New OPC scheme is Not that good

On 29th Aug this year, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced that it will review its Off-Peak Car (OPC) scheme and will implement a few changes. One of the changes is that LTA will now give cash rebates of up to $1,100 once every 6 months after owners convert their normal cars to the new OPC scheme.

Now Singaporeans are jumping up and down in happiness at the news, LTA is paying you to drive your car, but frankly I don’t get why Singaporeans are so happy about the new scheme. Currently when a Singaporean change his car from a normal car to an off-peak car, he will get an extra rebate base on long he drives his vehicle as an OPC vehicle. He will receive this rebate of $2,200 per year, in one lump sum upon the de-registration of the vehicle provided the vehicle is below 10 years old and is eligible for PARF.

Under the new scheme, LTA will give cash rebates of up to $1,100 once every 6 months. So basically there’s no change! Only thing is that instead of giving it to you in one lump sum at the end, they are giving it to you piecemeal once every 6 months. If anything, the new scheme is worse because you don’t get the money in one lump sum but piece by piece.

So all those Singaporeans jumping in happiness; please sit down. LTA is not paying you to drive your car; they are just giving the money to you piece by piece.

No More Ice Cap

Global warming now has another victim. A polar research team believe that the Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in 20 to 30 years.

The polar research team said that the ice cap will be largely ice-free during the summer months within 10 years, and in 20 to 30 years it will be completely ice-free.

Without the Arctic ice cap, temperatures will rise in the world and will mean even more powerful climate changes. This will mean higher sea levels and more powerful storms and heavier flooding.

Considering all the typhoons that hit the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan recently, I'm loath to think what damage even more powerful storms would do. However, would this report lead world leaders to curb greenhouse gas emission?

One can only hope.

Paying Students To Attend School?

Usually I am a person who is all for alternative ways to get students to study. To me, the most important part of a student is to study. Uniforms, moral education etc; everything else is secondary.

However the idea of paying students to go to school and get good grades is a step too far for me. Now I know parents bribed their children all the time (more pocket money if you get As; I’ll buy that Xbox if you get good results) but state-sanctioned bribery is just a step too far for me.

In France, there is a pilot program that is paying certain students, the ones considered most likely to fail and drop out, to attend classes and get good grades. The idea is that if the student maintained a good attendance record and reached performance targets agreed upon with their teachers, reward payments will be added to their class account which will then be used to finance a school-related project like a class trip abroad or even driving lessons to obtain a driving license.

Now I understand the French government's desire to increase the students’ motivation for good grades but for the government to actually pay the student to attend class and get good grades is just too much for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this scheme could work. Money talks no matter how young you are, but a financial motivation scheme is just plain wrong no matter how successful the scheme is.

Comics this week

Secret Six #14 – What was a pretty good arc went to pieces this issue. The story itself was okay; Deadshot was killing guys, Catman was slicing dead body parts, Savage Scandal made herself an addict to Venom, but everything was just so anti-climatic. Grendel lasted all of 1 scene the moment Wonder Woman showed up. Ditto for that traitor Amazon, and just about anyone else fighting against the Six. About the only interesting thing that came out of this issue is that Bane is now in charge, so that’s something good for the future. Too bad about the here and now though.

An Exclusive Rant

Coming in October, Grand Theft Auto IV: Stories from Liberty City (featuring The Lost and Damned & Ballad of Gay Tony); exclusively on Xbox 360.

This ad just gets to me. What are all these exclusive deals game developers have going these days? I remember in the past game developers aim for their games to be on as many platforms as possible; Xbox, PS, Nintendo, even PC.

These days there are more and more of these exclusive deals and gamers are the poorer for it. Take Fable 2 for example. Everyone says that the original Fable played better on the PC than on the Xbox, but Fable 2 is Xbox exclusive.

Now I know game developers got some sweet deals going exclusive on 1 system but I can’t understand what good it does anyone making Fable 2 Xbox exclusive. Putting Fable 2 means lower sales because people without an Xbox360 can’t play the game while no one is going to go buy an Xbox360 just to play Fable 2. It’s Fable people, not Final Fantasy.

Gamers can’t play the game, developers get lower sales, and console sales get no boost. So what good are exclusive deals for?

???Obama???

The announcement that U.S President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize drew gasps of surprise from around the world. Put me in that category as well.

I like Obama but I cannot understand how he won the Peace prize. The judges said that they found his promise of nuclear disarmament and diplomacy too good to ignore.

That’s the problem!

Obama has promise but he hasn’t done anything yet! I don’t even think it is a case of too much, too soon because the Nobel Peace Prize is given to people who has yield concrete achievements in peacemaking. Obama has not. The U.S is still in Iraq, they are still in Afghanistan, war is still brewing in the Middle East; why should Obama win the prize in front of say…the Dalai Lama?

The Dalai Lama has adopted a path of peaceful negotiations between the Tibetan people and the Chinese government. Despite the wishes of his own people who are tired of 20+ years of fruitless negotiations and want to start fighting against the Chinese, the Dalai still want peace. The moment the Dalai die (which will be soon), war will erupt in Tibet.

Obama? The guy couldn’t even solve the problems in Honduras.

Define Choosy

With rising housing prices hitting headlines recently, Singapore’s National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan has come out to say that “HDB figures yesterday showed that eight in 10 first-timers could get a flat on their first try if they were not choosy ; the success rate was 96 per cent for the second try”.

Unfortunately for the Singapore government, this is a figure few Singaporeans believe. A study by National University of Singapore economists Tilak Abeysinghe and Gu Jiaying published last year found that the buying power of people's lifetime earnings in 2007 was lower than it was in 1990 when it is tracked against the prices of HDB resale flats. Basically, prices of HDB resale flats have become less affordable for Singaporeans.

Not only that, the latest statistics by Minister Mah came in the midst of several complaints about the difficulty in getting a flat. So how do you explain the numbers by HDB?

When I read the statement by Minister Mah I think the important part of it is “if they are not choosy”. How do one define being “choosy”? I mean to buy a flat in Singapore means you will putting yourself in debt for the next 10 to 25 years. If you put that in the equation, would it be “choosy” if you reject a flat on the second-storey or in an out-of-the-place area? In either one of those scenarios, the resale value of the flats would be lower.

So would that be considered “choosy”? Maybe Minister Mah can explain what is considered "choosy".