i.justrealized

The news article on ChannelNewsAsia reveals concerns over over-education of homosexuality issues.

Controversial content in AWARE’s sex education programme sparks debate

SINGAPORE: The debate over the sexuality education programme by the Association of Women for Action and Research boils down to a 15-minute segment of its three-hour workshop, TODAY has learnt after obtaining on Wednesday pages of the group’s Comprehensive Sexual Education: Basic Instructor Guide.

The section in question defines terms such as “anal sex”, “virginity”, “teenage pregnancy” and “homosexual”. As part of the workshop exercise, students are asked to associate these terms according to three categories: Positive, neutral and negative.

The rest of the guide deals with topics such as body image, HIV/Aids, contraception and relationships. But it is the description of terms such as homosexuality and anal sex that appears to be at the heart of the contention raised by self-declared “feminist mentor” and senior lawyer Thio Su Mien.

She took issue with homosexuality being seen as a neutral, not negative, word.

AWARE’s former programme manager Deeksha Vasundhra said the definitions are for instructors to facilitate discussions.

The “private and confidential” guide is never given to students, she said.

While the majority saw the importance of educating their children on sexuality and making the right choices, many also questioned the handling of controversial topics and the explicitness of the material.

“It’s okay to let them know (about sex) but not to this extent. I don’t want my son to learn such explicit things,” said Ms Nor, a mother of three.

Father of six, Rizan Jantan, 45, felt children could approach parents and “we can explain to them (right from wrong).”

A mother of two boys said it was “all natural”, while businessman Chung Toh Keong, 56, felt such issues should be taught, since we “don’t dare talk about such taboo topics”. (Source: ChannelNewsAsia)

What caught my attention is Ms Nor’s comments where she agrees with sex education but prefers it to take a slightly conservative approach where issues such as “anal sex” and so on are not discussed. Is ignorance really bliss? Should there be limits as to where sex education should discuss? Wouldn’t it be just a matter of time (at the rate things are going) these issues become common discussions?

I finally got that damn Samsung PC Studio 3 software to work in Windows 7 64-bit after trial and error. I dream of the day all phone device makers adhere to a standard and make phone software compatible to even rival phones. Perhaps even an operating system integration. I can imagine some Windows Live Mobile tool or something that can open text messages, arrange contacts and extract out files. Phone device makers can make additional features exist as plugins. That would be my dream come true. I dislike all phone software. Hardware makers seem to care little about software.

Sorry I just found the whole AWARE debate at Straits Times forum thread quite absurd. Here are some snipplets:

The open-minded Christian

It saddens me as a Christian ( which I believe literally should mean aspiring to Having a Christ like mind)) that the people who bear this name seem to have forgotten His commandment LOVE GOD AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS YOURSELF there is no othe rcommandment greater than these.

They have forgotten that it was the very act of loving and sitting with sinners that Christ was accused just as the new committee are accusing the old guard.

There is no commandment in the Bible which tells you to mattack anf make the already painful life of homosexuals harder. Please do not pick and pluck to justify your own agenda

It seems to me that the only people who have the mind like Christ are the old guard

truthFirst, April 25, 2009 Saturday 12:22 PM

I didn’t go to church today for various reasons (mainly deadlines to meet). On a side note, the world is changing and Christianity in America is in the decline.

In the name of Total Defense

Someone even brought in the Total Defense strategy. Do humans exist to serve these so-call strategies that humans come out with. Strategies will morph to suit the purpose of national defense.

Promote Lesbianism? What does that do to our already low procreation rate?

Where are we going to get our babies from..Where are our future soldiers going to come from ?

Where are going to get the next generation of workers and tax payers to look after the mid age and the elderly of today?

What does this do to our Health budget when STDs rise and gays demand cloning of babies?

Allowing gay activism and promotion in our schools will confuse our little girls.

This undermines our Total Defence Strategy.

Promoting Lesbianism is anti Nation building activity. Period – Shut down the lesbian movement before they shut down our beloved country with their deviant agenda !!!

Don’t be neutral. Think about the long term viability of our nation. Go to the EGM and stand up for decent family values and the Nation. Majullah Singapura!!!

nobird, April 25, 2009 Saturday 10:36 PM

I always get pissed when someone suggests cloning of babies. It’s not so much of it being unethical, it’s more of it being unneeded. Almost no one wants to see it, it’s out of touch and irrelevant in this era.

Gay movement liken to a virus invasion

Everyone is entitled to his or her own conviction. However to spread your own conviction to children without serious consideration, is like spreading virus to a healthy person. It can affect or be harmless depends on the immunity of the children. However do you think the old EXCO did the right thing? If those who think that old EXCO did the right thing by spreading the message that it was all right to have gay marriages, then there is nothing more to discuss. God bless these members of society.

csanson2004, April 25, 2009 Saturday 11:41 PM

And another suggest a quarantine

what about ALL those GAYS in local universities and tertiary institutions ?? ALL those GAYS in local universities are very disgusting , very very disgusting , they have AIDS AIDS virus , many of them have AIDS AIDS virus and they are spreading the AIDS AIDS virus to everybody . Why can’t they sent ALL these GAYS to prison for 40 years , 40 years in prison ? ALL these GAYS in local universities and tertiary insitutions should be sent to prison for 40 years , 40 years in prison They are spreading AIDS AIDS virus to everybpdy Why can’t they sent ALL these GAYS in local univerisities to prison for 40 years , 40 years in prison ? or the least they should be expelled from the local universities They are spreading AIDS AIDS virus to everybody They should be sent to prison for 40 years , 40 years in prison, ALL these GAYS in local universities and tertiary institutions should be sent to prison for 40 years , 40 years in prison

josiewong, April 26, 2009 Sunday 04:52 AM

I don’t have much opinion on the issue actually. I’m not even sure if AWARE is a Christian organization or it is just a general women issues organization. (I’m often unAWARE of the news.) If they’re affiliate to a religion, it is fine to spread the anti-gay sentiments as they believe. If they are not affiliated to any religion, then there is no enforcement required at all. Just don’t mix religion into any non-religious organization. I don’t think much people care about gay issues anyway.

Ultimately everyone has the right to choose what they believe in. If the organization does not align with your beliefs and you do not wish to accept their beliefs, then you’re just hijacking the organization, you really should be starting your own.

Interesting, this has become a wonderful opportunity for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) to spread awareness to the public, many of whom probably don’t care of their existence. The LGBT and Christian-haters seem to have form some sort of alliance or something. The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

I previously set up a blog with one of those cheap web host that probably stores like a 150 websites in one server. The price is low and the service I got is alright, typically a one day response time which I am fine with. It was until that low-cost web host start insist on me having one of those VPS plans that I started to turn away. I couldn’t afford the VPS back then and I wasn’t that keen to let them suspend my account due to high activity.

So I was pretty determined to get a good host and stay there for the next few years. Changing hosts is such a chore. Media Temple has a lot to offer:

• Professional looking: A professional made website with good design and nice pictures of servers. I gotta admit that at one point of time I actually thought their servers look like that.
• Supports large websites: Media Temple hosts multiple huge websites that I go to. Today they host 9rules and Django Project. And they load pretty quickly. Of course those are under their premium plans but I thought that they would offer me something roughly on par.
• Marketing gaga: I’m totally into the marketing term “grid”. Even though Media Temple’s Grid Service is not the same grid computing I later understand, the term “grid” was a key deciding factor. Back then I did not understand the term. It just sound like one of those plans I should be having.
• Designer control panel: Media Temple actually has a wonderful control panel. I’m sick of CPanel and was looking for something fresher. Media Temple’s control panel is almost like a designer panel. And well, the demo control panel also loads quite quickly.
• Transparency in hosting: Media Temple also has this RSS feed where they reveal incidents of their clusters. This is a huge plus to me. I see the transparency of the hosting provider. I like that level of transparency and they keep updating their customers with rather detail ongoings.
• Customer centricity: Media Temple has generally positive reviews and does a lot of damage control around the web. This appeals to me. It appears that they’re listening.

So I signed up for Media Temple’s Grid Service thinking that it’s the end of all my worries. But it rarely is the case as I explain below:

• So what if it’s professional looking: This just means Media Temple hire good designers and have the revenue to do so. A good design invites people but is hardly representative of the level of service they provide.
• So what if it supports large websites: Media Temple is likely to have place much of their technical resources in these large websites. Media Temple has a stake in maintaining the online time of these websites as they placed their logos on these sites and has become closely associated with them. If you ain’t going to be paying for some of their really expensive services, I doubt you get anything close to that level of dedication.
• And yeah I believed the marketing department: Well, the word “grid” is totally meaningless. In fact I feel kinda stupid believing it was the holy grail or something. “Grid” turns out to have lots of problems and these includes slow database access which mattered greatly to me.
• So what if there’s a designer control panel: Designer control panel that is slow, may I add. I found it crawling. When you really need something like accessing the database with phpmyadmin, you will realized how many clicks it takes to reach there. You can’t open a control panel page into a new tab also and that’s bad usability. Control panel takes longer than it should and I pretty much given up using it. The demo control panel does not reflect the speed of your control panel.
• So transparent but no improvement: Sure they post lots of issues and are still rather transparent. But it just took too long for them to fix their problems. Having an RSS feeds detailing the server faults makes customers slightly more forgiving but what I want to see is a change. It’s almost like someone recognizing his/her mistake and apologies but commits the same thing all over again. After a while, I realized no news is good news. Media Temple have some issues with their vendor Blue Arc and somehow these issues affected a portion of their customers. They took a long time to resolve. I am not sure to what extend it has been resolved.
• Customer centricity non-existent: I wrongly assumed the level of support from Media Temple judging on the way they perform damage control. Media Temple support is rather poor. They take long to reply and complained that my database activity is too high on several occasions. The database analytic tool that they provide reveal no spike in activity. I mailed them and they insisted that I should check their analytic tool to resolve issue. Want to know how it feels like talking to a wall? Try Media Temple.

Ultimately, what mattered more than webhosting support is not having the need to request for support. Today I hardly request for support because I just don’t need it.

And that is what I call great service.

[If you are interested in Slicehost, consider using my referrer link. Thanks!]

It felt kinda funny so I just had to take a picture. I was at MobFest last week and Microsoft was the venue sponsor.

When Microsoft got their interns to talk about their projects, a few people stood up and leave. So basically they’re not there for Microsoft at all. It’s kinda sad and funny at the same time. I, too, wasn’t there for Microsoft products. I am working in the building next to them so we just walk over to check MobFest out. After MobFest, Arzhou, Raine and Uzyn had some supper (or dinner). And yesterday, I was at Microsoft Singapore again for RIAction and they had lots of Adobe stuff there. Google and Yahoo! was there too.

I think it is really generous for them to let competitor products step into the company. It requires a certain amount of openness and generosity to allow that to happen. I mean they could have rejected these things and no one would say that they are selfish. After all, it’s not in their commercial interest to host these sort of events. Sure they could sip in a bit of Microsoft talks here and there but they don’t really have to do that too. I don’t think the company deserved to be made a butt of jokes all the time.

Oh, you can’t sing a cover of “Winter Wonderland”. Apparently YouTube took down a video of teenagers singing “Winter Wonderland” due to copyright infringement. Warner probably owns the rights to the song.

Deleted Video?! Warner Music Group?! Copyright Infringement?! WINTER WONDERLAND?!

Well… I am just wondering why Youtube or whichever company did that. These Christmas jingles would sell better if more people spread it, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it be in their commercial interest to not remove these videos? Unless of course the song would hurt the sales of the song, perhaps like a parody or change of lyrics or even a horribly-rendition.

YouTube’s January Fair Use Massacre

This is what it’s come to. Teenagers singing “Winter Wonderland” being censored off YouTube.

Fair use has always been at risk on YouTube, thanks to abusive DMCA takedown notices sent by copyright owners (sometimes carelessly, sometimes not). But in the past several weeks, two things have made things much worse for those who want to sing a song, post an a capella tribute, or set machinima to music.

First, it appears that more and more copyright owners are using YouTube’s automated copyright filtering system (known as the Content ID system), which tests all videos looking for a “match” with “fingerprints” provided by copyright owners.

Second, thanks to a recent spat between YouTube and Warner Music Group, YouTube’s Content ID tool is now being used to censor lots and lots of videos (previously, Warner just silently shared in the advertising revenue for the videos that included a “match” to its music). (Source: EFF)

I’ll leave you to judge if this has gone too far.

The previous Monday was the last episode of The Little Nyonya (小娘惹). I was watching it with my mom. I watch about 30% of the whole series, I either overslept, too tired, too busy or too pek chek. (“Pek chek” is the feeling of frustration, typically arising from the fact that there isn’t much that can be done to alleviate a problem.)

(The Little Nyonya by Mediacorp.)

The Little Nyonya is the most pek chek series I ever watch. Right next to Lost which is really pek chek ’cause I have to wait months for the next season. I often bring my netbook and sit on the sofa to watch with her when I have the time. And when things get a little too pek chek, I enjoy some juice from my fridge while someone’s crying on television.

The series tells of Peranakan culture which is quite refreshing. A good detour from the typical Mediacorp Singapore dramas that involves a bunch of crazy folks and neighbors, a cute (in a smart-ass way) but helpless kid and some references to national education. What happen to the Mediacorp stock characters? Oh oh, I know the answer to this one – they’re all compacted in the next drama of Reunion Dinner (团圆饭). I yawned twice on the first day. The second day I yawned before the show starts and went to bed.

Just today my mom was saying the finale was terrible. “Thought you say nice?” Mom: “Bad ending.”

{[Yue Niang (Ou Xuan) and Chen Xi (Qi Yi Wu) together.] * 1}

Huh? I thought the ending was a good one? Well it wasn’t fantastically beautiful I guess but it was still a good ending, no? My mom wants to see Chen Xi (Qi Yi Wu) and Yue Niang (Ou Xuan) together and at the last few episodes she still wants to see them together. I keep telling her if they get together, I’d fire the scriptwriter.

If you ask me at the middle of the drama, I would say it would be great to see them together but as it reaches to the end and with all the plot unfolding, the chance of Yue Niang becoming the wife of Chen Xi is almost negligible. In fact, it would be rather uncharacteristic of Yue Niang to be with Chen Xi as it would be snatching her sister’s husband (even though they probably divorce or something). Yue Niang’s character has always been consistently self-sacrificial (which is why I say it’s really pek chek) and at the end of the series it would be likely that she would sacrifice again and again. I am so prepared for the additional sacrifice I stock up my fridge with apple juice. Furthermore, putting them together would be like watching a Disney-style ending, it’s like watching Cinderella with Peranakan seasoning.

(Disney Cinderella style ending for The Little Nyonya?)

I looked at the ending as a good one, probably because I did not view The Little Nyonya as a love story. I view it as a story of a person. After all, it’s The Little Nyonya and not The Adorable Nyonya Couple. May I also add that mid-series I actually thought The Pek Chek Show would’ve been a much apt title. I think ultimately, The Little Nyonya delivered. Whether it is the desired ending or not isn’t much of an issue. It’s the story of her, as the scriptwriter portrays. I think he or she did a good job.

However I am disappointed that The Little Nyonya felt a little rush with several unaddressed plot developments such as:

• What happen during the fire? How did Yue Niang escape?
• What happen to Liu Yi Dao? (By the way, that’s one of my favorite characters, hahaa…)
• What happen to Yue Niang’s husband? I know he wasn’t shown because they couldn’t find an old caucasian dude who resembles the younger actor but still…
• What happen to Yue Niang’s family? I know they moved into the house and then? (Oh by the way, seeing a bunch of old folks looking at the house like it’s heaven is really funny. I laughed, sorry.)
• What happen to Chen Xi and Libby? Perhaps more coverage would be good after all much of the series focuses on developing Chen Xi’s character.

I don’t think there would be a next season, they practically killed of all characters to begin a new season. A parallel plot is possible but it’s untested in Singapore dramas (correct me if I’m wrong). Perhaps a single hour sub plot would be good to revisit the familiar characters and address some of the questions above. A spring festival special perhaps?