How to Become Famous

It has been a wild week for Singapore, in terms of viral news stories on social media platforms. There was news about taxi fare hikes, MRT breakdowns, radio personalities being censured for ridiculous reasons, and teenagers making a fool of themselves in their video rants. To top it off, there was even a pair of young teens dry humping each other in public.

The last two got me thinking - what does it take to get famous nowadays? The answer seems pretty simple - get caught on social media doing something stupid.

If you look at certain other 'famous' people like S L (have to be abbreviated to prevent this from being picked up by him (the narcissistic fool searches for his own name) ) and Dee Kosh (publicly humiliated by XX), they also shot to fame (or infamy) by doing something stupid and posting it on Youtube. The former is also known to be self-obsessed and extremely narcissistic on his own Twitter account.

Therefore, if you want to be famous, there's no need to take part in Singapore Idol or get interviewed by a Mediacorp reporter about the MRT breakdowns. All you have to do is

• Do something stupid
• Get captured on video/photos
• Upload on social media
• Spread it abit
• Wait
• Cash in

1) Do something stupid

'Stupid' is actually a replaceable term here. You can try 'moronic', 'nonsensical', 'ludicrous' or 'senseless'. They may in fact all be synonyms and fall under the same group in a Thesaurus. (In fact, they do)

Think of something that is beyond your wildest imagination (but avoid taboo issues like race, religion and terrorism unless your wish is to be arrested) in terms of stupidity. Imagine there's a scale of stupidity from 1 to Steven Lim (Oh shit, now he's going to pick it up), think of something BEYOND Steven Lim.

For those of you having problems, you can try a mindmap method. Just think of a starting word, the first word to come to your mind, and elaborate on it. Make it as stupid as possible. Then go further. Let me give you an example.

Cat. Cats purr. Purr like a cat? No not stupid enough. Meowing. Meowing really loudly. Meowing at the top of your voice on top of a table in the middle of a coffeeshop. No not stupid enough. Meowing at the top of your voice, alternating between falsetto and a baritone, while crawling around on all fours, in the middle of town.

Get the picture?

2) Get captured on video/photos

Talking about pictures, you will never get famous even if your act is hilariously stupidly dumb if noone is actually around to take a picture or film it. To be safe, get a friend to film you. Maybe get two friends, as one may run off to hide his face to avoid being associated with you.

This step may be entirely unnecessary, if what you're doing is something like boasting to the world How You  Slapped Your Mother or criticizing Kpop, because when you do those, you instantly jump to Step 6.

3) Upload on social media

Twitter or Facebook are your routes to success. However, you need to turn off your stupid switch and not do something like upload the video on your private account and expect it to spread like wildfire.

Also, if you have a grand total of 17 followers, don't expect it to spread to the whole world (unless your 17 followers include someone with 129837 followers)

@mention it to someone relatively more... connected than you, and hope that it's stupidly ridiculous enough to warrant a retweet, a like, or a repost. If it is, it will spread. Things spread on Twitter and Facebook. Besides STDs. For now.

4) Spread it abit

We already said this in the previous sentence. Oops.

5) Wait

This is really a redundant step, as you can actually invest your time better on step 4. Post it on everyone's wall or something (Though this may lose you many 'friends'. 'Friends' is in inverted commas because we all know noone really knows more than 80% of your Facebook friends anyway)

And now, depending on whether your act is outrageous enough to warrant a public uproar (most likely it is, because it is human nature to hop on the moral high horse and criticize), the next step follows:

6) Cash In

Fame may not be what you expect. You may be expecting the murmured whispers when you walk past people in public accompanied with not-so-subtle pointing. You may be expecting people to come up to you and ask for a photograph. you may be expecting newfound street cred among your gang of orangehaired monkeys.

However, you may be greeted with rude taunting, spam on your Facebook wall, and mass ostracism. Perhaps even a blanket party some time down the line if you haven't been through National Service.

Whatever it is, be prepared for the backlash. Be prepared that everything may turn out differently from what you expect. Maybe people will issue you death threats as they're now jealous of you. Maybe a parody Twitter account of you may sprout up. Who knows.

~~~

I hope this guide has been helpful in your quest for fame. Now if you will excuse me, I have to stop typing from my smartphone and get ready as my train is arriving in 2 minutes. Oh wait, I better not announce that, as SMRT has not made their official statement yet.

The (not quite) new features of iOS 5

I must preface this post by saying that I AM an Apple product user, and I do support Apple. They were indeed revolutionary and technologically ahead when they first introduced the iPod, iPhone, etc. The problem is, others have caught up, yet they don't seem to realize it. It's getting difficult ot defend them now.



The first sign of this was the release of iPhone 4, with the tagline - 'This changes everything. Again.'

This was mocked by many tech-commentators as alot of the 'new' functions implemented by Apple were already present in other brands. It was neither spectacular nor as revolutionary as their previous products. But they were stuck in the 'Apple bubble'. So they still thought so.


And now, their latest release, the iOS 5, had this caption:

"Taking a mobile OS that was already years ahead of anything else and moving it even further ahead"


Let's temporarily ignore the blatant (probably deliberate) exaggeration of being 'years ahead' - technology is known to change so rapidly that such a statement is absurd. Let's temporarily withhold judgment, as we look at the 'new' functions of iOS 5 and see if they are indeed "years ahead."
Looking at them sequentially, directly from http://www.apple.com/ios/features.html

1) Notifications Center

What is it?

A one-stop notifications center which lets you just swipe down from the top of the screen to see all your alerts such as from SMS, Twitter and Facebook.

Years ahead?

No.

HTC already had a similar Notifications feature (Other brands also had this, not entirely clear of which. iPhones were the only one which insisted on having Message/other Notifications pop up in your face to interrupt you)



And in jailbroken iPhones, notifications were already present:



SMS displayed in lock screen, as well as notifications, exactly what the supposedly 'new' iOS5 has



Plus the jailbreak notification system had a possibly better feature that is STILL absent in iOS 5 - the little icon at the top of the screen! (See the icons next to the battery bar, including the chat bubble?)

That chat bubble appears when you do have a text. A mail icon for when you have mail, etc.  In the present iOS5, there is no such icon - you have to swipe down to open Notifications center BEFORE knowing you have texts/tweets etc.

2) iMessage

What is it?

A free messaging system that lets you send unlimited texts using data/Wifi. Only compatible with others using iMessage.

Years ahead?

Obviously not.

BBM already offers the same functionality of exclusive BB to BB messaging, albeit using the RIM system I believe.



Even better -

Whatsapp also happens to be FREE on the date of writing this article on the App Store. Grab it now!

Whatsapp uses the exact same Wifi/data to transmit and receive messages. Furthermore, it is cross-device - You can whatsapp people using other phones besides iPhones as long as they have Whatsapp as well. Whatsapp also has group chat (something which I heard is buggy in iMessage - you can accidentally leave conversations or something)

They also have 'read receipts' which is simply the double ticks you see in Whatsapp.

(iMessage boasts 'read receipts' which let you know whether your receipient has received it. The funny thing is the default option is to NOT send out read receipts, so according to status quo bias, noone is going to bother turning it on)



3) Newsstand + Reminders

These next two are just lumped into one because they're not major inclusions anyway.

Newsstand, perhaps useful, but Reminders?? I don't see any real difference between this and setting reminders in your Calendar using the previous OS, besides having an actual 'to-do' list kind of thing.





4) Twitter integration

What is it?

Lets you tweet directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, or Maps, without having to open a Twitter app.



Years ahead?

No.





qTweet!

 Jailbreak iPhones have had this for ages and it is probably better.
qTweet is a Jailbreak-only app that basically lets you tweet from ANYWHERE, not just those mentioned apps. All you have to do is swipe down (you can basically set any kind of shortcut, whether it is swipe up swipe left, etc) from the top and this box drops down and you can tweet. From anywhere.



5) New and improved Camera features



What is it?

Two new added functionality -

1) Instant access to camera from lock screen (well not quite instant, you have to double-press Home button before the camera button appears)

2) Ability to take pictures by pressing Volume Up button, resembling an actual camera rather than having to tap the camera button on-screen which CAN be rather awkward often.

3) I know I said 2, but I'm just going to lump this together - added photo enhancement features such as to crop, rotate, remove red-eye, etc .

Years ahead?

No.

Jailbreak already has downloads that allows you instant access to the camera from the lock screen, not to mention this awesome jailbreak-only function that Apple STILL refuses to add:

ACTIVATOR.

Basically customize shortcuts from swiping various parts of your screen, to double tapping volume buttons, etc to perform certain features.

I can't remember offhand whether these features include taking a photo, but I think it does.

I have no idea why Apple doesn't include this nifty and handy feature that makes using your iPhone even more convenient and customizable. Oh right, they don't like you to customize their stuff (Which explains their refusal to add Themes too, something present in virtually every other phone)

As for the photo editing function - dozens of photo editing apps already exist, so I don't see the necessity of it. Perhaps convenience, but I'm pretty sure it pales in functionality to existing apps.

6) Integration/change of several apps

"Find my iPhone' used to be a separate app available for free on App Store, but looks like Apple has bought it out and integrated it into iOS5. Not a new feature.

Calendar has a new 'Year' view  - jailbreak already has customizable Calendars with different looks (including Year) and themes.

They split up 'iPod' into 'Videos' and 'Photos' (just like on iPod Touch 4G) -  not quite sure what the rationale of this was.

Granted, they do have some new features like iCloud, but  it appears that most of the major 'new' features of iOS 5 are in fact not new. Sorry to burst your Apple bubble. But it seems that the iOS 5 is actually years behind.

U Town - A first impression.

An inherent flaw that could be noticed before I even stepped into U Town was its accessibility. It is a good 10-15 minute walk from YIH, so you’ll probably want to be taking a bus in. However, there is only one bus that goes to U Town – Bus D. It’s bound to be packed! And what happens when a few hundred students end lecture together and have to head to Arts/Science/out of U Town? That’s right, a massive jam at the bus stop.  

 Upon arrival, I followed the signs that directed me to the ‘Town Plaza’ area which was basically the open walkway in between the buildings. F&B outlets lined the sides, but only a few were open. I saw Fish&Co Express, so I decided to give it a try.

It is nothing like an actual Fish & Co outlet – it resembles a fast food joint more than anything else. The menu boasted a variety of different combo meals such as Fish and Chips, Grilled Fish set, etc, with prices starting at $5.50.
One of the first things that I noticed besides the salty Fish Chowder was the absence of any network reception in the Fish&Co outlet. I don’t know if it was just affecting me, but I couldn’t get any connection on my iPhone whatsoever.  It was the same situation when I entered the Koufu Food Court later on.

After my pitiful lunch, I carried on my recce to locate certain places such as the enigmatic TP-AUD. I mean, we know CRE-AUD probably means CREATE tower Auditorium, and ERC = Education Resource Centre. But TP?

I saw a sign that I thought would bring me to my destination – ‘Town Plaza Auditorium’. However, when I followed the sign and walked into the building, it was ‘NUS@CREATE Auditorium’!  How confusing.
The entire area was still under construction too, so paint fumes and whatnot was pervading my senses. The auditorium’s seats were even still plastic wrapped! Hmm.

 I gave up on this quest and decided to head down to ERC, which was another 5+ minutes deeper into U Town from the one and only bus stop (Yes, the one with the magical Bus D) This means ERC is about 10 minutes from the bus stop. I don’t see how you won’t be late if you had a lecture in Arts just before a lecture in ERC… unless you had a car.

On the 1^st level of ERC (which is actually one level up from the ground floor), there’s a ‘Mac Commons room’ and a ‘PC Commons room’. Curious, I decided to go ahead and check it out… and realized they’re basically computer rooms! Yup, the Mac room is like a Comp Lab but it’s all Macs, and… yea I am in the PC room.

The monitors are one of the widest I’ve seen… by my estimate it’s a 25” monitor? Maybe even wider. It’s not even proportionately high, just REALLY wide.  You can easily open two pages of documents simultaneously and have more than enough space to read them at a comfortable font size.

Alright, I should probably continue my hunt for the ERC-AUD and also the mysterious TP-AUD. Hope to find them soon.                

Job Hunt

EDIT: Yes we know the screenshots are abit big and overlap onto the sidebar, but it's so that those with granny eyesight can still read

It's the summer vacation, and that usually includes holidays, camps... and the inevitable part-time job to raise some pocket money for your school term.

The admin here at realFASS has been browsing through some job advertisements recently... and many of them are quite.. interesting, to say the least.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy our job hunt. :)


What do most people consider when looking for a job? Yes, the $pay$ has to be good. How about this gem :

EIGHT dollars an hour to wash cups and tidy a pantry !?! That's almost as absurd as the ministerial pay in Singapore. 

I wanted to apply for this, but I don't think I am 'qualified' enough. I don't have any 'Cups Cleaning' diploma which I guess the successful job applicants all have.

Then you know some recruiters are really trying too hard when they write stuff like this:

MAGNIFICENT office environment! Comes with fancy chandeliers, English curtains and parquet floors! Its MAGnificence will be magnified beyond iMagination!

And I know some of you are lazy people, so I found this great job for you:

It has ZERO working hours! You just need to apply for it, and pay just enters your bank account without you doing anything! Real good for slackers and lazy people alike!

This just sounds like some loan shark advertisement.

You have heard of part time jobs, and then there are full time jobs. Did you know there is one more category?

.

.

.

Harhar, so creative. BIG TIME.

And what is the job description of a 'personal dancer'? 

Sounds like he's soliciting for a wh-re. 

That's all we have! Asked for contributions but no one came up with any :( Hope you liked these anyhow!

Election fever

I told myself I didn't want to participate in the slugfest of pre-elections, and so we didn't contribute any tweets amidst the current trend of political debate. There will not be any substantial arguments in this post, just some observations that we have.

I'm sure many of you are well-connected via Facebook and have seen the notes and statuses alike that have defended PAP or bashed PAP. From criticizing how TPL doesn't deserve to be in politics to Nicole Seah receiving more likes than MM Lee - these squabbles are certainly entertaining to read.

Two more recent occurrences:


Ministerial pay
Probably one of the hottest topics around is how Singapore's ministers are fetching such an outrageous amount. WP's Sylvia Lim has criticized it some time ago, and people are now still scratching their heads over how this is fair.
You have probably heard the arguments by now - 'oh, we need to peg it to the corporate sector, top CEOs get the same, blabla' and 'to retain talent, keep them loyal, blabla' so I won't bore you with them. What led me to even mention this here is this comment by SM Goh: (link here)

"Describing the issue of ministerial salaries as the Opposition’s "favourite flogging horse", Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said yesterday that the "majority" of the population were not concerned about it.


All they want (to know) is: Have we produced jobs for them, can we look after their medical care, can their medical care be affordable, can we cope with the cost of living, can we deliver good housing at affordable prices? "


Firstly, I don't know what 'population' he is drawing his conclusion from, but I am certain MANY people ARE concerned about it, just by looking at our Twitter feed and at Facebook. I'm sure MANY people ARE dissatisfied about it. It's human nature. If you get one candy and your friend gets ten, you'll start asking why.

Next, is his deductive logical processing impaired? Does he not see that the second part of what he says directly follows from the first part? Providing medical care, helping SG cope with cost of living (hint hint  GST hint) , housing subsidies are all Budget-related issues - together with the issue of ministerial pay. How can he think they are unrelated?


Malay as foreign language
This is the context - There is a noted halt in fluency in the Malay language. How should we address this?

Minister Yaacob Ibrahim's solution was this - to teach Malay as a foreign language instead of as a second language.

??? Does this not make sense to everyone or is it just me? I shall leave you with a link of a short write-up about this issue to decide for yourself: http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=6596


This whole debate
There are so many things that Singaporeans are complaining about with regards to PAP - housing prices, GST, etc. Many of them are not just whiny complaints, but are well thought-out arguments.

Some are also hard to refute - such as the Mas Selamat case where noone had to take responsibility (translation: step down/resign) for the whole incident.
(In case you think this is unfair, in the corporate world, if any big screwup occurs, the CEO will always take responsibility and personally resign even if it really isn't his fault and is some employee's stupidity)
And when this was brought up to PM Lee, he answered sarcastically 'If you say this, I was the one who brought TCH in to be Defence Minister - so I should step down as well?"
It's a good tactic really, if you don't have an answer to a question, just reply with a rhetorical question.

However, is simply pointing out of the problems of the PAP enough? How about what they have achieved for Singapore? How about their good points?
Perhaps the right way to do this is not saying 'They are bad, we are good, vote for us!' but instead "We know they are good, but we are better!"

Well, carry on the debate, we are enjoying every bit of it reading the emotional arguments being thrown left and right online. You have four more days to do this, until a decision is reached.

And I daresay whatever the outcome, people on both sides (opposition or pro-PAP) will resume their typical Singaporean behavior of finding SOMETHING to criticize the government about even if they had personally voted for the winning party.

The wise Social Psychology professor

Remember our email to our favourite Social Psychology professor? Well, we really didn't want to write another post just for him, but his antics sure deserves one. We are not emailing him this this time, so there's no sarcasm-filter for this post.


It started with this IVLE announcement: (any subsequent indented lines are from his IVLE announcements)
(If you are lazy to read the whole thing just read the lines in red)

3) The essay assignment grades will only be announced (on the IVLE) some time before the module's exam. You could collect the essay if you wish to, after the exam. I have decided to use such a system because of the complications and problems I encountered when I tried to return student's essay during term time (in the previous semesters). Students wrote to me to question about the grading and argued that they should have been given a higher grade after comparing what they wrote with their friend's who got a better grade. They also complained about what they perceived as biasness during student's feedback. It is all rather disheartening and defeats my aim to let students know their grades as soon as possible. Thus due to the unpleasantness that arise from the competitiveness of certain students, I have no choice but to delay the feedback. 

In case you didn't know, (if you haven't read that previous post where we emailed him, we encourage you to read it, other people seem to like it) the essays for this module were released in a staggered format, such that the first essay could be submitted in about week 4-5. (And the rest about week 7, 10, 13 accordingly)

However, he doesn't want to reveal how the students did until after term ends because, to paraphrase, 'he doesn't want to deal with students begging for better grades'.

Firstly, this is a poor reason to not release the grades. I would think a simple announcement stating 'Begging of marks will STRICTLY not be entertained' or 'The decision regarding your essay grade is FINAL' would suffice. Or 'I'm too lazy to talk to anyone just suck it up and accept your grades lamerzzz!'. Ok maybe not the last one.
Next, if students really wanted to question the reliability of marking, why would they not do so even if he released it after Week 13? Emails still exist, his office still exists, and it's not as if students don't return to NUS during Reading Week, if they were as 'competitive' as he says.

We won't harp on this for too long because recently, he made another series of announcements:

"Finally, look for the essay grades to be released on IVLE around the eve of the Social Psych exam"

Gives a definite date... but wait, next announcement 3 days later:

I received an email from a student asking me to delay the release of the essay grades and not to do so 1-2 days before the module's exam, please see the student's mail and my reply, and write to me if you have any objection.

Student's email:
 I am a student in PL3235 module. You made a recent announcement saying that you will release our essay results on the eve of our exam. I am writing to ask if maybe you could delay the release. If our results are released just the day before our finals, it would be very very demotivating for the students who did not do well.It would be better if you released the results after the exam is over in the morning. This way, students who perform poorly in the essay won't be affected.However, if you do need to release the essay results before the exam, then will it be possible to release it a few days earlier? At least this way, the negative emotions will be less intense by the exam. I hope that this is not too much to ask. But I think the other students will also appreciate this. Thank you very much.

 Summary - whine whine I am a sad person boo hoo whine whine can you not release the results just before the exam because when(if) I see my crappy grades I'll be emo and can't do well for my finals boohoo. thank you! you are very handsome!

Prof Cha's reply:
-----------------------------------------------
Thanks for letting me know what you think about the date to release the essay grades. I understand what you mean and I could do that. But following your argument, releasing the grade on the day after my module’s paper could also affect  students in their preparation of other exams that are scheduled after my module. This means that to address this concern, I will only release the essay grades when the entire exam period is over. In short, we will try to release the results 3 days before this module’s exam, but if this is not possible (the tutor and I are dealing with a huge marking load, and we are doing our best to rush -- not taking any time off during this period, the beach thing is just teasing you all ;)), then we  will do so only after the entire exam period.   I will announce this on the IVLE, but if more than 5 students write to me in the next few days (by 20^th April) to express their objection of waiting till after the exam period is over, and want to know the essay grades whenever it is ready (even on the eve of the exam), then I will revert this decision.   Cheers,ys 

Summary: You are right I will release it after the entire exam period instead if we can't release it 3 days  before the exam,  unless more than 5 people come and whine and slobber at my pants and want to know it ASAP, then I will admit I'm dumb and release it ASAP. Also, I'm only 24 years old. (Ignore this last line if you're not a PL3235 student, it's a recurring 'joke' he likes to make)

There is an obvious solution to the student's supposed predicament which he doesn't yet realize, and instead decides to release the grade after the entire exam period -_- Might as well just release it together with the exam results. It's only 3 weeks later. Moreover, won't releasing the grades then dampen the moods of students in their temporary 3 weeks celebration?


The thing is, if you are one to get affected by a bad grade, don't check your damn grade at all -_-

Anyway, we wrote in to inform him of the obvious solution, which he states in the next announcement:

"that is, for those who do not wish to know their grade (for fear that it will affect their morale, concentration, motivation, whatever...), they could simply delay the checking of grades till a later time that they find more suitable. There is no reason to hold back the rest who want/need to know asap."

CORRECT. Grats on the revelation Mr Cha.
Oh look, he admits his stupidity in a veiled insult to the students too:

I should have thought of it in fact -- must have been made stupid by all the stuff that I am marking currently.;)

Tsktsk.

Sorry about this distraction to all of you too!

No problem, you gave us content for a blog post.


P.S. We welcome any content for blog posts. Just email realfass@gmail.com with your content and you will be acknowledged if published. Or DM us anything you want us to blog about. Or just keep reading what we write and tell all your friends about us. Or .. we should probably stop this is getting too long.

Stop misunderstanding groupthink

In a recent news article, former minister (he stepped down) Lim Boon Heng made a comment that 'There is no groupthink within PAP'.

Almost immediately, there was a response by well-known parody Tweeter @Fake_PMLee:

And followed it up with an almost identical tweet, as if he was afraid people would not understand the first tweet (which I think is funnier though - jokes lose their effect the more you have to explain them)

And even more recently, @fakeSTcom made an almost identical joke too, probably because they don't follow anyone besides @stcom

All this was of course, retweeted endlessly because it IS a funny joke - IF you had the same misconception of what 'groupthink' is as these two Tweeters.

They seemed to have the impression that 'groupthink' refers to some sort of 'similar thinking within a group of people, hence everyone conforms to whatever is said without dissent'.

While this is an accurate description of groupthink, it is not an accurate definition of groupthink.
What do I mean by this? To use an analogy, if you were to ask me 'What is democracy?' and I answer 'It is a fair system', I'm describing what it is, not defining it. If I were to define it, I would say something along the lines of 'It is a form of government in which all citizens have an equal say about the decisions that are made with regards to the nation'. (I may be off here in my accuracy of the definition but you get the distinction)


An accurate definition of 'groupthink' is as such:

Groupthink refers to a characteristic way of thinking in a group in which members of the group suspend critical thinking and judgement in order to reach a consensus in decision-making.

(definitions vary in wording, so I paraphrased them. Sources from various textbooks, websites, and the beloved wikipedia)

And some factors that lead to groupthink:
- A highly cohesive group
- Presence of a strong, directive leader
- Pressure to reach a decision quickly
(There are more, but these are just some of them)

Random comic to illustrate groupthink

If you haven't realized by now, with the knowledge of this definition, the attempted jokes do not really make sense anymore. Agreeing to what is said without disagreement so as not to be seen as a dissenter(as the joke implies that everyone agrees with what LBH said without dissent) is more of normative conformity/social influence, which is a different concept altogether.

The criticisms of groupthink within the government is talking about how decision-making within the Parliament may be impaired by the presence of groupthink, and LBH responds with his example of the casino issue, in which there was actually much debate regarding the issue, and it was NOT the case that everyone just held their tongue and did not want to dissent.

Just agreeing with a comment (e.g. LBH saying 'there is no groupthink') without anyone debating it is NOT a case of 'groupthink', as the jokes try to imply, but merely a case of conformity. Groupthink is deeper and more complex than that, and refers to the decision-making process in particular, when people do not critically evaluate the suggested decisions.

To conclude, I'll give some examples of what is groupthink, and what is not.

NOT GROUPTHINK:

"Smart student: 'The answer is 3.14159!'
Peers: 'Yup that's correct!'"
(A possible case of informational social influence)

"Popular girl: 'I think pink shoes look the nicest!'
Friends: 'Yea they do!'"
(A possible case of normative social influence)

"LBH: 'There is no groupthink in PAP!'
PAP: 'Yup yup! There isn't!'"

YES, THIS IS REFERRING TO GROUPTHINK

"Group leader: 'I think we should address the 2nd issue first as it seems more plausible and ignore the 3rd issue'
Group member A: 'Yea that seems right'
Group member B: 'Yup that's right let's do that'
(even if they think it's not right) "

"LKY: 'We should ban cigarettes in SG!'
MP: 'Hm yea we should!'
Another MP: 'Yup ok'
(agreeing without weighing pros/cons!)"

"LBH: 'We should make an announcement saying there's no groupthink in PAP!'
MP: 'No I don't think we should, what if everyone misunderstands what 'groupthink' means and someone starts some viral joke about it?'
MP2: 'Perhaps you should also define what 'groupthink' is in your press release?'
(This is a case demonstrating the group is not affected by groupthink, because they DO think critically about the decision at hand before making the decision) "

P.S. Many people may be thinking now : 'Why is this person so anal about this whole thing? They are just trying to make a joke! Leave them alone!' but my aim is just to prevent a collective misunderstanding of the term.

What school would be like if we were in charge

We always dream of the perfect world. What would it be like? Everything would be going smoothly, everything would be enjoyable, everything would be to our preference.
I was doing some thinking, and this would what school would be like if we were in charge.

1 - No lessons before 10AM and if lessons ended after 6PM, you get a free shuttle service home.

Come on, having 8 AM lessons are ridiculous. It doesn't matter if you've spent 12 years of your education waking up at 6AM and reaching school by 7 to sing mari kita, university is supposed to be a privileged time when you get to sleep late and wake up late all the time.

And lessons past 6PM? That's just inhumane. But perhaps sometimes there is a lack of LTs, etcetc, so we do indeed have to have lessons at that time. Going home is a real chore then! Late at night, all alone. What could make it better? An EXPRESS service to take you home!
This could be a special bus or a car pool service. But we will find a way. After all, NUSSU has lots of funds don't they?
(2 separate links here)


2 - Single race

Alright, enough complains about ATs and other foreign students stealing your grades, performing PDA at The Deck, the Red Room, the toilets, the corridors, and wherever else that is feasible.
Singapore is a multiracial country and we cannot afford to have racial disharmony of any sorts.

Our Engineering counterparts have been working on it for a long time, and after all their previous accolades such as the invisible cloak, we are pleased to announce the latest invention -

THE RACE POLARIZER GLASSES

Yes I know, it looks like 3D glasses. But it's not!

What this does is when you put it on, everyone will look the same race to you. How can there be any discrimination if you can't distinguish between any of the races?

Of course, an obvious limitation is that you will realize the differences when 'the others' begin opening their mouths. To which we have another solution:

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Earplugs yo.

3 - Dealing with the National University of Stairs/Slopes

Is this what it feels like in school?

We realized how many people feel the pain of climbing the stairs in NUS as well when our tweet 'NUS - National University of Stairs' was retweeted numerous times.

Don't worry! If we are in charge, we will begin immediate reconstruction of the school. First thing we will add is:

ESCALATORS EVERYWHERE.

Yes, no more climbing up 5 flights of stairs to reach The Deck from KR Terminal. No more climbing up the giant staircase when going to Business from Heng Mui Keng Terrace. Staircases all become escalators, so you don't have to be a perspiring mess when you finally reach your classroom.

To make things more interesting, we will include banisters at the side too, so for those in a rush (as people seem to always be) , they can take the 'express lane' - just slide down!

Artist impression

4. Campus Buses

Tired of waiting forever for your bus that never comes? When we take over, we will employ new schoolbuses so that everyone will never have to wait long!

Magic School Buses!

Basically they appear every 1 minute so there's no need to wait. No more being late for exams/lectures! Also, it deals with the overcrowded-buses problem!


5. The problem of a CAP.
University should be a place of holistic, purposeful education. Most of us have spent 12-13 years of our lives learning things that are useless and boring to us - such as pi is 3.1415192654, how to find dy/dx, 2-4 dinitrophenylhydrazine leaves an orange precipitate, and how to hide a handphone under a classroom desk. (Ok fine, the last one may not be useless or boring)

When we pay $6000< for EACH year of education, surely we want to pursue things that interest us, things that will engage us and things that we will ultimately find useful for ourselves in the future! BUT, with the fear of getting a low CAP, many of us have to plan strategically to get as decent a CAP as possible
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A decent CAP.
And a cute baby because everyone loves cute babies

There are so many exciting activities in school we wish we could pursue too, such as hall activities, school events, and more. However, we take part in all these at the risk of sacrificing our CAPs.

BOO HOO MY CAP IS DROPPING

Most of all, with only 3 S/Us, we cannot take modules that REALLY interest us, such as these two:

Click to enlarge

Therefore, we propose a new system - The total REMOVAL of CAPs. You will still get grades every semester for your modules, but they won't be contributing to this 'CAP' of yours.

How then, do we gauge how well you are doing in school? Who gets the first-class honors? The second upper?

It's simple - You will be assessed based on how many hours you spend in the library each day you're in school.

More library bonding time!
This aren't black faced monsters, we had to censor their faces out because we have no idea who they are. 

Note that it is hours per day in school, so it is fair to those who have 3 day weeks. 

E.g. Two students spend 10 hours in the library each, one has a 3 day week while one has a 5 day week. The one with the 3 day week has a higher LHPDIS (Library Hours Per Day In School) of 3.33 while his friend only has a LHPDIS of 2.

Of course, how you are measured is based on when you tap your matric card at the gantry. When you walk out, the sensor automatically detects your matric card so it scans you out. 

Being the great faculty with tremendous foresight, we understand this will lead to students spending ALOT of time in the library. Therefore, we will be implementing new sleeping corners at various corners of the library for your snoozing pleasure!

one such example

You will also get bonus points for each library book you borrow, and even more if the book is above 2kg!

So that's it for our first installment of suggested changes to school! What do you think?

Dear MP of GRC

(Taken from Facebook. We didn't write this!)


Recently, my white MP,
nok on my door, and very kek ki..
Say 'I've worked so hard, so vote for me',
'Or rubbish won't be cleared, in your vicinty'..

I said 'Dear MP of my GRC',
'Dun remember u, so please pardon me'..
'I only saw you on TV',
'Dozing off and jiak liao bee'..

Last GE I voted for thee,
2% up in GST..
Cut CPF and up utility,
Are still very clear in my memory..

5 years later, then you come to me,
Fresh from your slumber of ivory..
Say that only, you can help me,
Escape from a life of poverty..

Just take a drive on CTE,
Count the number, of all the gantries..
Or squeeze a ride on the MRT,
That has not been cleared for me

My life since the last GE,
Has been downhill though I voted PAP..
If I vote the same for your sleeping spree,
I can expect the same misery..

So! this time round, I vote for somebody,
Who will kachiao you, to productivity..
Forms fill wrong, no big deal to me,
If there's someone to speak up for ah bee..

So dear MP of GRC,
If life no improve, vote u cho simi?

Why you should jailbreak your iPhone/iPod Touch

(original post taken from here)

So, you have heard all about it. Your friends tell you to do it, but you have doubts. 

I'm here to convince you why you SHOULD jailbreak your device. In this post, I will tell you two general things:

a) Why you shouldn't be AFRAID to jailbreak
b) Why you should jailbreak <-- I'll focus more on this, talking about the functionality benefits that people don't mention enough.
and lastly I'll provide some sources which will teach you HOW to jailbreak and some important notes.


a) Why you shouldn't be AFRAID to jailbreak
The first thing many people think about is that it is illegal. However, it is NOT illegal. The only thing 'bad' is that your warranty becomes void with Apple. This is NOT a problem though, because assuming you are unlucky enough to have your phone actually break down and spoil somehow and you need to send it for repairs within your warranty period, you can simply 'unjailbreak' it via a simple iTunes restore:

"Plug in the iPhone and sync it to make sure you have a current backup. Then choose to restore (the firmware) it to factory settings from in iTunes. Then you can right click it and restore the backup (of thecontents) from the backup. The term restore is used for both actions, but they are two separate actions.
A backup of a jailbreaked phone can be restored onto a non-jailbreak firmware. That's not an issue (I did it when I upgraded to 2.1). All jailbreak apps and features will be gone, but all App Store apps, contacts, settings, etc, will be preserved."

(via http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=574128)

After which, you can just send it in to Apple and they won't know anything.

(Disclaimer - distribution of copyrighted material is still illegal, according to Singapore law. In other words, downloading  a cracked app (i.e. originally available on App Store) is as illegal as downloading a song from the Internet.)

The next thing people are worried about is that it will slow down their devices. This is also not true - I have been using my jailbroken device without any noticeable lag from the jailbreak. HOWEVER, that is because I don't use this thing called Winterboard, which I believe is the cause of lag.

In fact, many users do admit that jailbreaking does lag their device, which I noticed in the form of a 1s delay everytime i close/open apps, but I realized it was Winterboard causing this problem, so I just removed it.

Winterboard lets you customize your themes and icons like this. Notice how the default apps (e.g. Mail, Camera etc...) look different?

Winterboard is just for customizing themes and such, so if you don't mind the classy look of Apple, you can just not install it. (note - Winterboard has a ton of other uses too which I haven't really researched so if you don't mind abit of lag for some added customization, go ahead and use Winterboard :) )

There are TONNES of other useful stuff .

Ok enough of the grim stuff, on to why you SHOULD jailbreak your iPhone.

b) Why you SHOULD jailbreak your iPhone

1) FREE apps!!

This is the most obvious no-brainer reason - There are a ton of fun and cool apps on the App Store, but many of them are paid apps, and not all of us can afford or want to pay for those apps. With jailbreak, all these apps are FREE. 

WhatsApp @ USD 0.99 on the App Store and @ $0.00 when you Jailbreak!
For free SMSing, MMSing, and group conversations!

PES for free!

Final Fantasy 3 at USD 15 on the App store.. yes, they're mad. Totally ripping you off. FOR FREE WHEN YOU JAILBREAK.

Cut The Rope, one of the most fun games you can play, for FREE ONLY when you jailbreak!

And of course the all-time popular Angry Birds (now Rio!) for FREE!

Of course, this is just a very very small slice of all the available apps that you can get when you jailbreak. There are also many EXCLUSIVE apps that you can only have when you jailbreak!

2) Functionality
(blurry parts of screenshots are what I've edited out, not part of the jailbreak)

Non-JB users always overlook this point when they are considering whether to jailbreak their devices. After all, the allure of free apps is already quite big and unbelievable and the only reason why you should jailbreak right? WRONG.

What jailbreak does is bring you a whole new array of FUNCTIONALITY improvements that I don't know why Apple doesn't implement. Perhaps Apple will include a few in their iPhone 5. Who knows. I will start by listing these added functions:

Utilizing the Lock Screen

How would you describe the lock screen? Classy? Sleek? How about, USELESS? The screen shows close to nothing besides the time and date. When you have notifications, it'll only show if it's a missed call or a SMS - it does not show for other apps.
Other phones have RSS feeds, calendars, notifications on their lock screen. Why not the iPhone?

With jailbreak, this is what it can look like:

Accessing Settings

Let's say you are at home and want to use WiFi. How do you turn it on? Home button -> Settings -> Wifi

How about when your battery is running low and you want to turn off your 3G? Home button -> Settings -> Network -> 3G 

Ugh so many steps.

How about if your screen is too dim? Do you even know where the brightness function is? 

With jailbreak, everything is made easy:

Just swipe the top of the screen and...

VOILA!! This awesome function is called SBSettings, a jailbreak-exclusive app. Highly accessible settings, just swipe the top of the screen! You can also configure your bluetooth, data, etc, I removed those because I don't use those often. You can even configure how it looks by downloading additional themes!

Easy SMSing

Let's say you are playing your favourite game, Smurf Village. (Or whatever ridiculous lame game you play) Then you receive an SMS and it pops up on your screen. You want to reply it now. What happens? It tabs out of your game, opens your Messaging, and when you have completed the reply, you have to go back to your Home screen, and open the app again.

LONG WINDED YES?

With Quickreply (or biteSMS)...

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This pops up instead.
And you can just hit 'Reply'...

Type your reply, hit 'Send'..

AND IT RETURNS TO YOUR APP IMMEDIATELY. You don't even leave the app!!
SO much more logical and awesome right!?

And even from your lock screen, if you receive an SMS, it looks like this:

You just have to double tap the text bubble to type a reply, and after you've sent, it just goes back to the lock screen!

Activator

This is in my opinion, one of the best reasons why you should jailbreak your iPhone. Before I explain what this does, I should share a concern I previously had - My Home button on my iPhone was always very slightly buggy, and I couldn't double-press it sometimes and sometimes it doesn't seem to respond on the first click.
Also, being just about the only button you use, it's bound to succumb to wear and tear!
So I was quite worried that over time, my Home button would become unusable and I would have to replace/fix it so I don't really like to press it too often.

With Activator, this concern is totally gone.

Activator is one of the basic jailbreak-only apps that you will most definitely get.

Basically what it does is create shortcuts via touch-screen gestures or button sequences. To make this clearer, I'll just give the example of my own current settings.

- When I'm using an app, I tap the Status Bar (the top of the screen with your battery, time, Singtel/Starhub/M1 sign) and swipe down and it goes back to the Home screen.

- Anywhere on my iPhone, I double tap the Status Bar and it brings up the multitasking function (which you otherwise have to double-press your Home button)

- When I'm at my Home screen, I can lock my phone by swiping down from the Status Bar.

-At the Lock Screen, double tapping my clock brings up my iPod controls

-Pressing Volume Up followed immediately by Volume Down opens my Messaging app from wherever I am.

No more over-pressing of the Home button!

You can basically open any app you want via a wide array of gestures such as Shake Device, Slide from Bottom, Slide from Bottom Left, Swipe Down from status bar, Swipe Left on status bar, combination of Volume button presses, etcetc..
You can also make these gestures perform other things like Lock your phone, simulate a press of the 'Home Button' (don't have to press it anymore!), Take Screenshot, etcetc.

The list is endless. It's up to YOU how you want to customize your phone to make it EVEN MORE convenient and handy to use!
This is such a simple function that Apple can implement and they'll be stupid not to add it to the iPhone5.




And while this is the end of this section, it is not the end of the functionality options available via Jailbreak. There are many other apps that I haven't discovered either, so go read up! You won't regret it!
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How To Jailbreak + Important information
There are 2 basic forms of a jailbreak - A tethered or an untethered jailbreak. A tethered jailbreak means that everytime you reboot your device, you will have to connect your iPhone to your computer. An untethered jailbreak means you can just.. use it as a normal iPhone even when rebooting. To put it simply, you should always get an untethered jailbreak if it's available.

I used http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSUr3S2Jm5c this link to do my (untethered) jailbreak (iOS 4.2.1), it's not a difficult process so just follow the instructions on the screen carefully.
However, at the time of this post, a tethered version of 4.3 is already out, and I would presume soon an untethered jailbreak for 4.3 will be out. So... you can just search youtube for another instructional video on how to do it for the newer version, though it'll probably be very similar.

And just to end off with some helpful notes:
* Backup your iPhone with iTunes before you jailbreak your device. Just connect it via iTunes and click Backup.
* You're going to need to Add Sources before you can get many of the useful customization apps from Cydia. Search Youtube for recommendations for top sources to add and HOW to add these sources.


Have any questions? Feel free to leave a comment or ask on the tagboard and I'll answer it asap :D