China Job Fair Photos

My friend Dennis sent me some eye-popping photos of throngs of students looking for employment at a job fair in Shenzhen, China. I wasn't able to locate the original web site hosting these photos, so I uploaded them into my web album for your viewing:

From China Job Fai...

From China Job Fai...

Although I couldn't find the original web source, I found this China news story that commented on the extreme overcrowding situations at these China job fairs:

http://www.iwaiyu.com/html/guowaixinwen/shehsh/20070414/2805.html

In the 2nd photo, the escalator's handrails were completely bent out of shape!!!

According to the article, China releases 4.8 million university/college graduates into the job market EVERY YEAR! That is more than the population of Singapore! But there isn't enough jobs for all these graduates. No wonder many of its people have landed in Singapore looking for employment.

For instance, I was struck by this recent Straits Times article which mentions a Ms Wu Ye Li who has been working for the past 2 years at the dessert stall in the Koufu Foodcourt in Toa Payoh. Ms Wu Ye Li works 12 hours a day, gets only 2 days off every month (ie. she works 28 days a month), and is only paid a monthly salary of S$1000:

http://business.asiaone.com/Business/Office/Ask/Story/A1Story20071209-40266.html

(do a text search for "wu ye li" if you don't want to read the whole article.)

So, if you are complaining about your job or your pay, hope this puts things into perspective ...

Merry Christmas!

NJ

BBC News video: Chimps beat humans in memory test

This is an eye-popping news feature from BBC News. This video is definitely a MUST watch!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7120000/newsid_7126100/7126174.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm

The chimpanzees are absolutely amazing. Chimpanzees are of course, the closest animal relative to human beings on the evolutionary tree. I know chimps are extremely intelligent creatures as evident from many a Hollywood movie and from science documentaries. Chimps know how to use tools, can be taught Sign Language, and are known to exhibit many human characteristics (like altruism).

However, this is the first time we know that chimps actually have an EXCELLENT (photographic?) memory. This memory faculty far surpasses our own.

I have always thought humans are superior to all other animals when it comes to brain (cognitive) functions. This has now been proven completely wrong! Watching the chimps' stunning performances is truly humbling :-)

The accompanying text article is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7124156.stm

Documentary - "The Bible Revolution"

I watched a very informative documentary called "The Bible Revolution" on Google Video this morning (see below for hyperlink), which should be of great interest to my Christian friends. If you are not a Christian, the history of the English bible, which is what this documentary is about, will still be very educational.

I find it fascinating that there is more than 38000 different Christian denominations in the world (grouped under 5 major branches). Why are there Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Presbysterians etc when at the heart of it, they all worship the same Jesus Christ? Apparently, many of the breakaway factions came about simply because of differences over the bible!

The first OFFICIAL bible was authorised in the year 382 by the Roman Catholic church. At that time, all the existing texts were only written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Roman Catholic church translated these texts into Latin (the language of the Roman Empire), and made the Latin compilation the official Christian bible.

However, with the fall of the Roman Empire in the year 476, the Latin language slowly declined and fell from disuse. By the late 16th century, most people in Europe could not speak Latin. Latin was a "dead" language mastered mainly by intellectuals and the church, and not by the common folks. The common folks could not read the Latin bible on their own, and had to hear the bible stories from the priests of the Catholic church (in the early 1500s, all churches in Europe were Catholic churches).

In England, William Tyndale translated the bible into English in 1523. The Catholic church was against the translation (they insisted that only their Latin version is the one-and-true bible). William Tyndale was arrested in 1535 for heresy and treason simply because of publishing the bible in English. He was executed by the Catholic church by being burnt on the stake in 1536.

In Germany, Martin Luther had also translated the bible into German (also in 1523). Now that the bible can be read by the common folks in Europe, the people realised that many of the Catholic church practices were NEVER taught by Jesus nor even documented in the bible. The practices were pure inventions of the Catholic church. Martin Luther initiated a movement to eliminate the invented Catholic practices from his church movement, which became the birth of Protestantism Christianity.

With the English bible in the hands of the common folks in England, Protestantism was also taking root there against the Catholic practices. Finally, the notorious King Henry VIII (who married SIX TIMES and who is rumoured to have fathered many illegitimate children), decided to sever all connections between the Church of England and the Catholic church. The reason: so that he could divorce his first wife Catherine to marry Anne without seeking the Pope's permission!

Queen Catherine gave birth to Mary, while Queen Anne gave birth to Elizabeth. Mary was Catholic, while Elizabeth was Protestant.

The severance of England from the Catholic church angered the Pope, who initiated a war against England. Within England itself, there was a lot of power play between Catholics and Protestants supporters. When King Edward, who succeeded Henry VIII, died in 1553, the Catholics manage to install Mary as the Queen of England. Queen Mary immediately started repairing ties with the Pope and the Catholic church. During her reign, almost 300 Protestants were burnt at the stake for heresy, resulting in the term "Bloody Mary" being used to refer to her.

Unfortunately, Queen Mary died childless, and Queen Elizabeth I inherited the throne in 1558. By deft political manipulation, Elizabeth I managed to strike a compromise between the Catholic and Protestant forces in the church, resulting in the amalgam known today as Anglican Christianity. This is why Anglicanism contains aspects of both Catholic and Protestant practices.

In 1611, England published the "King James Version" of the English bible. By all intents and purposes, the KJV version of the bible is William Tyndale's bible.

Through his English translation of the bible, William Tyndale left a huge impact on the English language. Many famous English idioms and phrases we use today such as:

• Am I my brother's keeper?
• Stranger in a strange land
• Burning bush
• An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
• Spare the rod and spoil the child
• Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die
• See eye to eye
• Can the leopard change his spots?
• In the lion's den
• Man shall not live by bread alone
• Turn the other cheek
• Cast your pearls before swine
• Wolf in sheep's clothing
• New wine in old bottles
• He that is not with me is against me
• Sign of the times
• I wash my hands of it
• Physician, heal thyself
• Grapes of wrath
• Lost sheep
• Prodigal son
• Cast the first stone
• Doubting Thomas
• Through a glass, darkly
• The root of all evil
• Armageddon
• A thorn in the flesh
• Weeping and gnashing of teeth
• Go the extra mile

all originated from the English bible, and specifically from Tyndale's translation. Just as the English language owes much to William Shakespeare, its debt to William Tyndale is unmeasurable.

If the Catholic church had not violently countered the translation of the bible (people were burnt on the stake by the Catholic church simply for translating the bible!), there probably wouldn't be so many church denominations today. The history of the English bible is truly a dark and macabre one.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6101527704063312894

Science Lectures - "Growing Up In The Universe"

Professor Richard Dawkins is the famous evolutionary biologist and ethologist who wrote the book "The Selfish Gene" and introduced the word "meme" into everyday English. Richard Dawkins is also the current holder of the "Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science" at the University of Oxford.

In 1991, Richard Dawkins gave a series of 5 one-hour lectures on Science which was telecast on BBC television. These lectures were aimed at children and young adults. Recently, all 5 lectures were made available on the internet for free viewing online by Richard Dawkins' foundation (prior to the free release, you would have to buy the DVD to view them).

If you have young children who are interested in science (maybe they want work in the fast growing Biomedical/ Biotechnology industries that Singapore is investing huge amounts of money in currently when they grow up), they might find these science lectures interesting. I watched them last night, and they were so engrossing I had to watch all 5 of them at one sitting. They are exceptionally educational and absorbing.

This is a short segment from one of the lectures explaining how our human eyes have evolved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUOpaFVgKPw

If your children find this segment to be interesting, they may want to watch the entire 5 lectures. As for myself, I have never had science lessons when I was young presented in such a fascinating manner. Indeed, I found this series to be very illuminating as I had always marvelled at the incredible workings of the human eye. In another lecture, the even more complex brain and its workings are described.

All 5 lectures can be watched from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science website:

http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/foundation,growingupintheuniverse

Christian "Thiology" in Singapore Parliament

Thio Li Ann

I do not follow Singapore politics much as political discussions here are pretty dull and bland, focusing mainly on bread and butter issues. The PAP government is very effective in economic matters and providing for its citizens the lower level "deficiency needs" (as defined by Abraham Maslow) , but in return, curtails too much on creativity matters by enforcing excessive security and caution in these areas to ever fully provide the higher level "growth needs" required by Singapore to advance to the next level.

As such, I was not even aware that parliament had inducted into its chambers the vitriolic and dangerous Thio Li Ann until I read about her extremely vindictive and hate-filled speech on the S377A repeal recently.

It doesn't take much to quickly discern from her malevolent speech that Thio is a fundamentalist Christian who is hell bent to import into Singapore the same kind of fundamentalistic right-wing Christianity from the US that currently infects much American politics. Fortunately, Thio's rants have been countered in some excellent rebuttals like Janadas Devan's commentary in the Straits Times and articles in the blogosphere like this.

Personally, I have many issues with this kind of myopic thought processes contaminating our government, and to me, it all comes from a global onslaught by fundamentalist Christianity against secularism. Fundamentalist Christians are out to promote an agenda of proselytisation as vehemently as they claim homosexuals are promoting the "gay agenda". To fundamentalist Christians, their version of morality is God-ordained, and thus, the "true" morality that every human being "must" follow. Top of this list is the requirement (nay, commandment) that everyone "must" accept the Christian god as the one true God, failure of which is eternal damnation in a hell of fire and brimstones. Hence, the fanatical opposition to evolution, stem cell research, condoms and contraceptions, secularist thought, or heaven forbid, homosexuality! simply because they contravene writings in the Christian bible, which is accepted blindly as the gospel truth.

As a person of science living in the 21st century, I absolutely refuse to accept anything without questioning its veracity by testing it against science and reason. However, reason and rationality seems to be in short supply in the Singapore parliament as I read in the Straits Times that Thio's malicious speech was received by loud and boisterous thumpings of approvals from many of the other parliamentarians. (I am very glad to read that our PM, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, is not one of these "thumpers".)

To prevent the malicious beliefs of Thio and her ilk from acceptance by the general public, it is necessary to dismantle fundamentalist Christian thinking by tearing it down with science and reason, and to bring science and reason to the public.

1. Science and evidence

Fundamentalist Christians are guilty of first concluding that Yahweh (the Christian god) created the Earth 6000 years ago, and then going about looking for and showing only the evidence confirming Creationism, and loudly proclaim that science has proven Creationism to be true. In the process, they completely discard all the other (and overwhelming) evidences that show the Earth is much older than 6000 years old. This is because fundamentalist Christians always make their conclusion first ("God did it"), and then go about finding the proofs to confirm their previously formed opinion. Facts that do not confirm their pre-formed conclusion are jettisoned and ignored.

True scientists do not do this. Scientists first observe how nature behaves, make a hypothesis on how they think nature operates, and then look for more evidence to test if their hypothesis holds true or not. If any evidence is found that negates the hypothesis, the hypothesis is rejected, and a new hypothesis is made to accommodate the negative findings. The whole investigative cycle is then repeated. Scientific conclusions are thus always based on all evidences and facts found. Negative and contrarian evidence is never discarded, but is always used to hone and fine-tune the theory that is finally established.

I bring this up because Thio and her ilk claims that homosexuality is not natural, and that it is not in-born.

This is absolutely not true, and is against a mountain of scientific evidence that homosexuality is rampant in the animal kingdom. Thanks to YouTube, you can even view the homosexual behaviour of animals your self:

Gay penguins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UibmZXbiI3Y

Gay dogs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DXl_zW6OJc

Gay lions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl8VLG8hwJQ

Gay bucks (male deers): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dOvGC8t5mw

Gay pigs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plcM6rqHobQ

In fact, gay behaviour has been observed in 1500 species of animals and well documented by scientists (see Wikipedia and New Scientist). If this is "not natural", then, pray tell me, what is?

Personally, I have both effeminate male friends as well as very butch female friends, and they are all extremely nice people. I can see they are born this way (as they already exhibit such behaviour when young). Their sexual orientation are as natural as it comes, and in no way do I see them as "evil" or "immoral" people just because of their sexual orientation. And it is a fact one doesn't have to be an effeminate male or a butch female to be homosexual. Very masculine males and feminine females can also be sexually oriented to their own sex, such as these folks:

- Ian McKellen (Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings", Magneto in "X Men")

- Richard Hatch (Reality show winner in "Survivor")

- Ellen DeGeneres (TV comedian/host)

- Angelina Jolie (Angelina is bisexual)

The problem with faithheads like Thio is that she cannot see these people beyond their sexual orientation. Blinded by her faith, she sees all homosexual people as evil and immoral people, when in reality, sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with whether a person is evil or immoral. Straight men and women also cheat on their spouses, breaking up families and damaging children in the process. Are straight adulterers no less evil and immoral by Thio's religious standards?

2. Christian Hypocrisy

Because of ignorance and fear by the general public, homosexual people are frowned upon and looked down by society at large. To progress in society and live their lives safely, many must hide their sexual orientation and lead double lives. Many homosexual men and women marry and have children, but because their sexual orientation is in-born and innate, they cannot eradicate it, and many a time succumb to the craving to have sex with someone of their own gender.

However, because of fundamentalist Christian's abhorrence of homosexuality, gay people who are born in such environments often have to become hypocrites to loudly condemn homosexuality, when they are themselves born to such a bent.

The most famous of these hypocrites is Pastor Ted Haggard of the New Life Church. Haggard condemns all homosexuals as "sinners" and teaches that believing in Jesus Christ will cure them of their sins. Too bad he was gay and could not resist the temptation of having sex with Mike Jones, a male prostitute, who outed Haggard to the world.

The Roman Catholic Church is likewise tainted with its admission that many of its male priests had been sexually abusing boys in the 2006 court case that was splashed in all the news media. The Roman Catholic church is always condemning homosexuals, but in the end, they are uncovered as the true hypocrites that they are. Perhaps they should reflect more on Jesus exhortation that "he who is without sin can cast the first stone" (John 8:7)

It is also extremely ironic that Thio's invective was spewing with hatred of homosexuals when Christianity is supposed to be a religion of peace and love. Jesus may ask his followers to "love their enemies, turn the other cheek" etc (Luke 6:27 to 36). For Thio, I don't see much "love" in the hate-filled diatribe she gave in parliament. This is an aspect she shares with Haggard.

3. The Perfect God

If God is real and is all powerful, why must he create gay humans and animals?

Science is still trying to understand the reason why homosexuality exists in humans and animals. What is the evolutionary benefit of homosexuality? Generally, homosexuals who are not attracted to the opposite sex will not procreate, and hence will not propagate their lineage. Over hundreds and thousands of years, homosexuality should ought to have died out. Yet, it is still prevalent in the human and animal kingdoms.

If you are a Christian, and you believe that Yahweh created everything, then you must accede that Yahweh made homosexuals that way. But why would a "perfect" god make such people in the first place if he is going to condemn them in his bible? Homosexuals are shunned, looked down upon, and ill treated by society at large. Why would a "perfect" god make homosexuals, and then sanctify people like Thio and her ilk to carry out their condemnations of homosexuals and to mete out punishments on god's behalf? Can't a "perfect" god simply not make homosexuals in the first place?

As a rationalist, there is a very simple answer to the above. God is imaginary, and is created in men's image. The early humans cannot understand why homosexuals exist in their midst, so they mark them as imperfect beings and evil. They later ascribe their abhorrence of homosexuals to come from god. Unfortunately, they subsequently use the god reason to condemn homosexuals in general, advancing yet another aspect of circular reasoning (circular reasoning is prevalent in many of the reasons offered by Christians about why they believe their god is the "true" god).

4. Tyranny of the Masses

One of the edicts promoted by Thio and her "thumping" colleagues is that anal sex between a male and a female is not a crime, but anal sex between 2 males is. This is outright discrimination. If anal sex is a crime when practised by 2 males, it should also be a crime if it is committed by a male and a female!

Singapore law has been made to be an ass!

To be fair and equal, the Singapore government should have also kept S377 (anal sex between male and female) in the books and not repeal it and leaving only S377A. This way, the Singapore government can simply say anal sex is a crime, and we do not discriminate against criminals who perpetrate such activities regardless of whether they are man or woman.

However, by repealing S377 but not S377A, the Singapore government is now saying specifically that this is a crime only when committed by homosexual males.

There are many analogies (pun intended) of such discriminations against humanity in history:

a) women are second class people (as they still are in Saudi Arabia and many Muslim countries). Because Eve caused the fall of Man from the Garden of Eden (the Original Sin), women are also badly vilified in the Christian bible.

b) slaves are treated like goods that can be traded or purchased. Slavery is sanctioned by the Christian bible.

c) minority races are treated as second class people by the majority race

The Singapore government has always spoken out against discrimination of the minority, and has set about many rules and regulations to prevent the majority Chinese to compel their practices and beliefs on the minority Malays and Indians. Similarly, the government enshrines secularism so that no one religion is "holier than thou" against another religion. These actions are to be applauded.

However, the government has failed in this case to prevent the discrimination of an entire group of people simply because of their sexual orientation, and has allowed Christain Thiology (pun intended) to influence its thinking.

Thio and her ilk justifies this discrimination by claiming that the majority are against homosexuality, and therefore majority rules.

However, this makes for very bad laws.

Singapore is a very small country (minority) against much bigger countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and the US (majority). However, we have had political confrontations with all these countries, and in all cases, Singapore stood by United Nation laws that do not side with one country simply because that country has a much larger population than Singapore. A law should be based on reason, and not because it is the preference of a majority .

Just because the majority thinks one way does not mean that the majority is right. What is right should be the truth.

For example, for thousands of years, the majority believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. Minorities like Galileo Galilei who said that the Earth revolved around the Sun was condemned for blasphemy by the Catholic Church and incarcerated. Yet today, we know that Galileo was speaking the truth, and that the majority was wrong!

Thio's advocates that because the majority thinks that homosexuality is a sin, therefore Singapore law should follow majority thinking and make homosexuality a crime. This is basically advocating tyranny of the masses, and I am extremely concerned that the Singapore government has allowed its carefully crafted principles of equality and non-discrimination to be compromised by Thio and her ilk.

What To Do?

There is no "gay mafia" agenda as Thio would like Singaporeans to believe. The support for repealing S377A is simply because preserving S377A is flat out discriminatory.

This discrimination is due to fundamentalist Christianity thinking striking a hold in Singapore, and worse of all, in the high echelons of the Singapore government.

Thio will push Singapore society into a polarisation between fundamentalist Christians like herself and everyone else. Thio will divide people with her religious influenced rhetoric. Her "holier than thou" approach succeeds because there are many fundamentalist Christians who are biased with the same beliefs as hers.

It is vital that we open the eyes of people to the evidence in nature, and teach them to use science and reason to question such irrational beliefs. How can homosexuality be unnatural if even animals are homosexual? How can we conclude that homosexuality is unnatural, evil and immoral, and discard the overwhelming evidence that it isn't? Shouldn't the scientific way be adopted to study all the evidence first, not ignore negative evidence, before forming any conclusions about whether a person can be judged as evil and immoral because of his or her sexual orientation?

Using god to justify laws is just plain bad. What about people who don't believe in your version of god, or who don't believe in the supernatural? Why should they be subjected to laws by your god? Secularism is a proven model in governing Singapore. It must be protected, and must not be compromised by fundamentalist Christians as is happening now.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Europe underwent a philosophical transformation with a period known as the Age of Enlightenment. Although it is now the 21st century, I think we still need to go through this again to stamp out the resurfacing of irrationality, superstition, and tyranny. History does truly repeats itself.

At the barbershop

I can't believe that I had a religious discussion with the barber today. It started innocently enough with his asking me about my line of work. I told him I write computer applications for a living. He mentioned that god had blessed me with a good brain to be a computer programmer. I told him that I don't believe in the existence of gods. And so it went. I was his last customer for the day. Although he finished with me at 8pm, he was very ardent in continuing our religious discussion, so I obliged him and chatted with him until 9pm (closing time). It was a very strange experience.

The barber is a Buddhist, which happens to be one of the more favourable religions that I like. I like the Buddhist philosophy of living life with moderation (the Middle Path), the 4 Noble Truths about life and suffering, the Eightfold Path to Enlightenment, Karma, and the practice of meditation. I always felt that if you want to believe in religion, Buddhism is the most intelligent of the lot that one can possibly profess to. However, I don't subscribe to the ideas of Reincarnation and Rebirth. Notwithstanding the Dalai Lama and how Tibetan Lamas are selected, I just don't believe that people who have died can be re-born with their memories and thinking intact and transferred to a new baby born into this world (the transference of souls). I don't think the evidence for Reincarnation is compelling at all. Other than my vex for the more mystical aspects of Buddhism, I have no qualms with Buddhism at all, and am personally quite partial to this religion as compared to Christianity, Hinduism, other religions etc, and Islamism.

I single out Islam last specifically because I think that today, Islam is the worst religion in the world. What with all the suicide bombings, beheadings of innocents, kidnapping of civilians, the ugly demonstrations and the spewing of hatred for non-Muslims, the barbaric treatment of women, the senseless violence etc. Islam has completely failed to live up as a "religion of peace" that it always profess itself to be. But words must be accompanied by deeds, and all the ugliness of Islam I read everyday in the newspaper tells me otherwise.

Personally, I think Islam needs to undergo an Age of Enlightenment like what Christianity and Western society underwent. Without reforms to eradicate the violence, there is no way Islam can ever restore its prestige or its respect in the eyes of others.

I learnt that my barber friend believes in the Chinese school of Buddhism, which is a variant of the Buddhism heavily influenced by Chinese deity mythology. The barber believes that deities like the Jade Emperor, God of Hell etc are real. I told him that I only treat these characters as myths as they simply cannot be true (where is the compelling evidence?). I found his belief in the deities to be very jarring. I always felt that the philosophical aspects of Buddhism are appealing enough as it is, and often wondered why Buddhists would also need to believe in the stories of deities that are obviously supernatural in origin.

I told the barber that I am a person of science, and that I do not believe that humans have been ordained with special gifts by the divinity. The presence of humans on Earth are due to an accident of circumstances, and not because a "god" made us so. Humans (ie. in the form of homo sapiens) have been walking the Earth for only the past 100,000 years. In contrast, dinosaurs ruled the planet for at least 160 million years (although they were suddenly wiped out 65 million years ago). The story of humans have not even covered 10% of 1 million years, so why should we think we are special, or that we will last forever? Indeed, if we are not careful, human beings may just go the way of the dinosaurs.

Evolution has given humans incredibly powerful brains, which allows humans to contemplate. It is because of the contemplative nature of our brain that we want to find a solution to every mystery. Humans crave solutions so desperately (as is the craving for sex) that we must have an answer to every question, regardless of whether the answer is right, wrong, or incomplete.

Our ancient ancestors, with their limited knowledge base, have tried to find answers (to the questions of life) that marries with what they knew back in their time. However, we are now living in the 21st century, and our knowledge of science is millions of times more advanced than what our ancestors knew. Surely we should re-look at these answers, and perhaps attempt to answer the same questions but with the viewpoint and understanding of a modern scientific person? Why must we blindly accept unsatisfying answers from antiquity when new, refreshing, and more rational answers can be provided?

God is not a satisfying answer to the mysteries of life. For every question that theists answer with an attribution to god, I can provide a more compelling answer using purely reason and science, and that has no need to resort to an imaginary god. God doesn't exist. Answers involving imaginary beings are never as convincing as answers that are based on physical realities.

Treatment of Women in Islam

Seriously, this is what some Arabic sheik believes is the difference between Man and Woman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5KmIXZM-V8

I don't understand why more Muslim women do not protest against the sexism that is advocated in the Quran. The Muslim holy books were written way back in the 7th century, and surely the religious norms and practices that are observed then are no longer relevant today. However, because these holy books are accepted as inerrant even in the 21st century, they allow Muslim clerics to condemn women as "Deficient in Intelligence":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MylrCU3u6V8

And here is a Muslim lawyer (a doctor no less) who describes how the wife should be beaten by the husband as instructed in the Quran:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUI3TUdFCk

Indeed, the sorry treatment of women in a fundamentalist Muslim society is still thriving today because all these chauvinistic conduct against women rights are actually endorsed by the Quran! In the 7th century, the status of women is pretty low (practically non-existent) - and women are often compared to property or livestock. Even Prophet Muhammad himself had 11 wives, and his last wife, Aisha, is a mere 6 years old when betrothed to Muhammad. Although Muhammad "only consummated" this marriage when Aisha turned 9, we would call a person having sex with a 9 year old child a paedophile in the 21st century! Today, these Quran writings are being held up and used to perpetuate such abhorrent practices!

Luckily, there are some brave women who are speaking out against the barbarism of fundamentalist Islam (at great danger to their lives, no doubt, as fanatical Muslims are prone to violence against anything they don't like):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wPglHZQf-0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPioGIjS4vc

Libra

I discovered this gem of a utility yesterday night. It is something I have been looking out for in quite a while, and I am simply astonished that this particular version I found can be so full featured - and FREE!

If you have a considerable collection of books (as I do), and you have been thinking of cataloguing them inside a personal electronic database, but you never got around to doing it because you simply don't have the time to input all those information into the computer, then Libra could just be the program you have been waiting for.

The "smarts" of the Libra program is that instead of entering all the voluminous book details of each book (book title, author, synopsis etc), you enter just the ISBN number (a 10 digit or 13 digit number that uniquely identifies every publication) into the program. Libra uses the ISBN number to cull all the nitty-gritty details of the book from the Amazon.com database, and transfers this information into your own personal database! Because Libra will also pull the book jacket image from Amazon, your book collection is presented in a very pleasing fashion as the following screen capture will attest:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/njwong88/Libra/photo#5111727272205672498

As you can see from the image, Libra can also catalogue music CDs (the 3 titles on the bottom shelf). Libra can also catalogue video DVDs. (The titles in the screen capture are some books/music in my personal collection. You can click the "View largest photo" link to see the book/CD titles more clearly if you want to know what I have been reading during the past few months )

The program is dirt easy to use and requires no tutorial. And despite its already outstanding feature set, the author has even included a feature which allows you to use your webcam to "scan" the ISBN barcode instead of typing in the 10-digit (or 13-digit) number manually. However, I couldn't test this capability as I don't own a webcam (currently).

Amazingly, this program is developed by a Singaporean company (CodeJam Pte Ltd at Noel Building in Playfair Road). It is sad that instead of reading about this amazing-amazing software from this local company from our veritable Straits Times, I have to learn about it from an American

You can download Libra (and read a much better sales pitch of it) from here:

http://www.getlibra.com/

Remember to click the "About Us" link to read the authors' humorous description about themselves...

Mormonism

There are many branches of Christianity, each having a slightly different tenet from the other. For example:

• Catholicism
• Protestant
• Presbyterianism
• Anglicanism
• Methodist
• Baptist
• Pentecostalism
• Charismatics
• Quakers
• Sunday Adventists

This is just a few of the denominations with churches in Singapore. According to the Wikipedia, there may be as many 300 Christian denominations in the world [link].

However, one of the strangest is that of Mormonism (also called the Latter Day Saints). Mormonism was only established in the United States in 1830, but has a very controversial history because its founder, Joseph Smith, claims to be a latter day prophet who had spoken personally to both the Christian God as well as his son Jesus Christ, and that they had told him to establish a new religion because none of the churches then were practising Christianity correctly. The story of the creation of the Mormon's sacred text, The Book of Mormon, is also one laced with incredulity.

South Park has a segment that accurately portrays how the Mormon religion was founded. As you watch it, you will understand why I find it absolutely amazing that intelligent people today can believe this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTeMEGG4U98

For example, one of the US presidential candidates for 2008 is Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon. Another famous Mormon is the best selling science fiction author Orson Scott Card.

If you are interested, you can read more about Mormonism from this Wikipedia entries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith,_Jr.

Straits Times Forum - Charging laptops in the Community Centre

The Straits Times published one of my letters to the Forum (its in the Online edition and not the Print Edition). Read it if you are interested in my say:

http://www.straitstimes.com:80/ST%2BForum/Online%2BStory/STIStory_153523.html

I really loved the comments, especially the contrarian viewpoints that were offered. It is extremely interesting how very differently people can interpret my short letter from my original intention. When I wrote the letter, my thought processes were this:

- It only costs pennies to power laptops.

- There are more electricity draining equipment such as air-conditioners which are MUCH MUCH more expensive to run compared to laptops.

- CCs are funded by government money for the benefit of the public, especially poorer people. Come on, the Singapore government is super-duper rich. Just look at the PM's million dollar monthly salary. Why besmirch users for tapping into the power socket to power their battery drained laptops when it only cost pennies?

- I was also thinking in terms of the convenience provided to the casual user who may need to recharge his laptop once in a while. I am actually very thankful when I am outside to be able to find a place to charge my laptop battery so that I can continue using my laptop - especially at the end of the day (no thanks to lousy battery technology, most laptop battery can only hold 2 hours of charge). I sometimes do this at fast food restaurants (thanks, McDonalds).

- I am thus in favour that the publicly funded Community Centres allow users to recharge their laptops, and would like to encourage this behaviour.

Obviously, free facilities given in good faith should not be abused. Many critics against my letter state that providing free laptop charging will be abused by the public (and they really draw it to extreme conclusions). Unfortunately, the Singapore Government has been quite effective in teaching everyone that nothing is free (e.g. to get your free CPF $400 top ups during election year, you first have to put in $50 into your CPF account :-) ) and that free things will be abused.

Personally, I think we can encourage altruism in our society and not think so negatively about so many things. Call me the optimist :-)

The God Who Wasn't There

This is a great documentary which isn't available for sale in Singapore due to our strict censorship laws regarding taboo topics such as religion. Generally, anti-religious books are easier to obtain in Singapore, but movies or documentaries are usually no-nos. It is great that some one has uploaded this documentary on YouTube.

If you do not know what this documentary is about, there is a good write up of it in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Who_Wasn't_There

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cioXrHanjXc

Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MweSy-61lU

Part 3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Ouy9W8RkE

Part 4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04hzgMjPRtk

Part 5 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJd1kWlLjPs

Part 6 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re2HtQ0n9W4

Google Maps and Google Earth

I just learnt that Google Maps can now be embedded like YouTube videos within a HTML page. That is quite useful. Below is a Google Maps embed of my home street (Yishun Central):

View Larger Map

You can click and drag the mouse to navigate within the image, or zoom in and out using the "+" and "-" buttons on the left panel.

The "Map", "Sat" and "Hyb" buttons shows the plain map, or the satellite photo, or a hybrid combining both the map and the satellite photo.

Click on the "View Larger Map" link to go to Google Maps directly where you can search for other locations.

Besides Google Maps, which runs in a web browser, Google also has a more powerful standalone desktop application called Google Earth. Google Earth now even includes an astronomy feature (called "Sky"). The new "Sky" function of Google Earth is introduced here:

Google Earth (version 4.2) can be downloaded from here:

http://earth.google.com/sky/index.html

Isaac Asimov's "The Tragedy of the Moon"

I found this great video on YouTube that lists several famous atheists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdVucvo-kDU

I am often surprised that many scientists like Francis Collins and Michael Behe, with their knowledge of science, still cling to their belief in the supernatural Judeo-Christian god as the creator of the universe. Although I too believed in a god when I was a child, when I first learnt the scientific explanations for life and the universe, I realised that science offered a much more elegant and satisfying explanation for our being as compared to the religious explanations.

As a child, I had read the bible stories in my school library, and I felt that the stories were like fairy tales (Adam and Eve and a talking snake, Noah and his titanic boat, Moses and the killing of all first born children in Egypt etc). However, my adult teachers say these were facts that really happened as they are written in the bible. Luckily, I was also brought up on stories of Chinese and Hindu gods, and I immediately realised that all their creation stories of how the world was made conflicted with one another. By the time I was 13, I already knew that since none of these religious creation stories are the same, the religious explanations were probably all wrong, and the stories are really myths, just like all the other fairy tales I have read.

In 1979, I read a book by Isaac Asimov called "The Tragedy of the Moon", which was actually a collection of his science essays. The main essay, that is also the title of the book, gave Asimov's explanation on why he think it was a tragedy for Earth to have a Moon, and speculated on how much better it would have been for humankind if the Earth had no Moon.

The main premise of that essay is that because of the Moon, which does revolve around the Earth, the ancients were led to the belief that the Sun must also revolve around the Earth, and similarly for all the stars in the sky. Earth must be the centre of the universe, and humans are special and must be created by god since god has put humans to inhabit the Earth.

Asimov argued that if the Moon did not exist, humans would have realised much earlier that the Earth actually revolved around the Sun, and that science and astronomy would not have been set back by thousands of years because of the wrong belief of an Earth-centric solar system instead of the correct helio-centric solar system.

In that essay, I learnt about Christianity's horrible treatment of scientists like Galileo Galilei and Copernicus because they had dared to question the belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and to raise doubt that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. I subsequently learnt how harshly the Christians have treated scientists for speaking about science that conflicted with the bible, condemning innocent people for witchcraft, forcing people into slavery, or forcing religious conversions on people of other religions. Christianity certainly did not earn my admiration.

In the following year, I watched Carl Sagan's enormously fascinating "Cosmos" series on TV. By then, I realised that good scientific explanations could be offered for many questions on the aspects of life. There was no need for any recourse to a magical being for explaining why things were so. The religious explanations for life were so insufficient and lacking in so many ways.

From then onwards, I would reply my Christian friends who tell me that "man is made by god " that they were wrong, and that instead, it is god who is made by man.

"Planet Earth" Documentary Series

I was recommending the BBC documentary series "Planet Earth" to a friend who didn't know about it, and thought maybe I should share it with the rest of you.

"Planet Earth" is the most expensive documentary series made to date, and Singaporeans were extremely lucky that Arts Central bought it and screened it a few months back (the telecast ended in June). This documentary series boasts of incredible visuals filmed with High Definition cameras. Even though Arts Central only broadcasts in Standard Definition, the HD quality seeps through the telecast, and the images were simply astounding even when viewed on a normal Standard Definition TV.

To understand what I am raving about, Amazon.com is hosting a trailer for the "Planet Earth" documentary series in their promotion for the DVD. This trailer shows several of the breathtaking visuals from the series, and you will know why I rave about this series once you see them:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/2379

Actually, someone has uploaded some episodes (complete episodes) of the "Planet Earth" series on Google Video. However, these uploaded videos are compressed, and much of the visual quality is lost. However, the documentaries are still excellent for their informational content.

The following link is for the "Caves" episode:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4535193000141776798

One segment of this episode shows how Bird's Nest is made by a bird called the Swiftlet inside a cave in Borneo (Sarawak) called "Deer Cave" ("Deer Cave" is among one of the largest caves in the world). If you are interested in how the Bird's Nest you consume is made, then this video is a must-watch.

If you like this particular episode, you can use the "Related Videos" link to follow other uploaded episodes of the series.

BBC Documentary on Scientology

You probably know that top Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta worship a religion called "Scientology". Scientology is highly controversial, and as for me, I just cannot understand why highly intelligent people like Cruise and Travolta would believe in this kind of pseudo-science stuff.

In May of this year, the BBC broadcast a Panorama documentary about Scientology which reveals the creepy way this wacko cult operates - the Scientology people actually hired spies to secretly follow the BBC crew around as they were making their documentary. This, and other devious tactics practised by the Scientologists, are aptly depicted in the BBC documentary which can be viewed on Google Video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-126281853779690652

More facts about Scientology can be found at the Wikipedia website ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology ), and it makes for fascinating but disturbing reading. There is also a 3 minute South Park cartoon satirising Scientology, but which actually contains a condensed but accurate depiction about Scientology's beliefs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAmEO-oLHzA

The End of Faith

After 9/11, the Bali bombings of 2002, and the Jemaah Islamiyah threat to bomb the Yishun MRT Station, I have became more conscious that Islamist religious fanatics can seriously threaten and destroy civilisation. Without doubt, these Islamic terrorists must be stopped before more innocent lives are killed.

Indeed, Sam Harris was so affected by 9/11 that he wrote the book, "The End of Faith", as his response to it (S$17.33 from Kinokuniya). It is a well argued book on why blind acceptance of religious beliefs is a threat to civilisation, and why fundamentalist Islam is particularly dangerous.

Harris wrote a follow up book, "Letter to a Christian Nation", which emphasizes on the dangers of fundamentalist Christianity.

Both Islam and Christianity centre their foundations on the "divine" writings in the scriptures of the Quran and the Bible. The dogmatic interpretations of these ancient writings by fundamentalists in the 21st century poses a conflict with modern civilisation, and makes religion particularly dangerous - especially to people who do not believe in the same faith as the fundamentalists.

Many Christians believe that the Bible is a perfect document written (or influenced) by a perfect god and as such is an infallible text. Harris points out in "The End of Faith" that the Bible is actually riddled with contradictions, and that even way back in 1859, William Henry Burr has actually published a book called "Self-Contradictions of the Bible". The list of contradictions has been published here:

http://skeptically.org/newtestament/id19.html

These mistakes in the Bible should lead thinking Christians to query whether the Bible is indeed the handiwork of a perfect god, or that the book is as perfect as it is being claimed. With such revealing mistakes, it becomes suspect as to whether the writings in the Bible should be treated literally as divine truths.

I like another section in "Letter to a Christian Nation" in which Sam Harris talks about Christians who strongly believe that "The Ten Commandments" in the Bible is the strongest statement about morality which no other religion can improve upon:

The Ten Commandments

1. 1. You shall have no other Gods but me.
2. 2. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
3. 3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
4. 4. You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
5. 5. Respect your father and mother.
6. 6. You must not kill.
7. 7. You must not commit adultery.
8. 8. You must not steal.
9. 9. You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
10. 10. You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.

In response, Harris quotes Mahavira, the patriarch of Jainism, who surpasses the morality of the Ten Commandments with a single one:

Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.

In fact, there is a very humorous skit by comedian George Carlin on YouTube about the Ten Commandments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CitfTtMIx8

There is another George Carlin video on religion in general:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uBAPbOWLxc

The God Delusion

I bought Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion" at MPH Funan Centre on 19 May 2007 (price: S$18.90). This is the new UK paperback edition with a new preface (book details at Amazon.co.uk):

"The God Delusion" is an excellent book that uses science, philosophy, history, logic and reason to explain why the gods promulgated by Christianity, Islam, Judaism are extremely improbable, and debunks the idea that we need to believe in such gods to be good humans to lead meaningful and moral lives.

In fact, when I was young, I had already pondered on the following conundrum:

Christianity says it is the one true religion. Islam says it is the one true religion. But logic dictates that if Christianity is the one true religion, then Islam must be wrong. Or if Islam is the one true religion, then Christians must be worshipping the wrong god.

How can both religions be right? The only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that they could both be wrong!

As I learnt more about science and history, I gradually came to the realisation that it is not god who created humans, but it is humans who had created god.

Being educated in an English speaking environment, I was exposed to a lot of Christian evangelists who were extremely enthusiastic in their trying to proselytise me to their faith. I am very glad that my school education required me to study all the major religions of Singapore: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Confucianism. When you study comparative religions, and have a good grounding in science and history, you will be armed with enough defences to protect yourself against the shrill being blasted at you by the Christian evangelicals that "you must believe in Jesus Christ or you will be condemned to burn in Hell for eternity!" Talk about a loving god :-)

Despite my constant debates and arguments with these Christian evangelists, I knew these debates were always lost causes. I cannot possibly sway others who are set in their beliefs to my way of thinking, as they cannot possibly convince me about changing my stance without conclusive evidence that their god is a real entity.

However, I do not go about preaching to others about my atheism. The irritating thing about Christian evangelicals is that they do. And every Saturday, you will see them waylaying passerbys (especially people going to the library) to tell them about the "4 Spiritual Laws".

However, as the Christian evangelists are well funded and are always proactively promoting their religion, so it is inevitable they will gain new converts. Indeed, the dawn of the 21st century has not seen humankind stepping into a new age of science and reason. Indeed, in the sole hyper-power of the world, the United States of America, fundamentalist Christianity has greatly expanded its influence, and have gained significant power in the political arena.

The problem with fundamentalist Christians is that their stance is as rigid and as scary as the Islamic Taleban , as they both base morality on ancient scriptures instead of rationality and reason.

"The God Delusion" is a much needed book to educate the public on why the existence of the Christian god is highly improbable, and that morality should be based on rationality and reason, and not on ancient texts espousing values that have no relevance to modern living. The book is well thought out, well argued, well organised, well written, and well worth reading.

Richard Dawkins actually made a 2-part documentary for UK's Channel 4 station on a related theme prior to the publication of "The God Delusion". You can watch the documentary on Google Video:

Root of All Evil - Part 1 : The God Delusion

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9002284641446868316

Root of All Evil - Part 2 : The Virus of Faith

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7619161192220036050

Lingoes

A few years ago (2004), I wrote about the excellent Merriam Webster Online Dictionary (www.m-w.com) . I still find this online dictionary extremely useful today because besides giving you the definition, you can also click on the speaker icon to hear how each word is pronounced.

Try figuring out how to pronounce these words:

• Cheyenne
• Banyan
• Pyrrhic

and you will see why the pronunciation feature is a godsend.

However, if you are using a notebook computer, you may not have internet access all the time. It would be nice to have access to a dictionary that is installed on your hard disk in such situations. For this, I can heartily recommend this new freeware that I have just found called "Lingoes":

www.lingoes.net

Lingoes is not a dictionary. It is a dictionary engine. After installing the dictionary engine, you need to load the actual dictionary separately. However, it can load MORE THAN ONE dictionary! I loaded mine with the following dictionaries:

1. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
2. Oxford Advanced Learners English Dictionary
3. Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary
4. Collins COBUILD Advanced Learners English Dictionary

The interface is very user friendly. The dictionary interface will display the word definition from all the dictionaries you've loaded. Thus, if you do not understand the explanation provided by one dictionary, you can scroll down to read the explanations given by the other dictionaries to make things clearer. And because I also loaded the "Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary", I can also see the Chinese definition on the same page.

Mind you, the dictionaries available for download are ELITE stuff (from Longman, Oxford, and Collins no less). True, the dictionary publishers supplied only their "Learners edition" dictionaries for free, but that is actually good enough for the average user.

For your info, the Oxford and Collins advanced learners dictionaries only cover about 50,000 words, while the Longman dictionary covers about 100,000 words. That is why many a time, you will find a word defined only in the Longman dictionary, but not in the Oxford or Collins advanced learners dictionaries. Because the Longman dictionary has a larger word set than the others, I arranged for it to be the first dictionary in my results list.

In contrast, my hard copy "Oxford Concise English Dictionary" covers 240,000 words, which is more than double that of the Longman and 4 times that of the advanced learners dictionaries. Obviously Oxford will not provide their premium "Concise English Dictionary" away for free.

The "Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary" has a word set of only 25,000 words. However, for its limited vocabulary, its Chinese definitions are invaluable.

I noticed that the definitions given by the Collins COBUILD dictionary are the easiest to understand. This dictionary is very suitable for primary school children.

Lingoes also has a feature called "Cursor Translation", which allows you to display the dictionary definition of a word in other applications like Word, Excel etc. Just hover the mouse cursor over a word and click the Left Shift key to popup the dictionary definition.

Finally, Lingoes has a LIMITED pronunciation capability. It actually makes use of the built-in speech synthesizer in the Windows XP operating system to pronounce the words. Speech synthesizers do not normally pronounce words correctly. You can compare the pronunciation generated by Lingoes with those recorded in the Merriam Webster website. The difference in quality is very pronounced :-)

Letter to the Straits Times Forum

The Straits Times Forum published a letter of mine in the online edition today. I had commented on an article written by Dr Andy Ho, the senior science and ethics writer for the Straits Times, which actually contain hidden biases favouring Creationism and Christianity over science (I am sure Andy Ho is a devout Catholic based on the position he has taken in his other opinion articles). I submitted my letter to the Straits Times last Friday (25 May 2007), and thought that it was rejected for publication. I was quite surprised that they finally published it today (2 June 2007), almost 9 days later.

http://www.straitstimes.com:80/ST%2BForum/Online%2BStory/STIStory_124926.html

I believe the free site on the Straits Times website contains only a 3-day archive for free access by the public. If you are interested to read what I wrote, you will need to visit the link before Tuesday (5 June 2007).

For some strange reason, the Straits Times has made every sentence ending in a period (full-stop) a paragraph on its own. In my original letter, excluding the bulleted points, I had a total of 6 paragraphs. In the published version, this ballooned into 13 paragraphs! The Straits Times published my letter without deleting a single word from my original.

Regards, NJ

Dispatches - Undercover Mosque

Last Saturday (5 May 2007) at a reunion lunch gathering with some ex-Conner (FIS) colleagues, I mentioned to my friends that I was very perturbed by the hijacking of religion to promote hatred and intolerance. I was referring to the fundamentalist Islam as practised by militant and radical Muslims in the Middle East, but which is gradually making in-roads into South East Asia, and even influencing moderate Islam here. Personally, I feel that the problem has been severely amplified since 9/11 as moderate Muslims everywhere are not aggressively confronting the theology of hate that is sprouted by the radicals, allowing children and impressionable youths to be indoctrinated with this dangerous form of their religion that threatens life and society for everyone. By allowing these teachings of hate to grow, the intolerant form of Islam becomes the "norm" instead of the extremist variant they were supposed to be!

I had developed a certain impression of such radical Muslims from my reading of internet articles and newspaper reports. However, I was actually quite unprepared for the level of hatred that is being espoused by the religious teachers (imams) against non-Muslims until I watched this British documentary, "Dispatches - Undercover Mosque" from UK's Channel 4 TV station. The 1-hour documentary shows how although some British mosques publicly profess to promote an Islam of love and understanding and tolerance of other faiths (they belong to a government inter-faith group that works with other religious organisations), internally, the imams go about propagating their teachings of hatred for all "kuffaars" (non-Muslims), and for their ultimate aim to bring down governments and establishments and to install their militant brand of Islam for everyone.

The documentary is quite an eye-opener. It was aired in the UK on 15 January this year.

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peFQWuk4nuo

Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuCLC8kjWCI

Part 3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5t5EqWX92k

Part 4 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMztM0Z7BYE

Part 5 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Zv3BUmwqs

Part 6 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvjvNScmTQA

DVD43

Last Sunday (15 Apr 2007), I visited the new megastores at Tampines (Ikea, Courts, and Giant) for the first time. I learned 2 lessons from this outing:

1. Never visit 3 megastores at one go. It is tiring to walk around just one megastore, never mind three!
2. Never shop at Giant Tampines on Sunday, or at any peak period. The queues are horrendous!

I had not intended to buy anything at Giant. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Giant was selling the original DVD for "Superman Returns" for only $12. Now, that is even cheaper than the VCD version, which retails at $15! The DVD version even includes a second DVD containing a bonus documentary about the making of "Superman Returns", which was not available on the VCD.

There was a catch. This original $12 DVD is actually a Region 6 DVD, meant for the China market. Singapore is designated Region 3, as is most of South East Asia. However, the Region 3 DVD for "Superman Returns" retails for $30, which is significantly higher than $12 for the Region 6 DVD.

Theoretically, all DVD players sold in Singapore should only play Region 3 DVDs. However, most standalone DVD players have been tweaked at the factory to be "Region Free" - otherwise, consumers will not buy them. As such, playing the Region 6 DVD was not a problem on my standalone DVD player.

However, when it came to the DVD drive on my Dell notebook, this was not so simple. Region coding has not been disabled on the DVD drive on my notebook, which has been configured as Region 3. And all the DVD playing software provided by Dell (Dell MediaDirect as well as Microsoft Windows Media Player) "respected" the region code setting on the drive, and therefore refused to play the Region 6 DVD!

Although I could change the DVD Region setting on the DVD drive to play the disc, I am limited to only changing the region setting 5 times. This was not a permanent solution:

I did a Google search, and found the following freeware gem:

http://www.dvd43.com/

DVD43 installs on your Windows XP system and performs real-time decrypting of Region protected DVDs. When it is running, it displays a green smiley face on your system tray, and will auto-strip all Region protection from a protected DVD when the DVD is played.

And indeed, once installed, the Region 6 "Superman Returns" DVD played beautifully in both Microsoft Windows Media Player as well as Dell MediaDirect on my notebook.

Hope you find this tip useful.

Downloading YouTube videos and converting Multimedia files

I recently upgraded my Singtel account to the Singtel MIO bundle (broadband + mobile phone + fixed line phone for $68 per month). Making this switch netted me physical savings of $4 per month (compared to the $72 total I paid previously for the services separately). Besides being cheaper, I am also getting:

• faster broadband speed (3000 kbps compared to 1500 kbps previously)
• free SMS, free caller ID, and more mobile minutes for outgoing calls (100 minutes compared to 80 minutes)
• - free outgoing fixed line calls (I used to pay 1.4 cents per minute for outgoing calls on my fixed line)

This is truly one of those "no brainer" deals.

****

When I upgraded to the MIO plan, Singtel said it was mandatory that I get a new mobile phone. After evaluating the offerings available, I finally opted for a $0 phone. For a free phone, I found the Samsung Ultra Edition 8.4 to be feature-packed! You can read a review of the phone and its features at this site:

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,39271322p,00.htm

As you can see from the CNET magazine review, this phone can play MP3 music and MP4 video files. As I have never owned such multimedia phones before (yup, I am that behind the times in terms of handphone ownership), I got all caught up trying all kinds of MP3 songs from my personal music collection for my ring tone. In the end, I settled on "Sara" (from the Jefferson Starship album "Knee Deep in the Hoopla"), which is one of my favorite songs from the 1980s.

However, I then found the "Sara" music video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqRTtkEHrA4

Not content with having "Sara" as my ring tone, I now wanted to also load the "Sara" music video on my Ultra Edition phone.

If you have tried to download YouTube's videos before, you know that you can't actually save YouTube videos on to your hard disk as easily as you can with regular files.

A little investigation told me that all YouTube videos are actually stored in FLV (Flash Video) format. I also found many techniques and utilities for saving YouTube videos as FLV files on the hard disk. However, the method that I am recommending is also the easiest to remember: Just put the word "Kiss" before "YouTube" to get "KissYouTube".

To download a copy of a YouTube video, simply prefix "kiss" before the word "youtube" in the URL. Using the above URL as an example, to download the "Sara" video, all I needed was to type this URL instead in my web browser:

http://www.kissyoutube.com/watch?v=ZqRTtkEHrA4

On the KissYouTube page that is opened, click the link "Download Now" to begin the download. As per the instructions given, you must remember to add the extension ".FLV" to the file name when you save the file on your hard disk.

****

If you want to play FLV files from your PC, I strongly recommend the freeware (and open sourced) media player VLC, which can be downloaded from this site:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

A few years ago, I obtained a video in WMV format from a Microsoft CDROM. However, the WMV file on the CDROM was partially corrupted, and Microsoft's Windows Media Player refused to play the corrupted WMV file - complaining that it was bad and not playable etc. The corrupted WMV file will not play on other players like RealPlayer or Quicktime either. As I wanted to watch the video, I discovered references to the VLC program from a Google search. To my astonishment and delight, VLC played the corrupted WMV file without any problems whatsoever. I was sold on the VLC player ever since.

****

However, the Ultra Edition phone cannot play videos in FLV format. To play the "Sara" music video, I need to first convert the FLV file to MP4 format.

I have found a fantastic web site that will convert a file in any media format to any other media format. And yes, the conversion service is free!

http://media-convert.com/

In the Media-Convert site, simply specify the source file from your hard disk and its media type. Then, specify the destination type you wish to convert the file to. Click the "Convert" button, and viola! The conversion is done for you. There is no software to be installed, so you can perform these conversions from a Windows, Mac, or even Linux computer!

I converted the "Sara.FLV" file to "Sara.MP4", and uploaded the MP4 file into my phone. I now have the "Sara" music video playing beautifully on my new phone.

Wickedly, the Media-Convert site is also able to convert the FLV video file to an MP3 music file too. Thus, this is also a good way to extract just the audio portion of a video file in to an MP3 file for use as a ring tone!

Hope you find these tips fun and useful. As a bonus, here is another YouTube music video that you might want to "rip" and "collect":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhAjrIAFiJ0

Enjoy! NJ

Samsung Ultra Edition 8.4 Phone

The ear-piece connects to the USB port on the phone.

The phone's USB port serves as:

1. USB data port
2. Charging port
3. Ear-piece port

Note that this photo is taken from the phone's 2 megapixel camera. As you can see, the camera quality is not so bad.

The USB/charging/ear-piece port is on the phone's right edge.

Note the large buttons on the keypad. I like large buttons as they are easier for me to press. They are definitely nicer than the buttons on the Nokia 6288 that I was previously considering.

All photos of the phone are taken from my Fujifilm FinePix A345 (4-megapixel) camera.

The USB/charging/ear-piece port exposed.

The Samsung Ultra Edition 8.4 with the Samsung X100A phone.

The Ultra Edition 8.4 is almost half the thickness of the X100A phone. They are about the same height and width.

Personally, the Ultra Edition 8.4 phone is TOO SLIM for me. I actually prefer a thicker phone (like my old X100A). But I have no complaints for a $0 phone with so much functionality.



Links:

• Samsung Ultra Edition 8.4 Specifications

• CNET Review of the Ultra Edition 8.4