Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

Pulau Ubin and Young NTUC’s Run350

March 21, 2010 Bradley Farless3 Comments

A few weeks ago, my wife told me she’d signed us up for a running event called Run350. It was encouraged among NTUC employees, since it was a Young NTUC sponsored event. The purpose of the run was to gain attention for climate change. The atmospheric carbon dioxide for February 2010 was 389.91 parts per million, which is far above the safe upper limit of 350, which is where the run got its name.

The event was fairly well organized. The only real problem was that on-site storage of goods wasn’t available, so if you didn’t have someone along to just hold your stuff while you ran, you had to go light, which is what we did. Even though we could bring everything that was completely necessary in our pockets it was annoying, because it didn’t even afford us the convenience of a towel to dry our faces with after the event. Thankfully we don’t live that far from Pulau Ubin anyway, so the trip home was pretty short.

Pulau Ubin itself is an island off the coast of Singapore’s mainland. To get to it we had to take a ferry from Changi Point Jetty. That was pretty cool and almost made the whole trip worth it on its own. I hadn’t been on a boat of any kind in a long, long time.

The ferries each carry a group of 12, which still leaves plenty of space on the benches. As you can see, the sky was overcast. There was a steady drizzle up until about 15 minutes before the 5k run started. That helped keep it cool but it also made it incredibly humid.

Approximately 1000 people attended this event, and at 12 per ferry it took quite a few trips to get everyone to the island. You can see the ferries lined up to dock at Pulau Ubin above. To the right of the photo, in the background, you can see a ferry heading back to the mainland to get more people.

The boarding of the ferries was really well organized, with staff and volunteers directing one group at a time down through the departure area and out onto the pier. It would’ve been madness to have a huge group of people pushing and shoving on the pier and someone would’ve wound up in the water.

That’s me, standing by the welcome sign by the jetty on the island. The shirts aren’t too bad and the print actually matched my regular running shorts. Double win.

Pulau Ubin itself is like another country when you compare it to the regular, sterile areas of Singapore. When I first saw it, I was reminded of Malaysia, or even Patong Beach in Phuket, Thailand. There were a lot of stray dogs wandering around, which added to the liveliness of the area, just like at Patong Beach.

The whole atmosphere is very relaxing and we’re going to make plans to go back on another weekend. Getting there from our place only costs about 1.50 in fare, not counting the ferry price of course. On the island you can rent a bicycle for about 2 dollars for the whole day and there are cheap places to eat if you’re not bringing your own food.

The Run350 event was divided into a 10k and 5k run with 500 people each. We took the 5k. We briefly thought about doing the 10k, but I’m glad we changed our minds.

I had my wife’s waterproof camera out while we were running, thinking I would get some good photos, but I only managed to take one before I realized I needed to focus. I run 5k regularly, but dodging people and a bunch of hills really wore me out. There was one hill in particular that was pretty steep. Almost every in front of me was stopping to walk to the top after going about halfway up. It gave me flashbacks to what was called “Canyon Runs” when I was in the Army at Ft. Bliss. Ft. Bliss is situated at the southern tip of the Rocky Mountains and there’s a road that runs up the side of it that company commanders think is a great PT challenge to undertake about once every two or three months.

In the end, we still finished the 5k in about 33 minutes, despite the heat, humidity, hills, and navigating around the other runners. It wasn’t a race and there were no prizes, but I wanted to do my best anyway.

I found out later that I’m in the photo that goes with the ChannelNewsAsia story about the event. I’m also in their video, which is linked to from the article:

I wanted to embed the video, but ChannelNewsAsia’s site doesn’t allow it for some reason. Too bad… can’t even save a copy.

Anyhow, it was my first organized run (outside of the Army), an opportunity to see a new part of Singapore and an overall great experience!

Update: The event organizers managed to get a copy of the ChannelNewsAsia video up on YouTube so I’m embedding it here. I’m in it at 37 seconds on the left, in the tan and black hat.

Update (September 11, 2013): While editing bad formatting after importing this post from Blogger to WordPress, I noticed that Channel News Asia has removed the original article and the link is dead. As a safety precaution, I uploaded a copy of the video to my blog, in case the YouTube video eventually goes down as well.

Horrible Singaporean Buyer (SMS Conversation Screenshots)

March 20, 2010 Bradley Farless14 Comments

If you’ve ever tried to list something publicly to sell it, you’ve probably had a similar experience. I doubt many of you have had to deal with this level of annoyance though.

Just to give a little background, last month I sold a Nokia e51 I had sitting in a drawer, because, well it was just sitting in a drawer. I use my iPhone all the time now and there was no point in keeping the thing around. I could use the money for other things.

Anyhow, I listed the thing on Singapore’s eBay and the following is a conversation I had with a prospective buyer:

First off, note the time that this guy sent me this SMS. This was a Saturday night, sure, and we were still up, but who in their right mind sends an SMS to someone about an eBay listing at that time of the morning? Also, the listing made it clear that I was selling the phone and not representative of a company, so why did he think I had multiple color versions of the phone laying around to sell off?

When I put this phone up for sale I anticipated that I might encounter some less than bright questions or behavior, but this guy seriously tested my patience, as you’ll see as the conversation continues. I tried my best to humor him, because it was my goal to sell the phone. I figured I could always post screenshots of the conversation later.

I stated the condition quite clearly in the item description in the eBay listing, and simply repeated it to him.

On the eBay listing I posted the low end of the bidding at 185 and the high end at 200. I thought the point of setting those figures was so that people would know immediately what your “best price” is, but… guess not. I let him have his 5 dollar discount because I figured he would feel like he won something and stop being so troublesome.

His question about my age threw me off guard. I couldn’t figure out what bearing that had on selling a phone, or why he would think it was appropriate to ask. Later, I realized that it was a calculated question. He was trying to do a quick mental calculation to see if I was potentially easy to rip off. That’s probably why he kept going on and on and on too. Trying to wear me down to just give up and sell it for a lower price.

Still trying to be polite and conversational here, so I deflected his question, but I was pretty sure my eBay listing was for a Nokia e51 and not pimping services.

If you’re from the US and wondering about the ‘Happy New Year’, this was right around the Chinese Lunar New Year.

So, if you notice the timestamp, this was two days later, again at an inappropriate time of the night for him to be sending me a text message. Regardless, I took the opportunity to tell him that I’d gathered the stuff for the phone together, and hoped he would stop fucking around and just agree to meet and buy the thing.

I thought I was pretty clear about why the SIM was in the phone.

This is when I realized this guy was just trying to screw me over. First off, I’d looked around and roughly 180 SGD was the average price for a used e51, both here in Singapore and in other countries around the region. Second off, this guy was trying to get me to sell it to him for what a pawn shop would give me for one. That’s some pretty flawed logic, and I was insulted that he thought I was that stupid. It was also pretty obvious that he didn’t work for a shop, for a number of reasons, and that this was just a ploy to try to get me to sell the phone to him for a ridiculously low price.

I felt like I was in a video game and he was trying to use a special attack on me or something: “Barrage of Stupidity! Go!”

There’s a time stamp here because I decided to ignore him. I wasn’t going to play that kind of stupid game. Sure enough, he messaged again and then launched right into another ploy. The phone was worth 180 without the 4 GB memory card in it. I just left that in there to act as an added incentive, so someone would choose to buy my e51 over another sellers. That should be obvious, so I don’t know why this guy thought I’d keep a 4 GB memory card I’d have no use for and then let him rip me off on the price.

By the way, I think I’m being generous calling this person a guy, because it seems more like I was talking to a boy of about 16, trying to lie and cheat his way into a good deal on a phone because 130 bucks was all mama would give him.

I decided to just ignore him and sure enough, he started SMSing again. Then, as you can see at the end of this screenshot, he launched right into another game.

So, now all of a sudden I’m his “bro” and since we’re such good “bros” I should let him pay me part-now / part-later and because he’s my “bro” I’ll just be able to trust that he’ll pay me the rest?

Of course, the guy never sent me another message after that, since it was obvious I wasn’t going to sell him the phone for 130, or let him trick me into giving it to him for 130.

I feel sad when I see that people this annoying and retarded manage to survive, but it did teach me a few important lessons. When I listed the phone on eBay the second time I left a VERY detailed list of what came with the phone, what didn’t come with the phone, what time to message me and not message me and I made it very clear what the “best” price was. I had a few more people try this same bullshit on me but I didn’t bother with it again. I wasted enough of my monthly limit of SMS messages on this one fool already.

This whole “best” price thing is something that annoys the hell out of me. It’s not local to Singapore, but this is the first place I’ve had to deal with it with any regularity. Singaporeans are so hellbent on getting a “best price” that even if you tell them that what you asked for initially is the “best price”, they’ll think you’re just playing hard to get and keep trying to haggle with you, or start playing games like the jackass in these screenshots did.

The day after I listed it for the second time I was contacted by a very polite woman who met me at Tampines, looked over the phone and handed over the asking price without trying to find out the “best price”, so I gave it to her for 10 SGD less than what I was asking for, out of thanks for her being so pleasant.

MyTransport.SG: Why LTA Really Killed the ‘Park-a-Lot’ iPhone App

March 16, 2010 Bradley Farless1 Comment

A few days ago I wrote a post about how LTA had told Park-a-Lot developer, NiiDees, that his wildly popular iPhone app could no longer access real-time parking information from garages.

The reasons cited were that the information leased to LTA was only allowed to be shown on its site, and not through iPhone apps. They also said that they would consider leasing the information out, for a hefty price I’m sure. Thinking about it now, that in itself is a contradiction. If the information was only licensed for their site, how could they license it out?

From an article in today’s online edition of the Straits Times titled “Mobile service for commuters”:

“There is also information on premium buses, Electronic Road Pricing gantries and rates as well as updated information on available car park lots, among other things.”

via StraitsTimes.com

I suppose the truth of the matter is that they were blowing smoke. It seems as though they were killing free competition in advance of their release of a new web portal called MyTransport.SG which was launched today and will provide parking information, among other things. If LTA were a public company I could understand if they wanted to limit competition or use of public data that’s being paid for by citizens, but that’s simply not the case here.

MyTransport.sg standard browser incompatibility message.

Regardless, I took a look at the new mobile site, which is only accessible via a mobile browser, and it looks like they did a fairly good job with it. The design looks like an iPhone home screen (lawsuit pending?) with the functionality of a native iPhone app, including a “Home” button and a “Location” button along the bottom of the screen. Here are some screenshots:

The Parking Guide, and probably the reason why LTA shut off Park-A-Lot’s Access

You can use it to find the nearest MRT or LRT station. If you don’t want to enter a search term, you can press the location button towards the bottom of the screen (crosshairs icon) and then allow your location to be broadcast to automatically get results.

Allow MyTransport.sg to use your location pop-up.

The results are really accurate. It gave a good list of all the bus stops near to where I am.

I’m not sure I like LTA’s questionable business practices, but I have to say they did a good job with their web interface for this data.

Discovering What Halal Really Means

March 12, 2010 Bradley Farless24 Comments

I recently came across an article about an ongoing problem in a town called Colne in the UK. According to the article, the KFC there has switched to serving halal foods as part of a trial. A KFC representative said this was done because there have been quite a few requests in the UK for halal restaurants.

So… what does that mean? The article explained that halal meat is meat that has been prayed over and blessed by a Muslim cleric at the point of slaughter. Also, for a restaurant to have a halal rating, all food products served in the establishment must be halal, and the establishment can also no longer serve pork products, which were on KFC’s menu previous to this trial.

This has angered a lot of non-Muslim local residents who don’t appreciate having food blessed by another religion forced on them.

The first time I ever ate something that was ‘halal’ was at a Hardee’s on a US military installation in Kuwait. When I saw the phrase ‘halal certified’ on the outside of the restaurant I thought it was amusing, but didn’t give it a lot of thought. I assumed that it just had something to do with how the food was prepared but I had no idea that it was being blessed by a Muslim cleric. Thinking about it now, I suppose that was set up to cater to the Muslim foreign workers that were employed on the camp.

I’ve been living in Singapore for almost two years now and I’ve never given much thought to halal food at all. I always figured that hey… halal, kosher, whatever. It’s just prepared a special way and not mixed with what those people find ‘unclean’ right?

Now that I understand the true significance behind the meaning of food being halal… I suppose I still don’t really care all that much. It does bother me a bit that the food is being blessed by another religion, because it reminds me so much of the rite of Communion, which is considered holy and something only Christians should take part in. On the other hand, if I’m right and they’re wrong then the blessing isn’t going to amount to anything in the long run, is it? Besides, halal or not it’s still just a piece of chicken. A fried chicken leg isn’t going to jump off my plate and try to convert me.

I feel bad for the people in Colne, though, because in switching over the restaurant to halal to suit the needs of the Muslim minority, they’ve effectively alienated the Christian (minority?) who may not want to bend their religious principles to eat food blessed by another religion. Depending on the size of the town, those people may have just lost their only KFC. I also feel bad for them because people are labeling them as bigots just for standing up for their religious beliefs. People from one religion not wanting to eat food blessed or ritually killed by another religion is nothing new. According to AsianCook.co.uk, sikhs will not eat kosher or halal foods either.

What’s most interesting about the situation to me, though, is KFC’s religious insensitivity in the matter. When confronted about the issue, they replied that the food they’re serving is “still made from the same great ingredients”, effectively dodging the primary issue.

[Note: Keep in mind that I don’t personally know the people in Colne that are protesting this. All I know is what’s in the article I read. They may certainly be bigots that are using this as a platform for grandstanding. Regardless, I believe in letting people believe in whatever they want, without putting undue restrictions on their religious rights, insomuch that it doesn’t cause harm to others.]

Aggressive Bicyclists Are Disregarding Laws And Endangering Pedestrians

March 11, 2010 Bradley Farless15 Comments

This evening while my wife and I were walking to the hawker for dinner, we were almost run down by a bicyclist. We had stopped at the cross walk in front of Loyang Secondary School in Pasir Ris and waited for the pedestrian light to change to green. When it did, we glanced quickly right to insure that the cars were braking and then stepped out to start crossing the road.

Without a warning, an incredibly fast moving bicyclist on the roadway sped through the red light and narrowly avoided running into us. As he passed us, he made an angry grunting noise, as if we were the ones who were in the wrong for stepping into the crosswalk.

Do bicyclists in Singapore realize that if they’re using the roadways they’re subject to the same road rules that vehicles are? If there’s a red light, they have to stop. Plain and simple. They can’t speed through and expect everyone to make way for them.

I shouted angrily after the man, telling him just that. Of course, he didn’t stop. Instead, he continued his dangerous behavior and swerved quickly onto the pedestrian sidewalk at another intersection a little further down the road, haphazardly weaving past other pedestrians.

Singapore is a country with low crime, and as such there isn’t a very visible, active police force. Unfortunately, it seems as though bicyclists are taking full advantage of this fact to do whatever they want without fear of repercussions.

If the man had struck me and my wife it would’ve caused serious injury, like in the case where a bicyclist struck and killed a man, and I have no doubt he would’ve sped off just the same, leaving me to foot the hospital bills. If he didn’t care about the laws to begin with, why would he stop to accept the repercussions of his actions?

Singapore’s police need to take a more active role in enforcing safety regulations. Simply issuing these laws isn’t enough. This is an ongoing issue that isn’t improving. I wrote about this last month as well in a post called “Bicyclists vs Pedestrians, Battle For The Pavement“. There need to be police officers along the roads, preferably in plain clothes, monitoring behavior and issuing citations. Otherwise, who will ensure the safety of pedestrians?

LTA Trying To Scam Singaporeans’ Money?

March 10, 2010 Bradley Farless26 Comments

The Park-a-Lot Lite app, developed by local developer NiiDees, has removed its live parking data feature which displayed which carparks had vacant lots, following a notice from the LTA.

via zdnet asia

Park-a-Lot Lite is an iPhone app that was previously able to pull data from the LTA’s website, which then showed Singaporean drivers, through a convenient interface, what parking garages around the city-state had open spots.

However, LTA ordered the developer to disable that function of the app, which more or less killed the app’s usefulness. It was one of the most popular iPhone apps in Singapore prior to this move.

So, what’s LTA’s reasoning? Money. They want more of it.

That said, the LTA is open to licensing the data out, the spokesperson added.

via zdnet asia

LTA says that this data is collected from garage operators to be displayed only on the LTA website. I assume that means they have a contract set up with these garage operators, paying them citizens’ tax money to have this information made available for display on their government website, which is itself also funded by citizens’ tax money.

Now, this offer to license out the data is where I think LTA is trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes in an effort to create a double-taxation. You see, citizens are already paying for this data to be made available to them via the website.

When you think about it that way, you could in fact say that LTA has failed the public and is misusing tax money. I looked over the LTA and OneMotoring sites briefly and didn’t see any prominent links to this service, and until now I didn’t even realize it was available. I wonder how many other people in Singapore were in a similar situation? Doesn’t that mean the revenue that was being used to license that data was being misused by LTA? Doesn’t that mean they failed to make the data properly available to the public when the public was paying for it? This is a useful service that was being paid for and that the public obviously wanted easy access to, yet they were denied. And now they’ve been denied again.

What Park-a-Lot Lite did was package that information into a convenient, easy to use interface that allowed citizens to use data that they were already paying for with their tax money. There’s really no difference between an iPhone app accessing the data on LTA’s site, and a web browser accessing the data on LTA’s site. The same amount of data is transferred. Less actually, since only the data is requested, which puts less strain (not that there was much strain before) on LTA’s web host and any bandwidth limitations it might have. One could argue that the data was only licensed to be shown on LTA’s website, and I would argue that the App isn’t a website and is merely acting as a window to LTA’s site. Additionally, I would argue that with the rapidly changing tech scene in Singapore, and with more and more people going mobile, LTA should have taken the initiative to amend their contract to specifically allow for mobile access to the data from their site.

Instead, what’s going on here is that LTA has recognized an opportunity to try to shaft people out of more of their hard earned money by making them pay for something they’ve already paid for and is moving quickly to capitalize on it.

Shameful, and it should be illegal.

Book Review: Atlantis by David Gibbins

March 7, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

As the title suggests, this book deals with the legend of Atlantis and the chain of events that lead up to its fictional discovery by Jack Howard and his colleagues from IMU. Jack Howard and IMU are both fictional and play a role in quite a few of David Gibbins’ books, all dealing with archaeology and the discovery of lost secrets and treasures. The first ‘Jack Howard’ book I read was called The Last Gospel, which dealt with a possible alternative history of the Catholic church (a pretty popular theme over the last decade).

By itself, Atlantis was a fairly good book, especially if you have an interest in history. The reason I say that is because Gibbins weaves fiction and fact together to create these stories, conveniently leaving a section at the end pointing out what was fictional and created for the purpose of telling the story. So, you can learn something and be entertained at the same time.

That’s also where it fails. The story is so heavily reliant on the reader knowing details about actual events that there always seems to be a multiple page character discussion, or a monologue, where certain elements of history are spelled out in great detail to the reader. This also applies to every tool or piece of equipment that’s being used. They’re described in excessive detail, from what the control panel looks like to how it works, to the theories behind why it works. For a while that’s great, but after seeing devices and ideas consistently spelled out like this throughout the book it starts to get a bit tiresome. Some things should be left to the reader’s imagination, or for the reader to infer from the story.

This is really noticeable at the end of the book. There are actually two endings. There’s the point where it should’ve ended, and the part where the text actually stops. I won’t spoil it by saying exactly where it should’ve stopped, because for anyone interested in an alternative history type novel, this is certainly worth the time it takes to read, but Gibbins went overboard and filled the last few pages with another ‘explain everything’ character discussion. Instead of leaving the reader to use the grey stuff between their ears and realize what was really going on with Atlantis, Gibbins spends multiple pages spelling it out to you, just in case you’re too stupid to figure it out on your own.

Despite that, I still enjoyed the book because I do have an interest in history and archaeology and I enjoyed being able to learn about those two topics in story form, rather than as a straight-up text book.

So, don’t go out and spend a bunch of money on this book, but if you see it on the bargain rack go for it.

Blood Trail Leading Through Downtown East and E-Hub (Pictures)

March 5, 2010 Bradley Farless9 Comments

My wife and I were in Downtown East tonight when we noticed this trail of blood leading past the entrance to Sakura. At first, I thought that perhaps some poor girl was having an unfortunate night, but then I realized it was way too much blood for that. The trail led to the door going out of the mall. In the other direction, it headed down the stairs into the lower level of the mall.

As I started taking pictures, three police officers walked by, following the blood trail out the door. I went the other way, following it further into the mall.

This is the handrail on the steps that go down from the entrance of Sakura into the mall. You can see blood splashed on the wall and on the metal railing.

This is the post on the wall by the ATMs, just past the Indian restaurant towards the sliding glass door where the long escalators are that go to the 2nd level of E-Hub.

These are pictures of the stairs that lead up to the 2nd floor of E-Hub, between the escalators.

At this point I ran into a guy that was wearing a mall uniform who was taking pictures of the blood trail. I asked him what had happened. He said there was an incident outside the mall. He also kept saying “8 plus” “8 plus”. I couldn’t quite understand him, but what I’m thinking is that 8 kids attacked a 9th kid, who fled into the mall for safety after sustaining heavy wounds. The photos only tell a bit of the story. There was a LOT of blood on the ground and walls the whole way along. I wonder, can this much blood come from a broken nose, or is it a knife wound?

These three photos are from the landing at the top of the escalators, where you enter the E-Hub mall.

This is inside, in the “alley” area where the walkway skirts the children’s playground.

This is right in front of the virtual reality arcade game that sits under the escalator that goes to the movie house and arcade on the third floor.

This was the last bit of blood we saw. I wonder if this was another incident of gang violence, like the gang fight masked as a lion dance reported in the news, or if it was “schoolyard” bullying taken to an extreme.

Singapore’s Native Cat Breed

March 4, 2010 Bradley Farless2 Comments

Meet the Singapura:

CC-BY-SA-2.0; CC-BY-SA-2.5 squeezeweasel

Singapura is the original name of Singapore, and is also the name still used for Singapore in the Malay language.

But… did you know that there’s also a cat breed called the Singapura? This cat breed was discovered here in Singapore in the 70s and originated from cross-breeding between community cats. The cats were exported to the US were the breed was refined, with undesirable traits being bred out until we have the Singapura of today.

At the time, the Singapura became a popular icon for tourists and the Singapore Tourism and Promotion Board (now Singapore Tourism Board) decided to use the cat breed as an iconic Singapore mascot. The name “kucinta” (kucing + cinta) was chosen for the cats after a naming competition and statues of these cats can be found along the Singapore River.

Singapore community cats, or strays, produced a recognized breed of cats that are valued the world over, sometimes pulling upwards of 600 GBP each. When they became popular and could be monetized, they were recognized and made into a mascot to attract tourists.

So… why is it that these days community cats are rounded up by Town Councils and executed at the slightest provocation?

Chingay Fiesta Tampines 2010 Floats

February 28, 2010 Bradley Farless5 Comments

My wife and I went to Tampines 1 last night to have dinner at Manpuku. There’s a stall there called Hokkaido Aoba Ramen that’s really, really good! We always get the Sho-yu Cha-shu Ramen and a side of wafu gyoza.

Anyhow, on the way in we noticed that the field by Tampines 1 and the MRT station was filled with a stage area and the round-about area where the Giants / Courts shuttle bus usually picks people up was filled with floats. After a little walking around I saw a sign announcing that it was for the Chingay Fiesta Tampines parade.

There were quite a few people there, and after my experience with the crowds at New Year’s Eve and Chinese New Year’s Eve, I wasn’t in the mood to try to put up with it again, especially on an empty stomach.

So, I did the next best thing. I took a look at the floats, snapped some photos, enjoyed part of the show on the stage area and then went to dinner! I didn’t have my camera with me unfortunately, so I just used my iPhone, but the pictures came out pretty well anyway.

Have a look:

I was really impressed with how much effort went into the floats. As we were getting ready to leave we saw a woman show up in what appeared to be traditional Indian garb. I think she was going to accompany the float that had the big head (pictured above) on foot.

What impressed me more is that this much effort was put into a regional parade, considering that the official Chingay parade had already taken place. If you’d like to see some really good shots of the actual Chingay 2010 parade, please click HERE to see a beautiful Flickr set. The following photo is a sample from the set: