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A “pass” is not a “qualify”

I refer to “A right, not a privilege” by Mr Chen Zhaoguang.

Firstly, there are many other mediums through which education can be pursued. Pursue of education is a right, no doubt, but having a place in local Universities however, isn’t one.

Mr Chen mentioned that a having a meritocratic education system “does not mean that we cannot cater to all who qualify for university entry in a cohort”. I would like to point out that if a student is unable to get into a University, it is only because he or she does not qualify for it.

It is certainly not a fault of the University or the Government not doing enough to take in more students. Already, my girlfriend and her schoolmates have to sit on the floor during most of her lectures in NUS due to lack of seats.

I think the reason why there is so much debate about whether local University admission is an “entitlement” or a “privilege” is because many Singaporeans have a mistaken understanding about the word “qualify”.

Local Universities accepts application from anyone who passes the A’ Level. But, does that equate to “qualify”?

For example, MS KOH HWEE CHOO, who had written in to ST Forum earlier last month, mentioned that although her son “achieved four H2 A-level passes, A for GP and B for Project Work”, he was unable to get a place in the University. This shows that despite passing the A Levels, Ms Koh’s son does not “qualify” for a place among the local Universities.

In today’s highly competitive situation, having a “pass” in the examination does not mean a “qualify” when it comes to local University admission. There are also cases of students settling for a degree that they totally dislike or could not do well in, because they do not qualify for the degrees they have interests in. I agree this is cruel, and does not fairly recognize students who has non-academic interests or talents. However, this is to be expected as it is the limitation of the meritocracy system that we have all happily embraced.

When I was in Junior College, I had a hard time juggling between school work and my non-academic interests in IT and business, leading to many Fs in my examinations and threats from the school leaders about the possibilities of being retained. I ended up shutting down my websites to concentrate on the A’ Levels, and managed to “qualify” for SMU. And at what cost? Today, I am still struggling to rebuild my sites to its former more than 10000 daily visits.

My scenario could be a thing of the past, if instead of calling for more enrolments in local University, Singaporeans call for an education system that recognizes both academic and non-academic achievements equally. That way, future Singaporeans, regardless of their forte, would be able to pursue their interests much greater height with lesser obstacles.

Hi dear reporters, whoever you are! Welcome to Weikiat.NET!

Notice the time the email is sent out, and the time of the event…

A case of planning an event and then forget about telling people about it until the last minute?

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An internal email sent out to all students…

SECURITY ALERT - THEFT OF LAPTOPS

Campus Security has received reports of laptop thefts recently. This week, there were four cases which had occurred in NUS canteens during lunch hours. In these cases, the victims had left their laptop on the seat in the canteen while they went to buy food. When they returned, their laptops were already missing.

This second email was found on Zitseng

I am a Disciplinary and Regimental (charge people) clerk. And normally I wear No.4. With the release of this new uniform which does not benefit me, can I request to have new cameo pattern for clerks that don’t get to wear No.3? Specifically one that allows us to disappear when random arrows fly in our direction.

Despite promise, it freezes and all the tabs become unaccessible
I have around 5 tags open and I was visiting the Ultimate Ears website in one of the tabs, where the menu is made in flash. The entire site became frozen. Thinking that other tags will work, I click on the other tabs, and to my surprise, I couldn’t switch to them. ALL THE TABS froze. The same thing happened when I was watching a video on youtube. It seems that the shockwave plugin is not that stable yet, and when it freeze, the entire browser including all its tabs become frozen. This sets me to wonder, when more plugin support is implemented, will one single plugin freeze the entire browser?

Tab caption did not update itself
See this screenshot:

Even though I was at the Jaben Forum page, the caption of the Tab belongs to the tab on its right.

Source viewable on the “New Tab” page
I like the “New Tab” page very much, which lead me to do abit of investigation. When I try to right click and view source the page, it doesn’t work as the menu for viewing source is disabled. However, they forgot to disable the view source option from the “Developer” menu, and I was able to view the source of the “New Tab” page in its full glory:

Notice also the very interesting comment:

This page is optimized for perceived performance. Our enemies are the time
taken for the backend to generate our data, and the time taken to parse
and render the starting HTML/CSS content of the page. This page is
designed to let Chrome do both of those things in parallel.

1. Defines temporary content callback functions
2. Fires off requests for content (these can come back 20-150ms later)
3. Defines basic functions (handlers)
4. Renders a fast-parse hard-coded version of itself (this can take 20-50ms)
5. Defines the full content-rendering functions

If the requests for content come back before the content-rendering functions
are defined, the data is held until those functions are defined

The guys behind chrome has resorted to “dirty tricks” to make Chrome seem faster than it really is when loading the “New Tab” page which contains a hell lot of javascript.

View-Source: Exploit
If you are using Chrome right now, click on this link. You will notice that I can actually create links that when you click on it, will cause Chrome to launch its source viewer instead of the regular browser window. While this by itself is not a big deal (may even be the intention of the developers to work this way), there is a chance that this may eventually lead to bigger problems (maybe a bug in the source viewer), and you get infected with viruses or malwares.

That is all I have for now, but who knows more problems/bugs may surface. Granted, Chrome is only a Beta, but this beta, despite its many innovations, has lower quality than many other betas from Google.

i can’t get an iPhone all because of my brother!
i have came to this conclusion about me buying iPhone.

really really no money to buy lo.
after touching it last friday, i can never forget the touch and how it feels like.
it is nothing compared to omnia, though omnia is so far the only phone comparable to iPhone.

haiz.. it is all my brother’s fault!
):
its all because of him la.
if he didn’t put braces, then i could have gotten like 4 iPhones at least!
What the hell right!
Why did he have to put braces la..
everytime he visits the dental clinic, $200 bucks fly away just like that.
just so that he can have a few pieces of metal on his teeth. ):
the accumulated $200 bucks per session can make up to one substantial white/black beautiful, stylish and valuable gadget lo!
):

yeah. so the reason why i am not getting my iPhone yet, it all thanks to my brother and his ugly crooked teeth!
haiz..
when will iPhone be mine!!?

i feel depressed whenever i think of this.
especially when my K800i starts to hates me more and more..
every other day, it will give me problems la!
):
sad me..

someone, buy me an iPhone please..

and Singtel can you just stop sending me emails about iPhone. its tempting me! ):

I may be wrong though. If that blogger blames her brother because she is the sole breadwinner and all her hard earn money that she earned herself has to go into the brother’s braces, at least it is still understandable that she is so unhappy.

But if it is because of her brother’s braces that her parents could not buy her an iPhone, oh wtf. Can’t she buy one herself? Can’t she find a part time work or something and get herself one? Why the reliance on parents that is so typical in primary school and secondary kids for materialistic stuff so evidence in a girl who is already in university? I am an NSF, drawing only about 400 dollars per month, which is roughly the pay you get when you teach 2 secondary school tutions per month, and I have a high end In-Ear-Monitor costing $380, MP4 Player (that has more features than iPhone with the exception of wifi) costing $399, and portable amplifier costing $300, and Hobby R/C car costing $200, Brushless Motor System for the car costing $300 etc. And I didn’t even ask my parents for a single cents.

Even if she has no money to pay for an iPhone because she is the one who needs to finance the brother’s braces, there is also something very wrong about the mind of someone who would blame her brother’s medical treatment for being unable to get something materialistic. The brother’s braces is a need. The iPhone is a want. A need is clearly more important. Surely Uni graduate cannot be that selfish? The NUS mission comprises three mutually reinforcing thrusts: quality education, high impact research and service to country and society.

Perhaps NUS should concentrate on teaching family values.

This entry is not to flame the blogger in question or anything. Everyone has his or her own wants but when you blame a family member’s need for not being able to get your own want, I feel quite strongly about it. I hope that blogger in question would grow up.

LOL..

According to Mrs Lim Lai Cheng, Principal, Raffles Junior College,

A Rafflesian is inherently busy.
A Rafflesian is deeply interested in pursuing academic depth and maintains a rigorous regime of lectures, tutorials, electives, talks, symposiums and forums. These include Taking Sides, the Raffles Asia Programme Symposium, Raffles Mock UN Conference, lectures by university dons and visiting professors from renowned research labs such as Professor Brian Ford from Cambridge University. A snapshot of students around the college pouring over their assignments before assembly attests to that single-minded focus on theorems and principles of science and mathematics, econometrics, the consequences of historical events, analyses of humankind and whatever intrigues them.

Explanation: Rafflesian does about everything and anything that is required of him for the sake of pursuing academic dept. Like a slave, they have no choice but to maintain a rigorous regime of lectures, tutorials, electives, talks, symposiums and forums, as well as what nots held by supposedly educated beings in an attempt to rub off some intellect for his own use. If a ghost can float freely through RJC compound, the ghost would see tonnes of eyeballs stuck firmly to books and worksheets. The single-minded focus on writings on pieces of paper removes all sense of self and worldy desires from a Rafflesian and replaced them with theorems, principles of science, mathematics, econometrics, the consequences of histrorical events, analyses of humankind. Rafflesians does have an inherent flaw with the inability to understand the sentence “I think, therefore I am.”

A Rafflesian is indefatigably involved.
A Rafflesian spends endless hours a term working on projects that seek to raise funds for or contribute to the well-being of those in need. The range of CCA or group-initiated charitable concerts, drives and events such as the Humanities Initiative, Youth Got Heart, the R-Project, CLIMB and Step Up for Down are evidence of the compassion and public spiritedness of Rafflesians.

Explanation: A Rafflesian is like a slave in terms of working hours and resting hours. Regardless of whether it is for projects, raising funds, or to contribute to other people who are in need, Rafflesians happily disregard their need for sleep and spend endless hours working and working. It can be said that all Rafflesians are selfish as they are unable to help one another. This is because all Rafflesians desperately need sleep but one Rafflesian can’t help another Rafflesian sleep. Some Rafflesians of different gender experimented sleeping with one another to a very mixed result.

A Rafflesian is soulful.
A Rafflesian practises hard in various music, dance, visual arts, drama, cultural and performing arts groups to regale audiences comprising staff, students, alumni and parents at their own concerts and productions. They share their creation, their passion and commitment to their craft and give their all to bring that special touch to our lives.

Explanation: A Rafflesian has a soul, but only in the context of various elite activities that RJC has imposed on them to be passionate about. Doing what is required of them regardless of whether they like it or not is what a Rafflesian’s soul is all about, if the word “soul” could be used in their context.

A Rafflesian is highly-spirited.
A Rafflesian puts in hours of training to garner the championship titles for the respective sports events. Success is achieved through hours of sheer hard work, mental and physical endurance as well as bonding among teams that believe in working together as one.

Explanation: Having just “soul” is not enough. It is important to have backup. Rafflesians have “spirit” too! Spirit to work hard!

A Rafflesian is fiercely proud.
A Rafflesian belongs in an educational institution that embodies the pioneering spirit of the founder of Singapore. Each is inspired to give of his best because of the proud tradition he has to maintain – one that requires every Rafflesian to discover his strength, pursue his passion relentlessly and contribute unsparingly to the success of his college, community and nation.

Explanation: Proud, and being fiercely so, is what defines a Rafflesian. While the counterparts from lesser schools experience something called “pride”, a rafflesian will settle for nothing but fierce proudness.

And there you have it… what being an Rafflesian is all about, as defined by its principal and me.

This is a light hearted article that gives a rare insight on life of our very elites, and tomorrow’s leaders. This entry is in no way written to insult RJC, but to joke about the amount of incomprehensible effort that they are able to put into study that none of us commoners can match. Like it or not, it is with hardcore commitment like those in RJC that can bring the country to a greater height.