Tag Archives: Singapore

Ideas to solve floods in Singapore!

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After reading the Today’s article about “Long term plan for flood control needed”

I feel motivated to think out of the box to help the local policy makers to solve the problem.

  1. Public to post flash flood photos is good on an app but why not go to social network like twitter & facebook to search #sgflood to identify locations of flood too?
  2. Flash flood sometimes can be inevitable but to limit the property damage maybe a high wall surrounding entrances can be constructed with steps to walk up & down into the entrance.
  3. Safety also must be considered for flooded drains, put railings beside drains that’s more than half a meter deep
  4. Long term flooding also must be considered a possibility, how to manage public transportation for evacuation or normal commute including safety of underground MRT tunnels.
  5. Identify possible locations of frequent flash flood prone region & build better drainage or higher elevated road & pedestrian pavements
  6. We have to think in advance in case there’s a Thailand style of flooding that won’t recede for a long period of time like how to replace public transport with Amphibious vehicles or allow cars to modify into amphibious vehicles to avoid serious flood damage.
  7. Civil defense solutions on rescue during floods

I like to hear more ideas from readers too!

What do you think Singapore should do to either prevent floods or anticipate floods & live around it.

My email to government regards to the “DNC” registry to resolve the SMS Spam issue

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After reading the news on TODAY regards to the SMS Spam problems and the proposed bill to set up “Do Not Call” registry so that consumers can register their mobile numbers to this DNC registry to stop marketing companies from SMS-ing them advertisement spam.

The news also provided a public consultation web address to ask for public opinions (must submit before 28 November 2011, 5pm.) regards to this bill and below is my reply.

Hi Sir/Mdm

With regards to the “do not call” registry proposed law.

I personally agree that such DNC registry should be set up in order to deter SMS spam

However, I foresee a serious problem

  • DNC Registry will be overwhelmed by daily submissions of both consumers & businesses all the time & DNC Registry will probably be “slow” to recover from overwhelming submissions

Solutions I like to propose

  1. Start the DNC Registry as planned and collect consumers’ mobile number who don’t want to be spammed by SMS.
  2. Work with telcos or private sector to develop a smart database of DNC numbers that will block any SMS with the word ‘ADV’ found inside the SMS from reaching their intended targets (listed in DNC)
  3. Marketers will be losing money per SMS blocked then normal SMS as telco can charge more for such SMS blocking services (so that marketers won’t get fined)
  4. Get the telco to send an email the list of numbers that are blocked so that the marketers will automatically filter their own mobile number list without submitting to DNC Registry regularly.

This way small businesses can prevent accidental spamming to people listed in DNC (get fined by government) and the DNC registry won’t be overwhelmed by the marketers with large lists of numbers.

Benefits

  1. Marketing company don’t get penalized unnecessary promoting good business relation with their customers
  2. Telecommunication company namely M1, Starhub and Singtel can help distribute the load off DNC registry by offering blocking services to the marketing company.
  3. DNC Registry to work closely with telcos to form an updated list of DNC list via a encrypted database without too many hands accessing it to prevent accidental leaking of these information.

Added bonus

  1. Telco get fined if they don’t offer blocking services or they themselves spam to DNC list consumers.
  2. I think the implementation of the above solution to a possible problem will be easy for the telcos and there shall be a win win situation to the SMS spam issue.

Orchard Road floods not Marina Barrage’s fault?

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According to SPH’s The Straits Times

The panel’s chair, Professor Chan Eng Soon, said it used a computer program to recreate the storm conditions during the Orchard Road floods but removed the barrage from the picture. It found that the floods would still have occurred even without the barrage.

I got a few valid questions to point towards Professor Chan.

  1. Why put this “announcement” into the public news? What’s his agenda?
  2. Who pay him to investigate this useless simulation?
  3. Why don’t he do up simulation to SOLVE the flooding problem instead?
  4. How much money was spent on this simulation program & how reliable is it?
  5. What’s the progress of finding the solution(s)?

Overall, this “simulation” only aim probably to relieve some stress away from certain ministers that are “in charge” of the upgrading of the CBD and handle the environmental impact.

The central business district & the orchard regions are one of the oldest & most concrete build up area in Singapore & almost 80% are concrete pavements that prevents water from seeping through the ground naturally.

The “experts” have to study more the environmental impact of annual flooding that may or may not create serious possibilities of the creation of sinkholes.

One example of urban sinkholes is the one at Guatemala in 2007 & 2010

A burst sanitary or storm sewer may have been slowly saturating the surrounding soil for a long time before tropical storm Agatha added to the inundation for the 2010 Guatemala sinkhole.

However, with annual flooding at Singapore orchard area…what will be the possibilities of formation of such sinkholes? The expert MUST detect & prevent such possibilities before a serious disaster starts forming up right beneath our feet.

A flooding can cause damage in some goods in basement of shopping centers & lose some customers in the process BUT a major sinkhole can possibly bring down the whole shopping complex causing major loss of lives & property damages that can be in the millions.

My suggestions to the people in charge.

  1. Stop spending time & money pushing away blames
  2. Accept the reality & problems at hand & move on
  3. Apologize or not it doesn’t matter just solve the flooding problems
  4. Form a specialize teams of “experts” to detect & prevent flood & sinkholes
  5. Plan in advance 10 to 20 years into the future of the CBD area & calculate ALL the possibilities of natural disasters
  6. Do not waste money on unnecessary projects without consulting the environmental experts
  7. Calculate the COST of major damage due to environmental disasters to add into the risk

I fear that the problems of the flooding may be more serious then anticipated but I have faith that our government can do something about it even thou they don’t admit the mistakes of the past they can focus their minds on solving the current problems.

I understand there are several problems at hand that the government need to focus on.

  1. Economy – rich poor divide
  2. Reducing stressful environment that caused less pregnancy, throwing money at couples for baby does not solve the low fertility problems
  3. Environmental impact of over building of the CBD area without considering natural weather changes
  4. Education revolution to reduce elitism slavery build up – changing the way we grade students based on “memorizing answers” instead of understanding & being resourceful
  5. Reducing the cost of health care in governmental hospitals & clinics which sometimes is way over priced even after cutting CPF medisave account
  6. Energy problems of Singapore in the next 5, 10, 20 years and not allowing the poor suffer black outs due to high cost of energy

Overall, the government have their hands full of problems to solve & they should come clean on the problems they have in their hands so that the people living in Singapore can work towards the common goal which is to survive.