Decide...

When a choice is made, it necessitates an excision of all other choices other than the one that one has chosen to proceed with. Such is the nature of choice, and the associated jargon of ``discrimination''.

But the spurring of all other options to commit to the one choice that one decides on is scary, because commitment is scary, with the one true reason why few dare to leap head first into this.

What if the choice you made... was wrong?

There is no one out there who has to make decisions that do not have this thought lurking at the back of their minds---absolutely no one. The only times where this poses little issues are when the choices to be made are trivial and of no consequence (``Should I wear this shirt or the other today?''). For all other times, there is always that foreboding sense of a choice that was made in error, with the associated need to live through the consequences that come about.

But here's the thing. I think that for the most part, almost all decisions that we make do not matter at all from the perspective of ``correct'' and ``wrong''. The reason is that fundamentally, the choices that are made have consequences that spread out into the time beyond, and given the innate flexibility and adaptability of being humans, even the ``wrong'' decision can lead to a favourable (but possibly previously unaccounted for) outcome, should one continue to improvise, adapt, and overcome.

Therefore, the choices that we make are really determining from whence we are beginning our chain of consequences from.

This scenario matters less so should we be the only people who are affected by our decisions (which itself can be considered an over-simplification---how many times have a ``decision that is only affecting ourselves'' end up spiralling out of our ambit and end up troubling others?), but in the event where there is an immediate effect upon the people who are around us, the stakes are a little higher.

Then the usual methodology for decision-making is under the Kantian concept of the categorical imperative:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

---Immanuel Kant

Effectively, a decision needs to be made in a form consistent with defensibility by a rational person, which may not involve a quantitative approach the way a utilitarian might go for (because almost all numbers are made-up due to reframing and rationalisation, and humans are realistically not as numerately literate as we like to believe ourselves to be).

``But MT, doesn't this eschew the consequences, which is sort of what you are talking about?''

In a way, yes. As I said, the consequences from a decision matter in the sense of where we start from along the chain of consequences---decisions are not static, and neither are the actions that come from them. If we choose a ``good'' choice over a ``bad'' one, we may start from a favourable consequence, but there is no guarantee that the favourable consequence will remain favourable to the extent in which we are bothered enough to track the chain of events. Choosing a ``bad'' choice may put us on a ``bad'' start, but no one can say if the way thereon is only down, and not up.

But what matters then in choices is about convincing enough people that the choice that is to be made at that point in time is the ``best'' one. To do that, we need to explain to others who are affected by our choices why we are making them. The more they can share the context (i.e. assumptions and observations) that we have in making the decision, the more they can be convinced that we are choosing correctly. And the more they are convinced, the more they are likely to have the right buy-in, with the result of influencing the chain of events towards a direction that everyone is happy to be in.

Then what is the best way to achieve a greater shared context to reason from? The easiest is to have shared values, but the danger of having too much of an overlap of values is the subsequent shared blind-spots that come from having almost the same values, without the awareness of other possibilities that are out there. The next more objective form is to get measurements under the hypotheses that govern the choices to be made---if the methodology for these measurements and hypotheses testing can be agreed upon, then there is a shared pool of knowledge from which to reason from, thus creating that necessary shared context to decide from.

When the decision has been made, a good faith effort to commit to it should be applied---if the defense of the decision has been done right, this should not come as a surprise. But like all things involving actions, the decisions themselves need to be revisited whenever new relevant information/knowledge enters into awareness---this is the part that many people forget to do, which explains why people tend to over-emphasise making the ``correct'' decision, instead of making a timely and good-enough decision, and rolling with it until new relevant information questions the relevance and correctness of the previous decision.

If re-examining a past decision is hard, rescinding the previous decision to correct for the updated circumstances to issue a new one is even harder. Because it means having to admit that one is wrong, and in the modern society of heroes, the decision-maker can apparently never be wrong because that's a serious flaw of character.

To which I exclaim: ``Bollocks!'' The time for prophets are over, and even when prophets roamed the earth, they made prophesies that were ``understood'' to be eventually coming true, and not of an immediate nature. Making mistakes should be tolerated, and if the mistakes are righted, the entire action loop should be celebrated, studied, and venerated.

Because that's how we learn new things!

What's the point of being correct all the time? How do you know that you are correct because your process of reaching a decision is correct, or if you are just damn lucky? Want to feel like an imposter? That's easy---never make mistakes and create a complex on yourself on whether do you truly know what you are doing, or if you are just an undeserving hack.

SIN City does not tolerate mistakes. SIN City penalises mistakes. A person who made a ``big mistake'' is condemned, shunned, and marked for a long time as ``he who made a `big mistake' ''. That's why the Yellow Ribbon project has to exist, and even then, it is at best a fig leaf.

Because SIN City does not tolerate mistakes.

``MT, what's the point of this tirade again?''

You tell me. I'm just venting randomly during the last few days of 2025.

Good Ol' Times?

Were the old days really good, or is it one of those delusions that come from the fact that [human] memories of events passed are always rewritten each time they are being retrieved, and are therefore not even remotely accurate about what they were?

I'm not even talking about the current trend of the sixty-/seventy-year-old politician taking over their country trying to bring back ``the good ol' times'' because the current generation (which?) has brought on enough decadence to decimate what is considered the core of the nation's identity and prestige.

I'm just talking about the whole ``nostalgia'' factor that afflicts us in one way or another. It is the kind of reason why someone might want to go back to an ex-anything (girlfriend/boyfriend, company), or to revert to some kind of earlier behaviour in the face of issues that stem from the current behaviour. It is the kind of meaningless argument that is trumpeted about as the ``final word'' when there seems to be no other viable arguments left to be made in a debate.

Personally, I don't think the old days were really good, when compared to the present. The key premise here that I am relying on is the idea that personal agency of choice is a key component of separating the self from the not-self, and that more [relevant] knowledge/information often leadsd to better choices that can be made. In other words, I think that ``good'' happens when one can make better choices than before due to the knowing of more [relevant] information.

In that sense then, the old days were not good at all. The ideas of decorum and etiquette were based on society rules that were put in place by the privileged few, and even so, their politeness acted as a fig leaf over the still-existent discrimination that comes about from [deliberate] incomplete information for actions and states of being that do not conform to what is widely believed as the norm. It may be good for the majority of people then (we'll use 80% a la 80/20 rule ceteris paribus), but for the minority who had to live through that, it can be a true living hell.

And the thing is, what is majority and minority is never set in stone. So to make an unqualified statement of ``the good ol' times'' is to make yet another improbable [population] assumption that will age poorly in time to come.

Now compound this with the observation that memory is always retrieved in the manner in which it was last remembered (i.e. retrieved). A contradiction of sorts, but such is the mechanism of the original abstract demonstration of sentience before all the logic theories and Turing tests. The ``good ol' days'' are just an exaggeration of the parts of memory that we believe to be ``good'', where the quotation marks are to indicate that it is a heavily biased/conditioned context that we are referring to said memory. Just as the cringeworthy moments remain exceedingly embarrassing on recall, the ``good stuff'' are also exceedingly ``good'' on recall as well---the mind works on the same general middleware regardless of the valence of the specific thought. It is, from neurological formulations, an example of the ``network effect'', where the ``rich get richer'' (i.e. the more retrieved the memory, the more the memory is strengthened), but with the caveat that each time the memory is retrieved, it needs to be rewritten as part of the retrieval process.

Which means that we can actually self-brainwash to believe something when it isn't so, whether we realise it or not.

The infidelity of memory is why there has been a change in eye-witness interview protocol in the face of an inquest into a criminal act---no one is supposed to talk to the eye-witness before the official interview, and that interview needs to occur as early as practically possible from the criminal act's occurrence.

``MT, what about the historical writing?''

I think that the historical writing can show that ``the good ol' times'' are mythological for the most part. First hand accounts are rarely taken in situ, and are often taken years after occurrence. Second hand accounts are summarised works with the benefit of hindsight of many other perspectives that no one from the same era would have easily seen. And when these are written up in the more prevalent manner of the narrative form, hardly any ``good ol' times'' are spelt out---most historical writing is about how badly folks from the past screwed up. Anything writing that makes it sound like it was a dandy old time then are often marked out as propaganda, and more often than not, it is the correct assessment.

It is unlikely that anyone who isn't a propagandist will go through the effort to dig through the records, interview the people, just to write only positive things without identifying the issues that were actually being dealt with by the participants of the era.

So where does this leave us?

A sobering realisation that the past remains there, it wasn't really good, yet many are trying to rewrite that narrative to advance their own agenda.

And that the future is still not wholly certain nor deterministic, and yet can be sufficiently influenced through the actions we take today.

Which therefore means that we should always seize the day, and not let history dictate what actions we ought to be taking.

After all, history is just one of the two advisers we have to make decisions for today.

Welcome to Stupid O'Clock

Oh hey, check it out---it's stupid o'clock. It feels like it has been quite a while since I had an entry out at stupid o'clock. These things, you know, you've got to have just the right mood before things will fall in place, and the words that befit stupid o'clock will show up.

So the day just passed was a long one. It's the last official day of work for this year (I've broken my usual rule, and have decided to actually take a bloody big block of leave at the end of the year), and since I was playing at the Christmas Eve service out at PPCC, it just made more sence logistically to wake up at the usual nonsensical hour, spend half a day in the office working, and then chilling there for another few hours before hopping on a short bus ride down to church.

What happened during service is not important---I brought Stella instead of Aurelia, and managed to flub the soaring bits of Joy to the World because I didn't write the bloody part down.

The important part was that it was the last day of work for the year. And now I'm sitting here, nursing a 18-year Glenfiddich after showering and having listened once more to End of a Life by Mori Calliope, and having all these weird feelings that I need to expunge.

Of course it doesn't help that I was reconstructing my original ``Loved.m3u8'' play list after having reconfigured my entire [offline] music collection, and ended up listening to quite a few of the songs that were unironically pretty damn emo.

Oh, and I finished reading Komi Can't Communicate the manga, where Shoko and Hitohito were getting all lovey dovey here and there, with all the other usual childhood stuff from high school gloriously drawn and drawn out over the 500 chapters.

Now that the setting is made, let's proceed with stupid o'clock.

------

It's funny. There was a time where I made the realisation that with the effective excommunication that my family made with their various factions of families, I was a man without a history, which meant that I could choose how to shape my own future. I was back from my second scholarship run (left it because I finally realised the I didn't want a PhD that badly enough to want to sacrifice everything, and that for what I truly wanted to do, I didn't really need a PhD), and was serving out my bond. I thought of an old friend whom I sort of lost contact, reconnected, and one thing led to another, and we dated for a while.

And I thought I was going to have a future with her. I thought we had aligned our values well, and communicated our expectations, I thought we approached the relationship with the level of maturity that was to be expected.

I thought, you think, who confirmed?

---Every Encik in SAF

Long time readers of this blog will know what happened eventually. Spoilers: we're not together anymore. I think that I can converse with her normally by now, but I am not strong enough to try for a whole tea-break of chatting, and have no reason why I would want to test that out.

That day, a part of me died utterly. And today, some donkey years later (I'm not going to ``do research'' to figure this shit out precisely for obvious reasons), I still maintain that that part of me has stayed dead.

I kinda lost interest in creating a future for myself. And I definitely lost interest in creating a future for myself where there's a spouse involved, though that took a few more years after that to figure it out a bit more. Turns out that the kind of woman whom I am attracted to, are precisely the kind of women that I should never start a life together with.

``MT, is it because they are smart?''

No, it's because they... are different kinds of weird. I like weird---it's interesting. Weird has a way of building up that kind of synergistic passion that is usually lacking in most prosaic conversations with the normies. Unfortunately, if they come in the package of ``woman'', then the subsidiary sub-system that doesn't usually trigger called ``libido'' turns up eventually and starts to mess with my brain, and then I get all attracted, and have weird thoughts of ``maybe this person is dateable?''

Spoiler: they are not dateable. Good for conversation, great for doing random shit with, just don't fucking date them.

You know, just treat them as friends. But whether one is actually friends with them is a whole 'nother philosophical question. Because to weird people, other weird people are just blips in the sea of noise---they don't necessarily register as ``people'', let alone ``people one tries to build a relationship with'', i.e. befriend. Weird people are weird because they are weird (i.e. not normies).

Took me forty years to figure this shit out. But at least I managed to figure it out.

Can I stand normies? Of course I can stand normies; I just don't see myself dating them.

Anyway, the point isn't about whom I'm intending to date, but more on that ``future'' part of things. I didn't really have big ambitions to begin with, always being the people pleaser that I was when I was a child (pleasing adults seemed like a better idea than trying to out-argue them at times where they are clearly in the wrong---no adult will ever acknowledge that a child makes a better point than they have). I wasn't born/living in a hyper-competitive environment---even my secondary school was more of a phase of life than something that I was trying my best to ``beat'' and turn out champion. Do enough to get paid enough to pay off the bills that are needed for existence and to serve my hobbies---that's about it. Still stand by that.

But it is funny, isn't it? I was having chicken chop, and I was looking at the hawker stalls. We're talking about stalls that have been there from anywhere between one month and thirty years. The people who serve at the stalls have been there for almost as long as the stall has been---day in, day out, doing the same work, reproducing the same services, producing the same goods, all day, every day.

Is that their ambition then? Do they even ``have'' ambition? And no, ``winning the lottery'' is not the kind of ``ambition'' that I am referring to here.

I examined myself. I don't think I can run the same thing day in, day out. In other words, I cannot see myself running operations. To put it bluntly, it is boring as fuck [to me]. I like trying out new things, challenging myself to new things. As part of doing these new things, some ``short period, high intensity'' type operations are probably fine, but running operations for a whole year and beyond like in the IT department or data centre operations or anything that is primarily structured around the routine... just sounds like death to me.

So, is this inner urge to do something new and challenging is ambition then? If not, then in many ways I should find commonality with the folks who are still at the hawker stall, cutting up chilli padi in the evening to mise en place for the next day's cycle of the very same.

But I don't. And not because I'm working in an office and not at a hawker stall---it's about the routine-ness.

Yes, I sound like a snob, but there was never an intention of being a snob.

Like I said, it has taken me nearly forty years to figure these things out for myself, and even then, I'm unconvinced that I have the full answer on what it is that I am. And frankly, I think that for most people who need to figure out what it is that I am, they might have similar issues.

But future. Funny thing that is. If today, I were to just keel over, dead, everything still goes on the way it does. There will be a slight pause as the information of my death propagates, but once the waves start travelling far out enough to decay to irrelevance, the world reconfigures itself quickly, and then everyone moves on, even as I ash up from the cremation and lose all corporeal form.

So in some sick sense, perhaps ``ambition'' and ``future'' are both overrated as things to have/possess. It may just be better to do whatever we want/can, now.

``MT, what's the point you are making here?''

No point---it's stupid o'clock. Think of it as a trite observation and nothing more. As I mentioned, I just wanted to dump out some thoughts that have been floating in my head, just so that I don't have to think about them when I officially chill out during the upcoming week and change from the block leave at the end of the year.

------

Recently, I went out to Decathlon out at City Square Mall to get one of those foldable safari chairs. Considering that I recently fucked up my ability to download videos from YouTube for offline viewing without having to log in, I decided to lie low during this period, and just use the logged-in download mechanism only for things that I cared about, like music releases, or some of the Let's Play series from my favourite VTubers (like Pavolia Reine), or even Karaoke (looking at you, Alpha Betta and Elizabeth Rose Bloodflame).

So in the meantime, I'd replace background YouTube offline viewing with some new Steam games I bought, and the ridiculous backlog of books to read, of which not all are of the e-book variety.

Which is where this foldable safari chair comes into place. It unfolds into a low chair with arm rests that I can put in the middle of my room so that I can sit there like a Boss and read.

``MT, what about reading it on-screen on Eileen-III?''

Sometimes, it is just not the same. Part of the reason is that there are physical books that I want to read, and reading that on-screen is impossible while reading them on a table is annoying considering that the angles are all wrong. ``Book in lap'' is a really comfortable position in comparison.

So I got the foldable chair. Nothing funny there.

But while walking about, I learnt of a new shop: Puzzletopia. This is opposite my favourite shop in City Square Mall: Super Dario Lasagne---the best damn lasagne in SIN City. I've known about Super Dario Lasagne, and it was one of the places that I had gone with her when we were still dating. I cannot remember if I went there alone after that and before the recent outing just to create new memories and therefore associations of the place, but I severely digress.

Puzzletopia. Dangerous place. Lots of fun puzzles, and there were some that was in their retail. I went in, looking for a portable tangram set. Their small ones were still 3 inches across (while being out of stock), while the one that they had stock on was still 5 inches across.

I wanted something smaller.

I already have a nice 6 inch set that came with this Tangram puzzle book that I recently sanded down more properly. The problem is that when the packing square is around 6 inches a side, some of the puzzles will end up taking linear dimensions of nearly a foot, which is... bad. Earlier this year while doing my ``I'm forty bitches'' week, I tried to play some tangrams while having a nice lunch... and it didn't work out well because of the lack of space.

I was looking for a much more compact version of tangram. And I couldn't find it. And Puzzletopia didn't have a small enough one.

That is, until I stumbled upon this little gem from Shire Post Mint. The damn thing is downright perfect. Naturally, I placed an order for it, and it's making its way to me through the mail even as we speak.

``MT, thought you could find this easily.''

Nope. This was only released in 2025-08, so the search during the months immediately after ``I'm forty bitches'' week would turn out nothing.

Praise the Lord!

In theory, I could make it out of thick cardboard, or even leather pieces, or heavy felt, but the sharp-ish 45° corners from the parallelogram and triangles are likely to fray under heavy use. This little gadget? It's copper---solid metal. It has enough mass to not fly away, and enough stiffness to not fray. And at 1.8 inches (with container), it is small!

And so, instead of debating what fancy-pants flute to get for my upcoming birthday gift to myself, it will be this. And there's also this other tangram book that I have, which will further increase the amount of fun I'm going to get with manipulating these tangram pieces while doing pattern matching/decomposition.

Now I'm debating whether I want to drop by next week (that's when the Puzzletopia staff said their new stock of the smaller tangrams will arrive) to show my discovery so that they can stock those up should anyone else want something that tiny.

It is at times like this that I wish I had enough space/resources to have a small workshop. Nothing much I suppose---a work table, hand tools, maybe a lathe and a press drill. Should allow me to mess about with making headjoints, simple flutes, and do other crafty work like making my own tangrams out of aluminium/brass.

------

And as I reach this part of the post, I find that my shot glass of Glenfiddich is done, and that I more or less have run out of things that I want to talk about during this stupid o'clock. Tomorrow (eh, you know what I mean) is going to be a new day, and I would like to start it by sleeping well, and then doing whatever the fuck I want.

Like maybe beating Last Judge in Silk Song.

Till the next update.

What a Fucking Mess

As the year draws to a close, I cannot help but stop and think about just how much of a sea change it has been over the past year.

And no, I am not talking about my own personal circumstance---I've done that throughout the year, and find no need to revisit it again right now.

Much of the world is run on the idea of precedence, with a bit of courtesy put in place. In a place of low trust (i.e. where one is more likely to meet strangers than familiar people), precedence and courtesy provides the kind of basic interaction protocol that ensures that at a minimal level, people can talk with each other. One may not like the other person, but at least there are grounds to work with the other person.

But the past year has shown that precedence is to be ignored, and courtesy gets one no where except continual abuse by those whose lack of courtesy is not only unpunished, but allowed to flourish due to the increasing self-inflicted hopelessness of the patient.

Looking away from the world stage, similar patterns of misbehaviour can be seen at a much lower level, where the Karens are starting to get more of their way, upending the precarious balance that once existed in society to allow its many different denizens a quiet room to exist.

On a different scale, there is the increasingly instable structural changes in the economy that makes the future highly uncertain. Services need to be rendered, products need to be manufactured, and food needs to be grown to ensure the basic level of sustenance of people, and yet there is this overzealous obsession being spent on trying to obsolete everyone, a type of techno-driven extermination programme.

While I am not fully in favour of bullshit jobs in the first place, the increased erosion of such jobs that have once kept a large proportion of the population fulfilled and out of trouble is a cause for alarm. The most fingered culprit for this is ``AI'', but it is less about the AI and more about the directions of the companies who have declared themselves the harbingers of a new Utopian Age---they just happen to be doing things relating to AI, directly (release of pre-trained large language models of all sorts), or indirectly (infrastructure providers for the training and use of all these prepared models).

Two decades of lacklustre investment opportunities have created a pent up greed that is suddenly released upon the world, consequences be damned.

Money. Money at the expense of what it may mean to be human (the replacement of the process of ``creating''). Apparent short-term gains at the expense of the preparation for the next generation's lives. Consumerism beyond mere material goods, as material goods have a true physical limit for consuming (how many washing machines can one buy?), while abstract services with low marginal costs can be consumed indefinitely often and intensity, with money being the only true limit.

In the past, machines are brought in with the explanation of freeing humanity from menial labour so that they can better cultivate the human's true power---intellect. What about now, with AI acting as an alternative model to accessing intelligence without all the pesky ethics that using a human has?

And what happens when everyone's out of a job, and yet we are all still living in the city? How can we survive when the object of trade is no longer easily accessible?

Bleak. It pains me that I cannot see any easy way out of this. Governments need to stand their ground and actually look out for their citizens, yet they can claim that they are---it's just that some citizens are much more important than other citizens. Corporations that misbehave need to be taken on at a scale that befits their juggernaut-nature---a multi-national corporation is a multi-headed hydra, and the current laws make it impossible for a country to exact punishment that can actually hurt the corporation as opposed to merely ``increasing the price of business''.

The problem with peace is that people keep forgetting that it is the viable threat of violence that helps keep the peace.

``MT, doesn't that go against your whole `courtesy' concept?''

Perhaps. I don't claim to have my thoughts in order---it would be folly to believe so. That's probably part of the reason why my head hurts half the time, and my anxiety keeps shooting through the roof. And we're not even talking about the actual things that are happening to me personally.

What a fucking mess.

I think I'll stop here for now. It's too depressing to continue. Till the next time.

Patches to Build Python3.14.2 on Cygwin

Well, that took a while, but I finally did it.

First, here's the payload (for 3.14.2).

Next, the explanation on what it is.

Cygwin remains as my preferred UNIX-like interface while operating in a primarily Windows environment. The Python interpreter that is still present in Cygwin is Python3.9, which is fine for me.

But the useful yt-dlp tool has pushed their support from Python3.9 to a version that is at least Python3.10, because Python3.9 will not be getting security support from 2025-10-31.

I understand. yt-dlp is a tool that targets a slightly more tech-y user, but not by much. It is also a tool that needs to be continuously updated due to the ever-evolving nature of video services, so having a Python environment that has proper security patches is a good thing.

But Cygwin hasn't a good working Python environment beyond 3.9 as at now. There's a weird Python3.12 build in the background, but it is incomplete and weird. Moreover, if you looked at the same site I linked to earlier, even Python3.12 is seeing the end of security supports at 2028-10-31, which really isn't that far away, should the maintainer of Python in Cygwin actually fix the current build.

So, it's probably better to build my own.

Building Python isn't hard... in Linux. On Windows/Cygwin, it gets complicated.

Which is what the payload (for 3.14.2) is supposed to ease. The contents of the payload can be seen in detail here, but I will outline the rough changes here as well.

1. uuid support library detection was broken;
2. List of support libraries defined (in static-compilation for ease of use);
3. Incomplete detection for clk_id for Cygwin;
4. Messed up refactoring on LDLIBRARY use that got an unusable name (libpython3.14.dll.a versus the actual libpython3.14.dll); and
5. Fixing up the way compileall.py does multi-processing (Cygwin's spawn() and forkserver implementations don't work as compared to simple fork()).

So now, I have a nearly-clean build of Python3.14 from which yt-dlp can run well enough.

``MT, why not contribute back the changes to upstream and/or take over the maintenance for Python3.14 on Cygwin?''

Well, it takes time due to the additional responsibilities and accountabilities on these patches that I have done up basically only to get working in my circumstance. So I think I've done the next best thing by putting it on my website, and talking about it here (where it can get indexed and highlighted).

I think that's it for now. Till some update in the future.

More Jibber Jabber

It's now December. Like everything in life, nothing happens for a long time, and then many things just surge within a short period of time.

That is basically what happened at work. I won't talk about it here though. Instead, I will muse about the things that had been floating in my head on and off over the past few days.

Also, this was started sometime late last night, before I got completely side-tracked chasing down various rabbit holes (like changing the default system font of Windows 11, a process that was in-built, and easy), and deciding at stupid o'clock that it was the perfect time to rename more of my music files so that they don't eat up the 260-character path length limit while also satisfying some sequencing constraints from the dumbness of music players (yes, it's you, Foobar2000, for some damn reason).

------

How does an all out psychotic break down feel like? I sort of understand that being in psychosis effectively means that one has lost connection with reality, but what went through my mind was, what is that supposed to mean?

Is it a scenario where the regular implicit understanding of physics just goes awry? Or is it ``only'' just hallucinations and delusions that are akin to a ``day-time'' version of some messed up dreams?

No, it's not about me trying to get into a state of psychosis, but more of how do I know that I am currently not in a state of psychosis in the first place.

That last bit came about because I was having some rather strange-ish dreams... that felt more real than the reality that I am currently in.

They weren't bad dreams---they seemed to present the ``could have been''. A different kind of future, whether a hypothetical one from the past where the ``timelines diverged'', or of a future that is yet to come should I choose differently now.

------

There was a day where I saw a dude who showed an MRI of his brain. What immediately struck me was just how close the brain-stem was to... the parts that one would normally be aware of (throat, and tongue). It's obvious that the brain-stem needs to pass close to these other commonly ``sensed'' body parts since we have not developed wireless connections to the rest of the body, but the realisation of the close proximity (all within 2 inches) was mind-boggling.

Imagine that as you are swallowing that bolus of macerated food, that the nerve bundle that links up to the rest of your body is just behind all that, under protection from the bones that make up the spinal column. Then imagine that if you slam your tongue backwards hard enough, you can probably slam the nerve bundle against the bones too.

Food going down in front of the dangling spinal cord bundle.

Trippy.

------

I think that the recent few years saw me massing more music than I had done since my undergraduate days. I was collecting music from my childhood (yes, very clichéd), mostly a mixed bag of 1980s and 1990s mando-pop music that originates primarily from Taiwan and Singapore-Malaysia, as well as various English oldies (between the 1950s to 1990s) of the pop-genre. Then I kind of slowed down hard after that---there just wasn't anything worth looking for(?).

Now, some twenty odd years later, I find myself hunting out the vintage stuff (think Prince, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson), and new things (like The Hu, a whole stack of hololive Production materials, Bruno Mars, Sabrina Carpenter, Zara Larsson). I've also taken the opportunity to tweak the naming conventions of the files to deal simultaneously with the limited path length, as well as the sequencing problem of the tracks---I know I blamed Foobar2000 above, but considering that I like loading entire directory trees into a single playlist, it is not even wrong that the playback order is governed by the lexicographic order of the file names as opposed to the sort order of the track number.

What really cheesed me off is that the mobile version of Foobar2000 does not handle sorting the playlist by any criteria after it is loaded. I suppose they are expecting users to use the Media Library for all these finagling, but I don't (the Media Library is objectively more useless for anything other than answering queries on ``which music was that with this fragment of a title'', and even then it is still hampered by the IME that is needed---this is true for both the deskop and mobile versions of Foobar2000).

But new music! Cornering the heavy tail of the music from my childhood stuff is getting much easier, since I do not need to rifle through shady music CD sellers with various ``compilation'' CDs that have no clear provenance---as long as I can remember some unique-ish sub-string of the lyrics, the search engine can get me close enough.

Then it becomes a case of how well I can recall and render the lyrics (quality-wise, we're hardly going to find anything better than OPUS sampled at 48 kHz for 128 kbps unless we put on our tricorn hat and sail the seven seas). And I tell you, trying to recall stuff when one's barely trying to actively memorise said stuff back in the day for future recall is hard.

Till date, there are still lost music that I don't know until I hear it and go ``That's it! That's the piece! Damn!''. See 《羞答答的玫瑰静悄悄地开》 as an example---it took me a damn long time to figure out that this is the piece.

But old stuff aside, the new stuff from the land of VTubers is astounding. hololive Productions is a music powerhouse, and to fully embrace it... lies madness. Here's the official stuff that they sell (primarily original music), and here's a fan wiki of original songs.

Chuck in covers, and the madness is going to set it.

But hololive Productions aside, here's a great indie-ish VTuber singer to follow: Alpha Betta. She does frequent karaokes, and she sounds wonderful too. And she probably needs the love from new viewers compared to the larger and more established folks.

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And that's about it. I'm not apologetic about all the non-sequitur---despite what it may seem, it has been a hard week that just passed.

Why Do I Even Bother?

It's been a while, innit?

Knowing that a fucking bot is actively scraping this blog kind of takes out the wind in the sails of wanting to write in it.

``But MT, this is a public blog! Shouldn't this be expected?''

Sure, if you'd consent to being chased by a photographer who is trying to capture your every moment as you are walking down the street. And God help you if you're wearing a skirt---you're in a public place, so decency and privacy is not to be expected, eh?

Anyway, bot nonsense aside, I'm just also tired, and maybe a little depressed. But I'm no psychologist, so take that last bit with a heavy dose of skepticism.

It's the end of the year, the traditional period where I just feel sorry for myself. It's a time period where I get a little more pensieve than usual, reflecting on the year just pass, the year that is ahead, and partaking in the self-destructive behaviours of comparing myself against other people.

And this year, 2025, is a shitty year in many ways as it is a great year, in many other ways. But you're not here to hear about that---go join the fuckin' bots and just read the rest of the entries here, eh?

Often times these days, I just wonder about why I'm here. ``Here'' as in here, i.e. in SIN city, doing what I've been doing, putting on a brave front and my best foot forward for my so-called professional stuff (i.e. things that I get paid to do), and just sitting in the corner like a powered down automaton when my work-face is not needed.

Why?

On the one hand, it'd be nice to be acknowledged, but on the other hand, the act of being acknowledged feels banal and phoney to the point that the mere thought of it disgusts myself to the point of contemplation of ritual suicide to cleanse myself of such thoughts, but I digress.

Ever since work has re-instituted the now-known-to-be-stupid five-day work-in-office week, I've not been feeling myself. I was fine with that nonsense before, but I ended up deciding to work from home for one of the days after a long period of not doing so, because I realised that it was definitely better for me to have a day where I could do some day-time activity that could allow me to do something physical, to just sweat it out hard, as a means of relieving the inherent stresses that eventually coalesces into mental issues.

But fuck the people over in the name of capitalism and trend-following, eh?

I'm so fat and lethargic now that I just cannot stand doing anything unless I need to.

I spent the last weekend sleeping most of my 48 hours, spending only roughly 10+ of them out and about doing whatever it was that I needed.

And don't get me started on ``hanging out'' with people. I cannot take it---everyone feels so shallow and callow. Either I cannot identify with what they are saying (what do I know about child-rearing?), or they cannot identify with what I am saying (who gives a shit about the deep exploration of the sound producing features of a recorder?).

With this the ``holiday season'' coming about, it magnifies this disconnect much harder than any other period.

Is this what they call ``anhedonia''? Who knows; surely not me.

I'm just tired.

But am I tired of living? Not so sure about that yet.

I don't even know what I am talking about here now, unsure to what extent I am merely ranting, and to what extent that it is a plea for help.

Because if it is the latter, what kind of help am I looking for? Acknowledgement of perspective? So what? Advice? History has shown that there are very few who can give me advice, let alone good ones, and only because I am not known to approach anyone for advice, preferring to brain it out on my own---you can call this a trauma response from the past where adults have failed me in terms of justice (they actively accused me of an unjust act, and the fuckers threatened to punish me for it should I not kneel), or that I'm acommunicative in articulating the facts for advice dispensation (if I can articulate the facts clearly enough to get advice, I can probably figure out what needs to be done without involving some busybody third-party thankyouverymuch). Empathy? Please... the kind of empathy that many have given me were more pity than anything else, and the few that weren't about pity, I couldn't accept because I felt that I don't have that much of a shit life in comparison with them to feel it as a level ground for sharing.

``MT, you have issues.''

Thanks eagle eye, really appreciate the trite observation.

And with that, I think I should stop here. The bots are circling, and I don't really want to see them doing so while I'm still here.