the flood

There's a down side to being a Christian from birth. Sometimes as a kid, I think I accepted things a little too readily. Take this famous example from Genesis 7:

¹⁷ For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. ¹⁸ The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. ²⁰ The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. ²² Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. ²³ Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

²⁴ The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

It all seemed really reasonable as a kid. The people sinned; God punished them. And what more fitting way than to wash the earth clean. If I saw this for the first time today, the first thing I would ask is probably where did all the water come from? And where did it go after the flood subsided? So this was the question we explored over the weekend, and the answers are absolutely fascinating.

Firstly, the wording of the passage and the surrounding verses make it quite clear that this was a global flood that literally covered the whole earth. So by the theory of conservation of matter, the water could not just have appeared and disappeared.

Geologists who studied the event conclude that this was no simple shower. It was quite a cataclysmic that permanently altered the earth's ecology. A series of violent earthquakes tore the ground asunder and reshaped the face of our planet. At the same time, the atmosphere, which till then had comprised a dense layer of gaseous water, chose to purge itself of fluids in a continuous torrent. The event is recorded as such:

¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. ¹² And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

The scientific record is even more interesting. Many of the fossils discovered today are dated back to that period. And it was interesting to be reminded that fossils are not formed simply by animals that lay down and died. Decomposition would have gotten to them, if they were not eaten first by other animals. Rather, fossils can only be formed when the plants or animals are subjected to abrupt and immense temperature and pressure, such as in a volcanic eruption or earthquake. Hence, the discovery of a rich fossil record from that time period is an indication of seismic activity.

The earth's surface has also changed significantly, evidenced by the discovery of aquatic and plant live on the top of mountains such as Everest. These mountains were once underwater, until they were pushed into the sky by shifting tectonic plates.

And lastly, one interesting indication of how the atmosphere has changed comes from the dinosaurs. For one thing, they are extinct. For another, the wings of the Archaeopteryx could not have kept it aloft in our current atmosphere. So the air must have been more dense, once upon a time.

Anyway, these were just a few of the interesting factoids I gleaned, recorded here for posterity. When I have time I will probably search the web for more juicy details.

Added later: The Juicy Details
There's actually a ton of stuff on the web. But I am linking just a couple that take a clear, coherent and concise position. All articles are one-sided; would love to find any material that resolves the issue head to head.
Arguments for the Global Flood and a Young Earth
1) In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood (7th Edition) by Dr. Walt Brown
2) Creation Evolution Encyclopedia
3) The flood in historical accounts
Dissenting Views
1) Genesis vs. Geology, Stephen Jay Gould, The Atlantic Monthly; September 1982;
2) Answers in Creation
3) Radiometric Resource List and the Radiometric Dating Game debate
4) Radiometric Dating - A Christian Perspective

18 km

The Army Half Marathon
3 km left to go
Body is shutting down,
Knees are in agony
To my left and right,
I see people by the wayside
He is nursing a cramp
She is lying on the grass
Our eyes meet
How I would love to be in that position
How she would love to be in mine
But I wouldn't trade places for an instant
3 km left to go.

fragile life

Every so often, a near-death or near-life-changing experience will remind us of the fragility of our existence. I'm not referring to contracting cancer or some other debilitating illness. I mean those times we tiptoe on the edge of a tragedy, and barely escape unscathed. Sometimes it's only a whisper, like when 9/11 happened in close proximity to me. Or when the second Bali bombings occured just when I was planning a trip there. Other times, it's like a fire alarm going off in my ear. Like the day a tree almost fell on top of me. (Incidentally, that was the very first post on this blog.) When these things happen, we are suddenly awaked to the fact that that could have been me.

Our modern world is full of dangers that can happen at any time, to anyone. There are so many misfortunes that can happen in an instant of inattentiveness (or obliviousness) and change your life forever. Or end it.

1) Getting hit by a car
2) Hitting someone with your car
3) Being in a plane/train crash (supposedly less likely than a car crash but probably more fatal)
4) Having drug traffickers hide drugs in your luggage
5) Getting struck by lightning
6) Bursting an aneurism in the brain or heart
7) Having a tree fall on you
8) Being in a building that collapses or catches fire
9) Terrorist attack
And many many other natural disasters and ridiculous freak accidents could happen. Thankfully Singapore is spared most of the natural ones.

Any of these things could happen to us, and we would have no control over the outcome. We would have no inkling it is about to happen. Life is short, pray hard. Buy insurance. And try not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

australia flexes muscles

I heard somewhere that in this post-Cold War era, humanitarian aid and peacekeeping operations have become the best reasons for keeping a standing military alive. That, and of course, terrorism (which is the dubious shared responsibility of both military and police).

Now, Australia is using this as a reason to increase the size of the army. They deny it has anything to do with Iraq, or Afghanistan, or I suppose Lebanon as well.

PM to increase size of army
AdelaideNow, August 24

"I have believed for a long time that because of our additional commitments in our region and my strong belief that situations like that which arose in the Solomon Islands are likely to occur in our region and given that Australia has the prime responsibility to respond to these situations, I've believed for some time that we've needed a larger army and I'll be having something significant to announce in relation to that later today."

Mr Howard said a bigger army was needed to meet Australia's likely future responsibilities, both as a peacekeeping force in neighbouring countries and as a member of the coalition against terrorism. (link)

cell phone explosions

I use the phone a lot while driving. It is one of the best times to hold a decent conversation, because you can't be distracted by anything else. Every so often I stop for gas, and whoever I'm talking with gets very concerned that I will blow the station up. By using the phone.

I've been having to explain this to people for almost as long as I've been driving. There is really no danger, despite the fact that kiasu petrol station actually put signs up banning the use of phones. I ignore them.

So I thought that I would outline the reasons once and for all, why there is nothing wrong with using the phone at the petrol station.

1) Theory - There is not enough energy in the electromagnetic signal given off by the cellphone to ignite petrol vapour. When I first started driving, I could have used 'A'-level physics to explain this; it's that simple. Too bad all that is long forgotten, but the fact remains.

2) Empirical Evidence - I once caught an episode of Mythbusters where they tried to test this urban legend to see if it was really true. They pumped gaseous petrol into a chamber with a cellphone, and called the phone to see if it would ignite the fumes. It wouldn't. They also tried to set it off by static electricity by rubbing a number of different common synthetic clothing materials together, and on a number of occasions it did explode. Snopes also dismisses many of the claims that have appears in the news, as does TruthOrFiction.

3) Humidity - I assume this urban legend started in America or England, where the air is dry and static electricity gives off sparks. Maybe there was some cause for concern. But in Singapore with 100% humidity, what are you worried about?!

Well, if you've been hanging people up when you had to stop for gas, don't feel bad about being misled. This is indeed a common misconception, as you can see from this article. Check it out, the comments and links are really interesting too, if you want to find out more on the topic.

State Senator Wants To Ban Mobile Phones At The Pump Thanks To Urban Legend

It's never a good sign when you're legislating based on urban legends. While plenty of people have been fooled in the past, there is no evidence that using a mobile phone at a gas station puts you at any risk of causing an explosion. However, that's not stopping one state senator in Connecticut from proposing a law banning mobile phone use at the pump, claiming that "it is a known, documented fact that using a cell phone in proximity of the gas pump can cause an electrical charge that can cause a fire that can ignite the pump." Of course, even many of the rumors of mobile phones creating explosions at gas pumps say it's not the use of the phones at the pump anyway, but the phone ringing. If that's the case, wouldn't you actually be safer if you kept using the phone at the pump -- since it would prevent the phone from ringing?

sources of power

Recently I've been experiencing this niggling reminders of what I learned back in freshman year. It is strange that back then, I thought my class on leadership was an utter waste of time. But as I go about working life, sometimes past lessons flash again before my eyes and I realise how true some of those things really are. It's a pity I threw my textbook away because my memory is like a sieve. First, I was reminded of the barometric event and recently, I have been thinking about sources of power.

There are several individual attributes that can be sources of power, and the one I lack most is probably the ability to tolerate conflict. This basically means that you can be a nasty person and push people around and you don't care if they hate you as long as they get your job done. I find this particularly hard because I think I am a generally nice person and I want people to like me. But at the workplace, I've seen some people who are really gifted at making people hate them. (Which is what prompted me to start thinking about this.) And as long as they can tolerate the dagger stares, it doesn't seem to be doing them much harm. So perhaps this really is a source of power.

Another source of power I'm not particularly good at is energy and stamina. This could mean working longer and harder than anybody else. But I have also heard stories of people who drag meetings way past office hours and only proceed to the decision making when everyone else is faint with hunger, fatigue, or in some cases inebriated. Since I would probably be one of the first to die of hunger or fall asleep, I guess this isn't really my source of power either.

Well there's another one. Focus is important too. But since I maintain that I have ADD and I can't focus on anything boring for more than 10 minutes, this isn't exactly my forte.

Darn, I'm out of sources of power. I guess there isn't much hope for me. Well I'm going to try to push people around more.

pm meets zouk

I think we should all learn a good lesson from this year's National Day Rally. Don't cross Mr Brown. He complains that "I also believe in responding in turn to what the Government said in their letter, but my Humour column was suspended immediately after their letter was printed." However, he has his own channels and an eager audience lapping up every word.

Of course I'm talking about his harmless podcast. If you haven't already heard it, you must check it out. It is really creative genius, mixing PM's soundbites into a dance track. I played it in the office and all my colleagues had a good laugh.

Later in the day, obviously in some long and boring meeting, my boss messaged me: I just realised there is no such thing as mee siam with ham (cockles). I think maybe he means Laksa.

Oh yah hor. I never thought of that. Must be PM don't eat in hawker centres very often.

sincere flattery

This entry is shamelessly stolen from annk because it just cracked me up! Ordinarily I would hyperlink the acknowledgement, but I think your blog is kinda private.

You know you are working in a software firm when the Dell battery recall sparks (pun intended) mailnotes that offer captions to these two photographs sent by one of the guys.

14. Don't bother me, I'm working on a hot new program
13. The downside of outsourcing SW development
12. When managers write software
11. No, I ordered a BUD light
10. Dangers of loading the JDF toolkit on a 256MB laptop
9. "Fire and Forget" job submission workflow is identified as customer dissatisfier
8. I said "Firewall" not "Wall of Fire"
7. EFI launches new laptop-based Firey controller
6. New definition of "killer app"
5. The latest denial of service virus
4. Microsoft launches Vista on schedule
3. New high speed "Wi-Fire" protocol testing
2. Finally, a product demo that's not just smoke and mirrors
1. Dell Bulletin: Combination iPod dock/Fire Extinguisher now available as option!

Let me know if it's ok to link you. But for now, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

much ado about nothing

I could not help but wonder, as I sat there watching the idiot box with the dog whining and trying to make me walk him, if I was not just wasting my time. About an hour into the National Day Rally speech and I had to ask, "So what's new?" It is a pity I had fallen asleep when they announced the five-day week two years ago. Since then, I have watched two rally speeches in anticipation of some other electrifying announcement that would turn the world on its head, but they have been rather boring, really.

I guess there were two points that stood out more for me in this speech. The first was the issue of foreign talent, and the creation of a new agency withing the PMO to manage this. I think PM's points can be summarised briefly as
1) It is very important to stay in touch with overseas Singaporeans. It is good to go overseas, but please come back. We will set up an agency to manage this.
2) We all know our birth rate cannot support population replacement. I won't bore you with the details.
3) Since our birth rate is too low, the best way to sustain our population is to attract foreign talent.

In the first place, I think perhaps he glossed over the second point a little too quickly. Is it really so hard to increse the birth rate? It seems we are pouring a lot of resources into the whole foreign talent thing, might it not be possible to invest this in subsidising the costs of a third child instead? Every time the issue of birth policies comes up, my mother becomes incensed because she feels the PAP really screwed up on this one. She will tell the story of how she went to the hospital for a checkup when pregnant with the baby sister, and the nurses kindly directed her to the abortion room (obviously a fair assumption since this was the third, and she should stop at two). And she feels that the government should really show some backbone and admit for once that they were wrong in those early years. Instead, they introduce new and unpopular measures to attempt to fix this problem.

Personally, I have no problem with foreign talent. I see this as a problem of the individual welfare versus the welfare of society. And I believe that by picking and choosing the cream of foreign talent, they would certainly contribute to the country more than a few hundred more babies born to random Singaporean parents.

On the other hand, it is likely that with more competition (whether local or foreign), individuals would be less well off. This is the innate fear that leads people to reject the notion of more foreigners. The key differences are that with foreign talent, the culprits are easily identified (as opposed to some faceless statistic on the birthrate) and with foreign talent, people feel the pain immediately because they are competing for jobs now, not 20 years down the road. It is easy to gripe if you are replaced or passed over in favor of some yellow haired dude, but if some other Singaporean gets your job or promotion, how would you know if he might not have existed if not for government birth control policies?

The other thing that PM focussed on was the new media, the internet and blogs. It is quite clear from the time allotted that this has been identified as a key issue that they are taking very seriously. It is unfortunate that after all the talk, I was still not convinced that the action taken against Mr Brown was reasonable and public spirited. And yet I am still very hopeful for our blogging scene, and especially Mr Brown.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover recently that Mr Brown ranks #300 on Technorati. Given our miniscule population (since popularity is based on links), it is really impressive to have one of our own ranking up in the clouds. To me this signals a very active blogging scene, which bodes well for the continuance of civic discourse, whether serious, fallecious or otherwise. Kudos to Mr Brown, and keep up the good work!

guide to malacca

I just spent the weekend in Malacca, and certainly it has been one of the best holidays I've had in recent memory. I use holiday in the classical sense, i.e. a day free from work that one may spend at leisure, and not the more modern visit to exotic city in foreign land with checklist of monuments to see, experiences to try and spoils to bring home. That kind of travel is not a holiday.Yes, it has been quite a blissful weekend. I have been to Malacca many times from childhood, so there is really little there that interests me apart from the food. And such food. So I thought I should share.

Recently there has been some hawker-bashing in the Singapore media about how our street food really isn't all that good. Well I can safely say the food in Malacca is better than most, if not all their competition in Singapore, and much cheaper.

Aided by two decades of childhood memories, I hereby present the paddychicken guide to Malacca - a weekend eating extravaganza. (Names, addresses and GPS coordinates are provided where available)

(If you aren't heading up to Malacca, you may wish to amuse yourself with something closer at hand by reading the paddychicken guide to Serangoon Garden instead.)

Breakfast/Lunch
Man Ting Siang Tim Sum Restaurant
45A Jln Ong Kim Wee
48 N 0193393 0243743
This is a really simple Chinese restaurant serving a small but very fresh selection of dim sum. I particularly enjoyed the Siew Mais and the Chee Cheong Fun, but everything was really good overall. Unfortunately, they were sold out of their specialty stewed pork buns (kong bak pau) and chicken feet by the time I got there. Two people stuffed themselves for RM19 ($8).

Bak Kut Teh
There is Bak Kut Teh all over Malacca, and I haven't yet eaten a bad one. They come in the Hokkien (clear with lots of ingredients) and Teochew (brown with lots of garlic) varieties. Some tried and tested places are:
Lim Kee Restaurant (Hokkien)
Lot 180, Jalan Laksamana Cheng Ho
-Family Favorite- (Teochew)
48 N 0194113 0242007
Unfortunately I forgot the name and address, but a GPS will take you right there. It is slightly east of Mahkota Parade.
Newton Hawker Centre (Teochew)
(see Supper)

Lunch
Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Ball
4 Jln Hang Jebat
48 N 0193954 0242913 (Carpark)
Located off Jonker St, this eatery has grown from a roadside stall to occupy several units, and dirty tables and stools have been replaced by impressive Chinese furniture. The ambience has improved much, and the food remains as good as ever. I'm actually not that impressed by the chicken (some of its immitators apparently do a better job), but the rice balls are delectable, the Assam Fish Curry is superb and they serve very nice soup and vegetables as well.

Dinner
Bei Zhan Restaurant
16 Jln Melaka Raya
The food here is so famous that you can find signs pointing towards it from the surrounding aread. And I'm not talking about billboards, I mean offical road signs! The specialty is braised pork ribs in buns, but they serve a variety of Asian food at very affordable prices. Best visited in large groups so you can order more stuff.
Sea Terrace
Stall No. 1, Portugese Settlement, Jalan D'Albuquerque
If you like Sambal, this is the place. With just two people, we feasted on Baked Fish, Sambal Kang Kong, Sambal Prawns and two Burned Crabs in salt and pepper. All for just RM80 ($35)!

Supper
Medan Selera Newton (Newton Hawker Centre)
Junction of Jln Parameswara and Jln Tamby Abdullah
Lots of lovely stalls here including satay, guo tie, bak kut teh and a delicious wine soup noodle.

Pineapple Tarts
Homemade Pineapple tarts also seem quite ubiquitous in Malacca. Here are some tried and tested places:
Makko Nonya Restaurant
123 Taman Melaka Raya
This restaurant is actually a family favorite too, but I personally don't like Nonya food.
Bee Bee
307A Jln Parameswara
This is a pineapple tart cottage industry (kind of like Lana Cake), serving tarts out of the backyard. Whether they have tarts for sale kind of depends on your luck.
Sea Terrace (see above)
They also have some lovely homemade tarts here, but a little more pricey.

Portugese Egg Tarts
Italy Bakery
155 Jln Bunga Raya
I have been on a Portugese Egg Tart quest for some time, and it continued on this trip. The custard in the tarts here is quite excellent, although the pastry is sadly on the tough side. Still, this is probably better than anything I have found in Singapore yet.

Disclaimer:
The above eateries are located all around Malacca, so don't try this without a car. Malacca is actually a very small city, and you can drive from end to end in maybe 20 minutes. But due to the monstrosity of one-way streets, some of which are not even marked on the map, do not be surprised if you find yourself at a cross junction looking down the wrong end of a one-way street. When this happens, curse, swear, and try your best to stay your course through dead reckoning.

missions

Missions seems to be a really hot topic. First I heard Patrick Johnstone talk on Operation World at ARPC last week. And this week, my own church is also having a series for Missions Month. But it has really gotten me thinking because I'm pretty interested in missions work, but my current work schedule certainly won't permit anything.

Some of the key points I took away were that
1) 1/3 of the world is Christian, 1/3 of the world lives among Christians, and the last 1/3 are the so-called "unreached peoples" that have never heard of Christianity
2) 9% of the unreached people speak English, but 94% of missionaries speak English
3) 97% of the unreached people live in the 10-40 window, which encompasses most of East Asia.

And as I contemplated how I might possibly get involved in missions, I thought one very attractive option was to take up full time language study in one of these countries, and use the time to serve in the mission field there. And here are the reasons:
1) That is the best way to learn a new language so I don't add on to the existing 94%
2) Can learn and practise at the same time
3) Living expenses in places like Vietnam, Cambodia or China are dirt cheap
4) The food is dirt cheap and oh so good
5) If it works out well, can either go into full time missions there or try tentmaking
6) If it doesn't work so well, it's always useful to have learned the language of these up-and-coming Asian economies for other employment opportunities

Ok I guess this isn't really the attitude of a missionary zealot, but I thought it was a pretty practical approach. I have half a mind to take a gap year/sabbatical and try this out. Not just yet, but maybe soon.

school memories

Zynfandel brings back fond memories from school

Anyway so ice cream. When I was in college, paddychicken and I had a pact to put on as much weight as quickly as we could, so we would plant ourselves at the freezer section of Freshgrocer (ah, Freshgrocer) and meticulously examine each flavour of ice cream to see which had the most fat content. (Yeah we were losers but we were skinny losers, so there.)

When we were still slim and trim. I remember back then my logic was that I needed to pack on the pounds first so that I could eventually convert it into muscle. But on hindsight, I think that would require exercise, which is no longer in my vocabulary.

the curse of the internet

In many ways, the internet is a good thing. It has opened up boundless knowledge on any topic, at any time, and (with IN2015) any place. With the power of Google, you can get almost all your questions answered.

I liken the internet to drinking from a swimming pool. It is always up to date, because it collects whatever new rain is breaking news. And it is generally easy reading, you can gulp down as much as you want. You can even drown in it. But are you satisfied?

A good book, on the other hand, is like fine champagne. For one thing, it costs money. And contrary to the popular saying, the best things in life are often not free, and this is particularly true of information and ideas. (Yes, you can find a lot of gems in the swimming pool, but you have to sift through a few gallons of chlorinated water first.) For one thing, a person would generally have pretty good ideas before they bother to go to the trouble of writing and publishing. On the other hand, it is much harder to pick up the bottle of champagne than to scoop water from the pool. It is really hard to drink strong spirits after a tiring day of work, because you will just fall asleep without fully savouring its essence.

Anyway, I've collected a fine cellar full of assorted spirits, and I think it's about time I started savouring them. So I shall endeavour to put aside the lure of the internet for a while and focus on all my books. I'm halfway through JBJ's The Hatchet Man of Singapore, Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and just starting on comparative religion. I should try to finish at least some of them by the weekend.

This comes at an awkward time just when I am forewarned to expect the next round of pesky interviews. Because the internet is also my main source of news. But I've already decided that I'm pretty happy and comfortable the way things are now, so I really don't want to be flying any higher or working any harder. So now I'm off to curl up with a good book.

the JBJ campaign

I caught The Campaign to Confer the Public Service Star on JBJ over the weekend, and must say I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. The synopsis from the playbill writes:

David Lee (Rodney Oliveiro), NUS student and President of the Association of Students for Self-expression (ASS), takes it upon himself to launch the Campaign to Confer The Public Service Star on JBJ. His plucky project takes him on an adventure with both expected and surprising twists and turns.

Clara Tang (Pam Oei), rising star of the Civil Service, is tasked to exercise damage control. In the most challenging mission of her career, she finds herself navigating the maze of New Singapore and Old Constraints.

Join us for a tongue-in-cheek look at the boundaries (perceived or otherwise) of fearless expression in Singapore! This fantastical account of an unlikely petition to publicly recognise an unsung hero unfolds into a wildly imaginative “what-if” exploration of possible official reactions!

This play does not have much by way of a storyline. It is extremely simple, but it sets the stage for the playwright's real agenda which is to provide a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of numerous situations that the protagonists face, first in trying to run a campaign in staid Singapore, then on how the government has to manage civil disquiet. Pam Oei, in particular, is quite hilarious with her feisty portrayals and many accents.

The scenes are extremely witty and very up to date on recent happenings, from an appearance on Singapore Idol to the podcast studio of the Mrs Brown Show. Many of the main players in our civil society scene are also portrayed: the media, the artists and even the police. And through it all, we are given Eleanor's portrayal of how the civil service really works behind the scenes.

I wonder what it is about artists that seems to place them necessarily at odds with the establishment. Or maybe the anti-establishment types gravitate to the arts as a form of free expression. Or is art the only platform from which they can find an audience?

Next on my arts calendar is Tick Tick Boom. It is also a rock musical by Jonathan Larson of Rent fame. How can I miss that? Maybe I will also catch the Vienna Boys Choir.

peacekeepers in lebanon

Our neighbour to the North is one of the first few countries to volunteer troops to help the situation in Lebanon. They were also one of the first to send assistance for the Nias earthquake.

Associated Press
France, Italy, Turkey Offer U.N. Troops
By ANGELA DOLAND , 08.12.2006, 03:45 PM

France and Italy, along with predominantly Muslim Turkey and Malaysia, signaled willingness Saturday to send troops for a beefed-up U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, but consultations are still needed to hammer out the force's makeup and mandate.

New Zealand and Ireland were among smaller nations saying they might contribute peacekeepers for the mission to bring calm after a month of fighting that has killed more than 800 people, displaced hundreds of thousands and caused widespread damage.

Singapore, which played a prominent role in the East Timor peacekeeping force and the 2005 Boxing Day Tsunami has recently been rather subdued in contrast. I wonder if this symbolises any shift in positions on the world stage?

work sucks

I'm sure everyone has gripes about work, whether veiled or otherwise. I am generally quite content in my present position, but on weekends like this one, when a mountain of work is dumped on my lap on Friday afternoon and due on Monday, I might just let out a smidgen of discontent. So here are some interesting articles from reputable periodicals that you can print out and paste on your cubicle walls as a form of silent protest.

NYTimes talks about how Americans are too afraid they will lose their jobs to go on holiday.

“I never go on vacation,” said Ellen Kapit, a real estate agent in Manhattan. “And when I do, I have my computer, my Palm, my e-mail and my phone with me at all times.”
...
But even as the American vacation is dying, the anxiety surrounding it is surging, according to surveys of workers released in the last year. Employees are sweating over every aspect of their getaways, from whether taking time off dooms them to the want ads to whether the work they will face when they return will keep them from ever leaving their cubicles again. And if they finally do make their escape?
...
“There’s a large increase in the number of people who worry that they will lose their job,” said Ellen Galinsky, the president of the Families and Work Institute, a nonprofit center for research on the American work force. In 1977, 45 percent of people felt truly secure in their jobs while only 36 percent have felt that way in recent years, she said, citing the organization’s surveys.

Please Don’t Make Me Go on Vacation, NYTimes, 10 August 2006

And TIME Magazine echoes the complaint that holidays are not really holidays. (Courtesy of Jed)

One of the top reasons given for not taking a vacation is that it's too much extra work. We have to get ahead of our workload in order to leave, and then we have to catch up on our workload upon our return. The longer the vacation we take, the bigger the stumbling blocks appear. So only 14% of Americans will take a vacation two weeks or longer this summer. Bottom line: it's simply become too stressful to relax.

Just Sit Back and Relax! TIME, 26 June 2006

Well, if you want to know what I think, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. But some of the statements I made in an earlier post have found very strong support in both these articles. So at least I know I'm not the only one. Here is an excerpt:

My colleagues have evolved an extremely dangerous culture. That of staying back late in the office, whether or not they actually have real work to do. It is so prevalent to find people working till 9 or 10 at night, and I believe this is true of many other industries in Singapore, not just my own. But are these people really industrious, or just plain inefficient? Whatever the case, they are digging a hole for all of us, because if the expectation becomes to stay late in the office, especially on weekends, that will not do any good for anyone.

Work, Paddychicken, 18 June 2005

I'm sure we can all relate yeah? And clearly America is not the place to be either. I hear Australia is still pretty good though.

PSA

This is a Public Service Announcement for the President's Scout Award Chapter. The Chapter was founded this year and is trying ways and means to contact all President Scouts, Queen Scouts and King Scouts in Singapore to invite them as members. The event will be officiated by the President. Here is a news excerpt from the Asia Pacific Region Office:

Singapore President to inaugurate Singapore Scout Guild

The Singapore Scout Guild President's Scout Chapter was established at the beginning of 2006. Chief Scout & President of the Republic of Singapore, HE S.R. Nathan, will inaugurate the President's Scout Chapter at the Istana on 31 October. Many of the President's Scout Chapter founding members are members of the APR Association of Top Achiever Scouts (ATAS).

So if you are any of the above and would like to find out more, please contact the Singapore Scout Association, or drop me a comment/e-mail and I can put you directly in touch with the coordinators.

The other two interesting bits of Scout news I've learned recently are that
1) As of this year, Girl Scouts is an officially recognised CCA by MOE. I wonder how the Guides feel about that? Maybe they will start Boy Guides.
2) There is a Mozzie Buster Proficiency Badge! Serious stuff man.

ndp come and gone

Another national day come and gone. I actually thought it was a Saturday until an F-16 flew overhead en route to the stadium. We celebrated by playing all kind of word games and card games at my home. A friend reminded me that this was how we did it last time too; maybe it is involuntarily becoming my national day tradition. Because I have never cared for the parade; never have and probably never will. As a child, I was never interested in the precision drills or the mass dances. And I literally fell asleep in the Padang at NDP 2000. The fireworks are the best part, but the New Year’s Day fireworks are even better!

Singapore is one of the very few countries in the world that celebrates our independence day on such a grand scale. (North Korea is one of the others.) It is by far the biggest event on the national calendar, both in terms of money spent and also by the number of ministers present. And what is all this in aid of?

Well I suppose the main aim is to inculcate a spirit of patriotism in our people. This starts from young, since every primary 5 student is supposed to attend the NE Shows that take place before the Preview. And inasmuch as the children really love the show, the nightmare of getting them home probably detracts somewhat from the experience. So I hope they keep the fond memories and not the sour ones. I have also heard some people who say that singing the national anthem at NDP is the time they feel most proud to be Singaporean. These are probably also the people willing to buy tickets on e-Bay.

But how long does the patriotism last? After 41 years, shouldn’t we all be very patriotic by now if NDP worked? It almost makes me feel that Singaporeans are like those Christians that only go to church on Christmas and Easter. Given the vast resources employed, isn’t there a better and more lasting way to build national spirit, where being Singaporean is an everyday affair and not just an annual party?

Another suggested reason for NDP is the show of deterrent force when we roll out the mobile column every five years. Personally I am quite cynical of this, because I’m sure potential adversaries’ intelligence services should provide a much better picture. And if not, they can always read Defending the Lion City or Janes.

Sometimes part of me feels a little guilty too, for being such a detractor. Maybe I am just more fortunate to be able to watch professional performances like musicals and dance, which are much more entertaining. Maybe for some people, NDP is the biggest show they could hope to watch, and they really look forward to it. But again, if this was the purpose of the parade, then I think the resources could be better spent to achieve this goal.

Thanks for the holiday, but I’ll skip the parade.

Just for the heck of it, I went back to read what I wrote about NDP last year. It's kinda funny to see things again in retrospect. I think I had better stuff to say back then.

mothering the motherboard

An encounter over the week end gave me some deeper insight into the workings of hardware warranties. For some time now, my computer has been randomly rebooting of its own accord. I brought it back to Sim Lim, but they wouldn’t do anything since I couldn’t reproduce the problem. But for the last three weeks, my computer has been a bit cranky turning on. Before it enters Windows, it will stop on a black screen, and I have to turn it off and on again, sometimes several times. “Ah, ha!” I thought, “This time I can get it fixed.” So I brought it down to Sim Lim citing motherboard problems.

And of course, my ejit computer decided to work perfectly well at the shop. I decided to put on the irate customer hat, and ranted and raved about how it has given me problems every day for three weeks, how can it work in the shop? The repair man just gave me a stony stare, and muttered continuously that he couldn’t do anything. I guess he probably thought I was one of those clueless customers that brings it back to the shop at the first sign of trouble.

So I switched to my engineer hat, and explained to him why it was a motherboard problem. Firstly, it is unlikely to be the power source because the computer hangs before it reboots. If it was a power flicker, it should reboot immediately. It is not likely to be a software problem, because there is no event that triggers the rebooting. Sometimes I am typing, sometimes I am surfing, and sometimes the computer is doing nothing at all! (Not even playing music.) And furthermore, it doesn’t give me the blue screen of death. Which is why I don’t think it is the RAM either, but most likely the motherboard.

After this, he was much more sympathetic. He knows well himself that sometimes problems cannot be reproduced, and explained to me that it is just really difficult to claim warranty on motherboards. Sometimes, even when they have diagnosed the problem, they return it to the manufacturer but they will claim that there is nothing wrong, and there is nothing the consumer can do! Except suck it up. He recommended I just use it until the computer refuses to even turn on. (But that would hardly solve my rebooting problem, I whined.)

He pointed out a computer in the corner. They had already spent two weeks working on it. The customer complained that it couldn’t load MSN, and they had tested this to be true. They had used the motherboard with another completely new set of peripherals, and it still couldn’t work. The same peripherals worked fine with a different motherboard. So there was definitely something wrong. Yet, when they sent it back to the manufacturer, it was diagnosed as working fine! The most peculiar thing was that when they used another brand new motherboard of the same model, they had exactly the same problem. Yet, the customer had been using MSN for the first five months without any issues. So I asked him if the customer had updated his MSN after the first five months. That got him thinking. Personally, that seems to be the glaringly obvious solution to me, but unfortunately it probably won’t help the customer replace his motherboard.

By this time, we were almost friends. Not too bad after the rocky start. And as we re-assembled my computer together, he recommended that I just bring it to them directly myself next time. Maybe if I put the heat on them directly, things might happen. But I still better wait till it conks out for best effect. So I brought the computer home and it worked! But the very next day it was acting up again.

I like solving logic problems and debugging stuff. It works well in programming; but sometimes with hardware, or anything in the physical realm, the silliest things can cause the most unexpected problems.

So anyway, back to the topic of warranties. It took Panasonic more than a month to fix my camcorder in February. And it’s taken Dopod more than a month to fix my PDA motherboard since I sent it in on July 1. Both times I ended up taking the equipment back halfway because I really needed it. Warranties are great, but too bad there’s no clause that says how quick things will be fixed, or that you get any kind of replacement.

quitters

I haven't really been following the debate on emigration closely. I'm sure its more of the same again. In fact, it strikes me as slightly hypocritical that the government should make an issue of this at all. Of course, we don't want to lose our intellectual capital to other countries. But considering that we have very public efforts of our own to attract foreign talent, and that our continued population growth rate is probably not due to the declining birth rate, I'd say what goes around comes around. For years, we have been beneficiaries of the repressive domestic racial policies of our neighbours. Can we in good conscience condemn people for going someplace else?

But on the other hand, is emigration really such a bad thing? In their 2001 aricle Brains Abroad¹, Janamitra Devan and Parth S. Tewari made a convincing case that an overseas population is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, “In 1999, 70 percent of China’s $50 billion in foreign direct investment came from Chinese people living abroad”, and “Indians abroad deposited $5.5 billion at the state bank of India”². Domestic helpers from countries such as the Phillipines and Mexico have made up a large chunk of credit in their countries' current account balance. And in recent news, we also hear how Mittal Steel is returning to invest in India. Another more extreme example are the Jews, who are accused of using their positions of influence in many countries, most notably the United States, to support the reconstitution of the state of Israel and its subsequent actions. These are all examples of people who have contributed to their home countries from abroad.

The decision to leave a country is not a sign of disloyalty. There could be many reasons, which I think KTM has covered quite comprehensively at SingaporeAngle. Bottom line is that if we cannot keep these people physically, we should at least retain their loyalty and goodwill, or all will truly be lost.

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¹ "Brains Abroad", Janamitra Devan and Parth S. Tewari, The McKinsey Quarterly, Number 4 pp 51-60
² ibid, pg 54

I think it's a pretty good article, but unfortunately it's not available online due to copyright I suppose. If anyone wants to read it, drop me a comment, I can email to you.

As a really random aside, I thought it was interesting to note that Janamitra Devan is the brother of Jenadas Devan, both sons of Devan Nair. Jenadas Devan has long been my favorite ST columnist, which is the polar opposite from my opinion of Andy Ho. I was once given an article by Jenadas on Japans' deflation for my political economy class. Considering that my Prof is one of the leading Japan experts and a consultant to the Japanese government, that article must have been pretty good to be selected. Which is pretty extraodinary considering that Janadas' area of expertise seems to be English literature.

family fixes

One of my mother's pet gripes is that I am not the handy man my dad is. Over the weekend, she gleefully informed me that he had replaced the rusted washers in the toilet seat for just $0.30. "Imagine how much it would have cost to call a repairman! You better learn to fix some of these things," she chided, "next time calling repair people will be very expensive."

While I'm not exactly a power tool freak, I wouldn't really say that I am all thumbs either. I can change fluorescent tubes and assemble Ikea furniture when pressed. It's just that I'm a very patient person. So when other people lose patience first, they tend to take matters into their own hands. Patience is a virtue.

Besides, my Dad and I have a tacit arrangement. He's the mechanical engineer, I'm the computer scientist. He fixes the furniture (heck, he makes some of it), looks after the cars, and changes the light bulbs. I diagnose the multitude of problems that crop up on the family's six computers, and implement the necessary hardware or software solutions. I'm pretty sure I provide a service just as valuable as he does!

Just last night Mummy was asking me to help her unclog the sink - I taught her an innovative way to do it by herself. And tonight she's asking me to zip files for her. I think I'm pretty useful!

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I just noticed that I've been published in LittleSpeck, touted as "Best Political Site of the Day". It is flattering to see that my political views are given such weight.

irregardless

Oh my goodness! I can't believe it's actually a word. Well, if being in the dictionary qualifies it as a word.

ir·re·gard·less (r-gärdls)

adv. Nonstandard

Regardless.

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[Probably blend of irrespective and regardless.]

Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.

I thought at first it was some bad habit my colleagues have been passing around. Then I realised that it afflicts the larger Singaporean population. And suddenly I see the truth: the evil Americans have been behind it the whole time.

alan beggerow

In recent months, there has been some sporadic coverage in our news about how despite the economy picking up, some people don't want to go back to work. These people refuse to heed the governments call to retrain themselves, and having been laid off from rather senior positions they find it very difficult to start from the bottom again.

Well, here's an interesting article that shows this problem is definitely not uniquely Singaporean.

Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job
By LOUIS UCHITELLE and DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: NYTimes July 31, 2006

ROCK FALLS, Ill. — Alan Beggerow has stopped looking for work. Laid off as a steelworker at 48, he taught math for a while at a community college. But when that ended, he could not find a job that, in his view, was neither demeaning nor underpaid.

Millions of men like Mr. Beggerow — men in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 — have dropped out of regular work. They are turning down jobs they think beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work.

We can learn a few interesting things from this. The first is that we are not alone. And we are not the worst either, because this problem is exarcerbated by social security, something we do not have. And lastly, it reminds us that dropping unemployment figures just means that less people are looking for work. But many may just have given up.