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Sunday, Jan 15, 2012 - 22:15 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Tying Up Ends


When will it be my turn again
(Source: Somewhere on the Internet)


Well, Spurs were indeed held by Wolves, which means a windfall of 530 seeds for Mr. Ham; the ensuing liquid fortifications, coupled with a goodly hamster-pouch-sized portion of a Ramly Burger, means that the fat furry one won't be stirring any time soon.

FAKEBERT was consoled by Liverpool and Stoke nullifying each other in a nil-all draw, which was at extremely good odds considering Suarez was banned. And what would you have it, Scholes immediately picked up where he left off and got his 151th goal for United. Rooney had a penalty saved before that, but nobody was too surprised.


j00 cruNch3d L0L

Some days ago, it was reported that locally-based startup Fusion Garage had bitten the dust (although the signs were there for some time), which means the wait for another Creative Tech is gonna drag a little longer.

Long story short: The company was born to create a tablet computer to be named the CrunchPad in 2008, in partnership with the TechCrunch blog. Things went as fine as could be expected for a time, but it all became very messy in late 2009, when the tie-up fell apart, with the TechCrunch side claiming that they were unreasonably being kicked out, while Fusion Garage claimed that they were entitled to cut and run given that they had done all the work.

Now, whoever was in the right, it remained that one party was a tech blog with millions of readers and oodles of influential fans, while the other was a still-obscure company (with questionable PR to boot - but that's par for the course here), and as the Penny Arcade vs. Christoforo affair has demonstrated, there can only be one winner in the court of public opinion in this matchup. Score one for TechCrunch.

All this wrangling might have meant something had the CrunchPad/JooJoo been the Next Big Thing, but as it turned out, it just wasn't very good, moreso given its ambitious US$499 pricetag, the same as the far more established and polished iPad. While Fusion Garage may be admired for at least having the guts to fail in a risk-averse climate, one can't help but think that they were a little too eager to go about it.

The recently-launched Aakash tablet makes for a good comparism, and while it has attracted its fair share of criticisms, it does cost only US$60 (US$35 subsidized, in India), compared to US$499-plus for the iPad 2; now, if only it would support Dota 2...


SIRI being jealous in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
(Sources: photobucket.com & technobuzz.net)


Exactly how hard is it to build a touchscreen PC, anyway? Well, a couple of months ago, a Chinese student made the international news by constructing a homemade iPad for his sweetheart, and for just US$125. Cursory searches turned up plenty of detailed tutorials, for example on converting a MacBook, a touch-PowerBook with a Wacom tablet (hmm, I've got one of those lying around) - this back in 2006 - and even a multitouch "really-from-scratch-cut-your-own-acrylic" surface how-to. As the Kinect community has demonstrated, professional-quality technology add-ons are often released at effectively no cost to the original creators, who seriously should quit hoarding stupidly broad patents.


No A For You, We Grade On Curve

S&P has cut France's credit rating from AAA to AA, which while seemingly a minor adjustment, can have very serious knock-on effects in these trying times. Part of the reason is that institutions often have rules mandating that they have to keep a certain proportion of their money in investments of a certain (often the highest) grade, which means that any downgrade can choke a country's access to funds, which in turn means that others are less likely to get paid... and you get the idea.

The intentions behind these rules were probably good - probably to keep managers/trustees from losing their coat on speculations - but as has been repeatedly pointed out and borne out, there exists a basic conflict of interest between rating agencies and the client entities they audit, not to mention that in an economic manifestation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the agencies do (sometimes, severely) affect the situations they are analysing. I wonder if they attempt to take that into account.


Finishing off the long-overdue Hard Truths review:

Chapter 9: Singapore Greening

Care was taken to adhere to the highest standards with polluting industries, so much so that a particular refinery was regarded as a mistake, though originally allowed in for the money. Still, Singapore's carbon footprint is 0.2% of the world total (to give some perspective, Singapore covers about 0.0005% of global land surface, given that much of it is uninhabited), though only about 5% of it directly serves the country. [N.B. Wouldn't have known]

Individual governments will not have the will to take the necessary measures to counteract/slow climate change, and so we should be prepared to take the consequences [N.B. And indeed, just last month, Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, purportedly to support a new deal, but more likely to sidestep some US$14 billion in non-compliance penalties.

One can hardly blame them, given that America gave its own excuses for not ratifying the treaty from the beginning - China and India have reasonably pointed out that the USA has been the biggest cumulative polluter, but does anybody seriously expect Sammy to pay? It would be far cheaper to deny, since incontrovertible direct evidence is hard to come by]

Singapore won't be hit too badly if the sea level rises just one metre, but a few more and let's just say that ponding will be the least of our worries. [N.B. Note that Singapore did join Kyoto in 2006, but not under Annex I, and therefore is under no emission-reduction target, a good deal if I say so.]

Neither solar nor nuclear power has been discounted [N.B. one can recall recent pushes to solar, involving figures that make even ministerial pay look tiny in comparism, with nuclearites also pushing their agenda]

A lower population density is actually preferred, but that is now in the hands of the government of the day [N.B. Hmm]


Chapter 10: Not Your Average Grandad

Young people nowadays aren't apathetic because there's no political activism in the institutions (university campuses), but because they're too comfortable [N.B. Well, just lift all restrictions on activism, and we might see just how comfortable students really are!]

If Singapore fails, the well-educated can migrate, but the majority will start becoming others' maids and labourers. [N.B. When qualified in this way, the much-maligned "maids" comment doesn't seem completely outlandish, and anyway aren't the low-paid menial jobs on offer basically the same?]

There is nothing at all in the eight sides of the S$1 coin being for good fengshui [N.B. This I can well believe, given how we managed to erect gigantic altar tablets to welcome new arrivals]

Homosexuality is genetic, again a conclusion arrived at by observation and historical data, illustrated by the example of Dick Cheney and his daughter, but two men (but perhaps not two women) adopting a child is still not desirable from a practical standpoint.


Chapter 11: Husband, Father, Grandfather, Friend

[Skipped - The End!]


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