Avatar

I watched Avatar today. On one hand I really loved the visuals. It is extraordinary to actually watch a CGI film in 3D, with force feedback seats. That added significantly to the experience. I still wonder at how the latest 3D technology works, with what appears to be polarized glasses instead of the old red-blue variety. Great stuff. Slick action sequences, scenes that could have been straight out of World of Warcraft or some other fantasy-themed RPG...that's the ticket.

Now, the problem I have with the show is that the storyline is tired. Essentially, it's a reskinned Pocahontas meets Last Samurai. Colonial fella meets exotic native tribe, falls in love with exotic native tribeswoman, fights on side of exotic natives, natives win. If anything, the Na'Vi were something of a cross between African tribespeople and Native Americans, what with the attitudes towards the world as sentient (it really was in this case) and mystical rituals looking like they came from a documentary on Africa. And then of course we will have the customary reference to the War on Terror and environmentalism (with humans coming from a "dying world"). In the end, as is expected, the exotic tribespeople get their butts handed to them by modern firepower but win in the end due to a Deus Ex incident. Maybe we're (thankfully) still guilty about what we did with the natives back then.

Did I like the show? Hell yeah. I like great big CGI battles (even more so in 3D with force feedback) and epic duels. Preferably with lots of slaughter. Storyline...well it's tired, but still a goody. Can't say I didn't expect what happened in the end. I think many would see that coming from a mile away. Still, I'd give the movie a 8/10. Mostly from the gorgeous visuals and action sequences.

I could not help but notice that Full Metal Jacket reference, however. Damn do I love a machinegunner that says Git SOME!

Farcry 2

Farcry 2. A shooter game. Yup that's mostly it. Farcry 2 is a shooter game with malaria and some treasure hunting thrown in and a storyline of some sort that is what I'd call shooter porn. Dangerous fella ships weapons around (threat to the World Order), so obviously our brave hero has to get in there and stop the horror. Typical.

Ok what's good. I like the visuals, the feel of driving vehicles, the standard weaponry. I especially like the way explosions finally wipe people out in a respectable radius and are quite proficient at starting fires...which in turn spread all over the place according to the wind. Nifty. Weapons jam and blow up when worn out...not so nifty, but ok it's semi-realistic. I really would have preferred it if the sniper rifles had either variable scopes and/or longer ranges, tho.

Now for the bad. Besides the story, which is as good as nonexistent. We don't care about stories in shooters, silly! Anyway, I am quite annoyed by the whole malaria and enemy spotting spiel. Right so we have the hero down with malaria, which gives periodic debilitating attacks...sometimes in the middle of battle. Fair enough...so we have malaria medicine to deal with the attacks. That's really great, except the meds don't cure the malaria. They treat the symptoms or something, because the malaria intensity level actually varies as the story progresses! Not to mention it's actually possible to run out of malaria meds so you wind up crippled in the middle of nowhere...without even an enemy to take you out.

Now about enemies spotting...you. Enemies have an uncanny ability to spot the hero through foliage. In fact, it is entirely possible for an enemy sniper to peg you right through a tree's foliage when you can't see the enemy if you're looking right back at the time. Come on guys! Dammit, man. I hate getting shot at by an enemy that should not be able to see me!

It may be nice that the world map is reasonably large and has bus interchanges whereby it becomes possible to cross the map without having to drive through the darned thing. Problem being, of course, that since the maps are quite big, there's a goodly bit of driving around to be done anyway. And of course the mission area will be somewhere far from where you are, so...drive away. That would be no problem, except there will be populated guard posts along the way...with a bunch of enemies shooting at you. No...if you depopulate them with a hail of lead, they'll be repopulated eventually. Nasty.

I like shooting enemies. It is fun. Especially with my sniper rifle. But even for me, it gets pretty old after awhile, primarily because I get virtually no kickback for doing it. No special weapons upgrades or items to pick off them or leveling up my hero. Well...I suppose I could just get in a vehicle and zip past so I can get away. Right? Wrong. They'll pop into the tacticals parked in the area...and use the mounted machineguns to shoot, so they'll have to die anyway.

Yes. The answer was staring me in the face. I shall use explosives to take out their vehicle. Well...not exactly. Since they regard their vehicle's machinegun as a sort of melee weapon, they're busy trying to kiss my vehicle's butt even after I get out of mine. Say hello to my grenade launcher! *BOOM* Dammit...now I just blew up my own ride along with theirs. Well I hope you're happy, because now I'm going to have to walk to my mission...or pick up a ride along the way -_-

Indeed, it is entirely possible to have a game with such great physics, gorgeous graphics, large maps, spreadable bushfires and nice numbers of enemies...yet still make it less than fun.

3-Pin Fiasco

I realize I made a silly mistake when buying a multi plug extension. Worst of all, it was discovered way too late for me to really do anything about it. Anyway, the problem was 'coz I didn't know what an adapter-free 2-pin socket looked like! So when I saw that sloping slot for 2 pin plugs, I automatically assumed that they would fit.

Big mistake. The first time I tried to slot the 2 pins in, they got stuck. Ok I guess it's a virgin socket. A bit of action would loosen it up. Nope, no such luck. If anything, they got even MORE stuck. Which was bad.

Anyway, it's lucky that I happened to have a lot of 3 pin adapters left over from my last project, so the situation was salvageable. Just a self note: Don't do that again. -_-

Rapid Cognitions

I just finished reading Gladwell's Blink, and it is a fascinating book indeed. One part mentioned the capability of rapid cognition, and I think it is a rather good insight on why people do the strange things they do. Humans are very capable processors and can produce rapid cognitions at incredible speeds. Examples of rapid cognitions include evaluating whether someone is a threat who is about to attack, and evaluating someone for friendship potential.

However, rapid cognitions can be overridden, as proven by the experiment whereby people seen performing poorly are evaluated as poor performers regardless of their context. This was mentioned in Gladwell's Tipping Point. The combination of the two explains why snap judgements can go so wrong, even when people would not consciously act that way. For example, a person may not be consciously racist, yet still associate racial minorities with crime simply because crimes perpetrated by minorities appear in the papers pretty often. That rapid cognition also proves resistant to facts to the contrary, like statistics that can be completely contrary to those beliefs.

While rapid cognitions are certainly useful in situations where snap decisions are essential, those situations are comparatively rare in urban life (except perhaps in the case of a mugging or potential car accident) and time can in fact be taken to rethink snap decisions. The problem, perhaps, is an inability or unwillingness to consider information to the contrary. Understandably, some may argue that feelings (a part of rapid cognition) are an intrinsic part of being human, and one should not be living like a machine thinking everything rationally over. However, part of the quest to be a fully realized human also involves not blindly following those "feelings" like some dumb animal. Doing so would likely maximize the potential of human cognitions, and prove greatly beneficial when truly integrated into daily life.

Sucker's Market

It seems that small markets lacking depth are often sucker's markets. That is, the prices that are settled on tend to wind up being wildly inconsistent with the evaluations of larger markets. More importantly, it is disturbingly easy to game a low depth market.

Assume that a market has say a trading volume of 5. Of the 5, 2 have anomalous trades that bring the last done average down. With 40% of the market selling at anomalously low prices, other sellers are obliged to follow. Of course, it would be easy to try selling at a higher price and hoping that demand will force others to buy at what's a fair market price. Unfortunately, most will not be thrilled by the prospect of paying more than they have to. Even worse, it is also likely that a low volume market has a small pool of demand, which means hoping and praying will not do a lot of good. More importantly, the trades may be phantom trades, whereby the same trader buys and sells the exact same item on the market. That will significantly change the perceptions of other potential suckers who actually check the history of the small market. The converse can apply, where buyers (who usually urgently need the item) can be convinced that prices have gone up.

Conversely, that is a lot harder to pull off on a larger market. Someone trying to do the same thing would require immense resources. Even if they made their gains, the high volumes traded will quickly equalize the anomaly. Of course, due to market imperfections, it is also possible for anomalous trades and unusual averages. Yet, a larger market is more able to compensate for such issues compared to a small one.

Tipping Point

While I was reading Gladwell's Tipping Point, I considered the tipping point of a country's population level. Granted, short of the four horsemen, human populations do not generally plummet when past a tipping point. However, it is possible for a population to tip from growth into decline given certain factors.

Some countries have low fertility rates, and consequently an ageing population. Of course, this is an undesirable situation in terms of productivity, as the country's productivity declines as well. I believe the factors involved in aiding the tipping point along include high cost of living and high consumer demand.

In a scenario where the cost of housing is astronomical, as is private transport and that of bringing up children, the power of context drives people towards focusing more and more on productivity. This productivity is not aimed directly at acquiring luxuries, but in the basic things that are family life. This alone is not sufficient to tip the balance, as the incomes of most families can at least support housing and children.

However, when advertising and keeping up with the Joneses are thrown into the fray, the balance begins to shift. By desiring more than the basics of life, and even the drive to acquire luxuries that one would not otherwise need (that's just for keeping up with others), an average household's income simply cannot keep up with the demands. One of the many things that result is debt. In effect, earners become unable to build up savings for their retirement. More importantly, there is less of an income surplus to support children while maintaining a good quality of life. As a result, birth rate declines when parents decide they can afford one child at best.

A country that seeks to dig itself out of that rut would be rather unfortunate in assuming that the simple encouragement of people to have more children would work in isolation. That does not address the root of the issue. Unfortunately, tt is also incredibly difficult to lower the cost of living, though that would very likely help the birth rates. Moreover, it would be economically detrimental to actually lower consumer demand. Ironically, the best solution appears to involve allowing the population to decline. This may sound odd, but it seems that economies in countries can only comfortably support a fixed number of people before the balance becomes tenuous. After which, not only does the birth rate decline, it also becomes hard to attract foreigners to actually live where the basic costs of living are astronomical.

Gaming Motivations

I have wondered for some time why some gamers are quite disinclined towards playing certain titles, especially if the titles are difficult. After all, it does seem like a joy to beat the levels. Is that not fun? Is fun not the primary objective of gaming?

Apparently, fun is indeed the primary objective. However, the fun experience is achieved differently depending on the gamer. For example, my idea of fun is beating the level, so it matters little if the levels themselves have limited fun value: I'll experience enjoyment if I manage to conquer it. However,the process of beating the level may not be fun at all. In fact, it could be downright frustrating or just too hard. That is not a deterrent for me, however.

Yet, it is quite apparent that the experience of the level is of utmost importance to many gamers. In fact, beating the level can become quite irrelevant once they decide that the process was not enjoyable at all.

MyBook Mirror

It is strangely satisfying, to have a new harddisk. Actually, to be precise, I just got a new pair of external harddisks. I grabbed the Western Digital MyBook Mirror Edition. That unit is basically a pair of 1tb internal harddisks in an external enclosure, set to either RAID 1 or 0. Yes. That's 1 terabyte, or rather a pair of 1tb harddisks mirrored, to become a single 1tb backup unit. I recall having a 340mb harddisk not too long ago, so I think while 1tb looks huge now, it'll look quite puny in the years to come.

The primary purpose of an external unit is both to replace the harddisk that recently went bad, and to serve as a comparatively rarely accessed backup unit. To serve that purpose, it has to be quite steady. So when I spotted this RAID-ready external unit going at a good price, I was intrigued. While RAID 1 has a danger of faithfully reproducing errors across both harddisks, its perfect mirroring also means that if harddisk A dies, B will be able to take up the slack without killing off any of my stuff. That means my research and photos will be quite safe for now.

The darned thing's a brick, though it's delightfully black has an endearing blue light that matches the LEDs on my casing. Nothing much to say about it, except it's significantly slower than a pair of harddisks fitted internally. In fact, the ironic thing is that these two harddisks and the casing actually cost me less than purchasing two individual 1tb harddisks. Perhaps I will eventually figure that I'd pluck them out of the casing and fit them in my desktop. But for now, I do want external storage, so these will have to do.

Outliers

I'm currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. It is quite a fascinating book, which integrates some sociological theories to explain the structure of exceptional success. While I do not wholeheartedly support the premises of the hypotheses and question the generalizability of the data used to back the conclusions, I think it still does make for interesting reading and new perspectives on the social phenomena surrounding success.

I am particularly interested in what can change one's trajectory in society, and nudge people towards or away from success. Of the reasons, it does seem that the offspring of rich folk do have particular benefits, and that is an interesting but unhelpful observation: Not everyone is able to choose their backgrounds. However, it does seem that success is not just a matter of luck, but also of smarts. Terman's research on high IQ children and their development amply proved that high-IQ individuals are not necessarily able to become greats simply on the merits of their intelligence. There was a limit to how vanilla intelligence can push one upwards.

The other ingredient appears to be practical intelligence, or EQ or cultural savvy, or however one may want to call this other sort of intelligence. That is, the sense of entitlement which drives people towards desiring greater heights, and having the people skills to make that aspiration a reality. In fact, to some extent, EQ seems an adequate substitute for intelligence, given that one can simply persuade others to share the observations that the person is unable to come up with.

EQ is something that is usually not taught in school, and would actually be quite useful in the curriculum. However, a person who is all EQ and no IQ would not go far either, given that he/she is probably not going to be intelligent enough to spot opportunities as they arise. It seems that ultimately one just needs good-enough levels of both, as a foundation for the pursuit of success.

Besides the concept of success, the book also talked about culture. I think the idea of tolerance for ambiguity and Hofstede's Power Distance Index tie in nicely with the idea of strokes as the currency in Transactional Analysis. In fact, I believe it may be possible that the ambiguity tolerance and PDI serve as the score modifiers for stroke quotas. It can be expected that a society with high ambiguity tolerance will also have a low tolerance for overt actions. That means that positive strokes are not to be delivered in straightforward ways. This may mean larger numbers of subtle positive strokes. As for high PDI societies, stroke quotas are very likely much higher for superiors than in lower PDI societies. This represents a positive modifier.

The correct calibration of strokes can be one way to support people skills, or EQ. However, EQ itself is probably not taught because many of its precepts are quite tacit, and may not even be consciously learned. For example, knowing when to pull back in a conversation is often attributed to a "feeling", but is in reality a complex computation integrating observations of the other person's reactions. In all, I would say that a good way to calibrate strokes is simply through trial and error. When one pushes too far, one is likely to observe negative reactions from others. As these mental notes build up, one's calibration progressively improves.

This would evoke Gladwell's assertion of the 10'000 hour rule, whereby one becomes highly proficient at a skill after approximately 10'000 hours of farming skill points. It therefore stands to reason that simple social contact and attention can hone EQ just like that. It also explains why the social outcast types still have problems dealing with other people: the calibration is imperfect. This creates a vicious cycle that encourages avoidance of others, and preventing improvements in the calibration. Once that is achieved, along with the other factors mentioned and those that appear in Gladwell's book, one may finally have the actual formula for success. The caveat, of course, is that knowing the path to success does not imply an ability to achieve it.

Money Or Principle?

I got into a right interesting mess today. It's one of the messes that is typical of what I tend to do when half asleep: violate my own rules. Now, this was a matter of an item I had for sale, and I got some offers. Generally, I do not close a deal ASAP, because I should logically wait for a reasonable number of offers to come in before obliging myself to anyone. That is the logical thing to do, which I did not do, while muddled with sleepiness. It's a bit like being drunk, and this is what happened...

Person A contacts me with a low bid. Naturally, I am unhappy. Person B contacts me with an identical bid, but I thought he was person A because I was going by phone numbers and assumed they were the same due to identical amounts. A tells me that my pricing is bad because the general prices are lower. With this new information (it's true, BTW), I figure that person A's offer is fair. So I tell B that we've got a deal. We should meet up to trade sometime.

Of course, being half asleep, I wasn't really thinking straight at the time. I agreed to a price that was lower than I wanted to agree to. The correct (and usual) response I should have given was that I would think it over, instead of saying Yes. I figured that it was a screwy deal, so I asked my friend, who again offered me the exact same price. Now, between a friend and a stranger offering identical prices, I chose my friend. So now there are 3 people I basically obligated myself to. A and B (whom I mistakenly thought were the same person) and my friend. At this point, I realized A and B were different people, so I had to say no to B, because A agreed first and thus was taking priority over B. B wasn't very happy at this development.

C calls in with a higher bid than all 3. In my stupidity, I told my friend that the bid was higher, and asked him if he would reconsider the agreement. Of course, since he wanted the item, my friend relented. I had to turn down A, B and C as a result. Now I am in the unenviable position of basically flip flopping on a deal with my friend, and having to turn people down. Of the 3, B was still unhappy, and was very eager to close the deal, apparently at a higher price point than any of the whole bunch.

In the end, I figured that I had to turn B down no matter what, to avoid further flip flopping. Now the situation became an ethical dilemma: Would I stick to the newly negotiated higher price with my friend, or go for the financial gain and press my friend for it? After much consideration, I figured that the right thing to do would be to suck it up and deal with my friend at the initially agreed upon price (a deal's a deal).

The evaluation was pretty complex, for a simple situation stupidly turned complicated. In reality, the sum of money was small, and I did not actually need the difference. It was a matter of principle that I tried to maintain as high a profit margin as possible. The root of the matter was that I violated my usual rule not to agree to any deal too early, which was done in a moment of muddle-headedness.

Why would I have chosen to deal with my friend at the low price, despite having semi-closed deals with 3 other strangers? This is not necessarily a logical decision, given that I am sticking with my friend because he's a friend. That is, he would potentially provide more benefits in the future as a friend by preserving the relationship through the relatively charitable gesture. However, it is also possible that the first person I agreed to could also provide me similar benefits in the future. More importantly, a friendship may not turn to enmity over such a minor infraction, but it may become so with a stranger who has no vested interest in me. Also, I have no real guarantee that my friend would actually repay the gesture in kind at any point in the forseeable future. In the absence of more data, I had to settle with the friend, though it really was more of a leap of faith.

In sum, the wise thing to do would simply be to stick to my own rules, and deal with matters on my own terms. That means not settling on deals when I do not have to, and especially not when I am sleepy and prone to stupid mistakes. It is strange just how many times I violated my own rules to poor effect, but I do it anyway. When they say go with the gut, it's really a good thing to do. Bleh.

Another Harddisk Failure

It seems like another of my harddisks is on the brink of failure. This time, it is the Western Digital that I am using to archive my stuff. Fortunately, the critical stuff like photos are being redundantly backed up, so the losses there are minimal. Even now, the critical parts of the archive are being moved away before the harddisk dies for good.

Of course, this does make me wonder. I do believe that it is a good idea to redundantly back everything up, preferably on a harddisk. While it will undoubtedly fail as 4 of my own have so far, doing so affords a rather more convenient option than a stack of CDs, which will have to be slotted in one after another just to verify data integrity. However, I do wonder at the interestingly high rate of hardware failure. 4 harddisks seems like a rather low MTBF, though of course it can be attributed to the possibility that I use my computer rather more than many other people.

For future reference, my current method to back up the folders quickly while the harddisk is dying is to manually move all folders over one by one. This creates an individual copy dialog. Since it is expected that most if not all folders have some sort of major malfunction, the errors will be isolated to the folder's dialog instead of stopping the entire copy process. Granted, this method is still fairly destructive given that the harddisk is failing, and I expect that the reliability will be compromised later in the process. Thus, I proceed to copy the most critical elements first, and the less important ones later. In the event of truly critical data, it would probably be wiser to approach a data recovery specialist, but given the casual nature of my storage that is quite unnecessary.

Right now I feel somewhat fortunate that a computer fair is coming to town, and that will likely allow me to purchase replacement storage at a discount. The next decision is whether I should go RAID this time, or continue with manual backups. The problem with RAID is that if there were an error in copying somehow, it is not unreasonable to expect that the error be faithfully reproduced depending on the RAID array used. This will be something that I have to carefully consider for my next backup choice. Ah, well.

On a side note, the headphone port on my speakers appears to be dying as well. Only the bass notes play through it now, necessitating that I plug my phones directly into a splitter, instead of using that oh so nice extension. Now...are my speakers still under warranty...? Given the high failure rate, I do usually get my money's worth on warranties.

2012: How Not To End The World

I just watched 2012, and for once, I am going to be harsh on it. Granted, I was into it primarily for the special effects, which it was full of. Very nice. I love watching cities crumble to dust amidst frantic air-dodging action. Loads of plus points for that one.

However, I expected a lot more from an end-of-world movie. I am willing to overlook glaring omissions like the inevitable nuclear winter from a global seismic catastrophe so severe that it results in extreme tectonic plate shifts and global volcanic activity. The very least I expect is either the utter destruction of the earth, for example getting earth hurled into the sun or a black hole, or at least the complete elimination of all humans. That is the end of the world as I understand it...and clearly the movie did not deliver.

Now, I know there are many ways to survive global flooding. Especially one from crazy tsunamis when the earth's crust somehow manages to rupture enough to start flooding Mt. Everest. If the director and co really wanted to be implausible, the least they could do is come up with space evacuation and perhaps space living till the volcanic activities settled down. In fact, it would've totally beaten the idea of having modern Noah's ark style ships saving a few hundred thousand of the humans. Seriously...that the best you could do? Super ships built near Tibet using untold amounts of money? Everyone could have probably gotten by on bark boats and bamboo rafts while they're at it.

Of course, once again, it seems like everyone forgot about Africa. If the whole continent managed to be pushed up as high as they said in the movie, I would think that a whole lot of humans survived there. In fact, that would make Africa the richest continent in the entire world. Strangely enough, nobody seemed to notice or bother to check. Nor the rest of the USA that probably survived, and the rest of the world for that matter.

Ok the list goes on, but I guess a rant has to stop somewhere. I'd say this movie gets a fail grade. 4/10. Most of the points came from the nifty special effects. The rest of it was end of world trash.

Fear Factor

I was reading this article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20091117/hl_hsn/fearless3yearoldsmightbetomorrowscriminals

It was about the correlation between a weakly inculcated fear response and the tendency towards criminal activities. That is, people with feeble fear responses were more likely to commit crimes later in life. Whenever I read this kinda stuff, I cannot help but feel that it is fishy. For one, causality is most certainly rather hard to establish in research on social phenomena.

Moreover, this is simply about fear and crime. It seems to neglect the other possible benefits of having poor fear responses, such as being able to overcome apprehension and thus exploiting opportunities that others deem overly intimidating. It can also mean the difference between freezing up and getting killed, and surviving a crisis.

I really do think it absurd that it is implied that fear is somehow key to a lawful society, and that it is desirable. Fear in reasonable amounts will indeed keep people in line and lead to a reasonably harmonious coexistence. However, excessive fear will lead to a timid and cowed populace that is easily manipulated by the strong. I do not think that desirable at all.

Video Ads

It seems that massification is the current trend of media. Early visual media involved the leisurely painted paintings, which were added to by early photographic technologies, then digital photography. In fact, every mother's child seems to have a digital camera nowadays. As Walther Benjamin said, massification can lead to an erosion of the aura of a work of art. Where a carefully crafted photograph or painting has a powerful aura, upon reproduction, such works become increasingly blase.

Now, with beautiful pictures spewed everywhere, it is really unsurprising that people begin to seek out other media or different applications of the same media. Simply put, everyone is becoming desensitized. Even stock photos are marketed on microstock for a pittance. Some are even giving their works away for free, or simply in return for crediting.

Given the evolution of digital cameras, the movie mode is now becoming increasingly prevalent. It has in effect made high quality video recordings (that is, large sensor recordings) more accessible to the masses. While purists today say that ads will always be still images, one need only recall the comparative accessibility of the early daguerrotypes to figure that it is reasonable to anticipate the superseding of still imagery ads with moving images. And I do not mean on television, but also on the billboards out there, along with the large poster ads. 10 years? 20? Its time will come, and like the way digital took film over as the primary medium, I will not be surprised if videos took over still ads over time.

Terrorists Win

When I look back on how countries used to be before the days of the War On Terror catchphrase, I cannot help but feel that the terrorists have won. This may sound odd, since it is clear that massive military forces are being amassed in distant lands like Iraq and Afghanistan, thoroughly rooting out any "terrorists" they might find.

However, one needs to recall what some said about terrorists nearly a decade back, that they were enemies of freedom. Well, Sherlock, it would seem to me that they had won already, then. Where the risks of terrorist incidents are likely no higher than before (those guys aren't gona take breaks or swing into action just 'coz we declared a war on them), there have been significant curtailments of freedom throughout the world in the spirit of preventing future terrorist incidents. The "prevention" part is dubious, in my opinion, given the huge numbers of security cameras everywhere. It seems improbable to impossible that their footage is being actively monitored. Likewise for internet controls and other forms of surveillance.

Even if they were, while the bad eggs are being watched, common folk are being surveilled as well. Worse yet, the jumpiness induced causes regular folk to become wary of others, especially if they act strangely or even take a common photo in certain areas now deemed sensitive. Granted, there is no definitive way to prove successful prevention, but it is most certainly clear that many freedoms are being taken away in the name of security. More alarmingly, those freedoms may never be returned, since it is sensible that we remain vigilant at all times as terrorism is a problem that is here to stay. Even as guns blaze and bombs go off all over the place, I'd say that the terrorists can pet themselves on their backs for curtailing freedom the world over. You've won, guys. Be happy.

On Killing

I was told about a cat that got smooshed after someone hurled it off a building. That smarts, to be sure. I hate the idea of senseless killing. Especially of a creature that very likely did no harm to the perpetrator. Such a killing reeks of vicious premeditation, for it most certainly took some time for the person to take the cat up, then toss it out.

I would love to say that it is the symptom of a sick society that breeds such people. A society where people feel the need to hurt and main other creatures, humans included. But that would likely be untrue. Where there are truly bad eggs out there, there will also be good people.

When I think back about my past, I guess I would say that I could relate to the killer back then. There is a certain excitement to the idea of killing. What would it be like? How do living things look when the life fades from their eyes? In a controlled, urban society, there are many imposed inhibitions on behavior. And there is always that lingering What If? It is, perhaps as some put it, the thrill of the hunt.

But now I guess I think differently. I have explored many strange avenues and tried out unusual things. I had my thrills wiping out entire ant colonies and popping the denizens one by one with a magnifying glass and the power of the sun. I saw roadkill and a cat that was run over and dying in front of me. I saw death, and it was beautiful. There was immense suffering, and then a moment of peace. That was enough. But ultimately, I figured that killing senselessly was just plain wrong. In killing, there is cruelty. Living creatures have a right to live. While there are times when a killing may be justified, I no longer think it right to slaughter a creature just to see what would happen.

Satan Worshippers?

Going to church is always a disturbing event for me. I see and hear things that greatly worry me. While singing hymns, I listened to the lyrics, and the connection was just downright alarming.

Now, it is commonly said that the Satan's other titles are light-bringer and morning star. Then I heard in the hymn's lyrics about praises sung to the morning star, which of course meant Jesus. Disturbing, but perhaps somewhat spurious. Perhaps it was a coincidence.

Then I recall the sacrament of the communion. Hmm...oddly enough, it involved the consumption of human flesh and blood. That was pretty alarming, because I remember Satan worshippers accused of doing the exact same things. Human sacrifice and cannibalism. Truly disturbing. But the plot thickens...

And here's the clincher: Most are familiar with the great rebellion in Christian mythology, whereby there was a rebellion by the angels and a whole bunch were thrown down. Now, when we think about worshipping a divine being-turned-human that is called the morning star and encourages people to eat human flesh and drink blood, that begins to sound suspiciously like a fallen angel.

It worries me, and really...I get pretty disturbed when I go to church at times. That is why I really would rather read my bible quietly during sermons. I feel safer that way.

No Country For Old Men

I love both the novel and the faithful film adaptation of No Country For Old Men. On the surface (and a number of my friends seem unable to get beyond that surface), it's a brutal film about a ruthless, heartless assassin who goes after a guy who stumbles upon a great big bag of drug money. The sheriff goes after that assassin, even as the drug dealers and assassin go after poor Llewelyn Moss. Of course, since just about everyone who's intended to watch/read this story already have, I'll just spoil the story: Llewelyn dies in the end, and the assassin gets away. There. I did it.

Now, I find the story is really quite a tragic commentary about our times. It seems easy to think of Llewelyn as the somewhat dishonest but otherwise innocent common folk, the sheriff Ed Tom as the good guy and Anton Chigurh the assassin as the baddie. However, of all the characters, I find Chigurh the most fascinating. He is not so much evil, as he is purely rule-driven. Ed Tom is the helpless old timer who reminisces of the good old days, but ultimately he's a broken man who cannot face up to the realities of a society going morally downhill. Llewelyn is just really quite a sideshow in that he just wants to get away with his money, and is ruthless in his own selfish money-loving ways.

While Ed Tom laments how things have turned ugly and simply gives up pursuing Chigurh in the end because he realizes that he's facing a force he simply could not defeat, Chigurh holds strong to his rules all the way to the end. Chigurh operates in a simple logic: He gets the job done. To get the job done, he kills anyone who gets in the way of his job. However, sometimes some people are in the way, but may or may not adversely affect the execution of the task, so Chigurh may or may not kill those people. To decide that, he does one of two things: flip a coin, or if he's sure the person will keep quiet, have the person swear to silence.

I think it is easy to assume that Chigurh is evil precisely because he's such a rule follower. Yet there seems to be little malice in what he does. He does not kill someone just because they're annoying (there's one lady in the story who was, but he did not kill her because she was not a significant impediment and because it was more trouble than she's worth). He does not kill out of hatred (Llewelyn threatens Chigurh at one point). I think he is disturbing and labeled evil simply because he has no emotional investment whatsoever in that killing. In a way, perhaps, he is something like Spock. And perhaps people have really hard times with characters like that: they are...alien.

A Strong Military

The mighty military is a critical factor to deal with global warming. As we all know, global warming is a horrible, horrible problem. The global temperatures rise, making everyone feel mighty uncomfortable, and killing some people and plants and animals while it's at it. The polar ice caps will melt, causing the sea levels to rise. The rising sea levels will cause available land to shrink, and flood many food producing fields into oblivion. There will be famine, population pressures and yes...war. Not to mention irreversible climate change.

Now, let us avoid this really nasty scenario. Everyone shall now cut production, stop making new babies and really...just consume less in general. Maybe that will help with the carbon emissions, other greenhouse gases and perhaps stop global warming. Maybe. Or maybe not. But either way, nobody seems very happy about doing all that on a maybe. What they do know is that the world's heating up and they don't wana lose out to everyone else.

The good news is that the earth finds its own equilibrium at one point or another. The bad news is that humanity may be badly screwed as a result. But that's ok, because the earth will be fine. So now we know that we're on a nice merry one way trip to warfare hell, and we need to be ready. We need stronger militaries. The mightier the better. Why, some may ask? Before shooting them, inform them that that's exactly how we're gona take the land from them so they die but we survive. Might. Makes. Right. Man I love equilibrium.

Those Precious Shrew Dodgers

I love watching the reactions of humans. Especially around rodents. The reaction is fascinating precisely because of the aversion showed despite the patent harmlessness of the said creature. It's small, fuzzy and...probably spreads disease. No more than any other mammal might however, so that's probably not a defining rodent trait.

Now, when I was on my way home with my mom, we noticed a dead shrew in the middle of a walkway. Someone probably stepped on it and killed it on the spot. Poor creature. Nonetheless, I figured it would be an interesting opportunity in observing human reactions, so I had mom stand around to watch the reactions of others when they saw the poor creature.

A pair of schoolgirls approached and noticed the shrew. They paused. After chittering somewhat in alarm, they mutually decided to gingerly tiptoe past on the extreme edges of the pavement so as to maintain maximum distance from the rodent.

Another girl came by, noticed the shrew, then promptly switched to a different path to go where she intended.

Yet another noticed the body, then walked past it as if nothing happened. Pure win!

The Earth Was Cold

Sometimes we ponder weighty things. Things like…what’s the meaning of life? Why are we here? I would propose that life simply had no meaning, and that it was quite the accident, but that’s not gona sit well with too many people. So let’s consider an alternative: The earth created humans.

Yup. Great, guys. You now have a purpose. You were created…and life now has meaning. What meaning might that be, you ask? The earth was cold. Goodness…what a silly sort of reason, many might think. But one also needs to be humble and remember that one cannot comprehend the infinite wisdom of the earth. The earth had darned good reasons for doing what it did.

The evidence is clear. The earth is cold and was cold. There are polar ice caps, and there was an ice age sometime in the past. Cold cold cold. Then the earth decided to create humans. Humans help by inducing global warming, though they are thoroughly convinced they’re living their “lives”, whatever that might mean. Obviously, the humans have managed to fulfill their purpose. Why? Well…they’re still alive, are they not? The earth would have wiped them out ages ago if that were not the case.

There we have it. Purpose for living. And faith that one day, global warming will kill all humans, or the earth will. It all works out. And don’t worry…the world will do just fine without all the pesky humans on it.

Inglourious Basterds

What can I say. This show is a Tarantino, with all that entails. Violence, black humor, inappropriately humorous moments, loads of graphic gore. The usual fare. While some will beg differ about this show because of its lack of moral depth, not being Jewish enough, etc etc, I am weighing this show on its entertainment value. And that value, in my opinion, is exceptionally high.

I dare say that Hans Landa totally stole the show for this one. Arguably, he's The Bastard, while everyone else are mere Basterds. There is something to a highly refined, sharp, witty and downright cruel Nazi who really is nowhere near as crude as the good ole Basterds. Of course, there is always something to a bunch of soldiers going around terrorizing poor ground pounders with reputations like...The Bear Jew.

For once, this show is not one that has its moments. The show is one long long 2 1/2h moment. In a good way. I especially liked Shosanna, that gorgeous lady with an iron will. There was a scene in the show featuring her, that seemed like something torn straight out of a noir film. A well-executed one, at that.

Heck, even the swastika-carving trope was pretty much as good as the Joker's face scar gag back in Batman. Truly, this is a memorable show, though the ending is perhaps quite surprising for those familiar with history. Of course, we did not quite come to watch a documentary. Nonetheless, the show gets a nice solid 9/10 from me.

STALKER: Clear Sky

Once in a while it's entirely possible to encounter a game that looks great in the early stages, and quickly turns out to be one that's been rushed to market from midgame onwards. Clear Sky is one such game.

At first glance, it is a truly atmospheric game. A total graphical revamp over its predecessor. The graphics are stunning, the levels and familiar areas simply look better than they used to, and hell...they even threw in the really nice idea of lethal Zone energy emissions, which one needs to dodge in order to stay alive. Now that is how (sucky) life in the Zone really ought to be.

Then comes the minor niggles. Bullet ballistics seem just wrong...the guns are somewhat underpowered. Then it turns out you can quicksave while nowhere near a safe area while an emission is coming, theoretically preventing game progress as you load a game moments before the emission kills you. Better yet, you're the only one hiding, because for some reason every other soldier can ignore the darned things. Oh, and did I mention that the safe zone could (unfortunately) be in the middle of an enemy base? Well...if the emission doesn't get you, the enemies probably would. Blagh.

Right, then comes the ending. The levels towards the end become somewhat...troublesome. Few stores are available for resupply and dumping off looted equipment. Your armor's probably torn to shreds at this point, and it's really a pain to get back to some base a few maps away. Then comes the clincher: The finale is one long and meaningless firefight.

Now, I am generally pretty happy with firefights. They're pretty exciting on average and can be quite fun. It just gets old when it becomes a series of clear the area of enemies, followed by clear the area of enemies, followed by clear the area of enemies, then we give you new gun and ammo, so shoot the final dude!

That one really sucked. For one, there's a carrying weight limit in the game. I don't know why I suddenly have a really nifty gun and ammo, but then 'coz of the weight limit...I can't actually move. Better yet, enemies are happily shooting at me. That sucks. Well...since everyone's shooting at me...who am I supposed to kill, again? Unlike the first STALKER, this one really really took the fun out of the ending. No alternative endings, nobody's really sure why I gota take the guy out, and it really took me a while to figure what I was supposed to do with the sucker. Way to kill a game that had so much potential. They should outlaw games rushed to market. :s

A Great Day

Today will go down in Fenrisian history as a great day. One of the great days amongst great days, but a great day nonetheless. As is traditional, every other less great day of great days will be less desirable than this one, so I can safely bet that someday will not be quite as great and thus perpetuate the myth of...well...jinxing when talking about great days.

But that is irrelevant. I must first record what greatness happened on this great day of greatness. First, and most important to me, I bought a flash unit. Not just any flash unit. The high end wireless capable version that I've been drooling over. Now, being the stereotypical student photographer wanabe on a budget, I really couldn't go right out there and buy the danged thing. Simply beyond my means. So I settled for second best: A secondhand flash, only that it's the wireless-incapable version of it. But when I met the seller...it turns out he only had the higher end one. The mind boggled. How much? Only a bit more. SOLD! And now, by sheer accident...here the flash is. It is...beautiful.

The second is comparatively minor, but no less important. My thesis research has finally been approved. That means I can finally get to work on the data collection process, though at this point my data collection's already complete. Oh wait. Well, at least they did approve the latest version of my questionnaire, which I slipped to them. Ok I did not just say that. I totally played by the book, for it is the Fenrisian way.

Right, then. And then my friend's package arrived. At least a notice of the package. I'm not sure what it is, so I'll reserve irrationally intense joy for that fine moment tomorrow.

Unlife...is...good...

Final Fantasy Tactics A2

I was playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2 on my DS for a couple days, and I think I know what it is that really irks me about the game: Lose conditions (laws) that are not directly controlled by the player. FFTA2 has an interesting gameplay system carrying over from the previous version. In a battle, players are required to adhere to certain "laws", which may be something like...you can't use fire, lightning or ice weapons/spells in the battle.

At first glance, FFTA2 improved on the previous game with the graphics, and from making the game more forgiving when you break those laws. That is, until I realized that they added new laws in. It's understandable that the laws can force you into a certain style of gameplay (that's where Tactics come in: reconfiguring your characters) but some laws are just stupid.

For example, there is a law against targeting distant units. Well that's easy. I'll simply not equip ranged weapons and refrain from casting spells. Or at least doing so while directly adjacent to an enemy. Until you realize that a critical hit knocks an enemy back by one cell, so you're counted to have targeted a distant unit simply by having a random critical (a good thing, usually). Ok that's annoying enough. Then you realize that some enemies can confuse or charm your characters, causing them to act randomly or otherwise attack your own characters. That means that Mage over there will likely cast Fire on one of your own guys, while standing far away. Oops...that means the law's broken, too. There's another law that's like this: No knockback. Same drill with the criticals.

I think these design hiccups are quite sufficient to destroy the enjoyment of an otherwise really polished game. I love the new graphics, the transition between lands is smoother and basically everything else is really nicer than the older version. Something to take note of, I guess, as the recurring problem of the laws can really ruin one's day.

Taking Woodstock

I got to watch Taking Woodstock today! Granted, I do not believe it to be at all a realistic depiction of the attitudes of the times, but it was a jolly good effort at providing an idealized interpretation of the legendary music festival.

I know that some critics have complained that the movie was unrealistic, boring at parts and totally missed out on the music part of the music festival. I do agree with that, but I am more inclined to evaluate the movie on the fact that it's intended as a comedy. I think the movie's got a little of everything to represent the key events happening around the time.

I did find it funny in parts, hilarious in others and just plain confusing in many bits. But I felt the confusion actually added to the believability of a massive music festival being pulled together in dribs and drabs. It also felt like a coming of age story, whereby the protagonist discovered who he really was and struck out to finally live his own life. No more mama's boy there. A touching thing, really.

Hmm...was it realistic? Having a transvestite (or was it transsexual?) being so easily accepted by everyone, and a bit of nice openly gay kissing being taken in stride? Probably not even at Woodstock. A Jew being quite openly gay and eating "extra" bacon on his "usual"? Not terribly likely. A home boy taking his first hit of drugs? Not a very good influence either, though I doubt this movie's for the kids. The token 'Nam and Korea vets? I think those who watched will know precisely what they feel about those characters.

Overall, besides the really awesome depiction of the festival itself (in overview) and that iconic muddy hill, I'd say the movie has just what the people need: A myth. A myth that depicts a golden era that never was, but that can serve as an ideal of tolerance that we can all work towards. Ok probably not the orgies and drugs. heh. Or maybe. I don't know.

I'd say...7.5/10? It's not a great movie, but then I'd say it's worth watching if you like this kinda thing.

DIY Light Tent

I was reading up on creating that awesome sauce DIY light tent from the strobist site (http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-to-diy-10-macro-photo-studio.html), then built one myself. Used correctly, it has some truly sweet results:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a335/Meredith_Nichols/E3/50/Old%20tech%20shoot/P9278018.jpg
Unfortunately, it does have some drawbacks when shooting shiny stuff. For example, the sides and the top may be reflected in the objects. One option is to simply change the angle of the objects to avoid the reflections. However, that may limit the angles possible for the shoot.

To solve that, selectively blocking off the windows may help. Another option is to move the light source to de-emphasize the reflections. Of course, the perfect world solution is to simply get a light tent equivalent without the cardboard that comes with the territory.

I was reading a book on constructing DIY photographic equipment and it seems that the fiberglass rods used to make kites is remarkably good when coupled with the light diffusing material. Of course, I currently have no access to that material, and am a bit skeptical about just how budget the rods might be...

Digital Nostalgia

To date, digital is where the cutting edge is. Everything modern is often electronic in some way, using digital technology. I was wondering what nostalgia would be like in the days when digital has become a relic of the past, and this is how it could be:

You know, I long for the days when digital photography was in vogue. I mean, nowadays, the bio-uplink images can be so true to life and be exactly like looking through someone else's eyes, but the images lack that unnatural punch, that oversaturation that the old digital cameras could make. I like the feel of the shutter button, the sheer detail in the images back then. Of course, nowadays everyone's into the modern stuff that's so much easier to share with others, without having to go through a cumbersome computer. It's such a pity, because they could've improved digital into subatomic proportions and aren't limited by retina upgrades.

Things are gone now, like the experiencing of loading and unloading memory cards, taking care not to crack them or lose them, then taking the trouble to power up the ancient computers of the early 2000's and hope that the buggy program would actually work. Heck, bio-uplink imagery nowadays just does not have the personal feel that old digital had. So nowadays, I occasionally pick up a digital body to take those timeless shots that nobody else ever makes nowadays.

Dreadful Valuations

I think some of us will have reached a consensus by now that the labour market is oddly and dreadfully valued. By that I mean that human labour is being compensated by a formula that is completely divorced from their value as factors of production.

I was shocked and horrified when I was at a panel of employers, who were talking about people who were perfectly willing to work for NO pay. That is, yup that's right...work for free. To give the prospective employees the benefit of the doubt, I'm assuming that they are serious about working.

What did not make sense was that the employers said they would hire the "free" fellas above and beyond the ones who would rather do the job but want pay for it. It would've been perfectly fine if the employers would hire those guys for no pay, but they did actually assign them salaries.

It seems that there is a huge discrepancy in valuations here. Either the employees are grossly undervaluing themselves (because they think they're worth nothing either from being utterly unproductive or having no self-worth whatsoever), or the employers are grossly overpaying the employees (an employee who costs nothing to hire should by definition do no work). Maybe it's both, or the employees are simply liars. I don't know.

I do understand the concept of passion and dedication, and that hobbyists have been doing what is potentially commercially viable work for essentially nothing. What I do not understand is how it's possible or even believable that the hobbyist attitude can survive in the commercial capitalist environment. If the employees are truly earnest about that, they're really just gona open themselves up to exploitation on all fronts.

Answers Of Our Times

I was reading with interest the scientists' hypothesis as to how Mars became a red planet. The experiments they performed to replicate what was observed in nature struck me as quite similar to what a soothsayer might have done in the past: Replicate a natural phenomenon and provide the answer to a relatively un-learned audience.

True, true, science nowadays is backed up with replicable experiments and tested theories, but come to think of it, so did soothsayers in their day. If the bones of prophecy did not fall right, or the crops failed, a soothsayer might attribute it to the whims of the fickle gods. Not quite something that can be directly proven by the audience. As for the more sophisticated experiments of the scientists, well, the average person probably does not have the equipment to replicate it either.

I suppose people will always want answers, preferably from authorities on the matter. I do wonder what things will be like in the distant future (assuming humanity is not wiped out by one catastrophe or another), what the scientists would think of our (comparatively) primitive methods of discovery and perhaps even marvel at the lost secrets of our craft when they discover some of our creations that they can no longer replicate.

Home Studio

I was watching some videos on studio lighting, and I noticed that the softboxes had an interesting feature: They were loaded with compact fluorescents. This was an interesting discovery, since I expected tungstens and perhaps some other fancy exotic bulb inside. CFLs I can obtain for myself. That's when I figured that it would be a good idea to get out there and try to create my own budget studio rig.

Undoubtedly, standard studio equipment costs a bomb and the high powered stuff does indeed use exotic incandescents and strobes. But then light is light, and properly managed it can produce pretty much similar results as formal studio equipment. There's a difference, of course, since I'm just learning about lighting, and can take my time about things, while studios need everything snap snap.

Anyway, I got myself a bunch of really cheap wired bulb holders that came with oversized clips. A true godsend, since they were ready to clip to my tripods just like that. So my tripods made pretty convenient light stands to hold my new CFL lamps. The current problem is that I've only got bare bulbs, and really could do with some reflectors.

The next thing I did was to get a reflector and gobo, which ultimately took the form of a shower curtain and silver foil. I suppose it may even be possible to get silver foil trays for use as reflectors of my own bare bulbs. And then I got a black mounting board to put the items on for shooting.

Overall I think the setup's fine for now, but really, I need to brush up on my skillz. That's the ticket. Thankfully, the whole setup cost me less than $50 in marginal cost, which is way less than I'd have to pay for a single decent flash unit.

Meaning In Work

I think I've written about this before, but I'll do it again. It never fails to bewilder me how some people go around lamenting about how life is "boring" and "meaningless" when they're not working. They're usually retirees, of course. I can imagine a working age person who has loads of bills to pay would be quite distressed at losing the primary source of income.

But most retirees are presumably pretty well-off, what with their pensions, severance pay and life savings. You'd think that retirement was a fine time to finally indulge whatever hobbies one's picked up in that long, dreary life. I know that many working age people are complaining about how work's eaten up their lives, and that they don't have the "time" to pursue their hobbies.

Perhaps it's true. That work really has eaten up their lives, chewed it up and spat it out. Work *becomes* their lives, and they feel empty or aimless without work to guide their daily existence. That's pretty sad, seeing as how they could've really gone out there and tried to finally live life for real. Retirees are near death, and it's time that they lived like the dying.

Living Like The Dying

I was pondering the concept of the bucket list, of things one will wana do before one dies. Sometimes the stuff on the bucket list is just plain castle in the sky unrealistic. Ok that's fine. I'll probably never get a dophinectomy or birdectomy anyway. But then there's the stuff that can be done by dumping everything one has, into achieving a goal. The dying do it to live what remains of their pathetic mortal lives to the fullest.

It seems to me that only the dying really know how to live. It is like how Alexander was being completely irresponsible, sallying forth to conquer the world with everything his nation got...all without leaving an heir at the onset. For a king, that is irresponsible indeed.

Then I ask myself: Why am I not doing that? Sure, not everything on a bucket list can be pulled off due to resource limitations. But everything else can be done. Yet for those of us who expect to live long long long lives, everything on the list is probably procrastinated to some unspecified later date. Why can't we just live like the dying? There is always a safety reserve in case of unforseen circumstances, but now I am increasingly convinced that it is better to burn brightly for a short life, than to live a long one and die a straw death.

Cruelty To Post-Egg Animals

http://blog.beliefnet.com/everydayethics/2009/09/grist-for-the-mill-knowing-male-chicks-are-tossed-alive-into-grinders-will-you-still-eat-eggs.html

I was reading the coverage on the great male chick grindup, and frankly, I think it's just sick. The video link's at the bottom, and you really gota watch it to get an idea of the scene of the crime. Actually, the chicken industry is just plain sick. I was already well aware of the terrible conditions for the animals and the debeaking, but grinding up live chicks totally takes the cake.

Actually, I can see the logic behind it. After all, the male chicks are not gona be good for what chickens are good for i.e. fast meat and eggs, so they're really not very useful except for fertilizing the hens. But since we don't want bloody messes in our eggs, we don't really want too many roosters doing that for nothing.

Yet despite all this, I am aware that I am not without blame. Countless chickens have already given their lives to feed me, and I'm proud to say that their tormented meat has not gone to waste. Actually, it has, but it served me first. The thing is not about not eating meat because of cruelty to animals. It might reduce demand, but I do not think it would improve the lot of the poor chickens a hell of a lot. What needs to be done is to lobby against cruelty to food-animals. I say food-animals, because it's really the livestock that's getting the short end of the stick. If someone puts another person's pet dog into a grinder, I do think the authorities would do something about it. These creatures are gona be our food, and really...I don't wana have to be eating too much tormented meat. My life is torment enough as it is. Actually, no...I do so love my camera and computer. That makes me a bad liar.

Being A Wanabe

There are times when I truly feel like a wanabe. Sure, I may scoff at the people who go around saying the word "pro" too often, but ultimately there are things I'd look at and think: Hey! I wana be at that level! Sorta essentially the same thing, without saying the word "pro".

Sometimes it's an aspiration. That sounds awfully constructive. Other times it's really just a sort of envy, of wanting to ascend to the heights that others have reached, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants. Maybe it's ultimately the same. I do not know.

I do wonder whether I'm getting where I want to get to fast enough, hard enough and just what the hell I'd do once I get there. It's easy to aspire. But what happens once one achieves? Will I turn back when I finally face the Ganges?

"Civilization"

Civilization is a band aid over the sore of humanity. Sometimes it's nice to live in a society, what with its rituals and "culture" and other odd little things that help people live with one another without fighting or otherwise deliberately doing things that are hazardous to the health and well-being of others.

Yet civilization seems like little more than a veneer that hides the brutal nature of humanity, and does little to nothing to change it. We've got the wars and crimes and drugs and other social ills that are hardly affected by civilization. In fact, there is little civilized about the "civilized" peoples, given that even the "barbarians" of old had their own cultural perks. Of course, civilized peoples are simply the ones who're most capable of rampaging over someone's front lawn and then looting the roses from their gardens. You've got to be a barbarian to let that happen. Or you're a barbarian because it happened, because your front lawn no longer has roses. Tsk.

Sometimes it really takes the truly inhumane to rear their ugly heads before people will take note of just how sick people can really get. Yes, these are, of course, perfectly "civilized". Civilization is a nice term that seems to immunize a people from the foul acts of burning, looting and massacres. After all, that's what we prefer to call...war. Anyone who does something similar on a small scale without official sanction? Why...they're criminals.

Don't Just Fail; Epic Fail!

Economies of scale rule our world. The bigger, the better. We've got conglomerates, zaibatsus, mega corps and what have you. Most of them seek to succeed. And do so spectacularly. That typically means oodles of profit.

It stands to reason that, like successes, failures are simply better off when done on a large scale. Yep. If you wana fail, fail big. Now, say a scam artist manages to rip off a bunch of people for tens of thousands. Not too bad for a small timer. The poor sod would probably spend quite some time paying off the debt if caught, however.

Now consider something on a larger scale. Like say a major fund going belly up, or some other sort of a epic fail like Enron. That's what really takes the cake: If you're big enough when you fail, someone else foots the bill! Obviously, there's no way you could pay it all back within a lifetime. Now that is truly epic. So, my friends, one should always avoid failure in life. Just that if you do ever have to fail, make sure it's an epic fail.

Peking Duck Wastage

I hate seeing wastage. I was pretty much horrified when I was watching a certain peking duck stall in action. They served up peking duck at an amazing speed, and in incredible quantities. The oven would pop a smoking duck out, and the staff would slice it up with a cleaver without waiting for it to cool. I do expect that they'd have quite some endurance to put up with that heat...even when wearing gloves.

The problem, of course, was that they were serving the duck up using cleavers. Ok so they were smallish cleavers, but the problem was that they simply couldn't clean a duck out thoroughly without wasting a substantial amount of meat. By my gauge, most of the meat was wasted around the bones, the entire neck/head and the wings. Dreadful. I have a good mind to recommend to their boss that they should sell the excess parts.

I guess I am pretty affected by the way large cities in rich countries constantly hog the food supply, while the poorer parts of the world wind up with huge numbers of starving people. Granted, it's quite impossible to allocate resources internationally with 100% efficiency, I think much can be done to reduce waste in the large cities. I think people should be grateful for what they have, and consumption moderated. Maybe it won't solve world hunger, but I do think it's a start.

Tithing

I was considering about the regimented form of charity known as tithing. According to the Bible, people should give out a portion of their wealth and dedicate it to God(dess). For the common understanding, that usually means handing moolah over to the Church. Or some other equivalent religious institution.

Yet sometimes, people just don't agree with what their religious institution happens to believe in. Sometimes that money is going to be used for nefarious purposes that do not correspond to what the people believe in. Generally, when one decides to get enslaved by some religion, they have some sort of belief system. A belief in what the religion stands for, and what it means. Admirable. Unfortunately, the religious leaders may have alternative interpretations of these matters, and may turn the funds towards other purposes.

Not very nice at all. What's next? Well, the logical alternative would be not to tithe at all. Non-religious people generally don't tithe. It sounds pretty fine. Except perhaps the religious do feel somewhat obligated to give a part of what they have, and perhaps they would believe it inappropriate not to do so. I would respect that as well.

The solution, I propose, is for them to simply opt to tithe directly to whichever causes they do believe in. Causes that adhere to the tenets of their religion and thus further what they believe God(dess)'s will to be. That, in my opinion, is more in keeping with what the spirit of tithing should be. Heck, dedicating money to a religious tenet could be as simple as helping to feed the poor, if kindness happens to be one of those tenets...

Creating Gods

I was considering the construction of gods, and really...the concept makes no sense to me. Let's assume for a moment that there is no supreme deity out there, and everything is just a result of a random mess of random events. So if one doesn't exist, I suppose the reasonable thing to do is to create one, right?

Err...that's the part that kinda gets me lost. I mean, hey...if I wanted to create something, even something make-believe, I'd really rather create servants or worshippers for myself. Yanou, give myself a sense of control and superiority, rather than having something else lord over me. The lording over bit sounds like a wee bit too much work for my taste, seeing as I wind up having to appease my own creation.

In fact, if I did create something, I'd rather not have to please it or anything. That's just like using work to create yet more work for myself...as if there wasn't enough to do already. But hey...whatever turns them on, eh?

Everything Is Meaningless

I was thinking about the working person's life, and life in general, and yeah my conclusion is that life is meaningless. Really. Work all day, go home to do some admin, prepare food or eat out, maybe a spot of canned R&R, then back to work again. Even the breaks from work aren't particularly long. Most of the vacation stretches are precious short...if one even manages to get that long stretch in the first place.

Then comes the things to do when on vacation. Go someplace else, right? Like say maybe some far-off land. Just to see things, to reassure oneself that the lands actually exist and they kinda look like what they do on the postcards. Hell, maybe the world is flat and nothing exists outside the country's borders, eh?

And after all that work crap (insert mothering/parenting somewhere along the way, seasoned to taste), there comes retirement. At that point, most people are just too damned tuckered out to really chase anything. That's assuming their physical frames are still capable of much. And the brains. Brrraaaiiinnnsss. Ultimately? Nothing much remains.

After which everyone dies, as if they've never lived. No mark on history. No blaze of glory as they get the hell out of the mortal plane. Season with a bit of afterlife, if one swings that way. But it's a bit moot, considering that most mortal realm achievements don't map over to most afterlives.

Life is just a sad sad sexually transmitted disease that is the leading cause of death. Sometimes I wonder why I bother going on living, and I don't always have a good answer to that question. I just do, I guess, sort of like doing time. And taking photos. Maybe that's meaning, in some way.

Make Or Break

I think sometimes it really just takes a hit to make or break an artist. I've been trying to hunt down the tracks by Magnet, and boy are they hard to locate. Scratch that. It seems that the earlier tracks just aren't "out there". Which is pretty sad, considering that some people are really rather eager to grab his best works.

I guess there's just something different about his style of music. I do like country, but unfortunately even country gets stale over time. The randomness of electronica and synth can add quite a bit, when mixed in with classical music or even opera. Then again, maybe my tastes are somewhat eclectic, so I can only really count on the indie scene for my fix.

For the indies, even free distros of certain tracks off their website can make a huge difference in increasing their following. Without the big names to sing their praises, it's really mostly up to the marketing skills of the artists and the adoration of their fanbase.

A Money-Saving Heuristic

I am a user of some big ticket items. And since big ticket items often have big ticket accessories, expenses can rapidly pile up, resulting in a drain on critical financial reserves. To avoid this, I took a good look at my personal desires for an item. The problem with decision making is that just about everything looks desirable, especially if it's sold at a lower than normal price. Hence, some rules need to be in place.

In order to select the highest priority purchase, I would ask whether the item is necessary. That is, it fulfills some kind of want/need. These are ranked in order of how I order my own hierarchy of needs/wants. I ask myself whether I will use the item immediately. It's pretty obvious if an item is non-essential, since it is a nice-to-have-sometime-in-the-future (a safety net item like a first aid kit, for example, is excluded from this consideration). A yes to this bumps the item up the list. Then I ask myself whether I will use the item often (beyond the new item syndrome window period). While difficult to honestly and accurately answer for sure, a yes to this would bump the item further up the list. Then comes the question of whether the item is at an affordable price bracket. Technically, just about everything that isn't obscenely expensive is actually "affordable", so the only real gauge would be to weigh the item (at price-value) against other items (even if dissimilar) according to the price-value.

If a list of items is tabulated according to that heuristic, a reasonably objective comparison can be made against one another. Thus, it becomes easier to decide between having 300 units of enjoyment item A vs 1 unit of high enjoyment item B. To be sure, just about every item is non-essential. One needs surprisingly little to survive, and very few items are true "essentials". However, to live a reasonably enjoyable life, some luxuries are called for. Most things that we spend on are luxuries anyway. However, going by the heuristic helps eliminate most of the nice-to-haves, and actually maximize utility by ensuring that items spent on will actually be enjoyed.

A further consideration would be cannibalization of utility, since having increasing luxuries actually reduces one's utility of other (usually older) luxuries. Should something fail muster in this analysis, it's a good indication to pawn them off. By that logic...that includes most of the items in my room. =p

2012

Humans can be incredibly egotistical. Apparently, a cataclysmic event resulting in the extermination of humans is to be regarded as the "end of the world", regardless whether other life forms survive and if the planet is still physically there. Technically, wouldn't that be the end of the human world, only? Anyway, it seems that 2012 is slated to be something of the sort.

Personally, if I really had to go with one of the "prophecies", I'd buy the change of an era on 2012 story. So things might change on 2012. Even a major change. Ok that makes sense. After all, that's what the prophecies seem to be saying anyway. If different cultures somehow managed to stop predicting humanity's future after 2012 (or somewhere thereabouts according to their calendars), it need not mean the elimination of all humans. Quit being egotistical! (though I'd look forward to that if true =p)

In fact, if it does not portend the end of an era, it can also mean that humanity is finally free of silly prophecies, in that the future has become too fluid to predict with any sort of accuracy. Considering the rather poor record of precisely worded prophecies, I would be inclined to believe that humans would likely stop bothering with prophecies after 2012. Hah! Well...like that's gona ever happen.

Setting Up The E3

One really does learn new things the longer one holds a piece of equipment. When I had my E510, I was pretty happy living with having my AF on the shutter half press. Of course, I've since seen the error of my ways. The problem with that setup was that every time I tried to fire off a shot, the camera would cycle the autofocus and that could sometimes result in a missed shot if the autofocus decided to miss.

Then I discovered that switching autofocus over to the AEL button solved that issue. Since autofocus triggers only on AEL, the shutter half press no longer resulted in a pesky AF cycle. That also opened up the possibility of my using manual focus mode in conjunction with my autofocus. That is, using the single autofocus + manual focus setting. Lovely.

Now, it seems that I finally have a good use for the manual focus ring on my lenses. Previously, my carefully set manual focus would've been ruined by the camera's smartass adjustment of focus for me. Yet it was quite tedious to constantly cycle between manual and autofocus modes. Guess I have my ideal compromise for now, and man am I lovin it. =p

Harry Potter 6

Right, then. I'm no big HP fan, and I don't think I'd start that soon. But anyway, my friends do call me out to watch those things, so I guess that means I'm gona have to write a review on it.

Frankly, I don't think this was a particularly good HP installment. I mean, I generally expect magic duels and special effects in the show, and well...whatever they had in there just wasn't quite satisfying. Yes, Dumbledore dies. Everyone knows that. It does feel odd watching a show that every other mother's kid knows the ending to. Sorta like everyone's already spoiled. I just didn't like the idea of Dumbledore tipping over quite that easily after he managed to do a Gandalf and wipe out a whole swarm of undeads.

Ultimately, the thing I liked the most about the HP series is that it's gotten darker over time. Undoubtedly, it's not just an effect of growing up for the characters, but also an influence of our contemporary world situation leaking into the story. Bag searches, anyone?

I'd have to give this one a 6.5/10. It's not particularly memorable, and as one reviewer put it...pretty much here only to set the stage for the story ahead.

The barber who shaved

I encountered this paradox online: “There is a village where the barber shaves all those and only those who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?”

Now, at face value, the paradox does indeed appear to be paradoxical. That is, we’d assume that the barber is a part of the village, and is therefore referenced as part of the villagers who either shave themselves, or the villagers who don’t. Obviously, if the barber is a villager, is himself, hasn’t shaved himself, and has no one to shave him, he will be unable to shave himself without violating the statement.

Yet there are a number of assumptions already in place. Moreover, it is not mentioned whether the statement is true across all time frames. The simplest solution would be that the barber simply shaves himself. Why? Because at the point of time at which the statement was made, the statement was true: he only shaves those who don’t shave themselves. However, since he’s a part of the group of non-self shavers, he’s obliged to shave himself, therefore violating the statement. Thereafter, the statement ceases to be true. QED.

Then we can consider that, perhaps, the barber wasn’t in the group of people who either shave or do not shave themselves. This can be true if:
1) The barber isn’t himself. He’s a RED spy.
2) We consider the barber to be outside the village (and therefore beyond those groups
3) We consider the barber (vocation) to be separate from barber (the person)
4) We consider that someone else is shaving the barber.

If 1 is true, we’d have to spycheck him, just in case.
If 2 is true, we’re assuming that both groups are from the village. Hence, he may not be a part of either group, enabling him to shave himself without violating the statement.
If 3 is true, he can also shave himself without violating the statement, since the vocation of barber is separate from the person of the barber.
If 4 is true, well, that greatly simplifies things, doesn’t it?

Why Can't You?

It's funny how egoistic people can be. Whatever they wish to present as their social front, it seems that at their heart of hearts, just about everyone (with the usual bell curve exceptions) is self-centered. Now let's consider a common expression: If I can do (insert activity), why can't you? If that doesn't sound self-centered, I don't know what does.

Basically, saying something like that assumes that everyone should be essentially the same as the speaker, since the speaker's perfectly capable of doing something and thus everyone else ought to. Not...necessarily true. For example, I can't reasonably ask a blind person to just see...simply because I can, right? And just 'coz I can and want to, I can't rightly ask others to do the same because they might not share my sentiments.

What does that leave us, though? The admission of hypocrisy in projecting the public face? Or is it the self-centered nature of people blinding them to the possibility of alternatives...

Printer Calibration

I finally got down to calibrating my new Epson T50 printer. It's a typically tedious business, getting the output to match precisely (or as close as is practical for precision adjusted by Eyeball Mk. 1) what my monitor displays. After 5 max quality prints, I finally managed to squeeze out something that looked pretty much how the picture was displayed on my monitor. *Happy happy*

That might sound a bit anal, but frankly I'm never happy seeing something come out of my printer that doesn't look almost exactly like how I've seen it. I mean, it's bad enough that my jpgs will invariably look different on someone else's monitors. Since the print is the true litmus test of a properly exposed image, that's something I really can't live with.

Anyway, now that my printer's finally doing precisely what I want it to, it's time to get down to doing my actual photowall project. Yep. A wall...covered in photos. That oughtta keep me occupied for awhile.

Hell Is Symptomatic Of Mental Illness

I am greatly disturbed by the prospect of an eternal hell. Indeed, I have no wish to visit such a place, if it did in fact exist. Such a proposition does not sound terribly welcoming, what with all the fire and brimstone and sodomic demons with pitchforks.

However, I think it is a suspicious notion, especially one used in the context of God. Let's recap the assumptions: God is good and merciful, judgmental, perfect and all-knowing. Also bears rank of supreme creator. Sounds good so far. So that means, by creating humans, there was full knowledge of what'd become of them. Ergo, it's probably a given that some of God's creations will wind up in an eternal hell. Nasty.

But wait...there is a contradiction somewhere. If God were indeed good and merciful, nobody would end up in hell for eternity, because even those who fall short of acceptable standards of goodness would be forgiven eventually. But if it were eternal, it's very much akin to creating something knowing that the creation will not be very good at all, then repeatedly damaging the creation in sheer angst. That...does not sound very much like a perfect God. In fact, it implies that God is grossly inefficient, sadistic, insane, or a combination of the three. Why...that's blasphemy!

Being quite unwilling to be a blasphemer, I would have to choose between disbelieving in God, and disbelieving in an eternal hell. Now, both can be quite incredible, but I think the latter is by far more incredible. If I had to choose between the two, I'd say that an eternal hell simply does not exist, given the assumptions people make about God.

The Soul...?

There are times when I wonder if there's a sort of explanation for what, exactly, a soul is. The soul in the sense that spiritual people believe in, the thing that supposedly animates the conscious and sets them apart from the unconscious. In fact, I think the soul is separate from life in that the soul is effectively a form of consciousness rather than life itself, which seems to be little more than a set of ongoing chemical processes. Not quite the cultural perception of a place that has a vibrant, appealing way of life, though perhaps it is related.

If I were to consider what a soul is, I'd think that since the belief is that they're unique things that live on after the living creature's untimely demise, I'd think that it was a sort of energetic equilibrium that is established by the peculiar and unique material makeup of the physical form. While this is probably impossible, that'd mean that a soul living on after the body has died has somehow managed to hold those energies in equilibrium even after separation from the physical form.

The loss of equilibrium (leading to the "death" of the soul) or a detachment from the point of anchorage will result in the physical form losing its soul, and thus might be to all appearances alive but not quite "whole".

Burkas Are Freedom

It is an apt day to talk about freedom. Yet freedom can come in strange forms. In fact, freedom can even be found where others see only oppression. What better symbol of female oppression than the burka. A form-hiding outfit that covers just about everything (even the eyes), the burka seems to be about as oppressive as they come.

Yet the burka itself represents only an overt form of oppression. It is far easier to see the overt than the subtle. Take for example the oppression of capitalism. The standards of beauty. The burka, ironically, can represent a sort of emancipation from these. The burka is anonymous. Nobody really cares (or can actually tell) if you're wearing nothing inside. Now that's freedom from fashion, from people judging just how skimpy (or prudish) your outfit happens to be. It's freedom from the chains of capitalism that urge people to buy more outfits they don't really need. It's freedom from the judgment of the form one has that never ever seems to match the unrealistic standards set by the fashion world. It frees one from the oppressive need to pick, match and coordinate outfits from a wardrobe full of clothes that one might never wear. (I'm sure we all know this one =p) The irony of choice is that sometimes it means we're denied the choice not to make a choice. Surely nobody would wish to see me decked out in some truly awful colors on poorly fitted outfits. Yet if I genuinely wanted to do that, I find the choice is less than desirable, considering that I don't like to be ridiculed overly much...

It is even the freedom from the prying eyes of men who would gladly oogle women who may be less than happy about being oogled. Imagine the time and brain power savings for men, when they spend less time thinking about sex and more towards productive thoughts or even other non-sexual forms of entertainment. Certainly, no bicycles will crash when a burka-wearing geisha looks at a man. Hell, it even serves as an umbrella, in keeping one exotically pale skinned under the harsh light of day. Brollies are just so victorian.

Then comes the harmony. No, not the enforced harmony of highly regulated societies, but the peace of anonymity. Yup, even men would benefit from wearing burkas. Not only is gender masked by these fine outfits, one's unique appearance is masked as well. That means poor sods getting trounced by street toughs by mistake will no longer face those problems: The toughs would have a hard time spotting the fella from a distance. Besides, men can finally be excused for being utterly unfashionable.

With all these benefits, the burka seems like the perfect universal outfit for everyone. Making women wear these might be oppressive, but everyone wearing it would be...consensus. Yes, freedom can come in strange forms. Oh, and happy Independence Day, one and all =p

Growing

Hopefully, everyone grows over time, in various ways. However, the most important thing about growing is knowing when growth occurs, and if it is in the right direction. The basis of comparison is between past and present, so I guess records play a huge part in making that happen.

Unfortunately, memory is a rather faulty medium of record taking. There's a tendency towards omissions and embellishments. If the memory isn't faded at the time of recollection, it's probably inaccurate anyway.

For my shooting, I guess what I do appreciate is my own tendency not to throw things out. Especially digital things. Not necessarily a good habit, but handy in this instance. I remember (with my faulty memory, of course) the first photography lessons I took, and how I talked about the photography greats back then as if it were a new discovery.

At that time, I dare say my shots were...well...crap. They still are now, but they're crap mk ii. Yet the only way I could've known that for sure was to actually grab the old ones, laugh at them, then laugh at the current ones...only a little less loudly. Sometimes louder, in fact, if they turned out worse than the ones I took a couple years back.

I guess what's true about shooting is basically what McCurry said about his own shooting: It's basically 1 great shot in 1000 others. I used to believe that the great masters made a masterpiece in every shot they took. But after hearing accounts from other people in the business, it's really a matter of a whole load of effort, with the experience and skill to back up those attempts. Probably some luck, too.

Still, I think that's where the difference between an accomplished and a novice shooter will lie: The accomplished shooter will fire 30'000 shots in order to get the scoop. The novice will fire 30'000 and still not get it. Maybe one day I'll find my way out of n00b'land. One day.

The Nature Of Mortality

Mortality is a most curious thing. It's a big pile of steaming denial. People are born only to die, after all. That's the lot of mortals. Yet when I was informed that my friend finally managed to take herself out today, the revelation just got me meditating on mortality.

She never really died. The thing is, though I couldn't really feel her in the mortal realm for some time, I never did manage to trust the more subtle senses. But she only managed to die today, just about 2 months after she bought the farm. Screw the euphemisms. She died. And successfully, this time.

Yet ultimately, tragic or no, the death of a human is just an inevitability turned reality. It's the knowledge of death proper that brings closure to a doomed life anyway. Farrah Fawcett died. Michael Jackson died. It's pretty fashionable for mortal beings, after all. But then many still feel the unusual oh it's so surprising that so and so was alive yesterday, and dead today.

What fascinates me is that my friend basically became a Schrodinger's cat for awhile, being neither dead nor alive in my cognition due to ignorance (I did think her dead, but didn't manage to verify that), until the moment of closure came and I was like ah! so it's true. To be sure, I never really did have much faith in her survivability given her worsening mental state, but I guess death does interesting things to one's psyche. For one, I think she's basically experienced a net improvement in her mental state, if it still exists. Since I don't sincerely believe in a hell for humans (not permanently anyway) and the Christian assurance of heaven (though quite pretty creepy to me), I think she's better off regardless the actual presence of an afterlife. Nonetheless I do say: Rest in peace, eh? Oh, and I think one of my CDs is still at your place.

P.S. Fawcett has great taste in cameras. She was handling an E1 with an FL-50. Mmmm...

Blade: The Series

I like vampire stories for some odd reason. They're...fascinating. But nobody should mistake Blade for a vampire story. I just enjoy it as a soap of sorts. Basically, the series is a whole bunch of blood/fang porn and has a most amusing Assassin's Creed logic.

One funny thing about these pop vampire thingummies is that the narratives are basically excuses to bare fang, drink blood and maybe fight a little while they're at it. Admittedly, I do like a good cultural show, and Blade has some cheesy culture in it. Not quite classy or realistic, and chock full of continuity errors, but I guess I grow attached to such things, if only to see where they go.

Mmm...but the Assassin's Creed logic never fails to tickle me. Just as Altair somehow manages to go around unnoticed while bristling with weapons, Blade can walk around looking like a silver-decked vampire slayer with a katana on his back, and nobody bats an eyelid. Seriously. He can clomp through a hospital with his trenchcoat and boots, then draw a gun and nobody ever seems to notice. Nobody ever calls the cops on the heavily armed fella marching down their corridors. Admittedly, the only ones who ever seem to notice are the baddies.

Now, I know vampires are able to use glamors or other ways to influence the human mind, but that does not seem to be the kind of thing for Blade vampires. They're mostly the highly physical sort that prefer to go at it with fists, blades and guns, often in that order. Interestingly enough, that Assassin's Creed logic never seems to be explained. I can only assume that the assassin gains special benefits just for being an assassin: Nobody ever notices that you've got a shitload of weapons all over you. =p

Being Value-Free

I like to think of myself as value-free, of being quite logical in thinking. Yet I realize that it is quite impossible to be value-free in the first place. Even the being value-free is a value in itself. Among others, I also believe in personal freedom (within rather liberal limits) and individuality.

With the guidance of those values, I am really quite incapable of value-free thought. The best I can do, perhaps, is to be quite relativistic and arbitrary, which would pretty much piss off anyone who believes that people should be consistent.

That would also be a problem in doing analyses, and perhaps the best thing I could do would be to state my stand early on, and perhaps list the values amongst the limitations to make it clear that I have not actually made a value-free judgment. Then again, that would beg the question of whether it is in fact possible to be truly value-free, and if there was actually any benefit to being so.

The Centurion

My new system was fitted into a Coolermaster Centurion casing, which I promptly assumed to be a primarily showy piece that's quite impractical to take down and clean out with any sort of frequency. Well, I'm glad that I was dead wrong about that.

I had to take it apart to give my ram another upgrade, and then I noticed the metal plates blocking the drive bays. Now, all casings have some form of these: The thin plates that must be pulled out in order to fit new drives in. Unfortunately, try as I might, I really couldn't remove them. Obviously, I had to take the pesky front panel out, and I had no clue as to how I would go about doing that. The front panel appeared to be fixed in place with plastic split knobs, and no visible screws. I assumed that the knobs were a PITA to deal with. The wires were running out of it and I was loathe to have them come out.

Then I tried tugging on the front panel. It gave slightly, so I tugged a bit harder to see how I would remove it. Then the entire panel came out in my hand. The first thing I noticed was the elegance of the design, since the wired parts were actually set into a separate panel. That meant that I could easily take the casing apart to remove the grills and free up the drive bays, and to remove those pesky metal plates which were interfering with my airflow.

After successfully removing the plates, I noted that the airflow was significantly improved. For one, the entire front panel is now a completely freed intake. Frankly, I don't know why the early casings weren't designed this way. During the days of relatively low power computing, the generous front intake could easily allow for passive cooling. Ah, well. I like my Centurion =p

The Pursuit Of Pain And Pleasure

While science and technology appear to have advanced greatly since millennia past, the cognitions of humans seem to have strayed little from that of their ancestors. Arguably humans are still little more than animals, or perhaps at most poorly calibrated automatons programmed for the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

Take the average person and put him in a room with numerous other individuals. Ensure that one exit remains, then light a fire that spreads rapidly through the room. Predictably, all the individuals will move as one, pressing urgently against one another in an effort to get out as quickly as possible. Despite the efforts to train humans in the procedures of fire evacuations, it seems inevitable that their animal instincts for the avoidance of pain will take over, and the incredible agony from the sheer heat will drive the conditioning right out of their heads.

The pursuit of pleasure is yet another problem. Where no pain is involved, the presence and absence of pleasure will suffice as a motivator. An example is the liking for potato chips despite the associated health and weight problems. The quest for survival here does not seem to apply, since even data indicating the harmfulness of such things merely sinks in at a conscious level but is quickly laid aside in the face of immediate gratification. Admittedly, I am not immune to such lures.

What would be most interesting is evolving the psyche to enhance the ability to suppress such non-constructive drives in order to channel that energy and attention towards something better.