Singaporean vs PR

Like to state upfront that I have nothing against PRs. Some of my best friends are non-Singaporeans and PRs. However, I would like to give my personal take on why Singaporeans feel that there is no difference between being a Singaporean and a permanent resident (PR).

Fundamentally, Singapore should ask herself what is the purpose of a PR. Personally, I felt that being a PR means that you could "sample" what Singapore could offer to her citizens if they choose to be a Singaporean.

This is where lies the problem. Based on what the newspapers have gathered, there is actually not much difference between being a citizen and a PR.

Voting rights? How many Singaporeans have voted in the past few decades?
Rebates? How many Singaporeans are eligible for such rebates (excluding the rebates due to the economy downturn)?
Baby bonus? Education subsidies? Look at the demographic profiles of PRs and you tell me if its of any use.

My view is that to make Singapore more attractive for people to settle down, you will have to hit the spot where it "hurts". To do that, you just have to look at the CPI index. 3 areas come into mind:

• Housing
• Transport
• Healthcare

With the exception of transport (excluding needy Singaporeans), both citizens and PRs are eligible for subsidies by the government for Housing and Healthcare. That in my opinion is where tweaks should be made.

For healthcare, our Health minister has already begun tweaking the subsidies for citizens and PRs. My view is that for healthcare, subsidies for the PRs should be reduced to the point where it "hurts". Personal view would be at least 25% lesser than the subsidy given to citizens. Polyclinics should also subsidize Singaporeans further to highlight the distinction between a Singaporean and a PR.

Next would be housing. I'm against allowing PRs to buy HDB resale flats. This is an excerpt from HDB's website:

As the public housing authority, HDB plans and develops public housing towns that provide Singaporeans with quality homes and living environments.

The key word here is Singaporeans. Therefore, I do not understand the rationale where PRs could buy resale HDB flats. The rental market is quite vibrant here and PRs could easily get a rental flat without any problems. Note that we're talking about public housing and not housing in general. The distinction between Singaporeans and PRs should be made clearer in this aspect. If you are a citizen, then you're eligible for Singapore's public housing. Otherwise, go private or rental. Owning a flat is not a given right, although it seems so in Singapore.

Transport is a necessity in Singapore for both personal and business use so I do not feel that the distinction should be made in this aspect. However, it would be good that in times of budget surplus or economy downturn, the government would have some kind of transport rebates for all Singaporeans (not PRs). This would send a message to the citizens that the government knows that transport cost is an issue and would help out when it can.

I believe the government should have statistics to show how many PRs actually converted to be a Singaporean. My guess is that the conversion rate is super low. Why? Because there's no "difference" between being a citizen and being a PR. That's why.

Inflation is down 0.4%

Updated 24 Oct 2009: Added my personal comments for this year

These are the Singapore inflation rates for 2009:
January: 2.9%
February: 1.9%
March: 1.6%
April: -0.7%
May: -0.3%
June: -0.5%
July: -0.5%
August: -0.3%
September: -0.4%

This time, it's Health Care and Education and Stationary that is leading the charge, rising by 2.1% and 2% respectively year on year. Housing costs once again decreased the most for the month (-2.5%). As indicated previously, transport and communication inflation has narrowed to -0.2%. I won't be surprised that turns positive for October.

What is surprising is the increase in Education and Stationary year-on-year and there was no explanation on this sudden spike. Has educational cost increased substantially? I cannot recall reading such news last month. Hmm...

I'm not of view that inflation will be back to positive for December as I do not see the demand for this year's Christmas to be as great as last year (Christmas sales have already started). However, there might be a spike in inflation for housing in Nov and Dec due to the quarterly review of the electricity prices. Still, I do not see the spike to be that great.

Anyway, inflation for 2009 as indicated in my post here should still be around 0.1% to 0.2%.

Cloud computing is not necessary cheap

I think people has to understand that cloud computing is not just a low cost bandwagon that everyone should jump on. Cloud computing is actually not even low cost if you do not have sufficient numbers to use the services. That's why I'm curious on why this topic of cost always appear when there's mention of cloud computing.

Personally, I think people are missing the whole idea of cloud computing. It's not a new idea thought up to reduce cost. I believe the fundamental basis for cloud computing is to:

1. outsource the maintenance of IT infrastructure and not worry about things such as upgrades and maintenance periods;
   
2. enable easy scalability of resources needed, especially in cases where there are peak and off-peak periods;
3. take advantage of common services used by big companies (may or may not) and leverage on those best practices to quickly build up your capabilities.

This need not necessarily be cheap. Most of these services usually will charge on a per user basis. However, tapping on these services will allow the business owners to direct their energies to the core business functions and leave the IT side to the experts. The businesses will then need to develop skills on how to manage these cloud computing vendors to further add value to the business functions.

Cloud computing is a step forward in terms of adding value to businesses if you plan it well and its sole purpose is not to save cost. My opinion of course...

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Expressing Love in different ways

Unknown quote:

Just because somebody doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with everything they got


I like this quote because it's simple, to the point and self explanatory. Love can be expressed in ways that you may not expect. You may or may not understand it until much later.

Lesson of the day? Don't take anything for granted and do not expect love to come only in one form.

Executing programs with administrators rights without switching users

There is a simple way in executing programs using administrator rights without switching from the current login user to the administrator account. There's a powerful utility called runas that will allow you to do just that.

To open up a command prompt (example) using administrator rights, just do the following:

1. Goto Start > Run
2. Type runas /user:"mydomain\admin" "cmd"

Just type in the password for the account used in the "/user" field and that's it. You have opened up a command shell using the administrator account. You can replace cmd in the above example with any other command/program that you would want to execute.

Hope this is useful.

Xpose at Esplanade Concourse

Xpose is playing again at the Esplanade Concourse on 21st Oct 2009 (Wed) from 7.15pm to 8.45.pm, with half an hour break in-between. The performance actually consists of 2 sets of repertoires with only 1 piece that is repeated.

Do go and listen when you have the time. After all, it's free. :)

Repertoire as follows:
7.15pm – 7.45pm	8.15pm – 8.45pm
Waltz of the Flowers	Blue Danube Waltz
Zapin Telok Belanga	Spanish Coffee
Danse Boheme	Polovtsian Dances
La Paloma	Michael Jackson Medley
Dance of Yao	Dance of Yao

First .NET Framework Assistant, now Windows Presentation Foundation

This is getting way out of hand. I've never installed any plugin in my Firefox that enables Windows Presentation Foundation and yet, this was found "hidden" in my Firefox list of plugins.

Luckily, the latest version of Firefox automatically disabled it. When will Microsoft learn that if I want to have all these perks, I will use Internet Explorer. There's a reason why I'm using Firefox.

I wonder when will someone file a class action suit against Microsoft. I did not choose to install .NET framework assistant or Windows Presentation Foundation and yet both appeared in my list of add-ons for Firefox.

If this continues any further, I will get a Mac. To the heck with Windows. I'm tired of things being installed without my knowledge. I bought a licence to use the software and it's not a licence for you to keeping pushing software to me without my knowledge. To strike an analogy, would you want to buy a cordless phone to find out that it has been bugged for my security?? No right??

Carmen Suite sounds wierd on Chinese instruments

Just heard the SCO playing the full Carmen Suite just now. Maybe it's just me but I find that Carmen Suite sounds weird on Chinese instruments. The 弟子 and 二胡 sounds strange and it seems to be a tad slower while doing the runs. Might be my seating position though. I could also hardly hear some parts of the melody in Dance Boheme.

The funny part is they also have the same problem in playing the last few bars of Danse Boheme. I'm not sure if this is suppose to be a consolation or not. :p

What's the use of a fine of $500 when you make millions in a year?

I was laughing when I recently read the news that our 2 transport operators were fined $500 and $200 respectively for failing to meet service standards in a regular 6 monthly review. Luckily I wasn't eating or drinking while reading this piece of news.

Why? Because you're fining hundreds of dollars to corporations that earn millions annually.

It boils down to the fundamental reason for issuing the fines. This reminds me of a situation a few months back on eating sweets in MRT station. I think the fine is $500 per incident and it serves as a deterrent to prevent people from eating in MRT stations. This fine is effective because now most of us refrain from eating in MRT stations because of that fine amount.

So my question is that it's okay to fine consumers $500 for eating sweets but only a few hundred dollars for service lapses??

I seriously don't see how can the fines be a deterrence to corporations that earn millions annually. Instead of using a fixed amount, a percentage of operational profit for the last quarter should be used with a base fine, whichever is higher. That would really be a deterrence. You can even channel the income from the fines to programmes that ensure better adherence to the service quality.

Seriously if I'm in the business of issuing fines, I would not even bother to fine the operators with this pitiful amount. It doesn't even warrant the effort taken to monitor their service levels and it doesn't encourage anyone from adhering to the service standard. So what is the fine for?

The Fun Theory

Recently saw an interesting Youtube video called the fun theory. Basically, I believe it reasons that if you make anything fun to do, people will adopt it more readily even if it requires more effort.

Quite an interesting way to look at things. I believe that is also what some popular childcare centres are doing. Make it fun, and kids will want to go to school to learn.

Below is the Youtube video. Enjoy the power of fun.