MiKE: Harbourfront Sunset

Harbourfront Sunset, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

On Sunday, we went to the harbourfront to have a little picnic for dinner. In our usual style, we saw the warm sunny day, procrastinated till it was less sunny, took longer than expected to prepare food, and took our time to walk down to the harbourfront, taking pictures along the way (see, for example, the sugar cane juice picture before this). By the time we got here, as you can see, it was sunset, the cold air was coming in, and since we were by the waterfront, it actually felt cold.

Anyway, upside is that we got to see a beautiful sunset, and, for the first time, a flock of geese flying in the 'V' formation, honking away, as they flew toward the sun.

MiKE: Sugar Cane juice

Sugar Cane juice, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

Found at Chinatown, near Spadina and Dundas. Pretty expensive, if you ask me, at $2.50 per cup.

MiKE: Why so serious?

Why so serious?, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

Last night was the "Capture the Flag" game, carried out by hundreds of people downtown in the financial district at King and Bay streets, over something like 4 city blocks. Random strangers would descend onto the junction, get instructions, and a luminescent neck band; and start walking, running, cycling, skateboarding, in-line skating all over the place (at times including the roads), in the process eliciting impatient honks from vehicles and stares from curious passers-by.

An advertising truck for chewing gum pulled up, and set up this light-tagging system: an electronic 'spray paint can' connected (via bluetooth?) to a laptop to a huge projector, all powered by a portable AC generator. People were invited to 'spray tag' the buildings with their own messages. This one was particularly appropriate for the colour and location, I think.

MiKE: At the main entrance to UofT

At the main entrance to UofT, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

Another shot during last weekend's Nuit Blanche.

MiKE: Rain keeps falling on my head?

Rain keeps falling on my head?, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

During last weekend's Nuit Blanche, the "free all night contemporary art thing", we saw her walk past us along the street, accompanied, of course, by a coterie of paparazzi-like photographers.

I don't know the reference, or if there was one to begin with; but she had a white umbrella lit up from underneath with pretty strong lighting, the circumference of the umbrella dangled the strands as you can see.

Any ideas what this is supposed to mean? Or if there is some inter-textual reference that I am missing out here?

MiKE: Queen and Spadina

Queen and Spadina, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

The shopping street of downtown Toronto. BMO (Bank of MOntreal) building in the background.

MiKE: Autumn Colours

Autumn Colours, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

Yes, autumn is here. Amazing. One year has passed. Already.

MiKE: Old City Hall at Sunset

Old City Hall at Sunset, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

Just outside Eaton Centre. Thank oxides of sulphur and nitrogen for the beautiful colour...

MiKE: Hoskin Ave and St. George

Hoskin Ave and St. George, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

Beautiful sunny day today. The kind that cast long, sharply defined shadows upon the ground.

MiKE: Red shoes

Red shoes, originally uploaded by mike.tan.

I first noticed these shoes last year, when the canvas was still bright red. Right now, they look a sadder shade of its former self, but still recognisably red. Found this beside the UofT Sociology Dept.

MiKE: New Camera.

erm. Bought a new camera. Want to see some photos? Here you go...

A photo of the University of Toronto Varsity Stadium, at night, with the CN Tower in the distant background. No tripod was used here. Just my steady hands, and yes, Canon's amazing Image Stabilisation system. (sounds like some infomercial, eh?)


Came across this car at Kensington Market. Really well preserved vintage Buick:
There's even a clock at the centre of the bumper, although it seems like that's not working. Here's a shot of the interior:

And a couple of my shots that are now my favourite. There was this store that had its bubble maker on at full blast, and this kid, oblivious to my clicking camera shutter, was playing:



As usual, you can see more of my photos at my flickr site.

MiKE: Shamisen & Taiko

Ya, I know. I have not posted here in a long while. Looks like this is quickly becoming rene's blog.

Came across this video. Was very moved. You should watch it:



And as for me contributing more some time soon? We'll see.

ReNe: ghost hound (神霊狩)

Another anime to recommend. Ghost Hound (神霊狩) is a mix of supernatural and mystery, set within a small Japanese town. However, there are modern elements such as VR games and biotech industrial intrigue, with quite a few psychiatry lessons thrown in. The anime was created by Production I.G. and Shirow Masamune, of the 'Ghost in the Shell' fame (another favorite anime of mine).

The initial few episodes were slow and the storyline confusing, but we kept on watching because it received good reviews on the net. We were glad we did, and the story soon picked up. The story revolves around three boys, who had prior traumatic experiences, and their newfound astral projection ability (to project their souls into the 'Unseen World'). Meanwhile, odd supernatural events appear to be taking place in their small town. The quality of this anime is very high, from the story and characterizations to the artwork and sound effects. Mike's opinion on the anime is that it's a bit confusing. I think it's a intriguing and excellent anime.

ReNe: summer lethargy

Mike and I have been at a loss to explain our extreme lethargy in summer.

All over Toronto, there are events happening every weekend, sometimes these events was not even restricted to the weekends (such as the recent jazz festivals). Weather is warm and balmy, and the locals are all out in skimpy clothing to catch as much sun as possible. Every weekend, we look up current festivals or plan out some cycling route... and nothing much happens. Sometimes we do go out, and then we're spent for the remaining weekend.

Mike's theory is that summer in Toronto is TOO much like Singapore, where we were used to just lazing about on weekends. I agree; the other seasons, especially winter, are novel and it was exciting to see the city during a different climate-scape. For example, seeing the Beaches (a sandy stretch along Toronto's eastern waterfront that really looks like a beach) under a layer of thick snow and in biting wind was new and fun; seeing the Beaches in sunny weather was hardly exciting. Plus, I don't think it can compare to beaches in Malaysia or Thailand...

The other big reason is the sun. It's not really that hot, temperature-wise, but is damn sunny. Many of the locals here love the sun, but when I look out at the blazing sun and bright blue skies, I feel like hiding indoors. A conditioned response, probably. Cloud cover tends to be less than in Singapore, and there are no raintrees or angsanas with huge canopies to provide shade; i.e. one can get very burnt walking around outdoors. Understandably, the vegetation here is nowhere as lush as in the tropics, not when the plants all have to start from 'ground zero' every spring.

ReNe: densha otoko (電車男)

I've heard of this manga before -- made quite a stir on the Japanese forums, it seems, and there was a hot debate as to whether or not the love story was even true -- and recently came across the manga adaption of it. (There are quite a few manga adaptions, even a drama serial.) It's called Densha Otoko (電車男), and chronicles the experiences of a self-confessed otaku (something like an obsessive Japanese geek of a particular kind) as he struck up a romance with a woman he saved from a drunk guy on the train. He was 23 years old and had never dated before. Understandably, he was a wreck.

Along the way, he posted his thoughts and situation updates on the Japanese '2channel' forum, asking for advice on dating from restaurant choice and clothing to his relationship insecurities. Eventually, 'Densha Otoko' and 'Hermes' (after the set of teacups she sent as thank-you for what he did on the train) became a couple.

It sounds like an incredibly sappy love story, but it's done well and is funny and touching. I also think it's an insightful exemplar of otaku behavior and also of how the internet (in this case, a forum) created a different love story. And yet, in a way, it's not very novel for many otakus are shy and single; the success of Densha Otoko showed that it struck a deep chord with otakus. It's a love story that also has very uniquely Japanese elements and I quite enjoyed it.

ReNe: the worry of bike theft

The Star had an article [1] about bike theft a while back, or specifically, what can be done to reduce the likelihood of your bicycle getting stolen. Bike theft, apparently, is a huge problem here in Toronto. When I asked about bike theft at the office, soon after I bought my bicycle and was wondering whether or not to take the risk of riding it to work and locking it outside the building, people were telling me of their own experiences with bike theft. One guy had his bike stolen thrice, and one guy who bought his bike around the same time as me and was riding it to work had his stolen within the first month! 

Bike theft is not just a small-time operation; a while back, the police arrested a second-hand bike shop owner, Igor Kenk, and found nearly 3000 bicycles in his house as well as garages around the city. That case made the NY Times [2] as well, where Kenk was referred to as the 'unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves' for the 2396 bikes found. 

Despite cycling more than half my life, having to lock my bike is a new experience for me because I've always kept my bike inside. Personally I think the best security is NOT to have a bike lock in the first place, which means that you never leave your bike unattended. Unfortunately, we do not have the space inside our current apartment to store our bicycles (we're still wondering how to winterize our bikes in the coming months), so we have to lock the bikes outside. Moreover, the bikes we have here in Toronto are meant to be commuter bikes. We want to be able to cycle out to Wal-Mart in 20 mins instead of spending $9 on TTC tokens, so we'd need bike locks. And with the high risk of theft, we had to invest in expensive U-locks that weigh over a kilo, and cable locks. At home, we lock our bikes in the narrow alley which does not get much human traffic, but it could also make it easy for someone to cut the locks at leisure. I've also been letting my new-looking bike 'age' so it hopefully doesn't look so new and tempting. Again, a far cry from the days when Mike used to polish our carbon fibre bikes to a shine.  

Tips from the article were nothing new: 

(1) Invest in a solid U-lock, which is probably the only type of lock that can be uncuttable. Even so, not all U-locks are secure.

(2) One lock is not enough -- a cable is also necessary to secure the wheels, especially the front if it's a quick release. This cable is probably the easiest to cut, which is probably why we often see bikes hanging by only their frames to bike posts; because their wheels (and saddles and handlebars) have been stolen. One can always carry around a heavy iron chain that's much harder to cut through than the common light steel cables, but that's bordering on stupid. 

(3) Make sure the bike is secured to something that's anchored in place. Duh.

(4) The Star's article also suggested radio frequency identification (RFID) security stickers, but the way I see it, the RFID tags won't keep your bike from getting stolen in the first place, and that's the most important part. GPS units to track the bikes was also mentioned, which I thought was even more stupid because the GPS units costs about CAD700 and includes a monthly network fee. PLUS. How do you keep the GPS unit from being stolen in the first place? At $700, I'd imagine it would be much more cost-effective to steal the GPS unit than the locked bicycle.  

(5) Make the bike look cheap (no brand names or decals, spray matt paint, wrap hockey tape).

[1] In search of the unstealable bicycle, The Star, Aug 17 2008

[2] In a cyclist-friendly city, a black hole for bikes, New York Times, 21 Aug 2008

ReNe: dennō coil (電脳コイル)

We're currently watching Dennō Coil (電脳コイル, Dennō Koiru) and am very impressed by it. Set against an aumented reality (AR) backdrop, it has the brilliant predictive flair of Ghost in the Shell, but it is not as edgy. I particularly like the way the technological tools, such as the glasses and earpieces, are woven into ordinary life as everyday objects. Often, a show attempts to create a futuristic world that is either bubbly and shiny (Jetsons) or post-apocalyptic (practically any mecha anime, really). I don't mind the latter, but it is refreshing to see a very ordinary take on the future, where AR is seen to overlay a world that has the old (shrines), present (current day styled buildings like homes and schools) and the future (toys like the glasses). I especially love the way the metatags look just like the japanese ofuda or the chinese talisman, you know, the kind you stick on the forehead of a chinese vampire. The anime drawing style is pretty pleasing as well; it reminds me of Studio Ghibli (the younger sister Kyoko even looks and sounds like the kid sister in My Neighbor Toroto).

ReNe: the plant shuffle

Now that it's summer, I'm trying to ensure that my plants get as much sunlight as they can, especially the ones I recently repotted (so that they establish themselves before the seasons turn cold). Sometimes I wonder if I'm just sabo-ing my plants (short for sabotaging, or setting them up for failure) by encouraging maximal leaf growth when this volume of leaves would not be sustainable during wintertime. I guess I'll find out in a few months.

I usually leave them out in the fire escape, facing east, to catch the morning sun. I'm a little nervous about the neigborhood racoons though; they have been known to chew up my plants and root around the soil.


When I get home in the evenings, I usually move a few pots out onto the window to catch the evening sun. In the top row (of four), the two rightmost pots contain the tomato seedings I said I planted too late. Although the seedlings were started at the same time in cardboard egg crates, I made the mistake of transplanting the seedlings still in the egg crates into the rightmost pot (thus stunting their growth). I recently re-potted all of the tomato seedlings again... Not good for the plants, I think, to undergo so much transplant trauma... The ones in the pot next to that had the egg crates removed; note the difference in growth. Next time I should just plant directly into the soil instead of creating extra trouble for myself.

And the only indoor location that catches direct sunlight -- the kitchen under the skylight. Notice the succulent on the top of the cabinets. I've been neglecting it, only climbing up to water it once every few days, but it's doing quite all right.

The poster on the wall is the first ever artwork/poster we've bought; we got it in Kensignton market for about $6. The frame was left behind by the previous occupant, and luckily the faded green matches the poster. It's a Russian propaganda poster that says 'five-year plan in four years!'.... I thought it highly appropriate for Michael.

ReNe: the gst and pst

I wonder if the locals get irritated by the way goods and services are taxed here? I'm referring to the fact that the price you see on the tag is usually pre-tax, and taxes like 5% GST (Goods and Services Tax) and 8% PST (Provincial Sales Tax) are then calculated at the cashier. I think the tax should be worked into the price of an item, otherwise the price can be pretty misleading. In that sense, what Singapore did (making it mandatory for taxes to be shown with the price on the tag) made sense. (Another thing to rant about is this fondness for prices to be ending with 9 cents.)

But surely, it's not too difficult to simply add a 13% tax onto whatever your buy, ignoring the psychological aspect of thinking that an item at $3.99 seems a lot cheaper than it's actual price of $4.15? Not really; to make matters more complex, not all items are subject to GST and/or PST. If we buy something from a supermarket chain like Dominion, it's usually quite simple -- add an that additional 13% onto the total. But we usually shop at Chinatown, Koreatown and organic food shops, and it becomes more complicated.

Take Chinatown and Koreatown grocers. Not all shops charge tax. It doesn't seem to be a matter of size because some small grocers charge tax and some big grocers don't. Also, not all items are taxed, or taxed equally; for example, we just came back from shopping at PAT. The only thing on the entire list that was taxed was the Pocky (imported from Japan), but the Bulgogi marinade (Korea), rice vermicelli (Vietnam), dried udon (Japan), vegetables and meat (from all over) were all not taxed. At one Chinatown shop that sells household goods, on the receipt, the store seems to be divided into two major departments, non-taxed and GST+PST taxed (sure makes their inventory accounting easy). At the organic food shops, bulk produce doesn't seem to be taxed. And depending on the store I buy my half-and-half cream from, the tax seems to be optional.

I am not sure why.

ReNe: blackout 5th anniversary

August 14 (Thursday) was the fifth anniversary of the great blackout that affected much of the eastern seaboard of North America in 2003. I read about that a while back, but I didn't think people would commemorate the anniversary of such an event... The purpose of the anniversary was to remember that time when, without electricity to power anti-social devices like televisions, people were forced to go out and interact.

I found it interesting that the blackout took place during summer; I had read that the highest power consumption (in cities around the eastern coast of North America at least) occurs around summer, meaning that more power is spent in cooling than heating. Well, ok, it's not so surprising because cooling is less efficient than heating, but it is interesting nonetheless. I wonder what the power consumption is like for cities in the tropics...

Thus, there was some stuff happening, organized by 'Streets are for People'. And luckily for us, it was just past our block so when we heard some banging and other noise-makers around nine, we took a walk down to have a look.

The first thing we saw was the mass of people and bicycles blocking up the junction of Bloor and Spadina (the 'Critical Mass Bike Ride'). The Mickey Mouse in the center of that mass was on a soapbox, but as he didn't have any amplification devices, we couldn't quite make out what he was saying. I suppose it's the usual issues about why more people should cycle not drive, and how cyclists' lives are cheap. There was a lot of noise -- drums, trumpets and noisemakers. They even had some portable potted plants; I'm not sure if those plants were there as an environmental message prop or for barricading purposes.



After a while, the group dispersed (finally allowing traffic through), and moved down Spadina with a lot of noise. Meanwhile, at the southeast corner of that junction, some one (or some ones) had set up a rave. It was supposed to be the 'Silent Street Rave' but it was hardly silent. With a couple of big speakers bungee-corded to warehouse trolleys, a macbook pro and a small colored strobe light, the street corner became an instant rave party.

ReNe: matrix olympics

With the Olympics currently ongoing, I thought the video below was very appropriate:

Matrix Olympics

ReNe: japanese shows

While we don't watch TV, we do spend an obscene amount of time on the internet. Speaking just for myself, I probably qualify as addicted. Anyway, in lieu of TV, this was what I spent two hours last night watching -- japanese tv/game shows on youtube. Not that the shows below span 2 hours; the first is ten mins, the second is six. I highly recommend the first.

Cat weight lifting


Human Tetris

ReNe: web ads rant

Ever got onto those commercial websites with advertisements? Many websites now have them. At first I didn't mind because they meant I could read that site for free. When the advertisements were still banner or sidebar ads, they were all right. They were like newspaper ads, colorful boxes at the top or sides of the articles, and I could ignore them. Once in a rare while, they were even useful.

Then they became pop-ups and that was irritating. Pop-ups can spawn like the tribbles from Star Trek. They were so irritating they spawned a demand for pop-up blockers. Luckily any decent browser these days should have a pop-up blocker.

And then came the floating ads, which appear the first time you go to the page and 'float' over the page for anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. Not only they obscure your view of the page, they may also block mouse input and if you get impatient and click your mouse to try to disable the ad, you often end up clicking on the ad and going to the advertiser's page instead. Highly, highly frustrating, since you have to do even more work and waste more time 'chasing' the window to close it. Floating ads claim to have a higher click-through rate than ordinary ads but I suspect most of the clicks are simply erroneous clicks.

The unicast ads, oddly enough, don't annoy me as much. Probably because the websites I tend to visit don't have these. Though they are huge and sometimes you end up wondering how the hell to close it without clicking on the wrong part and landing up in the advertiser's website.

The one that irritates me the most are the pull-down ads, and especially those that combine floating and pull-down ads. These are the ones that expands automatically when the page loads or when you mouse over, but some have a tendency to expand whenever the page moves, it seems. For example, when I'm reading an article that's longer than one browser length and I scroll down; the ads float and follow you as you scroll, and then expand. You have to waste energy maneuvering your mouse around those ads. It's like tip-toeing around an unwanted visitor in your own house.

I know the more elaborate ads pay a lot more (see the little table below), and some ads are fine, but there is a limit. I have actually closed sites that irritated me with their ads without bothering to read the content, and I feed articles from sites I frequent to google reader, partly so I won't see those ads.

Side note: Apparently studies have shown that people can be trained to get used to irritating ads; case in point: television ads. Even complaints about pop-ups have dropped over time.

I've not watched TV regularly for 14 years (internet downloads are a great invention) and I've not read paper newspapers for almost as long (because the 'Staid Times' don't have much to say). I even avoid the radio (again, music can be obtained over the net in so many other ways). So when I do encounter advertisements on my favorite media, I get highly annoyed. Happily though, unlike other media, there exists ways around irritating ads.

Out of curiosity, I googled around for typical web ads rates, for non-targeted ads (targeted ads pay more, of course), prices in USD.
banner ads: 50 cents or so per 1000 (page) impressions
sidebar ads: $1.00 to $1.50 per 1000 impressions
pop-ups: 4-10xmore than a banner ad, which is from $2 to $5 per 1000 impressions
floating ads: from $3 to $30 per 1000 impressions
unicast ads: $30 per 1000 impressions

ReNe: on winterizing plants

Since we've moved to a bigger place, I've bought two plants (one mint and one ivy). From those two small pots, I've divided and re-potted them, and also started tomato and bell pepper seedlings. At the back of my mind, I knew winter would be a problem, but didn't dwell too long on it until yesterday, when temperatures dropped to 15C after a spell of rainy weather. Suddenly, it was like a preview of fall, cold toes and all.

And I wondered, just where was I going to put my pots in winter? I've seven potted plants now, eight if I count the succulent left behind by the previous tenant and which I never got around to throwing away. Luckily there is a skylight; unluckily Mike refused to let me move the microwave from the top of the fridge (which lies under the skylight) so I can put my plants there. Still, the amount of direct sunlight coming in through the skylight is not much; a pot can get perhaps an hour, unless I continually shift the pots to follow the sun's path. I suppose I can put them under reading lights at night as well.

Also, how cold is too cold? Below 10C? Below 5C? Growing plants here is very tricky, especially with the long winters. If you want to be able to harvest, there's even a schedule to follow. In Singapore, you don't have to think too much; just leave your pot out and water regularly, and seedlings can be started any time of the year.

Reading websites, there seem to be a lot involve in 'winterizing' gardens and potted plants. Already, I've missed the boat when it came to planting my tomato and pepper seedlings; apparently they should be started in spring so that they have ample time to grow in summer and be ready to harvest in fall. I started mine mid-summer and right now they're still small. Supposedly (potted) plants would grow slowly, if at all, during winter because of the reduced light and I'm to reduce the watering as well. Thus the tomatoes would have a (long) dormant period breaking up their usual growth cycle; hope that's fine.

Some notes:

• Mints require a nighttime minimum of 12 degrees Celsius and a daytime minimum of 16 degrees Celsius for active growth. Above 30 degrees Celsius growth slows. Normal ambient greenhouse humidity (70%) and lighting are adequate for mints.
• The ivy will do best in a temperature range from 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 21 degrees Celcius). The maximum temperature an ivy will tolerate without added humidity is 75 degrees. The temperature range which an ivy tolerates but does not thrive in is 45 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
  

ReNe: about parades

I had not planned on watching the Beijing Olympics (because I never did watch any of the previous Olympics), but after reading a review about the opening ceremony in the local news, I got curious and downloaded the opening ceremony.

We were very impressed (despite the poor quality of the file; I couldn't be bothered to wait to download the HDTV version). What we liked about it:
1) the Chinese national anthem (more stirring than Majulah Singapura), the sharp goose steps, and the way the guard flipped the flag before it was raised (we liked it so much we went back to watch just that part a couple of times!)
2) the 2008 drummers
3) the entire first part of the parade where they introduced the inventions from ancient China; the scroll LED display was particularly ingenious. I really like that segment of the parade; it was very gorgeously done, from the theme to the choreography to the costumes.

The second part of the parade (the schoolchildren reciting the poem, the duet, the parade of the minorities), well, it pales in comparison to the first. Still, everything was very well done.

The sheer mass of people on the field and the amount of work they must have put in was staggering. It was, and I mean it in a good way, chest-thumping on an epic scale.

Ironically, the Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) was held a day after the Beijing Opening Ceremony, but I didn't watch it. I've not watched NDPs in years. Why? For one, I think it's a gross waste of money and resources, which can be put to better use in many other ways. For another, one NDP runs into the next year's... they're not terribly unique. They've become rather boring. People still rave about the previous Olympics opening/closing ceremonies -- what country/city did what, who sang what, etc. Maybe what Singapore should do is to hold a parade once every five years and make it unique. Make it infrequent but make it memorable.

Or, make a supremely grandiose gesture and donate the millions that would have been spent on the NDP entirely to charity. I'm sure everyone, Singaporeans and foreigners alike, would remember such a move for years and years. After all, people here in North America remember that Singapore bans chewing gum and caned some American boy for vandalism (when someone asked me that, I was like, 'WTF, even we, from Singapore, forgot about him years ago'). For once, I'd like to be approached by strangers saying, "oh, you're from that nice and generous country".

ReNe: chinese valentine's day

Apparently, today (7th day of the 7th lunar month) is qī xī (七夕), or what is colloquially known as the Chinese Valentine's Day. It's based on the love story between Niulang (牛郎) and Zhinu (织女). (No imagination with the naming... it's literally 'cowherd' and 'weaver girl').

In Japan, this festival is known as tanabata, and in Korea, chiseok.

ReNe: caning 'gum-spitting foreigners'

Forbes's most expensive cities.

13. Singapore, Singapore
Notorious for draconian littering policies, Singaporean authorities have been known to submit gum-spitting foreigners to public floggings. American tourists and expats can find punishment enough in the city's cost of living, more than 25% higher than that of Los Angeles.

Um. No wonder we always get the weirdest questions from Americans, like, "do you really cane people for chewing gum or jaywalking?" If it was a layperson, I could almost understand, but coming from a supposedly reputable news site...

ReNe: unfortunately IMBY

I had learned about nuclear power in physics classes but nuclear power as a means of generating electricity has always been an abstract concept -- for a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) sort of reason, because there is no nuclear plant in Singapore. In my mind, nuclear power has always been one of those 'great in theory but not so in reality' thing, because of potential risks and nuclear waste removal.

Well, I can't say it's not in my back yard anymore -- Canada has nuclear power and we in fact live 31.32 km from the Pickering nuclear power plant. Moreover, with the rising oil prices and increasing environmental awareness, nuclear power is becoming a more attractive option.

Is nuclear really that good? If we take greenhouse emissions as one measure,

A typical coal-fired power plant (burning lignite) emits up to 1,150 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. The most modern gas-driven facilities emit 400 grams for the same amount of electricity. And for nuclear power plants? That number is around 30 grams per kilowatt hour when the entire life-cycle of the plant is taken into account.

It is this math that is leading to the biggest nuclear power boom the world has seen in decades.

The inexorable comeback of nuclear energy, Spielgel Online, 11th July 2008

Somehow I feel the equations are lacking something -- surely tallying the emissions alone is not enough? On the other hand, worldwide, countries may have to turn to nuclear for their power needs simply because the other alternatives are too expensive (oil, gas and even coal are becoming more pricey) or are not enough (current 'green' alternatives such as solar, hydro, wind cannot supply enough). The amount of energy that can be generated from nuclear power could be more than sufficient to meet current needs.

But what about the radioactive waste?

In the last 50 years of nuclear power generation, some 300,000 tons of the stuff has been produced, with an additional 10,000 tons coming each year. A part of that waste is plutonium, and it is incredibly volatile. Just a single gram contains as much energy as a ton of oil -- and it can give hundreds of people cancer should it be inhaled as radioactive dust. Should one stand next to a gram of plutonium for just a single minute, death is the result.

Not only that, but radioactive waste stays deadly for hundreds of thousands of years, meaning any terminal storage site has to be incredibly large, incredibly stable and incredibly isolated.

Spiegel Online

The problem of nuclear waste is probably the biggest disadvantage to nuclear power. Also, nuclear power is not sustainable; the amount of uranium is, like oil, finite. Uranium supplier countries such as Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan (in decreasing order) are scrambling to increase production at their mines.

In 2006 producers met only 62% of demand. (The rest was recycled from a diminishing supply of decommissioned warheads or taken from dwindling Cold War stockpiles.) The World Nuclear Association says uranium mining could need to increase by almost 300% in the next two decades.

Talk of such a crunch has brought the market to fever pitch. Spot prices for uranium jumped from about $7 a pound in late 2000 to a record high of $136 in June. Prices today hover at $74.

Nuclear power's white-hot metal, CNN Money, 27 March 2008

I'm not disparaging nuclear yet because we may yet find a way to circumvent the problem of nuclear waste. It is a very viable alternative because the technology is well-developed and affordable for many countries, but unfortunately, what may decide the ultimate choice for most countries could be that of pragmatic economics, i.e. the bottom line.

With energy prices rapidly approaching the unaffordable, however, concerns about waste storage may once again take a back seat. There are handsome profits to be made from nuclear energy, especially when oil and gas, but also coal, are becoming more expensive. And in Germany, with its older reactors that have long since paid for themselves, the black numbers are truly impressive. The reactors at Biblis, for example, make a pre-tax profit of €1 million -- every single day.

Spiegel Online

ReNe: royal ontario museum

We finally got to see the Darwin exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) today.

(4th August is Canada's Civic Holiday)

When we first read about the Darwin exhibit at ROM many months back, we thought we should go one day. But there never was a good day to go; I had to work on weekdays or something would come up on weekends or we were simply too lazy. And then, we realized that 4th August -- today-- would be the last day of the exhibit. Talk about procrastination... we stay 10 mins away from ROM!

Anyway, we went to ROM today with Yew Jin, who was in Toronto this week for a conference so we offered a place for him to crash. We'd heard good reviews about the ROM and we weren't disappointed. The place was huge and the exhibits well done. I don't think we've even seen a third of what ROM has in store, and we were exhausted.

The problem with museums is that of information overload. I think I enjoy an exhibit best if I had some background to the subject. With the Darwin exhibit, that was the case -- I knew about the theory of evolution, his voyage on the Beagle, the Galapagos islands, the book 'Origin of Man', and so I could skim over the parts I already knew and linger on facts that I hadn't known before, such as the pictorial view of the Beagle voyage.

With some of the other exhibits, such as the one of the First Nations people, well, I didn't know that much and so found the deluge of information overwhelming. After a while, I just let it go; didn't bother reading all of the information boards and instead admired the items on display.


Yew Jin and Mike.

ReNe: defining gender

There was an article in the NY Times today about gender testing in the Olympic Games, and it got me very riled up.

If transgender athletes are now allowed to compete officially, and if gender testing has been shown frequently to render false results, then what exactly are the Chinese authorities testing for?

The Olympic hosts seem to want to impose a binary order upon the messy continuum of gender. They are searching for concreteness and certainty in a world that contains neither.

Most efforts to rigidly quantify the sexes are bound to fail. For every supposedly unmovable gender marker, there is an exception. There are women with androgen insensitivity, who have Y chromosomes. There are women who have had hysterectomies, women who cannot become pregnant, women who hate makeup, women whose object of affection is other women.

So what makes someone female then? If it’s not chromosomes, or a uterus, or the ability to get pregnant, or femininity, or being attracted to men, then what is it, and how can you possibly test for it?

The only dependable test for gender is the truth of a person’s life, the lives we live each day. Surely the best judge of a person’s gender is not a degrading, questionable examination. The best judge of a person’s gender is what lies within her, or his, heart.

The XY Games, by Boylan JF (NYTimes, Aug 3 2008)

I particularly liked this statement:

But gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than afraid of it.

All this gender testing does is to humiliate people, both women and men. So if a woman wins at a sport, which by the way would be her reason for entering the Games, she may not be a woman after all? Why? Somebody will have to win that competition; the competition IS set up that way. Sure, but what if her time was so fast (let's say it's a race) that it's suspicious? How small must the delta be between the winner and runner-up then, for the winner to escape suspicion of being a man? Wait, what if the competition between ALL of the athletes was very close, but they all put in brilliant times? So brilliant that they are all suspicious? Are they all suspected of being men then? Because women can't be that good?

Are women not angry at what gender testing implies?? At how incredibly patriarchal and condescending it all is?

I've always held the opinion that gender is more mental and culturally imposed than a physical state of being. Definitely there are differences between the male and female body, but I think society over-stresses these differences, and often, creates unnecessary and even untrue divisions and categories. There will be brutish males with exaggerated male characteristics and effeminate men with feminine characteristics... so what? There will be voluptuous females and slim females and amazons... what's the problem here? Are flat girls less female than those with big boobs? What about girls with chests flatter than those fat guys who look like they need mammary support?

I've received my share of such gender scrutiny before; as a teenager, I cut my hair short, did rugged sports, and refused to wear skirts (other than my school skirts) and heels. I've been told I look like a lesbian and I've been hit on by girls. I wasn't really bothered because -- and here's my admittedly odd turn of logic -- I like guys; I'm turned on by guys and I like the way they look. Hence, when I look in the mirror and I see boyish characteristics on a female face, I like the way it looks as well. Makeup and dresses don't turn me on; why the hell should I wear them? To attract guys who are turned on by makeup and dresses? I don't see the logic in wearing and doing something that's uncomfortable to attract the attention of someone who probably expects you to continue to wear and do the things that are uncomfortable should you succeed in attracting and holding his attention.

To borrow the words of Eddy Izzard, I'm probably a female gay.

So if I wasn't bothered that I was often mistaken as lesbian, then what was I irked by? It was the assumptions and expectations of others that irritated me. I'm a girl therefor I must wear 'girl clothes' and cross my legs? Whose life is it? I have no problems with other girls wearing dresses and make-up and heels; I may snigger privately as they totter down the street on overly high heels, but I'm not going to tell them they CAN'T do it. I have no right. And vice versa.

ReNe: gen x

A recent conversation topic chain over lunch one day went along the lines of, "internet generation", which led to other 'generations' including "Gen X", which led to "what you listened to if you were Gen X", which led to "Nirvana", which reminded me of "Queen".

Don't ask.

So somehow, I ended up idly surfing youtube for 'Queen's songs' (how ever did we manage before instant-gratification-net?), and yeah, wow, I'm once again hugely impressed by Freddie Mercury's sheer talent. Some people have issues with his sexuality but hey, he's a singer, not your boyfriend. Does it matter?

On another note, talking about generations -- I feel a little old. I use the internet a lot, I work with it, am practically addicted to it, but I'm not from the so-called 'internet generation', or 'Gen Z', who grew up with the internet. I'm not even from the 'Gen Y', but am at the tail end of 'Gen X'; i.e. since my time, two more generations have been defined. Trouble is, bandying words like 'generations' around makes me think of a typical demographic generation, and if TWO other generations after me have been defined...

ReNe: new batt!

So my MBP has been giving me some weird problems, and it's not even a year old.

I used to have a problem with static discharge last year but it's ok now. Not quite sure what I did though, because I did a few things around the same time. I changed from using a UK three-pin + adaptor arrangement to a two-pin; also upgraded and then re-installed Leopard (when upgrading alone gave problems); and I also moved from a drier place (St Louis) to one with higher humidity (Toronto).

My battery was also dying. The 'health' and the amount of full charge it can hold has been steadily dropping; less than a year after I bought the MBP, battery health was 33%. Full charge capacity should be 5000 mAh and my battery only had 1833; Mike's was 4599. Turned out that the problem was with a bad batch of batteries. Happily enough, it turned out Apple was doing a free exchange of these faulty batch of batteries and I got a new one today.

Now to hopefully fix the odd problems with my sleep/hibernate mode...

ReNe: when DIYing in a foreign country

Sometime back, I wrote about noting the differences in the houses between Canada, which generally have wooden drywalls, and apartments in Singapore, which generally are made of concrete. Also, the concept of posts. When Mike first made a hole in the wall, he was a little stunned at how easy it was (you don't even need a powerdrill). He has since happily made a few more holes. Since it's easy.

So today, I was amused to see a post about the reverse experience (an American who's now living in HK).

Lately, we've been preparing our guest bedroom for a new arrival; today's task was installing black out blinds and a curtain rod. Sounded easy enough. In North America, we'd always been pretty good at doing things around the house. All it should take, really, is a screwdriver and maybe a drill, right?

In Hong Kong, DIY is almost a foreign concept. The walls of most apartments are concrete or brick, layered with plaster. Complicating matters, the electric, water and plumbing lines run through the walls in a somewhat random pattern. One wrong step with the drill and we have major damage. Even something as seemingly simple as hanging a picture can create trouble – masonry hangers are available, but have a weight limitation – make a mistake with the positioning and you're left with a permanent mess.

ReNe: smokers

Living over a cafe sounds nice and all -- our apartment overlooks a patio -- but one downside is the cigarette smoke. We should have known. Who are the people who would sit outside in the sun, in an outdoors cafe? Besides 'mad dogs and Englishmen' that is.

To be fair, I think there are not as many smokers in Toronto as compared to Singapore. Still, it's a pet peeve of ours, because we think that it's not fair of smokers to force us to 'smoke' as well, and worse, this smoke drifts into our room. Grr. I can't wait for winter, where it's too cold for people to sit outside to smoke.

On a totally different note, here's something interesting I read last night.

In 1970 Prof Zhang (Zhang Jin-Zhe, head of the pediatric department in Beijing Hospital) suffered from meleana and was diagnosed to have gastric cancer and a gasterectomy was recommended. There were no fully trained surgeons around so the operation was done under acupuncture with the patient following the procedure in the mirror (guiding the surgeon performing the operation). When the surgeon said that he could not find the cancer, and asked what he should do as there was no facility for frozen section, Prof Zhang decided to risk losing half his stomach rather than the risk of missing a malignancy. The patient then continued to direct the surgeon in the operative procedure.

ReNe: the fuss about summer camp

When summer came round, I started to notice this thing called 'summer camp'. At first I paid no attention to it; I figured it was probably much like the school camps back in Singapore, where you send a class of kids away to some chalet in Pasir Ris for a few days. But then I started to think, maybe it's a lot bigger than that.

There were the advertisements everywhere; there were even the charity calls for donations so that less privileged kids can be sent to summer camp. I was mystified. Why were there huge posters in the bus-stops about summer camp? And why was it a huge deal that money be donated so that a kid can go to summer camp? I mean, I seriously doubt the kids would die if they don't go to summer camp...

I saw a young teenage boy busking a few times; his sign read, "Send me to summer camp."

And then, there was the news story a few weeks back about a girl in Quebec who was grounded by her father because she was caught on an online dating site (she was underaged, 14 I believe). Fair enough right? Part of the grounding includes not being able to go for a 3-day school trip. She was so pissed (particularly about the school trip) she took her father to court... and won. I'm just flabbergasted. Apparently the lynch-pin in the argument was that of the school trip; that it was some really important event in a young teenage girl's life.

There were also the numerous NY times articles. For example, camps that cost $10,000 for tuition (sounds like a university education), policing checks on conselors' web pages, summer theatre camps, and so on.

Am I missing something out here? Is summer camp like some terribly crucial teenage rite of passage, like the prom night? (Again, prom night here is a cultural phenomenon. I guess we can't really grasp its significance merely from movies and other media. Singaporean JC kids try to emulate the hype but sometimes it falls really flat. It's like trying to celebrate Christmas when you're not even Christian.)

So I asked some colleagues. They were like, nah, it's no big deal. It's just something for working parents to send their kids to get them out of their hair over summer holidays. They seemed a little embarrassed and changed the topic quickly.

Ok... so I guess (and these are all my personal conjectures) it's more the media hype than anything else. I guess summer camp is a big deal but not that big a deal. And I'm also guessing that, like many teenage experiences, it was probably a huge thing back then, but when you're twenty-plus and looking back, you wonder why and what you worked yourself all up for.

ReNe: honor systems

There was an interesting story in one of the local news today about a cafe in Kitchener, Ontario, where the staff trusts you to pick up the food and pay by yourself (and pay the correct amount). I like the comment by the owner, "We price the bagel for you, but we trust you to pay it. Just like you trust us not to poison you."

I think it's a very good idea, this trust system, and I am all for it. The cafe reports that they don't lose money and that people are very honest. But since the article is all about singing praises about such a system, I'd like to note the odd downsides to this trust system. Some regulars are so impressed that they always tip generously (which can set up an uncomfortable expectation). One of the commenters noted that she has actually gone to the cafe, and while the food is good, the staff is unfriendly, the regulars smug and it's embarrassing for newbies to figure their way around the cafe. My question is, are the savings from not hiring extra staff passed to the customers? Also, can I forgo the tip, since I provide the service myself?

I was reminded of Annalakshmi, an Indian restaurant in Singapore. Not quite the same system; you pay how much you think the food is worth at the counter. Sounds like a good deal, right? I think so too. The food is really good, the staff (most) are courteous and I get the impression that customers tend to overpay because they're impressed; the restaurant borders almost on swanky. However, we tend to take the 'pay what you think the food is worth' quite literally and we always pay what we thought was fair, and the old lady at the cashier would always give us a slightly dark look. It's not because she's naturally sour-faced too; her disapproving sneer darkens or smooths out depending on how much we pay. I mean, I really do not think we're underpaying, but we're poor students and we can't really afford to tip generously. Moreover, the food is all vegetarian and not made from expensive ingredients. Once the food was badly cooked and we paid less than usual. Her face was black.

So yeah, does it seem like places that run on an 'honor' system then rely on a subtle pressuring and shaming to ensure that customers pay, and pay more in the form of tips? I can't say but it's an intriguing thought.

ReNe: the dumbness of 2-pin sockets

One of the things that irks me is the use of two-pin electrical socket. It was irritating when I first got here, and downright irritating now after many months. I think that the fact that most plugs here (with the exception of big appliances like the microwave) are two-pin means that the earthing pin is missing, and that's a little worrying. But what's irritating is that sockets here do not have a switch; this means that for appliances without a built-in on/off switch, the only way to turn the appliance off is to pull the plug. Or pay money for a power strip, and it's only the more expensive power strips that have that on/off switch.

I think it's quite dumb. Never mind that, one would think that given that limitation at the wall socket, people would then design appliances with on/off switches, right? Not really. We actually have a lamp that requires the wire to be pulled from the socket to turn it off. Even appliances like the kettle and coffee grinder have a blue LED light going when not in use, continually sucking up a small but continual drain of electricity. No wonder the power consumption in North America is so high. So when environmentally friendly messages go, "save energy! turn off your appliances!", that means you probably have to bend down or crawl behind the fridge to, literally, pull the plug. No wonder many people don't bother. The 3-pin plug and wall socket with a switch seems like a much brighter idea to me.

ReNe: scaling down on consumerism

One headline in BBC news reads, "Arctic has 9bn barrels of oil". With some US politicians pushing hard for off-shore drilling and the rising oil prices, this increasing interest in the oil under the Arctic is rather worrying for environmental and ethical reasons. Given that the oil's located in the Arctic, 'who' does the oil 'belong' to? What about the wildlife? Sure, the rising oil prices have hurt everybody, some just more than others, some life-styles more than others. I think the problem is, everyone's looking at the dwindling oil supplies and trying to look for *more*, but what about looking at how we spend this oil and seeing if we can cut back unnecessary usage?

My question is: do you think it's all right to cut back on aspects of our consumerism if it meant conservation of the earth's resources?

ReNe: the fairness of coffee

Read an interesting book a while back: Coffee, A Dark History, by Anthony Wild.

What first attracted me to the book was the word 'coffee', but what was really fascinating about the book was the social history surrounding it. I'd admit I was in a hurry to return the book to the library so I skipped the parts about the bean's history, but the parts about the current global economics of coffee and social (in)justice between the countries producing and buying it were compelling.

I may love coffee and the cafe culture but I've cut down visits to cafes in the past few years because they're quite pricey -- they're all right for the occasional afternoon out with friends but not a place I should be going every few days, something we used to do when dating. And after reading the book, I can add another reason to that list: social justice, which in a way, is closely tied to the economics of coffee.

Consider: Raw Arabica coffee beans (the more expensive cousin to Robusta beans) currently sell for about 82 cents a pound on the world market. The Arabica beans are (or should be) the beans you buy or consume at fancy cafes because they are generally considered to be of higher quality. Let's say the consumer (you) pays $5 per pound for roasted beans, though the price is probably more; Blue Mountain retails for $30 per pound. (Sure, roasting costs money, but the price differential from 82 cents to many dollars seems excessive.) Also, given that it costs farmers about 60 cents a pound to produce coffee, how is that fair to the farmer? Wait, the numbers get better. That pound of coffee can make 30-40 cups of coffee. Taking the lower bound of 30 cups, at $2 a cup of plain black coffee in a fancy cafe, that means a cafe makes $60 per pound of ($5) coffee, before subtracting other costs. To be sure, there's a lot of middlemen that take the coffee from farmer to consumer, but still, in that 'cheap' $2 cup of coffee you're holding, only 3 cents goes to the farmer.

I'm quite disturbed by that. It's a very bloated pipeline.

So, what can I do about it? Stop going to cafes, stop paying for over-priced coffee? Yeah, that's one conclusion I've came to.

The fair-trade minimum price, which hasn't changed since 1988, is $1.26. But if I'm not mistaken, that price also includes the 'cut' by the fair-trade organization body; still, the farmer gets more than just 60 cents, maybe it's a dollar instead. Doesn't sound very much better, but it is still a better scenario, right? Given the choice, we should all buy fair-trade (FT) coffee, right?

However, though I don't have exact figures right now, have you noticed retailers tend to charge a premium for FT coffee? FT coffee doesn't just cost a few cents more per pound; retailers tack on a few more dollars per pound, while farmers just receive a few cents above the 'market price'. In other words, the retailers are profiting more than ever from FT coffee (and not just coffee, actually) because consumers are willing to pay more for so-called 'fair-trade'. To me, that doesn't seem very fair. I don't mind paying a bit more, if I know that all of the 'bit more' goes wholly towards the farmers. Retailers and middlemen are already making enough profit (before the FT movement came along), and now they're trying to salve the guilt of consumers while still skimming yet more off the top?

So, what's the conclusion? Give up coffee completely? Probably not, as I love a cup of joe. Plus, would that actually help the farmers? The middlemen could probably move to handling and selling other products, so the hardest hit by such an action could be the farmers. From a purely pragmatic point of view, I'd buy coffee as close to the source as possible, and I'd buy the cheapest FT coffee.

ReNe: wettest summer record

It's official -- this summer is Toronto's wettest on record. 272.8mm of rain, so far, over the months of June and July. It's fairly funny because all throughout winter, there was a lot of hype in the local news about breaking the all-time snow levels record, and I was excited as well because it was my first winter in Canada, but it only turned out to the third-heaviest for the record books in the end. In contrast, this summer didn't seem especially rainy and suddenly, it seems, Toronto just broke the heaviest rainfall records.

Unlike the locals, it does not seem terribly rainy to us. So I had to google -- what's Singapore's heaviest rainfall record?

In 1978, the highest rainfall recorded over 24 hours was 512 mm while the second highest rainfall recorded was 467 mm in 1969. And on 19 Dec 2006, the third highest on record, the 24-hour rainfall recorded was 366 mm.

All those numbers are rainfall recorded over ONE day.

And, because we actually remember that December of 2006, the amount of rain was 765.9 mm, which was a record for December since 1869.

We remember riding through the one on 19 December; we were on our way back to Singapore from KL. When the rain got really heavy and visibility dropped, we slowed down from 140km/h to 120, then 90. The North-South highway was jammed at parts so we had to occasionally moved to the shoulder to overtake the cars, and we passed by a few accidents. I remember the first accident: cresting the top of a hilly stretch, I looked down and was wondering about the black object in the middle of the road. Visibility was pretty poor, so I slowed down, and realized it was a smoking car, black because it was burnt. After that, we slowed down to 90km/h.

ReNe: missing the monsoons

Apparently, this summer in Toronto is one of the wettest to date. For this June and July, a total of 240.4mm of rain fell. That's apparently astounding because last year, Toronto received a total of 88mm for the whole summer, which was drier than usual.

Er, and here we were thinking that lately, Toronto's weather was feeling like Singapore's. Warm and humid, even if the so-called 'thunderstorms' here can't match the monsoons in South-east Asia. Last weekend was especially rainy and we especially enjoyed it. To us, it didn't seem especially heavy, but the local news said the recent rainy weather was creating 'chaos'. In the GTA, many traffic lights were out and some roads were submerged in water.

Average rainfall for Toronto and Singapore, figures pulled from World Climate's website.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Toronto	68.1	59.5	66.3	64.7	71.1	68.3	77.0	70.0	73.3	61.6	69.5	67.2	817.5
Singapore	238.5	165.1	173.6	166.4	170.7	163.1	149.8	171.3	163.5	191.0	250.1	269.7	2272.2

MiKE: Ugh. Postmodernism is Hard

I have not written in a long time. Both for this blog, and for my academic work. The problem with that, I've learned, is that at the moment of being read, stuff can make a lot of sense, but until one has to deal with the pressures of textual production, of using and combining ideas that one has read, these ideas never really becomes the 'property' of the reader.

So it's tough; it's been tough. I think I have encountered quite a lot of material, if I can recall correctly, there has been much stuff that I've read from such authors as Michael Apple, Henry Giroux, Chela Sandoval, Gunther-Kress, Theo van Leeuwen, Jay Lemke and many many others including some in the cognitive learning, semiotics, sociology of education, and other topics, but for the most part, I effectively cannot remember a thing about who said what.

And so I am starting to have doubts as to whether I have actually read all that, or have I been dreaming as the words appeared before my eyes, and I created for myself the illusion of ingesting the words and constructing the meanings?

I suppose a part of this has to do with moving away from the known and the comfortable, the life and the mechanics of getting along in a job in singapore, and moving into a new career, in a new country, in a new field, with little feedback as to whether I am treading in the right track, or soon to fall into a deep ravine with only very difficult escape.

And I feel as if I have fallen into a deep funk, knowing the way out in principle, but not able to motivate myself to move. I sit here by the computer most hours of the day, getting life sucked out of me as I watch piles of papers unread grow around me. Once in a while, when I get panicked enough, I download some more papers from journal sites which I think will be helpful for my "research", which then get added to the "to read" pile. And as a consequence of sitting before the screen too much, I am putting on weight. Not anywhere near obese, to be sure, but enough to make me feel sluggish and wanting to head over to the athletic centre and run. And then I realise my knee hurts once in a while when I run.

I know what to do. I know what I should be doing. I know that I should do it bit by bit. I know I should take notes, get started on a writing project; talk to people; join others who are in the same boat; exercise; stay away from the damn computer; all that.

But there is so much; too much. sian ah

MiKE: Marxism

Stolen from www.partiallyclips.com A brilliant comic, if you ask me.

ReNe: making a difference

This was floating around the internet. Not the first time I've seen it, nor struck by it.


I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.
I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.
I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.
We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.
I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.
I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.
I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.
I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.
I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.
I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.
I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.
I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.
I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I did not have to always deal with society hating me.
I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.
I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.
I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parents he loves another male.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am the guy who came out to the entire school in his senior speech and got a standing ovation for his courage.

I am the girl who kisses her girlfriend on the sidewalk and laughs at those who glare.

We are the couple who planned and studied and got a damn good lawyer and BEAT the state that wanted to take our child away.

We are the ones who took martial arts classes and carry pepper spray and are just too dangerous to gaybash.

I am the transgendered person who uses the bathroom that suits me, and demands that any complaining staff explain their complaint to my face in front of the entire restaurant -- and shares with my other trans friends which restaurants /don't/ raise a stink.

I am the mother who told her lesbian daughter to invite her girlfriend over for dinner.

I am the father who punished his son for calling you a fag.

ReNe: child soldiers

Making headlines today in the Canadian newspapers was the interrogation of Omar Kahdr (see, for example, the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star). (Briefly, Omar Kahdr is a 20-year-old Canadian citizen who's was interrogated at Guantanamo Bay when he was 16. He was caught fighting in Afghanistan against the American troops.)

The topic also came up over lunch today, and I found the reactions of my colleagues (all 3 are Canadians) interesting. One said that Kahdr took part in a war and should be tried as such; she said, if your family was killed by this guy, wouldn't you want revenge? Personally, I think it's this type of thinking that leads to a lot of problems and wars.

The other two argued that he's should be tried as a child and not as an adult. One pointed out that although Omar did kill combatant troops, if Omar was a high-schooler and he were to go on a school rampage in the US and killed people, he would not have been tried as an adult. I agree with the two -- what do kids at 12, 13, even 16 years know? They may be physically big enough to handle a weapon, but mentally, these child soldiers probably do not fully understand what they are doing. (Even many adults don't know what they are doing in a war...) And by treating a child soldier as an adult and torturing him, what does that say about the captors? That colleagues added that he think it takes a sick person to be able to torture another.

To them, age is the lynch-pin in this argument. But I think that's a slippery slope (how old is old enough?), and that there's also something else that's wrong with the case -- the validity and legality and morality of interrogation and torture.

I also pointed out that it was highly unlikely that a teenager would know anything about Al Queda intelligence (anything of worth that the US side did not know already), and more importantly, that any information obtained under interrogation is highly suspect. Kahdr was, among other things, deprived of sleep before his interrogation, and people are capable of saying absolute nonsense when they are sleep-deprived. So if the information they get is suspect, why are they doing it (interrogation at Guantanamo Bay)? Lots of cynical reasons come to mind.

Under the Third Geneva Convention, which primarily concerns the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs) (Article 17):
"No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind."

Blah blah... "unlawful combatants"...blah blah
Huh.

Really funny posters

Stolen from http://www.insanepoly.com/. Of course, if you need a refresh, go read this wikipedia page on the scandal

ReNe: is google making us stupid?

I came across this article today -- the gist is the Google (and the internet) is making us lose our ability to concentrate. Though this is not the first time I've heard of this (that our use of the internet is affecting the way we think), I found myself identifying strongly with this paragraph (whose title I stole for this post):

"Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I'd spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That's rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle."

Nicholas Carr, The Atlantic

I've written about this before. As a kid, I could easily read a book from cover to cover without stopping. Now I still read a lot, but I find myself flitting from article to article. On the computer, it's all too easy to switch between work window to browser, and my browser typically has over ten tabs open. Because pages are linked, I'd leave the page open so as not to lose the links, and because the page remains open and because leaving open tabs to articles does not take up physical space the way leaving open books and papers do, I don't feel the urgency in finishing an article and closing the tab.

I do think that our heavy use of the computer and internet has significantly affected the way we think, at least for me.

The combination of powerful search facilities with the Web's facilitation of associative linking is what is eroding Carr's powers of concentration. It implicitly assigns an ever-decreasing priority to the ability to remember things in favor of the ability to search efficiently.

John Naughton, The Observer (Wed 2 July 2008)

So, the next question is, is that bad? Probably; this lack of concentration would spill over to many other areas in life, and a lack of concentration isn't a positive trait.

Is it that bad? That's harder to say. It seems like we're trading off one skill-set for another. As students, we're told cliches such as "it's better to understand than to memorize" and that "schools should teach children to how to learn". So, maybe we're losing our ability to focus, but on the other hand, our generation is more exposed to a much broader field of knowledge and we're (probably, hopefully) more savvy at looking up things we don't know.

Does it necessarily have to be a trade-off? Now that we're more aware of it, I suppose not. Already many people are talking about changing habits such as checking email every x minutes. It's not as if we have to completely stop using Google or the internet.