The poor get poorer because they don’t have the money to reap economies of scale. (via)
It means everything.
(Ed: This was from a long time back; I’m clearing the backlog of blog drafts which have been lying around for far too long.)
The gold medal from Nanyang Technological University (NTU)’s Inter-School Games (ISG) Touch Rugby tournament which the National Institute of Education (NIE) team won. Captain = me (whee).
Why it means everything to me:
- First gold medal in a team sport.
- First touch rugby medal + gold at that.
- May not have been the best captain/coach around but I think I performed to expectations. Would’ve liked to have been my usual self during training but it was hard.
- Played with a great + talented + very, very skillful team. (For the KR folks: it’s like playing on the EH/TH team. Yeah, it’s that feeling.)
- Sense of accomplishment + feeling of getting something I deserve.
Although I do admit the playing field might not have been very level; the NIE team was filled to the brim with P.E. teachers i.e. people with some of the best co-ordination + ball sense around. So even if this was the first tournament for some, they were some of the most skilled touch rugby virgins around.
Therefore, my apologies go out to anyone from the other Schools whose dream of Gold wasn’t realised as well. I hope you get your chance in the future.
P.S. the line, for the young ‘uns, is from “Come On Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. Not that I’m very old, but it’s nice to pretend that I am much wiser. (Then your response here might be: “It’s nice to humour you…”)
Plastic bags.
Just a thought: I still see a lot of people using plastic bags, regardless of efforts to encourage the use of reusable bags. The only way we’re gonna get people to use more of the latter (NOTE: I didn’t say stop using plastic bags; the intention should always be to reduce to as small an amount of usage as is humanly possible) is either through:
- Asteroid,
- The Internal Security Act, or
- Money.
Okay, I know I’m over-simplifying, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (because of Jiesheng): human beings are like currents, we follow the path of least resistance. People are gonna keep on using plastic bags until they have enough incentive to stop using them, and the only way we are going to create this incentive in people is through higher rebates.
Methinks it’s a demand and supply thing, and you can probably draw graphs to illustrate, just like you’d do in your ‘A’ Level paper. Comments/thoughts? If there are none, I will assume that I am right (as usual).
Just kidding (about always being right, but am very serious about reducing our use of plastic bags).
Shared Items for Sun, 24 May 2009
- English schoolkids go on strike until CCTVs are removed from classes
- 1989 – Lee Kuan Yew’s defamation suit against FEER
- Obama Tells ASU, 'Your Body of Work Is Yet to Come'.
- The Mathematician and the Beatles chord
- "We did not know that child abuse was a crime," says retired Catholic archbishop
- war shapes lives
- Do not board the elevator with robot
- Let the people judge
I’m not a big fan of surveillance myself, but I think what’s important is that “there are two valid sides to this argument”. If you’ve read my earlier post where I linked to an article about an Edmonton cabbie who is suing four passengers, you’d understand why there is a need for video cameras – for teachers to protect themselves in an environment where there is sometimes no protection for teachers.
“Each of them, at one point in their life, didn’t have any title or much status to speak of. But they had a passion, a commitment to following that passion wherever it would lead, and to working hard every step along the way.”
This is genius!
WTH. How can a person lie so blatantly? I think the very least he could do is to apologise.
Pictures from The Imperial War Museum in London.
“Why is the government so eager to brand me as a communist conspirator, and yet so reluctant to publicise my statements that I oppose categorically any attempt by anyone to establish a communist state?”