``One of the greatest things that a Christian can do in his/her life is to serve.''
That's the vibe of the message that I have been getting through the aether; okay not the aether but from the different siblings in Christ that I have met.
The funny thing is that, this isn't really new to me. It is more of a reminder of a me that had been erased out of existence due to the sour taste of being taken for a sucker.
I used to be one of those helper-type people---always happy to help about in any way that I can. It was not because that I was expecting some kind of great cosmic pay-off---it was just a way of passing the time [in some sense] after having completed the responsibilities that I had. There was a certain sense of satisfaction when I just got things done, whether it was for my own things, or for others.
But over time, the sense that I was getting exploited grew. I wasn't expecting remuneration for the things I did (that was strictly for things relating to work only), but a certain sense of appreciation of my often voluntary help, instead of just a general level of indifference, or worse, like demanding that do/redo according to what the person is saying, regardless of the correctness/relevance of what that person is saying.
As they say in the army, what starts off as a favour eventually will become a responsibility.
Perhaps there will be a day where I am more free with whom I help. But today is not this day.
------
I spend an enjoyable day helping my other sister unpack her furniture for her new place with her husband. I brought my ``brick'' (the Swiss Champ XLT), ratcheting driver set (including small allen wrench heads), and my rubber mallet down. All the tools were used in one way or another, and the task that she had thought would take days was completed within the day itself, with her father, her husband, and another friend assisting on different aspects.
It was the kind of task that I had missed doing. I was just glad that I could help. It also made me think about the earlier chunk about service in general, which was an associated thought from some words that the pastor had said to me after Saturday's service.
Everything will work out in its time.
And with that, I will stop here. It is a short update for sure, so till the next time.
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Saturday, January 30, 2021
A New Theme
One more thing to note before I am actually done with today's writing: after an unknown number of years, I have decided to change the theme of my blogs again. I think that I am starting to dislike the skinniness that is the Candara font. Combine that with what is essentially a long roll of white for the main text, it was hard to separate out one entry from another. Additionally, the profile picture ``box'' was looking dated with the circular redo of my personal icon; these two combined meant that it was definitely a time to re-look into this.
With that, I looked for a [default] theme that kept much of the simplicity that I was looking for (no crazy background image that can get screwed up with a screen width that is ``too wide'') that would address the issues that I was facing. I could, in theory, create my own custom theme, but the purpose of using Blogger as the platform is so that I do not have to do things like that---the default themes with minor adjustments ought to be good enough.
With that we have this theme now. Here is a side-by-side comparison between the new theme and the old one:
That's really all I have for today. Till the next update.
With that, I looked for a [default] theme that kept much of the simplicity that I was looking for (no crazy background image that can get screwed up with a screen width that is ``too wide'') that would address the issues that I was facing. I could, in theory, create my own custom theme, but the purpose of using Blogger as the platform is so that I do not have to do things like that---the default themes with minor adjustments ought to be good enough.
With that we have this theme now. Here is a side-by-side comparison between the new theme and the old one:
R&R Week
The week that just passed is a strong R&R-type of week.
I finally completed Fez, and Cat Quest II, two games that had been on my Steam library that were half-completed for quite a while. One's a puzzle game that I had mistakenly tried playing like a Metroidvania, while the other is a straightforward action-RPG with cute characters, a simplistic storyline, but amazingly pun-y writing. A sense of achievement, for sure. The key thing about these two games was the almost exclusive use of the gamepad, of which the one I have is the F310 Gamepad from Logitech. I usually play games on the PC with mouse and keyboard, but for some of these types of games where they were originally designed for controller, I am finding it easier to use the controller for them. Except maybe for Megaman-type games---I started on them via the keyboard, and will need quite a bit of getting used to on the controller, especially when I am trying to keep a charge while jumping (requires some interesting right thumb gymnastics). Overall, I like this controller over the one Playstation-esque one (VX2PS3-11) that I got from Gioteck. The Xbox controller feels more comfortable than the PS one, and more importantly, does not have any of the rubberised plastic that literally dies in the hot and humid weather conditions that are present here in Singapore. I had to scrape off all the weird plastic, and have not used the controller yet.
To be fair, that other controller is also much older than this one, and so there will be some major differences. I will probably find the PS controller more useful for games that were ported from the PS to the PC, assuming that the equivalent button commands for the Xbox controller were not a part of the port.
Next game that I would want to reach a clear of any sort is Feudal Alloy. It has been sitting in my library half-started for a while, and seems interesting enough that I should reach some level of completion on it.
------
I have also read [translated to English version of] All You Need is Kill, the novel that was the [very vague] inspiration for Edge of Tomorrow. Like always, the book is literally better than the film due to the more realistic premise of the time loop being a step towards an eventual ``final'' confrontation to get the Mimics off planet earth. I have always found ``happy endings'' in dystopian/apocalyptic/end-of-the-world type stories to be incongruent with their subject matter. The author literally (ha-ha) builds a gloomy and doomy world throughout most of the novel/film, and having the last section/act subvert all that gloom and doom is just... wrong.
I know that there is a need for some kind of happy closure for most people, but certain twists are just too awkward to pull off. I get that people want to be entertained, and they are allowed their opinion and thus it is okay for the writers to pander a little with some kind of happy ending, but there are different types of happy endings. I am alright with minor (i.e. not world-level change) happy endings, like how a single character finds his/her happiness at the end, but those that involve a massive change in the way the built-up world changes is usually quite unjustifiable, particularly when the protagonist is portrayed as an everyday-person instead of The Big Damn Hero.
And even then, one single Big Damn Hero usually isn't enough to turn the tide of a large-scale gloom and doom---it requires some level of coordination/social acceptance for things to move that way, which often times books/films do not set it up correctly as something that can be done. This often makes the final twist all the weirder, and can be really off-putting.
Anyway, I think I will strive to at least complete [the translated version of] Adi Parva of the The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, the first of 18 books of the famous Sanskrit epic. I ``only'' have 500+ pages left of 768, and it should take roughly a week of relaxed reading to complete it, if not for the many side tracks that I have been doing.
Till the next update then.
I finally completed Fez, and Cat Quest II, two games that had been on my Steam library that were half-completed for quite a while. One's a puzzle game that I had mistakenly tried playing like a Metroidvania, while the other is a straightforward action-RPG with cute characters, a simplistic storyline, but amazingly pun-y writing. A sense of achievement, for sure. The key thing about these two games was the almost exclusive use of the gamepad, of which the one I have is the F310 Gamepad from Logitech. I usually play games on the PC with mouse and keyboard, but for some of these types of games where they were originally designed for controller, I am finding it easier to use the controller for them. Except maybe for Megaman-type games---I started on them via the keyboard, and will need quite a bit of getting used to on the controller, especially when I am trying to keep a charge while jumping (requires some interesting right thumb gymnastics). Overall, I like this controller over the one Playstation-esque one (VX2PS3-11) that I got from Gioteck. The Xbox controller feels more comfortable than the PS one, and more importantly, does not have any of the rubberised plastic that literally dies in the hot and humid weather conditions that are present here in Singapore. I had to scrape off all the weird plastic, and have not used the controller yet.
To be fair, that other controller is also much older than this one, and so there will be some major differences. I will probably find the PS controller more useful for games that were ported from the PS to the PC, assuming that the equivalent button commands for the Xbox controller were not a part of the port.
Next game that I would want to reach a clear of any sort is Feudal Alloy. It has been sitting in my library half-started for a while, and seems interesting enough that I should reach some level of completion on it.
------
I have also read [translated to English version of] All You Need is Kill, the novel that was the [very vague] inspiration for Edge of Tomorrow. Like always, the book is literally better than the film due to the more realistic premise of the time loop being a step towards an eventual ``final'' confrontation to get the Mimics off planet earth. I have always found ``happy endings'' in dystopian/apocalyptic/end-of-the-world type stories to be incongruent with their subject matter. The author literally (ha-ha) builds a gloomy and doomy world throughout most of the novel/film, and having the last section/act subvert all that gloom and doom is just... wrong.
I know that there is a need for some kind of happy closure for most people, but certain twists are just too awkward to pull off. I get that people want to be entertained, and they are allowed their opinion and thus it is okay for the writers to pander a little with some kind of happy ending, but there are different types of happy endings. I am alright with minor (i.e. not world-level change) happy endings, like how a single character finds his/her happiness at the end, but those that involve a massive change in the way the built-up world changes is usually quite unjustifiable, particularly when the protagonist is portrayed as an everyday-person instead of The Big Damn Hero.
And even then, one single Big Damn Hero usually isn't enough to turn the tide of a large-scale gloom and doom---it requires some level of coordination/social acceptance for things to move that way, which often times books/films do not set it up correctly as something that can be done. This often makes the final twist all the weirder, and can be really off-putting.
Anyway, I think I will strive to at least complete [the translated version of] Adi Parva of the The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, the first of 18 books of the famous Sanskrit epic. I ``only'' have 500+ pages left of 768, and it should take roughly a week of relaxed reading to complete it, if not for the many side tracks that I have been doing.
Till the next update then.
Thursday, January 28, 2021
All About the Navigation
The silence was only because I was working on some tweaks on my personal domain.
I have been maintaining my 笛子 Materials set of articles for a long time. I was not happy with the type of navigation that was available---the old navigation mechanism was just a dynamically added ↑ that led from each article page back to the articles content page as linked above.
This meant that if one wanted to read through all the articles, one would have to keep heading back to the articles content page. Talk about super annoyance.
My entire personal domain is run off static pages, and so for a long time I had no good solution to this. That is, until I remembered the XMLHttpRequest object (XHR), and the ability to use DOM traversal on a document-type response object from XHR.
What the combination of techniques here meant was that I could literally make use of XHR to pull the articles content page, parse the links from the navigation tree, and then do whatever I wanted with it, which in this case was to dynamically create a simple in-order traversal navigation block (with a shortcut to the articles content page) to replace the traditional navigation block.
This was significant because I did not have to manually update each article page to set up the navigation blocks by hand. Articles were not written sequentially, and their names are randomly generated, which made manual setting up and updating of the ``previous article'' and ``next article'' links a pain.
The downside is that non-JavaScript enabled browsers do not have that luxury. But it's still alright since the fallback still provides a long-winded but workable manner of navigation.
That was a fun bit of exercise and functionality to add to my personal domain.
One other thing that I did was to redo how I was generating Sitemaps. Specifically, I implemented a new tool that would generate the associated sitemap.xml file complete with last modified date/time to be uploaded into the host. Previously, I was just doing some lousy shell script that listed all files that were hosted, but it was not the right thing to do for the purpose of a Sitemap. In addition, the old Sitemap that I made was only for Google, but this Sitemap that I now generate applies to all who conform to the protocol too. This may mean that my personal domain may get better indexing from the other search providers.
It is definitely a minor thing, but is one of those hidden quality of life things that should prove to be useful in the long run.
I think that's about all the update I would like to put up today. Till the next time.
I have been maintaining my 笛子 Materials set of articles for a long time. I was not happy with the type of navigation that was available---the old navigation mechanism was just a dynamically added ↑ that led from each article page back to the articles content page as linked above.
This meant that if one wanted to read through all the articles, one would have to keep heading back to the articles content page. Talk about super annoyance.
My entire personal domain is run off static pages, and so for a long time I had no good solution to this. That is, until I remembered the XMLHttpRequest object (XHR), and the ability to use DOM traversal on a document-type response object from XHR.
What the combination of techniques here meant was that I could literally make use of XHR to pull the articles content page, parse the links from the navigation tree, and then do whatever I wanted with it, which in this case was to dynamically create a simple in-order traversal navigation block (with a shortcut to the articles content page) to replace the traditional navigation block.
This was significant because I did not have to manually update each article page to set up the navigation blocks by hand. Articles were not written sequentially, and their names are randomly generated, which made manual setting up and updating of the ``previous article'' and ``next article'' links a pain.
The downside is that non-JavaScript enabled browsers do not have that luxury. But it's still alright since the fallback still provides a long-winded but workable manner of navigation.
That was a fun bit of exercise and functionality to add to my personal domain.
One other thing that I did was to redo how I was generating Sitemaps. Specifically, I implemented a new tool that would generate the associated sitemap.xml file complete with last modified date/time to be uploaded into the host. Previously, I was just doing some lousy shell script that listed all files that were hosted, but it was not the right thing to do for the purpose of a Sitemap. In addition, the old Sitemap that I made was only for Google, but this Sitemap that I now generate applies to all who conform to the protocol too. This may mean that my personal domain may get better indexing from the other search providers.
It is definitely a minor thing, but is one of those hidden quality of life things that should prove to be useful in the long run.
I think that's about all the update I would like to put up today. Till the next time.
Monday, January 25, 2021
Infection Control for Instruments
A day has just passed.
Originally, I intended to go for a morning cycle. But the bad skin around my lateral ankles made it a little risky, since cycling required me to wear my Teva sports sandals (I do not own any sneakers/trainers since the end of 2011), and it had a high chance of irritating the already bad skin with abrasion.
So I stayed in and spent time reading Infection Control for Instruments. It is a simple sub-two-hundred-page summary of strategies and associated processes involved in ensuring that musical instruments, their locations, and allied personnel are not a part of the disease transmission process. It was a document that has shown great relevance recently due to the on-going pandemic. It is well thought through and researched, and provides a good framework from which more detailed infection control processes can be enacted.
For those who are too lazy to read the document, the general idea is to ensure good hand hygiene, not share stuff that has ``wet contact'', and ensure that everyone plays a role in shared places to keep it clean, with regular disinfection prescribed within the infection control document. Choices of gadgets, disinfection chemicals, and associated procedures ought to take dressing from the relevant regulatory authorities (CDC, EPA, and FDA within the USA for example), and not be based off anecdotes shared by a friend of a friend. Various management strategies with respect to music instrument handling within ensembles are also suggested---the key idea here is to not overcommit the number of players to avoid sharing of instruments.
I would say that most of the document is full of good common sense, but common sense in a period of uncertainty is definitely lacking. I have heard/seen nonsensical ``measures'' of woodwind players having to wear masks while playing---they achieve the ability to play by cutting holes in the masks so as to allow them to breathe through their [uncovered] noses, and blow through their [uncovered] mouths! The document makes it clear that all parties need to contribute to the conversation to use the best known science to guide the outcome, and not do stupid things like that, mostly based on ``friend-of-a-friend'' anecdote sharing.
------
I've taken to replaying Fez again, this time with the full intention of completing it.
I suppose that is all that I would like to write today.
Till the next update, I suppose.
Originally, I intended to go for a morning cycle. But the bad skin around my lateral ankles made it a little risky, since cycling required me to wear my Teva sports sandals (I do not own any sneakers/trainers since the end of 2011), and it had a high chance of irritating the already bad skin with abrasion.
So I stayed in and spent time reading Infection Control for Instruments. It is a simple sub-two-hundred-page summary of strategies and associated processes involved in ensuring that musical instruments, their locations, and allied personnel are not a part of the disease transmission process. It was a document that has shown great relevance recently due to the on-going pandemic. It is well thought through and researched, and provides a good framework from which more detailed infection control processes can be enacted.
For those who are too lazy to read the document, the general idea is to ensure good hand hygiene, not share stuff that has ``wet contact'', and ensure that everyone plays a role in shared places to keep it clean, with regular disinfection prescribed within the infection control document. Choices of gadgets, disinfection chemicals, and associated procedures ought to take dressing from the relevant regulatory authorities (CDC, EPA, and FDA within the USA for example), and not be based off anecdotes shared by a friend of a friend. Various management strategies with respect to music instrument handling within ensembles are also suggested---the key idea here is to not overcommit the number of players to avoid sharing of instruments.
I would say that most of the document is full of good common sense, but common sense in a period of uncertainty is definitely lacking. I have heard/seen nonsensical ``measures'' of woodwind players having to wear masks while playing---they achieve the ability to play by cutting holes in the masks so as to allow them to breathe through their [uncovered] noses, and blow through their [uncovered] mouths! The document makes it clear that all parties need to contribute to the conversation to use the best known science to guide the outcome, and not do stupid things like that, mostly based on ``friend-of-a-friend'' anecdote sharing.
------
I've taken to replaying Fez again, this time with the full intention of completing it.
I suppose that is all that I would like to write today.
Till the next update, I suppose.
Sunday, January 24, 2021
Blogging On
Blogging seems to be an almost forgotten expression form in the age of the social media. Most people seem to be content with either dumping their thoughts in some semi-cryptic Facebook status message (I am also guilty of this), or do up some captioned-in-pictures storybook in Instagram, or do some ``micro'' video in the form of TikTok/douyin, or generate a ``tweet storm'' with Twitter.
I no longer know of people who would use a blog for these things any more.
Has blogging gone out of style? In many ways, it is an unqualified yes. The idea of a blog is an old one, coming from the days when technically inclined people who could afford to find hosting and buy a domain name would set up their own personal website and update it semi-frequently with their own web pages of blog-esque content, i.e. in the form of ``news updates''. There was no such thing as a ``social media platform'' in the early days---people are usually anonymous/pseduonymous, and if there was a need to find someone to read his/her views, it would be either through finding their personal web sites, or through interactions on various bulletin boards/fora. This was part of the reason why web directories (the earliest incarnation of web-search in a static form) existed. Connectivity was weak---that screen name on one forum may be the same as the one used in a blog, but there is no indication that they are really the same person/entity.
The natural evolution of that was to create a blogging platform that streamlined the technical process, allowing people to focus more on the content creation. As part of the streamlining process, this meant that people would be creating their own accounts within the platform itself, which meant that they would start to unwittingly form the start of a social network, except that it was not a term that was in wide use until the arrival of Facebook. Suddenly that screen name that was seen in the comments of one forum represent the same person who was updating his/her blog at a certain domain/location that was a sub-domain of the blog platform. The threads of information that were out there were tangling even as time mercilessly marched on.
The single-platform social network has finally arrived.
But as time on, blogging started to phase out in style. This is not necessarily due to the consolidation of the platforms and the migration of users to the newest and hottest. Instead, it is a sign of the general trend of ever-decreasing attention spans, where it is no longer the case that people would have the endurance to read a multi-hundred-word blog entry as opposed to some 140-character abomination filled with strange emojis and funny pictures. Media consumption had decided to prioritise quantity over quality, and many have followed the trend in one way or another.
Me? I'm an antiquated dinosaur, an exotic end-of-the-line evolution path for a technologist. I like writing out multi-hundred-word long blog entries to capture what I am thinking. Occasionally I write shorter stuff in Facebook, but I think I am at the stage where something more substantial than that is required.
And so, I am still writing here, some fifteen years on.
Till the next update I suppose.
I no longer know of people who would use a blog for these things any more.
Has blogging gone out of style? In many ways, it is an unqualified yes. The idea of a blog is an old one, coming from the days when technically inclined people who could afford to find hosting and buy a domain name would set up their own personal website and update it semi-frequently with their own web pages of blog-esque content, i.e. in the form of ``news updates''. There was no such thing as a ``social media platform'' in the early days---people are usually anonymous/pseduonymous, and if there was a need to find someone to read his/her views, it would be either through finding their personal web sites, or through interactions on various bulletin boards/fora. This was part of the reason why web directories (the earliest incarnation of web-search in a static form) existed. Connectivity was weak---that screen name on one forum may be the same as the one used in a blog, but there is no indication that they are really the same person/entity.
The natural evolution of that was to create a blogging platform that streamlined the technical process, allowing people to focus more on the content creation. As part of the streamlining process, this meant that people would be creating their own accounts within the platform itself, which meant that they would start to unwittingly form the start of a social network, except that it was not a term that was in wide use until the arrival of Facebook. Suddenly that screen name that was seen in the comments of one forum represent the same person who was updating his/her blog at a certain domain/location that was a sub-domain of the blog platform. The threads of information that were out there were tangling even as time mercilessly marched on.
The single-platform social network has finally arrived.
But as time on, blogging started to phase out in style. This is not necessarily due to the consolidation of the platforms and the migration of users to the newest and hottest. Instead, it is a sign of the general trend of ever-decreasing attention spans, where it is no longer the case that people would have the endurance to read a multi-hundred-word blog entry as opposed to some 140-character abomination filled with strange emojis and funny pictures. Media consumption had decided to prioritise quantity over quality, and many have followed the trend in one way or another.
Me? I'm an antiquated dinosaur, an exotic end-of-the-line evolution path for a technologist. I like writing out multi-hundred-word long blog entries to capture what I am thinking. Occasionally I write shorter stuff in Facebook, but I think I am at the stage where something more substantial than that is required.
And so, I am still writing here, some fifteen years on.
Till the next update I suppose.
Saturday, January 23, 2021
Gifts to Myself
It's just past my birthday for this year. So, it is time for yet another retrospective.
I bought myself a gift for this year---a silver-plated cupronickel alto flute with straight and curved head joints made by 龙口金鸣乐器有限公司. It's the ``last'' representative that would round up the core instruments of the flute family. The original intention was not really to purchase my own alto flute---it was to have a shared high quality alto flute with my then wife-candidate. Well, she is no longer my wife-candidate, and thus that plan is garbage.
I already own a B-foot version of a vertical bass flute made by them, and I love the resonant nature of the sounds, as well as the quick reaction of it. Getting an alto flute from them seems like a no-brainer as well, despite their obvious ``no-name'' nature. My then wife-candidate owns an alto flute from them as well, and it definitely sounds good enough.
And so, I am now an owner of an alto flute, whom I named Eliana because it is a cool name, and it commemorates a new friend I made while spending some evenings at the nearby bar drinking and reading after work, before I had quit from my last job.
For these two low harmony flutes that I have, I can attest to the soundness of the mechanism, the goodness of their reaction, and general accuracy of intonation. I have not tried their other instruments to make any other pronouncements. But what I usually say still holds---the strength of a brand name only suggests that there is a certain low variance in the quality, it is still important for one to physically try out any musical instruments that one might purchase to see if one likes the experience of making music out of it. A ``no name'' brand can still have pearls among them all, but their usual high variance would mean that one may need to try many more instruments before finding that one pearl.
I think that this alto flute is likely to be the last purchase of a musical instrument for myself for quite a while. As seen in the instrument family representation section, I have very good coverage of the different ranges/timbres of instruments within the three instrument families that I care the most about (dizi, flute, recorder, and saxophone). Most of my planned and actual purchases over the years were done according to this principle. The only instruments that I may want to look into the future are a baritone saxophone, a contrabass flute, and maybe a sopranino saxophone.
I may want to get a special piccolo at some point, something that goes down to a low C, or even low B. But that is really not of the highest priority, as are the rest of the instruments that I might want to get to round up the representation. As is, I think my sound palette is good enough, and as many people have pointed out exasperatedly, I only have that one mouth to play these instruments.
------
The anniversary of my birth came and went mostly uneventfully. Folks who cared enough to remember did come out of the woodwork to wish me a birthday greeting (shoutouts to CH, RX, YT, Winnie, XL, my other sister, and folks from the care group), and everyone else who didn't have Facebook to remind them did not say anything.
It's okay. It is the consequence of a deliberate choice that I made a few years ago to keep that specific date from being blasted all over the Facebook. On that social networking website, I am largely invisible, as it should be. I can be contacted as needed, but there is usually no need to contact me there.
It is the same strategy that I use for LinkedIn as well.
I did end up having dinner with my other sister and her hubby in the evening though, having north-east Chinese cuisine out next to Lor 27 Geylang. We did a la carte instead of the BBQ/hotpot, because we were just lazy to do our own cooking. Food was great, company was, as always, amazing. The power did trip at some point, but it was quickly rectified; it is still a mystery to me why the power could have tripped then.
Just a point of note though, ``my other sister'' isn't some half-sibling from nowhere---she's my unofficially adopted sister because she and I share the same surname. Our surname is sufficiently rare in Singapore that it is just funnier and easier to think of each other as siblings. Same reason why when I see anyone else with the same surname, I just call them my cousins when I am talking with other people---makes a good conversational piece that makes it more memorable.
------
I met up with Harish to go on what can count as a hike in Singapore, along the southern ridges of Singapore. This is a route that I love walking, and had done so on several occasions with folks like Wangki, Roticv, and even XL with her hubby. Of all the times I had taken this route (traditionally beginning with the really stupid stairs of Marang Trail off Marang Road), I had only ended up in Kent Ridge Park maybe twice, including this one with Harish. But this time, the weather held up fine, and the company was right, and we managed to extend the route from Kent Ridge Park to go through NUS, before heading through to the west most end of West Coast Park, a park that I had hitherto not known of its existence before, despite having spent four years studying in that region, and about six months doing internships nearby.
It was a good hike.
------
And that's about all I care to write at this point. Till the next update, I suppose.
I bought myself a gift for this year---a silver-plated cupronickel alto flute with straight and curved head joints made by 龙口金鸣乐器有限公司. It's the ``last'' representative that would round up the core instruments of the flute family. The original intention was not really to purchase my own alto flute---it was to have a shared high quality alto flute with my then wife-candidate. Well, she is no longer my wife-candidate, and thus that plan is garbage.
I already own a B-foot version of a vertical bass flute made by them, and I love the resonant nature of the sounds, as well as the quick reaction of it. Getting an alto flute from them seems like a no-brainer as well, despite their obvious ``no-name'' nature. My then wife-candidate owns an alto flute from them as well, and it definitely sounds good enough.
And so, I am now an owner of an alto flute, whom I named Eliana because it is a cool name, and it commemorates a new friend I made while spending some evenings at the nearby bar drinking and reading after work, before I had quit from my last job.
For these two low harmony flutes that I have, I can attest to the soundness of the mechanism, the goodness of their reaction, and general accuracy of intonation. I have not tried their other instruments to make any other pronouncements. But what I usually say still holds---the strength of a brand name only suggests that there is a certain low variance in the quality, it is still important for one to physically try out any musical instruments that one might purchase to see if one likes the experience of making music out of it. A ``no name'' brand can still have pearls among them all, but their usual high variance would mean that one may need to try many more instruments before finding that one pearl.
I think that this alto flute is likely to be the last purchase of a musical instrument for myself for quite a while. As seen in the instrument family representation section, I have very good coverage of the different ranges/timbres of instruments within the three instrument families that I care the most about (dizi, flute, recorder, and saxophone). Most of my planned and actual purchases over the years were done according to this principle. The only instruments that I may want to look into the future are a baritone saxophone, a contrabass flute, and maybe a sopranino saxophone.
I may want to get a special piccolo at some point, something that goes down to a low C, or even low B. But that is really not of the highest priority, as are the rest of the instruments that I might want to get to round up the representation. As is, I think my sound palette is good enough, and as many people have pointed out exasperatedly, I only have that one mouth to play these instruments.
------
The anniversary of my birth came and went mostly uneventfully. Folks who cared enough to remember did come out of the woodwork to wish me a birthday greeting (shoutouts to CH, RX, YT, Winnie, XL, my other sister, and folks from the care group), and everyone else who didn't have Facebook to remind them did not say anything.
It's okay. It is the consequence of a deliberate choice that I made a few years ago to keep that specific date from being blasted all over the Facebook. On that social networking website, I am largely invisible, as it should be. I can be contacted as needed, but there is usually no need to contact me there.
It is the same strategy that I use for LinkedIn as well.
I did end up having dinner with my other sister and her hubby in the evening though, having north-east Chinese cuisine out next to Lor 27 Geylang. We did a la carte instead of the BBQ/hotpot, because we were just lazy to do our own cooking. Food was great, company was, as always, amazing. The power did trip at some point, but it was quickly rectified; it is still a mystery to me why the power could have tripped then.
Just a point of note though, ``my other sister'' isn't some half-sibling from nowhere---she's my unofficially adopted sister because she and I share the same surname. Our surname is sufficiently rare in Singapore that it is just funnier and easier to think of each other as siblings. Same reason why when I see anyone else with the same surname, I just call them my cousins when I am talking with other people---makes a good conversational piece that makes it more memorable.
------
I met up with Harish to go on what can count as a hike in Singapore, along the southern ridges of Singapore. This is a route that I love walking, and had done so on several occasions with folks like Wangki, Roticv, and even XL with her hubby. Of all the times I had taken this route (traditionally beginning with the really stupid stairs of Marang Trail off Marang Road), I had only ended up in Kent Ridge Park maybe twice, including this one with Harish. But this time, the weather held up fine, and the company was right, and we managed to extend the route from Kent Ridge Park to go through NUS, before heading through to the west most end of West Coast Park, a park that I had hitherto not known of its existence before, despite having spent four years studying in that region, and about six months doing internships nearby.
It was a good hike.
------
And that's about all I care to write at this point. Till the next update, I suppose.
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Playing the Traverso
I have been messing about with the traverso recently, playing on my Stanesby Junior replica flauto traverso tuned in A415. Part of the reason why I have been messing about with it that much is the sheer accessibility of it relative to the other instruments---I have it assembled all the time, and left on the special dizi rack that I have attached to my sturdy Hercules music stand. Since the AF-3 is made of sturdy (and thick!) plastic, it tolerates the ravages of the environment a little better than the other metal instruments that I have.
Having it easily accessible means that I can just pick it up and noodle on it for a bit before putting it back down.
The fingering patterns for the traverso are interesting to say the least. The tone hols of the traverso are much smaller than that of the dizi, which means that the effects of cross-fingering are more pronounced. That it is tuned to A415 also means that the instrument D is closer in pitch to a modern A440 C♯ and with that, means that anything that is played on the traverso has a tendency to sound that much more mellow, even without into account the overall sweetness that the instrument generally sounds.
Prior to 2018 when I got my traverso, I had tried it on a few occasions, but always found it lacking in flavour. One big part of the reason was the misalignment of the embouchure hole with the tone holes, which led to some serious sound production/intonation issues. This was solved by making use of the ``AULOS'' text on each of the parts as markings for alignment---this ensured that the small and circular embouchure hole is correctly angled off the small and circular tone holes. Another part that made me dislike the traverso then was that it seemingly could not speak as well as the other flutes. This was also a mistake on my part---the traverso was not meant to be of a ``big flute'' sound. The play style of the traverso was more akin to that of the recorder than to a modern day concert flute (or even the dizi), but my playing more than five years ago was definitely much worse than my current skills.
Once those two situations were remedied, I started to fall in love with the sweet nonsense that was the traverso.
Being tuned to A415 has another interesting side effect---the tone holes were much farther apart as compared to one that was tuned to A440 due to the natural increase in the length of the air column to support the longer wave length of the fundamental. Comparing the Stanesby Junior with the Grenser (a similar traverso-like instrument but tuned to A440 and with larger tone holes) would show that the Stanesby Junior was a good 17mm longer. 17mm does not sound like much, but when it involves finger stretching, it can mean a lot to someone who has shorter fingers.
Fortunately, I do not have that problem. My fingers aren't exactly very long for my height, but I think they are long enough to not have to feel any strain when holding the A415 traverso using the orthodox method.
I had to relearn listening to the intervals though---I find that as I was playing the different scales using what I have learnt from the fingering patterns of the dizi (modified to use the actual traverso's actual fingering pattern), I can actually hear the difference in the intervals, which makes an interesting ear training exercise.
I've not really brought myself towards playing some hardcore baroque music with the traverso just yet---still trying to develop a good feel for the cross fingering and the tone shading possibilities for now. While the traverso runs counter to what I have been looking for in my instruments (consistency in tone across registers, standard equal temperament intervals that allow shading to fit the actual temperament needed for the music function, large dynamic range), it has its own place.
In a time of the COVID-19, with rehearsals still barred for the TGCC Chinese Orchestra, music making has been relegated to a solo affair. And in this particular circumstance, an instrument with such nuances becomes a much greater friend than the loud stuff that I have.
Till the next update.
Having it easily accessible means that I can just pick it up and noodle on it for a bit before putting it back down.
The fingering patterns for the traverso are interesting to say the least. The tone hols of the traverso are much smaller than that of the dizi, which means that the effects of cross-fingering are more pronounced. That it is tuned to A415 also means that the instrument D is closer in pitch to a modern A440 C♯ and with that, means that anything that is played on the traverso has a tendency to sound that much more mellow, even without into account the overall sweetness that the instrument generally sounds.
Prior to 2018 when I got my traverso, I had tried it on a few occasions, but always found it lacking in flavour. One big part of the reason was the misalignment of the embouchure hole with the tone holes, which led to some serious sound production/intonation issues. This was solved by making use of the ``AULOS'' text on each of the parts as markings for alignment---this ensured that the small and circular embouchure hole is correctly angled off the small and circular tone holes. Another part that made me dislike the traverso then was that it seemingly could not speak as well as the other flutes. This was also a mistake on my part---the traverso was not meant to be of a ``big flute'' sound. The play style of the traverso was more akin to that of the recorder than to a modern day concert flute (or even the dizi), but my playing more than five years ago was definitely much worse than my current skills.
Once those two situations were remedied, I started to fall in love with the sweet nonsense that was the traverso.
Being tuned to A415 has another interesting side effect---the tone holes were much farther apart as compared to one that was tuned to A440 due to the natural increase in the length of the air column to support the longer wave length of the fundamental. Comparing the Stanesby Junior with the Grenser (a similar traverso-like instrument but tuned to A440 and with larger tone holes) would show that the Stanesby Junior was a good 17mm longer. 17mm does not sound like much, but when it involves finger stretching, it can mean a lot to someone who has shorter fingers.
Fortunately, I do not have that problem. My fingers aren't exactly very long for my height, but I think they are long enough to not have to feel any strain when holding the A415 traverso using the orthodox method.
I had to relearn listening to the intervals though---I find that as I was playing the different scales using what I have learnt from the fingering patterns of the dizi (modified to use the actual traverso's actual fingering pattern), I can actually hear the difference in the intervals, which makes an interesting ear training exercise.
I've not really brought myself towards playing some hardcore baroque music with the traverso just yet---still trying to develop a good feel for the cross fingering and the tone shading possibilities for now. While the traverso runs counter to what I have been looking for in my instruments (consistency in tone across registers, standard equal temperament intervals that allow shading to fit the actual temperament needed for the music function, large dynamic range), it has its own place.
In a time of the COVID-19, with rehearsals still barred for the TGCC Chinese Orchestra, music making has been relegated to a solo affair. And in this particular circumstance, an instrument with such nuances becomes a much greater friend than the loud stuff that I have.
Till the next update.
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
The Tension of Book-Knowledge and Experience-Knowledge
There always exist a tetchy tension between book-knowledge and experience-knowledge, and in many ways, this tension has gotten increasingly worse over the years.
The experience-knowledge proponents assert the claim that no book-knowledge will ever be sufficient, and that the only worthy knowledge is that of experience-knowledge. And because of that, proponents of this ideology who are also employers are more likely to want to hire people who have been in the field for years over someone who has freshly graduated from some institute of higher learning.
For those who are non-employers, it means that they cast shade on anything that they (or people that they know) personally did not experience. This is part of the reason why misinformation and disinformation are becoming endemic problems in the modern hyper-connected era---what constitutes as ``people that they know'' have been largely increased through the virtual communities, with people ascribing a closer relationship among strangers than they would normally do so in meat space only because they seem to be emotionally close over a very narrow range of domains.
I think this extreme is not right.
The other extreme is no better; academics and experts throwing shade at individual experiences, concluding that those experiences are nonsensical because they are not ``subjected to a rigorous scrutiny through well-defined methods''. That level of hubris contributes to the overall disconnect between the experts and the layperson. The implicit claim here is that the only valid/truthful knowledge is that of book-knowledge, and that experience-knowledge that is not codified into book-knowledge is not knowledge at all.
That extreme is not right either.
I like to see things from a different perspective. Experience-knowledge is the source of all types of human knowledge---it has existed before the invention of the written language and is a cornerstone of human civilisation. But experience-knowledge is not scalable, since it requires a ``direct transmission'' from one experience-knowledge holder to a neophyte. This method of transmission is thus highly limited by geographical and cultural boundaries.
Book-knowledge is the accumulation and summarisation of various types of experience-knowledge into a pithy form. It contains all that is necessary to bootstrap a neophyte into the right frame of mind that is learnt from experience-knowledge, but is not sufficient in that there are sufficient nuances that would benefit from an experience-knowledge holder. This aspect holds even for really abstract knowledge domains that deal purely with ideas, like mathematics or even philosophy---merely reading the book-knowledge is insufficient to develop a level of understanding that can be termed as intuitive, or embedded deeply enough that the reader of the book-knowledge has incorporated the book-knowledge into his/her experience-knowledge.
So I agree in part to the experience-knowledge proponents that book-knowledge is insufficient, but I disagree completely that the only worthy knowledge is that of experience-knowledge.
Another angle to look at this is to consider what type of knowledge is encoded in both book-knowledge and experience-knowledge.
Most times, for the sake of brevity, book-knowledge stores only positive examples, a technical term that simply states that ``only positive assertions are recorded''. Thus, on a book about cats (for example), we will see attributes that are present in cats recorded in this book, with the omission of attributes that are absent in cats---this is because the set of attributes that are related to that of a cat is supposedly finite compared to that of the set of attributes that are unrelated to that of a cat.
However, experience-knowledge does not have such a restriction. In many cases, I would say that experience-knowledge has the strong potential of storing more negative examples than positive ones. Continuing upon the ``book of cats'' analogy, the experience-knowledge will contain some attributes that are present in cats, but will also contain many attributes that are absent in cats.
To expand upon the employer analogy I brought up earlier, it means that, paradoxically, it is more important to determine the types of negative examples that the candidate possesses in his/her experience-knowledge instead of just the positive examples to determine his/her suitability. Of course, there is a bit more to that---it is necessary to determine the types of negative examples that the candidate's experience-knowledge contains, but it is also important to see what the candidate has learnt from that. Negative examples are useless unless one learns something of importance from it---a person who has experienced nothing but failures is as suspicious as one who has experienced nothing but successes. When one experiences all failures/successes, it is likely that he/she does not actually have a good diversification of experience-knowledge, which means that he/she is not as strong a candidate since he/she probably has little chance to learn the type of nuances that book-knowledge fail to capture. In other words, a person with experience-knowledge of either all failures or all successes is no different from one who has only book-knowledge.
So yes, while [good representation in] experience-knowledge makes one a superior specimen of a person, book-knowledge is a great way to bypass the scaling problem of learning by providing a good enough summary of good rules of thumb to bootstrap the reader. To claim that one type of knowledge is dominant over the other kind is the type of extreme rule of thumb that is nice because of the lack of a cognitive load, but is feckless.
That's all I have for today. Till the next update.
The experience-knowledge proponents assert the claim that no book-knowledge will ever be sufficient, and that the only worthy knowledge is that of experience-knowledge. And because of that, proponents of this ideology who are also employers are more likely to want to hire people who have been in the field for years over someone who has freshly graduated from some institute of higher learning.
For those who are non-employers, it means that they cast shade on anything that they (or people that they know) personally did not experience. This is part of the reason why misinformation and disinformation are becoming endemic problems in the modern hyper-connected era---what constitutes as ``people that they know'' have been largely increased through the virtual communities, with people ascribing a closer relationship among strangers than they would normally do so in meat space only because they seem to be emotionally close over a very narrow range of domains.
I think this extreme is not right.
The other extreme is no better; academics and experts throwing shade at individual experiences, concluding that those experiences are nonsensical because they are not ``subjected to a rigorous scrutiny through well-defined methods''. That level of hubris contributes to the overall disconnect between the experts and the layperson. The implicit claim here is that the only valid/truthful knowledge is that of book-knowledge, and that experience-knowledge that is not codified into book-knowledge is not knowledge at all.
That extreme is not right either.
I like to see things from a different perspective. Experience-knowledge is the source of all types of human knowledge---it has existed before the invention of the written language and is a cornerstone of human civilisation. But experience-knowledge is not scalable, since it requires a ``direct transmission'' from one experience-knowledge holder to a neophyte. This method of transmission is thus highly limited by geographical and cultural boundaries.
Book-knowledge is the accumulation and summarisation of various types of experience-knowledge into a pithy form. It contains all that is necessary to bootstrap a neophyte into the right frame of mind that is learnt from experience-knowledge, but is not sufficient in that there are sufficient nuances that would benefit from an experience-knowledge holder. This aspect holds even for really abstract knowledge domains that deal purely with ideas, like mathematics or even philosophy---merely reading the book-knowledge is insufficient to develop a level of understanding that can be termed as intuitive, or embedded deeply enough that the reader of the book-knowledge has incorporated the book-knowledge into his/her experience-knowledge.
So I agree in part to the experience-knowledge proponents that book-knowledge is insufficient, but I disagree completely that the only worthy knowledge is that of experience-knowledge.
Another angle to look at this is to consider what type of knowledge is encoded in both book-knowledge and experience-knowledge.
Most times, for the sake of brevity, book-knowledge stores only positive examples, a technical term that simply states that ``only positive assertions are recorded''. Thus, on a book about cats (for example), we will see attributes that are present in cats recorded in this book, with the omission of attributes that are absent in cats---this is because the set of attributes that are related to that of a cat is supposedly finite compared to that of the set of attributes that are unrelated to that of a cat.
However, experience-knowledge does not have such a restriction. In many cases, I would say that experience-knowledge has the strong potential of storing more negative examples than positive ones. Continuing upon the ``book of cats'' analogy, the experience-knowledge will contain some attributes that are present in cats, but will also contain many attributes that are absent in cats.
To expand upon the employer analogy I brought up earlier, it means that, paradoxically, it is more important to determine the types of negative examples that the candidate possesses in his/her experience-knowledge instead of just the positive examples to determine his/her suitability. Of course, there is a bit more to that---it is necessary to determine the types of negative examples that the candidate's experience-knowledge contains, but it is also important to see what the candidate has learnt from that. Negative examples are useless unless one learns something of importance from it---a person who has experienced nothing but failures is as suspicious as one who has experienced nothing but successes. When one experiences all failures/successes, it is likely that he/she does not actually have a good diversification of experience-knowledge, which means that he/she is not as strong a candidate since he/she probably has little chance to learn the type of nuances that book-knowledge fail to capture. In other words, a person with experience-knowledge of either all failures or all successes is no different from one who has only book-knowledge.
So yes, while [good representation in] experience-knowledge makes one a superior specimen of a person, book-knowledge is a great way to bypass the scaling problem of learning by providing a good enough summary of good rules of thumb to bootstrap the reader. To claim that one type of knowledge is dominant over the other kind is the type of extreme rule of thumb that is nice because of the lack of a cognitive load, but is feckless.
That's all I have for today. Till the next update.
Sunday, January 17, 2021
Sabbatical Begins
What a week!
I have finally completed the last bunch of paperwork that is necessary for my out-processing, and now I am officially out of the company.
I wanted to say that I was also ``out of a job'', but it did not feel right because I still had things that I needed to do, with the only caveat that they did not pay in terms of money. So perhaps the best way of saying it is that I am also ``out of a paying job''.
Okay, now I am officially out of the company, and thus out of a paying job.
Do I fear the future? No, not really. God is with me, and I am learning to be with Him, to trust Him, to fear Him, and to be guided by Him. In a future of chaos and thus uncertainty, knowing that God is the anchorpoint is of great solace. It is the font from which all possibilities pour out of, and it is thus the single greatest source of all. He is the Certainty.
There can be no wrong to live a life that God approves. And that is what this entire sabbatical is supposed to achieve.
To some, I will sound arrogant. While people are trying to apply for jobs frantically into the so-called ICT industry, I just made an exit with seemingly no other jobs lined up ahead of me---the action reeks of hubris. Perhaps it really is hubris, but it is what God has laid upon my heart, and thus, it has to be obeyed.
There are also more earthly-reasons for it, but they involve laying out some rather serious allegations (with associated evidence) that this blog is not the right forum for it. Let's just say that I am not the first to have left the company, and am not likely to be the last [within the window of a year] if certain things do not change, and leave it as that.
I think that's all I would like to write today. Till the next update!
I have finally completed the last bunch of paperwork that is necessary for my out-processing, and now I am officially out of the company.
I wanted to say that I was also ``out of a job'', but it did not feel right because I still had things that I needed to do, with the only caveat that they did not pay in terms of money. So perhaps the best way of saying it is that I am also ``out of a paying job''.
Okay, now I am officially out of the company, and thus out of a paying job.
Do I fear the future? No, not really. God is with me, and I am learning to be with Him, to trust Him, to fear Him, and to be guided by Him. In a future of chaos and thus uncertainty, knowing that God is the anchorpoint is of great solace. It is the font from which all possibilities pour out of, and it is thus the single greatest source of all. He is the Certainty.
There can be no wrong to live a life that God approves. And that is what this entire sabbatical is supposed to achieve.
To some, I will sound arrogant. While people are trying to apply for jobs frantically into the so-called ICT industry, I just made an exit with seemingly no other jobs lined up ahead of me---the action reeks of hubris. Perhaps it really is hubris, but it is what God has laid upon my heart, and thus, it has to be obeyed.
There are also more earthly-reasons for it, but they involve laying out some rather serious allegations (with associated evidence) that this blog is not the right forum for it. Let's just say that I am not the first to have left the company, and am not likely to be the last [within the window of a year] if certain things do not change, and leave it as that.
I think that's all I would like to write today. Till the next update!
Monday, January 11, 2021
``Career'' is a Misnomer
The weekend just passed was a particularly long one that is an even more accurate rendering of the sabbatical to come.
I had taken leave from Thursday till Monday (i.e. today) inclusive, and it was definitely a very different feeling to be waking up with little to no dread on what it was that I needed to do at work to justify the eight hours of pay that I was to be given for that day at the end of the month. I also did not have to face the other type of dread of having too much of something disagreeable to work on, wondering if the twenty-four hours of a day was sufficient for me to complete all that needs to be completed.
Why should the working life be oscillating between these two extremes with nothing in between is a mystery that needs to be solved at some point. For me, the solution is simple: re-think what it is that I want with my life.
``Career'' is a misnomer. The more I think about it, the more I am forced to acknowledge that the concept of a career is misplaced. At the risk of sounding like a supporter of communism, the idea of a ``career'' seems to be the capitalistic way of ensuring that people are forever stuck within the capitalistic system of work through the dangling of rewards in the form of a more important sounding title, with the dangling of supposedly increased monetary compensation [that is steadily eroded these days as the corporation becomes increasingly top heavy].
``Here! Work harder, like 9-9-6, so that you can earn that salary that will be the envy of your peers! 40-hour work weeks are for chumps---you must have the passion and work over and beyond the 40 hours [that I am paying you] so that you can improve yourself to take yourself higher into your career! Everyone should know how to manage---managing is the epitome of success [because only chumps and eggheads will try to maintain technical excellence]. Everyone should be well-rounded in all aspects of infocomm technology---be ready to handle devops, cloud deployment/management, back-end development, front-end development, customer requirement analysis to be a great engineer [so that I don't have to hire the 5 other people needed, and can justify why I am only paying you 40 hours while you are working 80]. App making is easy! See that kid? He already published his 20-million-dollar app while he is only nine years old!''
What is a career? Why does everyone seem to believe that it must always be vertical in nature, and that if one does not become a leader/manager, then one is not good enough? This is the type of industry that I am currently caught in, where the knowledge workers are getting heavily exploited by the business people who do not see knowledge workers as semi-creative value-adding people, but as expendable labour to churn out the type of low-value widgets that manufacturing had perfected more than ten years ago.
It is a race to the bottom. A somewhat creative field that is now heavily promoted in a way to artificially increase supply, so that the competition for the demand is raised to the point that companies can lower the price point while simultaneously appealing to ``passion'' as the magic bullet to squeeze out more labour hours.
I think that working as a so-called knowledge worker is worse than working as a so-called blue collar worker. At least the latter group has labour laws and unions on their side to protect them from the most egregious forms of exploitation.
Also, at least the tasks that are done by the blue collar workers can be intuitively understood by those business types who make the decisions. The level of misunderstanding of what machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence can do among the business types shock me beyond what I can imagine. ``Oh let's just use AI for this! Let's use machine learning for this! Let's toss in a blockchain!'' Why? How would it help? What is the business case that requires such technologies?
``But that's a technical detail---you tell me if it can be done!''
It's akin to asking can one use the word ``nictitate'' inside the business prospectus. ``I don't care---`nictitate' is the new hotness, and I want it to be inside our business plan. I don't know how to fit it in, but it's just a technical detail, so you technical folks figure out how to put in the word `nictitate' into the business plan. And have it ready for roll out within one month, mmmkay?''
As workers, we are all disposable---this is something that I have accepted. But to be disposable due to the incompetence of those who are making decisions is not an easy to stomach outcome. I think eventually more will see the world for what it is rather than through the rose-tinted glasses that have been promulgated through the various mouthpieces.
``But MT, if you don't like the status quo, you can always change it! So why aren't you changing it?''
I am. That is why I am on a sabbatical. To really sit down, to think, to pray, and to figure out what is really important in my life. I am not trying to change the world---the world can go sort itself out since I have no sphere of influence over it. But I do have a sphere of influence and responsibility on what I think, do, and whom I influence, and so I will do what I can within those fields.
It is the only way forward.
I had taken leave from Thursday till Monday (i.e. today) inclusive, and it was definitely a very different feeling to be waking up with little to no dread on what it was that I needed to do at work to justify the eight hours of pay that I was to be given for that day at the end of the month. I also did not have to face the other type of dread of having too much of something disagreeable to work on, wondering if the twenty-four hours of a day was sufficient for me to complete all that needs to be completed.
Why should the working life be oscillating between these two extremes with nothing in between is a mystery that needs to be solved at some point. For me, the solution is simple: re-think what it is that I want with my life.
``Career'' is a misnomer. The more I think about it, the more I am forced to acknowledge that the concept of a career is misplaced. At the risk of sounding like a supporter of communism, the idea of a ``career'' seems to be the capitalistic way of ensuring that people are forever stuck within the capitalistic system of work through the dangling of rewards in the form of a more important sounding title, with the dangling of supposedly increased monetary compensation [that is steadily eroded these days as the corporation becomes increasingly top heavy].
``Here! Work harder, like 9-9-6, so that you can earn that salary that will be the envy of your peers! 40-hour work weeks are for chumps---you must have the passion and work over and beyond the 40 hours [that I am paying you] so that you can improve yourself to take yourself higher into your career! Everyone should know how to manage---managing is the epitome of success [because only chumps and eggheads will try to maintain technical excellence]. Everyone should be well-rounded in all aspects of infocomm technology---be ready to handle devops, cloud deployment/management, back-end development, front-end development, customer requirement analysis to be a great engineer [so that I don't have to hire the 5 other people needed, and can justify why I am only paying you 40 hours while you are working 80]. App making is easy! See that kid? He already published his 20-million-dollar app while he is only nine years old!''
What is a career? Why does everyone seem to believe that it must always be vertical in nature, and that if one does not become a leader/manager, then one is not good enough? This is the type of industry that I am currently caught in, where the knowledge workers are getting heavily exploited by the business people who do not see knowledge workers as semi-creative value-adding people, but as expendable labour to churn out the type of low-value widgets that manufacturing had perfected more than ten years ago.
It is a race to the bottom. A somewhat creative field that is now heavily promoted in a way to artificially increase supply, so that the competition for the demand is raised to the point that companies can lower the price point while simultaneously appealing to ``passion'' as the magic bullet to squeeze out more labour hours.
I think that working as a so-called knowledge worker is worse than working as a so-called blue collar worker. At least the latter group has labour laws and unions on their side to protect them from the most egregious forms of exploitation.
Also, at least the tasks that are done by the blue collar workers can be intuitively understood by those business types who make the decisions. The level of misunderstanding of what machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence can do among the business types shock me beyond what I can imagine. ``Oh let's just use AI for this! Let's use machine learning for this! Let's toss in a blockchain!'' Why? How would it help? What is the business case that requires such technologies?
``But that's a technical detail---you tell me if it can be done!''
It's akin to asking can one use the word ``nictitate'' inside the business prospectus. ``I don't care---`nictitate' is the new hotness, and I want it to be inside our business plan. I don't know how to fit it in, but it's just a technical detail, so you technical folks figure out how to put in the word `nictitate' into the business plan. And have it ready for roll out within one month, mmmkay?''
As workers, we are all disposable---this is something that I have accepted. But to be disposable due to the incompetence of those who are making decisions is not an easy to stomach outcome. I think eventually more will see the world for what it is rather than through the rose-tinted glasses that have been promulgated through the various mouthpieces.
``But MT, if you don't like the status quo, you can always change it! So why aren't you changing it?''
I am. That is why I am on a sabbatical. To really sit down, to think, to pray, and to figure out what is really important in my life. I am not trying to change the world---the world can go sort itself out since I have no sphere of influence over it. But I do have a sphere of influence and responsibility on what I think, do, and whom I influence, and so I will do what I can within those fields.
It is the only way forward.
Thursday, January 07, 2021
``Contempt'' is the Reason
- contempt
- the feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or beneath consideration
``Contempt'' is the word that I have found to best describe the bad vibes that I had felt. Contempt---the feeling that I was worthless or beneath consideration. In other words, the sense of not being valued.
Ah, but what is value?
- value
- the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something
In other words, the feeling of contempt that I had felt is not universal, but is dependent on the context in which I had existed in. And thus, to not feel the contempt (whether of the self or of someone else) requires a change of the context.
Naq fb V pna abj unir n fvzcyr bar-jbeq engvbany rkcynangvba bs jul Tbq ynvq vg hcba zl urneg gb yrnir zl wbo abj, rira jura V qb abg unir nal bgure wbo yvarq hc. Vg whfg jnfa'g urnygul gb or va na raivebazrag jurer V jnf uryq va pbagrzcg.
Naq fb V pna er-pbagrkghnyvfr [ntnva] jul gur ynfg eryngvbafuvc raqrq gur jnl vg qvq---gur bgure cnegl unq frra zr va pbagrzcg, juvpu rkcynvarq gur fhofrdhrag crefban aba tengn nfcrpg.
Why the sudden epiphany on ``contempt''? I blame it on reading this entry in a thread---and the answers started to click together.
With an acknowledgement of what had transpired comes a path towards future enlightenment on how to proceed. Future-me, this is for you: find a path where you will not be treated in contempt. I will try not to die before you are ready, that is all that I can offer you. Trust in God, for He is your rock and anchor.
After all, what we do, and where we go to do it, are all part of the grand plan of the Creator---things happen according to His will and His will alone.
And that's all I have for today. Till the next update.
Monday, January 04, 2021
What a Weekend
What a weekend.
A preview of what is to come during my upcoming sabbatical/re-alignment journey, where my wakefulness is controlled by the diurnal cycle instead of the need to be heading to the office.
It is not too bad, actually. I am surprised that my priority wasn't to be playing computer games, but to do reading of all sorts. Don't get me wrong, I still play some video games in between, but they are more of the quick sort instead of a multi-decade-hour extravaganza. More Jupiter Hell and less Halo.
The bookshelf at home has undergone another small round of re-organisation. I have read quite a few of the books that I had set up to be in easy reach, and as such, it was time to shift things around so that other books that I would want to read are actually made easily available. I think it is a good time to explore other aspects of knowledge (and by extension, my interests) during this period of reflection and re-alignment.
As to what they may be, I think I will eventually talk about them here.
And AGDQ 2021 is now live. That is always a plus.
That's all I have for now. Till the next update, I suppose.
A preview of what is to come during my upcoming sabbatical/re-alignment journey, where my wakefulness is controlled by the diurnal cycle instead of the need to be heading to the office.
It is not too bad, actually. I am surprised that my priority wasn't to be playing computer games, but to do reading of all sorts. Don't get me wrong, I still play some video games in between, but they are more of the quick sort instead of a multi-decade-hour extravaganza. More Jupiter Hell and less Halo.
The bookshelf at home has undergone another small round of re-organisation. I have read quite a few of the books that I had set up to be in easy reach, and as such, it was time to shift things around so that other books that I would want to read are actually made easily available. I think it is a good time to explore other aspects of knowledge (and by extension, my interests) during this period of reflection and re-alignment.
As to what they may be, I think I will eventually talk about them here.
And AGDQ 2021 is now live. That is always a plus.
That's all I have for now. Till the next update, I suppose.
Friday, January 01, 2021
Quick Summary
So, a quick summary of what I had written in 2020:
That's an average of 0.134 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.038 last year. Considering all that had happened to me, I would call this a rather dramatic increase. That natural progression that I talked about as life started to fall into a discernible pattern had been badly disrupted.
In stark contrast to 2019, after hitting the new high with what I can do on my 笛子 and concert flute, and the increased closeness that Chara and I had after she had rebased herself in Singapore, I found myself unable to perform with my instruments for most of the year, and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces when she broke up with me. If there was anything to blame, it would be that of the winds of change from COVID-19 that robbed almost everyone of their sense of normality, a little like the random restarts that one would perform on an optimisation problem after applying the Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm.
After about sixteen months of working at the medium enterprise, I have decided to call it quits to re-centre myself and to work through what is meaningful for me.
The emergent health issue that I had referred to at the start of 2020 had been resolved---thank God for that. And coincidentally, I became the trailblazer to assist in handling other emergent health issues in the family; the experience that I gained through my own ordeal served as a good source of information for the rest of my family who ended up taking turns with their own emergent health issues.
As I am writing this summary, I found my past self rather prescient. Here is the relevant chunk:
And I suppose that is the one good thing that came out of the dumpster fire that was 2020, and that is I have found salvation by acknowledging that Jesus Christ is my personal saviour, and that the Bible is the inerrant word of God Himself. When everything changes, God Himself does not. Which brings me back to the last big thing that I was talking about in an earlier paragraph---I had quit my job. Everyone that had learnt about it expressed confusion, and they all asked the same question: why did I do so?
The answer is the same: it is time for me to go. Specifically, God has laid it upon my heart to know that it is time for me to leave this job. It was not a decision that was made in haste, nor was it made in anger. It was one that was conceived in faith, supported with hard rational evidence, and calculated to happen when it did with a little serendipity from the Lord. While there were obviously going to be systematic issues that contributed to ``pushing'' me out, there was also an overall sense that there was still a mission that I needed to do that could not be done where I was. There are some who think me as being foolhardy for leaving without having a job lined up, but I begged to differ---there was no point staying for the money if the heart was no longer into it. The things that I was doing at work felt increasingly meaningless, both in terms of my training/interest, and in terms of matching the actual vision/impact.
In short, I was not doing something that would glorify God. And it is a no-no. Let whoever reads what I had written here draw their own conclusions---it is a retrospective, not an argumentative essay meant to sway any views.
With the ending of that long relationship with Chara, I no longer feel comfortable with beginning another one---I don't know if this will change, and if it will, when it will change. My meaning of life prior to 2020 was to raise a family and live in bliss with my spouse; now that is over, and with it, the meaning is lost. Work never had any meaning more than just putting food on the table.
So what is next for me? I honestly do not know, and that's why I had to quit when I did. To take time off to re-think about things, to pray to God to show a path that He would want me to follow, so that I can follow it, achieving glory for God through the talents and opportunities that He has set me up for.
2021 will be a pivot point for my life. Years on, I would look back upon this year and either stroke my chin meaningfully, or slap my forehead in exasperation. I cannot see anything beyond the March 2021 horizon again, so I suppose there is something large that will be happening then. I don't know what it will be, but I know that God is there, and that my life is in His hands. He is my rock and anchor, and my faith is built upon that rock.
He will not deny me of the ultimate salvation, but He may still allow me to suffer if it is of His will to do so.
Amen.
- 7 poems posted here
- 35 essays/rants posted here
- 3 prose/stories posted here
- 1 NaNoWriMo winning entry available here
- 3 pieces of compositions/rearrangements posted here
That's an average of 0.134 pieces of writing a day, compared to 0.038 last year. Considering all that had happened to me, I would call this a rather dramatic increase. That natural progression that I talked about as life started to fall into a discernible pattern had been badly disrupted.
In stark contrast to 2019, after hitting the new high with what I can do on my 笛子 and concert flute, and the increased closeness that Chara and I had after she had rebased herself in Singapore, I found myself unable to perform with my instruments for most of the year, and my heart shattered into a thousand pieces when she broke up with me. If there was anything to blame, it would be that of the winds of change from COVID-19 that robbed almost everyone of their sense of normality, a little like the random restarts that one would perform on an optimisation problem after applying the Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm.
After about sixteen months of working at the medium enterprise, I have decided to call it quits to re-centre myself and to work through what is meaningful for me.
The emergent health issue that I had referred to at the start of 2020 had been resolved---thank God for that. And coincidentally, I became the trailblazer to assist in handling other emergent health issues in the family; the experience that I gained through my own ordeal served as a good source of information for the rest of my family who ended up taking turns with their own emergent health issues.
As I am writing this summary, I found my past self rather prescient. Here is the relevant chunk:
2020 is going to be a tough year. ... Apart from that, at a personal level, there are many other things that are happening that I do not necessarily have control over. I cannot even see past the March 2020 horizon for some reason---that is how myopic I feel at times.Only God knew that I would prophesy for myself like that.
And I suppose that is the one good thing that came out of the dumpster fire that was 2020, and that is I have found salvation by acknowledging that Jesus Christ is my personal saviour, and that the Bible is the inerrant word of God Himself. When everything changes, God Himself does not. Which brings me back to the last big thing that I was talking about in an earlier paragraph---I had quit my job. Everyone that had learnt about it expressed confusion, and they all asked the same question: why did I do so?
The answer is the same: it is time for me to go. Specifically, God has laid it upon my heart to know that it is time for me to leave this job. It was not a decision that was made in haste, nor was it made in anger. It was one that was conceived in faith, supported with hard rational evidence, and calculated to happen when it did with a little serendipity from the Lord. While there were obviously going to be systematic issues that contributed to ``pushing'' me out, there was also an overall sense that there was still a mission that I needed to do that could not be done where I was. There are some who think me as being foolhardy for leaving without having a job lined up, but I begged to differ---there was no point staying for the money if the heart was no longer into it. The things that I was doing at work felt increasingly meaningless, both in terms of my training/interest, and in terms of matching the actual vision/impact.
In short, I was not doing something that would glorify God. And it is a no-no. Let whoever reads what I had written here draw their own conclusions---it is a retrospective, not an argumentative essay meant to sway any views.
With the ending of that long relationship with Chara, I no longer feel comfortable with beginning another one---I don't know if this will change, and if it will, when it will change. My meaning of life prior to 2020 was to raise a family and live in bliss with my spouse; now that is over, and with it, the meaning is lost. Work never had any meaning more than just putting food on the table.
So what is next for me? I honestly do not know, and that's why I had to quit when I did. To take time off to re-think about things, to pray to God to show a path that He would want me to follow, so that I can follow it, achieving glory for God through the talents and opportunities that He has set me up for.
2021 will be a pivot point for my life. Years on, I would look back upon this year and either stroke my chin meaningfully, or slap my forehead in exasperation. I cannot see anything beyond the March 2021 horizon again, so I suppose there is something large that will be happening then. I don't know what it will be, but I know that God is there, and that my life is in His hands. He is my rock and anchor, and my faith is built upon that rock.
He will not deny me of the ultimate salvation, but He may still allow me to suffer if it is of His will to do so.
Amen.
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