Constructive Deconstruction

The bludgeoning of hope.

*A very rant-y post*

I got pretty pissed when I saw Jean’s entry “Students advised to transfer to ITE so as not to affect school ranking?” No, I wasn’t pissed at Jean but at the article that she raised.

The focus on ranking and KPIs are something that I’ve often debated about with some of my scholarly friends(who are slated to run these systems from the top one fine day). It seems to me that everyone who gets inducted into the system begins to accept the justifications for why things are and their energy to ask the question, “Why can’t it be better?” begins to evaporate.

And I guess this attitude, trickles down. In the case of the article, the message really is, “You’re a no hope. Go elsewhere where it’s more suited for your level of inaptitude.” Now blast me all you want. Go ahead, tell me that the principal had kind intentions. The truth is, those kids made it past their ‘N’ level exams unlike their other batchmates. By the yardstick set BY THE SYSTEM, these guys were deemed able to take on the ‘O’ Levels. And whatever hope they had to actually take that path just had to be crushed.

Worse thing about this case, is how the principal of that unmentioned school WANTS 100% passes. Jean’s already written what i want to say about this so go over to her post to read it. Screw education as an ideal. It’s the report card that matters.

You want to know why there’s little hope left in Singaporeans? It’s because the people who run it are so fixated on KPIs.

“How can the system be made ideal?” is a question that people rarely ask themselves anymore here in Singapore. And it’s a very important question because it’s closely tied with hope. Why? Because it’s a question one can sincerely ask himself if there’s a glimmer of hope to actually realise it.

Sure, we all know it’s naive to fully believe that you can realise and idealistic goal. But we’ve become such a pragmatic place that there’s no more room for hope.

We just do what we can.
We just be what we’re allowed to be.
We just…are.
and you hope-filled idealists better start conforming.

Bug in Facebook Mobile Makes Emails Free For All

Apparently, someone found out a security hole on the mobile site for Facebook that makes your email address visible to anyone regardless of your security settings.

I’m sure it’ll get fixed in a jiffy. But it does remind everyone how vulnerable we are when it comes to our data privacy. Maybe it’s time more stringent measures are legislated when it comes to social networks handling user information…

A disturbing security hole has been discovered by a user of the mobile site for Facebook.

No matter what level of privacy you have set on your email address, it is visible on the contacts page (seen on a Windows Mobile device). No word as of yet if it this error can be replicated on phones running other operating systems, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if that were the case.

This is a recent discovery, and shouldn’t be too difficult to rectify once the Facebook security team gets on it. But until the problem is remedied, it’s free-for-all on stalking your exes.

( Source : Mashable )

Google Pagerank Update Again: Will PayPerPost users still be "kept out of the Internet"?

This piece of news might be of interest to those who have been anxious about their pagerank being dropped…or are just waiting for their new domain names to get a pagerank at all.

Apparently, there’s an update that’s underway. Not all the servers have been updated but it a comment left on mashable indicates that it might be in the process.

It’s sad how PayPerPost got ‘kicked out of the Internet’ by Google. It’s just not right for anyone to do that…Ok, so they’re a corporate entity and they’re entitled to do whatever they want….Maybe it’s time to draw parallels between them and Microsoft. Anti-trust. Monopoly. Ring a bell?

Ok…Maybe i’m feeling sour coz i got dropped from 4 to 0 in their last update. Bleagh. I hope they give me back my rank…*sobz*

It looks like Google may be playing around with everyone’s PageRanks again.

The last time this happened was in October when we all learned that selling links from your site could lead to your getting a big ole zero. This event led to PayPerPost, a site well known for purchasing links, to change their name to Izea, and later create their own ranking system, IZEARanks. The basic idea is to try to wrest some control of a ranking system from the hands of just one company, and provide a more “true” ranking system for blogs.

( Source : Mashable )