Balderdash

Australia 2011 - Day 7, Part 2 - Alice Springs Desert Park

2012-03-12T18:45:00.000+08:00

"Like its politicians and its wars, society has the teenagers it deserves." - J. B. Priestley

***

Australia 2011
Day 7 - 4th August - Alice Springs Desert Park (Part 2)

Then we entered the Nocturnal House. Most of the lizards were hiding.

Thorny Devil

Spinifex Legless Lizard

Desert Skink
"Arrente name: not known". Does this mean that Western Science is superior to native knowledge? Or that the Arrente don't disclose its name due to it being part of some secret ritual?

"Australian scorpions are relatively harmless". Somehow, this wasn't very comforting.

Desert wolf spider
"Arrente name: Impe (generic name for all spiders with a big bottom". So much for the superiority of native knowledge: just as the Eskimos are reported (falsely) to have a gazillion words for snow

Since this was the Nocturnal House, many exhibits were too dark for me to take photographs, and sometimes even to see what was inside. There was even a Mala (the animal sacred down at Uluru).

A picture of the Mala:

A picture of the Mala I saw:

A very cute Tawny Frogmouth. Luckily it stayed close to the glass and stayed still.

Spinifex Hopping-mouse. This is the sign only - I couldn't find it (IIRC)
Again the arrente name is "not known"

There was a ghost bat. I'm guessing it was translucent but in the shadows I couldn't tell.

Red-tailed Phascogale sign
"Extinct in Arrente country". Hurr so much for native peoples being good stewards of the land. The extinction was blamed on feral cats.

Australia has the world record for mammal extinction.

The audioguide narrator was very pissed off by cute rabbits, because they caused problems. A few years ago instead of the Easter Bunny one group used another, native, animal - the Aclilpa (or somethng like that).

Acacia stick insect

"Biological Septic System"
Biological = stinky

Insulting Aboriginal Epistemology - how come they don't talk about the Dreamtime?

They introduced buffalo grass to crowd out native ones like lemongrass. THey had good intentions - to control soil erosion.

The audioguide talked about the medicinal uses of plants - as if they were as good as aspirin. Bah.

Alcoholic moneyeaters

After the Desert Rivers and Sand Country was the last third of the park - Woodland.

Masked woodswallow

White-winged fairy wren

"The Witchetty Grub Story"

Kangaroos

There's a 5,000km Dingo Fence keeping dingos out of the Eastern states, so there're more kangaroos there.

On Red Kangaroos

Kangaroo

Another one

Kangaroos

Kangaroos refusing to hop

Kangaroos refusing to hop 2

"Togetherness"
This is a weird caption for a worm clusterfuck

"Working together"

Gneiss

Layers of Landscape

Walking on Ancient Land: "The wild dog then travelled a little way north and metamorphosed into a boulder (Akngwelye Thirrewe) embedded in the ground near the spot where the McDonalds hamburger restaurant now stands"
This was quite sad

Quartz veins and gold reefs

Toys strewn about. Huh?

Buy one get one free - except it's VHS tapes. In Japanese.

Amusingly instead of banning commercial photography they regulate it with a (presumably) light touch

Mini dry river

Bugs on car windscreen

This made me cringe

2012-03-12T14:00:00.000+08:00

(because of the bad spelling and grammar, of course)

A reason to read Pioneer Magazine

2012-03-12T13:19:00.002+08:00

@POZboySG: I read Pioneer magazine not for its lame as hell contents, its because their pictures are homoerotic. Mmm

Observations - 12th March 2012

2012-03-12T09:03:00.000+08:00

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

***

If you have dua lumpah, you're gonna have tia kar when I plump myself down next to you on the seat.

You can't connect the dots looking backwards if you're dead.

Why does Kickapoo come in both caffine and no-caffeine versions? Packaged similarly to boot.

Somehow caffeine is most effective at night when I'm trying to sleep. (this dates from a different day)

Me: People who inspire me: Marquis de Sade, Leonardo da Vinci, Epicurus, Salman Rushdie, Socrates, Nietzsche, Gou Jian
Someone: Marquis de Sade? ;))). No shit.
Someone else: no, shit

"I think Gabriel's moobs are a good proxy for many slim Asian girls ;P And definitely more hilarious"

Moral clarity means you're blind to subtleties and complications.

Why is it generally alright (even praiseworthy) to dress up in the garb of another race or culture, but not to makeup your body and face to look like them (e.g. blackface)? (I asked this on Quora but wasn't satisfied with the answers)

The moment someone says "cisgender" or "kyriarchy", it's time to run away (even more so than "privilege"). (Someone: "it sounds like cyst-gender. ugh.")

What's the point of sending me an email if you call me 1 second later?

Not sure why people bother to lie in autoreplies. "Thank you for your email". Yeah right.

RT @Notorious_QRG: Feminists remember kiddies, are the ones who build 'safe spaces' where nasty patriarchy cant get them. And then 'invade' others' 'space'

"authentic relationships of love and friendship are only possible between individuals who do not depend on each other or stand in unequal power relations." (this is from Sweden, naturally)
Someone: "i am appalled to learn that the first 25 years of relationships of love with my parents were not authentic. no, this must be a lie."

RT: @FUCKIPEDIA: I just asked my little girl if she knew what happens to girls that don't eat their food.
She said "They turn in to supermodels."
Touché.

RT @lupcheong: My new ambition as a SG guy is not to be able to afford a flat with $1k salary; it's to have $97K to lose to a blackmail. (on this story)

RT @thewritertype It's outrageous how Google can now profit from exploiting all my most personal data. Who do they think they are, Facebook?

"Did you know that 54% of women would prefer to be hit by a truck than be fat?"

RT: @yongfook: @Xiaxue social media witch-hunt mentality. it's scary. we talk way more about the bad shit people do than their positive achievements.

"Whenever I get asked by a girl if they can punch my stomach because I have abs, I'm tempted to reply with: 'Can I touch your chest because you have boobs?'"

RT: @shanethevein: Fuck tweeting like no one is watching. Tweet like you're trying to get unfollowed.

RT @pingpingss: Being an expert in social media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator.

Australia 2011 - Day 7, Part 1 - Alice Springs Desert Park

2012-03-11T21:02:00.003+08:00

"It is a wise father that knows his own child." - William Shakespeare

***

Australia 2011
Day 7 - 4th August - Alice Springs Desert Park (Part 1)

The previous day I'd been walking around the supermarket, and the guy a the counter remarked (when I chose a Schweppes brown cream soda - only the colour was different: the taste was the same) "you've been here for ages".

I said it was interesting walking around supermarkets, and he said "fair enough".

I noted my amusement at poppy seeds being illegal in Singapore, even in food, as well as their very strict alcohol policy. In other parts of Australia one could get alcohol off the shelf. I ask if it was because of the aborigines, and he admitted - almost shamefully - that this was why alcohol was so controlled.

In the morning we went to Anzac Hill.

Sunrise

"Lest We Forget" - War Memorial

The memorial contains the ashes of the guy who dedicated it - Rev Harry Griffiths.

Places they've been

If the UK deposes the Queen, will she come to Australia to live?

On Anzac Hill

"Alice Springs - Centre of the Australian Outback"

Landscape of Alice Springs

I didn't know they'd been to Vietnam - Australia was the US's bitch further back than I'd thought.

A very plain Alice Springs (in my notes I called it "damn ugly" but I've decided to upgrade it)

Green birds

Other bird

We then drove a short way to Alice Springs Desert Park, to learn more about (and see) the various terrains of the Outback.

"Look Lock Leave"
Another disgusting example of victim-blaming. Looks like Australia has a car theft culture too.

Map of Park

The visit opened with some movie on the landscape, which had a very impressive finisher:

Alice Springs Desert Park show - end

This is the funny tool that was demonstrated to us at Ayer's Rock

For some reason the translations of the legend on the map amused me

Australia has more lizards than anywhere in the world.

I was quite impressed by their molding the net around the tree.

Princess Parrot, Budgerigar. I think there should also be a Cinnamon Quail Thrush here, but I can't see it.

River Red Gums. When you see them you know it's wet, since they need the most water of all the trees in the desert park.

Frogs here burrow because it's hot and dry.

White faced heron

Red tailed black cockatoo

Walking through fauna area: this is a "Watering Hole"

Bird in water: White faced heron again

Desert rainbow fish

Signs of Underground Water
Dry rivers have water underneath

When the water rushes through rivers in the desert it leaves marks on trees, so you can see the level of the last flood.

Fruit Salad Bush. It can substitute for Vicks Vapour Rub. I can't imagine having Vicks in my salad. These Australians are strange.

A picture of "Lake Disappointment"

The name is awesome:

"Lake Disappointment was named by the explorer Frank Hann in 1897. Hann was in the area exploring the east Pilbara, around Rudall River. He noticed creeks in the area flowed inland, and followed them expecting to find a large fresh water lake. To his disappointment the lake turned out to be salt, and subsequently it got its name of Lake Disappointment"

Bourke's Parrot

Salt Lake

Black-faced woodswallow

Termites

Termite Mound
I looked at them but didn't see any

Spinifex - very hardy, very flammable

"Hello. I'm Alexis the Spinifex Hopping Mouse"

"Five Ways to Stay Alive"

"The Aboriginal person depicted in this photograph has recently passed away.
Family members, according to tradition, have asked for the image to be removed from public viewing."
This is probably why they don't like having photos taken of them. I can imagine that this is a large barrier making people reluctant to use photographs of aborigines in material for public consumption. Yet, this makes their culture less visible than it would otherwise be, and so perpetuates its marginalisation.

A more subtle grammatical error than usual: "Today, the larger animals are still hunted with rifles and vehicles rather than foot-walking, spears and boomerangs"

Some roads had "TCE" in their names. I just found out that means "terrace".

Australians like to abbreviate words. Breakfast becomes "brekkie", McDonald's becomes "Maccas" and lipstick becomes "lippy". There's something very infantile about this pattern of abbreviation, where long words are shortened into snappy slang, exhibiting clear and distinct patterns of repetition and/or diminution: mama, papa, gee-gee, moo-moo, nums nums and wee wee being examples of baby talk.

Australia 2011 - Day 6: Pictures from MR

2012-03-07T21:19:00.002+08:00

"You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing." - Michael Pritchard

***

Start of trek

View on way up

Trail

Wall on other side

Bird

Narrow passage

Tree in awkward corner

Wall on other side

Valley and plain

People on other side

Birds

Garden of Eden

Garden of Eden from above

Birds about to plummet off cliff

Stone

From bottom of trail

Cows looking at us at unsealed road to meteorites

Aboriginal-style art in Alice Springs hostel (IIRC)

Is a man raping a woman a hate crime?

2012-03-07T14:53:00.000+08:00

An answer I wrote to: Is a man raping a woman a hate crime?

"A hate crime occurs when a person is attacked because he belongs (or is thought to belong) to a certain group. In other words, the victim is attacked not on his own merits (or at least not solely on his own merits); the group itself is being attacked here.

Might a man raping a woman fall into this category?

There are two main motives male-on-female rape is attributed to: sex and power.

In the case of simple sexual motivation, it is difficult to see how male-on-female rape could be a hate crime, since women are targeted here not because the perpetrator hates women, but because women have something unique that he wants. In a samilar way, if I am a mugger and I target rich people because they have more money, this is not a hate crime - it is just a practical consequence of my preferences and social circumstances.

In the opposite case, male-on-female rape could be a power thing (this is a typical feminist view). Yet if rape is just an expression of power, I don't see how male-on-female rape would necessarily be a hate crime (as opposed to, say, a way of lashing out at the world, or of gaining some power that one lacks in one's personal life) - unless it is specifically power over the female gender that the male rapist desires and enacts. And even then, wanting power over a certain group does not hate make (example: people crying to cut bankers' bonuses) - the defining criterion here is enjoying the suffering of that certain group. Then again, the cries to cut bankers' bonuses might not be such an inappropriate example here...

Of course, sex and power are often inter-mingled, but this does not change the fundamental analysis. Unless a man rapes a woman because he hates women (and presumably is using sex and/or power to express his worldview/feelings), male-on-female rape cannot be a hate crime."

Links - 6th March 2012

2012-03-06T12:33:00.000+08:00

"It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull." - H. L. Mencken

***

Grand Mansions, Bungalows and Villas of the Past | Remember Singapore - "Chek Jawa House No. 1, Pulau Ubin (1930s – Present). This little Tudor-styled cottage is located on Pulau Ubin, a north-eastern island of Singapore. Built in the 1930s by former Chief Surveyor of Singapore Landon Williams, this beautiful resort, resembling an English cottage, is completed with a private jetty and the only workable fireplace in Singapore."
Elsewhere: "the merlions were almost forced to be removed from their locations as they are not authorised by the Singapore Tourism Board, who owns the copyright and all intellectual properties of Merlion. There are 5 “approved” Merlions in Singapore, which are the original Merlion (with a smaller one behind it) at the Singapore River, the gigantic Merlion in Sentosa, the Merlion of Mount Faber and the one at the Tourism Court."

The Flavor Network | The Big Picture - "Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous."

UK: Students want Strauss-Kahn speech cancelled - "Students at Cambridge University are circulating a petition against a planned speech there by former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kah... "To choose to give this man an opportunity to speak trivialises the experiences of women who bravely come forward and report rape and sexual assault, and reinforces the institutional sexism that faces women who do so," said Ruth Graham, a spokeswoman for the Cambridge University Students' Union Women's Campaign... the decision to invite Strauss-Kahn displayed "a callous desire to exploit gender crime allegations in the service of controversy”... Katie Lam, president of the Cambridge Union Society, said Strauss-Kahn had been invited to speak about the state of the eurozone and the global economy. "The purpose of the Union is to provide a neutral platform for free speech ... An invitation to the Union does not imply support or endorsement," she said"
Elsewhere: "it had been regularly asking him to come and speak on the topic since 2010"; Once again, this is feminist logic (i.e. illogic), and an attempt to turn offence into psychic harm and thus proceed to censorship

Is the jar industry misogynistic? - Quora - "It's also discriminatory against children! They must make jars with smaller lids so kids can open them! I mean, have you seen the size of a peanut butter jar's lid? And don't get me started on the jelly! That jelly gets the lid stuck and it's nigh near impossible to open the jar up! More discrimination!"
Sidebar: Is Islam misogynistic?
Is Hollywood misogynistic?
Is democracy misogynistic?

The Public and Its Problems - "Why, they ask, can’t politicians see the abyss that yawns before them, and come together to resolve the euro crisis once and for all?... If the problem has not been experienced before, the public is not convinced of the potential costs of inaction. And, if action prevents the problem, the public never experiences the averted calamity, and voters therefore penalize political leaders for the immediate costs that the action entails. Even if politicians have perfect foresight of the disaster that awaits if nothing is done, they may have little ability to persuade voters, or less insightful party members, that the short-term costs must be paid... Don’t blame the leaders for appearing short-sighted and indecisive; the fault may lie with us, the public, for not listening to the worrywarts"

BioWare Explains ‘Mass Effect 3′ Power Stat Upgrades - "'So Rank 1 Weapon Damage Bonus may be 10%. If we say at rank 2 the Weapon Damage Bonus increases by 50% what is the correct result for total weapon damage bonus now. If you used formula 1, it would be 15%. But that goes against what people expect, because you are increasing a percent by a percent. Instead, you expect the numbers to add together. So a 50% increase to 10% should be 60%'... Just think: many of you had the audacity to ask your high school math teacher “when will we ever use this?!?” Here you go"

The Duet: The iPod of Vibrators? - "Topolovac and Chang will be releasing two pricier models: one with a gold-plated band for $189 and another with a gold-plated body and band for $349, which hold 8 and 16 gigabytes of data, respectively. The storage wasn’t a part of the original design, but came from the first group of test users, about half of whom mentioned wanting to store erotic content; others want the extra storage for whatever."

Police interview chief suspect in train sex party - YouTube - "Taiwan Railway train turned into a sex train. Eighteen men and one woman participated in this sex party. A group of internet users launched a 'train perv' project on an online forum at telnet://libido.cx at the end of last year. A girl who claimed to be 19 years old and 166 cm tall with a pair of F-cup breast volunteered to join the party and be the 'only girl' present ..."

THE COMPOSITES - "Images created using law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters"

Mackerel Economics in Prison Leads to Appreciation for Oily Fillets - WSJ.com - "Mr. Muntz says he sold more than $1 million of mackerel for federal prison commissaries last year. It accounted for about half his commissary sales, he says, outstripping the canned tuna, crab, chicken and oysters he offers. Unlike those more expensive delicacies, former prisoners say, the mack is a good stand-in for the greenback because each can (or pouch) costs about $1 and few -- other than weight-lifters craving protein -- want to eat it."

Upper class people more likely to cheat study - "People from the wealthy upper classes are more likely than poorer folks to break laws while driving, take candy from children and lie for financial gain"

Boys with big brothers more likely to be gay - "It's one of the few reliable correlates of homosexuality that I know of"

Why This Pro-Choice Feminist is Now a Pro-Life Activist - "A study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the former research arm of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, showed that 48 percent of the women who sought abortions after 16 weeks did so because they “found it hard to make arrangements.” Not exactly a life-or-death reason... I also advocate for the right of women to be free from the documented dangers of abortion: sterility, a perforated uterus, depression, subsequent drug and alcohol abuse. These hazards have been written about in studies published in well-established medical journals. I also have looked into the eyes of women who deeply regret their abortions and who speak openly and poignantly about the pain that abortion has caused in their lives. The testimony of such women speaks volumes about the dark side of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade."

Kermit Gosnell late-term abortion scandal: How late in pregnancy is too late to choose? - "A grand jury in Philadelphia has indicted a local doctor for running an abortion clinic in which no limits applied. Babies of all sizes and gestational ages were casually butchered. It's a tale of gore and nihilism—and an occasion for pro-choice advocates to reflect on the limits of reproductive freedom... "Is there anything qualitatively different about a fetus at, say, 28 weeks that gives it a morally different status to a fetus at 18 weeks or even eight weeks?"... It's one thing to preach these ideas in the lefty blogosphere. It's quite another to see them in practice... Gosnell was known as a doctor who would perform abortions at any stage, without regard for legal limits." This meant killing viable babies. "We were able to document seven specific incidents in which Gosnell or one of his employees severed the spine of a viable baby born alive," the grand jury concludes. One victim was killed at 26 weeks. Another was killed at 28. A third was killed at 32. Some of the dead were 12 to 18 inches long. One had been moving and breathing outside the womb for 20 minutes. The report alleges hundreds of such atrocities. One employee admitted to severing the spinal cords of 100 babies, each one beyond 24 weeks"
Is there anything qualitatively different about a newborn that gives it a morally different status to a fetus at 28 weeks?; Ace: "One of the joys of being a lefty blogger is being permitted to write glib, insensible things without high risk of contradiction, so long as the glib nonsense you're writing is the sort of thing your readers want to read. Here's Jill from Feministing simply making shit up... Jill also postulates, evidence-free, that almost all of these late-term abortions were medically justified... The Supreme Court has ruled that no abortion law can prohibit an abortion, even a late-term one, if it is necessary for the health or life of the mother"

In September 2009, after admitting to my parents that I was atheist, I was abruptly woken in the middle of the night by two strange men who subsequently threw me in a van and drove me 200 mi. to a facility that I would later find out serves the sole purpose of eliminating free thinking adolescents.

Maryland State Sport - Jousting - "Maryland designated jousting as the official sport in 1962. Jousting tournaments have been held in Maryland since early colonial times and became increasingly popular after the Civil War."

Medium ordered to curb activities in HDB flat - "He told the court he became a medium after the deity Guan Di possessed his body, saying: 'This is not what I wanted but I had no choice'"

A Point of View: The language of ties - "Che Guevara didn't wear a tie, nor did Fidel Castro, and Albert Einstein had never really liked them, either. All his life, he had a horror of constraint, be or physical, intellectual or emotional, which he described in the German word "zwang". For Einstein, as for many of the student revolutionaries of the 1960s, the necktie became the very embodiment and symbol of "zwang""

Is the Republican Party ready to lead America again? - "It was the early 1990's and things were bad. To make conversation Mr Major asks Mr Yeltsin a question. "In a word, Boris, what is the state of your nation?"
"In a word: good!"
The Prime Minister felt a fool. He had been fobbed off in front of his civil servants with an answer that was patently wrong. So he tried again: "What is the longer version of that, Boris?"
"Not good!"
... "The party is more unified on general principles - first order policies - than it has been in my lifetime." Whether this unity is good for the Republicans is another matter of course. Political writer Michael Lind left the party because he sees its modern unity as toxic. Too much based on the values of the deep south of the USA - and in particular a visceral and unquenchable dislike of any government by anyone, of anyone. "The thing that holds together the modern Republican party is opposition to the government," says Mr Lind.

Porcupines and Humans

2012-03-06T11:02:00.000+08:00

"A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse, is the code of politeness and fine manners; and those who transgress it are roughly told—in the English phrase—to keep their distance. By this arrangement the mutual need of warmth is only very moderately satisfied; but then people do not get pricked. A man who has some heat in himself prefers to remain outside, where he will neither prick other people nor get pricked himself."

--- Parerga and Paralipomena / Arthur Schopenhauer

An amusing job offer a friend got in her email

2012-03-06T00:18:00.000+08:00

"Who does not love wine, women, and song
Remains a fool his whole life long." - Johann Heinrich Voss (attr)

***

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FAIL!

Australia 2011 - Day 6, Part 4 - Drive to Alice Springs

2012-03-04T22:13:00.003+08:00

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." - Henry David Thoreau

***

Australia 2011
Day 6 - 3rd August - Drive to Alice Springs (Part 4)

While I was sitting waiting for MR to refill his water in the Kings Canyon Carpark, there was a woman changing her top. She had a bikini underneath, but still. Next, she changed her shorts to a skirt while facing me, and ended off by changing her underwear (going to the back of the car). In the rear view mirror it looked like the man was giving her a lovebite around her collarbonone. I think they were a European couple.

Our breakfast the past 2 days had been awful a it'd been the cheese buns from Yulara:

Luckily I had a packet of Red Rock Deli dijon mustard and honey, which was very good.

We stopped at Kings Creek Station, and there were quite a few people on working holidays, and the girl at the counter was Japanese. I asked her and she said there were some other Japs there also.

Camel riding at Kings Creek

A man at Kings Creek Station was picnicing with alfalfa sprouts. I told him it wasn't something you'd expect on a picnic (I could've added: while picnicing in a car, too).

Deluxe Chicken Burger with onion, bacon, pineapple, 'sauce' and egg. It was quite good, though they used frid chicken. The 'sauce' was like mayo. I didn't ask what the 'sauce' was. Perhaps it was better not to know.

We then stopped at Erldunda again. There was another Malaysian girl there this time, albeit not as cute and speaking Cantonese and Mandarin instead of English (maybe she did back-office work). I found out from the first Malaysian that there was Telstra reception at Erldunda (supposedly they were the best in Australia with 99% coverage - given Kings Canyon was not covered, I had my doubts about the rest of the Outback), even though my Yes! Optus SIM did not work. She also said that they were earning twice what they had in Malaysia (they'd been colleagues), and spent less. This is believable, even though I assumed that they were not toilet cleaners in Malaysia, as an ex-colleague said you'd make more on an hourly rate at a 7-11 in Australia than what she'd been paid.

"Dear Customer
As you may be aware Central and Coastal Australia is experiencing a mouse plague. We sincerely apologize for the obvious smell that this has caused. We are endeavouring to irradicate this situation as best we can.
Sorry for any discomfort caused."

On reflection, this might've been a prank by a disgruntled employee, as irradicate is a rare verb meaning "To root deeply".

Desert dog ("Cheese Kransky with sauce wrapped in puff pastry strips"). Since I'd tried the pig dog the other day.

"Stop revive survive"
Apparently people get heatstrokes while driving

Driving up to Alice Springs, we saw the turnoff for the unsealed (unpaved) road shortcut one might take to get from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon (the route suggested by Google Maps is not the one I'm referring to).

"Warning: Sand drifts and corrugations. 4x4 wheel drive advisable. Access to Kings Canyon via Lasseter Highway and Luritja Road is recommended"

More multilingual warnings. German, Italian and Japanese-speakers are presumably the largest foreign language-speaking constituencies.

The road actually looked alright, so we decided to try to see the Henbury Meteorite Craters.

Unfortunately, they cheated my feelings as the nice road soon ended. We decided 15km of this would slow us down in our quest to reach Alice Springs and might even damage the car (damage from driving on unsealed roads was not covered in the insurance). 5km would've been alright, but not 15. So we turned around.

On the drive up, I managed to push the car to 159km/h.

Dry river

"Enjoy your rest"
That sounds quite sad.

There was a puzzling "Cannonball Memorial" which we'd seen coming down but hadn't stopped for, so we stopped this time.

Text on Cannonball Memorial

Cannonball Memorial

If you're still wondering what Cannonball is, here is the text on a Flickr photo:

"The Northern Territory Cannonball Run was held from 22 May to the 27 in 1994 on the Stuart Highway from Darwin to Alice Springs and return, a distance of nearly 1600 kms, and attracted 118 racing enthusiasts from all over the world with their expensive machines. The race contained three distinct driving phases within the one event. These were the "flying miles", the timed sectors and, covering by far the greatest distance, normal, everyday driving during which there was no competitive element. The "flying miles" were a test of a car's acceleration with cars cross the starting line at 60 km/h and 1600 m later their speed was recorded by radar, with points awarded accordingly. The timed sections of the run were approximately 100 km stretches to which set times was applied. Cannonballers lost points on these sections by arriving either too late or too early by more than three minutes. While these sections of the run were happening, the road was open to regular traffic, although police swept the road ahead, side roads were manned and the travelling public and commercial vehicles were warned. During these sections, as throughout the run, Cannonball drivers were subject to the same laws as anyone else. It is to be pointed out, though, that in the Northern Territory doesn't exist a specified speed limit on the open road.

On 24 May, during one of the timed sections near Alice Springs, a Ferrari F40 crashed into a checkpost killing its occupants, the Japanese duo Akihiro Kabe and codriver Okano (first name unknown) and two track officials, Tim Linklater and Keith Pritchard. An inquest found that the direct cause of the accident was driver error on the part of the Japanese team which entered the checkpoint at an excessive speed."

Apparently my theory about no speed limits on the highway was correct. Which made the warnings about speed traps even more puzzling.

I wanted to create a collection of Australian Animal Road Signs.

We then stopped at Stuart's Well Roadhouse, again to the strong smell of grease in the air.

I realised that it was owned by one of the guys responsible for developing Kings Canyon - Jim Cotterill.

This should be the vehicle they used to bash out the first 100km trail to Kings Canyon

About the landscape

'Hooshta' - on camels

On exploring Central Australia

"Please
Can all patrons wear appropriate tops inside as this is a licenced area
Thankyou"
Apparently a license means you must legislate appropriate dress.

I didn't see Jim or the Dingo, so I wasn't able to confirm the real reason why he'd ignored me the previous time.

Emus

Emu

Birds in emu enclosure

We saw a billboard advertising a radio station but there was no reception there. Grr.

The hostel was manned by a very guai lan guy:

Left: "Someone got some, but who!!!!!!

I arrived at reception 1 morning to find this under the big pile of keys left by people going on tour.

'I didn't sleep in the bed last night. All clean.'

Well done on getting laid last night, but who are you and what room were you in?

Brendan"

Right (still from CCTV): "Looking for the Vegemite?!!"

Fake Thai place. A lot of it didn't look Thai. Though they said they were from Chiang Mai.

I then went to the supermarket, which was quite interesting.

This cheese would be banned in Singapore.

"Mamee. Now cooked in 100% Corn Oil"
Somehow I doubt the one you find in Singapore is cooked in corn oil. Incidentally this only meets the nutritional guidelines without the "optional flavour sachet". Bah.

$9.14 for Terry's Chocolate Orange. But at least you can find it.

If you don't want to use curry powder, they package the herbs and spices for you. Cool.

"No school No service. School-aged children unaccompanied by an adult or without a Leave Pass WILL NOT BE SERVED during school hours"
And you thought Singapore was draconian in banning students from arcades during school hours. Seriously, why would you hang out at a supermarket if you were playing hookey??? (also: half of people get cancer?)

I had a conversation about this with the guy at the counter:

"People could wagging (sic)" (to "wag" = to play truant)
"I wouldn't imagine the supermarket would be the first place you would go when you wag"

In my casual survey of establishments selling reading material during this Australia trip, I hadn't noticed anything more racy than lad's mags. Possibly that was because, following in the colonial tradition, there were topless photos in FHM and similar publications. There was Penthouse but it looked softcore. Meanwhile another magazine had a lot of girls who'd sent in topless pictures. I would theorise a substitution effect, but the UK has both types.

At a Shell in Alice Springs I noticed a "Picture Magazine", "People" and "Home Magazine" (the last might be a mistake on my part - this seems to be a home decoration magazine), but all were softcore; here is an interesting (NSFW) page by someone who took photos for Picture:

"Picture 100% Homegirls features mainly Australian models or visitors shot in Australia and of all the "Australian" men's nude magazines is probably the closest one where you may have a possibility of seeing a model from the magazine walking down your street or in your local shopping centre, or local club. All of the other nude magazines have features from overseas sources and cannot truly call themselves "Australian" in content.

100% comes out in two varieties, a softer version for Queensland to protect our delicate northern neighbours and a more explicit sealed version available in the southern states."

Picture Magazine and People were unsealed at IGA supermarket and also marked M (for those above 15 years old - boys become men early here) and as I suspected they were softcore (though they had ads you'd expect in a bona fide adult magazine). Picture had a "home girls" section, with pictures of "real" girls. One was very fat, so they were really real girls. Perhaps Australians must visit specialised adult stories for their pornography.

Incidentally, Picture Magazine describes itself hilariously:

"For almost 21 years now, The Picture has been the average Aussie bloke’s first stop for funny local stories, jokes, stunning nude girls, bizarre photos, puzzles with swear words in them and advice columns written by strippers. A weekly magazine squarely aimed at anyone who has a sense of humour and likes looking at women without their clothes on, it’s always chock-a-block with the cream of Australian womanhood in all their naked glory. We call them Home Girls, and they’re not supermodels – they’re real women you could meet at the shops, in the pub or at the bus stop. There isn’t another mag on the planet that looks at the world the way we do: through a pair of beer goggles. The Picture – don’t let the name fool you. There are words in it, too.

Editor Shayne Bugden:
“I’m quite possibly the only person in Australia who never wakes up and thinks, ‘I don’t want to go to work today.’ That’s easy to say when your work consists of looking at photos of stunning nude women, laughing at crude jokes and reading some of the funniest journalism going around – which is exactly what The Picture is all about.”"

I then went back to the "Thai" place. The best Tom Yum soup I'd ever had had been in Palo Alto, since there'd been no chili inside to obscure the taste of the other ingredients. I thought I could profit from a similar experience here, since this was not an Asian country.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I asked for Tom Yum Chicken with no chili and complained that in Asia I couldn't find Tom Yum without chili.

I was annoyed that this had chili in it and confirmed the fact. The lady said "No. Don't cry". In fact, it was quite spicy, and mediocre to boot. She said it was just Tom Yum paste, but maybe it was from a packet. She said she didn't put "black chili" inside - maybe she'd just left out chili padi.

"Non Indian Selection" at an Indian restaurant. Incidentally the rest of the menu was unhealthy.

"A&W Creaming Soda"
This sounds quite wrong. Also spot the fudge in unit pricing.

Draconian alcohol policy (even worse than the Americans). Singapore has a Casino Exclusion List - here they have a Banned Drinker Register.

The alcohol was in a different part of the supermarket, in its own room. And there was a checking station.

Minced meat for cats. Uhh...
(also: duck fat! wah)

"Business or pleasure. Pack condoms" (notice in hostel toilet)
Australians must be really horny. I don't normally see so many condom ads when abroad.

Jim Cotterill wants a female assistant. Presumably they don't have sexual discrimination laws in Oz.

I doubt anyone replied to Polly. This is quite a sneaky way of screening potential travel mates to ensure that they have the desired demographic qualities. Though I don't know why "share" was not translated.

More guai lan-ness from the hostel guy

There was a young French couple in our room. They'd been on a working holiday, and had worked for 6 months in Melbourne. They wanted to travel for 6 months but realized they’d be bored so they planned to leave Australia 3 months earlier (at the end of September instead of the end of December).

They said they earned more doing casual work in Oz than in France as engineers (they were both civil engineers). They took a week to find work in Australia, but it would take 8 months in France.

We saw shit on the Outback Highway. Probably from all the wild horses running around.

Fuel was cheaper at more major rest stops, which made sense (for example Kings Creek had charged $2.18/l, while Erldunda charged $1.83/l, and other places had charged $2.08/l or $2.13/l for a similar grade). We hadn't been very strategic in our refueling strategy, so we resolved to do better. Given that gas was $1.629/l at Alice Springs we were losing a lot of money to it.

Road trains (trucks pulling 2 or more trailers) are a traffic hazard, since they're so long.

There's nothing to do in Alice Springs. Apart from the Reptile Centre and Desert Park (which covered a bit of the former) and maybe the Telegraph Centre there was nothing to do. Of course we'd anticipated this, which was why we'd planned to spend so little time there.

In the Alice Springs hostel, there was one guy who'd rented a camper van for the past 3 weeks. He'd been in Australia for a month and was going to be there for 3 more. I told him he'd be bored, and he sadly agreed.

Links - 2nd March 2012

2012-03-02T12:04:00.000+08:00

"Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you." - Calvin Coolidge

***

Germany urged to halt castration of sex offenders - "surgical castration was mutilating and irreversible and there was no evidence it prevented men from committing new sex crimes"

Could vegetarians eat a 'test tube' burger? - ""People who are vegetarian for moral reasons - the environment, the treatment of animals - have a moral obligation to eat this meat. They need to do this because it will contribute to an ethical alternative to conventional meat"... Of course, there are plenty of nutritionists who speak of the value of eating some meat. Dr Elizabeth Weichselbaum, a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, says meat is an important source of a number of nutrients in our diet, including high quality protein, iron, zinc, selenium, vitamin D and some B vitamins"

Kermit as Mogul, Farting Fozzie Bear: How Disney's Muppets Movie Has Purists Rattled - "Frank Oz, the most famous living Muppets performer -- known best as Miss Piggy -- spoke more harshly in a recent interview with the British paper Metro. "I wasn't happy with the script," he said bluntly. "I don't think they respected the characters. But I don't want to go on about it like a sourpuss and hurt the movie.""

Syria is not Iraq. And it is not always wrong to intervene - "We rightly slam generals who are always fighting the last war, but I wonder if today's peace movement is guilty of the same crime... Stop the War were, in fact, calling for a rally outside the American embassy, urging the US to stay out of Syria and its neighbour Iran. Its slogans were directed not at the butchers of Damascus, but against the planners in Washington... if it is nonsensical to propose military force in every case, as some on the bellicose right do, then it is surely just as nonsensical (for anyone but an absolute pacifist) to oppose it in every case. We need to see again what we understood well before Iraq: that every case is different... Many, chiefly on the right, argued against intervention in Bosnia in the 1990s – and yet if the west had acted earlier, it would have saved tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of mainly Bosnian Muslim lives"

Libya: job done? - "The National Transitional Council, the body the west funds and recognises, is neither trusted nor in control. The country is run by hundreds of militias which refuse to give up their arms or submit to the NTC's authority. Misrata is a city state, with its own prisons and justice system. Militias have co-ordinated to form alternative committees to the NTC, but it's everyone for himself. Torture carries on and, according to a recent Amnesty report, widespread human rights abuses are committed with impunity"
Ahh hope!; "the road to Jerusalem lies through Baghdad" - 2003

The "Can't Find Workers" Meme - "These young folks don’t want to spend a lot of money and time training to do a specific job they might not get only to get laid off when some private-equity slicks (where the real money’s at) buy out the company and ship the jobs to China. That’s what happens when owners and management have shredded the social contract. They find workers can’t or won’t do what they need them to. A flexible workforce has its downsides too... Letting companies complain that there’s no reserve supply of labor when they need it amidst mass unemployment is a bit much. If you need the perfect fit, you’d better be prepared to pay that prospective employee or to train him or her"

Think Again: Islamophobia as an offensive weapon - "The New York Times has devoted numerous news stories and two editorials to The Third Jihad, which is described as “anti-Islam” and “a dark film on US Muslims” whose producers seek to advance a pro- Israel agenda. The Times coverage failed to mention the long roster of authorities interviewed for the film, including the director of the CIA under president Bill Clinton, James Woolsey, the first secretary of Homeland Security, Gov. Tom Ridge, and a host of former US government intelligence officials. The title The Third Jihad was provided by the most eminent living historian of Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis... the NYPD’s undercover terror prevention program, including intelligence-gathering within the Muslim community, has been one of the prime tools allowing the NYPD to foil several credible threats that have arisen from within the community. And given that even one successful terror attack in New York City could claims tens of thousands of lives, the NYPD cannot afford to decrease its intelligence-gathering activities... Abdul Rahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council, who was invited to speak at an ecumenical service in the National Cathedral after 9/11, is another so-called “moderate” Muslim. He is shown in The Third Jihad boasting, “Either we do it now or we do it in a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country”... Islamist front groups constantly raise the specter of Islamophobia to suppress discussion of radical Islam... One Muslim former chaplain is filmed telling prisoners, “Brothers, be prepared to die, be prepared to kill. [T]his is history, this is the Koran, nobody can deny it... Read it in... the Koran... When you fight, you strike terror into the heart of the disbeliever.” At least 30 compounds associated with Jamaat ul Fuqra, a radical Pakistani organization, mostly populated by converts to Islam while in prison, dot the American landscape. In a video obviously not made for public consumption, we watch practice in ambush tactics and bomb-making in one such compound."

Idiots Are Paying For Service that Adds "Sent From My iPhone" Signature to Messages

Bouquets - "Schools are now sending students to old folks' homes to keep the elderly company. Compassionate people are still present in our society, and that is what makes all of us 'cool'"

Kenyan men urged to boycott meals in abuse protest - "The organisation, Maendeleo Ya Wanaume, wants Kenyan men to stop eating meals cooked at home by wives and partners. It says men should instead eat together outside the home, and share experiences of emotional and physical abuse. Kenya's government does not take domestic violence against men seriously and may be fuelling it, the group says"

Study: Occasional pot smoking not as damaging as cigarettes

Infographic: Everything you need to know about boobs - "

How To Be a Parisienne: 10 Golden Rules - "1. Cultivate austere beauty.
2. Don’t smile much.
3. Nail the “I don’t think so, but I guess if you do…” look.
4. Be thin"

Pavlovian Reflex

Why men and women are late (pic)

9GAG - This made the front page today... on my newspaper

Study Abroad: Racism In Eastern Europe - "About five minutes later the man appeared again, this time with a bodyguard on each side of him. He matter-of-factly stated “I am Albanian Mafia. I vill kill you.” All alcohol-induced impairment quickly evaporated. And all hopes that the men were engaging in some kind of sick joke disappeared when the girls’ smiles suddenly turned to expressions of pity... For a traveler of color, being recognized as an American may well be your greatest advantage. American citizenship carries with it a certain prestige and association with wealth. Since you’re obviously going to stick out, it’s important that people know that you’re a tourist as opposed to an African immigrant... I don’t mind attention, so I must admit it was not all that disagreeable, especially that of gorgeous Slavic women. Was most of it shallow and patronizing? Yes. But this did not make my trip to Eastern Europe unpleasurable. Except for the attack by the Slovakian skinheads, I was in no real physical danger and had a memorable time"

Love Is The Opposite Of Underwear

Suing LSE for discrimination against men is silly and wrong - "The source of his complaint appears to be that the reading list did not consist of articles and theory that he wanted to read... A solution to Martin’s problem is simple, and what is generally expected of a Master’s question. If Martin believes that there is some sort of systemic bias against men, or that the gender studies literature is lacking in its discussion of men’s issues, he should write his dissertation about it."
"The culture of dead white men, built on the bodies of silenced women and colonialized people of color, has become a weapon to keep living women of all races silent" - Suffering and Speech / Andrea Dworkin

CVS Limits Condom Access For Some - "CVS pharmacy apparently has a policy, in many places, of locking up condoms... This is bad public health policy, period... while we may wish to live in a world where no one saw openly acknowledging sex or discussing contraceptive use as embarrassing — I certainly do — the fact is that we don’t live in that world... CVS is a hell of a lot more likely to use this lock up policy in neighborhoods with high populations of people of color"
Requiring people to ask for condoms is equivalent to restricting access, and CVS combating shoplifting where it is high means they are "racist assholes"; One commenter has worked in retail and confirms that "condoms are one of the most shoplifted items in store", and still brands this "classist and racist"

For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage - NYTimes.com - "Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems... Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men, while conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage... Women here often describe marriage as a sign of having arrived rather than a way to get there... Almost all of the rise in nonmarital births has occurred among couples living together. While in some countries such relationships endure at rates that resemble marriages, in the United States they are more than twice as likely to dissolve than marriages... Even as many Americans withdraw from marriage, researchers say, they expect more from it: emotional fulfillment as opposed merely to practical support... Money helps explain why well-educated Americans still marry at high rates: they can offer each other more financial support, and hire others to do chores that prompt conflict. But some researchers argue that educated men have also been quicker than their blue-collar peers to give women equal authority... Reviewing the academic literature, Susan L. Brown of Bowling Green State University recently found that children born to married couples, on average, “experience better education, social, cognitive and behavioral outcomes”"

Why you shouldn't give Christmas gifts / Pourquoi il ne faut pas donner les dons

2012-03-02T11:40:00.000+08:00

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." - Henry David Thoreau

***

‎"Among all these very complex themes and this multiplicity of social `things' that are in a state of flux, we seek here to study only one characteristic - one that goes deep but is isolated: the so to speak voluntary character of these total services, apparently free and disinterested but nevertheless constrained and self interested. Almost always such services have taken the form of the gift, the present generously given even when, in the gesture accompanying the transaction, there is only a polite fiction, formalism, and social deceit, and when really there is obligation and economic self-interest. Although we shall indicate in detail all the various principles that have imposed this appearance on a necessary form of exchange, namely, the division of labour in society itself - among all these principles we shall nevertheless study only one in depth. What rule of legality and self-interest, in societies of a backward or archaic type, compels the gift that has been received to be obligatorily reciprocated? What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?"

--- The gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic societies / Marcel Mauss

"De tous ces thèmes très complexes et de cette multiplicité de choses sociales en mouvement, nous voulons ici ne considérer qu'un des traits, profond mais isolé : le caractère volontaire, pour ainsi dire, apparemment libre et gratuit, et cependant contraint et intéressé de ces prestations. Elles ont revêtu presque toujours la forme du présent, du cadeau offert généreusement même quand, dans ce geste qui accompagne la transaction, il n'y a que fiction, formalisme et mensonge social, et quand il y a, au fond, obligation et intérêt économique. Même, quoique nous indiquerons avec précision tous les divers principes qui ont donné cet aspect à une forme nécessaire de l'échange - c'est-à-dire, de la division du travail social elle-même - de tous ces principes, nous n'en étudions à fond qu'un. Quelle est la règle de droit et d'intérêt qui, dans les sociétés de type arriéré ou archaïque, fait que le présent reçu est obligatoirement rendu ? Quelle force y a-t-il dans la chose qu'on donne qui fait que le donataire la rend ?"

--- Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques / Marcel Mauss

"Il vaut mieux ne pas prier (demander)
que de sacrifier trop (aux dieux):
Un cadeau donné attend toujours un cadeau en retour.
Il vaut mieux ne pas apporter d'offrande
que d'en dépenser trop."

Australia 2011 - Day 6, Part 3 - Kings Canyon: The Garden of Eden

2012-03-02T00:03:00.002+08:00

"You get fifteen democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions." - Senator Patrick Leahy

***

Australia 2011
Day 6 - 3rd August - Kings Canyon: The Garden of Eden (Part 3)

There was a short detour to a place imaginatively called "The Garden of Eden", which we decided to check out especially on the recommendation of a group on the way out. Uncharacteristically, I decided it was rather aptly-named. The lack of flies, compared to above, didn't hurt.

The Garden of Eden

About The Garden of Eden and its wildlife

2 birds flew by in an erratic path in unison while making a noise. Perhaps it was a courtship flight.

Garden of Eden

Creek

Tree

Garden of Eden Watering Hole

She was going, not coming.

Folks scared of going in

They manage to make it sound very dangerous

Cliff and water

Me being lame (see: Me being lame at Chopin's grave)

"Anti Dolphin League"
I liked this Australian guy's T-shirt. He said the first time he'd worn it had been at "Byron Bay" on the Gold Coast, and there'd been a ruckus.

Garden of Eden from above

Rock Domes and Kuninga Men

Group ahead of us. They were shouting in the direction of the other canyon wall to hear the echoes

A Patchwork of Colour

Canyon wall panorama from the other side

Mammals of the Plateau

Survivors from a wetter time - plants from when the dinosaurs were around

Fern

Rock layers

Tree and landscape

Kestrel Falls

View before going down. The white you see on the other side is bird shit.

People going down before us

Postcards from the past

Kings Canyon and the Luritja people

By camel and coach

The Diverse Landscapes around Kings Canyon

We finished at 12:05pm, which meant we took 3.5 hours - a bit longer than we had expected. I suppose the estimated time to do the walk didn't include both detours (Cotterill's Lookout and the Garden of Eden).

Whereas my favourite form of exercise is climbing cathedral bell towers, my second favourite is hiking in temperate countries outside of summer. Unfortunately Singapore doesn't afford any opportunities to do either.

The Money's in being a Middleman

2012-02-29T07:07:00.000+08:00

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~~0.126/0.007 = 18 times = 1800% markup~~ They are very smart and put the ceiling price for the seller and the floor price for the buyer

The Myth of Progress - Singapore Lyric Opera's Mozart's Don Giovanni

2012-02-29T00:17:00.002+08:00

"Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it." - Woody Allen

***

Many have critiqued the Myth of Progress as a delusion. As Qohelet observed (before one even conceptualised modernity):

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever... The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

Our case study today shall be the Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO).

Now, I haven't blogged anything about the SLO for a long time. Yet, Monday's performance almost moved me to tears, which motivated me to finally write something.

Here is a scientific study showing how the SLO has progressed over the years:

This is a relative scale which tries to partial out the relative merits of each opera, and only consider the SLO's performance
You know this study scientific because I fitted a trend line to my ratings, there's an equation for it and you can see the R-squared value. Note also the precipitous decline marked "Don Giovanni". Which coincides with Monday night's performance.

(Unfortunately the SLO website lists no operas before the 07/08 season (perhaps because they're ashamed of them). Luckily, I had written a pseudo-review of Hey Figaro!, which helped jog my memory)

Now, while I wasn't quite moved to tears, I was certainly moved to laughter: laughing AT the performance, not WITH it. This was only the second time I can remember being so affected (the other time was The Magic Flute - not coincidentally, also by the SLO - when the Queen of the Night, supposedly a specialist at the role, was less than adequate).

Let me break down the performance into several aspects to analyse just what went wrong:

Staging: I was quite impressed by this. It worked. There was nothing overly-elaborate, but then it's not a movie set. The damnation scene was particularly well-done. About the only grouse I had was the statue of the Commendatore in the graveyard: he was sitting upright with his legs stretched out in front of him. When was the last time you saw a funeral effigy posed so?!
Lighting: Usually I don't notice SLO lighting (which means it usually works: lighting is like the life support system on a spacewalk - you only notice it if something is wrong). However the spotlights were off a few times (perhaps I only noticed this because my seats were better this time)
Chorus: They were alright, having come a long way from the days when the average secondary school choir could do better. Incidentally I hear they're all expats: even the men.

Don Giovanni (Song Kee Chang): He was the strongest of the cast, with a commanding stage presence, though he unfortunately blasted with a shouting tone too often. This role suits him better than Papageno, where he wasn't naïve enough.
Leporello (Huang Rong Hai): He often channeled Rex Harrison. Not in his acting, but in speaking on pitch. For example in his opening number he spent several bars shouting (which gets across the fact that he is annoyed, but not in the proper fashion). He also didn't really come across as a snivelly servant, mostly because of his voice; with a voice too similar to Don Giovanni, the two were not immiscible.
Donna Anna (Nancy Yuen): She couldn't hit several high notes - this was evident in Non mi dir, bell'idol mio. Perhaps she is getting too old for this part?
Don Ottavio (Melvin Tan): Alright, though his acting wasn't very good.
Donna Elvira (Ee-Ping): She was on continuous vibrato. It was like singing into a fan with a chicken in her throat - she was either unable or unwilling to control it. And it was her entrance in L'ultima prova which made me laugh as it totally fizzled.
Zerlina (Cherylene Liew): She was alright (though something about her wedding dress struck me as strange as she looked like she had unnatural proportions - and the shoes didn't seem to help), but then it was the least demanding female soloist role.
Masetto (Martin Ng Hon Wai): Alright, though his voice was a little thin. But then it was the least demanding male soloist role.
Commendatore (William Lim): His singing was quite good, but he was the most underwhelming Commendatore I've heard, overpowered by Don Giovanni. His voice was just not booming enough, but you can't really blame that on him.

Orchestra: Usually SLO's brass has problems, but here it was not just the brass, but the winds and even the strings, which went all the way down the hierarchy of orchestra failure (usually the brass is the first to go wrong, followed by the bass, and the strings are usually alright). And the harpsichordist even managed to screw up the simple recitative accompaniment, with timing that was off and wrongly-played notes.

The ending was puzzling. I wouldn't tag this as a fault per se (which is why it's not under Staging above), but it was definitely ambiguous (which is not always a bad thing). Specifically, in the ending scene as the sextet sung:

Questo è il fin di chi fa mal; (This is how evildoers end)
E de’ perfidi la morte (All the wicked die)
Alla vita è sempre ugual! (as they have lived!)

We saw:

A portrait of what looked like Jesus Christ (what probably is the Crown of Thorns is visible).

Now there are two ways to interpret this:

1) Christ died as he had live, in contrast to Don Giovanni's libertine ways
2) Christ died as he had live, similar to Don Giovanni's libertine ways

I will leave the theological implications of this to another, but I am sure SLO has received and will receive complaints from those they offended (Hardwarezone has an interesting thread on it, with some seeing messages complimentary of Christianity and most people condemning trouble-making).

Probably the reason why I was especially disappointed by this production was I had read good reviews - and not all by Chang Tou Liang. Perhaps they slipped after Gala Night with the Prime Minister and President.

Going back to Qohelet, we can see that his observations ring true even after many millennia. Don't bother with this Don Giovanni - lots of better ones have been done before. Unfortunately by the time you read this the production will have finished, but I only watched it on Monday. Next time someone can buy me tickets to the gala, and I promise I'll get a review out sooner.

Aside: I am quite sure AWARE, following their tradition of the last 3 years, will make noise if Cosi Fan Tutte were staged here. They did it in the 90s, but AWARE wasn't so feminist then.

All the better, anyhow - next to Covent Garden it'll almost certainly be awful.

The Downside of having no Agency

2012-02-28T11:53:00.000+08:00

(Calvin and Hobbes Comic Strip)

The most unique version of Bizet's Habanera I've seen

2012-02-28T08:35:00.000+08:00

On the claim that 93% of communication is non-verbal

2012-02-27T15:03:00.000+08:00

"The problem with political jokes is they get elected." - Henry Cate VII

***

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - More or Less, 14/08/2009

"Last week we promised to investigate one of the most-quoted but least-understood statistics of all. That 93% of communication is non-verbal.

Sometimes the claim is more detailed: 7% of communication depends on words, 38% on tone of voice and 55% on body language.

Either way, it's the sort of thing that men in trendy glasses say at management seminars. But, is it true?

These numbers started life in 1968, where they emerged from the work of a Californian psychologist called Albert Mehrabian. And, here we are 41 years later, still talking about them.

So we tracked Dr Mehrabian down, and I started by asking him whether, well, whether 93% of communication is non-verbal.

'Absolutely not, and whenever I hear that misquote or misrepresentation of my findings I cringe because it should be so obvious to anybody who would use any amount of common sense that that's not a correct statement.

If I were to tell you that the pencil you are looking for is upstairs in the desk drawer of the bedroom, three drawers down, I couldn’t do that nonverbally. I mean, I could try to point, but that would hardly locate the pencil, whereas I could do that very precisely with words...

The very first stage of the study was to select a number of words that would clearly communicate positive feeling by themselves. In other words, if the word is written down, the positive words were honey, thanks, *something*, great, love. And then neutral words were maybe, really, so, what. And then the negative words were don't, brute, terrible, no, scram.

Then we had speakers say those words attempting to communicate liking, attempting to communicate a neutral feeling and finally trying to communicate a negative feeling'

'Somebody might say Brute but affectionately'...

'It turned out that when there was a contradiction between the words and the vocal elements, the vocal elements prevailed primarily and very strongly, and the words had hardly any impact. The variance was 5.4 times larger for the vocal elements than for the words.

In a subsequent study I compared the vocal elements with facial expressions. Now in that study, I was able to show very clearly that the facial expressions were 1.5 times more powerful than the vocal elements, and I expressed this as an equation.

Combining the results of the first and the second studies, I was able to arrive at the linear components for content, vocal expression and facial expression, and that's the formula that people have been quoting.'

'Because from your research, you know that the vocal element is 5.5 times more important than the word, so that's 7% vs 38% - about 5.5 times, and we know that the facial expression is 1.5 times more important than the vocal element, so that's the 38% vs the 55%, used to scale it all up.

You were asking a very focused question about the expression of an emotion.'

'Absolutely. There's just no question that you cannot extrapolate my findings to communication in general...

'People keep focusing on this one study, or this pair of studies, and then they keep getting it wrong. Isn't that frustrating?'

'When I look back at the body of work I have produced, I feel I have done much much important work in many areas of psychological research'

'The problem with this, though, is this research which you're more proud of is more detailed, more sophisticated
cannot be summarised in an asinine and totally mistaken statistic like '93% of communication is non-verbal'

On Dead White Men

2012-02-27T09:56:00.000+08:00

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - Soren Kierkegaard

***

BEATTIE: In one of your essays you were quoting, I believe it was Adrienne Rich, talking about not needing to know Yeats’s voice.

BERRY: Well, that wasn’t an ignorant statement; it was a political statement, and I understand that. But there are people who think they don’t need to read Yeats or Shakespeare or Milton. Some people who think those people don’t need to he read are reaching literature in English departments.

BEATTIE: A lot of people think they shouldn’t be read because they’re “dead white men".

BERRY: They are dead white men.

BEATTIE: So that somehow negates them.

BERRY: Yes, and people who talk that way don’t acknowledge their very considerable debts to dead white men who, after all, kept alive this idea of individual worth, and individual dignity. and individual freedom.

BEATTIE: It’s replacing one prejudice for another.

BERRY: Yes, all that’s very regrettable. The question of who is alive can’t be settled by category. Some allegedly dead white men are more alive than some people who are allegedly living.

--- Conversations with Kentucky Writers / L. Elisabeth Beattie (ed.)

Links - 27th February 2012

2012-02-27T08:04:00.000+08:00

"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children." - George Bernard Shaw

***

State of the Western RPG - "There was indeed a dramatic shift in the mid-1990s, but it was not the collapse of the PC RPG as often heralded... It was instead a shift from party-based systems to single character-based systems... RPGs have become more action-oriented than the turn-based games of the past... BioWare games are story-based, Bethesda games are system-based... This is an old division, going back to the days of Ultima's innovation in world-building and storytelling compared to Wizardry's tweaks in character creation and class switching"

Haenyo - The Female Divers of Jeju Island - "Since large taxes were imposed on the sale of these items, men hardly ever dove in search of them. However, a loophole in the law allowed women divers to sell these creatures of the sea, tax free. This gave way to a large number of female divers around the 1800s. Slowly, this occupation grew to become a major driving force in the economy of the country. The women divers began to call themselves the haenyo. The growing presence of the haenyo had major cultural implications as well. Since the economy thrived under their tutelage, it naturally gave way to the formation of a matriarchal society – where women were held equal, if not superior, to men"

[GPGT][FBT画廊] FBT Babes Galore - www.hardwarezone.com.sg
I retrieved this for a lesbian

The Life and Death of Pvt. Danny Chen - "A group of his superiors allegedly tormented Chen on an almost daily basis over the course of about six weeks in Afghanistan last fall. They singled him out, their only Chinese-American soldier, and spit racial slurs at him: “gook,” “chink,” “dragon lady.” They forced him to do sprints while carrying a sandbag. They ordered him to crawl along gravel-covered ground while they flung rocks at him. And one day, when his unit was assembling a tent, he was forced to wear a green hard-hat and shout out instructions to his fellow soldiers in Chinese"
One comment on this story: "WTF is "Taishanese" and by the fact the journalist misspelt the mother's name by putting her surname at the back, shows the very root of the problem : most ppl don't give a shit abt understanding other cultures n races. So much for being outwardly anti-racism, deep down inside most ppl r no better than the KKK." - SPOING!

Breast implants: the first 50 years | Life and style - "Even in countries where breast implants are very popular, the overall aesthetic is often different. In Brazil, for instance, there's often a strong focus on the buttocks as well, while some suggest that French women prefer a smaller breast... Many breast augmentation doctors are male, but it's too simple to suggest it's just an operation imposed on women by men... between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries... "it was just phenomenal the different contraptions women had used to augment their breasts. I was astounded, because I thought it would be mostly men who had invented these breast augmentations, but actually it was mostly women"... The writer Jennifer Hayashi Danns, author of Stripped, also sees breast implants as an operation keenly related to materialism... there was a feeling of "instant gratification" she says. "It wasn't a question of profound, long-term happiness. It felt like getting a new car, or a new bag""

Envisioning a Post-Campus America - "Online education will kill the liberal arts degree. Let's not have the same dismal discussion of whether liberal arts degrees are awesome or useless. The important aspect for this discussion is that what they teach is hard to test efficiently. There's enormous variation in grading of, say, English papers, and even if it were easier to standardize, that grading requires hours of expensive labor...
Tenured academics has worked a great scam. They've managed to monetize peoples' affection for regional football teams, and their desire for a work credential, and then somehow diverted that money into paying academics to work on whatever they want, for the rest of their lives, without any oversight by the football fans or the employers"

The
Freedom, and Perils, of Living Alone - NYTimes.com - "Amy Kennedy, 28, a schoolteacher who has a two-bedroom apartment in High Point, N.C., all to herself, calls it living without “social checks and balances.” The effects are noticeable, she said: “I’ve been living alone for six years, and I’ve gotten quirkier and quirkier”... Ms. Kennedy... has developed the kind of quirky, absentminded habit that’s great if you’re an eccentric character in a Southern novel, but not if you want to be seen as good roommate (or romantic) material. Pulling a sweater, boots and tights from her dryer-slash-dresser one recent morning, she forgot to grab her skirt, and left the house without wearing one. “I realized it when I got halfway to work — damn it, I forgot my skirt,” she said. And it’s not the first time that’s happened"

Intimidation | First Week In - YouTube - ""Something that needs to be disciplined, basically this whole place has got cameras... it gets taken care of in the bathrooms... 'You read the rules, and you understand that number one rule is no disrespect. I was told that yesterday you disrespected the head of the Pisces... regardless of how you meant it, we take disrespect real seriously'... chin check is: basically one of the torpedoes goes in, real quick... broke his jaw. You bring him into the back corner over here, you set him against the wall... 'We gotta maintain some authority... certain basic, fundamental rules'. 'It's pretty ugly. People's teeth get chipped. It's not really pretty. I don't enjoy doing it but when people break the rules, we gotta do what we gotta do to keep the peace in here'"
Amused that the justification for prisoners beating each other up is like that for military discipline

Is English or Mandarin the language of the future? - "The assumption that Mandarin will grow with China's economic rise may be flawed. Consider Japan... The Japanese language saw no comparable rise in power and prestige. The same may prove true of Mandarin. The character-based writing system requires years of hard work for even native speakers to learn, and poses a formidable obstacle to foreigners... For speakers of tonal languages (like Vietnamese) learning the tones of Mandarin poses no particular difficulty. But speakers of non-tonal languages struggle to learn tones in adulthood... The success of movies such as Kung Fu Panda, an American production about a Chinese animal, has caused a lot of anxiety in China, he says. There have been many cartoons in China about pandas before, but none had reached commercial success, says Mr Lee. "The moment Kung Fu Panda hit the cinemas everybody watched it. They bought the merchandise and they learned English""

Pictured: Aerial escape as stingray takes flight from hungry killer whale

Jacksonville Church Hires Registered Sex Offender as Pastor, Bans Children from Service - "Oddly, Gilyard's arrival at the church has caused a spike in attendance. Before Gilyard joined the church about 10 members came to service. Now the numbers are between 150 and 200."

Facebook's nudity and violence guidelines are laid bare - "It is a glimpse of its inner workings – and odd prejudices about sex – that emphasise its American origins."

What’s the Difference Between a Street and a Road?

UOB ‘blackface’ dudes are racist — not | New Nation - "In Singapore, ‘blackface’ was never, as far as I know, a part of our cultural makeup (pardon the pun). It’s as absurd as being told off by a Nigerian that giving the thumbs up is offensive, which sure sounds like a scam. Again, context matters."
As usual when the topic involves race and religion in Singapore, the comments are very depressing

delanceyplace.com 2/20/12 - even george washington was vilified - "even George Washington faced protests and vilification during his time in office"

Twitter Reveals People Are Happiest in the Morning

God Hates Singapore - "This nation has engulfed themselves in idolatry. They are celebrating some festival or holiday every time you look at them. Add to that their filthy lifestyles full of adultory and fornication with a false religion, then you are looking at a nation in full rebellion against God. They turned their backs on Him, now he is cursing them with floods, fires, heart disease and AIDs is running rampant across the nation. Singapore is doomed!"

My point - "To strengthen racial harmony... Singaporeans should learn to have an open, mature discussion of major religious differences without getting all worked up... Religious harmony can be better solidified, not through finding similarities among the major religions in Singapore but through understanding one another's deep doctrinal differences"

omonatheydidnt: the science behind kim soohyuns attractive voice - "His voice is good in low, medium and even up to higher frequency tones, but it’s especially strong in the lower register.” He also explained, “It could be said that this is the type of voice that appeals to a woman’s rational instincts"

Why Quantum Theory Is So Misunderstood

France Drops ‘Mademoiselle’ From Official Use - NYTimes.com - "Prime Minister François Fillon ordered the honorific — akin to “damsel” and the equivalent of “miss” — banished from official forms and registries... [Not] all Frenchwomen rejoiced at news of the change, given not only long tradition but also widespread disdain for more avid strains of feminism, deemed to lack sufficient appreciation for the joys offered by the differences between the sexes. Men are often called “jeune homme,” or “young man,” through their 20s, and not “monsieur,” Ms. de Haas noted... “It’s flattering,” she said. “I often call women ‘mademoiselle.’ It’s pleasing. It makes a person feel younger!”"

Teenage girl dies after inhaling helium at party

The myth of the eight-hour sleep - "In 2001, historian Roger Ekirch of Virginia Tech published a seminal paper, drawn from 16 years of research, revealing a wealth of historical evidence that humans used to sleep in two distinct chunks."

Women In Red Rein Men - "women wearing red appear more sexually attractive to men thus; men will be more likely to spend more money on their dates"

Why should anyone care if Yaw Shin Leong screws a goat? - "If I had to pick between a sexually immoral man who does no harm to the world, like Mr Bunga Bunga Berlusconi for example, or a God-fearing, family-loving man like George W. Bush who declares war on the third world country without adequate proof that they could actually destroy the world as we know it, give me Berlusconi any day."

Australia 2011 - Day 6, Part 2 - Kings Canyon

2012-02-26T19:36:00.000+08:00

"Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death." - Harold Wilson

***

Australia 2011
Day 6 - 3rd August - Kings Canyon (Part 2)

Then, ahead of us was a very narrow passthrough with no path.

Doesn't this look like a scene from a movie where planes or spacecraft chase each other narrow canyons?

Panorama

Without the plants this could still pass for the background of a dogfighting scene. The rocks were like miniature versions of the big rock formations in them.

Crowd at canyon wall. If I'd shouted "fire!" or "wildebeest stampede!" maybe some would've jumped.

Canyon view

Canyon panorama

Pushing someone off

Crowd. I should've brought my ME2 baseball cap - I would've been able to wear it without feeling like a douchebag.

Onward and upward

Scrub

Panorama 2

Sedimentary rock

MR jumping to his doom

Trekking across the canyon rim

There was an optional sidetrip, which we took.

Cotterills Lookout
Notice the apostrophe, prominent by its lack.

Mounds on way

Deadly gap

Cotterill's Bridge

Cotterill's Lookout

MR looking out. This was actually quite far from me

Canyon wall

Cotterill's Lookout panorama

Lush valley, in contrast to the scrub above

Valley panorama

Birds

A dead sea's ripples

Ripples

Outcrop

Australia 2011 - Day 6, Part 1 - Kings Canyon (Rim Walk)

2012-02-26T02:53:00.002+08:00

"Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner." - Douglas Adams

***

Australia 2011
Day 6 - 3rd August - Kings Canyon (Rim Walk) (Part 1)

In the morning we attempted the longer walk - the Rim Walk.

Dingo Diary

Good luck getting your HTC Desire back.

We'd had 2 early mornings in a row, so we declined to chase the sunrise for the second day in a row, even if the sun would've been a blazing ball of fire like the previous morning.

View of the trek - we'd be climbing up to the level of the top of those cliffs

Riverbed

Climb up. This was the hardest stretch as it was up all the way.

Staircase view

Valley view

Other side of valley

A meeting place of desert and ranges

Kings Canyon Panorama from top of first part of climb

Plain below

Other side of valley

Path at the top

People scrambling along the path

I'd bought the "Great Aussie Flynet" from the previous day for fun. The rubric had claimed it was only found in Kings Canyon Resort but of course I found it elsewhere later - for less. So I tried it on, since the flies were bugging me.

Naturally I looked like an idiot in it. I didn't mind the looking dumb bit, but it also obscured my vision (this was telling - it was made by a souvenir company). It wouldn't be any good to be safe from flies while plummeting down the canyon to my doom due to a misstep, so I took it off (it didn't work anyway, as I found out through more tests later).

Pondering a cross-section through time

"You have climbed over 100 metres. Take the opportunity to rest here and drink some water before continuing on.
The next part of the Rim Walk is more leisurely."

Notice it doesn't say "the rest of the Rim Walk will be more leisurely".

Outcrop

Kings Canyon Panorama

MR and rocks

Purple flowers. I thought this plant, being in the desert, would feature the famous waxy leaves, but it felt like felt.

Bush with the purple flowers

Flighty bird

Furry plant

Closeup

Bush

Ancient Sand Dunes sign

Ancient Sand Dunes

All in all, the walk was easier than they made it out to be, though there were some parts where we had to clamber over rocks.

Links - 25th February 2012

2012-02-25T19:43:00.000+08:00

"No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation." - Fran Lebowitz

***

Red-Wine Researcher Charged With 'Photoshop' Fraud - "A University of Connecticut researcher known for touting the health benefits of red wine is guilty of 145 counts of fabricating and falsifying data with image-editing software... Dr. Das said the accusations against him are part of a campaign to rid the university health center of the "Indian community." "I became the Devil for the Health Center, and so did all the Indians working for me," he wrote. "The evidence for conspiracy and racial hatred is overwhelming." He also alleged that the stress of battling the university administration led to a brain hemorrhage and stroke"
White Privilege strikes again!

Porn star doesn't mean prostitute:Sunny Leone - ""My parents, who are originally from Punjab, were completely shocked when they found out I was in the adult entertainment industry. Their reaction was what I expected, and I was prepared for it. When my father realized what I did, he said, 'You didn't even ask us before you did this! But whatever you do, make sure you do it well'... the fact that my work didn't change me as a person worked in my favour. My parents soon realized it and respected me for who I am and my decisions... Have her parents seen any of her hardcore adult videos? "Of course not! Whose parents would do that?" she asks."

Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It - NYTimes.com - "Many people say they are angry because the government is wasting money and giving money to people who do not deserve it. But more than that, they say they want to reduce the role of government in their own lives. They are frustrated that they need help, feel guilty for taking it and resent the government for providing it... “It may hurt now, but it will be absolutely deadly for the next generation — that’s our children and our grandchildren”... Almost half of all Americans lived in households that received government benefits in 2010... One of the oldest criticisms of democracy is that the people will inevitably drain the treasury by demanding more spending than taxes. The theory is that citizens who get more than they pay for will vote for politicians who promise to increase spending. But Dean P. Lacy, a professor of political science at Dartmouth College, has identified a twist on that theme in American politics over the last generation. Support for Republican candidates, who generally promise to cut government spending, has increased since 1980 in states where the federal government spends more than it collects. The greater the dependence, the greater the support for Republican candidates. Conversely, states that pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits tend to support Democratic candidates. And Professor Lacy found that the pattern could not be explained by demographics or social issues... “I’m glad I’m not a politician,” he said. “We’re all going to complain no matter what they do. Nobody wants to put a noose around their own neck”"

CPI, inflation and the elephant in the room - "Imputed rent is designed as a 'proxy' variable for housing costs... let us be clear. It is basically a shadow price designed to capture the impact of housing inflation on the cost of living. And housing inflation is about as 'core' to the domestic inflation process as you can get in Singapore, both from a cost-push and demand-pull perspective. No other developed country excludes housing from the 'core', unless there is a measurement issue. In fact, the relatively more dominant role that housing plays in every Singaporean's personal balance sheet just adds to the case for inclusion. Just look at the relationship between mortgage growth and consumer price index (CPI) inflation. Pretending otherwise is pure sophistry"
Hoho with Adam Le Mesurier's forum letter maybe Goldman Sachs is gonna get whacked. Or his work permit/PR will be revoked like Ryan Goh Yew Hock

Smoker Inspired By Sight Of Elderly Smoker | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion Radio News
Be against stereotypes!

A Common Organic Sweetener May Boost Arsenic Levels in Foods - "Organic brown rice syrup, a popular sweetener in organic and gluten-free foods -- including some formulas made for toddlers -- is a source of the toxin arsenic"
But it's Natural!

Android app permissions - How Google gets it right ... - "There's been a lot of news lately about a lapse in either security or judgment -- both, really -- at Apple that allows iOS applications to borrow your contact data and send it off to parts unknown without your consent. Apple has addressed the issue to members of the U.S. Congress, and will take steps to hold tighter control in a future iOS update"

Study suggests U.S. box office not affected by BitTorrent - "More importantly, the report revealed that movie studios hold the power to curb piracy by decreasing international box office release windows."

Familial Linkage between Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Intellectual Interests - "Students aspiring to technical majors (science/mathematics/engineering) were more likely than other students to report a sibling with an autism spectrum disorder (p = 0.037). Conversely, students interested in the humanities were more likely to report a family member with major depressive disorder (p = 8.8×10−4), bipolar disorder (p = 0.027), or substance abuse problems (p = 1.9×10−6)... shared genetic (and perhaps environmental) factors may both predispose for heritable neuropsychiatric disorders and influence the development of intellectual interests."

Social Media and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Asian Game Devs, I'm Begging You: No More Three Kingdoms - "In China, though, it seems almost as if “Three Kingdoms” is the default setting for any developer looking to make a game, virtually regardless of the genre."

Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test - "I had to understand that the audience only wanted white, straight, male leads. I was assured that as long as I made the white, straight men in my scripts prominent, I could still offer groundbreaking characters of other descriptions (fascinating, significant women, men of color, etc.) – as long as they didn’t distract the audience from the white men they really paid their money to see"
This points to a better explanation for why so many things fail the best other than what the same writer calls "an undeclared war against women": just as minority cultures have been ghettoised while White - or at least Anglo - culture has become World culture, so too do we see a division in gender coding between what is female and what is unisex. Similarly, men win the Nobel Peace Prize for Universal issues, while women win it for Women's issues

Dating Coach David Tian on Singapore TV: Why Are More Singapore Girls Dating Expat Men?
Hahahahahahahaha

Attitudes of women, media and society towards contraception : are we making progress ? - "In 1930 in the encyclical Casti cannubii (Chaste Marriage) the Vatican began down the same road of theologic accommodation to the need for contraception. In a contrived and convoluted way the church began to approve the rhythm method of family planning. The Vatican Council in 1962 was a major milestone in Catholic theology. The majority of Catholics and practically all theologians of stature began to develop an ethical system that embraced so-called artificial contraception. In 1963 Pope Paul VI set up a Pontifical Commission to discuss the matter. Pope Paul was obsessed with the prestige of his office and in the end he rejected the majority findings of his own commission and endorsed a minority report by Cardinal Ottaviani, Fr. John Ford, and others... After Humane vitae the percentage of American Catholics attending mass on a weekly basis dropped from 71% to 50%... Family planning became a common practice regardless of religion, and today the percentage of Catholic women having abortions in the United States is slightly higher than the percentage of non-Catholic women"

Wikipedia top rated for ‘health’ information - "the quality of information on depression and schizophrenia on Wikipedia was generally as good as, or better than that provided by centrally controlled websites or psychiatry textbooks"

Wordmall: Mistakenly racist terms - "'A friend of mine became upset when I used the phrase “to call a spade a spade.” She says that it’s a vicious racist term'... It’s a sign of our hypersensitive times that innocent words are often branded as offensive. Quite bluntly, such a reaction is the product of ignorance... The same is true of “a coon’s age.” It refers to the raccoon and the mistaken notion that it lives a very long time... Twisted minds can take innocent words and images and turn them into an attack, but sometimes the fault is with the listener or reader who, through ignorance, interprets an innocent or unconnected word with verbal assault. This is why I take Ludwig Wittgenstein’s words to heart: “The limits of my language are the limits of my world”"

朵朵神速大宣传视频www.jbladyshop.com - YouTube - "Stop when you reach 36D. Please don't be too big *pictures of American women*"
What's with the Chinese and dodgy bust enhancement products? They need to open outlets in Singapore.

Heartbreaking photographs capture the facial expressions of animals

Bill Nicholson’s Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding

My Shepard is Asexual, and That's Okay - "But growing up asexual, without even a name to put to your confusion and disconnect, can become increasingly frustrating. Especially if you want to believe your hobby of choice has value, is artistically or ethically defensible, and/or does something for you another entertainment medium can't. Unsurprisingly, games insist upon being written for the same sexual majority as film and books. Knowing I hadn't a chance in hell to reshape those attitudes, I tried to adjust my own instead...
It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? As though choosing not to have sex weren't just as important as choosing to have it. But I had been programemd to believe that there was something uncomfortably abnormal about not wanting sex. No-- that there was something wrong about me. It's almost embarrassing how much self-reflection it took to change my mind."
Asexuals: another group to cater to to be "inclusive"

Maths Problem of the Day

2012-02-25T17:04:00.001+08:00