Random Playlist Song: Brahms - Double Concerto for Violin & Cello, Op 102 - 1 - Allegro
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Though I was unfortunately unable to participate in the first (?) NUS Flash Mob, I did manage to send down one of my secret agents.
Unfortunately, his camera looked too professional, so the moment he hoisted it, he was disallowed from taking pictures by the ever-efficient management of the Premier Institution of Social Engineering, which was standing by to control and manage the situation.
They kept telling him that: "If you want to take photos you must first write in to our management", and asked "has our management given you any approval?". Perhaps someone should ask for the name, position, department, contact number and address of the relevant authority figure to write in to for permission, so as to stump them.
At least they let the (less than 10 people) participating in the flash mob dance in the Forum Co-op Bookshop for a few minutes, but eventually chased them out, to loud laughter and shrieking.
"A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students." - John Ciardi
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Someone on weird fantasies:
"my friend has one where he is walking down the street dressed like the monopoly man and then he comes across a kid and whacks him to the ground with his cane"
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The MPAA vs. An Army of Mice
INAPPROPRIATE CONDUCT
Inexcusale Business Practices
YOU CAN SUE BUT YOU CAN'T CATCH EVERYONE
There are websites that provide tethered downloads. We're not fooled.
This website has been erected out of consumer outcry over the passing of sites that facilitate the free availability of perpetually copyrighted motion pictures. The unauthorized downloading of motion pictures denies thousands of dishonest, lazy executives of their crack smoking livelihood, and is the only way to bring an artistically bankrupt monopoly under control. Downloading movies without authorization violates laws distorted beyond their original intent, is not tangible theft, and is impossible to stop. You can't catch everyone. The only way to win is to stop waging war on your own customers and accept the fact that we are in control, not you. You brought this on yourselves.
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"I REFER to the letter, 'Give kids more freedom at home and in school' (ST, Jan 31), by Dr Anne Chong Su Yan.
No one would disagree that critical-thinking skills should be developed. However, I would like to address two points that Dr Chong raised.
First, she argued that time spent in the armed forces 'blunts' national servicemen's ability to think. Discipline is a necessary emphasis in a military force but that does not mean that our soldiers do not and cannot think, as Dr Chong implies.
As the recent experience of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) in Aceh demonstrated, it was because our servicemen at all levels had the operational skills and ability to respond to a fast-developing situation that we were able to make an impact with our humanitarian relief mission. This was obviously not the work of men and women who could not think.
- Colonel Bernard Toh
Director, Public Affairs
Mindef"
Joke of the
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'Cannabis gran' remains defiant
"The woman known as Britain's "cannabis gran" explains why she eats marijuana five times a day - and why she'll keep on doing it despite the threat of a jail term...
In the letter Mrs Tabram delivered to Downing Street, she listed the side effects associated with many popular pharmaceutical drugs available on prescription from NHS doctors.
All had at least 10, most had around 30 and one had more than 70 side effects, including dizziness, rashes, bruising and depression, the letter claimed.
... Cannabis, on the other hand, is a natural herb like mint or sage, she says.
"One of the major side effects is a loss of short-term memory. But I'm four years off 70 - I already had short-term memory problems!" she says.
She admits that some people may become addicted to the drug, but adds: "People can get addicted to anything. Some people are addicted to soap operas, some are addicted to crisps."
And as long as people are prevented from taking cannabis as a medicine, she says, there are countless numbers of pensioners in Britain who are taking handfuls of tablets each day and who are needlessly in pain."
Luckily she's not in Singapore, or she'd face the death penalty.
The War on Drugs shows that people haven't learned from the lessons of Prohibition.
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Why I Will Never Have A Girlfriend - "I, for one, refuse to spend my life brooding over my lack of luck with women. While I'll be the first to admit that my chances of ever entering into a meaningful relationship with someone special are practically non-existent, I staunchly refuse to admit that it has anything to do with some inherent problem with me. Instead, I am convinced that the situation can be readily explained in purely scientific terms, using nothing more than demographics and some elementary statistical calculus."
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"Mr Carey restlessly tries to elicit from those he meets a clue to the elusive nature of Japaneseness. The giant robots, piloted by space cadets inside them: are they a symbol of the second world war, or an image of alienation, or do they correspond to Japan's army of “socially inept information junkies”? No, he is told, they are a marketing device to sell toy robots."
- On 'Wrong About Japan: A Father's Journey With His Son'
More close reading goes awry. Ah well.
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I'm amazed that NUS didn't do anything to commemorate Total Defence Day. Hmm.
Quotes:
[On pets] They go to the vet and do crazy things. They give the dog dialysis and all those [other] things
[On human spines being badly designed for walking upright] You should run around on all fours. That would really help your [spinal] discs. but give you all sorts of other problems.
If Evolution explained everything, I would be out of a job. I'm happy that it doesn't explain everything.
If your faith is so weak that I can convert you in 24 sessions, then it isn't very useful.
[On human sperm] A bath prior to sex - in hot water, will make you infertile.
[On Aristotle's 4 causes] You do that for Philo? [Me: No, I do it for fun]
What we have is this continum (continuum)
I use this luohan. Do you know this grotesque-looking fish?
You can do your analysis in reverst (reverse)
[On a video] It's not that old. You know sometimes the clothes are cheesy, and the hair is really bad.
[On pirating a video] When you look at it: God, it's so boring. Who'd want to copy it for fun?
[On someone's essay] He made eliminative materialists sound like they only cared about how cunning babies are... Ridiculous, but very well done in every other way.
The only thing worse than a 'What is truth?' essay is one which concludes: 'Well, we're all right'.
More brackets is better than less brackets (fewer)
Logically, ee'rare'few'terble (irrefutable)
See? I lost my thread of thought now. (I've, train)
*Heavy voice* Some of you are falling asleep *end voice* It might come out in the test.
'Would you expect to see entry into or exit from the industry in the long run? Explain.' Finally, you have a chance to express yourself.
*Moves OHT down* Can you see? Good. *Promptly moves OHT up where no one can see it* *laughter from audience*... Don't laugh, don't laugh. You laugh, I ask you to come down and do. (If you laugh, I will)
The science faculty is one of the weirdest constructions on the planet. You can literally work in one building and go from level 2 to level 4 [by walking along a corridor]
[On the Robin in the New World being different from that in the Old] The European colonialists... They looked for the first thing with a red belly and called it a Robin.
[On being the same species] We're capable of reproduction [with each other] in principle. We don't want to try that out, but in principle we're capable of reproduction [with each other].
[On pregamic isolation mechanisms] We don't have any urge to mate with a sheep [Someone: Sheep]
People are into bastiality (bestiality)
[On the old school of bird watching] In the old days, people conducted field trips with a gun. They ran around with a gun and shot things.
[On a spider emitting moth pheremones] So sex is a very dangerous business... cruel life.
Biologists are only human, they want their dogs to be a different species from wolves. But from an evolutionary point of view, they are the same thing.
[On a tigon] A very cool [Ed: cruel?] experiment: You put a male tiger and a female lion into a cage. Eventually they'll get so - what do you call it, horny, that they'll interbreed.
I'll give you the simple task here of counting how many species of birds there are in Singapore.