Sunday, May 24, 2009
侠客行

侠客行
作者：李白

赵客缦胡缨，吴钩霜雪明。银鞍照白马，飒沓如流星。
十步杀一人，千里不留行。事了拂衣去，深藏身与名。
闲过信陵饮，脱剑膝前横。将炙啖朱亥，持觞劝侯嬴。
三杯吐然诺，五岳倒为轻。眼花耳热后，意气素霓生。
救赵挥金槌，邯郸先震惊。千秋二壮士，煊赫大梁城。
纵死侠骨香，不惭世上英。谁能书閤下，白首太玄经

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Yiheng made 10:32 PM

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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Pseudo-Chinese Food and Really Expensive Food -vvx vww

More cool presentations ahead.

Here's one on American-Chinese food (or what I would call fake Chinese food). Watch out for the funny reactions from the people in China when presented with fortune cookies and what the guy who invented General Tso's chicken has to say about General Tso's chicken as it is today. Humorous and informative.


Here's another interesting one where this guy goes around sampling the most expensive products and giving his reviews. Now I know why people are willing to pay 25 bucks for chicken rice.


The site where you can find many more such videos.
TED: Ideas worth spreading

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Yiheng made 12:54 PM

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Sunday, May 17, 2009
Cutting Edge Technology -vvx vww

Everyone loves katanas but how much do you know about them?

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Yiheng made 10:30 PM

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Saturday, May 16, 2009
What's she thinking? -vwv

This is one creepy ad (the facial expression is more sinister in the original copy). I wonder what the air stewardess is thinking. Maybe it's "Enjoy the arsenic, you two-timing bastard!"

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Yiheng made 10:23 PM

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Sunday, May 10, 2009
Random Pictures -vwv

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Yiheng made 6:17 PM

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Trouble looks so cutttee...is it because of the thunder?
By  Soqcrates, at 11:53 PM  

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Saturday, May 02, 2009
Scientific Literacy -vvw vww

It should not come as a surprise to many people that I am one hell of a skeptic. I generally do not consider it a good idea to believe in anything that has not be rigorously tested. Perhaps I was influenced by my father, or maybe it was all those science and scientific philosophy books I used to read for fun. Regardless of the cause, the result of it was that I get very irritated when people try to pass something off as science when it clearly is not.

Most Singaporeans are reasonably tech-savvy. However, scientific literacy goes beyond understanding technology and keeping up with the latest scientific discoveries. The scientific method is one example of a vital part of science that sadly, is unknown to most people. At the very least, I think it is important to be able to distinguish between science and pseudoscience.

Wikipedia has a very good article on that but I will just list some of the more easily understood indicators of poor scientific reasoning here.

1. Lack of progress.
Scientific theories evolve over time as new evidence surfaces. Pseudoscience tends to stay the same since they are often not self-correcting. So if you think your particular school of Feng Shui is a science because it has existed for thousands of years, sorry to burst your bubble but you are wrong.

2. Over-reliance on personal experience.
"Oh my gawd, my horoscope is so accurate. It says I will lose money this week and I really did ... to Singapore Pools. And all my friends born in the same month didn't win Toto either."

3. Reversed burden of proof.
In science, it is the responsibility of the person making a claim to prove it true. Pseudoscience, on the other hand, places the burden of proof on the skeptics to disprove them. Now that I've said it, the next person who challenges me with "you can't disprove it" is gonna get punched in the face.

4. Occam's Razor (this one's my all-time favourite)
Resorting to an explanation that requires more assumptions than is necessary. For example, attributing electromagnetic activity to invisible ghosts when it can be explained by my cellphone receiving an SMS.

5. Use of vague terms and jargon that prevents other people from testing the so-called theory. If there's only one thing you can remember from this article, let it be this: Science should be TESTABLE.

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Yiheng made 9:20 PM

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