Redacted

Fri, 29 Aug 2014
2 min read
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[redacted]! #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] DISCLAIMER: This post is intended to be social commentary on [redacted] in any form, by satirically responding to the news of [redacted] that is trending now. It does not condone [redacted] in any form, and it does not condone the practice of [redacted]. If you propagate this post - that is, you quote from it, link to it, repost it or share it with others in any form - please take responsibility for whatever happens if you propagate the post out of context, or if you mismatch the audience and the content.
[redacted]! #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] #[redacted] DISCLAIMER: This post is intended to be social commentary on [redacted] in any form, by satirically responding to the news of [redacted] that is trending now. It does not condone [redacted] in any form, and it does not condone the practice of [redacted]. If you propagate this post – that is, you quote from it, link to it, repost it or share it with others in any form – please take responsibility for whatever happens if you propagate the post out of context, or if you mismatch the audience and the content.
So! I was reading the news yesterday when I came across a story I found absolutely hilarious.

It was a very serious story, but I found the concept it discussed absolutely hilarious, and I made it a point to tell my friends about it.

But because they are stupid – just kidding; they’re not and I love them a lot – no one got it. Which happens quite often, so I was, like, whatever.

But this morning, I suddenly woke up and the visual image of the concept appeared in my mind, and I was like: YES!

So I immediately grabbed my phone, fired up Phoster, and designed a little graphic, which I promptly Whatsapped to my friends.

The reaction: “Hahahaha.” “This is hilarious.” “Where did you get that from?”

But when I proposed to post it online, with a disclaimer, the reaction I received instead:

It’s troublesome to enforce how people share content. It’ll just be taken out of context and someone will report you for sedition. Then you can forget about being NMP.

No. Too sensitive to post.

I disagree with making it public. There will surely be people who will take it the wrong way. If it goes public, there will be people who will over-react. Sharing it with friends is fine.

So I decided to post what you see above instead. You can like it on Instagram too:

BONUS: Responses to this graphic:

Yeah, this is much better. You’ll still be reported, but it’ll be for being dumb.

Haha! But what is the point of posting it if everything is censored?

I know right.

Stuff you must read today (Fri, 11 Oct 2013) – The Psychology of Language Edition

Fri, 11 Oct 2013
2 min read
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  • The psychology of language: Which words matter the most when we talk | The Buffer Blog
    “By always focusing on ‘How will this make someone feel?’ whenever [we wrote] even a single line, we immediately improved the amount of responses we got from our users”.
     
  • The Power of Names | The New Yorker
    “…words carry hidden baggage that may play at least some role in shaping thought. What’s surprising, perhaps, is how profoundly a single word can shape material outcomes over time”.
     
  • The Power of a Word | The Dilbert Blog
    Observe how an argument is transformed when a loaded word is substituted with another word that reframes the discourse.
     
  • What It Should Have Been: Edition #3 | Vox Nostra: A Voice Of Our Own
    Part of the Disabled People’s Association, Singapore’s public education initiative on the use of proper terminology to describe people with disabilities. Find out more about how this started here.
     
  • Are You a Language Bully? | Slate
    “Those who engage in public corrections of this sort often are looking to feel good about themselves, and…displays of language all-knowing-ness provide a ready-made, two-pronged opportunity to do so. ‘The way we evaluate our competence is relative to other people,’ he says. ‘If I need to feel good about my language skills, one way that I could do that would be to give myself evidence that my language skills are awesome. Another is to give myself evidence that other people’s language skills suck. So by putting down other people, I can feel better about myself.'”.

    Whoops :S

ICA press releases are hilarious!

Thu, 10 Oct 2013
1 min read
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Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, Singapore

So I was at the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority’s (ICA’s) website the other day when a section titled “Latest Press Releases” got me chuckling with these eye-catching titles:

19 Sep 2013 – Angry Birds: The ICA Version
29 Aug 2013 – Caught In The Web Of Love
19 Aug 2013 – The Curtain Comes Down Twice

Damn hilarious!

And that’s just a sampling of the goodness that’s on offer.

There’s more what that came from – check out the press releases for the year (and have a look through the archives while you’re at it)!

As a friend on Facebook said, “By golly, I think you’ve hit on a civil service gold mine!”

I totally want to meet the person(s) behind this, man. I think we’d become good friends.