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!

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…