Chinese high school sex survey surprises sex specialists

A survey carried out on high school students in Beijing finds that the average age when they first had sex was about 15 and that most are promiscuous, surprising many sex specialists in China. From China Daily:

"The new generation is open-minded about sex, indeed We can only conclude that it is a result of a fast-changing society," Zhang Meimei, professor of education at Capital Normal University, said yesterday. He was involved in the survey sponsored by the district education commission.

Of the 1,300 girls asked if they would agree if their boyfriends sought sex, only six gave a definite "no".

The typical answer: "As long as he loves me, it's OK."

About 200 boys and girls said they were willing to have a one-night stand if an opportunity arose.

Those in a more serious relationship said they would most likely have sex after graduation from high school.

About 30 percent believed that teen sex is fine as long as it is consensual, and 55 percent said it depends on how much the two love each other.

Online map maker sued by government

Online map maker Virtual Map, the company behind Streetdirectory.com and notorious for sending out hundreds of lawyer's letters demanding $10,000 or more from those who had reproduced its maps on their websites, has this time been sued by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) for... guess what? Copyright infringement! Hooray! From TODAYonline:

In their opening statement on Monday, SLA said their civil suit centres on whether Virtual Map has used the base materials given by the government agency and made alterations to them. The case isn't about the "usual form of infringement" where one party copies a portion of the work without significant alteration, in which the only issue is whether or not the part taken is substantial.

Yesterday, three more SLA staff members took the stand.

To Virtual Map's claim that the digitised data it received from the SLA was "raw" and bore "no substantial similarity" to their product, SLA charged that there was substantial reproduction on the part of Virtual Map.

As an ex-licensee of SLA who had access to SLA's work, it had "copied SLA's 'skeleton'", the result of "hard work, skill, labour and money invested by the Government".

SLA highlighted the "numerous tell-tale signs, errors and fingerprints" in Virtual Map's work. The firm has "neither the skill to create a map ab initio (from scratch) nor the facilities to map building shapes with any precision other than copy what has already been done", said SLA's expert witness, British map-maker expert, land surveyor and law lecturer Carl Calvert.

I have no sympathy for Virtual Map. In fact, when I first read the news early this morning, I broke out with laughter. This is a company that has been making money all these years by threatening so many people who had used its street maps. I'm so glad that it is getting a taste of its own medicine now.

Btw, I strongly believe that all street maps should be in the public domain and no one should be paying any amount at all to use them in their websites or flyers.

Japanese students to take chopstick test

A high school in western Japan will require its students to take a 10 minute test using chopsticks to transfer beads, marbles, dice and beans from one plate to another as part of its entrance exams. From Reuters:

"We are a school that has always placed emphasis on the Japanese spirit, and we want our students to understand this," said Katsushi Hisata, the school's vice principal...

Academically talented students who are chopstick-challenged, however, need not worry, Hisata said.

"If they do well on all other subjects, they won't fail the exam just because they have problems using chopsticks," he said.

"It's more a symbol, something we want students to know we pay attention to."

Pants Pankuro

"Every morning I do a wonderful #2! After it comes out, I feel happy all day!"

Pants Pankuro is a bizarre Japanese cartoon about two friends and their toilet antics. Check out the above clip with English subtitles. I think toilets that can talk and sing are scary.

(Thanks Yuki)

Finally the iPhone

Apple Computer Inc, oooops wait it's Apple Inc now (gone is the Computer from its name), has launched the iPhone, a product so revolutionary that it says will be as successful as the Macintosh and the iPod. The iPhone is a beauty and comes with a whopper of features. It's operated by OSX (wow!) and comes either with a 4GB or 8GB storage. Besides its phone function, the iPhone has a widescreen iPod that plays beautiful videos too. You can surf the net, do all the things you normally do with a PDA and take photos through its 2.0 megapixel camera.

The iPhone will be launched in North America in June, in Europe by the end of this year and in Asia in 2008. Apple will offer the iPhone through Cingular in the US and it will cost $500 or $600 with a two-year contract. A bit pricey aye. But despite its unbeatable looks and features, the iPhone has some weaknesses. You can't download songs directly onto it from the iTunes store, you can't sync it with a computer wirelessly, there are no games in it and you can't use it without signing up for cellular service.

The Majestic 3

Today on my photoblog Katoomba Syndrome: The Majestic 3

Previously: Fallen Heart

New naked eye comet!

There's a new comet in the sky and it is easily visible to the naked eye! Comet 2006 P/1 McNaught has been brightening over the past few days. You can view it in the western sky at dusk. The comet is visible to the right of planet Venus. You can also view it in the eastern sky at dawn. From Space.com:

Recent estimates have ranged widely from magnitude +2.1 (about as bright as Polaris, the North Star) to a dazzling -8.8 (about 40 times brighter than Venus)!

David Moore reported seeing the comet on New Year's Day evening from Dublin, Ireland. He writes: "After searching for over half an hour in strong twilight I saw it easily in 20x80 binoculars from an upstairs window. I could see a small fuzzy and surprisingly bright head about as bright as the mag 3.5 star Lambda Aquilae 6 degrees above it. That said, it was not an easy observation given the strong twilight and the comet was only 3.0 degrees above the horizon!"

Well-known comet observer, John Bortle of Stormville, New York caught sight of the comet just before sunrise with 15 x 80 binoculars on Jan. 2.

"My eastern view was largely obstructed by trees," Bortle said. "Still it was somewhat amazing to see the comet against such a bright sky and through all those tree branches! From experience in making similar observations, I'd judge that it was not any fainter than 2nd magnitude."

Please note that people living further up in the northern hemisphere (US and Canada) will be more favourable to view the comet. The comet will be much closer to the horizon when viewed from lower latitudes such as Singapore so the trick is to try to spot the comet in broad daylight, say half and hour before sunset. I've been waiting for such a bright comet to grace our skies since the Comet Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake days. I'll try spotting it later this evening and throughout the week if the weather permits.

Update:

Spaceweather.com has a nice photo gallery of the comet.

I've created the following image using the excellent Stellarium software. It shows how the sky will look like for those of us in Singapore at 7pm tonight.



As you can see, it is impossible for us in Singapore to view the comet once the sun sets. I reckon the best time to try to spot it is from 6.30pm onwards. The sun will be up but if the comet is as bright as what everyone is saying, then we may just spot it in daylight. It may be difficult though. You need a good pair of eyes, know where to look at and a very clear and unobstructed sky.

More pictures of Comet McNaught here. (Thanks Greg)

Who is worse than Saddam?

Who is worse than Saddam? According to former Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, George Bush and Tony Blair are both worse than the now deceased Iraqi dictator. From Reuters:

"He (Bush) should resign straight away and be tried by the same kangaroo court," Mahathir told a news conference called to promote a peace conference he is hosting in Malaysia next month.

The conference, "Expose War Crimes: Criminalise War," will be accompanied by an exhibition on Western war crimes, including atrocities in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Vietnam and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, according to organizers...

Mahathir also branded Blair a war criminal. Blair backed the 2003 invasion with thousands of British troops.

"He is a culprit," the 81-year-old said. "He is as much a war criminal as he accuses Saddam of being a war criminal. The number of people he kills or causes to be killed is very many more than the number of people that Saddam caused to be killed."

For Sale: World's Smallest Country

The world's smallest country, Principality of Sealand is up for sale. The island country was founded as a sovereign Principality in 1967 in international waters, six miles off the eastern shores of Britain, by former English major Paddy Roy Bates. He proclaimed the island his own state after occupying it and called himself the Prince and his wife Princess. From Times Online:

After 40 years, the owners of the Principality of Sealand have put it on the market. They hope that investors will be lured by the island’s setting and its status as a tax haven.

But it is not exactly a dream hideaway. Sealand, which was built as a wartime fort called Roughs Tower in 1941, is a 550 sq m (5,920 sq ft) steel platform perched on two concrete towers. Accessible only by helicopter and boat, it sits seven miles (11km) off the coast of Harwich in Essex.

Its living accommodation is less than palatial — long, low buildings made of steel through which the sound of generators reverberates constantly. One American visitor described it as “unbelievably ugly”.

What it lacks in charm and climate it makes up for in a history that includes raiders, hand-to-hand fighting and a kidnapping.

(Thanks Sir Thomas)

2006 word of the year is Plutoed

The American Dialect Society comprising of linguists, grammarians, historians and independent scholars, has chosen Plutoed as its 2006 word of the year. From MSNBC:

To "pluto" is "to demote or devalue someone or something," much like what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn't meet its definition of a planet.

"Our members believe the great emotional reaction of the public to the demotion of Pluto shows the importance of Pluto as a name," said society president Cleveland Evans. "We may no longer believe in the Roman god Pluto, but we still have a sense of personal connection with the former planet."

Don't pluto me okay? Or I shall pluto you too. Ha!!

Boring Postcards

The Boring Postcards Flickr group wants to collect boring postcards, preferably old, but definitely cards that display boredom: boring subject, scenery, composition, expression etc. "Postcards were created to be boring." Yawn.

(Thanks Norman)