In recent weeks, YACCS has been exceedingly slow, with the comments boxes taking at least 30s to appear.

This has since been fixed, so comments may once again be left without much hassle.

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"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor" - Neil Gaiman

Random Playlist Song: Trevor Pinnock - The English Concert and Choir: Handel - Messiah - There Were Shepherds Abiding In The Field

Recitative (Soprano)
There were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night.

Accompagnato (Soprano)
And lo, the angel of the lord came upon them, and the glory of the lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.

Recitative (Soprano)
And the angel said unto them: Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a saviour, which is Christ the lord.

Accompagnato (Soprano)
And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying:


Being absent without permission may be called: French leave.

The English language seems to take a rather unfavourable view of both the Dutch and the French. It should be noted however that the French language pays in kind and calls syphilis (in England "the French disease") "la maladie anglaise". In the same way a "French letter" is "une capote anglaise". It's just for the "French kiss" that they have not been inspired by England. There does not seem to be such a thing as "un baiser anglais".

(Nationality Words In Idioms)

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I wonder why my spam mail is all addressed to "Michelle". Since "Mohammad" is statistically the most common "name" in the world, they should address all spam to "Mohammad" for a higher chance of successfully getting someone actually by that name.

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"KOTOR II is one of the rare Star Wars games that doesn't seem mystified by the universe, but instead approaches it with a sociologist's eye. What is the real difference between Jedi and Sith? How is that difference perceived by the common man (or Wookie or Twi'lek)? Does the Republic -- on the brink of dissolution -- deserve to be saved? Many raise these questions throughout KOTOR II, but Kreia is the main source of great dialogue and philosophizing." (IGN)

Hahahahahaha.

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NiHl on PRC students at the YST Conservatory:

"well.. just to comment on your Yong Siew Toh Conservatory thingy, yes, there is a difference, obviously. They get to use Singapore government funded (grand) facilities, and (mostly try to) talk in English. Ta da~. And most of all, they provide Singaporean and other students the opportunity to immerse in China (note I refuse to use the word Chinese) culture and henceforth make all NUS students very at home when they (are forced to) find a living in mainland China."

Ahh, more social engineering. Splendid.


budak writes about the "good ole days" in the Premier Institution of Social Engineering:

"Is there still heavy cross-breeding between ENG males and ASS girls? Is the anti-Ridge 'samizdat' known as The Subterranean still in existence?? I still have copies of that (which would mysteriously appear outside the old Central Library periodically) and which spawned the wrath of the Registrar and Ridge gang (though I suspect it included some Ridgers)."

Ooh samizdat. I wanna read. Actually the Ridge is not that bad nowadays. They did a really acerbic anti-"Jack Neo the bootlicker" thing a few months back. Anyway we don't need samizdat now - we have blogs. Yay. The samizdat reminds me of myself in the days of yore. And I think shrill, anorexic, chinese speaking ah lians are very much in demand, as always.

"I suppose the campus culture is still ruled by prom queens and Sports Centre jocks whose idea of student leadership is throwing the biggest bash.... "

Yes we still have many hiao girls and millions of bashes. One for every week of the year, and then some (so it seems).

"Shrill, anorexic, chinese speaking ah lians? That's worse than my days, when Jacelyn Tay was in the Jap Studies dept. At least she could speak Anglais."

Heh heh.

I invite comments by those more in the know than I am.

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HDB on why cats cannot be kept in HDB flats:

"HDB has the policy of not allowing cats to be kept in HDB flats. Cats, being nomadic in nature, are difficult to be confined within the flat, resulting in problems such as shedding of fur, noise disturbance and defecation/urination in public areas, which will affect the external environment and neighbourliness in our housing estates."

Indeed, cats *are* nomadic in nature and they love to roam. No way to keep them confined unless you hermetically seal the flat.

Actually you can still keep pussies in your HDB flat - just claim that they're strays who wandered in due to their "nomadic nature"

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In the wake of the "Virgin Mary" Grilled Cheese Sandwich:



Look at this picture. What do you see?

A plain cinammon bun? Or the face of Mother Teresa?

(P335 Cognitive Psychology, Prof. Kruschke - "Ambiguity in Perception: Even looking at a cinnamon roll is uncertain!")

This phenomenon is known as pareidolia: "a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct. For example, in the discolorations of a burnt tortilla one sees the face of Jesus Christ. Or one sees the image of Mother Teresa or Ronald Reagan in a cinnamon bun or a man in the moon.

Under ordinary circumstances, pareidolia provides a psychological explanation for many delusions based upon sense perception. For example, it explains many UFO sightings, as well as the hearing of sinister messages on records played backwards. Pareidolia explains Elvis, Bigfoot, and Loch Ness Monster sightings. It explains numerous religious apparitions and visions. And it explains why some people see a face or a building in a photograph of the Cydonia region of Mars."

Also see: Look! It's Jesus! - "Stay Free! tracks everyone's favorite deity as he leapfrogs across America"

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Rationally Speaking - I, robot

"One of the most recurring instances of anti-naturalistic prejudice is the refusal to admit that the mind is a result of the activity of the body; no ectoplasm needed, as philosophers of mind put it. Few today would reject the notion that the body itself is very much like a machine... But the mind, still most people say today, is an entirely different matter.

A group of neurosurgeons at a hospital in Paris was conducting a farly routine operation on a patient affected by Parkinson’s disease. The idea was that, since the woman wasn’t responding to drug treatment anymore, the medical equipe would go straight into her brain and stimulate via electrodes specific regions of the brain stem. The procedure usually yields stunning results, which completely erase the symptoms of the disease, greatly improving the patient’s quality of life, at least temporarily.

In this particular instance, however, something went wrong. When one of the electrodes was activated, the patient suddenly stopped talking, began looking very sad and started crying uncontrollably, eventually explaining how her life was meaningless and she wished to die. It is important to note that the individual in question had never shown symptoms of depression before the implantation of the electrode. Even more stunningly, the talk of suicide, the crying, and the sad expression all decreased and then disappeared minutes after the electrode was removed by the medical scientists! If this doesn’t sound like a machine being turned on and off at will by a simple electrical stimulation, I don’t know what will convince you.

Still not convinced that we are very sophisticated biological machines, in both body and mind? Then consider another fascinating example from Damasio’s book. One of his own patients was affected by a bizarre and rather disturbing condition, which provides a stunning insight into the mind-body connection. The man in question suffered occasional episodes during which he would begin to loose the feeling of the lower parts of his body, as if under local anesthesia. The loss of feeling continued gradually upwards throughout the body, until it reached the throat, at which point the man passed out. A similar condition affecting a female patient did not cause her to loose consciousness, despite the frightening experience of no longer feeling her limbs and trunk. Tellingly, this second patient retained a sensation of her internal organs. Damasio suggests the intriguing possibility, based on these and similar cases, that we have a mind only until we have a body sensation of some sort (even highly incomplete, as in the case of the second patient). However, no body immediately means no mind. What more compelling evidence could there be that dualism is dead in its tracks?"

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Today's GPF comic:

Patty: Oh, I get it. Your desperate pal is hard up for a date, so you think since I'm happily single I'll take pity on him. Am I close?

Fooker: I'll up your disk quota to 100GB...

Patty: Fine. As long as I don't have to wear a dress.

Fooker: 250.

Patty: Darnit.


Heh heh.

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EX Fat Girl Workout - The site puts it aptly: "OK, I've seen a lot of weird fucking things since starting muchosucko... But this one is right up there in the WTF category...."

Cheer up, kids - it's not the end of the world - "A leading space expert has offered reassurance to youngsters from a Manchester secondary school, who were told that the end of the world was just days away."

Bus ban on sex ads - "The salacious ads by hip-hop clothing line Akademiks declare: "Read Books, Get Brain." But kids say "get brain" does not mean smarts. It's slang for oral sex."
Considering that every other word and phrase in the English Language is a euphemism for sex, the gonads or such, I don't see the point of being so sensitive.

Boss Spanks Employees for "Mistakes" - "Two young women complained to police that they were spanked by their 57-year-old employer for mistakes on the job, and the boss now faces criminal charges."

Exploding lava lamp kills Washington man - “Why on earth he was heating a lava lamp on the stove, we don’t know”

Santa Claus is A Fascist Dictator, Michelle's Look at The Creepy Polar Express!! - "Santa Claus is a fascist dictator who likes to kidnap and endanger children so that they can learn the true value of Christmas. That’s pretty much what I got out of Warner Brother’s new Christmas film “The Polar Express.”"

He plays Wok N Woll by Creative - Is this an actual Creative ad?!

I can't believe that someone paid US$61 for the Hello Kitty Grilled Cheese Sandwich. God.

SU comment: "David Icke is my very favorite conspiracy theorist. He belives (sic) the world is secretly ruled by shape-shifting lizards from outer space who eat babies. I am not making this up. Just have a look at his website. God I love loonies."

The Memory-Optimization Hoax - "RAM optimizers make false promises"

CA slaps spyware label on Kazaa - "Peer-to-peer program Kazaa is the No. 1 spyware threat on the Internet, according to Computer Associates International."

Interface Hall of Shame - "The Interface Hall of Shame is an irreverent collection of common interface design mistakes. Our hope is that by highlighting these problems, we can help developers avoid making similar mistakes."

Make it a little harder, please - "Most protection mechanism fail because the author has no idea what a hacker looks for in order to circumvent a copy protection mechanism. The result is often a design that looks solid to the author but has one or more of the following characteristics, all of which make life too easy for the hacker:"

Harvard Sucks - I think most people have seen this already. Anyone trying this here would be expelled. Pity.

US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev - "But while the gains of the orange-bedecked "chestnut revolution" are Ukraine's, the campaign is an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes."

You can breathe the air in Bhutan - "The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is well on the way to becoming the first nation on earth to completely ban the use of tobacco"

How To Do Girls - "Do it right, ask a girl" - "How-to-Do Girls is the comedy how-to show named after the smart, funny, and sexy hostesses. When you want to learn how to do it, come to How-to-Do Girls."
The most novel way to teach maths that I've seen.

Of Mice, Men and In-Between - Scientists Debate Blending Of Human, Animal Forms - "In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls."

Turn yourself into a diamond: tips from science on a good life, and death - "A thinktank of British scientists has come up with a new way of quickening the national intellect - a brain-taxing spin on the old formula of 100 things to do before you die."

Great composers scored on language - "Why is Elgar's music for Land of Hope and Glory so quintessentially English, while Debussy sounds so French? It is all because the music mimics the composer's native language, say scientists."

A blogger's disclaimer - I'd put this up, but no one cares about disclaimers anyway (just like EULAs), if they even bother to read them, so.

Parking: Battle of the Sexes - Silly flash game. I suck.

Mad Magazine's take on the French Spiderman