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Sunday, Feb 09, 2014 - 20:02 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Some Surveys

With a new identity card on the way, and inspired by a friend's Facebook display of his past visages, this is how I looked like at about eleven years of age (yeah, who cares):



P.S. Kept the hairdo.

Other than updating the photo, the significance of the re-issue was that it provided me with an opportunity to correct my religious affiliation from "Buddhism" to "Free Thinker" (there was no "Agnostic" option, but then it would have been a tad un-agnostic to get stuck on terminology). Thinking a bit, doesn't the existence of "free" in the category imply some property about other beliefs? Heh.

This does not, of course, indicate that I am against Buddhist teachings (or those of any particular religion, for that matter) - I mean, say that one believes in being (or trying to be) compassionate; what religion does he then belong to? What religion does he not belong to? As a matter of fact, my philosophical leanings/pretensions are probably closer to the abstraction of Buddhism, than to the Abrahamic schools.

Anecdotally, it has been suggested that Christianity is a marker of class/upward mobility here, which seems also to be borne out by hard statistics (it is also noted that in local period drama productions, while wealthy families are quite often cast as English-speaking/Christian, this combination is almost never seen for poorer households), while Buddhism/Taoism is viewed as relatively "backward". However, I believe that this perception sells the latter seriously short.

Take, as an example, the Buddhist conception of "six realms" and "three thousand worlds", sitting in contrast with the binary/ternary one-off classification to heaven/hell/purgatory. While heaven may be considered as a different dimension in Christianity, I feel the Buddhist emphasis on psychological separation more compelling (less the supernatural aspects), in particular for humans and animals - while we coexist in the same physical space, the difference in awareness for the most part means that we operate on entirely distinct levels.

[N.B. Such ideas are referenced quite frequently in Chinese-medium comics/works (The Asura/Ashura realm, for example, went sorta-mainstream with Street Fighter's Akuma; of course, Marvel/DC have their fair share of Abrahamic allegories]

Above that, the Buddhist attitude towards souls (quite distinct from the multi-soul view of Taoism/folk religion) is also attractive, anticipating both the Abrahamic eternal-soul and materialist temporal-ego theories. Indeed, one of the most pervasive misunderstandings about Buddhism may be that it professes reincarnation, in the commonly-understood sense of having a personal soul being reborn into a new body.


That which leaves, and that which comes;
the same, yet not the same


My own analogy for this would be water - a drop of water falls into a pool, and from the pool a drop of water emerges after a while in reaction - but can they be said to be the same drop? I'm not sure if I have mentioned the short story about the universe being a crucible for a single sentient being before, but as a theory of everything, it truly is elegant, automatically balancing spiritual quantities such as karma at a stroke.

In summary, there's not much point in insisting on what the big stuff is - take care of the small deeds, and they'll handle themselves just dandy, whatever each of the thousands of belief system variants say. The earth supports my feet, the sky crowns my head; what is there to be afraid of?

Anyway, on this broad topic, another Mr. Ham debated Bill Nye on Creationism - particularly, the Young Earth strain. Those acquainted with the standard technical toolkit of Mr. Ham and his Answers in Genesis ilk would, of course, not be surprised at what the exchanges wound up being like:

Bill Nye: There are billions of stars. Mr. Ham, how can there be billions of stars more distant than 6000 years if the world's only 6000 years old?

Mr. Ham: The Bible is the word of God, and that's what it says/This famous guy in an entirely unrelated field said so/You weren't there/It seems so, but is in actuality a test of faith!

(Repeat for two hours)

Which brings us to this gem:


Mr. Ham: Ah, but those trees *aren't* in the Bible! I win!
(Source: Reddit)


Opinions are divided as to whether Mr. Nye should have taken up the invitation in the first place, since it was obvious that they would end up speaking past each other. Some, such as Dawkins, would have turned it down, since as Dawkins said, "That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine." Unfortunately, a refusal could be seen as precisely the high-handedness that science is supposed to disavow, and the sad truth is that for the public, facts by themselves have been insufficient (at least in the US) - an advocate is needed. Problem is, creationists don't play by logical rules.

As a consolation, they're relatively harmless. Until they start applying for taxpayer funding, at least.


And don't laugh, how many of you got selected as a mascot for an OS? Huh? Huh?
(Source: forum.bodybuilding.com)


[N.B. There's another abiogenesis theory floating around]


No Obligation Implied Thereof*†‡§


*Terms and Conditions apply
†"Pay less" does not entail "retain more monies"
‡Limited warranty available for remaining term of minister-in-charge
§Subject to change without prior notice

(Source: The State's Times front page, 5 Feb 2014)


Charitably speaking, the award-winning local top English newspaper were merely being factual in repeating what the relevant minister said (as usual), so the onus for this slightly... inventive interpretation might not wholly be on them.

Anyway, from the small print (that maybe only half the esteemed paper's readers might peruse, not including those who just eyeball the headlines from the newsstand), this is what is planned for the new MediShieldLifeCare:
  • Copay: Reduced [but how much? 1% also considered reduced... but good enough to base the headlines on!]
  • Premiums: Increased [by how much? Dun want to say first lah... and hor, copay only happens when you see doctor, but premium everybody also tio! Song bo?]

Judgment remains reserved, but one suspects that the appropriate interests will remain well in the green (or at least, no less green than they are accustomed to)

And on to the bus penalty-incentive scheme from a few weeks ago, where operators will be paid up to S$6000 for every six seconds they improve on wait times, and fined up to S$4000 for every six seconds they exceed it. What facts do we know, and responses have there been?


While we're at this, perhaps we could go a little deeper into what "excess wait time" (EWT) is - it's the difference between the average waiting time (AWT) and the scheduled waiting time (SWT). The SWT is straightforward - it is just the expected waiting time if all buses arrived exactly on schedule. To explain the AWT, consider a simplified route with only two arrivals, at 8:30 and 9:00, and that commuters begin arriving at the same rate from 8:00.

Clearly, the scheduled waiting time is 15 minutes. However, what if the first bus is held up, and comes at 8:45 instead of 8:00? Then, commuters who reached the bus-stop at before 8:45 would have waited 22.5 minutes on average; but those who reached after 8:45 would now only wait 7.5 minutes on average, for an average of... 15 minutes?

Not quite, because there are more people from 8:00 to 8:45, than 8:45 to 9:00. Seen another way, those who came from 8:30 to 8:45 would have benefitted from a shorter wait (if they do manage to squeeze on the bus, but that's another story), but this is more than offset by the longer wait of those who came before 8:30. Therefore, the average waiting period has to be multiplied by the actual wait (i.e. twice the average), which makes this a standard least-squares optimization (for a full worked example, see this appendix from the Scots)


So it did appear on the dot... but no-one can get on
(Source: The State's Times)
[N.B. On the bright side, we may get driverless cars]


So, first answering the question of whether buses can run behind schedule, yet be eligible for incentives: Certainly, yes - but this has little to do with being "on par with other buses" (though it is true that for any given stretch of time, waiting time is minimized by spacing out the available buses evenly, independent of whatever occurs before or after). Instead, it has everything to do with "being better than the times established during the data collection period".

The cynical could, at this point, expect that the drivers won't be going all out when setting the initial benchmark then, but this brings us to a more important observation - they probably can't affect it much in any case. In practice, bus arrival intervals are largely not under their control. The factors that hold them up, such as traffic jams and having a large number of boarding/alighting passengers, tend to be extrinsic.

So what of the assertion that tracking EWT works, because the EWT for London fell from about 2 minutes in 2000, before tracking, to 1 minute in 2012? Well, coincidentally, 2000 was the year in which they began the London Bus Initiative (LBI), which involved, for the 27 selected routes, over a hundred extra bus lanes, fifty new pedestrian crossings, and many additional junction improvements. Moreover, in 2003, they introduced a congestion charging zone (think ERP) for central London, that further reduced traffic there by over 20%.

In other words, excess waiting time probably fell not because the metric was introduced, and bonuses/penalties imposed, but because the external conditions improved. Without these infrastructural/environmental upgrades, or after they have been factored in, one would expect EWT to fluctuate randomly, around the mean obtainable from prevailing conditions:


Average EWTs, London 2011. Pretty random-walkish
(Source: aendrew.com)


Which brings us to the NSP's query as to why the absolute reward is higher than the penalty - even under total noise, this would result in a net payout. We can imagine a bus service improving its EWT by six seconds each other month, only to revert the next month. Then, it would earn S$6000 on odd months, and lose S$4000 on even months, for a S$2000 gain every two months, despite no actual progress! And, knowing The State's Times, this headline would come out: "PTOs earn S$2 million in performance incentives on EWT scheme".

One more item of note, in borrowing the scheme from London, is that the EWT metric is a consideration when tendering for routes there; when they say "privatization" and "competition", they really do mean it!

Having said all that, one can again sympathize to an extent with the transportation officials (if a bit less, once their salaries are considered) - what can they do, all the more as the providers are supposedly independent (except when asking for cash infusions), when the real problem is simply too many people, too fast? Well, how about pedestrian traffic lights, so even if you can't get on the trains, you'll know it slightly earlier, and perhaps explore other options (wait a minute...)?

But then again, the public transport operators have never exactly been top purveyors of logic, so best to roll with it.


Amen, brother
(Source: Dota 2 Reddit)



The Casey For The Defence

For all those efforts, public transport just won't do it for everyone, least of all a certain Brit expat wealth manager who was evidently unimpressed by SMRT's humble offerings. There's a comprehensive overview in eight parts here, but fundamentally it's the established pattern of guy shoots his mouth off in poor taste, angry online mob descends on him; main difference was that this time, instead of requesting self-reflection, an establishment fellow actually came down on the side of locals (gasp!), and an airline got creative:


What about one-way?
(Source: The State's Times)


As to what response is justified, personally:

  • Online vitriol - yes. Fair exchange, no robbery. Really, you want people to just shut up? Give as good as you get, and ideally, try to make it humourous
  • Job loss - no, unless the occupation carries specific expectations as to proper conduct (as in the case of Naughty Mango Speaker), which is likely at least sometimes not the case for finance. In this case, his employers didn't appreciate the negative publicity
  • Involving family - why? (Though, given that he married a former beauty queen, this does little to dispel the AMDK hypothesis among denizens of popular forums)
  • Sedition - uh, be careful what you wish for, later small small thing also can get people to lim kopi leh
  • Death threats - come on... no

Anyhow, one school of thought is that Casey is merely a convenient scapegoat for failed population policies (comment: "I was appalled myself when the Law Minister actually made those comments on this issue. This is indeed so contradictory considering that the ruling party was the root cause!"), which I find easy to concur with ("exciting" times ahead!). Heck, even Switzerland cannot tahan the continued influx already.

Lest one gets the impression that Singaporeans are more vindictive than the norm, a parallel development over in the United States has seen a hundred thousand signatures on a petition to deport Justin Bieber due to his bad behaviour (not that another excuse is really needed...). Of course, it could be asked if egging a neighbour's house should count as a felony, but as more than one reporter has noted, he won't be 'cause he's rich. That, and because the National Guard doesn't want to deal with millions of berserk teenage girls on the warpath, so soon after the Great Depression over in Denver.


In the worst case, he could just pretend to be Miley Cyrus
(Source: lol-gag.net)


With one of the Bieb's various sins being marijuana, and with local usage apparently up, I resumed inquiry on why weed is so evil, and came up mostly blank. The biggest strike against it, as was mentioned by the CNB Director, seems to be that it is a gateway drug that leads users on to more harmful substances. But, isn't it a gateway drug due to it being illegal and obtainable only from questionable dealers? Heck, is there any good reason why it's banned when alcohol and tobacco aren't, given that the latter are far more lethal?

Frankly, I haven't found any, and for now have to go with it being too easily cultivated (it's a weed, after all), and therefore eating into liquor/cigarette sales (and taxes). Then again, they do guzzle plenty of water, which might be a problem in drier climes (not raining much here, either)




"With pleasure haunted... haunted by fear"
[Note the closeness of love and pride,
the Prime Virtue and Original Sin]



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