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Sunday, Aug 30, 2015 - 22:36 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

- -
What's Afoot

"Rivals are trying to buy the title."

- Jose Mourinho
(what can I say?)



changelog v1.21
---------------
* Pageview statistics for the main blog are now handled through mySQL queries (like the mobile site), instead of the ancient (inherited from circa 2000) custom text file system. This should eliminate those occasional update anomalies (and should have been fixed long ago)

* All blog post links are now automatically detected and archived via the archive.is webpage capture service [FAQ]. This was implemented due to frustration at primary sources tending to disappear all too soon - names shall not be named, save that they include sites and forums controlled by the local MSM. Access with the current blog skin is through the existing method, by clicking the icon that appears at the bottom left of the page whenever an external link is clicked:

Note that there were no changelog updates in 2014, and before that, in 2011. The more you know...

[N.B. Face it, data is forever.]


So Happening?

Eventful week, to say the least - became a bona-fide uncle after my younger cousin had a (cute) kid, paper got accepted, returned to Dota 2 (unsuccessfully) after a few months' lull, and participated in the DC Justice League Run at Sentosa on Team Superman (had originally wanted Green Lantern, but they were out of singlets), after having to give RunNUS a miss last weekend due to an untimely fever (but my brother turned out to have gone). Baggage handling was excellent this time, but it is no exaggeration to say that the wait to start running took almost as long as the run itself.

Oh, and my work portable drive died, but can't have it all.


Actually, without huge PIS, many comicbook fights aren't close;
On pure speed, it's supposed to be a no-brainer.


Dr. Chang: I see you're back.

Me: Well, yeah. So, what's on the plate for this week?

Dr. Chang: *shuffles through notes* I was planning an update on the local pension-real estate complex, but there's simply so much going on that I don't think we can give it justice today.

Me: And a quick comment here on opinions, political or otherwise - I'd say that there's no money or incentive worth not being able to speak your mind; sure, there's often mumbling about "easier to advance", "why bother", etc, but the decision on that was taken long, long ago. Basically - that's no way to go through life, son.

Dr. Chang: And on Donald Trump, it's mind-blowing that despite his nonstop rattling off of what would be fatal gaffes for most other candidates, winding up with -51% favourability among Hispanics, he remains the Republican frontrunner by far. It's as if the whole of America is in on the joke. Then again, while Jeb Bush has been careful to pander to the Hispanic vote, he wound up dumping on... Asians. Ok lor.

Quickly covering other international happenings: China's stock collapse has been sort-of stemmed with the aid of more unorthodox measures, including rate cuts... for now. It's tough not to draw parallels between China's proposals of using pensions to shore up flagging sectors, to what amounts to effectively the same tactic by your administration involving the CPF and HDB, but yeah, not today.

Me: Not only that, China is also wising up to the realization that they actually desperately need their citizens to reproduce, much like a certain city-state, which together with familiar stock phrases such as the "new normal of slower growth", makes one have to suspect that their respective Asian-valued leaders have been trading ideas with each other.

And, just sayin', I have heard talk that it's better for the incumbents to stay in power, 'cause stability, because they have been rooted in for so long, as in China; while this may not be entirely untrue, it should be remembered that this is not without cost either - but we'll leave it for now.

Dr. Chang: Well, for all our sakes, let's hope that China keeps it together, one way or another.


2015, Li Keqiang: "There exists no basis for continued depreciation."
1988, George H. W. Bush: "Read my lips, no new taxes."
(Source: news.xinhuanet.com)


Me: At least the latest Korean crisis has blown over.

Dr. Chang: An update on Malaysia: their embattled Prime Minister has now been sued by a member of his own party, while Bersih 4.0 kicked off despite a lame attempt to ban the event T-shirts, and more wanton intimidation. Meanwhile, the Malaysian authorities' request for Interpol to put the editor of alternative media site the Sarawak Report on their Red Notice has been unceremoniously smacked down, which left the PM's supporters to resort to... blaming the Jews. Seldom has the phrase "come I clap for you" been more appropriate.

Me: Whew. We'd better return to the local scene soon, else we'd never get done.


Let The Mudslinging Begin

Dr. Chang: One last tie-in then. One of the biggest stories of the past week has been the hacking of adultery-enabler website Ashley Madison, which leaked the identities of 32 million members, which at first blush appears to be an impressive take-up rate, despite its global clientele.

A first interesting observation was that extremely few women were registered; disregarding the customary faked female profiles, the true male-to-female ratio seems to be 100-to-1, or worse. That said, it remains unclear how much of this can be attributed to superior morals, and how much to unfamilarity with computers, on the part of the fairer gender.

What is irrefutable is that there were indeed millions of hitched men who were hoping to get lucky, and who were not content with just trawling Tinder or something, including a bunch who were doubly-not-supposed to be there, but nobody's-perfect-say-three-Hail-Marys, as usual. Also, despite the site being banned in Singapore a couple of years back, there existed near five thousand explicitly local email addresses in the database, including 38 ".edu.sg" ones, which goes to show that academia might not be a foolproof guarantee of smarts.

The immediate relevance, then, is to a Workers Party's star candidate and Sociology professor - who has just spoken out against immigration as a means to fix the economy - being accused of an affair with a former student out of the blue, which the mainstream media gleefully reported despite a lack of any supporting evidence, per normal standards. For now, the allegations have been categorically refuted by both parties, and a police report filed.

Me: While we're on academics turned politicians, Dr. Chee's abbreviated life story is perhaps worth a run-through. I'm not sure how many know that he worked with rats for his thesis, entitled "The Effects of D-Amphetamine on the Electrophysiological Activity of the Superior Colliculus in the Rat"; wait, does that sound like somebody I know..?

Recent news also reveals that most psychology experiments could not be replicated - but to be fair, from what I've heard, psychology is actually statistically speaking more rigorous than many other fields, if only as a response towards perceived fluffiness. Feynman himself wrote about how tricky eliminating confounding variables can be.

Dr. Chang: Dr. Goh was not the only target, though, with the NSP probably getting the worst of it. Prospective Pioneer-turned-MacPherson candidate Steve Chia quit the race altogether after a website describing his past indiscretions surfaced, together with another one dredging up the current NSP President's - sorry, it's hard to keep track - 1979 conviction on two charges of corruption, with ten other charges taken into consideration.

Where this differs from the accusations against Dr. Goh, is that the corruption charges do appear to be a matter of record, though the relevant NSP President explained the guilty pleas as due to financial considerations. More tellingly to some was the realization that the incumbents - who have been more than happy to leap on opponents for far lesser failings - had somehow not bothered to attack on this, which combined with the NSP's continued strange behaviour in claiming wards, has led some to make the obvious conclusion:


How can you blame them for thinking so?
(Sources: snipview.com & greencorfu.com)



Into High Gear

Me: Well, as suggested could happen last week, the NSP's key members aren't even waiting until the election is over to resign, which says it all really.

Dr. Chang: The most damning sign is likely Ms. NSP, Nicole Seah herself, signing up as a volunteer for the Workers Party and throwing her weight behind He Ting Ru instead. Which is completely understandable, given the circumstances.

On a more lighthearted note, the incumbents seem to have recognized that online heckling of an opponent for an innocuous food selfie might have been unbefitting of a Deputy Prime Minister's stature, and have thus tried to bite back, so to speak, in kind - with all too predictable results:


When will they learn to give up on food references?
(Source: forums.hardwarezone.com.sg)


Me: Another case of trying too hard, man.

Dr. Chang: Of course, knowing what you're eating isn't officially in the list of MP duties, so. That said, it could be galling for the incumbents to keep losing out on the bon mot department, which has led to new accusations... over AHPETC. At some point, you got to point out that if the horse isn't dead yet, it's on life support... and wait, was that your horse?

While the recent craze for coffeeshop press conferences might be getting a wee bit out of hand, one has to empathize with the underdog's underdog, the Reform Party. They now hold another dubious record in being turned away from two coffeeshops, which led them to settle for unveiling their candidates for Ang Mo Kio - two of whom are Roy Ngerng and M. Ravi - outside a hair salon. Perhaps if they had at least bought drinks beforehand? Maybe not...

Me: All this food talk's reminding me of the intelligence-to-tastiness chart...

Dr. Chang: Ok, ok, I get the hint. By the way, Ngerng will probably not be the most controversial rally speaker after all, given that longtime fellow activist Han Hui Hui has declared her candidacy for Radin Mas SMC - possibly by arrangement with the Reform Party, who are scheduled to contest that ward - as an independent. She seems serious, given that she has raised over S$10000 in a couple of days, which leaves us two very important questions: one, what symbol will she choose, and two, will there be a Triple H theme song?

Squashing special needs kids since 2014!


Me: Among the usual suspects after their moment of fame for picking up nomination forms that are also available online, a lesser-spotted group of five produced perhaps the quote of the week: "Some of the candidates fielded inspired me to run, because with their background, my potted plant can be an MP." Can't say that she's totally mistaken. Possible dark horses the Teh Tarik Party's released their manifesto, though, which compares favourably with the incumbents', the Workers Party's, SingFirst's and the Singapore Democratic Alliance's, the former more or less reading "more of the same".

Dr. Chang: For the incumbents' part, they aren't exactly risking really big names in the most contentious wards, with a first-timer assigned to Fengshan SMC, and a fairly rag-tag lineup, by their standards, sent to Aljunied. For once, someone in the mainstream media exhibited a sense of humour, but it is uncertain whether he kept his job after this gem of a headline:


Precise and to-the-point, one has to admit
(Source: forums.hardwarezone.com.sg)


Me: If it ever happened, it's been returned to something far more staid. However, the sixty-four positions part appears accurate, which should assure voters as to how capable the incumbent offering is - assuming a normal eight-hour workday, he only requires seven and a half minutes to perform each of his duties, each and every day!

And ah, that's a neat getup, Mr. Robo - what's it for?

Mr. Robo: Seeing as all the superheroes from your "Justice League" are humanoid, I resolved to balance the scales.

Me: Eh, we do have Squirrel Girl, who defeats Thanos for fun. But, anyway, what are you cosplaying as?

Mr. Robo: Why, the X-Hamster! Mr. Ham sold me the costume, said it was our equivalent of the X-Men.

*Dr. Chang is trying very hard to stifle himself*

Me: I... I think you should be aware of something.

*confers with Mr. Robo*

Mr. Robo: Yes? Uh... what? I didn't know... but how? This cost me two weeks' wages! Maybe if we bendy-up the ends of the lines a bit, then we can claim it stands for the Greek letter chi, as in arXiv? Sounds cool enough, I suppose...

Me: Mr. H... Dr. Chang, a word with you.

Dr. Chang: Awww.



You requested chives?




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