News: Marksmanship Awards Delayed For Some NSFs

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v463/ffsl89/?action=view&current=marksman.jpg

  Several hundred national servicemen - many of whom have already completed their mandatory two-year commitment to the Singapore Armed Forces - have not been paid merit bonuses due to them for aceing their marksmanship tests.

The Straits Times understands that about 300 full-time national servicemen (NSFs), most from the 1st Battalion, Singapore Infantry Regiment (1SIR), are affected.

They were to have been paid $200 each for scoring well on the tests, conducted last October. The Defence Ministry confirmed yesterday that the soldiers had not yet been paid. However, it refused to say how many men were affected. its spokesman, Colonel Darius Lim, said a technical glitch in the payment process" was to blame. He added that payments would be made next month, and that the SAF was in contact with those affected (techiewen: they did!? oh, speak of the devil, I JUST received an sms from them).

It is given to those who score at least 80% in their annual shooting test, which involves firing live rounds at targets over varying distances while on the move, and in different positions. Soldiers are also graded on how quickly they respond to moving targets from different directions.

Many of the affected soldiers said they were unhappy that there had been no official word to them about payment for months, even though many of the 1SIR servicemen completed their NSF stints in December. As a result, many of the men vented their frustrations online, on the social networking site Facebook. Several said they were angry about the delay in payment, while others speculated on the reasons for the non-payment. When contacted yesterday, several servicemen said they had not yet heard from MINDEF. But when told they would be paid next month, all said they were relieved that something was finally being done after months of silence from the SAF.

Said one soldier, who held the rank of third sergeant but who did not want to be identified: "At least now, there is some confirmation that the authorities are doing something, but we hope such instances will not happen again."

But others said they were miffed that they had been left in the dark for so long to begin with.

One lance-corporal, who wanted to remain anonymous, said he had had no word from his unit right up to leaving the Army. "We were told that people in the battalion were looking into the matter and there was a technical error," said the 21-year-old, who is now working as a part-time assistant in a local bank.

"Some also said the scores had been processed and the money would be credited into our accounts soon, but who's to know whether that was true?"

News: Name-calling In Google Age

by Jeremy Au Yong

- Straits Times, Life 13/02/2010

  I know I'm coming late to the party, so I won't go on and on about how dumb a name Apple has given it's tablet PC, the iPad.

Yet, I would be remiss in my duties here if I did not at least devote a few sentences to the feminine hygiene product jokes inspired by this product.

So if you don't mind, I'll try to get it over with quickly. Here goes:

Will the 64GB model be called the maxipad?

Will there be two data plans - light flow and heavy flow?

Will it come scented for the days when my data is feeling "not so fresh"?

If I order an iPad, will my girlfriend and I have to worry if it arrives late?

Is it true that for one week every month the iPad will be unresponsive and harsh?

Ahhhh, that feels better. Ok, I'm all done with that. No more iPad cracks from me today, I promise. Thank you for your patience.

With that absorbing matter out of the way (sorry, this is the last one, I swear), I can now move on to the real meat of today's column, which is: Why are there so many dumb product names these days anyway? Have we already used up all the good ones or what?

I mean, ask any random person in the street and they'll tell you straight away that you should not name your product an iPad, unless your product might be something guys are embarrassed to buy at a FairPrice.

Yet, here we have a situation where one of the world's premier IT giants is proudly using the name for its latest flagship product.

Not only that, we have a second company, Fujitsu, actually wanting to fight Apple over it. They claim they had come up with and used the dumb name first. It's their dumb name, not Apple's. (techiewen: wow I didn't know Fujitsu used it and want to claim it for theirs. read more here - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/29/fujitsu_ipad/)



Of course, it would be grossly unfair of me to single out the iPad as the only bad product name out there. There are heaps of other examples.

Brain Storm: Facebook For Nuts

I refer to the article on Straits Times 13/02/2010 - Racist Facebook Postings.

Now now, there we have it again. Some shit faced brats posted some racist stuff on the net. And by golly, of all places, it has to be Facebook. 2 polytechnic students and 1 youth created this group which used a derogatory term referring to Indians as its name. The kiddos were arrested but let off with a caution. There are 2 issues in this saga.

Facebook is a all powerful entity. Even though other social networking websites like Myspace and Twitter (does Friendster and hi5 even still exist?) has influences on different countries, but Facebook is one that has integrated into most communities. Everyone knows that by now. I mean, who doesn't have a proper Facebook account nowadays. (Okay maybe except you, stop looking at your crouch, I'm talking to you. Shame on you.) That said, most people still do not understand the meaning of being part of a extremely influential and far reaching online social networking service. It simply means that there's too many ways of affecting a person, whether you want it or not, and whether you do it upon yourself or others do it upon you. Say, a person wants to reveal that you were double dating (naughty naughty, but its your personal life, i mean it used to be your personal life), all that person has to do is snap a photo and post it on Facebook. Heck, he can just type some comments, that ought to do some damage. Nothing's personal anymore. The photos you posted of you drunk when you went to club yesterday will be seen by many, even those whom you didn't

Brain Storm: Hamonious Singapore And Numbskulls

You must have seen it or heard about it by now. It was all over facebook, it was on youtube, there were thousands of views within a short time. Today's news brought light to the troubling video created by Senior Pastor Rony Tan of Lighthouse Evangelism, a self proclaimed mega church which is independent. In the video, he sort of interviewed a supposedly ex-monk and ex-nun about Buddhism and ridiculed both Buddhism and Taoism. That's in the gist. The papers said there were 3 short clips but I didn't watch any cause it sounded boring and damaging to Singapore's religious harmony.

Now, I think we've been through this a lot. Wasn't there an immature guy a couple of years ago who spouted rubbish which promoted religious disharmony and got busted? Yet here we are, facing a man of great status in his religion, one who is experienced both as a pastor, as well as a Singaporean. Truth be told, I don't think he should be just let off with just a warning. It is a grievous crime. Any Tom, Dick or Harry in Singapore, would know that the foundation of Singapore's peace lies in our racial and religious harmony. Without it, how can our economy or political scene be stable? As Ministry of Home Affairs, Internal Security Department mentioned, it only takes a little effort from few persons to disrupt the religious harmony that we took so much pain to build up. Then again, I suppose in this sensitive topic of religion, more people would be in favor of letting it go in the name of their whatever kind religion (hey don't blame me, I'm a free thinker, I just want to see the deserved being punished). The Taoist said they prefer to maintain harmony with others rather than to pick a fight while the Buddhist said they are taught to forgive. Oh well, whatever I guess, I just hope that his apologies were sincere and he doesn't go around preaching something else behind our backs. You can say all you want about how great your religion, just don't bring other religions into the picture.

While Singapore is multi racial and religion and we should all be sensitive and all, one interesting part of our culture (at least for the youths) is that we poke fun at each others' race and religion. (Russell Peters anyone?) If it is done in good fun, such jokes are fine if not overboard. I'm sure most Singaporeans will agree with this. However, it doesn't appear that Pastor Tan was "insulting and joking about Taoism and Buddhism for the sake of love and funnies". It is no fine line. As one of great stature, it was unwise of him to make such remarks. (and videoing it up, what the heck was he thinking!?) Just imagine Obama going up to the press and saying that Singaporeans are a bunch of kiasu and kiasi people. True that may be, but it will still portray badly of Obama as well as straining the ties between the 2 countries. It's about context.

I have met many people who are totally devoted to their religion. Oh god goodness I've been through it so rough that I'm banned from the word "god" cause I'm supposed to be a freethinker, says that someone. I think its quite understandable if someone totally puts his or her faith into the religion. FYI, when you think that dick in the other religion is a stupid fool and will go to hell, that dick also thinks that you're a penis in the other religion who is a idiotic lunatic and will never reach enlightenment. It's the same, alright? In our country, nobody's religion is wrong. But if you don't understand and appreciate how delicate and important our racial and religious harmony is, you are a complete insensitive lunatic, foolish dick who is stupid and idiotic. That's our Singapore's way of life.

Youtube: Taylor Interrupted

Oh man, the poor girl. I don't blame her for being speechless after that. It's her big night and someone has to come and ruin it.

Brain Storm: The Singaporean Language

If you had read the papers recently, you would have noticed the big hoo-hah about Ms Ris Low's ang moh. The chairman of the Speak Good English movement spoke up for her, saying that we don't have the right to insult/reprimand her, since most Singaporeans speak like that too.

"my bigini goes boomz" "leopard preens" "i'm studying still"

The chairman says that he hear such sentences in conversations on trains/buses etc, but frankly, I wonder which trains/buses he took. I don't really hear so much of these on the streets from Singaporeans. Sure, I guess sentences such as "i'm studying still" do pop up every so often, but I must say that most of us youngsters can speak rather fluent English. If you watched the video, you would realise that her speech is choppy, and her pronunciation is flawed. Even though she was speaking Singlish, she had to think for a while before finishing her sentences. It's like she had to process the flawed language in her head first. Isn't that really bad?

The comments for the video are many, and very few spoke up for her. It's true that most of the comments made are written in Singlish themselves (after all, how many of us would put in effort to write in perfect English on forums). However I do think that their points are valid. For the few who spoke up for her, their argument are mainly similar - they all refer back to the words of the chairman. Now, if there is only one reason why I do not watch locally produced movies (mostly produced by the same person, you know who), it is because of how they all portray Singaporean's pride in our culture, one of which includes the usage of Singlish. I am totally disgusted (not just only in Singlish of course). To keep up with the world, it is only natural that we use the language in its correct form. Having our own identity is good and all, but feeling proud about how we changed someone else's language into some weird and awful sounding "thingy" is not. We can't not fault her just because she speaks like our typical Singaporean.

Fine, how about we assume that most Singaporeans do speak Singlish (and oh at least they speak confident and fluent Singlish, not that spluttering speech she gave, i can find aunties and uncles in television interviews who are more confident than her). I think we should start remembering why we started the Speak Good English Movement. Ms Low's position is one which presents her as a role model. Is it too demanding for us to want a role model who speaks good English, or at least good enough for than the masses to look up to? With such a response to support Ms Low in the mass media, Singaporean youths would think that it is okay to speak Singlish since "Ms Ris Low speaks like that and people on the papers say that we all speak like that anyway".

As Miss Singapore World, she will soon be participating in the contest in South Africa. She will be representing Singapore. With such poor command of the language and such confidence and attitude, it will not put Singapore in good light. Can't we have some expectations of someone we are sending to represent Singapore?