According to a Pew Research Center study in America, older people are catching up to the younger generation on Internet usage.

While associates of Gen X and Gen Y still dominate in areas like surfing the net with smartphones, some regions have seen a rise in a number of older folks.

One notable area is the usage of social networking sites like Facebook. There is approximately a 30% increase in the number of uncles and aunties (aged 45-55) on these sites in two years.

However, the speediest rise in users of social networking sites turn out to be the 74 years old and above category. Usage was four times more compared to two years ago.

About 83% of the Millenials belong to the virtual world online while the older adults amount to 61%. This figure is almost double of what there was in 2008.

It is evident that social networking has become part of our lives, whether it is online of offline (real world). It is interesting to see how "digital" human beings will transform into in the next decade.

Most annoying Christmas song

Recently, there was this online survey conducted by an advertising agency in Bulgaria. Apparently, it asked surveyors to pick the Christmas song which they hate the most.

As expected (I guessed it correctly), the 1984 song Last Christmas by Wham! was declared the winner with more than 28000 voters choosing it. That amounted to 19% of the votes.

Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas was the runner-up with 15% of the voting population selecting it. I agree that both songs are on par in terms of irritation.

I remember blogging about the song Last Christmas in 2009 where I stated that the lyrics are absolutely dumb. "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. But the very next day, you gave it away. This year, to save all the tears, I'll give it to someone special"

Ok, so you had learned your lesson last year right? And you are still giving it to the wrong person every year for the past 26 years?

Traditional Christmas songs with nostalgic cliche and annoying tunes move aside. Animals are the "in" thing now.

China inflation

It is confirmed. China's inflation is the highest in the world, at least for the past two years. This should raise concerns over the tightening measures of the world's most populous country.

Chinese leaders have vowed to contain the inflation and ensure stable growth for the country but it remains to be seen what action will be taken.

An 11.7% increase in food prices was the main factor why the consumer price index jumped by 0.7% from October to November. Another increase in residential prices which amounted to 5.8% also accounted for the hike.

Fruits claimed the top spot in food prices with an jump of 28.1% year on year. Eggs, grain and oil take second to fourth spot respectively.

There are several reasons to this statistical change. One would be strong fiscal spending and that prices are still "affordable". However, this enlarges the danger of a backlash next year.

The bad weather also played a part. The price of vegetables went up but it is evident that non-veggies food were the main culprits this time. Vegetable prices had already started increasing few months ago.

Anyway, expect prices to be stable by the end of 2010 with government measures on the way to curb this annoying rising index.

Real Madrid winter season collection

Yup, that's me.

I am dressing up for Real Madrid's winter season collection and this is my avatar. Pictured here is an adidas jacket with white track pants and of course, the conspicuos golden scarf. Never mind the dog in front of me.

Aff Suzuki Cup final post

Alright, this shall be the final post on the AFF Suzuki Cup since Singapore crashed out of it on Wednesday night.

Singapore's loss did not seem acceptable. They did not even give their one hundred percent when playing the match against Vietnam. Knowing that a draw is sufficient to advance to the semi-finals, they should just use the "park the bus" method.

That is, to have ten men behind the ball and defend in numbers. There is no need to attack at all (since the strikers aren't in good form either). This method would surely bring a positive result although it might anger the Vietnamese.

Who cares? It is still legitimate and as long as it benefits Singapore, why not use it? Vietnam undeservedly won the championship two years ago anyway. Now, I just hope Malaysia can finish them off.

There are many tactical flaws in the Lions, all thanks to coach Raddy Avramovic. Like playing 4-3-3 against Philippines before guai guai switch back to 4-4-2 when it is ineffective. Most people can tell that it is ineffective right before the match.

Choosing Muhammad Riduan over Khairul Amri when the latter is obviously the finer player among the two. Using Aleksandar Duric when he is already forty years old.

Maybe we should start a petition to sack Raddy once and for all.

Mozzie Dance

Excuse me, are you dancing?

Check out the latest mozzie dance by a erm, mosquito. I filmed this in my room last night

AFF Suzuki Cup Preview 3

Singapore will face Vietnam in their final group game of the AFF Suzuki Cup tomorrow. The Vietnamese badly need to win this match or they face the prospect of being eliminated when they are both the hosts and defending champions.

The Lions would only require a draw to advance to the semi-finals. The other two teams of the group, Philippines and Myanmar, also play a decisive role to whom gets qualified. But either way, Singapore still looks safe for a spot in the semis.

Vietnam will give Singapore a tough time and the latter have not emerged victorious whenever both sides meet for more than a decade. Plus, the game is held at My Dinh National Stadium in Hanoi which can house 40000 noisy home supporters.

I expect Singapore to just squeeze out a goalless stalemate with the Vietnamese controlling the game. Goalkeeper Hassan Sunny should get ready to suffer several moments of heart attacks while playing.

I hope Vietnam gets eliminated eventually because they did not deserve to be the winners two years ago. Thailand would certainly agree with me on this point.

As for the Singapore squad, Aleksandar Duric is currently the top scorer with 2 goals but I believe the Lions would have scored many more if he didn't play.

The injury-time goal against Myanmar clearly showed that Duric was sluggish and communicated half a second slower with Agu Casmir the scorer. Luckily, Agu's finishing was clinical or else everyone would have blamed Duric for his "lagging performance".

Raddy Avramovic had once again exposed his flaws as a manger. He made two substitutions at only half-time which includes replacing the ineffective Noh Alam Shah and bringing on Khairul Amri.

If Avaramovic had foreseen this (before the game), Singapore might have enjoyed an easier time in the first 45 minutes. This shows that the Serb doesn't know how to fully utilize the resources at his disposal.

I would be a much better coach of the national team

Breakout

The complicated and sophisticated relationship map of Breakout

This show will commence tonight. Might not be as nice as Unriddle but definitely better than the over-hyped The Little Nyonya a couple of years back.

It is the same scriptwriter again. Ang Eng Tee unbelievably won "Best Script" in the 2009 Star Awards for The Little Nyonya which had many illogical scenes.

Yes, it is always him who writes the script for blockbuster dramas. But the media industry in Singapore is really facing a shortage of quality scriptwriters.

Similar to last year's year-end blockbuster drama, Together, Breakout's characters are also unique to one another, putting emphasis on characterization. In my opinion, I think a stronger plot would be more crucial for a blockbuster drama.

Before I forget, look who we have again. It's Jeanette Aw the actress who gains widespread hatred when acting demure. Need I also emphasize on the expressionless face of hers when acting?

MST coming

Ok, mid-semester tests (don't understand why they call it a test when it's an exam) are coming again. So this means that I will have less time to update this blog.

However, rest assured that I will update it whenever I am free or when an idea/inspiration strikes my head. Having said that, I have declared myself on annual leave for five days subject to management approval.

Oh yes, and right after MST would be school holidays and they will be used for doing FYP. And finally, it will be the last 2 months of me as a student of Singapore Poly.

Time really flies. We are already in December. New's Year Day was like only last week.

Was reading about Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2010 and remembered that The Straits Times aka No.1 propaganda newspaper made a report about it some time back.

The Straits Times claimed that Singapore is ranked 2nd in Asia Pacific and 4th in the world in terms of average personal wealth.

Sure or not? One might ask. Well, it's only one side of the story.

That is not an accurate calculation as only 3.6% of the population (not revealed in the newspaper) owned more than USD500000. The majority which is around 55% fall in the 10000-100000 range. Approximately 23% are in the 1000-10000.

With all these figures, who the heck are the wealthy ones in Singapore to be labeled 4th in the world?

On the other hand, using median wealth per adult (in USD) would be a more balanced and accurate approach. And the average number of Singapore only amounts to 30092 when it comes to median.

Unlike mean (or average), median takes the value which separates the higher half from the lower half.

Here is an example to paint a clearer picture

Let's say there are 7 people living in Raymond Kingdom and their wealth are

1. $50000
2. $60000
3. $65000
4. $65000
5. $70000
6. $75000
7. $80000

Here, the numbers are quite fairly distributed. The average wealth in this case is $66429. The median would be number 4 which is $65000. Quite close right?

How about this?

1. $50000
2. $60000
3. $65000
4. $65000
5. $70000
6. $75000
7. $500000

The 7th person is obviously the odd one out. So, the median still remains status quo at $65000 but the average would work out to be $126429!!!

While The Straits Times can continue to boast about all the "fictional facts", Singapore is sadly ranked at 25th spot in terms of median wealth. I better not put up the list in case of copyright issues, you can google on your own.

And sad to say, Singapore is the only one in the list where median wealth is less than GDP per capita.

AFF Suzuki Cup preview 2

The 2010 AFF Suzuki Cup officially starts today. Singapore will play their first game of the tournament tomorrow when they take on Philippines. The result of this match looks quite predictable but as the saying goes "The ball is round."

The Lions should stick to 4-4-2 with a flat midfield. Here is the probable line-up for tomorrow's match.

Hassan Sunny; Baihakki Khaizan, Daniel Bennet, Rosman Sulaiman, Juma'at Jantan; Mustafic Fahrudin, Shahdan Sulaiman, Ridhuan Muhammad, Sharil Ishak; Aleksandar Duric, Noh Alam Shah.

Singapore coach Radojko Avramovic is expected to pair the 40 year-old Duric and fiery Noh Alam Shah in attack. Although Duric does not match the styles of the other attacking players like Alam Shah, Sharil and Ridhuan, he is still expected to start.

That is the weakness of Raddy as a coach. He puts personal records ahead of team tactics. So what if Duric has scored more than 300 S League goals?

He looks better off as a substitute 2/3 into the game where he can launch aerial assaults on weary defenders. Instead, the Lions can opt for 4-2-3-1 with Sharil as the central attacking midfielder supporting Alam Shah.

Spain, Liverpool and Real Madrid all use this formation to deadly effects. 4-4-2 looks a bit too direct for Singapore. The point is just to offload long balls for the forwards to chase.

Notable absentees from the squad this time include Hariss Harun (what a pity), John Wilkinson (yeah, cos he sucks) and Shi Jiayi (personal reasons).

I am not sure what happened to Shaiful Esah, the one and only left-footed player in the national team. His name was also missing in the list. If Shaiful was called up, he could be deployed on the left wing and that would be exciting to watch.

With three central midfielders missing, Shahdan Sulaiman will certainly get to start in tomorrow's game. Although still quite an unknown name among fans, I can assure you that he has the potential to make it big.

The deep-lying playmaker can form a formidable partnership in central midfield with defensive linchpin Mustafic Fahrudin and the creative Sharil.

Another player whose name is also less heard of also stand a chance of starting the match against Philippines. He is Rosman Sulaiman slotted at right-back at the expense of the experienced Noh Rahman.

I think this is the position where Raddy will have the biggest headache as both players cancel out each other in terms of technique.

I foresee Hassan Sunny to beat Lionel Lewis for the goalkeeping role. Both are good players but at the moment, Hassan looks more reliable and steady. Expect Izwan Mahbud, the third-choice goalie, to find his trip to Vietnam more of a holiday than work.

Final score: Singapore 4:0 Philippines. Noh Alam Shah at the double, Sharil Ishak netting one and the Filipinos scoring an own goal.