Ian On The Red Dot

Two posts on Jack Neo’s possible sexual harassing of potential stars.

It might be real news now:

We should educate both men and women that such behaviour is wrong and unacceptable, and ensure victims do not suffer in silence. It is especially pertinent when positions of authority and power are abused, and no one can deny that Jack Neo is influential in the entertainment circle.

Corinna Lim, AWARE’s Executive Director:

Some of the women involved reported that Mr. Neo used the carrot of career promotions to get to know them. This is a classic form of sexual harassment known as “Quid Pro Quo” harassment, characterised by an authority figure offering a subordinate career benefits (for instance “a bigger role”) in exchange for sexual favours.

It is not uncommon for a pattern of sexual harassment to go undetected for a long time. Many cases go unreported because victims feel isolated, blame themselves or simply because they are unsure that they have been victimised.

One thought.

If I wanted to buy a camera, and my budget was $1000, and the salesman was trying to sell me a camera that I valued only at $800, he or she might provide me with free accessories (e.g. flash, camera bag, tripod) of total value $200, to get me to part with my $1000.

If you were an actress with mediocre acting abilities and average looks, and I knew that by all fair assessment, you would never make it big in the entertainment industry and the best role you could possibly get was a hawker lady in my next movie. The value of you as an extra is positive $200. The value of you as a lead is negative $1000 because of the opportunity cost incurred in NOT casting a better known actress. However, if i value the chance to have sexual intercourse with you at $1200, then if you agree to sleep with me and I cast you as a lead, I’m back at positive $200 in terms of total value to me.

Is this sexual harassment if I try to establish this arrangement with you?

Is there a difference between:

1. Giving you a better job beyond your abilities if you are willing to sleep with me.

&

2. As long as you are not willing to sleep with me, you get jobs that are beneath your abilities.

&

3. If you aren’t willing to sleep with me, I will give you a job that matches your abilities.

I’m trying to think of some set of equations to express the above statements that might constrain the boundaries of sexual harassment.

What is Quid Pro Quo Sexual Harassment:

It occurs when (1) job benefits, including employment, promotion, salary increases, shift or work assignments, performance expectations and other conditions of employment, are made contingent on the provision of sexual favors, usually to an employer, supervisor or agent of the employer who has the authority to make decisions about employment actions, or (2) the rejection of a sexual advance or request for sexual favors results in a tangible employment detriment, a loss of a job benefit of the kind described above.

Lessons From “In Bed With The Right Investor”

The biggest disappointment was that I couldn’t use a line I had been working on.

“Ladies and Gentlement, do remember the cardinal rule of meeting an investor for the first time. It is impolite to ask the size of their assets on the first date.”

Watched the Jordan versus Singapore Asian Cup qualifier game last night.

The way I danced when Noh Alam Shah scored the equalizer, my girlfriend probably thought we won the World Cup or something. Then we lost. Due to a goal from a set piece.

So so close, considering that Thailand lost to Iran. I don’t think I will ever get a chance to travel to a major football event to support my country.

Damn it.

I knew that sacrificing 1 virgin was not enough. Either that, or the virgin lied in the job application. “Oh, I thought you meant vaginal virginity….”

Our keeper Lionel Lewis did justice to his name. He was majesty in goal and the difference between a Singapore being trashed by Jordan and a Singapore with a chance to go to the Asian Cup.

Now that the chance has come and gone, it is time to talk about Singapore as a footballing nation, or rather how Singapore is not a footballing nation and how the failure to meet our World Cup 2010 and Asian Cup 2011 goals is symptomatic of our recent tendency to look for quick fix solutions.

The reason why we failed in our goals is because we wanted to be successful fast. So we started importing talent instead of working on the infrastructure needed to build a solid footballing nation.

We started importing talent without addressing one of the real questions – why aren’t our footballing talents becoming professional football players. And trust me, there are real footballing talents in Singapore.

Who knows?

But won’t it be interesting if Apple releases a product where you’re forced to watch ads before you can continue to assess content from sites like New York Times. The web-camera at the front recognizes if a person has stopped watching the ad. To avoid having to watch the ads, you can just buy a subscription.

Whatever.

My bank account is going to take a hit soon.

Gerrymandering:

Gerrymandering is a form of boundary delimitation (redistricting) in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are deliberately modified for electoral purposes, thereby producing a contorted or unusual shape. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander; however, that noun can also refer to the process.

Gerrymandering may be used to achieve desired electoral results for a particular party, or may be used to help or hinder a particular group of constituents, such as a political, racial, linguistic, religious or class group.

When used to allege that a given party is gaining a disproportionate power, the term gerrymandering has negative connotations. However, a gerrymander may also be used for purposes perceived as positive, notably in US federal voting district boundaries which produce a proportion of constituencies with an African-American or other minority in the majority (these are thus called “minority-majority districts”).

The unwinnable game.

1. How to be a good, and maybe even, great boyfriend.
2. How to say ‘No’ nicely.
3. How to under-promise and over-deliver.

Ever since I started working, I’ve returned to wearing ‘uniforms’ – the standard is to rotate through 3 sets of G2000 shirt and pants, mixing up the combination each day. Haven’t changed the base since I started work in 2006 and I don’t really intend to.

I really have too much clothes for my dressing habit.

Over the weekend, I started taking photos and cataloging what clothes I don’t intend to keep. I really do hope to give it away to someone or some organization. The standard reply on which organization to give is ‘Salvation Army’ but I’ve heard that the Salvation Army collection boxes have become ‘rubbish bins’ so I’m not sure if that’s still the best place.

Any suggestions?

The first batch of clothes are here. The shirts are quite old but still very much wearable (by the standard that I would be more than happy to wear them out, much to the chagrin of my gf). The Quiksilver jeans, Hang Ten pants and U2 trousers are relatively new, could possibly be described as good condition and only my ballooning waistline is preventing me from using them.

I’m starting to go through my clothes, books and toys to decide what to throw away ( or hopefully either give or sell away). If you have any tips about which organizations would accept these donations, do leave a comment.

I’ve only been an M1 customer since the first mobile phone I bought when I first entered NS (so that my mom could keep in contact with me). That was about 10 years ago.

Recently, I was under a rather expensive BlackBerry plan from M1. The contract ended about 4 months ago and I was considering of changing to another cheaper plan. I was also considering getting a HTC Hero.

Early Saturday morning, I saw an advertisement placed by Starhub in the ST. They were offering the HTC for $98 (under certain conditions). One of the discounts offered was only for new subscribers moving from another company (i.e. M1).

I placed a series of calls first to M1 to verify the following things:

1. Was my contract over (just to confirm again).
2. What was the cost of porting over to Starhub.
3. Was M1 selling the HTC Hero and what was the cheapest price I could get it based on getting an equivalent Starhub plan.

I even went down to the M1 store at B1 in Plaza Singapura to check with the staff there about promotions, rebates, discounts for existing customers, plans before purchasing my HTC Hero from Starhub.

Any decent human being would have figured out:

1. I really wanted to buy the HTC Hero.
2. I was going to cancel my M1 line.

I’m surprised that no one from M1 that I interacted with offered me a deal I could not refuse. They were just happy to answer my questions instead of trying to keep me as a customer.

When a customer’s contract has expired, I think the telcos should treat these customers as potential new customers instead of treating us as people who will always just stay around.

I was fully prepared to pay $398 for the phone but apparently there were discounts from Starhub that I weren’t aware of and I ended up paying only $198 for the phone. w00t.

In a surprisingly shocking parallel, our government treats those they want to attract better than those they already have here.

Note:

Always pay attention to the date your contract expires. Once it does, do not waste time and renegotiate another contract. If you don’t intend to get a new phone, you can almost always get the same plan for cheaper monthly rates.

I’m surprised there wasn’t an application to track data usage for my new HTC Hero. Had to look for an app from the Market for that purpose.

Thanks to the blog ‘This Android Life‘, I learned of NetSentry. Let’s see how the data this app gathers holds up in comparision to my first bill.

Sinatra said it best:

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way