Cable-cutting rogue engineer caused ultra fast broadband havoc A former SingTel engineer took revenge on the Singaporean telco giant after being given the sack by sabotaging fibre optic cables on a staggering 600 separate occasions. Thirty-five-year-old Terrance Tan Khoon Shan was handed a 15 month prison sentence after the disgruntled engineer was found guilty of cutting cables in …
You're talking about Singapore, an incompetent country which had:
1) Let a (suspected) terrorist who was in custody escape under the police's very nose.
2) Let convicted murderers escape the country.
3) Let convicted non-locals guilty of assault escape the country.
4) Let a hit-and-run foreign diplomat escape the country.
5) Buggered up the MRT rail system (analogous to the London Tube).
6) Top government officials found guilty of corruption and fraud.
The following pic illustrates what a typical Singapore police officer is best at:
http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i148/muhd_hidayat/Blog%20Posting/
070722_ss_policeofficer.jpg
1) Let a (suspected) terrorist who was in custody escape under the police's very nose.
2) Let convicted murderers escape the country.
3) Let convicted non-locals guilty of assault escape the country.
4) Let a hit-and-run foreign diplomat escape the country.
Sounds like they let the bad apples be another country's problem. Unorthodox but affective.
You have to understand Singapore's, uhm, interesting priorities.
Cutting 600 fiber optic cables = 15 months in jail.
Having sex with someone of the same gender = life in jail
Possessing 1/2 kilo of marijuana = death penalty
So clearly they didn't catch him because they were too busy with the real criminals.
US$200/mo for 1.5M? You are either
a) paying for a business service level agreement, with five nines of reliability
b) a total fool
c) counting non-Internet (e.g. cable TV, premium movie channels) into that cost.
d) bullshitting.
I live out in the country, and I pay US$30 for 4.5Mbit DSL, truly unlimited (I've been torrenting over 10G a month for some time).
Singapore has outlawed the *selling* of chewing gum.
However, there's no law to forbid bringing chewing gum from other countries (e.g. neighbouring Malaysia) into Singapore for your personal consumption.
Also, a few brands of officially-approved 'dental' chewing gum (e.g. Xylitol) can be legally sold.
What a cuntry! Go figure the (ill-) logic.
Errr, last time I went through Singapore customs I seem to remember signs saying Chewing Gum was prohibited.
http://www.customs.gov.sg/leftNav/trad/TradeNet/Singapore+Customs+-+Chewing+Gum+(HS+CODE+17041000).htm
You can try to import it for "personal consumption" but you'll have to run the gauntlet of Singapore customs and risk a fine per stick/tab of chewing gum they discover on your person.
So a highly efficient, highly civilized dictatorship than. Hmm, I think I'll put up with the inconvenience of slower Internet, chewing gum on the pavement and quite a few other things in order to keep a bit more of my personal freedom. Everything has a cost, and I value my personal freedom much higher then walking on clean side walks - as appealing as that might sound. But I suppose everybody has their own priorities.
We had the same SingTel link fail twice last year... might have been this guy.
I hadn't really thought about it, but pretty damn strange in hindsight... that a link that was solid for years prior, then failed twice in the course of a month or two. wire clippers tend to do that I guess : /
"Although defence lawyers tried to bargain that the engineer, who was sacked in September 2010 after just a year in the job, had mental problems, the district judge disagreed, labelling Tan’s crimes 'senseless acts'."
Does the district judge think that mentally normal people would cut 617 cables as 'senseless acts'?
Knowing Singapore's judiciary (kangaroo courts) and past trends of sentencing, unless you are a celebrity, a foreigner or someone who's well-connected to the ruling elite, pleading insanity or claiming to have mental health issues is a futile thing to do. And it will backfire.
The judge will say that you were in a clear state of mind while you were committing the crime, therefore your insanity plea is not valid. And how dare you, a lowly peasant, appeal! The previous Chief Justice of Singapore had a (sadistic?) penchant of increasing the punishment of many appeal cases, instead of merely dismissing the appeal.
I hope the above has been enlightening to those who are not familiar with Singapore.
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