Author Archive for amos

The Ugly Singaporean? or Not?

Published on January 26, 2010 in Ramblings and applications. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

Posted in the Forums in the Straits Times 26th Jan 2010.

New ugly S’porean
THERE is a new breed of Ugly Singaporean more sinister than the ones who cut queues, pile up the buffet plate or rush onto the bus before other passengers can alight.

Those belonging to this new breed fancy themselves as keyboard warriors and deface Internet sites with postings that are plainly worrying.

Hiding behind the anonymity of the Net, they post comments that reek of prejudice, racism and envy.

For instance, it is virtually unavoidable these days to read anti-migrant comments online. These netizens flood message boards with anti-foreign worker vitriol that degenerates into childish name calling and personal attacks on those who are courageous enough to defend foreign workers.

These ugly warriors use labels like ‘traitor’ frequently. The irony is that these same anonymous posters say they want to leave Singapore because they feel they are being forced out by foreigners taking their jobs.

Another example: The Eric How controversy, in which an inflammatory Facebook diatribe by an unidentified individual who called himself Eric How and claimed to be a member of Young PAP triggered a witch hunt.

As a result, two other people named Eric How were caught in the crossfire of postings about the issue.

Those in this new breed of Ugly Singaporean worry me because they suggest a sense that beneath a placid exterior lurks a collective subconscious that is intolerant, mean and narrow-minded.

Keith Gerard Tan

I think the author has just came out of his shell or something. Where has he been living in the past few decades or so? I’m sure if you looked hard enough on the world wide web you would find negative comments to just about anything, so why be critical about netizens now? Even while reading through the controlled local propaganda publications do we have to distinguish right from wrong. Please do not tell me I have to take every word the local newspaper publishes as the Gospel and label everything I read online as nonsense. If the author does not have a mind of his own then I do not blame him for being critical of such online comments. However, if he indeed does not have a mind of his own, he really should not post such letters that show he cannot discern right from wrong and that he does not know how to embrace the new media.

Putting that aside, I have written a new application. It was written in C# yet again. I do most of programming at work in C++ but C# seems to be much friendlier and easier to code. I have no C# background but picking it using Visual C# Express was a breeze. Anyway, the program I have written is a application to solve Sudoku puzzles. I’m sure there are many such applications out there but coding it was rather fun. The link to the program can be found at the usual applications page.

Anyway, will be going down to Changi Exhibition Centre tomorrow for some familiarization with the Air Show 2010. Will be there on duty next Wed, Thurs and Sat so come say hello if you are coming!

Long Long Time

Published on January 24, 2010 in Ramblings, School, applications and work. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Has been a long time since I blogged. A lot of things have changed since the last post. I have graduated with a 2nd class honours (lower) in computer engineering from NUS faculty of engineering in May 2009, and started work the same month as a Software Engineer at ST Electronics (Training & Simulations System) Pte Ltd. With the advent of facebook and twitter, I feel the need to blog has become even less. Why is there a need to blog, when you can post everything on facebook. Even the photo management system there seems adequate enough. How many people out there really read blogs anyway? So, hopefully the flow of posts will carry on, rather than it being a one off thing.

Also, I added a new page for applications that I write in my free time. Most of the applications will be written to suit my needs, but maybe someone out there might be able to make use of it. I wrote the “Amos Reminder Application” in a few hours yesterday. If there are any bugs, then too bad, since it works on my side :P

Anyway, here are some photos I took during New Year’s Day 2010 countdown. We booked a hotel at Pan Pacific with a view of the fireworks, although the Marina Floating platform was blocked by Mandarin Oriental hotel. Taking photos seem fun enough, but my interests don’t seem to last long enough and thus I don’t think I should get a DSLR camera. And these interests include blogging, writing programs and taking photos coincidentally. Click continue to view the pictures…

Continue reading ‘Long Long Time’

Rain Rain Go Away!

Published on March 13, 2008 in Ramblings and School. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

So, I biked home in the rain once again. It wasn’t raining at NUS and so I decided to carry on. Then there was little droplets of water and I proceeded thinking that it was nothing. Then it got bigger and by the time I was near home it was raining cats and dogs and I was drenched! Even then, I decided not to stop and put on my raincoat since I was so near… So near but yet so far… The rain felt like a million needles poking you, and it also felt like I was swimming in the antarticas. Oh well, at least I’m safe and dry and warm in the comfort of my room now. Ok, not quite warm since my new fan seems to be super powerful, even though I set it to the slowest speed.

Anyway, being the Economist that I am, I realise that people really do respond to incentives. Like duh! And sleep is one of the strongest motivators out there. I went to school early for lessons @ 9am. I was supposed to have lessons until 6, and then a project meeting at 630pm. However, the project meeting got cancelled, and so I was supposed to end at 6. Then I thought to myself, the tutorial at 5 to 6 can be skipped and I can go home at 4 to sleep since I have a break from 4 to 5. Further into my lessons I thought that the programming lab too could be skipped since I did not have much to do at the lab anyways so I could go home at 2! By the end of the lesson, I decided not to go for the Statistics lecture since the lecturer would put me to sleep anyway.  So here I am, through the rain and at home @ 12! For a day that was supposed to end at 7+ and which ended @ 12 I think that is really good!

On a side note, I got 34/40 for my Econs Mid Term MCQ test, so I guess last minute studying really does pay off!

I am so dead!

Published on March 6, 2008 in Ramblings and School. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I’m awake at 230am studying for my Econs test. Have already went through alittle but still need to refresh my theories and stuffs. Also, I need to watch the Liverpool match at 4am later, since I’m a die hard Liverpool fan and you would have to kill me to stop me from watching. That probably means that I would have to sleep at 6am… and wake up at 730am to prepare for school! Lessons start at 9am, and I have lessons from 9 to 4pm. After that, it’s 1 hour of “lunch” before a 1 hour tutorial at 5pm. So my lessons end at 6pm on Thursdays, but that’s not it for tomorrow, or should I say today! I have the dreaded Econs test at 630pm, which ends at 730pm. After that, I’ll probably come home, eat dinner and die on my bed.

Just a thought,  Li Lin did said in The Leap Years movie that “it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”. I wonder if I can synonymously say the same “it’s better to have studied and failed than never to have studied at all!”. Somehow, it just doesn’t have the same meaning when used in this context…

Time Flies!

Published on March 3, 2008 in Movie, Ramblings and School. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

So, people would say that you don’t update your blog if you don’t blog often enough. So here I am writing this post out of nothing, since nothing much happened the past few days! I did go for dinner with the usuals at AMK Hub’s Ichiban Sushi on Thursday. They were supposed to watch The Leap Years, so I decided not to join them for dinner at first. In the end, Yushan (the organizer) managed to convince everyone to watch Meet The Spartans, and so we did! They did ask me how The Leap Years was, and my reply was “it was not too bad for a free movie”, since I won tickets to the sneak preview on Valentine’s day. Anyway, though that reply left room for debate, I can quite safely say that Meet The Spartans was “not worth my time if it was free”. I can only take comfort in the fact that we paid only $6 for the movie, instead of $8/$9.50 or even $10.

Anyway, went to school today after 1 week of “holidays”. Most of my friends were busy with projects and stuff for this so-called holidays, or recess week to be exact, except it didn’t seem much like a recess. Ok, it was not supposed to feel like a recess week for me too, since I had some assignments and projects to do, and also had to study for an Economics test I have this thursday. However, I made it more or less like a recess week by the fact that I procrastinated and did close to nothing for the whole week! So, now I have to rush a few assignments and also study for the test! And they say time flies when you’re having fun! I think time flies when you’re not working/studying! Unless you’re Kermit, then “time’s fun when you’re having flies!”.