moved

to blogspot at http://luminus529.blogspot.com. See you there.
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humbleness

The kind of person I like is the one is easily dismissed. Therefore, when I went to class today to see a TA, I was surprised, amused, and delighted to see someone exactly like that.

He says things like

1. "If you want to go to the other class upstair, my feeling won't be hurt."
2. "Sorry about my bad handwriting" when his handwriting is perfectly legible and legibly perfect, moreso than even the professor!
3. "I'm sorry we don't have a better seating arrangement" when talking to my interpreters because we got to class when it was already full.

What a dreamy TA, kinda cute. But eh, the kinds of person I like are those who can be labeled a pushover, when ironically he is not. Such a self-depredatory sense of self-esteem that should not be true is the best kind of irony, and I enjoy irony wholeheartedly.

A good handwriting, and yet he apologizes for it being bad. And yet, he still has within himself an great inner strength for which I respect him, and hope that others will respect him.

What inner strength in someone so apologetic? He can manage a class discussion! When a student asked about a paper due in March, he replied that he would get to it in a minute and still remembers to talk to him. He doesn't exclude people or get carried away in a discussion. He has a clear plan and can ensure that people follow it.

I love those kinds of people, the perfect example of irony, yet not bordering on hypocrisy. True humbleness, in other words.
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Google Video

About Google Video: "Google Video will search the closed captioning text of all the programs in our archive for relevant results."

Oh, wow. That's nice. So if people want to be listed, they have to hire good captioner. We may see a marked increase in the quality of captioning, especially on the news.

I'm so surprised that Google is actually putting closed captioning to good use beyond its original function of servicing the Deaf.

The text we use for searching Google Video is captured from the closed captioning of each program as it airs. Closed captioning isn't always accurate and errors can occur during the transmission.

Someone there knows what closed captioning is and wants to help us.

This will really help me because I look for transcript of any aired show, since I can't hear audio version.
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He's a worldbeater, all right

He's a worldbeater, all right: "That was what Bush accomplished so superbly in his speech: the idealistic position -- spreading liberty -- is now also the realist one: If you don't spread it, in the end your own liberty will be jeopardized."

Exactly. A superpower doesn't work against terrorism, because all that is necessary is to create a bomb and explode it somewhere in the cities. What is needed is a true discussion on how to deal with terrorism beyond reducing it.

You could try your best to close the borders, cut and run, or you can spread liberty around the world. If liberty means creating a new economy on par with that of Japan, Germany, and France after World War II, then I'm for it. The only thing is that the Democrats must have a significant discourse on the paths that the U.S. should take to spread liberty, however much Bush may antagonize them.

I just wish that Bush had included Saudi Arabia in his Axis of Evil, since that's where the 9/11 hijackers originated. Oh, but the precious oil!
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The horrible grunt of the Tasmanian devil

How awful! Makes me look at Loony Tunes character in a new light. No wonder.

If you can distinguish sounds, you can hear the horror of this beast.
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36 troops die in bloodiest day

It will get worse before it gets better. All our lives now are focused symbolically on the Iraqi election that most likely will only settle on electing an assembly that will elect the council that will choose the President (I got the info from the Daily Show, which presents much better information than I could have gotten anywhere else).
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four days from now

F
our days from now, the Iraqi election will begin. When it is night time here, it is a new day in Iraq, when the citizens will take up the mantle of the ballots and vote. It will be the first election, and I hope it will not be the last. Together with the rule of law, people will begin the first step toward a new democratic republic. I hope the new Iraq left behind will not be a failed state.

Let us hope that freedom will truly win, despite the President's misuse and abuse of his presidential power. Especially with that Alberto Gonzales. He may be Hispanic and all, but using the story of rising from poverty as a sign of qualification for the job of Attorney General is just too much for me to bear or understand. Moreover, it looks as if Condoleeza Rice will be confirmed tomorrow, I'm frightened.

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remembering

I thought I had forgotten my PIN number, and when I requested it from FAFSA, I didn't get it in the e-mail. But when I went to change my email address and had to submit my PIN, I put down what I vaguely thought was the number and it was the right one. Amazing how human memory can be, so uncertain as life, yet more capable than a computer--because computers, once you've put a magnet on it, put it in the freezer, or drop it accidentally, more often than not, that is irretrievable.

Unlike human beings, you must back up your hard disk drive. Human beings are irreplaceable: Hard disks must be replaced frequently.
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What is eXeem?

Something to based on BitTorrent but better, apparently.
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Stealth Attack On Evolution

TIME is covering the stealth attack on evolution using intelligent design. Beautiful though the idea of Intelligent Design is, it does not fit any criterion of scientific theory and cannot be easily subject to rigorous scientific method.

In fact, I think Intelligent Design is ugly. It just raises doubt, but cannot prove itself. It appeals only to emotion, not to answer the true understanding of evolution.
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Stem Cell Lines Contaminated

Federal Stem-Cell Lines cannot be used. Therefore, Charles Krauthammer, that wheelchair-confined Republican guy, was a total idiot. And he claims to be a doctor!

President Bush may have been the first to approve federal funding for stem cell research, but he certainly has not pushed for allowing experimentations on embryos that would be thrown away anyway. Now we know with certainty that these stem cells are contaminated and it may not even be possible to use them at all.

Changing topic: The more I think about it, the more I agree that it is necessary to reconsider Roe vs. Wade, the abortion ruling, to deprive those Republicans of their favorite talking point. As long as they can rely on claiming to be pro-life, they will keep getting elected, regardless of their positions on other issues.

I genuinely believe that more Americans than not believe in some forms of abortion rights, but they are uncomfortable with giving women free reigns to make their choices. The problem with the Roe vs. Wade ruling is that it took the decision out of the hands of the legislators, disallowing them and their represented rights to make laws themselves.

If the Roe vs. Wade was reconsidered, the states would automatically pass their own laws allowing abortion, and a compromise would be reached. A place like Virginia would not necessarily become a haven of would-be mothers using clothes hangers to cut out the fetuses inside them, because the conscience of Americans is too humane to forbid abortion outright, and to jail women as murderers.

Many would disagree with me by saying that the Right would win and destroy civil rights, and they would not be far from the truth. The Right will win for the next few years. The next few years after the ruling is overturned will necessarily be one of the worst years of America. Progressively, however, Americans will learn to debate policy again, and reaching a compromise.

If they will not, those who are once intractable in their pro-life position will reconsider compromising rather than believe that all abortions are wrong. They will reconsider because they finally have their say on policies, and their minds will open up again because there will finally be other things to talk about.
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I've been added to the outrage

over no WMDs in Iraq.

You can find the outrage and my post is linked to on January 22, 2004.
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UNDERSTANDING VORN

By Jonathan J. Harris

If you have any image online that starts with any of the letters V, O, R, and N, this website will, scouring all the weblogs online, find yours and put it as part of a collection that shows the uniqueness of human beings (using Romance alphabets) in a transient state.

via Yahoo! pick.
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Johnny Carson Dies

at 79 in a peaceful slumber.

Farewell, eclipsed is television's greater power.
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Declares 'War' on Democracy

The Terror Chief has declared war on democracy. So he and his insurgents will do their best to make the worst of Iraqi election day. It's probably a retaliatory remark against Bush's speech stating that he would do everything possible to bring liberty and democracy to the world.

It's unfortunate, but true: America is one of the very few places that can truly claim to be a melting pot of cultures and civilizations. Naturally, a few hiccups along the way only served to further heighten the expansion of freedom to all individuals. Iraq, an ancient hodgepodge of tribal conflicts that intensified after the British and the French colonies divided the territories without understanding the history, is not likely to be the melting pot with two major political parties.

America, when it first began, had many different strains of Christianity, and the founding fathers realized that to maintain unity, the government could not try to push one religion over the other. Can the same thing happen in Iraq? We can only hope a perhaps foolish hope.
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C'est la vie sourde

Ésa es la vida sorda.
It's the deaf life.

Once in a while, I learn something new, incorporate it, and express my opinion on it. That moment occurred just minutes ago, and involved something I've experienced so often that once I actually stopped and analyzed it, makes life so ridiculously difficult.

When someone mentioned the name Jeffrey, I thought I heard Jennifer, but I heard wrong. Then I tried again, and thought I heard "Stephanie." The third try, I got it right, but the more you think about being deaf, the more you realize how much lipreading is guesswork.

I also have trouble speaking up in class. Despite my speech therapist's best effort to coax me out to voice my opinion--and I would very much like to, sometimes--I never found a way to do just that because I just don't want to speak on anything that I've heard nothing of what other classmates have said. I had this hit me twice: first, when in Chinese Christian School, a private school, a teacher asked how many disciples Jesus Christ had, and I didn't know; second, when in class, I gave out the same answer to the question that other students had given. That embarrassed me.

That's the deaf life. C'est la vie sourde.
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For Beijing Students Now, Protests Aren't Even a Memory

If you ever have doubt, anger, and fear about America, this should alleviate that doubt.

Right now, there is a whole generation of Chinese people who know little to nothing about the Tiananmen Square protest, nor about Zhao Ziyang's role in fomenting dissidents and protests against government control.

America was the first country to pass the first bill of rights, one of which stated that government cannot abridge the freedom of the press. Since then, almost continuously, the press has been free to investigate, support, and condemn government actions.

I am free to say what I want about the federal government, and I will receive at most a simple rebuke or disagreement, but no unwarranted suppression of "the freedom of speech."
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Global Warming not Collisions caused mass extinction on Earth

250 million years ago.

Global warming, huh? There was also a catastrophic climate shift 65 million years ago that, with an asteroid impact, killed all the dinosaurs.

This is why we must, for the sake of our lives, stop pollution and raise gas mileage. We care so much for our livelihoods. Let us join together to encourage greater efficiency, reduced energy consumption, for a better tomorrow.
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Bush Family Greeting Mistaken for Satanic Salute

I don't know about this, does it really mean bullshit? I know the ASL sign for bullshit, but does having a closed fist with the index and pinkie fingers sticking out also mean bullshit? I'd have thought they were referring to the devil, or to some silly heavy metal music (the kiind where people nod their head up and down violently, and long hair tend to fly up and down).

It's possible that some parts of the USA do use it to mean bullshit, but the Bay Area and some other place make the bullshit sign simply by signing "B S" with your backhand facing outward.

Well, Satan! Devil! Lucifer-worshipper!
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