The Tesla Roadster, a 288-horsepower, fully-electric two-seater sports car, is now back in Singapore, as you may have heard. But its price tag starts at $520,000, and with certificate-of-entitlement prices on the rise*, it ain’t getting any cheaper. So who will buy one? I was trying to figure this out the other day. The first niche market…
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Money for nothing (sort of)
Why do people spend more to get free things – in this case, a mostly-syrup-and-ice slushy drink that has no nutritional value? What, precisely, is so alluring about freebies? From the story: “Free is magic,” says Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College. “If you offer something for free, people will gladly spend money to…
Tide of awareness about the water-energy relationship
Save water by using less electricity Governments recognise that the two are fundamentally linked By Grace Chua, The Straits Times, Saturday, July 9, 2011 ‘Think of water as a fuel… When you fill your car with petrol, you don’t pour some on the ground and then put some in your car. You don’t waste it.’…
Loads of links on the floods this year
Some minor flooding at Orchard Road this year, again, after a bout of heavy rain. Obviously not on the scale of last year’s floods in Pakistan or this year’s in the Philippines – no one has lost their homes though one teenager did drown after falling into an open drain. BUT the floods are in…
Skinomics
Last month, I was in Seoul for the World Congress of Dermatology 2011, and amidst a slew of talks about aesthetics and plastic surgery, discovered some fascinating things about genomics going more than skin-deep. The science is in its infancy, of course. And there’s plenty of discussion over whether genomics can deliver on its promises. (Scientists…
I’m back
The Singapore General Election is over, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. I had to take rather a long break from this blog as I was part of the massive Straits Times team which covered the election – which I’m not going to write about as I’m not a political commentator!* You…
Reckoning
1. In stories about solar energy, readers need a handy comparison of power to something they immediately recognise. The comparison we typically use is ‘how many 4-room HDB flats can X megawatts power?’ Here’s the answer once and for all – Let’s say a 4-room HDB needs 4 kW of power – so 2 MW…
SBS puts the brakes on 3rd-party apps
No automatic access to data on bus routes for these, other programs Grace Chua The Straits Times, May 25, 2011 COMMUTERS who rely on mobile-phone applications to tell them when their bus is arriving have run into a roadblock. SBS Transit’s Iris (Intelligent Route Information System) now seems to have blocked third-party phone applications and…
High-tech tinkerers on the rise
From building robots to creating software apps, a DIY movement is taking root in Singapore By Grace Chua The Straits Times, May 05, 2011 REUSE. Repair. Repurpose. This is the rallying cry of a growing number of DIY enthusiasts here who put hands and mind together to make robots, phone chargers or 3-D printers from…
Economysteries: why are books so expensive in Singapore?
Why are books so expensive in Singapore? And is this true-er of highbrow nonfiction-type books, or of pulp paperbacks? 1. Highbrow hardbacks are more expensive. The pulp romance/ fantasy paperback is actually cheaper at Acmamall, an online Singapore bookstore. And the pulp book is the same price in ebook format! 2. Big bookshops in Singapore…