wissel.net

Category Singapore
Yesterday some schools in Singapore conducted an eLearning day including Catholic High School where my boys are attending P4. The eLearning day's purpose was to gather experience how school can continue if access to a school campus isn't feasible (natural disaster or an epidemic like SARS or Swine flu). The boys suspected rather different motives for the date set:"They just don't want us to see tired teachers since they were up all night watching the world cup finals" (In German we would say to such a statement: Kindermund tut Wahrheit kund <g>). Working from home I rather curiously watched how that eLearning would work. It became very obvious that this day was very experimental. On one side that is good. Only through experimentation experience can be build to find the right mix for optimum performance. On the other side the way the tools were used was utterly inadequate for a comprehensive eLearning experience. All teachers by now should have access to a gMail account and Google docs. The students access their learning materials through the Lead portal, which is also linked to Google docs and their schools website. I made the following observations:

• The website didn't cope well with the load and some alternative access had to be given. Having not prepared for the estimated load is bad, but remedial actions like notifying via SMS for the alternate access worked well
• Tasks arrived in many ways: some were posted on blogs, some on the school website, some were emailed. All in all it felt quite messy. I would expect an integrated homework assignment system that works for students every day
• Submission of completed work items, unsurprisingly was messy too. Some teachers required the documents to be emailed back, some wanted a form based on Google spreadsheets to be filled
• There was a total format mess. Everything could be found: PDF, Doc, PNG. Very messy to process, especially when you are on a Mac without MS Office. I taught Ernest how to download files and then re-import them into Google docs
• There was no real eLearning at all. All the tasks were file representations from worksheets that used to be paper handouts in class. Big disappointment there
• None of the tasks were collaborative. Everything was solitary: complete your assignment and be done with
• The sharing facility of Google docs wasn't used. Instead eMails were used to share documents. Did MOE miss something when opting for Google docs? Training eventually?
• Teachers were not available for chat to ask questions or discuss results. I would have expected at least Google chat or an active bulletin board. While we (I live here 10 years, so I think it is OK for me to speak of "people of Singapore" as we) pride ourselfs with a world class network infrastructure I can understand that in a first of such events video and voice chat was out. In contrast on a recent team assignment Ernest and his school buddy happily chatted away on Skype video chat (but 1:1 video is much easier than catering to a whole class and many of them concurrently)
• The LEAD portal has a Windows dependency for a series of functions. So no iPad for the gentlemen anytime soon

I'm sure these topics will be brought up in a de-briefing (at least I hope so). So what would I change?

• Improved Homework and task assignment and submission. Preparing for a digital world the schools should adopt such a system for general use, not just for the eLearning day. It also would ease the teachers' task of tracking who has submitted an assigned task and who has not. A good starting point could be the applications listed at schoolforge.net, OS4ED, OSEF, EduTech (University of Geneva), EduCause or Wikipedia (also here)
• More collaborative task to learn teamwork. E.g. a task could be split into 2 where one part is to obtain information from a peer and interpret/analyse it
• Back channel: eLearning without chat/chat room is incomplete
• Full use of Google documents (I like LotusLive's collaborative editor better, but that's not what the schools bought) instead of emailing stuff around. No more use of other formats. This also would include reformatting work for use as electronic documents rather than files that only look good when printed
• Material that is better suited for eLearning and properly managed. Maybe Moodle would be a good start. Of course creating good eLearning materials is hard and creating dual use material even more.
• Mobility enabled content: works on Android, i[Touch|Phone|Pad|Mac], Linux tablets

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 3:36 AM Location Singapore | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category Singapore
Basic salary is a very crude measure to gauge total perks for elected politicians, but its a number easy to compare. Especially compare to the countries GDP per person. India's Manmohan Singh's base salary is pretty much in line with India's GDP per person and the lowest in a recent comparison by the Economist. On the other end are South Africa, Indonesia and Singapore (and Kenia, if the salary increase would have been accepted). Impressive figures:

What would be interesting is to see a table with 3 columns: Base salary, total perks (including seats on boards etc.), personal wealth. And of course a small country need to pay their leaders well. After retiring from a political job, there isn't that much else to do. Just ask MM why he sticks around.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 7:50 PM Location Singapore | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Business Singapore
On June 15, 2010 the Straits Times published an article cheekily titled 'G' mail for all govt e-mail. From the article:

" SINGAPORE residents will each get a personal online mailbox in two years' time to receive their mail from the Government and public agencies.

Mail such as tax statements, reminders to renew TV licences and bills for service and conservancy charges will be sent to this Internet mailbox."

I think that is a terrific idea for citizen services and a good example for clever marketing (I'll explain why). In the comments people lambast about stealing of identity, not-another-mailbox and hacking and viruses. I think they all get it wrong. Reading the article a little further we learn: "People can log into the mailbox using their SingPass ID as well as register online to get e-mail and SMS alerts for new mail.". So what exactly is happening here? My take:

• Somebody did some serious thinking how to bring Citizen service to the next level. I like the idea and I hope the implementation is as bold as the idea itself. The OneInbox is the place where all Government - Citizen interaction takes place. Government interaction requires forms, so a classical eMail won't do. Government interaction is confidential so SMTP, POP etc. won't do. Regular users are overwhelmed when it comes to eMail security as encryption and signatures. The typical approach would be to build a G2C portal and let users interact with it. But "Portal and interactions" sounds complicated and scary to non technical people. So the brains behind the initiative call that Portal an Inbox. Everybody understands Inbox.
• It won't be an eMail system - the sentence "register to get eMail and SMS alerts" gives it away. Why on earth would I want an eMail alert for an incoming eMail. So forget about sending a message to Auntie Joanne (that's what the other gMail is for). And that is OK.
• It uses a well established Single SignOn (SingPass). I expect that in a future iteration SingPass will either use Singapore's Smart-ID chip or some biometrics (which is already stored in our ID card records), so it will be better than the arbitrary name/password of other online systems. Also it efficiently allows to click from you Inbox to the specialized applications of the respective ministries.
• The plan seems to allow that government applications deposit just a notification to the inbox or ever surface their entire UI there depending on the readiness of the respective application. This nicely allows for incremental improvement and deeper and deeper integration. In IBM we call such an approach SOA.
• The absence of normal eMail functions is a big security plus. No Viagra or body part size changing message can be used as an attack vector into that inbox. It is strictly public business

Of course questions need to be answered: Is SingPass secure enough, is privacy guaranteed (we don't have privacy laws here, so that actually might not be a topic) and is the user experience well balanced? For my part: I'm happy to gain a single stop for my government dealings.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 8:00 PM Location Singapore | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
My son Ernest passed the selection test for Singapore's Gifted Education Program (GEP). Being German I value education very highly and I'm rather critical of Singapore's pressure cooker type of education system. Aware of the potential partisan view on it I started sourcing for experience and opinions about the GEP. After all I had to negotiate with Ernest about his future and insisting on objective criteria is a corner stone of principled negotiation. Family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances are obvious sources besides "Auntie Google". Reflecting about SIngapore's education I remembered that Gilbert Koh, a.k.a Mr. Wang had blogged about his viewpoints regarding education numerous times, resonating well with my own view points. So I dropped him a note (for experts in communication matters the sentence reveals, that I'm a Lotus Notes user) asking for his opinion. In best web2.0 manners Gilbert congratulated Ernest in his blog, attracting quite some comments and notified me about the entry. Guess I'll pick up that habit and add a button to my inbox "reply by blog".
Ernest is quite uneasy to leave his current classmates behind, but seems to be attracted to the advertised "fun and games" type of learning. I'll try to get Anthony into the same school and eventually into the same program, he didn't miss the mark too much.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 12:28 AM Location Singapore | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category Singapore
Take note: this is the 21st century. If you want business update your YellowPages listing with an eMail address. Go and fix your websites: if all that is on your homepage is one piece of flash no searchengine will find you - and yes that high paid executive looking for you on her iPhone won't see you either.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 1:38 PM Location Singapore | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Twins Singapore
Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you!

Our boxing day will start of as "Chinese Boxing" day, commonly also known as Wushu. About a year ago I signed Anthony and Ernest up for a Wushu class at our community center. When filling in the form Ernest challenged me: "Daddy what is it about that role model thing?". He got me there. So I asked the lady attending to us what the age limit for the lessons would be. "Seven and above" was her answer. I smiled: "OK, sign me up". She was puzzled: "But sir, they are all children!". I replied: "I'm a child at heart, so I'll be fine". So I ended up with 15 short ones and a teacher half my age. With a big smile I greeted him: "Lao she hao". Lao in Chinese means "old". The course turned out to be great fun and after a while more parents and finally unrelated adults joined in, so we are a fully mixed troupe now.
So far our training was limited to once a week on Sunday evening 7:30-9:30pm (yep, I don't travel on Sundays anymore). Today we are leaving for our first training camp. Two and a half days end to end training in technique, strength, endurance and fun. The goalpost is set.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 3:51 AM Location Singapore | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
I'm pleading guilty of a mild infection with Singapore's education enrichment fever. Since I'm a big fan of Mindmaps, I though giving the kids a head start and let them learn about the mindmaps from the master himself. So I signed them up for the "Power Learning Camp" with the snappy tag line "let your child be trained in Buzan Learning Techniques". I was expecting the use of mindmaps throughout the course since they were introduced on the second day. The agenda had also math topics and I was curious how Mindmaps would help in math skills.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 7:01 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
Most bags/boxes are packed, we are ready to go.

Reconnect broadband might take a week.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:15 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore

Being a real geek I want a home that reacts to my voice (Enterprise anyone). So I started looking around what the state of the art in home automation is. Confusing is a mild expression what I found out there. There are many different standards and philophies available in the market. The good folks at Futurehomes helped me to bring light (pun intended) to the darkness of my knowledge. I finally settled on a combination of PLC Bus and X10.

Anthony and Ernest were quite exited, that they could switch on and off the lights in their room (we used the Sleeping-time-moon and the Story-telling-spotlight as gunea pigs). She-who-must-be-obeyed murmured something along the lines of "Boys and their toys". So some convincing needs to be done there.

Lessons learned so far:

• Check carefully what system you want to use: does it have all the components / functions you are looking for (get a white-paper with good questions)
• Components from different manufacturers have different abilities. E.g. the RF receiver from Marmite can be addressed from the RF remote and the X10 bus. A competitive product (forgot the name) from China can't be addressed from the bus.
• Start bottom to top: first play with modules you plug into a regular socket then move on to installed components (which your certified installer will install for you)
• Once all devices work (switch on/off, dim etc.) move on to the fun part: plan scenarios
• Devices that can be reconfigured with a push of a button make a great game: randomly reconfigure them and let the kids figure out which light is triggered by a specific button
• Get a phone and a PC module to control it further (have good passwords once you connect to the outside)

I haven't settled on the PC software to use. Homesser is for sure a candidate. However I'm looking into Linux based stuff (could I get that running on a Linksys router ?) just for the fun of it.
Stay tuned for updates.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 2:06 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Next Thursday we have our first appointment with HDB to finalize the purchase of our new apartment. In about 2 month we will move. Until then all renovation works has to be awarded, a mover has to be picked and new furniture procured. Quite a lot of work besides a busy travel schedule (no I don't think home decoration is the sole domain of she-who-must-be-obeyed). So our living room table is covered by a lot of home decoration and renovation magazines and brochures.
Since I would like to have some custom made furniture we also started to talk to carpenters, only to realize, that they have a tough time to understand my not-so-usual ideas. So I started hunting for a tool to visualize my ideas and found this little gem courtesy of Google.

So it looks like Anthony and Ernest will get their new play-sleep-hide-store beds after all.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 7:24 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore

Some of the passages in the song require local knowledge to be appreciated. A little background: The video was recorded at the Singapore parliament. The artist Mr. Brown produced during the recent general elections the "persistently non political podcast" since the government would have required registration and a permit for any political podcast. Episode 6 was the most famous of them all mocking some election incidents: Political aspirant, Jeff Lopez, the Man and His Ideas*, goes for lunch. And finds himself embroiled in a controversy focuses the spotlight on his very integrity and credibility. This audio podcast does not contain "persistent political content" because that is prohibited during the election period under the Singapore's Election Advertising Regulations.
Remember, prison got no broadband!

*"The Man and His Ideas" is a subtitle of a Lee Kuan Yew biography. LKY is Singapore's founding überfather.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 12:17 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
As mentioned before Mr. Wang bakes good karma is one of my favourite Singapore bloggers. Today we had lunch, since we both felt putting a face and a voice behind the mutual respect gained from blogging is a nice thing to do. Indeed very nice it was. We chatted about a wide variety of topics ranging from work, books, spirituality, politics to blogging. I asked him, whether the journalists that are "featured" in his blog are unhappy with him. I wasn't surprised, when he told me, that he knows quite a lot of them personally. Unfortunately I only had an hour to spend, since I could have listen and talked on for hours. Made my day.

Posted by Stephan H Wissel At 8:05 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Living in Singapore has the clear advantage of being a melting pot of cultures. The nicest part is the fusion of food. Yesterday we went to Pizza Walker and I had a Chicken Teriyaki Pizza. It looked a little odd to have stripes of seaweed on a pizza but it tasted quite nice. Next time I'll be more daring and have the beef Wasabi Pizza.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 11:40 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
I had my grievances with Singtel before. So heading to Singtel's Hello shop on a Friday evening 20:40 (twenty minutes before they close) didn't seem like a good idea to conclude an relaxed Thai dinner. Anyway Ida needed a phone replacement and we didn't find time during the week. When you browse Singtel's store you keep remarkably undisturbed. Undisturbed to a point where you could call it neglected. There were a lot of phones on display and a rather pathetic kiosk system that didn't really help to narrow down choices. Anyway if you want to make a transaction to get a queue ticket and have to wait for the counter to call you up.
So we picket a ticket and were browsing the selection while waiting. Hint to Singtel: make it less confusing and provide a phone finder: select a model and show where it is exhibited. Also provide some good find and comparison features.
When it was our turn a young woman (salesman 8190) attended to us. She first asked if we already had a model in mind. Since this wasn't the case she helped us to narrow down the choices based on criteria she established with a few easy questions: No more Samsung (the 2 year old Samsung couldn't even associate pictures with numbers), flat design - no clamshell, good camera, 3G, big numbers and small enough to fit into Ida's hands. She used a external website (seems Singtel's own wasn't as feature rich) to compare various models. She even discussed upcoming models with us to make sure, that it wouldn't make sense just to wait a little longer. Once we narrowed our choice to 3 models she actually got 3 boxed with the original phones, so Ida could weight them and feel the keys and balance. There was quite some price span in the models, so one would expect the more expensive models would get all the praise. Not here. The sales girl used solely our criteria to match it to the phones regardless of price.
We settled on a Nokia 6280 in black. Once it was decided, despite the fact that we were well beyond closing time, she made the effort to copy all phone book entries from the Samsung (which would let go of entries only one by one) to the Nokia.
What a pleasant shopping experience. Can backoffice and support please take note?

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 2:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category Singapore
Redesigning your Intranet The Arkgroup is hosting the 3rd Re-desing your Intranet conference in Singapore. I'm speaking on "Social Software for your Intranet".

Posted by Tango At 11:53 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Hastily stiched together, not tested properly. When you read this is might be fixed.

PHP = Potential Harzardous Programming?
(For comment trolls: I don't think it is a question of language, but of mindset and process)

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:23 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
While China shuts down for a whole week to celebrate workers day, Singapore like most of Europe enjoys one day off (only). Messrs. Ernest and Anthony convinced us to spend the day at Wild Wild Wet. It is a theme park around water featuring slides, a wave pool, splashes and water rides. The theme park belongs to the National Trade Unions Congress (NTUC) of Singapore, the main union here. It looks to me like more like a social or benefit club running supermarkets, theme parks, resorts, insurance and -- I nearly forgot -- doing union work. NTUC is a child of the approach to development in Singapore. Instead of confronting corporations the unions make sure, that the dollar earned goes the extra mile.
We had a jolly good time with all the rides, despite the fact that a few were strictly off limits for Anthony and Ernest. To ensure the rougher rides are taken only by older kids (there were no grown ups there, at least after the first ride everybody was a kid again) a simple height measurement is taken. Below 1.2m the very long tunnel slides are out of reach. Anthony and Ernest vowed to add the missing 7 and 8cm until next time . Being a curious kid I tried the ride: Is is a dark purple tube that is entirely closed. The height from start to landing point is about 12 meters and it is winding like a garden hose in all directions. After the first few meters there is a sharp turn right and downwards and I was enclosed in complete darkness. I think I have a mild case of claustrophobia. My pulse started to accelerate and I wasn't sure if I should hold my breath or scream. It felt like a rerun of the birth channel: going down, longing for the light and not knowing how long it will take. After a few seconds it was over but it left a huge pile of thought to chew on. I'll see the bench for it soon.
When we came back home, Ernest uttered the quote of the day: "Look daddy, there seems to be Gong Fu lessons near our block now". He was referring to the election advertisement of the PAP someone had dropped at our doorstep with a picture of the candidates all dressed in white. More on the election at another day.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:26 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Our general election is coming up next Saturday. As an permanent resident I'm neither eligible to vote nor to be elected. This doesn't seem too much a loss to me, since the outcome is quite predictable. Since Singapore's independence the Peoples Action Party (PAP) under the reign of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew has won every election so far, it is quite sure that they will win this time again. This year they announced to run for a clean sweep: they want to will all of the 84 seats in parliament (they held 82 before). Around election time, it is not uncommon, that opposition politicians face libel suits (that would both deprive them from funds and the right to stand in an election). The mainstream press has been accused to biased in favour of the government, (political) video and podcasting has been banned during elections, hot election topics become part of a law suite (so it becomes an offence to blame anybody) and senior politicians threaten voters that the executive (which should be apolitical by definition) would neglect them once they vote for the opposition. Also the opposition is not very strong in numbers, they can't field a team to contest all 84 seats.
No wonder that besides a low record on press freedom, Singapore doesn't score well on the Asia Democracy Index either.
Nevertheless, it seems this election seems to get a little more interesting than before:
First of all, for the first time since 1988 the opposition fields enough candidates to contest more than half of the seats, so the PAP didn't return to power on nomination day (which is only a few days before the elections to shorten the campaign time, which otherwise could dent Singapore's productivity). The opposition dares to contest the electorate run by the prime minister The team is young and unknown, so any vote for them rather counts as a vote of no confidence for the incumbent prime minister Lee Hsien Long (son of Lee Kuan Yew --- anybody thinking it could be this, better gets ready for a libel suit). But the most surprising fact, since very little is found in our local press: the opposition seems to enjoy quite some support. The famous Singapore Blogger Yawning Bread reports from a rally of the opposition Worker's Party in Hougang. He estimates up to 100000 people might have attended this event. That would be quite a number for Singapore. I wasn't aware of it until Mr. Wang mentioned it.
Wasn't it an old Chinese curse? "May you live in interesting times!"

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 2:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Getting assimilated into IBM takes a lot of my attention right now. I've been presenting on Lotusphere comes to you in Manila and Singapore and managed to get Ed for a usergroup session in Singapore. The group was very pleased with what Ed had to say and his session was the only one where they asked questions (we are shy in this part of the world <g>).
Tomorrow we are all travelling to Kuala Lumpur for the Malaysian session.
Last week I had my initiation session to IBM values. IBM's corporate motto hasn't changed since Watsons time and is simple, clear and to my liking: Think!
Stay tuned.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:41 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
One of my favorite Singapore bloggers is Mr. Wang who "bakes good karma". I like his fine ironic and well pointed style. Today he muses about spirituality, religion and the small mind. It could be a pice of mine, if I would posess the same power of expression. In a nutshell he says: "The problem, as I see it, is that the human mind is unwilling to accept uncertainty ... Some people would rather die (literally) than ...  to consider the alternative idea." Seems good Mr. Wang and I share the Buddhas view: "Work on you on salvation. Do not depend on others" (and don't impose your view on them)

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 11:34 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
After some teasing and cryptic thoughts, here the conclusion. Linus Torvald said it in his keynote address during 1999' Lotus DevCon: "If you love somebody, set them free". I put in a lot of work in TAO Consulting over the last 6 years and it is time to set it free. Ms. Ida Cheong will take over as Managing Director, Pitt will run the Notes consulting arm, Dr. Magaret Tan continues the Business consulting, Christoph Schaaf will cover UMsys. The position for a sales director has three hot candidates (more once its closed). We recently signed partner agreements with eWorkplace and CPUSoft to resell our products, so expect more activities there. If you want to have your product represented in SE-Asia talk to the good folks at TAO.

And I? Well think Rock, think Bob

I will be the LTPA ....

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:35 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (19) |      

Category Singapore
There is a document called RFC2142. This RFC defines some standard email addresses every provider is supposed to implement monitor and attend to. Names like hostmaster, abuse etc. You would expect, that a very big provider would implement them to be a good net-citizen. Not so here:


Dear Stephan H. Wissel,

Emails sent directly to our mailbox are no longer attended to with
immediate effect. Please use the online form at
http://www.singnet.com.sg/tou/misc/ia_incidentreport.asp to submit your
Internet Abuse Incident Report.

For more information on Internet Security, please visit our website at
http://www.singnet.com.sg/tou/security.asp

We wish you a pleasant day ahead!


Yours sincerely,
SingNet Internet Security Team
(this is a system automated reply)

SingNet Homepage - http://www.singnet.com.sg
Internet Security - http://www.singnet.com.sg/tou/security.asp

<rant> !@#$%^&
So when you just forward a virus message nicely with all headers, so they can notify the poor soul and rescue it, you get told: no we won't help unless you accommodate our process, that is in violation of internet standards. Hhm. Time for the ICT regulators to step forward and have a nice roster of fines for negligence. An ISP should be held responsible for maleware traffic leaving their network. </rant>

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 2:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category Singapore
I did some clean-up in my paper files and realized how time flies Twenty years ago I completed my internship with IBM. I still wonder till today why they took in a law school student as intern. Ten years ago I designed the new UI for UMsys which has stood the test of time since then (of course with the help of some facial and plenty of make-up). Nine years ago I became a CLP. Eight years ago I married into the adventure of an Intercultural relationship. Six years ago I moved to Singapore, became a father and started TAO Consulting. Three years ago I spoke on my first public conference. Last year I spoke for the first time on conferences in Iran, Vietnam, Pakistan and China. Two month ago I spoke for the first time on Lotusphere.
More first time events are ahead. Stay tuned.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 3:11 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
On a personal note: Big changes and new exitement ahead. Updates soon here, tune in next week.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 10:11 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
Singapore's educational system is modelled after the British one. Actually is modelled by  the British. So we have primary schools, secondary schools, college and universities (and a few other things). Schools compete with each other and put a huge effort in branding themselves (mostly with bright students and good Alumni connections). Back in Germany the Primary Schools don't do that and you simply go to the nearest one. So I felt a little helpless when we had to select one for Anthony and Ernest. They will go to Primary one in 2007, so selection had to be done now to be able to take the needed action.
We decided on the Northland Primary School. It has a decent reputation and is not too far away from where we stay. Admission to the school is regulated by a (at least for me) confusing set of rules about school distance, siblings in school, Alumni connection and parent contribution. Since we just live outside the 1km circle of practically sure admission we had to opt for scheme 2b. That means voluntary work of the parents. This doesn't guarantee admission, but increases the chances.
Until today all of the hours have been contributed by my wife. Today was my turn. The school was organizing a sports day with many station where the students had to exercise. My station was basketball. So 300 kids had 3 turns each to score. Balls were flying in all directions and I had fun doing 900 times catch the ball and throw it back. I definitely can skip my gym session tonight. There might be photos up on the parent volunteers website.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 11:56 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (4) |      

Category Singapore
I'm generally open to have guest entries here. However it would be a clever idea to ask me instead of trying to log in. The IPs are logged, so I can find out who you are.
Special note to the Singaporean subset of you. Can you spell Computer Misuse Act?

I'm not amused.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 11:45 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category Singapore

The running joke goes "If you can't explain to your mom, what you are doing for a living, you must work in IT". The not so funny side is, that I do have difficulties to explain my bandwidth. Typical dialogues go: "So you are a programmer". "Hhm, yes I code software, but I also design it". "So you are a designer". "I also do architecture, requirements and usability". "So you are a project manager?" "Only if I have too, I'm more like an architect and coach". "Ah a coach - what sports?" "The sport of team work in software development".......
and so on.
I was long pondering to write an article what I really do (best). Today I came across a post from James Shore, which I mostly could copy:
"I'm James Shore and I make my living providing good advice to good companies. Have a software development team and think I might help? Give me a call and we'll find out."  and "I provide full-service consulting."
Other than James I'm not into Scrum but Crystal Clear. Crystal Clear works well with Notes and Domino, which I love. However I developed and coached in SAP, Java, .NET, xForms and XML. It's the team not the tools that matter in the first place. My credentials are less impressive than James (asides from winning APICTA awards two years in a row). Nevertheless, buzz me if your projects need a boost.  

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
The red circle, 4th floor. On the left side the blue and purple roofs are a primary and secondary school. The red roofs a little to the right is next to the 7eleven, the market and the coffeeshop. The line on the far right are the MRT (our public transport) tracks. The red roof right is the station.


(Image reporduced without any permission)

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
When you stay in Singapore, both as a resident or a visitor hotels are an integrated part of daily live. While it is obvious for visitors, it is also true for residents. A lot of training and sales events happen there. Also it is quite common to meet in a hotel lobby or the restaurant for a business meeting. My weekly meeting of my Rotary club is in a hotel (the Regent) too. Hotels also offer weekend deals for Singaporeans who want to escape the life in their HDB flat for a while. Have you ever booked a room for yourself in the city you live? So it is no surprise, that we have a lot of them. The bigger chains (Marriott, Hilton etc.) are world class and not really local - you could easily take the building and put it into any other city without noticing it. Our local flagship is the Raffles Hotel. This is a truly local one with a very authentic colonial building. In its long bar the famous Singapore Sling was invented (only 2 get served per person, since you are supposed to still walk by yourself). Unfortunately also the prices are world class too and you can spend USD 2000 or more a night for the best suites in the house. If that is a little above your budget but you would like to stay in an authentic place you can look for boutique hotels. My favourite is Perak Hotel in the middle of Little India and close to the city core. Their rates start as US 55++ and you have a very private atmosphere. The Hotel has been converted from an old shop house, so you stay will be as authentic as it can get here. So when you stop by here, give them a try (unless you want to stay on our guest mattress to experience a HDB sleep over <vbg>).
Did I mention, that their booking page is powered by Domino? <g>.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 2:24 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category Singapore
It is Christmas and not "the festive season". Events have names and shouldn't be blurred in meaningless summary terms. For my part I'll stick with "Happy Christmas", "Selamat Hari Raja", "Happy Hanukah" and "Happy Deepa Vali". And I do miss the snow.  

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore

There has been a lot of press about Singapore's dealing (pun intended) with drugs. Today I had a chance to look at the other side. The Central Narcotics Bureau has a set of ongoing activities to prevent you from getting started on drug use.

Together with Adamsapple they started an animation competition for schools and tertiary education about drug prevention. I was invited to be on the panel of judges to rate the competition entries. We had a look at the entries in three categories: primary schools, secondary schools and tertiary education. Judgement criteria were items like: story line, visual apperance, clear message, creativity and innovativeness.

It was refreshing to see how clearly the students saw the issues that lead to drug addiction (at least here): stress & pressure, curiosity, peer pressure, personal difficulties, social context were clearly mapped out. Being Singapore a recurring theme was the risk of being imprisoned. One entry however, which I liked best, highlighted the self responsibility as core of a drug free life.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 3:07 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore

IDA our Infocom regulator is working on a 1.5B SGD (about 891M USD / 733M EUR) outsourcing deal. They will define a Standard ICT operating environment (SOE), that will be the mandatory desktop environment for all government agencies/ministries/stat boards except the Ministry of Defence, which travelled down the Linux desktop road and are a lost cause/beacon of hope (depending on your view).
From the press release: S$1.5 billion worth of IT tenders to be called will be for a Standard ICT Operating Environment (SOE) project which the Government is going to embark on. The SOE comprises a standard desktop environment and a standard network environment. Examples of components to be standardised are desktop operating system and desktop management tool. "A Standard ICT Operating Environment will greatly enhance the operating efficiency in government. It will reduce the time needed to deploy new ICT services in government, improve our ability to respond to ICT security threats, and most importantly, make it easier to operate and maintain our desktops and networks," said Mr Chan Yeng Kit, CEO of IDA at Industry Briefing 2005.
(It also will allow attackers to sweep all public sector sites once they found a loophole). The interesting twist: the ministries run their own backbones, only the desktops are standardized. This underlines the perception, that desktops (in terms of operation and software) are a commodity now. The contract will sport a "pay per use" model with the government unloading IT assets to the successful contractor and renting them back.
The tender hasn't been published yet, but you can safely bet, that the knifes are out and the fight is on: what will be the office application (my bet: MS Office), the mail environment (My bet: Lotus Notes), the OS (My bet: XP, Vista and a flavour of Linux). The battle is on for: will there be a .net framework, a JVM (which one?). The Eclipse RCP? Java webstart? What browser? I'm wondering how the outsourcing contract will be structured to allow for flexibility and optimization. Catering to individual needs is typically opposite to the economic interest of the outsourcing company, thus a huge risk of missed productivity increases exist. Or is the era of the desktop tools over (at least here), new applications will run in a browser and Microsoft truly lost the API war?  

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 5:05 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Scott McNealy graced Singapore with his presence on invitation of IDA. He was all the rave about building communities. In a hit to Microsoft he stated: "If you give the 75% of the not connected people a Wintel box that consumes 250 watts a pop you will have global warming at it's best".
His key message for Java's tenth anniversary was: Compatibility, Community, Volume and Value.
Through all his presentation he was poking fun on Microsoft creating laughter in the audience.
SUN started GELC as a global education initiative to bridge the digital divide, interesting concept. Microsoft was not the only one to be poked fun on by Scott, IBM and OpenSource got their share too. He blamed IBM to make IT so complicated, so professional service can generate revenue and OpenSource to be freewheeling lucky go easy unreliable stuff. He advocated to step back and review if it does make sense to have customized IT infrastructure. His point is, that standardized components would be more efficient. He reminded, that cost is not only acquisition cost and operational cost, but also exit cost. Only open standards will keep exit costs low. Then he drifted away and dreamt of Solaris surviving and overtaking all other Unix versions a well as Linux. Scott stated SUN has one million subscribers for their enterprise system. Sounds a bit thin compared to half a billion eMail seats worldwide. And he was dreaming on envisioning: slim clients (a.k.a. smart terminals) would replace PCs since the data centre would provide the horsepower needed.
Here he has a point: power consumption becomes a huge problem and energy efficiency will be key. Scott used the opportunity to bash Dell claiming the new SUN Opteron servers are 60% more efficient, 75% smaller and half the price of a comparable Dell system.
Scott called all this opportunities "iPod moments".
I am curious how all that will work out for SUN.

P.S: This Blog entry is created life during his speech.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 5:25 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
The University of Toronto, Harvard Lawschool and the University of Cambridge jointly run the OpenNet Initiative.
From their objective: "The ONI mission is to investigate and challenge state filtration and surveillance practices. Our approach applies methodological rigor to the study of filtration and surveillance blending empirical case studies with sophisticated means for technical verification. Our aim is to generate a credible picture of these practices at a national, regional and corporate level, and to excavate their impact on state sovereignty, security, human rights, international law, and global governance."
Their latest research paper sheds a light on Internet filtering in Singapore. In a nutshell: filtering does barely happen on a technical level but mostly in the heads of people. There are some compelling reasons for this "scissors in the head", but read for yourself.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 12:37 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
The best of all my wifes is changing jobs, so she has to return the corporate PC. Until she might get a new one I have to provide access.
Earlier trials with unconventional computing (we tried mobile Firefox/Thunderbird on a memorystick) have shown, that she has a hand getting around.
So we decided to put her on Linux. The big question now which one: Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Suse, Knoppix, AsiaNux or...?
Any opinion appreciated. And Yes, Wine/Notes is a must.

Update: I struggled with a number of distributions, luckily all of them provide live CDs, so the effort was download, burn, slot in the CD.
This is what I tried:

• Inside Security Rescue CD 3.14: A Linux squeezed on a credit card CD. It can read NTFS even if XP doesn't do it anymore. It found all drives, all partitions, the right graphic card resolution etc. Since it's a rescue CD this was only a test.
• Kubuntu 5.04: While it gets all the rave I wasn't so happy. It prompted for my graphic card, which is a show stopper for a normal user. Also I couldn't figure out how to format/mount my second harddisk. Another point of grievance: I couldn't figure out how to increase the refresh rate from 60Hz to something higher, so the screen was quite flickering. The software selection on the other hand was quite complete featuring the usual suspects: Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and all the K* apps.
• Ubuntu 5.04: The installation worked smoothly, no prompt for graphic card. I liked evolution. However both issues from Kubuntu (Graphic card, hard disk) remained.
• Simply Mephis 3.3.2: Following a link from linuxdesktop I found SimplyMepis. Seduced by the praise I tried it. Quite nice: the live CD also allows you to install it on the PC. It is based on Debian/KDE. The usual suspects are there and Choi Fong uses Kontakt for eMail now. It also found all harddisks and allowed me to format the second one. Connecting to my XP machine and back works fine. After setting my monitor type to generic LCD1024x768 (in a simple menu) I could set the refresh rate to 70Hz. The only drawback I encountered so far: Getting a little adventurous I checked the box "use the original NVidia drivers". They were downloaded and screwed up the settings. The system wanted to go to 1280x1024 which made the old and trusted 15" LCD scream. I fixed that by temporarily using my 17" to reset the setting. Alternatively I could have used text mode, but my VI is still limited and Midnight Command (The Linux resurrection of Norton Commander) is not installed by default).

So far so good. I'm sure with a little more RTFM I would get all of them working properly. However I switched off most of my IT brain to make sure a NDU* could handle that. Seems Linux is getting there.
Notes/Wine installation is still pending.
*NDU = normal dumb user

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 9:15 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
Pee is one of Singapore's big success stories. Not only that we operate a succesful water reclamation facility called NEWater. We also managed to turn pee into power for laptops or mobile phones. So you'll hear soon in the bar: "Give me another beer, so I can recharge my phone".

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 6:35 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore


Last week I got invited to patrol with our local Neighbourhood Crime Watch team. There was a time where I was rather the type of person such a team would look for when on patrol then for being the patrol, so I was amused. Since I'm the only Ang Mo (Hokkien for "White Man") in our block my role probably was to give the group a more multi cultural touch.
So Saturday evening we went for our round with two police officers. We checked the cleanliness of the common areas, some id cards of people having their weekend beer on the void decks and talked to some neighbours who overdid the sound- and incense- level of their worshipping.
I had a nice chat with the comity members and the officers. We even got a highlight: Seeing us approaching two migrant workers, obviously with something to hide, started running. Since crime chase is police work only the officers started to run. What a silly idea from the other guys to try to outrun a Singapore police officer, man they were fast.
Me patrolling is kind of repeating history. After world war two, when the German police force hasn't been rebuild yet, a lot of places in Germany had civil patrols. My late father used to participate in these. He pushed it further and joined the village council and even became the major for a few years.  

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:46 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category Singapore
My friend Alvin Lee is "Mr Sand-Castle" He invented a toolkit to build sand-castles and teaches enables people how to use it have fun on the beach. He invited us yesterday to join him at the East Coast park for his weekly sand-castle building session. Anthony, Ernest and me gave Ida a much needed break by disappearing to the beach for the whole afternoon. It takes a child about 30 seconds to get exited about sand castles and Anthony and Ernest were carrying buckets of seawater to wet the sand, dig up big sand hills and forming towers, walls, bridges. The joining adults took 10 times longer to get into the mood, but after 5 minutes the corner of the beach looked very much like "Camelot under construction with" a lot of busy people working at something.
While I was creating my share (a mix of the great wall of China with Rome's colosseum), I realized some important facts:  

• First of all, you need to focus on what you do otherwise the sand will simply not do what you want.  
• Second, that focus comes automatically once you have the vision what you want to do. As long as you visualize your outcome the focus is there.  
• Third, you need to have the right tools and skills. Dreaming up something will stay a dream until you got the skills to make it happen. Sand doesn't care about your smart talk or powerpoint skills. When you shovel it up it will fall down in a ratio 1:4. For one meter hight you need a 4 meter base. You want to make sand behave different? Know it very well: the granularity, the moist, the density and how it reacts with your tools.  
• Forth, skills need practise. Even if you are good in concepts and theory, I won't get you anywhere. The only thing is to get your hands dirty and try, ask a master to accept your apprenticeship and practise,  practise, practise. Seems to be on the list of endangered species these days.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 5:17 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category Singapore

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:59 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Technology is supposed to make our life easier? (Ok for the ones who fell of their chairs laughing, come back and read on). I was walking with an insurance agent through the process of filling in an application for a life insurance on the agent's laptop.

Technology wise it was very impressive. The whole application is browser based and when the agent started it up, Tomcat and a database booted up (took about 2min+). It also had a digital write pad to sign the application. I don't know if it is working, since we failed much earlier.

The application nicely showed how the internal working of the insurance is and what shortcuts were taken to get it to work. (I'm German and a Singapore Permanent Resident -- which is important further down).

First we had to fill in all particulars including my wife's and my children particulars (since they will be the beneficiaries). Part of this is the IC number (IC = Identity Card), which is basically the Primary Key for every Human in Singapore. Unfortunately we were sitting at Starbucks (Insurance agents do that a lot) and I didn't carry the birth certs of them with me.

So the application complained: IC is missing. Since the number is checksum validated filling in 000000000 wouldn't work. Bummer - end of show. If the person (architect, developer, steering committee etc.) designing the application would have gone to real client situations with their agents, they would know, that information is ALLWAYS incomplete. So kindly remarking: “This information is missing, we added and item on the checklist, you can continue now” would have been the sensible thing.

Since I’m very persistent when I want to find out about software, we simply entered my IC for my boys and could continue. The local database already had my IC, so a check was missing here. I ask myself what is more critical: an information that is missing and can be completed or false data for the sake of data entry.

We continued filling in the form and I waded through screens and screens of meaningless questionnaires. To be fair: I exactly knew what product I wanted and the agent pointed out, that is was a requirement by law, so clients are well informed before making a decision. This is kind of an improvement since on paper you can be asked to sign without event looking at the questions.

Next bummer, I was asked to fill in a foreigner questionnaire. This confused me, since PRs are treated like citizens. Questions like: Why do you want to buy insurance in Singapore, What happens if you leave Singapore etc. We finally figured out that something must be wrong when the “Legal Status” field only offered “Employment pass, Social pass etc. but not Permanent Resident”. So we canceled this questionnaire and went back to the base data.

When inspecting the form in more detail we found out that there is a nationality in the system called: “Singapore Permanent Resident”. Since I only scrolled to “G” I missed that entry. Seems like a requirement has been added and adding a new field was too complicated (like: if not defaultNationality (Singapore) show Status: PR, Employment pass etc). Happy that we found the “bug” we updated the base data, only to be prompted “Data is inconsistent” when we wanted to continue with the save application. No further explanation or suggestion was provided what can be done to fix this problem.

Guess what: I didn’t buy insurance that day!

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:53 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
I did a little temporary career switch this week. If you can receive Singapore TV advertisement, you can spot me as skin care specialist explaining the high tech devices and services of Adonis. Shooting the commercial was fun. Today I'm back to Domino, XML and human behaviour.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 6:18 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore
Our local newspaper featured a story about the regional efforts to curb the piracy problem. A alliance from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines will collaborate and share information to track down and stop piracy. To coordinate the effort a new data center will be located in Singapore.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (1) |      

Category Singapore

Take out our magnifying glasses <g>. Last Sunday I went to the ground breaking ceremony of an archeological project in Singapore. As part of the ceremony they made the British High Commissioner work physically. Since seeing a diplomat work is more unlikely than hitting the jackpot, I took a closer look and ended up on the official photo on the Strait Times (our leading local newspaper). Who can spot me?

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:31 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
My wife's grandmother, who contributed valuable lessons about software development, decided a week ago, that she had enough. She has seen the turn of two centuries and was propelled from rural Malaysia at the beginning of last century into High Tech Singapore of today. Last week she said to us, it's time for here to go and last night she passed away. Just fell asleep for the long one with a very peaceful smile on her face.
I'll miss her lessons.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:56 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (2) |      

Category Singapore
This week the ComunicAsia exhibition takes place in Singapore. The exhibitors proudly announced, that they provide free WIFI access during the exhibition. All local ISP support the exercise, so I powered on my laptop and looked at the available networks. Then I learned it is "free as in beer" but not "free as in speech". The login page prompted me with user name/password and the remark that I could use my ISP's or IPASS credentials.
So happily I provided them only to be prompted, that I supplied wrong credentials. Since I'm in the trade I know what credentials are, otherwise I would feel confused. The message should have been: "Sorry I can't process your user name/password, this is what might have happened and this are your support options..."
So I went to the support desk to learn: a) The WIFI hub has hiccups due to high demand and that you need to supply a business card to be issued an user name/password. The ISP support the show, but don't provide live authentication. Fishing for customer data I would say.
stw  

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 4:02 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
Kid Stuff

Children are now so important to this county, they're getting the red carpet treatment. Last week, it was announced that roads leading to schools are being paved red, so drivers will know to keep an eagle eye out for crossing cows, snails, kangaroos, turtles, kids and other endangered species.
Clearly, children - in the words of the DHL Megacor "you don't have to" TV commercial - don't have to learn the proper procedure for crossing roads. No more "look right, left and right again". Just cross. It's the drivers who have to learn to stop for the kids.
This is not an isolated incident. It is but the latest innovation in the nationwide urge to protect kids from everything. Just the other week, we were told it is illegal to discipline kids using "harsh, humiliating, belittling or degrading responses of any kind, the deprivation of meals, isolation and the restriction of movement."
The proper way to discipline a recalcitrant child is with dignity and firmness, clearly explaining why his or her action is wrong. This is the way to do it:

Teacher: Can you please be quite?
Student: [ignores teacher]
Teacher: You! Yes, you with the big mouth! Stop talking!
Student: You can't talk like that to me. I can report you.
Teacher: I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Can you please keep quiet, pretty please?
Student: Why?
Teacher: Because I asked you nicely.
Student: That's not a good enough reason.
Teacher: Because then I can teach you important things.
Student: They're not important to me. Try again.
Teacher: Because Confucius said you must obey your teachers.
Student: Con who? That's it - you've used up your three lives, dude.
Teacher: Yes, I understand. I'll try harder next time. I apologize for interrupting you.

What next? Guaranteed degrees, secure jobs and eternal youth?

via IS Magazine Singapore.

While this story is fun to read it also provides a flashlight how people see education here. My personal believe is: You have to make children responsible for their actions to the extend they can cope with this responsibility. This includes to be very clear and consistent about how, why and where you set the limits and how to enforce them. As The Oracle would say: "It's all about choices and consequences".  

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 2:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore
We have a new marketing campain for Singapore called "Uniquely Singapore". My local friends instantly identified it as a typo and advised me, that it should read "Uniquely Singaporean". And uniquely Singaporean means (in case that is not funny to you, come here and stay with us):

1. Thanks to SMS, you have an extra large thumb.
2. Tks 2 SMS, u oso dun no how 2 spel n e mor.
3. You pat MRT and bus seats to cool them before you sit down.
4. At lunch, you start discussing what to eat for dinner.
5. Your wedding photos include shots of you dressed up like Louis XIV, Michael Jackson, or Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic.
6. When speaking to foreigners, you somehow feel a need to adopt an accent. (If you’re a DJ, this happens even when you’re not speaking to foreigners.)
7. You won’t raise your voice to protest policies, but you’ll raise your fists to whack someone over Hello Kitty.
8. You’re forever talking about businesses you want to set up but will probably never get around to starting.
9. You don’t know ¾ of the people attending your wedding.
10. You separate food into 2 basic groups: ‘heaty’ and ‘cooling’.
11. You’re never completely sure how many times you’ve sung the second verse of the National Anthem.
12. You think that what makes you ‘married’ is not the legal registration but whether you’ve thrown a 12 course dinner.
13. You marry for the real estate breaks.
14. You have kids for the tax advantages.
15. You move to where you want your child to go to school.
16. You feel you can’t walk around naked in your own flat.
17. You force your children to take Speech & Drama classes, but pray they won’t wind up in Arts later on.
18. You suddenly realize you’re very interested in biotech - just like you suddenly realized three years ago that you were very interested in e-commerce, and before that, engineering, and before that, medicine and law.
19. You think being an entrepreneur is setting up a bubble tea/Portuguese egg tart/gao luck/porridge shop right next to an existing bubble tea/Portuguese egg tart/gao luck/porridge shop.
20. You think people are inconsiderate when they don’t leave their table immediately after eating at the food court but think you have every right to take 25 bites to finish the last red bean in your ice kachang.
21. You find it impossible to make suggestions without drawing a fishbone chart first.
22. If you’re a guy, whenever you get together with your guy friends, you invariably trade army stories.
23. If you’re a girl, whenever you get together with your girl friends, you invariably trade stories about how your stupid guy friends are forever trading army stories.
24. You think the most important sporting event in Singapore this year was David Beckham switching from Manchester United to Real Madrid.
25. You somehow feel that food tastes better when eaten by a longkang.
26. It actually makes a difference to you being called an ‘NSMan’ rather than a ‘Reservist’.
27. You’ve eaten more times at the Esplanade than you’ve actually seen shows there.
28. You need campaigns to tell you how to be courteous, to flush toilets, have sex, etc.
29. When you visit the Zoo, you wonder what the animals taste like.
30. You feel the urge to add the suffix ‘-polis’ to everything, viz. Biopolis, Airtropolis, Fusionopolis, Entrepolis, etc.
31. You always feel oddly hungry at 11 pm, and are willing to drive to far away places for supper.
32. You meet in hotels a lot.
33. Your children have a rudimentary knowledge of Tagalog or Bahasa Indonesia.
34. You work at McDonald’s when you’re old rather than young.
35. You’ll gladly spend $50,000 on a car, but will go to great lengths to save a few bucks on ERP charges or even a few cents on a parking coupon.
36. Pork floss and mayonnaise on bread is a completely natural combination to you.
37. If you’re pregnant, you have the strange ability to make people on the MRT fall asleep instantly.
38. You ask for the bill by miming a signing movement.
39. You’ve started referring to foreign employees as ‘talent’ instead of ‘expatriates’.
40. At the dinner table, you’re always discussing which other food places serve better versions of what you’re eating.
41. You copy down licence plate numbers of cars involved in accidents.
42. You think your boyfriend doesn’t really love you unless he gives you part of his liver.
43. During sales, you book hotel rooms near malls to enable you to shop more efficiently.
44. You pronounce the letter ‘R’ as ‘ah-rer’ and the letter ‘H’ as ‘haytch’.
45. No matter how old you are, you keep associating people with their secondary schools. (alternative: No matter how old you are, you secretly need to know what other people got for their PSLE, O levels and A levels.)
46. You’re always on a quest for the definitive version of your favourite local dish.
47. When you explain things to people, you keep (a) using alphabets, and (b) speaking in point form.
48. You believe that you can generate ‘creativity’ through rules and committees.
49. You ‘chope’ a seat by placing a packet of tissues on the chair.
50. You’re very forthright with your criticisms of the Gahmen, unless there’s a chance they might actually hear you.
51. You diligently track the whereabouts of your favourite hawkers, i.e..you know that the famous Tiong Bahru Bao is now in Jurong, the famous Outram Char Kuay Teow is now in Hong Lim Centre and the famous Lau Hock Kien Hokkien mee from the old Lau Pa Sat is now at Beach Road.
52. Your mother probably can’t speak your ‘mother tongue’.
53. You’d rather drink your own pee than pay someone more for water.
54. You secretly find that the best part of the Speak Good English Movement is hearing the Singlish bits in their ads.
55. You have an automatic sensor in your head which categorizes people you meet into stayer/ quitter, cosmopolitan/heartlander, normal/ express/ gifted, etc.
56. You think we’re living in a modern, sophisticated country even when our leaders still insist on wearing their school uniforms.
57. You wish your constituency is in a walkover, because otherwise it’s damn ‘leceh’.
58. During elections, you decide that there is no credible opposition even though you don’t know the name of the opposition candidate in your constituency.
59. You think having a constitution is like the condition you get when you don’t eat enough fibre.
60. You can never quite remember what “the core values” of Singaporeans are.

Via Talking cock

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 12:25 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (3) |      

Category Singapore

Once you become a regular of Singapore's Botanical Garden, you can discover little gems every visit. The richness of sensual variety lets your imagination run wild. As we would say in German: Ein Schelm wer bösses dabei denkt.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 5:40 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore

We spend the afternoon at Sembawang Park. Very much up in the north of our island it is pleasantly away from the hectic and business mind of central Singapore. You can see the coast of Johor/Malaysia and the Singapore Coast Guard performing show-off with their naval hardware (mental note: try to get a ride on one o these speed boats). We usually go there in the late afternoon where a light breeze makes the temperatures bearable (after sunset yesterday it still had 28C). Barbecue, camping facilities, a kiosk, showers and a restaurant make it a very convenient place to be. It takes us 10 min by cab or 2 stops with MRT/Bus to get there.
This time we had a classic picnic and I tried a new recipe for chicken breast:

• You need Chicken breast for 4 persons. So 8-16 pieces, depending on the breast size and the people's stomach should do.
• One bunch of fresh Parsley
• 10-12 cloves of fresh Garlic
• One to two red Chilies
• Salt, Black Pepper, Soya Sauce
• 1 spoon of Mustard
• Sesame Oil and Olive Oil
• A handful of Cranberries, I used dried ones, but resh should be OK to

Cut the Garlic, Parsley and Chilies very small with the big knife (it is important: don't use a blender and use fresh stuff). Put the mustard and salt on top. 2-3 spoon of sesame oil to start mixing it. Add 3-4 spoon of soya sauce and spices as you like (black pepper, herbs, salt). Fill up with Olive oil so you have enough substance to put your chicken breast in it. Add the cranberries. Don't be scared, its all unsaturated fat and that is OK. Put the chicken in the marinade and keep it there over night (2 day also doesn't harm). I a warm climate like ours that has to be in the fridge.
After the marination period pan-fry the chicken breasts. A few minutes until the are nicely brown should do (if you fry too long you might end up with shoe soles). Don't put anything in the pan when heating it up, there is enough grease in the marinade <g>.
Serve with fresh French baguette and a light white wine (or some juice if you, like me, don't drink.
You need you gut feeling to get the measurement right -- and try it on your own fun/risk. As Volker would say: Your mileage might vary.

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 10:45 PM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |      

Category Singapore

 

We are "Friends of the Zoo". This program entitles you for a nominal fee to pay unlimited visits to the Singapore Zoo. Anthony's and Ernest's favourites are the monkeys and the fragile forrest. I like the crocodiles and the other reptiles, Ida enjoys lions, tigers and other predators.
If you are around the area plan TWO visits to the zoo: one at day and one at night. The two parts of the zoo do not overlap and give you a good impression where the jungle party is, once we are asleep. I like the jungle bridge in semi-darkness (a good place to tell scary stories to the kids).

Posted by Stephan H. Wissel At 1:00 AM Location | Permalink | Comments (0) |