As mentioned many times before, the people that I keep seeing around me keep ``growing up'' and seemingly be ``absorbed'' into the social culture and norms. Each time I look at some random news on Facebook, I find that this idea keeps reoccurring. The strange thing is, the more I look at these folks, the more I think to myself that I should not end up like them. And then I slowly realise that I am still a walking contradiction---a misanthrope who is mildly philanthropic.
So what I have not really talked about in too much detail is why I keep saying that I should not be absorbed into the social culture. Well, actually, I did talk a little about it, in the sense that I am not a sheeple. But actually, there is more to this than avoidance of being a sheeple---the cost of living as a ``grown up'' member of society who follows the social trends is much higher than that of living as a geek.
It sounds paradoxical, I agree; after all, isn't it the geeks who end up buying all those new-fangled toys just to show off how cool they are? Except that it is probably not that true. Comparatively speaking, it is the average consumer that ends up buying more tools and gadgets like that in order to ``fit in'' and to one-up their peers---remember that they are the ``normal'' people and thus have some reputation of fitting in to keep up with. Ever wondered who bought those i<BLARG> devices that Apple keeps putting up? It is most definitely not all the geeks; in fact, it can be plainly seen that the people who are actually the most drawn to the devices are your everyday consumer! Very intriguing, because the i<BLARG> is a status symbol to many people. Think about it this way. Walk down the streets some day and just take a look around. You will find that many teenagers are using i<BLARG>. You look at them and you wonder, why the heck do they need an i<BLARG> when they have no real need to surf the Internet while at the mall and such? Think also about the PSP. The PSP is a decent device with relatively good graphics and all, and when you see it being used, it is often people who are dressed in nice collared shirts and dress pants playing on them in the subway. `Why do they do that?' you might wonder. Well, I go back to the original argument I just made---they are just looking for status symbols to fit in to the overall social construct.
I hate to conform for no good reason. Give me a good reason why I should behave in a certain way, and I will be a loyal follower to the end. But if you cannot give me any compelling reasons why I should act the way you prescribe, then sod off---I am not interested in blindly following the ways that you are talking about. Does this sound very misanthropic? In a way, yes, because I am not willing to subject myself to following trends just because they are trends. Society will not progress much if everyone is a follower, and no one sits upright and asks why something is so. I am not going to claim that I will indeed be a leader of society, but at the very least, I think that I am entitled to being able to think for myself, with little consequence as to whether I ``conform'' or not. Let's face it, if I were a conformist, I would not be talking about things here anyway, since most of my writing here has a tendency to lash out at being blind conformists.
So, if you are a person, and you are reading this, then take my advice: be yourself and not let society dictate how you ought to behave---laws are there to provide guidelines for people to understand what is acceptable, but they are no means the only ways of living; it is possible to live a fulfilling life while still following the law. Don't follow trends unless you can convince yourself that they are indeed necessary and useful for yourself.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Proposal with Perl
It's cool to know an Internet celebrity, and in this case, two of them. Take a look at the section under Carnegie Mellon University. I actually know the person who proposed using a Perl script.
How much cooler can that be?
How much cooler can that be?
Monday, February 23, 2009
Vulnerability
For most of one's life, there is this feeling of invulnerability, since one who lives in a developed nation is most likely to be living in a place that is relatively well sheltered from the dangerous world out there. Even if we were not living with our parents or guardians, there is a general sense of being in control, and being able to live life without feeling directly threatened by the world that surrounds us.
But ever so often, life throws something in our way that reminds us of our mortality and vulnerability. Ever felt the strange sense of the lack of time when someone you know passed away? How about the time you felt vulnerable because you failed at something that you thought you would do fine in?
That is how I feel today.
But ever so often, life throws something in our way that reminds us of our mortality and vulnerability. Ever felt the strange sense of the lack of time when someone you know passed away? How about the time you felt vulnerable because you failed at something that you thought you would do fine in?
That is how I feel today.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Ping
And so the writing bug bites me again, in the most unexpected of places. This time, I seem to have a tendency to want to write poetry in semi-strict form, in Mandarin. Hmm... I have no idea why this is so except for the fact that it is so.
Speaking of which, this weekend is mildly hell-ish, but at the very least the ``hell week'' of this portion of the semester is almost done. Another couple of exams (including today) and I will be ready to enjoy spring break a little.
It is starting to get stranger and stranger, as the weather continues to oscillate between the extreme cold and the warm spring-like conditions that we all want but hate because of the showers. But who really cares? Things are moving along, and soon I will be back home, doing real work (and getting paid to do so!) and then hopefully off to grad school I go.
And of course I will miss my love in the intervening time.
But these things are mere trifles that can be resolved with the right attitude, I think. If things were meant to be, something will always work out. If it was never meant to be, then no matter how we force it, nothing good will come out of it, whatever it may be.
Speaking of which, this weekend is mildly hell-ish, but at the very least the ``hell week'' of this portion of the semester is almost done. Another couple of exams (including today) and I will be ready to enjoy spring break a little.
It is starting to get stranger and stranger, as the weather continues to oscillate between the extreme cold and the warm spring-like conditions that we all want but hate because of the showers. But who really cares? Things are moving along, and soon I will be back home, doing real work (and getting paid to do so!) and then hopefully off to grad school I go.
And of course I will miss my love in the intervening time.
But these things are mere trifles that can be resolved with the right attitude, I think. If things were meant to be, something will always work out. If it was never meant to be, then no matter how we force it, nothing good will come out of it, whatever it may be.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Till There Was You
Mmm...A little different from what I was expecting, but pretty still. If only the classical soprano voice were replaced with the sweeter version of a younger ``cleaner'' soprano like Emmy Rossum of The Phantom of the Opera fame (Christine Daaé).
Monday, February 16, 2009
Quicksand
This week is a mad bum-rush to get things done. There's just so much that is due this week; but the good news is after this week, things will be a little more comfortable once more.
It's one of those weird weeks in the semester where everything just clamps down on you. There is little that you can do, even though there is a lot that you know you ought to do. And then while all these are raging, you just bite the bullet and dive in head-first and tread water, hoping that you will be able to find how to best deal with the situation.
Slowly as you starting losing sight of what your goal is, you start to sink ever so quickly through the quagmire. And sometimes, if you are lucky, a friendly hand will suddenly appear and grab you by your wrist and literally drag you out of the quicksand. Then you are kept afloat for a while, before you sink again due to the effects of gravity.
An idea then comes to mind. Why bother standing in quicksand in the first place?
It's one of those weird weeks in the semester where everything just clamps down on you. There is little that you can do, even though there is a lot that you know you ought to do. And then while all these are raging, you just bite the bullet and dive in head-first and tread water, hoping that you will be able to find how to best deal with the situation.
Slowly as you starting losing sight of what your goal is, you start to sink ever so quickly through the quagmire. And sometimes, if you are lucky, a friendly hand will suddenly appear and grab you by your wrist and literally drag you out of the quicksand. Then you are kept afloat for a while, before you sink again due to the effects of gravity.
An idea then comes to mind. Why bother standing in quicksand in the first place?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Cycle of Life
I think that this is a very apt picture:
And yes, I've modified it a little to fix the aspect ratio for my monitor(s), and made it into my current wallpaper.
[Ed: The picture featured here is not the one that I modified, but the raw dump that I received.]
And yes, I've modified it a little to fix the aspect ratio for my monitor(s), and made it into my current wallpaper.
[Ed: The picture featured here is not the one that I modified, but the raw dump that I received.]
Monday, February 09, 2009
DRM Server Shuts Down... Now What?
Read this. Should that be compelling enough of a reason to lobby for not sticking DRM into everything?
Think about it this way. Forty years ago, if you bought something with cold hard cash, it is yours, for eternity. Heck, that was always the case for a very long time. Then the digital revolution came in and made the price of duplicating an item negligible (compare copying a file to replicating a vinyl record---you see what I mean here?). And then the companies shit themselves and want a piece of the market (Market? What market?) and start slapping on DRM onto everything because they think that this will give them the most profits.
Well, who suffers? The consumer. I love cryptography, I think it is fun and nifty and really awesome-cool that a bunch of simple steps can make something hard for prying eyes to read. But now, I am not specialising in a field that I love---because I do not believe in DRM. DRM is ``digital rights management'', an euphemism for ``you pay us so that we may allow you to use the product that you purchased... for the short while that we think you ought to''. That is essentially how it is now. Forget about all the copyright legal mumbo-jumbo for now; there is something fundamentally flawed with DRM---it takes away the consumer's rights and gives them to the manufacturer, who has no incentive whatsoever to ensure that the consumer's rights are not violated: ``as long as I get the money, all is well''.
Think of it this way: if you were a consumer in the 1970s, you could buy that vinyl record and listen to it for as much as you like, changing between players (when your usual one breaks down), make a copy of it to tape (because you did not want to lug your vinyl player around), resell it if you are hard of cash and have a willing buyer. But with DRM, here is what happens: if you have a sound file with DRM, you can only play it on that one machine that you bought the file from. What if the machine broke, you ask. Well, you buy another one for the new machine that you are running on. Does that sound logical to you? Suppose now you wanted to sell the sound file to another person: well you cannot do it, because the DRM ties it down to your machine. Also, it is a sound file; why do you want to sell it to someone?
Of course the scenario presented here is incomplete---in reality there is ``reasonable'' DRM and ``unreasonable'' DRM. ``Reasonable'' DRM is unobtrusive by not tying the product down to a single machine (many people own > 1 device that can read/use the file) but to a single person, capitalising on social shame as a penalty to ensure that people do not distribute stuff wantonly---if something has your name, identification number, telephone number, sexual preferences etc written on it, you probably do not want to distribute this to the rest of the world. This of course brings up a whole can of issues on privacy and all, but I will let that slide for the moment. ``Unreasonable'' DRM is obtrusive in almost every way---it ties you down to a single machine, to a single computer program distributed by a single manufacturer, and it forces you to trust that the company who sold you that product will not go under (because if it did, you can never use the file again).
But even ``reasonable'' DRM is not the holy grail of the distribution model; a new business model must be drawn up to deal with what are intrinsic properties of the media. In a domain that is both highly technical and of great reach to the general populace, there is a lot of FUD spread largely by the corporations in order to convince the layperson that DRM is great, file-sharing is wrong, and all their lives should be dictated by the corporations who supply them with ``stuff''. The truth is more gray---many DRM systems promulgated by the corporations now are intrusive and ``unreasonable''; sharing of products whose copyright you do not own is wrong, but sharing files/products that explicitly allow themselves to be shared in their licensing agreement (another can of worms!) is not wrong; and no one should really have their lives dictated by an entity whose main purpose is to extract maximal profits, and not for social betterment.
In short, I think that many people who are making the pivotal decisions that will change the landscape forever are either clueless about the effects and reach of technology and thus wanting to ``force'' the issue into something they know, or scheming enough to capitalise on the uncertain times for a mad power grab to secure their position for the next twenty years.
Think about it this way. Forty years ago, if you bought something with cold hard cash, it is yours, for eternity. Heck, that was always the case for a very long time. Then the digital revolution came in and made the price of duplicating an item negligible (compare copying a file to replicating a vinyl record---you see what I mean here?). And then the companies shit themselves and want a piece of the market (Market? What market?) and start slapping on DRM onto everything because they think that this will give them the most profits.
Well, who suffers? The consumer. I love cryptography, I think it is fun and nifty and really awesome-cool that a bunch of simple steps can make something hard for prying eyes to read. But now, I am not specialising in a field that I love---because I do not believe in DRM. DRM is ``digital rights management'', an euphemism for ``you pay us so that we may allow you to use the product that you purchased... for the short while that we think you ought to''. That is essentially how it is now. Forget about all the copyright legal mumbo-jumbo for now; there is something fundamentally flawed with DRM---it takes away the consumer's rights and gives them to the manufacturer, who has no incentive whatsoever to ensure that the consumer's rights are not violated: ``as long as I get the money, all is well''.
Think of it this way: if you were a consumer in the 1970s, you could buy that vinyl record and listen to it for as much as you like, changing between players (when your usual one breaks down), make a copy of it to tape (because you did not want to lug your vinyl player around), resell it if you are hard of cash and have a willing buyer. But with DRM, here is what happens: if you have a sound file with DRM, you can only play it on that one machine that you bought the file from. What if the machine broke, you ask. Well, you buy another one for the new machine that you are running on. Does that sound logical to you? Suppose now you wanted to sell the sound file to another person: well you cannot do it, because the DRM ties it down to your machine. Also, it is a sound file; why do you want to sell it to someone?
Of course the scenario presented here is incomplete---in reality there is ``reasonable'' DRM and ``unreasonable'' DRM. ``Reasonable'' DRM is unobtrusive by not tying the product down to a single machine (many people own > 1 device that can read/use the file) but to a single person, capitalising on social shame as a penalty to ensure that people do not distribute stuff wantonly---if something has your name, identification number, telephone number, sexual preferences etc written on it, you probably do not want to distribute this to the rest of the world. This of course brings up a whole can of issues on privacy and all, but I will let that slide for the moment. ``Unreasonable'' DRM is obtrusive in almost every way---it ties you down to a single machine, to a single computer program distributed by a single manufacturer, and it forces you to trust that the company who sold you that product will not go under (because if it did, you can never use the file again).
But even ``reasonable'' DRM is not the holy grail of the distribution model; a new business model must be drawn up to deal with what are intrinsic properties of the media. In a domain that is both highly technical and of great reach to the general populace, there is a lot of FUD spread largely by the corporations in order to convince the layperson that DRM is great, file-sharing is wrong, and all their lives should be dictated by the corporations who supply them with ``stuff''. The truth is more gray---many DRM systems promulgated by the corporations now are intrusive and ``unreasonable''; sharing of products whose copyright you do not own is wrong, but sharing files/products that explicitly allow themselves to be shared in their licensing agreement (another can of worms!) is not wrong; and no one should really have their lives dictated by an entity whose main purpose is to extract maximal profits, and not for social betterment.
In short, I think that many people who are making the pivotal decisions that will change the landscape forever are either clueless about the effects and reach of technology and thus wanting to ``force'' the issue into something they know, or scheming enough to capitalise on the uncertain times for a mad power grab to secure their position for the next twenty years.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Auto-Tune and Pop Music, also Cher
First listen to this. Now read this article.
For reference, the lyrics are here:
For reference, the lyrics are here:
(fade in..then out...singing:) After love (repeat 12 times)
No matter how hard I try
You keep pushing me aside
And I can't break through
There's no talking to you
It's so sad that you're leaving
It takes time to believe it
But after all is said and done
You're gonna be the lonely one, oh
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough now,
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough now
What am I supposed to do
Sit around and wait for you
Well I can't do that
And there's no turning back
I need time to move on
I need love to feel strong
'Cause I've had time to think it through
And maybe I'm too good for you, oh
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough, no
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough, no
Well I know that I'll get through this
'Cause I know that I am strong
And I don't need you anymore
No, I don't need you anymore
Oh, I don't need you anymore
No, I don't need you anymore
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough, no
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough, no
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough, no
Do you believe in life after love
I can feel something inside me say
I really don't think you're strong enough, no (fade)
Firmware Upgrade + News Anchors Gone Wild
In other news, Eirian just had a firmware upgrade. The interface is improved, the battery management modules are in place, and there's a whole bunch of useful shortcuts available to work with to avoid having to select things too many times.
And now for something different:
And now for something different:
Life and Fairness
It has been a long while since I last wrote here. Life has been treating me somewhat fairly (a rarity!) and so there's little to complain/think about. It is rather paradoxical, I think, that I only have the inspiration to write anything when I am upset at something, and not because I'm just happy at something. Perhaps it is just the way I have been wired up---I don't like harping on my successes but I keep revisiting my failures time and again to wonder why those were failures, and play the ``what-if'' game on them.
Life has been treating me fairly. Ida and I are still together, going strong, supporting each other despite our crazy school schedules. I'm not struggling with homework too much, being able to understand a little more of what I'm doing each day. The near-constant hanging out on #cslounge and with the people in real life puts me in good company of those who are fairly like-minded. Aikido practice, while mildly gruelling due to my rather unfit state, has been fun and fruitful; I think I'm starting to get the hang of how to move my body in a rather fluid way. Flute choir has interesting music to play, as does Kiltie Band---while I don't really identify that strongly with the music nor the people in these music groups, I respect their abilities and I respect the music, and try my best to do justice to the pieces that we play.
Soon I will graduate. Wow. That's rather sudden I think, considering that it felt not too long ago when I was agonising whether I could get into College/University or not. Well, that cycle is probably going to repeat itself again, when I start applying for graduate schools. Graduation puts me in a funny mood, on the one hand I'm glad that I'm more or less done with the busy-bee work and can finally do things that ``count'', on the other hand I miss the slightly less loaded relationships that I have with people over here. If these two get reconciled somehow, it would be awesome.
I am like a nomad. The only two groups of people that I identify with consistently are the Singaporeans, and the geeks. But that aside, I don't really identify that strongly with any distinct groups of people, at least from now. Perhaps all these travels to a faraway land have changed my perception on identity---the ultimate identity is one that doesn't exist, and that all other identities are likely to just be an excuse to exclude people. But isn't that the very reason why we have many of society's problems, that one group of people choose to not acknowledge the existence of another?
I am an activist. But I don't believe in civil disobedience and anything that gets you afoul of the law. I am a mathematical activist, always wanting to have change backed by solid proof within the axioms (law) of the system. I think that such activism is more productive than the blatant abuse of the law---the latter gets one into jail and makes one look like an idiot, no matter how good the platform may be. I am no Legalist---the law can be (and most likely to be) wrong in several areas and thus needs to be amended. But these amendments ought to be carried out through due process, rather than through [passive-]aggressive irrational activities. I believe in the concept of the moral mandate---if you do things ``by the book'', you gain the moral mandate, and with the moral mandate, you can sway people to your cause. The moral mandate sways people not because it is the ``right thing'' to do---it sways people because the manner in which you do it shows people that your ideas were well-thought of, and that they address a real situation. Many activists fail because they do not have the moral mandate; shock-advertisements and extremist perspectives are not going to win one the support that one desperately needs for one's goals.
And now, I am hungry. Heheheh... until next time.
Life has been treating me fairly. Ida and I are still together, going strong, supporting each other despite our crazy school schedules. I'm not struggling with homework too much, being able to understand a little more of what I'm doing each day. The near-constant hanging out on #cslounge and with the people in real life puts me in good company of those who are fairly like-minded. Aikido practice, while mildly gruelling due to my rather unfit state, has been fun and fruitful; I think I'm starting to get the hang of how to move my body in a rather fluid way. Flute choir has interesting music to play, as does Kiltie Band---while I don't really identify that strongly with the music nor the people in these music groups, I respect their abilities and I respect the music, and try my best to do justice to the pieces that we play.
Soon I will graduate. Wow. That's rather sudden I think, considering that it felt not too long ago when I was agonising whether I could get into College/University or not. Well, that cycle is probably going to repeat itself again, when I start applying for graduate schools. Graduation puts me in a funny mood, on the one hand I'm glad that I'm more or less done with the busy-bee work and can finally do things that ``count'', on the other hand I miss the slightly less loaded relationships that I have with people over here. If these two get reconciled somehow, it would be awesome.
I am like a nomad. The only two groups of people that I identify with consistently are the Singaporeans, and the geeks. But that aside, I don't really identify that strongly with any distinct groups of people, at least from now. Perhaps all these travels to a faraway land have changed my perception on identity---the ultimate identity is one that doesn't exist, and that all other identities are likely to just be an excuse to exclude people. But isn't that the very reason why we have many of society's problems, that one group of people choose to not acknowledge the existence of another?
I am an activist. But I don't believe in civil disobedience and anything that gets you afoul of the law. I am a mathematical activist, always wanting to have change backed by solid proof within the axioms (law) of the system. I think that such activism is more productive than the blatant abuse of the law---the latter gets one into jail and makes one look like an idiot, no matter how good the platform may be. I am no Legalist---the law can be (and most likely to be) wrong in several areas and thus needs to be amended. But these amendments ought to be carried out through due process, rather than through [passive-]aggressive irrational activities. I believe in the concept of the moral mandate---if you do things ``by the book'', you gain the moral mandate, and with the moral mandate, you can sway people to your cause. The moral mandate sways people not because it is the ``right thing'' to do---it sways people because the manner in which you do it shows people that your ideas were well-thought of, and that they address a real situation. Many activists fail because they do not have the moral mandate; shock-advertisements and extremist perspectives are not going to win one the support that one desperately needs for one's goals.
And now, I am hungry. Heheheh... until next time.
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