MURPHY!

Alright, consider these 15 situations and statements, tick if you have experienced it before or agree with it.

1. When you are studying, the longer you look at the page, the more the words don’t go in.
2. In the supermarket checkout, the person ahead of you in the queue, will have the most complex and longest checkout transaction possible.
3. The only tunes that you can’t get out of your head are the ones you shouldn’t have let in.
4. A heavy, ugly, useless bag/box/case has sat in the dark corner of your cabinet for 10 years. The day after you throw it away, you need it urgently.
5. In the dark, there’s always one more stair than you thought.
6. Often when someone tells you this is “good for you”, it means “yucky”.
7. In a football match, if your team is winning, then the last 10 minutes of the match lasts like an hour.
8. A watched pot never boils.
9. The more important the word document is, the more likely the computer will crash and you are more likely to have not saved it before the crash.
10. You will always discover errors in your work after you have submitted/printed it.
11. The only day which you don’t have your raincoat/umbrella with you, is the day when it rains.
12. The door squeaks loudest when you need to be quietest.
13. The bigger the bargain in a shopping sale, the more money leaves your pocket.
14. The earlier you plan to leave, the later you will actually leave.
15. If you lose something that is replaceable (textbooks, utensils, clothes, etc.) as soon as you buy a replacement, the original will surface.

Did you tick most, if not all of them? Doesn’t surprise me. Welcome to the world governed by the “Murphy’s Law”.

Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Mathematically, it’s just a consequence of the concept of: given a sufficiently long time, an event, especially for bad occurrences, which is possible, will happen anyway. To extend the statement:

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong

Whatever can’t go wrong will go wrong

Trying to make things better only make things worse

Any attempt to do nothing, so nothing can go wrong, will go wrong

Murphy’s law is just a consequence of human nature, which includes

(a) being impatient,

(b) erroneous,

(c) always yearning for perfection without putting in any effort and

(d) tend to only notice/remember extraordinary, bad events.

For example, for item number 2 above, firstly, it’s because of you being impatient and secondly, you will only agree to this because you only remember all the long checkouts in front of you at the supermarket because they were bad experiences, but don’t actually remember all the quicker ones, which possibly happened more frequently than the odd long ones. Thirdly, long check outs usually happen when all people shop at the same time, if others do the shopping at a particular time, then it’s really likely that you will shop at that particular time, and hence the crowd and long queues always happen on you.

Take item 12 for example, why don’t you want the door to squeak? It’s likely that you don’t want anyone to notice, especially during dark and quiet times, usually at night, but it’s the quietest time of the day, and you are acting sneakily and don’t want anyone to know, so no matter how careful you open the door, it will squeak anyway, and no matter how soft is the squeak, you will think that it’s too loud, because you feel guilt-ridden and your focus of that time is on the door, thinking “don’t squeak, don’t squeak!” And also, it’s the quietest time of the day. But it is actually a normal squeak (just like a squeak during the day), it is just your mind telling you that it’s quite loud that it might wake people up or something.

Take another example, item 14, firstly, people who actually will plan to leave early are those who know they are often late, so they will be late anyway. Secondly, even if you are a punctual person, you will tend to remember only those instances when you were actually late because being late is something that is not normal to you and you will always tend to think that you are not punctual enough and therefore agree with the Murphy’s Law.

Now, from your experiences, can you think of a Murphy’s Law yourself?

Corollaries of Murphy’s Law:

(1) No news is good news.

(2) In a system, the more number of elements there is, then there is more problem.

(3) The more time you spent on fixing a problem, then there is more chance to have more problem.

Conclusion: As the world grows more complex, it caused more problems. Most of the time human minds still stay Paleolithic, but are using semiconductor age technologies. This is to say that it’s a stone age mind reacting to a plastic age system, and hence the 4 features of human nature stated above are being exposed by Murphy’s Law. In other words, as the world becomes more developed, then more human weaknesses will be known or developed. Hence, no one can escape from Murphy’s Law!

WTF Moment of the Day

WTF Moment of the Day (30/1/2010)

 

 

I was on the flight from Auckland to Brunei before going back to Kota Kinabalu(KK) today. Sitting beside me was a mid-40 aunty, who told me that she’s from KL. Here’s the WTF moment:

Aunty: Where are you from?

Me: KK, Sabah.

Aunty: Oh, East Malaysian.

Me: Howabout you?

Aunty: I’m Malaysian too, but from KL. So I just transit in Brunei, once arrived in Brunei, directly go to KL.

Me: Oh, me too, just transiting in Brunei.

Aunty: So how do you fly to Sabah from Brunei? Do you fly through HONG KONG FIRST and THEN SABAH?

 

?????WTF?????

Seriously, what kind of stuff was she smoking?

NEWS COMMENTARY WEEK ENDING 16/1/2010

NEWS COMMENTARY OF THE WEEK ENDING 16/1/2010

 

 

MALAYSIA: Sikh Temple was attacked on Tuesday too, following several protestant and catholic churches attacks during the week over the issue of exclusiveness of the term “Allah”.

1. Looks like PM Najib who is visiting India, will have lots to explain when he meets Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, who is a Sikh himself.
2. 1Malaysia? 1Malaysia my foot.
3. The Government said that the usage of the term “Allah” in Christian’s publications will confuse Muslims as they will think that the religion is Islam and subsequently convert them into other religions. So should the government ban the usage of the name “Muhammad” as well? Because people will get confused over whether or not the person whose name is Muhammad is the Nabi “Muhammad” and subsequently they will believe and follow whatever the person said and then convert them. Oh yah, also then, Mahathir Mohammad should change his name as well, because “Mohammad” sounds almost like “Muhammad”.
4. Lastly, cowards, don’t just put on fire or throw stuff and then run away, if you think you are doing the right thing and is sanctioned by your faith, then show up, show us who you are, morons! What you did is totally disgusting, go get a life!

 

MALAYSIA: On the “Allah” issue again, the East Malaysians response is “Don’t tell us how to pray” and “don’t try to impose the insular race, religion and language politics of the Semenanjung on us” and said that they “will continue using Allah”. It is known that the Borneo states have been using the term “Allah” to refer as god for Christians for nearly a century, even before the independence.

1. This can be translated into “Don't mess with us, enough is enough!”
2. All I want to say is “BRAVO!”

Postscript: And then the government said on Friday that it is “OK” to use the term “Allah” by East Malaysian Christians when referring to god in Malay language with the reason “it is a common tradition in Sabah and Sarawak”.

1. I'm confused! So, does that mean the Christian god in East Malaysia is different from the Christian god in West Malaysia? Or the god will change His form and nature when he’s moving across the South China Sea?
2. I see this is as a political move by the government to ensure that the Sabah and Sarawak natives, who are mostly Christians, and who had saved BN’s butt in the last general election, will continue to support them after seeing the East Malaysians are now pissed off with all the bans and church attacks. Another double standards being applied by BN, they try to be champions of Muslims in West Malaysia and champions of Christians in East Malaysia. Can we not see that the whole banning of the usage of “Allah” term fuss, place of worships burning and demonstration are just a set of political agenda?

 

 

MALAYSIA:  The new MACC president Abu Kassim said that MACC will take legal action against those who “disclose information and announce to the public about the corruption cases under MACC investigation.” This includes the media who report the progress of the cases in newspapers. The reason is that “if you put it out on newspapers, the offenders and the witness will know that MACC are coming after them, so they have time to prepare and hide the important evidences, and this will affect the investigations.”

1. Translation: “We don’t want anyone to know what we are doing, we don’t want to whole world to know that we are lazy and inefficient, and that we are actually puppets and show makers, and we don’t want you to take pictures of us sleeping in the office, so you must not report through the newspapers what the hell we are up to.”
2. If you are efficient enough and don’t have to wait like 1000 years after the report to actually decide whether or not you want to arrest and investigate the offenders (probably waiting for orders from the puppet master, since they are puppets), how much of a possibility that the offenders will have time to hide evidence and cover up?

 

 

HAITI EARTHQUAKE: After the earthquake, the Haitian government seems to be missing in action. About 50 thousand death bodies have been have and it is estimated the death toll could be as high as 200 thousand, making it one of the biggest earthquake of all times. Short of basic necessities and resources including clean water supply, desperate citizens have turned into angry rioters, marking the beginning of anarchic and lawless society in Haiti.

1. Hopelessness seems to be the common sentiment among the Haitians, who had gone through civil war and hurricanes in recent times before being struck by this massive earthquake. Imagine that happen to us, one sweeping disaster after the other, which involve deaths of our loved ones and destructions of what we have established, not once, not twice, but thrice: again, again and again. Don’t lose hope, have faith, Haitians! I really hope they can rebuilt everything soon and live peacefully ever after.

 

 

H1N1 PANDEMIC:  The Chief of European Union Health Commission revealed that the H1N1 could be a false pandemic as a result of some pharmaceutical production companies deliberately over-hyped about the seriousness of the disease so that they can make big profit by boosting up the sales of their products and vaccines which can be valued up to 1 billion Euro. The companies even “planted” some of their company members in the World Health Organization (WHO) and used their influence to pressure WHO to announce H1N1 as a global pandemic.

1. What a bloody selfish, greedy and unscrupulous bastards! How much of limited health budget from the governments have been drained and wasted to fight against this false pandemic? On which these resources could be used on some other more practical stuff such as research on more serious disease like AIDS or cancer, build more hospitals and improve healthcare systems? How much of fear have been induced into people’s minds because of this? These bastards should be sent to Mars and left to be starved to death!

 

SPORTS SHORTNOTES:

English Soccer: Liverpool crashed out of FA Cup after losing to Reading, a Championship league team. Notes: Time’s up, Benitez?

English Soccer: Arsenal has confirmed that Sol Campbell will make a premiership return for the Gunners. Notes: Sweet, now sign me a good solid sharp finisher.

ATP Tennis: American John Isner, who is 6’10” tall and a big server, has just won his first ever ATP title by winning the 2009 Auckland Open final, beating Arnaud Clement of France in a 3 set nail biter. Notes: Happy to see Isner won his first title, but I hope he won’t be another Ivo Karlovic, big guy, big good serves but with no game plan.

 

MOVIE: Paranormal Activity – I seriously couldn’t sleep on the night after watching this!!! I couldn’t sleep because I was wondering how the hell this movie can get so many good comments and be acclaimed as “one of the best horror movie of our times”? How the hell it is said to match up to “The Exorcist”, which is one of the best horrors of all time, when like 75% of the entire running time, we were actually just watching two people sleeping in a bedroom?

WELCOME!

Little Johnny was never good at science academically, always performed badly in tests and exams. But today, he walks back home, holding his science exam paper, which was marked 100%, on his right hand with a smile on his face. He is glad that the syllabus of the science subjects has just changed recently; science has never been any easier. And he can’t wait to show his parents such a remarkable marks that he had scored. Here’s his exam script:

 

St. Mary High School

Year 10 Science Exam

Name: John Smith

Class: Year 10 B

Score: 100%

This exam paper consists of 10 questions, answer ALL, each question carries 10%

1. Why does earth have day and night?

Answer: The Creator makes it so.

 

2. Why does every object fall to the ground?

Answer: The Creator decides so, so that earthly objects cannot float and eventually reach heaven, heaven would be too crowded then.

 

3. Snake hisses, but was there a time when they could actually speak in human language? Explain.

Answer: Yes, snake could talk to human once upon a time. But after a snake tempted a human to eat an apple, God punished the snakes, so that they can’t talk but hiss.

 

4. What’s the difference between the first humans and her offsprings?

Answer: The first humans don’t have belly buttons, since The Creator created them from scratch, they were not given birth by anyone.

 

5. What causes earthquake?

Answer: It’s a message from God about his anger on human beings.

 

6. Explain the phenomenon of rainbow.

Answer: It’s a promise from God to the human that He won’t punish the human with a global flood again.

 

7. The universe, as we know it, is 10,000 years old and its size is at least 93 light years. Explain how such a big space can be formed in such a short time?

Answer: The mighty Creator makes everything happens, therefore the Creator can easily make this happen too. In fact, He did it in just 7 days.

 

8. Carbon dating shows that most of the fossils found are actually older than the age of earth and universe (10,000 years). Explain the contradiction.

Answer: No contradiction here, it is just The Creator who makes them appear to be that old, but actually they are not that old, they just as old as or younger than the earth.

 

9. Why is the sea blue in colour?

Answer: It’s a beautiful colour, so The Creator decides to make it blue.

 

10. What do you get when you mix an acid and an alkali? Explain.

Answer: You will get something that the Creator creates and decides that it should work that way.

 

 

The syllabus of science has just changed, where they put in the “creation science” elements into the syllabus, making it an alternative point of view of science and nature, after some influential religious groups lobbied the lawmakers and pushed for “equal time” inclusion of creation “science” into the school science syllabus. They demanded their point of view should be taught to the school kids in the same manner as how the school teaches the ‘real science” (evolution, big bang, geology….), they went to the court and they won, schools were forced to change their syllabus.

 

-----------------------------------End of story---------------------------------------------

 

Reflecting on the story, when you are reading little Johnny’s exam script, don’t you feel that the answers are just ridiculous? However rubbish and bullshit they might be, under the interpretation of creation “science”, they are acceptable answers. Horrible? Well, this is what might happen if we really allow creationism to be included in school syllabus. In fact, there are lots of religious groups out there around the world, especially in the United States, are demanding the schools and the state education department to teach creationism in science classes. They even went to the court to seek order from the court to force the schools to teach creationism.

 

Basically, what creation ‘scientists’ have for us today is that: you have a bunch of scientific questions to be bombarded to them, why, how, what…… and the basic message from them is, Sorry Folks, that’s the way it is, The Creator, there’s nothing more to be explained. Fullstop. A Big Fullstop. And then even if they really succeeded in forcing the schools to teach creationism, what are they going to teach in it? “Well today, students, just remember that, The Creator is taking charge of everything, don’t ask why, because the holy book says so. Now you may take a break, have a good day.”  Is that it? Nothing else? No details? And yet, they are demanding “equal time and status” in teaching of creationism in classrooms. They claimed it’s only fair to provide both Darwinism and creationism point of view to the students at schools, so that the students can decide on their own which view they want to accept. But hang on a minute, do we get “equal time and status” in introducing evolution and big bang theory in churches too? Now, where’s the equal time? Where’s the fairness?

 

More importantly, creationism is nothing close to science and should not be presented as ‘science’ in schools or wherever. The ‘creation scientists’ are constantly seeking interpretation as to what defines as “science” from the court as they want ‘creationism’ to be regarded as science. Creationism becoming part of science? Don’t kid yourself. It’s just like the fairy tale of Snow White being included in your history class, and then the fact from Harry Potter that the Gringotts goblins are actually good bankers, being included in your accounting textbook. See how ridiculous it is?

 --------------------------End of Rant-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 If you have read up to this far, seems like you are still interested, good on you!  But then, Well, you might think, what the hell is science actually? I have to say that actually I don’t know either but perhaps we can explore it together! Welcome to the “Integrated NOT-so-ordinary Introduction to Science”!

Good day everyone, every now and then, I have this intention of starting a series of articles on promoting popular science, but I didn’t know how and where to start with because science is such a wide subject and let’s face it, it has an image problem of being a boring subject.

 So what should I do? What should I do so as to make science to become an interesting and popular topic, or to make you actually not clicking the “x” button on the top right corner of your browser right now?

 Well, when we talk about science, the first thing will come to people’s mind is physical science, the science that they made you learned in school and from those dull textbooks. But the science that I will talk about in my series of rants will basically include everything that happens under the sun and beyond the sun, such as:

Why your study desk will get messier as time goes by? Is time travel really possible? (Physics),

What are the chances of PR winning the next general election? Is democracy the best form of government? (Political Science),

What are the chances of you having the same birthday with someone else in your class? Under what conditions will Achilles lose a running race to a tortoise? (Mathematics),

What should we do with the illegal immigrants in Sabah? How will a future city look like? (Sociology),

Why the only tunes that you can’t get out of your head are the ones you shouldn’t have let in? Why does Dejavu have to be seen to be believed? (Random Science),

Which is the best city to live in? What is the deepest place on earth? (Geography),

Is the sweeper position still applicable in modern soccer? How do coaches motivate their players? (Sport Science)

Will a pandemic disease wipe out the entire human population? What are the chances of robots taking over the position of human as the ruler of the earth? (Biology and Evolutionary Science),

Are there any substitutes to the depleting fuel minerals? How much do you contribute towards the rise in temperature of the earth? (Environmental Science),

What is Starbucks index? What are the riskiest investments? (Economics and Finance),

Why does a painting’s value rise exponentially only after the artist has died? (Arts)

???

Hang on hang on hang on, this is too much, you are basically including every subject that you can think of, you would think. And yep, that’s exactly the point, as I said I would talk and make comment about nearly everything in this universe, particularly on our worldly earth and there I go as you can see, or probably on even wider scopes, which I didn’t mention above. But yeah, I think a subject can be considered as science, if we can think and analyse the subject critically (i.e with good reasoning, evidence and logic). Of course, this does not mean that we should be emotionless when considering about stuff. To cut the crap out and get straight to the point, all I can say is, let’s learn together through my little ranting platform here, I hope we will speak our minds out by leaving comments here, no matter what it is, and we can discuss and share our opinions. And yah, once again, welcome to the “Integrated NOT-so-ordinary Introduction to Science” and we shall begin our scientific exploration journey!