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Sunday, Feb 26, 2012 - 02:06 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Heat's On

Consign To Holy Flames

Much as I would like to have a quiet week once in a while, especially as I haven't been very well, notable happenings keep cropping up, foremost among them the rioting in Afghanistan (and now, Pakistan) over the ill-advised torching of the Holy Quran at a NATO (read: American) military base. With there being no indication that the chaos will fizzle to an end, the President of the Free World has taken it upon himself to apologize, only to be dissed for it by the Moon-colonizing Republican hopeful, apparently oblivious to the popular opinion among his compatriots that POTUS is supposed to be a "Secret Muslin" after all.

Acolytes of this particular flavour of sizzle will remember the plodding saga of the Dove World Quran-burning controversy, which began slightly less than two years ago. Then, a pastor with far too much time on his hands (but admittedly arguably possibly sound doctrinal underpinnings) stated his intention to burn two hundred Qurans, which brought about a predictable response from a community barely done with castigating cartoonists, Denmark and Danish cartoonists.

After a few nervous weeks of will-he-or-won't-he, the pastor in question accepted a free car for the onerous duty of not burning any Qurans, but not before some twenty people were killed in international protests. Apparently not satisfied by all this commotion on his behalf, the true believer put the Quran on trial the next year anyway, whereupon it was found - surprise! - guilty, and summarily immolated. Coverage in the global press was more muted this time, with some probably secretly relieved that the whole disgraceful business was finally over and done with, and the death toll for the act was thankfully not too much greater than for the empty threat.

Historically however, trial of validity by fire is not that rare of a custom, and Buddhist tradition for example has the story of a competition against Taoists, held before the Emperor, where Buddhist sutras were piled together with Taoist texts, and the whole lot set alight. In this telling, the sutras shone but were not fried (like a certain sacred bush), while the Taoist writings were reduced to cinders; of course, this being from the Buddhist perspective, I'm sure that Taoists have their own interpretation of the event, and I do recall variations by kinder narrators in which the Tao Te Ching survived as well.

Then again, according to the Tao, (processed) wood (pulp) begets fire, so they may not have been all that shocked; but given all this periodical raging dissention about whose ancient faith is right and whose is not, it might be productive to settle the issue once and for all, mimicking the very sensible empirical efforts related above. Under a dry scientific title, perhaps "A Study On The Combustibility Of Various Writings Purporting To The Ultimate Truth", suitable samples might be tested for supernatural non-flammability under highly reproducible conditions by multiple research groups. Personally, I will not be holding my breath on the findings.


The Duck One feeds lies, all lies!


Webosphere Simmers

Soon after certain vanguards of the alternative media were gagged by legal decree, and words expended on what sort of by-elections constitute a waste of taxpayers' monies [Conclusion: Get new high-flyer into GRC: No. Replace only MP in SMC for ethical reasons: Yes - but haven't the residents saved enough by not getting their flats upgraded?], indignation levels were refuelled by a widely-circulated comment by a PRC scholar, who happens to belong to the same university as me, that "there are more dogs than humans in Singapore", and then offered to wait with a knife for critics.

As a bit of investigation suggests that there are perhaps 43000 licensed dogs and 8000 strays in Singapore, as compared to a human population of well over 5 million (and growing), I will have to firstly frown upon his shoddy research. Not only that, it is generally accepted that the correct way to go about it in local culture is with hatchets and knuckle-dusters, not knives!

His participation in the affair seems to have come to a close with a terse apology, but the overall timing could hardly have been worse with an official statement in Parliament to the effect that (only) 45 percent of foreign scholarship holders achieve a second-upper or above. While this statistic was belatedly adjusted to 67%, it did little to douse the fury of netizens, who not unjustifiably were hung up at the realisation that many locals pay full (if subsidized) tuition after National Service, only to be slandered as canines by foreigners who have tuition, room and board paid for, as well as various generous allowances - and who may not even be better.

Unwilling to leave a good hole alone, an MP volunteered to get out his shovel and begin digging himself further in, first proclaiming that he was born in the year of the Dog and then ingeniously stating that nationality should not factor into the decision of who receives a scholarship.

There are several immediate objections to such a stand. Firstly, if that principle were strictly adhered to, very few locals could get a scholarship at all, given the vastness of the world - there is no shame in accepting that there are potentially hundreds of thousands of prospective students out there who are at least as good as our best.

Secondly, would that criterion of meritocracy not imply that high-performing locals who outdo scouted talents should then be automatically conferred scholarships or the equivalent, all the more so since he is actually a national? Assuredly, this does not happen.

Thirdly, this brings up the question of what ends this policy aims to serve. It is true that most universities provide scholarships at the graduate level, and some top colleges are famously need-blind (i.e. accept [mostly] regardless of nationality and ability to pay, if not ethnicity) even at the undergraduate level, but it should be pointed out that these institutions are usually private, with considerable endowments, and are by and large surrounded by reasonably-good public universities who charge domestic students rather less - which again is hardly the case here.


Hot New Stuff



With the MakerBot Replicator™, we are all manufacturers (well, likely at a high per-unit cost), for the low, low price of US$1749 (and filament spools)! So those lessons on SolidWorks in JC might turn out not to be a total waste. But yes, can it make itself?

Here seems as good a space as any to muse about the poor working conditions in the factories of developing countries (in particular, those of Foxconn have received a ton of negative publicity). I've always wondered if the draconian rules (e.g. no talking, must remain standing, no toilet breaks) are actually necessary, or in practice detract from productivity (does forcing a worker to hold his pee in seriously improve his dexterity?), but the bosses demand it just because they can?

One of Zuckerberg's harder-to-question practices is that of only eating meat that he has killed himself (what is it called, slaughtergan?), which puts under the magnifying glass the very human hypocrisy of slamming hunters, bloodsport merchants and miscellaneous animal abusers while partaking of the flesh of critters held for most of their natural life in appalling conditions (a hypocrisy in which I share heavily)

Maybe the largest contribution one could make towards reducing the suffering of sentient beings would be the invention of economical artificial meat, and while the artificial part has been done by the wizards of our time, they're still working on the bill, with a 250g slab still costing US$1 million. It turns out that there may be a much more natural method. Creepy? Yes, but who cares if it's tasty and cheap - it can't be that much worse than whatever goes on inside a regular sausage factory...

And Dice Soccer. Not that new, but a fairly innovative homegrown product that made yesterday's newspapers. Which reminds me, the other site's on half a million pageviews.


Set The Lanes On Fire

Me: By the way, I was thinking of you during my bowling practice, and am glad to inform you that you are now the star of a new visualization system - the Herr Ahm Lane Arrow Method.

Herr Ahm: That is definitely nothing less than I deserve.

Me: Indeed. How it works, then, is instead of targeting the pins themselves as my uncoached self had always done (which I thought made sense), I instead aim to direct the ball towards an arrow marking on the lane, and on my first throw I will concentrate very hard and form this image in my mind's eye:


(Lane source: flickr.com)


Herr Ahm: Ahh, my hamsome self, a wonderful choice. Hmm... just a moment...

Me: ...with that done, I embark upon a four-step approach, every nerve and sinew primed towards putting the ball in exactly the right spot...

Herr Ahm: Wait, wait!

Me: ...and I lift my arm behind me and let it come down straight like a pendulum, rotate my wrist just so as it passes my ankle, sending the ball churning towards the target spot...

Herr Ahm: No, no, stop!

Me: ...where it completely flattens Herr Ahm like a squashed, unpaid-for crumpet. I can hear it now: squish! What a sound!


(Crumpet source: flickr.com)


Herr Ahm: *shivering uncontrollably* You are an asshole, human! How petty! Look, if you wanted one that badly, you could have asked. *rummages about in cheek pouch* There's probably half a leftover crumpet in here somewhere. Old bus tickets, used receipts, last week's newspapers... ooh, so my car keys were here all along! So what was I looking for? Ah yes, crumpet, crumpet...

Me: Never mind about that.

Herr Ahm: Ah, here it is! I was saving it for a special occasion, it isn't even completely mouldy yet!

Me: I'll pass. Your punt, if you please.

Herr Ahm (for Mr. Ham, 2302/2200 seeds): 100 seeds on Tottenham to tottenhammer Arsenal (at 2.60)

FAKEBERT (2118.5/2200 seeds): 100 seeds on Manchester United (-1.5) vs. Norwich City - surely they must be out for a reaction



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Next: Think Thunk


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