Thursday, April 28, 2011

Comrade Hungy in the RSA

Hungy-Թ says (5:07 PM):
*speed heaps
*it was good
*wait
*whats the past tense of speed
*spead?
*speeded?

As you can tell, Hungy has gone to a foreign place where English is not the primary language, thus resulting in a degradation of his own English skills.

I hear he's having a lot of fun over there, you can check it out at http://fibercakes.blogspot.com/

~~~

In other news, I threw up due to alcohol for the first time yesterday. Not pleasant. The journey sure was fun, though! Tuan's birthday, then Vietnamese Students' Association trivia night, and then Kym's place! Gotta love holidays :D

My laptop continues to suck ass.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Things you learn!

Apparently, this is what a 2 litre bottle looks like before they inflate it for use! Compare to the hand for size!



Props to Cindy for the link ^^

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter

"Greatest man in history, named Jesus, had no servants, yet they called him Master. Had no degree, yet they called him Teacher. Had no medicines, yet they called him Healer. Had no army, yet kings feared Him. He won no military battles, yet he conquered the world. He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him. He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today. Re-post if you truly believe"

"Greatest man in history" is a pretty big claim for a guy who walked around one tiny region of the world doing stuff. And considering he's "The Son of God", who many interpret to be God Himself in human form, you can hardly consider Jesus a man.

"I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul."
No man is the master of me, but myself.

Confucius said, “When three men walk together, there is always something I can learn.”, firmly establishing the idea of learning from all sources regardless of 'degrees', a full 500 years before the birth of Christ. Also, did they even have degrees back then?

A healer of hearts and minds need not have medicines. Look at psychotherapists. Dentists too do not use medicine. Nor do surgeons. Or any number of the medical professions.

Kings fear a lot of things. They fear other kings. They fear their subjects. They fear their nobles. They fear their own children.

Conquered the world? Really? Sure, one dude walking around the Middle East obviously conquered the ENTIRE world.

Crime is a subjective notion. To the people that crucified Jesus, He had sinned by claiming to be the Son of God.

He was buried in a tomb, respawned three days later, then randomly ascended to Heaven for...no apparent reason. Actually, nobody really even takes notice of when Jesus ascended to Heaven. It's completely glossed over. This is despite the overwhelming notice paid to His surviving being crucified. Makes no sense.

Anyway, if Easter is about when Jesus was resurrected, why does the date change every year? Why doesn't it stay fixed like Christmas?

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Why trees are like nuclear power plants

Now, at first glance, most of you would instantly conclude that trees are nothing like nuclear power plants at all. And, at least physically, I suppose that's true. I mean, this:



Looks nothing like this:



But let us look deeper than the mere surface of the issue, as opposed to that organisation known as Greenpeace.

What do trees do? They undergo photosynthesis, which involves taking up carbon dioxide and water, and producing glucose and oxygen as a byproduct.
Similarily, nuclear power plants utilise a chain reaction of nuclear fission to produce electricity, with water vapour and small amounts of radioactive waste as a byproduct.

Nuclear power plants sometimes undergo potentially catastrophic events, such as the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, or the recent events in Fukushima. Sometimes, people die just from the construction of a nuclear power plant, in industrial accients or the like.
Similarily, trees are also a catalyst for disaster. All major bushfires involve trees as the primary fuel source, a fuel source that leads to the destruction of countless homes and properties, and the deaths of animals and people. Think of all the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere during such an event. And sometimes, a tree will drop a branch onto a car or a person for apparently no reason at all.

There are those that would claim that because nuclear power plants are man-made, and trees are natural, then that makes trees different.
Oh, I'm sorry. I was not aware that we, as human beings, are not natural. We are animals just as any other species on this planet today. We are part of the natural world. And hence, what we do is also natural. If a vulture uses a rock to break open an ostrich egg, does that make the vulture and the rock unnatural? If a monkey uses a stick to catch ants to eat, does that make the monkey and the stick unnatural? No. So then why are humans and human tools labelled as "not natural" simply because we made them? Is this not bias? Is this not speciesism?

Nuclear power plants are like trees. Trees are like nuclear power plants.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Armless piano player



Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MJ-NeXRcEk&feature=related

This is true inspiration.

The best quote from Liu Wei, the guy who's playing the piano, I think, is when he says:
"人生中只有两条路,要么赶紧死了要么精彩得活着。没有人规定钢琴是要用手弹得。"
Translation: In life, people have two routes. They can either die sooner, or live wonderfully. Nobody decreed that the piano must be played with your hands.

Pure inspiration.

Thanks to Xin for the link to the link.

What is the meaning of the character '和' in Mandarin?

A translation into English indicates that the meaning is: "peace, harmony, union"
How, then, does the character itself espouse this? After all, many Chinese characters have a pictographic link with their meaning.

Let us split the character into its two component parts.
On the left-side, there is the character "禾", which means "cereal, grain".
On the right-side, there is the character "口", which means "mouth".

The question then arises, what does eating cereal have to do with peace?

In Ancient China, whenever rival states went to war, they would mobilise the populace, forge arms, and collect food for the army. Of these, only the collection of food was out of control of mortal rulers, since food production is usually at the whim of the seasons and the weather. For this reason, whenever they invaded a place, armies would first strip the local crops of food before relying on their own resources from home, not only shortening their own supply routes, but denying the enemy a valuable resource.

Therefore, in times of war, the ordinary peasants would lose their crops, either to their rulers confiscating it for the army, or to any invading armies. Conversely, in times of peace, there would be plenty of food for all to eat.



I made up everything in this post. It makes sense though, doesn't it?

Friday, April 1, 2011

Stop dicking around

Okay, as some people are aware, I am currently undergoing something of a crisis of friendship with someone.

To those people that are caught in the middle, though, please kindly stop fucking around.

You don't actually need to hide the fact that you're going to go hang out with that someone, as if I'm going to take it that you're picking sides or something.

I mean, unless you are actually picking sides, and you're trying to hide it.

I've been in your position before myself. You don't want to displease anyone.

But seriously, I'm going to be a lot more pissed off finding out that you hid it from me, than if you just out and out told me.

That is, of course, unless you don't want to tell me.

Then maybe you are picking sides.

Followers