Quite the Proposal

Was helping my friend with some designs on a poster about Google. I decided to use Google Maps to search for the main Google Office and I saw this.

Click here for the image.

If you scrutinize the picture, you will see a man holding this sign saying "Proposal 2.0. Marry Me, Leslie".

Geeky I must say, but quite the interesting way to propose isn't it? Lol.

Obama's Speech

BBC ran an article titled "Obama speech censored in China". Here's part of it.

President Obama's comments addressed to world leaders who "blame their society's ills on the West" also fell foul of the censor's red pen.

"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history," the president said.

... afraid to say anything...

National Slavery

What is slavery? (http://www.antislavery.org/)

Common characteristics distinguish slavery from other human rights violations. A slave is:

• forced to work -- through mental or physical threat
• owned or controlled by an 'employer', usually through mental or physical abuse or threatened abuse;
• dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as 'property'
• physically constrained or has restrictions placed on his/her freedom of movement

Three (Not Seven?) Day Mug Week

Two lessons per day for Monday, Thursday and Friday sure doesn't sound much for university level.

But why do I feel so tired already?! Jeez.

My Favorite Bushism!

The Sources: BBC and Political Humor

And my favorites...

---

"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."
Reuters, 5 May, 2000

"I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today. He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me."
Nashville, Tennessee, 27 May, 2004

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office."
Washington DC, 12 May, 2008

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."
Poplar Bluff, Missouri, 6 September, 2004

Ugh

Secondary 3: Maths Question

Hard or easy?

A point p(x,y) lies on the line 7y=23+x.
It is 5 units from the point (2,0).
Calculate the 2 possible sets of coordinates.

Hmm...

[Anyway, the answers are (-2, 3) and (5,4) if I didn't FAIL that is.]

FAIL?

SMU is a strange school. I receive about 30 emails a day, almost all from CCAs group. I've never had this many emails per day in life before. Never. Going through all of them is usually quite the pain in the ass. But not today. That's because one of the emails actually gave me something to feel (FAIL) about. A sentence from the email.

"What's more, you might even get to go Brazil for the world cup"

Shouldn't it be 'go to Brazil'? Well, you can say I'm being critical. But I'm just trying to make the task of clearing 30 emails a day more interesting. Anyway, it is 'go to Brazil' right? And not 'go Brazil'? Or is it both?

Hmm, so is it FAIL? or is not? Jeeeez.

Zaaaap!

The first mainstream cellphone wireless charger.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/the-palm-pre/

Maybe the day everyone be using wireless electricity for everything won't be that far away.

Peek A Book: 12 Books That Changed The World

And just before my term started, I managed to finish another book. And boy, I love this book. I am usually a slow casual reader but I actually finished the book within 3 days. Anyway, the book is basically a book about books - in particular, the author's view on the 12 books that changed the world most.

And because I found an excerpt of it online, that saves me all the typing and thinking. I love the book.

---

TWELVE BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Principia Mathematica (1687) by Isaac Newton

Married Love (1918) by Marie Stopes

Magna Carta (1215) by members of the English ruling classes

Book of Rules of Association Football (1863) by a group of former English public-school men

On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin

On the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1789) by William Wilberforce in Parliament, immediately printed in several versions

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft

Experimental Researches in Electricity (three volumes, 1839, 1844, 1855) by Michael Faraday

Patent Specification for Arkwright’s Spinning Machine (1769) by Richard Arkwright

The King James Bible (1611) by William Tyndale and 54 scholars appointed by the king

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) by Adam Smith

The First Folio (1623) by William Shakespeare

From the beginning I wanted to enjoy a range. Leisure and literature would, if I could make it work, figure alongside science and the constitution; changes in society as well as changes in technology would be addressed. This has meant taking a risk and, now and then, elasticating the strict meaning of the word “book”.

For instance I thought it essential, given its key constitutional importance, to include Magna Carta which, though produced by the royal chancery in 1215 as a formal royal grant, became in effect a vital and enduring book of reference, the basic book of our constitution and that of many others, most importantly of America and India.

Certain books suggested themselves, most especially Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687), Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776), Michael Faraday’s Experimental Researches in Electricity (1855) and William Tyndale’s massive contribution to the King James Bible (1611).

It was, I thought, impossible to ignore William Wilberforce’s successful campaign for the abolition of slavery. True, it began as a four-hour-long speech in the House of Commons in 1789, but it was reproduced in print immediately afterwards and it is in its book form that its revolutionary and lasting influence resides. Nor could the emergence of women as equals in every respect be neglected and in different ways Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and Marie Stopes’s Married Love (1918) spoke authoritatively and with far-reaching influence on that.

The arts could not be omitted, I thought, and nor could leisure. William Shakespeare’s posthumously published First Folio in 1623 will be argued for as a book that has ever since changed and reshaped minds. The first Book of Rules of Association Football (1863) enabled the world to play a game which now commands a unique and previously uncharted, unimagined empire of followers, participants, fanatics and rich merchants.

Which leaves the Patent Specification for Arkwright’s Spinning Machine (1769). I was being shown over his now-derelict mills in Derbyshire and learnt then how crucially important this invention was to an industrial revolution that has never stopped. This was made possible by a patent cunningly and skilfully put on paper by Richard Arkwright. A patent, I thought, could be called an entrepreneur-inventor’s book.

One of the people I spoke to when I was thinking about this list was my friend Howard Jacobson, the novelist. He was dismayed that it held no novelists. “I’m a novelist, you’re a novelist, we love novels, novels changed my life and novels changed your life, good novels change lives every day; a list without a novel? Without one, not one, novel?” A mild paraphrase: Howard on song can be rather more emphatic than that. (Shakespeare did not satisfy him.)

---

The ones that particularly caught my interest were Principia Mathematica, Magna Carta, Origin of Species and Wealth of Nations.

Interesting? No?

Rush Hour

I know I have complained about this before. But someone PLEASE do something about our "world-class" Singapore transport system. I got off from my lessons at about 7pm.

Got to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. Missed the first train because it was too packed. Barely squeezed into the second. Had this idiotic 'botak' guy standing awkwardly close to me. Tried to move further into the train. Bag almost hit this young kid. Got some strange looks and funny words from the mum. Contemplated murdering the mum. Decided not to.

Came home. Complained about the rush hour situation to a few friends. Realized that I'm not the only one facing it.

Mr E says:
well sometimes i feel like stopping the car by the side of the road in jams and just fuck care and walk away!

Ugh. "World Class" transport system indeed.