Archive for July, 2007
31 Jul, 2007
Secret Love
Hello, secret love.
Secret Love, Doris Day
Once I had a secret love
That lived within the heart of me
All too soon my secret love
Became impatient to be freeSo I told the friendly star
The way that dreamers often do
Just how wonderful you are
And why I’m so in love with youNow I shout it from the highest hills
Even told the golden daffodils
At last my heart’s an open door
And my secret love’s no secret anymore
30 Jul, 2007
“Sorry, you’re just a friend to me.”
And that’s what she said to him right after he had revealed his romantic interest in her.
He stood there, bewildered, for a moment or two, then he started to smile.
“That’s what life is about isn’t it?” he asked her.
“I’m sorry,” she replied, averting his gaze.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. Don’t worry about it babe.”
He walked over to the window and, looking out into the great expanse before him, added, “life goes on.”
And so it did. He died 52 years later, while she died 63 years after the fact, both happily married — to different people.
28 Jul, 2007
Not Tested on Animals
He told me, “do not worry, Sir, our soap products are not tested on animals.”
“How then,” I asked, “do you know your products are safe for me?”
“Let’s just say, Sir,” he replied, “that there will be many more dirty African children if we were not around.”
27 Jul, 2007
Energy Savings with Blackle?
I came across a site called Blackle (via Slashdot).
Apparently, it suggests that Google should change its webpage’s background colour from white to black, in an effort to reduce energy consumption.
From the page:
Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.” Roberson et al, 2002
[...] the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine.
When I first read about the idea, I thought that it was a unique but unpractical idea. Immediately I thought about how difficult it would be to read text displayed, and how uncomfortable.
Still, I ventured on and decided to take Blackle for a spin. After about five minutes of miscellaneous searching, I found that my eyes were getting really uncomfortable.
Ironically, as my eyes continuously tried, and failed, to adjust, I ended up spending a lot more time trying to read the text of Blackle AND its search results (from white-on-black to black-on-white to white-on-black again (search page to the results page to the search page again), it was torture).
Whatever energy saved on not emitting white (or bright) lights were spent in helping me keep my cool as I got increasingly uncomfortable with the constantly changing colour schemes.
This idea will not work, much as I like the uniqueness and ingenuity of it.
27 Jul, 2007
On Disliking People
Bothered by my inability to accept another for who he was, I asked a friend if he himself ever had problems with people.
As far as I was concerned, this friend was well-liked, amiable, and friendly; and if there was anyone who would be accepting of people in general, it would be him.
To my surprise he said that there were people he didn’t like, and whom he didn’t bother trying too hard to like.
“Do you believe,” I asked, “that there are some people whom try as you might, you just cannot seem to accept — whom you just cannot stand?”
He replied in the affirmative, and added, “to me, the world can be divided into three types of people. First, there are those who like you no matter what you do. Second, there are those who hate you no matter you do. And third, there are those whom may swing either way; and it’s up to you to swing them into the first or second category. And these are the people whom we should be concerned about.”
I felt relieved after he had said this.
I had for a long time believed that you should try to make everyone like you. If it meant sacrifices, then so be it. A man with a good heart does not pick and choose who his friends and enemies are: should everyone not be his friend?
But for a particular person, this didn’t work for me. I tried accommodating him, thinking good thoughts about him, infusing my mind with the “best of his life”, like a Greatest Hits compilation album.
But it wasn’t enough.
It isn’t his fault that I don’t like him, and it’s probably mostly (if not entirely) mine… but how do I stop feeling like I do?