Oppression hits my beloved sing.ah.pore blogosphere. Acid Flask was forced to shut down under threat of libel suit.
Excerpt:
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. – Wendell Phillips
Unfortunately in recent days, the price of maintaining the content which used to be accessible at this URL has become too high for the author to afford. AcidFlask thanks readers for their past support and regrets the inconvenience caused.
AcidFlask would like to apologize in particular to Mr. Philip Yeo, Chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, for having hosted or made remarks which Mr. Yeo felt were defamatory to him and the agency that he leads. AcidFlask promises to not make such remarks again on this website.
It is even more alarming to see what Reporters Without Borders said about the turn of events.
Excerpt:
A few days later, Acid Flask shut down the blog and posted a message of apology to Yeo in its place. Other Singapore blogs that had reproduced the remarks quickly afterwards posted apologies or themselves closed down.
Singapore Official Porn Site ponders on what happened to free speech.
Excerpt:
Do anyone here still remember that obscure little place called the Speaker's Corner. The one located at Hong Lim Park, remember? That really secluded place in which the gahmen set up where after registering, we can freely conduct speeches for whoever is interested.
The incident even caused Mr Brown to be spammed, and angered Mr Miyagi.
Excerpt:
If you get 'threatened with legal action' because of something you wrote on your blog, I could recommend a coupla good lawyers, but you really should know better than to run with scissors.
...
I can get the same kind of attention by standing naked in an MRT train. Once I get arrested and make the news, there'd be at least some quarters who'd defend me saying I've had my freedom of expression curbed.
Check out the comments by other bloggers at From a Singapore Angle.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Exhibition, The Aftermath.
Finally had a nice and easy rest last night. But the damage has been done. Standing for any short length of time gives me leg cramps. Standing for longer times makes me drained and unable to even think. I would then have to sit and daze off. Babe activity running high didn't help much. It simply didn't register. More rest. I need more rest.
Finally had a nice and easy rest last night. But the damage has been done. Standing for any short length of time gives me leg cramps. Standing for longer times makes me drained and unable to even think. I would then have to sit and daze off. Babe activity running high didn't help much. It simply didn't register. More rest. I need more rest.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Exhibition Day Three (Last Day)
I didn't have coffee on Wednesday and i hadn't had my coffee today, and i'm ready to blow up in a million mega-ton explosion. It's 0904, bright sunny morning, welcome to Five Minutes w lbandit, i'm blogging. At home.
No, i'm not on leave or MC. In fact i have to be going like now. But i'm pretty pissed, so i'll blog first.
The RFID gate antennas were at the conference area. And when the conference ended yesterday, we had the choice of taking the gates to the exhibition area for safekeeping or to leave it in the conference area overnight "at our own risk". The catch was that the exhibition area was closed by 1730, and the security didn't let anyone enter, much less bring stuff in.
My boss told me to be at Suntec by 0800, so we could set up the gates and ready it for the exhibition. But sometime during 1900+ last night, one of my colleague came to take the gate antenna from the conference area back to the office. My boss then decides not to demo the gate at the exhibition area, and conveniently forgets to tell me about it.
So she sms me 0753 today to tell me that since there was no need to set up the gate, i could reach at 0955. Yeah rite, as if i live 7 mins walk away from Suntec. So there i was, in Suntec at 0748, and no one was gonna be there. Thank you for making me lug my 2.8kg laptop up and down to Suntec, i'm pretty sure i needed the exercise. What the hell!
Extremely pissed, i decided to go home to put down my laptop. Less they want me to bring the stuff locked at the exhibition area back to the office tonight and end up i have to lug my laptop all around sing.ah.pore. Nono.
I didn't have coffee on Wednesday and i hadn't had my coffee today, and i'm ready to blow up in a million mega-ton explosion. It's 0904, bright sunny morning, welcome to Five Minutes w lbandit, i'm blogging. At home.
No, i'm not on leave or MC. In fact i have to be going like now. But i'm pretty pissed, so i'll blog first.
The RFID gate antennas were at the conference area. And when the conference ended yesterday, we had the choice of taking the gates to the exhibition area for safekeeping or to leave it in the conference area overnight "at our own risk". The catch was that the exhibition area was closed by 1730, and the security didn't let anyone enter, much less bring stuff in.
My boss told me to be at Suntec by 0800, so we could set up the gates and ready it for the exhibition. But sometime during 1900+ last night, one of my colleague came to take the gate antenna from the conference area back to the office. My boss then decides not to demo the gate at the exhibition area, and conveniently forgets to tell me about it.
So she sms me 0753 today to tell me that since there was no need to set up the gate, i could reach at 0955. Yeah rite, as if i live 7 mins walk away from Suntec. So there i was, in Suntec at 0748, and no one was gonna be there. Thank you for making me lug my 2.8kg laptop up and down to Suntec, i'm pretty sure i needed the exercise. What the hell!
Extremely pissed, i decided to go home to put down my laptop. Less they want me to bring the stuff locked at the exhibition area back to the office tonight and end up i have to lug my laptop all around sing.ah.pore. Nono.
Exhibition Day Two.
After standing for two days, the simple act of standing sends pain up from my feet. Its so bad that when i try and walk, my leg muscles were verging on spasming into cramps. Getting cramps from standing, that's something i never thought could happen.
I was more like a visitor than exhibitor in day one. I went around to other booths also dealing with RFID to look at their demos. Me being kind of new, no one really knew where i was from. And when i revealed my company's name, they would go like, "Wa... your company send u as spy ah...". Of course, they won't say it out exactly, but you get the feeling from the way they react. Competitor Syndrome, as my boss aptly puts it. But such Competitor Syndrome is pretty pointless.It's not like i'm gonna write about them on some online blog right?
So how to i deal with Competitor Syndrome? I just go like, "Oh i'm pretty new to the company (true) and i wanted to find out what RFID is all about (in a way, also true)." And when these people starts to ask me questions that are like company in confidence, imagine, i ask for them to show me their exhibit (public stuff) and they ask me what projects we are doing (private stuff), what the..
Anyway, when they ask about stuff that are confidential, i'll just go like, "I only small fry in the company, tan jiat (just a job to feed myself) only." This seems to subdue them, like talking to ambitious-not people is beneath them. Oh well, whatever works.
I sat in for alot of the seminar thingy that is going on at the exhibition yesterday. There is this cute girl whose job is to scan RFID cards when people enter the area. RFID cards are issued to all people who register for the exhibition. Registration is neccessary for entry to the exhibition. Which kind of means everyone there had a card.
So i went in and out of the seminar area for countless times, each entry requiring the cute girl to scan my card. Okie... i sort of wanted to get her to scan my card... but that's beside the point. Anyway, it went on enough times for her to recognise my face, and me to recognise her face.
Sidenote: The security at the exhibition do not have RFID equipment to check the card to determine if i am actually a visitor or exhibitor. The only way to differentiate is by the cover holding the card. Yellow for visitor, green (or was it blue?) for exhibitors. I actually registered as visitor, but i swap the cover holder with someone else, and abracadabra, suddenly i am an exhibitor. The point of this sidenote is: why use RFID card when it is only going to be used as a normal plastic card?. Too much money is it? I won't be surprised if one of these days they replace toilet rolls with rolls of RFID labels. They need to track shit or something... Now that sounds correct.
And today, early morning, i saw the cute girl waiting outside the exhibition hall. No, not waiting for me, i wished. She was waiting to go in, coz visitors can only enter at 1000. Yes, she works there and she has to use visitor pass. Anyway, she saw me and gave me a rather heart warming smile. Ooooo. Kind of cute, were i any braver, i would have asked for her number or something. But hey, i did manage to say bye to her when i walked past her on my way home. Yay! What a beautiful day.
After standing for two days, the simple act of standing sends pain up from my feet. Its so bad that when i try and walk, my leg muscles were verging on spasming into cramps. Getting cramps from standing, that's something i never thought could happen.
I was more like a visitor than exhibitor in day one. I went around to other booths also dealing with RFID to look at their demos. Me being kind of new, no one really knew where i was from. And when i revealed my company's name, they would go like, "Wa... your company send u as spy ah...". Of course, they won't say it out exactly, but you get the feeling from the way they react. Competitor Syndrome, as my boss aptly puts it. But such Competitor Syndrome is pretty pointless.
So how to i deal with Competitor Syndrome? I just go like, "Oh i'm pretty new to the company (true) and i wanted to find out what RFID is all about (in a way, also true)." And when these people starts to ask me questions that are like company in confidence, imagine, i ask for them to show me their exhibit (public stuff) and they ask me what projects we are doing (private stuff), what the..
Anyway, when they ask about stuff that are confidential, i'll just go like, "I only small fry in the company, tan jiat (just a job to feed myself) only." This seems to subdue them, like talking to ambitious-not people is beneath them. Oh well, whatever works.
I sat in for alot of the seminar thingy that is going on at the exhibition yesterday. There is this cute girl whose job is to scan RFID cards when people enter the area. RFID cards are issued to all people who register for the exhibition. Registration is neccessary for entry to the exhibition. Which kind of means everyone there had a card.
So i went in and out of the seminar area for countless times, each entry requiring the cute girl to scan my card. Okie... i sort of wanted to get her to scan my card... but that's beside the point. Anyway, it went on enough times for her to recognise my face, and me to recognise her face.
Sidenote: The security at the exhibition do not have RFID equipment to check the card to determine if i am actually a visitor or exhibitor. The only way to differentiate is by the cover holding the card. Yellow for visitor, green (or was it blue?) for exhibitors. I actually registered as visitor, but i swap the cover holder with someone else, and abracadabra, suddenly i am an exhibitor. The point of this sidenote is: why use RFID card when it is only going to be used as a normal plastic card?. Too much money is it? I won't be surprised if one of these days they replace toilet rolls with rolls of RFID labels. They need to track shit or something... Now that sounds correct.
And today, early morning, i saw the cute girl waiting outside the exhibition hall. No, not waiting for me, i wished. She was waiting to go in, coz visitors can only enter at 1000. Yes, she works there and she has to use visitor pass. Anyway, she saw me and gave me a rather heart warming smile. Ooooo. Kind of cute, were i any braver, i would have asked for her number or something. But hey, i did manage to say bye to her when i walked past her on my way home. Yay! What a beautiful day.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Exhibition Day One.
I think anyone with any interest in RFID should go to the exhibition. Its at Suntec Convention center, 4th floor. Anyone can register for free and enter the exhibition. The exhibition showcases not just RFID company, but also RFID printers, card packaging, both contact and contactless smartcard, basically everything about cards. Exhibition time is from 1000 to 1700.
If you head down to the 3rd floor by tmr, you'll find the paid conference going on behind closed doors. Outside the gate, you'll find my a pair of RFID gates and my laptop. Please don't steal my laptop. Anyway, if i'm there, you could get a RFID card from me to play around with it. Nothing much going on at the gates, just some eye candy. I think we're shifting the gates up to 4th level on friday, when the paid conference is over.
I went home lugging my laptop again. Went down to the pool for a swim. Babe watch activity zero, but it was alright, didn't want any babes to see my round tummy. Swam a couple rounds, which should equal to four laps on the international sized pool, yeah quite pathetic. It ain't the same swimming when you're tired. So i tried soaking in the pool. Water was kind of warm. But it ain't the same pool soaking if you're hungry. So i was done and out of the pool in less than 15 mins.
Sandra: Haha, thanks for the comment. Here's a little more about some issues in RFID. RFID can be classified into two groups. Active tags and passive tags. Active tags have battery and regularly sends signal out. Passive tags usually do not have batteries, and they send signal out only when in the RF field of the reader antenna. Stuff like library book tags, Ezlink card, and said grocery tagging would use passive tags, due to size, price and being practical.
RFID in sing.ah.pore operate in various frequencies within IDA regulation. The frequency we're used to seeing is 13.56MHz (Ezlink card). Any personnel (credit card size) RFID tag you have with you, is likely to be 13.56MHz.
WallMart and other big players are pushing the others to going into EPC or EPC Global, whatever. Now those aren't 13.56MHz. They are classified under UHF. Ultra High Frequency (13.56 is HF), the same ones whose antennas we're supposed to keep 25.5 cm away from.
However, there are issues with RFID. Alot of UHF's buzz is only hype. The RF generated by UHF is absorbed by water! So it would be quite impossible to tag individual items like milk, mineral water, simply because of the close proximity of tag to water.
Plus, RFID is not cheap when compared to perishable goods. Being able to tag individual items would be a nice idea. But until better technology/techniques come about, and the price of such technology/techniques becomes much cheaper, i won't want to be paying $[can't say, sorrie] for a loaf of bread : )
Also there's the issue of running out of unique ids which no one in the correct position seems to care about. Think internet protocol. Just not too long ago, IPv4 was supposedly to be more than sufficient. But the ip addresses were quickly running out and they had to change to IPv6. Um.. don't ask me what happened to IPv5.
RFID also runs the risk at becoming too invasive. At what point to we stop tracking? My boss says he wouldn't tag toilets and bedrooms. But who is to impose such moral obligations into other companies?
Hmm.. this seems pretty long. Rabbit.
I think anyone with any interest in RFID should go to the exhibition. Its at Suntec Convention center, 4th floor. Anyone can register for free and enter the exhibition. The exhibition showcases not just RFID company, but also RFID printers, card packaging, both contact and contactless smartcard, basically everything about cards. Exhibition time is from 1000 to 1700.
If you head down to the 3rd floor by tmr, you'll find the paid conference going on behind closed doors. Outside the gate, you'll find my a pair of RFID gates and my laptop. Please don't steal my laptop. Anyway, if i'm there, you could get a RFID card from me to play around with it. Nothing much going on at the gates, just some eye candy. I think we're shifting the gates up to 4th level on friday, when the paid conference is over.
I went home lugging my laptop again. Went down to the pool for a swim. Babe watch activity zero, but it was alright, didn't want any babes to see my round tummy. Swam a couple rounds, which should equal to four laps on the international sized pool, yeah quite pathetic. It ain't the same swimming when you're tired. So i tried soaking in the pool. Water was kind of warm. But it ain't the same pool soaking if you're hungry. So i was done and out of the pool in less than 15 mins.
Sandra: Haha, thanks for the comment. Here's a little more about some issues in RFID. RFID can be classified into two groups. Active tags and passive tags. Active tags have battery and regularly sends signal out. Passive tags usually do not have batteries, and they send signal out only when in the RF field of the reader antenna. Stuff like library book tags, Ezlink card, and said grocery tagging would use passive tags, due to size, price and being practical.
RFID in sing.ah.pore operate in various frequencies within IDA regulation. The frequency we're used to seeing is 13.56MHz (Ezlink card). Any personnel (credit card size) RFID tag you have with you, is likely to be 13.56MHz.
WallMart and other big players are pushing the others to going into EPC or EPC Global, whatever. Now those aren't 13.56MHz. They are classified under UHF. Ultra High Frequency (13.56 is HF), the same ones whose antennas we're supposed to keep 25.5 cm away from.
However, there are issues with RFID. Alot of UHF's buzz is only hype. The RF generated by UHF is absorbed by water! So it would be quite impossible to tag individual items like milk, mineral water, simply because of the close proximity of tag to water.
Plus, RFID is not cheap when compared to perishable goods. Being able to tag individual items would be a nice idea. But until better technology/techniques come about, and the price of such technology/techniques becomes much cheaper, i won't want to be paying $[can't say, sorrie] for a loaf of bread : )
Also there's the issue of running out of unique ids which no one in the correct position seems to care about. Think internet protocol. Just not too long ago, IPv4 was supposedly to be more than sufficient. But the ip addresses were quickly running out and they had to change to IPv6. Um.. don't ask me what happened to IPv5.
RFID also runs the risk at becoming too invasive. At what point to we stop tracking? My boss says he wouldn't tag toilets and bedrooms. But who is to impose such moral obligations into other companies?
Hmm.. this seems pretty long. Rabbit.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Today was kind of busy and kind of lax. Busy as in i couldn't get around to blogging a post in the office. Lax as in, i managed to leave for home at three pm. Coz we were done setting up our stuff at the exhibition at Suntec, and i was carrying my laptop. Rather than making me lug my computer all over sing.ah.pore, my boss let me go home at three pm. But the deal was that i had to be in Suntec by eight am tomorrow : (
My colleague attended some R.F.I.D. (think Ez-link card, library books) course. And she just sms-ed me to tell me that it is best to put ourselves at least 25.5 cm away from the antennas. Which is NOT the distance i put the antennas away from me in the office. Now... come to think of it, i'm like baking myself in an R.F. (radio frequency, the energy that makes Ez-link card possible) oven. Maybe one of these days i'll mutate with a fly or something.
I keep asking my senior engineers whether i'll lose my um... potency with prolonged intimate (i know this is not a very good word to use given what i am talking about) exposure with R.F. . But they always kind of laugh it off and say something totally unrelated like, "You know hor, got some studies say that handphones doesn't cause cancer.".
What the hell, he might as well have been saying that chickens don't lay duck eggs. Which kind of makes alot more sense, i mean, how can a chicken lay a duck egg rite? Coz chickens are dead meat. Only living things like hens lay duck eggs.
Huh? Chicken/Hen lay duck eggs? Doink rite? Not quite. Deinfition of hen is a female bird. So a female duck is also a hen. Sneaky huh : p
Imagine.. a flying zombie! Bzzzz-ughzz.
My colleague attended some R.F.I.D. (think Ez-link card, library books) course. And she just sms-ed me to tell me that it is best to put ourselves at least 25.5 cm away from the antennas. Which is NOT the distance i put the antennas away from me in the office. Now... come to think of it, i'm like baking myself in an R.F. (radio frequency, the energy that makes Ez-link card possible) oven. Maybe one of these days i'll mutate with a fly or something.
I keep asking my senior engineers whether i'll lose my um... potency with prolonged intimate (i know this is not a very good word to use given what i am talking about) exposure with R.F. . But they always kind of laugh it off and say something totally unrelated like, "You know hor, got some studies say that handphones doesn't cause cancer.".
What the hell, he might as well have been saying that chickens don't lay duck eggs. Which kind of makes alot more sense, i mean, how can a chicken lay a duck egg rite? Coz chickens are dead meat. Only living things like hens lay duck eggs.
Huh? Chicken/Hen lay duck eggs? Doink rite? Not quite. Deinfition of hen is a female bird. So a female duck is also a hen. Sneaky huh : p
Imagine.. a flying zombie! Bzzzz-ughzz.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
I cannot understand sadomasochism, or more commonly known as SM, and no, SM in this case does not stand for senior minister. During last bout of Qing Ming rites i had for this year, i was attempting to light up a red candle. But the candle's wick was kind of stubborn, refusing to light up even when the flame from the lighter was melting its wax.
And it so happened that a single red drop SM dropped onto my thumb. No i did not feel sexually aroused, i was more like
(curse;taboo). The melted wax quickly burned my two thumbs. You might be wondering if the wax dropped on one thumb, how did it burn two thumbs?
Well.. It was burning one thumb at first, and i was like, "ouch, its hot.", and applying physics, objects with larger surface area would cool down faster, i used my other thumb to smear/spread out the wax on the burning thumb. There you go, two thumbs up for the intelligent but not so wise.
And a couple minutes/hours later, the skin on my thumbs started to peel off. I was then wondering, does the skin peel off for SM people who drip hot wax onto whatever they are dripping on. Personally, i don't find peeling skins very appealing.
Speaking of injuries, i had managed to injure myself twice at work in the last couple weeks. Being in the software line of work, you might be thinking that i used my keyboard to slap myself in the face to get injured. Or i was typing and my fingers missed the button and it got stuck in between the keys.
I think i'm hazardous to myself.
PS: While the descriptions are accurate, none of the injuries were as bad as they sound.
And it so happened that a single red drop SM dropped onto my thumb. No i did not feel sexually aroused, i was more like
(curse;taboo). The melted wax quickly burned my two thumbs. You might be wondering if the wax dropped on one thumb, how did it burn two thumbs?Well.. It was burning one thumb at first, and i was like, "ouch, its hot.", and applying physics, objects with larger surface area would cool down faster, i used my other thumb to smear/spread out the wax on the burning thumb. There you go, two thumbs up for the intelligent but not so wise.
And a couple minutes/hours later, the skin on my thumbs started to peel off. I was then wondering, does the skin peel off for SM people who drip hot wax onto whatever they are dripping on. Personally, i don't find peeling skins very appealing.
Speaking of injuries, i had managed to injure myself twice at work in the last couple weeks. Being in the software line of work, you might be thinking that i used my keyboard to slap myself in the face to get injured. Or i was typing and my fingers missed the button and it got stuck in between the keys.
I think i'm hazardous to myself.
PS: While the descriptions are accurate, none of the injuries were as bad as they sound.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
I'm feeling like a zombie. Ugh ugh. My brain is dead. Ugh ugh. I'm a zombie. Ugh ugh. I remember a time in Gippy when i was watching X-Files on cable (Free cable, comes with accomodation). At the end of every X-Files episode, there is this advert screen that says "Mutant Enemy" and shows a picture of a mutant moving across the screen growling "Ugh ugh". I'm a zombie. Ugh ugh.
I actually typed alot more stuff that would turn this into a rather sober post. But i deleted it, coz zombies don't have intellectual powers. In fact, they just go ugh ugh. Maybe occasionally scratch the itch in the bum, but basically answering ugh ugh to every single question. Here's a sample conversation to provide some insight to you on the workings of a zombie mind.
"Hey how are you?"
Ugh ugh.
"What's that you're saying?"
Ugh ugh.
"Poor incoherent thing. You want some money?"
Um.. yes.
"Huh?"
Ugh ugh.
And here's a conversation between two zombies.
"Ugh ugh"
Ugh ugh.
"Ugh ugh"
Ugh ugh.
Not very interesting huh? Maybe a conversation between a zombie and a frog.
"Wibbit wibbit"
Ugh ugh.
"Wibbit wibbit"
Ugh ugh.
How about zombie with taxi drivers?
"blah blah blah"
U-"blah blah blah"-gh
Oh taxi drivers can take jokes right? Please don't blacklist me..
Oh well, i guess there isn't much life form in this world that wishes to talk to a zombie. I'll just do my usual routine of talking to myself then.
Ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh.
I actually typed alot more stuff that would turn this into a rather sober post. But i deleted it, coz zombies don't have intellectual powers. In fact, they just go ugh ugh. Maybe occasionally scratch the itch in the bum, but basically answering ugh ugh to every single question. Here's a sample conversation to provide some insight to you on the workings of a zombie mind.
"Hey how are you?"
Ugh ugh.
"What's that you're saying?"
Ugh ugh.
"Poor incoherent thing. You want some money?"
Um.. yes.
"Huh?"
Ugh ugh.
And here's a conversation between two zombies.
"Ugh ugh"
Ugh ugh.
"Ugh ugh"
Ugh ugh.
Not very interesting huh? Maybe a conversation between a zombie and a frog.
"Wibbit wibbit"
Ugh ugh.
"Wibbit wibbit"
Ugh ugh.
How about zombie with taxi drivers?
"blah blah blah"
U-"blah blah blah"-gh
Oh taxi drivers can take jokes right? Please don't blacklist me..
Oh well, i guess there isn't much life form in this world that wishes to talk to a zombie. I'll just do my usual routine of talking to myself then.
Ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Sandra from Sandralicious tagged my board. I guess it is kind of shocking to find one's own photo appearing in a small time blog. Probably thought i was some sort of a stalking pervert. And yes, this paragraph is gonna end just like that. No denials, no refuting on the pervert part : p
And since i'm a stalker, i went over to her blog to read her posts for the very first time. Yeah, i noe, i put her picture on my blog and link to her blog (don't say i never do proper referencing), all without having read a single word of her thoughts. Oh wait, she says that "A picture speaks a thousand words". That would mean that i've already read six thousand words from her blog.
So let me try again. Yesterday, i stalked her blog and read the 6001st word in her blog and the comments following her last post (After randomly typing url addresses to try and figure out a perma-link to the post for over ten minutes, i gave up. No reference here.). Her post talked about being nice, being too nice to be precise.
One of the commenters, Dank, whose homepage is at Burger King said something about being nice which i particularly liked. It is something, which if embraced by everyone in the world, would make everyone so much nicer. He said, "Don't owe me a favour, Pay It Forward".
And since i'm a stalker, i went over to her blog to read her posts for the very first time. Yeah, i noe, i put her picture on my blog and link to her blog (don't say i never do proper referencing), all without having read a single word of her thoughts. Oh wait, she says that "A picture speaks a thousand words". That would mean that i've already read six thousand words from her blog.
So let me try again. Yesterday, i stalked her blog and read the 6001st word in her blog and the comments following her last post (After randomly typing url addresses to try and figure out a perma-link to the post for over ten minutes, i gave up. No reference here.). Her post talked about being nice, being too nice to be precise.
One of the commenters, Dank, whose homepage is at Burger King said something about being nice which i particularly liked. It is something, which if embraced by everyone in the world, would make everyone so much nicer. He said, "Don't owe me a favour, Pay It Forward".
Opposites Attract II
What can opposites consist of? It truly is mind-boggling. I have already established that unhappy, not sad, is the opposite of happy. Then one could ask, "Is there a polar end to sadness if unsad is an ill-formed word?" Conceivably, we could measure quantities of sadness by placing probes onto our head to measure brain activity. But how do we relate to the opposite of sadness?
A person, who is sad, cannot be happy. A person who is angry cannot be happy. A person, who is both sad and angry, also cannot be happy. To simplify the question, I'll hypothesize that unhappiness consist of only two components, sadness and anger.
If sadness and anger are scalar in quantum, then one what is the threshold of sadness and anger for happiness to begin? Reason for question being happiness could also be conceivably measured by sticking probes on our skull. If sadness, anger and happiness are all quanta of brain activity in various parts of the brain, then is it not possible that a person could be feeling sad, angry and happy all at the same time?
This might seem to defeat the hypothesis of unhappy being the opposite of happy. But it does not. For even at the end of unhappiness, one could say that the person is being "very not happy" in terms of happiness. So it is possible to feel sad and happy at the same time. Just that if you're sad, then the feeling of happy is not quite the same as we're used to.
But what if we are to classify happy and unhappy by a dividing threshold of quantum? And similarly for sadness, a person must achieve a certain amount of quanta of sadness before he/she can be classified as sad. Thus we can establish a correlated threshold to make sad and happy mutually exclusive.
But it still doesn't answer the question of whether there is an opposite for sadness. The whole exercise had only served to assume that sadness is singular in its scale. Perhaps the lack of opposite for sadness is that it is difficult to further split it in terms of emotions. I'll illustrate this with two examples.
Unhappy example :
Someone says, "I'm unhappy".
Another could ask, "Why are you unhappy?"
The reply could be, "I'm unhappy because i'm sad."
Sad example :
Someone says, "I'm sad".
Another could ask, "Why are you sad?"
The reply could be, "I'm sad because my dog died."
The difference between the examples is that in unhappy example the cause for unhappiness (emotion) is another emotion (sadness). In the sad example, the cause for sadness is an external event, not an emotion.
The person feels sad, because the external event is not only sad, but is also perceived by the person as sad. So sadness could quite possibly come down to a perception of external events, which in turn triggers or fail to trigger activity in the parts of the brain which is capable of understanding sadness.
Am i sad? Not if i see the good things in life.
A person, who is sad, cannot be happy. A person who is angry cannot be happy. A person, who is both sad and angry, also cannot be happy. To simplify the question, I'll hypothesize that unhappiness consist of only two components, sadness and anger.
If sadness and anger are scalar in quantum, then one what is the threshold of sadness and anger for happiness to begin? Reason for question being happiness could also be conceivably measured by sticking probes on our skull. If sadness, anger and happiness are all quanta of brain activity in various parts of the brain, then is it not possible that a person could be feeling sad, angry and happy all at the same time?
This might seem to defeat the hypothesis of unhappy being the opposite of happy. But it does not. For even at the end of unhappiness, one could say that the person is being "very not happy" in terms of happiness. So it is possible to feel sad and happy at the same time. Just that if you're sad, then the feeling of happy is not quite the same as we're used to.
But what if we are to classify happy and unhappy by a dividing threshold of quantum? And similarly for sadness, a person must achieve a certain amount of quanta of sadness before he/she can be classified as sad. Thus we can establish a correlated threshold to make sad and happy mutually exclusive.
But it still doesn't answer the question of whether there is an opposite for sadness. The whole exercise had only served to assume that sadness is singular in its scale. Perhaps the lack of opposite for sadness is that it is difficult to further split it in terms of emotions. I'll illustrate this with two examples.
Unhappy example :
Someone says, "I'm unhappy".
Another could ask, "Why are you unhappy?"
The reply could be, "I'm unhappy because i'm sad."
Sad example :
Someone says, "I'm sad".
Another could ask, "Why are you sad?"
The reply could be, "I'm sad because my dog died."
The difference between the examples is that in unhappy example the cause for unhappiness (emotion) is another emotion (sadness). In the sad example, the cause for sadness is an external event, not an emotion.
The person feels sad, because the external event is not only sad, but is also perceived by the person as sad. So sadness could quite possibly come down to a perception of external events, which in turn triggers or fail to trigger activity in the parts of the brain which is capable of understanding sadness.
Am i sad? Not if i see the good things in life.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
LOL. When people start telling my beloved gahmen that they shouldn't build casinos, the beloved gahmen go like, "Okie loh, we dun build A casino. But instead we will build TWO integrated resorts.". Wa... very cheem leh, wat mean by "integrated" ah? Is it like the mytaxportal, want to file tax but cannot file one? (Really cannot file wat, i log in it bring me to the log in screen again, dun even bother to give me a message to say wat's wrong. Maybe instead of bootlickers they should hire people who knows abit about software engineering. argh..)
And since my beloved gahmen is building integrated resorts and not casino anymore, we all should not complain anymore. Wait ah, people like S|m`S|m say we are whiners leh. Like free speech lah, want to say but cannot say, coz say liao then become whiner mah. Must take it like a man. Wait go NS then i noe ah, coz the average citizen like me ah, is protected and cannot feel it. Watever "it" is lah, i also donno wat "it" is, so long as dun kena my eat-nookie-sleep cycle then can liao mah.
And then hor, people like Kenneth Pinto very bad leh. My beloved gahmen already say dun build casino liao, why u want to talk bad about the integrated resorts? Integrated resort not the same mah. Wait they say they want to build four E-integrated resort then how? "Integrated" already cheem enough wor.
And since my beloved gahmen is building integrated resorts and not casino anymore, we all should not complain anymore. Wait ah, people like S|m`S|m say we are whiners leh. Like free speech lah, want to say but cannot say, coz say liao then become whiner mah. Must take it like a man. Wait go NS then i noe ah, coz the average citizen like me ah, is protected and cannot feel it. Watever "it" is lah, i also donno wat "it" is, so long as dun kena my eat-nookie-sleep cycle then can liao mah.
And then hor, people like Kenneth Pinto very bad leh. My beloved gahmen already say dun build casino liao, why u want to talk bad about the integrated resorts? Integrated resort not the same mah. Wait they say they want to build four E-integrated resort then how? "Integrated" already cheem enough wor.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Answers dot com has the answers to the definition of Char Kway Teow but not Cai Tao Kway. And i think i gave the auntie a some kind of a shock when i said i wanted additional egg on my char kway teow. She went like, "Huh? You want Char Kway Teow or Cai Tao Kway?". Frankly, i thought additional egg is an option available to every food in this world, like cheese fries. Maybe next time i'll tell the auntie "i want char kway teow, with more egg and an upgrade to cheese fries". Cosmos.
I woke up pretty late today. Was busy playing Commandos (The game where you control a team of commandos and sneak into the enemy bases and bomb their macdonalds or something.) last night. I know i shouldn't be playing games. I've got plenty of books not finished yet. Should have done some reading, with exams coming and all. Um.. other people's exams, not mine. Not that the exmas are relevant to my reading... doink.
Oh well.. boss came in early today. Fade out.
I woke up pretty late today. Was busy playing Commandos (The game where you control a team of commandos and sneak into the enemy bases and bomb their macdonalds or something.) last night. I know i shouldn't be playing games. I've got plenty of books not finished yet. Should have done some reading, with exams coming and all. Um.. other people's exams, not mine. Not that the exmas are relevant to my reading... doink.
Oh well.. boss came in early today. Fade out.
It is fascinating to litsen on to older people. It is also fascintating to watch their body language, how they convey themselves across to the whoever they happen to be talking to. Its the total disregard for body langauge that you'll wonder how businesses can be conducted in the merciless business world.
Perhaps it is not as merciless as it seems. That people are more forgiving on unforgiving body language. And that i am being too peculiar to these tiny details, bordering on interogation rather than discussion. But the paranoid me would rather think that these are cunning business game theory, wheere people lead the naive me to think that body language don't matter in the business world.
But who am i to judge on the body language of others. The mere simplicity of handshake has eluded me and i cannot comprehend the purpose of a handshake other than offered by the loser of a game to say, "Yeah i sux, but its cool.". This, has of course baffled many people who meet me for the first time, expecting handshakes as introduction. Its like, who in this world gives a wave instead of handshake when being introduced? Oh well... other than celebrities that is.
Perhaps it is not as merciless as it seems. That people are more forgiving on unforgiving body language. And that i am being too peculiar to these tiny details, bordering on interogation rather than discussion. But the paranoid me would rather think that these are cunning business game theory, wheere people lead the naive me to think that body language don't matter in the business world.
But who am i to judge on the body language of others. The mere simplicity of handshake has eluded me and i cannot comprehend the purpose of a handshake other than offered by the loser of a game to say, "Yeah i sux, but its cool.". This, has of course baffled many people who meet me for the first time, expecting handshakes as introduction. Its like, who in this world gives a wave instead of handshake when being introduced? Oh well... other than celebrities that is.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
I was in a car around an hour ago. My cousin and i were getting into the car, and my auntie was driving. My auntie sat into the seat, shut the car door and was about to stick the key into the key hole when my cousin went like, "Um.. auntie ah. you shut the car door on my hand..."
My auntie turned and looked on in horror at the hand that was indeed trapped by the door and chasis. Auntie quickly opened the door again to free the hand, fortunately, no damage was done.
See what i mean when i say my cousins are weird. Someone can close a car door on their fingers and they just go like, "Oh... i think i should say ouch, btw, did u noe my hand is becoming roti prata. Kind of weird huh? Maybe u could get me an upgrade to cheese fries while u're at it.". I can even imagine an evil "muhahahaha" along with it... doink.
My auntie turned and looked on in horror at the hand that was indeed trapped by the door and chasis. Auntie quickly opened the door again to free the hand, fortunately, no damage was done.
See what i mean when i say my cousins are weird. Someone can close a car door on their fingers and they just go like, "Oh... i think i should say ouch, btw, did u noe my hand is becoming roti prata. Kind of weird huh? Maybe u could get me an upgrade to cheese fries while u're at it.". I can even imagine an evil "muhahahaha" along with it... doink.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Went for the public forum on death penalty at Hotel Asia today. I was running late, so i took a cab from my house down to the hotel. I practised (There's practice and practise in the dictionary. i'm a little too tired to try and figure out the difference and which is appropriate) abit of subtle but not so subtle anxiety body language to indicate to the taxi driver that i was in a hurry.
I arrived at Hotel Asia on time to see that the forum didn't begin on time. Ironic huh? Anyway, there were like three agendas going on in the forum. Personally i don't really care for politics. Maybe, just maybe, woven intricately deep into the complex workings of my naive mind, which confounds even myself, is a comfortability that i do not wish disturbed. I wouldn't want to be detained like Dr Chee and stuff. I'm not a politician, not an activist, and not a pragmatist too. Actually, i don't know what pragmatism is. I am too tired to check out what practise and practice means, i'm also too tired for pragmatism.
However, i quickly noticed that the similarities between the workings of my beloved gahmen and that of christianity is absolutely striking. And speaking of christianity... that's where me, the aetheist, come in. Friends often ask me why it is that i'm biased against christianity as a religion. The fact that half my friends are christians and that talking about another religion which both of us don't understand is not very useful, seems to elude them. There is also the other fact that i could get a bible off the shelf but i don't expect to buy buddhist scriptures from a bookshop. Even if the scriptures can be bought from a bookshop, it doesn't help if my grasp of mandarin is pretty poor.
Am i anti-christian? You can label me anti-religion, but to call me anti-christian would be to give a single religion more credit than it is due. But enough digression. I'll continue talking about today's events.
As i was saying, there were three agendas present in the forum. One would be the political agenda of the opposition party in its bid for publicity. The other agenda was to discuss about the death penalty. I remember back in Gippy, where i tried my best to explain to my fellow countryman, Kumar, that caning as a form of legal punishment is barbaric. But i hadn't taken that step further, and the thought that death penalty is babaric too, eluded me. I guess i'm too well-versed in hollywood education to realise that death penalty is unethical. A life for a life.
I wouldn't go into how the death penalty is no good. If you're interested, you could always google about it. But Dr Chee gave a pretty good point sometime during the discussion. It is about fallacies in argument. One that is commited by many scientists, economists, evolutionists, creationist and even politicians too. I'll use the example talked about in the discussion.
It is hypothesized that the death penalty serve as deterrence. And history shows that crime was reduced when there was death penalty. There are many other factors that could have contributed to the reduction, like improving economy, education, so is death penalty the main cause of the reduction. Was it even a cause in the reduction. For all we knew, crime and death penalty could be independent factors. Is the correlation proven? Or is it an assumption? If its an assumption, who's assumption is it?
Towards the end of the discussion, the third agenda manifested itself. The agenda of the none other than the gahmen. A plain clothes police office waltz up to the forum moderater and demanded to look at her identifications, to determine if the moderater is sinagporean, the reasoning was so claimed. Which comes across as rather funny since any public events has to be registered with the police before it can proceed. The police officer is of course acting under orders. That's what uniformed people are paid to do. To carry out orders.
Anway, the only purpose for such orders is to strike fear into naive audiences like me. To instill a fear, to force the perception that anyone who speaks up to say something that the powers that be doesn't like to hear, they'll send the 'mah tar' to come knocking on your door, take down your ic number and [insert pratical imagination]
That's about the whole of the event that i'm willing to say. Anyway, it is my sincere hope that humanity would one day no longer have to contend with atrocities like caning and death penalty. An eye for an eye, a life for a life, is not.
I arrived at Hotel Asia on time to see that the forum didn't begin on time. Ironic huh? Anyway, there were like three agendas going on in the forum. Personally i don't really care for politics. Maybe, just maybe, woven intricately deep into the complex workings of my naive mind, which confounds even myself, is a comfortability that i do not wish disturbed. I wouldn't want to be detained like Dr Chee and stuff. I'm not a politician, not an activist, and not a pragmatist too. Actually, i don't know what pragmatism is. I am too tired to check out what practise and practice means, i'm also too tired for pragmatism.
However, i quickly noticed that the similarities between the workings of my beloved gahmen and that of christianity is absolutely striking. And speaking of christianity... that's where me, the aetheist, come in. Friends often ask me why it is that i'm biased against christianity as a religion. The fact that half my friends are christians and that talking about another religion which both of us don't understand is not very useful, seems to elude them. There is also the other fact that i could get a bible off the shelf but i don't expect to buy buddhist scriptures from a bookshop. Even if the scriptures can be bought from a bookshop, it doesn't help if my grasp of mandarin is pretty poor.
Am i anti-christian? You can label me anti-religion, but to call me anti-christian would be to give a single religion more credit than it is due. But enough digression. I'll continue talking about today's events.
As i was saying, there were three agendas present in the forum. One would be the political agenda of the opposition party in its bid for publicity. The other agenda was to discuss about the death penalty. I remember back in Gippy, where i tried my best to explain to my fellow countryman, Kumar, that caning as a form of legal punishment is barbaric. But i hadn't taken that step further, and the thought that death penalty is babaric too, eluded me. I guess i'm too well-versed in hollywood education to realise that death penalty is unethical. A life for a life.
I wouldn't go into how the death penalty is no good. If you're interested, you could always google about it. But Dr Chee gave a pretty good point sometime during the discussion. It is about fallacies in argument. One that is commited by many scientists, economists, evolutionists, creationist and even politicians too. I'll use the example talked about in the discussion.
It is hypothesized that the death penalty serve as deterrence. And history shows that crime was reduced when there was death penalty. There are many other factors that could have contributed to the reduction, like improving economy, education, so is death penalty the main cause of the reduction. Was it even a cause in the reduction. For all we knew, crime and death penalty could be independent factors. Is the correlation proven? Or is it an assumption? If its an assumption, who's assumption is it?
Towards the end of the discussion, the third agenda manifested itself. The agenda of the none other than the gahmen. A plain clothes police office waltz up to the forum moderater and demanded to look at her identifications, to determine if the moderater is sinagporean, the reasoning was so claimed. Which comes across as rather funny since any public events has to be registered with the police before it can proceed. The police officer is of course acting under orders. That's what uniformed people are paid to do. To carry out orders.
Anway, the only purpose for such orders is to strike fear into naive audiences like me. To instill a fear, to force the perception that anyone who speaks up to say something that the powers that be doesn't like to hear, they'll send the 'mah tar' to come knocking on your door, take down your ic number and [insert pratical imagination]
That's about the whole of the event that i'm willing to say. Anyway, it is my sincere hope that humanity would one day no longer have to contend with atrocities like caning and death penalty. An eye for an eye, a life for a life, is not.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
A couple days ago, i was reading up on Xaixue when my boss came to talk to me. My screen looked like this :
Which was a preview picture for some versace fashion show. Let me bring your attention to this :
You'll notice that i was scrolling through my browser when my boss chose to talk to me. Sexy legs showing with the top covered up by firefox, i guess it kind of let her imagination run wild. But she didn't say anything.
Then today i was reading up on Mr Miyagi. Again i was scrolling about until i hit this Miyagi gem. The one with a picture of a babe in bikini. And the bikini color wasn't very distinguishing. And my boss who was talking to my colleague went like, "Wa liao, u look at picture of naked girls!".
Now my boss thinks that i surf porn in the office... But... but... Mr Miyagi is NOT porn. Argh... I hate it when i'm misunderstood. Let me put it this way, pictures in Miyagi's words range from this :
to this :
And that is NOT porn. It is bikini, something that i can see people in, in the pool downstairs of my house. Stoopid bosses : (
Which was a preview picture for some versace fashion show. Let me bring your attention to this :
You'll notice that i was scrolling through my browser when my boss chose to talk to me. Sexy legs showing with the top covered up by firefox, i guess it kind of let her imagination run wild. But she didn't say anything.
Then today i was reading up on Mr Miyagi. Again i was scrolling about until i hit this Miyagi gem. The one with a picture of a babe in bikini. And the bikini color wasn't very distinguishing. And my boss who was talking to my colleague went like, "Wa liao, u look at picture of naked girls!".
Now my boss thinks that i surf porn in the office... But... but... Mr Miyagi is NOT porn. Argh... I hate it when i'm misunderstood. Let me put it this way, pictures in Miyagi's words range from this :
to this :
And that is NOT porn. It is bikini, something that i can see people in, in the pool downstairs of my house. Stoopid bosses : (
Remember the cows i talked about that are grazing on the grasslands of sing.ah.pore. ? The advertisement by some company to say that they are "on the Moove". Here's a picture of the colorful cows. And apparently the cows are mootiplying. Well... kind of amoosing, moo it?
Taking a mook at my moo.sn window, i found that a couple of moo friends were already on the moove before the "on the moove" campaign came about. There's "***Little Moo Moo***" and there's simply "moomoo......" (Sorry if i didn't get the number of moo.stops correct.). Moo wonder i feel so cheesy.
Ain't it moolecious.
Taking a mook at my moo.sn window, i found that a couple of moo friends were already on the moove before the "on the moove" campaign came about. There's "***Little Moo Moo***" and there's simply "moomoo......" (Sorry if i didn't get the number of moo.stops correct.). Moo wonder i feel so cheesy.
Ain't it moolecious.
Just went for dinner with my auntie and cousin. Took the north-east line back home on the first carriage in the front. Babe watch activity: 1.0. It took me quite sometime to notice the very front part of the train, the place with two seater seats on each side, was cordon off. In the restricted area was a MRT staff holding onto a walking talkie looking for teletubbies in the MRT tunnel. I mean, what else could he be looking for when he looks so intently into the front window of the train.
Besides the teletubbie hunter, there was a backpack on one of the seats. An unclaimmed bag. And i went like, "Oh my god, that could be a bomb!". Alarmed, i quickly looked around to see if there are any other seats that looked comfy and would put me out of the direct sight of shrapnel should the bag explode.
And i went like "What the hell... there are no other comfy seats in the other carriage." There was no way i was gonna give up my comfy seat just becoz i'm sharing the same carriage with some possible bomb. I mean, there's some things in life that you just don't give up. Atleast i would have died in a comfy seat..
Luckily for me, and unfortunately for you, i manage to get off at my stop before anything else happened. Guess you'll still have to litsen to my random ramblings.
Besides the teletubbie hunter, there was a backpack on one of the seats. An unclaimmed bag. And i went like, "Oh my god, that could be a bomb!". Alarmed, i quickly looked around to see if there are any other seats that looked comfy and would put me out of the direct sight of shrapnel should the bag explode.
And i went like "What the hell... there are no other comfy seats in the other carriage." There was no way i was gonna give up my comfy seat just becoz i'm sharing the same carriage with some possible bomb. I mean, there's some things in life that you just don't give up. Atleast i would have died in a comfy seat..
Luckily for me, and unfortunately for you, i manage to get off at my stop before anything else happened. Guess you'll still have to litsen to my random ramblings.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Google doesn't help me much with 'how to' questions. I tried a 'How to destroy my colleague?' and the results that turned up were unsatisfactory. I then proceeded to try with keywords like 'How to annihilate my colleague?', 'How to obliterate my colleague?', 'How to disintegrate my colleague', 'How to decimate my colleague', 'How to melt my colleague', 'How to vaporise my colleague'. But still, nothing comes up. I do realise that melting my colleague is the last thing i would do...
So just before i give up all hopes and resign to having my colleague around, i tried one last google, 'How to totally destroy my colleague'.
In the very end, i decided that if i could not get rid of my colleague, i'll improve my perception on things around me. So i googled for the teachings of Zen and hopefully attain that enlightened 'Omm'
And it still didn't help. Isn't google supposed to give me answers, give me enlightenment and an upgrade to cheese fries along with it?
In the very end, i had to resort to the trusty old fashioned netdisaster dot com to get things done. Sent some wild flowers to her multiply site.
Since google didn't help much, i decided to shoot it.
And since i was on a war path, i thought i'll head down to microsoft too. But it was all mouldy when i got there. So no point nuking it...
When i got back to my own blog, I found to my horror that someone has dashed a cup of coffee on it : ( Spent millions of hours to get it cleaned up...
So just before i give up all hopes and resign to having my colleague around, i tried one last google, 'How to totally destroy my colleague'.
In the very end, i decided that if i could not get rid of my colleague, i'll improve my perception on things around me. So i googled for the teachings of Zen and hopefully attain that enlightened 'Omm'
And it still didn't help. Isn't google supposed to give me answers, give me enlightenment and an upgrade to cheese fries along with it?
In the very end, i had to resort to the trusty old fashioned netdisaster dot com to get things done. Sent some wild flowers to her multiply site.
Since google didn't help much, i decided to shoot it.
And since i was on a war path, i thought i'll head down to microsoft too. But it was all mouldy when i got there. So no point nuking it...
When i got back to my own blog, I found to my horror that someone has dashed a cup of coffee on it : ( Spent millions of hours to get it cleaned up...
Monday, April 11, 2005
If you noticed the recent increased population of blue, yellow and pink cows in the public open patches of grass of singapore, you might be wondering what's up with them. Apparently, the cows are not there for aesthetic purposes. You might also have noticed that certain buses have cow tails hanging off its back, and yes, the brightly colored cows in the fields are related.
Fortunately for us, its not a conspiracy. It is a advertisment by i don't know what company for i don't know what product. The deejays at 933fm mentioned it this morning. A kind of refreshing marketing strategy for advertisements. Bombard the people with images of cows, brainwashing their unconscious psych for the product to come. I can only imagine what the new product is, and what it has got to do with cows.
Fortunately for us, its not a conspiracy. It is a advertisment by i don't know what company for i don't know what product. The deejays at 933fm mentioned it this morning. A kind of refreshing marketing strategy for advertisements. Bombard the people with images of cows, brainwashing their unconscious psych for the product to come. I can only imagine what the new product is, and what it has got to do with cows.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Ok, this post is a no-brainer.
The bus schedule is such that bus 91 arrives, followed by bus 91A, followed by another bus 91. Babe watch activity on bus 91A is pretty calm, and babe watch activity on the second bus 91 is much much much higher. I usually couldn't make it in time for the earlier bus 91, so i was kind of apprehensive when i boarded the bus today, after having been on bus 91A for many weeks already.
Babe watch activity managed to hit 1.0. And sizzling hottie actually sat beside me. Woot. What a beautiful day.
The bus schedule is such that bus 91 arrives, followed by bus 91A, followed by another bus 91. Babe watch activity on bus 91A is pretty calm, and babe watch activity on the second bus 91 is much much much higher. I usually couldn't make it in time for the earlier bus 91, so i was kind of apprehensive when i boarded the bus today, after having been on bus 91A for many weeks already.
Babe watch activity managed to hit 1.0. And sizzling hottie actually sat beside me. Woot. What a beautiful day.
My mom just came back and told me about the tremors felt in sg. The conversation went like :
mom, "Got earthquake leh."
me, "Huh? How come everyday got earthquake? Where is it?" (Everyday is a figure of speech, to indicate everytime)
mom, "Toa Payoh"
me, doink.
I would have accepted "Earth" as some kind of corny reply, but.. earthquake in Toa Payoh?
Earlier, i went for a jog. I entered the lift to find babe watch radar buzzing. There was a babe inside, together with her hubby (boyfriend) and parents (in law). So this girl was telling the her parents (in law), "So this meal i treat ah, cheap one i treat, next time expensive one u all treat." The lift was nearing first (ground) floor, so i decided peek at her. Well.. she caught me peeking at her and without skipping a beat, she said, "You not included.", doink.
Even much earlier today, i went to Ang Mo Kio for lunch, was at the hawker center. I ordered a plate of char kway teow then took a seat. I then realised that i hadn't got any tissue paper with me.
Then there was this auntie in a wheel chair selling tissue. Maybe she didn't remember me, 'coz just the day before, i didn't want to buy tissue from her. Anyway, i bought tissue from her which cost one dollar for two packets. What the... i thought the usual price was three packets for one dollar. And as i was wiping my mouth, i was thinking, "hey that means it is five cents per piece of tissue."
And then i remember Dancing Kid's words. She says she buys tissue from old aunties, for good karma and stuff. Aside from the fact that many of these old aunties are operating under a syndicate, and the aunties usually donate the profits to singapore pools.. come to think of it, the money still ends up in charity. In a sort of way that is..
But this auntie seemed genuine enough, coz i don't think there are that many aunties who amputate their leg to sell tissue. So i guess the dollar could be classified as a donation. Whew, my first donation in so many years...
mom, "Got earthquake leh."
me, "Huh? How come everyday got earthquake? Where is it?" (Everyday is a figure of speech, to indicate everytime)
mom, "Toa Payoh"
me, doink.
I would have accepted "Earth" as some kind of corny reply, but.. earthquake in Toa Payoh?
Earlier, i went for a jog. I entered the lift to find babe watch radar buzzing. There was a babe inside, together with her hubby (boyfriend) and parents (in law). So this girl was telling the her parents (in law), "So this meal i treat ah, cheap one i treat, next time expensive one u all treat." The lift was nearing first (ground) floor, so i decided peek at her. Well.. she caught me peeking at her and without skipping a beat, she said, "You not included.", doink.
Even much earlier today, i went to Ang Mo Kio for lunch, was at the hawker center. I ordered a plate of char kway teow then took a seat. I then realised that i hadn't got any tissue paper with me.
Then there was this auntie in a wheel chair selling tissue. Maybe she didn't remember me, 'coz just the day before, i didn't want to buy tissue from her. Anyway, i bought tissue from her which cost one dollar for two packets. What the... i thought the usual price was three packets for one dollar. And as i was wiping my mouth, i was thinking, "hey that means it is five cents per piece of tissue."
And then i remember Dancing Kid's words. She says she buys tissue from old aunties, for good karma and stuff. Aside from the fact that many of these old aunties are operating under a syndicate, and the aunties usually donate the profits to singapore pools.. come to think of it, the money still ends up in charity. In a sort of way that is..
But this auntie seemed genuine enough, coz i don't think there are that many aunties who amputate their leg to sell tissue. So i guess the dollar could be classified as a donation. Whew, my first donation in so many years...
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Both my thumbs are blistered and my arms are sore. I did production work for the past two days, which included the forcing fixing of a magnet button onto some tags. Well, it certainly doesn't seem so bad until i mention that there were like four hundred tags.
It's one thing to paste a sticker onto the tag, fixing the magnets needed quite abit of strength. I went home on day one with swollen thumbs, and today, day three, i can still see the red bruise on my right thumb.
Morale is an all time low around here. The office tables had some rearrangement and now my monitor is facing the entrance of the area. That means, everytime the boss walks over, be it for whatever reasons, she will peek into my screen and think that i am not doing any work, i mean, blinking msn windows doesn't really help much.
I was thinking about one of mr brown's post on one site that has E-postcards and one of the E-postcards actually said something like, "I can't change my job because of my drug dependency, and i abuse drug becoz i hate my job." A complete circular dependency.
Maybe i should abuse drugs too. But its death penalty for possession of drugs, and i'm kind of afraid of dying. So maybe i'll abuse some legit substance like panadols. But i guess panadols being not very effective drugs to abuse are one of the reasons why they can be bought of the shelf. So maybe i should try abusing something that's legit but not meant for my consumption.
Which leads me to think about abortion pills and contraceptive pills. But it does seem kind of wierd for a guy to abuse family planning pills... I have to be desperate or something.
Just to remind those unfortunate who take my words as some godly truth, i am NOT planning to abuse anything. Don't send twenty four hour spies to watch me. This is just humor.
Speaking of abuse, recently, whenever i glance through multiply or friendster, i would notice the "Report Abuse" link in people's profiles. But i always glance too quickly and miss out on the word "Report" and i would go like, "Hey cool, there's a link for me to click to abuse this person."
This post is taking a weird direction, i think i'll just go back to talking about swollen thumbs. Speaking of swollen, my lower lip is now absolutely swollen. Couple days back, i bit my lip while eating some chicken rice. Not once but three times. Now there are three ugly ulcers on my lower lip.
They are swollen because the night before, before i sleep, i would grab a pinch of salt and dab it onto the ulcer. I didn't think salt on ulcer was a very effective cure, so i used my salty finger to massage the killer salt on the ulcer. Um.. it was excruciating. I think the salt broke one of the ulcers, and it wasn't white anymore. But it became white again the next day lah.
Gotta go now. Cheers.
It's one thing to paste a sticker onto the tag, fixing the magnets needed quite abit of strength. I went home on day one with swollen thumbs, and today, day three, i can still see the red bruise on my right thumb.
Morale is an all time low around here. The office tables had some rearrangement and now my monitor is facing the entrance of the area. That means, everytime the boss walks over, be it for whatever reasons, she will peek into my screen and think that i am not doing any work, i mean, blinking msn windows doesn't really help much.
I was thinking about one of mr brown's post on one site that has E-postcards and one of the E-postcards actually said something like, "I can't change my job because of my drug dependency, and i abuse drug becoz i hate my job." A complete circular dependency.
Maybe i should abuse drugs too. But its death penalty for possession of drugs, and i'm kind of afraid of dying. So maybe i'll abuse some legit substance like panadols. But i guess panadols being not very effective drugs to abuse are one of the reasons why they can be bought of the shelf. So maybe i should try abusing something that's legit but not meant for my consumption.
Which leads me to think about abortion pills and contraceptive pills. But it does seem kind of wierd for a guy to abuse family planning pills... I have to be desperate or something.
Just to remind those unfortunate who take my words as some godly truth, i am NOT planning to abuse anything. Don't send twenty four hour spies to watch me. This is just humor.
Speaking of abuse, recently, whenever i glance through multiply or friendster, i would notice the "Report Abuse" link in people's profiles. But i always glance too quickly and miss out on the word "Report" and i would go like, "Hey cool, there's a link for me to click to abuse this person."
This post is taking a weird direction, i think i'll just go back to talking about swollen thumbs. Speaking of swollen, my lower lip is now absolutely swollen. Couple days back, i bit my lip while eating some chicken rice. Not once but three times. Now there are three ugly ulcers on my lower lip.
They are swollen because the night before, before i sleep, i would grab a pinch of salt and dab it onto the ulcer. I didn't think salt on ulcer was a very effective cure, so i used my salty finger to massage the killer salt on the ulcer. Um.. it was excruciating. I think the salt broke one of the ulcers, and it wasn't white anymore. But it became white again the next day lah.
Gotta go now. Cheers.
Monday, April 4, 2005
Opposites attract
I have the fortune of reading lil` couzin's english language group project report. I've read the first part of their report, which explores the usage and meanings of un-adjectives, like unhappy, unattractive. Since they have not yet patent or published it, i'll only talk/critique about their observations rather than their conclusions. By my critique, i'm not saying that they did badly, the report was well-written.
They made the following observations :
"In (a), unhappy is not the opposite of happy. Sad is the opposite of happy."
"In (b), unattractive is not the opposite of attractive. Ugly is the opposite of attractive."
"...in (c), unpredictable is the opposite of predictable."
But what is the meaning of opposite. We can say that black is the opposite of white. But black and white are colors, what properties make them opposite of each other? What is to stop us from saying red is opposite of blue, and gold is opposite of silver? And by extension could we possibly say humans are the opposite of say.. tree?
In physics, we learn that white spectrum is made up of red, green and blue spectrum. By adding more colored spectrums, one could progress towards the color white. Conversely, by removing colors, one could progress towards the color black. Thus we can say black is the opposite of white, being on the opposite ends of a scale with the quantum of colored spectrum. Though through this course of argument, it is interesting to note that one could say that red, green and variations of yellow is respectively the opposite of magenta, cyan and variations of black in terms of quantities of blue.
"...in (c), unpredictable is the opposite of predictable.". So is unpredictable the opposite of predictable? If predictability is defined as the reliability of the percentage of conformance and unpredicatability defined as 1 - reliability of the percentage of conformance, then yes, upredictable is the opposite of predictable.
"In (b), unattractive is not the opposite of attractive. Ugly is the opposite of attractive." By saying ugly is the opposite of attractive, there are two errors. The first error is that the words 'pretty' and 'repulsive' are being ignored. We can observe that pretty is the opposite of ugly and attractive is the opposite repulsive. One cannot be both pretty and ugly or attractive and repulsive.
The second error is in the implication that pretty is attractive. Prettiness and ugliness is relative. For we often hear that "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.". How many times have you said someone is pretty/handsome only to encounter someone else comment to you, "Average only lah". But the beholder of beauty theory itself implies an association between prettiness and attraction. But attraction and repulsion is also relative. This opens up many social concerns. Can ugly be attractive? Is attractive ugliness an exception? These questions are out of today's scope and beyond my resources.
"In (a), unhappy is not the opposite of happy. Sad is the opposite of happy." The opposite of sad is unsad, but sadly (forgive the pun), unsad is an ill-formed word and thus rejected by the language. Can someone be sad and happy at the same time? I'm sure many of us would find it difficult to come up with an example where a person is both sad and happy. So is sad the opposite of happy?
To say that sad is the opposite of happy is to imply that sadness is in the same level of hierarchy as happiness. Unhappiness could be due to sadness, anger, jealousy. Can a person be angry and happy or jealous and happy at the same time? So is sad the opposite of happy or is angry the opposite of happy? While a person cannot be sad and happy at the same time, it has only served as support to prove that sadness and happiness mutually exlcusive, not neccessarily opposite. It has done nothing to indicate the quantum which one can progressively increase/decrease to traverse from sadness to happiness.
When a person says he is not unhappy, he could in fact be many things, including happy or content. If sad is the opposite of happy, which implies the vice versa that the opposite of happy is sad, what then is the opposite of unhappy? Interesting enough, it is easier for people who are not unhappy to spontaenously become happy as compared to unhappy people.
If we were instead to associate unhappy as the opposite of happy, then a reasonable quantum could be established. One could hypothesize that by taking away negative agitators (sadness, anger, jealousy) and adding positive agitators (contentment, high self-esteem), one could become mobile on the scale of unhappiness and happiness.
They made the following observations :
"In (a), unhappy is not the opposite of happy. Sad is the opposite of happy."
"In (b), unattractive is not the opposite of attractive. Ugly is the opposite of attractive."
"...in (c), unpredictable is the opposite of predictable."
But what is the meaning of opposite. We can say that black is the opposite of white. But black and white are colors, what properties make them opposite of each other? What is to stop us from saying red is opposite of blue, and gold is opposite of silver? And by extension could we possibly say humans are the opposite of say.. tree?
In physics, we learn that white spectrum is made up of red, green and blue spectrum. By adding more colored spectrums, one could progress towards the color white. Conversely, by removing colors, one could progress towards the color black. Thus we can say black is the opposite of white, being on the opposite ends of a scale with the quantum of colored spectrum. Though through this course of argument, it is interesting to note that one could say that red, green and variations of yellow is respectively the opposite of magenta, cyan and variations of black in terms of quantities of blue.
"...in (c), unpredictable is the opposite of predictable.". So is unpredictable the opposite of predictable? If predictability is defined as the reliability of the percentage of conformance and unpredicatability defined as 1 - reliability of the percentage of conformance, then yes, upredictable is the opposite of predictable.
"In (b), unattractive is not the opposite of attractive. Ugly is the opposite of attractive." By saying ugly is the opposite of attractive, there are two errors. The first error is that the words 'pretty' and 'repulsive' are being ignored. We can observe that pretty is the opposite of ugly and attractive is the opposite repulsive. One cannot be both pretty and ugly or attractive and repulsive.
The second error is in the implication that pretty is attractive. Prettiness and ugliness is relative. For we often hear that "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.". How many times have you said someone is pretty/handsome only to encounter someone else comment to you, "Average only lah". But the beholder of beauty theory itself implies an association between prettiness and attraction. But attraction and repulsion is also relative. This opens up many social concerns. Can ugly be attractive? Is attractive ugliness an exception? These questions are out of today's scope and beyond my resources.
"In (a), unhappy is not the opposite of happy. Sad is the opposite of happy." The opposite of sad is unsad, but sadly (forgive the pun), unsad is an ill-formed word and thus rejected by the language. Can someone be sad and happy at the same time? I'm sure many of us would find it difficult to come up with an example where a person is both sad and happy. So is sad the opposite of happy?
To say that sad is the opposite of happy is to imply that sadness is in the same level of hierarchy as happiness. Unhappiness could be due to sadness, anger, jealousy. Can a person be angry and happy or jealous and happy at the same time? So is sad the opposite of happy or is angry the opposite of happy? While a person cannot be sad and happy at the same time, it has only served as support to prove that sadness and happiness mutually exlcusive, not neccessarily opposite. It has done nothing to indicate the quantum which one can progressively increase/decrease to traverse from sadness to happiness.
When a person says he is not unhappy, he could in fact be many things, including happy or content. If sad is the opposite of happy, which implies the vice versa that the opposite of happy is sad, what then is the opposite of unhappy? Interesting enough, it is easier for people who are not unhappy to spontaenously become happy as compared to unhappy people.
If we were instead to associate unhappy as the opposite of happy, then a reasonable quantum could be established. One could hypothesize that by taking away negative agitators (sadness, anger, jealousy) and adding positive agitators (contentment, high self-esteem), one could become mobile on the scale of unhappiness and happiness.
Sunday, April 3, 2005
Woke up at 0530 today. Yup, 0530 on a Sunday. Met up with Yvonne and her friends to go for the Tree Top Walk at... i donno where, but we started from MacRitchie reservoir. I was out of the house by 0620. First to reach the meeting point, MacDonalds in Toa Payoh. Since no one has arrived yet, i decided to blast the public toilet away. Anyway, i didn't know that i had so much shit in me, literally and metaphorically.
Inside the forest trail, it was incredibly warm. The reason being the trees themselves give off warmth and they serve as some sort of wind breaker. The air was absolutely still in the forest. There were no mosquitoes, so if i ever go again, i wouldn't be going in long pants.
At the bridge entrance, babe watch activity was only at two (Well, gotta give credit to the ladies in our own group mah).
On the bridge, i discovered that i could actually make the bridge rock by stepping onto the edges of the planks. The bridge walk itself was kind of dissapointing in terms of distance. We trekked five kilometers to walk on a bridge that was like less than a couple hundred meters...
Had lunch at Pizza Hut before scattering to the four winds.
Inside the forest trail, it was incredibly warm. The reason being the trees themselves give off warmth and they serve as some sort of wind breaker. The air was absolutely still in the forest. There were no mosquitoes, so if i ever go again, i wouldn't be going in long pants.
At the bridge entrance, babe watch activity was only at two (Well, gotta give credit to the ladies in our own group mah).
On the bridge, i discovered that i could actually make the bridge rock by stepping onto the edges of the planks. The bridge walk itself was kind of dissapointing in terms of distance. We trekked five kilometers to walk on a bridge that was like less than a couple hundred meters...
Had lunch at Pizza Hut before scattering to the four winds.
Saturday, April 2, 2005
I was supposed to go over to my auntie's house for the fortnightly dinner/gathering in the evening today. But i totally forgot about it. Got a phone call and promptly went over and reached at around 2000.
Well, today is a little different in that my auntie told me in a rather stern voice to get a girlfriend. I don't know but i think when cousins start getting married and having children they kind of look around and ask "Who's next?". What the hell... my brothers, my cousin, who are older than me never get that.
And the marital pressure isn't just coming from the gahmen and family. Recently, my boss ask also asked me something along the same lines. Even my colleague is urging me to sign up with SDU. Or was it SDS? Maybe it is NTUC, in anycase, the acronym holds no meaning to me. Maybe if i keep rolling my eyes, i could look at stuff behind my head without turning huh?
But i'm like so busy, i've got two books, one cross stitch to finish. I need to get a driving license, a broker, a singpass, buy my dream bungalow, which costs two million, and by virtue of growth would cost three million when and if i have two million, strike a lottery to buy my bungalow, buy a lottery ticket to strike the lottery, destroy microsoft and destroy macdonalds and half the population of martians along with it, martians, microsoft, macdonalds, they are always trying to take over, become a millionaire, build a playboy mansion, become broke becoz i built it, regret that i couldn't get bill gates to get me out of bankruptcy becoz i destroyed microsoft, find a cure for aids, cure for cancer, cure for every other ailment, become a doctor, lawyer, scientist, mathematician, economist, stripper, politician, liar, oh wait, that's the same as politician, i want to see world peace, no more hunger, shake hands with Mandela, learn salsa and get Paris Hilton to give me a goodnight kiss, patch the ozone, enter a black hole, come out of a white hole, thus proving that black holes and white holes are two ends of a wormhole, and i need to get a girlfriend.
And on top of it all, i still need to get enough sleep, where got time..
Well, today is a little different in that my auntie told me in a rather stern voice to get a girlfriend. I don't know but i think when cousins start getting married and having children they kind of look around and ask "Who's next?". What the hell... my brothers, my cousin, who are older than me never get that.
And the marital pressure isn't just coming from the gahmen and family. Recently, my boss ask also asked me something along the same lines. Even my colleague is urging me to sign up with SDU. Or was it SDS? Maybe it is NTUC, in anycase, the acronym holds no meaning to me. Maybe if i keep rolling my eyes, i could look at stuff behind my head without turning huh?
But i'm like so busy, i've got two books, one cross stitch to finish. I need to get a driving license, a broker, a singpass, buy my dream bungalow, which costs two million, and by virtue of growth would cost three million when and if i have two million, strike a lottery to buy my bungalow, buy a lottery ticket to strike the lottery, destroy microsoft and destroy macdonalds and half the population of martians along with it, martians, microsoft, macdonalds, they are always trying to take over, become a millionaire, build a playboy mansion, become broke becoz i built it, regret that i couldn't get bill gates to get me out of bankruptcy becoz i destroyed microsoft, find a cure for aids, cure for cancer, cure for every other ailment, become a doctor, lawyer, scientist, mathematician, economist, stripper, politician, liar, oh wait, that's the same as politician, i want to see world peace, no more hunger, shake hands with Mandela, learn salsa and get Paris Hilton to give me a goodnight kiss, patch the ozone, enter a black hole, come out of a white hole, thus proving that black holes and white holes are two ends of a wormhole, and i need to get a girlfriend.
And on top of it all, i still need to get enough sleep, where got time..
Friday, April 1, 2005
The trip home was an agony. There was nothing on babe watch radar, and i couldn't fall asleep to find my dream girl. Plus, there was that unsatisfied need. Upon reaching home, i took a quick shower and quickly popped back out of the house. With most of the shops closed, the only place i could get the stuff to satisfy my needs was at Seven-Eleven (24-hour shop).
Got lost abit, but managed to reached the Seven-Eleven near my house, and had a difficult time to decide which brand to get. In the end, i settled for Peel Fresh brand. One litre of orange juice for my diabetic throat. I would have bought ribena syrup, but the thirst for fruity fluid at that time was immense.
Went i got home, i yelled out to my brother to let him know that there's orange juice in the fridge. I took dinner and poured myself one full mug of orange juice and immediately regret having announced that there was orange juice in the fridge. Coz the appetite for the fruity fluid grew more voracious when i had my first mug. I gave some serious consideration as to whether i should down the whole litre of orange juice. But decided against it as i reasoned that it was better to save some juice for later so i would save that other forage out to Seven-Eleven.
Got lost abit, but managed to reached the Seven-Eleven near my house, and had a difficult time to decide which brand to get. In the end, i settled for Peel Fresh brand. One litre of orange juice for my diabetic throat. I would have bought ribena syrup, but the thirst for fruity fluid at that time was immense.
Went i got home, i yelled out to my brother to let him know that there's orange juice in the fridge. I took dinner and poured myself one full mug of orange juice and immediately regret having announced that there was orange juice in the fridge. Coz the appetite for the fruity fluid grew more voracious when i had my first mug. I gave some serious consideration as to whether i should down the whole litre of orange juice. But decided against it as i reasoned that it was better to save some juice for later so i would save that other forage out to Seven-Eleven.
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