NUS still at #30 while NTU continues to fall
0 Comments Posted by Nubeals on Monday, October 19, 2009 at 6:52 PM.
National University of Singapore retained it's position in the world rankings this time around - great news for the university and its students!
Harvard is #1 as usual, while my favourite, Princeton, is still at #8. Australian National University is at #17 now and even McGill is doing decently, at #18. Brown, an ivy league, is now below NUS (at #31)!
The major challenger of NUS in the university education market in Singapore, Nanyang Technological University has fallen further down to #73 - surely there must be something they're not doing right. But at the same time, they must be doing something right since they haven't had a significant drop in the past 4 years or so (it was at #61 in 2006). However, when top schools like Purdue are hovering at #87, Singapore universities should be content with what they got.
But what I learnt after making my previous post on university rankings is that they don't really represent all that a university has to offer. They focus a lot on research publications by the universities, which is why top schools continue to retain their top positions because of all the Nobel prizes they have accumulated in the past couple of centuries (I'm exaggerating!). And then of course, the results are naturally skewed towards US universities, no matter how hard they try to remove the bias.
Needless to say, I am glad my university has such achievements that I can boast about.
Labels: NTU, NUS, Times Higher Education Supplement, World Rankings
No more "oh, miscommunication and lack of communication are the only reasons for problems between people" (something I say rather often, in arguments).
I give up.
From now on I will just shut up and never try to resolve conflicts or misunderstandings between people. This is a cut-throat world and seeing things from different perspectives is considered a sign of weakness. Go ahead and tear at each other's throats.
Happy realization to me? Oh, you too!
Or not.
PS. Dear you-know-who, trust is always blind. If I point to a road that you can see and say that's a road, you won't say, "oh I trust you when you say it's a road". Trust is when I say there's no road even if you can see it, and STILL say, "oh I trust you when you say there is no road".
Labels: Online Communication
Had my first surprise birthday party last night. It was a mini one; simple yet elegant. And very surprising indeed. Coordinated by my oldest friend's younger sister, I'm glad about the people who did show up. They would pretty much make my close friends' list, with some major inclusions, of course.
I turned 26, which I think is the official age when a person can not be offended if called an uncle or an aunt. The first time I was called an uncle was when I was 12 (the person who called me 'uncle' was 17.) After 14 years of getting offended, I will now make a conscious effort on my part not to get offended if called an uncle. 'Nabeel Uncle'. Hah!
Slept very late, very little and then woke up early to only partially complete an assignment. Made it to the first class, then rushed back to change into formals. I just had to attend at least one of the P&G recruitment talks in NUS. It was quite useless though. All the information you need is on the website. After attending my second class in formals, I rushed back to PGP to change into my Squash gear, only to rush for a match I was sure to lose - and lost not as gracefully as I could have, I suppose. The IFG will soon be over for the FASS Squash team. Sad.
Now I shall shower to proceed with the business that is my birthday, and head down to commonwealth to distribute some flyers for the Pub Crawl I am helping organise. The party is exactly one week from now and I wait in earnest. Imagine! About 500 people, mostly comprising exchange students, from all the major universities of Singapore, wearing the same t-shirt, with funny things written on each one of them. As we head down from Boon Lay MRT to our final destination, the party will be lead to a new club opening.
So I am distributing flyers on my birthday. And then maybe I will hang out with the sister and the friends if they are present. There is nothing to be happy about though. I mean, it's my birthday, but so what. I turned 26. I have so much to do in my life and less time left now. What is there to celebrate or to be jeery about?
I removed my birthday from Facebook. I only wanted those people to wish me who really remembered (and naturally some who would notice other people's wishes on my wall to find out and wish too). Indeed, it has been a successful experiment. I got more personal and direct birthday wishes by sms or calls. Much better than 100 wall posts from people who just want me to reply back and create some action on their dull walls.
The real reason not to be happy, however, would be that my friend Rashmi passed away a few days ago. Despite all the nasty things in 2009, typhoid got to her, and the always-smiling, pleasant girl I shared so much (platonic) love with, passed away. All the YIP people found out last night, and teary calls were exchanged across continents (YIP = Youth Initiative for Peace). It sucks that such a beautiful person passed away. I hope that her sister and mother have the courage to deal with this, especially since they have already lost the male member of the family five years ago. I can not imagine their pain.
Here is an excerpt from one of the emails Rashmi sent to Pavi in recent times, followed by a testimonial that Rashmi wrote for me in 2003:
but this year is diff, its the phoenix's rise. crazy but feel like im entering womahood and its intoxicating. this past one month, ive seen things through such a different lens that i don't seem to know the person i was before that. phew. pretty good, huh.ive been tingling with insights beyond my intellectually much scoffed at books. sensing my paths-to-be and sidestepping rocks. stories from a diff time are talking effortlessly to me people have been opening their innerworlds to me without our knowledge.maybe im just living on a cloud, its easy being on this frozen island. or maybe this really is a new life unravelled. maybe its preparation for the next hundred years of sunrises and hearbreaks. or maybe it'll all be blown away in the wind at dawn tomorrow. now, i sound like im going to the battlefield,lol. but you must know i love you true. and don't care what you think or do, as long as you can see the ray of sunlight on my palm that i stole just for you.in solidarity and other big words,rushmeShe had a full life, and I hope she is in a better place now, looking down at us, smiling as always. She will be missed.
Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs)
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these are gone by with their glories,
What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and sombre Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain?
Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;
But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,
Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,
And then they would haunt thee in heaven:
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul.
O garment not golden but gilded,
O garden where all men may dwell,
O tower not of ivory, but builded
By hands that reach heaven from hell;
O mystical rose of the mire,
O house not of gold but of gain,
O house of unquenchable fire,
Our Lady of Pain!
O lips full of lust and of laughter,
Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,
Bite hard, lest remembrance come after
And press with new lips where you pressed.
For my heart too springs up at the pressure,
Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;
Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,
Ere pain come in turn.
In yesterday's reach and to-morrow's,
Out of sight though they lie of to-day,
There have been and there yet shall be sorrows
That smite not and bite not in play.
The life and the love thou despisest,
These hurt us indeed, and in vain,
O wise among women, and wisest,
Our Lady of Pain.
Who gave thee thy wisdom? what stories
That stung thee, what visions that smote?
Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores,
When desire took thee first by the throat?
What bud was the shell of a blossom
That all men may smell to and pluck?
What milk fed thee first at what bosom?
What sins gave thee suck?
We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,
Thou art noble and nude and antique;
Libitina thy mother, Priapus
Thy father, a Tuscan and Greek.
We play with light loves in the portal,
And wince and relent and refrain;
Loves die, and we know thee immortal,
Our Lady of Pain.
Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;
Thou art fed with perpetual breath,
And alive after infinite changes,
And fresh from the kisses of death;
Of languors rekindled and rallied,
Of barren delights and unclean,
Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallid
And poisonous queen.
Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?
Men touch them, and change in a trice
The lilies and languors of virtue
For the raptures and roses of vice;
Those lie where thy foot on the floor is,
These crown and caress thee and chain,
O splendid and sterile Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.
There are sins it may be to discover,
There are deeds it may be to delight.
What new work wilt thou find for thy lover,
What new passions for daytime or night?
What spells that they know not a word of
Whose lives are as leaves overblown?
What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,
Unwritten, unknown?
Ah beautiful passionate body
That never has ached with a heart!
On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody,
Though they sting till it shudder and smart,
More kind than the love we adore is,
They hurt not the heart or the brain,
O bitter and tender Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.
As our kisses relax and redouble,
From the lips and the foam and the fangs
Shall no new sin be born for men's trouble,
No dream of impossible pangs?
With the sweet of the sins of old ages
Wilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore?
Too sweet is the rind, say the sages,
Too bitter the core.
Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time,
And bared all thy beauties to one?
Ah, where shall we go then for pastime,
If the worst that can be has been done?
But sweet as the rind was the core is;
We are fain of thee still, we are fain,
O sanguine and subtle Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.
By the hunger of change and emotion,
By the thirst of unbearable things,
By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
By the pleasure that winces and stings,
The delight that consumes the desire,
The desire that outruns the delight,
By the cruelty deaf as a fire
And blind as the night,
By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
Through the kisses that blossom and bud,
By the lips intertwisted and bitten
Till the foam has a savour of blood,
By the pulse as it rises and falters,
By the hands as they slacken and strain,
I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,
Our Lady of Pain.
Wilt thou smile as a woman disdaining
The light fire in the veins of a boy?
But he comes to thee sad, without feigning,
Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;
Less careful of labour and glory
Than the elders whose hair has uncurled:
And young, but with fancies as hoary
And grey as the world.
I have passed from the outermost portal
To the shrine where a sin is a prayer;
What care though the service be mortal?
O our Lady of Torture, what care?
All thine the last wine that I pour is,
The last in the chalice we drain,
O fierce and luxurious Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.
All thine the new wine of desire,
The fruit of four lips as they clung
Till the hair and the eyelids took fire,
The foam of a serpentine tongue,
The froth of the serpents of pleasure,
More salt than the foam of the sea,
Now felt as a flame, now at leisure
As wine shed for me.
Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,
Marked cross from the womb and perverse!
They have found out the secret to cozen
The gods that constrain us and curse;
They alone, they are wise, and none other;
Give me place, even me, in their train,
O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,
Our Lady of Pain.
For the crown of our life as it closes
Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;
No thorns go as deep as a rose's,
And love is more cruel than lust.
Time turns the old days to derision,
Our loves into corpses or wives;
And marriage and death and division
Make barren our lives.
And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,
And satiate with comfortless hours;
And we know thee, how all men belie thee,
And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;
The passion that slays and recovers,
The pangs and the kisses that rain
On the lips and the limbs of thy lovers,
Our Lady of Pain.
The desire of thy furious embraces
Is more than the wisdom of years,
On the blossom though blood lie in traces,
Though the foliage be sodden with tears.
For the lords in whose keeping the door is
That opens on all who draw breath
Gave the cypress to love, my Dolores,
The myrtle to death.
And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,
And they mixed and made peace after strife;
Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;
Death tingled with blood, and was life.
Like lovers they melted and tingled,
In the dusk of thine innermost fane;
In the darkness they murmured and mingled,
Our Lady of Pain.
In a twilight where virtues are vices,
In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,
To a tune that enthralls and entices,
They were wed, and the twain were as one.
For the tune from thine altar hath sounded
Since God bade the world's work begin,
And the fume of thine incense abounded,
To sweeten the sin.
Love listens, and paler than ashes,
Through his curls as the crown on them slips,
Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,
And laughs with insatiable lips.
Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,
With music that scares the profane;
Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,
Our Lady of Pain.
Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,
Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;
In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,
In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.
In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,
In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;
Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue him
Asleep and awake.
Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses
With juice not of fruit nor of bud;
When the sense in the spirit reposes,
Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.
Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,
Who would live and not languish or feign,
O sleepless and deadly Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain.
Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber,
In a lull of the fires of thy life,
Of the days without name, without number,
When thy will stung the world into strife;
When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passion
Smote kings as they revelled in Rome;
And they hailed thee re-risen, O Thalassian,
Foam-white, from the foam?
When thy lips had such lovers to flatter;
When the city lay red from thy rods,
And thine hands were as arrows to scatter
The children of change and their gods;
When the blood of thy foemen made fervent
A sand never moist from the main,
As one smote them, their lord and thy servant,
Our Lady of Pain.
On sands by the storm never shaken,
Nor wet from the washing of tides;
Nor by foam of the waves overtaken,
Nor winds that the thunder bestrides;
But red from the print of thy paces,
Made smooth for the world and its lords,
Ringed round with a flame of fair faces,
And splendid with swords.
There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure,
Drew bitter and perilous breath;
There torments laid hold on the treasure
Of limbs too delicious for death;
When thy gardens were lit with live torches;
When the world was a steed for thy rein;
When the nations lay prone in thy porches,
Our Lady of Pain.
When, with flame all around him aspirant,
Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,
The implacable beautiful tyrant,
Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;
And a sound as the sound of loud water
Smote far through the flight of the fires,
And mixed with the lightning of slaughter
A thunder of lyres.
Dost thou dream of what was and no more is,
The old kingdoms of earth and the kings?
Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores,
For these, in a world of new things?
But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate,
No hunger compel to complain
Those lips that no bloodshed could satiate,
Our Lady of Pain.
As of old when the world's heart was lighter,
Through thy garments the grace of thee glows,
The white wealth of thy body made whiter
By the blushes of amorous blows,
And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers,
And branded by kisses that bruise;
When all shall be gone that now lingers,
Ah, what shall we lose?
Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,
And thy limbs are as melodies yet,
And move to the music of passion
With lithe and lascivious regret.
What ailed us, O gods, to desert you
For creeds that refuse and restrain?
Come down and redeem us from virtue,
Our Lady of Pain.
All shrines that were Vestal are flameless,
But the flame has not fallen from this;
Though obscure be the god, and though nameless
The eyes and the hair that we kiss;
Low fires that love sits by and forges
Fresh heads for his arrows and thine;
Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgies
With kisses and wine.
Thy skin changes country and colour,
And shrivels or swells to a snake's.
Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller,
We know it, the flames and the flakes,
Red brands on it smitten and bitten,
Round skies where a star is a stain,
And the leaves with thy litanies written,
Our Lady of Pain.
On thy bosom though many a kiss be,
There are none such as knew it of old.
Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe,
Male ringlets or feminine gold,
That thy lips met with under the statue,
Whence a look shot out sharp after thieves
From the eyes of the garden-god at you
Across the fig-leaves?
Then still, through dry seasons and moister,
One god had a wreath to his shrine;
Then love was the pearl of his oyster,
And Venus rose red out of wine.
We have all done amiss, choosing rather
Such loves as the wise gods disdain;
Intercede for us thou with thy father,
Our Lady of Pain.
In spring he had crowns of his garden,
Red corn in the heat of the year,
Then hoary green olives that harden
When the grape-blossom freezes with fear;
And milk-budded myrtles with Venus
And vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod;
And ye said, "We have seen, he hath seen us,
A visible God."
What broke off the garlands that girt you?
What sundered you spirit and clay?
Weak sins yet alive are as virtue
To the strength of the sins of that day.
For dried is the blood of thy lover,
Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;
Cry aloud, "Will he rise and recover,
Our Lady of Pain?"
Cry aloud; for the old world is broken:
Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest,
And rears not the bountiful token
And spreads not the fatherly feast.
From the midmost of Ida, from shady
Recesses that murmur at morn,
They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,
A goddess new-born.
And the chaplets of old are above us,
And the oyster-bed teems out of reach;
Old poets outsing and outlove us,
And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.
Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city,
With such lips as he sang with, again?
Intercede for us all of thy pity,
Our Lady of Pain.
Out of Dindymus heavily laden
Her lions draw bound and unfed
A mother, a mortal, a maiden,
A queen over death and the dead.
She is cold, and her habit is lowly,
Her temple of branches and sods;
Most fruitful and virginal, holy,
A mother of gods.
She hath wasted with fire thine high places,
She hath hidden and marred and made sad
The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces
Of gods that were goodly and glad.
She slays, and her hands are not bloody;
She moves as a moon in the wane,
White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,
Our Lady of Pain.
They shall pass and their places be taken,
The gods and the priests that are pure.
They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken?
They shall perish, and shalt thou endure?
Death laughs, breathing close and relentless
In the nostrils and eyelids of lust,
With a pinch in his fingers of scentless
And delicate dust.
But the worm shall revive thee with kisses;
Thou shalt change and transmute as a god,
As the rod to a serpent that hisses,
As the serpent again to a rod.
Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it;
Thou shalt live until evil be slain,
And good shall die first, said thy prophet,
Our Lady of Pain.
Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it,
Now he lies out of reach, out of breath,
Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet,
Sin's child by incestuous Death?
Did he find out in fire at his waking,
Or discern as his eyelids lost light,
When the bands of the body were breaking
And all came in sight?
Who has known all the evil before us,
Or the tyrannous secrets of time?
Though we match not the dead men that bore us
At a song, at a kiss, at a crime —
Though the heathen outface and outlive us,
And our lives and our longings are twain —
Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,
Our Lady of Pain.
Who are we that embalm and embrace thee
With spices and savours of song?
What is time, that his children should face thee?
What am I, that my lips do thee wrong?
I could hurt thee — but pain would delight thee;
Or caress thee — but love would repel;
And the lovers whose lips would excite thee
Are serpents in hell.
Who now shall content thee as they did,
Thy lovers, when temples were built
And the hair of the sacrifice braided
And the blood of the sacrifice spilt,
In Lampsacus fervent with faces,
In Aphaca red from thy reign,
Who embraced thee with awful embraces,
Our Lady of Pain?
Where are they, Cotytto or Venus,
Astarte or Ashtaroth, where?
Do their hands as we touch come between us?
Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?
From their lips have thy lips taken fever,
With the blood of their bodies grown red?
Hast thou left upon earth a believer
If these men are dead?
They were purple of raiment and golden,
Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,
Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,
In marvellous chambers of thine.
They are fled, and their footprints escape us,
Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,
O daughter of Death and Priapus,
Our Lady of Pain.
What ails us to fear overmeasure,
To praise thee with timorous breath,
O mistress and mother of pleasure,
The one thing as certain as death?
We shall change as the things that we cherish,
Shall fade as they faded before,
As foam upon water shall perish,
As sand upon shore.
We shall know what the darkness discovers,
If the grave-pit be shallow or deep;
And our fathers of old, and our lovers,
We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.
We shall see whether hell be not heaven,
Find out whether tares be not grain,
And the joys of thee seventy times seven,
Our Lady of Pain.
Labels: Love, Negativity, Poems, Vicious Circles
Free SMS to Pakistan from the Internet
2 Comments Posted by Nubeals on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 4:03 PM.
It has been MONTHS since I've been searching for a reliable way to send 'SMS messages' (Short Message Service) to Pakistan. On a side-note, I think "SMS Message" is a case of RAS Syndrome (or Redundant Acronym Syndrome Syndrome) - it's not perfectly clear if it is, though.
There was a time somewhere around 2007 when any Internet user could send Mobilink subscribers messages from the Mobilink website. Not any more. This was back when sms2pk.com also gained much popularity but the site doesn't function any more. Nothing works. And sending international SMS is expensive.
I don't understand why mobile service providers wouldn't want to provide such a service free of charge. Consider a typical scenario when an expatriate wants to SMS back home. I will either send less messages to save cost, or not send them at all. Usually it is so expensive that I might as well just call if I must communicate. Unless, of course, I find a way to send SMS from the Internet for free. Generally, the person I message will end up replying to my cell phone ($$$ for the mobile service provider) or replying to the online applet I used to SMS (again, $$$ for the mobile service provider). So I don't understand why mobile service providers in Pakistan do not offer this service ( especially when they are advanced enough to allow Facebook updates and what not just by sending a message to some number).
I tried searching blogs and Internet forums to find a service that at least talked about this service but the only useful thread I found had posts made in 2006 or 2007, and the others were also useless.
For Singapore, at least SingTel and Starhub allow Internet SMS. SingTel Internet SMS is a little troublesome, because you have to register with the site, but at least anyone can register - it is not limited to SingTel subscribers only. Starhub WebSMS is the absolute best! That is how simple and convenient it should be. And it is a great service to offer subscribers, isn't it? You're enabling communication and making a few extra bucks at the same time - what else does a mobile service provider do?
Currently, the WaridTel website PROBABLY offers such a feature, but only for its subscribers and to sign up, you must enter your Warid number. Isn't that just like chopping off your own feet? IF they offer this service for free, only limited to their subscribers, they're just losing out on the money they could make. Anyway, I am not even sure if that service works. I will have to ask a friend to let me use his number to register for an account (when you register, they send the activation code to the number by SMS).
I also registered for isms.pk which is in beta mode and promises to send free SMS to any number in Pakistan. They have yet to email me my password yet, and if the email never arrives, that means the site has failed already. I learned of this website from that expired thread I spoke of earlier.
From a political perspective, I'm guessing that such a service may not be possible any time soon thanks Mr 10%'s insecurity when he got the interior minister to ban ANY kind of jokes about him (or the government) - all SMS messages and email messages containing indecent, provocative and ill-motivated stories against the civilian leadership (primarily making fun of Zardari) are considered criminal offences, with 14 years in prison as the maximum sentence. Yeah, they're still calling it a democracy.
*chuckle*
There was a time somewhere around 2007 when any Internet user could send Mobilink subscribers messages from the Mobilink website. Not any more. This was back when sms2pk.com also gained much popularity but the site doesn't function any more. Nothing works. And sending international SMS is expensive.
I don't understand why mobile service providers wouldn't want to provide such a service free of charge. Consider a typical scenario when an expatriate wants to SMS back home. I will either send less messages to save cost, or not send them at all. Usually it is so expensive that I might as well just call if I must communicate. Unless, of course, I find a way to send SMS from the Internet for free. Generally, the person I message will end up replying to my cell phone ($$$ for the mobile service provider) or replying to the online applet I used to SMS (again, $$$ for the mobile service provider). So I don't understand why mobile service providers in Pakistan do not offer this service ( especially when they are advanced enough to allow Facebook updates and what not just by sending a message to some number).
I tried searching blogs and Internet forums to find a service that at least talked about this service but the only useful thread I found had posts made in 2006 or 2007, and the others were also useless.
For Singapore, at least SingTel and Starhub allow Internet SMS. SingTel Internet SMS is a little troublesome, because you have to register with the site, but at least anyone can register - it is not limited to SingTel subscribers only. Starhub WebSMS is the absolute best! That is how simple and convenient it should be. And it is a great service to offer subscribers, isn't it? You're enabling communication and making a few extra bucks at the same time - what else does a mobile service provider do?
Currently, the WaridTel website PROBABLY offers such a feature, but only for its subscribers and to sign up, you must enter your Warid number. Isn't that just like chopping off your own feet? IF they offer this service for free, only limited to their subscribers, they're just losing out on the money they could make. Anyway, I am not even sure if that service works. I will have to ask a friend to let me use his number to register for an account (when you register, they send the activation code to the number by SMS).
I also registered for isms.pk which is in beta mode and promises to send free SMS to any number in Pakistan. They have yet to email me my password yet, and if the email never arrives, that means the site has failed already. I learned of this website from that expired thread I spoke of earlier.
From a political perspective, I'm guessing that such a service may not be possible any time soon thanks Mr 10%'s insecurity when he got the interior minister to ban ANY kind of jokes about him (or the government) - all SMS messages and email messages containing indecent, provocative and ill-motivated stories against the civilian leadership (primarily making fun of Zardari) are considered criminal offences, with 14 years in prison as the maximum sentence. Yeah, they're still calling it a democracy.
*chuckle*
I want to send free SMS to Pakistan!
(Note to mobile service providers: Paid is also fine as long as it's dirt-cheap - but then it mustn't have daily limits, heh. Mastercard/Visa payment please.)
Is Facebook past its prime? | by Hillary Rhodes, PC World
http://www.todayonline.com/voices/EDC090717-0000059/You-can-eat-in-your-own-carYou can eat ... in your own car | Letter from Murali S | 05:55 AM Jul 17, 2009
What a ridiculous point of view! Eat in your own car? The majority doesn't have cars in Singapore. That sounds like the sort of thing a spoilt brat would say, who doesn't understand reality. (You know the type - they were born with silver spoons in their mouths, they went to the best schools and everywhere they went, the doors opened up for them. They never understand the plight of the common man who suffers through life everyday.)
And they deployed FIVE HUNDRED people to get this done? I didn't know that. Isn't it a little extreme? You want people to live in fear every day, every time they go some where? See how freaked people are now?
You know what I think is more despicable than some spillage on the train floor? An old man standing and two rows of young people just sitting there. Why don't you fine that and make Singaporeans a little more civil? Clearly your announcements telling people to let people out of train doors before they push their way in fall on deaf ears. Civility does not come naturally to some people - especially the ones who are used to being fined before they start doing the right thing.
Besides, I've seen more vomit-covered train floors than water or coke. Having meals on a train should be fined though, sure, why not. But if you think about it, CCTVs might be a cheaper choice in the long run (you can just put up dummy CCTVs - people would never know and they would be equally effective!).
Labels: Today
A Golfer needs complete silence to hit something laying on the ground, yet a Baseball/Cricket player has to deal with screaming fans and a ball flying at them at 90 km/h. Something's fishy here.
