culture

The biggest problem with mobile phones…

By on November 28th, 2011

Before mobile phones:

Phone call 11:00am
Chris: I’m in town running errands today. Want to meet for dinner tonight?
Alex: OK sure. Where? When?
Chris: Broadway cafe. 8pm. See you there.
Alex: OK see you.

Dinner takes place at the Broadway cafe at 8pm.

 

After mobile phones:

Phone call 11:00am
Chris: I’m in town running errands today. Want to meet for dinner tonight?
Alex: OK sure. Where? When?
Chris: Let me think about it. I’ll call you later.
Alex: OK see you.

Phone call 3:30pm
Chris: Hi again. How about Broadway Cafe?
Alex: OK sure. When?
Chris: I should be able to make it by 7:30pm. I’ll call you later to confirm.
Alex: OK.

SMS 5:30pm
Chris: I’m running a bit late. Let’s say 8pm.
Alex: OK see you there.

Phone call 5:35pm
Alex: Hey I was wondering… would you be interested to try the new Vietnamese place instead? Viet Stars?
Chris: OK. But I’m not sure where it is. Can you text me the address?
Alex: Sure.

SMS restaurant address

SMS 7:50pm
Alex: Sorry I’m stuck in traffic. I may be a bit late.
Chris: No worries. If I get there first I’ll get us a table.

SMS 8:05pm
Chris: The place looks dead. Bad sign. There is this happening French place just a few doors down. I’ll try get a seat there.
Alex: French? My ex is French. OK whatever. ;p Be there in 10.

Phone call 8:20pm
Alex: Hey where are you?
Chris: I’m seated at the back of Chez Claire.
Alex: OH! I’m standing out front. OK see you in a sec…

Dinner takes place at the Chez Claire at 8:25pm.

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eResources at the National Library

By on June 6th, 2011

The National Library has an amazing collection of digital reference databases from around the world, much of which can be accessed from home.

How

5 Little PigsGo to the NLB’s eResources Page and login or register with you IC or FIN (the services is for Singaporeans and residents only).

You can then access a massive collection of material using the list in the left sidebar. There is everything from archived newspapers and photo repositories to vintage books in digital form.

If there is any one problem with this collection, it is that it’s too massive: there are 170 databases listed. That is a LOT of stuff – as if the internet wasn’t distracting enough already.

Limitations
Some of the best databases can only be accessed at the central library or selected satellite libraries. This includes Bloomberg, Factiva & Economist Intelligence Unit.

 

Best of At Home

My favorites finds for home access were:

  • Factiva – access to broad range of news and business info
  • Library PressDisplay – access to more than 1000 newspapers globally
  • Naxos Music Library

    • Newspaper SG

  • NewspaperSG – this is billed as digital archives of Singapore and Malaya papers from 1831-2006 however I found articles as recent as 2009. These are colour scans of newspapers and not text. Some of results found were marked “Available at NLB libraries only”.
  • ePage magazine collections – includes a number of popular mags
  • OnAsia – Massive collection of images
  • Singapore 1000 – audited financials of Singapore’s top 1000 corpropates
  • Singapore National Album of Pictures
  • Mango Languages – offering basic to advances courses in a number of Asian languages as well as French, German and Spanish.
  • World eLibrary – Huge collection of eBooks

To access any of these services and more, login and select from the list here.

It’s worth noting that there is no home access of current local newspapers: to look at recent archives of the ST or other local papers, you need to physically get yourself to a library.

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An upside to being anal

By on March 25th, 2011

From the Longevity Project:

“The best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness—the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person …—somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree.”

The benefits of a conscientious personality are obvious: These people are less likely to smoke and drink, or drive dangerously. Throughout life, conscientious people are less impulsive, and less depressed. The researchers found that the prudent died less from all causes, not just those related to dangerous habits. It appears the conscientious have higher levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin (a brain chemical boosted by antidepressants), which is linked to, the authors write, “many health-relevant processes throughout the body, including how much you eat and how well you sleep.”

Among the most counterintuitive of the findings is that cheerfulness can kill. The authors write: “[C]heerful and optimistic children were less likely to live to an old age than their more staid and sober counterparts!” They found that cheerfulness was as big a risk factor for premature death as elevated blood pressure and high cholesterol. There seemed to be several reasons. The highly social went to more parties where they smoked and drank, craving the buzz. They died from accidents. But Friedman and Martin say their research showed something deeper. Despite the belief that optimists enjoy better health than pessimists, this research found a dark underside to optimism. When everything is going great, the optimist soars. But when facing life’s difficulties, the optimist can feel defeated by the magnitude of the struggle that’s required.

A long, satisfying marriage is good for both partners’ health and longevity. But the researchers found that it is not the institution of marriage itself that conveys some kind of life-extending elixir. The participants who made long, happy marriages tended to be the people who were more stable as children and young people. The participants who ended unhappy marriages were less happy even before they chose a spouse. (And in a research aside that just begs for more follow-up, female participants and wives of Terman men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm during intercourse tended to live the longest.)

[...]

For those who contemplate retirement as decades filled with leisure and relaxation, The Longevity Project serves as a warning. As Friedman says, “fun can be overrated” and stress can be unfairly maligned. Many study participants who lived vigorously into old age had highly stressful jobs. Physicist Norris Bradbury, who died at age 88, succeeded J. Robert Oppenheimer as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, overseeing the transition of the U.S. atomic weapons research lab from World War II into the Cold War.

Friedman and Martin say it’s the kind of stress that matters. The bright boys selected for the study who ended up having low-status jobs—streetcar conductor, baker, porter—and whose careers did not match their early promise were far more likely to die before age 60 than their higher status counterparts. Success, even in challenging jobs with demanding hours and responsibility, is a tonic. (Ever notice that orchestra conductors and dictators tend to go on forever?)

[...]

What Never Say Die and The Longevity Project agree on is the salutary effect of work. Jacoby writes, “Being forced to work longer, or to think about developing new skills to augment an inadequate retirement income, might turn out to be an invigorating kick in the pants for boomers rather than a life sentence at hard labor.” Friedman and Martin write that an analysis of the activities and accomplishments of study participants during the 1980s, when most were in their 70s, and following what happened over the next two decades was dramatic. “[T]he continually productive men and women lived much longer than their more laid-back comrades. … It was not the happiest or the most relaxed older participants who lived the longest. It was those who were most engaged in pursuing their goals.”

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A Happy Ending

By on August 18th, 2010

This may not mean hope for humanity but at least the prospect of occasional good news to distract us from our despair.

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