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Name: J
Country: United Kingdom
Metro: London
Gender: Female
Interests: Reading; Bridge; Hiking; Going to parks and gardens; Dinner parties; Travelling; Horseback archery; Listening to music; Everything
Occupation: Document Production
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
2/24/2005
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| Tribute(1) Life goes on
(2) I am one tough cookie | | |
| SimsMade the mistake of trying out the Sims 2 game.
I know. I know. It's been out forever. And I have been strong and have resisted for forever. And now, I've caved in, and discovered that it is quite fun.
Except it seriously ruins the way you think.
Because, now, when I walk around the office, I think of building up relationships and friends in the Sims way. When I pick up a book that I see lying around and return it to the bookshelf, I feel someone has just clicked on me and told me to put all the books away.
It's really quite "real"... but yet in some ways, it isn't. See, there's no real difference between each Sim. In that, some may be a bit more tidy, some may be a bit more active and some may be a bit nicer. But at the end of the day, they have the same number of "points" to distribute amongst different attributes. Unfortunately, in life, it's not that way. Some people are just better looking, more intelligent, more charismatic etc etc without any real reason. I guess it is simply that when they rolled the dice before starting life, they rolled a double six instead of a double one.
Which brings me neatly to the point of the recent Tory spin about the abandonment of the party article of faith regarding academic selection. The recent hoo-haa is simply that Cameron wants to move towards the centrist ground. To be "more Blair, than Brown can be" - i.e. position himself as the "true" heir. To do this, amongst other stupid ideas, he needs to embrace the reforms that Labour started, including the academies.
I shall not set forth arguments that are beautifully rendered in this article. Suffice to say, I think that there is a place and a need for selection.
We are not Sims. Therefore, one size fits all education doesn't work. The lack of selection means the brightest kids don't get the best education they can and the deferred-success ones don't get the nurturing they need. In addition, not every child is meant to go into University. And in case you don't recognise it, that's a calculated swipe at the 8 "universities" that we now have in Hong Kong. That's the whole point of Universities: the academic inclined should go. The rest? Do something else.
As an aside, did you know, that apparently (this is hearsay) people who are truly multi-lingual (this includes the most basic level: bilingualism) almost certainly has an IQ of at least 110? So for all those out there who can only speak one language, don't panic. This is normal. Average. The ones who can speak multiple languages? They're the ones on the outer ends of the bell-curve.
Finally, as part of my normal "thinking aloud" musing... Someone mentioned to me that Hong Kong is a truly vibrant city. I looked at them blankly and thought to myself... hmmm? Is this guy on weed? I guess vibrancy is a correct adjective, but only to the extent of the "play" aspect of the city. In all other areas, there is a fairly straight and narrow road to "success". Problem is, once you wander off that road, it's difficult to get back on again. Here in London, it's a lot more fluid. But then, it's not a fair comparison. London has the rest of the UK island on which to push their poor/uneducated/unmotivated etc etc population. Hong Kong is kinda compact with all manner of people within its territory. So I guess if you magnify Hong Kong so it looks a bit more like UK, you'll see it's not that different. You have the underclass all around the City of Central which is where most of the rich people work. Hong Kong is a genuinely great place to work and attracts the best and the brightest talent from around the world. And when you compare the sort of numbers of these people going to HK and the more average "remaining" population, the wealth divide would become more stark, although I will add here that without these best and the brightest, Hong Kong would not be where it is today. So as usual, the sharpest knives can cut both ways. But methinks this only partly explains the high Gini coefficient. But before making any judgements, do read this first. Notwithstanding, I concede, similar to all systems, the Hong Kong system is not perfect. There is an element of a bias towards the affluent side of the population. But then, which system isn't? It's difficult... this whole messy business of government... | | |
| Municipal DarwinismSaw this book on Amazon the other day, and couldn't help myself.
Really love the story. It is set in a post nuclear war (Sixty Minute War) world, where cities roam the earth on wheels. The reason for the creation of such mobile cities (Traction Cities) was because after the nuclear war, the world was seized by a series of catastrophic earthquakes, tsunamis and what not. And the only way to survive was to create cities that could, quite literally, relocate from danger. I could just imagine this book being made into an anime by Miyazaki. It would be glorious - a cross between Howl (the Moving Castle) and Nausicaa (concern for Ecology) and Mononoke (morally ambiguous villains) and Porcorosso (the ugly protagonist).
Highly recommended. But not to start during weekdays, because I couldn't put it down and suffered from lack of sleep.
On a different note, did you know that conduits are SPVs that issue commercial paper that finances the purchase of various assets, which provides relatively low cost funding?
Not very interesting, was that?
Ah... such is life.
Final thing. Got an email from a friend from university about her student who has been convicted for a criminal offence. Shocking. Even more shocking that the student did not appear to have received legal advice prior to the court hearing. It would be difficult (read: costly in financial and emotional terms), but not impossible, to appeal the conviction. I am very proud of my friend. She is an extremely dedicated teacher. It is at times like these when I think what the hell am I doing in a bank? Not really contributing much towards society now, am I (other than to assist in the efficient allocation of resources in our economy and ensure its smooth and effective running)? But then, I guess, the reason is that, I really can't be a teacher as I am extremely impatient. I'd probably have a heart attack if I am faced with too much stupidity. | | |
| Growing UpWow! Seems like we are finally... "growing up". Used to think that we'd never get around to doing all those grown-up things: getting married, getting a mortgage, going on business trips, managing your own team at work... And now? We're grown up.
So many of my friends are married/getting married, bought/buying a house... it is a bit funny. So we are settling down into the "grown up" phase in our lives. Although I still spend an inordinate amount of time playing video games... but that's beside the point.
So we are growing a bit older, hopefully a bit wiser. Very soon, meeting up will no longer be at a bar or club, but will be dinner parties at someone's place. It's all good fun, and it's a whole new world. I guess, as they say, thirties is the new twenties. Still a lot more time to go (hopefully).
Happy growing up, m'dears.
Oh... and to honour the age-old British tradition: the weather is glorious today. | | |
| Self Doubt... in small doses can be healthy.
Stops one from wandering around with one's head in the clouds for too long.
A recent question has been bothering me a lot: "When is enough, enough?" or more accurately, "What is enough?"
Unfortunately, I haven't figured that out yet. And until I do, the fact that the Document Production Centres have increased their salaries again (15-18%) is really going to irritate me. | | |
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