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Singapore in Colour
- swyx 3y agoi love the names for these colors. very evocative of singapore landmarks that i didn't previously realize were that strongly associated with a color. "Monsoon Grey" did get a laugh from me - i used to joke that there are basically 2 seasons in SG - wet and wetter. the scrollytelling is also a work of art. the rescrambling towards a neighborhood palette was a wow moment for me. i feel like online data journalism is its own art form that deserves a museum.
- causality0 3y agoA lot of good architecture there but I found Singapore the most existentially-horrifying place I've ever been. It's like if the feeling of being on antidepressants was a city.
- teddyh 3y agoWilliam Gibson famously called it “Disneyland with the Death Penalty”.
- wwtdtgotiatl 3y agoSo Florida but without an actual Disneyland?
- tpmx 3y agoI looked into living there almost a decade ago (doing remote work, software work is still not valued highly locally, afaik) but after a few visits and talking to tech people there I realized I probably wouldn't enjoy living there. I think Singapore is the number one indication that the corruption indices are bogus.
- teddyh 3y agoIt’s the Corruption Perceptions Index. Not the Actual or Measured Corruption Index.
- tpmx 3y agoExactly.
- yawaramin 3y agoCan you explain a bit? Why is Singapore corrupt?
- tpmx 3y agoMost of the problems I was made aware of had to do with international trade, not domestic trade. One guy I met said he privately imported (some of) the goods needed to build his home by containers from Europe because buying them locally was like double the price, because that meant buying them from essentially government-party-appointed resellers. I obviously have no way of verifying the truth of that statement but you did ask.
- swyx 3y agoi mean thats gotta be a huge home because no way that economically makes sense if you think about it
- archibaldJ 3y agoso that was what you meant by corruption? like corruption not in the governmental and bribery sense but corruption by evading loosely-regulated law?
- panagathon 3y agoThis puts into words how that city made my wife and I feel. Very well said, in my opinion
- causality0 3y agoYou get the feeling it's the way the world would be if it were run by an all-powerful computer.
- nmfisher 3y agoI live in Singapore and haven't found this at all. My only real complaints are (a) it's hot, and (b) it's a small, dense, urban environment with too many cars, it often feels quite suffocating. There is a third issue (freedom-of-speech), but I figure as a foreigner it's not my place to complain about that.
- JimDabell 3y agoSame. When I hear things like that I don’t see how it relates to Singapore at all. Maybe if you’re a tourist here for a few days and never leave the city centre, or if you’ve never visited and just read that Disneyland article that is mentioned every time Singapore comes up on Hacker News. I spent yesterday wandering around nature, saw a giant atlas moth, some snakes, and some crocodiles. The very opposite of “existentially-horrifying”.
- Grimburger 3y ago> too many cars Compared to where? Singapore is probably the best example of ubiquitous public transport on earth. Owning a car in SG is more a flaunt than sensible decision from a financial or health point of view. > There is a third issue (freedom-of-speech) As an ang moh can relate but what exactly is stifling you from speaking your mind? Here we are talking about it. The young are rising up in the country and it's great to see, there's been windbacks on laws against gays along with other pretty stark sentiment changes in the population, there's a real fear in the ruling party about being the first to lose government and they are quick to bend to the whims of the populace. The main outlet for an everyday person is online and here we are. No one is stopping you, no one is certainly stopping r/singaporeraw > small, dense, urban environment Borneo, one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth is an hour away on a plane. There's untamed jungle trails an hour across the border if you care to walk them. > it's hot For the first few months, then you adapt.
- noobermin 3y agoSingapore has a very high level of space devoted to car infrastructure. It has little infrastructure for cyclists, despite cycling being a large part of it's history and a common use of transport for many today, so pedestrians are forced to fight for space with cyclists on the tiny drain cover sidewalks that do exist. In SG, by law you have to yield to cars everywhere, some have internalised this so much they yield even in zebra crossings that by law motorists have to yield to pedestrians. Walking in sg is a chore, given you have to yield at every informal crossing (termed "unmarked crosswalk" in US parlance). This is even more mafan on bicycle because you have to stop and stand. All of this for a city where only 11% of people own a car, mostly people who are wealthy enough to afford COE, meaning they can fork over 100K+ sgd every ten years just to drive, or have company car (rich ang mo), it's a great example of the class stratification that exists but has been systematically squeezed out of the consciousness and discussion or has been substituted by racial or anti-foreigner sentiments. The public transit saves the city and the fact walkways do exist everywhere is great and a lot better than for example the US (hard to do worse than the worst), but it is seriously car centric of a city.
- ylyn 3y agoWhy? As someone who's lived here for more than 20 years, I really don't know what you mean.
- allarm 3y agoI know. Lived there for 6 years, leaving it was the best decision of my life.
- jezzamon 3y agoAfter visiting both Malaysia and Singapore recently, I feel like many villages in Malaysia are significantly more colourful than Singapore. Building and roof colours they use are not something you would see in my part of the US
- tzhenghao 3y agoMalaysian here. Yeah some of the historical sites in Penang or Melaka come to mind. I think the Peranakan [1] culture is one of the most obvious examples in using colors and is widespread to the region, not just in Singapore. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peranakans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peranakans
- JimDabell 3y agoI think one thing Singapore does that is fairly unusual is paint the HDBs a wide variety of colours. For context, Singapore builds a lot of high-rise housing and sells it to locals with huge subsidies. About three quarters of locals live in these types of buildings. https://www.timeout.com/singapore/things-to-do/the-most-instagram-worthy-hdb-blocks-in-singapore https://www.timeout.com/singapore/things-to-do/the-most-inst...
- tpmx 3y agoThe strangest thing; I found this one interesting comment in this thread with a large subtree of comments that was somehow so downvoted that it became hidden: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37356809 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37356809 I wonder what caused that.
- anon____ 3y agoAn admin caused that, most likely to prevent a political flame war.
- throwaway4good 3y agoSomething about Singapore really triggers us, the descendents of the old empire. HN is far more censored and moderated than it appears.
- mdp2021 3y agoGood concept, improper expression. It may be interesting to relate the visually bright aspect of Singapore to the perception of unnatural, stressful, unconvincing feeling it may give, as «if the feeling of being on antidepressants was a city» (as per the poster), but the note expressed as it was seems too disconnected from the submission. "Barcelona, the skyline": "Organized in view of proper flow" vs "Makes you forget the traffic" vs "Ah yea but the traffic". Discussions about "life in Singapore" can be, I concour, very interesting (some of us have this dream of the champion city) - just not anywhere and anyway. So, it is normal that some people will go "what is this here" on an imperfect post. I don't see why you call it t«he strangest thing» and what is there to «wonder». Update: downvoter explain yourself.
- lgvln 3y agoIt’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reasons but Singapore constructed to be a nationalistic/patriotic country. Children are made to sing the National anthem and recite the National pledge every morning in school, sent to participate in the National Parade at least once in their lives, constantly reminded of the fragility of the Nation from foreign influences (Total Defence), all males are conscripted into what is called National Service for a period of two years. Coupled with the lack of civil and political liberties, resulting in the infantilization of the citizens, even justified criticism of the country is often considered as an attack on the country and/or their identity. The conflation of the state with the government with the one-party authoritarian system makes that even worse. [0] [0] https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/politics-international-relations/south-east-asian-government-politics-and-policy/singapore-identity-brand-power https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/politi...
- fuzztester 3y agoAt first, this site made me see red. ;)
- lgvln 3y agoIt’s probably important to note that all public housing in Singapore, where ~80% of Singaporeans live, have two cameras in each lift and a couple others pointing at the entry points to the lift and staircases, all connected to the police department, “for their safety” of course.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y agoIt is also 'probably important to note' that Singapore is the safest 700 km² on this planet. One is ridiculously unlikely to get robbed, raped, catcalled at, threatened with a gun or other weapon, step on used hypodermic needles, or encounter a variety of unsavoury activities that one would otherwise see in pretty much every other world city (except maybe Tokyo and Seoul—see a pattern?). It's also not like these cameras are pointing into private dwellings—this is illegal.
- mdp2021 3y ago> is the safest Please specify the source. Evaluations vary.
- Grimburger 3y ago> “for their safety” of course. Where do you suggest is a safer place to live?
- mdp2021 3y agoCheck the Economist Intelligence Unit at https://safecities.economist.com/safe-cities-2021-whitepaper/ https://safecities.economist.com/safe-cities-2021-whitepaper... Personal security («crime, violence, terrorist threats, natural disasters and economic vulnerabilities»), 2021: > 1 Copenhagen; 2 Amsterdam; 3 Frankfurt; 4 Stockholm; 5 Brussels; 6 Paris; 7 Wellington; 8 Toronto; 9 Lisbon; 10 Madrid; 11 Sydney; 12 Barcelona; 13 Singapore; 14 London; 15 Zurich; 16 Tokyo; 17 Osaka; 18 Melbourne; 19 Taipei; 20 Santiago Other lists will be available. This one list is odd, because Singapore ranks in the top five for other measures related to security, but is ranked in the second of four quadrants for personal security, "second" to cities with presumably very different policies.
- mdp2021 3y agoSome areas of Singapore - e.g. Bendemeer, Kovan, Fort Canning Park - are available on the aerial "45 degrees view" of Google Maps. I would call it already quite colourful from the aerial view.
- crazal 3y agoI would love the ability to classify my own images by palette similarly and geolocation. Is there any code available to replicate this?