from the sweatshop

Whenever you toy with your beloved iPhone, has it ever crossed your mind that it came from a certain factory in Shenzhen, China?

I am not a fan of the iPhone, but neither am I anti-Apple. In fact I believe I am in possession of things that could have come from a sweatshop in other parts of the world. Electronic goods, apparels, furnitures. Things that the workers on the assembly line can't afford themselves. How many foreign workers can afford the HDB flats / condominiums that they helped build?

Is it our consumerism / materialism that is fueling other people's misery? One may argue that without us buying these products, the workers will be jobless. But that is no excuse for ill-treating workers. Like I said before, bosses will always want the most output from the workers with the least input, while the reverse is true for workers.

Either way, I still won't buy an iPhone.

inner diameter

Went to inner diameter - NUS Industrial Design Graduation Show 2010 at Orchard Central. I realize I went for the same series last year. Compared to the previous installment, this year's seems to be of much smaller scale, perhaps due to the venue. (Last year it was held at the huge space at National Library)

One project that caught my eyes is the "Twistlery". It is a foldable cutlery design that users can keep in their wallets so that they can use it whenever they have take-away food. There's the foldable spoon, fork and knife. Interesting. But how are you going to keep the oily cutlery back into your wallet after eating?

Other designs on show include children furniture that "grows" with the child, ie from playhouse it can transform into writing desk.

eat with your family everyday

When I first heard about the "Eat with your family" day, I almost spat out my tea. Coming from a nucleus family that eats dinner and breakfast together almost everyday, I am amused that they have to put aside such a day specially to have dinner with the family.

If I get it correctly, on "Eat with your family" day, companies that have pledged to take part will release their employees early so that they can go home to have dinner with their families. Wait a minute, does that mean for the other working days of the year, employees leaving work on time will still be unable to join family for dinner? Why so? Too long working hours? Too many overtime work? Too long travelling time from workplace to home?

The intention may be good, but it also underscores our lack of work-life balance.

Hmm, will encouraging people to have dinner with family everyday affect our economic output?

cashier and student

This morning I was on the way to work when I saw a familiar face on the MRT. Not a friend of mine nor a colleague, but a cashier from a supermarket that I frequent.

The boy was in his ITE (Institute of Technical Education) uniform, reading a set of notes on his lap. What strikes me is not that he is an exceptionally good cashier, neither can I say that he is a good student just because I spotted him reading his notes on the train. One thing that I am more sure of is that he is juggling work and study.

Heartening sight.

london's new bus

The mayor of London recently unveiled the design of a new bus for London, in time for the 2012 Olympic Games. It caught my attention as I did a little project in redesigning the layout of our buses.

From the look of it, the new design resembles the good old Routemaster double-decker bus, with a platform at the rear for hop-on, 3 doors and 2 staircases leading to the upper deck. I've seen the 2 staircase layout on Hong Kong's Tram and it seems to facilitate moving between the 2 decks (of course you sacrifice on capacity). I wonder how will the passengers' flow be like on the new London bus.

Too much a twist of old and new, I still prefer the current Olympiad family of double-decker.

Last Operations under the Orion

Recently I watched the Japanese war movie "Last Operations under the Orion" (真夏のオリオン). Starring Hiroshi Tamaki (the Chiaki-senpai in Nodame Cantabile), the story evolves around the submarine I-77 of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the last phase of the Pacific War. The young captain has to prove his wisdom and earn the respect from veteran submariners in the battle against the destroyer USS Percival.

So how to describe the movie? It has the taste of WW2 submarine warfare like in Das Boot, and the spirit of men in Yamato (男たちの大和), plus the cat and mouse chase in The Hunt for Red October.

There were some touching scenes like when I-77 had to surface at last and all the crews refused to abandon ship, and the Japanese captain and the American captain exchanged salute. Really moist my eyes. I kind of enjoy Japanese movies more and more...

bipolar about bicycle

It sounds a little contradictory. When you are walking on the pavement, you get helluva irritated when cyclists fight with you for the way; when you are the one on the saddle, you (maybe not you) just feel less safe on the road and want to ride on the pavement.

I think it is a good sign that more people are cycling. Every morning I see students and housewives and sometimes white collars riding to the MRT station to transfer to the train. That saves the feeder bus part and definitely helps ease co2 emission. But when you get cyclist tsk-ing at you or coming very close to you on the walkway (not mentioning their muddy front wheels unloading some mud onto your black pants), it is irritating.

By the way, riding on pavement is illegal, with the exception of Tampines. Can we have dedicated bike lanes for the benefits and safety of both pedestrians and cyclists?

Saw an interesting clip on the bicycle rush hour in Netherlands. Hardly see any motor vehicles, lotsa bikes, and there's bike lanes.

addicted to plastic

I attended the movie screening of Addicted to Plastic at the NTUC Centre yesterday.

It is a documentary showing the filmmaker Ian Connacher's journey around the world in search of waste plastic. No special effect, no stunt, but very thought-provoking. Imagine being right in the middle of Pacific Ocean and finding waste plastic in the water, or finding plastic bits inside birds' stomach. While not as statistically shocking as An Inconvenient Truth, Addicted to Plastic brings it to a more personal level.

It strikes a chord with me as my final year thesis was on the environmental impact of biopolymers versus normal polymers, so all the acronyms and terms (PET, PLA, PE, PC, HDPE, etc etc) are like old friends to me.

Below is a trailer of the movie. If you are those tree-hugging type, the movie should interest you.

media's fairness on fare

I always believe that mainstream media, especially printed ones, should be the voice for/of the people.

When they announced the new distance fare scheme, how many of us are aware of the fact that starting fare will go up by 2 cents on buses and 3 cents on trains? When the news article title says "Public transport fares to go down by 2.5% from Jul 3", are they excluding the reported 30% who will end up paying more for their trip? Supposing the 30% figure is accurate, statistically speaking is 30% significant enough? If they show 2 diagrams of people paying less for their trip, they should at least show 1 diagram of them paying more, to be fair.

The other day I had a little chat over lunch with a colleague who came from a certain big country in Asia. In that country, the newspaper is pretty much the authority's propaganda tool. So my colleague said that in school what they did was to read the newspaper in its opposite meaning, ie if the paper says "crop output skyrockets!", it probably means they should prepare for famine... Yes, ironic.

I really hope I don't have to read our newspaper that way.

some CAD/CAM class

I saw this video of the CAD/CAM class at Thayer School of Engineering in the States. Students were supposed to use SolidWorks to design their twist carts, then build it and race it within the school building.

I know the video can get irritating, but if only our engineering class is as fun... (well we did have trebuchet competition in NUS...)

peak period

I am currently at the peak period (in terms of workload, not work performance) at work, so I won't have time to write blog post for the time being. Blog posts have to wait. Have been bringing work home for the past week and should be pretty much the same this coming week.

Maybe when I have the time, I will write something about how a laid-back slacker like me would bother about work, explained in the context of New Product Development (NPD).

Robin Hood

I got an invite from omy.sg (thanks!) to attend the preview of the movie Robin Hood. It kind of reminds me of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves which is close to 2 decades old. Good, can compare.

I was half expecting to see the ferocity of Russell Crowe in Gladiator and the breathtaking scenes of 300. It kind of surprised me to see D-Day style Normandy beach landing in Robin Hood. Scenes and action wise, the archers' barrage was always spectacular, but the close combat wasn't really breathtaking. Robin Hood is an archer, what close combat?

As for story, it was quite different from my impression of Robin Hood. He didn't meet Little John in the forest. Little was mentioned about Robin being an outlaw robbing the rich, in fact a large portion of the movie was on Robin fighting alongside the King. I couldn't quite locate the climax of the movie. But some of the jokes in the movie were good.

By the way, was that a hammer in Robin Hood's hand?

ikan bili business

The other day I was having nasi lemak for lunch at the canteen. My colleague wanted to see if it was nice, so he took one spoonful of the rice and found it quite fragrant. So the next day he went to that stall to buy the nasi lemak. When the stall owner handed over the plate of nasi lemak, my colleague couldn't believe his eyes.

I was buying food at the stall right next to the nasi lemak stall. My colleague turned to me and asked if I had as little ikan bili on the previous day. I told him I had more than that. Another colleague, who frequents the nasi lemak stall, also commented that "wah, so little". So I suggested my colleague to go appeal. He went to ask for more ikan bili, and the stall owner gave that half-hearted laugh and gave him a few more pieces. Still pathetic portion.

My colleague decided that would be the first and last time he patronised that stall.

There is this saying that some stalls favour some group of customers over others. I am not sure how true that is, but if it is true, I think that would be lacking business sense. See, some people can only patronise these stalls, whereas the rest can buy from whichever stalls they feel like. That is to say, your customer base can be as much as 100% of the population whereas the other stalls can only grab about 75% max. Now you are not welcoming the 75%, you only can get about 13%-25% of the population?

Well, I guess not everyone opens a business hoping to get the longest queue.

digging sands

Was at Suntec area yesterday for lunch and ended up going to Marina Bay Sands, unintentionally. It was the first weekend since it opened its door last week, so crowd was expected. You could see a net flow of people from Esplanade making their way towards The Helix bridge.


Sands gives me a different impression from Resort World Sentosa, which I have not visited yet. You know, it feels more symbolic, whenever you are at City Hall area or when you speed past on the expressway, you see that iconic 3 towers (some refer them as joss stick, while others term it as something on the altar table). Not to the extent of being an engineering or architecture wonder, but it still drew me in like a magnet. While crossing the Helix, I heard some engineering type looking at the metallic structure and talking about tensile strength. See? Magnet!

After crossing the bridge, it doesn't feel like you are in Singapore anymore (except when you get reminded by the sight of ERP gantry right at the end of the bridge). The place is so big, the buildings are huge, you wonder why you can see such a big patch of sky when you look up (refer to 2 photos above). Even the flower pots at the hotel are gigantic. Do I sound overly excited? Anyway not all the shops are opened yet, but don't expect to see Giordano or Bossini there. Coach, yes. Both Coach bags and Coach Terminal for buses.

Shucks, I am not even talking about the casino...

iron man 2

Went to watch Iron Man 2 last Thursday. (do you call it a gala, premiere or preview?)

If you are planning to wait for the DVD to come out and watch it on your home TV or computer screen, you should seriously reconsider. Thanks to the THX, the Iron Man's sonic boomz really pushed me back into the cinema seat.


Story wise, Iron Man 2 packs twice the fun as Iron Man is joined by a new buddy War Machine. I really like the Gatling gun on his shoulder. But don't get too logical when you see Rambo-style unlimited ammo. However I find the ending battle a little abrupt, guess they spent too much time in the story build-up.

Stay till the end of the closing credits and you may get some hint of Iron Man 3...

happy labour day

It's 1st of May, so Happy Labour Day!

On this day I am working harder than normal. Cleaned the kitchen cabinets, wiped the stove, mopped the floor, cleaned the toilet, wiped the windows... I am celebrating it alone with left-over food from the fridge.

You know, that's life.
(by the way, do you count the travelling and meal time in the 8 hours for recreation or 8 hours for labour? I definitely need the full 8 hours for sleep)