"The multitude of books is making us ignorant." - Voltaire

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She Bangs by William Hung

"Talk to me, tell me your name You blow me off like it's all the same You lit a fuse, and now I'm ticking away Like a bomb... yeah baby" In 2004 you thought you were very popular, but actually everyone was laughing at you, not with you.

What 2004 Hit Song Are You?

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Survey request:

On behalf of a reader of this blog, I would like to beseech people to take a survey on budget airlines for an NTU accounting Final Year Project.

Survey for people who have flown on budget airlines before

Survey for those who haven't

(See? There are advantages to being a reader of this blog.)

***

Strangely enough, I find myself quite excited about the next semester. Perhaps it's because of the modules I'm doing:

EC2101 - MICROECONOMIC ANALYSIS I
EC2303 - FOUNDATIONS FOR ECONOMETRICS
USE2301 - ECONOMIC POLICY ANALYSIS (This cost me 456 points, so my CORS general account is now bankrupt. Boo hoo. Maybe I shall only do 1 USP module next semester)
UWC2101R - WRITING & CRITICAL THINKING - MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON MIND
ULS2202 EVOLUTION (wth?! This went for 566/900 points during bidding)

Of course, I expect this undue enthusiasm to largely evaporate within a week or two of school starting.

Incidentally, I briefly toyed with the idea of taking a sixth module this semester, but dismissed it after brief consideration. If I somehow need to do six modules in a future semester to fulfill my graduation requirements, I can always do some level 1000 electives when I'm in my 7th or 8th semester. Yay.

***

More tales of/from the Premier Institution of Social Engineering:

"As an undergraduate at NUS a couple of years back, I chose to read certain modules for my English Language major. These modules (Critical Discourse Analysis, Feminist Theory & Discourse, Language & Society) were 'marketed' as allowing students to provide their own in-depth analysis and opinions. Unfortunately, my somewhat different-from-the-norm thinking didn't go down well with my lecturers, half of whom received their Masters or Doctorates from overseas universities. Hence while my coursemates would get A grades for answers that fit the mould, I was getting B grades for sticking to my point of view.

It might be the culture. But it might also be the factor of ego, where the lecturer has the mindset that because he/she is the lecturer, he/she knows more than the student. There's also the probelm where the lecturer may already have biases towards certain students, or expectations when they set an exam question."

Whee.

More uplifting:

"I must have been fortunate. I recall 2 philosophy lecturers I had. One said that in the exam, those who only give answers that he taught would get a 'C'. One would pass, but only that. To excel, one has to offer answers that he did not teach.

Another lecturer said that if one thinks that the exam question is irrelevant, one can state so in one's answer and give his reasons for thinking so, and not have to answer that question. I assume his grade will be based on how strong his reasons are for brushing away the question like that."

Meanwhile:

"If you want to have an education where no answers are provided, and the teachers are annoyingly coy, come to NTU. The Project Discovery system has been implemented, and after the first 2 semesters students get used to not receiving model answers of any sort.

Some have labelled it useless because the teachers aren't good at facilitating meaningful discussions, while others enjoy it because even if you've skipped studying a few chapters, you can do pretty well if you have a view."

***

Open Letter to FACTS: The difference between the stockmarket and a casino

…none of us wanted our children to grow up thinking that gambling is okay as long as economics dictate so. There is no justification whatsoever for a society to knowingly allow the negative energy associated with casinos, any space in Singapore.

I believe the onus is on you to explain why gambling is wrong. I don’t believe that public policy is formulated with “negative energy” in mind, and rightly so. If you could raise any reasons in which gambling is wrong in itself, I would be glad to either publish a rebuttal, or retract this objection...

I do believe that a modern-day casino is a very different animal from the unregulated gambling dens that you speak about in the 70s. There are no loan-sharks hovering around the tables, nor gangsters or triads that gave gambling a bad name in the 70s. The gaming industry is heavily and strictly regulated by the government. At best, the casino would be a clean, transparent and well-run business. In the worst case scenario, it would be no worse that China Aviation Oil. The “accompanying evils” you speak so fearfully of have no place in our modern society, nor in a well-run modern casino.

Just to refresh your memory, the recent scandal of China Aviation Oil should be a reminder that there are worse examples of gambling out there, and the stockmarket is the perfect example. And yet, while some people do suffer from making the wrong choices in investment, I don’t see broken families and an increase in crime. Why do you not protest against the stock market then?

Unlike a casino, in which the odds are clearly defined, and where there are strict rules that govern the code of conduct of the operators, the stockmarket is more the dangerous free-for-all you fear. Investors often don’t know what they’re getting themselves into, putting money into stocks and shares based on scanty or even non-existent information. Casinos openly state their odds at the table. Companies listed on the stock-exchange find means and ways to fudge their accounts. Why do you not protest agains these companies?

***

Game Theories (also mirrored on the TJC forums)

"On-line fantasy games have booming economies and citizens who love their political systems. Are these virtual worlds the best place to study the real one?"

This article is a fascinating at the economics of online games like The Sims online and Everquest.

Some topics covered:

- equation of virtual money/goods to real world money
- the size of the games' virtual economies (eg the GNP per capita of Everquest was calculated to be $2,266 U.S., more than India, Bulgaria, or China, and nearly as wealthy as Russia)
- online worlds as the ideal economic laboratories that economists always have yearned for
- meritocracy, capitalism and socialism
- a planned economy vs a market economy
- social welfare policies
- gender differentials (female characters are worth less than male ones)
- inflation and mopping up excess money supply
- the values that people ascribe to goods
- exploitation of sweatshop workers
- the Forex market
- crime and vice
- property rights

Indeed, there's something for everybody!


(Thanks to theonion for the tipoff)

***

Stupid quote from Power Rangers Dino Thunder: White Thunder Part 2

Young Kid: Listen: we live in a really cynical world. I understand your reluctance not to believe in me (sic), but if you could just have a little hope, a little faith in humanity, in the Youth of America

Cassidy: Alright, alright. 6 o'clock, I'll be here.

***

Moses is the first person I know of to use Open Office. Yay!

(Some would ask why I don't use it myself. That's because my father wants to use M$ Office, and also my laptop came with M$ Office 2003, so.)


Signs that you are worrying too much about illegal downloads

10. You deny all domains with a ".gov.sg" in your firewall.
09. You start your weekly JB trips again.
08. You buy a software that deletes all files with extension .MP3, .MPG, .AVI by clicking on a red button.
07. You backup your "files" onto DVDs regularly, every 30-minute.
06. You migrate to free software by emulating Linux on Windows.
05. You attempted to download legitimate MP3s from PAP.gov.sg
04. You rename your 700MB movies to .JPG
03. You thank God everyday when you check your mailbox, for not getting warning letters.
02. You subscribe to SinghNet in India for your P2P needs.
01. Instead of praying to the Buddha, you pray to PeerGuardian.

***

Speculations on Steven Lim's profession:

- some make up artist
- full time stripper
- Muthafarker
- nude model
- clown
- a dreamer
- fuktard
- mentally retarded patient

***

Bulk: An argyle armadillo ate an onion while a bearded bird flew into a cappuccino-coloured sky.
Why? I am a mosquito on the windshield of your love.
You are the missing sock in my... laundry pile.

You are the sunny sky, the windy wind *Skull switches fan on*
And I would ask you to the dance if I weren't so *pulls out chicken* chicken

- PRZ, #24 Bulk Fiction

***

You think you've seen everything? How about: BeastMatch.com - The Premiere Bestiality Dating site for genuine petlovers. Erm. ERM. (wth?!)

The Ward-O-Matic: The Polar Express: A Virtual Train Wreck - "My main problem with THE POLAR EXPRESS is not that they are trying to give us a new and creative way of looking at films, but rather that the filmmakers are suggesting that this is the end-all be-all thing to filmmaking in general. That what they are doing is the shiz-nit, man! And the fact that Zemeckis himself has suggested that what he's doing is not attainable by any animator"

Do you think you're sexy? Only one in 50 women do - "Brazilian women consistently [outperform] almost everyone else: a full 6 per cent are prepared to describe themselves as beautiful compared with a world average of 2 per cent."