can't take my eyes of you 1:49 pm

Sometimes there are designs you just can't take your eyes off. This is one of them.

Nike-designed American football uniform of the Oregon team. Read the rationale behind the small design details and not only will you find yourself starting, you might just start drooling too.

Read article here.

Uncle T

facebook not so universal 12:50 pm

I guess in many of our daily-life worlds, facebook is ubiquitous. For some, daily moments are even facebook-defined. Ever occured to you that you encounter something on the streets and go, "I'm going to update my Facebook status on that,"?

Arguably, one might even say our days are now defined by FB & tweet moments.

But here's a NY Times article that shows facebook is not (yet) that universal as it might seem to be. The Japanese are still cautious of the openness of FB.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/technology/10facebook.html?ref=global-home

Uncle T

there is a time and season for everything 9:49 pm

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die, 
a time to plant and a time to uproot, 
a time to kill and a time to heal, 
a time to tear down and a time to build, 
a time to weep and a time to laugh, 
a time to mourn and a time to dance, 
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, 
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 
a time to search and a time to give up, 
a time to keep and a time to throw away, 
a time to tear and a time to mend, 
a time to be silent and a time to speak,


And I am truly truly blessed in the time I was allowed to know you. 




Uncle T

CurryTalk Digest #9 12:46 pm

Hello friends!

Welcome to a re-branded 9th issue of the former KopiTalk Digest. Now outsourced to Delhi, this CurryTalk Digest should start getting interesting. Other than some people commenting they enjoy the articles, still haven't received any saying that they would like to contribute articles. So please do let me know if you want to share certain articles :)

about KopiTalk CurryTalk
in the spirit of sharing in our age of social media, wanted to share ideaspirations and random bits of info with like-mindeds. hopefully these bits of info may inspire creativity and innovation in seemingly unrelated work and tasks we do everyday. feel free to share ideas and more with this digest, and would be happy to share with others. everything is hopefully bite-size especially in the deluge of information today in the digital world.

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Bye-bye Happy Meals in San Fran
US authorities are banning toys to be served with meals above 600 calories, so that means good-bye for Happy Meals for MacDonald's US as these are around 640 calories. See article here.



Inflated job-titles: not just a local phenomena
The Economist has noted that having inflated titles is a worldwide phenomena. The person in the lead at the moment is Kim Jong Il, who has 1,200 titles to his name including "guardian deity of the planet". But on the serious side of things, it was noted that job-titles are tied to the sense of ownership people had to their jobs, and hence tied to job performance. Perhaps this latter point is a serious point to note in our companies here, big or small. Check out this very interesting read here.

Innovation in leisure: swimming in garbage (trucks)
How does swimming in a garbage truck sound for innovation? Well, that is exactly what Brooklyn is doing on its streets this summer. Check that out here. Can we do something similar along Orchard Rd? Sure! After clearing perhaps 4 government agencies and equal-or-more number of licences we just might. But I also do wonder if our local sponsors will be as generous as the New York's.



Powerpoint Presso 101: learn from Steve Jobs
Here's a quick analysis of Jobs' latest presso in response to iPhone 4's antennaegate saga. There are a number of points to learn. but one that really jumps up that we possibly might learn is that there should be no bullet points in presentation slides, because every page should contain only a single idea. Many might disagree, but its still worth a quick glance of the article here.

Uncle T

doors closing... 12:35 pm

The UK government is closing its doors on skilled immigrants. And my fear is that it might be closing the coffin on itself doing so.

My immediate reaction is disappointment, and I guess each of us is entitled to an emotional reaction to such matters. Especially with thoughts in the near future possibly working in London, this tighter cap on skilled non-EU immigrants into the UK is disappointing.

According to the BBC report I read (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11816979), though not explicit, it seems to be a sound policy decision after some gurus do magical calculations, they arrive at certain figures and go "yup, let's stop the immigration of these skilled folks, especially those from outside the EU". With no hard facts to back this claim however, I do believe that non-EU skilled labour (from the US and Asia) significantly contribute to the companies and economies based in London (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11783973). When a time London's appeal as a global financial centre is still shaky from the financial fall-out, I'm not too sure this is a wise policy move.

Policy makers are banking on the fact that local British will get their skills up, so that City-based companies will not have to look abroad for talents. I find this slightly amusing when just on the back of this the government is fiddling with university school-fees cap, making it more expensive for local students to study at university. How these 2 policies meet, I'm not quite sure.

But I suspect these Oxbridge alumni in the government are not silly people. I am sure they know this might not be economically sound at a time when the UK needs to shore up on that front. Perhaps there is more political agenda thrown into the mix than I would like.

Whilst I was in the UK, I had a suspicion that many British, especially the young believe that immigrants and foreigners (the Polish perhaps and me yellow-skinned) were taking away their jobs; typical starting point of xenophobia. And that same sense of insecurity/ arrogance and I probably think fear might be reflected in what  Home Secretary Theresa May said:


"Working in Britain for a short period should not give someone the right to settle in Britain. Studying a course in Britain should not give someone the right to settle in Britain.

"Settling in Britain should be a cherished right, not an automatic add-on to a temporary way in."

Whilst I understand there have been abuses to the system, and policy-wise and politically-wise is very undesirable, responding in this manner is tantamount to being a grumpy old grandmother who's had little children run into her garden and in the process of bringing life and vitality to her cottage, tramples on the flower-bed. But that's just my take. I cannot comprehend how this might be a decision made by a sophisticated nation. Or is it?

For Britain to think that it can depend on its own youth given the current state of affairs, I'm worrying. Though not representative, I met a British traveling through India who said "Britain is really not the place to be at the moment; I'm thinking of Australia". Looking at Coventry town filled with babies in prams and the bellies of pubescent single-mothers, I do worry.

I can only hope that politicians in the UK do the right thing for its people, and not merely try to do things right in their short-sighted term in office. Oh well, but what more can you expect from politicians anyway.

Uncle T

debates of emotion 8:32 pm

I feel so rusty commenting on politics; burying myself in theoretical political science seems a distant memory. But that doesn't stop the homo politicus, the innate political man within me react to what I chanced upon today.

I stumbled upon a BBC recording of the parliamentary debate between Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour Party's Harriet Harmann. This debate was regarding the recent uproar in England over the raising of university fees-cap by nearly 3 times.

As I was watching this 30-minute clip, I found myself enjoying it so much. The verbal sparring between the two candidates was not only hilarious, but also engaging in a very British way. It really reminded be of the heart-stopping days of debating for Warwick at Varsity Debates. Thrilling, those. Some may consider pompous; intellectual sparring just for ego-kicks and not necessarily providing compelling ways forward on the issues we spit and yell at each other over. The House of Commons was jeering, cheering as thousands protested outside Parliament over this issue.

But wait a minute. Hang on. This verbal sparring between the two, filled with emotion and passion, quick retorts, peppered with sarcasm, wasn't Varsity Debates. This was Parliament of a first-world, archaic as the terminology may be, democratic country. This was a debate, amongst others, a debate of emotions. Sure, the points they made made reasonable sense, but I am certain under such circumstances of crowds jeering, it was all about winning the point of the argument, of the debate, rather than working towards a solution for the betterment of the nation.

So are parliamentary debates just a political circus, where politicians stage a show to their constituency voters that they are passionately fighting for their stands, or are parliamentary debates truly the basis for policy making? If its the later, I'm worried.

Perhaps you've got to watch the clip yourself to understand my concerns: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11724842

The way both party representatives take jabs at each other, mocking, sarcastically, it would take a saint to ignore these, rise above and talk about finding real solutions in a dispassionate scientific reasoning; isn't that what we were thought scientific societies are built upon. reasonable and rational individuals?

Since the time of the Greeks, fair and reasonable logic is meant to permeate the laws that would govern the democratic people who have given the government a mandate to rule over them.

But what I saw in the debate today was one of emotion and pride. Perhaps that is the way things are meant to be in the real-world, and I should just pack my ideals and go home. Or perhaps, just maybe, the governance of England has been in shambles in the last few years because of degradation into the elites in society taking their turn in ivory-tower ego-sparring, at the cost of its people.

Perhaps. I sure hope I'm wrong.


Uncle T

a fertile mind 2:25 pm

Many of us know that the white iPhone 4 is coming out only next year in 2011. I knew that, seeing that it was all across the global tech news.

But how did I not think of turning this delay into a 6-figure business? New Yorker Phil Lam has done just that with his website www.whiteiphone4now.com. Simply purchase parts he sells on the website, and you can convert your existing black iPhone into a white iPhone NOW? Why wait till 2011?



Sure, he is getting nervy now about possible legal infringements selling these parts, and incurring the wrath of his very religion Apple-ism, but I'm struggling to think what clicked in his head to turn a piece of information known to nearly the whole world interested in technology, into a profit-making business? Read his interview here.

But its not just him. Inventors and entrepreneurs throughout time have done the same: take a simple piece of information/ knowledge that nearly everybody else knows, link it to other ideas that other people already know, and then create and invent something that changes the face of the future. Its nearly (just nearly) the same as God taking a man's rib, throw in a little speck of dust, and voila! Eve. Not wanting to be sacrilegious, but wanting to emphasise the power within our hands to create, and creations that would be life-changing. Just think how wonder-kid Mark Zuckerberg, classics and history buff, who invented Facebook from his college dorm room.

What makes the mind of these individuals so fertile that a seed idea falls there, and it grows into a behemoth oak? Why do zillions of seeds fall on mine only to have bean-sprouts grow? What makes their minds so fertile? Perhaps Econometrics might have a glimpse of the answer. Or perhaps no machine, nor science, may crack this.

Maybe I should just drink ammonium nitrate :)


Uncle T

forgetting to dream. 11:06 am

I’ve always been a sucker for romance, a hopeless romantic. Hopeless. I sit here, alone in my apartment, watching the Singaporean romance-movie “The Leap Years” for the second time.

I rarely watch a movie twice, at least not by choice. But tonight, I did.

Friends used to shake their heads at me for being the Romeo-lover. Overly idealistic with love, Petrarchan, stupidly romantic, believing in true love. I used to dream about love, and falling into its cauldrons willingly. Poems, flowers, hidden post-cards in bags, singing love songs in the dark, writing love tunes…But I’ve forgotten a lot of that now.

Sure, my lips still speak the same language, one that sometimes rolls of the tongue as how we sometimes never do us consciously how do we actually know how to ride a bike, but just get on and go. My poems, the rare occasions that I do write, are more mechanical than art. My pen just writes a few words and instead of completing the sentence on the same line, just moves to the next with practiced, numbed instinct. Poetry. I have forgotten how to dream about love. Pride and lust have filled the place where pure romantic love used to reside within me.

I don’t know why. Or perhaps I do know parts of the answer already. It could simply be a natural part of growing up, dampening ideals with the cynicism of adulthood.

But whatever may be the reason, or reasons, I want it back. I want to dream about love again. What hope does this cruel modern world hold if we cannot even dream of beauty in love? The relationship that we share with our loved ones may be imperfect, but that does not prevent the love we share with each other as whole, complete and perfect. And when we dream, when I dream, we’ve got to let the chains of coy schooled-trepidation fall away, and just dream all the way. Dream as though you’ll live forever, live as though you’ll die tomorrow.

I want to dream about love again. When I write a love letter, say I miss you, I want each word to have that same warm-glow in me as it did when I was 15. Now I have another chance, with my café girl. I’m going to take it.

Uncle T

the next time you use a napkin... 7:56 pm

Even in our over-digitised lives, there is still room for the paper and pen. 

When I first heard about napkin pitches some years back, I was intrigued. The concept is that if you cannot sell your business model to a venture capitalist within the space of a napkin over dinner, you had better re-think your business idea. It was all about capturing the essence, the succinct crux of the business, within that short window, much like an elevator pitch. Since then, I've prepared "Napkins" for topics whilst studying in university; the succinct salient points that I need to know for each chapter.

Here is a NYTimes site that pays homage to this concept as well: capturing snapshots of financial advise on napkins. Enjoy: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/your-money/carl-richards-gallery.html?ref=your-money.

Better yet, how about a book dedicated to napkins and visual thinking? :)

Uncle T

it just keeps getting bigger. 1:56 pm

As some of you might know, I'm in the business of tourism. Part of what the Tourism Board does, and has to do, is continually push for the next big idea that will draw in the ever-demanding, ever-savvy bunch of travelers of the future.

Singapore continually reaches for the sky when it comes to tourism ideas. In fact, sometimes I do wonder if we do a dis-favour to ourselves my setting ourselves benchmarks that we are continually pressed to outdo.

But surely, competing with other cities on the basis of "bigger" and "larger" and "world's first" might not necessarily be a sustainable strategy. Just take a look at the latest Abu Dhabi added onto the global tourism map. A behemoth.

No. In this current world milieu, we have to move away from a strategy of building 'bigger and better' tourism products. We need to accept the reality that Singapore is well, Singapore; an island state.

Perhaps the way forward is to be an inspirational city; for our given size and circumstances, we have gone beyond what was dreamed possible for our limitations, and have become an inspiration. It is a very bold side-step, but possibly one we necessarily need to do if we want to continue to compete into the future.

Why try keep competing building better bicycles, trying to leap-frog the rest, and build the world's best bicycles? Why not start building spaceships instead?



Uncle T

sporeboyindelhi 10:22 am

Dear friends,

Having moved to Delhi for a year, you can follow my Delhi-specific journey at http://sporeboyindelhi.tumblr.com.

This blog will still exist, but Delhi-specific thoughts shall be penned there :)

Uncle T

C'est la vie 2:07 am

With nothing to lose but the security of comfort zones, I await take-off.

Cinema, technology, TV and a connected world allows my imagination to get creative on what my Delhi experience might be.

But I go with no guidebook, only pre-conceived ideas I struggle to throw out. But that's unrealistic, to throw it all out. And so I do second-best and be prepared to let Delhi shape the year ahead.

Armed with just a rusty sense of adventure, a belief in Love and the Faith, I close my eyes into the unknown. C'est la vie.

A decision. 8:16 pm

It felt as if it were already mine.

And when I decided to let it go against my passion, it hurt like salt on a raw wound. I bit down on my already-dried lips. My body hesitated, unsure, but a drowning voice of reasonable prudence called out. The cartoons with angel on one shoulder horned angel on the other are not exaggerating.

In the end, I'm sure not wholly based on my own strength, I walked away. Initially I felt numb, as if I suffered a great loss, cheated. Like someone gave me a gift and then snatched it away. Ripped from me.

Then a seed of pride slowly took root; I had made a choice that was more discerning despite it against my passions. This time I followed my head and spurned my heart. No. I followed my head only if wisdom resides there. This time, I made a wise choice.

I guess that is what sets us apart from animals. Many behave based largely on instinct. There is less discernment, less contemplation in animals. Purely banal. And it felt good to affirm my humanity with this decision.

Wah what big decision is this that requires so much drama? Its merely the decision not to buy a camera lens I want so much, and delaying its purchase only until Ive hit my savings target.

But its not always how big or small a decision is that matters so much. Rather, its more meaningful to see how these decisions are made, big or small.

Perfume of memories 8:55 am

That scent. I knew it from somewhere! And when my mind remembered, the memories it brought made me ache.

I closed my eyes as the perfume scent triggered flashes of memories. They made me ache; at once beautiful and painful. But the pain was a numb pain, not acute.

It was her scent. One I knew daily; from the living room to her study room; from the kitchen to frontdoor. Back then, I knew that scent by instinct. It naturally brought comfort, comfort of her company.

Her scent brought back memories, but she no longer was here. Sure, its a nice scent. But now it triggered merely memories; recollection, not longing. I am grateful to know the scent, to have known it intimately. But it was time to let go. Not letting go would be allowing sentimentality to clasp its shackles on my feet, not letting me move on.

I don't think the scent will lose its effect on me. But its time to let that merely be a nice memory to store at the back of the cupboard.

Daily Battle 10:02 am

The grey canvas stretched across the sky like an endless grey-carpet. The urban skyline sentinels on the ready. Beads of rain escaped the canvas like the first-dusts of a looming battle.

And I heave a sigh as I brace for the day's battle ahead, weapon at the ready, awaiting the first clash of steel and blood. I close my eyes to reach for the distant puddle of hope. There it was, I see it; the beautiful sunrise after this battle is done. That would be my puddle of hope.

I hear the first war-cry as my computer boots up, and I run into battle.

Urge to linger, bookshop 7:34 pm

I didn't need to, but the urge was too strong.

It was still bright outside; leaving the office with sunlight hitting my face felt foreign, nearly unreal. Iwas heading home.

Then I passed the bookstore near the train station. I hesitated towards the bookstore; my logical mind was processing through the mental pages of task lists to see if I needed to go to the bookstore. No need.

Somehow, I found my feet walking towards the bookstore; I was in. My irrational compulsion overcame authority over the rational cerebral mush. I was going to the bookstore not because I needed to, but because I wanted to. Though I didn't knw why I was drawn to the booksyore.

Perhaps it reminded me of the dusty quaint Leicester Square bookstores of London. Perhaps it was the urge to people-watch as they browse books; there is something different in their eyes as they stare down pages, as if staring into a different universe. Perhaps it was the irrational itch to buy a book though I know it was cheaper to buy online and that Ill likely not read the book till a year later. Perhaps it was the comforting feeling of walking along aisles lined with shelves of knowledge and bits of our world waiting to be discovered. Perhaps its the imagination that bookstores inspire in me. Perhaps.

Whatever the perhaps may be, I took a one-round stroll through the bookstore. Before I knew it, time to head home.

I swear I feel a little more warm and fuzzy inside each time I walk into a bookstore and linger in its aisles. And my brain ticks differently; it seems to forget linearity and explodes into possibilities. Miss that.

The stirring of the gentlest of breezes 7:03 pm

I stare at the spreading red dot on my Indian cotton. I shake my head in a half smile at where beef stew should not have been. It's been a long week as many have been in the last few months. So I guess I was allowed the stew slip-up.

I jump into a cab on a Friday and speed away from Arab St. It turns out to be a quiet evening, and I'm surprisingly pleased that it is.

I caught a movie at lunch today,  a local movie. And despite the relative short time it took of my day, it made a difference to my day. The movie stirred something in me, as gently a leave may tingle in the gentlest of breezes.

It reminded me to dream. It reminded that its okay to be romantic. We live in a forgetful world where it buries all that is pink, fluffy and cotten-candyish deep within the silent stores of iur hearts where hardly any light reaches. So we need such reminders; the Singaporean movie let light into that deep cellar that working life has helped darken. I was reminded of fighting for romantic love, not simply going with convenient love. Love had to be fought for, with scars and hurts.

And then I was reminded of her. Her somewhere now in Venice, her somewhere holding the spare key to that dark cellar where all the pink and fluffy were stored. With friends all around wearing pessimism as if it was the latest fashion trend, I do stop and wonder sometimes whether convenient live was the only real love in our world today. "Long distance relationship? Good luck man," I can still hear them say.

Has consumer technology of today turned against us? Have we humans spawned our very own doomsday? What technology has done was make daily living more convenient and supposedly more efficient. But have we allowed this thirst for convenience gnaw into certain areas that is not always about convenience and efficiency? Love, ethics, literature...

I don't know. Do you?

Insurance for expectations 1:56 pm

Never let your expectations build. Because when they get smashed, no one can compensate you for them, no one. No comfort will fill the emptiness that follows, no pin will be able to prick the numbness that follows. You can at least buy insurance for a car or for a house. But none for expectations.

Today, I had my expectations shattered and had to accept it with grace. And my only fault in all this was allowing my expectations to build.

No comfort. Just a walk under a blazing workday afternoon sun; I caught myself literally looking around for someone I could burst my disappointment on. No one. I decided that this had to be done alone. Besides, othees may try to comfort me through rational reasons why I should not let this affect me. But such matters are hardly a matter of pure rationality is it?

I have rationalised the emotions I felt after this incident over a comforting home-cooked meal. But the sting of the emotions will linger, and serve as a reminder. But life goes on, so does the work-week.

same place, different men 12:21 am

It has been more than a year. Gavin and I met in the Birmingham seminary, Oscott College.


I still recall how unwillingly I dragged myself from university and onto the train that Easter weekend. I was meant to go to the College on Friday morning, and I was only lugging a suitcase onto the Birmingham-bound train that Saturday morning. Why should I go? Don't I have better things to do? Exams were approaching, I needed to study. There were all the right reasons for me to to go for this Easter retreat at the local seminary where they trained Catholic priests. Was there even a reason for me to go? Yet somehow, the guilt for not accepting the invitation to go for this paid-for retreat was too much to bear that Friday evening.


I took the local train from Coventry to Birmingham, passing all the small towns I never knew existed in my three years there in the Midlands. Perhaps there was so much of my surroundings I missed being so engrossed in my own tiny life.


The typical cold English wind was typical that morning, biting through my coat and scarf. With a print-out from Google Maps in hand, luggage in the other, I made my way across the industrial suburb on foot, passing pub and electrical store and landscaping company. Finally, I saw its sign; Oscott College. A tall door of wood and steel seemed to suddenly appear amidst a very tall hedge. I cross the road; you would had to stare very hard to make out what the signage to the handsome door. Feeling absolutely tiny compared to the door, and with flashes of frightful scenes out of childhood cartoons, I rang the electronic doorbell. Announcing my name and intent, the electronic locks released, and the door jumped open. I pushed open the ajar door and stepped in. The door slammed behind me.


Without over-dramatising, what sat before was like a scene out of Robin Hood or some Harry Potter scene. There were two paths before me, one left one right. One couldn't make out where the paths started or ended as the brown leaves from the towering trees above strewn the entire grounds for as far as the eye could see. Only eyelets of the ground beneath showed up amidst the leave-carpet. I took the right path.

After passing a shed on the right and some small low-rise buildings to my left, I could literally hear the sounds of the city slowly fading behind me, along with that gate. It wouldn't surprise me if the gate was built that big as a metaphor to the great divide between this mysteriously alluring compound and the harsh world out there. As my luggage's wheels jabbed itself with the fallen leaves, my foliage on the left slowly revealed a stone building. As it slowly came into view, it was truly a magnificent Oxford-ish building of about 3 storeys. I was awed as I stood staring at its centuries-old facade. Standing there still digesting the sight before me, I spun around for another hit; there lay a long stretch of flat green fields and beyond that, the city of Birmingham stretched out before me. It was as if the city was bowing towards Oscott College which sat on a slight hill.


But it was at this seminary I met Gavin, the Manchester-born Irish construction worker. Charming bloke with a smile that told you he knew how the extent of his charisma. The confidence of his shaven head matched that sparkle in his eye, that you can't resist but feel sheepish when it catches your stares. Yet amidst his easy charm and his equally easy admittance to all indulging in all the hedonisms this life could offer, that was something good in his eyes, something earnest and truthful. Gavin, like the 10 others there at the retreat, was considering priesthood. I suspect I'm the only one in the retreat who hadn't decided on priesthood.

What struck me about Gavin on our walks when he shared his life, was how real a person the bloke was. He's like you and me, as sinful, as tempted; in fact I think he has led a more hedonistic life than two of mine. Yet, this young man found God, and now is even taking a step further.

Today, I'm proud to say Gavin is going to start his formal discernment as a priest-in-training. He is off to a Spanish seminar. I am so glad, joyous, for him.

But funny how we both were at Oscott more than a year ago. A year later, here I am fat, unkempt, tired, whilst Gavin is excited about laying his entire life down for God. Truly, we might start at the same place, but end up being very different men.

Uncle T

His voice in a foreign land 11:53 pm

"...being placed in a foreign land takes away distractions of the routines we've built around ourselves.

it provides you a place to be so intimate with yourself that you hear the echoes of your soul. and its possibly only in circumstances as these that you'll hear His voice, and what He has to say to you."

Uncle T