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Sunday, Jan 27, 2013 - 01:13 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

B-D-E-Day

One Off Thirty


I turn my nose up at your pathetic foray into interior decoration


Ramly burger the night before, dinner with surprise cake with the 4O bunch last night, by-election drama today, what more can a guy ask for?

Well, there's always coming in second in a faculty-wide click fraud detection (sort-of-covered before) contest. Frankly, I had expected to get my ass whupped by a horde of hungry and ambitious undergraduates, but it wasn't happening, to my slight dismay; this is certainly not due to any lack of ability on their end. Among the messages taken home this time, near the top is that eighty percent of success is simply showing up.

Since things ended up this way, I suppose it is only proper to divest Team SSSS (i.e. myself) of the greater part of the prize money, such that the remaining share is no more than that of the three-man winning team (who really merited it) from the lab of my undergrad supervisor, divided equally. To this end, I have earmarked a number of worthy beneficiaries, spanning the gamut of deserving needy students, delightful old geezers, unfortunate servicemen, funny local cartoonists and small cute furry creatures.

Mr. Ham: Like me? C'mon, you know you want to.

Me: Small cute furry creatures with their grubby paws buried deep in dodgy enterprises excepted. As for the remainder, a little has been set aside for reading material and maybe genetic testing (motivated by cornea thickness findings). Then I may need to purchase some extra gear for research, which might not be fully covered by grant funding.

Mr. Ham: And then it's back to being a strategic calculating parsimonious mercenary bastard?

Me: Of course. I also got wind of Kaggle and their far larger purses from several sources recently, but that's on a completely different level, and I probably owe enough on my plate right now. Like churning out some papers and getting out of here - I think my supervisors would understand, they've been great, without even mentioning the periodic free tidbits.

Mr. Ham: 是的,既然没希望的也过去了,去干你该干的事吧!

Me: What the heck?! You know Mandarin too?

Mr. Ham: 愚蠢的人类总是小看着仓鼠.


Er... this particular contribution is still reserved for next time
(Source: orangeinks.com)



Obligatory List Of Points



Intermission




Final Yam

That took some time. And... the Workers' Party won!


Note who the footer is still on about


Just for the record - WP's Lee Li Lian got 16038 votes (54.52%), Dr. Son of Punggol from a poor family made good who clears leaves from drains and needs no sympathy came in second with 12856 votes (43.71%), the Son of JBJ who doesn't want to be seen as riding his father's coattails but still manages to mention him in every speech cleared 353 votes (1.20%), with a perhaps slightly less hopeful but certainly online-savvy participant in the democratic process bringing up the rear with 168 votes (0.57%).

It'll be interesting to hear what Herr Ahm has to say.

*Herr Ahm is snoring on the ground*

Me: *prods him* Hey ham, wake up! Those CNA chaps masquerading as journalists have finally stopped their endless reruns of the hopeless RP and SDA candidates, and cut over to the Returning Officer, who has announced the results. And most of your margins were off.

Herr Ahm: *groggily* Oh? Well, there was at least one prediction I was very sure of. Please press that button over there, it'll generate and post the appropriate image after extracting the percentages from the Internet.

Me: *clicks "Generate Macro" button* Like this?



Herr Ahm: *sits ups* I see the fourth and fifth placed finishers did get tagged as spoilers. It was inevitable, really - they acted almost as if they didn't want the votes. Then again, an online rally wasn't that bad an idea... until your emcee outshines your candidate completely.

Me: Fourth and fifth? There were only four candidates.

Herr Ahm: I apologize for forgetting to mention the Spoilt Vote Party, who garnered 417 votes (1.42%, translated into valid votes) and thereby beat the two party leaders, a slightly dubious record that they will now have to live with.

Mr. Robo: *cuts in* Herr Ahm, I think this is still quite an incredible prediction. How did you manage it?

Herr Ahm: Through my grounding in CS, young pandawan.

Mr. Robo: *happily* I always knew my dedication to Computer Science would pay off eventually!

Herr Ahm: Huh? No, no, I mean Common Sense.

But enough of the selfless contributors to democracy and the government coffers - I have got to admit that I badly underestimated how buey song the people are. Although I didn't count out the WP winning, the extreme range of my prediction was 48% to 46%, certainly not this 54.52% to 43.71% thrashing that ensued.

Your incumbents could try to put it down to some "by-election effect", but I think they will have to acknowledge that the ground is shifting, more than even I anticipated - if only in private. A swing of over 10% is no joke. True, part of it can be put down to the candidate; not only was he a new face, he was also a new party member of barely three weeks' standing, who duly proceeded to endear himself to residents with inane comments like "Everybody has a car".

The contrast with the down-to-earth always-there WP candidate could hardly be greater, and this combined with the news that they have been steadily attracting willing new talent, including an NUS professor of sociology, should be unsettling to the incumbents, who disappointingly stuck to the hackneyed tactics of backhanded threats and incessant media whoring:


A bit more subtle liao, pan chance lah
(Original source: hardwarezone.com.sg)


Me: Okay, they have at least been pretending to try - there were some pretty serious property cooling measures, and an Enhanced Baby Bonus scheme, as I was looking out for, as well as more plans in the pipeline.

Herr Ahm: *sighs* Tell me, you expect the measures to work?

Me: Er, not really. The official target is a very modest "1.4 or 1.5", curiously close to the upper limit of my so-far-prescient 2008 take, but I would be impressed if the average for the next five years budges even 1.3. To be fair, it's not all their fault, but I don't see any appreciable effect without a truly sincere attempt to make the Bonus broad-based. The S$2000 extra has been made out to be a big deal, but is still a fraction of what is "given" by tax rebates and matching contributions.

But I don't believe couples are gunning for cash gifts or big perks - the fundamental problem is that bringing up a kid is getting less affordable by the day even as job security becomes more uncertain, with no signs of the situation letting up; even the recent policy of giving housing priority to couples with children has been viewed as silently benefiting new citizens more, as locals generally prefer to get a flat first. And frankly, this one has to be their fault.

Herr Ahm: My sentiments exactly. Ho seh liao lor.


Eh sai si le gong one ah
(Source: Facebook)


Let's not overreact - it's only one seat, after all - but the thing about the GRC system is that when you win, you win big, but when you lose, you lose big too. Just sayin', if you know what I mean. *winks*



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