Horizontal Perspective 横顾天下

This week came news that the Singapore Government intent to boost local talents in table tennis, with a view to producing Olympic Games level athletes. This is not some pipe-dream, for we have precedence of good results to base it on. Over a decade ago, the Education Ministry embark on a plan to raise the level of table tennis game-play in primary schools by allowing selected schools to engage professional coaches from mainland China. A decade later, the results of these seeding effort is plain to see. Start them off early and you get a good crop of talents as well as a general increase in standard overall. The setting up of the Sport School is yet another initiative. Despite its small population (thus a very limited talent pool), Singapore has been steadily building its reputation in the international sporting circle in a number of sports, like sailing, swimming, water polo, marksmanship, badminton and table tennis.

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California has become the first US state to ban restaurants and food retailers from using trans-fats, which are linked to coronary heart disease.

Trans-fats are chemically altered vegetable oils, … produced artificially in a process called hydrogenation which turns liquid oil into solid fat. (block/hard margarine)

They can be used for frying or baking, or put into processed foods and ready-made mixes for cakes and drinks like hot chocolate. Trans-fats are used because they are cheap, add bulk to products, have a neutral flavour and give products a long shelf-life.

Source: BBC NEWS Report

People who take blood have been warned not to get the patient to tightly clench their fist during the procedure.

UK researchers who examined 200,000 blood test results found clenching then relaxing the fist could raise potassium levels, potentially confusing results. Raised potassium levels can indicate kidney or heart problems, the Annals of Clinical Biochemistry study said.

The impact of fist-clenching while giving blood has been known since the 1960s, but the procedure was being passed on from generation to generation of phlebotomists.

A UK expert said clenching was an outdated practice and staff taking blood should not ask patients to do so.

Source BBC Health report

A couple of days ago I was scanning the spam folder of my email (in case my over-zealous spam filter skims off any genuine mail), and one of the spam mail’s subject screams ‘AUTHENTIC REPLICAS’ of luxury timepieces. Hah?! ‘AUTHENTIC REPLICA’ ? That like saying ‘genuine fake’, an oxymoron if ever there was one.

Oxymoron are a delightful construct of the modern English language. Take two words of contrary meaning, put them together so that one qualifies the other, if they mean something, you have an oxymoron. For example, ‘pretty’ and ‘ugly’ are directly contradictory, but ‘pretty ugly’ changes the degree of ugliness from the affirmative to rather or somewhat ugly, very useful when you want to be evasive. Another example would be to ask for an ‘exact estimate’. I list below some of my favorite:

Real oxymoron have a way of making sense yet leave you with a nagging feeling of something’s amissed. It should not be confused with terms made up when you are being funny or sarcastic (for example: militancy intelligence, clear as mud). They are fun to make up, and even more fun to inflict on the unsuspecting; and with frequent use, become an accepted part of the English language.

According to security firm McAfee the average web surfer gets around 70 spam messages a day.

In a recent experiment (see BBC Science report Spam experiment overloads inboxes), 50 people from around the world surfed the web without spam filters for a month. The results suggest US users are the most targeted, with Brazil, Italy, Mexico and the UK next in line. Germany appears to be the least attractive. Around one in 12 messages were phishing emails aimed at getting the receiver to hand over sensitive information like passwords and bank details.

Remember the golden rules,

• Do not click on any links in an email sent from someone you don’t know, (pay attention to the email address of the sender)
• If it sounds dodgy or too good to be true, it probably is.
• Never give out passwords, even to your bank. (Legitimate Banks and businesses do not conduct security related operation over the internet)