life update:

1. Now, i’m back onboard ship. yet again, still an officer under training, but gonna take over soon. i hope. gonna be a navigation officer... watever dat means. sigh. wish i could be under training forever... haha.

anyway, new ship is called bedok. i was previously onboard katong. moved from katong to bedok. haha. lousy joke. i’m quite happy to be onboard the same type of ship, the minehunter. our grand mission: to protect the sea lanes of singapore free of mines and the threat of mines! so that insurance premium for shipping in our lanes will be low forever. (ps: i added the last part)

2. finished a book called ‘the millenium problems – the seven greatest unsolved mathematics puzzles of our time’ by keith devlin. contrary to popular belief, although mathematics have been around for a super super long time (more than 2000 years), there are still many problems which havent been solved. yah. any maths major should be aware of this fact.

so, there’s this institute called the clay institute which will award 1 million usd to seven such problems. (actually, there are only six left. the poincare conjecture was proved by some reclusive russian, who like most smart eccentric chaps, refused to accept the 1 million usd) so, the book gave some lay descriptions of the problems, giving the historical background and highlighting their importance. and really, 1 million usd is peanuts compared to the fame and further remunerations the solver will receive, and compared to the impact the solution has to the world.

anyway, the book’s q an easy read. i should put a disclaimer here. i found that i could relate many of the material to what i learnt in uni. but like i wrote in the previous post, when we learnt maths in uni, it’s often without context. devlin just provided the background and motivation required for the problems, making them accessible to most people (which includes me).

hmmm. was considering if i’ll do a part-time masters in maths in these 3 years. one problem which surface is the fact that i’ve to take leave for exams etc... which my sailing schedule might not permit. but in the case if i do not do a masters, i have another objective in mind. to understand (not to solve) the seven problems. haha. (which i think is more daunting than doing a masters...)

oh. the book also offered a reason why mathematicians like to solve such impossible problems. or why some mathematicians can dedicate their entire life or their sanity to one problem. (oh. if you watched John Nash in ‘a beautiful mind’, one probable cause for his schizophrenia is one of the problems – the Riemann Hypothesis)

the reason is: “because it is there”.

dear primetime morning presenters,

i’ve got a book to recommend you. it’s called ‘for the sake of peace’ by daisaku ikeda. the guy dr carter was talking about. the guy whom he said deserves e nobel peace prize. oh watever. he’s got a un peace award, the rosa parks humanitarian award, and the international tolerance award of the simon wiesenthal center.

although the book is based on the human principles of buddhism, it does not contain lines and lines from the old sutras. instead, u find other ideas from old western philosophers like plato, socrates, goethe, kant and modern thinkers like umberto eco, arnold toynbee, edward said. i hope these ppl fall into your period of modern age.

probably, wat u’ll find discomforting in this book, is the strong conviction that peace can be attained from within. e themes of self mastery, inner universalism, individual reform are constantly repeated, and u’ll find it amusing that such ideas reside within many other philosophers and thinkers.

that being said, i think it’s a fine read for ppl who think they’ve seen and experienced the world. for pple who think that peace is a dream for those who have no other dreams.

“you are your own master. could anyone else be your master? when you have gained control over yourself, you have found a master of rare value.”

ps: this post is like one week overdue. the interview was on last tues morning.

bali

bali
Originally uploaded by hanmao.

just came back from bali. had a super slack time there. went there mainly to dive. mika was complaining that i wasted my flight ticket there, cos i didnt really go and visit the culture side of bali... oh well, the trip was a bit too short. but bumming around at bali was q relaxing. sigh.... dunno when will there be such a long break, where i can go explore, tour and bum around at a relaxing pace.

found the balinese industry v tourist oriented. the ppl there generally go the extra mile for service, without ‘really looking forward to tips’. go many examples lah. the taxi driver who drove us to our legian, the place we were staying, was rather patient. he waited for us while we try to choose the hotel to stay in, even though the fare was a flat rate. then there was another driver, who ferried us to and fro from the dive site. The journey took 3 hours. so to and fro, will take 6 hours for us, BUT 12 hours for him. (since he came from the dive site) it was super tiring for him lah... but he was cool about it. on the second night, he brought us to a nice beach to eat bbq seafood dinner. (which was rather ex... but still worth it. ambience plus taste)

wah... but the service at the dive center was great. the last time i dived was in 2003, when i took the open water course with leeway. wah. that time, had to lug around the air tanks, BC sets, weights etc etc. rig up your diving equipment. wash equipment after the whole thing.... ok lah. wasnt that sian then. but at tulamben (the dive site), everything is done for you. you just have to carry your fins, mask and weights to the shore (where we enter) and the BC set and the tanks are there, rigged up for you, miraculously. (actually got lady porters who carry the tanks on their heads in the traditional manner) so just pick up the equipment and don for a short distance and down we go... will blog about the diving and show the dive pictures when i get them from my friend.

but despite all this, the dive master (ie the guy who dive with us) earn v little. he told my friend that for the three dives he took us for the day, he earned only 30,000 rupiah which is less than 6 sgd. but the dives that day, we in total paid 210 usd which is more than 315 sgd. well... my friend gave him some tips in the end. (perhaps he was trying to get sympathy... but so be it)

hmmmm. while we admire the high service standards there, and push our service industry to reach higher standards, we should be cognizant of the vast differences in circumstances between us and them. i took a module about the service industry in nus, and the lecturer always compare singapore service providers with those in bali and thailand, etc. perhaps we should be aware that places like bali survive on the tourist industry and (this is wat i think) given a choice, the natives would rather get a better job than to serve. BUT... this is no excuse for the lousy standards that we experience in singapore SOMETIMES.

Gandhi, King, Ikeda – A Legacy of Building Peace
International Exhibition on Non-Violence

15 to 20 Oct 2006, 10am to 10pm
Multi-purpose Hall @ Tampines West Community Club

The exhibition highlights themes common to the lives of three pacific leaders, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and Daisaku Ikeda. It illustrates how one person of courage and profound commitment to peace, can transcend differences in faith, race and ethnicity, to change the world.

my ten cents’ worth: if you find it inconvenient to go down, at least visit the official website: www.gkiexhibit.org and watch the GKI video.

berlin wall

berlin wall
Originally uploaded by hanmao.

extract from President Ikeda’s “For the Sake of Peace”,

“There are those who sincerely believe in the historical reality of national or ethnic hostilities. Such antagonisms do persist, but they are essentially based on delusions. Recently, I read the interesting autobiography of Melina Mercouri, an internationally famous Greek actress who from childhood considered the Turks to be enemies. When she traveled to Nicosia, on the island of Cyprus, to work on location for a film, she found the city divided into hostile Turkish and Greek quarters separated by checkpoints that she, however, was permitted to cross. She was frequently entrusted with messages or small gifts from Greeks to Turks on the other side of the boundary. As time passed, Turkish people also started asking her to perform similar errands and to take letters and other things to their friends in the Greek zone. Reflecting on this experience, Mercouri said to herself: ‘I saw that they could be friends... Greeks and Turks would live together in peace if politicians didn’t find it useful to keep animosities alive.’

“When everyone sees the world this way, we will have built a new spiritual Silk Road joining East and West, North and South, in trust and respect.”

indeed, many such artificial barriers have been erected and some still stands strong today. on the right is a picture of the berlin wall, which i visited last dec. during part of this guided tour called the red berlin, we also visited a train station called Friedrichstrasse Station. here was where the w germans would cross over to visit their relatives in e germany. the guide then told us about the difficulties and inconveniences of crossing the border and how at the end of the visit, the relatives would part in tears. (i must comment that these guides are q good story tellers...) and the station was called the palace of tears.

sigh. with the testing of the nuclear weapons by n korea and the possible un sanctions, family contacts will be cut once again. i think it was not long, when the two kims met in 2000. and it was not long, when images of reunions across the boundary coupled with tears and hugs filled our screens. but...

From Creative Life, Oct 06

“Buddhism teaches that it is our heart that matters most. Those who have a sense of appreciation are happy. Their lives abound with rich vitality and joy. They are dynamic and cheerful and have tremendous fortune.

“On the other hand, those who lack appreciation are unhappy. Their hearts are dark and impoverished, and they are always discontented, filled with jealousy, resentment, and complaint. In this way, they isolate themselves from others, whittling away all hope and good fortune. They destroy their own happiness and send themselves reeling into a state of emptiness and despair. Arrogant people, who likewise lack a sense of appreciation, are also unhappy and lonely. Indeed, it is the spirit of gratitude that gives rise to a brilliant life.” – SGI President Ikeda

Read this from CL (a publication for Singapore Soka Association, about Buddhist Perspectives on Human and Social Development). I noted this down, because of the “unfortunate circumstances” of one of my colleagues. Basically, I was listening to his problems (gee… guess this is the first time someone shared his problems with me. though it’s for ulterior motives…). At first, I was rather sympathetic. But after a while, I got pretty irritated and felt that the source of all his problems was he himself. Well, he fit in the category of pple, whose hearts are dark and impoverished, and who will always find it difficult to get out of their circumstances.

Sigh… in some perverse sense, life is indeed fair. If you should to negative towards your problems, you will never overcome them. But if you choose to be positive, and work relentlessly to face the challenges, you’ll win and become stronger.

gee… that being said, I shall endeavour to practise what I preach. and try as far as possible to quit whining about things.

haha. I’ve got a huge huge assignment plus presentation to hand in on thurs and I’m still blogging here!!!! haha.

Book Review: The Math Instinct by Keith Devlin

Problem: 243 minus 75

Solution: You just give me the two hundred. I’ll give you twenty five back. Plus the forty three you have, the hundred and forty three, that’s one hundred and sixty eight.

Q a complicated algorithm for a simple computation huh. but interestingly, this is how brazilian kids compute as street vendors. and even more interestingly, while this algorithm appear more complicated to most of us, it is more comprehensible to the kid than what is taught in school. well, a group of researchers conducted a experiment. they tested these kids on the streets with computations while posing as buyers. they then tested them again in school with similar computations with paper and pencil at school. as you would have guessed, the kids fared significantly better at mental calculations on the streets.

the following is an example. one girl when asked how much would 12 lemons cost, if each lemon cost 5 cents each, replied 60 correctly. But when asked to compute 12 times 5, and with the aid of paper and pencil, she actually came up with the answer 152.

as devlin tried to explain, and as u can guess, when endowed with a meaning, math is easier to understand and master. in fact, human beings have an innate math instinct, which was developed through evolution. and in the book, he brought up many examples of this math instinct which are present in dogs, lobsters and even plants. unfortunately, some of these examples are rather contrived and his exposition got a bit incoherent in the middle. but some are really intriguing and illustrate well the math instinct. for example, a dog exhibited the ability to do calculus, by finding the fastest way to retrieve a ball in the river.

another example was rather coincidental. in a recent navigation examination, we were supposed to learn to ascertain our position on earth after we sailed a number of courses at certain speeds. it’s a bit complicated cos we need to account for the earth’s curvature and such. however, a Tunisian ant is able to perform the above task without any difficulty. basically, when the ant goes out in search for food in the desert, it twists and turns and crawls in various directions. at the end of the day, when it is done, it calculates and heads home in a straight direction without retracing its steps (the book also explains that it was not due to other factors like scents..).

frankly, the book seems rather disconnected and it’s like a collection of articles which have some link to the theme. but the concluding chapter states an interesting proposition, that math is really formalized or abstract common sense. an idea which i’m q fond of (but the author agrees only to certain extent. n the reason is too deep for the book…). mathematicians reason in a manner like any other ppl, but in an environment without context nor tangibles. and it is precisely this lack of context that makes math so distant to ppl and yet so powerful. powerful cos it enables one to transfer ideas from one environment to another in such ingenious manner.

talk too much le. my course ending soon… ie I’ll be back onboard ship and sailing… no more undisturbed weekends and evenings le… so sad…

anyway, the book is still q interesting, cos of the first and last few chapters. haha.