I was wondering why Orchard Road is so jam packed (actually I think it is jam packed every other day) when I saw the Christmas lightings! It’s really beautiful… here are some shots taken from a moving taxi =P

Ya… the lights are a little wavy… but well, the taxi likes to jerk instead of stopping completely… =( More taxi photos!

Hehe… nice lightings right? But too bad it’s still a little blur. Oh well, Uncle was looking at me suspiciously, wondering if I could be the next terrorist… so I kept my camera quickly. =P

So, it was back to “the office” with beef pie and tea! Woohoo! I was having a crazy headache today because of lack of sleep. Well, some tea would definitely do some good

Heh heh… the pie and that small piece of chocolate cakes looks good, doesn’t it? =) Ya… I like chocolate, especially dark chocolate… but I know of some who just doesn’t like the taste, so it’s individual preference.

And nothing’s quite complete without the usual Tazo Chai Tea, isn’t it? Oh well, seems like I am all ready for work, work and more work.

Jia you! =)

You know how we sometimes come across certain articles and read the comments made by the people involved and start sniggering to ourselves because we suddenly thought of some conspiracy theory? Well, here’s one more for the day, and one more for the record.

Apparently 9 Hougang blocks have to be torn down for estate makeover and the people affected have to be relocated elsewhere. MP Low Thia Khiang for Hougang commented that it was too rushed a move and questioned on the need to clear the people so quickly.

Specifically, he said “Since the market and commercial area, according to HDB, will only be developed for residential and commercial use after 2010…why is there a need to clear them by August 2008? What is the urgency?”

Well, my conspiracy theory is that Hougang is an opposition ward that is known to have strong kampung spirit. By moving away people who have stayed there for the longest time, you’d effectively erode the spirit that holds the people together. At the same time, when new residential estates are put up again, not all of them would have the Kampung spirit to vote the opposition back to power again, hence decreasing the latter’s chances of winning the ward again.

Since further plans to develop the place starts after 2010, there’s little chance that newcomers into the estate would catch on the opposition’s Kampung spirit. =P

Ok, this is just a conspiracy theory. I’m not a partisan player in politics. =) I’m soon going to be apathetic to it.

NINE blocks of rental flats, shops and workshops, and a hawker centre in the opposition ward of Hougang are being cleared by the Housing Board.

The board said yesterday that the move was ‘part of ongoing plans to rejuvenate older estates and to facilitate better land use’.

It will give tenants a chance to move to newer or upgraded homes and ‘inject new life to the estate and offer new housing options and modern commercial facilities’, said the HDB.

Similar clearing exercises have been conducted in Clementi and Tanjong Pagar.

The selected blocks - 3, 4, 8 to 11, and 11A to 14 in Hougang Avenues 3 and 7 - are about 33 years old. The site occupied by blocks 12 to 14 - which has 60 workshops - will be put up for sale for private homes in 2009.

The remaining land freed up will be developed for residential or commercial use after 2010, depending on market conditions.

The Hougang cluster includes 654 one- and three-room rental flats as well as a hawker centre described by residents as the heart of the ageing community.

‘The stallholders are very close to the customers…the community spirit is very strong,’ said Ms Nur Aidah Abdullah, 39, who sells drinks at a stall.

The food centre is also a place where local MP Low Thia Khiang, who is the Workers’ Party’s secretary-general, meets his residents. The incumbent MP defeated People’s Action Party challenger Eric Low in last year’s election.

Among the 654 rental flats being cleared, 400 are let out to low-income families. The rest are leased to companies - which use them mainly to house foreign workers - and managing agents, who let them out in turn.

All residents will have to move out in about a year.

Many, like Ms Lin Caifeng, 65, said they will miss the place. ‘I’ve been living here for 10 years and have friends from all the blocks. If I move elsewhere, I won’t have anybody,’ she said.

Unlike HDB’s selective en-bloc redevelopment scheme - which is offered to property owners - relocated tenants are not offered a single alternative development to move to.

The HDB will offer flats in housing estates such as Pipit Road, Beach Road, Geylang Bahru and Ang Mo Kio, but has reserved small clusters of flats so that some tenants can be rehoused together.

Eligible low-income tenants and stallholders will get the standard clearance benefits and aid when necessary.

Tenants who want to continue renting will receive priority in getting flats. Those who choose to buy will be given priority over other buyers.

Tenants will also get a $1,000 allowance to help with the move.

MP Mr Low told The Straits Times by e-mail that he was informed about the plan only yesterday morning.

‘I would expect the HDB to provide adequate assistance to residents, market stall holders and shop tenants who are affected,’ he said.

The removal of the market and shops will inconvenience Hougang residents, he added.

‘Since the market and commercial area, according to HDB, will only be developed for residential and commercial use after 2010, depending on prevailing market conditions, why is there a need to clear them by August 2008? What is the urgency?’

He did not reply when asked how he would help affected residents.

The PAP’s Mr Low said the residents would be better off on the whole after the move: ‘The kampong spirit may have to be given up. But on the whole, this will be better for them.’

tanhy@sph.com.sg

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KUA ZHEN YANG, KEITH LIN & GOH CHIN LIAN

RELATED LINKS

GOING SOON

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 16th November 2007

Hmm… lethargy must be catching up with me, especially after doing some early morning blogging using Windows Live Writer. Heh… I’m still using it now, seemingly unaware of any hiccups that it can possibly bring about.

The only pet peeve that I have is that, while I can upload files and photos onto Wordpress, I seemingly have to upload Video to youtube before I can get the URL and then plug it back in into Wordpress. I’m secretly hoping that there is some effective plug-in that I can use to host the video on my own blog.

Anyway, back to why I am feeling a little tired. Well, today’s not generally a good day for me because I tried getting my passport sized photos taken, and they sux. Big time. I probably don’t like to take photos because wherever they go, the photo marks you for life.

Oh well, I hope the camera back home can do something better. That probably means lots of photoshop and editing. Haha… then again, if a person is ugly, no amount of photoshop’ing is going to help.

Hmm… come to think of it, today’s probably going to be the last day that I can wake up later on a weekday. Come Monday, I’m going to a brand new place. It’s just that people move… and well, sometimes it just needs a little bit of getting used to it.

Now, now, wasn’t I supposed to finish up my report? Sigh. It’s a Friday, and you know how Fridays are like, don’t you? Laid-back, relaxed, thanking god for it (TGIF)… then again, it’s also when some of my other work starts.

Sigh. I need some life.

I’m not sure if most people have already tried, or am I just being slow… but has anyone tried clicking on this before?

It’s been there for the longest time and so I thought I’d try it out yesterday. When I first went in, it somehow looked suspiciously familiar to something that I have used before. It almost seemed like a déjà vu. Then I realised… it looked like something that I have signed up before!

Do you know which ad product what I am referring to? =)

I do not understand why people have to resort to such underhand means sometimes. Is this what working in the real world is all about? Withholding information from their customers, cheating on their clients, squeezing the last drop from people who trusted them? It’s people like them that creates a bad name for everyone in the same line.

I think people who have fallen into such traps should voice out about it. No doubt they may have been victims, but there should be a way to prevent more people from falling into such traps!

I remembered once when I went for an MLM talk. There were people who were obviously not ready to commit money into the products, but the sales people just coerced them into doing so by volunteering to fork out their own money first and getting the buyers to pay them back later.

Thank goodness there’s supposedly the 7-day period that you can have to reverse your decision. I wonder if this is made known to the buyers.

Timesharing! I don’t want to talk about it. Just thinking about it makes my blood boil. However, I guess it’s 2-fold. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

A weekly look at what to watch out for in the world of consumers. Figures, case study and tips come from the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case).

The world of real estate

64 No. of cases filed (January to December 2006)

Top complaints

1. Misrepresentation

2. Failure to honour contract

CASE STUDY

A consumer signed an agreement to buy a flat for $203,000 and paid a deposit of $3,000. The estate agent of the seller of the unit misled her into signing a commission agreement and did not inform her of the option-to-purchase (OTP) form. When the consumer decided not to go ahead with the purchase, the agent claimed she would suffer a big loss.

The consumer was not told of the eight weeks of moving in (clause 12 of agreement). The agent also failed to give her the contract and relevant documents for the sale of her unit. The consumer was unwilling to pay any commission on the flat she bought since she was misled into signing the commission agreement. She was willing to pay only a commission of 0.5 per cent of the contract value for the sale of her own flat.

OUTCOME OF CASE

After Case negotiated on her behalf, she paid only 1 per cent commission of the contract value for the sale of her own flat and 0.5 per cent commission of the contract value for the flat bought.

CONSUMER TIPS

1. The OTP is a legal contract and a prescribed form under the Housing and Development Act.

2. Know your rights. Buyers of resale HDB flats have 14 days to think over their intended purchase and decide if they want to exercise the option. To enjoy this feature, buyers should sign only the option portion of the OTP. The option fee will be kept by the seller if the OTP is not exercised within the 14 days.

3. Consumers should be given the full 10-page OTP and also read the ‘Important Notes’ attached to it.

4. Learn to say ‘no’ and do not allow yourself to be subject to duress. Do not be pressured.

5. Consumers with unresolved disputes can call Case on 6463-1811 for advice and assistance or file a claim with the Small Claims Tribunal.

6. Be mindful about details such as the agent’s credentials, agreed commission amount, conditions concerning the property to be sold or bought, and parties involved in the transaction.

7. According to the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, an agent who commits an unfair practice (like applying undue pressure on the consumer) is in breach of the Act and consumers have the right to seek redress.

8. If you are a buyer who has responded to an advertisement from a housing agent who is selling a property on behalf of his client, Case’s stance is that you do not have to engage him as your agent if you agree to buy the flat. 

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 16th November 2007

I was reading this article about a French guy who apparently beat the world record of calculating the 13th root of a 200-digit number in just over 1 minute! Most people will almost shout "geek" in their heads because I admit that I am one of them. =P But wait! You’d have to take a look at his photo to see that he’s not the typical geek!

See? He’s doesn’t look that geeky right? Erm… maybe just a little because of his glasses and beard, but I think he looks quite good compared to the common image that most people have of a geek - big glasses, thin, blur-looking eyes… ok, that sounded a little too much like me for comfort.

But I say, look at his feat! If I can do that, I’d probably be graduating soon. =)

NEW YORK - FRENCH ‘mathlete’ Alexis Lemaire showed off his rare mental agility on Thursday, claiming a new world record after working out in his head the 13th root of a random 200-digit number in just 72.4 seconds.

Mr Lemaire, a 27-year-old doctoral student in artificial intelligence from Reims, near Paris, sat at a laptop computer that randomly selected the figure and displayed it on the screen. The number was so long it Mr ran over 17 lines.

Lemaire, who says he does not consider himself a nerd or a geek, then took just over a minute to identify two quadrillion, 397 trillion, 207 billion, 667 million, 966 thousand, 701 as the 13th root.

In other words, the number multiplied by itself 13 times produces the 200 digit number originally generated by the computer.

‘The first digit is very easy, the last digit is very easy, but the inside numbers are extremely difficult,’ the mental gymnast said after the performance at New York’s Hall of Science.

Mr Lemaire, who sports a beard and glasses under thickly-matted eyebrows and a furrowed brow, previously performed the feat in 77 seconds and has been working at the 13th root problem for years, repeatedly eroding his best time.

‘I use an artificial intelligence system which I use on my own brain instead of on a computer,’ he explained, matter-of-factly.

‘Personally, I believe most people can do it but I have also a high-speed mind. My brain works sometimes very, very fast.’

Pressing his point, he adds: ‘Sometimes when I do multiplication my brain works so fast that I need to take medication.’

‘I think somebody without a very fast brain can also do this kind of multiplication but this is maybe easier for me because my brain is faster.’

Mr Lemaire says he first realised he had a knack for numbers when he was around 11 years old, but perhaps surprisingly he did not do well in maths at school.

‘I was not top of the class. I was an autodidact, mostly by books,’ he says.

He practices regularly and jogs every day, doesn’t drink coffee or alcohol and avoids foods that are high in sugar or fat - to help him think faster.

‘I use a process to improve my skills, to behave like a computer. When I do something wrong, I learn from that,’ he says. ‘It’s like running a program in my head … to control my brain,’ he says.

But he says he takes days off once in a while and listens to music to relax, although he is unable to name a band or a genre he actually likes.

‘It is important not to work too much,’ he says. ‘I can’t do multiplication all day because otherwise my heart or my brain would fail. Too much training, thinking too fast could be bad for my health.’

He talks repeatedly and intensely about ‘controlling my brain’ and ‘running a program on my brain’, adding that part of his technique is to shut out ‘useless information’. He has earned the nickname the ‘human calculator’, but says with a rare smile he thinks the sobriquet of the ‘human computer’ would be more accurate.

His nearest rival, he says, is a German whom he declines to name. But he says he has no fear that any other competitive mathematicians will be able to challenge his record.

‘It is too difficult for them,’ he says, explaining that most of his rivals are only able to work out the 13th root of a 100-digit number.

He says he does not yet know what he will do when he finishes his PhD, but has been approached by banks and computer science companies keen to tap the power of his grey cells.

‘Many people at the banks think my gift can be very useful,’ he says. — AFP

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 16th November 2007

I was wondering what all the commotion was about when I decided to check it out for myself… and hey hey! 见鬼了! What happened to the Nuffnang website?! Many thoughts began to flash through my mind… my money! I have not withdrawn my money! It’s all gone! And to think that I was just blogging that they will not disappear overnight! How could this have happened?

I couldn’t feel my feet anymore… It was totally numb. *Regret regret* My fingers… my fingers! Thank goodness I can still move them. I cautiously moved the cursor over to the address bar again and typed in character by character… N-U-F-F-N-A-N-G-.-C-O-M-.-S-G … Enter!

Argh! The site was bought over by another company! This is all I see now….

Oh wait, isn’t this Nuffnang too? Hey, they changed their layout and everything else! Wow! That’s totally awesome! Okie… I haven’t really been through everything yet, so I am assuming that it’s working. =P

So I tried updating my long-gone forgotten blog name… and it returned an error: Blog URL exists in Database…

Still a little buggy ya? Heh heh… I just wanted to change my blog name - perhaps something that the Nuffnang team can look into? Speaking of Nuffnang, has anyone seen Nannywen recently? *goes check her blog* Yup, she’s still around. Heh heh…

So, some of the improvements includes not having to click on that Login button any more (I tend to use Enter a lot more often then clicking on the button), and the layout looks… cool!

Hmm… competition is gearing up between the advertisers ya?

PS: Oh, did I mention that I *love* their Ajax integration?

If only I have this during my Seoul trip, then I can tell you guys where exactly I am… well, almost. However, it seemed a little difficult to find where the roads are in Seoul via Microsoft Virtual Earth, so I thought I’d do something simpler - finding Pedra Branca.

As it turned out, it wasn’t that easy to find Pedra Branca either! So, you’d have to use a little bit of imagination. Do you see the words “Kampung sungai Rengit” and “Lagoi”? Well, the island is supposed to be somewhere between those words.

Perhaps the next plug-in that people should write is to help label the map. =)

Of course, this is the Aerial version, which basically shows what the satellites capture. If you want something crisp, you can try the Road-only version, which should look something like this:

There you have it! Hmm… so, if you haven’t downloaded WLW yet, do have a try. You do not necessarily need to post to your blog, but you can just play around with it without saving drafts.

And oh, did I mention that you can also select which category you want to post to? The toolbar may not be visible by default, so you’d have to click on View and then Properties. There should be a new toolbar at the bottom of the window.

Have fun!

This is the first entry that I am writing using life writer, and I am not sure if it’s because of the settings, or if it’s emulating my CSS of my Wordpress theme. It seemed to be the same form and header that it looks like in my blog!

So what am I going to write about? Naturally, I am going to go through the step by step installation of Windows Live Writer (WLW) up to the point I submit this post.

You would have to firstly download the latest non-beta version of WLW at http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/, which will also give you an insight of what WLW is all about. Beta testers have complained about crashes, so this might be something that you want to look into. Currently, WLW supports MSN Spaces and Wordpress. I am not sure if it supports the more popular Blogspot thought. Anyone Blogspot users out there? =)

So, after you are done with your download, you should see the following screens:

Now, you should really click on Accept because clicking on Cancel is not going to get you anywhere. This you have to trust me. =) After this, you should get the next screen:

Now, because I am not exactly an avid fan of MSN Live yet, I unchecked all the rest of the checkboxes. You should check according to your preferences. After you have decided on this, you click on Install. For obvious reasons, you may also choose to click on Cancel. =)

This portion begins the scan of your computer for other Windows Live programs, such as your Windows Live Messenger, which is essentially your MSN Messenger. This should take quite a while. It took a few minutes on my computer, and lo and behold, you get the follow screen:

Installation has apparently started without me knowing, except that it says so in the middle of the window, and  that you may feel free to do other things while you wait. This is really interesting. This is the first time that I see such messages. I hope they don’t mean that I can do *many* other things while I wait.

Thank goodness it finished within a reasonable amount of time. However, instead of the usual blank screen that screams *installation is complete*, this still looks pretty much the same, except that it tells you that the Start Writer is installed and the Cancel button changes to a Close. At this point of time, should you decide to install Messenger, Mail, Toolbar, Photo Gallery (wow!) and Family Safety, you may check on the respective boxes and click on Add to installation. It should probably continue.

When you first start WLW, it’d prompt you to set up your blog settings, or if you would like to sign up for one using either Windows Live Spaces or SharePoint blogging. Since I am using Wordpress, I selected "Another Weblog Service".

After making your selection, you would go on to the next window that’d prompt you on your Weblog Homepage and Login. For Wordpress, you just need to specify your blog URL as well as the username and password that you use to access your /wp-admin.

When this is done, WLW starts scanning the URL for more information as well as downloading the current Wordpress theme so that you have a WYSIWYG effect in the editor.

Lastly, it confirms with you your configuration. If you see a "Switch to this weblog now" checkbox, it means that you have a preconfigured weblog using WLW previously.

So, installation of WLW did turn out to be a rather pleasant experience - and hence, the next challenge would be the usability. Remember I mentioned something about the editor looking like my Wordpress theme? Well, here it is:

Quite a cool interface, isn’t it? If you noticed, the title "First entry using Windows Live Writer resembles that of my current Wordpress theme! This is totally awesome! Ok, let me enlarge that a little.

Did you see that red line under the "wordpress" word? Yes, there’s also a spell checker installed, and apparently it supports 4 languages including English, French, Spanish and German.

So, what’s my 2 cents worth of this? I’d think this is a pretty good offline blogging tool - that means I am no longer at the mercy of my Wordpress which dies on me every now and then and not saving my drafts properly. The next challenge is of course, using this as a platform to live blog - to test if it can publish and then "save and continue editing". If this is doable - without the system crashing, then this will indeed be my ultimate blogging tool.

One last thing. The images inserted in this entry is done effortlessly using the Insert Picture command on the sidebar panel. It’s totally incredible because you can just resize your pictures while maintaining aspect ratio. In addition, it throws in the shadows for you too (there are options on the right panel when you select the picture)!

This entire blog post was done using 3 tools: Windows Live Writer, Windows Snipping Tool and Windows Paint. I do hope WLW lives up to its name. =)

PS: The reason why I put a "Part 1" is because I think there’d be more to come. So do stay tune if you are interested in offline blogging (not that this is the only tool around, but it does seem to work well so far).

… Korea! In Singapore, we take the Cambridge GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examinations before heading off to a university of our choice; with an alternative route via polytechnics. However, students in Korea are not so lucky. They have only 1 major exam that determines their fate. For the REST OF THEIR LIVES!

Yes, the Koreans take what we call the College Scholastic Aptitude Test, pretty much like the SAT that Singapore were forced to take a few years ago. Only the top 1% of the cohort gets to go to big-named universities like the Seoul National University, Korea University and Yon Sei University, while the rest goes to lesser known ones. After graduation, pretty much of their working fate lies in the universities they come from, which explains why there are a lot of graduates on the streets without jobs.

In Singapore, getting into any of the major universities like NUS, NTU or SMU almost guarantees a job - well, not always, especially if you are in the life sciences. This is because jobs that are related to life sciences are generally research oriented, which usually requires a postgraduate if not a post doctoral. In many cases, life science graduates end up switching to jobs that are either non-related or accept jobs that are deemed not to have future prospects - to quote Mr Philip Yeo, “test tube washers”. To be technically correct, there are no such jobs because we do not reuse our test tubes anymore.

Singapore has been talking about getting a 4th university (no, SIM University is not considered the 4th, and no, I’m not being elitist - that’s what the government thinks since it, in a sense, denounced SIM University’s status) but somehow, there is a fear that degrees offered by this new university may deemed to be watered down. There’s also talk of having polytechnics offer degree programmes, which may seem to be a good alternative with its own set of consequences.

Students in Singapore already have other alternatives, which includes taking up part-time or full-time degree programmes offered by overseas universities. Usually, these students have an option to complete their undergraduate education at the university offering the programme. Not only does this provide them bona fide experience at the university itself, but it also gives them an exposure that most local undergraduates do not usually get - unless they apply for special programmes such as the Global Immersion Programme that is offered by NTU. NUS and SMU have similar programmes that allows and encourages their students to spend a term or two at a collaborative college of their choice - but this sometimes runs the risk of the students transferring their credits to the overseas college for good.

To date, the financial industry had been quite an attractive option for most graduates. Running a 4th university at such a time may end up being either heavily skewed on the financial courses, or having too little intake on other courses, such as engineering, which had seen a fall in demand in recent years. One thing’s for sure - we definitely do not want to see another case of UNSW Asia, which withdrew from the Singapore scene just barely months after it’s first intake. This is really a sad case.

SEOUL - SOUTH Korean mothers knelt in prayer, the stock market opened late and the military grounded flights to help teenagers taking a college entrance exam on Thursday that could shape the course of their lives.

Some 585,000 students took the state-sponsored College Scholastic Aptitude Test.

The exam determines the university they will attend, but getting into an elite college often means being at the top of the list for the best jobs after graduation and being considered one of the most eligible people to marry.

Education-obsessed South Korean parents spend huge sums of money on the best tutors, cram schools, private schools and even nutritionists who will fashion a diet suited for studying to give their child an advantage.

Most teenagers preparing for the test usually spend about 14 to 16 hours a day in studies.

Mothers by the tens of thousands prayed for good results at Buddhist temples known for having links to education as well as at Christian churches.

‘I heard this (Buddha) statue grants you one wish so I’m bowing before it 1,000 times while my child takes the test today,’ Yoon Myung Jo told YTN television.

Companies & markets help out
Many companies and financial markets in Asia’s fourth largest economy opened about an hour later than usual to keep cars off the road so test-takers would not get caught in morning traffic.

The Defence Ministry grounded military flights during test time to cut down on noise so students could better concentrate.

Police patrol cars, motorcycles and fire trucks were on standby to transport possibly tardy students.

Once students arrived at the test site, many had to undergo searches with metal detectors to make sure they were not carrying mobile phones and other gadgets, which are banned now but have been used by many test-takers in the past to cheat.

For many in South Korea, test day is symbolic of an education system that has gotten out of control.

Social commentators say the reason South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the developed world is because of the high cost and high pressure of the education system. — REUTERS

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 16th November 2007