Europe CNY 2012 - Day 15 - Oxford

Europe CNY 2012
Day 15 - 2nd February - Oxford

On awakening I was subject to a demonstration of Hum Sup Guy's torture device:


Torture Device

He then brought me around Oxford.


St Hugh's Main Building


"Help prevent a tragedy. If you see children or adults inside or attempting to enter this substation please call..."
This might be what is called a "safety culture". Or paranoia (the number to call is already on the right).


"Considerate Constructors. Improving the image of construction"
It's all PR, duncha know?



We then went to the Ashmolean Museum (the premises were fresh, having been renovated in 2009). Unfortunately due to time constraints I was only able to do the ground floor entirely (and the atrium in the basement), but I should be back some day. When it's not winter and Blenheim Palace will be open.


"Welcome to the Ashmolean"


Torso of an Amazon, architectural frieze (Hellenistic style)


Pottery beaker, Naqada; Decorated bowl (Predynastic pottery - Egypt)


Two-Dog Palette


Pottery Lion


Hindquarters of a Gazelle


False door stela


East Wall of the Shrine of King Taharqa


Head of a granite statue of a vulture


Bronze mirror case, Bronze klepsydra-dipper (Hellenistic)


Adoption Papyrus (Egyptian, 20th Dynasty)

Hum Sup Guy highlighted this to me and was very pleased:

"This document, written in hieratic script on papyrus and dating to the reign of King Ramesses XI (about 1104-1075 BC), illustrates the intricacies of adoption and inheritance in New Kingdom Egypt...

Nebnefer adopts his wife as his 'daughter' so that she may inherit his estate, rather than have it pass to members of his family after his death.

Rennefer records that she and her husband, Nebnefer, bought a slave girl, who subsequently gave birth to two girls and a boy (presumably fathered by Nebnefer). Rennefer raised them and eventually adopted them as her own children. She also adopts the husband of the eldest daughter, Padiu (actually Rennefer's own brother), so that he too may share the inheritance of her estate. Finally, she decalres the emancipation of the three adopted children born to the slave girl, and leaving her entire estate to the children and Padiu. Thebes, New Kingdom, 20th Dynasty"


Fragment of mummy cloth decorated with Anubis in jackal form


Shabtis


Painted Plaster Pavement
I think this was the first non-grave Egyptian painting I'd seen


Sinuhe Ostracon
For limestone it's very warped. "A major theme is the superiority of Egyptian culture over all others"


Sketch of the head of a King


Various gods

According to Wikipedia the Egyptian collection is particularly fine. I agreed, particularly in a relatively compact setting.


Eros (Roman)


Mummy of a young woman (Egyptian, Roman period)


Seated Figurine (Serbia, Late Neolithic Village)


Dionysius (Hellenic)


I liked this quote on Greek gods: "The Greek gods are... not brave, not self-controlled, they have no manners, they are not gentlemen and ladies." - Gerard Manley Hopkins


Gods of Rome. Arch of Trajan at Beneventum (Italy)


"A woman, perhaps Lucina, goddess of childbirth, presents the goddess of love, Aphrodite (Roman Venus) with the beautiful infant Adonis"
Roman painting, which was quite rare. Especially in such a complete state.


Limestone Bust


Yakshi (Bengal, 200-100 BC)


Love scene (mithuna), eastern India, 200-1 BC. Ivory plaque.


Goddess Hariti


Grimacing Yaksha (nature spirit)


"The compassionate Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara is shown in pensive pose, as he contemplates the suffering of all beings"
Perhaps he can be my inspiration for meditating on the Misery of the Human Condition


The Buddha, with Greco-Roman influences


Bronze ritual wine vessel (gu) (China)


Bronze ritual bell (nao)


Ivory Dragon Seal


Scene from White Snake


Three Heroes fighting Lu Bu


Zhong Kui the Demon Queller with Five Bats


Zhong Kui the Demon Queller with sword


Man and boy watching a crane


Assyrian horse being led by an archer

The Minoan collection is apparently the best outside of Crete.


Various items


Grave monument of Archippus (probably from Smyrna [Asia Minor])


Tragic masks


Early Greek kouros (youth)


Guardian Deity (Tibet)


Okimono (carved figure) of a man seated on a bundle scratching himself (late Edo-Meiji period, Japan)


Pair of Boys (early Qing China)


Double Sided Portrait (not sure why I didn't take the other side). Possibly because it wasn't nice. (Roman)


Augustus from Prima Porta (plaster copy, painted)


On painted sculpture


Assyrian Winged Genie


Exterior of Ashmolean Museum


Why is everyone in this picture Asian?






"Recycle your old bras for charity!"
I'm trying to understand what the business model of this is


Balliol College




Alfred Brendel masterclass!


"Award winning* guided tours
* - The team worn the south East region Marsh Trust Volunteer award 2011"
Truth in advertising


Bridge


Bodleian Library
The architecture was quite alien, with the engraved arches and the spikey spires




Radcliffe Camera


All Soul's College, through the Readers' Entrance
Yes, you can tell that Class is a big issue in English society


High Street


St Mary the Virgin under renovation

We then adjourned for lunch.


A long list of vegetables: carrots & parsnips; spinach (steamed or buttered); winter leaf salad; buttered sugar snaps & mange tout; mash; chips; green salad


Risotto with oyster mushroom and parsley
This was vegetarian. I never thought I would enjoy vegetarian risotto that much.


Confit de canard
Also bagus








I don't get it. It's a pedestrian zone where cars and motorcycles are allowed at any time, yet where bicycles are only permitted from 10am-6pm.


Bird Bird FAIL


St Michael at the North Gate. The Saxon Tower is the oldest uilding in Oxford.

I then went to take my train to London for my opera, after half a day in Oxford.


Ahh, spelling everything out in Black and White

The cab driver rejected my Sottish £10 note at first, so I had to point out "Bank of Scotland". Hah. I wonder if Northern Irish pounds get this sort of treatment too.

Annoyingly, Scottish (and Northern Irish) notes have a bizarre status. The Committee of Scottish Bankers even has a page on Scottish Banknotes Legal Position:

"Scottish Banknotes are legal currency – i.e. they are approved by the UK Parliament. However, Scottish Bank notes are not Legal Tender, not even in Scotland.  In fact, no banknote whatsoever (including Bank of England notes!) qualifies for the term 'legal tender' north of the border and the Scottish economy seems to manage without that legal protection.

HM Treasury is responsible for defining which notes have ‘legal tender’ status within the United Kingdom and the following extract from Bank of England’s website may help to clarify what is meant by “legal tender” and how little practical meaning the phrase has in everyday transactions.

“The term legal tender does not in itself govern the acceptability of banknotes in transactions. Whether or not notes have legal tender status, their acceptability as a means of payment is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved. Legal tender has a very narrow technical meaning in relation to the settlement of debt. If a debtor pays in legal tender the exact amount he owes under the terms of a contract, he has good defence in law if he is subsequently sued for non-payment of the debt. In ordinary everyday transactions, the term ‘legal tender’ has very little practical application.”
(Ref. www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/about/faqs.htm.)

It is also interesting to note that, if the strict rules governing legal tender were to be observed in a transaction, then the exact amount due would need to be tendered since no change can be demanded.

The majority of banknotes circulating in Scotland are issued by Scottish banks. Scottish notes circulate and are accepted quite freely in Scotland and, for the most part, they are also readily accepted in England & Wales, although branches of Scottish banks there may not issue them.  However, you should not rely absolutely on Scottish notes being accepted outside Scotland and this is particularly true when travelling abroad. Our general advice would be not to carry large amounts of banknotes of any description and to make use of facilities such as travellers’ cheques, credit/debit cards and ATM cards for access to funds whilst abroad."


"Alcohol is a major cause of accidents around the station. Please take care"
Don't Drink and Ride


"I jsut aeksd to cehck his teikct and he spat in my fcae.
I felt drtiy and huimlaietd.
I was jsut dniog my job.
Hard to understand?
You would not tolerate being abused, threatened or assaulted at work"
At first I thought this was a roundabout anti drinking message, but now I think by scrambling the letters and making it harder to understand, they are paradoxically making it easier for people to remember.
Either that or it's a subtle dig at Cambridge University, since aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.


"Please be aware these toilets are cleaned by both male and female attendants"
No sexism!


Why do trains need ladders, saws, rope and crowbars? Luckily this is not a plane


Landfill (?) with nuclear power plant. That makes sense.


I took this to attach to a foursquare checkin when transiting


Cheap Coke - 69p


"Eton Crop" Japanese hair salon
The irony of a Japanese hair salon with a posh British name setting up in London was amusing. The staff and customers inside were AZN, naturally.


"Traditional fish and chips... serve with chips and peas"


Freemasons' Hall




Royal Opera House, Bow Street


Floral Street bridge


Royal Opera House Winter Season


Annoyingly at 4:50pm the place wasn't open yet (I'd have to wait another 40 mins). So I went for an early dinner first.


"On the one hand we wish to live Communism on the other to spread ANARCHY"
Confused graffiti


St Paul's Church Covent Garden


"Salsa di Mostarda
When I want something sweet, I have it with ice cream. When I fancy something savoury, I have it with cheese. It's like nothing you have ever tasted
Ana-Maria, Waitress"
Staff endorsement


Cheap moules frites or steak frites (for lunch) - £9.95 (with wine!)


Shopkeeper trying to chase out an errant bird

Dinner was at Four Seasons, home of what was supposedly the best roast duck in the world.


Other people having dinner at 5:25pm


While the food was very good, it was not quite as good as I'd been led to believe.
In fact the skin of the duck from 2 doors down (which I'd bought almost 2 weeks back) had way beter (I'd stolen some of the skin while it was fresh); in fact here it was kinda cold and most of the skin was hardly crispy (and the parts that were crispy felt a bit overdone). The skin did not separate from the fat cleanly, though the fat was light and sweet (personally I prefer my fat more robust like other places). This was possibly partly because they gave me what seemed to be the duck backside (buttocks), since I'd ordered a meat combination rather than just duck.
The roasted meat did, however, have the best ever balance of crispiness and moistness.
The sauce was also really good - simple but it worked, a sweet soy sauce with a light accent (versus Singaporean style which is heavy)

Naturally the rice was too much. They also gave me three slies of orange for free. Maybe if I'd spoken in Cantonese I'd have gotten free soup and dessert.

Interestingly they played Mandarin songs as well as Cantonese songs. And two waitresses spoke Mandarin, not Cantonese (it's not all in the family anymore!)


Meat closeup


Mints. Hah. Who would take more than 2-3?! Do they recycle untaken mints? That's surely against Health and Safety regulations.


"Jackfruit (not ripe yet) Display Only"
-_-
I wonder why the Durian is non-exchangeable


Choose a colour for tofu firmness: soft to extra firm. One colour is missing though.


"Padded Bras. Smooth Cups. Cleavage Enhancing. Up to TWO CUP SIZES"
This had to be in Chinatown
Also, a Chinese Massage does not inspire confidence


Salvador's Festive Cabin

Appropriately, the Royal Ballet School was beside the Royal Opera House.


Besides the sheer number of students, this is also an instructive illustration of the dynamics of racial integration. Though a couple of the "men" are actually women, the gender ratio is not as imbalanced as one might expect.


Ballet Graduates


La Ballerina restaurant


Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Possibly inspired by Johnny Depp

The Royal Opera House had a tribute to Dame Joan Sutherland who had died just over a year prior.


Anna Bolena


Lucrezia Borgia


La Traviata


Social area


Information sheet for opera: Così fan tutte


"Coughing Please let us help you get your cough under control. Cough sweets are available at our sales desks - just ask."
WIN


"Please be aware that the terrace becomes extremely slippery when wet.
Ladies in stilettos please take extra care"
Ahh health & safety regulations!


Stage, with Royal Coat of Arms

My seat was good: middle block of the amphitheatre. It was the third level of seats. The balcony seats (the very cheapest) were actually alright, being benches with backs and not standing room (there was standing room too though).

The interior was actually very well designed for affording good viewing angles. My seat cost £81, but I think the £18 seat would've had an acceptable view. Maybe not for the £9 though.

Così fan tutte was staged in a modern setting. So the harpsichord plaed the Nokia ring tone in one scene. Hah.


"Programmes and ice creams"
The perfect combination for an opera

The music to ask you to return to your seat at the end of the interval sounded hideous. But I guess that was the point.


Side of interior


Roof, with microphones hanging

It was quite stuffy and so hard to concentrate during Act 2, but the opera was so good I didn't doze off. Near the end someone realised it was stuffy and it got better (when we were leaving someone remarked that it was hot inside, so it wasn't just me).


Cast taking bow


Colin Davis and orchestra. Davis looks very fragile.


Joan Sutherland as Olympia


Queen of the Night

Unfortunately when I got up after the Second Act my foot had flared up with a vengeance, so I had to hobble back to the hostel. Luckily I was prepared for such an eventuality.


Immature mannikins


"War Horse
The Romance of India's Cinema
The Magic of Indian Cuisine"


The Plough at Bloomsbury where lots of great people lived and cavorted


A Bibimbab Cafe


Good Ole Phone Booth Ads. A third are for transsexuals and a third are for black ladies. I wonder if that is telling.
The ad for the transsexual says she is "English" and many of the ads say "Local" (though maybe that refers to the phone number). Clear evidence of anti-foreigner sentiment!

The transsexual at the top right, Lucy Browne, has a website http://www.lucybrowne.com/. On it, one notices "three very different girls to cater for whatever you're into". Namely, Lucy Browne Transsexual; Mature Katrina; Very Naughty Melanie. Presumably Lucy Browne is the owner (she seems pre-op). So even among Sisters, Patriarchy prevails. In any event, Very Naughty Melanie is the only one out of the three who is not "English".

Links - 8th February 2013

A Shocking Death, a Financial Lesson and Help for Others - NYTimes.com - "The site offers some basic financial advice, gives away free templates for a master checklist and provides starter forms to draft a will, living will and power of attorney. There’s also a guide to starting a list of all of the accounts in your life that someone might need to access and shut down in your absence... She also urges people to leave traces of themselves. This is particularly crucial for parents who fetishize every piece of preschool artwork and capture every meaningful moment but rarely come out from behind the camera themselves."

Muslim-Western Tensions Persist | Pew Global Attitudes Project - "Muslims express more unfavorable opinions about Christians than Americans or Europeans express about Muslims... Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere who say relations with the West are bad overwhelmingly blame the West. However, while Americans and Europeans tend to blame Muslims for bad relations, significant numbers believe Westerners are responsible... In four of the six largely Christian nations included in the study, most say they have a positive opinion of Muslims... Narrow majorities of Jordanian (57%) and Indonesian (52%) Muslims also give Christians a favorable rating, while in Egypt – which has recently experienced violence between elements of its Muslim and Christian communities – views are divided (48% favorable; 47% unfavorable). Meanwhile, very few Muslims in Pakistan (16%) or Turkey (6%) have a positive opinion of Christians. Ratings for Jews are uniformly low in the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed – in all seven of these nations, less than 10% have a positive opinion of Jews. Indeed, outside of Indonesia, less than 5% offer a positive opinion... Muslims associate a number of negative traits with Westerners. Across the Muslim publics surveyed, the median percentages saying people in Western countries such as the U.S. and Europe are selfish, violent, greedy, immoral, arrogant and fanatical exceed 50%... Non-Muslims in Western Europe, the U.S. and Russia offer somewhat more positive assessments of Muslims than Muslims do of Westerners... few think Muslims are respectful of women... Muslims tend to identify with their religion, rather than their nationality... Lebanon and the Palestinian territories are exceptions to this pattern... Throughout Europe, most Christians think of themselves primarily in terms of their national identity. Fully 90% of French Christians take this view. The clear exception is the U.S... There is no Muslim public in which even 30% accept that Arabs conducted the [9/11] attacks. Indeed, Muslims in Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey are less likely to accept this today than in 2006."
Islamophobia!

Chinese millionaire street sweeper refuses to give up work

Explaining Underweight BMI and Body Dissatisfaction among Young Korean Women - "Khang et al. noted a statistically significant rise in underweight rates among women aged 20–39, from 8.2% in 1998 to 13.2% in 2007... the direction of this trend toward underweight uniquely among the demographic of women aged 20–39 is an important finding that demands greater study... South Korea’s overall low BMI may be partially explained by the active societal emphasis on a “traditional” Korean diet... Korean society has one of the highest per capita vegetable intakes throughout Asia. Accordingly, a 2002 study by Lee et al. writes that “the most noticeable feature of the South Korean nutrition transition is that the dietary shift has not been linked with a level of fat intake commensurate with its income level”... According to a 2006 International Health and Behaviors Study of 18,512 university students across 22 countries, the dieting rate of Korean women was the highest rate of males or females in any country — 77% of Korean women reported dieting, as compared to overall rates of 51% of women and 25% of men... 64.1% of women overestimated their own weight... [there was] an association between lower BMI and weight overestimation... surveying 201 Korean and 205 American undergraduate women, revealed that Korean women were comparatively more critical of their own appearances... According to TIME Asia in 2002, at least 10% of Korean adults have received surgical enhancement... According to feminist theory, this recent upsurge in female societal empowerment may be associated with an oppressive backlash in media portrayals of gender ideals... "[Korean] women with poor education are 5 times more likely than more educated women to be overweight,” while no comparably significant disparity exists for Korean men""
According to non-feminist theory (aka do not blame "patriarchy" for everything), an upsurge in female societal empowerment may be associated with giving women what they think women want and/or what women think they women want; Why does education make one more susceptible to "patriarchal" influences?

Brazilian Bikini Waxes Make Crab Lice Endangered Species - "More than 80 percent of college students in the U.S. remove all or some of their pubic hair -- part of a trend that’s increasing in western countries. In Australia, Sydney’s main sexual health clinic hasn’t seen a woman with pubic lice since 2008 and male cases have fallen 80 percent from about 100 a decade ago... A majority of college men and women in the U.S. and Australia remove all or part of their pubic hair, researchers at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, reported in a 2011 paper, citing surveys and research by other scholars. In the U.K., 99 percent of women older than 16 years remove some hair, most commonly from the under arms, legs and pubic area, a 2005 study found. Brazilian waxing took off internationally in the early 2000s, possibly spurred by the attention it was given on television shows such as Sex and the City... Women and men who have sex with men took up the [Brazilian wax] initially. Now, heterosexual men are doing so also... A 20-year-old Australian woman with poorly controlled diabetes was hospitalized with a life-threatening bacterial infection of her genitalia following a routine Brazilian wax"
This is shocking. Will we never respect Nature and its creations?!

Karen Armstrong wants us all to love Islam - "'Like Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and secularists, some Muslims have undoubtedly been violent and intolerant'... Note the comparison of present-day Muslims with those of other faiths, who are not currently as violent as Islam. And “secularists”? Are we really beheading people lately? Buddhists? There should be a name for the fallacy in which faiths with drastically different levels of violence and intolerance are held equal so long as any of their adherents are violent at all. And does she really believe that if we are more tolerant of Islamic threats, and stop publishing criticisms of their fatwas, their violence, and their ridiculous calls for death to those who publish cartoons or name teddy bears after the prophet, that Muslims will be so impressed by our “liberal values” that the violence will stop?

PA affirms death penalty for land sales to Israelis - "The Palestinian Authority on Sunday reaffirmed the death penalty for any Palestinian found guilty of selling land to Israelis. The decision came in response to a ruling by a Palestinian court according to which such acts were only a “minor offense”... In 1997, the PA announced that it would seek the death penalty for any Palestinian convicted of selling land to Jews or Israelis, in accordance with the Jordanian “Law for Preventing the Sale of Real Estate to the Enemy”... Although the PA has thus far refrained from executing those convicted of selling land to Jews, there have been many extrajudicial killings of Palestinian suspects over the past decades"

MtF 3 year Timeline - YouTube - "This video is of me going through a 3 year transition (Roughly one thousand pictures). I have had FFS [Ed: Facial feminization surgery] during the process"

Japan's porn stars make their way in the real world - "Sola Aoi, now a veteran of nine years in the business, claims her longevity is down to ambition. "I think from the start I knew this was an industry with very few veterans in it, but on the other hand I didn’t expect that I’d necessarily be in it for the near nine years I have, so I’m kind of myself surprised. Many of the other girls I started with didn’t have the same goals as me, that is, to use this career as a launching pad to move into other areas of show business." "Prior to joining the industry, I aspired to be a pre-school teacher and was already attending school to become one. I’d wanted to do that since I was a child. However, when I thought about my future in that career I could envision exactly how my life would turn out and to be honest, it seemed a little boring."

No Pants Subway Ride proves passengers need better underwear
Would this be legal in Singapore?

Pimp for underaged prostitute appeals jail term & fine - "Tang had no qualms manipulating and deceiving potential clients and went to great lengths to ensure that the clients of the underage girl won't know what her real age was... He pocketed 50 per cent of their earnings. Between September 2010 and November 2011, he secured nearly 700 bookings for 17 escorts. During that period, he earned more than S$185,700 from them. From the 17-year-old girl alone, Tang received about S$21,700 of her earnings. He obtained the underage girl's mobile phone number from her previous modelling agency and asked if she wanted to "earn good money". He reportedly told her not to disclose to clients that she was 17 years old. The court had also heard that Tang moved from being the Southeast Asia head of the marketing team in Internet giant Yahoo! to becoming an online pimp."

How to plan & book a journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway - "Moscow to Beijing via Mongolia: This is arguably the most interesting Trans-Siberian route to take. The weekly Trans-Mongolian train (train 4 eastbound, train 3 westbound) leaves Moscow for Beijing every Tuesday night. The 7,621 km (4,735 mile) journey takes 6 nights. This train crosses Siberia, cuts across Mongolia and the Gobi desert, then enters China. Westbound, it leaves Beijing every Wednesday morning."

Cuddle club offers bum pillow service - "For the equivalent of about £7 a minute, patrons can rest their heads on the bottoms of its female staff. Or for a little less - £7 for three minutes - they can rest their heads in a female employee's lap... For an extra fee the customer can stare into his cuddler's eyes for one minute."

Why 'Feminism' is poisoning Atheism - YouTube - "Equality is great, but thats not really what this is about. Its about a small bunch of PC whiners who suggest such outrageous things as 'there is an active debate online at the moment as to if women in the secular community should be either eye candy and f*ck toys for the privileged white men, or equal colleagues' (PZ Myers)... They also seem to want this policy to protect them from criticism. That is you shouldnt have the right to say things that might offend people at a conference, because thats almost as bad as physical assault... It's not even a straw man. It's simply bullshit. It's an outrageous fiction told to conjure up this bogeyman that there's this great faction of the secular community that argues that women are fuck toys and eye candy for privileged white men"
I love how they accuse women in the atheism community who say they don't notice sexism of internalising the dominant paradigm. And now you have a dress code for at least one atheist conference (they can go fight with SlutWalk)
Great slogan: "Patriarchy: when you no longer believe in God but still want to have something invisible, all-powerful and unverifiable to believe in"
He has a good counter for those who say freedom of speech doesn't mean you don't have to censor YouTube comments (and those on similar social media) - since social media is an inherently public medium, censoring comments is like putting up a soapbox in a park and making a speech, but knocking down the soapboxes of those who try to reply (or words to that effect)

A woman's cold vs A man's cold

One response to this would be to rail about stereotypes, but here's a more interesting point of view: by staying in bed the Man is being considerate and not infecting other people, whereas the Woman (who perhaps isn't a Real Woman if she doesn't have a child) is being bloody selfish by exposing her child to her infection (possibly excluding others in maternal gatekeeping, and going to work and getting all her co-workers sick too)

(Incidentally, women take more sick leave than men)

Singaporeans at Work

An excerpt of a conversation a friend had with an East Asian friend:

"Let me count the number of Singaporeans on my floor. hmmm oh wait, there isn't a single fucking Singaporean on my floor (multinational bank)! WHY you ask?

Singaporeans can't solve problems even if their lives depended on it. You guys are so fucking afraid of making mistakes, its a fucking joke. I have to tackle tax, accounting and legal issues at work. Sometimes the tax and accounting works, the legal doesn't. Then we have to find a way around it. With all the respect due to you as a fellow human being, you guys don't have the balls and the common sense to be at that (senior executive) level. The only Singaporeans on my floor are the secretaries. And hey, we have them by the balls. No, wait, they're girls. Anyway, so we have them on a ball and chain because these idiots would buy 7, 8 thousand dollar bags on credit while drawing a 3 thousand dollar salary. Singapore is the ONLY country with such a crazy obsession over Birkins and Kellys. Nowhere else in the world do I see such an economic phenomena. Its so great that the fucking company has to instil a worldwide minimum expenditure before anyone can buy those bags. (I'd want *** to confirm this)

I'd want to expound that issue, but I'm not Singaporean and its really none of my business. You guys are unsustainable and its a matter of time before you people crash and burn.

(pause. takes a huge gulp of beer)

HOWEVER, the back office, the middle office, filled with Singaporeans. fantastic worker bees. Overpaid, over-educated worker bees who punch numbers in to excel sheets with macros NOT created by them. Amazing workers I tell you. I can walk in and demand that no one goes home tonight, and all you poor motherfuckers would listen to me. I've never had such power before in my life. I feel like I'm the fucking God King. Even Ahmadinejad doesn't wield such fear and power. I'm probably second to Kim Jong Un. In London, the same people would have told me to fockauf, suck dick, I'm going for a pint at 8pm. (Which reminds me about *** telling me the other day that we have an entire generation of students who think that their business degree is sufficient for them to make it in the world of Finance. My friend agrees whole heartedly)

I'm not saying that Singaporeans aren't good enough. You guys transitioned from a manufacturing hub where protocols and processes have to followed to the hilt. This change is gonna be long, its gonna be difficult. Its gonna take one or two generations before you people can catch up and finally sit on my floor. By then I'd be somewhere in Sardinia on my yacht sipping my cocktail and giving you guys the finger."


I would wager that you could say most of this about the rest of East Asia too (Singapore being an honorary part of the region).

Trusting in Legal Justice

Or: why it might make sense to settle even if you are in the right

Many people speak...:

"Many people speak of "suing" without actually knowing what it entails on a practical level. It's extremely problematic for an individual to commence a civil lawsuit.

1) The chief problem is cost - it's humongously expensive to engage lawyers to sue someone (or an entity). And then

2) once you commence proceedings, you have no idea when it will end - which means you have no idea how much money you'll eventually have to spend.

3) And if you run out of money, you'll have to drop the lawsuit (which is not actually that simple a process). The other party only has to have more money and resources than you to **wait you out**. If you've commenced a lawsuit out of principle, it's devastating to "lose" that way.

3) Then there's the time drain - there is a tremendous amount of paperwork involved, meetings with lawyers, and so forth. Is it worth it? What's the opportunity cost? Is it going to affect your career and the time you spend with your family?

4) And to top it all, there's absolutely no guarantee of success, even if your case appears airtight. No lawyer will tell you you'd definitely win. **We're talking about a civil lawsuit here, not a criminal one.** And even if you do win, you'll still have to pay costs!

In the meantime, over the months or even years, this court case will be hanging over your head, affecting not only you but also your loved ones. You'd be afraid to make big purchases because you have no idea how much money you'll need for your lawsuit.

All the points above, however, are moot if you have VAST resources behind you - if you are, perhaps, a large commercial entity, a government institution, or an extremely rich individual.

Alex Au's decision to accede to the letter of demand makes absolute sense. In fact, it makes so much sense that it's really all theatre. TPTB know he won't contest - it's a very reasonable gamble. In the meantime, they look good - they appear to have the moral high ground because "they dared to threaten to sue", which apparently translates to "therefore the accusations are rubbish."

Alex, on the other hand, also wins. He knows he can write what he wants because once the letter of demand comes, he'll just take his posts down. He knows that it's too much of a gamble for TPTB to actually proceed with the court case. In the meantime, his articles would have already spread all over the internet anyway.

This post also answers the question often put to me: "why didn't/don't you sue so-and-so"? The next time anyone throws out the "why don't you just sue" line, take a look at the reasons above and ask yourself if you would go through all that, and whether you'd put your family through it.

TL;DR : The flippancy with which some people talk about suing simply indicates that they have no idea what it really entails in real life."

Links - 6th February 2013

For and against Chomsky - "Some believe—as Paul Robinson, writing in the New York Times Book Review, once put it—that there is a “Chomsky problem.” On the one hand, he is the author of profound, though forbiddingly technical, contributions to linguistics. On the other, his political pronouncements are often “maddeningly simple-minded”... In his book Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, Richard Posner noted that “a successful academic may be able to use his success to reach the general public on matters about which he is an idiot.” Judging by caustic remarks elsewhere in the book, he was thinking of Noam Chomsky. He was not wrong... Paul Postal, one of Chomsky’s earliest colleagues, stresses the tendency for the grandiloquence of Chomsky’s claims to increase as he addresses non-specialist audiences. Frederick Newmeyer, a supporter of Chomsky’s ideas until the mid-1990s, notes: “One is left with the feeling that Chomsky’s ever-increasingly triumphalistic rhetoric is inversely proportional to the actual empirical results that he can point to”... He once described the task of the media as “to select the facts, or to invent them, in such a way as to render the required conclusions not too transparently absurd—at least for properly disciplined minds.” There could scarcely be a nicer encapsulation of his own practice"

Facebook comment confirms "deep fault lines" in S'pore society: K Shanmugam - ""This confirms what I had long suspected and said: there are deep fault lines in our society, based on race/religion," he wrote... Mr Tharman said her comments were offensive not only to Malay-Muslims, but to the rest who value Singapore's multi-racial spirit... Earlier today, Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin wrote on his Facebook page that he "embrace(s) and celebrate(s)" Singapore's diversity... "Many are proud of this colourful tapestry that we have here. This is part of what it means to be Singaporean. The reaction of some individuals do not reflect the values that the rest of us hold on to," he said"
Funny. If only a small minority is 'racist' how are there "deep fault lines" in Singapore?

Man Flashes Feminist Pride Walk, All Hell Breaks Loose - "Marcha Das Vadias is the brazilian form of a SlutWalk"
If a woman had flashed a male demonstration...

Cognitive sophistication does not attenuate the bias blind spot. - "The so-called bias blind spot arises when people report that thinking biases are more prevalent in others than in themselves. Bias turns out to be relatively easy to recognize in the behaviors of others, but often difficult to detect in one's own judgments... a larger bias blind spot was associated with higher cognitive ability"
Smarter people are more stupid, in a way

Why We Don’t Believe In Science - "the percentage of Americans that believe in biological evolution has only increased by four percentage points over the last twenty years... science education is not simply a matter of learning new theories. Rather, it also requires that students unlearn their instincts, shedding false beliefs the way a snake sheds its old skin."

Heidi Alden's answer to Is there anything good about men? - Quora - "They are very easy & very fine company. They don't care about gossip or how your boss put you down in public - that is meaningless nonsense to them
Their sense of humour is genius
Men are brilliant at being able to cut to the chase - while we women like to bathe in our emotions, men are often far more able to go from A-Z in a flash. I have often found that a man's perspective on anything emotionally challenging is extremely insightful. Sometimes it's brutal, but it is often very refreshing to get that straight to the point point of view.
Men are far less manipulative than women; they are infinitely more black and white, straight down the line, no sides, what you see is what you get. Again. I applaud this."

Mark Harrison's answer to Colonialism: On the whole, was colonialism a good or bad thing? - Quora - "People talk of India, as if it existed before the British annexed it. People ignore the fact that the life expectancy on the sub-continent increased by 50% under British rule. People concentrate on the numbers killed by the British, and ignore the larger numbers killed by, say, the Thugee death-cult that the British helped eradicate. Ask most Indians, and they'll say that colonisation was a bad thing... ask them, however, whether they appreciate the legacy of democracy, or would rather go back to a rulership by Rajahs and Maharajahs based on primogeniture, and probably not."

Health of Scotland’s population - Diet - "Much of Scotland's poor health record can be attributed to its unhealthy eating habits. As set out in the 1993 report of the Scottish Office working party on diet, excess consumption of saturated fat, salt and sugar, and low consumption of fruit and vegetables"

Barbara Jacqueline's answer to Breasts: What is it like for a woman to have large breasts? - Quora - "It's a balance between vulnerability and power. You're constantly aware of the attention you attract... I've become more confident from the attention - you get over rude strangers, and honestly, there's worse problems to have. For me, that's where the power comes in... It's pretty interesting to see how your presence affects people"

Darigan Liber's answer to Objectification: What exactly is wrong with men objectifying women? - Quora - "The main argument taken against objectification of women (or any class of people) generally runs along the lines of: "...because it is dehumanising". With respect, this does not answer the question. This is simply substitution. Objectification is, by definition, dehumanisation. The question remains: "Is it immoral to dehumanise/objectify?" I would argue that dehumanisation is not immoral. Consider the case of a surgeon, who is about to undertake a dangerous procedure on a patient, or an emergency health professional trying to rescue an accident victim suffering from intense pain. In such circumstances, it might be necessary to dehumanise their patients, in order to better perform their tasks... dehumanisation per se is not immoral. Rather, it simply poses a perceived moral hazard, because it might make it easier for crimes to be perpetrated on the dehumanised. It is the potential effects of dehumanisation that are immoral, not dehumanisation itself... So why do we still instinctively condemn dehumanisation itself?... the group feeling dehumanised doesn't like it, because they feel that it reduces their social value. My counter-argument is simple: just because I don't like something, doesn't mean it's immoral"
I think the instinctive condemnation of objectification could go back to the Kantian categorical imperative of treating people as ends and not means

Ramzi Amri's answer to Postmodernism: How would you explain postmodernism to a ten year old? - Quora - "You see that table? Postmodernists are the people that would call it a chair"

Study sinks 'women and children first' myth - "They studied 18 different maritime disasters, including 16 previously unstudied shipwrecks, between the 1850s and 2011. Their aim was to test whether reports of chivalrous self-sacrifice during the sinking of the Titanic were exceptional. Disappointingly, they found that famous images of men giving up their lives as the ship went down were the opposite of what has generally happened... Not content with sinking one chivalrous myth, the Swedes also blow out of the water the idea that the captain always goes down with the ship. Among the 16 previously unstudied shipwrecks in their analysis, only nine captains actually died during the disaster. Overall crew members had a higher survival rate than passengers"

HPV Infections Linked to Penile Cancer

An Unexpected Briefing #airnzhobbit - YouTube

The authorities harassing workers? - "Just recently, the Minister for Manpower was laying down his “zero tolerance” stance on workers who go on strike, during the SMRT drivers’ saga... Besides Uzzal’s case, mentioned in Alex’s report, the case of Nepalese Rana Kumar too leaves one wondering whose side it is that MOM is on when clear violations of the law by employers take place"

Sharp rise in number of underweight women in Hong Kong - "The number of young women in the city who are underweight has almost doubled in the past 15 years... the proportion of Hong Kong women aged between 20 and 29 classified as having low body weight during 2005 to 2010 was nearly 40 per cent... close to four out of every 10 young Hong Kong women are at risk to osteoporosis. Although the study focused on women in their 20′s, increases are also observed across other age groups. About 30 per cent of those 80 or older were found to be underweight in the second phase"

Preference for Thinness in Singapore, A Newly Industrialised Society - "Dissatisfaction with body size and shape increased with tertile of adiposity among females, and thoughts about dieting and becoming thinner were present even among underweight girls. Unlike the females, the highest proportion of males satisfied with their body size and shape, was associated with the middle tertile of BMI. Speaking English at home, but not parents’ education, was positively associated with body dissatisfaction after controlling for BMI... Chinese Singaporean female youths have a preference for thinness as an ideal body size"

Underweight problems in Asian children and adolescents - "underweight was more prevalent in boys within the South and West Asian countries, while it was more prevalent in girls within the East Asian countries"

Relationships between indices of obesity and its co-morbidities in multi-ethnic Singapore
From 1998's National Health Survey, the mean BMI for Chinese females from 18-69 was 22.1. The mean BMI for females 18-39 was 22.3. The mean BMI for females was 23.3

Susceptibility of Singapore Chinese Schoolgirls to Anorexia Nervosa - Part I (Psychological Factors) - "Compared to a group of American undergraduates, Singaporean subjects has no significant difference on the drive for thinness scores, but had significantly higher scores on bulimia, ineffectiveness, body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distress and greater maturity fears"

Anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong. Why not more in Chinese? - "Anorexia nervosa is a geographically distinct psychiatric disorder; it is rapidly increasing in incidence in Western countries, while being virtually unreported in China, or in the Chinese community of Hong Kong. This is surprising when the Chinese preoccupation with food and their reported readiness to somatise dysphoria are considered... The rarity of the disorder in the East could be related to protective biological and socio-cultural factors specific to the Chinese, and while it may become more common, anorexia nervosa is unlikely to reach Western proportions.
This was in 1989. What a difference 2 decades makes

Don't do what you love

Bad career advice: Do what you love | Penelope Trunk Blog

"We are each multifaceted, multilayered, complicated people, and if you are reading this blog, you probably devote a large part of your life to learning about yourself and you know it’s a process. None us loves just one thing.

I am a writer, but I love sex more than I love writing. And I am not getting paid for sex. In fact, as you might imagine, my sex life is really tanking right now. But I don’t sit up at night thinking, should I do writing or sex? Because career decisions are not decisions about “what do I love most?” Career decisions are about what kind of life do I want to set up for myself?

So how could you possibly pick one thing you love to do? And what would be the point?...

Often, the thing we should do for our career is something we would only do if we were getting a reward. If you tell yourself that your job has to be something you’d do even if you didn’t get paid, you’ll be looking for a long time. Maybe forever. So why set that standard? The reward for doing a job is contributing to something larger than you are, participating in society, and being valued in the form of money.

The pressure we feel to find a perfect career is insane. And, given that people are trying to find it before they are thirty, in order to avoid both a quarterlife crisis and a biological-clock crisis, the pressure is enough to push people over the edge. Which is why one of the highest risk times for depression in life is in one’s early twenties when people realize how totally impossible it is to simply “do what you love.”

Here’s some practical advice: Do not what you love; do what you are...

Relationships make your life great, not jobs. But a job can ruin your life – make you feel out of control in terms of your time or your ability to accomplish goals – but no job will make your life complete. It’s a myth mostly propagated by people who tell you to do what you love. Doing what you love will make you feel fulfilled. But you don’t need to get paid for it.

A job can save your life, though. If you are lost, and lonely, and wondering how you’ll ever find your way in this world. Take a job. Any job. Because structure, and regular contact with regular people, and a method of contributing to a larger group are all things that help us recalibrate ourselves...

If you are so overwhelmed that you feel depression coming on, consider that a job might save you. Take one. Doing work and being valued in the community is important. For better or worse, we value people with money. Earn some"

Links - 4th February 2013

Obama's victory won't transform America - "those achievements fell measurably short of candidate Obama's aspirations, and were matched by precious few other initiatives that met the expectations arising from the 2008 campaign. This time around a chastened Obama notably failed to offer a grand vision for the American future and instead contented himself with delegitimizing Mitt Romney and dwelling for the most part on small-bore issues... over the arc of American history only a handful of presidents can be said to have effected truly lasting transformational change -- Lincoln, FDR, Lyndon Johnson and perhaps Ronald Reagan make the short list, but few others do, and that's no accident. Americans may yearn for strong leadership, but in their stubborn contrariness they do not want truly powerful leaders. They may want effective government, but they apparently like divided government even more, when neither party simultaneously controls House, Senate, and presidency -- the situation we've been saddled with for 31 of the last 43 years... in the last analysis we have no one to blame but ourselves, and our inherited political system -- and we have no plausible reason to expect anything substantially different in Obama's second term"

Snap Bird helps find old tweets and messages by going where Twitter Search can’t: months back - "Snap Bird is an easy as pie way to search your Twitter history beyond the 10 days that Twitter Search allots you. It also allows you to search only within your friends tweets, within your DM’s and within any user’s favorites"

She became a prostitute for a cause - "she became a "prostitute" to highlight the plight of sex workers and the issue of safe sex... "Since I wasn't charging a fee, I didn't have to worry about being charged for prostitution."

Star Wars | Disney | Lucasfilm - "Disney said there would be a new series of Star Wars feature films as part of the deal, with the first movie expected in 2015. The last Star Wars picture was Revenge of the Sith in 2005, and Lucas has in the past denied any plans for more...From a fan's perspective, critics said there was sure to be at least some excitement at the prospect of episode seven in the saga of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. "Do I want to see more Star Wars movies? Not really, but they're not making these movies for me. There's a whole new generation of Star Wars fans, and they worship the prequels like folks my age worshipped the original trilogy," the film writer "Mr. Beaks" said on the well-regarded industry site Ain't It Cool News."
"now that you have the full picture you have to admit that while worshipping the first trilogy was puzzling, worshiping the prequels is just downright dumbfounding."

Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies

Why Women Can’t Do Pull-Ups - "exercise researchers from the University of Dayton found 17 normal-weight women who could not do a single overhand pull-up. Three days a week for three months, the women focused on exercises that would strengthen the biceps and the latissimus dorsi... By the end of the training program, the women had increased their upper-body strength by 36 percent and lowered their body fat by 2 percent. But on test day, the researchers were stunned when only 4 of the 17 women succeeded in performing a single pull-up. “We honestly thought we could get everyone to do one,” said Paul Vanderburgh, a professor of exercise physiology and associate provost and dean at the University of Dayton, and an author of the study... some men struggle, too, particularly those who are taller or bigger generally or have long arms. This is related to an interesting phenomenon: if you compare a smaller athlete to an athlete who has the same exact build but is 30 percent bigger, the bigger athlete will be only about 20 percent stronger, even though he has to carry about 30 percent more weight."

You Can’t Be a Feminist If You Won’t Do Pull-Ups - "Feminist chick: “Why is it called the ultimate MAN challenge? What, can I not do it? Do you have to have a (male genitalia) to do this?”... She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t even try. Instead she started speculating about what century the person who named this challenge must be living in... The people who complain about stereotypes are generally the ones who reinforce them. Those of us who are breaking the stereotype are too busy breaking the stereotypes to care about them. We need to save our energy for more important things"

Japanese Restaurant Serves ‘Giant-Sized Sushi’

Uproar in US over Disney's first 'Latina princess' - "Sofia's skin is snow white and her eyes blue. Could she really represent Latin America?... "If you're going to promote this to the public, and Latinos in particular, do us a favor and make it a real Latina," he told Fox News Latino. Enter a crowd of irate Latino bloggers who insisted that fair skin and blue eyes are no bar to membership of their community -- after all, Latin America is a genetically diverse place. "My son is Latino, and I have dark hair and dark eyes, but he is blonde and blue eyed. And he is Latino and will get upset if someone suggests otherwise," webuser Mandy Verdugo wrote on the troubled princess's Facebook wall. "Just because she doesn't conform to some people's standards of what Latino is doesn't make her not Latina. It's rather insulting"... Some recalled that the blonde Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz, for instance, has Cuban roots"

Twitter / AshleyJudd: Which Romney would be president? ... - "Rock-Solid Romney Stands Firm On Abortion"

What happens to Japanese porn stars after they retire? - "“Many girls enter the AV industry each year, but not necessarily all for the same reasons,” Nakamura comments. “Some do it entirely for the money, while others are just comfortable with the idea of having sex in front of people and see it as any easy job. It just works for them.” The Japanese AV industry reportedly sees an astounding 6,000 newcomers each year. But surely the risk of being seen on a video would be enough to dissuade any self-respecting young woman from doing such a thing? “With the huge number of girls working in the industry, cases of AV actresses being recognised while going about their daily lives are quite rare,” says Nakamura, adding “there are plenty of cases of former AV girls who are now happily married and enjoying normal lives”... “A lot of girls find themselves unable to return to regular jobs after working as an AV model,” explains Nakamura. “They have worked in an often lucrative business, some for many years, so to go back to a standard job for a much smaller salary is not easy. Around two thirds of retired AV models end up in the sex industry, working in hostess bars or even working as prostitutes in ‘soap-land’ bath houses.”"

Hong Kong Loves Weird English Names - "Devil. Whale. Chlorophyll, Violante, Treacle -- you name it, Hong Kong probably has someone who goes by it. The former British colony is obsessed with weird English names... In 2005, the author of HKSAR Blog concluded that the names of 2.5 percent of 5,707 lawyers were unusual, uncommon, or unique... As for the unconventional names, he said they initially arose in part due to an "incomplete knowledge" of the English language. Hong Kongers might have not appreciated the connotation of the name Kinky, for example. Februar might have been a misspelling or the result of someone over-generalizing the use of the names of the months like April, May or June, or both... Hong Kongers tend to shop around for a unique name and sometimes take inspiration from sports brands or luxury labels, for example, Chanel and Rolex, he said. HKSAR Blog's author said substitution, deletion and the insertion of single letters appeared to be common patterns, which "may indicate a level of 'creation' or 'creativity.'" First names with the -son suffix are common, too. Examples from the lawyers' list include Samuelson, Winson, Philson and Garson. Many English names mimic the sound of Chinese given names. A solicitor called Tse Kar-son, for example, has Carson as his English name. Singer Lee Hak-kan's English name is Hacken. Another singer, Chan Yik-shun, is called Eason"

7 arrested for setting off improvised explosive devices - "the group, aged between 22 and 26, were found to be using improvised devices that were constructed using sparklers"
And here I thought we had a terrorism problem...

Spammer believes WOW users are sad lonely men

Why Japanese girls are a better catch than Japanese men - "Japanese women ranked as one of the most popular in the world, while Japanese men have ranked very close to the bottom in popularity... One factor she feels that contributes to the popularity of Japanese women is that they tend to be dainty in appearance and are very fashion conscious. Even the average Japanese girl is likely to look stylish by global standards or at least cute in their own way. Another important factor is that Japanese women are used to going out of their way to be helpful and pleasant to men. (Although Japanese men may not entirely agree)... Japanese men are used to being treated well by Japanese women, spoiled in a way, and simply unaccustomed to doing certain things for women. This could very well make them unpopular with foreign women"

Fundamental attribution error - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "In social psychology, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect) describes the tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. The fundamental attribution error is most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior—where situational factors are often taken into consideration. This discrepancy is called the actor–observer bias. As a simple example, if Alice saw Bob trip over a rock and fall, Alice might consider Bob to be clumsy or careless (dispositional). If Alice tripped over the same rock herself, she would be more likely to blame the placement of the rock (situational)."

Grandmother 'stabs her boyfriend for cheating at a game of Monopoly' - "This was one game of Monopoly where the player went directly to jail."

Can your boss fire you for your political beliefs? - "The irony is that one can make (and many have made) the case that people like Michael Italie shouldn't be permitted to hold jobs in government, where at least in theory they have the power to subvert the U.S. system. Yet it is in government where Italie would be protected. In the private sector, where Italie is entirely harmless, he enjoys no protection at all."