Looks like Kelis is back with a…. dare i say mullet??

Ok, Busta.. I know you wanna be swole and everything.. but you have reached a new level= no neck

Omarion is reppin LA in the back of his hair, fully equipped with a fuzzy tail :-/

Dažreiz man kaitina, kad vakaros (pēc pulksten 00:00) gribas kaut ko uzrakstīt, bet tas rādās jau nākamajā dienā. Laikam būs jāuzliek cita laika zona. Bet tas tā.

Laikam jāņem nopietni Agileras padoms, ka būtu mazāk par sapņiem jādomā un jāuztraucas. Būs gan ļoti grūti, jo man ir tieksme visu analizēt un pārdomāt un arī bieži vien taisu problēmas tur, kur viņu nav. Nezinu, kā cilvēkiem izdodas dzīvot tik vienkārši un neko nesarežģīt. Nesaprotu, kur ir mana problēma. Es laikam esmu tas cilvēks, kas speciāli meklē problēmas un kasās līdz brīdim, kad tādas dabū un pēctam čīkst, ka netiek galā ar neko. Nez, vai var izlabot šito rakstura pusi kaut kā. Dažreiz man liekas, ka esmu mazohiste, kas speciāli grib ciest no problēmām. Sīrupiņ, palīgā.

Starting to get play on TV news. [Link to original CRU-Hack post with updates, quotes, links, etc.]

Debate on Fox News with Barbie. Both parties agree there needs to be an investigation into scientific fraud:

Australian Lateline (CRU hack/leak report):

Australian Lateline (Interview with Tim Flannery, Australian climate change activist):

Russia Today:

BBC 4 Radio — Lord Lawson vs Robert Watson (East Anglia University climate scientist):

New & Related:

“Climate change” PSA featuring polar bears falling to their deaths:

Naomi Klein on Democracy Now, recorded post-CRU-hack, discussing “climate debt” and “climate rage” (pt2) (pt3):

Vakar pirmo reizi dzīvē biju teātra sporta turnīrā. Mūsu komanda gan nepiedalījās, jo nevienu spēli mēs nemācējām, bet izklaidējām ar savu klātbūtni turnīra dalībniekus, rādot dažādus sviestus, piemēram [īsti nezinu kā pareizi rakstās] Eks-peks-interviju vai ekspresinterviju (katru reizi to izrunā savādāk ;D ) un vēl some kind of Draudzes deju? Patīkams pasākums bija, lai gan es nebiju domājusi, ka man būs uz skatuves jākāpj un tas man diezgan palielu stresu uzsita. Paskatījos, kā teātra sportu spēlē pieredzējušāki cilvēki un bija mistiski labi.

Kopumā es jau sāku just, ka es vispār apmeklēju teātra sporta treniņus, jo runāt ir palicis vieglāk un atbildes uz nezināmiem jautājumiem pašas speras ārā. Esmu pamanījusi arī, ka valoda ļoti mainījusies. Retāk esmu sākusi lamāties, bet biežāk teikt kaut ko indīgu, kas mani ļoti priecē.

Šodien aizdomājos par dienu garumu. Tā kā aptuveni Līgo svētkos ir īsākā nakts un ap Ziemassvētkiem ir īsākā diena, iznāk, ka pavisam drīz jaua tkal sāks palikt gaišāks, lai gan liekas, ka tikai nesen sākās šitāds dienas garums.Un tas mani aizved pie naķamās domas:

Pēc mēneša būšu pilngadīga. Tas mani pat nedaudz nomāc. It kā pasaulei jaunas durvis paverās, viss būs vieglāk (ja neskaita to, ka man tagad varēs uzlikt kriminālatbildību).  Tagad varēšu noprecēt bārdainu baikeri un dzīvot treilerī un audzināt 8 bērneļus, hehe. Un būšu mazo bērneļu dievs, kas visiem pirks alkoholu un smēķus, hahahahahaaaaa.

Šodien pa māju tusēju pavisam viena, nezinu, ko lai sadara. Noskatīšos filmu, bet ko pēc tam? Sāku domāt, kā būs, kad mācīšos augstskolā, kad būs jādzīvo kojās (vai arī dzīvoklī?), kad es nekad nebūšu viena. Vienmēr būs kāds apkārt un es tāpēc besīšos ārā. Skumji. Varbūt jāsāk beidzot pierast pie cilvēkiem.?

Wow. Confirmed this is real. Uncompresses to 165 MB — of which 7.6 MB are emails — and the rest is funding data & grant applications, external correspondence, PR docs, modeling code, methodological notes, datasets, reports, graphs (etc) from the CRU (Climate Research Unit) at East Anglia University — not the ‘Hadley’ Center for Climate Prediction & Research (i.e. UK Meterological Office at Exeter) as is being reported. CRU prepares climate models and is central to the UN IPCC process… [scroll down for updates]

HACK OR LEAK?

[Get the ZIP file here or here (or torrent). Read/search the emails here. Funding spreadsheet, pdj_grants_since1990.xls is online here. Thank you, hackers/leakers. Keep information free!]

Excerpts and quotes from what have been dubbed the “ClimateGate” emails are starting to show up around the ‘net. Tony Hake at Examiner.com has a good compilation. Also here. Some parts are pretty damning… and despite the apparent attempts to delete emails, there’s a lot here — this could be big. Waiting now for the first comprehensive review of the haul, and to see what the MSM angles are. A few obvious choices:

(1) Deleted data & FOIA requests. CRU made headlines in August with this bizarre and troubling admission:

The world’s source for global temperature record admits it’s lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia – permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.

Phil Jones: “We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

According to Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog, CRU undertook an “unprecedented” public data purge in July.

(2) Damning quotes from elite climate eggheads casting doubt on the entire climate modeling project… Kevin Trenberth, head of Climate Analysis at NCAR in Colorado — and a central author of the UN’s IPCC Fourth Assessment (AR4) — is quoted in a late-’09 email [1255553034.txt]:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

(3) Emails suggest CRU engaging in anti-scientific deception, skewing of data, media gameplay and more…

0876437553 – “I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed” or “1500 signed”. No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000 without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a different story.”

0942777075 – “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

1254108338 – “So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean — but we’d still have to explain the land blip.”

1089318616 – “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !”

0843161829 – “I really wish I could be more positive about the Kyrgyzstan material, but I swear I pulled every trick out of my sleeve trying to milk something out of that.”

1107454306 – “The two MMs [McIntyre and McKitrick] have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone.”

1109021312 – “Don’t any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act !”

1210341221 – “2. You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting in FOI requests for all emails Keith and Tim have written and received re Ch 6 of AR4. We think we’ve found a way around this.”

1212073451 – “Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?”

1228330629 – “If he pays 10 pounds (which he hasn’t yet) I am supposed to go through my emails and he can get anything I’ve written about him. About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little – if anything at all. This legislation is different from the FOI”

1114025310 – “Ch 4 has swallowed this hook, line and sinker and it is really a Ch 6 issue. Ch 6 wasn’t even aware of it. Can’t decide who on Ch 4 knew about it as Oerlemans isn’t there and the Swiss Glacier people didn’t know about the paper 2 weeks ago when I saw them. I like the curve as does Mike Mann, but its not for any scientific reason.”

1106322460 – “Proving bad behavior here is very difficult. If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.“

(4) PR Firms “selling” the monotheistic ‘Climate Change’ message — i.e. Unity of the holy trinity: Climate Change / Climate Debate / Climate Response.

ZIP file contains a 2005 Climate Communications document by UK PR-firm Futerra Sustainability Communications, “The Rules of the Game” — now updated as “New Rules: New Game” (pdf) at Futerra’s site. Also check out their “Greenwash Guide” (pdf).

Here’s Futerra-founder Solitare Townsend talking about communication strategies for “winning” the climate debate:

Updates:

• Starting to get international TV coverage.

• Lord Lawson calling for public inquiry into data manipulation.

• HARRY_READ_ME.txt is getting some attention. Brutal quotes: “These are very promising. The vast majority in both cases are within 0.5 degrees of the published data. However, there are still plenty of values more than a degree out.” More? “I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation – apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective – since we’re using an off-the-shelf product that isn’t documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn’t coded up in Fortran I don’t know – time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn’t enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it’s too late for me to fix it too. Meh.“

• WattsUpWithThat blog is looking at files in /documents/osborn-tree6/mann/oldprog — specifically maps12.pro, maps15.pro and maps24.pro. In the programming code itself there is this commented text: “Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures.” And in documents/harris-tree/recon_esper.pro: “Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid the decline“.

• MSM initially downplaying emails. Focusing on the “hacking is crime” and “fueling skeptic/denier hysteria” angles. Damage control: the leaked emails were “cherry-picked” to promote a “skeptic” agenda. The Australian. German paper Die Welt now has a story: “The Tricks of the Researchers on Climate Change“. Daily Mail, WaPo, Times Online. Huffy Post’s Brendan DeMelle misses the point and gets huffy about the “illegal hacking”. Brisbane Courier Mail’s Graham Readfearn mocks story.

• Care for a more propagandistic, pseudo-academic response? This blogger focuses on a skeptic paper (Douglass, Christy, Pearsona and Singer) discussed in the emails — and the links to a corrupt skeptic, Fred Singer. A small proportion of the leaked emails do indeed relate to suppressing perceived fraud and trickery on the skeptic side [normal scientific in-fighting, perhaps?] He concludes the leaked emails show “correct and careful behavior”, and that those who disagree are part of a fringe “skeptic/denier” minority — people who should be mocked because they are upset primarily by “Al Gore’s success in informing people about climate change and winning prizes and making money.” [LOLcat, come home and eat!!!]

Links, etc:

• Ian Wishart in NZ’s Investigate Magazine 20 Nov issue (pdf)
• WSJ blog (Keith Johnson) – good comments, thanks ST.
• First WattsUpWithThat blog post.
• Telegraph.co.uk – Climategate by James Delingpole.
• Original leak post on The Air Vent blog.
• Comments and reader-analysis at Climate Audit blog
• Blogcritics.org discussion.
• Dismissive comments at Real Climate blog.
• Related: HSBC & Lord Stern’s Climate Change Model — pseudo-statistical propaganda?

Exams makes me feel dead and morbid.
Exams makes me feel that I’m just not making the world a better place to live in.

If exams were to be a person, I would slap him.

HAHAHA.

That would be cool.

Next, you know how each alphabet stand for a word?

Like..
A for Apple
B for Ball
C for Cat.

Who knows, I might teach my kids..
A for Abu
B for Bakar
C for Cacat.

HAHAHA.

I’m sure they’ll have a fun time growing up and learning things with me.

Jet Li, who is a Buddhist, said this during a dialogue session at the APEC:

During the dialogue session, while Li was encouraging the younger generation to create their own dreams, the Asian superstar ironically admitted that he does not have any dreams left to fulfill.

“I do not have any more dreams because I have already found my answer to the various issues in life such as time, space, universe, material comforts, the environment and life. Since I understand their existence and disappearance, I realise that there isn’t anything else left to do and there isn’t a need for me to have dreams,” said the actor.

Without searching,
   The answer will not be found.
But only when the search ends,
   Will the knowing begin.

So I was just on my facebook and commented on a friend’s vote that he did. It was a little bit of my wicked humor going on in the comment and someone took offense and so I had to be on the defensive when he stated that I didn’t know what I was talking about and needed to continue drinking the Kool-aid and everything would be over shortly.  I suppose that it was wrong of me to get back at him, but he took my joking comment as a threat. So I had to set him straight. After another comment,  in a round about way he apologized and I did also afterward.

My friend Joe says that I kick the proverbial puppy a lot.

But it got me thinking that I really analyze things in a debate that people have and only comment afterward. I guess that is just how I am I will read people and then go from there, but after all that I have been through I read too much into some people and not enough in others… everyone does that though.   It may just be a smart thing to weigh how people act and react before forming any type of relationship, but some people don’t act the same way when the setting changes and they are in a more comfortable atmosphere.

At any rate I believe that my defensive mode will keep the guy from getting hasty in his attacks, at least he said that he’ll keep his comments to himself. which it would be a good thing. However I begin to wonder if my attack had the opposite effect. Will he be waiting for more comments from me? *Shiver* LOL Could it be that he is an M??? Let’s hope not. I only hope that now my friend doesn’t misread my comment to be a bash. Only time will tell.

On another note….

I think that my heart likes to play games with me. This friend, I met him through one of my friends a long time ago. I had a thing for him for so long. It was an unrequited love, that or the guy was to dense to even notice. My friend, (A),  that introduced us suspected that I had a thing for this friend we’ll call D. A asked me if I was crushing on someone, and I said yeah.  So A, sounding desperate stated, ” Please don’t tell me that it is D!” So I lied, I didn’t want to hurt A’s feelings, for some reason he couldn’t see us getting together, and began bad mouthing his friend when I asked why. (A and I are related so it wasn’t the “I like you, don’t fall for my friend” thing. ) So every time  D was with a different girl I would forget about him, especially when it came to this one girl. So not seeing D or A for a long time, I made friends with a guy “C” and C was the worst guy ever, but I only planned on being friends and that is how it was. D found out that I was talking to C and the situation surrounding that and told me to be careful. So much for keeping D out of my heart. I felt that I wasn’t just A’s cousin to him,  I was friends with him. It was like he cared even just a little bit.

So confession time: I was so totally crazy over D. In spite of all the things A said about him and all the things I knew about him.

And every now and then my heart starts to heal again and I remember D and how it is never going to work out now and that little piece of my heart stays chipped. I remember how he was right about C and that I needed to be careful. I remember now, and I try not to talk about him because, people ask Who is this D guy, and I am soon overtaken by the one single question that always follows, “does D know you like him?” Even now it shows, that my heart hasn’t totally given up on D.

I will forget him though when the guy that I am supposed to be with finds me and I find him.

Until then I am nursing a chipped piece of my heart for you D.

I really want to box this screen, pluck out the keyboard, eat this mouse, slam my samick, tear what im wearing, submerge my elek guit,  pull my hair, bite my phone, mess my desk, break the ray bens, mess my clothes, burn my bed, pee at the corner, strangle froggy, wait! dont touch my frog, throw the stupid weights, electrify dumb brother, pluck his eyebrows, break all the glass, wait! not the frame, do 10012120923 push ups, lift max weight bicep curls, wait did i just threw my weights? burn my room, go up and down the stairs 94974747282 times, bang the wall, burn this house, stick up a middle finger & scream FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU! in the middle of the night upon seeing your name at my daily FB feed. But i love my animals.

Im just hungry. Or angry. Or sad. Or tired. Or hungry. Or sad. Or disappointed. Or just hungry. BUT WHY IN THE WORLD IS EVERYBODY CHANGING NOW A DAYS!

I really want to box this screen, pluck out the keyboard, eat this mouse, slam my samick, tear what im wearing, submerge my elek guit,  pull my hair, bite my phone, mess my desk, break the ray bens, mess my clothes, burn my bed, pee at the corner, strangle froggy, wait! dont touch my smellyfrog, throw the stupid weights, electrify dumb brother, pluck his eyebrows, break all the glass, wait! not the frame, do 10012120923 push ups, lift max weight bicep curls, wait did i just threw my weights? burn my room, go up and down the stairs 94974747282 times, bang the wall, burn this house, stick up a middle finger & scream FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU! in the middle of the night for being f up.

Im just hungry. Or angry. Or sad. Or tired. Or hungry. Or sad. Or disappointed. Or just hungry. I think im hungry and disappointed. With you people, and me myself.

Im really sorry but this is the end of me. See you on 2012, at Africa, bring some jackets, its gonna be cold there. NONETHELESS, F off.

PS: I received the most sweetest gift ever form someone whom i didn’t expect would do such a thing and truly it was nice. Sigh, for the countless time, thanks my kental. Its soo memorable. And pay the cashier with a receipt again okay next time? XD

Tā, iepriekšējo ierakstu tā arī neapdeitoju ;D Bet nu neko. Vairs nav iedvesmas rakstīt par to visu ;D

Lai nu kā, esmu vesela laikam beidzot, riju C vitamīnu tādās devās, ka man liekas, ka es pārdozēšu viņus.  Tējas arī daudz.

Pēdējā laikā esmu piefiksējusi, ka es labprātāk draugu (nu to, kas cilvēki, nevis portāls ;D ) vietā izvēlos mūziku. Kā tas izpaužas? Tā, ka es labāk eju ārā viena, bet ar pleijeri, nekā ar kādu citu. Kad kāds nāk pretī vai arī sanāk pa ceļam, man ne pārāk forša sajūta paliek, jo es nevaru klausīties pleijeri tad. Man nepatīk vairs iet ar kādu reizē uz skolu/uz stundām citā skolā vai dajebkur, jo mūziku tad nevar.  Ieslēdzot datoru, pirmais, ko daru, ir ieslēdzu mūziku (salīdzinājuma.. agrāk pirmais bij tikt internetā pie draugiem (tas, kas portāls, nevis cilvēki ;D). Vai tā varētu saukties atkarība? :O

Friday night 8 plus pm, we made our way to Johor Bahru to wait my girlfriend’s brother to come and pick us up. At the street right beside Citysquare, a street that was teeming with vehicles, we saw some policemen blowing whistles at the incoming traffic and waving the cars onwards, but they didn’t seem to be bothering with the pedestrians.

We found an opening and chiong-ed across the road, just as her bro’s car came along. Immediately the policemen pounced on us at the other side, yelling, “IC, IC, IC!”

The situation was quite bewildering, and we were quite unable to enter the car, so we handed out our Identity Cards, and were sent back across the road.

There, an old Chinese dude in plain clothes herded us to a police car, dripping with sarcasm as he did so. I was quite pissed and said I had no idea what the police were blowing their whistles about. He got even more pissed that I was talking back to him, amd started raising his voice in Mandarin, “你沒有讀書啊？！沒有看到有橋啊？！”

As he wrote our summons, he continued to be caustic, telling us to tell the judge that we couldn’t see the bridges. We wanted to pay the fine on the spot, but he insisted on sending us to court on Monday. After scribbling down two offences, he paused and sneered at us, “asking” us for our opinion, whether we would like one more offense to be added. When we mumbled, “dun need lah”, he gleefully cooked one more up.

I saw that he was cancelling this section on the bottom of the receipt, and I was getting suspicious. So when he demanded me to sign at the bottom of the summons receipt, I asked him what that section was, why he had to cancel it. He refused at first to tell us, then he said cancelling it means we can’t pay on the spot, and if I don’t sign, I’ll be sent into lock-up.

After we were sent on our way two summons richer, her brother told us to use our camera to take pics of people still waltzing across the road, and the police not stopping them. We approached some of the policemen demanding why they didn’t catch those people but caught us. They told us that we were extremely unlucky to have run into the head of traffic at JB, their boss, so there was nothing they could do, and that usually they don’t give a damn. And right after we were caught, this boss had left, so “business” went back to normal.

***

In the car that night, I was struggling with the hatred that arose in my mind for that supposed head of traffic.

We were obviously in the wrong for not using the pedestrian crossing, and we were of course simply unlucky to have fallen foul of a failed attempt at pacifying public opinion of the inefficiency of JB law and order.

But what my mind fought most strongly against was the fact that the man had used threats and fear to cower us into meekness. He had obviously emerged victorious. For five minutes at least, after he drove away, he would feel satisfied that he had caused us inconvenience at having to appear at a court of law on Monday, to say the least, if not also two days of trepidation and suspense at what the statutes of this country holds for us. He was able to do this only because he was in a position of power, as simple as that.

“If we were children of powerful people, the game may have had a different outcome.”

This feeling will be of the same quality that drives people to acquire more power, to protect themselves, to one day enact revenge on all those that had dared to abuse or offend, and to uphold a sense of justice perverted by the ego.

Having come to this conclusion, I suddenly felt greatly relieved, and much of the anger seemed to have lifted.

***

We were in the court of JB, awaiting our turn to walk up to the front to face the Judge, whose name plaque I saw as “Shariffa Muleena binte Syed Hussin”. She was haughtily beautiful, looked barely thirty, and upkept a stern composure to the traffic offenders that brought themselves before her.

Traffic offenders, all who had been hauled up for dangerous or irresponsible operation of motor vehicles, except for two idiots who were present because they jaywalked.

Our turn was eventually delayed, and the legal clerk was flipping through books and papers with a perplexed look on her face, because (1) she was obviously out of her depth having to say everything in English for my sake and (2) she had to find out how to interpret such a minor offence that sends us to a court that only handles maximum fines in the thousands! (Another male legal clerk announced before the first session started that this court does not handle offences that costs hundreds, only those that are in the thousands, so we’d better get our ICs out, and plead for leniency.) During an adjournment, her discussion with a prosecutor that was present led to an exclamation by the older man that (translated:) “how can one person at one time and one place commit three offenses of the same kind??” He was so exasperated that he stormed out of the court into the adjoining room.

And so the circus went on for a while, as the legal clerks and prosecutors gathered together to argue how to present our summons to the judge. It amused at least two other people awaiting their own hearings. An Indian court sergeant, similarly bemused, asked us who was the man that issued the summons. We told him what we knew.

Finally, we were separately called into the adjoining room (not in court session). When it was my turn:

The legal clerk, somewhat embarassed and smiling instead of her usual cool self out there, began the summary proceedings, “Mr Chong, you as a pedestrian are being charged for not using the foot-path bridge… ya…” I nodded.

The judge asked, in crisp, clear English, “You are Singaporean?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t understand Malay?”

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“No.”

“Poor you.” A smirk flickered through her usually icy eyes.

Time slowed as I was first taken aback at these two words, and struggled to understand what she meant by them.

Poor you?

“So do you plead guilty?”

“Yes.”

Poor you.

Poor you.

Poor you.

“What do you have to say in your defense?”

Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you. Poor you.

Poor you.

“I’m a student, so I hope Your Honour would show me some leniency.”

“Are you a part-time or a full-time student?”

“Full-time.”

“Where are you studying?”

“At a university in Singapore.”

“Okay, your sentence will be a hundred ringgit fine.”

Both of us had the same sentence, so we went out to pay the fine. Along the way, I seethed with anger again, at the mysterious meaning of those two words that she uttered. Had she just slighted my entire nation? A thousand possible responses burst into my mind, all too late, but fortunately so, for if I was not able to hold back and blurted out a demand for her to explain what she meant, it would not be just a fine that I would have been given. This was my second lesson on power.

***

Over lunch, we discussed our indignation at what had happened, and our conclusion was: as what Venerable masters would probably have told us, there is no right or wrong, only the right time to say and do the right things for the best results, or the wrong time to say and do what we think are ‘right’ things for a worse result.

Clinging on to our correctness and our viewpoints, however justified they might be, would not always be the most fruitful thing to do, because the circumstances simply do not allow it. If we were clear about the situation, we would take the correct action, even if it meant eating humble pie, and with a clear mind, we would not suffer from an inward sense of wronged-ness, because we were at equanimity with the causes and conditions.

When I related the words of the judge to my girlfriend’s sister, her response was akin to, “WTH?” When I related it to my brother, he immediately said, “Yes, a Malay supremacist.” This should not be construed as a racist remark, for there are also Chinese supremacists, White supremacists, Japanese supremacists, Thai Buddhist supremacists, Mahayanist supremacists, Christian supremacists all just as bad and just as existent. Up front, I saw an example of the elite of Malaysian society, the kris-waving, turnoffwatertap-thumping kind that sees the jewel in their south with an incomprehensible ill will. It is also these moments that reaffirm how glad I am to be born on this side of the causeway. For all my country’s imperfections, this is where the citizen-on-the-street has sufficient protection and stability by the police and the law.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said that his first real lesson in politics was staring into the barrel of a Japanese gun. I cannot agree more, except that mine was at the cost of only RM100 and 20 minutes of my nationalistic pride.

I believe Ajahn Brahm was in a same situation of political powerlessness when he was excommunicated from the Ajahn Chah sangha. I believe in Ajahn, and the Buddhist approach of not over-reacting, but to speak firmly and gently against any false representation.

I never believe that the Buddha would have taught us to be complete political nimcompoops (although I believe that he teaches us to keep our lives free of and above politics). I put my faith in learning to be skillful, to protect and bring benefit to others, in the face of adversity.

***

Verses 3-4 of the Dhammapada:

He abused me,
He struck me,
He overpowered me,
He robbed me.

Those who harbour such thoughts
do not still their hatred.

He abused me,
He struck me,
He overpowered me,
He robbed me.

Those who do not harbour such thoughts
still their hatred.

You cannot even believe the long week I have had. It was a complete crazy train of chaos, anger, stress and a bitter struggle to find my voice when I am being attacked….. You know how people start talking to you and then they walk away while your still talking to them…. People do that to me a lot. It is crazy I am  like Hello I was trying to converse with you. And then there is the people that don’t really care they will act like they are listening but then they won’t respond at all. I am not socially awkward, at least not until now.

I feel like I am flung down the rabbit hole, and now Alice needs to find a best friend who actually cares. Around here though I don’t seem to find much of anyone. It annoys me cuz I am like “okay I totally listened to all the crap you just said and now you turn and walk away not caring to give me the same kind of courtesy I bestowed upon you. “
I feel beat down like chains are keeping me from holding my head high in the carefree sense that I normally have. Like I have someone right next to me that will trip me and kick me when I am down, just when I start going, taking two steps forward and six steps back.

To put it bluntly I am in a game of monopoly where everyone else is winning and I am constantly landing on the go to jail space. “Go to jail. Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

Augh! I hate this feeling! Stress I hate stress!

I am, however working on my story. Eliora has almost nine pages (notebook paper at least) of story that will be added soon enough. Maybe more…

I would love to get it published, not just ebook published either. Though I have nothing against ebooks, I just have a lot of drive for paperback at least.  It is different from my normal stories, but I think with a little polish my little gem will shine.  It would be nice to have some feedback on it. I can take criticism…. I have developed a thick skin for it, and if someone doesn’t like it, it doesn’t really bother me.  Constructive criticism is something I can’t get enough of.  Be kind though. Let’s just keep in mind that what is uploaded so far is a rough draft. LOL

I now have two different versions of Caramelldansen on my mp3 player. The original Swedish version and the English version. Sadly I know the Swedish version better than the English, only because it was the first version I listened to so. I don’t know why I just love this song…. It is a song that gets me to shake off whatever is bothering me and just be a little crazy. LOL

I made a little joke a few posts ago about the book “The Power of Now”.  I don’t know if you guys ever read that book, but it was one of those “meaning of life” books that caught on with the general populace (with a little help from Oprah, I believe) a few years ago.  I read it in 2005-ish, and since I was very young back then (a mere 30!), the book really left an impression on me.  The premise is that time is an illusion and that the only thing that is real is this exact moment that we are experiencing.  Everything besides “now” is just a construct of the mind.  We remember the past through a mental prism that supports the emotional reaction we are most comfortable experiencing, and we project dreams and nightmares into a future that is in reality, completely unwritten.   Both the past and the future are lies, and “now” is really the only truth in existence.

If we apply this concept to the Sabres, and we assume we can’t trust either the past or the future, here is what we arrive at: THE SABRES ARE ACTUALLY GOOD AT HOCKEY.  EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL!  THOMAS VANEK IS A SLAG-FACED WHORE BUT IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER BECAUSE THE TEAM IS SO EVENLY BALANCED.  AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, RYAN MILLER IS A SCRAWNY, WONKY-EYED GOD!

I don’t think about the concepts of “The Power of Now” very often anymore, but I like applying it to our current hockey situation.  It’s tempting to be all, “Oh, we’ve seen them be good for stretches before, but they’ll find a way to start sucking again” or “The Sabres are GOING ALL THE WAY, ” but the ONLY reality-based, “now” is a fairly steady state of simple “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

Right now, the SABRES KICK ASS and we should experience it fully, because it is the only truth.  Amen.

He’s a Sabres fan.

I’ve spent the better part of the last few hours reinstalling my Ubuntu virtual machine from scratch after completely botching my previous install’s configuration. How? I was attempting to get Python 2.5 up and running with a few custom packages, and ended up accidentally removing everything Python-related, which included many rather important system packages. Synaptic then froze up, and most of the basic system operations stopped working.

Freaking awesome. Just how I wanted to spend my Saturday evening.

But now that I have it working again, I wanted to delve into my latest project: a semi-intelligent Twitterbot! There are three core components to this project:

1. Read the public Twitter timeline to accumulate posts.
2. Build a Markov Model out of all accumulated posts.
3. Use a cronjob to modulate the frequencies of #1 and #2.

I’ve posted about Hidden Markov Models before, and this is an example of theory put into practice. Granted, the utility of this application is questionable, but if for no other reason, it sure is entertaining. In fact, since activating my Twitterbot a little over a week ago, it’s already garnered a decent response. Here are some of my favorites thus far:

It’s endlessly amusing to me that so many people seem to think my bot is actually a person. At least a few also seem to be amused by its antics. Still others respond as though nothing is amiss. It’s also managed to flag down multinational Twitter users. And it’s even attracted the attention of other bots!

How does it work, ya say? Welllllll…

The underlying assumption of HMMs is that there is a hidden state that influences whatever the output we actively observe is. Within this context, it means we’re assuming there’s an unobservable pattern to the sentences Twitter users post that results in the actual words we can see. Thus, if we observe enough of these posts, we should, in theory, be able to infer those hidden states.

Yeah yeah, that wasn’t very simply put. Nevertheless, let’s move on.

The assumption my bot makes is pretty straightforward: each word that is observed depends only on the word before it. Put another way, this means that, given a single word, there is only a certain number of words that can come after it. Of these finite number of words that can come after it, some are much more likely than others.

This makes intuitive sense. Take any one of the sentences in this post, for example: after you read one word, you’re already expecting a certain word or number of words that could follow it (it’s how we read, in fact; ever heard that humans only actively read about 70% of the words on a  page? all the others are inferred by this same method). It’s basically a primitive form of contextual analysis.

From a technical standpoint, this dependence on only a single previous word is called a “first-order” Markov Model. HMMs can go as high as you’d like. There is another similar Twitterbot built by a friend of mine which uses a “second-order” Markov Model, in that each word depends on the two previous words, resulting in a sentence that probably makes more sense than mine will. But for those of you who ahead of me, this also means much more of the original posts used to build the HMM will show up in the generated posts.

And honestly, I wanted my bot’s posts to be as random as possible while still kind of making sense Hence I purposefully implemented a first-order model.

My bot accumulates 800 posts from the public feed over 20 minutes, then uses those posts to build a first-order HMM. From that model, it then constructs a post by sampling from the model, and posts it to the Twitter account.

If you’re interested in following the bot, you can find it here.

I’m in the process of refining the current model, perhaps a hybrid first-second order HMM. I may also include some topics that are weighted more heavily than others, so the generated posts more accurately reflect the trending topics. And of course, I’m open to suggestions!

Yes, this bot provides a wonderful source of amusement, particularly since I am way over my head in schoolwork. Applying for jobs, applying to PhD programs, conducting research with Dr Murphy, and actually keeping up with my coursework is all proving very difficult to juggle these last few weeks of the semester. So it’s nice to have a new joke to read every 20 minutes!

I also want to mention that, a few days ago, my total hits on this blog surpassed 20,000. Thank you again to all those who seem to find something on this blog interesting

Nezinu, kā es atgūšu visu šito nedēļu, ko nokavēju neejot uz skolu angīnas[infekciozās mononukleozes?] vai kaut kāda cita mistiska vīrusa dēļ. Sajūtas šajā fantastiskajā nedēļā? Super, sajutos kā sambernārs, jo siekalas nāca mistiski daudz un norīt viņas nevarēju, jo likās, ka riju dzeloņcūku, kurai katrā rokā pa žiletei vai sirpim. Tāpēc špļāvu krūzēs visās pēc kārtas, hehe. Īpaši patīkama sajūta bija, kad kaklā uzradās čūla no nezinu kā. Bet nu tā esmu veiksmīgi vesela.

Šodien sēdēju, spēlēju Fishdom un domāju. Apdomāju visādas lietas, sākot no tuvākas un tālākas nākotnes, mūzikas un vēl šo un to.

1.) Šodien sagribējās mierīgās mūzikas dienu, tāpēc uzbliezu pleilisti jaunu, kas sastāv tikai no Depeche Mode, A perfect circle un Katatonias. Manai ausij noskaņas ziņā visas tās dziesmas liekas līdzīgas un bija forša sajūta tāda.Par šito no visādiem rakursiem domāju aptuveni 15 minūtes.

2.) Vakar Tildē skatījos, ko nozīmē katatonija – Neiropsihiski traucējumi, kuriem raksturīgs galēji paaugstināts muskulatūras tonuss un kuru izpausme ir uzbudinājums (var būt ekstātisks) vai sastingums.. Par šito domāju aptuveni 5 minūtes.

3.) Sāku domāt arī par “pirmās reizes” tēmu. Joprojām nevaru saprast vienu lietu. It kā meitenēm pirmā reize ir sāpīga un nepatīkama visnotaļ, bet kāpēc par to vairāk uztraucas čaļi tā, ka bieži vien pat neko sakarīgi nevar izdarīt? Domugrupās dažādas diskusijas par šitām tēmām visām ir un visi kā viens tur raksta, ka bail un tādā garā. Jēziņ, nejau viņiem jāpārcieš tās sāpes un varbūt pat bleeding love, bet satraucas viņi reizes 20 vairāk. To, lūk, es nesaprotu.

[Būs papildinājums kkad vēlāk (dienā), jo pašlaik īsti nerakstās uz priekšu, jo pulktens ir 01:49. ]

Using Google Trends and Insights, it’s possible to build up a rough picture of the scale and geography of “global warming”-related search-terms over time…

First up, it’s “global warming” vs. “climate change” vs “al gore” vs “inconvenient truth”:

• “Global warming” is still the dominant term, but surprisingly seasonal.
• Going by the last few months’ volume, “climate change” seems to have about 65% of its “strength”. [A chart here gives a combined reading for these two terms.]
• The “Inconvenient truth” meme broke-out with the release of the film, and fell away in mid-07 — about 12 months of solid interest. Similarly, “Al Gore” searches — which showed truly dramatic spikes during ‘07 — have dwindled.

In 2004, strong interest in “global warming” seemed limited to the Anglosphere, plus India. Turkey, the Phillippines, China, Sth Africa, Japan, Germany, France, and Malaysia were next. Then the global explosion of interest in the first half of ‘07:

• In the following months, “global warming” search breakouts would be detected in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. The latest was Kenya in early ‘09.
• “Climate change” currently shares equal status with “global warming” in just two parts of the world: NSW, Australia, and Ottawa, Canada.
• “Al Gore” remains unexpectedly popular in northern Europe, but — aside from some additional interest in Argentina, Portugal, and India — he was only an international memestar for those twelve months after the film.

Now lets move on to the lower-end of the keyword-volume scale…

• Interest in “global cooling” broke-out in late-05 in the US — and despite some interest in Australia, Canada, UK and India, it remains a vastly more popular search term in the US.
• “Carbon credits” became a popular search term in late-06 in India and Australia — and New Zealand, Sth Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong were all proportionately higher than the US, where interest is relatively low.
• “Carbon tax” rose to become a significant search-term in Canada during the first half of ‘08. Interest remains high in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Italy.
• Terms referencing “skeptics” [separate chart] appeared on the scene in the US as an apparent knee-jerk reaction to the ‘07 spike in non-skeptical interest — and have been breaking-out during recent months. Australia is “leading”, followed closely by the US, then Canada and the UK. Surprisingly, no other nations registered significant search volume for these terms in English.

• In the chart above, we see that skeptics have increasingly come to see “global warming” as something more sinister and man-made than a simple “myth”. (A trend which begins after the early-07 spike).
• This clip (Lord Monckton’s warning before the Copenhagen Climate Conference) caused associated break-outs in late October. Monckton is touring the US, speaking against the globalist institutional “response” to climate change: the clip was taken from this 90min talk at the Minnesota Free Market Institute.

Of course, I’m just searching English-language terms, so despite the massive weight of English-language content online, this is a little deceptive. The final charts show “global warming” in some other languages, first at a lower order of magnitude — and then higher for Japanese, Spanish and Indonesian. (Portugese, would be yet another magnitude higher.) See them here alongside English results — they are puny!

• “Global warming” in French — which showed strong early interest — and in German has fallen more dramatically than the English term.
• The Indonesians are late-adopters, and the Chinese surprisingly early. Russian interest has grown more strongly than in the West.
• Spanish-language interest has not leveled off significantly since ‘07.
• Japanese results are surprisingly even.

To be continued…

OK, so I don’t know for a *fact* that I have swine flu. I do have something, either a bad cold or a flu of some type, so I’ve spent the past couple days off work, lying around and watching movies. It would be a lot of fun if I weren’t physically so miserable, though there’s a sort of anomie that comes over you when it’s 5 PM and starting to get dark and you’ve done nothing all day but watch The Thing, Porco Rosso, and The Great Muppet Caper.

But I have managed to get some knitting done, so it’s not a TOTAL waste.

Anyway, if it is swine flu, my apologies to anyone I came in contact with while I was incubating and shedding virus like Gus sheds white fur in the springtime. I sincerely hope you don’t get infected and die. But moving on: in between anime and horror movies I have been thinking.

If you want to read some feverish ramblings, please click through.

I do not know yet if I’ll be called back for the second round of the audition I did two weeks ago. But say I am, and say I get the job. Say everything goes completely as I hope. What then? What’s the best case scenario?

The *best* case is I become a full-time opera singer in a few years. I travel to different cities to do different roles, I sing with orchestras here and there, I record stuff. It’s possible. People do it. I’m good enough to do it.

But do I want to? Will it make me happy?

The way I’m living now isn’t tenable in the long term. I can’t continue to teach 20+ hours a week and sing at the level I’m singing at now when I’m 40. I can’t do the work of what is basically running a small business (teaching) and running another small business (auditioning, gigging, self-producing stuff) and helping run another small business (the band) forever. One of them’s got to go. And as much as I like teaching, the reason why I keep working at getting other stuff going is that when I’m just teaching – when I don’t have anything else in the works or going on – I’m not happy.

My original plan, or the plan I came up with after winning the Eckhardt-Grammate, was something like this:

Plan A – Try as hard as I can to make it as an opera/concert singer for the next five or six years.

Plan B – If it doesn’t work, go back to school, get a Masters, and just teach full-time.

But if neither of those options is really what I want, then I think it’s time for:

Plan C – Be a truly independent artist. Find a way to express who you are and use all your talents fully.

Plan C is really scary. There is no one to help you with Plan C. There is no summer programme to apply for. There is no career ladder. There is no specific grant set up for it. There’s no guarantee and no safety net.

But I think it’s what I have to do. I don’t know exactly what it looks like yet, but I think I need to do it. And if I spent the time and energy I’ve been spending on trying to break into the opera world on it – then I think I could do something amazing.

As soon as I’m over this flu.