Singapore Comedian "Muthu" dies

David Bala, more commonly known to the public as "Encik Muthu" passed away earlier today.

Muthu is one of my favourite character in 'Just Follow Law' with his very Indian actions and jokes like:

Supervisor: "Say somemore?"
Muthu: "Somemore.

Here's a clip of David Bala acting in Just Follow Law

(Video rights to its owner)

And of course his famous you die i die everybody die scene:

(Video rights to its owner)

Thank you for the joy and laughter that you brought us. RIP Encik Muthu!

HDB Case...I dont think it can be called insensitive anymore right?

In recent news....

HDB suggestion of debarking noisy dog angers dog groups and dog owners alike.

Here's the link to todayonline article.
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/hdb-suggestion-debark-noisy-dogs-angers-animal-rights-groups

And here is the original letter from HDB

(Image credits to its owner)

Firstly, I am not a dog owner nor I belong to any animal rights groups. However, the news really enraged me with such a suggestion from HDB. I don't think this can be called insensitive anymore. Its downright cruel. Like talking, barking is a natural process and I don't think the humans would like their vocal cords to be removed because they are too noisy.

Actually, not too long ago,  a group of Singaporean was sent back to Singapore in Batam because they were too noisy at the custom. How do you thing these group of Singaporean felt?

What's more, now, we are talking about removing the dog vocal cord permanent so the dog could not bark anymore. What right has the human show such cruelty to animals?

A true dilemma...[18+]

[Seen on FB, Laugh Now]

Two men are having a drink in a bar. One says: "You know, I've never really understood what a dilemma is..."

"Let me tell you a story," says the other man, "Imagine you wake up in a bed with two people
next to you. To your left is an incredibly beautiful woman willing to have sex with you, and to your
right is a very horny gay man."

"So where's the dilemma?" replies the first man.

"To whom do you turn your back?"

Double Deckers vs Bendy Bus

My wife asked me what's the fuss and difference about having double deckers and bendy buses, since they are both high capacity buses.

While answering her, I thought I do a post on the question as well

Compared to single deckers which can take about 90 passengers, high capacity buses are a welcomed sign in the more and more crowded Singapore. It is more efficient to run per passenger and with a 35% more capacity than a normal single deck bus, it means 5 single deck sent out, 4 high capacity buses can do the job, with one less driver, less pollution and such.

For comparison in this post, representing double deckers will be SBS Transit Volvo B9TL ("B9TL" or "DD") vs SMRT Man A24 ("A24") which will represent Bendy / Articulated buses.

Volvo B9TL on SBST Service 240 

Image source: http://publictransportsg.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/240_blog.jpg

Man A24 "Mandy" on SMRT Service 190

Image source: http://publictransportsg.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/388_190-2.jpg

Here are a few things that I will consider

1) Max Capacity
B9TL-124 (53 Upper Deck, 27 Lower Deck, 44 Standing)
A24-131 (54 Seating, 76 Standing)

Score: B9TL DD: 1, A24 Bendy: 1 (Since both are high capacity, I think both should get a point.)

2) Boarding / Alighting
Boarding
In the DD, there are  2 routes, you either choose to go up to the upper deck or walk straight to the lower deck, there is a divergence of people which means less congestion (hence faster speed when boarding).
In the A24, you can only walk straight.

Alighting
Unloading is the more interesting part here as the DD has 1 door to exit while the A24 has 2 exit doors. So while alighting the A24 will be much faster than the B9TL. We talk about divergence of people while boarding, however the same point is a drawback the DD has when the direction is reversed. People from the upper deck and lower deck have to wait for the same exit door to exit, hence alighting is slower.

Score: B9TL DD: 1, A24 Bendy: 2

3) Occupied Road Space 
B9TL - 12m
A24 - 18.75m
If you have been at a bus stop with more than 8 services calling at the bus stop, you will know buses when they doesnt come, all doesnt come, but when they come, all will come together. So when 5 buses call at the bus stop, the first 3 could open its door but the next 2 will have to wait till the first 3 had finished their boarding and alighting

The scenario is usually made worse when the first 2 buses are bendies, because 18.75m x 2 = 37.5m compared to 12m x 3 = 36m, so 2 bendies take the space of 3 DD or Single Decks, which is no good for an efficient Public Transport system.

Score: B9TL DD: 2, A24 Bendy: 2

4) Comfort
I am not one who love standing on the bus, especially for long trips, so if we compare seating capacity, its 80 seats in total for B9TL vs 54 seats total for A24. Putting it in the other perspectives, 32 more passengers will have to stand if an A24 came instead of a B9TL. So for long trips (or a long enough trip at least) the DD wins in this respect.

Score: B9TL DD: 3, A24 Bendy: 2

Review, in my opinion.
SMRT, with their Enviro500 Double Decks and existing articulated buses,will have more flexibility in deploying buses based on the load of the particular service. Cross town services such as 969, 857, 190, 972 as well as SBS transit 161, 168 should have more DD since the passengers take from one town to another with not many passengers alighting frequently. Feeder services and certain intra-town services such as 851, 854, 961 should go for more bendy buses in their fleet as passengers board and alight at various bus stops along these routes.

SBST, with most its routes going through towns and neighbourhood, should consider buying Bendies to compliment the DD and also to have more flexibility.

Water: America vs Africa

(Photo credits to its owner)

Found this very meaningful picture.

More like Rest of the world vs Africa. Well, whatever it is, although water is abundance and there is rain, snow in your area, do not take things for granted. It's okay if you don't make considerable effort to save water but at least make a conscious effort not to waste it. 

Richard Attenborough vs David Attenborough

[Not to be confused. Get your facts right.]

For people who have been watching wildlife documentaries, you should be quite familiar with the voice of Sir David Attenborough.

This is Sir David Attenborough, the wildlife presenter. He is still alive as on 25 Aug 2014.

This is Sir David Attenborough brother - Richard Attenborough, who is an actor and director. He died on Sunday 24 Aug 2014.

Source of both Attenborough pic: http://www.smh.com.au/

RIP Richard Attenborough.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge - Review

Bill Gates taking the ice bucket challenge

Photos: www.techtimes.com 

(All rights reserved to its owner)

Question: There are so many charities & causes out there, why did ALS Ice Bucket Challenge go viral so quickly on social media?

Here's what I think 

1) Associated groups 

Before he got ALS, Pete Frates is an baseball athlete in Boston University. See within these sentence, there are the baseball group - people who play baseball. athletes group - people who are athletes and Boston university group - people who are studying / teaching / working in Boston University. Spreading out further, association can also be made when Pete is an fellow Bostonian (not sure if that is how they call people from Boston), Pete is an American, Pete is a fellow human...okay, maybe that's a bit far. 

When people are able to associate, they are more likely to help (in this case, spread the ice bucket challenge). E.g. if you are studying in Boston University and even if you don't know Pete, you know he is from the university, there is a high chance that you will help spread the challenge in the name of a fellow 'college-mate'. 

What's more, when people from non-related groups did the challenge, e.g. celebrity, then celebrity group becomes an associated group and so on.  That's probably one of the main reason why it became viral worldwide. 

2) Fun factor

The ice bucket challenge looks fun and when fun and good cause come together, people are more willing to do it and more willing to share. 

A challenge will be anytime more interesting and intoxicating then a 'please donate' plead, so interest is generated and word is spread. "Hey, have you done the ice bucket challenge" will probably be the most discussed topic in universities, social groups, etc 

3) Nomination

The nomination of 3 people to do the ice bucket challenge plays 2 important roles. The first -  the MLM concept: 

1>3>9> 27>81>243>729>2187>6,561>19,683>59,049>177,147>531,441

In 12 times of spreading, 1 person can reach out to more than half a million of people. Of course you may argue that no everybody will accept the challenge, which I agree but even if 1 in 5 takes up the challenge. we have 1 person reaching out to over 100,000 people doing the challenge.

The 2nd role is the specificity. Its points directly at you when you are nominated by your friend, shouts at you to do it, and inevitably, you have some form of peer pressure of doing it, or at least the pressure will make you seriously consider whether should you do it or not.

4) The $$$ factor (or the lack of it)

The challenge is to pour an ice bucket over you, it doesn't compel you to donate or take the challenge if you don't wish to. And categorising people into these 4 categories:

a) People who will take the challenge and donate

b) People who will take the challenge but not donate

c) People who will not take the challenge but will donate

d) People who will not take the challenge nor donate  

Putting on a chart, it will be something like this:

Except category (d), the rest will have achieved the ALS cause's objectives of either raising funds or raising awareness. With a 'heart', most people will choose (a), (b) or (c), in which the old chinese saying: 有钱出钱， 有力出力 （People with the money donate the money, people without money can help with using energy). 

If a cause or charity ask for money upfront, excuses automatically come out cognitively like"Oh, but I am a bit tight this month", "is this for real, or should I check first before I donate" Trust me, you will never check and never donate afterwards. 

I observed that people are more willing to help out with doing things rather than coming out money, so getting people to do the challenge and raising awareness is much easier than raising money upfront from people. Of course, then there is the other group who will not want to go through coldness and 'pain' but still genuinely want to help, so these are the people who will donate money. 

Conclusion

For the past week or 2, I have been seeing videos of the ice bucket challenge from people I know and people I don't. For a good cause like this, videos going viral on social medias are definitely good and it should be supported.

S$3 million Taxi?

Read:
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/3-million-bugatti-cannot-193304385.html

A few days ago Yahoo ran this feature on a very rich Singaporean bought a cool S$3 million Bugatti Veyron Gran Sport Vitesse Special edition and the car  CANNOT be driven on Singapore roads.

What's more ridiculous is that as the edition is painted black with a yellow roof, it does look like a yellow-top taxi.

I placed a picture of a yellow top taxi beside special edition Veyron for you to compare and decide.

(Image belongs to their respective owners)

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Recently, everybody, like really everybody is doing the ALS Ice bucket challenge.
The challenge is to mix a bucket of ice and water and pour it over yourself, like this:

or like this as a group

So what exactly is ALS and how did it come about and what's the cause it's supporting?

ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis which in very simple terms, is a type of brain degenerative disease. Its characteristics include muscle pull / tightness, muscle mass decrease, difficulty of speech, swallowing and breathing.

Here's an ESPN feature of Pete's story and ALS ice bucket challenge which I strongly encourage you to watch if you are interested, but if you do not have the time or are simply too lazy or just not interested in the details, scroll down somemore.

ESPN Feature on Pete's story & ALS on Youtube 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCoKB_tU9ng

It started this this man, Pete Frates

Pete Frates was diagnosed with ALS and wanted to fight this disease collective and wanted more action to be done. His friends introduced him to the ice bucket challenge, which main objective is to raise awareness and funds for a specific charity. Pete went on social media and ask his friends to do it for his cause - ALS. Then things got viral and his friends, athletes, celebrities and everyone just did it. In Aug 2014, Pete did the challenge he asked so many people to do himself.

My respect to you, Pete Frates and I hope you win the fight against ALS.

(All screengrabs above are from the video and all rights belongs to ESPN and their respective owner)

FINALLY: SMRT Double Deckers

i posted something about SMRT not having double decker buses sometime in 2012.
Here's the link
http://des-talk.blogspot.sg/2012/09/smrt-why-no-double-decker.html

And in 2014, on 13th July 2014 to be exact, SMRT deployed 3 revenue service double deckers ADL Enivro 500 on service 972.

Source: (buses[IN]gapore) Facebook

Service 972 on Enviro500

Why 972? Presumably, and this is in my opinion, 972 is a route created to ease off the crazily crowded 190 route from Bt Panjang in the morning and to Bt Panjang in the evening. LTA would want more people to take this bus, hence putting a more higher capacity, comfortable bus, people would be 'attracted' to take the service, sort of.

I commute to Bt Panjang in the evening at times and I have taken the double decker on 972 a couple of times. On the upper deck, due to the fact that you don't have people standing around you (less dense) make the journey (less tense) more light hearted. Also, as with the thing about double deckers, as you are higher, you enjoy more scenery.

SMRT announce that on 18 Aug 2014, 5 more services will get double deckers buses: 106, 190, 850E, 966 and 969.

I am not too sure about 966 and 106 as I seldom take them but its really good to have double deckers on 190 (as it plys non stop after Stevens Road to PIE and onto BKE).
For 850E, it plys non-stop for almost the entire CTE plus a bit of SLE before exiting Yishun.
For 969, which I have been ranting about in my previous post, it plys non stop after Tampines Interchange onto TPE till it exits SLE and enter Yishun.

I don't think 969 will get a lot of these 200+1 double deckers but ideally and I am hoping, every alternate bus is a Enviro 500.

Source: (buses[IN]gapore) Facebook

Service 969 on Enviro500

Oh Oh...

(Photo credits to its owner)

As a child, I always imagine that this will happen. This lady proved me right. 

Sorry to gloat over misfortune, but its really funny!!