Straight Dope Staff Report: Does NLP work? Is it the basis of Derren Brown's "mind-reading" act? - "Most NLP advocates (perhaps unsurprisingly) take the view that scientific research is simply irrelevant here. Again, they say only that NLP works, and interested parties are invited to try it themselves and make up their own mind. This stance is not necessarily inappropriate, as it is perfectly possible for something to be practical and useful without any peer-reviewed writing in its support. On the other hand, it is well known that self-assessment and subjective evaluation are often unreliable. In addition, NLP theory undeniably makes some assertions that ought to be empirically verifiable. For example, the NLP concept of "visual accessing cues" is based on the notion, stated as fact, that eye movement is a reliably better-than-chance indicator of whether someone is accessing a memory – i.e., telling the truth – or fabricating a lie. One very well qualified researcher, Mike Heap, was among the first to test this claim, and published a paper showing that it is not supported by the evidence. (Heap has also investigated other NLP claims, with similar results, and his papers make for interesting reading.) Many others have looked into "visual accessing" (see, e.g., here), and to date there is no empirical support for this concept."
The Straight Dope: Will Transcendental Meditation enable you to levitate? - "TMers see levitation not merely as a novel method of transportation but as a mighty blow in the struggle for cosmic consciousness and world peace. According to David Orme-Johnson, a researcher at Maharishi International University, "Thirty-one sociological studies conducted throughout the world document that the quality of life in society significantly improves when as little as the square root of one percent of a population practices TM-Sidhi Yogic Flying together in one place." Orme-Johnson was one of the authors of a recent scientific paper purporting to show levitation and related techniques had reduced the violence in Lebanon. Wait a sec, you say. Reducing the violence in Lebanon?"
Techography - U.S. military places sharks in Iraqi canals to kill kids - "A two-meter shark has been caught in a river in southern Iraq more than 160 miles from the sea... Locals blamed the U.S. military for the shark's presence. Tahseen Ali, a teacher, said there was a "75 percent chance" Americans had put the shark in the water. "This is very frightening for us. Our children always swim in the river and I believe that there are more sharks. I believe that America is behind this matter," said fisherman Hatim Karim."
Racist!!!
Bring A&W back to Singapore Petition - "Should we bring A&W back to Singapore for the many locals who miss it since its closure in 2003?"
Plane takes off on its own - "The pilot, Paul Sirks, got out to hand-crank the propeller, and watched the empty plane fly away. "The plane took off without him in it, and went across the field, over the runway, up over the hangar, and it just took off," said eyewitness Carol Hall. Police officers tracked the plane by helicopter as it rose to over 11,000 ft and flew in lazy circles... About an hour later, fuel exhausted, the aircraft came to earth in a bean field almost 100 miles (160 km) away."
Fantasies in black and white - "If even most African-Americans believe the black poor are primarily responsible for their own plight, does that make it true?"
Reading articles that undermine themselves is amusing. This one misrepresents the NPR article (which is much better, incidentally) as claiming that racism is dead, when it actually says racism is now not the most important factor keeping blacks behind. It cites a study showing that blacks with criminal records are less likely to be hired than ex-con whites, which I skimmed through: it was good, but it doesn't take into account the fact that recidivism rates among blacks are significantly higher than among whites - too bad we can't get a good instrumental variable for race. It sneakily moves from the proposition that race is not dead to the proposition that race is not only a major problem but a growing one (even when it implicitly denies this by admitting no longer have "No coloreds need apply" signs - blacks are no longer totally excluded from segments of the labour market). It also conflates the effects of race and poverty, and ends off spectacularly by contradicting itself by revealing that the lack of intergenerational transfers are what keep blacks down. So, one wonders who is the one truly fantasising.
See also: Lexington | The greasy ladder
Pew poll: Black Americans and beliefs about race - "37 percent of blacks agreed with the statement that blacks today are so diverse they can no longer be considered a single race. Among the youngest respondents, aged 18 to 29, a staggering 44 percent agreed... The real point of the values answer is not that middle-class blacks are turning against "blackness," whatever that is: It's that they are insisting that they have the right to create their own signifiers of blackness. And it's that middle-class blacks -- who suffer from white discrimination that is in part a response to black underclass behavior, and who are far more likely to be the victims of black criminals than whites are -- are no longer willing to simply give every knucklehead in the 'hood a free pass because of "structural racism."... It's also good because anything that short-circuits traditional racial clichés is helpful. Moving beyond the old formal, guilt-innocence standoff will improve relations between middle-class whites and blacks... the way to overcome it is to start talking beyond race and start seeing beyond race. To be your brother's keeper, you must first know that you are his brother. And that connection isn't made through skin color. It's made through a shared humanity."
Greek Masterpieces from the Louvre - "If we’ve seen them at the Louvre, why should we see them here? Due to architectural constraints at the Louvre, the items are displayed according to material – the stone sculptures were shown on the ground floor, while vases, bronzes and terracotta figurines were displayed in the upper galleries because the floorboards can only bear the weight of small objects. In Singapore, the exhibition will be a thematic presentation of ancient Greek life, ‘of how their people lived, the structure of their society, their educational, political and belief system as well as their cultural foundations,’ says Tan."
Yeah, nice try.
Florida Gators team physician invented drink known worldwide - "Developed so that water and sodium could be more readily absorbed in the intestinal tract, the drink also included sugar, a key source of energy, and phosphate to help burn the sugar. The first batch of what would become Gatorade tasted so vile, it made researchers sick. "So I learned the old lesson: If at first you don't succeed . . . ask someone smarter," Cade said in a 1994 speech at an innovation workshop. "So that was my wife," who told him to add lemon juice and artificial sweetener "because that usually covers up any bad taste.""
Singapore What's On: Singapore Forthcoming Events - AngloINFO Singapore - Ongoing and upcoming events list in Singapore. No reason to keep this an expats-only resource, though they definitely are a more receptive market than the local crowd.
Can You Trust Wikipedia? - "Stern, a major German weekly, has reviewed 50 articles from various subject categories in the German Wikipedia and compared them to articles in a well-known traditional German language encyclopedia. Their conclusion, based on expert feedback: Wikipedia is actually significantly more accurate, comprehensive, complete and correct than the 15-volume paper encyclopedia it was compared to."
L'origine de Bert
Saturday, December 08, 2007
"If God lived on earth, people would break his windows." - Jewish Proverb
***
Diary of a Bad Year | Extracts (JM Coetzee)
"On Machiavelli
On talkback radio ordinary members of the public have been calling in to say that, while they concede that torture is in general a bad thing, it may nonetheless sometimes be necessary. Some even advance the proposition that we may have to do evil for the sake of a greater good. In general they are scornful of absolutist opponents of torture: such people, they say, do not have their feet on the ground, do not live in the real world.
Machiavelli says that if as a ruler you accept that your every action must pass moral scrutiny, you will without fail be defeated by an opponent who submits to no such moral test. To hold on to power, you have not only to master the crafts of deception and treachery but to be prepared to use them where necessary.
Necessity, necessità, is Machiavelli's guiding principle. The old, pre-Machiavellian position was that the moral law was supreme. If it so happened that the moral law was sometimes broken, that was unfortunate, but rulers were merely human, after all. The new, Machiavellian position is that infringing the moral law is justified when it is necessary.
Thus is inaugurated the dualism of modern political culture, which simultaneously upholds absolute and relative standards of value. The modern state appeals to morality, to religion, and to natural law as the ideological foundation of its existence. At the same time it is prepared to infringe any or all of these in the interest of self-preservation.
Machiavelli does not deny that the claims morality makes on us are absolute. At the same time he asserts that in the interest of the state the ruler "is often obliged [necessitato] to act without loyalty, without mercy, without humanity, and without religion." The kind of person who calls talkback radio and justifies the use of torture in the interrogation of prisoners holds the double standard in his mind in exactly the same way: without in the least denying the absolute claims of the Christian ethic (love thy neighbour as thyself), such a person approves freeing the hands of the authorities - the army, the secret police - to do whatever may be necessary to protect the public from enemies of the state.
The typical reaction of liberal intellectuals is to seize on the contradiction here: how can something be both wrong and right, or at least both wrong and OK, at the same time? What liberal intellectuals fail to see is that this so-called contradiction expresses the quintessence of the Machiavellian and therefore the modern, a quintessence that has been thoroughly absorbed by the man in the street. The world is ruled by necessity, says the man in the street, not by some abstract moral code. We have to do what we have to do.
If you wish to counter the man in the street, it cannot be by appeal to moral principles, much less by demanding that people should run their lives in such a way that there are no contradictions between what they say and what they do. Ordinary life is full of contradictions; ordinary people are used to accommodating them.
Rather, you must attack the metaphysical, supra-empirical status of necessità and show that to be fraudulent."
***
Diary of a Bad Year | Extracts (JM Coetzee)
"On Machiavelli
On talkback radio ordinary members of the public have been calling in to say that, while they concede that torture is in general a bad thing, it may nonetheless sometimes be necessary. Some even advance the proposition that we may have to do evil for the sake of a greater good. In general they are scornful of absolutist opponents of torture: such people, they say, do not have their feet on the ground, do not live in the real world.
Machiavelli says that if as a ruler you accept that your every action must pass moral scrutiny, you will without fail be defeated by an opponent who submits to no such moral test. To hold on to power, you have not only to master the crafts of deception and treachery but to be prepared to use them where necessary.
Necessity, necessità, is Machiavelli's guiding principle. The old, pre-Machiavellian position was that the moral law was supreme. If it so happened that the moral law was sometimes broken, that was unfortunate, but rulers were merely human, after all. The new, Machiavellian position is that infringing the moral law is justified when it is necessary.
Thus is inaugurated the dualism of modern political culture, which simultaneously upholds absolute and relative standards of value. The modern state appeals to morality, to religion, and to natural law as the ideological foundation of its existence. At the same time it is prepared to infringe any or all of these in the interest of self-preservation.
Machiavelli does not deny that the claims morality makes on us are absolute. At the same time he asserts that in the interest of the state the ruler "is often obliged [necessitato] to act without loyalty, without mercy, without humanity, and without religion." The kind of person who calls talkback radio and justifies the use of torture in the interrogation of prisoners holds the double standard in his mind in exactly the same way: without in the least denying the absolute claims of the Christian ethic (love thy neighbour as thyself), such a person approves freeing the hands of the authorities - the army, the secret police - to do whatever may be necessary to protect the public from enemies of the state.
The typical reaction of liberal intellectuals is to seize on the contradiction here: how can something be both wrong and right, or at least both wrong and OK, at the same time? What liberal intellectuals fail to see is that this so-called contradiction expresses the quintessence of the Machiavellian and therefore the modern, a quintessence that has been thoroughly absorbed by the man in the street. The world is ruled by necessity, says the man in the street, not by some abstract moral code. We have to do what we have to do.
If you wish to counter the man in the street, it cannot be by appeal to moral principles, much less by demanding that people should run their lives in such a way that there are no contradictions between what they say and what they do. Ordinary life is full of contradictions; ordinary people are used to accommodating them.
Rather, you must attack the metaphysical, supra-empirical status of necessità and show that to be fraudulent."
Post ID: 7234222830001774162
u r wt u wr:
- 'Where's the hidden message?'
- 'Wanted: Boyfriend. *something* *sk application' (It might've read: ""WANTED boyfriend, submit application form with bank statement")
- 'If ju kən rid δis ju mΛst bi ə liŋgwıst'
- 'Nothing but trouble' (I know this person)
- 'Hard Rock Cafe. [Back: Let's take it backstage]'
- 'I love u honey' (I might've mistaken 'money' for 'honey']
- 'Love me, ♥ my dog' (But girls prefer cats, so it should've read 'Love me, ♥ my pussy'. Or maybe 'Love my pussy, ♥ me'...)
- 'Enjoy the ride'
- 'Best you'll ever have'
- 'I like bad boys'
- 'Good girls are just better at lying'
- 'Cool down. I am not that hot'
- 'Pretty punk'
- 'Put the fun between your legs' (This is a night cycling shirt)
- 'I am an FBI agent *silhouette of man on surfboard*' (Worn by a guy. I don't get it)
- 'Where's the hidden message?'
- 'Wanted: Boyfriend. *something* *sk application' (It might've read: ""WANTED boyfriend, submit application form with bank statement")
- 'If ju kən rid δis ju mΛst bi ə liŋgwıst'
- 'Nothing but trouble' (I know this person)
- 'Hard Rock Cafe. [Back: Let's take it backstage]'
- 'I love u honey' (I might've mistaken 'money' for 'honey']
- 'Love me, ♥ my dog' (But girls prefer cats, so it should've read 'Love me, ♥ my pussy'. Or maybe 'Love my pussy, ♥ me'...)
- 'Enjoy the ride'
- 'Best you'll ever have'
- 'I like bad boys'
- 'Good girls are just better at lying'
- 'Cool down. I am not that hot'
- 'Pretty punk'
- 'Put the fun between your legs' (This is a night cycling shirt)
- 'I am an FBI agent *silhouette of man on surfboard*' (Worn by a guy. I don't get it)
Post ID: 331758424792591948
"In the 1950s, to spare the blushes of the Board, it was decided that the acquisition of the earliest surviving British condom should appear before the Board as 'a piece of eighteenth-century armour'"
"At a symposium in Oxford in 1988 a paper was given on a coin-hoard of enormous importance smuggled out of Turkey into (ultimately) the United States; every scholar who attended has been banned by the Turkish authorities from ever again working professionally in that country, whether they had handled the coins or not... four of the Museum's staff were at the conference and have been so banned, although their only crime was to attend the lecture and discussion by some of the world's greatest experts on the hoard. This extraordinary decision strikes deeply at the base of academic freedom of expression, and we must wonder whether in these circumstances such a hoard can ever again be mentioned in academic publication."
"On my first day in the Museum as a very junior curator I was presented with three tasks; the one in my own speciality was the most difficult (to answer a query as to whether the Vikings ate onions)"
"The standard text-book, How to lie with Statistics, is by every civil servant's and every museum director's bedside"
"A demand came from a Minister of State of a particular ex-colonial country, who asked for the return of all the objects in the possession of the British Museum which came from that country... We were rather nonplussed by the request as much of the material was similar to that available in great quantity and superior quality among the collections of the museums and public buildings of his own country... We were even more puzzled as about a month later we received through official channels a significant gift of archaeological material from that country from an excavation which we had partly financed."
"To start to dismantle it by bowing to unthinking, if understandable, nationalistic demands would be to start a process of cultural vandalism which would make the politicisation of art in the 1930s in Germany look like a petulant child's destruction of its dinner... the other great museums of the world would be under pressure to follow suit and the spirit of man would be the poorer. In a period when all our aspirations are based on the hops of international agreement, we cannot let narrow nationalism destroy a trust for the whole world... What is pillage in the twentieth century was seen as a highly civilised and legal process in the eighteenth century... What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: the questionable legality of the sale of Charles I's great painting collection does not mean that we should sue half the world's great art museums for its return."
--- The British Museum. Purpose and politics. David M Wilson.
"At a symposium in Oxford in 1988 a paper was given on a coin-hoard of enormous importance smuggled out of Turkey into (ultimately) the United States; every scholar who attended has been banned by the Turkish authorities from ever again working professionally in that country, whether they had handled the coins or not... four of the Museum's staff were at the conference and have been so banned, although their only crime was to attend the lecture and discussion by some of the world's greatest experts on the hoard. This extraordinary decision strikes deeply at the base of academic freedom of expression, and we must wonder whether in these circumstances such a hoard can ever again be mentioned in academic publication."
"On my first day in the Museum as a very junior curator I was presented with three tasks; the one in my own speciality was the most difficult (to answer a query as to whether the Vikings ate onions)"
"The standard text-book, How to lie with Statistics, is by every civil servant's and every museum director's bedside"
"A demand came from a Minister of State of a particular ex-colonial country, who asked for the return of all the objects in the possession of the British Museum which came from that country... We were rather nonplussed by the request as much of the material was similar to that available in great quantity and superior quality among the collections of the museums and public buildings of his own country... We were even more puzzled as about a month later we received through official channels a significant gift of archaeological material from that country from an excavation which we had partly financed."
"To start to dismantle it by bowing to unthinking, if understandable, nationalistic demands would be to start a process of cultural vandalism which would make the politicisation of art in the 1930s in Germany look like a petulant child's destruction of its dinner... the other great museums of the world would be under pressure to follow suit and the spirit of man would be the poorer. In a period when all our aspirations are based on the hops of international agreement, we cannot let narrow nationalism destroy a trust for the whole world... What is pillage in the twentieth century was seen as a highly civilised and legal process in the eighteenth century... What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: the questionable legality of the sale of Charles I's great painting collection does not mean that we should sue half the world's great art museums for its return."
--- The British Museum. Purpose and politics. David M Wilson.
Post ID: 3787770745646042291
"It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important." - Martin Luther King Jr.
***
I was at St Andrew's Cathedral a few weeks back, and one person was giving a testimony. He said that his family was Taoist, and when he was young he used to argue with his Christian friends (presumably uttering words and performing actions that caused both religions to be insulted in the process). Then someone told him that as a rational man, it behooved him to give Christianity a chance and to find out more.
He then continued, talking about how he was pointed out of a crowd at a chalet which he was attending with Christian friends (thus no doubt being susceptible to peer pressure), and said that from that moment his faith was ignited. His dating a Christian girl no doubt had something to do with it, and there was the usual story of someone putting their hand on his eyes and his bursting out in tongues.
He then started talking about the stock market of 1985, and how he was saying to himself: 'Jesus, he will help me in my stock market experience' and asked him to cause the stock market to go up. The next day, God caused the market collapsed due to his omnipotence and omniscience. The market was closed for 3 days.
He liquidated his share position and realised he had lost $350,000. His family and friends were unable to help, so his only hope was to turn to the God who had bankrupted him. He quoted Jeremiah 29:11, and sought help from Christians. They didn't give him any financial help, but told him to let go, experience the 'peace of God' and let God take over. He and his girlfriend asked for mercy.
Then, his sister who was overseas suddenly gave $7,000 of her hard-earned savings to him. She was not a believer, and when he asked her why she did it, instead of citing sibling bonds she said she didn't know why, but just felt that she had to do it, and this was taken by the giver of the testimony as proof of God's goodness; evidently God had violated his sister's free will.
He was then retrenched and given a $17,000 package, with which he staved off bankruptcy.
Unfortunately, at this point I checked my phone and realised I had 3 missed calls from PaRaDoX, so I called him back and went for dinner with him. It had been a miracle that I hadn't heard my phone ringing - it seemed some higher power wanted me to stay on to listen to and critically examine the testimony, but alas, prior fraternal commitments had me bound. In summation, though he talked about rationality, his testimony was not about rationality at all, but rather faith and how God had manipulated his sister's free will into saving him from the bankruptcy that he himself had brought on.
***
I was at St Andrew's Cathedral a few weeks back, and one person was giving a testimony. He said that his family was Taoist, and when he was young he used to argue with his Christian friends (presumably uttering words and performing actions that caused both religions to be insulted in the process). Then someone told him that as a rational man, it behooved him to give Christianity a chance and to find out more.
He then continued, talking about how he was pointed out of a crowd at a chalet which he was attending with Christian friends (thus no doubt being susceptible to peer pressure), and said that from that moment his faith was ignited. His dating a Christian girl no doubt had something to do with it, and there was the usual story of someone putting their hand on his eyes and his bursting out in tongues.
He then started talking about the stock market of 1985, and how he was saying to himself: 'Jesus, he will help me in my stock market experience' and asked him to cause the stock market to go up. The next day, God caused the market collapsed due to his omnipotence and omniscience. The market was closed for 3 days.
He liquidated his share position and realised he had lost $350,000. His family and friends were unable to help, so his only hope was to turn to the God who had bankrupted him. He quoted Jeremiah 29:11, and sought help from Christians. They didn't give him any financial help, but told him to let go, experience the 'peace of God' and let God take over. He and his girlfriend asked for mercy.
Then, his sister who was overseas suddenly gave $7,000 of her hard-earned savings to him. She was not a believer, and when he asked her why she did it, instead of citing sibling bonds she said she didn't know why, but just felt that she had to do it, and this was taken by the giver of the testimony as proof of God's goodness; evidently God had violated his sister's free will.
He was then retrenched and given a $17,000 package, with which he staved off bankruptcy.
Unfortunately, at this point I checked my phone and realised I had 3 missed calls from PaRaDoX, so I called him back and went for dinner with him. It had been a miracle that I hadn't heard my phone ringing - it seemed some higher power wanted me to stay on to listen to and critically examine the testimony, but alas, prior fraternal commitments had me bound. In summation, though he talked about rationality, his testimony was not about rationality at all, but rather faith and how God had manipulated his sister's free will into saving him from the bankruptcy that he himself had brought on.
Post ID: 4608272679485362831
Friday, December 07, 2007
"Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation." - James Thurber
***
Star Signs and the Personalities They Reveal
ARIES - The Aggressive
Outgoing. Lovable. Spontaneous. Not one to mess with. Funny. Excellent kisser EXTREMELY adorable. Loves relationships, and family is very important to an aries. Aries are known for being generous and giving. Addictive. Loud. Always has the need to be 'Right'. Aries will argue to prove their point for hours and hours. Aries are some of the most wonderful people in the world. 16 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
TAURUS - The Tramp
Aggressive. Loves being in long relationships. Likes to give a good fight. Fight for what they want. Can be annoying at times, but for the love of attention. Extremely outgoing. Loves to help people in times of need. Good kisser. Good personality. Stubborn. A caring person. They can be self centered and if they want something they will do anything to get it. They love to sleep and can be lazy. One of a kind. Not one to mess with. Are the most attractive people on earth! 15 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
GEMINI - The Twin
Nice. Love is one of a kind. Great listeners Very Good at confusing people... Lover not a fighter, but will still knock you out. Gemini's will not take any crap from anyone. Gemini's like to tell people what they should do and get offended easily. They are great at losing things and are forgetful. Gemini's can be very sarcastic and childish at times, and are very nosey. Trustworthy. Always happy. VERY Loud. Talkative. Outgoing VERY FORGIVING. Loves to make out. Has a beautiful smile. Generous. Strong. THE MOST IRRESISTIBLE. 9 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
CANCER - The Beauty
MOST AMAZING KISSER. Very high appeal. A Cancer's Love is one of a kind. Very romantic. Most caring person you will ever meet in your life. Entirely creative Person, most's are artists and insane respectfully speaking. They perfected sex and do it often. Extremely random. An Ultimate Freak. Extremely funny and is usually the life of the party. Most cancers will take you under their wing and into their hearts where you will remain forever. Cancers make love with a passion beyond compare
Spontaneous. Not a Fighter, But will kick your ass good if it comes down to it. Someone you should hold on to! 12 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
LEO - The Lion
Great talker. Attractive and passionate. Laid back. Usually happy, but when unhappy tend to be grouchy and childish. A leo's problem becomes everyone's problem. Most Leos are very predictable and tend to be monotonous. Knows how to have fun. Is really good at almost anything. Great kisser. Very predictable. Outgoing. Down to earth. Addictive. Attractive. Loud. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. Not one to mess with. Rare to find. Good when found. 7 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
VIRGO - The One that Waits
Dominant in relationships. Someone loves them right now. Always wants the last word. Caring. Smart. Loud. Loyal. Easy to talk to. Everything you ever wanted. Easy to please. A pushover. Loves to gamble and take chances. Needs to have the last say in everything. They think they know everything and usually do. Respectful to others but you will quickly lose their respect if you do something untrustworthy towards them and never regain respect. The do not forgive and never forgetThe one and only. 7 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
LIBRA - The Lame One
Nice to everyone they meet. Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet. Have own unique appeal. Most caring person you will ever meet! However, not the kind of person you want to mess with... you might end up crying... Libras can cause as much havoc as they can prevent. faithful friends to the end. Can hold a grudge for years. Libras are someone you want on your side. Usually great at sports and are extreme sports fanatics. Kinda dumb at times. 9 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
SCORPIO - The Addict
EXTREMELY adorable. Loves to joke. Very Good sense of humor. Will try almost anything once. Loves to be pampered. Energetic. Predictable. GREAT kisser. Always get what they want. Attractive. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. Loves to party but at times to the extreme. Loves the smell and feel of money and is good at making it but just as good at spending it! Very protective over loved ones. HARD workers. Can be a good friend but if is disrespected by a friend, the friendship will end. Romantic. Caring. 4 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
SAGITTARIUS - The Promiscuous One
Spontaneous. High appeal. Rare to find. Great when found. Loves being in long relationships. So much love to give. A loner most of the time. Loses patience easily and will not take crap. If in a bad mood stay FAR away. Gets offended easily and remembers the offense forever. Loves deeply but at times will not show it feels it is a sign of weakness. Has many fears but will not show it. VERY private person. Defends loved ones will all their abilities. Can be childish often. Not one to mess with. Very pretty. Very romantic. Nice to everyone they meet. Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet. Have own unique appeal. Most caring person you will ever meet! Amazing in bed..!!! Not the kind of person you want to mess with- you might end up crying. 4 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
CAPRICORN - The Passionate Lover
Love to bust. Nice. Sassy. Intelligent. Sexy. Grouchy at times and annoying to some. Lazy and love to take it easy. But when they find a job or something they like to do they put their all into it. Proud, understanding and sweet. Irresistible. Loves being in long relationships. Great talker. Always gets what he or she wants. Cool. Loves to win against other signs especially Gemini's in sports. Likes to cook but would rather go out to eat at good restaurants. Extremely fun. Loves to joke. Smart. 24 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
AQUARIUS - Does It In The Water
Trustworthy. Attractive. Great kisser. One of a kind, loves being in long-term relationships. Can be clumbsy at times but tries hard. Will take on any project. Proud of themselves in whatever they do. Messy, and unorganized. Procrastinators. Great lovers, when their not sleeping. Extreme thinkers. Loves their pets usually more then their familiy. Can be VERY irritating to others when they try to explain or tell a story. Unpredictable. Will exceed your expectations. Not a Fighter, But will Knock your lights out. 2 years of bad luck if you do not forward
PISCES - The Partner for Life
Caring and kind. Smart. Center of attention. Messy at times and irresponsible! Smart but lazy. High appeal. Has the last word. Good to find, hard to keep. Passionate, wonderful lovers. Fun to be around. Too trusting at times and gets hurt easily. Lover of animals. VERY caring, make wonderful nurses or doctors. They always try to do the right thing sometimes get the short end of the stick. They sometimes et used by others and hurt because of their trusting. Extremely weird but in a good way. Good Sense of Humor!!! Thoughtful. Always gets what he or she wants. Loves to joke. Very popular. Silly, fun and sweet. Good friend to other but need to be choosy on who they allow their friends to be. 5 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
***
GetAmused.com - The Oreo Personality Test
"The Oreo Personality Test
Psychologists have discovered that the manner in which one eats Oreo cookies provides great insight into one's personality. Choose which method best describes your favorite method of eating Oreos:
1. The whole thing all at once
2. One bite at a time
3. Slow and methodical nibbles, examining the results of each bite afterwards
4. In little feverous nibbles
5. Dunked in some liquid (milk, coffee, etc.)
6. Twisted apart, the inside, then the cookie
7. Twisted apart, the inside, and toss the cookie
8. Just the cookie, not the inside
9. I just like to lick them, not eat them.
10. I don't have a favorite way because I don't like Oreo cookies.
Your Personality:
1. The whole thing all at once: You consume life with abandon, you are fun to be with, exciting, carefree with some hint of recklessness. You are totally irresponsible. No one should trust you with their children.
2. One bite at a time: You are lucky to be one of the 5.4 billion other people who eat their Oreos this very same way. Just like them, you lack imagination, but that's okay, not to worry, you're normal.
3. Slow and methodical nibbles: You follow the rules. You're very tidy and orderly. You're very meticulous in every detail with every thing you do to the point of being anal-retentive and irritating to others. Stay out of the fast lane if you're only going to go the speed limit.
4. Feverous nibbles: Your boss likes you because you get your work done quickly. You always have a million things to do and never enough time to do them. Mental breakdowns and suicides run in your family. Valium and Ritalin would do you good.
5. Dunked: Everyone likes you because you are always upbeat. You like to sugarcoat unpleasant experiences and rationalize bad situations into good ones. You are in total denial about the shambles you call a life. You have a propensity towards narcotics addiction.
6. Twisted apart, the inside, and then the cookie: You have a highly curious nature. You take pleasure in breaking things apart to find out how they work, though not always able to put them back together, so you destroy all the evidence of your activities. You deny your involvement when things go wrong. You are a compulsive liar and exhibit deviant, if not criminal, behavior.
7. Twisted apart, the inside, and then toss the cookie: You are good at business and take risks that pay off. You take what you want and throw the rest away. You are greedy, selfish, mean, and lack feelings for others. You should be ashamed of yourself. But that's ok, you don't care, you got yours.
8. Just the cookie, not the inside: You enjoy pain.
9. I just like to lick them, not eat them: Stay away from small furry animals and seek professional medical help--immediately.
10. I don't have a favorite way because I don't like Oreo cookies.: You probably come from a rich family, like to wear nice things, and go to upscale restaurants. You are particular and fussy about the things you buy, own, and wear. Things have to be just right. You like to be pampered. You are a prim."
***
Star Signs and the Personalities They Reveal
ARIES - The Aggressive
Outgoing. Lovable. Spontaneous. Not one to mess with. Funny. Excellent kisser EXTREMELY adorable. Loves relationships, and family is very important to an aries. Aries are known for being generous and giving. Addictive. Loud. Always has the need to be 'Right'. Aries will argue to prove their point for hours and hours. Aries are some of the most wonderful people in the world. 16 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
TAURUS - The Tramp
Aggressive. Loves being in long relationships. Likes to give a good fight. Fight for what they want. Can be annoying at times, but for the love of attention. Extremely outgoing. Loves to help people in times of need. Good kisser. Good personality. Stubborn. A caring person. They can be self centered and if they want something they will do anything to get it. They love to sleep and can be lazy. One of a kind. Not one to mess with. Are the most attractive people on earth! 15 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
GEMINI - The Twin
Nice. Love is one of a kind. Great listeners Very Good at confusing people... Lover not a fighter, but will still knock you out. Gemini's will not take any crap from anyone. Gemini's like to tell people what they should do and get offended easily. They are great at losing things and are forgetful. Gemini's can be very sarcastic and childish at times, and are very nosey. Trustworthy. Always happy. VERY Loud. Talkative. Outgoing VERY FORGIVING. Loves to make out. Has a beautiful smile. Generous. Strong. THE MOST IRRESISTIBLE. 9 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
CANCER - The Beauty
MOST AMAZING KISSER. Very high appeal. A Cancer's Love is one of a kind. Very romantic. Most caring person you will ever meet in your life. Entirely creative Person, most's are artists and insane respectfully speaking. They perfected sex and do it often. Extremely random. An Ultimate Freak. Extremely funny and is usually the life of the party. Most cancers will take you under their wing and into their hearts where you will remain forever. Cancers make love with a passion beyond compare
Spontaneous. Not a Fighter, But will kick your ass good if it comes down to it. Someone you should hold on to! 12 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
LEO - The Lion
Great talker. Attractive and passionate. Laid back. Usually happy, but when unhappy tend to be grouchy and childish. A leo's problem becomes everyone's problem. Most Leos are very predictable and tend to be monotonous. Knows how to have fun. Is really good at almost anything. Great kisser. Very predictable. Outgoing. Down to earth. Addictive. Attractive. Loud. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. Not one to mess with. Rare to find. Good when found. 7 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
VIRGO - The One that Waits
Dominant in relationships. Someone loves them right now. Always wants the last word. Caring. Smart. Loud. Loyal. Easy to talk to. Everything you ever wanted. Easy to please. A pushover. Loves to gamble and take chances. Needs to have the last say in everything. They think they know everything and usually do. Respectful to others but you will quickly lose their respect if you do something untrustworthy towards them and never regain respect. The do not forgive and never forgetThe one and only. 7 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
LIBRA - The Lame One
Nice to everyone they meet. Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet. Have own unique appeal. Most caring person you will ever meet! However, not the kind of person you want to mess with... you might end up crying... Libras can cause as much havoc as they can prevent. faithful friends to the end. Can hold a grudge for years. Libras are someone you want on your side. Usually great at sports and are extreme sports fanatics. Kinda dumb at times. 9 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
SCORPIO - The Addict
EXTREMELY adorable. Loves to joke. Very Good sense of humor. Will try almost anything once. Loves to be pampered. Energetic. Predictable. GREAT kisser. Always get what they want. Attractive. Loves being in long relationships. Talkative. Loves to party but at times to the extreme. Loves the smell and feel of money and is good at making it but just as good at spending it! Very protective over loved ones. HARD workers. Can be a good friend but if is disrespected by a friend, the friendship will end. Romantic. Caring. 4 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
SAGITTARIUS - The Promiscuous One
Spontaneous. High appeal. Rare to find. Great when found. Loves being in long relationships. So much love to give. A loner most of the time. Loses patience easily and will not take crap. If in a bad mood stay FAR away. Gets offended easily and remembers the offense forever. Loves deeply but at times will not show it feels it is a sign of weakness. Has many fears but will not show it. VERY private person. Defends loved ones will all their abilities. Can be childish often. Not one to mess with. Very pretty. Very romantic. Nice to everyone they meet. Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet. Have own unique appeal. Most caring person you will ever meet! Amazing in bed..!!! Not the kind of person you want to mess with- you might end up crying. 4 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
CAPRICORN - The Passionate Lover
Love to bust. Nice. Sassy. Intelligent. Sexy. Grouchy at times and annoying to some. Lazy and love to take it easy. But when they find a job or something they like to do they put their all into it. Proud, understanding and sweet. Irresistible. Loves being in long relationships. Great talker. Always gets what he or she wants. Cool. Loves to win against other signs especially Gemini's in sports. Likes to cook but would rather go out to eat at good restaurants. Extremely fun. Loves to joke. Smart. 24 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
AQUARIUS - Does It In The Water
Trustworthy. Attractive. Great kisser. One of a kind, loves being in long-term relationships. Can be clumbsy at times but tries hard. Will take on any project. Proud of themselves in whatever they do. Messy, and unorganized. Procrastinators. Great lovers, when their not sleeping. Extreme thinkers. Loves their pets usually more then their familiy. Can be VERY irritating to others when they try to explain or tell a story. Unpredictable. Will exceed your expectations. Not a Fighter, But will Knock your lights out. 2 years of bad luck if you do not forward
PISCES - The Partner for Life
Caring and kind. Smart. Center of attention. Messy at times and irresponsible! Smart but lazy. High appeal. Has the last word. Good to find, hard to keep. Passionate, wonderful lovers. Fun to be around. Too trusting at times and gets hurt easily. Lover of animals. VERY caring, make wonderful nurses or doctors. They always try to do the right thing sometimes get the short end of the stick. They sometimes et used by others and hurt because of their trusting. Extremely weird but in a good way. Good Sense of Humor!!! Thoughtful. Always gets what he or she wants. Loves to joke. Very popular. Silly, fun and sweet. Good friend to other but need to be choosy on who they allow their friends to be. 5 years of bad luck if you do not forward.
***
GetAmused.com - The Oreo Personality Test
"The Oreo Personality Test
Psychologists have discovered that the manner in which one eats Oreo cookies provides great insight into one's personality. Choose which method best describes your favorite method of eating Oreos:
1. The whole thing all at once
2. One bite at a time
3. Slow and methodical nibbles, examining the results of each bite afterwards
4. In little feverous nibbles
5. Dunked in some liquid (milk, coffee, etc.)
6. Twisted apart, the inside, then the cookie
7. Twisted apart, the inside, and toss the cookie
8. Just the cookie, not the inside
9. I just like to lick them, not eat them.
10. I don't have a favorite way because I don't like Oreo cookies.
Your Personality:
1. The whole thing all at once: You consume life with abandon, you are fun to be with, exciting, carefree with some hint of recklessness. You are totally irresponsible. No one should trust you with their children.
2. One bite at a time: You are lucky to be one of the 5.4 billion other people who eat their Oreos this very same way. Just like them, you lack imagination, but that's okay, not to worry, you're normal.
3. Slow and methodical nibbles: You follow the rules. You're very tidy and orderly. You're very meticulous in every detail with every thing you do to the point of being anal-retentive and irritating to others. Stay out of the fast lane if you're only going to go the speed limit.
4. Feverous nibbles: Your boss likes you because you get your work done quickly. You always have a million things to do and never enough time to do them. Mental breakdowns and suicides run in your family. Valium and Ritalin would do you good.
5. Dunked: Everyone likes you because you are always upbeat. You like to sugarcoat unpleasant experiences and rationalize bad situations into good ones. You are in total denial about the shambles you call a life. You have a propensity towards narcotics addiction.
6. Twisted apart, the inside, and then the cookie: You have a highly curious nature. You take pleasure in breaking things apart to find out how they work, though not always able to put them back together, so you destroy all the evidence of your activities. You deny your involvement when things go wrong. You are a compulsive liar and exhibit deviant, if not criminal, behavior.
7. Twisted apart, the inside, and then toss the cookie: You are good at business and take risks that pay off. You take what you want and throw the rest away. You are greedy, selfish, mean, and lack feelings for others. You should be ashamed of yourself. But that's ok, you don't care, you got yours.
8. Just the cookie, not the inside: You enjoy pain.
9. I just like to lick them, not eat them: Stay away from small furry animals and seek professional medical help--immediately.
10. I don't have a favorite way because I don't like Oreo cookies.: You probably come from a rich family, like to wear nice things, and go to upscale restaurants. You are particular and fussy about the things you buy, own, and wear. Things have to be just right. You like to be pampered. You are a prim."
Post ID: 3087741425301621533
Thursday, December 06, 2007
"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work." - Peter Drucker
***
Martin Rebas - Humor - Stolen humor - General wittiness
One World War II Quaker conscientious objector had been a professional wrestler. Once when he and some other inmates of the Coshocton CPS camp in Ohio made a trip into town, they were hassled about their pacifism by some local youths, who insisted that only force could change the German's views.
In response, the ex-wrestler took off his coat, challenged one of the local boys to a match, and promptly threw the townie across the room. He then asked the youth, "_Now_ do you believe that force won't change people's views?"
"Heck no!" the local boy hollered back.
"That's exactly my point," said the Quaker, who put on his coat and left.
Actual listing in the TV section of the Marin (CA) Independent-Journal:
Movie "The Wizard of Oz": Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.
Gay Court is, or used to be, a street in the megabucks San Francisco suburb of Alamo. The county board of supervisors, citing homosexual implications, social stigma and ridicule, officially changed the name of the thoroughfare to High Eagle Road. [...]
Local gay activists responded with ingenuity and aplomb, announcing that Bay Area homosexuals would henceforth refer to themselves not as "gays" but as "high eagles."
***
Martin Rebas - Humor - Stolen humor - General wittiness
One World War II Quaker conscientious objector had been a professional wrestler. Once when he and some other inmates of the Coshocton CPS camp in Ohio made a trip into town, they were hassled about their pacifism by some local youths, who insisted that only force could change the German's views.
In response, the ex-wrestler took off his coat, challenged one of the local boys to a match, and promptly threw the townie across the room. He then asked the youth, "_Now_ do you believe that force won't change people's views?"
"Heck no!" the local boy hollered back.
"That's exactly my point," said the Quaker, who put on his coat and left.
Actual listing in the TV section of the Marin (CA) Independent-Journal:
Movie "The Wizard of Oz": Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.
Gay Court is, or used to be, a street in the megabucks San Francisco suburb of Alamo. The county board of supervisors, citing homosexual implications, social stigma and ridicule, officially changed the name of the thoroughfare to High Eagle Road. [...]
Local gay activists responded with ingenuity and aplomb, announcing that Bay Area homosexuals would henceforth refer to themselves not as "gays" but as "high eagles."
Post ID: 8247742079440179933
"Frankfurt-style counterexamples fail to show that the Principle of Alternate Possibilities is not required for moral responsibility… The key to my response is that events, including acts, should be individuated in a fine-grained way. I take what Fischer calls the “essentialist principle of event individuation” to be correct. This principle states that “x is the same particular event as y if and only if x and y have the same causes.”6 Thus, it is not enough to say that the act E, which Jones performs, is Jones’s voting for Al Gore (to alter a Frankfurt-style example of Fisher’s). There might be several different acts that could fall under such a general heading… Although Jones presumably does not know that he is in Frankfurt-style circumstances, and thus does not know that the alternative acts open to his free causal contribution are Jones’s voting for Gore as a result of an unimpeded personal decision to do so, and Jones’s voting for Gore as a result of the impeding intervention of Black after Jones showed an inclination to vote for Bush, there are in fact these two acts, each of which Jones has the ability to bring about in the circumstances in which he is. In performing the first act, Jones thus does have the ability to do otherwise, and PAP thus remains intact."
--- Divine Providence and human libertarian freedom: reasons for incompatibility and theological alternatives, James D. Rissler,
--- Divine Providence and human libertarian freedom: reasons for incompatibility and theological alternatives, James D. Rissler,
Post ID: 3826579316873027107
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Some comics:
Carol: I'd like to take advantage of our new family friendly policy.
Three of my kids have bronchitis, two have dental appointments, one is in a school play, and one has a rugby game.
In all likelihood, you will never see me again.
Pointy-haired boss (sotto voce on phone): We didn't think this through.
Dilbert: My company wants me to design a private moon shuttle in three months. Doom is inevitable.
Dogbert: What you need is a scapegoat to blame for the project never getting finished. I'll send one over.
Dilbert: *Gesturing to goat* I was almost done, and then this idiot comes along.
This one's so Monty Python.
Constitutional Scholar to a blind man on a 'Don't Walk' sign: Well, I think under our rights guaranteed by the 4th Amendment, the State can only make it a suggestion, not a command, so I say go ahead if you want.
"The short-lived experiment of a seeing eye constitutional scholar"
Signs: '"I don't get it." "What's that supposed to be?" "What the..."'
"Earl and Edna's favorite part of the Museum of Modern Art"
Kate: Giggle.
Danae: Woo-hoo!
Joe (reading newspapers): *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMPA* *THUMP*
Joe: Kate... Danae... STOP HORSING AROUND!!
Kate, Danae and Lucy: *boggle*
Lucy: Did I just get profiled?
Kate: I... I think so.
Danae: Fortunately, I have the A.C.L.U on speed dial...
And one non-comic:
"Tracey says
(√2 + √8) is an irrational number
(√2 + √8)^2 = 18
I think that if yousquare an irrational number you always get a rational number
Tracey is wrong.
Use an example to show that Tracey is wrong.
'She's a woman'"
For some reason, this is funnier now than the previous time I saw it.
Carol: I'd like to take advantage of our new family friendly policy.
Three of my kids have bronchitis, two have dental appointments, one is in a school play, and one has a rugby game.
In all likelihood, you will never see me again.
Pointy-haired boss (sotto voce on phone): We didn't think this through.
Dilbert: My company wants me to design a private moon shuttle in three months. Doom is inevitable.
Dogbert: What you need is a scapegoat to blame for the project never getting finished. I'll send one over.
Dilbert: *Gesturing to goat* I was almost done, and then this idiot comes along.
This one's so Monty Python.
Constitutional Scholar to a blind man on a 'Don't Walk' sign: Well, I think under our rights guaranteed by the 4th Amendment, the State can only make it a suggestion, not a command, so I say go ahead if you want.
"The short-lived experiment of a seeing eye constitutional scholar"
Signs: '"I don't get it." "What's that supposed to be?" "What the..."'
"Earl and Edna's favorite part of the Museum of Modern Art"
Kate: Giggle.
Danae: Woo-hoo!
Joe (reading newspapers): *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMPA* *THUMP*
Joe: Kate... Danae... STOP HORSING AROUND!!
Kate, Danae and Lucy: *boggle*
Lucy: Did I just get profiled?
Kate: I... I think so.
Danae: Fortunately, I have the A.C.L.U on speed dial...
And one non-comic:
"Tracey says
(√2 + √8) is an irrational number
(√2 + √8)^2 = 18
I think that if yousquare an irrational number you always get a rational number
Tracey is wrong.
Use an example to show that Tracey is wrong.
'She's a woman'"
For some reason, this is funnier now than the previous time I saw it.
Post ID: 5512850795447241044
"Household tasks are easier and quicker when they are done by somebody else." - James Thorpe
***
In the City Harvest comments box: "singapore has hope because of people like you. not afraid to question things, and speak your mind."
Aww, that's awfully sweet...
I am amused at how "Friesche Vlag" is translated into English in Malaysia and Vietnam not as "Friesian Flag" but "Dutch Lady".
For some reason, when Malay food is cooked in large quantities, Chinese-style vegetables will be served (and often the dish is cauliflower). Someone said it was a swap, since Chinese zi cha stalls have sambal kang kong.
"As you step into Little India, prepare for an assault on the senses" - STB website. Wah, racist! Heads will roll!!!
In one Chinese Clan association, they don't even use dialect during meetings, but English. Hah.
A study by the Singapore Children's Society found that children's happiness was not affected by family income (see also Children say money can't buy happiness). This kills another of the mumbo-jumbo excuses used by modern liberals to claim that single-parent families aren't worse for children's happiness than more traditional forms of the family (despite the existence of studies which control for income, which prove the same thing). Another common mumbo-jumbo tactic is to find isolated examples and to trump them as disproving the point, but somehow that never works when you try that with successful members of subaltern groups.
One of the many contradictions in feminism is that they are committed to securing easy access to abortion. Yet, to saddle men with unwanted children (or child support), they have to stress the danger, stress and trauma of abortion, in which case, restrictions and regulations on it would be called for (think of the indemnity forms you have to sign and the informed consent that has to take place before major operations). Another contradiction is that with regard to fetuses, men have responsibilities (they have to pay child support even if they don't want the child) but no rights (since the fetuses can be aborted at any time over their strenuous objections). You can't have it both ways, except in a sexually stratified society.
MGS girls have to French braid their hair. You learn something new everyday.
Someone said my hair had something wrong with it, and that it looked dead. Wth.
I was in the Forum with 3 others. We had one Thinkpad, one ASUS, one Toshiba and one Mac. The only terminal unable to connect to the NUS network was the Mac. Hurr hurr.
Someone was unable to eject a CD from her Mac laptop - apparently there is no hardware eject button on them. Pity.
***
In the City Harvest comments box: "singapore has hope because of people like you. not afraid to question things, and speak your mind."
Aww, that's awfully sweet...
I am amused at how "Friesche Vlag" is translated into English in Malaysia and Vietnam not as "Friesian Flag" but "Dutch Lady".
For some reason, when Malay food is cooked in large quantities, Chinese-style vegetables will be served (and often the dish is cauliflower). Someone said it was a swap, since Chinese zi cha stalls have sambal kang kong.
"As you step into Little India, prepare for an assault on the senses" - STB website. Wah, racist! Heads will roll!!!
In one Chinese Clan association, they don't even use dialect during meetings, but English. Hah.
A study by the Singapore Children's Society found that children's happiness was not affected by family income (see also Children say money can't buy happiness). This kills another of the mumbo-jumbo excuses used by modern liberals to claim that single-parent families aren't worse for children's happiness than more traditional forms of the family (despite the existence of studies which control for income, which prove the same thing). Another common mumbo-jumbo tactic is to find isolated examples and to trump them as disproving the point, but somehow that never works when you try that with successful members of subaltern groups.
One of the many contradictions in feminism is that they are committed to securing easy access to abortion. Yet, to saddle men with unwanted children (or child support), they have to stress the danger, stress and trauma of abortion, in which case, restrictions and regulations on it would be called for (think of the indemnity forms you have to sign and the informed consent that has to take place before major operations). Another contradiction is that with regard to fetuses, men have responsibilities (they have to pay child support even if they don't want the child) but no rights (since the fetuses can be aborted at any time over their strenuous objections). You can't have it both ways, except in a sexually stratified society.
MGS girls have to French braid their hair. You learn something new everyday.
Someone said my hair had something wrong with it, and that it looked dead. Wth.
I was in the Forum with 3 others. We had one Thinkpad, one ASUS, one Toshiba and one Mac. The only terminal unable to connect to the NUS network was the Mac. Hurr hurr.
Someone was unable to eject a CD from her Mac laptop - apparently there is no hardware eject button on them. Pity.
Post ID: 748749619012237488
"There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and that is to contradict other philosophers." - William James
***
Stolen GPS leads police to hideout - "When thieves broke into the company's office earlier this month they stole more than $13,000 worth of equipment including a demonstration pack, a laptop computer and a half-dozen in-car navigators... But five days later, a thief plugged the software in which alerted Fleetlink to the precise location of its stolen equipment. "We were fairly confident he was going to be silly enough to plug it in because it looks like something to plug in," said business development manager Murray Griffith."
Prison offers inmates pole-vaulting lessons - "Inmates at the young offenders’ institution are learning how to vault 13ft high bars. But the governor insists that their new skills will not be put to use for escape bids – because the jail walls are 20ft high and topped with razor wire."
Wacky Uses - This is True description: "the site is pretty good: it includes wacky uses for everyday products (who knew Alberto VO5 hair conditioner prevented silver tarnish? And since you used up the bottle, you can use Reddi-wip as a hair conditioner.) There's also a weird facts section ("To this day, the ingredients in Worcestershire Sauce are stirred together and allowed to sit for two years before being bottled.") A fun way to waste an evening."
Men motivated by 'superior wage' - "On receiving a paypacket, how good a man feels depends on how much his colleague earns in comparison, scientists say. Scans reveal that being paid more than a co-worker stimulates the "reward centre" in the male brain."
The study on Harvard students was problematised, but this is yet more evidence confirming the relative wealth theory, which also fits in with Evo Psych.
Why Give to Wikimedia? » Blog Archive » Why Wikipedia Does Not Run Ads - "Read, if you will, through the comments left by our donors: “Giving back to a repository which has given so much to me.”"
HAHAHAHAHA this was my comment
Big Boys Don't Cry -- and Other Myths About Men and Their Emotions: Emotional Intelligence - ""Emotions live in the background of a man's life and the foreground of a woman's," says psychologist Josh Coleman, PhD, author of The Lazy Husband. "Testosterone dampens feelings in men, who compartmentalize and intellectualize more... In 125 studies in various cultures, boys and men were consistently less accurate at interpreting unspoken messages in gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice. Men also react less intensely to emotions -- and forget them faster. In an experiment at Stanford University, photographs of upsetting or traumatic images triggered greater activity in more regions of female brains. Three weeks later the women remembered more detail about the pictures than the men. In similar ways, the researchers speculated, a woman may continue stewing over a tiff or slight her husband has long forgotten... Many men remain confused about how much they can dare to share. "In one breath a woman says she wants us to be emotionally open," says Westover, who is divorced. "In the next she wants us to be her rock. Women are asking us to perform these incredible emotional gymnastics, and it is messing with our heads. Men don't have a road map or a role model to show us how to be both emotional and strong.""
Notorious MDA: The Singapore government raps - "From time to time someone will ask me why I left Singapore for China. This is a fair question. I lived there for nearly a decade, Mrs. Imagethief is Singaporean, and I have great affection for the place. Usually I give some longish explanation about various professional and personal frustrations that were beginning to set in. From now on, however, I'll simply be able to point people at this video on YouTube... It is often remarked that the Chinese government considers the Singapore government a role model for successful technocratic authoritarianism. Whatever the Chinese government learns from Singapore, let us pray that it does not absorb the idea that rapping bureaucrats is a good idea... Unfortunately, a pigeon with a nail through its skull would still have the brain power to predict the inevitable result of this project: a catastrophic piece of self-ridicule that drags out for four-and-a-half painful minutes every reason why government involvement in creative industries is a disaster. And why Singapore's media industry is, like the site of a bad plane crash, so much lifeless wreckage."
Asian media vows to make western media cry - "On average Asian media suck. Especially news media... I blame government. Governments, by and large, should not involve themselves in media. But Asia's governments cannot, for the life of them, keep their grubby mitts off the media. And damned if they don't have a near mystical talent for boiling the life out of it... too much government involvement and you get soul-destroying headlines like... Well, just for fun, let's see what the top story on the Straits Times website is right now... Good gosh, two government headlines in a row. And this is typical. Back in Singapore we used to joke about what the above-the-fold government headline of the day would be... This story is rewritten across the region. As long as Asian governments manage their news, censor their films, and interfere explicitly in culture then their newspapers will be treated as propaganda, their most talented artists will flee overseas and their people will wolf-down tawdry but lively foreign culture... 'Delegates of Asian media attending the BFA conference reached the consensus that Asian media should shoulder a responsibility for broadcasting "a harmonious Asia" with "a harmonious Asian image" and provide a value of "harmonious region" to tell the world a real Asia.'"
In comments: "Having just moved to Singapore from Beijing I looked forward to a good English language daily. I am still looking forward to a good English language daily. Straits Times is a curious paper. Heavy on pages but light on content. It is at most a 20 minuted read - a record perhaps for a paper in four or five sections. The Forum stands alone for sheer numbness. It makes China Daily's 'Odd News" look good. A colleague of mine came to visit from Europe and was obsessed by the ridiculousness of this page and as far as I know she still checks it out online and distributes it to fiends... no mention of Singapore media can pass by without honouring Mediacorp. It would take too long to give proper critique of this multi-stationed entity but let me just say, thank god for cable. nd if anyone doubts me, take the chance to catch up with one of Mediacorp's latest high rating hits The Peak (I think you can view it online). A passionate drama set in the exciting world of, wait for it, keppel fels shipyard! It has to be seen to be believed."
Materialistic Singaporeans - "A new China immigrant from Shenzhen recently wrote on the Internet of his five-month stay here, and of his shock at finding a Singapore so vastly different from the “nice” place he had heard about. “Everyone here seems to be crazy about money. “Why is this happening here? Back in China, we are also concerned about money, but not like this; every other thing is about money here,” he commented. “In the office, people are always talking about 4-D, en bloc property, shares or higher salaries. There was also an idiot who blew S$2,000 on a soccer match last week. That’s a lot of money to lose in a single day. “I know of two girls in my office who moonlight as insurance agents and sleep around with clients. All that for money.”"
Children say money can't buy happiness - "A new report shows wealth plays no part in making adolescents happy. Instead, the overwhelming influence on children's emotional state was the age of the child and its sex. Put simply: the older a teenager gets, the more miserable he or she becomes. And girls are a lot more miserable than boys... A loving, large family contributes most to adolescent bliss. Boys were happiest when their fathers were unemployed and stuck at home for company - an indication that poverty does not always mean unhappiness. But that was offset by a slight swing in favour of two-parent households. An only child tends to be less happy."
***
Stolen GPS leads police to hideout - "When thieves broke into the company's office earlier this month they stole more than $13,000 worth of equipment including a demonstration pack, a laptop computer and a half-dozen in-car navigators... But five days later, a thief plugged the software in which alerted Fleetlink to the precise location of its stolen equipment. "We were fairly confident he was going to be silly enough to plug it in because it looks like something to plug in," said business development manager Murray Griffith."
Prison offers inmates pole-vaulting lessons - "Inmates at the young offenders’ institution are learning how to vault 13ft high bars. But the governor insists that their new skills will not be put to use for escape bids – because the jail walls are 20ft high and topped with razor wire."
Wacky Uses - This is True description: "the site is pretty good: it includes wacky uses for everyday products (who knew Alberto VO5 hair conditioner prevented silver tarnish? And since you used up the bottle, you can use Reddi-wip as a hair conditioner.) There's also a weird facts section ("To this day, the ingredients in Worcestershire Sauce are stirred together and allowed to sit for two years before being bottled.") A fun way to waste an evening."
Men motivated by 'superior wage' - "On receiving a paypacket, how good a man feels depends on how much his colleague earns in comparison, scientists say. Scans reveal that being paid more than a co-worker stimulates the "reward centre" in the male brain."
The study on Harvard students was problematised, but this is yet more evidence confirming the relative wealth theory, which also fits in with Evo Psych.
Why Give to Wikimedia? » Blog Archive » Why Wikipedia Does Not Run Ads - "Read, if you will, through the comments left by our donors: “Giving back to a repository which has given so much to me.”"
HAHAHAHAHA this was my comment
Big Boys Don't Cry -- and Other Myths About Men and Their Emotions: Emotional Intelligence - ""Emotions live in the background of a man's life and the foreground of a woman's," says psychologist Josh Coleman, PhD, author of The Lazy Husband. "Testosterone dampens feelings in men, who compartmentalize and intellectualize more... In 125 studies in various cultures, boys and men were consistently less accurate at interpreting unspoken messages in gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice. Men also react less intensely to emotions -- and forget them faster. In an experiment at Stanford University, photographs of upsetting or traumatic images triggered greater activity in more regions of female brains. Three weeks later the women remembered more detail about the pictures than the men. In similar ways, the researchers speculated, a woman may continue stewing over a tiff or slight her husband has long forgotten... Many men remain confused about how much they can dare to share. "In one breath a woman says she wants us to be emotionally open," says Westover, who is divorced. "In the next she wants us to be her rock. Women are asking us to perform these incredible emotional gymnastics, and it is messing with our heads. Men don't have a road map or a role model to show us how to be both emotional and strong.""
Notorious MDA: The Singapore government raps - "From time to time someone will ask me why I left Singapore for China. This is a fair question. I lived there for nearly a decade, Mrs. Imagethief is Singaporean, and I have great affection for the place. Usually I give some longish explanation about various professional and personal frustrations that were beginning to set in. From now on, however, I'll simply be able to point people at this video on YouTube... It is often remarked that the Chinese government considers the Singapore government a role model for successful technocratic authoritarianism. Whatever the Chinese government learns from Singapore, let us pray that it does not absorb the idea that rapping bureaucrats is a good idea... Unfortunately, a pigeon with a nail through its skull would still have the brain power to predict the inevitable result of this project: a catastrophic piece of self-ridicule that drags out for four-and-a-half painful minutes every reason why government involvement in creative industries is a disaster. And why Singapore's media industry is, like the site of a bad plane crash, so much lifeless wreckage."
Asian media vows to make western media cry - "On average Asian media suck. Especially news media... I blame government. Governments, by and large, should not involve themselves in media. But Asia's governments cannot, for the life of them, keep their grubby mitts off the media. And damned if they don't have a near mystical talent for boiling the life out of it... too much government involvement and you get soul-destroying headlines like... Well, just for fun, let's see what the top story on the Straits Times website is right now... Good gosh, two government headlines in a row. And this is typical. Back in Singapore we used to joke about what the above-the-fold government headline of the day would be... This story is rewritten across the region. As long as Asian governments manage their news, censor their films, and interfere explicitly in culture then their newspapers will be treated as propaganda, their most talented artists will flee overseas and their people will wolf-down tawdry but lively foreign culture... 'Delegates of Asian media attending the BFA conference reached the consensus that Asian media should shoulder a responsibility for broadcasting "a harmonious Asia" with "a harmonious Asian image" and provide a value of "harmonious region" to tell the world a real Asia.'"
In comments: "Having just moved to Singapore from Beijing I looked forward to a good English language daily. I am still looking forward to a good English language daily. Straits Times is a curious paper. Heavy on pages but light on content. It is at most a 20 minuted read - a record perhaps for a paper in four or five sections. The Forum stands alone for sheer numbness. It makes China Daily's 'Odd News" look good. A colleague of mine came to visit from Europe and was obsessed by the ridiculousness of this page and as far as I know she still checks it out online and distributes it to fiends... no mention of Singapore media can pass by without honouring Mediacorp. It would take too long to give proper critique of this multi-stationed entity but let me just say, thank god for cable. nd if anyone doubts me, take the chance to catch up with one of Mediacorp's latest high rating hits The Peak (I think you can view it online). A passionate drama set in the exciting world of, wait for it, keppel fels shipyard! It has to be seen to be believed."
Materialistic Singaporeans - "A new China immigrant from Shenzhen recently wrote on the Internet of his five-month stay here, and of his shock at finding a Singapore so vastly different from the “nice” place he had heard about. “Everyone here seems to be crazy about money. “Why is this happening here? Back in China, we are also concerned about money, but not like this; every other thing is about money here,” he commented. “In the office, people are always talking about 4-D, en bloc property, shares or higher salaries. There was also an idiot who blew S$2,000 on a soccer match last week. That’s a lot of money to lose in a single day. “I know of two girls in my office who moonlight as insurance agents and sleep around with clients. All that for money.”"
Children say money can't buy happiness - "A new report shows wealth plays no part in making adolescents happy. Instead, the overwhelming influence on children's emotional state was the age of the child and its sex. Put simply: the older a teenager gets, the more miserable he or she becomes. And girls are a lot more miserable than boys... A loving, large family contributes most to adolescent bliss. Boys were happiest when their fathers were unemployed and stuck at home for company - an indication that poverty does not always mean unhappiness. But that was offset by a slight swing in favour of two-parent households. An only child tends to be less happy."
Post ID: 6828978718221117266
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
"A number of countries were hesitant to acknowledge the PRC, given its large size and potential wealth, as a genuine Third World state. Its list of irredentist territorial grievances added to these misgivings, as did rhetoric advocating world revolution that cast doubt on how non-aligned the PRC actually was. Several countries accused Beijing of meddling in their internal affairs---such as supporting a communist movement in Burma and training anti-government guerrillas in the Cameroons---which were strictly forbidden by the Pancha Sheela"
--- Encroaching On the Middle Kingdom? China’s View of Its Place in the World, June Teufel Dreyer
(Emphases mine)
--- Encroaching On the Middle Kingdom? China’s View of Its Place in the World, June Teufel Dreyer
(Emphases mine)
Post ID: 3732568811267356615
Monday, December 03, 2007
"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died." - Steven Wright
***
Someone: i thought back then you were like plato
just think of philosophical stuff
i used to think you were asexual
i mean, some days you would ask XXX some damn cheem question
and i would be there just half dozing and thinking about sex
Me: so smart = asexual ah
haha
Someone else: he msn'ed me yesterday
asked if i missed him
blah blah
asked me if i was seeing anyone else
and then "hugged" me
men are so crap
Me: crap men get ahead
Someone else: get head
haha
Me: that too hurr hurr
Someone else: i hate the fact he doesnt care abt my feelings
Me: then you should hate yourself for going for him
Someone else: hmm guess u're right
as in
i'd rather have been with him than not
so i guess i shldnt complain
Me: yeah
life is suffering
Someone: how much is a blowjob worth to u?
as in
what would u do for a bj?
someone offered to pick me up from sch to go home in return for a bj
haha
Me: wth
good deal
for him ;)
oh wait
spit or swallow
eh fuel now very ex. better take the deal while it lasts hahahahaha
Someone: wah lau. like that i rather take cab home lor. cab only $10... my blowjob is worth way more than that
Someone else: i am situating 881 as a form of resistance cinema, as an utterance of the chinese-speaking chinese people of their emasculated dreams in society
Me: very good.
but how is that [the topic]
Someone else: chinese heritage
a contestation in representation
that's where the mindfuck comes in
reading fanon, derrida
and all that bullshit about difference
Me: oh god
basically obfuscate yourself to a thesis
MFTTW: bleeding all the blood out of meat dries it out
not so tasty
Me: halal steak sucks
though I don't eat beef
HWMNBN claims if you know what you're doing with marinade it's ok
pls lor
MFTTW: huuuuuuuh
marinade bleah
Me: that's why muslims don't eat steak
they eat rendang or kebab
MFTTW: i take the reductionist view of food... if you start with crappy raw materials you cannot get a great dish, merely a good dish
that's why they like to stew
stewing breaks down the meat so lack of moisture doesn't matter
Me: do other muslims like to stew also?
MFTTW: i think so
i'm thinking about what i know about othe rmuslim cuisines
i thinkt he stewing also because they eat a lot of goat
which is stringy and tough to begin with anyway
hurr hurr
HWMNBN: your blog shows up when i google asian vagina width
is there ANYTHING it doesn't show up for?
Male friend: oh, and let me give you some advice - Vicks vaporub is not the same as KY jelly
without going into details, i learnt this much to my sorrow
Someone: later i found out abt the other girl
who, may i say in all my cattiness, is really ugly
Me: haha ok
is she still?
Someone: yes she's still ugly
and kind of fat
oh well he has bad taste in women
the one he liked before me was really pukeworthy
Me: but he had you what
so are you also... :P
Someone: ahahah
but then you see, i'm not his type. it didn't last long. he had to "try" to see us together
hence i am not the usual kind of ugly fat girl he prefers
i may be fat
but i'm not ugly
Me: orh
Someone: you don't believe me do you
Me: no comment =D
***
Someone: i thought back then you were like plato
just think of philosophical stuff
i used to think you were asexual
i mean, some days you would ask XXX some damn cheem question
and i would be there just half dozing and thinking about sex
Me: so smart = asexual ah
haha
Someone else: he msn'ed me yesterday
asked if i missed him
blah blah
asked me if i was seeing anyone else
and then "hugged" me
men are so crap
Me: crap men get ahead
Someone else: get head
haha
Me: that too hurr hurr
Someone else: i hate the fact he doesnt care abt my feelings
Me: then you should hate yourself for going for him
Someone else: hmm guess u're right
as in
i'd rather have been with him than not
so i guess i shldnt complain
Me: yeah
life is suffering
Someone: how much is a blowjob worth to u?
as in
what would u do for a bj?
someone offered to pick me up from sch to go home in return for a bj
haha
Me: wth
good deal
for him ;)
oh wait
spit or swallow
eh fuel now very ex. better take the deal while it lasts hahahahaha
Someone: wah lau. like that i rather take cab home lor. cab only $10... my blowjob is worth way more than that
Someone else: i am situating 881 as a form of resistance cinema, as an utterance of the chinese-speaking chinese people of their emasculated dreams in society
Me: very good.
but how is that [the topic]
Someone else: chinese heritage
a contestation in representation
that's where the mindfuck comes in
reading fanon, derrida
and all that bullshit about difference
Me: oh god
basically obfuscate yourself to a thesis
MFTTW: bleeding all the blood out of meat dries it out
not so tasty
Me: halal steak sucks
though I don't eat beef
HWMNBN claims if you know what you're doing with marinade it's ok
pls lor
MFTTW: huuuuuuuh
marinade bleah
Me: that's why muslims don't eat steak
they eat rendang or kebab
MFTTW: i take the reductionist view of food... if you start with crappy raw materials you cannot get a great dish, merely a good dish
that's why they like to stew
stewing breaks down the meat so lack of moisture doesn't matter
Me: do other muslims like to stew also?
MFTTW: i think so
i'm thinking about what i know about othe rmuslim cuisines
i thinkt he stewing also because they eat a lot of goat
which is stringy and tough to begin with anyway
hurr hurr
HWMNBN: your blog shows up when i google asian vagina width
is there ANYTHING it doesn't show up for?
Male friend: oh, and let me give you some advice - Vicks vaporub is not the same as KY jelly
without going into details, i learnt this much to my sorrow
Someone: later i found out abt the other girl
who, may i say in all my cattiness, is really ugly
Me: haha ok
is she still?
Someone: yes she's still ugly
and kind of fat
oh well he has bad taste in women
the one he liked before me was really pukeworthy
Me: but he had you what
so are you also... :P
Someone: ahahah
but then you see, i'm not his type. it didn't last long. he had to "try" to see us together
hence i am not the usual kind of ugly fat girl he prefers
i may be fat
but i'm not ugly
Me: orh
Someone: you don't believe me do you
Me: no comment =D
Post ID: 5678845452041037271
Sunday, December 02, 2007
If you want to be arrogant, fine.
But at least be RIGHT.
Jan Chan - Actively Atheist: If there was one thing I could change in history...
"You do realise that Mexicans are Europeans in the same way that Americans are... Majority of Mexicans are Europeans with some Aztec ancestors, which of course is quite hard to prevent considering that they had more then half a millennium of living together. Just looking at their skin colour can tell you that their bloodline is mostly Spanish. Spanish is the language spoken by 97% of the people, even if they were all native Americans which they aren't, that kind of numbers shows that they have essentially westernised...
[On Thomas Paine] I call him an atheist because he was so extreme in human rights that he was disowned by his fellow deists."
But at least be RIGHT.
Jan Chan - Actively Atheist: If there was one thing I could change in history...
"You do realise that Mexicans are Europeans in the same way that Americans are... Majority of Mexicans are Europeans with some Aztec ancestors, which of course is quite hard to prevent considering that they had more then half a millennium of living together. Just looking at their skin colour can tell you that their bloodline is mostly Spanish. Spanish is the language spoken by 97% of the people, even if they were all native Americans which they aren't, that kind of numbers shows that they have essentially westernised...
[On Thomas Paine] I call him an atheist because he was so extreme in human rights that he was disowned by his fellow deists."
Post ID: 963678108464934728
Saturday, December 01, 2007
"Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts." - Jim Morrison
***
"An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor, an oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation."
- Susan B. Anthony on Women's Right to Vote, 1873
Tsk tsk tsk. Not only was she ELITIST, she was also RACIST!!!!!!!!
Excise her from the annals of history!
Female Friend: omg
i just wikied her
she is a fucking scary looking woman
she looks like a man
no wonder feminists have a reputation
***
"An oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor, an oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation."
- Susan B. Anthony on Women's Right to Vote, 1873
Tsk tsk tsk. Not only was she ELITIST, she was also RACIST!!!!!!!!
Excise her from the annals of history!
Female Friend: omg
i just wikied her
she is a fucking scary looking woman
she looks like a man
no wonder feminists have a reputation
Post ID: 7331627512357996320
Changing Volume Balance in Windows XP:
1. Double click on the volume icon in the system tray to open "Master Volume" window
2. Use slidebar to easily change volume balance, or do it for various devices individually
Changing Volume Balance in Windows Vista:
1. Right click on the volume icon in the system tray
2. In the menu that pops up, click "Playback Devices"
3. Double click on your Speakers in the "Playback" tab of the "Sound" window
4. Click on the "Levels" tab in "Speaker Properties"
5. Click on the "Balance" button under "Speakers"
6. Use slidebars to individually control left and right channels
1. Double click on the volume icon in the system tray to open "Master Volume" window
2. Use slidebar to easily change volume balance, or do it for various devices individually
Changing Volume Balance in Windows Vista:
1. Right click on the volume icon in the system tray
2. In the menu that pops up, click "Playback Devices"
3. Double click on your Speakers in the "Playback" tab of the "Sound" window
4. Click on the "Levels" tab in "Speaker Properties"
5. Click on the "Balance" button under "Speakers"
6. Use slidebars to individually control left and right channels
Post ID: 1592536408851664377
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen
***
MUSICA MUNDI WORLD RANKING LIST - TOP 1000 CHOIRS
Choirs from Singapore:
8: Victoria Junior College Choir / Nelson Kwei / 1104 Points
16: VICTORIA CHORALE Singapore / Nelson Kwei / 1060 Points
120: Anderson Junior College Choir / Nelson Kwei / 931 Points
191: Raffles Voices / Toh Ban Sheng / 885 Points
262: Hwa Chong Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 850 Points
403: National Junior College Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 806 Points
420: Tampines Primary School Children's Choir / Stella Goh
& Anthony Chin / 800 Points
679: Fairfield Methodist Secondary School Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 745 Points
730: Nanyang Technological University CAC Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 731 Points
766: Soka Chorus / Mun Ngan Woo / 724 Points
778: Tanjong Katong Girls' School Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 720 Points
778: Temasek Junior College Choir / Jennifer Tham / 720 Points
840: Crescent Girls' School / Jennifer Tham / 700 Points
890: Dunman High School Choir / Jennifer Tham / 686 Points
904: Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus Secondary Choir [Ed: It doesn't say which branch of the franchise this is] / Jennifer Tham / 680 Points
(For reference, the highest point score was 1221, by Jauniešu Koris KAMĒR.. under Māris Sirmais, from Latvia)
Interestingly enough, all but two of the top Singapore choirs are school choirs, and even then one of those two is made up of school choir alumni. This isn't the case for other countries, where I conservatively estimate the proportion of school choirs to be half at most (perhaps in other countries, they are more imaginative in choir names than "XXX School Choir", but this can't account for all of the difference). The difference, I think, is due to Singaporeans competing for ECA points.
***
MUSICA MUNDI WORLD RANKING LIST - TOP 1000 CHOIRS
Choirs from Singapore:
8: Victoria Junior College Choir / Nelson Kwei / 1104 Points
16: VICTORIA CHORALE Singapore / Nelson Kwei / 1060 Points
120: Anderson Junior College Choir / Nelson Kwei / 931 Points
191: Raffles Voices / Toh Ban Sheng / 885 Points
262: Hwa Chong Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 850 Points
403: National Junior College Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 806 Points
420: Tampines Primary School Children's Choir / Stella Goh
& Anthony Chin / 800 Points
679: Fairfield Methodist Secondary School Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 745 Points
730: Nanyang Technological University CAC Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 731 Points
766: Soka Chorus / Mun Ngan Woo / 724 Points
778: Tanjong Katong Girls' School Choir / Ai Hooi Lim / 720 Points
778: Temasek Junior College Choir / Jennifer Tham / 720 Points
840: Crescent Girls' School / Jennifer Tham / 700 Points
890: Dunman High School Choir / Jennifer Tham / 686 Points
904: Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus Secondary Choir [Ed: It doesn't say which branch of the franchise this is] / Jennifer Tham / 680 Points
(For reference, the highest point score was 1221, by Jauniešu Koris KAMĒR.. under Māris Sirmais, from Latvia)
Interestingly enough, all but two of the top Singapore choirs are school choirs, and even then one of those two is made up of school choir alumni. This isn't the case for other countries, where I conservatively estimate the proportion of school choirs to be half at most (perhaps in other countries, they are more imaginative in choir names than "XXX School Choir", but this can't account for all of the difference). The difference, I think, is due to Singaporeans competing for ECA points.
Post ID: 1769473049040480510
Thursday, November 29, 2007
"The aim is to continually problematicize museums and museological practices cross-culturally rather than take them for granted or accept them uncritically." --- Liberating culture : cross-cultural perspectives on museums, curation, and heritage preservation / Christina K. Kreps
"There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." - Alfred Korzybski
"There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." - Alfred Korzybski
Post ID: 7408742798702874041
http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/video.htm
"The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."
Hurr hurr.
"The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."
Hurr hurr.
Post ID: 2217320085942631049
A feminist reading of 2girls1cup.com
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Post ID: 6783431046663958455
"The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass." - Martin Mull
***
Pygmalion and Galatea, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1890
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
An article sent by HWMNBN:
"Love and Sex With Robots"
Is that a hard drive in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
By Farhad Manjoo
On his résumé, David Levy may be a chess master and an expert in artificial intelligence, but somewhere deeper -- in his heart, or what I suspect he might call his CPU -- the man is a professional dreamer of robot love.
We've let machines trespass into nearly every corner of our lives, Levy points out. Robots are making our cars and our computer chips, they're fighting our wars, they're cleaning our floors and our rain gutters and our pools. So why can't we let them into our hearts? Do not scoff, reader: One day you too will cuddle up with a bot, you'll whisper sweet nothings into its voice-recognition module, and you'll crank up its pleasure unit -- and it will crank yours.
In a new book, "Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships," Levy argues that as machines advance, our consideration for them will grow inevitably more tender. Today, you watch your Roomba scurrying around your filthy floor, digging its nose into your grime, and you hardly pause to consider its soul; the robot vacuum is a slave, and you are its master.
But by pulling off the splendid computational trick of anticipating and fulfilling your every psychic and emotional need, machines will eventually capture your love -- and indeed could prove more deserving objects of our affection than the pets, children and spouses who currently fly about our lives. Someday people may even walk arm-in-arm down the aisle with descendants of today's robo-vacuums. In the same way they've conquered our factories, Levy says, robots will conquer our hearts.
Levy's book is adapted from a Ph.D. thesis, and it reads that way: maddeningly dense and in stretches unpardonably dull, the writing unfortunately makes a slop of what is actually a fascinating topic. Fascinating because the prospect of human-robot love is, though self-evidently insane, also undeniably attractive, and certainly not implausible.
If machines improve at their current pace, in a few decades' time we'll likely see robots that can mimic human language, thought, appearances and emotions well enough to get us in the mood. (Levy predicts we'll see the first human-robot marriages by around 2035.) It seems crazy -- doesn't it? -- to think that people would choose to love robots rather than other people.
But doesn't it seem pretty likely, too? If you could abandon the storms of human love, if you could forget the random unpredictability of the heart and simply design a being -- a person -- who loves you unconditionally, convincingly, forever, well, wouldn't you do it?
You're thinking, Computer geeks, they'll go for it, but not me. You're thinking you'll be glad to have a robot as a butler, but love? You can't love a thing that isn't a person. What's love got to do with robots?
Well, what's love got to do with pets? Levy points out that like robots, cats and dogs first pushed into human lives by providing services to our ancestors -- cats kept homes free of rats, dogs were guards and hunting partners and herders. Love was only a side benefit of such relationships, a feeling cooked up in human brains and exploited by the animals, who got shelter and food and safety from the deal.
But none of that matters anymore. The situation's evolved. Now we think of our pets as extensions of our family, as beings roughly on our level -- they're not adults, but for many of us, they're comparable to children. We no longer put our pets to work, of course; their only purpose is love.
Why did our feelings for animals evolve? The human brain is unrelenting in its tendency to anthropomorphize, to subconsciously ascribe human feelings and thoughts to animals and inanimate objects. We began to treat our pets as people because we're given to thinking of them as people -- see the Onion's "Vacationing Woman Thinks Cats Miss Her." But it won't end at cats and dogs: Levy cites several psychological studies showing that we tend to anthropomorphize machines, too.
One of the most interesting such experiments involves what's known as "reciprocal self-disclosure." We're usually reluctant to divulge our innermost feelings to strangers, but we often open up when the stranger discloses something about himself first. Would we treat computers the same way -- if a computer tells you something about itself, would you respond with something about yourself?
Researchers Clifford Nass and Youngme Moon carried out an experiment to find out. Test subjects were made to chat with a machine that was either dishy or reticent about itself. Reserved machines asked straightforward questions, things like, "What has been your biggest disappointment in life?" or "What have you done in your life that you feel most guilty about?"
The more chatty machine posed queries like this:
and
Guess what? People who chatted with the confessional computer became confessional themselves. They didn't do it on purpose; these folks knew they were talking to a mere machine. But they treated a device they knew was not human as being just slightly so, discussing their guilts and regrets as they would have with another person.
Levy points to evidence that we'll even preserve our stereotypes in dealing with machines. People generally regard dominant men positively -- they're assertive, they're confident! -- and dominant women negatively (rhymes with witch). Same thing for computers. In an experiment Levy cites, people who were made to work with a computer with a female voice thought the machine was rude; the male-voiced computer, even though it said the same things as the lady machine, was considered friendly.
OK, so humans are prone to treating computers as if they're other people. But that doesn't mean we'll fall in love with them, you say. Well, but if you're already treating today's computers as people, how could you ever resist a vastly more sophisticated, humanlike machine that attempted to seduce you?
Because, right, computers may well master that art. During the last few decades psychologists have uncovered a great deal about romance and what makes two people fall for each other. Computers, Levy says, can use these findings in their efforts to get you to love them.
Here's the rundown of some of the major reasons why two people fall in love: Propinquity -- people in close physical proximity are more likely to become involved than people farther away; what psychologists call "repeated exposure" is a powerful inducement to romance. Similarity is also important: People who are like each other like each other. Then there's "reciprocal liking" -- knowing that the other person likes you makes you like them more. The other person's desirability -- appearance, personality -- also obviously plays a role. And a final big one is "filling a need" -- part of why we pursue love is that we need love and its attendant pleasures (sex, intimacy, closeness, children).
Robots could make hay of these ideas. Propinquity, desirability, similarity and reciprocal liking are all taken care of -- you'd order up a robot that shared your interests, that liked you, and that, in appearance and personality, would conform exactly to what floats your boat.
And it would fill your needs. In the sack, your robot would be a tiger or a lamb, however you like to roll. It could be programmed to fly into fits of rage -- because maybe you like some spice in your life? -- and/or to love to cuddle, it could be made to share your sexual interest in pie throwing, or your love of hippie jam bands, or, like Woody Allen's whores of Mensa, it could spend all night discussing Proust and Yeats.
Such a situation prompts a raft of questions about the very nature of love and the dilemmas we'll face in accepting robot romance, but Levy, alas, breezes by many of these.
Your robot, for starters, would be immortal; all its data would be backed up somewhere, so even if a too-raucous pie fight caused it to go on the fritz, it would be easily replicable. But how will immortality affect your relationship? Doesn't mortality deepen love -- isn't the preciousness of your love, its susceptibility to diseases and deprivation, part of what makes the feeling so wonderful? Could you love a thing that didn't die?
That hints at something larger: Part of what makes love so grand is how lucky it feels, its very lack of design, the fact that, despite the odds, you two found each other anyway. Doesn't ordering up love cheapen it? How would loving a robot you designed be any different from loving a prostitute you chose from a menu?
And besides, is a perfect love really love at all, even if it feels like it? Isn't love, like all life, by definition complicated; if you're loving a robot, are you really loving -- are you really living? -- or is the whole thing a simulation, like a very real video game?
On the other hand, it'd be a pretty great video game. The possibility of easy sex with robots, Levy points out, will likely reduce the incidence of infidelity between human couples (infidelity with other humans, that is; Levy thinks that people will come to think of having sex with a robot as not constituting cheating, though he says we'll take some time to adjust to this view).
More important, many people who, for whatever reason, can't find people to love them will find salvation in robots -- and how can this be anything but salutary?
"Almost everyone wants to love someone, but many people have no one," Levy writes. "If this natural human desire can be satisfied for everyone who is capable of loving, surely the world will be a much happier place."
Unfortunately, this article does not interrogate the concept of human consciousness enough, or it would find even less reason to discriminate between robots [of the future] and humans except, perhaps, speciesism (or carbon chauvinism, if you like).
***
Pygmalion and Galatea, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1890
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
An article sent by HWMNBN:
"Love and Sex With Robots"
Is that a hard drive in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
By Farhad Manjoo
On his résumé, David Levy may be a chess master and an expert in artificial intelligence, but somewhere deeper -- in his heart, or what I suspect he might call his CPU -- the man is a professional dreamer of robot love.
We've let machines trespass into nearly every corner of our lives, Levy points out. Robots are making our cars and our computer chips, they're fighting our wars, they're cleaning our floors and our rain gutters and our pools. So why can't we let them into our hearts? Do not scoff, reader: One day you too will cuddle up with a bot, you'll whisper sweet nothings into its voice-recognition module, and you'll crank up its pleasure unit -- and it will crank yours.
In a new book, "Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships," Levy argues that as machines advance, our consideration for them will grow inevitably more tender. Today, you watch your Roomba scurrying around your filthy floor, digging its nose into your grime, and you hardly pause to consider its soul; the robot vacuum is a slave, and you are its master.
But by pulling off the splendid computational trick of anticipating and fulfilling your every psychic and emotional need, machines will eventually capture your love -- and indeed could prove more deserving objects of our affection than the pets, children and spouses who currently fly about our lives. Someday people may even walk arm-in-arm down the aisle with descendants of today's robo-vacuums. In the same way they've conquered our factories, Levy says, robots will conquer our hearts.
Levy's book is adapted from a Ph.D. thesis, and it reads that way: maddeningly dense and in stretches unpardonably dull, the writing unfortunately makes a slop of what is actually a fascinating topic. Fascinating because the prospect of human-robot love is, though self-evidently insane, also undeniably attractive, and certainly not implausible.
If machines improve at their current pace, in a few decades' time we'll likely see robots that can mimic human language, thought, appearances and emotions well enough to get us in the mood. (Levy predicts we'll see the first human-robot marriages by around 2035.) It seems crazy -- doesn't it? -- to think that people would choose to love robots rather than other people.
But doesn't it seem pretty likely, too? If you could abandon the storms of human love, if you could forget the random unpredictability of the heart and simply design a being -- a person -- who loves you unconditionally, convincingly, forever, well, wouldn't you do it?
You're thinking, Computer geeks, they'll go for it, but not me. You're thinking you'll be glad to have a robot as a butler, but love? You can't love a thing that isn't a person. What's love got to do with robots?
Well, what's love got to do with pets? Levy points out that like robots, cats and dogs first pushed into human lives by providing services to our ancestors -- cats kept homes free of rats, dogs were guards and hunting partners and herders. Love was only a side benefit of such relationships, a feeling cooked up in human brains and exploited by the animals, who got shelter and food and safety from the deal.
But none of that matters anymore. The situation's evolved. Now we think of our pets as extensions of our family, as beings roughly on our level -- they're not adults, but for many of us, they're comparable to children. We no longer put our pets to work, of course; their only purpose is love.
Why did our feelings for animals evolve? The human brain is unrelenting in its tendency to anthropomorphize, to subconsciously ascribe human feelings and thoughts to animals and inanimate objects. We began to treat our pets as people because we're given to thinking of them as people -- see the Onion's "Vacationing Woman Thinks Cats Miss Her." But it won't end at cats and dogs: Levy cites several psychological studies showing that we tend to anthropomorphize machines, too.
One of the most interesting such experiments involves what's known as "reciprocal self-disclosure." We're usually reluctant to divulge our innermost feelings to strangers, but we often open up when the stranger discloses something about himself first. Would we treat computers the same way -- if a computer tells you something about itself, would you respond with something about yourself?
Researchers Clifford Nass and Youngme Moon carried out an experiment to find out. Test subjects were made to chat with a machine that was either dishy or reticent about itself. Reserved machines asked straightforward questions, things like, "What has been your biggest disappointment in life?" or "What have you done in your life that you feel most guilty about?"
The more chatty machine posed queries like this:
This computer has been configured to run at speeds up to 266 MHz. But 90% of computer users don't use applications that require these speeds. So this computer rarely gets used to its full potential. What has been your biggest disappointment in life?
and
There are times when this computer crashes for reasons that are not apparent to its user. It usually does this at the most inopportune time, causing great inconvenience to the user. What have you done in your life that you feel most guilty about?
Guess what? People who chatted with the confessional computer became confessional themselves. They didn't do it on purpose; these folks knew they were talking to a mere machine. But they treated a device they knew was not human as being just slightly so, discussing their guilts and regrets as they would have with another person.
Levy points to evidence that we'll even preserve our stereotypes in dealing with machines. People generally regard dominant men positively -- they're assertive, they're confident! -- and dominant women negatively (rhymes with witch). Same thing for computers. In an experiment Levy cites, people who were made to work with a computer with a female voice thought the machine was rude; the male-voiced computer, even though it said the same things as the lady machine, was considered friendly.
OK, so humans are prone to treating computers as if they're other people. But that doesn't mean we'll fall in love with them, you say. Well, but if you're already treating today's computers as people, how could you ever resist a vastly more sophisticated, humanlike machine that attempted to seduce you?
Because, right, computers may well master that art. During the last few decades psychologists have uncovered a great deal about romance and what makes two people fall for each other. Computers, Levy says, can use these findings in their efforts to get you to love them.
Here's the rundown of some of the major reasons why two people fall in love: Propinquity -- people in close physical proximity are more likely to become involved than people farther away; what psychologists call "repeated exposure" is a powerful inducement to romance. Similarity is also important: People who are like each other like each other. Then there's "reciprocal liking" -- knowing that the other person likes you makes you like them more. The other person's desirability -- appearance, personality -- also obviously plays a role. And a final big one is "filling a need" -- part of why we pursue love is that we need love and its attendant pleasures (sex, intimacy, closeness, children).
Robots could make hay of these ideas. Propinquity, desirability, similarity and reciprocal liking are all taken care of -- you'd order up a robot that shared your interests, that liked you, and that, in appearance and personality, would conform exactly to what floats your boat.
And it would fill your needs. In the sack, your robot would be a tiger or a lamb, however you like to roll. It could be programmed to fly into fits of rage -- because maybe you like some spice in your life? -- and/or to love to cuddle, it could be made to share your sexual interest in pie throwing, or your love of hippie jam bands, or, like Woody Allen's whores of Mensa, it could spend all night discussing Proust and Yeats.
Such a situation prompts a raft of questions about the very nature of love and the dilemmas we'll face in accepting robot romance, but Levy, alas, breezes by many of these.
Your robot, for starters, would be immortal; all its data would be backed up somewhere, so even if a too-raucous pie fight caused it to go on the fritz, it would be easily replicable. But how will immortality affect your relationship? Doesn't mortality deepen love -- isn't the preciousness of your love, its susceptibility to diseases and deprivation, part of what makes the feeling so wonderful? Could you love a thing that didn't die?
That hints at something larger: Part of what makes love so grand is how lucky it feels, its very lack of design, the fact that, despite the odds, you two found each other anyway. Doesn't ordering up love cheapen it? How would loving a robot you designed be any different from loving a prostitute you chose from a menu?
And besides, is a perfect love really love at all, even if it feels like it? Isn't love, like all life, by definition complicated; if you're loving a robot, are you really loving -- are you really living? -- or is the whole thing a simulation, like a very real video game?
On the other hand, it'd be a pretty great video game. The possibility of easy sex with robots, Levy points out, will likely reduce the incidence of infidelity between human couples (infidelity with other humans, that is; Levy thinks that people will come to think of having sex with a robot as not constituting cheating, though he says we'll take some time to adjust to this view).
More important, many people who, for whatever reason, can't find people to love them will find salvation in robots -- and how can this be anything but salutary?
"Almost everyone wants to love someone, but many people have no one," Levy writes. "If this natural human desire can be satisfied for everyone who is capable of loving, surely the world will be a much happier place."
Unfortunately, this article does not interrogate the concept of human consciousness enough, or it would find even less reason to discriminate between robots [of the future] and humans except, perhaps, speciesism (or carbon chauvinism, if you like).
Post ID: 2414030161804508693
Monday, November 26, 2007
"Lest the import of what I have argued be misunderstood, I want to make it clear that, for all I have argued, there may be some other reasons of a philosophical nature for concluding that naïve universalism is false or otherwise defective. Much more importantly, however, nothing I’ve said rules out the view that the plain sense of Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Church precludes naive universalism. In short, nothing I’ve said is even remotely relevant to the view that I hold, namely that God has pretty much informed us that universalism, in both its naïve and sophisticated forms, is false."
--- IN DEFENSE OF NAÏVE UNIVERSALISM, Daniel Howard-Snyder
I think this is the first paper I've read which concludes: "I don't believe in what I've spent the last few pages arguing".
--- IN DEFENSE OF NAÏVE UNIVERSALISM, Daniel Howard-Snyder
I think this is the first paper I've read which concludes: "I don't believe in what I've spent the last few pages arguing".
Post ID: 8772311914506477139
"Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd." - Allan Goldfein
***
Quotes:
I sometimes wonder what I've done to myself. I give you such long assignments I have to mark.
[On 3 hours of doing the same thing] Come at 11 or 12 or 1. I think what I will do is keep scrolling through the answers... Pick up when you're there and I'll just keep going and going and going... So come whenever you want.
[On someone who cut her hair to butch length and looks better] Her features are a bit masculine... And she has a moustache.
The second question I keep getting on this assignment at this time of year is: 'Are you going to do this to me in the exam?'... For Pete's sake, I have some sense. This is not something I expect you to be able to do in a 2 hour exam... To a certain extent you have to trust me, that I know what I'm doing to you.
It's my job to figure out a grade distribution. If you don't do well, it's not me, it's due to your brilliant classmates.
[On last semester's guinea pigs] In every way, what they had to go through was worse than what you'll have to do - don't tell them.
I've had people do this in an exam before, not at Honours level... They write on the exam: 'I didn't have time to study this, but I know that... the labour abundant factor will benefit'.
[On changes in USP students] The year ones... They're all so androgynous.
I have no, I think some people do like it, I have no interest in demoralising my students... There's always one question there that'll freak out a bunch of you.
You guys are filled with panic, but this is the time when I have to let you know how much joy [it was]. It's a pleasure with you guys, coming to work.
[On the control principle and freedom] There's something - *mmh!* inside you that is not determined by anybody else.
Why is he a bad person? He had a troubled childhood. He wasn't breastfed... He played violent video games.
[On module approval] They were only interested in the grading of the assignments. They wanted them to be spaced out. There wasn't any feedback on the intellectual content.
Every Thursday we come in and we're expected so spick (speak)
Your teachers all come from very different backgrounds, and we all have different views of the world and we all think we're right.
For me, it was very hard to guess what you want. For the first set of readings I spent 1 hour on Google googling the meanings of the wordso n the first page.
We talked about material culture, but I don't recall any articles. Or maybe I didn't read them.
I thought Singaporean Studies modules must be taught by Singaporean lecturers [Instructor: Isn't that racist?] (Singapore)
We were discussing NUS students and he said: 'Okay, we can get some good ones, but in general it's general apathetic mediocrity.'
[On Singapore] Any negative stereotypes that I heard before, aside from the food and the sun - that was very true...
[Indian student on India module] If I don't get a B+ at leastI'm never goinna walk into a Hindu temple again.
Nothing comes from nothing right? You know the song? [Student: No.] Nothing come from nothing. Nothing ever could. The Julia Andrews principle. It's from - nevermind. (Julie)
[Student: You said that during our last meeting, you'd tell us about your own religious persuasion.] I can't imagine, I can't imagine why you'd be so interested. [Student 2: It's not in the notes.] It's not in the notes. I was gonna look. I'll come up wih it. I'm a - druid.
People like to talk about Evil like it's a noun. On a dark night, and a full moon and it's creeping around, which is silly.
[On the exam] I hope it's only 2 hours. I can't wait to read the papers, but it gets boring sitting there watching you write.
[On the Geography Honours girls] They started talking about their boobs and they invited the guys to join in.
[On a CD] Why can't I eject it? [Me: Because you're using a Mac]
lower temperature than the saul (soil)
Our group is presenting XXX. The group members are [his name], XXX *flashes laser pointer*, XXX *flashes laser pointer*, XXX *flashes laser pointer*.
sair'ch'err't (sachet)
I'll give you something to think about that I read online: if God doesn't believe in atheists, then they don't exist. [Me: That's if you take the New Age Transcendent view that-] Dude, no. It's just something I read online.
Repeat after me. Il y a un. Kangarou. [Student 2: It means 'I fuck kangaroos'] No it doesn't. Il y a un kangarou. Sous mon lit. [Student 2: 'I give blowjobs to kangaroos'] (Kangourou) [Ed: The words were written on the whiteboard]
[On girls] They're always like that. [They] say [they're] not hungry, then half an hour later: 'Let's go for dinner'.
After the exam period is when you find people getting attached. They study together... They form strong bonds... 'But now is not the time'.
For one of my modules you can choose between bringing in the textbook or two pages of notes. [Me: So what was your choice?] Textbook. You can write in the textbook.
[To female student] Are you PGP Block X, XX-XX? [Student 2: He's been spying on your naked!]
[To me] How come today you dressed so nice? Social experiment ah? (you're dressed so nicely today)
Business School is to train you up to fit into the Capitalist system. It should be renamed 'School of Slaves'.
***
Quotes:
I sometimes wonder what I've done to myself. I give you such long assignments I have to mark.
[On 3 hours of doing the same thing] Come at 11 or 12 or 1. I think what I will do is keep scrolling through the answers... Pick up when you're there and I'll just keep going and going and going... So come whenever you want.
[On someone who cut her hair to butch length and looks better] Her features are a bit masculine... And she has a moustache.
The second question I keep getting on this assignment at this time of year is: 'Are you going to do this to me in the exam?'... For Pete's sake, I have some sense. This is not something I expect you to be able to do in a 2 hour exam... To a certain extent you have to trust me, that I know what I'm doing to you.
It's my job to figure out a grade distribution. If you don't do well, it's not me, it's due to your brilliant classmates.
[On last semester's guinea pigs] In every way, what they had to go through was worse than what you'll have to do - don't tell them.
I've had people do this in an exam before, not at Honours level... They write on the exam: 'I didn't have time to study this, but I know that... the labour abundant factor will benefit'.
[On changes in USP students] The year ones... They're all so androgynous.
I have no, I think some people do like it, I have no interest in demoralising my students... There's always one question there that'll freak out a bunch of you.
You guys are filled with panic, but this is the time when I have to let you know how much joy [it was]. It's a pleasure with you guys, coming to work.
[On the control principle and freedom] There's something - *mmh!* inside you that is not determined by anybody else.
Why is he a bad person? He had a troubled childhood. He wasn't breastfed... He played violent video games.
[On module approval] They were only interested in the grading of the assignments. They wanted them to be spaced out. There wasn't any feedback on the intellectual content.
Every Thursday we come in and we're expected so spick (speak)
Your teachers all come from very different backgrounds, and we all have different views of the world and we all think we're right.
For me, it was very hard to guess what you want. For the first set of readings I spent 1 hour on Google googling the meanings of the wordso n the first page.
We talked about material culture, but I don't recall any articles. Or maybe I didn't read them.
I thought Singaporean Studies modules must be taught by Singaporean lecturers [Instructor: Isn't that racist?] (Singapore)
We were discussing NUS students and he said: 'Okay, we can get some good ones, but in general it's general apathetic mediocrity.'
[On Singapore] Any negative stereotypes that I heard before, aside from the food and the sun - that was very true...
[Indian student on India module] If I don't get a B+ at leastI'm never goinna walk into a Hindu temple again.
Nothing comes from nothing right? You know the song? [Student: No.] Nothing come from nothing. Nothing ever could. The Julia Andrews principle. It's from - nevermind. (Julie)
[Student: You said that during our last meeting, you'd tell us about your own religious persuasion.] I can't imagine, I can't imagine why you'd be so interested. [Student 2: It's not in the notes.] It's not in the notes. I was gonna look. I'll come up wih it. I'm a - druid.
People like to talk about Evil like it's a noun. On a dark night, and a full moon and it's creeping around, which is silly.
[On the exam] I hope it's only 2 hours. I can't wait to read the papers, but it gets boring sitting there watching you write.
[On the Geography Honours girls] They started talking about their boobs and they invited the guys to join in.
[On a CD] Why can't I eject it? [Me: Because you're using a Mac]
lower temperature than the saul (soil)
Our group is presenting XXX. The group members are [his name], XXX *flashes laser pointer*, XXX *flashes laser pointer*, XXX *flashes laser pointer*.
sair'ch'err't (sachet)
I'll give you something to think about that I read online: if God doesn't believe in atheists, then they don't exist. [Me: That's if you take the New Age Transcendent view that-] Dude, no. It's just something I read online.
Repeat after me. Il y a un. Kangarou. [Student 2: It means 'I fuck kangaroos'] No it doesn't. Il y a un kangarou. Sous mon lit. [Student 2: 'I give blowjobs to kangaroos'] (Kangourou) [Ed: The words were written on the whiteboard]
[On girls] They're always like that. [They] say [they're] not hungry, then half an hour later: 'Let's go for dinner'.
After the exam period is when you find people getting attached. They study together... They form strong bonds... 'But now is not the time'.
For one of my modules you can choose between bringing in the textbook or two pages of notes. [Me: So what was your choice?] Textbook. You can write in the textbook.
[To female student] Are you PGP Block X, XX-XX? [Student 2: He's been spying on your naked!]
[To me] How come today you dressed so nice? Social experiment ah? (you're dressed so nicely today)
Business School is to train you up to fit into the Capitalist system. It should be renamed 'School of Slaves'.
Post ID: 6303670299175432249
Sunday, November 25, 2007
"Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters." - Margaret Halsey
***
"But then what about persons who will in fact be lost because they never hear the gospel, but who would have been freely saved if only they had heard it? The solution proposed thus far preserves God's goodness and love on a global scale, but on an individual level surely an all-loving God would have done more to achieve such a person's salvation by ensuring that the gospel reaches him. But how do we know that there are any such persons? It is reasonable to assume that many people who never hear the gospel would not have believed it even if they had heard it. Suppose, then, that God has so providentially ordered the world that all persons who never hear the gospel are precisely such people. In that case, anybody who never hears the gospel and is lost would have rejected the gospel and been lost even if he had heard it. In supplying such persons with sufficient grace for salvation, even though He knows they will reject it, God is already exhibiting extraordinary love toward them, and bringing the gospel would be of no additional material benefit to them. Hence, no one could stand before God on the judgement day and complain, "Sure, God, I didn't respond to your revelation in nature and conscience. All right. But if only I had heard the gospel, then I would have believed!" God will say to them, "No, I knew that even if you had heard the gospel, you still would not have believed. Therefore, my judgement of you on the basis of my revelation in nature and conscience is neither unloving nor unfair."
Thus, it is possible that God has created a world which has an optimal balance between saved and lost and that those who never hear the gospel and are lost would not have believed in Christ even if they had heard of him. So long as this scenario is even possible, it proves that it is entirely consistent to affirm that God is all-powerful and all-loving and yet that some people never hear the gospel and are lost...
On the proposed view, God in His providence can so arrange the world that as the gospel spread out from first century Palestine, He placed people in its path who would believe it if they heard it. In His love and mercy, God ensures that no one who would believe the gospel if he heard it remains ultimately unreached. Once the gospel reaches a people, God providentially places there persons who He knew would respond to it if they heard it. He ensures that those who never hear it are only those who would not accept it if they did hear it. Hence, no one is lost because of a lack of information or due to historical and geographical accident. Anyone who wants or even would want to be saved will be saved."
--- Politically Incorrect Salvation, William Lane Craig
Besides contradicting himself repeatedly, the argument is remarkably disingenuous. !@#$
***
"But then what about persons who will in fact be lost because they never hear the gospel, but who would have been freely saved if only they had heard it? The solution proposed thus far preserves God's goodness and love on a global scale, but on an individual level surely an all-loving God would have done more to achieve such a person's salvation by ensuring that the gospel reaches him. But how do we know that there are any such persons? It is reasonable to assume that many people who never hear the gospel would not have believed it even if they had heard it. Suppose, then, that God has so providentially ordered the world that all persons who never hear the gospel are precisely such people. In that case, anybody who never hears the gospel and is lost would have rejected the gospel and been lost even if he had heard it. In supplying such persons with sufficient grace for salvation, even though He knows they will reject it, God is already exhibiting extraordinary love toward them, and bringing the gospel would be of no additional material benefit to them. Hence, no one could stand before God on the judgement day and complain, "Sure, God, I didn't respond to your revelation in nature and conscience. All right. But if only I had heard the gospel, then I would have believed!" God will say to them, "No, I knew that even if you had heard the gospel, you still would not have believed. Therefore, my judgement of you on the basis of my revelation in nature and conscience is neither unloving nor unfair."
Thus, it is possible that God has created a world which has an optimal balance between saved and lost and that those who never hear the gospel and are lost would not have believed in Christ even if they had heard of him. So long as this scenario is even possible, it proves that it is entirely consistent to affirm that God is all-powerful and all-loving and yet that some people never hear the gospel and are lost...
On the proposed view, God in His providence can so arrange the world that as the gospel spread out from first century Palestine, He placed people in its path who would believe it if they heard it. In His love and mercy, God ensures that no one who would believe the gospel if he heard it remains ultimately unreached. Once the gospel reaches a people, God providentially places there persons who He knew would respond to it if they heard it. He ensures that those who never hear it are only those who would not accept it if they did hear it. Hence, no one is lost because of a lack of information or due to historical and geographical accident. Anyone who wants or even would want to be saved will be saved."
--- Politically Incorrect Salvation, William Lane Craig
Besides contradicting himself repeatedly, the argument is remarkably disingenuous. !@#$
Post ID: 5736405843203381165
"I hate the outdoors. To me the outdoors is where the car is." - Will Durst
***
"Another motivation for Christian belief in libertarian free will comes from its use in addressing the problem of evil. Thus, Plantinga (1974) has mounted a famous “Free Will Defense” against the logical problem of evil. There are reasons, however, not to follow this route:
(i) The pay-off for appeal to libertarian free will is very slight. At most, appeal to free will as libertarians construe it shows that there is no logical inconsistency between the goodness of God and the (bare) existence of moral evil. This does not begin to allay worries about evil and suffering and the untoward vagaries of life. It does not even touch the problem of natural evil—earthquakes, birth defects and other sources of suffering.
(ii) With or without libertarian free will, evil is and remains inscrutable. On considering great and undeserved suffering, we have to fall back on our faith anyway. We are already saddled with the mystery of the distribution and amount of both moral and physical evil; adding faith that there is no logical inconsistency between the existence of God and the (bare) existence of evil at all does not seem much of a stretch. So, we may as well not compromise the traditional Augustinian view of grace by appeal to a libertarian conception of free will."
--- Why Christians should not be libertarians: an Augustinian challenge, Lynne Rudder Baker
How honest (for once)! Except that it makes you wonder why she wrote the rest of the paper...
***
"Another motivation for Christian belief in libertarian free will comes from its use in addressing the problem of evil. Thus, Plantinga (1974) has mounted a famous “Free Will Defense” against the logical problem of evil. There are reasons, however, not to follow this route:
(i) The pay-off for appeal to libertarian free will is very slight. At most, appeal to free will as libertarians construe it shows that there is no logical inconsistency between the goodness of God and the (bare) existence of moral evil. This does not begin to allay worries about evil and suffering and the untoward vagaries of life. It does not even touch the problem of natural evil—earthquakes, birth defects and other sources of suffering.
(ii) With or without libertarian free will, evil is and remains inscrutable. On considering great and undeserved suffering, we have to fall back on our faith anyway. We are already saddled with the mystery of the distribution and amount of both moral and physical evil; adding faith that there is no logical inconsistency between the existence of God and the (bare) existence of evil at all does not seem much of a stretch. So, we may as well not compromise the traditional Augustinian view of grace by appeal to a libertarian conception of free will."
--- Why Christians should not be libertarians: an Augustinian challenge, Lynne Rudder Baker
How honest (for once)! Except that it makes you wonder why she wrote the rest of the paper...
Post ID: 4899328617614952223
Saturday, November 24, 2007
"The dominant answer in religious thinking concerning God and morality is that what God commands is morally right independent of his commands and he commands them because he sees that they are morally right...
Consider God's belief that 2 + 2 = 4. Is it true that 2 + 2 = 4 because God believes it? Or does God believe that 2 + 2 = 4 because it is true that 2 + 2 = 4? If we say the latter, as it seems we should, we imply that certain mathematical statements are true independent of God's believing them. So, we already seem committed to the view that the way some things are is not ultimately a matter of God's will or commands. Perhaps the basic truths of morality have the same sort of status as the basic truth of mathematics...
The second difficulty for an exclusivistic religion arises as soon as we become serious acquainted with other religions and the lives of their founders and chief saints... That Mahatma Gandhi, for example, is destined for hell because he did not convert to Christianity or some other exclusivistic religion is bound to seem a dubious, if not absurd, idea to anyone who becomes acquainted with Hinduism and the life of Gandhi...
None of these substantive properties is knowable by us or even expressible by our human concepts. So our concepts of "good," "loving," and "divine," fail to pick out any of the substantive properties of the Real in itself. But if ultimate reality (the Real in itself) is not good, not loving, and not divine, why is it manifested in experience as good, as loving, and as divine?... Hick holds that the Real possesses neither the positive substantial property of being purposive nor the negative substantial property of not being pruposive. But many philosophers would regard such a view as simply incoherent...
If neither many gods nor a single god called by different names or titles in the different religions exists, what then is left for Hick to adopt as the proper view of the many different gods of the world's great religions? Without explicitly endorsing the view, Hick suggests that the gods are "projections of the religious imagination." They are human creations in response to encounters with what is truly ultimate reality. Thus, [no] such beings actually exist."
i.e. If all religions are right, then all religions are also wrong."
--- Philosophy of religion : an introduction / William L. Rowe
Consider God's belief that 2 + 2 = 4. Is it true that 2 + 2 = 4 because God believes it? Or does God believe that 2 + 2 = 4 because it is true that 2 + 2 = 4? If we say the latter, as it seems we should, we imply that certain mathematical statements are true independent of God's believing them. So, we already seem committed to the view that the way some things are is not ultimately a matter of God's will or commands. Perhaps the basic truths of morality have the same sort of status as the basic truth of mathematics...
The second difficulty for an exclusivistic religion arises as soon as we become serious acquainted with other religions and the lives of their founders and chief saints... That Mahatma Gandhi, for example, is destined for hell because he did not convert to Christianity or some other exclusivistic religion is bound to seem a dubious, if not absurd, idea to anyone who becomes acquainted with Hinduism and the life of Gandhi...
None of these substantive properties is knowable by us or even expressible by our human concepts. So our concepts of "good," "loving," and "divine," fail to pick out any of the substantive properties of the Real in itself. But if ultimate reality (the Real in itself) is not good, not loving, and not divine, why is it manifested in experience as good, as loving, and as divine?... Hick holds that the Real possesses neither the positive substantial property of being purposive nor the negative substantial property of not being pruposive. But many philosophers would regard such a view as simply incoherent...
If neither many gods nor a single god called by different names or titles in the different religions exists, what then is left for Hick to adopt as the proper view of the many different gods of the world's great religions? Without explicitly endorsing the view, Hick suggests that the gods are "projections of the religious imagination." They are human creations in response to encounters with what is truly ultimate reality. Thus, [no] such beings actually exist."
i.e. If all religions are right, then all religions are also wrong."
--- Philosophy of religion : an introduction / William L. Rowe
Post ID: 6963722607948386337
"The primary responsibility of museums is to... propagate patriotism, socialism and the revolutionary traditions among the broad masses of the people... increase the nation’s self-confidence and cohesive force, and contribute, by way of intellectual support, to the great cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics...
These difficulties and problems will surely be solved as long as we further emancipate our minds, follow the principle of "seeking truth from facts," base our work on reality, handle the difficultires and problems correctly..."
--- Museums : treasure houses of history (China)
These difficulties and problems will surely be solved as long as we further emancipate our minds, follow the principle of "seeking truth from facts," base our work on reality, handle the difficultires and problems correctly..."
--- Museums : treasure houses of history (China)
Post ID: 902149963707929943
Friday, November 23, 2007
"Many of the statements made by museologists in published articles and at international conferences need to be interpreted with some skill, and with considerable knowledge of the countries in which these experts operate... [it] makes it difficult to make a public statement in simple, straightforward language. Museologists are all too likely to produce such unhelpful sentences as: 'The affectable changes in attitude and involvement by museum visitors, as a result of integrated museum experience, is observable withinthe museum environment' The urge to grade-up one's utterances by weaving in sociological jargon is difficult to resist, and the result is often a totally misleading impression of the person or institution concerned. No museum could be less pompous or academic than the Brooklyn Children's Museum in New York, yet a member of its staff found it possible to define a museum as 'a facility devoted to the preservation and promotion of the cultural arts and sciences through the use of specific resources that generally are not maintained in the course of daily events or used within the context of daily routine', phrases which do not suggest the lively, original Brooklyn Children's Museum at all."
"Glossary
The way in which members of the museum profession attempt to communicate... has been serious contaminated in recent years by the terminology which is current in the pseudo-sciences [Ed: Emphasis mine] of psychology and sociology...
Exhibits are no longer exhibits, but 'series of learning stations'; a modern curator does not try to make his collections interesting and intelligible, but 'plans a sequence of learning experiences'...
This kind of language will eventually, no doubt, work its way through the museum system and be flushed away to join the linguistic absurdities of previous generations...
It should be emphasised that, although this particular glossary includes only English terms, an equally long and discouraging list could be compiled in French, German, Russian or any other of the world's major languages...
Artefact or Artifact. Literally, 'skilfully made', but often used by those members of the museum world with little or no knowledge of Latin to signify any man-made object, however crude or primitive it may be.
Catalogue raisonné... An accepted English equivalent for this rather snobbish and off-putting term is badly needed.
Fine Art(s). A fundamentally absurd phrase... It means works of art which have only their beauty to recommend them. Fine Art items are essentially useless... But the definition is not foolproof, since one can never be absolutely sure that a Ming vase would not be used for umbrellas or a Rembrandt and its frame as a tea-tray.
Heritage. A much-used, trendy, emotion-loaded word of the 1970s. One wonders how previous generations got along without it.
Historical archaeologist. This very curious profession was invented in the United States and appears, as yet, to be little found outside that country. If one meets an historical archaeologist and asks him to define himself, the most frequent reply is that he is a person who has graduated in historical archaeology in order to qualify himself to work in that field, which does not help a great deal.
Visitation. A dreadful, totally illiterate American innovation, to be absolutely barred. The Visitation of the Holy Ghost to the Virgin Mary, or the visitation of a diocese by its bishop, is correct and in order. The visitation of museums, meaning the number and kinds of people who visit museums, is a nonsensical barbarism."
--- Museums for the 1980s : a survey of world trends, Kenneth Hudson (I'm quite sure he's British. Bah.)
"Glossary
The way in which members of the museum profession attempt to communicate... has been serious contaminated in recent years by the terminology which is current in the pseudo-sciences [Ed: Emphasis mine] of psychology and sociology...
Exhibits are no longer exhibits, but 'series of learning stations'; a modern curator does not try to make his collections interesting and intelligible, but 'plans a sequence of learning experiences'...
This kind of language will eventually, no doubt, work its way through the museum system and be flushed away to join the linguistic absurdities of previous generations...
It should be emphasised that, although this particular glossary includes only English terms, an equally long and discouraging list could be compiled in French, German, Russian or any other of the world's major languages...
Artefact or Artifact. Literally, 'skilfully made', but often used by those members of the museum world with little or no knowledge of Latin to signify any man-made object, however crude or primitive it may be.
Catalogue raisonné... An accepted English equivalent for this rather snobbish and off-putting term is badly needed.
Fine Art(s). A fundamentally absurd phrase... It means works of art which have only their beauty to recommend them. Fine Art items are essentially useless... But the definition is not foolproof, since one can never be absolutely sure that a Ming vase would not be used for umbrellas or a Rembrandt and its frame as a tea-tray.
Heritage. A much-used, trendy, emotion-loaded word of the 1970s. One wonders how previous generations got along without it.
Historical archaeologist. This very curious profession was invented in the United States and appears, as yet, to be little found outside that country. If one meets an historical archaeologist and asks him to define himself, the most frequent reply is that he is a person who has graduated in historical archaeology in order to qualify himself to work in that field, which does not help a great deal.
Visitation. A dreadful, totally illiterate American innovation, to be absolutely barred. The Visitation of the Holy Ghost to the Virgin Mary, or the visitation of a diocese by its bishop, is correct and in order. The visitation of museums, meaning the number and kinds of people who visit museums, is a nonsensical barbarism."
--- Museums for the 1980s : a survey of world trends, Kenneth Hudson (I'm quite sure he's British. Bah.)
Post ID: 6268862958311936941
the_fell_bat:
"It should come as little surprise that the disenfranchised, notably those who disenfranchise themselves willfully, are also the ones most receptive to tenets of postmodernist thinking. They possess no authority, so they desire to annihilate it – or fondly imagine the possibility of its annihilation. They do not possess the capability to build up organizations of power, so they would like nothing better than to see all such structures and institutions torn down. They do not perceive the necessity of conformity in some contexts, so they indiscriminately tout individuality with scant regard for exigencies of circumstances or simple good sense. Their faculties of reason and intelligent analysis are hampered by the logical incoherence of their thought processes and their wrongheaded embrace of irrationality as a guiding intellectual principle. Rather than perceive that a functioning system constitutes fertile ground from which humanity’s various schools of thought may flourish – including their own self-destructive unsustainable one – they ardently wish to see the implosion of all such systems in an anarchic orgy of violence and destruction, a lashing back against a phantom foe that exists only in their own envious imagination.
Fortunately for civilization at large, we may safely proceed along our productive ways, fulfilling our human potential for exercising our reason and intellect upon the world around us, without being unduly affected by these ineffectual provocateurs. They can problematize themselves into oblivion for all we care. They can splash around in the baby pool of semiotic fluids, they can sit around in their little hermeneutic circles knitting interstices with subversive paroxysms, and spend their days gazing within themselves in narcissistic self-indulgent reflection – except they can’t. The demands of this living, breathing external world we inhabit compel some measure of rational action from them, or will eventually do so given enough time. As puzzled as they may be by the notion that a meaningful life is a productive and pleasurable one based on rational principles and the framework of capitalism so many of them find inordinate pleasure in condemning as “de-humanizing”, they will eventually be forced to partake a little of this life, simply in order to live. Else, these death-fetishists write themselves neatly out of the gene-pool, more or less in the manner of Yukio Mishima and his ilk, and the rest of the world shrugs and moves on.
They can stand atop a skyscraper and deny the heights of capitalism’s achievement; they can eat the food grown and delivered to them by the most efficient system for such purposes and smugly decry that same system; they can enjoy the benefits of modern amenities and the safety afforded by modern public institutions and complain of being totalized by the forces of modern conformity; they can close their eyes to the advancement of science and true intellectual thought and worship the horrors of the unknown, with no intention of meaningful engagement with the unknown; they can misuse the tools of reason to preach unreason. Yet for all that they remain laughable specimens of humanity. Unable to produce value, they condemn production and value, while surviving on the productive efforts of others.
There is something gleefully satisfying in watching these thinkers exile themselves to their own Galapagos Islands, where they will simply become the evolutionary dead-end their warped forms of ideology condemn them to be. There they can languish and extemporize at length on the post-condition of their post-exile, the post-structural post-problematics of their post not getting through, on the post-inefficiency of the postman and their post-desire to post-explode the post service. In the meantime, the rest of us will be getting our mail, and on time, too.
The solution to bad science is not no-science, but good science; the solution to bad government is not no-government, but good government; the solution to flawed production is not no-production, but good production; the solution to apathy is not murder, but compassion."
Democracy is the most problematic form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Capitalism is the most problematic economic system, except for all those other systems that have been tried from time to time.
Rationality is the most problematic cognitive framework, except for all those other frameworks that have been tried from time to time.
Academics should be read, not heard.
"It should come as little surprise that the disenfranchised, notably those who disenfranchise themselves willfully, are also the ones most receptive to tenets of postmodernist thinking. They possess no authority, so they desire to annihilate it – or fondly imagine the possibility of its annihilation. They do not possess the capability to build up organizations of power, so they would like nothing better than to see all such structures and institutions torn down. They do not perceive the necessity of conformity in some contexts, so they indiscriminately tout individuality with scant regard for exigencies of circumstances or simple good sense. Their faculties of reason and intelligent analysis are hampered by the logical incoherence of their thought processes and their wrongheaded embrace of irrationality as a guiding intellectual principle. Rather than perceive that a functioning system constitutes fertile ground from which humanity’s various schools of thought may flourish – including their own self-destructive unsustainable one – they ardently wish to see the implosion of all such systems in an anarchic orgy of violence and destruction, a lashing back against a phantom foe that exists only in their own envious imagination.
Fortunately for civilization at large, we may safely proceed along our productive ways, fulfilling our human potential for exercising our reason and intellect upon the world around us, without being unduly affected by these ineffectual provocateurs. They can problematize themselves into oblivion for all we care. They can splash around in the baby pool of semiotic fluids, they can sit around in their little hermeneutic circles knitting interstices with subversive paroxysms, and spend their days gazing within themselves in narcissistic self-indulgent reflection – except they can’t. The demands of this living, breathing external world we inhabit compel some measure of rational action from them, or will eventually do so given enough time. As puzzled as they may be by the notion that a meaningful life is a productive and pleasurable one based on rational principles and the framework of capitalism so many of them find inordinate pleasure in condemning as “de-humanizing”, they will eventually be forced to partake a little of this life, simply in order to live. Else, these death-fetishists write themselves neatly out of the gene-pool, more or less in the manner of Yukio Mishima and his ilk, and the rest of the world shrugs and moves on.
They can stand atop a skyscraper and deny the heights of capitalism’s achievement; they can eat the food grown and delivered to them by the most efficient system for such purposes and smugly decry that same system; they can enjoy the benefits of modern amenities and the safety afforded by modern public institutions and complain of being totalized by the forces of modern conformity; they can close their eyes to the advancement of science and true intellectual thought and worship the horrors of the unknown, with no intention of meaningful engagement with the unknown; they can misuse the tools of reason to preach unreason. Yet for all that they remain laughable specimens of humanity. Unable to produce value, they condemn production and value, while surviving on the productive efforts of others.
There is something gleefully satisfying in watching these thinkers exile themselves to their own Galapagos Islands, where they will simply become the evolutionary dead-end their warped forms of ideology condemn them to be. There they can languish and extemporize at length on the post-condition of their post-exile, the post-structural post-problematics of their post not getting through, on the post-inefficiency of the postman and their post-desire to post-explode the post service. In the meantime, the rest of us will be getting our mail, and on time, too.
The solution to bad science is not no-science, but good science; the solution to bad government is not no-government, but good government; the solution to flawed production is not no-production, but good production; the solution to apathy is not murder, but compassion."
Democracy is the most problematic form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Capitalism is the most problematic economic system, except for all those other systems that have been tried from time to time.
Rationality is the most problematic cognitive framework, except for all those other frameworks that have been tried from time to time.
Academics should be read, not heard.
Post ID: 1032511506963591628
Thursday, November 22, 2007
"I am a deeply superficial person." - Andy Warhol
***
Me: law got people speak chinese ah
Noodles: super a lot of chinese girls
i mean chinese speakers
Me: wah
singapore is doomed
USP quality also going down
Noodles: yeah i was horrified
they sounded like the squeaky, shrill scgs girls
shrill kinda automatically reminds me of scgs... i guess it would be more appropriate to refer to your 'simple girl' o_O anw those i overheard sounded chinese-speaking and stupid
i also came across a few girls comparing their butts in the toilet the other day
i wanted to blog about it but it made me feel very depressed
i was in the cubicle when suddenly i heard, LET'S COMPARE BUTTS! EH~ YOURS SO FLAT~ IT'S GOOD TO HAVE FLAT... BUT BETTER TO HAVE SOME~ EEEE MINE SO BIG.. YOURS DAMN CUTE~!
i was like so fucking disgusted
Someone: i went to have a drink wiht one of my friends
stayed in KE7
and then
what happened was that
there's quite a bit of PRC staying there
and they like to have sex in the afternoon
and one of my friend's friend actually heard the guy
in midst of intercourse, saying...
叫我皇上
(translated as 'call me the king')
it's damn disgusting yet funny
Someone else on the above: I saw that in 还珠格格 [Ed: Huan Zhu Ge Ge - "My Fair Princess"]... '叫我皇上'
Someone (2), independently: since im nice today, shall tell u a funny story...
"... so these 2 guys were walking past a room in some hostel and they heard 2 ppl getting it on inside. and so, when they heard the girl going to climax, the guy shouted "jiao4 wo3 huang2 di4!"
WTF MAN, SERIOUSLY. best part is, the 2 guys then shouted
"huang2 di4!" then they ran off.
HA. HA. HA.
no prizes for guessing the nationality of the ppl in the "story".
i find it so funny
it takes all those disgusting fetishes u hear abt to a different level
Me: oh but I didn't know about the girl going to climax bit
how did they know she was going to
so noisy ah hahahaha
well in US they shout "call me daddy"
Someone (2): that one i've heard of
perhaps we've been westernised too much
but the huang di one is damn funny
at least the chinese arent as perverse as the whites
i should think that royal affairs are more acceptable than incest
Someone else: i think as long as im in usp i will somehow only ever date usp guys
so there goes my alpha male
Someone: your description of mahler ["lots of drama and random notes, not enough tune"] sounds like shostakovich
shostakovich sounds like the soundtrack of an eastern european horror movie
Me: shos... not just random notes
random bad sounding notes
MFM: composers tend to get more random as they age
I think studies have consistently shown that composers get less 'melodic' and more 'thematic' as they age
***
Me: law got people speak chinese ah
Noodles: super a lot of chinese girls
i mean chinese speakers
Me: wah
singapore is doomed
USP quality also going down
Noodles: yeah i was horrified
they sounded like the squeaky, shrill scgs girls
shrill kinda automatically reminds me of scgs... i guess it would be more appropriate to refer to your 'simple girl' o_O anw those i overheard sounded chinese-speaking and stupid
i also came across a few girls comparing their butts in the toilet the other day
i wanted to blog about it but it made me feel very depressed
i was in the cubicle when suddenly i heard, LET'S COMPARE BUTTS! EH~ YOURS SO FLAT~ IT'S GOOD TO HAVE FLAT... BUT BETTER TO HAVE SOME~ EEEE MINE SO BIG.. YOURS DAMN CUTE~!
i was like so fucking disgusted
Someone: i went to have a drink wiht one of my friends
stayed in KE7
and then
what happened was that
there's quite a bit of PRC staying there
and they like to have sex in the afternoon
and one of my friend's friend actually heard the guy
in midst of intercourse, saying...
叫我皇上
(translated as 'call me the king')
it's damn disgusting yet funny
Someone else on the above: I saw that in 还珠格格 [Ed: Huan Zhu Ge Ge - "My Fair Princess"]... '叫我皇上'
Someone (2), independently: since im nice today, shall tell u a funny story...
"... so these 2 guys were walking past a room in some hostel and they heard 2 ppl getting it on inside. and so, when they heard the girl going to climax, the guy shouted "jiao4 wo3 huang2 di4!"
WTF MAN, SERIOUSLY. best part is, the 2 guys then shouted
"huang2 di4!" then they ran off.
HA. HA. HA.
no prizes for guessing the nationality of the ppl in the "story".
i find it so funny
it takes all those disgusting fetishes u hear abt to a different level
Me: oh but I didn't know about the girl going to climax bit
how did they know she was going to
so noisy ah hahahaha
well in US they shout "call me daddy"
Someone (2): that one i've heard of
perhaps we've been westernised too much
but the huang di one is damn funny
at least the chinese arent as perverse as the whites
i should think that royal affairs are more acceptable than incest
Someone else: i think as long as im in usp i will somehow only ever date usp guys
so there goes my alpha male
Someone: your description of mahler ["lots of drama and random notes, not enough tune"] sounds like shostakovich
shostakovich sounds like the soundtrack of an eastern european horror movie
Me: shos... not just random notes
random bad sounding notes
MFM: composers tend to get more random as they age
I think studies have consistently shown that composers get less 'melodic' and more 'thematic' as they age
Post ID: 125369147535810320
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