AI-Ed Resources| XML | Java | XML, Learning Objects & e-Learning Resources| ARIES Lab| Wise Word Welcome to WeK-isdom Music for sadness! "If he cann't play any music instrument, he can still sing, if he cann't sing, he can still whistle, if he cann't whistle, he can still dance, if he cann't dance, he can still write music. But if he cann't do either of these, would you like him to cry instead? But he cann't cry no more 'cause he got no more tears left, but if he could, that would make a perfect music of sadness and perhaps will treat you to your impeccable dance style?." Uncle Ben 2004, nothing works his life is falling apart Please, leave me, I am leaving! "It is hard to farm and not farm too much, when you need much more farm products!" Uncle Ben 2004 farming with no return I am gone hunting for food "I know I am hungry because I have much knowledge to know I am. I am gone hunting, but I won’t kill any animal for food, ‘cause I want shed no blood of any creature". Uncle Ben 2004, Minds and Memories of Equatorial Forest We all need shared understanding "Even if we are complicated from inside, different in perception and reception of externalities, for simplicity sake and clarity purpose we are similar on the surface and this similarity is our common ground for establishing shared understanding and keeping our diversity in an ordered order!" Uncle Ben 2003 Age, no worry "I am not old because of the number of years I have been spending on earth but rather my old age is attributed to the number of hours I spend on thinking business everyday!" Uncle Ben, think less and be young, May, 8th 2003 What 's wrong with cloning? "Cloning is nothing other than scientific advancement from social and technological persepctives and it has been part of our daily life. We tend to clone ourselves almost everyday. We always act in ways that are not typical of our normal behaviours and yet we insist we are what we are, we smile even if we are not in the mood, we nod our heads in conversation even if we are not following it, or interested in listening. Are we not cloning 'ourselves' representations of ourselves everyday? I wonder!" Uncle Ben, clone or no clone, we clone everyday 30th January, 2003 Someday Technology "What if one day there is a fluid piece of computer chip that can be injected into one's blood so that one can easily monitor what other people think and even plan to do for the next one hour and within few metres away without them necessarily saying a word and even realizing that they are under surveillance! How do we draw the lines of personal privacy?" Uncle Ben, 30th January, 2003 The Value of Freedom "Freedom is utterly useless until it is taken away from you but for those who are born in bondage, grow and live in bondage, do not value it either!" Uncle Ben, 30th January, 2003 The Value-less Value of Pride "Pride, a good thing you can show any much of it if you have already earned and own it, than show any of it all while you are earning or wish you could!" Uncle Ben, 30th January, 2003 Too much Noise in Data? "Data that has too much noise in it, gives you little only if you are able to identify the amount of noise!" Uncle Ben, Precision is a relative concept. December 9th 2002 Negative Gossip "Most people who enjoy negative gossip about other people, normally hate being gossiped about." Uncle Ben, Gossip, a sense of prideless pride. December, 9th 2002 The Value of Trust "Imagine life without trust--I mean how much can a person do without having trust in herself/himself? How can people live and work together without trusting each other? I often realise that the real value of trust comes not until everyone else starts suspecting each other and subsequently distrusting one another and the system at large!" Uncle Ben, the value of trust, 13th November 2002 Suspicion "Any man who has a built-in suspicion of every man in the world is a prime suspect himself!" Uncle Ben,imagination is your own creation. 13th November 2002 A Good Friend "A good friend is someone who laughs with you in the morning and cries with you in the evening. Something inbetween has some "attitude problems" but for sure s/he is better than one who does not have any attitude or does not even fall inbetween!" Uncle Ben in polite falsehood in friendship, 13th November 2002 What a Life? "You do not need a wife to be alive, but you need a certain life to be a wife!" Uncle Ben, the funny bachalor, 14th November 2002 My MOm? "I love my mom, because she was always there when I needed her---but my dad, hmmmmm, he is all time there even if I didn't need him, but I love his old timer stories more than my mom's softer stories!" Uncle Ben, fathers and mothers--14th November 2002 Not Every Experience can Create Wisdom "Wisdom can be an outcome of experience, but possession of the same experiences for many years won't make you wise!". Uncle Ben, still water runs deep, October, 2002 Not Every Experience can Create Wisdom "Wisdom can be an outcome of experience, but possession of the same experiences for many years won't make you wise!". Uncle Ben, still water runs deep, October, 2002 Love, an Irresistible Desire "Love is an irresistible desire, whose resistance is irresistibly desired. While love is mostly a reflection of desire, desire is not always a reflection of love!" Uncle Ben, Waves of Love and Desire 6th October, 2002 Not Every Experience can Create Wisdom "Wisdom can be an outcome of experience, but possession of the same experiences for many years won't make you wise!". Uncle Ben, still water runs deep, October, 2002 Doubt of the Reality "If you discover that you are related to Jesus at this time, no one will believe you. No one believed Jesus when he first announced that he was the son of God!" Uncle Ben, the act of doubting the truth. 20th August 2002 The total Worth of Love "Imagine the love God gives to the world, imagine the respect, love and faith the religious leaders pay to God, assume that these are all sum up, the total worth is equivalent to what you should give and get from your partners, lovers, husbands, or wives!" Uncle Ben, Message to the abused and refused world of Love and Care. 1st August 2002 The Feeling of Computer-Mediated Communication "The feeling of computer-mediated communication also known as virtual communication, is tantamount to the rythm of music, you enjoy it more when you are in it and more less outside it. Until you can actually remember the hits and feel of the rythm and start singing the music or whistling it yourself, that feeling is momentary and it is almost forgotten and discarded forever!." Uncle Ben, Message to the Virtual Communities. 10th,July 2002 When to Enjoy God! "When you remember God when you are Dead or Dying, you will never enjoy him/her when you are living." Uncle Ben, Message to the children of the metaphysical World 10th,July 2002 Purchase of Political Dishonesty "The majority of the political leaders in the world go selling their fame in form of promises which are more of worth less than what they can actually offer, and the results is purchases of bags of hatred, shame, fear and lack of confidence from the populace." Uncle Ben, Message to the motherland 10th,July 2002 Penalty for the Violation of the Code of Ignorance "The constant quest for knowledge is a permanent violation of the code of ignorance, whose penalty is life in starvation, with heavy labour in lifelong search for insatiable Knowledge." Uncle Ben, Message to the Scientific Community. 19th June 2002 Two and Three Ways to Live Your Life "Albert Einstein long time in 1879-1955 believed that there are only two ways to live your life, one way is to live as if everything is a miracle and the other is to live as if nothing is a miracle. However, in this life today, hope disappears when what often comes between the two ways of living is unknown and the need to know it, is the sole basis for the resurrection of happiness!" Uncle Ben, Message to the World of Today. 19th June 2002 When the Meaning of Home Becomes Relative "I have no home, my home is where you found me, so please, don't ask me where I belong because I belong to where you found me." Uncle Ben, Message to the Children in Diaspora. When one Hope is Gone and You Reached the Edge of All the Light You Have "When you come to the edge of all the light you have and you must take a step into the darkness of the unknown, believe one of the two things will happen to you: either there will be something solid for you to stand on or you will learn how to fly." - Patrick Overton Submitted by G.E. - Prince Edward Island, Canada One Software Solution is Often Just Another New Problem "If you go buy off-the-shelf Software Solution to solve your problem, better know what you need to solve than what the solution can do for you. You can always invent your own solution, if you can not invent any, pray to God. But if you are not all that religious, then send the people who tricked you to buy the solution by the next trip to hell. If you are too shy to do that then bless those who developed the software solution, for they did not know your problem and never even thought of your specifics when they developed that solution in the first place." Uncle Ben's 4th June, 2002 Easy to Get Married But Difficult to Stay Married! "Marriage, a sacred societal institution, whose membership status are easier and almost free to attain but difficult to sustain, so much so that few are often blessed to maintain its status-quo! Most of those who plan their membership or their non-membership carefully, whether outside this institution or inside it manage to live their lives happier, either from within it or without it." Uncle Ben's Advice to the Children 4th June, 2002 It Takes Too Long to Get to Know Each other But often milliseconds to Like Each Other! "The fact that two or more people like each other is no gurrantee that they know each other. To like a person without knowing that person is like building a house without a concrete foundation. Such a house is good enough and ready for the evil Tornado to put it down even if there are already good people living in it!" Uncle Ben's Advice to the Children 4th June, 2002 My Mom Didn't Teach Me Everything! "My mother did not teach me everything but she is wise enough to teach me to understand just that." Uncle Ben's 4th June, 2002 Where Your Goals are Located Matters Less More than When You Get them "Whether you are walking or crawling you don't have to know what route to take, not even know where you are going, so long your goal is to get something from somewhere, where that thing is located is almost always irrelevant more than the goal itself!" Uncle Ben's 4th June, 2002 You Can not See Darkness When There is Light And You can not See Light in the Dark! "You can not see darkness when there is light, just as you can not see light in the dark. But you can always either choose to see light or darkness. Whatever way you take, don't worry, it acts like a boolean, there is either hell or heaven for your destination and not both but only the presence of one state can be true at a time, even if you do believe in other things. But the true existence of a value is reflected in either your latent or manifest choices. Either way, why worry, since the results are equal and one!" Uncle Ben's in "Paddling without a boat in bottomless African Sea" 4th June, 2002 "The more we embark on serious observation of others, we usually forget to observe ourselves as true images of others under observation." Uncle Ben's 4th, March 2002 Life is Like a Drama "If life is like a drama, then everybody is an actor, though some people are more skilled actors than others with varied and multiple selves." Uncle Ben's 4th, March 2002 If Everyone Says the Truth "If everybody says the truth and only the truth, then nobody will be called a liar!" Uncle Ben's 4th, March 2002 It's Easy to Get Paid for What You Say Than Do! "You are not usually paid for all that you do, but for every word you say, you are likely to get paid more than its worth, so choose you words carefully!" Uncle Ben's 4th, March 2002 If Dreams Comes Before Sleeping "If dreams comes before sleeping, then there will be no need for day dreaming and wishes!" Uncle Ben's 3rd, March 2002 A Smart Scientist "If you are the first to discover new knowledge, you are a lucky scientist; because someone else would have been lucky, but if you created totally new knowledge then you are a smart scientist, because no one else has". Uncle Ben's 24th, Feb. 2002 Learning New Knowledge: A Process of Relation "People acquire new knowledge through relating it to existing one. It is not merely filling something into an empty vessel. There has to be something for the new knowledge to sit on, say a node or whatever you called it. Just think of it like a house with no furniture, if you are filling this house with some furniture, then these things will have to not only sit but fit on something somewhere in the house, and that somewhere and something, the empty house and its contours in this case, becomes the existing knowledge in which the new one will sit and fit". Uncle Ben's 24th, Feb. 2002 The End of New Scientific Knowledge "One way of ending the production of new scientific knowledge is by labeling old constructs with new names, instead of creating new constructs. Observations have it that old constructs are continuously given new names, and deemed totally new. A new construct is that which is one, not only by its very new name but its state and behaviour, newly invented therein, else, a new definition of new is justifiable and immediately necessary!" Uncle Ben's 24th, Feb. 2002" Learning a New Culture "Learning a new culture is like arriving to strange country. At first everything looks different, the streets names, the fall of darkness,the morning dawn, the sound of birds in the air, the smell of the air, the taste of coffee, milk, food, and even the barking of the unbarking dogs and meowing of cats everywhere; everything not only looks different, but worsestill, much terrifying, and makes you want to go home right away. But wait, through time with some effort to learn, BOY, you 'll love it as much as the way you hated it the time you arrived and even more. Your strange country becomes your home, a home out of homes that you 'll promise not to leave until time part". Uncle Ben's excepts from "The Search for Wisdom and Boredom in Strange Waters" Open Your Eyes Before The Light Appears "For you to see the light at the end of the tunnel, you have to go looking for it with your eyes wide open, otherwise, you won't recognize it from the darkness, with your eyes closed". Uncle Ben's advice to the children 24th, Feb. 2002 Social Virus "If your reasoning throws error everytime you say something, try consider running the virus scanner on your head before you say anything, maybe your head has caught a dangerous social virus." Uncle Ben's advice to the children 24th, Feb. 2002 Information is not Knowledge "Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music, music is the best." Frank Zappa Everyone is a Visitor in your House "Inasmuch as I'm a visitor in your house, I don't pretend to stay on forever, and own your house, 'course I know even if I do, I will not, no one whatever the case, under the same laws of physics, will stay in your house forever as much as no one will stay in the world forever, no one owns the world. So why cann't we stay together and have a nice time in the mean time as we await that evil time?" Uncle Ben's advice to the children 20th, Feb. 2002 I Really Don't Want to Know "I really don't know, how heavy your burden is until I carry it myself." Uncle Ben 20th, Feb. 2002 Virtual Learning Community, whats that? "A community - any community - is a virtual entity (much in the way that people say that a church is the congregation and not the building). It is created by the members of the community and is an emergent property of the network of relations between those members. As such, because membership may not be precisley defined, so also the bounds of a community may not be precisely defined (though through history and even in education today there are many attempts to artificially draw such boundaries)". Stephen Downes 15th, Feb. 2002 How to be in friendship with Compilers “The only way to be friendly to compilers is to stay away from bugs!" Uncle Ben 8th, Feb. 2002 Holiday Time “They asked me when do I usually take my holiday, and I said, EVERYDAY! They asked me how come? And I replied, the only time I'm on holiday is when I'm sleeping and since, I get that everyday, I don't need any holidays! They said hmmmmm, how do these kind of holidays look like. And I said they don't look any better except when I'm snoring." Uncle Ben 8th, Feb. 2002 Invention of Writing “Whoever invented writing, did not plan to talk." Uncle Ben 8th, Feb. 2002 Why Most People Don't Want to Go to Heaven “Most People want to go to heaven but none of them wants to die, unfortunatley, the only way to go to heaven is to die"! Uncle Ben 6th, Feb. 2002 The Value of Heaven “Some will come to care, know, and value heaven, not when they are in heaven but until they are in hell"! Uncle Ben How a Theory Becomes Impractical “The impracticality of a Theory Marks the Limitaion of Imagination, So if a Theory is not Prcatical, it is because the imagination that drives the Practicality is Limited!" Uncle Ben 6th, Feb. 2002 Avoiding Problems in a Meeting “If you don't want to talk in a meeting in order to avoid problems, you should act like a fly on the wall, but some flies talk too!" Gina 6th, Feb. 2002 The Only time your Mind is Active “The only time your mind is conscious is between the state of unconsciousness and consciousness. So if you ever want to absorb new information, this is the right time. Depending on when your day begins and ends!” Uncle Ben 4th, Feb. 2002 Computers Can Model You Too! “Just like the models you create of all the people you know, nice, ugly, beautiful, smart, cool, cold etc..., can be wrong or right, they are your own imagination and creation, the computer can imagine and create a model of you too, whether it is right or wrong, it is the imagination and creation of the designer.” Uncle Ben 4th, Feb. 2002 The Process of Building Scientific Knowledge “What comes to be known as Scientific Knowledge, is often built on a chain of knowledge, whether empty or not, it is one, which falls in that chain. But to contribute to that chain, you need to have a model of that chain, and perhaps its model of you. Once you have its model, and its model of you and your modelling it, you begin to question its model, your model, its modelling you and your modelling it, so….asking is not unforgiving in the knowledge community when you acquire both models and the modelling processes.” Uncle Ben 2nd, Feb. 2002 Even if You Know Nothing, You Learn Faster “The more we know, the more we don’t know. But we never know what we don’t know, until we come to know what we don’t know or someone else tells us so, either way. Only at the last order, but if and only if, we accept that order, we shall possibly begin to learn what we need to know, which we didn’t know in the first order. But we ‘ll all either exit the desire to be lifelong learners when the beginning of the end of life begins or may be just at its very end and thence, the end of all orders!” Uncle Ben 24th, April. 2001 Absent-Mindness is not Mindlessness “People who appear to be absent-minded most of the time are not, in fact, they are thinking most of the time. It is only that they are not thinking about what you expect them to think.” Uncle Ben July 14th, 1997 Best Way to Stay Awake "I usually sleep with my eyes open. This saves me alot of time, so that when I finally wake up, I don't need to open my eyes again." Uncle Ben May 29th, 1998 Homelessness “I live in London when I'm at home!" Jack Dawkins: "the artful dodger" (Oliver Twist-Charles Dickens) Home| CS Home| ARIES Lab| U of S Please, mail Suggestions to Ben Daniel All Rice Deserved but All Rights Reserved © 2000-2002 Last modified May 8th 2003