Sunday, June 26, 2011

The truth about iPhones

So it has been revealed in today’s Straits Times here that Apple accounts for 80% of data transmitted to and from non-computer devices in Singapore. To me, that means that Singaporeans are a rich bunch – or at least very willing and able to spend – given that iPhones and iPads don’t come cheap.

I wonder though, if all the iPhone fanatics out there realise the supremely huge profit margin that Apple has on the product. The total manufacturing cost of an iPhone is only US$179, which is approximately only SG$222.

I’m not sure either if iPhone users are aware of the labour rights issues related to the assembly of iPhones, which takes place in China under the company Foxconn. Workers in Foxconn have committed suicides due to low wages and poor labour conditions, while workers in Wintek, which makes Apple’s touch screens, have suffered from chemical poisoning

It may not be fair to blame Apple completely for the misdeeds of its subcontractors, but Apple has done little to address the issues or apply pressure on its subcontractors despite the many controversies that have arisen, particularly in the case of Foxconn. One must also always ask whether subcontractors use low-quality materials or pay low wages due to pressure by the main company to keep costs down to maximise profits – it’s a question that applies to the manufacture of all goods.

However, a research paper has pointed out that raising wages has little impact on Apple’s profits for the iPhone. A 10 times increase in labour costs will only increase the assembly costs of an iPhone to US$68 and push total manufacturing costs to about US$240 – only US$61 for a 10 times increase, which makes the current labour costs a mere pittance at US$6.77 per iPhone.

The pitiful cost of labour in assembling an iPhone aside, the paper used the above argument to suggest the viability of shifting iPhone assembly to the US. The US’ enormous trade deficit with China is not helped by the assembly of iPhones in China, the reason being that China only contributes 3.6% of the total manufacturing costs of the iPhone*, yet the iPhone alone accounted for US$1.9 billion in trade deficit, or 0.8% of the US’ total trade deficit with China. The paper suggests that Apple could therefore shift the iPhone assembly to the US with only US$61 increase in manufacturing costs (assuming US workers cost 10 times more than Chinese workers), reducing the US’ trade deficit with China and providing jobs for the flagging US manufacturing sector at the same time.

 

*: The manufacture of iPhones involves 9 companies located in China, Germany, Japan, Korea and the US, with the main producers and suppliers of iPhone parts and components mostly located outside of China and China mainly handling the assembly, as previously mentioned.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Hits and (mostly) misses

Something I saw reminded me of taking photos with the instax, and i went looking at my old pics. i still don’t really know how to you the various settings on the camera. as you can see, my photos come out with varying effects:

At the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland on a cloudy winter’s day in December

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Near Mussenden Temple – the sun had come out for a bit and the colours on the digital camera were great, but no so here (here’s the digital version)

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At Dunluce Castle – the instax makes the ruins look even more grim than they actually do (see here), and the Hello Kitty border is unfortunately very incongruous!

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I think it worked pretty well on this graffiti dinosaur in Belfast – its a dino wino!

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Think the film also gives Universal Studios a rather other-worldy feel..

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It was threatening to rain when I took this. I was expecting the images to come out clearer, but I obviously didn’t succeed!

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Saturday, June 18, 2011

Interesting facts–from QI

More accurately, these are from The Book of General Ignorance which is full of interesting little nuggets of knowledge. Here are some:

  • Humans have 4 nostrils.
  • The biggest thing a blue whale can swallow is a grapefruit.
  • Polar bears like toothpaste.
  • Kilts, bagpipes, haggis, porridge, whiskey and tartan all do NOT originate from Scotland. (And Scotland, by the way, is named after the Scoti, a Celtic tribe from Ireland, while whiskey was invented by the ancient Chinese!)
  • Iceland is Europe’s largest producer of bananas.
  • Coffee isn’t made from beans, but from seeds.
  • Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries aren’t actually berries, although bananas, watermelons, papayas, tomatoes, oranges and blueberries are berries.

Monday, June 13, 2011

slow in Singapore

I recently injured my ankle and have been walking around rather slowly as a result.

and truth betold, it’s scary to be walking slowly, especially when I’m out and about at peak hours.

you know people are right behind you, raring to get off the bus while you slowly lower yourself down the steps.

you know they’re impatient to step off the escalator, but you’re blocking their way and you wonder if they’ll push you forward and cause you to slip.

in their rush to and from work, people brush past you in all sorts of ways as they manoeuvre around you, this sole person shuffling along right in their path.

children are especially hazardous, as they run and jump about without looking to see if they may crash into someone. their movements are unpredictable too; a kid that seems out of harm’s way now may careen into you in the next second.

and this is how the elderly folk who aren’t too mobile probably feel every time they go out – it makes me fear growing old. i have an ankle guard on my leg, which many have mistaken as a bandage, yet all the people pushing past me because i’m slow don’t seem to particularly care that they may hurt me or cause me to fall.

someone once suggested that senior citizen concessions on public transport be extended to peak hours as well, but you know, discouraging the elderly from being out at peak hours is really for their own safety and well being. besides, no old person in their right mind would want to put themselves through the slight bouts of panic that i experience to and fro from work each day, simply because everyone else around me seems so fast in comparison.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Kuala Lumpur

I finally visited KL for the first time in my life, and to be very frank I’m not impressed. Yes, the city has stuff like Krispy Kreme and this amazing Ireland Potato with a wacky description and extremely delicious fries:

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"In Ireland today there are two things in the world that can't be joked - marriage and potato."

"Ireland country tradition, serious in Potato just like how they treat marriage."

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But well. Public transportation isn’t very good. Their train/light rail system doesn’t really bring people to the tourist attractions, and the lines are all owned by different train companies. It meant that to travel 3 stops to where we wanted to go – Independence Square – we had to queue to buy tickets twice and change trains once. And by that I mean get out of the gantries, exit the station, walk to the adjacent station, enter the station and pass through the gantries again.

We went into this mosque since the man at the gate was beckoning us in, and a tour group was entering too:

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And then we reached Independence Square. There’s really nothing to see there except the buildings. Add the fact that the weather was so horribly hot and it seemed slightly underwhelming.

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Having come this way, I thought we should check out the other buildings in the area since online guides said that the city centre had pretty buildings, museums and other sights. So we walked down the road in the blazing heat. Eventually we spotted the roof of the National Mosque:

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Most of the museums nearby are Islam-related, which neither of us had much interest in. We headed uphill (it was a long walk! the map was somewhat misleading) to the Planetarium Negara instead:

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There were students on a school trip at the planetarium. It wasn’t very exciting, but it had some fun exhibits and good photographs of the night sky. The Omnimax show – voiced by Tom Hanks – was really good too; far better than The Hubble that’s showing at Singapore’s Science Centre now.

From there, we decided to head to KLCC to see the Petronas Towers. The taxi ride cost 8.90RM for a longer ride than what the taxi drivers outside our hotel were trying to charge us (10RM) for the journey to Independence Square.

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Unfortunately that was the only cheap taxi ride we had – the ride from KLCC to the KL Tower/Merdaka Tower cost us at least 20RM, and there was no other choice but to cab there as the nearest light rail station to KL Tower seemed quite far according to the map. There was even a surcharge for taxis to drive you up the hill to the entrance of the KL Tower!

Note of caution when in Kuala Lumpur – do not, absolutely do NOT take those bigger blue taxis as the starting fare is nearly double that of the smaller red and yellow ones and the meter jumps faster too.

KL Tower was expensive to go up – about 45RM i think – but it offers a better view of the city than the Petronas Towers as its viewing deck is higher than that at the Petronas (I heard its midway up).

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It was threatening to rain when we were up there, but thankfully it never did, at least not where we were. It resulted in some stunning clouds though:

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The Petronas Towers seem a little grimy from the side:

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Heading back to our hotel from KL Tower, we decided to just walk to find a train station. So we followed our noses and found one after some walking – I’d say that if you were in KL, just walk everywhere if your legs can bear it and you can stand the weather. Otherwise be prepared to pay and be fleeced by the taxi drivers.

We decided to catch Thor in 3D later that evening. It had opened that very day in KL, and the night before we had caught “The Source Code” for something like 9RM each cos it was probably a cheap movie night. Thor was about 20RM I think, which was okay. Purchasing the tickets took a whopping 20 minutes in total – the printer or the computer had broken down while trying to handle our booking. The counter staff were pretty useless too – the assistant manager didnt know the password to reset the system; he called the manager for the password but he either didn’t copy it right or she didn’t give it correctly – he kept typing and retyping and pressing ‘enter’ repeatedly but nothing worked (of course it wouldn’t!). And for some reason we couldn’t just complete our booking at any of the other 4 counters, couldn’t cancel our booking and basically couldn’t do anything but stand there and wait while the staff attempted and failed to do something about it.

Eventually, after 20min of waiting, we were issued the following hand-written ticket which i had to keep in my scrapbook – and yes, the boy kept telling me to chill because i was not in the least pleased:

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So well. I think my nationalistic sentiments are somewhat justified.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Buyan Russian Haute Cuisine & Caviar Bar

Location: 9 Duxton Hill, +65 62237008

Don’t let the name of this restaurant scare you off, as Buyan Russian Haute Cuisine & Caviar Bar offers casual dining as well, in a really nice setting on the third storey of a Duxton Hill shophouse:

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I really liked the candelabra and pseudo stained glass windows.

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While my phone camera does little justice to the place, believe me when I say that the place was pretty. The glasses for cold water attest to that too, and warm water is served in a little pot. Unlike Nandos which insisted on charging for hot water, our warm water was topped up throughout the evening, even though we had to request for water refill, warm and cold alike:

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The menus here come in the form of iPads. I’m not sure if iPads in the long run are more cost-effective compared to hardcopy menus that have to be reprinted, but it was a new experience to have a touchscreen menu. A picture of each item pops up when you touch the icon next to the price:

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First up was some complimentary bread accompanied by little mounds of butter. There were 2 types of bread served – one was a type of brown bread with a grainy taste, while the other was a fragrant white bread with herbs and reminiscent of focaccia.

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Next came the Khachapuri, which was Georgian flat bread with hard goats cheese ($10). The flat bread reminded us of roti prata, and the cheese was thick and delicious. This was my favourite dish of the evening as it just tasted so amazingly good. It’s incredibly value for money too, as the cheese was filling – what you see below is mostly cheese as the bread was very thin. It’s best shared among 3 – 4 people:

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We also ordered Mushroom Stew ($9). It’s an average portion best eaten with bread. While the sauce was a little salty, the mushrooms were extremely tasty – I loved the robust fragrance of herbs:

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One of us is vegetarian and ordered the Pirozhki ($12) – Russian pastry stuffed with potato and cabbage. Each of these below had a different stuffing, but I didn’t try them. Buyan has a page of vegetarian mains, which makes it a suitable place for vege diners:

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The other 3 of us shared a Shkmeruli, or Garlic Oven Roasted Chicken ($45). The chicken turned out to be even bigger than it appeared on the menu and can easily feed 4 people.  It certainly would be too much to be shared between two ladies, and that’s coming from a big eater! The combination of garlic and other herbs and spices gave the chicken a great flavour, while the meat was tender and juicy.

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We had to wait a while for dessert, as we ordered a Baked Apple which required some preparation time. The service at Buyan is polished, although the staff got less attentive as the restaurant filled up a bit more later in the evening.

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Dessert when it arrived was worth the wait. The Baked Apple ($8) was a whole apple, filled with a slightly sweet, thin, cream sauce and a hint of cinnamon. I’m not sure what they did to the skin of the apple, but it tasted good and got mopped up pretty quickly:

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The Blinis dessert ($12) was a kind of soft, slightly sweet crepe accompanied by sour cream, condensed milk and preserved berries. The berries went extremely well with the condensed milk and was a light, delicious conclusion to our meal.

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Our bill, when it came, was a surprise at only $26.40 per person. After eating so much till we were stuffed! It was a steal in our case, although the price of food items at Buyan vary quite greatly. While the fish and chicken on the menu below are affordable enough (all except the chicken are single serving I believe), the beef and lamb are a lot pricier. One of us had heard that the lamb-baked with mash potatoes is quite a small serving, so the final bill at Buyan can vary a lot depending on the items ordered!

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The food is good though, and I’ll be happy to return there. If you do visit, don’t forget to visit the washroom on the second floor, which this interesting washbasin!

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Afternote: I visited Buyan again in June 2012 and ordered the Pirozhki, Georgian flat bread and some Borsch soup. Unfortunately, something had changed and the pastries for the pirozhki and flat bread were drier, more buttery and a little flaky. I have to admit that I was rather disappointed by the change in texture, as the butter taste was a bit too powering and the food ended up quite dry – thank goodness for the soup.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Numbers and Graphs

This is crazy.

It's been forever since I've logged onto Blogger as I almost always post from Windows Live Writer. So, I've only just discovered a "Stats" tab on this page, which shows cool stuff like which are my posts with the most page views.

It's pretty interesting - the posts with the most hits are actually what I thought were rather irrelevant to most other people. Apparently more folks search for those keywords than I'd thought!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Carbon Footprints

The Economist’s article “Following the Footprints” expounds on carbon-footprint labels that are appearing on food products, especially in Europe. The concept is interesting and useful:

“The idea was that carbon labels would let shoppers identify products with the smallest carbon footprints, just as other labels already indicate dolphin-friendly tuna, organic milk or Fairtrade coffee. Producers would compete to reduce the carbon footprints of their products, and consumers would be able to tell whether, for example, locally made goods really were greener than imported ones.”

While local vs imported products isn’t very relevant to Singaporeans, carbon-footprint labels would definitely help consumers in making a more informed choice. A French retailer has taken it one step further – and I’m not even sure Singapore’s supermarkets all indicate cost per kilogram:

“E. Leclerc, another French retailer, has pioneered two novel twists on carbon labelling in a handful of its stores. It has fixed labels to store shelves showing the carbon emissions per kilogram of produce next to the usual price tags showing cost per kilogram. “

The article also highlighted that carbon footprints did not end with the manufacturing of the product. In fact, “use-phase” emissions should be considered too, whereby the carbon footprint of usage of the product should be considered:

“The emissions associated with a bottle of shampoo depend on how long you spend in the shower, how hot the water is and what sort of boiler you have.”

it would be great if Singapore had a larger green movement. Recycling isn’t even widely practised here; my office doesn’t even recycle bottles and cans, and a staff feedback system is no longer existent.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Connectivity

Had a meeting in Beihai, in the south of Guangxi Province in southern China. Getting there wasn’t very enjoyable – it involved a 4 hour transit in Guangzhou Baiyun Airport for a total flight time of slightly more than 5 hours. It also meant flying on China Southern Airlines – which I don’t really like due to the many people who tried to shove their asses into my side as they squeeze (rudely) past each other on the aisle.

There isn’t much in Guangzhou Baiyun Airport either. The food options are somewhat limited and the shopping was mainly specialty shops (food, cigarettes, tea) and clothes (mainly what I think are local brands as few were familiar).

Interestingly, I was in seat 39C on 3 out of 4 flights – too bad I was placed in seat 42 on the last leg back.

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Imagine my surprise when I learnt of the transit time involved when flying from other countries in the region. From Hanoi, there was a 7hr transit. From Manila, a 9hr transit on the way there, and on the way back I think a 12hr transit was required. 12 hours! – one can fly to London from Singapore direct in 13hrs!

And from Bandar Seri Bengawan, one would have to go via Singapore on the same route as I did, but with a 4hr transit in Singapore as well. Guess how much it would cost to get from Bandar Seri Bengawan to Beihai? A whopping 3000USD!! Holy moly. One can buy many many things with that amount of money. Royal Brunei does fly to China cities like Shanghai, but not every day. Makes me so glad that Singapore is well connected – imagine how much time I’d have to spend just travelling if that weren’t the case. And I already felt that the travel time was too long!

 
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