Courtesy in Wars throughout History

This is so amazing!:

- Chinese barons, after the fall of Chou Dynasty, revere the acts of chivalrous courtesy during warfare. "Confronted with invasion, a baron would send in bravado a convoy of provisions to the invading army."*

- "As in the Homeric age, warriors of opposing armies, recognizing each other, would exchange haughty compliments from their chariots, drinking together, and even trade weapons before doing battle."*

- Despite their disputes, the armies of Prophet Muhammad's (p.b.u.h.) wife Aishah and of his son-in-law, Ali, when it comes to prayer times, both sides join together for congregational prayers.

- It is rumored that in the medieval times, the English people loves tea time so much that even during battles, when its time comes, a horn would be sounded, arms dropped, tables set up and they would drank tea together in dignified bliss. (Imagine gentlemen raising their teacup delicately with thumb and index, other fingers straightened daintily... ehheh)

* Quotes & paraphrase taken from Huston Smith's The World's Religions, p160

QotD 20040821

When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it; and when you do not, to know that you do not know - that is knowledge.

-Confucius-

superficialness

if the book is of such a great read, should I be complaining abt its disagreeable cover? How important is the cover actually? understated? overstated? is the analogy even proper? For just a book, cover represents nothing of the author's works. It's just the company's hired artisan, drawing from a separate bank of knowledge and creativity. The cover and the contents are mutually exclusive in terms of origin.

But it's a different matter with a ningen. ningens are an irreducible entity. Every part of it is related somehow to other, each grows in interaction. You can't just close your eye on one disapproved aspect and judge it only based on the rest. Take one out, and everything else is missing something. They say the whole is more than the sum of its parts. I am saying that the remainder is less than the sum of the leftover parts.

who am I to judge anyway?

LITEC TAing again...

I just accepted an extension offer of my tenure as Teaching Assistant for Embedded Control (a.k.a. LITEC)...

this is gonna be a tougher term...

for one, I'm taking a heavy load of classes... Chem I is notorious for its uber mammoth class works, and to make it worse, they say that Fall term's Chem I is of more evil stock than Spring's. There's Electric Circuits, also a stinky one, and I suck at electronic circuits. Models of Computation i ain't know nothin abt. Lastly there's Media Imaging, which at least I heard is a fun class where we can let loose our creative streak into digital art, and it also teaches us some basic web designing, which is something I had always wanted to learn but never really got down to it coz of this freakin freakin procrastinator's streak in me. yeah yeah, i know, i used "streak" twice in short span of writing, which is bad for essays, but i couldn't care less.

personal class load aside, this LITEC course I'm TAing is much different now. Last semester, we used the aging Motorola HC11 control board, which has been in the market since late 1980s, and one which I used when I took the class myself, so I was quite familiar with it. But now they are using a spanking brand new board, Cygnal from Intel (if i'm not mistaken), which is so advanced that I am so clueless abt pretty much anything other than how to spell its name.

In other words, us old school TAs are just as n00b abt this board as the students who shall be taking this class, and that ain't bode well... at least there's one week-long crash course training for us TAs though. I hope that shall save us from most embarrassments.

and if that's not enuff to spice things up, how about this next revelation: instead of designing smart cars like we used to do, now we shall design SMART BLIMP... ya know, the cigar shaped flying thingy, looks like zeppelin... big bag of gas with fans and gizmo stuck on its belly... now instead of just worrying abt turning left and right, speeding up and slowing down, we gotta worry abt lift and sink as well... ooooh sweet Isa ibnu Maryam.

Lord, do give me strength...

Knowledge Strata

"Where is the knowledge that is lost in information? Where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge?"

-T.S. Eliot-

I found this quote when I was reading The World's Religions (by Huston Smith) just now. Which sets my mental gears spinning: hey yeah... that makes sense! We are at every moment bombarded with bucketfuls of information; stimuli that our senses pick up constantly and our brain sorts out for those useful ones. Those handpicked candidates are Knowledge. Knowhows of practical stuff. How to do this, how that works, when will that happen, etc. Their applications is however limited to their field of relevance. Your knowledge on how cars works can't help you much with your sex life and vice versa.

That's where wisdom come in.

Wisdom is something of more grandeur. It is what you can read between the lines of knowledge. Something we can't get just by watching individual events, but by relating our observations as a coherent wholeness. It's the insights, the philosophical meaning, the spiritual implications. Wisdom transcends knowledge's compartmentalized boundaries, for with wisdom you can derive analogies and lessons from one knowledge field into a wholly separate one.

Wisdom is the holy grail of truth seekers.

peekaboo

salaam & greetings to all,

The long-sought outlet for my mental escapades, here at last. Where I shall divulge my fancies to the most trivial details. To spew out the all nitpickings on society and how the world goes round. Toy around with layers upon layers of metaphysical thoughts. Wonders of nature's supreme coherency. Meaning of life. What a braindead movie that was. Debating with myself on religious beliefs. Crafting up the definition of a perfect human. The Most Basic Question of All Questions. How holographic sketching shall work. How far can I go in being a cheapskate miser. Why Kino no Tabi smacks dab to my taste. narcissism galore.

This is about me, how I see the world, and its inhabitants that I care about. May among all these rants, you shall find what you seek and more. Enlightment, i hope, or at the very least, mild amusement.