The Image of God

I came across a post someone made in an Internet forum this morning. It was a simple one, the sort of thing you initially dimiss as rhetoric, but when you go over it again you realize how profound it is.

"...they say God made Man to look like him, but in truth, Man may have created God to look like him."

The New Burger King!

Burger King will finally be opening a Penang franchise in 2006. What took them so long, I wonder?. Even Malacca got an outlet in the middle of 2005. I've always maintained that it's easy to conquer the fast-food landscape - open an outlet serving:

1. burgers from Burger King,
2. side dishes from Kenny Rogers,
3. chicken from Nando's,
4. french fries and ice-cream cones from McDonald's.
5. [edit - how could I forget] and of course, A&W root beer.

Yum yum.

The Lord of the Rings... by someone else?

"What if LotR had been written by someone else?", a great read from the Straight Dope messageboards. Excerpts:

Dr. Suess's FOTR:. "Gandalf, Gandalf! Take the ring! I am too small to carry this thing!" "I can not, will not hold the One. You have a slim chance, but I have none. I will not take it on a boat, I will not take it across a moat. I cannot take it under Moria, that's one thing I can't do for ya. I would not bring it into Mordor, I would not make it to the border."

LotR by George Orwell: "I cannot read the fiery writing," said Frodo. "There are few who can," replied Gandalf. "It is the language of Mordor, which I will not speak here. Translated into the common tongue, it reads: 'All rings of power are equal, But some rings of power are more equal than others.'"

Merry Poppins, P.L. Travers & Walt Disney: o/` Wraith-wraithery, wraith-wraithery, wraith-wraith-eree, A Nazgul's as nasty as nasty can be. Wraith-wraithery, wraith-wraithery, wraith-wraith-eroo, your luck will run out when I'm looking for you. So give me the Ring, or you're Nazgul, too! o/` o/` Just a spoonful of lembas helps the athelas go down, the athelas go down, the athelas go down. Just a spoonful of lembas helps the athelas go down in a most delightful way. o/` o/` Feed the orcs, tuppence a bag, tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag. o/` o/` Oooh...taurelilomeatumbalemornatumbaletaurealomeanor, if you say it too slow then you won't make it to dinner. Unless you've got some time on hand don't say I didn't warn ya. taurelilomeatumbalemornatumbaletaurealomeanor. o/`

The Christmas War?

It was with bemusement that I followed the brief but intense controversy over the so-called "Christmas War". While this is not the first time secularists and Christians have gone at each other over how they should celebrate Christmas things seem to have been brought to a head with some parties replacing the words "Christmas" with "Holiday". That's right - "Holiday tree", "Holiday season", "Holiday spirit". God forbid this politically-correct paranoia spreads to give us clumsy phrases like "I'm dreaming of a White Holiday", or "My Grown-up Holiday Wish"! The point is that Christmas isn't just any other holiday, even if you aren't a Christian. I'll digress to explain the origins of Christmas. Christ's exact birth date has been long lost in obscurity. "Christ-mass" resulted from a tendency of the Catholic Church to absorb pagan traditions, in this case the celebration of the winter solstice (Yule), which was held on - yes, 25th December. Yule commemorated the birth of Mithra, the Persian god of light. As Roman domination spread, they absorbed Mithra into their culture. After the Roman Empire had adopted Christianity, Pope Julius I decreed that the birth of Christ would be celebrated on the same date, to make it easier for pagans to embrace Christianity. Many familiar Christmas symbols have their roots in paganism: kissing under the mistletoe was part of a fertility ritual; burning Yule logs a tribute to Mithra; Holly and ivy represent the male and female form. The ubiquitous Christmas tree is a hybrid of medieval legend and evergreen trees, symbolizing the rebirth of life. For many years Christmas was a blur of pagan festivity and religious ritual. The "modern" version of Christmas we all know today was born in 1843, with Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The short novel centered on the redemption of the cynical Scrooge, and emphasized charity, family, and hope. The heartwarming story changed the perception of Christmas in England and America. Carols, cards, pudding, and the family dinner are all elements from Dicken's story that became tradition. Today critics point out that Christmas has become too commercialized. Secularists complain of the Christian elements being forced on them, while Christian fundamentalists say the meaning of Christmas has been lost. I just hope they don't waste too much time arguing about it. I believe that Christmas is for everyone. I find it a wonder that in a world filled with cynicism and suspicion, people can still universally celebrate a day where they take time to be together, to hope for the future. David Foster and Linda Jenner put the sentiments of Christmas into beautiful words in their song, My Grown-up Christmas List:

No more lives torn apart, and wars would never start, and time would heal all hearts. Ev'ry one would have a friend, that right would always win, and love would never end: This is my grown-up christmas list.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Ping-pong Conversations

Conversations are like a game of ping-pong. You can't play a good game unless you know your partner well. Otherwise you could try to throw a screwball, or a fast ball, or a slow one, and you never know how they'd react. They could return it perfectly - they could also whiff it, or think you're showing off, or just not like the way you play. Sure, you could just simply bounce the ball back and forth like you did when you just started playing. That way the game keeps going because the balls are easy to return. But it gets boring after some time, and you'll never improve. You'll also doubt whether there's any point playing in the first place, since your games aren't challenging. You get the feeling you're both holding back, that in other games with other people you both play much better. Maybe your partner's just waiting for you to vacate the table so he can play with someone else. Take the effort to find someone who suits your playing style, and is willing to accommodate you. Develop your skills together, and you'll have fine, memorable games.

The MMU Rocks

Comparing Multimedia University (MMU, right) to a generic campus (left), wouldn't you say MMU could use a new landscape designer?

The Talk on Pre-marital Sex

Yesterday the CF invited a Reverend Doctor to speak on pre-marital sex. He showed us a 57-minute film, Pamela's Prayer (1998). It was an exciting dramatization of a girl's triumph over pre-marital sex. The first 10-15 minutes was footage of Pamela's loving father raised her after her mother died. Then the story began of how 16-year old Pamela wanted to date, but her father wouldn't let her. All her friends were dating, she said, and if she never dated how would she find the right person? So Pamela went out to a basketball game with Jerry without her father's knowledge. After the game, he tried to kiss her. Horrified, she ran away. He later spread rumours of how he had made out with her in her own house. A few years later, he slept with her best friend and then dumped her. Meanwhile, her father, who ran a Christiam film studio, needed someone to help him run it part-time after his father (Pamela's grandad) died. He found a promising young man, Fred. Fred was very helpful and did his job well. He was Pamela's age. After their graduation, he found a calling to help out in the studio full-time. In an unexpected romantic twist, Fred fell in love with Pamela. He asked her father permission to marry her one Christmas eve. Pamela's father said yes. He told Pamela he had saved himself and had never even kissed another woman. When they were about to kiss at their wedding the camera panned out to focus on Pamela's father's smiling face instead. After this enlightening film, the Reverend Doctor lectured us about pre-maritial sex. He asked the girls "If you don't have your virginity to give to your husband on your wedding day, what else do you have to give?" He told us that Korea has big churches because they are sexually pure. Most marriage problems, he said, stemmed from pre-marital sex. He warned couples not to go out alone. It could lead to holding hands, which would lead to putting your arms on shoulders, then petting, then kissing, then lust-filled fornication. The talk certainly answered all the questions we had about pre-marital sex.

The Wikipedia and Google

What separates humans from animals is our ability to reason. Hence how we reason should be something we all reflect on. Information is the basis of all our reasoning. Our beliefs, our abilities - they all rely on the input of information, be it from a person, a book, a webpage, a TV show, etc. The information comes in, and is "filtered", and whatever makes it through this filter we take to be "knowledge". What's interesting is that this metaphysical "filter" is itself built on information. It separates us into those who are gullible and those who are discerning. Or should I say - into those who think they are gullible and those who think they are discerning. The printing press was the most important invention of the millenium. Scientists could publish their research, writers could pen their books, and churchgoers could read from Bibles. Information became cheaply available and no longer the domain of a select few. Fast forward into the present and we now have the Internet, where anyone can say their piece and anyone can read it. We hear "information age", "information explosion" -- "information overload". In 1997 two Ph.D. students registered the domain www.google.com. Their vision: to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Today nearly everyone uses Google as their search engine. Search engines are powerful: they are the gateway into the Internet, the librarians that tell you what books to read, what suits your needs. Google uses a "democratic" model:

Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote... pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

While Google works most of the time, its weaknesses are apparent. Like any democracy, popular opinion is always suspect. That everyone believes "A" is the best option doesn't make it so. The "right" option can truly be known only if all information pertaining to it is filtered - but again, what happens if someone controls the filter? Google may be objective, it's mission admirable, but it's far from infallible. Many website owners routinely try to "bump up" their Google ratings by creating sites linking each other.

Another popular information source is the Wikipedia, "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Also founded on democratic principles, anyone can edit or start an article on Wikipedia. It relies on two assumptions: that its self-governing community will weed out pranksters and malicious writers, and that as an article is edited by more and more people it will gain objectivity and accuracy. Again a noble intention, but prone to the same fallacies. Robert McHenry, former editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, was scathingly critical of Wikipedia in an article written November, 2004: "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia". He asserts that the common user simply lacks the experience and knowledge to provide others with an accurate source of information. He likens it to a public toilet:

...it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.

Another, more vociferous anti-Wikipedia site claims that Wikipedia's perceived objectivity is a false front. Behind the scenes, it claims, there are cliques of elitist "editors" who hold considerable clout, who have the final say over what edits make it to the final article - in effect, making it no less subjective than any other source. Maybe even less so, as being popular in cyberspace isn't an indicator of how accurate your writing/editing may be. To its credit, Wikipedia itself has articles documenting the controversy, even linking to sites like Uncyclopedia which parody it.

But still, whenever I find myself wanting to look something up I turn to Wikipedia almost every time. Same thing whenever I need to search for a webpage, I Google it. I suspect there are many others like me. It's only recently that I have begun to question my sources of information.

Ours is an age where information flows more freely than ever before. On one side it can give us immense knowledge. On the other it can also misle us. It's up to all of us to be careful in what we allow through our "filter". Knowledge is power - people who control the flow of knowledge are even more powerful.

The Flash Training

Today was the last day of a three-part weekly graphics "workshop" I was conducting for the MMUCF. They apparently realised they would need other people to do graphics for their annual plays after I leave. We covered Flash and Photoshop. Don't really know much about Flash beyond tweening, but that's actually the basis of anything flashy you need to do, pun intended. I hope I didn't go too fast in the Photoshop lessons, there was a lot I wanted to cover. Planned to bring along my camera to take picture we could edit together the week before but clever me forgot to bring along the USB cable. Good thing I didn't forget this week.

Ana, Ivy, Jeremy.

Hope we'll come up with something better than last year. I think we have the potential. Computer graphics is an exciting form of art to me, more vibrant than traditional painting. Endless possibilities, and everyone has a chance to learn it. Only have a comparatively ancient 2.0m/pixel Minolta digital cam I got in 2001. I swear the camera is colourblind. But after zipping it through Photoshop everything is fine...

In other news I wonder if The Star, our self-styled "people's paper", needs new proofreaders:

The Face Transplant

Frenchwoman undergoes the first successful (face) transplant. She had been mauled by a Labrador, and the donor was a brain dead woman. She was horribly disfigured and found it hard to eat, speak or drink. No pictures of her yet, but she's doing well. Choose a link. Wikipedia has a little history on the progress in facial transplants, this is interesting:

The transplant does not give the patient's face the appearance of the deceased donor's face because the underlying musculature and bones are different. Facial movements are due to the brain so the personality as expressed by the face remains that of the patient. Only the skin of the face is transferred from the donor, not the three dimensional shape nor the personality it expresses.

It's the latest in the medical discoveries that really make you think. Mostly because so far the parts that are transplanted are either hidden (heart, liver, bone marrow) or aren't really unique in appearance (skin grafts, hand transplants). But now an entire face. It makes you wonder how far transplanting techniques will advance. When heart transplants were pioneered by the late Christiaan Barnard in the late 60s there was naturally controversy. Don't we all still refer to the "heart" as the place where our baser emotions take place? Doctors were said to be playing God, choosing who could and could not live. But fast forward two decades and heart transplants are now standard, saving lives when there is no other recourse.

I really wonder if we will ever transplant a brain... maybe even clone a human. Or should I have said "when" instead of "if"? Read an interesting piece from the Genetic Science Learning Center in the University of Utah about some of the issues behind cloning, relevant to other advances in science as well.

Edit: coincidentially enough, it's been 38 years to the day of Christiaan Barnard's first heart transplant.

The Household Technician

I was playing some badminton with Chuah, a housemate, when another housemate, CW, decided it was time for him to make full use of his Intel® 64-bit 3.0 Ghz processor. He had been downloading this torrent of Windows XP 64-bit for the past few weeks and it had finally completed. As the de facto technician I was asked to install it for him. Which I brilliantly did with my 1337 IT skills I give university no credit for. Extract multi-part RAR files - Check. Burn the .cue file with Nero - Check. Change BIOS boot priority - Check. Convert C:\ partition to NTFS file system - Check. Install Windows - wait it's asking for the CD-key. Hey CW, what's the CD key? What do you mean you don't know? Didn't it come with the file? Dunno-lah... Bring out old 32-bit Windows CD to try its CD-key - Failed! Search online for CD keys - Failed, and nearly got my computer infected with a virus in the process, bless you Norton. Randomly key in letters and numbers - Failed! Thank goodness it struck me that converting to NTFS doesn't actually format the drive. I managed to boot up his computer with an old Windows 98 startup disk and painstakingly look through his files with the ancient MS-DOS Edit command. And there it was! The key! Install Windows - Check. Reboot computer - Check. Set up Internet - Failed! Windows couldn't detect his network card, updating the NIC driver didn't work. Apparently, when CW had switched from his defunct Pentium III to his new computer he hadn't actually bought a new network card, but used his old one. In short, new 64-bit Pentium 4, obsolete 32-bit network card. So do you want to buy a new network card? No need lah...install back the old one Oh well. Went back to badminton, promptly hitting two shuttles onto the roof and ending the session prematurely.

The Obligatory Introduction

Which I have decided to skip.