勿忘我

The fact is that most senior officials have no idea what they are talking about: discussion at high-level meetings is startlingly primitive. (For example, the distinction between nominal and real interest rates tends to be regarded as a complex and useless bit of academic nitpicking). Furthermore, many powerful people prefer to take advice from those who make them feel comfortable rather than from those who will force them to think hard. That is, those who really manage to influence policy are usually the best courtiers, not the best analysts. I like to think that I am a good analyst, but I am certainly a very bad courtier.

Reference

1. Paul Krugman, Incidents from my career, undated.

Big news in Singapore - the constitution’s changed again!

What, you didn’t hear? Well, duh. No referendum, no public debates, just a quick note in the local press. No ginormous hassle like one would have in the United States in order to pass an amendment. No media circus. No arguments back and forth. Efficient, no?

Sure, Singapore isn’t the US. But still, you’d think the public ought to be consulted when changing a document THIS important. IANAL but I thought the whole point of a constitution is to spell out the contract between government and the governed, curbing the power of the government to do whatever the heck they wanted. Not that I am necessarily disagreeing with the need for this amendment, but this just reeks of more “Oh here’s an inconvenient law on the books, it won’t let us do X.” “OK, let’s just remove it then” shenanigans.

But what’s new? I just wonder what page of the ST that story got printed on.

In other news, a Canadian national paper, the National Post, runs an exclusive interview with Chee Soon Juan, after yet another devastating defamation lawsuit was lodged against him. What is the Canadian connection, you ask? Besides harboring a significant population of ex-Singaporeans, many of whom can be traced back to the Nanyang University diaspora, the latest thread linking these two countries is the Canadian law firm Amsterdam & Peroff, which has been active in several high-profile cases of defamation and anti-state litigation work. A quote from the homepage of their website proclaims proudly that they are

One of the few lawyers in the world [good at] taking on the state when the state starts acting like a criminal.

There’s even a funny picture of Dr. Chee on Diane’s blog:

The funniest part, I think, is when Diane Francis compares Dr. Chee to a modern-day Job for his suffering. Let’s hope his wife and sister don’t turn into a pillar of salt the next time they looks out a plane window.

References

1. Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia, PM Lee says constitutional changes a major refinement to reserves framework, 2008-10-21.
2. Diane Francis, The National Post, Singapore’s shame: ordeal of Chee Soon Juan, 2008-10-21.

Fifty years ago today¹, William Higinbotham, a staff scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, unveiled the world’s first² video game. Called Tennis for Two, Higinbotham designed and built the circuits for the game for the 1958 Brookhaven Visitors’ Day, and by all accounts was a smash hit!

Unfortunately for history, the game never made it big beyond the confines of the oscilloscope and circuit board at Brookhaven. The credit must go to Atari’s Pong game for being the first popular video game that spawned several entire multibillion-dollar industries - the arcade, the computer game and various accessory industries.

Here’s a video of Tennis for Two - considering its age, it looks surprisingly modern and playable!

References

1. Joe Gettler, Brookhaven National Laboratory, The First Video Game?

1. October 18, 1958↩
2. The title of first video game is somewhat disputed; however, it is manifestly clear that Tennis for Two was pioneering in two aspects. First, it had the first computer animations ever used as an integral part of the gameplay. Second, it was the first publicly available video game, albeit limited to the visitors of Brookhaven’s Open House in 1958. This much, at least, remains unchallenged.↩