Get Smart

Get Smart is a seriously funny show. It really is. I fear I am greatly in favor of shows that display non-crude slapstick humor. Anyway, yes, I do think Get Smart was good. heh.

One would never have thought that a spy agency thwarting a nucular strike would be this much fun. Here, we have a bumbling agent being let into the position he's been yearning for...for like pretty much all his professional existence. Pairs up with this seriously hot veteran agent, and wind up being a grand dynamic duo to prevent a nucular disaster by a nasty terrorist organization.

It's nice, how they reflected the jock/geek rivalry even in the agency. It's even better how they contrasted the academic prowess of dear Smart with the practical experience of Agent 99. Naturally, I'd be rooting for the academic =p And 99's hawwtness. Unfortunately, I am hardly well positioned to evaluate this show in relation to the 1965 series.

Overall I'd say this was a barrel of laughs, and I appreciate that even the jokes laced with innuendo were far from standard potty humor. That really made my day, alongside the spoofs of James Bond'esque gadgetry. I'd say...7.5/10?

Laws And People

There are times when I wonder at the laws. In a democracy, people elect their representatives. In any society, the laws are designed by the peoples' representatives to protect the peoples' interests. Therein lies a conflict of interest. The representatives may not necessarily know what the people truly want. As for the people, what they want may not necessarily be in their best interests.

Who watches the watchman, then? What is there to keep the representatives from deliberately creating laws in their own interests rather than that of the people? Yet it is clear that, however well-written a law can be, it's enforcement is really up to the will of the people. Even in the places where there are laws against discrimination, minority races still face difficulties finding jobs.
If there is a bias against the minorities, there is precious little that legislators can do.

Sex And The City

Some say it's the classic chick flick. This is a show devoid of your average Hollywood guns and violence. Me? I would agree. Unfortunately, I did not watch the Sex and the City series just yet, so I regret that many of the references will be lost on me. What fascinated me about the show, however, was the reverse product placements. Usually, product placements are done in a favourable light. In this case, an iPhone and a particular book were discarded offhand. I especially liked that.

Apart from the amusing small things, I was somewhat disappointed to find that the story was overly dramatized. I mean, sure, Carrie and Big may have some issues. However, the way they were put on an emotional roller-coaster just seemed to stretch the limits of the suspension of disbelief. To avoid providing spoilers, all I can say is that it was nearly as unbelievable as the overblown situations in Desperate Housewives.

Also, the happy ending was really quite cliched. In fact, I wouldn't say that the story as a whole was particularly original at all. I guess the real issue is that I did not feel like I learned any life lessons from the show. In a good chick flick, I've come to expect some deeper meaning than a dramatization over the theme of love. For that...I guess the show gets 7/10.

Odin

I saw a cat today. This cat I will remember for a long time. The cat had a single eye. His right eye was missing. In its place was an empty socket that was still weeping. Clearly, the cat had been attacked or abused. On closer inspection, the lack of injuries on the rest of the cat led me to believe it was abuse...by a human. The cat gave me a forlorn look, as if asking me what I was looking at. Well, for that I named him Odin. Odin, too, had a missing right eye, which he sacrificed for the sake of knowledge. Like Odin, he did strike me as a sort of trickster, and yeah, it was that look. I'll never forget that look.

The Fallen Hood

There was the most horrendous noise last night. It started off sounding like something snapping, twice, followed by an almighty crash. Naturally, the din woke the entire household. Mom was worrying that dad fell (a tad loud, even for him), I was grumpy at being awoken and dad just had to check it out. It turns out that our cooker hood had fallen.

Now, apart from the fact that it was pretty darned fortunate that nobody was hurt in the incident apart from the safety glass wok cover, I was musing at the cause of the mishap. Dad pointed out that the whole heavy rig was supported by two nails. Now that's some significant weight being put on two thin pieces of steel. By the looks of them, I wager they rusted through, causing the material to give way. Shoddy workmanship, undoubtedly. Nearly as bad as having a security keypad secured to the wall with double sided tape.

I did pity the wok cover, though. It was an innocent caught in the incident, and was sacrificed as a result. What I really liked was the sound of the safety glass still cracking and falling bit by bit, since the trauma was so recent. Thankfully, there were no dangerous glass shards left lying around. That would be quite unacceptable in a kitchen. Anyway, shoddy workmanship? Just say no, bub.

Conservatives

Conservatives can have the darnedest policies. I was reading about an anti-HIV campaign. Don't get me wrong, 'coz I think these are worthy efforts that will save lots of lives and prevent unnecessary suffering. However, despite their knowledge of the reality of HIV infections within the drug-user and gay communities, the authorities decided to leave the gays out of it.

Now, I understand that their national policies are probably against gays and all that, but why would a government deny their own people education in such a critical area? And that's especially since it's a high risk community that may spread disease beyond itself if the problem was allowed to go unchecked? In a situation like that, I think the people would be quite pissed that they are exposed to the risk of contracting a known fatal infection due to the inaction of their conservative leaders.

Egalitarian Ideologies

Until recently, it was probably impractical for egalitarian ideologies to be effected in most societies. Take for example the issue of equality of women. In the days of feudalism, a society where a woman was treated equal to a man (and thereby being made to do things like engage in warfare) would probably result in the society being whittled down and destroyed in an environment of total war. After all, keeping the population up is the name of the game in ancient feudal warfare, and that is something egalitarian societies may not be proficient at.

Later on, the advent of more advanced societies may have had the potential for increasing egalitarianism. This was not to be, unfortunately, given the relative efficiency of division of labour. Men specializing in "men's work" (whatever that is) and vice versa would probably have resulted in a society where people knew what they were meant to do, and could do it regularly, predictably and with minimal fuss. All this came before mass media, however, and doctrine was still a good way to ensure that things worked.

Today, we have the mass media. We have women being perfectly capable of performing men's work and vice versa. Why? The advent of machines should have taken the burden of physical labour from people in industrialized societies. With machines doing the work of dozens of men, there is no excuse for physical strength determining efficacy. With most work (and warfare) being done at the touch of a button(s), there is actually an advantage women have over men: superior fine manual dexterity and greater stamina. With the advent of formula milk, men can even take over some (if not all) nursing duties. So...with all of this, is it not intellectual laziness that women not learn to be competitive, and men not learn to be nurturing?

Crying Boredom

Everyone gets bored. That's perfectly normal. Even I get bored when being made to do repetitive things that don't seem to get anywhere. However, there is a chance that some are using boredom as an expression of control over their feelings of helplessness. After all, it is so simple to say that (insert issue) bores me. Nobody would really question it.

When one looks deeper, though, it may be found that those who claim boredom are really feeling completely helpless about an issue. Some may find that no amount of mulling over an issue will change anything, therefore the issue bores them (even if it affects them directly). It is perhaps this attitude that prevents the emergence of activism where it counts the most. While it is true that, as individuals, we are unlikely to be able to single-handedly reverse an issue, there is also a chance that large numbers of individuals will effect change.

This is not to say that a citizen group would magically cause global warming to go away, for instance. They probably cannot. But if they start influencing others and raising awareness, there is still a chance that their views will have more of an impact. After all, governments are merely human groups who have somehow managed to secure the support of the populace. People should stop feeling so disempowered, especially considering they are people no different from their respective governing authorities.

Kungfu Panda

It is a rare occasion when I watch a movie from beginning to end, through the end credits and to the snippet at the end, and still feel that it was totally worth my time. This is a show chock full of meaning, if one has the patience and inclination to go understand it. I am fairly amazed that Dreamworks managed to squeeze a zero body count (apart from the dream sequence) into a humorous story that can really get one thinking.

There’s something so unique about the show that I must comment about it: The screen never blacked out during the credits. The entire credits sequence had proper artwork for background. Now that’s pretty unique, considering even other animations often simply present the audience with a blank screen covered in credits.

That aside, I’d call this a coming of age story, whereby our intrepid panda decides to better himself and truly find out what his life is about. It was a nice touch that he defeated the ultra-violent snow leopard with largely nonviolent maneuvers. There are other themes like ascension, self-reflexivity, destiny and the ability to see beyond the surface.

I also loved the epic fight sequences, along with the equally epic but hilarious food duel. The production team sure knew how to get their drama down pat, well-laced with humor. The character development was well paced, and epiphanies strategically located.

Overall, I would give this animation a rare 9/10. I could’ve pushed for a 9.5, but unfortunately, even the well-implemented life lessons were quite typical. It can turn out to be a rather trite fable, if one is really used to this kinda stuff.

Tai Lung: A Reflection

Of the characters in the show, I certainly did not relate to the protagonist. I guess I come from the opposite side of the spectrum. Indeed, I am probably more like Tai Lung. That is, my constant quest for personal power. And what I am apt to do when things don’t go my way.

The truth being that I am quite a destroyer. In fact, it’s often that I’m proud of it. I suppose that would be a cause for worry, what I do when I reach the peak of my power. Currently, if someone offered me an opportunity to wipe everything from the face of the earth, I would. I guess it’s something like building up this huge store of knowledge, then dying with it. It benefits no one.

Sometimes I do want to be more caring, but it is a difficult thing for me. While I know at an intellectual level that hatred and destructiveness is a sign of weakness, at a certain visceral level I cannot help but feel that they are marks of strength. Independence. Power. It takes great strength to be forgiving and constructive, and by that logic I am brimming over with weakness. I can easily say that I am aware of this and shall think it over, but that would be skirting the issue. What I really need is a constant reminder on a moment by moment basis…

Cloverfield

Cloverfield is an American version of Godzilla. I mean, it's the same formula. Big, badassed monster storms into the city, thrashes the place and all that. Of course, they just had to toss in the obligatory offspring of the monster, along with the suggestion that the offspring somehow infest humans.

The show's pacing seems to have left something to be desired. I felt the show was leaving too many loose ends while dragging out the intro longer than it should have been. It would be better to simply cut the intro some and tie up some of the loose ends, like why the creature was spawning, why it was indestructible and what its offspring was doing.

Overall, this show turned out to be something of a drawn out survival horror flick. Being threatened by a huge monster and its offspring is something, but having that drawn out horror seemingly without any progress tends to get old pretty quickly. I suppose it could get 6.5/10 from me. Primarily because of what happens in the end.

Pass It On

Knowledge is a very useful thing. Learn enough, and one will be able to tackle a myriad problems and be savvy about many other things. There can probably never be enough learning, just as the fount of knowledge runs eternal.

However, it must also be noted that knowledge is worthless if it is not passed on. Information is meant to be free, and knowledge should be spread around for the betterment of others. Otherwise, what is known will die with the bearer. That feels selfish somehow. All that knowledge gone to waste. Therefore, it is far better to pass that knowledge on that it may grow and improve the lives of everyone else. Or it could destroy all of humanity. Don't really care which it is =p

Shallow Relationships

As people age, it seems that the friendships they establish become increasingly shallow. And this comes at a time when they self-profess to feel that friendships are important. When I was in high school, friendships had a way of lingering. Friends from that time period seldom forgot me, and would keep in touch. As I progressed through life, I found the kids at college could possibly click when working together on school stuff. It almost seemed like we had a good thing going. And then, shortly after the project was completed, they would communicate only as a courtesy and go no further. It is a strange thing. Extrapolate that to the reports I'm getting from friends fully in the work force, and it seems quite apparent that the quality of friendships are steadily going downhill.

It seems like hypocrisy, especially since there's always talk about how friendships are more important later in life, and that colleagues should be made friends and all that. From empirical evidence, I think it looks far more like it's important to stick to the friends you already have, and try your best to build the best possible friendships with the few who are still open to the idea. It gets trickier from here, since those acting really friendly may still be inclined to desert at the slightest sign of trouble. My friend is plagued by such problematic characters. Truly, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Oh wait...they do double duty.

While this may sound all bleak and defeatist, it does seem to be quite the case. Maybe with time I'll learn otherwise and I'll be glad that things are better than they seemed. What I do know for sure is that the people are getting increasingly guarded. I do not understand why it is so hard for people to open their hearts and be truly honest as far as they can. It's a good bit of catharsis, and I do not think being willing to open up is a sign of weakness. Of course, thank goodness I still have someone out there (along with a solid circle of some ones), and perhaps that will be enough to hold the fort.

Indie Jones

Another late night show. Walked home from the cinema with my friend...again. Man this is becoming a sweet sweet habit.

It's been such a long time since I watched an Indiana Jones flick that I've largely forgotten the characters apart from Indie and his dad. Sad, huh. Anyway, watching this show really requires you to check your sense of realism at the door. There's something known as willing suspension of disbelief, but I think this Indie took things a wee bit far.

I mean...surviving a nuclear blast in a fridge? Weird magnetism? I don't know about others, but I find it's a stretch even for my rather liberal interpretation of this current reality.

Anyway, I can't say that I didn't enjoy the film. Undoubtedly, the film retains some of the old Indiana Jones flavour, with the chase sequences and close shaves. It also follows the formula, involving some weird ancient artifact (spoiler: That, unfortunately, turned out to be not quite so rare). I still think that big UFO was a library ship.

Special effects and humorous quips aside, I think Indiana Jones is following a tired formula. The ending is utterly predictable given the roles of the different characters. The villain always gets
killed. The hero is always at the brink of disaster. For some inexplicable reason the baddies always get to the location before the hero can, or they manage to secure the area so the hero can't escape. So overall I'd give this show 6.5/10. I think that's a bit high, but then again I'm highly tolerant of breaches of reality. Reality is relative, after all.

On Superstition

Superstition is actually a surprisingly rational construct. When someone was telling me about my being superstitious, I was rudely shocked. Me? Superstitious? Irrationality did not seem like something I would readily tolerate in myself. Indeed, it is the in-depth scientific analysis that separates rationality (as we understand it) from superstition.

Take for example the omens of bad fortune. Here's a hypothetical situation: I see a black cat. It is my superstitious belief that it portends ill fortune (no, I don't, in reality). Naturally, it will be my approach to attempt to prove this belief to be true. That very day, I fell and scraped my knee. Clearly, this is a form of ill fortune. I think back to the other times when bad things befell me because of the presence of black cats. A pattern was obviously forming: Black cats are bad luck.

The approach is surprisingly rational. Every time a black cat turned up, I seemed to have ill fortune. It is the same for people who believe they have special powers, or that storms portend a downfall. The correlation is unmistakable. However, it is their failure to establish causality that was problematic. Correlation without causality is insufficient to draw a reasonably rational conclusion.

For all I knew, I did have accidents on a regular basis. I only noticed those when black cats were around. That, or black cats did not increase my accidents in a statistically significant way. Without accurate record-keeping and analysis of the data, it can be quite impossible to get a fairly rational conclusion. Selective memory would cloud that area of judgment.

Love, Truly?

A friend asked me a fascinating question some days back. It is a question I am still mulling over. Is it possible to be romantically in love with more than one person? The situation is like...if you're already with someone, can you tell the other that you love him/her?

Frankly, I don't know. For one, I've never actually been in romantic love so I guess it's impossible to know for sure what I'd be like in a situation like that. Maybe I'm incapable of romantic love. I don't know. But theoretically, if one can love others (i.e. care for them) and do so for a whole bunch of people out there, why can't one be the romantic lover of more than one?

Of course, I'm not equating love to sex. That just isn't it. Then again, how does one know what love truly is? Is it exclusive so that declaring your love to someone would lessen it for everyone else? Is it such intense lust (Goddess forbid!) that you can't let that person go? I don't know. But if I were to hazard a guess, my response would be that it is possible to love more than one person, without the sexual connotations. Sure, maybe one would probably love someone more than others, but I feel it's possible to love more than one person...equally. Yeah.

Heart Of The Swarm

When I got back this night, I was greeted by a rather spectacular sight: Thousands of flying ants had decided to swarm around the lights at the apartment block opposite mine. They probably started swarming due to the heavy downpour earlier today. It was quite something. Intimidating enough that most passers by were quite reluctant to pass through.

Naturally, I saw this as a photo op too good to give up, so I grabbed my camera and stood in their midst to take some shots. Strangely, the insects were quite reluctant to get in my hair and nostrils and all that. They barely touched me. If anything, they started swarming towards the other lights, leaving me with a dwindling pool of subjects. This seemed to be quite the opposite for most other people, who were frantically swatting bugs from their bodies. I figure the bugs thought I was a horrible nutter who was inclined to eat them or something. Despite the rather intimidating appearance of the swarm, my impression was significantly different. It was almost like being in the presence of fairies, with wings fluttering to a unified cadence, illuminated by the warm lighting. I don't think I've ever been in the midst of so many beating wings.

But the insects also reminded me of the ephemerality of life. These are due to be dead by the next morning. All the evidence of their existence are their half-eaten carcasses and wings littering the floor. As my friend so succinctly put it: Having sex, then dying. In the big picture, humans are very much like that. What makes a human? Strip away philosophy and learning and achievements, and you find a swarming creature that lives only to reproduce...

Where Will I Go?

Wanderlust. It’s an interesting thing. I suppose some of us are never satisfied with the places we are born in. I sure am not. Of course, realistically, I have an advantage on home turf because of familiarity and the presence of kith and kin. Sure…things will be hard in a foreign land, but I guess that’s where the excitement really is.

I mean, everyone hears tales of this and that place. That’s what they are: Tales. Stories and anecdotes. The world is a big place. It is not “everywhere else”. A bad experience in a far off city does not automatically condemn the entire country. I suppose, if anything, it is essential to get a taste of even bad experiences. At the very least, it will help one appreciate what one has.

If it were up to me, I’d uproot and wander the world. I would change country of residence every few years to see what everywhere is like. It is sad that the state of the world makes that a wee bit harder. For example the distrust of foreigners and the difficulty of finding work, closed borders due to fear of terrorism and all that. It is becoming increasingly hard to wander freely… Not to mention the language barriers and how to keep the funds coming to support this endeavour…

The More We Get Together…

…the harder things get. There is such a thing as a saturation point in relationships. I guess the adage “absence makes the heart grow fonder” does have some weight after all. Still, it needs a qualifier: Within reasonable limits.

It’s easy to get along with friends. However, I notice that most friends don’t exactly see one another on a daily basis. When that happens, things seem to go downhill rather more often. Take the case of married couples living together as opposed to a dating couple. Or how friends getting together to start a company can wind up becoming bitter enemies.

I have seen this happening even in my own friendships, where some start off really well but taper with prolonged contact. One of my schoolmates was so eager to know everything about me in the beginning, then we slowly ran out of stuff to talk about.

I guess it really is true that people need time to grow, and to be apart. Things change, and keeping one another abreast of developments is probably a good way to “catch up”. Yet when people are apart for too long, they grow distant and “you have changed” becomes a common enough parting phrase…

A Crackpot Scheme

Last night, I was walking to the train station when I was accosted by this man. He started fast-talking right after saying hi, and that was an instant turn-off already. Besides, it was in mandarin. But then he seemed desperate enough, so I figured I'd hear him out. After informing him that I wasn't particularly inclined to converse in mandarin, he switched to English.

He told me that he was on this entrepreneurship program and was required by his teacher to raise 100 bucks. *sarcastically* Wow. Then he told me his plan: Here's a box of paper clips. I'll sell them one by one for a dollar each, until I raise a hundred bucks. He said his rationale was that he couldn't possibly sell a box of clips for a hundred, so he'd do it piecemeal. What a crackpot scheme! I liked it so much that I'd have given him more than a dollar just to hear it.

Unfortunately, I would only give a dollar due to his delivery. For one, he tried to worm more money out of me by asking for two dollars. And then his fast-talking technique which nearly made me reflexively toss him away. Plus, he took too long to get to the point. If not for all these, I'd gladly give him 2 bucks. Hah!

Warhammer: Soulstorm

Ordinarily, I would not like Warhammer. I was never fond of the figurines, the concept and the whole pen and paper gig. Of course, that also meant discounting whatever universe it was that the community churned up. And then I encountered Soulstorm.

Now, that didn't quite get me to make a full 180 on my perceptions of the Warhammer universe. However, I really did like the game and it provided an interesting introduction to the dynamics of Warhammer. Naturally, I would like no faction more than the Sisters of Battle.

As a game, I loved it for its variety and balance. Some units may be more powerful than others, but even juggernaut-like units could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers of lesser units. I do not think the storytelling was quite on par with Starcraft, unfortunately. Even after climatic battles, the cutscenes seemed to lack the oomph that Starcraft captured so artfully. Then again, it's hard to fault them given the sheer amount of content they had, with tales interwoven between the factions. I like stories told from the perspective of the various combatants.

Overall, I think it's a good enough game (and a nice introduction to the Warhammer universe) but it lacked one key element: Veterancy. Granted, it may be hard to balance, but it would be nice if units could get stronger the more they fight. That'd reward players for not squandering their units...

Storytellers

I miss the storytellers of old. Back then, stories were not set in stone. They had a structure, but were able to adapt themselves as the audience required. These days, the stories are fixed in order to cater to as many people as possible. In trying to satisfy everyone, they truly satisfy virtually no one.

The bards could spin a tale as and how the audience wanted. If they wanted to hear of a noble knight saving a princess, the bard could make it so. If the audience wanted the noble knight to fall while on his quest, it would be so. There was less impatience, with people willing to sit around hearing tales over a winter's fire instead of trying to get as much drama into a short stint as they could. Perhaps that lack of overtness in the tales was also stimulating enough to the imagination that it bred storytellers of its own.

I like the idea of the dreamtime, and how stories can come from the other planes and affect the realities elsewhere. In a way, the story is always real someplace, somewhere. No matter how absurd the story turned out to be, it was true. Of course, that bit of enchantment was probably lost as well. Apart from children, few audiences are willing to accept what would be widely regarded as illogical storytelling...

On Wanderers

If the destination is more important than the journey, the wanderer has no reason to journey. A single trip to the destination will suffice, for after which there is nothing more to explore except at the place of comfort.

Just yesterday, I felt the wanderlust again. It was like the calling of the runes, the summoning of my past. I seem to have a fascination with the runes and the concept of walking between worlds. Perhaps some would figure I'm the shaman type, neither fully in this world nor every other. There is something to detaching oneself from the prison of the body and exploring everything else within reach.

Some would call it the Dreamtime. Others the dreamwalkers or astral travellers. They come by many names, but the ideas are similar. I was never fond of divination and neither do I believe in the fates. We are free to make our own fates, which makes us the wanderers. Of divination, no future can be certain and a casting can only call up a probable future which is little different from every other possible future. Yet I feel that the runes have a power, and can be a useful guide.

It is strange how I can have encountered them so long ago in the past, yet come across them yet again entirely by chance. I was at the library and saw a novel about someone using runes. In addition to awakening an ancient call within my blood, it also made me seek out places with a sense of mystery. While wandering, I chanced upon two stores that stocked the esoteric paraphernalia I knew back then. Ah, well...the gut knows, and it leads true.

Beowulf

I rented that CGI flick Beowulf. Frankly, the first thing that turned me off about it was that it was CGI. CGI blood never looks as nice as the physical theatrical variety. That aside, I think Beowulf was a rather interesting retelling of the old epic.

For one thing, I really pitied Grendel this time round. I always wondered about what it would be like to tell the tale from the perspective of Grendel and his mother. Nobody really cares about the lives of monsters, only the fact that humans were killed by them. Then again, it's always the humans killing the monsters in the end. Seems to be roughly the same thing, if you ignore the they-started-it-first argument. This time, Grendel was a rather pitiful creature, and seemed frightened rather than purely vicious.

Overall, I think the main thing that sold me on the movie would have to be the epic battle sequences. I especially liked the demon thing Beowulf did: Damaging himself so he could slay the monster. It is not a typical human approach to a problem. I can't really say that the movie is original, since the story has been retold like a zillion times. However, I do appreciate the retelling of the story. It highlights the weakness of men, and I think it was a fair interpretation of the key themes. That means it earns 7/10

An Inhumane Experiment

If I were asked to do an inhumane experiment, the first thing I would try involves investigating whether the human “need” for social contact is a product of nature or nurture. As things stand, many are convinced that the average human shows signs of distress in isolation. Indeed, this is corroborated by the effects of social isolation on the shipwrecked or even in isolation wards in prisons. However, it cannot be denied that these were distressing situations to begin with, and those humans in question were brought up to crave social contact.

Thus, a trio of experimental groups will have to be formed. There will be 1) a control group brought up from birth in a normal environment 2)another without any social contact 3) and one with nonhuman social contact. After bringing the test subjects up for 25 years (25 being the end of the major pubertal phases, and presumably cemented neural pathways at their peak), they will be put together in different combinations to see whether they would make attempts at social contact.

Naturally, it is expected that 1 will attempt social contact at all times. However, the outcomes for the other two are unknown thus far. If humans are social by nature, groups 2 and 3 will attempt to make social contact, but find themselves limited by their training. 2 would not know how to communicate, but would attempt to set up some kind of protocol for communication. 3 would probably have no trouble switching from nonhuman social contact to regular interpersonal contact.

However, if social neediness were the result of nurture, 2 would have learned to live without social contact and make no attempt whatsoever at relating to the other two groups. 3 would resume their nonhuman communication protocols and not bother with that, as well.

Confounding factors, of course, would include the fact that just about any committee would regard this experiment as inhumane, for reasons obvious to them. We also have the case of group 3 basically having social contact, albeit through nonhuman media. After all, even books are written by humans and constitute a form of social contact, just as contact with animals counts as social contact of another sort.

Hell

It does make sense after all. Hell is a place you put yourself in until you feel better. After all, we have our own demons to fight. They could be from actions, inactions or just about any other nasty/regrettable event encountered. The best thing is that we go into a place of suffering to experience them, again and again and again...until they die.

Slaying a demon is not easy. It's certainly not like what Buffy or every other "demon slayer" on Hollywood flicks. I think the funniest thing is that the demon is basically slain when you realize you don't have to fight it anymore. That the event that spawned it is no longer relevant and can be put aside. That is probably the best form of punishment, and it is entirely self-inflicted.

Everyone can get out of their personal hell. The catch is, of course, people kill their demons over and over again. After all that killing, they forget to forgive themselves, and resurrect their demons anew. The cycle ends only when people finally decide they do not want to stay. Some prefer to stay on...

Hitman: The Movie

I always watch movies based on games with extreme trepidation. It is always too easy to mess up the core story with a shoddy attempt at dramatizing it. I understand that not all games make for good movies, and Hitman is one of the many that certainly won't. Sneaking around won't cut it for the average gunfire addicts, so I expected some artistic license with the show.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they did stick mostly to the subject matter. Number 47 is still the (mostly) heartless asexual contract killer. When I saw 47 with a woman on the promo posters, along with guns blazing in the trailer, I was beginning to worry that he had gone over to the dork side. Granted, he was way too tender for my taste and talked too much in the movie, but I suppose it was an essential part of the dramatization. After all, he did redeem himself by promptly sedating Nika as she tried to seduce him.

Of course, as a fan of the game series, I was disappointed that our dear 47 was attempting to get a Mass Murderer rating by pretty much slaughtering everyone he encountered. I am still puzzling over the assassins showdown, too. Swords instead of guns? That doesn't sound like my Toby at all! The one I know would simply shoot them all...if he even got into the situation in the first place. I'm sure there was plenty of room to insert some really sneaky killing, presumably making the process humorous or thrilling at the same time.

I think the movie deserves a 3/5. Primarily because of what they did to my Toby. I do not regret watching this on rental because I would have felt it was a waste of my movie money.

Iron Man

I think perhaps the Iron Man movie will be one of my more memorable outings. I was watching it with my friend at like 9.45pm. By the time the movie ended, it was pretty late (or early) and we were feeling peckish. The natural approach here would be to go grab a night snack, since we jolly well knew we were going to miss the bus anyway. After a nice long chat at Macs, we decided against taking a cab. So yeah...it was basically me and him walking back till the wee hours of the morning, with sporadic worried calls from both our moms. Ok maybe that was a bit irresponsible, but I think it was fun. Going out at night is way better than in the daytime, along with a bit of spice knowing that it's also easier to get ambushed then =p

Anyway, I loved the movie and it's not from the afterglow of having a nice long night walk. I think they managed to somewhat capture Tony Stark's personality, peppered with the amusing process of him working on the improved Iron Man suit. (I shall refrain from snickering at the name "Iron" Man, at this juncture).

Seeing as how this was based on the comic, I figure there's little to comment on except for the fact that I'm always at least mildly peeved when movie makers inject some contemporary political concerns into the films. Granted, it makes them feel more "authentic" but I cannot help but see that as a passing attempt at flag-waving.

Overall, I liked the movie for the characters, special effects and especially the obligatory showdown. The exploration of corruption in a business context is also interesting, albeit cliched to the extent that my friend could see what was coming the moment he saw that big boss Tony Stark had a lackey. I'd say this one deserves 3.5/5. It would have been 4, if not for that particular Afghanistan scene. Oh, and no I didn't add any points due to my night outing. =p

Bad Teacher

I found a major character flaw in myself, and it is something that must be rectified through careful balancing. It would come under the wider classification of not practising what one preaches. Me...I like it that people keep an open mind about just about anything. If something is contrary to their beliefs, the nice thing to do would be to evaluate that on its own merits and decide for themselves whether the contrary view is a worthy addition to their own belief systems.

Me...I find myself having a knee jerk reaction to such views. That is, my carefully analyzed world view is set such that anything contrary would actually force a review of large segments of it. In fact, acknowledging certain alternative views would imply that my initial logic was faulty. This need not be so, and thus it is actually a logical flaw in itself. After all, alternative views can coexist and this may even be dependent on the concept. Count this as a self-reminder not to automatically screen out alternative views, Fenris.

Being such a bad learner at times, it casts a pall on my liking to be a teacher. In a personal sense rather than academic, of course. A bad learner has a tendency to teach yet more bad learners. It is a chain that must be broken. Then again, problems exist only because they are waiting to be fixed...

Universe At Production

I guess today would have counted as fairly productive. Got back, had dinner, played some games and actually gotten down to tidying my room. It's really the tidying bit that made my day. Sometimes it's just sickening how I can let things get like post-hurricane messy and leave them that way because I just don't have the time/inclination to getting down to actually working on clearing the mess. I mean...there are so many other things to learn and stuff to do. Who has time for the mundane unnecessary things like tidying? Ok...at least till it reaches the stage where it's hard to get into your own room. That's a sign, I tell you.

Anyway, I think I'll have to tell Universe at War: I quit. For starters, it started lagging like mad on my comp for no apparent reason. That's a fine dealbreaker. Especially considering it was running just great a day back. But I just feel so sad about how such a nice game could have wound up so poorly implemented in single player. I mean, it's well balanced, has some unique takes on the RTS faction warfare and it doesn't let humans take centerstage in the narrative. Yet they saw fit to totally remove the research tree from single player and provide such a terribly cliched story.

Ok so maybe I'm a bit different from the gamers who play for the multiplayer. I'm quite the exclusively single player sort. At the very least, single player should serve as a sort of tutorial for multiplayer mode, introducing the player to the ins and outs of how the factions operate. They seem to have decided to leave that out here. Comparing the story to Starcraft, they just seemed to have a knack for hitting all the wrong spots when cooking up cutscenes. Where Tassadar's sacrifice was heart-wrenching, the Founder's sacrifice was really rather an anticlimax. Where Fenix's doom was merely suggested, Orlok's death was taken to unnecessary detail and left nothing to the imagination. I guess I'm going to need some cool down time before I decide to take this up again and actually finish it off.

V Revisited

V For Vendetta is a remarkable comic series. I think this will have to be the third time I've gone over it. Yet I seem to get something out of it every time I reread. This time, it reminded me of what I stand for, and sporadically fight for: Anarchy.

There is a difference between anarchy and plain chaos. Truly, it is between a land of do-as-you-please, against a chaotic barbaric landscape of take-as-you-please. The authorities take issue with the concept of people coexisting peacefully without a fascist leadership in place. They are right to do so. After all, who would need them, when everyone learns how to get along?

Of course, reading it also gets me really sad. My favorite hero dies, only to have another live on for him. Like V, my idea of a perfect society is almost pure wishful thinking. But like V, ideas are bulletproof.

Products Of Our Experiences

We are all products of our unique combinations of experiences. There are times when I prop my pillow up and think about what life would have been like if my younger days didn't turn out all sucky, and I had all my wants largely granted. They aren't extravagant wants or anything, but it basically means that life would've gone a heckuvalot more smoothly.

Of course, I came to the same conclusion as always: Had things all gone my way, I would hardly be the one I am today. If I didn't get beaten and bruised all through elementary and high school, I could have simply wound up as one of the mindless masses.

Red pill? Blue pill? If I were offered the blue pill today, one that could warp reality to make my past the way its shiny equivalent would have been, I'd throw it away as far as I could. Even though reality itself had changed and my resultant life wouldn't have been a lie, things just wouldn't be the same. I would probably never think much about why life is as life is, or meet the same people who would guide me through life. Perhaps it is better to have the hardened exterior and a nice squishy inside, than it is to be squishy all over and just waiting to be squished.

I don't ever want to live a lie, and neither do I ever want a life without awakening. If the stimulus, however painful, does not exist, neither would the urge to better understand oneself. Or the world. Or why flowers are pretty. Life would become a blur of trippy, flashy lights like the ones I see when I zone out, and when the train hits me I will know nothing about what happened in between. That is not something I'd like to have in exchange for what I already do.

Soulmates

If a soulmate were a player class, it would be a support class. Some religions believe that souls make pacts before rebirth, that they will support one another in the life to come. That is, often helping one another attain spiritual enlightenment.

Strangely enough, soulmates need not turn out to be the spouse or best friend. In fact, they could well be the worst enemies who work indirectly by disgusting the soulmate enough to force them back onto the path to enlightenment. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it does make a twisted sort of sense.

This is not to say that I necessarily believe in reincarnation or soulmates, nor shall I discuss my past-life experiences. It's just that sometimes there are people who come along, whom you just can't stand. They seem to be such turnoffs that they lead you clean off whatever track they had been taking. Strangely enough, these have indeed caused me to avert various potential disasters. Soulmate? Coincidence? I'd say at the very least it's quite an interesting concept.

Bioshock: The Movie

Nothing's fixed yet, and I'm wary ever since Hitman and Doom...but BIOSHOCK IS GOING TO BE MADE INTO A MOVIE. Of course, it may turn out to totally suck and I'm quaking at that prospect. Then again, it's gona be directed by Gore Verbinski (the director of POTC), so I hope I can keep my hopes up. Again...BIOSHOCK IS GOING TO BE MADE INTO A MOVIE!

On Relationships

Relationships are very delicate things. In fact, they are so finely balanced it's a wonder that they exist at all. One such balance is about neediness. On one paw, being too needy will creep the other out. Like, say, wanting to do the exact same thing at the same time. On the other paw, being patently un-needy is just going to introduce distance into the relationship. Between the two, it can be difficult to gauge. There is a lot of probing to understand where the other stands on this issue. Perhaps going a step further to see where it goes, then hurriedly backing off when the other shows signs of unhappiness. The process is repeated until the other's personality is well understood.

Sounds like a lot, but that's just one balance point amongst many. Variables within variables within variables. When someone says that relationships are a lot of work, chances are that they are. There are a whole bunch of variables to compute, and it doesn't help that people change over time. It is remarkable, the amount of effort people put into keeping relationships healthy. Sometimes I wonder if it is also the strain of maintaining relationships that makes people cut themselves off from other less significant relationships.

I hear that cortex cells go into growth overdrive during puberty, and that neural pathways are being refined at that time. If the pathways were not established properly, the cells degenerate and I guess that causes personality changes. Theoretically, someone who is constantly illogical during puberty would grow up to be an illogical person because logic cells fry themselves (if such a thing actually happened). Perhaps the same thing happens to relationship cells?

Storm Of Sustenance

What has happened in Myanmar is a human tragedy of incredible proportion. That it has taken a massive toll on human life and induced suffering of an intensity beyond words. Yet it must be noted that, in the great scheme of nature, such an event is but a blip on the radar.

At risk of sounding inhumane, as far as nature is concerned, such an event is actually of benefit to the environment. Fewer humans to throw the land off balance. Sea water and rainwater to irrigate the fields. Bodies to rot and fertilize the soil. Agricultural experts have also predicted a bumper rice harvest as a direct result of this event.

Perhaps people should take this time to remember the transience of life, and how the world never truly ends…only human life as humans understand it. Such is the way of mortals.

Being A Dumbass

I'm the sort of dumbass that never learns. If there was a judgment day and everyone watched my life on instant replay, they'd laugh their balls off (where applicable). See, the problem is that my gut is almost never wrong. If I were to "see" something, chances are that it would come to pass. Despite this, though, I always seem to persist in cooking up some thought to basically override what the gut tells me.

Like today? I was intending to have dinner, so I went around the stalls. I saw a bowl of stuff that I thought I was craving. Then I got this nice little vision of a bowl of watery, unappetizing soup. My urges won out, however, and I managed to convince myself that perhaps these fellas would make me a decent bowl.

So yeah, I got my order and it was exactly the bowl of watery, unappetizing soup. Better yet, it was bland enough that I really couldn't finish it. The moral of the story? Pretty much what I've been trying to tell myself all this while: Trust your gut! Really. It's dumbassed to be so irrational as to pin everything on fat hope when the answer is so obvious right in front of me. Note that, Fenris.

Fingernails

Something my friend brought up really got me thinking: Why do (on average) men look at their fingernails with their fingers curled inwards, whilst women look at the same with their fingers outstretched and at arm's length. While I was experimenting with it, I found that it was indeed counter-intuitive to do that at arm's length when trying to see what was wrong with my nail's tips.

Then it struck me: the women who were looking at arm's length were examining the backs of their nails, whilst the men were examining the tips. It made perfect sense, considering those who cared about the backs of their nails were more likely to have painted them in the first place. The edges of a manicure are often well done enough that it's really the painted bits that really count. As for men...well...most won't even be painting.

My Reflection

I was soaping my face this morning and glimpsed into the mirror. I thought I saw an old, white-bearded man instead of my reflection. Talk about an inkblot epiphany. Is that what my self-image like? I always say that reflections are as they are, direct opposites of reality.

To paraphrase Mulan: When won't my reflection show who I am inside. I mean, I do truly feel like an old geezer at times. All wrinkles and weariness and feeling that I wasted my youth. Sans stubble and other old geezer stuff, of course.

Still, there was a certain interesting symmetry at play here. There could be no reflection more positively opposite to what I was in reality.

Buying A Life

By the way some people live their lives, it seems that they exist for the next paycheck. Of course, we will screen out those who have difficulty making ends meet. I'm really considering those who earn enough to have room for some luxury. Yes, arguably some of these sell their souls for pay. That is, they dedicate their lives to work so they can earn more to spend more and only to earn yet more after that. It's a joyous cycle.

There is always a consideration: Pick a job that pays relatively poorly, but is fun, or pick one that pays well but pretty much sucks. It is an interesting consideration, getting into something dry like finance in order to suck up more funds. Funds that will go towards early retirement. Presumably, this would allow one to do what one likes to do from then on.

But, just like everything else that sounds good on paper, there is always the specter of corruption. That is, the possibility of becoming so attached to the material things that one loses touch with who one truly is. After all, even saving for early retirement on a comparatively high salary will take a good lump of years. Things change, and souls die. Why would one risk selling one's soul for a high salary? It is relatively difficult to buy a life using material goods...

That Shopping Mood

It turns out I'm in the thrall of yet another of those shopping moods. I tend to get the variety that drives me to get all sorts of weird technological stuff. In this case, I drew up a wishlist of sorts: Headphones, new speakers, tablet, pc overhaul. Now, if I were to actually indulge myself, I would effectively blow all my internship savings and more. Not exactly a nice prospect, considering I'd be back to the square one I was before commencing the internship...plus some serious goodies. Actually, that does sound pretty good. Anyway, the priorities turned out to be: Headphones (essential), speakers (fairly essential), tablet (luxury, since I may or may not make full use of those), PC overhaul (luxury. Gona be a big ego boost, but I guess I can live with the performance of the current rig till my next semester, when I get to do the serious gaming =p)

Naturally, something had to give, so I opted to get myself a pair of Sennheiser HD202's. They were to replace the ratty Philips SBC HS520's. Not that much of a comparison considering the two are in entirely different price brackets, with one being plain headphones and the Sennheisers being solid closed earphones.

I was really second guessing myself at first, wondering whether it was really better than the other two I was considering: The Audio Technica SJ3's and Philips SHP2500's. They actually looked pretty good on paper, with both having a greater frequency range than the HD202's. The SJ3's were more fascinating by virtue of the greater portability and ability to do one-ear monitoring. The Philips pair were significantly cheaper.

Upon checking out the reviews and from personal experience of those brands, the Audio Technica would have to be out. In a way, swivel headphones were also more likely to break. The Philips simply didn't have good reviews, and I was skeptical about something costing half the price being quite as good. In the end, it was really the 2-years warranty of the Sennheisers, and the brand's reputation that won me over.

All I could say about the new phones was "Wow", but that isn't saying much considering that I was used to bottom scrapers and my dying 2.1 speakers. Then again, they probably beat the 2.1's since I'm hearing way more detail in the audio than I used to. However, the bass is nowhere near as good as that of a full subwoofer, but I guess that's to be expected considering the size and price of the unit. I am hearing more detail on these than from the 2.1's. I'd attribute that to its closed ear design. Not noise canceling, but sufficient that I can roughly hear what is going on around me but cutting out the small annoying sounds like that of a ticking time bomb and my computer's fans.

Comfort wise, I was a bit put off by the weight, but it turned out the padding at the underside of the headband was really handy to keep the phones from sliding off, yet redistributing the weight away from the ears. Surprisingly comfortable, though I will take some time to get used to the warmth.

These things probably grow on you or something. I was really questioning the wisdom of my purchase, yet I started warming up to these. Ah, well. One down, and...quite a lot of shopping to do. Kardon speakers, anyone? =p

Pretty Faces

I guess I would have to agree that it really is the prettier gals who worry the most about their looks. Of course, this includes the prettier ones who don't realize it. I mean, chew on it, if you're really that ugly, a bit of extra ugliness probably won't take you down a notch. For those who are like all the way up there, even a pimple can seriously detract from the perceived ideal. That's not hawwt.

So yeah, in a way I feel lucky not be be way up there. Nothing much to worry about in that area.

Dignity In Death

Death is not to be feared. In fact, if there’s anything people should fear, it’s the indignities other people will put their bodies through after they’re dead. I mean, just dying and rotting on the pavement is pretty much the most dignified way for the body to be treated.

While this may sound unusual, consider the myriad other undignified ways for people be treated post-mortem. In many modern countries, there's embalming. Maybe being spiced and wrapped up in bandages like a sausage is out of fashion today. Instead, they'd rather flush the innards and replace the blood with preservative (much like a sausage), then burn (like a sausage) or bury the lot. Let's consider the bbq they call cremation: It's basically a grill that overdoes the bodies to the extent that they're quite unusable for anything but fertilizer. It's not even edible anymore.

Then we have burial. With or without embalming, they basically toss dirt over the body because it's too shameful to be shown in public for extended periods of time. Of course, exceptions occur when the embalmed body is displayed like a choice buy otherwise inedible sausage. Burial without embalming? The body becomes worm food, then perhaps dug up to be bbq'ed when they find that the cemetery is really sitting on a bit of choice land. Talk about a double whammy.

A marginally more dignified treatment would be for the body to be eaten. After all, it's slightly better to be non-worm food than worm food. One becomes poo, after all. But at least the body goes directly towards nourishing stuff without turning to mush that stinks the place up, and, in some cases, this act is done with some degree of reverence. Worm food ultimately becomes worm poo anyway.

Now, how about being left where one died? Granted, it's not dignified either, but at least the body is not subjected to weird treatments. Of course, given this logic, I can only conclude that those who sensibly fear death do not really fear what comes after in the sense of the afterlife, but what others would do with the inert body afterwards.

Parallel Conversations

Sometimes it's amusing to observe how parallel conversations occur. It usually happens when a bunch of polite but uninterested people try to talk about stuff. I observe that sometimes when my parents talk to one another, and when they're talking to some neighbours they don't really like.

What effectively happens is that they keep acknowledging what the other says, what with the regular nods and all that, but they have absorbed absolutely nothing from the conversation afterwards. It could be a repeat of the exact phenomenon when I asked them what they talked about, and then they tell me that they totally forgot.

Perhaps the most amusing anecdote would be yesterday when dad tried to order beer. He told the serving wench that he wanted a bottle of beer. Mom figured that it was too much, so she wanted a can. He insisted on a bottle. Fair enough. The wench kindly told him that they didn't have cans. They only had bottles. He said he wanted only a bottle. She said they had bottles, but no cans, so that would be fine. He said again that he wanted only a bottle. She repeated that they had bottles, but no cans. At that, he just brushed her off and canceled the order. Ah, the amusement of the day.

Intellectual Laziness

Intellectual laziness is insidious. It has a way of sneaking into your daily routine, lulling you into a sense of contentment, effectively melting your brain into a big puddle of goo. I am ashamed to find that I have been guilty of intellectual laziness for perhaps a year or even two.

What I found was my increasing inability to account for the time after work/school and on weekends. Worse yet, it seems that I had no true achievements of note even during the long school hols. That should have clued me in, but it was the feeling of being characteristically occupied that kept me from really putting a finger on what was going wrong.

After all, I never had a bored moment during my free time. I was always doing something as per normal, all the way till bedtime. That seemed ordinary enough. On closer inspection, however, I found that I was not learning new things as aggressively as I used to. I was not coming up with observations of life with the spontaneity I expected. Even when chatting, I did not feel the urge to watch a video to make the most of the time spent. I caught myself mechanically browsing the threads at forums for those worth responding to, but only because nobody was online to entertain me at the time.

These alarming findings were triggered by the way I was suddenly coming up with new blog entries. I was watching Mirrormask when I figured I could stop it halfway, sleep, then continue the following day. I realized then that it was very wrong. It was not very me to leave things undone, especially when it was a story. I would not normally read comics as a substitute for full novels. And I most certainly should not be having difficulty coming up with regular blog entries.

Of course, now that I know a problem exists, I owe it to myself to recapture the old magic that I had in my younger years. The sense of wonderment at what is going on out there, and the respect for knowledge even when my opinions differ from the direction that knowledge is leading.

This evening, I was taking the bus home when I started to space out again. Ok, so some may worry about my sanity (which, by the way, was never really quite intact to begin with), but it was a glimpse back into the worlds beyond the edges of vision. I saw the familiar strangeness like a black blob oozing about in the shadows, how the bus's interior just felt...wrong, and how strangely a bicycle was chained to a staircase at my place. It was that welcome detachment from reality that really spiced things up again. Of course, what is yet more worrying is how to prevent such intellectual laziness from creeping up again...

Dreams

There may actually be something to the scientific findings of sleep cycles. That is, there is a point in time between the cycles where the brain is dreaming. If awoken during a dream cycle, the hypothesis was that the sleeper was more likely to recall a dream. Of course, this implies that the dream would not be completed as a result, and that the recollection would probably be more powerful if interrupted in the middle of a dream cycle.

I note that I do appear to recall dreams more often when working and schooling, presumably because I wind up using the alarm clock to wake me. Given that work tends to get me staying up late, the alarm has actually a pretty good chance of cutting sleep off in the middle of a dream cycle. They really do appear to be around 3 hours apiece, since I tend to get just slightly less than 6 hours of sleep on average. If I sleep earlier and get precisely 6, I do not recall dreams. Hmm...

Retribution

Horton got me rethinking the concept of retribution. It’s said that when one does something bad, the “gods” will come down and cause trouble. Now imagine reality as a speck, which is a speck of a speck of a speck of a…you get the idea. In this case, I abuse an ant. It may be an ant to me, but it’s really a person in ant society.

Now, if the situation were reversed, I'd be an ant in the eyes of some higher being. That higher being would be an ant in the eyes of a yet higher being...and so on. Assume that every action is reflected by the higher beings. I abuse the ant, I get abused, and the higher being gets abused... Conversely, if I gave the ant the treat, the higher being gave me a treat...

Therein lies a concept of retribution. Every action is mirrored in the higher and lower realities. In effect, reality is warped by these actions, and they come back in another form when least expected. As much as I'd like to, however, I am not really one to believe in the threefold law. I guess that renders the discussion moot.

Objectives

In an eternity, sometimes one can forget more than most mortals ever remember. One of the things that should never be forgotten is the satisfaction of completion. It can be amusing to potter around dabbling in everything and never completing anything. In fact, this can be quite an enjoyable experience.

The reality is, however, that sometimes it is just more satisfying to see the end of a novel one is reading, rather than going around leaving a thousand things undone. Let this be a note to self never to forget that, lest eternity turn to a series of aimless wanderings.

The Value Of Life

Much as it sounds horribly materialistic, there is actually a way to compute the value of human life. An intriguing application of the value of human life based on the human capital model can be seen in calculating the amount of damage done and its consequential effect on the economy.

Take for example a terrorist attack. It is successful and deals 2 million dollars in damage. Nobody was hurt or killed in the incident. Assuming that each person generates approximately 500k in a lifetime, the attack has effectively destroyed the life's labors of 4 people.

Extrapolating this to Leon's going rate in The Professional (25k), he is really operating at a massive discoun. He really should be raising his prices. In the context of a country's economy, it may be more efficient to negate the labors of the people by damaging the economy instead of killing people. After all, people consume resources to survive and need to redirect their labor to repair what was damaged.

Intellectual Evolution

Human reasoning is evolving at a vastly swifter rate than the biological evolution of human brains. In fact, it appears that the evolution of reasoning has totally outstripped that of the brain to the extent that there is now a divide between what reasoning should ideally be against that of base animal urges.

Here, one needs only think about how even "logical" science is steeped in irrationality. It is logical to presume that there has been little benefit to being truly rational, and selection pressure has been strongly against the slowness of rationality in favour of the visceral speed of irrational responses.

However, times have changed. The Darwinistic selection pressure against rationality has shifted to irrationality. Now, it is overly irrational people who are less likely to be successful. I wonder how long it will be before evolution takes its course and breeds a bunch of rather more rational humans...

The Reason

As I look back at the entries I've written over the last two years, a question comes to me: What have I been writing for? It seems a commitment to myself, to note the thoughts of even vague consequence such that I may recall them years hence.

Yet it feels like I have not been true to myself. Blogging seems far less personal than my diary writing ever was. Back in high school, my diary never left my side. I did everything in my power to keep others from reading it. A blog is open for all to read, since it is actually online and meant to be accessed.

As a result, some things just cannot be written on a blog. Personal things, echoes of creation, specific follies that affect others and all their like. In a way, this means the blog is in no way as comprehensive as a true diary. Of course, the initial purpose of this exercise was to provide a way to share thoughts with others. Less personal, perhaps, but nonetheless cathartic. I get the nagging feeling, though, that keeping a diary as well would allow for more frank entries.

Symbolism

It is well known that humans are obsessed about symbols. In fact, they appear to be more interested in the symbolic value of an act than its actual practical value. Still, it is one thing to know stuff at an intellectual level, and really quite another to see it happen in reality.

I find it disturbing that, when something goes wrong, many people seem more inclined to symbolically solve it and thus salve their discontent than to remove the cause of that wrongness. Perhaps this is part of the origin of superstition, whereby something symbolic is blamed for the streak of "bad luck" that strikes the said person.

The known propensity for self-deception only worsens this problem, convincing the hapless person that luck has changed due to the symbolic act. A rabbit's foot takes center stage alongside mean regression. Likewise, when something goes horribly wrong, the knee jerk call is for a leader to accept blame instead of the perpetrator of that act.

I think this is disturbing because it smacks of the irrational fears that fueled the witch hunts not too long ago. It smacks of the genocide that is perpetrated on the grounds that a particular race is to blame for the "evils" of a country. Someone takes the fall for another's faults.

Worse yet, this is all a way of coping with the unknowable. The scope of social problems is so vast, its roots so obscure, that most people have no hope of fully comprehending its origin. On a small scale, it is about why the dice never favoured the gambler to begin with. On a large scale, it is why the country is messed up in the first place.

All this also becomes fertile grounds for lashing out against the one who is unpopular.
Almost invariably, some bigshot in a corporation steps down as a result of the company entering dire straits. It is done to placate the murmuring shareholders. But internally? How was the scapegoat selected to begin with?

Losing The Soul

I had another dream about the broken antique silver key that everyone wanted. While trying to find its meaning, I stumbled upon a stray thought. I was considering the meaning of uniqueness. In a mechanistic world full of uniformity and conformity, a handmade item is prized for its difference from the usual slew of identical objects.

However, these items are easily co-opted by capitalism. Native American handicrafts have a unique flavor of their own because they are made by hand, by Native Americans no less. Once these items start being made in large numbers, their aura diminishes. Each item, though physically unique through handcrafting, becomes a unit in a long series of units. Put together, each unique item becomes just another in a crowd.

This is possibly where the soul is lost in many modern societies. A good thing is found and effort is made to replicate it for all. But by providing for everyone, the precious object is provided for no one. After all, there can be only one original: The one that set off the craze in the first place.

In a way, every other item in the series has become a cheap copy: the spark of creativity no longer exists in it since nobody is attempting to create the next unique item. Every other derivation may become a soulless work, created solely to replicate the success of the original. No longer is it an expression of individuality. No longer does it have its soul.

Office Politics

There are few things in life that seem as unpleasant and inevitable as office politics. Thankfully, my current work does not exactly have the allowance or motivation for the nasties. Unfortunately, that is untrue in the case of my working friends.

The details differ, but the pattern remains. Where there is a common want, scarcity and an inability to share that want, conflict arises. What is worse is that most people find it pretty impossible to be civil in a situation such as this. In fact, it appears that asking colleagues to play fair is akin to telling warring states to be gentlemanly while waging war. i.e. Not Gona Happen (tm)

Adding more spice to the gumbo, the worst scenarios almost invariably occur when fighting for a position in senior management. Only the best connected and most hardy need apply. It is a decision made which occasionally completely disregards personal ability in favour of some unknown favouritism.

Of course, that is simply an example of a situation gone completely out of hand. The bad news, of course, is that the situation in reality may not be much better.

Horton

It is a rare thing to have nowadays: A film I am willing to watch twice over, then purchase the dvd. I used to think the only films that ever made it to that level were the Ghibli masterpieces. Much as I would like to credit it as such, I cannot say that Horton is original. It's a derivative work, after all. I can, however, praise it for its vivid interpretation of the tale.

I suppose I should begin by praising the layered story, and how it is simple enough for children to understand, yet has sufficient symbolic depth to satisfy a more discerning adult. Unfortunately, it also appears to harbor some slapped on modern ideologies that look quite out of place against the core narrative.

I totally love the character designs. Especially Katie. It's strange how one can fall in love with a character that is little more than a floofball that barely ever says anything coherent, and only manages to spout nonsensical sentences while coherent. Of course, this character happens to be very similar to my concept of what a Floof should be, so that made Katie only the more endearing.

Horton chronicles the development of an eccentric elephant to a true hero, with his nobility mirroring the ordeals of Galileo as he tried to convince the Church that the world was not quite as they thought it was. I found his nobility touching to the point of tears, seeing as how he struggled to the bitter end to preserve the lives of the ones he swore to protect. 100%, Horton!

Oh, and 9/10 for including stuff that I'm pretty sure were not originally in the book.

Dragonflies

I was at this park with the intention of taking photos. While mooching around, I realized a dragonfly had settled on the nearby bushes. Naturally, I wanted to peg some shots of it, but the handheld shots were no good. Though passable to a cursory examination, all the fine details were smeared. That just wouldn’t do.

Seeing as how the dragonfly did not seem to want to move from its perch, I proceeded to deploy the tripod and gave it a full model shoot. I think that was pretty amusing, considering the dragonfly was a total camwhore. It stayed so still, and did not move for about 2 hours. During this time, I was pegging other stuff. While I was at my work, another two dragonflies decided to settle down so they could have me take their portfolio photos.

On hindsight, I took some spiffy photos and should perhaps ask the dragonflies for a model release so I can market their pics. On the other paw, I felt quite dumb having sat around for 2 hours just to shoot insects within a 3 square meter area. In a way, I began to understand why some photographers would take so long just to produce a single photograph. It really isn’t as simple as pulling the device to the eye and snapping a shot.

Note to self: Dragonflies are probably lazy in the evening, so that would be a good time to shoot them.

Take Us Away

There are days when feelings can get mighty nasty. It is then that the urges to just get away from everything can be extremely strong. In fact, it can be really tempting to just lie down on the bed and sleep the days away so the visits to dreamland can at least dull the unpleasantness of it all. Naturally, I'd blame the innards that give a little twinge now and then to remind me that the moon is a pretty thing to look at and that it means more than light reflecting off a rock.

Anyway, it's times like these that really make me feel like running in the forest or sitting by the river or something. Anything to get away from humans. Just about everything can get irritating, and there's this wonderful burning sensation all over. Ah, the wonders of the body.

Of course, mom would happily pounce on this as further "proof" of my "laziness". Something like just wanting to get away from work. I'd call it more a case of anywhere-but-here. I literally feel like getting away. Anywhere. Just not where I am right now. I trust the feelings will pass with the next real phase of the moon, but it's an interesting situation to be in.

Turn Taking

Social conditioning for turn-taking actually involves a number of highly precise definitions of when a turn should be taken, or when permissions must be requested before attempting to take over a task.

An observation while in public is the way people try to give way to others when at the subway.
In a favorable situation, two approaching people will both step to the same side and successfully clear the way for one another. In a less favorable situation, both will step in opposite directions and effectively obstruct one another's way.

This appears to create quite a bit of stress, since both people are usually in some sort of hurry to get to the other train. After realizing that there is an obstruction, both people will attempt to dodge again. Interestingly enough, the time delay between dodges is often precise to the millisecond. Both people will actually dodge at precisely the same time, often in the opposite direction they initially dodged. Understandably, this causes yet another blockage and increases stress levels further. In fact, a whole series of dodges may occur in rapid (and synchronized) succession until the blockage is resolved.

Perhaps this is an indication of how reflexes and social conditioning in turn taking work together to cause a fairly predictable series of responses. In this case, though, it can be presumed that both people will feel that the other person is somehow inconsiderate or inept in being unable to clear the way for the other...

Down

It's that time of month again (or not). The mysterious bouts of depression that may or may not have any sort of logical basis. In fact, it can be pretty intriguing to have a sense of emptiness popping out of nowhere when one was happy in the morning. Naturally, it is quite a swing, having happiness rapidly turn to something far more somber.

Anyway, while I am in the mood, I suppose it is only proper to reflect on the emptiness of life. Of course, this would concern how one's day can be dominated by work (even if it's enjoyable), leaving very little time for personal enjoyment. In fact, much of that personal enjoyment time is in turn taken up by people asking you out on weekends and every other time you are free.

Perhaps this sounds a tad antisocial, but one's social life can really be a drudge. But then again it's a view through oddly tinted emo-glasses. I expect my take on this would differ after a good sleep and all that.

Remembering The Destitute

While living the life of the middle class, it is remarkably easy to get caught up in the day to day existence and forgetting what is going on right around oneself. One of the key areas that are easy to miss is the plight of the destitute.

Sometimes, the destitute do not take the form of the vagabond sleeping on the streets. Indeed, they may even be the cheerful-looking geezer that really lives in a dingy rental. In fact, if the streets were cleaned up or if one lives in a "good" neighbourhood, it becomes difficult to even notice that anyone is struggling with life. At least in the economic sense.

This could perhaps create a sort of ambivalence towards being generous towards these people. The apparently cheerful geezer turns into a form of bogeyman-leech that is sucking money from the public coffers (which, naturally, should go straight to the complainant).

On Design And Ideas

After being in the game industry for mere months, I could begin to see the origins of the myriad problems I found in games nowadays. It is strange that, within a few short decades, games are thought to have “matured” and set into fixed formulae. It is disheartening to realize that, in the pressure to create a potentially profitable game within a short period of time, even I have found myself falling back onto those formulae to push a product out. The more radical and experimental ideas would have been rejected by the producer as unsuited to the target market, or simply found to be “not-fun”.

Fun is the buzzword and the lifeblood of the current industry. Without fun, there is no game. There may be a simulation being made, but it will never survive on the mass market. Instead, the storekeeps are increasingly becoming inundated by the latest and greatest fads in game types. Perhaps the flavour of the season was WWII, in which case WWII games would pop up like mushrooms. In fact, they would come in almost precisely two types: FPSs and RTS. Few are motivated to innovate.

In fact, what is yet more disturbing is seeing how I could not simply pull a fresh idea out of thin air without drawing on the norms of some other game type. Ideas created not supported by some established form turned out to be incomprehensible to everyone but the creator (namely me) and turned out to be hard to explain and learn.

Therein lies the crunch: I am probably not as original an idea generator as Will Wright, and I sure am not stubborn enough to really pull my weight to insist that they try the idea to the finish. Lots of newbie designers probably started off this way, being somewhat uncertain about ideas and/or having difficulty pitching them. But the scary bit is really that even good ideas like Will Wright’s would have likely fallen on the wayside had the designer not strongly lobbied for their conception.

Olympic Madness

Those protesting the nasty human rights record of China seem to be making a most unusual choice this time round. It is disheartening to see a symbolic protest against China being made against a sporting event. Like it or not, the Olympics is an event where sportspeople from around the world gather to pit their prowess against one another. While the Olympics has been politicized in the past and still serves as a showcase of each nations' finest, attempting to stop the Olympic flame is in effect a symbolic strike against the spirit of sport.

Such a strike is unbecoming of those purporting to defend human rights, considering that sports in itself is a human right to organize a peaceful competition whereby people can pit themselves against one another without causing bloodshed. Should they have a care, the activists must reconsider their actions and instead consider more direct approaches to protesting against China's acts. Preferably one that is not a pillar of peaceful competition.

Taboo

http://food.oregonstate.edu/ref/culture/taboo_allen.html

Taboos are interesting things. They are social sanctions for humans to descend to an illogical animal level. Take for example the case of murder. Willfully killing humans is a taboo topic. Mention that and there is a very good chance that you'd be rejected outright for discussing it. In fact, the taboo against such killing is so strong that euthanasia is illegal in many (if not most) countries. However, people are far more willing to condone executions and wars. Clearly, killing is not really on the books as much as it is the notion of killing without what is perceived as a just cause. In other words, killing can be justified in some situations.

Extrapolate this to the taboo of cannibalism. Many would balk at the very consideration of this very taboo topic. Upon closer logical analysis, however, it seems a fairly mundane topic. Take an animal, kill it, then eat it. After all, many people do that to cows, pigs and chickens. Throw humans into the mix and logic goes clean out the window. Suddenly, the suggestion becomes massively repugnant.

Interestingly enough, the same response can be elicited from people when one suggests that they consume their dead pets. It is another gross violation of relationships, even though it now involves a non-human animal.

Now consider the realities of cannibalism. Contrary to popular perceptions of savages hunting down random people and slaying them for food, how about the ritualistic consumption of human meat as a sacrament? The flesh is regarded as sacred and treated with the utmost respect. No savagery here. Just something that may be experienced in any religious ritual.

This is where the taboo effect emerges. Most would immediately cut off their logic circuits at the very mention of the possibility that cannibalism is in some way acceptable. Those people have effectively moved down to a more visceral level of response governed purely by emotions. Clearly, they will not move on to realize that a (small?) number of cultures find absolutely nothing wrong with consuming human flesh. If anything, these cultures would be viewed as absolute outliers. Never would it be considered that human meat be the solution to world hunger. Such is unthinkable.

Unthinkable, perhaps, to an unthinking audience. While the purpose of this entry is not to highlight the possibility of using humans as meat, it does raise hackles by even suggesting that a taboo act be made mainstream and used to solve a very real worldwide problem. Taboo, anyone?

Unhealthy Obsessions

People can get caught up with looks. Given society's obsession with looks, that would probably be fairly normal, if unhealthy. Even that can be topped, however. I have known some who have unrealistic expectations of their bodies.

It is disheartening to see such obsessions as feeling that one's looks are inadequate compared to the airbrushed perfection of supermodels. It is worse yet to realize that they really feel that the photoshopped supermodels were really some sort of bizarre standards of beauty. Naturally, this meant that the supermodels were the only average lookers out there. I truly pity all the ugly people in this world who will never find mates. That is, approximately 99.9999% of the population.

That aside, there are even obsessions over how guyish they look and swearing that they would most certainly not look like girls were they to shave their heads. Of course, I really didn't have the heart to hold them by the throat and inform them between clenched fangs that people really do look rather androgynous when they shave their heads. Ah...the humanity...

On Communication Culture

Of the few communication cultures I know of, I have to say that none are quite as complicated, inefficient and possibly absurd as that of the Chinese. In fact, it appears to be a well-meaning system corrupted and taken to extremes.

In its ideal form, the Chinese style of communication would lead to harmony in discussions. By minimizing conflict, things can get done better and faster without wasting energy on needless infighting. It also leaves everyone with better morale, having known that they have a group they can get along with.

Unfortunately, reality creates a bunch of frightened people doing their best to avoid becoming the nail that sticks out. Worse yet, such a system encourages group think and the propagation of bad ideas given the habitual way-giving. In fact, the whole communication system becomes a power play whereby members hold out on providing their opinions until someone is brave (or stupid) enough to blacken their names by speaking out.

Sparta Revisited

Much as the way of womens' lives in Sparta was admirable, there were factors that were less than desirable. For one, the relatively poor education of the people led to a batch of rather poor tacticians and diplomats. Military might can only take a country so far before its numbers wear thin and the helots began to revolt.

In fact, it was very sad that a militaristic state could be so poorly versed in advanced battlefield tactics. While the other states of the time were relatively rigid in their tactics, it seemed unusual that a state serving as a huge military camp could fail to continually innovate its tactics rather than to concentrate purely on the training of its troops.

Finally...I'd say: Field the women. How unusual that, in Sparta's last days, its able-bodied womenfolk were not brought to the field. In their pride, Spartan men scorned ranged weapons as womanly devices. What better troop to wield those...than women? Of course, this could all be due to the strange fixation on maintaining walls of phalluses.

10'000 BC

I just watched a caveman flick. Ok, technically, it probably was not meant to be as such, but it really is hard to think otherwise (what, with all those mammoths and prehistoric birds). Anyway, the film has its fair bit of standard Hollywood action. I'm not entirely sure how much I like the way the protagonist turned out to really be more of an accidental hero whose exploits were the result of blind luck rather than any measure of heroic effort or skill.

Of course, this is not to mention that the geography's really rather messed up, what having tribals moving from snowy peaks to tropical (apparently) jungles and then into the desert. Really quite a journey for people on foot. Better yet, it leaves me wondering why slavers would go to such lengths to gather a handful of slaves from such distant lands. Seems quite counter-intuitive for me, but I am ever-willing to suspend my disbelief.

Unfortunately, the film also bears the marks of inadequate visual narrative. The constant presence of a disembodied narrator is pretty much a hallmark of a film that cannot stand alone without explication. Moreover, there was evidence of throwaway characters and melodrama. There is such a thing as having too much drama in a single scene. Falling into a pit of spikes that is getting flooded while having vultures pecking at meat overhead while having a sabertooth tiger below (and actually taking the time to free it) is pushing the limits of even my willing suspension of disbelief.

Overall, I felt the film was pretty run of the mill and that means it does not get more than a 6/10 from me. It was an interesting take on the lives of people in the past, but could really have saved themselves a lot of trouble by not giving the film a specific date as a title, since that would only cause erudites to question its historical accuracy.

Email Addiction

Article Here

Researchers appear to have little better to do than to investigate technology "addictions". It is remarkably easy to problematize emails as a form of addiction. What is strange is how they never seem to problematize the exact same issue in a wider context: Humans are social addicts. Every symptom of addiction mentioned within that article can also be applied to social addiction.

Consider this: I would like to point out that the majority of humans are social addicts. Like other addicts, social people experience cravings, urges, withdrawal and tolerance, requiring more and better social contact or more and more hours with other people. In fact, social addiction can lead to excessive socializing, sexual pre-occupations and lots of talking. I would say that these addicts use socializing as a way to escape their lonely reality. Addicts may be addicted to everything from the sheer act of talking, to social events, shopping or three-dimensional, multi-human events known as meetings.

It is remarkably simple to rehash social interactions in the form of an addiction simply because it IS a form of addiction. Humans are so addicted to being social that they do not realize it is an addiction. Emails and online communications are exactly what they are: Communications. In fact, they are merely communications over an electronic medium. It is not as if the people are actually totally attached to the electronics for their own sake, but have become increasingly attached to their precious electronics because it brings them socially closer to other humans!

Performance Anxiety

Performance anxiety can be a nasty thing. I suppose everyone feels it from time to time, and the luckier of the bunch will allow it to drive them to greater heights. There will always be some, though, who merely become crippled when faced by the exact same demon. It effectively becomes a case of self-taught helplessness whereby one will simply feel that the results are not up to the mark and simply stop trying: All without any form of negative feedback.

This would result in a vicious cycle of self-rejection and disappointment. In fact, it can utterly destroy one's drive. When one starts experiencing such a cycle, it is prudent to stop it dead, preferably with a long pointy stake to the heart. Otherwise, it may fester and render one helpless in the face of adversity.

Time

Time is a matter of priorities. Even though many try to assert that there is insufficient time, it is really an example of an incompatibility between their needs and wants. For example, there will always be some that want more money. An average working class person would likely have to work longer hours to achieve that want. Unfortunately, it also takes away the time needed to enjoy oneself.

A sensible person would therefore have to logically weigh between work and freedom, balancing the two within the bounds of the sands of time. It is not unlikely, however, that the occasional irrational person tries to achieve both ends within the same time frame. In an ideal situation, what would result is stress. In a worse situation, the person would simply be unable to fulfill both and feel exceedingly helpless.

Competence

Competence is an illusion. Undoubtedly, there will be some who believe they are competent at something and rightly feel confident about what they can and will do. Unfortunately, much of the "competence" experienced by many people would be somewhere between imaginary and utterly fictional.

For example, a game about people would immediately put a large proportion of the audience at ease: Being humans, they already assume that they have a very sound working knowledge of the needs, wants, behaviours and just about every other aspect of human existence. Of course, everything from then on would merely serve to maintain that illusion. Even if they take 5 minutes to learn how to play the game, they would feel very much better for it and pat themselves on the back for learning so quickly on a platform they are experts at. Conversely, the 5 minutes spent learning a new game they never felt competent at would probably be the longest 5 minutes of their lives! Who on earth could possibly understand the inner workings of arcane divine voodoo using bolts as mana?

Over exaggeration, perhaps, but a rather common trend amongst humans. It must be remembered that the average human is rather an emotional creature that lives on perceptions rather than concrete measures. A minute can seem far longer if it involves something they are not familiar with. As for competence? Assuming competence and subsequently failing at that very same act can do wonders for one's self-esteem...

Unwritten Rules

Humans learn by observing others. When everyone does things one way, it is perceived to be the correct way things are done. After all, the big, dumb, unwashed masses cannot possibly be wrong. Still, one must deign to consider the implications of such learning: What the great big, dumb, unwashed mess...er...masses does not do will also be perceived as incorrect.

Take for example the common metro. There are seats on the train, and great big open spaces. On a normal rush hour, those spaces would be taken up. On other off-peak times, the spaces open up to varying degrees. Sometimes, there just are no seats available, but lots of spaces.

Interestingly enough, very few actually consider sitting on the floor. While some may argue that doing so would result in obstruction to others, there are invariably nooks and crannies that can accommodate sitting and still not pose an obstruction. Even this little bit of practicality is largely ignored in favor of the norm of sitting (on seats) and standing on the train.

Such is the way of unwritten rules. By extension, these unwritten rules are established everywhere. In fact, owing to the average humans' lack of consciousness of the origins of their motivations, many accept these rules unquestioningly and find it exceptionally unusual that one should flout them...

Asking Why

One of the biggest problems with modern society is that nobody ever seems to ask why. When one is young, one learns much by asking why. Why is a rainbow a rainbow? Why is the sky blue? Eventually, one gets many answers to all the questions, and one starts to "grow up".

Later in life, it becomes increasingly unfashionable to ask why. In the teenage years, "why" becomes more a question of defiance than a prompt towards real learning. Once one reaches adulthood, "why" becomes an expression of ignorance rather than the quest for knowledge.

This is all very dangerous, the least of which can result in the stagnation of knowledge amongst the people. It can lead to several unquestioned "truths" that are harmful to the people as a whole to go unnoticed and unquestioned for extended periods of time. At worst, it allows for the abuse of authority.

Who's At Fault Now?

Being judgmental in a tense situation is insidious. In fact, I catch myself blaming others when the going gets tough. It is a cowardly and unacceptable thing, and should be overcome by mental discipline whenever it rears its ugly head.

As usual, such thoughts have their origins masked in the comforting veneer of logic. Something is going seriously wrong and I am doing my best. Therefore, some other person is at fault. He’s not working hard enough. She’s not skilled enough. Logically, I already know I am doing my best and therefore someone else must be at fault.

It must therefore be considered, the possibility that one isn’t really doing one’s best. Working hard alone has little bearing on putting in one’s best effort. Sometimes, chewing gum all day and having a flash of insight can be greater than merely brainstorming all day and churning out mediocre ideas wrought of an exhausted mind. Under the pretense of “productivity”, the quality of one’s work suffers.

Therefore, when one starts pointing that finger, one should ask whether one is truly doing one’s best. Of course, we already know that we’re doing our best. It’s a given, because everyone else is always at fault.