Jeff's Blog

Amazon Kindle Touch in Singapore

2011-11-13T11:10:00.000+08:00

1) Updates

19 Jan 2012, Software Update Version 5.0.3 is out. This is a very good update. The overall response of the user interface is very much quicker.
5 Dec 2011, I've received the Touch and the lighted cover. Works great! If you want to get a new Kindle, this is it.

2) Preamble
3) Kindle Touch
4) X-Ray
5) PDF documents
6) Kindle Lighted Cover
7) Kindle Fire
8) How to buy a Kindle in Singapore
9) How to buy Kindle ebooks in Singapore
10) Which Kindle to buy?

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Preamble
Who reads nowadays any more? Most people are playing Angry Birds on their tablets! Actually, that's not true, people are playing AB and also using their tablets for many other applications. With tablets such as the iPads and other Android devices swamping the market, shouldn't we just use our tablets to read books and not have to carry another device?

Fortunately for Kindle lovers, the answer to this is still no; it still makes a lot of sense to continue with the Kindle for reading. For all intents and purposes, it's 'insanely great'. E Ink, the main feature that differences LCD tablets with Kindles and other similar e-readers, needs to be seen to be believed. It looks like real book; no glare, no back-light.

The Kindle is not available directly from Amazon for people in Singapore, so we need to work around the limitations to make sure Amazon and authors get our money. Of historical interest is the Kindle 3 guide I started more than a year ago. There are more than 700 comments that provide a lot of interesting information that will be of use to everyone. Yes, all 3 of you who have told me you read the whole thing! I'll repeat the essential things to note in this blog entry.

New additions to the Kindle Family

The new Kindle 4 is now just called the Kindle it's very inexpensive. The older Kindle 3 is now called the Kindle Keyboard. And the third new addition is the Kindle Touch which features a touch screen.

Kindle Touch
The Kindle Touch and cover took two weeks to arrive after it got shipped from Amazon. The package was shipped free of charge to Comgateway and forwarded to Singapore. The shipping was US$30. So with shipping included, the cost for a Touch alone is around S$150, with the cover, it's around S$240.

The Kindle Touch is quite different from the previous offerings from Amazon. They decided to go all the way and removed all hard buttons from the Kindle Touch, except the Home button. So how does it compare to the previous Kindle 3 (Kindle Keyboard)?

There are currently many 1-star reviews for the Kindle Touch on Amazon. I enjoy reading these reviews because often times the reviewers really don't have a clue, and of course get called out by the brash counter-commenters. However, there are some criticisms that are valid and I'll get them out of the way first.

The first is the steeper learning curve. The Quick Start guide included in the package is just way too sparse and people can get totally lost in the beginning. What to press on the Home screen? How to go to the last, or next page? I was a bit lost too so I can understand the 1-star folks. Once you read the PDF manual on your computer, it'll be OK. The pictures below show what to do when you're in a book. They forgot a picture to show what to do at the Home screen, which is to flick left or right to proceed forwards or backwards.

The other bad thing is the lack of landscape presentation. I expect this to be added in a future software update. That's about all the bad aspects of the Touch! Let's go on to the good parts.

The reason for a Touch screen is to make text selection easier, and in this aspect, the Touch truly shines. Selecting words quickly to find their definitions, highlight, or add notes are now much quicker without the need to use the old joystick. Another good thing about Touch is page turns. There are now 2 ways to do page turns: what's shown in the first 2 screenshots above, and to flick left or right. What this means is that you don't need to hold the Kindle a certain way to press the last/next page buttons on non-Touch Kindles. Just hold the Touch in any position you find comfortable.

X-Ray
X-Ray is a new feature found on the Touch; I find it to be totally breathtaking. This is a software feature so it remains to be seen whether Amazon will incorporate this on other Kindles; probably not. X-Ray presents a book into various 'components', with a timeline and important characters superimposed onto it. Here's an example from Steve Jobs. One interesting character from the book is Jon Rubinstein, one of the fathers of the iPod and webOS which is used by my favourite mobile phone, the discontinued Palm Pre series. Say I want to know Jon's story; I can go into X-Ray and get the gist very quickly. It's very intuitive and quite a game changer for readers. (click = big)

You'd notice that Jon's wikipedia entry is included in X-Ray. I read somewhere that the wiki information is embedded inside the ebook itself. Not all ebooks have this; probably only the newer ones. I think all books should have X-Ray!

PDF documents

Currently there is a 'problem' with PDF documents as the ability to read in landscape mode is not implemented yet. I am pleasantly surprised, though, that reading PDF is now a different experience because of the ability to pinch-zoom, and drag the page around. While 6" screens are generally not suited for PDF documents (I consider an iPad-size tablet ideal for PDFs), what we find on the Touch seems to be quite workable and marginally satisfactory, certainly better than what the Kindle 3/Keyboard offers.

Kindle Touch Lighted Leather Cover
This lighted cover isn't really leather, I think. It's some sort of plastic that looks like leather. Generally speaking, I like it a lot; it is much better than the older lighted cover for the Kindle 3. The light now sits in the middle of the unit and so it's able to illuminate the device more evenly. The Kindle Touch is now wrapped by a rubbery case and it feels very solid. It's not cheap, but it's highly recommended!

Kindle Fire
How about the Kindle Fire? The Fire is an Android-based tablet. While it's not difficult to get the device itself and Kindle books onto it, I am concerned whether books are all we can get. Also, the advantage that the Fire has is that it's better at the Kindle at handling PDF files. However, given the Fire's relatively small screen size, how feasible is this? There are also rumors that new Fires with bigger screens will be announced soon. Currently, I will wait and see before getting a Fire.

How to buy a Kindle in Singapore
Here are the steps I use. Do note that Amazon doesn't officially support Kindles in Singapore. There are instances where buyers were found to be not from 'authorised countries' and their accounts were disabled. Your mileage may vary. Caveat Emptor. Other than that, things have worked really well for many local Kindle users.

Create an Amazon account if you don't already have one.
Go to the Kindle page and buy yourself a Kindle. It will be automatically linked to your Amazon account. I prefer the WiFi-only version rather than the 3G+WiFi version. The added 3G isn't really necessary because worldwide surfing isn't guaranteed. Also, additional costs will be incurred for the transfer of documents if 3G (AT&T roaming) is used when there is no WiFi.
Ship it to a third party mail forwarder. Borderlinx (Citibank credit card required, go to 'get a virtual address') and Comgateway (go to 'get my US address') are excellent. They both use DHL.
When you get your Kindle, you need to register it if it hasn't already been registered. After connecting to wifi at home>settings, register it by filling in your Amazon username and password at "home>settings>register".

Some preparatory steps to take before buying books from the Amazon US store

Firstly, do NOT buy books using your Kindle's Whispernet/3G/WiFi. Don't buy from Kindle apps too.
Buy a gift card with your local credit card, say USD50. Email the gift card to your email address. When you receive it in the mail, apply the gift amount to your Amazon account.
Go to your account, 'manage payment options', and erase your credit card info if you have any credit cards associated with Amazon.com . (Do this also whenever you buy something at Amazon using your local credit card.)
You need to buy books using your Internet browser on your computer with a VPN installed. Functionally, using a VPN is the equivalent of me giving you an airplane ticket to travel with your Kindle to the US. Use a VPN such as AlwaysVPN to make yourself situated in the US, in spirit. You may turn it off later when you're done purchasing. I can share my AlwaysVPN account with local Kindle users. Do not use Hotspot Shield; it's known not to work sometimes.
Exit your Internet browser.
Switch on your VPN. Open your browser.
Go to Manage your Kindle at the Kindle product page.
Go to 'your country'. Change your country to US if it's showing another country. Use any US address.
Switch off the VPN.

How to buy e-books from the Amazon US store

Again, do NOT buy e-books (even if the books are free) using the Kindle's Whispernet/3G/WiFi.
Ensure that you have sufficient funds in your account. If not, buy more gift cards and apply them to your account.
Exit your Internet browser.
Switch on your VPN, open your Internet browser and go Amazon. Find your book and click 'buy now with 1-click', 'deliver to your Kindle'. If you choose to wirelessly send it to your Kindle, you should receive the book in less than a minute. You can also choose to download the file and transfer it to your Kindle using USB. If asked for the billing address, use any US address. Note that this address will not be used because funds will originate from your gift card balance.
Switch off the VPN.

Which Kindle to buy?
For now, the non-3G Kindle Touch with Special Offers is my recommendation. The Kindle Keyboard does have its benefits, specifically real buttons for page advancement. However, the Touch provides many additional features that provide the biggest jump in usability since the introduction of the first Kindle:

The ability to touch the screen means that you can hold the device any way you like and not being restricted by the positioning of the page advancement buttons
X-Ray; follow the story's characters like never before
instant dictionary look-ups

HP webOS TouchPad

2011-08-12T22:05:00.014+08:00

Updated 19 August, 2011: Breaking and shocking news: HP has decided to kill off webOS hardware, and their PC line too. Absolutely unreal! All readers should NOT buy the TP until more details emerge. I'll still be using it of course as it's been great!

I have been a fan of Palm for over 10 years now. 2 years ago, they introduced the new webOS, the operating system of my current Palm Pre Plus phone. Last year, HP bought them over for US$1b dollars. They did so because they wanted to get into the mobile space as fast as possible. The Cloud was where things were happening, and prior to this, HP had nothing to show for.

In the 1990s, Palm was the underdog battling it out with the mighty Microsoft in the PDA space. Now, an equally fascinating tech story is emerging. How do you release a product like a tablet into a space overwhelmingly owned by Apple and its ever successful iPad offerings? I always enjoy battles like this waged by underdogs against overwhelming odds (even though HP can't really be considered underdogs; they are one of the world's biggest tech companies.) How do you actually market a product like this?

Speaking from almost a year's experience using the Palm Pre Plus phone, webOS, with its card metaphor, is the most intuitive, elegant, and fun Internet-connected operating system for a smartphone I've ever used. This, I think is webOS' comparative advantage. With the correct hardware, webOS can provide a level of productivity not available in competing operating systems. Everything just works very well together.

So anyway, one year on, the new webOS tablet was being released worldwide, and today it's released in Singapore. (If your country doesn't have it, get it from Amazon.) Overall first day feelings: A ROCK SOLID freshman offering from HP. A- going to A if we look at the operating system alone. The design is not unlike the webOS phones, and the intuitiveness of it all is striking. If an alien were to look at this, and compare it with how other tablets work, I don't have much doubt that the alien would pick the TouchPad. Silky smooth response, no lag, high frames per second. The other thing is Synergy, which works by consolidating most/all of your other online information into the tablet nicely and automatically. This alone is worth the price of admission.

That's the good stuff. What's the not so good stuff? Apps. Paid apps are still not available in Singapore, and that would be quite frightening for those who aren't used to this sort of thing. Basic apps are still missing; a word processor needs to be available as soon as possible. Multi-language support is still lacking.

I guess the folks in charge are on it, so hopefully we can buy apps soon. I'll write more when I spend more time with it. It's a very encouraging start, and it's up to HP to bring it to the next level. They really have a shot at carving out a new market, for people who actually want to do something with their tablets, and not just consuming information. Check out the lower prices for this month. It's now $599 and $699 for the 16gb and 32gb versions. The bundles are good too; TouchPad Case and Wireless Keyboard at a promotional offer of S$699 and S$799, respectively.

I'll write more in the next few weeks. In the meantime, join the Facebook group and SPUG. More pictures below.

Bodum CHAMBORD French Press Coffee Maker with Starbucks Coffee

2011-06-29T20:41:00.013+08:00

I've always enjoyed going to Starbucks, liked the 'third place' concept very much and think they hire very good people. So when CEO Howard Schultz released the new book a few months ago on how they managed the crisis a few years ago when the company was in trouble (they were losing customers to McCafe!), I quickly bought in on the Kindle.

It's a fascinating read, with so much information about the backstories and how Starbucks operates. I like how they revamped their mission statement which is now: 'to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time'. Anyone in the service industry struggling with issues on expansion, authenticity, quality... should get it.

In the book, it's mentioned that the kind of coffee Schultz likes is the kind he can prepare at home, using an apparatus known as the French press. I thought wow! Maybe I should get one myself, whatever he's having cannot be that bad! The picture below is a screenshot of the book with the barista serving coffee from a French press.

The sort of coffee that's made with a French press is called, simply, 'brewed coffee'. This can be made at home, and there are at least two ways to make this kind of coffee. The most common is the 'drip' method where water is allowed to drip through ground coffee (coffee that's crushed to small pieces) with a piece of filter paper. The other method is the 'steep' method where hot water and ground coffee are mixed so that coffee is produced. Another kind of coffee is the espresso, and this is produced by highly pressured water being blasted through ground coffee. You need a 'espresso coffee machine' to do this.

Starbucks sells espresso and its variants such as cappuccino, latte and mocha. You can also get brewed coffee and what's fun is that you can also bring coffee home and brew it yourself like what Schultz does. My colleague Fuad helped me understand how this works. Starbucks sells whole bean coffee. This is coffee that is not ground yet so they are big and fat. So what happens is that you choose a flavour, give it to the person at the counter (barista). The size of the grind needs to be 'coarse' for a French press; it cannot be too fine. The barista will open the packet, pour the coffee beans into the machine, and use the same packaging to collect the ground coffee, and then give it back to you.

I got the Bodum CHAMBORD, an elegant piece of equipment that is probably the gold standard as far as the French press is concerned. It's available at the basement of CK Tang and Takashimaya. They have basically cornered the do-your-own-coffee-with-the-French-press market I reckon.

Bodum CHAMBORD and Starbucks Pike Place Roast coffee

So what you do is:

Put coffee into the flask*
pour in boiled water that's cooled a little
stir for a while (this moment is magical)
wait for 4 minutes
push the plunger down to filter the coffee
serve!

*2 Starbucks 10g-scoops with 12 fl oz. (360ml) of water, enough coffee for a 16 fl oz. Grande cup or 3 Bodum 7g-scoops with 12 fl oz. of water. This is equivalent to 3 European or 2 US cups of coffee. The Bodum CHAMBORD is listed as having 32 fl oz. or 8-Euro cups capacity.


After stirring...

Close the top and wait for 4 minutes, then push the plunger in!

The coffee is delicious, with the oils still intertwined, unlike the drip method that removes the coffee oils. I think the great thing about preparing coffee like this is that it's loads of fun, plus the quality of the coffee is unparalleled. I just finished the pack of Pike Roast Place, and now am trying the Guatemala Antique which I also tried at the store. I think my home-made version is better! I'll get the PRP again in the future, it's quite fantastic too...

General Elections 2011 And The Fantastic Returning Officer

2011-05-09T13:05:00.005+08:00

On 7th May, I voted for the first time ever in the General Elections, and also had the good fortune to work as a Presiding Officer at my polling station where a certain percent rage of the Holland-Bukit Timah GRC residents were assigned to vote. It was a very good experience and I wish more people will volunteer in the next elections to be polling and counting agents. One reason for this is that it will completely dispel the 'your vote is not secret' meme that I've written about some days ago. It's also good to get people more involved in participating in something that has a direct bearing on how the country will be run in the next 5 years.

On that day, the man who was in charge of the elections, Returning Officer Mr Yam Ah Mee, would close proceedings by giving his now-legendary results announcements when he told us the names of the winners meticulously as Counting Night progressed.

He had a demeanour completely different from the frenzy that was found in all the assembly points around the country where supporters awaited the results. Instead, what Mr Yam gave us was deadpan, slow, steady and monotonous to a stop. It was absolutely boring and there was totally no excitement in his voice. He had a template in his script and the names and winners would change every time.

I knew then what was so appealing about what we're witnessing: No drama. 'No drama' was one of the defining characteristics that Obama has and something that won him the elections in 2008. The idea is to remove all other distractions and get to the work at hand, which was what Mr Yam has done. The election is serious business, no drama please! This was also a reflection of the way how the election workers managed the entire Polling Day. Please remove your PAP pin from your shirt, sir, please remove the SDP hat you're wearing ma'am. We're having no drama today, thank you very much.

The whole voting and counting process was very efficient and transparent, and though I can only speak for what I've seen, the accounts online were unanimous: the folks behind the scenes did a very good job. Mr Yam set the tone of impartiality and calm as he announced the first winner of the night...

Parliamentary General Election 2011

Result for the electoral division of Mountbatten. Jeanette Chong-Aruldoss, the NSP: 8436 votes. Lim Biao Chuan, PAP: 11,965 votes. Rejected votes, 418. Total votes cast: 20819. The local votes counted for the electorial division of Mountbatten are conclusive of the results.

Pursuant to Section 49, Subsection 7E, Paragraph A of the Parliamentary Elections Act, I declare Lim Biao Chuan of the PAP as the candidate elected for the electorial division of Mountbatten.

Now for those of who are curious what Mr Yam was saying and what the articles and sections are about, he was refering to the Parliamentary Elections Act. ('Pursuant to...' means 'according to what's written here... I can declare...) This document contains all the rules and regulations that relate to the elections. If you're a true fan, you need to read this document. At the left panel, scroll down to Section 49, and then look for 7E at the right panel.

Paragraph A says:
where the total number of overseas electors lawfully entitled to vote at the election in that electoral division is less than the difference between the number of votes given to the candidates or (as the case may be) groups of candidates with the 2 greatest number of votes, the Returning Officer shall declare the candidate or (as the case may be) group of candidates to whom the greatest number of votes is given to be elected;

This means that in the scenario where even if we count the voting slips of overseas voters, it's not going to make a difference to the results of the counting of the local voting slips. Therefore, we can declare the winner based on the slips we now have.

Overall, I think this election is a watershed not just because the WP has done well, it's also because people's minds have been opened to what's possible. It's quite amazing to see the courage displayed by the candidates and the class act that many, especially candidates in my area, have displayed. The coverage of the press has also improved a lot, and there are many in the MSM who are trying to do the right thing. More good years!

Background reading:
Yam Ah Mee is General Election's overnight star
Counting agent me
My 6 hour tour of duty as a polling agent
Volunteering to be an Polling Agent and a Counting Agent
Yah Ah Mee, Returning Officer Extraordinaire Facebook Community
Forum posts 1, 2

Debunking The "Your Vote Is Not Secret" Myth

2011-04-21T22:50:00.006+08:00

In the General Elections to be held next month, your vote is secret. It means that no one will know who you vote for. For many years now, an urban legend has been going around that has created so much fear among eligible voters. The urban legend goes like this: if you vote for the Opposition parties, your life will be adversely affected, your voting pattern will be recorded and bad things will happen to you. If you're a civil servant or someone who works for the government, you will be found out, and you'll lose your job. Yes, it's pretty scary.

This myth is so well known that my informal polling last week still shows a majority of right-thinking, intelligent, university-educated people actually believing it, even today in the YouTube-Facebook 21st century. They believe it in a way that seems to ask, 'You mean there's something else to believe?'

Now this is very unique among democratic countries in the world. While I understand that this sort of fear may be justifiable in rogue states where there is no rule of law, Singapore is far from being similar. However, the fear that people has of not voting for the incumbent People's Action Party is certainly real, even though the incumbent party has nothing to do with it.

Now, most Singaporeans understand how this fear of being 'caught' voting for the Opposition parties is based on. All voters are associated with serial numbers, and the numbers are associated with the voting slips. This is to prevent election fraud. Not perfect, but quite reasonable. After the votes are counted, the slips are sealed for 6 months at the Supreme Court. They are destroyed thereafter.

A person who believes in the urban legend will ask: so how is my vote secret? Can someone retrieve the serial number against my name, and match it to my vote? The Elections Department is candid about this. Technically, yes! But wait, there's more! This can only be done after a legal decision, say a protest is lodged due to some voting irregularities etc. In the history of voting in Singapore, no such 're-look into the ballot box' has taken place.

To me, that's an easy thing to believe. But for the skeptic/cynic, maybe they need more 'proof' that your vote is REALLY secret. Here we go...

Even IF we concede that someone can slip into the High Court vaults and retrieve your serial numbers among the other 2 million votes (which is itself such a ridiculous idea and really requires extraordinary proof), it's very easy to debunk the notion that there is a systematic system of finding out the voting patterns of INDIVIDUAL voters.

Reason Number One. The political cost of such an operation is just too high. This bears repeating: the downside to such an operation is JUST WAY TOO HIGH. How high? If it's really true that efforts have been made to undermine the secrecy of individual voting patterns using methods that are illegal, the integrity of the PAP will be totally shattered, leading to an almost complete distrust in government. No sensible person, from the PAP or otherwise, will want this to happen because the possibility of a leak is very real and it's not easy at all to keep this a secret, and because...

Reason Number Two. There is just not a lot of motive to dig up who voted for whom. Imagine you are an insurance agent who meets clients in the day. However at night, you're transformed into this top secret intelligent officer working in an unmarked office for a clandestine outfit remotely linked to the government whose main task is to... break in into the Supreme Court vaults, match serial numbers, and find out who Mr Peter Lim staying at postal code 123311 voted for in the 2011 General Elections. Since you're also a reasonable intelligence officer, you'll ask yourself, "What sort of job is this?! They want me to find out who XYZ voted for?! How trivial is this?!"

It is indeed very trivial (i.e., not very important). Maybe it's a little unusual in Singapore to vote for the Opposition, but in the rest of the world, this is very normal. Another angle to this is that it's actually not unheard of nowadays for people to vote for the Opposition. In the last General Elections 5 years ago, the Opposition got around 33% of the popular vote, which comes up to about 360,000 votes. Can we reasonably expect the Supreme Court vaults to be harassed so that some outfit can find out exactly who these 360,000 people are? Of course not! There is no intrinsic value to find out at the individual level who a person voted for. If we're talking about having a tip off regarding a potential terrorist, sure, let's have this stakeout and see who this person is. BUT FINDING OUT HOW THIS GUY VOTED IN THE GENERAL ELECTIONS? Not reasonable at all. Which brings me to...

Reason Number Three. A common understanding of this urban legend is that if you vote for the Opposition, you'll lose your job because it's the way they punish you. A convenient explanation, but totally way off. Let us assume that this is true, that the government wants to punish people who vote the wrong party. (HUH?!) OK, those of us who have punished people, whether it's your kids, or your students know there is a workflow in doing this. You want to punish someone because usually you want them to change their behaviour THE NEXT TIME. So you inform them of their crimes, beat them up, and say hopefully they don't do the same thing again. Simple, right?

Not so simple if you believe in the urban legend! Say I lose my job because I voted for the wrong party. I'll be like, "Huh?! Why did I lose my job?!" I couldn't possibly expect a letter from the authorities informing me that they've broken into the Supreme Court vaults, found my voting serial number, matched it to my voting slip, and discovered I voted for the wrong party. No, they can't send me this letter! You can see where I'm going with this right? I'd have NO IDEA why I lost my job! And in the next General Election, I'd STILL vote for the wrong party!!

Tell me honestly, if you were the planner of this 'expose the voters!' operation, is there any sense for you to carry on? Surely not, any reasonable person can see that. If you want to punish people, you NEED TO TELL THEM WHAT THEY DID WRONG! Couple that with Reason Number One, forget it, it just ain't gonna work!

Every political party in Singapore, including the PAP, and Opposition Parties, have time and again reminded people that their votes are secret. I remember Mr Lee Kuan Yew also urging people to believe this at one point. Democracy cannot work well in Singapore if voters purposely disenfranchise themselves! Sure, there may be ways to use other methods to prevent election fraud without the use of serial numbers. Even so, given the current setup, it is very unreasonable to believe the myth that your vote is not secret.

Your vote IS indeed secret. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise. Now go out and vote wisely next month. May the Force be with you.

Amazon MP3 Store in Singapore

2011-04-02T18:56:00.004+08:00

For many years now I haven't been able to buy any music MP3s from the iTunes store in Singapore (does anyone have any updates? Has the situation changed?) This is another case of customers wanting to give money to companies but they just don't want to take it. Then customers need to try extra hard to make it possible!

Fortunately, everything changed this past week when Amazon launched their new Cloud Drive and Cloud Player for Web. The first major breakthrough is that I'm now able to buy MP3 in Singapore with a VPN. (I couldn't do this previously for some reason.) The second advance is of course the way Amazon has magically revolutionised content delivery when it should have been Apple who's supposed to be doing this. Cloud based music means you can play music anyway with an Internet connection. Buy once, play anywhere. Here's how to buy music in Singapore. Disclaimer: Your milleage may vary, buyer beware, your account could be terminated etc.

Preparatory steps

Buy a VPN. I'd suggest AlwaysVPN who has a very attractive one-off US$8.50 fee, it will last you for years.
Run the VPN. Go to the Amazon MP3 store and register for the Cloud Player service.

How to buy music from the Amazon MP3 store

I'm using the gift card method as I cannot test the alternative. This method means you buy a gift card, and then send it to your email address. You may use a local credit card. You'll then apply this gift card funds to your Amazon account.
Switch on the VPN and buy the music you want.
If they ask you for a credit card, you can use your local credit card. For the billing address, use any US address. This will be quite okay as your credit card will not be actually used. Money will be deducted from the gift card funds instead.
Your music will show in your Cloud Drive. You may switch off your VPN (so that you don't waste it) and then use the MP3 Downloader application to download your music into your PC. You also don't need the VPN to listen to your music using the Cloud Player.
Here's a simplified walkthrough.

Buy your music!

You will be thanked!

You'll see the music you've bought in the Cloud. Play them anywhere with an Internet connection.

Naturally you may want to have a local copy of your music in your computer. The Downloader does this quickly and you'll see your music in iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Everything is seemless!

Happy listening! There're 15 million songs in Amazon's catalogue! Well done Amazon, this is the ideal way to sell music!

Kate Spade Kindle Cover

2011-02-10T22:10:00.011+08:00

14 May 2001 Update: I've bought another Kindle and also another Kate Spade case. Scroll to the bottom.

-----------------------------------

So after my lighted Amazon Kindle cover stopped working recently (see previous entry), Amazon refunded me the cost and I had the opportunity to shop for a new case. I don't know how to call this Kate Spade Kindle Cover... extremely cute? (click = big) It costs US$69.99.

The design has been inspired by the US$325 Kate Spade Book Clutch. A fuller review can be found at Amazon.com . This case is a breath of fresh air... very whimsical!

14 May 2001 Update: Here's the new Hello case and it looks gorgeous. Highly recommended!

Amazing Amazon Service / Paying You To Stop Working

2011-01-25T20:27:00.008+08:00

Recently, my Kindle Lighted Leather Cover's light stopped working. I wasn't sure what the reason was because there were no screws that I could tinker with. The case came with one year warranty so I knew Amazon could get it replaced for free. What I didn't expect was how well the process went.

Firstly, I had to call them, so I switched on Skype, went to Amazon's 'contact us' page, and called the US number. A lady answered and I told her about the problem. What's wonderful is that Amazon's tech support personnel are really out of this world. I've called them a few times and they are consistently nice to talk with. They are not in a hurry, they will listen to you, they will wait (and really wait patiently) for you to provide information.

Anyway I'd done my homework. I told her that I narrowed down the fault to the lighted cover because I'd tested the cover with another Kindle and the light still didn't work. There was a possibility that this other Kindle was faulty, but I reckoned it's pretty unlikely. It was more likely that the cover was at fault.

She listened to me, got the picture, and said she would refund me the cost of the cover. I was floored! No more interrogation? No more 'are you sure you didn't drop it on the floor only to have a car accidentally drive over it?' Didn't I need to send the faulty one back first? She said she would overnight a new cover over, but the colour I wanted was out of stock, so the next best thing would be to refund me the money so that I could buy whatever I wanted. I was told to return the faulty cover and was given an address label to print out and paste on the package. Brilliant!

The story didn't end there. I later realised that the return address label was meant for people in the US, and it had no address printed on it, only bar codes. The customer can just drop the package off at any post office and that's that. So I emailed Amazon about this 'problem', told them I was currently overseas, and could they give me another address label to use so that I could ship the faulty Kindle cover back to them.

A few hours later someone emailed me back.

Hello,

I'm sorry to hear about the problem you are experiencing with this return. In this case, please return the item to our return address below and write back to us with the return shipping charges and we will refund the same to the payment method used in your order. Please write the reason for your return on the packing slip, put the slip in the carton, and wrap the package securely. If you no longer have your packing slip, please write your order number on a slip of paper.

Send the package to:
RETURNS CENTER - AMAZON.COM
172 Trade Street
Lexington, KY 40511
USA

Please write back and let us know what you paid for return shipping so we may credit you the correct amount. Please visit the following link to provide the information we requested....

Wow! They are paying for my shipping! So this has been quite a pleasant surprise because even though I've heard of superlative service from Amazon, I haven't really had the need to use it before. I filled in the form stating how much it cost me to ship the lighted case back.

Update (30th January): I received an email from customer service.

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We're writing to let you know we processed your refund of $6.00 for your Order 104-6085509-7637041.

This refund is for the following item(s):

Item: Kindle Lighted Leather Cover, Burnt Orange (Fits 6" Display, Latest Generation Kindle)
Quantity: 1
ASIN: B003DZ167A
Reason for refund: Account adjustment

Here's the breakdown of your refund for this item:
Goodwill Refund: $6.00
We'll apply your refund to the following payment method(s):

Gift Card: $6.00

Refunds typically complete within 10 business days and appear as a credit on your statement.

The amount credited to your Gift Card balance should be automatically applied to your next eligible order on our website.

Have questions about our refund policy?
Visit our Help section for more information: http://www.amazon.com/refunds
We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Sincerely,

Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
http://www.amazon.com

As expected, everything went well!

***

A question I am curious about is: what on earth is going on?! How does this level of customer service come about? I don't know but I sure will like to. Maybe I'll talk about another company associated with Amazon called Zappos.

Zappos is an online shoe store that's also famous for its customer service; it was bought over by Amazon in 2009. Zappos' training programme for new employees is quite interesting. They want to make sure that every new hire shares their corporate culture, concern for the customer and so on.

Now one way to make sure that happens is to intentionally keep only the people who really want to work in the company. But how about the others? Those who are not so keen to do a good job? You may wish to fire them. Sometimes, though, people need some encouragement, so that's what Zappos management is doing.

In the middle of the training programme that all new employees have to go through, they are given the chance to back out. Some people may have always wanted to work there but after going through part of the initial training decide that Zappos is not for them after all. Here's the interesting bit: Zappos management will pay you to back out! To the tune of US$2000. Take the money and leave, no questions asked.

If we were to apply this to the teaching service in Singapore, it'd be similar to saying to a trainee teacher at NIE and saying, 'OK, here's the deal, you've had a taste of school life. After experiencing a bit of what a 'teacher' is REALLY like, we understand that you may feel teaching is not your thing. So we're giving you a chance to QUIT. In fact, if you back out now, there'll be NO penalties, and we'll PAY you $2000 as a goodwill gesture to compensate for the time you've spent with us. Think about it. We'll ask you again in a few weeks.'

I'm not sure if this will ever happen, but if it did, it'll be very impressive! The idea is to recognise that some people may change their minds, and that it's perfectly all right for them to do so simply because it's best for everyone. The other good thing is that only the truly interested people remain, the ones who don't wish to cash out and stay on.

Perhaps Amazon, after acquiring Zappos, have also taken a leaf out their hiring practice. I won't be too surprised if that's the case, given the ease that my Kindle cover was replaced. For the record, if MOE offers me $3000 today to quit, I won't do it. I think I quite like my job LOL!

Further reading:
Why Zappos Offers New Hires $2,000 to Quit
The policy of providing a let-out after one week has gained worldwide attention. Columnist Keith McFarland explains why it makes sense

Planet-Gazing

2010-08-14T10:58:00.002+08:00

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

~Walt Whitman / Leaves of Grass / When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer

One of the best things about the night sky is that anyone can look at it. While this is quite obvious, some feel that only professional astronomers are qualified to look upwards to the heavens. That's not very true. Anyone can do it, even if you don't understand the mechanics behind the whole enterprise.

The following is from my window on Thursday night. The lovely crescent moon (specially commissioned for National Day) lies just below the bright Venus. Nearby Saturn and Mars peek through the atmospheric impurities, almost invisible to the naked eye but discernible through a DSLR camera on a tripod.

click = big

I have a computer planetarium called Stallarium which I highly recommend. Here are some screen shots that show what the lights are on this night.

Amazon Kindle 3 In Singapore

2010-08-04T21:57:00.107+08:00

1) Updates
2) Preamble
3) How to buy a Kindle in Singapore
4) How to buy Kindle e-books in Singapore
5) Kindle pictures and shipment info
6) Calibre eBook management
7) PDF documents
8) Magazines
9) Usage in strong sunlight
10) Proof of residency email
11) Kindle 3 with Special Offers (NEW!)
12) Past newspaper mentions

Updated 13 November 2011: This post will no longer be updated. I'll continue the discussion at the new Kindle Touch entry.

Updated 28 September 2011: New Kindles! Starting US$79! This will really shake things up. I just preordered the Touch!

Updated 14 May 2011: I've just received the new Kindle with Special Offers. It's only USD$114; pictures below. I've also got a second Kate Spade Kindle case to go along with it.

Updated 24 February 2011: New Kindle advertisement, "The Book Lives On."

Updated 25 January 2011: My Kindle lighted cover has stopped working. Click here to read the refund story.
Updated 19 January 2011: Digital Life has a cover story on e-readers and the Kindle. There's just one thing. Hotspot Shield VPN is mentioned but I don't recommend it for the time being. (click = big)

Updated 17 September 2010: I'm getting reports from folks who are having problems with the Hotspot Shield VPN; it's not working for some reason. Do consider an alternate VPN. Amended buying procedure.

Updated 6 September: I received my Kindle 3! Updated price and took some new pictures with comments.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The book is one of the most ingenious inventions of all time. However, the book wasn't something that was created in one day. It has evolved continually starting with papyrus in Egypt then to Chinese scrolls then to movable type with the Gutenberg press. And it's now digitalised in the form of portable reading devices that allow you to read e-books. The best selling reading device now is the Amazon Kindle.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos just announced that sales of Kindle e-books have overtaken hardcover sales, and will overtake sales of paperbacks in 12 months. I just find that really astonishing. It's one of those things that you've heard about: things happen so fast in Internet time, and we're right in the middle of this revolution.

The next iteration of the Kindle is the new Third Generation device which is now USD139. (I bought the Kindle 2 for USD359 in May last year. What a price drop!) I've just pre-ordered the WiFi-only Kindle 3 after it's first shipment was sold out even before the product is released at the end of this month. I am now queuing in the second wave and will update this post when that happens.

Here are some reasons I've chosen the Kindle 3 instead of other reading devices:
Best online shopping company in the world: Even before the arrival of the Kindle, I've always bought books from Amazon. They are always reliable, have a great selection and website with lots of customer reviews.

Excellent support: Amazon's customer service support is legendary in the industry. I've called them a few times myself and have consistently received the highest level of service. It offers 30-day money back and price drop guarantee and I believe e-books are returnable too.

Best reading device: The Kindle is meant to 'disappear', a design philosophy that is very rarely adopted by product designers and suggests a sublime understanding of how it should be made and positioned. The user interface is intuitive and easy to use. The latest generation has eInk that improves contrast by 50%; very close to real paper, so they say. It's also probably the most user-friendly e-Ink reader.

Largest selection of books: The Kindle store doesn't claim to have every book there is, but my impression is that it does have the largest selection. I recently bought The HP Phenomenon and it could only be found in the Kindle store.

Best Laugh: One of the main reasons why Amazon is my top choice is due to CEO Jeff Bezos. (Just like how Steve Jobs is god to the fanbois lol) Jeff has one of the heartiest laughs I've ever heard. Most reports also suggest that's one of the most down to earth billionaires ever. I am happy to do business with folks like him.

In the meantime, if you're interested to see what the fuss is about, Bezos has a wonderful interview with Charlie Rose and it's really worth a look to see what makes Amazon tick and where the book market is going in the near future. The full 40-minute interview is here.

How to buy a Kindle in Singapore
Here are the steps I use. Do note that Amazon doesn't officially support Kindles in Singapore. There are instances where buyers were found to be not from 'authorised countries' and their accounts were disabled. Your mileage may vary. Caveat Emptor. Other than that, things have worked really well for many local Kindle users.

Create an Amazon account if you don't already have one.
Go to the Kindle page and buy yourself a Kindle. It will be automatically linked to your Amazon account. I prefer the WiFi-only version rather than the 3G+WiFi version. The added 3G isn't really necessary because worldwide surfing isn't guaranteed. Also, additional costs will be incurred for the transfer of documents if 3G (AT&T roaming) is used when there is no WiFi.
Ship it to a third party mail forwarder. I use Borderlinx who will then ship it to Singapore. Comgateway seems fine too though I've not tried them myself.
When you get your Kindle, you need to register it if it hasn't already been registered. After connecting to wifi at home>settings, register it by filling in your Amazon username and password at home>settings>register.

Some preparatory steps to take before buying books from the Amazon US store

Firstly, do NOT buy books using your Kindle's Whispernet/3G/WiFi. Don't buy from Kindle apps too.
You need to buy books using your Internet browser on your computer with a VPN installed. Use a VPN such as AlwaysVPN to make yourself situated in the US, in spirit. You may turn it off later when you're done purchasing. I can share my AlwaysVPN account with local Kindle users. Do not use Hotspot Shield; it's known not to work sometimes.
Exit your Internet browser.
Switch on your VPN. Open your browser.
Go to Manage your Kindle at the Kindle product page.
Go to 'your country'. Change your country to US if it's showing another country. Use any US address.
Buy a gift card with your local credit card, say USD50. Email the gift card to your email address. When you re/ceive it in the mail, apply the gift amount to your Amazon account.
Go to your account, 'manage payment options', and erase your credit card info if you have any credit cards associated with Amazon.com . (Do this also whenever you buy something at Amazon using your local credit card.)

How to buy e-books from the Amazon US store

Again, do NOT buy e-books (even if the books are free) using the Kindle's Whispernet/3G/WiFi.
Ensure that you have sufficient funds in your account. If not, buy more gift cards and apply them to your account.
Exit your Internet browser
Switch on your VPN, open your Internet browser and go Amazon. Find your book and click 'buy now with 1-click', 'deliver to your Kindle'. If you choose to wirelessly send it to your Kindle, you should receive the book in less than a minute. You can also choose to download the file and transfer it to your Kindle using USB. If asked for the billing address, use any US address. Not that this address will not be used because funds will originate from your gift card balance.
Switch off the VPN

6 September update: I've received my Wi-Fi Kindle 3! The cost is USD139 (Kindle 3 WiFi) + USD60 (Kindle Lighted Leather Cover) + SGD 24 (Borderlinx shipping) = around SGD 300. The screen is just totally unbelievable; I can't see the difference between a printed page and the new E-Ink Pearl screen. More pictures below with additional comments. (click = big)

Free Amazon shipping (5-9 days). The shipment arrived at Borderlinx in 4 days, way sooner than Amazon's conservative figure.

The fee charged by Borderlinx was SGD23.42. There were no additional GST, import fees etc. DHL's tracking system is GOOD!

This is quite interesting. First time users of E-Ink will try to peel the instructions sticker from the screen. Problem is: it's not a sticker; it's the screen!

The Kindle Lighted Burnt Orange Leather Cover is a thing of beauty; very well constructed and the light is just fantastic! The price (USD59) is also...uh... quite fantastic!

The browser is fast. Obviously it's meant for casual browsing but it does work quite well.

A comparison between Kindle 2 and 3. There is no contest: the black of the K3 is really much blacker.

11 September 2010 update
Having used the new Kindle 3 for a few days, I must say that it's wonderful device. Because my first Kindle was a Kindle 2 with no wireless (it's a CDMA device for the US market), the addition of WiFi is making a huge difference.

Firstly, I only need to use the VPN to buy books and the book get transferred wirelessly to the device. Also, if you looking for the 'classics' and wish to use sites like Gutenberg, you don't even need to go to the Amazon store. Just use the browser and directly download the .mobi file into the Kindle and immediately read it on your device.

A reader commented on the use of Calibre which allows you to manage your ebooks and to convert them to the Kindle format. The increase in functionality when one pairs up the Kindle with Calibre is astonishing. Calibre (a bit like the old Palm Avantgo) allows you to push rss feeds into the Kindle magazine format and this can be done wirelessly. It works really well!

23 September 2010 update
A reader sent me two PDF documents for me to try out. My impression of the Kindle reading was that yes, it's technically possible to read PDFs, but in reality, due to the size of the screen, it's not very feasible. After my investigation today, I've come to a rather surprising conclusion.

The screen of the Kindle 3 is so much better than the Kindle 2 that even the tiny words show up very well. Reading PDFs is very possible now! All pictures, click=big. The words are a little fuzzy as I wasn't using a tripod when I took these pictures and the lighting wasn't so good. While standard 'text pages' like these look good, magazine pdfs may not because the pages are bigger. YMMV.

At the bottom of this page, there are some 'missing words' which will appear when we magnify the screen or rotate the screen to landscape mode.

Here we see that the dictionary works on an unconverted PDF document.

Here is annotation in action. Highlight the words, then add your own comment.

28 September 2010update
I've managed to buy a magazine sold at the Kindle store just to test it out. The New Yorker costs USD3 a month so it's quite all right. I believe we cannot use gift cards to buy magazines so a workaround is to use yet another (!) credit card called Entropay. This is a 'virtual prepaid' credit card and the commission fee to 'load money' into it is 5%.

If you're not keen on paying for magazines, an alternative is to use Calibre and download magazines/news websites. So far I'm able to download Reader's Digest for free. Anything that is available for free on the Internet can technically be downloaded as an ebook using Calibre. It's very powerful.

3 October 2010 update
Here are more pictures of the Kindle in strong sunlight (click = big). There used to be a 'page-turn lag' issue but it has largely been resolved with the 3.0.2 software update.

The content here are downloaded using Calibre which is pretty versatile in using RSS feeds and turning the content into 'magazine format'.

Scrabble is a new Kindle game that is a joy to play.

This is Nikon PDF directly loaded onto the Kindle without modification.

1 December 2010 update
Some readers have asked for advice on how to proceed if they bought ebooks without using a VPN and are asked by Amazon to provide proof of residency. You can ignore the email. Going forward, you need to use a VPN and then go to www.amazon.com/manageyourkindle to change your country to US. Please use a VPN when buying anything, free or otherwise, at the Kindle Store. If you don't have one, email me, I can share mine with you.

14 May 2001 update:
Amazon has released a cheaper version of the Kindle 3 with Special Offers. It now comes with advertisements. The good thing is that the ads are completely unobtrusive. The screensavers (example below) are also ads now, and they are interesting because they keep changing! It's the Kindle I'd recommend now.

On the main index screen, some space is used for the advertisments. This replaces the space used by 1 book listing.

If you want to see the advertisement, you'll be brought to another page.

--------------------------

Previous related entries: Kindle 2 in Singapore (historical information on how to get the Kindle 2 here)

Unitasking and the Kindle (the concept that's opposite to multitasking, and mentions of Kindle in the local press)

Digital Life article:

The Longest Day

2010-06-06T23:06:00.006+08:00

Every year on this day, Charles M. Schulz's comic strip is dedicated to the veterans of D-Day when 160,000 Allied troops crossed the English Channel and invaded Nazi-occupied France. Seeing Snoopy going off to war gives me the shivers. There were those who needed to fight for freedom.. Even if it took the longest day to do it.

Saving Private Ryan Normany invasion Youtube video

Source: Here, here, here

Scarlet Sky Shots

2010-03-18T16:43:00.004+08:00

We were taking a post-dinner stroll at Marina Barrage last Saturday when we saw a portion of the sky light up. The sky literally brightened with a reddish hue and I guess we must have been pretty transfixed by it because we decided to go on mission to find out what was causing the sky to light up every few minutes or so. We followed the reddish patch in the sky and finally stopped at Labrador Park, where we saw this: We've never seen a flame this big and bright! It was really quite a pretty sight (:

2010

2010-01-02T11:19:00.004+08:00

Hello! It's been a while since anything was posted here so the purpose of this entry is to revive this relatively dormant blog. Happy New Year to all who read this blog! =) May 2010 be a year filled with exciting experiences and wonderful memories for everyone.

Calling All Dawns / Baba Yetu x 12!

2009-11-03T21:38:00.020+08:00

Baba Yetu is the name of the song that is played when one first starts the popular computer game Civilization IV. The music was so good that I wrote to its composer Christopher Tin 4 years ago and actually got a detailed reply. He was the first 'famous' musician who had replied to my queries so I promised myself that I would buy all his future albums from then on.

Well last month, Christopher released his first album called Calling All Dawns which was four years in the making. I preordered it; the autographed limited edition 'CD jacket' even has a serial number!

Anyway, if we say that Baba Yetu has been an epic achievement, then Dawns is Baba Yetu x 12! (There are 12 tracks.) From Chris' website:

Calling All Dawns is a song-cycle in three movements: day, night and dawn. Each movement corresponds to a different phase of life--life, death, and rebirth. In short, it's 5 songs about life, 3 songs about death, and 4 songs about rebirth. There are songs of joy, mystery, and hardship, reflecting the complexity of our mortal selves. There are songs of the deepest, darkest sorrow to accompany us through death. And finally, there are songs of triumph and exultation that bring us roaring back to life, beginning the cycle anew.

The songs are sung in 12 languages. It starts off with Baba Yetu in Swahili, continued by the Japanese 窓から見える (Mado Kara Mieru, Through The Window I See) adapted from a haiku. I'll bet my shirt that this second track is the most majestic piece of haiku ever set to music. It's just incredible.

This is followed by a Chinese piece based on Chapter 40 of the Tao Te Ching. The rest of the album consists of music in Portuguese, French, Latin, Irish, Polish, Hebrew, Farsi, Sanskrit and Maori. My feeling is that the producers of Civilization V already have their soundtrack all ready to go, and they need only to package the game with this CD. It goes so well together with the United Nations wonder in the game.

If you haven't heard Baba Yetu before, here's a video of what you'll see in the game. I really like this version with the percussion. Each time thousands of Civilization IV players start the game, there's nothing much to do except to look at the starting menu and enjoy the moving clouds and awesome music.

Here's a new official video that's released a few days ago. The animation from the game is so good!

There are lots of samples at the website. The most exciting parts are often right at the end so you'll need to buy the CD or MP3 tracks. I hope Chris doesn't need to take four years to come up with another album. But I've a feeling it'll take that long to produce such a powerful and classy album. More epic please! LOL

****************

More Baba Yetu goodness

ScanGauge II Automative Computer On A Yaris / Fuel Economy

2009-11-01T18:32:00.011+08:00

Normally in any car, you'll be able to see how the car is doing by looking at the dashboard. For example, you can see the speed of the car, the engine RPM, the distance travelled and the approximate amount of fuel left. Now, what happens if you wish to know more about how well the car is performing? Is there any way to obtain additional information such as amount and cost of fuel used, horsepower of the engine and other information? Now why would anyone need this information anyway?! In case you're such a person, (I am), the ScanGuage II car computer is the gadget for you! I bought one from Amazon on 29 August and was delivered by vPost on 16 September. It cost US$140 and vPOST charges were around S$24. This is really a fun gadget to have.

Now, you need to make sure that your car supports the OBD2 protocol. According to the documentation, most cars have it, but please confirm this first. There's a port that can be seen around your steering wheel. On a Toyota Yaris, it looks like this. (Click photos to expand.)

This is the cable that's included in the box. It connects the OBD2 port with the ScanGauge.

After you're done with the connection, switch on the car engine and the computer will start to display information. It's updated around once every second. You can see 4 measurements on the screen. It's customisable so you can pick and choose what it displays.

On my device, KPH is 'speed in km/h', FUT is 'fuel in litres used so far on this trip'. 'TFE' is 'average fuel economy on this particular trip, in litres per hundred kilometres'. LPH is 'instantaneous TFE; what's going on now'. Sometimes I swap FUT with CST which is 'cost of fuel used on this trip'. This is very useful when I drive friends around and I need them to pay up for the fuel used. You can become an instant taxi driver this way, great! Unfortunately, my friends invariably refuse to pay when I tell them the fare. They seem to think I'm joking. Usually the cost is around fifty cents or less. Some people are really stingy with their money.

There is also other interesting information such as how long it'll take before the car runs out of petrol.

Usually people who buy this device are part of this 'secret brotherhood' who independently come to the conclusion that they can play a game while driving called 'Save As Much Fuel As Possible Disregarding Reactions From Passengers'. I've played this game ever since I started driving. It's fun and remarkably challenging and engaging. Usually, people look at the typical fuel consumption of their vehicles, say from the US Department of Energy, and try to beat the numbers.

So the numbers say that my Yaris typically does:

29 miles per gallon of fuel (8.1 litres per hundred kilometres or 12.33km/l) in the city
35 mpg (6.7 l/100km or 14.88km/l) on the expressway.

Here are some conversions for my benefit. I've used km/litre for the past few years but it seems litres/100km is the new standard that people use.

The standard ways to improve fuel economy include not accelerating too quickly, planning your route so that you hit as few traffic lights as possible (starting a car from a complete stop uses a lot of fuel) and not driving too fast. Of course there are other considerations and the experienced player will be aware of lots more 'tricks' to save fuel. I usually get 13-14km/l and I'm interested in data which will help me answer a few questions. The ScanGauge is useful in that it can provide information that will help disprove some of my assumptions about driving and saving fuel.

Hypothesis: Try to get to 4th gear as soon as possible from a stop even if it involves braking very soon because you want to make a turn.
Busted: Not necessarily. It's very possible to avoid speeding up the car to 4th gear (60km/h) and still use less fuel. The important thing is to maintain a constant lower speed.

Hypothesis: From Wikipedia, 'the power needed to push an object through a fluid increases as the cube of the velocity. A car cruising on a highway at 50 mph (80 km/h) may require only 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) to overcome air drag, but that same car at 100 mph (160 km/h) requires 80 hp (60 kW).' There is a sweet spot that is optimum. This sweet spot is most likely close to the point where the 4th gear engages, which is around 60-70km/h .
Busted: This is a surprising finding. The sweet spot seems to be at much higher speeds than 60km/h. In fact, while maintaining 90-93km./h, it is able to give me 4 to 5 litres/100km, better than what I get at lower speeds!

Hypothesis: The point is to try to reach optimum speeds for fuel economy.
Quite true: But there's more; the point is not only that, it's also to maintain the speed when I can see that the fuel economy is good. Increasing and decreasing speeds use more fuel that if the car is maintained at the same speed.

I'll continue to monitor the readings and see if I can be more certain of my findings. One additional benefit is that the ScanGauge constantly reminds me to be light on my feet, to imagine that I have a balloon between my foot and the accelerator pedal, to break gently, if not at all (by planning when to slow down or not to.) It makes driving more fun because sometimes I use less than 6l/100km of fuel on the expressway and that is way better than the published numbers. So if you're interested in playing the same game and me and irritating the hell out of your passengers, get the ScanGauge II now! :)

Unitasking and the Kindle

2009-10-07T22:05:00.018+08:00

Click here for my previous Kindle 2 entry to find out how you can own one in Singapore.

24 Feb 2010 Update: Today's Digital Life has another article on the use of Whispernet in Singapore. I do not recommend users to do this. Please read the other entry for more information.

5 Nov 2009 Update: There are field reports of users using wireless Whispernet in Singapore! It's apparent that the telcos are beta testing this. Check the comments section from this other post.

4 Nov Update: Hello people from Digital Life!

Many are comparing the Barnes & Noble Nook with the Kindle. Actually the Nook is the best thing that has ever happened because it ensures that Amazon will innovate much quicker now that it has more competitors. My feeling is that the Nook is quite unusable if you're thinking of buying ebooks in Singapore. B&N requires a US based credit card to purchase books, which we don't have. (It remains to be seen whether they can allow books from the excellent NLB digital library.) They also don't allow the use of gift cards to buy e-books. The screen is exactly the same as the Kindle's. The much touted 'lending feature' can just be ignored because it just doesn't work as we expect it will. You can lend a book to one person only, and that book is unloanable to anyone else forever.

The other thing is about EPUB. The Kindle is able to read the one million free EPUB public domain books at Google Books using a converter called Calibre. 30,000 Project Gutenberg books are also available for the Kindle without conversion. Just download the Mobipocket version of the files. We live in interesting e-book times. :)

28 Oct Update: Here is another newspaper article that appeared in the Sunday Times. Click to enlarge.

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Fantastic news today! Amazon.com announces the new Kindle 2 for international markets. Unfortunately, Singapore is not one of the many countries that the device will be available officially so I still prefer the 'old' version.

A while ago, I had an interview with a Digital Life reporter who was writing on a story about the Kindle. (Click picture to enlarge.)

Today's Digital Life has another short article that resulted from the same conversation I had with reporter Tan Chong Yaw's for his first Kindle article.

This article is about the interesting idea called unitasking which I first came across from articles such as this. Unitasking, as opposed to multitasking, refers to doing one thing at a time.Reading in the Kindle is so appealing because it is able to let us unitask, and this takes away many of the distractions we have when we read. I have come across many accounts of people reading a lot more since they have gotten their Kindles and I reckon one reason this happens is that people are far more focused reading a Kindle than a paper book.

But one may ask: don't we unitask when we read traditional books as well? Yes we do. However, the big difference is that the Kindle manages to take away almost all the possible distractions we have while reading. For me, one such distraction may be the way I hold a paper book. My fingers need 'to do work' to balance the book and to keep the words on the page as equidistant from my eyes as possible. They also need to be able to grasp the thickness of the book properly. When I use a Kindle, that 'hard work' disappears, which is what Bezos meant by the Kindle 'disappearing'. Forget the book; the words are the only things that are left.

Of course, when you add the superb screen and the portability factor, we hit the sweet spot known as the Kindle. Things are really moving quite fast. Hopefully the price of the Kindle DX falls by Christmas!

Credit Card Purchase Verification / Liability

2009-09-05T11:20:00.007+08:00

I recently got a bill for my HSBC credit card and it included an annual fee charge of more than a hundred dollars. So I called them up to ask them to waive it. I always say, 'would it be possible for you to waive the charge?' when really, we all know that this is not only possible, but something that the banks are more than happy to do.

Sidetrack: UOB has an interesting twist to this. When you call them up and get the automated 'press 1 for credit card, press 2 to.. ' they include a 'press x to waive your credit card annual fee'! So I tried it once and it was processed without any human intervention. However, some time later, I forgot that I had done it, and tried it again. The funny thing was that it also processed my second request for the annual fee waiver! So in the next bill, I got more than a hundred dollars in credit for the second waiver. So I called them up and told the person to remove the windfall. She said 'thank you for your honesty.'

Anyway back to UOB. The lady of course was very nice and more than willing to waive the annual fee. However, she also said I needed to use the card at least once. I said, sure. She said, 'OK I'll waive it now.' It's just a formality, I didn't really need to use the card. But just for the sake of completeness, I decided to use the card to buy a $10 gift card from Amazon.com for my Kindle book purchases.

Now this is new. An hour later, someone from HSBC called me up and asked whether I had just used the card to spend at Amazon for a gift card. I said, yes. He said, good, just a routine check.

I like this routine check, especially since we were told recently that we aren't going to get much protection from banks if something goes wrong with our credit cards. (Yesterday, the banks announced that there will be a $100 liability cap if no negligence is involved. I'm not sure of the details, however.) I never worried about my overseas purchases as I'd assumed that the banks would always reverse the charge if it was fraudulent. I'm not so sure now. Hopefully the 'consumer watchdog' in Singapore and the banks clarify things soon.

GMail Updated!

2009-09-02T19:30:00.004+08:00

Those were fun times on the Internets. When Google announced in March 2004 that it was giving out 1000mb of free email to users, it changed everything. Harddisk space then became 'free' and not a cost concern anymore. People became so excited about having so much free space on the Internet.

Google had a limited release of 'invites' for people to try out the service, and they were doing crazy things just to try out the service. I myself paid I think 10USD to buy an invite from someone on eBay, and in turn sold invites to others after I got my GMail account which included free invites for anyone.

The most fantastic thing about GMail was, and still is, its interface. Everything was so seamless, so natural. Emails had a new metaphor: conversations, which strung discreet emails into one coherent whole. Everything was so forward looking and progressive. It became the best email service available.

However, all these years, there had been one feature that GMail lacked, and this omission was most glaring because it was supposedly a very simple feature that most email services provide: the ability to select your email's recipients by choosing from your contact list. It only offered to Autocomplete the email addresses of your recipients which was okay if you could remember how the email looked like, but this was of course not ideal. So I couldn't understand how this supposedly 'simple' technical issue couldn't be solved. Most interestingly, this issue was absent in the Google Apps version of GMail. It's most incredible and just blows my mind.

So it's with great joy that I read today in GMail's blog that they have successfully rolled out this feature for the 'normal' GMail users! At last GMail has taken care of the 'feature request' that people have asked for so long.

From Gmail blog

Amazon Kindle 2 In Singapore

2009-06-23T19:25:00.096+08:00

Updated 4 August 2010. The Kindle 3 is now on sale. I've a new blog entry up to focus on this latest model.

Updated 10 July 2010. I'm now using AlwaysVPN. If you're local Kindle user, I don't mind 'sharing' my account with you so that you can use it for free. To use the VPN, switch it on before you open a web browser to go to www.amazon.com to buy books. After buying books, log out of Amazon by clicking on the 'not Your Name', exit your web browser, then exit your VPN.

Updated 24 Feb 2010: Click here for my other Kindle post 'Unitasking and the Kindle' with additional reports from the local media.

Updated 12 Jan 2010. If you have an international Kindle, please do not use Whispernet in Singapore. Continue using your VPN and buy books using the USB method. This is to prevent the raising of any red flags.

Updated 18 Nov 2009. It seems that vPOST is having some problems with shipping the Kindle, and I won't recommend using vPOST for Kindle purchases. More info at the comments section. Borderlinx seems to be a viable alternative. Please continue to use a VPN whenever you access Amazon.com to buy books.

Updated 7 Oct 2009: Updated book buying procedure with the launch of international Kindles. Singapore is not among the countries eligible for wireless Whispernet. Here is a newspaper article where I am mentioned talking about the Kindle and 'unitasking'.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nov 2007

I used to read on my Palm PDA when I had time to kill. Reading short news articles on the Palm was not much of an issue, but if it's an ebook, then it's a bit more difficult because of the small screen. Still, I managed to read Animal Farm for the first time on the Palm.

More than a year ago, Amazon.com released its first ebook reader utilising a screen from the company called E Ink. A few months ago, they released a second version of the Kindle. I ordered one on 11 May and received it via vPOST on 26 May. vPost is really getting better, the turnaround time is now quite good. The Kindle 2 is not really cheap; it cost me around SGD630 in total (including the very nice 'leather' cover.) Then again, it's not easy to put a price on accessibility, which is what the Kindle has the potential to provide: thousands of books in the palm of your hand.

The screen is breathtaking! It's unlike any screen I've seen before. It really does look like paper, and almost seems to use some sort of alien technology.

The other selling point of the Kindle is the huge numbers of books it can store. Most books don't take up a lot of space, technically speaking. The Bible is around 2 Megabytes. Shakespeare's entire works also take up less than 3 Megabytes, according to Gutenberg.org. The Kindle has a storage space of around 1400 MB, which is more than what we would ever need.

Currently, the Kindle is not intended for non-US residents. I didn't know that this 'problem' could be circumvented until I read an article in the Strait Times by ST Online Editor Joanne Lee who revealed she was having a ball with her Kindle! How was this possible?! She was nice enough to elaborate when I emailed her to ask for more details. The workaround can be summarised here. While we cannot use the wireless Whispernet in Singapore, it is quite easy to buy Kindle books from Amazon.com, download the file into the PC, and transfer it to the Kindle using the included USB cable.

Here are the steps I use. Do note that Amazon doesn't support Kindles in Singapore. There are instances where buyers were found to be not from 'authorised countries' and their accounts were disabled. Your mileage may vary. Caveat Emptor.

Install a VPN* to make yourself situated in the US. You may turn it off later when you're done purchasing.
Go to Manage your Kindle at the Kindle product page.
Go to 'your country' and edit your country if it's not the US. Use any US address.
Go to your account, 'manage payment options', and erase your credit card info if you have any credit cards associated with Amazon.com .
Turn off 1-Click ordering.
Buy a gift card, say USD300 which is sufficient to buy the Kindle 2 and the leather cover. Send the gift card to your email address. When you receive it in the mail, apply the gift amount to your account.
Go to your account, 'manage payment options', and erase your credit card info. Do this step everytime you use your credit card.
Buy the Kindle 2 and the leather cover. You don't need to use a credit card as you have money in your account from the redeemed gift cards. You then need to use a forwarding company to ship the package to Singapore. I used vPOST, but there are some problems with them now, so please don't use them to buy Kindles. You may wish to try Borderlinx instead.
To buy e-books, ensure that you have sufficient funds in your account. If not, buy more gift cards and pay yourself.
Switch on your VPN* (see updates at the top), then open your browser to buy books. (Very important! Amazon is now disabling accounts temporarily if you're from an 'unauthorised location.)
At the page of the book you want, click 'buy now with 1-click', 'deliver to your Kindle'.
Go to Manage your Kindle and download your book onto your PC, then transfer it using the USB cable provided.
*A VPN is something that tells Amazon that you're from the States when in fact you're not. (You're not but your digital presence is, technically.) You need to use this to avoid 'trouble'.

I have not too many complaints about the device. It is a glorious product. Hopefully the price will get cheaper. If Bill Gates' vision is to have a 'computer in every desk and in every home', someone should be aiming for a Kindle (or similar e reader) on every desk in every classroom. Or some variation of it. Maybe that will happen in 5 years time when the Kindle is as common as an iPod. For now, it's the slickest ebook reader around. It won't be too long before competitors start appearing in greater numbers.

The Kindle's design team is Lab126. It's President was/is Gregg Zehr who was originally a VP of Hardware Engineering from Palm. So it seems that after all these years, I'm still reading on a Palm, albeit a bigger one now!

Here are some screenshots of LOTR that I've bought.

Reservist Duty

2009-05-05T20:46:00.001+08:00

I'm on a three-week tour of reservist duty again; it's quite similar to what I did in March. The exercise is quite disruptive especially for people who cannot afford to leave their jobs or who need to go back home. In Singapore, the main fighting force that will be mobilised in times of war will be the reservist, and not the professional army (because there aren't enough of them.) I'm interested to know more about the reservist system found in other countries. If you need to do similar things in your own country, please leave a comment!

Update (!): This in-camp training was featured in the June issue of Army News. I'm seated in one of the trucks at the back. :)

AWARE Saga: Christ Is Neutral Towards Homosexuality?

2009-04-30T22:15:00.006+08:00

Updated: Added and amended last 2 paragraphs. Things have again worsened. On the AWARE website, there's now a .pdf document targetting the old AWARE's so-called focus on homosexuality. It's titled 'AWARE Old Guard hijacked against family values'. Of course, the irony now is that just not so long ago...

On Thursday, the new team said Aware had become too focused on just one issue - promoting lesbianism and homosexuality.

Of course this is quite untrue but sometimes FUD stick. Guess who the people focusing on homosexuality are now! I would like to go back to what Dr Thio said.

Dr Thio said she went on to discover that in Aware's comprehensive sexuality education programme, which is taken to schools, homosexuality is regarded as a neutral word, not a negative word. 'I started thinking, 'Hey, parents, you better know what's happening,'' she said. 'I talked to parents. I said: You better do something about this, otherwise your daughter will come back and say, 'Mum, I want to marry my girlfriend.' 'Or your son will say: 'Dad, I want to marry my boyfriend.''

Thio is guided by her church and what the church teaches. She believes she is speaking for her faith when she says that homosexuality is a sin. For many years now I haven't been sure if that's actually taught in the Bible. Well, there are some verses that seem to suggest this, but on closer examination, they need not have shown anything beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is natural, thus, to ask ourselves the issue that Thio talks about: homosexuality shouldn't be neutral; it should be negative. Anyone that doesn't think so is promoting homosexuality and their daughters will become lesbians and so on. Now, let's just take a look at what an important person says. How about, let's see what the most important person in the Christian faith say about this issue. Surely Jesus Christ has something to say about this topic that the Thio's church deems important enough to have a big link at its top-left sidebar on its website emphasing its position on homosexuality. What does Christ Himself say about this important and urgent issue? Nothing. What?! What do you mean, 'nothing', you ask. Well, it's true, nothing. Christ does not mention homosexuality anywhere in the Gospels. (The Gospels are four books of the Bible that describes the birth, death and Resurrection of Christ. It also contains His teachers and what He said.) If you don't believe me, you may want to read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John yourself and see if Christ mentions anything about this issue. Well, I guess He is also quite neutral about it. If not, won't He have mentioned something about it, especially since it's such a big sin? While Christ does not mention homosexuality, he does have a lot to say about hypocrisy and using God's name in vain.

"Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone..." Luke 11

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye..." "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Matthew 7

I wonder what Thio will say about this? Does she think that Christ promotes homosexuality since He is neutral on the subject and has never spoken about it? Now, it is of course correct to say that just because Christ doesn't mention about something, it doesn't mean that it's right. For example, just because music piracy isn't mentioned by Christ, it doesn't mean we should download music illegally. However, in the AWARE case, we are dealing with a sin supposedly so big that it justified the taking over of AWARE using scorched earth methods. I think the bar we have set ourselves to condemn and discriminate others has become that much higher. People who are interested to do things in the name of God need to really read and see what Christ teaches and go back to first principles. The EGM takes place tomorrow. Good luck to the Old Guard!

AWARE And Obama's National Academy of Sciences Speech

2009-04-29T23:40:00.004+08:00

A week ago, Dr Thio Su Mien came out at the press conference of the new AWARE exco and announced that the sex education program conducted in schools under the watch of the previous exco had the ability to make students become gays and lesbians. Yesterday, the Ministry of Education issued a press statement which essentially destroyed Thio's ridiculous statements.

...Sexuality education conducted in MOE schools is premised on the importance of the family and respect for the values and beliefs of the different ethnic and religious communities on sexuality issues. The aim is to help students make responsible values-based choices on matters involving sexuality....

The schools that engaged AWARE found that the content and messages of the sessions conducted were appropriate for their students and adhered to guidelines to respect the values of different religious groups. The schools did not receive any negative feedback from students who attended the workshops and talks or their parents...

When Thio first made those statements using arguments that seem ridiculous, I was very intrigued as to how this could have happened: I couldn't reconcile it with the idea that Thio seems to be a brilliant lawyer! Or at least I assume that she is one given the fact that she was the first female dean of the Law Faculty at the National University of Singapore. So I wasn't able to fit the role that she plays (as a lawyer) with the assumption that her role usually entails possessing persuasive skills. Her argument are definitely not persuasive to the casual observer.

The only explanation that I could come up with then was that a higher power had replaced the 'lawyer in her'. This was of course her faith, or at least how she interpreted it. One's faith or ideology (depending on your preference), becomes the rock on which all other opinions rest on. Reasonable debates thus gets thrown out the window, rendering the person to make simple mistakes that people at the top of their fields are unlikely to make.

I am reminded just how important it is to separate a pre-determined set of ideology with facts, open mindedness and reasonable thinking; quite similar to what we call science. Two days ago, President Obama gave a speech at the Academy of Sciences when he promised increased investments in scientific research and development. He also addressed a serious issue which was seen during Bush's administration: the tainting of scientific judgement due to the influence of lobbyists and faith-based viewpoints. For example, right wingers like Focus on the Family's James Dobson had for years denied that global warming was happening because it would have been costly to businesses if that was indeed found to be true. A lot of other scientific research was also amended to suit particular ideologies ane political affiliations. This has to stop, Obama says.

On March 9th, I signed an executive memorandum with a clear message: Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. Our progress as a nation - and our values as a nation - are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy.
That is why I have charged the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy with leading a new effort to ensure that federal policies are based on the best and most unbiased scientific information. I want to be sure that facts are driving scientific decisions - and not the other way around.

This is so, so important. I think that what is happening behind all the bad thinking and poor arguments from Thio and other new AWARE personnel can be attributed to a set of prior beliefs and assumptions that they hold. This ideology 'insists on its own way' and doesn't give open mindedness a chance. Instead, dissent tends to constitute a failure of faith. 'I find your lack of faith... disturbing...' that sort of thing. Another inherent difficulty is getting out of groupthink in an 'organised religion'. (Sometimes it's not exactly the organisation's fault in that the leaders haven't really planned it like that; groupthink just naturally happens.) Fortunately though, this does not describe all faith based places. There are churches which are more progressive do not interpret scriptures in similar ways.

At root, science forces us to reckon with the truth as best as we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others force us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every question; indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the mysteries of the physical world, the more humble we must be. Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles, or our faith, but science can inform those things, and help put these values, these moral sentiments, that faith, to work - to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards of this earth.

So, what the previous exco needs to do at the Extraordinary General Meeting Saturday will be to systematically demolish what the new exco have said themselves such as fear scaremongering and misrepresentation of previous work done by AWARE. There is a need for facts that concerns our health, because in matters of sex ed, we're dealing life and death issues. Presenting inaccurate information and holding on to an ideology when the evidence doesn't seem to support it cheapens the value of open inquiry. Science can help 'inform things', let's keep it that way.

Additional reading: Why smart people defend bad ideas.

AWARE: Analysis of Statements From A Representative Of New Guard

2009-04-24T22:00:00.014+08:00

Today has been a watershed day and a sad one as well. For over several years now, I've wondered when religion is going to permeate Singapore society in a significant but not-so-good way. Today is the first time that this has explicitly happened. The national press has started to use the word 'coup' (pronunciation: koo) to describe the taking over of AWARE. The relevation of the coup leader Dr Thio Su Mien is most alarming: she was the one who was sort of behind the whole operation.

Now what I would like to do is to analyse what has been said, and look at it from a non-religious point of view. The reason is that the only way we can resolve this amicably in a pluralistic society is to use plain logic and to be rationale in our discourse. There is enough material apart from the religious aspects that paint a picture of no-confidence on this group of people. The following analysis is based on what is reported in the papers.

Huge Leaps of Logic
Thio spoke of the reasons why she wanted the old management changed.

Dr Thio explained that her concern about the direction that Aware was taking was partly prompted by a letter from a parent who was concerned that the society was promoting a homosexual agenda. He wrote to the Today newspaper in 2007 to ask why Aware's choice of a movie for a charity show was Spider Lilies, about two lesbians who fall in love.

Well, this inference and conclusion seems quite reasonable at first glance, but a little more thought will help us see that this is quite a bad argument and is just not tenable. Just because an organisation shows a movie with lesbian characters doesn't mean that the organisation wants the viewers to become lesbians! I went to research on other charity screenings and found the following.

The SMRT had a charity screening of Spiderman III. From this we can tell that it wants to encourage its customers to swing from place to place instead of taking the train. In addition, it endorses violent behaviours in its customers like smashing into trains and blowing up public structures as seen in Spiderman II.
The NTU School of Art, Design and Media helped to publicise a charity screening of We Want Roses Too, a movie about the 1970s sexual revolution and feminist movement in Italy. A central character of this movie has an illicit abortion. NTU's aim is to try and to influence its students to have illicit abortions. MCYS' Youth.sg portal promoted the same film too. Its aims, obviously, are similar.
HumanTrafficing.org had a charity screening of the movie Lilya 4-ever. Its sponsor was Mrs. Lim Hwee Hua, Minister of State for Finance and Transport. This movie examines 'human trafficing and sexual slavery'. By having this movie screening, humantrafficing.org is trying to promote and endorse sexual slavery among movie goers.
The National Committee for UNIFEM had a charity screening of Take My Eyes. This movie involves a woman who runs away from her abusive husband but later returns to him because she still loves him, only to be beaten up again. This movie encourages and endorses husbands to be abusive towards their wives because, well, their wives will always return to them.
AWARE had a charity screening of Spider Lilies. This is a movie about two women who fall in love and who are lesbians. By screening this movie, AWARE is endorsing, promoting and encouraging the viewers to become lesbians themselves.

Sex Ed
I've written about this before 2 years ago. My concern about sex education that is linked to a particular faith might be less objective. The primary reason might be that the theology (interpreted accordingly) tends to be more important than the disinterested facts. The facts sometimes need to be tweaked to accommodate the theology. This is not good for the consumer because I think there should be full disclosure so that people can make their own decisions. We don't want to lose the trust of the people we mentor. Let's have a look at what Thio says.

Dr Thio said she went on to discover that in Aware's comprehensive sexuality education programme, which is taken to schools, homosexuality is regarded as a neutral word, not a negative word. 'I started thinking, 'Hey, parents, you better know what's happening,'' she said.

'I talked to parents. I said: You better do something about this, otherwise your daughter will come back and say, 'Mum, I want to marry my girlfriend.'

'Or your son will say: 'Dad, I want to marry my boyfriend.''

These parents were flabbergasted, she said, adding that such sexuality education was taking place in the United States and Europe and was not new.

'What is happening in society is that we are redefining marriage, we are redefining families,' she said.

'So I'm a concerned citizen and if people are so ignorant, I think I want to teach them.'

Here we have another series of leaps of logic. I'm not sure why she wants to describes groups of people in negative terms, but let's look at the government's Health Promotion Board website. In the section titled 'Do You (a girl) Really Prefer Girls or Are You Just Different?'

Lesbians are women who are romantically attracted to other women, but it’s never as simple as that. It’s hard to say for certain what makes a woman a lesbian. Some argue it’s due to environmental factors, while others believe genetics determine our sexual preferences.

Are you a lesbian or just not a “girly” girl? There’s no clear cut answer except this − only you would know if you are a lesbian. But being one doesn’t make you less normal. Each human being is unique, with different likes and dislikes.
Source

Now, even the official health advice website is neutral on the topic. What gives Thio the right to paint a negative picture of people who are not like her?

Thio continues.

Pointing out that Aware's programme was already in 30 schools, she said: 'The suggestion is that in this programme, young girls from 12 to 18 are taught that it's okay to experiment with each other.
'And this is something which should concern parents in Singapore. Are we going to have an entire generation of lesbians?'

Yet another strange leap in logic. A central argument that she has is that AWARE is trying to promote people to be lesbians. This statement is really quite ludicrous. How on earth do you try to encourage someone to be a lesbian? I'm a heterosexual. Now, why on earth would a counsellor tell me to try to be a homosexual if I'm not? It just doesn't make sense at all! Now, assuming that there were indeed some counsellor as strange as that, how on earth am I going to follow that advice? "OK, I think you're right, I'm better off being a homosexual person." I just don't see how this process will work. It's just wildly incredulous.

The claim that youngsters are encouraged to 'experiment' also sounds fishy. According to Mathia Lee who is an AWARE sex ed trainer,

What do we teach about homosexuality?
We don’t impose our views. In the first 2 sessions, we explore view points by asking the students what they think. Our aim is to open up students to the fact that there are many different views, and to open up their minds to all these different views so that they can think about it, and make their own choices based on their own personal values.

The bottom line is: respect for each other, even though we disagree. If the students bring it up, we acknowledge that some religions do hold homosexuality as being wrong. But just as we’ve learnt to respect each other’s religion where dietary restrictions are concerned, and not to impose on each other, we can also respect each other’s religious views in the same manner.

Our Program contents?
Part 1: Exploring different views and values — we do not use the terms “right” and “wrong” on any view.
Part 2: Factual info on contraception and STIs — here we do have “right” and “wrong” eg. AIDS can be cured is clearly wrong.

This seems reasonable to me. There seems to be a certain openness, a non-judgemental approach to dealing with people, much like what is painted at the HPB website. Thio has more.

She said that there were many women's issues that needed to be looked into, and cited the need to ensure that retrenched women are dealt with fairly. 'I find to my dismay that Aware seems to be only very interested in lesbianism and the advancement of homosexuality, which is a man's issue,' she said.
She felt this matter had to be discussed, but Aware should focus on going back to look after all women in Singapore.

Now it is fairly obvious that if Thio thinks the way she does, of course she will feel that lesbianism (whatever that means) is the only thing that AWARE is interested in. Our previous analysis has shown this line of thinking to be quite false. A quick check on its website clearly shows that AWARE is also about a lot of things. Another website shows that, on the contrary, AWARE has done nothing much for lesbians in the past two decades.

Hopefully the press will continue to keep an eye on this story. The EOGM is on 2 May. More details here. Check out http://we-are-aware.sg/.

AWARE: Demonstration Of Democracy

2009-04-18T17:51:00.005+08:00

The recent developments at AWARE have been most fascinating. To have an understanding about the official point of view and preference about what we're supposed to think, it's useful to refer to the Straits Times. Today's newspaper is full of stories about the negative aspects of the 'hostile takeover' as well as a negative portrayal of the new executive committee of the women's group. The unorthodox public scolding from the new President's boss DBS bank has also raised an eyebrow or two. Whether this is is just a good news story or whether this is a concerted effort to discredit the new team remains to be seen.

I believe that the new executive committee did nothing wrong per se to get elected. They followed the rules. They planned, they strategised, they got many people to attend the AGM, and they managed to get themselves voted in with their (and other unrelated people's) help. This is how one obtains power; any capable politician knows this.

Most of us are not aware that such a thing can be possible (as seen from the shock expressed by the existing members of the organisation). A change in leadership requires people to vote. Firstly, a lot of locals don't get to vote due to realities of electoral rules. (My father hasn't voted in parliamentary elections for 30 years, for example.) Second, when they do have a chance to vote, they should have some sort of expectation that they might be successful; that some things can, and might, be changed. Usually in this country, that doesn't happen (or at least change happens very slowly). That's one reason for the apathy of young people; they just don't believe that they can do anything to change things.

So, out of the blue, we have this AWARE snafu. A few people who did their homework, obeyed the rules and simply just showed up proved to the rest of the other members who chose to stay at home that change is indeed possible. It's not a mathematical, nor practical impossibility. But more than that, these people who planned the 'coup' at AWARE managed to do something far more psychologically significant. They demonstrated that it is possible to change the status quo, and to do it in just one AGM.

Now, this surely will result in a 'disturbance in the Force', a challenge to our existing paradigm. Do we sit on our lazy butts and wait for others to change things, or do we try to change some things ourselves? Now, one can carry this possibility into national elections, and the thought of it can be a little... disturbing, at least to some. Why might happen if more people thought that it is possible to enact change by voting? This might explain the current backlash against the new executive committee in the official press.

On a different note, I guess this development might be the beginning of the emergence of the right wingers I wrote about 4 years ago. This country cannot really afford this sort of thing, and I'm comforted that the man upstairs probably doesn't want it to happen too. There seems to be an EOGM next month. May the Force be with them...

She Dreamed A Dream

2009-04-15T22:12:00.002+08:00

'I Dreamed A Dream' is a song from my favourite musical Les Miserables. It's a song about hopelessness and sadness; I find it very comforting to listen to.

There was a time when men were kind, And their voices were soft, And their words inviting. There was a time when love was blind, And the world was a song, And the song was exciting. There was a time when it all went wrong... I dreamed a dream in time gone by, When hope was high and life, worth living. I dreamed that love would never die, I dreamed that God would be forgiving. Then I was young and unafraid, And dreams were made and used and wasted. There was no ransom to be paid, No song unsung, no wine, untasted. But the tigers come at night, With their voices soft as thunder, As they tear your hope apart, And they turn your dream to shame. He slept a summer by my side, He filled my days with endless wonder... He took my childhood in his stride, But he was gone when autumn came! And still I dream he'll come to me, That we will live the years together, But there are dreams that cannot be, And there are storms we cannot weather! I had a dream my life would be So different from this hell I'm living, So different now from what it seemed... Now life has killed the dream I dreamed... Les Miserables/Claude-Michel Schönberg/Herbert Kretzmer

Sometimes singing this song results in the most delicious of ironies. The success of Susan Boyle in the talent show Britains Got Talent tells us as much about us (who don't expect less-than-attractive people to sing well) as about how an angelic voice can smash our stereotypes. It is truly amazing to watch, and hear, Boyle sing. She says she wants to sing like Elaine Paige (who sang Memories in Cats). I guess she's well on her way to her dreams now!

Other cover versions...

Straits Times Changes Headline 4 Times Today!

2009-04-14T21:59:00.005+08:00

There are possibly three reasons why I continue to pay money to read the Straits Times online. The first reason is that I want to know what others are reading daily, the second is I want to know what I'm supposed to know, and the third is that I get to experience pure journalistic gems like what has happened today.

In a continuing episode of Stop The Presses, we shall look at an article that is about foreigners who are going to be hired by one of the two new casinos to be opened here. The Sentosa Integrated Resort (IR) seems to be hiring a lot of foreigners rather than locals, and people are seemingly complaining about this. Mr Wang has the full text reproduced in his blog.

The problem is that the title of the article published this morning, "Singaporeans will get most IR jobs", does not seem to indicate what the rest of the article is trying to convey (because Singaporeans will not be getting the most IR jobs, it seems). Coincidentally, it was just today that I explained to my students that a newspaper article's headline is very important. In situational writing, if the exam question requires the student to write a report/article with a particular title, then the rest of the article should be adjusted accordingly. Mr Wang hypothesizes that in this case, the headline was perhaps written separately from the article. The problem was that the article did not say what the headline meant!

Now at this point in time, if I were the reporter who wrote the story, my head will probably just explode. How can I possibly reconcile this intractable dilemma?! So, the only ethical thing to do was to change the headline a few minutes after the first version went online, as Mr Wang suggests. The second iteration of the headline reads "IR jobs for foreigners?" Indeed, I think that the reporter might have been trying to send a coded SOS message out to alert readers: as pointed out by a commenter, he spelt his own name wrongly to accompany the first unreasonable and erroneous headline, only to correct it later to accompany the more reasonable amendment. (This need not be true; I just thought it would be funny if this really was what happened!)

Anyway, the title didn't seem to satisfy some people, and it was changed yet again to "Buzz Over Resort Jobs". I was just checking the STReader, and the title is now "Uproar over reports of IR jobs going to foreigners". I think this is a reasonable headline. At the very least, it isn't factually wrong!

4th Headline

So, what can we learn from this? Well, we learn that it is not easy to write newspaper headlines sometimes! Secondly, the various attempts to change the headline is a story in itself. I hope the reporter will continue to be on the case and will look forward to more updates. It's a most fascinating way of presenting a story!

Background reading: Mr Wang's entry.

In-Camp Training

2009-03-15T23:18:00.006+08:00

I just had my first Army In-Camp Training 12 years after completing my conscription duties. I was expecting the worst because I guess I am so out of touch with military life. Fortunately though, it was quite a pleasant experience (all things considered) despite the 2 weeks of hassle and disruption it has on my work and life in general.

I think generally speaking, Singaporeans do sacrifice quite a bit when it comes to National Service. The maximum number of days that the military can ask people to drop whatever they are doing and to go back for military training (after being given months of advanced notice) is 40 days, which is really a lot of time. I couldn't believe it when I found out this figure recently; I thought it was a typo! Naturally, the support from family and colleagues and work is crucial for this to work out.

During the time I did my 28-months conscript obligations, I served in various places including Infantry, Air Force, and Armour units local and overseas. I didn't get reassigned until 2 years ago when I was posted to 2 People Defence's Force and a unit called Armour Support Unit (ASU), which is under HQ32SIB according to here.

Source

It turns out that ASU is a pretty cool unit to be in because its main vehicle is the V200 which is used to transport infantry troops. The vehicle has big wheels that look impressive and it does travel rather quickly on the roads. More information can be found here , here, here, here, here and here. According to this MINDEF website , it's built by Cadillac Gage and also known as the Commando. A 3-person crew mans the V200: driver, gunner and vehicle commander.

I had the oppotunity to learn how to be the gunner and vehicle commander. During in-camp training, there'll be a mix of people whom you'll get to meet. This is especially true in 2PDF where "we take NSmen from different non-functional units and group them together during their first three In-Camp Training (ICT) stints... In their NSF (conscript) days, they might have been drivers, storemen or instructors of training institutions, but we put them together and slowly mould them into a battalion..." according to a MINDEF writeup. This makes the unit more interesting than usual because of varying military experiences of the makeup of your colleagues.

Another interesting this is the 'leveler effect' of the uniform. Normally we might perceive people by the civilian jobs they do but when everyone is wearing the same thing, people just treat each other the same way whether it's cleaning the vehicle or mounting an 80kg big gun (in their disassembled parts) onto the turrent. People have generally no airs about themselves when it comes to this sort of thing (at least that was my experience this time.)

I was also interested in morale. What sort of attitudes do NSMen (working adults who need to come back for 'reservist' training) have about the whole thing? I'm happy to report that, most of the guys were quite serious about training. They knew that this was a necessary hassle but they also understood that they needed to get the job done. We're all in this together so we might as well enjoy the ride.

How about leadership? Do we feel that our commanders are committed and can be relied in operations? There is a difference between the commanders I encountered during my conscript days and what I see now. It seems that as folks grow older, they also become more understanding and will do the right things, and not just do things right. (Probably the 'thinking soldiers' mantra is starting to have an effect.) The officers and warrant officers all seemed to be very reasonable. They are not overly bureaucratic and they try to help make the best use of our time in camp. So overall, it was quite a good experience and I met many interesting people. I have another ICT in 2 months time(!) and I'm most probably going to revert to my previous job: a logistics/storeman sergeant. This one will last 20 days! If they can only make the training a little shorter...

Update (!): Here's a picture of the last day of my second ICT.

Railway

2009-03-01T21:04:00.006+08:00

KTM railway track in Singapore [Nikkor AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm ]

I am not allowed to run the train,
The whistle I cannot blow.
I'm not the one who designates
How far the train will go.

I'm not allowed to let off steam,
Or even ring the bell.
But let the train just jump the track,
And see who catches hell.
~Unknown disgruntled railway worker

Source.

President Obama!

2009-01-21T21:48:00.002+08:00

Source

I slept at 2am today. It didn’t seem that tiring to stay up this late to watch the Inauguration compared to the 8 dreadful years of the Bush administration. It is a different air that we breathe today. It really isn’t just about skin colour and race. It’s really us, I think, that have changed.

Obama may be the leader of the movement, but because leaders were chosen in this instance by many, many other people, we have this monumental shift in our bearings and our standing so much so that the old era is almost unrecognisable, well as least to me. Who outside America isn’t rooting for America now? And what a huge difference this is compared to the years of wasted goodwill from the rest of the world.

Source

I introduced Obama in three English classes today. Slavery, Lincoln, , Civil War, Segregation, Parks, Civil Rights, Dr King; and the intertwining of Obama’s story. 40 years after King’s death, someone had the audacity of hope to run, and win the general elections, someone who also believes in the same dream, that one day we’ll be judged not by the colour of our skin, but by the content of our character. Obama demonstrated that in the general election. The campaign was masterful, classy, intelligent, competent. It was Presidential.

So where do we go from here? And I don't mean just Americans, but people all over the world. I think it means that we have to change, if we haven’t already. We have to see the world through new eyes, to find new ways of solving our problems. We shall be hopeful. We will tell our kids that anything is possible, for just today, a Black man became President, and thus his Blackness became less relevant. It's his character and competance that is more important. And I think we have plenty of that in President Obama. Yes we can!

The Return of Palm

2009-01-09T20:21:00.000+08:00

A few hours ago, Palm, Inc. unveiled the newest ‘smartphone’, the Palm Pre. After years of stagnation on the ‘features’ front, it looks like they’ve finally got their act together!

Palm is my favourite technology company. Its history has been one fraught with near-death experiences, and after so many quarters of losing money, I think someone decided ‘enough is enough!’ It’s time for the philosophy of Palm to once again produce a device so well thought out that it changes, again, the relationship between man and machine/gadget.

In Version 1.0 of the Palm story, we have characters like Jeff Hawkins who envisioned an operating system so refined that they have a whole set of philosophy marketed as the Zen of Palm. This Zen (interesting stuff, really!) is something that holds fans of Palm together and something that urges them not to abandon the platform even as newer and more ‘advanced’ phones appeared in the marketplace. Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen a ‘datebook’ application implemented in current phones/devices as well as Palm’s version which appeared over 10 years ago, and is still being found in the latest models. Hopefully this Zen does not go away in Version 2.0; and I suspect that it won't.

Version 2.0 has interesting characters too. Irish rocker Bono is co-founder of Elevation Partners that recently pumped US100 million into Palm in this uncertain economic climate. They obviously sensed that something else is quite certain, the awesomeness of the new OS. Palm and Apple also shares a close partnership of some sort, and not just their shared focus on the user-interface experience of their products. I remember that many at Version 1.0 of Palm came from Apple. In Version 2.0, the person who headed the iPod division, Jon Rubinstein, left Apple and joined Palm as Chairman. For years people have speculated what would happen if Steve Jobs really decided to buy over Palm. I think it’s safe to say that what we have in Version 2.0 equals, or exceeds, what Steve would have done.

Anyway, the details of the new Palm pre are here and here. I can’t wait to get my hands on the SDK and redo some of my old but simple applications. Will we see the ‘good old days’ again? Palm’s stock just rose 35% in a day. I think that’s our early answer! More discussion at the Singapore Palm Users’ Group.

The Classic Palm V Advertisement

Happy New Year! / Pandan Reservoir

2009-01-01T14:33:00.001+08:00

My resolution is to start the new year off on the right foot, so I went to Pandan Reservoir this morning and jogged 6km. The reservoir is the world’s most picturesque and largest bodies of fresh water that is shaped like an elephant’s nose. You really need to be there to experience it. It’s around 2km in length. The phenomenon of high and low tides is not observable here, for some unexplainable reason. There are few trees lining the running route, so it’s advisable to go jogging in the early morning or late evening.

Details of the jog is found here. More pictures (not mine) are found here.

Marina Barrage

2008-11-15T23:34:00.010+08:00

Hello (: It's been a long while since this blog has been updated so I guess I'll take the initiative to do so. Jeffrey bought a new camera lens today and we decided to test it out! We decided to go to the recently opened Marina Barrage to take some photos since we heard that it's a pretty scenic place. The photos turned out pretty well and I think Jeffrey's happy with his new lens (: I particularly liked the combination of dark clouds and strong wind because it makes an interesting backdrop. Thankfully, we didn't get caught in the rain because we were only there for a short period of time.

Similar greens

Towards the Eye

Marina Bridge

The Dam

View from Marina Bridge (I love how the blue stands out)

On the Roof

Angled Perspective

Shots of the Main Water Fountain

Oh Jeffrey mentioned that my photography skills have improved a little cos I now know how to capture off-centre shots such as the ones below (:

Marina Barrage is a nice place for walking and relaxing =) I hope that we'll be able to take night shots at this place in future! :)

I hope you're okay with this kind of posts.

News Travel Fast!

2008-08-11T17:43:00.002+08:00

A few moments ago, the postman delivered the latest TIME magazine to my mailbox. I was quite shocked to see the Olympic flame on the cover. Didn't the Opening Ceremony just take place not too long ago? How did the story get written so quickly and then put into the magazine to be posted to subscribers?

Today is 11 August, a Monday. Yesterday was Sunday. Saturday was 9 August; Singapore's Independence Day, which was a public holiday. So the post office wasn't opened that day. If I received the magazine today, technically it means that the magazine was posted to the post office by Saturday afternoon. But that's not possible because of the holiday. So it would have been posted by Friday afternoon instead. But that's not possible because the Opening Ceremony was held on Friday night? I'm beginning to think that news do travel too fast nowadays...

International Conference on Teaching and Learning with Technology (iCTLT 2008)

2008-08-05T23:50:00.006+08:00

I am at the iCTLT conference at Suntec City today. It's always nice to come to conferences where folks get nice food, goodie bags and brochures, and listen to very intelligent people give speeches. Today's Keynote is by the incredibly funny Sir Ken Robinson. I don't know this at first, but Sir Ken was at a Ted.com event and I am just listening to it after discovering he was the guy who gave the famous 'Do schools kill creativity?' speech. There seems to be this idea that education today doesn't really meet the needs of students, or that it, in fact, hinders students in their quest for learning, which is deeply ironic. Coincidentally, I've touched upon similar issues here and here.

More on Robinson's speech later. But first, the new Education Minister Dr Eng is the guest of honour and he gives a great speech (much credit surely goes to the speech writers) to unveil the IT MasterPlan 3. This was the first time I am hearing Dr Eng speak, and I think he may be a candidate to be the next PM. He has a pleasant speaking voice, and his mannerism and speaking style uncannily resembles Lee Kuan Yew. Eng's speech is remarkably forward looking. The MOE HQ people really have some good ideas and they seem to understand that technology by itself doesn't make much sense unless it's integrated well with pedagogy, among other things. I'm not sure of the exact nature of MP3, but it seems that the overall plan is really quite progressive.

Picture by eschipul, taken in Feb 2008

Ken Robinson's speech is titled Creativity and Innovation in Teaching and Learning. The following is a summary/liberal paraphrase of what he said. Education is now at a crossroad; it's in sort of a transition but no one really knows what's going to happen in order for it to solve the problems that we now face. There are no precedents, the issues that we face have never been encountered before.

The worrying thing is this: education, nowdays, seems to squander the talents of students. And students may not be able to know or recognise their talents in class, much less their teachers. Robinson relates an interview he had with Paul McCartney of the Beetles. When asked to relate his experiences at music classes in school, McCartney said he hated them. He was considered too lousy for the school choir. Guitarist George Harrison was in the same class. Think about it: the music teacher had half of the Beetles in her class, and she completely missed it! We are terrible at recognising talent, maybe due to the fact that we only recognise certain intelligences and not more. We don't value 'imagination', but imagination is terribly important; it's the only thing that separates us from non-humans. It's the thing that is able to help us cope with the future, with all its uncertainties.

Robinsons' definition of creativity is the ability to come up with original ideas that have value. The next point is highly intriguing to me. He shows this survey where a longitudinal study of kindergarten kids was done to rate their level of 'divergent thinking', an important component of creativity.

From the age of 3 to 5, almost all of the kids were full of curiousity and unafraid to be bold in their attempts at creativity and coming out with new solutions to problems. By the time they get to ages 16 and above, they are 'dumbed down'. At 25, only 2% of the group show the same level of 'genius' they once possessed when they were much, much younger.

Robinson does an audience survey. Rate your level of creativity from 1 to 10, and then rate your intelligence. I rate mine as 4, and 6, respectively. There seems to be be a disconnect between how we view intelligence, and how we view creativity. He thinks that more educational systems should be tweaked so that creativity becomes something that school administrators will want to promote.

Here's a comparison between what is, and what should/might be. We need to change from the usual buzzwords of conformity and standardisation to a more flexible way of thinking. To be more diverse and customizable. More stuff can be found at John Connell's blog.

The next Keynote speaker is Mitchel Resnick whose talk is on 'Sowing the seeds for a more creative society. His team was behind the development of Lego Mindstorms.

He introduces this awesome Mindstorms-esque way of visual programming media elements such as graphics, sounds, and videos. It's called Scratch, and I've never heard of it until now! It's a really deep sandbox that just blows me away.

The picture belows shows some sort of interaction between Scratch and Second Life. Finally, visual programming in SL!

The name 'Scratch' comes from the way musicians sample music from other performers to incorporate into their own work. Rather than call it 'stealing', software like this emphasize collaborative work as the building works can easily be shared freely with others and modified.

Day 2 of the conference is tomorrow...

BlackRapid R-Strap RS-1

2008-08-03T09:01:00.014+08:00

I've always been interested in the way bags/backpacks are designed, especially how they handle heavy loads. Maybe it's due to the fact that after I got sort of totally 'numb/paralysed' in my upper arms after walking 8km with a fullpack when I was in the army and got 2 months medical leave.

In backpacks like those used in backpacking trips, the idea is to transfer the load from the shoulder to your hip (so that the shoulders won't feel much weight.) I have the Osprey Aether 85, and it works perfect. I feel I'm carrying next to nothing even when the pack is almost full. For everyday backpacks, I'm quite surprised that the design of the carrying strap makes a difference as well. I have the Osprey Talon 22, and somehow the engineering magic that goes in the construction of the material of the strap plus the way they are angled over the shoulders really make a difference in how comfortable the whole package feels. I don't feel as comfortable, for example, with Deuter backpacks, which I've used for many years.

For the camera, there is a similar problem. For over 400 years, the usual way a person carries a camera is to sling it around the head and shoulder, resulting in a sore neck and uncomfortable posture. Some manufacturers try to mitigate the problem like padding the strap like OP/TECH's products. However for cameras, there's an additional problem: dangling straps that will get in the way of the cameraman, especially when shooting in the portrait format.

I've recently found a seemingly great alternative called the R-Strap and decided to buy it to try it out. It costs USD44 and the postage to Singapore costs USD10. I ordered it only on 22 July and received it in the mail 7 days later. Very quick!

Strap with the MB-D10 battery pack, which is normally attached to the Nikon D300 that is not shown because I'm using it now to take this picture

You can look at the videos on the website to see how it works. I field tested it two days ago, and it works great! The feeling of 'weightlessness' as compared with the other carrying devices that I have is evident because the camera is slung across the body. (Neck strapping the D300 with a battery pack and long lens is not feasible for any long period of time.) There are no more dangling straps (and the frustration that dangling straps cause is more than what I'm able to describe here), and the camera is able to get out of the way when the shoot's being done. It's shocking how no one has thought of a camera strap design like this before... great stuff!

October 2008 Update(!): If you are in Singapore, the RS-1 is now available from Cathay Photo. It costs SGD71.

Hokkaido

2008-06-29T09:47:00.005+08:00

The summer after the drawing class I was in Italy for a science conference and I thought I'd like to see the Sistine Chapel. I got there very early in the morning, bought my ticket before anybody else, and ran up the stairs as soon as the place opened. I therefore had the unusual pleasure of looking at the whole chapel for a moment, in silent awe, before anybody else came in. ~"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"/Richard P. Feynman

I was in Hokkaido with my family earlier this month, and had the chance to visit the hot springs at Noboribetsu. One popular location is called Hell's Valley (Jikokudani Valley) The tour group arrived at the place in the afternoon and it was quite crowded. We were lucky to be staying at a hotel a few hundred metres away and the next morning I decided to do what Feynman did and went back at 4am (the sun rose at 3am) to have the whole place to myself. 400 pictures here; some good, others not so good...

POTUS

2008-06-04T22:17:00.001+08:00

Source: CNN

16 months ago... seems just like yesterday. 8 years since the Bush presidency, one of the few things that has kept me angry for a long while, and that's an understatement. At some point, it's going to get better, for the world, at least.

I had some hope then that it would not be too unreasonable to expect the improbable. At some point, America's going to turn up someone; someone that represents the best of what we expect from America. Someone who has the nuanced intellect, humility and humanity that the world needs right now. (I got kind of sold on Obama when at the end of one of the debates with Hillary, he stood up before Hillary did as a mark of respect for her, and then pushed in his own chair as he left the table.)

From now till November, it'll be dirty-tricks galore. How dare Obama rock the boat! And I really believe that this time, it'll be different, that people will see through the game. Oh, how I hope... Go Obama!

Speedlight Experimentation

2008-06-04T20:25:00.003+08:00

So I've been experimenting with the SB-800 speedlight. My book says that directional light tends to be make a picture more pleasing to the eye, though I'm not sure technically that is the case. Anyhow, I've tried to make the light more directional by using the SB-400 to 'command' the SB-600 described in a previous post. Here's Jan cooking some nice pasta and spamming.

Many People Listening To Obama

2008-05-19T18:19:00.006+08:00

75 thousand, or thereabouts, at Portland, Oregon. Whoa!

Source: Washington Post and DailyKos

Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS Watch

2008-05-18T23:55:00.006+08:00

2009 Update: Amazon does sell this now.

I recently misplaced my Forerunner 305 at home under mysterious circumstances. The timing of my loss was quite good because Garmin decided to release a new version of the Forerunner series around that time so I decided to get it. This is the first Garmin GPS watch that actually looks like a normal watch! (The others are moderately big and not as sleek.)

Amazon.com still doesn't sell it at this time, so I got it from REI.com. I ordered it online on 26 April, and the package arrived at my home in Singapore on 7 May via vPOSTUSA. vPOST seems to be getting better nowadays with a slicker reporting system and faster turnaround of around two weeks. (Click on all pictures below to see larger versions)

The second box contains the SB-800 flashlight from amazon.com. It's good to consolidate your vPOSTUSA purchases to save some money.

This morning I cycled around 37km along the PCN with Jan. The pictures below show the comparisons between the Cateye cycling computer which relies on the circumference of the wheel to get the distance travelled and the 405 which relies on the GPS satellites to do the same. As shown, the difference is about 200m over 37km, or around 1%. That's good enough for me!

This shows my heartrate; it's now 100 beats per minute. I didn't need to get the version that has the heartrate monitor because I can still use the one that came with my previous Forerunner 305.

This is the Virtual Partner screen. It's great for running when you don't have a running companion and just need an imaginery friend to keep you company or to pace you using some target timing or distance that you input into the watch.

The above two screens show the GPS satellites' accuracy. The SiRFstarIII chip is again found in the 405 according to wordings found on the box, so thick foliage shouldn't affect the signals too much.

This is a view of some of the various menu items that are available.

A very interesting feature of this watch is the way the menus are selected. I don't know of any other watch that uses this 'iPod' like way of selecting menus. There are only two hard buttons on the right, and four 'places' on the bezel to select the menus. To select 'menu', you just put your finger at six o'clock. To select items within the menus, just do circular motions on the bezel the same way you operate an iPod! It's quite incredible!

After you've jogged/cycled, the information is stored in the watch. To transfer the info into the computer, you plug this USB stick into to the computer, and the data will be synced wirelessly and automatically. This feature is powered by the very cool ANT+Sport technology!

After the data is downloaded, Garmin Training Centre will launch and you can look at the nice graphs.

There's a built-in battery and you can charge the 405 using your computer's USB port or the supplied wall adaptor. This charging clip attaches to the watch and charges it. (The 100-240v wall adaptor supplied has a plug for the US. If you aren't in the US, just use one of those industry standard plug for your region and fix it to the customisable plug.)

The design of the 405 is really very pretty. If you need to know how far you've run or cycled, there's no better buy than this. For more info, look at Garmin's website or their blog.

And oh, this is my road bike. :)

Nikon D40s, D60 With Speedlight Commander Feature

2008-05-11T20:43:00.008+08:00

Most Nikon D40-series and D60 owners would know that they own the best DSLR cameras in the market at their price ranges. However, one of the more important things missing in these models has to do with light. These cameras have built-in flashlights. Owners can also buy additional flashlights (Nikon calls them speedlights) such as the SB-400, SB-600, and SB-800. The limitation is the lack of 'commander mode'. This means that we cannot put the flash somewhere else (i.e., remote wireless mode); we need to attach it to the camera itself. (Using a flash off-camera allows for more creativity in setting up the picture.) The only way to do this, it seems, would be to buy the SB-800 which can itself be configured to become the 'commander' to command additional off-camera flashes. I just came across something totally fascinating that changes this! Having recently bought a SB-800 (from Amazon.com at around SGD$150 less than the local price), I wonder if I have to sell my SB-400. It is sort of redundant and I can't really use it to 'command' the SB-800. It turns out that the SB-800 has a 'little known' 'feature', i.e., it can be used as a remote flashlight, to be 'commanded' by flashes of light by other flashlights. And in our case, the humble SB-400, or the built-in flash! The feature is called SU-4 type settings. (The SB-600 doesn't have this feature.) So I tested it out, it works beautifully! Two lights are so much better than one. So the way to enable these three cameras' commander mode is to cheat a little: by buying the SB-800! Now I can use the SB-400 as a bounce flash, and it will in turn fire the SB-800. More info from Strobist and Nikon.

Obama Desktop

2008-05-10T18:54:00.007+08:00

I was just thinking the other day about how we're going to have the worst President of the United States, and probably one of the best Presidents of the United States, back to back! And my colleague said it takes the worst to bring out the best. Oh, happy Mother's Day, Senator Clinton...

There are lots of new downloadable material from the website!

Today's National Education mention: The words above the eagle says "E Pluribus Unum". Out of many, one.

School Choir

2008-04-05T12:03:00.006+08:00

"When I'm President, we'll rally this country to the cause of world-class education. That means putting our kids on a pathway to success with universal, quality, affordable early childhood education. That means paying our teachers more, and making sure they're not just teaching to the test - but teaching art and music and literature..."
~Barack Obama/30 Jan 2008/Denver, Colorado

The school where I spend most of my time at has a new choir, and they performed tonight at the annual awards day ceremony! I think it's always quite fantastic when teachers step up to the plate and create a new musical group, such as a choir where many people can take part at the same time.

I think music changes people for the better, and bring about a semblance of the divine to a place that's usually uninteresting and dry, which was what happened tonight; the school foyer became a stage that almost felt unreal, with first-time singers attempting to do something that few probably have the privilege of doing...

Teaching art, music and literature... what bold notions in a country that doesn't reward such pursuits which bring in 'concrete results'. Obama mentions the inherent contradictions in matters such as these. 'Pathways to success' is greatly determined by 'succeeding in tests'. But is it possible to not only teach to the test, but go beyond it, as he suggests? Maybe the answer lies in the school choir...

Microsoft Worldwide Telescope

2008-03-29T22:03:00.007+08:00

I think I'm a little late to the game with this one. There was this piece of news regarding Microsoft blogger Scoble who started crying after viewing this new technology from Microsoft. It had something to do with telescopes that were online so that people can use them to view the universe on their computers. I wasn't totally surprised with his reaction because the first time I saw Saturn on a couple-of-inch refractor telescope that my grandfather gave me many years ago, I didn't cry, but I gasped. It was pure beauty, and quite indescribable. So I just came across a fascinating presentation of this new Microsoft intiative, and now the new website is also up. I originally thought that this was a little like Google Sky, but it seems that the WWT is much more than that. Truly exciting; it will launch in Spring 2008. I've been researching for a few weeks now to get a telescope. I want to see Saturn again. I've narrowed down my choice to this, and I may order soon to take advantage of a discount with vPOSTUSA and also the astonishingly weak US Dollar. Clear skies!

Scarlett Johansson: Yes, We Can

2008-02-03T21:25:00.000+08:00

My favourite actress Ms Johansson can sing too! The video is produced by will.i.am, a Black Eyed Peas' singer, and directed Jesse Dylan, son of Bob Dylan. Oh the times they are a-changin'...

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation. Yes we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom. Yes we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness. Yes we can. It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land. Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can. We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea -- Yes. We. Can.

Borders 40% Discount Coupons

2008-01-30T22:25:00.000+08:00

Borders is offering yet another substantial discount; this voucher is redeemable at the Parkway Parade branch.

As usual, if you with to buy more than one book, just print out a few vouchers, queue up to buy one book, then queue up again to buy the second book. Repeat if you want to buy more books. Valid till 10 February.

Obama Wins South Carolina!

2008-01-27T20:07:00.000+08:00

Test posting using a Palm Treo 680.

Obama's new speech can be found at Youtube. There is hope for the world yet!

(Added later)

Factory Owners And Workers: Who Is Worth More?

2008-01-20T00:37:00.000+08:00

"I'm not running for President because I read something in a book. I'm not running for President because some political consultant told me what I'm supposed to say. I'm running for President because of 54 years of my life, I have believed to my soul that the men and women who worked in that mill with my father were worth every bit as much as the man that owned that mill." ~John Edwards, 'Mill' ad

I've always liked the rhetoric found at the Singapore 21 website. It claims that 'every Singaporean matters.' The cynic would say, sure, every Singaporean matters, but some matter more than others. :) As I said in my last entry, we need more emphasis on this sort of thing, not less. And we can't just say it, we should act upon it, if possible... John Edwards nearly became US Vice President four years ago. He's trailing behind Obama and Clinton right now, but will be giving those two a run for their money. Go John!

Obama On National Education

2008-01-19T23:30:00.000+08:00

"In lines that stretched around schools and churches; in small towns and big cities; you came together as Democrats, Republicans and Independents to stand up and say that we are one nation; we are one people; and our time for change has come." ~Senator Barack Obama, Iowa, 3 Jan 2008 (text)

A few hours after Obama victory at Iowa two weeks ago, I watched his speech on Youtube, and sat stunned as he talked about 'one people, one nation', amongst other things. It just seemed incredible to me at that time how he was just getting better and better at his speeches. This guy sure doesn't look like a politician. Politicians aren't supposed to be hopeful and uncynical. Politicians aren't supposed to make Youtube viewers sob just a little bit... As I thought more about the Obama movement and how parts of his speech are similar to our own National Education pronouncements, it suddenly dawned on me that those of us in Singapore who don't really like 'NE', and wish to see it being reduced in schools might have gotten the thing backwards. It now seems to me that far from reducing NE, we should be actively engaging in it because there is still much to be done. But it can only work when we are honest with people, when we say it like it is, when we acknowledge the intelligence of the population, that 'together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things', as Obama proclaims. Indeed, we can, as one people, and one nation.

Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network

2007-12-16T16:30:00.000+08:00

The new 42km Eastern Coastal PCN for cyclists, runners, roller bladers and walkers just opened a few days ago, so this morning Jan and I went to check out the 'scenic coastal stretch' section of the PCN . The almost 8km of road that runs parallel to the airport runway is just fantastic! Too bad I didn't bring a camera. We started at the MacDonalds at East Coast Park, cycled to Changi Point Ferry Terminal, and back. The round-trip was 37.96km according to my GPS.

I think NParks is doing good things with this cycling path thing. I still dare not cycle on the roads, so more power to those bike path builders! (Click pictures below to enlarge.)

Data taken with a Garmin Foreunner 305. Conversion to Google Earth .gpx data done with TCX converter.

Source: Sunday Times, 16 December, 2007

Borders 30%-40% Discount Coupons

2007-12-14T10:57:00.000+08:00

I just got an email with these discount vouchers. Go here and here to print out the vouchers. According to the terms and conditions, you can print as many copies as you want (although you need to rejoin the queue to make yourself a 'different customer with a new voucher'. You cannot photocopy the vouchers though, you need to print it. But what happens when my printer is also a photocopier?! haha...

In other news, Kinokuniya 'privilege card members' can get a 20% discount till the end of the month.

NCDCC Officer Basic Course

2007-12-04T22:44:00.000+08:00

I have the very good fortune of being given the job of helping another teacher start up a new student uniformed group in our school called the National Civil Defense Cadet Corps. Just like the NCC is associated with the army, the NPCC with the police, the NCDCC is affiliated to the Singapore Civil Defence Force, the home affairs agency in charge of firefighters, paramedics and the urban search and rescue folks. The three-week OBC course ended last Friday. It was too fun...

First week highlights: 1) Tying knots and lashes; the basic scouts stuff. The thing about knots is that I'm so bad at it because I'm not good at the spatial aspects of it. I can copy the steps pretty well but if I use a rope of a different colour than the one I use to practise, I tend to get lost. The other disturbing thing is that I have no idea how knots work! Why do they only work when all the steps are done exactly? My preliminary findings are that knots work using friction, and depending on the way the knots go it and snake out, the friction of one part of the knot is able to assist and reinforce another part of the loop. I'll try to figure it out eventually.

2) Foot drills. Although I was a logistics sergeant in the military, I haven't gone back for follow up training and have mostly forgotten the commands. Foot drills in Singapore are conducted in Malay because it is our national language. I do not know Malay so this online dictionary is quite useful for me to check out individual words of drill commands.

3) Firefighting at The Funace, visits to Central Fire Station and HQ SCDF. The SCDF has a training school called the Civil Defence Academy and there's a fire fighting facility called The Funace (the white building below). This building can break out into fire on command, and on each level a different scenario is simulated, such as apartments, offices, karaoke...

Here's a 4s clip (taken by our course organisers) of the karaoke lounge we went to. I think this simulates a flashover, though I'm not sure. We were told to squat because of the immense heat. I stood up to feel the 300 degrees flames, but went down quickly. The heat was intense and unrelenting. It was also very beautiful. Real firefighters have to wear their protective suits and train here for around 30 minutes. I can't imagine how they can do it. Here's a clip of the spreading fire. In the last second of the clip, I can be seen almost standing at the top left corner, contrary to others' advice... I wanted to feel the heat!

We visited the Central Fire Station, this particular one is the 'classic' fire stationjust across the street from Funan Centre. The Commander there told us that all fire stations in Singapore except the one at Jurong Island are open to the public every Saturday morning. They host lots of foreigners with their kids in tow, but unfortunately locals don't seem to know this, so he asked us to help publicise this open house. Here's a video clip of firemen sliding down the pole.

We also visited the HQ SCDF bunkered control room where emergency 995 calls are being directed to. The 'operators' seem very patient and nice, especially when lots of calls are irrelevant calls, intentional or otherwise. For non-emergencies, please call 1777.

2nd week highlights: 1) 3-day Adventure Training Camp at Camp Resilience, Pulau Ubin. One thing about going camping nowadays is how much well maintained the facilities were compared to say 15 years ago. We had keyaking on the first day, but the really fun stuff was the second day when we had to tacket the low and high ropes obstacle course. This thing about being afraid of heights is quite new to me because I never knew I had a problem with heights until a couple of years ago at Juneau, Alaska where I was walking along this road in the small town and came upon a bridge that spanned a valley with the most magnificent river gushing beneath it and huge mountains on the other side, and my knees suddenly gave away involuntarily and I wasn't able to cross the bridge. Since then, I've been interested in how this 'heights' thing works and whether I can circumvent my problem. And I more or less nailed it by reasoning how the height per se does not make the activities any more difficult. The Leap of Honour and Pamper Pole was great; I managed to jump and hold on to the trapeze bar. The trick is to start doing a pull-up the moment the hands have grabbed the bar.

2) Back at the CDA, we attended a CPR course. Now I'd done the course conducted by the Red Cross. The interesting thing about the one at CDA is that their Laerdal manikins come with a device that measures pumping rate and ventilation volume and speed. We had to repeat the procedure until we got everything right to pass the evaluation test. What this does is that fatigue and emotional stress is more sufficiently simulated, resulting in more realistic trauma on the part of the rescuer.

3rd week highlights: Breathing Apparatus maze! This was super fun (and only because we were not rescuing real people.) We had to don a mask, plus a scuba diving tank lookalike.

Thereafter, we had to go into this 'enclosed space' maze below (source); the operators can simulate the maze to be filled with smoke, raise the temperature, or create pitch black conditions.

The other highlight this week was exposure to CS tear gas! Here we were donning chemical agent suits and then led to a room where CS gas was released. The protective suits worked, and then we had to remove our masks and that's when the choking started. It was a awful burning sensation and we all had to be led out because everyone was crying and became quite disoriented. Another traumatic experience... but it was just too fun...

So that's about it. There's a firefighting course later next year; hopefully I'll have time to go for it then... ;p

What Is Good Writing? (Episode II)

2007-12-03T20:17:00.000+08:00

Straits Times columnist Janadas Devan has written a follow up to his first article on 'good writing.' (Click here for Part 1.)

Allowing thinking through writing By Janadas Devan ONE can never predict the effect of any article one writes. Thus I was surprised by the number of e-mail and blog entries that a piece in this space, 'Good writing is not about sticking rigidly to fixed pattern' (Oct 29), elicited. I had argued in that piece that the thesis-proof-conclusion model of the expository essay is not the only model of good writing. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find this model informing the writings of the great essayists of the past - from Montaigne and Bacon in the 16th and 17th centuries to Shaw, Wells, Russell, Forster, Woolf, Huxley and Orwell in the 20th. If the chief purpose of the essay form is to 'think through writing', I had suggested, this model may have little relation to how minds actually think. A few students wrote to express their relief on reading this. 'I knew my creativity was being curbed,' said one. I replied by gently suggesting that she do as her teacher says. After all, The Sunday Times will not be marking her papers. There were also many thoughtful responses from teachers. Some agreed with me, some didn't. Among the former, there was this from a committed young university teacher: 'I often give my students more room for creativity than say their JC teachers would allow them. Initially, I thought this would be much appreciated, but I was wrong. They didn't quite know what to do...and repeatedly insisted: 'Can you tell us what the question is?' There was no question per se because the point of the assignment was to encourage them to form their own questions, and explore the implications and possibilities in the process of writing.' This teacher did favour the thesis-proof-conclusion model for what she called 'critical analysis papers', but found her students unable to 'break' from it to explore questions creatively. In short, they found it hard to 'think through their writing'. Mr Jeffrey Yen, a secondary school teacher, wrote a thoughtful piece on his blog (jeffyen.blogspot.com) on the difficulties teachers face. 'One has to recognise the usefulness of traditional writing structures; it helps most students formulate their ideas logically,' he wrote. Having a 'template' to follow helps students organise their thoughts, he argued. Though teachers should encourage their students to be creative, the 'template' makes marking examination papers easier, he pointed out. These are all valid points. Certain realities have to be accepted: There are examinations; examiners do look out for certain things; not all students have the basics right in order to be creative in their writing. A 'template' can indeed be a useful pedagogical tool to help them organise their knowledge. But in accepting these realities, one should also account for other facts: There is no one set model for the expository essay; there never has been. Indeed, the so-called 'traditional model' is not in the least bit traditional, for no major figure in the 400-year tradition of the essay has followed it faithfully. As one Forum writer, Mr Jason Erik Lundberg, a university teacher of English who took strong exception to my piece, acknowledged, the 'traditional model' is really a 'student' model. By all means, start our children off on bicycles with training wheels: Introductory paragraph - thesis statement; second to penultimate paragraphs - one point each to prove the thesis; concluding paragraph - hip, hip, hurrah, thesis proved! But why pretend that riding a bicycle with training wheels is the same as riding a bicycle? I taught expository writing for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s at the college level. I found the thesis-proof-conclusion model encouraged my students to write formulaic reports. They were not encouraged to argue and think for themselves. They were encouraged to set out, display, pre-packaged information: report, not argue; disclose, not discover; regurgitate information, not 'think through their writing'. And I found that this model tended also to produce a good deal of cribbing of the authorities they had read. So I decided to focus on their arguments: What precisely is the point you are trying to make here? How do you get from this point to that? What's the connection, the logic? What is it that you are driving at? What is at stake? It was certainly harder work than marking according to a formula. But the reward was also greater, for my students wrote more interesting essays. Sometimes they began the 'traditional' way, with a thesis statement in the first paragraph - 'the world is round'. Sometimes they began with a question - 'can the world, by any chance, be square?' And sometimes they began in medias res, in the middle of things - 'standing here, in the plain in Spain in the rain, the world appears flat'. I didn't particularly care how they began, as long as the bicycle they rode got somewhere, the route was instructive and interesting, the cyclists didn't fall off a cliff en route and the entire journey exercised their minds and mine. Some readers wrote to me wondering if only great essayists - a Bacon, an Orwell - can 'break the rules' profitably. Firstly, there is only one rule: Argue logically. Secondly, there is no need to wait to be admitted to the Tour de France to ride a bicycle without training wheels. Consider Robert H. Frank's The Economic Naturalist: In Search Of Explanations For Everyday Enigmas. I wrote about the book three months ago. A distinguished economist, Prof Frank also teaches writing at Cornell University's Institute of Writing. He had his students find for themselves everyday economic puzzles to solve - 'Why do many bars charge patrons for water but give them peanuts for free?' for example; or 'Why does a new car costing $20,000 rent for $40 a day, while a tuxedo costing only $500 rents for $90?' - and write about them. He collected their essays in this book. Not a single piece in the collection followed the thesis-proof-conclusion formula. And yet they were all models of clarity. None among them a Bacon, the students produced useful pieces because they were allowed to think through their writing. That is the best way to teach writing: Encourage students to think for themselves; encourage them to use their writing as a tool for thought and expression, a tool that they can use. Why would students want to learn to write well if they see no purpose in it? Insisting on the template for every occasion, for every variety of essay - way beyond the training-wheels stage - is of no aid in giving them a purpose in their writing. Finally, let me end with a thesis statement: The purpose of 'essays' is contained in the word's etymology. The noun 'essay' derives from the Old French essai, 'trial'. Its original 16th-century meaning in English was 'an attempt, an endeavour'. The verb 'essay', meaning 'to test the quality of', 'is an alteration of assay, by association with Old French essayer: this is based on late Latin exagium 'weighing', from the base of exigere 'ascertain, weigh',' as The Oxford Dictionary Of Word Histories explains. Essay: to weigh facts; to attempt an argument; to ascertain and probe; to place thought on trial. The template - thesis-proof-conclusion - tends to squelch the trial phase. It encourages students to jump straight to judgments without trials. It misses the point of this extraordinary invention, the essay - a trial in writing. 2 December, 2007

I haven't explicitly known that there is such a thing as 'thinking through writing', but on hindsight, I reckon I've done that numerous times when writing stuff that is not prescribed homework, i.e., writing that is done online. I'd finish a blog entry or word journal entry, and the results would be hardly what I'd expect when I started the article. Writing then becomes exploratory; a process, as they like to call it. So perhaps it makes sense for us to encourage students to write that way to improve their cognitive and reasoning abilities. Insisting that teachers 'teach to test' might not be the best idea. Eventually, though, we'll hit the thing that most of us dislike: exams. One needs to quickly find a thesis, stick to it, and complete the essay in one and a half hours. There is not much time for exploring, so the 'template that limits creativity' does help in this regard. I'm now thinking that this way of writing seems to be a little similar to inter-school debate competitions. In such debates, participants are forced to accept, and argue for, positions that might be totally opposed to what they personally believe in. They are given a position (either for or against, a certain point of view), say, an hour before the start of the debate, and they really have no time to ponder over the subject for an extended period of time. The objective is to argue for its own sake, not that there's anything wrong with that. Usually that happens too I reckon too in the exam. The student quickly decides on the direction that the essay will go and jot down an outline first. There is not enough time to explore or flip-flopping over alternative positions. (Hmm... maybe for the smart and quick students, there is enough time to do these things, including considering how many words they can churn out to ensure that they have enough to write!) So how should a student who wants to do well for an exam and yet wants to be able to explore things through writing do? If the student feels that the work done in school is too skewed towards exams, just do as much writing out of the school context as possible such as blogging (in complete sentences please, aNz dun ritee LIkee THEse!). At the same time, it's also important to be comfortable with the exam setting, which, despite it being restrictive somewhat, is itself a sort 'technical training' that has some value. Write on!

What Is Good Writing?

2007-11-17T12:15:00.002+08:00

From time to time, the newspapers publish articles by parents who seem to be a little upset about how their kids are doing in school, particularly due to how teachers mark their homework and assignments. The following is from Straits Times columnist Janadas Devan.

Good writing is not about sticking rigidly to fixed pattern Teachers' favourite formula of 'thesis, proof, conclusion' jumps to wrong conclusion that all essays must be written this way without exception By Janadas Devan MY SON returned from school the other day, distraught. An essay he had written, one which his parents had assured him was well done, had received a poor grade from his English teacher. It lacked an introduction and a conclusion, the teacher had told him. 'You must have an introduction that sets forth your thesis,' the teacher had said. 'And you must have a conclusion that summarises how you have proven your thesis.' Where do such theories of good writing come from? I remember some of my own school teachers, more than 40 years ago, telling me similar tales: Introduction - tell your readers what you are going to say. Body of essay - proceed to tell your readers what you had said in your introduction you were going to tell them. Conclusion - remind your readers of all that you had said you would say and did say. For 40 years - and for all I know, perhaps for 400 years - this model of the expository essay has been circulating in the English-speaking world, and I haven't the faintest idea where it came from. Sir Francis Bacon? His essays often do start with a clear thesis statement: 'Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability', begins one. But they don't end by returning to the beginning: 'So every defect of mind may have a special receipt,' ends the same essay, a conclusion that is not foreshadowed by the beginning. Bacon's 'thesis statements' are just points of departure, the first steps in the argument, not advance summaries of what is yet to unfold. He proceeds by examining that initial point - probing it, undressing it, turning it inside out - to reveal its unsuspected dimensions. As a result, by the time we get to the end, the conclusion is a total surprise. Bacon's essays are, in essence, contraptions for discovery. But perhaps our thesis-proof-conclusion model derives from a more modern source. Bacon, after all, is 17th century. Perhaps a 20th century essayist like George Orwell is the origin of this model. He isn't. One would be hard pressed to find a conventional 'thesis statement' in any of Orwell's pieces. Instead, he usually starts in medias res, in the middle of things, with an arresting incident, observation or fact. 'Soon after I arrived at Crossgates ... I began wetting my bed,' is how a delightful account of his boarding-school days begins. 'In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people - the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me,' is the first sentence of one of his most famous pieces, Shooting An Elephant, an account of his stint in the Imperial Police in Burma. My favourite is the beginning of an essay on Marrakech: 'As the corpse went past the flies left the restaurant table in a cloud and rushed after it, but they came back a few minutes later.' What would I not give - what would any writer not give - for that sort of beginning? Unfortunately, one cannot give anything in particular to get that sort of thing; one has to be sensitive, observant, receptive - in a word, talented - to be gifted with something like that. Orwell's essays usually unfold naturally from such striking observations or incidences. His pieces do not have that thesis-proof-conclusion structure that many teachers seem to think is the only possible model of expository writing. They have an argument, but the argument is in the telling. They conclude, but the conclusion is not foreshadowed in the introduction. There are occasions, of course, when the thesis-proof-conclusion model is appropriate. If one is writing a massive report on the Singapore economy, say, it would be useful to provide what nowadays is called an 'Executive Summary' at the beginning. If one is writing a study of how Workfare is working in Singapore, say, it would indeed be useful to provide a conclusion summarising one's findings. And if one is writing up a lab report on an experiment, well, the thesis-proof-conclusion model would be perfect. But reports and studies and lab reports are not the only kinds of writing our children may find themselves doing when they grow up. Some may become novelists. I can't be certain about this, but I don't think a novel that begins with a thesis statement, followed by proof and concluding with a QED, has ever been written. Some may become journalists. The best reporting always begins in medias res, for that is the nature of the news. Reporters have to learn to organise their facts, but they do not organise their facts by forcing them into the thesis-proof-conclusion model. The point is writing is various. There is no one model of organisation to fit all its varieties. That teacher who told my son that his essay must have an introduction and a conclusion - and that these must always follow a prescribed form - did him a disservice. He was not teaching my son to think through his writing; he was telling him to merely disclose his findings, as in a lab report. 'What is writing? Simply, writing is how minds think,' writes Susan R. Horton in Thinking Through Writing, one of the most useful textbooks on expository writing that I have seen. How does one get ideas? How does one develop them? How does one organise them? How does one think through one's writings so that one's readers can follow one's thinking? These are the skills that writing courses should try to impart to students, Horton suggests. My son's essay, the one that got a poor grade, did have a 'thesis statement' - only, it came at the end, when he finally arrived at the point he had been working to get to from the beginning. The piece did have a conclusion - only, my son had aimed for it from the start. They were all there - thesis, proof and conclusion - but as an entirety, the essay as a whole. That is as it should be. The teacher did not see this because he was in the grip of a model that bore little relation to how minds actually think through writing. Straits Times/28 Oct, 2007

Here's another from the Today newspaper about an expatriate Noelle de Jesus who sends her kids to a local school:

...I also found the rather quantitative methods used in my kids' English classes highly suspect. If my daughter tried her hand at a complex sentence with modifying phrases and she made a mistake, the entire sentence was marked incorrect and points were taken off. This made her decide to stick with easy noun-verb sentences. As for my son's compositions, they were edited subjectively. His quirky, still grammatical sentences were red-penned and in many cases, falsely labelled incorrect... School Experiment That Failed/Today/Weekend/17 November, 2007/(Full article)

Here's another extract from one of my favourite books on writing.

As children, we learn new words at an astonishing clip. Words give us leverage: "Me go with Mommy!" Or, "Mommy stay." Children are specific and direct. They don't beat around the bush... They are filled with passion and purpose. Children trust the power of words. If words give us power, when do we start to lose our power over words?... My guess is that for most of us school is where this sorting starts to happen. School is where we are told, "You're good with words..." The neat teacherly scrawl, diagonally written across the top right hand corner of the top page of , say, a geography report on Scandinavia, "Well written." Well written-what does that mean? In school it usually means clear, orderly thinking. Neat enough grammar. Lots of orderly facts... Very often it does not mean words that sing off the page, innovative word combinations, paragraphs of great free associations and digressions-all the gifts a young poet or novelist might have and want to use but not find useful under the scholarly discipline of an academic paper. What happens when writing of that kind shows up in school papers? Too frequently, it's another margin quote, this time negative: "You stray from the topic a bit here" or "Stick to the point." It is a rare teacher who takes the time and care to praise the kind of writing that doesn't fit into an academic paradigm. It's as though scholastically we're on a pretty strict diet: "Not so much pepper here." Not so much pepper. Not so much spunk. Not so much humanity, please. Academically we are inclined to a rather pedestrian prose denuded of personality and passion, perhaps even a bit elevated in tone as if writing is something to be done only from the loftiest of motives, a kind of distillate of rationalism trickled onto the page... ~The Right To Write, Cameron, J.

This all seems very depressing! As an English teacher and a fan of quotes supposedly by Mark Twain, I may need to change my motto to... "Never let me get in the way of your education!" Now this may not be all that far fetched. If my students look at the red stuff that is liberally administered on their homework and become so discouraged that they don't feel like continue learning English for the rest of their lives, it just may be reasonable for them to just stop being so affected by the teacher and stop 'letting skool get in the way of their education.' Devan's problem is something that has interested me for a while now. He does not agree with the 'rules' of writing and the way argumentative essays are marked. I don't have access to his son's scripts so I do not know if the low scores are justified or not. We do know that he has tried to break away from the 'traditional' way of writing such essays. However, it's not clear whether the rest of the essay is bad despite, or in spite of, this. Assuming that this person writes well, has few grammatical and collocation issues, and that his only transgression is this 'stylistic' issue of not following the usual presentation of an argumentative essay, how do teachers mark this? I guess usually I would look at it 'holistically'. If the person writes as well as Bacon, I reckon most teachers would recognise that. I want to write a bit more about the bigger picture. It's not that simple. I think one has to recognise the usefulness for traditional writing structures; it helps most students formulate their ideas more logically, since, well, to argue about something, it helps to be a little logical. (I do recognise that Devan believes the 'wrong' way of presentation is actually the more logical way of writing. Still...) This usefulness is somewhat amplified in the examination setting which requires students to engage in very unnatural forms of writing. (Yes, to sit in a room writing an essay with no friends to speak to and no Internet or dictionary to refer and consult is quite unnatural to me. We never do this anywhere else except in school!) This can be helped by a 'template' that students follow so that they don't go out of point or incoherent within the time limit. Besides the strange conditions placed on students, the work for teachers is also quite surreal. Hundred of scripts, and in the case of the Cambridge exams, marked by teachers who might not be aware of the local 'styles' and context of writing. The reality is that it is hard work marking so many scripts in such a short period of time. Anything that annoys the marker should be avoided as far as possible. If the person marks a hundred scripts that more or less follow the traditional 'logical' presentation, and then on occasion finds a script that does not seem at first sight to be very coherent and logical, especially if there are other issues such as grammar errors and so on, guess who the disadvantaged person is? Now, does this mean that students should 'sell out' in exams and write the most conventional and uninspiring essays of their lives? I don't necessarily think so. However, I think that it is important to realise that getting good marks does not just involve the writing per se. It involves cultural issues, the realities and psychology of marking, the beauty of the person's handwriting and so on. If one wants to 'trailblaze', one needs to be smart going about it and to consider the practical consequences. Perhaps this 'structure' of presentation is not a big deal per se, especially if the rest of the student's work is really good. So it is up to the student to decide whether 'breaking the rules' is worth the effort. (It takes talent to be able to break the rules and get away with it at the same time!) OK, I shall end here. This entry doesn't follow the prescribed structure of an argumentative writing because it doesn't need to. Good bye! :) Update(!): This entry is referenced by Mr Devan in a follow-up column. Click here for more.

375A + 2A

2007-10-25T08:16:00.000+08:00

The full-pages of reports on 375A+2A in the newspapers yesterday were a breath of fresh air. It was not just because of the subject matter in question (which I don't have an official position on), but the impression that I got that some 'real debate' actually happened in Parliament. PM Lee summed up the proceedings...

[PM Lee] said: 'Singapore is basically a conservative society.' The social norm: 'heterosexual, stable family'. 'It's what we teach in schools, it's what parents want to see, want their children to see...to set their expectations and encourage them to develop in this direction... And I think the vast majority of Singaporeans want to keep it this way...and so does the Government.' But Mr Lee took pains to reassure the gays that they are part of, and contributing members, of society here. 'They are our kith and kin,' he added, while citing 'growing scientific evidence' that sexual orientation is largely inborn. 'We shouldn't make it harder than it already is for them to grow up and live in a society where they are different from most Singaporeans.' Placing the status of the the gay community in context, Mr Lee noted Singapore's gradual progress towards a balance of the various interests. Today, gays work in all sectors. Gay films, clubs, websites are available. Section 375A+2A is not proactively enforced. 'I don't think we will ever get the perfect balance, but I think that we have a better arrangement now than was the case 10 or 20 years ago.' Repealing 375A+2A, he said, would not give gay activists what they want - full acceptance and more space. So 'it's better to accept the legal untidiness and the ambiguity... I should therefore say that as a matter of reality, the more gay activists push this agenda, the stronger will be the push-back from conservative forces in our society. So it's better to let the situation evolve gradually...'

While the outcome will disappoint some, the seemingly fascinating 'between the lines' judgment may give them the impression of 'a legal defeat but a moral victory', which is in itself quite ironic because it seems to blur the perceptions of the players in question: who seems to be the more moral/ethical party now?! What's interesting is the need to balance who is right (the person's personal opinion), to what others want to see as right (from a societal point of view). I cannot imagine so much due consideration given to more 'established' crimes . We do live in interesting times... :) More at the SG Daily.

My DNA Results Are Out! / Genographic Project

2007-10-20T23:32:00.001+08:00

One and a half years ago, I wrote about the Genographic project, a DNA test that would tell me where my ancestors came from. We're not just talking about my great-great-great-grandfather, but my actual ancestors who lived 30,000-80,000 years ago! I finally got around to ordering the kit in August, and two months later, the results arrived. Here is what the kit includes. (Click for bigger pictures.)

The results are found online through a password protected site. Here are some additional information.

Update(!): Dr Hsien-Hsien Lei mentions my results in her blog entry, Genetic Genealogy and the Chinese.
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Your Y-chromosome results identify you as a member of haplogroup O2. The genetic markers that define your ancestral history reach back roughly 60,000 years to the first common marker of all non-African men, M168, and follow your lineage to present day, ending with P31, the defining marker of haplogroup O2.

If you look at the map highlighting your ancestors' route, you will see that members of haplogroup O2 carry the following Y-chromosome markers:

M168 > M89 > M9 > M175 > P31

Your Ancestral Journey: What We Know Now

M168: Your Earliest Ancestor
Time of Emergence: Roughly 50,000 years ago
Place of Origin: Africa
Climate: Temporary retreat of Ice Age; Africa moves from drought to warmer temperatures and moister conditions
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Approximately 10,000
Tools and Skills: Stone tools; earliest evidence of art and advanced conceptual skills

Skeletal and archaeological evidence suggest that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago, and began moving out of Africa to colonize the rest of the world around 60,000 years ago.

The man who gave rise to the first genetic marker in your lineage probably lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethiopia , Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 79,000 years ago. Scientists put the most likely date for when he lived at around 50,000 years ago. His descendants became the only lineage to survive outside of Africa, making him the common ancestor of every non-African man living today.

But why would man have first ventured out of the familiar African hunting grounds and into unexplored lands? It is likely that a fluctuation in climate may have provided the impetus for your ancestors' exodus out of Africa.

The African ice age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. It was around 50,000 years ago that the ice sheets of northern Europe began to melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to a savanna, the animals hunted by your ancestors expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. Your nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and the animals they hunted, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined.

In addition to a favorable change in climate, around this same time there was a great leap forward in modern humans' intellectual capacity. Many scientists believe that the emergence of language gave us a huge advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn't been able to earlier, all allowed modern humans to rapidly migrate to new territories, exploit new resources, and replace other hominids.

M89: Moving Through the Middle East
Time of Emergence: 45,000 years ago
Place: Northern Africa or the Middle East
Climate: Middle East: Semiarid grass plains
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Tens of thousands
Tools and Skills: Stone, ivory, wood tools

The next male ancestor in your ancestral lineage is the man who gave rise to M89, a marker found in 90 to 95 percent of all non-Africans. This man was born around 45,000 years ago in northern Africa or the Middle East.

The first people to leave Africa likely followed a coastal route that eventually ended in Australia. Your ancestors followed the expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East and beyond, and were part of the second great wave of migration out of Africa.

Beginning about 40,000 years ago, the climate shifted once again and became colder and more arid. Drought hit Africa and the grasslands reverted to desert, and for the next 20,000 years, the Saharan Gateway was effectively closed. With the desert impassable, your ancestors had two options: remain in the Middle East, or move on. Retreat back to the home continent was not an option.

While many of the descendants of M89 remained in the Middle East, others continued to follow the great herds of buffalo, antelope, woolly mammoths, and other game through what is now modern-day Iran to the vast steppes of Central Asia.

These semiarid grass-covered plains formed an ancient "superhighway" stretching from eastern France to Korea. Your ancestors, having migrated north out of Africa into the Middle East, then traveled both east and west along this Central Asian superhighway. A smaller group continued moving north from the Middle East to Anatolia and the Balkans, trading familiar grasslands for forests and high country.

M9: The Eurasian Clan Spreads Wide and Far
Time of Emergence: 40,000 years ago
Place: Iran or southern Central Asia
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Tens of thousands
Tools and Skills: Upper Paleolithic

Your next ancestor, a man born around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia, gave rise to a genetic marker known as M9, which marked a new lineage diverging from the M89 Middle Eastern Clan. His descendants, of which you are one, spent the next 30,000 years populating much of the planet.

This large lineage, known as the Eurasian Clan, dispersed gradually over thousands of years. Seasoned hunters followed the herds ever eastward, along the vast super highway of Eurasian steppe. Eventually their path was blocked by the massive mountain ranges of south Central Asia—the Hindu Kush, the Tian Shan, and the Himalayas.

The three mountain ranges meet in a region known as the "Pamir Knot," located in present-day Tajikistan. Here the tribes of hunters split into two groups. Some moved north into Central Asia, others moved south into what is now Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent.

These different migration routes through the Pamir Knot region gave rise to separate lineages.

Most people native to the Northern Hemisphere trace their roots to the Eurasian Clan. Nearly all North Americans and East Asians are descended from the man described above, as are most Europeans and many Indians.

M175: The East Asian Clan
Time of Emergence: 35,000 years ago
Place of Origin: Central or East Asia
Climate: Ice Age
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Approximately 100,000

Tools and Skills: Upper Paleolithic

Your genetic trail continues with an ancestor who carried marker M175 and was born around 35,000 years ago in Central or East Asia. This ancestor was part of the M9 Eurasian clan that, encountering impassable mountain ranges, migrated to the north and east.

These early Siberian hunters continued to travel east along the great steppes, gradually crossing southern Siberia. Some of them, perhaps taking advantage of the Dzhungarian Gap used thousands of years later by Genghis Khan to invade Central Asia, made it into present-day China.

East Asia had been home to Homo erectus for nearly a million years, but traces of occupation disappear from the archaeological record around 100,000 years ago. The earlier hominids may have abandoned the region or died off due to a steadily deteriorating climate.

By the time your ancestors arrived in China and East Asia, the Ice Age was once again advancing toward glacial maximum. Encroaching ice sheets and Central Asia's enormous mountain ranges effectively corralled them in East Asia. There they evolved in isolation over the millennia.

Today, some 80 to 90 percent of all people living east of Central Asia's great mountain ranges are members of haplogroup O, the East Asian Clan. The marker M175 is nearly nonexistent in western Asia and Europe.

There were actually two waves of migration into this region. While your ancestors populated the region from the north, another group approached from the south. Descendants of the Coastal Clan—people who left Africa perhaps 60,000 years ago and headed along the coastline toward Australia—may have reached East Asia by 50,000 years ago.

The Coastal lineage is found at a frequency of 50 percent in Mongolia, and is common throughout northeast Asia.

The present composition of East Asia still shows evidence of this ancient north-south divide, showing a clear distinction in genetic heritage between northern and southern Chinese.

P31
Time of Emergence: Roughly 30,000 years ago
Place of Origin: East Asia
Climate: Ice Age
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Approximately 100,000
Tools and Skills: Middle Upper Paleolithic

Roughly 30,000 years ago, one of your ancestors first displayed the genetic marker P31, which now defines your haplogroup O2. This man lived in eastern Asia, perhaps in southern China, and his descendents spread south into Southeast Asia, east to Korea, and north to Japan.

This distinctly Asian haplogroup he sired is most common today in Southeast Asian nations like Malaysia and Thailand.

This is where your genetic trail, as we know it today, ends. However, be sure to revisit these pages. As additional data are collected and analyzed, more will be learned about your place in the history of the men and women who first populated the Earth. We will be updating these stories throughout the life of the project.

Credit Card Annual Fees / UOB Visa Infinity

2007-10-15T12:16:00.001+08:00

I like to apply for credit cards whenever I can. The idea is to apply as many as possible, and then only use one card the whole time to accumulate the loyalty points. Some friends tell me, however, that that is a bad idea because they will then spend a lot of money if they have many credit cards. I don't have this problem because I don't see how having many credit cards is related to the amount of money I spend shopping. Anyway, from what I've seen so far, DBS's Esso card is good for petrol discounts, Citibank's is good for dining discounts, HSBS' is useful for reducing the price of a movie ticket by $1, Standard Chartered's is nice for taking off 15% off the Singapore Marathon fees, and UOB's is good for a 13% discount on vPost shipping charges. There is just no excuse whatsoever not to apply as many cards as possible to take advantage of all possible discounts. (Actually the way I see it, these are not really 'discounts'; it's just that those who don't take advantage of such things are 'paying extra'.) Now, the above will only make sense if you don't pay the annual fees. The banks usually waive the annual fee charges for one or two years. In the third year, people either ask for a waiver by calling customer service, or they cancel the card. There is just no reason to pay any annual fees unless one really likes the credit card in question and refuses to part with it. So this past week, I received yet another nice invitation to apply for this UOB Infinite card. The application package is very pretty, and I feel the card seems suitable for me as I, too, 'appreciate the finer things in life', particularly if they're not too expensive. (Click below for bigger pictures.) Here are the usual 'privileges'. The one about 'on the house dining at Hyatt' looks interesting... (Could I just waltz in and get free food?!) So I took out my pen to fill in the application form, and my eyes nearly popped out! The income requirement is SGD$350,000 per annum. I don't even earn 10% of that. But that's OK. There are many people who earn that amount, and they should go ahead and apply. But look at the next line. The annual fee is S1500! Which astute rich person in his or her right mind would be willing to pay anything, let alone $1500, just for the annual fee?! Then again, it's understood that a phone call can quickly write off that fee, so everything will be fine eventually. If you appreciate the finer things in life and want to apply, just reply below, and I will send the form to you. ;p

American Generosity: Borders Bookstore / Starbucks Coffee

2007-07-31T00:02:00.001+08:00

Of the many bookstores in Singapore, perhaps only one has a significant number of chairs and sofas for folks to sit and read. This would be Borders bookstore, the subject of today's somewhat exaggerated theme: American generosity.

Borders was something of an anomaly when it opened its first and only store in Singapore some years ago. Sofas and chairs were provided so that people could sit and read for an extended period of time. Management refused to shrink wrap books, despite the risk to the bottom line if folks chose not to buy books and just come in a couple of times to finish them, which was exactly what I regularly did. I believe this was an extraordinary development in the idea of a business affecting the cultural landscape of a place, It was also a very nice demonstration of the stereotypical generosity of an American chain, particularly with what happened next. At first, Singaporeans and others did not know how to respond. Actually, they responded quite poorly. People mistreated the books; they didn't know how to react to the possibility of browsing books for free. At the end of the day (it still closes at midnight on some days), the place looked like a war zone, especially in the kids' section. Generosity prevailed; management probably just wrote off the badly damaged books, tidied up the place and opened the doors the next day. Things have probably improved a little nowadays, fortunately. It often still looks more like a library than a bookstore, which I think is a very good thing. I've sent nights reading books that I'd otherwise had to spend hundreds of dollars on.

I read a book on Starbucks, which is the second subject in my theme on generosity. Starbucks Coffee is an interesting place to study. It's associated with American hegemony and a usual target for WTO protesters. However, from personal experience, it's also one of the few places that I really like to visit. I realised intuitively that coffee, or the Frappuccinos, while excellent in their own right, didn't represent what Starbucks was all about. What intrigued me, after my first visit to Singapore's first Starbucks at Liat Tower with a Mocha Frappuccino, was that things were done differently here that did not make sense at first.

For example, consider the large sofas at each location. For a long time, I didn't understand the rationale for this. To have big chairs presents at least two problems. 1) It takes up space that might be better utilised if smaller chairs are provided instead. 2) It encourages people to hang around, thus reducing 'turnaround' and reducing revenue.

The book talks about the reasons for this. Starbucks aims to be 'the third place' (after the 'home' and 'place of work'). It's where people would be welcomed, and that means allowing them to sit and relax and 'form communities'. The book also mentions that in Starbucks, people do not get 'chased away' when they have finished their drinks. Even if one 'has only a drop of coffee' in the mug, they can stay for as long as they like. This resembles my own experience; staff never, ever, mention, even remotely, that a customer should vacate the premises when the drinks have been consumed. This generosity has to be considered in light of new customers being turned away when the place is crowed; this is pretty common at some popular locations. Sometimes the service gets extraordinary. Another time at a crowded branch, I managed to find a seat, and put my bag on the floor. A staff came by and offered me another chair, not for my legs, but for my bag! Again, this makes no economic sense. An extra seat could have brought in another customer instead. Things are done differently here. A customer in the book said that the Starbucks concept would still work even if they stopped selling coffee and just charged people some money for them to come into the stores and relax. (I know I would pay.) This is pretty remarkable; again, it's the sense of community, and a place to relax, and not the coffee, per se.

Borders and Starbucks thus share one thing that I particularly like. The staff tend to treat people nicely, and without too much fuss, even if the business decisions they make have the possible effect of lowering sales. The service culture is also quite different; at Starbucks, it is not unusual for folks to have a decent chat while ordering (the barista would discuss the options), or while waiting for the drink. I'm not sure how much training is involved to achieve this, as it's quite difficult to train folks to be 'human' I think. It might just be that the interview process is skewed to hiring people who consistently are able to connect with customers.

I'm typing this entry at Starbucks, and observing the counter staff. Tonight's staff provide consistently good service; they smile at customers, and look into their eyes for a longer than usual time. Essentially, they seem to be genuinely interested in the customer. Since every counter staff is a pleasant female, I also have no problems conducting my field study. In almost every transaction, there is extended conversation and communication, and none of it seemed forced, nor a chore to them. Maybe it's just because they are really enjoying their work. Or it could just be another factor at work: American generosity.

Please Read The Fine Print

2007-06-30T12:16:00.000+08:00

I've just received an unsolicited ATM card from Standard Chartered Bank. The thing is that I don't have money deposited in my Standared Chartered account (I only have their credit card). So if I withdraw money using this card, this might be considered to be a 'cash advance', liable to a service charge of $5 or more. However, I cannot be sure of the exact charges apart from calling them up and asking because the fine print is so difficult to read! (Click for bigger pictures.)

I held the camera centimetres away from the coin to take the picture below. About 16 lines of text fit the diameter of the coin! While I can read the Terms and Conditions, it gets really tiring. And I haven't found the section that describes the service charges yet as there are no obvious headings that highlight where I should be reading...

Stunning Nikon / Picturetown

2007-06-27T20:24:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking of getting an SLR camera for a while now, and have narrowed my choices down to the D40 and the D80. The D40 is generally regarded as something for beginners as it seems to have poorer image capabilities, but from most serious reviews I've read, it seems that the D40 doesn't lose out in image qualities, only in certain features that might be quite irrelevant to me such as the inability to use older lens and the absence of some user interface features.

Anyway, I was aimlessly surfing the camera sites last night when I came across a new website for the Nikon D40 unveiled last month called Picturetown. 200 people from Geogetown, South Carolina were given free cameras (that each cost around S$1000 retail), and asked to take pictures of their neighbourhood, loved ones, whatever. The general idea was that anyone could take good pictures, if given a good camera (such as the D40). I thought the website was stunningly beautiful; the marketing concept, the stories from the participants, and the photos they took (300 are downloadable).

Naturally, some photographers don't really buy the idea of this campaign (e.g. comment at here, 2nd comment here, here) It's the photographer behind the camera who has the skill to pull off great pictures, not just the quality of the equipment! If this continues, then the masses will have access to the DSLRs, they will think they can then take great pictures, and what would become of real professionals like us?!

So some find the pictures 'totally mediocre'. Others, like me, really liked the whole project. I don't believe in either end of the spectrum. If one really has a terrible camera, even the most professional photographer might have problems. If one has a $20000 camera, it's still highly possible to screw things up by not being a reasonably good photographer in the first place.

The more interesting thing for me was this. I didn't think the photographs were mediocre at all, to the extent that I began doubting at first whether these 200 folks were really amateurs or really quite knowledgeable people that were brought in to shoot pictures for this Nikon website. I later found out that 200 folks were point-and-shoot amateurs who answered a casting call for this Nikon marketing campaign. So, what was it that made the difference? Did the D40 really have such a significant effect on the outcome?

I think the answer is partly yes, since the D40 was supposedly designed to enable folks to take reasonably nice pictures out of the box. (And the answer would be 'no' for those who didn't think the pictures were all that great.) I'm thinking along the lines of another possibility, and it's the context in which these photographs were taken. If one looks at the 'making of' movie at the Picturetown website, everyone was really having fun. (And who wouldn't be if they were given free DSLR cameras?!) A huge sense of community had formed in the beginning, I'd suspect. All these things come together to make great photographs. These photographs might not have the 'technical' brilliance of the professionals, but I dare say they are full of heart. And that's enough for me.

Now, when is Nikon Singapore going to give out 200 cameras for us folks to take great pictures too?! ;p

Related posts: here, here, here.

My New File Tray

2007-06-22T15:27:00.000+08:00

Here's my new file tray I just bought from Popular bookstore. They're having a promotion; two for $14. But I didn't buy it because of the price, but for another cool reason. Can you know why?! :p (Hint: click on the picture below.)

BBQ / Second Life

2007-06-10T13:08:00.001+08:00

My classmates were at my place yesterday for BBQ. Limin found an interesting caterer who provided almost everything as well as a big pit to put the charcoal in. Sabrina started the fire, and cooked for most of the night. She's very good at it. There were many small cockroaches that appeared from the crevices of the pit, but they were progressively killed by the heat.

Summer says 'hi!', with Limin, Sabrina, Rhizome, Yong 'yuan4 mei4' Li

Andre on the 'crazy horse'.

My social studies tutor Kenneth asked me a couple of days ago to help him build a 'learning space' in Second Life, the online virtual world. I've installed and uninstalled Second Life from my computer many times over the past few years, not due to any substantiative technical reasons, but for more pressing psychological and physiological ones: I get a headache/nauseous everytime I play SL. This fascinates me somewhat, for I've experienced this in other 'first person shooter' games before, but I've always managed to 'train myself' and had 'less dizziness' eventually. I'm trying to do the same with SL, and so will start learning the in and outs of the game, which holds great potential for learning, if kids have access to the resources.

So I wanted to see if others have the same physiological responses. Andre and Matilda (a Sims 2 veteran) tried it for the first time. They didn't get nauseous. Andre used my avatar and teleported to a really cool bar that continually streamed 80s music, and asked for a dance from a lady there (who didn't wear much); she was a little busy at that time to entertain him. I think for a while they felt like they were in the bar, the illusion worked to a certain extent. Andre said he would install the program in his laptop. Maybe he'll get more success with the girls next time, but what would his real life girlfriend (behind him) think about that? That's one of the fun things about the virtual world; ethical issues tend to appear rather quickly!

Anyway, if anyone has perspectives/solutions to dizziness, I'd love to hear them! ;p

My crazy classmates Sabrina, Billy, Andre, Matilda