FB

• Jan
  • Emotional labor thread and discussion
  • “Was 2016 dangerous for celebrities?” – clever use of Wiki article length and # of revisions to define celebrity
  • FB Live video of police pursuit
  • Bilahari links to Rajaratnam’s speech about small states dealing with big countries
  • Jessica Livingston’s version of ‘things you can’t say’
  • About class mobility, meritocracy and “97 marks not good enough” for higher Chinese
  • A child’s suicide
  • 32 types of anti-feminists
  • Great interactive NYT piece – “you draw it: what got better or worse during Obama’s presidency” – great way to teach you where your blind spots are
  • How Iceland reduced teen substance abuse
  • Empty bungalows in SG
  • [status] Thinking about having kids
  • Eunoia JC branding
• February
  • [status] What’s an approriate amount of interest in politics to have?
  • Nice comic about the love between Icarus and a fire-element person
  • Incredibly moving video of Jackie Chan being reunited with his early stunt crew
  • Touching, thought-provoking story of an old white man who changed his mind about Muslims after they moved in next door
  • The Milo Trolling Playbook, courtesy of Ryan Holliday
  • Good read about “ironic sexism” – the male hipster gaze
  • Funny /r/singapore Valentine’s Day fiction/humor 
  • [status] On “What you can’t say” in Singapore. I think our elites are being naive or intellectually dishonest when they complain about Singaporeans being uncreative without addressing the conditions that created the culture.
• March
  • [status] Attempted-fancy Singaporean copywriting, and followup
  • [status] Being a woman, in many ways, means living life at a higher difficulty setting
  • [status] There’s always somebody who has it worse. So let’s not play that game.
  • Former EDB Chairman describing obedient Singaporean civil servants as eunuchs
  • Alfian’s status about Priyageetha’s golden staircase
  • Omelas speech in Parliament by Shiao-Yin
  • Singapore breastfeeding thread
  • [status] The Kopitiam Brudders
  • Afian’s status about secondary school kids appreciating the distinctions between Singlish
  • [status] Singaporeans struggle to communicate with their grandparents (in August: related NYT article)
  • [status] Drunk, AMA
• April:
  • Compliments thread
  • TIL my maternal grandpa was hit by shrapnel during WW2. Makes me wonder how many of my ancestors narrowly made it
  • List of non-english songs that became global hits
  • Last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials
  • Alfian: On the way the ‘tudung issue’ is debated in Parliament – sensitive, divisive, don’t talk about it
  • Thread about Singapore case where mother was wrongfully fertilized with the wrong sperm
  • On safe spaces – the point is to be nurturing, not overprotective or obnoxiously hurtful
  • Interesting graphic design video squelching and stretching the human form
  • Typeform is a good product
  • Wrestling isn’t wrestling – best video I’ve watched all year, perhaps on par with Jackie
  • Article about Sisyphus, with nice gifs
  • Glimpse into the life of people who make your iPhone
  • My wife learned to code and taught a neural network to talk like me
  • Royal family talking openly about mental health  I remember many years ago thinking that we’d never get to see this side of them, that they’ll always be distant and aloof because of the way celebrity is, the way the media is structured and so on. And yet. <3
• May
  • Fictional video where boss kisses his employee, very uncomfortable
  • Adrianna’s response to Shanmugam’s banning of foreign involvement in political causes like Pink Dot
    • Forum letter suggesting we fence in the gays
  • How to fire people – great bit from Kerwin Rae
  • Oatmeal comic about tribalism, disbelief, the backfire effect
  • How to husk a coconut – chief Kap Te’o-Tafiti being awesome
  • History of the entire world, I guess
  • Thread about /r/singapore thread about parental abuse
  • Man says “you are the single greatest threat to my family” to his representative
  • Australian fights Singaporean officers at Changi
  • NTUC income video about girls and women’s experiences
  • My Family’s Slave
  • Jerry Seinfeld hates awards shows This video is funny and also very fascinating to me. Consider what you need to do or achieve before you can get to the front of a roomful of people, tell them that they and their industry are full of shit, and have them eating out of your hand for saying it. (You do always have to end with some ego-soothing moments, like how the White House Correspondents’ Dinner speeches always end with “journalism is an honorable profession, and even though I have just mocked you for all your ugly ways, you’re actually a beautiful bastion of American democracy”). Comedy is a way of telling the nasty truth and being open-hearted at the same time, which suggests to me that the world has a massive comedy deficit. [Of course though there’s the Fifteen Million Merits rebuttal – the truth will only be listened to in a comedy club, and then resolutely ignored outside of it. But better than nothing, I guess.]
  • Singaporean food overseas
  • Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia, which seemed quite measured to me
  • “You should’ve asked” – on emotional labor – women seen as the managers/project leaders of households
  • The Censors’ Disappearing Vibrator
  • Haute Baroque Capitalism – Trump Tower aesthetic and other architectural ideas
  • [status] Asking people about Shrey
  • [status] Worry and anxiety as an inherited displacement behavior
  • [status] Thinking about feelings – being sensitive, smart, strong and kind
  • [status] Thinking about the passage of time, and seeking conspirators – remind me later, universe
• June
  • Ramadan Bazaar
  • The solitude of strangers
  • [status] on being mindful of words
  • [status] if the earth weren’t a safe space we’d all be dead
  • Lee Wei Ling describing Singapore as an Orwellian Nightmare
  • still curious and confused about Singaporean Christian relationship with Israel
  • my read of the oxley road drama (also see Sudhir’s take)
  • satisfying video of a guy polishing a rusty knife
  • important question about capitalism
  • young woman fighting ISIS almost gets shot
  • when you see a fellow metalhead in public
  • about people no longer believing that serious consequences are possible
• July
  • great tax software ad
  • well-articulated article about Instagram’s effect on food culture
  • first-timer’s perspective on pink dot
  • third thumb attachment
  • funny lesbian comedian
  • people still demanding free work from artists (and calling them arrogant for refusing)
  • thread about toxic masculinity and bullying in school
  • Straits Times overuses “beef up”
  • cool video by handbag entrepreneur
  • another article focusing on Singaporean writer’s material success
  • great video by and about black boys
  • [status] bad dreams about school
  • great ad for Makcik Chicken
  • sad story about a missing person + interesting arguments about what an appropriate amount of $ to spend on a missing person is
  • The Evolution of Trust, great game by ncase
  • The Straits Times really likes to interview Ashley Wu
  • Entertaining ad for pool floats
• August
  • My thoughts about finally watching Alex Jones (through that Bon Iver style song)
  • Good HN comment about discovering how little you really know in life
  • AGC looking pretty paranoid and insecure
  • the double-bind of being a minority – Singaporean referee gets insulted
  • lady has a man explain “Men Explain Things To Me” to her
  • Yes Minister video humorously demonstrating the power of leading questions
  • Taylor Swift handling her sexual assault case perfectly
  • [status] soliciting recommendations for media to study in research for a novel
  • elite school kid making blunt claims about social inequality, again
  • reminded of 2010 YOG
  • “the women in my family had to be good with money” – great article about abusive husbands
  • Indian mega serial
  • SG media cannot discuss artists without focusing on their awards and material success
  • telegram group sharing porn and creepshots
  • atlantic – transplantees find catharsis in holding their old hearts “My heart is dead, and there it is, lying on the table right there. If your mind goes to that place, then you can’t help but feel that loss. I told my heart ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t take care of you better.’ It brought tears to my eyes, truly. I needed to say goodbye.”
  • Jinder Mahal – trippiest thing for me to witness re: globalization
  • Differences in Singaporean responses to murder cases
  • asking for TV recommendations
  • a response to SG tourism’s #PassionMadePossible tagline
  • post about Mariamman Temple, asking for related reads
  • Sharing “Winning is For Losers” ribbonfarm article – on the importance of being weird
  • [status] asking about what’s unique about what girls do in school
• September
  • [status] Have you ever slapped anyone or been slapped?
  • [status] what’s a problem that you’d pay to have solved?
  • [status] feelspost about growing up and managing emotions
  • Can our democracy survive tribalism? Interesting article, as well as a random guy showing up on my feed to say “your fundamental premise is flawed”
  • tumblr post using colorful shapes to explain systemic inequality
  • why do some headlines focus on race but not others?
  • asking friends about cashless payments
  • two tiers of Singapore’s tech industry
  • beautiful visual explanation of completing the square; a teacher giving his kids an incredible gift
  • st hildas schoolboy fight
  • soliciting writing requests from friend
  • halimah headlines around the world
    • great post from sudhir on how the game is rigged
  • krabi recommendations
  • bali recommendations
  • getting friends to ask friends for recommendations
• October
  • [status] what’s on your mind?
  • interesting discussion on Eliezer’s wall about Catalonia
  • Balli’s response to “when did race become an issue here”
  • Man gets arrested for holding up a mirror in front of Parliament
  • NYmag – does even Mark Zuckerberg know what Facebook is?
  • Genius video of a band looping music with FB Live
  • creative responsive ipad comic
  • the instructions I wish I was given (as a newbie startup marketer)
  • [status] asking about birth control in Singapore
  • [status] asking for people’s favorite coffeeshops
  • [status] getting blocked by sangeetha for asking a question
    • followup status “On retrospect, my younger self was so insecure that he saw a request for compassion as an act of censorship.”
  • [status] Are Singaporeans more or less kiasu than 10-20 years ago?
  • Great example of fatherhood from Tong Yee
  • New Yorker article about Weinstein – “One of the cruellest things about these acts is the way that they entangle, and attempt to contaminate, all of the best things about you. If you’re sweet and friendly, you’ll think that it’s your fault for accommodating the situation. If you’re tough, well, you might as well decide that it’s no big deal. If you’re a gentle person, then he knew you were weak. If you’re talented, he thought of you as an equal. If you’re ambitious, you wanted it. If you’re savvy, you knew it was coming. If you’re affectionate, you seemed like you were asking for it all along. If you make dirty jokes or have a good time at parties, then why get moralistic? If you’re smart, there’s got to be some way to rationalize this.”
    • Atlantic post also well written
  • unruly and proud
  • thinking about timelessness in writing, and how to optimize for a 70-year writing career
  • Why did real wages stagnate while productivity went up?
  • “my friend feels like she’s being left out of stuff, and her passive-aggressive reactions are making me want to… leave her out of stuff”
  • List of SG tropes
  • [status] asking married friends about when their parents first meet their partners’ parents
  • discovering Tamil Nationalists in a YouTube video about a Hindu temple
  • [status] Asking for people who’re interested in receiving a newsletter from me
  • SPH retrenchments “for the first time, they were efficient”
  • Kolmogorov Complicity – on building consensus secretly, to avoid the retribution that comes to open defiance
• November
  • Happy Heteroween Good read, and quite in sync with my own changing views on Halloween (I used to think it was completely irrelevant to the Singaporean context, imported for expats and targeted at status-climbers, but now I also think we could also just use a damn break and wear some costumes and dick around once a year why not)
  • [status] Asking for recommendations for climbing Mt Rinjani
  • Autistic top N-level student was forced to follow a script
  • Music as a language, by Victor Wooten
  • Babe – every kind of girl you’ll pretend to be at some point
  • A Level GP questions, shared by Shiao-Yin
  • Africans probably read LKY more than Singaporeans
  • funny Clickhole article about media sucking up to billionaires
  • artidote – love is hard work
  • ethnic quotas?
  • “kids would you please start fighting” – on the utility of disagreement
  • asking for pizza recommendations
  • how to manage disagreements positively
• December
  • [status] What have you been vaguely thinking of getting but have been procrastinating on?
  • Jolovan Wham
  • great longread about the progression of Google Maps
  • dad talking to his young daughter about her feelings
  • toxic monogamy culture
  • the pain in the eyes of a black man who got harrassed by police in NYC
  • exciting AI stuff
  • Bozoma St. John – I feel strongly about her backstory, being a foreigner everywhere she goes
  • an epidemic of unnecessary treatment – don’t blindly trust doctors
  • great thai storytelling about a landlord
  • people to meet next year
  • powerful recap of marvel cinematic universe
  • how to be the perfect rape victim – great satire about the ridiculous situation we put women and girls in
  • list of lefties
  • great twitter thread by Arden on the intersections of porn, patriarchy, shame, power and identity
  • aliens???
  • a bit that got me interested in thinking about American healthcare
  • Compelling story and call-to-action by psychiatrist who does brain scans

Twitter:

best of 2017 thread

Irritating rationalbros