L'origine de Bert
Friday, April 20, 2007
"When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers." - Oscar Wilde, An Ideal husband
***
From thegreatsze:
Fwd: Lesson in economics
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20, "declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
***
From thegreatsze:
Fwd: Lesson in economics
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20, "declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia
For those who understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
Post ID: 3323372887842877785
Thursday, April 19, 2007
"Knowledge is power, if you know it about the right person." - Ethel Mumford
***
My favourite periodical:
March 17th:
"The experience of Bosnia and Rwanda, where murderous hatreds resurfaced after decades of apparent symbiosis, shows that categories are resilient. That is one reason why Mr Pittinsky thinks that “mere tolerance is inherently unstable.”
He is not the only scholar to stress the limits of tolerance alone as an ideal. Robert Hayden, a social anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh, has coined the term “antagonistic tolerance” to describe the way sacred sites were shared by Christians and Muslims in the Ottoman world, and by Hindus and Muslims in British India. His point? The fact that groups accept a regime or “truce” imposed by an imperial power does not mean they will refrain from competing once they get a chance.
To ex-subjects of the Soviet imperium, talk of officially encouraged admiration for “fraternal” nations, laced with displays of embroidery, cuisine and folk-dancing, sounds cloying. Soviet allophilia finally failed because people saw it was dishonest; it hid the travails of ethnic groups who had suffered deportation and persecution under Stalin. By the end nobody believed in brotherly love.
So by all means, let allophilia be studied, measured and encouraged. Just remember: state-sponsored cultural events may not be the best way to go about it."
The obituary is also fun: [On an idiot French guy] "Whether Mr Baudrillard's world was utter nonsense, or whether it was a profound critique of a consumerist civilisation drowning in its own meaninglessness, was a matter for lively debate... [Americans] objected also to Mr Baudrillard's contention that the first Gulf war of 1991 had never taken place."
March 24th:
"Just a few years ago, Kazakhstanis were tickled by the news that two dozen freezing Sri Lankans had been detained by police in the middle of winter after wandering aimlessly across the snow-covered steppe in the north of the country for four days. They had been dumped there by traffickers and told they had arrived, as they had been promised, in Germany."
[On Amnesty International] "An organisation which devotes more pages in its annual report to human-rights abuses in Britain and America than those in Belarus and Saudi Arabia cannot expect to escape doubters' scrutiny."
March 31st:
"SIR – I believe your obituary on the “death” of “Jean Baudrillard” is in error (March 17th). Sub-Lacanian theory would presuppose that the signified “Baudrillard” is merely a neo-modernist capitalist paradox and “death” is a sub-textual patriarchalist paradigm interpolated through a post-colonialist hermeneutic.
As such, as Sontag states, “society is dead”; the signifier is merely replicated as a series of pre-cultural totalities implying post-Foucaultian absurdity. A Derridean reading would suggest that Murphy's mythopoetic reality is a more appropriate gesture to assume.
Thor Halland
Pattaya, Thailand"
***
My favourite periodical:
March 17th:
"The experience of Bosnia and Rwanda, where murderous hatreds resurfaced after decades of apparent symbiosis, shows that categories are resilient. That is one reason why Mr Pittinsky thinks that “mere tolerance is inherently unstable.”
He is not the only scholar to stress the limits of tolerance alone as an ideal. Robert Hayden, a social anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh, has coined the term “antagonistic tolerance” to describe the way sacred sites were shared by Christians and Muslims in the Ottoman world, and by Hindus and Muslims in British India. His point? The fact that groups accept a regime or “truce” imposed by an imperial power does not mean they will refrain from competing once they get a chance.
To ex-subjects of the Soviet imperium, talk of officially encouraged admiration for “fraternal” nations, laced with displays of embroidery, cuisine and folk-dancing, sounds cloying. Soviet allophilia finally failed because people saw it was dishonest; it hid the travails of ethnic groups who had suffered deportation and persecution under Stalin. By the end nobody believed in brotherly love.
So by all means, let allophilia be studied, measured and encouraged. Just remember: state-sponsored cultural events may not be the best way to go about it."
The obituary is also fun: [On an idiot French guy] "Whether Mr Baudrillard's world was utter nonsense, or whether it was a profound critique of a consumerist civilisation drowning in its own meaninglessness, was a matter for lively debate... [Americans] objected also to Mr Baudrillard's contention that the first Gulf war of 1991 had never taken place."
March 24th:
"Just a few years ago, Kazakhstanis were tickled by the news that two dozen freezing Sri Lankans had been detained by police in the middle of winter after wandering aimlessly across the snow-covered steppe in the north of the country for four days. They had been dumped there by traffickers and told they had arrived, as they had been promised, in Germany."
[On Amnesty International] "An organisation which devotes more pages in its annual report to human-rights abuses in Britain and America than those in Belarus and Saudi Arabia cannot expect to escape doubters' scrutiny."
March 31st:
"SIR – I believe your obituary on the “death” of “Jean Baudrillard” is in error (March 17th). Sub-Lacanian theory would presuppose that the signified “Baudrillard” is merely a neo-modernist capitalist paradox and “death” is a sub-textual patriarchalist paradigm interpolated through a post-colonialist hermeneutic.
As such, as Sontag states, “society is dead”; the signifier is merely replicated as a series of pre-cultural totalities implying post-Foucaultian absurdity. A Derridean reading would suggest that Murphy's mythopoetic reality is a more appropriate gesture to assume.
Thor Halland
Pattaya, Thailand"
Post ID: 7273945594613013615
"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul." - Marilyn Monroe
***
Quotes:
[On over-emphasising equality] In France, you give rights to everybody, then you have zero economic growth... That is not good... They have this green car... They get everything free... 100 guys with one car [each]... This is not very good. (card)
You should think about this, because if you can understand this then you can go on to Graduate Studies.
[On contacting him during Reading Week] This is the office phone, in case of [an] emergency.
I don't like girls from engin because they look like robots.
[On a deranged person] Are you sure he's Singaporean living in the US? Or is he from Mars, living on the Moon?
I get very excited when I see the heart on Facebook, whether it's the whole one or the broken one. I'm just damn gossipy.
You should've done Geography... You learn more Economics in Geography. Look at me, I know more Economics than you.
[Sign] This product is manufacture under a quality system certified as comply with ISO 9002 (manufactured, complying) (Unfortunately there're no English standards)
Have you read Antichrist?... Knee Chee. [Me and Student: Nietzsche] Knee Chee. [Me and Student: Nietzsche]
[On the Yen Carry Trade] It's been featured in the newspapers a lot in the past few weeks and if you don't read then it's your funeral.
[On no one knowing how the economy works] All these things you better know, before you go for your job interview, otherwise you'll be in trouble.
Assume the government has a target ratio of foreign workers to domestic workers. They will not flood Singapore with foreign workers.
Here I go against 1983, my own paper. Nevermind, times change.
[On IS shifting down being okay in Singapore regarding employment] The argument is that it's not that bad, because some foreign workers can be told to go home.
[On sticky prices] I have not observed the prices in the hawker centre go down very much, right, in response to the CPF cut.
[Me: Should I go for my friend's presentation?] You should do what you want. [Me: I don't know what I want.] You're such a girl.
They did a project on how left handed people are marginalised. [Me: Har?] It's social theory - everyone is marginalised.
[A foreigner interfering in our domestic politics:] I went to Parliament. There's no debate until the WP guy says something, then Lee Kuan Yew gets pissed... Parliament is like masturbation. Everyone keeps complimenting each other.
I talked to her for 2 hours. It's considered to be a fling... [Student 2: Then I must be a harlot or something... Did you at least talk dirty?]
[Me: Your hair is showing] Aiyah. [Me: The point of wearing that {the tudung} is to hide your hair, so I feel obliged to tell you when it's showing.] Yah, my sister says 'haram'. [Student 2: My best friend keeps going 'haram, haram'. I'm not Muslim... I wear a short skirt - 'haram']
[On the take-home exam] It's actually a lot of fun... for me... You'll be cursing me. The next day you'll be thanking me. Well, you won't be thanking me. It's a good experience to go through.
[On pay hikes] You see in the press a whole lot of ideological work at this time.
[On the guns not being used] You can be a Professor here and say the most horrifying things, and you'll never go to jail.
We went on to look at the Frankfurt School, and we gave up on Jurgen Habermas.
Post-modernism takes critique to its extreme... Post-modernists react in a variety of ways. One way is to celebrate - hooray. Critique is nonsense... Richard Rorty and contingency... One way - it works, we don't need philosophy... Another way is more nihilistic, solipsistic. Oh no. There is no truth. What are we to do.
I used to have hair like you when I was an undergraduate. That's why I'm like this now. I used to tie it behind really tight.
unique trijectory (trajectory)
[On child labour laws] They're withdrawn from the factory. Most of them become street sex workers.
In Nepal 5 workers can form a union. [Instructor: The Singaporean response to this {problem} is classic.]
The GINI coefficient in Singapore is one of the highest in the world... This is unique to Singapore because the government is so wary of having a minimum wage... The result: a competitive economy with low wages for the bottom. We have a structural problem.
The British have been trying to reform their property rights [laws] since the 12th century.
[Me: 'He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.']... You just insulted like 1/3 the population of USP.
[On the 'writing' module] It's about the prof's own ego lor. It's what he agrees with.
Do you know why finance lecturers are all gay? Because finance is a very anal topic.
[Students singing: There's something sweet, and almost kind. But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined] Why are you on a Beauty and the Beast roll today? [To someone] Let's beat them up... then we'll be beasts. [Student: There's no logic behind certain actions.] Especially female actions.
I won't say 'screw the professor' because he's gay, and I don't want to do that.
[On feedback about leading the class] Mine has no strange or nasty comments, so I can't guess which one is Gabriel's.
Are you going anywhere overseas? Oh fuck, Stanford. Why did I ask? Now I hate myself for asking.
***
Quotes:
[On over-emphasising equality] In France, you give rights to everybody, then you have zero economic growth... That is not good... They have this green car... They get everything free... 100 guys with one car [each]... This is not very good. (card)
You should think about this, because if you can understand this then you can go on to Graduate Studies.
[On contacting him during Reading Week] This is the office phone, in case of [an] emergency.
I don't like girls from engin because they look like robots.
[On a deranged person] Are you sure he's Singaporean living in the US? Or is he from Mars, living on the Moon?
I get very excited when I see the heart on Facebook, whether it's the whole one or the broken one. I'm just damn gossipy.
You should've done Geography... You learn more Economics in Geography. Look at me, I know more Economics than you.
[Sign] This product is manufacture under a quality system certified as comply with ISO 9002 (manufactured, complying) (Unfortunately there're no English standards)
Have you read Antichrist?... Knee Chee. [Me and Student: Nietzsche] Knee Chee. [Me and Student: Nietzsche]
[On the Yen Carry Trade] It's been featured in the newspapers a lot in the past few weeks and if you don't read then it's your funeral.
[On no one knowing how the economy works] All these things you better know, before you go for your job interview, otherwise you'll be in trouble.
Assume the government has a target ratio of foreign workers to domestic workers. They will not flood Singapore with foreign workers.
Here I go against 1983, my own paper. Nevermind, times change.
[On IS shifting down being okay in Singapore regarding employment] The argument is that it's not that bad, because some foreign workers can be told to go home.
[On sticky prices] I have not observed the prices in the hawker centre go down very much, right, in response to the CPF cut.
[Me: Should I go for my friend's presentation?] You should do what you want. [Me: I don't know what I want.] You're such a girl.
They did a project on how left handed people are marginalised. [Me: Har?] It's social theory - everyone is marginalised.
[A foreigner interfering in our domestic politics:] I went to Parliament. There's no debate until the WP guy says something, then Lee Kuan Yew gets pissed... Parliament is like masturbation. Everyone keeps complimenting each other.
I talked to her for 2 hours. It's considered to be a fling... [Student 2: Then I must be a harlot or something... Did you at least talk dirty?]
[Me: Your hair is showing] Aiyah. [Me: The point of wearing that {the tudung} is to hide your hair, so I feel obliged to tell you when it's showing.] Yah, my sister says 'haram'. [Student 2: My best friend keeps going 'haram, haram'. I'm not Muslim... I wear a short skirt - 'haram']
[On the take-home exam] It's actually a lot of fun... for me... You'll be cursing me. The next day you'll be thanking me. Well, you won't be thanking me. It's a good experience to go through.
[On pay hikes] You see in the press a whole lot of ideological work at this time.
[On the guns not being used] You can be a Professor here and say the most horrifying things, and you'll never go to jail.
We went on to look at the Frankfurt School, and we gave up on Jurgen Habermas.
Post-modernism takes critique to its extreme... Post-modernists react in a variety of ways. One way is to celebrate - hooray. Critique is nonsense... Richard Rorty and contingency... One way - it works, we don't need philosophy... Another way is more nihilistic, solipsistic. Oh no. There is no truth. What are we to do.
I used to have hair like you when I was an undergraduate. That's why I'm like this now. I used to tie it behind really tight.
unique trijectory (trajectory)
[On child labour laws] They're withdrawn from the factory. Most of them become street sex workers.
In Nepal 5 workers can form a union. [Instructor: The Singaporean response to this {problem} is classic.]
The GINI coefficient in Singapore is one of the highest in the world... This is unique to Singapore because the government is so wary of having a minimum wage... The result: a competitive economy with low wages for the bottom. We have a structural problem.
The British have been trying to reform their property rights [laws] since the 12th century.
[Me: 'He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.']... You just insulted like 1/3 the population of USP.
[On the 'writing' module] It's about the prof's own ego lor. It's what he agrees with.
Do you know why finance lecturers are all gay? Because finance is a very anal topic.
[Students singing: There's something sweet, and almost kind. But he was mean and he was coarse and unrefined] Why are you on a Beauty and the Beast roll today? [To someone] Let's beat them up... then we'll be beasts. [Student: There's no logic behind certain actions.] Especially female actions.
I won't say 'screw the professor' because he's gay, and I don't want to do that.
[On feedback about leading the class] Mine has no strange or nasty comments, so I can't guess which one is Gabriel's.
Are you going anywhere overseas? Oh fuck, Stanford. Why did I ask? Now I hate myself for asking.
Post ID: 6815139963586006350
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
"Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people." - Robert Benchley
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'Looking for the best one?'
- 'I'll put you under my spell'
- 'Life is better blonde' (the girl was not blonde)
- 'Miss Mistletoe'
- 'Delicious SUGAR DADDY milk caramel pop'
- 'These are all my access pages' (I assume this is a geek joke)
- '*Picture of an apple* Temptation'
- 'Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.'
- 'Friends don't let friends talk to ugly guys'
- 'Kiss my boo boo *picture of boo boo from Yogi Bear*'
- 'Babe'
- 'This is your lucky day because I just happen to be single'
- 'I need a stiff one' (The contributor of this adds: 'I couldn't figure out if she wanted a drink or someone without erectile dysfunction, or whether she was a necrophiliac')
- 'Mind your own business and don't look at my T-shirt' (contributed)
Guys':
- 'Mr Pecker's rooster farm. ''We have the biggest cocks in town'''
- 'KNNBCCB' (I didn't know they made shirts like this)
- 'Nice assets *picture of 2 hands grabbing*'
***
u r wt u wr:
- 'Looking for the best one?'
- 'I'll put you under my spell'
- 'Life is better blonde' (the girl was not blonde)
- 'Miss Mistletoe'
- 'Delicious SUGAR DADDY milk caramel pop'
- 'These are all my access pages' (I assume this is a geek joke)
- '*Picture of an apple* Temptation'
- 'Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.'
- 'Friends don't let friends talk to ugly guys'
- 'Kiss my boo boo *picture of boo boo from Yogi Bear*'
- 'Babe'
- 'This is your lucky day because I just happen to be single'
- 'I need a stiff one' (The contributor of this adds: 'I couldn't figure out if she wanted a drink or someone without erectile dysfunction, or whether she was a necrophiliac')
- 'Mind your own business and don't look at my T-shirt' (contributed)
Guys':
- 'Mr Pecker's rooster farm. ''We have the biggest cocks in town'''
- 'KNNBCCB' (I didn't know they made shirts like this)
- 'Nice assets *picture of 2 hands grabbing*'
Post ID: 2095510382854136492
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
"Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes." - Voltaire
***
My friend and I enjoyed our free BJs very much. We got there early, and so were one of the first to be serviced, while the girls were still fresh, enthusiastic and eager to please.
Someone suggested I keep queuing for more, but it's okay because the afterglow from the first still suffuses me.
Friend: Can I have the girl as well?
I also got to fist the BJ cow; luckily I didn't go all the way or I would've punched the guy inside (the back of whose head was showing - how unprofessional!)
[Addendum: Someone asked me, on Facebook, what BJ was:
"BJ is something that makes me very happy. It is all-natural and there is much licking and slurping involved. It is given out by cute girls (sometimes, cute guys - you know how things change) and when things get hot, the result is creamy. After having one, I cannot have another too soon or I'll feel sick.
BJ is enjoyed by both guys and girls, even though the girls complain about ingesting it because of perceived health/beauty effects."]
***
My friend and I enjoyed our free BJs very much. We got there early, and so were one of the first to be serviced, while the girls were still fresh, enthusiastic and eager to please.
Someone suggested I keep queuing for more, but it's okay because the afterglow from the first still suffuses me.
Friend: Can I have the girl as well?
I also got to fist the BJ cow; luckily I didn't go all the way or I would've punched the guy inside (the back of whose head was showing - how unprofessional!)
[Addendum: Someone asked me, on Facebook, what BJ was:
"BJ is something that makes me very happy. It is all-natural and there is much licking and slurping involved. It is given out by cute girls (sometimes, cute guys - you know how things change) and when things get hot, the result is creamy. After having one, I cannot have another too soon or I'll feel sick.
BJ is enjoyed by both guys and girls, even though the girls complain about ingesting it because of perceived health/beauty effects."]
Post ID: 442900082495307134
"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." - Joseph Heller
***
From a Facebook note:
During my 3-4 months in Montreal there is only one question that people have asked me more than the question “Are you Indian?” and that is “How do you compare McGill to NUS”. Well since the answer to the first one is pretty short, “No, I am Pakistani; Bitch!!”, I thought I’d save myself some time by posting the answer to the second question on Facebook. So here it goes.
STUDENT SOCIETIES
McGill is definitely far ahead when it comes to student societies and the freedom enjoyed by them. I’d guess that there are maybe five to six times more student groups/societies in McGill than there are in NUS and all of them are far more active than any of the societies in NUS.
Moreover, the student societies at McGill seem a lot more proactive than they do in NUS. In NUS you get the feeling that everyone at an event has still got studies on their mind, even if they are not sitting at a booth doing a Maths tutorial. Here its quiet the opposite, student societies not only conduct more events, but the events also seem more enjoyable. But I think the lack of enthusiasm in NUS can be blamed on the fk*** CCA points system, which NUS needs to get rid of soon.
The student union in McGill, SSMU, enjoys far more power and freedom than its NUS counterpart, NUSSU. So while NUSSU is busy licking the balls of the university administration SSMU actually serves a purpose in McGill. I still remember NUSSU’s decision to protest against the tuition fee hike by wearing black shirts. Here it was quiet a big rally that walked through the heart of the campus and proceeded slightly into downtown. Though the rally was not totally an SSMU venture, it just goes on to show the freedom and autonomy enjoyed by students in Canada as compared to those in Singapore.
STUDIES
curriculum
While the curriculum of an average module in NUS emphasizes more on the breadth of topics than on the depths of the topics, in McGill it is quiet the opposite. For the topics we covered in MA1505 (basic math), McGill engineering probably has 2-3 courses covering the same topics. So McGill is in the favour of covering a few topics in detail than a lot of them with minimum detail. Now am not sure if this means that NUS’ curriculum is harder or not but it is the next aspect of studies in NUS that makes u say ‘Gosh! My ass hurts’ a week into the semester.
competition
In terms of competition in classes McGill is light years behind NUS and a statistic that best reflects this bridge in competition is that 4-5 Pakistani engineering undergrads got 4.0/4.0 last semester alone, while hardly any of the Pakistani undergrads in NUS has ever achieved this in any faculty, let alone engineering. Moreover the marking in NUS is always (always!!) relative, but from what I get, its not in 3/4th of the modules in McGill. Assuming the papers are of the same difficulty in both universities, this can either mean that the undergrads in NUS produce such exceptional results that they need to be curved for them to hold any meaning, or that McGill is happy with giving each student what he/she deserves, which in effect reduces competition.
STAGNANT vs VIBRANT
During my time in McGill there has hardly been any new development except squabbling over the tuition fees, endless discussions over whether the McGill principal should continue her tenure and complaining about the lack of research funds in McGill. However since I have not spent much time in McGill I cannot say if there were any significant developments in the recent past, but the impression generally is that there is not much going on.
This is in stark contrast to what is currently going on at NUS. During my 3 years at the university the university has built a new administration building, a new music faculty building and a new campus for the law faculty. Developments in the not too distant past include the construction of PGPR (Prince Georges Park Residences) and the commission of the internal shuttle buses. Developments in the near future include the construction of an impressive new residence.
NUS is also much more active in providing students with the tidbits that spice up a degree. These include the NUS Overseas Colleges, Student Exchange Program, Technopreneurship Incubation Program etc. Though these programs exist in McGill they don’t seem to be as active as they are in NUS. For example it is rumored that NUS intends for half its undergraduate population to have gone on exchange by the end of 2009-2010 and judging from the fact that I alone personally know 10 ppl who are currently on exchange, I’d buy the rumor.
NUS' vibrancy is also reflected in the large amount of bursaries, scholarships and loan opportunities available for its students. The resources available for research and development, in NUS, are also famous by now and according to some have been the primary factor in NUS' high ranking. The Notebook Ownership scheme for the students in each university also goes on to show the resources available at NUS' disposal. While Mcgill only offers 1 notebook (atleast to my knowledge), the Toshiba Tecra, under the notebook ownership program, NUS offers various models from five different vendors at subsidized prices and with the opportunity to take a loan when buying them.
The Career centre at McGill is its only saving grace. Though I have not interacted with them much they seem to be doing some decent stuff. But again, NUS’ career centre has experienced somewhat of a resurgence in the past sem.
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Well, like anything else that is high tech and requires a bit of money NUS is far ahead in IT infrastructure when compared to McGill. The IT infrastructure in McGill, to be quiet frank, is pathetic.
There is no centralized printing system, apparently each lab has its own balance and you need to buy balance at that lab to be able to print from it. In NUS the printing system is centralized, with the same cash card being used in every lab. The paper quality for the printing is pathetic and it is fk*** expensive.
McGill does not have any webcasting facilities, whereby lecturers are recorded and then uploaded on the course website, which NUS has in most of its lecture theatres. But I am willing not to be too critical of this because few universities around the world have this facility, but for the love of god at least try to upload the sound files properly. McGill does have a rudimentary voice recording system in some of its Lecture Theatres but you never know when you click on a particular sound file if it is gonna work or not.
The software that allows students to register for modules is known as Minerva in McGill and CORS in NUS and guess what Minerva gets the razzie for the site with the worst interface by the McGill professor who teaches the module Human Computer Interaction (HCI). So I don’t need to waste my time comparing them.
The software that displays and keeps track of course contents for students and lecturers is known as WebCT in McGill and IVLE in NUS and while they are essentially the same the only difference is that WebCT stops working before exams because McGill doesn’t have the money to buy storage space. Pathetic! I wasted 2 hours a day before the exam only to be greeted by a screen that told me that the system is overloaded, and that I should try gain later; maybe after the exam.
Moreover the storage space allowed for an email id on the McGill domain is 10 Mb while it is 1Gb in NUS now.
There is, however, one aspect of the McGill IT infrastructure that is far more superior to that of NUS and that is its wireless internet. The internet is truly wireless in McGill as opposed to being pseudo wireless in NUS. While the wireless Internet in NUS performs variably at different locations, the wireless internet in McGill is avaiable throughout the campus even extending slightly beyond its boundaries to places such as coffee shops, where I spent many lazy evenings surfing the net and sipping a cup of coffee.
CAMPUS
The difference between the two universities is nowhere more visible than in their campuses. The NUS campus is what would best be described as a suburban campus whereas the McGill campus is smack in the middle of the city, a minute’s walk from downtown. This difference in campus’ manifests itself in totally contrasting university experiences for the student population.
Due to it being further away from the city centre, the NUS campus is much bigger that that of McGill, with almost five different Internal Shuttle Buses operating within the university. In McGill you are almost always on foot, unless you own a bike. The location of the two campuses also means that in Mcgill, you can buy almost everything from food to sex within a five minute’s walk from the campus. In NUS, however, everything needs to be planned before going on a leisure or shopping trip outside the university which is quiet effed up.
In McGill, there are no college residences on campus: the university has bought a few buildings around the campus and converted them to residences, but they are not sufficient. This has lead to the small area of condominiums and flats encapsulating the university being known as the McGill Ghetto, because of the large number of students living in it. This in turn has a huge impact on the lifestyle of the McGill undergraduates. Since every student lives in an apartment and since most of them live nearby, house parties, dinner parties and all sorts of other parties are very common in the ghetto. With a sufficiently large social network you are guaranteed to have 2-3 parties in your calendar every week.
As compared to McGill, NUS has a large number of university residences with more than 9 different residence units scattered around its campus and since most of them have single rooms it means no house parties, no dinner parties, nothing!
Architecturally the NUS campus does not come anywhere close to the McGill campus. While every building in NUS looks box-like, bland and monotonous, buildings in McGill look more individual, posses more character and exude a more dominating aura. Of course I am talking about the general architecture here which excludes the architectural gems in NUS such as the new Music Conservatory etc.
SPORTS
As far as sports go, NUS cannot even be mentioned in the same league as McGill because it is not only the facilities that are superior in McGill but also the enthusiasm for sports, which is a spillover from the diverse culture existent in Montreal in and McGill.
As far as sports facilities go Mcgill has two big fields despite its small size. They are more of football fields which can be used for other purposes. While NUS can match Mcgill in terms of the outdoor facilities as it too has two big playing fields, has alot of tennis courts and alot of basketball and futsal courts, it is the McGill Sports Complex (or Gym) with all its indoor facilities that beats NUS to it.
With squash courts, basketball courts, an ice hockey rink, tennis courts (i think), a swimming pool, two gymnasiums and a whole lot of other facilities under one roof, the McGill Sports Complex is very impressive indeed. The Complex, however, is more of a necessity than a luxury for McGill considering that it is covered under snow half the year and since such complexes are a norm in Northern America.
Intramural Games (games where anyone can form a team and register for a tournament) are quiet common in McGill while they are non-existent in NUS. At the same time Inter Varsity sports, in McGill, are followed more closely by the student population, the rivalries run much deeper and the victories are much more sweeter. All this means that being on the Varsity Team is a much bigger source of pride for a student in McGill than it is for a student in NUS, and this fuels the passion for sports in McGill.
CULTURE
The culture existent in the student population of the two universities is also as different as the aspects discussed earlier. While every decision taken by an NUS student is aimed at achieving the singular purpose of increasing the efficiency with which he absorbs the sacred knowledge being taught in University lecture theaters, decisions made by McGill students include such aspects as quality of life etc. So while a Singaporean moves out of his home to live in college residences to save the daily commute, a Montrealer moves out because his parents cannot put up with all the partying, and he might well end up renting a place close to the clubs to save his own daily commute.
P.S. The note is based on my own personal experiences. Since i have spent very little time in Mcgill than in NUS, i can accept that there might be some discrepancies up there. But the general picture is not far from what i have written
***
From a Facebook note:
During my 3-4 months in Montreal there is only one question that people have asked me more than the question “Are you Indian?” and that is “How do you compare McGill to NUS”. Well since the answer to the first one is pretty short, “No, I am Pakistani; Bitch!!”, I thought I’d save myself some time by posting the answer to the second question on Facebook. So here it goes.
STUDENT SOCIETIES
McGill is definitely far ahead when it comes to student societies and the freedom enjoyed by them. I’d guess that there are maybe five to six times more student groups/societies in McGill than there are in NUS and all of them are far more active than any of the societies in NUS.
Moreover, the student societies at McGill seem a lot more proactive than they do in NUS. In NUS you get the feeling that everyone at an event has still got studies on their mind, even if they are not sitting at a booth doing a Maths tutorial. Here its quiet the opposite, student societies not only conduct more events, but the events also seem more enjoyable. But I think the lack of enthusiasm in NUS can be blamed on the fk*** CCA points system, which NUS needs to get rid of soon.
The student union in McGill, SSMU, enjoys far more power and freedom than its NUS counterpart, NUSSU. So while NUSSU is busy licking the balls of the university administration SSMU actually serves a purpose in McGill. I still remember NUSSU’s decision to protest against the tuition fee hike by wearing black shirts. Here it was quiet a big rally that walked through the heart of the campus and proceeded slightly into downtown. Though the rally was not totally an SSMU venture, it just goes on to show the freedom and autonomy enjoyed by students in Canada as compared to those in Singapore.
STUDIES
curriculum
While the curriculum of an average module in NUS emphasizes more on the breadth of topics than on the depths of the topics, in McGill it is quiet the opposite. For the topics we covered in MA1505 (basic math), McGill engineering probably has 2-3 courses covering the same topics. So McGill is in the favour of covering a few topics in detail than a lot of them with minimum detail. Now am not sure if this means that NUS’ curriculum is harder or not but it is the next aspect of studies in NUS that makes u say ‘Gosh! My ass hurts’ a week into the semester.
competition
In terms of competition in classes McGill is light years behind NUS and a statistic that best reflects this bridge in competition is that 4-5 Pakistani engineering undergrads got 4.0/4.0 last semester alone, while hardly any of the Pakistani undergrads in NUS has ever achieved this in any faculty, let alone engineering. Moreover the marking in NUS is always (always!!) relative, but from what I get, its not in 3/4th of the modules in McGill. Assuming the papers are of the same difficulty in both universities, this can either mean that the undergrads in NUS produce such exceptional results that they need to be curved for them to hold any meaning, or that McGill is happy with giving each student what he/she deserves, which in effect reduces competition.
STAGNANT vs VIBRANT
During my time in McGill there has hardly been any new development except squabbling over the tuition fees, endless discussions over whether the McGill principal should continue her tenure and complaining about the lack of research funds in McGill. However since I have not spent much time in McGill I cannot say if there were any significant developments in the recent past, but the impression generally is that there is not much going on.
This is in stark contrast to what is currently going on at NUS. During my 3 years at the university the university has built a new administration building, a new music faculty building and a new campus for the law faculty. Developments in the not too distant past include the construction of PGPR (Prince Georges Park Residences) and the commission of the internal shuttle buses. Developments in the near future include the construction of an impressive new residence.
NUS is also much more active in providing students with the tidbits that spice up a degree. These include the NUS Overseas Colleges, Student Exchange Program, Technopreneurship Incubation Program etc. Though these programs exist in McGill they don’t seem to be as active as they are in NUS. For example it is rumored that NUS intends for half its undergraduate population to have gone on exchange by the end of 2009-2010 and judging from the fact that I alone personally know 10 ppl who are currently on exchange, I’d buy the rumor.
NUS' vibrancy is also reflected in the large amount of bursaries, scholarships and loan opportunities available for its students. The resources available for research and development, in NUS, are also famous by now and according to some have been the primary factor in NUS' high ranking. The Notebook Ownership scheme for the students in each university also goes on to show the resources available at NUS' disposal. While Mcgill only offers 1 notebook (atleast to my knowledge), the Toshiba Tecra, under the notebook ownership program, NUS offers various models from five different vendors at subsidized prices and with the opportunity to take a loan when buying them.
The Career centre at McGill is its only saving grace. Though I have not interacted with them much they seem to be doing some decent stuff. But again, NUS’ career centre has experienced somewhat of a resurgence in the past sem.
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Well, like anything else that is high tech and requires a bit of money NUS is far ahead in IT infrastructure when compared to McGill. The IT infrastructure in McGill, to be quiet frank, is pathetic.
There is no centralized printing system, apparently each lab has its own balance and you need to buy balance at that lab to be able to print from it. In NUS the printing system is centralized, with the same cash card being used in every lab. The paper quality for the printing is pathetic and it is fk*** expensive.
McGill does not have any webcasting facilities, whereby lecturers are recorded and then uploaded on the course website, which NUS has in most of its lecture theatres. But I am willing not to be too critical of this because few universities around the world have this facility, but for the love of god at least try to upload the sound files properly. McGill does have a rudimentary voice recording system in some of its Lecture Theatres but you never know when you click on a particular sound file if it is gonna work or not.
The software that allows students to register for modules is known as Minerva in McGill and CORS in NUS and guess what Minerva gets the razzie for the site with the worst interface by the McGill professor who teaches the module Human Computer Interaction (HCI). So I don’t need to waste my time comparing them.
The software that displays and keeps track of course contents for students and lecturers is known as WebCT in McGill and IVLE in NUS and while they are essentially the same the only difference is that WebCT stops working before exams because McGill doesn’t have the money to buy storage space. Pathetic! I wasted 2 hours a day before the exam only to be greeted by a screen that told me that the system is overloaded, and that I should try gain later; maybe after the exam.
Moreover the storage space allowed for an email id on the McGill domain is 10 Mb while it is 1Gb in NUS now.
There is, however, one aspect of the McGill IT infrastructure that is far more superior to that of NUS and that is its wireless internet. The internet is truly wireless in McGill as opposed to being pseudo wireless in NUS. While the wireless Internet in NUS performs variably at different locations, the wireless internet in McGill is avaiable throughout the campus even extending slightly beyond its boundaries to places such as coffee shops, where I spent many lazy evenings surfing the net and sipping a cup of coffee.
CAMPUS
The difference between the two universities is nowhere more visible than in their campuses. The NUS campus is what would best be described as a suburban campus whereas the McGill campus is smack in the middle of the city, a minute’s walk from downtown. This difference in campus’ manifests itself in totally contrasting university experiences for the student population.
Due to it being further away from the city centre, the NUS campus is much bigger that that of McGill, with almost five different Internal Shuttle Buses operating within the university. In McGill you are almost always on foot, unless you own a bike. The location of the two campuses also means that in Mcgill, you can buy almost everything from food to sex within a five minute’s walk from the campus. In NUS, however, everything needs to be planned before going on a leisure or shopping trip outside the university which is quiet effed up.
In McGill, there are no college residences on campus: the university has bought a few buildings around the campus and converted them to residences, but they are not sufficient. This has lead to the small area of condominiums and flats encapsulating the university being known as the McGill Ghetto, because of the large number of students living in it. This in turn has a huge impact on the lifestyle of the McGill undergraduates. Since every student lives in an apartment and since most of them live nearby, house parties, dinner parties and all sorts of other parties are very common in the ghetto. With a sufficiently large social network you are guaranteed to have 2-3 parties in your calendar every week.
As compared to McGill, NUS has a large number of university residences with more than 9 different residence units scattered around its campus and since most of them have single rooms it means no house parties, no dinner parties, nothing!
Architecturally the NUS campus does not come anywhere close to the McGill campus. While every building in NUS looks box-like, bland and monotonous, buildings in McGill look more individual, posses more character and exude a more dominating aura. Of course I am talking about the general architecture here which excludes the architectural gems in NUS such as the new Music Conservatory etc.
SPORTS
As far as sports go, NUS cannot even be mentioned in the same league as McGill because it is not only the facilities that are superior in McGill but also the enthusiasm for sports, which is a spillover from the diverse culture existent in Montreal in and McGill.
As far as sports facilities go Mcgill has two big fields despite its small size. They are more of football fields which can be used for other purposes. While NUS can match Mcgill in terms of the outdoor facilities as it too has two big playing fields, has alot of tennis courts and alot of basketball and futsal courts, it is the McGill Sports Complex (or Gym) with all its indoor facilities that beats NUS to it.
With squash courts, basketball courts, an ice hockey rink, tennis courts (i think), a swimming pool, two gymnasiums and a whole lot of other facilities under one roof, the McGill Sports Complex is very impressive indeed. The Complex, however, is more of a necessity than a luxury for McGill considering that it is covered under snow half the year and since such complexes are a norm in Northern America.
Intramural Games (games where anyone can form a team and register for a tournament) are quiet common in McGill while they are non-existent in NUS. At the same time Inter Varsity sports, in McGill, are followed more closely by the student population, the rivalries run much deeper and the victories are much more sweeter. All this means that being on the Varsity Team is a much bigger source of pride for a student in McGill than it is for a student in NUS, and this fuels the passion for sports in McGill.
CULTURE
The culture existent in the student population of the two universities is also as different as the aspects discussed earlier. While every decision taken by an NUS student is aimed at achieving the singular purpose of increasing the efficiency with which he absorbs the sacred knowledge being taught in University lecture theaters, decisions made by McGill students include such aspects as quality of life etc. So while a Singaporean moves out of his home to live in college residences to save the daily commute, a Montrealer moves out because his parents cannot put up with all the partying, and he might well end up renting a place close to the clubs to save his own daily commute.
P.S. The note is based on my own personal experiences. Since i have spent very little time in Mcgill than in NUS, i can accept that there might be some discrepancies up there. But the general picture is not far from what i have written
Post ID: 7272565386537021161
"The best defense against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes off." - Anonymous
***
"From my cold, dead hands"
At least 32 dead in Virginia shooting rampage
"At least 32 people were killed and more than two dozen wounded at Virginia Tech university on Monday in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history, media said.
Fox News, CNN and the student-run university newspaper gave the death toll as 32. Officials earlier said at least 22 people were killed.
The rampage by what police believed was a lone gunman took place in two separate areas, first at a dormitory as students had begun criss-crossing the sprawling campus for morning classes, and then about two hours later at an engineering and science hall a half-mile away.
The attacks sparked panic and chaos."
Those hands are going to be a lot colder and deader than he realises.
***
"From my cold, dead hands"
At least 32 dead in Virginia shooting rampage
"At least 32 people were killed and more than two dozen wounded at Virginia Tech university on Monday in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history, media said.
Fox News, CNN and the student-run university newspaper gave the death toll as 32. Officials earlier said at least 22 people were killed.
The rampage by what police believed was a lone gunman took place in two separate areas, first at a dormitory as students had begun criss-crossing the sprawling campus for morning classes, and then about two hours later at an engineering and science hall a half-mile away.
The attacks sparked panic and chaos."
Those hands are going to be a lot colder and deader than he realises.
Post ID: 2903877442502795562
"Exit, pursued by a bear." - William Shakespeare, Stage direction in "The Winter's Tale"
***
Someone: i have this theory that people will keep falling in love with the same types of people
which is why some girls keep geting dumped
cos of the type of guys they fall for
like ***
she had 4 bfs, 3 cheated on her
and she was like WTHH you've been with your bf for ALMOST 2 YEARS?!!!?!
she was so shocked that i was shocked
Someone else: anyway i finally got down to reading marcuse and adorno
marcuse is an idealist
adorno is dam irritating
i think marcuse's slightly more tolerable
they both sounded better in lesson when i hadn't read them
Someone on my keeping feminists honest: let them feminist have their day in peace la, after all, they talk but who listens?
Me: hahahahhaa
other women
Someone: yeah, exactly, and we all know what's that worth.
Frigid Girl: i'm struggling with trying to find french for "i'm fucked"
which is un-findable somehow
Law friend: ok post is done.
pls check if i have written anything libelous
Me: dear, you're the lawyer
Law friend: i need perspective
hahaah
...
masters students are shtupid
shtupid shtupid
they're the reason why we're having an MCQ exam for IP law (d )
Someone: have you read boudrillard?
he's got these ideas about how evolution sexed humans and if we went back to being asexual we'd become immortal
Someone else: ... he would be VERY SCARY if he were female. just like, can you imagine yourself, only female?
which girl analyses things to the Nth degree like you do, and things like econs and philo at that?
Me: yah
girls may be intelligent but they're not intellectual
Someone else: exactly.
Me: sad
oh well
Someone else: ya. i'd love to listen to long diatribes on Neo-Keynesian economic models, but *zzzz* too much for my girl brain
Someone: aiya.. she cdnt confirm whether she got bf or not..
blah
Me: heh
your original target how
Someone: eh, not as if i'm changing target..
^^
Me: then?
getting multiple targets?
Someone: multiple targets?
u think multiple orgasms arh?
bah
...
of course i do [read a lot into simple conversations]..
that's what we do..
when u gossips with girls enough
u learn
u learn their methods
their modus operandi
u begins to know how resourceful they are
all those unconsciously of course
Someone else: i have an interesting observation
when it comes close to deadline less and less people in my "project group" group come online haha
Me: haha
all busy working on the project!
you forgot the quotation marks in "come online"
Someone else: then sometimes some of them will put me on invis or something and forget
and then message me
and then i can send messages to offline people
i wonder why ah
feeling guilty ah? w
is there still a limit on how many people you can have on your friends list in msn?
maybe i should make an account for nus project use only
Someone: eh anyway i am off facebook man
nothing else to search for
mayeb when i think of something i shall go back
or mayeb i should set my own group
'i hate girls who show off their ac boyfriends by wearing ac sweaters'
i'm sure got a lot of them
Me: would you get a boob job and plastic surgery for *** (or some guy you like?)
Someone else: if i have a steady relationship with the guy
and he likes huge boobs and be willing to pay for the operation, why not
Someone: its an ego stroking thing... its just the whole ah beng phenomenon. boys just like sweet innocent girls.
anyway its probably evolutionarily advantageous. since innocent lolita types;
have less likely chance to have STDs
are more fertile since women become less fertile with age
are more likely to stay on with you since cohabitation in animals is said to be advantageous for the future guarantee of a mate
are "clean slates" which you can indoctrinate with your own sexual preferences.
its true.
Me: indoctrinate with sexual preference is evolutionarily advantageous meh
Someone: makes you a happier man, thus healthier sperm, thus higher paternity?
more ejaculation = more sperm for fertilisation?
bonding over your favourite positions may increase chances of fertilisation. since its known that in artificial insemination, having an orgasm for the girl increases the chance of fertilisation.
anyway, if you indoctrinate with you own preferences, then there might be less conflict
Someone else: i only want to see boobs
all the blogs i visit has boobs
i visit your blog
and u got boobs
so the R^2 very high
Someone: ur just trying to bait the girls aren't you. lol
why.. gabriel. you're just inviting trouble and unnecessary labels like Mysoginist
lol
sometimes I think you enjoy it.
Me: it's misogynist, woman!
***
Someone: i have this theory that people will keep falling in love with the same types of people
which is why some girls keep geting dumped
cos of the type of guys they fall for
like ***
she had 4 bfs, 3 cheated on her
and she was like WTHH you've been with your bf for ALMOST 2 YEARS?!!!?!
she was so shocked that i was shocked
Someone else: anyway i finally got down to reading marcuse and adorno
marcuse is an idealist
adorno is dam irritating
i think marcuse's slightly more tolerable
they both sounded better in lesson when i hadn't read them
Someone on my keeping feminists honest: let them feminist have their day in peace la, after all, they talk but who listens?
Me: hahahahhaa
other women
Someone: yeah, exactly, and we all know what's that worth.
Frigid Girl: i'm struggling with trying to find french for "i'm fucked"
which is un-findable somehow
Law friend: ok post is done.
pls check if i have written anything libelous
Me: dear, you're the lawyer
Law friend: i need perspective
hahaah
...
masters students are shtupid
shtupid shtupid
they're the reason why we're having an MCQ exam for IP law (d )
Someone: have you read boudrillard?
he's got these ideas about how evolution sexed humans and if we went back to being asexual we'd become immortal
Someone else: ... he would be VERY SCARY if he were female. just like, can you imagine yourself, only female?
which girl analyses things to the Nth degree like you do, and things like econs and philo at that?
Me: yah
girls may be intelligent but they're not intellectual
Someone else: exactly.
Me: sad
oh well
Someone else: ya. i'd love to listen to long diatribes on Neo-Keynesian economic models, but *zzzz* too much for my girl brain
Someone: aiya.. she cdnt confirm whether she got bf or not..
blah
Me: heh
your original target how
Someone: eh, not as if i'm changing target..
^^
Me: then?
getting multiple targets?
Someone: multiple targets?
u think multiple orgasms arh?
bah
...
of course i do [read a lot into simple conversations]..
that's what we do..
when u gossips with girls enough
u learn
u learn their methods
their modus operandi
u begins to know how resourceful they are
all those unconsciously of course
Someone else: i have an interesting observation
when it comes close to deadline less and less people in my "project group" group come online haha
Me: haha
all busy working on the project!
you forgot the quotation marks in "come online"
Someone else: then sometimes some of them will put me on invis or something and forget
and then message me
and then i can send messages to offline people
i wonder why ah
feeling guilty ah? w
is there still a limit on how many people you can have on your friends list in msn?
maybe i should make an account for nus project use only
Someone: eh anyway i am off facebook man
nothing else to search for
mayeb when i think of something i shall go back
or mayeb i should set my own group
'i hate girls who show off their ac boyfriends by wearing ac sweaters'
i'm sure got a lot of them
Me: would you get a boob job and plastic surgery for *** (or some guy you like?)
Someone else: if i have a steady relationship with the guy
and he likes huge boobs and be willing to pay for the operation, why not
Someone: its an ego stroking thing... its just the whole ah beng phenomenon. boys just like sweet innocent girls.
anyway its probably evolutionarily advantageous. since innocent lolita types;
have less likely chance to have STDs
are more fertile since women become less fertile with age
are more likely to stay on with you since cohabitation in animals is said to be advantageous for the future guarantee of a mate
are "clean slates" which you can indoctrinate with your own sexual preferences.
its true.
Me: indoctrinate with sexual preference is evolutionarily advantageous meh
Someone: makes you a happier man, thus healthier sperm, thus higher paternity?
more ejaculation = more sperm for fertilisation?
bonding over your favourite positions may increase chances of fertilisation. since its known that in artificial insemination, having an orgasm for the girl increases the chance of fertilisation.
anyway, if you indoctrinate with you own preferences, then there might be less conflict
Someone else: i only want to see boobs
all the blogs i visit has boobs
i visit your blog
and u got boobs
so the R^2 very high
Someone: ur just trying to bait the girls aren't you. lol
why.. gabriel. you're just inviting trouble and unnecessary labels like Mysoginist
lol
sometimes I think you enjoy it.
Me: it's misogynist, woman!
Post ID: 4028552112827009360
A Christian girl in Asia who will wave in glee to Jews when they burn in hell
"There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little - and it's always somebody else." - Cullen Hightower
***
"just dropping by" draws attention to the following 2 emails:
From: Carmen [carmen@therefinersfire:
-----Original Message-----
From: Cheryl Lim <cheryllimys@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 10:43 AM
I think you should have been killed in the holocaust. Really. But I believe God wanted you alive so that you would spread your vicious and laughable lies to more of your deluded brethren, both jews and gentile converts who deserve to be in hell with you.
How terribly amusing, some of the funny things you have posted in this farcical website of yours.
I'm so grateful to Mel Gibson that he made that movie to honour the gift that Christ gave to the rest of us. Although he didn't mean for it to provoke anti-semitic responses against YOUR people, it did and I am truly happy and not a single bit regretful because you truly deserve it. Hahaha!!!!
In fact you deserve infinitely worse.
But I'm not worried that you won't receive your rightful punishment, which will happen, I promise you with my life.
All you jews who reject Jesus will be burning in hell and I will be waving in glee to all of you with a smile on my face from above, standing at the right hand of my King. I will certainly send my regards again then.
Meanwhile, please do persist in your ignorant crusade to affirm your religion of lies to your brethren so that all their/your fate in hell will be sealed and set in stone.
Many thanks and keep on doing what you have been doing! You have my moral support.
With Much Love and Pity,
A Christian girl in Asia
Yours Sincerely
Cheryl Lim
9298-0747
From: Cheryl Lim <cheryllimys@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 11:24 AM
To: Hugh Fogelman
You deserve it. There is no need for me to pray for your salvation. There is no need for me to mince my words since you have no hope.
Most of all, there is no need for me to light a bonfire because it HAS been done!
You're definitely going to hell if you never see the light.
May Jesus have mercy on your souls (you and your pathetic, stupid, disgusting, deluded friend John Stone and all you other deluded Orthodox Jews whose ancestors murdered my God and until today continue to spread lies and persist in your delusions) when you burn in sulphur.
Cheryl Lim
9298-0747
***
"just dropping by" draws attention to the following 2 emails:
From: Carmen [carmen@therefinersfire:
-----Original Message-----
From: Cheryl Lim <cheryllimys@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 10:43 AM
I think you should have been killed in the holocaust. Really. But I believe God wanted you alive so that you would spread your vicious and laughable lies to more of your deluded brethren, both jews and gentile converts who deserve to be in hell with you.
How terribly amusing, some of the funny things you have posted in this farcical website of yours.
I'm so grateful to Mel Gibson that he made that movie to honour the gift that Christ gave to the rest of us. Although he didn't mean for it to provoke anti-semitic responses against YOUR people, it did and I am truly happy and not a single bit regretful because you truly deserve it. Hahaha!!!!
In fact you deserve infinitely worse.
But I'm not worried that you won't receive your rightful punishment, which will happen, I promise you with my life.
All you jews who reject Jesus will be burning in hell and I will be waving in glee to all of you with a smile on my face from above, standing at the right hand of my King. I will certainly send my regards again then.
Meanwhile, please do persist in your ignorant crusade to affirm your religion of lies to your brethren so that all their/your fate in hell will be sealed and set in stone.
Many thanks and keep on doing what you have been doing! You have my moral support.
With Much Love and Pity,
A Christian girl in Asia
Yours Sincerely
Cheryl Lim
9298-0747
From: Cheryl Lim <cheryllimys@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 11:24 AM
To: Hugh Fogelman
You deserve it. There is no need for me to pray for your salvation. There is no need for me to mince my words since you have no hope.
Most of all, there is no need for me to light a bonfire because it HAS been done!
You're definitely going to hell if you never see the light.
May Jesus have mercy on your souls (you and your pathetic, stupid, disgusting, deluded friend John Stone and all you other deluded Orthodox Jews whose ancestors murdered my God and until today continue to spread lies and persist in your delusions) when you burn in sulphur.
Cheryl Lim
9298-0747
Post ID: 7717484939241193066
Monday, April 16, 2007
"The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath." - Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
***
"Once, twice, thrice, I Julia tried.
The scornful puss as oft denied:
And since I can no better thrive,
I'll cringe to ne'er a bitch alive;
So kiss my arse delightful sow,
Good claret is my mistress now."
- Henry Purcell, Chansons de Tavernes et de Chapelles
***
"Once, twice, thrice, I Julia tried.
The scornful puss as oft denied:
And since I can no better thrive,
I'll cringe to ne'er a bitch alive;
So kiss my arse delightful sow,
Good claret is my mistress now."
- Henry Purcell, Chansons de Tavernes et de Chapelles
Post ID: 9093191422743171039
"When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence." - Brendan Behan
***
This person didn't leave a forwarding address:
"wow.. nice calculations on the minister pay rise.. can quote on my blog? ur from usp rite? wondering if u heard this latest scandal... a girl from your fac studying life science wif nude pics taken by her bf... i heard about it from a friend maybe you know something about it?"
Yes, you can quote it (though I didn't write it). No, I don't know anything about it (Does anyone? One person said he'd heard about something like that, but he declined to elaborate).
[Part 2, still sans forwarding address:
"yea my friend heard the guy talking about the fotos. the girl's graduating i
think maybe it was a gift hahah. maybe one of ur readers seen the fotos"]
[Addendum:
Someone: watscandal
i'm studying life science and i'm from your fac!!!!!!!!
quick tell me!
does the girl look remotely like me?
Me: I don't know leh
no idea
why, your bf took pics of you ah
Someone: wah rao
sounds scary
not that i know of
but life science usp girl
Someone else: your such a gossipmonger its not even funny.
but when you find out abt the scandal, tell me k
im trying to recall who i know frm usp lifesciences.]
***
This person didn't leave a forwarding address:
"wow.. nice calculations on the minister pay rise.. can quote on my blog? ur from usp rite? wondering if u heard this latest scandal... a girl from your fac studying life science wif nude pics taken by her bf... i heard about it from a friend maybe you know something about it?"
Yes, you can quote it (though I didn't write it). No, I don't know anything about it (Does anyone? One person said he'd heard about something like that, but he declined to elaborate).
[Part 2, still sans forwarding address:
"yea my friend heard the guy talking about the fotos. the girl's graduating i
think maybe it was a gift hahah. maybe one of ur readers seen the fotos"]
[Addendum:
Someone: watscandal
i'm studying life science and i'm from your fac!!!!!!!!
quick tell me!
does the girl look remotely like me?
Me: I don't know leh
no idea
why, your bf took pics of you ah
Someone: wah rao
sounds scary
not that i know of
but life science usp girl
Someone else: your such a gossipmonger its not even funny.
but when you find out abt the scandal, tell me k
im trying to recall who i know frm usp lifesciences.]
Post ID: 6441258958320552155
Sunday, April 15, 2007
"Only the mediocre are always at their best." - Jean Giraudoux
***
An SMS I just got:
"Can Help? Petshop at joo chiat closing tomorrow. 2 huskies, 1 black labrador, 1shitzu, 1huskie terrier cross breed 2give away. Otherwise they're going 2bputdown. 4details pls Call mariam XXXXXXXX."
I wonder if it's the same pet shop I saw in Joo Chiat earlier today.
[Addendum: Someone: the number to the pet shop cannot be reached
i got the sms abt 1 plus
some of my friends tried calling
Hai~ren gives this link: Updates on petshop closing down
Addendum 2: "Hi, just to let you know, the matter has already been resolved and this was not a hoax or a scam. For more info, you can visit the URL i've indicated. I would appreciate if you edited your post to blank out Mariam's handphone number to prevent further confusion and misunderstandings. Thanks a lot."]
***
An SMS I just got:
"Can Help? Petshop at joo chiat closing tomorrow. 2 huskies, 1 black labrador, 1shitzu, 1huskie terrier cross breed 2give away. Otherwise they're going 2bputdown. 4details pls Call mariam XXXXXXXX."
I wonder if it's the same pet shop I saw in Joo Chiat earlier today.
[Addendum: Someone: the number to the pet shop cannot be reached
i got the sms abt 1 plus
some of my friends tried calling
Hai~ren gives this link: Updates on petshop closing down
Addendum 2: "Hi, just to let you know, the matter has already been resolved and this was not a hoax or a scam. For more info, you can visit the URL i've indicated. I would appreciate if you edited your post to blank out Mariam's handphone number to prevent further confusion and misunderstandings. Thanks a lot."]
Post ID: 49776279096863731
"The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward." - John Maynard Keynes
***
Quotes:
[On the government wanting to be liked] That's why Catherine Lim, 1994... People no longer love the government... It hit them very hard.
The Singapore Story is the Lee Kuan Yew story. What happened to the coolies, rickshaw drivers, prostitutes... It's about the PAP on the playing field, scoring goals for Singapore.
Sometimes people say 'it's all about the fans', but they don't mean it. Our government doesn't even say it.
[On sports bounties] It also shows the government's pragmatism, because they know they'll never have to pay the money.
The GIC has $100 billion, which it invests overseas. Suzhou being a stunning example of success... CPF?... The money it makes doesn't go back to your CPF.
'Eternal life' is one of those ideas. Like 'nation'... 'Nation-building' is never complete... Moses brings people to the Promised Land, but you never reach it... It's an unreachable goal.
[Student on metaphors: The believer follows the religious leader. I don't want to say 'blindly', because I'm a Christian]... This assumes the deity is real. It could be a Wizard of Oz. A little man operating a machine.
[On faith] Hell is Thailand. That's what the PAP does. Or Malaysia... PAP doesn't say if you democratise you become like Scandinavia, high quality of life. They say you democratise, you become like Bangkok - riots. Malaysia - Dr M.
[On founding fathers] It's the Solonic thing. You have to quickly disappear, otherwise you will become more and more human. [Student: You crucify him] Or his son.
[Instructor: *** is god. He chooses his ministers.] And he sends his only begotten son. [Instructor: Well.]
It's very hard to be an atheist... We all want to believe... Even though our rational beliefs militate against it.
[On me] He got quite a lot of luck, but bad luck.
This is approximately my salary. If you are in [a] good university, you get 20,000 a month. Maybe I exaggerate a bit.
[On the Allais Paradox] For Chinese people they prefer gambles, so there is no contradiction... In China, this theory works well. In France, it's not that good.
You cannot enter this market. He is predator. If you enter he will kill you.
[On the chicken game] Here, this is no issue that they will deviate in the same direction [and still crash].
pah'tense (patents) (Ed: 'Pah' is pronounced the French way)
[On market entry] And then you have hotels. Easy to enter and hard to exit. Which I don't know why. (Why this is so)
I need to jian3 fei2. [Translation: Lose weight]... [Me: Then your breasts {will} shrink, how?] Get breast implants lor.
This pre'day'tery pricing (predatory)
This person is assumed to live forever. Quite a common assumption in Economics.
[On optimal control] Let's employ all of the conditions and solve the model. It's gonna be fun.
The Solow Model, which should be second nature to any economist. You know it like the back of your hand... No need to memorise it. You know it subconsciously.
The social planner is assumed to be a benevolent dictator. Like the PAP government. Supposedly.
[On TS Eliot] I like the sex scenes.
[On what nationality/race she'd want to be] Spanish, because the women are hot and the men are even hotter.
[On PRCs] In hall, they leave their used sanitary pads around. [Student 2: There's 1 guy who cuts his hair over the sink and leaves it there.]
'Kiasu' just entered into the Oxford English Dictionary. [Student 2: Oxford or Coxford?] Oxford.
d'rar'cornic identity (draconic)
The image NUS promotes... 2 ang mohs, 1 african... 2 indians, 1 chinese. You come here: they're all chinese. [Student 2: You mean PRC]
After taking some Chinese odules, I don't like China anymore.
I had a quarter boyfriend. [Me: Why, because you only went to First Base?] You're only the second person to comment that.
They provide time series analysis, they provide cross-sectional analysis. Basically lots of complicated stuff I don't understand.
Think about your boyfriend. or husband. Marriage is a credible commitment problem.
Isn't obvious I like him?... You see me crying when I'm with him. [Me: If you're crying why do you like him?] Because I have ***?... [Student 2: It's okay. You can go for muti-citizenship theory.] [Student and Me: They're both American!]
I don't use tampons... You know the thing about tampons. [Me: They makes you looser?] Yeah. [Me: If I stick my finger in your vagina everyday, it's not going to make you looser]. Eugh! Stop it! It's a foreign object. [Student 2: So is. *tsk*]... [Student 3: A dick is a foreign object also] [Student 2: A dick is a foreign as things go, honey, especially in your case.]
He's cute. This is the kind of guy who qualifies for a fling. *** is the kind of guy who qualifies for marriage. *** is the kind of guy who's a fallback plan.
Do you think anyone knows I'm two-timing? [Me: I think everyone knows, except ***]
[Student: I'm getting bored already.] It's so addictive... That means you have no life in Facebook either.
Some departments are full of Marxists... These are like Geography and Ethnic Studies which no one cares about.
When I came here I was blindsided. There's no right to free speech... [Instructor: It's in the Constitution, but that's where it remains.]
[On religious knowledge] 1984. In the 80s, people were saying really crazy things... Weber... Protestant ethic... Some kind of structure of explanation was offered in the 80s. Asian Tigers... Confucian ethics was the big thing... Make people more respectful, obedient... They wanted everyone to do Confucian Ethics, so they made all the exams multiple choice. The others were all essays, short answers.
[On 'Shared Values', 1991] Empty signifiers... Apple pie, motherhood... Their purpose is served by being there: 10 Commandments... Something people can look to and worship.
I don't know what this is like. What is Civic and Moral Education like? [Student: Irritating]
[On her life in the KC branch of the franchise] Abortion videos were shown... before recess. Then during recess the canteen was really empty. [Instructor: You guys must really have had a problem with this.]... They would get a priest to come in and go: 'Teletubbies are evil. Kiss is evil. Ozzie Osbourne eats bats.'
[On Civics and Moral Education] Nothing to do with rights. Nothing to do with 'what to do when you're being seriously hounded by the ISD'
[On propaganda and social engineering] We have this entire culture of cynicism in Singapore... Ironically, or maybe not ironically, it's because of the government... No one trusts the government... Isn't it scary? Everyone votes for a government which nobody trusts.
[On 'Being and Becoming', 1984] A lot of teachers said they couldn't deal with it, because it was too profound... I don't think it went on for more than 1 or 2 years.
[On Malaysia] I don't know how applicable this is. We had 80 values [to learn in school]
[Student on Malaysian civics: If you see a foreigner saying bad things about your country, what will you do?] Tell Mahathir.
[On Singapore 21] You spend your precious time... Your evenings... Then: 'The Singapore Heartbeat'
Some of these have become ideological markers of resistance. 'Every Singaporean Matters' has been used as a rallying call by the gay movement.
[On USP] All my arts modules are government banging.
[On theory in term papers] It was like garnishing. You cut the carrots and put them on top to look nice. [Student: What do you want us to do?] Cook the carrots with the dish.
[On theory in term papers] In Political Science it's very easy to write essays which are like coffeeshop talk. Which is great, I like to read them. But what is the purpose of the module?
[On Jiannie] You guys are not normal. You have long hair and you have a perky butt. People think you're gay.
In our life, we often free-ride... For example we have [a] coffee machine in our department, and it's free. So I started to drink coffee 5, 6 times a day.
splitted (written) (split)
scar'la product (scalar)
I used to be crazy about RI. I had the RI badge, PE shirt... [Me: If guys do that, they're perverted. If girls do that, it's just - strange]
[On wearing a shirt with a teddy bear on it] It's a proven tactic. My classmate asked me for my MSN so she could find out where to find it.
VTO agreement (WTO)
***
Quotes:
[On the government wanting to be liked] That's why Catherine Lim, 1994... People no longer love the government... It hit them very hard.
The Singapore Story is the Lee Kuan Yew story. What happened to the coolies, rickshaw drivers, prostitutes... It's about the PAP on the playing field, scoring goals for Singapore.
Sometimes people say 'it's all about the fans', but they don't mean it. Our government doesn't even say it.
[On sports bounties] It also shows the government's pragmatism, because they know they'll never have to pay the money.
The GIC has $100 billion, which it invests overseas. Suzhou being a stunning example of success... CPF?... The money it makes doesn't go back to your CPF.
'Eternal life' is one of those ideas. Like 'nation'... 'Nation-building' is never complete... Moses brings people to the Promised Land, but you never reach it... It's an unreachable goal.
[Student on metaphors: The believer follows the religious leader. I don't want to say 'blindly', because I'm a Christian]... This assumes the deity is real. It could be a Wizard of Oz. A little man operating a machine.
[On faith] Hell is Thailand. That's what the PAP does. Or Malaysia... PAP doesn't say if you democratise you become like Scandinavia, high quality of life. They say you democratise, you become like Bangkok - riots. Malaysia - Dr M.
[On founding fathers] It's the Solonic thing. You have to quickly disappear, otherwise you will become more and more human. [Student: You crucify him] Or his son.
[Instructor: *** is god. He chooses his ministers.] And he sends his only begotten son. [Instructor: Well.]
It's very hard to be an atheist... We all want to believe... Even though our rational beliefs militate against it.
[On me] He got quite a lot of luck, but bad luck.
This is approximately my salary. If you are in [a] good university, you get 20,000 a month. Maybe I exaggerate a bit.
[On the Allais Paradox] For Chinese people they prefer gambles, so there is no contradiction... In China, this theory works well. In France, it's not that good.
You cannot enter this market. He is predator. If you enter he will kill you.
[On the chicken game] Here, this is no issue that they will deviate in the same direction [and still crash].
pah'tense (patents) (Ed: 'Pah' is pronounced the French way)
[On market entry] And then you have hotels. Easy to enter and hard to exit. Which I don't know why. (Why this is so)
I need to jian3 fei2. [Translation: Lose weight]... [Me: Then your breasts {will} shrink, how?] Get breast implants lor.
This pre'day'tery pricing (predatory)
This person is assumed to live forever. Quite a common assumption in Economics.
[On optimal control] Let's employ all of the conditions and solve the model. It's gonna be fun.
The Solow Model, which should be second nature to any economist. You know it like the back of your hand... No need to memorise it. You know it subconsciously.
The social planner is assumed to be a benevolent dictator. Like the PAP government. Supposedly.
[On TS Eliot] I like the sex scenes.
[On what nationality/race she'd want to be] Spanish, because the women are hot and the men are even hotter.
[On PRCs] In hall, they leave their used sanitary pads around. [Student 2: There's 1 guy who cuts his hair over the sink and leaves it there.]
'Kiasu' just entered into the Oxford English Dictionary. [Student 2: Oxford or Coxford?] Oxford.
d'rar'cornic identity (draconic)
The image NUS promotes... 2 ang mohs, 1 african... 2 indians, 1 chinese. You come here: they're all chinese. [Student 2: You mean PRC]
After taking some Chinese odules, I don't like China anymore.
I had a quarter boyfriend. [Me: Why, because you only went to First Base?] You're only the second person to comment that.
They provide time series analysis, they provide cross-sectional analysis. Basically lots of complicated stuff I don't understand.
Think about your boyfriend. or husband. Marriage is a credible commitment problem.
Isn't obvious I like him?... You see me crying when I'm with him. [Me: If you're crying why do you like him?] Because I have ***?... [Student 2: It's okay. You can go for muti-citizenship theory.] [Student and Me: They're both American!]
I don't use tampons... You know the thing about tampons. [Me: They makes you looser?] Yeah. [Me: If I stick my finger in your vagina everyday, it's not going to make you looser]. Eugh! Stop it! It's a foreign object. [Student 2: So is. *tsk*]... [Student 3: A dick is a foreign object also] [Student 2: A dick is a foreign as things go, honey, especially in your case.]
He's cute. This is the kind of guy who qualifies for a fling. *** is the kind of guy who qualifies for marriage. *** is the kind of guy who's a fallback plan.
Do you think anyone knows I'm two-timing? [Me: I think everyone knows, except ***]
[Student: I'm getting bored already.] It's so addictive... That means you have no life in Facebook either.
Some departments are full of Marxists... These are like Geography and Ethnic Studies which no one cares about.
When I came here I was blindsided. There's no right to free speech... [Instructor: It's in the Constitution, but that's where it remains.]
[On religious knowledge] 1984. In the 80s, people were saying really crazy things... Weber... Protestant ethic... Some kind of structure of explanation was offered in the 80s. Asian Tigers... Confucian ethics was the big thing... Make people more respectful, obedient... They wanted everyone to do Confucian Ethics, so they made all the exams multiple choice. The others were all essays, short answers.
[On 'Shared Values', 1991] Empty signifiers... Apple pie, motherhood... Their purpose is served by being there: 10 Commandments... Something people can look to and worship.
I don't know what this is like. What is Civic and Moral Education like? [Student: Irritating]
[On her life in the KC branch of the franchise] Abortion videos were shown... before recess. Then during recess the canteen was really empty. [Instructor: You guys must really have had a problem with this.]... They would get a priest to come in and go: 'Teletubbies are evil. Kiss is evil. Ozzie Osbourne eats bats.'
[On Civics and Moral Education] Nothing to do with rights. Nothing to do with 'what to do when you're being seriously hounded by the ISD'
[On propaganda and social engineering] We have this entire culture of cynicism in Singapore... Ironically, or maybe not ironically, it's because of the government... No one trusts the government... Isn't it scary? Everyone votes for a government which nobody trusts.
[On 'Being and Becoming', 1984] A lot of teachers said they couldn't deal with it, because it was too profound... I don't think it went on for more than 1 or 2 years.
[On Malaysia] I don't know how applicable this is. We had 80 values [to learn in school]
[Student on Malaysian civics: If you see a foreigner saying bad things about your country, what will you do?] Tell Mahathir.
[On Singapore 21] You spend your precious time... Your evenings... Then: 'The Singapore Heartbeat'
Some of these have become ideological markers of resistance. 'Every Singaporean Matters' has been used as a rallying call by the gay movement.
[On USP] All my arts modules are government banging.
[On theory in term papers] It was like garnishing. You cut the carrots and put them on top to look nice. [Student: What do you want us to do?] Cook the carrots with the dish.
[On theory in term papers] In Political Science it's very easy to write essays which are like coffeeshop talk. Which is great, I like to read them. But what is the purpose of the module?
[On Jiannie] You guys are not normal. You have long hair and you have a perky butt. People think you're gay.
In our life, we often free-ride... For example we have [a] coffee machine in our department, and it's free. So I started to drink coffee 5, 6 times a day.
splitted (written) (split)
scar'la product (scalar)
I used to be crazy about RI. I had the RI badge, PE shirt... [Me: If guys do that, they're perverted. If girls do that, it's just - strange]
[On wearing a shirt with a teddy bear on it] It's a proven tactic. My classmate asked me for my MSN so she could find out where to find it.
VTO agreement (WTO)
Post ID: 4761226139714311205
A delayed response I got last week to my reply to a comment on a previous post:
Thanks for your reply Gabriel.
Whilst you speak from your personal experience, which is tainted with emotion.
I do honestly empathize, but a handful of friends break downs doesn't constitute a valid comparative analysis.
In the mass manufacture of any commoditized product, you'll always have some failures as this is part of human engineering endeavor and design evolution.
Sure, sometimes a glitch in one of the automated robotic assemblies needs recalibration. But alas a batch escaped QControls, because tests showed no fault and you now do.
What your short sightedness misses people whose station of office is 24/7 fixing other people problems, sees! Had your experience been one who's had to repair these notebooks or systems for a LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE.
My comments would have been different, and I would have sought to know more of it.
Your ignorant comments with regards to batteries be it motherboard or power are deemed consumables, in that of course they have a limited life span [ DOH!].
Name me a manufacturer who doesn’t have this as an issue?
Scientists and corporations spend millions trying to make them last longer, and the man who finds the perfect battery will be rich beyond his wildest dreams.
As for hard disks this also holds the same, it was always assumed that this will not last forever.
I mean a disk platen spinning at 7200 – 15,000 Rpm for 5-8 years is goner wear a bearing or two.
But I know of many hard disks lasting longer than this, but the people who owned them are not guys like you. Unlike the average public, they cool their drives, as this is one MAJOR factor affecting them [ its called friction ]. Only today are they starting to address this in design, but in the corporate sector and government they have been doing this for 20 years.
If your article had cast new and interesting light on this trend, coupled with the fact that you some how thought it negligent that for so long scientist and engineers failed us and colluded with manufacture to sell us dodgy goods, you might have come closer to a story.
I have more than 25 years experience in Engineering & Service business from Broadcast systems, Recording Studio's to I.T & Computers.
I see and have experienced a much LARGER SAMPLE than you purport.
END OF STORY!
I don't use a laptop, because I have very little use for them. This doesn't mean I don't have stock of them or access for that matter. There are other forms of personal information managers out there, or have you forgotten?
Most of the computers I personally run are from my humble XEON 3.6 Ghz Dual CPU Rack Mount [ 4Gb Ram, 1Terabyte HDD ], to my more grunty QUAD CORE XEON Racks which take 32 Gb of RAM and don't ask about my RAID [ these form the hub of my recording studio ].
From the above I think it should be obvious and deducible that Laptops don't hold enough sway for me. Laptop's are but only diagnostic tools for me, not for sitting in some Cafe sipping Latte trying to impress my importance on the unwary public via a hotspot.
They are but tools, everyone uses them to facilitate the work, the mode finds expression in your personal endevours.
Back to your Site:-
Alas, yours is of spectacle and sensationalism, for if it were not, you'd hardly draw anyone to your pages. There's the RUB, or as Marshall McLuhan said the "Medium is the Message", or in your case " Medium is the Massage".
Keep rubbing that in people’s faces, eventually some people will believe it truth.
The conveyance of truth or real perspective is lost in the pursuit of the reaction and gaining momentum, for its sake only. Should you have journalistic intentions you might be well served by seeing and reading his book. Though it was before your time, he saw the effect of the electronic media long before you knew it existed.
Please don't take it the wrong way, this is not personal. It’s just so tiresome that some in this day and age of blogs and information overload offer nothing of any personal empowerment through truth or knowledge. Just information bordering on the non-sensicle, and saying things for no other reason than the reaction it causes. [YAWN!].
I think you can do better than that Gabriel, in fact you deserve better than that.
If you should care about something so much, then why not try to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Offer the truth, research the facts, and then empower your readership, they will be transformed and hold you in high esteem as the conduit for that event.
If you take issue with the manufacturer over some design flaw, all the power to you brother. We've been doing this for years!
You should research your facts, and then post them.
But for goodness sakes get yourself a bigger sample to substantiate your claims.
If you did so, you would be providing the public a service, and I've got nothing but respect for those who do.
I have no personal affiliation with any manufacturer, but in the servicing business we are preferred by many of them as the preferred service provider.
But in saying this we represent their competition too, it’s completely democratic.
And my customers know we fight them tooth and nail to get them their rightful compensation should we find fault with any products or workmanship.
Yet we are still respected by them.
In my other business pursuits I care not for money, but the integrity of the content and how it affects the buying public. So should you!
In the beginning there was the WORD, and the word was made flesh.
How powerful do feel the word could be if it were filled with truth?
How much more powerful a transformative experience for all concerned if you were to seek it for yourself, so you could share with those that seek it?
Maybe you should apply this……….who knows,
success may follow you should you wish to take the lead.
Hope you have a wonderful time transforming your site, peace brother!
Regards,
Jahmeister
I'm not really sure what he was on about in the second half.
I thought of talking about my keyboard and Frigid Girl's being recommended a maximum usage time of 8 hours (Once is happenstance...), but figured there'd be no point.
Thanks for your reply Gabriel.
Whilst you speak from your personal experience, which is tainted with emotion.
I do honestly empathize, but a handful of friends break downs doesn't constitute a valid comparative analysis.
In the mass manufacture of any commoditized product, you'll always have some failures as this is part of human engineering endeavor and design evolution.
Sure, sometimes a glitch in one of the automated robotic assemblies needs recalibration. But alas a batch escaped QControls, because tests showed no fault and you now do.
What your short sightedness misses people whose station of office is 24/7 fixing other people problems, sees! Had your experience been one who's had to repair these notebooks or systems for a LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE.
My comments would have been different, and I would have sought to know more of it.
Your ignorant comments with regards to batteries be it motherboard or power are deemed consumables, in that of course they have a limited life span [ DOH!].
Name me a manufacturer who doesn’t have this as an issue?
Scientists and corporations spend millions trying to make them last longer, and the man who finds the perfect battery will be rich beyond his wildest dreams.
As for hard disks this also holds the same, it was always assumed that this will not last forever.
I mean a disk platen spinning at 7200 – 15,000 Rpm for 5-8 years is goner wear a bearing or two.
But I know of many hard disks lasting longer than this, but the people who owned them are not guys like you. Unlike the average public, they cool their drives, as this is one MAJOR factor affecting them [ its called friction ]. Only today are they starting to address this in design, but in the corporate sector and government they have been doing this for 20 years.
If your article had cast new and interesting light on this trend, coupled with the fact that you some how thought it negligent that for so long scientist and engineers failed us and colluded with manufacture to sell us dodgy goods, you might have come closer to a story.
I have more than 25 years experience in Engineering & Service business from Broadcast systems, Recording Studio's to I.T & Computers.
I see and have experienced a much LARGER SAMPLE than you purport.
END OF STORY!
I don't use a laptop, because I have very little use for them. This doesn't mean I don't have stock of them or access for that matter. There are other forms of personal information managers out there, or have you forgotten?
Most of the computers I personally run are from my humble XEON 3.6 Ghz Dual CPU Rack Mount [ 4Gb Ram, 1Terabyte HDD ], to my more grunty QUAD CORE XEON Racks which take 32 Gb of RAM and don't ask about my RAID [ these form the hub of my recording studio ].
From the above I think it should be obvious and deducible that Laptops don't hold enough sway for me. Laptop's are but only diagnostic tools for me, not for sitting in some Cafe sipping Latte trying to impress my importance on the unwary public via a hotspot.
They are but tools, everyone uses them to facilitate the work, the mode finds expression in your personal endevours.
Back to your Site:-
Alas, yours is of spectacle and sensationalism, for if it were not, you'd hardly draw anyone to your pages. There's the RUB, or as Marshall McLuhan said the "Medium is the Message", or in your case " Medium is the Massage".
Keep rubbing that in people’s faces, eventually some people will believe it truth.
The conveyance of truth or real perspective is lost in the pursuit of the reaction and gaining momentum, for its sake only. Should you have journalistic intentions you might be well served by seeing and reading his book. Though it was before your time, he saw the effect of the electronic media long before you knew it existed.
Please don't take it the wrong way, this is not personal. It’s just so tiresome that some in this day and age of blogs and information overload offer nothing of any personal empowerment through truth or knowledge. Just information bordering on the non-sensicle, and saying things for no other reason than the reaction it causes. [YAWN!].
I think you can do better than that Gabriel, in fact you deserve better than that.
If you should care about something so much, then why not try to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Offer the truth, research the facts, and then empower your readership, they will be transformed and hold you in high esteem as the conduit for that event.
If you take issue with the manufacturer over some design flaw, all the power to you brother. We've been doing this for years!
You should research your facts, and then post them.
But for goodness sakes get yourself a bigger sample to substantiate your claims.
If you did so, you would be providing the public a service, and I've got nothing but respect for those who do.
I have no personal affiliation with any manufacturer, but in the servicing business we are preferred by many of them as the preferred service provider.
But in saying this we represent their competition too, it’s completely democratic.
And my customers know we fight them tooth and nail to get them their rightful compensation should we find fault with any products or workmanship.
Yet we are still respected by them.
In my other business pursuits I care not for money, but the integrity of the content and how it affects the buying public. So should you!
In the beginning there was the WORD, and the word was made flesh.
How powerful do feel the word could be if it were filled with truth?
How much more powerful a transformative experience for all concerned if you were to seek it for yourself, so you could share with those that seek it?
Maybe you should apply this……….who knows,
success may follow you should you wish to take the lead.
Hope you have a wonderful time transforming your site, peace brother!
Regards,
Jahmeister
I'm not really sure what he was on about in the second half.
I thought of talking about my keyboard and Frigid Girl's being recommended a maximum usage time of 8 hours (Once is happenstance...), but figured there'd be no point.
Post ID: 2564424088550885225
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Facebook | People in Central Library should burn in hell and die.
"Description: have u found a seat yet?
no power socket?
die lah..
welcome into Central Library
the largest collection of no-life muggers in Singapore.
Have you ever wondered, where do these people come from? can they just disappear? like fuckoff or something.
this group is for the long suffering students who just wanted a seat and socket at Central Library
Recent News: 24 hours and good to go. lets set up a mama shop and feed the masses.
ITS OFFICIALLY FULL HOUSE.
ZOUK CAN KISS MY ASS."
I can report that the assertions on this hate-mongering, mugger-lynching and atrocity-committing group are totally baseless and untrue. There is currently lots of space and even a power socket or two free in the Singapore-Malaysia collection!
"I told the essay doctor I had an essay to do
I told the essay doctor I had an essay to do
And then the essay doctor, he told me what to do
He said that: Go and do your work lah.
I told the essay doctor I need a thesis too
I told the essay doctor some help would be nice
And then the essay doctor he gave me this advice
He said that: DOODE
take the statement off your nick NOW"
My essay doctor isn't online yet. Boo.
Post ID: 4404008933122451571
An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation
"This paper seeks to explain the initial successes and failures of Protestantism on economic grounds. It argues that the medieval Roman Catholic Church, through doctrinal manipulation, the exclusion of rivals, and various forms of price discrimination, ultimately placed members seeking the Z good "spiritual services" on the margin of defection. These monopolistic practices encouraged entry by rival firms, some of which were aligned with civil governments. The paper hypothesizes that Protestant entry was facilitated in emergent entrepreneurial societies characterized by the decline of feudalism and relatively unstable distribution of wealth and repressed in more homogeneous, rent-seeking societies that were mostly dissipating rather than creating wealth. In these societies the Roman Church was more able to continue the practice of price discrimination. Informal tests of this proposition are conducted by considering primogeniture and urban growth as proxies for wealth stability."
Why can't we have funky stuff like this in the Premier Institution of Social Engineering?!
THE COPYING PRACTICES OF FRENCH INTERNET USERS: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
"Copying behaviour is not the result of a rational cost-benefit financial assessment – the individual does not copy as a function of a benefit (amounting to saving the price of a CD) which he would compare with a cost (being taken to court and punished), but as a function of a "viral" effect: the individual copies because his peers copy, and the more his peers copy, the more he himself copies. This phenomenon of the circulation of a behaviour from peer to peer certainly explains the
disappointing results of the current policy of suppression in place in most countries...
Three strategies are possible for dealing with P2P:
(1) Suppression (court cases against individuals, reinforcement of legal protection, etc.), which is widely used at present.
Our results call into question not only the effectiveness of this strategy, but also its economic foundations: it is largely based on a hypothesis consisting of a purely substitutive principle which holds that the principal effect of copying is to eat into sales.
(2) Non-intervention, which has historical precedents such as early cinema, and radio competing with records.
The hypothesis is that, at worst, copying has no effect (on the drop in sales) and that, at best, it has a positive impact on the cultural industries. In this case, the least costly solution socially consists in leaving the stakeholders to innovate and negotiate between themselves, while ensuring respect for competition law and privacy.
(3) Tolerance accompanied by compensation (for example based on the model of perceived royalties for photocopying books and magazines).
The underlying hypothesis is that all work deserves payment (idea of the philosopher John Locke, 1690). Our study shows that copiers are prepared to pay the artists, and all the more so because their copying practices cause them concerns of an ethical nature. Therefore, the entire difficulty lies in defining a socially viable compensation mechanism (that is to say fair, feasible and acceptable).
In view of the results of the survey, solutions (2) and (3) are preferable."
"This paper seeks to explain the initial successes and failures of Protestantism on economic grounds. It argues that the medieval Roman Catholic Church, through doctrinal manipulation, the exclusion of rivals, and various forms of price discrimination, ultimately placed members seeking the Z good "spiritual services" on the margin of defection. These monopolistic practices encouraged entry by rival firms, some of which were aligned with civil governments. The paper hypothesizes that Protestant entry was facilitated in emergent entrepreneurial societies characterized by the decline of feudalism and relatively unstable distribution of wealth and repressed in more homogeneous, rent-seeking societies that were mostly dissipating rather than creating wealth. In these societies the Roman Church was more able to continue the practice of price discrimination. Informal tests of this proposition are conducted by considering primogeniture and urban growth as proxies for wealth stability."
Why can't we have funky stuff like this in the Premier Institution of Social Engineering?!
THE COPYING PRACTICES OF FRENCH INTERNET USERS: AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
"Copying behaviour is not the result of a rational cost-benefit financial assessment – the individual does not copy as a function of a benefit (amounting to saving the price of a CD) which he would compare with a cost (being taken to court and punished), but as a function of a "viral" effect: the individual copies because his peers copy, and the more his peers copy, the more he himself copies. This phenomenon of the circulation of a behaviour from peer to peer certainly explains the
disappointing results of the current policy of suppression in place in most countries...
Three strategies are possible for dealing with P2P:
(1) Suppression (court cases against individuals, reinforcement of legal protection, etc.), which is widely used at present.
Our results call into question not only the effectiveness of this strategy, but also its economic foundations: it is largely based on a hypothesis consisting of a purely substitutive principle which holds that the principal effect of copying is to eat into sales.
(2) Non-intervention, which has historical precedents such as early cinema, and radio competing with records.
The hypothesis is that, at worst, copying has no effect (on the drop in sales) and that, at best, it has a positive impact on the cultural industries. In this case, the least costly solution socially consists in leaving the stakeholders to innovate and negotiate between themselves, while ensuring respect for competition law and privacy.
(3) Tolerance accompanied by compensation (for example based on the model of perceived royalties for photocopying books and magazines).
The underlying hypothesis is that all work deserves payment (idea of the philosopher John Locke, 1690). Our study shows that copiers are prepared to pay the artists, and all the more so because their copying practices cause them concerns of an ethical nature. Therefore, the entire difficulty lies in defining a socially viable compensation mechanism (that is to say fair, feasible and acceptable).
In view of the results of the survey, solutions (2) and (3) are preferable."
Post ID: 4247147404547917966
Friday, April 13, 2007
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," said Jesus.
A large rock zings from the back and strikes the adultress on the forehead, killing her on the spot.
Jesus looks over the hushed crowd. There, in the back, an old woman holds another stone in her hand.
"Mother!", exclaims an exasperated Jesus.
(Adapted from memory and various internet sources)
A large rock zings from the back and strikes the adultress on the forehead, killing her on the spot.
Jesus looks over the hushed crowd. There, in the back, an old woman holds another stone in her hand.
"Mother!", exclaims an exasperated Jesus.
(Adapted from memory and various internet sources)
Post ID: 8123157083175646423
"Local leaders simply are not as influential as they had been in the past. One well-known congressman, scoffed an observer, 'could not deliver the votes to his wife in his own home wotn.' Another politician in Manila, 'could not deliver his followers to his own father'. A third reputedly powerful urban 'trapo', running for reelection, 'almost lost to a newcomer even though he gave a motorcycle to each of his baario captains'." - Post-Marcos politics : a geographical and statistical analysis of the 1992 presidential election
Post ID: 3221331759622902556
Fie, I have been defamed!
Solitude.
"Me and Aaron and Shi Rui ate at KFC, and Aaron was totally pissed off by BIshan Gay. Aaron pointed middle finger at him, and he said that Bishan Gay destroyed his appetite although there was a nice Zinger in front of him. Lucky I sat opposite Aaron, so I couldn't see Bishan Gay. If u are wondering how Bishan Gay looks lyk, here's a pic of him...
(Credits to Kevin Chan)
He's a damn hell eerie guy lor. Always looks at boys, no matter RI or SJI or HCI. Got chio-bu in front of him he oso won't see. Stupid fu****. And all the more he was arrested for molesting boys before.
And there's something you probably won't believe. He's a Geography teacher in RI last time. Now a tuition teacher. I think RI probably sacked him because of his molestation offence. Btw, his blog is www.gssq.blogspot.com There got his young tym pic."
!@#$%^&*()
They sure don't make RI boys like they used to!
Solitude.
"Me and Aaron and Shi Rui ate at KFC, and Aaron was totally pissed off by BIshan Gay. Aaron pointed middle finger at him, and he said that Bishan Gay destroyed his appetite although there was a nice Zinger in front of him. Lucky I sat opposite Aaron, so I couldn't see Bishan Gay. If u are wondering how Bishan Gay looks lyk, here's a pic of him...
(Credits to Kevin Chan)
He's a damn hell eerie guy lor. Always looks at boys, no matter RI or SJI or HCI. Got chio-bu in front of him he oso won't see. Stupid fu****. And all the more he was arrested for molesting boys before.
And there's something you probably won't believe. He's a Geography teacher in RI last time. Now a tuition teacher. I think RI probably sacked him because of his molestation offence. Btw, his blog is www.gssq.blogspot.com There got his young tym pic."
!@#$%^&*()
They sure don't make RI boys like they used to!
Post ID: 2941454113398464085
s/pores: New Directions in Singapore Studies
This e-journal aims to provide a much-needed multi-disciplinary platform for the dissemination of works investigating different aspects of historical and contemporary Singapore society. Moving beyond statist perspectives, the journal encourages research that opens up space for recalibrating the status quo in Singapore. Possible fields of endeavour include:
1. Re-evaluation and critiques of official historiography and discourses
2. Research on marginalized actors and social classes
3. Engagement with issues of concern, examined through a historical frame
s/pores came about from the discussions among recently recently-returned Singaporean academics, none of whom were trained as specialists of Singapore as such. They were keen to be ‘home scholars’, defined by Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul as those whose works are read, debated, and become, in a sustained manner, part of the scholarly discourse and cultural politics of their home country.
Conversations with like-minded friends, including those already pushing in new directions, consolidated into an electronic journal for the relative freedom from financial outlay and from distribution challenges that the medium provides.
s/pores is an interplay of the short form, the lower case, the plural, the backslash-the informal, the non-elite, the multiple, the oblique. Pronounced ‘spores’, our title also denotes the dispersal of seeds of ideas, some of which should fall on fertile ground. s/pores is therefore simultaneously a declaration of authorial positioning as it is a statement of our hopes for a more variegated Singapore.
The initial issues will be managed by a collective. To get the journal off the ground, their responsibilities at this stage include writing for s/pores and soliciting for contributions. We hope to be inundated with submissions eventually.
We aim to publish once every four months, but expect that s/pores will initially be a semi-annual affair. However, we hope that it will become a regular forum for thoughtful, constructive commentary which will appear bi-monthly or even monthly.
Contributions should be the result of scholarly research, but need not be presented with the full formal conventions of an academic product. In fact, the injunction is that intimidating academic-speak is out. We want to provide room as well for reflective essays, proposals and tentative findings for new areas of research.
Contributors have copyright on their materials, and have the right to use them in other forms or publication. Each author is solely responsible for the views expressed in their contribution, which do not reflect the position of either of s/pores, nor the institution to which she or he is affiliated.
The inaugural s/poreans:
Daniel Goh, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore
Hong Lysa, independent scholar since 2000. Currently a visiting fellow at the History Department, National University of Singapore
Kwee Hwee Kian, Post-doctoral Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (until June 2007)
Lim Cheng Tju, history teacher
Francis Lim Khek Gee, Assistant Professor, Division of Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, and member of the civil society group Tangent
Sai Siew Min, Assistant Professor, History Department, National University of Singapore
Teng Siao See, Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan
Editorial
“A Subaltern Perspective on History” (人下人的历史观): reading Fang Zhuang Bi’s （方壮壁 ）Memoir , Sai Siew Min
A PERSONAL JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF FAJAR, Lim Cheng Tju
Huang Kaide’s ‘Our memories’, Kwee Hwee Kian
Interpreting National Language Class, Daniel Goh
The continuing saga of Singapore’s Story, Hong Lysa
In Memory of Linda Chen (1928-2002), Tan Jin Quee
Ho Piao: A personal recollection and appreciation, Tan Jin Quee
Event Announcement: Education at Large: An Exhibition on Student Activities and Activism In Singapore, 1945-1965
Post ID: 7656866355854957895
Thursday, April 12, 2007
"Ever since Marcos's mortal remains has been returned to the Philippines, his body had rested in a specially constructed glass freezer in his native Batac. The cost in electricity of keeping this freezer operative had become a running national joke. Mrs Marcos refused to pay the electric bills." - The Philippines, A Singular and a Plural Place
Post ID: 515098664077038426
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
On PM Lee's statement that he would donate his S$600,000 pay increase to charity for the next 5 years -
With effect from 1 January 2005, Double tax deduction will be allowed for:
1. donations to name IPCs, IPC facilities, events or programmes,
2. donations to name facilities of approved beneficiaries (including artefacts and public sculptures) under any of the other approved donation programmes,
3. donations under any of the approved donation programme where the IPC or approved beneficiary acknowledgesthe donation by including the donor's name or logo in the IPC'scollaterals (e.g. banners, publications, advertisements).
(source: http://www.iras.gov.sg/ESVPortal/others/charities/charities_g1.4.1a_which+donations+are+tax-deductible.asp)
Calculations:
Current salary: S$3.1 mil (Taxable income: S$3.1 mil)
Increase by: S$600,000
Donation to charity: S$600,000
Double tax deduction allocated: S$1.2 mil
Previous Salary: S$2.5 mil (Taxable income: S$2.5 mil)
New Taxable Income: S$3.1 mil - S$1.2 mil = S$1.9 mil
Using a gross personal income tax at a 20% rate (for the income bracket of S$320,000 and above)
Gross income after tax previously, taxable income @ S$2.5 mil:
Total amt after tax: S$2 mil
With donation:
Gross income after tax, taxable income @ S$1.9 mil:
Gross income: S$3.1 mil
Donation to charity: S$0.6 mil
Tax to be paid: S$0.38 mil
Total amt after tax: S$2.12 mil
Without donation:
Gross income after tax, taxable income @$3.1 mil: S$2.48 mil
Gross income: S$3.1mil
Donation to charity: S$0
Tax to be paid: S$0.62mil
Total amt after tax: S$2.48mil
Net Difference with/without donation: S$360,000
Anyway.
[begin feed: Apr 2007]
Counter: MR4
Previous support level set at $1.2 mil.
Positive breakout on 9 April, with a gap up to $1.6 mil. Likely to remain at $1.6 mil for a few years before trending even higher in 2012, following positive electorate news.
Exponential uptrend in the 2000-day Moving Average.
Heavy divergence in the 1000d/2500d MACD from signal line.
Initiate Strong Buy on this counter.
[end feed]
(if you're still in the dark, go look up "MR4" on Google Singapore)
With effect from 1 January 2005, Double tax deduction will be allowed for:
1. donations to name IPCs, IPC facilities, events or programmes,
2. donations to name facilities of approved beneficiaries (including artefacts and public sculptures) under any of the other approved donation programmes,
3. donations under any of the approved donation programme where the IPC or approved beneficiary acknowledgesthe donation by including the donor's name or logo in the IPC'scollaterals (e.g. banners, publications, advertisements).
(source: http://www.iras.gov.sg/ESVPortal/others/charities/charities_g1.4.1a_which+donations+are+tax-deductible.asp)
Calculations:
Current salary: S$3.1 mil (Taxable income: S$3.1 mil)
Increase by: S$600,000
Donation to charity: S$600,000
Double tax deduction allocated: S$1.2 mil
Previous Salary: S$2.5 mil (Taxable income: S$2.5 mil)
New Taxable Income: S$3.1 mil - S$1.2 mil = S$1.9 mil
Using a gross personal income tax at a 20% rate (for the income bracket of S$320,000 and above)
Gross income after tax previously, taxable income @ S$2.5 mil:
Total amt after tax: S$2 mil
With donation:
Gross income after tax, taxable income @ S$1.9 mil:
Gross income: S$3.1 mil
Donation to charity: S$0.6 mil
Tax to be paid: S$0.38 mil
Total amt after tax: S$2.12 mil
Without donation:
Gross income after tax, taxable income @$3.1 mil: S$2.48 mil
Gross income: S$3.1mil
Donation to charity: S$0
Tax to be paid: S$0.62mil
Total amt after tax: S$2.48mil
Net Difference with/without donation: S$360,000
Anyway.
[begin feed: Apr 2007]
Counter: MR4
Previous support level set at $1.2 mil.
Positive breakout on 9 April, with a gap up to $1.6 mil. Likely to remain at $1.6 mil for a few years before trending even higher in 2012, following positive electorate news.
Exponential uptrend in the 2000-day Moving Average.
Heavy divergence in the 1000d/2500d MACD from signal line.
Initiate Strong Buy on this counter.
[end feed]
(if you're still in the dark, go look up "MR4" on Google Singapore)
Post ID: 3389447364097076394
"Spanish accounts record that Filipinos would often sing while working, as was their custom. These songs were not written down because the Spanish friars considered them obscene." - The Philippines: A Global Studies Handbook
"Cemeteries have voted in the Philippines since elections were first held...
In those early years, Marcos was often compared to Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. If he violated human rights, his dictatorship was excused as not as brutal as some others. Many Filipinos in the business community embraced constitutional authoritarianism, willing to trade liberty, especially other people's, for economic development. But it also became obvious that martial law was a vehicle for Marcos's personal aggrandizement."
- The Philippines, a Singular and Plural Place
"Cemeteries have voted in the Philippines since elections were first held...
In those early years, Marcos was often compared to Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. If he violated human rights, his dictatorship was excused as not as brutal as some others. Many Filipinos in the business community embraced constitutional authoritarianism, willing to trade liberty, especially other people's, for economic development. But it also became obvious that martial law was a vehicle for Marcos's personal aggrandizement."
- The Philippines, a Singular and Plural Place
Post ID: 4997383027797430230
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
I had an early dinner at Botak Jones Clementi today with Jiannie and had the fish burger.
They barely gave me enough tartar sauce for one piece of fish (there were two), but when I asked for more tartar sauce, I was told it'd cost 50 cents.
Wth.
[Addendum: A reply I got this morning (ie very quickly):
Hello Gabriel,
Hey, really sorry about the misunderstanding on the tartar sauce. As we make our own tartar sauce and the ingredients we use are top quality, we have always charged when customers ask for extra to cover our costs as the pricing of the fish and chips is very tight, just like all of our menu. Unfortunately, sometimes we screw up, like now, and maybe don't put quite enough on the plate the first time around.
Again, my sincere apologies.]
They barely gave me enough tartar sauce for one piece of fish (there were two), but when I asked for more tartar sauce, I was told it'd cost 50 cents.
Wth.
[Addendum: A reply I got this morning (ie very quickly):
Hello Gabriel,
Hey, really sorry about the misunderstanding on the tartar sauce. As we make our own tartar sauce and the ingredients we use are top quality, we have always charged when customers ask for extra to cover our costs as the pricing of the fish and chips is very tight, just like all of our menu. Unfortunately, sometimes we screw up, like now, and maybe don't put quite enough on the plate the first time around.
Again, my sincere apologies.]
Post ID: 7282789723963187962
Hit me once, shame on you. Hit me twice...
"The main character in the book and film Looking for Mr Goodbar was a woman who hooked up nightly in one-night stands, in some instances with sociopaths she picked up at bars. Such a person woud be a good example of a victim precipitator...
A victim-prone participant in a therapy group I directed had, with great difficult, exited from a relationship with an assaultive man. Three months after her separation she informed me she was in love with 'a wonderful shy and gentle man.' I saw her once a week on a regular basis. As if in a slow-motion film, she began to report in the group on how she and this formerly 'wonderful' man were beginning to argue... She, being the weaker of the two, was now being regularly abused by her 'lover'. This relationship was the fourth in a series over a three-year period. She had an uncanny ability for finding relationships with men who at the outset were 'kind and gentle' but who rapidly began to victimize her. Her delusionary ability at entry was remarkable. She was able to incorrectly read the real person - who soon turned into her criminal victimizer." - Criminology. Crime and Criminality, L. Yablonsky
A victim-prone participant in a therapy group I directed had, with great difficult, exited from a relationship with an assaultive man. Three months after her separation she informed me she was in love with 'a wonderful shy and gentle man.' I saw her once a week on a regular basis. As if in a slow-motion film, she began to report in the group on how she and this formerly 'wonderful' man were beginning to argue... She, being the weaker of the two, was now being regularly abused by her 'lover'. This relationship was the fourth in a series over a three-year period. She had an uncanny ability for finding relationships with men who at the outset were 'kind and gentle' but who rapidly began to victimize her. Her delusionary ability at entry was remarkable. She was able to incorrectly read the real person - who soon turned into her criminal victimizer." - Criminology. Crime and Criminality, L. Yablonsky
Post ID: 6394445922309637474
Which Disney Princess are you?
You are Dopey. You are beardless and simple-minded. You do stupid things like drinking soapy water and are constantly being told what to do. You blush shyly at everything, nod dumbly and don't talk much. Rather, you walk around looking confused and always trail demurely behind the others - the perfect role for a woman.
You are Dopey. You are beardless and simple-minded. You do stupid things like drinking soapy water and are constantly being told what to do. You blush shyly at everything, nod dumbly and don't talk much. Rather, you walk around looking confused and always trail demurely behind the others - the perfect role for a woman.
Post ID: 182501318792389604
Monday, April 09, 2007
Dear friends,
The Asian Film Archive is seeking suitable candidates for three 3-months full-time paid internship positions to assist in cataloguing and administrative work. We welcome undergraduates of all disciplines, who are keen in our serving the community, to apply.
Applicants are requested to send their detailed resume and a letter of motivation of not more than two pages to the Archivist at karen@asianfilmarchive.org. All queries regarding this post may be sent to the same email address. For further information on the organisation, please visit www.asianfilmarchive.org.
Closing date for applications is 14 April 2007. Only selected candidates will be asked to come for interviews. Please feel free to forward to your friends and students who might be interested.
Thank you.
Cheers,
Bee Thiam
What our interns say:
"I am amazed at the amount of things I can learn from my stint; I have also gained a better insight and understanding of the film community; I must say that I am pretty overwhelmed with the guidance and understanding from my colleagues. I felt very much involved and part of the Archive when I was asked to voice my thoughts and opinions about major decisions the organisation has to make. I am glad that I was not seen as just another admin intern who will come and go. I enjoy my stint with the Archive even during stressful moments. I get an immense sense of satisfaction and achievement from my work." - Quek Hui Min, final year student, Nanyang Technological University.
"During my term at the Asian Film Archive as a cataloguing intern, I was given the rare opportunity to view, catalogue and categorise a substantial number of local as well as Asian films around the region, for the purposes of setting up the AFA Film Collection at the Esplanade Library. As part of the process, I liaised with filmmakers, production houses and government agencies like Singapore Film Commission to ensure proper archiving was done so that these films would be accessible to the general public. Such exposure to films and their makers have earned me a deeper appreciation of the artistic pulse of regional filmmaking as well as the organisational structures supporting them, both of which shape the film industry in integral ways. With regards to the work environment at AFA, it suffices to say that I find great meaning going to work each day because I know that my colleagues will always make decisions for a cause higher than personal interests, to save, explore and share the art of Asian cinema." - Pauline Soh, candidate for masters in film studies, University of London.
1. Cataloguing Intern
The Asian Film Archive is seeking suitable candidates for a 3-months full-time internship position to assist in cataloguing work.
Job duties
* Accession films / related materials into archive and record it into accession registry
* Assign temporary label with accession number on both casing and film medium & on related materials
* Document existing available pieces of information on film onto data template
* Prepare forms for sending films / related materials
* Send films / related materials to film vaults for archival and for duplication (if necessary)
* Contact filmmakers if necessary to acquire related materials (eg.stills, posters, scripts, storyboards, etc)
* Collect materials from filmmakers
* Research for missing information on film
* Watch films to catalogue for subject headings, (Synopsis, cast list, crew list, duration, etc if not available)
* Catalogue related materials with a description
* Scan related materials for archival
* Label reference copies
Recruitment Criteria for Cataloguing Intern
. Interest in Asian films
. Ability to apply some interpretative skills when watching films
. Capable of picking up important/significant points in films necessary for catalogue
. Good language skills and strong grammar for coherent writing
. Online research ability
. Alert to details and meticulous
2. Admin Intern
The Asian Film Archive is seeking suitable candidates for a 3-months full-time internship position to assist in its admin and outreach programmes.
Job duties
* Provide Admin, secretarial, accounting and volunteer management support to the organisation.
* Coordinate logistical and administrative arrangements for film acquisition, collection and cataloguing.
* Coordinate logistical and administrative arrangements for outreach film projects.
Recruitment Criteria for Admin Intern
. Interest in Asian films
. Self-motivated, independent and with initiative
. Systematic and good organizational skills
. Alert to details and meticulous
. Handle stress well.
. Advanced skills in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
. Knowledge in Frontpage, Photoshop and Illustrator will be valued.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check our new revamped website at www.asianfilmarchive.org
Visit the Asian Film Archive Blog at www.asianfilmarchive.org/blog.
Moving Minds Outreach project for educators and students: http://www.asianfilmarchive.org/education.htm
Free delivery of Singapore Shorts or Royston's Shorts if you order it online at http://www.asianfilmarchive.org/shop.htm. (For delivery in Singapore only).
Contact us
Address: Asian Film Archive c/o Library Supply Centre, 3 Changi South Street 2,
Xilin Districentre Building B, #02-00, Singapore 486548
T: 6777 3243
F: 6543 1643
E: info@asianfilmarchive.org
W: www.asianfilmarchive.org
The Asian Film Archive is seeking suitable candidates for three 3-months full-time paid internship positions to assist in cataloguing and administrative work. We welcome undergraduates of all disciplines, who are keen in our serving the community, to apply.
Applicants are requested to send their detailed resume and a letter of motivation of not more than two pages to the Archivist at karen@asianfilmarchive.org. All queries regarding this post may be sent to the same email address. For further information on the organisation, please visit www.asianfilmarchive.org.
Closing date for applications is 14 April 2007. Only selected candidates will be asked to come for interviews. Please feel free to forward to your friends and students who might be interested.
Thank you.
Cheers,
Bee Thiam
What our interns say:
"I am amazed at the amount of things I can learn from my stint; I have also gained a better insight and understanding of the film community; I must say that I am pretty overwhelmed with the guidance and understanding from my colleagues. I felt very much involved and part of the Archive when I was asked to voice my thoughts and opinions about major decisions the organisation has to make. I am glad that I was not seen as just another admin intern who will come and go. I enjoy my stint with the Archive even during stressful moments. I get an immense sense of satisfaction and achievement from my work." - Quek Hui Min, final year student, Nanyang Technological University.
"During my term at the Asian Film Archive as a cataloguing intern, I was given the rare opportunity to view, catalogue and categorise a substantial number of local as well as Asian films around the region, for the purposes of setting up the AFA Film Collection at the Esplanade Library. As part of the process, I liaised with filmmakers, production houses and government agencies like Singapore Film Commission to ensure proper archiving was done so that these films would be accessible to the general public. Such exposure to films and their makers have earned me a deeper appreciation of the artistic pulse of regional filmmaking as well as the organisational structures supporting them, both of which shape the film industry in integral ways. With regards to the work environment at AFA, it suffices to say that I find great meaning going to work each day because I know that my colleagues will always make decisions for a cause higher than personal interests, to save, explore and share the art of Asian cinema." - Pauline Soh, candidate for masters in film studies, University of London.
1. Cataloguing Intern
The Asian Film Archive is seeking suitable candidates for a 3-months full-time internship position to assist in cataloguing work.
Job duties
* Accession films / related materials into archive and record it into accession registry
* Assign temporary label with accession number on both casing and film medium & on related materials
* Document existing available pieces of information on film onto data template
* Prepare forms for sending films / related materials
* Send films / related materials to film vaults for archival and for duplication (if necessary)
* Contact filmmakers if necessary to acquire related materials (eg.stills, posters, scripts, storyboards, etc)
* Collect materials from filmmakers
* Research for missing information on film
* Watch films to catalogue for subject headings, (Synopsis, cast list, crew list, duration, etc if not available)
* Catalogue related materials with a description
* Scan related materials for archival
* Label reference copies
Recruitment Criteria for Cataloguing Intern
. Interest in Asian films
. Ability to apply some interpretative skills when watching films
. Capable of picking up important/significant points in films necessary for catalogue
. Good language skills and strong grammar for coherent writing
. Online research ability
. Alert to details and meticulous
2. Admin Intern
The Asian Film Archive is seeking suitable candidates for a 3-months full-time internship position to assist in its admin and outreach programmes.
Job duties
* Provide Admin, secretarial, accounting and volunteer management support to the organisation.
* Coordinate logistical and administrative arrangements for film acquisition, collection and cataloguing.
* Coordinate logistical and administrative arrangements for outreach film projects.
Recruitment Criteria for Admin Intern
. Interest in Asian films
. Self-motivated, independent and with initiative
. Systematic and good organizational skills
. Alert to details and meticulous
. Handle stress well.
. Advanced skills in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
. Knowledge in Frontpage, Photoshop and Illustrator will be valued.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check our new revamped website at www.asianfilmarchive.org
Visit the Asian Film Archive Blog at www.asianfilmarchive.org/blog.
Moving Minds Outreach project for educators and students: http://www.asianfilmarchive.org/education.htm
Free delivery of Singapore Shorts or Royston's Shorts if you order it online at http://www.asianfilmarchive.org/shop.htm. (For delivery in Singapore only).
Contact us
Address: Asian Film Archive c/o Library Supply Centre, 3 Changi South Street 2,
Xilin Districentre Building B, #02-00, Singapore 486548
T: 6777 3243
F: 6543 1643
E: info@asianfilmarchive.org
W: www.asianfilmarchive.org
Post ID: 6058090896466711259
Sunday, April 08, 2007
"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by." - Will Rogers
***
Someone said that while she was relief teaching, one student drew her classmates in superhero garb, and the Malay girls claimed their religion was insulted because their legs were showing (even though everyone was drawn the same way regardless of race, language or religion, and their legs were showing in their school uniform), scolding her and making her cry. An issue that didn't have to be racialised was racialised, and offence was sought where none was intended. This is what happens when you have only tolerance, and not acceptance/understanding. In contrast, another friend came from SJI, and the Chinese half of the school made fun of the Indian/Malay half, and vice versa, and no one took out parangs and started killing the others.
Someone was interning at a Ministry and he had hair shorter than mine is now. I'm told that a boss who wasn't even in charge of his division actually sent out emails complaining about his hair, as if that had anything to do with his work performance.
Gah, Lenovo sucks. My IBM keyboard got changed when I sent it in for servicing, and now the W and E keys keep popping out when I type. This didn't happen with my old keyboard; I got 5 popped keys in one day, as many times as keys had popped with the old keyboard in 2 years, 4 months of use.
A friend points out about Dante: "right now i'm wondering - is dante's work banned in sg? it might be taken as seditious that the prophet muhammed is condemned to hell...". I asked him to dig up all the seditious verses in The Divine Comedy for me so I could make a report to MHA requesting that we organise public burnings of this seditious book. We would then crucify an effigy of Dante because of his pathetic attempt to undermine our harmonious and racially-cohesive society through the committing of atrocities, Muslim-lynching and hatred-mongering!
Friend: "1 in 5 Girls would consider Plastic Surgery. 3 in 5 need it."
Someone on seeing both Gandalf's staff and Harry Potter's wand: "Gandalf's staff was more impressive than Harry's wand, but Harry is closer in age. (I can't believe I just said that.)"
Seen in the Shitty Times: "Papa's in jail. How to break the news to the kids". Ah, how sexist. This implies that only men go to prison, and perpetuates unhealthy stereotypes, contributing to the demonisation of men.
Seen in someone's status message: "girls in 1st year - rbr, girls in 2nd year - closed stack, girls in 3rd year - lowest floor. torn and tattered." He said he heard it from a girl, and 4th girls are like 3rd years.
Tim once lamented to me that there was very little Chemistry in Chemical Engineering. Similarly, there isn't that much Economics in Economics, and the more Economics I learn the less Economics I know (distinct from the less Economics I realise I don't know) (Pig 83 says she realised this in Year 2 and I'm slow).
I went into a lift and this near-bald guy inside said that he used to have long hair like me and had a little ponytail. I asked what happened and he said he grew old and started balding.
Someone had a survey about vanity in guys, and under hobbies someone wrote 'watching porn'. Someone else wrote 'surfing the internet', and on being queried clarified that it included watching porn.
There's a psychoanalysis module offered in NUS, but it's under Literature and not Psychology. How appropriate, in more ways than one!
Some PRC (presumably exchange - 'We are the students from PRC currently doing a survey') students were doing a study on academic stress in NUS students. Hurr hurr.
***
Someone said that while she was relief teaching, one student drew her classmates in superhero garb, and the Malay girls claimed their religion was insulted because their legs were showing (even though everyone was drawn the same way regardless of race, language or religion, and their legs were showing in their school uniform), scolding her and making her cry. An issue that didn't have to be racialised was racialised, and offence was sought where none was intended. This is what happens when you have only tolerance, and not acceptance/understanding. In contrast, another friend came from SJI, and the Chinese half of the school made fun of the Indian/Malay half, and vice versa, and no one took out parangs and started killing the others.
Someone was interning at a Ministry and he had hair shorter than mine is now. I'm told that a boss who wasn't even in charge of his division actually sent out emails complaining about his hair, as if that had anything to do with his work performance.
Gah, Lenovo sucks. My IBM keyboard got changed when I sent it in for servicing, and now the W and E keys keep popping out when I type. This didn't happen with my old keyboard; I got 5 popped keys in one day, as many times as keys had popped with the old keyboard in 2 years, 4 months of use.
A friend points out about Dante: "right now i'm wondering - is dante's work banned in sg? it might be taken as seditious that the prophet muhammed is condemned to hell...". I asked him to dig up all the seditious verses in The Divine Comedy for me so I could make a report to MHA requesting that we organise public burnings of this seditious book. We would then crucify an effigy of Dante because of his pathetic attempt to undermine our harmonious and racially-cohesive society through the committing of atrocities, Muslim-lynching and hatred-mongering!
Friend: "1 in 5 Girls would consider Plastic Surgery. 3 in 5 need it."
Someone on seeing both Gandalf's staff and Harry Potter's wand: "Gandalf's staff was more impressive than Harry's wand, but Harry is closer in age. (I can't believe I just said that.)"
Seen in the Shitty Times: "Papa's in jail. How to break the news to the kids". Ah, how sexist. This implies that only men go to prison, and perpetuates unhealthy stereotypes, contributing to the demonisation of men.
Seen in someone's status message: "girls in 1st year - rbr, girls in 2nd year - closed stack, girls in 3rd year - lowest floor. torn and tattered." He said he heard it from a girl, and 4th girls are like 3rd years.
Tim once lamented to me that there was very little Chemistry in Chemical Engineering. Similarly, there isn't that much Economics in Economics, and the more Economics I learn the less Economics I know (distinct from the less Economics I realise I don't know) (Pig 83 says she realised this in Year 2 and I'm slow).
I went into a lift and this near-bald guy inside said that he used to have long hair like me and had a little ponytail. I asked what happened and he said he grew old and started balding.
Someone had a survey about vanity in guys, and under hobbies someone wrote 'watching porn'. Someone else wrote 'surfing the internet', and on being queried clarified that it included watching porn.
There's a psychoanalysis module offered in NUS, but it's under Literature and not Psychology. How appropriate, in more ways than one!
Some PRC (presumably exchange - 'We are the students from PRC currently doing a survey') students were doing a study on academic stress in NUS students. Hurr hurr.
Post ID: 6457750694496730162
Some extracts from the indie documentary, The God Who Wasn't There I'd been meaning to post since last May:
Robert M. Price; Fellow, Jesus Seminar: Well, in the case of someone like Caesar Augustus, around whom many of the same myths clustered, we know there nonetheless was a Caesar Augustus, because he's intricately tied in to the history of the time and many secular historians talk about him. You can't rewrite history without Caesar Augustus.
But at the very two points Jesus appears to be locked into history, these stories are either still mythical, like the Slaughter of the Innocents derived right out of the book of Exodus,
Or they contain outrageous improbabilities such as the Jewish Supreme Council meeting on Passover Eve to get rid of this guy. That's just out of the question.
Or Pontius Pilate letting go a known killer of Romans and insurrectionist Barabbas and letting Jesus be thrown to the mob after, however, trying to get him off the hook as if he has to have a vote on it. It just defies any kind of historical verisimilitude and then when you realise:
Well, you know there were other Ancient Jews and Jewish Christians that believed Jesus had been killed a century before under King Alexander Jenius (sp?). Or in the Gospel of Peter, it says that Eric (sp?) had Jesus killed. How could this be a matter of such diversity if it was a recent event that people remembered? It just begins to make you wonder: is this man really part of the historical timestream? Or does it begin to look like someone is trying to put a figure originally mythical into a historical framework and made various stabs at it?
Interviewer: Can you give me an example of a story that started as fiction, that's known to have been fiction and then it became considered real with the addition of details?
Barbara and David P. Mikkelson; Urban Legends Reference Pages, snopes.com: Oh, well we've seen this any number of times in, say, glurge stories where stories have stories have started out as actual works of fiction. Where they were written by identifiable authors. They were written and provided as works of fiction. And they have since gained a life and a spread of their own.
Where they are now told and relayed as true stories. As 'this really happened' tales. And are believed as such...
Jesus' life does conform to the hero pattern. It's a hero pattern with so many incidents.
Alan Dundues; Author, 'Holy Writ as Oral Lit': Regmund gave a score. He took... the Oedipus of all things as the model. And then gave other heroes scores as to how many of the 22 points they had in their lives...
His mother is a royal virgin, his father is a king, often a relative of his mother. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, five, he's also reputedly the son of a god. Six, at birth an attempt is made, often by his father, to kill him. But seven, he's spirited away and eight reared by foster parents in a foreign country.
Nine, we're told nothing of his childhood but ten, on reaching manhood he returns and goes to his future kingdom. And eleven, after a victory over a King or a Giant or a Dragon. He marries a princess, twelve. Thirteen, becomes king.
Fourteen reigns uneventfully but fifteen prescribes laws. Sixteen: later he loses favor with his subjects. Seventeen he is driven and thrown from the city. Eighteen he meets with a mysterious death. Nineteen often at the top of a hill. Twenty, his children if any do not succeed him. Twenty-one his body is not buried but nevertheless, twenty-two he has one or more holy sepulchres.
So Oedipus gets 22 points out of the 22. Theseus gets 20. Romulus 17, Hercules 17, Perseus 16 etc. I don't remember off the top how many Jesus got but it was high
Robert M. Price: There are other similar savior figures in the same neighborhood, at the same time and history. Mithrias, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Tamuz (sp?), and so forth. And nobody thinks that these characters are anything but mythical and their stories are so similar. Most of them, in fact, having some kind of resurrection or another, sometimes with celebrations after three days and so forth that it just seems like special pleading to say: "In this one case it really happened".
"When we say that Jesus Christ was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter." - Justin Martyr, church father...
Sam Harris: "Our religions are the area in which we tolerate dogma completely uncritically. To deny that the Holocaust ever happened or to assert that you're in dialogue with extraterrestrials is pretty much synonymous with craziness in our culture. And it is so because we challenge people when they believe things strongly without evidence, or in contradiction to a mountain of evidence. Except on matters of faith."
A flawed critique of this flawed documentary (which of course has a response, to which there is a reply, neither of which I didn't even bother to scan)
Robert M. Price; Fellow, Jesus Seminar: Well, in the case of someone like Caesar Augustus, around whom many of the same myths clustered, we know there nonetheless was a Caesar Augustus, because he's intricately tied in to the history of the time and many secular historians talk about him. You can't rewrite history without Caesar Augustus.
But at the very two points Jesus appears to be locked into history, these stories are either still mythical, like the Slaughter of the Innocents derived right out of the book of Exodus,
Or they contain outrageous improbabilities such as the Jewish Supreme Council meeting on Passover Eve to get rid of this guy. That's just out of the question.
Or Pontius Pilate letting go a known killer of Romans and insurrectionist Barabbas and letting Jesus be thrown to the mob after, however, trying to get him off the hook as if he has to have a vote on it. It just defies any kind of historical verisimilitude and then when you realise:
Well, you know there were other Ancient Jews and Jewish Christians that believed Jesus had been killed a century before under King Alexander Jenius (sp?). Or in the Gospel of Peter, it says that Eric (sp?) had Jesus killed. How could this be a matter of such diversity if it was a recent event that people remembered? It just begins to make you wonder: is this man really part of the historical timestream? Or does it begin to look like someone is trying to put a figure originally mythical into a historical framework and made various stabs at it?
Interviewer: Can you give me an example of a story that started as fiction, that's known to have been fiction and then it became considered real with the addition of details?
Barbara and David P. Mikkelson; Urban Legends Reference Pages, snopes.com: Oh, well we've seen this any number of times in, say, glurge stories where stories have stories have started out as actual works of fiction. Where they were written by identifiable authors. They were written and provided as works of fiction. And they have since gained a life and a spread of their own.
Where they are now told and relayed as true stories. As 'this really happened' tales. And are believed as such...
Jesus' life does conform to the hero pattern. It's a hero pattern with so many incidents.
Alan Dundues; Author, 'Holy Writ as Oral Lit': Regmund gave a score. He took... the Oedipus of all things as the model. And then gave other heroes scores as to how many of the 22 points they had in their lives...
His mother is a royal virgin, his father is a king, often a relative of his mother. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, five, he's also reputedly the son of a god. Six, at birth an attempt is made, often by his father, to kill him. But seven, he's spirited away and eight reared by foster parents in a foreign country.
Nine, we're told nothing of his childhood but ten, on reaching manhood he returns and goes to his future kingdom. And eleven, after a victory over a King or a Giant or a Dragon. He marries a princess, twelve. Thirteen, becomes king.
Fourteen reigns uneventfully but fifteen prescribes laws. Sixteen: later he loses favor with his subjects. Seventeen he is driven and thrown from the city. Eighteen he meets with a mysterious death. Nineteen often at the top of a hill. Twenty, his children if any do not succeed him. Twenty-one his body is not buried but nevertheless, twenty-two he has one or more holy sepulchres.
So Oedipus gets 22 points out of the 22. Theseus gets 20. Romulus 17, Hercules 17, Perseus 16 etc. I don't remember off the top how many Jesus got but it was high
Robert M. Price: There are other similar savior figures in the same neighborhood, at the same time and history. Mithrias, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Tamuz (sp?), and so forth. And nobody thinks that these characters are anything but mythical and their stories are so similar. Most of them, in fact, having some kind of resurrection or another, sometimes with celebrations after three days and so forth that it just seems like special pleading to say: "In this one case it really happened".
"When we say that Jesus Christ was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter." - Justin Martyr, church father...
Sam Harris: "Our religions are the area in which we tolerate dogma completely uncritically. To deny that the Holocaust ever happened or to assert that you're in dialogue with extraterrestrials is pretty much synonymous with craziness in our culture. And it is so because we challenge people when they believe things strongly without evidence, or in contradiction to a mountain of evidence. Except on matters of faith."
A flawed critique of this flawed documentary (which of course has a response, to which there is a reply, neither of which I didn't even bother to scan)
Post ID: 4136280825726918512
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