Self-Interest and Altruism

Once upon a time, when I was much younger and full of ideals, when I was mostly segregated from the rabblement that comprised individuals too haughty about their ways to listen to or even pay attention to someone who looked a little different from them, I believed in altruism. From the many levels of education that I was receiving in those days, my conviction towards altruism was strong, wilfully sacrificing myself should the situation arise if the overall benefits were to outweight the costs of self-sacrifice; in some ways, this is the very definition of utilitarianism since it weighs the value of the outcome given the cost of the action.

But as time went by, my disillusionment with the world grew, and slowly but surely, I found myself starting to believe less and less in altruism. In fact, I would say that the events that occurred scantly a year ago are probably what triggered my general lack of belief that altruism is a worthy goal to pursue, for the simple reason that people are not morally rational. I think I'm beginning to understand what the sages were trying to say when they proclaimed that each generation of society was on a spiral of destruction, with each successive generation falling ever lower compared to the last. And as an observer, I have started to see this occurring even as we speak. And the strange thing is, I can see myself as being a contributor to the entire fiasco.

Self-interest and altruism seem to be polar opposites of each other---it is hard to be acting in a way that is consistent with both self-interest and altruism. Granted, one may operate in a way that aligns most of one's self-interest with altruism, but in most cases, this is merely a facade. Altruism is an idealism that attempts to reconcile the actions of the leaders with the welfare of the people---it is a means of showing why a leader does what he/she does by putting the actions into a new light that it is somehow helping the greater good. But are the actions' intent really for the greater good, or is it a by-product of careful engineering on the presentation of the actions? That is one question that few would dare to answer, simply because the intent of any action can only be deduced, and the deduction is probabilistically true at best, since it is hard for anyone to actually understand the innate circumstance that governed the cause of action of any one person.

So is self-interest incompatible with altruism? That is a question that is plaguing me for the better part of the year. As I have noted earlier, I began with the thought that I would be willing to do anything for the greater good. But I have been shown that my assertions were not demonstrated in the real world, and slowly but surely I find myself working from the perspective of self-interest more than anything else. To a large degree then I find that self-interest is incompatible with altruism, since the intent from which the actions they spawn are polar opposites.

[Ed: This started out as a rant on Oct 03, but by now I have no idea where I wanted to go with it, so I'm just leaving this half-completed monstrosity online.]

Seriously, Your Kind Extinct Liao...

Mm. Just the right time to be writing things once more I suppose. But what shall I talk about today?

The thing about writing a personal blog such as this one under the kinds of NDA requirements that I have with regards to my job means that I can't really talk about the things that happen to me during the 12+ hours that I spend at my workplace, not unless I want the proverbial fine-toothed comb to be run over my posts each time I hit the ``publish'' button. As noted, this can be a substantial amount of time we are talking about here, and thus my posts tend to gravitate towards things that I do outside of work, which can be reduced to probably just a couple of paragraphs or so.

Thankfully, I don't run a blog that is so popular that I have to worry about readership rates and things like that. So at the very least, I have some level of freedom in what I want to talk about here and how I go about doing it, while, of course, observing some prudence in judiciously applying self-censorship to keep the hound dogs at bay.

But of course, what I have said so far is mostly drivel. Now for some fun stuff.

I injured my leg recently from being too gung-ho in the warm-up round for my 10km in 30+week campaign. On the one hand, the chiropractor (or was it the osteopath?) said it was just my bashing of my muscles without proper warm-up before running, but on the other hand, I have that nagging suspicion that a hairline fracture involving the fibula is at work, but lacking any X-rays and first hand information on how a hairline fracture feels like, I can't say more. Actually, on the topic of hairline fracture, I think I had suffered one before a long time ago when I was in secondary school, when I was still rather naive about the world and was being rather altruistic, but that's another story for another time.

Right, injured leg. Because of that, it was annoying to keep standing on it, and so I decided to not take the public transport home. That meant that I had to wait till at least 8pm before I could hail a cab, because of all the extra surcharges from using taxis during the peak period (I believe it is a surcharge of about 15% on top of the meter fare, which is just plain nasty when you need to commute from one end of the island to the next). And so I stayed back in office to clear up some stuff for tomorrow and counted down the time.

Again I think I'm saying a little too much without getting to the main point.

So I managed to get a cab, and told the driver my home address so that he can take me there. And, you know, being a cab driver and all, we had a conversation of sorts.

``Got a route you want to take?'' He asked.

``Not really. Pick any one that works for you. As long as I get back home, I'm fine,'' I replied.

``Eh, you should know the route better what. Just give me a route lah, not all drivers know how to get to the places that the customer want leh.''

``Well... start from Farrer Road then go via Upper Serangoon?''

``Okay.''

And then the conversation drifted towards claiming for cab fare.

``Wah, so late then you go home. Can claim right?'' He asked

``Should be, but I'm too lazy,'' I replied, a little tired from the day's work.

``Wah lau, you are crazy. Most people will want to claim when they leave past 8pm already.''

``Yeah, but I don't usually do this; only once in a long time. It's not that big a deal... just need to eat less for the next few days since I need to lose some weight after all.''

``Ooo ngia borh, you need to lose weight? Can claim don't want to claim? Sure or not... very rich is it?''

``Not really. Just find that the paperwork for claiming is just too much effort for something that I do only once in a long long while. Seriously, I need to lose some weight after all.''

``Man, people like you, extinct already!''

And of course the conversation went on and on for the thirty odd minutes ride back home. At one point though, he started talking about girls.

``So, you're not married right?''

``Nah... not married.''

``Then got girlfriend already?''

``Nope.''

``Wah! Singapore has so many more girls than guys, and you cannot find a girlfriend, a bit malu right?''

``Nah... it's their loss if they can't see me for who I am.''

``Wah lau, your kind really extinct man. You're what, thirty plus years old?''

``Huh? No way... I'm not even twenty-six yet!''

``Orh, no wonder. Your parents haven't nagged at you?''

``These kinds of things, they should know better. What's yours will be yours, what's not yours will never be yours even if you try to force the issue.''

``Seriously, your kind extinct liao...''

And that was the more interesting excerpts from the ride. I know that I mentioned something about cab driver conversations before, but I've not really caught up on that for quite a while as seen by the dates, and so here it is: a more interesting conversation.

Maybe that's why sometimes I'd rather take the cab than take the public transport...

Love Takes Time

Sometime I chanced upon:

Something a little different, but still from the wistful singer domain.

*sigh*

Run 10km After 30+ Weeks

Strange to be mumbling here once more I suppose, considering that I don't really have much to say in terms of what is going on in life now. Things are moving at a rather quiet but fast pace, and at times I do feel mildly overwhelmed. As usual, most of life revolves around this little thing called work, and thus fall into the ``I should probably not talk about them too much'' territory. On to other topics then.

What's new? So I have an idea. I wanted to train myself progressively so that I can consistently run 10km. And the time duration I set myself is about 30 weeks. That's right, I'm attempting to run 10km consistently within a time period that is slightly longer than half a year. I'm not sure if I can do it, for a variety of reasons, the foremost of which is that I am not exactly the fittest person to begin with, having sat out of physical education and physical training for the last 16+ years. But I have a simple programme, involving interval training and gradual distance increments scaled linealry (less aggressive) that will hopefully allow me to achieve my goal.

Of course the intensity cannot be too high. Recall that I'm still doing my usual twice a week sessions of Aikido. If I were to go on a more aggressive schedule, I'm sure that my muscles wouldn't be too pleased with that.

The goal is just to run 10km consistently---it is not to achieve a certain speed constraint that I would want for the run. I know that my mean running speed is notoriously bad (roughly 8.2km/h, which is about 2km/h slower than the usual speed that people use).

Hopefully I will be successful with this programme. Till next time...

Friday Night Musings?

The local time is Friday late night/Saturday early morning. The only person awake in the household is me alone.

Obviously it is a time for yet another rant about the world. And boy do I have a lot to rant about this time.

So in the last couple of weeks I probably met more people that I have met in the last couple of months, and read more books for recreational reading than in the last couple of months also. Actually saying ``books'' is kind of a misnomer, since I only read one book sporadically over the last couple of weeks. It was, strangely enough, a concise description of philosophy through the use of jokes.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar is a nice romp through the immensely complicated world of philosophy, one that I find myself returning to on vacation time and time again. Unlike most philosophy books, whose authors always take themselves too seriously, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar stays on the thin line between comedy and seriousness, using humour as a means of driving home a key understanding of the particular ideals that are associated with a particular branch of philosophy. It's an awesome book for a light read for those of us who can't separate our Heidegger and our Nietzsche, or get wholly existential about the lack thereof knowledge of the oft [mis-]quoted philosophers. I would love to take credit for discovering this book, but the truth is Joanne was the one who recommended it to me. A good read for those who want to have a sufficiently interesting yet pithy survey of philosophical thoughts up to the end of the twentieth century.

Urgh, I would write more, but I think I'm really drained for the day. So until next time.

Late Night Keyboard Mashing

I suppose it is a strange feeling when I start to review the visitor logs for the websites that are under my control. Most of the visitors here are from folks who were looking for lyrics of some sort here and there, while of course there are the loyal few who keep following the blogs to discover my hijinks in this life time.

And then there are the visitors from some weird SEO link farm.

Compared to nearly four years ago, this is a drastic drop in the level of interest in people in looking at the things that I am willing to share. I'm not complaining much, and in some sense, it could be a blessing in disguise given my overall direction towards an isolationist/misanthropic policy.

It is only during the few moments of weakness (like when I'm tired or for some reason unable to sustain the necessary neurotransmitter cocktail that promotes happiness) that I am suddenly reminded of my mortality and relative unimportance in the greater scheme of things, up to and including the operation of the world.

To the loyal few who keep coming back to check on what's going on in my fast-becoming uneventful life, I thank you and hopefully there will be a day that I can meet you in real life once more, if we have been separated for some period of time.

------

I began this blog a few years back as a means of letting out steam in the ways that poems cannot, and it has seen me survive what is possibly the five most confusing years of my life thus far. I suppose that it is still fulfilling its purpose even today, and for that I am really glad this was one of the bandwagons that I decided to hop on nearly half a decade ago.

This blog has seen me through my epic failures in life, some of my triumphs and successes, and importantly through the moments in life when I had serious doubts on many things.

For many people, they seek solace and wisdom through their religion, but for me, I find it most cathartic to just talk about it, either on paper on in a blog like this. It is not so much that I need advice---often that is not the intent when I hastily put together a blog post such as this one. Somehow, having the words appearing in clear on the screen has a certain formal feel to it, allowing an almost retrospective style of thinking through things as I re-read and review what I just wrote to have a sense of what I was going to say.

No, I'm not implying I'm wise. I'm just extolling a little on the virtues of keeping a blog like this one.

In other news, I was recently introduced to Girl Genius. I think it is an awesome comic, because of the premise that the story is set in, as well as the rather cool art work and storyline. As you would have realised from the long list of web comics on the right panel of this blog's main page, I am an avid follower of web comics. Web comics have a certain calming effect on me---the surrealism they exude sometimes are a constant reminder that life itself is not always that serious, and that we should all learn how to laugh about something, anything. Maybe this is a release of the repression that I had to go through when I was younger, raised through a rather strict discipline. But of course, that is merely an academic exercise that is not worth expositing upon.

On yet another rather tangential topic, my social circle is fast shrinking like the aftermath of an aged star collapsing into a black hole. Sure, the sphere itself is shrinking, but the density (and thus intensity) of those who remain are increasing a little so I think there's nothing terribly wrong with things.

But then again, it's not necessary to be popular with everyone, right?

Closure Snafu In Python

Python does not support closures. To use the value of a variable within a lambda expression, rebind the value to a locally defined variable. For instance

accept_set = set([1,2,3])
f = (lambda x, s=accept_set: x in s)
accept_set = set([4,5,6])
print filter(f,range(1,7))

will work as expected from a functional language (i.e. output [1, 2, 3]). But do it without that rebinding

accept_set = set([1,2,3])
f = (lambda x: x in accept_set)
accept_set = set([4,5,6])
print filter(f,range(1,7))

will yield [4, 5, 6] instead.

This is due to Python using pass by reference, and looking up values at run-time. Also, the lack of closures in general.

You Plebians...

It's really sad that even though my poetry blog was the first one I started, and the one that conveys my emotions and thoughts in the most succinct way, people seem to be more interested in hearing me rant like a maniac here.

1リットルの涙 always has a way of making me more sensitive to the essence of human nature. In short, it tends to make me more human in that short period of time that I would ever want to admit in real life. A tear-jerker? Perhaps, but being reminded that I am not the most unfortunate person on the planet has some way of comforting myself, that whatever comes my way cannot be as bad as what some people have to deal with on a daily basis.

Sigh.

I suppose I should stop now, it is late, and it will be a long day ahead.

iAmBack

Some time back, I mentioned the existence of an iPod Shuffle that I managed to get my hands on. gtkpod was working for it for a while, but it got too messy, because most of my music stuff is done on foobar2000, which is not really a Linux program.

Why foobar2000? Because it is awesome with a really small footprint, unobtrusive interface and the ability to play almost every existing audio format that we might want. Of course, it was annoying that I needed that iTunes program to talk to the iPod on Windows XP, and that's why my iPod shuffle has gone the way of the dodo, sitting in a corner gathering dust.

Until now.

foo_dop is a life-saver. Apart from the small snafu of requiring administrator access levels to do the hardware writing, it does a great job in syncing with the hardware from within foobar2000 itself. This means there is new life for my iPod Shuffle, as my running tool. Not because I like Apple products, but because it is sort of unobtrusive when one is running with little extraneous stuff. To be fair, the iPod Shuffle has a really small form factor, and is thus suitable for running with.

Heck, the built-in clip is just screaming to be used for running.

Now I have an excuse to run even longer, with more high tempo music to sustain me.

0.0000000143%

One out of nearly 7 billion people. One out of nearly 3.43 billion males. One out of nearly 5 million Singaporeans. One out of nearly 30 thousand researchers in Singapore. One out of nearly 1 thousand computer science researchers in Singapore. One out of a family of four.

One.

I am just one person on this planet. Just this one person, nothing more, and hopefully nothing less. I am no nobility, nor important person in most contexts; I do not come from a rich nor industrious family. Neither am I particularly famous on my own, be it in financial terms or in raw power or even charisma.

If we were to look even beyond that of this planet we call home, the insignificance is even more staggering. We are just one tiny planet among the multitude of star systems, which are the tiny make up of the galaxies and superclusters and everything else. The total known count of particles in the universe has been estimated to be the eightieth power of ten, while even a normal human has at most ten to the fourtieth power of particles.

One.

No matter how we look at things, the sheer insignificance of a single human start to make one wonder---is it all worth it? Are all the things that we do really worth it?

In many systems, the concept of optimisation seems to be the order of the day. Most dynamic systems will optimise themselves to reduce their potential functions to reach a certain sense of stability, even if the transitions themselves are chaotic in nature. As far as science goes, it is tacitly assumed that the long term outcome of any system will be that where the potential function governing the system is at its global optimal. In some sense, this is codified in the second law of thermodynamics---a system in maximum entropy is taken to be at the most globally optimal configuration, because any other configuration requires an expenditure of energy to do work against the ``nature'' of the system.

But the same cannot be said for human life. Empirically speaking, it would seem to be the case that humans are working against entropy and seeking things that are away from the global optimal configuration of their world. These can be seen from the continual battle between societies and nature, with the creation of artificial domiciles that reside in man-made oases amongst the natural greenery, where the original inhabitants of the land are all but wiped out to satiate the ever-growing lust of space and novelty by humankind.

One.

Perhaps that tirade against humanity in general is too abstract to be comprehended by the mere person, the single entity whose numbers self-organise into the juggernaut known as humanity. Let us try to look at this from a slightly different perspective, but with a similar sort of insight that we are looking for. There are many things that the single person is unwilling to do, for instance, losing a job, or even losing a loved one to either diseases or some catastrophe, man-made or otherwise. But in the larger context, be it in the context of a company or even a country, the concept of ``for the greater good'' keeps appearing as a dictum, and armed with that maxim, sacrifices by the individual have to be made. So, for a company's overall performance, it might be that a single person needs to be fired for incompetence, but to that person fired, it would appear to be ``unfair'' that he/she be axed from the work force like that. To the company, it is exercising a global optimisation option, to optimise the benefit of the larger group that comprise the company, but to the individual, he/she wants to optimise locally, for himself/herself so that he/she can still be a part of the whole, whether or not it is ultimately successful in the global configuration or not.

A similar inductive argument can be made from the level of companies with some other higher hierarchical sytem, with the company playing the old role of the individual and the higher level playing the old part of the company, and ad nauseum. What is the point of it all, you might ask.

Humans are inherently selfish.

This is where my self-doubt comes in. I see myself as a hard core computer scientist, in the sense that I believe strongly that theories of computation are at the core of everything that comprises the universe. I also believe that in many instances, it is often a good idea to operate such that we perform a global optimisation of the system as much as possible to better use the limited resources that we have.

Up to this point, things are mostly idealistic.

And then I look at myself. As noted right in the beginning, I am just a nobody. If I truly believed in my ideals that things ought to be done such as to optimise the global system, then a natural deduction would be that my existence is meaningless and thus is a consumption of resources that produces no useful output. Within the reasoning that I had set forth, I should be thusly removed from the system to better allow other more useful components to get the extra resources to be even more useful.

But by that reasoning, almost all of the other people need to be similarly eliminated because almost everyone else is not contributing to the overall system in a meaningful way. Clearly there is something wrong with that reasoning.

I suppose that part of the problem comes from the human's selfishness/survival instinct, and part of the problem comes from the fact that we are not wholly conversant of the form in which the universal potential function looks like at our granularity. Physicists assume that the laws of physics work exactly the same in spite of the frame of reference/location within the universe, but even they have big issues predicting things that get increasingly local, as can be seen by the current irreconciliation between quantum theories that govern the most local of reactions and relativity that governs the massive scale interactions. If the physicists, who are claimed to be the explainers of reality, cannot figure out the equations that fully describe our universe at all its resolution, then how do we lay people and people of power can claim that what we are doing is indeed ``optimal''?

There's another thing that bears mentioning. In many cases, the potential functions used to determine the state of a system have an asymptotic form---the functions are deemed correct only when given what is effectively a very very long time, infinite in most cases. Unfortunately, this does not translate readily into our local frame of reference, simply because our own existence is often not a very long time. Thus, it might even be logically sound to deduce that we will never truly know what the potential function is. Put in another way, there is no real way of telling what the global optimisation strategy ought to be, because we do not even have a proper model that can describe the system under study.

Put even more simply, we are all operating on a basis of mistakes ever since day one.

In a somewhat roundabout sense, this helps reconcile my doubts of self-worth. While it is true that in the larger scheme of things, I am completely worthless like other people, but if I am happy enough to restrict the domain of discourse, then no one can truly find fault with me for dictating my own terms for a potential function and thus optimise it the way I want.

In short, I think I have justified to myself that being selfish is alright and it is indeed a natural part of being a human. Altruism is a fad and has little to no evidence to support that it is indeed something worthy of pursuit.

But that said, it will take me many a year to undo all that altruistic thought patterns and habits that I have been socially programmed to do over the last two decades of my life. While not going into yet another extreme, I think that this is probably what I need right now to reinject a sense of purpose into what has been a decline into obsoleteness.

World, watch out. I am coming back with a vengeance.

長門 有希

And so I took the plunge.

I sunk in some cash to get a 長門 有希 figurine. I was deciding between Figma and Fraulein Revoltech, and the Revoltech seemed to have won the day.

No, I did not buy it from Japan; there's a nice dude selling them on eBay Singapore. I even managed to get two of her---one brand new in unopened box and one that was opened once that I can use for display.

But of course the question remains: why now? I suppose I just wanted to surround myself with things that make me happy. I have been a big fan of 長門 有希 when I first saw her in the anime 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱, or The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Something about her stoic character, high intelligence and impossibly reliable ability to alter reality making me a really big fan of her. She is probably one of the deepest characters in the series, and her powerful sense of reasoning is one thing that I always look forward to when I was watching the anime.

Heh, I don't really have to repeat myself, for I have said something on this a long time ago. Alright, enough for now.

[Ed: And here she is, all geared up with her guitar to rock it out!]

National Day Parade...?

National day eh? I suppose I am around in Singapore during the times that August 9 comes around, and honestly, I've learnt to not take the National Day Parade (NDP) too seriously. The only segment in the NDP that I really enjoy a lot is the initial parade, with all the line-up of the uniformed personnel, and the whole guard-of-honour thing. That portion of the NDP feels more meaningful to me than all the other segments combined, which is usually the main ``meat'' of the show. Somehow seeing the uniformed personnel in formation feels more like a parade than a bunch of loosely connected mass-displays ever was.

Strangely this is something that is completely contradictory to what I used to like in the past---I used to find the parade portion boring and the mass displays portion more interesting. I suppose that tastes change over time, and probably when I was young, I didn't really understand the effort and meaning behind the parade drill, and of course the mass display segments were understandably more alluring due to their colourful combinations of sight and sound. Two-and-a-half years of national service later, I think I have learnt to appreciate what it means to have an armed force capable of providing contingents for a drill parade. There's this certain smugness that I feel each time I see the neat rows and columns of men and women in uniform---I think this shows solidarity of a nation much better than any other mass display can, but that's just my take.

As such, this year's viewing of the NDP over the television was no different from the others---I just watched the early segment of the drill parade and then tuned out to work on some other stuff that I need to do. Incidentally, the stuff I'm working on is related to work, so I shall not talk about that here.

After a year of procrastinating, I have finally procured a new bicycle to replace the boneshaker that I had since national service days. That machine was a second-hand wreck salvaged from Cash Converters a good seven plus years ago, and had undergone quite a bit of restoration works, and have survived at least 3 accidents that I know of. It's no longer that road worthy now (something about shot brakes, misaligned spokes and stuff like that), and so I have decided to get myself another machine that I can use to re-explore the neighbourhood once again, and to get some more exercise. And so I did.

Among the more important things that I did with it was to get it engraved and recorded in the database at the Police Centre as suggested in this circular. So I have a bike that is a little more protected against theft, which is always a good thing.

I never really liked running all that much. The lack of a view, the low stamina of mine, the relatively low speeds all make it a very boring and uncomfortable sport that is not fun. The one and only time that I could run more than 2.4km was when I plugged myself with some relatively high tempo music---I can understand why many runners need to have their music players with them before they can do any form of ``serious'' running.

Anyway, I think that I have digressed a lot by now. Have a happy national day.

Self-Inquiry to Sociability

So really, people terrify me to no end. I've been going on that path of knowledge discovery for so long that I haven't really figured out how best to interact with people not on a professional level. An irony considering the position that I am in, but it can hardly be a trait of mine if it didn't involve at least one contradiction, can it?

I suppose it is for that reason that I never really liked being in large crowds of people---it makes me feel very uncomfortable, sometimes even to the point where I have the sudden urge to be violent or to hide away and not be found. As I reviewd the past decisions that I have made and the things that I have experienced, I seem to have discovered one pattern: I barge into people's lives like the Kool-Aid Man barges into homes, often making people more than a little uncomfortable as I jar them out of their comfort zones rudely.

In retrospect, that's why my past relationships were failures too. Put simply, if I couldn't work out well in the normal social setting, why would it even work out for a more intimate one?

Unfortunately for myself, I'm not really that social in general---most times where I am social, I am on some kind of self-induced high/mania and have this odd pressing need to be extraverted, just like how that old MBTI test said.

But how then do I go about knowing more people on a more personal level?

August Cometh

August. A month that promises much more work than before as things start to kick into full swing with all the projects ramping up to their actual speeds. Since Saturday, I have gone mostly cold turkey with coffee, and am surviving on a slightly less potent source of caffeine, namely green tea. Actually that isn't the whole story either, since I also consume other more ``herbal'' concoctions like the flower teas (hibiscus, chrysanthemum and chamomile). Surprisingly, apart from the massive headache induced partially by a nasal infection and partially by the withdrawal symptoms, nothing much came from it.

So what's new right? That's the question that everyone likes to ask. Nothing much at the moment, perhaps some new thoughts from introspection. Firstly, recall the previous post (and the relyric). The more I listen to it, the more I am convinced that it is highly descriptive of my general situation with regards to the relationship front with females. I do suffer from thinking that I'm matured enough to handle a relationship, and at least in the earliest cases, I did declare a commitment to love to the girl whom I was dating. What a fool I was. At least I started to wise up a little, especially from the last one---I used an alternative L-word that was more accurate in describing my feelings, namely ``like'' instead of ``love''. And of course, I definitely have my moments where the strong emotional need was what that drove me towards initiating a relationship in the first place. This is amply evidenced even in the semi-public entries of this blog, so I shall spare my own embarassment of bringing up the instances here. So what do these all mean? My choice to stay out of things like that seems to be even more justified than before---I think I'm starting to understand what Cui meant by ``knowing what I like first'' or something like that. In spite of my humble boastings of knowing myself pretty well, I think that even I have some places that I'm currently incapable of exploring alone, and perhaps that temporarily taboo place is defining what it is that I like in general, from my career path, to the type of mate I am looking for. I suppose these deep and rather subjective portions are sufficiently alien to me that I am unconsciously fearful to tread and explore. This is where having access to a therapist would be useful, but this place being Singapore, if I did seek a counsellor to talk about these things, it would probably end up as being yet another attribute for people to add stigma to.

Self-exploration. I suppose that's why these days I'm a little more introspective than before, as I consciously and unconsciously dig deeper into my psyche to discover all these things that have never really surfaced before. Perhaps once I can figure out what these things are, I will be in a better shape to get involved in relationships again.

Secondly, I got a Dingoo A330, a portable gaming console that works by having a ton of emulators on it. It's a nifty device with a decent battery life of around 8 hours (reported). Helps keep those compiling/simulation times less boring and stressful.

I'd write more, but I'm really tired and it is really late and it is a work day tomorrow.

动不动就说爱我

Another new album set that I had, and I found this gem:(Can't find the version that I have.)

动不动就说爱我——百合二重唱

离别后也没有什么会让我更难过的理由
只不过很想让泪水 痛快一次的泛流
每个人都错 错在自己太成熟
轻易让爱上心头 ｢让爱上心头｣
动不动就说爱我 谁又量过爱多久
才能当作一生的承诺
留不留你又如何 一旦尘埃落地后
就让泪水洗清我伤口
是不是人都难免有感动得忘了我的时候
一颗心变得好脆弱 需要多情的温柔
每个人都错 错在自己无保留
轻易让爱上心头 ｢让爱上心头｣
动不动就说爱我 也不问我要什么
给一个捉不到的承诺
留不留你又如何 反正你还是要走
只盼望别踩痛我伤口

For the translation, check out the relyric I wrote here. The relyric attempts to capture the story/lesson that this song is trying to tell.

Perhaps this is the song that all the women I have dated want to sing to me.

Ech, Tuesday?

A bat of the eye, and suddenly it is Tuesday all over again. My sore calf muscles have mostly recovered from the 5.2km run that I took on a whim last Saturday night, and I have largely snuggled up against the new 1980s mando-pop CD set that I have bought off eBay Singapore.

I'm not sure about other people, but I find that when I live my life out, there are time periods that have a certain ``theme'' associated with them. For instance, some times there is the ``I'm a martial arts hero'' theme and I find my Aikido training producing really good results, with much better knowledge retention of the techniques and concepts. Some days, I find myself gravitating more to the ``I'm a musician'' theme, and then I keep playing the multitude of musical instruments that I have lying around. Yet there are other days that I feel like a philosopher and start thinking/writing about the things that I observe around me, mostly about how society is on the route of collapse, and how many of the perceived social norms are really lousy habits in disguise.

So what about these themes? They govern to a certain a degree the type of music that I listen to, which can span from ballads to progressive rock/death metal, to purely instrumental pieces featuring instruments from the West, East and more complicated lineages (like the Theremin). Well that's just one direction of the equivalence operator, since the choice of music itself can affect the ``theme'' that I am in that day.

Okay, I'm not sure if I'm making sense there, so I'll just stop. One itching eyeball is enough to drive me insane, and I think some sleep will probably help deal with it.

Maybe when I'm a little up to it, I will rant about some of the things that I have been thinking about for a while.

Yet Another Song Rediscovered

OMG. I've been looking for this song for a long time: never could remember the name.

牵引——邓妙华

如果我们俩从来不曾相恋
泪水不会占据我的眼
如果你的心还有一点牵挂
不会将我孤独的留下

我不愿回顾 因为在记忆深处
思念常刺痛我心灵
人生旅程 充满艰辛和坎坷
我需要你的双手牵引

The lyrics are short, but they are quite salient to how things can be in and out of a relationship. Lyrics courtesy www.inkui.com.

Time to really look into the 80s/90s music again.

Finite Simple Group of Order Two

Can't talk about Nerdcore without this classic:

Finite Simple Group of Order Two------The Klein Four Group

The path of love is never smooth
But mine's continuous for you
You're the upper bound in the chains of my heart
You're my Axiom of Choice, you know it's true

But lately our relation's not so well-defined
And I just can't function without you
I'll prove my proposition and I'm sure you'll find
We're a finite simple group of order two

I'm losing my identity
I'm getting tensor every day
And without loss of generality
I will assume that you feel the same way

Since every time I see you, you just quotient out
The faithful image that I map into
But when we're one-to-one you'll see what I'm about
'Cause we're a finite simple group of order two

Our equivalence was stable,
A principal love bundle sitting deep inside
But then you drove a wedge between our two-forms
Now everything is so complexified

When we first met, we simply connected
My heart was open but too dense
Our system was already directed
To have a finite limit, in some sense

I'm living in the kernel of a rank-one map
From my domain, its image looks so blue,
'Cause all I see are zeroes, it's a cruel trap
But we're a finite simple group of order two

I'm not the smoothest operator in my class,
But we're a mirror pair, me and you,
So let's apply forgetful functors to the past
And be a finite simple group, a finite simple group,
Let's be a finite simple group of order two
(Oughter: "Why not three?")

I've proved my proposition now, as you can see,
So let's both be associative and free
And by corollary, this shows you and I to be
Purely inseparable. Q. E. D.

Lyrics courtesy of sweetlyrics.com.

Where Are All The Girls?

Nerdcore! Man, I used to listen to these back in college. Now I feel like an old man. Blech!

Nostalgia

This used to be my favourite song. It still is, but it can be rather depressing, in spite of its up-tempo feel. Also note that since this song is from the 90s, the MTV and the music have almost nothing to do with each other...

Why------Tiggy

Na na na na, Na na na
Na na na na, Na na na
Na na na na, Na na na
Na na na na, Na na na

Standing beside you
wishing you'd always be close to me
And how can I tell you
every night I see you in my dreams

Believe me
don't be me
I would never let you go

Why, why do this have to be a fantasy
Let's make our love become reality
Oh, how I pray for that day to come
When we'll be joined together close as one
together close as one

I feel the passion
Burning deep inside my soul
And you're the solution
I know you'd catch me if I fall

Believe me,
don't be me
I would never let you go

(Why...) Why, why do this have to be a fantasy
Let's make our love become reality
Oh, how I pray for that day to come
When we'll be joined together close as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one

Don't be me, don't be me
I would never let you go

Why, why do this have to be a fantasy
Let's make our love become reality
Oh, how I pray for that day to come
When we'll be joined together close as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one (Na na na na, Na na na)
Together as one

Lyrics courtesy LetsSingIt.

Risible...

Chew on this (adapted from WordSmith.org's A.Word.A.Day newsletter):

risible, adjective

1. laughable; ludicrous
2. disposed to laugh
3. relating to laughter

From Latin risus, past participle of ridere (to laugh). Other words that share the same root are ridiculous, deride, rident, and riant.

Remember Ris Low? Coincidence in the choice of name? You decide...

Love is...

Not sure if I had put this one up before:Image from Three Panel Soul.

Soliloquy Deux

Strange what a good night's sleep can do. I suppose things are a little better in my head space after some decent sleep. But of course, that doesn't preclude me from rescinding from the choices I have made; though it does lend things a new light that I can probably use right now about how things should go. And I suppose I'm not able to see past the choice that I have made since I don't really understand it.

Time to do some mind-diving and introspection once more.

Soliloquy

Some things can be changed in a person, while there are a great many that cannot be. In my case, I suppose the whole misanthropic ideal is probably the most unchanging trait within me. I ventured out of my shell for quite a few years now, and somehow I find the experience not particularly exhilirating---getting out of one's shell makes one vulnerable.

And the last thing I want to be is to be vulnerable.

Weakness is one thing that I seem to refuse to acknowledge in any of its forms. It's probably a character flaw/trait, but I don't really care about it. So many things have come and gone; I used to trust in people, now I trust almost no one. It is not too hard a decision really, but some habits take a little bit of time to break. It is frustrating to always have to put on a mask that makes me more friendly than I really am---in many ways, I never really grew up. That child-like curiousity that I am so proud of is also the same trait that is causing my eventual downfall, as I never really progressed beyond what I had up to the age of eighteen or twenty.

Forever the immature one, right? I call bullshit.

That is just a perception, like everything else. And like every single kind of perception, it is alterable. Just because I maintain my curiousity doesn't mean that I have ``not grown up''; what it really means is that I have figured out how to meld the positive traits from the past with the ridiculous social mores that is in the present and future.

I'm just tired of people in general. It's tautologous---I think they don't understand me enough, so I don't share, and I don't share because they don't understand me enough. I have told many people that trying to ``know me'' is a rather dangerous and delicate procedure---that headspace of mine is fairly warped by this stage, and any attempt to try and make sense of what is going on is just leading one down the path of unadulterated insanity.

I am, as they might call it, a failed human. Failed in the physical sense, and now, failed in the mental sense. Put it even more bluntly, I'm fucked up in the head. Woo-wee. Do I enjoy being fucked up in the head? That's... hard to answer, because the concept of pleasure and pain is one that I have long learnt to not bother identifying, since either outcome is going to lead to an eventual discomfort that radiates throughout my very being.

If I were purely good or purely evil, obviously things would have been much easier, since there is literally a paragon that can serve as a guide to how one ought to behave. But of course, life with its tortuous roads is nothing like that, and I find myself perpetually stuck in that in-between place that causes the most grief and pain for everyone, including myself.

I don't know why I have this sudden... distaste of people. I used to have small bouts of it, but recently, this has become something more chronic. I can only venture a guess or two as to why the outcomes are so, but really, I'm just tired. Tired of the drama, tired of having to deal with people at the emotional level. Tired of being an actor; tired of being a spectator. Tired of taking charge, tired of merely following orders. Tired of being in the limelight, tired of being in the background.

I'm all messed up in the head.

No wonder people don't like me. No wonder relationships don't work out. No wonder I keep causing trouble for myself. No wonder my luck runs out. All these things are starting to make sense now, and I am seriously starting to consider taking really radical steps to just lobomotise away the messed up parts.

Unfortunately, science doesn't work that way and I find myself living through yet another day as a zombie whose brain had been enslaved by the very metaphysical entity of ``productive work''. It's a sad life really, having little to look forward to except to the glorious day when my body fails me once and for all and I die, peacefully or otherwise. Maybe death is the only true source of salvation for the likes of me, where the social barometers within ourselves are completely broken beyond repair.

And in spite of my time of need, I actively push everyone away, close or otherwise. Perhaps this is related to my concept of weakness---I don't want to appear weak. Or perhaps it is just me not knowing how to consult others for help, internally still paranoid at what people can do with the little information that they have on me.

Normalcy is among the last things for me I suppose. If I have to trade 10 years of life to one year of being an eccentric, I think with high probability I wouldn't mind doing that just to be someone who is cursorily unwilling to follow the mores of society for the sake of being a follower.

And once more, why do I say all these? Is there an overarching theme that I am trying to present? That is for all the aspiring psychoanalysts to decide. I'm out of here for now.

Failure?

And so ends another concert.

Last night was the second major public concert that my Chinese Orchestra and I put up that I was involved in (the previous one was chronicled here). There were little hijinks that occurred, almost everything went smoothly---all in all, it was a fairly sucessful performance.

It's a strange feeling though. I probably invited more people this time to turn up for the concert that the one in the past, and I suppose that the attrition rate is much lower this time round. The folks who did turn up seemed to enjoy the music, so I guess it wasn't that bad. In spite of the overall feel-good factor of the performance, I've not really managed to shake a certain hollow feeling that is within me.

And then it hit me---persona non grata. Three years of intermittent appearance at the orchestra had made me even more distant from the group that I had literally grown up with. That's where the hollowness comes from. I was there, but not there---just a surreal entity attached to an organically developed group that has since taken a life on its own. I was with the music, but I was not with the people. I feel more and more like That Guy, the one who just happens to be somewhat tolerated because he was useful, and not because he was cool to hang out with.

I don't know. I think I shouldn't really be upset about this, but then again, I feel like I have been a failure at life. A has-been. Sometimes when it is quiet and I'm nowhere near anyone, I start to think about all kinds of complicated thoughts and go all depressed and panicky. But I suppose that's how life is eh?

Looks like the road ahead is no different from the one I left behind when I left for my studies in the US... I have no idea where I'm going with this narrative, so I'm just going to stop here. Maybe next time...

For the Experience

So I think that there're a few things that I've slowly learnt over the past few weeks, and here are just some of my thoughts.

Firstly, Singaporeans have one common problem. The whole idea that doing something is ``for the experience''. I mean, that is plain ridiculous. Why is this canned response so popular here? Why can't we begin any endeavour with the mentality that we want to achieve a certain tangible goal other than just experience? It gets exasperating at times to hear people say things like that, particularly when they are being interviewed by the media. This is probably among the worst ``politically correct'' answers that one can give, because it demonstrates one crucial point: we do not seem to have that critical thinking element that is oh-so important in the world today. To not admit defeat and claim that it was ``a good experience'', we are molly-codling ourselves into a false sense of security, in that we think that we have not really failed in any sense. That is a classic example of evading the issue at hand. Note that this is different from saying something like ``yes I failed, but here are the other things that I have found out''---this other way of representation may appear cursory similar to the ``politically correct'' version, but the nuance demonstrated is far from being the same. In the former, there is an air of resignation, the demonstration of a lack of wherewithal to actually learn from what happened, while in the latter, the active voice shows a completely different picture. We should all strive towards a more critical form of thinking, and to actually learn from the experience, instead of saying some vague quasi-politically correct statement.

Secondly, problem-solvers cannot really stay in one place for too long. The rationale for this little assertion is straightforward---problem-solvers go where the problems are, and once the problems for a source dry up, they go on to another location to look for new ones to solve. Thus, staying at one place for too long is detrimental to the mental health of the problem-solver, whose mantra is to solve problems that they encounter, since the number of questions to be solved in a particular location is finite and will dry up eventually. This is of course a rather abstract and metaphorical allusion that doesn't sound rather grounded in reality, so here's a more explicit explanation of what I am really trying to say. I don't think I can settle down that easily, since at heart I'm a problem-solver---solving problems are what makes me feel happy. Okay, not happy, but at least sufficiently contented. Problem-solving as a hobby is a rather masochistic endeavour, since one is paradoxically expending a lot of energy at a task that one is supposed to be doing ``in leisure''. I find that throughout the years, only two things I don't really get sick of doing---making music and solving problems. That of course doesn't mean that I can do the same thing for a few hours (that's painful), but at the very least, I have more than a passing interest in such matters. People strive for material gains, while my wants are more complicated---I thrive on knowledge. That is my opiate for happiness (or at least, contentment) and life.

Lastly, something a little more light-hearted. I found my previous blog colour scheme too depressing (not as depressing as that green-on-black monstrosity I first started out with) and have jazzed it up a little with some of the new doodads that Blogger seems to have introduced. While I'm not completely impressed, there is a certain lighter feel to it, kind of uplifting in fact. Of course, I tuned the layout a little so that even on Edythe-EEE, the page looks fine. Overall I think things are not too bad now.

So what else am I working on? A lot of other projects, quite a few of the time-sappers are for work, while I have the usual pile of projects that I've always wanted to work a little on. Maybe I will get to work on all the stuff that I want to eventually. Meanwhile, work beckons.

Till next time.

GNU Screen Commands Redux

Some important commands for GNU Screen, the text-based output multiplexer:

To do this...	Do this...
Make a new session/reconnect old one	screen -U -dRR sessionname
Detach session	C-a d
Split horizontally	C-a S
Split vertically(!)	C-a |
Remove this split region	C-a X
Remove all but this split region	C-a Q
Jump to next split region	C-a Tab
New window	C-a c
List windows	C-a w
Copy mode/pause	C-a [

Filtered from here.

There are of course more comands that GNU Screen supports, but these are the few that I find to be most useful especially when working over a ssh link, since I can monitor several outputs at the same time. Bear in mind that due to the nature of multiplexing, having split screens/regions can cause a slow connection to appear a tad slower.

Argle Bargle

(Warning, highly biased and semi-nonsensical rant to follow.)

And so it is just about the time for the end of the first week that I am back in the office after a week's worth of leave taken, and I must say, I feel much more different now as compared to before. I feel somewhat energised, and things don't seem as painful as it once seem. My focus is returning, and I'm starting to realign my mind to the things that matter the most at this point in time, and this [un]surprisingly doesn't really include the concept of romance. I probably won't go as far as saying that I am no longer interested in romance, but the mere thought of getting involved in a romance at this point in time is somewhat distasteful.

In case you are still kind of oblivious about what is going on, Mint and I are no longer seeing each other that way.

Strangely, it is liberating, as I slowly relearn what made me tick all these years. That misanthropy that I was hiding all these years have finally manifested itself even more, and I am starting to re-erect all those mental and emotional barriers that I once had. Those battlements are in serious need of repair after having allowed myself to let people in only to get hurt in one way or another.

Meh.

Does this make me any less of a human? Perhaps, but really, I don't care. The old philosophy that no one will be there for me seems to hold even stronger than before, and thus I am re-realising that the only force that I can rely on is just me. People come, people go; even the best of friends may one day be put in an awkward position that renders them ineffectual, like how many of my friends have been over the past few years.

Reliance is weak. I admit that at one point or another, I have to rely on someone to help me, to guide me. But I think that the stubbornness/determination that has carried me through the years will come in handy once more, for at the end of the day, the degree of helplessness is highly dependent on the individual's mental state---think that you are weak, then you will be weak, likewise if you think that you are strong, you will be strong.

Is this a form of regression? That has been a question that has been bugging me for a while after all that had happened, from the past to the present, and at one point in my life, I seemed to have thought so, which was why I was always actively seeking an Other who will be there for me. And then I realise that in this generation, the whole concept of an Other is mostly moot. This is a loveless world---it had always been a loveless world. People gather together only if there's some form of incentive, be it economic or some other utilitarian purpose. There's a reason why arranged marriages of the past work---they work not because the couple involved truly ``loved'' each other, but that there was significant economic incentive for them to wed. Heck, this idea was explored even in my Introduction to Anthropology course back when I was still in CMU. Given the modern environment where self-sufficiency is not frowned upon but even strongly encouraged, it becomes even less of an incentive for any two people to get together for any long period of time. Just take a look at the high divorce rates for an anecdotal proof of the point that I am making here.

The once sacro-sanct notion of marriage is just an elaborate scam that people perpetuate in the name of face. Consider the expenses involved, both monetarily and emotionally, and you'll also see what I mean. The whole concept of bliss and happiness is yet another scam that people perpetuate to justify their actions. While I accede to the fact that there are some needs that cannot be met alone (sexual needs for instance), for almost everything else there's a way to deal with. If coupling or marriage were that important, then why in one of the world's oldest civilisations do they have the practice of having people wander the world to gain spirituality even after being married with children?

Scams, lies, shams. Very strong words used indeed, and I do not apologise for their use. I'm just jaded, jaded with human society, jaded at what is mostly a failed attempt at being someone I am not really meant to be. Bending over most of the time to please people, making myself miserable ever so often, trying to change myself all the fscking time---there has to be a point in time where things like that need to change.

That time is now.

While I have said that I'd swear off relationships each time a break-up occurs, I have never really kept my bargain of it, because I am innately human; I keep believing in this poison called ``hope''. Hope is a poison because it is an artificially optimistic perspective, and for a long time I have placed strong faith in it. A quarter of a century later, I have known better---my trust of ``hope'' drops exponentially each time I get a failure in the same thing that I am working on. Am I then claiming athat I am really going to swear off relationships forever? No, because then I'd be lying to myself. I am, however, even more nonchalant about how relationships pan out now, and will make good the promise to myself to not be too involved in it. If a nice girl comes along and we click somehow, maybe I will poke and prod a bit to see if things can progress; if it can't, too bad, move on, alone or not.

There is literally no incentive to be committed in a relationship from the beginning, because people are fickle and once they know that they have a certain power over you, you will end up being the one who is going to be completely hurt. And guess what, I'm sick of getting hurt already. I once said that the only way to love is to love completely because there's no other way to love since a lack of complete love means regret if things didn't work out. So naïve. Complete love has a bad-ass cousin called complete hurt, and that's what I keep submitting myself to. Time to protect myself.

I think my disillusionment with life is getting more complete than before, man one day I'm going to be a grumpy old man if I'm not careful. Anyway, that's about as much poison I will rant about for now. Time to get back to my happy little world of knowledge assimilation.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

This song is fairly odd till the last stanza, where it starts to make a little more sense...

Regex Sub-language Selection

To use grep to find things with spaces (or to have a generally more powerful Regex syntax akin to that of Perl or Python), use:

grep -P

as a part of the incantation.

Ho-hum

Feels funny to be writing here once more, not because I'm no longer comfortable with writing, but that between the last update and this one, many things have changed. Oh, and the fact that my left index finger has some nail issues which causes me to lose quite a fair bit of typing ability, but as usual I digress.

So anyway, I have been rather jaded/down for the last couple of months, partially due to the stresses of work, and partially due to the various stresses in life. And as each day passes, I'm slowly starting to realise that I am actually fairly decoupled from the material world, in the sense that I can live with really very little things that are available from the material condition. This slow understanding of my own condition comes as a part of my general evaluation of the direction with which my life is currently taking, from the three paths of work, personal and play. It is just that with all the work and stresses that I have been put into, I have little time to sit down and partake in a little introspection---the moments in time where I can really sit back and consider all things past and present and plan about the future, wondering about the greater significance of it all.

Needless to say, having a week's leave is something that is rather welcome at this point in time, as someone once said ``if you don't plan to take your leave, you never will take the leave because work is never-ending''. This is particularly pertinent given what has occurred just a few days back---my budding relationship with Mint has gone on a ``two steps forward one step back'' stint. I don't really want to talk about things here (that's what a diary is for), but I suppose it does put a lot of things into perspective to a large degree. Many questions were raised, and many more to be answered, and at the end of it all, only time and fate can tell what the future truly brings.

Enough of the depressing stuff though. Thinking about the past, present and future does have some interesting consequences, and it is for things like that I am glad I actually took that one week leave. Hell, I think I should have taken the leave a long time ago, and have I done that, I would probably be in a better shape than now. As I mull about the future from the present, I realise that slowly, the very fabric of reality itself is morphing, not always for the better, but certainly changing enough that it keeps things somewhat exciting.

Aikido. This is one of the couple of things that I am using to keep myself sane, and for the most part, I am really glad to have taken it up when I had the chance. Apart from the generally good workout it provides, there's also a strong understanding of what my body and mind are capable of as I try out the various manoeuvres that are available within the martial art. I've been living a mostly sedentary life for quite a long while, and thus having the opportunity to finally have the chance to work out my body is something that I truly cherish a lot.

So much for the random update for now.

Anachronism

The intimacy granted by a superiorly designed writing instrument is as pleasurable as the sweet love that two lovers make with each other. The ampleness of the barrel coupled with the softest of caresses needed for the nib to touch the paper to let the smoothest of ink to flow unimpeded is almost as sinful as the uninhibited emotions that the lovers share with each other in the purest of ways.

But sweet seductive imagery aside, after having my fountain pen for nearly a year since my graduation (a gift from my mum, who had asked me what I might want for graduation), I must say that I have really grown to appreciate how a fountain pen works. As noted in the epithet earlier, it is a real spiritual experience just to wield the pen between the thumb and forefinger, and to feel the gliding sensation of the nib on the surface. Of course, one of the outcomes from using a high quality fountain pen is that one would not really print letters but write them with a more cursive style---the very fluid style that just begs to be used with such a nice instrument. It is a pity that the modern day person is largely ignorant of the fountain pen. Disposable ball-point pens, gel-inked pens and the what not dominate the current writing landscape, and while I am not against their use, I still maintain that the fountain pen is such a wonderful writing instrument that one would forgo all these other writing tools just to have the comfort level that is afforded only by the fountain pen itself. I know I have.

But what is the aim of writing all this? It is not merely an exercise of typing English text out on a keyboard---there is of course a theme that I am alluding to here. This theme that I am subtly talking about refers to that of my anachronistic tendencies.

While in many ways I am a techie, computer science degree and all, at heart I am still one who cherishes the past that has occurred. Unlike those who follow that path, I do not like things about the past because I believe that the past is inexplicably timeless with an elegance that transcends all of reality---I'm still a rational realist after all. However, I do find that some of the artefacts that come from the past have a certain aesthetic about them that is sort of lost in the march of technology; it amazes me to end to learn that people of the past have reached dizzying heights of technology progress in spite of having techniques and materials that are much simpler than now. In many ways, my fascination with the anachronistic can be seen as a tribute to the ingenuity that our predecessors have to demonstrate to come up with workable ideas at a time that was devoid of all the progress that we have now.

Take the slide rule for example. The ability to compute traditionally annoying functions without having to keep too many things on one's head, all reduced to a short 10-inch form factor. Sure, the 10-inch netbook that is popular these days can probably do more, but slide rules are easily recreated technology (try to build your own netbook from scratch), and they run practically forever (the 8-hour battery life means absolutely nothing), and can compute things up to three significant figures of accuracy. The elegance of such anachronistic devices never cease to amaze me, and it is one of my life's goals to actually seek out and learn how do all these ``lost'' devices work and how they are made; perhaps some time in thei future, their need might arise again.

Duality (Part 2)

(First part begins here.)

So the last time I talked here I was referring to how the two seemingly contradictory maxims of what absence can do to a person with regards to the remembrance and camaraderie are both completely wrong due to the grayness in which the ``hard rules'' of the world apply to. That was, of course, made at a moment that was rather late at night (4am in the morning) and with the general realisation at that point in time that the people that I once knew from the past are just going to stay there where I last left them---in the past. It is not so much as a piece demanding strong scrutiny, but more of a piece that highlights the duality of reality that we sometimes fail to appreciate.

In many of life's happenings, we find that there are many instances where we ask ourselves if something that had happened to us was indeed ``bad'' and worry greatly about what might happen to us after that, i.e. the consequences of it all. Of course it is true that we will always have to deal with the consequences of our actions (it is only the privileged few that can get away from everything), but what occurs after that is something that is worth thinking about separately and away from the rather myopic perspective of mere cause and effect. The fallacy of it all is to assume that the single outcome of a single effect will be the only factor that will affect our affect and effect---what I mean is that we are always assuming that the one outcome that occurred will be the deciding factor that will change our moods and to change the series of consequences that we might have to deal with. The truth is often more complicated than it seems; while it sounds more rational to identify the root cause of a particular outcome, upon further thought, the conclusion that is drawn is often a little more different---the discovered ``root'' cause is mostly the straw that broke the camel's back. There is often an accumulation of factors that started off small and fairly insignificant, before snowballing into a monstrosity that one has to eventually fend off (and declare to be the root cause of it all). The astute person will often try to correct for all these small issues in the hope of averting certain disaster, or at least, certain predictable disaster.

Predictability. We assume in many cases that things are predictable, to a certain degree. Drop a ball from a height off the ground, and you expect the ball to fall downards to the ground. The very essence that defines science is based on the notion of falsifiability and predictability, or at least, the notion that we can tell with some level of confidence what an outcome might be given the starting conditions (or part thereof). Predictability is at times reassuring, but its dual is also true, namely that predictability can also be a very boring affair. Perhaps being a little unpredictable can lead to something that is more meaningful, for if you already knew the output of a computer program, would you still want to run the program? Put in another way, if you can fully predict your life, would you still want to live your life out then?

Why all these jumping about, one might ask. And I reply, why not? I'm attempting to demonstrate the duality of reality that permeates, and to suggest that perhaps by paying attention to its existence that we can finally learn the true meaning of happiness, which ought to be seen as the life path of the most moderate belief that one can summon. Only then will the dicta of common sense appeal most strongly to that of the rational mind.

Duality (Part 1)

Ookay, so it is once more 4am in the morning, and I have absolutely no idea why I am still awake. Anyhow, being this late in the night means that it is a really good time to be thinking about things that are a little more philosophical in nature.

I've been to America and back, and if things go smoothly, I'll probably be heading back for yet another spell. If I have to narrow down the things that I have learnt from being in the US to just one thing in human relations, it would be that people tend to be very forgetful. As time goes by, everyone's memories fade a little, and under certain circumstances, the memories fade ever so quickly as compared to others. For example, it is a known fact that I have graduated one year early due to a whole variety of reasons, and after having done so, I have this feeling that only a small handful of people actually remember who I am, let alone continuing to keep in contact with me. It is of course not a real lesson that is newly learnt per se, but it is most striking when comparing the position that I am in with the folks that I knew from America---apart from the separation by time, there is also a separation of pure geographical distance. Relativity aside, it really does evoke the meaning of the proverbial ``out of sight, out of mind''.

Yet things are not always the case---there is still another saying that goes ``absence makes the heart fonder''. In many ways, this can be seen as the pure antithesis of the previous folk saying, but I choose to view things from a slightly more holistic perspective; absence and emotions have a dependency on each other, but there is no single prescribed method with which one can predict with great accuracy that it will always be true. So both proverbs under my interpretation are completely wrong since they are designating a maxim as opposed to a less rigorous guideline. Of course there is a little nit-picking involved here since I am applying the extrema principle of taking sentences as literally as possible, consistent with a cold rational reading, as opposed to the more moderate perspective prevalent in everyday conversations.

But how does this fit into what I am going to say? Perhaps a next post might be in order (I'm getting sleepy and should probably get some rest).

Late-Night Auto-Writing

Okay, so it's finally dark out, the night is fast progressing into the deepest form of darkness, and I'm sort of floating around in that semi-happy state of being mildly sedated from the cool winds and quiet atmosphere. Sounds like a good time for yet another rare blog entry.

Funny how life works out sometimes. Just when you think all hope is lost, an opportunity yields itself to be within your grasp, only if you choose to take it up, of course. I don't really mean this in any metaphorical sense---such subtleties are fast lost upon me as I dig deeper into the factual world that is science. If you have been paying attention (or not, considering I do not know who is actually reading this and who isn't), you would have realised that I have been rather lost and directionless with regards to many things. But of course, by now, most of these issues have been dealt with, and I feel that familiar surge of energy that drives and pushes me forward for all the past few years that I have lived.

So what has changed in life?

Lots of things, really. New job, new life, new love, new goals, new friends, new acquaintances---it is in many ways a break from the old life that I had started to loath ever since the world crashed on me figuratively speaking. Such a break is most welcome of course, since it truly marks a new beginning for me. Now I don't have to worry about how the people of the past have treated me since I have the present to look at and the future to look forward to; odious varieties of people from #cslounge for example are but a thing of the past, and odious people from my other parts of life have been silenced like vermin crushed under the heels of a juggernaut. Surely, the clearing of such filth can be important as a means of detoxifying the soul, or at the very least, that of the psyche.

But such sweeping changes made require more than a fair share of guts and willingness to leap into the unknown---the remaking process of the self is one that is fraught with false starts and early failures, and not to mention the sheer uncertainty of the interpretations that one can take with reagards to particular facets of the issue at hand. I have dallied a little in working that bit out, but today, I finally took the plunge and cleared away the last vestiges of all that made me so unhappy for so long.

Enough of the sombre thoughts---a new beginning needs a new outlook on everything that happens. Those who have known me for long would be mildly surprised to discover that I have more or less become a person that they would never have guessed: I am more physically active these days than I ever was in the past. Part of this comes from the tacit acknowledgement that I'm no spring chicken any more, and that my metabolism is already on the decline, which meant that the ``legendary'' helpings of old cannot be performed again in this current time and age should I wish to maintain the veneer of healthiness that is innately axiomatic for people within my age group. But it is not true that I once hated to be physically active; it's all because of my hypersensitive skin towards the elements coupled with the disciplined nature of organised physical education/training that made physical activity the chore that it once was. Put simply, I was unable to be physically active because I lost all control on what I can and cannot do to prevent flare ups of my skin. Now, many years from before, I'm an Aikido-ka, a martial artist undergoing fairly rigorous training twice a week of two-hour sessions. Of course my skin is the same, but with a few more years of self-control under my belt, plus a couple of daring innovations, I have managed to keep the situation mostly in check, which gives me ample opportunities to pursue my martial arts training, and more importantly, boost my self-confidence and self-image---it is hard to feel sexy with broken skin everywhere, to put it in the most blunt way possible.

But for now though, it would seem that I'm just prattling on without aim---it is not too far from the truth, but yet among the bewildering agglomeration of words lies some truth that is only thinly veiled from view by the veneer of flowery prose. I mentioned before that updates to the blog are far and few due to the reduction in the fantastic adventures that one can get in a working world, but I suppose there are still other ways of reaching these phantasms of interest. As a researcher-in-training, I suppose that my powers of imagination are still fairly robust, as seen by the fact that I am, after all, in a field where imagination and logic have to work together harmoniously to produce something that is truly magical and worthy of praise for its utility. Then of course, it is just a matter of time before I begin to relearn once more how to harness that imagination of mind to probe the nature of the world and universe at large.

The question to ask of course is how much different is that direction compared to whatever was done before on this blog? In some ways, it is more different. While I dare not claim that my posts would be more mature (maturity is something other people say, not something to be self-declared), they are more likely to be even more introspective in nature, sometimes with a hint of philosophical and moral underpinnings. In short, the posts here might just become more dry, which will of course make my already dismal readership fall into true dereliction. But to write about the goings-on in a place where one needs to be hush-hush is in many ways a logic contradiction---the really interesting things about me are probably about my life and what goes on in there, yet I am more content with sharing my head space than my comings and goings in meat space. Ergo, my work has too many NDAs waving around that it is a minefield to even talk about anything that happens in the office, work-related or not.

Alright, I can feel the need for sleep increasing. Time to knock out for the night and to dream about the possibilities of the future.

Half-hearted Rant...

If I fail at my career of being a researcher, I should probably go be a counsellor or psychic. My preternatural ability to intuitively sense the well-being of a person is starting to get more and more powerful, and in some ways, it does scare me a little here and there. There's one thing about realising that one has a certain ``power'', and there's the other thing of actually realising that the ``power'' also means that I actually gain knowledge that I might not really want to possess---knowing a person's inner state can have all sorts of strange contradictions that one needs to deal with because on the one hand, one wants to interact normally but on the other hand, the a priori knowledge would often suggest that one requires just a little more tact in the interaction, something that many might find to be annoying to keep track of.

I shall stop here---lost interest with what I was writing...

The Matter with /var

In spite of what is suggests, /var actually contains much system-critical data and should never sit on its own [small] partition. All kinds of hell gets unleashed when doing major system upgrades that involve populating /var/cache/apt/archive when the logs in /var start encroaching onto precious file space.

Remounting for read-write

To remount / as read-write from the console, apply

mount -n -o remount,rw /

as root.

Exaile and mp3

Modern Ubuntu distributions use Exaile as the music player. The catch is that it doesn't support the mp3 format out of the box. To deal with that, apply

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

or

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly

to resolve the problem.

Balmer's Peak

Okay, so a couple of days ago I was mumbling something about not updating this place so much due to the general lack of publishable events from the fact that most of the things occur during office hours in the office and are thus under the ambit of the whole non-disclosure component that is a part of my contract. Yet here I am once more, talking more about random things that are occurring.

It has been a while since I imbibed hard liquor in the form of vodka. To be fair, vodka is not really my first choice of hard liquor (my first choice is bourbon whiskey in the form of Jack Daniels, but no one is counting so whatever), but seeing that it is the drink that we have left over since the last time that we went drinking, it was the only thing that I could drink with the rest of the folks.

The thing about me and hard liquor is this: I will generally refuse to drink a mixed drink that involves the hard liquor, preferring to drink the hard liquor neat and enjoying its innate flavour and kick, as opposed to watching the flavour of the hard liquor being adulterated by the various mixers and the dilution of the melting ice from the ``rocks''. So of course to many who are more used to drinking vodka with mixers for example, I will appear to be in dangerous territory as I drink shot after shot of hard liquor.

To be completely honest, I can hold my liquor very well. The only side effect that I know from drinking too much too fast is the tendency to tune out the crowd and erupt into the whole non-social mode, being completely lost in my own world where the math and other thoughts are all that matters. Obviously I do not claim that this is the most normal thing to do when one is drinking and ends up being a little tipsy/drunk, but it does seem to be the case for me. Think about it this way; my use of alcohol back in the US was to understand the complicated interconnections that existed among various parts of the rather complicated code API, in a certain sense I have been conditioned to associate alcohol use with critical thinking of hard-to-understand complex systems. So that's why once I'm beyond a certain state of tipsiness/drunkeness, I end up working on some math/programming problem.

That said, I just got home from a drinking session in celebration of a friend/colleague's birthday. Go figure.

Bag Of Happenings

Feels like I've not really written anything here in ages. Oh well, life happened and things are always in a state of flux, which is probably a thing that I cannot run away from. Anyway, some random blurbs.

• There's this traffic light for pedestrians that has faulty programming, because once it hits the 15-second mark, it starts to glitch. Kinda looks as though the Matrix is glitching or something each time I cross that road.
• My work has suddenly increased in complexity by three-fold as I start to wrestle even more projects and even more new things. I'm not sure how long my brain will last, given that I have not really taken any long breaks to recuperate/recover in a long time.
• I know that Lucid Lynx is out, but I'm too lazy to install/try it on any of the machines under my charge. Currently, the Ibex and the Jackalope are doing fine, and I'm really lazy/apprehensive in rocking the boat too much. But then again, it is an LTS, so when I finally get some time off to do stuff, I might slowly update all the machines to Lynx.
• Salad lunches can be really fun with judicious choice of vegetables and other stuff to go with the salad. They can also be rather filling if you know what you are doing.
• I probably use more paper and ink as a researcher than as a student or systems developer. Go figure.
• Silent Hill 4: The Room is a rather interesting game, albeit a little scary to play when the sky is rather dark outside and the earphones are the only things that one hears.
• MUDs can be very addictive without one actually realising it.
• V nz zvffvat zl tveysevraq n jubyr ohapu jura V qba'g trg gb frr ure rirel bapr va n juvyr. V jbaqre vs V'z orvat bofrffvir, va ybir be cynva vafrpher. Guvf bar arrqf cbaqrevat.
• Sometimes I wonder if I'm in the right place at the right time, but after a while, I think to myself: I can always make it the right place and right time.

Phew, that's a lot of random blurbs that I wanted to say but didn't really have the effort to generate a large post of.

The weather these days have been rather atrocious, especially when one spends time outside---it appears that the midday temperature is hovering around the 34°C mark, not the best kind of weather to be frolicking about in. But then again, I'm indoors most of the time, so perhaps it doesn't affect me all that much.

That said, on yet another tangent, there's a concert coming up and I have tickets to sell. The location is at the Salvation Army Central Corps near Bishan, and the concert is occurring on July 10, 2010 from 1930hrs onwards. Ticket prices are at SGD10---free seating. Message me or email me for reservations on the tickets.

Okay, now I'm spent from writing all these. Goes to show how long my day has been---can't even write a decently lengthed rant without stopping so abruptly.

Cache ≠ Can Throw Away Safely

As tempting as it is to remove /var/cache/ or to shift it to tmpfs, never do it because ``cache'' doesn't equate to ``can throw away safely''.

Case in point: hal balks when it cannot find /var/cache/hald/, and apt cries when it cannot find /var/cache/apt/archives/ and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/, and dpkg might scream when it misses /var/cache/debconf/. All these lead to a non-working machine.

Someone

Man, this song had been stuck in my head for years, and I finally found what it was:

A Mild Explanation

Updates here are getting far and few, and by no means am I ever intending to ditch this blog. But I would be lying through my teeth if I said that I had updates to put up here these days---that's hardly true and for good reason. The sad thing about it all is that the work life is often not as fantastic nor exciting as that of the college life. While many might claim that college life is more hectic than the real world, in my situation, I find the exact opposite to be more correct. I believe that on many levels, I have significantly more stress from work than when I was studying, not because of my inability to deal with the new things, but that I actually do have a heavy work load.

I'm not really complaining much about work (I like working), but it is really hard to find humorous or interesting snippets of information from the workplace to share and think about as compared to the general liberal attitudes that are present within the university. Don't get me wrong---there're lots of things that are happening in and out of the workplace, but issues like non-disclosure agreements and general sense of tactical self-preservation makes any form of discourse involving these material a potential minefield of pain.

Actually, the truth is that I spend more time entering things into my diary than here. Technically, it is just a journal, since I do not enter daily entries in it, but calling it a `journal' sounds a little more serious than what it really is, so I've stuck with calling it a `diary' for simplicity's sake. Why a diary one might ask when I have more than one blog to write things in. The word here is privacy. With a written book, I can control its physical presence (or at least, have a stronger suspension of disbelief that control is impossible), and with that assurance that there is only one such copy around where I am the sole custodian, I can write more in it, putting in as much detail as I care to write, without having to worry if I end up making a faux pas by saying some things that might be a little taboo of the the Internet.

So with all that writing of diaries, which I must reiterate is a most enjoyable activity to do with a good writing instrument, I tend to have fewer things to gripe about in public over here.

Day of the Endless Run

Man... each time a week passes in real life, I feel as though I've aged by ten weeks. So much to do, and so little time to do them all---sometimes I wonder how on earth do I pull it off.

I've been sick on and off for the last four weeks. Yep, that's right, I've been having a cold/flu combination for almost a month. Never really went to see a doctor, because I wasn't unwell enough to warrant a visit to them to collect a day's medical leave; I'm already short on time and having days lost to medical leave will be among the last things on my mind.

Two days ago it was the worst---thick phlegm clogging up my nose completely, and the interior structures of my nose were so swollen they were also actively blocking my passage way completely. But some paracetamol and pseudophredine later, the swelling has subsided to acceptable levels, acceptable in the sense that I can breathe decently through them.

Man... I better catch up on that sleep this Sunday, otherwise it'll be the beginning of week five of being sick.

Architecture Updates

If you manage to find me here, that's great! Because I've modified the links to my blogs.

The_Laptop Writes... and The_Laptop Wrote... now point different places than the past instead. Use ``Save Links'' or whatever tool your browser has to update your bookmarks/feeds.

The old link has a blog that is parked there doing absolutely nothing. I might make it into a general dev blog eventually, or I can just leave it in its current mystifying state of requiring a password to enter.

Why the sudden change, you might wonder? I'm actually trying to right things in a sense as part of my whole scheme of renewal and rebranding. The domain names (or in this case, subdomain names) should actually reflect what they are talking about and not the chronological ordering in which they were created. It is not as though I have a high enough readership volume that the renaming would bring all sorts of hell, so I might as well right things when I can.

If for some reason you want to link to my blog, use this link instead. That way, you'll always get redirected to wherever my blog is currently being hosted, should I choose to move away from Blogger and stuff.

Ronin 2

Time to be Ronin once more. The path ahead is strange and rocky, and the infectious mirth of the successful is suffocating enough that it sickens me.

Everyone has moved on, while I remain. No point thinking about the past---crush the path behind me with stones and boulders and look only forwards.

I've done it once, I can do it again. And if situation demands it, I will not hesitate to do it yet another time.

The world is a massive machination, and all of us are just tiny gears that contribute only a little to the overall scheme of things. What's one less gear among a small congregation of gears?

Perhaps more drastic action is required than what I have done. Was it not one of the 45 that said to get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful? Complete justification---check.

Activate Operation Firestorm Bridge.