Can we have car free day in Singapore?

As you know, every 22 Sep is World's Car Free Day but somehow the event didn't really kick off in Singapore. It seems living one day without the use of cars can be too unbearable to most of us.

I'm one of the guilty ones. My 2008 resolution was to cycle to work and reduce the use of car. So 6 months back, I bought a Giant TCR3. Brought it to West Coast for a little ride and the meter has stayed at 6km ever since.

My Giant TCR3-小巨人

Other than the "lazy" factor, another reason for me not riding to work is because of the risk involved. Singaporean drivers seems to have zero tolerance to cyclists (another negative trait of Singaporeans: hate to share. Think foreign workers, car pool...etc)

Even adding a side mirror (much to the amusement of Chelsea, a cycling fanatic) doesn't increase my confidence.

However, with more and more people taking up cycling, pretty sure there will be more awareness. One day, we might really see car free days in Singapore.

Green Joke!

One of my favourite "green" jokes:

There once was a little green man living in a little green house on the top of a little green hill. One day the little green man wanted to take a bath so he went and took his little green bottle of shampoo and his little green bar of soap and also his little green towel and into his little green bathroom he went. As he took off his little green shirt and his little green pair of shorts, he stepped under his little green tap and started to bathe.

Just then a saleswoman came to the front of the little green man's house and rang on his little green bell. "Ding Dong". The little green man heard his little green bell and he thought that his pizza had arrived so he hastily took his little green towel, wrapped it around his little green waist and rushed to the door.As he opened his little green door, his little green towel came undone, and dropped onto his little green doormat, exposing his little green, uuh...never mind. The saleswoman gave a shriek and rushed out of the little green house. In all her haste and all her horror, she did not see the Truck coming at 120 mph which struck her, killing her on the spot.

QUESTION: What is the Moral of the Story?


ANSWER: DON'T CROSS THE ROAD WHEN THE GREEN MAN IS FLASHING

Cutting unneccessary power

Today, Alvin, my colleague, asked me whether there is a device that can cut off all the power in the house when not in use (except our refridgerator, of course). This is the closest I can find: Smart Strip Power Strip

Apparently, you can plug your appliances into it, e.g pc, speakers, printers, etc.. and when you shut off and after a set idle time, all appliances will be shut off too.

How to make battery life last longer?

Didn't know it will come to a time where I cannot live without my handphone. Left it at home once and the whole day I felt so vulnerable. But there is still one major flaw of the handphone: the battery cannot last as long as I need it to be.
So I searched the web and found a number of tips to make battery last longer.

1. Optimise the energy saving settings
Cut down on the brightness and reduce the interval the backlight stays on.

2. Remove the animated wallpaper
Animated wallpapers are battery suckers.

3. Turn stuff off
Programs like Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi, email or anything that searches for updates are best turned off when not in use. They drink battery life like water

4. Talk is cheap
It seems that talk uses lesser battery power than emailing. A whopping 2-4 times lesser!

These are only some of the many many tips I found.
Anyway where all else fails, just get a solar charger. You can charge anywhere in our tropical island.

Are Singaporeans environmental conscious?

I have been pondering over these questions. Are we doing enough to help the environment? Can we do more? Not that we are not concerned but it seems like we are waiting for the government to give the cue on what to do to help. One suggestion, if government puts recycling bins right at our doorstep, I'm pretty sure many items will be recycled.

Recycling Bin in the HDB estate