Ian On The Red Dot

Stay till the end of this video. Pretty much everything could have gone wrong with what she did. Ouch!

On hindsight, it was obvious this was going to happen. A site dedicated to hooking older women with younger men. But how does a site like this really work? After all, women lie about their age.

via:buzzfeed

This just brought a smile to my face.

Two weeks ago, a bunch of my colleagues and me trained for the lost sport. It is all part of trying to find the lost ring.

The video from our first run is below. I used my mobile phone to capture the event so the quality is much to be desired.

If you’re from Singapore, and part of the team trying to find the lost ring and also keen to train for the lost sport, do drop a comment here.

You can check for events over at Upcoming’s Labyrinth Training Events.

I have never used any of the blog advertising networks so this score is given not based on how well they help advertisers using blogs or how they help bloggers make money. It is about this campaign first started on DK’s blog and which I have noticed on BLOG2u’s main site.

To me, it is one thing to say you are contributing to the community by hosting events for bloggers, it is a way different level when you spend valuable online real estate to promote a worthy cause. One is to keep the people making money for you happy, the other is totally not about yourself or your company.

Some cynics might say this is a cheap publicity stunt. I call bullshit on that.

I don’t know about you, but when I look at the different advertising companies’ main websites, a lot is said.

BLOG2u 1, the rest 0.

Sidenote: I expect the ever self-effacing Paddy not to think too much of his company’s effort but it is something.

Ok. Latest thing getting all the Singaporeans online excited and a little bit ashamed of our country- a possible Patent Troll. I have read through the patent and I think I understand what their claims are. It is amazing that such a patent got through. From reading the discussion over at Hardwarezone, it seems that Singapore’s patent system has a wee bit of a loophole that can be exploited.

BUT, Singapore isn’t unique in this case. We aren’t the only country blessed with patent trolling.

Go to Google and use this query term: patent trolling site:www.techcrunch.com

And from the investigations done over at Hardwarezone, this company may have an office in Singapore but the main characters in this story might not even be Singaporeans.

The patent system may be flawed in Singapore but this isn’t the only country having problems with the patent system. Go do some research and you will find out this is an issue in a lot of other countries which their regulatory bodies and businesses are having a tough time grappling with. Think about it – this patent was awarded in other countries too.

There is no reason for the online community to start using this as a reason to feel ashamed to be a Singaporean or bash Singapore.

Discovered this rather cool and well curated treasure trove of wonderful things via my Facebook newsfeed when a friend’s boyfriend joined a group.

The answer is no. The answer is not always. Here is why.

I read this blog post outing another supposedly racist blogger. There is a general feeling online that if you are a racist blogger, you are immediately more childish and less mature than me a non-racist blogger.

But I wonder. And I wonder. And I don’t think it is always the case.

Why?

Let me defer to my much more intelligent and articulate friend thegreatsze who said it best in this blog post. I shall reproduce excerpts of the post below. I also suggest you read the comments for the post.

Racism is a form of discrimination. There are many kinds of discrimination in this world: sexism, ageism, superficiality, etc. One form of discrimination is not, and *cannot* be more egregious than another. This is simply because they are premised on the same foundation – preferential treatment due to wholly irrelevant (and some might say irrational) considerations. Who is to say that racism is worse than sexism, and vice versa?

It is impossible to live life free of bias. We are products of our environments, and different environments will necessarily produce different prejudices.

If you are against racism, it means that you are also logically bound to be against all other forms of discrimination (since they are of the exact same genus).

Daphne Maia has expressed a crush on another blogger. A while back, another female blogger expressed her crush for another blogger. People…there is a reason it is called a crush. Not a lift. Not a release.

Anyway, why do I say the end may be near. Because love or rather the development of intense sexual and emotional feelings that resemble lust and love between individuals of a group is something that happens in the latter stages of a group’s lifecycle and usually a precursor to the disintegration or fall of the group’s glory.

Why?

Because love isn’t free and equally distributed even if the hippies say it is. The unequal distribution of attention and love has been argued as one of the reasons why hippie communes didn’t survive.

Note: I have been racking my brain about where I read about the group dynamics of hippie communes. I can’t remember. But if anyone of you do, please do leave a comment. Thanks so much!

It has been a joy to see the Ping.sg community develop and I have been living vicariously, and rather well I might add, by following the group’s progress through the forums, shoutbox and blog postings. This next stage of the group’s growth shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone.

But why is love entering the group dynamics such a bad thing? It is bad because it leads to the worse things in human nature especially when it isn’t equally distributed and there isn’t reciprocation.

Every group and its individuals will profess to be different. None ever is.

I’ll speculate that we will be getting this over time:

1. Many girls like the same few guys.
2. Many guys like the same few girls.
3. Girl and Guy like different people.
4. Girl/Guy wonder what’s so special about that another Guy/Girl – especially since that joker always post such crap on her/his blog.
5. Feelings of indignation of not getting enough attention.
6. Feelings of self-pity in examining why never get enough attention.
7. Girl/Guy get attached and break up causing massive headaches to the group in deciding loyalty to which party and apportioning blame. One person inevitably disappears from the group after the breakup.
8. Guy/Girl listens over msn/skype/coffee to Girl/Guy who likes another Guy/Girl and wonder, wtf is wrong with me when spending so much time being here for you, your mind is there with that joker who does not recognize your awesomeness like I do.
9. People drift from the group in the absence of reciprocation.

Simply put, life in the group won’t be so simple and carefree once ‘love’ enters into the picture.

The Age of Innocence is over.

Am I sounding the death knell?

Nah.

Just the bells telling people to get ready for the second act.

Good luck guys.

Last Saturday I decided that I will try to make Mondays my ‘watch-movie-alone-day’. Previously I have only watched movies alone at the cinema 3 times – the first time was the re-released version of Star Wars with the new scenes and special effects. The second time was Legally Blonde 2 – I had a free ticket. Emphasis on the free ticket. The third movie was The Cooler.

All of the previous experiences were totally enjoyable affairs. Decide movie. Go cinema. Buy ticket if have to. Watch. Eat popcorn. Go home.

No hassle in having to plan the watching of the movie.

Watching movies alone is really time efficient. No need to spend time coordinating which movie the group of friends want to watch. No need coordinating which date and time. No need coordinating how many tickets are needed; no need checking whether partners are coming. No need booking of tickets to make sure we get the seats we need. Maybe one day Widgeo.us will help solve the problem of coordinating movie outings. I can only hope.

How about just two people going to watch a movie? I have started to increasingly feel that watching a movie is a passive anti-social activity and if I am going out with just one friend, watching a movie is the last thing that should be done especially if we want to catch up. For two hours, all that is happening is both of us staring at a screen. Unless of cause I turn and make comments within a screening which can be pretty irritating – not everyone is that kind of movie-goer. Or if I clap and cheer when something awesome happens like Optimus Prime transforming – which can also be pretty irritating to some people.

How about the gf?

I’ve come to a certain point where I believe that watching a movie should be the last recourse when trying to do something as a couple. While it warms the heart, I think the gf shouldn’t be subjected to watching a movie just because the boyfriend wants to and they want to spend time together – it is a waste of the gf’s time which can be better used for her own interests as well as rest. The only time a couple should watch a movie together is when both parties are interested in the movie.

So, anyway, I watched Indiana Jones 4 last night and I totally liked it. Some spoilers ahead.

1. I liked how I got faked to think they were looking for the Lost Ark from the first Indiana Jones movie. After all, the movie started with the same cavernous warehouse that the first movie introduced at the end. The director was nice enough to toss a bone by showing the Ark in a damaged crate as the movie raced away from the warehouse.

2. I liked the reference to Sean Connery’s Jim Malone from “The Untouchables” when Indiana Jones commented to Shia LeBeouf’s Mutt Wiliams about bring a knife to a gunfight.

3. Cate Blanchett sporting the classic femme fatale hairdo. Nice. I love it when movies make it easy to spot the bad guy.

Just finished reading this post by la nausee on racist speech. Learned something today. Some links from the ever trusty Google:

1. What is an illocutionary act?
2. What is a perlocutionary act?
3. perlocutionary versus illocutionary: Notes from “How To Do Things With Words” by John Langshaw Austin.

Joker:

Tell me something, my friend. You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

from “Batman” starring Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton.

Sidenote: I might have actually watched this at the cinema, same with Batman 2, which to me is pretty amazing. I really grew up with movies thanks to my Uncle. Also, I’m still debating whether Michael Keaton or Christian Bale is the best batman we ever had. For the Joker, after watching the trailers for “The Dark Knight”, I think Heath Ledger might be the best Joker ever.

Colonel Nathan R. Jessep:

You can’t handle the truth!

from “A Few Good Men” starring Jack Nicholson

Benjamin Martin:

I have long feared that my sins would return to visit me, and the cost would be more than I could bear.

from “The Patriot” starring Mel Gibson

George Jung:

So in the end, was it worth it? Jesus Christ. How irreparably changed my life has become. It’s always the last day of summer and I’ve been left out in the cold with no door to get back in. I’ll grant you I’ve had more than my share of poignant moments. Life passes most people by while they’re making grand plans for it. Throughout my lifetime, I’ve left pieces of my heart here and there. And now, there’s almost not enough to stay alive. But I force a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent. There are no more white horses or pretty ladies at my door.

from Blow starring Johnny Depp

Quintus Arrius:

Your eyes are full of hate, forty-one. That’s good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.

from “Ben Hur” starring Charlton Heston.

Yoda

Everything! Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.

from … pretty obvious where this one is from.

Larry:

Depressives don’t. They want to be unhappy to confirm they’re depressed. If they were happy they couldn’t be depressed anymore. They’d have to go out into the world and live. Which can be depressing.

from “Closer” starring Clive Own, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts.

Sitenote: Closer is most definitely among the top-3 fucked up movies I have ever watched. Fucked up not because it is bad, but in its commentary about relationships in these modern times, it is probably one of the most honest and brutal movies I have seen. After watching it, you just want to run back to a Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan flick. Also, almost all the quotes from the movie deserve to be here.

Duane Hall:

Can I confess something? I tell you this as an artist,I think you’ll understand. Sometimes when I’m driving… on the road at night… I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The… flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.

And Alvy Singer says it best:

There’s an old joke – um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life – full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly. The… the other important joke, for me, is one that’s usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud’s “Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious,” and it goes like this – I’m paraphrasing – um, “I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.” That’s the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

from “Annie Hall” starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton and Christopher Walken.

via:buzzfeed

I read two of Endoh’s posts here and here and the related comments.

How discussions involving Singapore Versus Malaysia usually develops reminds me of the kind of arguments I had in my National Service days with individuals not from JC. During my NS, I was in a unit with a good mix of JC, Poly, ITE and non-tertiary schooled individuals. I noticed something about the arguments that happened with non-JC individuals – midway through the arguments, these individuals were always likely to throw this retort back at me:

You JC students always think because you JC, you smarter and also right.

Here is the thing. If two individuals are arguing their point, doesn’t it stand to reason that BOTH individuals must think they are right?

So why is it that it is not the JC student who says:

You non-JC student, always think you are street-smarter than us, always think we only know how to mug, always think you know best in the real world.

Why?

I think the answer to the question reveals a lot about how individuals look at themselves and how they might have foolishly bought into the status quo established by someone or some group.

Ok. So back to the discussions/arguements/debates surrounding the recent Singapore and Malaysia run in over Pedra Branca and the recent ICJ ruling.

Why is it that online, it seems Singapore is being called out first for being the bully?

Are we really a bully? The only one doing any sort of bullying?

As I think about these issues, I always remember about the parallels between this relationship and that of JC and non-JC students.

Earlier this evening was an event organized by TDM where Vinton Cerf from Google shared this thoughts about the future of the Internet. Some people might say his visions of the future, he joked that it might be hallucinations. You just got to love a guy who is self-deprecating.

Three things about Vinton Cerf. The first was that as he walked pass us, he made the first move to acknowledge our existence. The second was that he made a comment that he didn’t want to be the guy who comes to talk but not listen. The third thing I’ll touch on soon.

SimplyJean liveblogged the event here. Some tweets from the event here and here. Someone was videotaping the event so I’ll leave you to watch the video when it comes out to know what he shared tonight. The reason is this – I could try to summarize what he said, but it would be meaningless, because tonight while partly was about what he had to say, it was how he said it that really mattered and you should watch the video to get a better experience of what happened tonight.

Here is the third thing about Vinton Cerf. He demonstrated tonight that no matter how intelligent you are, or how brilliant your idea is, everything is for naught if you do not have the power to communicate it. I’m not sure how other people would describe Vinton Cerf, but if I had to describe him in one sentence, I would say he is a brilliant communicator.

He is undoubtedly a brilliant guy. When he spoke, it was in a way that didn’t make any of us feel stupid. It wasn’t that he spoke about simplistic stuff but that he was able to distill and communicate his thoughts in a way that we could understand and actually feel smart, if not become smarter, because we understood his reasoning, his feelings and his thoughts.

He spoke brilliantly, clearly and eloquently.

As we were leaving the room, my ex-coursemate from NUS and me commented rather wistfully that if we only had more professors like that in NUS.

But no matter, tonight was a really special night for me. It isn’t often that I feel that I have been in the presence of greatness. Tonight was one of those nights.

I am sincerely grateful to TDM for organizing this event and creating the opportunity to listen from someone like Vinton Cerf. Hopefully, there will be many such nights to come.

For now, I will never forget the experience I had in room 325.

Added: James brought up the Starhub blocking of BitTorrent incident after Vinton Cerf talked about net neutrality. Vinton’s response was amazingly balanced and reasonable, almost sympathetic towards Starhub – It really says something about him as a thinker.

Pedra Branca. It’s ours! Yeah!

Update: I am changing the title of this post to reflect more accurately what I think. The original title of the post was “Problems Appearing With Podfire”. The reason why I’m changing the title is because it is not so much that Podfire itself has a problem with its videos (50% of which I like) or its concept or its implementation but more of people not dealing with internal issues using the proper channels.

Podfire launched a while back. I am totally partial about this – Geek Goddess Show is a guilty indulgent which I enjoy and Blogger’s Treat was a pain to watch. Whatever I feel about the shows, the concept was one that I liked. I was looking forward to this project having the same success as clicknetwork.tv.

Then I saw this post by Sabrina.

I am not sure if Podfire and its related shows were meant to be part of a business or the plan was to eventually grow into a business or just a fun-fun-try-try project. It doesn’t matter. Airing stuff like this between partners is, if not distasteful, rather dumb – no one’s reputation is done any favors.

Added: I leave no reservations when I say I think Miccheng has been a great contributor to the local development community and if you read my post, I hope it is evident that I do not appreciate the hitjob done on him. He deserves better.

So, why do married men want to have affairs? New York Mag has an interesting article that might help explain all these shenanigans.

My sister has been influenced by evolutionary psychology, the widely publicized theory that the sex drive is genetically programmed. One of the leaders in the field, David Buss, author of The Evolution of Desire and a professor at the University of Texas, says that men’s genes program them to seek many mates and try to monopolize the reproductive lives of those mates; think of the manners of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints sect’s sprawling compound in Texas, in which the older men ran the younger men off and had as many of the girls—as young as 14—as they wanted. But women are also programmed for infidelity, Buss says. They have a drive to monopolize the economic resources of their mate, according to the theory, but also to keep a man or two in reserve, because men die earlier than women, or men go off, and women need protection.

This is a really simple yet great idea for people who love books and love to talk about it. The site is iwinkd. What it does is allows you to generate a code which links to a page with whatever you have written. You then can place the code anywhere you want, but the current usecase is to place it in the book you are reading. The next individual who reads the book can see the code and then proceed to see what you shared online.

I’ve always been interested in physical hyperlinking and this is a great usecase for it.

So, early yesterday morning was the Champions League final. The penalty shootout was unbearable. I had a feeling Ronaldo would miss. Didn’t dare hope Terry would, but he did. But the thing I really want to comment on is the save made by Edwin van der Sar from Anelka’s kick.

Did anyone of you notice the interaction happening between the two players before Anelka kicked the ball?

As Anelka stepped up to the ball, Edwin van der Sar pointed to his left. It looked like Anelka wiped his face with his left sleeve but it also looked like Anelka kind of gave a subtle mocking acknowledgment by pointing to the goalkeeper’s left.

Anelka then proceeded to kick the ball to Edwin van der Sar’s right which was the direction the keeper dived.

The rest as they say is history. Edwin van der Sar saved the shot and Manchester United won the title. Yeah!

A good friend of mine believes that Edwin van der Sar saved the shot because he desired it more than Anelka wanted to score. Maybe. He said gamemanship was involved. Most definitely. But I couldn’t help wondering if players could be influenced to kick the ball a certain direction.

Could the goalkeeper help make up the mind of the shooter?

This article on the New York Times is an interesting one about the topic of Priming.

Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.

Oh, I don’t know why Sir Bobby Charlton refused the medal around his neck, but it just seemed damn classy.

I wrote this post about how we should allow bloggers to be racist as possible. Uncle Sha wrote this comment:

My engrish not as powderful as yours in this long-winded entry, but here’s my take on your opinion … I do know from what’s right and wrong, do you?

If it isn’t curtailed, who knows what else he might have blogged

It is a pretty offending post … so you don’t think so hur

If you think otherwise, why not you try posting as he did

And we’ll see how it turns out

Yeah be a matyr, maybe you can show us and start the ’spread a better idea’ revolution you speak of earlier

During lunch, I thought about the question more. Sure, I found the post offensive. But was I personally offended? No, because I wasn’t the subject of that guy’s post. Here is the thing. Sympathy and empathy is too different thing. What I have are feelings of sympathy for the subjects of that guy’s post but not empathy. Sure, racist stuff has been said at me and about Singaporean Chinese but the stuff said is different. The context is also different. We, the Singaporean Chinese are supposed to be the majority – that plays a big part in contextualizing racial slurs and racist remarks.

I then remember this South Park episode I watched sometime ago. Stan’s father used a racial slur on television and became a subject of disdain and had to seek forgiveness for his mistake.

The interesting part of the episode is the epiphany that Stan has at the end about him ‘NOT GETTING IT”. I have embedded the clip at the end of this post.

I can find the post offensive. I can sympathize. But, at the end of the day I don’t get it. And while I don’t apologize for believing we should allow more room online for such racist views and other forms of bigotry, and push our levels of tolerance, if not acceptance of such material because I believe we as a community has matured and can mature more, it was probably presumptuous of me to raise this issue.

The people who get it, who really get it, are the ones who should lead when they are ready. And they don’t ever have to be ready.

The full episode here. A clip from the episode below:

Everyone morning, as I exit the train at Raffles MRT Station, I think of the opening scene of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times.

“Modern Times.” A story of industry, of individual enterprise – humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness.

In the final, most memorable image, they are seen optimistically walking arm in arm into the sunrise before a hilly horizon. Rather than departing alone (as in so many other, ever-optimistic walks by the Tramp in farewell scenes), he is silhouetted with his love against the background, walking down the dusty road toward the future for the last time.

from: filmsite.org.

There is hope.

So last night was the Barcamp Singapore 2 event. It was hits and miss.

The first item for the night was a presentation by Google. Initially I thought it was boring. But, it wasn’t boring because it was bad. Everything related to maps was covered by Andrew the Product Manager from Google and covered well. It was just that I would have thought that most of the people in the crowd would have known about Google and its offerings to make what Andrew said redundant.

I guess it is about expectations. I was hoping that Google would have surprised us by announcing something like Street View for Singapore. Or some initiative unique to Singapore and South-east asia to get more mapping data.

However, after the session, Bernard from Singapore Entrepreneurs tempered, what was on hindsight, my pretty unreasonable expectations. The ubiquity of Google in my life made me not realize that this was actually the first time Google was doing anything to reach out to the local developer community in Singapore and because it was the first time, no assumptions were made and proper introductions (apparently they practiced the presentation) were done.

You know, if I ever meet Jessica Alba in real life, and instead of allowing me to shake her hand and introducing herself and allowing me to introduce myself before I prostrate at her feet, she had gone, “You should know who I am, I am after all Jessica Alba”, I would have been pretty put off, although still thankful to God for letting me see the ultimate gift to man in real life.

But, the point is this, if I don’t expect and even like people to expect familiarity and demand recognition without proper introductions, why should I do any different with a company and its representatives.

The second item was a presentation by Bak2u. Ok, this one was a total unredeemable miss. The presenter talked to us like all of us have never owned a phone before. I mean, seriously, the first couple of slides, if not the majority of them, could have been cut. Losing phone bad. We know that. Data important. We know that. The most interesting and dare I say important part of the presentation like the technology/products of the company and how it helps us mobile phone owners were not covered enough. The presenter should have jumped straight into the meat. More demo!

What was worse is that a competitor (or at least I think they are one) tenCube did a pretty good job in showcasing their WaveSecure product. Now, I know jackshit about assessing which is a better mobile security offering but Bak2u’s presentation didn’t make it any easier. Actually, wait, it did. Because Bak2u didn’t seem to offer a credible alternative in its presentation.

Now, I guess Bak2u might not have wanted to seem to be doing a sales pitch, and I can appreciate that. But it does seem pretty unfair to me if one presenter constrains himself when a competitor is going to be speaking next.

Ok. I just want to say that Harish showcased a webapp he built in 4 hours. Total hit. Simple, usable app. Awesome.

Widgeo.us to me was the star of the mobile track. I don’t think I can do justice by trying to explain what they are doing so please go check their site out and maybe contact uzyn or ridz directly.

Just want to say one thing – I wish I could use it to communicate with people not using their platform.

I heard they did videos for the night, so wait for them to come out to see the rest of the presentations.

So, a blogger who allegedly wrote some racist stuff on his blog was arrested by the police.

Why?

No, seriously, why?

Is it because of what he wrote or because someone complained. Or both.

I mean, say a police officer stumbled onto the blog, would he think it was worthy of an arrest?

Or is it because apparently two people complained and the police had to be seen to be doing something?

Or, is it because he seems damn gay. Ok, sorry, I couldn’t resist, but maybe got extra bonus if you can charge someone for breaking more than one law. Which of course isn’t how our police works. Ignore this paragraph.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to say I think bloggers should be allowed to be as racist as much asthey want possible. I mean, has anyone actually read what he wrote. If you haven’t, go to tomorrow.sg and read it and then come back here.

Ok. Hello. Thanks for returning.

Now, far from me to want to defend what he says, but if there is a scale of racist shit spewed by bigoted unenlightened individuals, where is what he wrote on the scale.

To me, the stuff he says isn’t any worse that what I sometimes hear in a cab, on the bus, at the coffeeshop, in the toilet, during reservist …

Basically, lots of people say lots of stupid shit like this all the time. Yes, there are a lot of people with racist tendencies. Sad. True. That’s life.

Now, we shouldn’t tolerate such people and their vile deplorable words, you say. We shouldn’t allow such inane ramblings to defile the pristine environment we have and strike discord in our racially harmonious society.

Wait a minute. We are a racially harmonious society? Or a racially tolerant one? I would say the latter.

But where am I going with all this.

Firstly, arresting bloggers who are racist and say stupid racist stuff just because they are so visible doesn’t help make Singapore more harmonious nor more tolerant.

This racist people are just going to still be racist. The people who read his blog and AGREE are still going to be racist.

I mean, what do you think this guy is thinking now. I’m not sure. But if I attempt to use my super psychic slightly below Xavier mind reading ability, out of all the incoherence in his thoughts, I might get something like this:

Damn that stupid malay. If he never sit on the floor, and never let me see him, then I wouldn’t have blogged about stupid malays and then I wouldn’t have kenna complained and get arrested. Sian lah. CB. Must be two malays complain about me. I knew it lah. Stupid idiots. Cannot take joke.

I don’t know. I might be exaggerating. But my point is this – you may take the racism out of a blog, but you ain’t going to take the racist out of a blogger.

The truth is this. For now, racism isn’t going to disappear. It might never. We live in a world where increasingly more people are competing for less resources. It isn’t easy to find a target to put the blame on, and physical attributes and stereotypes are our best friends as we grapple to find something or someone to pin all blame on.

Is it any wonder Hitler was able to incite so much hatred against the Jews during a period of economic turmoil in Germany’s history.

Trying to remove racism from Singaporean blogs only does one thing – it causes racism to retreat to the darker corners of our society, where unseen, it festers and grows into some big malignant cancerous lump that is even harder to remove. And one day, it will explode in our face, pus covering all of us.

The best way to remove racism is to put it out in the light and let it wither and die under the glaring heat of public scrutiny.

Have faith in us. I mean, seriously, after the post got tomorrowed, I think the community did all right in taking that guy down.

And here is the thing – you know what is worse than the noise of your enemies?

The silence of your friends.

During this incident, the friends were most certainly not silent. I would say a majority of people online disagreed and were vocal about it. Maybe some were a bit extreme, but there was evidence that while racism may still exist in Singapore and online, there are those among us who are becoming more enlightened.

I know we want to prevent people’s feelings from being hurt. But you know what, the reaction of the rest of the blogosphere should have given those who had cause for complain a warm fuzzy feeling. One idiot said something stupid, everyone else came to correct him.

But, but, those who want censorship and more control might say, what about those who might be swayed to be racist or that racist blog becomes a rallying point for other racists.

I say, the racists will always be able to find other racists. Those borderline cases, have an easier time not becoming racists when the friends speak out against the enemies of racial harmony.

Here is the thing. You can never keep the enemies quiet. They will always have some piece of shit to say. The only thing you might be able to control is where they say it, but these racist ideas will still get spread.

The trick then is not to silence the enemies, but drown out their noise. Preferably with the words of support from friends.

What we need is not to stop an idea, but to spread a better one.

Finally, there is a difference between saying racist shit and inciting hatred and action against a particular race.

Update:What is the difference? If a blog says all XXX members of a race are idiots, and then go on to say XXX members of a race should be exterminated and call for other people to join in some sort of persecution, then I think a line has been crossed.

Ze Frank has a new project where he is asking for contributions about the first moments when we realized our parents were weak and human.

The link to the page and comments are here.

I wanted to contribute something, but I didn’t know where to start.

The thing is, the relationship with my parents have been complex. It comes to a point where there are times you don’t know how you feel about them.

I am my father’s son. For some people, that is one of their life’s goals. For others, it is the scariest thought.

Today has been ruined.