In the news, there is a24 years old female teacher in Florida charged of having sex with her 14 years old student. This news brings some discussion to the Lasallian email group. Someone us believe that she should be free of charge, something is seriously wrong with the US law regarding minimum legal age of having sex. It is out of question that her act is indecent and unprofessional. The school board should fire her for violated the teacher’s conduct. However citizen’s private life is not the business of the government and she shouldn’t trialed with criminal charges. Protecting the minor from sexual abuse is good, but in this case I don’t think that 14 years old boy was hurt in this incident. He is old enough to be responsible for his own decision of having sex with his teacher. I will have different opinion if the teacher is a man and the student is a 14 years old. The boy probably had sexual experience with girls at his age already. How his relationship with his teacher hurts him, and what does the law protect him from?
Monthly Archives: July 2005
Macross Gold Book
I have been a long time Macross fans. Back in the old days, whenever I walked by the amine shop, The Pirate Ship, in Mongkwok, I always stare into the the shopping window at the Macross Gold Book. I remember it cost HK$1000. It is specially printed for the release of Macross The Movie. It comes with a Valkyrie cut through poster and a film stripe bookmark. Being a student I didn’t have the money to buy the book at that time. Eventually the stocks ran out and I never seen it selling in any shops again. Many years had passed, with the advancement in internet, I occucationaly see it selling on eBay. Albeit it is usually very expensive, especially for the first edition that come with the film stripe. I saw some of them have reached over US$200 without shipping. This book is quite heavy and shipping cost is estimated at least $20, probably over $40 if shipping out from Asia. I came across another one in eBay a few weeks ago. Thanks to the Macross World Forum being shut down for maintenance during that week, I won the book without any competition. It’s even cheaper than the original price. Today the book arrived by mail, and I had finally fulfilled one of my long time childhood dreams. As a bonus, the film stripe bookmark features a close up shot of Minmay, the leading female character. What a pleasant surprise!
Shoes
I was shopping for shoes today. I want to get a hiking boot for World Youth Day, but couldn’t find the one I usually wear. I have been wearing the Nike ACG hiking boot for many years, changed 4 pairs in the same series. Somehow I couldn’t find it in any shops, I heard from the sales that the selling season of hiking boots starts in fall. I got remember to buy a pair next time I see it. So I have to order one online, I think it could delivery on time before I leave Vancouver. I couldn’t get a hiking boot today, but I got my first sandals. It’s also a Nike ACG series and it’s on sale. On top of that, I got myself a pair of new sleepers. The one I am wearing is so wear off the lower half came off. Since I am not a girl, I don’t need shoes as fashion. Man only wear shoes for its functions. I was thinking how many shoes do I actually need. Here is a list: Nike ACG hiking boot for daily wear, Sandals for outdoor use, Nike Sneaker for causal wear, Nike in-door court shoe for badminton, Dr. Martin black boot, Clarkes for formal wear, Soccer shoe, Golf shoe, All-star clothes shoe for summer and steel-toe just in case. That’s it.
Harry Plotter
Today the 6th book of Harry Plotter is released. It is a big media event worldwide. A bookstore in Vancouver start selling at midnight and the police had to close the road to control the crowd. I got the the 5th book on the first day of sales and finished it in 2 days. Now, I am no longer such a crazy Harry Plotter fans. I will still read the book, but probably wait until I see Chapters had it on sales. I was a bit disappointed by the last installment, the plot just doesn’t make sense. It seems J.K.Rowling had run of her imaginations. Harry Plotter is now pretty a hype these days. The latest Harry Plotter is selling very well around the world, it is estimated over 10 millions copies are sold on the first day. That makes J.K. Rowling’s net worth surge to a new high. With huge royalty collected from first year of sales, how can the publishers and authors justify the 99 years copyright law? The law of diminish return should also apply to intellectual properties. The government should tax the royalty generated by copyright with a progressive scheme. When the revenue of the copyright reach a certain threshold, the copyright holder has to estimate the total net worth of the copyright and pay a pro-rated registration fee to secure his right. Once that piece of copyright had generated the estimated reveunce, the material will automatically released into public domain.
Free iPod Shuffle, Bridge
TD bank is giving out free iPod shuffle to any customer switch from another bank. The 512MB iPod shuffle cost about $120, and it is attractive enough for us engineers to go thru the troubles setting up a new account. Since most of us has a main account with lots of payments, credit cards, investment and obviously we don’t want to touch it for merely a hundred buck. We defeated the original purpose of this promotion scheme by first creating a new account in a third bank, then let TD close the newly created account. So this afternoon I first created an account in BMO, and walked over to TD to setup yet another account, while my true main account in CIBC is untouched. I feel sorry for the poor guy working in BMO, wasting his time serving a non-customer. The good thing is I even get a 100 air miles points with the new BMO account. At the end of the day, TD didn’t get real market share, but I get a free iPod. I really doubt anyone actually fall into this promotion and switched their main account. Maybe a 60GB iPod photo could move me to do so, maybe.
Tonight after dinner, Jackson and I try to teach Chris and Jason how to pay bridge. It seems that Jackson had tried to teach them before and they said they are scared by the complexity of the game. I was wondering how hard it is to teach someone bridge and get they start playing right away. I said 5 minutes should be enough, and start explaining the rules. While I was explaining, Jackson had a lots of says and I realize why Chris and Jason had the wrong impression of bridge. Jackson tried to dump too much information in one go. Instead of teaching them the basic rules and start having fun, Jackson go into details on the bidding and playing strategies. No wonder they thought bridge is boring. My method of learning is always by playing to gain experience. The more you play and the more times you lose, you will then realize you need to learn some orthodox techniques. In this way, you are eager to learn more in order to win, instead of forced to absorb lots dry materials that you half understand.