singapore top students not world beaters

this came from a letter by a dr huang shoou chyuan in today's straits times. the general argument is quite similar to what leong szehian wrote the other day. dr haung touched on a few key points. 1. very few top singapore students become 'truly top ranked scientists, entrepreneurs, inventors, business executives or academics.' 2. these top students would choose easy courses to score 3.8. and 3, it would be beneficial and they would better benefit from their overseas education if they try some other unrelated subjects. i personally have known of many singapore students who are top ranked in their fields. and some of them are not even the top of their cohorts in singapore. for the top of their cohorts are now prime ministers, ministers, permanent secretaries and ceos. they could not become inventors or scientists or others as their career paths are towards government and public services. if only they were channelled to the other fields, these creme ala creme will definitely do much better. lee hsien loong could become a john nash. why not? and many will emerge as top ranked scientists and inventors from A star and dso and other r and d facilities. dr huang must take note that r and d is fairly new in singapore and would take a while to bear fruits. and i think it is an underestimation to think our top students would opt for easier courses just to score 3.8. they might take a few easier subjects. but their core subjects will not be forsaken. doing unrelated courses is always a good diversion and helps to widen one's perspective. and no one can disagree that it will benefit the student in having a more versatile and interesting student life. but it would not necessarily make them better scientists or whatever. no one who wants to push the frontier of science and technology can afford not to specialise and spend gruelling hours in their field of study. taking time off in unrelated subjects is only useful to a little extent. without them will not hurt. but unable to excel in their fields of study, to score As, will weaken their foundation in what they are doing. some of the frills and thrills of life can be acquired along the way as one moves along in life. the basic and foundation courses must be very strong to advance further to test and discover new knowledge when new knowledge are becoming more technical and scientific. spending a year reading the animal farm or about mozart and picasso would be nice but not really that critical.

mahathir should have come to singapore

mahathir's heart is no good and has gone to ask the americans to make it good again. this could be his costly mistake given his pro arab and anti jewish stand. many arab leaders have been poisoned and died because of similar stand. and mahathir, despite all his wisdom and political acumen, chose to go to the usa instead of singapore. an after thought. it is better that he does not come here. singapore will have many things to answer should the operation fail.

the beauty of self deception

i read this article about how much people are willing to spend to look young and gorgeous. and the extent they are prepared to go, under the knife. all for people to say, 'ah, you look so good.' or 'ah, you look so young for your age.' the former may be a bit difficult to achieve and need to spend effort and money. the second is so easy to get by. if you are 50 and look 50, just tell whoever that you are 65. and 'ah, you look so young for your age.' so whatever age you are, just add another 10 to 15 years and you will get your 'ahhs.' it feels so good to look younger.

creative's zen vision M is number ONE

creative's zen vision m won the best product prize at the international consumers electronic show 2006 organised by cnet. it beats all the korean and japanese products of bigger names. well done creative. ipod did not come into the picture as it did not participate in the event. the zen vision m won on many of its features and technical specs. i have commented earlier that the zen product is anything but zen. this is based only on its appearance. nothing about its quality. the ipod is really zen like in look. features wise i will leave them to the technical people. when put together under the microscope who will emerge the winner is another story. but creative has won in cnet and can at worst be number two, if not triumphs again. hey creative beats iriver and brands like sony, panasonic, toshiba etc. wow! the team in creative that develop this product needs a pat on the back. forget about the guinness book of record. this is what i meant by useful talents. this is real.

the spray gropers in orchard road

seah chiang nee wrote about the foreign workers groping local girls in orchard road and the fear of a reprisal by our local gangs. and a similar showdown like sydney. i bet some of the local gangs, the ah bengs, are already planning to hit back. how can foreign workers come to our homeground to molest our ah lians? they will be whacked this time round if they dare to repeat their folly. and our friendly foreign workers policies will come into question. for if the foreign workers were to gang up, it is not going to be like sydney. it will be sydney a 100 times worst. there are so many of them, hungry men, lonely men and village mentality. it can be very ugly. the message must be passed quickly to the foreign workers to stop their nonsense. better still for those caught to be despatched immediately and with a lot of publicity as a deterrence. don't try to imagine what it would be like if 100,000 foreign workers riot in orchard road.