Random Discourse – Why some of us don’t feel belonged?

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“This is your country. What do you want me to do to make you feel you belong? If the majority feel they don’t belong here, then we have a fundamental problem. Then I would ask myself: What am I doing here? Why should I be working for people who don’t feel they belong over here?” – SM Goh

This is SM Goh’s comments to student Lim Zi Rui at the Ministerial Forum organised by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Students’ Union.

Out of reflex, my answer to the above comments were – ‘Stop making us feel like we are serfs working for an aristocracy.’ A friend humorously said, ‘Just pay me peanuts (of the Durai kind).’.

I had to re-read Goh’s comments because I thought it was misquoted. After all, I would expect such callous remarks from the younger mini$ter$, who certainly didn’t have the acumen of the older generation in spite of all that… mentoring. (The dedication of the younger mini$ter$ have always been questionable because it is my considered opinion that these self proclaimed ‘elites’ only ‘served’ the nation with great reluctance after offered an exorbitant pay. That’s not mentioning their remarks is a testimony that they are not even fit to be a Member of Parliament, much less a leader of this country.)

Goh’s response is so very typical of the Tali-PAP – a party that always insist it is right back no matter what. Clearly our mini$ter$ do not really know how to handle unexpected situation and comments, in spite of their self professed elitism. I hope Goh (and his fellow mini$ter$) would reflect after the forum why the government’s gahmen’s ‘foreign talents’ policy had alienated some Singaporeans. Granted that the gahmen had the economic statistics to justify their policies, they must realise that statistics hardly matter to those who live in a reality different from what the statistics portray, or to those who perceived their situation differently.

Goh’s response also made me wonder whether that was really him since it clearly showed a failure to separate cheap foreign labour from the so-called ‘foreign talents’. This is obvious when Goh has asked Lim Zi Rui – who’s going to build your HDB flat? – to defend the gahmen’s policy of welcoming foreigners. Goh might as well have asked who’s going to be the prostitutes? It was the wrong question, if not the worst, to ask in defense of a policy that has gone awry.

The comment made me feel like an idiot because I (and I believe most Singaporeans) clearly know the difference between cheap foreign labour and those with skills we do not have. Singaporeans definitely understand the need for foreign labour. While we may complain that those at the food courts no longer cook local delicacies to our accustomed taste, about the cultural differences or even the dorms in the vicinity of our estates, we all know these foreigners are taking up jobs that few of us want to do – such as construction workers, cleaners, helpers in food courts, or even call center operators. Most of these transient workers don’t really bother us even though they put a strain on our public transport system. Even so, the problem with our public transport system is actually more of a problem as with the thrice damned profit driven public transport operators and we don’t reject those who come here to built our homes and clean our streets.

There is however a group of foreigners that really pisses us off. Those who compete with us for jobs we are qualified for. They take our jobs away because they are willing to accept a lower pay. The gahmen doesn’t seem to be bothered when we voiced our concerns. Instead, it chastised us for being lazy, complacent and demanding and lecture us on how we should live with the hard reality of globalisation. Yet at the very same time it expects us to work even longer years and accept our ever increasing cost of living. That’s not mentioning an experienced worker in his late 30s increasingly finds it difficult to get employed while inexperienced youngsters (not necessarily Singaporeans) are employed simply because they are paid less. (That’s not forgetting how they screw things up for us by saying how good our public transport is compared to where they come from. They might as well have said it is great we actually have MRT compared to Sudan which doesn’t even have one!)

While it maybe true statistically this country has created more jobs than Singaporeans can fill, what is there to assure us that companies are not abusing this policy to reduce cost and employ staff elsewhere? How many people have changed line (for e.g. driving a cab) or take up jobs that barely make ends meet so they disappear from the unemployment statistics to allow the Tali-PAP gahmen to paint its rosy picture?

The Tali-PAP gahmen can quit making it sound like Singapore can’t do without foreigners because it encourages some foreigners to act like we can’t do without them. In fact, some even dared to ask why they are not accorded the same privileges (if not entitlements) when they have not performed the same duties required of citizens. [1] [2]. While the Tali-PAP gahmen can do whatever it takes to make foreigners feel at home, there is clearly no need to be obsequious. It’s boot-licking attitude serves no other purpose other than embolden them to think we owe them or we can’t do without them.

Beyond that, the gahmen should stop sticking its head in the ground to some of the associated problems that comes with the influx of foreigners – such as housing, and even places in our universities. Regardless of whether these problems are perceived or real, the gahmen has done very little to address it. Take for example the COV (Cash over value) of HDB resale flats. At times, it is hard for people to accept the gahmen’s stand that COV has remained near zero for years statistically when residents regularly receive pamphlets in their letter box with COV offers ranging from $20,000 to even $50,000.

That takes me to the matter of the housing policy, which in my opinion it is nothing but system of modern serfdom or slavery. Certainly the influx of foreigners isn’t the only issue that plagues us. I won’t go into details on the housing policies, because the Reform Party did a better job in analyzing this whole issue about housing. (Really, Mah Bow Tan Mabok Tongue should go to an SMC like Hougang, and show us whether the Hougang’ers buy his bullshit about the housing policy. After all, it was the Mini$ter Mentor Lao Lee who said that if he can’t defend his policies, he should get voted out.)

If Goh really want to know how to make us feel belong, take a hard look at the damage done by the so-called ‘foreign talent’ and housing policies. They have made home feel nothing more than hotel where we need to put up a smiling face to welcome all these guests (foreigners) while we work our asses off. It is made worse by the Tali-PAP’s corporate style of running the nation. Living in Singapore no longer feel like being at home. Indeed, it feels like being at work perpetually! And the worst part of this job is, you can’t find alternate employment, you don’t even get paid and you own the boss rent for the place you stay in. Not to mention you are called upon to be its security forces from age 18 until at least 40, if you are not an officer.

Home? Feel belonged? Ya, right.

Random Discourse – $8 Heart Bypass Surgery

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Hell Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said he paid only $8 for his heart bypass surgery. This is all by his Medishield and a private Shield supplement, while Medisave took care of his co-payment. I know this is old news, and I am only now talking about this because I haven’t really been catching up with the news lately.

With the General Elections just around the corner, perhaps Khaw intends to showcase just how superbly Medishield (which came into effect in 1990) has done its job. However, when one take a closer look one will realise that Medishield will only look good as long as everyone has the money to pay the premiums for coverage, which in turn will demonstrate its flaws and inadequacy.

Let me explain.

First of all, Khaw is short on details how he managed to attain his ‘healthcare nirvana’. I certainly don’t understand how that worked out to $8. Lee Lilian from the Workers’ Party did a breakdown in her blog post and she couldn’t work out how the $8 is derived. Perhaps Mr Khaw should go into the details of his Shield supplement and enlighten us how he managed to achieve this. Everyone (or perhaps no one) knows the basic Medishield is really inadequate if one has a large bill or require medical attention outside a public hospital. From what I understand (I could be wrong), a basic Medishield plan will only cover up to $3000, and the less fortunate among us will definitely be unable to afford a heart bypass.

While I don’t know how much Khaw paid annually for his medical insurance coverage, I know for a fact we (and we alone) paid for our Medishield, and whatever private Shield supplement we can afford out of our own pockets. That’s right, we pay every single cent out of our own pockets even when that money comes out of Medisave. Comparatively, in Taiwan the employer pays 60% and the government gahmen pays 10%. That works out to about USD30 a person per month per person. An ex-legislator of Taiwan mentioned that under Taiwan’s medical insurance, he only has to pay roughly NT$20,000 (approx. S$1000) in a bypass surgery out of his own pocket while the rest are covered by medical insurance. Based on Lee Lilian’s breakdown, that is still far less than Khaw has to pay out of his Medisave.

Now, I am not bringing up the comparison to say Taiwan has a better system but rather to point out that we bear the burden of our medical insurance all alone. In fact, without a Shield supplement, the basic Medishield coverage will be grossly inadequate and the balance amount will be staggering. A single heart bypass will easily wipe out one’s Medisave, if not a substantial amount of his own personal savings. In other words, it is absolutely certain a Shield supplement is required for everyone. Thus, the affordability of the Shield supplement comes into question as what kind of Shield supplement to get will be dependent on one’s income.

Before I proceed further, let’s reminded there is a S$800 cap on Medisave which can be used to pay for medical insurance. This simply means one needs to start paying more in cash as they aged while their earning power and fitness to work continue to deteriorate. For e.g. my 72-year-old father needs to pay an annual premium of $2000 for his medical insurance, which would include a Shield Supplement which will take care of any medical bills above $3000.

As a result of the $800 cap, I will need to fork out around $1200 in cash annually to keep my dad covered. He was recently hospitalised and the bill came up to around $4000 (including 4 day stay at the NUH, two endoscopy and health supplements. After all the reimbursement from his medical policies, I still had to pay S$1000 out of my Medisave. That’s right, S$1000 which an ex-legislator in Taiwan has to pay for his heart bypass. Perhaps I should say I paid $0 since Medishield + Shield supplement + my Medisave ‘took care of everything’.

In short, Khaw has definitely painted a surreal image of Singapore’s healthcare system, and one that doesn’t reflect the reality of the burdens one must bear to achieve it. We need to set money aside to afford it, and it is just a portion of the numerous burdens we have to bear to ensure we don’t end up as ‘statistical foul ups with no one but themselves to blame’ in the Tali-PAP’s utopia. Some of these burdens just add up and is it a wonder why more of us are simply not getting married, or even when they are married they are not having babies at all?

Now, I am not asking for handouts, because I don’t need the gahmen to raise any taxes to foot the bill. But I would simply ask that I be allowed to use my Medisave to pay for 100% of the cost to for Medishield and its supplement, which in effect transfer some of the load to my employer since my employer contributes 20% of whatever that is put into the CPF. It would also leave us with more cash on hand which we can thus spend and indirectly drive domestic demand – no matter how significant – which will also increase revenue in the form of GST for the gahmen.

At the very minimum, the gahmen should raise the cap on how much of our Medisave (maybe up to 50% of our annual contribution) we can used on our medical insurance. It is after all our money and I am not asking to use it for hedonistic purposes but rather to fulfill my filial duties to my parents.

Review – Samsung Omnia 7 i8700 (Part II)

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Continued from previous post…

Camera

The Omnia 7 comes with a 5 mega-pixel camera which I haven’t really tested extensively – in specific the video feature. I would not go into details on the camera settings except to say I have taken some shots in the evening (both indoors and outdoors) with the flash off.

While the photos did not come out stunning, they are at least acceptable though I have yet to see how the photos taken in bright daylight would turn out. These photos have been uploaded to Windows Live and those interested can double click on the icon on the right to check them out. (I’m too lazy to figure out how to embed it as as slide show.)

This is where I discovered yet another thing I didn’t like about this phone – no SD card support. When the iCrap comes with at least 16GB, why there isn’t SD card support when this phone is just 8GB is baffling. Perhaps this was done to keep users with the Windows Phone platform, as it would be quite difficult to take the data elsewhere when users change their phone. (One of the reasons why I considered Apple’s business practices unethical.)

Music / Video Player

As it is basically a Zune Player, media is managed through the Zune program (which I downloaded from the Internet). I will not go into too much details on the Zune software but I suppose it works the same way iTunes work for the iCrap.

Once I got some music onto the device, I am a little surprised that the sound quality turned out as good as (if not better than) my Sony Ericsson W902 – a walkman phone. I won’t actually say it is better because the headphones are new. Anyway, the headphone jack works with standard headphones so there will be no concern with replacements or getting better ones.

As to video, I loaded some wmv files on my computer onto the player and I also installed Youtube App to view some videos. There is no doubt that the screen is superb even when it’s just a 4″. AMOLED rulez!

Wifi

Once turned on, the wifi will try to detect all the networks available. Connecting to wifi is relatively easy, as long as the wifi router broadcasts its SSID. In the case of my home network, I had to re-enable my router to broadcast its SSID before I can connect.

Unlike the Blackberry, there is no option to save a connection profile. That simply means if I had disable SSID broadcast on my wifi router, I need to re-enable it every time I use the Omnia 7 with it. This is a serious pain in the butt because even the ancient Blackberry 8320 ‘Curve’ I use automatically re-connects whenever it is in range even though SSID broadcast is off.

Browser

Now that I am done playing with the features that are mostly not web related, I’ll bypass the xBox and Office features and move on to the main avenue of accessing the Internet – the browser.

There wasn’t another browser app I can find in ‘Marketplace’, so I am stuck with the Internet Explorer that comes with the set. Those familiar with Opera Mini will find some similarities here. It is capable of tab browsing but multiple pages are organised into individual buttons for easy switching. There is no flash support and I guess everyone know that already. It does load up a webpage more or less like what I see on the PC so I have no complaints.

Loading speed actually depends on what kind of connection is used. It can sometimes get annoying slow or laggy when the 3G /GPRS signal is weak. When I connected to wifi either at work or at home, I have nothing much to complain about the speed. I even tried swiping it up and up repeatedly to see whether there are ‘artifacts’ and it scrolls pretty well even in the midst of loading a page. Since I have no iCrap or Android to make a comparison, I would just say the speed of the browser is acceptable. It sure beats the browser I had on the Blackberry ‘Storm’ even though they are built on different technologies.

Incidentally, while I was looking for a video comparing browser speed between Android, Blackberry OS6, iCrap and Windows Phone 7, I end up with this – which suggests that not all handsets running on Windows Phone 7 are equal, even when there is no significant specification differences between them.

Marketplace

Lastly, the App Store called Marketplace. There are quite a number of categories, but if anyone expecting a lot of apps will be disappointed. There is probably just about 1000 apps and even though I was told the Amazon Kindle App is available for this platform I wasn’t able to find it using the search feature. Its only bright spot maybe the availability of some Xbox titles, though that really makes no difference to me because I am not into gaming – much less on a small device like this.

Downloading and installing the free apps is quite straight forward. I had done both installation on 3G / GPRS and wifi without any difficulties. If there was I would be really upset. So far I have downloaded Adobe Acrobat Reader, Twitter, WLM and Facebook along with a the local Bus Guide App which I haven’t really tested whether the arrival times displayed are accurate.

Conclusion

There are no surprises with this phone, such as in griping the phone is a certain manner causing a drop in signal strength. In fact, where the reception is known to be bad at my cubicle, I picked up a call today and I was able to have a proper conversation with the caller for the entire duration without having to call him back on the land line. In fact, even battery life is as expected – in my case it drained out after about 8 hours of constant usage. If it is used only on a need to use basis then it can go without charging for almost one day before draining out.

Since I am not into apps, it meets most of my expectations (except the lack of Chinese input) in terms on connectivity and basic functions. Then again, I would probably also feel happy and comfortable even if I had purchased an Android based phone or a Blackberry ‘Torch’ instead.

However, going forward the number of apps must increase. Not because I need or want them, but for the phone to find a foothold in the market and attract existing users of the Blackberry, iCrap and Android. Otherwise it will simply joint the ranks of minor players like Nokia’s Symbian Phones, or even worse those running on WebOS from Palm (now acquired by HP).

Before I end, I reiterate that Microsoft must give priority in putting the Cut & Paste feature and Chinese Input capabilities into the phone. These are features that are available in most phones. Further to that, please allow us to do something about the font size of the headers. for e.g. I certainly don’t need the ‘edit’ option to be much bigger that the name of the contact. That’s not mentioning that when I started using the phone, the font size caused me to wonder why I had to ‘edit my email account’ just to edit a contact. It took me several seconds to figure out that it actually meant editing the information of the contact stored in that email account because the word ‘contact’ was off screen as result of the large fonts.

I apologise for not providing any screenshots, because I have yet to find a method which allows me take a screen shot directly off the phone like the Blackberry, or even the iCrap. However, for those who are interested, please refer to this link. These screenshot are taken from a release candidate version of the Windows Phone 7 ROM. Though not exactly the same as production, they are quite close to the actual ones.

Recommended Read:
ZDNet: Windows Phone 7 apps hands-on (photos)

Review – Samsung Omnia 7 i8700 (Part I)

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As my SingTel Mio contract is due, I decided to renew it for another 2 years since the service from Mio has been satisfactory. As part of the package, I am offered a mobile phone package. Though my Sony Ericsson W902 has served me well, I decided it is time to upgrade to one of those new touch screen smartphones since it has been almost 2 years anyway.

I have ruled out a Nokia device on Symbian, even though I didn’t have bad experiences with them except for a Communicator which went into the service center twice for a hardware failure (but that’s got nothing much to do with the ease of use or the interface). I am also an existing Blackberry user (provided by the office for work) but the 9800 ‘Torch’ is not yet available and I am not impressed with RIM’s 9300 and 9700 even though I must say they are the best Blackberry Smartphones since the 8820.

Everyone knows I dislike Apple, so the iPhone is definitely out. The main reason I disliked Apple is primarily because I find some of its business practices unethical. On top of which the fan boys are extremely annoying not to mention at times ignorant. Even if the product is really superior (and in the iPhone’s case it isn’t even true), leave me to discover whether something is great on my own and stop pushing it down my throat. Not to mention that I ain’t really interested in the apps available as I only install what I need.

So that leaves me with phones running on Android, where there is a variety for me to choose from. I have zilch experience with an Android phone and I gave up looking at the available models after awhile. Not because they aren’t good, but rather because I ain’t geeky enough to be really interested in being able to tweak the OS or install different flavors.

While I maybe wrong I also had this gut feeling that though on theory I can change between brands of phones running Android seamlessly, in reality that is hardly the case. Furthermore, the slight variations in flavors on different brands may turn Android into the Windows of mobile phones where it will become buggy and error prone because the writers of the OS just didn’t had those hardware in mind when they made the OS. Sort of like why phones running on Windows Mobile (WinMo) 6.5 and its predecessors became rejected by users.

It was then I noticed that SingTel is also offering a few devices running on Windows Phone 7 – basically a complete revamp of the much hated WinMo series. While generally it is folly to jump into version 1.0 of any device, I took the leap and bought the Samsung Omnia 7 i8700 just like the time when I got myself a Blackberry 9500 ‘Storm’ running on BBOS 4.7 (first as a loaner from a friend before I bought it). Using a device that isn’t exactly popular would free me to explore it at leisure without others laughing at my ignorance and showing off what great things they can do with the device. This is some of my findings after 5 days (I’ll not bother with the specs since that can be easily google’d.):

The Interface

SingTel delivered the handset to my office on Wednesday (27 Oct 2010) morning around 9:15am. It was shockingly early and I was actually expecting them to come around lunch. I quickly transferred the sim card over to test it out. First off, the interface is very different, since it doesn’t use an array of icons which has been a standard in many smartphones since the day of Palmtops. To describe the interface in my own words, it is like a 2-column electronic ‘Post-it’ Pad, where the user just pin whatever he likes / fancies – be it an app (which one can find more from the app-store called the ‘Marketplace’), or a contact, even a photo and music file. These will then appear as buttons (either square or rectangular) on the screen.

One can re-organise their positions by dragging. When too many things are pinned, then one would have to swipe up and down very often to get to what is needed. My advice is to keep it short and access everything else by swiping to the menu on the right.

Sending an sms or email is relatively easy using the on-screen keyboard, though I am quite unhappy that it can’t do a simple cut and paste. Why Microsoft is making the same mistake the iPhone iCrap 1.0 made is beyond me. It also doesn’t make sense not to have East Asian language input such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean. This is rather puzzling because I can receive an sms in these languages and it will display properly. (In fact, even Thai displays properly on this device). I hope an East Asian language input pack (or a version of the OS that caters to East Asian users) is in the works. Once it is available it should be released for the phone as soon as possible if this phone intends to find a niche for itself in Asia. Unfortunately from what I have gathered, it seems unlikely this is going to happen anytime soon.

Making a call it also easy. One can either select a contact from the list and call or enter a number for the on-screen number pad. When a call is received once has the choice to either answer or ignore it, and I would prefer the on-screen buttons to be colored (green – answer, red – ignore) so that it is easier to identify which one to press. While that is only cosmetic and it doesn’t really make a difference even if it is not done, it does remove the perception that the interface appears unfinished.

It does however, give me the feeling that it had used the iPhone as a reference device (or perhaps even took some ideas form that of Palm’s WebOS) in its design. An ex-colleague who has played with an iPhone before played around with the Internet Explorer on the phone and his comment was that everything else from tapping the screen and the pinch-and-zoom is ‘completely the same’ with the iPhone. (I will talk about the browser on a later post.)

Phone Security

This is easily enabled under the ‘lock and wallpaper’ under settings. From here the screen time-out (to conserve energy), wallpaper and a 4-digit pass-code to unlock the phone can be set. In my opinion, the security is almost non-existent because a brute force code cracker would probably just take a few mini-seconds (ms) to break it. On top of which, I certainly hope it doesn’t fall prey to the same vulnerability that plague the iPhone. If there is going to be an OS upgrade or patch coming soon, offer users a choice to select a pass-code with more complexity – such as a alpha-numeric password which the Blackberry offers.

Ringtones & Alerts

This is one of the things I didn’t like the most about this phone. I am limited in choices to the ringtones & alerts that comes with the phone and I cannot select an MP3 I have loaded into the device to serve this purpose. This is ridiculous because even on some of the simple phones I am able to choose a sound or alert of my choice. There seems to be a divide between the Zune player function and that of the phone function. In my opinion, priority should be put into fixing this right away.

Contacts Organisation

The primary function of the phone is to make phone calls so I have to start populating the contacts list. For some odd reasons I configured it to login to my Facebook account first, and it started to pull in the news feed (which updates only when I touch the ‘People’ button) and populate the contacts with my Facebook friends – complete with their profile photos. Note, this isn’t the same as the Facebook App (downloaded separately) which has more functionalities.

While this is nice, it is hardly impressive. That’s not mentioning that I hated the font size of the options (which I felt is too big and ugly and it makes a mockery of my eyesight) and after almost a week later I have not found the option to make the fonts smaller.

I soon added my Windows Live Mail (or Hotmail) account and it pulls in the new mails and contacts too. This isn’t a push mail device so I set it to download at 30 minute intervals. If I am expecting a mail, there is a refresh option which allows me to download on demand. But it became very messy because of the duplicate contacts. While the phone did automatically ‘link’ some obvious contacts with those on Facebook, I had to go through the rest of them to clean up the mess and this is where I encountered my first annoyance. As some of my friends has created multiple Windows Live Messenger (WLM) accounts previously (and I had not bothered to clean them out), I am always prompted with a message that informs me I can’t link two WLM contacts when I tried to link them.

My advice here is, organise contacts in the Hotmail account first before setting up the account in the phone. Otherwise a lot of time is wasted deleting unwanted or defunct contacts and linking them. The phone also automatically suggest linking with those with similar names and email addresses, this process is hardly seamless. However it is pretty neat once it is done – I can now sms, email, make a call or even send Facebook messages just from the ‘People’ button alone. In this aspect it sort of lives up to Microsoft’s ads that a user can spend less time on the phone while doing more.

At this point of time I have also set up my Gmail account on the phone, but I have taken care not to sync the contacts with the phone to avoid the need to clean up my contacts list again. On top of which I also have my Yahoo mail account set up and thankfully it doesn’t sync the contacts.


To be continued…

Photos – Telok Ayer Street

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Took these one Saturday afternoon after OT in the office. I think I have messed up the settings on the camera and I had a hard time getting clear photos no matter how hard I try to hold my camera steady. And no, it’s NOT the smoke from Indonesia that’s making them blurry.

These are the better ones of the whole lot.

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