nciku Chinese English Dictionary

I accidentally stumbled upon a new Online Chinese English Dictionary application today. This is by far the best online Chinese English dictionary for people like myself, where we learnt Chinese as a 2nd language.

www.nciku.com

So what is so special about this dictionary as compared to the others? These are 2 reasons:

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1. In other dictionaries, you have to "switch modes" if you want to:

• Translate English to Chinese
• Translate Chinese to English
• Pinyin input
• Chinese character input

In the nciku application, you can enter anything in the textbox: Chinese characters, Pinyin characters, or the English word if you want to translate English to Chinese instead. This is extremely valuable because many a time, I know the English word but don't know the Chinese equivalent. For example, I know the English term "instant messaging", but don't know what its equivalent is called in Chinese (it is "即时通讯").

The all-encompassing search box in nciku behaves like Google. You just type the word in any format (Chinese characters, pinyin, or the English term) into the nciku textbox, and the nciku application will "magically" return the dictionary definition for you.

And when the dictionary definitions are returned, you can hover the mouse pointer over each definition in the results list to see the pinyin characters of the entire definition/explanatory text. This is tremendously helpful for reading and learning how to pronounce new words that I encounter in the definition.

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2. However, the most unique feature in the nciku dictionary is the search by "Handwrite Characters" button to the right of the search box.

Many a time, when I come across a Chinese character in a signboard, a newspaper, or in a book, I am unable to look up the character using other online dictionaries because I don't know how to pinyinise the unknown Chinese character. This is an innate problem with the Chinese language. The Chinese character's pictogram doesn't tell you how to pronounce the word, and as such, you cannot use an online dictionary to lookup the word if the online dictionary requires you to input Chinese characters via pinyin (a catch-22 situation).

The powerful search by "Handwrite Characters" allow me to draw the Chinese character inside a special "paint" box. As I flesh out each stroke in the "paint" box, nciku automatically "guesses" 12 Chinese characters that could fit what you have "drawn" so far, and displays the possible words in a 4x3 grid. Once you see the word you are looking up in the 4x3 grid, you can just click the appropriate cell to immediately retrieve its definition.

This is a damn powerful feature! None of the other Chinese English online dictionaries I have previously been using provide this capability!

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And amazingly, nciku is free!!!

nciku is the product of a South Korean company called NHN, which is the biggest search engine company in South Korea (i.e. the Korean equivalent of Google). If you are interested to know more about them, there is a Forbes magazine article about the NHN company and the nciku application here:

http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/1027/062a.html

LEFT BRAIN-RIGHT BRAIN Optical Illusion

Recently, Channel News Asia ran an in-house advertisement showing a woman in silhouette spinning. The advertisement voice-over says that if you see the woman spinning clockwise, then you are a RIGHT-BRAIN person. However, if you see the woman spinning counter-clockwise, then you are a LEFT-BRAIN person.

Every time I saw the advertisement, I could only see the woman spinning clockwise (which meant I was a RIGHT-BRAIN person). I found it hard to accept that some people will see the woman spinning counter-clockwise. I tried to focus my mind to "see" the woman spin in the counter-clockwise direction, but as the CNA advertisement ran for only a short 30 seconds each time it was played on the TV, there was never enough time for me to accomplish this.

Today, I found the spinning woman optical illusion on this web site:

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22492511-5005375,00.html

Now that I have more time to look at the optical illusion, I found that indeed, if I focus on the image in a special way, I can see the woman spinning in the other direction.

By default, I always see the woman spinning in the clockwise direction. To trick my brain to see her spin in the counter-clockwise direction, I have to turn my head 90 degrees to the right of the picture, and then do a side-glance on the image (which is now on my left), using periphery vision from my right eye to see the picture. When I glimpse at the picture through this sideways glance, I can make my mind see the woman spinning counter-clockwise. Once my brain has locked on to the counter-clockwise spinning image, I can then turn my head to gaze directly at the picture while holding on to the counter-clockwise spinning image.

Interestingly, if I lose my concentration for a while, I will immediately see the woman spinning in the clockwise direction. The transition is quite startling. As I just cannot force my mind to see her spinning in the counter-clockwise direction if I am staring at the picture directly, I have to repeat the above exercise to see her spin in the opposite counter-clockwise direction again. I did this a few times to experience the "transition", and I am really rapt at the strange effect on my brain whenever the "transition" occurs.

I am sure some people have the ability to "switch" between the clockwise and counter-clockwise view while gazing directly at the picture. But I am not one of them.

According to the news article, a RIGHT-BRAIN person like me "uses feeling", is "big-picture oriented" among other traits, whereas a LEFT-BRAIN person would "use logic" and is "details oriented" etc. This is pseudo science, and is in the same group as other rubbish like horoscopes, palm reading, biorhythms to determine a person's character. There is absolutely no scientific foundation.

The Vatican

A Penn and Teller's Bullshit! episode about the Vatican, criticising the Pope for the Catholic Church's stance on issues such as condom use, protection of paedophile priests, homosexuality is now a target by the fundamentalist Christians in the US, who want to shut down the TV program.

I am against the stance of the Catholic Church's because the Catholic Church positions on these issues are not based on rational or ethical thinking, but on their desire to protect their personal interests, and on unreasoned acceptance of religious dogma.

1. Condom use

The Catholic Church condemns the use of condoms, and actively prevents countries in Africa which are hard hit by HIV/AIDS to allow people to get access to condoms. This means that a HIV infected husband cannot wear a condom to prevent infecting his wife. Also, this also prevents the world from introducing yet another unwanted child.

The reason the Catholic Church is against the use of condoms is because they BELIEVE that every sexual act should be done for procreation. That is fine if you are a believer. But they should not use their immense wealth to prevent others who are non-believers from getting access to condoms.

The Catholic Church believes that condoms prevent the transmission of life. In reality, for AIDS infected Africans, condoms actually prevents the transmission of death (from the infected husband to the wife). And the Catholic Church claims that it is Pro-Life!

2. Paedophile Priests

Recent news articles in the past few years has revealed that the Catholic Church has a secret history of child molestations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases). However, the Catholic Church has been found to cover up almost all of these cases - basically protecting the priests instead of the children victims. In fact, the Catholic Church created a secret document back in 1962 that more or less said that in the reported cases, both the priest and his victim must keep this secret. If not, both parties will be subjected to ex-communication!

According to the Wikipedia article, almost 11000 cases of child sex abuse was reported against the Catholic priests. And in 81% of the cases, the victims were boys.

This statistic confirms a widely held truism that the Catholic Church has a large number of latent homosexuals.

3. Homosexuality

The Catholic Church, like most other religious organisations, are against homosexuality simply because of religious dogma. They keep claiming that homosexuality is against nature simply because it is condemned in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 in the Old Testament. However, modern science has shown that homosexuality is not only natural, but scientists have documented homosexual behaviour in more than 1500 species of animals. And humans are animals too.

The Catholic Church is even intruding into politics in many countries to try to prevent the overturning of laws that homosexuals are criminals simply by virtue of their sexuality. Ironically, outsiders have estimated that about 20% to as high as 50% of the Vatican parishioners can be closeted homosexuals. And yet, the church goes about actively promoting the view that homosexuals are criminals, and want to have homosexuals treated as second class citizens.

Here is a link to the Penn and Teller program. It is definitely worth a look:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af6_1251568394

Caning Punishment

Recently, Malaysia sentenced a Muslim woman to 6 lashes of the cane for the offence of drinking alcohol (after already giving her a fine of 5000 ringgit - which is approximately S$2050). Today, I learnt that good sense had prevailed, and the higher authorities had rescinded the caning punishment.

New York Times article about woman being freed from her caning sentence:

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/08/23/world/international-uk-malaysia-caning.html

The Independent article about the original caning charge:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/if-youre-going-to-cane-me-then-do-it-in-public-1775806.html

Caning Kartika just for drinking beer puts the Progressive Islam that former Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi was championing in a very bad light. She has already been fined RM5000. Subjecting her also to capital punishment is truly excessive.

And Kartika is actually a mother of 2 children. It just perpetuates the bad image that Islam already has, that it is misogynistic, barbaric, and backwards. And it is not as if she was being caned for an offence like manslaughter, drug peddling, inflicting violence on others, harming children etc. Her offence is that she was caught drinking beer! She was to have been flogged for an offence that did not harm any other person other than herself.

It just appalls me that the Malaysian Shariah courts wanted to cane this mother of 2 just to make her a "showcase" for Islam. The initial judgement to cane her simply shows that religious fundamentalism is making Malaysia slip back into the Middle Ages, instead of helping Malaysia progress with the rest of the world into the 21st century.

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While trying to find what other offences by women are punishable by caning in Malaysia's Shariah Court, I accidentally stumbled upon a video showing in absolutely horrific detail how a Judicial Caning in Malaysia is like.

Judicial Canings are meted out by the Federal Court, and can be served on both Muslim and non-Muslim males for over 40 kinds of offences (e.g. rape, illegal immigrants, drugs, violence etc).

Singapore also practise the same kind of Judicial Caning, except that the sentences are harsher in Singapore. The minimum stroke in Malaysia is 1 stroke. In Singapore, it is 3 strokes. In Singapore, caning can also be meted out for traffic offences as well as homosexuality.

In the following video, you can see a prisoner being given 20 strokes of the cane by the Malaysian police.

Warning: The following video is very brutal, and is not for the faint hearted. You have been warned!

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ab_1172940415

If you are interested, you can read about the kind of offences that result in Judicial Canings from the following site:

http://www.corpun.com/singfeat.htm

It is interesting to see that in the year 2007, Singapore meted out 6404 caning sentences. That is 120 canings per week!

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Personally, I am not against the use of caning as a deterrent to prevent crimes. (Although I did find the caning video extremely unsettling. It is not without reason that many Westerners find the caning sentences "barbaric".) However, I feel that the punishment must fit the crime. "Drinking alcohol" is a non-violent act, and harms no one (other than one self - and for that, you have to drink a lot). Inflicting caning for this "offence", especially to a mother of 2, just seems a bit excessive in this modern age. It is as bad as other Shariah punishments like the chopping of limbs for crimes like stealing. The practice of chopping of limbs as a punishment is downright barbaric.

Some one once said that since this is the law of Malaysia, then you must simply obey it and not question it.

Although this sounds logical, the truth is that laws are man made, and many laws are ill-conceived, vague, oppressive, and/or immoral. Consider the race laws passed in Germany after Hitler assumed power, in which people of "un-pure bloodlines" like Jews were sentenced to death. These were "the laws of the land". Yet who would defend such racialist laws today?

We are not sheep. We are capable of passing moral judgements. The whole progress of human liberty depends on courageous people who question and challenge immoral "laws". The chief impediment to human progress is the notion that one must not question anything.

Unfortunately, Islam is a religion whose holy book dictates that none of its contents can be questioned. Any Muslim who challenges the doctrines of Islam is branded an "infidel", in which the official punishment is death. It is precisely that Islam does not allow itself to be questioned that fundamentalist Islam has been permitted to thrive and grow. Moderate Muslims just dare not question the actions of Muslim terrorists such as suicide bombers and murderers who kill non-Muslim civilians, or the practices of other Muslim countries which deny women the same rights as men, because speaking up against their Muslim brethren is deemed "un-Islamic". However, by not standing up for reason and rationality, moderate Muslims allow the worst excesses of their religion to become mainstream and acceptable practices. And this simply leads to their religion becoming more and more out-of-step with modern progressive societies.

Bill Bryson's - A Short History of Nearly Everything

I have just finished reading Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything".

This book is EXCELLENT! Bill Bryson's book is very informative, very easy to read, and surprisingly, very funny! I chortled at many of his narratives about eccentric scientists. The human stories in the book made the story of science lively and engaging, something which a lesser writer would have killed or rendered dry as dust (think school science text books).

Highly recommended!