Someone: what is "non-altar"?
and what is "altar man-ism"?
how come ppl on YR don't use plain english and insist on trying to sound arty-farty smarty

Me: hmm
this is a specific concept

"Yes and I can learn to see the great and glorous Whole Picture. I can see all the men defecating and urinating in their trousers before they died at Chateau-Thierry watching their own guts fall out into their laps and screaming out of a hole that isn't a mouth anymore, as manifestations of that sublime harmony and balance which is ineffable and holy and beyond all sepech and reason. Sure, I can see that, if I knock half of my brain out of commission and hypnotize myself into thinking that the view from that weird perspective is deeper and wider and more truly true than the view from an unclouded mind. Go to the quadruple-amputee ward and try to tell them that. You speak of death as a personified being. Very well: Then I must regard him as any other entity that gets in my way. Love is a myth invented by poets and other people who couldn't face the world and crept off into corners to create fantasies to console themselves. The fact is that when you meet another entity, either it makes way for you or you make way for it. Either it dominated and you submit, or you dominate and it submits. Love? Equality? Reconciliation? Acceptance? Those are the excuses of the losers, to persuade themselves that they choose their condition and weren't beaten down into it. Love of country? Another lie; the truth is fear of cops and prisons. Love of art? Another lie; the truth is fear of the naked truth without ornaments and false faces on it. Love of truth itself? The biggest lie of all; fear of the unknown. People learn acceptance of all this and achieve wisdom? They surrender to superior force and call their cowardice maturity. It ultimately comes down to one question: Are you kneeling at the altar, or are you on the altar watching the others kneel to you?

You know, my contempt for lies has an element of the very sentimentality and foolish idealism that I have been rejecting. Perhaps I will be most effective if I never speak so honestly again."

Someone: the difficulty with talking to you is I can never tell if you're telling me something you think or you're quoting someone else

Me: notice the quotation marks?

Someone: lol
yeah lah
I know

I meant before
I was thinking whoa, this gabriel
brain working overtime man
din know he had such a poetic streak
hahahah


Someone else: if you were female then no one would call you misogynistic anymore. they'd just say you were a sad bitch or something like that.

[Unrelatedly:] they were in that girl's dance nation competition.
judging by the picture from that contest, all sgp dancers know how to do is simulate sexy dance moves


Someone: haha we're all like. if you know you're ognna get your thing during obs, drink lots of cold stuff two weeks before.
so youll get it one week early.

Me: cold stuff?!

Someone: yeah! you get your period faster if you eat a lot of cold stuff yknow. and if you do so while having it then it'll last longer. and sometimes get more crampy also.

it really works haha most girls know. xD

Someone was complaining that I use too many Economics terms in real life. For example:

Friend: *shows me picture of rope bridge* Would you cross it?
Me: I'm a believer in efficient markets - if that bridge were going to break, it would've broken already.
Friend: What if you're the one to clear the market?
Me: Too bad.

In my defence, that other person was an economics major as well, and that seems to be a common and acceptable setting in which to do so. Other terms which pop up: "transaction costs", "sunk costs", "I want to clear the market" (in relation to printing at Business just on principle)

Someone: i was going to say yes. use it when i wannaa be an ass
­just like how you just demostrated
haha

Someone else: well if entropy of system, of which logic of my conversation is a subset of, does not cross into the right hand side of the jw axis and create instability, i might...
however, true to form as engineer
i usually assume wat i cannot simplify n b as brief n as short as long as dey r nt incmprhnsble
haha

Someone (2): it just filters out the dumbasses from ur life
for instance when i say: i think she's quite the feminist.
and the enginerd replied: that means she's the most feminine is it
no im not tryin to be proud here, but well, yeah it is interesting to use ivory-towered vocab in real life to elicit some entertaining responses

Lawyer: of course
any reasonable person would

"What's the difference between a boyfriend and a husband? About 30 pounds." - Cindy Gardner

***

I went to the Business computer lab to print things (and enjoy 4 cent/page printing) and found a sign saying that with effect from July 1st 2006, it would be for Business students only, and access would be via matriculation cards. Why this is the case I know not, since everytime I went there in the past it was either empty or deserted. In contrast, the Arts computer lab at AS7 is always at least 2/3 full, and often during peak periods no terminals are free. Engineering and Computing also have restricted access facilities, as far as I know.

As the former Grace Quek lookalike complained: "We don't have any restricted access [facilities]. Arts - we're like a prostitute. Everyone comes in and uses us."

Someone pointed out that USP has a restricted access computer lab as well, but that's tiny and anyway there isn't 5 cent/page printing there. Hell, they exploit their own students (at least if photocopying in the Reading Room is still 5 cents/page).

In the end, rebuffed by the door at Business, I went to the library to print, only to find that the computers at level 1 had no Word or Powerpoint, and I had to go to level 2 to print my Powerpoint slides. But then I'd run out of time already, so I printed my slides at Arts in the end. Grr.


Amazon.com is described as such: "In order to cope with the Christmas rush, Amazon has far more computing capacity than it needs for most of the year. As much as 90% of it is idle at times." Looks like we've a solution for CORS downtime.

I'm told SoC has cheap colour printing at 30 cents/page, but you need to buy a package of 60 pages.

I'm told that there used to be free unofficial printing in the Cyberarts lab since there was an unsecured printer in there. Then 1 PRC spoiled the market by printing whole thick stacks of notes there. When the printer spoiled, he even had the cheek to email one of the admin staff asking him to fix it. So the printer got spirited away and now no one can use it.

It seems in one module there were 2 mid-term questions, one of which asked how long a pineapple took to mature and another asking what year the Japanese invaded. Both were multiple choice, so in the latter example 4 years in succession were given (I joked about a putative O level history MCQ asking what day the Japanese won, but truly truth is stranger than fiction). Someone whose Malaysian hometown grew pineapples got the first wrong, unfortunately.

"Basically a dog person. I certainly, though, wouldn't want to offend my constituents who are cat people, and I should say that being, I hope, a sensitive person, that I have nothing against cats, and had cats when I was a boy, and if we didn't have the two dogs might very well be interested in having a cat now." - Incoming Missouri Congressman James Talent, responding to the question "Are you a dog or a cat person?"

***

An abhorrent case of Islamophobia:

Outrage as Muslim cleric likens women to 'uncovered meat'

"A Muslim cleric's claim that women who do not wear the veil are like 'uncovered meat' who attract sexual predators sparked outrage around Australia yesterday.

Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, the nation's most senior Muslim cleric, compared immodestly-dressed women who do not wear the Islamic headdress with meat that is left uncovered in the street and is then eaten by cats...

Sheik al-Hilali suggested that a group of Muslim men recently jailed for many years for gang rapes were not entirely to blame.

There were women, he said, who 'sway suggestively' and wore make-up and immodest dress "and then you get a judge without mercy and gives you 65 years. But the problem, but the problem all began with who?" he said, referring to the women victims...

Women, he said, were 'weapons' used by Satan to control men."

The food posts haven't been coming, not because I haven't been cooking, but because of the reduced pace of about once a week, lack of experimentation (I almost always cook ta pao boxes either for myself or others) and because I don't sync my camera to my computer on a regular basis anymore and so taking and then posting photos is annoying.

I just made a simple Pasta Pomodoro with Smoked Garlic Pork Sausage (garlic, onion, smoked pork sausage, sun dried tomatoes preserved in olive oil). Since it's simple it has a very clean taste; perhaps too clean. I considered adding the herbs provencale I hadn't used since the ratatouille but decided against it. Using the olive oil used to preserve the sun dried tomatoes instead of normal olive oil added some of the flavour that I'm more used to in my pasta; I also added more olive oil than usual since there's no sauce - hopefully it won't be absorbed by the pasta by tomorrow. Remembering to add salt this time helped too, I think (as well as the magic ingredient - a small sprinkle of sugar). I hope it won't taste even cleaner tomorrow when I have it for lunch. Maybe I'll just stick to real sauces next time, especially for food that's not to be eaten on the spot.

2 Fridays ago I also had some chicken curry. Unfortunately it didn't turn out so well. Firstly in texture (I didn't cook the blended onions for long enough, I think) and also in taste (maybe the British curry powder is better suited to flavouring yoghurt/cream based curries than onion based curries - there was something lacking in the taste). It was also vaguely sour. But then I don't think just blended onions and a few tablespoons of milk can ever give you the richness of coconut milk/cream or even yoghurt.

Oct 19th 2006, Letters

Thinking man

SIR – The Marqués de Tamarón used an old and easily refuted argument in his attempt to defend religious faith against atheism by pointing to the godless regimes of communism and National Socialism (Letters, October 7th). He should have considered that Stalin's regime (like that of China under Mao) was based on a personality cult, and that Nazism was underpinned by a warped Nordic mythology and ideology centred on an Aryan master race. These cultish, quasi-religious qualities have little in common with atheism. Atheists believe that rationality and critical thinking serve humanity better than blind faith and religious dogma. The regimes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao did not come into being in order to defend atheism. And the horrors of communism and Nazism occurred not because these societies applied too much reason and critical thinking, rather because they did not apply enough.

Mark Eaton

Vancouver

July Trip
22/7 - Reims/Bayeux

When I got on the night train at Avignon, I wondered if I'd been cheated. I'd paid for a couchette, yet what I saw in front of me was just a chair. A chair that could recline at a 45 degree angle, but a chair nonetheless. Perhaps, I thought, this was what a 2nd class couchette was, and I should've gotten a real, 1st class one. In any case, I made the best of it, not least since it was better than !@#$ Eurolines.

The golden rule of seat allocation didn't seem to have been followed - I saw one guy sleeping on all 4 seats on his row, while other rows had 3/4 seats filled. The guy beside me didn't have his phone on silent mode, and it rang more than once. Gah.

When I got off the train in the morning at Reims, I found that I'd gotten on the wrong car, which was why I hadn't gotten the couchette that I'd paid for. I must've been misled by the LCD which said which letter of the voie each car would be at, and instead of car 62 ('couchettes') I got up car 63 ('sieges inclinables'). My sleep had been alright, but I was just annoyed at myself on principle.

There weren't left luggage services, so I lugged my backpack (~9kg?) and smaller bag around the city on foot.


Fontaine Sude


Joan of Arc


Tourism office - I wonder if it's fake

On perusing the information at Tourist Information (which had no idea about left luggage), I found that there were more World Heritage Sites than I thought: the Saint-Remi abbey-museum (unfortunately only ope at 2, after the time I'd have left by), the Saint-Remi Basilica, Notre Dame (of course) and the Tau Palace. There were lots of other interesting-sounding things but I had just under half a day, no left luggage facilities and the Saint-Remi places were too far. Ah well. Anyhow, the cathedral was da bomb.


Notre Dame, where Clovis and friends were baptised



Side view


Portal

There were lots of tri-lingual information panels. Unlike in some neighboring countries.

'The annointing with the holy oil links the King of France to the Kings of Israel and especially to DAVID. He is above all the Sovereign of the New Covenant who is to lead another chosen people, the Franks.' - Perhaps there were translation issues, but maybe they have delusions of grandeur (and someone is betraying La République Française).


Stained glass over entrance (Rose Portal?)

There was a disgusting piece of modern stained glass by a Marc Chagail, the writeup to which went: "At a time when art seemed devoid of any biblical content or inspiration, this great modern artist, raised on the Holy Books from his infancy, devoted many of his works to it". Bah.


Nave


Choir stand


Stained glass at the far end of the Nave. It was hard to view properly even with the naked eye.

'Chapel of the Holy Sacrament. Please keep silent in this place. Why don't you spend a moment here to pray, to thank God...' - I love European English.

I saw a black woman with the most hideous hair. The first description which came to mind was Medusa. Nay, Medusa had better hair - this woman's hair looked like it had the texture of brain lobes (yes, there were the folds), so it looked like she was wearing her brain on her head.


More stained glass over the entrance. This should be to the right of the main portal.


This should be the Rose Window again.

Italian chuch walls were filled with chapels, frescoes and paintings, yet French ones seemed bare. Probably it was Revolutionary damage.

The difference in lighting between areas with stained glass and areas with clear glass made me wonder about the supposed airiness of the Gothic style. But I suppose it's all relative.

Reims was probably one epitome of the Gothic style.

Churches in Italy ask you to cover your shoulders. But how about other parts? How about midriff-baring and cleavage-exposing outfits?

It's always nice when they play organs in the church. It adds to the atmosphere (I think this means it was playing when I was there)

There was this girl in Italy who was wearing a top the back of which looked like a shark had taken several bites out of (perhaps while the previous owner of the outfit had been wearing it, and this one had picked it upwhen the body was washed ashore). In other words, her back was bare except for strings crossing her back and linking both sides together. If you were to expose your flesh, more power to you, but this is beyond a matter of decency - concerns of tastelessness aside, it was just downright ugly.
Aside, comments on the first sentence: "your phrasing is pompous and ineleagant"
"convoluted sentence. it's as if i'm reaidng some judgment! be gone!"
"splitting your tenses.. well."


Vaulting


Virgin of the Assumption above the main portal, to whom the Cathedral was dedicated. I particularly liked the carving in the Reims Notre Dame. I think Notre Dame in Paris was good too, but thanks to the Cock I have no frame of reference.


The figures to the right of the main portal are unique in having angels with open wings. Or something.


Angels to the left of the door to the left of the main portal


I'm calling this the side portal but it looks like it's been bricked up, or was never a portal.


More cathedral views

There was a shop near the cathedral where someone got me some shirts, including the doubly haram one (a less Haram version had a French flag in place of the glass of wine). There was a nice shirt with a sculptural fragment on it, but it was available in kids' sizes only.

The Tau Palace sounded like it had lots of good stuff, including the Cathedral Treasury. Ah well. Better to visit the Cathedral sans Treasury than neither.

The spirit of love was in the air in Reims, as it was in Paris, with PDA. I saw a guy kissing a girl on a street. That in itself was nothing spectacular, but he also fondled (as opposed to pinched) her butt.

At Gabriel's behest, I am providing an illustrative example of the difference between a close platonic friendship with someone of the opposite sex, and a romatic relationship, and how that difference is not mrely about sex.

Platonic friendship
a) You sleep in the same bed as your close platonic friend, but you never sleep with each other
b) Your close platonic friend pimps out her female friends for you, and you likewise bring out your male friends to pimp for her. (assuming both parties are unattached)
c) You call each other "bitch" and "asshole" repeatedly and you under no qualms about telling each other to fuck off without rancour if you are tired of their presence or if you have better things to do.
d) At clubs you dance close to each other but never with each other
e) Even when drunk you don't try to kiss each other or feel each other up

Romantic relationship
a) You sleep in the same bed as your gf, but you don't sleep with each other because she feels she's nto ready to take the next step
b) She worries about you hanging out with female friends; you worry about her hanging out with male friends
c) You call each other "darling" and "honeybunny" repeatedly and both of you take pains to hang out or see each other or do things for each other despite having better/more important things to do
d) At clubs you dance with each other
e) When drunk you both start crying melodramatically about loving each other and only wanting no one but each other and helping each other clean up vomit stains.


Postscript:

Gabriel: your post is not what I was looking for

so I assume the difference is merely about sex
hurr hurr

HWMNBN: no
there is no sex in both scenarios
it's about expected behaviours more than sex

granted i chose stereotypes
but we've had the stereotype conversatio before

gah
if yo udon't like it go write one yourself

Gabriel: *facepalm*
there's a reason why I asked you to write it

anyone reading this can go: "oh yes, it's just about sex"

HWMNBN: NO IT'S NOT
READ IT CAREFULLY
IT'S ABOUT THE WAY YOU'RE EXPECTE TO BEHAVE WITH AND AROUDN EACH OTHER IF YOU'RE IN A ORMANTIC RELATIONSHIP VS THAT OF A PLATONIC RELATIONSHIP

above and beyond sex
i tell *** to fuck off all the time and i don't feel a need to constantly entertain her patter and vice-versa
whereas with *** it was pretty much a "if i want to talk to you, you have to talk to me" kidn of thing

i admit that relationships hafe many shades and nuances

Gabriel: that's because you want sex

HWMNBN: *hollow laugh* how much sex do you think i had with ***?

*GNASNGASNFHDFHNADNFHDSFH*S

although i will admit that sex is a huge part of the difference
one of the large rparts

but frnakly relationships have many shades and nuances
so there's considerable overlap between the two concepts depending on your interpretation
sex is the easiest dividing line to point to, but it's nto the only difference

4 strikes.

I believe the saying is "3 strikes and you're out".

I didn't know Ringafling was tonight. It seems like only yesterday that I snapped that "My name is Milk" rubbish poster, which came with no date, venue or clue to what Ringafling was. In any case, Ringafling is even more ridiculous and salacious than anything I've seen so far. I wonder what new depths they have to plumb. Oh, and it's not by Science.


The buzz:

NUSSU Bizcom presents:

RINGAFLING @ Zouk
27th October 2006
Friday
830pm till late.

The party to remember.

What are you waiting for? Don’t. Hold. Back.

Party like you know no limits.

Tickets going at
$12 (presales)

Our models will blow you. Away.
Watch them live out your fantasies.
Sit tight for a night of mystery and burning passion as our mystery sizzling hotties reveal themselves.
Keep your phone close to your body and you might get up close and personal with them.
Be sure to leave with a memorable night.

Be a sport! Take part in our programmes and stand a chance to win ipod nanos and more than $50,000 worth of vouchers!

And girls, come in your shortest skirts and get $1 off with skirts every 1cm shorter than 25cm.

BE there!! And don’t miss out for the chance to party with the hottest people in campus.

Contact Yisi at *** for tickets
OR
Visit the Ringafling booths at the NUS AS6 walkway from Monday(23/10) to Thursday(26/10) to get your tickets NOW!

Supplementary hilarity: "Babes come in your mini skirts ( exclusive discounts- a dollar off every cm shorter than 25 cm. and you stand to win attractive prizes as well!)"

What will they win? Longer skirts? Shorter skirts? FBT shorts to protect their modesty? Lacy underwear to show off to guys who upskirt them?

And since Ringafling is $12, if you go in with a <13cm skirt, do they pay you to come?


As L (skirt length) tends to 0, X (the amount they pay you) tends to $13

Xephyris: "come without a skirt, you are infinitely shorter than 25cm and thus win enough money you can buy the attractive prize yourself"

Someone: "i like to think of it as an economic exercise, we, em they, are simply subsidizing them for the positive externality they bring with a shorter skirt length, that of course, begs the question, does long skirts incur negative externalities? depends on who's wearing them."


The best word on the subject, I think, is this:

"I was studying in the clubroom on Tuesday night, till about 2 am, when I left to go back to hall.

While I was walking back, I realised that while I'd been holed up in the clubroom, some people had gone around sticking up posters for the StompAIDS campaign.

They were *everywhere*. Really. On *every* pillar along the AS6 and AS1 corridors; you couldn't walk five steps without seeing one.

And here's the funny thing.

NUSSU Bizcomm has a bash on the 27th of October, and in the tradition of NUS bashes, its theme has some sexual innuendo to it, although perhaps not so subtly veiled: bright posters of luscious, shiny, lipsticked lips and telephone keypads proudly declare the name of the bash-- RingAFling.

If that doesn't imply one-night stands, I don't know what does.

And then you have this flood of AIDS awareness posters with their half-naked, semi-faceless models veiled in dark purple lighting, declaring that casual sex kills.

Oh, the irony.

And look at what I snapped today with my camera phone, along the AS1 corridor.



The two posters side by side, on adjacent sides of a pillar.

This is gonna crack me up for the next week or so. LOL. :D"

(O.o --Limbo-- o.O)

Someone had tipped me off about the placement, but I never got down to tracking it down. So kudos to her!

If the bash poster had gone up after the AIDS one, someone's head is going to roll. If the AIDS poster had gone up after the bash one, someone's head is going to be decorated.


And so, my updated list of names of NUS student events is expanded:

"Indulgence, Decadence, Ecstasy, Harem, Tease, Legal-disiac, Barely Legal, Bare, Naughty by Nature, E XXX othermic, Forplay, Tryst, Compulsion, Envy: Sin or Sense?, S.T.R.I.P, Dare 21, Ringafling, Temptations (All bashes except for the last, a bazaar)"

Damn, I realise I didn't get any while I was away. Ah well. I'll get plenty of new ones in the next 3 semesters anyway.

July Trip
21/7 - Avignon


Popes' Palace frontage

This was during the festival, so there were lots of performances.


Moyen Age Japonais L'art Populaire SaSaLa (Japanese Middle Ages Performance)
This was part of the Festival - I was not sure if I was supposed to give $1. There was no money in the basket and no one gave anything, so I didn't either.



In one performance, a French man was singing out of tune through a loudhailer and 2 others tried to stop him, and then carried him off when he wouldn't stop. Another had 2 French women in black doing a wth pushup position, rolling around on the floor, getting into the wheelbarrow position (with the one on top sliding down the back of the one below) and then starting to dance around around, with their hands almost touching, then getting on a cube, writhing in slow motion, curling and uncurling. Gah, Flesh Parade is more interesting. Making it worse, irritating French music was coming out of nowhere (musically) and progressing nowhere, only raising my blood pressure. Or it would have if I wasn't smiling and trying to suppress my laughter.

I paid €2 for a 1/2 pint granita. I'd peered at the crystals, but couldn't quite tell what flavour the granita was. In the end it was alright - the texture was good, but it was too sour (you'd expect that from the French - the Italian ones were too sweet). Furthermore, I saw, felt and tasted the texture of real fruit - in Italy they were all syrup (except the Citrone one I got from this guy pushing a pushcart in Naples which came with a lemon wedge).


Avignon Bridge

At both the Bridge and Palace, although the audioguide was included in the admission price, they didn't bother to tell people this. You had to squint at the sign or ask to find out. Gah. For example at the Popes' Palace they could've told me when I deposited my bag, but they didn't!


Gate


Bridge

The audioguide mentioned the 'famous refrain sung throughout the world today', in relation to the Avignon Bridge song. For some reason though, I didn't get to hear the song being sung in the audioguide. Bah. They're probably parochial enough to think the whole world knows about their song.


St Benezet's Chapel, 1184

The audioguide informed me that the bridgebuilders drew inspiration from the Pont du Gard, described as 'a few hours walk from here'. Thanks ah.

Written accounts tell us that in March 1670, 500 years after his death, they exhumed Saint Benezet's remains from the chapel and found his body in perfect condition. According to written accounts, there was no decomposition and there was a sweet smell. In 1793, during the French Revolution, rebel soldiers opened the reliquary and found that the remains had decomposed; evidently God had let the body decompose between the 17th and 18th centuries - the world was sinful even then, so they couldn't witness such miracles (perhaps God was unhappy that the Divine Right of Kings had been violated by the revolutionaries and then cursed France so the saint's body rotted). In 1984 they examined his head and found that he was 25 years old when he died.




Rhone, looking east.


Xephyris: "looks like one of the villains from some sentai gig haha"
There was a Taiwanese freak show running. One person was 'bluextraterrestrial', one was 'autumn' and one was 'dragon'. A dog was barking at the first one. Though they were Taiwanese, 'autumn''s posturing was very French.
Xephyris: "i thought it was french too hahahaha
­this must be my horribly ignorant and culturally insensitive mind working"


They were carrying a "Feydeau - Tailleur pour dames" sign

I should go to Avignon one year and make a fool of myself.

One guy was very lame. He was wearing a mortarboard and had a sign reading: "HELP! I bet that I would collect 100€ today". I wonder what the wager was.


Camel man. Usually camels are made of 2 people. Maybe he was on a budget.

I saw a poster for 'Les Monologues du Penis' it was a matter of time.

I saw gazpacho in a tetrapak with a screw on cap. Hmm. The French take supermarket convenience food to a new level.


Jardins et Promenades


14th century walls, gate ('Porte de la Republique')

For dinner I went to Flunch, which someone had recommended, and her recommendations are rarely off (besides the worst Calamari in the world). I had a menu du jour - 1 chicken cylinder in a tomato sauce, 1 creme brulee (quite big) and a can of drink for €7,90. At the salad bar, water and ice were free, and there was a variety of starches: wedges, fries, yellow rice, shell pasta, potato cubes - not potato salad and mashed potato (The magic words '7 légumes différences par jour et à volonté'; yes I seem either to have missed one or been shortchanged). There were also sauces: brown pepper, tomato-courgette sauce and smooth tomato sauce. Olive oil, vinegar, ketchup, mayonnaise and mustard were dispensed at liberty too.

Unfortunately I think I attacked the wedges too enthusiastically. I hadn't felt so bloated since Singapore.

'Entree du cinema entre gratuite pour les couples' www.body-fashion.com cinema permanente - eng?
I think this note means this sign was displayed outside a cinema with this URL displayed there.

A group of people of all ages ('Avignon en Rollers') were rollerblading through the main street of the town centre. Those on the periphery were wearing fluorescent red and yellow jackets.

I think I know what the 2 flaps of skin are meant to be, but what about the last?

One train came early. Luckily it didn't leave early, like Eurolines buses.

Frigid Girl: apparently
latest breaking news

some couple
canadian guy, prc gal
have been having sex so loudly in hall
that everyone in the block hears
the prc was yelling in a stilted eng 'don't stop!'

sheares i think


Someone: but i heard that prcs are really horny

my fren told me
ntu
that his fren saw this prc couple making love in the tv room

i mean u wanna have sex u shld be decent enough to go back to ur room
they do it in the hall's tv room

and in ntu
they'll kiss on the benches

but ireally cannot stand prc

did i tell u that
when i was in yr1
waiting for my neighbour at the engine bridge
at ard 7pm
there's this prc guy
he walked up to me and asked me to go to his hostel

it's really wtf

i was damn freaked out ­
then i quickly walk to the library

no la [not cute]
­prc
­have u seen a cute prc?


Someone else: the girl hot or not
did anyone RECORD
hehe
the moans

it'd be funny leh
we duynno who also mah
so no harm
haha

but well, if u get the sound clip, forward to me
hehehe


As PaRaDoX commented: "PRC make love damn loud", and as someone else added: "Wo3 lai2 le4!

ARGH

I'm about to get an apoplectic fit!

I walk into Chatterbox and people are sitting around a table, with one person playing a guitar and singing YOU-KNOW-WHAT songs.

This is one of my worst nightmares, though I only knew it post-hoc.

ARGH

Time to blast "What if God smoked Cannabis?" and "My Little Bird - Our Thoughts are Free"

The free screening of An Inconvenient Truth I went to today was marred only by this guy some rows in front of me who persisted in talking audibly over a long period of time (at least 30 mins, maybe up to 1 hour). Eventually I did what I should've done earlier and shouted in that general direction.

Later someone asked me why I shouted. I was wondering if I was hearing voices, but I don't think I'm that far gone (yet) and anyway the talking stopped after my outburst.

I was wondering why no one else would shout at him. Maybe it was game theory. Or everyone else was just sleeping through Al Gore's Powerpoint presentation.


To catch my bus, I jayran across the road when there was no traffic other than 2 buses at the bus stop.

A Malaysian shouted after me, 'careful!'

Maybe she's been studying here too long, heh.

I love the chair-throwing we get on YR.

If you have a short attention span, click here to go to part 2, which is both short and delicious.


A: If she's smart, the only two lessons she can draw from this debacle are:

a) Keep your mouth shut in the public domain, because people can't handle the truth
b) Who cares about public castigation? Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo/Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.

If she's got what it takes to achieve the success owing to her as part of the educated/pampered elite (which is by no means a guaranteed factor as a result of inherited endowments - see ACS(B)) I say more power to her. The world has its privileged elites who have more freedom and opportunity to do what they want; boo-fucking-hoo, what are you going to do about it, ESPECIALLY SINCE MOST PEOPLE ON THIS LIST ARE IN THAT POSITION? Make whining value judgments about how the current state of economc injustice isn't a demonstrably provable a priori moral axiom or name-droppingly cite abstruse disertations on the ontological imperative to do good? This kind of intellectual masturbation does little to change the facts on the ground, and its even more sickeningly hypocritical coming from people who are already by and large on the winning side of the current social equation, benefiting the most from the status quo. It's like the aristocrat who patronishingly applies a band-aid on a leper's sore, making sure that his ermine cloak doesn't get stained with pus, while the leper is dying in the gutter.

To compare; I'm a career failure because I didn't apply myself; I went to a lousy uni where I ended up an alcholic and a bipolar depressive; all this even though I came from a middle-class, private-condo dwelling family that could afford tuition and assessment books and an overseas education for me. Do you hear me clamouring to be added on the welfare list? Should I be going to claim mental disability payments for being a victim of extenuating circumstances?

I got what I deserved for my own indolence and ineptitude and wasting my "initial endowments" - and now I live in penury supporting my family and working like a dog in a pittance-paying, no-future job - THAT'S reality, THAT's the economic truth, like the law of gravity, and I take full personal responsibility for not being capable of bettering my condition, as opposed to laying blame at the foot of "social conditions" or "privileged endowments". I'd rather you Ivy Leaguers/Oxbridge people with your six-figure salaries spat on me for being a failure - which I'd unflinchingly accept as my just due - than endure your patronising, condescending platitudes about how i'm a victim of social inequality and economic disenfranchisement and globalization's ill-effects and Gini coefficients.

I don't blame share-holder accountable MNCs for refusing to hire me instead of some workaholic CV-buffed Oxford/Columbia grad with a scholarship buyout (whether that person is certainly best for the job in the long run is another issue, but the signalling logic holds true in the short-medium term given today's economic conditions) and I certainly do not insist on pillaging by coercive redistribution the fruits of another man's labour.

Frankly, the population of this list, despite their avowed commitment to open debate, appear incapable or unwilling to face fucking facts when it goes against your liberal groupthink - it's far easier to remain discreet to avoid the mob when someone says something that raises the rabble's collective hackles. I suppose this is because most of you immature vermin have not even begun to enter the workforce (whether gov't sinecure or private sector) or have experienced anything about the real working world beyond pallid internships or career cocktails; I think time - and market forces - will demonstrate to your satisfaction that no one owes anyone else a fucking living, and that the sickening intellectual justifications for bleeding-heartism seen on this list is just a hypocritical expression of privilege and pampered elitism.

You can only look down your noses in pity at the injustices of the world and postulate elaborate models of social egalitarianism with the luxury of scholarship/education/lapidary middle-class prosperity - and most of you will end up working for hedge funds, investment banks, law firms or high-paying civil service jobs serving the same kind of systematic social oppression that you're castigating now. (Of course the females - and you know who you are - can always end up sleeping with high-achieving alpha males as a proxy for achievement; that way with self-sustainability out of the way you have the luxury for guilt-free philanthropy, teaching, or social work)

People like us out in the real world who have real jobs, real concerns, families, bills, dying parents, hospital costs, inflation, spiralling property prices, etc etc simply don't have the luxury you spoiled, pampered pack of scions do to feel your detached, nauseating, debate-society, mouth-clucking pity for our fellow human beings. We're too busy paying the taxes and bills that bankroll your scholarships (FMS-ers of course excluded).

People who are whining about the world as they think it should be when they will end up perpetuating the world as it is shouldn't have the fucking gall to PREACH about it. To the few of you on the list deserving of an iota of respect (mad propz to tha P-Dawg); excuse the frothily hysterical and repetitively rabid quality of the above poorly-little rant, but I simply haven't got the sangfroid to avoid venting B-class bitchy outrage at the attitude of some people here.


B: This is the most ridiculous post I've read on the list in a long time. My name is bandied around, so I suppose that I shall reply to this particular piece of dross.

1) Bitter much? The vehemence with which you speak of 'hypocrisy' is certainly vituperative and vicious. Just because someone accepts a scholarship does not mean that he or she is buying into the system, or going to perpetuate the shittiness that is inherent in the current system. I believe that XXX has already clarified that this girl's stance breaks her heart, and that is why she would like to join the education service - to dispel such idiotic notions. Many of us take scholarships for various other personal reasons. To say that we benefit from the system but are not blind to its weaknesses and excesses therefore we are hypocritical does not make sense. Like most of your post.

2) Lovely to know that most of us are ivory-towered scholars. Where were you, for example, when I asked for assistance with Mission Angkor? I have a friend called Smriti. Both her parents are doctors, her sister is an Oxford medic, she's training to be a lawyer at Durham. Last year she raised $300,000 to renovate the operating theatre of a hospital in Cambodia. I am sure that I have bored you by regaling you with such tales. But surely this is proof to the contrary that "bleeding-heartism" is expression of some form of deep-seated hypocrisy.

3) At any rate, Miss Wee's comments are an example of how the "elite" has so totally divorced itself from the "underclass". Surely the answer to this is not less debate, but more. The reason why we post on this list, surely, is that we actually care about the issues at hand. Why else would we waste our time on this?

4) I am sure that I am a posterboy/girl for such divorced-from-reality bleeding-heart noblesse-oblige pampered-elitist hypocrisy. Not that this has anything to do with the debate at hand, but my family is painfully middle class at most. Most of my uncles and aunties remind me of the Derek person at whom Ms Wee so verbosely hurled abuse. Therefore I took offence. And I take offence now, especially. Loved your sob story though.

the point of this, in response to A's dumbass rant about how the more intelligent/haves/fortunate side of the normal curve/etc etc are all secretly hypocritical when they benefit from the system and at the same time complain about it blah blahblahiamsoincoherentpropztoP-dawg is that some who have benefited from the system actually use their brains to help. i could go on about responsible charity but this is irrelevant to the point at hand, which is whether debate is hypocritical (firstly, it is not. secondly, it is irrelevant). but it is suffice to say that those who have benefitted from the system do not subconsciously buy into it and support it. i realise i have used the term 'the system' as one would say 'the matrix' or 'the great outdoors' and i will try to stop.


C: I'm not even sure what kind of altruism would satisfy your non-hypocrisy criterion? Perhaps you think that egalitarians should give away their money to the point that their wealth reaches a marginal equilibrium with that of the poorest person in the world? Or until they reach working class status? Or? Really I'd like to know what kind of action would entitle someone to 'preach' egalitarianism?


D: That was some WMD barrage. For all that, I personally find it amusing because a real pittance-paying no-future job definitely does not exist in the technical finance specialist line that you're in.

The argument you put forward for your own life situation is therefore ... rich. Even if you (as in yourself personally) wanted to be added on welfare there is this little thing called means testing. And there isn't really a link between means testing and extenuating social inequality circumstances except in a fuzzy-wuzzy armchair-theoretical way. The link in means testing is direct - if one is poor, one needs money to buy food, and if money is available due to redistribution of the fruits of another man's labour, then so be it man, joy to all.

If you really hate coercive redistribution that much, don't pay taxes. No one owes anyone else a fucking living after all. Walk your talk too.

But I am curious: where are "the sickening intellectual justifications for bleeding-heartism seen on this list"?

> People who are whining about the world as they think it should be
> when they will end up perpetuating the world as it is shouldn't
> have
> the fucking gall to PREACH about it.

Certainly they can - illustrative example, if I have joy or something in giving away $100 in my billion-USD fortune to someone who desperately needs the $100 to fulfil some immediate essential life-or-death need, this is a win-win situation. Though I could be considered a Cock(TM) for being happy at giving away a mere pittance of my fortune for good thereby perpetuating my billion-USD-wealth world as it still is, it's still a win-win situation. Mutually beneficial situations are highly desirable, and thus worth crowing about from the Highest Rooftops. Where my views differ from yours and the P-Dawg's is that "elaborate models of social egalitarianism" are built to better identify and serve these mutually beneficial situations in efficient double-quick time. What is social policy if not these elaborate models?

But I really have no idea what you're trying to say. :)


E: You can't have your cake and eat it, A -- is it OK to wallow uncaringly in the luxury of one's privilege or is it not? If it's OK, what's the material difference between condemning the underprivileged as failures without helping them, and cooing patronisingly at them without helping them? If it's not OK, surely both are problems. Is hypocrisy the only sin one can commit? Or is it just the easiest to score points on in a mailing list debate-society kind of way?


Me: A's argument has several basic points:

1) If you are fortunate and you care for others who are less fortunate than you without doing anything, you are a hypocrite. It's not the thought that counts.

2) A is a sad failure and it's his fault. He doesn't complain or ask for anything, so neither should anyone else.

3) People in the real world do not have the luxury of having a heart.

4) Talk alone is useless.


In response:

1) Opinions stand on their own merits, regardless of who holds them.

Playing the hypocrisy card is a cheap trick. Instead of seeking to build yourself up so you dominate the other side, you tear the other side down.

It's like mutually assured destruction. Technically you may win, but it's a pyrrhic victory. It's like Lawrence Ellison overtaking Bill Gates as the richest man in the world by, say, blowing up his house and sending a suicide bomber to bomb his car so Microsoft stocks plunge in value.

Or, as A might sympathise more with, like how Raistlin "conquered" the world, but found that there was nothing worth ruling over.

Besides which, is it really hypocrisy? The supposed analogy is an aristocrat patronishingly applying a band-aid on a leper's sore, making sure that his ermine cloak doesn't get stained with pus, while the leper is dying in the gutter. But surely that is better than not applying a band-aid at all. And much better than what wt would do, which would be to kick the leper, spit on him and walk off laughing.

And what about the other things us as "elites" would do?

- Taking time out to care for less fortunate (Helping the leper to the roadside and binding his wounds)
- Donating money to charity (Giving the leper money for anti-leprosy medication)
- Using your career (or at least 6 years of your bond) trying to make a difference (Dedicating your life to caring for the leper)
- Not being contemptuous towards the less fortunate (Smiling at the leper instead of freaking out and running away)
- Buying dolphin-friendly tuna (buying Leper(TM) brand tissue paper)
- Picking up starfish by the seashore (Cleaning one of the leper's sores)

You just have to wonder, wth is A smoking?!


2) wt is not a sad failure (see below).

If someone were a sad failure, it were his fault and they complained or asked for anything, we'd all justly bitchslap him. But the concern expressed is not for these people, but for those for whom it's not their fault. For example:

- Locals who work more and yet earn less and have less prestige than expatriates
- Ugly girls
- Kids born with nipples on their foreheads

Derek Wee is not complaining or asking for anything (at least nothing explicit explicitly), and it's not his fault companies don't want to hire old, yet talented people. What do you expect him and his friends to do? Drink from David Copperfield's Fountain of Youth?!

Furthermore, just because A does something does not mean we should all do it.

"I tell you to eat shit, then you go eat shit ah?"

Just because priests don't use condoms when they have affairs with nuns doesn't mean we should all go bareback!

Once again, wth is A smoking?!


3) People in the real world do have a heart. How else do charities survive? Or progressive tax systems?

4) Words have power. 2 words: "Communist Manifesto". Or maybe a sentence: "I did not have sex with that woman".


Next, one or two points to make:

>I certainly do not insist on pillaging by coercive redistribution the
>fruits of another man's labour.

If the progressive tax system did not exist, the masses would rise up and violently redistribute wealth. Would you deny them the fruits of their revolution?

Also, as the saying goes: "Better a bleeding heart than none at all"


Finally, some factual matters:

>I'm a career failure because I didn't apply myself;

Debatable, but not all those who study medicine become top-class surgeons. If you study medicine and end up running a private-GP practice instead of specialising, are you a failure?

>I went to a lousy uni

>I came from a middle-class, private-condo dwelling family

"There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class." - Judith Martin

This is like how the Economist described someone with a private yacht as being middle class.

>now I live in penury supporting my family and working like a dog in a
>pittance-paying, no-future job

This is about as true as my saying that I'm anorexic and need to gain weight.


In conclusion, A is spouting a pack of lies and verging on being Lying and Psychotic, and possibly Deluded too. I have this advice for him:

"He who deals with lying, deluded, psychotic, vindictive, treacherous bitches might take care lest he thereby become a lying, deluded, psychotic, vindictive, treacherous bitch. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."


F: To be fair there will be a slight lag-time before the wastrel sons squander their inheritances and drive their towkay grandfather's trishaw manufacturing empire into the ground after paying for all the mckinsey
fees to robustify their strong-form learnings... and the creditors come banging on the door to LBO their pound of flesh carve it up auction off the pieces to the highest bidder and suddenly there will be no more 'tea partays' at the american club in their preppy closest-to-oxford-they'll-ever-get shirts anymore. Market justice is slow but inevitable, like Edmond Dantes's revenge in the Count of Monte Cristo, and will bring them to the mediocrity they celebrate so much.


E: Not sure this analogy is the greatest advertisement ever for the market fundamentalist cause, a large part of the point of the story of Edmond Dantes' revenge being to illustrate the emptiness of the dispensations of so-called justice from Providence or its self-appointed human agents, and to suggest that we should pursue forgiveness and forward-looking happiness. Y'know, the small matter of, oh, only the entire denouement -- Villefort's unnecessarily murdered (though highly irritating) son, Dantes running off with Haydee, and all that. And personally I feel Mercedes gets a bit of a rubbish lot as well -- I mean, she couldn't possibly pine for her dead chappie forever.


C: I find it interesting that your definition of mediocrity = not top 1% in wealth. And I note no actual refutation of the egalitarian arguments have been put forward. I wonder why that is.


Me: Ooh, touche. I'd just like to add that this (Monte Cristo) is what happens when you follow the "altar man" philosophy.

"Altar man" philosophy: "It ultimately comes down to one question: Are you kneeling at the altar, or are you on the altar watching the others kneel to you?"

Those who adopt the "altar man" philosophy find that either they're kneeling at the altar when there's no need to do so and other people are doing better things with their lives, or they're on the altar and finding that no one gives a shit.

Either way they die bitter and empty.


"No matter how hard you hug your money, it never hugs back." - Quoted in P.S. I Love You, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

King's Singers - Marry a Woman Uglier Than You

If you want to be happy and live a king life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
If you want to be happy and live a king life
Never make a pretty woman your wife
All you’ve got to do is just what I say
Then you'll be happy, merry and gay
So from a logical point of view
Marry a woman uglier than you
So from a logical point of view
Marry a woman uglier than you

A pretty woman make her husband look small
And very often cause he downfall
As soon as she’s married, an affair she start
To do all those things that will break your heart
Just when you think she’s belonging to you
She's calling somebody else to do
So from a logical point of view
Marry a woman uglier than you

If you want to live a long and happy life
Avoiding consternation and marital strive
For a logical man this is easy to do
When you marry a woman uglier than you

But if you make an ugly woman your wife
You will be so happy all of your life
She wouldn’t do things in a funny way
Just to give the neighbours something to say
She wouldn't disregard her husband at all
By exhibiting herself to Peter and Paul
So, from a logical point of view
Marry a woman uglier than you

If you want to live a long and happy life
Avoiding consternation and marital strive
For a logical man this is easy to do
Just marry a woman
Marry a woman
Uglier than you

Ugly woman
Ugly woman
Ugly woman
I marry you!

"The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come." - Peter Ustinov

***

Trojan Installs Anti-Virus, Removes Other Malware - "At start-up, the Trojan requests and loads a DLL from the author's command-and-control server. This then downloads a pirated copy of Kaspersky AntiVirus for WinGate into a concealed directory on the infected system."

Bad boys big birds - All birds all the time!!! - SFW.

Prosecutor: Suicidal, text-messaging teen kills woman - "A lovesick teenage girl drove into an oncoming car in a suicide attempt that she counted down "8, 7, 6..." in a text message to the female classmate who spurned her, authorities said. The teenager survived but a woman in the other car -- a mother of three -- died."

Folktale Types - The Gold Scales - "Folktales are arranged in international folktale cataloges by (1) numbers, (2) titles and (3) summaries of the content (descriptions). Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson worked out the numbers that refer to folktale types. An AT-number may cover a whole folktale, or a sequence (an episode) of a folktale."
They have 2499 types of fairy tales. Wth.

College facebook-style Student Game - "Students from all colleges vote on pictures submitted by girls who voluntarily choose to be on the site. It’s meant as a fun, entertaining take on the Facebook.com college groups such as “The Absolute Hottest People on Facebook.” We figured we could democratize this process by letting students from all over vote instead of just a few Facebook.com group administrators."

ACCEPT JESUS, FOREVER FORGIVEN! - I haven't yet figured out if this is a joke.

What Can We Do to Prevent Suicide? - "If the majority of Micronesians really believe that suicide is an honorable option, then this paper is thoroughly useless and all of us had better resign ourselves to continuing high rates of suicide in the future. Young people, after all, are very quick in sensing the basic values of their elders. If they get the impression that we ourselves honor suicide, then they will be only too happy to oblige by hanging themselves."

gladder :: Mozilla Add-ons - "Get over Great Firewall with Great Ladder! This extension eases the pain of Internet censorship in mainland China. It automatically converts a binned URL to a good one. e.g. http://wikipedia.org to https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/. And all the URL replacement methods are being updated from the Internet every hour."

Putfile - Guinness World Records Highest vocal note by a male - This is amazingly high - off the piano. And yes, no more ban, it seems.

Nevada to vote on legalizing marijuana - "Gambling, prostitution, and now pot? Organizers of a Nevada ballot measure hope voters in a state where almost everything goes will go one better and legalize marijuana. If it passes Nov. 7, Nevada will be the first state to allow adults to possess up to an ounce of pot that they could buy at government-regulated marijuana shops... Proponents of the measure also argue that the legal system wastes time and money on low-level marijuana offenses, and that taxing and regulating pot would put drug dealers out of business while freeing law enforcement to focus on violent crime and more dangerous drugs such as methamphetamine... A 2002 study by researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas estimated taxing and regulating marijuana would generate $28.6 million in revenue."

Stonehenge makes list in new seven wonders vote - "The 5,000-year-old stones on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, will be up against sites including the Acropolis in Athens; the Statue of Liberty in New York; and the last remaining original wonder, the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo. An original list of nearly 200 sites nominated by the public was narrowed to 21 by the organizers and experts, including the former director general of Unesco Professor Federico Mayor."
7/21 isn't bad.

2007 GCE A-Level Examination - Exam Syllabus For School Candidates - So funky.

Justice, Institutions, And Multiple Equilibria (PDF) - "To focus attention with no higher appeal, it would be best to consult the highest possible authority. If the players share a cultural understanding that certain unpredictable processes may be used by the fundamental Spirit of the universe to answer questions, and that this Spirit will not allow itself to be bothered about the same question more than once, then a recommendation that is based on such a sacred randomization can serve as a focal coordination device that cannot be appealed to any higher arbitrator. The oracle's recommendations can be self-enforcing without any further intervention by the Spirit, provided that the recommendations to the players form an equilibrium. Thus our model can admit an important role of oracles and divination as an effective foundation for social coordination. (For example, see Evans-Pritchard, 1937. Moore, 1957, also offers game-theoretic perspective on divination.)"

Human species 'may split in two' - "The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures."
???

Parents given red card over snapshots - "A referee has been reprimanded by the FA for stopping a match and threatening to seize cameras. Families were banned from taking photographs of their teenage sons playing football after a referee said that they were breaking child protection rules."

Mother Says Daughter's Class Picture Was Doctored - "A local family is outraged by a school photo. When the pictures came back from the studio, a seven-year-old girl’s image appeared to have been doctored to give her cleavage."

Once Upon A Dreamer: Baba Yetu - "Great music from PC games is more rare than an honest politician. It is simply not worth the effort. The intended gamer audience usually doesn't care much for the subtlety good music provides. Besides, most of the music gets lost in the sound of explosives, special moves, and sound affects. It is very unlikely people buy a PC game for the music; therefore it is usually not cost effective to provide good music with games. That is why the opening song of Civilization 4 totally blew me away. It is like seeing a girl smile for the first time. Before her smile you have no ideal how pretty she can be. That is what the music did for Civilization 4, it made a pretty game into a beautiful game all by itself."

What Matters - "In 1962, poet-critic Randall Jarrell published his essay "The Schools of Yesteryear." In it, he examines the Appleton Readers, once the most popular school readers used in American public schools, and he found that in 1880, the fifth-grade reader contained works by Byron, Coleridge, Cervantes, Dickens, Emerson, Jefferson, Shakespeare , Shelley, Thoreau, Mark Twain and "simpler writers such as Scott, Burns, Longfellow, Cooper, Audubon, Poe, Benjamin Franklin and Washington Irving." Fourth-graders were reading Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" and poems by Wordsworth. If you're thinking to yourself, "How could that be? I didn't encounter anything like this until college," well, that's exactly Jarrell's point. A decision was made about how to teach reading that, by the 1950's, ensured Americans would not know their own (or any other) culture. We're all consequences of that decision... We were taught to recognize words but not to enjoy reading, and we weren't given anything of value to read. So we learned not to read, but to respond to a reading technology."

Singapore's sexual evolution - "Others believe the younger Singapore ladies are too manly while the middle-aged ones are too sexually unexciting because they were brought up in a strict fashion. I have met local women in their 50s who still giggle when someone mentions the word “penis”. Many had stopped having sex with their husbands, while the men, virile or not, still hanker for it. This deprivation has shown up in many ways among some grandfathers. I notice that whenever there is an art (not photo) exhibition on nudes, many of the visitors are elderly “heartlander” men. At screenings of “X-rated” movies, one will likely find an audience made up predominantly of senior male citizens: many of them may never have seen a naked woman other than his wife."

"The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated." - Oscar Wilde

***

Watching a concert on 4 hours of sleep isn't a very good idea - I was zoning out through half of the 21st Piano Concerto. At least it was free (I love free concerts!)

It was an all-Mozart program, so I shouldn't have been surprised that the encore piece was Ave Verum Corpus. Ah well, I was hoping for something like Exsultate, Jubilate instead. The first is a great piece, but gets boring after a while.


At the Raffles City carpark I hit the kerb and somehow got a flat tyre. Maybe the gods are trying to tell me something.

'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

I wonder if those who argue that one must obey grossly unjust or immoral laws would also argue that a lawyer who knows his client is guilty of heinous crimes must pretend that he isn't (as opposed to merely making a mitigating plea). The same principle might be extended, a little more tenuously, to obeying military orders (eg massacring civilians). [Tym: someone: or any number of civil service jobs]

Email feedback: "That guy is in serious need of a film studies course...". I have no idea what this is referring to. Hopefully not Royston Tan's Cut.

Since for the first sex six weeks of life we develop as females, the Creation account of Woman being created from Man is obviously rubbish. I wonder how the Church wiggles its way out of this. Or better yet, the literalists.


Phishing is growing more and more sophisticated. The latest attempt I got reads:

"Do you really think you can get away with this ?? you stupid fag . I have allready alerted ebay and you account will be suspended !!!!!

WHAT IS IT WITH YOU ?? GIVE ME BACK MY MONEY !! WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO INNOCENT PEOPLE ?!"

***

Someone: oh but here's a delicious snippet from my emotions reading: "...bodily resources to prepare for action, including what have been known as the three Fs: fight, flight and sexual behaviour."

Me: wth
where's the F in that

*later*
DOH


Someone else: when i was in jc there was an urban legend about how an entire class of acjc boys had contracted a sexually transmitted ailment from the same girl


Me: you better make sure there're no RI boys having chalet nearby haha

Someone: haha why not. not like they can do anything right. xD

Me: :P
ACS worse haha

Someone: yeah AC half the people class people going will run over and go gaga. :P

Me: lol
got things to gaga at ah

Someone: some of them go gaga at anything.

Me: hehe
they'd screw anything in a skirt

Someone: haha im talking about my classmates actually. hmm. heh but yeah you're right too.


Someone else: i had a weird dreakm
there used to be this ACJ boy..very cute...water polo player...nevertheless, himbo
never actually spoke to him in JC tho i thought he was really cute n he was in the track team too
his mother was heavily involved in christianity-related work, specifically preaching

So anyway, I dreamt that i was in a courtroom watching a hearing where he was accused of killing a man

and somehow, he came over and told me "I didn't do it. My mum and dad did. They're just pinning this on me so that God will come and save me from this, and they can prove to the people around them that God does save His people"

that was FREAKY leh

Me: erm
I can imagine that happening actually

Someone else: u know what, despite its freakiness, i CAN imagine that happening
because of the woman his mother was, and the image that she portrayed to us!
and when i woke up, the first thing i thought of was - i gotta tell gabriel
and then i forgot about it till today =x
hahaha

"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot." - Steven Wright

***

The Straight Dope: Why does the alarm clock snooze button give you nine extra minutes, not ten?

Uncertainty, humility, and adaptation in the tropical forest: the agricultural augury of the Kantu' - "Moore's (1957) pioneering analysis of scapulimancy (bone divination) among the Naskapi Indians of Labrador. He concluded that divination helped to randomize Naskapi hunting strategies, which maximized their chances of success against nonterritorial herbivores whose location on any given day was also random. Lawless (1975) studied divination in a context of ecological change in Northern Luzon, and describes how such a system evolves as resources become scarce. In a related vein, Rappaport (1968) shows how ritual cycles regulate the relations among people, pig herds, and the natural environment in highland New Guinea. The linkage between ritual and ecology in all of these cases is instrumental: ritual practice has consequences that in turn have direct economic or ecological implications. The Kantu' augural system links ritual to ecology not just instrumentally, but also symbolically and pedagogically."

Seduced by Snacks? No, Not You - "People almost always think they are too smart for Prof. Brian Wansinks quirky experiments in the psychology of overindulgence... Dr. Wansink is particularly proud of his bottomless soup bowl, which he and some undergraduates devised with insulated tubing, plastic dinnerware and a pot of hot tomato soup rigged to keep the bowl about half full. The idea was to test which would make people stop eating: visual cues, or a feeling of fullness... He prefers to experiment on graduate students or office workers, whom he sometimes lures with the promise of a drawing for an iPod. Its easy to find undergraduates to participate, but with the guys nothing makes sense because they all eat like animals, he said."

The Malay Male: Mighty Morphin' Racist Rangers - "Malaysia is in peril. No longer able to withstand the terrible idiocy plaguing our country, Dr M - the spirit of Malaysia - sent four magic rings to four special young people."
He mixed up the Power Rangers and Captain Planet. Duh.

Man rams car into women's clinic in Davenport - "A man accused of ramming his car into a women's clinic and then setting his car on fire thought it was an abortion clinic, police said Tuesday... The center does not perform abortions and does not provide abortion referrals"

Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq - "To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade."

Nun tried to kill priest after finding him in bed with another woman - "A jealous nun appeared in court charged with threats to kill and an arson attack on a priest's house - after she caught him in bed with a married woman... "We had been together four years and I had even had two abortions because of him.""

YouTube - NTU Student survey - FUnny comments - Somehow I doubt that like NUS, NTU will now restrict access to webcasts. Bah.

Ubisoft's Softer and Sluttier Side - "I was sort of amazed, I mean -- sure I'm not oblivious! Sex sells, but what was Ubisoft hoping to sell by paying girls to come party with videogame nerds?"

Dutch mayor for prostitutes with army abroad - "A Dutch mayor backed the idea of sending prostitutes to accompany their troops on foreign missions.(e.g. Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan as part of a NATO peacekeeping force.) Annemarie Jorritsma, mayor of the town of Almere in Holland and a member of the ruling VVD liberals, told Dutch television: "The army must consider ways its soldiers can let off steam.""
Gotta love these Europeans.

'Paris Syndrome' leaves Japanese tourists in shock - "Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors -- including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them. Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French "Sun King", Louis XIV, and a woman who believed she was being attacked with microwaves, the paper cited Japanese embassy official Yoshikatsu Aoyagi as saying."

department of crappy engineering: lecture paparazzi - "Today I was taking a short nap during the 5 minutes break in LT7, when I opened my eyes I saw a girl aiming her camera phone at me! I stared at her with that "what-are-you-doing" look on my face and she turned away giggling with her friend..."

Confident students do worse in math; bad news for U.S. - "The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy."

One for the ladies: How to date a geek guy? - "#2: Be direct. Geek guys tend to be in a shell. They are generally defensive and aloof. They aren't cold in the least; they're just extremely polite. Geeks tend to live by "do unto others". A geek guy who doesn't kiss you is worried about forcing himself. Grab him and plant one. Let him stagger and shake it off, but if he shows signs of recovering too quickly, grab him and plant one again. Subtlety and coyness completely fails with geeks; they'll be confused and expect that you're not on Pon Farr or are a nun or something. Where other guys need no provocation, a geek guy has to be brained on the noggin a couple of times, then he'll get the idea."

Christian soldiers take a beating over battle with Moors - "The fiestas — some dating back hundreds of years — celebrate the final “reconquest” of Spain by Christian armies from the Moors in 1492 after 781 years of Muslim rule. Villagers divide into rival “armies” of Moors and Christians to re-enact the conquest of their towns... “There are many Muslims living in all of these towns and none of them has any problem with the party,” Señor Pascual says. “There are no victors or vanquished. Moors and Christians always end up having dinner together.” The organiser of one fiesta, in Jávea, is a Palestinian-born Muslim. He said: “My family and I have participated for more than 20 years without the slightest religious or political problem,” Khader Ibeid wrote in a letter to El País newspaper. Calls for fiestas to be scrapped were a barbarity that would stoke resentment."

Dungeons Deep - Freeware Fantasy Dungeon Game Classics - "Castle of the Winds by Rick Saada is a fantasy rpg (with basic gfx) in which you explore dungeons, kill monsters, collect all manner of items and treasures and so forth. Typical dungeon crawl material but this one is nicely done and it has a story (steeped in Norse legend) that is very well written."
YuCheng, Lim and I have recently rediscovered this.

Oslo gay animal show draws crowds - "The exhibition - entitled Against Nature? - includes photographs of one male giraffe mounting another, of apes stimulating others of the same sex, and two aroused male right whales rubbing against each other. "Homosexuality is a common and widespread phenomenon in the animal world," says an exhibition statement."
Animals are fallen! And they are products of extensive socialization too!

July Trip
21/7 - Avignon

I had a wonderfully flaky pecan and some-sweet-filling-I-can't-identify pastry for breakfast, and one other. A mere train station bakery could produce such delicious food (I'd gotten breakfast from there the other day too) - who knows what the top joints could churn out?! If the so-called authentic French cafe bakery can make pastries like these, even I would gladly eat there! But then, who knows? Maybe the secret to such delectable pastries is... lard!!!

Me on SEP: But why do you want to go to France?
Someone: Because, oh my god, have you tried the pastries?

The bus driver who piloted the bus to the station was in shorts and some of the staff on the train track were in T-shirts.

Even the French train tickets which are not for specific seats have train times on them. Wth. So if you miss the train you presumably have to get a new ticket, even though the seats aren't linked to the ticket. Ridiculous. At least it's not as bad as Italy - you're unlikely to miss the trains due to their inefficiency.

Even the cheap French regional trains are air-conditioned. Yay.

Ironically, in Italy there were signs in English. In France there were none, even though the level of proficiency was generally higher.

In Avignon there was the 'Avignon Passion' pass, which you'd get stamped at the first attraction you went to and get discounts at others. This pass was free. Though the deal wasn't worth anything to me, since the discounted price equaled the student price at places where the latter was offered. The only must-sees there were the Popes' palace and the bridge; there were lots of museums, but I knew better than to visit them. Happily, the Popes' palace closed at 9pm and the last ticket was sold at 8 (an advantage of traveling in July). So I decided to go to see the stuff in Villeneuve, a village to the north, first.

Maybe the reason why France is the only country in the world where human photography is disallowed without the subjects' permission is that they look the best, at least in Europe. Supposedly Scandinavia is better, but I haven't been there, so.

I think I got cheated of €1 on the bus there (I gave €2,10 for a €1,10 ticket and the woman refused to give me change). Maybe the policy was not to give change for tickets bought on buses, but I had no way of knowing since I didn't speak French and no energy due to travel fatigue to gesture and yell frantically. I should just visit England more next time, then I won't have to lie back and think of England so much.

On French buses the sign which lights up when you press the button reads "Arret demande". How long winded. What's wrong with a simple "Stop"?


Villeneuve slope. Alright to walk up once, but not everyday.


View from the top of the slope

I visited this old French fort, which had an abbey within it.


Fort Saint André gatehouse ('Les tours jumelles'), Fort Saint André


Abbey gardens, pond


Chapel Sainte-Casamie (?), 11th century


Another part of the Abbey

I then visited the fort itself.


View inside


View of the town below. In the second, the Popes' palace is on the left.

Unfortunately I couldn't keep up my Paris pace in this weather, but I tried. Next I went to the Chartreuse of Val de Bénédiction (Carthusian monastery).


Monumental gateway


Monumental gateway from inside the monastery


Lilian Bougent, On/Off, 2001. I don't know wth this stupid light bulb above a switch was doing in the monastery. A sign read: "Please don't jump on the workart"

The monastery was very bare. I pitied the church - the decor did not survive the ravages of time.



Innocent VI's tomb


Small cloister


Flowers in green area beside La Bugade (Bugude?).


Private property in doorway adjoining cemetary cloister, fort walls in the background. Oddly there was no grass.


Chapel of the Dead. Monks' bodies would be put here for a night before they were burried. I don't know what the Morse code stones on the floor were. There were also pieces of paper on the wall with lines in French and an MP3 player for you to listen to mood music as you looked around the chapel, but it was spoilt. Bloody French.


Chapel with Giovanetti Frescoes, presumably what was referred to elsewhere as the only decorated place in the monastery.


Water reservoir in Cloister of St Jean

The monastery was opened for playwrights so they could get at it in restored monks' cells. Uhh.


Villeneuve alley, with fort walls in the background

I then took the bus back to Avignon (I don't think I got cheated this time).


Musee Lapidaire

I had a Coke with Lemon. I hadn't (and haven't) seen Coke with lemon anywhere else, only Coke Light with Lemon, which was a big shame.


Palais des Pepes

Due to the Avignon festival the Palace was open from 9am-9pm. However, in the big courtyard of the Palace (the Courtyard of Honour) there was a stage set upcovering the pre-Papacy remains: the John XXII audience building in the middle.

Even when the French know I don't speak French, they can transition to French in their next sentence. !@#$


Tresur bas
It used to hold treasure. Now it holds €0,01 and €0,02 cent coins.

The inside of the palace was very bare due to a 1413 fire devastating the decor, the French revolution and its being used as a barracks. So the inclusion of the audioguide in the price was welcome (not least because, surprise surprise, there was no information in English). Then again, I wonder how much it'd have been if it was separate. Bundling is such a smart strategy.

It was strange to see an almost totally bare palace. Why did they bother having a separate museum? To furnish the palace they should've put the artefacts in it, especially since they would be so much more meaningful in situ. Furthermore, this was not an open archaeological site where they'd be exposed to the elements. It was an intact building. I think they just wanted to squeeze more money out of visitors.


Cloisters of Benedict XII


Utter bullshit to justify their no photography policy. They claimed that the heat and number of visitors meant that, among other things, non-flash photography was not to be allowed anymore.
I had 2 suggestions for them: open the windows, especially during the summer months, or air-condition the building (or even install de-humidifiers, like all the other museums around Europe). The whole place was essentially sealed, with all the windows I could see being closed. The only way rooms were being ventilated was by doors opening to a passages overlooking courtyards. Probably they were too stingy to deploy enough manpower to open the windows.

There was a Chapelle Saint-Martial which had cost €400,000 to restore. The restoration had finished in April 2005 after 24 months, but for some reason it was closed to the public. This considering that it looks like the most beautiful room of the complex. Wth.


Kitchen tower, with the top tapering to a hole in the tower.

The Pope's chamber were probably the most complete in the complex, with an original 14th century floor. Unfortunately attendants kept hovering here.

A copy of Portement de Croix, 1478 (a large relief) was in the palace, for some reason. This sort of scene is usually a painting. This was a relief carved very deeply, almost a sculptural group.
SPQR peancot? (?)


Chapel. Costumes used in the Avignon festival were exhibited here, so I maneuvred so one exhibit blocked the attendant's view. Heh.


Roof of palace, near their cafe terrasse. The building at the back is Notre dame des dons.

Their cafe terrasse only served beer with lunch. Maybe they didn't want tourists to get drunk on an empty stomach.


Sculpture in front of Notre dame des dons


Magna Porta. Entrance to the chapel, decorated with scenes of the last judgment. The only intact doorway in the palace.

Exiting the palace brought me through a wine tasting room where wine was to be had for €5 a taste. I hope that got you more than a tasting portion. They also sold a pack of 54 bottles of wine, all in aromatherapy sizes (25ml) for €275. They claimed it was the same price as if you'd gotten it in the cellar (€5,80 for 3x5cl) but I didn't believe them.

The souvenir shop sold wooden crossbows which really worked: you could wind the string back and pull the trigger. Though they came sans bolts, so maybe they wouldn't have worked if you tried to fire one.

There was a guestbook at the exit of the palace, so I spent 3x the space allocated for 1 person letting them know in no uncertain terms how I felt and telling them exactly how to solve their conservation problems instead of trying to boost postcard sales. I even left my email address, but maybe their English wasn't good enough, since I haven't gotten a reply yet.

I wonder how a Croque Madame is different from a Croque Monsieur.


Travel tips:

- Ask around for advice, especially from previous travelers. That there was a night train from Avignon to Reims was told to me by someone, and someone suggested I not go to Orleans but instead Reims.

Someone on String Theory and application to Economics:


I think we have witnessed enough man made disastors to prompt us to instinctively cast doubt upon any theory that claims to unity - to reduce the chaos of human interaction inherent in the social sciences into patterns of regularity that can be expressed as verifiable laws. Think about the IMF austerity plans, their underlying models and how they wrecked half decent economies that were momentarily caught out.., the collapse of LTCM, a hedge fund with two nobel prize winning financial economists on board...

I can think of three simple reasons why grand theories and Euclidean like mathematical artifacts will continually disappoint us in the social sciences.

1. Unlike the natural sciences, we have no constant substantive phenomena, or any source of predictibilty in the changing contours of our socio-economic systems. To put it simply, gravity in Newton's apple is the same gravity today. Fifteen years ago, it was held widely that the geopolitics would 'freeze' in a bipolar system founded on nuclear deterrance, and after that came the "end of the history" thesis, and today these ideas look quaint in a widely fragmented world system..

2. Human interaction is inherently unpredictable - we have ways and means of simplifying human behaviour, 'black-boxing' it but we have neither the technology (ie 3000+ years and all we have is game theory) nor the imagination to comprehensively do so. Theories that rely on abject simplications of human behaviour can only serve as benchmarks or 'ballpark figures' that guide our judgement.

3. Theories in the social sciences are reflexive - they can be unconscious products of history, culture and interests. Dominant theories reflect certain fashions and trends which can be brutally fickle...

I've come to increasingly believe that the only way to deal with the challenges of a increasingly disjointed, yet rapidly moving global system to have a mind that can accept incoherency as the starting point, not one that seeks to eliminate it...

Translate each of the following English sentences into the truth-functional symbolic language we have learned; where ‘p’= “Logic is easy,” ‘q’ = “Logic is fun,” and ‘r’ = “Symbols can be used.”

1. Logic is fun, but symbols cannot be used.
2. Logic is not fun unless symbols can be used.
3. Logic is fun only if symbols can be used.
4. Logic is easy, and logic is fun if symbols can be used.
5. Logic is not fun if symbols cannot be used.
6. Symbols can be used, or it is not the case that logic is easy.
7. Logic is fun if and only if it is easy.
8. Logic is neither easy nor fun.
9. It isn’t true that symbols cannot be used.
10. Logic isn’t easy if and only if symbols can’t be used.
11. Logic is fun, but it isn’t easy.
12. Logic is easy; moreover, it is fun.
13. Either symbols can be used, or logic is easy but not fun.
14. Logic is easy, and if symbols can be used, it is fun.
15. Symbols can be used, but logic is neither easy nor fun.


I can't help but admire the perverse mind which came up with this.

"Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts." - Clare Booth Luce

***

A: Libertarians accept full responsibility for their own lives because they've never been able to count on anyone else for anything beyond the happy convergence of mutual self-interest. They realize that the nature of all relationships is transactionary, because they don’t have very much to offer and have received accordingly. Rather than adopting the libertarian worldview as an ideal state of affairs, they recognize the principles by which it operates as the hard facts
of life. Life isn’t fair and it will never be.

The sooner that people like Derek and you accept that, the sooner you can take positive action towards happiness in life by providing value for value. It's tragic that not everyone will be able to do this, but that's just how it is.

But you cling to this fatal conceit that you can change human nature. The world doesn't work that way, and we pay in blood and treasure until you learn that some people winning and some people losing is better than everyone being equally miserable.


Me: By a curious confusion, some critics have passed from the proposition that life is unfair to the other proposition that life must be unfair and that it is right and proper for life to be unfair.

We'd still be living in the Stone Age if everyone had this mentality.

"Humans are mortal, so there's no point trying to invent a new treatment for gangrene!"

"We will never know all there is to know, so there's no point trying to know more!"

It is not hard to accept full responsibility for your own life if your parents are rich enough to raise you comfortably and provide you with a world class education.

It is not hard to accept full responsibility for your own life if as an expatriate you get paid more than locals for doing less work.

And where the hell did equal misery come in?! Once again a false dichotomy is presented - if you're not libertarian you must be communist. The top 10% of the people getting 40% of the wealth is a much better state of affairs than the top 0.1% of the people getting 99% of the wealth.

I must note, though, that you seem to be talking about a different form of libertarianism. Instead of asserting that libertarianism is the way to go because it leads to desirable outcomes, you assert that libertarianism is the way to go because this is the way the world works.

Suffice to say that not everyone lives in a world devoid of faith, hope, charity/love, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. If you do, then that will be the true tragedy.

"Gross National Product measures neither the health of our children, the quality of their education, nor the joy of their play. It measures neither the beauty of our poetry, nor the strength of our marriages. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories, and the safety of our streets. It measures neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our wit nor our courage, neither our compassion, nor our devotion to our country.

It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worth living, and it can tell us everything about our country, except those things that make us proud to be a part of it!"


B: Oh dear. Libertarian drivel. I've often wondered about this -- a lot
of my friends in college are libertarians, at least on an economic level. I get along great with them though. Their economic libertarianism is predicated on careful thought about what kind of govt policy would work in certain situations, whereas yours seems to be some kind of sweeping weltanschauung based on little more than your
conviction that inequality is inevitable and that any kind of redistributive and insurance-based govt policy will lead to communist dystopia. It seems that you have discovered a particularly strange, Ayn Rand-esque strain of libertarianism. I also find it strange that as an objectivist you appear to be very thin-skinned.

> And this characterization that links a libertarian outlook to success
> and good fortune. Maybe that's true for some, but it can work the other
> way as well. Libertarians accept full responsibility for their own lives
> because they've never been able to count on anyone else for anything
> beyond the happy convergence of mutual self-interest.

I think he was making the sociological point that libertarians tend to come from successful backgrounds and this might - surprise surprise - have contributed something to their views.

> Life isn't fair and it will never be. The sooner that people like Derek
> and you accept that, the sooner you can take positive action towards
> happiness in life by providing value for value. It's tragic that not
> everyone will be able to do this, but that's just how it is.

Again, you have not understood that everyone is not an ubermensch who can 'provide value for value' against all odds or whatever. Can a child with Downs provide value for value? What is this value you speak of anyway?

You seem also to forget that there is such a thing as the state, which is an extremely powerful organisation. It can tax, it can subsidise, it can provide public services, etc. Now if you want we can have an argument about whether such policies aimed at poverty reduction, or protectionism, or welfare provision, are always going to be inefficient -- or if you are to be believed, so inefficient that we will all be dragged down into the pit of economic hell. But you have not made this argument. You have merely and conveniently assumed it.

> But you cling to this fatal conceit that you can change human nature.
> The world doesn't work that way, and we pay in blood and treasure until
> you learn that some people winning and some people losing is better than
> everyone being equally miserable.

What blood? No really what blood?

"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

***

Quotes from essays for a general education module:

- "In each organism, diploid zygote formation depends on haploid gamete production, and the gametic cycles are in turn controlled by the mature organism developed from a zygote." Instructor: "I don't know what that means."

- Then I thought that it would hardly work in countries like Singapore, where half the people do not speak English or anything proper at all.

- Moreover it is in the University where we are placed on uneven playing fields in bidding for modules, and we learn in each semester how to refine our bidding skills.


I am starting a new mini-series called "u r wt u wr". Today's installment:

- There was a girl in a green shirt with a picture of a bicycle and the words "Want a ride?"
- A girl was in a purple top which had the word "Slutty" on it
- One girl was wearing an emerald coloured top with the words: "I only look innocent"
- Some girl was wearing a pink T-shirt with cap sleeves with the words "Cute", "Single" and others I couldn't see on it

(All the preceding exhibits were glimpsed in school)

Obviously, wearing clothing with such motifs or slogans is begging to have them commented upon, yet my money is on those wearing these pieces of clothing complaining about sexual harassment and claiming that they're being objectified if people actually do comment on them.

Me: if you want you can guest star as the guy who goes up to comment
but if you land in jail I can't help you =D

Expert on Defamation: that's just setting up urself for defamation

Me: what.
I didn't say who wore them what

Expert on Defamation: no, the bit abt guest-starring me :D

i can guest star as HWMNBD :)
he who must not be defamed


disturbed bunny: so many you can add to it lla if only you go shopping with girls more often
"voted most flexible by your boyfriend"
etc etc
tsk you are suaku laaa. i should take you shopping one day
i like "nerds have big hard drives" best

Someone: sadly i have a tee that says "trysexual - everything must try once"

Tenghui's birthday present - Aruba Aluba! (Pillaring), filmed in a Premier University in the Clementi-Kent Ridge area.
The original plan was to taupok, but someone got the idea of aruba-ing instead.

Victim: "pillar is not painful cos it is usually too thick to have concentrated pressure on the groin. but that chair... wah lau that was really painful. i didn't really fight back from the aruba cos i thought it's going to be something symbolic. but it became something actual and practical. "i feel comfortable".... haha"

Someone: "oh i thought the term was only used in taiwan ('阿魯巴')"

IslaFormosa Blog » Blog Archive » Hazing… The ‘Aluba’ Way!

"Among the most intriguing activities of young men in Taiwan (and Chinese East Asia) is ‘Aluba’. I quote the Wikipedia: “A male student is lifted up by several of his classmates and his groin is then rubbed against a hard object such as a pole, a tree, or even the edge of a door. In Taiwan, Aluba is usually performed by hitting the victim’s groin on a tree trunk or a pole.”... Aluba has an English equivalent called ‘Happy Corner’."

Bizarrely, Wikipedia reads: "Happy corner has been very popular among students in higher education since late 1990, especially in orientation camps (popularly called o-camps by students). Part of its controversy stems from the fact that some students hazed other students not familiar with the practice, or hazed the other gender, as an act of simulated sexual intercourse... Some have also criticized the Happy Corner subculture for contributing to an openness in attitude in sexual relationships among students."

Males express affection for same-sex friends by putting them down and hurting them physically. Females express affection for same-sex friends by exalting them and buying them presents.



"Women... Know Your Limits"
Someone: i show my gf who's a damn feminist. she found it funnytoo


Kids playing at swordplay at my estate

Does God get in the way of social cohesion?
Straits Times, 21st October 2006

"The way forward is not to sweep sensitive issues arising from religion under the carpet and pretend they do not exist.

Instead, what is needed is a frank yet sober discussion of religious issues in public, as even the religious leaders themselves admit.

As Brother Broughton puts it, "some religious problems cannot be settled by keeping quiet".

But the view among some is that inter-faith dialogue currently exists largely in the level of politically correct platitudes.

This is dangerous, says Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies analyst Yolanda Chin. "The tendency to silence or self-censor any debate broaching on conflicting views on religious issues may be well-meaning but also perpetuates the prejudices and stereotypes that are formed out of blissful ignorance."

Thus, the announcement from PM Lee of a national steering committee on racial and religious harmony was welcomed. It is chaired by Minister of Community Development, Youth and Sports vivian Balakrishnan, and comprises government ministers and religious leaders."


Nowadays the only time I read the Shitty Times is when it lines the dinner table, but my Little Bird recommended this article to me, from what he calls "The Religion Special" of the #140.

The first part of the extract is surprisingly enlightened, but the last illustrates a characteristic lack of awareness. A national steering committee should be condemned, since it would serve to restrict and manage discourse.

To have a "frank yet sober discussion of religious issues in public" instead of "politically correct platitudes", we need to abolish the Sedition Act and related bugaboos (eg the ban on religious issues at the Speakers' Corner), otherwise coherent and reasoned discourse is self-censored suppressed, ceding the ground to nonsensical rants, ad hominem attacks and baseless sliming (a la the Sammyboy Forums), which results in a self-perpetuating cycle.

One thing we absolutely *don't* need is these ridiculous corporatist steering committees composed of supposedly representative leaders. From the Young Republic archives:


A: 1- Representation on MDA advisory committees (and representation in our intellegence agencies including the ISD) appears to be quite multi-ethnic. ( I've seen proof of the latter).

If the minorities in those committees are of the opinion that they don't think that Singapore's liberal enough to risk fatwas and stuff, who are we to disagree?


B: There are a whole load of fascinating assumptions to be unpacked in your argument. Primarily they boil down to your belief that groups of people, identified by their religion or their status as a group of a particular identifiable and state-identified "minority", can have their interests adequately represented on the basis of a corporate, indivisible opinion representative of the "majority of this minority", and that this opinion can be accurately embodied by the actions of each minority's state-appointed mouthpieces

If that seems like a mouthful, it's because the problems in this point of view are manifold. Let me explain each one. First, power looks after its own. Who do you reckon gets appointed to these committees, given that the government does the appointing? There is every possibility - indeed probability - that these so-called representatives represent a particular agenda of the state instead of the minority group from which they also, coincidentally, hail. Or does religion or race define the totality of the person, so that a powerful Muslim person can never have closer interests with a fellow powerful Christian person than with another Muslim person? To my mind that is somehow both naive and racist at the same time. An interesting conflation.

Second, let's grant you that they sincerely believe themselves to be representing "their" minority and indeed reflect a numerically great proportion of persons sharing that minority status. Doesn't it strike you as potentially problematic that (I apologise for the capital letters, I don't want to shout but I want to emphasise this point and I don't know whether I can bold this successfully for all email formats) PEOPLE WITHIN THE SO-CALLED "SAME" MINORITY MIGHT DISAGREE, and that THE MINORITY OF THE MINORITY MIGHT NEED PROTECTION? Or should people with heterodox opinions be penalised because they happen to share a religion with a number of nutjobs? Why shouldn't the rest of the population stand side by side with the repressed female or gay or simply religiously unconventional opinion of a member of a minority? Does the fact that this person is from a state-identified racial/religious minority mean we should abandon them to the opinion of that minority's "group" as a whole? Doesn't this amount to abandoning people to only ever forming identities within a pre-defined religious/racial group since cross-pollination of beliefs is basically prevented? Why can't people have interests that transcend racial classification, so that the interests of a racial block (as defined by one government-appointed arbiter) do not trump the interests of the individuals composed within that classification?

To illustrate the artificiality - in other words, the reliance on stereotype - that your position involves, let's consider the feminism parallel we both seem to have adopted. Leaving aside questions of my highly dubious qualification as a feminist (I read Germaine Greer while wearing a little summer frock and high heels and watching my boyfriend play sport - not a little ironic) - why does this numerical majority matter so much to you? Why do I have to persuade the majority of women to agree with me before you will? The notion that the interests of women are completely uninterrogable to men, or that the interests of Muslims are completely uninterrogable to non-Muslims, is extremely bizarre. But let's say only 20% - a mere minority - of women did have feminist sentiments on a particular issue. That's what, 10% of the population? Going by your logic, by which we judge the interests of people by first segregating them into minorities and then saying, ok, we listen to the majority of those minorities, the claims of this 10% of the population should be ignored. But how is that logical when your same approach would grant people of Indian descent (also about 10%, slightly less I believe, of the population) an important corporate voice on the basis of a majority of them voicing a particular opinion? (Even using the word "majority" there is construing it favourably, for reasons I have already explained relating to the problems of appointing one person as arbiter of some indivisible "minority" opinion.)

I do think there are nuances to being of a particular religion or gender or sexuality or whatever which require especial study on the part of someone who does not share that religion or gender or sexuality in order to adequately understand. This compared to the experience of someone who lives in the role of a person of particular religion or gender or sexuality from day to day. But the idea that a liberal atheist cannot ever understand or explain the concerns of a liberal Muslim - that a feminist man cannot ever fight for the cause alongside a feminist woman - is just wrong. We're not defined by these narrow categories. They're components of who we are, but I reckon any one of us can have a lot more in common with someone who ticks all the different category boxes from us than from someone who apparently shares the same "minority" statuses. And to assume otherwise creates the tyranny of narrowed aspirations that is the precise problem that Singaporeans face now, that stands in the way of any of us developing our own individuality.


C: Thank you B. Which is why I felt offended in the first place - presuming that Muslims must all be fanatical illiberal creatures is speaking (presumptuously) for them - and therefore what gives A the right to shoot is (ugly) mouth off? I have friends who are gay and liberal - and they happen to be Muslim. What of them? Have they no individuality? No say? Nothing, because Muslims must needs be patriarchal, antifeminist, gun-toting, Israel-hating, anti-Semitic terrorists? It seems as if the great number of moderate Muslims (not only in Singapore, but in Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as the vast number of moderate Muslims in the Middle East who are not of Indochinese origin) have been eliminated by A's totalitarian and
totalising discourse. And nothing irritates me more than totalitarianism of any sort.

Dialogue with the Muslim community is in order, and yet A is so thankful that the MDA has stepped in again to protect the Muslims from themselves, and in so doing, us from the Muslims. It strikes that in this day and age, what we need are more opinions, more views, more voices to be heard, rather than less.


D: Yes I believe this is what Amartya Sen has been saying in his new book: by looking at individuals only through the lens of the 'community' identity (e.g. Islam, South Asian, Jewish, etc) and not engaging with Muslims, Asians, Jews etc individually but only through the established 'community' leaders, we not only compromise the individual rights of expression etc of members of such communities but in terms of policy-making we tend then to view these communities through the skewed perception of their established leaders ( e.g. imams, rabbis, etc). There is no reason why an individual member of a minority should be any less an individual than an individual member of the majority.

On Young Republic on the Wee Shu-min outrage:

A: entirely disproportionate response to an unkind, unwise, but otherwise trivial rant of a private individual, just like the lucy gao/alexsey vayner brouhaha.

i suppose she will learn a good lesson about public diplomacy, but it seems like you're all too eager to see someone fall from grace, since if it had been anyone else less fortunate who said it you'd be praising them for having the right values about individual responsibility for success. why the double standard? or is it to compensate for your guilt-trip for being so fortunate to be on the right side of the bell curve distribution?

also i think it is sad that her opinions about society will only be reinforced by response from the celebration of mediocrity and culture of victimhood that condemns her.

Me:

>also i think it is sad that her opinions about society will only be
>reinforced by response from the celebration of mediocrity and culture
>of victimhood that condemns her.

Actually it was the celebration of excellent final outcomes, condemnation of those who lag behind and culture of "meritocracy" that led to her having the opinions that she has now.

It's no wonder people are so skeptical about the benefits of the free market and turn to reactionary socialism. Someone once sent me an article asking: "Why isn't socialism dead?" A fear of such ideology is, I think, a major reason why.

That the ends justify the means is a principle often propounded in undertaking distasteful tasks. A belief in market radicalism seems to take a different tack - the means justify the ends (free market outcomes must be right) which is, frankly, puzzling.

Those who believe that economic might is right and who thus oppose such wimpy bleeding-heart liberal policies as a progressive tax system and subsidised basic health care should bear in mind that a corollary is that political might is right - if the poor, frustrated and disenchanted masses rise up against you and loot your property, you shouldn't have any right to object.

Some might try to impose false dichotomies on me again: that if I do not support the untrammeled forces of the free market, I'm advocating giving the lazy and the stupid as much as the hardworking and the intelligent, or that if I think discrimination and environmental factors must totally account for why a certain group is disadvantaged compared to the rest I must be racist or support eugenics/Social Darwinism. Bizarrely, the post-modernists label me as simplistic and close-minded, and others (right-wing positivists, perhaps? Or maybe my neologism of "altar men", after the "either you're kneeling before the altar, or on the altar watching others kneel before you" philosophy) accuse me of spewing post-modernist bullshit.

It's so hard being a centrist these days. No wonder everyone likes to be an extremist though it's obviously wrong.


"In “The Rise Of The Meritocracy”, published in 1958, Michael Young, a British sociologist and Labour Party activist, conjured up an image of a society obsessed with talent. The date was 2034, and psychologists had perfected the art of IQ testing. But far from promoting social harmony, the preoccupation with talent had produced social breakdown. The losers in the talent wars were doubly unhappy, conscious not only that they were failures but that they deserved to be failures. Eventually they revolted against their masters.

The rise of the talent elite has bred resistance, which started on the right. T.S. Eliot, a 20th-century poet and critic, argued that choosing people on the basis of their talents would “disorganise society and debase education”. Edward Welbourne, a Cambridge don, dismissed IQ tests as “devices invented by Jews for the advancement of Jews”. But after the second world war the resistance spread leftward. Leftists argued that meritocracies were not only unpleasant but unjust. If “talent” owed more to nature than nurture, as many social scientists insisted [Ed: This is one reason I suspect why the PC people are so dead against nature arguments], then rewarding people for talent was tantamount to rewarding them for having privileged parents...

There are plenty of signs that another backlash is on the way, from John Kerry's complaints about American companies outsourcing jobs to a rash of riots in China. Much of this resentment focuses on growing inequalities. People complain that these are straining the bonds of society to breaking point: a new aristocracy of talent is retreating into golden ghettos and running the global economy in their own interests. “The talented retain many of the vices of aristocracy without its virtues,” said the late Christopher Lasch, an American historian, in one of the best analyses of the trend. The logic of talent wars is meritocratic: the most talented get the most rewards. But the reality of democracy is egalitarian: the people can use their political power to defeat the bell curve."

Tonight, I heard La Campanella horribly butchered. The concert was advertised thus: "Exceptional violin students of the Conservatory take centrestage in Double Stops", and indeed this piece was performed exceptionally badly.

The violinist played the wrong thing not once, not twice but *three* times, and each time it was the same part that she got wrong. Instead of playing the right bars for those parts of the song to transition into the next section (a variation on the original theme), she played the original theme (my music kaki suggests 'recapitulation' but indicates that I should use a less cheem term), so it was extremely jarring and the piano had to audibly and visibly accommodate her.

Her very high bits were very scratchy, she had a lot of hairy notes (blurred notes) and she did painfully slow pizzicatos near the end, really taking her own sweet time. Paganini is hard, but the first error is particularly unforgiveable (3 times?!). On the up side, her imitation of the bell was quite good, and the running passages were reasonably graceful ('well the girl was aesthetically pleasing'). I tried to blog my outrage immediately after her performance, during the interval, but unfortunately there was no wireless reception in the concert hall.

Beethoven's Spring was technically alright but horribly bland. Hubay's Carmen Fantasie Brilliante was interesting.

The night's violinists all seemed to be PRCs and all closed their eyes ('stage fright'). The boys were also better players than the girls, because their clothes were in varying degrees of un-ironed-ness ('evening gowns cannot be crumpled. technically impossible unless you use a steamroller').

Unfortunately, the best female performer had a really awful dress which could best be described as an orange mermaid gone wrong (the black shoes didn't go either, which didn't help). She got the 2 most challenging songs of the night's programme, which was a pity since they were both awful songs, beyond the rescue of the best violinists. Chausson's Poème, Op 25 must've been about existentialism, since there seemed to be no theme or even melody in it. Ravel's Tzigane was horrible as always, despite (or maybe because) of its being a vehicle for showing off violin technique. Essentially the former bored me and the latter raised my blood pressure.

The best performer took on Bazzini's La Ronde des Lutins, Op. 25, and originally earned from me the ultimate compliment - he made a French song sound good! (I have since discovered that he was Italian, which explains why the song sounded good and why Tzigane and Poème could not be rescued). Kaki on the best performer: "jaw dropping. just the first 10 bars and my jaw dropped", and on the best female performer: "flawless technique".

Besides La Campanella being butchered and the bad costuming, there was only one other factor spoiling the evening: this annoying couple beside my concert kaki who kept on chattering despite the former's finally telling them off during the last piece; after the concert this Brit in the seat behind me also told the girl off: "If you can play better..." (things always sound more authoritative with a British accent). Personally, I think playing ability is irrelevant: even if Itzhak Perlman had been sitting in that seat, I'd have scolded him for chatting; it's like how movie critics don't have to be able to do better to make legitimate criticisms of a film.

Republicans Give In To Bush, Betray America

When I was working in Russia some years ago, a friend in Kaliningrad told me a perhaps apocryphal story about Nikita Khrushchev, who, following Stalin's death, gave a speech to the Politburo denouncing Stalin's policies of imprisoning people without trial. A few minutes into Khrushchev's diatribe, somebody shouted out, "Why didn't you challenge him then, the way you are now?"

The room fell silent, as Khrushchev swept the audience with his eyes. "Who said that?" he asked in a reasoned voice. Silence.

"Who said that?" Khrushchev demanded angrily, leaning forward. Silence.

Pounding his fist on the podium to accent each word, he thundered, "Who - said - that?" Still no answer.

Finally, after a long and strained silence, the elected politicians in the room fearful to even cough, a corner of Khrushchev's mouth lifted into a smile.

"Now you know," he said with a chuckle, "why I did not speak up against Stalin when I sat where you now sit."

--- Thom Hartmann

Another picture post:


Even movers are Christian these days. Next you know we'll see Christian ice.


someone's 1.4kg monster courgette


The following were all taken in school:


A madman I met along the AS1-6 corridor


No exit through the exit. Quite Kafka-esque.


People are like teabags...
... Once you use them, you throw them away.
... They always come with strings attached.
... We always label them.
... They're always getting into hot water.
... They're naturally bitter!
... They don't reveal their essence unless you hang them up and give them a well-needed dunk.
I was exorcising the motivational posters in Chatterbox one day. Others added their contributions.


Most wrong P-plate placing I've ever seen, along Heng Mui Keng terrace


LT11 Water Parade (Lost and Found corner?)


Ringafling ad, seen near AS2. My 'favourite' is "Hi, my name is 'Milk,' I'll do your body good.
One person guessed it was a bash, another told me he knew it was a bash, but he doesn't know whose (just that it's probably not an Arts thing). Maybe it's Science - they always have the most silly bash concepts (S.T.R.I.P, Dare 21).


Young Singaporeans - Your gateway to the "Last Paradise on Earth"... "In NZ, the government looks after you from the day you are born till the day you rest in peace. The government of your adopted country will never let you go hungry... Do not procrastinate any further. Singapore is no longer a pot of gold for you."

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it." - Terry Pratchett

***

Quotes:

'If a nuclear bomb hit us, I would be the King of France.' is actually true in a true-false conditional.

Sino-US trend deficit (trade)

[On a presentation] To synchronise ourselves, we are all in black tops and sandals (our dressing)

High rates of grorth (growth)

US blair'ms China for its tread deficit (blames, trade)

The younger generation has only seen the US economy doing well. Therefore they don't know the importance of farming (saving)

[On a presentation] I hope you all understood most of that, but if you didn't, that's okay.

Em'pie'rer'curl estimates (empirical)

Desperate times calls for desperate measures (call)

[On what honesty in doing problem sets gets you] I did it myself. That's how I know I got it all wrong.

Sometimes we say one man's ponens is another man's tollens.

'State will play in a bowl game.' Who's State? What's a bowl game?

[Student: Here *hands tutor tissue*] What is it? [Student: A tissue. Unused.] Thank you.

[On EN2101E] All 4 of my literature books are about sex.

[On engineering diagrams] [Instructor: Don't you all, the Engineering guys, learn this in school?] You mean Art and Craft?

Aviation fuel is very cheap. The fuel surcharge is nonsense... How does SIA make so much money? [Me: By cutting the pilots' pay.]

[On bidding being silly] This is true. You spend more time learning bidding skills than anything [in class]

[On an essay] 'Multi-sensual instructional process'. This I don't get. What is a multi-sensual instructional process?

Last time - the chalkboard. It was very slow... while the students are copying they are thinking. What has happened now is that the syllabuses have increased by - 300%...teachers can give a lot of notes... your thinking time is compromised.

[On possible accusations of nepotism] 'What happens if my daughter gets an A?' If she gets an A she gets an A. I can't help it.

[Instructor: 15 years ago there was this stall at the Arts canteen selling kway teow... They used to have very long queues. They guy had a secret formula.] *Sotto voce* Marijuana. After a while you need 2 plates to get the same kick]

[On taking photos of public property] Newspapers, all the people... If you're in a public space, anyone can take a photo... If someone barges into my class and takes a photograph, I will take the camera and throw it away.

[On publishing an article based on another's ideas] The law of confidence. 'It's not my fault. I gave him a beer and he blurted out to me. Even though I gabe him the beer so that he would blurt it out.'

[On copyright] Multiple copies - meaning copy 1: pages 1-5, copy 2: pages 6-10? [Instructor: That's an interesting interpretation of 'multiple copies']

[On my Asian Prince card] He looks very wealthy. [Me: He is]

I like your shirt. [Me: It's doubly haram] It's triply haram, cause you're in it. [Me: Thanks]

I used to go to Church when I was young. My whole extended family is Christian. [Me: Then what happened?] I read the Bible.

[At 10:48] Here's a good time to take a short break, so be back by noon. (11)

[On rules vs discretion and crying babies] You need to have some mental fortitude and maybe a streak of cruelty to carry out this policy.

If you work it out - actually I'm not sure if I want you guys to work it out. Maybe I should leave it for the problem set. *Audience groans*

[On Central Bank independence] They're going to tell the government to go to hell.

[On property prices] Clementi region has good schools, [a] good university.

[On his homework partner filing for graduation in the middle of the term without telling him] It was so sudden. No warning at all. Like the Thailand coup.

[Me: are you motivated by his 'motivating example'?] No, it's discouraging.

[On panel data] After 1 year, age is one year more, obviously. Sex is diff... the same. *Laughs from audience*

Taking ***, they get a B from me. They are working in the same form. (got, firm)

idiosyncrity error (idiosyncratic)


[On a row of waterbottles at the back of the LT] What is this, water parade?

[On the end of the exam] All good things must come to an end.

high'poh'tee'nurse (hypotenuse)

[On Wo-Hen] It's good to have this kind of people around. I don't know about you - he makes me feel good to be normal.

[On late handing in of an assignment] I suppose that if I accept this joker's tutorial exercise, I will have to do the same thing to those [who are finishing them up now]... If you have the gall to do the same thing later, put yours on the small stack [and I will decide whether to accept them later]... [It's a form of] entertainment.

I didn't name the arguments Modus Tollens and Modus Ponens. They were already named that way... All the good arguments are named after me.

Interestingly enough, in the US every Chinese restaurant has a buffet. I used to think it was authentic. Now I don't think so anymore... Nice and greasy.

"Never have children, only grandchildren." - Gore Vidal

***

The Riddling Reaver I got from eBay was described as being in "very good" condition, but when I got it I realised that even the most charitable appraisal could only deliver, at most, a verdict of "good". I made note of this to the seller and he said it was "very good" considering it was 20 years old. Slightly peeved, I left him neutral feedback with a gentle chiding about an inaccurate description. In return for my polite, factual and *neutral* feedback, I got negative feedback from him and some really far out comments ("Rubbish ebayer"). I checked his feedback history and found that he had similarly burnt other unfortunate souls. I emailed 4-5 of them to commiserate and 1 replied:

"It was so nice to get your message, because I felt so aggrieved by the whole incident with ***. My 1st negative feedback and really brutal - and all over a £3.00 transaction! I haven't bought on ebay since as it left me feeling so wronged. Still, I suppose if I'm losing sleep over something like that, I need to develop a thicker skin. Anyway, thanks for getting in touch - it's good to know that I'm not the only one to be bruised by him."

After some thought, I figured that the feedback system would be improved and people would be more inclined to give genuine feedback rather than spiteful, unwarranted feedback in retaliation or misleadingly glowing feedback for fear of retaliation, if the decision was made in secret by both sides (you leave feedback, he leaves feedback and both sides see what the other party has done after they themselves have moved and cannot alter their decision); right now if you are the first to leave someone feedback he can see your move and respond to it. Hmm, this may even have an element of time inconsistency.

I emailed eBay with my suggestion, but like YouTube (which keeps setting my uploaded videos to Chinese) they sent me a stock reply (not an auto-replier, mind you) clearly showing that they hadn't read my email at all.

The second time, they did reply properly (unlike YouTube, which sent me a rubbish response maybe 2-3 times), and it was bizarre:

"I assure you that we are committed to the continuous improvement of our website to make it both a fun and safe place to trade. However, please note that our company policy does not allow us to accept or consider ideas or proposals, other than those that we have specifically requested.

Please understand that this policy is intended to avoid the possibility of future misunderstandings when new products, services or features developed internally by eBay employees might be similar or even identical to your idea or proposal."

Hopefully what I suggested falls under "Send us your suggestion to improve the eBay site." I'm not going to re-submit it in another obscure corner again.

Me: I'm not good at spotting you underaged people [at clubs]
I need a bionic eye

Someone: hahaha its quite easy what.
just look for the ones with lots of eye makeup, jeans, skimpy top, one BIG group of girls.


Me: sorry was on the phone

Someone else: nah it's alright
and don't ever use sorry when talking to me

haha =p
one of my idiosyncrasies

i hate the word
=p

Me: wth?!
... women

Someone else: not really a woman thing =p
i hate it cos it makes me feel bad when people say it to me
hahahaah


Sec 2 friend: Does cytokinesis happen during telophase in mitosis or does it happen after?

Wth. Why're they learning A level biology in Sec 2? And it seems the Sec 1s are learning what they're doing now. I wonder what they'll do in JC.


Someone: i've found your blog useful in one aspect
everytime i get a chain email
or someone posts stupid stuff on the forum
i just send them a copy of the Ultimate Chain Email found on your blog


Someone else: lenovo rocks
'submit feedback' button leads directly to 'cannot find server' page
repeatedly
this is a ploy

Me: haha
I remember the IBM days...

Someone else: oh well. they're prcs


Someone: [I've been single for] a year +
now i'm turning gay
checking guys out


Someone else: gabriel if you want more people to like you as a conversationalist, i suggest you emulate wt by being enigmatic and freaky

***

Me: Girls who like Jap guys who look like girls are ugly

Someone: ahhahahah
hahahahaha

sorry
you got me really hard this time haha
i can't stop laughing irl.

Me: how many of those do you know :P

Someone: not many actually, but the question itself is hilarious haha
the thing is
it's like lesbians
usually, people think lesbians are hot
but those are girls that like girls
in this case, you're asking about girls who like guys that look like girls

;Someone else: i find them very immature
gets so excited when they see e jap guy pics or hear their names

Me: haha
I get excited when I see wo-hen pics or hear his name

Someone else: u're exceptional haha

;Noodles girl: I'M NOT UGLY.­

Someone else: yes.
guys who look like girls are hideous
and should be castrated for the better good of humanity.
amen.

girls who like jap guys are usually cheena and ugly
they usually dress terrible, read manga
speak too much terrible singaporean chinese

and are..

uglee.

fugly.

shugly ( shit ugly )

Someone (2): uh...­
they are not necessarily ugly, but they are painfully act-cute

;Someone (3): i know some jap looking guys with the cutest girls i've ever seen
im so jealous i wish i look jap

Me: take note
Jap guys who look like girls
not Jap guys who look like guys

Someone (3): most jap guys look like girls?
they still get all the chicks
no diff

"A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs." - German Proverb

***

Disadvantages of using your laptop in class: People can see that you have a MSN contact group called 'SGBOY'. Hurr hurr.

Some people who'd gone to the US on exchange said that the difference between the US and Singapore was that in Singapore people would look at you and go "Why are you like this?" (said in Chinese), but that in the US people would look at you and go "Oh, so you are like this." (said in Chinese too); they said that in Singapore people hold you to a standard and stare at you if you don't fit in, while in the US you can wear what you want - one day you can wear makeup and a skirt and basketball shorts the next, and no one will say anything.

I asked the Malay stall woman not to give me a plastic bag, but she insisted and said that otherwise the plastic store would close down. Uhh.

A presentation on the US-China trade deficit suggested that one way to improve it would be for China to develop its civil society. This was too outrageous a claim to let pass, so I called them up on it. The response was that a more democratic China would result in consumers having greater choice and buying more US goods. Uhh.

One of my minions told me that a gaggle of people was behind me in the corridor, and they were going: "Look, it's that blogger... His hair is so long. He thinks he's Vanness Wu?" Someone: "next thing you know a yaoi fangirl with too much time on her hands will produce gssq/vaness fanart -_-" Someone else: "vanness wu. ­what an insult. ­you should smack them"

The people who write the menus at Munchie Monkey are as deprived as those who ocme up with bash names. Smoothies were described as "a fruity twist for those in heat", and 3 scoops of ice-cream was named "Ménage à trois".

It tells you something that at the New Zealand's Natural in NUS, half the flavours are no/low fat.

Someone showed me some of the official unofficial smoking points in NUS. It was very interesting, not least since the biggest one (with a "NUS is a smoke-free campus" sign, no less) is where I've seen female students smoking in NUS for the first time (they're more risk-averse than the guys); I saw a female staff member smoking in a carpark - apparently it's a loophole in the regulations. I'd document these corners, but that would incite a crackdown, so.

For a test, I watched a documentary on Millennium Tower in Hong Kong (some people watched the wrong video, heh). The various concerns (providing a good mix of facilities, having a church for weddings, express lifts etc) reminded me of playing SimTower.

"The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too." - Oscar Levant

***

I notice the girls who gush over Jap guys who look like girls tend to be ugly.

"Singaporean men marry foreign women because they're losers. Singaporean women marry foreign men because Singaporean men are losers."

My brother-in-law was in a cab with a Malay taxi driver, and they both agreed that Singaporean Malay food was better than Malaysian Malay food. However, Indonesian food trumped them both. He said there was one good Malaysian "Malay" food stall though - Merlin Prata in JB, just after Imigresen. The cab driver was intrigued, though, when he was told that Malaysian Chinese hawker food was better than Singaporean Chinese hawker food ("Isit? I don't know.")

I can't stand how rude some Christians can be. I SMSed someone to ask him something and then out of the blue he replied: "you know what you need in your life? jesus." Not only did he need his god more than me, it was totally irrelevant and totally inappropriate. Worst of all, it was also extremely rude, since he knows my feelings about such matters. Much worse, I might add, than mocking someone for his baldness. He deserves to be mauled by bears!

A fine specimen of the other gender supplied me with a remarkable insight the other day: women don't want to be understood, since that'd make it too easy for their partners. This explains why they play games, throw smoke bombs et al. They want to be understood instinctively on a visceral level (on reflection the last point seems to contradict the first - perhaps instinctive understanding is alright but intellectual understanding isn't).

I think my printer's finally given up the ghost after 2 years and 9 months. It was printing kookily for a while, but it seems the holes are finally well and truly clogged - I tried 3 cleanings, 2 deep cleanings and changing the cartridge, but nothing works. Using third party ink probably had something to do with it, but using original ink would be so expensive, I might as well get a new printer (or even a laserjet). Time to trek down to Business to get 4 cent/page printing.

Someone I met for the first time looked at my hair and asked if it was rebonded. I asked how she knew and she said usually guys don't have such straight hair. She claimed that girls are genetically predisposed to have straighter hair.


I think an important reason why the politically correct group always likes to dig up and focus on examples of discrimination (even when it is questionable and when other factors undoubtedly play a part) is their ideological obsession with equality (whether equal opportunity in the mild case or equal outcomes in the extreme one).

Some simply refuse to accept that unequal outcomes can be due to innate differences and endowments, and instead blame discrimination, upbringing, the environment et al. But then innate differences and endowments are not a person's fault any more than discrimination and the lot are.

In any case, even if innate differences exist, they are not immutable. Gattaca is a good example of this.

Speech By DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng During The DAP Economic Forum "NEP vs VISION 2020: WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE?" In The Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall On 26.9.2006

"The United Nations Human Development Report consistently list Malaysians as suffering the worst income inequality between the rich and poor in South-East Asia. This is conceded by the 9MP which showed the share of income of the bottom 40% of the population declined from 14.5% in 1990 to 13.5% in 2004 whilst the share of the top 20% of the population increased from 50% in 1990 to 51.2% in 2004.

The income inequality within the Chinese community worsened in the period 1999 to 2004 from 0.434 to 0.446 whilst for Indians from 0.413 to 0.425. The income inequality amongst bumis was even worse from 0.433 in 1999 to 0.452 in 2004. Marginalization of Malaysians generally can be seen with the Ninth Malaysian Plan (9MP) showing the Gini Coefficient nationally worsening from 0.452 in 1999 to 0.462 in 2004.

How come UMNO does not talk of reducing the widening income disparity between rich Malay millionaires like him and poor Malays but continue to hit out at Chinese as if there are no poor Chinese and all Chinese are millionaires like him? If UMNO is sincere about helping poor Malays and Malaysians who are marginalized he should be asking the government to abolish the 5% bumi housing discounts given to million ringgit homes (as if Malay millionaires need a discount) and distribute Petronas RM70 billion ringgit profits to the people."


Someone should sue him for defamation.

Action in the High Court of the Republic of Singapore ("Singapore High Court")
Lee Kuan Yew v Review Publishing Company Limited and Hugo Restall
(Case No. S540/2006/Q)

This is hilarious, and quite Kafka-esque: "We sue you for defamation for alleging that we sue people for defamation unnecessarily"

Page 9 of the Writ of Summons for a libel suit against FEER reads:

"16. In addition, the phrase "How many libel suits have Singapore's great and good wrongly won, covering up real misdeeds?" was repeated and given special prominence in a box in the Article."

They even helpfully include in Appendix A an extensive list of defamation suits won by the plaintiff.

Irony, thou art dead.


Why My Vote Matters-A Dialogue With Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew

MM Lee: You mean to tell me you have, you're one of the 40% who voted against the PAP and something happens to you?

Ken Kwek, 26 - Journalist; Never voted: I mean, I've never voted for that matter, but I mean - we talk to hundreds of voters in the course of our work, and it's either "no comment" or "if I vote against the PAP..."

MM Lee: Let's get down. What are the hundreds of voters? You name the hundreds of voters, a few of them. Tell me.

Ken Kwek: Well, I mean I can't name them-

MM Lee: No no.

Ken Kwek: By name.

MM Lee: No, you tell me who you've spoken to and they say "we're afraid to vote..."

Quotes on Religion - Carl Sagan:

"One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and - whole the events of that year were certainly of some importance - the world did not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, Oh, did we say '1914'? So sorry, we meant '2014'. A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren't inconvinenced in any way. But they did not. They could have said, Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with God so He spared the Earth. But they did not. Instead, the did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout. It is astonishing in the fact of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough- mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry." - Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain

All the forum letters are about stupid things. Time for editors to act

I turned to the Forum pages of the Straits Times today, as well as previous days, and noted the sort of letters being published.

The main themes focused on banal exultation of irrelevant and perversely insidious moral values, brainless enquiries/complaints, beating the hollow drum of patriotism, sterile corporate template replies to enquiries/complaints which mostly avoid the issue and responsibility, glowing praise of the government, petitions from peasants to the Emperor, thanking taxi drivers, totally pointless shit and basically plain idiocy. Here are some of the letters:

. Long Live the Great Leader - a paean to an exalted figure, gushing obsequiously in praise of him;

. Condoms encourage promiscuity - about why we should ban condoms so only married couples will engage in congress;

. Why is company racist? - complaining about how a company's ad did not keep to the requisite quota of 1 Chinese, 1 Malay and 1 Indian (with 1 Other if budget permits);

. Smile, Singapore! - about how we should have heeded the Government's call to welcome the world with smiles;

. Singapore is truly meritocratic - about how a WASP immigrant from the USA, despite all odds, managed to secure a high-paying job here, in contrast to the discrimination he faced at home due to his being on Medical Leave all the time;

. Worms because of unethical supplier - about how there were worms in a restaurant's soup because the supplier let an expired batch through (ignoring the fact that the cook and waiter should have spotted the worms while serving the soup);

. Town council should not raise conservancy charges - begging the town council not to raise conservancy charges;

. Singapore Boleh! - about how we should emulate Malaysia in having a nationwide "Boleh" campaign, and urging us to insist to one and all that Singaporean hawker food tastes better even if we would secretly rather drive up to JB to eat.

The other letters are about inconsequential concerns and events. These are time-wasters and sad to read:

. Haze is getting bad - about one person's breathing problems;

. Speeding may cause accidents - about as informative as saying that old age kills;

. Taxi driver picked me up - about how a taxi driver deigned to ferry the letter-writer.

These letters do not provide any wholesome and meaningful points. The more a person reads them, the more he would be made to feel that life is hopeless and meaningless since this is the best that Singaporeans can come up with.

Forum letter writers are happily ripping off the editors and the public by giving us stupid letters that piss us off. It is useless to bar only children and those below 18 from reading these letters as the tasteless letters in the Forum continue to defile intelligence and common sense.

Where are our educators? Why are they silent on this sad state of affairs? What does our conscience tell us about such letters being printed in public? Do we have a conscience at all?

One may argue that we have a choice not to read these letters. But if it Hobson's choice everyday with such low quality letters, where is the freedom for one to choose a wholesome and good letter when none is available? The alternative, not to read the Straits Times and drink deeply from its overflowing cup, is surely unthinkable.

What about the public's right to read good letters? And why do we create for ourselves a famine of intelligent, meaningful letters?

A letter that is worthwhile reading would give hope to the viewer about the future of Singapore and Singaporeans.

A good letter should result in stirring a person's mind to think critically, possibly on issues never before considered or which no one else dares to raise. A good letter should result in stirring one to reject hitherto acceptable half-solutions. A good letter should teach us at least one non-obvious thing. A good letter should elegantly yet adequately deal with pertinent issues.

How should we rate a letter for its value? We should not give ratings to reflect its worth based on banality, idiocy, lies, half-truths and brainwashing, but instead focus on good wholesome values such as prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.

Unfortunately, none of these good values can be found in the letters mentioned above.

Letters that espouse the desirable values are rare. These are all not published in the Straits Times Forum. I particularly enjoy reading those on blogs such as [redacted to remain a non-political observer and avoid becoming a partisan player in blog politics].

Yet if it remains only an online blog post, it alone would not be able to help us make further progress, especially if most people continue reading the Straits Times and the Straits Times Forum.

It is not enough just to point out society's ills. Society must also be willing, aware and able to change.

I would like the Board of Straits Times Editors to critically review and evaluate the quality of the letters currently being published.

The guiding principle of the authority should always be driven by good and responsible values that promote critical thought.

And it should not be influenced by the editors' undiscerning taste that leads to a sense of hopelessness for the intelligent reader.

XXX

***

All the movies are about sex and violence. Time for censors to act

I turned to the cinema pages of the Life! Section in the Straits Times last Saturday and noted the sort of movies being shown in town.

The main themes focussed on violence, crime, death and sex. Here are some of the movies:

. The Black Dahlia - about Hollywood's most infamous sex murders;

. Dead man's shoes - about revenge;

. Silk - about spirits;

. Death Note - about death;

. The Departed - a crime drama;

. Wet hot sake - about sex, sleaze and sensuality;

. My Summer of Love - more sex and sleaze.

The other movies are about inconsequential events. These are time-wasters and sad to watch:

. Talladega Nights - about brainless and crazy people with fast cars;

. World Trade Centre - a disaster;

. Rob -B-Hood - no theme.

These movies do not provide any wholesome and meaningful lessons in life. The more a person watches them, the more he would be made to feel that life is hopeless and meaningless.

Movie directors are happily ripping off the public by giving us worthless movies that harm us. It is useless to bar only children and those below 18 from watching these movies as the tasteless pictures in the media continue to defile good sense and morals.

Where are our educators? Why are they silent on this sad state of affairs? What does our conscience tell us about such movies being screened in public? Do we have a conscience at all?

One may argue that we have a choice not to watch these shows. But if it Hobson's choice everyday with such low quality movies, where is the freedom for one to choose a wholesome and good movie when none is available?

What about the public's right to see good movies? And why do we create for ourselves a famine of morally enriching shows?

A movie that is worthwhile watching would give hope to the viewer about the meaning of life and its purpose.

A good movie should result in stirring a person's mind and heart to do good for society. It should focus on wholesome family values of love and care, and respect for the elders and the government.

How should we rate a movie for its value? We should not give ratings to reflect its popularity based on violence, crime and sex, but instead focus on good values such as kindness, gentleness, love, peace, goodness, faithfulness, self-control and joy.

Unfortunately, none of these good values can be found in the movies mentioned above.

Movies that espouse the desirable values are rare. These are 'Chariots of Fire' and 'Akeelah and the Bee'. I particularly enjoy watching Jack Neo's portrayal of our primary school system in 'I not stupid'.

Yet if it remains only a portrayal of our country's meritocratic education system, it alone would not be able to help us make further progress.

It is not enough just to point out society's ills. The movie's director should have concluded the show with lessons on corrective measures for the public.

I would like the Board of Film Censors to critically review and evaluate the quality of the movies currently being screened in public.

The guiding principle of the authority should always be driven by good and responsible values that promote hope, compassion and love.

And it should not be influenced by the public's lust for sex, violence and death that leads to a sense of hopelessness for the viewer.

George Lim Heng Chye

"Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use." - Wendell Johnson

***

Quotes:

What's the difference between Transport [Economics] 1 and 2? [Other student: Nothing]

[Starting the first lecture after the mid-semester break] So let's begin. I guess you guys are all happy to see me. [Audience: No] No?

[Student: Sir, this week is week 7] I consider this week week 8... is this too difficult for you? [Student 2: Yes]

[On how extreme 'rational expectations' is as an assumption] A lot of econs students don't have the right models, and even a lot of lecturers are not sur eif the models they have are correct.

[On William Phillips] I remember from Wikipedia he was also a crocodile hunter, so he was an early day Steve Irwin.

That's the end of the history of Macroeconomic thought talk. We're not going to move into the SP-DG model yet. Instead we're gonna take a 10 minute break. *Cries of relief from audience*

I see you guys have had a good break. 10 minutes. But we have work to do! Wait a minute, that's Saruman (???)

[On making snide remarks about 'Beautiful Voice'] After I went back I got 6 pimples. It's really karma... after bitching about him.

The effect of attendence on score in the final exam. That is what I am very interested in finding. If I find out I will let you know... if you find a good IV [Instrumental Variable], please let me know.

Engin reminds me of NJ. Dark and gloomy. Hot and humid. [Me: Everything is gray]

The difference between formal logic and informal logic. Informal logic you can do while you're in T-shirt and jeans.

[On the argument from authority] According to John Lennon, lowering interest rates at this time will not affect economic growth.

[Student: You look like you're going on Safari, game hunting]... [Me: Do I look like I'm going on safari?] You look like Steve Irwin. You need a baby.

It's not surprising that the majority of Australian tourists on Bali are against the death penalty for drug trafficking... Most of the Australian tourists on Bali would probably get hanged... Who cares what those Australian tourists on Bali say? They're all high anyway. Most of what they say is false. *Student asks him to uncover notes on the visualiser* You can't see anything? Are you Australian?

It's okay, I don't have anything against Australian tourists. If I teach a class in Australia I'll make fun of you guys.

[On what happens when 2 circular arguments collide] I can imagine 2 people arguing: is the Bible the word of God or the Quran? 'The Bible is the word of God' 'Prove it' 'It's in there: "The Bible is the word of God"' 'No, the Quran is the word of God' Tch tch tch...

And zen I do the F-test (then)

dependable variable (dependent)

the ward test (Wald)

In order to solve for this optimal waste. (weight)

[On girls singing in Chatterbox] Really, USP has all the [Me: Weirdos] No, bourgeoisie... Where do you find people who do opera?

By the way. How did you guys do on your test? [Student: Are we supposed to get it back?] You're supposed to lah, after I've marked them.

This is just a discussion. It will not come out in the exam unless he teaches it in the lecture. But for the lack of anything better to do, unless you have any questions...

[On Tag Hauer] Who cares right? It's Maria Sharapova. Whether it's false or true it's Maria Sharapova.

God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent. So why is there evil in this world? An earthquake in Afghanistan is evil... George Bush is evil. *Whispers* *** *** *** is evil!

[On the argument from ignorance] I don't know that X. Therefore X, or not X. I don't know... anything. I don't know anything. I can't think of any examples.

You're arguing that God operates on a different logical plane. That is arguing ad hoc - why?!... [Student: The others argue that the god does not have a different logic from humans] If you say that you don't know that God uses a different form of logic, that's the argument from ignorance... There is no reason to think that God has different logic from humans. The burden of proof is on you... The common way of putting it is 'You don't understand God'

Hume has a problem with induction. When you want to justify induction, you use induction.

It's easy to draw in God in all these informal fallacies. People always use informal fallacies.

Just now we did the design thing and then we realised that the iPod has the worst design. [Me: So why is it so popular?] We have no idea... It's confusing. It's not user friendly lah. I didn't even know how to turn it off. [Me: I thought Macs are supposed to be good for idiots.] Only the computer lah. The iPod is horrible.

It doesn't matter what I say about you, because some day you will be getting a lot of chickes... girls like financial analysts (!@#$)

[Me: Intelligence doesn't matter. You also won't be happy] Check out IMH [Me: They're very intelligent meh?] No, they're very happy. [Student 2: All the crazy people I know are unhappy. They're lucid enough to know... They're all intelligent]

Are you going to quote me? [Me: Is there something to quote?] Everytime you whip out that piece of paper I freak out.

Did you say 'Screwed Up Girl'?... I completely agree with that... She thinks she is a cupcake... Before you talk about pure love I want to talk about screwed up stuff first.

Didn't you use to date her too?... What's her appeal to guys? [Student: It's not her appeal I'm questioning. It's her taste in guys] *everyone laughs*

Why didn't you tell me? [Student: I don't want to bother people.] I need these issues to channel into my work! [Me: I love these inter-female dynamics.]

[On How Girls Waste Time] Is that how guys waste time? [Me: Not all guys do that] Only screwed up guys.

[Student to someone else on my interview: Are you actually doing any reading?] No. I've been reading the same sentence for 5 minutes.

[On someone] I think every arts student who has taken a class with him before is scared of him. [Me: I've taken a class with him before.] I think every arts girl who has taken a class with him before is scared of him.

Strange. I had the impression I had more students. What happened to everyone? All doing problem set? The haze? Gastric flu? (Is everyone doing the)

[On handing up the problem set only in soft copy] NUS is not going to graduate students who are afraid of IT. So get used to it.

[On the Lucas critique] Lucas says that is naive. That was not a nice thing to say to other macroeconomists and policy makers. (said that was)

The Keynesian philosophy of childcare is that you should respond when the baby cries... New Classical philosophy is: do not respond. Wow, that's harsh... It [The Keynesian perspective] is naive because it takes the baby's propensity to cry as an exogenous parameter. Babies are smarter than we think... If you don't respond, the baby will adjust her propensity to cry and she will stop crying. That's the George Akerlof homely example. (George Akerlof's)

[On time inconsistency] A third example is exams. I want you guys to study hard, so I announce that there will be an exam. Once you have studied hard, I am tempted to cancel the exam so you guys don't feel so stressed. I'm a caring person. Actually I don't wan tot mark exam scripts.

[On underidentified model - 0 IVs, 1 endogenous variable] You are laughing at my idea. But a lot of people out there use an endogenous variable to find the causal estimator... Still people claim that attendence has [a] causal effect on grases... That is where Mark Twain accuse people of using statistics to lie (accuses)

[On the Hausman test for endogeneity] It is very simple and straightforward and an example of how you can become a famous econometrician and have your name included in the your-name test in an Econometrics textbook... He replaced the plus with minus. Being famous is so simple, so if you want to try, try. Unfortunately I haven't been able to make a contribution yet.

There was an introduction in garbage incinerator (of a)

[On the difference-in-difference estimator] Clementi and Orchard. A garbage incinerator is built suddenly in NUS.

[Instructor: These are the elements of an academic essay...] *Sotto voce* Isn't it interesting he only teaches it after it's [the essay's] due?

99% of the students and the staff I was teaching during my time in Engineering didn't know the difference between an introduction and a conclusion.

Engineers have lots of workshops on public speaking skills.

In the States they can do what they want. They haven't seen the sea. Some of them don't know who the President of the USA is... They still use pounds... I don't want to say anything bad about the US because the Minister Mentor is in the US. After he comes back I will tell you more.

[On a joke] A vulgar and male Chauvinistic episode. My apologies to the girls, and empathy with the boys but I think they are mature man enough to take it (written)

[Instructor on student going to the toilet: You're going at the wrong time because I am going to talk about the exam paper.] It's ok. It's quite urgent.

[On the test] 2 years ago I gave them a fork, a table fork, and asked them to estimate the volume and surface area of the fork. As a bonus they got to take the fork hom.

I have given you boxes. I am not going to read what is outside the boxes. If your handwriting is too large, too bad.

[Student: Civil law is where there're no criminals. Criminal law is where there're criminals... Civil law is when there's a family dispute. And criminal law is when the husband kills the wife.] This is what will happen if you don't answer properly. *brandishes hair shaving tool* I took a course in hairdressing, so I know how to use it.

[On patenting Singaporean inventions here] Actually it's a jailable offence to patent it elsewhere.

If you pay a composition fine you're not a criminal, but if you pay a normal fine you're a criminal.

[On a random name chooser MATLAB program] *** [Student: You've already called me.] They like to hear your voice. [Student 2: Even the computer knows]

[Instructor: What does a patent achieve?] Wait ah. *flips notes*

"If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue." - Unknown, Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Consumer's Guide, 1897

***

NUS is sending us lots of surveys this semester. Seems they finally decided to listen to the ground and find out what students think. And even if, as some believe, they don't care what we say, well, there's always the free iPods!

"NUS Art-Vibe : call for ex-members to join back... NUS Art-Vibe(Former art-verve) has now risen to be a registered society under Office Of students Affairs(OSA). This is an appeal to previous members of Art-Vibe to join us back, we shall be more than glad to have you with us." - This is damn sad.

A poster advertising "An Inconvenient Truth" went: "Pledge to watch the film now". See, in the good old days, you pledged to do things like cut your waste production, plant a tree and stop kicking the dog. These days all you need to do is pledge to watch a show.

For one class, they had to go to Starbucks and order coffee. Wah lao.

Some people can come in to lecture at 10am with notes uploaded at 9:42am. Gah.


Someone asked me why Economics is a pseudo-science (in the sense of sort-of belonging to the Science faculty and yet not really), so I formalised my list of reasons:

Our science attributes:
- We have no or almost no readings
- We have a lot of maths
- We use textbooks and no coursepacks
- We have PRC and other Asian lecturers (the 'flavours of asia') and tons of PRC tutors
- We look like science people (ie ugly)
- We have no discussions - we just go to class and copy answers
- We have homework which we hand up and forms part of our course grade, where doing well depends on finding the right people to copy from and not actually knowing what's going on
- We think we're very smart and "practical"

On the other hand, we still retain some Arts characteristics:
- No labs
- Lectures once a week
- The Maths is not that hard
- Our Maths is not that good
- Arts canteen
- Aesthetic quality a bit above science

Someone: i've some econs girls in my gender and food classes
dey couldnt understand wats goin on at all
and at all really AT ALL

like just duno all abt it lor
and think can smoke thru
and do readings majiam never do
highlight here highlight there but came in still blank

and worse, highlight all the not important things
hahaha the worst of all IS
when do projects, den its congrats man
dey'll go: huh, y soci like tat one.. think so much

there're [SACSALs] in soci too
just wana scrap thru a BA with zero maths
tat [soci] stats module is not even compulsory anyway. and it has the lowest no. of students in any sem it's offered
like 30+?
when sexuality can easily get 100+

aiya u can do the soci ones lor. alot of ur SACSALs?
those last min still make flowery notes

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." - Dorothy L. Sayers

***

Jascha Heifetz

"On his third tour to Israel in 1953, Heifetz included in his recitals the Violin Sonata by Richard Strauss. At the time, Strauss was considered by many to be a Nazi composer (see Strauss and the Nazis), and his works were unofficially banned in Israel along with those of Richard Wagner. Despite the fact that the Holocaust had occurred less than 10 years earlier and a last-minute plea from the Israeli Minister of Education, the defiant Heifetz argued that "The music is above these factors ... I will not change my program. I have the right to decide on my repertoire." Throughout his tour the performance of the Strauss sonata was followed by dead silence.

Heifetz was attacked after his recital in Jerusalem outside his hotel by a man who struck blows to his right arm with an iron bar. As the attacker started to flee, Heifetz alerted his companions, who were armed, "Shoot that man, he tried to kill me." The assailant escaped and was never found. The incident made headlines in the press and Heifetz defiantly announced that he would not stop playing the Strauss. Threats continued to come, however, and he omitted the Strauss from his next recital without explanation. His last concert was cancelled after his right arm began to hurt. He left Israel and did not return until 1970.

After only a partially successful operation on his right shoulder in 1972 he ceased giving concerts and making records. Although his prowess as a performer remained intact and he continued to play privately until the end, his bow arm was affected and he could never again hold the bow as high as before."


!@#$%^&*()

July Trip
20/7 - Pont du Gard, Nimes

16 days in Italy had drained me, so France was a chance to recharge.

HI was really not out to make money - the pork chop I had for dinner the previous day cost only €4,50 and came with a generous serving of fries.

The configuration of the bus stops was very silly. Logically concluding that taking the bus in the opposite direction would take me back to the town centre, I waited at the bus stop opposite the one I'd gotten off from the previous day. However, I noticed that the bus I wanted didn't seem to stop at that stop, and curiously it was listed opposite - where I'd gotten off the day before (both directions of one bus line were listed as stopping at that stop). In the end a bus came along on what I assumed to be the right side and I tried to flag it down. The bus driver said something in French and pointed down the road, but let me get up anyway. At the next stop (the right one, as it turned out), a Japanese girl from my hostel going to Pont du Gard too got on.

I had some lovely French pastries for breakfast. One was a cheesestick like the sort L&E bakery used to make, but much much lighter and richer. I didn't know it was possible for layers of puff pastry to be so far apart. I also didn't want to think about the amoung of butter inside. The other was a feuillete - like the sort the so-called authentic French cafe-bakery has, but with applesauce inside.

At the bus station behind the train station, there was a Eurolines berth for buses. Seeing it sent shivers up my spine.

I wondered if the Pink Panther was released in France. I still hadn't seen Eurotrip yet in my time in Europe.

At Pont du Gard there was a guided tour offering 'privileged exploration of the Pont du Gard, the channel and the remains of the aqueduct'. Not only was it €6, it was also only in French, so I passed on it. There was also a €5 audio tour, but on the upside there was no charge for admission (though that might've been because it would've been impossible to impose such a charge).

In France the heart-shape brand ice cream was called 'Miko'. Uhh. What a curiously Jap-sounding name.


River north of the aqueduct


I was looking for the owner of this

There was a woman pressing her boyfriend's pimple on the bridge below the Pont du Gard. Tsk.


The water was amazingly clear, unlike in the river which brings us life. The fishes swimming inside it alongside my legs were testament to its life-giving properties. I'd forgotten how nice it was to wade in a cool, flowing river.


It was probably less clear after the events depicted here.
The man threw a stone into the river and the dog tried to fetch it, but gave up after a while seeing how many stones there were on the river bed.


Pont du Gard
There were a group of people in a cordoned area by the riverside who were splashing, playing and yelping. I wanted to take a picture but then remembered that they were not public property (France is the only country in the world where you need permission to take someone's photo - my brother-in-law will die). So I took a picture of public property, while accidentally including them in the bottom left.


Attempted camwhoring. The look on my face is of something approximating agony, for some reason.


Proper shot I got someone to take
The only people foolhardy enough to wade up to the middle of the river were kids, but finally one mother helped me out.


Side


Kayakers. These masochists'd paddled 5.5km downstream. Though if I'd a partner and time, I'd have done it. Later at 12:30pm I counted 18 kayaks on the river at the same time.


View from the other side


More angles


They had laid out 1.5km of so of 'Mediterranean landscape' for us to explore. I'd had 5 hours of real Mediterranean landscape in Cinque Terra where they were growing olives and grapes, so I passed. Considering that some of the paths I'd been on were near mountain goat difficulty, this was nothing and just a dumbed down version.

I tried looking for the aqueduct in the Mediterranean landscape, but it couldn't be found. A French man said I should follow the yellow signs on the trees, but following them I got to a yellow X marked out on the ground but nothing else. The place was not totally vegetated (the scrubs came usually in clumps), there was a rocky, well-trod path of sorts and there were crickets and other wildlife - it reminded me of Area D.


Arches

There was a PRC girl about 8 years old wearing a pink baseball cap with the word "ARMY". She has no idea.


Aztec Temple (top section of one side)


This was the area you could only enter with a guide. At least they were considerate - a fence blocked entry but there was space to shove a camera in.


Remains of the aqueduct - Combe Valmale (The Valmale Bridge), restored end 20th century.


Side

They were very proud that France had 27 UNESCO World Heritage sites and there was an information panel with a map showing where in France each was. Gah.

Raymond Rogliano's "cani aov/aose/nose" (2003) was very wth. It looked like a fossil embedded in the ground. Meanwhile another artwork I saw someone looked like a random layout of pebbles on the ground. Wth. This was also called art. But it still beats Yves Klein, I swear.

The Pont du Gard museum was €6 - I took it as a donation for maintenance of the thing and anyhow it was very big and good; I didn't even have time to look at everything.

There was a 3rd century suction pump at the museum. Apparently the suction pump was invented in the 3rd century BC and its design was described by Vitruvius.

They had fascimiles of a reconstituted stove (?) and a limestone funeral monument fragment. I didn't know it was possible to fscimile such things!

The Caracalla baths spanned 11 hectares. All the Imperial baths of the 2 centuries preceding it spanned <9 hectares.

They had a reproduction of a groma (a Roman surveying tool similar in principle to a plumb line).

90% of the aqueduct was underground.

There was a section of the museum with a very helpful 1:1 scale reconstruction of how the Pont du Gard was constructed. The lights illuminating this area kept dimming and brightening. In the museum as a whole, various random musical notes filled the air, moving through funny gradients (sliding up and down in pitch and volume). The sounds of the wind rushing through empty spaces, water flowing and building tools being used were also played. To crown it all, at one end of the museum a light was projected through a ripple tank mounted above the heads of the aufience, resulting in the floor being lit with ripples of light. All in all, a very eerie effect was achieved; I felt like I was watching March of the Penguins again, sans 95% of the notes in the music. Bloody French. They can't even keep this sort of surrealist rubbish out of a musuem.

Surrealism aside, at least the museumwas quadlingual, and there were no curators enforcing the no photography rule!

Oddly enough, after exiting the museum I realised it was not guarded (the ticket booth was two floors above). There were machines to scan your ticket but there was no barrier blocking entrance.

I then returned to Nimes.


Statue-fountain in Esplanade/Charles de Gaulle (according to map)

At almost 3, I had lunch at "Quick Burger", billed as a "Quality Hamburger Restaurant" (that sounds so Malaysian). It was quick and cheap compared to restaurants, and I just felt like sitting down in an air-conditioned environment since I was tired and it was hot. My bun had sesame seeds embedded in the top like in brown premium bread, heh. On the other hand, my coeur d'ananas looked big in the picture but in reality was the length of my third finger and the width of the 2nd and 3rd combined.

One restaurant had moules and frites for €8,20. Wah, so cheap.

"Our friends the dogs are not allowed" - Sign on the Roman arena


Amphitheatre.
My timing was most excellent. It was closed to the public on 19th and 20th July for a rock concert, but opened on the 21st, when I would be in Avignon. I could've jiggled the dates I visited each place around, but it was very troublesome and slightly less safe (due to luggage issues, getting back to the hostel - taking a bus and walking up 500+m, and such). The day before, I'd expressed my regret to the British punk at not being able to visit, but remarked that I'd been in the Colosseum 2 weeks before, so it was alright. He asked if it was the one in Rome; I should've asked if was the one in Timbuktu.

The main things I missed about Italy were the granite and the gelati. Some shops in Nimes were selling granite, so I bought 1 petit one. It was the worst crushed ice concoction I'd ever had and likely will ever have. The ice was extremely coarse, so much so that I had to chew the ice (and as the girl in the Ding Dong Song tribute remarks, "It's a scientific fact that people who chew ice are sexually deprived.").


Maison Carree, a very well preserved Roman temple.

I wanted to enter the Maison Carree, but it turned out that the place had been converted into a movie theatre screening, at half-hour intervals, a fun-looking campy 3D movie called 'Heroes de Nimes'. On the poster outside I saw gladiators, a Roman priest, a jousting knight and a bullfight. I figured what the hell, there wasn't much else to see in the time I had left anyway, so I bought a ticket.

One woman in the queue had jury-rigged a novel cooling device. A detergent spray bottle had a battery-operated handheld fan on top (the tube-shaped ones with a fan blade on the top of the tube) - she turned on the fan and started spraying.

Unfortunately the air-conditioning inside was spoilt. There were 2 fans, but they were patently insufficient. If I'd known, I wouldn't have paid to watch the show!

The show itself was disappointing. A Roman priest asked the gods who was the bravest of the people of Nimes. He then saw visions of gladiatorial fights, a Gothic Dark Age rebellion (when the rebel had barricaded the amphitheatre), medieval jousting (in a curiously empty field - apart from the jousters and their horses there were only 2 tents, 2 squires and the jousting rail), 18th century swordplay (some rebel against Louis XIV) and 20th century bullfighting. The lame conclusion was that "As long as the amphitheater stands, the heart of Nimes will live on. Of all the peoples of the empire, the people of Nimes are the bravest". Great, I spent €3,60 on watching a propaganda film about Nimes.

In the show, bullfighting looked so easy, not least since the bull charged for an extremely short distance (maybe the real bullfighters are all in Spain). There was also a man on a horse standing by, doubtless to attack the bull if the situation got out of hand. A test of courage my foot, and especially laughable when compared to the fighting gladiators.

The show had no blood or gore either (a red splotch on one guy's arm after he got injured in a swordfight doesn't count). They should've spent the money used for 3D on some fake blood, but then there's the European aversion to violence. In that case, they could've found some way to include sex, heh.

On the up side, they had the priest and gladiators speak in Latin, though I'd expected French!


Jets along Quai de la Fontaine


Jardin de la Fontaine. Not bad, but nothing can match les jardins inégalés, pour un idiot inégalé (which must've been wonderful at that time of year).


Swans in Jardin


Pond in Jardin

I tried to look for the ‘Temple de Diane’ which was marked on the map but couldn’t find it. Maybe it was like the ‘Roman Ruins’ in Schloss Schonnbrunn (check).


Tower magne
Despite appearances, this was available for mounting.


Nimes from the top



The telegraph was so important that in the first half of the 20th century – ‘telegraphic language’ was taught in a number of primary schools in the area.


Castellum – distribution point at the end of the 49km aqueduct.

At 7+ I was walking along the restaurants in the centre of Nimes. They were all extremely crowded. I considered having paella/moules et frites but didn’t feel like it. Apparently my appetite was out of whack, though I hadn’t had a lot at lunch. It didn’t help that all the menus were in French, the place not being non-French speaking tourist friendly.

I paid €1,60 for water with lemon juice - ‘Volvic Zest’ from a vending machine at the station. At least now I knew what ‘peu sucre’ meant (it had 0.5% sugar). Damn French.

I considered having pho for dinner, but one ‘vietnamiennes, thailandaises’ place didn’t have it, though it had ‘crab clow’ and ‘boisson exotique’ (wth); at least it had an English menu. I ended up at another Vietnamese restaurant in the end, one run by Cantonese-speaking people (and with some English words on the menu). So I had my pho (it was listed under “soup” as pork pho on the menu, which I thought very odd, and they gave me what I was 99% sure was beef, damnit) and cold crab and chicken salad (mostly bean sprouts, some shredded carrot and other vegetables, with chopped peanuts sprinkled on top but dressed with no chili, yay [this is France]). It came up to €8,50 – less than paella (Hah! Maybe I’d have it in Avignon). (I don’t understand why I got keropok – is it Vietnamese?) The guy wasn’t very good with English, but I got my tap water in the end (yay) though I think he was trying to coerce me into buying a drink. I gave them a small tip in the end so I don’t think they had anything to complain about.

At a sandwich place: ‘Pan Baguet vegetarias’ had ‘jambon thon, poulet, surimi, jambon crii (??)’ Wth.

I missed the last bus by half an hour, so I had to walk all the way back. I should’ve da baoed a sandwich instead of sitting down for dinner. Unfortunately, I was feeling quite listless. Climbing rocks at the Pont du Gard had taken more out of me than I’d realized.

Perhaps Thursday was market day. There were little stalls in most squares I walked past. I saw a lot of couples cuddling in parks. Must’ve been the French connection.

I left the bus stop at the train station at 9:12, reached the bus stop at the foot of the hill the hostel was on at 9:49 and reached the gate of the hostel at 9:59, and wanted to die by then, especially when I imagined what it’d be like to do it with my killer backpack on my back.

"If p is true and q is false, what are the truth values of the following conditional sentences?

1) p if q
2) q if p
3) q if q
4) If p, then q
5) p, provided that q
6) q whenever p
7) p is necessary for q
8) q is sufficient for p
9) p unless q
10) p only if q"


!@#$%^&*()

But, remember the law of diminishing returns, studied earlier. Beyond a certain point, increase in reliability incurs a disproportionately greater cost. Remember also that the quality of a product at the point of use may be impaired by improper handling, transportation and storage*.

* - I am convinced that some wines (of the same label) taste better in Europe than in Singapore. How many distributors or supermarkets store their wines at the optimum temperature? Temperature variation doesn’t do the wine any good – by the time it gets into your father’s wine-cooler at home, the damage may already have been done.
It is also a misconception that all wines improve with age. In fact, more than 90% of all the world’s wines should be consumed within one year, and less than 1% should be aged for more than 10 years. Some wines now come in aluminium cans (e.g., on Tiger Airways flights). Nevertheless, please don’t gulp down your wine. Taste wine with your taste buds all over your mouth – on both sides of your tongue, underneath, on the tip, and extending to the back of your throat. Also smell the wine, after swirling it to release the esters, ethers and aldehydes, which combine with oxygen to yield the bouquet (total smell) of the wine. An average person can perceive only 4 tastes (sweet, sour, bitter and salt) but can detect about 2000 different scents. And wine has more than 200 different scents.


- Extract from notes for a class where, I swear, we spend up to 20% of class time on Internet jokes, which amazingly have some pedagogical point or other to them.

Someone asked me for Asian Prince links, so since I've dug them up I might as well paste them here for reference (I hope I remember to look here the next time someone wants Asian Prince resources):

http://gssq.blogspot.com/2004/06/as-harry-potter-books-get-longer-and.html ("Don't even PRETEND you aren't jealous. YOU ARE. Seeing this guy is BETTER than winning money. Way better.")

AsianPrince213's Xanga Site

Friendster - Wo-Hen

www.myspace.com/asianprince213

http://gssq.blogspot.com/2005/04/intellectual-is-man-who-takes-more.html

http://gssq.blogspot.com/2003/11/following-was-recommended-to-me-by.html

Slippery Nipples: Spotted!


Better yet, I've found some new stuff.

First, a reverse search referral lookup revealed a Korean (?) guy who looks like Wo-hen: 어쩜 이렇게 느끼할 수가

Also, a forum thread: Asia Finest Discussion Forum > TUAN ANH! with 2 new pictures!


6th December 2003



Some comments in that thread:

"When I was a kid my best friend was viet and I would go to her house all the time and her mom would listen to this vietnamese artist, he has a mustache, with a mullet and wears makeup...he even dresses in very fancy shiney clothing like a woman."

"I met him in real life before at the mall with his three big ol body guards he saw my mom looking and he smiled and nod at her..and I asked her who is that transexual hella loud...I was young at the time.."

"He is gay lol. when i was livin' in new orleans like on tet there will be a fair thing at a church and we would od stuff and viet celeberities come and stuff. so he's sitting there waitin' to sign autographs (no one wanted his). so me and my friends were bored cause we were waitin' for trish to come out and perform. so yea my friends like let's go talk to him (i was the only one who talked to him). so iwas like hi. and he's like hi. and so my friend told me to ask him and if he has any kids and so i asked and he's like yes i do. I got 9 kids. and i just was like whoa. so i asked for his autograph and then i asked him can i borrow his sharpie and he's like why. and i'm like so i can get trish's autograph. and he like uhh ok but bring it back. i guessed he was annoyed when i asked for it. o well. but i lost the calender that had his and trish's autograph on it. man that sucks. but yea. he's gay to me. lol. my mom said she was on the same plane with him and i'm like cool. i just knw he's famous and gay but i don't know anything else about him. lol"

"you guys are laughing but this guy is considered a legendary singer for the older generation and even the younger generation. he's made hit after hit songs and is the vietnamese version of elvis."

"my parents still play his hit songs while singing along to his tunes on their karaoke system. i myself, own a fairly good amount of his collection."

"i would kill for his mullet."

"he is considered a legend to all vietnamese. the way the music business is going today in VN, tuan anh is STILL consider the greatest singer in VN of all time."

"When i asked mine.They just laughed their asses off and told me,"That faggy singer(Thang bong lai cai ma noi tieng ha" is exactly what they told me and started laughing)"

"he looks indian on that cover! so he's Indian as well?" (wth?!)

"hey was Tuan Anh ever part of any band or did he ever had a partner? or a sidekick or something? can anyone find tuan anh's pix from his early days? maybe he was a girl transformed into a man?"

"My parents told me that he is married to a woman. His wife likes to dress as a man though. And it is true, he is a legend. My parents and their friends love his music."

"From what I heard this guy gets more poon than anybody I know. I am not suprised if he had gotten hold of all those fine chicks from Paris by Night gig."


Oh my god! I'm going to hyperventilate soon! (The candid shot looks a lot worse. Maybe he's showing his age. Or he finally found his website.)

Someone: you know, when i first saw him, i really thought he was a fictional character created by you

I was asked to upload to YouTube these videos shot on October 24th, 2005. They're entitled "Fun with Kotex" (Original post, with more information and video transcript, including many screenshots).

"It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose." - Darrin Weinberg

***

The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners - "A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered."

Malaysia Sucks - "The head or political leader of the Malaysian Government is known as the Prime Minister or PM. The former reigning so called elected democratic government was ruled by the infamous:
Prime Minister Dato' Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohammed Most would agree that the world has many assholes, but this guy really really sucks! This guy is a real pip. He is a certified 'ASSHOLE.'"
Even I find this ridiculous.

YouTube - NikeCosplay (Sentai)- "It happens in Akiba, electronics city and mecca of cosplay. The man happens to meet them.. ... (more)"

Japanese Teriyaki - "The key ingredient in teriyaki sauce is mirin. Mirin adds luster to ingredients when it's cooked and adds nice aroma. Since it is effective in masking the smell of fish, using mirin for teriyaki seafood dishes is a good idea. The sweetness of mirin is different from that of sugar. It's a perfect seasoning to add a mild sweetness to Japanese cooking."
Teriyaki is haram!

HITMAN - Professional Killings - "Our firm consists of a small team of highly-skilled, and experienced, specialists. We are the industry leader in innovative killing approaches and have built a lasting reputation over decades of outstanding services for clients on five continents. Instead of fiddling around with amateur killing techniques and messing up crime scenes just pick up the phone and give us a call. After reviewing your case, our team will develop a customized package that is best-suited for your particular situation. You provide us with the name of your mark, along with a photo and personal details, and take a vacation; we'll make sure one of our specialists sends flowers to the grieving widow while you enjoy your margaritas on the beach... HITMAN is a cruelty-free organization. None of our services have been tested on animals."

Facebook | Melvin Tay appreciation society - "melvin tay is a pwc and birmingham legend!"
Maybe someone can set up a fanclub for me too. Hurr hurr.

Blogging 'un-Christian' - shock - "Blathering on blogs is un-Christian, an Evangelical church has warned. "Blogging has become a socially accepted practice - just as are dating seriously too young, underage drinking and general misbehaving," notes the monthly of the Reformed Church of God, Ambassador Youth."

Ten Reasons Why China Sucks - "Horrible Mandarin. A properly educated mainland Chinese person speaks beautiful Mandarin, I have to admit. Unfortunately, most Chinese people aren't well educated and they speak horrendous Mandarin."

Are you a bleeding-heart conservative? - "Bleeding-heart conservatives are folks who get just as emotional about injustice and unfairness as bleeding-heart liberals do. Like their liberal counterparts, bleeding-heart conservatives want the government to address what they see as pressing national injustices... the child-friendly bleeding-heart conservative is more likely to say, "I can't stand thinking about the children of the Carnegie and Heinz families being forced to pay taxes on their multi-million dollar inheritances! The government should help them!" See how the difference isn't the bleeding-heart? The difference is the target of our affections."

Facebook | Better A Bleeding Heart Than None At All - "No longer will the liberals of this world sit back and be the object of insult, scorn, and slander at the hands of the right wing. We speak with many voices, for many things; for the impoverished, the hungry, the persecuted, the oppressed, for the right to personal liberty, safety from the threat of violence, understanding in the face of ignorance, compassion and respect to our global neighbors, faithful stewardship of the Earth, and the spread of common decency and peace in our war-ravaged world. We stand together, and light a candle in the dark."
This is a good retort to those who think having a heart is a sin.

Greg Mankiw's Blog: Why Aspiring Economists Need Math - "Your math courses are one long IQ test. We use math courses to figure out who is really smart."

A fat world? Now wouldn't that be blubberly... - "More good news: those teenage pregnancy rates are going to plummet. Once you get over 20 stone, physical conjoinment is near impossible, and so for the 21st-century teenager, a really heavy petting session will consist of texting each other apt emotions, and sighing. Similarly, crime rates should drop through the floor. A great deal of the skill in burglary involves slipping through small basement windows, shimmying over fences or tiptoeing around people’s drawing rooms."

Pagan virtues can counter the vice of narrow world view - ""A hundred years ago his English history plays were exploited as propaganda for the British throne and Empire. Today most critics see them as ironic, satirical and deeply subversive." More recently, King Lear had been simultaneously banned in some London schools because it was seen as "glorifying the patriachy" and in some US states because it didn't offer a Christian message of hope and redemption. And in South Africa, King Lear, Hamlet and Othello had been banished from the syllabus because they offered negative views of life, endorsed suicide and contained characters and situations that were absurd and unbelievable."

I thought about creating a drinking game, but I can’t very well go to class hung over - "And so, ladies and gentlemen, I hereby present - precalculus bingo... 'bubbly girlish handwriting pleasing "please be nice!"'"

Cute Overload: Cats 'n' Racks™ - Uhh. Somehow "cute" isn't the word that comes to find when I see cats on racks.

Galbadia Hotel - Video Game Music & Anime Soundtracks List - I wonder where he finds all that space. And it's not just Jap games - there're English ones too!

Your chances of getting laid through Craigslist: A Bloggasm case study - "I was surfing through the job listings at Craigslist, and inevitably wandered my way into the personals section, and became instantly fascinated with all the posts. I eventually made my way into the “Sex with no strings attached” section, and immediately wondered: Could this be real? Is it really this easy to get laid by simply logging in and making a post, when so many other people out there have to struggle to get laid the normal way? It didn’t take long to realize that for every female who posted, there were anywhere from ten to twenty males posting, and several of the posts mentioned that half the girls who posted were just spammers, which led me to believe that the ratio was even greater than that. So with this curiosity in mind, I set out to find out how hard it was to get laid using Craigslist, or rather, how many people actually responded to the “No strings attached” ads."

On the teenage brain - "Teenagers have a much harder time than adults at even simple tasks that involve controlling one's impulses, but with a twist. For example, when told to ignore a light visible through their peripheral vision, teenagers do as well as adults, but much larger portions of their frontal regions light up during the task. These are the regions involved in rational decisions, and apparently teenagers need to use them in overdrive to keep themselves from yielding to even very simple impulses. Imagine the extra work that teenage frontal regions have to do if the task is to keep away from sex, drugs or alcohol..."

The World According to Eco - "Mac, he posited, is Catholic, with "sumptuous icons" and the promise of offering everybody the chance to reach the Kingdom of Heaven ("or at least the moment when your document is printed") by following a series of easy steps. DOS, on the other hand, is Protestant: "it allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions ... and takes for granted that not all can reach salvation.""

YouTube - MIT sketching - Objects drawn on a whiteboard come to life as the computer recognises them.

My quandary in an all-boys school - "As a product of hunting ancestry, a man’s brain falls into a complete resting state if he sits still too long (which explains men’s ability to zone out of awkward conversations). No wonder boys fail when education is ever more about quietly listening and less about cutting up frogs. And while boys — particularly those who have no father at home — thrive under good male teachers, men have all but left primary education, a terrible by-product of a society that obscenely questions their motives for working with small children."

Ban for boy with two snacks - "A boy aged 10 has been banned from his school dining hall because his packed lunch broke the government's healthy eating guidelines."

Democracy? Must we? Oh all right, but we'd really rather stay serfs - "You would never think that this Crown dependency has just been rocked by revolution, but it has. Last week it agreed to abolish 450 years of feudal rule and introduce universal suffrage. Mr Beaumont will be stripped progressively of his ancient powers and privileges. Eventually, he could lose even his right to keep the island’s only pigeons and unspayed female dogs, and anything washed up on its shores."

This year's top Christmas gift - a book that rejects God - "A book that rejects religion and argues for the non- existence of God is heading to be the No 1 bestseller for Christmas. Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion is at the top of the bestseller chart of the online bookseller Amazon, and is climbing up The Times bestseller chart... In the book he writes: “Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that ‘God is the ultimate’ or ‘God is our better nature’ or ‘God is the universe’. “Of course, like any other word, the word ‘God’ can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that ‘God is energy’, then you can find God in a lump of coal.”"

Who says Chinese vs. Malays? - ""I hope for the leaders to say something smarter," said Muhammad Hafez, as he walked along Arab Street. "How would ageing politicians who are not on the streets know what's going on?""
This is probably the best response so far.

Seeing the world's Disney parks - "The group was in Hong Kong on the second leg of their Disney-themed round-the-world tour, realizing months of planning for a 32-day trip that takes them to every Disney park in the world -- from Tokyo to Hong Kong to Paris, to the U.S. flagships, Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida. It was a dream come true for the "Down Under Disneyana" fan club members, who have all been to one or more Disney parks before but have never done them all at one go. The idea of a world tour was especially appealing for Australian fans because they live so far away from all the Disney parks, Simpson said."

The physics of goo - "Back when he was writing the Principia Mathematica, Isaac Newton argued with his pal Chistiaan Hyugens about an interesting question: Would someone swim faster through water or through a thick, viscous goo? Newton bet you'd go slower; Hyugens argued the opposite. Newton decided to put both viewpoints in the Principia, since he couldn't resolve it. There seemed to be no way to test it: Who was going to go to the trouble of constructing a massive tank and filling it with goo? A professor at the University of Minnesota, as it turns out. Edward Cussler took 300 kilograms of guar gum, a thickening agent found in salad dressing, and dumped it into a 25-meter swimming pool on campus."

Phelps on Dynamic Capitalism:

"What would be the consequence, from this Rawlsian point of view, of releasing entrepreneurs onto the economy? In the classic case to which Rawls devoted his attention, the lowest score is always that of workers with the lowest wage, whom he called the "least advantaged": Their self-realization lies mostly in marrying, raising children and participating in the community, and it will be greater the higher their wage. So if the increased dynamism created by liberating private entrepreneurs and financiers tends to raise productivity, as I argue--and if that in turn pulls up those bottom wages, or at any rate does not lower them--it is not unjust. Does anyone doubt that the past two centuries of commercial innovations have pulled up wage rates at the low end and everywhere else in the distribution?"


2 responses:


A: "And it appears that the recent street protesters associate business with established wealth; in their minds, giving greater latitude to businesses would increase the privileges of old wealth. By an "entrepreneur" they appear to mean a rich owner of a bank or factory, while for Schumpeter and Knight it meant a newcomer, a parvenu who is an outsider."

But the fact is that such large businesses are currently wildly successful to a degree that gives them power entirely out of proportion to the numbers and kinds of welfare they are designed to serve. The laws that they push forward which are widely regarded as "pro-business", are in fact designed to benefit those who are currently rich at the expense not only of those who are poor but also those who would produce to the benefit of wider society.

The increasingly insane developments of intellectual property rights trends is great evidence of this. There is no obvious, uncontestable definition of "property" in a film or musical recording that makes, for instance, re-recording for a range of forms of personal consumption, or the creation of remixes, or being able to skip advertisements in DVDs of the film, consequences flowing from that film or musical recording that someone involved in artistically creative activity would foresee and take into account when deciding how much and what to produce. The question is purely one of distribution of the wealth of this cultural product -- more to the corporations or more to consumers?

Yet business lobbies insist that tilting distribution in their favour (with the weight of governmental force, mind you) is an incentive to innovation -- that the laws that back up anti-circumvention and turn us from active users into mere consumers are pro-innovation. And perhaps they have a point here, that there is a definite effect of IP protection on future creation. But what kind of effect? If the madness of anti-circumvention is pro-innovation, pro- what kind of innovation? Certainly not the kind of fluid, participative, democratised innovation performed everyday by people who swap and modify one another's works on, say, the Internet (anyone who has ever followed a web comic and seen the great quality of work and the innovations that come from guest strips and cross-fertilisation of ideas will know what I mean). Certainly not innovation in the form of parody and pastiche that can only come when the originators of works don't arrogate to themselves the right to censor so as to protect not their authorial integrity but their commercial brand.

If Phelps were merely arguing that the capitalists have perverted capitalism I could be more sympathetic. But the claim that America's corporatised (the irony, that he should choose to call Western European 'corporatist' instead!) version of capitalism is somehow one that more closely than any other developed country's model approximates the kind of ideals underlying capitalism doesn't, to my mind, pan out. The corporations have the weight of thousands of lawyers and lobbyists on their side, and we lawyers (I'm ashamed to admit) and lobbyists work to alter the terms of every transaction so that the notion of a fair bargain has become entirely illusory in many cases. Giving large businesses free rein is giving them the power to set the terms on which you choose. Democracy -- ideally, the source of restraining laws -- acts as a counterbalance by giving us the means to ensure that -we- set the terms on which they set the terms on which we choose. The (all too sadly increasingly realised) alternative is government by other people's profit motives.

Phelps thinks we should identify "pro-business" laws with laws that are "pro-small-business." A "pro-business" law is never equally pro-big-business and pro-small-business; it's going to favour one or the other. It's pretty crazy that Phelps talks about Western European anti-capitalists having an antipathy toward capitalism that ignores all consequences. It's precisely the hard fact of consequences, aside from all pretty theory, on which laws that restrict the ability of large businesses to do as they like with impunity are founded.


B: "The system operates to discourage changes such as relocations and the entry of new firms, and its performance depends on established companies in cooperation with local and national banks. What it lacks in flexibility it tries to compensate for with technological sophistication. So different is this system that it has its own name: the "social market economy" in Germany, "social democracy" in France and "concertazione" in Italy ."

Given that the world is growing increasingly interconnected, Phelp's apparent assumption that there is an objective characteristic of "capitalist" or "non-capitalist", that can be used to describe any particular country, is problematic. One thing that you'll realise when you look at the so-called "capitalist" countries the world over is that they vary widely. Not just within the bounds of "monopolies too big to break up, cartels... etc" but also the influence of the multinational corporation. The beauty, and the tragedy, of the efficiency in a world which increasingly promotes free trade, is that any large corporation has a disproportionately large influence in where it chooses to invest. When countries such as the USA experience "increased productivity growth" that allow its lowest paid workers to choose other, ostensibly more fulfilling, jobs (such as data entry possibly), other countries such as India have workers which enter into these markets. Such is the beauty of outsourcing.

Free trade enthusiasts would argue that these jobs created would be a step up from what these individuals were doing in the past, and make them better off. Two criticisms are pertinent here however. Firstly, it makes the assumption that a better paid job makes a person better off, which Phelps criticizes in his essay; Second, it ignores the fact that in moving these jobs into a developing country, a multinational corporation does not only save on cost, ceteris paribus, but in many cases, also saves on a multitude of other factors - minimum working conditions, union protection and the cost of firing and hiring are just a few examples. The quality of the jobs held therefore, would seem to be different. This is not to say that the overall effect is not positive, but it is far more complex than what Phelps would seem to argue, and is not clearly positive in the way he makes it out to be.

An extension of this point is relevant to A's observation about multinational firms and intellectual property. One of the first things that you will come across when you study market failures is that companies have a concentrated gain from organizing and lobbying to forward legislation that is in their interest - in this case, intellectual property law. By contrast, individuals, who benefit from competing legislation, have far fewer resources and organizational capability. All other things remaining equal, as A points out, the companies win. In the international sphere, this is analogous. Multinational corporations have a concentrated gain in forwarding international legislation that is in their interest; in the international community, organizing becomes even more difficult. Witness the broadcaster-weighted proposals in the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), where broadcasters are close to securing ability to unrestrictedly use orphan works, and retain the rights to them for 20 years.

These forces work directly against the so-called "dynamic" forces of capitalism, that Phelps emphasizes in his essay. Intellectual property was arguably designed to safeguard innovation and indeed promote it, by offering individuals an economic incentive to innovate. In a simplified conception, it consists of access and protection elements - protection which safeguards an individual's innovation, whether in the form of copyright or a patent, or access, which allows individuals to create derivative works which are potentially just as valuable, or even more.

The unequal forces mentioned two paragraphs back skews laws toward the protection element, which often favours the incumbent, as they have the most invested in intellectual property, and are the most able to legislate against its trespass. It would seem that the large firm, a by-product of the capitalist system, is in fact eating away at one of it's foundations - the access to information that allows dynamism to continue.

An email HWMNBN forwarded me:


Hi all,
What does it take to be recognised as World Heritage Site ? We might be shocked by what Malaysian civil servants think including this guy Rais Yatim. UNESCO Heritage Site authority will never recognise a site to be of WH grade if it is turned into a theme park for tourists.

This is exactly what this Dr. wants to do (build a tower with a revolving restaurant at the top near the very site he wants the UN to recognise). This is exactly the opposite what a WH site is all about - never change the site facially, never change the lifestyle of people living in that site, never build Disneyland structures within the vicinity, never do things just to attract tourists ........ leave the place alone and let the people living there ply their trade as they get on with their lives. Never turn the place into a theme park.

Why is it so difficult for Bolehland civil servants to undertsand ?

Regards
***

__________________________________________________________________________

Wednesday October 11, 2006


Rais downplays UN heritage bids

MALACCA: Getting Penang and Malacca listed as World Heritage Sites may not be so important after all, Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said.

He said the current conditions set by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) for listing were also difficult for Asian countries.

He said he would propose to the United Nations to establish an Asia Chapter for Unesco listing comprising Asian members as judges.

"It would be fairer this way. The current conditions set by Unesco are difficult for Asian countries to be listed," he said, adding that European countries enjoyed a higher chance of being listed.

He was speaking to reporters after the groundbreaking ceremony for the 110m-high revolving tower which would be built near the Stadhuys heritage zone here yesterday.

Dr Rais said Penang and Malacca had made three joint applications and each time Unesco came back to ask for more data.

"We gave the additional data when asked to do so. Now, we do not have any more new data to give," he said.

Gunung Mulu National Park and Kinabalu National Park have been declared World Heritage Sites.

Mak yong and orang asli carvings have also been proclaimed "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritages of Humanity" by Unesco.

On the construction of the revolving tower, Dr Rais said it should not be used as a reason to reject the application for listing.


Ah, obviously the panel is being biased and ethnocentric in applying their subjective standards to judge Malaysia's application. Ideally, the panel judging the bid would be totally made up of judges nominated by the Malaysian government, which would understand the special circumstances of that country.

Luckily, 2/3 of the OJ Simpson Trial Jury were Black, which is why a fair and balanced verdict was delivered in that trial.

"One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards." - Oscar Wilde

***

Assuming I am not senile yet, I remember that in Secondary School (or was it JC? I forget) we got this really far-out reading where the most hilarious claim was that:

"Plato's teaching about music is, put simply, that rhythm and melody, accompanied by dance, are the barbarous expression of the soul. Barbarous, not animal.

... rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire--not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored.

Young people know that rock music has the beat of sexual intercourse. That is why Ravel's Bolero is the one piece of classical music that is commonly known and liked by them."

I swear that at some point in the past I found the essay it was from online, but anyhow I was prompted to look for the full thing again today to reference to someone.

It seems it's from Allan Bloom's "The closing of the American mind : how higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students". Wikipedia's summary:

"He especially targets the "openness" of Relativism as leading paradoxically to the great "closing" referenced in the book's title.

The book's lengthy introduction delineates two kinds of "openness". One sort stimulates the student to pursue "the good" by discovering new aspects of goodness in other times and places than the West; this is the sort that Bloom apparently favors. The other sort misuses the study of other cultures to prove the dogmatic, a priori assumption that our culture is not the best and that we have no special claim on knowing the good.

Bloom criticizes the openness of cultural relativism, in which he claims:

"the point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all."

In line with Plato, whom he quotes periodically throughout the book, Bloom believes that it is incumbent on the individual to search for truth in order to have any hope of a higher life. He believes it is the unique obligation of the university to point students in this very direction.

Like Tocqueville and Nietzsche, Bloom asserts that democracy—by valuing the opinion of each citizen equally—is not an environment in which genius excels. It is therefore the university that needs to lead the lost art of living the good life.

Contemporary critical reaction to the book was politically polarised, but many of those hostile to Bloom's conclusions acknowledged the value of the book's recapitulation of the history of political philosophy." (Emphases mine)

It's in the NUS library too, so I really have no excuse not to read it.

(Maybe after I finish my travelogue. Hurr hurr.)

"When I was an undergrad like you I used to spend my holidays reading Karl Marx... Marx is very difficult to read. Most people read Karl Marx in jail... no one spends their holidays reading Karl Marx." - NUS Staff


"Openness used to be the virtue that permitted us to seek the good by using reason. It now means accepting everything and denying reason's power. The unrestrained and thoughtless pursuit of openness, without recognising the inherent political, social, or cultural problem of openness as the goal of nature, has rendered openness meaningless. Cultural relativism destroys both one's own and the good. Culture, hence, closedness, reigns supreme. Openess to closedness is what we teach."

Trying to prevent prejudices by "removing the authority of men's reason is to render ineffective the instrument that can correct their prejudices."

(Quotes from a review here)

"An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex." - Aldous Huxley

***

YouTube - every sperm is sacred - "I've got something to tell y'all... The mill's closed. There's no more work. We're destitute... I've got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments... Blame the Catholic Church for not letting me wear one of those little rubber things... If they let me wear one of those rubber things on the end of my cock, we wouldn't be in the mess that we are now."
This seditious song is even funnier to watch than listen to.

YouTube - cuddles clip robot chicken

The Middle Ages of Reason: It was the medieval world that dragged us into the future, not the reactionary Renaissance - "The Renaissance was a backward-looking movement that hailed the distant past - ancient Greece and ancient Rome - as the only source of enlightenment. Petrarch, a Renaissance writer, wanted to put the clock back and to return to writing in Latin. And not just the Latin that was then current. He wanted to return to classical Latin. The Latin that was then current and still being spoken in the churches and monasteries was condemned as deficient. Rather than reviving Latin, the Renaissance killed it stone dead as a spoken language."

Girls beat Glasto toilet nightmare - "This year, the festival's organisers sought to redress the balance with the introduction of female urinals - or She-pees - guarded by concierges to keep the boys at bay. And two other products were also launched, promising differing solutions to how a girl can get a swift comfortable pee and still keep her dignity. The Whiz is a funnel which allows a woman to go standing up - in the She-pee for instance. Taking a different tack, the Go Bag is a pouch of crystals which turn liquid into a solid gel for easy disposal."

Sweatshop workers who satisfy gamers' lust for virtual power - "The room is crammed with Chinese workers stripped to the waist. Poorly paid and exhausted from their punishing shifts, they chain-smoke and rub their eyes, while their colleagues sleep two to a mat on the floor. But this Shanghai sweatshop is not churning out T-shirts, trainers or children’s toys. Its workers are known in the computer games world as “gold farmers”. They are playing online games and winning virtual gold, which the owners of the gold farms then sell on to cash-rich, time-poor Westerners for real money."

Racist Rev Row - "A driver spent two nights in jail after being accused of "revving his car in a racist manner"."

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Contraception the Next Big Target? - "The illogical thinking of some of these people is absolutely astounding: "I think it's great that more pro-life people are finally speaking up about it," said Helen Mazur, 27, who flew in from Philadelphia with her husband for the conference, called "Contraception is Not the Answer." "It's always been a touchy subject, but you have to stand strong on your beliefs. Contraception is the root cause of the explosion of the amount of abortions in the world," Mazur said."

Overcoming News Addiction - "A little over 30 days ago, I decided to go on a news fast, using my trusty 30-day trial method. I had already dropped TV news and newspapers, but I still had the habit of checking Yahoo News or CNN every day or two, so for 30 days I decided to drop all news sources and go totally news-free. In this article I’ll share what I learned from this experiment. It went well enough that I intend to remain free of the habit of daily news checking."

Vietnam man handles three decades without sleep - "As songbirds awaken the early risers at dawn on the farm, one resident is already up; in fact, he never slept – not once in the past 33 years."

Boys try to join girls' teams following human-rights ruling - "As two Winnipeg sisters find out Tuesday if they've made the boys' hockey team at their high school, their recent human-rights victory has spurred boys to try out for girls' sports teams. Morris Glimcher, executive director of the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association, said Tuesday that several requests from boys wanting to play on girls' teams started coming shortly after the ruling was handed down on Friday."

Prostitutes, smugglers a boost Greek economy - "Prostitutes and smugglers will give the Greek economy an unexpected boost as their illicit activities will now be counted in the country's official economic output, a senior official said on Wednesday."

FunReports.Com: Sex games end with electric toothbrush in young man's rectum - "The operating center of the Moscow rescue service has recently received a very strange, albeit a very funny call. A 25-year-old Muscovite called and said that his girlfriend had pushed an electric toothbrush up his anus. The toothbrush was turned on during the process, the young man specified."

Fear of offending Islam spurs hot debate in Europe - "Four canceled performances of a Mozart opera have reignited an anxious and heated debate in Europe over free speech, self-censorship and Islam. By canning its production of "Idomeneo", fearful of security threats because of a scene that might offend Muslims, Berlin's Deutsche Oper provoked front-page headlines across the continent and found itself fending off charges of cowardice."
For archival purposes.

A helping hand - "Specialist establishments catering for carriage groping connoisseurs are certainly nothing new, with this picture of such a train-themed retreat featuring in the book Pink Box: Inside Japan’s Sex Clubs. Yet the Train Cafe club in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district has recently claimed that by allowing its patrons to casually cop a feel in the confines of a recreated carriage, it combats any similarly tactile transgressions in the real world – or real trains to be more precise."

They cry, pray to Bush and wash out the devil - welcome to Jesus Camp - "The children at the Kids on Fire summer camp are intent as they pray over a cardboard cutout of President George Bush. They raise their hands in the air and sway, eyes closed, as they join the chant for "righteous judges". Tears stream down their faces as they are told that they are "phonies" and "hypocrites" and must wash their hands in bottled water to drive out the devil."

Shortchanged - "In August, two Princeton economists released a study titled “Stature and Status: Height, Ability, and Labor Market Outcomes.” The aim of the paper, by Anne Case and Christina Paxson, was to attempt to explain why tall people generally earn more than short people... Reuters published a story on the paper under the headline “TALLER PEOPLE ARE SMARTER—STUDY.” Within days, Case and Paxson had received dozens and dozens of e-mails from outraged readers. “I have no idea if it was the fact that women had written the study, but half of the ones I got were from short men,” Case said the other day. “Some of them were actually obscene.” Most of the e-mails were hostile: “Shame on you!” scolded one man (4" 9'). “I find your hypothesis insulting, prejudicial, inflammatory and bigoted,” said another (5" 6'). “You have loaded a gun and pointed it at the vertically challenged man’s head” (no height given). “I want to thank you and your colleague for perpetuating the crusade against short people” (5" 6'). “On a personal note it was very nice to be reminded that I really am a loser and will never be held in ‘high’ esteem by society” (5" 4'). “LEAVE THIS ALONE YOU’RE NOT HELPING ANYBODY,” another read."
This is what happens when people argue from emotion. When PC people claim rape is not about power, they mean "you can't blame the victim for the crime". When the PC people claim genetics does not affect intelligence, they mean "biology isn't everything". If only they were able to separate ideology from what is actually in front of them.

July Trip
19/7 - In Transit (Italy-France)

[Ed: With this post, I've 11 days of travelogue left!]

After Italy, France was a refreshing change. Instead of people chattering to me in Italian, which I didn't understand, I had people chattering to me in French, which I didn't understand.

The pen cap of one of the French girls was chewed. Eugh. I thought only boys did that, and only in Primary school. One was reading 'Code de Route' or something, and inside were road signs.

I was warned by my French ex-housemate that Marseille could be dangerous, especially outside of the more trafficked areas. He also recommended Lyon since the people there are very friendly. Maybe another time.

I was thinking whether I should've stayed at Arles for one night, but Nimes had an amphitheatre as well (though maybe it was a bit smaller).

At Nimes, I asked on a lark and found out that there were vacancies on the night train from Avignon to Reims. Either the French don't like the Italians or Italian English is really CMI. Interestingly there were couchettes in 1st Class. Wth.

While buying train tickets I was offered the French <25 discount card which cost €49 and would give me a substantially greater discount (at 50%) than just being under 25 (between 25 and 33%, IIRC). In the end I got it, since the night train already cost €70 and I was getting a headache trying to optimise my utility function. Too bad I hadn't been told about it in Marseille. It required a photo, but luckily I had one with me.

"Reims" was a French word I found particularly difficult to pronounce. The way the woman at the ticket counter and someone pronounced it can best be described as someone sneezing. The woman at the counter eventually kindly humoured me by pronouncing it as 'rhymes'.

It's good to be young in France. You automatically get discounts on domestic train travel and a youth discount card for further discounts on them. Unless you're French, of course, since you'll be unemployed. Maybe the concessions are meant to appease the army of unemployed youth.

There was an "Avenue Franklin Roosevelt" in Nimes. I didn't see Fuck Street beside it.

Outside Paris people are more polite. They bonjour you when you enter their establishment and au revoir you when you leave.

Getting off at the HI bus stop, I bought a can of boisson ('Jemsa! Jus d'orange') at a gas station to fortify myself for the climb uphill. It was the worst vile juice I'd ever had. I should've plumped for Minute Maid. So much for supporting local brands - there's a good reason why they stay local.

A 500+m climb awaited me to get to the HI hostel from the bus stop, but someone driving by in a car gave me a lift. Heh.

The HI hostel at Nimes was modern and big by HI standards - not only was the reception open 24 hours, it used magnetic cards to gain access to the rooms. It was supposed to have internet access too, but the computer was broken. It even had a minibus leaving at 9am which brought guests to the train station. Wah.

The staff were quite friendly - the main ones were a British punk (who asked about my Lewis Chessmen shirt) and a middle-aged French man who kept talking to be in French (so it was hard to communicate).

Consulting with the staff at the hostel, I realised I couldn't do Arles, Nimes and the Pont du Gard in one day ("Do you have a car?"). Such a pity. I decided to drop Arles, since apparently the arena there could fit in the Nimes arena, and this was better preserved as well. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to visit the amphitheatre in Nimes because there was a rock concert held there. Damn July!

Since I was already at the hostel, and it would be too much trouble to venture out down the 500+m slope, into town , eat and then come back up 500+m, I decided to eat there. With my pork chop I got 'Pueros' brand 'Poivre du Mekong'.

The temperature was supposedly 33 degrees, but it was noticeably cooler than Italy's 33 degrees. Maybe it was psychological. Then again, Cinque Terra's 33 was cooler than the rest of Italy's 33 too.

I was in the shower when a grasshopper jumped onto the floor (disadvantages of being on top of a hill and close to nature). I whacked it with one sandal but it wouldn't die, so I had to whack it again.

someone: Do you miss us?
Me: Do you want to pay my phone bill?
someone: *I can't believe he said that sound*
Me: Then stop asking stupid questions like that on my [handphone] time!

At the hostel there was a wall where people posted photos of themselves on the countries they came from. Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand were shown, as was Korea and Japan but the rest of Asia wasn't there. There was also a wall of [currency] bills, on top of which people had written things. There was an old Singapore $5 note with the PSA container terminal on it, on top of which was written: "I don't come from this godforsaken country, but I thought I'd demonstrate my wide travels - Matt Hortin (Australia)". At least Singapore has a law against defacing currency (and so cursing the country). We should arrest him if he returns to Singapore!

During the night I was woken up many times by mosquito bites, which had been itching since the night before. Gah.


It'd been a while since I'd read a book, but you know the thing about urgent/important, urgent/not important, non-urgent/important and non-urgent/not important tasks. I would place reading in the non-urgent/not-so-important sphere and so it's usually shunted (I have philosophical disagreements with some people over this). Andrew had brought some book about South African boxing and exchanged it for Neil Gaiman's Everywhere Neverwhere, which I took possession of when we parted.

I'd always shyed away from him because I found his work disturbing; the Sandman pictures alternately scare and repulse me, the story about eating babies is disgusting [Babycakes] and I'm quite sure the story about the boy sitting at the bottom of the swimming pool over the water intake sluice and wanking because the suction stimulated him, until one day his guts got sucked out and he had to leave his intestines behind or drown was by him too.[Addendum: Apparently it's not. Guts was by Chuck Palahniuk, but anyhow it's as disturbing as Babycakes]

Everywhere Neverwhere was alright but probably that's because it was an early work (1996).

I exchanged Everywhere Neverwhere for "A short history of tractors in Ukrainian" which, if nothing else, had the imprimatur of my favourite periodical.


Travel tips:

- If you can travel with a friend, you can watch each others' backs, talk on long journeys and if you want comfort, a double is less than twice the price of a single. Though of course the downside is less flexibility, but in cities you can split up.
- Get 1 Visa and 1 Mastercard, in case the establishment doesn't accept 1 (these places do exist, but I haven't seen a place that accepts neither but does others), and/or one fouls up.
- Don't take Eurolines. Let's Go said Eurolines is the best way to visit one of the countries listed early in the book (they were listed in alphabetical order); I'm not going there until there's a better way!
- Bring photos with you for various silly things. If you're cheapskate you can be like the cock and scan one in and printing multiple copies.
- Bring a lock for lockers, if you have anything you want to keep safe
- Use a packing list
- Be shameless. Crash everywhere with people you (hardly) know

"If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

***

Someone: [the bell curve] is impeding classroom discussion

it makes ppl not want to share and thereby bounce ideas off each other
and create the synergy for everyone to benefit
(ha, i wont' have used the word myself, but a prof i respect actually used it)

forum discussion, too
ppl are reluctant to post stuff because they seem afraid that ppl will benefit off what they say

i mean, i'm doing well by the bell curve so far
and it helps that the majority of nus students are stupid
but it doesn't help things in the long run!

MFM in Chicago where they bell-curve also: no the bell curve doesn't impede discussion here for various reasons:

1) discussion performance can affect your final grade
2) people actually enjoy discussion
3) discussion helps you make a favourable impact on professors whom you my want to write your recommendation letters

I think an important difference is that americans are more extroverted, so they enjoy talking for its own sake

there's not necessarily a curve
there is no definite rule as to when
instructors' discretion
but definitely there are plenty of classes in which As proliferate


The Top Bio Student in NJ in His Year with a current CAP of "no high enough": let me enlighten you on the period-moon thingy

long long time ago, before artificial lights, menstrual cycles go in sync with moonlight
or something like that

and women tend to develop periods at the same time cos of pheromones

so sayeth something i read a while back


Someone: my mother has always been depressed, and she commited suicide before.

Me: she committed suicide before?
are you a necromancer?


Someone else: spgs are damn protective of their guys!
it's so bizarre!

today when i got back i met a bunch of international students
guys, going clubbing, a canadian, an englishman, and a hungarian.
they were sitting on the steps and the canadian had an spg sitting behind him.

since i knew them, i stopped to say hi, and they tried to sweet talk me into going to double o with them
but the whole time i talked to them the spg kept inching closer and closer to the canadian, and draped herself over and gave me the evil eye! i was like wtf?! i'm not even interested!

Me: hehehe
she can't take all 3 of them at once =D
how SPGish was she?

Someone else: mildly. she didn't have flesh falling out from every clothing orifice, but she looked at me evilly enough.

Me: did she have flesh to fall?

Someone else: i dunno. i was trying to ignore the evil glares!
although.
if she looked at me evilly, it must mean i must be decent enough to be potential competition! hahaha!


Me: you didn't say where you got the idea I'm asexual from inthe first place

Someone: you exude it from every pore and hair follicle
you dont try to be attractive to any one sex
you just dont bother

Me: ok
that's a new perspective


Someone else: in my soci tutorial - there was this guy who was asked "what would your life be like if you were of the other gender? (female)" and he said "I would definitely dress in skimpy revealing clothing so that I can use my sexuality to get my dates to pay for me and give me presents

then my teacher asked him back "So do you pay when you bring a girl out on a date?" and he said "No...but that's because I'm too broke."


Someone: you don't even drink
i think in terms of a general tendency to vice you are quite a failure

"A poem is no place for an idea." - Edgar Watson Howe

***

The real reasons to hate the Pope - "In the past year, I have sat in two Catholic churches thousands of miles apart and listened while a Catholic priest told illiterate people with no alternative sources of information that condoms come pre-infected with AIDS and are the reason people die of it. In Bukavu, a crater-city in Congo, and in the slums ringing Caracas, Venezuela, people believed it. They told me they “would not go to Heaven” if they used condoms, and that condoms contain tiny invisible holes through which the virus passes – the advice their priest had doled out."

U.S. slips in competitive ranking - "The United States fell to sixth place in the World Economic Forum's 2006 global competitiveness rankings, ceding the top place to Switzerland, as macroeconomic concerns eroded prospects for the world's largest economy."
Curiously, wage costs don't appear in the article, despite the constant beating of the "cut wages" drum here in Singapore. Shows you how insignificant wage costs are in the competitiveness rankings. Makes you wonder, don't it?

Bromont golf club - Description: "A Canadian RC airplane enthusiast combined a model airplane, virtual reality goggles and a wireless camera. It works like this: A fairly standard model airplane is controlled normally with a wireless remote control. A pan-and-tilt camera is mounted at the airplane's center of gravity, also controlled wirelessly. Video from the camera is viewable through virtual reality goggles, which have a gyroscope attached to sense the movement of the goggles and control the camera accordingly. When the wearer moves his head, the camera also moves."
Also: A dream come true

The Straight Dope: Do other languages have obscenities like those of English? - Mecagum les cinc llagues de Crist... Catalan. Even more bloodcurdling is Mecagum Deu, en la creu, en el fuster que la feu i en el fill de puta que va plantar el pi"
English just can't compare.

The Straight Dope: Guns don't kill people, frying pans kill people: Is the frying pan the #1 domestic weapon? - "Research suggests women are the aggressors much more often than is commonly believed. In fact, a study published this year in the Journal of Family Psychology indicates that women are more likely than men to commit domestic violence. Of 1,600 straight couples surveyed, 18 percent reported that in the previous year the woman had engaged in one of 11 "violent behaviors" toward the man, versus 14 percent the other way around. What's more, over 7 percent of the couples reported "severe" female-on-male violence, compared to less than 4 percent reporting severe male-on-female violence. The most common female-on-male acts were "threw something" and "pushed, grabbed, or shoved," both at about 12 percent."

Sistic: Event Details - Bulgarian International Recital - I'm very pissed off. The programmes are usually not displayed. I always want to know what's to be performed, since I don't want to listen to Shostakovich et al. I emailed them and the response was along the lines of "they didn't tell us, go ask them if you want to know". Gah. And it's not like the works to be performed have not already been decided months in advance.

The Geek-a-Cycle - "The evidence in favor of exercise is overwhelming. It is absolutely necessary for good health. Now, exercising is easy and convenient, too. Get your daily exercise while doing your daily work. The Geek-a-Cycle - Fitness for the Computer User. The Geek-a-CycleTM: a computer work/exercise station (Computer and model not included)"

Sinful Acts - "Sin is the problem. Salvation is the cure. The preacher is the doctor. And he is no different from a voodoo witchdoctor removing an evil spirit. The christian witchdoctor calls it exorcism. The evil spirits are God's demons and His devil. God allows it all. That is how much God loves us."

Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth > Borrowing, getting started (new version) - "If Reverend Bruce Manning Metzger claims Christianity didn't borrow from Paganism because Christianity is different from Paganism, then you shouldn't believe Reverend Metzger's analysis until you see it applies to other ancient religions. Judaism comes to mind. How does the apologists' difference-proves-no-borrowing rule work with Judaism? Well, the Christian three-headed God is different from Judaism's one-headed God. Christian salvation is different from Jewish salvation. Christian baptism is different from Jewish baptism. The Christian Eucharist is different from Judaism's Eucharist—does Judaism even have baptism and a Eucharist? Apply the apologists scholars' difference-proves-no-borrowing rule to Judaism, and you learn that Christianity is free of the taint of Jewish origins. Which is maybe why you never hear any believing scholar apply the believing scholars' difference-proves-no-borrowing rule to Judaism. Doesn't give the answer they want. When someone gives you a "reason" that only works in the one place it has to work for their theory to be true, and that on other situations gives a completely different answer, you should not believe their analysis."
There also seems to be a new page about how Judaism itself borrowed from pagan religions (which rends the defence that the borrowing was from Judaism and not the pagans).

Why is Singapore in the “Wrong” Time Zone? - "The time zones in Singapore and Malaysia are good examples of how the lines between time zones tend to creep westward over the years. In other words, a place that's near the eastern edge of a time zone is likely to move its clocks ahead one hour, thereby moving to the western edge of the adjacent time zone."

WikiCharts — Top 100 — 10/2006 - "This tool shows the articles from the English Wikipedia that are viewed most."
Fewer are about sex than I thought.

Philips files for patent to force ad viewing - "Philips Electronics has done it again. Flush with heady optimism after successful products such as the digital compact cassette (DCC) and the super audio CD (SACD), the redoubtable European giant has developed a way to keep television free for the masses for the foreseeable future—a patent application for a device which prevents a user from changing the channel during commercials... The fundamental downside to merely forcing commercials to run unimpeded is that the viewer retains freedom of movement which would allow him or her to leave the room, cover the TV with a blanket, or eat or use a product in direct competition with an advertisement. For the propaganda to be most effective, the device needs to work in concert with the couch to prevent any unauthorized activity or movement while a commercial is running. Ideally, all phones in the vicinity would also be put on hold, and it would become impossible to deactivate the TV, even if unplugged."
With this and DVDs where they force you to watch ads, they still wonder why consumers flock to pirated products.

Everyone Loves the Cat - A pussy that consents to be on a leash can't be that evil.

Study: Mice Do Not Like Cheese - "A study made by the Manchester Metropolitan University has found that mice really don't like cheese, debunking the myth that was popularized in the cartoon show "Tom and Jerry.""

Language Evolution in the Digital Age - "Dictionaries are more used than ever and are nowhere near a downfall. It’s just that they’re now often digital as well as print. There are also few new authorities, there are mostly merely transformations of old authorities. (Even Wiktionary includes many thousands of definitions from an out-of-copyright edition of an early unabridged dictionary.)"

Parking is no joke as Italy's women sue over beer ad - "In a scene set a century ago, a young woman struggles to park her horse and carriage, while two beer-drinking, male, bystanders look on, laughing. The action cuts to the present and shows the same woman having trouble parking her car, eventually leaving it jutting into the road. Again she is watched by two smug men swigging from bottles of Peroni beer, as a voice-over remarks: "Fortunately some things don't change". For Italy's women, however, the joke has fallen flat. A group of female lawyers is making legal history by suing the beer company for being sexist and discriminatory."
I remember this ad, it was quite funny.

On sabbatical till Friday.


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SACSAL

July Trip
19/7 - In Transit (Italy-France)

Let's Go said Italian trains were efficient. I don't want to see what they consider an inefficient train system.

I was in the train station before 7am, and in the cafe everyone else was having a coffee (in the smallest plastic cups I'd ever seen - Turkish coffee size but in plastic, which I didn't know they made) or at the most a fruit juice for breakfast. I had a granite. It was a good deal - €1,50 for half a pint (it said so on the cup). The cashier was giving me odd looks. I think all the people were laughing at me, but heck - it was my last granite in Italy.

A stand at the train station was selling: "Top Anal" (the same series that gave us "Top Gay", perchance?), "Prostituta Miliardaria", "Transex incontri" and "Lesbian girls" (the cover looked like it had CG jap girls on it). Even the Pope can't stop this filth!

There was a young couple in the train with an older woman (their older sister?) who took pictures of the both of them. Then the younger girl took the camera and snapped a picture of herself in her seat. Camwhoring is one thing, but this is ridiculous.

A sign on a corridor in the train: "Smoking is not permitted on this train. Smoking is not permitted on all trains. Transgressors will be subject to a 7 euro fine. This provision applies regardless of any other (even contrary) indications that may be displayed in the coaches."

At Albenga, parts of the beach were full of umbrellas and people. I guess it was part of the Italian riviera. The sea was shimmering blue and boundless stretching to the horizon. Its expanse was broken occasionally by a yacht, verdant island or speedboat. I was amazed at how many people were free to go on vacation in July/August. Don't they need to work? Maybe it's too hot to work in summer, and people there only get to enjoy the sun, sea, sand and... swimming for 3 months a year so they seize the opportunity when they can; anyway the concept of a summer holiday doesn't work out in the land of Eternal Summer.

A 14 year old girl was wearing a yellow T-shirt with cap sleeves and the words "Hope. Faith. Love." I should get a customised one which reads: "Prudence. Temperance. Fortitude. Justice."

Most French trains also need to be booked - even non-TGV (TGV is the ultra-quick express line) ones, unless they're the slow or intra-regional ones. Gah. Why can't they be like Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium where you can just hop onto trains? It'd be so much easier to get my brother-in-law to drive me around, and someone might finally come in useful due to French knowledge.

The Italian and French rivieras are pretty much the same, with sun, sand, sea and... swimming. Though the part between Nice and Marseille is nicer, having fewer people. nice brown rock formating (?)

I checked the automated ticket machines at Marseille St Charles, but they were being wonky. I checked out the trains from Marseille to Arles and Marseille to Nimes the next day and later in the day, but they seemed to claim they were fully booked (later I realised "Reservation not possible" meant that seats on those trains were not sold out but rather not reservable). They also refused to accept my credit cards (I didn't have a Eurocard Mastercard, but surely my Visa should've worked!) The train timings were also quite weird, so I decided to skip Marseille (I only really wanted to see the Basilica, and maybe the islands, and this time I'd have more time for Nimes/Arles) and spend 3 nights in Nimes. Oddly enough, the Visa worked at the ticket office.

France was the first European country I'd come across this year with a youth discount on intra-country travel (though for some reason I didn't qualify for it when I bought the ticket in Milan). For the rest, the discount applied only on crossing borders. Conceivably, it *might* be cheaper to buy a ticket to travel further (thus crossing a border) to get a discount for the rest of the trip.

Most European train tickets are so big (airline boarding pass size). The Dutch are the best, having small slips of paper which are environmentally friendly.

2 French girls were doing maths beside me on the train. One was staring at the first page of a textbook that said "lnes" and instructed on how to solve simultaneous equations with 3 variables. Another was annotating a book with a pen. It was July! Why were they so kiasu?

A young French couple went into the area between train carriages and stopped in the gangway and kissed. Then the (transparent) carriage doors closed around them. Tsk.

"Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself." - Peter da Silva

***

MFM: the logical fallacies popping up in the calculus assignments I'm grading are driving me nuts. I'm starting to think elementary logic should be a compulsory course for everyone.

Me: wait wait
how does logic appear in calculus?

MFM: proofs

Me: uhh
please give me an example
this is fascinating

MFM: calculus in america is not about calculating

"if x exists when y exists, then y does not exist when x does not exist"

Me: this seems rather abstract
examples would be nice

MFM: er, replace x with lim(x->c)f(x)
and y with lim(x->c)g(x)

don't be silly, it's just the classic negation of the antecedent fallacy

correctly, if x implies y, then not y imples not x
but not x does not imply not y

but really the most endemic problem is to assume the result they're supposed to prove

Me: you need an if and only if somewhere

anyway that's why there're so many science students in my logic class
hurr hurr
they've done the maths version of logic


Someone: i don't trust internet resources
people may have easily come up with some rubbish online to lure people away from christianity
evidence that may not be real

Me: I don't trust internet resources
people may have easily come up with some rubbish online to lure people away from the PAP
evidence that may not be real

[Addendum: Substitute also the Communist Party of China and Scientology]


Someone else on Zwiebel-Sahne Hähnchen: i just realised that u can never get that packet of mix in singapore even though singapore has maggi stuff

stupid halal requirements
singapore's maggi can only be halal
that's like so discriminating
sucks...

i wanted to buy some knorr condiments for pork but cannot find any
because the knorr we get here all have to be halal too
shucks~

stupid halal requirement
it's so unfair!!!
it's discrimination!!!


Someone: haha yeah and your standards are too high for malaysia eh.
oh but i seriously cannot stand malaysian pringles. >< thats about the only thing though.

oh yknow there's like a little supermarket in my condo estate. and the pringles, there's one shelf labelled, PRINGLES, and one labelled ORIGINAL PRINGLES FROM THE US.

and the pringles one is always full. but the other one runs out of flavours so quickly. :(


Someone else: i'm off to do more constructive things
­i have an assignment to do
­therefore, i will now proceed to play computer games


Someone: you have a very idea of what postmodernism is, all out of line of really existing postmodernism

then again i don't blame you

99.9% of people who claim to be postmodernists or acquainted with postmod theory in casual conversation have no idea what they're talking about, and give an oversimplified, distorted representation

like "there is no truth
"we can never be sure of anything"

a true postmodernist NEVER claims to be one
like foucault. he insisted he was never a foucauldian theorist

99.9% of christians take that perverted, distorted idea of postmodernism and then claim that postmodernism is destroying the world, etc

simple. the idea that there is no truth... is very threatening to some christians
­that and cultural relativism
­and of course, historicism
­
that the truth is not literal, that meanings can change and be lost over time, that social translation and triangulation is needed to *interpret* the bible... that is extremely threatening to some christians


Someone else: I tried once
two periods back

Me: wow you're like timing by the moon
women have a strange relationship with the moon :P

Someone else: yeah I know
i was going to say "two moons ago"

someone speculated that women used to cycle with the moon
which sort of connects with the 28 day thing

Me: bah
cock lah

Someone else: maybe when the moon is full special magneto-kinetic forces unite women and the moon in a wonderful blood dripping exercise

Me: blood moon
then werewolves change form too

Someone else: oh oh that's where the werewolf thing stemmed from
it's actually a euphemism for women and periods I suppose

Me: wth


A nick I saw: "support the arts. sleep with a musician."

Me:2 male friends and I were at the terrace at vivocity
we were practically the only non-couples there

Someone: what is vivocity is it a gay club


Weiyi, HWMNBN and I went to Vivocity last night to watch Scoop. It's obviously not ready for prime time yet. Half the stores are unopened, there're holes in the ceiling and there're dirt tracks on some pillars and floors. I hope it gets better by 1 Dec (their real launch); it's so far from ready it's not even funny.

But then there're some problems which will not (can not) be resolved before then - the laminate of the floor tiles is poor quality (contributing to the dirt tracks), it has the most number of annoying sparkly dots embedded in the floor that I've ever seen and the carpark surfacing is shitty.

The GV there also sucks. We had trouble finding our cinema hall; they have halls 1-12, and the sign hanging from the ceiling says to follow it to reach halls 2-11 and the Europa and Gold Class halls. Actually the Gold Class hall is Hall 1 and Europa Hall is Hall 12. We wasted 2 minutes dawdling because of the damn signage and so missed more of the movie than we should've.

On the up-side, there's free parking.


When Woody Allen came onscreen in the Cock Car, everyone started laughing. See? It's not just me!

"Consience is what makes a boy tell his mother before his sister does." - Evan Esar

***

MFM: it's not just fundies
everyone has cognitive dissonances of one kind or another

by the way, have you ever played 'battleground god'?
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm

I did much worse than I expected
revealed previously unseen dissonances in my belief system

You are consistent in applying the principle that it is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity this conviction. The problem is that it seems you have to accept that people might be justified in their belief that terrible things are right. You have agreed that the rapist is justified in believing that he carries out the will of God, and in an earlier answer you indicated that you think that God defines what is good and what is evil. Therefore, to be consistent, you must think the rapist is justified in believing that he acts morally when he acts on his inner conviction. Hence, you bite the bullet and justify the rapist.

anyway, I said taht it's ok to base one's beliefs on solely a firm inner conviction because that's really the only way we can make any decisions at all instead of being in constant philosophical aporia

with the result that I had to admit it was ok for the rapist to rape based on a firm inner conviction.

Me: yeah it is

which is why fundies are talking rubbish when they say god's commands are perfect, glorify abraham for isaac and acquit deanna laney on grounds of insanity
http://www.courttv.com/trials/laney/

MFM: you're amazing. like the panda's thumb bloggers
determinedly shooting fish in a barrel

Me: the sad thing is that there're so many fish to shoot
and so many barrels presented

the intellectual battle has been lost by the fundies
but the fact is that the battle for people's minds has not been won

anyhow this recent spurt has been incited by a fundie emailing me
before that I was rather placid.

look at it this way: if everyone believed the earth was flat, the thing to do would be to convince them that the earth was round
even if we all already knew the earth was round

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" (or words to that effect

MFM: what noble concern

Me: one does one's best
I like to save souls

MFM: the main thing that annoys me about fundies isn't the possible triumph of evil, but the sheer despicability of wilful ignorance and/or stupidity

Me: IAWTC

as I told someone else, I don't mind that so much. admit your religion is irrational. I don't mind.
but when they claim it's logical then commit intellectual suicide - that's what I simply cannot stand

as someone said "the parallels between your relationship to truth and other people's to god are fascinating"

MFM: well this particular aspect is more about methodology than truth. an unthinking atheist is just as bad as an unthinking theist


Me: >This could go on forever. I don't know how to end it. He made our
>minds, the minds that use logic. He made logic and will not be stumped
>by it. We are the ones (or should I say I am the one since you've 'seen
>the light') who is stumped.

Bland assertion does not an argument make. You just claim things without giving me reasons to believe them (ad hoc fallacy).


"The philosopher Ronald de Sousa once memorably described philosophical theology as "intellectual tennis without a net," and I readily allow that I have indeed been assuming without comment or question up to now that the net of rational judgment was up. But we can lower it if you really want to. it's your serve. Whatever you serve, suppose I return service rudely as follows: "What you say implies that God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. That's not much of a God to worship!" If you then volley back, demanding to know how I can logically justify my claim that your serve has such a preposterous implication, I will reply: "Oh, do you want the net up for my returns, but not for your serves? Either the net stays up, or it says down. If the net is down, there are no rules and anybody can say anything, a mug's game if there ever was one. I have been giving you the benefit of the assumption that you would not waste your own time or mine by playing with the net down.""

Someone: sigh. you're debating with a fundie? again?! where did your energy come from? can you spare me some so that i'll not run out of it while going round the island for my current job?

enjoy your fun in [using fundie speak] throwing pearls before swine.

Aha, I've just had a brainwave.

A god defining itself and its actions as good (as opposed to being good due to complying with some independent standard of good-ness) is about as meaningful as a court ruling affirming the absolute, unconditional and unqualified probity of the entire judiciary to which it belongs.

"Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them." - Samuel Butler

***

Someone: i met someone in bkk who reminded me incredibly of you
except for one thing
he's Christian

he was critical
unembarrassed
atas
supremely confident
the kind you want to kick in the bum sometimes just to shut him up :D


Someone else: NJ sucks
my 2 yrs of JC are e darkest years of my life

it felt and looked like i was in a prison then
just look at the barbed wire surrounding the compound of NJ


Someone: there is a ladies toilet that i like to use in the adjoining building to mine. our building toilet on my floor only has 2 cubes and one is currently broken down; the other has very high traffic since it's next to a lecture hall. the strange thing is that the toilet i like to use is never used by anyone wanting to use the toilet. it's always girls walking in and out to check their hair in the mirror, brush their teeth or just futzing with their appearance.

but the nice thing of course is that there is never piss on the seat and toilet paper aplenty.


Me: If you get laid will you change your handle?

the virgin undergrad: i would probably change my handle under 2 circumstances, either when i graduate, or when i get laid.

and since i'm probably gonna graduate in 6 months' or 1 year and a half's time, and if you find me changing my handle between that time, then yes, you would know that someone out there is a very happy man indeed..=)

***

Seen on Young Republic:


A: "The engineering college here is full of girls too! The math department, however... Even in a large lecture where there's a couple of girls, the seats around them are all mysteriously filled. The ratio in most my math classes is somewhere around 0.1, less probably, and sometimes 0. I wonder what the ratio in NUS math is..."

Me: Friend: My friend in Chemical Engineering tells me that there are actually more girls than guys in there.

Me: But the quality all like you lah right?

Friend: *pokes me in the tummy*

Me: *squeal/giggle*
*Everyone within 40 metres looks at me*


There was a silly thing about how some people objected to my description of Hitler as a "Great Leader" (like how we have Great Criminals, and how others popularly acknowledged as "Great" Leaders had plenty of skeletons in their closets too).

Apropos: "Charlemagne, like Hitler, massacred Jews and Pagans. But Charlemagne was a great man and Hitler was a horrible man - this is because of something called perspective."

"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes." - James Feibleman

***

Edge: THE SCIENCE OF GENDER AND SCIENCE; PINKER VS. SPELKE, A DEBATE

"Three-dimensional mental transformations: the ability to determine whether the drawings in each of these pairs the same 3-dimensional shape. Again I'll appeal to a meta-analysis, this one containing 286 data sets and 100,000 subjects. The authors conclude, "we have specified a number of tests that show highly significant sex differences that are stable across age, at least after puberty, and have not decreased in recent years." Now, as I mentioned, for some kinds of spatial ability, the advantage goes to women, but in "mental rotation,"spatial perception," and "spatial visualization" the advantage goes to men. [Ed: Doubtless this must be because boys are told (only after puberty) that they are good at mental rotation, spatial perception and spatial visualization, but girls are told (also only after puberty) that they are bad at them.]...

The idea that there are cultures out there somewhere in which everything is the reverse of here turns out to be an academic legend. In his survey of the anthropological literature called Human Universals, the anthropologist Donald Brown points out that in all cultures men and women are seen as having different natures; that there is a greater involvement of women in direct child care; more competitiveness in various measures for men than for women; and a greater spatial range traveled by men compared to by women...

It is said that there is a technical term for people who believe that little boys and little girls are born indistinguishable and are molded into their natures by parental socialization. The term is "childless."...

There's an irony in these discussion of bias. When we test people in the cognitive psychology lab, and we don't call these base rates "gender," we applaud people when they apply them. If people apply the statistics of a group to an individual case, we call it rational Bayesian reasoning, and congratulate ourselves for getting them to overcome the cognitive illusion of base rate neglect. But when people do the same thing in the case of gender, we treat Bayesian reasoning as a cognitive flaw and base-rate neglect as rational!"


The thing with the most ardent advocates of political correctness is that they insist on extremes. For example, this group insists that gender misrepresentation in science is entirely due to discrimination rather than innate factors. OTOH, those who maintain that there're innate factors explaining this readily admit that there're sociological factors involved.

Similar phenomena can be observed in other fields, for example Rape and Power. The consensus in the literature seems to be that it is 100% power, but those who take the opposite view do not say it is 0% power.

I have only the vaguest familiarity with the literature on colonialism and its effects, but I suspect there are many with the view that all the failings of the current African states (for instance) are due to the legacies of colonialism (though maybe some will grant that geography is also a factor).

Addendum: Related PC rant

I'm quite pissed off with Nestlé.

Around the time that someone had made the comment about "i think all random 4 letter brands are malaysian", I was trying to find out about the milk brand KLIM. I knew it was Dutch in origin, but not much else, and the Internet was of no help; the only new information I got from it - that it used to be owned by Borden - has already been added to Wikipedia by me. There's also reports of it being given out by the Red Cross during WWII to POWs, but I don't know if that was the same KLIM.

Eventually, I fired off an email to Nestlé Switzerland (ie The home office). They forwarded the email to Nestlé Singapore, which told me that: "we regret to inform you that we are no longer marketing this product. As such, we are unable to assist you as we do not have any past history on the product information of this milk" (and very strangely for a product enquiry, ended off with "Wishing you all the best in your future endeavours" [perhaps since this endeavour ended so badly]).

Thinking that the marketing had been passed on to some company for some reason, I asked which company was marketing it now, and was told that "As this product has been discontinued hence, we do not have any information further to this". I then emailed Switzerland again but after more than 2 1/2 weeks, I still haven't received any response.

!@#$%^&*()

Maybe I need to get a friend in a country where KLIM is marketed to make enquiries on my behalf.

Why those silly "iTunes memes" will never work for me:

1) I don't use iTunes
2) See below (I refuse to do the retarded comments)


Instructions: Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

How does the world see you?
Power Rangers SPD: Ron Wasserman - Power Rangers SPD Theme (no FX)

Will I have a happy life?
A Medieval Banquet: St. George's Canzona - Janoshka (Recruiting song & czárdás) (Trad., Eastern European)

What do my friends really think of me?
Weird Al Yankovic - Amish Paradise

Do people secretly lust after me?
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto In D (3) (Allegro Vivacissimo)

How can I make myself happy?
Great Violinists - Menuhin/JS Bach, Violin Concertos 1 and 2, Concerto for Two Violins: Yehudi Menuhin, Paris Symphony Orchestra - Concerto for Two Violins BWV 1043 (w George Enescu) - Largo ma non tanto

What should I do with my life?
Mahou Sentai Magiranger - Magical Sound Stage 3: Mahou Sentai Magiranger & Mahou Sentai Magiranger The Movie - Bride Of Infelshia: Tatuya Hirakawa - 05. Mahou Sentai Magiranger - Travelion Magical Express (BGM)

Will I ever have children?
A Cappella Amadeus: The Swingle Singers - Cosi Fan Tutte - Un' Aura Amorosa

What is some good advice for me?
The Spirit of the Season: Traditional - Fum Fum Fum

How will I be remembered?
String quartets, op.76 nos.1-3: Haydn - String quartet in C, Op. 76 No. 3 'Emperor' - 03 - Menuetto- Allegro

What is my signature dancing song?
Mozart Violin Concertos: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - Violin Concerto No.5 in A K.219 - Adagio

What do I think is my current theme song?
Avenue Q: The Musical [Original Broadway Cast]: Original Broadway Cast / Avenue Q - If You Were Gay

What does everyone think my current theme song is?
Partitas Nos. 3, 4 & 5: J. S. Bach - P4 D major BWV 828 - Overture

What song will play at my funeral?
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Truly Scrumptious

What type of men / women do you like?
The Muppet Show Album: Statler and Waldorf - Brilliant!

What is my day going to be like?
Canticles Of Ecstasy: Hildegard von Bingen - O ignis spiritus Paracliti


I'm bored and have been feeling out of sorts anyhow. And most importantly - no one has tagged me, nor have I happened to come across one of these recently!

And just for the heck of it, another even more retarded one:

1. You're being chased by a giant squid: Yehudi Menuhin Conducts Mozart (5 of 5): Menuhin, Yehudi - Concerto for flute, harp & orchestra in C major, K. 299 (K. 297c): Allegro

2. You meet Itachi for the first time and you scream: King's Singers - You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

2. You see Batman at the beach and he proclaims: Beethoven - Piano Sonata 12, Op 26 'Funeral' - III. Marcia Funebre Sulla Morte D'Un Eroe

4. You dance in the rain to: 'Don Juan - Till Eulenspiegel - Also sprach Zarathustra': Richard Strauss - Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks Op. 28

5. The Monster has his poison claws to your neck. "Any last words?" You choke: Cats - Original London Cast - Disc 1: Andrew Lloyd Webber - Grizabella

6. Your surfing music: Songs from America's Heartland: Mormon Tabernacle Choir - Deep River

7. You have your own anthem: A Ceremony of Carols: Westminster Cathedral Choir - Ceremony of Carols - This little Babe

8. Michael Jackson sits down on a bus beside you. He says: Walt Disney's Fantasia: Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra - The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Paul Dukas

9. Your secret crush asks you out. You reply: Das Wohltemperierte Clavier,Teil 1 & 2: Kenneth Gilbert - Bach - The Well Tempered Clavier - Book 1 (Harpsichord) - Prelude and Fugue in A Minor BWV 865

10. A bear starts to attack you. You cry out: Classic Disney Vol 5: Heidi Mollenhauer - (The Hunchback Of Notre Dame) God Help The Outcasts


Strange, I would've thought random sampling would've turned out more Classical pieces. Maybe I need to run the Breusch-Pagan test...

With the opening of the new Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, they're been holding lots of free concerts. One of the more novel ones, which I attended, was
Celebrations in Percussion.

Perhaps understandably, most of the works were from the 20th century (maybe no one had the idea of percussion ensembles before then). I didn't dislike the modern stuff as much as I thought. In fact, some of it was quite interesting (not always the same as aesthetically pleasing).

The concert opened with Steve Reich's Clapping Music (1980), which has the same idea as the Geographical Fugue - get rid of tone and rely on rhythm (and also, I would add, the timbre of the clapping). An arrangement of 3 movements from Fireworks Music was refreshing, but it was followed by 3 dances which went from okay to horrible - the last, Serge Baudo's Danse des Espirits from Trois Danses Païnnes (1955) was simply cringeworthy (not due to lack of skill, but poor material). But then, what else can we expect from a 20th century Frenchman?

The scherzo from Beethoven's 9th was a welcome change. My fellow concert goer thought it sounded too cute-sy at first, but I suppose that's inevitable when you try to imitate strings' legato with xylophones and gang (the pedal on the vibraphone helped, but still - no cigar).

David Mancini's With Joy In His Heart (1995) made me feel like I was in a school band concert. And in Jared Spears's Windstone Suite (1992), Distant Songs and Incantations had one performer chanting like a Tibetan monk.

The concert ended with 2 jazzy pieces from the 20s which, besides having the performers wear funny hats as gimmicks, also sounded exactly like they were produced by the pieces in the Nationaal Museum van Speelklok tot Pierement.


The conservatory building has a "fire command centre". I'm sure it's very useful in combating fires, but unfortunately it's located in the middle of the building, so those directing rescue efforts are doomed to sacrifice their lives in the event of a fire, trapped by the building's collapsing around them as they nobly direct fire control efforts from their room.

Many of the concerts I want to go to are on Tuesday. Which happens to be my free day. GAH. I swear this happened to me too the last semester I was in NUS. How coincidental.

There's a library in the conservatory which is open till 10pm on normal days. There's now a new place to mug during exam time!

Imagine your job is to market a new brand of women’s deodorant in Singapore. You have to choose between one of the following advertising pitches with the goal of convincing Singaporean women of the conclusion that ‘“Rosy Sweet” brand deodorant is more effective than all the leading available brands.’ Rank these statements in order of which you predict would be the most convincing to least convincing advertising pitch for persuading Singaporean women that Rosy Sweet is the best choice. Which pitches would be more persuasive than which, for rational reasons, and which would be more persuasive for non-rational reasons? Which pitches actually offer logical reasons to believe that Rosy Sweet is the best available brand in Singapore?

1) “8 out of 10 American women choose Rosy Sweet above all the other available brands.”

2) “8 out of 10 Rwandan women choose Rosy Sweet above all the other available brands.”

3) “8 out of 10 Asian women choose Rosy Sweet above all the other available brands.”

4) “8 out of 10 Kuwaiti women choose Rosy Sweet above all the other available brands.”

5) “8 out of 10 Russian women choose Rosy Sweet above all the other available brands.”


Hurr hurr.

Someone: atually i would pick kuwaiti women
after all tehy have the hottest climate and have to wear the burkha, must get damn sweaty under all that. if they like the deodorant that means it's damn powerful.

The 16th European Union Film Festival; 13-23 October 2006

Heads are going to roll for this!

Addendum: Clarification: the second last column is titled "Language"

July trip
18/7 - Milan

The next step was the Scala Opera House.

Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, directed by Christopher Hogwood, was playing on 17th and 19th July. Unfortunately, I was only free on 18th July, which had Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and I was too tired to see something I'd never heard of. The whole of July only had these 2 operas playing, from the 3rd to the 21st, and there were performances everyday - but Sunday (damn Italians).


I think I'd been to an Opera House before in Vienna, but it was 8 years ago. Basically it was like being on the Muppet Show. There were boxes from the floor to the ciling, and the whole back wall of the chamber was filled with boxes. Unfortunately there wasn't a rehearsal; they were otherwise preparing for a show. The stage was huge and deep. Probably for the elephants.

There was a woman wearing a top where, at the back, the material split from her neck down and revealed her spine. And a white strap was visible midway down her back. Tsk tsk!


Ah Beng Tap

There was a museum with funky instruments, like a "hurdy-gurdy". There was also a painting of a woman called Giuditta Pasta. Uhh. (Of course, photography was banned)

A description of Cosi Fan Tutte went: "Finally, the geometrical grid seems to dissolve in the cariety and buoyancy of Mozart's music, in a puff of Mediterranean air that brings with it hopes of temptations" - I love the people who write these things.

On Don Giovanni: "With him the reassuring realm of comic opera opens to a different horizon, that of metaphysics." - Ditto


The longest, even if not the best, was about Le nozze di Figaro.
"The unity of time and place is respected in Le nozze di Figaro (1786), the events of which unfold during what Beaumarchais called “a mad day”. Revealed in that delimited space, with extraordinary variety and flexuosity, are the multifarious humanity and universality of the characters in this comic opera. Its forms, moreover, are interlocked in a development that has all the naturalness of life, where the Countess’s forgiveness attained after a thousand disguises, practical jokes and deceptions, becomes an absolute moral reference."

They had scale reconstructions of opea sets. Nice.


Lohengrin
The museum also had opera posters dating back to the 20s and 30s.

The woman at the counter in the Opera House bookshop said tickets were available in the metro, so I went to the Duomo metro, didn't find any tickets and once and for dismissed the thought of catching an opera not least it was to be in a foreign language (I'd fallen asleep during La Boheme), with a programme in Italian; I also didn't want to change into my crumpled pants and battered shoes. Then I realised she probably meant the other metro.

I still had some time, so I looked at my guidebook. Ambrosiana was supposed to be the better galleria, but it closed at 5:30pm and it was 4pm by the time I exited the opera house. The other galleria Di Brera, OTOH, closed at 7:30. I didn't want to be locked out again, and besides, the latter was cheaper, so I went there.

Weird magazines at a newsstand: "Hea" (? - Hen?), "Hentai cool girl free magazine", "Dojinshi", "Manga", "J-girls",k "Brazillian babes" and "Young 18" (which included free bikinis and was presumably for girls; maybe they were free-sized).

At the Galleria Di Brera, there was a reduction for EU citizens. I tried my luck and when I was asked for my document, I produced my student card. It worked, and I paid €2,50 instead of €5. Bloody hell - they keep all the good stuff for EU citizens. I should apply for Polish Citizenship.

Of course, once again photography and video were disallowed. Phones were also disallowed, supposedly in the interests of preservation; I should've run around waving my phone and yelling: "Haha! The radiation from my phone is degrading the works of art!". Lying bastards.

The works were also all undated, except for date of acquisition. Bah. Naturally, there was also nothing in English. Damn, I missed Berlin museums.

Giovanni Battista Cima di Conegliano - S. Pietro Martine e i ss
Nicola e Benedetta (guy with knife on head like partway sunk in)
(I assume this refers to a work in the galleria)

There was a painting of a saint with red-brownsplotches all over him ("Ss giobbe e gottub")
probably former <-- more of my scribbling I don't understand

I was tired and wanted to sit on a chair and sleep. Even if photography was not nominally disallowed I also would've had no energy unless I saw something with the galvanising potential of David's Les Sabines, not least since taking acceptable photographs in art gallery conditions needs effort (and nothing even approached his standard, so).

Lorenzo Lotto's Pieta is the first Pieta I've seen where angels help support the body.

Giovanni Antonio Bazzi's Cristo Deriso was interesting. He was crying and there was little blood, unlike in Faces of Death VI. His deriders were very dark, almost blending into the background. At a first glance, you'd only see him.
detto il sodoma - I wrote the name of this work but none of the notes above seem to fit it.

Throughout Italy, people were selling T-shirts and other merchandise featuring the Sistine Madonna, but it's currently in Dresden. Hah!

GB Benvenuti's In Crocifissione had 1 angel holding up one cup to catch blood coming from his left palm and another holding 2 cups to catch blood from his right palm and right chest. Yucks.

Luca Signorelli's La Madonna Del Latte - I'd seen the Virgin Mary breastfeeding before, but this was the first time I'd seen her whole breast and nipple through a slit in an ancient inner garment meant for breastfeeding purposes. How seditious. It must be burnt to avoid offence.

Guido Remi's I Santi Pietro e Paolo - Usuaully in representations the two just stand apart. Here they were talking to each other. Peter was probably saying: "What have you done? I may have the keys to heaven but you've the keys to their minds through the success of your version of the faith."

Very weird. San Luca in atto di dipingere la Madonna col Bambino (Scuola di anversa, del 16th century) showed an old woman painting the Virgin and Infant from life.

Sebastian Ricci's (?) Martinio di S. Erasmo was gruesome. A machine was being used to drive a stake through his stomach and his intestines could be seen coming out.

Francesco Hayez's Il Bacio was very nice - 2 young lovers in the throes of a passionate embrace. I'd never seen this as a subject before.

Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ - Christ looked like a vampire had drained all of his blood - the body was that pallid. It was also an interesting move to use this perspective, with the feet at the bottom of the painting and yet somehow in the viewer's face.


Statue in Brera courtyeard

Seen on Penthouse cover: "25 orgasms inducing songs" ???. It sounds like an article you'd find in Cosmo. Then again, Playboy *did* have "The conflict between faith and reason".


Weird street (Via Fiori Chiari). Perhaps the bumps were to prevent cars from entering.

Booths in the Milan subway offered 4 passport pictures for €3. Wah. So cheap.


I had dinner in a self-service cafeteria (they called it a restaurant). It wasn't too bad - €0,80 for water, €0,60 for 2 rolls, €7,50 for Octopus and €6 for Turkey - €14,90 in all; 1/2 - 2/3 the price of a real restaurant. It still tasted okay considering it was pre-cooked.

lavoro
salute
amore (I have no idea what this means)

There were ads showing women's grimacing faces as they shaved their legs (but then, the looks could've been of ecstasy and not only agony). Then they showed a happy woman using another shaver - Philips's new product "Satinelle Ice" - a shaver for female legs. They also sponsored horoscopes to brand their product, which was quite annoying.


One of the Milan train stations

The 2 PRCs in my hostel room got conned by one string man, who tied strings around their wrists, took a picture and asked for €2 (€1 each). Eventually they bargained it down to €1. Nice to see that competition is Milan is driving costs down for consumers, as opposed to places like Paris where they demand €10.


Besides banning photography and video to earn more money through the sale of postcards and other souvenirs, here're more ways scummy museums can rip off visitors. As a bonus, they can claim they're doing these things for conservation.

- Humidity damages artworks, so visitors have to wear masks with filters which remove the humidity from their breath. These masks, of course, can be rented from the museum for a nominal fee
- Light reflecting off glases causes paintings to dull. So they have to be removed or clip-on lenses affixed to them
- Light in general damages works, so works are stores in dark rooms. Visitors can rent low light goggles if they want to see anything
- Wheelchairs can knock into works, so the services of a specially trained guide have to be rented

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A Gonzo Journal » Blog Archive » Bittersweet Bloggers.SG
Timestamp: July 19, 2005 at 10:54 pm

There and then, a huge sense of regret filled me. I realized how much my anonymity crippled me as well as served as my greatest strength. It’s not so much that I crave the limelight (you know I don’t and never will) but rather the regret that I could not go down and shake the hands of each and every one of their hands followed by a big hug.

The people closest to my heart were the people I had to avoid the most.

I’ve decided not to kill my blog later this year. We’ve come so far. We can go so much further. One year from this date, I will throw off my cloak of anonymity and come out into the open.

Current Timestamp: October 2, 2006, 10:05 pm

I cooked dinner today. Personally I don't think it turned out very well, because it was my first time planning a full meal. I also didn't allocate enough time, and so became flustered; I attribute this to someone's stupid comment ("the stuff u making so far is quite easy what, doesnt require much cooking"), swimming with HWMNBN and most importantly, his hiding in the room for the first hour talking to jailbait while I slaved over the stove.

Menu:
1) Patat frites (Dutch fries)
2) Honey Teriyaki Pork Chops
3) Ratatouille
4) Stuffed courgettes

1) I soaked them in iced water for too long because I was doing other things; thus they became too weak and fell apart when frying. During the two fryings, I was too afraid of cremating them and also for some reason having the fire look the same didn't turn out fries which tasted the same as last week (next time I must rely more on instinct and how they look as they fry). After dinner I fried up another batch - half for the Cock (since he likes Vile Fries - he'll be touched we went to such lengths to annoy him) and half to eat. Apart from one or two fries being undercooked (insufficient heat in the first frying), they were very much better.

My brother-in-law and HWMNBN said the first batch of fries were good, but I think they were more like British chips like Patat (ie Yucky). What can I say, I have high standards for frites!

I was also too tired to take out the fritesaus and curry-ketchup. If I'd had more time, I'd have tried making my own fritesaus and curry-ketchup, but then NTUC Fairprice has a horrible selection - I couldn't find any dijon mustard (and so couldn't attempt the former). Oh well, maybe next time.

2) You might notice that the recipe calls for chicken. The stupid NTUC didn't have non-Halal chicken, so I got pissed off and bought lean Sakura pork instead.

Something went wrong when I was cooking the rice and I was too flustered/tired to fix it, so there wasn't any nice thick sauce. The chops were also too thick and so were undercooked (HWMNBN pan-fried them, heh). Other than that they tasted alright, though they smelled better when being cooked than they tasted (isn't that always the case?)

[HWMNBN: I told Gabriel to slice it thinner - but we were expected to broil it at the time rather than pan-fry. I also REPEATEDLY told him that it wasn't going to cook properly and i think I did my best under the circumstances, without reducing it to charred hydrocarbons. Also the sauce turned out okay plus my trick of tenderising it which he had NOT considered.

Also my response to him when he was surprised at the practical advice I offered, all of which turned out well (tendering meat, adding more spice provencale) "A lack of inclination to do something does not indicate a lack of ability."]

3) As usual I forgot to put salt. Damn. Somehow, though, it tasted good. Maybe the herbs provencale did the trick. This was also the dish that took up the lion's share of the time because of all the cutting.

4) Bacon is good. It'd have been nicer with pine nuts and breadcrumbs (apparently we've the latter but I didn't think of asking my mother). The egg really makes a difference (when I made stuffed peppers I didn't have any).


God, I'm exhausted.

Everytime I want to buy Florida's Natural, my brother-in-law complains. Today after dinner, he looked in the fridge, saw none and said I should've bought some. This also after I SMSed him saying that NTUC's "everyday low price" was $6.70 for the big tetrapak and he didn't reply (we only buy it or Tropicana when they're on offer). Bloody hell.

July trip
18/7 - Milan

I felt a bit guilty everytime I poured out tepid or lukewarm water from my bottle to fill it from a cold fountain until I realised that with free flowing fountains (ie Almost all of them), the same amount of cold water would've been wasted anyway.

Trying my luck, I showed up at Santa Maria delle Grazie early in the day but of course tickets were sold out for the next 2 weeks. I asked the woman when peak period was, and she said it was June, July and August, as well as December, which was surprising. With only 25 people allowed in each 15 minutes and it being closed from 1978-99, it was no wonder they were sold out for so long. Interestingly enough, the World Heritage sign was in English, Italian - and French (hah!)

Since I was there anyway, I checked out the church itself since it was a World Heritage site too, with the "complex and perfect architecture of Bramante's church". It was quite interesting - the vaults, arches and part of the dome were decorated with geometric symbols. I almost thought it was a mosque.


Altar


Ceiling


Church from cloisters, Cloisters pond with frogs.


Exterior of church


Pigeons

Unfortunately, the Duomo was under renovation.


Duomo side

Photographs were allowed in the Duomo if pictures were not taken of the priests or congregation. My brother-in-law would have been thrown out.


Duomo front


Giugno (the statue didn't say anything else - maybe he had no surname)

There were lots of Indian men in the Duomo square who were experts at manipulating pigeons (I counted 4 Indians and 1 old Italian - no wonder people oppose immigration!). Where they walked, pigeons followed. At various times, pigeons suddenly flew across the square en-masse, presumably due to things they did. They sold their services to tourists who'd pose with pigeons all over them (due to their holding birdfeed in their hands) and having their pictures taken with the men's polaroids.

I'd been inside a lot of churches, but the Milan Duomo still raised goosebumbs, since it seemed to be one of the finest examples of Late Gothic.


Nave

At first I was wondering at how wonderful the design was, letting in so much light. Then I looked up and realised it was electric floodlights. Gah.


Altar


Stained glass


Altar of St Agnes


Assorted carvings


Dessicated man


BS 'art'
In the crypt there was some funny exhibition, and there was a BS exhibit where the "artist" had taken scenes from some movie about the life of Christ, muted the soundtrack and places a huge black square in the centre blocking out most of the film's image; the lack of audio distraction was supposed to focus the viewer's mind on the message, and the action you could see on the borders was supposed to be enough to suggest what was happening and spark the imagination. I can do this sort of thing too. Maybe I should do that for footage of the NDP or the NDP rally.


San Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal of Milan, 1538-84

There was a sign advertising "Jesus on the web" - jesus1.it. I was wondering why there was a 1 inside. Maybe it used to lead to a porn site. Or it was a case of cyber-squatting! (I just tried it and it didn't lead to anything)


Pool with canale di adduzione and scarico leading to it, abside della basilica cattedrale, 4th century
There was a Paleochristian baptistry under the cathedral.


Duomo


There were police standing around at the side of the Duomo. Their boots and tights looked very smooth. It would be sexier if they were tighter.

At 11:50 I got to the entrance to the steps and found they were closed till 2pm. I wanted to take the lift but eventually decided against it.

1 girl posed for a picture with the policeman manning the metal detector at the elevator. Wah, so relac.

In the square, I saw lots of black men holding handfuls of strings. Some tried to offer them to me. Fortunately, I had been clued in to their evil plot already!


Galler