Wreck-It Ralph

A movie about video games and featuring video game characters. What's there not to like? Wreck-It Ralph will appeal to gamers for sure. Especially veteran gamers.

The movie is a typical hero's journey style narrative, with the usual redemption theme. The difference is that they manage to create the impression of a living world (a'la Toy Story) in the arcade, chock full of references to the characters and their current state of being. Oh Q*Bert, you poor thing!

While the movie brings nothing new into the narrative space, the characters invite sympathizing if not outright empathy and the redemption story can be particularly poignant to certain folk. I personally liked it, and figure the movie deserves 8/10.

Motivation In Life

What do you live for? Why do you go to work every day? These are questions that I ask myself from time to time. I've even asked my friends about it. The answer I often get is that the appropriate response is "Money". I find this response strange, because I do not go to work for the money.

A cheap retort some people have for my statement is that I might as well hand over all the money I earn because I don't need/want it. That's cheap because they know I can't answer that, and more importantly it's beside the question of motivation. I could easily retort that since they aren't working for the air they breathe, why don't they just stop so that I can get more oxygen?

I guess the point is that if one's at work exclusively (or at least primarily) for the money, one will find it hard to stay on when the going gets tough. In fact if I worked for money, I'd just go to another place that offered more money. Because the work doesn't matter. I guess that's one way to live, but it's largely without a true aim. There's no end point to money, and honestly the applications of money can be somewhat limited. At some point you have so much money you don't really know what to do with it. But before you can get there, you'd probably need a good dose of passion.

Passion is what gets people up even if the work's painful, and I guess that means one needs to work in a line which one likes. In some smaller economies that's just not possible, but should one have the fortune to do so I think one just doesn't work another day in their life. Ultimately, with passion, one has a motivation besides money to keep doing a good job, which tends to improve one's skills, which tends to attract money anyway. Interesting, no?

If I Were God

I was pondering what my conversation with myself would be like if I were God. This is what came out of it:

Me: Ok so let's get down to the questions. Players have been complaining about the recent game balance fixes that just don't make sense. Do you intend to fix them anytime soon?

God: Uhhh...there haven't been any recent patches. There haven't been patches for thousands of years.

 Me: ... none?

God: Yup. I basically put a few rules in place a couple billion years ago, then sat back to watch the system develop. It's really just injecting some order in the primordial chaos.

Me: What did you do after that? God: I rested. Then played video games. And played with knives and took photos. And read books...

Me: Ok... Uh... So you're telling me that all of existence is just basically a random system?

God: Not random. Just randomness with a few simple rules to allow it to evolve by itself.

Me: Right. Well we've been hearing lots of complaints about the lack of customer support over the last few millennia. Do you intend to release a patch to address some emerging imbalances in the system?

God: Nope. Actually that was written in the patch notes. It says no further patches will be provided.

Me: Patch notes...?

God: Yeah nobody ever reads patch notes.

Me: Wow. That's...unexpected. So I guess it begs the question: Why was Reality created?

God: I was bored.

Me: There's no meaning to life, huh.

God: That's not a question, but yes. You guys made all those meanings up.

Animals

Those who know me will be familiar by now that I regard the majority of humans as animals. That is, as creatures that live primarily by their base urges and instincts rather than conscious thought. When thinking about the animals in the arena of statecraft and particularly economics or public policy, I find the label particularly apt. The average human is predominantly obsessed with their day to day existences and "survival", and thus leave no room for considering the wider world that affects them no less. I have raised this issue with friends, who have pointed out that poorer people have no time to consider such things as they're too busy trying to stay alive and feed their families. The suggestion gave me pause, because it seemed plausible. However, I quickly recalled where we stand right now, standing on the shoulders of the geniuses who have built up the high technology that we take for granted today. Surely these people had to have thought beyond their everyday lives to bring humanity forward step by painful step. Surely these people didn't start off in a world of plenty the way we are today. Of course, I should qualify what I mean by world of plenty. True, there is certainly hunger and extreme poverty all over the world. However, considering the incredible populations we have this day and the fact that we're feeding a goodly bit more of them than we did back in the day is indicative of the progress made towards sustaining the population. Despite this state of humanity, we do not see a sudden flourishing of amazing new developments and the spontaneous emergence of new philosophies that serve the betterment of humans. Instead, all I see is the blind pursuit of material wealth by animals. Is this the boon that wealth brings, now that there is a great big group of people who no longer fight for survival and have the capacity to ponder greater things?

Politics

It is interesting to note that the average human dedicates so few mental resources to the comprehension of grand strategy that their comprehension of the words of politicians may as well be nil. Simply put, a politician needs only manipulate their emotions and reframe their thoughts in order to push forward a plan that would make little sense to any learned thinker. The politician operates without independent scrutiny or intellectual audit. When I think about how politics works, I cannot help but be both amazed and disgusted by it. I am amazed by how easily it works when one understands the principles, and disgusted by the same. Can it be that the majority of humans are little better than animals in comprehending such matters? This is applicable in the workplace as well, whereby a more politically savvy co-worker may climb the corporate ladder and thus gain more command than one of his/her intellectual capability may suggest. In fact, it seems that the people who dedicate more time/thought to developing political prowess than technical skill wind up on top. This creates a vicious cycle that is detrimental to organizations. It seems to me that there is a sweet spot that must be hit whereby a person has a basic grasp of political savvy while primarily developing technological savvy. A good example of the archetype would be successful technopreneurs who successfully market their own product while being rather adept at the technologies themselves. This, I think, would be a fairly productive balance point.

Reviving Creativity

I was walking around taking photos just now, and I was getting night shots that few other people have taken. I walked a path that virtually nobody took, and was rewarded for it. Now that I've done it, it seems so obvious. However, something kept me from even trying in the first place. I think I may know what that is. We go through lives guided by rules. Some are written, some rather more tacit. It is the unwritten rules that seem to hold us back the most. Tonight I walked on a bridge, but the path is so unknown that even the exit at the other end was barely accessible. To be fair, its entrance is obscure, but the most important barrier is simply that it's a highway bridge and it just never occurs to people that it can be used for anything but driving on. Simply put, while the access is obscure, a mental rule was pretty much serving to keep anyone from even trying. I think this is one of the many steps one may take towards reviving creativity. The more rules one keeps sacred in one's world view, the harder it is to take steps off the beaten track. It is by far easier and more comfortable to stay within the common bounds, and never violate them. Sadly, that is also a rather stifling path for one to take through life. To those who wish to try it, break an unwritten rule today. It isn't illegal, but one may be quite surprised at what one may find out after breaking it.

San Francisco

I had a fine fortnight's stay in SF to visit my cousin. I acquired an EM5 camera to do the job. I figured what the heck, if I were to go on a trip like this, the least I could do for myself was to get a hardware upgrade. I did not regret the expenditure. Overall we had fun together, seen the city and done some neat stuff. Heck I even had the opportunity to see the Folsom Street Fair and missed the shuttle flyby (AAARRRGGGHHHHHH~~~!!!!!) I even had a sweet lot of photos alongside a huge pile of jerky and chocolate. It returning from such trips that feels rather bittersweet. On one hand I have the memories to keep me going. On the other, it just makes me long to see more of the world, and knowing just how cloistered I really am. I need to get out more. Funny quirk of being nocturnal: I don't experience jetlag the way most people do. I mean I do get desynched but ultimately I'm actually perpetually jetlagged, so I actually have moments of wakefulness at a more usual time after such a trip. America, I shall miss you. For now.

Self Help Scam

I was having fun reading Rich Dad Poor Dad over the last week. I regard it as light reading, seeing as how it's an entire book written about a few very basic (and by now commonsense) ideas that are backed up by experiences that go so incredibly well that it simply leaves one wondering at just how unembellished they are. Simply put, it is the kind of book that just makes one wish to go get a proper financial education, and that's probably its greatest value. Now, self-help books have been rather popular for quite some time now. In fact, they seem to have a goodly bit of entertainment value. However, I do question the value of self-help tomes. Like the intellectual junk food I was talking about earlier, self-help books seem to be rather good at giving people a nice warm and fuzzy feeling inside, but come out of it little better off (if at all) from the reading experience. Some have criticized self-help books for being scams. I don't know if all of them are, but I certainly do think they have done rather well to make the authors (and their publishing houses) significantly richer than they started off. After reading a book like this and the other intellectual junk food, I would think it is just simply wiser to find a good text on the subject one is truly interested in and just read that. At the very least it'll impart some technical knowledge in the matter.

Reading Trash

It is said that books are food for the intellect. And then there are books that I prefer to term intellectual junk food. I've read a few trivia books over the years. I think they might be familiar to many people: the bestsellers that tell readers about all sorts of amazing stories that boggle the average person's mind. In fact, the books are great big collections of Did-You-Know's. My first encounter with such a book had me hooked, at least initially. Wow. It has that stuff? I did not know that. This book is teaching me stuff! After reading it, I pored over the stuff I (thought I) learned. Much as I tried, I could only recall the specific cases. Oooh so this is what a Black Swan is. That is what Flipnosis is about. So that's what it's like to be Fooled By Randomness. However, what I failed to glean from the readings are the first principles of the phenomena. That is, how I might go about replicating them or perhaps avoiding them. In short, the books left me scarcely better off than when I started. Perhaps I traded the cost of the books for the ability to impress my friends with my knowledge of trivia. Ultimately, the books aren't bad per se in that they're outright lies, but that they do not truly better a person. What's worse is that they give readers the illusion that they've been bettered, when the reader is not taught the underlying principles of the phenomenon. I am now no better at spotting a potential Black Swan or actually changing someone's thought patterns through Flipnosis or anything else along those lines. There just is no substitute for a proper (self) education in the matters by reading proper books designed to teach precisely those things.

Cultural Differences

Sometimes I go on the train and differences in upbringing can become incredibly apparent. There are the people who jostle with abandon and not bother to apologize for the manhandling, and there are those who tell their children to apologize for merely bumping my backpack. One certainly sounds crass and callous while the other's pleasantly polite. The two examples of humanity came from different walks of life, with different cultures. One came from a background where parents teach their children to rush to board a train and secure their seats, whereas the other came from a more sanguine culture where it's proper to respect others. Likewise, I've observed individuals who recognize that it is impolite to stare and will soften a fascinated look with a smile, while there are others who would stare and look guiltily away when noticed only to surreptitiously administer the stare when the notice has passed. Those of the more genteel upbringing would undoubtedly find it unusual that any decent folk would behave in that manner. However, what fascinates me is how the other specimen has been cultivated in an environment where such conduct is (implicitly perhaps) perfectly acceptable. Cultural standards sure do differ greatly.

Language And Thought Processes

Some may believe that racial traits carry influence a person's thought processes and attitudes, thus shaping one's character. I know my parents believe that. However, I think such a view is not just racist, but grossly oversimplified. I propose an alternative view, that a fairly obvious contender for the racial differences (where present) lies in language itself. For example, a language that has honorifics in its basic grammar is likely to breed thought processes where respect and hierarchy are salient. This does not necessarily breed a respectful individual, but it certainly does make the individual think a lot more about respect (gaining, losing it, etc) than one that has a language that is less steeped in honorifics. I have seen examples of people of certain ethnicities behaving in completely different manners depending on their country of upbringing. Clearly, if there is a genetic basis in their behavior, there would be a common thread between them in that sense. However, there is not. Instead, I see them conforming more to the cultures they are steeped in and the language(s) that they speak.

Max Payne 3

I've been playing Max Payne 3 on hard for a couple hours now, and I say this: I am disappoint. I may not have finished the game so far, but I think I've seen enough to make that pronouncement. Ultimately, Max Payne 3 plays exactly like an interactive movie: You interact for 3 minutes, watch 10 minutes of movie. It seems unfortunate that the developers have somehow managed to create a rather cinematic gameplay experience yet seem reluctant to let the player get more playtime to truly appreciate it. Perhaps I've been spoiled from playing the likes of Half Life 2, where every single cutscene is interactive at least in some way. I don't think so, however. It just seems like a rather overblown attempt at forcing a cinematic experience through taking control away from the player, instead of getting the player engaged in the narrative. There are many ways to cue the player to approach certain areas so that they enter a dramatic part of a story of their own accord, and allowing gameplay to continue while characters jaw one another to death. The other major problem with the game is the narrative itself. Where Max Payne 1 had memorable characters and a rather fine parallel with Ragnarok mythology, Max Payne 3 has characters that are forgotten as quickly as they stop gabbing, and the Noir style monologues seem to go on for their own sake. The way the story flows somehow manages to talk about urgency without showing any. There never was a point where the game got my pulse racing. Overall I'd say that my single player experience so far is 4/10 at most. Graphically, the game's fairly pleasing, but gameplay and narrative wise, it is just quite the flop.

Wardrobe Analysis

It is always fun to dig through one's wardrobe and analyze its contents. Garment choices reflect upon a wearer's personality and even the moods of the season. I found some interesting patterns in mine. I've found, for example, that my color tastes have shifted in favor of blacks and reds, with a tendency towards checkered patterns. If anything, I don't actually have yellows in my wardrobe, and the few greens I've got are rarely if ever worn. I guess it does suggest a shift in the general tone of my being in the recent years, and in this instance I could probably fairly say that my tastes have changed for the darker and the colors reflect that. Other than that, it was certainly an interesting moment where I learned something about myself.

Bourne Legacy

Another Bourne movie. Except this time, without Jason Bourne proper. Which is odd. It's a lot like having a James Bond movie where Q talks about Bond and does all the action. Personally, I find that it's a stretch to call it a Bourne movie at all. I guess Matt Damon's absence is just one part of why I find this movie less than satisfying. There's the matter of the action, with long drawn out chase scenes and unsatisfying fight scenes where you expect a climax only to be faced with an anticlimax. I find that highly unfortunate. That is not to talk about the twist in the storyline which I find cumbersome at best, requiring excessive explication to put forward where a simpler narrative would've sufficed. Overall I can say that I did not enjoy this movie. There's the obligatory occasional explosion and high octane chase scenes that are mediocre at best with their excessive reliance on shaky chase cameras and overall lack of a satisfying conclusion. Coupled with the absence of Bourne himself, I would just have to rate this movie a failure. It gets a 3/10 from me.

The Dark Knight Rises

So I finally got down to watching Batman. This time, Batman faces Bane in a high stakes struggle over Gotham (what's new?). The movie is everything one might expect from a Nolan Batman installment, though I guess I still preferred the prequels. The story has hints of the No Man's Land and Knightfall story arcs, with all that entails. I really do appreciate that the director's striking a balance between the creation of an independent narrative and the established comic series. Kudos for that. I also liked the reimagination of Bane as a somewhat intellectual figure with a background in the League of Shadows. Sadly, despite the characters and the story itself, there were a number of inconsistencies in the movie that just took me out of my suspension of disbelief. I did not appreciate that the city did not quite give me the feel of one under siege, nor did Batman/Bruce's difficulties feel convincing enough for me to immerse myself. Overall I did like the movie, but I think this is just not quite up to the standard of the other Nolan Batmans. Perhaps Heath Ledger's death had something to do with this. Regardless, I'd give it a 7.5/10.

Fantasies

Sometimes I think about the popular fantasies of humans, and wonder if there's something to it. In our modern age, anyone who believes in "special powers" like telepathy and other preternatural abilities would be ridiculed on reflex. I am neither believer nor skeptic, but am rather curious about the whole thing. What if those fantasies were real? What if those fantastic abilities remained untapped? Sadly, I have yet to personally encounter compelling evidence of the existence of genuine preternatural abilities. Yet, the limitations of empirical observation are apparent to me at the same time. It is something that people across various cultures have wanted to believe in, and sometimes I wonder whether there's more to it than we've been taught in school. One thing I've been pondering is the matter of human abilities in general requiring training to grow. Given that nobody's really interested in cultivating preternatural abilities these days, it's perhaps unsurprising that any extant abilities would wind up atrophying anyway. It is something I've been considering, but it still swings both ways. It might be too weak to use with any regularity, or it simply does not exist.

A Hurt Toenail

I've been out of krav maga training for a month now. That is rather unfortunate and it annoys me to no end. It is equally unfortunate that the cause of my missed trainings came specifically from an accident there. I was attempting to perform a kick block one night, when I accidentally wound up ramming my toe into someone's shin. That hurt and resulted in a bruised toenail. It seemed mostly fine after that, so I didn't quite heed it. Sadly, it wound up getting infected a fortnight later, and it was sufficiently tender that I just could not wear shoes for a while. Obviously, that precluded training. Now, nearly two months later, the toenail's mostly healed but there's still something up with it that it's slightly tender when I press on the top of the nail. It's improved some, but I guess I am just generally reluctant to aggravate it. Hopefully it'll mend soon.

Molestation

Social taboos are interesting and sometimes frighteningly powerful. Sexuality is the subject of numerous taboos in modern society. Thinking about that makes me consider exactly what the impact of molestation is. It is obvious that it has profound effects on the victim's psyche, causing lasting trauma that is extremely hard to recover from. Objectively speaking, being groped by someone is little different from being brushed up against on the train or in some other public place. However, in reality the sense of violation is so extreme that it can lead some to commit suicide or engage in other self destructive behavior as a result. At first blush, I imagine molestation is a cue for a person to signal his or her sexual availability. Someone who does not respond strongly to a molestation is indirectly deemed to be sexually deviant, in not making a solid effort to protect one's sexual purity. I find it unfortunate that the burden of protecting one's sexual purity falls unevenly on the shoulders of the female of the human species.

Kaputt

My computer has been ailing for some time now, and it seems to have chosen to go fully kaputt today. That is most unfortunate. After checking it, it seems to me that the problem is caused at least in part by the thermal grease under the CPU which has hardened into something akin to hardened thermal gunk. It is clearly time for some servicing. This will be the first time I had to replace the stuff, but well there's always a first time for everything. I find it interesting that the average lifespan of my computers is around 3 years. After 3 years in my service, a computer will have some sort of critical failure that will require major servicing. After that, something usually fails altogether and that's when I call for a complete overhaul. By that time the system's usually sufficiently old that it needs some sprucing up anyway. The timing is a little unfortunate this time, seeing as how I am trying to save up for some major expenses, and I'd probably need to get on with real servicing rather than replacing the system altogether. Fortunately, I don't actually feel the need for a replacement considering how system requirements for games do not appear to have increased all that much in the recent years, so my system tackles the newer releases rather well.

Small Towner

I remember those movies where a small towner comes out to the big city to seek their fortune. I remember how inspirational those movies felt, somethin of a coming of age story. Strangely, after thinking it over, I realize that the reason such movies resonated with me was 'coz I pretty much felt the exact same way. A strange thing, considering that I'm from a large city myself, with a population of millions. The difference here is that the city is more like an island, with a woeful lack of greater exposure. Overall I dare say that I seek that exposure, and to broaden my horizons. I know it will be tough, but well thta's part and parcel of growing up. How odd that I should feel this.

A Night Walk

I had another night walk with friends yesterday and it was quite refreshing. I think there's something to be said for safe streets, where one may roam without excessive fear. I do find it relaxing to hang out by the waterfront and take my time to shoot photographs. Sadly, I find myself unable to really do that sort of thing by day anymore. Partly work commitments and well it gets rather difficult to focus when dealing with getting burned to a crisp and battling the heat. It leaves little energy for one to focus, let alone really relax and take shots at leisure. After a nice stroll from 11pm till 3 in the morning, we figured it'd be a good time to call it a night. Hell one of em was just about ready to pass out, but I wouldn't complain. Doing the night outing isn't really natural for most folk, so one has to respect that. Likewise for dragging me out of bed at dawn for some outing. That'd just be rather nasty. Regardless, I find myself enjoying such outings way more than other more conventional options like going out for a drink, dancing or shopping.

Madagascar 3

Now, I've watched the first Madagascar and thought that while it was sweet, it was just another happy kids show with a fairly predictable plot. I went to this movie expecting something similar (or typically worse considering that it's a sequel) and came out of it pleasantly surprised. Mad 3 was a visual feast, perhaps epilepsy inducing in parts, but overall highly enjoyable. The movie shows a high level of visual polish combined with a predictable but uplifting plot that manages to alternate between joy and sorrow while ending on a sweet note. I guess I've become somewhat jaded over time and no longer find such tales tugging at my heart strings anymore, but I do recognize a reasonably good narrative when I see one and the references to other animated films (think Up! and such) makes it worth a watch. Sadly, as much as I liked this film relative to the first, it is not quite in the league of the likes of How To Train Your Dragon. Perhaps Brave would fill that gap in my heart. Regardless, I would happily assign this one a 7.5/10.

Conceptual Distances

Humans have interesting concepts of distance, where the conceptual distance of a space can significantly exced objective distance. The presence of a threshold is an econceptual obstacle, which increases distance.  I have observed that when some friends are given a route that requires multiple transfers i  commute, they complain that the objective is out of the way, even though the time spent or objective distance traveled proves to be far from considerable.  This constantly confuses me, given how easy it is to get objective measures of such distances. I am loath to fall back on the convenient reasoning that humans are at their core lazy and thus prone to irrational thought shortcuts, but it certainly appears to be the case here.

Prometheus Vs Aliens

There's beauty in simplicity, and the Aliens franchise is no different. I've been thinking about just why Prometheus fell apart while the rest of the franchise managed to largely hold together, however simple and possibly shallow the whole xenomorph thing was. The original premise was that the xenomorphs were an apparently biomechanoid hive creatures that reproduced by parasiting other species. Prometheus attempts to expand upon this mythology, with very little success. Just what went wrong? If we were to consider the original Alien, it was fairly clear that the xenomorph gained biomass by infecting hosts and growing. In the later movies, the reveal of the Queen simply helped to flesh out the rest of the xenomorph life cycle. When Prometheus tried to explain the origin of the xenomorph and how it related to humans, the attempt was a tad convoluted and lost plausibility as a result. The flow seems to be as follows: The xenomorph began as a microbial goop bioweapon. If it infects a Jockey, it either causes spontaneous disintegration at the DNA level, or causes the Jockey's head to explode. The goop itself transforms regular worms into a serpentine facehugger. This serpentine facehugger apparently burrows down a human gullet to zombiefy it. Doesn't appear to do anything else. If the xenomicrobe were to infect a human, the human can mate with another human to impregnate the female with a squidlike facehugger. The human apparently dies after this, outcome unknown. This facehugger spontaneously gains biomass (????) and can implant itself in the Jockey race in order to create the first true xenomorph queen. Now, such a convoluted series of combinations does little to help with the xenomorph mythos simply because each stage raises fresh questions. It would probably have been more elegant to line the life stages up, whereby the goop infests a worm, which turns into a serpent which infests a human and becomes a facehugger which eventually infects a Jockey and forms the first xenomorph queen. With the various branches presented in the movie, questions are raised like: What, exactly does the zombie human do? Why did the infested Jockey's head explode when reanimated, yet causes the other Jockey to disintegrate when imbibed? Where did the squid xenomorph get its biomass, and why is that biomass required in the first place? Finally, if the Jockeys knew that the xenomorph goop was exceedingly dangerous (nearly resulting in the extinction of a species that's apparently biologically identical to humans), why did they insist on bringing the goop to earth to eliminate the other humans? Ultimately, the attempt at creating a more diversified application for the original xenomorph bioweapon opened a can of worms (pun intended) and really doesn't help in clarifying premise of the series. At this point, I'll also contribute my weird interpretation of the thing: The "Engineers" or "Space Jockeys" are basically Space Marines, from Warhammer 40k. We know this from the great height and strength, and the black carapace on the humanoid's torso. Clearly an unarmored and unarmed Astartes. What you find in the canopic jars are really virus bomb goop. We know this because it causes a horrible reek (emission of flammable gases) in an infected human, followed by spontaneous explosion of the head. It disintegrates biomass (Jockey disintegration), presumably releasing the same gases. At some point, all biomass on the planet will decay, causing the atmosphere to be filled with flammable gases, facilitating exterminatus. The last surviving Space Marine simply wished to launch the shuttle to Terra in order to complete the virus bombing, but failed. Of course, credit must be given where due, and I think Prometheus had some fine attention to visual detail. All the facehugger prototypes had some aspect of its vagino-phallic reproductive organ. The Space Jockey seat was very clearly explained, and the way the pilot fit in that strange humanoid sculpture explained just why there was a humanoid aboard a xenomorph ship, and just how the xenomorphs are associated with humans. I actually did spend most of the movie oogling the details and seeing how they try to fit in with the original Alien series.

Prometheus

I watched Prometheus today. I went to the movie with high expectations, considering that it's Ridley Scott again, doing the Aliens thing...again. How could it possibly go wrong? Well, despite its best attempts to do things right, the story just didn't hold together. I would presume that Prometheus started off as an attempt at explaining the origins of the xenomorphs and humanity, and perhaps telling us about the Jockey while we're at it. Unfortunately, the movie came across more like a shoddy attempt at tying up the story, winding up with more loose ends than it began with. So basically the Weyland guys fly over to a distant earthlike planet to discover what it's all about, and then discover that the planet's mostly deserted. This time, it doesn't exactly seem to be the xenomorphs that are responsible. Unfortunately, it seems that this potential to evolve the narrative has been squandered, and instead of trying to establish a coherent origin story, the narrative feels more like a mishmash of strange infections and outcomes that have no apparent relation to one another. Granted, this movie may be intended to be a two part experience and perhaps all would be explained in the second film, the current form is quite simply unable to stand by itself. I find this greatly disappointing. Overall I'd say the movie gets a 5.5/10 from me. I would've graded it lower for squandering the potential it has, but I guess it's points for effort at depicting a different form of the xenomorphs and just what the Jockey had in relation to the monsters. Unfortunately, the woeful lack of proper character development prevents any appreciation of just what's going on, and just makes the film feel like a rather nicely detailed action flick that is short of most of the action. I'd write a comparison between Alien and Prometheus next, to highlight just what's off about the whole shebang, but be warned that spoilers will be included.

Routines

If you remember my earlier post on feeling generally unmotivated, I think I may have figured out the cause of my depression: I am sinking into a routine. This has happened several times in my life, when I find myself grinding to a halt, and I can barely countenance seeing another day. It is during these times that I seriously consider suicide or at the very least withdrawing from humanity yet again. The issue here is not that something in particular is upsetting me, things like another person or work pressures or the like. It's the general feeling that I am stagnating and living life as a routine, doing the same or similar things over and over again. Given that the marginal differences of each day are minimal, my days blend into one another and I get an overpowering impression that I am in fact wasting my life away. I recall that when I was younger, one of my key comforts in life was the library. This may sound strange, but social contact is just draining and libraries are perfect places to hang out with something meaningful without having to interact with people. The library is where I can sail away on tomes of random knowledge, and on to flights of fancy with a novel at hand. Libraries really are remarkable places. Thinking back, I realize that I've recently taken to regarding libraries and books in general as repositories of narratives and escapist fantasy. While that was an aspect of my comfort, it was never the complete solution. I thirst for knowledge, and right now I am not learning nearly as much as I wish to. So here I am, sitting around listening to random Nine Inch Nails tracks for the ambiance, thinking about what such music tends to awaken in me. Ultimately, I feel a renewed sense of purpose, and I think I should go hermit for a while. Take some time away from the humans, and go back to my solitude. At the very least it'll be a rather cathartic experience, and restorative in the very least. When I think about the night walks I've always enjoyed, I realize that they are effectively an exercise in getting myself a dose of solitude while simultaneously discovering some part of the city each time. Even despite that, I find myself going into a routine by visiting a single place too often, and basically I can foresee running out of novel places to visit in my vicinity. The solution there, obviously, will be a change of scene.

Dark Shadows

Ordinarily, I wouldn't watch a vampire movie, let alone one that looked like Dark Shadows. Unfortunately it was Johnny Depp so I just had to sneak a peek. I did not watch the original Dark Shadows tv series, so my take will be completely based on my personal observations of the film itself. The film is a fine exercise in highlighting the differences between our era, the 70's and a goodly 200 years back, with all that entails. From other reviews that compared the film to the series, it's apparent that the film did not live up to its heritage. Unfortunately, I am a horrible gauge of bad acting, so I cannot comment on just how flat a character may appear. I did like that Depp's delivery of the character was leaning rather more heavily on the deadpan rather than an emotive struggle to come to terms with one's inhuman condition and romance. Frankly, I didn't mind that performance, seeing as how it would've been how I'd have reacted regardless. That said, the overall narrative was somewhat predictable and there was little that was particularly intriguing in the characters. I'd say the movie, despite Depp (sorry, Depp) was mediocre at best and earns a nice 6.5/10. Not bad, but certainly nowhere near great.

Being Different

The social wave of this decade has bewildered me for quite some time. One moment everyone's fine with doing things alone, and the next you find that everyone has to do everything with everyone else. Otherwise, it seems that they feel bad about themselves or something. Food needs to be photographed so others know what you've been eating at every meal. Games need to be played with friends in order to be fun. Even your movements need to be reported on some social networking site. My first thought was that all of this was utterly irrational. It's not something that people grew up needing, and now it's become something of a way of life. However, on closer examination, it's become increasingly apparent to me that I am looking at what is more of a fad than a true evolution of peoples' needs. For example, I keep getting friends requesting to play games together, then find them doing their own thing and basically not making any serious effort to play together. And then there's the matter of people buying into trendy gadgetry like the iPhone, only to underutilize it. I've come to realize that ultimately this is just the high school popularity contest returned to haunt us in a slightly different guise. Most people want to fit in wherever possible, and following these odd social trends is a relatively easy way to prove that one fits in with the "in" group. They have little true personal dedication to the trend itself, but are instead doing it for the very public act of fitting in. Sadly, not many people seem to be inclined to accept the fact that they are different, and to simply say NO to a fad that does not appeal to them. I have been told that I accept and even embrace my difference, but as always I say I am different simply because that's the way I am. I make no effort to do so just to express some newfangled individuality or just for the act of being rebellious for its own sake. Then again...maybe not quite so, regarding the matter of rebelliousness.

Men In Black 3

A typical men in black show, now with some character background. For those who are familiar with the series, the show will not disappoint. The fan gen pop may well find the show amusing yet highly forgettable, unfortunately. The earth is in peril. Again. And the mib must save the earth. Again. This time its different, because it involves time travel. Overall despite some character origin narrative, the show proves to be quite the linear, predictable tale. The ending is a foregone conclusion, so everything else in between is just fluff. I would call this a mediocre delivery of a now ageing franchise, scoring 6/10

Diablo 3

For all you humans out there, you've probably heard about the craze over this strange game called Diablo 3. I have a copy with me, and played it for a couple days now. Overall I'd say that I'm fairly disappointed with the gameplay, in that it's been rather simplified to the extent that strategizing one's build is mostly out of the hands of the player. Previously, one could choose to min/max the attributes and pick from a range of skills, but in the interest of accessibility it seems that most of the skills are simplified to the extent that spamming seems to be the only realistic way to play the game. Take away the strategy bit and a whole lot of the game's longevity is lost. I've been exploring the auction house lately, and it struck me just how hard it was to find an item there. The search would not provide any meaningful hints of how many entries were found, how many are out there or any form of history. Simply put, it lacks the basic functions that make an auction useful, and that inhibits the move towards price equilibrium in an auction. So far, I've found that anchoring works really well with the people, in that the resale price of the item is actually influencing the auction base price. Overall, I've been having fun playing the market there, arguably more fun than the game itself. Perhaps I've become jaded after gaming for nearly 20 years now, but I seek challenges and perhaps a bit more depth to the gameplay than I previously did. D3 has not delivered that for me. That is not to knock the game for what it does, but that I've found myself becoming quite tired of it after playing for mere days, coming to realize that I am simply running the hamster wheel of rolling ever better items ad nauseam even while repeating the same story over and over. Perhaps this is fun for some players, but it has ceased to be fun for me unfortunately.

Commanding The Mind

I've come to realize that the mind is malleable and can be directly commanded. One example I can bring up is the matter of falling asleep. Most regard sleep as uncontrollable and one moment they're awake, the next bam they're asleep. For me, I've come to realize that before sleeping, there's a certain buzzing feeling and the body slowly becomes numb. At this critical juncture, it is actually possible to authorize or deny the sleep cycle. Should one choose to authorize it, it also becomes possible to call upon the sleep cycle at will as well, thus enabling sleep at just about any time one wants. From this, I could say that a lot of what people believe to be involuntary is actually quite consciously controllable given the right stimulus and training. Unfortunately, it seems that people are either unwilling or unable to dedicate the resources to investigating exactly what it is that they have control over. I find it sad because there likely a goodly bit of unrealized potential in the average person, and they are just not trying to maximize it at all.

Riding The Shadow

I am sure the Chinese have a saying for this, but I do not remember what it is. Regardless, of the office politics moves that I've seen, one of the more despicable ones would be riding the shadow. By that I mean a player chooses an authority figure (usually his manager and associated managers) and starts to become a yes-man. That is, he does and forwards precisely what they say. They say jump, he tells others how high it should be. Over time, he moves from being a follower to an apparent leader, borrowing the boss-man's shadow as his own. This creates the illusion that he's actually rather powerful when in reality he's just a crony. Now, this is despicable because it takes cronyism to a whole new level. A regular crony simply obeys the higher ups. A shadow rider usurps that authority and over time turns it into real authority, with most being none the wiser. It is an underhanded way to attain power, and while some may argue that it harms no one, I would say that it harms everyone because they now have a scheming player in a position of power in their organization. Unfortunately, people seem to be either unaware of these moves, somehow internally accept them as legitimate strategies or are rather accepting of power games. Allowing such moves in an organization is precisely what results in bad management, where the people in place aren't there because they wish to be there for the good of the organization, but for the advancement of their own personal power.

Defining Oneself

I am sure I've written of this some time back, but the question of how one defines oneself has been nagging at me ever since. How does one define oneself in a vacuum? While the more socially oriented or "realistic" folk would say that one cannot be defined in isolation, I would think that it's both sad and lazy to think of it that way. When one strips away one's career, friends, deeds and such, does one truly cease to exist? In my opinion, that is impossible. True, one may cease to exist in all the contexts mentioned, but one does still have a core of one's being that is independent of all the above. What's important is to constantly be aware of this core, and to constantly improve upon it. I know of people who commit suicide once they are stripped of their career and such, saying that everything that's ever meant anything to them has been taken away and that they have no further reason to live. For these people at least, they have no core to their being and are thus shattered by the move. They find themselves unable to pick themselves up. I define myself by my interests and my beliefs. Strip away the usual, and I have that core at the very least. Everything else about me is largely mutable. Should I be taken down to basics, I would find a new me to build at some point. Perhaps that simply means that I am not anchored at any single point, but it also means that I am slightly better at rolling with the punches.

Melancholia

It's interesting how certain stimuli can trigger a bout of melancholia. For me, the recently remembered trigger was wet weather at night. Typically, rain in the daytime makes me feel really good, not least because going out on a clear and sunny day is my idea of a very very bad day. However, at night, it reminds me of something I've lost but can't remember. To be precise, it feels a lot like a lost sense of discovery. I guess part of the feeling comes from no longer seeing the mysteries of the night. I've been out on too many rain nights already, and clear ones besides. Ultimately, I suppose it is the desire for a change of scene, such that I may regain my curiosity. Truly, it is not a good feeling, becoming jaded in this manner. Sometimes I think there is something to be found out there, something I seek. Unfortunately, I still do not know what that is, only that it is not here. I can only trust that I'd know it when I find it.

Arkham City

I finally got down to playing Arkham City, and this time I opted to go with the gamepad as my primary input. Seeing as how the game was originally developed for console, I figured it'd be more fun on the pad. Surprisingly, the pad on default settings proved to be a less enjoyable option than my doing the same with mouse and keyboard back in Arkham Asylum. I've not played very far so I shall not make generalizations of the gameplay, but my impression so far is that the combat just isn't quite as sophisticated as I thought it would be given that the game is the second in the series. For starters, Batman still blends the attack across what looks like 20 meters, which is a pretty absurd distance even for the caped crusader. Moreover, it seems so far that it's very possible to counter a strike using a regular attack, which is unusual enough considering that the proper way to deal with it is the counter move itself. Of course, I am not judging it as such, just stating the facts as they are. I'm sure the gameplay was done the way it is to keep the game fun for everyone, but it just seems improbable in a real fight scene. I did really enjoy the new freedom in gliding and the open world approach, however. It feels good, to be able to explore the city and basically work the criminals the way Batman would've in the comics. Perhaps I shall write again, or not. There is Diablo 3 on the horizon after all, and I imagine it shall take up a little of my time for a while after.

The Avengers

If you haven't already watched it, and love the Marvel comics, why are you reading this? Get out there and watch the film already. Joss Whedon managed to get the common theme of protecting the world from imminent destruction with tried and tired Marvel characters together to create what I'd regard as a masterpiece as far as the Marvel movies are concerned. I came to the movie expecting little more than the usual Marvel action flick, but got much more than I anticipated. The film manages to pull the Avengers characters (excepting Spidey) into action highlighting the tensions and vulnerabilities between them, and forging it into a narrative that is humorous in all the right places while preserving the intensity and seriousness that accompanies a world saving struggle. While there are the usual minor authenticity issues and plot holes, Avengers manages to mostly hold together as a rather engaging and memorable action flick while solidly preserving each characters' unique personalities. Overall I can say that I am very pleased with the movie, and that it deserves a solid 8.5/10.

The Night Shift

I was talking with a few of my more nocturnal friends, and it seems that we are in agreement that it would be very nice indeed were it possible for companies to run proper night shifts. By that I do mean professional shift work across the board, rather than the usual select few professions. Realistically, there is no reason for modern cities to stick to the traditional agrarian schedule. True, the pragmatists would argue that the agrarian 9-5 is the current de facto standard and that we should adapt to it. However, I think the time is also ripe for societies and economies to consider viable alternatives. With modern technologies, work is no longer bound to the cycle of the sun, and it is every bit a realistic option to have work done in the dead of night. Now, consider the cost of running a city approximately half of its potential 24 productive hours. For starters, the largely monolithic clock creates peak hours that cause major congestion. Moreover, it makes for deserted times where crime becomes a fairly viable option. Not to mention the economic cost of having stuff shut down for about half a day either way. Running a proper night city will mitigate that, along with the silliness whereby retail stores close at precisely the same time that offices are open. And in a city, that's precisely when everyone's just not free to do any shopping. If anyone is willing to think about it, that really doesn't make sense. Of course, in order to pull off the vision of a night city, it needs to be run as a complete system. I've seen how the cities creep towards the night concept, with 24 hour supermarkets and cinemas running past 12 midnight, but all in all it remains a fringe activity at best. Without childcare, schools, offices and such running the night shift as well, it becomes extremely difficult to get things moving properly. Given the right stimulus, however, I foresee the 24 hour city can be a rather enriching approach for any city that implements it.

L'Arc En Ciel World Tour - Singapore

Tonight, I had my first ever emergency concert. Yes it sounds funny, but it happened regardless. A friend called me and said hey she's got tickets for the L'Arc En Ciel concert. Omg? OMG! Wait wha... Ok well it's easily the first time a call came in saying that I had a chance to pop over to a 20th anniversary one-night-only concert by a band that I kinda like and it's in 2 hours. Sweet. Couldn't say no anyway. The concert itself went off with a bang, quite literally. The band played their songs one after another, with pauses in between but nothing too major. The songs were sufficiently familiar that the audience could easily sing along. Things were a bit too loud for me (as usual) and I was mildly disappointed that the audio guy let the speakers distort during some parts of the songs. Sometimes it pays not to max the sound system out. Regardless the soreness in my ears and dazzle to my eyes, I did have a whale of a time and certainly did not regret attending. As usual, Hyde's being his cute charming ageless self, raising the temperatures of a goodly number of people with his mere presence. Lovely. I find that I have the annoying inability to appreciate things as they are. Throughout the concert, I couldn't help but notice how easily the audience was manipulated by cues from the band and the SFX crew. They even aped certain animations that were played during the intermission periods and generally worked with the performers. True, some may say that it is out of sport, but I think there's more than a little herd instinct thrown in. Regardless, people were certainly having fun and I guess that's what really counts. Overall I'd say it was a right unforgettable experience, one that I actually appreciate. Sadly it'll live on exclusively in my memories, because there was no opportunity to photograph or film it. Or get someone's autograph or whatever. Not that I really mind. On a completely unrelated note, the lingering hollowness still haunts me. There's something that I need, and it still eludes me, keeping me from feeling truly happy.

Lockout

There are some movies that start strong and grow progressively worse towards the end. Lockout is one such movie. The premise of an orbital prison a'la futuristic Alcatraz is intriguing, and then as usual things go wrong, which necessitates the insertion of a special forces trooper to get the situation rectified. The movie starts strong, with a believable orbital prison, and strong characters that are distinctive and likeable. Well maybe not likeable by everyone but certainly very distinct. For moments there I thought I detected hints of Blade Runner, Mission Impossible and Half Life 2, which is generally indicative of fun times ahead. And the fun times kept going till it seems that the low budget production started running out of steam, rapidly careening into a rushed ending that is uncharacteristically disjointed. Unfortunately, really, and we were having such fine moments together. Overall there's not a lot to say. This show's an action flick about a hostage rescue by a single dude from a whole hostile prison population, with all that entails. Unfortunately, the rushed hind quarters and other miscellaneous foulups force me to give it a 5.5/10. It could've been so much better had they fleshed out the narrative in the right places, but it is what it is.

The Cabin In The Woods

Bunch of young people go into a cabin in the middle of the woods. Bad things happen and they start dying. If this sounds like the opening to a bad survival horror movie, you'd be right. However, the entire premise of Cabin is sufficiently unique that you'd probably be pleasantly surprised. Not to spoil anything, the movie certainly isn't your run of the mill survival horror. It is something of a huge elaborate conspiracy setup, whereby a bunch of kids are sent to a cabin in the woods, to face off against some classic horror movie monsters. And yes, the monsters are actually real. The movie manages to subvert a lot of the classic horror stereotypes in the context of a setup, where the common horror flick archetypes act the way they do because of manipulations by puppeteers in a command room somewhere. Given how novel the show's premise is, it's difficult to say much without spoiling the story, but suffice to say that I am greatly pleased by how they turned the genre on its head. You'd never see horror movies the same way again. What keeps this movie from true greatness is the pacing (which is a double edged sword), whereby the true premise of the story is only revealed right at the end. On one hand it keeps you guessing, but on the other it creates a niggling doubt that perhaps the reveal could've come earlier. Despite this, I am quite happy that for once, the story was designed from the start to get everyone killed. As many would know, I don't like people much, and it's awful nice to see blood spilled in gratuitous volumes while ensuring minimal survivability. It also helps that the show takes a turn that is a wee bit Portal at one point. Those who've played the game would understand. Regardless, I would say this movie has the makings of a cult classic and is nowhere near as cheesy as it may seem to be at first blush. It gets 8/10 from me.

Battleship

You sank my Battleship! A movie by Hasbro featuring the board game is something that perks my ears, because I played the game ages ago and I am greatly curious about how they might shoehorn the gameplay into a movie. If anything, I know that it is improbable to impossible, so I came to the movie fully expecting a funny flick. My expectations were met. An alien invasion comes to earth after signals were fired into space at another earthlike planet. As the premise goes, it's absolutely certain that a civilization capable of sending ships to visit us from some faraway planet is quite capable of kicking human butt. And they do. I especially like the highlight of the show, with the aliens and their weird chainsaw ball of doom. The story itself is fraught with more holes than my battleship had when it sank to the bottom of the ocean. The story is implausible from how the aliens were really quite incompetent for a race that flew all the way across space, to how they had the usual fragile central command based military systems and just how their weaponry works. And how the humans revived a particular ship to fight for them. Despite this, I love Hasbro for making the movie, as it's also full of Battleship references. To hint, it has a real battleship in the action scenes, real shelling of targets on a grid and actual pegs very much like what you see in the board game. And a little discussion on a frigate vs a battleship. Implausible aliens and apparently bad acting (I can't actually detect bad acting, unfortunately) aside, I think this movie is made primarily for kids and fans of the Battleship board game. In terms of story I'd give the movie a 2/10 for the sheer amount of plotholes, but 8/10 for managing to shoehorn key Battleship moments into an actual movie while preserving the look and feel of the boardgame brought to life by a dude very much like Michael Bay. Leave your logic at the door and enjoy the fireworks.

On Holy Ground

This will sound strange, but I do seem to discern a difference between holy ground and other normal spaces. Now, when someone mentions holy ground, people often think religious sites. That is a reasonable assumption, what with their being consecrated and all. However, that's not all the case. Religious spaces aren't necessarily holy ground.

I've been to many churches and temples, and each time I pass the threshold I just feel nothing. It's as if I've just walked into any other mall. At that point I thought well alright, so holy ground just feels like any other place. And then I step into some old churches, temples, cemeteries and the like and I get a whole other experience.

Stepping through onto true holy ground feels odd, to say the least. It's like stepping through a membrane to another space. For me it actually burns a little, but otherwise it's a pretty overwhelming feeling of peace and there's a certain awe to it. Hell it makes me feel as if I'd burst into flames if I accidentally touched some holy artifact there (I probably would, but don't want to put that to the test). I think the effect is noticeable by regular folk, as you'd see them speaking in hushed tones and basically acting reverent even though there is no religious authority figure around to dictate their conduct. It just seems to happen naturally.

I visited Naritasan temple over at Narita, Japan and I am pretty sure some of it is indeed holy ground. It has that very distinctive feeling, and it was only upon getting back did I realize that it was a temple for over 1000 years. Strangely, it's the places that are at least hundreds of years old that truly feel holy. Perhaps it is a factor of the time that people have spent earnestly worshipping at the site, or something of the sort. Regardless, it sometimes pains me to realize just how hollow modern religious sites can feel, being little different from a common mall or coffee shop.

Our Glorious Dead

I was at the Titanic exhibit today, and was slightly underwhelmed. I expected more from the exhibit, but I suppose the designers did what they could given the crazy space constraints around here. What struck me, however, was getting the boarding pass of a passenger who was actually aboard, and reading the person's life story in brief on the back.

Now, I wouldn't care about the John Smith who happened to be sitting right next to me on the metro, and really even if he told me a one liner about his life I just couldn't be arsed. Ordinarily, I believe a whole lot of people would agree with me. Yet, when it comes to a tragedy like the Titanic's sinking, suddenly everyone becomes a person of interest. I find it hypocritical. Just because we know the manner of a person's death doesn't make the person automatically interesting. In fact, it the voyeurism inherent in understanding a dead person's past that drives this sudden interest. By my definition, if you are only interested in a person after they're dead, it is a right fine example of hypocrisy.

Frankly, if a person proves to be uninteresting in life, I see little reason for their being interesting in death. Unfortunately, we seem to have set ourselves precedents for glorifying the dead, and strangely I seem to be relatively alone in seeing the irony of this. If we are to be interested in people, start while they're alive. Otherwise, let us not care at all.

Privacy

Sometimes I really do wonder at what social media brings people. On the surface, it allows mass interpersonal interactions to occur synchronously and asynchronously, thus bringing everyone together in one big happy family. Yet with technology, we can always be sure that every goodness is effectively a double edged sword, and social media is no exception.

As people have known for quite some time, social media like Facebook is a pretty good source of information for investigations. Those who are most connected to the social media have the most information on themselves out there. The most involved ones even provide live updates on their daily lives (not sure why I'd want to know that, but thanks anyway). With this information, friends can better understand other friends and law enforcement find this to be quite the boon as well. Unfortunately, stalkers can do exactly the same.

What worries me is the propensity of such lack of privacy to become habitual, in that people realize that they cannot avoid the breach without simultaneously cutting themselves off from the social stream. For many people, that is actually a very high price to pay. The problem here is that the value of privacy will go down as a result, and I foresee people not protecting their privacy as zealously as they previously would have. This is especially worrying, in that it brings us closer to a world without barriers for the common folk, but the walls remain in place for those in power...

Living With Inequality

Orwell raises a good point with inequality, in that one needs a frame of reference in order to understand that one's being oppressed in the first place. After watching Hunger Games, it also reminds me of how we live with gross inequality on a daily basis while being conditioned not to think overly much of it. Consider the fact that I am typing this on a rather high end machine that may be well over the annual income of another person out there. The inequality is right here before me, and before the one who happens to read this entry.

For those in richer urban environs, it is the sheer normalcy of everyday life that blinds us all to the struggles of others. For the desperately poor, the "normalcy" of everyday urban life is so far out of reach that the frame of reference cannot even exist. The other problems would be indoctrination, where each person is basically taught to accept ones' lot in life and by extension not seriously consider that of others. It blinds people as surely as Big Brothers' propaganda.

One of my friends commented that wow...in the Hunger Games, the rich folk of the higher districts live such ostentatiously rich lives in comparison to the drab poverty of the lower districts. I pointed out hey...that's precisely the life we're living, except we're the ones on top. It is indeed food for thought. For me, where there is an increase in wealth, the distribution should be as equitable as possible. This does not mean giving away what one rightfully earned, but to provide everyone equal opportunities to earn their own keep.

1984

I've taken to rereading Orwell's 1984 recently, and I've gained a new perspective on the matter. I remember reading it years ago and not quite getting it, because I didn't quite have an interest in the subject of how authoritarian systems work, and thus read it more like your average novel. After going through it in more detail this time, I've come to realize just how much thought went into the novel's creation, and how well Orwell actually understood authoritarianism. More interestingly, the concepts have stood the test of time disturbingly well and become quite prevalent in the recent years, albeit in a somewhat different form.

Interestingly, while Ingsoc in the book promises the equitable distribution of wealth while concentrating it amongst the select few, the capitalist system of today does the exact same thing while promising to increase the wealth of all. Where Ingsoc winds up brainwashing everyone into mindlessly accepting the system despite having to engage in doublethink, people in capitalist societies are made to accept this inequality simply because they are taught that there is no suitable substitute. People simply stop thinking about alternatives.

Given the general degeneration of democracy in today's world, the interconnectedness of the internet forcing people to think about how much of their information leaks all over the place and the omnipresence of monitoring devices, arguably the world of 1984 exists in a mutated form today. Media has become our panopticon, where citizens are being watched over by fellow citizens in a sort of self-inflicted thought police. Governments claim to be disadvantaged and disempowered by the internet, while using the same reasoning to increase their own control through heavily regulating media. And wealth distribution is extremely unequal. How, then, is this not 1984? Has Oceania truly always been at war?

Tiredness

I've come to realize that humans use "tiredness" as a rather generic term for a variety of drained states. That is, tiredness is used interchangeably to describe a state of sleepiness (lack of sleep), being drained (emotionally drained) or exhaustion (physical tiredness from activity). For me, the terms are independent, which means that one can be any number of the three at a time, or even all of the above. Unfortunately, the propensity to use the generic term irks me from its ambiguity.

The distinction is important to me, because there are different remedies for "tiredness". If one is sleepy, one sleeps. If one is tired, one merely rests. And if one is feeling down, one needs cheering up. The problem is when one doesn't distinguish between the problems and winds up using the wrong solution. That certainly does not improve the situation. As always, I figure that self-awareness is a big deal and it can certainly help improve one's well-being.

Fun In The Sun?

I was at a resort with my colleagues for some team event, and I was reminded of just how little fun it was to be out there in the open without cloud cover. Ordinarily I'd think hey spot of sunblock, shades hell it's going to be mostly ok. And then I just forget exactly how much it hurts and then there's the matter of the heat. Overall, I'd say while doing a luge down a hill is incredibly fun, it was an experience spoiled by the sun and heat.

What a shame, but frankly I can never understand how people can term it fun in the sun at all. Not unless they're outright masochists straight from Hell. Or perhaps that's exactly what they are. Regardless, I know for a fact that it's just not the kind of thing for me. I'd much prefer to do the same thing at the resort at night, just looking at the ships' lights out at sea and just enjoying the cool breeze. Now that is a much better way to chill out.

New Rulers Of The World

I was reading Pilger's work when I thought about the abuse of power in general. It is especially bad when it's a matter of the abuse of good faith, taking advantage of others under the pretext of helping them. Worst of all, it's outright hypocrisy where the bully then proceeds to convince others that he's just trying to help.

I tend to regard betrayal as one of the few truly cardinal sins against myself. It is something that I literally do not forgive. For a greater power to become an oath breaker is unpardonable. Unfortunately, the way power works, it is also often impossible to deal with them even if their deception were to be revealed. The worst thing is that the most advantageous way to live life is to play along with the bully and thereby become traitorous bullies themselves.

Disgusting. Then again, whenever advantage is to be had and selfish humans are inclined to pursue profit, it seems inevitable that they'd play along regardless of morality.

The Salary System

The salary system is quite remarkably broken, for something so prevalent. Everything from the scaling to the way it is distributed. Take for example how a CEO can earn stupid numbers of millions while the grunts may not always be able to count their thousands. Clearly the inequality is massive, and when cuts happen it invariably hits the lower ranks while the higher ups still get their bonuses (albeit reduced) and no pay cuts at all. You'd think the reasonable thing to do would be to cut salaries across the board instead of losing expertise from laying off staff.

Then comes the matter of how increments work. Oddly enough, the percentage points apply across the tiers, causing a geometric salary increase as base salary grades are raised. This means that a 7% increase for a grunt is much much smaller than the 7% that a CEO may get for similar high performance. Barring a promotion, it is actually impossible for the lower rankers to actually catch up.

A possible alternative would be to have absolute increases in salaries at increment time, such that both lower and higher rankers receive the same increment range due to their performance. That should help flatten the curve.

Those Lonely Humans

I like going out at night. There's a certain freedom to it. Sometimes I stop by a 24 hour place like a MacD's at 3am to snack and read a book. However, every time I do this, I cannot help but notice the lonely humans everywhere. Now, it may seem like I am lonely myself, doing things like sit around with a book in the middle of the night. But then again I am there for the purpose of unwinding. What I see is a whole bunch of humans sleeping at the tables or just sitting there apparently deep in thought. Knowing what I know about humans, they're probably not very happy about their lives since most would probably be lying in bed at home instead of sleeping at some fast food joint.

I am reminded of my late friend (whose death anniversary will come around in a couple weeks) and that was the exact same place I last met her before she finally successfully offed herself. She was sitting there in the middle of the night as well, frightened of her hallucinations, and her mom was coming later in the night to pick her up. Tragedy, really, but I still believe she's better off dead since she wasn't going to get any real help. Truly, that's a better place to be for some humans.

Back to the living lonelies, I look at them sleeping at the eatery and think...wow are they homeless? Do they have nowhere else to go to? Or are they just so tired that they fall asleep after a late night supper? As I walk home I see more humans sleeping on the benches around my area, and think the same thing. It is impossible to tell if they are truly vagabonds (they don't look the part) or they're just out there having a cooler rest out in the open. I'll probably never know.

The Bane Of Design

The rapid advancement of technology should help design in theory. More options become available, limitations fade away, design can be free to operate without constraints. In theory, the technology we have today should have made a whole slew of truly creative intellectual property. Yet, it seems this is not so.

The whole hypersaturated market of virtually identical first person shooter games and movies like John Carter attest to this. Something has gone wrong, that the new affordances of technology aren't fostering increased creativity, but seem to have reduced it instead. My take is that technology has become a form of creativity in and of itself, where the eye candy and special effects have led to complacency. Where one was bound by massive constraints just 2 decades ago, forcing creative thinking around technological limitations, now one simply slaps a pretty new skin on a stinking old carcass and calls it a whole new creation. Goodness gracious me.

Designers and other creative people need to find their way out of this rut, to stimulate themselves to think outside the box that superior presentation technology has ironically locked them into. To fail to see this is to allow technology to become the bane of design.

John Carter

John Carter. Interplanetary traveler, Martian loyalist, tycoon. An epic love story that spans two planets, with the lives of everyone concerned in peril were it not for the actions of our intrepid hero. One would be led to expect that the movie would be spectacular. Unfortunately, it was not.

John Carter is a typical story of a traveler who is thrown into a foreign culture, struggles to assimilate, but eventually manages to help protect it against its foes. Of course, the hero always tries to return to that culture in the end. Last Samurai, Dances With Wolves, etc etc. It's a common enough narrative, and is not inherently original in any form. What makes such a narrative memorable and truly enjoyable is the immersion where the viewers think they understand what's going on, what the cultures stand for, and wind up rooting for the hero. This was not to be.

The movie falls short when it substitutes CGI for narrative, where the foreign culture happens to be alien looking beings, and the enemy is just another form of human. On Mars. Yet, throughout the narrative, it is unclear just why they are fighting, why it's even possible for an earthling to romance a martian, what the stakes of the fighting truly are, and basically anything that matters that isn't part of the romance or combat. None of these are made clear in the story.

The overall incoherence of the narrative prevents the viewer from truly appreciating the high budget production, and it is actually disgusting to see all that money splurged to basically reskin an old tale without adding anything particularly special. I'd say this movie deserves a 4/10.

The Giggle Factor

Society has a powerful conformity mechanism, and it's called the giggle factor. Anything that lies outside the common boundaries of the masses will be laughed out of the house. As a result, the socially oriented humans will be inclined to avoid incurring the wrath of the giggle factor anytime soon.

This avoidance of the giggle factor is apparent in the sheer reluctance to seriously explore possibilities outside the realm of accepted science for example. This is regardless the actual quality of the commonly accepted science in question (most speak of it as if they know, but they retain a shallow understanding at best).

While I can understand the general guideline of sticking to mainstream thought patterns as a shortcut to staying away from shams and scams that plague alternative thought processes, I find it rather restrictive and rather like closing one's mind off prematurely. It also leads to the reluctance to question taboos, which may have well lost their practical value over the ages, yet still remaining from lack of informed querying. This seems to be rather unfortunate and a hindrance to progress.

Humans And People

While examining human society over the years of my existence, I've come to feel that human society is split between humans and people. By humans, I mean the animal-like homo sapien creatures that act primarily on instinct and maintain but a veneer of conscious critical thought. They mostly go with the flow, run with canned responses to common situations and I am quite convinced that they are little more than mere livestock. NPCs, if you will. Their presence seems to serve little more than to flesh out an otherwise empty living world.

On the other paw, there are the people, who are quite different from the mere humans. A person is one who's awakened and starts to realize that the confines of society are merely illusory, and that some of the parts have ceased to serve their purpose and can be safely ignored. They are willing to examine and constantly improve themselves and the systems around themselves. Being active participants, I'd say they're player character at the very least, and not merely run by some fancy AI.

The sad thing is the apparent lack of people presence in the face of rather excessive human presence in the current system. Perhaps it's due to processing power limitations, that there can only be that many people on earth at any given time, and that any other character spawned into this system would be doomed to be a mere human. Unfortunate, but that's how the crowd crumbles.

Laws Are Good

I was thinking about the goodness of laws earlier today, and I am certainly glad for their presence. That is why I respect the laws. Criminal law is an agreement set up by the representatives of the people (elected or otherwise) in order to protect the people from Bad Things. I, for one, have no desire to face Bad Things, so I am glad that I am protected by enforceable laws.

Think of the origin of the laws regarding murder. Killing is something that's perfectly natural to people. I for one would have killed dozens of people by now if the law didn't make it less than worth my while. Someone offends me? I find a way to kill them. Easy. Unfortunately, not only does this reduce cogs from our economic machinery, it also opens one to unfortunate backlash from those related to the inoperative cog. This cycle of revenge can potentially destabilize the system, which is an understandably unpleasant side effect. I'm sure back then people figured this out and simply agreed not to kill one another under any circumstances, except perhaps when a whole bunch of people agree that a particular person should be snuffed. It's alright if multiple people decide on something, after all.

How would such laws affect those who are regardless inclined to kill? Well I think that'd inspire me to hide the bodies at the very least, so I can continue with my activities. Not a bad thing overall, considering how it spares others the distress of seeing bodies lying all over the place. Out of sight is out of mind. The law works!

Differences

People are probably more different than they think. They smell, taste and feel things differently. It makes me wonder: Do humans truly receive the exact same inputs across the species? I'm considering what are regarded as normal humans, who don't have some sensory disabilities that preclude detection of certain inputs.

The taste of spiciness made me consider human perceptions. According to common understanding, spiciness is basically the same thing, and some people are more resistant to it than others. However, I also know that people can be resistant to one type of chilli yet be strongly affected by something made from a different chilli. This makes me suspect that people really do sense the same thing very differently.

A part of this may be a matter of the receptors themselves. Simply put, someone may see the same red quite differently from someone else. The other part is probably a matter of a person's memories, whereby associations are made to the input and result in quite some post processing that may color the interpretation of an input any number of ways.

Myopia

I've been thinking about the matter of myopia, and how research is constantly trying to prove whether it's a genetic or environmental matter. While I can understand the merits of trying to prove the origins of myopia, I do wonder if there's a chance that it's really a combination of the two.

For example, it was found that there was a probable genetic predisposition to myopia. Yet, other research has found that there's a positive correlation between myopia prone environments (lots of close work) and people there, regardless of their lineage. It sounds to me that there's a mix of genetics and environment here, where those genetically prone to myopia are more likely to develop serious myopia when exposed to a myopic environment, while everyone else are prone to develop it regardless of genetics due to the environment.

If I were to consider possible physical attributes that predispose one to myopia, I'd go with eyeball shape and memory. Students with good memory may not study nearly as much as the others with poorer memories, and become more unlikely to develop myopia from excessive close work. And those with certain eyeball shapes are already predisposed to the eyes growing lopsidedly to create the visual imperfection, and are thus more likely to develop myopia from close work. Obviously, a combination of the two would indicate the predisposition towards severe myopia.

Lovely Mirror

I remember reading an article sometime back about beauty, and how the symmetry of a face is positively correlated with beauty. In short, the more symmetrical a person's face, the more beautiful it is.

I've been thinking about reflections lately, and how different asymmetrical people can look in a mirror as opposed to how they do in person. It made me wonder if there were some implications to this disconnect. For one, people rarely see themselves the way others do them on a regular basis. I doubt the average person takes a photo of themselves or uses a video screen as a mirror. So basically, they're routinely seeing the laterally inverted image of themselves as opposed to their right side images. What might this do to how they dress, do their makeup, their hair...and basically everything else about themselves?

People are basically regularly going about without having really seen themselves. Even photographs can be outright amusing when viewed through a mirror. Take a poster and look at its reflected image: The otherwise handsome/pretty movie star on the right side image can look comical in the inverted. I wonder if anyone truly realizes how silly they really look in real life...

Safe House

Operative on operative action, betrayal and intrigue. Think of Safe House as the Bourne movie that lacks truly stylish action scenes and fails to truly hold a gripping tale together. Being the sort of creature that's largely incapable of observing human expressions and such, I have difficulty independently confirming the claims that the lead actors' performances were good. All I see is a plot that could've been better done. Oh, and they need a better fight choreographer.

So what's good about the whole thing? They created the premise of a genius manipulator agent who apparently went rogue and then resurfaced with some precious cargo. Unfortunately, apart from depicting him as a rather competent killer in fairly improbable scenarios, his intentions remain hazy at best. While this may have been an attempt at inspiring some intellectual considerations on the matter, it does seem to be rather poorly delivered.

Overall I'd say the movie has failed at its premise, and is probably somewhere close to a 3.5/10. I might've given higher scores were I more capable of understanding human expressions and all that, but unfortunately I'm not so I can't really give it a better rating.

Underworld: Awakening

This movie is a shining example of a sequel dragged out too long and plagued by a budgetary shortage worse than a vampire coven's blood shortage. I'd give it a 9/10 for successfully creating more plot holes than I care to mention.

Some say that sequels experience diminishing returns the farther they go. I'm inclined to believe this is the case for Underworld. The first installment had something of an intriguing story going. From then on, it's been a downward spiral into something that's scarcely better than another episode in a tv drama series.

What's good about Underworld? I guess it's that it's a bag of laughs from the implausible acting, bad green screening and a storyline that's swiss cheese after a firing squad had target practice. It manages to play to every stereotype in a narrative where the protagonists are hunted to extinction, and to play it badly.

There's frankly little to recommend this, and I'm inclined to give it a nice 4/10. Sorry, guys. I tried to like it, but I really couldn't.

People Manipulation

A masterful manipulator of people would be good at simplifying and reframing statements, which can routinely appeal to the widest possible audience. They understand common peoples' thought patterns and the thoughts that naturally follow. This, I think, is what makes it so hard for other non-manipulators to get their ideas across.

I've been wondering at how it is that clearly smart people find such difficulty getting their ideas across to less intellectually but more socially brilliant folk. I find that, when dealing with humans, the more abstract the idea the harder it seems for the average human to grasp. In short, someone who doesn't understand how to get an idea across will be easily outmatched by a social person of mediocre intellect since the idea will fly clean over other peoples' heads. Sad, but true.

Conversely, even mediocre ideas can be made palatable (and especially digestible) to most people (especially non-experts in the area) given sufficient social skill. This may well be the reason why mediocre or even poor managers can still rise to the top on their social skills while other more intelligent folk wallow at the bottom: If nobody can understand their otherwise brilliant but abstract notions, nobody can really appreciate their brilliance for what it is. Correctness be damned.

Chronicle

Teenagers with superpowers. That's what Chronicle is about. That said, the story of Chronicle is what can be expected when teenagers lacking creative ideas decide to use their powers to their maximum potential. Ultimately, it's an interesting premise that degenerates towards the end.

The plot itself is sufficiently predictable that I cannot see how I might elaborate without injecting some major spoilers. Suffice to say that the film does a somewhat decent job of the first person point of view (Blair Witch, perhaps) camera work that is rarely backed up by the narrative. Frankly, the narrative itself lacks depth, and fails to truly build the sort of emotional attachment to the characters that it does seem to try to do.

Overall I would say that the movie is a mediocre attempt at portraying teenage life turning sour when complicated by growing superpowers. It is somewhat refreshing to show it from a shaky first person perspective, but it misses the magic touch that would make it truly memorable. I'd give the movie a 7/10, with maybe 8/10 if you're into the camera work.

Thoughts Are Only Skin Deep

I saw a most interesting product just now. Basically, it was a snail slime based moisturizer, that is touted to be 70% pure snail slime. For those who don't already know, most girls I know wouldn't want to be a snail, let alone slather its slime on her own face. How surprising. Can it really be that there's a good way to sell disgusting stuff to females at exorbitant prices?

Beauty itself appears to be priceless. The very thought of the possibility of becoming more beautiful seems to suffice in selling a product, efficacy and grossness be damned. And for a high price, to boot. Clearly, it is entirely possible to get a female to pay dearly for the privilege to slather disgusting stuff on her own face. Intriguing.

The thought process is interesting. In the absence of a reframing method, most people have established ideas of what is gross and what isn't. Yet, the concept of a beauty product sweeps all of that aside, reframing everything in the context of a beauty product, whereby its "objective" attributes are enhanced. Truly, thoughts are only skin deep, and just need a little nudge in the right direction to completely transform them.

The Kravist Mindset

When I was discussing techniques with a friend today, he basically managed to "shank" me while in conversation. Now, I was thinking that I was holding back because we were in conversation and he was a friend. In fact, it would probably be inappropriate to do a full drill to avert the strike as well. Yet, it opened the possibility to me, that someone could indeed attempt that in real life for no apparent reason. Simply put, the strike would succeed regardless.

Now, the next question is, what would an appropriate kravist response be to such a situation? Clearly the first strike has landed and a serious injury has probably occurred. Yet, if one's still capable of soldiering on after the initial injury, one's survivability remains higher than if one simply gave up at that point. Failing the opportunity to stop the first move, one then needs to react quickly to prevent the next ones from happening. Hence the react, adapt and move on. The next move, should the assailant(s) be taken down, would be to seek medical attention and emergency first aid on oneself if at all possible.

I guess that would be the kind of injury that even a master would sustain, simply because there was no warning at all. However fast one's reactions may be or how sharp one's instincts are, sometimes it's possible to be taken by surprise regardless. Granted, this is exceedingly rare and just about any normal street situation wouldn't play out this way (completely without warning, that is), it remains a possibility especially if one has become a high value target for reasons unknown to oneself.

Leading From The Front

I was thinking about leadership, and what makes a great leader. While there may be a great number of solid thinkers making it into leadership positions, people of otherwise rather similar intellect have an incredible knack for being right horrible leaders. It isn't always a matter of poor intellect, and is often more of a propensity not to observe the front. Failing to do so tends to have a rather nasty knock on effect on decision making integrity.

When I think of a great leader, I'm thinking of someone like Alexander or Rommel. The sorts of leaders who put their own necks on the line and are acutely aware of action on the battlefront, which enables them to make accurate and appropriate decisions on the fly. It is one thing to lead from a podium far from the action, based on assumptions and analyses that may be backdated at best, outright inaccurate at worst. It's another to really know what's going on.

Unfortunately, it seems to be that, in the career space, time spent working alongside the grunts is time not spent rubbing shoulders with the brass. This tends to have some knock on effects on their progression, even though it does wonders for grunt morale. There seems to be little incentive to actually do a good job in leadership sometimes, sad as it is.

Tracking Dreams

I recall dreams from time to time. It's not really all that often, probably once or twice a month according to my dream diary. The diary logs any dream that is significant, so of course there are a number of dreams I've had that are recalled but quickly forgotten for whatever reason. This night, I write about tracking dreams.

Dreams often have nonsensical premises, and one wonders where the dreams came from. For me, I interrogate my mind using the dream itself to gain some insight. If I dreamed about something that I was crossing the bridge at night with only a flashlight on, I'd run a search with concepts like flashlight and darkness. The first memories that surface are often the most salient ones that are most closely related to the dream itself. In this case, it was when I was guiding my folks down a dark passageway because they didn't see as well in the dark as I did.

The next step is to interrogate that memory for the emotions associated with it. It turns out that works as well, which makes a rather nice match to what the dream was about. After filtering for these memory associated aspects of the dream, it becomes possible to root out the other dream aspects that did not come from the memory. That is the essence of the dream.

Chinese New Year Superstitions

Like with many superstitions, Chinese new year superstitions often make little sense. As usual, they are probably best thought of in terms of tradition rather than logic and actual practicality. Too much of it is based on the concepts of sympathetic magick, apparently without understanding of the principles of such spellcraft.

Now, let's consider the matter of luck and how it's purported to operate during the new year period. Supposedly, the practice of getting new things and cleaning out old (bad) things is intended to rid the house of ill luck. Makes sense. However, one's also told not to clean up for a period after to accept the good luck. Wait, if cleaning's good, why's cleaning suddenly bad? Gota make up our minds somewhere here...

In my opinion, if the year's been good, wouldn't it be generally harmful to attempt a thorough cleaning around the period since it may involve clearing the good luck along with the bad? Simply put, I really don't think the luck related superstitions hold much water at all. For one, I don't note religious adherents to such practices as being particularly rich or lucky. And for those who are about to say it...yup, both will involve empirical observations.

Processing Power

Human minds have limited processing power. One of the effects of living in a city is that processing power becomes overloaded fairly easily, and people go into shutdown mode in order to deal with it. That is, to avoid going positively nuts. Everyone does it to a greater or lesser extent.

Now, my consideration is with why it is that some people think for themselves and others don't. I'm going to assume that processing power norms exist, and most people are similarly smart. I'm also assuming that people are able to think, and most aren't necessarily running their brains in suspend mode all the time. With these assumptions in place, the logical question is what exactly the processing power is spent on.

Some of the supposedly "mindless" folk most probably do run their processors. They just seem to have their processors set on dealing with seemingly unproductive activities, such as fashion perhaps. However, it does seem to me that the constraints they set upon themselves (or have internalized from wider society) is the set of prescribed topics to think about. The reason "mindless" folk are as they are is that they are simply processing within the prescribed paradigm, and it never really does occur to them to consider anything beyond those confines. Not so mindless after all. Just...misguided.

The Game Of Thrones

Power has ever been something that the people have fought over. In this current age, the internet is quite a potent powerhouse indeed, and once again control over this resource has become quite salient.

Unlike any other time in human history, a resource has been created that can potentially link the people of the world who are capable of accessing it. In fact, the sheer ubiquity of the internet has made it such that even common folk can have access in a goodly number of countries. Never before has a resource been created that can fell governments and change societies. Coordination becomes possible, and for once people can band together in sufficient numbers to a common purpose that may be contrary to the unified will of the authorities.

On the other side, the governments and corporations that help run them are feeling the pinch and are attempting to wrest back control of the internet from the people. Given the concentration of old fashioned political power and money in these folk, it would be interesting to see if people power has a chance to fight back this time. The key weakness of the mob has always been that it's too divided to fight back except in exceedingly dire situations, but this time it may well be different.

The Inbetweeners

What did I just watch!? Alright well the background is that I was (again) asked along for a movie that I knew nothing about. (Perhaps I should stop doing this). Ultimately, I am perhaps a poor critic for this particular film because I didn't watch the TV series, and there is undoubtedly a lot of the flavor of the backstory that is whizzing right past me.

Simply put, this is a comedy about a bunch of boys who are really quite eager to get laid. Perhaps every bit as much as any other boy around their adolescent ages. There's the insensitive, the stupid, the geeky and the know-it-all. They stumble through their attempts to find their mates while on holiday, and the rest you just have to watch to get it.

So what do we have...a film chock full of good ole English adolescent humor. Perhaps a bit slapstick, but English humor regardless. Bunch of characters that I ought to recognize were I a fan, which I am evidently not. And lots of sex. And attempts at sex. And failed attempts at sex. And sex. With more sex. Without really explicit sexual moment. Which are sometimes explicit regardless. Right, then. I'd just say that this film is clearly a fan service, and the dude who watched with us was a fan so he did appreciate it. Unfortunately, I have no idea on that front, so I'll speak as a non-fan and give the film a 4/10.

On Group Think

One of my friends pointed out today that the high intellectuals of any day are highly susceptible to group think. That is, when their peers within their fields think in a particular way, the others start to follow suit. This leads to periods where people think in very particular ways, such as the trends in economic policy.

Truly, social proof is exceedingly powerful. Thinking from the perspective of an intellectual, it is rather difficult to convince people of a different point of view when everyone of the time basically agrees that a particular convention is incorrect. Man this is our entire world now, so who are you to disagree? I like to think that an individual can move a mountain all by herself, simply because she is right. Yes, it is unrealistic and against convention, but it is also the stability-giving convention that holds us back from thinking outside the box. It may not even be a question of can a single person move the mountain this instant, but a question of is it possible to do so at all and how can we make it possible...then easy?

I guess people really do need to be taught the ways of thinking that'll equip them with the ability to break out of group think. It's difficult, and sometimes it isn't even apparent that one's sinking into that particular morass. Truly it can work well most of the time to achieve a consensus, but at others, it's also downright important to be able to hear the dissenting voices so that progress can be made.