I haven’t really though too much about the topic before watching the video, but dipping into the topic, I find it tremendously disturbing. This is a screenshot I just took from Gardsil’s HPV “mini-site”:

What the heck? I have never expected it to look so darn like a typical affiliate marketing’s mini-site. “It can affect your son too” — isn’t it getting blatantly obvious they’re now trying to expand their market by broadening their fear campaign?

After all, the thing has only been released for several years, though the hype and media coverage it has received is just not proportional! Here we have got celebrities selling the vaccine to me. If we really pull out for a bit and look at this from a high level — doesn’t it sound strange? I mean I have never seen vaccines and medical stuff marketed like this. Maybe it’s just a change in trend, but maybe it’s a sad manifestation of our capitalistic society.

Then again, that HealthRanger guy in the video keep preaching his own Web site newstarget.com, so I cannot say that he is 100% neutral on this matter too.

To be thin:

1. Eat less
2. Exercise more

To be rich:

1. Spend less money than you earn (or to put it another way, make more money than you spend)
2. Invest in your future

From there, I propose a more generic framework for success in life in general:

1. Figure out what would bring you closer to your goal
2. Do it

It’s that freaking simple.

As an experiment, you can ask yourself (or your friends): do you know what to bring you closer to your goals? Are you doing those things?

By far, the most enlightening class I ever took was an English class (which I subsequently left after the first day). While it didn’t teach me much about the subject, it opened my eyes to the extreme political and philosophical bias in many of our colleges today. A bias that rewards those who agree with the doctrine professed by instructors, and punishes any thoughts that contradict their beliefs. This isn’t as big an issue in many schools, and it certainly varies between teachers, subjects of study, departments and the makeup of the students in a class, but it my case, the hypocrisy of these “enlightened” teachers was on full display that day, and taught me to question not just the statements people make, but their motives for making them.

The class began as most do, with the distribution and reading of a syllabus, a brief introductory of the instructor and students, and then proceeded to the professor’s overview of the class’ objective.

“This will be like no class you’ve ever taken” she began. “Here, we won’t just learn about English literature, but also learn how to apply it to real situations, with an emphasis on women’s suffrage and black rights”.

I double checked my schedule, to be sure I was in the correct room. Yes, room 206 at 10:00am in the English building, I was in the right place. And the title of the class in my schedule confirmed what she was now scribbling on the chalk board “Thirteenth Century English Literature”.

So I raised my hand. “What does English literature in the 1200′s have to do with women and black rights?” A fair question I thought, but apparently, I was wrong. She muttered some round-about answer that dodged the question while staring scornfully at me.

I asked again, hoping I could clarify the question. “Weren’t the major English writers of the time men? Mostly monks I thought, with such high illiteracy among the non-clergy.” She hesitated in her response, so I wen’t on. “…and since the period predates the Northern European colonization of Africa, how many English writers had ever seen a black man?”

“Well,” she answered, “we’re looking at the link between what they wrote and racism and misogyny today”.

“So the writings were influential to the suffrage and civil rights movements?”

She quipped back “I don’t think you can understand what we’re teaching here, your a white man, so you don’t have the perspective needed to see the link between these topics.”

“Couldn’t it equally be the case that I haven’t read any 13th century English writings, and that’s why I don’t understand?” The annoyance was becoming obvious in my voice.

She stormed out of the room, in a hissy fit, saying she couldn’t teach a bunch of ignorant rednecks.

So, one bad teacher I thought. I’ve had plenty of good instructors in the past, she was just a fluke. I wen’t to the bursar’s office and tried to get my money back for the class. I had little interest in the subject anyway, and was only taking the class because it offered dual credit towards my degree.

I was told that, in spite of this class starting late in the term, it was in fact past the drop-add period and I would need a letter from my department head to get a refund. I made an appointment to see him. When I arrived at his office, four of my teachers were there to have a talk with me. If he was to sign off on my refund paperwork, the policy was that I needed counseling first from the staff . They proceeded to tell me how shocked they were at my behavior, how disappointed they were in me. The terms racist and sexist came up more than once. I reminded them that my girlfriend was half black, so as a woman and a minority, she could attest to the fact that I wasn’t some bigot. I was merely questioning the link between the course presented in the course outline I saw when I enrolled, and the very different subject matter I was presented in the class, not to criticize it, but just to understand why such a discrepancy existed between what was advertised and what the school was really giving me. My refund was refused. They strongly urged me to change major, as this teacher I had offended was the head of the department who oversaw all the humanities classes that qualified for the computer science degree I was pursuing. I would need to go through her to graduate.

“She doesn’t like me” I said, “but isn’t it a bit petty to assume she’d pressure a teacher to fail me on those grounds, even if my grades are passing”. That seemed to be what they were implying, but they acted offended that I understood what their implications were. I was then told that I may not be a “good fit for this school”.

I had paid up all of my other classes, so I continued through the semester. At this time, I carried a 3.9 GPA, which dropped a whole point by the end of the semester. I’m confident my grades were passing, but papers and lab projects I handed in were graded as incomplete, as though the teachers had never received them. Only one teacher stood by me and acted fairly. One of Eight teachers had any integrity.

I changed schools, stepping back to a community college (with a 2.9GPA for a spring transfer, that was the only option available to me). The community college was more fair, but I began to notice certain similarities. The math instructor who likes to review political polls, and then segway into his beliefs on the fallacies of the electoral college and it’s injustice. 40 minute rants to solve one equation. The robotics and manufacturing technologies teacher who advocates the wonders of automation, but insists they must not be used to displace union labor, in spite of the efficiency or cost. As for English teachers, I have yet to meet one with an ounce of sanity or a shred of integrity, they must be out there, but they aren’t teaching in a school near me. The students who succeed in college are the ones who keep their heads down and write what the instructor wants to hear, saving criticism for when they’re off campus. Even a number of the professors who seem to have contrary opinions to what most of the staff believes are careful not to make waves, and will seldom speak frankly to a student who may repeat it in front of another teacher.

That class changed my outlook on many things. I have great respect for those who can tolerate 6 years of college. After all that, they’ll tolerate pretty much anything, which often includes lower wages. Let’s face facts, if I’m hiring two people, one with 6 years of college, and one with 6 years work experience but no college, my experience tells me to value the latter. I’ll bet my money on the man who spent the better part of a decade in the real world, than the trained, professional Yes-Man who knows how to tell me what I want to hear while secretly harboring the ideals imprinted on him by deranged, intellectually stagnate hippie douche bags. That may not be the case with all graduates, but it’s the right call most of the time and I make no apologies for my belief.

…

My history professor said it in jest, but I have witnessed how true his statement is: “Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach in college.”

A brief on the brief history of time

I was only a dozen pages in when I attended the talk, so attending the talk actually helped me grasp the big picture of what this book is actually about. Basically, the book tries to discuss creation. How was the world created?

Here’s a list of stuffs it described:

• Singularity – what is it and does it actually exist?
• Dark matter
• Hawking’s radiation
• General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics
• The standard model to explain the unsolved questions regarding the creation of the universe, when using Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics to explain it
• Hawking’s own alternative hypothesis to the standard model – No boundary proposal
• In 1988, a researcher published a paper to illustrate the possibility of an imaginery time machine. Basically, what he said was that such a machine can fast-forward time no problem (using worm holes), but can only go backwards in time after the machine has been invented. That explains why we haven’t seen time travelers from the future.
• A lot of things about black holes

In pursuit of the beautiful creation

It’s probably not conveyed enough with words here, but I just failed to understand why any human on earth wouldn’t be fascinated by these beautiful topics. If there is one thing I’ll fall all over, become crazy and lose my mind about, this is probably it. What’s so special about it? To quote Hawking: if we manage to discover the truth, the cause of our existence, it would be the “ultimate triumph of human reason – to understand the mind of God.”

I took a look at the related books area and instantly decided to set a mission for myself: I’m going to read most (if not all) of Stephen Hawking’s writings. They are so elegant and yet, simple. Hawking’s writings read like a series of thought experiments: it’s not laden with terms and jargons for showing off’s sake, yet he manages to explain and predict the most difficult sciences of our nature. Truly, simple is beautiful.

Recently Bill Gates opened his new personal Web site the Gates Notes, where he writes about what he’s learning lately. That suddenly reminded of my true passion of all time – learning. That’s right, I love learning things of all kinds: technical, philosophical fluff talks or anything, it’s just always fun. That is going to be the new direction of my blog – I’ll write about what I’m learning lately and my new wicked ideas, so all of you out there can get a sip of my greatness.

Kudos to Bill for the nice idea and inspiration. You probably deserve to be so rich after all, bastard.

Today I was approached by that dude. Long story short, I gave him some money, then I went for dinner. On my way back after my dinner, I saw him standing at the exact same spot talking to another stranger. Oh well. I’ve learned another lesson.

That got me thinking, though. Would there be a way for me to distinguish the real helpless poeple from this lowly parasites? On the long way back home I’ve come up with a couple of strategies:

Get deposit

You know when you stay at a hotel they need to collect deposit from you upon check in? That’s to protect the hotel from you running away without checking out. Surprisingly, I think this would be a really effective strategy to mess up the scammers’ routines. You can give him money, but only on the condition that he gives something of similar value back to you.

You know, if his friends really are coming to rescue him tomorrow, then he would have no problem for you to keep his own purse. Get his passport, ID card, anything that would make the scammer’s day really difficult.

Of course, if anyone is asking for just an emergency help, then you shouldn’t be giving out money that’s worthing more than a passport. That way, if he takes away your money, he’s going to get himself more trouble by losing his ID card/passport.

Do it for him, don’t give him money

But what if he says he’s been robbed or his purse has been stolen? If he really doesn’t have anything valualbe, and you really feel like helping others, then just help him without giving him money.

He needs to go somewhere else to meet his friends? Grab a taxi, pre-pay the taxi driver and send him out. He needs to eat? Buy him the cheapest bread from around and give him that. He needs to make a phone call? Grab several coins and actually dial the number for him in a phone booth.

When all else fails, look for the cops

If all else doens’t work, and you still want to help this buddy. Do not take out your wallet! The moment you take it out, you’ve lost. He might snatch it from you. His friend might snatch it from behind. Heck, a mob of people may pop out of nowhere. When they don’t know where you put your wallet, you’re still safe. But when you take it out exposed before this suspicious guy that cannot give you any deposit and is asking for a bizarre favor that you cannot do for him on the spot, you’ve just basically expressed your intention to give him freebies.

If he’s really in need of help, call the local police. The cops would be more than willing to help him. This one works particularly well because if the guy sees you talking to police and are still looking relatively calm, he might really be that urban legendary helpless poor man on the street.

Trust is not a protection

You see, all of the above “strategies” do not center around identifying the guy. Rather, I would find ways to protect myself in the case he frauds. That particular scammer that got my money was pretty well-prepared. You know, I tried to be cautious by asking all the particular details: “What is your job?” “Where are you from?” “What exactly will you do next?” He answered all of those with vivid details. Then again, perhaps what I asked was a little bit too shallow. He might have been asked the same questions a hundred times in a day.

The point is, if your opponent is a professional con artist, then chances are he will out-speak you and be able to convince you. Heck, that’s what they do for a living!

Perhaps MBA courses’ biggest business success is shown by how they can wrap a book’s material in a year’s courses that costs thousands