On music

Pachabel rant comedy



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Music is a beautiful thing - it is marvellous that particular intervals of Hz should sound pleasant (God's creation!).

Personally i take quite fondly to a wide range of music: instrumentals to new age, and oldies to contemporary to pop - the most important thing is that the melody must be nice. But i can't stand heavy rock or metal...

The other thing is that i'm perfect pitch (though i get confused frequently) . I took Yamaha from young, their exams have a listening segment where they play something both hands and u play back the exact thing to them. Being perfect pitch sometimes sux badly... it is damn painful on the ears whenever someone sings off-tune, or some lousy song has too many dissonants, or the note a drum plays (very low but still discernable) is dissonant with the song...

I think AB exams sux... come on lah music is not only about getting all the technicals and theory and "learning about composers" right, and definitely not about playing 3 stupid songs and lousy scales for the whole year. But well, i'm going to complete liao, so no point stopping now... theory exam only a couple of weeks more... no time to mug (especially those italian terms). Sian.

An economist joke

This tongue-in-cheek adorned portrait of Kim Jong Il (everyone's beloved eccentric dictator) was the front cover of the latest issue of economist.

Take a closer look - beneath the obvious layer of irony ("L-O-V-E", "Make love, not war", "Peace", " Ban the bomb") there is another tier of humour.

Notice this symbol? This is the peace symbol, developed as a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarnament.

There is one peace symbol with a rainbow-coloured background. Now that's different. A rainbow flag, also known as the "gay pride flag", represents the homosexual community. Obviously, the economist is poking fun at Kim - and considering the economist's love for subtle humour, and deliberate choice of words and photos, i'm pretty certain this is deliberate.

OBS video

Here's the OBS video ( with the sound, which didn't play during the finale), reduced quality for streaming though. We'll be burning a good quality version plus some extras for everyone in a CD. Bye!

Climate map

An interesting animation on climate change, what needs to be done, and how emissions reduction can be achieved. Click here

Singapore transport conglomerates, their PR efforts, and commuter's welfare (or the lack of it)

Looks nice from the outside, but inside, the only things you'll see are your fellow sardines' hair and the train roof - and perhaps, on the newer trains, a non-functional LCD display (photo:wiki).

In an obvious attempt to brainwash its (pitiful) people (not that the hard threats of death or being left out when it comes to doling out rations don't work), North Korea's repressive dictatorship names Pyongyang Metro stations after themes of its socialist revolution (e.g. Victory, Unity), and blasts chants of slogans and nationalistic songs through their rail network's Propaganda Assistance (PA) system. Well, that's if and only their metro isn't temporarily shut down due to an electricity shortage (the making of fuel embargos) - but that aside.

Now let's look at Singapore's MRT system. The striking similarities are uncanny. I'm not only talking about those irritating "Going to Chinatown or Little India? take the SMRT link bus service..." [instead of the NEL] advertisements that SMRT blasts through its PA, but rather, the transport conglomerates' whole toolbox of blatent and sometimes cunning or underhand PR campaigns.


This affects you and me

Take, for one, the Public Transport Council. Really, people shouldn't squabble over fare increases of a few cents - or so they say. But it adds up to marvellous profits for the transport conglomerates. Maybe enough to buy peanuts - at the expense of the poor $600-a-month odd-job workers or toilet cleaners, who don't really have a transport alternative. The PTC, in my opinion, is a joke of a government-sponsored PR campaign that lends the fare increases some facade of legitimacy.

Next, look at SMRT's denial of rush-hour crushloading. Yes, it may be below the manufacturer's stated limits, but the limits are actually an approximation of the maximum permissible load, not the maximum no. of passengers (since anyway, people differ in volume around the globe). Anyone who takes the MRT during rush hour can testify how packed it is - I usually count about 7 passengers per square meter of standing room - that works out to be 230% of a defined normal load (by convention, a normal load is 3 passengers per square meter). It doesn't take a train to be as crowded as Japan's notorious subway to be called "crowded" - and just as the crime rate of other countries being high is no reason for ours to be similarly high, the fact that the subways of other countries is crowded (as SMRT loves to repeat) is no excuse for ours to exhibit the same problem.

Even worse is SMRT's most recent PR effort: "Cram Jam", in which SMRT attempts to set a world record for squeezing as many people as possible into 1 train carriage or 1 bus (and force volunteers who sign up to get squished to make a $15 donation towards some charity thing- and let's not talk about how forcing people to donate is against the principles of charity). Wouldn't these figures (of how many people can fit into a train or bus) just seem too convenient to justify (or imply) how trains or buses can fit so many more people and hence aren't crowded? They haven't done it (yet), and I hope they won't ... but i doubt they would be able to resist.


The way forward

The government should have some form of check and balance (with much more teeth than the PTC) promoting commuter's welfare, and protecting your poor noodle-stall or shopping-mall-toilet auntie from the profit motivated (and hence selfish) interest of these transport conglomerates.

Better still, since transport is such an essential public service and many people just don't have other alternatives, break the transport duopoly, and return this essential public service to the people. Make it a government-managed, not-for-profit public service / "charity" - minus the golden taps please, but i'll welcome free peanuts, of a very different kind, to munch on board.