A tale of Two Technical Support Desks

"I want to find a voracious, small-minded predator and name it after the IRS." - Robert Bakker, paleontologist

***

On Sunday I braved the hordes at Comex to recontract my Starhub Maxoline service. In return I got free [albeit slow] mobile broadband and a new modem

I have been using the Motorola SB3100 for what must be coming to 10 years, and it's been working reasonably with my Linksys WRT54G Router for the last 3. However, the new Motorola SBV5121 - while supporting a higher speed than the old modem - does not work with the router; directly connecting the modem to the computer works, so it is probably not a modem issue.

I tried a few things, then some friends' recommendations, and on Tuesday night ended up being put on hold by Starhub for 20 minutes before I put down in frustration (before getting to talk to a real person).

On Wednesday, I used Linksys Live Chat to get techical support for the router.

Though the technician could not solve my problem, and advised me to "try to contact your ISP and ask them if there are any settings on the router that we need to do for it to work with the router or if not ask them if there is a compatibility issue with the router". I was impressed by how fast I was attended to (I had to wait only for about a minute) and his professionalism. Unfortunately I accidentally closed the window before I could thank him, but thank you Miguel.

I am also pleased that Linksys continues to support this old product (and, by the looks of it even older ones). The only minor annoyance is that their website seems to lack a general enquiries/messages line (so I had to use Facebook).

Back to Starhub - on Wednesday they picked up after only 2 minutes, but I was told that the technicians were all busy and they would call me back later - the Service Level Agreement was 24 hours.

Naturally, they did not get back to me within 24 hours.

My experience via the @StarHubCares Twitter account was better - I DMed them my contact details yesterday and I got a call after about 22 hours (they said it was in response to my Twitter message; maybe my call to the hotline got lost). The technician was helpful (and called me on a Public Holiday!), but this doesn't change my bad experience before he got to talk to me.

If it's of any comfort, I'm told M1 and Singtel have equally bad customer service.

"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea." - Sir Francis Bacon

***

MDA on the "Not Recommended" rating: "This means that the content of a film has gone beyond the guidelines of a particular rating, and as such, is not recommended under that rating."

There was a bottle of Pomelo Green Tea. The ingredients read: "Pomelo extract, Green Tea, Sugar & Water". I'd been wondering why Pomelo was the main ingredient, then realised they'd cheated by putting the ingredients in increasing order of concentration, rather than decreasing order as is the normal practice.

I think more guys in Singapore have long hair (past ear length) than in Japan.

An interesting question to ponder is why the Japs are so resilient to proselytisation attempts.

There's a 'Feng Shui World' magazine. Uhh.

Apparently it's a CAAS regulation that you can't fly your kite >30m in the air. Uhh.

"Causeway Bay Cafe" along Liang Seah Street sucks. I can't decide which is worse - the food or the service.

We probably don't have many squares or plazas in Singapore so people can't demonstrate.

McDonald House has a "Automated Mechanised Car Parking System". It sounds funky, but it says it's for valet parking only, which kinda defeats the point (it's no fun if it's a black box).

"What was the turning point in your life?" - I thought this was an ad for the Prisons, but it was for Temasek Poly.

Brother-in-law on logging into Flickr in the UAE: "We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates."

41.8% of Indians don't want to live next to people of the same religion (2001). Well done. (World Values Survey - they were asked: "On this list are various groups of people. Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors?") Meanwhile 81.3% of Iraqis don't want to live next to a Frenchman (2004); the British were slightly more in disfavor, with 83.9%, but only 52.9% don't want to live next to Iranians!

I recently got a power adaptor you can plug USB devices into. I'm now looking for things to plug into it apart from my iPod.

"Never confuse movement with action." - Ernest Hemingway

***

I hate my Matsushita UJ-850S drive. It seems to be one of the few RPC-2 drives which BOTH has no cracked firmware available AND defeats every software tool people throw at it; even the makers of DVD Region+CSS Free, who boast that "it fully supports region-protected (RPC2) DVD drives, and does not require any firmware modifications. It will even work if you have used up your region counter and can no longer change the DVD drive's region", note that "DVD-RAM, Matshita XX-8xxx, SW-9xxx series DVD drives, and Torisan DRD-Uxxx series DVD drives are not supported now, and there is no plan to support them".

[Addendum: The AnyDVD people say:

"AnyDVD works with Matsushita (Panasonic) drives, as long as:

1.) The drive is set to a specific region code. If your drive isn't, set your preferred region.
2.) CSS protected discs match this region

AnyDVD does not allow you with Matsushita (Panasonic) drives to watch or copy a CSS protected disc, which has a different region then the drive, unless you have a patched firmware. (AnyDVD allows this with every other drive)

The reason is rather simple:

MMC standard requires, that a drive should not reveal a title key on a region mismatched CSS protected disc. (It should return "Illegal request - region code does not match"). Some drives are even less restrictive and even give you the title key on region mismatch.
But AnyDVD can usually reveal the title key with a brute force attack, as long as the drive allows you to read the scrambled sectors.
Matsushita (Panasonic) drives do not! You CANNOT read the scrambled data, if the region code doesn't match.
No other drive behaves this way, only Matsushita (Panasonic) drives do, as the standard does not require a drive to not reveal the protected data on region mismatch, but Matsushita (Panasonic) drives are more restrictive as they need to be.

There is nothing AnyDVD, DVDDecrypter, or any other software can do about this. Sorry.

Solution: Set the drive to a region, and only use matching discs. AnyDVD will remove CSS/Macrovision/Adverts/User prohibitions/forced subtitles/FBI warnings/... no problem.

It cannot bypass region codes with Matsushita (Panasonic) drives."]

Luckily, Media Player Classic works (somehow - from what I read it was hardware-locked), though according to the people on The Firmare Page forums using this or VLC tool doesn't always work.

[Addendum: I found a DVD both MPC and VLC won't open, shocking all the VLC afficionados. Hah.]

Not a few people have suggested that I just download movies instead. Which, of course, is what region coding (and similar silly measures to increase supernormal profits) does - makes people download and buy pirated DVDs instead of original ones.

Pffffft.


On a side note, getting DVDs off eBay is much cheaper than buying them here - even including shipping. The only place I've seen cheaper DVDs in Singapore is at Seah Im hawker centre (S$6 each), and then they're all crappy titles (whose names elude me at the moment).

Wah Seagate is damn fast.

I dropped off my Maxtor drive at the Funan service centre on Monday afternoon, and the "new" one just got delivered to me today.

This considering that Tuesday was Christmas.

Wow, Linksys technical support is good. My router was FUBAR-ing but the lady on the Linksys hotline walked me through a series of steps in a very structured and measured manner, resulting in the problem being solved:

Disable Windows Firewall
Turn off UPNP
Turn on MAC Address Clone
Turn on WEP 64 bits, Default transmit key 1
Turn off Wireless Mac Filter
Turn off Block Anonymous Internet Requests

She was very amused when, when asked if I had any other questions or comments, I asked what country she was based in.

She asked me to guess and I said most outsourcing is in India but she sounded Filipino. On reflection though, maybe it might not have been so smart to say "we have a lot of Filipino maids in Singapore" when she asked how I recognised her accent.

***

I'd create a "compliment" or "kudos" label, but I don't think it'd be used often. Hurr hurr.

I managed to sneak up on Screwed Up Girl in Borders and wanted to flick my hair in her face. Unfortunately, I forgot that my bag was still on my shoulders so I ended up hitting her in the ribs.

One of my theories about why women go to the toilet more than men is that they have smaller bladders, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Indeed, since they have smaller boddy masses, they have proportionally bigger bladders and so should go less often.

One reason for the haze is that selling wood without a permit is illegal (probably for environmental reasons), even though waste wood can be used for wood chips, plywood and biofuel. Thus, there's a lot of wood to get rid off. Paying someone to clear it mechanically costs $250 per hectare. Setting it on fire only costs $5 per hectare. The choice is clear.

I had to send my laptop in for servicing again since the screen wasn't always turning on and it was back in 5 days (3 1/2 working days). Turns out it was a motherboard problem. They also replaced the wrist guard for free. At least the service is still good.

It seems since May 25th there've been 6-7 rapes in Johor (my friend's been counting). The Straits Times reports the victims as being Chinese girls, while Malaysian sources just call them girls. Neither mentions the race of the assailants.

***

The IPS lifts are the only ones I know of which have buttons you can toggle - pressing a lit one untoggles it.

People at work think I look like or have the impression that I am a PS student. But then as someone commented, he'd rather people think he look like a Political Scientist than an Economist.

Singapore must be the only authoritarian country in the world to fund people to say bad things about it.

Of the limited meal options in my area, the absolute worst is this cafe in PGP called "K Gourmet". The K stands for "Krap", "Kannot Make It" and "Kenna Sai". I ordered calamari and despite a cost of $3.50 the portion was tiny. Meanwhile someone else had carbonara which had chicken ham, thus making it doubly haram. The latter pissed me off so much that I brought Carbonara (made with lots of real bacon) to work for 3 of us the next week.

The Japanese cafe at Capricorn makes their curry with pork. They said it was because many people don't eat beef, so they changed the meat used. Some ask them to change it to chicken, but they think pork tastes better. I totally agree.

***

I saw a group of people walking down from Sheares to Kent Ridge Hall and wearing T-shirts reading: "I am a good looking freshie". I wanted to know which organisation was so shameless to have T-shirts saying that, so as I passed them I turned around - only to see them looking at me. How embarrassing. Another day, I saw a group of people wearing shirts reading: 'The camp your momma warned you about'.

Yes, Orientation season has started (actually it did a while back but I hadn't gotten enough material then yet) earlier this year thanks to Slavery being shortened. Because of the Dragon Girls (the Dragon Guys are delayed for 2 years by Slavery), it seems the gender ratio at Orientation Camps this year varies from 1:3 to 1:5, in favour of the guys. Which means it's a really bad year to do internships or go overseas, though the happy hunting grounds should be open all season.

In other news, SDU can't be very happy this year, nor will they be in 2 years time, thanks to the skewed gender ratios.

A delayed response I got last week to my reply to a comment on a previous post:


Thanks for your reply Gabriel.

Whilst you speak from your personal experience, which is tainted with emotion.
I do honestly empathize, but a handful of friends break downs doesn't constitute a valid comparative analysis.

In the mass manufacture of any commoditized product, you'll always have some failures as this is part of human engineering endeavor and design evolution.
Sure, sometimes a glitch in one of the automated robotic assemblies needs recalibration. But alas a batch escaped QControls, because tests showed no fault and you now do.

What your short sightedness misses people whose station of office is 24/7 fixing other people problems, sees! Had your experience been one who's had to repair these notebooks or systems for a LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE.
My comments would have been different, and I would have sought to know more of it.

Your ignorant comments with regards to batteries be it motherboard or power are deemed consumables, in that of course they have a limited life span [ DOH!].
Name me a manufacturer who doesn’t have this as an issue?
Scientists and corporations spend millions trying to make them last longer, and the man who finds the perfect battery will be rich beyond his wildest dreams.

As for hard disks this also holds the same, it was always assumed that this will not last forever.
I mean a disk platen spinning at 7200 – 15,000 Rpm for 5-8 years is goner wear a bearing or two.
But I know of many hard disks lasting longer than this, but the people who owned them are not guys like you. Unlike the average public, they cool their drives, as this is one MAJOR factor affecting them [ its called friction ]. Only today are they starting to address this in design, but in the corporate sector and government they have been doing this for 20 years.

If your article had cast new and interesting light on this trend, coupled with the fact that you some how thought it negligent that for so long scientist and engineers failed us and colluded with manufacture to sell us dodgy goods, you might have come closer to a story.

I have more than 25 years experience in Engineering & Service business from Broadcast systems, Recording Studio's to I.T & Computers.
I see and have experienced a much LARGER SAMPLE than you purport.
END OF STORY!

I don't use a laptop, because I have very little use for them. This doesn't mean I don't have stock of them or access for that matter. There are other forms of personal information managers out there, or have you forgotten?

Most of the computers I personally run are from my humble XEON 3.6 Ghz Dual CPU Rack Mount [ 4Gb Ram, 1Terabyte HDD ], to my more grunty QUAD CORE XEON Racks which take 32 Gb of RAM and don't ask about my RAID [ these form the hub of my recording studio ].

From the above I think it should be obvious and deducible that Laptops don't hold enough sway for me. Laptop's are but only diagnostic tools for me, not for sitting in some Cafe sipping Latte trying to impress my importance on the unwary public via a hotspot.
They are but tools, everyone uses them to facilitate the work, the mode finds expression in your personal endevours.

Back to your Site:-

Alas, yours is of spectacle and sensationalism, for if it were not, you'd hardly draw anyone to your pages. There's the RUB, or as Marshall McLuhan said the "Medium is the Message", or in your case " Medium is the Massage".
Keep rubbing that in people’s faces, eventually some people will believe it truth.

The conveyance of truth or real perspective is lost in the pursuit of the reaction and gaining momentum, for its sake only. Should you have journalistic intentions you might be well served by seeing and reading his book. Though it was before your time, he saw the effect of the electronic media long before you knew it existed.

Please don't take it the wrong way, this is not personal. It’s just so tiresome that some in this day and age of blogs and information overload offer nothing of any personal empowerment through truth or knowledge. Just information bordering on the non-sensicle, and saying things for no other reason than the reaction it causes. [YAWN!].

I think you can do better than that Gabriel, in fact you deserve better than that.
If you should care about something so much, then why not try to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Offer the truth, research the facts, and then empower your readership, they will be transformed and hold you in high esteem as the conduit for that event.

If you take issue with the manufacturer over some design flaw, all the power to you brother. We've been doing this for years!
You should research your facts, and then post them.
But for goodness sakes get yourself a bigger sample to substantiate your claims.
If you did so, you would be providing the public a service, and I've got nothing but respect for those who do.

I have no personal affiliation with any manufacturer, but in the servicing business we are preferred by many of them as the preferred service provider.
But in saying this we represent their competition too, it’s completely democratic.
And my customers know we fight them tooth and nail to get them their rightful compensation should we find fault with any products or workmanship.
Yet we are still respected by them.
In my other business pursuits I care not for money, but the integrity of the content and how it affects the buying public. So should you!

In the beginning there was the WORD, and the word was made flesh.
How powerful do feel the word could be if it were filled with truth?
How much more powerful a transformative experience for all concerned if you were to seek it for yourself, so you could share with those that seek it?

Maybe you should apply this……….who knows,
success may follow you should you wish to take the lead.

Hope you have a wonderful time transforming your site, peace brother!
Regards,


Jahmeister


I'm not really sure what he was on about in the second half.

I thought of talking about my keyboard and Frigid Girl's being recommended a maximum usage time of 8 hours (Once is happenstance...), but figured there'd be no point.

"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." - Will Rogers

***

Someone said that while she was relief teaching, one student drew her classmates in superhero garb, and the Malay girls claimed their religion was insulted because their legs were showing (even though everyone was drawn the same way regardless of race, language or religion, and their legs were showing in their school uniform), scolding her and making her cry. An issue that didn't have to be racialised was racialised, and offence was sought where none was intended. This is what happens when you have only tolerance, and not acceptance/understanding. In contrast, another friend came from SJI, and the Chinese half of the school made fun of the Indian/Malay half, and vice versa, and no one took out parangs and started killing the others.

Someone was interning at a Ministry and he had hair shorter than mine is now. I'm told that a boss who wasn't even in charge of his division actually sent out emails complaining about his hair, as if that had anything to do with his work performance.

Gah, Lenovo sucks. My IBM keyboard got changed when I sent it in for servicing, and now the W and E keys keep popping out when I type. This didn't happen with my old keyboard; I got 5 popped keys in one day, as many times as keys had popped with the old keyboard in 2 years, 4 months of use.

A friend points out about Dante: "right now i'm wondering - is dante's work banned in sg? it might be taken as seditious that the prophet muhammed is condemned to hell...". I asked him to dig up all the seditious verses in The Divine Comedy for me so I could make a report to MHA requesting that we organise public burnings of this seditious book. We would then crucify an effigy of Dante because of his pathetic attempt to undermine our harmonious and racially-cohesive society through the committing of atrocities, Muslim-lynching and hatred-mongering!

Friend: "1 in 5 Girls would consider Plastic Surgery. 3 in 5 need it."

Someone on seeing both Gandalf's staff and Harry Potter's wand: "Gandalf's staff was more impressive than Harry's wand, but Harry is closer in age. (I can't believe I just said that.)"

Seen in the Shitty Times: "Papa's in jail. How to break the news to the kids". Ah, how sexist. This implies that only men go to prison, and perpetuates unhealthy stereotypes, contributing to the demonisation of men.


Seen in someone's status message: "girls in 1st year - rbr, girls in 2nd year - closed stack, girls in 3rd year - lowest floor. torn and tattered." He said he heard it from a girl, and 4th girls are like 3rd years.

Tim once lamented to me that there was very little Chemistry in Chemical Engineering. Similarly, there isn't that much Economics in Economics, and the more Economics I learn the less Economics I know (distinct from the less Economics I realise I don't know) (Pig 83 says she realised this in Year 2 and I'm slow).

I went into a lift and this near-bald guy inside said that he used to have long hair like me and had a little ponytail. I asked what happened and he said he grew old and started balding.

Someone had a survey about vanity in guys, and under hobbies someone wrote 'watching porn'. Someone else wrote 'surfing the internet', and on being queried clarified that it included watching porn.

There's a psychoanalysis module offered in NUS, but it's under Literature and not Psychology. How appropriate, in more ways than one!

Some PRC (presumably exchange - 'We are the students from PRC currently doing a survey') students were doing a study on academic stress in NUS students. Hurr hurr.

I compressed some pictures at 'Best' compression and the archive was bigger than at 'Normal' compression. Gah.

How to solve the piracy problem: make buggy games/software, and then the patches need a valid CD key to install.

Since Price is very much greater than Marginal Cost for information, there is great allocative inefficiency and welfare loss there. Hurr hurr.

How come lottery spam scams are always from Dutch lotteries? Gah.

A friend whose father runs restaurants in Malaysia commented their Jap food and tim sum suck.

The kopitiam where the Clementi Botak Jones is has no photography signs. Wth. The no photography bug has spread throughout the nation. This is ridiculous. MFTTW told me of when she was in an Esprit store and wanted to buy a jacket for her brother, who wasn't there. As such she needed to take a picture of it so he could decide whether he wanted it. She was told it was store policy that no photography was allowed, so Esprit lost a potential sale that day. I need to get a spy camera.

MFTTW went to watch the Malaysian Philharmonic, and agreed with my quip that they're good because "none of them are Malaysian". Besides most (many?) of them having Hungarian names, there's only one tudung-ed woman inside and she's from the Middle East.

I asked my brother in law what they do in fraternities. He said drink, smoke pot and have sex. I asked him what they do in sororities. He said drink, smoke pot and have sex. And bitch about each other.

Copthorne Waterfront's Piano Bar has a Bachelors' Night, in addition to Ladies' Night. Too bad there're no spinster/gentlemen nights.

A rising tide lifts all boats, but if the tide comes in too quickly, your sampans are going to sink. If you have monsoon storms, even moderately-sized craft will sink, leaving only large ships (owned by rich people or companies). And as a friend pointed out, you need to have a boat in the first place; I might add that if you don't have a boat and the tide rises, you're going to drown.

The bizarre PC logic confusing the range of a distribution with its standard deviation can easily be turned on its head and shot right back at them. For example, to rebut a claim that men are better in maths than women, they point to how some women are better in maths than men, therefore you can't say that men are better in maths. Alternatively, they claim that there cannot be a biological explanation for rape because 70 year old women get raped, or that you can't say that short men generally do worse than tall men because there are short men who have achieved greatness. Besides confusing the propositions 'All A bear relation B to all C' and 'Most A bear relation B to most C', this logic somehow does not apply when we look at racial discrimination. To wit, 'Condoleeza Rice is a black female Secretary of State. Therefore racial and sexual discrimination do not exist.'

There are playing cards with articles of Catholic Doctrine printed on them. Wth.

Someone managed to taste the wine in my pizza sauce even though I only put 3 ice cubes of wine inside. Wow.

How Girls Waste Time:
149 - Refusing to tell people when they're annoyed because they want to be nice and then blowing up without warning when they can't contain themselves any longer.
150. Having too many bags and thus having to spend time making sure each has a wallet, tissue paper, sanitary pads/tampons, comb/hair brush etc.
150. a) Walking out of the house with a bag which lacks one or more of the above, resulting in disastrous consequences (eg Running around bleeding).

Mahjong is an example of successful inter-generational cultural transmission across language barriers. The older generation must be very happy.

Frigid Girl's Lenovo laptop came back from the repairman. Apparently it overheated and the motherboard blew. The man said not to leave it on for more than 8 hours. If you needed another reason not to buy Lenovo, that is it.

Surprisingly vehement comments I got in my Lenovo post:


Steve Jahmeister: Your comments about Lenovo's are just as your site is labeled "Balderdash".

I've been in the I.T servicing game more than 20 years, and we repair everything, all brands. To date I.B.M & Lenovo's globally have the lowest RMA and break downs under warranty. The uptime or run time before we see these for service on average is very very very long, unlike your crappy Dell computers.

Look even the letter D in Dell is defective, it’s fallen over!

However, I should be very thankful to Dell and their customers, because they make us LOTS OF MONEY! If you think I'm harping on, I suggest you do some Googling. Because these industry statistics are independent, and are reviewed by independent bodies for the industry and financial markets.

If your friend had a bad unit, this does happen from time to time. But more than often happens as a result of shipping, not poor components like Dells.
Dells break down like clock work and always have the same faults, because of cheap substitute components.

I think this is a cheap propaganda stunt to vilify a brand, because it’s changed financial hands on paper.
Its still pretty much the same company, and if you bothered to do your home work before you opened your mouth, you'd realize that the creative design innovator that brought the very first notebooks on to the market and coined the term THINKPAD, is still more 20 years latter the head of that same dept based in JAPAN [Manufacturing in China].

All key personnel have not changed, but financial arrangements have.
But telling the truth is never as controversial as dishing up bullshit, because your Asian knob friend was too cheap and probably brought his from a disreputable dealer in some back street hole.

Moral of the story, you get what you pay for!

Time will prove that nothing has changed; they will still make a very durable product that has QA Standards well above the industry norm, only paralleled by the German design innovators.

If they do bring out colored notebooks, which I know they intend to, it’s because customers whine about wanting to have funky designs, and that’s market share.

Unfortunately, they listen to whiners like you saying OH YOU'VE CHANGED.
Truth is no matter what they do, there will always be detractors.
So they'll continue to make a better product, and ignore the uneducated masses.
Then wait for your Dell to die, whilst your Lenovo will still be working 8 years latter.

Till then, I'll quote Forrest Forrest Gump………. “That’s all I got to say about that"

For the record I don't own an IBM or Lenovo. SG


Perhaps the personal accounts you hear of Lenovos breaking down are part of a worldwide plot to discredit Chinese brands. And I've no idea why he thinks I use a Dell (I use an IBM T42).

Frigid Girl's 8 month old T60 is mysteriously turning on and off spontaneously, as if it's possessed. Then again, I recently had to send in my unit for servicing because there was a fan error (the CD drive also couldn't burn CDs, on the upside I got it back in 4 days, but maybe that's because servicing in Singapore's still done by IBM). Around the same time, my friend's T42 also had the fan break down (apparently our batch of T42s was really messed up - other units had other problems). So maybe the decline preceded the takeover. (OTOH: I am told: "There used to be a rumour going around that the subsidised fujitsu laptops supplied to tetiary institutions were made from 2nd hand parts.")

As they say, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." And this isn't even counting at least two people who also have reports of friend's Lenovos breaking down. Just because Dells suck more does not mean Lenovos don't suck, especially compared to IBMs. At least they cost much less.

One is also curious as to why you don't own any of the products you so glorify.

And 8 years? Give me a break. (Hard disks probably die after 5, and the motherboard's backup battery will be gone in about the same time)

[Addendum: On chrisloup's suggestion, I found this:

Technology Company Report Card | Greenpeace USA

"Lenovo - The lowest score of all companies. (1.3/10)"

Lenovo report

[Addendum: Frigid Girl's 6 month old Lenovo laptop now refuses to turn on. Yay.]

Creative Xmod Review
(Review unit kindly provided by Creative)



Pros: Simple plug-and-play sound solution which enhances sound quality.
Cons: Expensive, cumbersome, not portable. Tweaking settings is a bit awkward.
Price: S$139 retail

The Creative Xmod is a hardware device that will take any sound input and enhance it. Besides functioning as an external sound card (supposedly better than the onboard sound motherboards give you if you've no separate sound card, but it doesn't make a difference to me), it has the X-Fi Crystalizer which restores what was lost in the music's being compressed (viz., MP3s don't sound as good as CDs) and the X-Fi CMSS-3D which adds a surround sound effect to the music. In plain English, the Xmod makes your music sound better.

X-Fi technology is marketed as being revolutionary ("a quantum leap in the way we listen to aduio"), but really this technology has been on the market for years; I've been using DFX, a DSP plugin for Winamp, for 6 years and it makes my music sound better, with fewer odd effects introduced. The marketing is even more ridiculous when it claims that it delivers "An Experience Beyond Studio Quality". Unless it's psychic and can read the artist's thoughts, letting it deliver to you what the artist truly intended for you to hear, this is not possible. It's like restoring the Last Supper and making it even better than when it was hot off Da Vinci's brush.

The Xmod plugs into your computer's USB port and diverts audio data from the sound card to itself. You then plug in your speakers or earphones to it and enjoy the enhanced sound. Unfortunately, this means that the Xmod is effectively useless for listening to music on the go, since it requires a power supply. I was hoping it'd have an onboard battery, but the best alternative is an AC adaptor (which comes separately at S$69), so. Since most of my music listening nowadays is done via my iPod, this isn't very good.

Although the Xmod can be used out of the box without adjusting any settings, besides using its big knob to change the volume, users can adjust the level of sound enhancement by pressing the top cover and turning the knob. The Ah Beng-esque flashing of the blue LEDs indicate how much sound enhancement is being applied - a short period (rapid flashing) means it's revved up to the max while a long period (slow flashing) indicates that your music is being treated gently. Unfortunately, the G Spot of the Xmod (the place to press to turn on its configuration mode) is quite hard to find, and I always have to go by trial and error. Often, pressing a spot which worked previously brings no results, so I have to slowly feel my way around the top cover of the device, methodically prodding sections until I hit its G Spot.

Unfortunately, the Xmod's documentation is not very good, since it mainly goes on about the Xmod making music sound better without describing how this is the case. The documentation says that the Xmod is not suitable for gaming, and that they recommend their Sound Blaster card. I haven't tested it with games so I can't say, but generally in games what you want is the acoustics and their interaction with the sound effects.

For some reason, when I listen to the Xmod using my laptop and earphones, when there's no sound coming out of the machine, I will, from time to time, hear metallic pops. I still get the pops after muting the sound on my laptop, but turning off either or both of the X-fi Crystalizer and X-fi CMSS-3D solves the problem. At first I thought it was a problem with my unit, but Ray said he gets this problem with his PC too (but not his Mac), so it must be some weird PC-specific conflict.



To test the Xmod, I tried it out on several types of music, and my impressions are listed below. I'm not an audiophile, but in some ways this is good, since my guess is that most people aren't audiophiles either so my impression will be closer to what readers might have. iPod In-Ear Headphones were used, together with my IBM T42 laptop and Winamp.

Piece: Schubert - Impromptu D.899 No. 2 In E-Flat - Allegro (Brendel)
Quality: 192kbps MP3
Genre: Solo piano
Impression: The notes were more vibrant and the underlying chords were brought out and made more distinct, where previously they'd been slightly muffled.

Piece: Bach - Wachet Auf, Ruft Uns Die Stimme - 4 - Chorale Verse II - Zion Hort Die Wachter Singen (Karl Richter)
Quality: 192kbps MP3
Genre: Choral; Cantata Chorale
Impression: The organ was richer and more sonorous and the violins were richer. The tenor solo sounded a bit hollow though, due to the 3D tinkering.

Piece: The Mighty RAW - Go Fly Win
Quality: 192kbps MP3
Genre: Rock
Impression: The drums were more richer and deeper and the electric guitar, err, I think the word is sharper. The original audio was a bit muted but this brought out the electric guitar. Again, there was a bit of the hollow problem, but turning off CMSS-3D solved the problem. I tried reducing the CMSS-3D effect but even at a low level the hollow-ness was a bit artificial sounding.

Piece: Bob Rivers Comedy Corp - Walkin 'Round In Women's Underwear
Quality: 192kbps MP3
Genre: Easy Listening (Synthesiser, Voice)
Impression: One of the things I dislike about Bob Rivers songs is that the synthesiser sounds like shit. The Xmod cannot make it sound like an orchestra, but I was surprised by what it could do: the lousy bass was made more prominent (I hadn't really noticed it previously) and the piano almost sounded real.

Piece: Schubert - Piano Quintet 'The Trout' -III-Scherzo.Presto [Richter&Borodin Quartet]
Quality: 128kbps MP3
Genre: Chamber
Impression: The violins sounded much brighter, and previously unnoticed flourishes and chords came to the forefront.

Piece: Chanticleer - Il Est Ne Le Divin Enfant
Quality: 192kbps MP3
Genre: A Cappella
Impression: Nothing. Maybe the voices were a bit brighter, but then the human voice isn't much affected by these technologies.

Overall verdict: The sound quality was generally enhanced at the top and bottom ends of the spectrum and previously unclear lines were brought out, especially the bass ones. Unfortunately, background hiss (? - it's like the background buzz you hear when you turn up speakers to maximum volume even if nothing is coming out of them) was also increased.

The effect of listening on earphones was changed - the location of the sound moved from either side of my head to inside. This is supposed to minimise headphone fatigue but I don't get that problem. Hollow sound from CMSS-3D was a problem though, but surround sound doesn't suit all genres of music or all musical tastes.

Some songs sounded a bit too vivid and thus over-engineered, but that shouldn't bother most people, seeing how engineered most popular pieces are.

Conclusion: The ironic thing about this type of sound enhancement (regenerating lost frequencies) is that casual users won't appreciate them beyond a general sense of "Wow it sounds better". However, audiophiles frown upon the artefacts (unwanted noises) they inevitably generate together with the good ones. So I would think that this sort of product would appeal to those who enjoy music, but not so much that they spend their time surfing the Hydrogenudio forums.

If you're looking for a simple plug-and-play solution to make your music sound better, the Xmod could be the thing for you. Unfortunately its price is quite steep. Personally I'm sticking to DFX, since it's cheaper, software-based (less cumbersome) and introduces fewer artefacts.


See also: Ray's review

"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

***

eBay View About Me for lenovosg

"You are bidding for a Ronaldinho signed Lenovo V100, in aid of The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund"

Lenovo is going the way of Creative.

Besides a signed laptop ("honestly why would anyone want a laptop signed by ronaldinho"), they're also expanding their product range and flooding the market with models.

Sounds familiar?

MFTTW: wait till they start offering colors

I've also heard complaints about the quality recently (which also sounds familiar).

Someone: all my friends new lenovos break down

I suppose it's alright if they reposition themselves as a Chinese brand, but it's such a pity (and last I checked, the prices were still high). The Thinkpads were such great products.


Someone: do they have a 100million marketing budget to be washed down the drain?

Me: Probably more.

Enzer sucks.

Back when I was a slave, our bunk pooled some money to buy a portable VCD player (reminiscent of a Discman) to help the nights of our indenture pass more quickly. Presumably deciding on the basis of price, the people detailed to purchase an Enzer VCD player from Soong Brothers in Jurong Point.

All was well and good until we had problems playing VCDs - very often they skipped during playback. The solution was to turn the VCD player upside down, so the top of the VCD was facing the floor, and the VCDs then played acceptably.

A few days ago, my parents bought an Enzer cordless phone set (1 base station, 1 charger and 2 handsets) for $100 (it was on sale: usual price $150) to replace the 2-3 year old Philips DECT cordless phones we had (the buttons on one were almost impossible to press, and the second had stopped being able to recharge the batteries a while back). I did not go along, and so was unable to advise them about how shitty Enzer products were.

Today my father, while using the Enzer phone, walked from the hallway to his room, and the connection cut off. I managed to replicate this result even without making a call. Now, I've used many brands of cordless phones, but this is the first time one cannot even be used throughout the house.

As they say: Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, but three times is enemy action.

I sure as hell am not going to try Enzer a third time.

(Incidently, Enzer is a Singaporean brand)


Someone: my fren's family who bought Enzer phones to replace the failing philips ones also experienced shit over the new phones


Me: creative mp3 players suck right

Someone else: YES

Everyone's complaining
the headset thingie
the connecting pt between the player and your headset
wont work

"Son" gods, like Dionysos in Greece and Osiris in Egypt, also made their appearance in the age of agriculture. Like storm gods, they were dynamic, but not quite in the same way. Their role was rather to suffer and die. The so-called mystery religions, which were enormously popular in the ancient Mediterranean world, centred especially on these deities, which in name were vegetation gods but figured more prominently as dramatic, divine saviors. In these gods especially, Eliade discerns an important psychological aspect of religious symbols. They not only tell us about the world and the sacred but also show "the continuity between the structures of human existence and cosmic structures." Their myths do not just reflect the cycles of life and death in nature; they reenact as well the great personal struggle that takes place in the life of each human individual: the drama of birth, life and death as well as the hope of rebirth or redemption. No symbol, says Eliade, manages to bring divine life so near to human as the figure of the savior-god, the divinity who "even shared mankind's sufferings, died and rose from the dead to redeem them." Precisely because of his marked "humanity," this type of god plays a crucual role in the history of religion."

- Daniel L Pals, Seven Theories of Religion; The Reality of the Sacred, Mircea Eliade

***

I finally got down to sending my Powershot A70 in for repair. It turns out that it's a known problem, so they replaced my CCD for me for free. It was ready in 2 days, and they even offered to mail it to me, so I have no complaints, except that they didn't mail owners of the camera to let them know about the free repair policy.

I noticed that at the Canon service centre, they used Epson printers. I asked why and was told Canon didn't manufacture that sort of printers (the sort from the old days where the paper is advanced by means of a conveyor belt pulling it along using the holes in the side of it).

***

I was forced to use an iBook G4 for a period of time, and the touchpad was ridiculously hard to use. Pushing my finger down hard didn't work. Neither did pressing the touchpad lightly. The owner of the iBook suggested I use my middle finger - he said it was easier. How appropriate.

Oh, and the lack of a delete key was annoying (technically, there's a delete key, but it's a backspace in disguise so deleting text is a pain).


Meanwhile, a friend's Macintosh laptop dropped from the level of the cushion on a chair to the floor, and not only did it spoil, the hinge connecting the screen to the rest of the laptop came out. Such shoddy manufacturing, tsk tsk.

[Addendum:

My Little Bird: "i heard an interesting anecdote from a project mate at an IT show - a mac whore/salesman was saying how durable the ibook was and smashed the ibook he was holding to the floor - the ibook refused to boot up (although it remained in one piece) - the project mate walked off as he was still (frantically) trying to reboot it.

oh please add that this intelligence feed is from a mac user.
in contrast to a mac whore"]

Seen outside St Andrew's Cathedral:


"Jesus said: Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. Mark 6:31"


Sign below:


"DANGER - KEEP OUT"


I was tipped off about this by someone who wishes to remain anonymous (who told me it said "come inside n get some rest"). I'd actually brought my camera but it decided to stop working totally, as opposed to just being wonky.

Should I get it repaired (it's past warranty) or get a new one before I go to Utrecht? Hmm. I already have 2 CF cards and don't want to migrate to a different family of solid-state memory cards. Blah.

Someone: you should put up a personal ad on your site and see what kind of girls reply
just for the heck of it. i'd be interested in e results. hahah


Boo hoo, I'm a sociologist's experiment. Don't they typically pay lab rats to humiliate themselves in these things?


Xephyris the audiophile: haha, figures the mac guys don't know why 32 bit or 16 bit decoding is faster than 24 bit

Me: why?

Xephyris: your cpu bus is 32 bits wide

if you decode at 24 bits and send 24 bits of data to the soundcard, you'll end up sending 24 bits + 8 extra bits of the next "chunk" to the soundcard, which waits in the buffer until the next clock cycle - in 2 cycles, you have to wait 1 extra cycle to complete a full chunk

comparatively if you send at 32 bits, or 2 chunks of 16 bit each, you don't wait at all

Me: ah
mac experts?

Xephyris: yeah mac experts, they don't know what their soundcard is called and what resolution it supports either
not like it matters, because iTunes doesn't let you tweak anything anyway

Me: are you sure you were talking about mac experts?
or just normal mac users haha

Xephyris: aren't all mac users mac 'experts'? w

Me: uhh
experts at denouncing Wintel. Oops, but Mac is going to use Intel chips now.
experts at denouncing Windows then

Even after sending in my laptop for repair and the service staff formatting it and supposedly replacing the wireless hardware, I suffered the same old wireless reception problems in Chatterbox.

But then Abdullah advised me to install the IBM version of the Intel drivers since they were supposedly stabler and better than the ones from Intel themselves; he'd been suffering similar problems but they were solved once he installed the IBM drivers.

And so I took a step back and downgraded my Intel 2200BG PRO/Wireless Driver drivers from 9.0.2.31 to 8.0.12.20000, and my wireless reception problems are almost totally solved! I hereby officially declare that Abdullah is a genius.

(Being gey kiang and trying to upgrade my IBM-branded Intel drivers from 8.0.12.20000 to 9.0.2.31 today to get rid of the last few problems I had, I screwed my system up and had to spend 2 hours fixing it because I installed the 2100 drivers instead of the 2200BG ones, but that is another story.)

***

Short Guys Finish Last

"Is there, then, no good news for short men? No: there is none. And if, having read this far, you do not believe that height discrimination is serious, you are no doubt a tall person in the late stages of denial. Or, perhaps, you cringe at the thought of yet another victim group lining up to demand redress. Surely the notion of SHRIMPs (Severely Height-Restricted Individuals of the Male Persuasion) as an oppressed social group is silly, and the idea of special protections or compensatory benefits for short men preposterous? Actually, no--unless all such group benefits are equally dubious."

***

Public Speaking Project Petition

"To: Ms Kuang Ser Yee

Dear Ms. Kuang
Due to time constraints, and the fact that there are many projects are due on the same time, and with the upcoming Common Tests, we are sad to say that all the groups in our class are not able to finish on our Public Speaking component for our CA. As such we hope that you can give us an extension or push this to CA2."


Someone:

i think this is really retarded
sec 2 students.. but they're gep
gep students should know better right
can imagine the express students laughing their pants off

"The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible." - Jean Kerr

***

I clicked "recover post" accidentally (and unknowingly) and lost quite a bit of text. GAH.

It seems I've won 2 lotteries in 1 day. My junk mail is so heartening.

My desktop has finally passed from its erstwhile state of undeath to earn true, well-deserved and peaceful rest. RIP.

***

Posted on the Evolution IVLE forum:

A: just an alternative view point - http://www.tmch.net/createevolve.htm

Response (no prizes for guessing who): Well, there are alternative view points that the Holocaust never happened either.


The reason that most scientists (except our favourite Mr Dawkins) are so skittish about religion and the religion-science conflict is that they're trying to be nice and turning the other cheek, so to speak.

Scientists and philosophers can and indeed do likewise engage in what the person who wrote that page is doing, but in the other direction. Perhaps you could also investigate those alternative view points.


Yet another alternative view point

"RESOLVING THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN EVOLUTION AND CREATION SCIENCE"
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_resol.htm

The universe might really have no real history at all: "You can equally argue that this god created the universe 2 seconds ago, and you did not write the essay, this god did and placed in your mind two seconds ago a memory so that you think you did. He is so good deception and hiding of his creation that he even put a copy of the file on your hard drive when he created that too!!" Assuming the existence of a God with infinite powers, there is no logical argument that can refute this scenario.

***

"Reductionism and extremism both try to keep things simple. Reductionism attempts to reduce the complex to the simple, both in matters of type, kind or form, and causality. Where there are many types or forms, differing in both minor and major degrees, reductionism -- unable or unwilling to make distinctions -- claims there is only one type or form. Where there are many different causes combining to produce an effect, reductionism insists there is only one cause. Extremism, the other product of simplistic thinking, defines an issue only in terms of its two extreme positions, denying the possible existence of alternative positions between the two extremes. For the extremist there is no middle ground, only one extreme or the other. Non-support for one extreme position is equated with support of the opposite extreme position. The problem with simplistic thinking, whether reductionism or extremism, is that in a world of almost infinite complexity and variety it rarely provides an accurate or truthful portrayal of reality." (Right and Wrong Racism by a 'Richard McCulloch')

I couldn't agree more with this part of the article.

Also interesting is a list of human subspecies, races and subraces. Though I don't see why he is so obsessed with preventing races from mixing genetically and disappearing. Hopefully he will soon respond to my email.

***

On defamation lawsuits:

"firstly, i find the concept of defamation lawsuits very uninteresting. what kind of a person must be so insecure as to think that his reputation must be sullied by such comments and therefore must be preserved through means of a lawsuit and lots of moneey. secondly, i find the laws regarding internet and free speech very ill-defined and open to contest. in this case obviously the internet should be de-regulated and left to anything and anyone. since, well, there are a billion reasons, not least the fact that people aren't brainless sods and most can pretty much follow clear logic and decide what's true and false or good and bad for themselves. i assure you that if this weren't the case, then
advertisements would be 100% effective and should be banned from any form of media. we should then move to shutting down coffeeshops and making gossip absolutely illegal." (Young Republic mailing list)

"Americans are now regaled with uncorroborated tales that George W. Bush, Jr., was a recreational cocaine user in his misspent youth. Ironically what will more greatly lower his W's standing with the US voter is for W to file defamation lawsuits. This sort of conduct will invite accusations that the plaintiff-politician is too thin-skinned and too hypersensitive. Lawsuits are energy sapping and time-consuming, voters prefer the politician to devote that energy and time to solving real problems." (Pity the Amusement - the politics of defamation for the Singapore voter)


Unfortunately, I am unable to find online a list of the footnotes for Michael D. Barr's Lee Kuan Yew: Race, Culture and Genes, although the original is mirrored in many places online. The Premier Institution of Social Engineering has access through ProQuest, but it's down at the moment; I wager that the footnotes would be a very interesting corroborative read. I shall have to make a mental note to try to access the Journal of Contemporary Asia again when NUS IT Care gets back to me. [Addendum: I've taken a look at the footnotes, and indeed they are interesting!]

Interestingly, a link to the aforementioned article is located on NTU's National Education page, which also has a link to:

Lee Kuan Yew's WWW Page - A Rajeev G.Mavinkurve Presentation

"This is a tribute to a Great Leader, the Father of Modern Singapore, first prime minister of Singapore, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew on his 77th Birthday - September 16, 1999. Kuan Yew, means the light that shines far and wide. True to the meaning of his name, he has been admired all over and has been honored the architect of the century. I admire him for his Vision, Determination and his attitude of do my best under any circumstance."

***

I got into a flame war about Burma, Singapore, democracy and genocide et al on LiveJournal the night before my last exam. In all there were 116 comments exchanged between me and the two people I was arguing with. Whee. Some of the comments make for fascinating reads:


eterna2: I am saying. If country A is committing genocide. Then country B which is a democracy, shldn't interfere with A's internal affair! They can only sanction, etc etc. Becuz each country has their own rights.

If u are imposing what u thing shld be the right values on another totally different culture. That isn't democracy.

Me: You seem to have conflated cultural relativism and democracy.

And democracy is about carrying out the rule of the people, while protecting the rights of minorities. Genocide is anti-thetical to democracy.

eterna2: By nature of democracy, u need to have the consensus of the pple to act. So for genocide in another country. U either need to consensus of ur own pple to directly intervene. OR the consensus of the pple in THAT country. BUT as u are the government of ur country, U are not and cannot be the representive of THAT country. So U cannot interfere with THEIR affairs, becuz U do not represent them.

Me: "We are being slaughtered, but please do not take that as a sign that we want you to come and stop us from being killed. We don't mind being killed, really."

eterna2: The citizen may want pple to come and help them, but law specifically state that u cannot interfere, unless u declare the regime unlawful!

how many times do i have to say that? If u take the regime as a lawful government of the country. U have no rights to interfere at all!

regardless of what they do in their own country. Ur laws and idealogy only extend as far as ur own borders.

Me: That's *if* you take the regime as a lawful government of the country. Which you have not said before.

And the right of people not to be slaughtered surely trumps that of governments to hold sovereign power.

eterna2: But as long as u still recognise them as lawful, even if they genocide, u can do nothing, until u declare them unlawful. So if we are still recognising the Junta as the lawful government. Then we have no rights to critise or sanction them.

***

The Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer

"Welcome to the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer. You can use the Perception Laboratory's Face Transformer to change the age, race or sex of a facial image, to transform it to the style of a famous artist, to make an exagerated caricature or even make an ape of yourself!"

The server was broken and didn't let me save the results, but I took some screencaps:


Wo-hen, Manga-style


Feminised Wo-hen - but it looks the same to me leh


Drunk Wo-hen

***

Norway woman convicted for rape - "A Norwegian court has sentenced a woman to nine months in jail for raping a man, the first such conviction in the Scandinavian country that prides itself for its egalitarianism."

TechnicalVirgin.com - offering alternatives to today's teens - "Of course, the safest way for teens to avoid unwanted pregnancy while satisfying their carnal needs is to limit themselves to homoerotic encounters until they are ready for procreation. But many boys and girls are uncomfortable with the idea of same-sex encounters. Anal sex, however, can be fun for both sexes, and thanks to modern improvements in strap-on sex tools, girls can enjoy being in control of their own anal encounters. So, teens, the next time you strip down for sex, remember the TechnicalVirgin motto — "Everything Butt!""
A good blow against abstinence-only sex education. I love the TV commercials...

What are the odds of dying? - Nice to know that you're twice as likely to die by drowning in a swimming pool than a bathtub.
Ed: As the link is now broken I have replaced it with an Internet Archive copy

Overweight people may live longer - "The researchers found that the people who had BMIs higher than 25 but lower than 30, which meant they were moderately overweight but not obese, did not have a reduced life expectancy. The people who lived the longest of all were those with BMIs of 25, which lies between the ideal and overweight margins. In comparison, there were 112,000 extra deaths among the obese category and nearly 34,000 extra deaths among the underweight category."
So in 30-40 years' time the life expectancy for females in Singapore and Hong Kong may suddenly drop below that for males, since we've so many anorexic ones around.

Some Like It Hot - "Forty public policy groups have this in common: They seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to overheat. And they all get money from ExxonMobil."

Decrying the West's sins of secularism / Theologian argues a return to Christian roots will cure U.S. and European ills - "But this is an old argument and a staple of conservative Christian critics of modernity. Take T.S. Eliot for example. Writing in 1939 shortly before World War II, when European democracy faced a much graver threat, Eliot famously argued in "The Idea of a Christian Society" that Great Britain would only survive if it rediscovered its Christian roots. Without this rediscovery, the country would lack the moral fortitude to withstand either Stalinism or Nazism. As he pointedly concluded, "If you will not have God ... you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin." Eliot was wrong, of course, in no small part because he did not understand that people valued and were willing to fight for the principles of democracy independently of their religious faith. A lack of piety does not imply a lack of patriotism. Weigel makes a similar mistake. He overstates the Christian influence on modern democracy and refuses to acknowledge the way in which core democratic principles such as toleration and consent had to be articulated in opposition to Christian doctrine. As a result, he fails to recognize the independent moral content of democracy and secularism. Democrats and secularists support values such as state neutrality, toleration and the freedom to have or not have children not because they are unprincipled atheists but because they are convinced moralists who believe that such principles are proper and good."

Cardinal Ratzinger on... - "Homosexuality: “Intrinsic moral evil”, The ban on women priests: “Necessary in order to protect true doctrine, to safeguard the communion and unity of the Church and to guide consciences of the faithful”, Mass in languages other than Latin: “A tragic breach”, Turkey joining the EU: “An enormous mistake”"

When I expressed disappointment at the new Pope's hardline stance, someone claimed to me that "at any rate, the dogmatic and moral teachings of the Church do not and cannot change. I challenge you to find me one example where she has done so". However, the most clear example of a change in doctrine is on whether non-believers and non-Catholics can be saved. A Papal Encyclicals Cheat Sheet is available, and one can see how doctrine and teachings have changed greatly over the years. One might also talk of the reforms of Vatican II. Of course, all manner of sophistic arguments more reminiscent of their Protestant Fundamentalist brothers from across the Atlantic are used to show how this change in doctrine isn't really a change. Hurr hurr. Intellectual suicide is not exclusively practised by fundies.

Can you find a job with your Arts (Sociology) degree? - "The student was proud of his job but he was somewhat miffed that a philosophy major from another university was offered a position in the same office. The engineering student said that, if he had known that he could have been given the same job with an Arts degree, he would have studied something fluffier. But he misunderstood Arts degrees. If you can understand the relevance of Edmund Husserl's thinking (or the implications of social theory or any of a long list of seemingly abstract topics), then you can probably figure out what's interesting about fluid flowing through a pipe (and almost everything else engineers know). The moral of the story is that if you want to do well in the job market, how well you learn may be more important that what you learn. Even in these tough times, there is still a place for those who are able to distinguish themselves by their creativity, intelligence, and academic discipline. Unfortunately, some Arts students make the same mistake that the chemical engineering student made. They think that Arts subjects are easy. They usually get their degrees but they usually pay the consequences later."

***

Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore & The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore

cordially invite you to a panel discussion on

Palestinians and Israelis Talk to Each Other: Dialogue on Conflict and Peace

by Said Zeedani, Professor of Philosophy, Al-Quds University, East Jerusalem
Basem L. Ra’ad, Professor of English and World Civilization, Al-Quds University, East Jerusalem
Dan Avnon, Professor of Political Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Eyal Ben-Ari, Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

I would've wanted to go for this, but had no school on Friday. Besides which, I woke up at 3, so.