I was listening to Sarah McLachlan’s Angel when I thought, “Gee. This sounds great at night. I wonder what other songs there are out there…?” So I hit the button and the first thing that comes up is
Hello, Last.fm? In what way is Angel similar to this?
Gary :: Nov.18.2008 :: Bitchin' :: No Comments »
TNP recently ran an interview with a couple who are “angry” at the zoo over the White Tiger incident, because the man’s niece had been attacked by a rhino two years ago. Understandably so, but Son, ignoring the fine details - especially those differentiating both cases - is no way to go through life.
This is a prime example of what happens when journalists afford credence to people with more time than brains - the piece ends up laughably shallow.
He said: “For enclosures with dangerous animals, there should be more barricades between the visitors and the animals, such as a glass barrier which will allow people to see the animals. This way, no one will hurt themselves in the zoo.
Makes so much sense!
Because, as we all know, death by om-nom-nom is the only way to get hurt at the zoo.
Because having more barriers between the animals and the gawkers is more likely to thwart those hell-bent on feeding themselves to the animals, while allowing those who want to see the animals continue to be able to see the animals - even dangerous animals.
Because, you know, glass barriers are insurmountable. Damn glass barriers.
Gesturing to the fence at the white tigers’ exhibit, behind which visitors would stand, Mr Ramson, who visits the zoo three times a year, said: “Look at the barrier. It barely comes up to someone’s waist. You never know, in a split second, a child who has never seen these animals may get too excited, climb on the ledge, and fall in. Then it’s game-over.”
“behind which visitors would stand“, indeed!
For a guy who doesn’t seem to like the zoo much, he sure visits it a lot. I mean, a good number of Singaporeans I know don’t visit the zoo once in three years; and this guy does it every 4 months on average. Someone get this guy a Friend-of-the-Zoo card or something!
Also, he sounds tall.
Let’s postulate, for the sake of argument, that the “easiest” height for a child (who doesn’t know better) to scale would be one coming up to his chest. I say so because any barrier as tall as or taller than the child would require the kid to jump, climb, or get himself boosted significantly in order to get it to elbow height. (Remember, we’re talking about a height a child could simply scale like a ninja and get into the enclosure so fast that his presumably-responsible parents would have no time to react.)
I further posit that such at-risk children will fall into the 6-13 year old category. I say this because kids below 6 are generally too short - so as to be unreasonable in the context of this example. Anyone older than 13 should be in secondary school, and I presume (I hope I’m right) that secondary-school children know better.
The average height of a Singaporean adult male is about 1.7m, so I’m going to go out on a limb (in keeping with the facts-from-ass theme of this article) and work with a 1.4m-tall, primary six boy. Boy, because as everyone knows, girls only get excited by ponies. And ponies don’t eat people.
From the above, we can guesstimate the height of the barrier the boy can easily scale by expressing it as 0.75 x 1.4 = 1.05m. Seeing how Mr Ramson described it as “barely comes up to someone’s waist” we can easily agree that the person would have to be at least 2 x 1.05 = 2.10m tall. Wow, Mr Ramson.
So now we all know: If a 2.10m parent brought his average-height hyperactive primary six son (who has never seen a tiger) to the zoo, the odds of said son jumping the fence (with no glass barrier separating them from the animals) are very high indeed.
Also, the secondary moral of this whole post is that you can write a pretty damn lot so as long as you produce numbers from your arse.
Gary :: Nov.17.2008 :: Bitchin', A thousand words, All the news that's fit to print :: No Comments »
Not to be a sniggering bastard, but quotable quote is quotable.
“My parents had jumped into the swimming pool thinking that the water would only come up to their feet. Now, it seems like there is a black hole in the swimming pool that is sucking everyone in and drowning them.”
The universally-understood (astronomically not-so-understood) metaphor of the black hole, coupled with the absurd image of a swimming pool with water which only comes up to one’s feet makes for Sensational Literary Device! Furthermore, the allusion to suffocation highlights the helplessness and desperation of the victims, drawing on the basic human fear of being sucked in and drowned simultaneously!
Can it be Hugo Award time nao?
Gary :: Oct.13.2008 :: Bitchin', A thousand words, All the news that's fit to print, WTF, Sad :: No Comments »
I was in line at a food court stall just earlier. It was dinner hour, and I was part of a long queue which had formed at the storefront, running parallel to the counter. After a good 10 minutes of waiting in line, I reached the front of the queue, with just one lady in front of me. When her order arrived, she decided that some fried bawang would go very well with her dish, and proceeded to request said bawang from the stallholder through a complex game of charades. She pointed at something vague, and got an extra bowl. Not being what she wanted, she returned the thing and tried again. And again.
While largely entertaining under other circumstances, holding up the only service person (and by extension, the entire line) with a cute game of guess-what-I-have-in-mind does not run well with me, nor I suspect, anyone else in the queue.
Here’s a protip for you, lady. The next time miming doesn’t work, how about you open your fucking mouth?
Gary :: Oct.06.2008 :: Bitchin' :: 1 Comment »
Not the same:
Math.round(Math.random()*2)
and
Math.floor(Math.random()*3)
Goddamit.
Gary :: Sep.22.2008 :: Bitchin' :: No Comments »
I have just bulk-moderated 322 spam comments and I am not pleased.
“Casino”, “Poker” and “insurance” have just made it onto my shitlist. so if you’re leaving a comment, don’t use these words.
Gary :: Jul.24.2008 :: Bitchin' :: No Comments »
…since I actually wrote anything here, but just a quick note to say that I’m still very much alive. Also, it’s a Monday. I hate this job.
Laos or India? New lens or not? So many more important things to think about. A year ago I just returned from my Viet / Cambodia trip. I must’ve been feeling quite sad… almost as sad as I am now.
Gary :: Jun.02.2008 :: Bitchin' :: No Comments »
Traumatic…
I just tried to reinstall my scanner (an old Canon n1220U) as I have been lazy to do so ever since I upgraded my PC. Canon Europe’s website turned up no Vista drivers, so in my infinite wisdom I decided to give the XP drivers a shot. They downloaded and installed flawlessly. I fired up Photoshop for a test scanm and after a minute or so of “initial calibration”, the entire driver crashed. Vista then helpfully shut off my scanner, and it wouldn’t auto-detect for some reason despite my unplugging and replugging it in.
So, a reboot.
The damn machine refused to POST. No RAM count, no BIOS logo, nothing.
Deep breath.
Power cycling didn’t help.
More deep breaths. The rational side of me advised that it was most likely something to do with my unstable overclocking config, and that Windows had no hand in my PC’s refusal to wake up. Coincidence. Coincidence. The other half of my brain wasn’t being too helpful - “but what if it does? You never know… it’s Vista after all, with it’s inexplicable ways. MAYBE THIS THING WILL NEVER WAKE UP!!!”
I power cycled everything.
5 minutes later, success! - but wait - what’s this? BSODOMGWTFBBQ!!!!
I stared at the thing in disbelief, its cheery, friendly nature apparent in its constant BSOD-reboot cycle. The crash was so fast I didn’t even have time to glimpse the error code, but 3 cycles later, I somehow managed to boot into safe mode… and through the life-saving miracle of System Restore (Microsoft may be evil, but fuck you - it has System Restore.) I managed to bring everything back up in 10 minutes.
fin.
P.S. I love System Restore.
Gary :: Feb.19.2008 :: Bitchin', General :: 1 Comment »
I had one of these as a kid. It was my “play” camera… foisted on me by my dad so I wouldn’t touch his SLR. For years I played with it, dropped it, slung it, peered through the eyepiece… and now Lomography is selling it as an antique piece. ARGH. If only I could find it now…
Update: Currently the winning bidder for a beautiful set on ebay. Let’s wait and see…
Gary :: Feb.06.2008 :: Bitchin' :: No Comments »
Canon yesterday launched the Digital Rebel XSi, a 12.2 MP successor to the XTi. Argh. The kit lens is 18-55mm IS.
Now at work. Update later.
Gary :: Jan.25.2008 :: Bitchin', All the news that's fit to print :: No Comments »