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| I'm sure most of you have already noticed, but I'm just letting everyone know that I've updated my website's look and have even posted a few new articles. I'd be interested to hear any feedback. I hope all is well with everyone. | |
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| From Joannama
Ballet
What can I say? I'm a perve. When a girlfriend-at-the-time asked me to come to a few ballet classes so they could put me in a ballet concert (they're always short of males) I didn't take much persuasion. Not many people know this, but I was the artsy guy at high school (when I lived in Hong Kong). True, I was also the top guy in maths and physics, but being a freak at painting, sculpting, and drama was what I was known for. This occasionally comes out, such as one time on a scavenger hunt when I was called upon to construct a wire sculpture, so I fashioned a very detailed Tyrannosaurus Rex out of a few coat hangers in about 15 minutes for maximum pointage. When I ended up at Scotch, to "maximize" my TertiaryEntranceRank, I was forced to drop all my artsy subjects in favour of maths, physics, and chemistry. Taking up ballet again, and indeed, dancing in general, was a revelation in that I once again was able to get in touch with my long-dormant artsy side (while being a perve at the same time). I enjoy just about ever aspect of ballet - the training is great for strength, balance, and flexibility, which are all very good things to have in other sports (which I occasionally dabble in). Getting to meet and hang around with a bunch of very flexible girls is also a lot of fun, and being on stage for the concerts appeals to my tendency to be a bit of an attention whore.
Saving the world (save the cheerleader?)
I'm not sure what the cheerleader thing is a reference to. Saving the world has always been a strange little mission in my life, since about as far back as I can remember. I think it started a long time ago when Ronald Regan was president of the US and Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of Great Britain. My thoughts can be approximated thus: "these people are complete idiots, I could do a better job than they can" (that view hasn't changed much, btw). With very few exceptions, most of the things I've done in life have been motivated by this mission. Sure, I've enjoyed a lot of those things, like traveling lots, and learning languages, but I am an inherently very shy and lazy person, and I would never have made the effort to do most of these things without that as a motivating factor. My view of what needs to be fixed in the world (and my view of how the world works) has changed a lot in the short time that I've been alive. It used to be solely about conflict resolution (which is not exactly a trivial task), but it has since extended to ending poverty, bringing about social justice, and doing something about climate change. It's not a very long to-do list, but I suspect that I'll be chipping away at it for quite some time.
The Netherlands
The Netherlands was established in the treaty of Utrecht as independent of the Spanish empire, although the Spanish didn't recognize this until after a lengthy war and the treaty of Münster 69 years later. It was probably the first capitalist country in the world, was a major seafaring power, and also had the world's first stock exchange. It has the busiest port in Europe, as well as a lot of canals. It is very very flat, and a lot of the country lies below sea-level making it very vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The politics of the country are very progressive while the people are very conservative (in the rural areas, which is most of holland). Curious that I should end up here after studying climate change and beginning to take an interest in economics. The population density is high, the people are very tall, and there is a very distinctive dutch "look" indicating a significant period of isolation and inbreeding. They are also crazy about speed skating, which means that a mediocre speed skater such as myself can still live here comfortably with all my expenses paid for. Dutch is similar to German and probably lies somewhere in the middle of a triangle with English, German, and Spanish at its corners, closest to the English-German-edge.
Being ticklish
Not much to say about this, other than it is true. I am VERY ticklish. I can tickle my own feet. Walking barefoot on gravel can sometimes bring me to my knees as my brain goes into a sensory overload. If you wanted to suffocate me, doing so by tickling would get the job done quicker than smothering me with a pillow, although you could always combine both.
Photography
Very similar to ballet. I'm a perve. Diane Arbus once said "I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do - that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse". I'm still a bit like that. It's strange, I don't consider myself any good at photography. I just point the camera, twiddle a few knobs, then press a button. I like photos, they're a bit like paintings, but they don't take as long. Maybe that's why I seem to be especially good at image composition, because I used to paint. If you're going to spend days painting something, you're not going to compose the picture poorly on canvas. Much like ballet, photography is my way of connecting with my elusive artistic side (especially since I'm not doing any ballet at the moment). Having a large camera is a funny thing, because people look at you differently. It also gets you access to lots of cool places, like the media area at large sporting events, to the front of long queues for big speaker's events. The equipment is also very cool (and expensive). Being part of "the media" is also very empowering - you're part of the machinery that gets news to the people and that is an immense responsibility (which I feel is lost on a lot of journalists). Look at what Jeff Widener's picture of the boy blocking the row of tanks did (the userpic I'm using on this post).
If I really want to save the world, I should either be a world leader, a spy/assassin, or a photojounalist. | |
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| A friend and a friend of a friend have started a political blog named "Red Fish, Blue Fish". Here is the most recent fight that I've picked on itI'd like my friends to have a read and to participate. Red Fish seems like a bit of an idiot, but I could be wrong... (I was actually kind of hoping that Mark could weigh in on the debate with his own particular brand of rhetoric) | |
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| a) Tell you why I friended you,
b) Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc,
c) Tell you something I like about you,
d) Tell you a memory I have of you,
e) Ask something I've always wanted to know about you,
f) Tell you my favorite user pic of yours,
g) In return, you must post this in your LJ. | |
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| The rules are:
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
"The reason is that values have a strong common value element and so the benefits of sealed bids are not so great but the benefits of an open auction are substantial."
"Generally, simultaneous open bidding is better for the seller than sequential auctions."
"A disadvantage of sequential auctions is that they limit the information available to bidders and limit how the bidders can respond to information."
From the article "How Best to Auction Oil Rights" by Peter Cramton, which appears in "Escaping the Resource Curse" with Macartan Humphreys, Jeffrey D. Sachs and Joseph E. Stiglitz as editors. Columbia University Press 2007.
(as a footnote, this semester, I have classes with Sachs (Human Ecology and Sustainable Development) and Humphreys (Game Theory and Political Theory)) | |
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| Happy new year everyone... it's not actually 2008 in New York just yet... don't forget to check out my website. I'll be putting up some photos from touristy exploits soon enough, but for now, here are my cheap words to keep you entertained. | |
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| there may be 20 million other people in the New York metropolitan area, 8 million within city limits and most of them are probably still awake...
but it is surprisingly lonely at 1:30am in New York | |
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| Everyone must go tonight! You'll laugh, you probably won't cry (although I will if I find out it flopped, even though I'm not organising these things anymore). ...if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything... | |
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| http://www.boredatcolumbia.net/you don't need to be a genius to figure out what this website is all about... now all I have to do is try not to let the temptation to "interact" with this "community" interfere with the many volumes of reading I must do before next week. | |
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| http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/two-million-below-poverty-line/2007/08/29/1188067191905.htmlThis is shocking. The Age has hit a new low in misrepresentative journalism. POVERTY!!!??? Nigga please! Hundreds of millions of people live on less than $1 a day. The "poverty line" that these chumps are quoting is about $249 a week, which is about $35 a day. Even taking purchasing power parity into account, this is not "poverty". oh... and I finally have a computer and steady internet connection (duh)... so I'll get around to updating my webpage. The best time to catch me on msn is probably in the morning, which is evening (the previous night) here. | |
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| It's been a pretty long one... and the weekend, it was quite long too. Four parties on Saturday. I left the final one early - just before 5am (that's very early, even for me). More info (and photos!) from Saturday's adventures on my webpage. I decided to go to archery the next morning. It wasn't as silly an idea as I thought it might be. I still hit the centre of the target fairly frequently, although not nearly as frequently as I am accustomed to which lead to much frustration and the occasional expletive. In the afternoon, I went to lunch with an old school friend and spent the remainder of the afternoon catching up over a few hours of Mortal Kombat on his Nintendo Wii. Sunday night was occupied with junk food and the Wimbeldon men's singles final which began at about 11pm Melbourne time. Four hours later, Roger Federer, or Federer the Freak as I like to call him, emerged victorious after cracking the shits with hawkeye and playing five sets with his arch-nemesis, Rafael Nadal. I need to get some more sleep... ZZZzzzz (oh, and for all those who've been under a rock lately, I have returned from overseas and am in Melbourne until mid-August when I will leave again for speed skating world championships and then a masters degree in the states. A selection of photos and my travel emails can also be found on my website) | |
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| Hey people... its a party... I've also uploaded a few more pictures to my website FYI, I return to Melbourne on the 12th of June. Please don't overcrowd the airport, other people need to use it too. | |
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| Hi all... I just thought I'd let people know that I've updated my travel journal. This update is particularly interesting as there are lots of photos. Not only are there lots of photos, but there are photos of really cool things. Don't forget to leave a comment. Another travel mass-email is on its way so get those spam filters ready... | |
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| Ok, I figure nobody actually ever checks my website... but I thought I'd let my local LJ community know that I'm trying out a new look for the page and would appreciate some feedback (and bug reporting). In case you're wondering, no, I haven't done very much since I last posted. Mostly pictures of New York and some from Ecuador. I leave for Cuzco tomorrow morning (Cuzco is the launching point for the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu) but I'll be looking to spend a week acclimatising to the altitude before heading off to the lost city of the Incas. | |
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| Hullo... for those of you who are, for some reason or other, not keeping up with my travels... I have updated up to Venezuela, easily the most photographically magnificent place so far. Don't forget to leave comments! I am now in the US and will be for about another three weeks. Don't expect too much in the way of photos or commentary during this time as this is really more of a "half time break". I leave Boston for Quito, Ecuador on the 3rd of April. Countries been to (including transit) - Mexico, Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, United States of America Still to go - Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile I have decided to give Colombia a miss because we are short on time and I will be visiting Colombia in August this year for the World Inline Speedskating Championships anyway. | |
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| Hey People, as some of you may or may not know, I am travelling to Latin America on Thursday (11th January) and won't be back until Tuesday (12th June). I will be over there trying to instigate social upheaval and revolution. While I'm at it, I may just see some pretty sights. I will be trying to keep a travel blog of sorts which will be hosted on my website. For those of you who are too lazy to remember my website (shame on you), here is the link that will take you directly to the page that you're probably more interested in. Why don't you click here?p.s. To those in MUCAAS, I obviously won't be able to make it to Pugs this Thursday. | |
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| Hey everyone, I'm having a birthday party! http://www.danielyeow.com/25-invite.htmPlease come along and bring a friend or two... Apologies to those of you who expected another choose-your-own-adventure invite, but I don't do those for birthdays for which one of the factors is five. | |
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| Hey people...
I'm giving a talk on my thesis on the 24th of November (this Friday). Come along and ask silly questions so my supervisor can't. I will try my best to make the talk entertaining for a non-maths audience (because I would fail at making it entertaining for a maths audience anyway).
Its 10:30am (not my choice) in the Russell Love theatre in the Richard Berry Building at Melbourne Uni.
I've already written a poem for the talk, and I'm really tempted to write a song and take my guitar into the lecture theatre. What do people reckon?
Oh, btw, keep the night of the 9th of December free because I'm having a partay to celebrate my quarter century.
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| I'm trying to get a regular muck-about soccer afternoon started
Sunday 3pm Princess Park
bring boots if you have them, no previous experience in any sport required
on a scale of 1 to 5, i intend this to be about a 3 or 4 on the social scale and about a 1 or 2 on the physical-ness side.
come along! | |
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| To celebrate my all-too-probable failing of honours and being booted from uni... not to mention the winter solstice, I'm having a party. Do bring some friends along, I like meeting new people (even if I don't actually like them). Feel free to distribute this invite, I'm easy. - Location:Earth
- Mood:Whimsical
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| I can't be arsed coming up with another choose-your-own-adventure invite. I'll save that for a special occasion. In the meantime, here is the invite to my next party. Please let me know if I've left out any important details. http://www.danielyeow.com/marathon_invite.htmAnyone who can read this is invited. Anyone who finds out about this who knows me is also invited. Hell, anyone can come. Please do. | |
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