Viewing Actions

A thought came to mind as the recent ``smack everyone with tariffs'' kicked off---do we really know the difference between

1. Good outcomes from some action; and
2. Good outcomes in spite of some action?

Because it seems to me that most people seem to conflate the two, and end up attributing the wrong cause, therefore learning the wrong lessons, only to be doomed to repeat the same wrong cause once more.

It's hard to know from the get-go which of the two is happening, for the simple reason that all these action/consequences are neither isolated, nor static. Not isolated in the sense that there are always run-on effects that cause a web (not a chain!) of other decisions to be made, with their own consequent action/consequences, and not static in that just because a decision is currently made for a particular thing does not mean that it is the final decision to be made for the said thing as the web of consequences returns as a form of feedback, positive or otherwise.

In other words, I think that it is hard to claim that a certain action A (or in this example, ``smack everyone with tariffs'') is a ``good'' one or a ``bad'' one. It isn't something that relates to directly to morality and ethics, in which case God's Word is silent, and even considered from an indirect perspective, it primarily involves the allocation of resources rather than as a moral quandary. At most, it can be made into an argument about whether proper stewardship of resources was exercised, but then again, as long as it does not involve spreading the Gospel, it technically ``belongs to Caesar'' and is out of the ambit of God's Word.

So where does this leave us?

I would say that it is best to not pass judgement on whether it is good or if it is not good right now, especially if it is about something which is not within our locus of control. While cathartic to bitch about the situation, it is also important to think more about how it can affect one, and how one should adapt to the situation, privilege notwithstanding. This broadly means the need for one to make up their own damn mind, and more importantly, to take action according to their decision, to effect a consequence they are more happy with, while also be willing to take the risk to get there.

The notionally successful are so because they have been willing to take the risks needed through their actions, and despite failing more than many who have tried, they have eventually succeeded through being in the right place at the right time.

Musician Earplugs

Response to a post on Flute Forum about visiting an ENT for hearing test & exam, and asking about suggestions/thoughts on earplugs:

Since you are going to the ENT, I suggest getting a referral to an audiologist to do a proper mould of your ear canal for your earplugs. At least in my part of the world, the person making those moulds for earplugs and the doctor are not the same people.

Consider getting one where you can change the flat-frequency response filters. I use the -25dB ones when playing piccolo and high dizi, and they work well. I think there's also -10dB and -15dB as well, but I've not used them personally.

Usually only the right ear needs the heavier protection, and that changeable filter set up means that you can tweak what you use on your left ear if you are finding it tough to hear through it with the same -25dB filters.

Speech is always a little harder to understand when people speak normally, because you are attenuating them by at least 10dB, roughly the same difference between whispering and talking normally (apparent loudness).

Hope these help!

That last part is something that I only realised recently, when Elicia (who plays the sheng) was trying to talk to me in a whisper when I had both ears shoved in with my -25dB musician ear plugs---I couldn't hear shit. Because a 25dB difference is akin to the difference between a whisper and a shouting match, and so when she was whispering, I definitely couldn't hear shit.

Interesting how it sometimes takes a little real-world experience and thinking in order to realise something.

Bye Bye NaNoWriMo, and Nanashi Mumei of hololive EN

NaNoWriMo is now truly dead. The news was to have been sent out via email with an attached YouTube video, but I never did receive that email, and I will not watch the video that is said to be 27+ minutes of ranting by the last and acting Executive Director.

The implosion that led to the collapse of NaNoWriMo is well-documented, and if you are reading this in the far future where the link is dead, know that it was a pathetic fall from grace that could be saved at every step of the way, should the management pay attention to what the community is saying. Not that the community knows best, but that the community that was formed around the NaNoWriMo concept as the rallying call, and thus the community is not just some filthy casual tourist who cares not about the direction and enjoyability of NaNoWriMo.

To be had, NaNoWriMo had a good run. Founded back in 1999 on a whim by Chris Baty who wanted to challenge the concept of novel-writing as a one day event (as in, ``one day I will write a novel''), it survived twenty-five years. And of those twenty-five years, I had winning entries for fifteen of them. For a hobbyist programme, that is a damn good run.

So many nice memories from the past. I remembered first meeting Dylan and Mint back in one of the TGIO (Thank God It's Over!) parties, and then there's of course Joelyn, Max, Sarahcoldheart, Raven Silvers, Shermine, and quite a few others whom I would recognise by face but almost never by name. Almost always winning the early bird prize (for being early on venue at the Kick-off and the TGIO parties), and then having all kinds of discussions with them; the write-ins on Saturdays at various parts of the CBD that I would never have gone on my own; the different rooms at different National Libraries that our Municipal Liaisons (MLs) Sarahcoldheart/Raven Silvers/Joelyn would book for the two main parties; meeting and chatting with random irregulars who wrote at one or two of the NaNoWriMos (Valdimire---you're remembered and hope you are doing well!); inspirations from a now-forgotten writer after the forums were ``updated'' (but made worse) who would consistently churn out 1 Mwords per NaNoWriMo; word wars with the different sections of SIN city; convincing folks like Chara to join in the writing mess; the 2 kword lunch hour sprints during November, and being well-known at where I work for doing it; and of course, fourteen publicly available first draft manuscripts of stories from different settings (one of them is not quite right, and so I didn't release it).

And now, the era is over.

I've honestly done all my grieving last year, when I decided to not take part in NaNoWriMo. The writing's been on the wall for quite a while---just read the linked to document for a concise summary of the downfall of NaNoWriMo the organisation. It's just that I always feel a little wistful when something comes to a close.

...just like how Nanashi Mumei of hololive English has announced her graduation.

While I'm more selective about watching what Mumei puts up as compared to Ina/Fauna/Vesper, she does have a lovely voice. And her original music has got that interesting mix of wonder and power behind it that is hard to explain. It is sad that she has to leave hololive primarily due to her health issues, and more specifically, the fact that her voice is in trouble.

One cannot be a streamer/content creator with an avatar with voice troubles---that is literally the most important part of being a VTuber, the other being a generally acceptable avatar to work with.

I can keep going on, but damnit it is April already---the months of being maudlin are more in January for crying out loud!

(sigh)

We cannot keep looking back and wondering how to go back---moving forwards is already hard as it is. We should allow ourselves to look back every now and then as a means of reminding us of how we got to where we are, to give thanks to those who helped us along the way, and to pray for the very same souls who helped us then, but whom we have lost touch since.

But we can never go back to how things were. No matter what we try.

Till the next update.

Bye Bye Long Weekend

And so, this long weekend comes to a close.

I spent part of my time preparing for and eventually performing at the concert on Sunday, and other parts of it were spent just being away from work-related matters. I caught up on sleep; played some HoloCure to unlock more weapons, collabs, and items; did some reading; day-dream/rant; complete Fallout 4 to be ready for Fallout: London (I couldn't get Fallout: London to work, so I'm just going to bail out for now); and sort out some more new music from either game OSTs or stuff from the various VTubers.

Other than that... I don't really recall doing particularly productive, as it should be.

There was an intention to go for yet another long-ass cycling trip on the Friday that was ``Wellness Day'' by the organisation that is hosting my work place, but I ended up just chilling at home to avoid giving my body additional physical stress before the concert on Sunday.

And today being a public holiday meant that most parts of the cycling route are going to be flooded with ``tourists'' (i.e. park connector network users who are so casual to the point that they become a nuisance due to not doing the bare minimum of keeping to the left).

I don't think there's anything else I want to talk about. I do feel a bit more rested from before the long weekend, but there will be new things/pains that are coming up that need to be dealt with.

So I suppose I'll just stop here and call it a day for now.

Flow

And so, the end is near---

Wait, this is not a lyric post. Anyway, I just completed yet another performance with the King's Flute Choir today, this time as a guest player on The Big Flute for a concert under the Emerging Flutists programme. And now, after everything is over, I sit in front of Eileen-III, contemplating about how I'm intending to spend my day for tomorrow's public holiday, and hitting upon a rather simple question.

Why is it that we perform music in front of a live audience?

I mean, for many (not necessarily of the King's Flute Choir), it's their livelihood as entertainers/musicians. But what about us hobbyists, the kind who spend lots of money on gear, lessons, travel, just so that we can perform in front of a live audience?

I think I might have found an answer: the addiction to the feeling of being in a flow state.

For those who are unfamiliar, the ``flow state'' is a moment where one is simultaneously hyper-focused yet hyper-relaxed, with information coming in fast and furious, yet without any form of chaos, as though one is, at that moment, literally One With The Universe, with near omnipotence, capable of handling anything and everything that is coming in, and to deliver the necessary actions/activities/outcomes that go out, all without falling into fear, uncertainty and doubt. One is ``in the moment'', yet with enough cognizance to have an objective perspective on all that is happening, and thus keeping the ability to make quick and accurate decisions even as the rest of the self continues on with the actions that are needed within the flow state itself.

``MT, you sound like you're high.''

No, I'm not; it's hard to explain without using metaphors. It is one of those things that one must experience at least once in their lives, and hopefully be able to regain that feeling in the future when the stakes are high enough, just so that the outward outcomes are not jeopardise by fear, uncertainty, or doubt.

More concretely, I find that when I am playing on my musical instrument on stage and in front of a live audience, I tend to be in the flow state, which leads to outcomes that are better than what I might expect.

And I felt that today, with some verbal confirmation from a third party too. There are a couple of pieces in the setlist that required one to do flute beatboxing, something that I had (1) never done before, and (2) found it quite hard to pull off on The Big Flute due to the need for even more breath to cover for the larger inner diameter. Throughout all the rehearsals, and even during my own practices, I just couldn't do it well enough to sound, let alone be ``correct''. It was to the point that I had to work something out with one of the other players to help with the percussive beatboxing sounds on the regular concert flute.

Yet at the actual concert, somehow I managed to scrabble through, as was the other bass flute player. That player who was helping us with the additional beatboxing support was the one who pointed out that it was the first time that he had managed to hear the beatboxing stuff from the bass-line flutes.

And I know that it was due to being the flow state because if you asked me to replicate it right now, just after the concert, I would likely fail.

Now that we have ``flow state'' defined and understood, let me explain why it is an addictive feeling.

To paraphrase from 《巨婴国》 again, all of us have an innate omnipotent narcissism that some of us eventually learn to acknowledge and tame, bringing us the kind of psychological stability that makes us appear the more matured one. Many of us don't really learn about this, and end up being the kind of self-entitled jerk that everyone loves to hate on the 'net.

But who can blame the for not wanting to acknowledge and tame this innate omnipotent narcissism? It's seductive, it makes one feel powerful. But it is also very unhealthy in the long run, since it becomes the default state of being, which can contradict what the real world may have to offer in return.

Conversely, acknowledging that omnipotent narcissism, and then correcting one's behaviour to avoid triggering that means that one is more comfortable with the world's non-determinism. But acknowledgement and taming is not the same as complete nullification---latent remnants still exist, and as something from the Id, it has a tendency to continuously lurk in the parts of the mind that we aren't paying too much attention to.

Which is why when one is in the flow state, it becomes addictive. Because it is a safe way to satisfy that latent omnipotent narcissism without the negative effects. It is a type of power that is summoned only on occasion, and is therefore considered superior in terms of reactions compared to just living out the omnipotent narcissism fantasy.

But that said, being in flow state from performing on stage and in front of a live audience is not the same as being attention-seeking---the flow state describes an internal state of being of the person, which does not deal with the externalities directly. Thus, when one is in a flow state, one might not even notice the audience, especially if they are the passive sort and are therefore irrelevant anyway. By nature, attention-seeking demands an active audience, and with that, the need to use feedback loops to control one's behaviour to control that of the audience.

And I think that's about it for now. I'm tired---playing The Big Flute ``seriously'' has a tendency of knocking me out because of the need for deep belly-level breathing, which causes too much relaxation despite the obvious efforts needed to actually perform on the music instruments.

Till the next update then.

Homo Rationalis?

(sighs)

Principles, loyalties, looking out for oneself, looking out for one's loved ones---where do all these lie?

Are we living in a world where even the alleged rationality of a transactional relationship gets usurped by the ritualistic chanting and chest-thumping of the loudest person in the room?

Why do people make decisions that, with just a little bit of thought, will end up with them being in a worse position than before?

And no, I am not referring to the US. There are many out there who have bled enough words to criticise, and to complain, and to call for action. I am just thinking out loud about the situation throughout the world, of which the US is just one of the more recent examples.

In many ways, the idea of homo rationalis ought to be considered dead by now. No one, not even me, can truly make decisions that are rational (defensible, logical, consistent). I would go as far as to misquote The Matrix and claim that we've already made our damn decisions---the difficulty then is to understand why we made them.

I have no answers. I never do---not smart enough, and not wise enough to provide answers, and perhaps not even to myself.

One point of solace is that this too, shall pass. For this world is not my world---I'm just passing through before I hopefully end up in God's Kingdom. But instead of the easy inaction that some might advocate, I try my best to steward what has been given to me by God to steward, be it talent, resources, or even relationships with other people.

It is not fatalism; I like to think of it as a type of realism, one that has outcomes consistently grounded in reality, with the actual aims/goals going much further beyond reality.

I suppose this is what philosophers like to call ``hope''.

If we place our hope in the material world, the fact the material world is one that everyone can access means that the same hope that we place can also be touched, and perhaps destroyed, with or without malice.

If we place our hope beyond the material world, then it is less clear who can touch it. The believers of course believe that they can reach that world beyond this one, while the non-believers are a little more heterogenous in thought, with some of the more vociferous ones declaring that since such a world is ``beyond'' the material world, it must therefore not exist, and is a complete delusion that people use to escape the current one where they are losers.

Which in some ways is both funny and sad. Funny in that these folks are themselves deluded enough into discarding a concept that isn't provable within the generally accepted framework of empiricism built around falsification, with the use of the scientific method. Sad because they cannot accept that they may be wrong, for if they were, they would look much dumber than the losers that they decried.

I don't condemn them; I just pray that they find their own peace. I cannot hope to help anyone beyond myself, and even then, I can barely help myself in this messed up world.

All I can do, is to do my best given my locus of control, and let God handle the rest. What I do in this material world, both God and society can see; what I intend in this material world, only God knows, and He will judge me the way He will.

But back to the point (was there a point in the first place?).

I have trust issues. Not sure if I have talked about it before, but I will talk about it now. I have trust issues. If I choose to trust someone, I trust wholeheartedly, considering them as part of the axiomatic inner circle within the context of the trust, where there is little to no boundaries of what we can/cannot say. If I choose to not trust someone, they will know nothing more than what I am required to state by statute.

At work, I trust my folks to do what they are supposed to do. I trust my bosses to make the best damn decisions they can with the information that we provide, and I trust my subordinates to deliver what they say they will. I trust my clients in terms of what they want, but not in the way that they want it. I trust my organisation to follow the law and deal with us fairly, and I trust my infrastructure partners to be the same.

So far, that has gone great.

Away from work, I feel less inclined to trust people as much nowadays.

Primarily because at a personal level, agenda are less structured (as compared to the professional setting), time horizons are less constrained, and few are ready to think/act like the adults they are.

That last point is what is most depressing. For some damn reason, people seem to develop this... immaturity when it comes to things unrelated to the professional setting. It is as though they put their best foot forward ``for the Company!'' but are shoddy when it comes to ``themselves''. The hard-driving business person who makes millions for a company is the same one who is stuck in a divorce proceeding; the caring nurse at the hospital is the same one who shows neglect for their own child at home.

``MT, that's vague af.''

Okay. Here's something similar in concept: personal projects are often managed much more shittily compared to stuff for work, even though there is no functional difference between the two. A project is a project, and formal project management is a solid framework for ensuring timely delivery of a project with good stewardship of resources. Yet the same people whose day job is a project manager, are failing to handle their own projects at home.

Similarly, a line manager is more willing to fire subordinates that are under-performing despite counselling, yet the same line manager somehow refuses to acknowledge that their parents are providing a toxic environment at home.

In that sense, I have trust issues. How can I bring myself to trust someone at a personal level, if statistically, most people are just plain bad at honouring that trust at a personal level?

``MT, statistics is a population thing; you're not a population but an individual.''

Fair statement, but without any evidence/measurement, the a priori assumption of using what the descriptive statistics are saying is as good as any (hello Bayesian inference!). Naturally, once enough evidence/measurement (in the form of interacting with said someone(s)) happens, the a posteriori distribution must change, and that is when the true inference of whether to trust someone or not ought to be made.

But that takes time and/or greater cadence (i.e. intensity) of interactions. I'm middle-aged now, and am not getting any younger. Sometimes, it just feels like too much effort for too little pay-off.

And now that I have bitched about what I think/believe the situation is out there, and how bad it is, I am going to make sure that I live up to my own expectations, and apply the kind of thinking that I think is so sorely missing out there.

``Cool MT... so what's the point of this blog entry again?''

Since when did my nearly sixteen-hundred blog entries had any point other than me dumping my armchair observations/thoughts?

``It All Begins with a Teacher.''

``It all begins with a teacher.''

The line that I saw stencilled on the back of the internal shuttle bus that triggered an innate rage that prompted this entire tirade that you're about to read.

The words ``honourable'' and ``noble'' floated in my head. That somehow, everything in life is due to the nobleness of the teacher who taught, the ones who made a difference in the lives of many so that they too can be productive members of society.

Sounds wonderful, right? Except it deceptively downplays several important realities.

Firstly, I just finished reading 《巨婴国》, and as a result, I have a slightly stronger sensitivity to actions that feed into the narcissistic self-importance construct. Call it recency bias.

Secondly, not to disparage teaching as a whole, but there isn't truly any specifically ``honourable'' or ``noble'' jobs out there, for the simple reason that society as a whole is a game where all who are a part of it, play their individual parts to uphold it as a whole. Calling any particular job ``essential'' or even with weasel words like ``noble'' dampens this team-play aspect of society that I suspect is an important contribution towards the increased number of class warfare activities that we are observing. The irony is that we all knew and deeply understood this from the very tender years of our lives, what with all the silly (in the eyes of an adult) declarations of children wanting to be soldiers, trashmen, postmen, and the like, only to be ``corrected'' in our thinking later on.

And finally, while the sentiment of teaching being noble in context is implied, many who teach do so for the same reasons why we do whatever we do for our day job---to get paid to pay the bills as part of being in a society. Thus, inasmuch as we have folks who do the [bare] minimum to fulfil their job's requirements, the vast majority of teachers are just doing the bare minimum to be considered as doing their job of teaching. This means less of that emotional labour of being inspirational, or to act as a surrogate parent when the ``true'' parents of the child have failed in their basic duty of care and values inculcation. Therefore, to market that ``nobility'' of being a teacher, is false advertising at best, and a fig leaf to cover for abuse practices of squeezing additional [emotional] labour without the commensurate compensation, a most disingenuous thinking.

``But MT, why so butt-hurt over a single line of advertising on a role that you don't even play a part in?''

It's less about that ``single line of advertising'' but the realisation that we are all proponents of various propaganda without our own realisation, spreading misinformation and disinformation without a care. As I age out, I seem to be gaining an increased awareness of the kinds of narratives that we are taking for granted and spreading as through they were fact, without ever stopping to question ourselves about the veracity, and definitely without considering if the buck should stop with us. Many have said that the rise of the globally accessible Internet would herald a new age of enlightenment, where anyone can learn anything with a much lower barrier of entry as compared to before.

But reality has proven otherwise, and my cynical self is feeling exasperated at the ever-record-breaking levels of stupidity that are occurring. How much of it is just an exposure the so-called background rate of stupidity, and how much of it is due to deliberate agent provocateurs, no one truly knows.

What I do know is that we are truly fucked in this timeline.

Mumble Mumble

So π-day came and went---Classic Pecan Pies and a Banana Almond Brittle pie was obtained from Windowsill Pies, and everyone loved it.

I'm playing with the King's Flute Choir again, and this time it is a concert that is happening at the end of the month. Rehearsals are happening, and I've discovered that given the gruelling work week, my body simply refuses to handle the non-stop flute/dizi action that starts from 1800hrs on a Saturday and ending at around 1600hrs on the Sunday following as it physically needs rest/activities that are less... cranial in nature.

And I think that's about that on ``updates from the life of MT''.

------

As I was sitting in a taxi moving from church to the rehearsal space with The Big Flute, I realised with a new level of clarity and appreciation on just how each of us are a part of the society that we live in, no matter how isolated we may feel at times. All the rules and laws are arbitrary, and we all contribute our part to society because it is only through the actions of the individuals who do something (hopefully productive/useful) that allows the society to exist in the first place.

There aren't any ``universal'' rules that are set down in stone for the average person---when we are first introduced into the society, we do so from our parents, be they the birth ones, or the foster-equivalent. We accept tacitly the roles that need to be played to keep things working well enough for everyone, and then as time evolves, we develop our own sense of what is right, what is wrong, what should be banished, and what should be preserved. And at the end of our [working] lives, our job as direct contributors to the running of society is done, and society thanks us through the retirement process, where the burdens and responsibilities are lessened for us to allow some time and space to cherish the moments made possible through the effort we expended for the forty to fifty years of [working] life that we put in.

That is, until greed kicks in, and some people realise that with everyone conforming to the rules of society (both written and unwritten), they can be non-conformant to extract some benefit. Some might even realise that the more preposterous their actions taken to be non-conforming, the more likely they are to get away with it, for the simple reason that society as a whole has no idea how to correct for deviations beyond the small, where regular censure and perhaps incarceration (i.e. adult time-out) are sufficient for the vast majority of people.

And that is the problem we are facing worldwide.

The US might just be a more... recent and highly visible version of it, but throughout history, we see these behaviours popping out here and there. Society is seemingly tolerant of the aberrant behaviour... until it suddenly doesn't, leading to an uprising from the masses, either in the form of large amounts of disruptive civil disobedience (i.e. the intentional stoppage of playing their roles in society), or even violent confrontation like revolutions/guerilla attacks/assassinations.

The old me would be more pro-establishment and think that all these people who went on strikes, or demonstrated civil disobedience in general, or even go for armed uprising are just not seeing the big picture---in terms of utilitarianism, they are causing vast negative expected values due to grinding the machinery of society to a halt. The old me would say that the establishment may have its faults, but really it is all that stands between the the chaos of anarchy, and the order of society that allows it to function properly.

Present-MT thinks otherwise---the establishment is no better nor worse than the people that they are meant to help instil order. The establishment is yet another role that is being played by people who want to help society set up order, to make the rules of society a little more explicit to better integrate the much larger population sizes we see now than in the past, all without degrading into a bureacratic navel-gazing exercise.

In other words, the establishment exists because the population wills it into existence, and not the other way around. This is what it means when sayings like ``the government serves the people'' and ``servant-leader'' comes into play.

``MT, what about feudal systems where the feudal lords rule over the people?''

The feudal lords only ruled over the people because the latter allowed them to do so, either implicitly by allowing matters of state (i.e. wrangling territorial boundaries, defense) to be handled by the lords, or explicitly by joining the lords' establishment to contribute labour of any sort (like clerical duties, soldiering, diplomats). If and when the feudal lords fail in their primary role of establishing safety and stability of the territories, the people under them do eventually overthrow said lords, sometimes with drastic outcomes.

But that's deviating a little from what I was grokking on that taxi ride.

The thing is, society is. What it is is largely dependent on what the people want it to be. Our more recent versions of democracy (and democratic processes) are attempts to capture this concept of ``what the people want it to be'' in a way that scales out to the millions of people that make up that society that caters to both the lizard brain (via simplicity), and the human brain (via a reasoning about the sense of fairness).

So when the outcome is different from what ``you'' want from these processes, it does not mean that the other people have ``made a mistake''. It is perhaps that they want something else, and perhaps they value that more than you value that.

``But MT, in the long run---''

In the long run, we're all dead, and believers join God. What is this ``long run'' that everyone likes to appeal to? Five years? Ten? Twenty? One hundred?

Who the hell thinks that far? Who the hell can think that far? Any plans that one can make are bound to require a revisit ever so often, especially at that time scale, since needs and wants always change.

But this is not fatalism. While the society's general direction and wants are guided heavily by those who live/contribute to it, there is still the individual choices that can be made. One does not abdicate one's exercise of free will just because ``the other side made a mistake''. Decide what you want, and then take the necessary action. Live your life the way you want to live it, and bear the consequences of such choices.

Just don't go around doing personal attacks for the different things that others may want.

Marching On

Ah... here we go.

It's March now. Life goes on, work goes on, everything marches according to the metronome, even if it is 66 bpm on the minim with semiquavers floating about on The Big Flute.

Aaaanyway, just felt like mouthing off a bit. Because frankly, the ``interesting times'' we are living in are a tad too interesting. I don't wade into geopolitics because it is messy, but I will say that the time of ``gentlemen's agreements'' is effectively over at this point, no matter what the EU and friends intend to do.

Trust is a very fragile thing---the moment it is broken, it can never really be recovered to a form close to its original, even if all the people who were involved in its breakage in the first place are literally no longer in the picture (i.e. everyone's dead). SIN city and other non-superpowers are always at the mercy of the mighty, and it was with the UN that there was some semblence of mutual respect of sovereignty for each self-declared independent nation-state. Before it all, the one with the greater might could declare suzerainty over some puny city/state, and there was little else that can be done---even if allies were to exist, realpolitik dictated that everyone was always looking out for number one.

If you have eyes to see for yourself, ears to hear for your own, and a brain to come to some conclusion based on information from as objective a source as you can get, you might understand what I am driving at.

------

I find my general predilection towards active entertainment to be dwindling as time goes on. Apart from the Nether-rail project in Minecraft, and some random short games here and there, I have hardly thrown myself back into actively playing video games.

And yes, I still remember that I have Persona 5 Royal, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Pillars of Eternity, and Sixty Four to clear.

I just prefer reading for now. No idea why.

In other news, I'm just going to force myself to take time to go back to cycling. I need something physical to help burn off the anxiety that comes from the many different roles that I play, just to ensure that I can keep my cool---I have found that I had been increasingly unhinged, and am running the real risk of going amok. I restarted it today after the false start in January, and thoroughly enjoyed the Northeast Riverine Loop, now that one of the major diversions that required an unnecessary hill climb has gone away.

I think that's really all I want to talk about for now. I'm exhausted in spirit, and am going to go curl up in a ball for a bit, after I shower.

Till the next update or something. Who cares?

Science... Again?

In response to Acoustics Research is Insufficient by Jeff Dening on the flute forums:

My day job is tangential to research, and I appreciate the effort you've gone into trying to explain this so that it is easier to understand/appreciate by the community here. Thank you!

I think the central thesis can be summarised as "confusing the map for the territory".

Science provides a guide into the natural world, but as all guides go, they have specific assumptions (implicit and explicit), and are particularly narrow in what they test, and the definitions they use for certain things.

Science never delivers "truth" with the kind of absolute certainty that people yearn, yet they keep trying to make science say something it really doesn't.

Here was where I wanted to say that people with a wrong map will just shrug and then adapt to the territory they observe, but we've heard of people who just blindly follow their GPSr and drive off half-finished bridges, so... 🤷

That said, the stakes are a tad lower in music (bruised egos and busted wallets notwithstanding), but this phenomenon of misinterpretation of what science does and does not say is a real problem elsewhere in society.

The other thing that I would add is that I am certain that there are definitely very good, well-controlled science going on fo the acoustics of flute. However, it is the makers themselves who have that -- after all, to know the behaviour of a change in one of their parameters for their flute means that they can fine-tune and control the quality of their instruments (part of R&D). But good luck trying to get hold of that information -- it _is_ a trade secret after all.

Maybe having an article written by a respected member of the community might make it more palatable for folks to grok things.

To me, this is an actual problem. Science education back in my day had the following progression (from primary all the way to junior college):

1. List of ``scientific'' facts;
2. List of equations primarily centred around Netwonian Physics;
3. Baby's first quantum mechanics theory equations (photoelectric effect);
4. Special relativity (Lorentz factor corrections)(?).

Now, to be fair, I have a strong physics slant because after secondary school, I didn't touch chemistry nor biology as a whole. But even then, the kind of ``science'' that we learnt was still focused on remembering what was the orthodox (or ``right'') model/equation to use to solve the often classical physics-based problems.

Inequalities hardly play a role. Not as ``certain'' as the way regular equations can yield numbers (first time that an infinite number of solutions can appear). Field equations are a no-no---matrix and tensor math was not part of the syllabus.

But more importantly, to keep within what can be effectively ``taught'', the developmental process from one model to the next was not as heavily emphasised as the ability to read a story problem, pick the right set of equations, and run the algebra to the end.

While it looks like this is a sign of ``good'' education (everyone can cite the four kinematics equations [of classical physics]; huzzah!), I think that it is a central reason why we have this misinformation crisis that is still ongoing.

When science does not have the ``and a new model came up because they found that the existing one couldn't explain everything'' part emphasised, there is a tendency for people to doggedly believe that science is infallible, or more precisely, the scientific ``facts'' that they learnt back in school some twenty or more years ago was the most correct, while being unsystematically suspicious of all the ``new'' science that is showing up that contradicted their previous assumptions.

Spoiler alert: almost all new science must contradict some aspect of the previous assumptions as that is how the old models (and facts derived from said models) are shown to be incomplete (i.e. wrong outside of the original circumstances, but are starting to become important), or downright wrong (i.e. replication attempts failed, or when data fraud is detected).

Math education is a little less susceptible to that, because at the junior college level, proofs are introduced into the picture. And I don't mean the ``trigonometric proof'' style of pattern matching and transformation in between equations---I mean using an actual proof technique, like mathematical induction. But it still fails in some way because these things came about really late in the math pedagogy---most people operating in society are probably stuck with secondary school math (i.e. differential calculus) at the very most.

Tangents aside, all that unwavering faith that the science [``fact''] that one knows is troubling---that's not the mentality of someone who understands that science is merely the current best known approximation of reality, and is not the final word the way the Bible is for spiritual matters.

And that's the battlecry: ``Defund the ${scientific-foundation-of-the-week} because ${pet-peeve-of-the-week} contradicts ${older-scientific-"facts"} and is therefore wrong!''

Frankly, this is just one of those days where maybe having a benevolent dictator instead of giving people the voice is felt as the right thing to do.

Damn. The weekend barely started, and I'm already tired as hell.

Till the next update.

Ally

Looking at the world over the past few days, it made me wonder: what counts as an ally?

Traditionally, there are two main ways for establishing an alliance:

1. Shared interests;
2. Shared ethno-cultural history.

As far as I can tell, for the most part of history, that of shared interests was the dominant factor towards how two or more entities declare themselves as allies. It is only after a certain semblence of peace has settled in that the idea of a shared ethno-cultural history become a viable means of establishing an alliance.

The reason why I am bringing this up because we are fast approaching a turning point in modern world history where peace may be more fleeting than anyone is willing to admit. The key reason I think that is leading us down this path is a confluence of two occurrences: that of the rise of ``leaders'' who think that they can exploit the complacence and lethargy derived from seeing nearly fifty plus years of peace to amass ever-greater amounts of [political] power, and the general malaise that comes from a population where the majority's biggest concerns aren't necessarily about bread-and-butter issues, but on when they can get their next luxury kick fix.

That of exploitative ``leaders'' amassing power to exact their own will to their own benefit is something that is likely to be talked to death by this point. But the malaise of people---that is something that is unironically new. The echo chambers that made some groups of people think that the highly vocal minority are the majority are the same ones that make the people believe that ``someone'' is out there who are going to ``do the right thing to save them''. Ironically, in the old days where communication channels were less ubiquitous, the grassroots movement was likely to be much stronger, as seen by the sheer mass of the organised movements to protest (both peacefully and violently) against the injustices of the day.

Sure, we still have organised movement now, but the scale and the ferocity aren't as they were before. Perhaps the affluence of the middle class has made that level of society feel like that they have much more to lose should they choose to go against the authoritative figures who are dealing out the injustice; this is more so the case when taking into consideration the near elimination of pseudonymity through nearly twenty years of ``social media''.

Or maybe things haven't gotten to the point where the mob finally acknowledges that they truly have nothing else to lose, and therefore they might as well give 'em hell before their lives are absolutely wrecked.

And perhaps a miracle might happen then.

But what do I know, being the armchair ``analyst'' I am?

------

Today's a break day for me. 2025--02 doesn't have any public holidays, and so I just picked some middle-of-the-month Friday to enact my own kind of break day.

I got back into Minecraft, having updated my long-running single player world to 1.21.4, which has a lot of new things for a ``minor version'' update from the 1.20 series.

To be fair, 1.21.4 had been out for quite a while, and it was only in the recent week that I updated to that version. The main reason is that comment I just made: for a ``minor version'' update, there was just too many new things going on under the hood, to the point that some of my favourite Minecraft mods like Fabulously Optimise, Nautilus3D, and even minihud/malilib are barely keeping up.

It reminds me too much of how the Java version worked out. At some point, the major version was so stagnated while the minor version number was racing on to the point that they just dropped the major version number and rebranded the entire thing by the minor version number, which led to nonsense like J2SE 1.4 that is then followed by J2SE 5.

Minecraft version updates aside, I continued with the reworking of my Nether Hub. The rework involved expanding the size of the Nether Hub to fit all the rail-lines on a single expanded floor, and to re-arrange the rail-lines such that they are pointing closer to the actual direction of the destination as opposed to whatever spaghetti nonsense that I had with the two-storey organically mushed together set up.

One of the things that I was wrestling with was the viability to build ``diagonal rails''. Part of the reason why the current Nether Hub rail system is such a mess is because I didn't have a good way of building ``diagonal rails''.

Well, I finally figured it out.

So, the basic diagonal looks like this:

The blocks are staggered out in a regular 45° angle, and the regular rails will automatically align themselves. My nether rails are lined with glass blocks on the side to prevent getting smacked by ghasts due to line of sight, but I cannot do that in this diagonal set up---the corner will literally clip into the minecart as it is going through and end up losing all speed. Glass panes work well, but they didn't connect ``diagonally'' with the blocks making the floor, so I extended out the floor with iron bars, and then have the glass panes sit on them.

That first diagonal was unpowered---momentum and the powered rail before and after the diagonal was enough to keep the minecart moving. I can't just add powered rails to the diagonal due to one particular quirk of Minecraft rails---the powered ones cannot ``bend'' left or right 90° the way the regular rails do.

For the short distance earlier, it was not a problem. But to have an extended diagonal rail without powered rails is just not a good idea. And there's the whole lighting problem---the regular orthogonal rails just had torches on the walls (appearing left when heading towards the Nether Hub, and appearing on the right otherwise). Glass panes solved the diagonal connection problem, but they cannot accept torches.

But I came up with an idea, and this is how it looked like:

I used a redstone block (I'm lazy) every 8-ish blocks along the orthogonal axis and a powered rail to give that kick. It breaks the 45° to something that is more akin to 44-ish°, but it does allow for a very extended run at a speed higher than the orthogonal (~11 blocks/s vs ~8 blocks/s). In a similar vein, every 8-ish blocks along the orthogonal axis have a lighting block (Jack-o-lanterns in my case), and these are interleaved.

Even when the diagonal rails were running through self-dug tunnels like in the picture, it was still necessary to put up the glass panes to take away potential spawn spots---otherwise the zombie pigmenpiglins will start to spawn, and then walk around, blocking the minecart's movement.

And that's about it. The next part requires a diagonal rail, but there's also a height-level difference---I'm wondering if I can find a way to mix these three-axes changes at once.

Till the next update.

Unbotched(?)

Ah... okay, let's start with the good news: Ma's machine is finally working. The updated bill of parts:

Description	Price
Gigabyte B760M DS3H AX DDR4 + Core i5-14400 (μATX) bundle	SGD 492
Seasonic PRIME GX-650, 650W 80+ Gold	SGD 250
Samsung 990 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 1TB	SGD 159
Total	SGD 901

In short, I hardly saved any money compared to what I previously spent to build the previous version. What I didn't save in money, I saved in some time with data migration. And the amount stated here didn't take into account the taxi fare, and the additional thumb drive that I had to get for Xubuntu installation because my old ones were broken.

So, what went wrong?

I think that m.2 slot with the ``thermal guard'' is borked. In a previous post, I talked about how I broke the NVMe drive that held the operating system of the previous machine. This time, I was smart enough to remove the stickers and what not before slotting it in. It all worked, that is, until I assembled it back together and put it into its stand.

In which case it did not work.

That was back in 2025-01-24, the same day I bought the new SSD.

Due to Chinese New Year nonsense, the machine had to be put away during the visitation season, and it is only today that I could bring myself to do something about it. I tried turning it on as is, hoping that it settled long enough to self-fix---no luck. I reopened everything up, and switched out the SSD to the other m.2 slot without the ``thermal guard'', and what do you know, the fucking thing worked.

Hallelujah!

There's one other oddity left though---the machine can handle cold boots. But throw in a reboot, and it gets stuck in POST.

Why is it so, I haven't the foggiest clue, and am honestly tired af to deal with that shit. I'm just happy that Ma's got a machine back where she can use to watch her streaming video, where the whole privacy situation is more controlled than the household ``smart TV''.

------

Grim Dawn has had quite a big mechanics update---there is a new innate ability to dash in the direction of facing via a key press (defaults to the spacebar with the keyboard+mouse control scheme), and the mana/health potions have been replaced with spells that have time-out instead.

Oh, and they have a new expansion planned too.

I just want to point out that Grim Dawn has been around since 2016, and they are probably rivalling Terraria (2011), and Minecraft (2011) for ``labour of love'' status.

The funny thing about Grim Dawn is that each time after the first playthrough that I look at Path of Exile or more recently at the early access of Path of Exile 2 and wonder if I want to get onto that bandwagon, I just turn back to Grim Dawn instead.

Now, prior to this, my guilty pleasure was Torchlight II. According to Steam, the last time I played it was back in 2018. I suppose I did play the crap out of the game, even buying it for folks too. No idea why I stopped---am going to load it up again to give it a go.

------

Well, apart from that, I must add that I have been having fun with Eirian-VI. Some important points that I learnt:

1. Colour mode works only for native e-book formats (the one I used was .mobi);
2. Comics purchased from Amazon that refused to be installable on the grayscale Kindles could be downloaded to the Colorsoft;
3. PDFs, when converted by Calibre directly to .mobi, look like shit unless each page is rasterised;
4. Use pdfcrop, then use -sDevice=pdfimage24 in Ghostscript before converting to .mobi via Calibre yields the best viewing result (metadata is still shit).

So with all these in mind, do I recommend the Kindle Colorsoft?

Sure, why not? The fast refresh rate, and generally improved responses are always a plus, as is the high resolution that is available. Colour availability is a bonus, and for the most part, shouldn't really be an issue. Most people do not follow my predilection of using PDFs for readables---they tend to use EPUB, and rely heavily on the Kindle ecosystem (i.e. using ``Send to Kindle'' to do the necessary conversions as opposed to man-handling stuff with Calibre). So for them, they are less likely to face the kind of issues that I am.

And that's about it for now. Till the next update.

Edit: So I found out why I stopped playing Torchlight II---I literally ran out of things to do. The gameplay was fun for its time, but eventually the strategic depth was just insufficient to sustain more than the 315+hrs that I had put in across the 4 different classes. Grim Dawn will have nearly 45 different classes that come from pairwise combinations of soon-to-be 10 masteries, and then there's the whole sub-field of Devotion.

Eirian-VI is Here!

Eirian-VI has arrived.

After about two weeks, my Kindle Colorsoft has finally made its way to SIN city, as have all the other things that I had purchased on either amazon.com or amazon.sg.

And lemme tell you, Eirian-VI is gorgeous.

So, using SCP Series 4 volume 1 as a sample, you can tell that the colours are there, and are fairly soft/subtle. While most people complain (and also have pictures!) about how the Colorsoft was ``blue-er'' than previous black and white Kindles, you can tell that it isn't so in this case---that's because I can tune the ``warmth'' slider to make it as red as I want to. To be fair, this is at warmth level 3 on colour level standard (as opposed to vivid), compared against to zero warmth change in Eirian-V.

Do I have complaints? Just one---colour is only available on ``native'' Kindle file types, which in this case is Mobi. I only realised it when I tried loading up a PDF that is scanned (and with colours), and it showed only the regular monochrome set up.

Is that a deal breaker? Not really... I am completely fine with reading most of my material in black and white anyway, and thanks to Calibre, conversion of the PDF to Mobi is but a click or two away.

Not ideal, but a perfectly serviceable solution.

That yellow line thing that many are complaining about? I do not see it, so it's fine.

And that's a wrap for now. Till the next update.

The Last Two Days were Nice

When one was younger, and was involved in some humanities class that is teaching history, one had the tendency to be downright indignant at the people of the time for ``not standing up against the obvious bad thing that is happening'' which eventually led into the story arc that made its way into the history books as a lesson to learn.

Sadly, now, no matter where we are, these same young people are experiencing first hand why they could not stand up against the obvious bad thing that is happening.

And this is also where I must admit that even though I say that I do not fear death, it turns out that I do after all. For if I truly do not fear death, and have that sense of commitment that I claimed, then truly nothing will stop me from ever doing the right thing, be it standing up against the injustices, fighting the hypocrites, or spreading the Lord's Word in literal godforsaken places.

Yet here I am still, in SIN city, sitting in front of Eileen-III, typing out this entry.

So we've established that the phrase ``I do not fear death'' is one conditioned upon ``within my current circumstances and not universally''. While sounding hypocritical, I think the ordinary person would not find it problematic as it has some resonance with the human condition---hardly anyone expects anybody to literally abandon their own lives to take radical actions.

God's standards are higher, so in view of that, I shall refrain from making such a claim any more. I fear death in a universal perspective, but within the context of where I am existing right now, I am unafraid, because there really isn't much chance for me to just die ``for no good reason''.

Anyway, whatever happens wherever we are, we will be judged by the young of the future for ``not standing up against the obvious bad thing that is happening'', despite having all the lessons that we ought to have learnt by now from the past that had already occurred.

May God have mercy on our souls.

------

In other news, I had a very lovely two days for yesterday and the day before. I'll try to go chronologically from memory.

The plan for Tuesday was to head out to somewhere a bit frou-frou like The BOOK Cafe to read Aaron A. Reed's 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon in its full hardcover glory (I do have the soft copy as part of the original Kickstarter(?) support---but reading the hardcover version is definitely a treat)). But it required me to make my way downtown, into a location that Google was suggesting to be rather busy at the time that I was intending to be there (around 11 o'clock).

What actually happened then was that I made my way to Great World instead. It was on the TEL, and was formerly ``Great World City'', and used to be the least likely to be visited mall by me in forever just due to how inaccessible it was before the TEL was a thing.

``MT, why Great World? It doesn't fit that frou-frou concept you had in mind!''

So this is where I reveal the ``i'm-forty-bitches'' checklist:

• Read/high tea with 50 Years of Text Games;
• Long walk;
• Long cycle;
• Pecan pie from Windowsill [pies];
• Cat and the Fiddle cheesecake;
• Buy mobo and CPU for Ma's computer; and
• Fancy sushi at [REDACTED].

Great World checked off Windowsill pies since they had a branch there. It also had what I hoped to be enough frou-frou cafe places that could fulfil the ``read/high tea'' part, without actually doing high tea.

Spoiler: I had to switch out ``high tea'' when I realised that most of the high tea places were for two people (I was only one), and the one that could handle one (from Pan Pacific Hotel) had a hard time limit of 2 hours per session, which wasn't quite what I was expecting for a leisurely read.

And so Great World I went! I had Grasshopper Mint Chocolate instead of Pecan just for variety, knowing that I would be getting at least one for this year's π-day. Brunch was aptly consumed at the Collin's there, and that was also where I cracked open the hardcover 50 Years of Text Games. After that, I roamed about the mall itself, just to soak in the environment, including a stop-and-gape moment at ``The Whisky Distillery'' just to see the four-digit and five-digit whiskys that were there.

After all that, I decided to head out to Somerset station, partly because I wanted to check off ``long walk'', and partly because I wanted to get to a much more accessible location to head towards MusicGear in the late afternoon/evening to hang out with the crew there. There was an inconsequential drizzle as I walked the kilometre or so distance, and stopped by a genuine frou-frou coffee place called Lucine by LUNA, where I got a cup of ``dirty coffee''.

The barista explained it to me, I cannot remember what she said, but I think it's primarily a coffee floating on top of some milk. Don't ask too many questions.

I sat there and read more 50 Years of Text Games even as the trio of salarymen sitting at the table over were talking this and that about markets, marketing strategy, women, working in other countries, and other sundry that a techie like me didn't care too much about. The coffee was nice, the ceiling was high, the room was spacious, but the damn place where it was located in (111 Somerset) was pretty dead by my reckoning.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway, I eventually made my way to 313@Somerset to have some fancy Premium Char Siu Truffle Shoyu Soba from Tsuta.

It tasted fucking amazing. I had a Kirin beer there too, and read even more of 50 Years of Text Games (seeing a theme yet?). The only thing that marred the moment was the leg-shaking bugger in the booth diagonally from me---the benches are coupled, so when the idiot shook her legs, it vibrated the shit out of the bench. I was annoyed enough at some point when I just violently rocked it in retaliation.

Of course they won't give a shit---idiots rarely do. But I got my venting, so that was perhaps fine?

After that, I headed out to MusicGear to hang out with the crew, but learnt that apart from Hanwei and Kristin(?), everyone else was out supporting an event, and wouldn't be around for the week.

Ah well.

------

Yesterday started off bright and early enough for me; it was the day proper after all! I headed off to [REDACTED] for my fancy sushi, and after that, headed out to Marina Square for a look-see.

I then headed out to Suntec City for more walking, and found that Victorinox had a branch there. That got me excited---ever since the old Planet Traveller(?) place closed down, I couldn't find any official Victorinox spare parts dealer any more (not springs---I personally have a kit that had the replacements for the entire Victorinox line, complete with jig and tools to do the replacement; thank you past-MT for spending the nearly USD150 on it). I am down to my last Manager (now renamed to Rambler, which doesn't have a pen (important note to future-MT)), and am looking to see what the next replacement might be when this one gets sufficiently damaged to take out of circulation. The Midnite Manager looks good, but I didn't buy it because I don't trust the batteries of the LED---electronics don't really keep long, even with the best of care, due to the shitty humidity that exists out here in SIN city.

There really isn't much else to talk about for this leg in terms of what I saw/do, since it was just a near aimless ramble walking intermixed with reading more 50 Years of Text Games, before finally returning home to watch VODs of AGDQ 2025.

What I didn't say was how during the last two days, I was never without my slim hipflask that was filled with Glenfiddich 15 years whisky. I was swigging it every now and then, even as I was making my way around.

I refuse to go through this entire week completely sober, and it was glorious.

The other thing I didn't say was how my care group folks dropped me notes of birthday wishes, as well as the music ministry coordinator, and also Chara. That last one was unexpected, but it was nice to be remembered, I suppose.

And I think I've rambled on enough. My other-sister has planned a dinner celebration today, and I have to make some other plans to finish up Ma's computer build (I bought a cheap 32 GB thumbdrive and successfully configured it in Rufus), as well as to finish up the last couple of items in my ``i'm-forty-bitches'' list, among other things.

``Oi, MT, what about that long cycle?''

We'll see. It's just a list---if I can complete it, hallelujah! Otherwise, it's still fine.

I still had a nice few days. (=