"The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer." - Victor Borge

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The August 2002 archives have been restored. Extracts:

"I put a can of A&W Root Beer in the sick bay pantry fridge, but the next morning I found, to my horror, that it'd been spirited away by the pernicious demons of the refrigerator. What I don't understand is why they ignored the can of Tiger Beer, and instead went for the ROOT Beer. Gah."

"We also had a SAR21 Orientation Shoot. Being bored, I shot the target to my left, the one on my right and for good measure, shot the lane markings (those on the wooden boards above our lanes). We also had "frangible rounds" though what the
difference was I couldn't tell."

"My birthday, on day 2 of the exercise, was spent outfield. Mostly anyway, as we got to come back to the bunk to rest in between. But pushing through more than head high grass, wading through calf high mud and rolling down a slope into a puddle aren't my idea of a nice day. But now I can emphatise with Lone Wolf as he is scratched by Graveweed (damn Mimosa), is attacked by Crypt Spawn (mosquitos so thick you can kill at least one slapping anywhere), and rolling down slopes (how much EP did I lose?) all with a full backpack."

"On Thursday morning, we had a National Day Observance Ceremony. They wanted us to sing the anthem and say the pledge, but I was muttering curses."

"Learning about my confinement, the Standby Medic remarked that my CSM was very "fucked up", and that he always gave people confinements. Looking at the reasons some people got confined, I am flabbergasted. Perhaps the most outrageous so far is - "Lack of effort during Battalion Run x 1 confinement". Apparently these people were walking during the Life run, and so warrant a burnt day off."

"In the end, the whole sickbay, all 10 beds, were filled (and apparently at one point they had to open 2 stretchers to accommodate 2 extra people temporarily), so the MOs had to be told not to sent people there (presumably they sent the lucky later patients home to rest). To make it worse, 4 of them were on drips (and 1 more joined them later). So I had a full flock to tend to, and they required a lot of care - most required their parameters (Temperature, Respiratory Rate, Pulse Rate and Blood Pressure, the last of which I forgot) taken every 4 hours, and I was supposed to spoonfeed all of them (literally) - I had to supervise everyone's consumption of medicine. And of course there were all the forms required by ISO. With so much to do, even if I remembered to do some things, I had no time to do them as I was busy doing others. Most seriously, I let some people's IV packs run out, so instead of reloading their drip packs from the top, I had to unscrew the admin sets from the catheters and screw in new ones. From ~8:30 to 3:15, I had not the time to take more than 2 minutes to sit and rest, save for a 5 minute lunch. And to add insult to injury, one patient retuned the radio from 92.4 to 93.3. How wude! In the end I was so stressed I went to hide in the toilet and cry."


Restored posts are marked like so: Restored Post


Peripherally, the Malay chicken wings at Ayer Rajah Camp (AYRC) were legendary. There was one time when, IIRC, I was on detail in the area, and we - officer, driver and all - went to that camp *just* to eat the chicken wings.

Johnny Malkavian informs me that the 2 Malay food stalls there fought, so both of them got evicted. The good chicken wing stall (the other was good for Nasi Lemak apparently) is now at the 6th floor of Lucky Plaza. Unfortunately, after their move they don't serve chicken wings anymore but:

"they switched to selling chicken rice. no wings surprisingly, but the chicken+rice+soup is.. i have no words for it. ask for chicken rice. drumstick

trust me on this
i think no wing leh. you can try lor
or maybe wing all sold out in the morning"

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jadeite on antique devices used to cure hysteria by inducing hysterical paroxysm: they look rather appalling
they look like devices for torture, really
but oh, sweet torture :DD

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The University of Malaya is organising what the registration form calls the "Asia Pacific Student Leardership (sic) Workshop 2005". Somehow this becomes the acronym: ASPIRE '05.

Presumably the acronym breaks down to: ASia PacIfic student leaRdErship workshop 2005, so the spelling error is deliberate. Ma-laysia boleh!

(Hell, in this age which fetishises acronyms, it's no longer necessary to be able to fully form the acronym from the words it supposedly represents.)

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Moral Panics

"According to Cohen, society is often subject to such instances and periods of moral panic; an occurrence which is characterised by ‘stylized and stereotypical’ representation by the mass media, and a tendency for those ‘in power’ (politicians, bishops, editors and so on) to man the ‘moral barricades’ and pronounce judgement... The path of the panic, however, can take one of two directions. Either it quickly dies out and for all intents and purposes is forgotten, or it has more serious and lasting implications such as incorporation into legislation and social policy, as can be seen by the introduction of the National Sex Offenders Register (Paedophile Register) in the late 1990s, in response to the growing concern and panic over child sex offences (Cohen 1972: 9)...

Furedi suggests that moral panics have a tendency to occur ‘at times when society has not been able to adapt to dramatic changes’ and when such change leads those concerned to express fear over what they see as a loss of control. The ‘modernising trends of the 1960’s (‘the sexual revolution’) for example, were seen by many as heralding a decline in moral standards, while those involved were accused of ‘undermining society’s moral foundations’ (Furedi 1994: 3). However, as Furedi points out, the events that embody the ‘panic’ or new development, may in themselves have little to do with the ‘panicky response’ that occurs as a result."

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Feedback mail:

"I'm just carusing by... but I can't help but be amazed at the intolorance and cynicism of Asian culture, not saying that you are any of that, or what have you, but GOD, how it throws itself in the eyes, what the FUCK you have to injest and digest in your culture. Worldwide we need to let go of it all...

I couldn't just walk past without a small word... Forgive any grievence."


I wasn't sure how to respond to this for a few days, sent from a Russian domain.

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RootkitRevealer

"What is a Rootkit?

The term rootkit is used to describe the mechanisms and techniques whereby malware, including viruses, spyware, and trojans, attempt to hide their presence from spyware blockers, antivirus, and system management utilities. There are several rootkit classifications depending on whether the malware survives reboot and whether it executes in user mode or kernel mode.

Persistent Rootkits
A persistent rootkit is one associated with malware that activates each time the system boots. Because such malware contain code that must be executed automatically each system start or when a user logs in, they must store code in a persistent store, such as the Registry or file system, and configure a method by which the code executes without user intervention.

Memory-Based Rootkits
Memory-based rootkits are malware that has no persistent code and therefore does not survive a reboot.

User-mode Rootkits
There are many methods by which rootkits attempt to evade detection. For example, a user-mode rootkit might intercept all calls to the Windows FindFirstFile/FindNextFile APIs, which are used by file system exploration utilities, including Explorer and the command prompt, to enumerate the contents of file system directories. When an application performs a directory listing that would otherwise return results that contain entries identifying the files associated with the rootkit, the rootkit intercepts and modifies the output to remove the entries.

The Windows native API serves as the interface between user-mode clients and kernel-mode services and more sophisticated user-mode rootkits intercept file system, Registry, and process enumeration functions of the Native API. This prevents their detection by scanners that compare the results of a Windows API enumeration with that returned by a native API enumeration."

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Ooh, new strip on The Students' Sketchpad.

After satirising students from the School with the Most Indecent Uniform in Singapore Bar None (Maybe I should try Google bombing this, just as I have Raffles Guys School and The Premier Institution of Social Engineering), almost of whom took it in the spirit with which it was meant to be taken, the authors have moved on to Raffles Guys School, with their latest offering: The Feminazic RGS Girl.

Good thing they're only identifying themselves as "En" and "Hou", or they'd be lynched by a mob that'd only grow by the week (or strip, rather).


(The Feminazic Raffles Guy is bogged down with bags)

Boy scout (in a light green surgical gown): HI, I'm from the boy scouts. MIND IF I HELP? You can sign my good deed week card.

Boy scout: MA'AM?

Feminazic Raffles Guy: BOY... SCOUTS? BOYS...? BOYS...? BOYS...? INFANTILE LITTLE CHAUVINIST! I WILL NOT LET YOU SATISFY YOUR SICK FETISH OF CARRYING MY STUFF! MCP! MALE DOMINATION ENDS HERE!

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Rachel Gets Fruity! - "Now boys, keep your eyes on me and put one hand down your trousers. But wait. I only want you to touch..."
SFW