More Will-power

Little Will



found in a drain.
fifty-fifty chance of survival.
lived.
and endeared itself to all.

the will to live.

so it was named "Will".

Enid's Exhibition

@ 61 Kerbau Rd (MRT: Little India)

Enid Sim's series of whimsical pieces addresses the status of what is natural. She attempts to show how man's understanding of the natural has shifted to the point of being paradoxical. For example, pet lovers keep animals as pets and invariably remove them from the very nature where they ought to be. As she puts it, "I am fascinated by man's paradoxical attraction towards nature - of how much nature captivates us and how we attempt to keep nature in captivity." In ‘Work-in-progress’, she injects the irony of man's obsession with nature and how our naïve intrusion and eagerness to know nature has done more harm than good. What a parody to our omnipresent thirst for knowledge and education!

Passfaces

According to this website, our brains are able to remember faces far better than we can remember numbers and letters, hence this fascinating new authentication system..


Passfaces (i tried the demo! it's cool!)

which replaces the need to remember numbers and letters with picking out a pre-agreed set of faces from several grids of other faces. Apparently, we can remember the set of faces we pick even after a long long time!

the govt should consider allowing us poor overworked civil servants to use this system to replace our current need to remember a ridiculous number of passwords!

since i joined the public sector (which hasn't been for very long), i've had to remember no less than 10 or so passwords, and mind you, they are of VARYING LENGTHS (of between 8 to 12 letters).

Of course i didn't start out with 10. I started with only 1 or 2 and used the same ones for the myriad (mostly non user-friendly) systems we were presented with to do the million and one (sometimes inconsequential) things we had to do regularly.. like mark attendance online, and key in results, and submit medical and dental claims, and handle exam applications, and apply for training courses, and update our online resumes, and what-nots.. but then, the passwords started expiring after random periods.. some expire at the end of each month (!!), others after a few months, yet others if we don't touch those systems for a period of time (durh! who needs to log in THAT often??).. so we all ended up with a bunch of different passwords.

the worse thing is, we WILL forget those passwords (who wouldn't??) and then, when we try and try in vain to log in again, the system will eventually "lock us out" and we will then, lagi worse, have to fill in and submit some ridiculous paper form to reapply for a new password, all the time getting disapproving frowns from the admin people..

so eventually we will all give up memorising those passwords. we will instead write down the whole list of passwords and display them neatly and prominently on our desks, next to our paperclips, highlighters and cups of coffee.. yes, so-called "passwords" but with zero security..

durh.......................

Jewel In The Palace??

the next person who tells me about this show will get some serious walloping from me!!!

>:(



look at the stone looking people! they even behave like that in the show!!

but everyone i meet: from the office to during social gatherings to my mum and even my best friend when we met two days ago mentions it, unprovoked, the moment we meet!! they even want to "go home early to catch it" sacrificing precious time they could spend doing something more worthwhile, like, err.. talk to me??

grrrr.... >:(

the dog



couldn't resist posting the pic above.. it is so cute..


but...even better...


i get to play with a real retriever! the one below named QQ.. still a puppy but extremely friendly and playful..:)

tired...

something we CAN do



we can be indifferent locally but let's see what we can do for the world.. :)

Walk the World Carnival 2006

When: 21 May, 2006; 9:00 AM - 3:30 PM (local time)

Where: MacRitchie Reservoir Lornie Road Singapore

Route: 5 km cross-country track

A Documentary

check out what Channelnews Asia will be screening at 7.32pm this Sunday 16th April... a documentary on Qin Shihuang!!



wahahahaha.... hope the poor fella responsible for this doesn't get into trouble.. brr... some people don't have a sense of humour, you know? :O

-----
and from ST Interactive April 13, 2006 "Who is afraid of voting against PAP?" - on yesterday's telecast discussion between the young and MM...

Mabel Lee: But is that the state that you really want Singapore politics to have... bearing in mind that your GRC system results in walkovers. You have a young generation of people who really don't care about politics. Or, they're even fearful if they do get to vote. So is this the system that we really want?

MM Lee: Are you fearful to vote against the PAP?

Mabel: Perhaps, yes. Honestly - a little bit.

MM Lee: (Laughs) Why? Tell me why. What will happen to you? How will we know that you voted against us?

(Group laughs)

MM Lee: No, no - let's pursue this 'Because I'm afraid!'. You tell me you've gone through O levels, A levels, university, working in 93.8 Live and you're afraid that if you vote against the PAP, something will happen to you?

Ching Wern: I think this is the impression that the PAP has created.

MM Lee: (Laughs) No, you're spreading that impression.

Ching Wern: No - you can ask every one of us here...

Pearl: Add to that effect that there isn't a level playing field for the opposition in the terms of upgrading.

MM Lee: There is no level playing field of any government helping opposition to win votes.

The Battle of Ideas

as the likelihood of an imminent general election looms over all of us, i suddenly feel this mysterious, but nonetheless overwhelming, desire to read LKY's memoirs again.

from cover to cover.

ok, i confess i never quite got past the first chapter the last couple of times i picked up the book...

this might just be the right time to read it again.. eh? might just help me to shake off some of that typical singaporean apathy for local politics that i have...

btw, did anyone watch "V for Vendetta"? i love that show... maybe i should go read the comic book too..

Still ENFP

ENFP - "Journalist". Uncanny sense of the motivations of others. Life is an exciting drama. 8.1% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

BIMBO BLOG = MONEY

(from kenny sia's blog)...

It's so much easier being a female blogger.

Guys can only write so much humour, politics and technology before we run out of inspiration. For girls, they can write the same stuff if they wanted to, but they can also write a bimbo blog.

Bimbo blog is a genre of blogging that'll never go out of style. They're characterised by the blogger (usually female) posting up half-an-Internet-full-of-bandwidth-sucking photos of themselves going about doing stuff like partying, going for manicures, shopping, partying, attending fashion shows, partying, doing their make-up, partying, meeting celebrities, going on a cruise, partying, partying, partying... zzzzzzz.

Bimbo blogs may not have a lot of substance or thought-provoking content, but you know what? They're fun. And people read it. And people DIG those shit. I know I do. Just look at the female bloggers I linked to on my sidebar - half of them write darn good bimbo blogs.

I read a lot of bimbo blogs because I'm a hot-blooded male and I never stop being curious about the opposite sex since puberty.

One thing though. Bimbo blogs are strictly the realm of female bloggers. Guys can't write bimbo blogs. I mean if you're a guy and you enjoy posting up multiple hi-resolution self-indulgent photos of yourself, mannnnn... you got some serious issues to deal with, mate. Stop touching my body.

umm.. i don't know how to write a bimbo blog...

Waspily grossed out...

check out what i discovered today in a corner of my room where i stack the mountain of books i have no time to get around to reading..

on my copy of "Eats Shoots and Leaves"..




and when i crushed it...



out came...






and more...






everyone say "ewwwww".......

and check out a picture of their daddy/mummy.. i saw it shortly before i discovered the nest...

THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION
By Martin L. King Jr
1948, Morehouse College

As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.

It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively; yet he contends that I am an inferior being. Are those the types of men we call educated?

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.

If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!

For your interest....

Encyclopedia Britannica of 1952 says the purpose of education is "to raise up children to follow in their parents' traditions with good success". Parents in all societies want their children to have the same values as themselves.. but the obvious question remains... whose values? and who has the last say on which values are the so called "right" ones?

Yet another statement made, before a group of English headmasters by the Archbishop of York, that the true purpose of education is "to produce citizens"... I went to check up on what a "citizen" is..

n.

1. A person owing loyalty to and entitled by birth or naturalization to the protection of a state or nation.
2. A resident of a city or town, especially one entitled to vote and enjoy other privileges there.
3. A civilian.
4. A native, inhabitant, or denizen of a particular place

i'm going to go ponder on this issue a little..

gravid sky



a sky gravid with moisture and yet it didn't rain.. amazing..

and guess what?? just now, when i went to buy peanut butter from the supermarket, for a moment (actually, it was for longer than just a brief moment), i actually thought it has a shelf-life of 13 years!!! couldn't believe it!

read carefully... don't be as blur as me.. :p

white bittergourd



albino bittergourd - mum's back from taipei with a whole assortment of strange and wonderful things. she says this is what they use to make bittergourd milk.

sounds yucky.