Okay okay... I'm still alive. Am on leave, in fact, and the second such Friday-leave since the one last week.
I have so many things to say, and so little time to say them, so I'll just rapid fire things to avoid a 2-kilo-word essay.
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Earlier in the month, I went for the hololive English concert Serendipity through their live cinema watch-along scheme. It was held at GV Cineleisure. Unlike Drawn to Dawn, I went for both days, and it was awesome! Watching the hololive ladies singing and dancing on stage was really cool, and cheering on with fellow fans was the kind of social stimulation I needed during these trying times.
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I started playing a little more with GPT-5.5, since it was offered ``for free'' at work. It is... a mixed experience. On the one hand, the fact that such large language models were trained on the vast corpus (legally obtained or otherwise) meant a decent statistical ``understanding'' of what counts as fluency and thus providing a good-enough pattern-recognition capability to ``advise'' on what works; on the other hand, this same behaviour also meant a reversion to the mean, where all writing and presentation formats end up becoming same-y, a new variant of the tyranny of the majority manifesting itself at what might originally be considered as the last bastion of individuality---the way we think and express ourselves.
I think the key take-away from this aspect of experimentation is to be opinionated enough to stand one's ground, and be willing to make the ``mistakes'' that such models highlight as abnormal just to retain that sliver of uniqueness that is being eroded away as more people cede their thinking to the machines.
And this is a thought that came over the past few weeks of trying, getting depressed fromm what I'm seeing, thinking even more, and trying differently. For those who are not the mean of the population, such generative models should be seen as one of many possible perspectives of analysis of the piece of writing that is being considered---in the end, the true arbiter of what one wants to say still lies in oneself, no matter how convincing it may be that these models are ``good enough'' to replace human decision-making.
``But MT, it has been said that generative AI should never replace the human decision-making, because only humans can be held accountable for decisions! We must always make the final call to reduce harms!''
If you believed that is the true state of the world, then I have a bridge to sell you. There is nothing inherently wrong about having such lofty ideals as a way of guiding the powers that be towards good governance. But the reality is that people are always sinful creatures---if given a chance to cut a corner without consequenes, many will take that chance.
It is only the really stupid or the really principled person who says in their own way ``fuck you system, I will not kowtow to the easy way out, especially when that is not the ethically right approach''. One will definitely have to pay pretty dearly for their principles (or stupidity).
In the modern context of generative AI use, it may mean not getting a job because lazy hiring managers just blindly reject resumes that are not conforming to the ``expected'' format that the machine model can read.
And if one thinks this is highly unlikely to happen, think again. Most people are not creative at all---they would rather happily follow standard operating procedures, and toss their critical thinking into the wind, even if they had the capability to think and assess critically in the first place.
After all, why would a person who is paid to not think be incentivised to think?
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Cycling! I have gotten back into the groove for cycling, after having suffered from blisters from the not-so-well-planned Rail Corridor walk, and the gastro-intestinal discomfort leading to diarrhoea for a few days. I still don't know what the cause is---top two hypotheses are too much raw fish from sushi night two nights before the first day of diarrhoea, or a vegetarian bento box that was too cooled by the time I ate it. It doesn't really matter which it is, since it is all in the past now.
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Mass Effect Legendary Edition---I finally started on this game once more, having dropped it once before. I have eventually completed the first game in the trilogy, and have just started on Mass Effect 2. Unlike in the past, I have switched over to using the controller to play this third-person-over-the-shoulder-shooter, and it does play a little more naturally.
Oh, and I don't like the third party EA app needed to run this game. Interesting innit?
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I have finally finished transcribing all the 105 pieces from Pan's Musical Companion for Alto/Treble Recorder: Medieval to make it actually playable. The problem I faced was with the way the book was laid out---each page was A5-landscape, and the binding on the short edge, combined with the thickness of the book, meant that if I wanted to play any music in it, I had to somehow flatten that monstrosity out onto my music stand, which can potentially break the spine.
In short, it sucked to play it as is, and so I took the effort to transcribe everything, adjusting the pagination such that there were no awkward page turns for the music. Everything fits into the A4 clear holder, and I can't wait to play the music on my alto recorder soon.
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And that about wraps things up. I could talk about how work is getting all over the place, but why bother when I'm leave?
Till the next update.
Friday, July 17, 2026
Sunday, June 21, 2026
Miserable Ass-Blasting Weekend
Urgh... I've been utterly miserable over this weekend. The reason? Having the runs.
It all started on Friday. I was at AWS Singapore for some training/seminar about using Generative AI to transform legacy databases/applications to a more modern set-up that was cloud-native. I had their bento box for lunch, a ``Basil Thunder Tea Rice'' from GRAIN. Then a couple of hours later, my stomach was seriously rumbly, and I had to make a run to the nearest toilet for a dump. It was not a pretty one---splatters with no sign of solid waste. And the amount of gas too... it was not good. After the event, I made my way home, and towards the last leg, the familiar ``it's gonna be a shart, innit?'' feeling started on my rectum, and I panicked prayed my way to scamper home, where I dropped off yet another big blast of gas, liquid, and mass, all out of my ass.
I would add that over the evening till the next day, I had another two to three bouts of them.
In the morning of Saturday, I was thinking hard. I would ride it out, except I was due to man a booth out in the east side as part of some work thing; it was voluntary, and I wanted to do my [limited] part, and was thus slated for a two-hour slot within the first four-hour shift.
So, I went to the doctor, who was mercifully open---the old GP (literally) had cut back on his hours, and was open only on not the second and fourth Saturday of the month, and only in the morning. I told Doc my woes, he looked at me, and gave me antibiotics (ciprofloxacin), something for the stomach pain (hyoscine), and something for the runs (loperamide), and gave me instructions on how to front-load the antibiotics to help hold my insides in place long enough to do the shift.
I reported back to the event leader at my organisation, who was horrified that I was going to show up, ordered me to stay the hell at home (paraphrased and emphasised by me), pointing out that the place was (1) hot, (2) humid, and (3) the toilets there were ripe, totally not the kind of place that a guy with the runs in need of constant hydration was supposed to be at.
I felt like I had let down the team.
But the rest of the day, I spent sleeping in, trying to let the meds and my body do their thing. The runs were almost clockwork-ish---about one toilet blast per three hours. Not exactly ideal, but it was... tolerable. At least there was no leaks, nor was there any surprise sharts either.
Oh, it went through the night till this morning. Sleep was... there. I had weird-ass dreams that I chalked up to my mind trying to process all these nonsense while being forced to detach itself from the world at large from all the sleeping. Or it could be a rumination from reading The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng.
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In other news, I'm excited that the fourth hololive English concert, Serendipity, is doing the same thing for the duolive of Kiara and Ina: live viewing in cinemas is being supported!
Finally, a chance to watch all the ladies of hololive English in concert, with other fellow kaigai-nikis who don't have the money to travel all the way to the US to do so!
This time, I'm also going for both days, instead of only the first one for Kiara and Ina's duolive.
Now I'm just wondering if IRyS's sololive later in the year will also have the same live-cinema view... that would be in October. One can Hope, eh?
------
I think that in between all the highs and lows in life, it is important to just realise that life just happens. There can be no great pleasure without great pain, and while we all love to believe that we can strongly control what we want, where we go, and how we get there, the reality is often more sobering. God is in control, and our path through life is about getting to know Him, to worship Him, and to refine ourselves to be ever closer to the paragon that He is.
And that's about it for now. Forgive me as I listen patiently to the gurglings of my gastro-intestinal tract to determine if it is time for yet another toilet blast, or should I wait to accumulate more ``material'' before expending one more ass-wipe moment that risks irritating my butthole.
Till the next update.
It all started on Friday. I was at AWS Singapore for some training/seminar about using Generative AI to transform legacy databases/applications to a more modern set-up that was cloud-native. I had their bento box for lunch, a ``Basil Thunder Tea Rice'' from GRAIN. Then a couple of hours later, my stomach was seriously rumbly, and I had to make a run to the nearest toilet for a dump. It was not a pretty one---splatters with no sign of solid waste. And the amount of gas too... it was not good. After the event, I made my way home, and towards the last leg, the familiar ``it's gonna be a shart, innit?'' feeling started on my rectum, and I panicked prayed my way to scamper home, where I dropped off yet another big blast of gas, liquid, and mass, all out of my ass.
I would add that over the evening till the next day, I had another two to three bouts of them.
In the morning of Saturday, I was thinking hard. I would ride it out, except I was due to man a booth out in the east side as part of some work thing; it was voluntary, and I wanted to do my [limited] part, and was thus slated for a two-hour slot within the first four-hour shift.
So, I went to the doctor, who was mercifully open---the old GP (literally) had cut back on his hours, and was open only on not the second and fourth Saturday of the month, and only in the morning. I told Doc my woes, he looked at me, and gave me antibiotics (ciprofloxacin), something for the stomach pain (hyoscine), and something for the runs (loperamide), and gave me instructions on how to front-load the antibiotics to help hold my insides in place long enough to do the shift.
I reported back to the event leader at my organisation, who was horrified that I was going to show up, ordered me to stay the hell at home (paraphrased and emphasised by me), pointing out that the place was (1) hot, (2) humid, and (3) the toilets there were ripe, totally not the kind of place that a guy with the runs in need of constant hydration was supposed to be at.
I felt like I had let down the team.
But the rest of the day, I spent sleeping in, trying to let the meds and my body do their thing. The runs were almost clockwork-ish---about one toilet blast per three hours. Not exactly ideal, but it was... tolerable. At least there was no leaks, nor was there any surprise sharts either.
Oh, it went through the night till this morning. Sleep was... there. I had weird-ass dreams that I chalked up to my mind trying to process all these nonsense while being forced to detach itself from the world at large from all the sleeping. Or it could be a rumination from reading The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng.
------
In other news, I'm excited that the fourth hololive English concert, Serendipity, is doing the same thing for the duolive of Kiara and Ina: live viewing in cinemas is being supported!
Finally, a chance to watch all the ladies of hololive English in concert, with other fellow kaigai-nikis who don't have the money to travel all the way to the US to do so!
This time, I'm also going for both days, instead of only the first one for Kiara and Ina's duolive.
Now I'm just wondering if IRyS's sololive later in the year will also have the same live-cinema view... that would be in October. One can Hope, eh?
------
I think that in between all the highs and lows in life, it is important to just realise that life just happens. There can be no great pleasure without great pain, and while we all love to believe that we can strongly control what we want, where we go, and how we get there, the reality is often more sobering. God is in control, and our path through life is about getting to know Him, to worship Him, and to refine ourselves to be ever closer to the paragon that He is.
And that's about it for now. Forgive me as I listen patiently to the gurglings of my gastro-intestinal tract to determine if it is time for yet another toilet blast, or should I wait to accumulate more ``material'' before expending one more ass-wipe moment that risks irritating my butthole.
Till the next update.
Saturday, June 06, 2026
Fast Fashion and Generative-AI
You know, I had this conversation recently with GY and a few others, and I think there might be some logic behind the mess. Like all good rants, let's start with the conclusion:
It all goes back to the capitalistic mode of operation. In the beginning, clothing was made coarsely at the individual level. For the fancier stuff, one would head to the tailor for something that fits better. Eventually many wanted fancier stuff, and a market for it was created, which incentivises leveraging economics of scale to build factories to churn out decent quality clothes at an affordable price.
But clothes have a shelf-life that is independent of utility---no one wants to look dated with clothes that are otherwise functional. So the capitalism evolves into hyper-capitalism with extreme consumerism, with clothes that are designed to be much cheaper through reducing durability, but with the advantage of being faster to evolve as tastes change.
This is the fast fashion we are talking about.
People still wear fancy suits and dresses, and the tailors are still being approached for that. But this is not the norm for the large variety of people over most of the time.
Translating the analogy over, software used to be bespoke, with proper requirement gathering steps, followed by development, before undergoing testing to validate fit-for-purpose. Old computer systems were unique enough that software was truly bespoke to the architecture---the gradual rise of standardised platforms that come from leveraging economics of scale and Moore's Law made creating common software libraries to abstract out the bespoke parts a major pathway towards writing one source code, but cross-building to more than one operating system.
Then the web-browser became an even greater unifier that went across hardware and operating system, and everyone started building software on that as a platform. The old web relied on the open-ness of reading source files loaded into the web-browser to spread ideas, and the content-distribution network (CDN) invention took standardisation to a whole new level. The rise of the smartphone made ``app-ification'' a real thing, and many are conditioned to demand an ``app'' for even the simplest things that an web-browser-run page could handle.
Software development then started to hit the hyper-capitalism and extreme consumerism phase.
This was also aided by first the so-called Agile methodology that favoured rapid iterative prototyping over formalised design over a shortened time frame of two weeks or so instead of ``when it is done'', and now by the power of generative-AI that allegedly reduces the gap between the user who wants the functionality, and the ability to achieve those.
Kind of like how ``typist'' and ``letter writer'' are no longer legitimate jobs now, because almost everyone knows how to operate a [computer] keyboard, as well as communicate with each other over on-screen text/audio-visual teleconferencing/email in their favourite language of choice.
So in some real way, the rise of generative-AI does change the nature of software development; it prioritises and promotes the ``fast fashion'' style of doing things, arguing that maintainability is not important since the entire software can be re-written through appropriate prompts that includes the new featurers in it.
After all, if we are truly following the philosophy of being outcome driven, why then should anyone be harping about the nature of the source code?
Of course there are still uses for bespoke software, but this is likely to be something that only a small population and/or niched one will truly care about. For the rest, something quick and dirty can be concocted with generative-AI with little effort for near-immediate use by anyone. The ease of access to the generative-AI also obviates the need for code hygiene sensu change request handling/feature adding.
Depressing? I don't know. I always have a saying to myself that I freely share:
Anyway, that's all for now. Fast fashion, or bespoke tailor---which end of the spectrum is the most lucrative then?
Generative-AI powered programming is the ``fast fashion'' movement equivalent for software development. People aren't interested in paying more for something that is future-proof when they can pay exponentially less for something that satisfies their needs now, and to replicate that process again if they need to update the feature set.There's quite a bit to unpack here, so let me step through this a bit more carefully.
It all goes back to the capitalistic mode of operation. In the beginning, clothing was made coarsely at the individual level. For the fancier stuff, one would head to the tailor for something that fits better. Eventually many wanted fancier stuff, and a market for it was created, which incentivises leveraging economics of scale to build factories to churn out decent quality clothes at an affordable price.
But clothes have a shelf-life that is independent of utility---no one wants to look dated with clothes that are otherwise functional. So the capitalism evolves into hyper-capitalism with extreme consumerism, with clothes that are designed to be much cheaper through reducing durability, but with the advantage of being faster to evolve as tastes change.
This is the fast fashion we are talking about.
People still wear fancy suits and dresses, and the tailors are still being approached for that. But this is not the norm for the large variety of people over most of the time.
Translating the analogy over, software used to be bespoke, with proper requirement gathering steps, followed by development, before undergoing testing to validate fit-for-purpose. Old computer systems were unique enough that software was truly bespoke to the architecture---the gradual rise of standardised platforms that come from leveraging economics of scale and Moore's Law made creating common software libraries to abstract out the bespoke parts a major pathway towards writing one source code, but cross-building to more than one operating system.
Then the web-browser became an even greater unifier that went across hardware and operating system, and everyone started building software on that as a platform. The old web relied on the open-ness of reading source files loaded into the web-browser to spread ideas, and the content-distribution network (CDN) invention took standardisation to a whole new level. The rise of the smartphone made ``app-ification'' a real thing, and many are conditioned to demand an ``app'' for even the simplest things that an web-browser-run page could handle.
Software development then started to hit the hyper-capitalism and extreme consumerism phase.
This was also aided by first the so-called Agile methodology that favoured rapid iterative prototyping over formalised design over a shortened time frame of two weeks or so instead of ``when it is done'', and now by the power of generative-AI that allegedly reduces the gap between the user who wants the functionality, and the ability to achieve those.
Kind of like how ``typist'' and ``letter writer'' are no longer legitimate jobs now, because almost everyone knows how to operate a [computer] keyboard, as well as communicate with each other over on-screen text/audio-visual teleconferencing/email in their favourite language of choice.
So in some real way, the rise of generative-AI does change the nature of software development; it prioritises and promotes the ``fast fashion'' style of doing things, arguing that maintainability is not important since the entire software can be re-written through appropriate prompts that includes the new featurers in it.
After all, if we are truly following the philosophy of being outcome driven, why then should anyone be harping about the nature of the source code?
Of course there are still uses for bespoke software, but this is likely to be something that only a small population and/or niched one will truly care about. For the rest, something quick and dirty can be concocted with generative-AI with little effort for near-immediate use by anyone. The ease of access to the generative-AI also obviates the need for code hygiene sensu change request handling/feature adding.
Depressing? I don't know. I always have a saying to myself that I freely share:
Never do something that a fourteen-year-old can do for a job if one can; that's not where one's true value lies.Fourteen-year-olds have more time than life experience on their hands, and epitomise what I think is the best representative of naïve brute force approaches. I know because I was fourteen once, and had the drive to grind things out to inexorably change my life forever.
Anyway, that's all for now. Fast fashion, or bespoke tailor---which end of the spectrum is the most lucrative then?
Monday, June 01, 2026
...Ending with a Whimper
I wanted to make it a lark and talk about how the week of hedonism went down with a big bang and me wanting to never want to get back to work again. Alas, that's just a fantasy that isn't worth thinking about.
Today is also a Monday, and the start of the new month. Incidentally, it is also a public holiday due to how Sunday was a public holiday (Vesak Day out here in SIN City). So I have about a week of recap to go before I return to the fray as part of work, and also about the wandering wondering of when my next long break is.
So on the Tuesday after the last entry, I had an unplanned trip down to Bike31 to sort out a broken Birzman pump that I had got in 2017-ish. The head could not mate with the new Presta valves that my new bicycle had---I was always using Schrader valves for the previous bicycle(s), and the pump worked well with those. The lady at Bike31 sorted it out quick with a 20-dollar replacement part, with no labour cost. I did have to take a Grab down and back, totalling up to another 40 more dollars, but that 60-dollar cost seems to be a fine amount to pay for hopefully another 7 to 8 more years of good use out of the originally 120(?)-dollar pump. I then spent the evening cycling out to meet up with GY out at Georges by the Bay (i.e. at Punggol Settlement), where we commiserated and bitched about what's wrong with the world/SIN City while chugging booze of all sorts.
On Wednesday, I had to make an emergency trip to IKEA to get a new chair, because my old chair finally broke itself apart. This was not the first time that it has ``broke''---I think one of the key latch springs was disengaged a few years back, and to re-attach that, Pa had to slice through some plastic part, and I didn't know what else did he tweak. Anyway, the chair broke when a metal part had rusted through, and decided to break at that spot. I didn't hurt myself, but it was a quick trip to IKEA to get a replacement HATTEFJÄLL again. This time, they didn't have an arm-less version, but it was possible to just not attach the arms that came with it.
``MT, if the stupid chair is said to have 10 years of guarantee for parts, and you broke the damn thing in year 5 or so, why did you go back to the same chair?''
Because it is comfortable, cheap enough (SGD345-ish), can fit where I am seated, and can be gotten pretty damn quickly.
Mind you, Wednesday was also a public holiday, this time it was Hari Raya Haji.
In addition to the cost of the chair, I had to chuck in another 40 more dollars for the Grab ride, because I was damn sure that I was not taking the bus with a bulky-ass box that had 20 kg of mass.
That same day, I took yet another Grab (SGD30 this time!) to head to the Arts House at the Old Parliament House for a baroque harpsichord/cello concert. It was a nice change of pace, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have no memory of what I heard (baroque music is still too hoity-toity for me), but I remembered liking what I had heard.
Dinner was at the Gyukatsu place in Raffles City. The beef cutlet is always wonderful, and the free-flow tea and cabbage with associated sauce makes it a great way to fuel up after a long day.
Thursday began with a planned trip to the Singapore Musical Box Museum. It's a private museum that was tucked away in Circular Road, and could only be visited via a guided tour through making a reservation. The reservation process was also arcane, partly because the museum seemed to be slowly winding down their operations (my perspective), but there were enough usable hints within their website to execute the correct reservation process. They are going to be at their current location till 2026-09, after which they are allegedly heading back to Telok Ayer.
But that aside, that museum was a true hidden gem! Many antique (i.e. at least 100 years old; anything at least 20 years old is merely vintage) musical boxes were available to view, and the guide gave good explanations for all of them. What intrigued me the most was watching the use of the studded logs (and then discs) gradually changing from directly sounding the tines of the comb to create the characteristic tingling sound, to using them as a control mechanism to activate lever systems that worked other types of percussive instruments. There was also the ingenuity of using small offsets between the spaces of needle-tipped tines to allow a single control log to hold more than one piece of music (the next music is obtained through a small displacement longitudinally); the use of replicated tines to allow that strumming effect without necessarily making it harder to manufacture the punched disc; aligning the lower notes closer to the centre of rotation of a disc while leaving the higher notes farther from the centre of rotation to leverage on the different linear velocities to play slow notes versus fast; and various indexing mechanisms that can be used to trigger other actions like disc changing, or accepting new coins for another song. The power mechanisms were very mechanical in nature due to the clockwork background, using coiled springs, weighted pendulums/pulleys, and combining with various flywheel governator designs to ensure that the output rotational rate is constant regardless of the energy levels of the mechanism.
All in all, a very fascinating trip that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I then roamed about the Upper Thomson Road area to kill time before meeting up with YT for dinner. The old Thomson Plaza has changed quite a fair bit---the games shop no longer exists, and there were many more new PRC-heavy shops too. The actual shophouses along the road were still quite interesting, and I even found another ``hidden gem'' location out at Thomson V Two.
Friday was when I chilled out a whole lot, spending much of my time watching The X-Files, before meeting up with CP for drinks out at Al Capone's Cuppage.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday was also mostly just me staying at home and watching The X-Files. My only comment is: thank God for the 'net to ensure that good television from the 1990s when I was too damn young then to understand can be easily obtained to watch when I am old enough to appreciate the content. I was supposed to take on the Rail Corridor on Saturday, but my Garmin eTrex 30 decided to have its plasticised rubber be brittle and fall apart, making the buttons effectively disappear. Without a back up like that, I was unwilling to take unnecessary risks, and so a replacement cover was searched and ordered from Amazon Singapore, and it's slated to show up on the upcoming Saturday. Once I have the GPSr sorted out, I will attempt the rail corridor proper. Considering that the route is unlit for protecting wild life, it would make more sense then to go only when I can tap into daylight hours.
And that brings us to now. It's time to sleep, and close this intermission for now, and to get back to the daily grind of work that both delights and drains me.
Till the next update.
Today is also a Monday, and the start of the new month. Incidentally, it is also a public holiday due to how Sunday was a public holiday (Vesak Day out here in SIN City). So I have about a week of recap to go before I return to the fray as part of work, and also about the wandering wondering of when my next long break is.
So on the Tuesday after the last entry, I had an unplanned trip down to Bike31 to sort out a broken Birzman pump that I had got in 2017-ish. The head could not mate with the new Presta valves that my new bicycle had---I was always using Schrader valves for the previous bicycle(s), and the pump worked well with those. The lady at Bike31 sorted it out quick with a 20-dollar replacement part, with no labour cost. I did have to take a Grab down and back, totalling up to another 40 more dollars, but that 60-dollar cost seems to be a fine amount to pay for hopefully another 7 to 8 more years of good use out of the originally 120(?)-dollar pump. I then spent the evening cycling out to meet up with GY out at Georges by the Bay (i.e. at Punggol Settlement), where we commiserated and bitched about what's wrong with the world/SIN City while chugging booze of all sorts.
On Wednesday, I had to make an emergency trip to IKEA to get a new chair, because my old chair finally broke itself apart. This was not the first time that it has ``broke''---I think one of the key latch springs was disengaged a few years back, and to re-attach that, Pa had to slice through some plastic part, and I didn't know what else did he tweak. Anyway, the chair broke when a metal part had rusted through, and decided to break at that spot. I didn't hurt myself, but it was a quick trip to IKEA to get a replacement HATTEFJÄLL again. This time, they didn't have an arm-less version, but it was possible to just not attach the arms that came with it.
``MT, if the stupid chair is said to have 10 years of guarantee for parts, and you broke the damn thing in year 5 or so, why did you go back to the same chair?''
Because it is comfortable, cheap enough (SGD345-ish), can fit where I am seated, and can be gotten pretty damn quickly.
Mind you, Wednesday was also a public holiday, this time it was Hari Raya Haji.
In addition to the cost of the chair, I had to chuck in another 40 more dollars for the Grab ride, because I was damn sure that I was not taking the bus with a bulky-ass box that had 20 kg of mass.
That same day, I took yet another Grab (SGD30 this time!) to head to the Arts House at the Old Parliament House for a baroque harpsichord/cello concert. It was a nice change of pace, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I have no memory of what I heard (baroque music is still too hoity-toity for me), but I remembered liking what I had heard.
Dinner was at the Gyukatsu place in Raffles City. The beef cutlet is always wonderful, and the free-flow tea and cabbage with associated sauce makes it a great way to fuel up after a long day.
Thursday began with a planned trip to the Singapore Musical Box Museum. It's a private museum that was tucked away in Circular Road, and could only be visited via a guided tour through making a reservation. The reservation process was also arcane, partly because the museum seemed to be slowly winding down their operations (my perspective), but there were enough usable hints within their website to execute the correct reservation process. They are going to be at their current location till 2026-09, after which they are allegedly heading back to Telok Ayer.
But that aside, that museum was a true hidden gem! Many antique (i.e. at least 100 years old; anything at least 20 years old is merely vintage) musical boxes were available to view, and the guide gave good explanations for all of them. What intrigued me the most was watching the use of the studded logs (and then discs) gradually changing from directly sounding the tines of the comb to create the characteristic tingling sound, to using them as a control mechanism to activate lever systems that worked other types of percussive instruments. There was also the ingenuity of using small offsets between the spaces of needle-tipped tines to allow a single control log to hold more than one piece of music (the next music is obtained through a small displacement longitudinally); the use of replicated tines to allow that strumming effect without necessarily making it harder to manufacture the punched disc; aligning the lower notes closer to the centre of rotation of a disc while leaving the higher notes farther from the centre of rotation to leverage on the different linear velocities to play slow notes versus fast; and various indexing mechanisms that can be used to trigger other actions like disc changing, or accepting new coins for another song. The power mechanisms were very mechanical in nature due to the clockwork background, using coiled springs, weighted pendulums/pulleys, and combining with various flywheel governator designs to ensure that the output rotational rate is constant regardless of the energy levels of the mechanism.
All in all, a very fascinating trip that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I then roamed about the Upper Thomson Road area to kill time before meeting up with YT for dinner. The old Thomson Plaza has changed quite a fair bit---the games shop no longer exists, and there were many more new PRC-heavy shops too. The actual shophouses along the road were still quite interesting, and I even found another ``hidden gem'' location out at Thomson V Two.
Friday was when I chilled out a whole lot, spending much of my time watching The X-Files, before meeting up with CP for drinks out at Al Capone's Cuppage.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday was also mostly just me staying at home and watching The X-Files. My only comment is: thank God for the 'net to ensure that good television from the 1990s when I was too damn young then to understand can be easily obtained to watch when I am old enough to appreciate the content. I was supposed to take on the Rail Corridor on Saturday, but my Garmin eTrex 30 decided to have its plasticised rubber be brittle and fall apart, making the buttons effectively disappear. Without a back up like that, I was unwilling to take unnecessary risks, and so a replacement cover was searched and ordered from Amazon Singapore, and it's slated to show up on the upcoming Saturday. Once I have the GPSr sorted out, I will attempt the rail corridor proper. Considering that the route is unlit for protecting wild life, it would make more sense then to go only when I can tap into daylight hours.
And that brings us to now. It's time to sleep, and close this intermission for now, and to get back to the daily grind of work that both delights and drains me.
Till the next update.
Monday, May 25, 2026
The First Three Days' Adventures
It's now a Monday. I'm officially on leave for a week and a bit more; I might have mentioned that this leave is a long time coming. For too long I had been bearing the burden of knowledge that a manager is expected to bear, the so-called ``dark'' aspects of being a manager that only business school will teach [since they generally train quasi-psychopathic people who treat humans as ``resources''].
But that is not what I want to talk about today---that would be too damn depressing.
------
I did a long-ass cycle on Saturday on my new bicycle. It was a blast---the new bicycle's gears worked wonderfully, and I found myself reaching speeds in excess of 30 km/h on the flats. I did face one problem---my current bicycle pump had troubles with the new Presta valves on the new inner tubes of the bicycle, and I cannot figure out what's wrong. And so, I have made an appointment with the local distributor to have it sorted out.
Sunday, I went to run some errands, getting my meds and a replacement Nikka Whisky from the Barrel to replace the now-emptied Maker's Mark. The purpose of the break is to go round not completely sober, and this means using my titanium tipple from Snow Peak to drip feed high-proof alcohol into my blood stream.
I had a nice lunch at Five Guys, and had walked all about Plaza Singapura. The thought of getting a Steam Deck crossed my mind for the umpteenth time, but I never did get it---as I have to keep mentioning to myself, I did run an experiment before a long time ago with the Dingoo, a smaller and more portable gaming console; I never played on it enough, to the point that the battery was swollen and I had to dump it. A Steam Deck is likely to end up in the same fate, and that thing is not even that cheap (nor small either). Besides, I spend more time reading while commuting anyway; something about the ease of putting down a book as compared to a game.
I did think about getting a 3-octave range melodica from Yamaha, but decided against it since I have two new keyed bawu in the keys of F and G coming in. This is the second time that I'm trying to get keyed bawu, and hopefully the quality is better than the last one. In the previous case, the case itself was falling apart due to shitty pot metal for the zip (I'm thinking it's likely to be some kind of zinc-alloy that ended up with zinc pest and getting brittle as a result), while the ``pads'' (more like uncontrolled blobs of nonsensical epoxy(?)) failed in their sole job of sealing. Maybe this new batch of bawu will do the job and expand the palette of what I can play.
For what it's worth, the original bawu is a bad instrument in terms of [useful] range. It does sound nice, but the range is just... terrible. By extension, it also limits the type of music that it can play in a very strong way.
Today, I ran other errands, and went to solve a mystery that has been bugging me for a while: just what was in Jalan Besar Plaza, the shopping mall that I pass by every day when I'm on bus service 147. Answer: a lot of really cool industrial-centric stores, from lab testing equipment to various motors/hand tools like bench-top press, and a couple of the ``usual'' vocation-ish schools and massage places.
I also explored the TRIO building that was nearby, and noped out of it quickly due to how odd it was presenting itself---there was a cool-looking Cantonese restaurant in it that I might want to return at some point.
Beyond that, I slowly made my way towards Sim Lim Square, and meandered along the side roads for a little exploration.
Sim Lim Square itself was quite different from before. There were significantly more ``Indian Dance Club'' style karaoke/bars [that were likely to be alive once the night comes], and much fewer ``lifestyle'' stores that sold a variety of consumer electronics; gone also were the old stores that sold more server-like equipment---the rising costs of PC/server components due to the AI boom are really showing their ugly heads. It was still a nice walk through the place though.
After that, I walked along Serangoon Road towards City Square Mall for dinner, and yet more walking about, before finally making my way to the nearest bus service 147 bus-stop to head home.
All in all, it had been a nice three days so far. Of course I didn't talk about Friday, where I helped to run a booth at the AI Student Developer Conference, mostly because it was work related, and nothing of note happened---it was just the standard booth-running shenanigans of standing around for a long time, trying to be interesting/entertaining to the visitors, and rapidly refining the story that was told to ensure consistency and ease of paying attention to the visitors' responses as opposed to figuring out what to say. It's not my first rodeo for sure, and things came back to me fast. It was the first time that I could take the City Direct buses both to and from the the exhibition area that was at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre out at Marina Bay Sands.
I'm knackered, and after having hooked up my HHKB Pro 2 to write this post, I'll probably transcribe yet another piece from the song book that I had from a while back for my alto recorder.
Till the next update then.
But that is not what I want to talk about today---that would be too damn depressing.
------
I did a long-ass cycle on Saturday on my new bicycle. It was a blast---the new bicycle's gears worked wonderfully, and I found myself reaching speeds in excess of 30 km/h on the flats. I did face one problem---my current bicycle pump had troubles with the new Presta valves on the new inner tubes of the bicycle, and I cannot figure out what's wrong. And so, I have made an appointment with the local distributor to have it sorted out.
Sunday, I went to run some errands, getting my meds and a replacement Nikka Whisky from the Barrel to replace the now-emptied Maker's Mark. The purpose of the break is to go round not completely sober, and this means using my titanium tipple from Snow Peak to drip feed high-proof alcohol into my blood stream.
I had a nice lunch at Five Guys, and had walked all about Plaza Singapura. The thought of getting a Steam Deck crossed my mind for the umpteenth time, but I never did get it---as I have to keep mentioning to myself, I did run an experiment before a long time ago with the Dingoo, a smaller and more portable gaming console; I never played on it enough, to the point that the battery was swollen and I had to dump it. A Steam Deck is likely to end up in the same fate, and that thing is not even that cheap (nor small either). Besides, I spend more time reading while commuting anyway; something about the ease of putting down a book as compared to a game.
I did think about getting a 3-octave range melodica from Yamaha, but decided against it since I have two new keyed bawu in the keys of F and G coming in. This is the second time that I'm trying to get keyed bawu, and hopefully the quality is better than the last one. In the previous case, the case itself was falling apart due to shitty pot metal for the zip (I'm thinking it's likely to be some kind of zinc-alloy that ended up with zinc pest and getting brittle as a result), while the ``pads'' (more like uncontrolled blobs of nonsensical epoxy(?)) failed in their sole job of sealing. Maybe this new batch of bawu will do the job and expand the palette of what I can play.
For what it's worth, the original bawu is a bad instrument in terms of [useful] range. It does sound nice, but the range is just... terrible. By extension, it also limits the type of music that it can play in a very strong way.
Today, I ran other errands, and went to solve a mystery that has been bugging me for a while: just what was in Jalan Besar Plaza, the shopping mall that I pass by every day when I'm on bus service 147. Answer: a lot of really cool industrial-centric stores, from lab testing equipment to various motors/hand tools like bench-top press, and a couple of the ``usual'' vocation-ish schools and massage places.
I also explored the TRIO building that was nearby, and noped out of it quickly due to how odd it was presenting itself---there was a cool-looking Cantonese restaurant in it that I might want to return at some point.
Beyond that, I slowly made my way towards Sim Lim Square, and meandered along the side roads for a little exploration.
Sim Lim Square itself was quite different from before. There were significantly more ``Indian Dance Club'' style karaoke/bars [that were likely to be alive once the night comes], and much fewer ``lifestyle'' stores that sold a variety of consumer electronics; gone also were the old stores that sold more server-like equipment---the rising costs of PC/server components due to the AI boom are really showing their ugly heads. It was still a nice walk through the place though.
After that, I walked along Serangoon Road towards City Square Mall for dinner, and yet more walking about, before finally making my way to the nearest bus service 147 bus-stop to head home.
All in all, it had been a nice three days so far. Of course I didn't talk about Friday, where I helped to run a booth at the AI Student Developer Conference, mostly because it was work related, and nothing of note happened---it was just the standard booth-running shenanigans of standing around for a long time, trying to be interesting/entertaining to the visitors, and rapidly refining the story that was told to ensure consistency and ease of paying attention to the visitors' responses as opposed to figuring out what to say. It's not my first rodeo for sure, and things came back to me fast. It was the first time that I could take the City Direct buses both to and from the the exhibition area that was at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre out at Marina Bay Sands.
I'm knackered, and after having hooked up my HHKB Pro 2 to write this post, I'll probably transcribe yet another piece from the song book that I had from a while back for my alto recorder.
Till the next update then.
Monday, May 18, 2026
Bombshell
First off, sorry for the malformed entry before. In my addled-ness, I forgot to run the raw text through my Blogger-Br tool that inserts the correct break HTML tags to provide the correct newlines.
Next, the bombshell that I had been holding onto at work has finally been detonated. And the fallout... I have no idea how bad it is going to be. Naturally, everyone's morale is in the shitter as expected, but it cannot be helped---with a bombshell as big as this one, there's no other way around it.
I can go on about my ``true thoughts'' about the situation, but it benefits no one and is likely to end up becoming a liability, so I shall refrain.
What happens next is anyone's guess. I'm just... very tired.
Exhausted in fact.
To bear the burden alone... it sucked, hard.
But such is life.
------
I've started on The X Files. All I can say is, why did it take me so long to go watch it?
Anyway, that's all I want to say for today. It's been a long day/week/quarter, and I need a break. Bad.
Till the next update.
Next, the bombshell that I had been holding onto at work has finally been detonated. And the fallout... I have no idea how bad it is going to be. Naturally, everyone's morale is in the shitter as expected, but it cannot be helped---with a bombshell as big as this one, there's no other way around it.
I can go on about my ``true thoughts'' about the situation, but it benefits no one and is likely to end up becoming a liability, so I shall refrain.
What happens next is anyone's guess. I'm just... very tired.
Exhausted in fact.
To bear the burden alone... it sucked, hard.
But such is life.
------
I've started on The X Files. All I can say is, why did it take me so long to go watch it?
Anyway, that's all I want to say for today. It's been a long day/week/quarter, and I need a break. Bad.
Till the next update.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Egalitarianism is a Dead End
Class separation and eventual struggle is inevitable as long as human societies are going at the size that they have been going at since the twentieth century.
And no, I'm no Marxist---this conclusion I came to is from mulling about this for a long while.
I have always been a fan of egalitarianism, that each person has their rights and ability to contribute with little sense of hierarchy, as much as practically possible. But this is an idealism of sorts, since the specific affinities that each person might have in their contribution and more relatedly, their ability to contribute to society in ``equivalent'' sorts of ways... is just a pipe dream.
The truth of the matter is that things almost always start out egalitarian, but as long as [material] resources and [relational] patronship exist, then class distinctions are inevitable as the massing of the resources and/or patronship changes the relative prestige/capability to contribute for each person in profound ways.
It is hard to claim that egalitarianism is the ultimate utopian ideal when one can clearly observe the effective difference that affinities of contribution create---is it really possible to equate the ability to command capital with the ability of someone who contributes labour to perform janitorial duty?
In that sense then, a society that thinks of egalitarianism as a utopian ideal is doomed to failure; this should not come as a surprise to anyone, except perhaps for the truly idealistic.
It is a very sobering thought, though it isn't exactly something truly new. We [as a society] have known that true left-wing approaches are doomed to failure, while true right-wing approaches may look good in the beginning, but all that they can promise is stasis as the highly authoritarian and conservative approach dominates. It's a lose-lose situation, and it is never really clear who can win in the end.
Of course we'll root for the ``good guys'', except in this case, who are the ``good guys''?
I have no incentive to foster rebellion---it's just an alcohol-induced thought about how the real world works. There is at least some light optimism in it all---if a substantial number of people believe and project their beliefs out to the world, a change may occur.
It would be interesting to see what happens along that particular path...
------
In other news, I've been working my way through the Fist of the North Star manga. It's... pretty cool story-wise and ultra-violence aside. That the strongest fist (``Hokuto Shingen'') draws strength from extreme sadness and anger of its practitioner is a great trope definer.
And I think that's about all I want to talk about. I'm a bit sloshed with alcohol to try and avoid thinking about the crazy nonsense that is work.
Till the next time.
And no, I'm no Marxist---this conclusion I came to is from mulling about this for a long while.
I have always been a fan of egalitarianism, that each person has their rights and ability to contribute with little sense of hierarchy, as much as practically possible. But this is an idealism of sorts, since the specific affinities that each person might have in their contribution and more relatedly, their ability to contribute to society in ``equivalent'' sorts of ways... is just a pipe dream.
The truth of the matter is that things almost always start out egalitarian, but as long as [material] resources and [relational] patronship exist, then class distinctions are inevitable as the massing of the resources and/or patronship changes the relative prestige/capability to contribute for each person in profound ways.
It is hard to claim that egalitarianism is the ultimate utopian ideal when one can clearly observe the effective difference that affinities of contribution create---is it really possible to equate the ability to command capital with the ability of someone who contributes labour to perform janitorial duty?
In that sense then, a society that thinks of egalitarianism as a utopian ideal is doomed to failure; this should not come as a surprise to anyone, except perhaps for the truly idealistic.
It is a very sobering thought, though it isn't exactly something truly new. We [as a society] have known that true left-wing approaches are doomed to failure, while true right-wing approaches may look good in the beginning, but all that they can promise is stasis as the highly authoritarian and conservative approach dominates. It's a lose-lose situation, and it is never really clear who can win in the end.
Of course we'll root for the ``good guys'', except in this case, who are the ``good guys''?
I have no incentive to foster rebellion---it's just an alcohol-induced thought about how the real world works. There is at least some light optimism in it all---if a substantial number of people believe and project their beliefs out to the world, a change may occur.
It would be interesting to see what happens along that particular path...
------
In other news, I've been working my way through the Fist of the North Star manga. It's... pretty cool story-wise and ultra-violence aside. That the strongest fist (``Hokuto Shingen'') draws strength from extreme sadness and anger of its practitioner is a great trope definer.
And I think that's about all I want to talk about. I'm a bit sloshed with alcohol to try and avoid thinking about the crazy nonsense that is work.
Till the next time.
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