end, I believe peer generated content will be a source of certain type of information while traditional news companies will be for other types. It is not so much extinction, but evolution.

After the presentation by the 3 ladies from Text 100, the event broke into two tracks: technical and non-technical. I didn’t get a chance to hear any of the technical presentations because I was busy meeting and talking with some other participants. I think the ability to meet people with similar interests was one of the great strengths of this event.

The only other presentation that I managed to listen to and get involved with was the one with regards to Pinko marketing. I didn’t stay till the end, but up to the point I left,Chandra and Rachit arguments are well summarised here.

My thoughts on their positions is that in the end both methods are needed. Rachit’s scientific way of doing direct marketing is about converting intention and potential for action to actual action, but the people who have the intention and potential has already been determined when they visit your site or encounter your product. Chandra’s idea of building a community that is passionate about a product or website so that they will be a source of marketing is about increasing the percentage of people who have the potential to be converted from intention to action.

Finally, I agree with the observation that what is needed for the next Barcamp would be more techies.

I really like to thank the guys who organised the event and hope to be part of the many that is to come.

Woke up today and read about ‘Crazy Horse’ going to be shut down. Sigh. When it first came to Singapore, I wanted to watch it just to experience what it might be like but I found the price too high as I was just a student then. The thing is, I think that there might be a fair number of Singaporeans like me who are interested in such performances but find the price prohibitive. In any case, my plan was to wait until I started working, had some spare cash and treat myself to the performance. It seems now, that if I want to watch it, I have to do it real soon.

Anyway, there has been some discussion about why ‘Crazy Horse’ failed in Singapore and price is probably one of the reasons. But it is definitely not the only reason and like Alex of YawningBread predicted, Singapore’s tendency to get all dogmatic when it comes to morality has contributed to the failure of ‘Crazy Horse’. The amount of restrictions placed on ‘Crazy Horse’ really handicapped it.

Anyway, I’m thinking about our ‘Crazy Horse’ experiment and its failure when I remembered something my pastor said.

Ignorance is not Virtue

Simply put, if a man is caged up, henpecked by his wife, nagged too death and prevented from meeting any other women, the wife cannot say her man is a good man who is faithful to her.

However, if the husband was working late in the office one day when the hot 21 year old secretary walks in, strips naked and says to him, “Take me, take me now.” and he, instead of jumping her on the spot with wild abandon, picks up his suitcase, walks out the office, looks for the intern fresh from NS and tells him, “the secretary is looking for you” then proceeds to go home to his wife and spend time with her, then the husband can possibly be considered faithful. He has been tempted and made the choice not to succumb to it.

Virtue is about choice and choosing correctly.

Singapore wants to create a country of moral people. That is not wrong. But handicapping our arts scene which is essential to create a vibrant cosmopolitan city because we want to protect the moral values of our country is silly. We aren’t so much protecting it as stifling its development. Moral people are those who choose to do what is right, and have the ability to discern if something is good, bad (or even evil) and what is really just a matter of taste.

Come on, just a simple google search can provide something more titillating than what ‘Crazy Horse’ is probably showing.

The way we are going, Singapore will create a people (i.e. mainly guys) who go to such performances expecting to be titillated, and leave at best disappointed and at worse to go look for some really titillating experiences than a nation who go to such performances to experience and appreciate an artistic performance which stimulates all our senses and not just a single organ below.

Don’t protect us by limiting our choice. Protect us by educating us. Let us learn what is considered art, and what is just hardcore pornography (here I am definitely reflecting a religious bias because I think hardcore pornography is immoral with no artistic merit). Let us then choose and in our choice we exercise, we have become moral.

Choice. It is what differentiates the virtuous from the ignorant.

In any case, I’ll probably try to squeeze in a day I can go see the performance. It would be a waste to miss it. And besides, I cannot afford to go to Paris any time soon.

I agree with this blogger that GST should just rise in one shot instead of being broken into phases. Of course if it is done in one shot and raised to 7% and within two years there is another increase to 9%, I would rather it be done in two phases where this year it would be increased to 6% and then in two years time to %7. The problem with talking about a one step increase or a staggered increase to the level of 7% is the uncertainty with regards to when the government will decide it is necessary to increase the GST beyond 7%. Although the more cynical of you might note that it will probably happen after the next elections.

Today Straits Times has a few thoughts from our Prime Minister with regards to the GST issue. From it, one cannot help but ask a few questions.

Is GST a medicine? If it is, then does it mean the economy is sick? But I thought everything was all right if not extremely well with the economy.

One could of course be reading too much into the word ‘medicine’. With the foresight that the PAP has, our Prime Minister probably meant that the GST was a ‘Vaccination’ against whatever ’sickness’ the economy might have in the future.

Which of course is what the MPs clarified at the recent P65 dialogue on the GST implications. The government is raising money because there might not be enough money in the future and that seems like a fair reason to raise GST; again, the foresight of our leaders is demonstrated. While we might have money now to help the people in Singapore who need help, the government has decided that it would be better to raise another pool of money which will be used to help the poor and still save the same amount. We would have to wait for the Budget to be released to know if the GST increase is used as a tool to raise money to help those who need help as well as raise more funds for saving.

Of course there is also the argument that the money being raised is by the very same people who do need help. Not really. I think the government thinks the middle class does not need any help.

There of course was an interesting question about money spent on upgrading which makes me wonder about something else. Assuming that the government of past terms had foresight too, and I am sure they would not say otherwise, why didn’t we start saving more then instead of spending on upgrading. Oh yes… because of elections. But then again, maybe upgrading was really necessary for those estates because of their conditions. But if it were dependent on physical conditions, then I can’t help but wonder about Hougang.

And so, now I’m wondering, if we are indeed saving for the future, how can we be sure whose future the money is saved for? What is stopping the government from using the money for upgrading promises and plans the next time the results of an election campaign seems dodgy.

Of course, and I am not sure about this, spending money on upgrading plans may be good for the Singapore economy and contribute to growth. I have hazy memories with regards to this from my Econs lessons in JC - something about fiscal policies and stimulating the economy. Sigh. Sleeping in class is bad. In any case, upgrading promises and plans may not be that self serving.

The final thought is that if indeed we as Singaporeans need to take the bitter medicine of a GST increase, a valid question which has been floating around is whether that is the only medicine. Whether the government has answered the question is another valid one. Maybe it has and most of us do not have the Econs knowledge to grasp what they are saying or just too hung up on the notion of income inequality, regressive taxation and that all too familiar feeling of being bullied to hear anything.

But honestly, I can’t seem to think of anything else except maintaining corporate tax and not further lowering that and income tax. Of course, it seems we can’t do that because FUD(i.e. Fear Uncertainty Doubt) tactics have been used on us. If we don’t keep pace with other countries (i.e. Hong Kong) we sure die. And that is something I’m sure no one wants.

(Update: Two more blog posts related to this:

After the Spending Frenzy comes the Reality

Is A GST Hike The Only Solution? )

I fell in love with Ruby On Rails at the beginning of 2006 when I was trying to find a way to implement the idea for my final year project. I had touched PHP previously for one other project and before that, mainly coded in C++ and Java.

So when a friend asked me to create a website for him, the idea that I ran with was to try to code my own cms for his site using Ruby On Rails. And it was a painful experience. The result was a half-baked CMS. I honestly didn’t appreciate the scope of the project until I took it on and tried to juggle work, my leisure on weekends and coding the CMS.

Recently, I tried using Wordpress as a CMS for another site by customizing it with a template and some plugins. The final result was much better than my first attempt at building a website with a CMS to manage it.

And I think the two experiences have made me just a bit wiser with regards to coding. While one may get a sense of satisfaction (i.e. ego boost) building something entirely from scratch, there are times when it may be smarter and no less satisfying to build on the work of those who have come before. And that is the beauty of the open source movement. It provides great tools for people to build on the work of others and share that new work so that others can build on it.

The important question at the end of the day is this. Are there already tools out there that can do what is required. If there is, then to use a proverbial phrase, “there is no point reinventing the wheel”.

The Singapore National Museum recently opened after being shut for renovations for some time. The exhibition that we went down to see was called ‘Maria Theresia: Mother Empress of Habsburg Austria’.

Below is a shot of the basement space outside the gallery where the exhibition was held. I can’t really say much about the exhibition except that I have got a lot of knowledge which I probably can use at a trivia competition, and the portraits were really detailed.

Was going to go for Barcamp Singapore after visiting the musuem, so was carrying my laptop. Fortunately, the museum had free lockers to store my bag.

The 1st floor had a really big video installation. Basically, a camera would track you and display you on the wall. Not something super new as it has been done before but still…

The thing that really impressed me was this gadget that was used for the History Gallery. The device is called the ‘Companion’ and is attached to headphones which you wear. When you are moving around the Gallery, you can key in numbers which are correlated to the exhibits and get audio commentary. This device is also able to sync the audio with the video exhibits. Hmm… I just realised I didn’t notice if it had commentary in other languages.

The coolest exhibit to me was this room which was one big video installation. When you first enter the History Gallery, you see a bridge across this cylindrical room which was about three stories high. The wall was covered with screens which was displaying a video about a day in Singapore. The accompanying score was really catchy and inspiring. Hmmm… but then again, I’m the kind of person who likes Celine Dion songs so maybe my taste in music shouldn’t be trusted. The whole exhibit was a visual and aural assault on the senses which built up the anticipation for the rest of the exhibits in the History Gallery.

The shot below shows the room when you first step onto the bridge.

The shot below is from the ground floor of the space. The horizontal thing in the middle of the shot is the bridge.

Some black and white shots of us at the museum.

The thing is, I am a philistine, so I can’t really comment on a lot of things that I saw. They all just look so pretty… and it was just a great way to spend time with a loved one.