Word of the Day for Sunday, November 14, 2010

emend \ih-MEND\, verb:

1. To free from faults or errors; correct.
2. To edit or change a text.

Then, wrapped in silence, Nola hurled herself once more against everything she knew she could not remit or revise, could never emend, could only begin to imagine.
-- Susan Dodd, O Careless Love: Stories and a Novella

In editing Griffith, there is a temptation to emend away a considerable number of commas in the copy texts as frank errors, for example, those commas that separate subjects and verbs, in violation of one of our modern rules.
-- Mrs. Griffith (Elizabeth), Cynthia Booth Ricciardi, Susan Staves, The delicate distress

Emend comes from the Latin emendare, "to free from fault."

Word of the Day for Saturday, November 13, 2010

debonair \deb-uh-NAIR\, adjective:
1. Courteous, gracious, and having a sophisticated charm.
2. Jaunty; carefree; sprightly.

She laughed at the contradictions and said out loud to herself as if she were still talking to the debonair Mr. Raymond Minor, "I've never thought of leaving the South, never."
-- Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza, Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel

His public image is dashing and debonair, the natural pop star with a beautiful woman on his arm.
-- Neil McCormick, "Bryan Ferry: a shrinking violet not a lounge lizard," Telegraph.co.uk, October, 2010

Debonair is an alteration of the French phrase de bon aire, "of good lineage."

Teaching challenge for fresh grads

By K.M. LEW
   
     ARE you a fresh graduate who wants an opportunity to make an impact in a child’s life? You may be able to do so once the Teach For Malaysia programme is introduced.
     The programme was announced under the 10th Malaysia Plan tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in June.
     Similar to the Teach for America initiative, the programme will attempt to attract the best and brightest Malaysian graduates to teach for two years at underperforming or rural schools.

Marto says social entrepreneurs who want to start the programme in their respective countries can get help.

     A group of local social entrepreneurs, who declined to be named, said the Teach for Malaysia vision is “for all children in Malaysia to have the opportunity to attain an excellent education”.
     “We are enlisting Malaysia’s most outstanding youth in our mission to end education inequity.
     “Teach For Malaysia participants would serve for a minimum of two years in challenging schools and commit to transforming the educational outcomes of less privileged school children through significantly improving their achievements and aspirations,” they said.
     Eventually the programme’s alumni would form an influential network of leaders, committed in their pursuit of expanding educational opportunities from within and outside the (education) sector.
     Currently in the early stages of development, Teach For Malaysia aims to place its first cohort in challenging classrooms at the start of the school term in 2012.
     On what is meant by challenging schools, the group declined to reveal further details until the programme is launched.
     Malaysia will be the first Asean country and 16th in the world to have such a programme once it kicks off.
     Teach First chief executive officer and founder Brett Wigdortz said a Teach programme is already in 15 other countries including India, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (UK).
     “Teach First is a charity organisation that recruits exceptional graduates from all disciplines who want to make an impact in school classrooms in challenging circumstances and who have a desire to address the inequalities in education in the long term.
     “We do not work alone as our success is a result of the quality of our partnerships with a range of organisations, including schools, teaching unions, universities and businesses,” he said.

Wigdortz says the programme needs exceptional graduates from all disciplines who want to make an impact

     The Teach First website states that it “harnesses the energy, enthusiasm and drive of exceptional graduates to provide leadership, motivation and, above all, inspirational teaching in schools in challenging circumstances across England”.
     Since its foundation in 2002, Teach First has placed over 2,520 teachers in such schools.
     “Many children are not getting the opportunities for education.
     “In one London school I visited, the teacher said he was providing a baby-sitting service while another felt his job was to keep his students out of prison until they were 16,” Wigdortz said when sharing his experiences about Teach First and Teach For All in Kuala Lumpur earlier this week.
     “But not everyone makes good teachers, so graduates who are interested in this programme have to undergo a rigorous selection process before they are placed and supported in a school environment with challenging circumstances.
     “Teach First is now the third largest recruiter in the UK and there were 7,000 applications for 800 spots this year,” he said.
     The Teach First website states that of these, over 90% stay for a minimum of two years, over 50% stay longer and 67% of those placed since 2003 remain actively engaged with addressing educational disadvantage through Teach First’s ambassador community.
     Teach For All growth strategy and development managing director for Middle East and Asia Reem Marto said it assists social entrepreneurs around the world who are inspired by the Teach For America and Teach First model and want to adapt it in their own countries.
     “The programme would be tailored to suit each country,” she added.

Rove Beetle

By M.K. Lim,

     The Rove beetle that is increasingly common in Malaysia. Their bodies contain the toxin paederin (hence Paederous dermatitis) that causes burns on human skin whenever they are crushed. Interestingly the beetles were used to burn off warts in the past. It starts off with some erythema/redness and then with patches of ulceration where the beetle has been crushed.

Rove beetle

     The rove beetles are surprisingly small and very easy to miss. Normally they fly into your house via the windows as they are attracted to light at night. They can fly up apartment blocks and are common if you live near a hill or jungle.

     The Rove Beetle is less than 1 cm long. The body is dark orange and the tip of the abdomen, the upper abdomen and the head are black. The upper middle iridescent greenish region of the abdomen are the hard wings (elytra). A pair of transparent wings are neatly folded and hidden under the hard wings. During daytime, the beetle will be seen crawling around swiftly with hidden wings resembling ants. When disturbed it raises the abdomen in a threatening gesture like a scorpion and can fly away. It can also run on water swiftly.
 
      The beetle has been observed in the paddy fields (since 1919), school fields - within the grass etc. It is carnivorous and eats smaller insects. Thus it plays an important role as a biological control of ‘paddy pests’. During heavy rains/ floods, the beetle may migrate to drier areas.

Rove Beetle's wounds

     The haemolymph in the beetle’s entire body (except the wings) contains the most poisonous animal contact toxin in the world called ‘pederin’ (C24 H43 O9 N) named in 1953. It is 12 times more poisonous than cobra venom ! Dried and stored rove beetle for 8 years still retained it’s toxicity ! Contact collision with the beetle while travelling or sleeping, crushing it on the body or smearing with soiled fingers can cause conjunctivitis and severe dermatitis known as dermatitis linearis, paederus (rove beetle /staphylinidae) dermatitis, whiplash dermatitis etc. In September 2002 an epidemic of dermatitis linearis caused by rove beetles affected thousands of high rise flat dwellers and dormitory students in Penang, Malaysia.

     Since the beetle is attracted to lights at night, switch off or minimise the lighting and close doors/ windows during the beetle epidemic. Use fine mosquito netting, aerosol insect spray, glue traps etc. Do not sit near lights, do not smash the beetle on the body, just blow it away ! If there is contact with the beetle, immediately wash the affected area with soap and water. Those who suffer severe skin reactions should seek medical attention.

SPM and STPM to go on as scheduled despite floods

By K.M. LEW

KUALA LUMPUR: The SPM and STPM examinations will go on as scheduled even though some states have been hit by floods, said Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
     All state education directors were monitoring the situation and an immediate announcement would be made if there was any change in the dates, he said.

Google Donates $5 Million for News

By Y.C. Lim

Google has announced a donation of $5 million for innovation in digital journalism, where $2 million will go to the Knight Foundation and $3 million will go toward international news efforts.


Though the details of Google’s international news donation are to be announced early next year, the $2 million for the Knight Foundation - an organization that focuses on advancing and funding journalism in the digital age,  will be broken up by $1 million to help fund the Knight News Challenge and another $1 million for general grant-making for journalism innovation.

The Knight News Challenge is a worldwide news innovation competition that will be distributing $6 million in awards to contest winners. It’s currently looking for submissions with a focus on mobile, sustainability, authenticity and community, and one of the requirements is that they have to be open source, which aligns nicely with Google’s goals in the space. Last year, the Foundation awarded $2.74 million in grants that ranged from real-time ads, to crowd-funding, to reporting using social media. It’s also supported the likes of DocumentCloud, Spot.Us and Everyblock.

“This is an enormously important vote of confidence by the industry leader. We welcome Google’s support,” said Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation in a statement. “Already, more Americans get their information from the Internet than from newspapers. That trend will only intensify, making it imperative for our democracy that we find ways to effectively deliver the news and information people require on the new, digital platforms.”

As media companies struggle to find a sustainable model while more news consumption takes place on the web (with much through the social web), there’s a great need for innovative ideas and approaches to news. So why donate the money? In part, it is policy for Google to donate 1% of profits toward charity, but it’s also a peace offering of sorts to news organizations that have often blamed their woes on the technology giant.

As Megan Garber of Nieman Journalism Lab points out, despite years of having a dysfunctional relationship with news organizations, Google’s donation comes as a “multi-million dollar olive branch.” For years, some news organizations accused Google of stealing their news, but recently Google has been reaching out to news organizations for partnerships on projects like Living Stories, which it collaborated on with The New York Times and The Washington Post. Despite working on such partnerships recently, Chris Gaither told Garber the donation is an effort to “encourage innovation at a more grassroots level.”

Going forward, with major news organizations cutting back on international resources to produce news, it will be crucial to help fill in a gap.

Tweenbot - cutest robot ever

By M.K. Lim

     Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot. Tweenbots was initially invented as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because it was built with minimal technology, there is no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so the first tweenbot was set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in the persuer's purse.

     The results were unexpected. Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

     The Tweenbot’s unexpected presence in the city created an unfolding narrative that spoke not simply to the vastness of city space and to the journey of a human-assisted robot, but also to the power of a simple technological object to create a complex network powered by human intelligence and asynchronous interactions. But of more interest to me was the fact that this ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people's willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone. As each encounter with a helpful pedestrian takes the robot one step closer to attaining its destination, the significance of our random discoveries and individual actions accumulates into a story about a vast space made small by an even smaller robot.

     This little robot with cardboard body and simple mechanism, will be set out with a definite destination written on the flag on top of the tweenbot with something such as

"Please help me!! i wanna reach XXXX"

It is said that, regardless of how long or how terrible looking is the poor robot, eventually, it gets its way into the destination

Creative Writing Competition - Fairytale

First Place by M.K. Lim

Everybody lived to tell tale. Whether the tale would have something to be learned, or something to be followed or even something just for fun, everyone who have lived, lived to tell a tale. Whether for your tale to be important and to be passed on for generations depend on how you live your tale and recite them.

Up till today, I've lived long enough to tell a short tale. So grab a coffee, put yourself on a couch, make yourself comfortable because i am about to tell you a tale. Just a short tale that took a long time to be lived in.

A tale about a girl who's faith was restored

Not very long ago, there was a girl who did not live in a castle, nor does she have beautiful complexion or extraordinary abilities. There was just a girl, like every other. A girl that was unnoticed because she blend so well in the crowd just like a chameleon that people could not see her existence. Some see this as a curse and some see this as a fortune. No matter what others saw, the girl saw nothing.

She lived her life not by waiting for a handsome prince to save her from evil dragons or waiting for a fairy-godmother to transform her into a beautiful maiden. She plainly lived through her life enduring everyday lives and in her era, there is no longer discrimination on female so her life was pretty much a bed of roses. But everybody knows that roses that are so beautiful have thorns that will make others bleed to enhance the "red" colour of the petals. So her life was pretty much a bed of roses no doubt.

However, this part is a little similar to a fairy tale. In her life, evil villain existed. And in her case, there were more than one villain. Every little thing she knows and every person she was ever fond of have a little villain side in them. Back then, the innocent her knew nothing of that sorts. She innocently got trapped by those evil villains and they took advantage of her. A sad case for her that she had to endure all that by herself and no one other than herself could save her.

So she learned about the cruel part of life by falling and she then decided to not fall again. But little does she know that that world that she was in was merely a zest of reality. Reality is nothing like a fairytale. Reality was the evolve "species" of fairytale and in this reality, fairytale only lived in dreams and movies.

Like everyone other tale you have heard, the one true prince will appear and then save the beautiful princess from her misery. This girl was no princess. Neither does she have any prince that will rescue her. So she when she realised that fairytale could never exist, she decided to not live in her dream. She decided to learn to live in reality. She learned to be a villain herself for she have to be one to survive among all of them.

Slowly and gradually she became immune to villains because right now she is already one of them. Fairytale for her is nothing but a mere desire of weak people who could not accept reality. But she, as a non-believer in fairytale will soon face a tale of her own that she would have never expect to happen.

Little does she know, her fairytale has just started. Just when she lost all hope and faith, a prince showed up. Her prince was not like in the storybooks. He was not riding a white horse nor was he carrying a sword. He doesn't know how to fight bandits or dragons but he was her prince. That prince who appeared in her life changed every single thing. She who lost her faith was showered with light and love. Before she knew it, she began to live in her fairytale.

There were no garden to dance nor beautiful castle to visit. There were no romantic time riding horses nor singing under the rain. But there was love and care from the prince's heart, warmth from the prince's palm and tenderness in the prince's soul that melted the girl's once stoney heart. And there, her fairytale lives on.

There would probably be no happily ever after but as for now, there is a fairytale in her.

-The end-

Blobfish

By M.K. Lim,

       Some of you may have not seen or heard about this before.  Let me introduce to you BLOBFISH. It is said as an ugly miserable fish by Ted Thornhill who writes an article in yahoo. But i think he looks perfectly fine [the fish, not the writer ==]

       Hei, beauty is at the eye of the beholder so you judge it yourself. At least now the blobfish have a vote for being a cutie from me. what do you think?

And this is what Thornhill wrote in his article

Extinction threat for world’s most miserable animal – the blobfish
No wonder he looks like the world’s most miserable fish… this unattractive creature, the inedible blobfish, is in danger of being wiped out.
These sad-looking creatures, which grow up to lengths of 12 inches, live at depths of 900m.
They spend most of their time gently floating around waiting for food to pass in front of them, which sounds like quite a nice life to us!
Because they live so far from the sea surface they’re not often seen by humans.
However, increasing levels of deep-sea fishing in Australia and Tasmania for crab and lobster mean that the sulky sea-dwellers are being dragged up with other catches in increasing numbers.
These gelatinous masses may not be much to look at, but the world would be a less interesting place without them, probably, so let’s hope the Australian’s don’t kill them off.

Hei, if this cute blobfish is at the edge of extinction, you sure did a good job in almost killing one in that picture [putting him away from water]. Imagine i put you in the sea water and try to take a good non-miserable looking picture.

So You Think You're Short?

By M.K. Lim,

     There is no single person in this world that is satisfied with himself. Men are not satisfied with the size of their muscles. What more is there to say for ladies? Why do you think silicon was created?
    
      There are just things we cant change. If you’re fat, go on a diet. If you’re thin, eat more. But what if the things you’re not satisfied with cannot be changed no matter how hard you try? Try change from being short? Guy complaining not being tall enough, girls complaining being too short. Now, don’t you think it is better to just accept who  you are and get on with life? Life ain’t gonna get any better if you’re 5 cm taller or shorter.
But life sure is good for this man. Hei, he maybe once the shortest and smallest man on earth, but he sure made everything else in his life BIG.

 This man is He Pingping from Inner Mongolia China. He was holding the record of being the shortest man alive in Guiness Book of records with the heights of 2′ 5″ or 73cm. 

     This is when he met the woman with the longest leg. Hei, you may think he is lucky because since he is the SHORTEST he gets all the publicity and money. Have you thought about how life would be difficult for him? Would anyone want a life so different from others just for some fame and fortune for a short time? Or would it be better to live the normal comfortable life peacefully? I believe many would choose the latter. 

     He Pingping died at the early age of 21 on March 13th. He was in Italy for a show and he complained a pain in his chest. He was sent to the hospital and died over the weekends as reported in this article. His record is now being taken over by Khagendra Thapa Magar who claims to be only 53 cm tall.

How wonderful and diverse out world is.

R.I.P. He Pingping.