Hand pollination

Image via WikipediaI have come across several articles in the web for doing manual pollination. Some suggested paint brush use, just the size enough for the flowers to be inter-pollinated, and some others suggested the use of cotton buds.

I chose the paint brush, as I always have these within my reach, and I don't have to throw them away after use.

Now, all I have to do is wait. I hope to be successful in my manual pollination technique!

Till then.

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No pollinators

Image by cskk via FlickrThe chili plants that brought me high hopes as my provider for leaves and pods - they all grew well. But it is just so disappointing, in that living up high in the flats among an almost concreted area will not have even a single pollinator!

The flowers come, sprout, spread, then wither and die. No pods.

And the leaves are almost always having some aphids sticking underneath them. I wouldn't have minded that for all I care, but then, there are no fertilized flowers that will show me some colors other than green and white, so I would be on the lookout on how to perform artificial pollination.

I hope to make this work - many flowers are waiting!

Till then!

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Build character as well as a living

Letter from Benjamin Gan

I REFER to "All of us are guilty sometimes" (Sept 1).

Mr Wilson Lim's remark that "people here tend to mind their own business to avoid unnecessary trouble" is truly indicative of the mindset of the average Singaporean, a mindset that seems codified into our genes, reinforced and refined through generations in the name of survival.

And what is even more remarkable is that our society has progressed beyond the state of survival. We do not need to steal or kill for our food and we are comfortably sheltered from the wrath of nature.

I marvel at how this mindset could have flourished in the midst of our economic progress. My only sad conclusion is that our social development has been woefullly neglected in favour of economic development. I think it is time we get back to basics by revamping our education system to include ethics and social studies in the curriculum. Education is not just about grades and good jobs. It is about building character.

From TODAY, Voices – Wednesday, 02-Sep-2009

Beauty queen's outfit falls short of Japanese tastes

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I agree with the detractors, those who fall under the conservative group.

Either you wear a totally revealing outfit (if you can call a two-piece underwear an outfit), or you dress up and down, all the way.

To me, this mid-way costume showing the hot pink underwear is more than simply an outfit: it seems that a crass and sleazy character is being projected by none other than Japan's Miss Universe contestant, and she represents the people, the female populace of Japan with that kind of dress.

If you are a Japanese girl, would you like to be looked at in that way?

Read that story here.

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Image via Wikipedia

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3. Is the principal the ‘top’ on students’ role model list?

Principal fired for jumping on students

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Top criminal lawyer to act for owner of Brookes Business School

I was following this news lightly, Brookes Business School shut down due to 'fake' degrees offered.

Anyway, when I saw this news, I thought that the owner was trying to pull up some act to defend himself, and be declared righteous. I was wrong. You can read the rest of the story here.

Don’t talk to strangers

05:55 AM Jun 18, 2009

YOUR phone rings and a stranger informs you that your relative has murdered someone and needs to flee the country. Or you could be told that your family and company are being watched.

In both scenarios, the caller would eventually demand money and will threaten to use violence to disrupt your business activities or cause harm to family members if payments are not made.

The police have detected this new variation of phone scams in which culprits make extortion calls to business offices demanding money. Like the earlier versions of phone scams, these are designed to trick victims into parting with their money.

The calls are believed to be made from overseas, and the culprit is also known to converse in Mandarin with a China or Taiwan accent, the police said in a statement yesterday.

The culprit may also threaten to kidnap female victims and take nude photos of them if his demands are not met. He may also claim that he has links with secret societies and needs money to help his men flee Singapore after committing serious crimes.

He may also say he has firearms and explosives.

None of the culprits have so far been successful, and none of the threats made have been carried out, according to the police. But they advise members of the public to be aware of, and to be vigilant against such scams.

You should never reveal any personal details, including those of your business or family to any caller, or transfer money to unknown persons.

Such calls should be reported as soon as possible by calling the police hotline at 1800 255 0000 or 999 if urgent police assistance is required.

The police also advise vigilance against the other variations of phone scams such as the kidnap, lottery and impersonation scams.

More details of what these entail can be found at the Singapore Police Force website at www.spf.gov.sg or the Commercial Affairs Department website at www.cad.gov.sg.

From TODAY, News – Thursday, 18-Jun-2009; see the source article here.

A pitiful passerby

Image by krakow.bicycles via Flickr

The point made here is very right: have we been so much preoccupied with our own affairs that everything and everybody else is a blurred view? We may be looking at the mirror now, and all we see is our own self…

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05:55 AM Jun 16, 2009

Edric Sng, edric@mediacorp.com.sg

ON THE walk home from the MRT station on Saturday, I saw a man lying face down in the grass by the roadside, barely moving, legs and arms awkwardly splayed, a bicycle in a heap beside him. Bending over him was another man, seemingly a stranger, nudging him and urgently asking him if he was all right, but getting no response. I sprinted over.

The fallen man - we guessed he was a foreign labourer - was a mess. Face covered in blood, thickly flowing from his nose, which was likely broken. Grass and dried mud all over his face, hair, and clothes. His eyes were glassy, faraway.

We were at the foot of a fairly high hill and we figured that he’d probably sped down too quickly on his bicycle, whose brakes had failed him, sending him headfirst into the concrete.

He wouldn’t respond at first when asked if he needed a doctor or an ambulance. Then he started spouting gibberish, asking where his sister was. After about five minutes, he groggily stood up, but his legs gave way and he damn near fell into a drain. We forced him to sit down again.

At this point, a Singaporean woman who looked in her mid-20s came over, glanced at the man lying on the pavement, then tapped me on the shoulder. She, too, looked worried.

“Excuse me, do you know where Jalan Masjid is?”

I don’t know, I wanted to say, ask the bloodied man lying on the floor. I bit my tongue and pointed her the right way. She walked off without so much as a glance at our fallen acquaintance.

Eventually, we managed to bundle the poor man and his mangled bicycle off into a passing cab - he absolutely refused to allow us to take him to a clinic or hospital - and between us gave him $20 to get him home.

I don’t know what was at Jalan Masjid, but I sure hope it was a matter of life or death. Singaporeans, eh?

From TODAY, Voices; see the source article here.

A novel place to hawk credit cards

Talk about flexibility and ingenuity…

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by Alicia Wong

05:55 AM May 13, 2009

YOU'VE seen them at bus interchanges and inside shopping malls - and now, credit card promoters have even set up shop at hawker centres.

One bank, Standard Chartered, has engaged marketing company Appco to promote its Platinum credit card, which it is now doing, at hawker centres, for instance, at Holland Village and Adam Road.

At the Adam Road hawker centre yesterday afternoon, Today spotted four promoters outside one of the entrances. Theirs was a casual set-up - a table, chairs, banner, laptop and printer.

Dressed in office wear and toting brochures, the promoters said they had been stationed there for the past week to catch the lunch and dinner crowds.

They look out for likely applicants and approach them as they enter, or else wait for the diners to finish their meal and leave. "It's (a good strategy) because we get a different crowd everytime ... no one eats at the same place all the time," said one promoter.

Another promoter said they were not allowed to enter the hawker centre and speak to people while they ate, as that would be akin to touting.

Diners who are interested can apply for a Platinum credit card on the spot. They just need to produce their identification card and access the Internet to print a copy of their monthly CPF contribution statement as proof that they earn more than $30,000 a year.

Today understands they average some 10 sign-ups a day.

Some patrons were surprised at this novel marketing move. One civil servant said: "This is quite inappropriate. People would like to enjoy their food, rather than make a decision (whether or not to get a credit card)."

But permanent resident Serge Landry, 44, who was spotted flipping through the brochure and trying to decide if he should sign up, felt it was "good if you have the time to listen".

When contacted, Appco said it needed its client's approval to comment; StanChart was unable to respond by press time.

From TODAY – Wednesday, 13-May-2009

First dip in resale flat prices since 2006

BUSINESS ANALYSIS

Prices of HDB resale flats fell 0.8 per cent in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter, marking the first decline since 2006.

This was slightly worse than the 0.6 -per-cent fall estimated by HDB earlier this month.

Price increases in resale flats have been moderating since the third quarter of last year. The median Cash-Over-Valuation amount for resale transactions dropped to $4,000 in the first quarter, a plunge of 73 per cent from the fourth quarter of last year.

The number of resale applications rose by 4 per cent to around 6,400. 938LIVE

From TODAY, Business – Weekend, 25/56-April-2009

Last Letters

NEW BUSINESS

One man is helping others say that final farewell

Loh Chee Kong, cheekong@mediacorp.com.sg

DRIVEN to desperation by the Asian financial crisis, Mr H Y Teo faced the prospect of losing his home right after his IT business went bust — had his parents and siblings not helped him repay his mounting bank loans.

He recalled: "I wanted to tell them how much I appreciate and love them but I didn't know how to say it."

So, he wrote them heartfelt letters, and it struck him then that there must be many others like him, "who had something to tell their families but they didn't have the opportunity, or the time was not right, they were not ready, or they were too embarrassed".

Eleven years on — and facing another recession — Mr Teo, a part-time IT consultant, has turned that realisation into a business: The idea is to get people to pen their last words in advance, leave them in the hands of a total stranger who would deliver the letter to the intended recipients — wherever they are — for a modest sum of $39.90 (until June, when Mr Teo will review the pricing strategy).

Lastletters.com.sg has, since its launch in January, attracted an average of 60 to 100 visitors a day from around the world (mainly from Americans and Australians, with Asians making up less than 10 per cent).

According to the website, the company would contact the client once a year for the first two years upon receipt of the letter — and once every six months thereafter.

Should such attempts fail to contact the client, the letter would be delivered to the recipients.

Unconvinced? Apparently, some 400 or so people out there beg to differ. They have been interested enough to contact Mr Teo to ask for more details — on top of pouring their sorrows over marital problems or complaining about the neighbours.

"There was this Australian who said he wanted me to pass a letter to his neighbour when he dies. He wanted to tell his neighbour to be nicer to the next guy who moves in, and make sure his dog doesn't bark so loudly," Mr Teo recalled.

A common refrain among the enquiries was while they liked the idea of penning so-called "last letters", they were unsure how to do it. Apart from letters — which have to weigh less than 100 grammes — Mr Teo also offers to safekeep and subsequently deliver personal artefacts to intended recipients. A 75-year-old Briton has already asked Mr Teo if he could help him pass a grandfather clock to his son after he dies.

Mr Teo has yet to close any deals but he is optimistic — so much so that he is planning to retire in two years and concentrate on building up what his friends have disapprovingly described as a "black business".

Some friends have argued that people contemplating suicide can now count on Mr Teo to deliver their last words.

But Mr Teo is adamant he is doing more good than harm.

Said Mr Teo: "If people want to take their own lives, nobody can stop them." What his business intends to do is to give people the peace of mind to "go anywhere they want, and take on any jobs they want".

And he was convinced he would be making the world a "better place"— even if people do not buy his idea, which was exactly what some have told him via email.

Said Mr Teo: "They said they were not going to be my customers. They said something like, 'I'm going to spend more time with my loved ones because I realised that I neglected them a lot. I'm now going to speak to them a lot more.'"

Mr Teo continued: "My tears rolled down after I read these — not because I'm sad that I'm not getting business. I think I have done some good to educate people out there."

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There was this Australian who said he wanted me to pass a letter to his neighbour when he dies. He wanted to tell his neighbour to be nicer to the next guy who moves in, and make sure his dog doesn't bark so loudly.

Mr H Y Teo, www.lastletters.com.sg

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Never mind the moral lessons, the business concept certainly has moneymaking potential. Mr Teo has already received a handful of propositions from major technology corporations, which were sounding him out for a joint venture. One even said it might consider acquiring his business.

"I won't sell my business for whatever amount they can offer... at least not in the near future. I want to see it grow," Mr Teo insisted.

And yes, those letters he had written in 1998 are still with him — lovingly preserved in air-tight plastic bags and locked away in a safe. "My wife and children know what to do with them should anything happen to me," he added.

WEEKENDXTRA

From TODAY, World – Weekend, 25/56-April-2009