Quote for the month of June

Travelling - will be back in June. So a quote by Guy Kawasaki - managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. The difference between Singapore and Israel was neatly summed up by Guy Kawasaki in one of his recent visits to Singapore.

"Israel has 5 million people, six million entrepreneurs, and fifteen million opinions. Singapore has 5 million people, six entrepreneurs and one opinion."

Really a innovative, "out of the box" kinda guy that we need more of in our tiny nation. Do read his "A practical blog for impractical people" -

Reckless and Extreme - I likey

Found this on a friend's blog - to share. This was something I always wanted to do with my bike, back in the BMX days. Also during inline skating days. Reckless and extreme. These days, just old and long distance "focus" rides.

Enjoy the video.

Wants and Needs

We all know this- "It is never a need but always a want".
From my fav U2 band - "What you don't have you don't need it now" (Excerpt from It's a Beautiful Day).

So often I have friends letting their lives lead them instead of living their lives. They get into buying more and more from the insatiable wants. And once you get tied with cars and houses, stocks, investment, you realize the $ commitments monthly will get you down and without realizing it...you lose yourself.

Many people thought it is a driving force, a motivation, a goal...I feel it is a sure quick way to losing yourself when you over-commit and you might compromise your integrity, your morals in order to get out of that choking feeling.

I guess I have been through that phase. Having a need to commit to paying for a house or a car and quite often needing to find more money. I start to lose myself and in turn perhaps become someone else... The worse thing about this, it is a disease which many have failed to realize until they lose it all - be it material gains or people they love; or when they finally completed paying for all the purchases. Then you stop to think, if it is really worth it. Would a simple life without the fear of losing your job, supporting your dependents... be better? Or simply it is the lack of money which results in that? But I realize I have friends who made more, they spend more. Frugality doesn't always go hand in hand with wealth.

Would happiness be easier achieve with simplicity? But how many of us can live with just needs and not that Gucci or LV bag or even a gold ah-beng mobile?

Moments in Time

The phases of Venus, observed by Galileo in 1610


Today is an anniversary of a very special day and I believe it might have changed the past and perhaps the future of Sillypore.

These are 2 good reads today which provided insight to how my 3rd President thought and what could be the reason why he was forced to step down. And the other of a man who stood by what he believes in and managed to serve the citizens well in his limited capacity.

Both I believe did whatever they could, limited perhaps by their own selfless beliefs that truth will prevail someday.

Again I would like to remind those reading this blog, I don't drink coffee and I am in no way supporting or biased to any factions except for good literacies of noteworthy history.


Personally I believe we have come a long way and Man in general have to stock take on their personal goals and what we truly believe in. I have friends who look towards retirement plans in other countries, some who look towards making a small dent in global warming and saving Aeia. But where do we stand in our quest of being truly humane? Seriously, I do not think we care.

Our world illiteracy levels have halved since the last 40 years, and the arrival of the Internet has connected each and every one of us closer. But somehow I feel more isolated every other day.

There are moments in time which have defined how we now think. From when women were never thought as equals but mere tools of reproductive system, we now have Forbes or Fortune listing World's most powerful women to even FHM sexiest list of women. The last 100 years have been most exciting for the "weaker" gender, but apparently it stopped short in many other parts of the world. Where women are still veiled and subjected to polygamy and various harsh rules. We have also came a long way since religion and politics goes hand in hand, to present times where one must tread with care to keep politics secular. From science and religion where a mere 400 years ago, Galileo who led the scientific revolution, introduced the heavens a whole new Universe. Astronomy and the birth of modern science whom the churches once condemned Galileo guilty of heresy, forced him to spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

We have indeed come a long way from those revolutionary periods where the truth was condemned as heresy, only to find in matter of time to be nothing but false charges which are actual truths stabbing at establishments, at that present system. So moving forward as Man should, we should always remember the paths we took and how we got there in the first place. The sacrifices of many, who made it all possible for the way we live right now in the present. So remember today, Sillyporeans.

$2 to enter a bookshop

Had a fever over the weekend. Slight increase of temperature, I guess from an overexertion, jogged too much last week.

Anyway bought a Gladwell book called "Outliers" to tide over the idle weekend, good read especially from his previous 2.

Here's some shit to share with fellow "State" Times readers. This joker, News Editor Loh suggested to charge $2 per entry to a bookstore to curb free loaders. Below is a quote of what he wrote, in case the links go missing again.

BOOKSHOPS should really charge people an entrance fee.
I am convinced that this radical proposal will instantly reduce the number of people who now drop into book stores and treat the place like their own playground or personal library.

Loh Keng Fatt
News Editor, Sunday Times

Which brings me back to the point of levying an admission fee - to get the right type of people to come.
I have always wondered why bookshops operate on a model that literally allows customers the full run of the place - and with little prospects of many of them actually buying something....

...But bookshops play Santa, and everyone’s welcome to browse, read, socialise and hang loose.I think they should charge, say, a $2 admission charge.
This would help the bookshops to earn some income and deter some freeloaders from showing up.

Wanted to leave a comment on the website but not sure why it can't go through, perhaps too many people already left their mark.

This was what I wanted to say:

You must go to the same school as the ERP guys, same school of thought. Go join the PAP, I think they need more people like you to help them earn back USD$4.6billion, a waste of talent at ST I say. Couldn't you have suggested having government create an open concept library where people can go read for free, but kids can wonder and roam and make lots of noise like these bookstores? Bookstores are running a private business and their model is to get as much traffic flow as possible. Who are you to pricing everyone out of places? Shall we soon charge for parks and gardens as well, since kids or families are treating them like personal playgrounds, screaming and running around? Choices such as Amazon and Ebay have already made people live like hermits shopping at their computers via online. The world is getting more global yet isolated at the same time, because people like you exist.

Seriously I should have just brought a mini stool and go to Borders to sit there to read my Gladwell book instead of paying $30 for it. $2 for entry fee? What if it doesn't reduce the number of freeloaders? Since we still can read countless books and magazines for just $2? Raise the admission to $10? Then I guess I do expect it to be some rental fee, same reason why I paid ERP but only to find myself still stuck in a jam. And do not bother about writing in to complain as we know what will happen, the way the LTA authorities will think, is the same way as ST Editor Loh would do, raise the ERP fees. Is $ the only solution out of everything in Singapore? Have they not thought about how the other parts of the world resolve problems pertaining to upbringing? Is this the very reason why the moral fabric of our society is now in the doldrums?

Where has chivalry, courage, kindness, humility, patience, diligence, justice and temperance gone to these days?

I could download or purchase the book online, but I enjoyed browsing through bookshops, turning crisp pages of a book. I enjoy poking my close friends for real, instead of doing it on facebook. I chose to walk or cycle to my destination not because I am saving on parking, petrol or ERP charges, but because it gives me the slow breeze of wind on my face and perhaps I am reducing my carbon footprint at the same time. We do things for a reason, and its so sad sometimes money or the lack of it comes to us like that is the ONLY other reason.


Let's not forget the simple joys of doing what we love or enjoy doing, and do stand up to idiotic, brainless ideas such as an admission fee to enter a bookshop.