End to piracy

[Published on 13 April, 1998]

Singapore has the best record in the Asia-Pacific region for combatting
software piracy, a leading Swiss business institute survey has shown.
For three consecutive years, the International Institute for Management
Development (IMD) has ranked Singapore as the top Asian nation in the
protection of intellectual property rights.

In the survey, the institute ranked Singapore ahead of countries like
Denmark, Austria, France, Japan, Australia, Belgium, Great Britain and
Israel, in stamping out software piracy.

In 1997, the police conducted 560 anti-piracy raids. The market value
of pirated software seized was close to $4 million.

1999 holidays

[Published on 7 June, 1998]

In 1999, three public holidays fall on Saturday.

Under the Employment Act, if Saturday is your rest day, your
employer must compensate you with another day off if a public
holiday falls on Saturday.

But if Saturdays are half-days for you, tough luck -- it’s considered
a working day, and you’re not entitled to a half-day holiday on
another day to make up for the public holiday falling on Saturday.

Plan to turn night into day

[Published on 23 July, 1998]

Russian scientists are planning to put what will appear to be a
second moon, 10 times as bright as a full Moon, into the night sky above
London and other cities in November as part of a scheme to end night-time.

The orbiting space mirror will pass across the night sky quickly, up to
16 times in 24 hours, but will last only one night - Nov 9 - before burning up
in the atmosphere, according to a report in the Electronic Telegraph.
The reflecting spacecraft, Znamya 2.5, is part of a Russian-led consortium's
plan which bears some similarities to the plot of the James Bond film
Diamonds Are Forever.

After the one-night feat, the Space Regatta Consortium, led by Energia of
Korolev, near Moscow, wants to launch a constellation of several hundred
mirrors, each up to 100 times brighter than the full Moon.

They will cast sunlight from the far side of the globe into the darkest
corners of Siberia during the Arctic winter and make city street lights
obsolete.

But the proposal has alarmed environmentalists.

Mr Daniel Green, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, said:
"I cringe to think that we could lose the night sky because of all these
companies with brain-dead ideas."

Mr David Thomas of Bangor University said almost any ecosystem "would get
completely screwed up" and that the permanent daylight could cause more
Arctic ice to melt.

He said plants and animals depended on darkness. "Everything -- sex, movement,
feeding -- is triggered by day-length," he said.

Prediction: Future Joy #19

All workplaces provide Virtual Reality Headsets for over-stressed employees,
which they can use to chill out.

Prediction: Future Joy #18

Hell's Angels finally realise that having ear-deafening engines
is so very uncool and switch to silent motorbikes instead.

Prediction: Future Joy #17

Escalators have two different speeds, hence ending the lengthy debate
on the need for a "stand on the left side" ruling.

Notable Cartoon Caption entries

23 November 2008





















 "Your magic pen really works! Now draw me a chest of gold."
- Wee Tai Seng




30 November 2008





















"Mommy! Daddy scared me playing ‘Peek-A-Poop’!!"
- Gokkilam A

"For the last time, it's a LEFT turn at Albuquerque!!"
- Mikail Lo




14 December 2008





















 "The artist who did the ASEAN logo must have gotten
his inspiration from these bananas."
- Lim Soon Kheng

"My goodness! I thought I asked you to make banana fritters...
how come there's a rabbit in the frying pan?!"
- Chan Su Lee

"What?? You're saying my pisang is not long enough
and shrinking?!?"
- Albert Pang Tze Kaan




21 December 2008



















 

"Yours is for the Nice... mine’s for the Naughty."
- Kayley Oh