SimpleBlob's Life

http://recoil.org/~avsm/wow-remash.gif

Only the real World of Warcraft players will get it.

For those desperate in life, and in GRE Exam....

Jessica Pierce: 1989-2006

Usually I don't read slashdot because I think it is full of childish comments and flame wars, but this link is very worth the read.

If you are considering going to Graduate Schools, please read it, especially the comment section! There are so many good advices there that I didn't think it would be possible with slashdot.

Today, while I was reviewing my GRE test on the verbal part, a question came up to my mind -- why are there so many words that mean the same thing?

For an example, today I struggle with "skulduggery","chicanery","trickster","swindler", which all means something about fraud. I think words like "skulduggery" would be used only once in a lifetime, while "fraud" would be used much more often.

There is really a level of language. An entire tier of words which are synonyms with another tier of words, only that it is more formal or more polite.I know that the Japanese language is like that. To say thing to your teacher instead of your friend, you have to use completely different sentences. In Japanese and in many other languages, it is the politeness or even privilege that makes language much harder, but also much more fun to use.

This is an essay I wrote for the GRE Diagnostic test.
Now I know that my brain is rusty beyond recognition, and if you disagree, just take a look at most of my old articles here..

Task 1: Issue Exploration (45 minutes)

“A person who does not thoroughly comprehend the technical side of a craft is incapable of judging it.”

Many craftsmen spent a lot of time honing their skills to make the finest products possible, so it is not surprising that they took great pride in their work. While most of us aren’t as skillful, we are still compelled to judge the quality of their work, and rightly so. This might sound unfair, but let me explain.

There are 2 types of skill needed to be a successful craftsman. One is making product, and the other is judging the quality of it. The first one is difficult to obtain, however, the latter can be learned much more easily -- sometimes we are born with it.

With that reason, someone who never cooks at all in his life can tell if the food is delicious or not. Or, in the same vein, many of us can judge about the quality of shoes, hammers, or a haircut. This mostly happens in the crafts that make functional products for people to use.

Also, there are other kinds of related skills, such as between an architect and a carpenter. An architect must design a building, but a carpenter has to build it. So, does an architect know more about carpentry than the carpenter? The answer is no, but they know enough to design it.

However, there are also exceptions, which is mostly in the field of art. One piece of art can generate a lot of different opinion, even from artists themselves. As someone has said, “the picture is worth a thousand words.” -- Unfortunately, the words are not the same for each person.

All in all, the person that can judge the craft correctly depends on which craft he’s judging. We should be careful to criticize something.

Well, today I woke up groggily at 6.30 a.m. in order to do a physical check at the hospital.

Why so early? Because when you need to give a blood sample, you can't eat or drink for 10/12 hours before that, and I get really hungry after 8 a.m., so it would be ideal to get this done fast.

the physical check program that I took is quite thorough, not only they check for normal things like blood pressure or a heart rate, there were also EKG, dental health, Hepatitis B virus, etc.

The hardest part about this, for me, is definitely the urine sample. this was arguable the hardest leak I ever took in my entire life. No kidding.

It started when they gave you the cup to fill your...liquid with, and then I headed to the bedroom. well, after standing there and trying to do it for 10 minutes, you will feel very silly. Question -- they prohibited you to drink any water for 12 hours, and then expect you to get it out more?

To make a long story short (no pun intended), it took me almost and hour to fill the cup, luckily I ask them to take the blood sample first, so I can drink more water -- make the process faster!

And after all assortments of test, 3 hours later, I got my result. Everything is normal, except my cholesterol is a little bit high. Me? I rarely eat anything oily. it must be genetics.

Recently, someone forwarded the email to me, titled something like this -- "Save our country before it becomes a second Argentina." It refers to the economic collapse of Argentina, the country which money worth nothing.

Inside the email, the author had cited many examples how my country are acting just like Argentina before it collapsed. Most of it is about how we buy goods from foreign companies, or how foreigners are taking over many local companies.

One example is this --
"We should not buy things from Carrefour (French-owned?) because our local wealth will be transferred to foreigners and leave us with Nothing!"
"I myself buy all my stuff at local stores, even if they are more expensive, to support our country!"

Bullshit. This is sooo wrong on many levels...

the problem in question -- our money is flowing out to another country. Therefore we get poorer. We lose.

Now, the money is a paper. it's JUST a paper. What make it valuable is that we can buy something with it.

Ask yourself this, when we can buy the same thing at cheaper price, or buy more things at the same price, does it mean we get richer? And does it make our country richer?

In fact it does, in both questions. Because when another country can produces thing at a cheaper price -- ie. use resource more efficiently, both country will benefit from it.

I will try to explain it using example.

Japan and Ghana has never traded with each other before, but they're starting to. We will focus on 2 products which both countries currently produce -- Computer and Banana.

Japanese businessmen see that importing banana from Ghana to sell is much cheaper than buying from japanese banana farmers, so they imports a lot of it.

The result is many japanese can now buy more delicious and much cheaper banana. And the japanese farmers have to change to do something more profitable -- like planting rice.

On the other hand, Ghana businessmen also see that, Japanese computer are better and dirt cheap compare to its own country, so they start selling that instead.

You see what happen? in both countries, people are gettings better things at cheaper price, therefore better standard of living.

Whew... a little long read.

Today I just refuse a very easy job with easy money. It was a consulting job for ERP implementation. I was hired to fix performance and others issues, but I quit (in a same day) after found out that I could do nothing about the problems.

Because it was all ERP software's fault, and I told them that they should try contacting the ERP software's tech support instead.

Damn, A title as a consultant would looks find on the resume, but I couldn't accept the job and do nothing useful. It wouldn't be fair to the employer.

Weird, huh?