Wireless island - parents losing control over their kids’ Internet usage?

First S'porean charged with using another's wireless network


TodayOnline, 20 Dec 2006, http://www.todayonline.com/articles/161861.asp

The details surround this case is finally out.

IT WAS 2am and his mother had told him not to use the Internet.

.

Determined to log on to chat with his friends, Garyl Tan Jia Luo, 17, left home with his laptop and wandered around the private estate in Nemesu Avenue where he lived in search of a wireless local area network (wLAN) he could tap on.

.

Shortly after, his laptop picked up the signal of an unprotected wLAN outside a house on a neighbouring street. Tan then sat on the curb and logged on to the network.

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But a resident who was driving past spotted Tan and confronted him when the teenager tried to walk away. An argument ensued and the resident called the police.

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Tan was arrested and became the first person here to be charged with encroaching upon someone else's wireless Internet connection under the Computer Misuse Act.

Now that we are given the full story, it clearly is not a case of the networking making it's way to the user, Even if it is the case, if the user knows that he is leeching another's network, he's probably guilty as well. While the owner of the Access Point has the responsibility to secure it as well, not doing it doesn't mean one has the right to access it. After all, one can be stupid and not lock one's door but a thief cannot use that as a reason to absolve himself of any blame.

What is interesting is why the youth resorted to WIFI mooching in the first place: his mother tried to control his Internet usage. So he just left the house at 2 a.m. with his laptop to find a network. His case is probably one of Internet addiction. With Singapore going wireless and the mushrooming of many hotspots around the island, I guess more teens are going to leave their houses, armed with a PDA or laptop, when their parents try to limit their Internet usage, since they know that they can readily find a free network to use. We could almost always connect to the Internet before while outside, but this came at a cost that is on the high side for teens, now it is free or at least more affordable. Before this, I never did think about the social problems that the wireless island concept could bring or exacerbate.

phpBB forum - using the default DB object

Have been doing a little freelance lately, mainly involving integrating new functionality with phpBB.
Using the existing code speeds up development and minimizes redundant code. Below is the code needed to use the default database object in phpBB.

[php]
define('IN_PHPBB', true);
$phpbb_root_path = './../';
include($phpbb_root_path . 'extension.inc');
include($phpbb_root_path . 'common.'.$phpEx);

$sql = "SELECT * FROM " . A_TABLE . "
WHERE rank_special = 1
ORDER BY a_title";
if ( !($result = $db->sql_query($sql)) )
{
message_die(GENERAL_ERROR,
'Could not obtain ranks data', '', __LINE__, __FILE__, $sql);

}
else echo "Query successsful";


Project Superstar 2- Tang Lingyi 汤灵伊

很可惜她已经出局了,现在唯有看这个了

Japanese movie - Red Shadow

As Akakage (which means "Red Shadow") struggles to free himself from his enemy's choking grip, the brutal truth is unleashed upon him: he is a nobody. He is doomed to live in the shadows, because he is a ninja. Not only does Akakage need to escape from death by suffocation, he also needs to find his true self. Like Akakage, the movie "Red Shadow" suffers from a bit of identity crisis as it shuttles from comedy to drama and back. These abrupt shifts dampened my enjoyment of this film.



"Red Shadow" is directed by Hiroyuki Nakano (who also directed "A Film By Hiroyuki Nakano: Samurai Fiction") and stars Masanobu Ando as Akakage, Jun Murakami as Aokage (Blue Shadow), and Kumiko Aso as Aska (literally meaning "Flying Bird"). The movie follows the trio as they graduate as full-fledged ninjas and follows them on their early missions. In the later part of the movie, the focus falls on Akakage as he finds his beliefs being tested by the viciousness and treachery that is needed to be a ninja.

Akakage is the most accomplished of the trio and dedicates his life to being a ninja. Aska is his love interest, and they have adored each other since childhood. Aokage is his buddy but he is quite clumsy at times, and often provides temporary comic relief. On one of his missions, tragedy befalls the trio and they are disbanded. Henceforth he treads the path of a ninja alone. Under the orders of Lord Togo, he infiltrates Kyogoku city to gather information about a rumoured secret weapon. There he meets princess Koto (Megumi Okino), who had just inherited the control of the city after her grandfather's death. Princess Koto has to ward off Lord Togo's attempts to take over the city and maintain the fragile peace. Believing that peace will one day prevail, Akakage faces a dilemma and must choose between continuing his mission and helping the princess.

A central theme surrounding the story is the sacrifice one makes as a ninja. Akakage puts his life on the line during missions, and lives a life as a shadow. He has no status in society, in fact his existence is not even known most of the time. Whatever desire he has has to be tampered with the needs of his mission, and his masters who give him a living by giving him missions. But for Akakage, it is a conscious choice.He believes his actions can help to advance an age of peace which he has no doubts will arrive.

Although the anachronistic elements (a Russian gymnast and a rock-band appear on the show, along with modern weapon in ancient Japan) and the irreverent depiction of ninjas make for a few laughs, the overall experience of viewing the movie was not thoroughly enjoyable. The problem is that the storytelling needs a bit of work: you're never quite sure if the movie was meant to be a comedy or an action movie or a love story because of the way the story unfolds. The first part of the movie is clearly comedic in nature, but the grave tone of the second part, interjected with some odd moments makes it a bit disorientating. Quite clearly, the director wants to give the old tale a modern twist, or maybe even subvert it, but I think he has not really achieved his aim. I don't recommend buying this DVD, but if you're bored on an afternoon you can probably get this at the DVD rental and kill a couple of hours.


Check out other movies here!

SMRT deaths - media blackout?

Starting from October, there has been a slew of deaths at MRT stations. While we know that the first incident involving Tan Jee Suan was a suicide, and that the public donated a huge sum to the deceased's family, the media coverage for the subsequent deaths appear to be less extensive. There are speculations of a media blackout.

Anyone noticed that in the 6.30pm 10:00pm Ch8 news have not shown this incident. If it were really a drunk Indian local who fell into the tracks accidentally, then why the media blackout?

Says another,

Ya i saw a small column on wanbao also and thats it. My guess is that they should have received instructions not to report on these incidents.

I would think that is the case, especially after news of the $500,000 donated during the wake was publicised. There were fears of copycat suicides occurring, and it's possibly happening now. Incidentally, a Japanese pupil's suicide letter was publicised in Japanese newspapers. It is suspected that it encouraged more students to write in and sparked some copycat suicides.

Over the next few days, there would be at least 24 more letters threatening suicide. Three young students, including Rie, killed themselves over the next weekend. And one elementary school principal hanged himself from a tree. He reportedly had been reprimanded for his slow response to a case of bullying at his school.

Sometimes it's a tough call to make, how much information to reveal or cover up for the greater good. Exposing the extent of harm done to the pupil and the state of bullying in schools could have led to more suicides, likewise reporting on the plight of Tan Jee Suan and the money could have led to more copy suicides as desperate people see it as a quick way to raise money for their families. Total disclosure doesn't always seem to be a beneficial thing.

1.24 million Chinese college students to graduate without jobs this year

Quoting the People's Daily Online,

About 1.24 million Chinese college students will graduate without jobs that require their qualifications this year, Tian Chengping, head of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, has warned.

A total of 4.13 million students graduated from higher education institutions this year, 750,000 more than last year, said Tian.

Tian said the government had set up a mechanism to provide guidance and training for unemployed graduates.

Only 22 percent of China's new jobs last year were for college graduates, according to a ministry study of 114 urban labor markets.

Contrast this with Singapore's job market for university grads in recent years, where in demand outstrips the supply. The job market for employees is expected to continue to be good in 2007.

I'll be interested to know what universities the bulk of these unemployed grads are from and what kind of degrees they are holding.

Random thoughts on foreign-born athletes

As the 15th Asian Games commences in Doha, our athletes begin their pursuit of sporting gold. Even as many Singaporeans cheer our team on, there is still a nagging feeling among some that we cannot truly call some of them our own, even if they are Singapore citizens. These are the players under the "Foreign Talent Scheme". Even though the scheme has been in place for more than a decade (The scheme was first launched in 1993 by the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) and was known as Project Rainbow, see Google's cache of www.reach.gov.sg here.), but it's a perennial issue that remains unresolved. Recently, some letters were published regarding this.

Straits Times Nov 23, 2006
Foreign talents should deliver gold at Asiad
Patrick Tan Siong Kuan

Straits Times Nov 23, 2006
Give foreign-born talents a break
Loh Ka Wai

Straits Times Nov 25, 2006
Stop stressing that some athletes are foreign-born
Dr Kwan Soo

Contents of the original letters can be found by googling.

Sporting excellence and nationalism


Sporting excellence and nationalistic feelings of pride seem to go inexorably together in the international sporting scene. When Man U meets Juventus, it's not just Man U meets Juventus; it's a battle between an English club and an Italian club. There is a sort of primal tendency to attach these nationalistic feelings to sports, and that is why sports is a great way to build camaraderie and national identity. The reason for this association between sports and nationalism seems to be geographical in nature. Some people think it is money, because the state pays for these sportsmen, but I think otherwise, because if Man U was to be bought over by a Singaporean, it would still be considered an English team and not a Singaporean team, agreed?

When our athletes compete, they represent Singapore. But I wonder,do they represent Singapore incidentally, or is it because they want to? As in, all sportsmen want to excel in what they do, but why do they end up representing the countries that they do? And what is the significance to them? If the athlete is born and bred in Singapore, most Singaporeans would assume it is natural for them to represent Singapore and these questions would never arise in the first place. Besides wanting to achieve sporting excellence, there's also the huge prize money for winning a medal, so I'm not entirely convinced that national pride is the most important item of consideration on the Singapore born-and-bred athlete's list. Is there a real difference in attitude between native Singaporean athletes and foreign-born athletes?

Additionally, I don't think there's anything wrong with these athletes wanting to represent Singapore because it's sort of a deal or gamble that both sides have agreed on. Singapore gives them training, opportunities, citizenship, etc, they help raise the standard of local players and perform for us in the international arena. Just consider it as some sort of government scholarship and bond. The analogy holds in a few ways. If you don't perform well, you have your scholarship canceled. It appears some sportsmen have been shown the door, see the YoungPAP and BadmintonCentral for reports on shot putter Luan Wei and female hammer thrower E Xiaoxu.

And just as we have bond-breakers, we have sportsmen who use Singapore as a stepping stone. Agu Casmir and Itimi Dickson comes readily to mind. The two Niegerian-born soccer players were dropped from the Singapore team for their poor performances and were ready to fly off to play in another country despite becoming citizens. I'm not sure if this contravenes any agreement they have with FAS since they are playing at club level and not immigrating or something. Still, their actions say a lot about their attachment to Singapore, and many locals felt cheated. The way FAS splashed out even more money to deal with the issue furthered angered Singaporeans.

In general though, I'll think that empirical evidence suggests that most players under the Foreign Sports Talent scheme are not like that, in the sense that at least we don't hear of such controversies in the news often. What can be done for the minority who take Singaporeans for fools? Stricter guidelines and regulations can be set when these athletes take part in the Foreign Talent Scheme, and also try to integrate them into our society. Additionally, if the Singapore Sports Council can reveal how many of these foreign sportsmen there are and how many eventually become citizens, we might get a better feel of how well the scheme is attracting athletes who become part of our society.

Competition for team places and funding

AP Dr Yaacob Ibrahim has this to say on foreign sporting talents,

Sir, Mr Ng has also mentioned about our foreign sports talent policy. Let me just reiterate the policy that we had clarified last year. Our stand on foreign sports talent is clear. Any import of foreign sports talent must be to complement our own local athlete development. Foreign sports talents are not a substitute for local talents.

It's not entirely obvious to me why foreign sports talents are not substitutes for local talents. Unless they compete in different competitions and they received different funding and there is some selection criteria based on country of birth, then isn't it clear that given a limited number of places on a team, that choosing a foreign-born talent denies a local one of a place on the team or that sponsoring a foreign-born talent denies a local one of the funding?

Foreign-born citizens and foreign talent - when does the latter become the former?


Quoting Patrick Tan,

Secondly, no matter how one disguises it, deep down they are still foreigners. They lack the same passion as local-born athletes. Majulah Singapura has very little meaning to them and they are likely to have more feelings for and affinity to their former compatriots than to Singaporeans.

It seems that some people cannot accept that foreigners become foreign-born citizens when they get their pink ICs. Patrick voices a reasonable view of foreign-born sportsmen, but one which I would disagree with. This boils down to the question, "what does it mean to be a Singaporean?" What is the criteria? Is it country of birth? Is it where you grow up? Is it where you are currently living in or working at? Is it where you can fulfill your dreams? Is it where you are unafraid to fail? Is it what you eat or wear? Is it the way you talk, or think? Is it the people you care about? Is it just the passport you hold? Is it all of the above? Or none of the above?

Granted this is not an easy question to answer, if it is there wouldn't be a controversy. If no one can agree on what it means to be Singaporean , what sort of answer do we hope to get when we keep pressing the issue on them? As Jing Junhong tells the Straits Times,

I've been in Singapore for more than 12 years, I married a local and I'm the mother of a four-year-old Singapore boy.

I've been proud and happy all these years but, every now and then, there will be some who will bring up these questions of loyalty and citizenship.

Really, what can I say? Is there any way of proving myself? Is there a test I can take?

Just buying medals?

There is still a gnawing feeling that these athletes are treated like commodities. Are we just taking the easy way out, trading money for medals? Put in another way, do we just import winners? I have heard of this view many times, and to some extent, I agree that it's entirely plausible. An example would be Jing Junhong. Yahoo! states her DOB as Oct 13, 1968, and the earliest date I could find of her representing Singapore is 1996. We know Project Rainbow started in 1993, so if Jing was recruited in 1993, she should be around 25. I'll think she would have acquired enough skills by then, so the training she would have received form SIngapore would be limited.

But some athletes do come to Singapore in their formative years to be trained, like Ronald Susilo, Li Jiawei, Zhang Xueling, Tao Li:

Table tennis player, Zhang Xueling, said that Singapore had offered
her a great opportunity to groom her skills. "When the offer was
made, my family discussed what would be the best for me - and
it was obvious that Singapore would be best. I was not a very
good player five years ago... I had some talent and Singapore was
prepared to help me develop it. I know why I am here - it is not
temporary. That is why I not only work on my game every day but
also work hard at my English classes."
Added fellow table-tennis player Li Jiawei: "I have been here since
I was 15. And I improved the most while I was here. And when I
compete, I do it for Singapore."

Singapore does spend time, effort and money to train some of these athletes. They come to Singapore when they are young and train with the local players, so it's not like buying medals, but rather it's like investing in a potential. I do find it satisfying that we can develop players who wouldn't have made it into the team in their homeland, and then train them till they are so good that they can beat their native country at their own game. But ultimately, we should move away from these terms like "buying" or "investing", because they come here to fulfill their dreams. That's the Singapore I want, where people can fulfill their dreams, regardless of where they come from.
Culture


In the recent years, much attention has been given to the sports, with the setting up of the Sports School, increased emphasis of sports in education, holding of international sports events, and a great part of the budget used to promote it. But I think that the journey is still long before we reach a stage where we can can say that we have a culture that encourages sport as a career, where parents will not sacrifice sports for studies. Are the potential athletes themselves willing to devote their time and energy for intense training like their counterparts in other countries?

Sporting as a career is still not a viable option due to the economics involved. The possibility of making it big in sports appears to be small. What do these athletes do when they don't achieve their potential in a knowledge-based economy? Can they say that someone owes them a living? Don't think so, so balancing school work and sports is what most Singapore students do, be it at secondary or tertiary level. For most people, achieving excellence in either is tough, something's gotta give.

National identity

All this debate on foreign-born athletes suggests to me that most Singaporeans have an idea of what Singapore means to them even though it is not the same for everyone. The Foreign Talent Scheme is a part of the foreign talent policy that does not affect most Singaporeans. Our jobs and livelihoods are not visibly affected, but we have strong opinions on who should represent Singapore sports. In a way, it shows that we do have a sense of belonging to Singapore and want to have a say in who we want to join us.

Increasing pipelines for a faster Firefox

Recently, the YUI team conducted an experiment on optimizing web page performance. Though the results are not ground-breaking, it is interesting to see the figures. Using the Pareto principle, which says 80% of the effects is achieved by 20% of the causes, the YUI team discovers where this 80% is.

Table 1 shows popular web sites spending between 5% and 38% of the time downloading the HTML document. The other 62% to 95% of the time is spent making HTTP requests to fetch all the components in that HTML document (i.e. images, scripts, and stylesheets). The impact of having many components in the page is exacerbated by the fact that browsers download only two or four components in parallel per hostname, depending on the HTTP version of the response and the user’s browser. Our experience shows that reducing the number of HTTP requests has the biggest impact on reducing response time and is often the easiest performance improvement to make.

What is network pipelining? Mozilla gives a good explanation here. One way to increase the number of pipelines for Firefox from the default of 4 is to type "about:config" in the address bar. In the filter bar, check that "network.http.pipelining" is true. Then filter for "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" and set it to a value you desire. I entered 7 and felt Youtube loaded faster. Didn't really test the effects empirically though. It's not always the case that a higher value is better though. It's stated in mozillaZine that,

Higher values will cause a delay before the first request completes but will make the last request complete sooner. Higher values will also cause more of a delay if a connection fails.

“针锋相对” - 张恒芝太爱抢话？伍洛毅不够深度？

自从王帝聪和代替他的謝燊杰走了之后，就觉得很多时候主持说的话比来宾说的话还多。 比较喜欢王帝聪的主持方式，他会察言观色，在适当的时候把问题交给相适当的人，然后自己就在旁用心聆听来宾的看法。他把来宾们带到幕前，把焦点放在他们的身上，让他们发挥，自己成为配角。而且，画龙点睛是他的强项，他能用一两句发人深省的话为节目画上完美的句号。謝燊杰还不错,懂得发问也懂得聆听.

张恒芝呢，老爱打断来宾的谈话，而且有很多意见，到底是要听她发言还是要听来宾们发言啊？她的风格太霸道,节目的节奏经常被她突兀的发言所打断.

今天的来宾包括伍洛毅，这好像是他第二次上节目.看他在其他节目中表现都相当不错:幽默,自然.但是他"在针锋相对"和"有话就说"中的表现就显得比较逊色.在这些谈话性质的节目中,面对严肃的话题,他说话的内容显得有些空洞,看法也并没有什么精辟独特之处.反而是刘歗鸼和黄伟雄欧有自己见解.伍洛毅潜力不错,若能在事实新闻这方面加强,相信他能够成为更全面的主持人.

New release of EasyEclipse 1.2, based on Eclipse 3.2 Callisto

EasyEclipse 1.2 is finally released, get it here. All the plugins for your development needs, none of the fuss (well almost).

Korean movie - Please Teach Me English

Ever tried to teach a pig the ABCs? Plain-Jane Yeong-ju (Lee Na-Yeong) did, and as you can probably guess, fat hopes. Learning a new language is often an arduous task, not only for pigs, but also for adults. Yeong-ju is repeatedly frustrated by her command of English, but having a kid string immaculate English sentences in front of her is downright demoralising and sort of funny.



The movie, "Please Teach Me English", also stars Jang Hyuk (of "Volcano High" fame) as the cool Moon-su. The romantic comedy has our two stars in a conversational English class, with Yeong-ju needing to learn English for her job and Moon-su needing to learn it to communicate with his long-lost sister.

Yeong-ju is easily attracted to Moon-su, but Moon-su is smitten by his Caucasian teacher, Cathy. Moon-su's feelings are not reciprocated, but our unattractive heroine still has many hurdles to climb before she can reach Moon-su's heart. With Cathy's help, she is able to interact with Moon-su in the class and their feelings grow closer. And after tutoring the pig together, Moon-su discovers that Yeong-ju is not as plain as he had thought.

In Singapore, English is ubiquitous: it's everywhere. But in countries like China, South Korea or Japan, English is not as widely-spoken. We can see the difficulty encountered by both the natives and the foreigners, not only when they can't understand each other as they speak different languages, but also what happens when meaning is lost in translation.
The South Koreans in the movie recognize the advantage of the ability to speak English will try to learn it despite the difficulties encountered.

The movie is light-hearted and enjoyable, but some may find it too fluffy. It should be enjoyable as a film for the family or a couple. Although some of the funny scenes are exaggerated, they don't come across as obtrusive or pretentious, and the geekiness of the heroine does somehow attract me. Of course, it's always funny when you see beginners learn a new language.

More shows to watch out for!

Thoughts on NUS alumni donation

Straits Times October 30, 2006
Just 1% of alumni donate to NUS
An appeal to National University of Singapore (NUS) alumni for funds to help its needy students has fallen on deaf ears.

The full article can be found at Funkygrad forum or the nclave.

Straits Times Nov 21, 2006
Foreigners get 4 in 10 bursaries given by NUS this year
But S'pore students come first, it says in response to some rumblings

The full article can be found at Ohgenki forums or Mr Wang's.

I've been seeing these pieces of news appear regularly in discussions or blogs, and as one of the 99% I do find it intriguing. For me, the reasons for not donating are simple, I'm in a financial conundrum and I don't have strong feelings for NUS.

As for the distribution of the bursaries, I don't really see any problem with it. Given the source of the bursaries are mostly Singaporeans, there appears to be some moral obligation to help Singaporeans first. From the second article, this is the case, and not only that, they are getting more.

The NUS financial aid office has offered 1,500 bursaries so far this year, with 60 per cent, or 900, going to Singaporeans. No local applicant who met the eligibility criterion of per capita monthly household income of up to $900 was turned away.

They were awarded bursaries ranging from $1,000 to $2,000.

Foreigners who could show proof of hardship took the rest of the bursaries, with each getting about $300 less than their local counterparts.

Since no Singaporean student is worse off because of a foreign student getting bursary, I'm fine with it. Additionally, if we look at it another way, if the foreign students who need such aid follows some random distribution, then part of that aid goes to helping future residents and citizens. And besides, even if they don't end up being part of our society, can't we be good neighbours to them by offering them help?

Mr N. Riva, 44, a businessman and donor, added: 'I decided against giving after I found out that it went to foreigners as well. Just last year, NUS said it did not have enough to help all needy students.'

NUS came under fire last year when it revealed that only 492 out of 1,074 bursary applicants had received funds. It responded by pledging to top up alumni donations with its own money.

If this is the way a lot of people think, then the pool of money available will reduce and we'll return to a state like last year where less than half the applicants received the funds.

At least I'm glad to see the relaxation of the criteria for bursary application and the availability of other schemes to help needy students.

GIMP tutorial - Create a high-contrast grayscale image

This tutorial attempts to create a high-contrast grayscale image. Below are two methods to go about doing it, the first is quick and easy, while the second offers you more control over the distribution of gray values.

Method 1

1. Open an existing image. On the menubar, File>>Open. I’ve chosen an image of the beautiful Kyoko Fukada.
   


2. On the menubar, Layer>>Duplicate layer. Select the new copy of the image.


3. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>> Layers>>Colors>>Brightness-Contrast. Adjust brightness and contrast until you see desired results. Try and aim for an image with 3 or 4 strong colours.
   


4. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>> Desaturate.
   

Method 2

1. Open an existing image. On the menubar, File>>Open. I’ve chosen an image of the beautiful Kyoko Fukada.


2. On the menubar, Layer>>Duplicate layer. Select the new copy of the image.


3. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>>Levels. Extend the dynamic range of colors of the image.


4. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>>Curves. Once again, try and aim for an image with 3 or 4 strong colours. Experiment til you find the spread of colors you like.


5. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>> Desaturate.

---

That's the end of the tutorial.High-contrast greyscale images are useful for generating images that look like the are cel-shaded or duotone images.

This is created by changing the mode of the top layer to "overlay".

This is created using Layers>>Colors>>Color Balance and setting the Midtones and Shadows to red.Some books on GIMP.

phpBB mod uninstallation - tedious

I was experimenting with phpBB (a PHP-based forum board) recently and was doing some mod installation via easyMOD. It was a breeze, though you have to watch out for occasional errors. Manually installing a large number of mods, backing up can be a real pain. You also have to careful and not screw up. Here's what they have to say about installing mods safely.

Installing a mod, whatever size it is and whatever your skills in HTML/PHP/phpBB are is always a very risky operation. Doing it live, even if the mod has no bugs and even if you use easyMOD to be sure to make no errors while applying a mod sounds so like a little crazy.

If you're going to manually uninstall mods, you might go a little crazy. Uninstalling via easyMOD is somewhat easier, but you have to take note of the order that the mods were installed, as the changes are applied in a stack-based fashion, first-in-last-out.
What this means is that you have to carefully consider what you are going to install and in what order to install them. If you have installed 10 mods and want to uninstall the 3rd mod (based on time of installation), then you have to do 7 un-installations and 6 installations. Yeah, that's tiring. I'm guessing this can be automated though.

Foreign construction workers denied public housing

Andrew gives us an interesting view of the possible repercussions once this policy is implemented, including rising costs of construction and and employers finding ways to skirt the policy. I have my doubts on the possible relocation of these workers to private housing though, since the cost is forbidding. The employers would rather house them in cheap workers dorm or some temporary on-site housing, which are quite shabby. And I don't think it contradicts with the move to integrate foreign talents into Singapore society, since the government doesn't consider these workers to be talents in the first place, and the aim is to let these workers earn their money and go back home. There is a problem if we decide to let them settle here. We are basically expanding the pool of unskilled workers, and are denying our own unskilled citizens jobs. Wages for these unskilled workers are going to be depressed (like the workers themselves), widening the income gap. It's the Polish plumber problem. The supply side of the problem must be handled if we are going to narrow the income gap.

Gayle Goh seems to be saying that these workers don't cause any problems, making "mysterious sounds" that she has never heard. And Singaporeans who complain about them are hypocritical and bigoted. I think that is really not the case for other people. Personally I used to have some foreign construction workers as neighbours and they have never caused any problems. But there are people who have to deal with insecurity and irritations on a daily basis because of the workers.

Listeners of Radio 100.3's Chamber will know of Ming De's story about screeching noises coming from foreign workers living above his mother's flat (or was it his flat?) in the middle of the night. Despite numerous discussions with these workers, the noises persisted. Even interventions by the police did not work. I've watched a Channel 8 current affairs show, which was talking about the problems caused by foreign workers in a particular housing estate. They will crowd around the void deck at night, drinking, singing, and sometimes fight when they are drunk. They leave litter and broken bottles lying around after their little party. I still remember that riot police were mobilized when a group of foreign workers got into fight at a hawker center, an event which occurred this year and I saw it on TV but I can't find it on the Web. Not sure if it's on Youtube though. And I know of people complaining that these workers cooking curry or other strong-smelling foods at night and disturbing their sleep.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Singapore, you know....It's not that Singaporeans look down on them. It's a matter of living habits. We'll complain about our neighbours regardless of their nationality if they do things that disturb our living environment. For instance, if your neighbours play mahjong at 3 a.m. or fry belachan at 1 a.m. every night you'll be unhappy too, regardless of nationality or occupation. That said, there are some practices that we generally accept as part of our way of life, like the Malays having weddings or Chinese having funerals at our void decks. Yes some people may not be able to accept that or find it noisy, but Singaporeans as a whole are able to tolerate that and accept it (else they will have to move into private housing). Likewise, the funerals or weddings don't extend into the middle of the night and disturb other people sleeping (if you sleep in the morn or afternoon, there's some problem though).

Gayle has a point that enforcing nuisance laws can help to alleviate the problem, without having to implement this new policy. From what I've seen, there is a problem with enforcing it, and that's why HDB dwellers have to resort to asking their MPs for help. I'm not sure why, but the police may need to look into it or we may need some new legislations regarding nuisance laws.

陈绮贞 - 天天想你

很温柔甜美的版本，吉他手很棒！

Check out 华丽的冒险.

绝对Superstar 2 - 24强，阳盛阴衰？

看了昨天和今天的节目，第一个感觉就是男生们都很有实力，歌喉都不错。女生们却没给我留下很深刻的印象。只有汤灵伊和陈诗韵让我留下一些印象，唐灵伊蛮可爱的，外形上很占优势。陈诗韵歌声浓厚饱满，相当有感染力。觉得男子组将会有一番龙争虎斗，女生们得加把劲了。

评判们还是那么逗趣，尤其是黎费辉，取笑参赛者露肉或头小，搞得他们哭笑不得，我们看得也很乐。

Bedok gets new mall?

Got this piece of news from Lushhome.

Frasers Centrepoint Ltd (FCL) has bought the adjacent Bedok and Changi theatre sites for $40.8 million and plans to develop the leasehold sites into a mall which, when completed, it will pump into its shopping centre trust, Frasers Centrepoint Trust.

The $40.8 million price reflects a unit land price of about $441 per square foot of potential gross floor area inclusive of an estimated $2.9 million development charge for tapping a higher plot ratio, and a land premium payable for buying two adjoining strips of state land that Frasers Centrepoint can buy.

Market watchers reckon the break-even cost for a new mall project on the site could be about $1,100 psf.

Sellers Shaw Brothers (owner of Changi theatre) and Cathay group (which owns the adjacent Bedok theatre) obtained outline planning permission in early August to redevelop the two theatre sites as well as the adjoining state lands into a mixed-use commercial complex with a 3.0 plot ratio, with a total gross floor area of about 133,598 sq ft.

The two theatres, on sites with a remaining lease of about 70 years, have a combined land area of 33,084 sq ft. The two strips of state land can contribute a further 11,448 sq ft in land area.

Well, one thing, do we need another mall in the East? One thing I do like about Bedok is that there are no malls. I'll be disappointed if Bedok Central becomes Tampines Central, swarming with students, workers, people. It's just so much quieter without malls. Besides, malls are bad news for shop owners nearby. It's only in these 1-2 years that I've seen business picking up for shop owners in and around my estate. I'm sure the arrival of the new mall is going to have a negative impact on their businesses.

You can’t say ‘Bomb’ on an airplane!

There was a rerun of "Meet The Parents" last week, and there was this exchange between Greg Focker and a police officer. Quoting IMDB,

Norm: I got a plane full of people saying you threatened that stewardess.
Greg Focker: I was not threatening her. I was just trying to get my bag into the overhead storage thing...
Norm: You were acting like a maniac and you threatened her with a bomb.
Greg Focker: No, I said I didn't have a bomb.
Norm: But you said bomb.
Greg Focker: I said, "It's not like I have a bomb".
Norm: You said "Bomb" on an airplane.
Greg Focker: What's wrong with saying 'Bomb' on an airplane?
Norm: You can't say 'Bomb' on an airplane!
Greg Focker: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb. You gonna arrest me? Bomb bomb bomb bomb! During the war I was a BOMBadier!
Norm: You assaulted an airline employee and I oughta put you away for years!

In Singapore, you would probably not get away with saying the four-letter word on a plane. I thought that this guy was lucky to escape a jail term.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A 65-year-old Australian man was fined S$10,000 ($6,423) by a Singapore court for uttering the word "bomb" on a flight to Indonesia, The Straits Times reported on Wednesday.

Riccardo Paulin, a retiree, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to having asked a flight attendant "Where do you keep the bomb?" on a flight operated by Singapore regional carrier SilkAir to the Indonesian city of Surabaya, the newspaper said.

The newspaper said he made the remark after trying to find space in the overhead lockers.

Paulin was charged under the United Nations anti-terrorism regulations, which carry a maximum fine of S$100,000 or up to five years in jail or both.

He apologized to the court for his remark, saying it was meant as a joke.

Signup for SingTel IPTV trial

News of StarHub and SingTel's bidding war for the television rights of the English Premier League (EPL) has made many consumers unhappy recently. I'm not sure if our neighbouring countries are broadcasting it, if they are we can probably get to watch it for free. Else we'll just have to wait and see who wins the bidding war and fork out the cold hard cash. BTW, I didn't realise that watching those P2P streams was illegal.

Anyway, the SingTel IPTV trial has started, sign up here. I guess it's good to have some experience with the service before deciding to sign up or not. Not sure how this is different from Ideas BroadBand though, but I signed up anyway. Just be careful handling the equipment they're going to hand out top you, you have to pay if you damage them.

Amazon Unbox is a pretty cool alternative but it seems to be restricted to US users.

GIMP tutorial - Pencil Sketching II

This tutorial is based on Sweety's clean sketch tutorial for Photoshop. The steps are largely the same for GIMP. Compared to the previous tutorial, this tutorial produces a cleaner pencil sketch.

1. Open an existing image. On the menubar, File>>Open. I’ve chosen an image of the beautiful Kyoko Fukada.
   


2. On the menubar, Layer>>Duplicate layer. Select the new copy of the image.
   


3. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>> Desaturate.
   


4. On the menubar, Layer>>Duplicate layer. Select the new copy of the image.
   


5. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>>Invert.
   


6. From the layers dialog, change the mode of the inverted layer to "Dodge".
   


7. From the menubar, Filters>>Blur>Gaussian blur. Set the blur radius to a value from 3 to 5. Apply.
   

And this is the final image!


Some books on GIMP.

Of hammers and lightning - 铁锤与闪电

Don't think this exchange made it to CNA or Straits Times, saw it on zaobao.com.

杨木光在发言时用捕鱼形容人们在环球化经济中求职的情况。

他说：“有人想要鱼，不会抓；有人看得到鱼，但是身体差没法抓；有人灰心丧气到只想向人要鱼，不想抓了；有人辛辛苦苦学会抓鱼了，鱼却游走了或眼看着鱼让别人抓走了；有的是嫌抓到的鱼越来越小；还有人刚抓到鱼却又抓不牢，有如工作一下子就失去了。”

因此，杨木光认为，必须将低收入者和他们所碰到的问题加以分类再对症下药，通过提升技能和重新设计工作程序等，协助他们培养就业和接受挑战的能力。

他说，人民行动党的议员一向采取具针对性的措施帮助弱势群体。

“我们不能像有些人拿着铁锤到处敲，遇到问题总是眼到、耳到、脑不到、手不到，头脑还可能被铁锤敲昏掉；有时看似帮忙，却是抓破人的伤疤，甚至在伤口上撒盐。”

杨木光的话引起反对党议员刘程强（后港）“反击”，他问杨木光：“水里面没鱼时，怎么办？即使有鱼，天有不测风云，天气不好闪电、打雷的时候，不能捕鱼怎么办？再者即使冒着生命危险，为了生活需要出去捕鱼，万一给闪电打死的话，那又怎么办。”

Let me try to translate it for those who don't read Chinese.

Yeo Guat Kwang uses fishing as an analogy to describe people seeking employment under globalization.

He said."Some people want to catch fish, but do not know how; some see the fish, but cannot catch them due to ill health; some are so depressed that they ask others for fish and don't wish to catch the fish themselves; some learn to fish diligently, but see the fish swim away or end up being caught by others; some grumble about the fish that they catch are getting smaller and smaller; yet others are unable to hold onto the fish they catch, like jobs that are gone in a flash."

Therefore, he believes the problems faced by low-income earners should be categorized and a targeted approach be used to solve them, to help them become more employable and resilient through initiatives like skills-upgrading and job-redesigning.

He said, the PAP has always taken a targeted approach to help the weak in society.

"We cannot be like some people who knock around with a hammer, whenever they meet a problem, the eyes are there, the ears are there, but the brain and hands are not, the brain could have been possibly knocked out by the hammer; sometimes it seems like they are helping, but in reality they have reopened the wound, and at times even sprinkling salt on it."

Yeo Guat Kwang's speech prompted Opposition MP Low Thia Kiang's "rebuttal". He asked Yeo Guat Kwang, "What if there is no fish in the water? Even if there is fish, the weather is unpredictable, when there is thunder and lightning and you cannot fish, what do you do? If one takes the risk and goes out fishing, he may get struck by lightning. What do you do then?"

Don't you wish they had put this on TV?

Simple steps to deter the casual piggy-backer (not hacker)

Someone was caught for stealing network bandwidth recently. With wireless broadband being so popular, I guess there should be a few unsecured networks around. Below are some steps which I take to secure my wireless network from casual piggy-backers. Real hackers can overcome most of them, except maybe if you use an authentication scheme like WPA.

1. Change the default SSID and disable SSID broadcast (just found out my router, DLink DI-624+ doesn't allow disabling of SSIDs. Oh well.)
   


2. Limit the number of IP addresses that DHCP assigns.
   


3. Enable MAC filtering so only registered wireless cards can be used.
   


4. Enable authentication scheme, such as WPA-PSK.
   

Nothing is fool-proof, SSIDs can be easily sniffed, MAC addresses can be spoofed, some authentication schemes such as WEP are easily cracked, but if we are dealing with casual piggy-backers these steps should be sufficient.

cci[RR]us talks about how the offender could have been discovered. It is interesting to wonder what if the owner deliberately opened up access to his network in order to farm the usernames and passwords of these people tapping into his network illegally, and then use this info to get the offenders into trouble.

从才华到Superstar

绝对Superstar 又开战了,在众多参赛者中,发现了一张熟悉的面孔,那就是黄仕昱.想了一想,那不是和陈凤玲一同得到才华横溢出新秀本地赛事冠军的那一位吗?怎么没从上次比赛中获得演出的机会或者唱片约呢?之后又想,男总冠军崔鹏又跑到哪儿去了?只见他演一部"赤子乘龙",难道是回中国发展了吗?若是,这也并不稀奇,许多演员都不在新加坡拍戏了,或者大部分时间都在海外.范文芳,李铭顺,陈秀丽,郭菲丽,林明伦,陈天文都是这样.有不少留在本地的演员无声无迹得从荧幕上消失了,或者演的来来去去都是那一种角色,没有突破.

近年来,本地吹起了全民打造明星的一种风行,每几个月就有一群人凭着观众头选进入演艺圈. 有时候,觉得新加坡人其实也蛮多才多艺的.但想一想,现在乐坛里能够红的本地歌手,都是从海外打回新加坡的.哪里有一个是从本地票选中走红亚洲的呢?Olinda, Taufik 以数码媒介发行他们最新的专辑,令我不禁想问,难道唱片公司没信心他们能够出CD吗?不是说票选出来的就不能红,只是说应该是少数.公司所能栽培的人也是少数,所以这么样的"大量生产"这些演艺人员或者歌手然后因为缺乏机会或资源,把它们扔在一旁,真的很浪费.

Holistic approach to solving transport issues

I've been following the news on falling public transport use , and I think of IP routing to a website. It's the same analogy we always use in network classes. We've got so many packets going into the pipe, trying to reach the same server that at some point, the network becomes congested. The traffic is bursty, the network is congested only at certain times, like rush hour traffic. So what do you do, assuming the server can handle greater load just fine?

A few things come to mind, buying more bandwidth, improve latency, adding more routers to prevent bottle-necks, data compression. It's analogous to expanding roads, get faster cars or increase speed limits, build more roads, and using public transport in the transport context. But there are many constraints, such as how much land do we want to use to build roads in land-scarce Singapore? How much more accidents are we willing to risk in exchange for faster cars and higher speed limits? How many people can we squeeze onto MRT trains and SBS buses before they feel uncomfortable?

Or we can Akamaize our website. Basically that means distributing the content of the website to other servers elsewhere on the network so that clients don't have to get all of the content from one server. Different parts of the network are being used instead as the hosts are located differently. Are we seeing this happening in Singapore's road system? A little, but future developments will compound the problem. Ng Ka Yen states the problem clearly.

MORNING traffic patterns in Singapore are lopsided, with too much traffic rushing from the north to the south, and too much from the east to the west.

We cannot add burdens to these patterns forever. Adopting traffic minimisation and traffic diversion strategies is critical, and perhaps the only way to tackle long-term traffic problems.

In a few years, the integrated resort (IR) at Marina Bay alone will create 10,000 jobs and stimulate thousands more in other businesses in the area.

And do not forget that demand for office space in the Central Business District is always high, despite higher rents there.

Singapore Management University (SMU) is another big traffic generator.

A few kilometres away, the IR at Sentosa will generate as many jobs and tourist traffic as its Marina Bay counterpart.

There is so much development in the south, it's going to be a traffic nightmare. It's almost like taking two steps backward after the implementing the idea of regional centres.

How are we going to avoid this concentration? A related question is, can we put our regional centres to greater use to localize traffic usage? Of course, we're going to have to put more jobs, schools (especially universities), entertainment and recreational facilities elsewhere. The government has to find some way to make these places attractive to businesses and users. I think given the present state of technology in Singapore and our progress towards a wireless island, we can go so far as to say that we can eliminate some of this traffic altogether via telecommuting.As Thomas L. Friedman describes in his book, Indians are already doing so much work (tutoring, doing accounts, coding, etc) from the US and Europe via telecommuting, so I don't see it as a big problem here. There are worries about security and work performance, but these can be overcome with proper education.

A factor worth investigating is why do Singaporeans buy cars. Is it because it's a dream, it's a need, it's a symbol of success, public transport doesn't meet their requirements, etc? If it is to fulfill a psychological need, then improving public transport is probably not going to make these car-owners use public transport. Our hope is that the young no longer subscribes to such views like owning a car is necessary to be successful.

There are other solutions worth considering. Elia Diodati toys with the idea of express train service, but the cost of installing additional tracks seem forbidding. There are express buses, which I'm not sure of their effectiveness. I've written a suggestion to SBS about their express bus service not stopping at a particular MRT station but I've not received any feedback. I'm not sure how popular car-pooling is in Singapore, but such a culture can be encouraged. Or how about company-sponsored transport or private transport companies providing bus services, like what they do in Science Park or some industrial areas?

A more holistic approach is needed to solve our transport issues, because these issues also involve urban planning, our working and lifestyle approaches and the social and economic value we place on car-ownership.

TIME Best Invention 2006

Take a look at some of the best inventions of 2006 as voted by TIME magazine. Some pretty amazing gadgets and stuff.
There's an air mattress that costs $1.5 million, in USD I suppose. Not sure if it'll guarantee sweet dreams, but I guess most people will be having nightmares when they see that kind of price. Nonetheless, it still looks pretty funky, doesn't it?



Or how about this electricity-driven car that will not only helps to reduce global-warming but still looks smoking hot on the highway?



Not sure what cheese goes well with Chardonnay? This cute little robot can offer you some suggestions.

Wikipedia used to spread malicious code

There has always been the issue of the authenticity of Wikipedia articles, but now you have to worry about being scammed as well. After YouTube, it's another one of those examples of hackers using social networking website to spread their viruses around. The spirit of social networking is to promote sharing, and they provide a perfect platform for virus-writers. I guess we should be careful of what we get from the Web, doubly so for YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, or other social networking sites.
I download software like XAMPP, jedit, etc and the occasional stuff from download.com, from so-called trusted sources I suppose, but what if I want to download something from new and untried sources? I'll usually pass. I guess I'm biased towards them, but it's all in the name of security.

Has Wee Shu Min addressed Derek Wee’s main points?

Have been pretty late in talking about this,

Derek Wee's blog

Wee Shu Min's blog has been taken down, but her post has been replicated over so many forums and blogs, it's quite easy to find a copy. Here's one.

The outrage has been fueled by many factors. Her academic pedigree, her MP father, her strong language and lack of empathy, the recent deaths at the MRT stations, here and here.

Has Wee Shu Min's rabid attack on Derek Wee quelled any questions or provided any solutions for the narrowing gap between us and our neighbours? Especially in light of recent developments like the South Johor Economic Region and Indonesia's SEZs, which will serve to divert more foreign investments away.

Has Wee Shu Min addressed the employability issue for well-educated workers over the age of 40?

Has Wee Shu Min addressed the issue of Singaporeans not giving birth to enough babies and the accompanying host of problems?

Rather than see Derek Wee as an unmotivated whiner, she should perhaps take a step back and see whether the points raised by him are indeed problems. I don't think Derek Wee was asking for handouts or anything. He may be whining (or may not be), but the underlying issues are real. Anyway, I don't think she deserves to have her photos dugged up and splashed across the Web.

GIMP tutorial - Pencil Sketching I

I've been playing around with GIMP these 2 days, and have managed to create a simple pencil sketch which I'm quite satisfied with. This tutorial serves as a reminder of the lessons I've learnt while using the software.

1. Open an existing image. On the menubar, File>>Open. I've chosen an image of the beautiful Kyoko Fukada
   
   


2. On the menubar, Layer>>Duplicate layer. Select a copy of the image.
   


3. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>>Desaturate
   


4. Adjust the dynamic range of the image. On the menubar, Layer>>Colors>>Threshold
   


5. On the menubar, Filters>>Edge detect>>Difference of Gaussians. Play around with the values until you see something you like in the preview window.
   

And that's the final image!

Some books on GIMP.

Running php 5.x on windows using tomcat 4.x or 5.x

A very useful guide here.

http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/running-php-5x-on-windows-using-tomcat-4x-or-5x/

Notice that there are about 200 comments with a lot of them asking for help. The guide's actually quite easy to follow once you get it to work the first time. Then you'll be wondering why you needed 2-3hrs to get it right, like me.

Thoughts on The Life Science Conundrum

The life sciences conundrum
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/147445.asp
After the hype, grads now realise that there's no place for them in the industry

According to the industry's annual reviews compiled by A*Star and the Economic Development Board's Biomedical Sciences Group (EDB BMSG), an average of a thousand new jobs were created annually for the past five years. Last year, there were 10,200 manufacturing jobs in the industry, almost doubling the 5,700 jobs created in the then-fledgling sector in 2001. By 2015, EDB targets the number of such jobs to hit 15,000.
.
But the booming figures mask a Catch-22 situation: The current shortage of PhD holders in the biomedical sciences cluster is hampering Singapore's bid to attract multinational companies to move their high-end research projects here. Without a PhD, most of Singapore's life sciences graduates are only qualified to work as research assistants.
.
And both graduates and diploma holders vie for these positions that could pay less than $2,000 a month. In the industry's manufacturing sector, life sciences graduates compete against their peers from other general sciences and engineering disciplines. They face even stiffer competition in the sales sector, where paper qualifications take on less significance.
.
A*Star's Biomedical Research Council oversees and coordinates public sector biomedical research and development activities. On the surplus of life sciences graduates, its executive director Dr Beh Swan Gin told Today: "It is not a situation that can be easily communicated, as there are many factors involved. Simply put, a PhD is essential for progress as a researcher. And there are still not enough Singaporeans pursuing PhD studies."
.

Adding that the local universities should not pander to the students' demand for the subject, Dr Beh said: "The job market of today and tomorrow, is the market the universities should focus on. The manufacturing and commercial jobs have always been there, albeit there are more of these now. NUS (National University of Singapore) and NTU (Nanyang Technological University) should get better data on the demand for life science graduates at the Bachelor's degree level

I'm not sure what exactly what to make of it, but it strikes me as somewhat ironic that PM Lee made this statement yesterday.

"It was a leap of faith into the unknown when we took the infocomm plunge in 1981. The lesson from the last 25 years is that we must continue to track closely the changes around us and respond promptly when opportunities emerge. By the time a trend becomes obvious to everyone, we may have already missed the train."

Yes there is some truth in that, the beginner's advantage of leading the pack is important, but we should also consider that making statements like that will make people anxious and jump on to the train headed for "The Next Big Thing". Something which happened some years ago with all the hype surrounding life sciences. Should we fault the government for promoting the life sciences?

I think at some level, it is only fair that the government let the people know that it is planning to grow the life sciences industry. There needs to be a sizeable pool of suitably educated grads if we are to become a biomedical hub. If jobs are going to be created in the industry, I would think it is only fair to let Singaporeans know of such an opportunity. We know that the market conditions do change, but in Singapore the government still has a large say in the economic developments, rather than say that they should adopt a hands-off approach, by not telling Singaporeans what areas they intend to develop, I'll rather that they disclose their plans in full detail so that people can make an informed choice.

Perhaps the situation is complex and there are many factors that come into play. If more information is shared between the government and the local universities and media, students may have more knowledge on which to base their decisions. When did the government realise that investors are not coming in due to the lack of PhD holders? When did they realise that they are not attracting these people in sufficient numbers? When did the universities realise that the enrollment for life sciences was too high? How were the job prospects for life science grads communicated to them? Did they know that having a BSc is not enough and a PhD is required? How were these pieces of info shared and communicated between the government, universities and the media?

If the government and the universities think something is wrong, they perhaps they should make a strong statement in the press to quell these false perspectives (I can only remember Phillip Yeo's test tube washing statement, which I think was hardly enough as it in itself was controversial, how you put a point across is sometimes as important as what the point is). Yes, ultimately it is a personal decision, but these decisions should be made under conditions where known information is made readily available the students. The constant ramming of the life science hype down our throats, I don't think that's it.

Barriers of entry to legal profession lowered

It's been in the news, for the last few years, that the number of lawyers in Singapore is in a gradual but steady decline. The attrition rate is high and the supply is not sufficient given the rising demand here. So the government has accepted the key recommendations of The Third Committee on the Supply of Lawyers, but that understandably has raised some concerns in some circles. The legal profession is still very much protected, as compared to say IT, accouting or engineering, so the introduction of (potential global) competition is perhaps a little too much to digest at one go. But perhaps it is not as sudden as one would have imagined. The signing of various FTAs already signalled that the barriers of entry for some professions were being lowered as Singapore began to recognize their qualifications. These professions included medicine and law.

The issue of falling pay is a concern, but it might not be all bad. As Mr Wang observes, the high salary is offset by the long working hours, which led to a high attrition rate. We all know the law of dimishing returns, up to a point the additional income does not offer you any more utility and you'll rather take a break instead. With the rising supply of lawyers, it is more probable that a work-life balance can be achieved. Besides, the aim of making Singapore a international legal services hub means that the fat in the system must be trimmed so that we can be globally competitive, and the first step is to allow global competition into the local arena.

Syntax Highlighting with GeSHi and csh_geshi plugin

Pasting code in Wordpress is not an easy task, Wordpress will tend to mess it up by applying filters to it. The GeSHi (Generic Syntax Highlighter) project not only prevents that, but also provides syntax highlight as well. To use it, you will need a Wordpress plugin. The WordPress csh GeSHi Plugin does that job well, the syntax is easy and is easily configurable. You will have to disable Wordpress's rich text editor though, at least when you need to paste code samples.

Some examples of the combination in action.

Simple:
[js]
function square(num)
{
return num*num;
}


With line numbering:
[java,Y]
public class Student
{
private String name;
private String matricNo;

public Student(String name, String matricNo)
{
this.name=name;
this.matricNo=matricNo;
}
}
Start line numbering from 10
[sql,Y,10]
select * from product where price>100 and type='ELECTRONICS';
select * from staff where name like '%JOHN%';
select * from store where manager='HENRY LEE';


Struts DispatchAction - unspecified method

I was going through a tutorial about DispatchAction and trying to define a default page to forward to when an invalid value is passed in. Eg, the parameter passed in from a form should only be value "yes" or "no" but not "maybe". If the value "maybe" is passed in, I want to handle it and forward to a default page.

I read the API for DispatchAction unspecified method, which says, "Method which is dispatched to when there is no value for specified request parameter included in the request. Subclasses of DispatchAction should override this method if they wish to provide default behavior different than throwing a ServletException."

It doesn't quite do what I expect it to do. java.lang.NoSuchMethodException will be thrown, because getMethod() cannot find a method with the specified name. Isn't that what the unspecified() is for? Seems like it's not the case. If I try to access the subclass of DispatchAction directly, the unspecified() method will run, but not if I try to pass in an null or invalid value for the parameter. So how should I solve this?

I overrided the dispatchMethod(), checked if getMethod() thows a NoSuchMethodException(), and set a default value after after catching the exception, like below.

[java]
protected ActionForward dispatchMethod(ActionMapping mapping, ActionForm form, HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse resp, String methodName) throws Exception {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
String methodToCall=null;
try
{
if (methodName!=null)
{
log.info("methodToCall in TestDispatchAction is:"+methodName);
getMethod(methodName);
}
else
log.info("methodToCall in TestDispatchAction is null");

methodToCall=methodName;
}
catch (NoSuchMethodException exc){
log.info("NoSuchMethodException caught in TestDispatchAction");
methodToCall="defaultMethod";
}
return super.dispatchMethod(mapping, form, req, resp, methodToCall);
}
If you don't declare the parameter at all in the JSP, an empty string is passed in, not null. I wonder why.

Student couple suspended for hugging in MRT

偷拍风波又一起　　地铁内亲热遭举报　　小情侣被令暂停学

游润恬

上个月某天，一对穿着校服的中学情侣肩并肩乘坐地铁，女的累了，把头靠在男的肩上，男的搂着女的肩。刚好在同一列地铁上的校友见了，悄悄用手机拍下这一幕，把画面通过电邮发给校长。

Article dated 13 Aug 2006
Source: http://www.zaobao.com/sp/sp060813_512.html

The full article is not available online, so I'll give a summary of the article.

On a certain day last month, a student couple from a secondary school, dressed in their school uniforms, sat beside each other onboard an MRT. As the girl was feeling tired, she rested her head on the boy's shoulder, while the boy held her shoulder. An alumnus chanced upon them, and secretly took their photo using a camera-phone, and sent the image to their principal.

The next day, during morning assembly, the principal announced to the school that two students commited a "disgraceful act" in public, and warned other students not to follow suit and spoil the school's reputation.

Although the two students were not named, the news still managed to quickly spread among their classmates. Some of them expressed sympathy, some derided the couple for wearing uniform and desrved to be caught, others were relieved they were not the ones caught and reminded themselves to change out of their uniforms.

The couple were suspended for a day and were made to sit outside the staff office. They were not allowed to go for classes or go home. The school arranged for them to undergo counselling seperately.

The boy, who is in secondary 4 and has a history of poor academic performance, was made to undergo 5 more days of suspension. He also had to promise that he would stop seeing the girl, in front of his parents, or he would not be allowed to sit for his Cambridge O level exams.

The girl is in secondary 3 and has results that were not bad. Her parents were not informed. She abided by the schools's decision and penned a letter of regret. When she went home, she blogged about the incident and added her opinions about the whistle-blower and school authorities. She vented her emotions freely.

---

I found this piece of news somewhat interesting.Is she actually right in saying that the alumnus behaved like a stalker? Regardless, websites like Haro Singapore and posts like this tell us that you better watch what you do in public. Most people don't want to have pictures of themselves drooling in deep slumber onboard the bus floating around in the Web. Besides being a huge source of embarassment, there is also a question of how far one's private sphere extends into the public sphere. Do you have any legal rights against people who take photos of you in public without your permission? As far as I can tell, so long as they are not doing something like taking upskirt photos, then no. Afterall, we see the reporters taking photos of people all the time, inclusive of those who don't want their photos taken, like the families of victims in accidents or people who are charged in court. Then there is the part of active citizenry. Maybe the alumnus felt he was performing his duty as an old boy.

The punishment meted out by the school, does seem strange. Based on the report, you would feel that the guy was handed a heavier punishment partly because he wasn't as good academically as the girl. On one hand, you could understand the school's intentions. Students who don't perform well should devote more time to studies, rather than spend it on relationships. On the other, I don't see how suspending him for six days is going to help him academically. And barring him from the O levels just seems to be too severe a punishment, although it may just be an empty threat. It could also be an excuse so that he doesn't pull down the school's results.

Studies and relationships can be managed effectively, but many struggle at it. Instead of trying to manage the student's studies and love life, the school should stick to the books and leave the rest to the parents. But sometimes when you want to inform the parents, worse things happen. I guess that's why teaching is so tough.

Tomorrow

The girl's blog

The A-Bike - the world’s smallest and lightest folding bicycle

The A-Bike is probably the smallest foldable bike that I've ever seen. The things that impressed me was how compact and light the whole package is, 67cm x 30cm x 16cm folded and 5.6kg to be exact. I live near the train station, but not near enough to walk, and despite Singapore's world-class public bus system, on some mornings it takes me up to 25 minutes just to reach the MRT station from the bus-stop. And I'm sure we know how rampant bicycle theft is at the MRT stations, which rules out parking your bike there. With the A-Bike, you can bring it up the train with little hassle.

The gadget's not perfect though, apparently it suffers from stability, speed and ergonomic issues. The lightness of the ride and it's tiny wheels makes it slightly unstable for heavier people, and potholes, iron grills are made more dangerous because of the tiny wheels. The top speed where stability can be maintained is about 10km/hr, which may prove too slow for some, but I don't think it was meant to be speedy after all. The saddle seems to be a tad too small to be comfortable.


Picture from: Times Online

Reviews:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2267444,00.html

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1818886,00.html

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/technology/s/217/217794_sinclair_reveals_bikeinabag.html

EasyEclipse - Free, open source, easy-to-use

EasyEclipse - Free, open source, easy-to-use Eclipse distributions and plugins for Windows, Mac and Linux

I was looking around for a decent Struts plugin for Eclipse when I came across this.

As the developers of EasyEclipse say:

Our focus is supporting Eclipse-based IDEs from the point of view of an individual developer or a small development team. As a developer, you need a specific and robust set of development tools in the smallest and simplest package possible – this is what EasyEclipse provides.

Each EasyEclipse distribution is tailored for a specific development environment with just the right functionality for that environment – no more complexity than necessary and one easy download and install procedure. And EasyEclipse is free.

Well, I think they are just about there. EasyEclipse is a neat package, not much clutter to tinker around with. There are specific packages tailored to your needs, whether you work more on desktop, mobile or server-side development. And of course you can install plugins if a particular distribution lacks a few tools that you need. While not as polished as MyEclipse, it serves my needs well, with support for Tomcat, Struts, Hibernate and Spring ready out-of-the-box for server-side distribution. I can can spend more time on learning rather than fiddling around with the IDE, or what some people call Eclipse Download Hell.

MOM’s Report on Wages in Singapore, 2005

MOM's Report on Wages in Singapore 2005

The above link is broken.......use this one instead...

This is an extremely interesting report from the MOM. If you're interested in how much the grad from NUS EEE earns on average or how much a bellboy earns or what is the average differential in earnings between males and females for the same position, this report will shed some light.

I have yet to study the report in detail (not sure if I want to), but here are some observations from the report.

Diploma holders who graduate and then go on to serve NS earn more

They earn more than than their counterparts who do not have NS liability or served their NS before going on to study. I would have thought those who enter the workforce immediately after graduating would have earned more. They still earn less than degree holders though, by what I think is not a small margin.

Income bracket grouping for CPF contributors

All earnings refer to monthly wage.
About 14.2% of them earn $5000 and above.
About 29.2% of them earn $1499 and below.
The largest group (for intervals of $1000 in monthly wage) stands at about 22.8% for those earning $2000-$2999.

Wage differentials between the sexes

I gave it a quick look and found that most of the time, men do earn more than women.

For managers, the guy gets about $1000 more each month for basic and gross compared to the gal.
For professionals, the guy gets about $400 more each each month for basic and gross compared to the gal.

Information technology positions were among the lowest earning group among professionals.
Quoting the report "Highlights on Occupational Wages, 2005":

Occupying the lower five positions were mainly information technology related occupations, namely systems designers & analysts ($2,200); software engineers ($1,711) and applications programmers ($1,700). This reflects the strong competition of programmers from low-cost countries.

Not very surprising huh? From what I know, degree holders still have a better cut of the deal, as in most of them will still earn above $2.2K. Asking around, diploma holders are a lot worse off, I have heard of them being paid from $1.4K to $1.6K. This also ties in with my observation that there are many PRCs, Indian nationals, Indonesians and Vietnamese working in IT locally because the barriers to entry for the IT profession in Singapore is much lower than say, medicine, law, engineering or teaching, and the strong Singapore dollar.

The situation is more complex than that since wages are rising in India and PRC, in addition to other costs brought about by the high turnover rate. Moreover, mutual recogntion agreements that accompany FTAs will lower the barrier to entry to various professions including doctors and accountants. What we may see could be stronger competition in professions other than IT in a few years time.

Other interesting information

The report is really full of interesting tidbits, like what is the average commencing salary of fresh grads from each course in the local universities. One of the more interesting tables is the one titled "Median Monthly Basic and Gross Wages of Selected Occupations by Age in All Industries". If you believe in benchmarking yourself against others from the same job and age group, this one could give you a sense of bearings.

If you are interested in salary guides, here's another one from Kelly Services, but I don't think it'll be as accurate as MOM's but it's a guide.