Two monkeys are serving in a restaurant in Japan. They have learned how to serve hot towels and bottled drinks to customers, it seems! Funky!
Video link here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7654267.stm
And in other news, in India, some human have learned how to behave like monkeys to scare away the real monkeys.
Video link here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7644469.stm
I'm helping some friends to raise fund to go for the World Youth Day in Sydney. If you're interested to purchase these miniature roses (made of soap) for any occasion (Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc), do drop me a note at catholiclinuxmonkey AT gmail DOT com.
They are available at S$12 to S$20, depending on the size.
More photos here:.jpg)
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While checking out EWTN's coverage of Pope Benedict XVI's first visit to the US, I saw that the US President George W Bush had agreed to an interview with EWTN prior to the visit. Out of curiosity, I streamed and watched it. It's worth watching as Bush seemed to pull many firsts for the Pope's visit: the first time a President 'picked up' a foreign dignitary at Andrews airbase, amongst other special treatments.
Watch the interview yourself here, or read the transcript here. He sounded more Catholic than any Catholic (secular) leader did. And the interview ended with this question from Raymond Arroyo, "You said, famously, when you looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes you saw his soul. [...] When you look into Benedict XVI's eyes what do you see?"; Bush answered immediately, "God." Here's an interesting excerpt:
Arroyo: Even your critics say they are amazed by you, and baffled by you, because you remain so positive, so upbeat -- (laughter) -- so on point. How much of that is a function of your faith?
Bush: Well, that's a very good question. You know, I don't think you can disassociate your faith with how you live your life. I mean, I think it's all engrained. And I am optimistic because I happen to believe in certain universal principles, and I do believe that freedom is universal, and if just given a chance, people will live in a -- will self-govern and live in a peaceful, free society.
...
And my faith has -- you know, my faith has been so sustaining in the midst of -- in the midst of what is a pretty hectic life, full of flattery and criticism. And faith keeps a person grounded. Faith reminds people that there's something a lot more important than you in life. I've been inspired by the prayers from ordinary citizens. And I have come to realize one -- more clearly the story of the calm in the rough season.
Well, not being American, I reserve no comment for her president. Yet, after this interview, Bush did come across as either a really smooth politician, or a genuinely good man who believes that "there's right and wrong in life." Whatever misgiving some might have about his presidency, I think I'll miss him after his office term ends. And once again, he did sound more Catholic than many Catholic politicians!
If you're not going to any of the events the Pope will be at, watch his trip from EWTN and pray for the many fruits of this trip!
A recent online poll by the journal Nature found that 20 percent of scientists had taken drugs to boost their brains.
Now I know why I can't sit still and concentrate for a long time.. I haven't had my ritalin and adderall and ginkgo and caffeine fix of the day *deadpan*
More here; also on the April Fools' prank that set this off!
After a week of solemnity and 40 days of penance behind us, let's celebrate life's little pleasures. These animals teach us how to live 'dangerously' and have plenty of fun!
Does the Internet make you happy? Are there things on the Internet that make you happy? Have you stopped doing something outside the Internet simply because doing them on the Internet is the best way to do it?
HELP my friends and I find out more about how youth (16 - 30 years old) feel about activities that you can do on the Internet. In order to participate in this 7-MINUTE survey, you need to be a STUDENT between the age of 16 to 30. You can be a high school student, college student or graduate student ANYWHERE.
We're participating in a small research project to study behavior and opinion about the Internet in general.
The link to the survey is here.
Since the survey intends to study about the youths in general, please pass this on to your friends who are STUDENTS between 16-30 years of age. Thank You! I'll post the result in a month's time.
I'm off to Vietnam tomorrow morning for a week. Be back with more pictures and stories!
Though I'm thousands of (genetic) miles away from being European, this quiz is fun, although its outcome is unexpected!
Your Inner European is Russian! |
 Mysterious and exotic. You've got a great balance of danger and allure. |
I haven't felt this exasperated in many years. I've never banged my head harder than I did tonight trying to install a little application onto a Windows Mobile smartphone device.
"What does every mobile developer ultimately want to do?" Simple question, simple answer: "To get the application to run on the phone". It took me hours of poring through MSDN's documentations and technical articles to find out just HOW exactly to do that.
<RANT ALERT!>
Alphabet Soup
"CAB", "INF", ActiveSync, are some of the terms thrown around liberally in the developers' articles. As if everybody knows what they mean. I don't know what a CAB is, I don't know why only a CAB file can install the app on the phone, and I don't know how do I make a CAB out of my executable. The only reason why I started searching for the keyword "CAB" was because I happened to remember that a year ago, that's what a colleague of mine used to run his Windows Mobile app. Now, if only these three simple questions can be answered in the same article, I think MSFT is justified paying good salaries to their technical writers.
Instead, here I am writing in frustration at 4AM in the morning because the documentation is so fragmented and the information design obfuscated! I really don't want to nitpick, but I'd think that since on-device deployment is a common goal for all developers, creating a CAB project would be a highlighted task/feature in Visual Studio 2005. But no, to create a CAB project, you have to add another project into your existing Project, and on top of that, select it from "Other Project Types"!
Frankly I was impressed the first time I saw the collection of documentation and technical articles available at MSDN website, but very soon it's clear quantity certainly does not trump over quality.
The last hop
Getting the app to the device, after a frustrating battle to generate a CAB file, was jumping through another set of hoops. 'Impressive' was my first reaction when I saw how many delivery mechanisms Windows Mobile support for the app installation: SMS/Email/Cab Installer/ActiveSync/Push SMS, you name it. After another wild goose chase trying to find out what is ActiveSync, and whether it ships with the SDK, and whether I really need to install it, it took another half hour to figure out what is the best way of getting the device 'online' and getting it to access the CAB file.
Needless to say, I did manage to install the app and that's why I am writing this now. But the tears of blood may not be worth it.
This blog hits 10,000 visits yesterday! I can't remember when the site traffic meter was first put in, perhaps some 2 years ago, but still... it's a reminder of how long it's been here, since August 2003!
On other news, I've got an announcement that in the tech world may be seen as nothing short of an apostasy: I started developing software on Microsoft .NET! *Gasp* *Choke* Well, to be fair I had evaluated all my choices and it came down to economics. So a potential client came up to us and asked us to do a Windows Mobile client job. The price was good and we said yes.
So I spent the last few days trying to install the various Microsoft animals that are required to get the IDE and the SDK up and running. Let me write here briefly what I had to do (just in case I ever need to do this again... I sure hope I don't have to!)
By this time, I have come to realize that the price quoted was fully justified -- the IDE installation process alone was painful enough. Welcome to Microsoftville *evil cackle*
This article amuses me to no end... some scientists are trying to 'map God' into regions of the human brain. What's amusing to me are: (1) how they try to see what's happening in the brains of several Buddhists as well as Carmelite and Franciscan nuns as they meditate / pray (or tried to pray, given that they are lying prone in an MRI scanner with electric caps attached to their heads), (2) how they explain 'away' the sensation of divine presence (and in the Buddhist cases, one-ness with the universe feeling), and then ironically, (3) how they would like to reproduce the apparent benefits associated with the practice of prayers in other (presumably non-praying) people by 'firing' on some regions of the brain to activate the 'God experience': "If you know how to electrically or neurochemically change functions in the brain, then you [might] in principle be able to help normal people, not mystics, achieve spiritual states using a device that stimulates the brain electromagnetically or using lights and sounds."
The conclusion seems a little disappointing to the scientists in this study, though not unexpected:
"There is no single God spot, localized uniquely in the temporal lobe of the human brain," Beauregard (ed: a neuroscientist) concludes. "These states are mediated by a neural network that is well distributed throughout the brain."
This is an interesting comment, although a little inconsistent, given that they did indeed volunteer themselves to this 'silly' study:
Although Beauregard had hoped the nuns would experience a mystical union while in the scanner, the best they could do, it turned out, was to conjure up an emotionally powerful memory of union with God. "God can’t be summoned at will," explained Sister Diane, the prioress of the Carmelite convent in Montreal.
To be fair, the article also mentioned that there are significant physical differences in certain areas of the brains amongst those who pray. The 'benefits' noted include alleviation of stress and sadness, as well as a slight reversal of the usual process of aging of the brain, which are still tangible benefits for anyone else who do not pray.
The reporter concludes thus:
[No] matter what neural correlates scientists may find, the results cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. Although atheists might argue that finding spirituality in the brain implies that religion is nothing more than divine delusion, the nuns were thrilled by their brain scans for precisely the opposite reason: they seemed to provide confirmation of God’s interactions with them. After all, finding a cerebral source for spiritual experiences could serve equally well to identify the medium through which God reaches out to humanity. Thus, the nuns’ forays into the tubular brain scanner did not undermine their faith. On the contrary, the science gave them an even greater reason to believe.
Read the rest here.
One of those timesinks that I can't resist taking today... (h/t to Fr Erik)
Looks like I need to work on the lit thingy and get a life..
PS: This is a 2.0 version of the earlier quiz
25 week old baby weighing 10oz delivered in Hanover, Germany. She survived against all odds and have been allowed to go home after six months. While not the youngest case recorded, it's the smallest preemie baby I've seen! More here.
It's sad that in many places, Singapore is one of them, the limit for legal abortion is 24 weeks, when it is clearly, obviously, already a baby. (Yeah, it's already a baby since conception, but you can't say that 25-week-old Kimberley Mueller was a blob of tissue.)
... a warm electrode, according to modern science :)
The subject has been ill with depression for more than ten years, and did not respond to typical treatment such as drugs and ECT (electroconvulsive therapy). This DBS (Deep Brain Surgery) treatment implanted electrodes that deliver a small, regular jolt of electrical current to an area of the brain 'believed to be a key regulator of mood'. While similar treatment has been done on patients with Parkinson's disease by normalizing the 'activity in the basal ganglia and thalmus—which dictate motor control—thus reducing trembling limbs', this operation is believed to be the first to 'tackle depression'.
The article did briefly mention the ethical concern of allowing this treatment to be performed without much understanding of why the electrical pulses seem to be correlated to mood uplifting, and putting in a mechanical implant that may have to last many decades. The argument given in favor of this treatment is the seeming epidemic of depression; and how time is the enemy of depression patients, having caused many fatalities through suicide (11th leading cause of death in the US, this article says). Notably missing however, is a discussion on the implication of having this implant in a patient's head—both from the risk aspect of mechanical failure or poisoning or contamination, and unforeseen psychiatric & physiological side-effect, since this treatment only picked up in the 1990's, giving only a very brief period to study the safety and the efficacy of such medical treatment.
Also troubling in my opinion, is how happiness (albeit the author meant it with his tongue-in-cheek) has been reduced to a formula delivered through a set of physical treatment. It may not be too long before it is made available to anyone who feels the need of an extra dose of happiness. Lunchtime pick-me-up session anyone?
I was watching "United 93", the first movie I've seen about September 11th 2001, just a few days before the memorial of six years after this tragedy. The movie is in general well written, and for the first time in my video-watching history, I actually checked out the 'Extras' at the end of the movie. In it (the DVD version), there are many families featured, who have lost someone in that flight, and how they were involved in the making of the movie. That was, I thought, the most touching part and telling, too!
One mother, interviewed in 2005, a year before the movie was released, said something to the effect that she did not know what kind of person her daughter really was until after her death. In a way the tragedy 'opened' her eyes, but she was still grieving for what could have been, what life they could have led together. Many lives were cut short that day, and I too was reminded to count on what really matters in our brief lives. May they rest in peace.
From Godsbody: "This is a double platinum album, and the number one iTunes download in ALL of Canada--not just the Quebec Province. i think it strikes the young single crowd profoundly."
Here's an alternative translation
I'm a big believer in self-motivation. That's why I'm such a sucker for things that can inspire. Take this song, for instance, a rendition of Frank Sinatra's "High Hopes" by a chubby guy in a goofy green t-shirt. If your day hasn't been that bad yet, it's ok, there'll be a time when you find this song cheers you up!
(HT to uncle jim of Adoro's blog)
Next time you're found, with your chin on the ground
There's a lot to be learned, so look around
Just what makes that little old ant
Think he'll move that rubber tree plant
Anyone knows an ant, can't
Move a rubber tree plant
But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes
He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time your gettin' low
stead of lettin' go
Just remember that ant
Oops! there goes another rubber tree plant
When troubles call, and your back's to the wall
There's a lot to be learned, that wall could fall
Once there was a silly old ram
Thought he'd punch a hole in a dam
No one could make that ram, scram
He kept buttin that dam
'cause he had high hopes, he had high hopes
He had high apple pie, in the sky hopes
So any time your feelin bad
stead of feelin sad
Just remember that ram
Oops! there goes a billion kilowatt dam
All problems just a toy balloon
They'll be bursted soon
They're just bound to go pop
Oops! there goes another problem - kerplop!