Tag Archive for '9/11'

162 Flags of the World

Published by davinci on September 11, 2009 in a life in books and personal. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve actually been writing these posts a few days ahead of time, but limiting my posting to once a day to space them out. It’s a coincidence that this particular post appears on 9/11, but given the world-changing nature of the event, it’s interesting to look at the flags of the world from 1977 and compare them to the flags of today — and also to think about what the flags of the world might look like in 2041, another thirty-two years from now.

Since the post mentions Iraq and Iran, and today is September 11, I want to point out that no connection has ever been found between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Iraq, despite the apparent belief of many people to the contrary. I also want to point out that Iran and Iraq are in fact two entirely separate and distinct countries, with different histories, languages, cultures, and religious and ethnic compositions — again, contrary to the apparent belief of many people.

This isn’t a book, but a sheet of stickers with flags of the world’s nations, circa 1977, which I’ve had since I was a child. I recently threw it out along with some outdated books… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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  1. Little known facts about Hong Kong’s sovereignty
  2. Quotations from Lily Wong
  3. Persia is Iran, Iran is Persia, Iran is not Iraq, and Persia is not Bosnia
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The causes of my depression, part 18: my parents blamed me for 9/11

Published by davinci on May 8, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

My parents had been attacking me for years for observing that religion would once again become important in global affairs, that the post-Cold War division of the world would be into blocs defined by religion and culture, and that in particular the resurgence of Islam would have a large part to play in this. Their reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the way they began to treat me thereafter, perfectly illustrate the enormous gulf between traditional Chinese culture and the culture of science.

In science, progress is made through the elimination of faulty hypotheses which are discarded whenever they are shown not to agree with observations of reality. Science therefore demands certain traits of its practitioners: the readiness to alter one’s opinions, no matter how deeply held, when they are contradicted by incoming evidence; and the willingness to admit one’s errors. An individual scientist may be unwilling to abandon a pet theory, but for the most part, science celebrates the desertion of wrong ideas; when one studies the history of science, the really major discoveries have been hailed as such precisely because they overturned previously cherished beliefs. These traits are not only lacking in traditional Chinese culture — which values obedience, harmony, reverence for authority, and the concept of “face” — but are actually antithetical to it… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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  1. My depression in Waterloo, part 2: role reversal and sacrifice
  2. My depression in Waterloo, part 3: my Master’s degree in computer science
  3. My depression in Waterloo, part 5: feeling “unworthy”
  4. My depression in Waterloo, part 10: disowned
  5. My depression in Waterloo, part 11: the biggest regret of my life
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The causes of my depression, part 17: my “frivolous” web site and how I learned Persian

Published by davinci on May 7, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

When I entered graduate school to study discrete-event control systems, I once again put up a web site with my interests and my writings. As a part of that, I experimented with automatic translation, but the state of the technology was pretty poor at the time, and so it didn’t work out. What I ended up with was a web site with sections in four languages — English, Chinese, Klingon, and Hindi — and different content in each.

I featured a number of projects on the web site which had nothing to do with school… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

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  1. The causes of my depression, part 19: the demographics of my graduate school labmates
  2. My depression in Waterloo, part 2: role reversal and sacrifice
  3. The causes of my depression, part 4: the Mentorship Program
  4. The causes of my depression, part 10: “the Machine”
  5. The causes of my depression, part 15: the most important thing I did in undergrad
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The causes of my depression, part 15: the most important thing I did in undergrad

Published by davinci on May 6, 2009 in autobiography, personal and social issues. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I was actually very disappointed with what officially passed for “interfaith dialogue” at the university. I believe very strongly that one of the roles, if not the primary role, of a university education is to teach critical thinking skills and to inculcate the habit of subjecting truth-claims to skeptical scrutiny. But I observed all sorts of ostensibly university-educated people making claims which, I think, they quite frankly ought to have been embarrassed about; they were either flat-out self-contradictory or obviously wrong, or could have easily been verified to be so by a quick trip to the library.

I set out to unofficially rectify this situation by engaging in conversations with a lot of people of various religions… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The causes of my depression, part 17: my “frivolous” web site and how I learned Persian
  2. Being socially active is important to academic success
  3. Overcoming my writer’s block, part 6: communications technologies and their effects on global politics
  4. The causes of my depression, part 13: leading a double life
  5. The causes of my depression, part 7: my mother’s selfishness
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