"We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many inventions had their birth as toys." - Eric Hoffer

***

On Young Republic, on the Age of Consent:


A: It strikes me as entirely possible to believe, wholeheartedly, that homosexual intimacy is immoral or sinful, without thinking that it ought to be criminalised.


B: I don't know why you people talk about non-state intervention in areas like these, then turn around and sanction state intervention in speech or a minor's sexual activities. There should be minimal state intervention in areas like these, if at all.


A: I'd hazard a guess here that to the extent that one might support hate speech legislation or a minimum age of consent for sexual activity, this tends to be related to the notion that someone is being victimised by the acts in question. (And the discussions that have taken place on this mailing list have been attempting to get at these very points.) Whereas, however wrongful one considers homosexuality to be, it's difficult to plausibly construct an account of coercion out of consensual gay sex between adults. It's not a knock-down distinction, but it's not so incredibly difficult to understand that someone might feel that way, is it?


B: The state intervenes in the case of consensual homosexuality, because (according to the state) its participants are morally ignorant and mistaken and because of the need to preserve family morality and because it's unnatural. The state intervenes in the case of consenting minors, in order to uphold morality, because it's unnatural and apparently they are ignorant and don't know any better. It seems that there is little distinction in some areas.

If one can rule a relationship "coercive" where clear consent was given, then one can outlaw homosexual relationships on the basis that many of them (or so perceived) often bear dominating/submissive dynamics.

It appears to me these are cases of "morality" -- where the state should try its best not to intervene. Yes, there are grey areas sometimes but that is what trial is for


A: Can children be said to give "clear consent" to sex as much as adults can? (You can think the answer is yes but how can you think the question is meaningless, in the face of the undeniable fact that at some ages children can't even walk or speak and there is obviously a continuum of maturity?) I am not especially interested in arguing about this hodge-podge of different policies, but I just want to make the point that arguments about consistency at the level of abstraction that you favour aren't especially persuasive.


B: The ability to consent should not be judged by age, but through other means. Personally I am of the view that if you can make a decently sound argument for your consent, then you are capable of informed consent.


C: A legal age of consent is, I would say, a necessity. This is not hypocrisy on the part of those who say that consensual acts of homosexuality should be decriminalised. In one case, consent is given by two adults whose faculties can be assumed to be developed and who know the consequence, etc, of what they are doing. In the other, the minor - who very rarely is intellectually, emotionally or financially independent - could be left open to a potentially exploitative situation. I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. Nor do I see why this might be considered 'illiberal'.


B: Age and being informed does not correlate; if the law is to protect the uninformed, why should the state not intervene in the case of a naive 20 year old girl who got the short end of the stick (in the aftermath of cohabitation, a relationship or whatever) but intervene in the case of a 15 year old girl who intentionally deceived someone else?


C: Please show me convincing data which shows that 15 year olds are consistently cheating/deceiving/swindling their sexual partners. I will change my stance if you do. Please do not bring up the movie which you did not watch as an example. Please also show me convincing arguments that such 15 year olds are NOT mentally disturbed, and should be punished NOT rehabilitated. I don't know how to tell you this, but most teenagers are not Mata Hari.

You have consistently said that mental faculty should be used as a gauge of whether a person is able to give consent. But you neglect that mental faculty alone cannot and should not be enough. E.g. would you say that a 15 year old who is clearly intelligent and knows the consequence of his/her actions is NOT being exploited when accepting money to have sex with an older, monied person? As I have tried to point out a billion times, children and young adults tend not to be intellectually, emotionally or financially independent. In spite of their overwhelming intelligence, they may still be open to abuse and exploitation.


Me: Actually I would.

Not that mental faculty alone is enough. A 15 year old who is being pimped out by her parents on pain of being thrown out of her home is clearly being exploited.

A 15 year old who gets a friend to pimp her and gets to keep the bulk of the proceeds is likely not being exploited.

I am wary about applying the concept of exploitation to too many things where coercion is not involved. After all, it is said that Filipino maids who are clearly intelligent and know the consequence of their actions are being exploited when accepting money to come to Singapore to work for households, since this is less than a native Singaporean maid would get.


C: We were speaking of youths in a sexual context. I fail to see the relevance with respect to maids. Perhaps you could clarify.


Me: You say sexual relations involving older people paying 15 year olds who are intelligent and know the consequences of their actions are still exploitative; "mental faculty alone cannot and should not be enough". Implied is that there is no coercion involved either.

The concept of exploitation is problematic, since it can and is applied to all manner of human relations. The employment of domestic maids working in Singapore is alleged by Marxists (classical, neo or post) to be a form of exploitation, since they are paid less than what is assumed to be a fair wage (I don't know how the concept of surplus value comes into play here, since no goods are produced and sold on the open market here). I presume most non-Marxists would sniff at such allegations.

Exploitation in the context of paid sex with 15 year olds presumably comes about because of their age, the sexual nature of the transaction or a combination of the two.

I think we have already established that age in this case is merely a proxy for informed consent. In Singapore, girls under 14 are deemed unable to give informed consent to sexual intercourse which is why having sex with one brings a charge of statutory rape. Yet, if we assume that the person in question is intelligent and knows the consequences of his/her actions, we don't need the proxy for informed consent, since we already have fulfilled the criteria for informed consent.

For example, SAT scores explain 22% of first year college grades (http://www.fairtest.org/facts/satvalidity.html). If we had no other information about candidates, their SAT scores would be helpful to predict their first year college grades. Yet, if we already knew their first year college grades, we wouldn't need to know their SAT scores. SAT scores here are analogous to the age of consent, and first year college grades to informed consent.

The other possibility is that the nature of a sexual transaction is such that a minor is inevitably exploited, even if he/she has given informed consent.

From what I know, without invoking vague theories of power, domination and constructed meaning (eg Sex is an inherently violent/coercive act), one cannot explain why sexual transactions are so different from normal transactions that informed consent is inadequate as a criterion for legality. And in any case, if you invoke the vague theories of power, domination and constructed meaning, all relationships would be exploitative, which wouldn't solve the problem of the sexual exception.

Or perhaps sex is still seen as something mystical, sacred etc, which paradoxically would lead us back into reactionary attitudes (eg adultery should be criminalised, homosexuality is a perversion of nature etc)

"If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability." - Vannevar Bush

***

We were told that during the numerous "Free & Easy" slots in our program, we would be Free but Not-So-Easy, since it would be time for us to do our individual research and attend talks on campus.

I spotted one very interesting and relevant talk:


Explaining Strategies of Manipulation under Electoral Authoritarianism - FSI (Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies) Stanford

5/9/2007, 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
RSVP Required by 5pm 5/8/2007

SPEAKER: Andreas Schedler - Professor of Political Science at CIDE, Mexico

Andreas Schedler is Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of Political Studies at CIDE in Mexico City. His extensive work on political concepts includes journal articles, edited books and book chapters on politics and antipolitics, political disenchantment, democratic transition and consolidation, public accountability, vote buying, electoral authoritarianism, and democratic support. His current empirical research focuses on processes of democratization by elections worldwide since 1980. His latest (edited) book is Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Elections (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2006).

LOCATION
FSI Contact
CISAC Conference Room
Encina Hall Central, 2nd floor
616 Serra St.
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305"


Unfortunately, we're leaving for Google at 1:30pm. If the venue is not too far from where we leave from, maybe I can skip lunch and attend the first hour.

"America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week." - Evan Esar

***

Amusing spam:




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What we do (did) during Democratic ImPossibilities - analyse the meritocratic messages of Propaganda Songs


Joel is tired of Carebear. I was trying to catch him humping it but was too slow, so I only have this.


YC loves the dinosaur too. Now we know why it stopped squeaking properly.


Dedicated NUS lecturer gives a telephone consultation



The 'Not so Indian' menu at another of the joints at Greenwood Avenue.


Okay, I can't remember the reason why this was taken, but here you can see that BTH-turtle pig is bullying me.


Some time ago Munchie Monkey's had an 'Around the World' menu, and this must have been the worst selling item - "Malaysia Boleh (Spicy, dry laksa sauce with spaghetti and dried prawn, served with sunny-side-up egg)"

[Lynn: that dish sounds disgusting. there's no such thing as dry laksa in msia, it's all soupy. and spag? aiyo it better not have been a msian who came up with that.]


Our USP staff are very funky. We know this from looking at the Motivational Posters they put up: "Risks - If you never try anything new, you'll miss out on many of life's great disappointments."; "Sacrifice - All we ask here is that you give us your heart."


This ad (I think in the AS6 level 2 toilet) has been constructively vandalised.
"- Can speak both English & Mandarin <- Discrimination? Want Chinese only say la no balls. PC also for what ?
- Trainings are is provided! <-- Bad English!"


Okay I was wrong. People do want to play with my hair.


Hall inmates are really something. Who would play with an AED? I hope their heart stops.

A series from the time I was studying in the Science Library:


"WARNING - Theft (sic) and vandal (sic) will be handed over to the POLICE."
I would have vandalised this atrocious sign or even thefted it to stop the pain, but I didn't want to be handed over to the POLICE.

While entering or exiting the toilet, I saw this across the corridor. Amazingly, none of the girls I spoke to (3 of them) had noticed it:



Unfortunately you may not be able to see what the sign says. Fortunately, I dispatched my minion Bunny (whose price for her services was a link) to move in for a closer look:


"NOTICE: Male if found in the female toilets will be handed over to the Police. Science Library, 7 Jan 2004"

Presumably they had a peeping problem in the Science Library. I am reliably informed by multiple sources that no such signs can be found in female toilets in Arts (despite, or perhaps because of the different supply and demand both) - Science guys must be very desperate.

I protest this rampant sexism - having a sign like this in the female toilet but not the male toilet sets up the dialectic of the Self and the Other. It just perpetuates negative stereotypes and essentialises females as innocent creatures who just want to finish their business in the toilet and males as nefarious boogeymen whose sole purpose in life is to peek at females.

Their attitudes towards sexism disturb me. I thought it mildly offensive that they would put up a sign about peeping males in the female toilet. Prejudice of any sort is unfair, no matter how 'rational' it is. Of course, prejudice of any sort is rarely rational at all. It poisons the way people interact with each other. To think that all males want to peep at females in the toilet - no matter how 'rational' - is awful.

Many people justify sexist comments the way they do: 'it's rational [since males have peeped at females in the toilet before]! therefore I am justified!' but this rationality is merely a laziness, an unwillingness to think beyond comfortable modes of thinking.

At any rate it is really ridiculous to formulate conclusions on an entire gender based on one male peeping in the female toilet. In fact I think it would be unsound to formulate such conclusions based on 200 males peeping in the female toilet (though slightly more sound than basing it on one male).

'Perverts' cannot fall into the same category as 'Male', for obvious reasons: perverts choose to be perverted, Males, on the other hand, do not choose to be Male. To hate someone based on something that is not his choice seems to me not only highly illogical but morally dubious. It is impossible to prove the claim that Males are perverts. (NO MATTER HOW MANY MALES HAVE PEEPED AT FEMALES IN THE SCIENCE LIBRARY TOILETS. THIS POINT IS SO IRRELEVANT.) It is not equivalent to say 'Men suck' and to say 'perverts suck'. This is terribly obvious to me. Am I missing something here.

I don't see how it is any less sexist to say "Based on past experience, males have peeped at females in the toilet and you should guard against this possibility." Any statement in the following form: "(group X) is (undesirable quality Y) and therefore can be excluded from (social/political/economic activity Z)" is unacceptable. It is stupid - grossly so - since any such statement, even if derived from inferential knowledge, is bullshit. Such statements are two or three steps away from saying, 'Oh they are of no inherent/less inherent worth. Therefore we are justified at spitting at them/enslaving them/sending them to death camps." They obviously have very different views of what sexism is.


MFTTW: this is amusing on so many levels -- for its obviousness, for excellent command of English... it's almost poetic

maybe females in arts don't mind getting peeped at.

Me: uhh

oh yah that's why they wear such short skirts


Someone: wat if female is found in male toilet?
happened today at sci lib
:P

cos i come out
then i see a looong queue at girls side

then one ask me
is there anyone in gents?
n whether i can check for her before she goes?
:P

i was like
huh?
wat?

then i just listen to her lor
turns out it was empty
so she just go in one of the cubicles
:P

Me: haha
SO SEXIST

Someone: eh i dint mind
but come on
its in her best interests rite?

Me: no I mean women can go into male cubicles
haha

Someone: eh well
i had to wait outside n tell her got ppl coming
but no one came la

if she can go into man's toilet like that wonder if the same behaviour applies to men's pants :P

ok la she was prolly in urgent distress
so i think can justify
but can the same rule apply to guys?

Me: men in women's toilets are perverts
women in men's toilets need to go

Someone: exactly my point
n they say we live in a patriarchal soceity

Me: aiyah
it's all our fault lah

"Singaporean men marry foreign women because they're losers. Singaporean women marry foreign men because Singaporean men are losers."

Someone: eh techically im not born in singapore:P
;)

but that doesnt imply that im not already coopted by the losership
:P

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." - Jeff Valdez

***

"someone stole my econs notes!" "it's the invisible hand!" - Someone's status message

Someone's answer to the envy meme for me: "haha how you're so unafraid of being politically incorrect!"

The Louvre's Greek collection will be coming to Singapore this year. This will be a chance to see once again what I have no photographic record of thanks to the Cock. But then, photography will likely be banned, so. Gah.

Whenever I open iTunes my computer freezes for many seconds. Gah.

At International Nasi Lemak in Changi Village, there's a sign proclaiming the Mackeral otah is "Halal 100% Muslim Owned". Wth. The certificate isn't enough.

If my "I'll pay you a buck if you let me tug your ponytail" charity proposition ever gets accepted, the next offer I'll make is "I'll pay you 5 busk if you let me hit you with my ponytail".

I'm told that the reason why the banners hanging from lamp posts along Orchard Road are all of a uniform size and follow the same template (the sponsors at the bottom, and 'Uniquely Singapore' at the top) is that the STB head is (was?) the former Chief of Army and while he was driving down that road he wondered why the banners were so messy. Gah.

Behind NJC there's a place called Greenwood Avenue with many eating outlets. The 3 places there I've tried so far all pass the native country test - if you set them up in the country from which the cuisines come from, they will survive. Estivo's has the best gelato I've had in Singapore (but their crepes suck, being limp and non-crispy). Sebastien's (French) and Peperoni Pizzeria (guess) are similarly good.

Singapore on the second day of Chinese New Year was still more vibrant than most Continental European cities on Sunday. (yes, this is backlog from really long ago)

Whoever designed Shaw Bugis is damn cock. The row letters aren't illuminated, so after the lights have been turned down you see people wandering around with their phones trying to find out which row is which.

'dani' on why no one ever says hello to me: "Aiyah, girls are paiseh to approach guys mah. Maybe its the great charm you manifest from your writings? Not forgetting your alluring physical appearance and gentlemanly appreciation of girl's mannerisms cough. Always a catch."

I was first introduced to Butter Chicken dish in 2004 in Tasmania in the form of a sweet, rich and most importantly un-hot curry. Since returning to Singapore after SEP, I've had Butter Chicken twice, first near Bedok camp and the second time at the Science Canteen. Yet the first was very hot, and the second a little hot.

So with my exams over, I felt like making it for myself. Looking at the ingredients list, however, was enough to put me off (Indian food in general needs many many ingredients - this is why curry powder was invented).

Eventually though, I found a recipe which did not need too many ingredients (I only had to buy yogurt and chicken), especially garam masala (the magic ingredient I leave out is included inside, so unless I make my own I'm stuck with an unpalatable substance in my chicken).

Some pictures taken using the new Canon PowerShot A710 IS I got, accompanied by Johnny Malkavian, yesterday (the old one is 4 years old and is getting wonky, and an image stabiliser was appealing):





You may notice black specks in the curry. This comes from simmering it without a cover (I was unsure whether using a metal cover would damage the Teflon and my mother was resting) for 15 minutes without stirring; I am annoyed because I suspect if I'd covered it before simmering for 30 minutes as per instructions, it would have gotten even more burnt.

Instead of using canned tomatoes and tomato paste, I used a tin of 'tomato sauce' (the main ingredient was puree) which might have resulted in a less robust flavour. Also, I forgot to add in the crushed garlic and ginger (I couldn't find the pestle and mortar so I used the tenderiser on the chopped vegetables) till after the chicken had been added, but I don't think that affected the taste. I also added a sprinkle of sugar to up the sweetness quotient a bit.

My mother and I found the taste a little strange - maybe it doesn't pay to use the simplest recipe (her explanation was that it was a mish-mash of flavours). Alternatively, I suspect that I do not have a comparative advantage (let alone absolute advantage) in making Indian food.

Yet, I am still searching for a local version of the Holy Grail - good curry made without chili powder. And since you can't get it commercially here, the only alternative is to make it yourself.


My father asked why I was so kind to keep making food for my brother-in-law. Hurr hurr.

Sometimes I wonder also.

The Great Debate in Chernobyl! This Sunday at 8.00 pm. « THE INTELLIGENT SINGAPOREAN

"Another great debate will be held on the 6th of May this coming Sunday at an earlier time of 8.00pm (Singapore time).

The bad news is we have been kicked out from the “Great Hall.” I will not elaborate further except to say it is in part due to darkness colorful usage of language and Dr Chandra’s personal references."


Okay, I have no idea what this is about.

The last time they had a 'debate', besides the debators referring to "publications" only they knew (and which in all likelihood don't even exist), it was also horribly stage managed, with all comments not following their script (which for all we know was performed by one person sitting in front of a terminal) being deleted immediately.

akikonomu thinks it's one big satire, for the same reason he says Andy Warhol thought Valerie Solanas and S.C.U.M (the Society for Cutting Up Men) were a parody of feminism, even after the assassination attempt - the alternative would be unthinkable (who can forget the classic claim that Hitler was an evolutionary psychologist?) Meanwhile I was speculating that the name is a subtle dig - only UnIntelligent Singaporeans will be duped by the faux conspiracies.

So - good joke.

My only worry is that it impugns the political blogosphere among those who don't get the joke; beyond a certain point, the uninformed are unable to differentiate between the insane and those pretending to be insane, and it's not clear that it matters which either - whether or not Valerie Solanas was pretending to try to assassinate Andy Warhol, he had to wear a corset for the rest of his life. And it's not clear that those who *are* in on the joke think it's all in good taste either.


Addendum:

One Day all to Myself……

"Akikonomu Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:43 pm

Dear intellisg and inspir3d,

Is it true that most of the questions asked by commentors here are actually posted by the brotherhood itself, in order to create an image of a mystical and shadowy group?


inspir3d Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:55 pm

“Is it true that most of the questions asked by commentors here are actually posted by the brotherhood itself, in order to create an image of a mystical and shadowy group?”

Akikonomu, you don’t seriously expect me to answer this question, do you?
Don’t think so much, just enjoy the show =)"

"To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation." - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

***

Someone: i searched for 'malay family' in pro.corbis.com and got a picture of two orang utans

Me: ><
sue them for sedition!

Someone: i checked it up
it's the search string lah

cause they classified the orang utans under 'malay archipelago'
so when i type malay family
the utans pop up


Someone else: even MOE change the syllabus for sec sch/ jc

this guy ah
10 years or maybe even 20
still teaching the same damn thing

wth


HWMNBN: i actually had a recent insight into women

the thing about women is that most of them want you to be able to psychically want/desire exactly what they want of your own free will and accord without any prompting or clues from them

however if you require clues or show hint that you are being coerced it irritates them on a fundamental level
they want you to be psychic and FREELY share those same desires - well not exactly the same desires. but freely be what they want you to be, feel what they want you to feel, think what they want you to think

in other words they want you to willingly and without any coercion from them be exactly what they want you to be. and they deeply resent having to either coerce or provide hints

from this simple axiom springs forth much misery

oh the other female misery-inducing axiom is PMS, but that's a different story

actually the difference is that i think most men don't mind about the "freely" bit so much, as long as they get the end result

with women it is important to them that the man FREELY conforms to her will without any suggestion or imposition of will on her part, if you know what i mean
ie. a fantastic coincidence

most men are more goal-oriented

the important difference is that women don;t WANT to demand
they don't want to impose their will. they want the guy to FREELY happen to want the same thing.
but of course that never happens. so they resort to demanding coercing/psycho-ing etc etc.
but their inherent resentment of that process is what gives so much grief.

i think the guy actually tends to prefer an element of direct domination/control


Someone: well i was at sentosa's jazz thing yesterday, and the rtiger beer girl wore leggings under her skirt, and her top is practically a mock turtleneck sleeveless, so cannot downblouse and upskirt

Me: ><
very smart

HAHA finally practicality!

[NB: In response to LDPVTP's comment that "your friend who said that thing is a pervert", I would like to note that this someone is a straight girl.]


Someone else on putting on Facebook that he was interested in men: aieeeeeeeee i thought that was filling in my gender *reminds self never to do online registrations when half-asleep*

Current summer plans:


US (Palo Alto/Stanford, Berkeley, San Fran - Multiculturalism Program) (5) 6 May-19 May
US (Assorted undetermined West Coast places - Bumming) 20 May-27 (29) May
Institute of Policy Studies Internship 4 Jun-22 Jun
Shanghai 23 Jun-28 Jun
Hong Kong 28 Jun-2 Jul
Institute of Policy Studies Internship 3 Jul-10 Aug
Mt Kinabalu (scaling) 12 Aug-15 Aug

"Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard." - Daphne du Maurier

***

Heterophobia

"The basic problem I had with what the author wrote was that she seems to have a chip on her shoulder regarding heterosexuals in particular, and the establishment in general. E.g. "I'm in love with a breeder. Well, FUCK." It doesn't automatically follow that all heterosexuals will have children, and that term (breeders) strikes me as pejorative, comparing humans to cattle. Similarly, the repeated references to "The Man" emphasise a "them and us" mentality (and possibly also a 1970s mentality). Then she compares a bar being raided by the police to an attack by skinheads. My view is that if the police are doing a raid, i.e. they believe that a crime is being (or has been) committed, then the best approach is to co-operate with them and be polite, rather than to "join your acquaintance in taunting and otherwise harassing the moron at hand". This may be suggesting that a bunch of redneck police officers will say "Hey, let's go beat us up some faggots", but how often does that actually happen? Given the amount of litigation in America, I assume that such an event would have led to a court case, so there would be evidence to support this (such as a newspaper report). In all my own dealings with the police (both when I've reported a crime to them, and when they've caught me doing something wrong), I've found that if I behave reasonably then so do they.

However, the sentence that bothered me the most was "You see, by virtue of your heterosexuality, you are the oppressor". As I interpret that (and please do correct me if I'm wrong), she is saying that regardless of my actions or inactions, I am oppressing people simply by existing. This comes back to the "them and us" attitude - it sounds like "homosexuals and heterosexuals can't live in harmony, so the only way for homosexuals to be free is for all heterosexuals to die". The most charitable response I can think of is to dismiss these opinions as comic relief ("Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! Violence inherent in the system! Violence inherent in the system!" - Dennis, Monty Python and the Holy Grail), which I'm sure isn't the desired effect. To digress slightly, this reminds me of X-Men 2, where mutancy is a fairly blatant metaphor for homosexuality; using that metaphor, I think the writer comes across as being more like Magneto than Professor Xavier. If this is truly what she believes, then she is entitled to her opinion, but it seems just as bigoted as homophobia to me, so it's certainly not going to make her other comments any more persuasive. Hence the title of this web page."


This encapsulates a lot of my grouses about PC/left wing hysteria.

*crispy waffle* calls this an example of "The Perfect Waffle".

I'm inclined to agree.

If only someone hadn't brought the waffle iron back... The cheapest proper one on Yahoo Auctions is $200.

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast." - Oscar Wilde

***

"computing might help save lives, but physics lets you build battlecruisers." - Someone on the NUS SoC ad

Masters Students don't like take-home exams because since they don't care about grades (and don't study [much] anyway), their objective is to minimise suffering. After doing a take-home, I can understand why.

"An economist is a man who knows a hundred ways of making love but doesn't know any women"
"An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible."

At 7:25am on the 18th (Wednesday) there were 9 people on the 6th floor of the Central Library (part of which has gone pseudo-24 hour in view of exams). Hurr hurr.

For one Propaganda module, they have to write a 500 word Wikipedia article on Singapore and submit it (Example: Singapore Literature - Edwin Thumboo). Neat.

There's this module where people have to write papers based on talks they attend. The bizarre thing is that the papers have to find common themes across the talks. Given that the talks this semester have been about things such as AIDS prevention, cultural imperialism, business ethics, religious ethics, environmental ethics, religious tolerance, urban planning, poverty alleviation, it is hard to find common themes. So I suggested writing something about how subsidising AIDS treatment/prevention is cultural imperialism, because the liberal state should not privilege any conceptions of the good life by subsidising then, and that they should let AIDS patients die of AIDS because, hey, claiming that having AIDS is a bad thing is presumptuously ethnocentric. Someone said he would write that but didn't want to fail. Ah well.

I was eating at Engin with someone, and he'd left a plate of food on the table while he walked out of viewing distance to talk to someone. When someone else and I accosted him, he said there was someone at our table, and he probably thought it was his friend's table. When we went to our table, we found out that the guy was protecting the food from birds. Ah, it's so hard to find people like this nowadays.

The Science Library has a 'general reading' section. Maybe they wouldn't read anything otherwise, hurr hurr.


One day, I saw a McDonalds receipt in Chatterbox from the same day, but with a timestamp of just before 4am. It listed enough food for two, and 2 drinks too. I was speculating that people were taking advantage of the venue's 24-hour availability to engage in nocturnal activities, until a few days later someone said that it was her 4-member group doing a project till 7:30am that day - the other 2 members did not want to eat anything. Ah well. Given that the aircon shuts down between 10 and 11pm, anyone camping over would be guaranteed to have a hot time.

In a similar vein, I was related a secondhand story about how someone entered the sofa room and saw 2 people making out.

"I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it." - Rita Mae Brown

***

Quotes:

You're counselling someone else ah? [Student: Yah, my gay friend.] Ask him to turn straight. Ask him to turn straight, ask me to turn gay.

'You and gabe gossip about me'. Na hea. If I gossip I will do it openly.

Capitalism is like masturbation.

[Me to someone camping in school for 5 days: You've been here for 120 hours right?]... Well, if you want to put it that way and make me sound like a loser, also can.

[Student to a Muslim complaining about exams: Everyone's fighting the same fight.] I'm fighting for the liberation of Israel. What the hell am I saying? I'm fighting for the liberation of Palesteen. [Student 2: You're going against your own side.] Are there any Jewish people here?... I believe that the Holocaust happened. (Palestine)

[On the take-home] Feminism: your favourite. You can write about your UDs.

[On a Fong Seng outlet] You see the politics going on? They claim to be a Taiwanese food place but they're all PRC. They're conquering them.

[Me: Girls all like to bake.]... Any girls like to program?

[On the take-home exam about feminism] You look like a kid who's been taken into a candy shop. I pity women in the next 24 hours.

Is she bringing her boyfriend with her? [Students: Which one?]

[Me: Women like rich men] That's true. Or I can get so rich I don't need a rich man. [Me: You'll just look for an even richer man.] Yah.

I have an exam at 5 o'clock. I have a 24 hour [exam] now. No time to eat. No time to sleep. [Me: No time to complain. *exit Gabriel*]

Have fun! [Me: You find interviews very fun ah?] Yeah. Because I get to talk about myself.

[Malay to a non-Malay] Too bad you're not Malay, otherwise we can start a racial riot.

Day 1 of your period... Day 14 is when you're most horny. [Me: Your most fertile period.] [Student 2: I feel like a piece of land.]

[Being sexist] This is when everyone ignores Gabriel. [Me: Help, I'm being oppressed... by women.]

Why would I be into tentacle porn? I don't have tentacles.

His blood is AB-normal.

What's a s'whap club? [Me: You swap partners.] [Student 2: Sounds like salsa] (swap)

*Enters room* I heard bitching and gossip. I've very sharp ears.

I shall call her 'Jujube' because 'UD #6' sounds like a contraceptive.

[Me: What's with the shawl?] I'm cold. [Me: Why don't you wear more?] [Student 2: Then it won't look nice.]

I don't think RI boys are as stuck up as RGS girls... You add the feminine ego.

What's BFG? [Student: Big Friendly Giant. Roald Dahl.] Who's Roald Dahl? [Student: You don't know Roald Dahl?] [Student 2: She's Malaysian.] [Student 3: Go home. We don't want you. Only your water.]

I ask you ah. Is the science library 24 hours?... Cos I keep seeing people in the same clothes.

"A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits." - Robert Heinlein

***

The 17th European Union Film Festival

It is good to see that unlike last year, Belgian is not a language anymore. I don't know about Austrian, since there aren't any films from Austria.

I was browsing through the list of films (none of which I can watch anyway, since I'll be in the US for most of May - which also means I'll be missing another opera [Die Walküre]), and made a shocking discovery:



"THE ALZHEIMER CASE (DE ZAAK ALZHEIMER) (M18)
Directed by Erik Van Looy, Belgium, 2003, 120 minutes
Drama – French – English subtitles

Synopsis:
When a key civil servant is murdered, the Antwerp police force puts its top crime investigators, Vincke (Koen de Bouw) and Verstruyft (Werner De Smedt), on the case. The trail leads to hitman Angelo Ledda (Jan Decleir). Showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, Ledda finds it increasingly difficult to carry out assignments. When he discovers that he is being used in a political power game, he decides to bite the hand that feeds him. Vincke and Verstruyft have a hard time trying to disentangle the web of intrigue, settlements and networks, in order to prevent further killings."


Damnit. The Wallonese have managed to make the Flemish speak French too...

"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?" - Jean Kerr

***

Puzzle to ponder:

Why do all of these start with the same 12 notes?

Palestrina - Missa Ecce Ego Johannes - Gloria
Mozart - Missa brevis in C major - Gloria
Thomas Tallis - Mass For Four Voices - Gloria
Vaughan Williams - Mass in G minor - Gloria

I'm sure there're more masses out there starting with these 12 notes.


akikonomu: okay. my guess is all of them are based on the opening of a gregorian
=D

palestrina is a big clue

i'd say the gregorian is a big possibility. tallis + mozart studied the chants, probably. tallis being a baroque scholar, and mozart being one of the few composers in the classical period to muck around with baroque composition


Tim the Great: it's Mass IV's gloria

New blog header:



22.

A Singapore SAFE for all

My favourite bit:


"Is there any check on the use of the ISA?

The President of the Republic of Singapore has veto power over preventive detentions. This means the President has the power to reject the Government’s proposal to detain someone if the ISA Advisory Board is also against the detention.

Finally, the greatest check against the abuse of the ISA is a political one.

Although the law allows the Minister for Home Affairs to approve an Order of Detention, such decisions have always been made by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet (his Ministers). They must be satisfied that the Order of Detention is necessary before they approve it.

As Singapore is a parliamentary democracy, the Government is elected by the people. The Government will be held responsible by all Singaporeans if it abuses the powers of the ISA.

The people of Singapore are therefore the greatest check on any abuse of the ISA’s powers of preventive detention."


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

R-A-R

You are an R-A-R: a metaphysical Reductionist, an epistemological Absolutist, and a moral Relativist. What does this all mean? Well, keep reading to find out. Metaphysics: Reductionism (Monism or Positivism) In metaphysics, my test measures your tendency towards Reductionism or Non-Reductionism. As a Reductionist, you like to cut away the metaphysical fat as opposed to multiplying concepts and entities like so many baby rabbits. The two broad categories of Reductionists that my test recognizes are Monists and Positivists. 1. Monists do not cut away the metaphysical fat so much as they just put the meat into a grinder and synthesize the fat into the meat. They tend to condense particular things and ideas into a Unity or Absolute, in other words. If you believe that reality is ultimately a unity and that mind and matter both exist but are simply two different ways of looking at the same substance, then you are a neutral monist in the sense of Spinoza. If you believe that reality is ultimately an Absolute because a whole is more than just the sum of its parts, proven by the fact that we can never have knowledge of a particular thing unless we also grasp its relations to the ultimate Absolute or whole of reality with which it is bound up, and if you feel that this Absolute is characterized by Spirit or Mind, and not matter, then you share the same views as Hegel and even Plato to a degree. A monist--because he or she believes that reality is a Unity or Absolute--tends to synthesize all particulars into universals, deny the reality of matter (Hegel) or mind (Spinoza, sort of), and so on. These concepts are all cast into the meat grinder and come out as a unified whole. Famous monists include philosophers such as Hegel, Spinoza, and Parmenides. If none of the above sounded like you, then you are most definitely the other type of Reductionist. 2. Positivists, unlike monists, do not synthesize two apparently competing views into one--instead, they do away with one of the views, that being the one that cannot be empirically verified. A positivist, then, cuts away the metaphysical fat as meaningless conjecture about nothing in particular. He relies primarily on a tool called Ockham's Razor to shave away these ideas. Ockham's Razor states that we should do away with any hypotheses that needlessly multiply explanatory entities. For instance, in regards to the dispute about the existence of universals, a positivist tends to adopt the position of nominalism--which is the belief that only particulars are real. A universal is only a linguistic construction we use to put particulars into groups--meaning we can reduce all universals to the sum of their parts, that being particulars. After all, we can never have empirical experience of "whiteness", only particular things that are white--nor have we ever observed the universal "mankind", though we can observe individual men. On the mind-body problem, a positivist will be likely to do away with the concept of "mind", reducing it to a material product of our brain functioning. This position is often referred to as the Identity-Theory, because it equates mental states to states of the brain. Clearly, a positivist tends towards a materialistic outlook. Positivism will also revile any idealist conception of reality, which maintains that the world of experience and perception is merely a phenomenal world, whereas the "real" world lies underneath experience and is fundamentally unknowable. A positivist will tend to do away with the idealist hypothesis as needless and unverifiable. Well-known positivists include Carnap, Ayer, and Wittgenstein. ***** Epistemology: Absolutism (Rationalism or Pragmatism) My test measures one's tendency towards Absolutism or Skepticism in regards to epistemology. As an Absolutist, you believe that objective knowledge is possible given the right approach, and you deny the claims of skeptical philosophers who insist that we can never have knowledge of ultimate reality. The two types of Absolutists recognized by my test are Rationalists and Pragmatists. 1. Rationalists believe that the use of reason ultimately provides the best route to truth. A rationalist usually defines truth as a correspondence between propositions and reality, taking the common-sense route. Also, rationalists tend to believe that knowledge of reality is made possible through certain foundational beliefs. This stance is known as foundationalism. A foundationalist believes that, because we cannot justify the truth of every statement in an infinite regress, we ultimately reach a foundation of knowledge. This foundation is composed of a priori truths, like mathematics and logic, as well as undoubtable truths like one's belief in his or her own existence. The belief that experiences and memories are veridical is also part of the foundation. Thus, for a rationalist knowledge of reality is made possible through our foundational beliefs, which we do not need to justify because we find them to be undoubtable and self-evident. In regards to science, a rationalist will tend to emphasize the foundational assumptions of scientific inquiry as prior to and more important than scientific inquiry itself. If science does lead to truth, it is only because it is based upon the assumption of certain rational principles such as "Every event is caused" and "The future will resemble the past". Philosophy has a wide representation of philosophical rationalists--Descartes, Spinoza, Liebniz, and many others. If that didn't sound like your own views, then you are most likely the other type of Absolutist: the Pragmatist. 2. Epistemological Pragmatists are fundamentally identified by their definition of truth. Truth is, on this view, merely a measure of a proposition's success in inquiry. This view is a strictly scientific notion of truth. A proposition can be called true if it leads to successful predictions or coheres best with the observed facts about the world. Thus, for the pragmatist, knowledge of reality is possible through scientific reasoning. A pragmatist emphasizes man's fallibility, and hence takes baby-steps towards knowledge through scientific methodology. Any truth claim for a pragmatist is open to revision and subject to change--if empirical observations lead us to call even logical rules into question (like quantum physics has done for the law of the excluded middle), then we can and should abandon even these supposed a priori and "absolutely certain" logical rules if they do not accord with our testing and refuting of our various propositions. As a consequence of this, a pragmatist doesn't feel that scientific knowledge is based upon unfounded assumptions that are taken to be true without any sort of justification--rather, they believe that the successes of scientific inquiry have proved that its assumptions are well-founded. For instance, the assumption of science that the future will be like the past is adequately shown by the amazing success of scientific theories in predicting future events--how else could this be possible unless the assumption were true? Pragmatism borrows elements from realism and yet attempts to account for the critiques made by skeptics and relativists. It is essentially a type of philosophical opportunism--it borrows the best stances from a large number of philosophical systems and attempts to discard the problems of these systems by combining them with others. Famous pragmatists of this type are Peirce and Dewey. ***** Ethics: Relativism (Subjectivism or Emotivism) My test measures one's tendency towards moral Objectivism or moral Relativism in regards to ethics. As a moral Relativist, you tend to see moral choices as describing a subject's reaction to a moral object or situation, and not as a property of the moral object itself. You may also feel that moral words are meaningless because they do not address any empirical fact about the world. My test recognizes two types of moral relativists--Subjectivists and Emotivists. 1. Subjectivists see individual or collective desires as defining a situation's or object's moral worth. Thus, the subject, not the object itself, determines the value. Subjectivists recognize that social rules, customs, and morality have been wide-ranging and quite varied throughout history among various cultures. As a result, Subjectivism doesn't attempt to issue hard and fast rules for judging the moral worth of things. Instead, it recognizes that what we consider "good" and "right" is not bound by any discernable rule. There is no one trait that makes an act good or right, because so many different kinds of things have been called good and right. In regards to the definition of "good" or "right", a Subjectivist will tend to define it as whatever a particular person or group of people desire. They do not define it merely as "happiness" or "pleasure", for instance, because sometimes we desire to do things that do not produce pleasure, and because we don't consider all pleasurable things good. Furthermore, Subjectivists recognize the validity of consequentialism in that sometimes we refer to consequences as good and bad--but they also recognize that our intentions behind an action, or the means to the end, can also determine an act's moral worth. Again, there is no one rule to determine these things. Hence the relativism of moral Subjectivism. The most well-known of the subjectivists is Nietzsche. If that didn't sound like your position, then you are probably the other variety of moral Relativist--the Emotivist. Emotivists are moral Relativists only in a very slanted sense, because they actually deny that words about morality have any meaning at all. An Emotivist would probably accept Hume's argument that it is impossible to derive an "ought" from an "is"--no factual state of affairs can logically entail any sort of moral action. Furthermore, a emotivist's emphasis on scientific (and hence empirical) verification and testing quickly leads to the conclusion that concepts such as "good" and "right" don't really describe any real qualities or relations. Science is never concerned with whether a particular state of affairs is moral or right or good--and an emotivist feels much the same way. Morality is thus neither objective or subjective for the emotivist--it is without any meaning at all, a sort of vague ontological fiction that is merely a symbol for our emotional responses to certain events. Famous emotivists include Ayer and other positivists associated with the Vienna Circle. ***** As you can see, when your philosophical position is narrowed down there are so many potential categories that an OKCupid test cannot account for them all. But, taken as very broad categories or philosophical styles, you are best characterized as an R-A-R. Your exact philosophical opposite would be an N-S-O. About the Author Saint_gasoline is a crazed madman who spends all of his time writing OKCupid tests and ranting about philosophy and science. If you are interested in reading more of his insane ramblings, or seeing his deliciously trite webcomic, go to SaintGasoline.com.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 21% on Metaphysics You scored higher than 80% on Epistemology You scored higher than 50% on Ethics

Link: The Sublime Philosophical Crap Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

"A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn't." - Unknown

***

"If you will be good boys and girls, I shall give you as much pork barrel money as you want" - Quirino in Bohol, Philippines during the 1949 election (reported)


"The modern conception of suffrage is that voting is a function of government. The right to vote is not a natural right but it is a right created by law. It is a privilege granted by the State to such persons or classes as are most likely to exercise it for the public good. For reasons of public policy, certain classes of persons are excluded from the franchise. Among the generally excluded classes are minors, idiots, paupers, and convicts...

The authorities may compel entrance to dwelling houses against the will of the owners for sanitary purposes" - Fernando, Chances for survival of democracy in the Philippines (1950)

***

"At this time while Origen was conducting catechetical instruction at Alexandria, a deed was done by him which evidenced an immature and youthful mind, but at the same time gave the highest proof of faith and continence. For he took the words, “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,” in too literal and extreme a sense. And in order to fulfill the Saviour’s word, and at the same time to take away from the unbelievers all opportunity for scandal,—for, although young, he met for the study of divine things with women as well as men,—he carried out in action the word of the Saviour." - Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine, Chapter VIII.—Origen’s Daring Deed.

"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy." - Edgar Bergen

***

Men's Magazine's Gal Pals - "Why do women read men's magazines? According to a recent GQ poll of 30 female readers, some read them for the narrative articles; some, because their husbands subscribe; others want tips on men's fashion and health — or just to ogle fashionable men. “The articles are generally interesting to me even though they aren't specifically geared to me,” says one female reader. “I also love all the eye candy!”"

The Straight Dope: Going postal: Are employees of the United States Postal Service more likely to be violent towards coworkers?

Straight Dope Staff Report: Can a sperm donor be forced to pay child support? - "In other cases women have inseminated themselves with sperm from fellatio or from a condom (or so their male acquaintances alleged), then sought child support – and won. That's because the paramount consideration in child support cases is providing the child with support from two parents. Wisely or not, courts traditionally have defined parents as those who contributed the gametes that made the baby. In most cases, courts will overlook the adults' agreements or despicable conduct in the interest of providing for the children."
!@#$

The Austrian Economists: The Paris School of Economics: Will it be Say or Walras? - "The main reason why graduate education in economics is a disaster in France is because of the state control of universities (see here an article on the subject in The Economist). Exceptions to this rule include the University of Dauphine with Pascal Salin and a few other pockets with good people (e.g., the Universities of Toulouse and Aix-en-Provence, Science Po Paris) but by and large the teaching of economics is terrible, which explains why France is the only place where economists are more to the left than the general population."

Swearsaurus Swear Words: Swearing, Cursing, Cussing and Insulting! - Wah, I almost thought I'd lost this URL. It's even longer than the last time. The French ones are the best of course, but I remember them being more stylish last time.

The Straight Dope: Can opera singers shatter glass with their high notes? - "I dunno--you ever buy whole-life insurance? Now _there_ was a hoax. Shattering glasses, on the other hand, is entirely legit. Enrico Caruso and Italian opera singer Beniamino Gigli are said to have managed it, and I seem to remember Ella Fitzgerald doing it once in a Memorex commercial."

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda wearing 666 tattoo claims to be Jesus on Earth - "A heroine addict De Jesus, 61, grew up poor in Puerto Rico and said that he learned that he was Jesus reincarnate when angels visited him in a dream."

The Straight Dope: Did a state legislature once pass a law saying pi equals 3? - "Just as people today have a hard time accepting the idea that the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe, Goodwin and Record apparently couldn't handle the fact that pi was not a rational number. "Since the rule in present use [presumably pi equals 3.14159...] fails to work ..., it should be discarded as wholly wanting and misleading in the practical applications," the bill declared."

People are getting bit by freaking rattlesnakes at Wal-Mart - "John Page never expected that a trip to the garden center of his local Brevard County, Florida Wal-Mart to shop for potted plants would end in getting attacked by a rattlesnake. But that’s exactly what happened, and a bite from a pygmy rattlesnake screwed up his pinky finger badly. Now he’s demanding that Wal-Mart protect its customers from poisonous snakes that are invading its garden centers."

German police rescue 91-year-old man glued to roof - "A 91-year-old German sparked a rescue operation when he slipped mending his roof and got stuck fast in tar "like a beetle on its back", police said on Tuesday."

tgs: On Female Mediocrity - "I also know of girls who list their hobbies on Facebook on Friendster in the following fashion: "Wakeboarding, Shopping, Chillin', Sleeping, EATING (haha tho I can't do this so much these days, getting fat!), Watching TV (I heart Kwong Sang Woo!!), Tennis and Golf (juz started but quite fun!)". There is a common thread to all of this. These girls are mediocre, in every sense of the word. I will not say that they are lousy; just mediocre. They expect little from themselves"

Threat for Big Media: Guerrilla Video Sites - "The men, Sam Martinez and Billy Duran, use two low-end desktop computers to run a Web site that offers a remarkably broad menu of television shows and movies free of charge. They provide online access to 17 episodes of NBC's "Heroes" TV series, 49 installments of ABC's "Desperate Housewives," more than 70 feature films and hundreds of other videos. Within four days of Walt Disney's theatrical release of "Meet the Robinsons," the men had the movie available for viewing through their site, YouTVpc.com."

Store gets egg on its face over Christ’s Easter ‘birth’ - "A supermarket chain got itself into a huge muddle over the meaning of Easter yesterday in its attempt to sell more chocolate eggs. “Brits are set to spend a massive £520 million on Easter eggs this year — but many young people don’t even know what Easter’s all about,” said the press release from Somerfield after a survey. It then went on to claim that the tradition of giving Easter eggs was to celebrate the “birth” of Christ. An amended version changed this to the “rebirth” of Christ. Finally a third press release accepted Church teaching that Easter celebrated the resurrection of Christ."

Doctors in trouble for not giving man cervical smear - "A family doctor has been summoned to a formal hearing over his refusal to put a 34-year-old male patient on the list for screening for cervical cancer... She said her husband, who has been a GP for 30 years and who trains young doctors would be "pleased to hear from anyone, medical or otherwise, who could teach him the correct way to carry out a cervical smear on a 34-year-old male"."

Found in India: the last king of France - "This Indian father-of-three is being feted as the long-lost descendent of the Bourbon kings who ruled France from the 16th century to the French revolution. A distant cousin of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he is alleged to be not only related to the current Bourbon king of Spain and the Bourbon descendants still in France, but to have more claim than any of them to the French crown."

Ignorance of the Good Book reaches biblical proportions - "For a country so religious, many know little about the Good Book. Ten percent of Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah's wife -- according to Christian pollster George Barna -- and only half of American adults can name even one of the four Gospels. Many can't name the first book of the Bible, according to a Gallup poll... Does it matter if a student knows what happened on Easter? Yes, say those who support studying the Bible, considered by many the most influential book in Western civilization. They say it's important not only for a well-rounded education but to understand global events... William Shakespeare alone has more than 1,300 biblical references in his work, says Weber. Knowing what he is referring to gives students an academic advantage."

One day more!!!

Totally and utterly sodomised by Macro III (aka Applied Maths).

"Men want “babes”. That’s a code word for “gorgeous bodies without brains”. Well, no, actually, it’s more true to say that Singapore men want babes … I’ll provide an anecdote to show that I’m not alone in thinking that men here dig babes. Make that babes with boobs. No, make that babes with boobs, without brains. Last week, at a café sipping smoothies to wind down from work, I eavesdropped on four men who looked to be in their 30s … all of them had victory tales to tell.

Women seem to fall into their laps. Not just any women, but pretty ones who are below 30. And “cannot be graduate”, one of them declared. “Woah, these university women. Buay tahan! …

Pity the graduate women. It’s no wonder they form the crux of Singapore’s Great Marriage Problem. But it’s not any graduate women. It’s those who show their intellectual mettle — unabashedly and with delight — whom the men shun. A university degree is a symbol of a woman’s braininess. It is also a warning for men to not let their egos be walked over by her. So if she’s really smart, she’ll know how to keep her brains under lock and key.

As one very accomplished colleague, single and graduate put it: “The trick is to be so bimbo you don’t even know how to operate the washing machine or turn on the oven. I’ve been laughing at those columns recently by my female colleagues, lambasting the stupidity of the finalists in the Miss Singapore/Universe pageant. Why mock their poor English and shallow answers, their dumb silence in response to difficult social questions, their ah lian manners?

What if, just what if, they are showing off what Singapore men like? Quite likely these bimbos ah huays — if that’s how you want to view them — won’t have problems getting hitched and settling into a warm family life with three healthy kids and a loving husband. They will bask in the glow of the Great Singapore Family. Not the mocking graduate women, though, I bet. So guess who’s laughing her way to the church alter? (Leow, 2001)...

Xie Wen’s desire is to maintain the sanctity of traditional gender relations and prevent discursive intrusion which might disturb their meaning. For this reason he must try to repossess an essentialized Asian-ness and the feminine of past ages of national time when the boundaries between Singapore and the outside world, and between men and women were clear. He must also lay some blame on Western culture, and globalized feminism, which allows him to ally himself with a globalized offended masculinity. Xie Wen’s columns confirm Bhabha’s assertion that maintenance of the illusion of the political unity of the nation requires continual displacement of anxiety about its irredeemably plural modern space (Bhabha, 1994: 149). [Ed: Wth?!]"

- Peeling Prawns: Singapore Media and the Recovery of the Asian Feminine

One-Dimensional Man in The Postmodern Age: Re-Thinking The Bourgeois Subject, Toward the Sensibilities of Freedom.

"Neither traditional Marxism, nor postmodernism, grasp the dynamic nature of the cultural and economic process shaping the consciousness of the bourgeoisified subject... Postmodernism, to a large extent, seeks to evade the problem by eliminating the subject altogether...

Traditional Marxism always tried to work the other way around, to have the revolution, to produce a society capable of forging the "new humanity," and then to produce a free individual, one whose freedom is predicated upon the Vanguard, the state, and the party line. This is like wanting to have a child, and then to consummate the marriage."

As I do my Democratic ImPossibilities exam, my previous essay:

Post-65, Post-Post-65 Or Bust? Sustainable Authoritarianism In Singapore (Is it sensible to explain Singapore's liberal democratic prospects in terms of its "post-65" generation?)

As Goh noted, the post-65 generation would be materialistic and ignorant of the travails and importance of nation building. They might thus be less convinced of the need to forsake liberal democratic ideals to pursue economic ends. Yet the pre-65 generation were similarly materialistic, striking a Faustian bargain with the PAP: in return for accepting less (or little) political freedom, they were promised material rewards in the form of economic growth (Uren, 2001). Furthermore, the post-65-ers being focused on “promotions, houses and holidays” would necessarily entail a diversion of energies from pressing for the political and civil liberties liberal democracy grants to the pursuit of materialism. The problem is compounded by the fact that Singaporeans keep looking to the government to solve their problems (Elegant and Elliott, 2005). One can thus imagine the irony of Singaporeans asking the government to give them more freedom, instead of securing it for themselves.

On our take-home exam...

Student: Started yet?

Me: The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. I'm still at step 10.

Student: I'm going to sleep, step 1.

Since my take-home exam is on feminism:


"Men who are in prison for rape think it's the dumbest thing that ever happened... they were put in jail for something very little different from what most men do most of the time and call it sex. The only difference is they got caught. It may also be true."

"In all these situations there was not enough violence against them to take it beyond the category of 'sex.'... Maybe they were forced-fucked for years and put up with it, maybe they tried to get it over with, maybe they were coerced by something other than battery, something like economics, maybe even something like love."

- Catharine MacKinnon


"Sometimes I wonder if MacKinnon has simply been driven mad by all the sick things people do to one another. I, too, recoil in pain and incomprehension whenever I hear about the latest psychopath who has shot his mother, machine-gunned his coworkers, raped his daughter, or slashed a prostitute. I notice that such men are more likely to have read the bible than pornography, but I do not hold either script responsible for their actions." - The Prime of Miss Kitty MacKinnon, Susie Bright

"How can governments find out what the extralegal property arrangements are? That was precisely the question put to me by five members of the Indonesian cabinet. I was in Indonesia and they took that opportunity to invite me to talk about how they could find out who owns what among the 90 percent of Indonesians who live in the extralegal sector. Fearing that I would lose my audience if I went into a drawn-out technical explanation on how to structure a bridge between the extralegal and legal sectors, I came up with another way, an Indonesian way, to answer their question. During my book tour, I had taken a few days off to visit Bali, one of the most beautiful places on earth. As I strolled through rice fields, I had no idea where the property boundaries were. But the dogs knew. Every time I crossed from one farm to another, a different dog barked. Those Indonesian dogs may have been ignorant of formal law, but they were positive about which assets their masters controlled.

I told the ministers that Indonesian dogs had the basic information they needed to set up a formal property system. By traveling their city streets and countryside and listening to the barking dogs, they could gradually work upward, through the vine of extralegal representations dispersed throughout their country, until they made contact with the ruling social contract. "Ah", responded one of the ministers, "jukum adat" (the people's law)!"

- Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital


But dogs are haram... Hurr hurr.

Aha! I have now in front of me the infamous article which everyone talks about but no one has ever read (or quoted from):

Ellen Kleist, Harald Moi - Transmission of Gonorrhea Through an Inflatable Doll, Genitourinary Medicine, Vol. 69, Nr. 4, p. 322 ff. August 1993

A photo from Filbie's trip to Status Civitatis Vaticanae

My comment: Shit, they didn't let me talk to them. Maybe they only talk to girls. And I see leggings are fashionable in Europe too (at least they've a reason to wear em)

Stupid email I got:

"I started reading "Questions for Christians" and when I got to the first one (about two creation accounts in the Bible) I found these questions embarrassing for you, unless that is, you are a Christian who would like to start a dialogue with whoever comes along (like I came along) or you are quite uneducated regarding the Bible. In the latter case I find your Questions useless. In the former case some fun could be had exercizing our mutual Bible knowledge.

In conclusion, your being 23 or 24 years old, one cannot expect a lot of maturity. I encourage you to always use your questions in larger part to increase your knowledge rather than someone elses. No harm intended."


Uncharacteristically, I don't feel like responding.

Maybe I'm really growing old.

Facebook | Arguing on Facebook is the Only Way to Solve the Israel/Palestine Problem

Description: "Feel like doing something about the middle east, but not willing to actually work for it?
Facebook has the solution for you. Join any one of dozens of Israel/Palestine related facebook groups.

Don't like Israel? Join a group with a picture of the Israeli flag burning on it.
Don't like Palestine? Join a group with a picture of Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river.

Not only are you benefitting the people of Israel and Palestine, but you're providing a windfall to flag makers and map-makers.

Even better, join the groups the people who you don't support, and call them names on the message boards.

This group is dedicated to all those hardworking individuals who do so much to solve all of the middle east's problems by arguing on facebook. The grassroots efforts by these individuals is underappreciated, and we're here to appreciate them."


Recent news: "These people are heroes.

Some different type of Heros:

The De-List Them off of Facebook-ers
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2221448894
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2217925702

The 'who needs this discussion if I don't even recognize the other sides' existence' crowd
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2218356735

The Advocates of People Transfer (my personal favorite)
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2205383681
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210532120

Anti-ers
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2210314589


Then, of course, theres the very select "Anti Anti"s, for those of you who are into meta-advocacy and double negatives
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2225623174&ref=nf

And then, theres the special "I care so much about this issue that I don't bother spelling the damn country's name correctly!" (At least 50 'Isreal' groups)

Anti-Isreal http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2215517831
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2214690066
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2219965163
Pro-Isreal
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2209861675

The greatest of all, a group that mispells both Palistine, Palastinian, and Isreal (made by someone from Halifax, no less)
http://mcgill.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204710773


So many heroes, so little space to recognize the great contributions their online flame-wars have brought about for those Israelis and Palestinians.

If you truly love whichever side you claim to love, you will step up to the challenge, make it your personal struggle, to piss people off and look like a dumb twat."


A message from the creator:

Message: heroism in our midst

"Dear Fellow Heroes,

Many of you may have joined this ingathering of the heroes at its genesis. If so, you might have missed the ongoing heroism on this very group's wall, where every day, average facebookers are doing their part in solving the Israel/Palestine problem. Its truly a marvel of bravery and strength, and we should be honored to host such heroics on our wall.

Please take a moment to appreciate their resolve. Their courage will not pass unnoticed. Though I do recommend they examine the concept of 'irony'."

Some people are very free to come to Chatterbox during Reading Week and on Sunday and play the guitar the whole day. And I don't think I've ever seen them before.

"To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable." - Oscar Wilde

***

Currently in <3 love with: Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 73 ('Emperor')

I'm a lot more enthusiastic about this piece than the first time I heard it. Like a good stew, it improves on reheating; I was probably slightly put off at first by the overly long first movement.

After seeing a disastrous performance of it on Immortal Beloved (which turns out to have been fiction, like much else of the show), I've gone back to it. Appreciation has been helped by listening to its episode on the BBC's Discovering Music program, since this is one of the few areas of my life where theory lags behind practice:

"The real first chord of this piece, oddly, misses out the B-flat... It's not called the dominant for nothing. It's one of the most important notes in classical harmony. By leaving it out here, the composer is making a statement...

A standard composer, I nearly said hack, but I don't mean to descend to that level, a standard composer would've scored that chord with all the notes of the E-flat triad, dominant and all. This ineffably great one doesn't. Why? When you hear that chord, the ear says 'Okay, that's E-flat major. I know where I am.' But if your ear thinks that, there's been an aural illusion. It actually has no right to think that at all... Beethoven has defined a dramatic space: a point of tension where things might start to happen...

It suits his expressive purposes. This is not a concerto about conflict. This music tends to muse rather than argue. It may be in E-flat but it's no heroic struggle like the Eroica symphony. It sounds grand, but it has a relaxed, expansive grandeur. If this is an Emperor... it's an Emperor having a day off at home, relaxing in his luxurious surroundings...

It may sound as if I've spent far too long talking about just the first section of Beethoven's first movement, but that's what he does. When we finally reach the dominant, it feels like a huge achievement...

The second movement is one of his most miraculously beautiful inventions, and like so many, it sounds naively simple. A hymn-like Adagio is announced on the strings, muted, with the unearthly paced measured out in steady beats. It does sound as if it comes from a distant planet... When the piano comes in, it ruminates for bars at a time over just one or two chords... Here that expansiveness is stretched even further into a wonderfully poised space, a moment where time almost seems to stop...

It's preparing us for a moment of real genius... It's a moment of high drama. A semi-tonal drop by the horns from B to B-flat and we're on the dominant of E-flat major, the key of the concerto. B-flat was the note that was so singularly missing from the first chord of the first movement, and B-flat was the key so constantly avoided all through that movement. And maybe that's why its effect here is so strong. It's not the missing note now but the only one. At the cardinal point between the second and third movements. The whole concerto has been moving towards this one crutch point."


Addendum:

Frankly, the missing note in the chord doesn't do anything for me, and MFM, whose ear and theory far surpass mine, couldn't detect it either. I wonder if this is like literature.

MFM: otoh beethoven clearly left it out intentionally

he was deaf at that time
maybe he didn't realise it couldn't be heard

seriously, some musicologists have suggested that his last works were so dissonant because he was deaf. could be the same thing with the emperor.

in any case, it's not like literature, because for lit it's harder to tell if something is intentional
it doesn't have the strictures of music theory

that crutch point between teh 2nd and 3rd movements is as strong as the bbc makes it out to be, but I think it's only because it's the dominant, really. there are tonnes of complete tonic chords in the first movement that should have wiped out any 'memory' of the incomplete chord

for one, it definitely ends with a complete chord.

"Migration is, of course, the key factor in urban growth in most developing and former communist nations... Commentators in each country offer various explanations: a war, an agrarian reform program, the lack of agrarian reform, a foreign embargo on international trade, the opening of international trade, terrorism and guerrillas, moral decay, failed capitalism, failed socialism, even bad taste (It is so much prettier in the countryside, why don't they just stay there?)."

"In 1992, Reuters News Service reported that Libyan leader Mu'ammar Gadhafi had incinerated Libya's land titles. "All records and documents in the old land register, which showed that a land belonged to this or that tribe, have been burned," Colonel Gadhafi reportedly informed a meeting of his justice ministry. "They were burned because they were based on exploitation, forgery and looting.""

- Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

"A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time." - Alfred E. Wiggam

***

STOCHASTIC OPTIMAL CONTROL AND INVESTMENT

"As soon as we have finished with the discrete-time theory, a crash-course in continuoustime diffusions (including stochastic integration and the notorious formula of Kiyoshi Ito) is in order to make the transition to continuous time smoother (and, in fact, possible)...

Special emphasis will be given to problems taken from the field of Mathematical Finance, but other fun problems will be considered as well...

Discrete-time models are nice because of the absence of technicalities that sometimes obscure the bigger picture. Continuous-time models are more elegant (also meaning: more delicate and technical to analyze) and sometimes allow for closed-form solutions, or in the absence of the latter for good approximating numerical methods. After the price has been paid of having to go through a rocky mathematical road we shall find that there are rewards in the end of the trip...

We model the preferences of an agent (who is you) via a utility function u — for the economist’s sake we usually assume that u is a concave and increasing function; for the mathematician’s sake we also assume it is smooth...

One can find an inter-relationship between the value functions v(t,x) and finally come up with a non-linear PDE called the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation. Since its particularly scary first sight has sent many-a-nice people to the asylum, we refrain from presenting it at this point and leave the suspense for later...

Optimal consumption. There is a natural tendency of individuals to eat and spend money (rather foolishly, sometimes), instead of waiting for time T to consume the fruit of their investment (which would be even more foolish, admittedly)."


That was amusing, but I still don't know what "q(t) measures the discounted present value from t onwards of the profits from the marginal unit of investment at t" means... Stupid optimal control. Maybe I can form a model of optimal studying using it.

Hmm, I wonder if I should create 2 tags for economics - 'economics' and 'applied maths'.

Me: free cone day

Someone: haah omg for a second i read that as "free come day"
ok nvm...i need sleep srsly


Someone else: yeah women are stupid fuck shits

Me: how about you
hehe

Someone else: i sometimes am
look at how hung up i am over a bastard

Me: yeah

ah well
it's the misery of the human condition
it's precisely because he's a bastard that you're hung up over him

Someone else: aiyah why la why


Someone: eh i ask you ah, how come (YR member A), (YR member B) and (YR member C) all so smart one?

Me: haha
never say me ah

I not smart ah :P

Someone: you don't seem especially smart. not as smart as them anyway

Me: ><

familiarity breeds contempt
haha


Me: study before 26 lor

Someone else: i can't
my freind i got exams on 23 21 25
none of which i had finished studying

i will start after the 25 paper at 3p.m.

Me: eh at that point hug buddha's foot not enough
must suck his cock

Someone else: erm....
i am not a girl

and things have gotten so dire
i suck 10 cocks
also no use


Someone: if ur faith was like drugs then it sure isnt the same faith as mine dude.

Me: some drug addicts manage to break free :P

maybe I was on opium
and you're on crack


MFTTW: er... girls will feel insecure if their boobs are smaller than yours? that's possibly the funniest thing i've heard all day :P


HWMNBN: messenger for mac is really horrible

Me: macs are horrible

HWMNBN: i'm performing my duties as a man and configuring ***'s new powerbook which she bought because it fits the colour scheme of her houe
(she bought a wii and a xbox 360 as well for the same reason. and an airport extreme)

Me: ... women
how is it?

HWMNBN: horrible
but to be fair someo f it is because i'm not accustomed to the interface and one clicking
but generally horrible and much less user friendly
but it's prettier i'll admit

Me: so why do people love mac?

HWMNBN: why do people believe in God?
ie. stupidity

Me: how is it less user friendly?

HWMNBN: it's not obvious how to alt-tab betweenw indows
there's no context except holding click on the docked icons

just to name a few

Me: is how to alt tab obvious in windows?

no context because there's no right mouse button
hurr hurr

HWMNBN: even if it isn't there's the TASKBAR

she didn't want toget a ps3 because it was black
.....

i have to admit that the whiteness of the macbook and the wii and the xbox 360 does complement her general living room decor very well so i can't aesthetically complain.

***

Someone: i didn't read extremely closely but yes i agree with the author somewhat, but this crutch mentality is not restricted to females
i.e. females not having a personality/interest and relying on men to fix their computers

i dont necessarily think the fixing computers thing is the issue... i believe that sometimes stuff is best left to specialists

but the lack of a personality, inability to exist as a person is an issue for most singaporean women and some singaporean men

Me: how come so many singaporean guys are specialists?
my female friends need me to install software for them

Someone: singaporean women are such gu niangs lah
but it's cos singaporean men don't give them shit for being gu niangs
they marry them for one

Me: most guys like simple girls
the market responds

Someone: simple does not equal crutch mentality with no personality
simple girl = not materialistic

Me: yeah
but it's an associated phenomenon

I still don't get what 'crutch mentality' means

nono
simple girls tend to be materialistic
they're simple in other ways


What's a "simple girl" you ask? The sort which goes for a "sincere guy" (hah!). Do some surfing around.

My impression of "simple" girls:

- Simple-minded
- Not too smart
- Not interested in intellectual topics
- Demure
- Want the guy to take the lead
- Chinese speaking
- From heartland families, usually
- Traditional
- Expect marriage and children, and don't mind being housewives

ie The sort most guys would like.

Eeeeeeeee.

Someone: yes eeewwww
that's what i term the crutch mentality

Me: sad lah
the misery of the human condition

that's what I term simple girls :)

Someone: if their husbands died tmr, they would just die
basically if they didn't have anyone in their lives for them to depend on, they would just die
mother, father, group of "simple" girlfriends

Me: ok
so "uselessness"

why are singaporean girls so useless?

Someone: how the hell i know
i'm not useless

you know, i never used to be useless but i find myself developing some of these traits cos of peer pressure
it's a struggle to reverse the process that singaporean society has on your mind

Me: like?

oh someone commented jap, HK and korean girls are like this also hehe

Someone: yesterday, my bf called to say he would be back at 2am instead of 10pm
i was slightly disappointed so i told him so in no uncertain terms

and then i hung up, and then i had a "wtf" moment. what was the issue i was trying to pick with him anyway?

Me: actually this is not an exclusively singaporean issue
http://www.owensworld.com/jokes/read-195.htm

Someone: why why why are women the way they are
my guess is that we give in to our emotions too much, and we expect love to be reciprocated

Me: so it's not just that Singaporean women are screwed up. it's all women =D

Someone: i dont see it so much in my expat friends
but that's prob just cos they're hedonistic sluts

you're a compulsive quoter
is it cos you have nothing original of your own to say?

Me: eh
I got say a lot of original things what
I got so many theories :P

and I quote what I say to others haha

Someone: whatever lah

Me: it's better to characterise me as having an object oriented approach to conversational bits

shit. this must be [HWMNBN]'s influence

Someone: it is

Ministry of National Development e-Poll:

"Which 3 positive aspects of Singapore do you think about and miss most of all when traveling overseas (eg. the food, the weather, television programs, etc)?"


Me: Who will miss the weather and television programs?!
Friend: Those are the 2 worse things about Singapore.

"Economics, over the years, has become more and more abstract and divorced from events in the real world. Economists, by and large, do not study the workings of the actual economic system. They theorize about it. As Ely Devons, an English economist once said at a meeting, “If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’ And they would soon discover that they would maximize their utilities." - Ronald Coase, The Task of the Society

“La economía es de gente, no de curvas”