Creative Photography with Canon

Saw a pretty, amazing, shot opportunity passing my Singapore's favourite shop, LV.

Also visit: http://www.digitaldreams.com.sg/ Live your Digital Dream with Canon.

River View of The Art House.

Lamp posts too!

Why are they so many bicycles at the Singapore River?
Time to clear them...no, wait, leave them. I think they make good
objects for me...

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

PITTSBURGH - Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose "last lecture" about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.
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It saddens me. I have seen this video of the last lecture about two years back. That was the start of a reading of another few books written by terminally ill patients or for them. As I thought about Randy Pausch, I drifted to Steve Jobs. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about 2004 and recovered after operation. But in his recent appearance he appeared too thin and weak. I hope he is well. And for me, the last lecture by him that I have followed was the Standford university graduation class of 2005. I love that and I would like to share it with all.

Transcript of Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve JobsSlashDot ^ 6/14/2005 Steve Jobs
Posted on Wednesday, 15 June, 2005 7:18:09 AM by Swordmaker
Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.
Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.
In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.
My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
Thank you all, very much.

The Tan Chin Tuan Mansion 2008

Absolutely stunning of all new condos in Singapore. For more information on the inside story, history and details, click here.

Passing by the conservation area. This is a beauty.

Purple Sage - Bringing the Singapore Food Experience altogether

Visited my friend, Tony, who runs Singapore's unique catering experience to the world, Purple Sage.

Located in Sultan Gate, along Beach Road, in a totally purpled three concurrent shop lots discreetly facing the main road, the place is quintessentionally sage. The lower three floors is his production place. The upper corporate office in itself is art.

Now, I say, since the "Sage" started serving, his catering has helped brought a total Singapore experience to events large and small. Changi T3 opening is the latest episode of the odyssey of our Singaporean pride, and Purple Sage will be there.

With every palate in Singapore served with international fare spread over the island, having one company that can bring all together into one event is pretty amazing.

Well, China, here he comes!

Have you tried Cova, the oldest coffee place in Italy and now in Singapore?

The pictures aint great but I think the coffee's the best here, thus far. The price is reasonable given the experience and smoothness. The place has the best service for a cuppa. The ambience is outright 5 starred.

One recommendation is their tarts which comes at only 2.10 each. For 10bucks you could be on heaven right away.

Make sure you order the double espresso, get some hot milk and drink each seperately. You will understand the quality of the place afterward. Their signature drink is espresso, and then the milk.

By the way, weekdays evenings are the choicest time. Call me if you do see me there.

Bon kaffe.

Robert Solomon

Obviously the best in Singapore now. The one DIY I recommend.

Passing by Yio Chu Kang - right after work

The Three Flying Bicycles at the River.

When you see the old making way for the new, look out. There is often the interesting montage of both. Singapore River has been and always will be like these three flying bicycles. Flowing and living somewhere for someone to admire. Taken with my trusty Nokia. Hope you like it.

Where the videos are

What Leadership is about now?

The Star Online

Wednesday June 11, 2008

Time to spread wings

THE raising of petrol price looks set to be a contentious social and politicised issue in Malaysia. Let me offer a Malaysian perspective from across the causeway.

Living in Singapore, where the petrol price is over S$2 a litre (about RM5), I believe the Malaysian Government has finally done what it should have done long ago. Channelling RM50bil savings into better national development will do the country much good.

Anyone who professes a policy of subsidy on primary commodities would face the wrath of the people sooner or later as economic health deteriorates. It is like slowly boiling a frog to death.

However, the price hike came almost suddenly with little groundwork in preparing the people for its benefits. Coming from an election setback, the timing suggests the Government intended to do this after a win. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has done the right thing with rectitude despite a weakened mandate.

Indeed, he has shown to be a leader of great sincerity and understanding. My only wish is that he had acted on many policies earlier and faster.

Malaysians ought not be carried away by calls by “opportunists” who profess a return to subsidised commodity using Petronas earnings. I believe these distractions are again a reflection of unhappiness with the lack of transparency, cronyism or whatever perceived shortcomings of pre-election policies.

The point is if you continually do the right thing, be on your toes and increase overall economic pie, unpopular policies will be easier implemented.
Whilst Singapore residents face the same challenge of inflation (even higher than Malaysia at over 6%, the highest in 25 years), the people adjust.

There is no lack of lobby against last year’s increase in Goods and Services Tax, Electronic Road Pricing and lowering of petrol consumption tax. The people, however, know that a subsidised economy will die faster and don't seem to clamour for easy solutions as much.

The situation is not perfect but the connection between government and people is working viably. Perhaps being a vulnerable and small country gels people together much more. Our focus is not on how to milk the cow but how to have more cows.

The one wish I have is for Malaysia to increase its international competitiveness. It is imperative to have an administration which focuses on winning over the people not with popular policies but a grand plan and action to enhance Malaysia’s competitiveness.

Malaysia needs a stable government with strong rule of law, transparent business-government framework and a continuation of good multiracial social compact. It needs to increase its economic wings beyond traditional industries and domestic engines of growth. The focus should not be our backyard but the world.

Any more time spent on internal squabbling, on milking the proverbial low hanging barrels of Petronas is going to be sheer waste.

ED CHEONG,
Singapore.

Common sense approach to fund raising

Home > ST Forum > Online Story
June 9, 2008

Fund-raising concert should have targeted wider audience
I WATCHED the broadcast of both MediaCorp's Sichuan fund-raising concert (Channel 8) on May 25 and the Hong Kong artists' fund-raising event shown on TVB last Monday.
For such a big national effort here, why did we involve only Chinese performers - and target only Chinese Singaporean viewers. We should have brought together artists, leaders and viewers from all races to achieve a common goal?
We should not wait till the Aug 9 National Day celebrations every year to demonstrate that we are one united family.
We could also have injected more spontaneity into the event.
The Hong Kong concert was fittingly executed with no studio rigidness. The organisers there brought together the largest possible number of artists they could.
It was also broadcasted throughout the Asian region, inspiring millions across many countries. Even artists who could not sing well were asked to sing, thus demonstrating that anyone could help.
Most acts were in groups to underline the combined effort and community spirit.
They used personal testimonies of artists who had travelled to the epicentre whereas we continued with the rather crude practice of interviewing the victims' kin, who had already suffered enough.
Ed Cheong

Chua Ek Kay: In his memory.

He passed away suddenly. I didnt know that when I had this picture taken just before it happened.. He was frail but he didnt mention a word of his situation.

It's time to call a Spade a Spade and a Coward a Coward

No I am not talking about newspaper reportage or prime news. I am refering to the various "message brought to you by ABC Company" or "show sponsored by XYZ Hair Replenishment Company".

I have it enough listening today on radio a "message" of a lady thanking company ABC for their super electric massage chair that healed her of a life affliction, back pain. When you think what a scientific discovery, you realised that "the message" brought to you by ABC company" is a bloody advertisement. Coward company advertising through a coward radio channel.

The same goes for TV shows. Men gaining hair after being rubbed with some China-made products. All you see are equally desperate actresses and actors (they act is the excuse) talking as if on a documentary on the lowly acts.

It is time to put a stop to this. Media companies have to use the term "advertisement" or "advertorial". On air or radio, "the following segment is an advertisement" must be mandated.

We should boycott the advertisers and cowardly channels that continue to resort to lowly acts of revenue prostitution.

Dont Send Duck to Eagle School

I think finally there is an answer to the perennial question why there is no good service enough (another Jack Neo's Movie I suggest) here.

In a smallwordly world of Singapore, not many well fitted service people want to serve. I dont know why that is the case except that many feel they are not being paid well.

I think generally the state of service has to do with the "people culture". You cant train anyone with no interest in being nice to strangers. How many a times have we met with people who stand there waiting for you to pass the door. So they wont have to open it. Not that they are bad. I think these people are just not able to engage others. They are so introspective that they forgot they should do unto others what they want others to do for them. Who wouldnt like to open for others if they like others to open for them? Most people are made for good. I think it is about time we be more engaging and even confronting.

Here is a link to a wonderful movie (before Jack makes the real one). Click here to watch a very good presentation : http://www.eagleschoolmovie.com/

The lesson is: Dont hire disengaging people to be in a service job. You cannot train attitude. You can only hire attitude.

That said, this spells doom for us. If so many doesnt behave well towards others, like smiling or opening doors, no wonder there are so few Singaporean service staff.

Goodbye Culture.

Isnt She Lovely? (Hi-Def Pictures - Just click)

There is a place in the middle of Singapore few spent more than the few minutes they can stand in the heat. I beat that.
Hot life can so cool.
I snapped these with my precious little camera.
Dont you agree, Fort Canning Park is magical?

The Dr Kalam Wisdom: Now See.

I got this from a very informed gentleman friend who sends all important emails to his close circle. I was reading this email one day and suddenly found the quote at the end too wonderful not to share. It has seemed so easy to conclude but it must have so difficult to summarise to this simplicity. Please enjoy it. It is my motivation for a long time to come.


“ The conference ended on a high note with the most respected and inspirational speaker -- the former President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. Dr. Kalam spoke about a unique vision for India as a developed nation by the year 2020. He spoke about the inception of this concept by a confident government in the early 90’s when none of the current growth would have seemed plausible. He painted a picture of India as it is today with its failures and his dreams for progress to reach a national prosperity status by 2020. He spoke about an Integrated Action for Developed India in five areas he identified as: (1) Agriculture and food processing (2) Education and Healthcare (3) Information and Communication Technology (4) Reliable and Quality Electric power, Surface transport and Infrastructure for all parts of the country and (5) Self reliance in critical technologies. He outlined and explained the major mission of development of infrastructure for bringing rural prosperity are through Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) through creation of three connectivity’s namely physical, electronic, knowledge leading to economic connectivity. Dr. Kalam then brought forward the importance and qualities of leaders that set them aside such as nobility, transparency and integrity. Dr. Kalam posed a difficult challenge for all the young leaders present posing the goal of global peace on a path of righteousness with a motivational quote :

"Where there is righteousness in the heartThere is beauty in the character.When there is beauty in the character,There is harmony in the home.When there is harmony in the home.There is an order in the nation.When there is order in the nation,There is peace in the world."

Wait...there is more..the following excerpt really touches me. What should a leader do when things go wrong? Now see.

Watch 22-minute one-on-one interview, especially at the 9th - 13TH minute juncture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laGZaS4sdeU

Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?

Kalam : Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India 's 'Rohini' satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch.
At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked.

One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal . It was a big failure.

That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [ in Andhra Pradesh in southern India ]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.

The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, 'You conduct the press conference today.'

I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he
gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

More Ways to Donate to The Myanmar People and Chinese Quake Victims.

A fren sent this over just now. Not likely to end up on the wrong hands. Red Cross is an excellent way to go for Myanmar. They will hold back the money if they see things arent well distributed or used. I personally see the donations to Myanmar isnt likely to pick up due to the Junta's track record. Another story altogether in Sichuan. PRC Embassy is a good channel. So far the Chinese government has been exemplary in response. I salute them for their benevolence.

1 Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Singapore
A special acct. to receive contributions in cash or by telegraphic transfers and Giro has been opened.
Details:
Beneficiary's name: Sichuan Earthquake Relief Fund-Chinese Embassy
Beneficiary's bank: Bank of China Singapore Branch
Acct. no: 011-0-024188-6
Donations in cash and cheques can be also be handed directly to the embassy on Tanglin Road. All cheques should be crossed and made payable to: Sichuan Earthquake Relief Fund-Chinese Embassy. The Embassy requests that donors leave their name and contact details when making contributions.

2. Singapore Red Cross
Donors can contribute in cash or by cheque at the Singapore Red Cross' headquarters in 15 Penang Lane.
Collection hours are from 9.30am to 5.45pm (Mon – Fri) and 9.30am to 5pm (Sat – Sun)
Cheques should be made payable to "Singapore Red Cross Society"
Donors should indicate on the back of the cheque their name or organization, mailing address and contact numbers and "Red Cross China Earthquake"
Donors can also contribute through United Overseas Bank's Internet banking and cheque-drops at the bank's cheque-deposit boxes.
Cheques should be made payable to "Red Cross – China Relief Fund"

More Pictures You Wished You Didnt See about the Cyclone

Why you should feel for the Burmese Cyclone Victims

I received some horrific pictures of the sufferings of the victims of the Cyclone in Burma, of which the suffering is multiplied by the callousness of the reponse after the fact.

Please look and try to do something about it. If you like I would post more details following these.

Thank you for your support for the survivors. Make sure the donations go towards the ASEAN OR UN funds to ensure proper channelling.

The Horrors of Myanmmar