[MyAppleMenu] Aug 30, 2010

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** Steve Jobs Is Fodder For This Comic <http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_steve-jobs-is-fodder-for-this-comic_1430469>
Daily News And Analysis

**** Paper Tigers See iPad Users As Main Course <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/why-the-paper-tigers-must-see-the-ipad-generation-as-their-main-course/story-e6frg996-1225911619022>
Ziggy Switkowski, The Australian

**** The Full-On Assault On Cable Is Underway <http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/time-to-disrupt-cable/>
MG Siegler, TechCrunch

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon — when you hear these names, you usually think about how these tech giants all compete with one another. But what if they all teamed up for one cause? They’d be unstoppable, right? We’re about to find out.

All of these companies are currently sitting in the same boat about to storm the beaches. Which beaches? Those belonging to the the cable television providers in the U.S. It has only just begun, but the assault is underway.

**** Why Smartphone Market Share Numbers Will Fool You <http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/08/29/why-smartphone-market-share-numbers-will-fool-you.aspx>
Eric Jhonsa, Motley Fool

In the hype-filled world of the tech sector, there are lies, damned lies, and market share statistics.

**** Apple's Glass Temple, Made In China <http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/08/30/apples-glass-temple-made-in-china/>
James T. Areddy, Wall Street Journal

The tubular glass entranceway to Shanghai’s new Apple Inc. shop may be its most high-tech feature, considering the iPad hasn’t officially arrived in China.

The atrium foyer is also a crystalline sign of the times: It was made entirely in China, establishing a fresh benchmark on workmanship for the world’s largest glass industry.



MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** Steam-Driven Dreams <http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=a07faa9368626adccdbf833c7ac401bb>
John Schwartz, New York Times

Steam is cool. Or rather, hot: the technology that helped usher in the Industrial Revolution shows up these days in neo-nostalgic steampunk fiction, design and fashion. It’s not just affection for leather and brass that drives the fascination; harnessing the power of steam broke humans out of what William Rosen calls the “Malthusian trap” that had kept mankind ever on the brink of famine and collapse. His book, “The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention,” is a sneaky history — ostensibly about the origins of the steam engine, though actually about much more.

**** You Don't Know What Restaurants You Got Til They're Gone <http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/39637/rens-ramen-and-remembering-the-dining-spots-dcs-lost>
Tim Carman, Washington City Paper

Losing a favorite restaurant is not easy, perhaps because a restaurant is one of the few businesses that actually nourishes and sustains you. A restaurant is more personal than a grocery store and less needy than a mother. Every time you walk into one, a restaurant feeds you and cares for you, and all it asks in return is a few (or many) shekels. Is it any wonder, then, that when a beloved eatery dies, we feel something close to mourning?

**** Western Conifer Seed Bug <http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2010/09/06/100906po_poem_mathis>
Cleopatra Mathis, New Yorker

**** An Arranged Marriage <http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/09/06/100906fi_fiction_freudenberger>
Nell Freudenberger, New Yorker

Theirs was the second-to-last house on the road. The road ended in an asphalt circle called a cul-de-sac, and beyond the cul-de-sac was a field of corn. That field had startled Amina when she first arrived—had made her wonder, just for a moment, if she had been tricked (as everyone had predicted she would be) and ended up in a sort of American village. She’d had to remind herself of the clean and modern Rochester airport, and of the Pittsford Wegmans—a grocery store that was the first thing she described to her mother once she got her on the phone. When Amina asked about the field, George explained that there were power lines that couldn’t be moved, and so no one could build a house there. After she understood its purpose, Amina liked the cornfield, which reminded her of her grandmother’s village. She had been born there, back when the house was still a hut, with a thatched roof and a glazed-mud floor. Two years later, her parents had left the village to find work in Dhaka, but she had stayed with her grandmother and her Parveen Auntie until she was five years old. Her first memory was of climbing up the stone steps from the pond with her hand in Nanu’s, watching a funny pattern of light and dark splotches turn into a frog hiding in the ragged shade of a coconut palm.

**** I Like The Wind <http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2010/09/06/100906po_poem_wrigley>
Robert Wrigley, New Yorker



SingaporeSurf
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**** Ex-Ante Barriers Are Non-Existent <http://newasiarepublic.com/?p=20274>
Donaldson Tan, New Asia Republic

**** Singapore To Restrict Housing, Foreign Workers <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703618504575459502566075536.html?mod=googlenews_wsj>
Costas Paris And Gaurav Raghuvanshi, Wall Street Journal

Singapore will announce Monday measures to cool off the property market as the island state's rapid economic recovery fuels property prices, prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said Sunday.

"We took steps last year and earlier this year to cool the private property market but prices are still going up. This is engaging our attention," Mr. Lee said during his National Day Rally speech, adding that the government will announce more steps to control prices before the market opens on Monday.

**** Changes Planned To Help Less Academically-Inclined Students <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1077865/1/.html>
Channel NewsAsia

Sweeping changes are in store for the education sector. Chief among them will be more choices for the less academically-inclined, including a new direct track for Normal Academic students to enter a polytechnic without doing the O-levels.

**** National Day Rally: Why The Singapore Spirit Is Incomplete <http://rogerpoh.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/national-day-rally-why-the-singapore-spirit-is-incomplete/>
SpotlightOnSingapore

It’s  a shame that there’s no mention of democracy-how to build and strengthen democracy in Singapore.  Have they forgotten that the National Pledge is a pledge to build a democratic nation?

**** 2 Types Of PMs, 2 Types Of Ministerial Salaries, 2 Types Of Peasants' Salaries <http://uncleyap-news.blogspot.com/2010/08/2-types-of-pms-2-types-of-ministerial.html>
News Release by UncleYap

**** Leave The Gambling To The Tourists, Says PM Lee <http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100830-0000058/Leave-the-gambling-to-the-tourists,-says-PM-Lee>
Today

**** HDB Ups MOP For Resale Flats To 5 Years <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1077921/1/.html>
Channel NewsAsia

The Housing and Development Board (HDB) will increase the Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) of non-subsidised flats from three to five years. It said this will reinforce the message that flats are meant for long-term occupation and dampen demand from those who are not in urgent need of housing.

**** New Measures To Cool Property Market <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1077918/1/.html>
Mok Fei Fei, Channel NewsAsia

The government said Monday that it will increase the holding period for imposition of Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD). The SSD will be raised from the current one year to three years.

Another measure will impact those who have more than one outstanding housing loan.

**** My Hopes For A Better Singapore <http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/08/30/my-hopes-for-a-better-singapore>
Faris Mokhtar, Yahoo!

I applaud and welcome PM Lee’s goal for a system of “many peaks”, a “system not just for a few top students, but catering to all” and I sincerely hope this can be translated into concrete action in the near future.

That’s because among my peers, I still see many students’ lives and dreams being dictated by examinations and the need to be successful – not to be “great” in their respective field of passion — but merely as an avenue to secure that cushy high-paying job later on in life.

**** Alec Tok: A Shining Light For Singapore? <http://www.cnngo.com/singapore/life/alec-tok-shining-light-singapore-287377>
Elaine Ee-Meyers, CNNGo

Based in New York and Shanghai -- and now extending his reach to Singapore -- 45-year-old director and filmmaker Alec Tok surprised everyone when he was announced as a candidate for the opposition’s Reform Party earlier this year. Essentially his first foray into politics, Tok was inspired by by the Reform Party's ambition to go beyond just being the opposition. Here, he discusses how politics impacts his artistic work and the difference between a home and a country.

**** Singapore Moves To Cool Property Market <http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSGE67T01620100830>
Kevin Lim and Harry Suhartono, Reuters

Singapore's move to curb speculation in its residential property market comes on the heels of similar moves by China and Hong Kong, which are also trying to keep a lid on rising home prices.

Nicholas Mak, former head of research at Knight Frank in Singapore, said the latest government measures targeted speculators but did not affect those looking to buy their own homes.

**** Younger Singaporeans No Doormats <http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/4076-younger-singaporeans-no-doormats>
Singapore Democrat Party

Younger Singaporeans are beginning to feel that power does not just reside in the Government's hands. They realise that they too have the power to affect the course of political action in Singapore, even if only by calling out the shortcomings of the authorities.

PAP's leaders would do well to heed this signal. If the ruling party wants to govern this country wisely - and that's a big if - then it will know that it cannot prosecute the Maliks and the Abdillahs into silence, not without running Singapore into the ground.

**** Population Bomb (Metaphor) <http://chemgen.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/population-bomb-metaphor/>
Chemical Generation Singapore

This whole set up of a new division under the PMO seems like a face-saving exit for the Home Affairs minister. Well at least if he steps down to head this outfit, it would be better from a taxpayer point of view, than one of those overpaid underworked minister without portfolios in the PMO.

**** Singapore Developer Bonds Slide As Rules Added To Cool Prices <http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-29/singapore-developer-bonds-slide-as-rules-added-to-cool-prices.html>
Katrina Nicholas, Bloomberg

Bonds of CapitaLand Ltd., Southeast Asia’s biggest developer, fell after Singapore added to measures designed to cool the city-state’s real estate market.

**** Lee Kuan Yew Snookers Najib Again <http://syedsoutsidethebox.blogspot.com/2010/08/lee-kuan-yew-snookers-najib-again.html>
Syed Akbar Ali, OutSyed The Box

Actually PM Najib is believed to have been snagged by the Singaporeans’ insistence that there was a sort of ‘development charge’ of close to S$1.8 billion (RM4.2 Billion) that would have to be paid for the redevelopment of the KTM land. This little bit of unexpected oversight has thrown the financial mathematics of the whole project a little bit awry for Najib and gang.

**** Expats Snapping Up ‘Landed Properties’ In Singapore <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/expatproperty/7968505/Expats-snap-up-landed-properties-in-Singapore.html>
Leah Hyslop, Telegraph

According to a report published this week by Global Property Guide, Singapore currently has the best performing property market in the world, with prices rising faster than anywhere else in the world.

**** Lay(person)ing The Law: Section 377A's Constitutionality <http://thinkingbetterthinkingmeta.blogspot.com/2010/08/laypersoning-law-section-377as.html>
Sam Ho, Sam's Thoughts

**** Parliament To Sit On Sept 15 <http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_572650.html>
Straits Times

**** The Rally <http://hardhitting-nobs.blogspot.com/2010/08/rally.html>
Musings From The Lion City

I fear the government has not listened enough to the people. If the PM thinks 80,000 is a number acceptable to Singaporean, he will have to think again. The big problem Singaporeans has with foreign workers is not ‘foreign workers’ themselves, but the problems that came due to the sheer amount of foreign workers in Singapore.

**** Immigrants And Foreign Workers: Let’s Talk Real Numbers <http://geraldgiam.sg/2010/08/immigrants-and-foreign-workers-let%e2%80%99s-talk-real-numbers/>
Gerald Giam

What was missing amidst all the attractive graphics, touching personal profiles and selective examples, were the actual numbers to justify the excessively high immigration rates that Singapore has experienced in the past decade.

**** Border Treaty Marks New Milestone In Singapore-Indonesia Ties <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1078020/1/.html>
S Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia

**** The PAP And The Malay Singaporean: Between Rhetoric, Reality And Meritocracy <http://theonlinecitizen.com/2010/08/the-pap-and-the-malay-singaporean-between-rhetoric-reality-and-meritocracy/>
Pritam Singh, The Online Citizen