Economics was the worst subject, the examination format consisting of four essay questions to be completed in a span of three hours. It was non-stop writing, I didn’t even have time to think or take a bathroom break.

Typing was much easier. While in university, I picked up a touch typing course on a CD for just £10. It didn’t take me too long to pick up the basics, maybe around two weeks before the motions felt natural to me and I could type without glancing down at the keyboard. My little fingers were particularly weak, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could type on a real typewriter.

On a keyboard, typing a 15,000 word essay was more relaxing than writing a 3000 word passage by hand. Unfortunately, typing isn’t allowed in the examination halls.
So I was relieved on graduation day, filled with glee that I never have to write another essay again.

Voice dictation is just as much a leap over typing, as typing was over pen and paper. There are some practical limitations, of course. For one, you need a quiet environment which rules this out of most offices and cafes. Can you imagine a room full of people all narrating into their microphones? It would sound exactly like a call centre, and productivity and morale would take a nosedive.

Voice dictation is most suited to people working from home. I’m lucky to have a quiet space where I could work in peace. My brain also seems to kick into higher gear after midnight when the world is at peace (unfortunately, my wife would be unable to sleep despite wearing her ear plugs).

On the occasions I was banished to the living room, the accuracy rate plummeted significantly. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of having a quiet space. A little quirk I’ve noticed is that the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software takes much longer to process in a noisy environment, probably needing the extra time to filter out the extraneous background noise. Its speed gradually improves, suggesting that Dragon NaturallySpeaking is actively learning and adapting to its environment.

Recently I’ve been seeking inspiration for writing from a book titled “Writing down the Bones “. In it, the author shared her intimate experiences of writing and also some practical tips for when we are at a loss for words. One of the exercises is to develop the habit of simply writing whatever comes to mind. A typical writing routine is to put down at least 1000 words daily. It doesn’t really matter exactly what I’m writing, as long as I am writing.

This simple act of writing helps to overcome the natural inertia at the start of every activity, or if extended over a period of time, a bout of writer’s block. Professional writers could do anywhere upwards of 2000 words a day.

That sounded really exhausting to me.

Incredibly, this task is so much easier to complete when I am dictating. For example, I have already written for short articles tonight with a combined total word count of nearly 2000 words. This level of productivity is unprecedented for me.

Do you remember a book called “The Butterfly and the Diving Bell”? It was written by the former editor-in-chief of French Elle magazine. In 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby was struck down in the prime of his career by a severe medical condition known as “locked in syndrome”. He lost almost all capacity to move, reduced to only blinking his left eye.

Despite this tragic setback, Jean-Dominique Bauby was able to author an entire book, with the assistance of his secretary, simply through the movements of his eyelid. I vividly recall reading a passage in the book where he described his writing process. The secretary would narrate each letter of the alphabet until she uttered the one he wanted, and that he would blink to select it.

It was slow, tedious, and exhausting for everyone. The cost of making a mistake is high, so he would mull over each sentence in his mind carefully before she comes in for the session each day.

He used the beautiful eponymous metaphors for his flights of imagination while trapped within the useless shell of his body. I shouldn’t really complain when I have this amazing arsenal of technological tools available at my fingertips, and at the tip of my tongue too.

When I was young, my father would always ask me to compare myself to someone better than me so that I could continue to improve. I know his intentions are kind, but sometimes, I can help but feel that this is a recipe for unhappiness. On the other hand, it felt somewhat macabre to compare oneself with someone such as Jean-Dominique Bauby who has suffered such a painful fate, that it almost feels like I’m taking advantage of his unfortunate circumstances somehow.

But when the vagaries and randomness of the world are thrown up in such stark relief, it is a timely reminder to ourselves that if we look hard enough, we can always find some blessings to count.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a resource hog. There are frequent system slowdowns, where encountered, would necessitate a reboot of the software. Dragon provides a simple word processor named Dragon pad, resembling a stripped down version of the ubiquitous WordPad in Windows. I had assumed Dragon pad was designed to work seamlessly with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but I was wrong.

Twice now, Dragon pad had crashed on me in the middle of writing and I lost everything.

It was frustrating because I could see the brilliance of the system. With voice dictation, I could type many more words than I ever could on the keyboard. The average length of my blog posts is about 500 words or 3000 characters if I assume a conservative average character count of six per word (including spaces and punctuation marks). Imagine the amount of stress that comes from striking the keyboard thousands of times.

By comparison, voice dictation is extremely comfortable. I typically used a combination of both voice and keyboard, dictating the bulk of the passages before making corrections by hand. The average accuracy rate is well above 90%, translating into an acceptably low number of corrections. The correction feature works well, offering up to 9 alternative suggestions.

Of course, you would need to invest in a good-quality headphone and spend some time training the software to recognise your voice. After that, watch the magic happen.

I now work on WordPad, before transferring the words into WordPress on my Internet browser or Evernote. For some reason, the voice commands and corrections only work properly on WordPad and Dragon pad.

It’s a pity that Dragon naturally speaking does not offer free trials, possibly due to piracy concerns. It is a refreshingly new way to create content. Voice technology is now advanced enough to make a significant contribution in our lives. You will be pleasantly surprised by how much more productive your writing will become.

Forget Siri, that’s just a gimmick from Apple. Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the real deal.

In any case, my physical discomfort disappeared after I changed to a touch screen phone.

Recently, I was dabbling in audio narration for Adobe Captivate e-learning videos. I was not particularly pleased at how my voice sounded on the recording, and decided to practice more at reading passages. After a while, I realised that I might as well use the opportunity to train Dragon at recognising my voice better.

Some of the provided training passages were really long. I just finished reading excerpts from “success is a journey: seven steps to achieving success in the business of life”, which took me more than 30 min. I was exhausted by the time the progress indicator finally filled up.

But the good news is Dragon is now more accurate at recognising my voice. I am a pretty fast touch typist, and dictating by voice is easily as fast as, if not faster, than typing on the keyboard.

In fact, the greatest challenge is actually not the accuracy of voice recognition. Instead, we have simply gotten used to thinking aloud while typing, and this is simply not possible while dictating by voice. I now had to mentally prepare entire phrases and sentences in my head before I speak. It will take some time to undo a habit learnt over the past 20 years.

If you would like to try voice recognition for yourself, there is a system bundled together with Windows 7. The accuracy level is predictably low, and it’s good only for getting your feet wet. Once you work up an appetite for something more robust, you will find that there are limited options available commercially.

Before using Dragon, I have downloaded the free trial versions from e-Speaking.com and Tazti. Neither option worked well for me: e-Speaking.com was opaque and user-unfriendly, and Tazti was unstable and frequently crashed.

Dragon Naturally Speaking appears to be my only viable option.

You may purchase an electronic version from the Dragon website, but Amazon.com will offer you a much better deal. For example, than the Dragon Naturally Speaking Home version costs S$155 (US$130) from the website – substantially more expensive than the US$39.99 pricetag at Amazon (For Prime Members, excluding shipping to Singapore).

If you do not have a US mailing address, simply use a forwarding service such as Comgateway and vPost (just avoid Borderlinx). The savings is still highly substantial.

So I was pleasantly surprised this week when I tested the extended battery for my new Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I know I’ve said third-party extended batteries are a waste of time and money, but I simply couldn’t resist the cheap deal – a 3800mAh rated battery going for only $10 (USD8.30).

unbranded Samsung Galaxy Nexus 3800mAh extended battery

The battery seemed to make a significant difference to my battery life. So I tested it with the CBA. The actual capacity was measured at 3016mAh (79.4% of rated capacity). This was the best result by far.

And it was a cheap, unbranded battery.

To make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I bought another battery from the same supplier. This time, the result was 2981mAh (78.4%).

The first test terminated halfway, so the full graph isn’t available. Here’s the test for the second battery:

CBA Galaxy Nexus 3800 discharge test

Again, a decent result.

I don’t understand why these third-party battery manufacturers feel the need to inflate the rated capacities. Samsung isn’t producing an official extended battery, so they pretty much have the field to themselves. Why not rate these batteries accurately at 3000mAh? The amount of customer goodwill they will win is invaluable.

My only concern is how will these batteries can last over time. I will repeat the tests once I notice any significant drop in performance.

Right now, I’m just enjoying the freedom to use live wallpapers and high screen brightness, to watch YouTube videos, and play 3D games whenever I want.

In fact, I run out of things to do on my phone before the battery runs out of juice.

After some research, I finally bought a 4-month old Samsung Galaxy Nexus for $520 in near-perfect condition. Not a bad buy for a new model. The official launch price was $948; online stores are now selling it for $677 for export sets (there’s some ambiguity over the validity of the warranty).

I also sold my HTC Evo 3D for $360. Since I bought it for $470, that means I only spent $110 on 5 months of usage.

It took me some time to figure out the lingo in the ads:

• WTS: Want to sell.
• WTB: Want to buy.
• WTT: Want to trade – exchange a phone for another model, may include a cash top-up.
• WTG: Want to give (away freebie) – rare but it has happened before.
• M: May – prefixed to the above for tentative deals e.g. MWTT for “May want to trade”.
• BNP: Buy now price.
• SB: Starting bid.
• BNIB: Brand new in box. Refers to an unused and unopened product.

I would check the following before meeting the seller:

1. Verify the duration of the warranty.

Ask if the receipt for the phone is present. The warranty is usually valid for 12 months from the date of purchase. If the receipt is missing, the warranty is dated from the date of manufacture. To check the manufacture date, get the serial number of the phone (it’s usually printed on the back under the battery). It’s usually a mix of letters and numbers. The IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number, on the other hand, consists of a string of numbers only.

The customer support for your phone manufacturer will confirm the warranty end date if you provide them the serial number.

2. Inspect the phone

Meet in a place where you can take your time to check the phone condition properly. Be wary if the seller appears to be in a rush to complete. First, check the physical condition of the phone. Look for scratches on the screen. If a screen protector is on, ask for permission to take it off and inspect. Also check for scratches on the phone body. I don’t really mind them as the phone would still work properly, but if the condition isn’t as good as claimed in the ad, take the chance to get a discount.

Next, check that the phone works. Insert your SIM card into the phone and turn it on. Check basic functions such as calling and browsing.

3. Check all accessories

Lastly, verify that all accessories listed in the ad are accounted for. The basic stuff are phone (obviously), battery, charging cable, ear phones, and memory card. Don’t forget the receipt if available.

So, buy used and save money.

Where to search for used phones

• Hardwarezone
• VR Zone
• Google (use search terms such as “WTS Galaxy Nexus Singapore”)

CBA discharge test for HTC Evo 3D official battery (1730mAh)

The result showed a battery capacity of 1508mAh. This is 87% of its rated capacity. For a 5 month old battery, the result is acceptable. It is holding its charge reasonably well, losing capacity (also known as “aging”) at an average rate of 2.6% per month.

Let’s compare this result against the two test runs for the Trexcell 3500 extended battery:

CBA discharge test - official (1730mAh in black) vs Trexcell (3500mAh in blue, green)

The official standard battery outperformed the Trexcell extended battery in every way. The starting voltage was higher at 4.24V instead of around 4.08V. The capacity was 82% higher, and the discharge was quite constant. Unlike the Trexcell, there was no sudden dip near the end which could catch users by surprise.

So the result is clear. Don’t waste money and time on third-party extended batteries. Whatever savings you think you’re getting is simply wishful thinking.

You might pay a bit more for official batteries, but you know you’re getting a quality product that delivers on its promises.

However, the power comes at a cost: poor battery life. Last-generation feature phones (or  ”dumb phones”) could easily last a week between charges. You would be lucky if a smartphone could go a whole day without recharging.

You can find many tips to conserve your battery life. There are three main sources of energy consumption, namely the screen, wireless connections, and CPU processor. Saving energy means toning down your usage of these three items.

1. Screen: If you turn on the “automatic brightness” option, the smartphone will adjust the brightness according to the light level of your environment. Better yet, you can turn down the screen brightness manually to the lowest level you can tolerate.

2. Wireless connections: The newer 3G/4G/LTE connections are fast but sap battery power quickly. You can switch to the slower 2G to save battery.

Alternatively, limit the time these connections are on. Smartphones constantly check for new data (or “synchronize”) from the server. You can increase the time period between synchronization, or better yet, do it manually by turning off the “autosync” option. Wi-fi and GPS also eat up lots of energy, so turn them off when not in use.

3. CPU: This tip is for advanced users. If you have hacked your phone to gain high-level root access, there are apps to lower the CPU speed and voltage to reduce power consumption. The slower the phone, the lower the energy needs.

Apps such as Juice Defender can help you do the above steps easily.

Now, these tips do work, but it’s just silly. Why should anyone buy the latest quad-core smartphone with a huge bright screen, and then disable all the best things about it?

Extended batteries

The best solution is an extended battery. These are higher capacity batteries which allow the phone to run for longer. A simple brute force approach, but it works. Unfortunately, most manufacturers do not produce official extended batteries.

Even if they do, the extra capacity is usually less than 20%. For example, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has a 2100mAh extended battery, which is only 13.5% more than the original 1850mAh battery.

Where there is an urgent need which manufacturers are not meeting, third party companies jump into the fray. The big players in the extended battery game are Mugen and Seidio. You can get Anker and Chichitech batteries from Amazon. Finally, there are also many unbranded batteries available on Ebay.

These third-party batteries often promise double the battery life. I bought a Trexcell 3500mAh extended battery, which is double the original 1730mAh for my HTC Evo 3D.

Trexcell 3500mAh extended battery for the HTC Evo 3D

How to charge an extended battery?

It came with some instructions: I am to drain the battery completely before charging it. Once it reaches full capacity, I am to charge it for a further 2 to 3 hours.

Apparently, the draining helps to calibrate the battery by letting the smartphone know the battery level properly. If poorly calibrated, the smartphone may think the battery has run empty even when there is juice left.

The “top-up” charging is ostensibly to ensure that the battery is fully charged. Each smartphone was apparently designed to work with a specific battery capacity, 1730mAh in my case. So this extra charging will help charge the battery beyond this limit.

Is it a scam?

To my skeptical mind, if the battery doesn’t work as promised, the manufacturer can simply say that you probably didn’t follow the above instructions properly.

They could always say it’s your fault for not conditioning the battery properly, and there is no easy way to prove them wrong. Most buyers will either meekly accept the explanation or shrug it off as an unlucky lemon. At prices starting from around USD10 per battery, most won’t bother with a refund.

My personal experience

I duly discharged and recharged my Trexcell 3500 as instructed. But the battery life didn’t seem much better than the original battery. On some days, it seemed to work wonderfully. There was once the battery indicator stayed at 85% for two hours, despite browsing the Internet for at least 10 minutes during that period. On other days, it lasted barely 8 hours of light use.

Was it a faulty indicator? Was any improvement due to battery saving tricks? Was I unconsciously using the phone frugally to save battery? Was it just the placebo effect?

The first thing I did was to install the Battery Monitor Widget Pro, available from the Google Play store. It is a tool for managing your battery, and displays different information such as voltage, discharge rate, and capacity.

Below is a temperature graph:

Battery Monitor Widget Pro – temperature graph (Trexcell 3500)

The middle portion in red is when I swapped in the Trexcell 3500 battery; I used my original HTC battery before and after.

Notice how the temperature of the Trexcell oscillates regularly between 24 and 25 degrees? The original battery, on the other hand, shows much more variation as might be expected from normal use.

This is the first clue that the Trexcell battery is probably fake.

Let’s take a look at another graph:

Battery Monitor Widget charging graph (original HTC)

The outlined portion shows that the battery stops charging at full capacity. Charging restarts when the battery drains to 95%. This function prevents overcharging of the battery, which causes it to degenerate over time (I’m not sure if only HTC smartphones has this function).

This means that charging after the battery is full, as Trexcell recommends for the extended battery, actually achieves nothing.

Perhaps an external battery charger would work? I searched high and low before I found a suitable charger. It’s an universal battery charger which fits all brands of batteries.

ABS universal battery charger

It has two movable pins, which you can adjust to fit any smartphone battery. The battery has 4 metal plates, the pins should fit the 2 plates matching the “-” and “+” symbols (in this case, at the ends).

4 metal plates of the battery

The polarity doesn’t matter, but fitting the battery in under the clamp does take a bit of jigging.

So I charged the Trexcell extended battery again, this time in the external universal battery charger, and left it in for an extra 3 hours after the charging light has stopped flashing.

Despite this, the battery life is still dismal, lasting fewer hours than the original HTC.

By now, I’ve read that many sellers of extended batteries exaggerate the claims of their batteries. Some have taken the sticker label off to find the true capacity printed on the battery. I tried the same, but the capacity was not listed inside.

Computer Battery Analyzer

The only objective way to find out is to use a computerized battery analyzer (CBA). I searched around the Internet and it seems that the CBAIII sold by West Mountain Radio seems to be the most popular option.

CBAIII by Optim Engineering

The consumer version is USD150 while the pro version is USD200. The difference between the two seems to be the level of accuracy. I decided to get the pro version. Even with the UPS shipping from USA, it was still cheaper purchasing online (USD240 or around SGD312) than buying from their Singapore dealer SingaHobby (SGD365).

The CBA applies a constant load to a fully charged battery, and measures how long it takes to discharges to the cut-off voltage. From there, we can work out the capacity of the battery in mAh.

To do this test, we need to enter the cut-off voltage into the CBA software.

The nominal voltage of the Trexcell battery is 3.7V. But from the graph below, we can work out the effective voltage range the battery is operating in:

Battery Monitoring Widget – effective voltage range

The voltage ranges from 3.335V to 4.348V. The battery can power the smartphone effectively only if it’s above 3.335V. Therefore, I round the value up and put 3.4V as the cut-off voltage for the CBA discharge test.

The second value is the test amp rate. This is tricky because a smartphone doesn’t discharge the battery at a constant rate. Instead, the discharge rate is dynamic, ranging from around 10mAh when idling to over 500mAh when running intensive programs such as 3D games.

Battery Monitor Widget discharge graph

The lower half of the graph shows the discharge rates when the phone is in use while the upper half shows the battery charging. Based on the above graph, I estimated 250mAh to be the median value for the test amp.

I charged up the Trexcell battery fully and ran the test twice. Here are the results:

CBA capacity graph

The horizontal x-axis shows the capacity in mAh while the vertical y-axis shows the voltage. The test stops once the voltage dips below the cut-off value of 3.4V.

You can read the values off the x-axis: 814mAh and 828mAh.

Very disappointing, this is only 24% of its stated capacity (3500mAh) and less than half of the original HTC (1730mAh).

The Trexcell doesn’t hold its charge well at all. At the time of testing, I have used the Trexcell battery for about 2 months. I didn’t have the chance to test it when new, but its performance has definitely degenerated dramatically in the past few weeks.

The CBA also comes with an optional temperature probe.

CBA temperature probe

The temperature reading was around 27 to 28 degrees. This indicated that the Trexcell battery was rigged to send false temperature readings to the smartphone.

[Update: 1 May 2012] HTC Evo 3D 3500mAh from Tmart

I had ordered an extended battery from Tmart but it only arrived after I had offloaded my HTC Evo 3D phone. Never mind, I have another test subject.

HTC Evo 3D extended battery 3500mAh from Tmart

I subjected it to the same discharge test as for the Trexcell, again using 250mAh as the test discharge rate. Here are the results:

CBA HTC Evo 3D Tmart 3500 discharge test

The battery clocked in at 1507mAh, which was 43% of its rated capacity. It’s currently higher than the Trexcell but we can expect its capacity to drop drastically over a few months of usage.

The starting voltage is only 3.95V, which is considerably lower than the 4.24V of the HTC official standard battery. Again we see the steep dropoff towards the last third of the test. This battery has problems holding its charge.

Conclusion

The extended battery industry is fertile ground for scams. So many factors affect the battery life, and few people would go to the extent of using a computerized battery analyzer. It is easy to be misled by fraudulent claims of great battery life.

I bought the Trexcell battery off Amazon for around USD15. Don’t be fooled, it is not the bargain you had hoped for. Don’t waste your time and money on third party batteries.

Only buy official batteries. If no official extended batteries are available for your phone, just buy a spare battery and use your smartphone the way it is designed to be used.

Further reading

This blog post was inspired by BatteryBoss.

For example, I bought a 2-week old HTC Evo 3D in Nov 2011 at S$470. It was launched in Aug 2011 at a recommended retail price of $895. That’s almost half the price.

Popular models hold their value better. For example, the Samsung Galaxy Note came to Singapore in Nov 2011 with a price tag of $998. Used sets currently go for around $680 to $700, a smaller 30% drop.

Apple iPhones also enjoy low depreciation. In addition to its popularity, it’s also because new iPhone launches are an annual affair unlike Android smartphones where new models are launched practically every month.

But how do you protect yourself against phone defects? HTC has a 1-year manufacturer’s warranty. Even if the seller didn’t give you the purchase receipt, the phone is still covered.

How’s here you can check for your HTC phone’s warranty:

1. Call the HTC customer service hotline at 1800 238 7788.
2. Remove the back cover and battery.
3. Provide the serial number (S/N).

HTC will let you know the expiry date of your warranty.

HTC contact info

When I bought my Evo 3D, I should have checked the warranty on the spot. But the seller was in a rush for an appointment, so I took him at face value when he claimed the handset was two weeks old.

So I verified it later by calling HTC and quoting them the serial number. I was surprised when told that my warranty ends on 12 Nov 2012. Honesty is a rare virtue these days.

So buy used and buy smart.

For many years, Howard Shaw has been synonymous with the Singapore Environment Council which runs the Singapore Green Label licensing programme for eco-friendly products. SEC has occasionally organised movie premieres of environment-themed films at the Shaw Lido movie theatre, and Howard usually makes a short speech at the start to raise funds for SEC. He gives me the impression of a mild-mannered man who sincerely believes in his cause.

So it was with great shock that I see his photo on the front page of the Straits Times newspaper this morning. He was charged with having sex with an under-aged prostitute in 2010.

According to the report, “while prostitution is not illegal here, it is an offence to have paid sex with anyone under 18. This carries a maximum seven-year jail term and a fine.“

She was 17 years old at the time of offense. Apparently, the evidence came from the records and mobile phone numbers kept by the pimp.

Howard Shaw is most probably guilty of the offence. I also believe that the prosecution should not have proceeded to charge Howard and the other 43 men.

First off, let’s take morals and values out of this discussion. I noticed that some people get emotional and upset at the mere suggestion that I could even begin to condone these men’s actions. You may feel it’s immoral of these men to pay for sex with a prostitute. I don’t agree or disagree with you; it’s simply not relevant here.

Secondly, I am not saying that the prosecution made a technical mistake in charging them. I am sure they proceeded on firm legal grounds.

The law was intended to protect vulnerable young women forced into prostitution. I fully agree with this intent. The law states the cut-off age without ambiguity.

However, there should be some leeway in deciding whether to prosecute. If the men have no reason to suspect that she was under-aged, are they still guilty?

There are photos of the purported girl in question available on the Internet. To me, she does not appear to be under 18 years of age. She looked mature for her age, and with make-up, she could easily pass for a women in her early 20s.

One could say that the responsibility to prove the age lies on the shoulders of the clients. While morally ambiguous, prostitution is legal in Singapore after all. If the girl clearly looks older than 18, should a client insist on checking her NRIC before proceeding with the act? I presume that simply asking her would not count as adequate proof in the eyes of the law.

I feel that the prosecution was overzealous in proceeding with the decision to charge the 44 men. There was no reported evidence that any of the men even remotely suspected that she could be an under-aged prostitute. Are they deviant men who prey on minors who should be locked away for the safety of the public?

As  Subhas Anandan, President of the Association of Criminal Lawyers of Singapore, said: “The girl was ‘a hardcore prostitute’ and his clients were ‘victims’”.

So why hang them out to dry in such a public fashion? The names of all 44 men are listed in the newspapers, along with their occupations and employers. A couple of the more prominent names, such as Howard Shaw and Lee Lip Hong (former principal of Pei Chun Public School) had entire columns devoted to them.

Conspiracy theorists speculated that there’s nothing like a sex scandal to distract the public from the failings of the government. The public hearings into the MRT breakdowns started this week.

I personally think that the government simply chose this case to make an example for the rest to see. Nothing like hauling a few famous people into court to drive this law deep into people’s hearts.

In this case, the line between under-aged and legal prostitution is simply too fine. Why are we destroying the careers and lives of 44 men in such an indiscriminate way? In the age of the Internet, their names live on in infamy. If a prospective employer Googles their name, there goes their chances of securing the job. It’s no surprise that they have been suffering from depression and stress since the news broke.

There is a better solution. The age of consent in Singapore is 16. I feel the prosecution should be guided by this age in deciding whether to proceed with prosecution. A young girl under 16 is more unlikely to be able to pass off as an 18-year old.

One could always argue that only the age of the prostitute matters, and not her looks. I feel 16 is a fair balance, and provides some consistency with the age of consent. The law doesn’t have to be amended; it’s simply a factor for prosecutors to consider.

Let’s take the analogy of speeding. The traffic police typically doesn’t issue speeding tickets unless you go 10-20 kmh over the limit. Why? The reason is that your speedometer is inaccurate by as much as 10%. The radar guns could also be poorly calibrated. Therefore you get the benefit of the doubt. Unless you exceed the limit by 20kmh, the police doesn’t punish you even though technically, they are well within their right to do so.

So just as you could misjudge the speed of your car, men could also misjudge the ages of their prostitutes. Unless they exceed the age limit by 2 years, this should be a mitigating factor.

After all, justice should be tempered with fairness.

(While we are on this topic of commercial sex, there is a bigger problem than under-aged prostitutes: it is prostitution by foreigners. They are brought into Singapore, typically from neighbouring countries, under a social visit pass for 2 weeks at a time. Their schedules are packed to the brim, each prostitute may service more than 5 to 8 clients a day during their stay here. When the pass expires, they are sent back to their home country and another batch of girls takes their place. After a few months, the pimps arrange for them to return and the cycle repeats itself.

Even if over 18, these girls are more vulnerable and likely to be exploited than young Singaporean girls. Don’t they deserve our protection as well?)

Update on 20 April: NY Times correspondent Nicholas D. Kristof has been writing a series of articles against Backpage.com, “the leading web site for sex trafficking in America”. You can also watch this touching interview with a teenager forced into prostitution.

Let’s start from the top. According to the RadioTimes blurb about ”Horizon: The Truth about Fat”:

Surgeon Gabriel Weston explores why so many people are piling on the pounds – and learns about new ways to fight the flab. She discovers the hidden hormones that control appetite and sees the latest surgery that fundamentally changes what a patient wants to eat – by altering how their brains work.

I watched the episode on the BBC iPlayer web site (episode found here, valid for 4 weeks only). It was a shallow examination of the complex reasons behind the obesity epidemic, that only hinted at some possible causes without much critical scrutiny.

Dr Weston kicks off the show by postulating that getting fat might not be a problem of willpower after all. This non-revelation should not be surprising to the millions of people around the world who have tried, and failed, to lose weight through conventional dieting and exercise.

A study cited in “Be Excellent at Anything” showed that “95% of those who lose weight on a diet regain it, and a significant percentage gain back more than they originally lose”.

Obviously, there has to be more to the story than just willpower.

So, Dr Weston looked at three areas in the show: hormones, twin studies and genetics, and gastric bypass surgery.

1. Hormones

Firstly, Dr Weston zoomed in on the role of hormones in regulating our appetite. She fasted for 24 hours, and had regular blood samples taken. The level of her “hunger” hormone ghrelin plunged immediately after the meal, and gradually rose over the course of the day while her “fullness” hormones leptin and PPY did the opposite (click for further reading on appetite hormones).

However, in the case of an obese person, their appetite-regulating hormones stayed pretty much constant. This could help explain why overweight people have problems controlling how much they eat.

It is uncommon in science to see such a straightforward relationship. Disappointingly, Dr Weston did not follow up with the possibility that correlation does not mean causation. The appetite hormones could simply be a sign that there is a problem, but it does not mean that they are the cause.

2. Twin studies

Next up, twin studies - specifically monozygotic identical twin studies. Scientists love identical twins because both twins possess exactly the same DNA. Any differences observed in them must be attributed to the environment.

What makes one twin fat and the other skinny? Dr Weston didn’t answer the question directly.

Instead, she looked at the possible factors that affected how the genes were expressed. This is the field of epigenetics, defined in Wikipedia as “the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA“.

Intriguingly, the diets of pregnant mothers influence the weight of their children. For example, if the mother was malnourished during pregnancy, the baby appeared to receive the signal that it was born into a world where food was scarce. Its body became efficient at storing fat, and years later, the baby grows up into an obese adult, and because of what happened decades earlier.

The scientists estimated that some 25% of the variation between the twins’ weights could be explained by genetics.

But what about the other 75%? How about factors like lifestyle, exercise, and diet? Shouldn’t we be looking at the larger slice of the piece, and see what could be done about the things that we can control? Again, this was not discussed in the show.

3. Gastric bypass surgery

Dr Weston saved the best till last. There was some pretty gruesome footage of gastric bypass surgery. This is a drastic measure of last resort, only to be used by morbidly obese patients when all other methods have been attempted, and failed.

It’s astonishing how advanced the surgery has become. Surgeons no longer need to open up the patient’s body; the procedure could be performed through key-hole surgery for quick recovery and short downtime. In the show, one could see thick layers of visceral (abominal) fat over the patient’s stomach that has built up over the years.

In gastric bypass, as the name implies, the stomach is not removed, but instead made obselete. The surgeon simply severs the tubes leading to, and away from, the stomach, and connects them directly. Like an old town that is abandoned after a new highway bypasses it, the stomach is taken out of the equation. It effectively shrinks from the size of two fists to the equivalent of a thumb.

Amazing to watch.

But what about the risks and the costs of surgery? If this were a method of last resort, what other effective ways to lose weight are there? Again, this was omitted.

Conclusion

The fight against obesity is something that everyone could identify with. We all know a friend or family member who has struggled with weight problems, and at some point, we wished that we could do more to help.

Dr Weston gave us a glimpse into some intriguing topics but never explored them satisfactorily. The medical slant was perhaps inevitable, given her medical background, but I think viewers would appreciate more practical advice in such a personal and intimate issue.

Additional links:

• An excellent review of the show.
• Dr Gabriel Weston’s Wikipedia page.