Friday, April 1, 2011

I could ...

... use this video to troll my cousins who are die-hard Twilight fans.



But I ought to be bigger than that, dammit!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

My body belongs to God and me!

I think it is time that we stop questioning what Muslim women choose to wear. Whether she wears the head scarf, or face veil or a string bikini, IT IS HER CHOICE, OKAY?

Why is it a choice? Because that is God's gift and grace to us.

Why Do Muslim Women Wear The Hijab from rainbow collective on Vimeo.

Friday, March 25, 2011

On the days that you are feeling violent ...

... try counting to ten before setting anyone on fire. Unless you are Red Forman.

Kickin' DIY ass

All the laboratories complaining that they don't have enough money for a scanning electron microscope should watch this.



I salute you, Mr Krasnow.

From here.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Let's hear it for equal pay!

Once upon a time in Asia, girl children get only marginal education; priority was given to boys. Today, go to any university in Malaysia (and many parts of the world) and you can see how this is now laughable. More young women are qualified to enter universities than young men. This includes areas like engineering and mathematics, once upon a time the unencroachable domain of males.

Women are now breaching the glass ceiling; just look at personalities like the Governor of Malaysia's Central Bank, Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz. However, women still receive less pay than men worldwide; statistics in the USA show that women earn 77 cents to every dollar that a man earns.

If you want to show your support for equal pay for women, wear red on March 25th, will ya?



P/S Click on video at discretion (not entirely work safe). And you'll never look at your grandma quite the same way.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Friday, March 18, 2011

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Who is afraid of the Internet?

Beautiful, beautiful animated video that makes you smile, and then think. It may be a little long, but definitely worth clicking.



A lot of people are saying that the uprising in Tunisia and Egypt was largely successful because of the Internet. Connectivity helps to fan the fervour amongst those protesting and garner support to their cause. An Egyptian man even named his daughter Facebook as a tribute to the social networking site.  

But are we naive in thinking that the Internet is so powerful?

The Internet is value neutral; but like a sword, the wielder can both cut and also BE cut. It can be used as a tool by the activists; but by the same coin, the authorities working to stamp out dissidence can also use it to track, identify and contravene the efforts of the activists.

But  as Evgeny Morozov pointed out, when the Internet is primarily used to download bootleg entertainment material (all right, porn, dammit) and to tell/troll your friends of your "noteworthy" activities, the likelihood of the "democratic change" extolled by the cyber-utopians are about as real as the Farmville corn you harvest.

Euphemisms You Should Know

Euphemism: a word or phrase used to avoid saying an unpleasant or offensive word.
'Senior citizen' is a euphemism for 'old person'.
The article made so much use of euphemism that often its meaning was unclear.


This one is a winner: Got caught cheating by your wife = Crashing the Escalade.



That's what happens when you get caught with your pants down. Sometimes even literally.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Gotta love a nerd



Anyone who ever watched footie at a stadium (live or as a telecast) and/or is a hardcore rock music fan would know this iconic STOMP-STOMP-CLAP. I even had Generation Z students who used this song as template for a performance to explain mitosis.

This masterpiece is the brain child of one Dr Brian May, lead guitarist of the quintessential arena rock band, Queen. Dr May is more than a wild-haired electric guitar virtuoso, he is also an astrophysicist who wrote a book on the cosmology (aptly named Bang! A History of the Universe) based on his work on interstellar dust.

Yup, wild-haired brainy dude.(Thanks Wikimedia Commons!)

Initially, the sound effect was not to be included in the final cut of the song; but he was intrigued by the feedback from the audience during a concert that he thought deeply of how he could incorporate the audience participation in their live act - "a means of uniting the audience".

"I was thinking, 'What can you give an audience that they could do while they're standing there? They can stamp and they can clap and they can sing some kind of chant,' " he says. "To me, it was a uniting thing. It was an expression of strength." - excerpted from NPR interview.


He drew from his physics and mathematics background to create a distinctive sound of thousands of feet stomping and clapping in unison, building sound using old boards and prime numbers. Bet when you were swotting through mathematics, calculus, algebra and geometry, you never thought that you can use it to create a song that nets you millions in royalties, no?

Dr Brian May is the reason why girls love wild haired musicians: the guitar will loosen the knickers, but that brain? Totally meltworthy.