PC Show and Tell

PC Show: Day 2. Short version: the Apple reseller quoted the wrong price (they applied the discount to a non-sale model) and wouldn't budge so I didn't buy anything. I can get cheaper (or higher spec for the same money) via the build-to-order system. Bummer as the mental processes leading to a GO decision were long. Never mind, maybe I'll just get one anyway having managed to commit already.

I did buy a big Samsung monitor as a consolation prize; S$100 off plus a Bluetooth headset and a Samsung Beijing Olympics Swatch-style watch. Who could resist? Despite assurances, the Bluetooth ear piece does have a blue flashing LED and is truly Nathan Barley-esque. Why is it that for years we made curvy hearing aids out of flesh-coloured plastic, but mobile phone headsets are black & angular with blue lights?

The freebies were technically from Samsung itself, not the distributor, so you pay for the monitor, they put it on a not-too-crappy metal trolley for the journey home, then you take the receipt and (dragging the huge box through the throng) go to the official Samsung redemption counter where they validate the purchase, take your signature and IC number then hand over the freebies.

This is the way in Singapore; redemption counters for freebies. As a rule, there are only 2 reasons Singaporeans will join (and stay) in a long queue; betting shops and lottery ticket sales. A temporary third case is gift redemption counters. The Asus counter was outside the main hall doors and so their line (mainly laptop purchasers) snaked across the doors and off down almost past the toilets causing a congested knot that the event stewards simply ignored. Safety and crowd control was invisible, if not absent.

I was curious, given the supposedly heightened security stance these days, whether I could take a huge, heavy box onto the MRT? Yes, no problem at all. Passing security is all about fitting in; making it look like you belong. The guy who gate-crashed the Oscars in 2006 gave this advice afterwards:

"Show up at the theater, dressed as a chef carrying a live lobster, looking really concerned."

If anyway wanted to take something bulky and illegal onto a train, say for the sake of example, Durian fruit, use a big cardboard box with "HP Laserjet Printer" and board the train at City Hall (closest station to Funan IT) or Bugis (closest to Sim Lim).

The scary videos they run on MRT platforms show a shifty young man, wearing a baseball cap carrying a black holdall. But no-one wears baseball caps, or hats at all. No sports logos on the bag? Unlikely. Rather, just use a standard pull-along suitcase and get on the East-West line towards Changi. You'll fit right in.

Back to the big monitor. It looks great but I've run out of desk space and intend to put it on an arm. They claimed it takes the standard bracket. Turns out it's the other standard bracket so I spent all day today traipsing 'round trying to find the right part but no joy yet. Still, more screen than desk is what we call in the trade a "high quality problem".

The warranty card is a doozy. Apparently, for the warranty to be valid I need to return the card within 7 days, filled out with e-mail address, name, address, DOB, IC number, home phone, office phone, mobile phone, postcode, education level, salary band, occupation, and such marketing gems as what I think of Samsung as a brand and a list of every Samsung product I own or might own in the next year. I'm toying between giving up and fabricating farcical data. It's beyond the pale but I bet many locals dutifully fill these things in. There just isn't the same sense of outrage at loss of privacy and firms take advantage.

A more PC Singapore

Minor bit of excitement has made its way around on the calender; the 18th annual Singapore PC Show, one of the 3 significant shows in the year (others are the IT Show and SITEX). It's at the downtown Suntec convention centre which means being herded like milk cows around the insufficient escalators up to the main exhibition floors (4 and 6). Yesterday, they had blocked off one of the 4->6 escalators and with a 50yard queue for the remaining one, it was faster to go down to 3 and then back up to 4, then 6. It's a badly designed building run by fools. The Expo out at Changi airport is much better for space and access.

The Show runs Thursday through Sunday, noon until 9pm daily and about 15% of the Singapore population, men, women, children and geeks will attend. I took the opportunity to go early on Thursday which was tolerable being a lone, able-bodied male. Why families with push-chairs and children attend is beyond me. There was one wheelchair user who struck me as particularly brave - for one thing he's low down; you can't see him (he needs a pole and a flag) and anything that wide simple makes no progress. His tactic was to motor forward, very very slowly and persistently but it can't be easy or fun.

The reason the show is so popular is because Singaporeans love a bargain, and we are officially in the middle of the GSS, the Great Singapore Sale which
runs for about 2 months, from mid-May. I haven't bothered to mention it (and didn't even notice it last year) because it isn't what you think. Sure there are banners and window dressing but actually, prices are not much different. Think if it as a retail marketing exercise, not a price promotion. Example: Courts (big electrical retailer like Currys or Comet) has yellow "Mega Sale" stickers on everything, yet closer inspection shows they list the price and in small lettering the original price, if different. Quick review of the kitchen section shows maybe 1 in 10 items at reduced price.

The PC show is similar. Retailers use it to clear stock and offer targeted discounts to generate buzz. For small shops, you could have negotiated the 10% discount. For larger stores, careful shopping around would yield similar reductions in many cases.

This year's show seems smaller, or more precisely, there seems to be more space - gaps between stands. Asking around, they have culled some of the smaller, less reputable retailers and focused on the big brand names. That's a bit of a shame as some of the little guys are fun. The iRobot vacuum cleaner stand is there, as is the Mini Sun power saver "plug in the box and reduce your electricity bills". Sounds like snake oil but it does work (long story which I might relate sometime).

Unusually, the Apple retailer is actually knocking some money off this year (a first) by throwing in a RAM upgrade. I'm in the middle of checking my bank account balance as that's a deal I can't match even with an old staff discount I could use. So I face the prospect of going back today (Fri) with a luggage trolley to tote away a huge box or two.

The big box retailers, HP, Brother, etc, will sell PCs and printers with a free, crappy plastic trolley to get the goods home. You see people streaming away from the show with them, struggling down escalators and onto the MRT. Which raises an interesting security question. Normally, people with large luggage are stopped at stations for a security check (terrorism and all that) but for the next 3 days, you could tote 25kgs of whatever you want onto a train with nary a raised eyebrow.

Second Coming in Singapore

It might even be rapture, depending upon the calling plan prices. Local availability of the Jesus phone, so called because of the worshiping of Apple fans, has been announced by SingTel and Apple as part of the worldwide announcement of the iPhone v2.

One enterprising chap has already posted on Craigslist that he is taking pre-orders for network unlocked (jail broken) iPhones priced at S$420 (£156) for the 8 GB model and S$550 (£208) for 16 GB one. That might be a bold move considering the new iPhone software hasn't been released yet, let alone jail broken but it's a fair bet it will be by the time punters come knocking.

SingTel is also taking pre-orders and as usual you have to give them lots of marketing information. If you balk at an actual order (probably not legally binding on either party given there's no price stated) you can elect to be informed of developments. That requires to answer the following questions:

• Name
• NRIC/Foreign ID
• Age
• Gender
• Address
• Postal Code
• Email Address
• Mobile Number
• Which is your mobile service provider?
• Are you currently contracted to your mobile service provider?
• When did you last sign a mobile phone contract with your service provider?

There are more questions; those are just the mandatory ones. It's a fact of life here that the state and commercial institutions demand and get very detailed personal information. Locals don't bother to fight it and (legal) foreigners like me probably just grumble. I might have to give in and pre-order because there's likely to be a big queue.

Buying news by the kilo

I have given up buying the daily paper, instead I just catch the main stories online for free at the 2 newspaper's websites and also on local blogs. But I do generally buy the Saturday and Sunday editions for several reasons. All the advertising is much bulkier on Saturdays especially classifieds and property sections, the editorials and summaries are filled out but mainly because it is double the size for the same 80cents; the edition on my lap is 306pages and weighs 1.5Kgs.

It's enough to make you anxious; that's a lot of reading time to devote to keeping up with society and the implied imperative to do so runs counter to sound principles of time management, a focus on high-value productivity and the elimination of overhead. With my speed reading and skimming skills on song, I'm looking forward to see the coverage and summary of an eventful week.

First up will be the volte-face by the Malaysian Government over the ban on fuel sales to foreign vehicles within 50kms of a national border (ie, Singapore and Thailand). The policy was morphing before the end of the press conference that announced it. First, it wasn't really about Singapore but Thai truckers loading up on subsidised diesel, but they felt they had to be fair and apply the rule at both ends of the country. Then they delayed introduction by a week. Then it didn't apply to motorcycles because they have small tanks and were generally used by those less well off. Then they decided to scrap all fuel subsidies forcing an immediate 40% hike in prices for everyone. Talk about making policy up as you go along.

This still leaves Singapore gas more expensive but with the benefits reduced to the point of marginal gain. We might see a change in the 3/4 tank rule at some point but given the trigger is crude oil price volatility, I imagine the Singaporean Government will wait and see.

The other gem is a long tale of political mud-slinging and court cases. Briefly, a brother-sister pair of opposition politicians, the Chees, have a long history for spouting pure political vitriol against the ruling party (PAP) and its leaders. Their main target of course are the Lees (father MM Lee Kuan Yew and son , the current PM Lee Hsien Loong). The Lees sued the Chees for libel for their accusations in the lead up to the 2004 election. The Chees lost (they didn't turn up to court) and the hearings for damages have just concluded. They did turn up this time and with the opportunity to cross-examine the Lees in the dock, continued their outbursts which were comprehensively ruled irrelevant by the judge. The Chees have now both been convicted of contempt of court and received 12 and 10days in jail. The damages award (irrelevant since the Chees declared bankrupcy ages ago) is deferred.

The next story dovetails with the last. A long time Singaporean lawyer and dissident (his term) now a US citizen came back to Singapore to cover the Chee/Lee case. He checked in to a hotel and then posted his address and phone number on his blog together with a continuing diatribe (some well argued, some not) against the Government with a "come and get me" invitation. More seriously, he apparently e-mailed the judge of the Chee/Lee case with some unflattering comment on her impartiality. He was arrested for insulting a civil servant, held for 4 days, and while now out on bail, looks set to be charged with Sedition.

What I find curious is that sitting members of the cabinet will take on libel cases and defend themselves in court. The Chees certainly went beyond fair opinion into libel but it's the Singaporean way apparently that even fringe political accusations are never allowed to rest on file unchallenged. I don't think either side comes out well in the end although the court transcripts make for vicarious entertainment and many headlines. The dissident lawyer has no defence and provoked the authorities into arresting him. That's a standard dissident tactic but he's no Gandhi I don't see a bigger game plan. What now?

And that perhaps is the overall point. If this is the state of the art of Singaporean political opposition, then the Government has nothing to worry about.

East Coast Vibe

Known as the East Coast, it's actually the South Coast stretching eastward from the CBD (Central Business District) pretty much from the fringe of the central area (where the Singapore Flyer is) all the way out to the end of Singapore, to where Changi airport is. That whole stretch is mostly residential with some high technology, entertainment and a red-light district (apparently) thrown in. The main claim to fame is that there is a beach; a thin strip of gritty sand between the grey/brown murk of the straits between Singapore and Indonesia where the cargo ships anchor waiting for their turn in port.

Thus the East Coast has the closest thing to a riviera that Singapore can muster. Big industry is zoned elsewhere and the investment is directed to cycle paths, bicycle rental kiosks, restaurants, camping, alfresco BBQ pits, chalets and even a water skiing pond (you are dragged around by an overhead wire).

Saturday we had a morning appointment just in from the beach and afterwards took a nice 5m walk back towards town. Everyone should do this periodically because it proves Singapore can be normal and fun. Joggers suffer in the heat but the determined ones manage a pained, sweaty shuffle. The sand is only 25ft across but it soon fills up with tents and huddles of young people hanging out, picnicking. Some intrepid swimmers brave the gloop; this ranges from Chinese in Lycra cozzies to fully dressed Muslim women sitting up to their waists, splashing around with the kids. Inline skaters, roller skates, the odd skate board and many hired tandem bikes with the poor guy at the front doing most of the work.

One word of advice; even on a cool, overcast day, walking in the shade of the tree canopy, wear a hat.

Singapore: 29, UK: 49

Vision of Humanity has published their world peace rankings, putting Singapore in a relatively comfortable #29th place, well above Malaysia (#38), UK (#49th) and USA (#97). Topping the list of non-hitters are:

1. Iceland
2. Denmark
3. Norway
4. New Zealand
5. Japan
6. Ireland
7. Portugal
8. Finland
9. Luxembourg
10. Austria
11. Canada
12. Switzerland
13. Sweden

So you might be wondering what is being measured here as some places (Iceland, Denmark) seem natural choices whereas putting Malaysia ahead of England seems to fly in the face of headline news. You can follow the link but comparing UK and Singapore highlighted some standout differences:

Potential for terrorists acts. UK 3, Singapore 2 based on a qualitative assessment of the potential for terrorist acts. Ranked 1-5 (very low-very high) by EIU analysts.

Number of internal and external conflicts fought. UK 4, Singapore 1, based on a UCDP defined conflict as: "a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year"

Estimated number of deaths from organised conflict (external). UK 2, Singapore 1.

The democracy and transparency scores drag Singapore down, especially freedom of press (8.3 versus 5.6), but beats UK on corruption (8.4 vs 9.3), an expected strong suit for Singapore.

One to watch perhaps is willingness of citizens to fight in wars. UK 2, Singapore 5 (higher is more willing). Interesting, but we've always got Glasgow...

Fuel for Thought

Singapore has no natural energy reserves and relies on imports of petrol and water from Malaysia, and natural gas from Indonesia. Both have notable stories this week.

The price of petrol is subsidised in Malaysia to the tune of S$17b per annum (£6.3b) as an economic perk to the masses. Good for Malaysians but also good for Singaporeans who see a big difference between the pump price on either side of the straits causeway. Today, a litre of 95 octane is S$2.186 (81p); it's about 30% less over in JB and to slow down rampant petrol trafficing, Singapore has a rule that local cars going over to Malaysia must have their tanks at least 3/4s full, otherwise you get fined (S$500) and they do check (by looking at the dashboard gauge so I suppose you could get sneaky if you really wanted).

That doesn't stop everyone filing up before driving back; it's an expected optimisation, like pressing the Door Close buttons in a lift; if you are Singaporean, it's just something you do. Many people pop over during the weekend, buy some cheap goods, go to the supermarket, valet the car, have lunch then drive back, filling up the car at the line of petrol stations just before Malaysian customs.

Now Malaysia has announced a ban on foreign-registered vehicles filling up on fuel within 50km of Malaysia's borders. It's to reduce the costs of the Government subsidy & it comes into force today (Friday). The impact to the local JB economy could be severe; at least the JB business owners think it will be, predicting some of the 300 stations within the ban zone will close:

"Die already lah, really die. Business will be down. There are so many kiosks, some will have to close shop."

With some station's patrons being 90% Singaporeans filling up that seems likely although the dust hasn't settled yet and this knee-jerk blanket ban needs more finesse to be workable.

The other energy story is natural gas piped from Indonesia via Batam. The Singaporeans pay well for the gas, about 3 times what the local Batam businesses do and with local shortages in Batam affecting trade, the locals are sabre rattling. Singapore has more than one source of gas, but it is used for ~80% of the local electricity production, so blackouts would follow any significant and prolonged interruption in gas supply.

Everybody seems to playing down the issue and it doesn't look like it will escalate like the Russian / Ukrainian spat last winter but if some Batam guys decided to get creative with the pipeline, who knows what will happen?

Urban Trash

Singapore is having another cleanliness drive, particularly litter in the HDB estates and the Government has formed a workgroup to look into dirty habits in the heartland. In reality, it's a simple issue with well understood themes:

Dense HDB living with small individual and large public space reduces personal responsibility. People who in past times would have swept their yard daily now just leave the corridor to be jet-washed by the council.

Littering is perceived as victimless and unpunishable. People who throw tissues and Q-tips out of bathroom windows are never going to be caught. It's the same spots on the void deck apron and under some kitchen windows that are littered; it's patently a minority at fault.

Same with smokers who as a global group seem to be unconcerned that cigarette butts are not biodegradable and, yes, I can see them in the bushes, drains, grass, etc. There's a chap opposite me who smokes at the window (so as not to befoul the flat); he'll stand there, smoking and spitting then flick the butt down onto the void deck apron. Since he stands in exactly the same spot each time, the ledge below his window has a large grey stain from the flicked ash. No one stops him.

The communal letterboxes at the void deck are strewn with junk mail leaflets; I don't blame residents, it's hard to pull out the contents without scattering these 2 x 3" scraps and few bother to stoop down to pick up junk mail. The authorities could stop this in an instant by banning private marketing flyers just as private condos do.

Setting fires for spiritual purposes is passively condoned by the authorities. The daily piles of ash, burnt walls, blobs of wax, burnt joss sticks and smoke continue despite the supplied braziers mere yards away.

Dog walkers? I don't think I've ever seen one with a poop bag. People just know not to walk on grass verges.

The ST article also mentions foreign workers which is low blow; numerically it's a local problem and the lack of enforcement against local recidivists makes this sound astonishingly patronising:

"They do not know that this is an offence here. Therefore, the town council staff and grassroots members have to give them advice. We need some time to educate them."

Apparently our local council is making an extra effort and just today we received a flyer from the local MP in this very topic:

"CLEANLINESS IN HOUSING ESTATES

1. If we look around our estates in mid-morning, by and large, they are very clean. But this doesn't remain for long and by the afternoon littering creeps in. Bits and pieces of paper are strewn from the HDB void decks to the parks and streets in private estates. By night fall it gets worse. Littering has become a persistent problem. Not only is it unsightly, it encourages breeding of pests like mosquitoes, which transmit diseases like malaria and dengue.

2. The National Environment Agency will extend litter enforcement from HDB town centres to the housing estates such as lift lobbies, void decks and letter box areas from April 2008. The first phase will involve a select group of constituencies. Further phrases will be introduced pending a review by NEA after the first three months of operation.

3. Keeping our estates clean is a shared responsibility. It rests with YOU and US. We are ultimately the ones who either make our estates clean or we destroy this beauty with litter everywhere. Between the two, I think your choice is obvious. You want to keep the surrounding areas clean. So let's make a committed collective effort and STOP littering and throwing unwanted receptacles around our estates.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Er LEE BEE WAH
MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC"

Note that the focus is on public health (discarded plastic bags & drink cups may collect water & breed mozzies), not civic pride or aesthetics.

Nothing will change because the daily clean up by the council is an environmental deus ex machina. No matter what mess is created, the faithful council cleaners will be out before 6am restoring order; people do not need to take any personal responsibility. The article confirms this with evidence from the Cleanest Estate awards:

"Yuhua Village Market and Food Centre at Jurong East Street 24 - one of the winning food centres - had relied heavily on stallholder and town council help to keep its premises spotless"

I wouldn't say Singapore is especially blighted by littering; Hong Kong & Malaysia are worse. But Singapore invests heavily in cleaning up and it would enhance a sense of natural justice if some of the above niggles were taken seriously instead of workgroups and photo-ops of MPs jet washing pavements.

Gone but not going away

The saga of escaped detainee Mas Selamat continues. The Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng announced to parliament the disciplinary response to his escape.

From the ST article, 9 staff will be affected:

Who: Two Gurkha guards. They escorted Mas Selamat for his weekly family visit on Feb 27 and let him out of their line of sight.
Penalty: Demoted.

Who: Special duty operative. A junior officer who handled his family visit. She did not take immediate action when alerted by the guards. She also did not observe procedures such as noting how many sets of clothes he had, which is why he had more than one set on him when he escaped.
Penalty: Dismissed.

Who: Special duty operative's supervisor. Failed to assess security regarding detainees' use of the Family Visitation Block toilet.
Penalty: Letter of reprimand. Relieved of all supervisory duties.

Who: Technical officer responsible for CCTV upgrading at the Whitley Road centre. Did not ensure that the system was recording at the time of the incident
Penalty: Letter of warning.

Who: Chief warder. She approached the superintendent to allow detainees to use the toilet at the Family Visitation Block
Penalty: Letter of warning.

Who: Whitley centre's deputy superintendent. Lack of supervision over subordinates implicated in the case.
Penalty: Demoted with pay cut.

Who: Whitley centre's superintendent. Lack of supervision over subordinates implicated. Also failed to take appropriate action upon discovering the unsecured toilet ventilation window.
Penalty: Dismissed.

Who: ISD Command Director and officer-in-charge of Whitley centre.
Penalty: Relieved of his responsibilities to oversee the centre.

All in all, a fair and weighted response although some have already claimed the ultimate boss, the minister, should resign (Japanese style) to take responsibility for the whole fiasco, I think this approach is better because it distinguishes between Management and Policy.

A Minister sets Policy and directs operational matters as a delegated function. If a minister fails to respond to an issue raised to her, then sure, she becomes part of the operational chain of command. In this case, guards didn't guard, a window was left unsecured (they sawed off the handle to prevent it being opened when they should have fitted bars), CCTV wasn't properly working, and so on. These are Operational matters, not policy.

When it comes to politics, cynicism knows no bounds and one of the reasons I am keeping an eye on this story is that it clearly is an embarrassment to the Government that puts great store in competence. The view floating around the blogoshpere was that the story would be allowed to run for a while, the Government would take its beating, then a line would be firmly drawn under the affair and that would be that.

So I was waiting for this line to appear, and so far, it has not. The out-going border checkpoints are still clogged with vehicles being laboriously inspected (the local residents have complained about the frustrated car and truck horns at all times of the day and night). The fugitive's picture is still all over the place, in stations, bus shelters, shopping malls. Even the Straits Times website (free pages) have the image permanently showing and if a Government-directed line was being drawn, you can bet it would be seen there first. It looks like this story has a way to run. Unless they catch him of course which would spoil it for socio-political commentators.

YouTokenism

At this rate, I'm going to sound obsessed by censorship but I'm only reacting to the news, and it segues nicely from the report a couple of days ago about the arrested blogger and his vindictive diatribe.

The new news is that Singapore's Media Development Agency (MDA) has just adjusted its banned website list. I knew the Government can monitor telephone calls (LI, or Legal Intercept) but I am fairly ignorant of any Internet controls and presumed all adult sites were illegal or blocked or both.

The ST article relates how the MDA has put 2 popular video sharing sites onto its list of 100 blocked sites because of uploading & sharing of adult-themed videos. These 2 sites are #19 and #33 on the current Singapore 100 most accessed sites ranking.

First question: what are the sites? The article was sensibly silent on this but the top 100 sites list is easy to find (they are the unimaginatively named YouPorn and RedTube). I've never heard of either of them but what's more interesting is that now that the MDA has added these 2 sites to their 100 blocked sites, they'll have to drop 2 sites already on the list.

Next question: what happens if you try to access a block site? According to another blogger, you get a blank web pages with:

The site you requested is not accessible.
For more information please check Media Development Authority.

The MDA doesn't publish the full list of banned sites but at least they are upfront about the block when you hit one. In England, BT introduced blocking of kiddie porn with project CleanFeed in 2004, and it's now mandatory for all UK ISPs.

So panic over; this is symbolic censorship, not the Great Firewall of China. The Government can validly claim to be blocking morally contentious web content, while the populace gets on with enjoying the other 100 million sites on the Internet. You can't dam the Yangtze with a pebble. Apparently, the block list only affects home Internet connections; offices and commercial connections are unrestricted.

By the way, the most popular sites in Singapore are:

1. Yahoo.com
2. Google.com.sg
3. YouTube
4. Windows Live
5. Blogger
6. Friendster
7. Google.com
8. MSN
9. Facebook
   
10. Wikipedia

Baidu, the Chinese search site is at #14, MySpace at #35. So US mainstream companies dominate, highlighting a surprising absence of big-hitting Asian web portals. Addressing this issue is the MDA's real day job as they try to establish Singapore as a regional New Media and gaming development hub.