Quote of The Day: The Incompetent

"It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense."

(Miller, W. I. (1993). Humiliation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press; Quoted by Justin Kruger and David Dunning in Unskilled and Unaware of It: ...; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
by Justin Kruger and David Dunning (Cornell University)
http://www.apa.org/journals/

Politics 101

Note to self:

(1) In politics, it is about bringing up issues that benefit us and and avoiding issues that disadvantage us. It is about getting the right issue.
(2) Aligning with religious conservative is like playing with firecrackers. It could give us beautiful sparks and real fun. But on the other hand, it can burn our skin. Is it worth it? Right now, and coming from a country and community very much like America in term of political landscape: Indonesia, I would say YES. Just be really really careful. And always be in control.
(3) As a party, you must present a decisive and unified front to the voters to stake any claim at all for their votes. Don't be like the Democrats.
(4) Public face! Public face! Public face! *OK. This brings the klise that politics is superficial and fake. Well... it is P-O-L-I-T-I-C-S!*

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The Observer Online
Democrats Dare to Dream of Recapturing the Bush Heartland
observer.guardian.co.uk

Is Single-sex Education Better?

Coming from a boys school, I have mixed feeling about single-sex education. In one hand I have to credit my school for whatever I become right now, for better or worse. On the other hand, when I have kids, I would definitely think twice or more before sending them to single sex school.

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From one of the article:

"... girls' and boys' brains are wired differently; girls hear better, so react worse if they are shouted at; boys excel under stress while girls flounder; female brains adapt to languages earlier, and so on. They all conclude the same thing - separate the girls and the boys."

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The Observer Online
Single-sex Schools 'No Benefit for Girls'
observer.guardian.co.uk

The Observer Online

Why Single-sex Education is Not The Route to Better Results
observer.guardian.co.uk

The Observer Online
A Mixed Solution to The Class Problem
observer.guardian.co.uk

The Pirate is Coming!

For reasons that I cannot really explain, I am looking forward to the new Pirates of Carribean movie. I even mistakenly believed that it started showing in Singapore 1 week ago. I actually called a friend to see the movie. Only after we reached the cinema and were confused that there were no poster whatsoever about the movie, and after we frantically called another friend to check the schedule in the internet that we, or rather - embarassingly - I, realized that it would not be shown until another month.

Ok, may be it is because of the leading brit girl*. May be it is because some friends keep mentioning how good the first movie is. Or may be because the TV here is showing the first movie, and it reminds me how good the first movie is. Or may be because I played the game and liked it.

Or maybe... it is because I am so stressed up in work and in my personal life lately that I desperately need some good entertainment, and ones that require little or no thinking. It is entertainment at best, isn't it?

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* The girl is Kiera Knightley. In the first movie there was a phrase she said that kept ringing in my head after the movie. It is "Do you like pain?". No, I am not into S/M or something like that. It is just that in that sentence, her british accent was so thick it was kind of.... cute?

On Love

What is Love Really?

"... love is about pursuing happiness - and to lesser degree contentment. As such, the true meaning of love varies between person, depending on their definition of happiness itself. Some people see happiness as purely materialistic, so for them love is also materialistic - or rather the pursue of the fulfilment of their materialistic desire. Others see happiness as purely physical - and perhaps sexual, so for them love is also very physical - and sexual. Still to others, happiness - and love - is about caring for each other, sharing the burden and the fruit of life with someone we deeply care about. But for most people, happiness is combination of all of that; it blurs, or rather zig-zag, the defining line. And precisely for that reason, love is hard to define. "

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The full writing is in the comment section, ie here: Yoga - On Love

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Update:
The comedian I mention in the writing is Russel Peter. (To Hardono: Thanks, Bro!)

Internal Promotion vs External Appointment

Note to self:
Internal promotion is always better than external appointment except when there is a need to enforce drastic changes, such as corporate culture. (Of course assuming there is no big disparaty in quality.)

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USA Today
A Weakness in Our System
news.yahoo.com

On Presenting Both Sides of Story

On Bush's idea of teaching both Intelectual Design theory and Evolution theory side by side in science/biology classes....

From the article:

"The call for balance (of judgement - Yoga), by the way, was always tempered by the maxim: When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong."

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Guardian Online
One Side Can Be Wrong
www.guardian.co.uk

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Notes:

There is also a danger of confusing the target audiences (in this case the children) when presenting controversial ideas by exposing them to all sides of story. For this - presenting all sides of story - to be effective as education strategy, we first must ensure - by preparing/educating them - that the target audiences:

• are mature enough mentally/psychologically/intellectually, not physically, to be objective
• possess the basic knowledge to evaluate the merit of different theories/sides of story based on rationale and accepted methodology.

Forcing it to audiences that are not yet ready - that don't have both qualities - would only result in chaos and confusion. Even worse, forcing it to audiences that have bias and/or prejudice toward one or more sides could create dangerous extrimists/fundamentalists. (Observation: look at many religious schools that "try" to teach comparative religion.)

This is applicable not only in the study of evolution (vs creationism) but also in the study of other controversial issues including in a comparative study of various religions (say, in a multireligious / multicultural society or even in a multireligious / multicultural family).

Salute to Israeli Government

For once, I actually have to give respect to the Israeli Government (and Ariel Sharon). Salute. I surely hope he will stick to it to the end.

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Associated Press on Yahoo! News
Gaza Settlers Defy Evacuation Deadline
news.yahoo.com

Quote of The Day - Internet Anonymous Sperm Donor

"The government proposes to regulate the burgeoning internet services that offer to provide anonymous donor sperm by courier service to women who then inseminate themselves at home..."

(SocietyGuardian, Public Asked to Help Rewrite IVF Law, Guardian Online)