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