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This bloody bird: Asian Glossy Starling was found and keep loitering on my rooftop. Then it comes in a pair, producing very sharp chirping sounds...... I'm ok and delighted, but when I noticed that it has become a daily business....... I realised that the birds had started hiding on my rooftop, nesting by itself. But worst, their shits were everywhere on the balcony. No matter how many times you clean and wash them, those bird shits are always there..... Worst! Seeds, twigs, and more seedings were everywhere as these birds brought them in......And these particles are dropped all over my house.............. no matter how many times we swept the floors. I cannot believe I am intruded, and my place is messed up with just these 2 bloody birds !!!! I tried to erect those colorful windmill, putting up a flag and even spray water to the rooftop, in desperate spurs to chase these birds away. Night & day, the bloody birds will insist and fly back...... very persistent ! They would even hide in some place and fly back the moment they saw you retiring into the rooms! I welcome if there's anyone out there whom have better, logical, feasible ideas to help me in removing these bloddy birds, please. And hopefully to prevent them from coming back !!! I once thought " Live & let Lived" but the messes arises just from these 2 bloody birds are indeed drivng you very very crazy! Please advice, thanks!

Buses with rooftop gardens will begin plying Singapore's roads, as part of an initiative to study possible energy and cost savings for bus operators. The Garden on the Move initiative, which was launched on Sunday (May 5), will see 10 SBS Transit buses ply Singapore’s roads for at least three months. The routes include one through the Central Business District and another through Orchard Road. Fares for these buses are the same as for regular buses. Touted as Asia’s first green-roofed bus initiative, the buses are outfitted with a soilless roof system - instead of conventional soil, the plants are secured on a lightweight mat used for skyrise greenery, said GWS Living Art, Moove Media, National Parks Board (NParks), Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) and Temasek Foundation in a joint press release. This makes it cleaner, easier to maintain and more economical than other conventional green roof systems, which are primarily soil-based, the release said. The aim of the three-month study is to confirm that the green roof will lead to a drop in temperature within the interior of the buses, and a reduction in the fuel consumption used for air-conditioning, the release said. Mr Oh Cheow Sheng, group director of NParks said: “This is a creative initiative that seeks to extend Singapore’s greening efforts, and which truly encapsulates the vision of a biophilic City in a Garden. We hope that this will spur others to explore other similarly innovative ways to green up Singapore." “Building upon the success of our Live.Work.Play.Green campaign in 2018 where we garnered massive support from the public on green buildings, this new initiative aims to once again drive green building awareness to the forefront of the public’s consciousness," said Dr Ho Nyok Yong, president of the SGBC. "We hope to sustain interest in green buildings by putting one of the most recognisable elements of a green building onto a very public platform.” https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/buses-sbs-transit-rooftop-garden-ply-singapore-roads-orchard-cbd-11505144 this sounds funny. can tahan thunderstorm or not?

https://www.todayonline.com/urban-farming-will-be-allowed-rooftops-9-hdb-multi-storey-car-parks The rooftops of nine multi-storey car parks managed by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) will soon be made available for urban farmers to rent the space and grow crops, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) said. These are car parks located in housing estates such as Chua Chu Kang, Tampines, Sembawang and Jurong West. In a news release on Tuesday (May 12), the agency said it is doing this as part of its strategy to achieve Singapore’s “30-by-30” goal — to produce 30 per cent of the country’s nutritional needs domestically by 2030. Launching the nine sites for rental by public tender, the agency said these will add to the various alternative sites in land-constrained Singapore that are marked out for commercial farming. It added that these rooftop spaces are also in line with HDB’s Green Towns Programme to “intensify greening” in public housing estates. “The sites shall be used to farm vegetables and other food crops, as well as for other related purposes, such as the packing or storage of produce,” SFA said. The single sites available for tender, which SFA said is suitable to testbed ideas, are: Block 513A Choa Chu Kang Street 51 (1,934 sqm) Block 723A Tampines Street 72 (2,526 sqm) Block 946A Hougang Street 92 (1,808 sqm) Block 352A Ang Mo Kio Street 32 (3,171 sqm) Block 260 Kim Keat Avenue (2,317 sqm) There are two cluster sites in Sembawang and Jurong West available for tender. These are meant to enable farms to “derive savings through production at scale”, SFA said. They are at: Block 354 Admiralty Drive (2,551 sqm) and Block 316A Sembawang Vista (1,831 sqm) Block 276 Jurong West Street 25 (2,974 sqm) and Block 273 Jurong West Avenue 3 (3,311 sqm) Successful bidders of a cluster site will be awarded the combined spaces for the site. The agency is working with HDB to launch more rooftop sites for urban farming by public tender in the second half of this year. The details will be released at a later date. Tuesday’s announcement comes slightly over a year after the Citiponics urban vertical farm launched its pilot rooftop plot in February last year. Located on top of Block 700 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6, the 1,800-sqm farm was meant to be able to produce about four tonnes of vegetables a month at the height of its production. While the SFA did not state what crops can be grown at the rooftop farms, Citiponics has grown vegetables such as nai bai (baby bok choy), kai lan (Chinese kale) and cai xin (Chinese flowering cabbage). Mr Melvin Chow, senior director of SFA’s Food Supply Resilience Division, said that he was “heartened by the growing interest” from both the industry and the public towards urban farming in community spaces following the launch of the Citiponics farm. “Residents in the area have been able to enjoy fresh produce from the farm at nearby supermarkets, and can witness first-hand the hard work involved in bringing our food from farm-to-fork,” he said. “We hope that consumers will continue to show their appreciation for our local farms by buying their produce.” Urban farmers interviewed by TODAY said that they are looking forward to having more opportunities to cultivate crops. Mr Veera Sekaran, founder of the urban and vertical-greenery firm Greenology, said that it is ideal to make use of any vacant spaces in Singapore for urban farming. “HDB car parks are usually vacant at the top because many people don't want to park their cars in the sun,” he said. Turning them into commercial spaces is a viable way for “serious players” to make a business out of urban farming, he added. Mr Veera, who is considering bidding for one of the newly launched sites, said that he foresees rooftop farms to be high-tech in nature — though it could also involve older residents who have a knack for gardening and are looking for part-time work. Mr Bjorn Low, co-founder of urban farming social enterprise Edible Garden City who has experience running gardens on the rooftops of buildings, said that aside from being under-utilised, car park rooftops have the added benefit of being able to withstand heavy loads. This is unlike older buildings, which would need to have their structures reinforced in order to accommodate soil and “big bodies of water” on the rooftop, he said. Both men agreed that having more space for urban farms would go a long way to ensure Singapore’s food security. Mr Low said that apart from producing food, these farms offer other benefits such as providing work within the community for people in need and serving as a community space for educational purposes. “I think this is a step in the right direction.”

NIMBY Version 3.0 [shakehead] From CNA: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/sin...1260600/1/.html Petition against setting up of childcare centre at rooftop garden By Lip Kwok Wai | Posted: 17 March 2013 2214 hrs Ow Bin Bing SINGAPORE: Some Punggol residents are petitioning against the set-up of a childcare centre at the rooftop garden of a multi-storey carpark. A closed-door dialogue session was held with residents on Sunday. It's understood that officers from the HDB and the Social and Family Development Ministry were also present. Some residents told Channel NewsAsia they were informed about the plans to set up the centre at Block 180 Edgefield Plains, last week. Some were concerned about the safety of the children, adding that there's already a childcare centre within the vicinity. Others felt that doing so goes against the government's push to allocate more green spaces within housing estates. Still, there were residents who felt the rooftop garden has been under-utilised and can be put to better use. One resident said she's garnered about 20 to 30 signatures for the petition. Ow Bin Bing said: "If the small kids - two months old baby to seven years small kids, if anything happened, how can they run for their life? Let's say if there was a fire or anything, I have been teaching for 27 years, I know the small kids are very active, if anything were to happen, who will be responsible for their safety?" When contacted, MP for the area Penny Low said there are plans to build more childcare centres in Punggol. She said some locations are suitable, while others are not. And added that ground consultations and innovative use of space are needed, to make sure residents' needs are met. - CNA/ck

15,000 to 20,000 fins! Mind boggling... [shocked] From CNA: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/fea...1245748/1/.html Outrage over Hong Kong's 'shark fin rooftop' Posted: 03 January 2013 1507 hrs HONG KONG: Hong Kong conservationists expressed outrage Thursday after images of a factory rooftop covered in thousands of freshly sliced shark fins emerged, as they called for curbs on the "barbaric" trade. The southern Chinese city is one of the world's biggest markets for shark fins, which are used to make soup that is an expensive staple at Chinese banquets and viewed by many Asians as a rare delicacy. Activist Gary Stokes who has visited the site estimated there are 15,000 to 20,000 fins being laid to dry on the rooftop on Hong Kong island ahead of an anticipated surge in demand over Lunar New Year in February this year. "This is shocking," the Hong Kong coordinator for conservation group Sea Shepherd told AFP, saying it was the first time that he has spotted such a massive hoarding of shark fins in one place in the Asian financial hub. "This is the most graphic, brutal and barbaric part of the industry -- the element of chopping a shark's fin off and throw it back into the water is horrific and inhumane," he added. Stokes believed the large amount of shark fins were destined for China, and that traders moved to dry the shark fins on secluded rooftops instead of sidewalks -- as they have done in the past -- to avoid public anger. Campaigns against consuming shark fins have gained ground in Hong Kong in recent years, after major hotel chains decided to drop the soup from the menus, and home carrier Cathay Pacific said in September it would stop carrying unsustainable sourced shark products on its cargo flights. "The demand in Hong Kong is definitely decreasing but unfortunately, the demand in China is growng," Stokes said. "As long as there is no protection for the sharks, the (demand) will just keep going on and on," he added, urging Hong Kong authorities to ban the trade. Environmentalists say the sustainable shark fin industry is tiny and most of the products are harvested in a way that threatens scores of shark species deemed vital for healthy oceans. About 73 million sharks are killed every year, with Hong Kong importing about 10,000 tonnes annually for the past decade, according to environmental group WWF. Most of those fins are then exported to mainland China. The number of threatened shark species has soared from 15 in 1996 to more than 180 in 2010, mainly due to the growing Chinese demand for fins. -AFP/fl

This guy shud write in this forum i/o ST forum lah. What does he expect to be done by writing to newspaper? Feb 25, 2011 Refreshing rooftop space a turn-off now SOME 10 years ago, when my wife and I were looking for our first home, we were attracted by the living environment in Punggol 21. We especially loved the implementation of a garden concept on the multi-storey carpark's rooftop. We even bought a unit on a same level and facing the garden because we wanted to enjoy the ambience of children playing while happy parents socialised and interacted with one another. Ten years on, that ambience is gone. Our children, now aged two and eight years, have stopped going to the garden altogether for several reasons. Every morning, the garden is littered with dog poo left to fester by inconsiderate pet owners. Some owners even let their dogs do it on the rubber mat cushioning the floor of the playground. The cosy pergola, conveniently located near the playground for parents and grandparents while the children are playing, has now been co-opted as a rowdy, after-school rendezvous for teenagers, who smoke, shout and swear in full view of the neighbourhood children, including mine. The playground has also been vandalised and pockmarked by graffiti. And often, you find broken beer bottles lying around. Perhaps the rooftop garden is an easier target for antisocial activities because it is relatively secluded. Refreshing garden concepts of common spaces warrant regular maintenance and checks by the town councils and the National Environment Agency. Install security cameras, for instance. If such elevated common spaces cannot be maintained in as pristine a condition as when they were first opened, it would be better to close them because, instead of serving the estate, they cause social problems. Alan Lim

I had a down luck recently. Some people damaged my car's rooftop and caused it dented inwards at my neighbourhood's open carpark. My mum discovered when she was picking the car, no traces of vandalism... made a police report immediately. argh so helpless. Now need to repair. Any recommendations of good and cheap workshops near kallang?

Was thinking of installing Necvox-9269 rooftop 9-inch monitor. [inline "necvox B1003224917.jpg"] Need to seek opinion of those who have installed rooftop monitor, whether it will affect the rear mirror's view? I am going to collect my Stream RSZ end of this month and I am 1.75m tall. How about 10.4-inch monitor? Any difference to rear mirror's view?