Calling for Skiiers and Party-pple!!!

Tahoe. Ski. Parties. Booze. Just Bring Yourself.

Cutting the Crap

I was just reading a new friend (Mohammad Musa)'s blog and decided to blog about something i totally agree with and understand.

""If you find yourself talking more than walking, shut up, cut the vision in half, and launch it. You can always fill in the gaps later. In fact, you’ll know more about what gaps need to be filled after you’ve launched “half a feature” than if you tried to fill them in before launching anything."

I think it was Newton's First Law or some physical law i studied before (I am not an engineer, and am lazy to check wikipedia) that theorized about inertia and the significant physical force required to overcome it. I am glad i snapped out of my inertia and am working on something (anything!) now. It feels great to be DOING something for a change instead of hypothesizing and rambling on about it without any commitment.

Deja Vu? Terminator castigated for killing

Arnie's getting crap from Europeans for California's decision to execute crook Stanley Tookie Williams (convicted killer and co-founder of Crips gang). Doesn't this mirror the Australian outcry when Singapore decided to execute another crook in Nguyen Van Tuong for drug smuggling? The Pope and his cronies are shouting out for respect of human dignity and right to redemption. Suddenly, we witness mass amnesia and the type of selective justice again demanded by certain sectors of our society. For crying out loud, THESE GUYS COMMITTED SERIOUS CRIMES.

Here's what i thought was funny:

"Rome's Colosseum, once the arena for deadly gladiator combat and executions, has become a symbol of Italy's anti-death penalty stance. Since 1999, the monument has been bathed in golden light every time a death sentence is commuted somewhere in the world or a country abolishes capital punishment."

Are we kidding here? The Colosseum is not too far from where Caesar and his other Roman warriors once thrived. I bet they are turning in their graves at the follies of their descendants right now. I might appear to be in favor of capital punishment but i also am willing to compromise on the circumstances it should be practised. We need a strong deterrent for hardcore criminals. If we believe in the independency and effectiveness of judicial systems, we should trust them with the responsibility of purging society of our wayward citizens and upholding the sacred role of maintaining order in mainstream society. This is not because I do not believe that these criminals cannot be reformed, they might. But we also have to realize the importance of sending out a message to the rest of society, particularly those who endanger the majority, that there is zero tolerance for certain crimes.

I thought this topped the list:

"In Schwarzenegger's hometown of Graz, local Greens said they would file a petition to remove his name from the southern city's sports stadium. A Christian political group went even further, suggesting it be renamed the "Stanley Tookie Williams Stadium.""

Sure, name it Stanley Tookie Williams Stadium, I thought some sectors of society could go no lower but I am wrong. Perhaps some political group, (where's Hansen-clones in Aussie?) could name some street or monument after Nguyen Van Tuong and join the Austrians in the "Hall of Shame" for celebrity crooks. They can commercialize this and make it a tourism attraction. I can visualize it. Let me attempt.

"From Australia to Austria -- United in Our Celebration of Shame".

Bear Stearns on Google
Here's news on monetization moves by Google, through its hiring trends, on Google Video.

Cheesecake Factory on a Roll
Cheesecake Factory diversifys its revenue model. Click here.

Treo 650 Voted Best Converged Device.. Again
Head-to-head, Treo 650 beat the RIM BlackBerry 7100, the Samsung SCH-i730 and the UTStarcomm PPC6600. Click here.

Amazon Opens Up Alexa
Inexpensive access to an industrial-scale web crawler avaliable to any Google-wannabe... 100 terabytes of data at instant disposal. Siliconbeat is reporting on it too. And for the original link from Yahoo! News, click here.

Blog Network Rankings
From Mike Arrington's TechCrunch., one of the blogs i read religiously everyday if i get the time.

For the article, click here.

Random Blogs:
Joel on Software
Delivering web experiences

How to Invest like a Billionaire

Read blogs.
Never follow market convention. Wait for the market blowout, then invest. (NOT the other way round)

Read here.

The Town of Boiled Beans

Another indian city's name bites the dust.

India -- world's 2ndlargest economy in the future, changes the name of yet another of its cities again. Say bye to the global capital of Bangalore and hi to Bengalaru or "town of boiled beans".

From Madras to Chennai, Bombay to Mumbai, Calbutta to Kolkata, we should be braced for a tsunami of name changes from this country.

For more, click here.

Lessons from GOOG

Something I saw off Xooglers They have a pretty good blog there recounting their experiences from the GREATEST COMPANY ON EARTH (trying to get a job there, haha)

Eric Schmidt (CEO GOOG) and this dude called Hal Varian came up with 10 Golden RUles for ruling knowledge workers such as those at Planet Google. The link is here, but since i read my own blog 'cos i use it as a repository of sorts, i will write down the rules here:

• Hire by committee./ 360-degree interview method
• Cater to their every need.
• Pack them in./ Spatial proximity of workers
• Make coordination easy./ Mailing your work group
• Eat your own dog food./ Use your own products.
  
• Encourage creativity./ 20 % personal time
• Strive to reach consensus.
• Don't be evil.
• Data drive decisions.
• Communicate effectively.

Something else here from Xooglers: "I knew the flavor of leadership that would not proceed without consensus, and I knew the flavor of leadership that weighed unpopular decisions before cautiously stepping forward to test the waters in some limited fashion. I had not experienced leadership infused with such heartfelt conviction that united opposition was simply brushed aside and the risk fully embraced without fear or hesitation."

3 different leadership models are articulated here:
The Dictator -- No consensus nor opinion-soliciting from underlings. Authoritarian "My-word-is-law" concept.
The Diplomat -- Everyone has their say, everybody feels part of the decision-making process. The aim is to make everyone happy but the reality is everyone is NOT due to dilution of opinions and a weak compromise that seeks to pass off as a concensual collection decision. Leadership is weak here, i regard this as pure democracy where the leader looks spineless.
The Visionary -- For lack of a better word. There is sufficient feedback collected, there is exchange of intellectual perspectives resulting in a very comprehensive understanding achieved by all parties leading to a decision juncture, required by the leader. The leader is one that commands respect from his team members (owing to some distinguishing character trait or academic pedigree), who retain varying degrees of faith in the leader despite any opinion differences and importantly, any variant decision eventually made. I prefer this sort of leadership. A culture that encourages multilateral consensus-seeking process but tolerates unilateral decision-making by an opinion-leader.

More about Social Networks

Here's a blog on social networks I enjoyed.

Blogs in Singapore

Beginning to slowly realize that blogs in Singapore are increasingly being criticised by the establishment. Sedition Act, Dawn Yang, Daphne Teo. (putting in top keywords so this post might be picked up by Technorati and other blog search engines, might have to take down this post because of heightened profile, hence proving my point)

I was reading this blog which referenced an article from The New Paper. The newspaper article talked about the cluelessness of Singaporean bloggers who did not understand the implications of their blogging habits. The article did not portray blogs as tools of personal expression but instead subtly focused on the naivety and immaturity of bloggers. I see this as an insidious implication that bloggers should be clamped down on, again with relation to the Sedition Act, as dangerous propaganda machines that have highly negative influences on public opinion. There is this other article highlighting the negative effects of a teacher's blog who had chosen to parody her students' mistakes on her blog. This teacher had intended her blog to be fun and educational (?) and adopt a humoristic stance. A straw poll was then conducted (by The New Paper? not clear in the article) on a statistically inaccurate sample size to prove that no one agreed with the teacher's opinions on her blog.

What is the New Paper trying to prove with articles like that? A simple search with the keyword "blog" on The New Paper main page throws up many articles with a majority putting down blogs. Now, The New Paper has a responsibility to educating a majority of Singaporeans that constitute its high readership audience, by portraying blogs in such a bad light, it does not help in fostering a favorable impression of blogs, particularly in the context of bloggers being prosecuted under Sedition Acts and such by thre government. IS The New Paper toeing the government line? IS ourSingaporean media really taking such a pro-government stance, based on the ideology of their articles, none of which seek to provide an alternative, balanced perspective of how blogs are beneficial to general society?

In SIlicon Valley, blogs like Siliconbeat.com, Techcrunch, YPulse, that profiles teen trends in America, are all very successful examples of how blogs have been used to benefit entrepreneurs, investors, tech enthusiasts, corporate marketers et al.. Granted, for every good blog like that, there are thousands of blogs that gravitate to the other extreme in terms of social benefit. So? For Singapore to be engaged in a increasingly booming consumer Internet industry/ Web 2.0, blogs will form an integral part of this new economic engine. It does make sense to educate Singaporeans on how blogging is practised benefically and commercially in other countries and not just focus on the unsavory aspects of it.

In many Asian countries, Singapore included, the Internet industry is very undeveloped, there needs to exist a massive education drive that could be spearheaded by mainstream media like newspapers that still have great influence in society. Newspapers need to embrace new technology and new internet habits, not fear it and put it down. To me, the newspaper articles mentioned above do not show a media establishment that understands its role in society nor an open attitude towards new ideas (such as blogging).

Flame me if I am wrong, but do not reply me to ask me to remove my post. I believe blogs are an outlet for expression of independent thought. If Singapore is to aspire to become a mature society, in line with our economically advanced status, we have to be exposed to alternative ideas and thoughts of the countless individuals in the world,that broaden our view of the world, let the readers individually judge my piece, but let not one party decide what's good and what's bad for the majority.

GeekLand - Silicon Valley

I have been looking for an image to describe the place I live in. This comes real close.

Silicon Valley - where geekdom rules and software can replace sex??? (wtf!?!) Too many hours with the computer makes you think you wife IS your computer.

I prefer the other "Silicon Valley" down in LA/ San Fernando, where silicon goes into humans anot not computers. lolz

The New Blair?

David Cameron has been appointed the new party leader of the stagnating Tories in Britain. The Tories has decided to vote for vigor and youth, shedding the staid image that probably caused them to languish on the opposition benches for the past 3 elections, kicked in the a** by a rejuvenated Labor party under the increasingly weak reign and fast-expiring political mandate of a certain Tony Blair.

Will youth work again (as they did when they voted a youthful Blair into office last century?) in convincing the British electorate to vote Conservative in the next election? The battle begins in tomorrow's verbal sparring match between Blair and Cameron at the weekly Prime Minister's Questions. Lets stay tuned..

Nationalism 101 - Taught by Foreigners

2 great articles, here, and here,from TIME magazine today, on the founding father of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, re-aligned my nationalistic understanding. In one hour, two articles written by 2 American journalists made me patriotic in no way that decades of living in Singapore and undergoing years of a "national education" syllabus designed by Singapore, could have done.

I was born in Singapore, a third-generation Singaporean descendant of Chinese grandparents, who had emigrated from southern China in the 1940s to escape their strife-laden lives back in their ancestral homes, and made Singapore their new home. I was educated in English-speaking Singaporean schools (albeit aligned with British education systems), taught with Singaporean-adapted syllabuses that aimed to imbue me with the most relevant knowledge of science, math and humanities but infused with traditional Asian values updated with modern Western ideologies. In my belief through my adolescent years, I had rejected Asian values, gradually strengthening and coalescing my personal belief systems around a core of Western beliefs and values. I aspired to break free of my Singaporean roots, a country that had given me a peek into Western society from within the cloistered confines of Asia. Singapore, with strong economic ties to US and Europe throughout its economic rise, had been a highly metropolitan city that could be considered where East-meets-West in a highly symbiotic fashion.

Today, I read 2 articles that rattle my belief systems and may have begun a new introspective re-examination of my ideological foundations. Lee Kuan Yew, founder of modern Singapore, had in an article written by 2 American journalists, successfully crystallized the nuances of geopolitics and history, the ironies of the conflicting cultural, political and social systems of Eastern & Western schools of thought that existed in my cognitive database. Not only does he explain and articulate his thoughts better, but he also integrated it with contextual, time-based realities that had affected many of his decisions at many dilemmatic junctures of his life, that coincided with the growth of modern Singapore.

This integration of thought systems with irrefutable realities has brought forth a highly pragmatic, logical and sentiment-free vision of my world. I would not say that this integration has caused a seismic shift in my understanding of the world, but it certainly marks a new milestone in what I thought i believed and learnt to re-analyze it with a more critical eye.

Too much thoughts in my brain, just thought i wanted to capture the immediate reactions of my brain to this new information. It feels like that scene from the Matrix in some sense, that another version of reality did exist. Will blog more on this later after i have had more time to think through.

The Internet Revolution Continues

From The Connectivity Phase to the Participation Phase, read here.

A Razr-Sharp CEO of the Year

Doesn't he look like Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian premier and owner of AC Milan FC?
Meet the man responsible for the turnaround job at Motorola from Prince of the Drab to King of Cool in the mobile phone business. He is the 2005 CEO of the year, awarded by Marketwatch.com and is credited for the sleekness and innovation that has pervaded the Motorola design culture and churned out the wildly popular Razr. Read the article here. On why the Razr is the rave of town and making other wannabes eat its dust, read this.

The Womb of Silicon Valley

Garages are near-mythical representations of the innovation and technology in Silicon Valley. A great many startups have emerged from these oft-ignored spaces ina typical house and spawned new industries, multi-million dollar companies that have coem to define and revolutionize the way human beings lived, are living and will live in the centuries to come. Here's an article referencing how the garage-originated startup, by the innocuous moniker of HP, was used by David Packard and Bill Hewlett in 1939. This garage, located at 367 Addison Ave, Palo Alto, CA, is now almost a shrine for HP employees to pay homage to on of the many shrines around Silicon Valley today.

More examples of garage-inspired great Silicon Valley enterprises include Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's darling -- Apple Inc --> currently basking in the universal infatuation inspired by their iconic iPods. Of course, we cannot forget Google's late infancy stage (as they were born first in another mythical birthplace of startups- the college dorm) in Susan Wojcicki's garage too, further adding another aura of mystique.

GET REAL, AUSTRALIA

Singapore's ruling the zeitgeist of the day. We are everywhere on the major newswires on the internet. Singapore's hanging of heroin smuggler Nguyen has caused the small island-nation to be cast as a draconian nation with strict laws. Here's some screenshots from CNN and Google News as of this hour (1430hrs PST) reporting on this piece of news as their major headline of the hour on Planet Earth. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the screen shots.

My opinion:

GET REAL, AUSTRALIA. The REAL issue here is drug smuggling, an universally condemned crime that pollutes our global society down to its roots, NOT how a young man's life is about to be terminated by a momentous act of folly. Nguyen screwed up big time, period. If he went undetected, 400 grams of heroin will endanger 26,000 doses/ lives, Who then will answer to the families, relatives and friends of these 26,000 ++++ pple who suffer?

Heroin is a hardcore drug. The message should be narcotic containment and prevention, not capital punishment. Yes, i admit Singapore is strict, but principles have to stand firm. There's too many pansies out there sitting in goverments across the world who do not send out strong messages enough to drug traffickers. Let Singapore take the brunt of that but show the world a message to future generations why drug trafficking is so serious one developed nation's government believes that punishment by death is justifiable.

Google Store?

Here's a piece of news about Google opening a brick-and-mortar "store-front" in Heathrow Airport. The project is called Google Space.

Free internet is available at this airport lounge/ hangout, mostlikely going to be useful for the millions that get stranded there. According to the report above, Brits spend nine hours a year "waiting at airports, looking for things to do," Sounds like the perfect audience to pitch almost any product to for any advertiser around the world. Google Space's objective is to enhance international expansion of Google-related services to the physical world, the mainstream laggards that are not diving with blind abandon to the virtual wonders of our magical Internet realm. Hence, 10 laptops with focuses on different Google services, such as Maps, Picasa, etc.. aim to speed up the world's adoption of Google into their daily lifestyles.

I managed to find a picture of the lounge. The design's not very space-age as my mind-eye imagined it to be.


This next picture below is better though, nice customer service provided by nice blondes. More my cup o' tea, if you ask me eh.


I didn;t go to Heathrow, and these pictures are courtesy of this site.

Reinventing the way we search online

I just read this article about a new initiative happenning within the halls of the original search supremo- Yahoo! They have a new guy on board - Bradley Horowitz, an entrepreneur with pedigree from MIT Media Lab. Tasked as the new technology director, his job is to restore the pizazz of Yahoo in web search and he has suggested to do that viA "SOCIAL SEARCH", where search results, in my opinion, is not by the bots and algos of GoogleSoft (Google and Microsoft), but by disrupting the whole search experience throught the collective effort of the whole Internet user community. Hmmm, not a very revolutionary concept philosophically, but it may be technically. Hey, i am not a tech guy, but i would like to see how this search concept will differ from the way "BackRub"/ Google sorts out results.