"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae." - Kurt Vonnegut

Random Playlist Song: Trevor Pinnock - The English Concert and Choir: Handel - Messiah - Sinfony (Grave - Allegro moderato)

I'm on a Messiah run. One month to Christmas!


Trivia bit of the day: Not all vampires have a fierce reputation as vicious bloodthirsty killers. Some are considered harmless and actually leave their victims alive.

There are several vampires that prefer to leave their victims alive. Lobishomen is a Brazilian vampire that tends to prey upon women. It doesn't kill its victims although it does leave them with nymphomaniacal tendencies. Lugat is an Albanian vampire which doesn't kill its victims either.

***


Daisy Low Fat, High Calcium Milk

It is disheartening and thoroughly contemptible that even milk companies are doing this now. This sort of thing really should be outlawed, for it gives consumers the wrong ideas.

No, I'm not talking about the 'exploitation' of women in advertising (I'm sure those women are adequately remunerated for their services), but something much more sinister and subtle.

Everyone knows that images of women are airbrushed, but another technique (involving no digital manipulation) is used, possibly to greater effect. I draw your attention to the right of the image, at the model's seemingly curvy figure. Now look, then, at the left of the image, and notice how the model has almost no figure there. By the simple expedient of twisting her body, she has created the illusion of a curvaceous figure. Which is why, whenever I see women in ads, I always look at the other side of their torsos, to determine if they're using this cheap trick. And more and more, I find that they are.


Another tactic of this nature is beloved of those Japanese women who pose in bikinis (most probably as preludes to shoots involving partial or full nudity), the shots of which were (and assuredly still are) exceedingly popular among slaves.



In this type of shot, which is all too common, the women bend down (affording the reader a glimpse down their cleavage) and oh-so-subtly press their breasts together with their upper arms. This creates the illusion that their surgically-enhanced breasts are bigger than they actually are.

My attempts to demonstrate this inevitably elicit mixed feelings, ranging from amused horror to utter disgust.

***

I have managed to act out yet another of my demented fantasies - the one involving a bus. No, not this bus. My fantasy involves a double-storeyed, air-conditioned SBS bus with an electronic counter that shows how many seats are vacant on the upper storey.

I happened to be on one of the few SBS No 10s that had a counter, and decided to put my plan into action by repeatedly walking up the last 2 steps and skipping a step on the way down.

While doing this, besides garnering odd looks from the others on the top storey of the bus, I discovered the following:

- Standing on the steps for too long delivers an audible warning
- If you walk up the steps slowly, the sensor will think 2 people are coming up (I didn't manage to master this technique, though)
- When the counter indicated that there were only 2 seats left and I activated it once, it then indicated that the upper storey was full. Bug? Feature to account for miscounts? Or anoccurence of problem #2?

When I'd managed to make the counter indicate that there were "no seats available", being the civic minded citizen that I was*, I ignored my fatigue and studiously counted the number of seats on the upper storey of the bus, subtracted from this number the number of people on the upper storey, and diligently manipulated the counter until it registered the correct number of available seats (in the process making it even more accurate than before I'd started my manipulation).

I would have tried making the counter go in the other direction, and see if it'd crash at infinity, but my stop was nearing, and more importantly, I was winded by my stairs training.

* - Thanks to the many Moral Education aka Hao3 Gong1 Ming2 lessons I'd attended in Nanyang Primary School, where we were all taught to be 'useful' people [maybe useful to a drug lord or mafia boss] and imbibed with many Asian Values.

Incidentally, a search for nanyang primary school brings up my tribute page as the first non-MOE result.


I had an extensive conversation on the stupidity and immorality of hover pissing. And then someone tried to apply game theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma to it. Oh god.

How Girls Waste Time
41. a) Trying to perfect the art of hover pissing because of the erroneous fear that they will catch something if they sit on the toilet seat. In the end they take three times as long but still end up dirtying the toilet seat (encouraging yet more women to hover-piss)


Exam resolution: Even on Miranda, I resolve to try not to disturb people who are in "busy", "DND" or "occupied" modes.

***

The litmus tests of a more open society

"[Catherine Lim] also suggested three scenarios as litmus tests of whether the Government was willing to "back up its promise of opening up".

Firstly, "if they allow demonstrations. This is part and parcel of any society. But it is absolutely prohibited. I don't even mean demonstrating against the Government. Groups could want to show their disapproval of some international policy, Iraq prisoners, Abu Ghraib and so on," she explained.

Secondly, if the Government tolerated political cartoons, which Dr Lim also described as part and parcel of "democratic life in any country".

"Third and this will be the greatest: If somebody sues the Government and wins. I think Singaporeans will sit up and say: 'Ooh'," she said animatedly.

However, she expressed her doubts that any of these would occur in the near future... Here, she expects more openness and less threats, simply because she believes the Government is in a very secure position.

In the post-911 and post-Sars world, the "climate" will be conducive for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to pursue the economic imperative of jobs and stability, which is what Singaporeans really want, she said.

However, due to the changing times and changing world and with a more sophisticated citizenry, she is confident that PM Lee will not go about it in the "knuckle-duster" or "lecturing and hectoring" manners of the past."

***

On Putting Students To Sleep: A Classroom Policy Proposal

One of the dilemmas all professors occasionally face in the classroom is what to do about sleeping students. Should we ignore them and let them snooze away? Or should we awaken them? If we do nothing:

- In this litigious age, doing nothing could even lead to lawsuits, perhaps giving a whole new meaning to the term “class-action suit.” I’m not referring only to those much-publicized cases where a student has sued because after four years of college he or she is illiterate. I’m worried about the dozing student whose head jerks perilously backward, inviting a whiplash claim. Or what about the sleeper whose head lurches forward, colliding with the hard desk surface. Perhaps it’s time for universities to give serious consideration to installing airbags in classrooms. (I kind of like the irony here: windbags setting off airbags…)

So what, then, are professors to do in such situations? While attending a professional convention not too long ago, I hit upon a possible solution. Before checking out of my hotel, I asked the maid if I could take along a couple of those “Do Not Disturb” signs that hang on doorknobs. During the next class, I warned my students they might find the lecture unusually soporific and explained to them my “to wake or not to wake” dilemma. I then invited them to pick up one of the signs. If sleep appeared imminent, those who did not wish to be roused could simply hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on their shirt or sweater button. It would be a clear signal that they wished to be allowed to, well, “rest in peace.”

***

Greetings!

I am writing in the hopes that someone affiliated with your site might be interested in appearing on a new ABC television series. The show, (which has the rather salacious title of Wife Swap), has two mothers exchange families for 2 weeks, such that both can explore another family’s values and lifestyle, and share their perspective too. It’s a format that has won numerous awards in the UK, and been critically acclaimed on this side of the Atlantic as well.

We are always searching for intelligent, opinionated individuals from a diversity of backgrounds. Currently, we are eager to feature a family headed by parents who are raising their children without imposing religious beliefs on them. In a society where non-theistic individuals can be marginalized, participating would provide an opportunity to put a human face to the atheist or humanist perspective.

Is there anyway that you might be able to help us find some families? This could be as simple as a message about us in a mass email, a notice in a newsletter, or sharing the information with anyone you know personally that might be interested.

Anyone interested can call or email me directly. They would not be committing to the show in any way. I would simply give them more details and answer any questions they might have.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and please give me a call or write should you have any questions or concerns.

Kind regards,
Stacy Wood
Associate Producer
Tel: (212) 404-1472
Email: stacy.wood@rdfmedia.com
www.WifeSwapTVShow.com


'One of the most entertaining new entries in reality TV, Wife Swap reminds us that the American living room is as fascinating a laboratory of human emotions as Borneo or the corporate boardroom.' Time Magazine

'Wife Swap is promisingly sly and serious, funny and flabbergasting. It's a reality show, yes, but also in its way a fascinating pop sociological experiment, one that increases in complexity and impact as it goes along.' Washington Post

***

General Political/Leaders Quiz

'Stalin' is Russian for:

- Man of Steel
- Pinko Commie Bastard
- Man of Iron
- Large Moustache

(...)

***

New KOTOR 2 screenshots:

http://media.xbox.ign.com/media/679/679264/img_2472161.html

Carth (?): So, uh, how long have you been a Jedi? Must be tough, you know... no family, no husband...

You: No tougher than enduring your false sympathy while you're staring at my chest.


http://media.xbox.ign.com/media/679/679264/img_2472167.html

Carth: Uh... I mean, good, good to hear it. No sense in you running around half-naked. It's... it's distracting... I mean, for the droids.

***

It's both scary and demoralising to see everyone, even Year 1 students, mugging like mad, even for level 1000 modules.

I hope this is because they don't know their stuff and hope to make up for ignorance (and not knowing what was going on during the semester) with diligence.


Another angry rant against the NUS administration on (yet) another last-minute change in policy:

"blog of an angry life sci student.

Looking at the fact that I'm suffering like hell for tumor bio, I shouldn't have taken this fucking module. I TOOK it becos I had NO CHOICE. cos the requirement then was fucking different. AND TODAY! TODAY! when i'm sick and tired of reading that fucking tumor bio, I got a mail saying that we only need to take ONE , holy shit - ONE module out of the main concentration! shit! How can they keep changing! how can they! If I knew it, I would NEVER EVER TAKE this fucking tumor module! Damn! Fuck till you die, NUS! and i planned to take chemical biology, I SO WANT TO TAKE IT! shit! shit! shit! go to hell! NUS!
looking at the fact that I fall asleep whenever i start reading tumor bio.. I'm going to die real hard during the exam. NUS. Thank you so fucking much!"


Hmm. They should look into improving their sense of timing. Or maybe it's a devious ploy to demoralise people just before their papers, and see how they react to stress of this nature, and acclimatise them to said stress (see: Social Engineering)


More proof that law students are elitist:

"i was saying.. now i know why they say law students are snobbish

the year 1's just started a hate campaign against SNAILS
MSN nicks like "Escargot spoilt my appetite" "I hate snails" "Snailed!"

profile pics with a snail and a huge cross over the snail

SNAILS = Students Not Actually In Law School
the law library's swarming with them"

***

Someone: my friend who went with me on a trip or two ago bought this hongkong porn
he likes seeing asian women take it i guess

turns out to be some china woman doing it
he wanted hongkie he gets mainland. it's like that lah.

Me: haha how does he know it's mainland

Someone: "hao shuang ah hao shuang ah"


So now we know what PRCs shout when they make love, besides "wo lai le".

***

Depanneren

As someone on StumbleUpon comments:

It's like a deranged children's book:

"The little van fell in the water.

The bigger truck tried to help but the bigger truck fell in too.

Along came the BIGGEST truck..."

And notice the guy in the red sweater as the tow truck starts to go over. He merely turns his shoulder to it as if that would ward off the potential of 2 tons of truck coming at him.

Had that been me and I'd just narrowly escaped being smashed flat, I'd probably be curled up on the ground in the fetal position. Crying.

***

Antarctica Journal of Mathematics

Antarctica Journal of Mathematics [{International Standard Serial Number}ISSN 0972-8643] publishes original research papers in all branches of Mathematics in one or two issues every year.

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