January 26th, 2009

Obama Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages

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President Obama, with Vice President Biden, finishes signing one of his executive orders on his first full day in office.

One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes , found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

Annotation on Obama Staff Arrives to White House Stuck in Dark Ages of Technology – washingtonpost.com

This is so sad at so many level…

January 26th, 2009

Association of Bloggers (Singapore)

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Cowboy Caleb message me a few days ago whether I have seen the new Association of Bloggers (Singapore). I have and was one of the things I followed with quite a bit of amusement after the fury.

But I hesitated to comment on it because,

1) I could be one of the “foreign blogger” who is “controlling the Singapore blogosphere” she is referring to altho I am quite certain she is referring to U-Zyn and not me or Cowboy. While I acknowledge the “foreign” part is true, I am not so sure of the latter.

Tomorrow.sg is foremost, an experiment, pushing the boundary of what is allowed in Singapore (and towards that goal, with the results of what AIMS have proposed, I think we done our part) and a social management experiment (for me personally) to see whether a bunch of people with wildly different ideals can come together to work on a project. I couldn’t even get the editors to come to an agreement for lunch, much less “control” the whole blogosphere.

2) Given the vindictiveness of how ECL goes after U-Zyn after the ping.sg award incident (I know U-Zyn and Veron so I kind of know the back story), she is one woman I don’t want to cross.

While I have an occasional (weakness) habit that I provoke people like ECL for fun, I don’t have the time nor the energy to engage in another blog flamewar right now.

3) Most importantly of all, while I may disagree with who is leading the association, I am not so sure I am against anyone trying to form an association. It is another step forward, yet another experiment, which may or may not work out, but something to watch.

There is an old saying in American politics “Decisions are made by those who show up (Aaron Sorkin)”.

There lies the answer to those who is against the association. Participate and make your vote counts (perhaps that’s the reason why they require council approval before allowing membership). Or form your own association. :-)

January 20th, 2009

More like a father…and feeling more guilty

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It was a relatively warm weekend (10degree…how fast your expectation of “warm” changes :-). So we spend the weekend with the kids; playing with their scooters and electric automobile in the garden and shopping/dinning in the nearby mall.

Out of the blue, my wife said to me that I am beginning to behave “more like a father”.

Reflecting on her comments, I feel quite guilty. I spend most part of Yauyau babyhood away from her (Malaysia and Indonesia) and then I spend most part of Shern Ley babyhood away from him (US and China). Even on the times I was in Singapore, I spend most of my days running from meetings to meetings and will be home quite late. The only times I really spend with them is the few weekends I am in Singapore, which is not much.

My wife never grumble of my traveling, and always supportive. I feel very blessed and thankful to know she is behind me on this. Many friends in similar situation as me are amazed by my wife tolerance (she is rather independent and all she really asked for is a broadband and a warcraft subscription. Very easy to satisfy :-).

But still it does not eliminate my guiltiness and looking back, insisting them to come over to China with me was a good decision. For my kids; Yauyau love her school so much that she said she don’t want to go back Singapore after first day; but also our family; that I spending more time with them that I am starting to plan family trip within China (something my wife never thought I would ever do cos my idea of a vacation is “sleeping in bed”).

I feel extremely guilty this morning. Three of them, lying in bed, weak from diarrohea and vomiting, and I am packing my bags for Wuhan and Beijing. More importantly, unlike in Singapore where I know the in-laws would be able to take care of them, there would be no one over here.

Our “aiyi” left this morning to spend Chinese New Year with her family but luckily our driver is still around so I asked him to keep an eye on them this morning. (He told me of his old village remedy for diarrohea, extracting from fat in the chicken stomach, grill them and down it with water…*gump*)

Still, I don’t feel quite good about it.

But my wife say “Don’t worry, I am strong enough today.”.

Obviously she wasn’t and made me feel even more guilty :-(