Ian On The Red Dot

Bjorn talks about Singapore’s lack of Web 2.0 readiness, a sort of reply to James Seng’s post.

I am thinking that one thing that could help the community is to provide an estate for all of us. Something like the hostel that SMU students have. Convert one of the older estates and rent it out to programmers and people involved in startups. The programmers don’t need to be involved in the startups. They can be working in IT companies like how I am.

It might seem a bit artificial, but I think it will help. Nothing beats waking up and being able to just go next door and talk to someone about an idea. My most productive moments in NUS was when I was staying in the hostel. The ability to live and breathe my projects really helped. The other productive moments were when we all camped over in some lab.

Of course, why can’t we do it in our own houses. Logistics. It is difficult to get your family to understand why your friends are staying over 24/7. Also, it inconveniences them.

And why allow people not involved in startups. Cos a lot of programmers have expertise to offer and while they may not be fully involved, I believe there are enough people who will be willing to burn their weekends in some way to contribute and be part of the startups. Get designers to stay there too. So that startups can just walk over to a neighbour and ask for help with a template and share what is needed. So that the coder can focus on code and not struggle with the look of a site.

I don’t know. But I just keep dreaming about this community. I hope it can happen.

Found this article at littlespeck.com via Intelligent Singaporean on Singaporeans love for accolades.

The article talks about how Singapore strives to associate with anyone famous who is remotely connected to Singapore and cited a few examples. And I couldn’t help but think about my JC days.

There were always these people who would claim to know anyone and everyone. Their conversations would always contain some variation of, “Oh..Yeah.. I know *substitute name*. He/She is such a nice guy/gal. *substitute effusive praise about the person* and I saw(/talked to) him/her on *substitute time/date* at *substitute random location*.”

The cool kids never needed to talk about who they knew or associated with because everyone already knew that. It was always the uncool ones who needed to latch on. Desperately. Hoping to bask in some sort of reflected glory. But they just ended up in the shadows. And no one ever wanted to hang around with the uncool kid.

The article starts with an interesting question about why so many of our young population wants to migrate. I might have an answer to that.

Because we are not wanted. No really. I mean it. The government may say we are wanted, but seriously, I believe most of us don’t feel wanted. It is hard to place a finger on exactly what the government is doing that makes me feel this way, but I shall try to explain the feeling I have.

It is always easy to like someone that you can easily see is a diamond either because of some easily spotted quality with high market value like they are good looking, have extremely good grades or super duper rich. It is not easy to spot the qualities that might make a person get good grades or one day super duper rich like perseverance, intelligence, integrity and passion.

I feel that my country government tends to love people for what they are now and not what they could be in the future. I feel (and I don’t know why) that my country government will ignore you until you have something to offer to them (i.e. so they can bask in your reflected glory or bleed you dry or something…) then they will acknowledge you and claim you as one of their own.

I personally feel you will always be loyal to people and honour the relationships you have with such people who stand by you when you are nothing - those who are there with you from the beginning when you try to make the best out of your life and who support you through it all. And you will detest those who once snubbed you only to return as your best friend later.

Take a certain manager I know. He lost a lot of loyalty from his team the day one of them resigned. He started offering a lot to the person who resigned, going all out to try to keep that person by promising a lot of things and trying to make that person special by offering great opportunities within the company.

Personally, the other members of the team are just as good as the one resigning. The thing is, once the guy resigned to go to another job, the manager is reminded that this person had value and had choice of jobs and suddenly became more valuable to the manager even though his intrinsic worth had always been the same. And yet, while trying to keep this friend of mine, he is showing that he does not value the current employees who honestly deserve the opportunities too and would have repaid the faith in them. Worse, these are the employees who chose to stay. Is it no wonder that they want to leave too?

Sometimes, it seems that the best way to get noticed in a crowd is to leave the room.

(update:  I realised I shouldn’t use the words ‘country’ and ‘government’ interchangeably.  I love my country and I’m proud of it.  In fact, I’m grateful for all Singapore has given me.  The thing is, I can’t help but feel that the people in authority carry this sense of belief that it is their policies which made all the difference when in fact it is the whole of Singapore that played a part.  And if I’m ever successful, I will definitely acknowledge it is because of what Singapore has given me, but the thing is, let us acknowledge Singapore and please, to the people in positions of authority, do not try to lay claim to us.  There is a difference and I think it is an important one.  It is important because again I have this feeling (that I cannot explain) that in Singapore, our leaders believe that credit is to be given to one, but blame to be shared by many.  It might not be what they are thinking, but that is how I feel and I can’t explain it.)
 

Read/Write Web is having a poll whether location matters with regards to Web innovation.  Om Malik and Vinnie have follow-up posts on the one mentioned earlier by the NY Times.

So does Singapore have the ability to innovate, and if we do, are there avenues for our innovators to bring that technology to the broader society and commercialise it?

Saw this picture by Margaret Bourke-White on kottke.org. I wonder whether if one day such a scene will be seen in Singapore. Oh yes. It won’t. Because welfare is a bad bad word and if you’re queuing for help, you ain’t working for help.

Of course, the reason why this people need help is because of a natural disaster and I’m pretty confident if Singaporeans ever needed help because of some disaster, our government will be there for us.

Nonetheless, this photo is a striking reminder that sometimes what we like to say about ourselves and choose to believe may not always be what is going on in reality.

The New York Times has an article which offers little encouragement to the idea that Singapore’s initiatives to be a hub for IDM could succeed.

Some of my friends came on Sunday for a boardgames session. After the session, my mother expressed her discomfort about us playing Munchkin. In the game, there are cards which are considered as ‘curses’ and you can play such cards to sabo other players. She said the game doesn’t sound like a nice game because you can ‘curse’ other people. Sigh. The reasoning is that words are powerful, and even though its just a game, when you say negative things to another person, it harms that other person. It is this sort of thinking that got my Lone Wolf game book collection thrown away and my Magic cards to be burnt.

Last Tuesday I went for a meetup organised by the Singapore Boardgames Meetup group. I went alone so I was abit apprehensive about the gathering and whether I would be able to enjoy myself when I didn’t know anyone there.

But my worries were unfounded. I had a blast of a time with a great group of people. I finally managed to try out Modern Art which was an awesome game of bidding and selling. I was abit conservative and so only managed to be the middle guy in terms of total amount of money at the end of the game. I heard that this is a game that can be won just by selling of the art pieces, and over the weekend, I’ve been thinking about it and I think it is indeed possible.

The other game we tried was Elfenland that really reminded of the Seven Bridges of Konigsberg which is a famous introductory math problem to the world of graph theory. I had a real headache trying to maximise my resources but in the end, I didn’t manage to visit one city. Sigh.

The work day is about to end. Spent today tidying up some code.

I started to think about a trip that I took with the rest of my colleagues a few months back around the time when I first joined the company. It was a company trip to Malacca. The drive up was about 5 hours and what an eye-opening five hours it was.

I have been to many trips up to Malaysia with different groups of Singaporeans and there was always this favourite phrase that would go around the bus a few hours after we crossed the Causeway,

“Are we there yet?”

That was a phrase I didn’t hear at all during the trip. We left for Malacca around 7pm from our office after having spent the day working. My experience when it comes to travelling with Singaporeans is that if we travelled at night, most of us would use the time to sleep. Those who did stay awake during the trip would gather in small groups to talk or play cards.

No chance of sleeping during this drive up.

The minute the bus started travelling, my colleagues started singing and dancing on the bus. Almost everyone joined in the singing, and a few of the more expressive ones started dancing along the aisle.

It was a sight to behold. The amazing thing is that my colleagues were not a homogenous group of people though we Singaporeans tend to classify them all as just ‘Indian’. And it was not like they were all part of the same team in the office or even close friends.  And yet everyone bonded and joined in to have a great time.

The thing is, I couldn’t help but feel how different this trip to Malacca was.  Usually, it was always just about reaching the resort so the fun could start.  But this time, the fun started immediately when the trip started.  This was a group of people who really did believe that the journey was as important as the destination.

And I couldn’t help but wonder whether if it was because in Singapore we are so results driven that we forget about the process and that was why the other trips with Singaporeans were so different from the one I had with my ‘Indian’ colleagues.

It is one and a half hours after office hours.  And the office is still full.  It isn’t that my colleagues need to stay back.  And it isn’t like they don’t have families to go home too.  It isn’t like the pay is awesome and they need to ‘wayang’ to get promoted.

I sincerely believe that my colleagues see work as a meaningful extension of their lives and not just a period in the day where they come (and to borrow an NS phrase) “serve and f*cked off”.

Good things happen to bad people. And bad things happen to good people. It is just the way the world is.

My mom always tells me our family is protected and God will guard our health. I hate arguing with her about this. Actually, there is really nothing wrong with what my mom believes. And in fact, it is really comforting to think that maybe, just maybe God is watching over us. I always hope it is true, sometimes I even believe it is true.

But what happens when good people who believe that God is watching over them gets sick? This is where things get really interesting because instead of acknowledging shit just happens, humans always try to rationalize what is going on.

There are lots of classic answers to the question why good people get sick, and one of them is,

“It is part of God’s plan”

Ok. I won’t argue with that. I believe that it is possible that getting sick could be part of God’s plan. For example, maybe when you are sick, the disunited family comes together, differences are put aside, and we start loving each other instead of focusing on past hurts. Ok. So yeah… maybe getting sick can be part of God’s plan.

But what if the person dies. Then what? How could it possibly be part of God’s plans to allow grief to visit a family. But hey, think of the bigger picture. Maybe if that person had lived to 30, he would have gone for a real wild party at Zouk, and got one of his close friends drunk, who would have gone and drove a car into a bus stop, killing a young NUS medical undergraduate who otherwise would have gone on to discover the cure for cancer which would have saved the lives of millions.

Impossible?

Hey…if a butterfly flapping its wings in brazil could cause a tornado in texas…

Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realise you were referring to that it was impossible for a local medical undergraduate to discover the cure for cancer.

Ok. My point is, I don’t disagree certain things could be part of God’s plan.

But what sort of plan is what I would disagree with. And a classic plan that is consistently proposed,

“It is part of God’s plan so you will acknowledge him in your life, welcome him into it, and accept that you need him”

What?

Look. Supposed I had a girlfriend who argued with me a lot, smoked like mad and I was angry with her for damaging her lungs and taking me for granted. Now, one day, while I am staying over at her house, I wake up because I smell some smoke. I go to my girlfriend’s room and see that she hasn’t disposed her cigarette butt away properly and something has caught fire. And she doesn’t realise it, because as usual, she went to Zouk to party hard and is dead drunk.

I didn’t start the fire. I just don’t put it out. I allow it to happen. I don’t wake her up. I allow her to get burnt. She gets horribly burnt and is hospitalised. I take care of her lovingly during that time. When she comes home, I feed her, clean and dress her wounds. I spent all my time taking care of her and she starts appreciating me more. Starts saying how wonderful it is I am there for her. How she loves me for not leaving her even though she is terribly disfigured. Starts saying she regrets the past. Blah blah blah.

Imagine the above versus, me going into the room, putting out the fire and making sure no bad shit happened to her. She probably won’t ever know that I intervened in a crucial moment, probably continue taking me for granted. Even might break up with me.

But which is more loving from me to her? One lets her know I love her. The other is just loving her.

So please, don’t reduce God to that kind of person who needs to allow bad things to happen to you just so he can gets noticed.

The recent issue with the insurance company Aviva and that lady with cancer provided fodder for lots of discussion, personal reflection and angry rants in my room against the wall.

Two things I dislike about doctors. First thing is they make you wait for a long time, more often with at least one person who is way sicker than you. I always feel that I leave the doctor’s waiting room with one more thing wrong with me than before I entered it.

Second, they almost always start with variations of the same line, “So what is wrong with you?”. Hello. If I knew what was wrong with me, then why would I need to come to you?

Of course, I am nitpicking.

And yet, I honestly cannot shake off the feeling that most doctors are basically clueless. And you cannot blame them.

Like Machiavelli so eloquently said,

“for it happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure”

So basically, if it’s easy to cure, we probably won’t be able to get a clue what the hell is wrong with you, but once we know, well, you’re (pardon my french) fucked.

So hey even the doctors agree it is probably quite hard to determine what is wrong with a person at the beginning albeit the ones Machiavelli were referring to were probably not as educated and well equipped as the ones we have now, but I believe it would take a really brave and probably deluded doctor of our time to say that he can do it.

And sometimes, it is not just the doctor’s inability to diagnose that is a probem. The lack of being able to conduct all the possible tests due to cost is also a problem. And lastly, sometimes, people just don’t really know when it is time to go and see a doctor.

Seriously, how many of you have loved ones tell you that what you’re feeling is probably due to diet, stress or lifestyle. Sure, all these play a part. But sometimes, even when you pay attention to all this, you can still get sick.

But you shrug it off. You suck it up. You try to make the changes you can and delay going to see a doctor. You don’t want to seem paranoid. You don’t want to incur expenditure that might prove to be wasteful. Besides, didn’t you just go for a checkup a year ago.

Why worry? It’s probably nothing. A little rest will do the trick.

After all, it can’t possibly happen to you. You don’t want it to happen to you.

The key to effective parenting from a son’s POV is that parents have to choose their battles.

And that is why we zone out the useful advice. The filter for nagging doesn’t discriminate the content when it is the same voice.