Visas...

Visa application forms. Oh how I love them. Not.

I seriously think visas are just some form of protectionism - people pay money for their application, only to find out they applied too late / didn't have the right supporting documents / can't afford to travel because of the application fees. We probably won't get back the application fees, and they avoid having us people in their country.

This is one form of bureaucracy that has dogged me whenever I want to travel. And it's not like the process is one that makes you feel welcomed in the country you plan to visit, either - you must submit a straight-faced photo of yourself, give them your biometric prints, and miss work/leisure time to wait a lot in a grim embassy office/building (often an office in an apartment, because they're too cheap to make a respectable building), before you can actually show the embassy staff your application form, only to be let known if you passed or failed the "visa acid test".

Nowadays, of course, you can fill in your application form online. But don't be fooled. The process is still not futuristic - you have to search for a PDF file in a website that probably looked modern in the Netscape days, and you have to print the PDF on paper - so much for environmental awareness. Then, you have to remember to bring the printed forms to the embassy. Forget that, even if it's a single page, and you're in deep trouble.

Oh, did I mention you have to book an appointment? Most often, the embassy opens in the most unhappy hours - my appointment with the US embassy, for example, is 7.30AM. And because I live in the North of Jakarta, while the embassy is in the central/South area, I'd have to try and beat the jams. Otherwise, I'd have to come back another day.

Embassies' consular services seem to open for 4 hours a day - 8am to 12am for the UK Visa application centre in Jakarta. I've been wondering why it's only open for such short hours, and why only in the morning, aside from security reasons. I don't know if the postal system have anything to do with the short opening hours, or maybe it's laziness, but who cares - I find it bloody annoying. If they open for more hours (I'm staring at the US embassy folks here), maybe they can serve more people in a day and have less of an appointment backlog that goes into the next century. Oh, maybe hire more staff as well? I know the US is trying to cut their budgets (well, not really, are they?) but I suspect the cost of taking on more staff will be less than the benefit of having more tourists and visitors enter your country.

The whole visa application process kind-of makes you feel second-rate. I understand they do certain things for certain reasons - the funding test is to see if we'll be milking from their benefits system, when we shouldn't be. The biometric scans and photo go into their databases for criminal investigation purposes - I'd want the authorities in the country I'm visiting to know who I am and where to send me if I were to end up in an accident. But sometimes, I wish the process was a bit more human and a bit less bureaucratic.

Oh, by the way, stop asking questions like "Have you done anything that may not characterise you as a person of good nature?". Who, in their right mind, would say "YES I AM A MENACE NOW GIVE ME MY VISA"? (That's not shouting, that's block letters - forms must be filled in in block letters, right?) I mean, come on, I seriously think the IQ level of terrorists are way higher than the person who though up this question. Maybe it's a cold or sleep deprivation that caused that question to go through, but can we not have such things?

On second thought, keep that question there. It certainly brightened my day/night when I read that question, thinking "LOL what if I said YES for eating meat from animals?". All sorts of scenarios of behaviours that may be perceived as 'bad' pop up in my head - stepping on ants, stealing the moon, taking candy from a baby, kiasuism, irrtating people, being lazy, etc. What if someone repents their sins in a visa application form and answered "Yes"? What would the immigration staff do?

Oh darn, maybe I should have answered "Yes"!

Heck. It's just bureaucracy.

Scoring the WWDC...

The Basics.

1. Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall will present most of the keynote. (5m for each presenter) 

[5]

2. iPhone OS 4 will be given a final release date (10m if within one fortnight of the keynote, 5m if within 6 weeks, 1m if any date/timeframe is mentioned that is greater than 6 weeks)

[10. June 21st]

3. iPhone 4G will be unveiled. (10m if yes, 0m if no) 

[8. The 'G' is worth 2 points.]

4. New Safari 5 will be unveiled. (10m if yes, 0m if no)

[0]

5. iPhone 4G will actually do 4G/LTE where available. (10m if yes, 0m if no)

[0]

More on the iPhone OS 4

5 points for any new features not mentioned earlier this year/not discovered by the blog-o-sphere yet.

[5. Bing Support.]

More on the iPhone 4G

5 points if the specs match what's already out there (specifically: IPS display, front facing camera, flash at the back, same design, Micro SIM, Apple A4 chip)

[30]

More on the event in general

5 points for every intro/background video showed. 

[15. 5 for the news clips, 5 for the iMovie clip. 5 for the iPhone 4 video.]

10 points for every ad showed.

[10 for the Nissan iAd.]

15 points for every ad that was showed twice.

[0]

20 points for a 'one more thing'.

[20]

Bonus: 

+10 points for Steve telling the Live Bloggers to shut off their WiFis and MiFis. LoL.

+10 points for Gyroscope and external antenna - the gyro is awesome, and the antenna is just brilliant thinking. 

-20 points for killing off the Live Streams. Hmmph.

+5 points for FaceTime. Brilliant idea. Unfortunately, it's an idea from 2004. And what's with the iPhone4-to-iPhone4 WiFi-only policy?

Points to pass: 50.

Score: 108!

On OECD's Outlook, BBC iPlayer, Intel GPUs, and Rupert Murdoch's empire.

Phew, that was a long title.

Yes, it's a posting of 4 topics. So treat them as 4 separate blog posts.

This first bit is on Econs - if you're doing MacroEcons, you might be interested. Otherwise, this is just a load of gibberish. It's a bit UK-focused, but heck.

--------

The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) has recently released their latest outlook for the member economies (mainly US, EU nations, and Japan). One recommendation that they mentioned in the outlook was the warning that the US, UK and Canada should raise interest rates to 3.5% "latest by the end of this year". Another was recommendations for fiscal tightening in all member countries, to ease those budget deficits and please bond markets.

But there are problems with their recommendations, though.

In times like now, where the economy is still quite fragile, it seems a bit risky to use both contractionary fiscal and contractionary monetary policies together in such a short period of time.

Yes, these governments have to restore confidence and calm markets about their sovereign debts, so as to avoid a debt crisis like the one in Greece (especially in the PIIGS - Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain). And yes, George Osbourne, pay off debt now, and there's less later. But the concern now is whether it's too early to take away the support the economy still needs - unemployment in the States is still rising, as is expected in the UK until Mid-2010. Consumer confidence and spending is not exactly strong, either. And with the Euro still tumbling thanks to Greece and Merkel, I suspect the UK will be affected by poor exports as well.

And I've not even got to the raising of interest rates yet. Raise that, and people on mortgages would have to spend more of their income on loan repayments, assuming these people still have a job. Also, higher costs of borrowing isn't very helpful to businesses which are planning to reduce their workforce. This could have an impact on aggregate demand, employment, consumer confidence, and ultimately, economic growth.

Oh, and let's not forget what Mervyn King mentioned about the inflation rate in the UK. It was 3.7% CPI, above the 2(±1)% target. Reasons? Well, VAT went back up from 15% to 17.5% in January, oil prices rose 80% y-o-y, and so did food and clothing prices. Mervyn's concern is that at the moment, the upward pressure on prices are short-term, and they are masking the downward pressure on prices as a result of the spare capacity in the economy, created by the recession. 

With these factors in mind, I would think interest rates shouldn't go up until GDP growth has stabilised. Get the easy money flowing a bit more. before worrying about an overheating economy.

As for the fiscal policies, the governments would probably know best. They have to calm markets at both ends - on one end, you want to keep spending to get economic growth again; on the other hand, you want to keep bond markets and credit ratings agencies happy by cutting spending/borrowing. It's a balancing act. Looking at Greece, there appears to be strong pressures to cut spending/reduce borrowing. But not so much that the economy enters a double-dip. (PIIGS are an exception, I guess. They MUST cut spending.)

Link: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article7136901.ece

--------

In other non-Econs news, have you checked out the new BBC iPlayer? It's in testing now, and it'll replace the current design in June/July. One feature that is planned, according to the Financial Times, is the ability to search for content from other networks (BSkyB, ITV, Channel 4, etc.) and click through to those networks' websites (e.g.: 4oD, ITV Player, etc.). Thought that was an interesting tidbit.

Link: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d293bfe2-68c1-11df-96f1-00144feab49a.html [FT article - may have limited access]

--------

And in Tech, I highly recommend reading this Ars Technica posting on the state of Intel and their GPUs. For techie Econs student, this could be an example of how monopoly leads to reduced incentives to improve the quality of the product (resources being allocated and used inefficiently in the market, perhaps?).

Link: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/05/intel-tells-users-you-dont-need-future-proof-gpus.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

--------

And in slightly upsetting news for proponents of 'free news online', The Times & The Sunday Times will start charging visitors to their websites, thetimes.co.uk and sundaytimes.co.uk from June onwards - £2 per week, £1 per day. News Corp. (which owns The Times and Sunday Times) said they will also start charging for their other news websites, The Sun and News of the World, later this year. The rationale for such a move is valid, though. They seem to have a harder time making money off online ad revenues, so they will have to move to a charged model to keep the business running. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out, since there are free alternatives to The Times - Guardian.co.uk (I love their iPhone App, by the way), The Independent, Telegraph.co.uk, just to name a few. I love the Times, so I hope Rupert Murdoch works this one out. Don't get me wrong, I hate the guy for what he stands for politically, and for the power he has in the media circles (he owns Fox News, WSJ, BSkyB, The Sun - most read tabloid in the UK, The Times, and News of the World). But The Times has pretty good cartoonists and columnists. Heck, even Clarkson is writing for The Times!

Link: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article7136619.ece

A New Government?

Well, looks like things are really shaking up in the UK today.

First, there's the speculation that the Tories and Lib-dems will announce a coalition by today.

Then, no.

If it becomes clear that the national interest, which is stable and principled government, can be best served by forming a coalition between the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats, then I believe I should discharge that duty to form that government which would in my view command a majority in the House of Commons in the Queen's speech and any other confidence votes.

But I have no desire to stay in my position longer than is needed to ensure the path to economic growth is ensured and the process of political reform we have agreed moves forward quickly. The reason that we have a hung parliament is that no single party and no single leader was able to win the full support of the country. As leader of my party, I must accept that that is a judgment on me. I therefore intend to ask the Labour party to set in train the processes needed for its own leadership election. I would hope that it would be completed in time for the new leader to be in post by the time of the Labour party conference. I will play no part in that contest and I will back no individual candidate.

--Gordon Brown, in a speech outside 10 Downing Street

Gordon Brown announced he was going to resign as PM and Labour Party Leader before the next Party Conference in the Autumn. Meaning? New PM, new Labour leader. Something almost everyone seems to be happy about - the Electorates, the Lib Dems, the Plaid Leader, the former Labour MPs/candidates, etc.

Gordon Brown has taken a difficult personal decision in the national interest. And I think without prejudice to the talks that will now happen between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, Gordon Brown's decision is an important element which could help ensure a smooth transition to the stable government that everyone deserves.

--A Statement form Nick Clegg via Lib Dem HQ

Gordon Brown has done the decent thing following the overwhelming rejection of his premiership last Thursday. It was clear that he had no mandate from the people to maintain his position in Downing Street, and he has now shown that he has heard that message loud and clear. Mr Brown's announcement is a signal to other progressive parties that Labour is willing to talk in order to explore the possibility of establishing a progressive alliance to govern in Westminster.

Elfyn Llwyd, Plaid Cymru Leader in Westminster

Then, Nick Clegg released a Press Release saying he's not happy with how talks are going with the Tory representatives, so he's going to talk with Labour.

Over the past four days we have been working flat-out to deliver an agreement that can provide stable government that can last. The talks with the Conservatives have been very constructive and I am grateful to David Cameron and his team for the effort they have put in. But so far we have been unable to agree a comprehensive partnership agreement for a full parliament.

We need a government that lasts, which is why we believe, in the light of the state of talks with the Conservative party, the only responsible thing to do is to open discussions with the Labour party to secure a stable partnership agreement. We will of course continue our discussions with the Conservative party to see if we can find a way to a full agreement.

--A Statement form Nick Clegg via Lib Dem HQ

So, it appears like we might have a Lab-Lib-SNP-Plaid-SDLP-Alliance-Green Coalition, if one analyst is to be believed...

For reference, here are the numbers.

There are 650 seats in the Commons. But there are five Sinn Féin MPs who do not take their seats, leaving 645 MPs. So to get a working majority you would need 323 votes.

There are 258 Labour MPs and 57 Lib Dem MPs. That makes 315. The SDLP (a sister party of Labour's) has three MPs and there is one MP who represents the Alliance (which is allied to the Lib Dems). If you add them, you get to 319. Plaid Cymru is in coalition with Labour in Wales. They've got three MPs, and if they join the total rises to 322. The SNP has also signalled its willingness to join a progressive pact of some kind, and its six MPs would take that total to 328. If the Greens' Caroline Lucas were to vote with this bloc, that would take you to 329.

The Tories have 306 seats. (One is the Speaker, but two Labour MPs – and another Tory – are likely to become deputy Speakers, and so they cancel each other out.) When the contest in Thirsk takes place, that is likely to rise to 307. If the Democratic Unionists (eight MPs) were to vote with the Tories (as they normally do), the Tory-DUP total would rise to 315.

Gordon Brown is right to say that the "progressives" could form a majority. But they would be dependent on several small parties and they would not have much of a cushion for when people started to rebel.

All I can say is that things are getting interesting, and possibly a bit heated, judging from the Tory response as delivered by William J Hague,

That is the choice that they will now have to make ... We are absolutely convinced that we should not have another unelected prime minster and we should not change our voting system without a referendum... Under the Tory plans, Tories would be free to campaign against AV in a referendum.

--William Hague, during a Conservative Press Conference

Thanks to The Guardian's Andrew Sparrow's Election Live Blog for all the excerpts. Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/10/general-election-2010-live-blog

Hope they wouldn't mind me condensing their material before they get swept under continuous updates!

Eno.

Finally, another item off my New Year's Resolution! I was starting to feel I'm not going to meet any of the remaining items on that list!

Yes, I went to the Brighton Dome yesterday to watch "This is Apollo", part of the Brighton Festival 2010 events that's going on from 1 May to 23 May.

It was interesting to hear how Brian Eno feels about, well, the 60's - the era when man tried everything that they could imagine - travelling to space; developing the Concorde; Andy Warhol, who most notably created an 8-hour film, "Empire" (See Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(1964_film) ), which basically featured the Empire State Building at night, with the lights going on and off as the cleaners roam around the building; and of course, the Apollo Moon Landing Mission itself. He described the 60's as the time when man tried everything - the drugs, sex, and travel.

Eno also talked about the story behind his compositions - Apollo, which turned out to be a project he got involved with after someone who had access to the Moon landing footages used his "Music for airports" tracks as the soundtrack. He made some new compositions for the Apollo Landing clips - one of the challenges he faced was trying to emulate the sound of space, which, as we know, is silence. The result was his 1983 album, "Apollo". [Spotify: Brian Eno – Apollo iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/apollo-atmospheres-soundtracks/id49814746 ]

He also reminded the audience present last night that his music was not meant to be played 'live' - he just composed them on the computer, looping over and adding/shedding layers as he went along. So, he sent his music to some other composer, got him to write the music for performance, and got BJ Cole and Icebreaker to perform the music last night, accompanied by a condensed, 50-minute film of the Apollo mission, from the entering of the shuttle, to take-off, to the time on the moon, and finally the return journey.

It was an emotional roller-coaster, as you watched and imagine how frightening it must be to be sitting on top of a huge bomb propelling you out of the Earth's atmosphere and being the first few to land on the moon. Yet, at the same time, you see the trio floating about out of their craft, then in their cramped shuttle, and once they landed on the moon, you see them having great difficulties holding objects with their thick gloves. Of course, it wasn't all serious and gloomy - you see the astronauts bunny-hopping so care-freely, and occasionally tripping.

And of course, I got to hear one of Eno's most brilliant compositions - An Ending (Ascent) [Spotify: Brian Eno – An Ending (Ascent) iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/an-ending-ascent/id49814746?i=49814688 ] as the astronauts drifted further away from the earth's atmosphere, and finally as they landed over water.

Oh, by the way, I have to say, what a diverse range of musical instruments they had - from glockenspiel to accordion, from piccolo to electric guitars, from double bass to a pedal steel guitar. Pianos to Sax, and all sorts of other percussion instruments. All these, to emulate the sound of space. Talk about irony!

I must say, this has to be one of the most impressive events that I've been to in a while. The only thing that spoiled it for me was Eno's not-so-brilliant voice as he sang a few tunes after the film. But that's minor, really, compared to how immaculately the music and video complement each other. It's just astoundingly brilliant. 

Rating: 4.9/5.

First past the post.

On 6 May 2010, the UK goes to the polls to decide who will form the next parliament.

Here, there's been quite a stir about the electoral system and how it can be unfair to certain political parties.

You see, the UK has something called the "First past the post" system [Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post ] , somewhat similar to those in the US Presidential election and the Singapore General Elections. Basically, the electorates are divided into constituencies, and the person with the most votes in each constituency wins for that constituency. Sounds fair, right?

Well, arguably, no. Let me explain using the example of the US Presidential elections of 2000, between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

In the US, the candidate with the most votes in each state wins all the electoral votes, or 'tickets', for that state. The tickets are allocated in a way that should more or less reflect the population in that state. So, a large state like California would have something like 55 'tickets'. A candidate that gains 270 tickets wins the election. (Yes, this is an oversimplification. But for simplicity's sake, let's assume that's true.) In 2000, Al Gore received the most number of votes [50.9m, compared with 50.4m for Bush]. However, due to the way the 'tickets' have been assigned, Bush was able to win the election with 271 tickets, even though he didn't get the most votes.
[Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 ]

In the UK, there has been criticisms being fired at the voting system, too. Mainly, the percentage of votes for a party does not translate into the proportion of seats in the House of Commons received by that party. This has often put smaller parties, like the Liberal Democrats, at a disadvantage, as they would require much more votes to translate votes into seats. In contrast, the incumbent Labour party can still remain the largest party in power, even if they came in third place in terms of votes. Many have said this is unfair, arguing that there should be a more direct translation between votes and seats. Gordon Brown himself has thrown in his own idea into the hat - Alternative Voting
[Read: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8068583.stm ]

Why am I blogging about the electoral system in the UK? Well, I thought it would make an interesting Mathematical/Political/Philosophical debate. How would you solve a problem like the Electoral system, be it in Singapore, the UK, or the US, to make it more representative of the people? Or does it not matter, whether we get the same level of representation in Congress/Parliament as we do in terms of public sentiments? What is the most fair, efficient way to run an election and decide the winners?

Just my two cents' worth.

On SA vs ACS

There's tons of stuff I wanted to get off my mind. So, here's the first blog post for the night...

On SA vs ACS...

I haven't said much on this, mainly because I thought I shouldn't, since I didn't understand what happened. But now that things are a bit clearer, I'm breaking the silence.

Don't get me wrong - I love my alma mater. But can we be a bit more objective about this whole SA-AC debacle, and set our differences aside? What happened on the pitch shouldn't have happened. Since it has happened, we should try to resolve it, not to let the single spark burn down the whole forest on both sides of the border. The way Stomp reports the incident is not very helpful, for one. Clearly, the "Stomper" that gave the tip-off to this story (or, more likely, the editor) has never been to a Rugby Finals Match, because it has been a tradition for students from the victorious school to run to the pitch after the final whistle has been blown, as a form of celebration. Then, everyone will gather around the centre stand - many of the students will be on the field at this time, too. This hasn't been a big deal since, oh, way before I reached Secondary school (I've graduated, if you are asking). It's only in 2010 that the press is horrified to learn about the "traditions" of the Inter-schools Rugby Finals.

I'm really glad to see some positive responses to this incident from various parties - I've heard the principals of both schools have arranged the teams to meet. That's a positive first step. And I've seen some alumni and students trying to ease the situation with Facebook groups and discouraging inflammatory comments/feelings. And I've seen a more neutral commentary on Redsports.sg [Link].

We have to deal with this situation in a matured fashion.

This aggressive behaviour is not acceptable. But given the circumstances, I can understand why it has happened. Think about it - these rugby players have been working at trying to clinch the title for months. They've worked their guts out, they've sacrificed quite a lot, and at the end of the day, they are still students. They've been through a lot, only to realise that their effort was only enough for 2nd, not first. And add to that the score margin line of 1 point. That was probably the last straw for that student who snapped.

We are all capable of being violent and aggressive. That's what Phillip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram both proved in each of their studies. We are all capable of making mistakes. We all are. We're only human, after all. Let's just make amends and carry on. Lesson learnt, no inflammatory comments necessary.

UPDATE:

Ok, I take back what I said about Stomp. My criticism of them might have been a bit harsh. To be fair, the person who wrote up the story was probably relying on a 3rd-party account of the incident. Would have been unreliable, but hey, that's how Stomp works, with its contribution and citizen journalism methods, isn't it? It's not perfect, but it gets the word out on what happened.