The UnSub

This is one major screw-up that we have to live with. Suppose if Mas Selamat is still Singapore, would he walk around with his attire or put up some sort of disguise?

No offense, but the likelyhood of disguising himself as a woman does not require a PhD to figure out. Getting a woman head-cover is a good start for him… and to assume he has no resources on this island is simply underestimating the adversary.

I understand the racial/religious sensitivity of this issue. However, naively putting up posters of his plain face is simply conditioning people to look at the wrong way.

I am not sure about overseas Mcdonalds but I sure find the Singapore outlets stupid. They started using this 2-queue system early this year with one queue meant for ordering and adjoining queue to collect. The inefficiency and ineffectiveness can only be measured by the number of people holding their cash or wallet in the wrong queue.

The next silly change is to have their chilli, servettes and what not dispensers placed at another corner. A consumer has to jostle with another crowd hording the dispensers that are either emptied or messed up. This is not fun especially when you are carrying a loaded tray of food. It is also a good time to consider birth control because kids are usually found playing at the wrong places!

My dream McDonald outlet would be one that has a queue with touch screen system to order my food and it dispenses after tapping my cashcard. Then again, that’s just a vision of an extremist consumer who doesn’t give a damn about fast-food personal service. It is a good thing since the present reality would keep me away from junk food.

Ok… I know I sound very cranky but this is a rant post!

Just today, our office received 5 attempted fraud calls in a row. These calls begin with a recorded voice system claiming to be the authority’s system. If the call receiver falls for the trick and presses a number in response, a “law enforcer” will start to intimidate the callee.

In my colleague’s case, the conman attempted to trick him to go to a particular place. We suspected there was something fishy about his story. This guy was persistent enough to called the second round and forced my colleague to challenge him for his credentials. The caller gave himself away by quoting a high-ranking civil servant’s name along with the address of Ministry of Home Affairs. Now why would the police commissioner call personally to get you to meet him?

This technique is quite powerful and efficient in filtering those who are likely to fall for it. The first step is to lead you to believe that it was the authority’s system that patch you to a legal enforcer. An average Joe or Jane would probably feel panicky at this point despite knowing that he/she didn’t break the law. When the caller exerts additional threats on the callee to meet or reveal particular details, there is a high chance that one would fall for it.

Please beware. DO NOT RESPOND BY FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE RECORDED MESSAGE! Not everyone is as cool and logical as my colleague who was able to challenge him in attempt to foil the fraud.

Recently I stumbled into an interesting local blog through Blogrush that was titled The Facade of Web2.0. Based on the title and content, I somehow get the vibe that says “Web2.0 is a hype and it is not useful”. I think to a certain extent, I agree with ED.

In fact, Blogrush is a good example of hype. Perhaps I am harsh to make that statement but my traffic logs shows and since the last round of login till now, the member dashboard is either down or still in “Temporary Reporting” mode to the time of writing this entry. In this specific context, there is not much benefit when it comes to bringing in new visitors. Of course, we can argue that my content sucks, placement of the widget is wrong and what not. But it really doesn’t matter, to the some disillusioned bloggers who believe blog is big money, it doesn’t work for them. I could go on for a few more pages with this…

It is alot easier to criticize than to be constructive…

There is a simple principle: “What you focus on will expand…”. Web penetration testers use this principle to “dig” holes. Start with one hole, you’ll find more holes. In their case, they propose corrective measures to mitigate the risks. They verify that the customers have indeed patched the holes up. But testers cannot be perpetually finding faults, there must be a point where we say “stop” and if need be, recommend: “your system needs a major over-haul”.

Web2.0 is not a standard, it has become a marketing term. However, there are some principles and practices behind it. The principles and practices are useful if applied correctly. Whether it is applicable to a given context, it depends. Imagine a tall building, different groups of people standing at different areas will look at the building differently because they are looking at different parts of the building. Once you get into the building, it doesn’t mean everyone can make it to the top, some will still remain at the ground floor staring at it.

I remember fondly during the days while playing DOTA with ex-colleagues, someone said “It’s not the Sentinel or Scourge character that determines the game result, it’s the player”. In this case, it is not the platform, but the people who create and use it.

Web2.0 to the end-user is about being in control, collective intelligence/stupidity (depends on how you see things), usability. To the geeks, the use of open-source (or even closed-source), distributed computing, technology stack. To the business people, the Long tail demand/supply, cost and sales, profit/loss. To the entrepreneur, he looks at different angles, tries to provide a solution that benefits people through this “platform” and profits from it.

If benefit is what we are looking at, then is the web platform beneficial for Singaporeans? What kind of benefits are we talking about? How many people find Web2.0 services useful? Benefits from consumer and/or business perspectives? A better question would be is there a Singaporean Web2.0 service????

It’s fair to say that my preference for Gmail doesn’t constitute to a proper statistical study, but still there are people who benefit from the free email service that is more robust than some paid ISP accounts. Again, there is no free lunch, Google indexes my stuff and profiles me. What works for me, may not work for others and vice versa.

After all these blabbling that seems to be heading nowhere, I wonder if it’s better to start looking from another angle and ask:

Singaporeans, how can we add value to our reality with Web2.0?

Or for that matter Web10.0. Then again, for those who don’t believe in it or wants to see result before putting in effort and/or $, why bother to ask?

MINDEF plans to develop “thinking army, learning soldier” for third generation force

This is very encouraging. The important question has always been “How to train realistically and prepare men under peaceful conditions”. With the progress of technology, warfare may evolve to a point of mental and fingers agility, much like playing an arcade game… except such games are often costly, with lives at stake.