Jul 31

• Scholarships For The New Singapore

  from Mr Wang Says So

• What do Singaporeans mean by the private sector being…

  from Simple is the Reason of My Heart

• I spy

  from Sheep City

• Why media literacy is important

  from Hear ye! Hear ye!

• Why media literacy is important

  from Hear ye! Hear ye!

• Credit Cards For the Zero Income Earners

  from Mr Wang Says So

• Dirty Little Secret in Our Golden Period….

  from Diary of A Singaporean Mind

• Brown and Bhavani: One Year Later

  from The Void Deck

• Mapping The Singapore Socio-Political Blogosphere…

  from Singabloodypore

• History, Nation, Singapore: Part 1

  from Singapore Angle

• Costlier Homes For Buyers

  from SingaporeSurf

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The ‘Word,’ That Could Change Our World

You would have thought one of the hardest problems for any technologist to grapple with is the nuts and bolts making a product work. In fact, nothing can be further from the truth, the annals of tech history suggest, making stuff work typically constitute only 12% of the success factor. This leads us to consider what’s the other 88% that kills innovative ideas from emerging triumphantly into the market place? What’s the name of the grim reaper that lurks in the wings responsible for this dismal rate of failures?

Do you want to know his name? Do you want to know how kill him before he cuts you down? That could just be the difference between ending up as a statistic or getting ahead of the crowd.

Can Someone Tell Me Why Our Scholars Aren’t as Smart as the Jews?

I AM sure we have all seen it too often. Usually it happens, when we follow behind as the guy in front walks up to receive the gold medal. Or after reading a seminal thesis that just leaves us all wondering, “why didn’t I think of cutting it that way?”

You know who I am talking about don’t you? Nope, not our elite homegrown Singaporean Scholars – I am referring to another bunch of elites! You know the likes of  Einstein, Marx and Freud. Who are these elites?

The Jews of course! Have you ever wondered why those Jews are so darn smart? They even make our scholars look like a bunch of intellectual paraplegics? What do those Jews really have? What’s behind their mojo, that gives them that advantage that allows them to run circles around our scholars, not every time, but all the time?

Do you really want to know their secret for success?

Jul 27

• Mapping Singapore’s Socio-Political Blogosphere

  from Singabloodypore

• Sure Good Friends, For Now

  from SingaporeSurf

• Pay For What?

  from SingaporeSurf

• For Every Baby Step Forward there is…

  from Winter Is Coming

• In Debt We Trust Part 3 : Leong Sze Hian writes….

  from Diary of A Singaporean Mind

• Working like Emperor Chongzhen

  from Stressed Teacher

• The Economics of Foreign Talent / Workers This po…

  from Perspective Unlimited

• Scholarships – figuring out if they are right for…

  from Singapore Angle

• Fare hike for public transport in October?

  from theonlinecitizen

Why “Civil Disobedience” Is a Game Clever People Never Play!

I am sure we’ve all considered it. One time or another, the whole idea of peaceful “civil disobedience”(CD). As an undergraduate, I remember boycotting a lecturer for a whole semester. I didn’t like the way he picked on me (real or imagined). I even made doubly sure, I studied triple hard just in case, he tried to do me in on a technicality. At the end of it, I earned a distinction and I felt vindicated. I had proven my point in empirical even scientific terms – not only did I pass. I scored a distinction! While it lasted, I was the darling of campus as a veritable Martin Luther, my distinction even acquiring the patina of Magna Carta. I had proven without a shadow of doubt, by removing myself peacefully from the “process” the “system,” he (the offending lecturer) was truly irrelevant to my destiny!

But let’s be honest. How effective is the idea of peaceful Gandhi styled CD these days? Does chucking in blogging really make a difference to the system? Is deploying the dreaded black arts of “bochapness” and “dowanlah” styled CD capable of soliciting change in people, institutions and governments these days?

I wonder….

Stalingrad Part 2 & 3 – A Conversation with a Pretty Book Doctor. (A travelogue with a heart to mother Russia)

This is a continuation from Part 1 as a special tribute to the Tirianians due to the overwhelming response to the Part 1 series of the travelogue: Stalingrad. We the Brotherhood Press will be present Part 2 & 3 in the Extended Version. Happy Reading.

Your Friendly Controller

Aurora.

Jul 25

• The Inevitable Public Nature of Internet Communication

  from Singapore Angle

• Seperated By a Mental Bridge: Thoughts on the Iskander Development Region

  from Singapore Angle: Perspectives

• CPF – F1 or F9 : Credit extension, mortgages and ordinary/special accounts

  from theonlinecitizen

• The “Wanli” behaviour

  from Stressed Teacher

• Racial Harmony day

  from Yawning Bread Sampler

• Lost your cell phone? Will you get it back?

  from e pur si muove

• The economics of foreign talents

  from Hear ye! Hear ye!

• Wee Shu Min, Li Hongyi…nothing is sacred anymore with…

  from theonlinecitizen

Stalingrad Part 1 – A Conversation with a Pretty Book Doctor. (A travelogue with a heart to mother Russia)

“There is more here than just lands at stake here, this a rassenkampf (race war), where only one can survive! We the German people are the undeniable master race. It is not enough, I tell you to just preserve our Nordic way of life! We must be able to replenish the Aryan, and pursue our policy of racial purity by eradicating the inferiors! Do not believe for one moment we are ordinary people! Ordinary people cannot accomplish our miraculous feats which speak of a great people with a greater destiny! In this short time, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Holland and France have all fallen and so will the city in East, far from here. The city that is the red menace of Bolshevikism that even bears the name of their corrupt leader, Stalingrad! We shall seize it in the name of the 1,000 year Reich!”

Adolf Hitler (1941)

No where else in Russia does one hear the word ‘history’ spoken with such verve as  Stalingrad – I mean Volgograd. For political reasons Stalingrad reflects the name of a controversial brutal dictator Josef Stalin, so they changed it during the 50’s. But everyone here calls it Stalingrad. I know you have all seen the stomach churning meat grinding violence of Saving Private Ryan along with the band of brothers – we know the narrative by heart – the West defeated the Nazis. Right? Nothing can be further from the truth, though historians may differ on who dealt the mortal blow that packed off Adolf Hitler and his uber Aryans to the rubbish heap of history, no one disputes, where it all happened – the beginning of the end – and in this bar South of the city, where old soldiers hang out with their medals strewn out like coins, Stalingrad will forever be the place where the tide was first turned against the invincible army of Hitler in WW II.

Jul 23

• (In Mandarin) Good analysis of Singapore by Taiwanese
  

  from Singapore Election Watch

• $2,500 to rent a 3-room flat?

  from Yawning Bread Sampler

• In Debt We Trust Part 2 : Starting Young….

  from Diary of A Singaporean Mind

• Conflict Theory in Practice — Political Scene in Singapore

  from Singapore Patriot — A Peek Into a Singaporean S

• numbers are made of this..

  from My sketchbook

• Minister’s blunder a cause for concern

  from theonlinecitizen

• On Banging Walls

  from A Xeno Boy in Sg

• New Twist To AWOL Complaint

  from SingaporeSurf

The Perils of Living in an Apathetic Society.

We’ve all heard it before, haven’t we? – “We are living in a politically apathetic society.” Do we even care if Mickey Mouse or Barney the magical dinosaur runs for the post of secretary general in the UN? Do they even show the slightest interest in politics? Name me five cabinet ministers? There you see!  We are just plain apathetic aren’t we? Is this a local thing? Or is apathy like the bubonic plague spreading insidiously across every major city in the world, jading whole masses of people turning them into indifferent, ambivalent and door knob zombies?

What does it mean for us to live in this new age of bochapness? Do you really want to know? Sorry, really I am, so-so sorry allow me to re-phrase in prosaic terms: do you dare to know what it means to live in an apathetic society? That’s to say do are you man enough to face the truth?

A Speculation on the Sex Lives of Speculators

This titillating article explains the concept of dominance and hierarchy in Singapore society. It should not be misinterpreted as an article which advises readers to speculate in stocks to improve their sex lives.

A colleague of mine, a 33-year-old storage engineer which I will call G, was a happy man last week. After purchasing 100,000 shares of a construction company using contra, he watched the stock rise 2 cents and then promptly unloaded his position to make about $2000 in less than 3 hours.

These are indeed happy days supported by a strong bull market.

G wanted to know if this market will rise further and promises that if he makes $6,000 the following day, he will give other engineers in the account a karaoke treat after National day (And it’s more like the kind of karaoke found in Kabuki rather the mellow kind of karaoke found in K-Box).

All my years studying finance has told me that technical indicators are not fully reliable in a market which is steadily increasing in terms of market efficiency. In fact, as my interest in evolutionary psychology is now beginning to eclipse my interest in finance, I believe that it’s actually easier to predict G’s sex life than what would happen to the markets tomorrow.

Hey, Don’t Kachau* me OK! I Have a Right To My Privacy!

You know, I just want to tell you, I am one of those oddballs who invariably begin every sentence with the words, “I have a right…..” And it ranges, to the ‘right’ to ride my tricycle on the pavement without getting snide stares from pedestrians, to the ‘right’ not to be flattened by 4X4 driven by a bi-focal pint sized auntie. I once even confronted my neighbor, proclaiming in my Martin Luther King voice I had a ‘right’ to fresh air, because he puffs away in the balcony and it wharfs into my living room. And once when I was commuting in the MRT, I came across an inconsiderate asshole doling out ring-tone torture to an entire carriage, I gave him my jedi stare that said,  “I have a ‘right’ to some peace, if you don’t stop it, I will shove it up your ….”. After a few murmurs of teeth sucking defiance, he got off on the next stop. The aunties in my carriage beamed at me like I had just saved them from bird flu pandemic – Yes, I have a ‘right’ to my privacy specifically my ‘right’ not to be disturbed, what about you? Do you know your rights?