Tinker, Tailor

I decided to write this after the issue of Tomorrow.sg and its competition was raised during the “Crowdsourcing the Media” session in Nexus 2007, which had James Seng, a Tomorrow.sg editor as a panelist.

“Go start your own Tomorrow.sg competitor!”

Although not the exact words, some of the editors, particularly James, have made statements like this a number of times in different contexts. While a few enterprising souls have taken this challenge seriously and actually started something, most others don’t like the sound of this, because it reminds them of some other guy who said something like this:

“Go start your own political party!”

The implication seems obvious: It’s not easy to replicate the success of Tomorrow.sg (just ask those who tried), so these arrogant editors can afford to invite competition. Just wait until the competition starts getting hot, and you’ll see them resorting to cheap tactics like filing lawsuits and redrawing boundaries and obstructing upgrading… uhmm… you get the idea.

“Competition is good!”

Another common refrain of James, which I think he repeated during the session (I can’t really remember because he says it so much in private as well).

While this doesn’t sound as arrogant as the go-start-your-own refrain, a lot of people have trouble believing that he actually means it. I mean, who likes competition? The natural and knee-jerk response is to quell competition, maybe not completely so you won’t look so tyrannical, but at least “manage” the competition so that they don’t go out of hand. (Or maybe he’s just not very good at communicating nuanced messages.)

Smart people, on the other hand, would find it entirely believable, that competition is good. Competition keeps you on your toes, and gives you that extra push to improve.

Unfortunately, it’s been a while since Tomorrow.sg made any serious improvements to the system. The last was probably the addition of 2 editors, which doesn’t count since I meant “improvements to the Tomorrow.sg server software system” in my last sentence.

Perhaps it’s because our resident alpha-nerd (James again) is busier than when we started, or perhaps it’s because of the lack of serious competition. Probably both.

But as far as I’m concerned, I’d really like to see more and better competition. The ones so far have failed, including Sigg (the Digg clone) and 2sg (the Reddit clone), so there needs to be something far better, far more compelling. My guess is that it probably would have to be quite different.

Yes, my wanting to see better competition is not just lip service.

When I first got involved with Tomorrow.sg, I saw it as a medium to encourage a creative culture. Then I soon saw it as an avenue to spark social change here in Singapore. I’ve not been disappointed.

So, if a very compelling “competitor” of Tomorrow.sg comes along and has more potential to change the world than Tomorrow.sg does, I’d welcome it with open arms. In fact, I would love to be involved as well (and no, I don’t see any conflict of interest).

At the end of the day, whether it’s Tomorrow.sg or not, whatever it is, I think we all just want to see a better tomorrow. No pun intended.

Postscript - Ping.sg

I was going to leave out any mention of Ping.sg, since I don’t see it as a competitor. But since Tomorrow.sg and Ping.sg are often compared, it would seem strange for me to leave it out.

I like astroboy’s comparison:

I like both ping.sg as well as tomorrow.sg. It is like 2 different woman. One is like the easy type, it doesn’t matter you are rich, poor, handsome or ugly. You sure can get some action. The other one is picky, you better be of some substance before you even get a glimpse of her clevage. Different but just as good. I wonder if there is a need to compare them at all. Then again comparing is a human nature instinct to make sense of the surrounding.

I quote it not because I agree with the analogy, but because it’s hilarious.

Ping.sg is a cool project, but it still needs to evolve.

The way I see it, the current strength of Ping.sg lies in its community, which is further strengthened by offline meetups, such that many of the members now know one another in person. I hope this doesn’t get diluted when more bloggers join in.

A possible solution might be to allow sub-communities to be formed around different interests or cliques. So you might have a community of designer bloggers whose posts go to design.ping.sg, or a group of classmates going to SCGS-4F-2003.ping.sg.

Someone like me would probably want to join both.

I was at Nexus 2007 today.

Most of the sessions weren’t terribly interesting in my opinion, so thankfully there was the back channel.

The back channel is basically an online chat which we could access, and what we typed was displayed on one or both of the screens at the stage (they’re too bright in my picture below).

I have to admit that I was a bit naughty there - I was making a lot of evil comments, like hinting that another panelist was talking too much, or griping about the laggy connection (but it was really bad), or drawing attention to a panelist’s grey and white striped socks which weren’t long enough. You get the idea.

In the session on Crowdsourcing the Media, James Seng, fellow Tomorrow.sg editor, was a panelist, and he represented Tomorrow.sg.

One of the things he mentioned was that the team has a 14 year-old, as well as a gay.

Just for the record, I’m not the 14 year-old, neither am I the gay. Actually, I didn’t know there’s a 14 year-old, nor a gay.

Since I started using Twitter regularly, I’ve found that it’s a pretty good way to practise my writing, without spending too much time on it.

“Omit needless words”, a core commandment of Strunk & White often has to be unbendingly enforced in Twitter, since only accepts 140 characters maximum.

Just a few days back when I started on a Twitter post, it was going to read like this:

i noticed this pleasant-looking girl at the bus stop near borders just now who kept looking at me. she looked familiar, like this intern who worked for me before, but it’s definitely not her. anyway, when my bus finally arrived, i asked her if i know her. she told me she didnt. then why did you keep looking at me? i asked. she could only manage an embarrassed smile. then i boarded the bus.

Except the 140 character limit made it look like this:

i noticed this pleasant-looking girl at the bus stop near borders just now who kept looking at me. she looked familiar, like this intern who

When resources are scarce, one has to take drastic action to get rid of anything redundant, just like in any good retrenchment exercise.

I figured I could leave out which bus stop it was. Heck, I could even leave out an explicit mention of the bus stop itself. I also reluctantly left out the fact that she was “pleasant-looking”, but smart readers who know me would have deduced it anyway *wink*. Nor did I need to mention that the bus arrived, since the immediacy of me boarding the bus after the conversation would imply it.

With a bit more restructuring and tweaking, I finally ended up with the version which captured the essence of what transpired:

do i know you? i asked this girl. she said no. then why did you keep looking at me? she gave an embarrassed smile, before i boarded the bus.

If you bothered to count, that’s 140 characters, exactly.

I’m so proud of myself.

My lack of updates shall be compensated by update to my Twitter. This will, hopefully, pacify my cyber stalkers so that they will not stalk me offline as well. You may also view “what am I doing” at the gray panel on the right. “What I was doing” or “what I was thinking” would have been more accurate though…

We used to drink wine at the office.

That was in my last company, in the first department I joined. Even though the company itself was large and bureaucratic, my department was small and maverick - a skunkworks type of place.

It all started one afternoon when my colleague sneaked in a bottle of cheap wine. We were all pretty excited, and couldn’t wait for evening for our boss to be gone. Even our 2 young interns were happy to stay behind.

The time finally came when about 5 of us crowded around the table with our plastic cups as the foil wrapper was peeled off. We then found that there was a cork planted firmly into the bottle opening. We didn’t have a corkscrew.

There wasn’t enough space for the cork to be pushed in, so that was out. The cork was flush with the opening of the bottle so it was impossible to dig it out. And we didn’t have a corkscrew.

After a bit of thirsty thinking, we found a self-tapping screw (a screw with a pointed tip), and screwed it into the cork. Using a pair of pliers, we slowly pulled the screw, so that the cork would be pulled out along with it.

Out came the screw without the cork.

We tried screwing in a two screws together. Didn’t work either.

“Remove cork without corkscrew”, we googled. We finally found a method that made sense - slam the bottom of the bottle onto the table protected with a towel, so that the inertia of the wine in the bottle would push out the cork.

After I tired myself out banging the bottle onto the table, the cork got exposed, by a total of 1mm. We took turns banging. And banging. And banging banging baning.

Still 1mm.

From that one experience years ago, I learnt that the best way to remove a cork from a bottle is to use a corkscrew.

Anyway, we eventually established a tradition. Every now and then, someone would present a bottle of wine, and we would stand around the office, cup in hand, sipping and chatting.

Of course, the boss eventually caught us. He was very happy. We weren’t as happy.

However, our wine tradition eventually died off. The company was restructured, and our department was disbanded (we were too maverick for upper management). Different ones of us were transferred to different departments, and some eventually resigned.

It was quite by chance that after a few years, a few of us who were left were put into the same office area again, even though we weren’t even in the same department.

Not long before I left the company, I took out a bottle of cheap wine, some styrofoam cups, and my Swiss army knife corkscrew.

The 4 of us stood around the table, styrofoam cup in hand, reminiscing the good ol’ days.

It was my last day at work. Another one of us would be gone in a few weeks. And another would probably go in a matter of months. There wouldn’t be much left of that original department anymore.

It was a poignant moment.

I don’t think they drink wine there anymore.

I was explaining to a friend a thing or two about video editing, to help her prepare for a possible job in that area.

So I asked her to observe how TV shows and movies are edited. Here’s the rest of what I said:

As for video editing, it’s tough to observe because most of the time the cuts are unobtrusive. And unobtrusive is good. Those that you actually notice (unless you’re observing intentionally) is usually bad.

The whole point of video editing is not to draw attention to the editing itself. It’s like a good condom - useful, but don’t get noticed.

My analogy skills are improving.

I happened to be at Jurong Entertainment Centre today, and somehow decided to pop by the Fuji Ice Palace ice skating rink.

There was a real, ice hockey game going on, complete with uniforms and referees!

People pay good money to watch live tournaments, but this was completely free, in an airconditioned environment, and it was an international tournament!

Singapore (in red) vs the Bankok Flying Farangs.

In the above picture, a Flying Farang had just scored a goal, leaving the Singapore goalie on his knees.

Pretty fun and exciting to watch. And more importantly, it was free.

If I’m not wrong, there’ll be more games tomorrow (3 Feb). Check out the tournament info here.

p.s. if you’re an SPG, this is paradise - all the players are caucasian

Arrgh I just consumed the last piece of chocolate in my office stockpile!

Can anyone help me replenish it?

Here are some requirements:
- The chocolate must have at least 43% cocoa.
- It must not have more than 81% cocoa.
- Should not be of Asian/Australian origin.
- Western European (especially Swiss) origin preferred.
- Must not have mint or raisins or other funky stuff.
- Must be smooth.
- Nuts are optional.
- Cannot be too cheap.

Thanks!