"The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood." - Logan Pearsall Smith

***

A source told me that as of 2004, 河谷中学 (He2 Gu3 Zhong1 Xue2) had ended its communist hair rules (at least for females). I wonder if Anglican is now the only secondary school in Singapore with such restrictions.

[Addendum: A reliable source has informed me that Paya Lebar Methodist Girls School (PLMGS) also has ridiculous said hair rules. Which is odd, since it doesn't immediately strike me as being a communist school.

Another tells me that when we were in JC, the rule in AHS was lifted.]

***

In the Mix

"THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

The habit of sitting around discussing the meanings of songs people find cryptic has been a longstanding pop tradition. From "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" to "25 or 6 to 4," nothing has been taken at face value. Everything is subject to exegesis, as though any use of symbols, no matter how obvious, made a song deeper. How could "Puff the Magic Dragon" be a children's song? What does "Puff" mean anyway?

There's a trace of that crypto-divination in Eminem's "Stan" (for my money, one of the finest singles of last year). "Stan" alludes to a fairly common urban legend, that Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" is about Collins helplessly standing in the distance watching a friend drown and seeing that someone else nearby could've saved his friend but didn't. ("You know that song by Phil Collins, "In the Air Tonight?" / About that guy who could have saved that other guy from drowning?") In reality, the Collins song is little more than a song about his impending divorce from his first wife. It's a little ironic, isn't it, that the person who himself complains about overly literal interpretations of his text gives in to the same thing?

Me, I'm ornery and I never believe in conspiracy theories. Best one I've heard, though, is the ludicrously elaborate one that claims the Pet Shop Boys stands for "Pray Eternally To Satan, He Offers Peace, But Owns Your Soul."" [Ed: Emphasis mine]

I can't stop laughing.

***

My manual dexterity is insufficient to perform the required actions, but Enming offers a walkthrough for the flash game Hapland:

turn on all the windows before you begin

then shift the arrow

after which you get the stick figure out of the manhole and get him to fire one rock to hit the bridge over

adjust the pointy thing near the bell so the other end points upwards...

then hit the bell with the second rock

fire the two bombs (the two green things in the cannon are bombs...after the rocks) on low...and when they hit the bridge, bounce them so they explode in mid-air.

fire the blue pass low so that it ricochets off the surfaces to reach the guy in the cave

then jerk the lever once more and send the guy into the launcher.

get another man out of the manhole, let him fire, as he flies near the top of the hill, click the steel arrow so that he is not impaled...

he will land safely on the hill, then click on him to push the tower over

click the gun turret on the cannon to lower it
when the tower is pushed, click on the bell until it falls on the sharpened see-saw, this will flip the rock over and explode the land mine

then get the man out of the house, he will enter the other house and light the torch

AT THE SAME TIME get the man out of the cave...

time them both so that when the man gets into the house and activates the switch that causes the rocks to fall, the rocks would fall on the dog that drops out of the exclamation mark box...

just make sure that you get the man out of the house and the other man out of the cave so that once the man gets into the house, he can drop the concrete that will kill the dog...after this happens, both torches will be lit and the goals will be accomplished.

***

Singapore Sucks: Total(itarian) Defence - "Youths are too apathetic, the government of Singapore says. They watch MTV and spend their time trying to sneak into Zouk. After years of suppressing dissent and promoting the "values" of a one-party state, the motley crew of aging cadres have become seedless Abrahams. Perhaps in the seventies and eighties they thought they would live forever. But they will not, and they have realized that a mausoleum is no substitute for a state."
Though he is as fond as Xenoboy of using big words, at least here they do not sound awkward and actually mean something.

Ultimate Christian Wrestling - "UCW is an exciting Christian Outreach Ministry that uses Professional Wrestling as a vehicle to minister to the world. UCW is a family oriented company, focused on clean and spiritually educational entertainment. UCW exists to minister the Gospel of Christ to the Lost and to see lost souls saved. Our long term goal is to have prayer placed back in public school. With your help, and the help of other dedicated Christians, we will achieve just that. UCW is carrying out the Great Commission of our Lord."
I'm quite sure that this is a joke.

Clueless Robber Gets No Respect - "A Minneapolis man allegedly tried to rob a grocery store last month, but tripped himself up when he put his gun on the counter so he could scoop up the cash. The store clerk lost no time in grabbing the gun himself, and chased the gunman out of the store"
Reading about so many gun robberies, you wonder why people can still oppose gun control and claim that their opposition is grounded in rationality.

***

I wonder what lecturers hate more during lectures - students sleeping or students talking loudly.


Quotes:

I prefer your old blog. I'm not interested at looking at all the websites you looked at over the day

[On Secondary School life vs NUS life] life was good. i didn't know what orientalism was.

Inside a squirrel *Draws a deformed squirrel* This looks like a squirrel, doesn't it? You guys are gonna have nightmares tonight.

[On biologists not adhering to the reproductive definition of species] First you ask whether they are a botanist or not. If they're a botanist you don't trust anything they say about species.

[On ending reproductive isolation] Eventually the plants will reproduce with the animals, and you get some unimaginable creature.

[On 2004] Last year was a bad year for evolutionary biologists. They all died.

[On Donoghue] The fact that he talks about whether species exist outside the mind tells you about the confused mind of a botanist.

After we finish speciation, we move on to the next subject. Does anyone know what the next subject is? [Student: Sexual selection] You wish.

Actually in a triathalon, if you're a triathlete and you're riding on a bike, there's a good chance that your [evolutionary] fitness is very low.

[On the relentless march of modern technology] If there is some chalk, I will write on this board, but nowadays chalk is a very scarce commodity.

[On the Uniform Distribution] This distribution has nothing to do with school uniforms, or police uniforms, if you were hoping for that (?!)

Now you have to know how to integrate. Not integrate with your friends or with the school.

How long before the next person arrives in the queue - which is very useful - not just because you're kaypoh [Ed: nosy] - if you go into business. Last time they called it 'Operations Research'. Now - 'Management Science'. They want to make it sound good - 'science'.

I thought these comments would liven up the class, but some people are just closing their eyes.

The final exam and the mid-term test is open-book. You can bring in anything you like, including your favourite comics. (are open-book)

[On the normal distribution] There is one distribution to rule all of them, like the Lord of the Rings tri'lorgy - One Ring to Rule Them All. *laughs from audience* What's so ticklish about that? I thought it's quite a good analog'gee. You're all giggling. (trilogy, analogy)

Carl Frederick Gauss (Friedrich)

You want to impress your friends at a party, you want to turn people off, you talk about the normal distribution. If you want to turn people off some more, if you want people to leave you alone, you tell them: 'I was studying the Gaussian Distribution yesterday'.

[On th probability density function for a normal distributed random variable] When you go out into the working world - all the businessmen, all the statistically illiterate people, they will be talking about the bell-shaped curve. You can talk about the Gaussian Distribution, and you can write down this formula. You'll be one up against your colleagues.

[On finding the points of inflection in a normal distribution] You can prove this by differentiating the equation. Probably more productive than going to a disco on Saturday night.

[On sending errata to textbook authors] I hope they will send me a free copy for pointing out the errors in the book.

If you want to check it up, look for this book: Kendall's Advanced Theory of Statistics. There're always a lot of copies lying around in the library, because no one wants to read it.

That's what beauty parlours are trying to do. They're trying to turn people from platykurtotic to leptokurtotic.

I like cats. Some of them have very fat and ugly tails. But the normal distribution has a very nice tail that's nice and thin.

[On Murdoch and Barnes' Statistical Tables] You'll be given this red book, which has hon students in NUS for decades. (haunted)

Any other questions? Class participation graded ah.

A Colonel Sanders suit... All of us wouldn't want to be caught dead in it.

[On the shopping experience giving consumers satisfaction] Probably not a thing for guys, but girls! You love to go shopping.

[On the failue of the government's policy of encouraging entrepreneurship and scholarship simultaneously] Usually the entrepreneurs are the school dropouts.

[On the GEP retarding entrepreneurship] For those of us who came from THAT particular program, we know that we're the top 1%... Those of us from THAT particular program: we can do whatever we want, but they want you to become a President's Scholar... Only 20-30% go into the private sector

[On the teacher leaving the class to let the students engage in independent discussion] Where's his webcam?

[On an essay] So you got a B+ without a thesis? So we don't need a thesis. First question answered!

I don't think a normal person is interested in Churchland. [Someone: If they're interested in Churchland, they're not normal]

[On close reading] It's getting something out of nothing.

We should mark each other's papers and take the average. So you give the other person A+

He said what we write is too shallow... He has a PhD in Philosophy... It's not our problem, it's his problem (fault that's it's too shallow, fault)

[On deep analysis] The more you wirte, the more you realise you dare'rer'vate (deviate)

[On the Engineering writing module compared to the USP one] You should look at these 3 page readings. I can finish it in 3 minutes. I take twice as long to read a single paragraph [from our readings]

[On writing essays for general readers rather than the teacher] We write for the sake of readerS. Not [a particular] reader. [Someone: The reader. The reader.]

Provided the judger will be fair enough (judge)

Here's a revised schedule for you, so you can frame and show your parents and be proud of. (that)

[On the expected value of an opinion poll being 3.5] There are a lot of macroeconomists so it doesn't matter if we cut one into half.

You can start a society in NUS: Asian Prince Society

[On Asian Prince] I see people putting up his picture.

[On the door to the secret vaults of a museum] This is like the gate to hell over there.