No blockage

One thing I enjoyed in Europe is the ability to come out of the train last without being blocked. It was also quite nice during my trip in Thailand, where awaiting passengers start to move their legs only when the last person is stepping out of the train. It was also a surprise to me when I was at a LRT station in PJ early morning where there are many short queues formed before any signs of the train arrival, in pair besides each door position, and I don't remember there is any markings on the floor.

Here in Singapore, sigh...

Blog entry from my N80

Should have done this while I was in Berlin last week. I've relied fully on N80 for internet access during the whole trip! Getting back some worth of this purchase. Applications used are: nokia browser, service, map, google gmail, flurry, fring, opera mini. Only the nokia map is giving me problem.

Being religious

Religious teachings are generally considered good, or support the concept of serving others.
However, I observed most religious people seem to place self-interests on-top, or behind those of others. When faced with the challenge of risking one's spiritual and/or physical life for the betterment of others, only the true religious people overcome at ease and naturally.

Consider the famous story of two monks helping a lady across a river. The younger monk might have worried that he risk his spiritual health by touching the lady.

Consider shutting communication channels between "believers" and those whom the believers' higher authority labeled as evil. The "believers" prefer not to risk their chance of getting into Heaven, by not willing to have contacts with those whom they consider are not getting into Heaven.

Yet we see in movies, and some times also in real life, some heroic acts of taking high risk to save others.
Yet Jesus were among those whom the authority had considered not holy.
Yet a famous buddhist quote says "Should I not go to hell [to help], who shall [I ask to] go?"

What is bad?

Is death bad?
What about the death of an ant?
What about the death of a bacteria?
What about the death of a cell?

The above and many others are dying constantly. If they die at a slower rate, it is bad.

I say unnatural death is bad, but natural death is nature.

My best piece of writing!

Coming soon...

You will fall down.

I find it weird that parents like to "curse" their kids. I trust the natural instinct or learnt balancing skills in us. Sometimes kids may be in a higher risk of falling, but higher risk is not definite.

Business model

Some thoughts from me who knows very little about business in the academic and experiential sense.

I define business as some sustainable activities that will benefit the community, not only the customers only.

I define business model as a design/structure where the give-and-take, the ecology system between departments/organizations, or the flow of resources (convertable to money) achieve the purpose of sustaining at the minimum and growing the business.

The dot.com bursted. However, working business models in the cyberspace have grown up within it.

Bacteria

Amazing! There are 10 times more baterial cells in us than our own cells!

Finally, scientists are starting to look at health in more than a single dimension and single direction manner. Many ancient concepts of health are about balance, while the modern concepts have been more single ended.

Bacteria may seem bad, but without it is also bad.
Check this out: Hacking Your Body's Bacteria for Better Health

Is science stream better?

During my school days, 20 over years ago, the common understanding is that of the three streams, science/arts/commerce, science is somehow considered more prestigious.

However, looking at the money earning potential or the serving mankind potential, we can't say science stream is the best.

I guess that probably this is a self serving bias. The people in the educational industry seem to be bias with such view. Thus, the better performing students choose the illusionarily better science stream. Naturally, students in the other streams seem to be poor in science stream related skills. However, I suspect, that similarly, many of those who chose science stream have no other better choice because they are poor in arts/commerce related skills.

I wonder... may be it is indeed better, only as a result of this bias perception.

Non-mathematical skills

Some non-mathematical skills taught in mathematical lessons

1. cancellation
2. change the sign
3. move the decimal points
4. move the term to the other side of the equation

Why mathematics teachers teach non-mathematical stuffs?

Recently, I gave tuition to secondary 1 students, and I think nowadays mathematics teachers are skipping steps, while last time only students skip steps.

For example, 3x + 6 = 18, and the next line we put 3x = 18 - 6.
Mathematically, we subtracted 6 from both sides because we want to single out the variable x.
However, this is usually not being taught, or it was just mentioned without any intention of teaching by assuming that students won't understand. As a results, I saw in student's workings this: above the first equation, there is an arrow from above the number 6 going across to the right side of the number 18. That is, what students have learnt was they just "move"/"throw"/"bring" the number 6 over to the other side, and "change"/"convert" the plus sign to a negative sign. What is this!!! Learning mathematics, or learning magical or pattern rules of manipulating symbols?

There are many more such non-mathematical stuffs that are taught in schools!