The Giggle Factor

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

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

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

Humans And People

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

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

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

Laws Are Good

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

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

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

Differences

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

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

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

Myopia

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

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

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

Lovely Mirror

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

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

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

Safe House

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

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

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

Underworld: Awakening

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

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

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

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

People Manipulation

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

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

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

Chronicle

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

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

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

Thoughts Are Only Skin Deep

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

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

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

The Kravist Mindset

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

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

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

Leading From The Front

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

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

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

Tracking Dreams

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

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

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

Chinese New Year Superstitions

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

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

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

Processing Power

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

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

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

The Game Of Thrones

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

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

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

The Inbetweeners

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

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

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

On Group Think

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

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

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

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

A Tom Cruise movie. Honestly, if the reviews weren't all that great and my friends weren't asking me to watch it with them...I really wouldn't. Mission Impossible 1 was fascinating, but I still feel it should have just ended at that. Anything beyond will tend to become repetitive. Much like Ocean's 11. Regardless, the reviews looked fine and all that, so I watched this particular release.

First things first, this is a Mission Impossible movie. If the title didn't suggest it already, it's all about people trying to get a job done despite effectively impossible odds. Unfortunately, that seems to be the plot of a goodly number of action flicks nowadays, so the meme ceases to amaze or amuse me. Then again, for an MI flick, the movie is not half bad either.

So we've got the usual fodder of impossible situation and high tension moments that leave some of the audience gasping in their seats (fails to work with me, because the heroes invariably make it out just fine). Some of the classic MI accept your mission moments, and cocky operatives in action. Yet, despite all the tensioned shock and awe, the movie kind of zips past with few truly memorable moments. Perhaps I have become jaded by the glut of similar films.

Regardless, it's a respectable enough MI, but I would have to say that it isn't quite up to the mark of what a lot of review sites are saying. I'd give it maybe a 7/10. Predictable, both in a good and bad way.

Skyrim

If anyone noticed that I've been kinda missing over the last couple weeks, let us blame Skyrim. For the precious few who have yet to hear of this game, it is pretty much the biggest current Western style RPG. If anything, it is actually a huge open world with an incredible amount of content with a satisfyingly complex progression system to back it up. In short, it is stellar.

I recall the last game that managed to hook me this way was back in the days of Morrowind. Oblivion sort of dropped the ball due to its obvious console roots, and the perceived lack of sophistication in the gameplay system.

The thing about Skyrim is its sheer scale and varied atmospheric environments. One can march from lush forests to arid wastelands and up frigid mountains with a blizzard blowing in one's face, dealing with the wildlife and other stray humanoids along the way. That's in addition to the main attraction of doing errands...er...quests... to push the storyline along. Or not. The choice is yours.

So, what would I say in conclusion? Skyrim isn't really a game. It's more of a world created by game developers, and a rather engaging world as it were. I think I shall have to leave this boring one for a while now, so I can appreciate the truly beautiful things in life.

Trusted Incompetents

I think it is very common to see authoritarian leaderships decay into cesspools of incompetence, whereby incompetents get increasingly assigned to leadership positions, causing an overall decay of the system. This does not seem to make sense, since a solid system is what would help authoritarian leaders stay in office as long as possible.

However, the other thing that is obvious to such a leader is the fact that a personal support network must exist in order to stay in power. Given that not everyone close to a person can reasonably be expected to be exceptionally competent, it is only inevitable that an authoritarian leader wind up placing incompetents in charge of various areas. Over time, this nepotism will start taking its toll, leading to the characteristic decay of authoritarian regimes.

It is a pattern that is seen to repeat in pretty much every authoritarian regime that I know of. Infrastructure gets from bad to worse, selected parts of the economy are buffed while everything else slides to ruin. Indeed, non-authoritarian systems can and do face similar problems from incompetence, but it does seem that incidences of such trusted incompetents planted where they really shouldn't be does occur more often amongst the authoritarians. Even if the authoritarianism is localized within the organization.

The Privilege Of Leadership

It is easy to think of how corrupt politicians can get, and how they stop serving their countries and wind up serving themselves instead. I am sure we can find many extreme examples of such bad behavior, and it's even more common to find incompetent leadership all over the place. At this point, my question is...why?

A leader cannot generally come to power of her own strength. Hitler certainly didn't go up there simply by shouting everyone else down. It was a gradual build up of power that eventually hit a critical mass, then became a self sustaining political engine. Clearly, even really bad leaders have had their moments of competence and become (more) corrupt afterwards. Such is the privilege of leadership: power corrupts.

However, such a statement seems overly glib. Power corrupts. Why? Power allows people to do many things, yes, but that also means that good leaders can enrich themselves without having to impoverish their people. Clearly something else went wrong. I think a part of that problem comes from the privilege of leadership whereby the leader winds up surrounded by similarly privileged people and becomes increasingly distanced from the general population. This distancing is more perceptual than physical, since they start to develop tunnel vision whereby their perceptible world becomes richer than average and they start to believe that the country itself is doing fine.

It is effectively what happened when Communist leaders started believing their own propaganda. Such a thing sounds logically impossible: you generated the lie yourself, so how can you possibly be fooled by it? Yet it happens, because human perception seeks patterns, and a statement that is repeated often enough becomes perceptual truth at least at a subconscious level. What can be done about this particular aspect of the problem? I don't know for sure, but having the leaders constantly exposed to the woes of the commoners is very likely a good start.

Acquisition

The human drive to acquire is insanely strong, and there's no period more obvious than during the Christmas season. Whenever I hear about Black Friday mad rushes where people literally fight to acquire something that they don't necessarily need, I am reminded at just how much humans really are herd animals and just basically take their cues from others.

I witness the idiocy of pepper spraying other shoppers to get a purchase, or fighting over discounted paper towels, and figure that the people probably don't really require the items. The purchase can be made later, and I'm reasonably sure that paper towels aren't Christmas presents or even really essential during Christmas...unless you need a lot of them for a dinner for whatever reason. While cases of need undoubtedly exist, I think a lot of it can be attributed to the building hype leading up to the season, after which all hell breaks loose when people suddenly realize that they are in competition with all those other increasingly impatient customers pent up outside the store.

This can be seen equally clearly in the case of keeping up with the Joneses, where people gather prestige items just to "keep up" with their neighbours. I find this to be largely unproductive, since the purchases seem to have a lot of social value, but precious little personal value. Some of my friends have remarked that however strong one may be, one cannot be an island. I concur in terms of productions and products that one cannot produce for oneself, but I also believe that one can still be as island-like as possible where applicable such that one does not get lost within the mindless masses.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

Well I've actually missed the first installment of the SH series, so I can't really make a comparison with its prequel. Based on what I've just watched, however, I thiunk I can safely say that I'm not displeased.

In short, the movie is quite a reimagining of the Sherlock Holmes narrative, with quite a bit of bawdy humor thrown in along with an insight to Holmes's thought processes. It is difficult to say much without introducing spoilers, but I dare say that the action is well balanced with the deductive processes.

However, there's the usual gripes about period films, what with the usual anachronisms and historical (in)accuracy of props. Moreover, the way Holmes deduces certain scenarios is a little far-fetched, making it seem as if he already knew what would happen rather than piecing the puzzle together from fragmentary evidences.

Overall it's not the greatest movie I've seen, but neither is it particularly bad. I do have a soft spot for this sort of story, so I suppose it'd get a 7/10 from me.

Constant Cognition

I've come to realize that I tend to operate somewhat differently from most people I know. That is, I have a tendency to think over a goodly number of my conscious decisions. That is, a controlled form of second guessing that aims to root out the underlying reasons for my decision making. It is a method I developed as a means of self control, and it seems effective enough in that I am no longer prone to actually losing self control, going into a blood haze and coming out of it wondering just what the heck I did (usually something violent).

Anyway the thing is that constant cognition in this form comes with a price. For one, it certainly slows down the decision making process, and can even make it seem to stall by normal peoples' standards. Or perhaps my own, come to think of it. Moreover, the disabling of cognitive shortcuts also means nothing comes easily without some rumination and I suppose it involves some degree of mental strain as well. At the very least, it does require the ability to detach from emotions or at least ignore them for some time in order to have a less noisy picture.

Regardless, I do think overall it's a good solution to deal with my own personal needs. Of course, the tight self control also means that I have to be careful about things that may reduce my self control below a certain maintenance level. The outcome may not be quite desirable.

Social Dissociation

I think it is useful to be able to socially dissociate oneself. That is, to induce upon oneself the mental attitude that one is not quite like the others in the group. If there's one thing I learned about group think, it's that the most powerful weapon against it just so happens to be to not feel socially integrated with that particular group.

When one regards oneself as separate, it becomes a lot easier to think outside the box that the well integrated build around themselves. This allows the sort of lateral thinking that can solve problems in ways that everyone in the focus group seem to become unable to.

I am no expert in the subject, but I guess this may be one of the reasons that artistic folk are viewed as "smarter" in some way when they seem to be able to think up stuff that nobody else would readily imagine. Perhaps they are, but perhaps they are also less of a part of the hive to the extent that they are capable of thinking for themselves for a change.

On Superstition

I'm pretty sure I've written on this topic previously. Anyway, the faulty thought processes underlying superstition irk me to no end. It is one thing to believe in something as far-fetched as black magick, especially if there's a specific definitive test case and a proof that consistently comes forth from this proof. It's another matter altogether to have a rather generic test case that can be "proven" by just about any outcome. An example is the attribution of any ill-fated event to the influence of black magick.

Now, what annoys me is how these vague test cases pretty much validate any scenario you might want to toss at it. It's similar when it comes to astrology, whereby a vague prediction 50 years ago just might come true, simply because a crap load of things do tend to happen in 50 years and there's an ever increasing chance of the prediction coming true. Those who are unable or unwilling to comprehend this will wind up being victimized by their own ignorance sooner or later.

Unfortunately, it seems it's not always easy to spot a faulty test case, so it's not really possible to avoid ignorance altogether. However, one must always be willing to re-examine one's methodology for comprehending life and to constantly update one's test cases to ensure that they at least make an effort to avoid being superstitious ignoramuses.

Puss In Boots

Funny Mexican movie, Antonio Banderas style. Puss In Boots manages to capture the typical Mexican narrative, featuring the classic wronged hero (with accompanying predictable storyline) and setting it in the middle of a humorous Fables'esque storyline featuring our (now) well known feline hero. Do I like the movie? Hell yeah!

Ok bad thing first: The storyline's predictable. Some people have panned it for that, and I think that's fair enough, but I think the refreshing take on the narrative and setting it in a novel setting have more than made up for that particular shortcoming. After all, it lets you forget about trying to understand the story and get on with appreciating the details in the movie.

On to the movie proper. I'd say the details are amazing and something that cat lovers and Mexican movie watchers would certainly appreciate. The show's got its own take on the fairytale characters, both making references to their iconic backstories and managing to fit them into the greater narrative. The movie even manages to balance between being outright goofy and quite poignant and serious. It's a fine tightrope, and I believe the team has managed to pull this one together rather neatly. They even managed to squeeze in an anti-cruelty message in the tale, which is downright commendable. Clearly, the folks have watched their movies (especially Mexican ones) and know about cats. The characters are human enough, yet catlike in all the right places. They're certainly not your average purely anthropomorphic animals you see in too many cartoons.

So how would I rate this feline tail of romance, betrayal and redemption? I'd say a clean 8/10. Yes I do recommend it, and I would watch it again just because. It won't beat How To Train Your Dragon, but it certainly is good on its own merits.

House Money

I was at the casino area with my folks today, and I noticed that most of the shops in the area were selling rather high end goods. Everything seemed to be something branded, and costing quite a bit even for basic clothing. At first glance, I thought, ok this is a rich peoples' area and catered to that. Makes sense, only that I wonder why I don't see a similar layout near the glitziest hotels in the vicinity. Just how are these stores paying their rent?

After some thought, I realized that the answer probably lay in the house money effect. True, gamblers near casinos can be high rollers and have the liquidity to purchase a $500 dress at a whim. However, not every gambler is a whale, and surely those coming to visit aren't all rich. That's when I realized that they didn't have to be rich in the net worth sense, but in the current liquidity sense: If they just had a windfall, the house money effect kicks in and they're more likely to purchase pricey goods that they would've normally avoided. That would help explain how the stores got their sales.

If a fairly middle class gambler happened to get say $10'000 from the poker table, it would seem to be a comparatively small expense to fork out $500 for the branded dress. The house money effect suggests that since the money isn't really regarded as the gambler's own anyway, the expense has minimal emotive impact. Odd, but that's how people work apparently. For me, whenever I receive a lump of money that I didn't earn, I'd simply spend as I usually do and then dump the rest in savings. I just see no logical reason to regard given money as any different from money I earned fair and square.

Bummer

Today is supposed to be the day I had a good time taking photos of birds and land critters at the zoos...for free. Special bday offer and all that rot. Ok let's cut to the chase: It was a bust. Rained all day, and since the places were basically open air, the animals would've been in hiding and not quite within camera's reach.

I wound up having to settle for a pale shadow of that, which was an outing to a new mall my folks hadn't visited just yet. I really hate it when stuff like this happens, but then again story of my life. Not really had all that many good bdays anyway. They're usually exams, spent being sick, having disappointments like these, whatever. Sometimes I wonder why I bother even trying to have a good time.

Anyway, after pondering what one of my friends said previously about a foiled outing not being ruined because she was out with people...well...no. I still feel majorly bummed out, and the fact that my folks were out there celebrating it with me just didn't help any. If anything, I've always regarded people as sort of furniture in outings, whereby the objective of the outing is key and people just sort of attach themselves to the outing. If people weren't there, the outing would feel just as great. Unfortunately, well...today happened, and I'd be very happy to hit the punching bags extra hard at the gym tomorrow to vent some.

The Autistic Advantage

In our current age of logic and modern technology, it seems to me that the being autistic to some extent is actually a benefit to the individual as opposed to being "neurotypical". In terms of the cognitive vulnerabilities that most people are subjected to (i.e. peer pressure, image issues, social norms, etc), autistic spectrum people are more able to overcome.

I was reading a book on how people use social rules of compliance to "persuade" people to their goals, whatever they may be. While I was reading the examples, I discovered that I'm actually quite resistant to the scenarios stated. The first thing I wondered was why? Why would it be that I can flat say no in a situation where others would feel compelled to say yes? The answer seems to lie in how I perceive people in general, which tends to be in logical terms rather than emotive. I do not think so much in terms of dude did me a favor, and therefore I am obligated (in a generalized emotive sense). It's more like dude did me a favor worth $10 or have it classified as a major intangible favor, and therefore I will return something of equal value at some future date.

The thought process helps shield me from the obligation trap, because I would know if I'm facing unfair demands when calling in a favor, and I would turn them down. Or for example worrying about social pressures (image management) when maintaining appearance of consistency in my conduct. The fact that I largely regard people as furniture helps some, because I will know for myself whether I am being internally consistent and am less affected by the thought of how others will perceive me if I happen to perform an action contrary to the image I am trying to project.

This is not to say that I am a complete social idiot and blow things up all the time because I piss on social norms (actually...that probably does happen a lot without my realizing) but that I wind up being less bound by them and become somewhat resistant to the sort of social-based coercion that would work pretty darned well on other better adjusted individuals. I believe in this case, the autistic advantage lies in the fact that being less socially integrated lets one stop and think over in logical terms what's going on out there, and acting in a more calculating way rather than having a knee jerk reaction that has become so natural to the average person that they are unable to perceive what they just did.

Immortals

The time now is 3.11am. I just came back from watching something that tried to pass itself off as a movie. First thing about the movie: It's supposed to be loosely based on Greek mythology, with an emphasis on the loose bit. My take is: Where is the Greek in all of this?!

Ok let's start with the good bit, 'coz that's really the only saving grace of the movie so far: Over the top fight scenes with plenty of gore. There. I've said it. Ok and maybe some cute girl butt. That's about it.

Moving on, the movie somehow manages to completely mangle Greek infantry tactics, mythology, aesthetics and politics in a single fell swoop, proceeding to wrap all that crap in a shallow narrative so fraught with plot holes, inconsistencies and improbabilities that they might as well toss out the entire Greek mythological premise and make a completely new fantasy much like what they had in Suckerpunch. Notice that I wrote that bit in a single sentence (and Suckerpunch was waaayyy better, btw). Oh, and they managed to throw third rate CGI into the mix, which really is quite reminiscent of 80's blue screen.

Right, I suppose it would be pretty obvious to the reader that I'm ranting at this point, but I stand by my evaluation of this excreable filth. Let it be said that I have experienced this pain, so that you shall not have to. I'd give it 3/10, if only for the blood, violence and a rather fine bit of girly ass. Take my word for it: Don't watch this movie. That is all.

Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn

Here's a fan movie if I've ever seen one. That is, this Tintin flick just so happens to be precisely what Tintin narratives are typically about, and can be reasonably expected to appeal to fans of the series. For everyone else...well...it depends.

Now, the whole idea is that Tintin stories are largely kid stories, with really predictable storylines. Tintin discovers something that mysterious people seem to want really badly, so he decides to take it upon himself to discover more about them. He gets into a great big life-threatening adventure, and really never seems to write about it, come to think of it. But hey, I like it all the same. Not quite so the people who watched it with me, however. The philistines just haven't had the chance to read the comics in the first place. Bah.

Anyway, there's really little I can say about the flick, seeing as how with Tintin writing just about anything about the story would count as a spoiler. I did like the animations, and the typical cartoon physics involved, along with a rather fine rendition of Cap'n Haddock...even though it seems Snowy was the star of the show for some of my dudes.

Overall I'd say the movie's good for Tintin fans, and it's probably something along the lines of 7/10. Good, but not great.

Oh, and I wrote this at...1.

Drive

Once in a while, I watch a movie that contrasts with itself. I'm not talking about a movie that has some serious unexpected twists, but more of a movie that takes on a totally different tone as it goes along. Drive is one such movie.

Now, it is something that starts off sedate and lovey dovey, involving a professional getaway driver. The intro alone should reassure you as to the driver's prowess. As the movie progresses, it is clear that darker, more violent elements are coming into the picture. It's always the gangsters, and they're always killing people in especially bloody ways. Well I am biased here, so when there's exquisite violence for show on the big screen, and that violence proves to be largely anatomically correct, I become quite happy.

Overall I'd say that Drive has captured the essence of an ultracool getaway driver who gets into some seriously hot soup, and I really liked the violence as the show progressed. Unfortunately, the lovey dovey scenes that formed the bulk of the first half felt a wee bit too drawn out. Really, it suffices to show a few scenes to demonstrate how close the couple is. For that, I'd say the movie's worth maybe 7.5/10. Simply put, its upgrade from the gratuitous bloodshed was easily overridden by the gratuitous use of love scenes.

Individuality

Individuality is something that I cherish and regard as highly important in any person. Yet, the concept of individuality is quite often interpreted significantly differently by different folk, so perhaps it is important that I define it for myself. I regard individuality as the ability and inclination to think and act for oneself.

What sparked this thought thread is the idea of individualistic people. That is, people who are inclined to not follow the crowd, and be themselves. Some express this through dressing oddly (or otherwise differently) while others act differently. My question here is: Is this indeed individuality? Can one be an individual simply by dressing or acting differently? In my opinion, that answer is no. It is insufficient.

If one decides to dress in the manner of a subculture, like say for instance the goth subculture, one isn't necessarily being an individual. While rebelling against the mainstream by simply adopting the ways of a subculture, one isn't necessarily thinking or acting for oneself. It's simply a facade one puts on just to seem like an individual. One can undoubtedly choose to subscribe to a subculture for personal reasons, and that's perfectly fine. However, one can also appear perfectly average yet maintain individuality through being willing to think for oneself and act the part.

An example of this is say following a subculture's dress sense. It is one thing to do so, but it is entirely another if one's doing that without understanding the origins of that subculture or making any effort to inject one's own preferences into the gig. I strongly believe each person is an individual subculture, population one. It is not a matter of aping something else just to feel like one's a part of something, but more like going in as a participant, and then budding off as a wholly realized person. Such is the journey of discovery of life.

Public Energies

Today, I was discussing the matter of peoples' energies. That is, the concept that when people are constrained/repressed, their energies will wind up diverted and may end up being quite destructive. Which caused me to wonder at how the Japanese do it, somehow managing to maintain a fairly creative environment even despite massive social constraints. It seems quite unlikely that such an environment could've arisen, and though I am no expert in Japanese culture, I have seen numerous creative works coming from Japan...and they seem to reflect a thought process that is quite alien to my own.

In contrast, similarly repressed societies elsewhere just tend to breed a certain sort of ill society, whereby people cease to care for one another. They simply become destructive instead. It puzzles me how such similar environments can result in such significantly different outcomes. The key here seems to be culture. That is, a culture that is more open to doing things in unusual ways.

Where Japan may well be quite straitlaced, they seem to be quite tolerant of experimentation when it comes to the youth, and they have a rather clean separation between the imaginative space and the socially proper space. This seems to have created a magic circle where people are free to explore and express themselves, without violating the equally stringent social mores that afflict repressed societies. This seems to be absent in the ones that turn destructive, whereby there is indeed no safe space at all, and the only outlet for these pent up public energies seems to be deviance. That is, rough behavior, anger and other destructive tendencies.

Perhaps it may be a good idea to delineate clear boundaries of what is safe (such as in kabuki theater) and what is socially proper (as is typical in strait laced societies) to provide safe channels for creative energies, such that they benefit the society as a whole while maintaining social order.

Intellectual Incest

I have come to understand my reluctance to extensively socialize with colleagues. Now, I often get invited to outings and chat with them a lot when I do turn up, but something has always bugged me about going out in this manner. Of course, there's the obvious implication that my going out has political undertones, in which cementing relationships that way does help cement one's position in an organization. That much always bugs me, but there's something else. That something else may well be what I call intellectual incest.

By intellectual incest I mean the very concept of going out with people you ordinarily spend a lot of time with, and by implication have been influenced by and are actively influencing you. The influences through social contact during working hours will invariably color discussions outside (apart from the obvious tendency of work talk) and basically wind up shrinking one's intellectual circle since one's exposure to outside disciplines is diminished as a result. In fact, it must be to one's advantage to engage social compatriots outside that work circle, to maximize one's overall exposure to reality in general.

I struggle with the incest thing, especially in an age where weak links abound and it really isn't as easy as it used to be to find people out there and spontaneously create links with them. Gone are the days of active random instant messaging and getting to know locals from different disciplines but similar interest. Most people may do that over Facebook interest groups, but in a sense that starts off on the wrong foot whereby the very presence of the Facebook (or other social media) accounts creates a greater intimacy than would be comfortable in comparison to a more anonymous medium like the IRC of old. I guess I will need to find my alternatives. Stagnation is certainly not a good thing at all.

In Time

Remember what I wrote a couple days back about the sequence of narrative creation, and how creating details before composing a proper narrative proves to be problematic? Well In Time is precisely that: A movie with an intriguing premise that winds up falling flat because it doesn't have a solid narrative to stand on.

Right, so here's the good stuff: In Time is about a world where time is both life and money. Run out of time/money, run out of life. You die. Ok that's the good part. It's an interesting concept, and something they could've taken quite far. After all, we're familiar with Blade Runner and how the replicants were so desperate to extend their lives.

The bad news? A sophisticated narrative never emerged. The movie turned from something that could've been a philosophical study in variable human mortality...into a flat Bonnie and Clyde heist fest where time turned out to be...money. Really they could've just made the movie about money and it'd be pretty much the same. The narrative itself is fraught with logical problems, and the attempts to create a convincing universe around the time/money/life concept fail simply because the explanations wind up looking rather implausible. In fact, they might've been better off not trying to explain the mechanics behind the whole system and focusing more on the narrative itself.

Much as it pains me to do so, I'd say the movie deserves 5.5/10. It'd be 4.5, but I liked the concept, and that's where the other point went to.

Detailing Narratives

I have come to realize that creating a narrative is a lot like creating a drawing: It is often less helpful to do the detailing first before having the grand structure planned out already. For example, it is often not very useful creating beautiful dragon scales before you're sure that you're actually drawing a dragon, nor is it useful to start writing about an intriguing mechanic by which the fictional society runs if the drama itself is not ready for action.

The thing I've found about detailing first is that first it crimps the narrative some. If the narrative didn't already exist, it'll start to be a process whereby the narrative becomes shaped and often distorted by the details. That's because the narrative is being forced to be consistent with the details. Worse yet, this tends to lead to the neglect of proper narrative design, which can result in stories that are logically plausible, yet are extremely flat in every other sense.

I think my view for now shall be that a narrative is best designed first, so that it flows and the grand structure is made known, after which the details can be dropped in so that they spice up what could have been an otherwise drab setting.

Childhood?

I was enroute to work today and as my lift passed one apartment, I saw a dad helping his kid to light a sparkler. It's a simple enough act, only that I'm seeing it while I'm going to work. On a morning that I wouldn't ordinarily see if I wasn't saddled with office hours. To be honest, that sucked.

Story time. First things first. I hate mornings. I do my best to deny their existence, and while I don't hate my work (I love it to pieces, in fact), I really hate having to get my butt to work before 5pm. And now on to childhoods. Well the thing is, I really don't remember all that much about my childhood. I do vaguely remember that sparklers are fun, and I did a lot of pyromaniacy things when I was a kid. The thing is, I feel like I miss the simpler days of my earlier childhood. That is, the not having a lot of weird things to worry about. Those who know about my problems also know that I only realized what was up a number of years back, and life's never really been the same since. Of course, it's improved a lot in the recent years, but it's certainly nowhere near as simple as it used to be.

Anyway, I guess the important thing is that I'll always remember the times back in university when I had months long holidays (that's how holidays oughtta be) and I'll never be comparing work leave to that. It just won't measure up. I find it funny that some people would point out that well...work just doesn't work that way. You don't get months off at a go. Well technically you can spam unpaid leave, but generally the company would want you to leave pretty soon if you did that. The fact remains that the comparison will be apples to oranges, but whenever someone tells me that wow that was a long weekend, I just tell them...my long weekends are 3 months long. And I haven't had a good long weekend in ages.

Changes

My life has changed significantly for the better lately, and so has that of one of my friends. Basically, she's been given the opportunity to work in game development as a designer, and it really isn't something that's commonly offered so readily to a newbie. After some persuasion, she decided to take up the offer. I cannot be sure if she's of the right temperament to pull it off, but hey at least it's an opportunity to try her hand at the industry and to see if it suits her.

Looking back at my life over the last 5 years, I really do wonder at how my other friends have been doing in all that time. Some people invariably drop out of touch for a long time, and stay in contact only via the internet. I think it's a good time to meet up where possible, and see how things have changed for them.

The Thing

It's funny how I've not actually watched all that many movies back in my day. It's a fairly recent development, my watching of movies, since my company does hand out movie tickets every month or so. Otherwise, I really wouldn't have bothered. That said, this is the second movie I've watched this week with my friend, mainly 'coz I really could've done with something to do at night after work.

Anyway, The Thing is your average monster stalking kind of movie. The sort where an alien picks humans off one by one till precious few survivors remain. It's no spoiler, because everyone who is going to watch this probably already know that.

I'd say I liked the movie, because it makes the viewer consider exactly what the Thing is, and how it propagates. There's something to having aliens that can perfectly mimic humans. I suppose the story's got its logical issues and whatnot typical of cinema, but I rather do appreciate the trip. Probably at least in part due to the Inquisition style approach of burning anything that's suspicious or contaminated. I'd say the movie's somewhere around a 7.5/10

On a related but non-review note, is it a bad thing if I thought the tentacle creatures were rather kinky?

Johnny English: Reborn

Agent Bean returns! Well, everyone knows that JE is pretty much a spoof of Bond, and pretty much everything you expect to find in a reasonably serious secret agent movie. I'd say there is very little to discuss about the movie itself, because the premise and gags will be familiar to those who've seen Bean's antics, and the previous movie.

Some would say that the movie is predictable and silly. Me, I think that's kind of the point of the movie, and really, there are only so many ways you can deliver slapstick comedy. All I can say is that the movie kept me laughing through its entire length, which says something about my sense of humor and perhaps how funny the show actually is. Evaluating it on its merits and the intent of the production, I'd say that the show deserves a hearty 8/10.

Faith And The Financial Market

I've been reading House Of Cards lately, and it's the same story of over-leveraging. One would think that it's pretty obvious when a company's sunk into risky assets as collateral and has precious little stuff in its reserves. The funny thing here is that well...if everyone knows it already and they're still going for it, it seems to me that they're really just running on faith. And hot air.

If an economy is indeed heavily reliant on credit, it is obvious how a credit crunch can utterly devastate the economy. Yet it seems that leverage is the steroid of choice amongst financial institutions. It's hard to think of a better way to create a heck of a lot of stuff out of a small pool of assets. Arguably, it's the only crazy effective way available in your average capitalist economy.

Yet, humans will be humans. If faith were to be maintained regardless, runs on banks would not occur as often, and everyone can happily live in Oz with the magickal flying dollar bills. Obviously, this doesn't happen. Someone invariably loses heart out there and realizes that things are going south in one part of the economy, and starts figuring that liquidity is beginning to look like a good idea. Seeing a big player do that, others will start to take their cues and so on. The house of cards comes tumbling down.

Human Cognitive Pathways

It is interesting how differently humans process the exact same input. That is, give a bunch of humans a single scene or thought, and the output will likely be quite different between the humans. What's more interesting is that some humans will actually process the same thing in completely different pathways, which may even be completely opposite to one another.

Amusingly enough, most people are not telepathic and have limited ability to discern what the other is thinking. Therefore, it is entirely possible for them to talk clean past one another and result in some rather damaging misunderstandings. The fun part here is that both (or more) parties will be convinced that the other's responding to one's statement in the same spirit, and it's difficult to ascertain otherwise.

Shallow Professionalism

I am the sort to believe in raw performance in favor of appearance. If one fails to perform, it matters little to me what their personal bearing is like. Which, of course, is why shallow professionalism remains one of my pet peeves. I'd call shallow professionalism the art of appearing to be professional, be it by obvious conduct like constant apparent seriousness, or by appearance by dressing in a particular fashion.

Now, what irks me about it is how many professional-appearing individuals prove to be quite unprofessional in the practical sense. They are not performing their jobs to the best of their abilities simply because they are employed (and paid) to do so. Worst of all, the appearance of professionalism can easily throw off an unschooled supervisor, who may mistake the appearance for the actual performance of professionalism.

Unfortunately, it seems my views are in the power minority when it comes to this matter. The elevation of shallow professionalism to an art form remains to date, and really...not all that many of the people who matter are inclined to evaluate things otherwise. For one, that'd just take too much effort on their part. It may even involve a restructuring of management itself to dedicate resources to true performance evaluation.

Portal 2 Is Quality

I am crazy about Portal 2. Well...not drooling crazy, but crazy enough to play the game straight till 6am on a weekend. That's some good score, for a game that practically screams quality from every game moment. Not only is the game full of references to the goings on from the previous game, it manages to proceed with the kinds of twists and humor that are typical of the original.

From the very beginning, it's clear that the level designers paid very close attention to the principles of level design. The composition of scenes is impeccable, and always informs the user as to what she/he is to do next. If anything, the use of framing in the introduction gives users a very clear idea of exactly what portals are and how they operate. I'd say the intro itself did such a brilliant job of being an introduction, without feeling like a tutorial. Even the first parts of the game felt extremely well crafted, with the sort of dramatic tension that you'd find in good movies. The puzzles are also amazingly well crafted, requiring rather unorthodox solutions most of the time.

So...just how did Valve get something so right? =p

Space Marine: Improvements

First things first, I am a fan of the Warhammer 40k universe. As such, I do try very hard to like the Space Marine video game. Unfortunately, try as I might, I cannot not see just how they tried too hard in the wrong areas such that they made a potentially great game merely good.

Now, I am not sure exactly what constraints Game Workshop put on the company, but it seems that they are rather reluctant to engage canon. This is quite unfortunate, seeing as how they're using a well known chapter like the Ultramarines, and pitting it against some random Chaos warband. The first thing I would've done is consider revising the storyline to feature the Space Wolves, and the nasty involvement of the Thousand Sons. As a bonus, it's entirely possible for Magnus the Red to make a guest appearance.

The problem I see is how they've come up with an incredible variety of componentized armor for the different Traitor and Loyalist factions. It bewilders me as to exactly why they'd do that, when the chapters aren't quite featured in the campaign. We see a hint of Blood Ravens and some Dark Templars, perhaps, but little else. Simply put, there's a lot of possible variety in the mediocre multiplayer without popping the content in the campaign. For those who purchased Space Marine as a single player experience, the DLCs would've looked utterly useless.

It would've made sense to save the other content for possible expansions, while focusing on the core storyline as a content source for multiplayer. For example, if the conflict is between the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons, it would've been a small matter to bring in more detailed hierarchies in the campaign, reusing those assets in the context of the multiplayer as well. As a bonus, the weaponry used by the combatants can be iconic of their respective factions. For example, the plasma cannon's charged attack is AOE, which for damage purposes would be identical to virtually any other AOE in the game. Using the damage code, and replacing the plasma special effect with warpfire, it's entirely possible for a Thousand Sons sorceror to fire empyreal bolts. Overall, it would've added a lot of flavor to the overall game.

Focusing on the gameplay, with less on the progression (which is very art heavy), it's possible to dedicate more resources to the core gameplay polish. It would've probably been better to create a flexible system for the armor, but to hold back the asset development for future content. As it stands, having a full armor set for completing the campaign just feels like overkill, since that armor set has absolutely the same stats as every other armor. Moreover, the lack of distinctive faction-specific armors prevents the establishment of significantly different character silhouettes in multiplayer, which adversely affects IFF.

This is not to say that I'm bashing the game outright, since I have no idea why it turned out the way it did, and overall the melee combat is highly satisfying. However, I still reckon that it's entirely possible to have created a more polished gameplay with the exact same resources, securing the user base for the acquisition of future expansions.

Focus Good, Forgetfulness Bad

Gona be a short muse post here. Now, in general, it's a good thing to not be absentminded. Here's why: Today, I was making some soup and I noticed that a ladle next to me had a very healthy ant population because it had residual soup on it. Ok fine, time to leave it alone and get a clean one. I can always wash that later.

After which, I started boiling and grabbed a ladle to stir it with. Yup...you guessed it...the one covered in living things. Well, few things beat ant soup. Adds protein to the mix. *flexes*

Horrible Bosses

First things first: I'm biased against comedies. I don't really like to watch a show that exists purely to make me laugh. Considering that, it shouldn't be surprising that I find most comedies meaningless. But not this one.

Now, what makes Horrible Bosses an acceptably good comedy? It's got a semi-plausible storyline with characters that people can sorta relate to. That is, three of the worst sorts of bosses anyone is likely to meet, and three very unhappy fellas who would love to have them killed. In fact, that's precisely what they strive to. Along the way, they get into the most hilarious situations that routinely come right back to bite them in their asses, and that only serves to add to the enjoyment.

Right, and here's a spoiler: There's no Hollywoodized romance in this flick. BOOYEAH! Of course, given the synopses most people have already likely read by now, they might wonder just why that would be...

I'd say this movie deserves a 8.5/10. High. Especially for a comedy. But is it worth it? Well for me I'd say this is a movie I'd actually pay to watch. The witty dialog and the politically correct (and grossly incorrect) situations make for a truly enjoyable movie experience. Watch. It. Now.

On Capitalism

Sometimes I think capitalism really doesn't agree with the more selfish side of Chinese culture. That is, they really shouldn't be trusted with that economic system lest it ruin them. Of course, the same could be said for every other selfish administration out there (yes, I'm looking at you, Uncle Sam) but I'm just writing about the stuff I've been observing about the Chinese as featured in the news.

My impression is that there's a mile wide streak of greed not tempered by a sense of civic duty at play here. Chinese culture is quite socialist by nature, and garnering wealth exclusively for one's private gain is somewhat taboo. For one, openly declaring that one cares primarily for oneself can have some major negative repercussions on one's social image. However, seeing the unethical and sometimes outright cruel things that are done, I get the impression that the perpetrators have outright ditched the moral values enshrined in their own culture and taken on bare faced greed instead. That's not very healthy at all.

I'm not sure if this is really the case, or if it is whether it can be rectified in some way within a generation or two. Times change, I guess.

Manual Control

A lot of the bodily functions are automatically controlled. That is, they work by themselves and aren't really something that comes to the forefront of one's attention on a daily basis. An example of this is how one's eyes focus. For now, I'm experimenting with my eyes and getting them to work at will, and it's been quite an interesting experience.

For one, I realize that the degree of light diffraction varies by the extent to which one opens one's eyes. For example, I see more astigmatic spikes from streetlights when I squint my eyes, as opposed to when I have them wide open.

And then there's the matter of eye focusing. Interestingly, eye focusing appears to be contrast detection based, so an object with higher contrast tends to be focused on more than one of lower contrast. For example, I can be on a bus with an ad on the windows. These ads are effectively black from the inside of the bus, with holes cut in a pattern that allows passengers to see through. This resultant mesh is relatively high contrast in certain situations, and low contrast in others. Hence, if I tried to discern a vehicle marking from close range, the eye tends to focus on the marking. If I tried it at a longer range, the comparative contrast of the mesh makes it incredibly difficult to focus on the vehicle's marking from then on.

After some experimenting with shifting focus along the length of a pencil near to the eye, I've managed to establish some control over how the eyes focus. So far I'm having some success in forcing the eye to focus past the mesh and on whatever it is that I intend to look at. Tiring on the eyes, unfortunately, but it's most likely something that'll become easier with practice.

It's The Steel

After grinding my blade for quite some hours, I was puzzled as to exactly why it refused to take on a durable razor edge. As far as I could tell, I was maintaining the correct angles and taking my time with the grind so I was unlikely to be botching the edge. It was then that I figured that perhaps the problem was not with the technique so much as it was with the steel itself. Simply put, the 440 I was working was probably didn't have the world's best temper and might not even be 440 to begin with. Hmm.

So what happened...I looked to my shelf and noticed some old knife blades I had lying about and not worked for some years. In fact, the blades had a touch of rust on them, so clearly they're not the best sort of stainless steel. They might even be some sort of carbon steel. Intriguing.

After spending 20 minutes completely reworking the edge to the angle I wanted, the blade seemed to be quite happy to maintain the edge. In fact, the edge was a lot more "bitey" than I got from doing the exact same thing to my 440 pocket knife. I kept at it till the edge felt good, then I tried the paper test. It melted through the paper this time. Hmm!

So, it does seem that the steel does make a big difference in the kind of edge the blade can take. Undoubtedly, my 440 knife could take a workable edge and if properly resharpened every time, it probably could be quite serviceable. However, when trying to get a true razor edge that lasts for some time, the blade falls flat. It's the steel!

Pick Your Madness

I discussed the matter of irrationality with my friend earlier today, talking about gambling in general. Gambling is patently unsatisfying to me, because the losses clearly exceed the gains, but people play it anyway. Somewhere along the discussion, he noted that watching movies was similarly irrational, because one pays to experience an illusion and comes out of it with no tangible gains as well. Good point!

So clearly, we all have our personal madnesses of choice. In fact, we probably have em without realizing exactly what they are. After some pondering, I figure the crux of the problem is that there's no absolute measure by which value is evaluated. I get negative value from losing money in a gamble and so I would not participate in gambling even though there's a chance that I can win. On the other hand, someone who likes the excitement of gambling will think me mad for watching movies if there's no monetary upside.

What the two seem to have in common is experience. There's an experience in the excitement of anticipating the gambling results. Movies and other similar entertainment are pure experiences. Likewise for hobbies and sports. If there's a madness people seem to be stuck to, chances are it's because the madness is associated with an experience that they truly like. Pick your madness.

On Sharpening Knives

I've recently decided that I wanted to know how to sharpen knives. I've carried a knife with me just about everywhere for a whole lot of years, but I realized that I had no clue as to exactly how I was supposed to put a killer edge on the thing. One thing I do know is that a knife that doesn't slice through stuff cleanly doesn't feel particularly good.

First thing I tried was with my pocket knife. It's a fairly cheap Boker, with 440 stainless for the blade. So far I figure perhaps I'm not particularly good with knife sharpening, seeing as how I've been putting a lot of time into it, but the edge doesn't stay for long. I figure I'm generating a wire edge on the blade itself.

After stropping, I managed to grind a fine edge into the knife that's fairly lasting. Hopefully the edge will hold. I figure it may be a good idea to reprofile the edge itself so that it'll stay sharp. We shall see.

On Self-Esteem

Self esteem is a very delicate thing. Some seem to have a healthy lot of it, others are critically deficient. Me, I find that my self esteem is split. It's a weird predicament. Or perhaps more common than I'm implying. Most likely the latter, come to think of it.

Well anyway, I have this split between my self esteem when it comes to evaluations of my own aptitude, and evaluations of my appearance. If anything, the first is way higher than the latter. I suppose that may be related to why I'd rather work on buffing my aptitude than my appearance, which is generally a good thing anyway. Might also be related to why some people do the opposite.

That said, the power of knowledge is right there, to put things in perspective. If one doesn't know how things really are in the wider world, one would be quite content (or unfairly discontent) in what one's like. And of course, that evaluation would be quite inaccurate indeed. It'll also have the potential to create quite some unnecessary anguish. Let's say I learned something today, and it's comforting indeed.

Captain America

Captain America. Traditional boy scout comic book superhero. Boyscout by profession. There's little to not like about this particularly naive boy scout, and the movie itself does not disappoint.

Cap is sufficiently well known that it's fairly challenging to spin a reimagination of his origins. This movie serves that purpose, and throws in oodles of humor to boot. The acting was good, and the story was build up with sufficient context to please even non-fans. It is also refreshing to see how the romance ends in this movie (those knowing me will know what to expect), and that scores points as well.

On the flip side, there really is little going against it. I suppose you could regard the usual comic book physics as implausible to impossible, and one who's a stickler for realism should steer clear of this one. Then again, the over the top action and true Cap patriotism are adequate to more than make up for it.

I'd say the movie deserves a 7.5/10. Ok maybe at least 8 since the female lead is pretty darned cute.

Steam

Steam, the digital distribution application by the Valve Corporation, is an evil money spinning wonder. First question: Who the heck likes to view ads? Not me. Would I like seeing Valve ads? Hell yeah!

Now, I've known for some time that Steam is evil. I know this because of the hundreds of games on my Steam account, for example. But what fascinates me the most is how Steam has managed to convince people to like ads. Those in advertising will know that the holy grail is to get peoples' attention, turn that attention to sales and then everything's nice and sunny. Steam does precisely that.

The beauty of a highly specialized distribution system is that everyone getting on it has the same goal: To acquire and play video games. Then comes how their ads are laid out: The top bar has game ads (which everyone expects) and the popup has the highlight game ads. It's easy enough to ignore the unobtrusive top bar ads, and to close the single popup.

Now, how does this differ from the average ad popup? Well for one they tend to show up in ways that prevent you from getting at the product. Youtube ads prevent you from watching a video to get you the advertiser's message. Pron sites spam you with shitloads of popups to the same effect. And everything else has ad bars that show stuff that may or may not be related to what you seek. All in all those just serve to turn eyes away, which translates to lower hits and even lower conversion rates.

Taking a page from Steam and Amazon, it seems that customers react best to very tight ad integration that brings them the information they seek, and in a timely manner. It doesn't obstruct user consumption either. I suppose the next thing is to wonder how one may elegantly advertise on a site that isn't selling stuff...

The Lure Of Gambling

Gambling is the scourge of mankind. How is it possible for people to be hoodwinked into playing a well known losing game, while irrationally hoping against hope that they'd come out ahead?

The obvious answer is well...everyone hopes to win and nobody really expects to come out the big loser. Fair enough. But while watching people react to the outcome of gambling results, I actually see some really good game design behind the whole shebang.

The first principle here is feedback. It's very clear in the case of winning and losing. You win, you come out ahead. You lose, you lose. Simple enough. They even threw in a reward system that way (punishment doesn't count since the bet is already acknowledged as a loss at the beginning).

Then comes the heroin content: You, sir, have nearly won! Nearly won? What does that mean? In this case, betting on numbers...oh man, I've scored 4 out of the 5 required numbers for the winning ticket. Dude...if I just rolled my numbers differently, I'd be taking home tens of thousands of dollars right now! That nearly won effect is fantastic in keeping people playing. If they simply put tickets through a system and it told them...Win/Lose, the motivation to continue playing would fade pretty quickly: There's no lure. Actually, I see the game in win/lose terms, which is why I refuse to play.

Finally...you've played, you've won. Hell yeah! The next question: Do you cash out and walk away for ever, or play for more money? Yanou...that money I just won? It's easy to come by. I didn't earn it, it's the house's money... Well that's the House Money Effect. Throw everything in and you've got a game that everyone wants to play, are fairly happy losing money at, and really winning only gets them coming back for more. So, friends, would you like to ante up now?

Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows 2

This is the end of the Harry Potter series. Seeing as how virtually everyone who watches is a fan (myself excluded), I suppose there's little worry of spoiling anything with the comments here. Newsflash: Prof. Dumbledore is an asshole. But then I suppose everyone knew that beforehand anyway =p

So...am I impressed by this particular installment of the Harry Potter series? Did it go out with a bang? Well not really. Frankly, as a non-fan, I found the overall movie to be somewhat lackluster. For one, the magickal duel between HP and Tom just wasn't all that spectacular. There were funny moments in the assault on Hogwarts, but everything in between kind of turned into a somewhat amorphous mush. Hermoine's still hawwt, by the way.

Overall I'd say the movie's something like a 6.5/10. It reveals something of the series that fans already know, but from a non-fan's perspective it really is mediocre at best.

Camera Love

I am a firm believer that a photo's compositional quality comes not from the gear, but from the photographer. If the photographer's good, she'll pop out superior stuff relative to a more inexperienced photog given the same gear. That much is true.

However, when it comes to the gear, sometimes it really can make a big difference in one's shooting style. Take for example the compact camera vs the EVIL camera vs the DSLR. The compact camera is small, and can take shots from virtually any vantage point. It's easy to squeeze that little thing through a gap in a fence and snap shots. For the EVIL, it's got image quality comparable to a DSLR, but with speed that is somewhat faster than the compact's. It's good for slow, considered photography. Not so good for anything faster. Then comes the heavyweight DSLR, which is zippy in performance and changing settings. But of course, its primary disadvantage lies in its sheer bulk.

I was taking photos at a railway just yesterday, and I was frankly getting a bit tired of my EVIL misfocusing shots. It's doing that by giving me false focus confirmations. After thumbing the DSLR for a bit, I realized that it really was all that much faster than my EVIL (I was burning that one in previously, so I had to use it continuously). The feel was so different, and the handling on the device did make me feel a lot more confident in taking shots with it. Odd shots, too, that may involve holding the camera at odd angles.

Overall, I'd say I can now understand why I originally wanted the DSLR as my primary shooter. If there's something worth shooting and I'm lugging my gear along, I might as well carry the DSLR. It isn't really worth it going on a dedicated shoot armed only with the EVIL...it currently isn't zippy enough to do the job.

Corporate Inefficiency

One thing that constantly amuses me in game development is how a big company can be inclined to stick to completely arbitrary deadlines. I say big company, because small companies do not necessarily have the resources to be able to say it's-done-when-it's-done. If anything, a smaller company saying that is effectively betting the entire game, whereas a big company will be betting shareholder value.

I find it inefficient because the sunk cost for a project is already there at the arbitary deadline, and extending it by a tad would result in significant gains in quality. There is always the argument to strike while the iron's hot, and to have the project shipped on schedule to take advantage of the holiday season and whatnot for sales. Yet, I find that other companies have successfully sat on their project for sales period after sales period to ship a truly quality product way beyond the typical 2 year dev cycle.

To me, a company may do well to incur an additional 10-20% of production costs from improving quality, such that first impressions do not get the already expensive project crushed from poor reviews. It is the image from poor reviews that can severely damage a project's sales, after all...

Super 8

Goonies meets ET. If you liked the old Spielburg classics, I think you'd really like this one. It's certainly a throwback to the old stuff, and strangely anachronistic for our current film styles. I say anachronistic because it gives more of a sense of forced nostalgia in an era of totally different film styles, even though the piece itself is indeed rather good.

So. We have an intrepid squad of film-making youngsters turned investigators when they start to look into the strange goings on in their small town. Set in the late 1970's to early 80's, it does invoke a certain nostalgia for those who remember the era.

What's there not to like? The alien here doesn't talk, it's seriously pissed off, and the rest of the movie is effectively the Goonies with moviemaking thrown in. In fact, even the movie they made was endearingly slapped together kid-style without trying to go all Blair Witch on our asses. To boot, the kids are quite good with their acting, portraying rather convincing characters (not that I could really tell, since I'm that bad with body language and all)

Overall I'd say I liked it, though it broke no new ground. That's not to say that it really had to, but it is what it is. 7.5/10

Command And Conquer 4

Yup. I finally got down to actually trying that monstrosity. And I don't mean it in a good way, as much as I like some monsters. Command and Conquer 4 is what appears to be a rather poor attempt at reimagining the gameplay of the C&C series. Simply put, Tiberium Twilight makes me sad. I'm officially calling it the equivalent of Twilight (the movie) in the C&C series.

Ok good things first, because the rest is just upsetting. I find it awesome that the designers decided to try to reimagine the RTS gameplay, with a mobile base and different unit paths depending on the player's current class. In fact, they made a clear effort to emulate Relic's capture point centric gameplay. Overall, the high concept had quite some potential.

Now the bad. Which is practically everything else. Command and Conquer has always been about tech tree climbing and massed armies. In fact, it's what sets the franchise apart from the other RTS with population caps and hence limited squads engaging in combat. Nobody will ever forget the tank rushes and their equivalents. What came out of the mix was combat that felt pointless. In lieu of resource gathering, there was the forced gathering of tiberium crystals on the map for upgrades while moving small squads of troops that just didn't feel particularly differentiated (they were, btw) and really no sense of omgsomeone'sstealingmygold.

The campaign was unpardonably tepid, and the game was clearly made for multiplayer...which the C&C franchise wasn't really optimal for. The missions in 4 were even worse than in 3, failing to deliver the sort of FMV goodness that made the early games in the series. After hearing about what happened to Red Alert as well...I'm just sad.

Kung Fu Panda 2

Po is back, and he's funnier than ever. It's rare for me to see a sequel that's actually better than the original, and this one is it. It also means I'm bracing myself for disappointment over its sequels, as mean regression will set in sooner or later. I'm gona enjoy this high while it lasts.

So. What's improved? Everything. Storyline, art quality, lighting, action. It's all over the top and just as implausible as it was before. It's even thrown in a touching rendition of Po's history and how he came to be adopted by a silly old goose. All I can say is that his journey of self discovery continues, and is every bit as meaningful (perhaps more so) than it originally was. Awesome sauce! (And there's no charge for awesomeness)

I'd say if you haven't watched it already and it isn't on the big screens anymore, rent the gorram thing. It's totally worth it. 8.5/10.

That Strange Bag

I had a rather weird experience today, so I suppose I shall document it, as is customary. I bought a tripod today. It came in a regular thin plastic bag. Usual stuff. I'm quite excited about the tripod, by the way. My mom is egging me to get rid of the junk in my room, but that's another story for another day.

Well anyway this morning, I realized that the stone from my bracelet was coming off, but I figured it'd hold so I wore it out and planned to fasten it later in the day. As Murphy's Law dictates, I suddenly decided to check my wrist and found that the gem was gone. Bummer! I dumped my bracelet in the bag since it was largely useless without the center piece.

As I was getting off the bus enroute home, I saw something black sticking to the bag. Turned out it was my pocket knife. In fact, the knife's pocket clip somehow got stabbed into the bag and the bag effectively stole my pocket knife from my pocket. Bad bag!

Then when I got home, I wanted to take the bracelet out and fix it with something else I had lying around. Well what the heck...there was something shiny rolling about in it, along with my bracelet. Turns out my bracelet's gem actually fell into the bag as well. *looks at bag suspiciously*

Creators, Players And Followers

All systems come from somewhere. There are rules either created or derived, and everything follows from there. In people systems, there are three main categories, as there are in other participatory systems: Creators, players and followers.

Arguably, a creator in a system is the most creative, if not necessarily the most powerful. They are the ones who helped set up the system, though sometimes systems create themselves and are purely procedural. I would also consider a really high end player to be a creator, since the player seeks not to play within the rules anymore, but to change the system itself.

Then we have the regular players who understand the system to varying degrees, but will operate primarily within the confines of the system without attempting to change them. Some players may become sufficiently adept to actually become a quasi-creator. A true player works the rules to their advantage, or to the advantage of those whom they wish to benefit.

Finally, we have the sheep known as followers, who play exclusively within the rules without making any special effort to maximize their personal benefit from the rules. Indeed, a follower may even operate through hearing of the rules from others, and thus have an indirect understanding of what they are.

Karma Does Not Exist

I am a karma skeptic. I do not believe that there's a cosmic force of fairness out there, which will punish evildoers and protect the good. As far as I can tell, that does not happen. Bad people get away with the bad things they did, good people get bullied, the world trudges on.

Actually, if it does exist, it is currently patently unverifiable. There's no objective way to measure karma. Everything can be claimed to be attributed to something unknowable. Oh that bad guy will have his just desserts in his next life. *BZZZ* Unverifiable. Something bad will happen to the person sometime in the future for what he just did. *BZZZZ* Doesn't always happen, and if it happens it seems like something that could possibly happen to anyone anyway. Ok so I murdered someone and someone I love gets into a car crash a week later. Would that necessarily mean that my actions caused the car crash somehow? Can it be verified? *BZZZ* Nope.

Despite all this, people believe in it anyway and look out for the signs of karma in action. A dictator starts having deformed children. Karma. An evil businessman who ripped everyone off gets arrested. Karma. It gives people a sense of comfort in the illusory innate fairness of the universe. I've learned that this matter is one of belief, and no amount of rationality will serve to debunk it. I've challenged others on the matter and only received an unverifiable challenge in return: Why don't you do something bad. You'll see what happens. Well no. I won't see what happens, 'coz it doesn't happen immediately after, I can't predict when it'll happen and even if it did I can't be sure that it wouldn't have happened anyway regardless of my actions.

In my view, the universe is as fair as the humans make it. Nothing more, nothing less. And as things go, humans make it unfair. Big deal. I accept that something bad may happen to me at some undefined point in the future and there's nothing I can do about it. But that isn't karma. That's just how life is. It's unfair. Live with it.

New Games

I've been observing the Western game industry and am frankly quite saddened by the fact that they're stagnating in design ideas and seem to view improved graphical quality as an "upgrade" of old franchises. If there are any major gameplay differences, chances are they are incremental at best.

With the introduction of more atmospheric games like Arkham Asylum and Bioshock, I'm wondering at the untapped pool of design ideas. It is truly difficult to come up with something new, but there's always something that many people can relate to. And that would involve mashups of what they have experienced in one way or another. Here, I am thinking of childhood experiences and games.

One thing that truly appeals to players of atmospheric games is the novelty of the experience. What I am considering is what would it be like to abstract a childhood experience, with the fears and fantasies and make a totally different gameplay and atmosphere with it? As a child, everything is new. There is joy in discovery, and fear in the unknowns. Everything is just bigger out there. Can a game be made out of it?

It is a shame that I have precious few childhood memories. I barely remember my past and I don't even recall childhood games...if I played any at all. I probably did, I think. Ah, well. That would throw a wrench in the works should I try to tap my own experiences for this endeavor, but I'm sure a sufficiently savvy game designer would be able to pick up from here.

Sucking Up

Everyone hates a suck up. It's often painfully obvious that someone is sucking up to a superior, and oftimes the superior seems to be quite oblivious to it. And then there are those who take it to another level, and actually masquerade as hard workers.

I had a discussion with a friend on the matter some days back, and he pointed out that these brown noses are disguising their sucking up efforts as initiative rather than hard work per se. Simply put, the strategy here is to volunteer for as many non-work gigs as possible as long as they're visible to the superior in question. This creates the impression of an outgoing worker full of initiative. It is especially insidious with highly social suckups, because they really do genuinely enjoy participating in such activities, and will have an air of genuine enthusiasm for them.

Herein lies the problem: while these activities have little bearing on actual productivity, they are often in line with management's goals of "team building" and other similarly social-oriented management objectives. It is therefore not hard to see how such people will appeal to the managerial bunch, and indeed may wind up in management themselves.

Of course, this raises some evaluation dilemmas. For one, can someone be regarded as a suckup for actively participating in activities that management likes and endorses when one genuinely enjoys them (regardless of ulterior motives)? For those who do have ulterior motives, is the time and effort spent in such activities justified in terms of the gains? And finally, while visibility will let one be honestly evaluated in a superior light as far as the manager is concerned, is this unfair to other less social but equally effective (often the case, given that they're focused) and genuine hard workers?

I think the general consensus is that performance evaluation is broken and is likely to stay broken for the forseeable future given the limits of human cognition: it is unlikely for a manager to be able to really focus on objective performance evaluations on top of other duties, and humans do rely heavily on things they can observe to make judgments. The optimal solution in this case for less-social employees seems to be to have a token participation in such activities (preferably one that the employee favors). Alternatively, going for high visibility assignments can have a similar effect without involvement in non-productivity related activities. Ah, the joys of working within a broken human system.