There are only 2 reasons to go to Ma-laysia - to eat and to make fun of Malaysians. The latter can be done from Singapore, and for the first, why go to Malaysia when you can wait for Malaysia to come to you? Most school holidays, Penang Hawkers come down to York Hotel, and you can enjoy their food in hygienic and comfortable conditions, all for S$25.40 (nett price).
Of course, I understand that for many, this detracts from the joy of the whole experience, which is why they prefer to eat Malaysian hawker food in the first place (thus proving my theory of relativity right - when there's the Malaysian smell and you're squatting by the roadside, the food will taste better thanks to your discomfort):
Someone: hmm..sounds ok then
but then..major thing missing
no atmosphere
haha
true
i never denied that [the theory of relativity holds true]
hmm...if u get singaporeans to cook there..i dunno
they are too clean..
[On why dirty food/conditions = nice food] it's the complete package leh..
my 1 wk trip to malaysa shows
eating mee alongside a bz road..
then can smell chicken shit
but the noodles is still damn good
eat chendol next to a smelly drain
Andrew asked me to bring along the issue of FHM featuring Dawn Yeo and he was reading it while we were eating, so people probably thought he was sick for choosing this sort of reading material to read while dining.
One of my (many) pet peeves is of so-called food blogs or reviews which have lots of pictures but next to no description of the food, except 1001 ways of saying that the food was very "nice" (while giving no clue as to in which way the food was so "nice"). I would strive to set a good counter-example, but not eating beef and chili, it would be untenable for me to do so (besides which, I'd like to think I fill other niches).
[Addendum: Someone's nickname: "What I want to see at Penang Hawkers' Food Fair - 'Live' orh luah cooking, the return of duck porridge"
What I don't want to see: Roti Jala]
L'origine de Bert
Monday, December 19, 2005
The Skeptic's Dictionary on Cognitive Dissonance (how people reconcile contradictory thoughts):
"Cognitive dissonance has been called "the mind controller's best friend"... Marian Keech was the leader of a UFO cult in the 1950s. She claimed to get messages from extraterrestrials, known as The Guardians, through automatic writing. Like the Heaven's Gate folks forty years later, Keech and her followers, known as The Seekers or The Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, were waiting to be picked up by flying saucers. In Keech's prophecy, her group of eleven was to be saved just before the earth was to be destroyed by a massive flood on December 21, 1954. When it became evident that there would be no flood and the Guardians weren't stopping by to pick them up, Keech
More important, the Seekers didn't abandon her. Most became more devoted after the failed prophecy. (Only two left the cult when the world didn't end.) "Most disciples not only stayed but, having made that decision, were now even more convinced than before that Keech had been right all along....Being wrong turned them into true believers (ibid.)." Some people will go to bizarre lengths to avoid inconsistency between their cherished beliefs and the facts. But why do people interpret the same evidence in contrary ways?
The Seekers would not have waited for the flying saucer if they thought it might not come. So, when it didn't come, one would think that a competent thinker would have seen this as falsifying Keech's claim that it would come. However, the incompetent thinkers were rendered incompetent by their devotion to Keech. Their belief that a flying saucer would pick them up was based on faith, not evidence. Likewise, their belief that the failure of the prophesy shouldn't count against their belief was another act of faith. With this kind of irrational thinking, it may seem pointless to produce evidence to try to persuade people of the error of their ways."
"Cognitive dissonance has been called "the mind controller's best friend"... Marian Keech was the leader of a UFO cult in the 1950s. She claimed to get messages from extraterrestrials, known as The Guardians, through automatic writing. Like the Heaven's Gate folks forty years later, Keech and her followers, known as The Seekers or The Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, were waiting to be picked up by flying saucers. In Keech's prophecy, her group of eleven was to be saved just before the earth was to be destroyed by a massive flood on December 21, 1954. When it became evident that there would be no flood and the Guardians weren't stopping by to pick them up, Keech
became elated. She said she'd just received a telepathic message from the Guardians saying that her group of believers had spread so much light with their unflagging faith that God had spared the world from the cataclysm (Levine 2003: 206).
More important, the Seekers didn't abandon her. Most became more devoted after the failed prophecy. (Only two left the cult when the world didn't end.) "Most disciples not only stayed but, having made that decision, were now even more convinced than before that Keech had been right all along....Being wrong turned them into true believers (ibid.)." Some people will go to bizarre lengths to avoid inconsistency between their cherished beliefs and the facts. But why do people interpret the same evidence in contrary ways?
The Seekers would not have waited for the flying saucer if they thought it might not come. So, when it didn't come, one would think that a competent thinker would have seen this as falsifying Keech's claim that it would come. However, the incompetent thinkers were rendered incompetent by their devotion to Keech. Their belief that a flying saucer would pick them up was based on faith, not evidence. Likewise, their belief that the failure of the prophesy shouldn't count against their belief was another act of faith. With this kind of irrational thinking, it may seem pointless to produce evidence to try to persuade people of the error of their ways."
Post ID: 113498487702320650
"Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist." - G. K. Chesterton
***
Some 16 year old: i'm a young boy?
so are you michael jackson?
or do you go by ... "Peter Pan."
Me: !@#$
***
I bought a pack of "甜不辣" (Tian2 Bu4 La4 - lit, Sweet and not Hot) from Shilin Taiwanese Street Snacks, but was appalled to find that, contrary to its name, not only was it not sweet, it was hot due to liberal sprinkling of their pepper-spice powder (the same one used for their XXL chicken). It must be a sick Taiwanese joke for it to be completely the opposite of what its name would suggest. And $3 for what tastes like potato wedges (supposedly it's fish paste, but I only tasted potato - maybe the powder was too hot) is very expensive.
The spreads on air tickets are ridiculous; the difference between 2 airlines for a 6 month return ticket can be as much as $1,000. I suppose this is called brand loyalty for you (or people just love flying SIA due to unspecified reasons).
***
"Coke vending machine camouflage" - (Kevin's term for it). Damn Japs. It must be the fish they eat (maybe mercury poisoning again).
***
Creationists irrationally love to bash and spread FUD about Evolution because they worry about the implications it has for strict literalism and Man's special place in Creation. However, I think that the evolutionary adaptations humans possess pose a much greater threat to their ethical system (and to a lesser extent, natural law theory), since their system is predicated on fundamental misconceptions about Man's "natural" conscience.
For those who didn't catch the juicy extracts, in September, from my Evolutionary Psychology textbook's chapter on Short Term Mating (aka Casual Sex), here're some random points, mostly about the topic so many of a religious persuasion get so hung up about:
- Human relative testis size showing that humans are not designed for exclusively monogomous relationships
- No concealed ovulation in females: sex is not designed only for reproduction, but also pair bonding. contraceptives ok)
- Chimpanzees, our closest relatives, being so promiscuous
- The evolved tendency for some short term sexual dalliances in both genders
- Chastity is bad, and rape might be a way for males who cannot otherwise do so to spread their genes
- Intra familial conflict: inter-sibling and parent-offspring (even in the womb)
- The role of women in mate choice (which upsets the patriarchal order)
- The evolutionarily stable strategy being tit for tat, not turning the other cheek
And then there are the other random cruelties of nature, like nature being the world's greatest aborter - 50% is a middle-range estimate of the number of fertilized eggs that fail to even implant in the first place (more get aborted along the way, but I can't find a figure for the number of fertilised eggs that never make it).
Citing design and intention in nature to come up with an overly-restrictive moral code does not then work. Of course, they always have the oh-so-convenient escape clause - "The Fall" (which allegedly corrupted mankind's original purity blah blah). In this way, evidence which would normally be used to refute their argument turns out to support it; various aspects of what is natural or intended to be can then be either good or bad depending on how you wish to classify them.
So, bravo, we have yet another unfalsifiable theory (2 can play at that game, but I won't stoop to that level, except perhaps as a proof of concept).
***
Some 16 year old: i'm a young boy?
so are you michael jackson?
or do you go by ... "Peter Pan."
Me: !@#$
***
I bought a pack of "甜不辣" (Tian2 Bu4 La4 - lit, Sweet and not Hot) from Shilin Taiwanese Street Snacks, but was appalled to find that, contrary to its name, not only was it not sweet, it was hot due to liberal sprinkling of their pepper-spice powder (the same one used for their XXL chicken). It must be a sick Taiwanese joke for it to be completely the opposite of what its name would suggest. And $3 for what tastes like potato wedges (supposedly it's fish paste, but I only tasted potato - maybe the powder was too hot) is very expensive.
The spreads on air tickets are ridiculous; the difference between 2 airlines for a 6 month return ticket can be as much as $1,000. I suppose this is called brand loyalty for you (or people just love flying SIA due to unspecified reasons).
***
"Coke vending machine camouflage" - (Kevin's term for it). Damn Japs. It must be the fish they eat (maybe mercury poisoning again).
***
Creationists irrationally love to bash and spread FUD about Evolution because they worry about the implications it has for strict literalism and Man's special place in Creation. However, I think that the evolutionary adaptations humans possess pose a much greater threat to their ethical system (and to a lesser extent, natural law theory), since their system is predicated on fundamental misconceptions about Man's "natural" conscience.
For those who didn't catch the juicy extracts, in September, from my Evolutionary Psychology textbook's chapter on Short Term Mating (aka Casual Sex), here're some random points, mostly about the topic so many of a religious persuasion get so hung up about:
- Human relative testis size showing that humans are not designed for exclusively monogomous relationships
- No concealed ovulation in females: sex is not designed only for reproduction, but also pair bonding. contraceptives ok)
- Chimpanzees, our closest relatives, being so promiscuous
- The evolved tendency for some short term sexual dalliances in both genders
- Chastity is bad, and rape might be a way for males who cannot otherwise do so to spread their genes
- Intra familial conflict: inter-sibling and parent-offspring (even in the womb)
- The role of women in mate choice (which upsets the patriarchal order)
- The evolutionarily stable strategy being tit for tat, not turning the other cheek
And then there are the other random cruelties of nature, like nature being the world's greatest aborter - 50% is a middle-range estimate of the number of fertilized eggs that fail to even implant in the first place (more get aborted along the way, but I can't find a figure for the number of fertilised eggs that never make it).
Citing design and intention in nature to come up with an overly-restrictive moral code does not then work. Of course, they always have the oh-so-convenient escape clause - "The Fall" (which allegedly corrupted mankind's original purity blah blah). In this way, evidence which would normally be used to refute their argument turns out to support it; various aspects of what is natural or intended to be can then be either good or bad depending on how you wish to classify them.
So, bravo, we have yet another unfalsifiable theory (2 can play at that game, but I won't stoop to that level, except perhaps as a proof of concept).
Post ID: 112676395599559971
Sunday, December 18, 2005
"I have given two cousins to war and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother." - Artemus Ward
Random Playlist Song: Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition - 1 - Promenade - Gnomus
Why he had to spoil his perfectly good Promenade theme with Baba Yaga and all that shit, I don't know. Damn Romantics.
Or maybe his friend's death upset him so much he wanted to make his audiences feel upset too.
***
I think every "simple girl" should end up with a "sincere guy".
***
In the name of Love and Bad Fanfics - "Yes, he raped Dobby. But he did it for the sake of Hagrid and Dobby! Of course, nevermind the fact that that is disgusting and pointless, but he did it in the name of love and bad fanfics!"
Asymmetrical Information: What should you do with your money? - Unfortunately, most people underestimate their discount factor, so they won't smooth their lifetime consumption properly.
ReactOS Homepage - "The ReactOS® project is dedicated to making Free Software available to everyone by providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface."
Random Playlist Song: Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition - 1 - Promenade - Gnomus
Why he had to spoil his perfectly good Promenade theme with Baba Yaga and all that shit, I don't know. Damn Romantics.
Or maybe his friend's death upset him so much he wanted to make his audiences feel upset too.
***
I think every "simple girl" should end up with a "sincere guy".
***
In the name of Love and Bad Fanfics - "Yes, he raped Dobby. But he did it for the sake of Hagrid and Dobby! Of course, nevermind the fact that that is disgusting and pointless, but he did it in the name of love and bad fanfics!"
Asymmetrical Information: What should you do with your money? - Unfortunately, most people underestimate their discount factor, so they won't smooth their lifetime consumption properly.
ReactOS Homepage - "The ReactOS® project is dedicated to making Free Software available to everyone by providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface."
Post ID: 113484634409150163
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Someone posted a less funny version of the following on her LJ, so I feel obliged to share the better version.
Thank god people stopped sending me this kind of crap in the late 90s.
Hello, my name is Basmati Kasaar. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, extreme virginity, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not forwarding out 50 billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, then that poor 6 year old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the travelling freak show.
Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How stupid are you?
Ooooh, lookyhere! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Playboy model in the magazine!
What a bunch of bullshit.
So basically, this message is a big FUCK YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity.
Fuck them.
If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the"send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times. I don't fucking care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards.
Chances are it's your own popularity.
THE SEVEN BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS:
Chain Letter Type 1:
(scroll down)
Make a wish!!!
No, really, go on and make one!!!
Oh please, they'll never go out with you!!!
Wish something else!!!
Not that, you pervert!!
Is your finger getting tired yet?
STOP!!!!
Wasn't that fun? :)
Hope you made a great wish :) Now, to make you feel guilty, here's what I'll do. First of all, if you don't send this to 5096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be raped by a mad goat and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. It's true! Because, THIS letter isn't like all of those fake ones, THIS one is TRUE!!
Really!!! Here's how it goes:
*Send this to 1 person: One person will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter, and may form a plot on your life.
*Send this to 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter and will napalm your house.
Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!!
-------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 2
Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund.
Oh, and remember, we have absolutely no way of counting the emails sent and this is all a complete load of bullshit. So go on, reach out. Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly. Thanks again!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 3
================
Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897.This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many sad pricks with nothing better to do. So this is how it works: Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:
Bizarre Horror Story #1
------------------------------
Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died. This Could Happen To You!!!
Bizarre Horror Story #2
------------------------------
Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chainletter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his boyfriend (hey, some people swing that way). They both died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This Could Happen To You Too!!!
Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, and if you accidentally send this to 15,066 or 15,068 people, you will instantly die. Thanks!
Chain Letter Type 4:
As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to every one of your friends.
Friends
A friend is someone who is always at your side,
A friend is someone who likes you even though you stink of shit, and your breath smells like you've been eating catfood,
A friend is someone who likes you even though you're as ugly as a hat full of arseholes,
A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you've soiled yourself,
A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your sad, sad life,
A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you should be raped by mad goats, then thrown to vicious dogs,
A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet, vacuums and then gets the cheque and leaves and doesn't speak much English... - no, sorry that's the cleaning lady,
A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true.
Now pass this on! If you don't, you'll never have sex ever again.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 5:
This e-mail is wicked-cool! It was started by Microsoft to test its e-mail tracking system because, you know, a big high-tech company like Microsoft always sends important new software out over the internet to be available to any moron who can operate a computer, right? Plus, they have formed a secret merger with Disney Corp., who has agreed to give up millions of dollars in revenue by giving everyone who reads this e-mail, passes it on, looks at it, knows someone that looked at it, or is related to someone who is a friend of someone who looks at it A FREE, ALL-EXPENSES-PAID TRIP to Disneyland, DisneyWorld, or EuroDisney! So pass this on to everyone you know that is gullible enough to believe this (or not)!
Even if it's not true, hey insulting all of your friends by implying that they are gullible by sending this to them is worth the improbable chance that you could go to Disneyland! Even if you lose all of your friends because they are tired of receiving this kind of junk from you, it's worth the chance, right?
And just for good measure, if you don't send this on, Microsoft will send its specially trained attack-goats to pilfer your house and eat all of your family, SO SEND IT ON!!!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 6:
VIRUS WARNING!!!
If you receive an email entitled "Badtimes," delete it immediately.
Do not open it.
Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive,but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards. It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play. It will re-calibrate your refrigerator's coolness settings so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles. It will program your phone AutoDial to call only your mother-in-law's number.
So be careful! Forward this to all of your friends, relatives, neighbors, family, enemies, plumbers, garbagemen, stock brockers, doctors, and any other acquaintances! It's for their own good!
Thank you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 7:
Here is a cute picture I drew.
(\ /) ( \ / ) ( \ /)
(/<\ ) ( / \/ \ ) / \ __
() ( )
It is a decapitated angel. Send it on to all of your friends so it will brighten their day like it did yours! If you don't, demon-possessed goats will move into your house and eat all of your socks, leading you to believe that something is wrong with your washing machine because all of your socks keep disappearing.
Have a nice day!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------
The point being?
If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only saviour is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you'll end up like Miranda and Dexter. Right? Now forward this to everyone you know otherwise you'll find all your pants missing tomorrow morning.
Thank god people stopped sending me this kind of crap in the late 90s.
Hello, my name is Basmati Kasaar. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, extreme virginity, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not forwarding out 50 billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, then that poor 6 year old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the travelling freak show.
Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How stupid are you?
Ooooh, lookyhere! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Playboy model in the magazine!
What a bunch of bullshit.
So basically, this message is a big FUCK YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity.
Fuck them.
If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the"send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times. I don't fucking care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards.
Chances are it's your own popularity.
THE SEVEN BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS:
Chain Letter Type 1:
(scroll down)
Make a wish!!!
No, really, go on and make one!!!
Oh please, they'll never go out with you!!!
Wish something else!!!
Not that, you pervert!!
Is your finger getting tired yet?
STOP!!!!
Wasn't that fun? :)
Hope you made a great wish :) Now, to make you feel guilty, here's what I'll do. First of all, if you don't send this to 5096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be raped by a mad goat and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. It's true! Because, THIS letter isn't like all of those fake ones, THIS one is TRUE!!
Really!!! Here's how it goes:
*Send this to 1 person: One person will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter, and may form a plot on your life.
*Send this to 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter and will napalm your house.
Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!!
-------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 2
Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund.
Oh, and remember, we have absolutely no way of counting the emails sent and this is all a complete load of bullshit. So go on, reach out. Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly. Thanks again!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 3
================
Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897.This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many sad pricks with nothing better to do. So this is how it works: Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:
Bizarre Horror Story #1
------------------------------
Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died. This Could Happen To You!!!
Bizarre Horror Story #2
------------------------------
Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chainletter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his boyfriend (hey, some people swing that way). They both died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This Could Happen To You Too!!!
Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, and if you accidentally send this to 15,066 or 15,068 people, you will instantly die. Thanks!
Chain Letter Type 4:
As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to every one of your friends.
Friends
A friend is someone who is always at your side,
A friend is someone who likes you even though you stink of shit, and your breath smells like you've been eating catfood,
A friend is someone who likes you even though you're as ugly as a hat full of arseholes,
A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you've soiled yourself,
A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your sad, sad life,
A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you should be raped by mad goats, then thrown to vicious dogs,
A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet, vacuums and then gets the cheque and leaves and doesn't speak much English... - no, sorry that's the cleaning lady,
A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true.
Now pass this on! If you don't, you'll never have sex ever again.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 5:
This e-mail is wicked-cool! It was started by Microsoft to test its e-mail tracking system because, you know, a big high-tech company like Microsoft always sends important new software out over the internet to be available to any moron who can operate a computer, right? Plus, they have formed a secret merger with Disney Corp., who has agreed to give up millions of dollars in revenue by giving everyone who reads this e-mail, passes it on, looks at it, knows someone that looked at it, or is related to someone who is a friend of someone who looks at it A FREE, ALL-EXPENSES-PAID TRIP to Disneyland, DisneyWorld, or EuroDisney! So pass this on to everyone you know that is gullible enough to believe this (or not)!
Even if it's not true, hey insulting all of your friends by implying that they are gullible by sending this to them is worth the improbable chance that you could go to Disneyland! Even if you lose all of your friends because they are tired of receiving this kind of junk from you, it's worth the chance, right?
And just for good measure, if you don't send this on, Microsoft will send its specially trained attack-goats to pilfer your house and eat all of your family, SO SEND IT ON!!!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 6:
VIRUS WARNING!!!
If you receive an email entitled "Badtimes," delete it immediately.
Do not open it.
Apparently this one is pretty nasty. It will not only erase everything on your hard drive,but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer. It demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards. It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play. It will re-calibrate your refrigerator's coolness settings so all your ice cream melts and your milk curdles. It will program your phone AutoDial to call only your mother-in-law's number.
So be careful! Forward this to all of your friends, relatives, neighbors, family, enemies, plumbers, garbagemen, stock brockers, doctors, and any other acquaintances! It's for their own good!
Thank you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 7:
Here is a cute picture I drew.
(\ /) ( \ / ) ( \ /)
(/<\ ) ( / \/ \ ) / \ __
() ( )
It is a decapitated angel. Send it on to all of your friends so it will brighten their day like it did yours! If you don't, demon-possessed goats will move into your house and eat all of your socks, leading you to believe that something is wrong with your washing machine because all of your socks keep disappearing.
Have a nice day!!!
-----------------------------------------------------------
The point being?
If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only saviour is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you'll end up like Miranda and Dexter. Right? Now forward this to everyone you know otherwise you'll find all your pants missing tomorrow morning.
Post ID: 113476672661229622
Friday, December 16, 2005
Trying hard to forestall the rot
"Most notably, there was a near-complete shut-out of Singapore campaigners from the newspaper. Although the anti-death penalty forum organised by Singapore's Think Centre on 7 November was covered by the Australian and foreign media (including Reuters and AFP), it was completely ignored by the Straits Times.
The letters page also suggested bias in selection... it seemed very strange that while the Straits Times found letters from pro-hanging Australians to print, they couldn't find a single anti-hanging letter to print. This was even as lots of Australians were vociferously voicing their opinions down under. Did none of them write to the Straits Times, unlike their compatriots who favoured the death penalty? Or did the Straits Times trash all such letters?
Was the debate entirely in Australia? Were Singaporeans generally unanimous that capital punishment was justifiable? From the Straits Times' coverage, it would seem that Singaporeans either had no view to offer or were behind our government. But if one looked at the blogosphere, you'd see that many Singaporeans were, like Australians, either uncomfortable or downright against the death penalty.
How many, of course, is impossible to say. Singaporeans know full well that any attempt at taking an opinion poll on the matter would be seriously frowned on by the government. Even if someone wasn't afraid to pay for one, I doubt if any reputable polling organisation would want to take up the job, for fear of retribution from the government. Why, one might conceivably be charged under the Sedition Act...
Taking the 10 days' selection of news stories and published letters as a whole, there's more than a whiff of desperation... Why did the Straits Times go on and on telling Singaporeans that hanging drug traffickers is the right thing to do and that the world approves? And oh, by the way, Australia is going to hell with its drug problem... Finally, did you notice how gleefully the Straits Times reported on Australian opinion polls, but didn't commission a poll of Singaporeans themselves?"
And you wonder why "ST" stands for so many unflattering things in people's minds, and why the young are getting turned off traditional media.
JC critical thinking lesson: "My teacher said it, so it must be right.
It's in the Bible, so it must be right.
The Straits Times said it, so it must be right.
Lee Kuan Yew said it, so it must be right." (or words to that effect)
"Most notably, there was a near-complete shut-out of Singapore campaigners from the newspaper. Although the anti-death penalty forum organised by Singapore's Think Centre on 7 November was covered by the Australian and foreign media (including Reuters and AFP), it was completely ignored by the Straits Times.
The letters page also suggested bias in selection... it seemed very strange that while the Straits Times found letters from pro-hanging Australians to print, they couldn't find a single anti-hanging letter to print. This was even as lots of Australians were vociferously voicing their opinions down under. Did none of them write to the Straits Times, unlike their compatriots who favoured the death penalty? Or did the Straits Times trash all such letters?
Was the debate entirely in Australia? Were Singaporeans generally unanimous that capital punishment was justifiable? From the Straits Times' coverage, it would seem that Singaporeans either had no view to offer or were behind our government. But if one looked at the blogosphere, you'd see that many Singaporeans were, like Australians, either uncomfortable or downright against the death penalty.
How many, of course, is impossible to say. Singaporeans know full well that any attempt at taking an opinion poll on the matter would be seriously frowned on by the government. Even if someone wasn't afraid to pay for one, I doubt if any reputable polling organisation would want to take up the job, for fear of retribution from the government. Why, one might conceivably be charged under the Sedition Act...
Taking the 10 days' selection of news stories and published letters as a whole, there's more than a whiff of desperation... Why did the Straits Times go on and on telling Singaporeans that hanging drug traffickers is the right thing to do and that the world approves? And oh, by the way, Australia is going to hell with its drug problem... Finally, did you notice how gleefully the Straits Times reported on Australian opinion polls, but didn't commission a poll of Singaporeans themselves?"
And you wonder why "ST" stands for so many unflattering things in people's minds, and why the young are getting turned off traditional media.
JC critical thinking lesson: "My teacher said it, so it must be right.
It's in the Bible, so it must be right.
The Straits Times said it, so it must be right.
Lee Kuan Yew said it, so it must be right." (or words to that effect)
Post ID: 113473264902331951
Thursday, December 15, 2005
The Inheritance of Inequality, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (2002), linked from Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal
"How level is the intergenerational playing field? What are the causal mechanisms that underlie the intergenerational transmission of economic status? Are these mechanisms amenable to public policies in a way that would make the attainment of economic success more fair? These are the questions we will try to answer...
Other work by Yeung, Hill and Duncan (2000) shows that parental behavior, including church attendance, membership in social organizations, and such precautionary behavior as seat belt usage, have significant impacts on their children’s earnings."
Seat belt usage?! Uhh.
***
Curveball - Stephen Jay Gould Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve"
"The Bell Curve rests on two distinctly different but sequential arguments, which together encompass the classic corpus of biological determinism as a social philosophy. The first argument rehashes the tenets of social Darwinism as it was originally constituted. "Social Darwinism" has often been used as a general term for any evolutionary argument about the biological basis of human differences, but the initial nineteenth–century meaning referred to a specific theory of class stratification with industrial societies, and particularly to the idea that there was a permanently poor underclass consisting of genetically inferior people who had precipitated down into their inevitable fate. The theory arose from a paradox of egalitarianism: as long as people remain on top of the social heap by accident of a noble name or parental wealth, and as long as members of despised castes cannot rise no matter what their talents, social stratification will not reflect intellectual merit, and brilliance will be distributed across all classes; but when true equality of opportunity is attained smart people rise and the lower classes become rigid, retaining only the intellectually incompetent.
This argument has attracted a variety of twentieth–century champions, including the Stanford psychologist Lewis M. Terman, who imported Alfred Binet's original test from France, developed the Stanford–Binet IQ test, and gave a hereditarian interpretation to the results (one that Binet had vigorously rejected in developing this style of test); Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, who tried to institute a eugenics program of rewarding well–educated women for higher birth rates; and Richard Herrnstein, a co–author of The Bell Curve and also the author of a 1971 Atlantic Monthly article that presented the same argument without the documentation
The general claim is neither uninteresting nor illogical, but it does require the validity of four shaky premises, all asserted (but hardly discussed or defended) by Herrnstein and Murray. Intelligence, in their formulation, must be depictable as a single number, capable of ranking people in linear order, genetically based, and effectively immutable. If any of these premises are false, their entire argument collapses... The central argument of The Bell Curve fails because most of the premises are false...
Herrnstein and Murray's correlation coefficients are generally low enough by themselves to inspire lack of confidence. (Correlation coefficients measure the strength of linear relationships between variables; the positive values from 0.0 for no relationship to 1.0 for perfect linear relationship.) Although low figures are not atypical for large social–science surveys involving many variables, most of Herrnstein and Murray's correlations are very weak—often in the 0.2 to 0.4 range. Now, 0.4 may sound respectably strong, but—and this is the key point—R2 is the square of the correlation coefficient, and the square of a number between zero and one is less than the number itself, so a 0.4 correlation yields an R–squared of only .16. In Appendix 4, then, one discovers that the vast majority of the conventional measures of R2, excluded from the main body of the text, are less than 0.1."
"How level is the intergenerational playing field? What are the causal mechanisms that underlie the intergenerational transmission of economic status? Are these mechanisms amenable to public policies in a way that would make the attainment of economic success more fair? These are the questions we will try to answer...
Other work by Yeung, Hill and Duncan (2000) shows that parental behavior, including church attendance, membership in social organizations, and such precautionary behavior as seat belt usage, have significant impacts on their children’s earnings."
Seat belt usage?! Uhh.
***
Curveball - Stephen Jay Gould Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve"
"The Bell Curve rests on two distinctly different but sequential arguments, which together encompass the classic corpus of biological determinism as a social philosophy. The first argument rehashes the tenets of social Darwinism as it was originally constituted. "Social Darwinism" has often been used as a general term for any evolutionary argument about the biological basis of human differences, but the initial nineteenth–century meaning referred to a specific theory of class stratification with industrial societies, and particularly to the idea that there was a permanently poor underclass consisting of genetically inferior people who had precipitated down into their inevitable fate. The theory arose from a paradox of egalitarianism: as long as people remain on top of the social heap by accident of a noble name or parental wealth, and as long as members of despised castes cannot rise no matter what their talents, social stratification will not reflect intellectual merit, and brilliance will be distributed across all classes; but when true equality of opportunity is attained smart people rise and the lower classes become rigid, retaining only the intellectually incompetent.
This argument has attracted a variety of twentieth–century champions, including the Stanford psychologist Lewis M. Terman, who imported Alfred Binet's original test from France, developed the Stanford–Binet IQ test, and gave a hereditarian interpretation to the results (one that Binet had vigorously rejected in developing this style of test); Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, who tried to institute a eugenics program of rewarding well–educated women for higher birth rates; and Richard Herrnstein, a co–author of The Bell Curve and also the author of a 1971 Atlantic Monthly article that presented the same argument without the documentation
The general claim is neither uninteresting nor illogical, but it does require the validity of four shaky premises, all asserted (but hardly discussed or defended) by Herrnstein and Murray. Intelligence, in their formulation, must be depictable as a single number, capable of ranking people in linear order, genetically based, and effectively immutable. If any of these premises are false, their entire argument collapses... The central argument of The Bell Curve fails because most of the premises are false...
Herrnstein and Murray's correlation coefficients are generally low enough by themselves to inspire lack of confidence. (Correlation coefficients measure the strength of linear relationships between variables; the positive values from 0.0 for no relationship to 1.0 for perfect linear relationship.) Although low figures are not atypical for large social–science surveys involving many variables, most of Herrnstein and Murray's correlations are very weak—often in the 0.2 to 0.4 range. Now, 0.4 may sound respectably strong, but—and this is the key point—R2 is the square of the correlation coefficient, and the square of a number between zero and one is less than the number itself, so a 0.4 correlation yields an R–squared of only .16. In Appendix 4, then, one discovers that the vast majority of the conventional measures of R2, excluded from the main body of the text, are less than 0.1."
Post ID: 113462776256848307
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
"I forget who it was who remarked: 'Of course we must be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.'" - Richard Dawkins
***
The latest update to my homepage has brought my quote total to 9,719. Hurrah!
I went to Candy Empire at Millenia Walk to look for Kettle chips, but the only flavour they stocked was Kettle Sensations - Spicy Indian Masala, and Lime and Ginger or something was out ofstalked stock. Damn. No Herb and Spice or Honey Baked Ham!
Tym brought me to "No. 1 Costumes Costumes" to look for a Wo-hen costume, but I didn't manage to find anything suitable. His style is very unique - you can't just be obiang, you need to be a particular flavour of obiang. And I didn't see any mullet wigs either.
***
parkaboy blogs about and archives a parody letter ("Sydney 'race riots' actually attacks on criminals") sent by the "Australian Union of Students" to the Straits Times Forum. Not surprisingly, it was published, despite such choice lines:
After reading "Skydiving is too risky for S'poreans", I have stopped being surprised at what trash the ST Forum will publish.
Some attribute this to the "editors [being] constitutionally incapable of detecting irony", but more likely, it is because whoever edits the letters to the Straits Times, like me after reading "Chee out to undermine Singapore", has stopped being surprised at what nonsense unthinking lappers-up of the Propagandistic line are capable of turning up.
After all, there were Western left-wing intellectuals who idealised and propounded
Communism as practised in the USSR and China even when Stalin and Mao were killing everyone.
***
The latest update to my homepage has brought my quote total to 9,719. Hurrah!
I went to Candy Empire at Millenia Walk to look for Kettle chips, but the only flavour they stocked was Kettle Sensations - Spicy Indian Masala, and Lime and Ginger or something was out of
Tym brought me to "No. 1 Costumes Costumes" to look for a Wo-hen costume, but I didn't manage to find anything suitable. His style is very unique - you can't just be obiang, you need to be a particular flavour of obiang. And I didn't see any mullet wigs either.
***
parkaboy blogs about and archives a parody letter ("Sydney 'race riots' actually attacks on criminals") sent by the "Australian Union of Students" to the Straits Times Forum. Not surprisingly, it was published, despite such choice lines:
Australian state governments, which run the police, have cut the number of police patrol officers, and have instructed them not to respond immediately to crimes like they used to do. Also, patrol officers have been instructed not to prosecute criminals unless they see the crime taking place, which they never do since they generally turn up two hours later...
Most criminals in Australia are from ethnic minority groups, mainly the Irish 25 per cent of the population. This is hardly surprising since these groups send their children to schools which actively encourage crime.
For example, at Irish Catholic schools in Australia they teach: 'Which is better, for your family to die of starvation, or to steal a loaf of bread? Obviously, to steal a loaf of bread.'
In contrast, at government schools in Singapore, you teach that it is better for your family to die of starvation than to steal anything.
Irish-Australians are behind the push for the introduction of so-called 'human rights' into South-east Asia. Asians call these so-called rights 'Western values'. In fact they are Irish values, and most Australians reject them. The ideas Asean leaders call 'Asian values' are supported by the vast majority of Australians.
After reading "Skydiving is too risky for S'poreans", I have stopped being surprised at what trash the ST Forum will publish.
Some attribute this to the "editors [being] constitutionally incapable of detecting irony", but more likely, it is because whoever edits the letters to the Straits Times, like me after reading "Chee out to undermine Singapore", has stopped being surprised at what nonsense unthinking lappers-up of the Propagandistic line are capable of turning up.
After all, there were Western left-wing intellectuals who idealised and propounded
Communism as practised in the USSR and China even when Stalin and Mao were killing everyone.
Post ID: 113456957380356020
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
NUS Seminar on Discovery Channel documentary on Singapore
At about 2pm today, Tym smsed me and asked if I was going for some History seminar at NUS convened in the wake of the recent seditious Discovery Channel documentary. Having heard nothing about it (they probably figured no one would come down during the holidays - it wasn't even forwarded to the USP students, as this sort of thing usually is), at first I replied negative, but she eventually persuaded me to come down, and I walked into the seminar room about half an hour late.
"I was very sure it would start with LKY, end with LKY and there would be a shot of him crying in the middle" - One of the panelists on why she didn't want to watch the documentary at first (I only started taking notes at the point where I heard this, so this review is not as long, rigorous or detailed as I would like)
The majority of the panelists who I heard approached it with a typically academic mindset (pouncing on it as if they were critiquing a paper) and seemed dismissive of the documentary, complaining it was reductionist, had omissions and that it was a work of popular culture. But then, what else do you expect of a 3 hour documentary, even if it is screened on the Discovery Channel instead of duringPropaganda National Education classes and made by a fair and balanced foreign television company, instead of being a fair and balanced Channel NewsAsia documentary or a biased party political film made by an ordinary Singaporean? A 900 page book would be more intellectually vigorous, no doubt, but definitely not as accessible.
Then again, if what one of the panelists read from was an official announcement from Lion Television and/or Discovery Networks Asia (I would link to it, but can't find it online), the people making the documentary were probably asking for it, with claims of their work being the definitive history of Singapore.
One panelist complained that the documentary was too neat, and the interviews were chopped into pre-fitted jigsaw pieces, to fit nicely into a preconceived idea of Singaporean history. Of course, that's one way to view it. But then, any narrative needs a structure (and a "thesis" - hah!) if it is not to descend into an incoherent and/or interminable rant which only academics have the time and/or training to fully understand and analyse (preferably writing a paper or commentary on it afterwards). Which is why I would characterise the documentary, rather, as being focused, disciplined and clear (I caught only a few clips rather than the whole thing, but this is my 99% confidence interval).
Another was critical of how the documentary started with 1819, the classical date for the founding of Singapore. The panelist pointed out how Singapore's fortunes, being connected to maritime trade, wax and wane according to Chinese trade patterns, and pre-1819 Singapore was no exception to this. This is true enough, but when Singapore was refounded (if you like) in 1819, the older, long-gone settlements had little or nothing to do with the new one. It's kind of life saying that one needs to study the history of Carthago (Carthage) in order to understand modern-day Tunis - the only thing you need to understand is the geography of the area, and how this impacts/impacted on both cities' socio-economic circumstances.
The non-academic who I heard speak was more charitable to the documentary, glowingly noting how they dug up lots of archive footage (including perhaps the earliest known footage of Singapore, from 1905), and managed to persuade many people to speak, including some who have never been interviewed before, or who you don't usually see interviewed in this sort of production, due to fear of defamation suits and the like (the panelist estimated a 95% rejection rate for interview requests).
Unfortunately, I had to run off after an hour to pick up some Exchange material due to more hiccups in the NUS administration.
(I wanted to get Tym to review this review before I posted it, as well as adding her own comments, but she's out getting pissed as usual, so too bad.
She informs me though, though a drunken haze, that "Anyway, to be fair, you missed the meatier parts of the discussion", presumably the Q&A.)
[Addendum: Tym's belated comments:
First off, hello, not in a drunken haze.
Some points to add:
1) Despite the blatant limitations of it being a 3-hour documentary, I think the reason it was so heavily critiqued is because of all the media hype that went with it, all of which built it up to be this purported definitive version of Singapore's history. If it had not claimed to be so "epic" and definitive, then critics could've perhaps gone easier on it. A 900-age tome that sets out, upon first publication, to declare itself THE authoritative history of a particular country (as opposed to one that acquires that reputation/authority because enough people deem it so) would face the same scrutiny and criticism.
2) I don't think the panelist in question was criticising the documentary for being chopped up into jigsaw pieces. I think she was highlighting it as an inherent limitation of the medium (i.e. where such made-for-Discovery documentaries are concerned).
3) None of the panelists made this point, but here's my take on whether to include pre-1819 history: If you include it, you're enlarging the definition of what it is to be Singapore (and, by extension, Singaporean) beyond the 'commonsensical' narrative that's been propagated since 1965. However, if we accept that Singapore is in fact a postmoder, postcolonial, postideological state "with no natural resources" and that has built itself from "mangrove swamp to metropolis", then pre-1819 history is indeed irrelevant to the definition of modern Singapore and bears perhaps the same relation as ancient Carthage to modern Tunis.
(Note: As pointed out by a member of the audience at the forum, the "mangrove swamp" generalisation is grossly wrong as only less than 20% of Singapore was not forested land in 1819.)
So it depends on where you think Singapore --- as an entity, or as a state, or as a society --- begins and ends. And that, of course, comes with its own ideological and cultural baggage.]
"I was very sure it would start with LKY, end with LKY and there would be a shot of him crying in the middle" - One of the panelists on why she didn't want to watch the documentary at first (I only started taking notes at the point where I heard this, so this review is not as long, rigorous or detailed as I would like)
The majority of the panelists who I heard approached it with a typically academic mindset (pouncing on it as if they were critiquing a paper) and seemed dismissive of the documentary, complaining it was reductionist, had omissions and that it was a work of popular culture. But then, what else do you expect of a 3 hour documentary, even if it is screened on the Discovery Channel instead of during
Then again, if what one of the panelists read from was an official announcement from Lion Television and/or Discovery Networks Asia (I would link to it, but can't find it online), the people making the documentary were probably asking for it, with claims of their work being the definitive history of Singapore.
One panelist complained that the documentary was too neat, and the interviews were chopped into pre-fitted jigsaw pieces, to fit nicely into a preconceived idea of Singaporean history. Of course, that's one way to view it. But then, any narrative needs a structure (and a "thesis" - hah!) if it is not to descend into an incoherent and/or interminable rant which only academics have the time and/or training to fully understand and analyse (preferably writing a paper or commentary on it afterwards). Which is why I would characterise the documentary, rather, as being focused, disciplined and clear (I caught only a few clips rather than the whole thing, but this is my 99% confidence interval).
Another was critical of how the documentary started with 1819, the classical date for the founding of Singapore. The panelist pointed out how Singapore's fortunes, being connected to maritime trade, wax and wane according to Chinese trade patterns, and pre-1819 Singapore was no exception to this. This is true enough, but when Singapore was refounded (if you like) in 1819, the older, long-gone settlements had little or nothing to do with the new one. It's kind of life saying that one needs to study the history of Carthago (Carthage) in order to understand modern-day Tunis - the only thing you need to understand is the geography of the area, and how this impacts/impacted on both cities' socio-economic circumstances.
The non-academic who I heard speak was more charitable to the documentary, glowingly noting how they dug up lots of archive footage (including perhaps the earliest known footage of Singapore, from 1905), and managed to persuade many people to speak, including some who have never been interviewed before, or who you don't usually see interviewed in this sort of production, due to fear of defamation suits and the like (the panelist estimated a 95% rejection rate for interview requests).
Unfortunately, I had to run off after an hour to pick up some Exchange material due to more hiccups in the NUS administration.
(I wanted to get Tym to review this review before I posted it, as well as adding her own comments, but she's out getting pissed as usual, so too bad.
She informs me though, though a drunken haze, that "Anyway, to be fair, you missed the meatier parts of the discussion", presumably the Q&A.)
[Addendum: Tym's belated comments:
First off, hello, not in a drunken haze.
Some points to add:
1) Despite the blatant limitations of it being a 3-hour documentary, I think the reason it was so heavily critiqued is because of all the media hype that went with it, all of which built it up to be this purported definitive version of Singapore's history. If it had not claimed to be so "epic" and definitive, then critics could've perhaps gone easier on it. A 900-age tome that sets out, upon first publication, to declare itself THE authoritative history of a particular country (as opposed to one that acquires that reputation/authority because enough people deem it so) would face the same scrutiny and criticism.
2) I don't think the panelist in question was criticising the documentary for being chopped up into jigsaw pieces. I think she was highlighting it as an inherent limitation of the medium (i.e. where such made-for-Discovery documentaries are concerned).
3) None of the panelists made this point, but here's my take on whether to include pre-1819 history: If you include it, you're enlarging the definition of what it is to be Singapore (and, by extension, Singaporean) beyond the 'commonsensical' narrative that's been propagated since 1965. However, if we accept that Singapore is in fact a postmoder, postcolonial, postideological state "with no natural resources" and that has built itself from "mangrove swamp to metropolis", then pre-1819 history is indeed irrelevant to the definition of modern Singapore and bears perhaps the same relation as ancient Carthage to modern Tunis.
(Note: As pointed out by a member of the audience at the forum, the "mangrove swamp" generalisation is grossly wrong as only less than 20% of Singapore was not forested land in 1819.)
So it depends on where you think Singapore --- as an entity, or as a state, or as a society --- begins and ends. And that, of course, comes with its own ideological and cultural baggage.]
Post ID: 113448162337679806
University of Pennsylvania Evolutionary Psychologist Visits UNL
"Like Dr. Hibbing at the last "brownbag," Dr. Kurzban complained about academic silencing. While he did not explicitly name political correctness, he did say:
* Feminist scholars view evolutionary biological from a political perspective. Dr. Kurzban said "I don't care if you say 'This theory is stupid. It's not worth my time.' But saying 'This theory is a plot by The Man to keep women down' is not useful.'"
* Graduate students at one university petitioned the academic Senate to prohibit evolutionary psychologocial texts from being assigned by any professor. This was instigated when one black collegian said the theory "challenged her identity.""
The comments thread is also interested, especially this quoted bit:
"I would like to put in a quote from the book Origins of Genius by Dean Keith Simonton pg.115
"Several investigators have found the incidence rates of parental losses than what holds true for the rest of the population. Thus, one ambitious study of 699 eminent figures of world history discovered that 61% lost a parent before age 31, 52% before 26 and 45% before 21. Another study of 301 geniuses found that over one-fifth were plagued by orphanhood A follow-up investigation, also based on famous people from all area of accomplishment, discovered that nearly one-third had lost their fathers early on.""
***
geekgeek on Sondra in today's Digital Life:
"There, I hope you're all happy now. Don't even need to publish a book anymore, even the PRESS has done that for you, summarised (almost) everything. National circulation no less. Good job guys, really."
My observation: Well, you know that wouldn't have happened if people hadn't started flaming, cursing and kicking up a big fuss in public (as opposed to voicing their concerns sotto voce) in the first place.
So ironically it's the people who professed to be so concerned about Sondra's privacy (who went by many nicknames but most of whom shared the same 5 IP addresses), one of whom was such a good friend of hers and was so concerned that he threatened to punch some of us at her funeral, who are responsible for the shit hitting the fan, ironically bringing about the very thing (nay, much worse) that they claimed to be so against.
***
Church 'misused welfare' - "HILLSONG Church is generating money by recycling public funds aimed at disadvantaged people back into its own coffers through tithes, a NSW MP has alleged."
Dig deeply enough anywhere and you will probably find some scandal.
Hold the Limo: The Prom's Canceled as Decadent - "It is about social manners, class, gender roles; and to a more or less open degree, it is about sex. That may explain why recent decisions by two Roman Catholic high school principals on Long Island to cancel proms for the class of 2006 - both citing exasperation with what the educators described as a decadent "prom culture" - seem to have struck a chord well beyond the worlds of Catholics, high schools or Long Island."
Did drug cultures open up spiritual worlds? - "Graham attempts to explain why, about 50,000 years ago, humans suddenly began to think creatively after having evolved anatomically millions of years before. He believes that it was due to altered states of consciousness (ASCs) triggered by experimentation with hallucinogenic plants, such as ayahuasca, datura root and the psilocybin or "magic" mushroom. He suggests that art and religion can be traced back to these ASCs experienced by ancient shamans and their communities."
The second part of the theory sounds like crap though.
Kids... - "1. sTicKyCaPs. I HaVe No IdEa wHy ThEy LoVe tO wRiTe lIke ThIs, sO IrRiTaTiNg lOrX, I dUn eVeN kNoW WhAt tHe hElL ThEy aRe wRitiNg aBoUt, aNd tHeY aRe So pROuD Of It lOlx ~"
Lamenting the moral degeneracy of the youth is a popular parlor game, but this guy really hit the nail on the head.
"Like Dr. Hibbing at the last "brownbag," Dr. Kurzban complained about academic silencing. While he did not explicitly name political correctness, he did say:
* Feminist scholars view evolutionary biological from a political perspective. Dr. Kurzban said "I don't care if you say 'This theory is stupid. It's not worth my time.' But saying 'This theory is a plot by The Man to keep women down' is not useful.'"
* Graduate students at one university petitioned the academic Senate to prohibit evolutionary psychologocial texts from being assigned by any professor. This was instigated when one black collegian said the theory "challenged her identity.""
The comments thread is also interested, especially this quoted bit:
"I would like to put in a quote from the book Origins of Genius by Dean Keith Simonton pg.115
"Several investigators have found the incidence rates of parental losses than what holds true for the rest of the population. Thus, one ambitious study of 699 eminent figures of world history discovered that 61% lost a parent before age 31, 52% before 26 and 45% before 21. Another study of 301 geniuses found that over one-fifth were plagued by orphanhood A follow-up investigation, also based on famous people from all area of accomplishment, discovered that nearly one-third had lost their fathers early on.""
***
geekgeek on Sondra in today's Digital Life:
"There, I hope you're all happy now. Don't even need to publish a book anymore, even the PRESS has done that for you, summarised (almost) everything. National circulation no less. Good job guys, really."
My observation: Well, you know that wouldn't have happened if people hadn't started flaming, cursing and kicking up a big fuss in public (as opposed to voicing their concerns sotto voce) in the first place.
So ironically it's the people who professed to be so concerned about Sondra's privacy (who went by many nicknames but most of whom shared the same 5 IP addresses), one of whom was such a good friend of hers and was so concerned that he threatened to punch some of us at her funeral, who are responsible for the shit hitting the fan, ironically bringing about the very thing (nay, much worse) that they claimed to be so against.
***
Church 'misused welfare' - "HILLSONG Church is generating money by recycling public funds aimed at disadvantaged people back into its own coffers through tithes, a NSW MP has alleged."
Dig deeply enough anywhere and you will probably find some scandal.
Hold the Limo: The Prom's Canceled as Decadent - "It is about social manners, class, gender roles; and to a more or less open degree, it is about sex. That may explain why recent decisions by two Roman Catholic high school principals on Long Island to cancel proms for the class of 2006 - both citing exasperation with what the educators described as a decadent "prom culture" - seem to have struck a chord well beyond the worlds of Catholics, high schools or Long Island."
Did drug cultures open up spiritual worlds? - "Graham attempts to explain why, about 50,000 years ago, humans suddenly began to think creatively after having evolved anatomically millions of years before. He believes that it was due to altered states of consciousness (ASCs) triggered by experimentation with hallucinogenic plants, such as ayahuasca, datura root and the psilocybin or "magic" mushroom. He suggests that art and religion can be traced back to these ASCs experienced by ancient shamans and their communities."
The second part of the theory sounds like crap though.
Kids... - "1. sTicKyCaPs. I HaVe No IdEa wHy ThEy LoVe tO wRiTe lIke ThIs, sO IrRiTaTiNg lOrX, I dUn eVeN kNoW WhAt tHe hElL ThEy aRe wRitiNg aBoUt, aNd tHeY aRe So pROuD Of It lOlx ~"
Lamenting the moral degeneracy of the youth is a popular parlor game, but this guy really hit the nail on the head.
Post ID: 113447774668221095
"Fig Newton: The force required to accelerate a fig 39.37 inches per sec." - J. Hart
Random playlist song: Aaron Waters - Go Fly Win
When you need a hero to protect the place you live
Fighting monsters all around who try to get within
Awesome power no surrender Rangers never fall
Look to the sky as they arrive when you hear this call
Chorus:
Go Power Rangers
Fly Power Rangers
Win Power Rangers
Here we go
Repeat Chorus
Bad guys they are all the same they want complete control
Intimidate eliminate the Rangers from the throne
But the good guys always have a way to win out in the end
So look to the sky as they arrive the heroes who defend
Chorus x2
Guitar Solo
Chorus x4
Ron Wasserman recently released this song on RangerBoard after an interview with him was published; it'd previously only been heard as a snippet on some (one?) of the Space episodes.
And my confusion about the music for Turbo/Space was cleared out. It seems after he left in Season 3, he came back to do some music for Turbo and the first half of Space.
***
When I first moved my homepage to Prohosting, I had a good deal. With a one-time setup fee of US$9.95 (or thereabouts) I got 50mb of space and 5gb of bandwith, and sans ads too.
A few months (possibly a year) ago, Prohosting sneakily changed the deal without telling me. I started getting warnings that my daily bandwith was being exceeded. I was wondering why my homepage was so popular, but never bothered to check until a few weeks back, when I found that suddenly I was granted only 1.2gb of bandwith. Pissed off, I filed a support ticket which has never been replied to. However, since I only get an average of 20+ visitors a day, I was too lazy to do anything.
However, the final insult was when I got this notice:
"This notification is to make you aware that there will soon be new restrictions placed on your Free.ProHosting.com account.
Effective December 9th, 2005, all new and existing free accounts will only be able to use the following file types:
.htm, .html, .gif, .jpg, .png, .js, .css, .jpeg, .txt, .shtm, .shtml, .pl, .cgi
... Also, please be aware that we will be enforcing a file size limit of 1MB as advertised on our web site...
We hope you enjoy your Free.ProHosting.com account.
Happy Holidays,
Free.ProHosting.com Support" [Emphases mine]
Especially considering the fact that I got this a day before it was due to come into effect, I was outraged. You get what you pay for, I suppose.
In any event, my homepage has moved yet again (this is the 7th URL it's been hosted at), and is now kindly hosted by Johnny Malkavian.
The new url is: http://gssq.entryplug.org/. Unfortunately, Geocities realised I was using them for URL forwarding, so they removed the http://www.geocities.com/gssq/ page. Ah well. http://gssq.blogspot.com/ has been more well known for quite some time, so it is as good a "site to go to to get a link to Gabriel's Homepage as any.
Random playlist song: Aaron Waters - Go Fly Win
When you need a hero to protect the place you live
Fighting monsters all around who try to get within
Awesome power no surrender Rangers never fall
Look to the sky as they arrive when you hear this call
Chorus:
Go Power Rangers
Fly Power Rangers
Win Power Rangers
Here we go
Repeat Chorus
Bad guys they are all the same they want complete control
Intimidate eliminate the Rangers from the throne
But the good guys always have a way to win out in the end
So look to the sky as they arrive the heroes who defend
Chorus x2
Guitar Solo
Chorus x4
Ron Wasserman recently released this song on RangerBoard after an interview with him was published; it'd previously only been heard as a snippet on some (one?) of the Space episodes.
And my confusion about the music for Turbo/Space was cleared out. It seems after he left in Season 3, he came back to do some music for Turbo and the first half of Space.
***
When I first moved my homepage to Prohosting, I had a good deal. With a one-time setup fee of US$9.95 (or thereabouts) I got 50mb of space and 5gb of bandwith, and sans ads too.
A few months (possibly a year) ago, Prohosting sneakily changed the deal without telling me. I started getting warnings that my daily bandwith was being exceeded. I was wondering why my homepage was so popular, but never bothered to check until a few weeks back, when I found that suddenly I was granted only 1.2gb of bandwith. Pissed off, I filed a support ticket which has never been replied to. However, since I only get an average of 20+ visitors a day, I was too lazy to do anything.
However, the final insult was when I got this notice:
"This notification is to make you aware that there will soon be new restrictions placed on your Free.ProHosting.com account.
Effective December 9th, 2005, all new and existing free accounts will only be able to use the following file types:
.htm, .html, .gif, .jpg, .png, .js, .css, .jpeg, .txt, .shtm, .shtml, .pl, .cgi
... Also, please be aware that we will be enforcing a file size limit of 1MB as advertised on our web site...
We hope you enjoy your Free.ProHosting.com account.
Happy Holidays,
Free.ProHosting.com Support" [Emphases mine]
Especially considering the fact that I got this a day before it was due to come into effect, I was outraged. You get what you pay for, I suppose.
In any event, my homepage has moved yet again (this is the 7th URL it's been hosted at), and is now kindly hosted by Johnny Malkavian.
The new url is: http://gssq.entryplug.org/. Unfortunately, Geocities realised I was using them for URL forwarding, so they removed the http://www.geocities.com/gssq/ page. Ah well. http://gssq.blogspot.com/ has been more well known for quite some time, so it is as good a "site to go to to get a link to Gabriel's Homepage as any.
Post ID: 113440575678949942
Monday, December 12, 2005
"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me." - Benjamin Disraeli
***
I donated half a Euro via Paypal to the Downthemall Firefox Extension team and they sent me an iCard (from Apple, hah!). Now I feel ashamed.
***
Crank Dot Net - "Devoted to presenting Web sites by and about cranks, crankism, crankishness, and crankosity. All cranks, all the time."
Switch. Off. - "Why Switch Off? You can do things that Mac & PC users only dream about, like meeting other people, breathing fresh air, going for walks in the country and seeing daylight with your own eyes."
The Physics of Extra-Terrestrial Civilizations - "Specifically, we can rank civilizations by their energy consumption, using the following principles: 1) The laws of thermodynamics. 2) The laws of stable matter. 3) The laws of planetary evolution."
***
The Right Price for Digital Music - Why 99 cents per song is too much, and too little.
"In the early 1900s, jazz musicians refused to record phonograph records because they feared rivals would cop their best licks. We can laugh at their shortsightedness, but it's reminiscent of today's music industry, which is so afraid of piracy it still hasn't figured out how to incorporate digital downloads into a sustainable business model...
What we need is a system that will continue to pack the corporate coffers yet be fair to music lovers. The solution: a real-time commodities market that combines aspects of Apple's iTunes, Nasdaq, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Priceline, and eBay.
Here's how it would work: Songs would be priced strictly on demand. The more people who download the latest Eminem single, the higher the price will go. The same is true in reverse—the fewer people who buy a song, the lower the price goes. Music prices would oscillate like stocks on Nasdaq, with the current cost pegged to up-to-the-second changes in the number of downloads. In essence, this is a pure free-market solution—the market alone would determine price...
The big wild card here is the impact of illegal file sharing. David Blackburn, a doctoral student at Harvard, has argued that peer-to-peer systems increase demand for less popular recordings but dampen sales of hits."
The economic analyses may be off, but the idea seems sound.
***
one step into the past?
"In the early 20th century, Singapore was described as the "most colourful city in the world". In 1939, an English visitor, Carveth Wells, compared his pre-war (World War I) and post-war experiences in Singapore. The greatest change after the war, he wrote, was the "exciting night life of the city" (adding, "if you do not include the less respectful attitude of the Asiatics to white men").
Street after street was "devoted entirely to brothels of different nationalities. Malays, Indians, Africans, Arabs, Chinese, Japanese and Europeans were all on view…with girls on view behind iron bars, like caged animals…". Does it remind one of the plight of foreign domestic workers and foreign brides today?"
***
USAS4001: Understanding Contemporary Science Wars
"In the last two decades we have seen the emergence of increased awareness of the role that premodern traditions of science can play in advancing scientific knowledge in the future. This has engendered intense debates concerning the distinction between science and pseudoscience often described in terms a contestation between the defenders of Enlightenment science and its post-Enlightenment critics. Many multicultural critics have criticized the tradition of Enlightenment science - its historical self-understanding, its metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions, its structures of theory and experience - as a body of knowledge that has distorted not only our understanding of natural phenomena but also the relationships we establish with nature. These criticisms have often been buttressed by postmodern, social constructivist, environmental and feminist standpoints which appeal to multicultural traditions of natural knowledge in order to buttress claims concerning the limits of Enlightenment science. These charges have evoked an equally vehement defense of the Enlightenment tradition by philosophers and scientists who see modern science as a dependable body of knowledge now being attacked by superstition. Nevertheless it is possible to perceive these science wars - as they have been dubbed - as really the latest stage of continuing concerns that have always been a part of science about how we can best draw the line between science and superstition. In this course we will examine the arguments from both sides in an attempt to make sense of the attempts to reorient science in a multicultural direction and the claim that the future growth of science can be promoted through a wider dialogue among civilizations."
Wow, this sounds very funky. I wonder when it was last offered.
***
I donated half a Euro via Paypal to the Downthemall Firefox Extension team and they sent me an iCard (from Apple, hah!). Now I feel ashamed.
***
Crank Dot Net - "Devoted to presenting Web sites by and about cranks, crankism, crankishness, and crankosity. All cranks, all the time."
Switch. Off. - "Why Switch Off? You can do things that Mac & PC users only dream about, like meeting other people, breathing fresh air, going for walks in the country and seeing daylight with your own eyes."
The Physics of Extra-Terrestrial Civilizations - "Specifically, we can rank civilizations by their energy consumption, using the following principles: 1) The laws of thermodynamics. 2) The laws of stable matter. 3) The laws of planetary evolution."
***
The Right Price for Digital Music - Why 99 cents per song is too much, and too little.
"In the early 1900s, jazz musicians refused to record phonograph records because they feared rivals would cop their best licks. We can laugh at their shortsightedness, but it's reminiscent of today's music industry, which is so afraid of piracy it still hasn't figured out how to incorporate digital downloads into a sustainable business model...
What we need is a system that will continue to pack the corporate coffers yet be fair to music lovers. The solution: a real-time commodities market that combines aspects of Apple's iTunes, Nasdaq, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Priceline, and eBay.
Here's how it would work: Songs would be priced strictly on demand. The more people who download the latest Eminem single, the higher the price will go. The same is true in reverse—the fewer people who buy a song, the lower the price goes. Music prices would oscillate like stocks on Nasdaq, with the current cost pegged to up-to-the-second changes in the number of downloads. In essence, this is a pure free-market solution—the market alone would determine price...
The big wild card here is the impact of illegal file sharing. David Blackburn, a doctoral student at Harvard, has argued that peer-to-peer systems increase demand for less popular recordings but dampen sales of hits."
The economic analyses may be off, but the idea seems sound.
***
one step into the past?
"In the early 20th century, Singapore was described as the "most colourful city in the world". In 1939, an English visitor, Carveth Wells, compared his pre-war (World War I) and post-war experiences in Singapore. The greatest change after the war, he wrote, was the "exciting night life of the city" (adding, "if you do not include the less respectful attitude of the Asiatics to white men").
Street after street was "devoted entirely to brothels of different nationalities. Malays, Indians, Africans, Arabs, Chinese, Japanese and Europeans were all on view…with girls on view behind iron bars, like caged animals…". Does it remind one of the plight of foreign domestic workers and foreign brides today?"
***
USAS4001: Understanding Contemporary Science Wars
"In the last two decades we have seen the emergence of increased awareness of the role that premodern traditions of science can play in advancing scientific knowledge in the future. This has engendered intense debates concerning the distinction between science and pseudoscience often described in terms a contestation between the defenders of Enlightenment science and its post-Enlightenment critics. Many multicultural critics have criticized the tradition of Enlightenment science - its historical self-understanding, its metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions, its structures of theory and experience - as a body of knowledge that has distorted not only our understanding of natural phenomena but also the relationships we establish with nature. These criticisms have often been buttressed by postmodern, social constructivist, environmental and feminist standpoints which appeal to multicultural traditions of natural knowledge in order to buttress claims concerning the limits of Enlightenment science. These charges have evoked an equally vehement defense of the Enlightenment tradition by philosophers and scientists who see modern science as a dependable body of knowledge now being attacked by superstition. Nevertheless it is possible to perceive these science wars - as they have been dubbed - as really the latest stage of continuing concerns that have always been a part of science about how we can best draw the line between science and superstition. In this course we will examine the arguments from both sides in an attempt to make sense of the attempts to reorient science in a multicultural direction and the claim that the future growth of science can be promoted through a wider dialogue among civilizations."
Wow, this sounds very funky. I wonder when it was last offered.
Post ID: 113431894132734478
Sunday, December 11, 2005
I aver that Kettle brand (Australian, not American) Herb and Spice flavour potato chips must be one of the best flavours ever.
First you admire the texture of the chip - it's surface is rough with bumps, unlike the unnaturally smooth surface of most potato chips. Being cooked in sunflower oil lends it a quality which an inferior Malaysian potato chip, casually fried in palm olein, is unable to match.
When you bite into it, you hear the Kettle crunch - loud, deep and sonorous, complementing the chip's body and crispness.
And then the Herb and Spice flavour comes into play. Unlike some potato chip flavours it is complex, not hitting the pallete all at once. One could describe it as Salt and Vinegar, but that would be doing it a grave injustice, for not even Kettle's own Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar can compare.
Damn, I should set up a business parallel importing it into singapore.
"Kettle chips only use the best Australian grown potatoes. We wash them, slice and slowly cook them in sunflower oil the authentic way to give them a deliciously tasty crunch.
Kettle Chips have the besst flavours, as they contain no artificial flavours, or colours.
There is no science in cooking Kettle chips, just skill, experience and a passion for our craft. Discover the Kettle difference for yourself." (Emphasis original)
[Addendum: A source informs me that Candy Empire, Millennia Walk has Australian Kettle Chips, Red Rock Deli Chips and Australian Tim Tams.
I love globalisation!]
First you admire the texture of the chip - it's surface is rough with bumps, unlike the unnaturally smooth surface of most potato chips. Being cooked in sunflower oil lends it a quality which an inferior Malaysian potato chip, casually fried in palm olein, is unable to match.
When you bite into it, you hear the Kettle crunch - loud, deep and sonorous, complementing the chip's body and crispness.
And then the Herb and Spice flavour comes into play. Unlike some potato chip flavours it is complex, not hitting the pallete all at once. One could describe it as Salt and Vinegar, but that would be doing it a grave injustice, for not even Kettle's own Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar can compare.
Damn, I should set up a business parallel importing it into singapore.
"Kettle chips only use the best Australian grown potatoes. We wash them, slice and slowly cook them in sunflower oil the authentic way to give them a deliciously tasty crunch.
Kettle Chips have the besst flavours, as they contain no artificial flavours, or colours.
There is no science in cooking Kettle chips, just skill, experience and a passion for our craft. Discover the Kettle difference for yourself." (Emphasis original)
[Addendum: A source informs me that Candy Empire, Millennia Walk has Australian Kettle Chips, Red Rock Deli Chips and Australian Tim Tams.
I love globalisation!]
Post ID: 113423159259068048
Saturday, December 10, 2005
"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy." - Edgar Bergen
***
Someone: "to us girls, law is a conglomeration of all the bitchy pple we've known in pri, sec and jc, combined into one small faculty"
Someone else: "*** - to answer your quesiton - you come across in the same way as many lawyers I know - always looking for the flaw in the logic of others, and
sounding gleeful when you do find it."
***
The Straight Dope: Why does so much ancient Greek art feature males with small genitalia? - "(1) Long, thick penises were considered--at least in the highbrow view-- grotesque, comic, or both and were usually found on fertility gods, half-animal critters such as satyrs, ugly old men, and barbarians. A circumcised penis was particularly gross. (2) The ideal penis was small, thin, and covered with a long, tapered foreskin. Dover thinks the immature male's equipment was especially admired, which may account not only for the small size but the scarcity of body hair in classical art. A passage from Aristophanes sums up the most desirable masculine features: "a gleaming chest, bright skin, broad shoulders, tiny tongue, strong buttocks, and a little prick.""
Another sacred penis to your mother-in-law moment!
Creative people 'luckier in love' - "The more creative a person is, the more sexual partners they are likely to have, UK investigators have found. Artists and poets had an average of four to 10 sexual partners, compared to three for non-creative types, Newcastle and Open University teams discovered."
The Japanese game to end all Japanese games - "The kicker, however, is that any damage you do to your opponent will slowly regenerate unless… wait for it… you take a picture of her panties. Yes. A fighting game where panty-shots are the core mechanic. You don’t believe me, do you? Then watch the VIDEO."
Every time I think I've seen it all, I am moved to utter the refrain: 'Damn Japs!'
Eric Conveys an Emotion - "Welcome to Eric Conveys an Emotion. Glad you could make it. The concept here is simple, this is a humor-oriented interactive website. You request an emotion (or reasonable facsimile), and I will try and act it out for you."
COMM 3344-1 :: Games for the web - "Below, you will find term papers written by undergraduate students in the class "Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games.""
***
Someone: "to us girls, law is a conglomeration of all the bitchy pple we've known in pri, sec and jc, combined into one small faculty"
Someone else: "*** - to answer your quesiton - you come across in the same way as many lawyers I know - always looking for the flaw in the logic of others, and
sounding gleeful when you do find it."
***
The Straight Dope: Why does so much ancient Greek art feature males with small genitalia? - "(1) Long, thick penises were considered--at least in the highbrow view-- grotesque, comic, or both and were usually found on fertility gods, half-animal critters such as satyrs, ugly old men, and barbarians. A circumcised penis was particularly gross. (2) The ideal penis was small, thin, and covered with a long, tapered foreskin. Dover thinks the immature male's equipment was especially admired, which may account not only for the small size but the scarcity of body hair in classical art. A passage from Aristophanes sums up the most desirable masculine features: "a gleaming chest, bright skin, broad shoulders, tiny tongue, strong buttocks, and a little prick.""
Another sacred penis to your mother-in-law moment!
Creative people 'luckier in love' - "The more creative a person is, the more sexual partners they are likely to have, UK investigators have found. Artists and poets had an average of four to 10 sexual partners, compared to three for non-creative types, Newcastle and Open University teams discovered."
The Japanese game to end all Japanese games - "The kicker, however, is that any damage you do to your opponent will slowly regenerate unless… wait for it… you take a picture of her panties. Yes. A fighting game where panty-shots are the core mechanic. You don’t believe me, do you? Then watch the VIDEO."
Every time I think I've seen it all, I am moved to utter the refrain: 'Damn Japs!'
Eric Conveys an Emotion - "Welcome to Eric Conveys an Emotion. Glad you could make it. The concept here is simple, this is a humor-oriented interactive website. You request an emotion (or reasonable facsimile), and I will try and act it out for you."
COMM 3344-1 :: Games for the web - "Below, you will find term papers written by undergraduate students in the class "Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games.""
Post ID: 113419700166105733
Friday, December 09, 2005
"Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays." - Oscar Wilde
***
I will seek and find you . . .
I shall take you to bed and have my way with you .
I will make you ache, shake & sweat until you moan & groan.
I will make you beg for mercy, beg for me to stop.
I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I'm finished with you
And, when I am finished, you will be weak for days.
All my love,
The Flu
***
I saw this advertisement on TV Mobile. This happy Singaporean Chinese couple (ie Not foreign tourists) went about happily doing things and shopping, and at the end they swaggered happily into... Hotel 81.
***
Me (quoting MFM in my comments box): "There is a theory that adolescent girls like horses because horses are basically socially acceptable vibrators."
Someone: "osim has come out with this new massage chair that has no back and ROCKS and apparently *** saw some grandmothers enjoying riding on it"
***
An email someone sent me a few days back:
"Why no comment on the hanging of the Australian drug-dealer by the Singaporean authorities?
Is it fear (which I can understand) or agreement (which I can't)?
A US reader"
Well, I suppose that many bloggers feel obliged to issue some commentary on whatever is the hot topic at the moment. I can't remember ever blogging anything specifically related to the Nguyen Tuong Van case.
Why did I not comment? A few reasons:
- I didn't feel like blogging anything about it
- I didn't feel I had anything new to say that wasn't already being said by others
- I'd already weighed in on one Tomorrow.sg thread ("Open letter to drug traffickers")
- I have vocalised my opposition to the death penalty many times before
- I have vocalised my opposition to the "War on Drugs" (and, IIRC, imposing the death sentence for trafficking) many times before
In conclusion, I would like to add that I think that we should make skydiving illegal in Singapore too, since it is too dangerous a recreational activity to be made available to the people, and I think we should hang skydiving instructors and facilitators, since they are potentially responsible for the death of many of their students/customers. Over the course of his career, a skydiving instructor could potentially be responsible for the death of tens (hundreds?) of his customers, all labouring under the delusion that skydiving is a very safe activity!
***
I will seek and find you . . .
I shall take you to bed and have my way with you .
I will make you ache, shake & sweat until you moan & groan.
I will make you beg for mercy, beg for me to stop.
I will exhaust you to the point that you will be relieved when I'm finished with you
And, when I am finished, you will be weak for days.
All my love,
The Flu
***
I saw this advertisement on TV Mobile. This happy Singaporean Chinese couple (ie Not foreign tourists) went about happily doing things and shopping, and at the end they swaggered happily into... Hotel 81.
***
Me (quoting MFM in my comments box): "There is a theory that adolescent girls like horses because horses are basically socially acceptable vibrators."
Someone: "osim has come out with this new massage chair that has no back and ROCKS and apparently *** saw some grandmothers enjoying riding on it"
***
An email someone sent me a few days back:
"Why no comment on the hanging of the Australian drug-dealer by the Singaporean authorities?
Is it fear (which I can understand) or agreement (which I can't)?
A US reader"
Well, I suppose that many bloggers feel obliged to issue some commentary on whatever is the hot topic at the moment. I can't remember ever blogging anything specifically related to the Nguyen Tuong Van case.
Why did I not comment? A few reasons:
- I didn't feel like blogging anything about it
- I didn't feel I had anything new to say that wasn't already being said by others
- I'd already weighed in on one Tomorrow.sg thread ("Open letter to drug traffickers")
- I have vocalised my opposition to the death penalty many times before
- I have vocalised my opposition to the "War on Drugs" (and, IIRC, imposing the death sentence for trafficking) many times before
In conclusion, I would like to add that I think that we should make skydiving illegal in Singapore too, since it is too dangerous a recreational activity to be made available to the people, and I think we should hang skydiving instructors and facilitators, since they are potentially responsible for the death of many of their students/customers. Over the course of his career, a skydiving instructor could potentially be responsible for the death of tens (hundreds?) of his customers, all labouring under the delusion that skydiving is a very safe activity!
Post ID: 113413746729139639
"The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever." - Anatole France
***
I've found out that the friend whose Macintosh laptop dropped from the level of the cushion on a chair to the floor, and whose hinge connecting the screen to the rest of the laptop came out has been charged ~$1,000 repair by the nice folks at Apple even though it is under warranty.
Now, although warranties do not strictly cover this, any other laptop manufacturer would have repaired the laptop (especially because of the shoddy manufacturing), at most voiding the warranty after repair (as happened to my Nokia phone after a MOP smashed into the pocket where it was in, cracking the screen so all the liquid crystal flowed out). Furthermore, ~$1,000 is ridiculous - you might as well get a new Dell for that price.
Apples - deceptively cheap (then again, her model cost about $2,000, so they fleece you even for non-bottom of the line models). Now I know how they cut costs.
***
Me to someone complaining about horseriding soreness: At least you're not male
Someone: You always know how to make a girl feel better.
Me: Thank you, err, I think.
***
I've found out that the friend whose Macintosh laptop dropped from the level of the cushion on a chair to the floor, and whose hinge connecting the screen to the rest of the laptop came out has been charged ~$1,000 repair by the nice folks at Apple even though it is under warranty.
Now, although warranties do not strictly cover this, any other laptop manufacturer would have repaired the laptop (especially because of the shoddy manufacturing), at most voiding the warranty after repair (as happened to my Nokia phone after a MOP smashed into the pocket where it was in, cracking the screen so all the liquid crystal flowed out). Furthermore, ~$1,000 is ridiculous - you might as well get a new Dell for that price.
Apples - deceptively cheap (then again, her model cost about $2,000, so they fleece you even for non-bottom of the line models). Now I know how they cut costs.
***
Me to someone complaining about horseriding soreness: At least you're not male
Someone: You always know how to make a girl feel better.
Me: Thank you, err, I think.
Post ID: 113406839859331439
Thursday, December 08, 2005
Expat junkies, dealer, get their fix then fall into net
"One by one, they made their way to the home of the woman who headed the drug syndicate. And, one after another, the waiting Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers nabbed them."
Caught in this sting:
- A British management consultant
- A British construction supervisor
- A Malaysian sports coach
- A Japanese director
- An American senior operations manager
- A Singaporean contractor
The syndicate allegedly catered "to well-heeled expatriates".
Funny, they all seem to be productive members of the Upper-Middle/Upper class. I thought drugs were supposed to turn you into some sort of sub-human beast, unable to work or function and live normally, and only able to think of your next fix, and how to get it. And willing to sell your family into slavery for it - which oddly sounds like another Social Ill [TM] that not too recently was still denounced and condemned for porentially leading to the downfall of society: gambling).
"[Saloons where liquor is served are responsible for] annually sending thousands of our youths to destruction, for corrupting politics, dissipating workmen's wages, leading astray 60,000 girls each year into lives of immorality and banishing children from school... Liquor is responsible for 19% of the divorces, 25% of the poverty, 25% of the insanity, 37% of the pauperism, 45% of child desertion, and 50% of the crime in this country... And this is a very conservative estimate" - the Anti-Saloon League
Hmm, I think we should make skydiving illegal in Singapore too, since it is too dangerous a recreational activity to be made available to the people.
"One by one, they made their way to the home of the woman who headed the drug syndicate. And, one after another, the waiting Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officers nabbed them."
Caught in this sting:
- A British management consultant
- A British construction supervisor
- A Malaysian sports coach
- A Japanese director
- An American senior operations manager
- A Singaporean contractor
The syndicate allegedly catered "to well-heeled expatriates".
Funny, they all seem to be productive members of the Upper-Middle/Upper class. I thought drugs were supposed to turn you into some sort of sub-human beast, unable to work or function and live normally, and only able to think of your next fix, and how to get it. And willing to sell your family into slavery for it - which oddly sounds like another Social Ill [TM] that not too recently was still denounced and condemned for porentially leading to the downfall of society: gambling).
"[Saloons where liquor is served are responsible for] annually sending thousands of our youths to destruction, for corrupting politics, dissipating workmen's wages, leading astray 60,000 girls each year into lives of immorality and banishing children from school... Liquor is responsible for 19% of the divorces, 25% of the poverty, 25% of the insanity, 37% of the pauperism, 45% of child desertion, and 50% of the crime in this country... And this is a very conservative estimate" - the Anti-Saloon League
Hmm, I think we should make skydiving illegal in Singapore too, since it is too dangerous a recreational activity to be made available to the people.
Post ID: 113404010397398081
Public entry in my guestbook:
"hello. I just got routed to your blog from a search I was doing. curious, I clicked on your "how girl's waste time" list. it is probably the most useless thing I have ever read. it is not subversive, humorous, or smart--in fact, it's just the usual stereotyping amped up. you should have paid better attention to the part of you that tacked the disclaimer to the top: if you have to spend that much time outside the real text explaining and/or defending all the shortcomings of the text itself... why even write it in the first place? I find your list insulting--the more so because it is so uncreative and mundane. none of these hold true for the women I know and love. maybe you need to start hanging out with a different set.... or maybe you should make a list about how you waste time. it would probably be more accurate and, even, funny.
good day,
michael
p.s. yes, I am a woman named-michael. I bet that rocks your brain beyond comprehension it's so "out of the norm"."
***
Skepchick 2006 Calendar - "Smart is Sexy Skepchicks, Intl. is an organization dedicated to promoting skepticism and critical thinking among women around the world."
Professor beaten; attackers cite KU creationism class - "A professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he sent e-mails deriding Christian conservatives was hospitalized Monday after what appeared to be a roadside beating."
"hello. I just got routed to your blog from a search I was doing. curious, I clicked on your "how girl's waste time" list. it is probably the most useless thing I have ever read. it is not subversive, humorous, or smart--in fact, it's just the usual stereotyping amped up. you should have paid better attention to the part of you that tacked the disclaimer to the top: if you have to spend that much time outside the real text explaining and/or defending all the shortcomings of the text itself... why even write it in the first place? I find your list insulting--the more so because it is so uncreative and mundane. none of these hold true for the women I know and love. maybe you need to start hanging out with a different set.... or maybe you should make a list about how you waste time. it would probably be more accurate and, even, funny.
good day,
michael
p.s. yes, I am a woman named-michael. I bet that rocks your brain beyond comprehension it's so "out of the norm"."
***
Skepchick 2006 Calendar - "Smart is Sexy Skepchicks, Intl. is an organization dedicated to promoting skepticism and critical thinking among women around the world."
Professor beaten; attackers cite KU creationism class - "A professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he sent e-mails deriding Christian conservatives was hospitalized Monday after what appeared to be a roadside beating."
Post ID: 113401040634353539
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
The power is in the post, not in the deity
One popular argument used by non-theologians when they engage in theodicy (reconciling an omnibenevolent and omnipotent god with a world full of suffering) is that nobody can question their god, since he can do anything he wants and is answerable to no one. Genocide, babies with Down's Syndrome or Tsunamis - failure to stop any of these does not impugn on the moral character of their god. This god could castrate his devotees (or rape them, for the female ones), tear them limb from limb, tie their intestines to a tree and throw them off a cliff (but alas, not to their doom, for they would come back to life in a Sisyphean manner), and they would be praising him as they plunged. He could send the whole human race to burn in hell for all eternity and his worshippers would still be chanting his praises while roasting in sulphur and brimstone.
The problem with this deceptively convincing argument is that it ignores the question of the definition of "good". An omnipotent and omnibenevolent god can do anything, and he will be acclaimed as being good. If an entity cannot be wrong - is incapable of being wrong - we would label it "amoral" - neither moral or immoral, incapable of being either right or, more relevantly in this case, wrong. A rock, for example, is amoral since it has no will (let alone free will) and thus cannot be held accountable for its actions. To acclaim as good an entity which is incapable of being judged immoral is to make a mockery of the concept of morality (if not to make it an unintelligible concept), and indeed that of divine will, since this god will be incapable by definition of doing something wrong; if somebody cheats and obtains answers to a test and then gets full marks, he would not have achieved anything by any objective measure.
Subscribing to a notion of morality being dependent on a god's ever changing whims (as opposed to an objective moral code that even this god can and has to be held to) in fact condemns us to the ultimate form of moral relativism - what is good can change at any one time depending on what the omnibenevolent god does. Some might counter that some gods have moral codes that do not change with time, but that would render null and void the earlier fudge about whatever gods do being automatically branded as good. Furthermore, a look at the Bible and Christian history puts paid to this argument, at least for the Christian god, for it is clear that moral standards have changed dramaticaly with time. What's worse - the Biblical god does not even abide by his own moral standards.
We might then ask why the Christian devil Satan is so reviled. It is because he does evil things, we are told. Yet, even if the Christian god did evil things, by definition he would be acclaimed as good. Presumably, even if a reasonable man judged that Satan did good things like prolonging lives, reducing suffering, ending pestilence and preventing famines, and the Christian god engaged in evil activities like infanticide, genocide, introducing the Ebola virus to the world, we would have to pronounce the former evil and the latter good. The concepts of "good" and "evil" would cease to have any real meaning. The two entities could even be switched (the former god would now be Satan, and the former Satan be god) and the old god would now be denounced and the old Satan be lauded. What would be worshipped, then, would be the Christian god's post, rather than any of his intrinsic attributes, at least according to the "god can do anything he wants" argument. In that case, anyone could be put in the Christian god's post, even any Tom, Dick or Harry on the street, and he would be lauded as being good. For that matter, a monkey, a computer or even a rock could do the same job, and would accrue the same privileges.
How do we really know that the Christian god is good? We just have to take his word for it (or rather, the word of his spokesmen).
A Christian once told me to judge any religion by its fruits. I suppose the same will have to be said of the Christian god, even if rotten, maggot-ridden fruit is wolved down with relish by his worshippers.
***
Someone: look, you might as well take a look at biblical representation of satan. he didn't start off being the Ultimate Bad Guy
look at his evolution from genesis to job
Me: well this is the fundie representation of him
and I think only fundies use the "god can do no wrong" argument
some liberals even accept that the bible is not 100% true!!!
One popular argument used by non-theologians when they engage in theodicy (reconciling an omnibenevolent and omnipotent god with a world full of suffering) is that nobody can question their god, since he can do anything he wants and is answerable to no one. Genocide, babies with Down's Syndrome or Tsunamis - failure to stop any of these does not impugn on the moral character of their god. This god could castrate his devotees (or rape them, for the female ones), tear them limb from limb, tie their intestines to a tree and throw them off a cliff (but alas, not to their doom, for they would come back to life in a Sisyphean manner), and they would be praising him as they plunged. He could send the whole human race to burn in hell for all eternity and his worshippers would still be chanting his praises while roasting in sulphur and brimstone.
The problem with this deceptively convincing argument is that it ignores the question of the definition of "good". An omnipotent and omnibenevolent god can do anything, and he will be acclaimed as being good. If an entity cannot be wrong - is incapable of being wrong - we would label it "amoral" - neither moral or immoral, incapable of being either right or, more relevantly in this case, wrong. A rock, for example, is amoral since it has no will (let alone free will) and thus cannot be held accountable for its actions. To acclaim as good an entity which is incapable of being judged immoral is to make a mockery of the concept of morality (if not to make it an unintelligible concept), and indeed that of divine will, since this god will be incapable by definition of doing something wrong; if somebody cheats and obtains answers to a test and then gets full marks, he would not have achieved anything by any objective measure.
Subscribing to a notion of morality being dependent on a god's ever changing whims (as opposed to an objective moral code that even this god can and has to be held to) in fact condemns us to the ultimate form of moral relativism - what is good can change at any one time depending on what the omnibenevolent god does. Some might counter that some gods have moral codes that do not change with time, but that would render null and void the earlier fudge about whatever gods do being automatically branded as good. Furthermore, a look at the Bible and Christian history puts paid to this argument, at least for the Christian god, for it is clear that moral standards have changed dramaticaly with time. What's worse - the Biblical god does not even abide by his own moral standards.
We might then ask why the Christian devil Satan is so reviled. It is because he does evil things, we are told. Yet, even if the Christian god did evil things, by definition he would be acclaimed as good. Presumably, even if a reasonable man judged that Satan did good things like prolonging lives, reducing suffering, ending pestilence and preventing famines, and the Christian god engaged in evil activities like infanticide, genocide, introducing the Ebola virus to the world, we would have to pronounce the former evil and the latter good. The concepts of "good" and "evil" would cease to have any real meaning. The two entities could even be switched (the former god would now be Satan, and the former Satan be god) and the old god would now be denounced and the old Satan be lauded. What would be worshipped, then, would be the Christian god's post, rather than any of his intrinsic attributes, at least according to the "god can do anything he wants" argument. In that case, anyone could be put in the Christian god's post, even any Tom, Dick or Harry on the street, and he would be lauded as being good. For that matter, a monkey, a computer or even a rock could do the same job, and would accrue the same privileges.
How do we really know that the Christian god is good? We just have to take his word for it (or rather, the word of his spokesmen).
A Christian once told me to judge any religion by its fruits. I suppose the same will have to be said of the Christian god, even if rotten, maggot-ridden fruit is wolved down with relish by his worshippers.
***
Someone: look, you might as well take a look at biblical representation of satan. he didn't start off being the Ultimate Bad Guy
look at his evolution from genesis to job
Me: well this is the fundie representation of him
and I think only fundies use the "god can do no wrong" argument
some liberals even accept that the bible is not 100% true!!!
Post ID: 113396795777584551
"Man is conceived of blood made rotten by the heat of lust; and in the end worms, like mourners, stand about his corpse. In life he produced lice and tapeworms; in death he will produce worms and flies. In life he produced dung and vomit; in death he produces rottenness and stench. In life he fattened one man; in death he fattens a multitude of worms." - Pope Innocent III, De miseria condicionis humane (On the Misery of the Human Condition)
Interestingly enough, the text is available online, but unfortunately it's in Italian.
***
An interesting tidbit from my sister:
Allah tolong Yam-Tuan
Panjangkan umornya,
Tolong Yam-tuan
Suroh dia menang,
Mulia dan senang,
Prentah dia panjang,
Tolong Yam-tuan
[Addendum:
A translation courtesy of SyLv:
GOD helps yam-tuan
lengthen his age
help yam-tuan
make him win
glorious and happy
may he rule long, < not sure bout this though
help yam-tuan]
Interestingly enough, the text is available online, but unfortunately it's in Italian.
***
An interesting tidbit from my sister:
Allah tolong Yam-Tuan
Panjangkan umornya,
Tolong Yam-tuan
Suroh dia menang,
Mulia dan senang,
Prentah dia panjang,
Tolong Yam-tuan
[Addendum:
A translation courtesy of SyLv:
GOD helps yam-tuan
lengthen his age
help yam-tuan
make him win
glorious and happy
may he rule long, < not sure bout this though
help yam-tuan]
Post ID: 113395471212796188
"Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others." - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
***
Unfortunately, since this textbook (Williamson - Macroeconomics, 2nd ed.) will not be used next semester and will likely not be used in any future semesters, it looks like I'm stuck with it. Maybe I should put it on eBay. Or, *gasp*, read the rest of it. Ah well, might as well get my money's worth and transcribe all the amusing snipes I didn't have time to put up during the semester:
A weak defence of the optimising assumption: "If we were to abandon optimization behavior, there would be many possible alternatives, and it would be extremely difficult to get our models to make any predictions at all. While there is typically only one way to behave optimally, there are many ways in which individuals can be stupid." - p. 104
"If you were a macroeconomist working for a political party, how a particular tax policy affected the wealth of different consumers in different ways might be the key to your party's success, and you would want to pay close attention to this." - p. 274
"President Bush clearly did not put much stock in the Ricardian equivalence theorem, as he appeared convinced that the withholding reduction would increase private consumption expenditures." - p. 285
Meanwhile Varian is not to be bested: "Now we have two decisions to consider. The workers have to decide how much education to acquire and the firms have to decide how much to pay workers with different amounts of education. Let us make the extreme assumption that the education doesn't affect worker productivity at all. Of course this isn't true in real life - especially for economics courses - but it helps to keep the model simple." - p. 676
"The so-called Christian state is the Christian negation of the state, but by no means the political realization of Christianity. The state which still professes Christianity in the form of religion, does not yet profess it in the form appropriate to the state, for it still has a religious attitude towards religion -- that is to say, it is not the true implementation of the human basis of religion, because it still relies on the unreal, imaginary form of this human core. The so-called Christian state is the imperfect state, and the Christian religion is regarded by it as the supplementation and sanctification of its imperfection. For the Christian state, therefore, religion necessarily becomes a means; hence, it is a hypocritical state. It makes a great difference whether the complete state, because of the defect inherent in the general nature of the state, counts religion among its presuppositions, or whether the incomplete state, because of the defect inherent in its particular existence as a defective state, declares that religion is its basis. In the latter case, religion becomes imperfect politics. In the former case, the imperfection even of consummate politics becomes evident in religion. The so-called Christian state needs the Christian religion in order to complete itself as a state. The democratic state, the real state, does not need religion for its political completion. On the contrary, it can disregard religion because in it the human basis of religion is realized in a secular manner. The so-called Christian state, on the other hand, has a political attitude to religion and a religious attitude to politics. By degrading the forms of the state to mere semblance, it equally degrades religion to mere semblance...
The separation of the "spirit of the Gospel" from the "letter of the Gospel" is an irreligious act. A state which makes the Gospel speak in the language of politics -- that is, in another language than that of the Holy Ghost -- commits sacrilege, if not in human eyes, then in the eyes of its own religion. The state which acknowledges Christianity as its supreme criterion, and the Bible as its Charter, must be confronted with the words of Holy Scripture, for every word of Scripture is holy. This state, as well as the human rubbish on which it is based, is caught in a painful contradiction that is insoluble from the standpoint of religious consciousness when it is referred to those sayings of the Gospel with which it "not only does not comply, but cannot possibly comply, if it does not want to dissolve itself completely as a state"." - Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question
***
Unfortunately, since this textbook (Williamson - Macroeconomics, 2nd ed.) will not be used next semester and will likely not be used in any future semesters, it looks like I'm stuck with it. Maybe I should put it on eBay. Or, *gasp*, read the rest of it. Ah well, might as well get my money's worth and transcribe all the amusing snipes I didn't have time to put up during the semester:
A weak defence of the optimising assumption: "If we were to abandon optimization behavior, there would be many possible alternatives, and it would be extremely difficult to get our models to make any predictions at all. While there is typically only one way to behave optimally, there are many ways in which individuals can be stupid." - p. 104
"If you were a macroeconomist working for a political party, how a particular tax policy affected the wealth of different consumers in different ways might be the key to your party's success, and you would want to pay close attention to this." - p. 274
"President Bush clearly did not put much stock in the Ricardian equivalence theorem, as he appeared convinced that the withholding reduction would increase private consumption expenditures." - p. 285
Meanwhile Varian is not to be bested: "Now we have two decisions to consider. The workers have to decide how much education to acquire and the firms have to decide how much to pay workers with different amounts of education. Let us make the extreme assumption that the education doesn't affect worker productivity at all. Of course this isn't true in real life - especially for economics courses - but it helps to keep the model simple." - p. 676
"The so-called Christian state is the Christian negation of the state, but by no means the political realization of Christianity. The state which still professes Christianity in the form of religion, does not yet profess it in the form appropriate to the state, for it still has a religious attitude towards religion -- that is to say, it is not the true implementation of the human basis of religion, because it still relies on the unreal, imaginary form of this human core. The so-called Christian state is the imperfect state, and the Christian religion is regarded by it as the supplementation and sanctification of its imperfection. For the Christian state, therefore, religion necessarily becomes a means; hence, it is a hypocritical state. It makes a great difference whether the complete state, because of the defect inherent in the general nature of the state, counts religion among its presuppositions, or whether the incomplete state, because of the defect inherent in its particular existence as a defective state, declares that religion is its basis. In the latter case, religion becomes imperfect politics. In the former case, the imperfection even of consummate politics becomes evident in religion. The so-called Christian state needs the Christian religion in order to complete itself as a state. The democratic state, the real state, does not need religion for its political completion. On the contrary, it can disregard religion because in it the human basis of religion is realized in a secular manner. The so-called Christian state, on the other hand, has a political attitude to religion and a religious attitude to politics. By degrading the forms of the state to mere semblance, it equally degrades religion to mere semblance...
The separation of the "spirit of the Gospel" from the "letter of the Gospel" is an irreligious act. A state which makes the Gospel speak in the language of politics -- that is, in another language than that of the Holy Ghost -- commits sacrilege, if not in human eyes, then in the eyes of its own religion. The state which acknowledges Christianity as its supreme criterion, and the Bible as its Charter, must be confronted with the words of Holy Scripture, for every word of Scripture is holy. This state, as well as the human rubbish on which it is based, is caught in a painful contradiction that is insoluble from the standpoint of religious consciousness when it is referred to those sayings of the Gospel with which it "not only does not comply, but cannot possibly comply, if it does not want to dissolve itself completely as a state"." - Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question
Post ID: 113394035792154368
Asia Times Online - Singapore: A tale of two cities
"There is a growing gap," said Sinapan Samydoray, chairman of Think Centre, a Singapore-based organization that deals with social issues. "The bottom 20% of the population earns less than 10 years ago in real terms. Almost 87% of the people are staying in government houses. Sixty percent of the people do not pay tax because they earn too little.
Singapore's social divide increased during the economic crisis that hit East Asia in 1997. While the average income of Singaporeans fell by 2.7% in that period, that of the poorest families fell by a staggering 49%, according to a paper by Professor Mukhopadhaya Pundarik of Singapore's National University. However, it seems the problem is inherent in the country's past and present political economy (the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management)."
No doubt more filthy lies spread by the Imperialist Foreign Media, just like the malicious and totally unfounded rumours about SARS that counter-revolutionary provocateurss in the employ of shadowy, unnamed foreign powers spread about China (at least before the Noble Communist Party decided that it was a problem and had to be tackled head-on).
***
Microsoft Online Crash Analysis - windiag - "The Windows Memory Diagnostic tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors. The diagnostic includes a comprehensive set of memory tests. If you are experiencing problems while running Windows, you can use the diagnostic to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard. Windows Memory Diagnostic is designed to be easy and fast. On most configurations, you can download the diagnostic, read the documentation, run the test and complete the first test pass in less than 30 minutes."
This sounds like more fun than memtest86. Finally!
"There is a growing gap," said Sinapan Samydoray, chairman of Think Centre, a Singapore-based organization that deals with social issues. "The bottom 20% of the population earns less than 10 years ago in real terms. Almost 87% of the people are staying in government houses. Sixty percent of the people do not pay tax because they earn too little.
Singapore's social divide increased during the economic crisis that hit East Asia in 1997. While the average income of Singaporeans fell by 2.7% in that period, that of the poorest families fell by a staggering 49%, according to a paper by Professor Mukhopadhaya Pundarik of Singapore's National University. However, it seems the problem is inherent in the country's past and present political economy (the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management)."
No doubt more filthy lies spread by the Imperialist Foreign Media, just like the malicious and totally unfounded rumours about SARS that counter-revolutionary provocateurss in the employ of shadowy, unnamed foreign powers spread about China (at least before the Noble Communist Party decided that it was a problem and had to be tackled head-on).
***
Microsoft Online Crash Analysis - windiag - "The Windows Memory Diagnostic tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors. The diagnostic includes a comprehensive set of memory tests. If you are experiencing problems while running Windows, you can use the diagnostic to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard. Windows Memory Diagnostic is designed to be easy and fast. On most configurations, you can download the diagnostic, read the documentation, run the test and complete the first test pass in less than 30 minutes."
This sounds like more fun than memtest86. Finally!
Post ID: 113392986917167466
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Someone: "girls ah, they only want to do breast stroke, cos it's relaxing. doens't even get your heart rate up"
Someone else: it's freaking difficult to put on the rubbery [swim] cab (sic)
worse than condom
Me: you put on for people ah
kinky right
***
One thing you learn as you go along is that no matter what you do or how you behave, there will always be somebody who will oppose it or be against you.
Hell, in JC there was this girl who was probably the epitome of niceness and sweetness. Yet, some people disliked her *precisely* because she was nice and sweet.
The only sure way to accommodate everybody and avoid criticism is to follow the path of least resistance and lapse into apathy and inaction (or to keep "a low profile", as some would term it), but then nothing would ever get done.
Actually, scrap that. If nothing was done, people would still be slamming you for doing nothing, so there's really no way to get out of this Catch-22.
(This is written about the Idledays Fund controversy, but can be profitably applied to any situation.)
***
I transferred my Yahoo Groups memberships back to my old account with the help of this nifty "Find My Groups" option:
"If some of the groups you belong to are not showing up, we can help you locate them. Search for these groups using the following email addresses:
***@hotmail.com
***@yahoo.com
Before you click "Continue", review your email addresses. You may need to add a different email address, or verify an existing one. "
What it does is look for subscriptions to Yahoo Groups not matched to the current Yahoo ID, but registered to the verified email accounts listed under the current Yahoo ID. For example, if foo@bar.com is subscribed to the "xxx" Yahoo Group under the Yahoo ID "foo", but you want it under the Yahoo ID "bar", you can login with your "bar" Yahoo ID and use this tool, provided that foo@bar.com is also verified under the "bar" Yahoo ID.
So migrating Yahoo Groups between IDs is a relatively painless task, excepting the character recognition, which I swear daily becomes harder and harder - if spammers' OCR technology is so advanced that the images they serve up have to be garbled so, I'm sure it can recognise even my handwriting.
Someone else: it's freaking difficult to put on the rubbery [swim] cab (sic)
worse than condom
Me: you put on for people ah
kinky right
***
One thing you learn as you go along is that no matter what you do or how you behave, there will always be somebody who will oppose it or be against you.
Hell, in JC there was this girl who was probably the epitome of niceness and sweetness. Yet, some people disliked her *precisely* because she was nice and sweet.
The only sure way to accommodate everybody and avoid criticism is to follow the path of least resistance and lapse into apathy and inaction (or to keep "a low profile", as some would term it), but then nothing would ever get done.
Actually, scrap that. If nothing was done, people would still be slamming you for doing nothing, so there's really no way to get out of this Catch-22.
(This is written about the Idledays Fund controversy, but can be profitably applied to any situation.)
***
I transferred my Yahoo Groups memberships back to my old account with the help of this nifty "Find My Groups" option:
"If some of the groups you belong to are not showing up, we can help you locate them. Search for these groups using the following email addresses:
***@hotmail.com
***@yahoo.com
Before you click "Continue", review your email addresses. You may need to add a different email address, or verify an existing one. "
What it does is look for subscriptions to Yahoo Groups not matched to the current Yahoo ID, but registered to the verified email accounts listed under the current Yahoo ID. For example, if foo@bar.com is subscribed to the "xxx" Yahoo Group under the Yahoo ID "foo", but you want it under the Yahoo ID "bar", you can login with your "bar" Yahoo ID and use this tool, provided that foo@bar.com is also verified under the "bar" Yahoo ID.
So migrating Yahoo Groups between IDs is a relatively painless task, excepting the character recognition, which I swear daily becomes harder and harder - if spammers' OCR technology is so advanced that the images they serve up have to be garbled so, I'm sure it can recognise even my handwriting.
Post ID: 113386885572316933
Monday, December 05, 2005
"Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them." - Leo Tolstoy
***
I was in Balestier today and I happened upon the infamous 'Fragrance Hotel'. Near the branch where this picture was taken, there was a sign reading "ROSE" pointing into the hotel.
Meanwhile, the whole area was filled with cheap hotels - there was another branch of Fragrance Hotel down the street, and there was a Hotel 81 on either side of the road.
***
September 2002 archives are restored.
Excerpts:
"We medics are tasked with the horrible area cleaning task of washing the toilets. What makes our unenviable task worse is people's disgusting toilet habits - mainly, not flushing. These people are at least 18, if not 19, 20, 21 or beyond, and in the army to boot, and they still don't know that you should flush a toilet after you use it. Or maybe they just don't like us."
"We had another change of command parade, this time for my brigade. Parade Commanders for Armour Parades travel in style - on Jeeps!"
"I think next week I'll book in on Sunday morning. No one cares, not that anyone is around to anyhow. Anyway the punishment meted out to one person for missing Weekend RT was 1 confinement, so I assume the worst they can do to me is give me 1/2 a confinement!"
"I'm very happy that I have not been forced to glimpse any naked male members in camp so far! Of course, I notice that the number of "sightings" is roughly proportional to the number of Malays in my bunk."
"Probably not by accident, I've been tasked by the Senior Medic to take care of the "Weight Management for Obese Regulars Scheme". Gah."
"Mysteriously, the ET (Entrenching Tool) stick I borrowed from Wen Fa for 4NTM disappeared from my fieldpack, and the groundsheet he lent me became a poncho. Perplexing and disturbing this mystery is, and I'll have to bear the losses and replace his items! :("
"His latest stunt failed miserably when I strode into the MO's room and saw him typing in a SMS to send via the Internet to "90483827" and which started, "Hi, I'm your secret admirer". Unaware of my sudden entrance, he continued typing for a while while those around him started laughing hysterically, and I finally exited the room with sounds of amusement."
***
Under the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, if copyright owners are and have been vigilant, works made in 1923 or after will not be in the public domain till 2019. I'm positive that in 2018 or thereabouts, another Copyright Term Extension Act will be passed in the US Congress. In fact, I recall some site where you could make bets about this sort of thing, but by 2018 I'd have forgotten about the bet, so.
"Honour Intellectual Property Laws' Original Spirit - Be HIPLOS; Insane copyright terms kill creativity"
(This putative advertising campaign seems to have more going for it than my "Honour Artists' Original Intentions - Be HAOI; Censorship kills creativity" proposal)
***
Quotations on criminal justice from the Norwegian writer Jens Bjørneboe:
"Take away the "immoral" criminal, and we'd be robbed of one of the lies we need in order to live: namely the belief that there is someone who is even more immoral than we are. We all need someone to despise and look down on as not having full value. This is another of our strong points of likeness with that same criminal: in prison there always develops a hierarchical type of society, where the safecracker and the gunman rank highest and the sexual offender lowest.
The prison is a true copy of our own society.
—"Crime as a way of life" (1967)
"A judicial system's first task will always be to secure and protect itself: the judicial system must necessarily regard itself as justice and the rule of law incarnate, and it thus becomes entirely logical that defense of the judicial system must have the very highest priority followed by protection of the state and its officials and civil servants. The inevitable consequence will be that the judicial system and its administration will comprise the very skeleton of society, its innermost, immutable, reactionary mineral core. The circle is complete: the prosecuting authority can only be reported to the prosecuting authority, whereupon the prosecuting authority "rejects" the accusations and declares the prosecuting authority free of any guilt.
It cannot be otherwise.
-"The righteous and the innocent" (1967)
***
I was in Balestier today and I happened upon the infamous 'Fragrance Hotel'. Near the branch where this picture was taken, there was a sign reading "ROSE" pointing into the hotel.
Meanwhile, the whole area was filled with cheap hotels - there was another branch of Fragrance Hotel down the street, and there was a Hotel 81 on either side of the road.
***
September 2002 archives are restored.
Excerpts:
"We medics are tasked with the horrible area cleaning task of washing the toilets. What makes our unenviable task worse is people's disgusting toilet habits - mainly, not flushing. These people are at least 18, if not 19, 20, 21 or beyond, and in the army to boot, and they still don't know that you should flush a toilet after you use it. Or maybe they just don't like us."
"We had another change of command parade, this time for my brigade. Parade Commanders for Armour Parades travel in style - on Jeeps!"
"I think next week I'll book in on Sunday morning. No one cares, not that anyone is around to anyhow. Anyway the punishment meted out to one person for missing Weekend RT was 1 confinement, so I assume the worst they can do to me is give me 1/2 a confinement!"
"I'm very happy that I have not been forced to glimpse any naked male members in camp so far! Of course, I notice that the number of "sightings" is roughly proportional to the number of Malays in my bunk."
"Probably not by accident, I've been tasked by the Senior Medic to take care of the "Weight Management for Obese Regulars Scheme". Gah."
"Mysteriously, the ET (Entrenching Tool) stick I borrowed from Wen Fa for 4NTM disappeared from my fieldpack, and the groundsheet he lent me became a poncho. Perplexing and disturbing this mystery is, and I'll have to bear the losses and replace his items! :("
"His latest stunt failed miserably when I strode into the MO's room and saw him typing in a SMS to send via the Internet to "90483827" and which started, "Hi, I'm your secret admirer". Unaware of my sudden entrance, he continued typing for a while while those around him started laughing hysterically, and I finally exited the room with sounds of amusement."
***
Under the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, if copyright owners are and have been vigilant, works made in 1923 or after will not be in the public domain till 2019. I'm positive that in 2018 or thereabouts, another Copyright Term Extension Act will be passed in the US Congress. In fact, I recall some site where you could make bets about this sort of thing, but by 2018 I'd have forgotten about the bet, so.
"Honour Intellectual Property Laws' Original Spirit - Be HIPLOS; Insane copyright terms kill creativity"
(This putative advertising campaign seems to have more going for it than my "Honour Artists' Original Intentions - Be HAOI; Censorship kills creativity" proposal)
***
Quotations on criminal justice from the Norwegian writer Jens Bjørneboe:
"Take away the "immoral" criminal, and we'd be robbed of one of the lies we need in order to live: namely the belief that there is someone who is even more immoral than we are. We all need someone to despise and look down on as not having full value. This is another of our strong points of likeness with that same criminal: in prison there always develops a hierarchical type of society, where the safecracker and the gunman rank highest and the sexual offender lowest.
The prison is a true copy of our own society.
—"Crime as a way of life" (1967)
"A judicial system's first task will always be to secure and protect itself: the judicial system must necessarily regard itself as justice and the rule of law incarnate, and it thus becomes entirely logical that defense of the judicial system must have the very highest priority followed by protection of the state and its officials and civil servants. The inevitable consequence will be that the judicial system and its administration will comprise the very skeleton of society, its innermost, immutable, reactionary mineral core. The circle is complete: the prosecuting authority can only be reported to the prosecuting authority, whereupon the prosecuting authority "rejects" the accusations and declares the prosecuting authority free of any guilt.
It cannot be otherwise.
-"The righteous and the innocent" (1967)
Post ID: 113378380017384327
"A cult is a religion with no political power." - Tom Wolfe
***
c-jump: computer programming board game - "Great and unique learning game for kids! It teaches the child basic commands of a programming language, such as "if", "else", "switch", and introduces variable "x" concept."
"Hello" in many languages - "Greetings in more than 800 languages"
Memes: Myths, Misunderstandings and Misgivings - "As Sturgeon's Law reminds us, 95% of everything is crap. The hard part--especially during these early days of proto-memetics--is to identify the 5% that is actually good. Sturgeon's Law also suggests, of course, that 95% of the criticism of memes and memetics is also crap, so we needn't waste our time rebutting every silly, anxiety-driven objection."
The Wrathful Dispersion controversy: A Canadian perspective - "Wrathful Dispersion is couched in more cautiously neutral language; rather than tying linguistic diversity to a specific biblical event, it merely argues that the differences among modern languages are too perverse to have arisen spontaneously, and must therefore be the work of some wrathful (and powerful) disperser who deliberately set out to accomplish a confusion of tongues. When asked in court to speculate about the possible identity of the disperser, Michael Moringa, a prominent proponent of WD, demurred, saying that the theory makes no claims about the answer to that question, and that it certainly does not insist that the Disperser is the God of Genesis. Moringa has, however, elsewhere avowed a deep personal belief in the Christian God as the power responsible, as have other WD theorists."
The Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God - "Logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true. However, according to the brand of Christianity assumed by TAG, God created everything, including logic; or at least everything, including logic, is dependent on God. But if something is created by or is dependent on God, it is not necessary--it is contingent on God. And if principles of logic are contingent on God, they are not logically necessary. Moreover, if principles of logic are contingent on God, God could change them. Thus, God could make the law of noncontradiction false; in other words, God could arrange matters so that a proposition and its negation were true at the same time. But this is absurd. How could God arrange matters so that New Zealand is south of China and that New Zealand is not south of it? So, one must conclude that logic is not dependent on God, and, insofar as the Christian world view assumes that logic so dependent, it is false."
He deserves brownie points for the name of the argument alone.
Gym user upset at cover-up call - "A sports enthusiast was told not to wear vests at a council gym because the sight of "big hairy armpits" would upset other users."
YATTA! - 'Damn Japs' is the only thing that can possibly describe this. And how does GREENL spell YATTA?!
Rainbow Warrior - "A concert scheduled for Singapore in the early ’80s, for example, had to be cancelled when Kitaro refused to bend to the strict rules applied to those seeking to enter the country. “The tickets were sold out,” he recalls. “But when I went through immigration, they were like, Kitaro, please come over here, you have a problem. You cannot enter with long hair. They said, ‘If you would like to enter Singapore you will have to cut your hair.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to cut my hair, so I would like to cancel the concert.’”"
!@#$%^&*()
Romance of the Jedi - "In a losing battle, to save a dying world, 2 warriors will find victory, in each other's arms. Obi-Wan: 'This time, we will do it together.'"
Anti-PETA Shirts - Anti-PETA T-Shirts, Bumper Stickers, Anti PETA Shirts - I particularly like:
I'm not sure why 1856, though.
***
c-jump: computer programming board game - "Great and unique learning game for kids! It teaches the child basic commands of a programming language, such as "if", "else", "switch", and introduces variable "x" concept."
"Hello" in many languages - "Greetings in more than 800 languages"
Memes: Myths, Misunderstandings and Misgivings - "As Sturgeon's Law reminds us, 95% of everything is crap. The hard part--especially during these early days of proto-memetics--is to identify the 5% that is actually good. Sturgeon's Law also suggests, of course, that 95% of the criticism of memes and memetics is also crap, so we needn't waste our time rebutting every silly, anxiety-driven objection."
The Wrathful Dispersion controversy: A Canadian perspective - "Wrathful Dispersion is couched in more cautiously neutral language; rather than tying linguistic diversity to a specific biblical event, it merely argues that the differences among modern languages are too perverse to have arisen spontaneously, and must therefore be the work of some wrathful (and powerful) disperser who deliberately set out to accomplish a confusion of tongues. When asked in court to speculate about the possible identity of the disperser, Michael Moringa, a prominent proponent of WD, demurred, saying that the theory makes no claims about the answer to that question, and that it certainly does not insist that the Disperser is the God of Genesis. Moringa has, however, elsewhere avowed a deep personal belief in the Christian God as the power responsible, as have other WD theorists."
The Transcendental Argument for the Nonexistence of God - "Logic presupposes that its principles are necessarily true. However, according to the brand of Christianity assumed by TAG, God created everything, including logic; or at least everything, including logic, is dependent on God. But if something is created by or is dependent on God, it is not necessary--it is contingent on God. And if principles of logic are contingent on God, they are not logically necessary. Moreover, if principles of logic are contingent on God, God could change them. Thus, God could make the law of noncontradiction false; in other words, God could arrange matters so that a proposition and its negation were true at the same time. But this is absurd. How could God arrange matters so that New Zealand is south of China and that New Zealand is not south of it? So, one must conclude that logic is not dependent on God, and, insofar as the Christian world view assumes that logic so dependent, it is false."
He deserves brownie points for the name of the argument alone.
Gym user upset at cover-up call - "A sports enthusiast was told not to wear vests at a council gym because the sight of "big hairy armpits" would upset other users."
YATTA! - 'Damn Japs' is the only thing that can possibly describe this. And how does GREENL spell YATTA?!
Rainbow Warrior - "A concert scheduled for Singapore in the early ’80s, for example, had to be cancelled when Kitaro refused to bend to the strict rules applied to those seeking to enter the country. “The tickets were sold out,” he recalls. “But when I went through immigration, they were like, Kitaro, please come over here, you have a problem. You cannot enter with long hair. They said, ‘If you would like to enter Singapore you will have to cut your hair.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to cut my hair, so I would like to cancel the concert.’”"
!@#$%^&*()
Romance of the Jedi - "In a losing battle, to save a dying world, 2 warriors will find victory, in each other's arms. Obi-Wan: 'This time, we will do it together.'"
Anti-PETA Shirts - Anti-PETA T-Shirts, Bumper Stickers, Anti PETA Shirts - I particularly like:
I'm not sure why 1856, though.
Post ID: 113378940772748368
Sicientific Project: Gender portrayal on children's television – deep-rooted change or stagnation?
"In the case of the Smurfs there is even more to learn about gender portrayal. For the basic principle of the Smurf is that his typical feature or role is reflected in his name: Grouchy Smurf, Lazy Smurf, Stupid Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Papa Smurf (the leader) and then Smurfette and Sassette. The particular characteristic of the last two is to be feminine, the former as an erotically attractive woman, and the latter as a smart girl with red hair. Here masculinity and femininity are no longer contrasted, since femininity is only another feature to be found in a few appropriate stereotypes...
Although girl figures may appear pleasant and new at first sight, certain aspects remain the same. For whether it is Sailor Moon, Ocean Girl or Marie, all sympathetic girl figures on television are absolutely beautiful, markedly slim and have mostly long blond hair. Body proportions that do not correspond to the ideal weight (or a few pounds less) or facial features which deviate from the uniform ideal of beauty are not to be seen – unless as a problem and a subject of the plot. Many female figures in animated films also follow the "baby schema", and the rounded head is characterised by a little nose and big wide-set eyes. (Cf Mühlen-Achs, 1995, 31)... As is usual in Mangas, Sailor Moon is extremely sexualised and by far exceeds Barbie in the unattainable proportions of her body."
As is usual in this sort of study, this has a tendency to overinterpret. A short discussion on whether the media should reflect reality as it is, reality as it should be or reality as viewers want it to be would have been welcome; just as females and males have different standards of physical achievement, it is unrealistic to expect there to be an equal number of female and male protagonists.
***
Jesus, Meet Evolution
"If we insist on approaching the tale of Adam and Eve as literal truth, we come out of the story with little more than frustration that our ancestors could be so stupid as to condemn all humanity by trusting a talking snake. But if we let go of this literalist fixation and dig to the moral and spiritual heart of the story, we confront a fundamental tenet of Christianity: that the Garden of Eden drama is played out every day, by our neighbors and ourselves; that we are not just condemned by the temptation and sin of our predecessors but by humanity's perpetual weakness in choosing evil over good; that we have all made choices to eat forbidden fruit for which we desperately want and need redemption.
Opponents of evolution fear that modern science advances a "materialist" worldview in which every aspect of existence is approached only on a crude, physical plane. But the literalist approach to scripture is precisely this--only when Christians move beyond it do we encounter the most meaningful realms of spiritual understanding and revelation. Thus, while intelligent design advocates desperately try to make science validate a clumsy interventionist God, C.S. Lewis envisions in The Screwtape Letters a Deity for whom the linear progress of evolution means nothing, because It operates beyond the bounds of space and time, intimately involved in "the whole, self-consistent creative act.""
Erm. Right. This sounds more like Transcendentalism.
"In the case of the Smurfs there is even more to learn about gender portrayal. For the basic principle of the Smurf is that his typical feature or role is reflected in his name: Grouchy Smurf, Lazy Smurf, Stupid Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Papa Smurf (the leader) and then Smurfette and Sassette. The particular characteristic of the last two is to be feminine, the former as an erotically attractive woman, and the latter as a smart girl with red hair. Here masculinity and femininity are no longer contrasted, since femininity is only another feature to be found in a few appropriate stereotypes...
Although girl figures may appear pleasant and new at first sight, certain aspects remain the same. For whether it is Sailor Moon, Ocean Girl or Marie, all sympathetic girl figures on television are absolutely beautiful, markedly slim and have mostly long blond hair. Body proportions that do not correspond to the ideal weight (or a few pounds less) or facial features which deviate from the uniform ideal of beauty are not to be seen – unless as a problem and a subject of the plot. Many female figures in animated films also follow the "baby schema", and the rounded head is characterised by a little nose and big wide-set eyes. (Cf Mühlen-Achs, 1995, 31)... As is usual in Mangas, Sailor Moon is extremely sexualised and by far exceeds Barbie in the unattainable proportions of her body."
As is usual in this sort of study, this has a tendency to overinterpret. A short discussion on whether the media should reflect reality as it is, reality as it should be or reality as viewers want it to be would have been welcome; just as females and males have different standards of physical achievement, it is unrealistic to expect there to be an equal number of female and male protagonists.
***
Jesus, Meet Evolution
"If we insist on approaching the tale of Adam and Eve as literal truth, we come out of the story with little more than frustration that our ancestors could be so stupid as to condemn all humanity by trusting a talking snake. But if we let go of this literalist fixation and dig to the moral and spiritual heart of the story, we confront a fundamental tenet of Christianity: that the Garden of Eden drama is played out every day, by our neighbors and ourselves; that we are not just condemned by the temptation and sin of our predecessors but by humanity's perpetual weakness in choosing evil over good; that we have all made choices to eat forbidden fruit for which we desperately want and need redemption.
Opponents of evolution fear that modern science advances a "materialist" worldview in which every aspect of existence is approached only on a crude, physical plane. But the literalist approach to scripture is precisely this--only when Christians move beyond it do we encounter the most meaningful realms of spiritual understanding and revelation. Thus, while intelligent design advocates desperately try to make science validate a clumsy interventionist God, C.S. Lewis envisions in The Screwtape Letters a Deity for whom the linear progress of evolution means nothing, because It operates beyond the bounds of space and time, intimately involved in "the whole, self-consistent creative act.""
Erm. Right. This sounds more like Transcendentalism.
Post ID: 113378376264672366
Sunday, December 04, 2005
"Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it." - Gordon R. Dickson
***
There's an anti-government documentary* on Singapore on the Discovery Channel now. I'm not watching it, but when I walked past the TV there was critical coverage of the Anson by-election and what happened to JBJ (Privy Council appeal and all that jazz, and how he's reduced to hawking his books in the streets now).
"Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister...She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac...Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no other way you can govern a Chinese society."
* - Well, not exclusively political. Earlier there was a segment on the founding of Singapore. It looks like the same one where Raffles was caught holding a bottle of Ice Mountain Mineral Water.
***
My Yahoo account is mysteriously restored. I only discovered this by chance when bored and wanting to see what would happen if I tried to log in to my old account.
I'm quite happy they restored it after a probable database error (albeit one lasting many days), but the least they could've done was to acknowledge my complaint email and notify me when it was restored.
Ah, the joys of being a non-paying customer.
***
Acronyms
"MAC Maybe A Computer
MAC Masquerading As a Computer
MAC Moronic Asinine Crap
MAC My Allowance Consumed
MAC Money Always Counts
MAC Mother's Artificial Charms
MAC Mickey's Alternative Computer
MAC Mindlessness Applauded & Celebrated
MAC Much Advertised Crap
MAC Masochist's Automatic Calculator
MAC Merely A Chimera
MAC Makes All Cynical"
***
BuyBack Asia Temporary Positions
"1. Counter Staff (for NUS Buyback Programme located on NUS campus)
- Female aged 18 to 28
- Pleasant looking and service oriented
2. Logistics Staff (for NUS Buyback Programme located on NUS campus)
- Male aged 18 to 35
- Reasonably Fit"
Sexual discrimination! Tut tut.
I wonder if I'll manage to sell my used textbooks on my own before flying off next semester. 5% (or even 10%) commission on the sale price is alright, but BuyBack Asia is charging 15%, which is quite unreasonable, I think.
***
I finally got my White Elephant T-shirt on Saturday, 2 1/2 weeks after I paid for it.
***
Youths reveal racy Bible calendar - "The 12 re-enacted passages feature a bare-breasted Delilah cutting Samson's hair and a nude Eve offering an apple. The Nuremberg-based group said they wanted to represent the Bible in a way that would entice young people."
Vicar tells children Santa is dead - "Youngsters at a Christmas carol service were devastated when the Reverend Lee Rayfield told them Santa Claus was dead. Even parents at the service in Maidenhead, Berkshire, were shocked to hear Mr Rayfield say it was scientifically impossible for Father Christmas to deliver so many presents so quickly."
Rich, coming from a vicar. Everyone knows that you need faith in Santa Claus!
Putfile Says Goodbye To Singapore - "Whilst Putfile is not a human rights campaigning organization, we believe that if a country must have the death penalty, there is no need for it be barbaric... For this reason, we are at this time terminating all service to users from Singapore. We shall be happy to restore service following any positive move from the government of Singapore towards abolition of hanging as an execution method."
This must be the most ridiculous response to the hanging. At least calling for a boycott would move the economically minded government. But a cessation of service from a free online video hosting provider? The same logic is behind 'some Americans are Crusaders, therefore we are justified in beheading all Americans'.
***
There's an anti-government documentary* on Singapore on the Discovery Channel now. I'm not watching it, but when I walked past the TV there was critical coverage of the Anson by-election and what happened to JBJ (Privy Council appeal and all that jazz, and how he's reduced to hawking his books in the streets now).
"Supposing Catherine Lim was writing about me and not the prime minister...She would not dare, right? Because my posture, my response has been such that nobody doubts that if you take me on, I will put on knuckle-dusters and catch you in a cul de sac...Anybody who decides to take me on needs to put on knuckle dusters. If you think you can hurt me more than I can hurt you, try. There is no other way you can govern a Chinese society."
* - Well, not exclusively political. Earlier there was a segment on the founding of Singapore. It looks like the same one where Raffles was caught holding a bottle of Ice Mountain Mineral Water.
***
My Yahoo account is mysteriously restored. I only discovered this by chance when bored and wanting to see what would happen if I tried to log in to my old account.
I'm quite happy they restored it after a probable database error (albeit one lasting many days), but the least they could've done was to acknowledge my complaint email and notify me when it was restored.
Ah, the joys of being a non-paying customer.
***
Acronyms
"MAC Maybe A Computer
MAC Masquerading As a Computer
MAC Moronic Asinine Crap
MAC My Allowance Consumed
MAC Money Always Counts
MAC Mother's Artificial Charms
MAC Mickey's Alternative Computer
MAC Mindlessness Applauded & Celebrated
MAC Much Advertised Crap
MAC Masochist's Automatic Calculator
MAC Merely A Chimera
MAC Makes All Cynical"
***
BuyBack Asia Temporary Positions
"1. Counter Staff (for NUS Buyback Programme located on NUS campus)
- Female aged 18 to 28
- Pleasant looking and service oriented
2. Logistics Staff (for NUS Buyback Programme located on NUS campus)
- Male aged 18 to 35
- Reasonably Fit"
Sexual discrimination! Tut tut.
I wonder if I'll manage to sell my used textbooks on my own before flying off next semester. 5% (or even 10%) commission on the sale price is alright, but BuyBack Asia is charging 15%, which is quite unreasonable, I think.
***
I finally got my White Elephant T-shirt on Saturday, 2 1/2 weeks after I paid for it.
***
Youths reveal racy Bible calendar - "The 12 re-enacted passages feature a bare-breasted Delilah cutting Samson's hair and a nude Eve offering an apple. The Nuremberg-based group said they wanted to represent the Bible in a way that would entice young people."
Vicar tells children Santa is dead - "Youngsters at a Christmas carol service were devastated when the Reverend Lee Rayfield told them Santa Claus was dead. Even parents at the service in Maidenhead, Berkshire, were shocked to hear Mr Rayfield say it was scientifically impossible for Father Christmas to deliver so many presents so quickly."
Rich, coming from a vicar. Everyone knows that you need faith in Santa Claus!
Putfile Says Goodbye To Singapore - "Whilst Putfile is not a human rights campaigning organization, we believe that if a country must have the death penalty, there is no need for it be barbaric... For this reason, we are at this time terminating all service to users from Singapore. We shall be happy to restore service following any positive move from the government of Singapore towards abolition of hanging as an execution method."
This must be the most ridiculous response to the hanging. At least calling for a boycott would move the economically minded government. But a cessation of service from a free online video hosting provider? The same logic is behind 'some Americans are Crusaders, therefore we are justified in beheading all Americans'.
Post ID: 112835984609152800
"it took me 24 years to find out that Nazism was abbreviated NS"
***
Someone: but tying it back will exert great pressure on your hair and kill the hair there... leading to degraded quality.
Me: so secondary school girls who tie their head end up balding early?!
depends how tight you tie right
Someone: yeah
but the thing is if you tie it up every day too tightly at the same spot, the hair will just get all dead at that spot
that's why you have to let it down whenever you can
Me: err.
sounds like rubbish
Someone: no..... this is what happened to me
Me: wth
so is it still dead?
Someone: no of cours not. it grew out and cut off.
Me: err.
as in which parts die
hair drops easier
but the roots are still alive
or what
Someone: along the hair shaft
you damage the shaft not the roots
Me: cheh
***
Someone: "all apes, in fact primates, have saggy breasts
so how did humans evolve to have nice round firm juicy pert breasts?
it mightbe that tits are mimicking the butt. apes n blah love butts.
and in fact, humans have the biggest butts in primatedome
coz we are long distance champoins, and butt muscles are essential in conserving energy.
so maybe theres the correlation
as in its biophysics is alot better in conserving energy
coz the gluts take back some energy in a pace's bounce"
Someone (2): "oh come on. JC students were shagging well before my time and will continue to shag well into the future.
at least not that many people got pregnant and not realize it for 7 months until collapsing in PE class and discovering said fetus.
(this is a true-life incident tha thappened to a 15 year old in a sec sch that my O level lit teacher used to teach at)
when quizzed on daily routine with boyfriend: "i go to his house. we do math. have sex. eat lunch. go to school"
*facepalm*
poor kids had no concept of birth control etc etc."
Someone (2): "i get along better w/ guys tha girls...most girls bug me.
mainly because they do all of the things on your liist
OMG the hover-piss! i'm trying to play detective to find out who is the culprit in the dept.... i think it's the new ***."
Someone else: I always wondered why mediocre expats could live such high lives in Spore
Well it is because the starting pay in the UK for a grad is about 25000 pounds a year without bonuses which is about 6000 sing dollars per month
so some white guy who has been working a couple of years and who then is relocated to spore but who retains the same salary is paid big big bucks in comparison
***
Someone: but tying it back will exert great pressure on your hair and kill the hair there... leading to degraded quality.
Me: so secondary school girls who tie their head end up balding early?!
depends how tight you tie right
Someone: yeah
but the thing is if you tie it up every day too tightly at the same spot, the hair will just get all dead at that spot
that's why you have to let it down whenever you can
Me: err.
sounds like rubbish
Someone: no..... this is what happened to me
Me: wth
so is it still dead?
Someone: no of cours not. it grew out and cut off.
Me: err.
as in which parts die
hair drops easier
but the roots are still alive
or what
Someone: along the hair shaft
you damage the shaft not the roots
Me: cheh
***
Someone: "all apes, in fact primates, have saggy breasts
so how did humans evolve to have nice round firm juicy pert breasts?
it mightbe that tits are mimicking the butt. apes n blah love butts.
and in fact, humans have the biggest butts in primatedome
coz we are long distance champoins, and butt muscles are essential in conserving energy.
so maybe theres the correlation
as in its biophysics is alot better in conserving energy
coz the gluts take back some energy in a pace's bounce"
Someone (2): "oh come on. JC students were shagging well before my time and will continue to shag well into the future.
at least not that many people got pregnant and not realize it for 7 months until collapsing in PE class and discovering said fetus.
(this is a true-life incident tha thappened to a 15 year old in a sec sch that my O level lit teacher used to teach at)
when quizzed on daily routine with boyfriend: "i go to his house. we do math. have sex. eat lunch. go to school"
*facepalm*
poor kids had no concept of birth control etc etc."
Someone (2): "i get along better w/ guys tha girls...most girls bug me.
mainly because they do all of the things on your liist
OMG the hover-piss! i'm trying to play detective to find out who is the culprit in the dept.... i think it's the new ***."
Someone else: I always wondered why mediocre expats could live such high lives in Spore
Well it is because the starting pay in the UK for a grad is about 25000 pounds a year without bonuses which is about 6000 sing dollars per month
so some white guy who has been working a couple of years and who then is relocated to spore but who retains the same salary is paid big big bucks in comparison
Post ID: 113366723133302580
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