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I got this off some body's blog post who felt that my last paragraph has been targeting him:
(Whether or not that is really true is no longer my business since he has already assumed that)
When people die,it means people die.That simple.everything comes to an end.Nothing matters anymore when your body goes into the incinerator.Only people who do not wish to face death directly (for whatever reasons) will claim that death( in whatever way) is something that is not acceptable.
Firstly, I did not say that death is not acceptable. Death is after all, a natural phase of life. We are born, we live, and we die. However, are you sure that when people die, they just die? If its really that simple, then why do we have funerals? or to make it more specific to you, military funerals? Why are there even procedures for funeral in the army anyway?We have seen that many people die fighting for the cause that they believe in. Lets just take a look at the wars that have occurred in the past century. The Korean War, The Vietnam War to name a few. Aren't this wars fought by soldiers? by people? who believed in what they are fighting for? Wars ultimately results in the loss of countless lives, so are you saying that this people just die?
Is their death so worthless to you that all it accounts to you in your head is that they just die? We honour these soldiers because they are willing to fight for what they had believed in, to secure what they had hoped is a better future for their loved ones, even if it takes their lives. So they had died and that's it?If that's the case, I guess you haven't grasp the factors that allows victory in a war. In Chinese, it would be:"天时，地利，人和" For translation sake, it would be the right time, terrain advantage and approval of the people. So your soldiers die and that's that... Say goodbye to approval of the people for me ok?Imagine what would happen if your loved one joins a war that he believes in, he dies, killed by enemy fire (hopefully) and then all you get is he has died, and even after the war, they are treated as though they had just died...
How would you feel? Do you feel he has died in vain? Has he been recognised for his contribution to his country?“国以人为本” This is a idea that has been echoed over the century by various military tactician. Without people, there won't be a country. If the people don't support the government, its as good as the government does not exist. It will not be able to function, it will not be able to declare war...Now imagine if you are that person who have lost a loved one. Would you continue treating this country as your home if to the government, the person just dies? Or as the way you phrase it, "everything comes to an end"?
If life has given you the chance to laugh at your enemies as you slaughter them, do it without hesistation.Ahhh...the scent of vengeance is so alluring.Will your enemy give you any quarter?No..Think about it, kill or be killed.Would rather be the one that is suffering(and see your loved ones suffer with you) or would you rather slaughter your enemy for your own survival.It's your own call.
Firstly, your first situation is not the same as your second situation. It is one of surviving vs the lust for blood spill. Its largely different. Killing someone to protect yourself doesn't give you a "scent of vengeance (which) is alluring to you". A largely different situation, but thanks for generalising (=
That way, I guess my explanation for this point can be largely omitted... if you don't see the difference, I am sure other people out there do see it, you could ask them...
An excerpt from some blog.Ahh...if only life was like that, there wouldn't be war, there wouldn't be people committing suicide, and everyone would be peace-loving.Sounds nice eh, even the cynic wants to experience this kind of life.But wait, this is A.D 2007 not some some distant future in 30394324823984 years where the enitre mankind has attained this kind of enlightenment(i doubt we will exist for that long anyway). Sadly there is only a pitiful few who think like this now( I am not one of them for sure).
We see why the world is in this pitiful state now, don't we?
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.
-1984, George Orwell
I was not aiming at a utopia, I was just saying that life is precious, and that we should treasure it. There is capital punishment, simply because life is a treasured commodity. Everyone values it, probably even you, and this makes life precious and death more then just death.Discmon
P.S. As a side note, all quotes are as they are on the original blog correct as of 19/9/2007 at the time at which the post is published. As such, any editing occurring at a later time after this blog is published will not be accounted for.
I wrote a copy of the first draft of this post while I was having my general paper exams. (anyone remember my criticism of the way GP is being taught...?) My general paper exam wasn't too bad, except for the apparent paradox where I criticise GP in the GP exam paper... Not exactly a good sign, but the teacher cannot exactly mark me down just because of that...
Anyway, I was sitting in my seat waiting for my exam to end when I thought about this question: Why do exams have a time limit? I have decided not to visit Cambridge website until after I finish typing the main body of this post so that we can have a fun time guessing the reasons for it...
1. People will take forever to complete their paper
Just imagine if you can have the time to check through you work over and over and over.... and over again until you are super satisfied with it. I think we'll probably see some careful people lingering in the examination venue until probably one week later where they will be finally satisfied with what they have written down on their answer script. We'll probably see a few dozen invigilators needed for each paper since the invigilators need to take shifts just in case some people decides to take 2 days to complete their paper. Then, the invigilators will need to bring tents, sleeping bags...
2. Timetable nightmare
Imagine if some guy had to take an English paper after the Math paper and there is no time limit as to how long the person can take to complete his paper... Hmm, I would imagine that that English paper would be delayed, delayed, rescheduled and rescheduled again before we can finally take the paper. To that end, we'll probably see examination time tables stretch over one year long. Now that's cool, we can take a year off from studying and we just need to take like 8 tests over a period of one year... Excellent!!!
3. Taking over of the exam venue
Yea, quite possible. Imagine if you had an exam venue in some school hall, and the exam decided to drag for about one week. Quite cool actually, but then the rest of the school will be devoid of their assembly since they do not have a proper place to assemble anymore..
Cool, no morning assembly!!
Anyway, that would probably mean an illegal take over of the exam venue by the examination authority in order to facilitate the running of the exam. Quite cool, I would like to see a court case where Cambridge v the schools of Singapore
4. More chance to cheat
Yea, I think this is probable cause like if your exam last over a month, you'll probably find lots of chances during that one month to cheat and not be discovered while you are inside the exam venue. Cause the more time you have the more chances you get when it is possible haha...
5. Increase in amount of questions
Cause there is more time... actually, that could probably mean you have infinite question since the amount of time that you have for the exam is proportional to the amount of question you have. So if we go according to that, as time tends to infinity, question would tend to infinity too...
Oh man... and I thought I had enough of integration tutorial already...
6. Large scale event
Examination suddenly became a very large scale event, cause there is need to purchase tents and sleeping bags for the invigilators, there is also a need to generate infinitely long list of questions for the candidates to do since they have infinite amount of time on which to spend on the question. Then, food also need to be provided as otherwise the candidates would complain that their welfare is not taken care of, so then there will be a cook there to cook food in packet lunches and which is served to their table for them to eat as they do their examination paper...
7. Large scale food poisoning
Well, cause exams take an infinite long amount of time, cooks will need to be called in to cook for the candidates who are taking the exam to eat. Then there is always this possible chance that there is something dirty inside the food and then all the poor candidates would then suffer from food poisoning and then there will be a lot of germs inside the hall as all the candidates start puking the food out or needs to be sent to the hospital...
8. No admittance to sick people at all
I think currently sick people can be admitted since the only MC that Cambridge recognise is that of chicken pox (other then of course, if you are dead). Anyway, if we are going to have infinitely long exams due to the fact that we no longer have time limit, we would probably not be able to let sick candidates come into the venue anymore (which means chicken pox won't be the only MC that is accepted anymore)since they will pass their germs on to everyone inside the enclosed exam venue... This could become a very horrible situation in which everyone falls sick...
9. Raise in examination fees
Yeah, I think there will be an increase since now we need to provide food and all... Yea, means poorer people can ill-afford to take part in an exam then there will be more financial aids needed which could drive some country to become even more poor, or if there is a "no welfare" option...
Hmm... not such a good idea to raise that fee I guess...
But it also explains away the reason why Cambridge needs an examination fee in the first place...
10. People sleep in the examination venue
Think should be quite fun. Imagine looking at your friend sleep for the first time in your life. Quite cool, and then there is always this chance that a couple would sit together during the examination, then when they sleep....
Uhh... and oh yea, it will make the exam even longer cause when you sleep right, you might just happen to drool on your answer script, which means you need to rewrite everything...
Ok, imagine this highly not possible scenario:
You decide to take part in the O levels, so you paid your examination fee. The Cambridge authority informs you that you need to take a year off your schedule in order to complete this paper properly. You went to take the English paper which dragged on for about 3 months since the last person who left the examination venue took three months to check through all this work properly. Each paper that you take lasted for three months as the last person who left the examination venue left it after sitting there for three months. About 3 years later, you finally completed your examination after all the dragginess and so on and so forth...
Well, I can imagine there will be much less graduates from O levels since most people would not have the patience to sit through all these free time waiting for the moment when your next paper would begin...
Ok, this is crap...
Discmon
Someone mentioned to me that "Jigoku Shoujo" is a lousy anime, as the only thing that it ever shows are people dying, people dying... and yes, more people dying... ...
Which sad to say, I don't agree with that generalisation that that person has said. (Hang on, is that even sad?)
"Jigoku Shoujo" (地獄少女; じごく しょうじょ）(Because I can :P)is an anime series produced by Aniplex and
Studio Deen. The anime focuses on different stories every episode, in which the hell girl is contacted to exact the vengeance of the protagonist of each story. Over the course of the entire series of the anime, you get to see the various circumstances where people use the "Hotline to hell" to execute their vengeance on the person who has made life horrible for them...
Sure, the anime is all about people dying. Come on, you want to make an anime series where somebody needs to get sent to hell? Obviously there must be someone who needs to go there so that the series can even go on... But what I feel is that anime series is more then just an open-ended series where you get to see people dying and being sent to hell after committing horrendous act to other people...
One of the major themes throughout the entire series is firstly: What drives a person to doom his own soul so that he/she can take revenge on whoever caused misery in their life?
This is the part that seriously kept me watching the anime series continuously even though it seems pointless for me to see people getting sent to hell cause they have hurt others.
From each episode, we see that usually before the person execute his vengeance, the person would attempt to confront the antagonist in order to give the antagonist one last chance. This could be seen as also the last chance for the protagonist to save his/her own soul. After which that person would usually be sent to hell, since the anime depicts the antagonist as unwilling to apologise or to admit to his/her mistake...
We also see another trend, the red string seems to be usually pulled during the heat of the moment. Like in the baseball episode, the string was pulled after the antagonist walks away mocking him... Does this shows that humans are usually incapable of weighing their actions correctly right at the impulse of that moment?
The second major theme of the series is: Will vengeance really solve all the problems?
In the first 7 episodes, it is implied to be true... until the recurring characters finally started appearing. The recurring characters sort of breathe a new lease of life to the anime rather then watch the monotony of people dying, dying and... ehh... "I shall ferry this vengeance to hell"... which is... dying... We see the journalist trying to stop people from using the jigoku shoujo to solve their problems because he do not agree with the methods that are being used to solve the problem.
We see the journalist using all sorts of methods to seek an alternative to killing the person off in vengeance. He tries to make them apologise and as the series progress, we indeed see that he has nearly been successful several times, only for the person to pull the string at a later time. (I haven't finish the series yet, so I don't know whether or not he finally succeeded in coaxing some one). One of the greatest break from killing people would be episode 13.
In episode 13, we see the life of a person whose soul is doomed to hell live out the last few moments of his life. It also shows the inability of taking vengeance to solve all the problems in life. We see that the person, realising that his life is doomed, try to keep himself busy, to seek religious help and various other things in life to forget about the mark on his chest that shows his fate...
These are the two major themes that have kept me watching "Jigoku Shoujo". Its like an exercise of your mind, similar to that of "Cowboy Bebop". As you watch "Jigoku Shoujo", another thing that floats into your mind is the fragility of life. Life is one of the best gifts that you are bestowed with when you are born and we should treasure it as much as possible. As you see the people in the anime suffering from this and that and cursing other people to go to hell along with them, you see that life is precious, so precious in fact, that it can even be used as the ultimate weapon for revenge.
So if you think that people dying is just... dying, especially in this anime series and in real life, I hope that you'll rethink what is the true meaning of being alive. Is life really given to you to simply laugh at your enemies as you slaughter them? or to see violence and gory scene and laugh? Is that the human spirit?
Discmon
Argh... subtitles...
Yea, they're dead famous now thanks to the odex saga. (The yellow car is big tree's car) No, this is not going to be a post on why Odex sucked and why they have just alienated all their potential customers. If you want more of that, you can go check the forums over the hardware zones and odex own forum (did I mention there was an apology? erm, was that an apology? ehhh...)
Ok, I'm not going into the "odex holocaust" mood now since I was neutral up until the double 6 incident and eh, I think we all should take a step back and cool it.
Anyway, I was watching "Kiki's flying delivery service". Kiki's flying delivery service is an anime movie created by Studio Ghibli some time back. Its the same studio that brought to us Totoro and spirited away (more famously known among us as 千与千寻). I like listening to the originial Japanese audio, so I had no choice but to turn on the english subtitles to read...
What happened was that the subtitles showed people saying things when there obviously isn't anyone speaking in the japanese audio version. I was going to blame this on poor audio quality of the disc for causing loss of so many vocals...
But then it turned out that the problem was that the English version of the anime added lots of stuff to the film. They made the cat more irritating with more snide remarks and they added more background information that isn't really needed since we could have just as easily derive it from the film itself...
But it goes to show the great cultural differences between the West and the East.
For many years, we had been saying that the East is radically different from the West. The difference is so outstanding that games could be created featuring the war between the two sides with stereotypical images of each factions. Even as the world moves towards globalisation, we still see that there exist differences between the East and the West. The behaviour, attitude, character, of people living in the West and the East are different, and I guess this explains what had happened to the film.
When the film was sent to US for subbing and release in western countries, what had happened was that the subbers felt that more was needed to suit the audience there (something known as localisation). This resulted in adding whole stretches of conversations for certain characters, and creating less stagnant time when no one is talking. How does it show the difference?
Over long periods of time, people had always seen westerners as more "open" while the people living in the east were more "reserved". This can be seen in the way the film is made. In the East where the film is made, the director realises the power of the film when no one is talking and everyone can be just focused on the scenery that is being shown. Supposedly, it is more quiet and people have room to reflect and think, similar to what a lot of people call as being "reserved".
However, for the westerners, this moment of quietness is more then enough to bear. Watching the large amount of subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen, and switching to the English audio version, you see that the words that are shown as subtitles are spoken only in the English version. It kind of shows the westerners being unable to think about the things happening around them for a moment. They have to be continuously talking about something.
And it shows in their classrooms. We have all seen clips of how the average western classroom look like, and we all agree that the western children are very active while the children in the East are just not as active. Partially, I think that the reason why the English version had so much things added to it was simply due to this difference in our two societies.
Studio Ghibli films tends to give its audience lots of time to watch stuff and not be bombarded by conversations between characters. They like to produce moving images that tells all the story rather then people talking to drive the plot forward.
I like the films that don't talk much, partly because it is very tiring to continuously listen to people talk, and frankly speaking, if I wanted to listen to people talk, I would be listening to my radio...
Another reason for this is that when people don't talk as much, you get to appreciate what is on screen and think about what the producer is driving across to you. Some films have very beautiful scenery that are captured. The moment of silence where soft music plays in the background as the main character views the scenery...
Its one of the methods the director use to give you time to feel the way the main character does and drives you into the story of the movie, tying you in it.
Another reason is that less dialogue means that more things are left to hang in the air. That doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad thing. The director could make it very explicit in the way he creates the scene, but does not need his character to say it. This self-realisation is often more powerful then when a character in the movie reveals it to everyone in the cinema.
Of course, lots of dialogue have its own good. It makes the movie easier to understand if it is too complicated for just the scene to explain the whole story. Dialogue, when done well, could make the movie more lively with more funny and witty remarks, sarcasm and perhaps the occasional jokes and explanation of what is going on.
The difference between the west and the east is omni-present. The only time when that happens is when one of the two loses their roots...
And I feel that many of us here are losing it...
(Is anyone reminded of "I want to BE a caucasian"?)
Discmon
