Stuff you must read today (Tue, 5 Jul 2011)

Wed, 6 Jul 2011
2 min read
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  • Helmetless Motorcyclist Killed While Riding to Overturn Helmet Law | Freakonomics

    • “One bizarre unintended consequence of the rollback in helmet laws: more human organs available for transplantation”.

    You know what? I bet if this were the premise of a drink-driving campaign e.g. organs depicted driving cars, I’m sure drink-driving rates would drop drastically, because human beings are not, by nature, altruistic.

  • Food Ark | National Geographic Magazine

    • “In short, in our focus on increasing the amount of food we produce today, we have accidentally put ourselves at risk for food shortages in the future”.

  • 15 Shopping Rules of Thumb | The Simple Dollar

    • “Pay for experiences, not things. A thing is something that takes up space in your house. An experience changes who you are as a person. One cannot be replaced, while the other can easily be replaced. Give me junky furniture and a lifetime of memories”.

    In my case, give me no physical gifts, please.

  • Will Glenn Ong run out of colleagues to marry? | S M Ong

    • I was thinking the exact same thing when I heard the news!

  • Dating, Madoff and Supply and Demand | The Altucher Confidential

    • “You need to contact up to 30 people to sell your business, or raise initial money for your fund, or get a job, or whatever… . What this also means, is that if the supply in the market you are aiming for is not 30 (i.e. if you are building a product that ONLY Google would ever want to buy) then you are probably in the wrong market”.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the operation I underwent.

Mon, 4 Jul 2011
2 min read
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So that I don’t need to keep on repeating myself, here are some FAQs about my operation and my answers to them

—

OMG what happened to you???
I went for an operation.

Why did you go for your operation?
Dental reconstruction. I had an under bite previously (perceptible only in some circumstances) so I moved my upper jaw forward and downwards.

This is what an under bite looks like:

Underbite.

What operation was carried out?
Bone grafts were taken from my lower jaw and were fitted into my upper jaw.

Why did you go for your operation during the term break and not during term time?
I didn’t want to miss too many lessons with my students.

Does it hurt?
When I first had the operation, yes. But now, no. In fact, my cheeks and lips are still somewhat numb at times. Something to do with the nerves somewhere.

Are you able to eat?
Yes. I can eat food in liquid form i.e. soups, curries, porridge/oatmeal/congee, etc. And of course, not forgetting our dear friend, Complan… LOL.

So what’s all the stuff in your mouth?
Besides the braces on the upper row of my teeth, I have arch bars around my gums and rubber bands to prevent me from moving my jaws too much.

When will the bands be removed?
Soon. Maybe next week?

When will the braces be removed?
Maybe at the end of the year? Not too sure about this.

After this, then what?
This is part of a larger dental reconstruction process, with the following phases and activities:

    Phase 1 – Braces (Mar 2009).
    Phase 2 – Reconstruction of upper jaw (Jun 2011).
    Phase 3 – Dental implants (tentatively Dec 2011).
    Phase 4 – Adamantium.

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Ask more questions in the comment field below. Or there’s always Formspring.

Google+ and speaking in hushed tones.

Thu, 30 Jun 2011
1 min read
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g+

My Facebook-verse and Twitter-verse were abuzz with people asking for invites to Google+ today.

I didn’t ask for one because I know from my own usage patterns that I’m not an early adopter of technology; I wait and see what happens and whether a certain product is useful to me before I start using it.

So I did the next best thing – going to read up on what Google+ is all about and what people have been saying about it.

What I found out startled me somewhat: the concept of Circles is very akin to something I mentioned some time back in a post.

BTW please don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that Circles is my brainchild or that the team plagiarised my idea, etc.

The only pleasure I’m getting out of this is knowing that I don’t need to do the work, but I can forecast trends as good as any Lee can.

I’m being tongue-in-cheek, in case you didn’t get it.

In other news, not everyone thinks Google+ is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.