Friday

March 25, 2011

Warms the cockles of my heart to know that our civil servants are getting designer chairs while they process work permit applications. One of those chairs costs more than a domestic helper’s monthly salary.

 

Mar 25, 2011

MOM staff to get ergonomic chairs

– PHOTO: HERMAN MILLER MIKE

 

STAFF at the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) headquarters in Kim Seng Road can expect designer chairs at their workplace soon.

The ministry is buying 472 Herman Miller chairs (photo), each priced at $575, for general office use for its staff. The chairs, which are not delivered yet, will cost $271,400 in total.

Herman Miller, an American manufacturer of office furniture and equipment, is famous for producing furniture in the modernist style.

An MOM spokesman confirmed in a statement yesterday that it has awarded a tender for the supply and delivery of the ergonomically designed chairs.

The chair model is called Celle, known for its cellular suspension system which supports the back and lumbar region. The tender was awarded to local furniture supplier Xtra Office.

In evaluating the tenders submitted, the MOM spokesman said, various factors were considered, such as the ergonomic design, durability and value for money. ‘Taking all these factors into account, the successful tenderer met our requirements and offered the best value for money over the lifespan of the chairs.’

continued

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Thursday

March 24, 2011

more on the ground reporting from Japan, to appear in next week’s New Yorker. It’s easy to talk about Japan news fatigue but there are so many stories yet untold.

Letter from Japan

Aftershocks

A nation bears the unbearable.

by Evan Osnos March 28, 2011

At a decontamination center, a fireman awaits arrivals from the potential contamination zone around the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The prospect of radiation introduced a threat all its own, and one throbbing with history. Photograph by Adam Dean.

At a decontamination center, a fireman awaits arrivals from the potential contamination zone around the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The prospect of radiation introduced a threat all its own, and one throbbing with history. Photograph by Adam Dean.

 

The afternoon of Friday, March 11th, was cool and partly cloudy on the northeast coast of Japan’s main island, a serene stretch once known as the nation’s “back roads.” At 2:46 P.M., as schools were beginning to let out, the ground began to shake. It was violent even by Japan’s standards—the thundering went on for five minutes—and before long Japanese television was warning of a wave charging west across the Pacific Ocean at the speed of a jet. Kicked up from the seabed, the tsunami amplified in size and slowed in speed as it moved into the shallows beside the Japanese coastline, and by the time it touched land it was a wall of water, black and smooth. Read the rest of this entry »

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Thursday

March 24, 2011

An interesting New Yorker review of a new cooking encyclopaedia that hit the bookshelves recently. Note the price, yes a whopping $625, although I’ve seen it discounted to over $400 on Amazon.

 

Incredible Edibles

The mad genius of “Modernist Cuisine.”

by John Lanchester

March 21, 2011

In 2004, Nathan Myhrvold, who had, five years earlier, at the advanced age of forty, retired from his job as Microsoft’s chief technology officer, began to contribute to the culinary discussion board egullet.org, on the subject of a kitchen technique called “sous vide.” The French term means “under vacuum,” and it refers to a process that has been around since the nineteen-seventies but has, in recent decades, become a favorite technique of the cutting-edge professional kitchen.

In sous-vide cooking, Read the rest of this entry »

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