With an Iron Fist

There was this time when I was in secondary school taking a history test.

"Why did Qing Shi Huang rule China with an iron fist?"

I wrote down the first thing that came to my mind (after I realised I had no idea at all what the correct answer should be).

"Because his hand got cut off"

It seemed so brilliant and funny when I wrote it down. The reprisal by my history and form teacher for being so cheeky was not so fun tho. As a result of my rebellious, anti establishment streak, it was most definately not the last time i got into trouble, one way or another.

My distaste for authority is strong, but I have tended to be ambivalent about the manner which the Singapore government goes about its business. On one hand the government can be said to be borderline repressive on several issues, and it prefers to err on the side of heavy-handedness when making decisions. On the other hand, it is relatively competent and efficient, and can claim much of the credit for how well singapore has done since its inception.

However, several recent events have significantly worsened my impression of the government. During the elections, significant controversy arose when one opposition candidate claimed that he was being barred from running, when in fact it was later shown that he failed to submit the necessary paperwork. The integrity of the opposition candidate as well as his opposition party was seriously compromised as a result. Not satisfied by this, the ruling PAP party went to sue the opposition candidate for defamation, as well as taking steps such as preventing him from leaving the country and taking him into police custody for questioning.

More recently, Mr Brown, a prominent local blogger, commented about the high costs of living in response to announcements of raises in taxi fares. He was reprimanded by the government (well actually the press secretary to a minister) for providing feedback without giving solutions, as this was deemed to be a form of "partisan politics". He also lost his job as a columnist for Today as a result.

The old chinese saying goes, you have to kill one monkey to bring the other monkeys in line. Or something along those lines. Sometimes you have to make an example out of one person, to demonstrate how that one monkey is causing problems for the rest. But when you take it too far, even monkeys will start to wonder. Does the problem lie with the monkeys? Or does the problem lie with the monkey keeper instead?

A most entertaining ( as well as extremly NSFW ) post from the always entertaining Rockson Takumi Tan sums up the sentiment of the man-on-the-street well.

Moving on,

Touchscreen + Warcraft III = Teh Win I have always wanted something like this since I was 10 years old playing Dune 2 for the first time. Other spectacular examples of upcoming technology include this Sony Data Tiles concept and this multi input touch screen prototype. Truly impressive implementations of technology for a more intuitive user interface.

I know who I want, to take me home