"Scholarly articles for fiona xie zao geng: The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China - Ronan - Cited by 18"

Wow, this guy is amazingly dedicated. On the day before the exam:

"Dear All:

Do you have any last minute questions/doubts on the notes, past exams or concepts...?

You can consult me between 10AM-12nn tomorrow."


Yesterday I had the hardest exam I've ever had, period: even the GEP admission exams were a cakewalk compared to this. Even all the shen (gods) said it was hard (one shen claims I'm also a shen, but I resolutely reject that title - I am a demigod at most).

The lecturer has really outdone himself this time, both in ingenuity and sheer difficulty; I feel like Annabel Chong: I got screwed again. And again. And again. And again...


"The following model attempts to estimate a causal effect of attending the last lectureon a student's final exam score of ***. In order to maintain exogeneity of attendance, I flip a coin at the entrance of the lecture venue, and let a student attend the last lecture if the coin shows head but let him or her go home if the coin shows tail."

"Tests for mathematics and English are going to be administered by an examiner to a total of 100 students to explore the relationship between mathematics and English scores... On its way to venue B, the blue bus unexpectedly has a flat tyre, hence arrives at venue B 20 minutes later than the green bus... Thus 50 students who happen to take the blue bus have 20 minutes less time for the English test."


What a semester of contrasts this has been.

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"Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations." - Orson Welles

***

This girl was studying Immunology and complaining about the pictures of diseases in her notes. I asked why she didn't delete them before printing, and she said she didn't read her notes before printing.

Then I showed her the breast rash larvae picture so she'd forget about the diseases, and it seemed to work.


Lut on the breast rash larvae: if u put it as yr wallpaper and go set it up in the library

all the prcs will fail their exams
or whoever those ppl who camp in the library are

Me: oh yah
bell curve


One person doesn't think it disgusting ("the sickness is prob more with me than the object of scrutiny agh"), another thinks it boring since it's "too fake", and recommends this instead (Personal rating: Shiver inducing, but I think the larvae is worse. That is truly nightmare material) and a last comments dryly, "hm i don't know about disgusting. i was more engrossed with um how the pores could be so neat."

Meanwhile another thinks it "interesting, disturbing, but not very disgusting" (that qualifies it in my book, since it's disturbing).

I think it says something that even the person who sent me MeatSpin.com cursed me to hell and be eaten by Cerberus when I re-acquainted him with it.

An examination of the psychology of the reaction:

Medical Student: man
yeah
the fake one is grosser

geez
like GEEZ
its sick
and i'm from a profession which doesn't really squirm at such stuff

maybe because it looks pristine despite the supposed infestation that makes it surreal

cos if teh canal tracts are like 5cm deep
the whoel breast should be compromised and scerwed already
the skin should be messed up cos the underlying structure is dead

Me: uhh
it looks too good so it's gross?

I think the juxtaposition adds to the disgusting feel

Medical Student: something like that
what i meant to say was
if its all black and gooey and messed up with worms, i might not react so strongly to it, cos that's something i'm used to?

but that one just looks uhm, peacefully sick, it doesn't really look like the worms have drilled 5cm holes in her breast

"Singapore lies in the tropics, but it has grown faster than all but perhaps a handful of countries in the last 40 years. Explain why Singapore is an outlier to the pattern of tropical underdevelopment. Give particular attention to the concept of social infrastructure in your discussion."


An economics exam with maths, essays *and* NE.

Hong gan liao.

This can be expressed as either ~s -> f OR (more correctly) s v f

A pity. It should've been s -> ~f, but even ~s -> f <-/-> s -> ~f.

"Kidnapping for kidneys is rubbish:?? what world are you living in? and just as your entry says its all rubbish, i am sure there are many more sites that do claim this is true... maybe in safe singapore it might not be the case but venture out to the developing worlds where the organised crime is way more common and things such as kidnapping for kidneys is way more real than the rubbish you think it is...

besides that, the forum is a place for discussion not dictatorship. everyone has a right to what they choose to believe in so saying things like "rubbish" may be your opinion but it does not have to be mine."


Sigh.

(The above was posted in one of my module's IVLE forum)

Day 4 of the SDP candlelight Vigil at Queenstown Remand Prison: There were 6-7 people there.

Pictures by my brother in law.

Unfortunately this little diversion hasn't cured my exam sian-ness. I can imagine how much worse it'd been if I'd gone on full sabbatical instead of semi-sabbatical.

"The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead." - Ann Landers

***

Frigid Girl: i have a knack of coming up with bad surprises

let's see. my friend is allergic to chocolate
by accident, i forget and let her drink coffee bean's cocoa
or smth of the sort

Me: well done
did she die?

Frigid Girl: no
she recognised the taste
and stopped drinking
haha


Frigid Girl: before i met you i didn't know people in NUS were so liberal hurhur

you gave me all the deviant viewpoints
from different pple

JB was the most eyeopening

Me: I'm not very deviant
and I don't know particularly deviant people (deviant people will be off having fun instead of talking to me)

so you were basically living in a well


Someone: i was referring to ben&jerry's as "BJ"
fren A thought i meant "blow job"
fren B misheard "blow job" as "pork chop"


Me: someone said during exams everyone is horny

Someone: why only during exams
i thought all the time

but it intensifies during exams

maybe the prolonged constant exposure to all the worn out bodies in the library intensify that horniness
everyone looks so tired

i think when u're tired u either want sex to rejuvenate, or sleep to recuperate

so maybe that's the r/s betw horny n exams
and most of the time they dont get sex, so u see them sleeping in the libraries

Me: yah I think exams make people more horny
all my quotable convos these days involve sex

"Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?" - Philip G. Hamerton

***

Quotes:

All that modelling for what? You can't model the world. There are certain parts of economics where math is essential. [Me: Financial] Financial. Other than that it's useless. All that math hasn't solved anything in the world.

You nice Chua (Eunice)

Put'ter call par'rer'tee condition (Put-call parity)

[On financial advice] Part e, all of you got it correct. All the strategies are correct, depending on your risk aversity... Some of you said: 'Since he is convinced the price will go up, buy unlimited call options. That is also correct'. (Part iii)

[On the Black-Sholes model] This model, the formula will be given in your exam... Can any of you remember this formula for me?

For the exams you have to remember... (exam)

[Me on a skirt with many buttons: Are these buttons functional?] Fashion. [Me: That's not a function] [Student 2: Fashion is a function] [Me: Go and die]

Engineering she3 me4 dou1 nan2 (Translation: Everything in Engineering is hard]

Don't you guys ever find it ridiculous that people have to write exams? Grown men and women have ot sit in the exam hall. (sit for)

There are some of these questions that even I find hard to do using predicate calculus. Not that I should find it any easier than you guys. That is to say nothing about my great genius.

In Singapore we have bomb drills, even though we have not had a bomb in 500 years... They have artificial limbs, so the Civil Defence people will have something to carry.

[During the last week of instruction] Unsure/sure?... If you're not sure then I'll say come next monday for tutorial.

[On predicate logic] It'll get easier if you practice more. The reason it is so hard for me is that I haven't practised.

[Me: Where's the key?] You'll take care of it right... [Student 2: He just wants to attract attention] [Me: How about you?] I'm a girl. It's logical for me to attract attention.

Deliver the gold in 1 year time (year's)

[On my extra bones] Freak. You're like an X-man, except you've some useless ability.

You want to see the final exam questions? [Audience: Yes] *Flashes covered exam paper* Those who can see will get 101 points... 10 points is just the true and false [questions]. See how easy [it is]?... You take a coin and toss it, and see how many trues come.

In the exam, if you take the wrong one and the wrong answer, make yourself happy about what you have done.

Some questions will use 2 or 3 sections [of the course]. [Me: Buy a straddle. Use it to construct a portfolio. Sell an option on it.] [Student: In a foreign market.]

That's the trick to being a PhD student or admin officer - yes/ no question, say in 10 pages. In the end don't enen reply [yes/no] (reply)

You see ads right, don't appeal to people who question, like you. They appeal to the masses... That's why you have shampoo commercials.

How come Year 1s ah, they can just afford to come here and party everyday?

I feel that Lit is eading a book and trying to find something that is not there. [Me: I felt that {way} in Sec 2]... I played along with it. But in University it's getting ridiculous.

It is only in modern Literature that they get so horny... Charles Dickens, Shakespeare - he's not that apparent... [Me: That's why girls like it... Express it in a socially acceptable way]... It's feminism. Whine whine whine about how they're being oppressed. If they're so good they'll do something about it instead of whining about it.

I don't think the writers are thinking of such things when they write... [Me: Maybe literary analysis says more about the analyst than the analysed] We give meaning to what we read. That's why the Egyptian gods used to be revered and now they're just gone. Poof.

"My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's." - Oscar Wilde

***


The exams are coming, and everyone has their personal charms. Some drink chicken soup, some go to bomohs, some hope the bell curve will pull them up and some pray. So far, so good. Whatever works for you, right?


"A+ - Study with Him and see the difference"
What I've an issue with is false advertising. The not-so-subtle promise of this poster is that if you study with Christ you get an A+. You've heard of the Gospel of Prosperity - we have the Gospel of Good Grades.

Of course, there are inevitably people who will study with Him and not get an A+. We can formulate this in a true-false proposition: If you study with him -> you will get good grades (A+s aside, As and A-s will also do); If p -> q. This proposition is false if you study with him (p is true), and yet you do not get good grades (q is false). We can therefore conclude that their promise is false.

Someone: 1st time i stopped praying was to prove to myself that it doesn't depend on god
then i got 3 As for A level..was expecting like 3 Bs.
coz my grades not the straight A kind.


On Wednesday I went on an excursion to the Bukit Timah Campus (Law) to study.

Someone: dont go to law school anymore
pple will write unsavory things about u

Unfortunately I wasn't able to find out just what unsavory things were written. But since one purpose of my visit was to piss off elitist SLUGs, I guess I succeeded!

Happily, I found that although access to the gym and study room is restricted, non-Law matriculation cards unlock their doors, so normal NUS students aren't excluded.


Seen in a toilet at the Bukit Timah Campus. It must be a very dangerous place. Maybe they're afraid that the SLUGs will assault the SNAILS in the corridor.

lawly: "it's important to have campus security on your handphone because law students always get trapped inside the library (really! they study until they forget to go home)."


"If I had 8 hours to study I wld spend 6 sleeping."
Whoever said motivational posters never gave you good advice?


[Bomberman with a bomb, with the words "For Allah!"]
Seditious desktop wallpaper. Except that this is a Muslim's laptop. Therefore he cannot be seditious. Woo hoo. My brother-in-law commented (referring to Borat) that if you want to be a comedian you should be a Jew, then you can make fun of anyone. Including Jews.


I don't know why the queue for Yong Tau Hoo was so insane. And not all of them were SACSALs either.

Some NUS High School people were selling tickets to a Guzheng concert held on Friday. Perhaps they thought that we would support "our" "juniors", but it didn't look like ticket sales were very good from the looks on their faces, if nothing else; they looked tired and very sian. I told them that they weren't likely to get a good response because it was exam period, and some time later I saw them eaving.


"Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich
Thinly sliced beef topped with sauted onions and BBQ sauce served in a French baguette"
This was at Blooi's/Blooy's (?) Blooie's, the pub/restaurant behind PGP. Oddly enough there's no mention of cheese.

On the value of Literature

Someone: lit is simply one avenue among many that we take to arrive at a better understanding of the world

already it should be obvious, that no one way is better than another
you cannot say for example that sociology is more important that psychology, etc

lit is one such way

and the way it does this can be divided into two main aspects

the first: engaging with literary texts as cultural and historical productions to arrive at how various cultures and peoples have created meaning, or attempted to acquire understanding by examininng the primary evidence, i.e. the literary works that have been produced

the second: acquiring a self-critical perspective, to achieve the awareness of one's own positionality when criticizing/analyzing texts from another culture with different mores from one's own and becoming alert not only to cultural prejudices but to personal ones

for the first, lit can claim a monopoly of means

because quite simply, it just happens to be the field where lit texts are the primary evidence

just like history happens to be the field where the historical dimensions of various artifacts are analyzed, soci, where artifacts and phenomena are regarded from the sociological perspective etc etc

for the second, lit does NOT claim, and indeed should not claim, a monopoly of means because critical thinking is available to everyone

so no, we do not claim to be the only self-critical discipline but lit is certainly one way of achieving it

Me: right.

how does one find meaning in a text
and how does one know that this meaning was shared by the producer of a text?

Someone: one finds meaning in the text in a variety of ways, but generally the way this is done is through understanding of nuance

this nuance is influenced by cultural mores to a greater or lesser degree
one can examine the narrative structure

and bear in mind when i say text I do mean lots of things other than books

as for the meaning being shared by the producer, the meaning intended by the producer is not the only exclusive meaning

and producers of texts do realize this, you know?
no one will write a book or a poem and say, "ok, such and such is what I mean to say with my work"
"no other interpretation is possible"

the intention can only ever be guessed at, unless it is somehow made explicit through extrinsic information
but otherwise, it is not the author's production of meaning that is the focus

Me: isn't it a form of defamation to impute intentions that aren't there?
unless one means it to say something about oneself
rather than the text or the author

Someone: regarding defamation: it is literary defamation only if one commits what we call the authorial fallacy
meaning, "I think this text is saying XXX. Therefore, the author MUST be saying XXX!"

the author of the text submits it to the general public, you see
and from there, new meanings and interpretations are created

Me: what's the point of exploring meaning that the author didn't inject?

Someone: exactly the question! if you'll let me answer

the text gains additional meaning, apart from the author's intention, through 2 other avenues

firstly, the reader's personal response, which, by applying the text like a rorschach test, results in the reader learning something about himself through the medium of the text

and secondly, the interaction between the text and the readers itself gives rise to new meanings

also, to the extent that the text "escapes" the author through what derrida termed the "slippage" of language

the author's intentionality is not dead
or at least, I don't think it should be

there is some debate about that, but the majority of thinkers don't think the "death of the author" should be completely accepted

but the author's created meaning *interacts* with the various other meanings that readers create

in that sense, it is very open

Me: I suppose I'm too much of a positivist to accept all the meanings thrown in the air

Someone: well, if it helps then
i will NEVER say lit is "anything goes"

quite patently, it is not
we arrive at the meanings by rational means
and we engage in a consensual experience

thats' the impt term, i believe
consensual

Me: with a sufficiently long and complicated text, one can make it mean anything
http://www.sexinchrist.com/

Someone: that would be over-interpretation

we are against that, you know

there IS a point you reach
after which, people will say, "eh, hang on!"
that differs with each particular case

Me: how do you know what is and what is not over interpretation

so it's the meanings which people want to accept

Someone: yes, and the standard by which this is judged is, "is this reasonable? does this make sense? does this add to the author's meaning/the text's meaning/my created meaning? Is this a helpful conclusion to draw (helpful to my understanding)? "

to a certain extent, each reader has to work this out by himself

is all this acceptable to you, now?

Me: right.

it still sounds like intellectual tennis without a net
combined with a circle j o
since the bar for acceptability of meaning is common consent

Someone: why so?
we are engaging actively with the phenomena of the outside world
like any other humanities or social sciences discipline

it's a bit unfair to say it's all anarchic, just because it largely depends on consensual experience

Me: you are positing possible meanings for it
which cannot be verified beyond common consent

Someone: most things cannot in fact be verified beyond common consent, you kno!
apart from the bare facts that the natural sciences can provide us

very little else is truly objective, and not subject to human interpretaion

it's just that our consensual agreement is based on widely accepted principles
and it is by these principles that works of literary criticism are assessed
that interpretations themselves are assessed

to provoke a "yeah exactly what I was thinking" or a "hmm that's interesting" or "hmm i don't quite agree" or "come on!!" response

Me: right.

Someone: is this better now?
have i managed to allay your skepticism at least somewhat?

Me: somewhat
by admitting that it says something about the analyst

Someone: sure
that is a claim we shouldn't even bother to deny

that is one of the ways in which the text is meaningful
through the reader's interaction with the text

Me: I dispute that this meaning is meaningful

My desktop wallpaer had Borat in "swimming trunks" with 4 women in bikinis, and someone thought it was Wo-hen. Wth?!

I don't know why people liked the waffles at the Arts Canteen so much. They're limp, soggy and have little filling/spread. Outside waffles are crispier and have a more fragrant base; I was eating a proper waffle from Bukit Merah, and it was so much better - one side was crispy and the other soft, the body was fragrant and there was adequate filling. Of course, nothing beats a Belgian waffle with Chantilly.

In the last days of the Arts canteen, there were people going around taking pictures with proper cameras. For some reason, most of them were PRCs.

I had the "famous" murtabak at the Arts canteen on its last day, and I bit into a piece of ginger they'd left inside. Wth?! I hope they weren't normally so slack in food preparation.

As of this year, the worst canteen without a doubt is Law. But then they can walk (hah!) or drive out, so it's okay.

I observed that during one lecture, over a course of two weeks, one guy was watching another lecture on webcast. I thought only girls were able to multi-task so well, but then I saw earphones in both his ears, and noticed that before one lecture he was stroking a girl beside him. Ah, the lengths people go to.

I went to see one professor and he had a heater in his office! This was because he was unable to control the thermostat due to central air-conditioning. I asked where he found it and he said he couldn't find it here, but had to buy it in Europe.

There was a girl sitting behind me in a Lecture Theatre and she was blowing her nose for what must've been 30 seconds straight. She took so long because she was blowing softly. It was damn irritating - just blow hard and get it out already!

One open book exam suddenly became closed book. Wth?! At first I thought I had been hallucinating at the start of the semester, but others confirmed that it'd been open book at first. Ah well - NUS.

I never cease to be amazed at what I read:


You have also misunderstood the term "fundamentalist". What is fundamentalism? It is a desire to go "back to the basics", believing a certain field has been too corrupted...

Fundamentalism is the ideology of a set of absolute principles: the idea that all humanity has a fundamental set of rights - life, freedom of expression, and so forth - that shall not be controvened - is a concept that is fundamentalist in nature, e.g. belief in a paradigm of ideals. This is opposed to utilitarianism, where few things are absolute and principles can be conveniently (and perhaps inconsistently) changed for "the greatest good". For me, many churches have slipped from a set of uncontrovenable principles into feel-good, self-esteem institutions that advocate "do whatever you want according to your own personal interpretation". Christian fundamentalism thus endeavours to align believers off this hypocritical course.

It does not necessarily entail the rejection of biology.

Here are some of the worst insults you could possibly use on someone, courtesy of YuCheng, Lin (aka Jonn), circa 09/26/99:

1. He's a sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify hims lf.
2. A four-hundred-dollar suit on him would look like socks on a rooster.
3. He is a modest little person, with much to be modest about.
4. He'd make a lovely corpse.
5. He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
6. He is as good as his word - and his word is no good.

"I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street." - Virginia Woolf

***

Someone: SMUeffect
swedes are better
might be reserved

but when they asked questions
it's good question

SMU lohz
u give points for discussion in tutorial

Me: I meant those in our batch SMU not as bad

Someone: i don't know our batch SMU much
but one of the top girls in SMU
asked me
is [a certain nordic country] in england

and she sccored above 4 out of 4
so i questioned SMU testing
haha

Me: aiyah
book smart /= really smart
I'm sure got NUS CAP 5-ers like that haha


Female Someone on Facebook: but nah, i didn't want to [state I was interested in women] just in case girls try to pick me up... i've never turned down a girl before, but that's because they've never asked


Someone on my support for the GST hike: The next time I see "Gabriel" and "immoral" on the same page, I won't rule out sarcasm.


Girl on Frigid Girl: how frigid is frigid? A guy friend actually told me sexual penetration itself wasn't a big deal, and that the oral stuff was better. If your frigid friend does oral stuff, then it no longer counts as her being frigid, does it? I'm sure she and bf are gonna indulge in such stuff if they get married, especially since oral sex has just been legalized. If she gives him BJs, no penetrative intercourse should be fine; a guy friend tells me penetration is too brutal and animalistic. Many guys prefer BJs anyway. I doubt anyone's all that frigid these days


Me on an expressed longing for a lesbian relationship: burnt [by guys] too many times ah

Someone else: nah no number of times is too many

when ppl say its too many they don't usually mean it
unless they become monk

even so
perhaps its just to attract attention


Someone on an NUS escort: yah, i did it. i had sex 4 rounds yesterday with 2 different guys. aditya went through my wallet and saw gideon's namecard for socialescorts and i've a suspicion that he's suspecting that i'm doing escorting services. right... well, if i'm being kept by a guy, i'll get around 5k per month, then my expenses will be paid for by gideon so i'll be saving like 60k per year and that's more than enough that's more than enough to settle my school fees. per assignment is about 500 or 600 bucks so if i do it 4 times per month i'll get 2k extra. so begins my career as a kept woman. hmmm.. it's not that bad, after all i'm already giving sex services to aditya for free. as for marc, that 1.5k...

Me: damn
I need the student discount

Someone: mee too
maybe u just need to show your matriculation card

Someone else: and pensioners discount maybe


Someone: in philly here, all the craze's about asian masasge parlours in chinatown
as in for the guys into this kinda thang

Me: and the asians are all damn ugly

Someone: yeah, no kiddin man.. pple from Wharton and everything go there
well, to them angmohs, they all look the same i guess

I used a quote illustrating a rational, logical and economically sensible plan (ie In the same vein as the GST hike), and got a request for a citation. Seems it's not as well as it should be.

So I dug up the original article, like so:


Government shortlists potential sites to build retirement village
17 April 2006
Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : The government has shortlisted a few potential sites for the construction of a retirement village, and the National Development Ministry is currently studying the details.

The sites are on a 30-year land lease.

And one of them will be picked to test market demand for such villages.

In an exclusive interview with MediaCorp's Channel 8, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said in the past, the idea of building retirement villages was put on the back burner as Singapore's problem of an ageing population was not as serious as that in Europe
and America.

The Singapore market was also too small for retirement villages to be commercially viable.

But the prospects have since changed.

With a rapidly ageing Singapore population, Mr Khaw said in five years' time, retirement villages will become economically viable.

One obstacle is the high costs of land in Singapore.

"My personal view is, our land is expensive. But we have nearby neighbours in Johore, Batam and Bintan. The elderly want to reach their doctors within half to one hour. So retirement villages in neighbouring countries is possible, barring the cross-border hassle. It is best to find cheap land on short leases," said Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan.


Viz. extract as much as you can from Singaporeans when they're working, and when they grow old ship them to Batam into retirement villages because it's cheaper.

Sleep and the Allocation of Time
Jeff E. Biddle, Daniel S. Hamermesh
Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 98, No. 5, Part 1 (Oct., 1990), pp. 922-943"

Using aggregated data for 12 countries, a cross section of microeconomic data, and a panel of households, we demonstrate that increases in time in the labor market reduce sleep. Our theory of the demand for sleep differs from standard models of time use by assuming that sleep affects wages by affecting labor market productivity. Estimates of a system of demand equations demonstrate that higher wage rates reduce sleep time among men but increase their waking nonmarket time by an equal amount. Among women the wage effect on sleep is negative but very small.


Who comes up with these things?!

Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!: Books: Katharine DeBrecht,Jim Hummel - "This full-color illustrated book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland."
No, this is not a parody.

The Straight Dope: Nearly half the U.S. population believes the earth is less than 10,000 years old? Say it ain't so! - "How does the U.S. compare with other countries in terms of belief in evolution? Not so hot. A study of attitudes in 34 countries published in Science in 2006 shows that the United States ranks last in popular acceptance of evolution except for Turkey. Almost 40 percent of Americans in this study flatly rejected evolution, whereas the comparable numbers in European countries and Japan ranged from 7 to 15 percent. That may partly reflect U.S. high school kids' dismal math and science scores relative to other developed countries, which to my mind underscores a home truth: the more you know, the less you take on faith."

ARTS CONNECT 02/06 - "I did a bit of research to write this piece. I called several respondents – former students – and asked them what was the first thing that came to mind when they thought back to their days in NUS. I regret to say that not one spontaneously offered that it was the scintillating discussion on the partitioning of total sums of squares into orthogonal components. Their answers were invariably hanging out with friends. (I can almost see their eyes rolling heavenwards when they answered the question, as if to say, if this is not one of your trick questions, isn't the answer so very obvious?) Those were the best moments, they all chorused. It all seemed like yesterday, they all sighed. What sentimental twaddle, I said under my breadth."

YouTube - NUS Demo Against Tuition Fees - No, I'm not joking. This is a NUS demonstration against fee hikes.

Facebook | COMMUNIST, and proud of it! - "wo men gen shi dai jing xing. ok so i went to nanyang and i looked like a chump because i had to keep my hair short. but so bloody what! at least i shaved my armpits. long live castro! those who wish to be part of this group, please ensure that your underarms are free from stubble before you click "Join"."

Polish Exchange Student in US: My Half-Year of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists - "When Polish student Michael Gromek, 19, went to America on a student exchange, he found himself trapped in a host family of Christian fundamentalists. What followed was a six-month hell of dawn church visits and sex education talks as his new family tried to banish the devil from his soul."

Retired husband syndrome - "In Japan it is estimated that 60% of older women have a common problem - their husbands. Having spent years "married to their jobs", retired men are having an extraordinary effect on the health of their partners."

Bus air-con gives medics the chills - "The combination of fridge-like conditions on buses and the choking, hot roadside air is increasing the health risks for Hong Kong commuters, doctors and environmentalists have warned."

Bug 112848 - Does your grandmother know what POSTDATA is? - ""The page you are trying to view contains POSTDATA. If you resend the data, any action the form carried out (such as a search or online purchase) will be repeated. To resend the data, click Ok. Otherwise, click Cancel." That message is very confusing for normal people. Mr. End User & his dog, neither of whom can tell the difference between DNS and DSL, surely have never heard of POSTDATA."

Huggers end up in police custody - "Just 20 minutes after the free hugs campaign arrived on downtown East Nanjing Road on Saturday, 11 huggers and several journalists found themselves in a nearby police station. Their sign boards offering free hugs in both Chinese and English were confiscated. A middle-aged man who claimed to be the director of the station said public hugging was not right in a crowded place like Nanjing Road. He also said the organizers lacked the necessary certificate to hold an event in a public place. The director refused to give his name. The huggers were released after about an hour and told not to organize any more public group hugs."

Sir Elton: Ban organised religion - "Sir Elton John has said he would like to see all organised religion banned and accused it of trying to "turn hatred towards gay people". Organised religion lacked compassion and turned people into "hateful lemmings", he told the Observer."

smile for the camera by *bri-chan on deviantART - "SPARKLY PINK BACKGROUND OF DOOOOOOOOM! I got tired of seeing all the D*sney princesses in the same old boring princess-y poses. :XD: Sometimes they just need to let loose and go crazy."

New Zealand high-schoolers to use "text-speak" on national exams - "High school students in New Zealand will be able to use "text-speak" on this year's written national examinations if they so desire"

Morse code trumps SMS in head-to-head speed texting combat - "93-year-old telegraph operator Gordon Hill delivered a resounding ass-whoopin' to his rival, 13-year-old Brittany Devlin, using Morse Code."

The 19th-century critique of big philanthropy. - "About 120 years ago, when Andrew Carnegie declared in his "Gospel of Wealth" essays that he was going to give away his entire fortune and asserted that it was the duty of other rich men to give away theirs, his announcement provoked as much criticism as praise. Labor leaders condemned Carnegie for giving away money that did not rightfully belong to him. Prominent churchmen, including Methodist Bishop Hugh Price Hughes, characterized him as "an anti-Christian phenomenon, a social monstrosity, and a grave political peril."... "Millionaires at one end of the scale involved paupers at the other end, and even so excellent a man as Mr. Carnegie is too dear at that price," he argued. His point was well-taken. One doesn't have to a Socialist—and Bishop Hughes certainly was not —to wonder whether a more equitable distribution of wealth might be better for society than the idiosyncrasies of large-scale philanthropy... Carnegie responded in a speech in Pittsburgh that he kept wages low to remain competitive, and that even had it been possible for him to share some of his profits with his workers, it would have been neither "justifiable or wise" to do so. "Trifling sums given to each every week or month ... would be frittered away, nine times out of ten, in things which pertain to the body and not to the spirit; upon richer food and drink, better clothing, more extravagant living, which are beneficial neither to rich nor poor." The lower the costs of labor, the higher the profits. Far better, in his view, to squeeze money from workers' paychecks, aggregate it, and give back to the community in the form of public libraries and concert halls."

Pay up or we'll send the eunuchs round: how city's tax dodgers are being shamed - "Frustrated with not being able to meet its annual target of revenue collection, city authorities have employed the incomparably colourful services of eunuchs to embarrass habitual defaulters into coughing up."

Fright | Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Corporation - "An extension for all practical jokers out there. I recommend you install it in all your friends profiles. Have fun and get a fright!"

pageaddict | Firefox Add-ons | Mozilla Corporation - "PageAddict is a Firefox extension that will help you monitor your Internet addiction. Once you install it, it will display a summary of the time you've wasted on each web site for this day, and a graph of your web surfing habits from the past. You can categorise different sites and restrict how much time you spend in each category in a day."

Cinque Terre Utilty Page - "How to get to Guvano Beach. It's public property now that Guvano is a nudist beach. You can access the beach by about 20 minute walk through a cool, moist, and dimly-lit unused train tunnel, but I advise not to use it (you have to pay 5 euros per person: the price of this ticket is daylight robbery!) Otherwise, you can take the path from Corniglia to Vernazza; after about 15 minutes walk you'll find a plain on your left (see the picture below): maybe you can read "free beach" written on some stones on the ground."
Bloody hell.

Mr. Bland Goes to Washington - "When you go into the voting booth, you’re trying to decide whom to accept or whom to reject. Are you judging who the good candidate is or who the less bad candidate is? The effort by each side to coat the opposition in slime has made many of us cynical, giving us the sense that our task is to reject the worst, not select the best. Nobody’s any good, we think, but some are worse than others. Let’s keep those candidates out of office. Our job becomes one of denying, not awarding, office. What that means is that if you want to win an election, you need to find candidates like Parent A, who give us no reason to say no, rather than Parent B, who present a complex set of features, some attractive and some problematic."

The Engineer's Ring - "What is the Order of the Engineer? The Order is the roster of engineers in the United States who have participated in an Engineer's Ring Ceremony and who have publicly accepted the "Obligation of an Engineer.""
This is not a joke.

Method of exercising a cat (US5443036) - "A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct."

Infinite Loop: Users report MacBooks and MacBook Pros randomly shutting dow... - "Complaints from angry MacBook and MacBook Pro users about their computers "randomly" shutting down seem to have suddenly started flowing in by the somewhat freakish masses over the last several weeks on websites and discussion boards across the Internet, although the causes seem like they could be attributed to many different factors."
Mac - it just works.

Couple in khalwat raid may drop second home plan - "Retired American policeman Randal Barnhart, who was subjected to a 2am raid by religious enforcement officers, is reconsidering his plan to make Malaysia his second home."

Something someone sent me. I was asked for my comments but I'm too tired to launch into one of my tracts on the misery of the human condition, so to quote 2 particularly relevant bits from Intellectual Whores:

1) "Nothing is just satire".

2) This does not apply if one of the following 3 holds:

"1. The guy is gay
2. The guy does not find you attractive.
3. The guy already has a woman much higher than you on the ladder"


Guidelines for Platonic Friendship, by moreanonymous

Some sensible rules and regulations to avoid any confusion in a male-female friendship.

Though I feel it’s impossible to forge a platonic friendship with a woman, I’m willing to give it a shot. Women make up more than half of the population and they turn up everywhere. As my wife tells me, I’m not good with women. A big part of that is my inability to correctly read their actions. I can’t tell when a woman wants to be my friend or when they want to do crazy sex stuff to me.

As a single man this led me into a lot of awkward situations where I either unknowingly stomped on the feelings of a girl who liked me or I tried to plant a kiss on one who just wanted to pal around. Toward the end of my single life I decided to take charge of my emotions and set down some guidelines for my lady friends. I know it seems unfair to impose these rules on the women when I had the problem, but to be honest I’d forget any rules for myself the minute cleavage enters the room. It would be up to the woman to help avoid confusion and maintain the innocence of the relationship. Now that I’m married I get by with the mantra: “I love my wife and this lady isn’t interested.” I’m never at risk of betraying my marriage, but this statement needs to be repeated every time a hot young girl does anything remotely flirty toward me. It calms the tornado of thoughts and emotions that women stir up in me. The truth is I’m still driven by my animal instincts despite living in a civilized world and my wedding vows are just barely able to hold me back.

Although I’ve found my own salvation, there are many young men out there who are bumbling their way through our world of commingled sexes. They are at risk of embarrassing themselves and possibly offending others. The following guidelines helped me and perhaps they could help someone else. They are intended for women who have stated that they just want to be friends and should not be handed out to strangers on the street. The woman must be aware of the friendship before laying ground rules. Following these rules, I think men and women can flaunt the call of nature and hang out with each other as if they were exclusively gay. If you aren’t sure that your situation warrants these guidelines then determine if three factors apply: You’re smitten with her, she thinks you are a nice guy, but she refuses to have sex with you.

1. No hugging for greetings or salutations. Hugging is only allowed for personal tragedies or blessed events when the emotional significance of the situation blocks out the knowledge that your boobies are pressing against me. We have hands; lets shake them.

2. No sleepovers. I think of all women who sleep in bed with me as potential sex partners. I spend all my free time trying to coax women in, so if you get in there, I can’t help but think you want some. If you or I need a place to crash sometime, then we should employ a couch. The breaking of this rule is punishable by instant sex.

3. No seat sharing. When girls sit on the arm of my chair or in my lap or next to me in a one-person seat, it makes me think that she wants some sexing. A possible exception is fitting an extra person in a car that is filled to capacity. I can’t let my passion hurt the quest to maximize a designated driver, but be warned; it might not be the seat belt poking you.

4. No flirting. So if you laugh at a joke of mine, it better be a funny joke.

5. No judgment making on any girl that I see. Good or bad, it’s the guy friends' job to belittle and pick apart girlfriends, if a woman does this, it means she wants the guy for herself. So you think she is trashy and dumb? Well, you could have dated me but you just wanted to be friends.

6. No judgment making on how I treat any girl I might date, be it for six months, or six hours. You have thrown your log onto the fire of chauvinism in my heart, so you are partially to blame if an innocent girl gets burned.

7. No sparing of my feelings. It’s emasculating. Don't worry, you already broke my heart, go ahead and heap more crap on me. I’ll turn all embarrassment and pain into bitterness and anger, and then occasionally let it all out in some meat headed act.

8. No setting me up on pity dates. If you truly know of a woman who would be very happy with me and I with her, then we will talk.

9. No being attracted to me. Impossible, I know, but you seem to have found a way, so stick with that. I’m going to be as attractive as possible in pursuit of other women, so if you are going to be seeing me in a bathing suit, you might want to make sure you are on the pill as the breaking of this rule is punishable by instant sex. In fact, don’t even tell me I look good as that will torment me for days.

10. No confiding in me about boys. I am not your girl friend; I am your reluctant man friend who officially hates all men that you date now or in the future. Asking for hypothetical guy advice is okay; just don’t slam me with details about particular guys you are sleeping with. If this rule seems contrary to rule 7, just remember that I’m a beautifully complex being.

11. No asking for man favors such as furniture moving, yard work, or car trouble help. I don't like to waste displays of extreme masculinity on women who have decided not to sleep with me. In a pinch you can bribe me to do man chores with beer. Please hand me the case as a gift versus doling them out one at a time from your fridge. That keeps it strictly business.

12. Try to avoid incidental contact. I can't outlaw this since there are times when the brush of a leg or a sleeve is purely accidental, but try to be careful. You can take steps to not put your arm in mine while walking or lay against me on a couch or other things like that. Those things would lead me to think you want me to sex you.

13. No asking for massages or neck rubs, that’s a lot of foreplay to waste on someone who doesn't want the main event. Besides, shouldn’t your boyfriend give you massages? Why aren’t we dating again?

14. No dating any guy who treats you bad or neglects you in any way, that’s just a slap in my face. I fucking adore you.

15. No judgments on any of my behavior. It would lead me to think you care a little too much about my well being. So I don't want to hear any, "Stop smoking", or "Don't drink so much," or "Don't use women." Of course if I am truly being an asshole in some situation, feel free to clue me in, that’s what friends do.

16. You have to let me know immediately if you want to be more than friends. I’m only doing this to respect your wishes. If you ever want more, rest assured that I do too. At any moment we can tear these guidelines up and spend 24 hours doing every imaginable sexy act."

"The point of quotations is that one can use another's words to be insulting." - Amanda Cross

***

ST: SDU’s role as Cupid comes to an end - "So its new focus will be on giving its stamp of approval to dating agencies and professional matchmakers, and on funding private-sector agencies and projects which promote dating."
At first I thought NUS Orientation Camps were doomed, cut off from an important source of funds. Then I read this sentence. Will graduates of the Premier Institution of Social Engineering still get free dating services for 2 years then, I wonder?

Facebook | The Worthless Facebook Group - "This group is completely worthless. Unlike purposeful groups such as "The Ultimate Facebook Project" or "for every 1000 people who join I will slam my penis in a door," This group has no meaningful goal. If you are invited to or just come across this group and join, it will simply be a worthless group you are part of."

Mercury in Seafood - "Commercial fishermen capture tuna and swordfish at sea, far from any source of industrial pollution. The mercury in their system must come from natural sources. For years, we have probably eaten tuna and swordfish with mercury levels above FDA's limit without harmful effects. Analysis of museum specimens of tuna caught from 1879 to 1909 reveal that they contain levels of mercury as high as those in fish being caught today. Scientists therefore conclude that mercury levels in tuna, and probably swordfish, have not changed in the past 100 years."

YouTube - seatbelt - "alwayz wear your seatbelts. 'Heaven can wait'"

From a search referral "acjc reputation" (sans quotes): One, Two, Three: Update - "Like ACJC, Stanford has a reputation for being a "fun school."... How are the Asian Stanford girls compared to ACJC girls? Well, I personally think that in ACJC, the degree of inequality is greater-- you have a few cliques of extremely pretty girls who are rich, witty, articulate, sporty, and intelligent, versus a majority of girls who are poor, plain, introverted, and silent. In contrast, the Stanford girls seem to be more equal. Although some girls are prettier than others, the majority of the girls are reasonably attractive. Everyone seems to be relatively articulate, confident, and intelligent, and everyone seems to have significant talents in at least one respect."

Michelle, "The Pass Around Girl" - "Feminists bother me. They decide what is good and bad for women in the same way men do. I will do what I please, when I please, and that is feminism. I will or will not get whatever tattoo I like."

The lab that helps Jews to observe rules dating back 3,500 years - "With its disappearing ink and cunning electronic gadgets it could be straight out of a James Bond story. But this laboratory, where grey-bearded engineers invent fiendish devices and test machinery, grapples with altogether trickier problems than keeping secret agents ahead of the game. The 40-year-old institute, in a scruffy block on the fringes of Jerusalem, conjures up solutions that allow observant Jews to meet the challenges of modern life without violating the Sabbath laws... A Sabbath telephone was developed that allows the numbers to be keyed without completing the electrical circuit. How could doctors who must attend their duties on the Sabbath keep records, classed as working by the Torah? The institute’s answer was an ink that disappeared after 72 hours, enabling photocopying the following day, but not proscribed by the Torah because it is not permanent."
This is as bad as Islamic Banking.

Fury over Halal Christmas dinner - "Parents expressed outrage last night over a school’s plans to serve pupils a Muslim Christmas dinner. The headteacher announced that she intended to replace the children’s traditional turkey meal with halal chicken. She explained that eating poultry which had been slaughtered in the Muslim way would create an “integrated Christmas”... “We bend over backwards at Eid (an Islamic festival) to eat traditional Muslim food so why should we have to change our Christmas tradition?” Mrs Johnson added: “I feel my culture is being stolen away from me. I have no objections to halal meat being on the menu so long as there is a choice of traditional Christian Christmas fare.”"

They're on death row, but at least they get a private pool - "Waitrose, the supermarket chain, is leading a rights-for-ducks movement on behalf of the 19 million birds that are eaten in Britain each year. It is not quite asking them to choose a resort from a glossy holiday brochure, but it is offering them a swimming pool with the water changed every day, and even a few poolside luxuries such as gravel to keep their feet clean, ramps for easy access to the deep end and the equivalent of beach umbrellas to shade them from the sun."

Sausages affected by draconian trade laws - "A spicy sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned the manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon."

Straight eye for the queer gals - "Why do men love lesbian scenes?... In her Village Voice review of the new movie "Thirteen," Laura Singara says the scenes of the two female teenage protagonists kissing will make it a "male-gaze DVD must have." Try to imagine anyone (particularly in the Village Voice) writing so disapprovingly about the straight women who enjoy gay porn. Oh no, they're subverting the sexist/male-gaze/phallocentric/military-industrialist (add patriarchal modifier of your choice here) complex. But any man who might be turned on by the sight of two girls kissing is inherently some grubby Humbert masturbating into his grimy Burberry."

Thank You, William H. Meckling. We owe a debt of gratitude to the man who killed the draft. - "He had been drafted into the army in World War II and witnessed the government's incredibly wasteful use of manpower when it could pay below-market wages... In his testimony before the commission, Mr. Westmoreland said he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. Mr. Friedman interrupted, "General, would you rather command an army of slaves?" Mr. Westmoreland replied, "I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves." Mr. Friedman then retorted, "I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher."... People often wonder why today's 20-somethings have such entrepreneurial spirit. One reason, I believe, is that a whole generation has grown up without the draft looming over its head."

pierce your belly button - "Within a couple of years, our young friend fits right in. He wears the right clothes. He cancels his dinner dates for Oh-so-important client meetings. He knows the conventional wisdom, and can self-censor his wacko ideas in the bud. He spends his time working, attending industry conventions, and absorbing the Status Quo. He’s a success. And he’s quite unlikely to be an agent of innovation, creativity, or newness. Mission accomplished!"

Voodoo practitioner tries to jinx Bush - "A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia... He said the jinx would send spirits to possess
Secret Service personnel guarding Bush and put them in a trance, leading them into falsely thinking the president was under attack, thus eventually causing chaos in Bogor Presidential Palace"
Obviously he didn't have enough faith.

Copyright Duration and the Supply of Creative Work by Ivan Png, Qiu-Hong Wang - "At various dates between 1991-2002, nineteen OECD countries extended the duration of copyright, typically from the author's life plus 50 years to author's life plus 70 years. We study the impact of the extensions on the production of movies. We find that the extensions were associated with an increase in movie production ranging between 8.51% (±4.60%) and 10.4% (±4.89%). The increase was higher in countries where piracy was lower."
Of course, the quality of the movies made, or the impact on society in other ways was not measured.

The new cultural revolution: How Little Fatty made it big - "An overweight teenage boy who found that his image had been superimposed onto movie stars and politicians by web users has become a cult figure in China."

Man fined for saying four-letter-word on flight - "A 65-year-old Australian man was fined S$10,000 ($6,423) by a Singapore court for uttering the word "bomb" on a flight to Indonesia, The Straits Times reported on Wednesday."

While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry - ""Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia's national catch cry. It translates to "Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall... like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics."

"If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up." - Barry Humphries (Dame Edna)

***

"A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal of even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls." - Marx on irrationality

If the fact that blacks and other minorities form a disproportionate share of the prison population means that they're discriminated against and that the system is rigged against them, does that mean that men are also discriminated against and that the system is rigged against them? [Someone: maybe it just means that more white women are sent to the gallows or face lethal injection than other demograhic groups, which explains why they are not in prison. there's no discrimination overall actually. ;) yep, poor white women]

The gross under-representation of men in Women's Studies and Nursing faculties in universities worldwide, Media and Physiotherapy in Melbourne University, English in some universities is evidence of gross systemic discrimination against them.

If imposing labour regulations on businesses causes them to move overseas to avoid them, hurting the people the regulations were meant to help in the first place, doesn't imposing environmental regulations similarly harm the planet?


A friend says that in his school, boys can only go to toilet singly but girls can do so in pairs.

Owl instant tea sucks. It's extremely tannic, like SAF tea.

I went to enquire how much Bloodbones cost (it wasn't in stock, unfortunately), and found out it cost only $7.88 - that's cheaper than FF books were in the 90s! ($8+)

Women are very prone to inexplicable fits of mindless laughter. Someone said he thinks it's a gap-filler, like how guys go "erm" and "uhh".

"Consider the problem of estimating the causal effect of skipping classes on final exam score. In a simple regression framework, we have

score = β0 + β1 skipped + u, (15.8)

where score is the final exam score and skipped is the total number of lectures missed during the semester. We certainly might be worried that skipped is correlated with other factors in u: more able, highly motivated students might miss fewer classes. Thus, a simple regression of score on skipped may not give us a good estimate of the causal effect of missing classes.

What might be a good IV for skipped? We need something that has no direct effect on score and is not correlated with student ability and motivation. At the same time, the IV must be correlated with skipped. One option is to use distance between living quarters and campus. Some students at a large university will commute to campus, which may increase the likelihood of missing lectures (due to bad weather, oversleeping, and so on). Thus, skipped may be positively correlated with distance; this can be checked by regressing skipped on distance and doing a t test, as described earlier.

Is distance uncorrelated with u? In the simple regression model (15.8), some factors in u may be correlated with distance. For example, students from low-income families may live off campus; if income affects student performance, this could cause distance to be correlated with u. Section 15.2 shows how to use IV in the context of multiple regression, so that other factors affecting score can be included directly in the model. Then, distance might be a good IV for skipped. An IV approach may not be necessary at all if a good proxy exists for student ability, suhc as cumulative GPA prior to the semester."


Whoever implemented the NUS attendance policy because studies found a correlation between bad grades and skipping lessons would do well to find proper instrumental variables.

Facts about men:

1. Men like to barbecue. Men will cook if danger is involved.

2. Men who have pierced ears are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.

3. Marrying a divorced man is ecologically responsible. In a world where there are more women than men, it pays to recycle.

4. Men are very confident people. They are so confident that when they watch sports on TV they think that if they concentrate, they can help their team. If the team is in trouble, they coach the players from the living room.

5. Men like phones with lots of buttons. It makes them feel important.

6. Men love to be the first to read the newspaper in the morning. Not being the first is upsetting to their psyches.

7. Men are afraid of eyelash curlers.

8. A good place to meet a man is at the dry cleaner. These men usually have jobs and bathe.

9. All men hate to hear "We need to talk about our relationship". These seven words strike, fear in the heart of even General Schwartzkopf.

10. Men are sensitive in strange ways. If a man has built a fire and the last log does not burn, he will take it personally.

11. Men have an easier time buying bathing suits. Women have two types: depressing and more depressing. Men have two types: Nerdy and not nerdy.

12. Men have higher body temperatures than women. If your heating goes out in winter, I recommend sleeping next to a man. Men are like portable heaters that snore.

13. Women take clothing much more seriously than men. I've never seen a man walk into a party and say "Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed;get me out of here. There's another man wearing a black tuxedo."

14. Most men hate to shop. That's why the men's department is usually on the first floor of a department store, two inches from the door.

15. If a man prepares dinner for you and the salad contains three or more types of lettuce, he is serious.

16. If you are dating a man who you think might be "Mr.. Right", if he a)got older, b)got a new job, or c)visited a psychiatrist, you are in for a nasty surprise. The cocoon-to butterfly theory only works on cocoons and butterflies.

17. When four or more men get together, they talk about sports.

18. When four or more women get together, they talk about men.

19. Men are less sentimental than women. No man has ever seen the movie THE WAY WE WERE twice.

20. Most women are introspective: "Am I in love? Am I emotionally and creatively fulfilled?" Most men are outrospective: "Did my team win? How's my car?"

21. If a man says "I'll call you, " and he doesn't, he didn't forget... he didn't lose your number... he didn't die. He just didn't want to call you.

22. Getting rid of a man without hurting his masculinity is a problem "Get out" and "I never want to see you again" might sound like a challenge. If you want to get rid of a man, I suggest saying "I love you... I want to marry you... I want to have your children." Sometimes they leave skid marks.

23. Men are self-confident because they grow up identifying with super-heroes. Women have bad self-images because they grow up identifying with Barbie.

24. Male menopause is a lot more fun than female menopause. With female menopause you gain weight and get hot flashes. Male menopause you get to date young girls and drive motorcycles.

25. Men forget everything; women remember everything. That's why men need instant replays in sports. They've already forgotten what happened.

"I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland." - Woody Allen

***

I have always been against Internal Elections on the grounds that they violate the sovereignty of the electorate. They way they work is that first your constituency elects a candidate, and then the candidates get together and decide who will fill what post. Thus, the electorate has no direct say over who gets what post in the end. What posts people get are dependent on their bargaining power and political capital.

One way I suggested of solving this was for those who get the most number of votes to have priority in deciding what position they get. Someone said there's a danger of time inconsistency here - someone can say he's running for Post A, but then change his mind later and say he wants Post B if he has more/less support than he expected. I then modified my proposal to have candidates declare before the first election what post they want to run for. They then can't change their minds later, even if they get more/less of the vote than they expected.

Come to think of it, the Westminster system also works on the basis of internal elections, but at least you have a clearer idea of who will be what before the election, since there are clear parties and party leaders.


It seems another silly SMU module is "Leadership and Team Building". I'm not sure whether it's sillier than "Creative Thinking", but "Finishing Touch" still takes the cake. I'm still of two minds about "Analytical Skills" (which teaches things like Modus Ponens - "it's not exactly silly, but it's really common sense disguised as a half-credit module... it's all commonsensical, really. But at least there's more content in it than in Creative thinking... The worst of the lot is creative thinking though")

One economics major from NUS who went to SMU said that it was all project work for the sake of project work, and the person felt they didn't learn anything.


u r wt u wr update:

- "I swing both ways" (There was a picture of a girl on a swing, and the words were formed of pink lines)
- "Naughty by nature"
- "Tell your boyfriend I said thanks" (the word 'thanks' was in a heart)
- "I only look innocent"
- "Ready for boarding"
- "Beachside hockey. Let the body checking begin"
- "51% single"
- "Think single" (worn by Lynn)
- Contribution: "I'm much hotter on the Internet"
- Contribution: "I'm the girl your mother warned you about" (This girl was holding a guy's hand)
- Contribution: "Trinidad & Tobago." ("think about it. they're islands. but... strategically placed. it suggests that the owner named one of her breasts ms trinidad and the other ms tobago.")
- Contribution: "TiT. Tai-tai in Training" ("the TiT is strategically placed, with the phrase directly underneath.")
- Bonus: A guy's shirt which said "Love is for losers"
- Bonus: "Don't need no catchy phrase" (worn by a girl)
- Mistake: I thought "The Original Mickey" said "The Original Hickey"

I haven't seen any USP girls wear "u r wt u wr" worthy clothing. Draw your own conclusions from that, hurr hurr.

In my quest to collect data for "u r wt u wr", I inevitably have to look at items to clothing. Since slogans/mottos are almost always at the bosom level, it seems I might soon no longer be thought of as asexual, but as something rather on the other end of the spectrum.

Because I couldn't find a definition online:

Asymptotic t statistic: A t statistic that has an approximate standard normal distribution in large samples.

July trip
23/7 - D Day Beaches

There was supposed to be a summer D Day bus line, but it only ran from Wed-Fri. Wth.

After the Commonwealth cemetery, we visited the location of Pegasus Bridge, the capture of which was portrayed in the 1962 film - the Longest Day. The place was originally called Benouville, but it was renamed Pegasus Bridge (the codename) later. The thing is that the locals actually call it that, as opposed to terms like "Omaha Beach", "Sword Beach" etc, which are only used by the locals.

There was a museum there and the owner was present and gave us a lot of information.


The original Pegasus Bridge. They bought it for a symbolic price of 1 Franc (never actually paid) when it was replaced in view of heavier traffic (and not due to bullet holes). The restoration cost 200,000 pounds.

They used gliders to capture the bridge because planes would've been too noisy. There were 30 people per glider, and 3 gliders per beach (?), so that made it 6 gliders in all. The reason for using gliders rather than jumping from planes was so they wouldn't get scattered like the Americans.

Landing the glider was basically crashing rather than landing, especially in the terrain they had:


Marshland. Apart from the red houses in the background it looks the same as it did in 1944, even with the electricity pylon.

The Germans placed explosives on Pegasus Bridge, a key point, in the day, but took them out at night (since they were afraid the French resistance would take the explosives and use them to blow things up). When the British landed there were 15 Germans faced by 90 Brits. Most of the former fled, and the rest surrendered within 10 minutes.

In less than half an hour they'd liberated Benouville, just before midnight on June 5th.


Remains of an actual glider


Reconstructed Horsa glider (only 1 was left in England and they copied it). Only the tyres are original. They bought them off a farmer who used them for his tractor or something.

A Scottish general who never moved off without his bagpipes (wth) led the attack on Sword Brach; when they heard his bagpipes, they knew the reinforcements were coming (in the Longest Day, the fella played the bagpipes while walking across the bridge. The bagpiper told the owner of the museum that he was 19 at the time and running across the bridge). His reinforcements came to secure the bridge, 2 minutes late (2 past noon), and he apologised. Gah.

The British were extremely proud of their glider pilots' accuracy - the first glider landed 57m from the bridge and the other 2 only a bit behind. So they placed markers where they landed. The Commander-in-Chief, Allied Expeditionary Air Force called it the "probably the finest piece of precision flying in the whole of World War II".


Improvised bridge (Bailey bridge)

2 years ago, 10 of Major Howard's men were at the memorial ceremony. This year only 2 were.


More shots of the bridge. Maybe you can see the bullet holes.


M3 A1 half-track and quadruple 12.7mm AA gun mounting

We were dropped at the museum for 1 hour, but after the movie screening and a very enthusiastic guided tour we had less than 10 minutes. Oh well.


Mark where the first glider landed, and a bust of John Howard. In the background you can see where the third glider landed, and further back the second.


Looking at the bridge from the mark.

There were very funny plaques in the settled area nearby saying that that one location saw the "first Allied victory", another was the "first house in France to be liberated" etc. Gah. The Pegasus Bridge was also touted as the "first bridge liberated in Continental France". !@#$%^&*() (I'm not sure if this was on a plaque, though)


Avre tank. This was the Commander's tank, ergo the graduated markings, so troops could see where he was shooting.

Dog tags were introduced after World War II because there were too many unknown soldiers in that war. Too bad, as I recall from the Berlin tour, that in the bombings of Berlin a lot of records were destroyed, making the tags useless.


Command post at the Hillman position


Garage

A sign said the capture of the Hillman position was the first achievement in the liberation of France. Gah - they might as well erect a memorial where the first paratrooper liberated the first square inch of occupied France.


Sword Beach. It was low tide and the last buoy could be seen. There was also the low tide smell (rotting seaweed). Ugh.

There was a couple walking down the road and the guy held a dog in his arms. The dog's tongue was sticking out. The people in my minivan commented that the dog was tired.

The guide was telling someone that before William the Conqueror got Papal endorsement to invade England (based on perjury over the bones of a saint), his nobles had been reluctant to pledge their help. So much for religion being irrelevant, and always a byproduct of or controlled by politico-socio-economic realities, as fashionable reductionism might have it. Ideologies both shape and are shaped by politico-socio-economic realities, so the chain of causation is not one way.

We were told that there were 2 maple trees at the Canadian cemetery. Maybe they should've imported some bald Eagles for the American one.


Remains of the British mulberry (artificial port) at the beach. No one was paying for either the maintenance of destruction of it, so it was just left to rot.


Former German defence position

The binoculars at the mulberry beach were provided by Euroscope, and they were the most expensive ever, costing €0,50 or €1 (I hope €1 got you twice as much viewing time).

Returning to Bayeux, I walked down a big street and got the shock of my life on seeing:


Malaysian Mannikins
FRANCE, HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?! I HAD FAITH IN YOU!!!1OMGWTHBBQ~!


The establishment to boycott for eternity


Timber-framed house. Oldest, biggest in Bayeux (14th century)

2 Danes were eating spaghetti with ketchup in the hostel because they were too lazy/stingy to get read food. Uhh.

The chainsmoking old man running the hostel who spoke absolutely no English at all was also the most unfriendly French person I met in France in July - when I bonjoured him he didn't bonjour me in return. At least his wife was slightly more conversant. (Review of the place: "The owner knows little English and will be much more friendly if an attempt is made to speak in French. Possibly because of this, there is little information provided upon check in on breakfast time (starts at 8 a.m.) and dinner time (7:30 p.m.) and it is not clear as to whether an indication needs to be made for one's presence at dinner.; Apart from the owner who is a bit strange and doesn't always confirm reservations, the place was awesome.")

It seems there's a quota that 3/5 of the songs played on the radio in France must be in French. Somehow I'd always thought it was higher.

One Dane said he thought 60 minutes was a good show to watch, and then one episode talked about Denmark and everything was wrong.

One person complained about the positioning of French public restrooms - he said the Men's washrooms were always placed first, the urinals placed near the door and often the doors were left open so girls would walk by and see.

One US girl on a study abroad tour said she ate more McDonalds in Europe than in the US because it was open late and cheap.

Apparently in Poland and Russia TV dubbing sucks - one person does all the voices and they dub in a monotone voice. Perhaps the worst bit is that you can hear the English audio channel softly in the background.


You always hear about Singaporeans who, when they go overseas, get questioned about their country and don't know what to say. The day before, there had been an American at the hostel choke-full of the weirdest questions. I felt like I was under cross-examination and on the witness stand.

Among other things, he asked what the penalty for possessing pot was (I only knew about the penalty for having 1 kg, what got you the death penalty in Singapore besides murder and drugs (he asked about attempted murder and rape, and I had no idea). What took the cake, though, was asking if you could be charged in Singapore if you went to China and bribed someone (I have since found out that the answer is yes). My reply was that: "I'm not sn expert on the finer points of extraterritorial legislation", and someone commented that it was a good rejoinder.

This person also commented that the Bayeux Family Home had a very good atmosphere and that there were lots of friendly people there, which was why he'd extended his stay.

"I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading." - Zach Braff

***


Ever since I've been leaving my hair out, it's been shedding ridiculously. This picture shows the yield of a few hours at my desk. Even someone, who sheds a lot, is amazed by how much I shed. My mother suggested I go to the University doctor to enquire, and since I was going anyway for my flu, I asked for medical advice.

Fortunately, I got a female doctor. After I mentioned my problem, she looked at my hair and asked if it was rebonded, because it was very straight. She thought the chemicals used in rebonding might've damaged it temporarily or permanently, and mentioned that 2 people had visited the NUS doctor after going bald following rebonding, and had been referred to the National Skin Centre. She also advised me not to dye it (I don't), since the traction was bad. I was also advised not to use funny hair products (does conditioner count?) and try baby shampoo, but I can't be bothered to do the last, especially since she confirmed that I have a healthy head.

There was the obligatory line about how there's less shedding with shorter hair, but cutting my hair to avoid shedding is like amputating a limb to cure a minor gangrene infection.

***

soft gay

"Guy: Don’t you have any Chinese girls you can introduce to me?

Me: No… I’m gay.

Guy: Really? It’s okay, I’m not homophobic.

Me: That’s alright. I’m not gay either."

Someone: http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2006/yax-680.htm

Even Alex Au[, a vocal government critic, suggests waiting for the details of help package for the poor to come out before criticising the government for raising GST]?

Me: amazing huh

http://www.bigozine2.com/fooled/fooled.html

Someone: A good summary of the Sammyboy forums.

Me: no
summary of the straits times

Someone: Perhaps there's not much difference.

Me: no
they're opposite sides of the spectrum
haha

the thing is we've been conned so many times
so we don't trust them

rational expectations

Someone: I guess Alex Au and some of us are not rational then.

Me: nope
people are irrational

they find that ricardian equivalence doesn't always hold
people don't save the whole amount of the deficit/tax cut
they save about... half of it

From Problem Set Barro:



"Suppose instead that individuals use the following expectations adjustment mechanism:

πet = π*, if πt-r = π* for all r = 1, 2, 3, ...
πD = πD, if πt-r /= π* for all r = 1, 2, 3, ...

This reflects that individuals are highly suspicious of the government, so if government deviates from the announced rule for even one period, individuals expect the government to cheat henceforth."

Explanation: Inflation is bad for an economy, so governments can promise to keep inflation low (the ideal rule).

The problem is that governments can and so will be tempted to shock the economy with unexpected inflation to reduce unemployment (if inflation is higher than wage increases, employers will increase hiring), but in subsequent periods people will expect this, and adjust their inflationary/wage expectations. There comes a point where the benefits of lower unemployment due to unexpected inflation are outweighed by the damage caused by high inflation.

In the long run, inflation will be higher than it would've been under the ideal rule.

"No." - Amy Carter, (President Jimmy Carter's daughter) when asked by a reporter if she had any message for the children of America

***

Quotes:

Gabriel, did you lose weight again?... [Me: Looks are deceptive.] But it's the looks that count what. [Me: Good point, good point.]

We all know that a lot of economists don't like adaptive expectations, because it's really backward-looking.

Jaw Jansen (Jorgenson)

Q Theory [of investment] requires a strong maths background... I don't think you guys have the stomach to do it, and frankly I don't have the stomach to do it either. If you're really interested, pick up Alpha Chiang's Dynamic Optimization. It will take you a few months to do. Good luck.

The North Koreans are extremely good at generating fiat money of the United States.

[On not interpreting the MLE model with its mean but rather median] The mean sex is 0.4, 0.5. Who is this person? A person who is 0.5 male, 0.5 female.

Girls cry after Econometrics I. [Student 2: Girls cry? Not our batch right.] [Student 3: *** said - Tsunami after Econometrics I]

The 5 conditions for a BLUE estimate, if I remember correctly: Conditional mean is 0, homoskedasticity, no multicolinearity - and the other 2.

[On stochastic voariance] Wah cheem, man. This is like philosophical.

[On the visualiser projecting the wrong bit for 5 minutes and no one saying anything] You must be really bored. Usually someone says something... it's amazing. *Pushes visualiser so only the power plug can be seen* I was *mumbles and points randomly*. I must've looked like a fool.

I'm gonna implement a friendszone soon. Fuck, do back to the girls what they did to me.

[On SMU] Their International [Economics] A/B is our International [Economics] I.

[On why we should do Masters modules] Masters students - they don't study.

[On the tutor] He's damn cool. He's like some construction worker.

[On technical problems for the presentation] Don't buy Fujitsu, people. For consumption, people, don't buy Fujitsu computers.

Don't waste time. We're all young people. We all have very good eyesight. You can squint your eyes... Anyway no one looks at Powerpoint slides... Just pretend you all can see. Okay cool?

[On diagrams in a presentation] That's stolen from the lecture notes right

Milton Fred Men (Friedman)

[Video subtitle] sercurity (security)

First answer gets a prize. [Student 2: Does it have to be the right answer?]

Cool! Everyone gets a chocolate because everyone shouted 'permanent'!

paw s'hay (Porsche)

What is habit formation? Habit formation is in essence blah blah blah *gestures at projected slide*

[On relative happiness] I wonder if it's the same with grades. Will you be happy with a B if everyone else fails?... [Student: Just give everyone an A. We'll all be happy]

[Tutor on filming a video for a presentation on Consumption: It seems like you guys had a lot of fun.] Especially the girls. We got to dress up.

[On names for an example] The names I picked are all Anglican names. This shows the depth to which we have been colonised.

If - *says own name* is married - I am not, for the benefit of all the beautiful ladies out there.

[Me during the penultimate tutorial: Will he teach us new things next week?] I don't think so. I mean, I'll talk to him.

[Female student] I was going to eat breakfast. Then I couldn't decide what to eat, so I decided not to eat breakfast... That's like so stupid.

Do you know that girls can see 180 degrees? So they can cheat better than guys. (have a 180 degree field of vision)

5000 bussels of corn (bushels)

If F nought is 100 and S nought is 100. *Thunder* *Looks around* *Audience laughs* Don't worry, okay, The chance of having any terrorist activity outside is very low.

[On someone giving out biscuits] You're like the Welfare person here. [Me: She's the Head of Welfare] I see. No wonder [she's] so friendly.

[On the exam being on Thursday, 28th November] This is information you really should know, otherwise you won't do well for the exam... [Student: It's Tuesday] Oh, is it? Wait a minute. I'm not doing the exam.

[On the cheat sheet] You write whatever crap you want, so you feel you don't need to remember all this crap.

[On problem sets vs the exam] It may be a good idea to come with a calculator, in case there are some numbers. You will not need Microsoft Excel. *laughs from audience*

Question 1 should be very easy for you guys. 20 marks - gone. *Laughs from audience* [Student: Gone.] Gone? Sorry, in the bag.

[On the essays] Logical organisation in your writing so I know what you're talking about, so I won't have to scratch my head, until my scalp bleeds.

[On writing legibly] Most of us have lost the ability to use handwriting. I certainly have lost it, because I type a lot nowadays... Cut me some slack here.

Say you want to get A plus. Plus plus plus. For your essay, you might want to read the optional readings.

You can draw Calvin and Hobbes on your cheat sheet, and that's fine by me.

Mr ***, he has an exam... I don't have an exam, so I'll extend my consultation hours by a bit.

[On spurious regression of random values] GDP of Singapore and GDP of Dominican Republic. If you do not like this example... This side is Singapore's GDP per capita and that side is, err. Err. Average goal score in [the] English Premier League. (The average)

In the exam you may need [a] calculator. But you have the best calculator. In your body *Noise from audience*... You yourself are the best calculator. If you rely too much on the calculator you may get wrong values.

W and X are correlated at the same time. W and X are not correlated across time. That is in the question. Do not take a look at me. Take a look at the question.

[Student: Our bridge has caterpillar legs.] How many legs has a caterpillar?... How many legs has the caterpillar that you know?... Anyone from Life Science here? [Student 2: Me] How many legs has a caterpillar?... I don't know what they're teaching you in Life Science.

If this bridge were meant for an airport, this would definitely not be my design. But this bridge was made for *marbles*

After this I'll give you a short break. I'm losing braincells, so I need a break.

Why do we have to assume something exists? Because if nothing exists there's no logic.

"If you believe everything you read, better not read." - Japanese Proverb

***

Some people oppose the GST hike because it is regressive - the rich spend a smaller proportion of their income than the poor, especially on items covered by the GST. Yet, the tax hike should be supported despite - nay, because - it is regressive.

The rich are the most productive members of society, and the poor are the least. Taxing productive people at the same rate as unproductive people not only distorts the incentives to work (and creates deadweight losses in the market) but is grossly immoral.

The Singaporean government recognises this point, which is why it has what is probably, next to Hong Kong, the lowest taxes in the world. In a globalised world, capital and skilled labour are eminently mobile - if you raise taxes, they will just move to other countries. They should thus be taxed lightly, if at all. Lowering corporate and income taxes will thus attract international investors and stop brain and capital drain.

Meanwhile, to make up for tax shortages, the poor can be hit with regressive taxes like GST and even a poll tax; unlike the rich they are unable to migrate and will be hit with the full force of these measures. Some recommend a higher rate of tax on luxury items, but demand for these products is more elastic than for necessities. To raise tax revenue, it makes more sense to tax necessities (ie If you increase taxes on LV handbags, people will buy fewer handbags, but if you increase the taxes on rice, people still have to eat).

If it were possible to fill the coffers this way, a regressive income tax should even be implemented (ie The more you earn, the less tax you pay). This will encourage people to work harder and be more productive, and promote the principle of meritocracy on which Singapore's survival rests.

With these measures in place, we will definitely see more years of robust growth to come.

Mongoose Publishing :: View topic - Lone Wolf - Back with a Vengeance!

Hi guys,

In what has rapidly turned into our worst kept secret, I can now reveal (some) of what is going on with Lone Wolf. . .

You may have already heard about the new Lone Wolf computer game coming out in early 2008 (we are told). We have seen some of the concepts going around for this project and, well, they are awesome!

For our part, we are going to be kicking into high gear with Lone Wolf. Have a look at the following projects. . .

Novels
Next year will see the release of two new trilogies set in Magnamund, and more will be following. You will be able to find these in most good bookstores, starting Summer 2007.

Gamebooks
Well, we have something special planned for Lone Wolf fans here! To begin with, we will be re-releasing all the original gamebooks - but with a difference. The first volume is currently being re-written by Mr Dever, expanding the story. Think of it as a director's cut. Subsequent volumes will feature all new art and gaming material, including a new mini-series of adventures running alongside the greater Lone Wold story.

That is not all - as you may have already heard, Mr Dever is also working on books 29-32, completing the saga that was started many, many years ago (Lone Wolf was actually my introduction to RPGs!). You can expect to see these late 2007/early 2008.

That is not all either, however. . .

While you will be able to pick these new Lone Wolf books up from your local book store, we will also have them available from our web site, and there will be a special treat in store for dedicated fans. Whether you take a subscription out to be sent the gamebooks as soon as they are released, or simply collect them one by one at your pleasure, anyone who orders the complete set from us (over whatever time period) will also be sent their own replica of the Sommerswerd, free of charge. We will have pictures of this magnificent blade next year, before the gamebooks become available. Drool at your leisure!

We will also be producing a new set of gamebooks, centred around another famous character in Magnamund.

Roleplaying Game
We spent a lot of time thinking and debating about the Lone Wolf RPG. We have decided to release a new Lone Wolf RPG alongside the gamebooks, with mechanics based on (though expanded) from the system found in the gamebooks themselves. Our intention here is to a) give Lone Wolf RPG fans a quick and easy to learn system allowing them to tour Magnamund, but mostly for b) a fond hope that we can bring new players into the hobby using the same road that we took all those years ago.


Life is going to get exciting in Magnamund!
_________________
Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com

Of Deformity

Deformed persons are commonly even with nature; for as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature; being for the most part (as the Scripture saith) void of natural affection; and so they have their revenge of nature. Certainly there is a consent, between the body and the mind; and where nature erreth in the one, she ventureth in the other. Ubi peccat in uno, periclitatur in altero. But because there is, in man, an election touching the frame of his mind, and a necessity in the frame of his body, the stars of natural inclination are sometimes obscured, by the sun of discipline and virtue. Therefore it is good to consider of deformity, not as a sign, which is more deceivable; but as a cause, which seldom faileth of the effect. Whosoever hath anything fixed in his person, that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself, to rescue and deliver himself from scorn. Therefore all deformed persons, are extreme bold. First, as in their own defence, as being exposed to scorn; but in process of time, by a general habit. Also it stirreth in them industry, and especially of this kind, to watch and observe the weakness of others, that they may have somewhat to repay. Again, in their superiors, it quencheth jealousy towards them, as persons that they think they may, at pleasure, despise: and it layeth their competitors and emulators asleep; as never believing they should be in possibility of advancement, till they see them in possession. So that upon the matter, in a great wit, deformity is an advantage to rising. Kings in ancient times (and at this present in some countries) were wont to put great trust in eunuchs; because they that are envious towards all are more obnoxious and officious, towards one. But yet their trust towards them, hath rather been as to good spials, and good whisperers, than good magistrates and officers. And much like is the reason of deformed persons. Still the ground is, they will, if they be of spirit, seek to free themselves from scorn; which must be either by virtue or malice; and therefore let it not be marvelled, if sometimes they prove excellent persons; as was Agesilaus, Zanger the son of Solyman, AEsop, Gasca, President of Peru; and Socrates may go likewise amongst them; with others.

--- The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans, Francis Bacon

"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper." - Rod Serling

***

HWMNBN: sigh
more money down the rapacious maw of the government

tax is theft

all spent on fruitless endeavous like supporting laggards and slackers and losers who are incapable of self-supporting. either that, or paying for the military-industrial complex

Me: the bourgeoisie's salary is theft from the proletariat
all spent on rubbish like $18,000 bottles of wine, fuel-inefficient SUVs and casino gambling. either that or supporting rich wastrels

HWMNBN: tehre's a distinction between private property and public property
if the bourgeoisie earn their own money, have nthey not the right to spend it?

Me: no
they earn their money from exploiting the proletariat
hurr hurr

HWMNBN: well.. that is true. *grins* but like any exploiter i prefer to dish it out rather than take


Someone: the *** 'legend' of him is that he flirts with the girls he teaches

and an even more extreme urban legend is some girl's grade from C became A after comin out fr his office

Me: hehe
does he?
ok I'm motivated to do PhD
hahahahahahaha

Someone: i think tat 1 is v normal in the states but in nus its like some big shit scandal for *** majors haha

anyway they all look like shit lor. i hardly see gd looking lecturers
** prettiest in *** liao
but she's really pretty. i like her dress sense and she always seems so composed

Me: aiyah
you're in uni! go for students lahhaha

Someone: haha i dun wan *** lar
but its a motivation to go for lecture can
at least u noe u wun be facing some balding ass or sagging bitch


Someone else: intro some pretty gals to me
i've seen u around sch
u look pretty cool with ur long hair tied up

u rox
u look cool with ur long hair :)

Me: hahahahaha
rare praise

Someone else: so u intro some gals to me

Me: wah lao
no wonder you praised me haha


Someone: so which course are you taking in school, literature?

because you write like a lit student, which i was once
long long time ago


Frigid Girl: most guys don't judge, btw
the only thing they -do- judge is your figure and looks

most girls are bitchy
as a result they use up all their judgment quota

Wth?! In the IVLE Forum:


A: Hmmm...im quite doubtful that the package is really gonna offset the impact of the GST hike on the poor and elderly. But i guess its something the government has to do in order for Spore to maintain at a competitive edge?

I was wondering if there is anyway measures other than a GST hike that could help close the income gap and finding different sources where the government can tap to increase government spending, cos i don think we want to have a few % increase in GST once every few years.Of thats the case, we will be approaching where the Scandanavians are today very soon!

Me: GST increases the income gap.

Scandinavia has a high tax rate, but they also have a splendid welfare state: http://waynesoon.blogspot.com/2006/11/first-world-taxes-without-first-world.html

B: Scadinavians design nokia phones, but we make plastic phone covers and silicon chips. we don't deserve and we can't earn as much as them. i mean even their old folks go for computer lessons to upgrade themselves after retirement, but ours only know how to buy 4D and drink kopi.

Even if we have the same income tax rate as them, their tax revenue will still be much higher than ours . so of course they can have a 'splendid welfare state', furthermore, such a state can only be achieved gradually, we are nowhere near that stage yet.


Must... resist... the urge...

Maybe after I finish Problem Set Modigliani.

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*Various meaningless strings of letters*

From a post I wrote last April about exam season in NUS. 3 semesters later, I venture that things are pretty much the same (except that the 6th floor of the Central Library is not open 22 1/2 hrs a day on weekdays):

Exam tales

My sources have been telling me tales of what school looks like during exam period, so the following is all compiled from second hand data, since I study (or try to, anyway) at home.

Apparently when the Central Library opens at 8am, it's like a shopping centre holding a sale. People are waiting outside the doors, and once the doors open, they rush in. Apparently one morning there was this PRC in running attire, and as he ran in he was laughing, perhaps driven mad by the stress of the exam period.

Meanwhile, in Engineering people bring hammocks to school for their overnight camping expeditions (maybe they think the spirits of Engineering students of years gone by will infuse them with their power, wisdom and knowledge), and hang them by the handles on the windows. They also bring enough food enough, according to my friend, to last him half a year. At one location, after a few hours the whole corridor (which is air-conditioned) smells of cup noodles.

Over at Science, people mug overnight in the canteen and the next day, they're still raring to go, so they continue mugging throughout the day. In Medicine, there are "PRC couples making out in the medicine library", with "unshaven armpits, unshaven moustaches, and fucking bad dress sense". Someone else adds that: "oh man they all smell weird".

And in Yusof Ishak House (YIH), there's a 24 hour study room, so people get really hardcore. The libraries at least have closing times, so people are forced to leave. In YIH, however, people camp overnight, and the floor is strewn with plastic bags. It is also crowded, unhygienic and humid, so diseases easily spread. All in all, the place looks like a refugee camp. Meanwhile Munchie Monkey's has unveiled a supper menu and gone 24 hours, so the muggers can ensconce themselves in YIH 23/7 (the room is cleaned for an hour daily) all the way from the start of the exam period to the end of it.

All throughout the school, libraries are jammed up (though my No 1 fan tells me that there's a 'surprisingly high number of cute guys in library this semester'). There are more people with outbreaks on the face, and instant drink machines run out of coffee. Printers go into overdrive as people who have never printed their notes before go print a whole semester's worth of notes at the sole printer, clogging it up. All hell breaks loose.

This is awfully depressing, and enough to get one to study at home. Maybe studying's a social activity for them; mutual suffering is a time-honoured ritual of human bonding.

[Addendum: skye bleu: the PRC students they put some "tea leaf" kinda sediments in their water
bottle and they ALWAYS dump the sediments when they empty their contents in the
dispenser.. GROSS.. could someone teach them some manners? haha!!]


Now, of course NTU has to go one-up on NUS. And so they have. Spectacularly.


Hungry Ghost Festival in NTU

"The yearly hungry ghost festival in NTU. Gates of hell are opened and the hungry ghosts of NTU are released.

this is an actual scene of students rushing into lib at 830am"


Someone: looks like they are refugees rushing for food handouts sia
even the toilet queue at the national stadium isn't as bad

Hi. Whoever you are, I see you.

Well. Now that was fun!

(Check out the post below this, or click here if you're lazy, for more background)

It all started maybe 2 weeks or so ago, when selected NUS were told that they had been invited to a dialog with a US VIP. Nothing was revealed at this stage. About a week ago, they found out that it was George W Bush, but up till today his identity was kept from the public at large; YuCheng, Lin was walking down the UCC road and the policeman claimed he couldn't walk in his own school because the President was coming, and on being queried which President, he claimed it was the Singaporean one.

I was speculating why there was all this secrecy, even in the local media (so I'm told), where a big hoo hah would usually be raised, and praise for Singapore would gush bounteously and obsequiously in the Shitty Times. I concluded that Singapore doesn't like to be associated with losers, and anyway we have our Free Trade Deal already.

People invited told me that they would be subject to strict security checks, and would not be allowed to bring signs, audio recorders or video cameras (apparently still cameras were alright). I speculated that besides the obvious fear of our exercising our Freedom of Speech, guaranteed by *both* the US and Singapore constitutions, this was because they were afraid people would capture audio and/or videographic evidence of a Bushism.

I was trying to get people to say, in the unlikely event of a Q&A, that "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible", and then get arrested by the Secret Service. Too late, I thought of a better question, "In pushing through the Patriot Act were you trying to make the US more like Singapore?" This way one could not be accused of causing trouble (indeed, we know that Singapore's Internal Security Act is something to be emulated, since even the USA, the Land of the Free, is trying to imbibe the Cultural Learnings of Singapore for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of America.

Inevitably, everyone asked me why I wasn't invited, so I simply said that I'd been blacklisted long ago. Hurr hurr. I doubt they'd want a repeat of the Jamie 'Despot' Han incident again anyway.


I wasn't intending to go and sightsee, but since someone created a Facebook Event, I made time in my un-Busy Schedule to have a look. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but we make do with what we have.

I ordered my minions to gather at the Forum at 5:15 and YIH at 6:30, but only a few of them turned up. In particular, I was missing the presence of 6 inch, who was rushing her essay, since I would be lacking legal counsel and information regarding my constituional rights (ie None). Nonetheless, she helpfully informed me that, "i bet you the police dont even understand what section of the penal code they're arresting us under. but wth they can lock us up for 48 hrs then let us go, with no repercussions. 48 hrs to search up sth to charge us with". I stressed repeatedly that I was going as an observer, and not a participant, but I had faith in the ingenuity of the prosecutorial agents to find something to charge me with, if need be.

Meanwhile, YuCheng, Lin told me that he was at the Balmoral with a friend and a motorcade sped past him. He saw a monkey waving to him in one limousine.


3 red-beret wearing SOF troopers, opposite the Central Library.

When I called the organiser of the Heckling, it turned out that they'd relocated from YIH, the original rendezvous point, to LT7A. Unfortunately when I reached LT7A, they'd relocated to the steps in front of Engineering and opposite UCC. Reaching there, I was greeted by this sight:


A brunette Caucasian girl, whose name I won't put here "just in case "they" are watching", had a black umbrella with the words "Bush is a war criminal" scrawled in white paint. As you can see, she was being questioned by our vigilant security staff to make sure she wasn't a terrorist, and her particulars taken down. I mean, she could've rigged the umbrella like the Penguin in Batman Returns, and sprayed bullets at Bush.

Or as someone commented: "excuse me ***, I think you're taking the umbrella issue a BIT too lightly here. Umbrellas will inevitably inspire political instability, protect against rain, and likely lead to democractic reforms in this perfectly funtioning soft-authoritarian society. If we allow political umbrellas today... we'll probably be running around condoning ethnic-equality sun-block tomorrow. we've got to keep these things under control here.
... Ps. That girl's my hero!! who is she?!"


News crew.
My intel on Facebook say there were some media people. This camera looks too expensive to be a ISD one. But who knows. It doesn't make a difference also. Too bad the local media didn't come down.


Road block.
If they'd time and the ability to cordon off the area, I'm sure they'd have made it look like Suntec City around the time of the IMF/World Bank meetings, ie A concentration camp. Fortunately they only had a few hours.


Crowd
I'm notoriously bad at estimating crowds, but when I was asked to estimate the crowd I gave a figure of 30-40 people. On second thought I think maybe it was 50-60. One Facebooker gives a wide band of 50-100.
Oddly enough, there were quite a lot of PRCs. Maybe they were curious what peaceful protest in a democratic country looked like. Oh wait...


Police.
I think there were more police than civilians


Umbrella girl being questioned.


Crowd


Police camera. Note how lousy it is compared to the media camera.


We were playing this game called "Spot the ISD Agents/Plainclothes Policemen". Really, I don't know why they bother.


Another "Where's the ISD agent?" picture. This also shows the 5-6 active hecklers - the rest of us were just there to lend moral support, look at the show and copy down 4D numbers in case someone got arrested.


4 of my minions.

*removed*
The last minion, who came in time to proffer legal advice. He said he saw snipers on the roof while coming.


Bush's extremely long motorcade, and the heckling. At first I thought NUS Campus Security brought up the rear, but it turns out they were police cars. No wonder the former shares the latter's colours. Actually you can't hear the heckling. I'm quite sure I took a video of it ("Boo!", "Go home!", "We don't want you here!"), but maybe something went wrong (d'oh!) or it just can't be heard due to technical problems. You can see the umbrella being waved at the motorcade though. Also this video would've been longer, but Gayle called me while I was shooting it. Grr.


A contributed photograph of the booing


Umbrella girl shows her umbrella to the police cameras, to applause from the onlookers.


Protestors and locals flash the V-sign with the umbrella. YuCheng, Lin suggested we do that. On second thought, we should've.

There was this Sikh policeman who had a really funky turban - it had vertical stripes going down it, alternating between grey and white, like the body of the Aedes mosquito.


Contributed pictures from the inside: it's even worse than a Potemkin Village. Whoever did the design should be shot.


Contributed pictures of Dubya speaking


Contributed pictures of the fortress security


SOF buses at Kent Vale

Interestingly enough, I didn't see any US security officers. They must trust us a lot. Or the Gurkhas, at least.


Other reports; please leave a comment if you find other posts on this; videos of the heckling are especially appreciated:

"To those of you who have concerns about holding an anti-bush protest overseas, I'm of the opinion that is exactly the place to be doing it. This isn't about votes, it's not about influencing the internation political order of the world, it's about expressing our feelings as people who are impacted in very real ways by the policies which this man has enabled to come to pass. The implications of US policies have far reaching results, and if we can be affected anywhere we are in the world, then we can, and should, protest anywhere in the world we are.

Being in Singapore, social protest is all the more important, we are not only acting against Bush but also against a (semi-)authoritarian regime which repesses its citizens into a psudo-democracy at best. If Singapore wasn't such an important economic ally of the US we would be bombing it along with the other repressive regimes around the world that dont sell us oil (those bastards how dare they not sell us oil!)

To those who want to wait to see what he has to say before we protest, he's had 6 years to say ANYTHING that might even come close to redeeming himself...and has failed at every turn, at least in my opinion. I will not sit by and watch as "my" president embarrasses "my" country and makes me more ashamed, and more afraid of being a US citizen with every word he says and every policy he suggests.

His words and his visits contribute nothing but fear (and some comic relief) to the international political order and accomplish nothing but draining national funds from other countries (and cause major political backlash for the leaders of those countries...like President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia who is facing a no confidence vote because of Bush's visit yesterday)

The man takes bad news and worse vocabulary wherever he goes. He bleongs in the hole in the ground in the mid west that the US embassy thinks I should be hiding in because the world is to dangerous...thanks to bush

Well, we were about 50-100 when bush arrived...about 20 when he left.

Got hell from the police and campus security: The guy in white (those who were there know who I mean) threatened one of the others with something along the lines of "you want to dare me? go on, I'll show you I mean business and I'll make you sorry" all because the guy was answering his questions properly :)

We got asked if we were "with an organization"

Photos from the DPA (german press?) and 2 others as well as one TV camera and hundreds of digi cam and phone pictures, we'll see if it shows up anywhere.

That's about it..not much interesting...although there were 5-6 police officers and one plainclothes following the umbrella at all times...good ratio there, those umbrellas are scary things :)

Oh, and the police got everything on camera and I would like to point out that one of the soldiers spit on the street and nobody did anything...

and the reason we got for having security/police try to confiscate the umbrella was that we were "drawing a crowd" which apparently is high treason in Singapore...I thought it was Bush drawing a crowd <shrug>"


Someone who was there on the speech (transcript):

"the news makes it sound like he said a lot when..
he basically said nothing

it's true right
he said things we can all write in our gp essays"

Finally, a NUS Facebook event! After all the US parties where people get drunk and get laid, we're going to get some action too.

Update: View the post above, or click here if you're lazy, to find out how it went.




Event Info
Name: Bush Heckling
Tagline: Because he's here, and we're not allowed to!
Host: ***
Type: Causes - Protest

Time and Place
Date: Thursday, November 16, 2006
Time: 2:30pm - 8:00pm
Venue: University Cultural Center (Yusof Ishak House is probably the closest we can get)

Description
Bush is giving a speech at NUS on Thursday at the UCC and I dont particularly want him here...and I'm sure neither do you.

Come join the fun as we try to avoid getting arrested by the Singapore Police for protesting, shot by the Secret Service for insulting "the man" and expelled for breaking some school rule that probably prohibits gatherings of more than 1.5 people for anything other than accademic reasons.

Yay social protest in authoritarian countries against a wanna-be-but-is-too-stupid-to-be global "leader".


I am amused that, of the 21 confirmed guests (as of time of publication), only 2 are local NUS undergraduates; the rest are either on exchange from the US, graduate students or not even in the NUS network (and presumably not here).

I asked what was going to happen, and got a very comforting reply: "My guess is we wont be able to do or see much, this is two of the most anal/efficient security services in the world so dont expect to get too close and dont try too much. If you get arrested, call me, I'll help ya out :)"

Here's a good Dante quote:

“There is no greater sadness than to recall happy times in times of misery.” - Francesca in Inferno, Canto V

("Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice ne la miseria")

daNiel's blog: Retirement, Big House?

"Before I proceed, let me describe my hate for Channel 8's serial dramas. They, are an insult to my intelligence. The characters are so transparent you know precisely how they will react each time. Their characters fall into categories that, even after so many years, does not seem to change, e.g.

• Stupid and lazy
• Stupid but hardworking
• Cunning, manipulative
  
• Talkative

There is also another word which describes just about every character in their serials: lovesick. The actors' lines also do not change (guess they have not been able to employ better Chinese teachers). The plot does not even attempt to create any sense of mystery into a character or future episodes you can virtually predict everything to come. Take an example:

1. A and B are sisters. B is a bastard daughter of a rich tycoon. Both got reunited recently. A is cunning, hates B, because of a love triangle.
   
2. One day A and B are in a car. B leaves the car for the toilet. A was suddenly robbed of a jewel after being knocked unconscious with a handkerchief soaked in some anaesthetic.
3. A and B goes home. A accuses B of instigating the robbery.
4. The father, C, starts and investigation. (the jewel was supposed to be delivered to a client)
5. Investigator discovers a handkerchief at the robbery scene.
   
6. Investigator discovers some smell on the handkerchief, sends handkerchief for analysis. (goof here: chloroform is very volatile. It definitely would not exist 20 minutes after the robbery. The investigation started at least one day after the robbery)
7. Investigator discovers a bottle of chloroform in B's room.

Immediately, you can determine these:

1. A set up B by putting the bottle of chloroform in the drawer.
2. B will be in trouble with C. There'll be quarrel. B will be disowned yet again.
3. B's boyfriend will come to B's help and discover the truth.
4. B and B's boyfriend confront C. C admits mistake OR C initially disbelieves, but his own investigation reveals the truth.
5. C scolds A. A hates C.
   
6. ... many things happen
7. Finally, A gets what she deserved. The poor get justice, the rich are punished.

I cannot exactly describe with words how intellectually deprived one who watches Channel 8 will get. But the plays on stereotypes and age-old cliches are positively shit."

"Economists become upset when they learn that we aren't spending money as they've planed for us" - Eliot Marshall, as quoted in Gordon Ch 15

Sungei Gedong Memories... pictures from military photos on webshots

I love security breaches.


The Road of Desolation, Despair and Depression


Guess the next batch is suffering too


Pussy Company; from the toilet and smoking point pictures I think this person was from there


One of the most hateful sights I've ever had the misfortune to behold


Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori


Once Armour, Always Suffer

Rowlf the Dog - When

When the whipperwill is singing in the forest
When the little brook is murmuring a tune
When the mockingbird is chirping in the wildwood
And a lonely wolf is howling at the moon

When the leaves of the old oak tree start a rustling
And the waterfall makes sounds like woman's tears
When the whole world is filled with Mother Nature's noises
That's the time to stuff cotton in your ears.

July trip
23/7 - D Day Beaches

There was a hotel near the station which had an unbelievable offer - €21 for a single. Consider that my hostel cost €19 per bed per night, and €20 without membership.

Traveling to the beaches on a public bus would've cost me €30 already, and there were only 4 buses on Sunday, so I'd see much more with the tour.

There was really nice weather in the morning. It was even, for the first time in July, a little bit cold.

I had a pain aux chocolat and a pain aux raisins for breakfast. The hostel had breakfast provided, but it started at 8 and I was supposed to be at the pickup point for my D Day tour at 8.

The female guide said there had been a heatwave for the past 3 weeks. So it wasn't just me, and it wasn't usually that bad in July!

I should probably get down to watching Saving Private Ryan some time.

I opted for the US/British tour. There was a US/Canadian tour, but only Canadians could possibly be interested in that, and the full-day US tour was for ignorant Americans who didn't know or care about other countries' contributions (hurr hurr).

The first stop was the German cemetery at La Cambe.


German cemetery - Crosses


Tumulus

If I'd taken the public bus, I wouldn't have been able to visit the German Cemetery.

There were more than 21,222 graces in the German Cemetery - the largest burial in the smallest plot of land. Kinda expected.

"The Germans always like this part of France and they try to take it" - Guide on Alsace-Lorraine


More crosses


I like the cross on the ceiling. I think this was the chapel.


Memorial wall

They maintain and extend the German Cemetery with international youth camps. The knowledge that school labour can be exploited seems to be universal.


La Pointe Du Hoc. The only place in Normandy which still has bomb craters, since the owner didn't fill them up (I think he wanted it as a memorial to the war)


1944 pillbox. The later pillboxes were more shoddy and less sturdy since they were hastily thrown up, and thus more vulnerable to enemy fire; this was built out of concrete blocks instead of being 1 big piece of concrete like its older brethren.


Crater-ed land. Utah sector is in the background.


They had a fake gun emplacement here with fake guns while they waited for the pillboxes to be completed, whereupon they brought the real guns back in.


Emplacement


2 bomb craters. These were the deepest I could find.


Bunker


Another crater

We were told that at Benouville, the first place liberated from the Germans (as opposed to the first town - Sainte-Mère-Église or the first city - Bayeux), there were French plaques saying it was liberated at 11pm French time and midnight British time. But then British time is 1 hour behind. Wth.

As we drove to the next destination we were shown Fortress-Farms, built during the 16th century wars of religion so people could barricade themselves inside. They had few openings to the outside and some gunholes.

When we reached Omaha beach, it was high tide. At low tide, there would be ground till the last buoy (600-700m out).


Omaha

Present sea wall - Germans had anti-tank wall
I think this means that the Germans had built an anti-tank wall equivalent to the current seawall.

Only 6/40 amphibious tanks reached the beach, and in the first few minutes half were destroyed, since the bombing of Omaha had failed. Pity. The engineers' clearing also failed since they had no tanks to protect them, and they had to destroy the obstacles they were using as shelter. The beach was not clean, and 25,000 men landed in the wrong place - conscripts for the US, and professionals for the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately it started raining when we were on Omaha and we ran back to the minibus; I was the only one with an umbrella. I wanted to take a picture of the view of the hills from the beach (Omaha was the only of the 5 beaches with hills the troops had to climb - the rest were flat), and of the sea from the beach. Ah well.

The beaches have French names besides the D Day names (the popular, tourist names), taking their names from the villages they're near.

The next stop was the US cemetery.

>70% of US bodies were repatriated to the US, but there're 2 US cemeteries in Normandy with 9387 bodies. Meanwhile there're 18 Commonwealth cemeteries.

The names on the graves face the West - the direction of the USA.


Peace statue. It's pretentiously called 'The spirit of American Youth rising from the waves'.


US cemetery


Pond


View of the beach the Germans would've had, as Allied soldiers came up the hill.


Crosses


Pond, memorial


Flagpole


Crosses

The chapel had Jewish tablets with the 10 Commandments. Wth.


Chapel


Chapel ceiling, interior. The mosaic is entitled 'America blessing her sons as they depart by sea and air to fight for freedom' and 'Grateful France bestowing a laurel wreath upon American Dead who gave their lives to liberate Europe's oppressed peoples'
Somehow I doubt that, in 60 years, we'll have 'Grateful Iraq bestowing a laurel wreath upon American Dead who gave their lives to liberate the Middle East's oppressed peoples'

Apparently even in Paris stuff closes on Sunday. The guide remarked that Sunday was a good day for a tour, since the law banned working on Sunday despite students wanting to work to get money for their studies (only tourist places and souvenir shops near them were allowed to open). And apparently the French in the north go to Belgium to shop.

We then returned to Bayeux for lunch. I didn't want to waste time (and risk missing the rest of the tour) and money, so I had a cheap lunch (not in a restaurant).


Tanners, Dyers district of Bayeux


Side stream cutting Allee des Tanneurs, behind Palais de Justice, Place de Quebec

After lunch the tour resumed, with the British leg.

This was the biggest of the 18 Commonwealth cemeteries, with 5000 bodies. The Commonwealth tradition was to bury the dead as close to where they fell as possible, which was why there were 300 Commonwealth soldiers in civilian cemeteries.

The Commonwealth cemetery was much more interesting than the German and American ones. The Commonwealth people like gardens, so there're flowers in Commonwealth cemeteries. In the spirit of the Commonwealth, non-Commonwealth can also be buried in Commonwealth cemeteries.

The tombstones are also interesting. Those from Canadian units had the Maple Leaf at the top of the tombstones. The rest had the crests of their divisions.

If non-Christians were buried in a grave but didn't say they didn't want a religious symbol, they'd get a cross. Egyptian soldiers got Egyptian crosses.


Grave of a freethinker

Epitaphs were also a peculiarity of the Commonwealth graves, as opposed to the German and American cemeteries. Non-Commonwealth gravestones had a different shape.

~500 Germans were buried in the Commonwealth cemetery, but their graves were grouped together. Better than nothing, I suppose.


Clustered graves
Where graves were clustered, this was an indication that the men had died together and they couldn't identify/sort the remains out. For example, people in a plane or tank that got blown up.


Variety of gravestones
In the front row we see 2 Russian and 2 Czech graves.


There're crosses with swords on them in all Commonwealth cemeteries. Even the one with only 47 people.


More graves


Chapel


Memorial to MIA soldiers


English humour - “NOS A GULIELMO VICTI VICTORIS PATRIAM LIBERAVIMUS” (“We, once conquered by William, have now set free the conqueror's native land”)
The guide described this as English humour and said most people didn't get it. She said the first time she didn't find it funny, but later she did. So maybe the way to get the French to have a sense of humour is to have them be tour guides.

A temperature sign said it was 23 degrees celsius. Yay.

There were poppies in the British cemetery. How appropriate, given that they are painkillers. We should grow them here too. Oh, but that would be encouraging drug addiction, which is a Bad Thing (TM).

It's been a while since I first heard this, and I still don't get it. Maybe I have to watch the episode to grok it.


Jingle Bells
From the episode $pringfield (Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Legalized Gambling)

Goulet: Hi. You from the casino?

Bart: I'm from a casino.

Goulet: Good enough. Let's go.

Smithers: I'm afraid Robert Goulet hasn't arrived yet, sir.

Burns: Hmm. Very well; begin the thawing of Jim Nabors.

Goulet: Are you sure this is the casino? I think I should call my manager.

Nelson: Your manager says for you to shut up!

Goulet: Vera said that? Hmph.

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells
Robin laid an egg
Batmobile lost its wheel
The Joker got away, hey!

Thank you, thank you very much.

*Sound of something getting hit*

Oh, I'm sorry, kid...

"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education." - George Bernard Shaw

***

Foxtrot: "Did you know that Fluffles fabric softener has been used by adulterers and convicted felons?"

Singapore Armed Forces Commando Formation - Wikipedia - I've learnt new words like "新加坡武装部队特攻部队", "Strike (突)", "Reconnaissance (机)" and "第一突机队". Who was so bo liao to do this?!

The Dog Who Loved to Suck on Toads - "A dog may be man's best friend. But one dog, Lady, decided she needed more friends -- and she found plenty in the knot of toads living at the local pond. A suburban family's secret struggle with an uncommon addiction comes to light in this personal essay by NPR's Laura Mirsch... It turned out the toads were toxic -- and, if licked, the fluids on their skin provided a hallucinogenic effect."

Singapore Science Centre: Resources|School Projects|Ways of Undressing - "The most common method used by both sexes is crossing their arms to take off their T-shirt. More females use the crossed arm method, while more males use the straight method. However, more males than females use the more complicated ways like the arm-head-arm combination."
Gah.

Yahoo! Answers - do girls fart from their vagina? - Gah gah.

Puzzle Alarm Clock Presents Mild Challenge, Wakes You Up - "Bim Bam Banana s Puzzle Alarm Clock will give you a quick intelligence test that is bound to wake you up before it will stop its incessant honking. As soon as you can assemble the four puzzle pieces that are popped up into the air at your predesignated time, the thing will finally shut up."

MindGuard Home Page - "Welcome to the MindGuard website, your source for the award-winning MindGuard family of anti-mind-control software for Amiga and Linux computers. Developed by Lyle Zapato during the psychotronically turbulent early 1990s, MindGuard offered Amiga-using paranoids the world over a new opportunity to think free of evil influences using advanced Active Anti-Psychotronic (AAP) software, theretofore only available to mind-control agents and paranoid millionaires. At the dawn of the Third Millennium, MindGuard was made available for even the stingiest paranoids with the introduction of MindGuard X for the free Linux OS. Now no one has an excuse not to be mind-control free!"

On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets: An Empirical Study - "Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason."

Mozilla stomps IE - "Last night (9/30-10/1) at midnight, Mr. Bill's Browser 4.0 was released. Late last night, between midnight and 1:30, somebody (MS? probably) dumped a huge IE logo on Netscape's front lawn (a metal shell, apparently, deep enough to stand up on its own). They probably expected that we wouldn't notice until morning, and wouldn't be able to get equipment to move it until 11:00 or so, and some press cameras would come by in the meantime; we wouldn't be able to bring legal action, 'cause we wouldn't have any proof, and we'd just look whiny."

SafeCache - "Segments the cache on the basis of the originating document, defending against web privacy attacks that remote sites can use to determine your browser history at other sites. For example, a b.com image appearing on an a.com page would have a separate cache entry from the same image appearing on a b.com page, so a.com cannot use timing techniques to determine if you have visited b.com before. Checks cookie settings (allow, originating site only, deny) to determine your desired privacy level (segmented cache, cache originating site only, or never cache)."
How paranoid can people get?

Maths theory bags lotto jackpot - "Most of us believe winning lotto is down to the luck of the draw. But a syndicate of university professors and tutors in Britain thought it could also be related to the principles of mathematical probability. And their theory was spectacularly vindicated this week when they matched all six numbers and scooped the $13 million lotto jackpot. The syndicate, made up of 17 staff members at Bradford University and College, bagged the big prize by using two boxes, 49 pieces of paper and a large amount of brainpower."

Kill Flies with The Amazing Flygun -"Do you have a problem with flies or mosquitoes ??? Problem solved!!"

TVU networks corporation - "TVU networks brings you programs from around the world that you can't get from your local cable and satellite providers."
Too bad I don't watch TV.

Cold water thrown on warmups - "Stretching before or after hitting the squash court might be a waste of time. It does little to reduce injuries or muscle soreness, say researchers... None of the studies showed any significant benefit. "We can say with a high degree of confidence that stretching does not prevent muscle soreness," says Herbert. "We can't rule out that it reduces injury risk, but the weight of evidence is against it.""

Parent criticizes book 'Fahrenheit 451' - ""The book had a bunch of very bad language in it," Diana Verm said. "It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people. ... If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."
Alton Verm filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" Thursday with the district regarding "Fahrenheit 451," written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum. "It's just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read "Fahrenheit 451." "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class." He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, "dirty talk," references to the Bible and using God's name in vain. He said the book's material goes against their religions beliefs... Alton Verm's request to ban "Fahrenheit 451" came during the 25th annual Banned Books Week."
It is very important to respect religious beliefs, otherwise there will be racial riots. The book should be burned.

Display of Banned Books Removed at Harrisonburg High School - "A display at Harrisonburg High School of books that have, at some point in history, either been banned or challenged was ordered removed last month by Harrisonburg Schools Superintendent Donald Ford. The display, which Ford ordered removed Sept. 27, was part of the American Library Association’s annual Banned Books Week, the last week of September... High School Principal Irene Reynolds recalled that the titles included "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain; "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury; "The Diary of Ann Frank," and "The Bible.""

Abducted by aliens? Call now for compensation - "Lorek, 41, is pinning his hopes for success on a German law which grants kidnap victims the right to state compensation."

Review: Convicted but Innocent: Wrongful Convictions and Public Policy - "The authors write [p.63]: "when a distinction is drawn between older cases (those occurring between 1900 and 1960) and those since 1961 the wrongful convictions on forcible rape go up, reaching 35.7% of all cases in recent years". (It had been only 12.5% in their initial database). The authors, partly to placate the monstrous regiment of American feminists, stress that each wrongful conviction for rape means that the real rapist is left free for further predation... if the phrase 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is interpreted very strictly, then fewer innocent defendants will be convicted, but more really guilty rapists will be acquitted, (a) if reasonable doubt means that quite a lot of doubt can be set aside, then more really guilty rapists will be convicted but more innocent defendants will also be convicted (a proportion of whom, but by no means all or even most or many, will be subsequently exonerated). The most likely reason for the rising proportion of the wrongly convicted who are alleged rapists, is that both proper and improper feminist pressure on the courts has led to a shift from situation (b) to situation (a). We have now arrived at the crunch: how would Huff and Rattner respond, if the feminists were to turn honest and say that they are willing for a few more innocent men to end up in jail convicted of rape, if more real rapists get convicted, thereby taking the latter off the streets and deterring other chancers from rape, by the thought of their greatly heightened chance of imprisonment."

placing the garner case in context - "The study of wrongful convictions is, in large part, a study about the limitations of the human condition. Eyewitnesses, despite their intense desire to identify the correct perpetrator, make mistakes at an alarming rate... Jennifer Thompson, testified at two separate trials that a man named Ronald Cotton was the person who raped her, and she explained that she studied the details of his face throughout the ordeal so that she would be able to make an accurate identification if she survived the attack. When Cotton's defense lawyers asked her whether a different man named Bobby Poole could have been the rapist, Thompson was emphatic that Cotton was the rapist. Her certainty and obvious integrity were eerily similar to Alice Wise's, and in both instances, eyewitness testimony led to convictions. Yet, DNA evidence later proved that Ronald Cotton was completely innocent, and that Bobby Poole was the man who raped Jennifer Thompson. By that time, Ronald Cotton had spent more than a decade behind bars for a crime he did not commit. Jennifer now travels the country trying to educate people about the risk of eyewitness error. She has said repeatedly that if she were to spend every minute of every day of the rest of her life begging Ronald Cotton for forgiveness, that would not come close to expressing her sorrow about having misidentified him."
Ah, obviously it must be a conspiracy theory. The government doesn't want you to know that Ronald Cotton raped Jennifer Thompson.

Update:

Here's a video made by darling JB!



xxoos, the Queen of Animated Gifs, has also turned it into one:


(Click on the thumbnail to see it in its glory)



You wouldn't vandalize a Car.


You wouldn't vandalize a Book.


You wouldn't vandalize a Wall.


You wouldn't vandalize a Person. Even if he vandalized Cars.


You wouldn't vandalize a Movie.

Movie.

Movie Censorship is Vandalism.

Vandalism is prescribed by the Law.

Vandalism. It's A Travesty.

(Original: http://www.respectcopyrights.org/video_download/piracy_its_a_crime_300.mov)


Techdirt: File Sharers Aren't Stealing, But The RIAA Is...

"Not only is file sharing not theft, the Supreme Court has even said so. They clearly distinguished between copyright infringement and theft in a 1985 case... the record labels represented by the RIAA often don't have the digital rights to the music from the artists they represent. However, they are collecting money (from fee-based services like iTunes and from these legal cases) and not giving it to the artists they represent. Thus, the argument goes, isn't it really the RIAA who is stealing (used properly) from musicians?"


"MOVIE PIRACY IS STEALING
STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW

BUT AT LEAST ON A PIRATE VIDEO...
YOU WOULDN'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS FUCKING ANNOYING UNSKIPPABLE AD"

Someone else on the Gothic Lolita look: that's not a saesal on ur display photo is that? :P

Me: no
it's a CMI gothic lolita

Someone else: looks singaporean wat.. what kinda weird taste is that
pls dun tell me wearing 2 different types of socks is the fad now

Me: only if you're a gothic lolita

I didn't say not singaporean haha


this is ok

Someone else: no i was just thinkg singaporeans shld haf much better tastes what... thot only prcs dress like that

Me: haha
no lah
PRCs have good sense
at least in this case

Someone else: hahahaa... ehh those photos damn sexy wat... :P
abit like cute sm type lidat

jemauvais: Hurhurhur... but people who dress that differently want to attract attention! Her entire outfit just screams "LOOK AT MEEEEEEEE!!!"

That, of course, is independent of my belief that people who commit such horrendous faux pas are legitimate ridicule material.


Andrew: in a number of countries wearing unconventional outfits would be more socially acceptable but somehow not in singapore

as a result a vast majority of girls in singapore wear outfits along the same lines

unconventional. I mean a lot of girls (i'm generalising. but probably applicable to ones around JC age to mid-late twenties) wear low heels (the charles and keith type), clothes that look like they came from giordano/U2/this fashion/maybe zara. Small handbags. u know the type

the expectations are for everyone to conform to these standards. And anyone who veers from them is singled out. Doesn't matter if they can pull it off or not.

Me: I'm in two minds about it
you should be able to wear what you want
but people should also be able to comment :P
eg on fashion disasters

I think it's a test of character haha
to have your own style in spite of social pressure

I suppose it's like free speech
you can say what you want
others can criticise you
you can't blame those who criticise you for muffling free speech

Frigid Girl: that's absolutely true
but sure we know a fashion disaster when we see one

seriously i have no idea what else you -can- wear in hte singapore climate without looking like a fool
except 'clothes that look like they came from giordano/U2/this fashion/maybe zara. '

social pressure is nothing compared to natural forces ie temperature
sure we can try boots, coats, hats
just that we'll die of heatstroke

Xephyris: 'you can wear unconventional outfits, just don't do it school'
seems to be the general mentality here hahah

there're people wearing funny things near bugis, you should go see

Someone: i wouldn't know because me and most of my friends didn't have thebody/wallet type to do that

Someone else: the low heels part is reallie quite true wat... in aussie u see alot more higher heels n pointed types. but sg most pple wear rounded tips

but aussies love pointy shoes... u look outclassed if u dun wear those... (Me: haha
so it's another form of fashion tyranny)

MFTTW: who the hell wears anything from this fashion except aunties at the market

oh it was a GUY?
GUYS NOTICE WHAT GIRLS WEAR???

oh my gosh, the sky is falling down.
or your friend is damn gay.


Someone: its called the herd instinct my dear
all the world's a large field
and all the women are merely sheep
Baaaaa
(bah)

Me: :P
then the men?

Someone: haha the men are grass, there to be chewed on for having no dress sense

[Addendum:

Someone else: i vote that people in singapore wear more or less the same thing because fashion retailers make them
everyone in singapore sells the same damn thing!

you know what i really hate? the pseudo-victorian shirts.

it's already a given that girls in nus wear short denim skirts and pseudo-sassy t-shirts. [Ed: my "u r wt u wr" things]
but it's things like the wanton shirt and pseudo-victorian things which really get on my nerves ><

pseudo victorian shirts are those high collared shirts with short puffy sleeves!
­you know, with lace and buttons and stuff?

Me: yeah
I don't see them around
maybe I hang around with the wrong crowd

Someone else: really? they're all over! maybe it's because you don't take all the japanese classes which are full of chinese japanese wannabes.]

Amazon.com: The Death of Economics: Books: Paul Ormerod

"...there appear to be so many violations of the condition under which competitive equilibrium exists that it is hard to see why the concept survives, except for the vested interests of the economics profession and the link between prevailing ideology and the conclusions which the theory of general equilibrium provides." Ormerod, Pg. 66

In this book Ormerod, an economist, presents us with a scorching critique of orthodox, or neo-classical, economic theory. He criticizes the idea of `equilibrium', widely believed by academic economists but found nowhere even approximately in real economic data. He argues that, in reality price levels are never determined by the matching of supply to demand. Real markets are always far from equilibrium, so that there are no clearing prices for assets or commodities. Said otherwise, the `graphs' in Samuelson's famous textbook do not represent real data but are merely cartoons invented for inexperienced or uncritical students. Traders know that equilibrium does not prevail. Traders generally do not use orthodox economic theory in decision making.

Ormerod's summary of the neo-classical theory (which theory led to the emphasis in the west over the past 15 years to implement free market solutions regardless of circumstances) is concise and clear:

1. A free market competitive equilibrium is efficient, demand equals supply, no resources (including people) stand idle or unused. That is, Adam smith's invisible hand leads to the best of all possible worlds.

2. In equilibrium no person or unit can be made better off by altering resources without making someone else worse off (Pareto optimum). That is, redistribution of wealth will make things worse. Indeed, this is the religion of the far right in America, and elsewhere: In this phlosophy governments simply should not intervene at all (Greenspan and the Fed are unnecessary).

As is well-known, general equilbrium theory is based on the assumption of perfectly rational agents who foresee the future perfectly and all conform to the same picture of the future (pg. 89). Ormerod's message is that nothing could be further from economic reality than this picture.

Ormerod does a nice job, via presentation of empirical data, of demolishing the notion (beloved of governments) of the Phillips Curve, the idea that there is a simple relationship between unemployment and inflation (ch. 6). He shows that there is no such relationship in the data. [Ed: Yes, I knew that it's been debunked for 30 years.] He also argues that Adam Smith was interested in empirics and did not advocate a completely unregulated free market devoid of all moral principles, but that economic theorizing was `highjacked' late in the last century by theorists who ignored empiricism altogether and instead tried merely to take over the physicists' notion of equilibrium, but without any idea of dynamics and nonequilibrium. Mirowski makes a similar argument about the lifting of the idea of static equilibrium from physics. Ormerod lambasts the tendency of academics to prove empirically meaningless theoems, to treat economics as a branch of mathematics rather than an empirical science. Also criticized is the hokey assertion by orthodox economists that the failure of real markets to be in equilibrium is due to governmental and other constraints, that a truly unregulated free market would approach equilibrium (i.e., the problem of unemployment is supposed to be solved by complete deregulation). The disaster of Russia is given by Ormerod as a good counterexample. The next examples of such disasters may be the entry of former E. block countries into the (price levels of) the European Union.

The text propagates some common misconceptions about deterministic dynamics, in particular about detreministic chaos. Here are a few examples: the author asserts that the behavior of a chaotic machine cannot be predicted accurately in the long run (true in nature, completely false mathematically). Analogs of phase plots (Poincare sections) are misinterpreted as showing evidence for stable cycles (elliptic points). Certainly, in contrast with what the author expects, there are no elliptic points indicated in the data that he shows (ch. 7). The search for unstable cycles would require data of high decimal precision and cannot be decided on the basis of merely staring at a scatter plot. `Linear' is confused with `mechanistic', as if chaotic and/or complex could not be mechanistic. Scientifically, we do not really know how to distinguish `mechanistic' from `organic'. Perhaps there is no real boundary in nature. These are, in context, relatively minor criticisms of a book that does a good job of emphasizing the flaws in neo-classical economic theory when compared with economic reality.

***

Edward Fullbrook, "Post-Autistic Economics:The Case for Pluralism in Economics"

Keynes had trained at Cambridge University as a mathematician. In his mid-twenties he wrote Treatise on Probability, a book that was lauded by Whitehead and Russell (‘it is impossible to praise too highly’), and launched what has become known as the ‘logical-relationist’ theory of probability. When he turned his attention to economics, he was shocked by the way mathematical economists abused mathematics, especially when they applied them in meaningless ways to unsuitable phenomena, and he made no secret of his professional contempt for their empty pretentiousness. But these economists were soon to have their revenge. Led by Paul Samuelson in the US and John Hicks in the UK, they set about mathematicising Keynes’s theory. Or, more accurately, a part of his theory. They left out all those bits that were inconsistent with the neoclassical axioms. Their end product was a formalised version of Keynes that is like a Henry Miller novel without sex and profanity. This bowdlerised version of Keynes, called ‘Keynesianism’, soon became standard fare in undergraduate courses. Even graduate students were discouraged from reading the primary text. With the real Keynes out of the way and Veblen and all the other free spirits forgotten, the road was now clear to establish a neoclassical tyranny...

Many common consumer behaviours are prohibited under the neoclassical notions of rational choice and rationality, including: looking to the choices of other consumers as guides to what one might buy; buying a stock because you believe other people will be buying it and so increase its value; spending your money in a spirit of spontaneity rather than stopping to calculate the consequences and alternatives up to the limits of your cognitive powers; indulging a taste for change, that is, buying something that you did not previously prefer. All these actions are considered outside the scope of analysis of neoclassical economics.

These failings all connect with another. For neoclassical economics is by its own axioms incapable of offering a coherent conceptualisation of the individual or economic agent. It cannot explain where the preferences that supposedly dictate the individual’s choice come from. The preferences cannot be explained through interpersonal relations, because if individual demands were interdependent they would not be additive, and thus the market demand function - neoclassicalism’s key analytical tool - would be undefined. And they cannot come from society, because neoclassicalism’s Newtonian atomism translates as methodological individualism, meaning that society is to be explained in terms of individuals and never the other way around.

... The close to monopoly position of neoclassical economics is incompatible with normal ideas of democracy. Economics has some of the qualities of a science, but because of the very nature of its subject matter, it is forever and fundamentally ideological. It is best not to deceive oneself and others about that. The preoccupation of economics with values and worldly acts means that in a democratic society it has a moral responsibility to promote the exploration of economic knowledge from more than one point of view, so as to make possible the informed and intelligent debate and discussion that democracy requires. But the hegemony of neoclassical economics means that departments of economics have become political propaganda centres. In 2002, Joseph Stiglitz, a recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, wrote in The Guardian that economics as taught ‘in America's graduate schools … bears testimony toa triumph of ideology over science’.

***

Economics, Philosophy of

More than 150 years ago John Stuart Mill confronted the problem of how to reconcile his high regard for economics (despite its empirical adequacies) with his commitment to empiricism. His solution, which was accepted by most economists until the 1930s, held that the basic principles of economics are well established by introspection or everyday experience. One can thus justifiably have confidence in economics, despite the inexactness of its implications, which is only to be expected, since economics deals with the most important determinants of economic phenomena...

Mill was firmly committed to the economics of his day, yet he was a strict empiricist. See EMPIRICISM. Since economics faced such major empirical difficulties, it might appear that Mill would have to change his epistemology or disavow his economics. Call this conflict between empiricism and economics, which arises from the apparent disconfirmations of economics and the difficulty of testing it, "Mill's problem." Mill attempted to solve this problem by maintaining that the basic premises of economics are empirically well established by introspective psychology or by experimental testing of technical claims such as the law of diminishing returns. These well-supported premises state how specific causal factors operate. If the only causal factors influencing economic phenomena were those specified in these premises, then the predictions of economic theory would be correct. But economic phenomena depend on many causal factors that are left out of economic theories. Consequently, the implications are inexact. They are always imprecise, and when the factors left out are of particular importance, the predictions of the theories may be completely mistaken. This inexactness explains why the implications of economic theories are so poorly confirmed, and consequently the problems do not show that there is anything mistaken in the fundamental generalizations of economics. In Mill's view, the empirical confirmation of economic theories is indirect and "deductive." It derives from the confirmation of their premises. The inductive method of "specific experience" cannot be employed because of the multiplicity of causes. Furthermore, since there is no way to incorporate a much larger number of causal factors without destroying the "separateness" of economics and subsuming it into a general social science, this inexactness is an inevitable feature of economics as a distinct discipline. Economics is unavoidably a science of "tendencies" only...

In his 1953 essay, "The Methodology of Positive Economics," Friedman argued that the only relevant test of an economic theory is its success in predicting the phenomena that economists are concerned with. He believes that standard microeconomic theories and the quantity theory of money pass such tests well. He responds to criticisms of theories that point out that they contain "unrealistic assumptions" (such as the assumption that firms are profit maximizers) by arguing that the criticisms presuppose mistakenly that theories can be tested by their assumptions...

From his thesis that the goal of economics is such "narrow" predictive success, Friedman jumps to the conclusion that narrow predictive success is the only relevant test. Although tempting, this inference is a mistake. It is like arguing that the only relevant way to check a computer program is to run it and see whether it does what it is supposed to. If it is possible to tell for sure by running a program whether it will always do what it is supposed to, then there is indeed no point to studying the code (though studying the code might be cheaper and easier than investigating what happens when one runs the program). But with economic theories, as with complicated computer programs, one can only look at a small sample of their performance, and success in the sample is no guarantee of success in general. One cannot look and see how well the theory performs with respect to the full range of phenomena it was designed to account for. Indeed, the point of a theory is precisely to provide guidance when one does not yet know how the theory's predictions come out. Just as one can assess computer programs by studying their code or examining how they work in uninteresting applications, so one can assess theories by examining their assumptions and attending to the success or failure of uninteresting predictions. Such scrutiny of the "realism of assumptions" is of particular importance when extending a theory to new circumstances or when modifying a theory in the face of predictive failure...

One radical reaction to the failure to solve Mill's problem is to deny that it can be solved. In Alexander Rosenberg's view (1992), economics can only make imprecise "generic" predictions, and it cannot make progress, because it is built around folk psychology, which is a mediocre theory of human behavior and which (owing to the irreducibility of intentional notions) cannot be improved. Complex economic theories ought to be valued as applied mathematics, not as empirical theory. Since economics despite its many well-trained practitioners, does not show the same consistent progress as the natural sciences, one cannot dismiss out of hand Rosenberg's suggestion that economics is an empirical dead end. But his view that it has made no progress and that it does not permit quantitative predictions is hard to accept. For example, it seems that contemporary economists can do a much better job of predicting the revenue consequences of a change in tax rates than could economists of even a century ago.

An equally radical but opposite reaction is Donald McCloskey's. He would solve Mill's problem by repudiating methodology. In McCloskey's view, the only relevant and significant criteria for assessing the practices and products of a discipline are those accepted by the practitioners. Apart from a few general standards such as honesty and a willingness to listen to criticisms, the only justifiable criteria for any conversation are those of the participants. The pretensions of philosophers to judge the discourse of scientists are arrogant and may be dismissed. Mill's problem dissolves when economists recognize that philosophical standards of empirical success may be safely ignored. Those who are interested in understanding the character of economics and in contributing to its improvement should eschew methodology and study instead the "rhetoric" of economics -- that is, the means of argument and persuasion that succeed among economists... as Alexander Rosenberg has argued, it seems that economists would doom themselves to irrelevance if they were to surrender standards of predictive success, for it is upon such standards that policy decisions are made...

A third approach is to return to Mill's own solution. Many of the basic principles of economics are plausible and are borne out in everyday experience. Although such plausibility does not place these principles beyond question, it does provide some warrant for them and some warrant for what may be deduced from them. Given the weakness of tests involving market data, in which there is an uncontrolled multiplicity of causal factors, it may be reasonable to hang on to orthodox theory in the face of disconfirmation. This thought can be rigorously supported in terms of Bayesian confirmation theory (Hausman 1992, ch. 12). See CONFIRMATION THEORY.

Someone: oh btw i just saw a nick on my msn list that goes: vatican is against surrogate moms. lucky no such rule when jesus was born.


Someone else: 'Nonetheless, I believe we should avoid the word 'they' in academic discourse. To reiterate a previous point, suppose this was a discussion on racism in Singapore; one would not use the word 'they' when referring to other ethnic groups, not only for political correctness, but because it immediately deprives the reader of the chance of thinking objectively, since to him/her, the group in discussion has already been reduced to an 'other'.'

this guy would be KILLED in a lit class

soci forum

Me: oh really
I thought "other" is a popular soci concept? [Ed: I meant "lit concept"]

Someone else: it is a popular concept everywhere
lit theory uses the concept of the Other quite extensively too

but note the point!!
he thinks using "they" is wrong!

the original point was for homosexuals
he thinks we shouildn't use the word "they" to refer to homosexuals!!
because it excludes them from society!!!

like what the fuck!!!
you bookmark sc1101e lah and go see

Me: using the word "they" to refer to anyone restricts the terms of the discourse and excludes them from society ;)

Someone else: utterly absurd

Me: sure or not
he'll be killed in lit forum

Someone else: or in lit class
if he said it during tut or smth

c'mon
lit is all abt competent thinking

Me: so soci isn't? :P

Someone else: it is as well
this guy fails in both arenas

Me: now you know why I get so pissed off at the PC left

Someone else: i mean
hey this goes beyond PC lor
the PC left would be embarassed at this guy

Me: err

Someone else: i mean
fopr goodness sakes
dun use 'they" in academic discourse

wah lau eh
then use what fuck

Me: like your feminists lah


Me: why you like pictures of sex
so deprived

if a guy has pictures of sex, he is deprived
if a girl has pictures of sex, she is cheeky
haha

Someone: yeah i am cheeky, i admit that

Me: hahahaha

no
I want you to admit you're perverted
ahhahahahahaha

Someone: i am a biologist too. and it all boils down to sex

i am slightly perverted
what's wrong with that?
im probably one of the few girls who will admit it

frigid singaporean bitches

Me: I didn't say there's anything wrong
what's wrong is when society judges behavior by different genders differently by virtue of gender

eh
frigid means they are not perverted
you mean hypocritical/lying singaporean bitches


Me: exams make you horny? o_0
I thought you don't get off
hehe

Someone: yeah dont try and understand how it works with girls la
u wont ever get it


Someone else: I'm having lunch with 2 SAESALs [Ed: Shrill, Anorexic, English-Speaking Ah Lians]... There is a resonance effect. one says something shrill and inane and the other responds with an even more shrill and inane thing and the inanity bounces back and forth forming a resonance effect that is greater than the sum of its parts. And the worst part is that it's in English, so you understand what they're saying... you don't want to, but it just gets in your head, it just drills in your mind.

Me: Now you know why I'm so pissed off

Someone (2): ohi can't stand them i tell u

i was studying at the bench outside engine lt 3\4 that area
they were having some talk there then a horde of ppl came out for some catered food for lunch
and surrounded me, this group of girls

they weren't exactly anorexic
but they were shrill and gig gly and wor king adults

ya i couldn't believe it wor king adults in formal at tire shrill and gig gly and sitting right beside me pushed me all the way to the corner of the bench i refused to budge from the place i first claimed my own

i fear going out to wor k


Someone: when talk with irritating ppl use irritating emoticon sometimes coz they irritate u with similar emoticons

Me: gah
then everyone starts using emoticons to piss everyone else off

Someone: ain't that fun

Me: gah
vicious circle


Someone: define simple girls
(seriously i feel lik ei'm talking to a girlfriend :P)

Me: hahahahah
wth

A comment I got in my guestbook:


Hello, I'm a Christian, and I find your entries on, or rather against Christianity, highly thought- provoking.

While I do not agree on some of the points and feel that I can come up, sooner or later, with a reasonable, logical argument against them [without having to refer to faith and the bible says etc etc], I strongly appreciate it that you, unlike some others, are able to bring forth a very mature perspective of such a sensitive issue. For this reason I am leaving a comment behind, to acknowledge a very well crafted piece of argument.

I have probably gained a lot of insight regarding a non-Christian’s POV, for example, on relentless evangelism. I strongly agree with you that evangelism should not cross over to harassment, but sadly not everyone shares my mindset. And yes, I agree that there are many people who parade around proclaiming to be Christians but doing and saying things that are just down right wrong,[not just in Christian context] and I abhor such acts, too. While I cannot claim to be 100% innocent of hurting anyone or whatever in the past or in the future, I can say, with all science and humanity backing me up, that a Christian is still a human, and humans can make mistakes, divine intervention or not. Pity that if we draw a Venn diagram of any believer, we’d have our faith as a subset of our human nature, not the other way round.

These are just the few points I’m acknowledging. I would not be denouncing my faith anytime soon, however. But you article has at least made me wake up and see that being labelled a Christian isn’t something that I should take lightly, especially regarding my religion’s history and wide-spreadness. So thank you for writing so thoughtfully from an ex-Christian’s POV, it has truly been interesting to delve into your logic.

Cheers =D


Wah.

"13 food stalls will remain after upgrading at the arts canteen 'The Deck': The current arts canteen holds 17 food stalls and only 13 food stalls are chosen to return after the renovation which is expected to complete (sic) around end July 2007... The food stalls that did not get a new tenure at the new arts canteen: Stall 1 'Fried Goutiao' (sic), Stall 10 'chicken rice and noodle' (sic) (I always thought they were 2 stalls since it has 2 frontages, but then maybe that's because it's at the bend), Stall 11 'Olive Clove' (sic), Stall 15 'Ross Muslim Noodles' (yes!)"
I saw this, a press release (wah) about the closure of the Arts canteen, in the Business canteen but not in the Arts canteen. I didn't see this in my email as well. Not only is Arts a prostitute, it seems its customers are told more than it.


The people going to Vietnam to build toilets a school were holding a fundraiser. The T-shirt read "Give yourself a pat on the back", and there was a palm print on the back of the shirt. I pointed out that wearing it was inviting people to give you a slap on the back, and 2 people gave me thumping slaps. Gah.


Someone put these lights up in Chatterbox, but over time they drooped and one day I almost got decapitated, ducking just before my throat was slit. In the end Colin helped me tape the dangerous line to the ceiling in one critical spot.


AV Viewing Room - Business library. They're lucky "AV" doesn't mean the same thing here as in some Asian countries.


"If he asks..." - "swallow", "Say NO!", "SAY YES!", "cut" (?). Seen at water cooler near Business library. Unfortunately it's been removed, probably by some wet blanket.

I ta-paoed fried rice for lunch but they didn't give me a spoon. So I was reduced to
eating it with my left hand. Gah.

I saw a tin of "Tempura Oil" at the Arts Jap Food stall. Whatever it was and however it differed from normal oil, I hope it wasn't palm.


Pink car parked near Arts canteen. So funky.
[Addendum: Someone: btw, the pink car belongs to the guy who recently got charged for credit card fraud]


The Subway at NUS is very smart. They position their exhaust vent right beside the seating area, so you'll eat and leave quickly or die of heatstroke. Maybe the drinks machine being spoilt (the drinks were warm) and out of ice on the day I took this had something to do with it too!

Because girls have higher voices, it's more obvious and irritating when they talk in lectures. Unfortunate.


Latest "u r wt u wr" sightings:

- A green top reading "Mature audiences only"
- White top: "I need your oralpinion". Last word in brown, first 3 words in blue.
- "I'm not drunk enough to date you"
- "Remember this shirt. 'cause you're gonna take it off later"
- "Tis the season to be naughty"
- "Turn me on. FCUK FM"
- "Naughty girl in nice wrapping"
- Something in French which had the word "celibate" (in French)
- Contribution: "tell your boyfriend i said 'thanks'" (I think this falls more under the 'bitchy to other girls' category than the 'sexually suggestive to guys' category though, but it still could incite sexually suggestive remarks on the part of males so it counts)
- "I slept in your boyfriend's T-shirt last night"
- Someone: "my friend said that one time this lady was wearing a teeshirt that says 'touch me' all over her chest. and my friend's senior went up to her and went like 'may i?". and she gave this damn blur look"
- "Your boyfriend bought me this shirt" (ditto - this was on one of a whole rack of tops with similar sentiments. I didn't bother. I foresee happy hunting in the near future)

Someone tried to submit male T-shirt slogans to me (eg "I scored last night"). This, of course, totally missed the point of "u r wt u wr", since someone making sexually suggestive remarks to the male wearing that shirt is extremely unlikely to be sued for sexual harassment by that male. The intention of "u r wt u wr" is to expose the hypocrisy of the underlying feminist paradigm.

I was complaining that designs and words on female tops are always sneakily placed at bosom level, so both the words/designs and bosom are enhanced, and Frigid Girl said they were placed at eye level. Precisely!

All the same, I saw a guy wearing a shirt which said: "Sex is no substitute for chocolate", which I found intensely puzzling. Women have sensitive physiologies, it's true, but the effect chocolate has on them seems to be even greater than it would be just by looking at the normal sensitivity quotient (ie They are even more sensitive to chocolate than to other things). Hell, even My Favourite Misanthrope and Frigid Girl are affected by the thing. Someone should do a study on how chocolate affects female physiology. And someone else should do a drug poster parody. I want to do one one day on the harmful effects of caffeine, tobacco and alcohol, so I can add chocolate to the mix: "Increases blood pressure", "Causes flushing", "Results in increased blood pressure", "Temporary high, followed by low", "Inexplicable cravings", "Increases risk of heart disease" (if Malaysian chocolate is consumed), "Secondary bacterial infection" (Sore Throat), "Improper behavior in public" (Excessive enjoyment in public usually reserved for the bedroom), "Causes violent skin eruptions" (pimples) etc. Oh dear, it sounds more harmful than marijuana. At least to females.

This is very stupid:

Facebook | There Are Some Things Guys Should Always Do For Girls. Period.

"Sometimes, guys, we gotta be men, not guys. Step up. Seriously... it's getting annoying. really.

0. But... there are exceptions to these rules, if she REALLY wants to do something... you have to let her. See rule 32.

1. Open doors, whether it be to a building or a car, that's just a given.

2. When in a place of worship (or other places that have aisles and pews), if a man is at the end of the pew, when exiting he should stand in the aisle and let all the females go before him.

3. A man should tolerate the occassional chick flick (or musical, or opera, or ballet.. whatever her preference is) *without* complaining about it!

4. Play one of the songs that would make any woman weep like the little girl she once was (but in a good way). A brief list includes, but certainly isn't limited to: "You & Me" Lifehouse, anything by Frank Sinatra, any rendition of "Everything I Do, I Do it for You", "Collide" by Howie Day, "Out of my League" Steven Speaks, and MOST IMPORTANTLY "Question" by the Old 97's (if you propose to a girl with this song, she is putty in your hands).

5. Talk! The strong & silent bit goes from intriguing to boring quite fast.

6. Find out what her favorite flower is & buy them for her randomly (or if you're in the doghouse...). Good rule of thumb: a single rose says more than dozens of anything else.

7. If you miss her, or love her, TELL HER! Even your friends like to hear it every now & again.

8. Re-enact Zales commercials (the ice is nice but certainly not mandatory).

9. Remember: the best gifts you can give are usually free of cost.

10. Leave a note (or send a message) just to say "hi".

11. Ask her questions about herself.

12. Dress nice every once & a while. Any girl likes to see her brother/friend/boyfriend/e
tc. in a well-ironed button up with some nice slacks.

13. PRIDE & PREJUDICE ...that's all I have to say about that (I mean, that should speak for itself).

14. Tolerate small children as best you can. Meaning, put up with the things that can get annoying. They're children after all. Show them love and care, teach them how to become a better man than you.

15. Learn to dance! There is nothing sexier than a man that can dance really well. If God did not bless you with the grace of Fred Astaire, at least put forth the effort, it will be greatly appreciated. Always slow dance (even if its just like you danced in middle school). Also, men, sing to a lady. Even in you're terrible, suck it up! They love to listen to it and will not care what you sound like. It's the thought that counts on this one. Unless you're just downright terrible, nothing sexy about that. haha, thanks Jade!

16. Kiss her on the forehead.

17. When she's sick, stay up with her. If you can cook (which is *always* a plus), make her some soup. If you can't cook, there's Campbell's soup at hand for you.

18. Pretend to throw her in the pool (or fountain/pond). She'll fight you, but seccretly she loves it. If you really do throw her in, you better jump in yourself. **NOTE** There are some women who just hate this, so you had better do two things: 1) never allow your buddies be a part of it if you're unsure of how she feels about getting thrown in and 2) you had better know how she feels about it!

19. Hold her hand while you talk, drive, or just for the heck of it (it's the small things that win you big points).

20. LOOK IN HER EYES, NOT AT HER CHEST!!!!!

21. Stupid jokes= awkwardly adorable moments.

22. Tickle her, tease her, let her tease you back with out getting all bent out of shape about it

23. Don't call her hot, or pretty, or cute, call her beautiful because that's what she is.

24. Offer her your jacket/sweatshirt. (Note: you may not see that particular item of clothing for a while, if ever again).

25. Don't be too proud to apologize.

26. It's not stalking to watch her sleep if you fall asleep watching a movie. It is stalking to watch her sleep if you're standing outside her window with night vision goggles.

27. When she feels at her worst, tell her she looks her best.

28. If you're trying to get more than friendship out of the relationship, take it slow.

29. Because you're a guy doesn't mean you are completley incapable of calling when you say you will; it just means you are highly incapable of it. There are few acceptable answers to, "Why didn't you call?" & being male is not one of them.

30. Don't check out other girls in front of your girl friends/sisters/mother, unless you are sincere when you later ask them if you think she could introduce the two of you for more reason than you "want to get some". Pull this in front of your girlfriend/fiancee/wife, she has every right to clock you in the jaw.

31. Guys- Always offer to pay for the date. No matter how expensive it gets, especially if YOU asked HER on the date.

32. Always do everything in your power to keep her as happy as you can. And cheer her up in any way possible.

33. When walking on the sidewalk, always walk on the outside near traffic.

34. At least do everything in your power to keep cursing to a minimum while around her. If you can, cut it out period while around her, or cut it out of your vocabulary. Women don't want to hear it, guys don't care about it, adults don't want to hear it, it doesn't impress employers, and you sure won't want your children or someone elses to hear it!

35. Sometimes you have to take the initiative. don't always wait for her to come to you, because if that's how it always is you're going to lose her.

36. If any lady is walking alone to her car in a dark parking lot/garage, or is carrying a heavy load, always offer to help walk her to her destination and carry things, if not the entire load. **This may work a lot better and come off non-stalkerish if you at least know the girl you're trying to help. haha Thanks to a LOT of people on this revision.

37. If a woman says no, let that be her final answer. Do not pressure or force her in any way. Don't make her give in to something she doesn't want to do.

38. Always be honest with her. No woman wants or likes a dishonest man. If you can't be honest with her she can't trust you, and shows you don't trust her enough to be honest. Trust, honesty and integrity are just as an integral part of a relationship and just as important as love.

39. A man should always genuinely listen to women; no matter how boring or busy the man is, actively listening to the woman will keep him from pain [and bring the man and woman closer together]. This works best, of course, when both the man and the woman actively and equally engage in conversation (this includes listening). For the ladies reading this, please talk - always talk - especially if you are having problems with the relationship and to also avoid making bigger problems.

Thanks guys for all the comments and adds and invitations. I just want every guy to see this list at least once, if he can't do it... great! That means there's a better chance for guys to take a step up."


Luckily, there's a slew of counter-groups, the best of which is:

Facebook | There Are Some Things Girls Should Always Do For Guys. Period.

"Lets face it: if women are going to expect men to be perfect and treat them like angels (see the facebook group "There Are Some Things Guys Should Always Do For Girls. Period") , then men have a right to expect certain things in return. Here's a brief list. Feel free to add more in the discussion forum for review and possible inclusion.

1) Don’t question him. Men are the ultimate authority in any relationship, and should be treated with respect and obedience.

2) When he gets home from work, always meet him with a martini. On your knees.

3) Cook him dinner every night. A man works hard to take care of you and provide for you. Make sure he knows you appreciate it! If you can’t cook, ask your mother to teach you. If she can’t cook, pay for professional cooking classes. No amount is too much to make sure you can provide your husband with a hot, home cooked meal every night!

4) Have breakfast waiting for him when he wakes up. A man appreciates a hot breakfast to get him started for the day. Even if you have to get up two hours before him in order to have it ready, it is vital that you do not skip this simple way of showing him you care.

5) Never ask for presents from him. As the principal breadwinner of the family, he alone decides how his salary should be spent. If he buys you a present, you should award him accordingly with his favorite dessert. Diamonds should be rewarded with oral sex. Always.

6) Never pass gas, make crude jokes, sweat, or make reference to using the bathroom in his presence. If you must leave him to go to the restroom, make your excuses by saying, “I am going to powder my nose.” Anything else is inexcusably rude and grounds for termination of your relationship.

7) Never ask him to pick up the children from school, the dry cleaning, or the dog from the vet. His free time is infinitely more valuable than yours.

8) Be attentive to his needs. If his back is hurting, give him a back massage. If his feet ache, rub them. If he needs sexual intercourse, do not deny him. Remember: an unhappy man at home leads to an unproductive man in the workplace!

9) Do not try and feed him “healthy” or “nutritious” food unless he requests it! If he wants meatloaf and mashed potatoes, cook it for him. It is not your place to try and regulate what he eats.

10) The inclusion of the former specific rules does not negate the need for further rules should the situation arise. If you are curious as to whether a specific course of action is appropriate, consult rule number one.

Contact Info
Office: The Kitchen. No admittance unless barefooted."

iTunes is a piece of shit

My brother in law gave me his old 3 year old iPod, so I installed iTunes to transfer my files and found that it was a piece of shit, especially for a mature program (iTunes 7.0.2.16):

- You can't stop files playing, only pause them (pausing a file takes up more resources than stopping it)
- If you hold down the shift button in the library view and select files in one direction, going in the other direction doesn't deselect the most recently selected files (as is the Windows convention) but instead selects more files above the current selection. So if I accidentally overshoot in selecting, I either have to unselect files manually or unselect everything and start again.
- It has a very CD-centric point of view, but for libraries that consist of material from everywhere, which I think many people have, it's not as good
- You can't sort files by path/filename, but only by title, artist, album etc
- Library management is hard if some of your files lack proper id3 tags: If you don't tag your files meticulously, I say good luck to you. If you don't tag your files at all, I say bye bye to you.
- If you drag a new file into the library, it automatically gets sorted instead of placed where you drag it in so you don't know if it got imported. This makes managing imported files ridiculously cumbersome if they are id3 tagged differently.
- After deleting a file, the focus goes to the last entry in the Library window - if you press up you go to the second last entry in the Library window instead of where you originally were when deleting the file.
- Quick search only searches the id3 fields of your files, but not the filename or path
- When you want to select the text in the Quick Search bar, clicking in it and pressing "Ctrl + Home" does not work - you have to press "Ctrl + Home" twice. Ditto for selecting text with the left mouse button.
- If there are emtpy id3v2 tags but the id3v1 tag is filled, it stupidly displays nothing instead of taking information from the id3v1 tag
- You can't dictate a specific playlist order, like with Jump to File extra
- It only supports MP3, AAC. WMAs can be imported but not read natively. When you add an unsupported file to the library, you don't see an error message when it doesn't get added.
- It's slow and takes up a lot of resources.
- The installer comes with Quicktime packaged and is a whopping 32 MB

All this was after only maybe 2 hours of using the damn thing. Luckily I've found an alternative in Yet another iPod manager (YamiPod). It may not solve all the problems and might add one or two more, but it's good enough for me and besides, supports submitting tracks to Last.fm (I couldn't get iSproggler, the iTunes version, to work).

Of course, I can imagine Mac whores giving various suggestions and rebuttals, but that's akin to answering a charge that Windows crashes a lot with the suggestion that one should save one's work often and read a book while waiting for the computer to restart, so crashing is not an issue.


I happened to complain to Ketsugi, and being someone who blogs spontaneously he came out with 10 Things I Like About iTunes. Unfortunately, none of his points apply to me since:

1. Aesthetics
I go for functionality over appearance.

2. Smart Playlists
I don't use these. But I can see how they might be useful.

3. Music management capabilities
I manage my music differently, so this doesn't affect me. Besides which, other music management programs offer similar features, AFAIK.

4. Party Shuffle
I don't use these. But I can see how it might be useful.

5. Get Album Artwork
I don't use this, and it's bloat.

6. Podcasts
7. iTunes Music Store
I don't use this.

8. Active Developers
Many alternatives exist, and if a project dies one can jump ship to another one. And even after so long it's still a piece of shit (see above), so so much for Active Developers.

9. iPod Integration
YamiPod works fine with the iPod.

10. Free, as in beer
Many music management programs are free.

ST: Teen, 17, first to be charged with unauthorised wireless Net access

"A 17-YEAR-OLD polytechnic student has become the first person here to be charged with piggybacking on someone else’s wireless Internet connection.

Garyl Tan Jia Luo was accused yesterday of using a laptop computer to gain unauthorised access to a home wireless network on May 13 this year."

***

The Fence: a Mexican Tale, by Jan Balet

Mexico is a land of volcanoes and tropical forests, of snow and fierce heat, of meadows and deserts, of cities and villages, of big dogs and little dogs, and, like everywhere else in the world, of rich people and poor people.

In Mexico, once upon a time, there was a very rich family who lived in a beautiful pink house with a huge green garden. Often rich people look well fed and happy, but the people in the pink house looked glum and miserable. Even their dog and their parrot were skinny and bad-tempered, although the house and the kitchen were full of every-thing one could desire.

Next door to the pink house lived a poor family. Their house was a little thatched hut. Between the two houses stood a big fence. Sometimes poor people are tired and unhappy, but not this family. The children glowed with health, although their house and kitchen were small and almost bare. They always made the best of what there was. Even their guinea-fowl and their cat looked happy. The sound of their children's laughter could often be heard through the fence and this annoyed the richpeople next door.

In the rich family's kitchen people were always busy, roasting, boiling, baking and frying. All day long glorious smells drifted through the fence. Early in the morning came the smell of hot chocolate. At noon it was the mouth-watering aroma of roast meat. And in the evening every breeze brought a smell of chicken or grilled fish or sometimes of spicy duck. No wonder the mother of the poor family would hand each of her children a slice of bread and say, "Now go and stand by the fence, and smell something good to enjoy with your bread."

One day the father of the rich family got very angry when he saw the children of the poor family standing by the fence and sniffing.

"Go away, you gang of thieves!" he yelled at them. "I'll send you to jail for stealing the smell of our food."

And sure enough, the next market day, the poor family and the rich family were called by the judge to appear in court.

On their way to court, both families stopped at the village market. Tradesmen from other villages had spread out their wares all over the market place. The lady from the pink house arrived with her cook to do the shopping. She was very fussy and haggled over everything: hair ribbons, baskets of eggs, tropical fruit from the south, hens, fried pancakes, and flowers.

All around her were stalls piled high with fruit: oranges, lemons, melons, bananas, and grapefruit. There were also loaves of bread made in all shapes and sizes, and still warm from the oven. Dogs barked. Old ladies gossiped. Everyone sniffed the glorious smell of the new-baked bread, but none of the bakers complained.

The trial was to begin at eleven o'clock. The rich family arrived early and was very elegantly dressed. The poor family arrived late, in their everyday clothes. Their children looked down at the ground because they were frightened. Still, they hoped that their father would be able to settle everything.

The judge called for silence and then told the rich man to speak first. The man from the pink house described how he paid his servants to cook the most delicious meals. But, he said, this did not help his family at all, because the wretched family next door stood by the fence and sniffed all the goodness away from the food.

"Look how well fed and happy they are!" he said. "That proves I am right."

The judge thought about this for a long time. Then he asked the father of the poor family what he had to say.

"May I leave the room for a moment?" the poor man asked. Standing just outside the door, he put a few coins into his sombrero and shook them so that they jingled loudly. His family began to laugh as he slyly asked the rich man whether he had heard the clink of the money. The rich man nodded. The judge understood what the poor man meant and gave them his decision.

"You," he said to the rich man, "have heard the jingle of this man's money, just as he sniffed the smell of your food. If he owed you anything for the smell, he has paid you back."

The poor family was delighted. They rushed home and held a fireworks party to celebrate the victory - for in Mexico if people are happy they always let off rockets. They did not make anyone pay to watch the rockets or to listen to them, and they let the wonderful smell of the burnt gunpowder drift across the fence - absolutely free."


I was trying to find a story/incident where a woman who didn't close her door/window sued a passer-by for outrage of modesty but I couldn't find one, so this is the next closest thing.

Addendum: Comment on Slashdot:

"If someone leaves an AP on and open...I think that is pretty much a free invite to join in...

What I find most interesting is that an open accesspoint is actually broadcasting invitations- if accepting an invitation is considered illegal, how is accessing a web server legal? I mean, a web server doesn't broadcast it's presence so you have to actively try and connect.

How can I tell the difference between an accesspoint that is intentionally open and one that has been set up by an idiot? Should I assume that everyone's an idiot? The next time I want to go to the pub, am I to assume that the building I'm about to enter isn't really a pub and the "Bar" sign hanging outside the door was put there accidentally?

When you associate with an open network, it's not as if you're going down the road trying doors to see if they're open - you're actually getting invitations broadcast to you and many devices will connect without asking - are you responsible for your computer connecting to a random access point without asking you first?"


Addendum: Also see the views expressed on Brown's blog.

"Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest." - Alexandre Dumas

***


Public toilet at the Clementi Botak Jones - these days even urinals have doors.

A male was complaining that Romance novels are gross, and suddenly I got a flash of insight. I'd never heard that complaint before, but suddenly it made sense, since females complain that porn is gross.


Twisties - "Made From Imported Corn". Unfortunately the many pictures I took of the ingredients list didn't show up properly. But my point was that I'd rather they didn't use imported corn if that meant they could use imported oil (ie Not Palm Oil).

My mother said the guy who runs Ah Hwa Bak Kut Teh donated $10,000 to the family of the first MRT suicide (the half million one). She also said that a lot of hawkers donated $1,000 or similar sums. I asked why hawkers and she said blue collar workers are more emphatic and generous. I think that among the upper class, philanthropists are the exception. Most rich people scheme to get more money and then complain about how poor they are. And for all you know many of them will tell the poor to get out of their elite uncaring faces since they deserve their plight.

The worst Italian gelato (Streets) is better than all the gelato I've had in Singapore so far.

Someone complained to me that Boh tea sucks compared to English Twinning or even Lipton. Another thing to add to Malaysia - the Land of Poor Quality!


At Carrefour, this air freshener had a warning sign saying it was not a toy. Fair enough, but then it was listed as being a toy. Wth?!


SUG's infamous flower. At least it's not as bad as the measles dress.

Calling a guy gay or sissy is like calling a girl fat or ugly.


I couldn't think of any fairy tales or myths where ugly girls hook up with alpha males. For example, you have Beauty and the Beast, but no Ugly and the Prince, or even Ugly and the Prince.

There are cases where the girls seem to be or start out ugly, but end up pretty, since their final physical attractiveness is a just reward for virtue(s).

Similarly, though ugly males may hook up with beautiful females, non-alpha males rarely do.

Even with his depth of knowledge, HWMNBN managed to only dig up the cases of:

- "yves st alexandre". I assume this to be Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre but I can't find any information on his paramours
- Guillaume Postel and Joanna ("alpha male and old hag"). I had no idea wth they were, but anyway they don't count since this was in real life; my observation applied to the realm of myth and fairy tales. Hell, I don't think "a French linguist, astronomer, Cabbalist, diplomat, professor, and religious universalist" is a good example of an alpha male.
- Heloïse and Abélard (She started out attractive or at least non-hag-gy. He wasn't an alpha male, but then this is a real-life example. I'm not going to tackle the argument that romanticised real-life stories are a form of myth)
- "Rama married a hag too but it was sita in disguise so that doesnt quite count"

Lynn suggested Cyrano de Bergerac, but a duellist is pretty alpha male, and in the AC adaptation I watched he came across as cocky (besides which, a big nose is not sufficient to make you really ugly).

Be that as it may, someone else also tells me she's observed real life cases of ugly girls and alpha males.

"Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it." - Max Frisch

***

Quotes:

There're too many black people there. [Student 2: Racist!] I'm not racist... There's nothing wrong with blacks. But all they do is lie on the streets and rot and harass asian girls.

[Me: All these poets are gay lah] Yah, because how can a straight guy be so brilliant?!

Do they only catch you for downloading music?... Don't download movies from Universal studios... [Student 2: I'm an expert on this. Don't use ***. Use ***. They don't catch people.] Don't download Universal Studios [movies] in NUS. [Tutor: I didn't hear anything]

[The] Indirect test for validity will come out in the exam. It's not like that other things I teach

I like bras. I like to see bra straps. [Me: Is there a punchline?] There's no punchline. it's just something nice to see.

[On our not manually checking results a program outputed] NUS has absolutely failed,with your cooperation, to teach common sense. This was the state of the University 27 years ago, and it is the state of the University now, in my considered opinion... I don't know how it is in other universities. Cambridge, Oxford - maybe it's the same there.

You look at the numbers and you straightaway jump in. You don't think. Maybe due to your primary school training.

[Student: I don't swear... It's in the Bible. Book of James, Chapter 4 I think.] I can't say anything. My knowledge of the Bible is not as good as yours. I will, however, tell a vulgar joke about the Bible. Where in the Bible does it mention constipation? Moses took 2 tablets and went into the wilderness.

the leed content (lead)

When we set an exam paper we have to declare if there's a relation in our class. Then someone else will set the exam paper. Unfortunately that didn't happen to me. I could have saved setting an exam paper.

You can kill the kidnapper but you cannot lie to him. Lying to him has moral implications... 'We're going to let you go'. Then he lets go of the hostage... Either you shoot him and kill him, or you lie to him.

[At 3] We'll break for lunch.

[On faulty bridges etc killing hundreds at a time vs a surgeon killing one] Ethics are more important in Engineering than Medicine. A lot of people don't realise this.

You give this to a person in the English department - they won't find the mistake... Unfortunately English is dynamic. What is wrong with eventually be right... 'Quite fun'?... [Student: It's quite fun to play soccer] No... The plural of sheep is sheep. The plural of goat is goats... [Student 2: *non-soto voce* Fucked up leh] I have learnt Latin. I know the rules.

[On someone having a heart-shaped pattern made of white stones sewn over her butt] USP girls are very perverted... USP guys are even more perverted, but USP girls are more perverted than normal girls.

[On 'straddles', 'strangles', 'strips' and 'straps'] Sounds like names of sex positions.

[On covered calls and protective puts] If you don't understand this, did you do your homework, tutorial by yourself? *Laughs from audience* (tutorials)

Who's that guy? Where does he come from? How come he's on exchange but knows more than half the lecture hall? [Me: When I was on exchange I also knew more than half the lecture hall] That's different. You're Singapore-trained.

[On Barro-Ricardian equivalence] The evidence is quite mixed, but the debate is still going on. Perhaps because some people are quite stubborn.

For some of us T-shirts may actually be consumer durables. You wear the same T-shirt year after year after year.

Here is probably another instance where zee'lerhs economists may have pushed rational expectations just a little bit too far. (zealous)

I was reading your [IVLE] forum posts. You're super well-read huh. [Me: Err. Ok lah. It's what I do instead of doing problem sets.]

[On karma] I'm tempted to make remarks about something in front, but the last time I did that I got an ulcer. (someone)

Going to Bangkok with girls is a recipe for disaster unless you like to shop.

How to define lamb'da? If you're concerned I can give you a textbook but I guess most of you are not very concerned (lambda, interested)

When I first proposed this module they asked me for examples [of the questions I'd set]. I used the names of all the people in the [approval] committee [in my examples]. After that they didn't ask me for any more examples.

Is that book related to what I am teaching? [Student: No] What is so interesting about that book? [Student: Nothing] So you are interested in nothing? It takes all types to make up this world.

[On ethical dilemmas] "There's nothing wrong with calling a woman engineer 'sweetie'." 2 of them [girls] said that. You can call them sweetie. [Female student: But there's nothing wrong] [Male student: Hi sweetie] [Female student: Hi]

[On transitivity] If Siti is the mother of Liwen, and Liwen is the mother of Devi, then Siti cannot be the mother of Devi. Multi-cultural example.

Logic if boring. I'm not sure that it should be in the Philosophy department... Someone asked me: 'I'm not a Philosophy major, why should I take this class?'... I didn't advise you to take this class. For the Philosophy majors, when you read 20th century philosophy. All these complicated arguments. [You can use Logic]

I'll think about it but I think there is something twisted about that argument.

[On a smart econometric trick] Unfortunately, this idea is not mine.

If you have a good suggestion, please tell me. Then I will write a paper.

un're'q'why'turd love (unrequired)

[On Mac users naming their laptops] What's wrong with Mac laptops? Why do they name them? [Me: It's not what's wrong with Mac laptops. It's what's wrong with Mac users.]

[On mobile phone radiation] For me, I don't care. My head was damaged a long time ago in 1973. *writes 'PhD'* Permanent Head Damage.

[On a query about the cancelled lesson] You can come here. I can also come here and we can look at each other.

I have yet to meet a student who doesn't say the workload is too heavy. The students complain the workload is too heavy. The staff complain the workload is too heavy. Everyone complains the workload is too heavy.

[On NTU producing real engineers] When NTU first started, they had to get into the market. They said 'NUS is all the theory. We are the real engineers'... It backfired very badly. All the top students came to NUS... Now the situation has balanced out. They do a lot of research now... Everything has a theory [so theory is important].

[On a 1983 poem about NUS FASS life] 'Lectures, lunch, library and the loo.' Where're you going [in life]? [Student: The loo]

[On an exchange student] All you need to do is breed him with a PRC and then you have a perfect economics machine.

[Me on the worst cheese fries in the world - some fries were undercooked, the rest were not crispy and the sauce was thin and flavourless: Once again, the Gross Gecko disappoints me.] That's why it's grinning. They just cheated your money.

In the exam I'm going to give you an option... The option: 'State the Black-Scholes model.' 5 marks. *Laughs from audience*... Normally I give the formula, so you don't get the 5 points I said. (mentioned)

[On the stats tables] I have seen some students. They open the book for the first time. They go this way *flips book in one direction* Then this way *flips book in other direction*, then they go this way *raises hand*. *Laughs from audience*

If I give you the formula, can you copy it 100% [accurately]?... I find every semester at least 5 students... they drop the square, they drop the minus sign.

The volatility is larger when the exchange is open than when it is closed.

Esprit de l'escalier... Wit of the staircase... [Me: I thought you just upskirted someone]

Everyone hits on you. [Me: Nobody hits on me. Everyone hits {figuratively} me.]

[On Screwed Up Girl and Screwed Up Guy] If anything goes wrong, I'll be one of the most upset people. [Me: Why?] Because it'll start happening again... I'm very stressed.

[Me: What was your Vital Statistic?] 3.6 in Sem 1, 4.2 in Sem 2... [Me: Why?] Because in the first sem I had no idea what I was doing and in the second sem I had no idea what I was doing but I knew how to do it.

Talc the map now!

In a thread about slavery spelling/pronunciation, someone wondered what "telt" / "talc" (the clear plastic sheeting you cover maps and other things with) really was.

I pondered over this for a while, and then suddenly remembered that I'd hit upon the right answer years before in a brainwave - it's actually "tarp", short for "tarpaulin". Many are resistant to this idea, since they think tarpaulin must be opaque and thick, but I've dug up many graphic illustrations of clear plastic tarp:

DEKE - Cornell

Thoughts on Restoring a Morgan
Introduction to Media Blasting

Healthy Lawns—Site preparation: Soil solarization

57 Ways - 15. Solarize Soil

WAN in Lab: Facilities: Pictures and Schematics - gallery: \WIL\2004-12-09 Adjustable Shelves + Corning Fiber Spools + Plastic Tarp

I was saving 54 cents by printing at the Business Library today, and when I minimised my windows (Windows Key + M) I must've pressed something wrongly, since my taskbar filled with rubbish. And this was after I'd closed 2-3 funny groups of windows too.

Ho ho


"3. Rates of Return for Your Portfolio and for the Market Indexes

Compute the holding period rate of return on your portfolio for the holding period of the project and compute the corresponding annualized compound rate of return for your portfolio.

Compute the holding period return and the annualized rate of return for the two market indexes?

Compare the performance of your portfolio with that for the market as a whole.

[In the past way too many students have screwed up on this part. By the end of 422 you should be able to do these calculations in your sleep. If you don’t get this right it will cost you serious points; you will have an X grade; and I will hound you until you do it right. In computing the annualized compound rate of return, be sure to use the standard time value of money relationship, solved for r. Look it up if you aren’t certain! Don’t use a simple interest formula!]"

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." - George Burns

***

The Eusoff Hall-StompAIDS bazaar/carnival tieup produced possibly the best bazaar I've ever visited, with both variety and quantity in the stalls. Lynn was bugging me about what StompAIDS was, so I bugged her back to ask one of the relevant people, and she found out it was a marketing competition by HPB.

They had free cotton candy one day, and free popcorn the next. Of course, these were the worst of their kind that I'd ever had, but hey they were free.

The power of hall inmates!

Unfortunately, there were some silly things in the Stompaids carnival. Firstly, the posters:

Someone: wah lau. i tot we were taught to move away from the stereotypes and address it properly

so end up its still prostitutes (the blowjob one. she has cash tucked in at the back of her panty. and tat blown guy is holding more cash) and gays again
den go on stigmatizing all hiv carriers and etc.

i dun even noe wat those posters are for.
i was horrified rather.

den i saw the gay group of guys. oh dear. kinda expected.
sick leh. its no longer a homo disease lar. wake up wake up.
who're they fooling.

homos and pros again. and check out the LIGHTING of the posters man.
purple/maroon. sleaze.

We can't really blame them, since HPB wants them to emphasise abstinence. I guess this is still a step up from abstinence-only.

Some other silly bits:


Red shows a man with 2 girls. Amber shows a man covered with a condom. And Green shows a couple holding hands. Since the man is alone in Amber, there is presumably some danger in solo masturbation with a condom.


Of course, they don't consider the possibility that your partner is unfaithful or already infected. Hurr hurr.


The point of this game is to maneuver the ring to the end of the wire without contacting the wire itself. The moral of the story is that having casual sex and staying AIDS-free is as hard as maneuvering the ring to the end of the wire without it beeping. As I pointed out, if you cover the ring with a condom, you probably can hit the wire as many times as you want.

In other news, I played some fishing game at the carnival and have a free condom to give away. Those interested can contact me. Delivery is strictly at my convenience.

Some pictures my brother in law took in Crete. Last of a series of 6. Those seeking a context for these pictures can read the Crete travelogue in the May archives.


Someone's stupid doodling when I was at Samaria






Chania


Being nua in Chania






Having a snack in Heraklion. I think this was Souvlaki. The shop sold various meat snacks at ~€0,40 a stick.


How Blue Bear traveled back to Singapore

"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous." - Robert Benchley

***

Someone: OMG SNAIL IN THE LIBRARY AGAIN

Me: see
this is why I suggested to someone we go to Bukit Timah to mug for exams
just to annoy all you idiots

Someone: i was merely expressing my amazement that he takes the effort to come all the way down here for a good mugging environment

no distance is too far for SNAILS!

Me: ...


Frigid Girl: RJ chorale was such a bad experience
in the sense that before i went to RJ chorale, i could sing
after i went, i couldn't
it actually injected me with all the inhibitions of singing
must be the power of toh

i'm too ashamed to admit i was from that satanic cult
i've since reformed and turned to heavy metal like evanescence

i used to be able to sing christine before joining chorale
after, i can't even sing majulah singapura


Someone: recently yr msges have been a bit siao

Me: I've always been siao

Someone: how come suddenly so childish
i always thought you were uber serious

Me: gah
you have a warped view of the world haha


Someone else: what does one need when showering aside from "Shampoo, conditioner, soap, towel, toothbrush, toothpaste (shower cap, creams/lotions)"?

nothing right.
shit

Me: I'm a guy. don't ask me

facial cleanser
Alpha-Hydroxy Acids exfoliant
foot scrub
rubber duckie
loofah

Someone else: OH YEAH FACIAL CLEANSER
heh loofah
oh shit I forgot about the rubber duckie
poor neglected thing


Me: aiyah
men can never have too many women
women can never have too many shoes

Someone: dun u hv an answer for everything
and none is boring/ untrue


Female friend on Frigid Girl: N Btw ur fren is not having a relationship at all if there's no sex... Esp aft marriage, sex defines a relationship... So It's rubbishlah


Someone: anw rushing proj for tmr
ttyl or sth

Me: heh
med proj?

Someone: obstructive jaundice
interested? i wrote a hiaku on its definition

Jaundice that’s caused by
obstruction of the bile ducts,
such as with gallstones.

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - William Churchill

***

Coconut Milk and Coconut Oil - is it healthy or unhealthy - "And to further defend my affinity to coconut, despite my love for coconut oil and milk, and despite having delivered two kids already, I am definitely within the normal BMI category, far from being obese, my lipid levels are within normal. And I am sure a lot of Asians are, too."
I don't know why people like to argue with anecdotal examples so much, and ignore the lifestyle factor when making claims.

Skull-cleaning business thrives in Okla. - "No Halloween haunted house has anything on the people who work at Skulls Unlimited International, an Oklahoma City company that bills itself as the world's leading supplier of osteological specimens. "If I don't want to talk to (other people), I tell them I manage a museum exhibit company," said Eric Humphries, who's worked at the company for 14 years and now is its production manager. "If I want to talk to them, I tell them I clean skulls and skeletons for a living.""

DumpMonkey - "Because she's annoying. Because he cheated on you. Because a one night stand is all you wanted. Because you just don't care to breakup in person. No matter what the reason, the DumpMonkey is there for you! No longer do you need to have that awkward breakup talk. If you've had enough of your significant other, send them a DumpMonkey! The DumpMonkey sends a crystal clear message stating that your relationship is over and you no longer want to hear from that person again. Each monkey comes with a certificate of authenticity from Dump U that clearly states that the relationship has ended and that you have moved on with your life. The certificate is individually numbered and has the official break-up time and date, just in case your ex forgets. Your ex will have a lovely monkey keepsake and a certificate to remind them of how much you dislike spending time with them."

Planescape: Torment - “What can change the nature of a man?” - "Ravel Puzzlewell, the witch of the Gray Waste, who grew so wise and so powerful and so mad that she tried to unbind the multiverse itself, the woman who asked the Nameless One the vital question: What can change the nature of a man? So play your first-person shooters, if you must, and run down cops in “Grand Theft Auto 37: More Fodder For Incumbent Politicians”, and let your brains rot away bit by bit. But can you answer Ravel’s riddle? Do you know the answer? Perhaps you should play “Planescape: Torment” and find out."

Silence is a decree all should fear - "This is what we are faced with: people fear speaking out. These taboos cannot all be ascribed to Muslim fundamentalists, but have their roots in the Western world's ideology of political correctness, originally inspired by the need for people to respect each other in a multiracial society where minorities were fighting discrimination. The concept has become entrenched to the point of absurdity, and has even made it impossible for people to tell certain jokes. And I don't just mean jokes about Jews, Muslims and the disabled, but about Scots, Poles, blondes, firemen and street cleaners... what will happen in a culture in which, for fear of committing a gaffe, not even scholars dare to refer to, say, an Arab philosopher? The consequence would be damnatio memoriae, the terrible decree occasionally passed in ancient Rome that all traces of a public figure's memory and legacy were to be erased - the person's name was removed from monuments, significant buildings destroyed, statues altered. A similar silence surrounding Muslim history and culture would harm not only the West's knowledge of Islam, but reciprocal understanding between the two cultures."

''We don't mind what colour the baby is,'' said my father-to-be. The adoption officer beamed. Perhaps, after all, there was a baby available - me - "The Association of Black Social Workers (ABSW) claimed in the 1980s that "transracial placements are a way of perpetuating racist ideology". Their slogan, that "love is not enough", still looms over the argument. They pointed out that white parents did not know how to care for black children's skin or hair, that black children could not walk down the street with their white relatives without having to give an explanation."
Wth.

A Magpie's Nest - Discussing the Lord of the Rings Soundtrack - "How did it come to this? I don't know. I think a combination of a passion for The Lord of the Rings books, an affection for the movies, a love of the soundtracks, and an obsessive personality. I'm three and a half years into my work - compiling the available information regard the Lord of the Rings movie soundtracks."

Plasticine and teddy bears at the new UK base of L Ron Hubbard - "After days of filling out sheets of A4 paper, I had learned that all "the data" can be found in Hubbard's writings and anything I came across with which I didn't agree - like, for example, the claim that "yellow and brown people" are less "progressive" than whites - should be skipped and revisited later. The course explained how the mind, body and spirit are separate, and life is a game. Within the game there is a scale of eight "impulses" that can be conquered by purging the mind of anxious thoughts. This is done through "auditing", a form of confessional counselling which relies on a machine attached by wires to two metal cylinders which, when held in a person's palms, measures their mental state. After each chapter in the coursebook, Dorothy asked me to demonstrate to other students what I had learned using wooden blocks and Plasticine. Once she asked me to explain the "communication cycle" to Sam, a nine-year-old boy who sat alone at the back of the classroom. Instead I showed Sam how to make a monster out of the playdough. Dorothy intervened. Scientology reportedly regards children to be "big Thetans in little bodies" - the immortal aliens called Thetans who, followers are said to believe, are our ancestors and who came to Earth 75m years ago. Dorothy also asked me to practice auditing with a teddy bear, and watched as I asked the bear if it could recall an experience that made it happy."

Blue Screen of Death Top 10 - "The now infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) has been around since Windows 3.1. However, by chance, this screen made an appearance back in Windows 1.0! Have we finally discovered the original origins of this beast! There are many causes for this error: Bad DLL's, incorrect device drivers, bad memory, damaged registry, etc. This error has become less predominant in later years. Receiving such an error now, is much more serious than it used to be in the Windows 3.1/95/98 days. Below are some of the Top 10 Blue Screen of Death images! Some of these might be fake images, unless I was to take them myself how could I be sure obviously. Enjoy!"

Some pictures my brother in law took in Crete. Penultimate instalment of a series of 6. Those seeking a context for these pictures can read the Crete travelogue in the May archives.

More of Blue Bear at the beach.

*frumple*

"The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin." - Heinrich Heine

***

Banned books - the saga continues - "It was another routine stock replenishment order. Then came the shock: the distributor is unable to supply copies of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children because the book had been 'restricted' in Malaysia by the KDN. Our initial reaction was to laugh out loud. Who are these people? Midnight's Children, published in 1980, won the Booker in 1981 and won the Booker of Bookers in 1993. Every self-respecting reader in the country has not only read the book, but owns a special sentimental copy. Now, after 26 years, some barely literate little Napoleon - to borrow Pak Lah's term - sitting behind a KDN desk in Johor Bahru has decided that the book is not suitable for Malaysians."
Boleh-land also bans "Making Globalization Work". Wth?!

Arrest over Cheney barb triggers lawsuit - "Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that effect, then walked on. Ten minutes later, according to Howards' lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had "assaulted" the vice president."

Making a security point with elephants - "After his first trip to South Texas, a Pennsylvania congressional candidate was back home Wednesday sharing quite a tale, having chased an undocumented immigrant on foot one day and strolled the bank of the Rio Grande with three elephants and a blaring mariachi band the next. All, of course, documented for a campaign commercial."

Living in a car now touted as a plus - "Chevrolet will hold a competition for its version of young people living in a car. Two-student teams from eight universities, including Michigan State University, can win a new 2007 Chevrolet Aveo "by staying in continuous contact with the car for five days and demonstrating just how large a lifestyle they can lead in the car by attracting as much in-person and online attention as possible," Chevy says."

The Perils of Sleeping On the Top Bunk - "A New Jersey appellate court ruled yesterday that the risk of falling from a loft bed doesn’t require a warning label, at least when the bed is used by a college student. The ruling overturned a $179,001 jury award to a college senior who blamed his falling out of a loft bed on the lack of a warning label... 'Warnings would lose their efficacy and meaning if they were placed on every instrument known to be dangerous, such as a knife, scissors, glass, bat, ball, bicycle or other product that poses a generally known risk of injury if misused, dropped, or fallen from.'"

Doodle by squidsoup - "DOODLE is a work-in-progress exploring the possibilities of intuitive and direct drawing in 3D virtual space. Built to use a Flock of Birds (from Ascension Technologies), we have also made a (limited) demo using a conventional mouse. The 3D version allows for creation of drawn 3D shapes (spirals, swirls, faces, handwriting through to more complex objects). It was built as the basis of a drawn sound or drawn flora project (both in progress)."

Malaysia dishes out to raise profile - "Malaysia, where the unofficial national sport is eating and which boasts some of the world's best food, barely features on the international culinary map. According to the Malaysian government, which clearly keeps a close eye on such things, there are just 376 Malaysian restaurants to feed the six billion people who live outside the country."

Mountain Dew Becomes Drinkable - "I take a closer look and notice that it’s new “Mountain Dew ENERGY” and it’s listed as a “Natural Health Product” and an “Energy Drink” on the label. I’m intrigued, so I check the label for more; it has CAFFEINE in it. Not guarana or any other half baked caffeine substitute, but real, life affirming caffeine. For years (decades? forever?) it was impossible to purchase beverages in Canada that had caffeine in them where caffeine didn’t naturally occur"

BEAD ME A SHIMMERING DANCE @ gemsweater.com - Andrew: "ugly sweaters for ugly girls"

Book Review: The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton - "I have an early copy of Sutton’s book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, and it’s the definitive guide to understanding, counteracting, and not becoming an asshole. I am qualified to make this judgment because (a) I’ve been an asshole a few times and (b) been a victim of assholes more than a few times."

Pupils are told: it is time for the hugging to stop - "A school headmaster was branded a killjoy yesterday after he ordered pupils to stop hugging each other. Steven Kenning banned them from embracing between classes because it was making them late for their lessons and could lead to a “victim” being hugged against their will."

Is this the end of the road for traffic lights? - "Most traffic lights should be torn up as they make roads less safe, one of Europe's leading road engineers said yesterday. Hans Monderman, a traffic planner involved in a Brussels-backed project known as Shared Space, said that taking lights away helped motorists, cyclists and pedestrians to co-exist more happily and safely. Residents of the northern Dutch town of Drachten have already been used as guinea-pigs in an experiment which has seen nearly all the traffic lights stripped from their streets."

Bad vibes in Glastonbury after Catholics against pagans - "By the light of the full moon, witches in Glastonbury will tonight be casting a “circle of protection” around Britain’s centre of mysticism after a group of militant Christians cast salt at them in an attempt to “cleanse” the town of paganism."

From golf to yoga: how India treats its troops - "The army blames the phenomenon, known in the military as “fragging”, after US soldiers in the Vietnam war rolled fragmentation grenades into the tents of unpopular officers, on the high stress levels among the 700,000 troops fighting Islamic militants in Kashmir. It has sent psychiatrists, psychologists and even yoga instructors to the region, claimed by India and Pakistan, to help to ease the concerns of troops."

Unilever: Ice Cream Product Developer - "Based at our Ice Cream Global Technology Centre, where great products such as Wall's, Solero and Magnum have passed through our doors, you'll help develop mouth-watering products that take advantage of our technical capability to deliver new benefits to the consumer. You'll be able to work with these technologies and to transform them into ice cream innovations with real food credentials that consumers all over the world will value."

Faking it as a priest in Japan - "With a rise in the popularity of Christian-style weddings in Japan, some Westerners are finding they can make a lucrative living by acting as priests... Mr Kelly argues that the ceremony is not about religion, but about image. "I give a good performance. I use an Apache wedding prayer in my ceremony. It works very well, although I had to take out the part about the bear god in the sky," he said. "If people are crying by the end of the wedding, I think I have done a good job.""
Damn Japs.

Which steak tastes the best? - "Never have I witnessed a piece of meat so move grown men (and women). Every taster but one instantly proclaimed the grass-fed steak the winner, commending it for its "beautiful," "fabu," and "extra juicy" flavor that "bursts out on every bite." The lone holdout, who preferred the Niman Ranch steak, agreed that this steak tasted the best, but found it a tad chewy. That said, another taster wrote, "I'm willing to give up some tenderness for this kind of flavor.""

Some pictures my brother in law took in Crete. Fourth of a series of 6. Those seeking a context for these pictures can read the Crete travelogue in the May archives.

More of Blue Bear's day at the beach

Europe unites in hatred of French

"Language, history, cooking and support for rival football teams still divide Europe. But when everything else fails, one glue binds the continent together: hatred of the French.

Typically, the French refuse to accept what arrogant, overbearing monsters they are.

But now after the publication of a survey of their neighbours' opinions of them at least they no longer have any excuse for not knowing how unpopular they are.

Why the French are the worst company on the planet, a wry take on France by two of its citizens, dredges up all the usual evidence against them. They are crazy drivers, strangers to customer service, obsessed by sex and food and devoid of a sense of humour.

But it doesn't stop there, boasting a breakdown, nation by nation, of what in the French irritates them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britons described them as "chauvinists, stubborn, nannied and humourless". However, the French may be more shocked by the views of other nations.

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous". The Dutch describe them as "agitated, talkative and shallow." The Spanish see them as "cold, distant, vain and impolite" and the Portuguese as "preaching". In Italy they comes across as "snobs, arrogant, flesh-loving, righteous and self-obsessed" and the Greeks find them "not very with it, egocentric bons vivants".

Interestingly, the Swedes consider them "disobedient, immoral, disorganised, neo-colonialist and dirty".

But the knockout punch to French pride came in the way the poll was conducted. People were not asked what they hated in the French, just what they thought of them.

"Interviewees were simply asked an open question - what five adjectives sum up the French," said Olivier Clodong, one of the study's two authors and a professor of social and political communication at the Ecole Superieur de Commerce, in Paris. "The answers were overwhelmingly negative."

According to Mr Clodong, the old adage that France is wonderful, it's just the French who are the problem, is shared across Europe.

"We are admired for our trains, the Airbus and Michelin tyres. But the buck stops there," he said.

Another section of the study deals with how the French see the rest of Europe.

"Believe it or not, the English and the French use almost exactly the same adjectives to describe each other - bar the word 'insular'," Mr Coldong said. "So the feelings are mutual.""


Cock: "The whole world wants to be Frenchified, but nobody likes the French."

Some pictures my brother in law took in Crete. Third of a series of 6. Those seeking a context for these pictures can read the Crete travelogue in the May archives.

This whole post consists of the evil things someone did to Blue Bear when I was trekking through the Samaria gorge.

July Trip
22/7 - Reims/Bayeux


Cathedral


Tau palace

I finished the cathedral 1 1/2 hrs before my next train, but didn't want to eat at a restaurant due to time constraints, among other things (I was still in the city at this point and it'd take a while to walk to the station). So I decided to test the Cock's theory that McDonald's in France was better. I walked in just before 11am - the transition time between breakfast and lunch menus. So why the fries were cold and a bit stale was beyond me (yes, the Cock strikes again).

I also had 'Le p'tit chicken recette Fromagere' (strictly speaking, for a basis for comparison I should've had ordered something available elsewhere, but I like to try new things). The description was very enticing (it must be the language) - 'Son pain aux eclats de mars, son poulet croustillant specialite panee au poulet, son onctueuse sauce au fromage fondu et sa salade croquante'. Too late I realised why it was 'p'tit', and there was also no fromage inside (wth!). Otherwise it was like a McChicken but in a dusted bun (not sesame), with the chicken crumbed rather than battered.

Hell, even the Coke was off; just looking at the dispenser, I knew something was not right, since it usually flowed into the cup in a pure stream but this dispensed an alternating stream of black and white syrup and soda water. Not only was it flat, the carbonation quotient/mix was off. Like the Coke from the RI vending machine behind the canteen when Monty's was in charge.

In their favor, though, contrary to what seems to be the practice in the rest of Europe, they gave me 1 packet of ketchup and pommes-frites-sauce (tartar) gratuit. Also: 'Golden best of - 1 menu maxi best of (TM) Big Mac + 1 cheeseburger' was going for €7. How could they trademark "Best of"?!

They offered a "McCine" - 1 menu best of (your choice of meal except the one with the 280g burger) and 1 cinema ticket for €8,50. Working backwards, it seems a cinema ticket alone (on top of the meal) was worth only €2,70. What sort of films could they afford to screen at that price?!

The McFlurry flavours in France were Daim, Kit Kat and M&M Peanuts.

An information panel infomed me that Cours JB. Langlet was presenting a series of remarkable buildings. I didn't believe them, then I saw this:


'Reconstruction de Reims Marcel Rousseauarchitecte 1927'


Docteur JB Langlet. Maire de Reims 1841-1927

So far I hadn't seen any Malaysian Mannikins in France and was quite pleased. I thought that the French had better not disappoint me.


Automatic store
I thought only the Japs had advanced automation to such a degree. Maybe this is what happens when you can't easily fire people.

When in Paris, the Cock had had all 3 breakfasts in the hostel, which provided a small baguette-shaped roll, a small croissant, jam and butter, and a cup of coffee/tea/chocolate, as well as vile juice. After 2 days, I was sick of it, so I went out and eventually had a croque monsieur. The cock wanted to eat at the hostel because he'd paid for it, and my parents would agree with him. But then that is a sunk cost, and it definitely makes more sense to, since you're already in France, go out and sample local breakfast delights (ie The divine pains et al.). After all, unless he returns with his "future girlfriend slash wife", he will never get to try pastries lighter than any pastry has the right to be. That would be a true waste of money.

I kept seeing a magazine: "Teu". One version labelled "Plage" showed a man's bathroom shots (?) and another also labelled "Plage" showed a man naked and seen from the back. One story went: "Le nouveau Superman est-il gay?"

I sensed the French were better at English than the Italians (though this was a slightly tough call), but they refused to speak it anyway. Bah.

Seen at a newstand in Paris (where I was transfering trains) for €6: 'La vie parisienn magazine'. The cover stories were in French, but in the sidebar I saw: 'Where to go, what to find? Our special tips to meet the sexiest girls! And many more! Hot streets, bars, swinger clubs, massage institutes... Hot Hot Hot... How to find the best spot of the capital'. I was wondering: What spot? There was also FHM for €1,95 (usual price €3) - the competition must've been too intense.

The guy beside me on the train to Bayeux was reading Cosmopolitan. I know girls read male mags but this is the first time I've seen a guy read a female mag. Well, apart from me anyway.

I witnessed foreplay on the train. 1 girl was lying on 2 seats and a guy was on the inner seat. He went down on her (her mouth area) and she started laughing and one leg rose in passion. Maybe he went down in flames that night after having his red meat in the day.

The weather in Bayeux was very good. When I got off the train, I was shocked at how cool it was (the fact that it'd been raining didn't help). The last time I'd felt so cool was in the middle of june, and this was further north to boot. It was even better at night!


Bayeux Cathedral
There's a story behind why it's so opulent for such a small town, but I can't recall.


Portal


Entrance

I arrived at the tourist office just before it closed and after seeing the enormity of what would await me if I tried to navigate the beaches myself, I booked a tour from one of 5 tour companies.


I didn't see any giaks around.
Their napkins had a ship with warriors (a scene from the Tapestry)

Those who go on Eurotrips and only visit capitals miss out on so much and spend so much more than those who explore smaller cities and towns.

As I observed to Andrew, you can tell if tap water is served at an establishment by looking at the prices. If mineral water is available cheaply, tap water will not be served, and the converse applies (except in Bruges, since it was on the town square and was a tourist joint).

I decided on Le Drakkar. They had a €14,50 menu which I decided to go for if they didn't serve tap water, and a €18 menu which I'd have if they did. The €14,50 menu seemed to be insulting, with cheap courses, including a hamburger as one choice for the main course (though someone later informed me that the French hamburger is a specific term).

A thick tourist guide narrated how, at the front of the British Cemetery, there was "the sentence in Latin recalling how, in 1944, the British came to free the Homeland of their victors (sic) of 1066". A section on monastery accommodations described La Joie Saint Benoit thus: "Staying with us will allow you to recover your physical and moral strength". Bah.


The most excellent dinner I had in Bayeux, at Le Drakkar; one of the best meals I've had.
I've had this as a status message for a while and everyone says it doesn't look good. Bloody hell.

My starter was smoked ham. For some reason, I don't know why, I expected thick ham. Instead I got delectable thin ham, and a very generous portion of it too. Unfortunately, someone was not there to advise me on the finer points of haute cuisine (and more importantly, to pay), so I assumed that since I couldn't cut the top layer of the ham with my knife (the layer above the fat - the skin? or wax?), I was not supposed to eat it.

The main course, as seen above, was a generous slab of pork with diced bacon and mushrooms, served with potatoes cubes fried with bacon. The pork was very thick and yet fully cooked, meat thera? (?). I couldn't figure out why it was tied with a piece of string, though. Sit in the park and eat bread? Not on your life!

The dessert was a hot apple tart. I was wondering why there was a scoop of vanilla ice cream, then as I ate the tart I realised why - it was the least sweet apple tart I'd ever had. I would go so far as to venture that there was no sugar in it. At all. I never have chocolate outside if I can help it, but hitherto apple had always been safe. Trust the Frech!

Outside of Paris, some places close during lunch time. In Italy and Greece, they sleep. In France, they have lunch. For example in Villeneuve I was walking through the village and everything was closed except hairdressing salons (don't ask me, I have no idea why they were an exception).

xxoos was disdainful of guidebooks. She said she went where her feet took her, but then "There is a good reason people don't take the roads much less traveled. They're dangerous and it can take you more than twice as long to get to your destination." (The Road Much Less Traveled) If nothing else, they are useful for accommodation information, directions to the hostels and tourist offices and provide preliminary maps of places before you get real ones.

sect (seot?) aug (awig?/aurg?) 45°. not so bad (more scribbled stuff I can't decipher)

Many of us were socialising in the common room of the youth hostel at night, and the elderly male proprietor who spoke no English (though I suspect he understood a bit) suddenly ran in shouting, as he was wont to do. Luckily some people spoke and understood French, so one talked to him and then translated to us that we needed to vacate the room because 50 people would be coming later and the room was needed for "The distribution of the keys". As soon as the liaison uttered this phrase, the whole room burst out laughing (and this was a room of various nationalities, so it wasn't a culture thing). I'm sure it makes perfect sense in French, since that language is so florid and pompous, but in English the direct translation sounds ridiculous, like some ceremony out of a fantasy novel.

Someone: french is a beautiful language
­and i quote the matrix
­cursing in french is like wiping ur arse with silk

Someone else: you mean key party?
­dun get it

Someone (2): Hrm.
la distribution des cles
i suppose i can excuse french being pompous
it's so pretty sounding.

Someone else (2): still very frodo-esque
and considering that i last watched some youtube LOTR orgy thing
that's one kinky hostel

Later, 50 Norwegian schoolgirls turned up and were yelling and shrieking. I wanted to use one bathroom, but when I arrived there I found 5 of them in the queue. Gah.

Something someone sent me:

i know this blog template is so so the gay.. but IM NOT GOING TO CHANGE IT!

"ri is becoming very f*ed up now, thanks to a very complicated political system involving the 'chiefs of staff' and some higher-ranking officials.actually, no. ri is not becoming an army. i think the school is being run more like a corporation, with the ceo and the board, then the employees.

let me disclose a little-known fact - many teachers have already left ri from the time we had a new ceo running the place. these are the teachers i know so far, who have left since 2004: mr johari, gregory goh, ms justina tan, ms cheng fang, mr justin pierre, ( 2005 ) mr liu yong feng, mrs jasbir koh, mrs rosy smith, mrs lim jee nee, mr teo chor howe, ( 2006 ) mr seet, mr azhar, ms wang xiao nan, mr eric lee, ms regina. my eng teacher was supposedly forced to resign by the deputy headmistress because someone from her class saboed her by taking photos of classmates sleeping during her lesson and then he submitted them to the higher authorities. heard it was the prc scholars who did that. cb la, those stupid asses. and regina was 'well-known' for going against the system, because she felt she had to stand up against what wasn't right. too bad the firm is all too powerful.

quote from my teacher, who quoted the headmistress: ( on founder's day ) i still haven't received your letter of resignation. please give me today asap. if i'm not in the office, u can put it under my door.

the raffles programme, i tell u.no o-levels, straight to rjc. many ppl out there think that it's 7th heaven. yea we got tricked too, at one point of time. and the new students too. we were fooled, enticed by the voluptuous programme the school had to offer. and look now, we're all struggling under the new system.

less teaching, more self-learning. that's the case for physics and social studies, i suppose. the teachers can't teach at all. one doesn't know his concepts well and always confuses himself while trying to answer difficult questions and the other just keeps asking us questions without doing much of anything else.

dun forget, we have higher chi o levels. and i won't forget what the hod of chinese told us while we were reviewing our scripts: "if u can't score an a1, dun take the exam. u will be saving ri a lot of face and saving ur time and energy too"...

leadership, ri focuses a lot on this aspect. ccal camps, psl camps. opportunities of leadership come few, as said by the now-gone eric lee. it's very true, but the school isn't making any effort into maximising our fullest potential. u see, whenever there're some special courses, for example, the latest in pe dmp module, they always say only for ccal and psl. then how is the rest of the sch population goin to be educated as well when u just concentrate on this group of ppl who have already gone for numerous courses and training sessions?"

Same Someone: screwed up bcos it's pampering us. as long as we get a 2.0 gpa, we can go to rj. compared to those who take o lvls..getting to rj frm rg is rlly easy

besides the pioneerin batch isnt doing too well i heard
and not too well like most ppl are getting borderline passes for promos. 9 staybacks. and someone jumped down

Some pictures my brother in law took in Crete. Second of a series of 6. Those seeking a context for these pictures can read the Crete travelogue in the May archives.


On the boat to Spinalonga


On the boat to Spinalonga


On the boat to Spinalonga


Taking a picture of my namesake at Moni Arkadiou


Moni Arkadiou


Moni Arkadiou


Rethymnon


Me being nua and someone in Rethymnon


Me being nua and someone in Rethymnon


Me being nua and someone in Rethymnon


Me being nua and someone in Rethymnon

"An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do." - Dylan Thomas

***

CDTLink: Is Quantitative Student Feedback Useful? - "Student feedback scores often have a direct or indirect impact on the faculty member’s annual performance bonus, and may influence his/her chances of tenure and promotion, especially if the scores are particularly low.... There is a common perception that it is easier to achieve higher student feedback scores when teaching higher level modules. Figure 5 shows the overall feedback scores plotted according to module levels (1 to 6). It is clear that the minimum feedback scores improve significantly for higher level modules, while the maximum remains approximately constant (the average score increases with level)."
Wah, so funky. I didn't know their bonuses depended on teaching. Still, it'd be so much more helpful (and cheaper) if they made us give feedback *after* we got our results. Not least since if their bonuses/promotions depend on feedback, there is a temptation to retaliate against those who give bad feedback. Hell, it's like eBay feedback.

Halal food | The crescent and the canteen - "Entrepreneurs are good at satisfying niche appetites, large institutions often less so. But British universities are changing. Last November students at Leicester University persuaded their union cafeteria to ban pork and go exclusively halal. Sheffield Hallam University now boasts an on-campus branch of Hally Ally's, a halal fast-food outfit. Two further branches of the chain are expected to follow in other northern universities by the end of the year."

Rational, educated and prosperous: just your average suicide bomber -"Suicide bombers are not all poor, uneducated, religious fanatics or madmen, as many people believe. Research on the social and psychological background of terrorists show they tend to be more prosperous and better educated than most in their societies, and no more religious or irrational than the average person. A study of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad suicide terrorists from the late 1980s to 2003 found only 13 per cent were from a poor background, compared with 32 per cent of the Palestinian population in general, according to a New Scientist report."
Ideology does matter, despite the nonsense some spout.

EULAlyzer - "EULAlyzer can analyze license agreements in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases. Discover if the software you're about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or much much more."

The trivia king learns something new - "Trivia, notes Jennings in "Brainiac," didn't come by its current meaning -- "questions and answers about unusual bits of everyday knowledge" -- until the 1960s. But, he adds, the interest in those bits of knowledge goes back decades earlier, to at least 1927, when the book "Ask Me Another!" became a best-seller. "Ask Me Another!" was followed by radio quiz shows, which begat TV quiz shows, "GE College Bowl," high school and college quiz bowl teams, Trivial Pursuit, bar trivia games, and all the attendant paraphernalia: the "Guinness Book of World Records," Fred L. Worth's "Trivia Encyclopedia," the Wallace/Wallechinsky "People's Almanacs" and "Books of Lists," Mental Floss magazine and "10,000 Answers," among many other key source materials."

MetaGeek.Net: Home of Wi-Spy - "Wi-Spy™ is the world's smallest 2.4 GHz spectrum analyzer*. Wi-Spy is perfect for troubleshooting interference from the following devices: Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), Microwave Ovens, Cordless Phones, Zigbee, Bluetooth"

University challenge, a starter for life - "As sixth-formers prepare to submit their applications to Oxford and Cambridge universities before Sunday’s deadline, a study of 1,200 students has revealed some of the quirkier lines of inquiry from tutors who interview candidates... Last year’s applicants to study politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford claim to have been asked: “If there were three beautiful, naked women standing in front of you, which one would you pick? And does this have any relevance to economics?” Others applying for places on the same course said that they were asked to price a teapot or compare Tony Blair with a 19th-century politician."

ZUG: Comedy Articles: Electronic Road Signs and Me - "Recently a construction company left a pair of these signs in my neighborhood, blasting out their pointless messages. Being a creative tinkerer, I decided to do something about it... With only a few minutes of road sign hacking, I had programmed an homage to the 1951 sci-fi film The Day The Earth Stood Still, the phrase that was used to stop Gort, the robot in the film, from taking over the world."
Instead of rowing together with the authorities, he shook the book. The nerve. He should be jailed for public mischief.

USB Fiber-Optic Christmas Tree

China warns Zambia - "China will sever diplomatic ties with Zambia if opposition leader Michael Sata wins this month's general elections and recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign state, a senior diplomat has said."
Ho ho. Interfering in another country's internal affairs!

An extract from a reading someone sent me:



"I think Deconstruction appeals to the clerisy of graduate students, who like to feel themselves superior to the laity of common readers, liberated from their shared meanings; liberated, too, from the tedious requirement of meaning as such, the official obligation to suppose that words mean something finite rather than everything or nothing. Deconstruction allows them to think of themselves as forming a cell, the nearest thing the universities can offer in the form of an avant-garde. The wretched side of this is that Deconstruction encourages them to feel superior not only to undergraduates but to the authors they are reading (The New York Review of Books, 41)."

- Ending/Closure: On Derrida's Edging of Heidegger

Some pictures my brother in law took in Crete. First of a series of 6. Those seeking a context for these pictures can read the Crete travelogue in the May archives.

I bugged him to send them to me via YouSendIt, but of course he didn't, and I only got them when I returned back at the end of July. I should've copied them to my laptop in Crete.


Reunited in the cabin of the ferry to Crete. Magiranger is on my laptop screen in the background.


Drinking from a bottle of water at the lousy self-service restaurant on the boat


Arhanes


Dogs creating a racket in Arhanes


On a swing in the semi-abandoned village of Ethia


In a cafe in the semi-abandoned village of Ethia


At dinner in Heraklion


At dinner in Heraklion (next day)


Being led by my guide in Malia

Tallis Scholars - Christmas Carols and Motets - Angelus ad virginem


Angelus ad virginem
Sub intrans in conclave,
Virginis formidinem
Demulcens, inquit: 'Ave!
Ave regina virginum;
Caeli terraeque Dominum
Concipies
Et paries intacta
Salutem hominum;
Tu porta caeli facta,
Medela criminum.'

'Quomodo conciperem
Quae virum non cognovi?
Qualiter infringerem
Quod firma mente vovi?'
'Spiritus Sancti gratia
Perficiet haec omnia;
Ne timeas,
Sed gaudeas, secura
Quod castimonia
Manebit in te pura
Dei potentia.'

Ad haec virgo nobilis
Respondens inquit ei:
'Ancilla sum humilis
Omnipotentis Dei.
Tibi caelesti nuntio,
Tanti secreti conscio,
Consentiens,
Et cupiens videre
Factum quod audio;
Parata sum parere,
Dei consilio.'

Eia mater Domini,
Quae pacem redidisti
Angelis et homini,
Cum Christum genuisti:
Tuum exora filium
ut se nobis propitium
Exhibeat,
Et deleat peccata:
Praestans auxilium
Vita frui beata
Post hoc exsilium

Found in the Dublin Troper ca. 1360; mentioned by Chaucer in "the Miller's Tale," Canterbury Tales.

(Source)

An amusing outburst I came across last month:


Seven Bridges of Königsberg: Strangest sympathy usually comes from me

"I'm not sure about you, but I've came across the blog of this, supposed, man, who whines because he didn't like products from Malaysia, very much obviously felt the wrath of an exasperated girl (probably while drunk in self-centred egotist-misogynist glory. I can't blame the girls), and anyway still feels