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We know Kevlar is used in body armour. We have seen too many heroes riddled with bullets and thankfully, they wore Kevlar (by DuPont) and lived to fight another day.
I just got this pair of amazing British-designed Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) 685 speakers and they are sitting prettily in my office. While I am writing this and doing my year-end closing and corporate exercise (it is 11pm now on a Friday night and yes, entrepreneurs works long hours), the speakers are playing Pet Shop Boys, my all time favourite Euro-techno band.
If you look at the yellow cone, audiophile calls it "cone bass/midrange" and I suspect it means the normal range of frequency -not so high (that's for the tweeters) and not so low (that's for the bass flowport), it is made of Kevlar.
Since Kevlar is a high tech synthetic fabric that possesses high tensile strength, it is perfect for making the vibrating part of the speaker's cone. Dont ask me about the science but intuitively it makes sense.
Check out Wikipedia on Kevlar and i was surprised to learn it was invented as early as 1965. It is used in so many applications - body anti-ballistic armour, ropes, car brakes, buildng material, optic fibre cables, sports equipment and drum heads. Yes, drum heads.
I don't need a body armour (yet) but it is nice to have two pieces of Kelvar blasting the sweetest music I have ever heard on my B&W. As they always say in those science programmes, what will they think of next?
After Pet Shop Boys, I will play Susan Wong (queen of Super Audio CD recording with her perfect vocal), Tsai Chin (she sang the memorable song in the movie Infernal Affairs - both Andy Lau and Tony Leung were staring at the vacuum tube amplifier), Diana Krall and a chamber group playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
Kevlar makes my long lonely nights in the office fun.
Harold Fock
The amazing B&W 685. The robot is not part of the speaker but a gift from my daughter Natalie
1. If you are old enough, you will vaguely remember the old Hollywood musical movies featuring hundreds of extras and dancers, doing some fantastic military precise choreography. The person responsible for this was a producer and dance choreographer named Busby Berkeley. He was in the military in World War One so getting a hundred showgirls to dance in line was a walk in the park or should I say a dance in the park for him. In the mid 1930s to 1950s, almost every movie is a musical. It is not unlike the Bollywood musical movies we love to mock.
2. Busby was an obsessive producer and he wanted to top each musical with bigger and larger budget and a larger troop of dancers. But in the late 50s, audience taste has changed. They wanted non-singing movies. They wanted to see violence, gangster and damsels in distress. But Busby refused to evolve and change. He kept on making those movies until the American studios killed off his projects. Today, nobody knows who is Busby. He became a note in the history of cinema trivial. (Accoding to Wikipedia, he had a bit of a career revival in his older age as directors sought him out to film complex sections of the movies.)
Military precision Berkeley's classic
3.Interestingly, even a traditional society like India is evolving. For the last decade, Indian directors have tried to make larger and more expensive musicals but each one of them was a box office disaster. The larger the movie, the bigger the losses. Now they have their own non-singing movie classics like the rest of the world.
4. When you run a business, what works in the past may not be a success in the future. A businessman must accept the Darwinian nature of commerce. If the business parameter changes, one has to change with the times. Your one hit wonder may be an accidental hit in the past but to use the same strategy and tactic in every scenario is courting disaster. My Zen-centric dad always reminded me that one has to be introspective. It is like possessing a pair of eyes that grow outside your socket and look at yourself from an “outside” perspective. If you do not possess this reflective ability, to question oneself, to willing to learn new tricks, skills and technologies, to unlearn and discard what is obsolete, then you will end up like Busby.
5. The best businessmen and fund managers are often introspective people. Sure, they often make mistake and get burnt but they are fast to adapt. Hardly I see them making the same mistake twice. There is a famous saying, “Fool me once, shame on him. Fool me twice, shame on me.” For those who think they are always right and see the world with a happy cookie cutter, they often end up in the museum. The best businessmen sees themselves as cookie cutter mould maker. They make and perfect a mould. Make a thousand copies and milk everything they could out of that mould and they exit (or better still, sell it to the next wannabe sucker). And then make another new mould and repeat extraction process.
6. How do you fight this Busby Disease? I won’t use the oft-quoted “The only constant in life is change.” This is a consultant wannabe’ favourite quote. I had one male ex-colleague, who has Snoopy pictures all over his cubicle, who quotes this line all the time. I want to say this to him, “So your mother is a man.” There are some things in this universe I do not want to change. For example, my parents’ sex. But I can think of a few ways to fight this disease.
7. Be humble. Do not take one’s age (“I eat salt more than you eat rice”), title and position for granted. You have not arrived. In fact, we never really “arrived” in life until we depart from this life. Nope, buying a few luxurious watches and collecting a few vintage wives, I mean wine, is not the end point of life’s amazing journey. We can learn and unlearn. We continue to be curious of the world and look for megatrends. We read and scan for data. We can say “sorry I am wrong.” We can admire Tiger Woods’ feats but we must not forget a young staff’s “surprise” contribution. I am often amazed that bosses pay homage to Tiger or Federer as if they were born in the same village but not a word of appreciation to his own team mates who keep him alive or/and keep him fed. We must surround ourselves with people with backbone and not weathervanes. Our best friends are not those who ape “Wang Shang Ying Ming” (Oh, Great Emperor, You are so brilliant!) and not always those who share the same buddy-buddy hobbies with us. We must surround ourselves with diversity and independent minds so that at the crucial juncture, they can save our sorry asses and tell us where we have gone wrong and then we promise never to make the same mistake.. ever. Don’t be a Busby.
8. I am forever paranoid. This is worse than the “naked” nightmare in which you find yourself walking into the exam hall wearing nothing. This is my ultimate nightmare. You walk on stage wearing the Elvis unbuttoned shirt gyrating to your own Bollywood hit. And your opponent walks purposefully towards you in a red-gold Iron Man suit and the audience is shouting “Tony Stark! Tony Stark! Tony Stark!” and you have no idea what is that all about. That, to me, would be a blockbuster tragedy.
Harold Fock
1. I took Peter Seligmann, Chairman and CEO of Conservation International to our nature reserve early this morning for the tree-top walk. It was my first time there myself. Remembering my jungle training experience years ago, I was glad to be walking along boardwalks and looking at trees from the top. Shortly after we started, we had an encounter with a tortoise crossing our path. The poor fellow had a big tick on its tail. The ranger assured us that we were safe because this particular species of ticks don't like human beings. We saw beautiful birds, an owl's nest and an eagle's nest.
2 After the walk, another ranger showed us a sleek, bright green grass snake. It was coiled around his hand and, according to him, all ready to strike. "But don't worry; it is only mildly venomous." Mildly venomous? My guards were up but after everyone else had handled it, I felt my manhood being put to the test. Putting on a brave front, I took over the snake which happily turned out to be quite friendly.
3. Then it was time for breakfast at the rangers lodge. Peter briefed us on the good work done by Conservation International (CI) which he started over 20 years ago. CI is now supported by some very big names like the Founder of Intel, Moore of Moore's Law, and the Chairmen of WalMart and GAP. We discussed ways in which Singapore and CI could work together. Our NParks people, who are both knowledgeable and passionate, then brought him to the Botanic Gardens.
George Yeo
Tree Top Walk
In Nature Reserve
Holding a Snake
Breakfast
1 We had a nice informal gathering of the Eurasian Association (EA) on Friday evening. Before dinner, the new management committee under Edward D'Silva briefed me on the plans for the coming year. Next year, we celebrate the 90th Anniversary of the EA.
2. The food was as usual excellent. I had extra helpings of rice and devil's curry (of which someone said there must be at least a hundred varieties).
3. Inspired by Edward's use of the word 'new Eurasian', I gave a short address on the larger trends affecting the Eurasian community. Inter-marriages are most common when the world is open to trade, travel and migration. Thus the Eurasian communities in Asia were the result of an earlier era of globalisation brought about by the European conquest of the world. With the dismantling of empires after the Second World War, countries like China, Vietnam, India and Indonesia turned inwards adopting a strident nationalism, often based on ethnicity. Eurasians in Malaysia and Singapore, demoralised by the loss of their higher status, migrated in large numbers to Australia, many hoping to rejoin western society. The bleeding went on through the 60's and 70's and only stopped in the late 80's. Because of the loss of talent, Eurasians suddenly became under-represented in many walks of life causing the community to be demoralised. In the 90's, we saw the trend turning, spurred on by a revitalised EA. Now the trends in terms of education and professional achievements are positive.
4. In a new age of globalisation, inter-marriages have become more common. The test of the vitality of the Eurasian community is its ability to encourage the offsprings of European-Asian marriages to identify themselves as Eurasians. For those carrying non-European surnames, this will be difficult. For those carrying European surnames who grow up in Singapore and see Singapore as home, it may be more attractive to be identified as a Eurasian Singaporean than as a British Singaporean or a German Singaporean. If we succeed in doing this, in making it cool to be a Eurasian, the community in Singapore will be refreshed by new blood and an interesting new chapter will be written.
George Yeo
Q: Minister, maybe you can give us an update on the efforts to foster closer ties between Singapore and Yemen.
Minister : Since my visit to Yemen last year in the month of May, our relations have taken a step further and we have appointed a Non-Resident Ambassador to Sanaa, Helmi Talib is himself of the Hadrami descent and he has relatives there. This will help us revive an old link. For instance, Governor Ahmed Janned Al Janned who is now here in Singapore, he is the great-great-great grandnephew of Syed Omar Aljunied, who was the Arab merchant from Palembang by Stamford Raffles, who gave the name to Omar Mosque, the oldest mosque, and to Aljunied Constituency his name. We are very happy to welcome to Singapore a relative and a friend.
Q: So what roles can the local Arabs play to build the bridge between Singapore and Yemen?
Minister : There is a strong reflection of Middle East, not only in Singapore, but also throughout South East Asia, along the entire rim of the Indian Ocean. And with globalisation, all these links will be revived.
Recently, when I was in Surabaya, I visited the one of the tombs of the Walis, Sunan Ampel and that makam is in the Arab quarter of Surabaya. And in every major city of South East Asia, of Malaysia, of Indonesia, there are Arab communities and they are linked by culture, by blood, by trade and Singapore has always been a very important node in their network.
Q: So do you think Singapore can become a hub for Arabs around the region?
Minister : Singapore would be one of the hubs of Arabs in the regions and of new links between South East Asia and the Middle East, and indeed of a much greater east-west trade between the Middle East and Asia.
Q: Minister, last year you talked about setting up a centre for Arab culture and (inaudible)..., any updates on that?
Minister : There is some progress and a lot of work is being done. We will be establishing an Arab Centre and plans are being drawn up. We are hoping that in this effort, the Governor of Hadramout can help us. I have with me this evening, the CEO of National Library Board, Dr Varaprasad, who has some interest in doing work on Hadrami culture in Singapore. And happily, there is an Aljunied working in National Library to provide us a ready link in the person of Sharifah Zahra. Now over to .....
Q: Can you give us your impression of Singapore so far?
Governor of Hadramout (translated): The relationship between Singapore and Yemen has existed for about 200 years and Singapore has educated and influenced many of the people of Hadramout, in particular, in very positive ways and some of that influences you can also see them reflected in Hadramout. Some of the institutions created in Hadramout were actually done by Hadrami descents who lived and made their wealth and fortunes in Singapore. I am looking forward to renew this relationship and I am looking forward to bringing more Singapore expertise to Hadramout in particular and Yemen in general to help develop these ties further and further. And Minister George Yeo's visit to Yemen was an excellent initiative to open the doors to this relationship.
With Deputy Governor of Hadramout Ahmed Janned Al Janned
At the Tepak Sireh Restaurant
I am no audiophile. I have never owned a Hifi set in my life. Music to me is compressed MP3 piped through the tiny earphones of my trusty iPod Nano. Recently, my friends explained to me that I have been deprived of a wonderful experience. It is a joy and pleasure to listen to music the right way - from a HiFi separates. That is audiophile speak for music system comprising separate components - the source (CD player), the amplifier (to boost the sound signals) and the speakers. Forget those all-in-one systems.
I took a trip to Lavender Road and found a shop specializing in Bowers & Wilkins speakers and the sales staff was kind enough to let me "audition" their flagship speakers B&W 685. It was a revelation. I did not even know music could sound like that. I learnt new words like "soundstage", "tight mid-tones" and "warm music".
After much research, I got myself a Birthday present. At the grand old age of 38, I finally owned my first Hifi system. Instead of the usual component system, I bought the Roth MC-4 system (S$900) and two budget Tannoy Mercury F1 bookshelves speakers (S$300), linked by QED Silver Anniversary speaker Cables (free). The Roth is a vacuum tube amplifier and an iPOD dock. Purists will scorn at such a set up. Marrying compressed digital music to amplification using vacuum tubes is akin to driving a sports car using automatic gears. But I am never a conformist. Besides, I am constrained by space as I would be setting up the system in my office. And the cost is not exorbitant - at S$1200, I got a functional sound system. In the world of audiophile, that is like pocket change.
The sound is unbelievable. Now I actually look forward to going back to the office to work on the M&A stuff. This is how it looks like:
The Roth MC-4 Music Cocoon (British designed but made in China)
The vacuum tubes glows red in the dark. It is like a machine conjured up by Doc in the Back to the Future series. You could almost imagine Michael J Fox turning the "flux capacitor" on and blast back in time. But the Roth is indeed a time machine. Before transistors were invented, music lovers have been using vacuum tubes to amplify their sound signals and play it though their speakers.
This is one of the few instances in which retro technology is cool. And with fuel prices at these stratospheric levels, it pays to stay in office and work. Coincidentally, the machine is called MC-4 Music Cocoon. Faith Popcorn, in her famous book "Cocoon", predicted that humans will cocoon themselves indoors thanks to technologies. She is right. It beats traffic jams, avoids psychotic drivers who think their souped-up cars are F1 race cars and the pain of watching the petrol pump's clicking meter.
Thanks EH, VicSent and Jhin for introducing something new to my life. Now comes the tough part - preventing myself from turning into an audiophile.
Harold Fock
1. I watched 'live' on CNN the speech given by Barack Obama after he secured the majority of the Democratic delegates. It was truly a historic moment. That an African-American should become the Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party is a tribute to the largeness and greatness of the American people. I felt very inspired. So must hundreds of millions of people around the world.
2. The Obama campaign has aroused among young Singaporeans an interest in US politics which I've never seen before. Obama is a phenomenon. But precisely because he is a phenomenon, many must worry whether he has the experience and wisdom to lead the US and the world on big issues like the war in Iraq and US relations with China. However, age is no guarantee of wisdom either.
3. When I checked Intrade, the electronic bookmaker, Obama leads in the odds, about 60% to McCain's 38%. But it is still many months to November.
George Yeo
Obama claimed the Democratic Presidential nomination
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