latest NUS ranking

Apparently the latest Times Higher Education Supplement rankings have been released.

yjblog says it best: So, umm. Didn’t progress up the charts, did we now. On the bright side, we no longer have to face the “difficulty of explaining why NUS is ranked 18th overall”, right?

Took the words right out of my mouth. Wath this space for updates.

Another random thought: notice how none of the UK universities have dropped in the rankings. I wonder if it is a scam to establish credibility before edging them gradually upward.

taking stock

I'm going away for a while. So I thought this was a fitting time to ponder the fundamental question of existence. Why do I blog? I know why - it's a bite-sized outlet of creative relief from work. But what do I blog is a better question, and the answer is probably everything; or anything that comes to mind anyway, triggered by whatever external (or internal) stimuli I encounter during the day.

So I thought I would map out a directory of some of my more interesting posts to see what exactly the spread is like.

Relationships and People
what is an alpha male
engineering philosophy of friendships
my take on talent

Food
garden fare
food for thought
nights out

Psychology
rude awakening
the perfect crime
blast from the past

Leadership and Management
small group dynamics

Work
war and work revisited
towards total war and work

Religion
two tales
faithless
skipping church
the Da Vinci code

Economics
opportunity costs
efficient markets

Singapore
little ball bearing
singlish
fresh air at last

Technology
my dream mobyCar

Blogging and the Internet
tomorrow governance
tomorrow once more
information gateway

Personal
shits and giggles
helping others
the beginning of the rest of my life

And that's just 28 of my 68 posts ... gosh I must be a really confused person.

spark plugs

I have been giving some thought to what I want to do with the rest of my life lately. I think the answer lies in a futuristic sci-fi book I read more than 10 years ago, but which has evidently left an indelible mark on my pscyhe because I still remember the title and author to this day. The book is Dream Thief, by Stephen Lawhead. The person it describes is as follows:

"You flatter me, Adjani," roared Packer, his teeth flashing white from out of the auburn tangle of his beard. He said to Spence, "Adjani here is under no one's supervision. The man has not yet been born who can keep up with him, and he does not know how to take direction" ... Turning once more to Spence he explained, "Adjani is our spark plug - and the best in the business."

Spence looked at the slim Adjani with new respect. A Spark Plug, as they were called, was a member of an elite group of men and women so gifted as to be completely expert in numerous fields of study - as many as five or six. Whereas most scientists or thereticians were specialists, training their professional vision to ever narrower bands of the scientific spectrum, those like Adjani - and there were very few of them - worked in reverse, enlarging the scope of their knowledge wider and wider. In effect, they were specialists in everything: physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, metallurgy, psychology, and all the rest.

... They acted as catalysts of creativity - spark plugs - providing those quick, dynamic bursts of creative insight for projects that had grown too complex to rely on the accidental cross-pollination of ideas from other disciplines.

In a new world economy, Spark Plugs will become essential as human repositaries of knowledge. Some companies invest millions of dollars trying to structure their corporate databases to capture all the organisational knowledge. Others use search engines to harvest infinite streams of unstructured data like the internet. And finally, there is the human brain - the enigma, that intuitively cuts through the most complex problems, yet forgets the most miniscule details.

I want my brain to grow big big, and besides this is a lovely reason to stay in school longer. One PhD after another ...

rude awakening

I discovered something very interesting today that I would like to share, but first you will have to watch a video. To view the video, you will need to have Java active in your browser. The video is fairly large (7.5MB) and it might take a while to finish loading. When viewing the video, try to count the total number of times that the people wearing white pass the basketball. Do not count the passes made by the people wearing black.

http://viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html

Do not read on until you have watched the video and counted the number of passes.

So I was sleeping listening intently to the lecturer today as usual, with my eyes closed. Suddenly the voice stopped, so I opened my eyes, and there was this silent video playing in front of me. I didn't really have a clue what was going on, so I just watched as a bunch of kids threw balls back and forth.

Then the video ended and the lecturer asked, so how many passes did they make? (Ah eureka, now I know what we were supposed to do) 14? 15? 16? Who saw 17? Did anyone see more than 18? A bunch of hands went up?

Have you watched the video yet? If not you are going to spoil this for yourself.

Who saw the black gorilla? There was a stupefied silence; a few hands went up but most people just glanced around them in confusion. So the lecturer played the video again and lo and behold, the black gorilla walked into the centre of the screen halfway through the video, beat its chest, and calmly exited.

So he explained that this experiment showed how human beings can only focus on one thing at one time, and shut out everything else. Because we had been told to count the passes, we were so preoccupied that we failed to notice the ridiculous primate waltzing across the room.

I was rather ashamed, because I had watched the whole video, did not bother to count the passes (because I didn't know we were supposed to) and I still didn't see the gorilla.

I felt even worse because I read up on this exact experiment last week, had a good laugh at how blind some people are, and I still didn't see the gorilla. And in case anyone is wondering, it was definitely the same video he showed because this is actually a very well known pschological experiment.

A friend commented that he smelled a trick, so he counted the passes made by both teams. Well no wonder he didn't see the gorilla.

For a more complete explanation of the phenomenon of inattentional blindness, you can read here. You can also find out about the people behind this experiment and related research here.

This lecture was delivered by John Seely Brown, Chief of Confusion. He was formerly Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation, lecturer at University of Southern California, and one of the most engaging speakers I have ever heard. From the time of my rude awakening, he succeeded in holding my attention for the next 90 minutes. I assure you that is no mean feat. (Click on his name for more material on related topics)

two tales

I heard two very thought-provoking personal anecdotes today. I will try to reproduce them here as faithfully as possible.

An old friend Za was on the MRT, carrying out her daily routine of listening to mp3s and writing in her journal. As the Malaysian PM's wife had just passed away, the thought that came to mind was how the Muslims, being so closed to Christianity, would every have the chance to hear the gospel?

Hey musings were interrupted when she happened to overhead the girl across the carriage on her mobile phone. She was asking what was the holy trinity? What followed was obscured by the rumblings as the train entered the tunnel, but the next question Za caught was what are the ten commandments? Apparently this girl had an exam on cross-cultural communication in two hours, and she had no idea what these things were.

Za's mind was racing, because this seemed like a perfect invitation to share God's word. After all, we are called to be witnesses for God in season and out of season. But how do you start a conversation with someone by explaining that you were eavesdropping? Furthermore, at the next stop she had to change to the westbound line, and she really couldn't be late for the next appointment. So she prayed and told God that if the girl were to switch to the same line too, she would approach her.

Of course she did, and so Za had to stalk her across the platform, trying to catch up with her and desperately floudering to find the right words. She even made sure she approached from the side where the ear was vacant of earphones. Finally, she tapped her on the shoulder, admitted that she had overheard her questions, and offered her assistance. The response was extremely positive, and the girl was very welcoming of anything that would rescue her from the dreaded exam. So Za explained how the trinity was God in three persons, and even flipped through her bible to locate the ten commandments for her (so she could read it for herself and remember for the exam). The girl was extremely impressed that she could locate the right passage in such a thick volume, but Za explained it is one of the most important passages to Christians.

I lost the next few sentences because I was flipping through my own bible, ashamed that I didn't know where the ten commandments was. But I focussed my attention just in time to catch the punchline. Apparently this girl was a Muslim, although Za would never have guessed from her external appearance. She was in shock; in shock at the immediate answer that God had given to her earlier question, and glorifying God in the divine way in which he can make anything possible.

I can never do justice to the animated account that Za gave to the whole congregation in church today. But I'm sure everyone in the room was praising God. The next account is much shorter, shared during the sermon.

The speaker, M, related how she once had a conversation with her part-time helper, a Chinese national as they happened to be cleaning the house together. The helper commented that she had observed a very close relationship between M and her mother-in-law, which was something very rare among the other homes in which she worked. She also commented that M's family in general seemed to be very close and happy, and that she had seen similar patterns in other homes that she assumed to be Christian, because they had the cross somewhere on their walls.

At this open invitation, M went on to tell her more about Christianity, and gave her some Mandarin tracts to read. But to the rest of us, she told how encouraged she was that even someone as seemingly peripheral as a part-time helper could recognise a difference between Christians and others. And are you living a life that glows with the likeness of Christ, for all to see and wonder?

what is an alpha male

Recently a friend and I were having one of those late night conversations about relationships. So it seems that girls are attracted to the alpha male, but I cannot understand why. After further discussion, we realised it boils down to the definitions.

To me, an alpha male is a muscle-minded tank brain with an over-inflated ego. Rambo comes to mind. They get through life through sheer brute force. I suppose they also exude a primal sense of desirability to the opposite sex, but obviously that doesn't particularly interest me.

Do I think I am an alpha male, she had asked? By my definition clearly not, and she agreed. But her definition is totally different.

To her, an alpha male is a perfectionist, someone that is good at school, at work and at sports. So why am I not an alpha male I asked? Because she says alpha males are very driven to succeed and I am just lazy. (I take this as a personal slight because actually I am very very driven to succeed. But since the government places such a strong emphasis on work-life balance and even gives us Saturday off now so that we can make babies, it would be wrong to focus too much on work in this new economy. I am simply following public policy like a good citizen.)

But apparently by the Wikipedia definition, we are both wrong.

An alpha male or alpha female is the individual in the community to whom the others follow and defer. Humans and their nearest species-relatives, the chimpanzees, show deference to the alpha of the community by ritualized gestures such as bowing, allowing the alpha to walk first in a procession, or standing aside when the alpha challenges. Canines also show deference to the alpha pair in their pack, by allowing them to be the first to eat and, usually, the only pair to mate. Wolves are a well known example of this.

The status of alpha is generally achieved by means of superior physical prowess. However in certain highly-social species such as the Bonobo apes, the alpha can use more indirect methods (such as political alliances) to oust the ruling alpha and take his/her place.

So actually it all boils down to leadership, however it may be obtained. I remember eternalbough wants an alpha male too. I wonder what her definition is? Maybe I can still be an alpha male. I also want to be the first to eat.

the perfect crime

I've had a rather disturbing thought niggling me for the last week. It was especially annoying today since my mind was mostly idle, so I have decided to exorcise it once and for all by posting it online. The remainder of this post is rated X for deviant ideas, so please do not read on if you have a weak heart.

One of Roald Dahl's most memorable short stories, to me, was "Vengeance Is Mine Inc." from More Tales of the Unexpected. In this story, two buddies set up a business offering to exact vengeance on behalf of people who do not wish to get their hands dirty. They offer a range of services such as Punch in the nose, Black eye or Put a snake in car. The price varies with the difficulty of execution. But their business venture is cut short after the first mission, when a grateful client advises them to get out of town and lie low.

I shan't go into the graphic details of my deviant version. Suffice to say it involves sex and bondage. And animals. The more exotic the animal, the higher the price for giving someone a bad day.

This business model would be far more successful than Vengeance Is Mine Inc. for one simple reason. Rapists and sex offenders escape because their crimes are unreported - because the victim is ashamed to publicise their trauma. By exponentially increasing the level of trauma and shame through unspeakable acts of bestiality, this should reduce the likelihood of the crime being reported to near zero. Which means the act can be recycled, creating an indefinite source of income.

It seems like the perfect crime to me, so I keep asking myself how it could be prevented.

22/1/0/05: It seems that with all the detail stripped out, people don't really get my point. So I shall elaborate further.

The unsuspecting victim is grabbed, blindfolded, and bundled into a vehicle and taken to a dark room where he/she is stripped naked and tied up in spreadeagle fashion. Some viagra-crazed animal is loosed into the room. When the animal has satisfied itself, the victim is once again blindfolded and released.

The beauty of this model is
1) The whole thing happens in 2 hours, nobody realises the victim is gone
2) It is done by a third party, so the victim cannot identify the assailants
3) There is no human biological material to trace via DNA. You can even cull the animal.
4) The only person that knows is the victim, and do you think the victim will tell?
5) Can you think of a more mailicious and psychologically damaging act?
6) Someone pointed out that some people actually enjoy this sort of thing. It's all about choosing the right animal.

garden fare

In my earlier post, I lamented the lack of food in the Northwest. I was accused of being too extreme in my geography, but I think my point that there is no good food still stands because I have yet to receive a suggestion of any good eating places in that vicinity. To prove another point - that not all ulu places have no food - I have decided to come up with the paddychicken guide to food in Serangoon Garden. This is one extremely inaccessible place which has pretty decent food. There is good food for any time of day - breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, supper and drinks. Here are just a few of my personal favorites:

Breakfast
Soon Huat's Pig Organ Soup
Serangoon Garden Market Stall 42
This stall serves an excellent blend of pig organ soup, along with pig trotters and other offals. You can easily find it from the long lines during breakfast or lunch. Closed on Mondays and in the evenings.
Garden Street Kway Chup
Serangoon Garden Market Stall 21
Probably the best kway chup I've ever eaten, this moved here from Blanco Court after several years' hiatus, as attested b numerous articles on the wall. Labelled by Makansutra as a hawker legend. Closed on Mondays.
R. K. Eating House Prata
Farleigh Avenue
The normal range of mushroom, cheese or banana pratas, fried to a delightful crisp. Open 24 hours.

Lunch
Jeffrey Ho Char Kway Teow
Ban Heng Eating House, Farleigh Avenue
Not exceptional, but certainly very decent for lovers of fried oily stuff. He also has an equally good variation of char bee hoon. And the drinks stall also has a superb Teh Bing.
Po Sin Chicken Rice
Cardon Restaurant and Confectionary, 52 Serangoon Garden Way
My all time favorite roast chicken rice. The special marinade gives the skin a succulent and delicious flavor. And we all know the skin is the best part.

Dinner
Pow Sing Restaurant 65 Serangoon Garden Way Undoubtedly my family's favorite place for good value and better food. Reservations are a must for the weekends. Specialties include otah, shrimp-paste chicken, black pepper venison and deep fried tofu. (homepage)

Dessert
Ice3
11 Kensington Park
Decent homemade ice cream with alcoholic toppings and a delightful ambience. (picture)
Happy Daze Cafe
11 Maju Avenue
Bring your pets for 10% discount at this very chill al fresco cafe. Board games, video games and a big TV complete the set for an evening of relaxation.

Supper
Chomp Chomp
If you don't know where this is, you don't know where Serangoon Garden is.
My favorite stall is the Hokkien Mee located at the rear of the centre. Beware the hoax - if they can deliver your food in less than thirty minutes between 7pm and 10pm, you're at the wrong stall. The chicken wings, satay beehoon and bbq seafood are also very good.

Drinks
Happy Daze Bar
9 Maju Avenue
Happy Daze stands out from the more than 20 other bars/pub/ktv establishments with its urban class and imported liquors. It feels like town, except for the pets in the cafe next door. It also has prices like town. Also check out Ambarella, a new snack bar on the rooftop directly opposite Happy Daze.

This brief survey is just intended as a starting point for what I consider to be some of the best food in this area, for residents and visitors alike. I have purposely left out franchises such as Katong Laksa, Sushi Tei, Cafe Cartel or Coffee Bean because if you've tried one you've tried them all; so why don't you try something new? Enjoy!

And if anyone knows of good food in the Northwest, please leave a note. Makansutra 2003/4 lists about 40 recommended establishments in the Bukit Batok/Chua Chu Kang/Bukit Timah region. Most of them are in Bukit Timah, concentrated in the 6th Avenue and Adam Road areas. There is one place in Chua Chu Kang, and seven in Bukit Batok. Pretty damn sad.

small group dynamics

Every freshman in my school had to undergo a class in small group dynamics. In this class, we all learned the Bennis and Shepard theory of the Barometric Event. This is the event that pulls a groups together and forges the group identity. We all thought it was crap. But recent events in my Discipleship Group (DG) have made me realise just how telling this model can be, as I trace our transformation from a collection of individuals into parts of a whole. I couldn't find my old textbook, but an online article has outlined the theory quite succintly. This is going to be a super-long post ... you have been warned.

A sophisticated version of the developmental approach to understanding group process is the model of Bennis and Shepard. Bennis and Shepard adapted the ideas of Bion as a result of their studies of T-groups (a method originated by Lewin). They suggest that there is a progression between the different types of basic assumption group and that, in particular, the dependency and fight-flight groups tend to occur in the first part of a group's life while the pairing and work groups occur later and these two halves are divided from one another by what they call the "barometric event" which is an occurrence in which the relationship of the group to its leader/facilitator is irreversibly changed. Inter-member relations in the early phase are characterised by considerations of power whereas in the later phase the group becomes more personal (see table 2)


Table 2: Two main Stages of Group Development (Bennis & Shepard)

Dependency -- Fight-flight	Power relationships
Barometric event
Pairing -- Work group	Personal relationships

What Bennis and Shepard are saying, therefore, is that the group has two main stages which each have sub-stages. In the first main stage, the group members are preoccupied by their relationship to the group leader. At first the members feel dependent. They are anxious and in flight from responsibility, so they rely upon the leader to give them direction and provide nurturance. Inevitably, the direction, if any, given by the leader does not satisfy everybody and some resistance arises. The group moves into the phase that Tuckman calls storming. This is, in Bion's terms, a fight-flight mode. Bennis and Shepard call it counter-dependency or, simply, rebellion. A struggle ensues. Eventually some resolution to this tension is achieved and this is cathartic for the group. Bennis and Shepard believed that the resolution of this first half of the group was a crucially important event and so they gave it the portentous label "barometric". Ideally, the outcome of the barometric event is that the leader becomes, to a much greater degree, a group member, and the members assume enhanced responsibility for the group's behaviour and direction. The leader is dethroned.

Stage One
In the first six months that I joined this DG, almost all the large-scale events were initiated by the two leaders. While most members were strongly committed to Wednesday studies, their attendance of other events waxed and waned depending on their outside social lives. They are anxious and in flight from responsibility, so they rely upon the leader to give them direction and provide nurturance. This is the dependency stage.

The crisis developed with the approach of our group mates' wedding. The leaders, as well as some very enthusiastic members, made the decision that the group would handle the church aspect of the wedding. Other members, whether due to unfamiliarity with the wedding couple, lack of personal talents or overburdened from other work already, were more hesitant to commit. Thus we entered the fight-flight stage. Inevitably, the direction, if any, given by the leader does not satisfy everybody and some resistance arises. Each member was then faced with the dilemna of how much to contribute to this team effort, if at all. Remember that in a church setting, all contribution is purely voluntary. (This is why John C. Maxwell calls it the the highest form of leadership.)

To my mind, our barometric event started on the eve of the wedding. Although there was no compulsion, almost the entire group gathered in the church around 11pm, to see how they could help. Surrounded by flowers, satin, and other assorted decorations, we were finally faced with the full prospect of our responsibilities. In addition to the decorations, various members also had to coordinate the music, the ushers and the cars. The situation was not helped by the absence of the leader who was in Europe. Fatigued from a week of work, but comforted by each others presence and the sense of shared purpose, various talents began to emerge as we saw sides of each other that would never have been unveiled on a typical Wednesday night. The wedding itself was very poignant, and as we listened to the bride and groom on stage, each person was filled with the sense of shared joy and accomplishment that we had made this happy occasion possible. Ideally, the outcome of the barometric event is that the leader becomes, to a much greater degree, a group member, and the members assume enhanced responsibility for the group's behaviour and direction. We also had the chance to indulge in more intimate conversations with group mates we might not have spoken to before, over several glasses of wine. (Wine always helps.) And hence we passed into the second phase of the group's life.

In the second half of the life of the group, members are preoccupied with their relationships with each other. Immediately after the barometric event, the group is likely to settle into a degree of complacency. What they have been struggling with now no longer seems like an important issue. This roughly corresponds to Tuckman's "norming" phase. Members agree with each other more readily. The group feels smooth, agreeable and unpressured. Bennis and Shepard regard this as a "flight" phase, and it may well be, in Bion's terms, a time when the group is unconsciously working on the "pairing" assumption. Relationships have become more important than work.

Stage Two
The second stage for us is a direct outcome of the barometric events. Lunch gatherings after church began to see record numbers of attendance, as did our Sunday afternoon games which even include DG-mates from other churches. We also began hanging out far more on the weekends, forsaking relationships with other cliques. In the second half of the life of the group, members are preoccupied with their relationships with each other. We are revelling in our new-found togetherness, and indulging in other group activities such as the recent DG Sharing on Oct 16. In this cruising mode, there is a risk that our new friendships may overshadow the original purpose of the DG: as a support group for Christ-centred bible study.

As this goes on, however, time pressure once again begins to be felt. Members begin to be aware that they do not have forever to do things. The original goals and purposes of the group begin to be remembered. A new phase of struggle results. This time, however, members do not assume that it is the leader's responsibility to get things done. The consequence of the barometric event is now felt as "It is up to us". This then is a phase of inter-dependence, of work, and of reaching out: the most productive phase of the group life. Finally, if all goes well, the group reaches a phase in which there is a sense of completeness and mutual affirmation for work completed and the bitter-sweet feelings of parting have to be lived through.

And Beyond
The model seems to fit so far. If so, it should imply that we are finally ready to take on a greater participatory role in the larger church body. The original goals and purposes of the group begin to be remembered. Let us not wait too long to remember this. A cohesive team performs far more effectively than a collection of individuals, and could be a vital force in driving many ministries forward. We already see some of our members undertaking roles in the upcoming BB/GB and Children's Church camps. We also see many other members organising meals, and even chalets. The consequence of the barometric event is now felt as "It is up to us". This then is a phase of inter-dependence, of work, and of reaching out: the most productive phase of the group life. And if this is the most productive phase, we should give serious thought to what we want to produce, rather than random ad hoc events.

Not all groups achieve this, however. If, through the weakness of members or the intransigence of the leader, the barometric event is not achieved, the life of the group will stagnate and members will not find the group to be an environment in which they can mature. They will remain in a dependent condition and the group will never reach what Tuckman called the performing stage.

For Leaders
I think there are some clear lessons I have had the privilege of learning from being in this DG. First and foremost, if a group is 'doing ok', it may be time to initiate a crisis to move the group forward into the next stage. It will take a brave leader to initiate a change in direction and face up to the resultant rebellion, but it is through these shared hardships that friendships are forged. If not, the group will stagnate in the comfort zone until it withers away.

The full text of the Bennis and Shepard model may be found here. Search for "Barometric Event" on the page.

war and work revisited

Sometimes, your brain is so fried you can't string two coherent sentences together. So I'm going to try again, this time without all the academic references. My postulate is that war is like work, because both are inescapable downward spirals of misery.

The root of the problem is that war has no rules. In Arthurian times, knights were guided by a code of conduct. In modern times, we have learned that the victor writes the history books, and people will do whatever it takes to win a war. Snipers, land mines, asymetric warfare and terrorism are all examples that people no longer care about how a battle is won, as long as it is won. And faced with ruthless and unscrupulous adversaries, one has little choice but to follow suit or be destroyed. Thus, the conditions and atrocities of war get from bad to worse.

They say business is war, surely work is war too. In an environment where one aspires to outshine one's peers, people go to extreme lengths to curry favour with superiors. The worst symptom of this is the "if you're not working, you're not working hard enough" mindset. Efficiency and productivity are punished because your value to the organisation is measured in how late you go home, and whether you work on weekends, not how much work you actually produce. From the myriad of complaints I hear, this is a problem endemic to the entire country. And if this does not resonate with you, you probably get paid by the hour.

You work late; I work later. Like war, there are no rules at work. At least, there are no rules that say you have to leave by 7pm, if not you will get your pay cut for being inefficient. But if we do not correct this problem of work-life balance, we will never be able to stem the outflow of quitters searching greener pastures. But how does one reverse a trend that has almost become Singaporean culture?

I am thankful that for now, at least, I have a rare boss who does not subscribe to such practises. Sadly, he is an extremely capable man whose career advancement has obviously suffered because he dared to swim against the tide, and play by different rules. That's a whole problem on its own but for now, one gripe per post.

towards total war and work

War didn't use to be so bad. In the feudal days, war was fought between knights (circa 1000 AD) or mercenary armies (circa 1500 AD), and peasants just got on with life and paid their dues to whoever happened to win. They also had a gentleman's code of conduct. Even in the hundred year's war between England and France, it was almost a side event between professional soldiers, as trading and diplomatic relations continued. But it gets worse.

During the French Revolution, Napoleon began the levée en masse (also known as conscription), and suddenly even unwilling people had to fight. In the American Civil War, Sherman laid waste to the South in his march to the sea, the first time a civilian population was targetted to starve the armies they supported. And with the firebombing of Dresden and the two atomic bombs, WWII employed the destruction of civilian population centres as a means to break the spirit of the nations. In the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranian army used mobs of children to clear minefields in advance of their ground troops.

This is total war - when every single person is thrown into the conflict, and life is a struggle for everyone, from the front line to the home front. There is no holding back. I sometimes feel that work is like total war.

For one thing, they are both downward spirals in the rat race for recognition and promotion. You work hard, I work harder. There are absolute gains in production (not productivity), but the relative standing is still the same. Everybody loses; but once you get caught in the trap, you cannot stop. You cannot work less hard. Instead, we compete to see who can stay in the office longer, who can handle the most projects, who can produce the most. And when it gets really bad, we start cutting each other down and stabbing backs.

And this problem is endemic to our Singaporean society and Chinese in general. We work so hard, but are we truly more productive or is it just blood, sweat and tears? Compare our official working hours with the Europeans, or even the Americans. Then compare the unofficial working hours to see how bad the situation really is. And yet they are still more productive than us! No wonder no one wants to work in Singapore, and everyone here wants to leave. But we have no natural resources and as Krugman puts it, we have run out of growth factors. So the only way to compete globally is to work ourselves into the ground.

In this total war, we are all losers.

all your questions answered

Every once in a while, I get asked what is a paddychicken?
Find the answer here!

engineering philosophy of friendships

Having been through some emotional rollercoasters lately, I think it's interesting to correlate one's sense of wellness with the company one keeps. In particular, I think the presence of friends is a large component of happiness, and different types of friendships can be graphed where x is the amount of happiness and y is time.

Errata: y is the amount of happiness and x is time. Apparently no one is really reading my equations.

I'd do the graphs but I'm on a public terminal, so I hope you remember your math.

Old Friends
Old friends are always there for you. Not very exciting, but hanging out is always positive. This can be graphed as x = a where a > 0.

Hangout Buddies
Hangout buddies drift in and out of our lives, depending on time and space. The getting to know each other part is very exciting, and it can be plotted approximately as |a.sin(x)| where a > 1, for an indefinite time period, until you part ways.

Edit: I have to correct my equation to a[sin(x)+0.875] because there is a slight negative component at times when you feel your buddies don't care about you, although this is often due to misunderstandings. This isn't really noticeable unless too many people make you feel bad at the same time.

Long Distance Friends
It's hard to graph this because it's really erratic. Most of the time, x=0 but during those occasional telephone calls or visits, x can shoot up to astronomical values. It is best describes as a[sin(x)]^b where a and b > 1, and the value of b is correlated to the length of time between meetings.

Girlfriends
This one is simple. It is just a sinusoidal waveform, although the amplitude (both positive and negative) varies with time.

One Night Stands
This should be |-1/x|. If you catch something, you can remove the modulus.

So look at all the friends in your life, find the appropriate waveforms and add them all together. If you're at a point when the peaks coincide, hope it lasts! If you're in a confluence of valleys, hopefully someone new will come into your life. And thus ends the mathematical guide to navigating friendship's ups and downs.

faithless

On Sunday, I heard a very thought-provoking story.

Our pastor shared how he had tried to share Christ with a man dying of cancer. He shared his frustrations in trying to teach this ‘man of few words’ – every question was always answered with a single word, until Pastor found himself supplying both the questions and the answers to an unreceptive listener. He came to dread the weekly sessions. Finally the introductory course was complete and the two did not meet for some weeks.

At his next visit, Pastor was overcome with anguish and guilt at his neglect, when he saw how the once stolid man had wasted to a shrunken frame. As he knelt beside the bed to pray, he choked as he could not find the words to express his pain and grief.

Instead, it was the man who placed a shriveled hand on his arm, and prayed. He prayed to God for the pastor to have the strength to carry on with his ministry, confident in the knowledge that he, the dying man, was going to heaven.

I forget the original takeaway of this anecdote, because the question that filled my mind was how amazing it was that someone could come to have such faith just from a few short sessions with the pastor. If I, who has have a lifetime to read the bible and the vastness of the internet and libraries to conduct my research, still struggle with this, how envious I was that he could be so easily convicted.

It’s easy to say I believe in God, but I often wonder if I could face the circus lions, burning at the stake or crucifixion on a cross for these beliefs. If I truly believed, such temporal suffering is merely a shortcut to the paradise beyond. And yet, the thought is still daunting.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if God would speak to me from a burning bush? Or write on my wall (whiteboard also can). Or even visit me in my dreams.

But if I knew, then that wouldn’t be faith, would it.

blast from the past

I just finished copying my DVD backups to my external hard drive. This makes it quicker and easier to access documents and photos from the last 8 years of my life. It's scary to think how long I have been accumulating this stuff ... it's a good thing I don't collect movies. I also have a backup of my very first blog, which was so archaic I actually ran it off my own web server and updated the html manually. Back then I was much more creative and passionate about life... I think you can see how the writing style has changed.

This entry was written one fine day in the library during exam week.

I've found a scientific reason for my lack of progress. It all boils down to Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.

At the base of the pyramid we have the huge and most important bar which is some long P-word but most importantly it means food. Since I'm always hungry, it is impossible to surmount this barrier, how then can I progress up the pyramid to such abstract concepts like self-actualization which is the closest I can think of to 'mug-in-the-library'. I spend more time at Wawa, Dunkin Donuts or New Deck than in the library methinks. And eventually if I do eat enough, I can progress one step up the pyramid; it's probably labelled 'sleep' or 'food coma' but being a poor student I don't really remember. Moving up even higher is probably 'reply e-mail', followed by 'update website', so as you can see I'm gradually progressing but before I reach the top I'll probably find myself succumbing to the more important primal instincts again. It's like snakes and ladders.

On a side not, Dunkin Donuts is selling 3 donuts for 99 cents now. So happy.

Sigh, re-reading all my old entries makes me really really nostalgic for school!

the wedding dilemna

'Tis the season to tie the knot, it seems, and I have been getting quite a number of wedding invitations these past months. Most of them are from people I would not classify as close friends, and therein lies the dilemna: I don't want to go.

I ask myself if I am being invited
1) Because the couple genuinely wants me to attend for friendship's sake
2) Because the couple does not want to affront me by leaving me out
3) Because the couple wants me to attend for political reasons

If (1), then I should definitely try to go. Else I had better come up with some damn good excuse so that I don't hurt anyone's feelings. If (2), then obviously I should just inform them that I 'am busy' and that would happily close the matter on both sides. If (3), then I'd have to examine the political context to determine the optimal outcome, can't really come up with a general solution here.

These questions are also pertinent because these are people I would not have intended to invite to my own wedding. So if I ever do get married, should I invite them as well?