Category: personal AnGoL

Posted on

rePost::Love of Shopping is Not a Gene: exposing junk science and ideology in Darwinian Psychology – Boing Boing

I believe that blaming your genes for almost anything is the wrong way to go. It is a cop out and I would never want to be that way. We have the lives we have, deal with it, learn love change improve create. The limitations that our genes impose on us is not as shackling as the limitations we place on ourselves.

Love of Shopping is Not a Gene: exposing junk science and ideology in Darwinian PsychologyAnne Innis Dagg’s “Love of Shopping” is Not a Gene is a scathing, entertaining and extremely accessible geneticist’s critique of “Darwinian Psychology” — that is, the “science” of ascribing human behavior to genetic inevitability. Dagg, a biologist/geneticist at the University of Waterloo, identifies Darwinian Psychology as a nexus of ideological pseudoscience cooked to justify political agendas about the inevitability of social inequality, especially racial and sexual inequality.One after another, Dagg examines the cherished shibboleths of Darwinian Psychology, examining the research offered in support of such statements as “Rape is genetic” or “Black people are genetically destined to have lower IQ scores than white people” and demolishes each statement by subjecting it to scientific rigor, including an examination of all the contradictory evidence ignored by proponents.
via Love of Shopping is Not a Gene: exposing junk science and ideology in Darwinian Psychology – Boing Boing.

Posted on

rePost::The Twilight Saga: New Moon Spawns IMDb Battle of the Sexes Turf War | /Film

Mom’s want to be 16 year olds and 16 year olds want to be mom. Priceless. Interesting yung graphs click through!

The funniest thing about the rankings is the demographics behind the votes The average Male user rating is a 3.3, while the average female user rating is an 8.0. And while females under 18 rate the film a 8.7, the most popular demo is the “Twilight Mom”, females aged 30-44, which have given the film an average rating of a 9.9. Wow… Full graphs after the jump.
via The Twilight Saga: New Moon Spawns IMDb Battle of the Sexes Turf War | /Film.

Posted on

rePost::20-year old Iraqi woman dies; father ran her over for being too Westernized – Boing Boing

I am too mad to comment. These people make religion harder for the rest of us. Fuck. I fear that the time when we have to choose between religious freedom and freedom of speech is near.  I know what I’ll choose , I just don’t like the other people on that side.

20-year old Iraqi woman dies; father ran her over for being too Westernized
noor faleh almaleki.pngA young Iraqi woman died tonight in Arizona because her father believed she had become too Westernized. Noor Faleh Almaleki, the 20-year old pictured here, moved to the Phoenix area in the mid-90s with her family.
via 20-year old Iraqi woman dies; father ran her over for being too Westernized – Boing Boing.

Posted on

rePost::2009-10-20/high_anxiety.md at master from raganwald's homoiconic – GitHub

Who knows how to play Go? Let’s play some time.
Where does one buy a Go set here in the Philippines?
The following stuff was about one person trying learn go!
I’ve long wanted to play this game ever since I got hooked on the anime playing at qtv 11 about Go.
Need to search the interwebs for local go gaming groups!

Try something, she encouraged. Succeed, fail, it doesn’t matter. Try something and see how it works out. But I sat, paralyzed by fear, paralyzed by indecision. It wasn’t that I didn’t know which move to play. That phrase suggests that I could see a few plays, had a few ideas of things I wanted to do. But I had no idea what I could be trying to do. I couldn’t select a move because I didn’t see any moves. Sure, I could place a stone on any vacant intersection, so in a sense I had a list of possible moves. But at any non-trivial level, a move suggests some sort of intention. I had no intentions, I had no idea what I could be trying to do or why.
via 2009-10-20/high_anxiety.md at master from raganwald’s homoiconic – GitHub.

Posted on

rePost::Good People Work Hard

I’ve heard the excuse “Don’t have enough time” from a lot of people.  The thing is we make time, we are only young once why not push ourselves to the max. We never know how long we have in this life,  i’d rather say to myself I did all that I could have, all that I can within the choices I made, than say to myself I was a victim of my circumstance.
We never have enough time. We make time for the things we believe to be important!

I, of course, wrote the DVI-to-CRS software, which also required some tricky font caching (the algorithm for which is the basis of my only published paper, which was actually written by my co-author, guess who?). Those were some intense days of working together, getting it all to work. The CRS was in a cramped basement room, and I had to load and unload each sheet of photographic paper in the darkness, and feed it into the triple-bath developer. Any bug could be potentially in my code or Knuth’s firmware, and as I mentioned, debugging wasn’t easy. After a number of very long days, I came in one morning, and came into Knuth’s office just as he was arriving and handing a stack of legal paper to his secretary. “Here’s a paper I wrote, please type it in,” he told her. I was floored. We’d been working night and day; did he write the paper in his sleep?
It is not uncommon that, in the middle of an important project, you need to work extra hard. But Knuth, despite working all day to make his code work, still spent an unknown amount of time writing papers (maybe during sleep…), so he wouldn’t compromise his scientific output. It just reminds me that to be really good, it is not enough to have good ideas. You also need to work hard.
Next time you feel overwhelmed by your projects, think about this.
via Good People Work Hard.

Posted on

rePost::How to memorialize friends who have passed away on Facebook – Boing Boing

Spent about 30 minutes thinking what I would want when I die. Kind of surreal, but nice.

Over on the Facebook blog, head of security Max Kelly has just explained what to do to memorialize the profile of someone who has passed away:
We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it’s important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized.
…When an account is memorialized, we also set privacy so that only confirmed friends can see the profile or locate it in search. We try to protect the deceased’s privacy by removing sensitive information such as contact information and status updates. Memorializing an account also prevents anyone from logging into it in the future, while still enabling friends and family to leave posts on the profile Wall in remembrance.
If you have a friend or a family member whose profile should be memorialized, please contact us, so their memory can properly live on among their friends on Facebook.
via How to memorialize friends who have passed away on Facebook – Boing Boing.

Posted on

rePost::Charter Cities: Rules and Culture: Corruption in Hong Kong

Fighting corruption is not hopeless guys, although can’t see how we can implement something like this in the Philippines. I think we need something like No Term Limits for Ombudsman.  How does one find good people ? This is a recurring problem that I fear is really unsolvable, in the sense that we need to first foster a or encourage a culture of honesty and trust and the way I see it if people in government are corrupted in a way that may be called systematic, people from below, need to take honesty from the ground up. For now the top down corruption is winning but I am hopeful that eventually the bottom up idealist will eventually succeed!

The government’s initial attempt to fight corruption relied on a combination of an anti-corruption branch within the police force and a reduction in the prosecution’s burden of proof. For instance, the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (1971) made it an offense to be in control of property unexplained by past income. However, since the police themselves were corrupt, relying on the police to investigate corruption proved futile.
After initial failures, in 1974 the governor general moved anti-corruption responsibilities to a new elite ministry: the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). The ministry was independent, directly responsible to the governor, well paid, and recruited from the civilian population. The public, confident in the new ministry’s independence, became much more cooperative in reporting instances of corruption.
via Charter Cities: Rules and Culture: Corruption in Hong Kong.

Posted on

rePost::Advice in Interesting Times

Nice commencement speech address by Jerry Yang the c0 founder of yahoo. Nice list, read the whole thing guys!

Point two: You get out of life what you put into it.
Success doesn’t come from a high IQ or innate talent. It takes a willingness to work hard. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he introduced the “10,000 hour rule,” which holds that it takes about 10,000 hours of hard work and practice — or ten years — to become a world-class expert in anything. The difference between a good violinist and a virtuoso comes down to ambition and having the discipline to put in the requisite time. As someone once said, in golf as in life, it is the follow through that makes the difference.
My mother taught me the rules of perseverance. While I’ve certainly faced challenges since founding Yahoo!, they were nothing compared to what my mother faced coming to the US as a single parent from Taiwan, with two young boys and a few suitcases. I was ten at the time, and the only English word I knew was the word “shoe.” It could have been very easy to feel discouraged. But I worked hard, studied hard, and played hard along the way. Yes, good timing and some luck played a role in my starting Yahoo!, but there is just no substitute for hard work and relentless preparation.
via Advice in Interesting Times.

Posted on

rePost::Fan wants life ban on Arboleda | ABS-CBN News Online Beta

LEt’s get this out of the way. What Arboleda did was inexcusable.
Heckling is really part of the game, in some ways its one of the top 5 reasons (this is a nice post idea) why I love watching games live. And based on experience some people lose all verbal decency during games. This has to stop. There should be limits and its refreshing to see that the PBA commissioner is finally going to create a framework to handle unacceptable behaviors on the players and the fans camp. I feel for Arboleda, what players experience oncourt is really a very harsh form of verbal abuse. This does not excuse his behavior but it really puts things in context. Arboleda is a passionate player, he is easy to cheer against because you see he really tries his best. His not playing for the year is really going to weaken an already weak BK team.

Agcaoili said his client is still in mental anguish and in shock as a result of Arboleda’s vicious attack.
“His parents, who are both in their senior years, had elevated blood pressure after seeing the incident. His wife, who is six months pregnant, shook violently after seeing the incident on television and on the internet and continues to have chills as a result,” Agcaoili said.
“His family is still in total shock and in complete fear and indignation over how a professional basketball player in the country’s premiere league can behave in a manner as Wynne Arboleda did,” Agcaoili added.
Arboleda, however, said he’s ready to face Katigbac in court.
The hard-nosed BK player said they will file counter-charge against Katigbac.
“I lost my source of livelihood because of him. I will not allow him to totally destroy me,” Arboleda told The STAR.
Arboleda said he was provoked in committing the act.
“He cursed me no end in front of my family,” said Arboleda, who was suspended for the rest of the season without pay.
Last season, Marlou Aquino, Danny Ildefonso and Marc Pingris were meted penalty as they also figured in a fight with fans. The three were restrained before getting to the fan.
“I’d like to look at the positive side out of this ugly incident. We’ll undertake program on responsible game watching. It’s about respecting each other and conducting ourselves in the highest integrity,” said Barrios.
“We’ll sit down with the Araneta Coliseum management to craft arrangements not only on security but protocol on fan behavior. Among the players, I doubt if someone else would do something like this with the severe penalty (imposed on Arboleda),” Barrios added.
via Fan wants life ban on Arboleda | ABS-CBN News Online Beta.

Posted on

rePost::Ad Congress pulls out of Baguio, cutting revenues for city's rehab – Business – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News

I am reiterating my post yesterday! Let’s go to baguio!

Ad Congress pulls out of Baguio, cutting revenues for city’s rehab
MARIA ELENA GONZALES
10/15/2009 | 04:51 PM
BAGUIO CITY – Organizers of the 21st Philippine Advertising Congress have chosen to hold the event elsewhere, depriving the city of much-needed revenue for its rehabilitation efforts.
The Advertising Board, organizer of the annual gathering of the country’s advertising industry, has canceled hotel reservations, “even though the venues for the events were ready and waiting and none were affected by the typhoon,” Anthony de Leon, head of the Baguio Tourism Council said.
Slated for November 18 to 21, this year’s Philippine Advertising Congress was expected to bring over 5,000 participants to the mountain resort.
Millions of pesos worth of hotel reservations for both the Camp John Hay Manor and the Baguio Country Club have been lost due to the venue change.
Despite the cancellation, the council “will be working double time to bring back tourism and business here,” De Leon said.
The city is also set to host the annual Fil-American Golf Tournament in December where 1,300 golfers are expected to converge for two weeks of play.
“If these conventions take place tomorrow, we are still ready,” De Leon said.
via Ad Congress pulls out of Baguio, cutting revenues for city’s rehab – Business – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News.