Lifu

There’s this thing that has made me feel like there’s something subtly wrong on the way out from the auditorium after chapel, and I’ve finally figured it out. It’s the rock-bottom number of doors open for egress of this large crowd.

One half of the issue is the number of doors open, say, inefficient method, enough prefects to open many more doors, and all that.

As for the other half, let’s take a look at the doors. They’re bulky bulky and have door closers on the top which create or restrict movement of the door as appropriate. Now, when students attempt to open a door, there’s usually a prefect (or two) on the other side waiting to keep it closed, or to close it.

That’s the dangerous part, because of the combination of body weight of the prefect as well as the weight and momentum of the door. Imagine if someone has his hand on the door frame when opening it, then it slams shut, hard. Last year, we had something like this (albeit with a closet door in a classroom), and the poor guy ended up with one injured finger for a very long time. Now, multiply the force exerted and door’s weight/momentum/[insert relevant property] by a few magnitudes, and add in a few more fingers or the palm itself, and you get disaster.

Ideally, we should not be crossing our fingers (pun unintended) and hoping or praying that this will not happen. Assuming they refuse to open more/all doors, maybe they can lock the ‘unauthorised’ doors; if that’s not a suitable or legal move, let’s do crowd control inside the venue as well. While I suppose the School’s group (insurance) policy for students might or might not cover this, it’s always better not to have to invoke that or any other policy you might hold. You know, premiums rise now and then..

Beefness

I’m shocked. The wait for my snow vegetable shredded pork (?) la mian today at Crystal Jade Toa Payoh was so long, a stack of three xiaolongbao baskets had come and gone, another dish and a bowl of la mian was on its way out already. When the other bowls arrived and we asked the waitress where was this missing bowl, the response was that this particular type of noodle had to be cooked across two kitchens, so there might be a bit of a wait.

Next time, I’m just going to stick to something more conventional, for my sanity’s sake. That’s before thinking about the total bill (after 7% GST, and other miscellaneous charges) for a party of five, which has risen by about half over the past half a decade or so.

Ships

Every time I get my fingers burnt, I just ice them a bit and remark to myself that I won’t let myself get into this type of situation again. I listen to myself for a little while, then I relax a bit, trust people and be happy for a while, and end up getting burnt again – except that it hurts more.

Ow. That’s not very nice of you.

I wonder if burnt fingers in real life work the same way.

Badgers

Congratulations to the new COMPSERV | CST Committee (2007-2008), and to an interesting year ahead!

ClearviewHwy is a typeface developed specifically for highway/transport lettering. It suddenly makes me think about the type used in (S)MRT stations for station names on platforms.

leftlane designs has a pretty nice and clear site design themselves. I’m surprised that they managed to combine a clear, text-based header (similar to how some Apple pages work, as well as 37signals). In alternate phrasing, what we should be looking for is a way to put a link that is meant for existing customers but yet is on the public site which will just as likely be accessed by prospective customers, wanderers and pilgrims, without resorting to silly things like 200px buttons or buttons that (literally) blend into your main navigation.

There’s this site which has a whole ton of management ‘methods’ links. It looks like a link farm and has ads, but seems to cover quite a lot of territory in not too many bytes.

After holding out for nearly six years and refusing to have groups in my MSN contact list, I’ve given up – my list has simply too many people to manage.

Irons

Something went horribly wrong today while I was preparing waffles. I put in quite a few pinches too many of salt, and then I put in a bit of ’slightly salted’ butter. Result? Salty waffles, which you really don’t want to taste. Imagine making waffles with seawater or rock salt and you get the idea. Even a extra large scoop of vanilla ice cream couldn’t smother that.

Now, I call this extravagant branding: QUINTESSENTIALLY.

Universally acknowledged as the world’s best concierge service, Quintessentially offers an unrivalled global network with 28 offices around the world. Focused on ‘accessing the inaccessible’, Quintessentially aims to make life that much easier, that much richer and that much more fun, with experts on hand 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to save our members time, hassle and money.

After reading ST’s article about Jimmy Ye’s There’s No Place I’d Rather Be, I’m suddenly reminded about how Elaine Wan’s Reach Out for the Skies seems to have faded into obscurity. It isn’t placed alongside crowd favourites like Count on Me Singapore nor is it lumped together with.. that song. Interesting.

iwannagoikea

Earlier today, I happened to be at iwannagohome! at Great World. It looks like designer home furnishings at prices which make my jaw drop more than at Zara. First impression: it’s very dark at the entrance. They have lots and lots of salespeople standing everywhere, half of them eye-powering browsing customers. That’s somewhat creepy until you turn mini vase around and someone pops up to tell you about the difference in pricing when you buy two – then they suddenly turn into enthusiastic salespeople!

Lights started coming back on later, I notice someone fiddling with a circuitboard, which explains the mysterious atmosphere at the entrance. Now, they morph into enthusiastic salespeople who can work as a team! But that’s not all.

All was well, the rows of (20 and 30 litre) dustbins looked shockingly good, I was mesmerised by the candles, and the pageone showcase area was excellent.. then of course, something has to spoil the whole experience. Some salesperson (I shall not mention the gender), looking at another area of the store, remarked to a colleague: “These are just the window shoppers, they [..]“

I’m not going back. Barang Barang lets you sit on the sofas, IKEA lets you lie on the beds!

Charlie

Here’s a holiday week special. Flowers for A.

Photo courtesy of Flagstaffotos. Pretty good stuff.

Cubicle

I’m amused. Apparently, I’m now an ISTJ.

Thankfully, we live in a country that does not have Mass Games.

In other news, I think prayer does produce interesting results, when it’s actually used.

Arrows

Here’s my challenge to you. Create something that will let people realise that they need to pull* the door to let themselves through, instead of trying to walk through it or gasp pushing* it! The obligatory sign near the handle rarely works.
You could apply this to automated swing doors.

May the best innovation garner the blogosphere’s attention. Drop a comment here after you’ve blogged about your idea. (*replace with inverse where appropriate)

I was at Plaza Singapura the other day to shop at Carrefour, and then I realised that there seemed to be escalators running up and down at car park levels, outside the main mall. Carrefour’s internal escalators run down 2 levels and has tidbits in bins along the center. And so on. Interesting.

The Sun Ray is really cool. In theory, you can yank your smartcard from one client without saving anything, walk across the building, slot it into another client, and get your session ‘instantly’ resumed. Supposing that it works, it reminds me of an Apple portable’s (safe) sleep-and-wake cycle.

If you are supposed to maintain 10 cars’ space as “safety distance” when you’re travelling at 100km/h, wouldn’t a particular stretch of highway (maybe a few handful of metres) be 90% unutilised?