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.