Terribly lucky?
HAD his grandmother not been visiting over Christmas, a 12-year-old boy's family might not have known that their Indonesian maid was sexually abusing him.
As grandma walked past the maid's room, which had its lights on and its door open, she was stunned to see the boy naked from the waist down and the maid performing oral sex on him.
The 27-year-old maid was yesterday convicted and now faces up to 10 years' jail when she is sentenced on June 2. Source.
Sometimes, I do not know how to react when I read such news. How is that sexual abuse?
For that matter, when two consenting teenagers decide to have sex, what's wrong? I mean, as long as the baby - if any comes along - are provided for, what's the big deal?
We wait till people are legally married and they don't want no children anymore. Then we dangle carrots in front of them to make them have babies. Why not let these baby production machines give birth? I'd gladly adopt a baby or two...
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Li'l Young Hypocrite
While I was waiting my turn at the clinic yesterday, a little boy of about 5 was also there. His sister was running a fever and was brought there by the grandmother. Since both siblings were under her care, he went along.
Not long after, both their parents arrived at the clinic.
His behaviour reminded me so much of many of the seasoned hypocrites I see at work. That fake smile, that calculativeness in pitting grandmother and mother at odds when his mother asked him to do something that the grandmother didn't.
That fake smile. That fully exposed frontal teethy smile with those conniving, calculative eyes... The last I've seen such a display was during my basic military training, when one of the recruits tried to wiggle his way out by acting dumb and moronic. And yet, this is a 5 year old boy.
I still get shudders when I think about him.
Not long after, both their parents arrived at the clinic.
His behaviour reminded me so much of many of the seasoned hypocrites I see at work. That fake smile, that calculativeness in pitting grandmother and mother at odds when his mother asked him to do something that the grandmother didn't.
That fake smile. That fully exposed frontal teethy smile with those conniving, calculative eyes... The last I've seen such a display was during my basic military training, when one of the recruits tried to wiggle his way out by acting dumb and moronic. And yet, this is a 5 year old boy.
I still get shudders when I think about him.
$2 noodles plus extra ingredients
I couldn't help but laugh when I read this:
Former hawker pleads guilty for rash act
I would have loved to write you a summary but the matter-of-fact reporting left nothing for me to remove.
SINGAPORE: A former hawker pleaded guilty in the Subordinate Court on Thursday morning for a rash act which severed the left thumb of a customer after the pair argued over a $2 bowl of noodles.
66-year-old Sim Yong Ha had picked up a 30-cm long chopper after patron Chan Seng Chai grabbed a plastic chair.
When Mr Chan swung the chair at him, Sim then used the chopper to block the chair.
The chopper hit Mr Chan's left hand and severed the 57-year-old retiree's thumb.
Mr Chan's wife had earlier complained about Sim's behaviour.
After she made numerous requests, the former hawker told her not to be so demanding because his noodles only cost $2.
Mr Chan then confronted Sim about these comments and the dispute resulted.
My take?
If you think your $2 noodles are too spartan, just add your own thumbs into the noodles. Thereafter, lick the sauce off. No need to go all the way to have the thumb chopped off to add to the noodles and then reattach it in the hospital later.
Actually, Mr Chan should be very happy. His wife's noodles are no longer $2, since the costs of reattching his thumb must have made those noodles more expensive than a bowl of king lobster and green lipped whole abalone egg noodles in top grade scallop sauce.
Latest updates from the Courts: 7 Jun
The Thumb is Worth $10000!
How's that for really expensive noodles?
Former hawker pleads guilty for rash act
I would have loved to write you a summary but the matter-of-fact reporting left nothing for me to remove.
SINGAPORE: A former hawker pleaded guilty in the Subordinate Court on Thursday morning for a rash act which severed the left thumb of a customer after the pair argued over a $2 bowl of noodles.
66-year-old Sim Yong Ha had picked up a 30-cm long chopper after patron Chan Seng Chai grabbed a plastic chair.
When Mr Chan swung the chair at him, Sim then used the chopper to block the chair.
The chopper hit Mr Chan's left hand and severed the 57-year-old retiree's thumb.
Mr Chan's wife had earlier complained about Sim's behaviour.
After she made numerous requests, the former hawker told her not to be so demanding because his noodles only cost $2.
Mr Chan then confronted Sim about these comments and the dispute resulted.
My take?
If you think your $2 noodles are too spartan, just add your own thumbs into the noodles. Thereafter, lick the sauce off. No need to go all the way to have the thumb chopped off to add to the noodles and then reattach it in the hospital later.
Actually, Mr Chan should be very happy. His wife's noodles are no longer $2, since the costs of reattching his thumb must have made those noodles more expensive than a bowl of king lobster and green lipped whole abalone egg noodles in top grade scallop sauce.
Latest updates from the Courts: 7 Jun
The Thumb is Worth $10000!
How's that for really expensive noodles?
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sick
Viral infection after nearly half a year of being well.
Never felt quite that bad... and all my major joints and muscles are aching.
Hate that feeling.
Never felt quite that bad... and all my major joints and muscles are aching.
Hate that feeling.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Shooting the breeze
So many things, so little time, so few brain cells, so limited memory. So this will be a so-so entry with many random ramblings haphazardly pieced together.
Think of it as a mental patchwork blanket.
Comic reactions to Greek tragedy. Hey, the fat Greeks are paying the price for fattening up. So why is everyone getting diarrhoea?
Rain. Dense but miniscule lines of water falling from the sky. Just looked out of the window.
Scab. Nicely formed on the head wound. Doctor advised against peeling it off prematurely. In fact, no peeling allowed. Let it drop off normally.
Lethargy. There is work but no interest to work. Money is there but no interest to even earn it.
Waiting. I don't even know for what.
Television programmes. Have some files in the hard disk but not in the Sofa-Burbank mood yet.
Cooking. The simpler the better. The weather is too hot for staying prolonged periods in the kitchen.
Coldness. Ice water tastes better these days because of the unbearable heat.
Shares. A prolonged slow bleed. Nothing seems to be able to staunch the bleed. Yet there are people who believe that a bloodied bull is still a bull.
Housing. Prices sky high. People still flocking showrooms and buying, overstretching themselves. Maybe some of them swallowed a fly. Maybe they'll die.
Cars. Prices not that high. People still fleeing showrooms and resisting, denying themselves. Maybe some of them should swallow a fly. The prices are at the new rock bottom. With the new COE cuts, with further cuts in July, there is no way but up for car prices. And by the time the silly car buyers realise that, COE prices will shoot through the roof again.
Chaos. My greatest fear is there is NOT ENOUGH chaos. Abhisit will dissolve Thai Parliament in September. Why so long? Haven't he realised that he might be sublimated by then? UK elections are almost a done deal. Labour exit widely expected. Bigoted woman, eh? Greece violence. So happy tree friend.
Crazy. Nothing wrong with being crazy. Really. At this rate, against what standard do we measure normal?
Think of it as a mental patchwork blanket.
Comic reactions to Greek tragedy. Hey, the fat Greeks are paying the price for fattening up. So why is everyone getting diarrhoea?
Rain. Dense but miniscule lines of water falling from the sky. Just looked out of the window.
Scab. Nicely formed on the head wound. Doctor advised against peeling it off prematurely. In fact, no peeling allowed. Let it drop off normally.
Lethargy. There is work but no interest to work. Money is there but no interest to even earn it.
Waiting. I don't even know for what.
Television programmes. Have some files in the hard disk but not in the Sofa-Burbank mood yet.
Cooking. The simpler the better. The weather is too hot for staying prolonged periods in the kitchen.
Coldness. Ice water tastes better these days because of the unbearable heat.
Shares. A prolonged slow bleed. Nothing seems to be able to staunch the bleed. Yet there are people who believe that a bloodied bull is still a bull.
Housing. Prices sky high. People still flocking showrooms and buying, overstretching themselves. Maybe some of them swallowed a fly. Maybe they'll die.
Cars. Prices not that high. People still fleeing showrooms and resisting, denying themselves. Maybe some of them should swallow a fly. The prices are at the new rock bottom. With the new COE cuts, with further cuts in July, there is no way but up for car prices. And by the time the silly car buyers realise that, COE prices will shoot through the roof again.
Chaos. My greatest fear is there is NOT ENOUGH chaos. Abhisit will dissolve Thai Parliament in September. Why so long? Haven't he realised that he might be sublimated by then? UK elections are almost a done deal. Labour exit widely expected. Bigoted woman, eh? Greece violence. So happy tree friend.
Crazy. Nothing wrong with being crazy. Really. At this rate, against what standard do we measure normal?
Monday, May 03, 2010
Writing Proofs
I will be teaching a course in graph theory to some secondary school kids in about three weeks and as I prepared the course materials, one key point stuck out: Students need to write proofs.
Writing proofs is inevitable in dealing with most mathematics. Many theorems come with their most commonly used proof or proofs. The Pythagoras' Theorem, for instance, can be proven over a hundred ways.
In comparison, some problem solving questions require a proof as a solution but there are unfortunately no standard proofs that the instructor can rely on or turn to.
Particularly in graph theory, many questions require solutions that are highly demanding. It is not enough to say that the answer is "n". Often, you have to show why all other answers other than "n" are not acceptable, even though they satisfy the general conditions of the question.
In this regard, constructing a logically water-tight proof is difficult because many of us do not use contradictions and exhaustion as strategies, unless we are involved in certain types of work. It would not be suitable for me to exclaim the beauty and prowess of such proof techniques as I don't want to be guilty of playing up my areas of interest and "semi-expertise" but having a good grasp of the techniques can help solve a lot of problems quite elegantly.
The proof by contradiction is often elusive and hard to figure out. One needs to know which condition is likely to undergo "reductio ad absurdum". One common claim that relies on the proof by contradiction is "square root 2 cannot be expressed as a fraction with whole number numerators and denominators." Intuitively, this looks simple and the claim seems more like an axiom than something to be proven. However, it is not axiomatic and how do we construct a proof to validate our intuition? Interested readers can click on the word proof to see a proof by contradiction of that claim.
Proof by exhaustion is something elementary learners of mathematics used to resort to when they first come across claims such as "there is no largest integer." Frequently, a child who has learnt concepts such as a million, a billion, a trillion, and so on will attempt things like "a trillion trillion trillion" and when you tell them, "how about you add one?" they will quickly come to terms that exhaustion is plain exhausting. And frequently, exhaustion does not prove anything. Before long, proof by exhaustion becomes an antiquated technique to these learners of mathematics, until they are forced to face their inner demons again.
In graph theory, in particular, the need to establish uniqueness in the solution often means that the other competing answers must be rendered inadmissible. While it is probably not sensible to show a full graph theory question to elicit thoughts on how to construct answers that rely on the proof by exhaustion, folks who have a propensity for factorization might delight in seeing how the proof by exhaustion is daintly applied in this example: If n is an integer, then (n^7 - n) is a multiple of 7.
The study of mathematics can often lead its learners to develop logical thought processes. Writing proofs is one of the tools that play an important role in developing a person's logical acuity. As with all pursuits, there is no gain until one gets their hands dirty and begin practicing.
I hope my students will appreciate the package that I'm putting together for them. After all, whoever said learning was always easy?
Writing proofs is inevitable in dealing with most mathematics. Many theorems come with their most commonly used proof or proofs. The Pythagoras' Theorem, for instance, can be proven over a hundred ways.
In comparison, some problem solving questions require a proof as a solution but there are unfortunately no standard proofs that the instructor can rely on or turn to.
Particularly in graph theory, many questions require solutions that are highly demanding. It is not enough to say that the answer is "n". Often, you have to show why all other answers other than "n" are not acceptable, even though they satisfy the general conditions of the question.
In this regard, constructing a logically water-tight proof is difficult because many of us do not use contradictions and exhaustion as strategies, unless we are involved in certain types of work. It would not be suitable for me to exclaim the beauty and prowess of such proof techniques as I don't want to be guilty of playing up my areas of interest and "semi-expertise" but having a good grasp of the techniques can help solve a lot of problems quite elegantly.
The proof by contradiction is often elusive and hard to figure out. One needs to know which condition is likely to undergo "reductio ad absurdum". One common claim that relies on the proof by contradiction is "square root 2 cannot be expressed as a fraction with whole number numerators and denominators." Intuitively, this looks simple and the claim seems more like an axiom than something to be proven. However, it is not axiomatic and how do we construct a proof to validate our intuition? Interested readers can click on the word proof to see a proof by contradiction of that claim.
Proof by exhaustion is something elementary learners of mathematics used to resort to when they first come across claims such as "there is no largest integer." Frequently, a child who has learnt concepts such as a million, a billion, a trillion, and so on will attempt things like "a trillion trillion trillion" and when you tell them, "how about you add one?" they will quickly come to terms that exhaustion is plain exhausting. And frequently, exhaustion does not prove anything. Before long, proof by exhaustion becomes an antiquated technique to these learners of mathematics, until they are forced to face their inner demons again.
In graph theory, in particular, the need to establish uniqueness in the solution often means that the other competing answers must be rendered inadmissible. While it is probably not sensible to show a full graph theory question to elicit thoughts on how to construct answers that rely on the proof by exhaustion, folks who have a propensity for factorization might delight in seeing how the proof by exhaustion is daintly applied in this example: If n is an integer, then (n^7 - n) is a multiple of 7.
The study of mathematics can often lead its learners to develop logical thought processes. Writing proofs is one of the tools that play an important role in developing a person's logical acuity. As with all pursuits, there is no gain until one gets their hands dirty and begin practicing.
I hope my students will appreciate the package that I'm putting together for them. After all, whoever said learning was always easy?
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Labour Day
It was more a Laborious Day than it was Labour Day.
I started off the day making morning beverages when I spilled Milo on the floor. I took a cloth, bent down, and wiped the powder off the kitchen floor tiles. As I got up, my head smashed right against the corner of the kitchen cabinet door and I literally understood first hand the meaning of "where stars are born."
I immediately applied pressure to the impact area and then I closed the cabinet door. "Damn it," I cursed silently. It was really really painful. Although the skull is a rather thick piece of bone, the scalp had many nerve endings and, if there were any open wounds, prone to bleeding.
As luck would have it, the wound began to bleed. Oh my Guanyin Niangniang, as Aunty Lucy would say. I pressed kitchen towels against the wound as it bled, hoping that I could stop the blood. Meanwhile, I ransacked my rather badly stocked first aid box for something to clean the wound.
No antiseptic solution. No Burnol. No... well, it's no everything useful basically. I found a betamethasone. It's a steriod and these don't go with open wounds generally. Being Labour Day, my family doctor is not open for business. I can't go there to get help.
I won't want to go round looking for a doctor who is open today. In fact, I wasn't even sure I was interested to find one. I cancelled my morning appointments and got Victor to drive me to the hospital.
Because of the nature of the injury, the nurse taking temperature at the entrance registered for me at the Accident and Emergency Department at Changi Hospital.
After a rather long wait, and after turning to a few clean sides of a new piece of kitchen towel to staunch the bleeding. It is NOT a serious bleed, but it is irritating enough to have blood oozing out non-stop.
By the time I got triaged, it was almost one and a half hour after I got cut. The bleeding, the nurse said, has stopped. But the doctor will get me some antiseptic cream and have my wound cleaned.
Waited for my turn after triage and saw the doctor. A locum at the A&E, the guy was young and very patiently impatient. Said a lot of things I already knew but I wasn't too bothered. After all, as long as he got the wound cleaned and then prescribe me some antiseptic cream.
Then if there were any justice, I didn't know it existed. The A&E only carried tetracycline based antiseptic creams. I was allergic to the 4-ringed antibiotic. So I could only have my wound cleaned but I can't get any antiseptic cream for it. I was prescribed only a cleaning solution to cleanse the wound. (In fact, the doctor prescribed the tetracycline cream, only to have me stop him!)
After the ordeal at A&E, we left as the wondrous emergency room filled up so suddenly.
And my day has barely begun.
I started off the day making morning beverages when I spilled Milo on the floor. I took a cloth, bent down, and wiped the powder off the kitchen floor tiles. As I got up, my head smashed right against the corner of the kitchen cabinet door and I literally understood first hand the meaning of "where stars are born."
I immediately applied pressure to the impact area and then I closed the cabinet door. "Damn it," I cursed silently. It was really really painful. Although the skull is a rather thick piece of bone, the scalp had many nerve endings and, if there were any open wounds, prone to bleeding.
As luck would have it, the wound began to bleed. Oh my Guanyin Niangniang, as Aunty Lucy would say. I pressed kitchen towels against the wound as it bled, hoping that I could stop the blood. Meanwhile, I ransacked my rather badly stocked first aid box for something to clean the wound.
No antiseptic solution. No Burnol. No... well, it's no everything useful basically. I found a betamethasone. It's a steriod and these don't go with open wounds generally. Being Labour Day, my family doctor is not open for business. I can't go there to get help.
I won't want to go round looking for a doctor who is open today. In fact, I wasn't even sure I was interested to find one. I cancelled my morning appointments and got Victor to drive me to the hospital.
Because of the nature of the injury, the nurse taking temperature at the entrance registered for me at the Accident and Emergency Department at Changi Hospital.
After a rather long wait, and after turning to a few clean sides of a new piece of kitchen towel to staunch the bleeding. It is NOT a serious bleed, but it is irritating enough to have blood oozing out non-stop.
By the time I got triaged, it was almost one and a half hour after I got cut. The bleeding, the nurse said, has stopped. But the doctor will get me some antiseptic cream and have my wound cleaned.
Waited for my turn after triage and saw the doctor. A locum at the A&E, the guy was young and very patiently impatient. Said a lot of things I already knew but I wasn't too bothered. After all, as long as he got the wound cleaned and then prescribe me some antiseptic cream.
Then if there were any justice, I didn't know it existed. The A&E only carried tetracycline based antiseptic creams. I was allergic to the 4-ringed antibiotic. So I could only have my wound cleaned but I can't get any antiseptic cream for it. I was prescribed only a cleaning solution to cleanse the wound. (In fact, the doctor prescribed the tetracycline cream, only to have me stop him!)
After the ordeal at A&E, we left as the wondrous emergency room filled up so suddenly.
And my day has barely begun.
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