shanghai OPEN

Hello,


Here are the motions from the recently-concluded inaugural Shanghai International Debate Open. The Adj Core comprised of Zheng Bo, Mai Mokhsein, Chanel Chan and TJ.

Preliminary Rounds

1) This House regrets the celebritisation of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

2) This House supports a match-making industry where parents "shop" for the spouses of their children.

3) This House believes that governments should never pay ransom to terrorists for hostage taking.

4) This House would offer lighter sentences to criminals in exchange for information about crimes committed by their criminal syndicate.

5) This House believes that countries should be responsible for civil aviation tragedies that happen in their airspace.

6) This House would ban the use of civilian drones.

Knockout Rounds

Quarterfinal

You are a high school teacher in love with your 16-year old. She initiated and actively pursued the romance. You have, on several occasions, rejected her pursuit. This House, as the teacher, would date the student.

Semifinal

This House believes that the Police must not bear arms.

Final

This House believes that the International Criminal Court should prosecute the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for hate crimes against Palestinians.

Adj-Core Favorite

The time now is 2016. In response to a failed attempt to assassinate Kim Jong Un, conducted by a retired South Korean marine, North Korea decided to declare war.

This House believes that the Chinese Government should join the war to support North Korea. 

traversing the WOODS

Another lazy lazy Saturday. Plenty of procrastination, career fantasy roleplaying (never gets old!), cherishing the one random Quora upvote and three more movies. 

I have never been much of a movie person. Well, I have never been an anything person. But, in any conversation, I always manage to surprise ALL my friends with the list of movies I have missed. I confess – I haven’t watched Titanic, Jurassic Park and the older releases of most Super/Bat/Ironman/James Bond stories. In fact, I can count all the times I have been to a theatre (before Singapore) with my two hands – and still have enough fingers to chopstick-eat my noodles. 

However, this is changing. With so much free time in Shanghai during the weekends, I am making a concerted effort to overcome my movie gulf (traversing the unknown woods of Hollywood, Bollywood, Kollywood). Some of the movies I enjoyed a lot in the last two months – Shawshank Redemption, Now You See Me, Inglorious Basterds, Kedi Billa Killadi Ranga, A Beautiful Mind, Tenali Raman, Dhoni and Transformers (with friends at the Cinema – needless to write, first Transformers movie). 

Today’s movies were – Inception, Shaadi ke Side Effects and Rang de Basanti. Inception was cool, innovative but being the novice movie watcher, I found myself lost in the details of how Inception worked. Shaadi ke Side Effects was an interesting, entertaining, unintellectual movie, Farhan Akhtar’s parental anecdotes had me in fits of laughter – that my roommate found it prudent to check on my mental wellbeing. Rang de Basanti is probably my favorite movie of today’s picks, for several reasons not limited to – an engaging, refreshing, resonating story, nice music and Alice Patten’s smile. 

Despite 20+ movies recently, I know – I still got a long way to go to appreciate the wonders that’s cinema. If there’s any movie you think I shouldn’t absolutely miss, leave it as a comment. 

P.S: Rest in Peace, Robin Williams. Sadly, I didn’t know him until he passed away (except as Washington in Night at the Museum). Maybe, I will watch his movies tomorrow.

goodbye, old friend

Dear lappu,

As curtains come down on your extraordinary work life, here are a few final nice words. 

You have always been a fighter - you survived countless ordeals and came back strong each time. You braved the tortures of Sham Shui Po, multiple falls from considerable heights and innumerable open-heart surgeries courtesy your ever-accompanying screwdriver buddies. Yet, you always rose up strong and managed to accomplish most things.

You were such an entertainer - you had people breaking up every time you dealt with a xebra, cxar or Ximbabwe. 

You were a facilitator - you spurred me to write this blog. You aided me bond with some of my best friends. You allowed me to create and follow my dreams.  

You have been a wonderful companion - lying quietly at the corner of my bed - always there for me when things became difficult. 

You have been a great wingman - allowing me to stalk high school/university crushes and say "hi!" without the nervousness of real-life. 

You were my pilot to exciting new worlds - despite your shortcomings (and there are quite a few of them), you were crucial in my internship offers, debate stuff and research experiences.

You taught me to overcome constraints - you were never the fanciest thing the world of technology had to offer. You had your fair share of tantrums. People found you cranky and hard to use. But, you taught me to - stop grumbling and make do with what I have. You taught me that the weakest among us still have qualities worth cherishing and defending. You taught me - sometimes, putting along with a temperamental thing may not be so bad after all.   

After your mousepad decided to call it quits, I have been thinking - maybe you should take your hard-earned retirement after so long. Maybe, younger systems should deal with the mess that is computing. Maybe, you should take a vacation to Singapore/Hawaii/Europe, visit a beach town, sit back, relax, sip a martini and take in the fresh air. 

Goodbye, old friend. You will be missed. 

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Ni Hao Ma!

Hello from my new chocolate-wrapper-strewn digs at Shanghai. Agreed, I seem to have grown a virtual beard of non-writing but hopefully, things will brighten up starting now. 

I am currently an SDET intern at Microsoft Shanghai in the Zizhu campus. So far, I have worked on testing frameworks, performance testing, data pipelines (which warrants an entire tragedy post by itself) and now figuring out Hadoop for Microsoft HDInsight. 

It has been quite an interesting journey so far. I have been learning every single day and a lot of helpful people helping me get settled. Worthy of mention is Sheldon, Charles, Rodge (the Meri expert), Jingfei (for teaching me all about Github and tolerating my stupid questions) and my current mentor - Yun Hu. My usual summer cycle of hope-frustration-sleep-inspiration is happening in full flow. I come to office nicely rested, get this nice brainwave, and yesterday's problem gets fixed. Two hours later, I get bogged down by a new issue and go home racking my head about it. Sometimes, it make me yearn for the safe comforting environment that is university life but recently, following several Quora posts, I'm learning to accept "life sucks" and starting to deal with it. I have also been visiting the gym enough for the trainers to recognise me, so life's not too bad, eh? 

I am also on the Microsoft Intern Management Committee as its Chief Evangelist and hopefully, we are able to dole out some fun events for the interns to attend. 

P.S: Sometimes, I question the purpose of my being at such an tech-savvy organization. Then, I realize my caffeine addiction is at least benefiting the Microsoft pantry stocker. So, in this "What-is-the-purpose-of-life?" period of my life, it comforts me to know that somewhere, someone is happy because of me.