How Did They Mess Up Making Public Transport Payment Actually Convenient?

I spent a large part of my off-hours in the evening attempting to sort out the mess that is auto-reload of my new EZ-link card.

For the busy, I failed: there will be no auto-reloading of my EZ-link card from now on.

For the less busy, here's a longer narrative.

SIN city uses the contactless (wrongly named, since we still need to contact the card to the reader to ensure it gets read properly anyway) card that is run by the EZ-link company. This EZ-link card has a built-in ``expiry date'' of around five years---I suppose there's a technical reason, if not for the policy one of ensuring that any new technology will be rolled out eventually without having to support too many legacy cards out there.

The normal way of topping it up (or ``reloading'' the said card) is to use one of the ticketing machines found ubiquitously at MRT stations and bus interchanges and pay using one of the standard cashless payment mechanisms to add value to the card.

Then there's the auto-reload way of linking it via a GIRO order. For the confused, a GIRO (short for General Interbank Recurring Order) is a system that allows direct payment via bank transfers within SIN city between participating banks and associated billing organisations. This system of auto-reloading for the travel cards has been in place since the late 1990s, from the old magnetic farecards of yesteryear to the current generation of CEPAS cards (check out this CNA article for some details).

To say that it is convenient is to severely undersell it.

Fastforward to today.

My old card is about to expire this year, and so it was time to get a replacement. It's my third overall card ever since the contactless farecards were in use (or my second replacement). I did my due diligence of heading to the EZ-link website to find out about how to enable the beloved feature in my new card.

To my horror, I discovered several things:

1. They phased out GIRO for regular cards, (but kept it for concession cards);
2. Any auto-top up required the installation of yet another app onto one's mobile phone with its associated finagling; and
3. There was a severe restriction of payment methods available for actually doing the top-up.

I verified this myself while going through the process to see if there was any way around it.

I couldn't install the app in my standard phone because my Google Play account was tied to the US for some reason, and the app limits itself only to SIN city Google accounts. Changing countries involved surrendering payment details to the Google Play store, an action that I refuse to partake because I do not intend to purchase anything from the Play store (need to know basis). And even if I did, there were a whole bunch of other waiting times that were just not worth it.

That was not that big a problem---I had an alternative phone that could set it up.

Then I underwent the whole song-and-dance of adding a payment method. I only have a debit card, and the app allowed me to proceed with the whole registration process, only to fail when I tried assigning the card to the auto-top up. Now the debit card that is verified (through Stripe, no less), but is grayed out.

What does it mean? I have no fucking clue.

Reading the reviews, it turns out that the app used to allow debit cards too... but they were mysteriously removed. So now the app is effectively useless for anyone who doesn't have a credit card. There were also other reports on how the NFC feature was a hit-and-miss, and there were weird double-deduction issues for payment, with resolutions taking as long as three weeks.

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I feel like I've dodged a bullet there. It's okay, I can be a peasant and just top it up manually. It works out to be around SGD50 a month for me anyway, so it's not that big a deal. The routes I take tend to pass by some kind of ticketing machine, and there's always the ATM top-up route if I'm really lazy.

``But MT, why don't you have a credit card?''

Good question. Short answer: I don't feel like getting one. I don't spend often enough to justify holding one of these ticking time bombs that implode if I don't pay enough attention to it.

There was an alternative plan of using the so-called SimplyGo account-based payment option. They touted a lot of benefits, but the actual implementation sounded even dodgier to me than the stunts that EZ-link was pulling.

No feedback on the amount left on entry/exit, even heavier dependence on the existence of a mobile phone (with associated app and payment method), more finagling to ensure that the correct payment method is used, and the creation of a definite point of failure that is the mobile phone with dodgy NFC capabilities.

Yeah... hard pass.

I did muse that if I had to have a bloody good reason to spend nearly 100k on a new car, it would be to avoid all these increasingly bullshit nonsense for basic public transport travel.

And yes, I was sufficiently annoyed at the whole sordid affair that I took the time to write something here as we near stupid o'clock, instead of turning in early in preparation for yet another work day of meetings.

Till the next update then.

``I'm Tired, Boss''

``I'm tired, boss. Tired of being on the road, lonely as a sparrow in the rain. I'm tired of never having me a buddy to be with to tell me where we's going to, coming from, or why. Mostly, I'm tired of people being ugly to each other. I'm tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world... every day. There's too much of it. It's like pieces of glass in my head... all the time. Can you understand?''

---Stephen King, The Green Mile

There are days that I feel like that. Is today one of the days? It is a little too early to tell.

That scene as played by Michael Clarke Duncan in the film adaptation was one that stayed with me throughout all these years. A quiet, simple scene that was full of emotion that I feel ill-equipped to describe properly, despite being some kind of a quasi-writer myself (or was it just a hack, in the sense of the generalised ``hacker'' that I keep alluding to?).

I do feel the compelling urge to just want to hug something or someone and just curl up and sleep with it/them in my arms, forgetting about the world, even for a moment, and feeling that sense of safety and comfort that seems sorely missing in my life these days.

``Eh MT, thought you were a Christian? Doesn't God provide you with that kind of support? If you can still feel like this, does it mean that you're not really that faithful a believer after all, and are just as phoney as those who proclaim the prosperity gospel, right?''

It... doesn't work that way. God's promise in the form of Jesus' sacrifice at the cross and His subsequent resurrection is about fulfilling the law of having sinful humankind be reconciled with God, after the Fall of Adam and Eve for disobeying God. It is about future glory, and the cultivation of the soul through the Holy Spirit to be ready for when we are done with our time on the mortal plane.

It was never about achieving some kind of ``heaven on earth'' state, where there is no pain, no anguish in the now. As long as I am still bound by my flesh, I can and will still suffer whatever nonsensical temptations that my flesh brings with it to me---that's the core concept behind being a disciple of Christ. The realisation that we are all sinners, and even though Jesus has redeemed us from God's wrath through His death and resurrection, we need to live up to our regenerate selves through taking up our cross daily, to deny ourselves against sin, to follow Him.

So yes, while my fate in the far future into eternity is assured, I still need to live through this life first.

Speaking of living through this life first, I recently read Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God's Grand Story by Christopher Yuan. The key takeaway from it is that an ego-centric identity is the true sin that we should all be aware of and work against. Part of the transformation of a believer is to shift the ego away from personal self-interest towards one that is God-centric (or more specifically from the New Testament, that is Jesus-centric since Jesus being both Man and God is infinitely more identifiable by us as humans). People who start declaring this identity or that identity, or prematurely judging people in terms of their actions as being sinful or otherwise have both sinned, no matter their self-declared intentions, the sin being completely ignoring God's ultimate moral authority over all. That as believers in a church body, it is our duty to help our brothers and sisters in Christ to redirect themselves towards a life that is centred upon Jesus, while keeping in mind that we are no better than they ourselves, and that all are sinners who need Jesus to save them (see Matthew 7:1--29). Religious hypocrisy is one of the biggest pet peeves of Jesus that He keeps pointing out to in the gospels, and it makes me sad that despite having the entirety of the Holy Bible today, we still see that as a norm.

Dr Yuan does a better job at explaining all these than I---he is with a PhD on this topic after all---and I think that this overarching theme used in reframing of what has been largely a series of cherry-picked skirmishes is helpful in seeing the world anew.

It does give me comfort. But again, I am still human, and need to work through some crap still.

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Theological discursions aside, I went back to my Minecraft map and did some quality of life adjustments. I moved my Nether wart plot to make space to grow me some cocoa beans that I had grabbed from my deforestation runs in the jungle biome way out in the map. After doing that, I built a couple of automated farms for my melons and pumpkins, and situated them on top of my manual farm.

The last thing I did was to build a small and simple lava farm in preparation for future builds where I would need stupid amounts of lava without necessarily having to hunt for these pools in the world. Unlike the video that is present in the linked-to page, mine is literally just an enclosed lava source block with attached pointed dripstone and a cauldron beneath it. I do have 2 double-chests worth of lava from deep mining before, but it's always good to have a renewable source somewhere within reach as well.

Anyway, I think I'll go for a ride on my bicycle. It feels right, and I've been too tired throughout the week to do so---time to rectify that.

Till the next update.

A Short Entry

Today was rough.

There were times when I was just sitting there, realising that the past had no meaning other than random pangs of pain from memories from those who hurt me, and that the future was not worth it to look at.

It didn't help that I was reading Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, and was at the part where Fat Charlie was prevented from reaching home by Spider, where the latter took the opportunity to... get fresh with the former's fiancée.

That made me irrationally angry.

I'm feeling a bit better as I write this, but that dark cloud still hovers nearby.

I know, because I can feel it.

Anyway, perhaps it is time to do some mindless click booming with Ghostlore.

Sorry this entry is this short. Till the next update.

End of 4-day Long Weekend

And with that, this very long 4-day weekend comes to a close, and the usual daily grind returns once more in about ten or so hours.

Was it a ``productive'' break? Depends on what it means by ``productive''---if it is referring to getting work done, then hell no because I refuse to work over non-working hours if I can help it for the two simple reasons that 1. life is too short to be spent on working for not my owned business and 2. I'm not paid for over-time anyway. Moreover, work is never-ending---if work truly ends, then either one is finally made irrelevant at the job that one was working in, or the company/business is at a dead end and have literally nothing else to do.

Now, if ``productive'' was meant in a way that is more tailor-made to the fact that it was a break, then in some ways, it had been quite productive. I completed Psychonauts 2, and by ``complete'' I do mean 100%-ing it too, collecting all that is collectible and maxing out all my character upgrades.

I like Psychonauts 2. It's a 3D platformer with RPG elements, a genre that I honestly don't play much of due to the general requirement of using a controller [with twin analogue sticks] to operate. The closest in genre to it is those third-person action RPGs (think The Witcher 3, something from the Batman/Arkham series), but those I tended to play with keyboard and mouse... just because. 3D platformers with controllers are something of a recent thing for me, with the latest prior to Psychonauts 2 being Bayonetta for the PC, which I abandoned about half-way through due to some serious input lag issues.

I enjoyed the exploratory aspects of Psychonauts 2. The combat mechanics were a little clunky at times since certain enemies could only be dealt with using one of the eight skills (that were mapped to the four shoulder buttons/triggers for activation). Most of the time though, three of the four PSI-based weapons (or skills) are more or less permanently assigned---one for the AOE fire damage, one for effectively ``fast move'', and one for medium range shooting, leaving only one button for whatever ``special'' skill needed. I usually assign the slow-time skill to that button---that slowing of time allows a higher relative DPS to be applied to the enemies, which is always great and is a more general but effective tactic.

I'm bad at the actual platforming though, mostly because judging distances are hard even when one has control over the camera---this was made particularly worse with moving platforms over void with collectibles (that cast no shadow) overhead. Thankfully, there was an option in the game menu that allowed the negation of fall damage from failed platforming, and that made the gameplay smoother than it should, given my not-so-great 3D platforming capabilities.

It was a fun game, and I definitely enjoyed the 40+ hours that I had spent in it.

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In other news, Vampire Survivors introduced a new mechanic called ``Arcana'' to their basic gameplay loop. At this point, I'm not really sure what to feel about it---it does add a little variety to the builds, but it is starting to feel like it may reach Binding of Isaac levels of randomised gameplay, which sort of defeats the quick fun that is the draw of Vampire Survivors? It's related to the issue I have with the cross-game skills meta---there is really no reason why the order of purchase of a skill upgrade should matter in the cost of getting the next available level. What I mean is, there should be no difference in the overall cost of (say) upgrading in the order ``ABC'' as opposed to ``BCA'', or any other order, for that matter, for the three cross-game skills of A, B, and C.

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On a separate note, Ghostlore is finally in Early Access stage on Steam. Ghostlore is a game made in SIN city, and is based on the mythology of the SEA region. It's a hack-and-slash built along the same vein as ye olde Diablo, but with some interesting mechanics that differ from the regular skill tree. I tried their demo some time back and found it interesting enough to keep an eye out on, and when they finally released their Early Access a few days ago, I just snapped it.

There are some instabilities at the moment, and I will probably play a bit more on it in a few days once the more obvious bugs are fixed. I think this might be a cool game to look forward to, if the developers keep up what they have done so far.

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Okay, game-related stuff aside, there is little else to talk about over the four-day long weekend. I mean, okay I attended church service for Good Friday in person, and the Easter service this morning via live-stream, but those aren't exactly things that I generally write about here anyway. I mean, it's a worship service to God... the general contents are more or less the same, and while there is definitely reflection involved with the message that was preached, much of it probably falls into the ``better to put them into the paper journal instead'' category.

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

Good Friday

Today is Good Friday.

It is the day that we remember the crucifixion of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He died on the cross as propitiation for our sins, and through His work on the cross, we are now reconciled with God and have eternal life.

``But MT, this does not make any sense! There is no scientific evidence to prove any of your statements here!''

If I were trying to convince someone [who values the scientific method] with my statement, then I admit that there are no scientific evidence that can be provided ever, for the simple reason that Christ's entering of the world (as divinity entering humanity through history, as Pastor likes to remind us) is an event that cannot be replicated/repeated the way scientific experiments can be. There are many different types of evidence out there, and each of them serve a slightly different purpose in how and what it is that they can support the claims.

God is Creator (another unprovable statement within science), and as such He is situated outside of the natural world (much like how the system administrator of a Linux operating system sits outside of the operating system proper). He encompasses all that is knowable, eventually knowable, and never knowable, by us. He is as real to me as any phenomenon that has actual effects but unexplainable causes to you---the moniker ``God'' is what we have chosen to give Him while referring to Him. His own name for Himself is simply I AM, a simple logical axiomatic assertion that self-substantiates with no need for anything else within the logic framework.

To refuse Him is to refute that single statement that He is, and there will never be a way to prove/disprove that within the confines of what we have to work with. It is, in many senses of the word, a leap of faith, something that one has to make up their minds on to know it ``deep within their bones''.

``Okay MT, you don't have scientific evidence... fine. You claim historicity... then show me the historic evidence!''

The Holy Bible exists. It is the inspired Word of God that is without error. It holds Truth in it---the Truth of what it means to be a human in relation to the literal pinnacle of the Moral Good. The New Testament itself encompasses all that is to be said about Jesus, His Ministry and Mission, what happened after, and what will happen in the end. The remarkable thing about it all is the sheer lack of pomp and overall low-keyness of His work. He did not operate the way kings and other people of high places were ``supposed to'' operate befitting of their role---there were no big flashy parades, there was no hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, there was no demand that people adhere to man-made social rules that had no linkage with God's commandments, and more importantly, there was no distinction of who is to be saved and who isn't by birth---it was all by faith and faith alone.

Events in the New Testament can be matched with other contemporary sources to mark their historicity---scholars have been doing that for years now, and it would be a disservice of me to not acknowledge their efforts. If the New Testament did not stand up to the scrutiny of the work earnest scholars, then it would be the biggest news to hit everyone, considering the sheer number of people who claim to be Christians (cultural or otherwise).

``Okay... I suppose I could look up the scholars' works on the New Testament for historicity. What about the Old Testament and its whole lot of contradictions then?''

The Old Testament is the backdrop of who Jesus is (as well as the mission that He is given), and should be understood as a collection of many different types of writings. Some are more documentary of events (in which case, the moral message is not as the text writes, but as the text appeals to---the actual text records the actions of the parties involved), some are actual prophecies embedded in the record of actions taken by people, and some are songs that are sang by the people. Usually it is the pre-historical stuff that gets people grinding their gears (Genesis, specifically).

How does one conceive and record pre-history in a form that exemplifies the start of history? That in itself is a common problem, both in the Old Testament sense, and in a more regular and ``common'' scientific sense in the secular world. To be precise, even the modern treatment of pre-history is superlatively vague---the actual [physical] evidence that we have of pre-history is actually quite patchy, and the further we go back in time, the larger the spans of time between the samples of evidence that we base our inferences from, and all these under the twin assumptions of a 4.5 Ga Earth and 14 Ga universe. Part of the reason lies with the sensitivity of our detection methods---from the crudest of observations we can only surface the largest of events; with gradual refinements of said observations, we start to surface the more mundane. Eventually the sensitivity of our methods can unearth the most mundane of everyday existence, up to the entropic floor where natural processes wipe out all the other micro-evidence.

We get the benefit of updates over time, while the pre-historical stuff in the Old Testament do not. Hence, we are always seemingly applying the most up-to-date understandings against a piece of writing that has been around for longer than 1.5 ka---an unfair comparison, perhaps? More importantly though, the pre-historical account in Genesis serves as an introduction to the more important theme that the Old Testament wants to convey---that humankind are sinful with respect to the Moral Good that is God, and that God cannot not punish Sin due to His very nature.

As for the contradictions, it's just cherry-picking all the way down. Many love to poke fun at the Holy Bible by claiming contradictions by picking a single verse that says (for example) ``killing is bad'' (say Deuteronomy 5:17) and then pointing out that another says ``killing is justified'' (say Exodus 22:19 or something), and declaring a contradiction.

🤦‍♂️

Literal cherry-picking. I don't think I want/need to say more. For the confused, remember that any and all citations, no matter where, need to be taken in context for them to make sense. A single line conveying a thought may be part of a piece of satire (for example) that completely negates what the surface meaning is. In a similar way, just because a particular verse appears in the Holy Bible does not mean that it is a factual assertion---the type of writing that it is appearing in (recording of an event, prophecy, parable, poetry), as well as the immediate context in which the verse is embedded in, needs to be taken into account as well.

``Alright, alright... I can sense your annoyance, MT. But why are you talking about all these now? Are you trying to say something?''

In a way, yes. I am declaring myself as a disciple of Christ, in a fairly public way; and this is after my baptism some time back. But I am also declaring that this declaration is just my own, and that I have no intention of demanding that everyone submit to the same beliefs that I do. I would be happy to share whatever little I know with whomever is interested, bringing them to the more learned Christian when their interest goes beyond what I have comprehended and can explain, and defend my own beliefs to someone up to the point beyond which it is just bickering for the sake of bickering, but I will not follow the paths of those who rely on force and deceit to evangelise the Word of the Lord.

Because for Him, the means is as important as the ends.

Additional Day Off, and The Mahabharata

Today's an additional day off as declared by the senior of senior management, and it explains why I'm sitting here at home, ``enjoying'' the cloyingly muggy-ass weather.

Sleep is something that is really important to me these days. I find that for each day where I don't get enough sleep (``enough'' being at least 6.5 hours), I tend to start the day really groggy. It gets a little mitigated with the amounts of caffeine I imbibe through the dual outcome of regular caffeining up and clearing out the old stock of 3-in-1 instant coffee satchets in the office (if I don't drink it, it will just be wasted when expired), but like all regular caffeine users, that ``high'' eventually goes away over repeated use due to the body developing resistance to it.

This means that by around 1400hrs, I would start to lose it, despite having yet another milder boost at around 1230hrs or so.

I think I need to take this more seriously, especially since I have started to incorporate alternate-day cycling trips that make use of the modified Northeast Riverine Loop. That loop is roughly 12 mi long (around 18+ km, both numbers pulled from the direct measurement via the GPSr), and takes me about an hour or so to clear. There are surprisingly few stoppage areas throughout the route, most of which occur due to how diversions to the Loop take one out into the main road areas, where clueless pedestrians and lawless food delivery ``heroes'' (or was it just... gangsters?) amble/charge about with zero situation awareness and complete ignorance of basic road etiquette (keep left unless overtaking, and no surprising movements). It's my go-to route in general, due to the lessened need of dealing with people in general.

Tangents aside, having this aggressive of a physical activity schedule for a generally sedentary me means that sleep to clear the brain of waste particles becomes more important than before.

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In other news, I have finally powered through all 18 books of the Mahabharata. Man, what a head trip that was, and this is considering that I have read both The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night and The Illuminatus! Trilogy (not to mention The Holy Bible).

Where do I start?

I suppose we can begin with recommendation. Do I recommend it as reading material for someone? Probably not, particularly if one is operating mostly in the anglosphere. The cultural references are more obscure as compared to the other works in a similar genre [of head trips], and it does get rather preachy at times. Much of the earlier parts of the Mahabharata make little sense until the depiction of the Kurukshetra War, where the seemingly disparate characters are brought together into a great narrative of conflict between the righteous and the unrighteous.

Of particular note is the character of Bhishma (who is very different from Bhima, a son of Pandu). To aid those who want to read the Mahabharata, I just want to point out that Bhishma's appearance in so many disparate places across a loooooong period of time is not merely an accidental appearance of someone with a similar name, it is literally still him throughout. Just keep that in mind, and things will be less confusing.

Oh and Arjuna has many names... not just him, but many of the other [major] characters have multiple names too. Just keep them straight in one's head and it will be alright. Maybe.

It was definitely an eye-opening read, with every translated line oozing with what I think to be the essence of the culture of the people of then. There are fantasy-like moments the way much of important old writing has (I suspect ``non-fiction'' the way we know it came about only from the scientific enlightenment period onwards), but the cosmology has a certain system in it that makes it easier to see what it means to be a follower of the gods of that time.

That's all I want to write about the Mahabharata though... it's fast become unbearably warm, and the only good response to that is a siesta.

Till the next update then.

Aggressive Regimen of Anti-Depressants

Oh boy, look at it! Stupid o'clock! Amazing ain't it?

Anyway, I've started on an aggressive regimen of anti-depressants. No, it's not in the form of some active ingredient buffered with filler material---it's the conscription of aerobic activity to trigger the brain to feed itself with the correct neurotransmitters to make it less depressed in general.

This being SIN city, the choice of aerobic activity is obviously not running---it's bloody muggy here, and the roads are always full of cars belching their usual catalytically converted noxious gases (compared to say the residential streets way back in Chambana).

I've gotten back to cycling once more.

Now, back in the day when I was working in one-north, I had decided to scout if it were possible to cycle to work. That thought process was triggered by the realisation that my office had showering facilities, a must have when considering the use of self-powered motion [over the long distances needed to get from home to the office] to ensure that the effort thus expended does not result in a day of sitting through some stinky sweat-encrusted clothes.

When I left that place and worked elsewhere, I thought I could cycle to work daily instead due to the much closer proximity. Unfortunately I got diverted out to the client's on-site to work, and that location was not conducive for these kinds of activities. When I was eventually relocated back to the office, I did cycle almost daily, and loved every minute of it.

Where I am currently working at, I don't think I can cycle to work---I have not located any shower facilities that are easily accessible.

But that's fine.

My current tactic is to cycle after work, doing alternate days. I figured that since I was ``not in the market for dating'', and have few people/groups to meet in general after the usual work hours [during the week days], I can totally set aside about an hour every other day to go experience that control over the bicycle, speeding through the Northeast Riverine Loop.

It's a new thing I'm starting, and so far, my body seems to tolerate it well. The anti-depressant effects from the... exercise (hur hur) are coming on indeed, and I am pleased. Hopefully I can make this into a habit to provide a more concrete cardio (and leg-strengthening) augmentation to the daily mini-exercises based on the Hacker's Diet that I had restarted again.

All these are sufficiently important to maintaining this Temple of God that I need to trick myself from giving excuses simply by following through and not accord it more thought than necessary.

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In other news, I've started on Psychonauts 2, a 3D platformer with an interesting story line that I got for free some time back from my friend Dwight who had put up the digital key to an extra copy that he had from being a kickstarter supporter. I'm liking it so far; there's lots to explore, there's character progression to think about (quasi metroidvania), the writing is witty and funny, and they have some cool quality-of-life options like negating fall damage, negating combat damage, and overpowering the protagonist's attacks for those who play the game more for the narrative than to ``challenge'' themselves.

Naturally, I used my trusty controller for this. Also as naturally, I suck at the gliding move in the 3D platforming. And because of that, I just turned on the negation of fall damage so that things are not as irritating. Combat so far has a systematic list of counters for each enemy type, though it is not to the extent one must use the correct counter to defeat the enemy---any other combinations of other moves available to the player are also viable, though they may take a little longer.

Therer is a collect-a-thon part to the game that is so far, quite endearing, since much of the collection is relate to lore, with some (not a lot) impact on gameplay.

Anyway, I think I'm really beat. I can feel myself nodding off.

Till the next update then.

Recovery?

You know, I thought that I had recovered my spoons on Sunday.

But after passing through the day that was yesterday, I'm not so sure.

On the second bus leg for my homeward bound trip, I started to tear up for seemingly no reason. It wasn't an all out eyes-bawling thing, but the kind of feeling one gets when struck by a sad memory from out of the blue.

There was, as far as I recall, no stimulus---I wasn't listening to a particularly moving piece, nor was I reading anything traumatic (like The Economist's coverage of the situation in Ukraine). Since ``TVMobile'' hasn't been a thing for more than ten years, and I was clearly not on my phone then, I wasn't watching anything particularly moving to trigger off that either.

I don't know... might it be because of some latent realisation that this life is all there is, and that it was increasingly more meaningless over time? Leaving the mortal coil seems to be preferable, and yet I cannot reconcile the equal outcome of offing myself versus dying through some self-unforeseen process---there seems to be some resistant (however minor) against offing myself as compared to the eerily calm acceptance of just dropping dead from something that I had no control over.

So irrational... so... human...

Anyway, random tearing and feelings of undescribable sadness. Not sure what was going on there.

Today's another day, and as I quickly scribble this down, I'm also in the process of getting dressed for work. Till the next update, I suppose.

Recovery

I mentioned yesterday about how I ran out of spoons and effectively took a day off from whatever I was supposed to be doing normally [that wasn't work related] yesterday.

Today... I think I got back most of my spoons. Which is just in time for the upcoming week.

I spent the morning with the live streaming of the Sunday service. Pastor was covering Psalm 147, or more specifically, Psalm 147:1. The uninitiated might ask, ``how in the world can anyone preach an entire service based on only this one verse?'', but I can provide a little more explicit explanation.

See, it's the first [Sunday] service of the month, and so there's the ordinance of the Lord's Supper to uphold. Then there's also the rather recent relaxation of COVID-19 management rules from the SIN city government, which simplifies to saying that congregational singing [for worship] is now permitted. So much of the service was really spent on singing hymns and other worship songs. Even during the preaching of the service's message there was even more singing---singing (and non-fleshly music for that matter) are among the core tenets of the worship of God.

Thus, in addition to the rather pithy explanation of why the sole verse of Psalm 147:1 was as important as it was, there was also much opportunity to praise and worship the Lord in song.

Worship aside, I spent some time assaulting the ocean monument in Minecraft. I had erected a set of beacons to provide additional boons to make taking out the regular Guardians (and the three Elder Guardians later on, for that matter) much easier, and had the chance to test out the deployment of the conduit to obtain the boon of ``conduit power'', which gave underwater night-vision, as well as negating the gradual loss of breathing air each time one is submerged within the water. I killed enough Guardians to gain enough materials to make my own prismarine blocks, and with that, I had managed to deploy a conduit back in my Great Aquarium.

The last thing that I needed to do there was to populate it with various fish. A problem that I will need to solve is to ensure that those fish do not despawn---unlike farm mobs of sheep, cows, pigs, and chickens, it seems like fish will naturally despawn if they are not named with a name-tag. I'll just have to trade a few more name tags with the villagers in my shopping complex, and if I do get bored, will probably just whip up some more via creative mode if need be.

Apart from the conquering of the ocean monument in Minecraft, I also spent a few hours on completing The Room 4: Old Sins, the fourth instalment of the puzzle/escape room series of The Room by Fireproof Games. I like that puzzle series---they are not usually time sensitive, have decent puzzle mechanics, and are generally fun without being overly taxing. The puzzle type is usually limited to quasi-mechanical physics puzzles, with the twisting of perspectives as an added bonus, though probably not at the level that Antichamber is known for (a puzzle game that I really need to start+complete, just like The Witness). Puzzles are gated by the availability of pieces rather than specific tool-limitations for the most part, and all of them can be solved based only on knowledge that is available in-game (i.e. no need external knowledge like morse code or anything along those lines).

I have also miraculously cleared up the gradual accumulated backlog of YouTube videos from my favourite Hololive VTubers too, a first in many months. I attribute this to my new-found ability to consistently watch the videos at 2× speed---previously the maximum that I could go was 1.5× while still doing other things and maintaining cognitive awareness and understanding of what is being said, but with the expansion of the original five from Hololive Myth (and the adorkable Reine of Holoro (HoloID Gen 2)) to include IRyS, the new group of five from Hololive Council, some more Holostars like Oga and Aruran, as well as a few Hololive JP folks (Okayu, Botan, and HAACHAMA)... yeah, I was running out of time to catch up.

Mind you, this was with a fairly aggressive filtering process. I generally follow what Ina and Reine have, then be selective of IRyS's streams. Then the rest of the Holomems videos are chosen more or less based on the game they are playing, favouring games that I have not seen before or games/genres that the particular holomem is skilled at, and of course anything else that is a special event that isn't ASMR or karaoke related (nothing against ASMR/karaoke---these simply won't work at anything faster than 1× speed).

I guess it shows just how much output following a group of content creators can put out.

Am I obsessed with Hololive? Eh... I don't think so. It's just a nice collegial group of content creators to relax to after the end of a long-ass day/week... sort of like the earliest days of the Games Done Quick events, before it got all corporate. It's about that casual feel these VTubers bring about as they stream, and about that peeking into a perennial slice of life that I have always been a fan of even from back in the days of following web comics and watching animated series. Hololive Productions is its own slice of life---it is so good at its own fun to the point that I can't even bring myself to watch any more slice of life animes these days.

No one needs to watch all the 50+ Holomems just to keep up with everything---it's good enough to just watch those whom one is interested in, and rely on the memes and updates from r/Hololive for the rest.

Anyway, that's all I'd want to say. It's getting late---I should take my shower and turn in for the night.

No sense getting my spoons back just to lose them due to not having enough sleep.

Till the next update then.

Out of Spoons

I gave up for today.

I had simply ran out of spoons.

The past week at work saw me having to talk/deal with too many people, under too many intensive situations, for too long.

I just don't like that. It drains a lot of out me. It drained a lot out of me. And so, I just... didn't feel like I wanted to deal with more people today.

And so, I gave up for today.

That means not going for service, and not going for rehearsal. Just staying at home, with my door closed, and looking out of the window with my head empty, no thoughts, and probably have an early night.

I did head out at some point in the afternoon for a short cycle around the northeast riverine loop. There was a diversion due to yet more ``improvement works'', but what made this trip memorable was that it stormed about a third of the way through. The rain came down hard, and visibility was easily reduced to about 10 m. I wore my usual glasses, which helped a little in keeping the direct strikes of the rain drops on my eyes, but whatever did land on my eyes felt quite hard upon my eye lids. It doesn't sting the way sweat does, but it was still rather annoying at times.

The rain did help wash down my bicycle though---it was gathering dust the way everything that sits outside of boxes do.

So, I suppose I had a little stupid but fun thing going. What made me a little happy about it all was that my level of fitness wasn't that garbage that I ended up being winded from it all (it is still, however, pretty bad I think). I'll probably go for a longer trip on one of the off-days that are provided for at work; not another 70+ km trip, but something that is of a considerable distance.

Anyway that's all for now. Till the next update, I suppose.

A New Gig Bag and Other Diversions

The last weekend before March 2022 goes away into history. What shall I talk about today then?

Let's start with some good news. We are finally starting rehearsals proper---we have actually started meeting up as a group at the beginning of the month, but having not rehearsed together for two years or so, we spent the first three weeks just sorting out our instruments. The cupboards housing them were opened up and aired, the cobwebs were metaphorically (and sometimes literally!) dusted, the mould on some of the old wooden instrument cases were treated with anti-mould and left to air, strings were checked on and replaced/retuned, and the works.

Sifu is now at a stage of his life where he can come back to play with us again, and I am really happy about it.

Of the ``core pillar'' players, we got back about 60% of them or so, the remaining 40% being less able to commit their time due to the changes in their life that have occurred during the past two years of pandemic nonsense. Naturally, the more transient members who were students have attritted away, hopefully just for now, but given the entire drought of actual extra-curricular activities (calling it ``co-curricular activities'' is what I now see as yet another fig-leaf manoeuvre to pretend that the school system in SIN city truly raises people who know how to both play and work hard) involving group activities, I really am not expecting these numbers to return any time soon.

TGCO isn't flashy, it isn't large, and it isn't some award-winning and highly visible organisation compared to some of the other community orchestras (Chinese instruments or otherwise) out there. None of us are true professional musicians, and we definitely lack the resources and the connections that those who do it professionally have, mostly due to our ethos of keeping the orchestra as a place for those who are interested in playing to gather and play to their abilities, without demanding superlative qualifications.

Only time will tell what will happen. For now, we're just putting the band back together so to speak. That thirty-year anniversary concert isn't likely to be happening, and maybe we'll see if we can live up to our fortieth instead.

It's always good to be playing the dizi again in an orchestral setting. Playing alone has its perks, but ultimately music is meant to be played together as a group---no single instrument can sound better alone as compared to being with others in a well-composed piece. And a performance group is not really one if it doesn't perform---that's the immediate goal that I think we are striving for. Maybe once we get our first performance post-pandemic out, we can start to bring in some more members, for however long they choose to play with us.

------

In other news, I had to finally retire my music backpack, the one that I have used since 2015(?) to move the flute/piccolo stands, flute (Azumi and then later on, Aurelia), piccolo (usually Picc, sometimes S.O.S.), and scores. After more than 6 years, the main zipper have finally given way completely. The bag was used extensively over the years, being taken out weekly on rehearsal/performance excursions. A side zipper's slider had failed and was replaced, the pleather handle flaked off and had a new fabric cover sewn on it, one of the two sliders in the main zipper failed the interlocking and was left unused while the other did the rest of the tour, and the elastic that held the flute box had loosened and was recently replaced. And now, finally, even that last slider failed to hold create the interlocks properly, with the only fix left being a complete replacement of the entire zipper, which was... just not going to happen.

The gig bag lasted as long as it did for the price I paid for. It did its job well and faithfully, and it was truly time to retire it.

o7

Some might find it dumb that I can get sentimental over things, but well, in a world where no one really knows what each person is thinking (even with letters that were supposed to share what one was thinking), the only things we have left are the things that we exchange and hold on to. And for the things that served as our tools of the trade, for whatever trade it is, there's a certain part of it that has become an extension of ourselves to the point that we unconsciously grow an attachment to it. I can't say that I take the greatest of care for my stuff, but I do generally try to do so. It isn't the fact that I spent my own money on them that makes me treasure what I have, but that having these things working means that I could do what I wanted to do with them more effectively and painlessly that makes me want to treasure them more.

The new music backpack is also from ROI MUSIC, as brought in by MusicGear. It definitely has seen some improvements over the years, with the most obvious being the `X'-stitching pattern on the interior that holds the padding together (compared to the original vertical-only stitches). The material does feel a little stiffer, but it's not clear if it's only because it is new or if there was something that was changed.

I suppose only time will tell.

------

The Great Aquarium has its water filled in, and the kelp has all been harvested. I tweaked the deepslate smelter into a kelp smelter by replacing the furnace with a smoker---I didn't realise that the kelp could be treated as a food item and therefore the smoker would smelt it faster (by time) as compared to the furnace. From that tweak, and leaving things to run throughout the day, I have completely smelted all the kelp.

I took part of today searching for a Ocean Monument. I needed to find it to get the materials needed to make that conduit in my Great Aquarium. Well, I found it---it was a ways away from the frozen river where I had dug up my ice to fill the Great Aquarium with. After building a nether-portal in the overworld, I cleared a path towards the nearest minecart station (the frozen river exit) and built a cover over it in the nether to prevent the Magma Cube spawns from clogging up the place.

And that's about it for this post. Till the next one.

Yet Another Grab Bag

Hmm.

The past week was something of a different nature. It wasn't a hard week, but it was definitely a trying one at some level. For some unknown reason, I ended up sleeping no more than five hours a week day for the whole week---I think the sleep debt accumulated was starting to drive me a little nuts in the head. It was bad enough that I could feel that weird existential dread since Thursday/Friday.

It was rough. Intrusive thoughts were coming in here and there, and it was through active mental effort that I managed to counteract them. This was, of course, not counting the additional irritation from other inconsiderate actions by other people.

It was bad enough that I spent much of Saturday in a brain fog, just mechanically dragging myself to the Saturday service, and then continuing on to rehearsal. It was still bad enough that I slept in late on Sunday, and ended spending much of the afternoon just napping away.

I'm not dreading heading back to the office tomorroww though---there're things that need to be done, and I know how to do them, and have most of what needs to be done in control.

Situations like that are fine for me---it's when I have no control of things under my domain (like when someone decides to eschew planning make it my emergency) that I get irritated enough to lash back, hard.

But you, the reader, didn't just come here to listen to me talk about vague discomforts in my life, right?

------

I've been working on the Great Aquarium in Minecraft. The glass walls have been put up, and I have been mining me some ice from the frozen river, and have laid out half of the top surface of the aquarium with the ice. The second half had been filled in since the last time I wrote, and I have started putting in the kelp needed to convert the downward flowing water from the top-level source blocks into water source blocks.

Kelp takes time to grow, and even then, they have a maximal height that is randomly pre-determined and cannot be known without some kind of mod. Here is where I decided that I would just use the fact that I'm playing on a semi-survival single player server and just upped the random ticks game rule to allow the kelp to grow much faster after having plopped the kelp down.

The end result surprised me greatly. The idea I had was to slowly clear the kelp row by row, after having stacked on more kelp on whatever was already fully grown to fill up the entire water column with it to ensure that all of it was source blocks. I had done this for five rows when I suddenly realised that throughout the entire 3D space of the Great Aquarium, all the water blocks were source blocks, even when they were above the fully grown (but stunted height) of some of the kelp plants.

That... was way better than I had expected. It meant that I didn't have to go through the painful process I had in mind---I could basically harvest all the kelp and have the filling of the Great Aquarium declared done. The only problem that I had was how to dispose of all the kelp.

Minecraft kelp is a very versatile entity---it can be used as a food source (after smelting in a furnace), and as a fuel source (after combining into a dried kelp block made up of nine smelted kelp). It does require smelting though, and I had a spare semi-automatic smelter available. I had originally used that smelter to create deepslate from cobbled deepslate, but already I had way more than I had ever used, and thus it had been lying defunct. I quickly rejigged it to smelt kelp instead, and adjusted the input to it to allow direct loading from a shulker box. The idea there was to use shulker boxes to assist in moving a larger amount of kelp at once as I move through the Great Aquarium---it saves the amount of round trips with the [much farther] smelting set up from where I was getting the ``raw'' resources.

And with that, I now have yet another bit of industry set up.

I'll probably spend the next few days/weeks clearing out the kelp. Considering that I have only set up a single furnace to handle smelting, it will indeed take a while (unless I use my ``ad hoc smelting'' auto-feeder to increase the smelting rate by 100%). But that just gives me a good reason to have Minecraft running in the background while I am doing something else that isn't related to actively playing any game, a propensity that I am currently in.

------

In other news, I just want to point out that the PDF file format is... quite something. Despite having PyPDF2, there are still some manipulations that I wanted to do on PDF files that made me scratch my head still.

Context: I have a certain large PDF file that, when the ``zoom to content'' option is activated, does almost nothing, despite there being a nice thick border of nothingness separating from the text viewable text and the edge of the page. Almost all other PDF files that I have do not possess this singular problem.

At first blush, it seems minor, but considering single screen left/right split set up, having a working ``zoom to content'' means making much better use of the 960×1080 pixel real estate---it's the difference between readable text and ``oh no I can't see anything properly''.

I've managed to narrow the issue down to a much larger sized /CropBox compared to the /TrimBox. So fixing the PDF to do what I wanted was easy, at least on this front.

But doing that alone with pyPDF2 missed the important step of copying the bookmarks over to the new PDF file. That was where it started to get very hairy in a jiffy.

The long story short was that it was important to make use of the source PDF's ``outline'' object to learn of the bookmark's mapping to the system-level definition of the page (considered as an offset from the first page's binary segment), and translate it to work well in the new [adjusted] PDF.

Doing that alone was enough to copy the bookmarks, but they would still be unusuable since it means all nested bookmarks are fully expanded. For the large piece of work with sections and sub-sections, that was a no-go. The fix for that was arcane---the /Count key had to be set to the value of 0 to not expand that bookmark's child links.

After fixing those two, I realised that I was still missing one thing: the correct copying off the ``logical'' page numbers to the physical ones [as represented in the binary]. The technical term was /PageLabels, and to know it was to have to dig through the PDF specifications.

It was as arcane as it got... for now.

pyPDF2 made accessing all these weird objects very easy to do, and was definitely a massive time-saver. Of course, it not having a properly working copy data structure of the source PDF into the data struacture of the destination PDF was a great hindrance in the ease of programming---it was, however not likely that the original author might updateee things and do a new release. After writing up all the other customised code to do what I wanted while using pyPDF2 as the data access framework, I finally got the results I wanted.

Anyway, that's all I want to yammer about. The upcoming week is a little more controlled (hopefully), and there are some errands that I need to run.

Here's to hoping that the brain fog I had would be dispelled. Till the next update then.

π-day!

Today was π-day.

Normally on π-day, I would grab a bunch of pies (usually dessert), round up some of the office folks that I am close to, and call a π-day celebration of eating pies during an afternoon tea break.

Last year I was on a sabbatical, and so I spent π-day pretty much alone.

This year... even though I'm at work at the office, thanks to the general trend of the workplace in SIN city from pandemic measures, there is no one else that is there.

And so, it's yet another π-day spent alone.

I had two pies---a classic chicken pot pie during my lunch break, and then a butter chicken pie in the evening. They were savoury pies---dessert pies are a little more difficult to find these days, with my general location being far from dessert bakeries as compared to last time when I could easily get a pecan pie to share.

------

I've started on the great aquarium in Minecraft. The glass walls have been put up, and I've been digging up the ice from a frozen river ``near'' to my hill-top base as part of a two-step process to fill the aquarium up with source blocks. So far, I have filled in about half the upper surface of the aquarium with the ice blocks (which melt under the light from the industrial platform, leaving behind an `X'-pattern that I had to melt away with torches) that created the flowing water. I've started on laying out the kelp, but I do not have enough of it to do all of them at one go---I had enough to set up maybe four full 25+ blocks of water columns. So I laid out what I have so far to grow enough of them to use it that way.

That takes a while.

The other thing that I need to do is to find an ocean monument to find the right blocks necessary to power the conduit in the middle of the great aquarium.

That takes a while too.

Subsequently, I'd like to populate the floor of the great aquarium with corals, and maybe fill it with some uparupa... I mean axolotls, tropical fish, salmon, cod, and if possible, dolphins.

That will also take a while.

All in all, the great aquarium will be a massive undertaking. That hill clearance and subsequent glass-walling is literally just the easy part.

Hahahaha... that's Minecraft for you. But at least there's persistence and a sense of achievement.

Alright, that's all I have to write for now. Till the next update then.

Haw Par Villa... Was Pretty Small

Ah.

I went on leave yesterday to account for the fact that there isn't any public holiday for March.

I spent much of the morning walking about the southwest side of SIN city, starting with Haw Par Villa. It had been about 20+ years since the last time that I was there, and the last time that it had come into my consciousness was a year and change ago. However, I couldn't satisfy want to visit then due to the closure and restoration. The eventual re-opening was without fanfare, and after a few months, I finally had the opportunity to go visit.

Frankly, it was underwhelming.

I remembered Haw Par Villa as being pretty large, and with many exhibits; lots of things to see and do, colourful to a fault.

What I ended up seeing (together with Harish) was a kitschy three-quarter scale diorama of models of fading paint jobs, with semi-logical arrangement, and an entire walk space that was completed in less than two hours, even with us being fairly casual and actively doing a multi-cache attempt. It was way smaller than I had remembered, and it felt like a big... disappointment.

The Hell's Museum was the revamped version of the infamous ``18-levels of hell'' diorama exhibit that was converted into a water ride through a dragon during the ``Haw Par Villa Dragon World'' era, before being re-converted back to a walking exhibit after that. It required an admission fee which on its own was not a big deal, but they had required a priori online booking of the admission ticket, with no way of buying them ``on the spot''. That was either a misunderstanding of what I heard from an officious attendant, or was actually the case. Harish and I didn't know about that, and didn't go in.

We went off to West Coast Park later on to find a couple more geocaches, my first finds in a few years. They were simple traditional finds, and were nice. The walk was invigorating, and lots of nice conversations were had with Harish too.

We eventually made our way to VivoCity for lunch, where we used up the complimentary voucher that I had for tcc. I managed to run my quarterly medicine run after that as well, and ran into the weird situation where the Visa Paywave system was rejecting my card, and also Harish's when I asked him for help. It was eventually resolved through a hard reset of the device... through the advice of the customer that came after me while I was standing ``guard'' to look out for my meds while Harish went to grab some cash from the ATM. Though resolved, I just paid it off in cash---didn't want to waste more time while waiting for them to sort out their internal database contents.

And that was that. Not much else to report. Just felt like writing something down about the little break. I need to figure out how to get me a pie to celebrate π-day on Monday---it's probably going to be a solo thing, I suppose.

Till the next update.

Vampire Survivors---Go Get It

It does feel like it has been a while, doesn't it?

March is upon us, and already the first week is over. We're nearing the end of the first third of the month, and work-wise I do have a couple of things that need to be done before the end of the second-third to solicit the necessary feedback and necessary adjustments.

But let's not talk about work.

March has no public holidays gazetted in it. A pity. In fact, the distribution of public holidays for this year is quite clumpy, with at least four months that do not have any public holidays in it (off the top of my head---I'm too lazy to confirm that). Since I am not intending to travel outside of SIN city for the foreseeable future (think in the next couple of years), all those leave days that I'm slowly accruing are better off being consumed throughout the year to bring back sanity, you know, like the way it was. And with that in mind, I have decided to take leave on Mar 11, just to do something different.

The whole idea of storing a lump of paid leave days to go travelling was probably something that gained some kind of relevance in the past fifteen or so years in SIN city, during which travel of any sort was preferable to getting stuck in an increasingly packed city. With the pandemic though, travel has been nerfed, but the population density situation has seen a bit of amelioration through the exodus of foreign workers who choose to return to their home countries due to either homesickness, or general genuine discontentment with the seemingly draconian and mercurial policies of the SIN city government with respect to the management of the pandemic.

I cannot blame them. It is still a double-edged outcome---on the one hand, the losing of [large] quantities of foreign workers can do a real number on SIN city's economic output. On the other hand, their exodus brings back a certain sense of sanity, a feeling that somehow the city is returning to those who have sunk their roots [deep] into it. I'm no public policy wonk, having never been trained in any of its allied fields, but as a citizen of SIN city, I both feel and think that the ruling powers of the city owe its citizens fealty and care. Citizens, by choice or by birth, have called SIN city home, and have elected their representatives into parliament to represent their interests. Thus, it behooves the elected representatives to do their elected role of representing the citizens' interests. It is, by no means, an encouragement of xenophobic tendencies, but a declaration that care for the citizen should be among the priority of the usual multi-factor analysis of the pros and cons of various public policies. We always joke about SIN City, Inc, but the sad thing is that the joke, after nearly sixty years, have turned into some kind of twisted dogma, where many of the elected representatives see themselves not as champions of the citizens' needs and wants, but as some kind of ``entrepreneurial business guru running a multi-billion-dollar company''.

It's sad that it has come to this point.

------

In other news, I've discovered a cool new game: Vampire Survivors (I got the Steam version for like SGD3.25---best 3-bucks I've spent). It's like an action RPG, but with automatic auto-attacks (i.e. the player doesn't have to press a key or click a button to ``fire'' their weapon). The player's main control is just the movement of the character in the play field to avoid the ever-increasing horde of mobs while picking up the experience gems that drop from the destroyed mobs, and choosing from a [short] list of abilities (both new and to upgrade) each time the character gains a character level.

I won't claim that it has ``surprising amount of depth'', but it definitely has its charm. Each run is short---no more than 30 min, less if one's character build doesn't do enough damage to fight out of the many encircling-type attacks---with very little down-time within. Watching the mobs go boom is very satisfying, as is the tricky parkour-esque movement to collect experience gems and setting up positions where the attack patterns of the auto-attacks can inflict their damage/effects most effectively. There are also some interesting strategic concerns, particularly in choosing the load out of auto-attack weapons (maximum of six) to provide the type of coverage that would allow the character to go the whole 30 min, though due to the random nature in which the abilities lists are offered, some form of adaptation is always needed.

It reminds me of another pair of games that I enjoyed playing, One Finger Death Punch and its sequel, One Finger Death Punch 2. Basic mechanics, but surprising amount of tactical knowledge that is needed. Above all, bite-sized durations that don't require the great sinking of time, time that I don't seem to have these days.

Which brings me to another point. I know that Elden Ring is out. I've always wanted to try a Souls-like game. But then there was Hollow Knight that, despite being a darling, was a game that I eventually had to put down and walk away. I mean, I like such games, but I find that I just don't have that kind of time/stamina to spend grinding out and ``gitting gud'', just because there are so many other things competing for my attention. So I have found myself gravitating towards much shorter duration games. The high price tag of SGD79.90 (at the time of writing) is also a little bit of a put-off, though it isn't the primary concern.

Time. Time and the need to use a controller for the best outcome. Time, and patience to learn the mechanics to a level of detail that I don't feel compelled to do just to obtain a good enough outcome.

I can appreciate it as a great game. But it's just not something that I am feeling compelled to play now, especially since I am already putting in hours for work. Even on my sabbatical, I never did see myself spending enough time to get through similar ``simpler'' versions of the genre: see when I first started on Bayonetta, and then my subsequent abandonment from frustration. Could I have continued to muscle my way through until I could tame the input lag statistically? Sure... I mean, I am a musician, and part of being one is to work our way through until we fix our timing issues. But unlike music-making, being good at Bayonetta doesn't really ``buy'' me anything useful, and so the associated expenditure of effort is just... too much, especially for a game.

And there we go. Almost effortlessly, a post to start March is here. Now I need to wonder about what I would like to do for π-day this year. The office is practically empty, and as always, it is not that easy to find pies.

Ah well. Till the next update then.

Fine-tuning Timestamps, and The Great Aquarium

Ah. Night time. Not quite stupid o'clock, but I feel like writing something here.

I spent some time working on a little bit of code between yesterday and today to fine-tune my publishing process for my personal domain. For the uninitiated, I have a customised Python3 script that does minification of the hand-written static HTML/CSS pages, and generates a GZip version to be served faster. I had added a sitemap XML file that is autogenerated as part of the build+deploy process. The final step is to make use of rsync to update the actual files on the server, but without incurring the complete cost of copying all 38M+ bytes.

The bit that requires fine-tuning was something to do with timestamps. Practically speaking, there are three different timestamps associated with the HTML/CSS files. They are:

1. Logical timestamp as seen by the ``Updated at 2022-02-26T23:44:31+0800'' lines in the pages;
2. The physical file's timestamp as reported by the operating system through the stat(), more practically observed through output of ls -ltra or whatever the modified date is under Windows Explorer;
3. And the timestamp of last commit as stored in the Subversion database.

The logical timestamp is useful for the human viewing the page after it is served, but the various caching mechanisms (as well as the rsync process) of the HTTP server uses the physical file's timestamp. There is a fourth (stored timestamp within the GZip file), but that has been adjusted to ensure that it matches the source physical file's timestamp.

The timestamp business affects how many bytes get sent via rsync to the HTTP server. This is because rsync transfers the differences among the files over, and I was frankly getting annoyed with seeing a long list of files that were changed even though I did not change them. Another side problem occurs when I checkout the Subversion repository into a new machine---the physical file times of the same file from that new machine will be different from the ones of my other machines. This means that rsync-ing from one machine to the HTTP server and rsync-ing from the other machine to the HTTP server will guarantee more unnecessary bytes being sent due to the different timestamps.

Thus, I decided to just force set all the local files' timestamps to match what the commit timestamp was for it in the Subversion repository. With the help of this Python3 svn library, I could access the Subversion information for any given file (assuming it's in the repository in the first place). Using that, I managed to update all the timestamps of my files to match those exactly in the Subversion repository yesterday.

But that was insufficient in the long run, because the moment I edit any file, save and then commit, the timestamps [of the physical files] are no longer in sync. And using the simple script that I put together yesterday (till late) meant waiting for 2+ min just to update all the timestamps of the files, even though I only touched like... 2 files. Thus, I spent this morning working on a smaller delta-version that, instead of crawling through the Subversion repository (slow), crawled through the local file system (fast-er), and only triggering the Subversion repository look up if the file in question is ``sufficiently recent''. This strategy only added about 1.0+ s to the overall run-time, but kept the timestamps in sync.

That was a fun little exercise to update my process.

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I spent much of my afternoon clearing the other half of the hill in Minecraft. I had this thought of creating a large aquarium using the space beneath my large ``industrial complex'' platform. It was much easier to clear out the space because I didn't have to be as careful as clearing the mountain beneath my brick apartment---I didn't have to worry about accidentally puncturing the dedicated ``floor space''. Being near to my large beacons with the Haste II and Jump II enchantments made my mining speed superlatively high. So by the time I took a break and start writing this, I have already cleared something like three quarters of the hill.

After clearing out the space, I will lay out some sand to form the base. There's a ravine cutting through though, and I need to decide how I want to deal with it. One way could be to set up a glass ceiling in the ravine and lay the sand on top---the other is to set up a network of signs and lay the sand on top of that. The second is much trickier to do, but consumes more wood than glass.

Sand aside, the walls of the space above the sea-level will be made of glass blocks that I have. The hard part after is how to populate the space thus walled up with water---I have an idea, but I need to try it out to see if really works.

Anyway, it's late. I'm tired. I think I'll go take a shower, and then turn in for the night. Till the next update.

Jump Cuts

I just felt like I needed to say something on this date 2022-02-22.

First of all, it's no palindrome in ISO-8601. It's kinda like a palindrome in the UK traditional format of 22-02-2022, which I don't use any more because of ambiguity.

Second of all, it being Tuesday and coincidentally (is it, really?) the twenty-second day of the Chinese calendar is also somewhat noteworthy.

But it's one of the few lights over the past 2 years, so it's nice to live a little.

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For those who visit my blog via mobile, I hate to point out that while there is a nice ``mobile-friendly'' version that Blogger automatically generates, it is woefully incomplete---I had to do some serious tweaking just to even get the disclaimer in place. Check out the non-mobile version. There is a nice collapsible history of all entries ever made here, as well as a tag collection of posts as well.

I sure as hell didn't ``only'' write fourteen entries a la the mobile friendly version. Fixing up the blog's template/formatting system to work well even in mobile mode is nasty,

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That COVID-19 omicron variant is really ripping through SIN city. Previously the case numbers were just that, numbers, with no faces put to them. But now, I already personally know three people who have tested positive on an ART (Antigen Rapid Test) self-test kit. One I dodged completely, one was a passing interaction at a meeting, with all participants fully masked up and more than a metre apart, and the latest was with masks fully on unless we were eating.

It's harrowing. Somehow, I feel that it's just going to be a matter of when that I will eventually be tested COVID-19 positive at one of the weekly ART self-reports that my current work place requires us to do.

Or alternatively, I had already been hit with COVID-19 without realising it as the symptoms were mild enough that my threshold of tolerance was never breached, and that they were subsided long enough that the weekly ART did not pick it up.

One can hope, I suppose.

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The demons I talked about yesterday, they're mostly in remission for today. Maybe it was the little bit of playing some familiar music on the S.O.S. (my Armstrong 204 piccolo) before I wrote the entry, or perhaps it was the sleep I got, or even the sense of purpose as I tackled a rather awkward enhancement/bug at work. In any case, I feel better.

I did stray in thought about how it would feel like standing at the epicentre of a nuclear bomb blast, a thought that came about only because I was reading Hiroshima by John Hersey. It was a different kind of bad compared to Grave of the Fireflies---there is emotion, but there is also a certain amount of journalistic detachment, a near omniscient view of the goings on to provide that perspective for one who did not live through that horror to learn what it was like.

Anyway, I'm tired. I'll probably turn in now. Sorry for all the incoherent vignettes---just felt like dumping what was on my mind. No big thoughts for today.

Till the next update.

Demons Came Out to Play Today

The demons came out to play today. But I managed to keep them at bay. For now.

I was walking home from the bus, and just thinking to myself, realising that at some point, I would simply forget about that particular moment. And I asked myself, how would I feel when I forgot that particular moment that just passed?

And I was sad to realise that since I had forgotten about that particular moment, there was nothing to feel about.

It was... surreal at the very least, and rather disturbing all in all. I don't know why the demons of nihilism chose today to show up, and in that form.

Apart from that little episode, I wafted through the whole day, quietly working on things in the mostly empty office.

The week that had ended yesterday was alright for the most part. I met up with some ex-colleagues who miraculously avoided getting hit with COVID-19 for dinner on Friday, and got a lot of stuff done throughout that week itself. The week that begins today is likely to be of a near opposite nature, with more introspection being necessary as compared to action. Such is the work life.

I have managed to successfully maintain my mass for the most part. It's good, except that I was trying to lose weight. I think I need to muster more self-discipline to stick to the one meal a day set up, and not get tempted by tasty lunch food made even more tempting through the massive amounts of body heat I lose each day from overly cold air conditioning in the office. I do muse every now and then on whether it was truly better to just work from home instead---it was allowed after all, and my presence in the office was mostly my own decision to head on back to ensure that my psychological separation of work time and me-time was backed by actual physical separation.

February is almost up, and March will be upon us. How quickly the days go on by.

I think I'll turn in earlier this night. Those demons have got to go, and the best way is to have my mind not in a state of exhaustion.

Till the next update.

Metaverse?

Okay, let's talk about something a little different.

The ``metaverse''. An old concept that was recently made new all over again. For the lost, this is referring to the idea of having people interacting within a virtual world, with as many real-world equivalent concepts being brought into it as possible to literally be a space that people can live in.

I call it an old concept because virtual worlds have been the mainstay for much of the multi-player experience ever since computer networking was a thing. The key difference though is that the ``metaverse'' tries to have a stronger tie-in between the virtual world and this one that we live in, mostly in the form of linking what we would call ``valuable'' in this real world with what is in the virtual one. Another big difference is that unlike a multi-player game, the ``metaverse'' might not have game-like mechanics of goals and/or progression, both of which are replaced with metrics that are more closely aligned with how the real world operate, like real-world money.

Some might say that the ``metaverse'' is defined by the extensive use of virtual reality technologies, but I beg to differ. Virtual reality technology might be cool (well, cooler these days compared to before), but the technology companies involved in them aren't really looking at these technologies for the coolness---they are looking at them from the perspective of how much value capture they can exploit the way how old school industrial capitalism is always about exploiting the surplus labour of the workers to generate value. In the work by Zuboff (The Age of Surveillance Capitalism for the confused), it has been established that a large part of modern day capitalism is tied around the exploitation of behavioural surplus, an information-type resource that is used both directly and indirectly to manufacture real-world demands through [targetted] advertising. The ``metaverse'' can be seen as the extreme version of that surveillance capitalism, where the very physics of the world itself is controlled, observed, and milked by the companies that own the infrastructure to run and use them.

What separates the ``metaverse'' from the previous concepts of virtual worlds is the very strong tie-in with the real world, as I have stated earlier. Instead of role-playing a character in the virtual worlds like the old way, the ``metaverse'' demands that you appear in the system as yourself. This bit is important because it forces you to bring in everything that you do in the real world into the virtual world, and it also allows the owners of that ``metaverse'' to use the real-world clout of personalities/intellectual properties within their ``metaverse'' to create the strong false equivalence that whatever that happens in the ``metaverse'' is as valid as what is happening in the real world.

Suddenly no one can role-play their favourite celebrity any more---if Real World Celebrity So-and-So shows up within the ``metaverse'', it can be ascertained that it really is who it claims to be, and not one of their many fans who are role-playing as them. Similarly, if you are fed-up with being an office drone and want to go into the ``metaverse'' to role-play as a rock star, you probably can't do that because your real world identity is immediately shown to everyone---there's no way to hide that away.

Or maybe you could hide it away... for a price and a limited amount of time as dictated by the company who owns that ``metaverse''.

Real-world money that goes into the ``metaverse'' to pay for anything does not come out of the company that runs it---it is a means of capturing money. Throw in some equivalent of digital real estate and add the human value of prestige, and the most successful company running that particular ``metaverse'' will make bank.

I think that's too much power for any single company or even conglomerate of companies to hold. And I don't think that it takes a genius to realise that all that hype on ``metaverse'' is just the techno-gasm equivalent of Centrally Planned State Control. And that's not counting the obvious subscription fees that are needed just to keep one's place within the ``metaverse''. I mean, in real-life, we sort of have such ``subscription fees''---we call them taxes---and even then, the tax rules tend to be a little more progressive, with a general slant towards being used mostly for the social good.

Would a company do that? Especially for a company that is built around the modern day principles of ensuring that their quarterly reports show great progress?

Maybe this ``metaverse'' would be the equivalent of this duodecade's version of the dotcom bust in the early 2000s.

Maybe.

An Early Will

In the event that I am dead, here is roughly what I would like done:

1. Cremate and scatter my cremains into the waters off the Singapore coast---ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
2. All physical objects I possess, burn in a great bonfire as they are no longer of any value to anyone.
3. The money that I might have in my accounts, let them lie in oblivion in where they are stored in.

Yes, I'm well aware how this post is probably triggering all kinds of red flags. No, I am not about to off myself---perish the thought. Considering that one of the most likely futures that I am going to end up in is one where I live alone, I felt it necessary to start leaving some ``future instructions'' in case the inevitable does happen and I did not have the opportunity to write a ``proper'' will.

Naturally what is written here can and will change in the event that circumstances change. Now that I am well on my way through the middle age phase, I feel less invincible as compared to being in my teenage years, and it will progressively be worse as time goes on.

That's all I will write here for now, till the next update.