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IMAGE COPYRIGHTTIM MCDONALD image captionVacuum-packed salmon and Wagyu beef - straight out of a vending machine The slightly tired-looking shopping centre in the Singapore neighbourhood of Kovan didn't seem like an obvious place to shop for salmon or Wagyu beef. And yet, here they both were, available in vending machines next to a hairdresser and a dialysis clinic. I wondered idly if I could whip up a vending machine surf and turf, and whether it would be any good. There was only one way to find out. I opted for sliced sashimi-style salmon and an Australian Wagyu striploin. The nearest salad vending machine was in the next neighbourhood. So I put off vegetables for another day. Pizza, cacti and anything else Vending machines are having a moment in Singapore. It's not just Wagyu beef and salmon. Machines offer bread, curry puffs, freshly cooked pizza, freshly squeezed orange juice and even cooked chilli crab, a famously messy local favourite that costs $60 (£33). IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES image captionVending machines selling bread have been commonplace for a while now - this machine was introduced in 2004 Drinks and snacks still dominate, but the variety is increasing. One company has set up a chain of cafes that serve hot local dishes from machines. There's also a small chain of unstaffed convenience stores, selling everything from plasters to baked beans out of machines. Vending machine mum's perfect money lesson Local goods trial for vending machines One local retailer has a book vending machine, while another company sells cacti. Market research firm Euromonitor says vending machine revenues in Singapore grew about 15% from $91m in 2014 to $104.5m in 2019. Last year was tipped to be a bad one due to the pandemic, but growth is expected to resume this year. IMAGE COPYRIGHTTIM MCDONALD image captionChef-in-Box cafe in Singapore heats and serves ready meals from a machine Why Singapore? The reasons vending entrepreneurs are trying out new products are as varied as the businesses themselves. Manish Kumar, the managing director of Norwegian Salmon, says machines offer him his own retail space. That means his frozen products aren't placed next to fresh salmon, which is more popular here. Mervin Tham, one of the three founders of EasyMeat, whose machines sell the Wagyu beef, thinks the variety is expanding because the barriers to entry are fairly low. "It's a low effort way of testing a product, especially if you're starting a business of your own. And generally there's some interest towards the automated retail culture that you see overseas, like in Japan," he says. Elaborate prank or popular meal? The Norwegian Salmon ATM dispensed my sliced sashimi, which was frozen in a vacuum-sealed pack with a packet of soy sauce and a small wooden fork. It's such an oddly specific product that when the machines started to appear around Singapore I wondered if it might be an elaborate prank or a weird art project. "A lot of people have told me that," says Mr Kumar. Still, he says locals are coming around to the idea. Currently, there are 110 machines, and he thinks there are enough customers in Singapore to support 900. IMAGE COPYRIGHTTIM MCDONALD image captionManish Kumar with Norwegian Salmon ATM And the more machines, the better. Most operate on slim margins, which means decent profits depend on having many machines and enough people to buy from them. Mr Kumar says a compact, densely populated city like Singapore is ideal. Pandemic ready? In Japan, which has more machines per capita than any other country, the pandemic has hit the industry hard, mostly because of reduced foot traffic. Euromonitor's report also predicted a significant drop for Singapore's machines. IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES image captionSingapore residents were given access to free face masks from vending machines as part of government efforts to stop the spread of Covid-19 But vending machines have played a key role in Singapore's pandemic response, with the charitable arm of the country's sovereign wealth fund Temasek installing 1,200 of them around the island to dispense free masks. Mr Kumar says his own machines did well, with sales surging elevenfold during Singapore's circuit breaker period, which restricted movement between April and June last year. "It's 24/7, contactless, safe to buy, safe to eat. No need to go to any superstore. Social distancing is there. In six seconds, you get your product. You go," he says. Cost and convenience It took me 30 minutes on a bus to get to the Wagyu vending machine, so the sign on the side of the machine saying "Wagyu near you" wasn't strictly true. But EasyMeat is a new company with only a few machines, and the firm's founders have plans to expand. In a city where almost everything can be delivered, they are keenly aware that convenience is always a key selling point. Co-founder Mervin Tham says they started the business partly because they had all separately wanted sliced Wagyu beef for shabu shabu hot pot dishes after midnight, and had been unable to get it. "Sometimes when the weather is cold, in Asian cultures you do like to have steamboats or hot pots. And sometimes you find yourself not having Wagyu when you want it," Mr Tham says. IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES image captionFrom the machine... IMAGE COPYRIGHTTIM MCDONALD image caption...and into the frying pan He says there is a gap between bricks and mortar and e-commerce. If the supermarket is closed, the obvious alternative is to order it online. But it often takes several days to arrive, the customer might have to wait at home for several hours to receive a frozen delivery and there might be a minimum order. A vending machine solves these problems. Wagyu beef seems like an unusual impulse buy, but Mr Tham says the machines' data shows that many customers buy after midnight. "I have no idea who are the night owls that would camp out that late for supper," he says. Surf and turf The salmon and the steak both came out of the vending machine frozen solid in vacuum-sealed containers, so I let them thaw out on the ride home, and then for another few hours once I reached my kitchen. The salmon didn't require any preparation beyond taking it out of the packaging. But I had to cook the $24 Wagyu on the stove-top, a slightly daunting prospect for a culinary bungler like me. So I opted for the simplest possible approach: lightly seasoned and cooked in a pan with some oil. IMAGE COPYRIGHTTIM MCDONALD image captionThe finished vending machine surf and turf The surf and turf scored 7.5 out of 10, which is better than I expected. The salmon was flavourful, although I would have liked some wasabi with it. The steak was tender, fatty and very tasty. I cooked it a touch too long and my presentation was sloppy at best. But I can hardly blame a machine for that.

Ya bank should have the checking mechanism than uncles

Both antique shops at Chinatown Point and People’s Park Centre can tell fake so no value. i wonder how someone who work in bank cant tell

every few yrs will have a vc joker telling me that automated vending machine is the next big thing. how many times must i tell those kgks that salmon and wagyu meat cannot sell via vending machines becos the electricity costs of maintaining -4 degree celsius 24/7 will be exorbitant, and if maintaining at the recommended -18 degree ceksius, the idea is a non-starter. really is amazed at how kumgong these kgks r. https://livejapan.com/en/in-tokyo/in-pref-tokyo/in-shibuya/article-a0000372/ https://www.businessinsider.com/why-so-many-vending-machines-in-japan-2017-1#:~:text=At slightly over 5 million,marked by an incredible variety.

She shake like a siao char bo

I am ok with losing. But to always get screwed by VAR has really made me fall out of love with football. 2021 sucks and I dont even have football as an escape

2 meat 1 veg this serious sub forum is hilarious btw.

this one considered free lance work?

I used to buy only kodak films to take photos as i found that the colour and details are much better than using other brands. Miss those days of photography with films.

Floor's slower version. Good night.

Warming up...

I will juz say "stay tuned my loyal kgk fans!"

So much for our elite education system

This deserves a mega gif!

thats not dancing... like spasm

E-band 10gbps slurps

Or the clown thinks I own this forum

Totally understood. Its just like arch enemy without angela gossow, cannibal corpse without chris barnes, dimmu borgir without ics vortex & mustis...

Cooked traditional Guangdong style fried egg noodle for breakfast today Ingredients The cooking The breakfast

corporate still can get burner set or get around it. wait till you cant even use burner or block by corporate firewall

Foodpanda Customer Struggles To Communicate With Help Centre About Missing Rice In Bak Kut Teh Set It can be difficult to find the English equivalent to some of our colloquial Singlish phrases. Try finding a substitute for abuden in 3 seconds and you’ll likely be stumped. Well, it seems the same applies to the names of our Singaporean dishes. Source Early on Thursday (18 Feb), one hungry Foodpanda customer decided to order a bak kut teh set but was left disappointed when it came without rice. When she turned to the food delivery service’s help centre, she found herself in the difficult position of having to translate bak kut teh to English. A screenshot of the conversation posted on Facebook has since garnered more than 4,000 shares. Source Foodpanda customer orders bak kut teh from Geylang stall Speaking to MS News, the netizen said she ordered a bak kut teh set from a stall in Geylang via the Foodpanda app. However, when the food arrived shortly past midnight on Thursday (18 Feb), she was dismayed to find that it was reportedly missing a bowl of rice advertised as part of the set. Source The set cost $11.30 before delivery charges. In the end, the customer had no choice but to cook a bowl of rice herself. Image from an MS News reader Support staff asks her to speak in English Disappointed by the omission, the Foodpanda customer decided to approach the food delivery company’s help centre. However, when she tried describing the issue with the bak kut teh set, the support staff allegedly said that he would only be able to assist if she communicated in English. Tired and famished, the customer instantly translated bak kut teh word-for-word to “meat tea soup”. Source As strange as the translation sounded, it seemed like the support staff did manage to understand the message. Later, Foodpanda offered the customer a $13 voucher, but she eventually settled for a $4.50 one, claiming that the missing rice didn’t cost that much. Image from an MS News reader 10/10 for integrity. MS News has reached out to Foodpanda for a statement and will update this article once they get back. Glad everyone had a good laugh Though it’s unfortunate that the order didn’t come as described, we’re glad the customer, as well as others on social media, had a good laugh over the hilarious translation. Moving forward, we hope Foodpanda’s support staff will be able to recognise our local dishes to avoid similar confusions.

This is a simple but pretty good summary. Another view is that Chaos Magick was developed as a response to what was seen as a dogmatism of the Occult (ironic but true) Observation and experience shows that applying Chaos Magick theories to your magick work is very effective, but very dangerous if you apply it to your beliefs, if there is a need to do it, do it slowly and in a controlled way, engineering safety standards are very useful here. My 2 cents is that Chaos Magick is a deconstruction and reassembly exercise to make one's practice way more effective, just make sure to have a solid base to work on, and enforce "safety standards".

Tuchel winning run held by Minamino and Saints

SINGAPORE: The proportion of university graduates who found permanent full-time employment six months after their final exams dropped by slightly more than 10 per cent in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The annual Joint Autonomous Universities Graduate Employment Survey found that 69.8 per cent of fresh graduates found permanent full-time jobs last year, down from 81.7 per cent in 2019. The survey polled 11,800 fresh graduates from full-time programmes at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore Management University (SMU) and the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). The graduates were surveyed on their employment status as at Nov 1, 2020, about six months after they completed their final examinations. “The six AUs (autonomous universities) have stepped up efforts to support their graduates amidst the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the universities in a joint press release on Friday (Feb 19) “On top of providing extensive career guidance and support which includes job matching, personalised career coaching and planning, and complimentary continuing education and training courses, the AUs have also tapped on their network of industry partners to curate suitable job placement and apprenticeship opportunities for graduates, such as the SGUnited Traineeships.” Of the graduates who found employment, the percentage of those in part-time or temporary jobs rose sharply from 7 per cent to 22.3 per cent, the survey showed. Graduates on the SGUnited Traineeships Programme made up 16.9 percentage points of this figure. About half of this group said they were in involuntary part-time or temporary employment, a sharp increase from the more than one-third of this group in 2019, the survey showed. About 1.5 per cent of graduates found freelance work, down from 2 per cent in 2019. Overall, 93.6 per cent of graduates found employment within six months of completing their final examinations, up from 90.7 per cent in 2019. The median gross monthly salary among fresh graduates in permanent full-time jobs was S$3,700, up from S$3,600 in 2019, said the universities in the press release. Similar to 2019, graduates from information and digital technologies, health sciences and business clusters registered the highest percentages of permanent full-time employment, the survey showed. Most clusters saw no change in median gross monthly salaries, but those in arts, design and media, engineering, and information and digital technologies saw increases of S$100, S$150 and S$360 respectively in 2020. EMPLOYMENT STATUS OF GRADUATES IN FOLLOW-UP SURVEY In a follow up survey, 827 graduates from NUS, NTU and SMU were surveyed on their employment status on Nov 1, 2020. This was conducted for courses that typically require post-graduate practical training before the graduates can practise in their professions. The graduates polled were from the Architecture class of 2017, and the biomedical sciences and Chinese medicine, law, medicine, and pharmacy courses who finished their first year of training upon graduation in 2019. Of those who were employed, 96.8 per cent had jobs after completing their training last year, a slight decrease from 98.6 per cent in 2019, the survey showed. 93.5 per cent of those employed had secured permanent full-time jobs, a slight decrease from 96.4 per cent in 2019. Another 0.3 per cent were freelancing, compared to 0.6 per cent the previous year. The proportion of those in part-time or temporary employment also increased to 3 per cent, up from 1.6 per cent in 2019. Graduates under the SGUnited Traineeship Programme made up 1.3 percentage points of this figure, said the universities in the press release. Of those in part-time or temporary employment, slightly more than half said this was involuntary. The median gross monthly salary of those who found permanent full-time jobs in this group dropped from S$4,800 in 2019 to S$4,625 in 2020. The surveys for SIT and SUTD graduates are currently ongoing and will be released at a later date, the press release read. Source: CNA/hw(ta)

When TOP?

Just not the same without Tarja, but Floor comes very close

Wahaha one small black squid dish nia can make my kgk fans jjww so much rike market ah pehs

all these indian fresh grads r all looking up to their most successful compatriot in sgp.

MAN SHARES HIS VIEWS ON GETTING THE VACCINE AND NEGATIVE THOUGHTS By laughingbuddha - February 20, 2021 554 https://singaporeuncensored.com/man-shares-his-views-on-getting-the-vaccine-and-negative-thoughts/

thats why everytime i see my lao bu and kumgong lao peh, i tell them u better not get the shots becos if got any allergic reactions, govt will not pay for ur medical bills. the advertisements the zheng hu been running is really brainwashing kumgong old folks. most old folks who r supportive at first all have second thots after i told them if got allergic reactions, zheng hu will not pay ur medical bills.

This shows that their leaders lead by example, the standard of their new Education Minister is double of that we normally see.

that means will remove post count also. post counts are serious stuffs in forums. lets be serious.