Diffusion Of Responsibility

Indeed, it does seem that diffusion of responsibility has quite an effect, especially in crowded cities. Today, I was at a food court and a young lady had a rather bad epileptic fit. She fell to the ground and probably bit her tongue in the process. There was quite a bit of bleeding, and one of the men near her (friend/relative, presumably) shoved a spoon in her mouth while another lady tried to get her settled down without moving her off the floor.

What was interesting was the small concerned crowd that gathered almost immediately, gawking at the scene. A majority of the people in the area noticed what happened, but did not move in to help in some way. What was quite remarkable was that despite all this attention, it took nearly five minutes before someone decided to call for an ambulance. It seems likely that diffusion of responsibility was at play here, since nobody (myself included) felt particularly inclined to make the call...assuming that someone would.

It is scenes like these that make me feel that there are a goodly number of Patricia Tannises in the city, since those of us who did not immediately go to gawk or render assistance seemed perfectly capable of enjoying our meals while someone else was convulsing on the floor. In fact, I did feel a mild irritation at the inconvenience of the timing of the fit, as it was interrupting my magazine reading. I like reading at the meal table. It gives me something to do, and adds a sense of accomplishment to what would otherwise turn out to be "just" a meal.

Of course, I did not eventually decide to knife her or shoot her several times in the back, then figure that her name was Leslie and how she had a troubled childhood from having a guy's name. There may yet be some remaining dreg of my ever fading sanity.

Visiting Aunt

We visited 3rd aunt today, and it seems that she is doing quite poorly at this point. What I had initially mistaken for a plump, healthy appearance was in reality a result of bloating from renal failure. It is readily apparent that she is incapable of movement or speech.

However, it seems that she is quite capable of sight and comprehension despite her otherwise near-complete paralysis from the stroke. She could blink her eyes appropriately in response to questions, and had a limited capability to smile when amused by humorous quips. Moreover, she could move her eyes to look at the visitors.

From the movement of her tongue, it seems that she is making attempts to speak, though she is currently incapable of forming words proper. It is fortunate, though, that she appears to be able to recognize the visitors and what little can be ascertained of her cognitive faculties suggests a positive prognosis. I am making a mental note to do something downright hilarious the next time we visit, to see if she is capable of laughter.

A Sad Day

Just today, I learned that my 3rd aunt's condition worsened. It seems the toxins in her bad leg are still wreaking havoc in her system, despite the hospital's best efforts at administering daily dialysis. It seems that besides the failed kidneys, her brain's taking some damage. To be precise, her brain's probably already damaged at this point, since the last report from her son indicates that she's developed a fixed gaze. Loss of brain function, and she's now pending a brain scan. Frankly, I do not have high hopes at this point. At best, if needs be, I do hope she goes peacefully without dragging it out.

One thing that bothers me to no end is how sad her life had been from birth till today. And it is ironic that a simple fall led to a chain of events that would probably do her in. First something got damaged in her bad leg, causing toxins to leak into her blood stream. Then she was hospitalized, where they found that she was developing sepsis. Even after loads of antibiotics and dialysis, the situation has not improved.

Of course, lots of similar things happened as a result of a simple fall. Assuming that the fall is not immediately fatal, it can easily lead to one becoming bedridden and developing complications as a result of that. Or say the injury from the fall turns gangrenous. Something like that.

Anyway, c'est la vie, non? Humans are mortal and fragile. That much should not be forgotten. Memento Mori.

The Importance Of Freedom Of Speech

I was watching documentaries today, and the content of the documentaries really got me thinking about the importance of freedom of speech. One featured very guarded and tentative criticisms of the government's lack of environmental consciousness, while the other was an outright criticism of another administration's failures.

Indeed, the practical value of freedom of speech is limited to the administration's willingness to listen. If the people speak up and the comments are deemed undesirable for any reason (stupid, inappropriate, untenable or seditious, for example), obviously nothing would be done about it. Indeed, it is also possible for the admin to pay lip service to the comments, and do nothing about it at all.

Yet, one should not discount the value of free speech. In the absence of commentary on the lack of environmental consciousness, valuable biodiversity could have been lost. Corruption could go unchecked. Incompetence could have been swept under the carpet. Indeed these will be criticisms of the admin, and can be interpreted by those in power as seditious by virtue of the comments being damaging to the admin's reputation and therefore destabilizing the country by increasing discontent.

However, the truth of the matter remains. It is an irresponsible admin that ignores its own flaws. In fact it is no less than treason on the part of the leaders. One need only look towards the collapse of dictatorships to see how the minds of leaders can be poisoned by the ignorance that they themselves encouraged in a bid to cling on to power. It does not suffice to have free speech alone. What is needed is a listening ear, and an inclination towards reform that accompanies it.

The Protestant Work Ethic

It is strange how jealous people get when they encounter those of privilege who do not work. While much of the readily available work out there is less than enjoyable (especially so if it involves interacting with humans), it does not follow that the perceived idleness of the non-workers is somehow damaging to themselves.

I remember how some people asserted that the idle people had too much time on their hands, and thus developed mental disturbances from excessive mental ruminations or started doing mean things to other people. I find that an absurd claim, since mental disturbances or mean inclinations are really quite independent of one's work status. Indeed, I think one who commits suicide from work stress is quite mentally disturbed. As is the rich career person doing mean things to subordinates.

The origin of these absurd notions seems to come from some variant of the protestant work ethic, whereby work is not just a means towards an income for survival, but a sort of duty that is somehow cleansing. One would recall the proverb that the idle mind is the Devil's workshop. Yet it must be noted that not all who are NEET are necessarily idle. It may well be that they have a kind of routine going that simply does not earn money. Would that, then, be considered idleness and subject to the absurd notions associated with idleness?

The Vagaries Of Fortune

Today, my 3rd aunt was admitted to hospital after she fell in her bathroom. Apparently, she sustained some injuries at her leg, which is afflicted with elephantiasis. Unfortunately, that also means that she's now experiencing sepsis. The doctors are attempting to fix her up with antibiotics, followed by dialysis. The situation does not look good. Sepsis is always a nasty thing.

Sometimes these things make me think about the vagaries of fortune, and just how random the world is. Some people get extreme good luck, others get extreme bad luck, and all this is independent of how they are as people. Take my aunt for example. She's quite the kind soul, but has never had a stroke of good luck at any point in her life. If there was some sort of cosmic system of justice influenced by one's goodness, it's either totally buggy or nonexistent to begin with.

Of course, in a way, this is a cause for guilt. Do the more fortunate creatures move in to help the less fortunate ones? Where does one draw the line for helping others? Yet the guilt may be misplaced. In my aunt's case, not only was her problem unforeseeable, it also stemmed from a small complication in an operation decades ago resulting in her case of elephantiasis. What help could have been granted? And the next question would be how much is due...

Video Cooling

It seems I may have fried yet another video card no thanks to the extreme heat in my computer casing. The card started producing the typical overheated video ram/GPU artifacts, like weird flickering artifacts obscuring the entire game display, sudden freezes and the like.

The card was sent for servicing under the warranty coverage, and I managed to persuade the supplier to get me a loaner unit. Unfortunately, despite the loaner being a lower end card, it started developing heat issues. I decided to go open casing.

The drawback of open casing setups is that first the case is highly exposed and very vulnerable to liquid spills, bugs entering, etc. More importantly, the open casings have less efficient air flows if not actively cooled and in the same confined area as my current comp.

My solution was to have one of the small but extremely powerful sound system cooling fans and fit it in such a way that it directly feeds cooler air to the vid card. It's the heavy variety of 120mm fan that has incredible output, with a metal frame and blades. Relatively quiet, to boot.

However, as it was feeding in the air from the side of the casing near the rear end, it was in danger of recycling the warmer air from the exhaust vents at the rear of the casing. To minimize air recycling, I installed a cardboard baffle at the exhaust to direct the hot air away from the new fan's intake.

First tests before the fan's installation indicated that CPU temps were around mid 50 degs C on load, and the casing temp was around 50 degs as well. The top of the casing itself felt warm, which indicated a hot air buildup. Not acceptable at all. Obviously, the heatsink on the CPU is blasting it with hot air. My loaner card did not have an electronic temp monitor, but it stands to reason that 50 deg air was bad for it.

After powering up the new fan, casing temps quickly dropped to 34 degs, which is a few degs warmer than the ambient. However, the top of the casing still felt warm on load, suggesting heat issues. Moreover, the CPU temp was largely unchanged, indicating that the fan's cool air was not hitting it at all. The CPU was located somewhere above the vid card.

My solution was then to elevate the fan using a brick, so that it spewed the cool air towards the CPU as well. This greatly improved the air flow over the vid card and hit the CPU as a bonus. This time, not only did the CPU and casing temps drop, the top of the casing did not feel warm anymore. A test of a video game demonstrated that the graphics card glitches were now completely absent.

I expect that the heat issues should be gone with my graphics card when it comes back from servicing. However, only a test of the system on load will be able to definitively prove that.

Color Management

I have always been wondering why people were often unimpressed or had strange comments about the images I churned out. At first I assumed it was a matter of monitor calibration, though it is quite rare for monitors to be wildly out of calibration. Basically, what looked great on my monitor did not look terribly good on theirs.

Then I remembered the color profiles inherent in my pics, and the simple fact that most users simply did not use color management. While it is indeed possible for me to display gamut in Photoshop and tweak each individual image to suit the color profiles of most other users, that would involve a lot of effort on my part and completely throw off the color accuracy of my prints. After re-enabling color management on Firefox, the issue was resolved and my colors displayed correctly again.

When I do set up a site to get my pics marketed, the first thing I would do is provide a tutorial for users to enable color management on their browsers such that all images would appear as they are intended. On a side note, it is also pretty remarkable how much more sensitive I was to "off" colors in my food than I was with most of my other pictures. Indeed, slightly different colors for landscape shots went largely unnoticed, and did not really require any tweaking. For food, however...the difference in the reds determines the line between yum and yuck.

On Learning Difficulties

I do wonder at the strange propensity people have towards trying to medicalize all sorts of "learning difficulties". I remember reading an article whereby people were advised to identify learning difficulties in their children, and "seek help" as early as possible.

While I appreciate the approach (http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=7006&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm) the CEC is taking towards helping children with different learning needs, the common approach is to try to shoehorn everyone into the standard school system instead. I find that rather unfortunate, with the fail-first approach or using medication to enable the doped-up kids to fit in and get along with the program.

I would certainly look forward to the day when there is no stigma attached to having children put in special education programs. Though, knowing human nature, that day will be a long time coming.

Molest

When I consider cases of scantily clad women getting molested, I cannot help but be repulsed by the comments of some people. It is pretty common to hear insensitive comments about how the woman is "asking for it" in some way, and that the man would be wasting a good chance to touch a woman if such an opportunity were declined due to his common decency.

I think most would agree that if I were to leave valuables at my windowsill and someone were to steal them, it would still be no less wrong of the person to have stolen my items. In fact, it is clear that I had been foolish in leaving them out in the open, but that does not exonerate the perpetrator in any way.

The difference in judgments on these cases will emerge when people consider whom the guilt lies on. Some would insist that the victim was foolish, and should take precautions in future against such occurrences. Others would assert that the perpetrator was wrong all the way, victim's foolishness notwithstanding.

It is my belief that living in a society is in itself a leap of faith. That faith is that the people would largely abide by the laws. Of course, it is understood that the laws run contrary to human nature and temptations. However, the leap of faith requires that people adhere to it despite their urges. If the situation were turned around, and the perpetrator became the victim, I think they would not be amused if their items got stolen, or their daughters got molested...simply because of a lack of precaution taken. Of course, I would have little to say should they be consistent enough in their beliefs that even were they the victims on the flip side. I do somehow doubt that that would be the case if such a thing would really befall them.

Avatar's Aesthetics

The world of Pandora in Avatar has been widely praised as being gorgeous and downright spectacular at night. One friend of mine noted that the forest was silent at night, and had beautiful lights everywhere. After thinking for a while, I realized that the lights of the forest reminded me of the city.

I find it curious that I do not hear much about the lush foliage of the Pandora jungle, or how strange the plants are in the daytime. Instead, the comments were about the nice light show at night. Interestingly enough, we have a similar light show at night: the city lights. Of course, the city lights seem strangely less endearing. Perhaps it is the strange union of city and jungle that so fascinates people?

Yet it is also unusual in that the jungle is also remarkably still, as my friend noted. There seems to be virtually no insect life, nor any other sounds of life. If nothing, that makes me think of an artificial wilderness. How fitting, then...having a jungle married to a city, with virtually no other insect life apart from the human-equivalents: the Na'Vi.

Planet 51

Sometimes, the reviews on Rottentomatoes are not to be trusted. Planet 51 is one of the classic children's shows, featuring an alien "invasion" with the invader/invadee roles switched. When I last checked, the reviews were in the low 20%, which basically made the show exceptionally bad. This time, though, the reviews seemed quite fixated on how the show's jokes were unfunny and it was childish (unsurprising for a children's show) and incorporated slapstick scatological humor.

Well, given what I saw in the trailers, I was quite inclined to give it a spin despite its terrible reviews on Tomato. I was pleasantly surprised that it was a show with reasonably funny kid jokes and quite some dashes of cuteness. All that interspersed with cultural references and especially jibes at general human paranoia when faced with the unknown. Planet 51 is a standard old story of alien arrives, everyone goes panicky and eventually alien gets to go home when the natives settle down.

I suppose the show was largely victimized by serious-minded adults rating the movie the way they would as serious-minded adults. There seemed to be little appreciation for the general silliness, the somewhat simple textures and all that cute. I would not think this movie was great, but it does get a 7/10 from me nonetheless.

The New Year

I suppose I write at least one such entry every year... But yeah, festivities do tend to get me rather pensive. Firstly, of course, I am not a big fan of participating in whatevers just to feel like a part of something larger than myself. That's not to say that I feel others should do the same...that's just me.

What I do tend to recall when it comes to everybody events like the countdowns is that not everyone will be counting down together. Some will be asleep as the clock rolls over. Others will be too busy with other concerns to actually notice the day ending. In fact, to think of the New Year as a new year seems awfully arbitrary. Firstly, we're going to look at at least 24 different time zones cheering at different times...all celebrating the same symbolic moment. More like a new day, if you ask me.

Secondly, it is indeed a matter of rolling over to a new day...which happens approximately every 24 hours anyway. What makes this one so special? I guess it mostly ends at the symbolism, since the new year's resolutions are rarely if ever really stuck to. It seems more like an excuse to launch burning metal into the air and get on with festivities.

I think besides getting stone drunk on the streets of the big cities, it also helps to keep in mind those who will not be able to celebrate together with everyone else. The destitute, the ill, those who are simply too bothered by life's troubles to enjoy the new year. If anything, this festive season is a great time to start pay it forward movements, and to be charitable. It may not mean much for individuals, but if everyone could get in that spirit the way they do with the festivities, I think it can still make an impact.