the one that sang for the NKF charity show? Given the questions raised regarding the minister's involvment in NKF, you would have thought he would be more prudent and get his assistants to do background checks on organisations that he would become associated with. Totally agree with DK on the point that even though the minister would like to distance himself from the degree mill, the degree mill got him to make the speech exactly because they would appear to be on close relations with gvernment agencies. Few would expect the government would cheat them or be cheated by the degree mill.
Links to articles:
Worthless degrees
Trust private schools here?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Olympic Silver Dampener
While Singapore is in the midst ofcelebrating her first Olympic medal in 48 years, the mood has been dampened with the dismissal of team manager Antony Lee. While it may either be a case of poor management or genuine resource constraint that resulted in Gao Ning being left without a coach in his match, the subsequent comments by table tennis association president
Olympics: Paddler Gao Ning crashes out, lacking coach support during match
Move not to renew table tennis team manager's contract surprises many
STTA's decision not to renew team manager's contract made before Olympics
No coach present as Gao falls to unknown
Olympics: Paddler Gao Ning crashes out, lacking coach support during match
Move not to renew table tennis team manager's contract surprises many
STTA's decision not to renew team manager's contract made before Olympics
No coach present as Gao falls to unknown
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Antoine Dufour - Song For Stephen
Usually we tune a guitar before or after a song. Watch Antoine Dufour tune it in while playing!
[youtube]VgsB_xA2G0I[/youtube]
[youtube]VgsB_xA2G0I[/youtube]
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Finally back online.....
after being disconnected when both my desktop and laptop conked out on me....when it rains, it pours....
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Thoughts on Singapore becoming high-cost, low-tech
Recently there's been a glut of articles in the Straits Times on the subject of engineering in Singapore.
Importance of technology
The first was when ST published a few articles based on an interview with Mr Ngiam Tong Dow on 22 May, 2008. It was pretty interesting to see what are the man's views on topics such as fighting inflation, the rapid promotion of scholars, and the tax structure. In particular, I was quite intrigued by the topic of Singapore becoming high-cost, low-tech. In his view, "Singapore must ensure its best and brightest continue to become engineers and not just bankers". It is the only way to become a knowledge-based economy, he says.
So why are more Singaporeans shying away from science, tech and engineering? By that I mean two things:
That's what anecdotal evidence seems to be telling me. I guess it boils down to money and job prospects. Even though a fresh grad would earn a pretty decent salary as an engineer (this also depends on the kind of industry), it'll still pale in comparison to those in finance, banking, law and medicine. And the influx of foreign workers/students and exodus of jobs really paint a bleak future for engineers.
Engineering is still prized as a academic qualification even though not viewed favourably by students. In another ST interview on 26 May, 2008, Ms Lee Bee Wah notes that even though the median engineer salary trails that of the top eight earners for six professions used to compute the civil service pay, a third of the top executives were engineers by training. She adds that engineers often move out of engineering jobs and many are headhunted by banks and MNCs. Students are also increasing drawn to business and medicine.
Supply Issue
On 31 May, 2008, ST published an article about engineering in Yale and Harvard, with a snippet of text that mentions Mr Lim Hng Kiang saying local institutions are meeting domestic demand with "a steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering & technical manpower each year".
Finally, on 1 Jun, 2008, ST has this article foreign students in local universities. It brought up the phenomena that more foreign students are enrolled in engineering and computing compared to other courses. These are the courses that are shunned by local students.
Implications
So now we have this interesting situation:
It appears likely that we are going to face a future where both the developers of technology and the people who manage them are going to be foreigners.
Links:
His worry: Is Singapore becoming high cost, low tech?
A steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering & technical manpower each year
Engineers have "role in community building"
Foreign students in varsities
Importance of technology
The first was when ST published a few articles based on an interview with Mr Ngiam Tong Dow on 22 May, 2008. It was pretty interesting to see what are the man's views on topics such as fighting inflation, the rapid promotion of scholars, and the tax structure. In particular, I was quite intrigued by the topic of Singapore becoming high-cost, low-tech. In his view, "Singapore must ensure its best and brightest continue to become engineers and not just bankers". It is the only way to become a knowledge-based economy, he says.
So why are more Singaporeans shying away from science, tech and engineering? By that I mean two things:
- A higher proportion of Singaporean students are picking up other disciplines like business or arts rather than science and engineering.
- More Singaporean grads leaving/less grads taking up tech-related jobs.
That's what anecdotal evidence seems to be telling me. I guess it boils down to money and job prospects. Even though a fresh grad would earn a pretty decent salary as an engineer (this also depends on the kind of industry), it'll still pale in comparison to those in finance, banking, law and medicine. And the influx of foreign workers/students and exodus of jobs really paint a bleak future for engineers.
Engineering is still prized as a academic qualification even though not viewed favourably by students. In another ST interview on 26 May, 2008, Ms Lee Bee Wah notes that even though the median engineer salary trails that of the top eight earners for six professions used to compute the civil service pay, a third of the top executives were engineers by training. She adds that engineers often move out of engineering jobs and many are headhunted by banks and MNCs. Students are also increasing drawn to business and medicine.
Supply Issue
On 31 May, 2008, ST published an article about engineering in Yale and Harvard, with a snippet of text that mentions Mr Lim Hng Kiang saying local institutions are meeting domestic demand with "a steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering & technical manpower each year".
Finally, on 1 Jun, 2008, ST has this article foreign students in local universities. It brought up the phenomena that more foreign students are enrolled in engineering and computing compared to other courses. These are the courses that are shunned by local students.
Implications
So now we have this interesting situation:
- The top brass agree that tech and engineering is important for Singapore's development.
- The skills and training of an engineer makes him suitable for other roles like working in a bank or MNC, and this is recognized by headhunters.
- Lesser locals are studying entering tech and engineering and entering the field , while more foreigners are.
It appears likely that we are going to face a future where both the developers of technology and the people who manage them are going to be foreigners.
Links:
His worry: Is Singapore becoming high cost, low tech?
A steady pipeline of 30,000 engineering & technical manpower each year
Engineers have "role in community building"
Foreign students in varsities
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Amazing Graffiti Animation
For those who don't read Matthew Mullenweg's blog, check out this amazing (though freaky) clip
[youtube]uuGaqLT-gO4[/youtube]
[youtube]uuGaqLT-gO4[/youtube]
Friday, April 25, 2008
Problem starting Netbeans 6.1 RC - resolved
Recently I've downloaded the Netbeans 6.1 RC1 and RC2 but I could not get it to work. After installing, I double-clicked on the startup icon but the program won't start. I've checked the Task Manager and most of the time the process would start but end immediately. Once the program managed to run but there was no window showing.
Did some googling but could not find out more about the issue. Now, I went into command prompt to try and see if I could start Netbeans from there. Here's the result:
Finally! So it has something to do with not enough memory being allocated for the VM. That's weird considering I have 2 gigs of RAM and 6.0.1 worked just fine with the same programs running in the background.
Anyway, I went into C:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.1 RC2\etc folder and opened up netbeans.conf. Then I changed "-J-XX:MaxPermSize=200m" to "-J-XX:MaxPermSize=128m" and it worked.
Did some googling but could not find out more about the issue. Now, I went into command prompt to try and see if I could start Netbeans from there. Here's the result:
C:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.1 RC2\bin>netbeans.exe
C:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.1 RC2\bin>nb.exe
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.
Rerunnig without "-client" option...
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.
Finally! So it has something to do with not enough memory being allocated for the VM. That's weird considering I have 2 gigs of RAM and 6.0.1 worked just fine with the same programs running in the background.
Anyway, I went into C:\Program Files\NetBeans 6.1 RC2\etc folder and opened up netbeans.conf. Then I changed "-J-XX:MaxPermSize=200m" to "-J-XX:MaxPermSize=128m" and it worked.
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