Bus 96 on the expressway

Ever imagined what it would be like if life decides to take an unexpected break from its monotonous routine?

I was on bus 96 yesterday when it decided to 'deviate' from its planned route and take an 'unexpected' detour along the expressway.

At first, I thought it was an unfortunate traffic accident. Later, after catching the news, I realized that it was a war relic- a Japanese bomb from WWII. In any case, the road leading from NUS to Clementi was sealed off. All traffic was directed onto the AYE. I wasn't paying attention to the route the bus was taking since I did not expect it to be any different from what it had taken for the past 4 years. However, 2 things caught my attention.

1) Instead of travelling straight, the bus took a left turn and I could immediately see the expressway.

2) (And the more hilarious, unnerving factor) The driver called his superior on the mobile phone and blabbered in Mandarin: "Ya! I'm on the expressway. Ya AYE~ How do I get to Clementi?" I had to control myself and not laugh hysterically out loud lest all the pessenger thought I went berserk. But oh my! It was so hilarious! ( Of course, at that time, it didn't occur to me that I was just miles away from a bomb site!)

I thought to myself: Oh great! I'm in a hurry to get home so that I can start studying for EC4333 Midterm Exam the next day and now I'm on a round-the-island tour that god knows when it will end. Hopefully at Clementi too.
However, a part of me was secretly enjoying the unexpected break from the monotony of school life. Never in my wildest dream had I expected 96 to take me on a ride along AYE. So I was secretly enjoying every moment of this chanced occurrence.

After a brief journey on the AYE, the bus exited the expressway and came back to the bus stop opposite New Town Secondary School. I thought to myself: Great, we are back to Clementi again! Just take the right turn in front and we'll be on the road all the way straight to Clementi.

However, there was no right turn! The road did not allow vehicles to take a right turn, so 96 took a left turn and headed in the direction of NUS!

"Oh no! I'm going back to NUS again?"

I'm starting to worry that this journey would never end.

However, the bus driver decided to have mercy on me and took a left turn along the highway to NUS onto -- guess what? -- AYE again! For the second time in the hour, I was on AYE again albeit on the other side of the expressway heading towards Jurong.

The bus took another 12 mins to navigate the expressway and all the major roads in Clementi before it finally arrived back what it started -- Clementi Interchange.

Great! Bus 96 had taken me on a tour of the major roads in Clementi and the AYE, no less!

It's this kind of unexpected encounters, I believe, that adds that element of excitement into our usually monotonous routine. Things often happen unexpectedly and adds joy and thrill to our life! =)

我是一隻小小鳥

A song I have always liked since young~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qKSZnIdo9I

PS If anyone knows how to make the video appear here, tell me.

Is race a factor in Obama's presidential election? An economic perspective

From an email by Dr Wong.
Quoted from

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/02/12_postracial.shtml

BERKELEY — Reinforcing the notion of a "post racial" nation, two University of California, Berkeley, researchers' analysis of voting patterns indicates that voters were not motivated by race in the 2008 U.S. election of Barack Obama, the country's first black president.

Enrico Moretti, a UC Berkeley professor of economics, and Alexandre Mas, an associate professor in the economic policy and analysis group at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, presented their research findings on race and the campaign for the Oval Office at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in San Francisco in January. Their report, "Racial Bias in the 2008 Presidential Election," will be published in a forthcoming edition of the association's journal American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.

"Our research doesn't support the idea that race is not an issue in other dimensions, or other elections," Moretti said. "But for the most important election of all - the presidential election - the race of the candidate didn't seem to play a role one way or the other."

Despite pre-election handwringing by reporters, pundits and others about whether white voters could or would cast their ballots to make an African American candidate the country's commander-in-chief, "the average guy in the street didn't really agree with that," said Moretti. "The winning performance of Obama wasn't associated with racial attitude in America."

He said that he and Mas were intrigued by the discussions around a color-coded map that ran on the front page of the New York Times the day after the election, that depicted states (many of them on the East and West coasts) that supported Obama in blue and states (many in the South and Midwest) that went for Republican Sen. John McCain in red.

"If you looked at the map, read the blogs and listened to the pundits, the states where Obama underperformed looked more stereotypically racially biased," said Moretti. "But it's not that simple. Do a little more analysis and control properly, and it turns out that's not the case."

Moretti and Mas analyzed voter support for Republican or Democratic candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and for the presidency in both 2004 and in 2008. Then, they compared the results with a National Science Foundation-financed, state-by-state General Social Survey of whites' attitudes in some 3,100 counties across the country toward laws against banning interracial marriage, and whether whites have a right to segregated neighborhoods or to not sell homes to blacks.

The Democratic vote share in the presidential election increased about 5percent between 2004 and 2008, although it was relatively smaller in Appalachia and in some Southern states, while the increased voter support for the Obama-Biden ticket was about 1 percent less than Democratic candidates for House seats.

But Moretti and Mas said the real racial bias would be evidenced by Democratic congressional candidates doing better than Obama in areas where voters are more racist, according to the General Social Survey. That didn't happen.

Overall, the researchers found little evidence of higher voter turnout rates among the white electorate in areas reporting higher racial bias. While there was a slight increase in Obama's relative decline in votes in states in the top one-third for racial bias, the difference was not statistically significant, they reported.

The overall voting picture showed that older voters - a block that tends to be less racially tolerant than younger voters - turned out in substantially lower numbers in 2008 than in '04. "It's kind of an optimistic finding," Moretti said. "It means that as time goes by, we probably will find less and less bias, as today's younger, less biased voters move into middle age and beyond."

A native of Italy, Moretti said he is curious about American media and politics and the historic 2008 presidential race, in particular. "What I found remarkable throughout the campaign was that although the media were very focused on trying to find a racial angle, the campaigns themselves and the American people weren't very focused on the racial aspect," he said.

Data about racial attitudes were found in the General Social Survey, which since 1972 has conducted scientific research on demographic behavior to monitor social change in the United States and compare it to other countries. The survey is funded by the Sociology Program of the National Science Foundation.

The highest scoring states in terms of racial bias were Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming. The lowest were Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, California, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Iowa, Massachusetts, North Dakota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.

Knowledge is painful

Some inspirations drawn from conversation with Prof Zhang Jie~

1)
Knowledge is painful -- both creating it and acquiring it.

Let's face it: most people dislike difficult stuffs, especially new things they do not understand. This is why studying, acquiring knowledge is so painful. It gets worse as you go up the education ladder.

Similarly, knowledge creation is painful. It is not uncommon to see a paper written 10 years ago published only now. That's why paper writing is not called 'search' but 'RE-search'. You have to write it, check through a few times and re-write it again. After that, when you send it for publication, they will check through and you may have to 're-search' and re-write a few more times before it is published. Knowledge creation is a long and painful process.

(Pretty logical explanation I would say, when we consider why many students hate studying. Of course, I don't deny that a rigid and competitive education system is partially at fault as well.)

2)
Those at the lower end of the knowledge chain gets paid more than those at the top of the knowledge chain.

This applies to every industry. Examples given are that of the dentist and the teacher.

The scientist creates the knowledge about extraction techniques and extraction equipments and passes it free of charge through journal articles. The dentist learns about it by reading the journal article online for free and acquire these new knowledge quickly. However, the scientist gets paid less than the dentist. The dentist is paid every time a patient visits and the dentist applies the new knowledge to extract the patient's tooth. However, the scientist is usually paid a smaller fixed salary. In fact, even though the scientist contributed to the knowledge creation process towards solving his own toothache problem, when he visits the dentist, he still has to pay!

The teacher in university teaches 4 modules or 500 students a year. In 10 years' time, he would have taught over 5000 students. However, the teacher's salary is a mere fraction of the earnings of these students. These students who can be working in any sector ranging from accounting to human resource management would be earning a higher income than the teacher because they are the ones providing the services directly to the consumers, even though they are applying knowledge acquired from the teacher!
(NOTE: TEACHER IS A NOBLE PROFESSION! =) )

(Since most of us would not be engaging in the knowledge creation process at the top, perhaps we can take some relief from this observation. Yes, we can still earn a decent living if not more. Poor teacher! =P )

Teach More, Learn More, less sleep and back and shoulder pain

Insightful article I obtained from my teacher's facebook entry...

Don't read if you are rushed for time...

There are two interesting reports about Singapore’s students in Singapore’s main newspaper, the Straits Times, on 5 January 2009. The first report focuses on the sleeping patterns of Singapore’s teenagers. The second report is about the effect of heavy school bags that Singapore students carry to school.

The first report says that four in five of Singapore’s teenagers are not getting enough sleep. The average teenager is supposed to get more than eight to nine hours of sleep. According to the report half of those studied actually had only five to six hours of sleep.

Although the report did mention that one of the reasons for the lack of sleep among teenagers is because they chat online, it is also disturbing to read that many of these teenagers who lack sleep are high-achievers in school who believe that they can do without the recommended amount of sleep.

According to Dr Lim Li Ling, director of the Singapore General Hospital’s Sleep Disorder Unit:

“Some proudly let me know that they sleep only four hours a night. It’s not something they should feel proud about. It affects their brain potential - how much they can learn and consolidate.”

A study in the United States has shown that teenagers who are top students do even better with sufficient sleep. The report also says that the heavy school load and co-curricular activities are additional reasons for the teenagers’ lack of sleep.

We can infer from this report that the examination-centered Singapore school curriculum is clearly an important reason for this sleep deprivation with its long term health consequences. One also wonders about the mental health of these students.

The second report focuses on a study by Singapore’s Republic Polytechnic on the effect of a heavy school bags on Singapore’s students. The study done by Dr Michael Koh and Mr Tarkeshwar Singh of the Republic Polytechnic. They found that Singapore’s students tend to take shorter, quicker steps to offset the typically heavy loads that they carry to school. According to the report the changes in gait will not reduce the problems these students will face with regards to their posture, or their joints and ligaments which can lead to back and shoulder pains.

Another doctor, Dr Kevin Lim, an orthopaedic consultant at the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore, says that he treats up to five to ten children every week for such pains. The report says this is despite schools in Singapore now providing lockers for the students.

In case you are wondering why the locker solution has not worked, it is probably because parents and the schools themselves still insist that these students bring their text books and other accessories home so they can still use them for even more studying back home. One solution to this problem is to buy extra copies of text books; one set for home use and one set for the school. Quite a few parents have resorted to this which explains the perennial shortage of text books even before the new school calendar begins. But this applies only to those parents who can afford two sets of books!

The other reason is that for each subject there is usually a text book, activity or work book, plus the books for writing. Seldom is the student told which of these books are required for the next day of school. In fact, many teachers just insist that students bring all their books for the subjects. Multiply the number of books for each subject by the number of subjects each day (which is at least four each day). That will give you an idea of the load. Don’t forget also the stacks of printed notes and worksheets given to the students by the teachers. This is how Singapore students do well in examinations and TIMSS!

When schools in the neighboring countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China seek the Singapore school model for themselves, I wonder how many of these schools go beyond Singapore school’s excellent examinations performance and TIMSS results when they choose the Singapore school model? What price are parents in these countries willing to pay for “educational” success with their children’s long term health? It is clear from these two reports that the Singapore education system breeds success at the expense of the students’ health. This is a natural effect of the schools’ heavy load and the pressure to excel in the high stakes examinations.

Lastly, one wonders about the state of the teachers in Singapore’s schools. With the teaching and preparation that they have to do to meet the targets set for the high stakes examinations , the large class sizes and the accompanying heavy marking load, we wonder about the state of physical and mental health these teachers are in. So much for the “Teach Less, Learn More” (TLLM) initiative of the Ministry of Education (MOE).

Job Credits

For the past decade, the government has emphasized creative thinking in schools, today it has walk the talk by introducing a new measure known as "Job Credits" in its latest budget to fight the recession.

Job Credits is set to become the new buzzword in economics in a few years' time. This innovative measure introduces a fresh approach to retaining jobs in an economy and is an out-of-the-box measure never before implemented by any country. The idea is that the government would hand out "credits" or rebates to companies and the size of the 'credit' would depend on the number of workers the firm employs. For each worker employed, the firm gets a 12% rebate on the wage of the worker. The credits would be handed out every 3 months or 4 times a year. This innovative approach contributes directly to the government's aim of protecting the jobs of Singaporeans.

I must say that this time round I am impressed by the quality of the solution conceived by the budget team. It's something that is simple, to the point and effective in achieving its objective.

An Economy of Faith and Trust

Got this from my lecturer.

Quoted from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=print.

Once there was just Newtonian physics and the world seemed neat and mechanical. Then quantum physics came along and revealed that deep down things are much weirder than they seem. Something similar is now happening with public policy.

Once, classical economics dominated policy thinking. The classical models presumed a certain sort of orderly human makeup. Inside each person, reason rides the passions the way a rider sits atop a horse. Sometimes people do stupid things, but generally the rider makes deliberative decisions, and the market rewards rational behavior.

Markets tend toward efficiency. People respond in pretty straightforward ways to incentives. The invisible hand forms a spontaneous, dynamic order. Economic behavior can be accurately predicted through elegant models.

This view explains a lot, but not the current financial crisis — how so many people could be so stupid, incompetent and self-destructive all at once. The crisis has delivered a blow to classical economics and taken a body of psychological work that was at the edge of public policy thought and brought it front and center.

In this new body of thought, you get a very different picture of human nature. Reason is not like a rider atop a horse. Instead, each person’s mind contains a panoply of instincts, strategies, intuitions, emotions, memories and habits, which vie for supremacy. An irregular, idiosyncratic and largely unconscious process determines which of these internal players gets to control behavior at any instant. Context — which stimulus triggers which response — matters a lot.

This mental chaos explains how people can respond so quickly and intuitively to so many different circumstances. But it also entails a decision-making process that is more complicated and messy than previously thought.

For example, we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. As Andrew Lo of M.I.T. has demonstrated, if stock traders make a series of apparently good picks, the dopamine released into their brains creates a stupor that causes them to underperceive danger ahead.

Biases abound. People who’ve been told to think of a high number will subsequently bid much more for an item than people who’ve been told to think of a low number. As Jonah Lehrer writes in his forthcoming book, “How We Decide,” there are certain circumstances (often when there are many options) in which gut instincts lead to the best decisions, while there are other circumstances (sometimes when there are a few options) when calm deliberation is best.

Most important, people seek relationships more than money. If behaving a certain way helps a stock trader or a regulator fit in with his crowd, he’s likely to keep doing it without too much rigorous self-examination.

A thousand mental shortcomings contributed to the financial meltdown. Republicans have tried to explain it by pointing to irresponsible policies at Fannie Mae. But that only explains a piece of what’s happening.

This crisis represents a flaw in the classical economic model and its belief in efficient markets. Republicans haven’t begun to grapple with the consequences.

For years, Republicans have been trying to create a large investor class with policies like private Social Security accounts, medical savings accounts and education vouchers. These policies were based on the belief that investors are careful, rational actors who make optimal decisions. There was little allowance made for the frailty of the decision-making process, let alone the mass delusions that led to the current crack-up.

Democrats also have an unfaced crisis. Democratic discussions of the stimulus package also rest on a mechanical, dehumanized view of the economy. You pump in a certain amount of money and “the economy” spits out a certain number of jobs. Democratic economists issue highly specific accounts of multiplier effects — whether a dollar of spending creates $1.20 or $1.40 of economic activity.

But an economy is a society of trust and faith. A recession is a mental event, and every recession has its own unique spirit. This recession was caused by deep imbalances and is propelled by a cascade of fundamental insecurities. You can pump hundreds of billions into the banks, but insecure bankers still won’t lend. You can run up gigantic deficits, hire road builders and reduce the unemployment rate from 8 percent to 7 percent, but insecure people will still not spend and invest.

The economic spirit of a people cannot be manipulated in as simple-minded a fashion as the Keynesian mechanists imagine. Right now political and economic confidence levels are running in opposite directions. Politically, we’re in a season of optimism, but despite a trillion spent and a trillion more about to be, the economic spirit cowers.

Mechanistic thinkers on the right and left pose as rigorous empiricists. But empiricism built on an inaccurate view of human nature is just a prison.