Of empathy and bus drivers

In the debate about emotionless Singaporeans, it is useful to have some evidence rather than conjecture. 

I give you the Business Times and reporting on a “strike” by some bus drivers.   

SMRT bus drivers return to work today.  The 102 Chinese nationals, who did not turn up for work yesterday, were unhappy with their pay

The reporter manages to cover the story without actually talking to a bus driver, which is pretty amazing considering it was a work stoppage by bus drivers. 

We learn that the gentlemen in question were recruited from China on contract, they are not unionized, they are housed in a dormitory, and they are paid S$1,000 per month, which is less than other drivers doing the same job.  This disparity in pay increased after a recent round of pay adjustments, in which the contract drivers did not receive an increase.   

We also learn that the drivers refused to go to work at the beginning of their 4am shift, SMRT management called the riot police at 10am, and talks with the drivers didn't start until 12 hours after the work refusal started..

So those are the facts as reported. 

The total absence of empathy is telling.   

At a time when the government is cutting the number of foreign workers, we find that public transport, run by a government controlled company, is importing workers at low pay.  We learn that the national business newspaper, also government controlled, refers to the drivers as “PRC nationals”, and does not attempt to learn or understand their side of the issue. 

What must it be like to have left your home with the promise of a job in Singapore, and then to find that you are housed in a dormitory, expected to work side-by-side with people earning more than you, and not to get a pay increment in a country with a 5% inflation rate?

Do you feel intimidated when "45 police officers, 3 patrol cars, and 4 special operations command vehicles were deployed" at your dormitory?

We will never know, because these are not people, they are PRC nationals.

In Praise of the Synology DS1512+ NAS

I have been using a NAS (Networked Attached Storage) device for more than 10 years now.  Starting with a no-name Taiwanese enclosure that was really bad news, and moving on to the original ReadyNAS NV (power supply caught fire, replaced under warranty, then power supply fan died, could not get replacement to work), then the now Netgear-owned ReadyNAS NV+ (because I was desperate after the old one died, still running).

The ReadyNAS NV+ has reasonable software for managing the unit, but the promise of being able to run other applications like Logitech Media Server to support music streaming has barely been kept.  The performance is sluggish, and the release updates are slow.  The box houses up to 4 drives, and my configuration is using 1TB drives, with a usable space of 2.7TB.

Reading a comparison of NAS units recently, I came across a brand I had not really looked at before – Synology.  What really caught my eye though was their operating environment, DSM.  Almost all devices sold are running some form of LINUX, so the differentiator is down to how well it is implemented, and how good the user interface (UI) is.  DSM is Synology’s flavour, and they have done a really spectacular job with it.

The website had a list of applications that was quite extensive, but then went on to include quite a few 3^rd party applications as well.  The list of certifications was impressive, including VMWare, Citrix, and Hyper-V.  Instead of being just a box containing hard disks, this was looking like a complete server environment.

With the ReadyNAS NV+ approaching 5 years of life, I figured it was time to plan for what comes next.  My data sets have continued to grow, with music, videos, photos, image backups, and file backups all creating demand for space.  

With that in mind, I looked for units that could handle at least four 2TB drives.  The DS1512+ met that basic challenge, and had the additional benefit of dual fans, USB3.0 ports, expandable RAM, great read/write speeds, and most importantly for something that lives near me, was quiet.

Western Digital had just announced a new line of 3.5 inch hard disks called RED, specifically designed for use in multi-disk NAS setups.  The drives are quiet, run cool, and are designed for 24x7 operation.  I went with five 2TB  drives and easily installed them in the chassis.  

 

I powered up the NAS unit, and connected to it using the supplied setup wizard from a PC on the same LAN.  There are a few settings to make, and then the formatting kicked off.  I let this run over night, and in the morning, had a freshly installed 7.4TB volume ready to take data.

I let the unit burn in over the next couple of weeks in order to ensure that both the disks and the chassis had no problems.  I was amazed at the difference in noise level between the old ReadyNAS NV+ (noisy) and the DS1512+ (silent).

As promised, DSM is a joy to use, with clear informative icons, well thought-out menus, and simple to understand settings.   

Using Package Manager, I started installing a number of Synology apps to create a photo gallery, VPN server, Media Server, remote audio streamer, and remote video streamer.  Synology provides portable apps for IOS and Android to connect back to content on the NAS, and the installation and setup worked flawlessly.  I have both an iPad and an Android Google Nexus 7 connecting without problems, allowing me to manage the unit from anywhere in the world.  Security is catered for with the choice of both HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) connections, and extensive and granular user managment in DSM.

Feeling confident with how easily everything went, I decided to plunge on and see what the DS1512+ was like as an application server.   

I enabled the built-in MySQL and installed PHPMyAdmin to manage the data base, then used Package Manager to install Joomla, a popular open source CMS.  A few minutes later, and I had the sample Joomla web site up and running, accessible from any web browser.  I was somewhat surprised to see how fast pages loaded, and how little CPU and memory were consumed by the whole web site setup.   

This is not a theoretical hack, this is a fully functioning server platform.

You can probably tell I am pretty pleased with the DS1512+.  I have had a constant sense of being pleasantly surprised at the quality of the hardware and especially the software.  This is as good as or better than systems sold into the enterprise market, and at a fraction of the price.

Highly recommended.

Fifty Shades of Granny Porn

Unless you have managed to be completely off the grid for the past 6 months, you will have heard about the publishing phenomenon that is "Fifty Shades of Grey".  

I have no desire to debate the literary merits of the book series or the avalanche of copycat books that have resulted. À chacun son goût.

Wandering through a grocery store in Canada while on holiday this Fall, I came across this gem.  Talk about extending a brand....

When is a housing market not really a market?

Interesting article in the Straits Times the other day about the number of housing projects that are about to reach the maximum time period they can remain unsold.
   

There are government regulations which limit the time developers have to sell their projects.  After completion (TOP), developers have two years to sell their project or face considerable levies.  They are not allowed to retain units for rental which would be one holding strategy.  see Ministry of Law

In a chart accompanying the ST article, 8 projects were highlighted that have substantial numbers of unsold units two (2) years after completion.  Considering that most projects are pre-sold before construction starts, this is quite something. 

One has to blame low interest rates I suppose for the fact that developers have managed to escape the normal rules of commerce.  One would expect the normal mechanism of willing buyer/willing seller to apply.  If you make something that nobody wants, you keep reducing the price until a buyer emerges who is willing to pay.  As banks and individuals learned during the financial crisis, there is no such thing as the “right” price, just the price the market is willing to pay at the moment you are trying to sell.

Housing prices in central Singapore have been on a supposedly one way trip up, yet if you look at the 8 projects mentioned, they can’t sell units at the price offered.  In the case of Residences at Emerald Hill, they haven’t sold a single unit.  The Marq on Paterson Hill is always in the news for setting a new highest price per square foot, yet half (33) of the units remain unsold. 

So what constitutes fair value, and where is the market?

Instead of assessing levies on developers and providing extensions, the Government should acknowledge the distorting effects of low interest rates and force developers to sell their projects.  

As long-suffering Singapore residents will attest, some reality and clarity on housing prices would be welcome.  

Allowing a small club of developers to artificially raise prices while increasing costs for everyone else is no way to manage an economy.

Why do we stop for red lights?

I just managed, for the umpteenth time, to avoid being hit by a car illegally running a red light. 

There is clearly a widespread breakdown in the shared social understanding that governs the use of public roads. To put it more directly, drivers no longer seem to think rules apply to them.   

The symptoms can be seen at every busy intersection – drivers running red lights, occupation of the yellow box, aggressive blocking of lane changes, illegal use of bus lanes, and lack of signalling.  This behaviour is not limited to private car owners, but is regularly occurring with taxis and buses as well.

This has some pretty profound implications for users of the roads and pedestrians trying to cross them. 

•  It is no longer safe to proceed through an intersection when the light turns green, as it is more than likely someone will be accelerating through the red light. 

• When the traffic volume increases, you will likely end up in a jam as drivers refuse to give way in intersections. (Have a look at Scott and Orchard Boulevard.  Good luck crossing on foot)
• The chance of having an accident is high. 
• At a time when the government is trying to encourage public transit, it is becoming increasingly unsafe to be a pedestrian.

Which got me thinking about what is going on in Singapore. 

There have been recent debates about whether Singapore is a clean city or a cleaned city.  It is pretty obvious that it is the latter.  The implication being that there is no shared social understanding of the individual’s responsibility to dispose of trash properly, even though there has been 50 years of campaigns to educate people about the need.

There have been on-going discussions about the boorish behaviour of people on trains and buses, refusing to give up seats to the elderly or infirm.

The state of public toilets speaks to the same behaviour.

What is clear from all these examples is that there is no sense of social awareness in Singapore – the idea that as an individual, you are part of something greater, which brings both rights and responsibilities. 

If your compatriots do not share the same set of basic social beliefs/understandings that you do, you have two choices.  You live in a dog eat dog, every man for himself chaos, or you apply heavy and visible policing to compel the correct behaviour.   

I would call this first condition the Swiss system, where transit runs on the honour system (we assume you bought a ticket). 

The second system of heavy policing operates very effectively in Hong Kong, a place which is populated with a wide range of immigrants and with few shared social values.  Policing is visible and effective.  I would call this the compulsion system.

Singapore seems to be structured with the assumption that everybody shares the same values, and with policing effectively invisible. 

This is obviously not working. 

So back to the question.  Why do we stop for red lights?

In a society with shared values and social awareness, we stop for red lights because we understand it is necessary for the safe operation of the roads and our, and others, safety. 

Since people in Singapore are no longer observing traffic laws, this must be a society without shared values or social awareness.  We only stop for red lights if we believe that we will get fined and lose our license if we don’t. We need to be compelled.

That requires heavy policing and the reality that you will got caught.   The current situation is falling apart because policing has become invisible.  

The government's thinking is still fixated on the ideal of the Swiss model, with traffic enforcement being demoted to auxiliary police, sending a clear message that adherence to the rules is not very important.  This needs to change now, before we have a complete breakdown of the social fabric.