Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Singapore Number One Again

Published
by
acroamatic
on Wednesday, 28 February 2007
in Singaporeana
. 2 Comments

If giasen’s data and methodology is correct, Singapore is the largest consumer of oil per capita.

Via Google Earth Blog.

I’m not too surprised. Still. Scary.

UPDATE Singeo conjectures that the oil consumption includes Singapore’s oil refining activity, which LabRat confirms. What I gather is that oil consumption includes oil for industrial use (chemical and petrochemical processes are part of this). Does anyone have the breakdown for Singapore? Incidentally, I came across Barrack Obama’s post: 4 ways to cut oil consumption.

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The First World Hard Disk

Published
by
acroamatic
on Saturday, 24 February 2007
in Media Watch and Musings
. 9 Comments

If I was drinking coffee while reading ST Interactive this morning, I would have spewed it all over my monitor and keyboard.

S’pore ready to become a top First World nation: MM
ST 24 Feb 2007 | Peh Shing Huei & Sue-Ann Chia

THE architect of Singapore’s move from Third World to the First believes the country is ready for the next step up.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said last night that Singapore can move from the lower half of the First World to the top half in the next 10 to 20 years….

But Singapore’s transformation would not be possible without economic growth. To do so, Singapore needs to attract investments, and keep corporate and personal taxes low.

And Singaporeans must welcome foreigners here, as they are the ‘extra megabytes’ and Singaporeans, the ‘hard disk’.

First things first: ‘First World’ is antiquated - and tenuous - terminology. It is Cold War era lexicon that never quite made sense then, and definitely doesn’t make sense now.

Generally, First World countries refers to capitalist democracies. The implication is that these nations are ‘developed’. Hence, First World . The term that you hardly ever hear, Second World, refers to command (economies) communist states. Following this definition, two countries in the world qualify: North Korea and Cuba. And Third World, refers (broadly and inaccurately) to ‘developing nations’, presumably all the countries who aren’t democratic or communist.

From definitions, we move on to analogies.

Gahmen speeches are full of them, and usually they are used to good effect.

However, the hard disk analogy is off the mark.

A hard disk is an important part of the computer, but it is just storage space.

Are we receptacles to be filled? Is this an inadvertent reflection of our education system? Who is the CPU ?

In any case, I suppose it’s a step up from being a cog in the clockwork.

Have a good weekend, fellow megabytes.

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History of Mapping in Singapore

Published
by
acroamatic
on Thursday, 22 February 2007
in Heritage and Singaporeana
. 0 Comments

Jackson Plan | Singapore Overview

I like maps.

Especially old ones.

They tell you what used to exist in the past and where they were located. Old maps of Kent Ridge will show you that Kent Ridge Road, which now ends abuptly at the Library Annex, used to connect all the way to Clementi Road.

Sometimes the names are different, which means there might be another story to uncover. The previously mentioned road was known as Island View Road. And Clementi Road used to be Reformatory Road. Oh, even Kent Ridge isn’t the original name!

Anyway, Otterman highlighted the History of Mapping in Singapore over at yesterday.sg. Mok Ly Yng’s slides are worth the download.

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4th year of blogging

Published
by
acroamatic
on Thursday, 22 February 2007
in Personal
. 0 Comments

Happy Birthday to my blog (and its previous incarnations)!

Can’t believe I’ve been doing this for four years.

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Lille v Thailand

Published
by
acroamatic
on Wednesday, 21 February 2007
in Musings
. 0 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve watched a European Champions League game. This typically involves waking up at 3.30 in the morning (evening in Europe) for the midweek games. Since starting work, I’ve not been able to drag myself out of bed in most cases. This time, I had the benefit of two days of rest thanks to CNY, so I managed to catch the game: Lille (France) vs Manchester United (England).

Before the game started, I said to myself: Ahhh, a European game. Little chance of Lille (or United for that matter) doing a Thailand.

Call it commentator’s curse. This extract from The Independent describes what happened (emphases added):

With seven minutes left Ryan Giggs had broken the deadlock with a quickly taken free-kick, curling the ball inside the far post as goalkeeper Tony Sylva lined up his wall. Sylva was booked amid passionate protests by Lille. When they eventually resumed the ball was thumped straight into touch from the kick-off and the players began leaving the pitch with Lille’s goalkeeping coach, Jean-Noel Duse, waving them off.

The match officials, Ferguson, Gary Neville, Louis Saha and Patrice Evra all became involved before the match resumed. By then the home crowd, already inflamed by a disallowed goal for their side, were furious. Missiles rained down in the closing minutes, hitting both Neville and the United bench. Incredibly, as he left the pitch Neville also appeared to be struck by an object thrown from the Lille dug-out.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in football,” said Ferguson. “I don’t understand it. It was disgraceful. It led to intimidation of the referee by the fans. They created a hostile atmosphere. Uefa have got to do something. I’ve seen a lot of bad behaviour in football as it is emotional but I’ve not seen that situation before.”

Ahh, Sir Alex… you obviously don’t watch South East Asian football. Unlike Lille, who almost walked off, Thailand went the whole hog and did it. Remember Thailand’s punishment for actually walking off the field - nada, zilch, nothing. Granted Sir Alex might have been referring to the fans creating a hostile atmosphere, but his comment about never having seen such a situation definitely referred to the attempted walk-out.

Will UEFA take action? Hmmm…

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