Rigel Kent

《甲骨文合集》里面有一块编号19780的牛胛骨是这么写的: 丙辰卜，丁巳其阴乎？允阴。 这一句释文的白话大概可以是这样：在第53天问卜：明天是阴天吗？果然，第54天是阴天。 当被问到明天会不会是阴天，问卜者会把问题，也就是： "丙辰卜，丁巳其阴乎" 刻在牛肩胛骨上，把胛骨拿去火烤，然后再分析火烤后骨上出现的裂纹，以此推算出明天的天气。 两千年的商朝人就是这样作天气预测的。现代人固然会用复杂的偏微分方程来描述并预测天气，但是用其数学模型计算的结果也未必准确。这是因为大气动力学是混沌数学的一种。

Usually God and Satan don’t talk to each other, but in Chapter 1 of Job, they actually had a dialogue on a rich man named Job. God: Do you know Mr. Job? I tell you what, this guy is a good man, and he really loves me and won’t do anything evil. (1:8) Satan: Serious ah? I don’t believe you. If you take away all his monies and properties, he will surely hate you. (1:9-11) God: Well, you can try and see. You can kill everything under his name, his sheep, his camels, his children… But make sure you don’t kill him. (1:12) At the end of the conversation, Satan varnished without saying anything and proceeded with the experiment suggested. God predicted Job’s response correctly after all his flocks and children were killed, for he didn’t get angry at all. Instead, he uttered his famous words: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (1:21)”. In Chapter 2 of Job. God initiated...

Fundamentalist Abrahamism is notorious for its intolerance for other civilizations and cultures. A recent example is the detonation of the Buddhas of Bamyan by the Taliban government in 2001. Their leader, a fundamentalist idiot named Mullah Mohammed Omar believes that such statues are unislamic and must be destroyed. About 1700 years ago, the fundamentalist Christians behaved just the same like the Talibans. The evil things they did to the Greek religion and culture is chronicled in "Demolish Them...", a book written by Vlasis Rassias. Just to give you a taste of their montrous act, read this: In the year 415 in Alexandria, Egypt, a beautiful mathematician named Hypatia was kidnaped by a mob ordered by the bishop Cyrillus. Hypatia was stripped naked by the Christian monks and dragged her to the Caesareum Church, where she was hacked into pieces. Hypatia's body pieces were then paraded by the Christian mob through the streets of Alexandria, and were finally burned togeth...

Little Nyonya (小娘惹) is one of the very fine Chinese language drama produced by MediaCorp Singapore in the past few decades. Its average audience measurement of about 1 million over the one month it was broadcast is a direct evidence of the quality and popularity of the drama. Because it was suppose to be a serious drama, some people are taking this drama very seriously. One of the "loophole" mentioned in Wikipedia concerns Yamamoto Yueniang (山本月娘)'s birthdate. It is claimed that: "Yueniang's age was also subjected to some inconsistencies. When Juxiang sought an old man's help in writing her daughter's time of birth, the man wrote "甲子年八月十五出生” which indicates a date in 1924. Yueniang was said to be 70 years old in present day, but she would be 84 years old if she was born in 1924.[5] Too, she stated that 1942 is the time where the Japanese occupied Singapore and she was eight (meaning she was born in 1934)." This claim, however, as pointe...

Because of Ong's academic training, I am very curious about his amazing career transformation from a plant culture specialist to a self-proclaimed chinese culture specialist. To understand this conversion, it is maybe useful to briefly look at Ong's publication. Phase I: Ong's Scientific Publications (1972 -- 1990) Ong Hean Tatt (1972) Physiology of the responses of plant tissues to changes in water economy, PhD thesis, University of Malaya. Ong Hean Tatt (1976) Studies into tissue culture of oil palm. Proc. Malaysian International Agricultural Oil Palm Conference, Kuala Lumpur (14-17 June 1976) Ong Hean Tatt (1976) Development of in vitro culture techniques in MARDI as tools for plant propagation, Proc. National Plant Propagation Symposium, Kuala Lumpur (19-21 July, 1976) Ong Hean Tatt (1977) Water stress action on the isoenzymes patterns of proteins and peroxidases of excised tomato cotyledons, Proc. 4th Malaysian Biochemical Society Conference, Kuala Lumpur Ong Hean Tatt...

Dr. Ong Heat Tatt is a botanist specializes in plant physiology. He was trained at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya in the late sixties. In 1972, Ong completed his research on the physiology of the responses of plant tissues to changes in water economy and was awarded a PhD degree. However, the way I got to know Ong is via a book on Chinese culture written by him. The title of the book is The Chinese Pakua: An Expose . I was deeply disturbed by some of the arguments expounded in the book, in which Ong, based on a book by Kang and Nelson , errorneously associate the origin of some of the Chinese characters with the Biblical stories. Following Kang and Nelson, Ong sectionalized the Chinese character "禁" (meaning forbidden) to the following components: "木" (tree) + "木" (tree) + "示" (God/divinity) and proceed to explain the character as follows: God created two trees in the Garden, and He forbade Adam and Eve to eat the fru...

If the xing were to be arranged in a clockwise manner according to Dong's numerical order, we have the following pentagon of wuxing . Interestingly, pentagon is the only polygon for which number of constructive relationship (number of sides) equals the number of destructive relationship (number of diagonals). This is easily proven since the only solution to the following equation: is n = 5. Now, it is useful for a computer programmer to introduce a coefficient which can be used to compute the compatibility of any two given xing without having to refer to Dong's pentagon. The three numerical values of compatibility coefficient c p (namely -1, 0, 1) are to be interpreted as destructive, neutral, and constructive, respectively. A convenient way to compute c p is to use the following equation: For example, in the case of wood xing and fire xing , we have c p (0,1) = 1, a constructive relationship. In the case of fire xing and water xing , we have c p (1,4) = -1, ...

The first person in China to explain wuxing (五行) in term of the principle of mutual construction was probably Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒), a Western Han philosopher (around 135 BC). In Chunqiu Fanlu, Fasicle 11, Chapter 42, (春秋繁露, 卷第十一, 五行之义第四十二), he wrote There are five xing in the heaven: the first is Jupiter (wood), the second is Mars (fire), the third is Saturn (earth), the fourth is Venus (metal), and the fifth is Mercury (water). Jupiter (wood) is the first of the five xing , Mercury (water) is the last, and Saturn (earth) is in the middle, this is the heavenly order. Wood begets fire, fire begets earth, earth begets metal, metal begets water, and water begets wood, just like the father-and-son relationship. (天有五行：一曰木，二曰火，三曰土，四曰金，五曰水。木，五行之始也，水，五行之终也，土，五行之中也，此其天次之序也。木生火，火生土，土生金，金生水，水生木，此其父子也。) The fact that wood is assigned the first place in that order is probably because of autotrophic nature of the plants (and hence wood). Following Dong's numerical order, we may assign a numb...

Wuxing (五行) is a very fundamental concept in Chinese fate calculation. Some scholars believe that wuxing originates from the planetary motion of the five planets visible to the naked eyes, namely Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. In the Chinese literature, the term wuxing first appeared in a war declaration when Qi (启), the second King of the Xia Dynasty, was preparing to launch a war on the tribe of You Hu (有扈). Shang Shu: Gan Shi (The Declaration of Gan)《尚书·甘誓》: The tribe of You Hu insulted the wuxing and muddled the correct calendrical order. It is the heaven will that they must be destroyed. I am now to dutifully carry out my heavenly duty to punish them. (有扈氏威侮 五行 ，怠弃三正，天用剿绝其命，今予惟恭行天之罚。) In this text, the term wuxing was not defined. It is possible that the author of the declaration meant to use the term wuxing in its planetary sense or `heaven' in general. The first discussion of Wuxing can be found in Hong Fan (洪范). When Ji Fa (姬发) destroyed the Shang Dyn...

I came across a rather harsh commentary by Prof. Wilhelm G. Solheim II on a recent JMBRAS article written by Prof. Nik Hassan Shuhaimi, to which Prof. Nik replied bitterly in seven points. Therefore, I decided to run a quick biographical check on both Prof Nik and Prof. Solheim . Nik Hassan Shuhaimi Nik Abdul Rahman is currently the president of the Association Malaysian Archeologists. Academically, he is with the Institute of the Malay World and Civilization in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Prof. Nik was born February 4, 1944. He received his early education in Malay School Kubang Keranji, Kota Bharu and the famous Malay College Kuala Kangsar. Between 1962 and 1963, he went to study in Technical College, Kuala Lumpur. In 1965, he was admitted to the Malayan Teachers College in Penang. After obtaining his teaching certificate, he returned to Kelantan and taught in Kubang Kerian Secondary School for about 4 years. After the riot in May 1969, he was admitted to the University of...

A friend of mine sent me an email this afternoon. It is a news clip titled: Genting founder dies. And so, Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong (林梧桐) is now dead. He passed away this morning at Subang Jaya Medical Center. It is not easy to build a business like Genting, because you need a lot of hard work and a lot of luck. There is no doubt that Lim fulfilled the first criterion. To understand how dedicated Lim was, you can read his autobiography or you can go to Genting's website . The second criterion, the luck element, is rarely mentioned. And it is my intention to highlight a little bit in this article. At the time when Lim was 32, he was introduced to a Muarian named Mohammad Noah Omar (1898  –  1991). And the friendship and business partnership between Lim and Noah turned out to be very fruitful and beneficial to both parties. In 1948, the second daughter of Noah, Suhaila, was married to Hussein Onn. Four years later, Noah's youngest daughter, Rahah, was married to Abdul Razak. So, Lim...

In 2003, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov came to Malaysia to do promotion on his fighter jets. Ivanov is a very good business man because he knew his customer very well. And in May 19, 2003, Najib Razak announced that we have agreed to purchase 18 Indian-made Sukhoi-30MKM fighter jets from Russia. Later, it was announced that the price of the 18 jets is $900 millions and there is also an offset agreement in which Russia will offer Malaysia one seat in the Russian spacecraft. Did Ivanov and Najib discussed in detail about the offset agreement in 2003? We are not very sure. But I guess Ivanov must have hinted Najib on the possibility of realizing Malaysian dreams of creating his own Angkasawan, free of charge. Initially, we were told by the Russians that our boy will be trained in Star City, Moscow in 2004 and be sent to space by 2005. But the American businessman, Gregory Hammond Olsen paid $20 millions and he got the place in the Soyuz TMA-7 mission, launched in October 1, 2005....

I need to take two types of math papers when I was in Form Four. The year was 1996 and it was the year when we celebrated the completion of the Petronas Twin Towers. The first paper is called modern math , the second paper is called additional math . Although the first paper is prefixed with the word modern , some of its contents is not modern at all. One example is that the government forced us to learn an outdated technique of multiplying numbers with the aid of four-figure tables. A booklet of four-figure mathematical tables, arranged and compiled by two English mathematicians Jeffrey C. P. Miller (1906 – 1981) and Frank C. Powell (1905 – 1993). I can still recall that I watched bemusedly, as my modern math teacher, Mr. Chan Wai Cheng, demonstrated to us, the lengthy and laborious procedure for obtaining product like $$7314 \times 7986$$ in the classroom. The procedure requires the student to first read the logarithms for the two numbers from the l...

17 years ago, journalist Akiyama Toyohiro (秋山豊寛) was the first passanger to go to space with private fund. On December 2, 1990, he flew on the Russian Soyuz TM-11 to the Mir space station. Akiyama's main purpose in Mir is to conduct live television broadcast to celebrate the 40th annivesary of Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS, 株式会社東京放送), and I believe that this is surely some marketing gimmicks. But there was a very expensive price to pay, for his 190 hours in space, his boss at TBS spent approximately 10 to 20 millions. When he returned to his hometown in Tokyo, Akiyama was rightfully recognized as the first Japanese cosmonaut (日本人初の宇宙飛行士). I am not sure whether or not Dr. Mahathir knew about Akiyama. Chances are that he did not know Akiyama back in 1990, otherwise he could have issued a purchase order to the Russian government and included the Angkasawan project in his Wawasan 2020, announced in 1991.

我没有邱瑞荳和周味结婚的正确日期，但我想应该是在四十年代中期。那这时代，大姑娘们可没有什么选择的机会。但是，阿嬷这样子嫁了也不是坏事，至少阿嬷为人类自然选择尽了力。他生了十个孩子，虽然有一个在孩童时期就死掉了。 生物进化理论不是由达尔文发现的，但是他是第一个就物种进化问题而做出的理论性解释的人。这个解释就是自然选择，是达尔文在一八五九年提的。达尔文的基本理论是：只有那些适应环境的组织可以生存，遗传其特征从而数量增多，传种接代，而那些不适应的就会被淘汰。 是的，阿嬷是生了十个的孩子。但是阿嬷对我说，生这么多又怎样，生这么多也是没有用的。也就是说，阿嬷他老人家他妈的生产了一群没有用的孩子。前面的那一句是阿嬷亲口说的，后面的是我给他补充的。为什么这群孩子没有用呢，我不是很清楚，但阿嬷他自己说的，跟真实的情况应该不会差太远的。当然我也要在这里谢谢我阿嬷，因为这些孩子的其中一人之后生育了一个叫邱静茹的人，所以我现在才有事干。 说了半天，还没有告诉你们阿嬷的宗教信仰。阿嬷是个基督徒，至少在他自己的心里面，阿嬷是个基督徒。照我看，阿嬷应该是来自一个信仰基督的家庭。 你看，阿嬷他老爸叫周保罗，清朝刚解体的年代出生的，洋化的华人名并不普遍，除非你老爸是信耶稣的，才会帮你取这样的名字。但是阿嬷嫁给了阿公，阿公是个信仰传统华人宗教的一个人，他不是基督教徒。 零六年三月七号傍晚六点约三十五分的时候，阿嬷死掉了。阿嬷跟着他的耶和华老大走了。我想阿嬷他一辈子也没干过什么大坏事，阿嬷应该是去天堂吧。 葬礼的时候，在阿嬷的第四的儿子的家，我看到阿嬷的孩子们用道家的仪式来处理阿嬷。一个黑袍道人在两脚伸直向外，仰卧在棺材里面的阿嬷面前，用福建话叽叽歪歪，不懂在念什么。你这样子，如果有天使的话，天使是会被你吓跑的。 所以我说，孩子们都没有体恤老母亲，他们都不清楚，也不理会一般教徒的遗愿。 而在今年，我爸爸的妈妈也因为内脏衰竭死掉了。我的四个阿嬷里面，现在就只剩下方金龙，也就是我老婆妈妈的妈妈。

About 1700 years ago, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great made two decisions that would forever changed the course of human history. The first decision was made in 313 when he signed the Edict of Milan, which granted civil rights and freedom to adopt any religions including Christianity. With this, hundreds of years of oppression of Christianity in the Roman Empire was effectively brought to an end. The second decision was that, shortly before his death in 337, Constantine was baptized and thus, formally adopted Christianity. In some ways, these decisions have profound effects in accelerating the growth of Christianity, and therefore making the Bible the most important literature ever produced. However, pious Christians often see the Bible as a source of spiritual inspiration and lack the knowledge of the evolution of its content. To understand the present structure of the Bible, it is necessary to go back to the Jews living in ancient Judea. The ancient Jews, like many other earl...

We learned quite a great deal about Malacca in secondary school. We were taught, for examples, that Malacca was a great seaport during the 15th century which has attracted a lot of people to do business there, that the founder of this kingdom is an Indonesian prince called Parameswara, that Tun Perak is a wise prime minister, and so on. However, the standard history textbook pays extremely little attention on the connection between Malacca and China, despite the fact that Malacca is intricately related to Ming China. In 1403, Zhu Di 朱棣 became the third emperor of Ming Dynasty. One of the important decisions he made almost immediately after he ascended to the throne was to order a series of marine expeditions to the Indian Ocean. This famous series of expedition is, as you might already know, led by a muslim eunuch named Zheng He 鄭和. In October 1403, diplomatic emissaries were sent out to a lot of foreign countries. A eunuch named Yin Qing 尹庆 was sent to Malacca 满剌加, bringing wi...

我是在两年前过年的时候认识周味这个女人的，他是我老婆的阿嬷，那时是在老人院里边认识他的。本来是没有想过会去的，是那一天老婆突然向我提起，然后我们几个就开了车过去。到了老人屋，一推开门就见到了阿嬷，他就呆坐在一架十四吋的小电视机前面。 其实我听老婆讲他阿嬷的故事讲了许多，只是一直没有亲眼见过他本人，这一次是我第一次见到了他。阿嬷看见有这么多孙子来看他，心里一定很爽，虽然当时我好像没有看到他笑。阿嬷的人很和蔼，很可爱，也很叽喳，就像小孩子一样。我们没有血缘关系，但我从见到他的那一刻就打从心里把他当成自己的阿嬷来看待。 一开始我就问阿嬷他的生日，老人家不懂。我再问阿嬷的生肖，老人家说他知道，但他忘了。后来我们讲着讲着，阿嬷突然间想起，想起了原来他是属兔的，他是一只快要八十岁的老母兔。 之后我知道了阿嬷农历的生日，他农历的生日是在丁卯年十一月二十九号，换算成现在的格里历就是二七年十二月二十二号。为什么我会算呢，因为我会背子丑寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥。华人的历法就有这个好处，只要你会这十二个地支，你就能够根据一个人的生肖算出他的年龄。 阿嬷的出生地是在印尼，当时是荷兰鬼佬统治的。在他十几岁的时候，苏卡诺想当老大，发起民族独立主义，说要他不爽荷兰人，并要赶走他们。可能当时印尼政局不稳定，周保罗举家迁了过来马来亚。这是二战前的事情，迁过来后，阿嬷就住在柔佛州麻坡县六马路，就是我以前住了十多年的地方。按阿嬷第一个儿子的出生年份来算，他应该是在迁过来之后几年就嫁了给年长他七岁的邱瑞荳。

There are many theories proposed to explain why Jews, Muslims and some of the pious Christians cannot consume pork or pig products. Reasons such as pigs are filthy, pork are extremely contaminated, pig is the object of worship in the Abrahamic religions, etc are frequently given. But you should not listen to any of these because all of them are not correct. The correct reason is very simple: because this is an order directly from God. For Muslims, this order can be found in Al-Baqarah (سورة البقرة) Verse 173. And for Jews and Christians, the order is explicitly mentioned in Leviticus Chapter 11 Verse 7. Accordingly, an animal is edible if only it is clean. And a clean animal fulfills two criteria: it chews cud and has split hoof. In Leviticus 11:4 to 11:7, God mentioned Moses and Aaron, four examples which fail His criteria. Because cows and goats fulfill the two criteria, beef and mutton are considered clean for consumption. However, because the above Mosaic dietary criteria have bee...

It is well known that the traditional religion of the Chinese is polytheistic. And two of our most popular deities are Guan Yu (关羽) and Avalokitesvara (阿婆卢吉低舍婆罗). According to Chen Shou (陈寿), Guan was born in between 147 to 167 AD in Shanxi (山西). Near the end of Eastern Han Dynasty (东汉, 200 – 220 AD), he was recruited by the warlord Liu Bei (刘备) at Hebei (河北) and became his bodyguard. When Liu was defeated by Cao Cao (曹操), Guan was captured and given a post in Cao’s administration. However, because of his loyalty to Liu, he did not stay long with Cao and later returned to Liu. He was subsequently killed and decapitated in Hubei (湖北). Guan's death is intricately related to Zhuge Liang's (诸葛亮) decision for not dispatching military forces to assist Guan when he was surrounded by Sun Quan's (孙权) men. Deitification of Guan and mass constructions of temple worshiping Guan actually started about 900 years ago. During this period, Guan was given many honorific titles by many impe...