Alright, this is not really Sparta, but seeing that this is the 300th post, it was just too tempting to not title this post as thus. [ed: chuckles at geekiness]
So, the 300th post. The 300th rant/prose that I've written ever since I've started this blog to talk about stuff back in 2006. Gosh, so much has changed, yet nothing much has changed. I mean, look at the year now. It is 2008, only about 2 years from that first post here. And the looks of the blog has changed from the sombre and rather hard to read green-on-black layout to the slightly cleaner version that you see today.
Oh, I still rant alright. Just read the last few posts and you'll agree with me on that one. But the one thing that I think that is most interesting at this point is the start of the lack of the rather emotive pieces that I was writing earlier in my life. I mean, the writing still has some semblence of emotion, but they are not as intensive nor miserable as before.
Age has a strange way of putting things into perspective, I guess. I look around me, and see folks doing their stuff, and for once, just this once in my life, I felt as though I actually belonged. Belonged to where one might ask, to which my reply is "it doesn't really matter". Loyalties are useful concepts, but one cannot always be loyal all the time if in the end, all that one is getting back from all that loyalty is a whole shit-load of unmentionables and complete and utter ostracisation of the community. That said, I am not advocating that we should all act in complete self-interest and not display any concepts of loyalty to our country or our organisations—on the contrary, I am advocating that loyalty, like everything else, ought to be earned. If one doesn't treat others well, it is hard to reason why those said others will swear allegiance/loyalty to one.
Alright, so I sound a little bitter. Maybe I am; maybe I'm not. At this stage, it doesn't matter. In fact, the world doesn't really care if one is bitter or not. The world operates on at least two planes, one of which is the personal plane, and the other is the social plane. At the social level, people are often impersonal, and work mainly in the interest of generating more profits, and the things that people say and do are often done under the guise of "duty", and demonstrating a rather impassionate outlook, and then claiming that it was "nothing personal but business". That means that some folks might be great to hang out with as friends (personal plane), but one might not really want to end up working with them (social plane) because the misguided concept of duty makes these nice individuals cold-blooded.
And it is because of that, this makes extremists and fundamentalists such a dangerous force. The folks who make up this demographic of the world didn't all start off being that way—many of them are really personable folks, nice people whom you probably won't mind having tea with. Yet, under the guise of duty, these same folks become the irrational people that the world condemns. Why is this so? How did this ever happen?
——
Honestly, I was really about to launch myself into a rather long rant about the relative cold-bloodedness of people when they are "doing business" as opposed to just being themselves, but I thought the better of it. On a completely different note, I'm going to get my bone conduction headphones on Monday (I hope). No, it is not as scary as it sounds; basically what it does is that it will use the bones in the skull to conduct the sound directly to the middle ear, completely bypassing the pinna and the entire middle ear. The main advantage of this is to allow clear audio sounds to be heard while still maintaining the ability to listen to environmental sounds. Compare this with the earbuds and noise-cancelling headphones, where they block out the ambient noise to provide the better quality sounds. While I like the fact that I can listen to the music clearer with the earbuds and noise-cancelling headphones, the fact that they block out ambient noise means that it is highly dangerous to use them while commuting, which is really what most of us use our portable music players for.
Apart from that, because the bone conducting headphones transmit through the bone, there is no need to stick anything into the ear, which means that it is probably more comfortable for long periods of use as compared to normal headphones/earphones. This is of course a plus in a rather hot and humid place.
So with great anticipation, I'm awaiting for my package to arrive through the mail. Meanwhile, have a good Easter weekend, and happy 300th post.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Life Lessons
Ah life! The single thing that is more or less a great leveller which puts everyone [almost] back to their places of nature. Come rich, or poor, brilliant or inept, everyone has to pass through some form of it.
So, one of the things that I find myself liking to do a lot will be to observe other people, and no, not in a creepy stalkerish way, but really to just look at people and try to figure out what makes them tick. It is an interesting past time, really, and sometimes, there can be rather useful life lessons that can be learnt.
I talked about this before on some of the conversations that I had with some of the cab drivers that I interacted with, but this time, I guess that I'm learning new stuff from a different sort of people—those who are actually younger than me.
Yes, you didn't hear that one wrong. I actually do learn from those who are younger than me. I feel no shame in that, really, just a mild amount of indignation with the fact that I'm the older yet I'm not necessarily the smarter; I guess having lagged behind by 2 years or so for national service kind of put me in that situation anyway.
Now, when I say that I'm learning from folks who are younger than me, I'm not really referring to my TAs and such even though many of my TAs are actually younger than me in age but more senior than me by academic year. I'm actually referring to life lessons.
Stories from people are always interesting and useful. The good ones can bring us a measure of joy and happiness at times, while the very best ones let us relive vicariously in vivid detail what others have gone through. From my peers, I learnt of many things that I don't think that I have a full grasp of, like single parenthood issues, various bio-chemical related materials, and even some aspects of my pet fields that even I wasn't quite sure about. I know that I'm not that intelligent, but I'm pretty sure that I carry around a fair amount of wisdom in my head, simply through all these discourses with folks.
I like talking with people. This might come as a surprise considering the fact that I'm a self-proclaimed geek/nerd/socially inept person. But the truth is, I like talking to people, only if I can maintain my anonymity. I believe that with true anonymity, folks are more forthcoming with their stories—there's no vested interest involved because you don't even know the name of the person whom you were talking to. Random elevator conversations, equally random cluster talk and other more random on-the-public-street talk provide all the interesting anecdotes that I slowly gather and learn from them.
But you might wonder why I'm doing this. Let's face it. We only live one life; I know that some of the more hardcore folks who believe in afterlife and reincarnation and stuff like that would be happy to contradict me at this point, but in all seriousness, this is the one life that we are going to live. We can only do so many things in so little amount of time; it is neigh impossible to actually do all the things that can be done by a human given the limited time that we have to live.
That's where stories come in. Stories, anecdotes and snippets are little peepholes that other folks have kindly shared with us, to give us an insight into what they were doing, to provide us with yet another perspective without having to live all the years that the person had. Stories can be thought of as distilled wisdom—the gist of the lessons to be learnt are still there, but the time required to learn them all is much reduced. Think for a second how science and mathematics and other human knowledge have progressed over the last 400 years. None of the scientists of today lived through all those 400 years, yet all of them have a good mastery of all the concepts that were developed through those times. How was this done?
Some say that the old get decripit and should be discarded, others claim that the young are impetuous and should be ignored till they gain maturity. But who are we to point at others and label them thus so? Each one of us has lived a life that is unique to the rest of the world; each of us have many stories to tell that might teach a lesson or two to someone else who has never had the chance to go that far.
My life then is one huge story tapestry, carefully woven with blood, tears and sometimes joy. I know that deep within myself, I'm probably not one of the smartest folks on the planet, but I guess that if I live this life well enough and write enough of my stories down somewhere somehow, someone out there sometime later might find something useful to learn from, and perhaps gain that tiny sliver of experience and wisdom to be able to make his/her mark in the world.
In the information age where the latest news spread faster across the globe than pandemics, the collection of stories have grown by an exponential amount. I do my best in my little corner of the universe and contribute my little stories, in the hope that on the day that I expire, I can confidently tell myself that I had indeed, lived my life well.
So, one of the things that I find myself liking to do a lot will be to observe other people, and no, not in a creepy stalkerish way, but really to just look at people and try to figure out what makes them tick. It is an interesting past time, really, and sometimes, there can be rather useful life lessons that can be learnt.
I talked about this before on some of the conversations that I had with some of the cab drivers that I interacted with, but this time, I guess that I'm learning new stuff from a different sort of people—those who are actually younger than me.
Yes, you didn't hear that one wrong. I actually do learn from those who are younger than me. I feel no shame in that, really, just a mild amount of indignation with the fact that I'm the older yet I'm not necessarily the smarter; I guess having lagged behind by 2 years or so for national service kind of put me in that situation anyway.
Now, when I say that I'm learning from folks who are younger than me, I'm not really referring to my TAs and such even though many of my TAs are actually younger than me in age but more senior than me by academic year. I'm actually referring to life lessons.
Stories from people are always interesting and useful. The good ones can bring us a measure of joy and happiness at times, while the very best ones let us relive vicariously in vivid detail what others have gone through. From my peers, I learnt of many things that I don't think that I have a full grasp of, like single parenthood issues, various bio-chemical related materials, and even some aspects of my pet fields that even I wasn't quite sure about. I know that I'm not that intelligent, but I'm pretty sure that I carry around a fair amount of wisdom in my head, simply through all these discourses with folks.
I like talking with people. This might come as a surprise considering the fact that I'm a self-proclaimed geek/nerd/socially inept person. But the truth is, I like talking to people, only if I can maintain my anonymity. I believe that with true anonymity, folks are more forthcoming with their stories—there's no vested interest involved because you don't even know the name of the person whom you were talking to. Random elevator conversations, equally random cluster talk and other more random on-the-public-street talk provide all the interesting anecdotes that I slowly gather and learn from them.
But you might wonder why I'm doing this. Let's face it. We only live one life; I know that some of the more hardcore folks who believe in afterlife and reincarnation and stuff like that would be happy to contradict me at this point, but in all seriousness, this is the one life that we are going to live. We can only do so many things in so little amount of time; it is neigh impossible to actually do all the things that can be done by a human given the limited time that we have to live.
That's where stories come in. Stories, anecdotes and snippets are little peepholes that other folks have kindly shared with us, to give us an insight into what they were doing, to provide us with yet another perspective without having to live all the years that the person had. Stories can be thought of as distilled wisdom—the gist of the lessons to be learnt are still there, but the time required to learn them all is much reduced. Think for a second how science and mathematics and other human knowledge have progressed over the last 400 years. None of the scientists of today lived through all those 400 years, yet all of them have a good mastery of all the concepts that were developed through those times. How was this done?
Some say that the old get decripit and should be discarded, others claim that the young are impetuous and should be ignored till they gain maturity. But who are we to point at others and label them thus so? Each one of us has lived a life that is unique to the rest of the world; each of us have many stories to tell that might teach a lesson or two to someone else who has never had the chance to go that far.
My life then is one huge story tapestry, carefully woven with blood, tears and sometimes joy. I know that deep within myself, I'm probably not one of the smartest folks on the planet, but I guess that if I live this life well enough and write enough of my stories down somewhere somehow, someone out there sometime later might find something useful to learn from, and perhaps gain that tiny sliver of experience and wisdom to be able to make his/her mark in the world.
In the information age where the latest news spread faster across the globe than pandemics, the collection of stories have grown by an exponential amount. I do my best in my little corner of the universe and contribute my little stories, in the hope that on the day that I expire, I can confidently tell myself that I had indeed, lived my life well.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Forth + λ-calculus
The more that I mess around with Forth, the more that I like messing around with it. So I discovered that pForth (the forth implementation that I'm using right now by virtue of the fact that it is actually easily compiled on all systems that have an ANSI C compliant compiler) has several useful words (forth parlance for functions/procedures) that can implement the concept of functional programming style. The two words which are useful here are ' and execute.
So ' takes the given word and pushes the address of the word onto the stack (as opposed to the return stack), while execute will pop the stack and execute the code that is available from the stack. Now, this means that we now have a means of passing functions as parameters on the stack to various words, which means that if I wanted to compute the integral of a function using Simpson's Rule, I can just set it up such that I can do it generically for some univariate function on the stack, and when I'm using the Simpson's Rule word, all I need to do is to use ' to obtain the address of the univariate function and get on with it.
Amazing. This also means that I could potentially hack out a word that is equivalent to creating anonymous functions using λ-calculus. Speaking of which, λ-calculus is ridiculously useful; I use this extensively in python and sage together with object-oriented programming in order to produce generic functions that work on various types of functions (like integration or differentiation).
Cool stuff. Heheheheheheh....
So ' takes the given word and pushes the address of the word onto the stack (as opposed to the return stack), while execute will pop the stack and execute the code that is available from the stack. Now, this means that we now have a means of passing functions as parameters on the stack to various words, which means that if I wanted to compute the integral of a function using Simpson's Rule, I can just set it up such that I can do it generically for some univariate function on the stack, and when I'm using the Simpson's Rule word, all I need to do is to use ' to obtain the address of the univariate function and get on with it.
Amazing. This also means that I could potentially hack out a word that is equivalent to creating anonymous functions using λ-calculus. Speaking of which, λ-calculus is ridiculously useful; I use this extensively in python and sage together with object-oriented programming in order to produce generic functions that work on various types of functions (like integration or differentiation).
Cool stuff. Heheheheheheh....
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Stuff Again
Combing through the Internet once more, I stumbled upon this interesting article on disclosures and risks. Rather interesting, I'd say. Read it, and see if it describes well what we are doing as a society and as an individual.
On another side note, here's an interesting article on why we use Linux.
Yet another diversion: Cave Story. It's an interesting platformer, and seems well constructed. The site that I'm directing to is a fan-subtitled version (original language was in Japanese).
I guess that that's all for now.
On another side note, here's an interesting article on why we use Linux.
Yet another diversion: Cave Story. It's an interesting platformer, and seems well constructed. The site that I'm directing to is a fan-subtitled version (original language was in Japanese).
I guess that that's all for now.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Fear Strikes Again
Yet another day passes, and I find myself ever closer to graduation. Of course, the chief thing that comes to mind will be the ability to actually graduate with the necessary GPA for the continuance of my dream—I can never forgive myself for the dismal grade I had for Set Theory.
It is at times like this that I wonder if all that I'm doing is really worthed it. I take a look at myself in the mirror, and half the time I see a happy person, while the other half the time, I see someone who is just a poser, who struggles ever so hard to fit into shoes that might be too big for him to wear.
Let's face it. This semester, I cannot get the GPA of 4.0, no matter what I do. It is neigh impossible. While I can probably study and memorise really hard and move Economics up to an A (by basically scoring 100 on each test from now on), I have very little confidence in pushing my Introduction to Ethics to an A.
I still fear. That worries me. I'm not fearless now; I never think that I was. And being in my position right now, it seems that I can never achieve that goal of being fearless. I have so many dreams that I want to accomplish, most importantly is that of being able to be a researcher, yet from the looks of my grades and the pressures that everyone exerts on me, I'm no longer sure if I'm really half the man that I seem to be.
Reality has a strange way of pushing me flat on to the ground. I'm scared, I'm still scared; scared of so many things that are going to occur into the future, scared that I'll be a part of the group that "falls between the cracks", scared of what my life has to offer to me. It is terrifying whenever I look at my life—why is it that I have to jump through so many hoops to be able to achieve what I strive for? I am so unnerved now that it is not even funny; I'm not sure how I manage to pull myself together to survive each day with such immense amounts of pressure.
Perhaps I can just re-align my lofty goals. The cumulative GPA of 3.8 is no longer a possibility; I am sure that I cannot obtain 4.0 GPAs for the next 3 semesters, simply because I am not that smart goddamnit. I'm good at what I do, which is Computer Science and compter programming, not random stuff that I have to take to fulfil my breadth requirements. If I were that good, I'd be somewhere else altogether, not stuck within the system trying to eke my way through. I hate myself for being so weak, being weak at being that "all-rounded student" that everyone wants.
I'm a fscking human, goddamnit, not some godly character like the rest of the folks. I enjoy doing research, I love learning new things, but I don't believe that a silly examination can test what I know; why memorise something when one can look it up as easily? It is at times like this that make me wonder deeply whether I had make the wrong choice in life by pursuing my dreams in this fashion.
Hardship. Lots and lots and lots of hardship. My life is such a melodrama. If only I had not taken Set Theory in that semester, I would have a slightly easier time. But there are so many if-only lines of thought in my life; which ones do I dare to wish away without affecting the others?
The dice are cast for now, and I know where I stand. I should be making the best use of this. I mean, if at the end of the day, I am not fated to do what I want the way that I want it, so be it. I want to be able to stand up and be brave and say out loud that at least I had tried. No regrets; that's how I want it to be. Let the future be as fuzzy as before, and let me prevail with my hardwork and prove that my worth is not based on silly meaningless paperwork meant to placate the masses, but is based on my intrinsic ability to actually do the fscking things.
That all said and done, I hope that I am able to pull this off. If not, so be it.
It is at times like this that I wonder if all that I'm doing is really worthed it. I take a look at myself in the mirror, and half the time I see a happy person, while the other half the time, I see someone who is just a poser, who struggles ever so hard to fit into shoes that might be too big for him to wear.
Let's face it. This semester, I cannot get the GPA of 4.0, no matter what I do. It is neigh impossible. While I can probably study and memorise really hard and move Economics up to an A (by basically scoring 100 on each test from now on), I have very little confidence in pushing my Introduction to Ethics to an A.
I still fear. That worries me. I'm not fearless now; I never think that I was. And being in my position right now, it seems that I can never achieve that goal of being fearless. I have so many dreams that I want to accomplish, most importantly is that of being able to be a researcher, yet from the looks of my grades and the pressures that everyone exerts on me, I'm no longer sure if I'm really half the man that I seem to be.
Reality has a strange way of pushing me flat on to the ground. I'm scared, I'm still scared; scared of so many things that are going to occur into the future, scared that I'll be a part of the group that "falls between the cracks", scared of what my life has to offer to me. It is terrifying whenever I look at my life—why is it that I have to jump through so many hoops to be able to achieve what I strive for? I am so unnerved now that it is not even funny; I'm not sure how I manage to pull myself together to survive each day with such immense amounts of pressure.
Perhaps I can just re-align my lofty goals. The cumulative GPA of 3.8 is no longer a possibility; I am sure that I cannot obtain 4.0 GPAs for the next 3 semesters, simply because I am not that smart goddamnit. I'm good at what I do, which is Computer Science and compter programming, not random stuff that I have to take to fulfil my breadth requirements. If I were that good, I'd be somewhere else altogether, not stuck within the system trying to eke my way through. I hate myself for being so weak, being weak at being that "all-rounded student" that everyone wants.
I'm a fscking human, goddamnit, not some godly character like the rest of the folks. I enjoy doing research, I love learning new things, but I don't believe that a silly examination can test what I know; why memorise something when one can look it up as easily? It is at times like this that make me wonder deeply whether I had make the wrong choice in life by pursuing my dreams in this fashion.
Hardship. Lots and lots and lots of hardship. My life is such a melodrama. If only I had not taken Set Theory in that semester, I would have a slightly easier time. But there are so many if-only lines of thought in my life; which ones do I dare to wish away without affecting the others?
The dice are cast for now, and I know where I stand. I should be making the best use of this. I mean, if at the end of the day, I am not fated to do what I want the way that I want it, so be it. I want to be able to stand up and be brave and say out loud that at least I had tried. No regrets; that's how I want it to be. Let the future be as fuzzy as before, and let me prevail with my hardwork and prove that my worth is not based on silly meaningless paperwork meant to placate the masses, but is based on my intrinsic ability to actually do the fscking things.
That all said and done, I hope that I am able to pull this off. If not, so be it.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Passwords + Self-Propogating Fears
While snooping around the Internet reading articles, I found this rather interesting article: Diceware. This is a useful technique in generating hard-to-guess passwords/passphrases for use in cryptographic applications or more mundane stuff like securing one's email.
I generally advocate the use of random letters/numbers combination, with symbols thrown in if one's memory is great. With the full set of the English alphabet, as well as the numbers, and having approximately 8 characters in the password, we are looking at 628≈2×1014 different passwords, assuming of course that each character is chosen from a uniform distribution of the 62 characters. I generally find that memorising 8 random alpha-numeric characters as one chunk is not too hard. By that regard, attempting to memorise 16 random alpha-numeric characters as one chunk will take a little bit of effort, which will provide nearly 4×1028 different passwords. Again, by the uniform distribution argument, we are looking at a probability of 4.5×10-15 and 2.1×10-29 of successfully guessing the password. As a comparison, the probability of winning the lottery is about 1 in 14 million (about 7.1×10-8). Go figure.
Despite all these rather impressive figures, most folks still use simple easy-to-guess passwords. Among the top of the list are simple passwords that can be found in the dictionary; among the worst of choices. Oh the pain, the pain! That's another reason why I'm refusing to step into cryptography despite it being my love—the best cryptosystem in the world will always be thwarted due to the idiocy of how the humans in the protocol act/react. The mathematics may be sound, but the weakest link is the human; he/she refuses to follow the protocol to the T, takes shortcuts and makes lots of mistakes in the protocol, resulting in the overall system failure.
Social engineering, anyone? Most of the world's espionage activities do not really involve glorified system cracking by highly elite computer hackers; all it takes is just good old dumpster-diving and piecing the trash back together to re-create the documents that we thought were destroyed.
Am I paranoid? Perhaps, but then again, if in this time and age one isn't paranoid about one's privacy (let alone security), then surely one must be one of the said ignoramuses. I mean, come on, already governments are using automated video surveillance to ensure that anyone who attempts to behave differently will be detected and "neutralised" before they do harm. Sure, if the governing laws are sound, and if the people who are tasked to implement the laws are also sound, and if everyone involved are impartial and work only towards what they are supposed to do to secure our safety, then things will work out well.
Remember my earlier comment about humans being the weakest link? Well, this time around, this can be seen by the various abuses of powers by some of the black sheep of law enforcement. So, who should we trust with our privacy and security?
Terrorism is not about bombing buildings or constructing explosives; it is about creating a society of terror, where folks are scared to do what they normally do. It is a war of ideas, a protracted war of attrition between ideologies and willpower, to see who in the end will prevail. Rational voice gets drowned out by the cacophony of the terrorists who are using our systems against us in the propogation of terror. In the past, we fear folks who are adamant of bombing us, but now, we fear the very folks whom we entrust with the mandate to protect us. By that regard, the terrorists have the slight advantage over us now; we are self-propogating our own fear and terror of the terrorists.
Should we allow them the luxury of gaining something out of nothing then? No. We should never let them sucker us into their scheme. Vigilance and public-spiritedness does not equate to yet more control by a central authority; it is really the cooperative effort of the masses and trained personnel to work together to flush out these sociopaths who choose to present their dissenting ideas using covert rather than overt means. We should strengthen our social institutions to allow the different voices to be heard in public and without prejudice, to be subjected to the critical eye of rationality to decide as a whole by ourselves, what exactly it is we want.
The government serves the people; they are not our lords, and neither are they superior to us. We put the government to power with the trust that they will act in our interests, and not for them to form yet another corporation which takes away the liberties and freedoms that the citizens intrinsically have in the various democratic constitutions. Sadly, this is starting to not be the case anymore; democracy as we know it has evolved to the point where money and not the public good has dominated the landscape. While there might never have been a moral politician, it is even harder to find a politician now whose interest is in the people and not of the money.
We live in trying times, and I fear for the future.
——
On a wholly unrelated note, life's getting rather good now. Spring break is just about half-done, and soon I'd be lamenting about the fast passage of time and the need to hit the grindstone once more. But that aside, things should be a little more uplifting, I guess.
Until next time.
I generally advocate the use of random letters/numbers combination, with symbols thrown in if one's memory is great. With the full set of the English alphabet, as well as the numbers, and having approximately 8 characters in the password, we are looking at 628≈2×1014 different passwords, assuming of course that each character is chosen from a uniform distribution of the 62 characters. I generally find that memorising 8 random alpha-numeric characters as one chunk is not too hard. By that regard, attempting to memorise 16 random alpha-numeric characters as one chunk will take a little bit of effort, which will provide nearly 4×1028 different passwords. Again, by the uniform distribution argument, we are looking at a probability of 4.5×10-15 and 2.1×10-29 of successfully guessing the password. As a comparison, the probability of winning the lottery is about 1 in 14 million (about 7.1×10-8). Go figure.
Despite all these rather impressive figures, most folks still use simple easy-to-guess passwords. Among the top of the list are simple passwords that can be found in the dictionary; among the worst of choices. Oh the pain, the pain! That's another reason why I'm refusing to step into cryptography despite it being my love—the best cryptosystem in the world will always be thwarted due to the idiocy of how the humans in the protocol act/react. The mathematics may be sound, but the weakest link is the human; he/she refuses to follow the protocol to the T, takes shortcuts and makes lots of mistakes in the protocol, resulting in the overall system failure.
Social engineering, anyone? Most of the world's espionage activities do not really involve glorified system cracking by highly elite computer hackers; all it takes is just good old dumpster-diving and piecing the trash back together to re-create the documents that we thought were destroyed.
Am I paranoid? Perhaps, but then again, if in this time and age one isn't paranoid about one's privacy (let alone security), then surely one must be one of the said ignoramuses. I mean, come on, already governments are using automated video surveillance to ensure that anyone who attempts to behave differently will be detected and "neutralised" before they do harm. Sure, if the governing laws are sound, and if the people who are tasked to implement the laws are also sound, and if everyone involved are impartial and work only towards what they are supposed to do to secure our safety, then things will work out well.
Remember my earlier comment about humans being the weakest link? Well, this time around, this can be seen by the various abuses of powers by some of the black sheep of law enforcement. So, who should we trust with our privacy and security?
Terrorism is not about bombing buildings or constructing explosives; it is about creating a society of terror, where folks are scared to do what they normally do. It is a war of ideas, a protracted war of attrition between ideologies and willpower, to see who in the end will prevail. Rational voice gets drowned out by the cacophony of the terrorists who are using our systems against us in the propogation of terror. In the past, we fear folks who are adamant of bombing us, but now, we fear the very folks whom we entrust with the mandate to protect us. By that regard, the terrorists have the slight advantage over us now; we are self-propogating our own fear and terror of the terrorists.
Should we allow them the luxury of gaining something out of nothing then? No. We should never let them sucker us into their scheme. Vigilance and public-spiritedness does not equate to yet more control by a central authority; it is really the cooperative effort of the masses and trained personnel to work together to flush out these sociopaths who choose to present their dissenting ideas using covert rather than overt means. We should strengthen our social institutions to allow the different voices to be heard in public and without prejudice, to be subjected to the critical eye of rationality to decide as a whole by ourselves, what exactly it is we want.
The government serves the people; they are not our lords, and neither are they superior to us. We put the government to power with the trust that they will act in our interests, and not for them to form yet another corporation which takes away the liberties and freedoms that the citizens intrinsically have in the various democratic constitutions. Sadly, this is starting to not be the case anymore; democracy as we know it has evolved to the point where money and not the public good has dominated the landscape. While there might never have been a moral politician, it is even harder to find a politician now whose interest is in the people and not of the money.
We live in trying times, and I fear for the future.
——
On a wholly unrelated note, life's getting rather good now. Spring break is just about half-done, and soon I'd be lamenting about the fast passage of time and the need to hit the grindstone once more. But that aside, things should be a little more uplifting, I guess.
Until next time.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
"Angry" Rant?
So I was kinda mulling around, reading various blogs when I realised that perhaps in some ways, people have already started to forget about me. I mean, I don't feel happy/sad or anything, but it is just one of those realisations that hit one after a rather long period of festering in one's mind.
Why do I say that people have already started to forget about me? Well, let's face it. In my past period of this life, I was generally a prick (still am, just that here, everyone else seems kinda more weird than I am, so I'm in good company), and already that is something that people don't particularly like, to start with. Next, being the person I am, sometimes I just get on folks' nerves, without realising it.
Also, I have this rather bad habit of setting the bar a little too high wherever I go, which makes everyone ever so annoyed.
Base line really, is that most folks probably don't like me much, and since I am kinda out of sight at the moment, it would seem like a great idea that I would also be out of mind. *shrugs* But then again, life goes on, and we find new people to hang out with—that is the cycle of life, and there's little that we can do about that, or can we?
I'm not some glamorous popularity whore; I just be myself for the most part, and if folks think that it'd be great to hang out with me, then I'm okay with it; similarly, if they thought that it would be terrible to hang out with me for one reason or another, I'm still okay with it too.
Gone are the days where I place friendship to such a high level where I end up getting hurt by it all. Gone are the days where I valued each and every person to the point that when they hurt me, they do a good job. I'm a different person now; I fear not the concept of loneliness because I am not lonely. I do not fear what people try to do to me in order to hurt me, because I am now harder to hurt than before.
So, go ahead and forget me then. There's nothing wrong with that, just a part of the cycle of life. You might forget me, but that doesn't mean that I will forget you. So, maybe one day you decide to come back into my life and be a friend once more, I won't welcome you with the eagerness that I had a long time ago, but you will not be turned away, for you were once a friend, and will always be, unless of course you did something truly and utterly despicable to me or to the ones I love and care for, then in that case may my fist be the one that smites you to the ground for the injustices that they had suffered.
Why do I say that people have already started to forget about me? Well, let's face it. In my past period of this life, I was generally a prick (still am, just that here, everyone else seems kinda more weird than I am, so I'm in good company), and already that is something that people don't particularly like, to start with. Next, being the person I am, sometimes I just get on folks' nerves, without realising it.
Also, I have this rather bad habit of setting the bar a little too high wherever I go, which makes everyone ever so annoyed.
Base line really, is that most folks probably don't like me much, and since I am kinda out of sight at the moment, it would seem like a great idea that I would also be out of mind. *shrugs* But then again, life goes on, and we find new people to hang out with—that is the cycle of life, and there's little that we can do about that, or can we?
I'm not some glamorous popularity whore; I just be myself for the most part, and if folks think that it'd be great to hang out with me, then I'm okay with it; similarly, if they thought that it would be terrible to hang out with me for one reason or another, I'm still okay with it too.
Gone are the days where I place friendship to such a high level where I end up getting hurt by it all. Gone are the days where I valued each and every person to the point that when they hurt me, they do a good job. I'm a different person now; I fear not the concept of loneliness because I am not lonely. I do not fear what people try to do to me in order to hurt me, because I am now harder to hurt than before.
So, go ahead and forget me then. There's nothing wrong with that, just a part of the cycle of life. You might forget me, but that doesn't mean that I will forget you. So, maybe one day you decide to come back into my life and be a friend once more, I won't welcome you with the eagerness that I had a long time ago, but you will not be turned away, for you were once a friend, and will always be, unless of course you did something truly and utterly despicable to me or to the ones I love and care for, then in that case may my fist be the one that smites you to the ground for the injustices that they had suffered.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Xubuntu
So technically, yesterday was the official start of spring break, though honestly, I was still working at school projects yesterday, and am most likely to be working on that on and off for the next few days. That's not as bad as it sounds though, because this break, I'm not going to be doing things alone, so it is not an issue, I guess. She's around, and that makes me happy.
On to more interesting matters. So, I finally managed to get my Xubuntu up and running and customised it accordingly. The set-up time didn't take too long, and it was a rather pleasant experience to watch Xubuntu detect (and make use of) my wireless connection to connect to the Internet. This sure beats the coaxing that I need to take to get my Slackware to cooperate with my wireless (they didn't cooperate at all, in the end).
So yeah. It's not that I'm not being l337 here; it's just that there comes a point in time where the tinkering has to stop and the thing has to work. I love messing around with slackware — nothing beats that fulfillment that one has when one gets something up and running — but at this stage, I realise that I don't really have the time to really tinker that much anymore. I just want a system that works, that can fulfill what I need to do. It is really important these days, considering the fact that down time from a system is really a big no-no in times like this, particularly when we are moving forwards at a higher and higher rate.
I have this little theory about things, that as we get older and older, the opportunity costs associated with the actions that we might want to take will generally increase, due to the increased capacity in which we can do things. So, if I were to try to pick up a new language now, for instance, I need to sacrifice much more than if I were to take up a new language when I was a little child, for instance. And we know that this is true, to a large degree; as we get older, our abilities start to get more and more versatile, and our earning power increases accordingly too, which means that if we want to do other stuff, the cost that we need to sacrifice in order to obtain the other task will increase accordingly too.
Which brings me back to my original point. I like messing with Slackware, but as time goes on, I can no longer keep up with the tinkering to ensure that my system will work correctly/perfectly. That's why a system like Xubuntu or even Microsoft Windows can help a lot; there's lots of tinkering that can be done, yet it is also possible to just fix things through the use of the automated tools, without having to manually inspect what is needed to fix the installations to make them run, let alone running better.
With that mentality then, is what I have when I made that switch from Slackware to Xubuntu.
On to more interesting matters. So, I finally managed to get my Xubuntu up and running and customised it accordingly. The set-up time didn't take too long, and it was a rather pleasant experience to watch Xubuntu detect (and make use of) my wireless connection to connect to the Internet. This sure beats the coaxing that I need to take to get my Slackware to cooperate with my wireless (they didn't cooperate at all, in the end).
So yeah. It's not that I'm not being l337 here; it's just that there comes a point in time where the tinkering has to stop and the thing has to work. I love messing around with slackware — nothing beats that fulfillment that one has when one gets something up and running — but at this stage, I realise that I don't really have the time to really tinker that much anymore. I just want a system that works, that can fulfill what I need to do. It is really important these days, considering the fact that down time from a system is really a big no-no in times like this, particularly when we are moving forwards at a higher and higher rate.
I have this little theory about things, that as we get older and older, the opportunity costs associated with the actions that we might want to take will generally increase, due to the increased capacity in which we can do things. So, if I were to try to pick up a new language now, for instance, I need to sacrifice much more than if I were to take up a new language when I was a little child, for instance. And we know that this is true, to a large degree; as we get older, our abilities start to get more and more versatile, and our earning power increases accordingly too, which means that if we want to do other stuff, the cost that we need to sacrifice in order to obtain the other task will increase accordingly too.
Which brings me back to my original point. I like messing with Slackware, but as time goes on, I can no longer keep up with the tinkering to ensure that my system will work correctly/perfectly. That's why a system like Xubuntu or even Microsoft Windows can help a lot; there's lots of tinkering that can be done, yet it is also possible to just fix things through the use of the automated tools, without having to manually inspect what is needed to fix the installations to make them run, let alone running better.
With that mentality then, is what I have when I made that switch from Slackware to Xubuntu.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
V's Speech
This never ceases to amaze me:
This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is it vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-Ă -vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Lotsaschtuff
So, I ordered a Pickett 10" slide rule a while back from Sphere Research about a week back. And it has finally arrived!
Isn't she a beauty? Now compare this with the old one that I had:
Not that I'm going to diss the older one (hey, it was a hand-me-down from my father which now has a nice new case compared to the old, battered, plastic one that I left back at home), but this Pickett is just so much more... substantial to hold than the other.
Aluminium adjustable slide rules with a nice mix of scales, from the folded scales for easy π-based computations, yellow "eye-saver" colour scheme... mmm mmm, good. I just love slide rules for some reason; there's this strange eternal air about them. It's like holding the cradle of modern engineering and computer science in one's hands; something that ranks itself as among the most marvellous of precision engineering, the one that helped give rise to all the other innovations that we now have. To be able to compute, yet without the current "traditional" conceptions of what the action of computing entails.
The next on my shopping list is a 5" pocket sized Pickett for ease of carrying around. That will likely to fall into the April budget for me. Meanwhile, I'm contented with hooking the Pickett to my belt via a carabiner.
And yes, I'm such a geek. Too bad, heheheh...
——
In other news, I put together this Picasso piece of a mind-map in the attempt to prepare for my Intoduction to Ethics course (History of ethics section):
No, obviously this wasn't done using a computer (can you imagine how freakishly long it will take to do that?); it was done using the traditional method of colour pencils and pen on a letter-sized paper.
And yes, I still think that mind-maps are rather useful as memory aids more than anything else. Alright, that's all that I care to update for now. In the next few days, more things are expected to come up, and I'll probably post a few more pictures of life in general and some things in particular just for folks to get a flavour of what is going on.
Until next time.
Isn't she a beauty? Now compare this with the old one that I had:
Not that I'm going to diss the older one (hey, it was a hand-me-down from my father which now has a nice new case compared to the old, battered, plastic one that I left back at home), but this Pickett is just so much more... substantial to hold than the other.Aluminium adjustable slide rules with a nice mix of scales, from the folded scales for easy π-based computations, yellow "eye-saver" colour scheme... mmm mmm, good. I just love slide rules for some reason; there's this strange eternal air about them. It's like holding the cradle of modern engineering and computer science in one's hands; something that ranks itself as among the most marvellous of precision engineering, the one that helped give rise to all the other innovations that we now have. To be able to compute, yet without the current "traditional" conceptions of what the action of computing entails.
The next on my shopping list is a 5" pocket sized Pickett for ease of carrying around. That will likely to fall into the April budget for me. Meanwhile, I'm contented with hooking the Pickett to my belt via a carabiner.
And yes, I'm such a geek. Too bad, heheheh...
——
In other news, I put together this Picasso piece of a mind-map in the attempt to prepare for my Intoduction to Ethics course (History of ethics section):
No, obviously this wasn't done using a computer (can you imagine how freakishly long it will take to do that?); it was done using the traditional method of colour pencils and pen on a letter-sized paper.And yes, I still think that mind-maps are rather useful as memory aids more than anything else. Alright, that's all that I care to update for now. In the next few days, more things are expected to come up, and I'll probably post a few more pictures of life in general and some things in particular just for folks to get a flavour of what is going on.
Until next time.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Reflective Mood
Another day's passing, another day that I've aged and another day that has been lost if it were not live thoroughly. Yes, it is rather strange to be thinking like this, particularly early in the morning when one has just woken up. But I cannot seem to help it—it always fascinates me how people can have the willpower to live and believe in themselves.
Not that I'm in an existential crisis at the moment, but some mild reflection about the past seems to suggest that one of the reasons why I was rarely happy was largely due to the fact that I kept letting myself be pressurised by the people around me. I know inside me that I don't really like to conform to conventions for as much as I can get away with, but my actions for the most part seem rather contradictory.
If there is a positive change in my attitude when I'm studying overseas, it would be that I'm slowly learning to think for myself once more, making my own decisions, and live having to decide on what I had decided on. Let's just say that this is the free-spirit in me talking, and that the other me has little to say about things.
I think that I'm rambling again. Alright, on to some "real" news. This week was the start of the death march week; the one week just before the start of spring break. There's so much homework due, so much midterms to be had, and so much other things that I need to deal with to get on with life.
Well, I'm not afraid, neither am I alone. She's there, and helps to keep my sanity. The more that I spend time with her, the more that I find myself liking her more. I can't put my finger to exactly what makes her so fascinating and sweet, but a good guess will be that of having a real personality.
I mean, let's face it. Many of the girls that I've known are too stereotypically female, you know, all "weak and wide-eyed", but most importantly, overly dependent on other folks. While I like my companion to be somewhat dependent on me, I don't really want one who is so dependent to the point where it starts becoming ridiculous. But she's different. She's rather independent, has a rather sociable and joviable demeanour, and is all for hugs. Yes, you heard that right, she absolutely adores hugs. And I do too, but most folks just don't like hugs. So, in a way, one might say that we're well-matched.
Alright, enough of all these nonsensical rambling. By now, you'd have realised that the frequency with which I am updating my blog(s) is getting a tad on the low side. It's not that I'm about to abandon my writing in favour of real life, but it is really about having to have something to write before starting to write. Most of the updates that you'll fine are likely to be in The_Laptop Scribbles... as I do those 10-minute speed writing sessions through exercises generated by WriteThis. Rants should be far and few; tumultous times are marked by increased activity in trying to vent away one's dissatisfaction with the current lot in life.
That said, I'll strive for a weekly rant just to keep things interesting here, as we've discovered that people usually prefer gossip over fiction. >.>
Not that I'm in an existential crisis at the moment, but some mild reflection about the past seems to suggest that one of the reasons why I was rarely happy was largely due to the fact that I kept letting myself be pressurised by the people around me. I know inside me that I don't really like to conform to conventions for as much as I can get away with, but my actions for the most part seem rather contradictory.
If there is a positive change in my attitude when I'm studying overseas, it would be that I'm slowly learning to think for myself once more, making my own decisions, and live having to decide on what I had decided on. Let's just say that this is the free-spirit in me talking, and that the other me has little to say about things.
I think that I'm rambling again. Alright, on to some "real" news. This week was the start of the death march week; the one week just before the start of spring break. There's so much homework due, so much midterms to be had, and so much other things that I need to deal with to get on with life.
Well, I'm not afraid, neither am I alone. She's there, and helps to keep my sanity. The more that I spend time with her, the more that I find myself liking her more. I can't put my finger to exactly what makes her so fascinating and sweet, but a good guess will be that of having a real personality.
I mean, let's face it. Many of the girls that I've known are too stereotypically female, you know, all "weak and wide-eyed", but most importantly, overly dependent on other folks. While I like my companion to be somewhat dependent on me, I don't really want one who is so dependent to the point where it starts becoming ridiculous. But she's different. She's rather independent, has a rather sociable and joviable demeanour, and is all for hugs. Yes, you heard that right, she absolutely adores hugs. And I do too, but most folks just don't like hugs. So, in a way, one might say that we're well-matched.
Alright, enough of all these nonsensical rambling. By now, you'd have realised that the frequency with which I am updating my blog(s) is getting a tad on the low side. It's not that I'm about to abandon my writing in favour of real life, but it is really about having to have something to write before starting to write. Most of the updates that you'll fine are likely to be in The_Laptop Scribbles... as I do those 10-minute speed writing sessions through exercises generated by WriteThis. Rants should be far and few; tumultous times are marked by increased activity in trying to vent away one's dissatisfaction with the current lot in life.
That said, I'll strive for a weekly rant just to keep things interesting here, as we've discovered that people usually prefer gossip over fiction. >.>
Thursday, February 28, 2008
[Yet Another] Muse
Alright, so I had a dead hard drive. That's the bad news. The good news is, I now have another hard drive that is set up and is ready to go again. Thankfully, most of the data that is lost is non-critical stuff that can be rebuilt. Of those that cannot, they are just small little memories of my past here and there—probably not of much consequence, I guess.
It is rather interesting. On the one hand, I am one who is rather traditional by nature, yet on the other hand, I am also one who is radical and embracing of new ideas (as long as they make sense). A mild contradiction of roles perhaps, but I think that I'm rather comfortable with that. Rooted in tradition, yet open to new ideas; that is probably the best motto that I can get away with given the current circumstance.
So this week and the next are really the biggest crunch-downs for this half of the semester, with all classes having mid-terms within this time frame (I kid you not). I'm likely to be spending most of the weekend studying and building memory aids to help in the recall process of the key issues that are present in each of the courses. I'm not too afraid though, just more grinding to be done.
So, yeah. Life. So many challenges, so many changes, yet I'm still enjoying myself all the way. I must admit that acknowledging that I'm not extremely smart has probably helped me calibrate what I am supposed to expect out of myself as well as how I should be approaching things in general. A calm disposition is one that I most definitely should upkeep, for hot-headedness will not allow me to go far, not under most circumstance.
I can't wait for spring break to arrive. A moment of consolidation, and a great way to start packing/sending things back home to reduce the amount of packing that I need to do prior to the start of the summer break; also, it is a great time to take stock of life in general and to probably shift my Slackware installation to a Xubuntu one. Why the swap, one might ask. Well, while I like the simple interface of Slackware a lot, I realise that upkeeping Slackware just takes too much energy to keep up with. Xubuntu has the minimalist structure that I like, and at the same time, it also has a rather easy way of keeping up with security updates. The only thing that can likely shift me away from Xubuntu will be that of Gentoo Linux, but of course, the high maintenance required means that I need to re-temper my expectations of how things are set up.
As I said, it is just a musing. At the end of the day, I might just leave my Slackware alone and carry on with life thus, but who knows, really?
It is rather interesting. On the one hand, I am one who is rather traditional by nature, yet on the other hand, I am also one who is radical and embracing of new ideas (as long as they make sense). A mild contradiction of roles perhaps, but I think that I'm rather comfortable with that. Rooted in tradition, yet open to new ideas; that is probably the best motto that I can get away with given the current circumstance.
So this week and the next are really the biggest crunch-downs for this half of the semester, with all classes having mid-terms within this time frame (I kid you not). I'm likely to be spending most of the weekend studying and building memory aids to help in the recall process of the key issues that are present in each of the courses. I'm not too afraid though, just more grinding to be done.
So, yeah. Life. So many challenges, so many changes, yet I'm still enjoying myself all the way. I must admit that acknowledging that I'm not extremely smart has probably helped me calibrate what I am supposed to expect out of myself as well as how I should be approaching things in general. A calm disposition is one that I most definitely should upkeep, for hot-headedness will not allow me to go far, not under most circumstance.
I can't wait for spring break to arrive. A moment of consolidation, and a great way to start packing/sending things back home to reduce the amount of packing that I need to do prior to the start of the summer break; also, it is a great time to take stock of life in general and to probably shift my Slackware installation to a Xubuntu one. Why the swap, one might ask. Well, while I like the simple interface of Slackware a lot, I realise that upkeeping Slackware just takes too much energy to keep up with. Xubuntu has the minimalist structure that I like, and at the same time, it also has a rather easy way of keeping up with security updates. The only thing that can likely shift me away from Xubuntu will be that of Gentoo Linux, but of course, the high maintenance required means that I need to re-temper my expectations of how things are set up.
As I said, it is just a musing. At the end of the day, I might just leave my Slackware alone and carry on with life thus, but who knows, really?
Monday, February 25, 2008
R.I.P.
*sigh* Today marks the passing on of one of my external hard drives. There goes a huge chunk of my not-so-essential data, including memories like digital photographs. But then again, the last time I ever viewed them was a long time ago—memories are best stored in one's mind's eye, I guess.
Rest in peace old friend; the good times we had together will be sorely missed.
[Ed: No, I didn't kill my drive by removing it from the enclosure—it died first, then I removed it from the enclosure. So now, I'm going to try to get a new drive to fit in the enclosure (and hope that the electronics still work), and try running it. Otherwise, I'll just get another enclosure to get the job done. Either way, I think that I should be able to rebuild the datastream that I lost. Unfortunately, all those pretty pictures that I have taken and stored into this hard drive are now... gone. Sorry Nicole, not sure if you still have the ultra-high-resolution of the only sexy picture that you and I ever took, because I don't think that I have that one anymore.]
Rest in peace old friend; the good times we had together will be sorely missed.
[Ed: No, I didn't kill my drive by removing it from the enclosure—it died first, then I removed it from the enclosure. So now, I'm going to try to get a new drive to fit in the enclosure (and hope that the electronics still work), and try running it. Otherwise, I'll just get another enclosure to get the job done. Either way, I think that I should be able to rebuild the datastream that I lost. Unfortunately, all those pretty pictures that I have taken and stored into this hard drive are now... gone. Sorry Nicole, not sure if you still have the ultra-high-resolution of the only sexy picture that you and I ever took, because I don't think that I have that one anymore.]
Friday, February 22, 2008
Weird Day Redux
It is such a weird day. I don't know how best to put it, but suffice to say, it just feels weird. There seems to be so much to do, yet at the same time, I am still feeling strangely relaxed. I wonder what's going on.
"You look kinda different." That was a strange comment; I wonder what that means. Was it in reference to my hair and mild change in face shape (due to me getting mildly fatter), or was it something that he saw in my eyes? It is such an unnerving thought.
That aside, I think that I should be writing an interpreter for Forth. I'm always fascinated by little tools like these; the more spartan the tool, the more interested I am with it. Remember good old ed? I wrote something about it some time ago. So one of my "past-time" programming projects will be to implement a cute Forth interpreter, and maybe write ed from scratch, just for the fun of it.
And no, I've not forsaken my love of research, contrary to popular belief; apart from research, I also believe that I need to expand my repertoire of skills to better allow me to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of the world. I mean, let's face it. Computer technology research doesn't get far back at home—everyone wants a shiny new machine and/or new drugs with better efficacy, who actually understands that behind all these innovations lies a system of computers whose algorithms were designed and implemented by the computer scientist? Even the papers that most of these technical folks write, they use LaTeX, and sure, some might complain about LaTeX being too arcane and all, but the fact is that it does produce the best digital typesetting one can get for the amount one pays (which is 0), compared to commercial word processors. And who do you think came up with that?
Underappreciation... that's always an issue that I'm grappling with, especially in the professional setting back at home. Hopefully when I do return, I am actually able to help fix the landscape and make a real impact in things in time to come.
"You look kinda different." That was a strange comment; I wonder what that means. Was it in reference to my hair and mild change in face shape (due to me getting mildly fatter), or was it something that he saw in my eyes? It is such an unnerving thought.
That aside, I think that I should be writing an interpreter for Forth. I'm always fascinated by little tools like these; the more spartan the tool, the more interested I am with it. Remember good old ed? I wrote something about it some time ago. So one of my "past-time" programming projects will be to implement a cute Forth interpreter, and maybe write ed from scratch, just for the fun of it.
And no, I've not forsaken my love of research, contrary to popular belief; apart from research, I also believe that I need to expand my repertoire of skills to better allow me to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of the world. I mean, let's face it. Computer technology research doesn't get far back at home—everyone wants a shiny new machine and/or new drugs with better efficacy, who actually understands that behind all these innovations lies a system of computers whose algorithms were designed and implemented by the computer scientist? Even the papers that most of these technical folks write, they use LaTeX, and sure, some might complain about LaTeX being too arcane and all, but the fact is that it does produce the best digital typesetting one can get for the amount one pays (which is 0), compared to commercial word processors. And who do you think came up with that?
Underappreciation... that's always an issue that I'm grappling with, especially in the professional setting back at home. Hopefully when I do return, I am actually able to help fix the landscape and make a real impact in things in time to come.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Unfair EULAs... What were you expecting?
Each time I read an article which highlights a rather gray/bad aspect of the software industry, I cannot help but heave a huge sigh.
Check this out: Report of the National Consumer Council on EULAs. A shorter version of this can be found at their website.
It always pains me each time I see all these rather nasty sides of the software companies appearing. And to think that I am going into something that will eventually end up contributing to this whole shebang of a mess.
Already people are not having enough time to do stuff. Then, the subterfuge that millions of folks around the world face each day each time they use their device. Unfair DRMs, trusted computing platforms, and incomprehensible EULAs—it is obvious that most companies who dabble in technology are fighting rather dirtily to ensure that we are all bound to them indefinitely. So, in the future, it is likely that the governments of sovereign states have no true power; all of the political power and clout lie in that of the big corporations.
And it is not a dream; it is already happening as we speak now. Already we rely heavily on products from Google, and Microsoft, among other companies—it is known that countries are trying ways and means to seduce these large multi-national companies to set up regional headquarters in their countries, simply because of the influx of capital and investments.
All seems good. But this brings us back to my original qualm: there is no law anymore. Does anyone really think that all those anti-trust convictions of Microsoft in Europe are actually going to have the effect that they were supposed to have? Does anyone really believe that all these corporations are benevolent entities who are trying to make the world a better place by contributing to infrastructure in the places where they set up their various offices?
No! They are corporations, and by definition, profits are what they care of the most. And given their current [extended] reach, some of them have evolved to the point where they are no longer afraid of potential annihilation from any legal skirmish in any single country; one cannot "kill" something that has parts of it elsewhere from the place where one is trying to attack it.
Then, should we descend into anarchy? No, that is not the argument. A concerted effort by the leaders of the world and the legal geniuses should really sit down together and think this problem through. Already the traditional seats of government are having troubles with legislation with regards to the Internet, and now the Internet is literally real, with real money and real capital moving around, and no longer like the nebulous entity that was once thought of as an academic curiosity. If the concept of the government as the social protectors of a sovereign state is still true, then effective checks and balances must be enforced to give fairness back to the citizens.
When dictators take power, unsatisfied masses can take those said dictators down and bring about a period of peace and progress. But when multi-national corporations take power, and misuse them, who then has the power to take them down? Our last institutions for the social good, the government, seem to have reached the point where they are fast being manipulated by the corporations; tell me, who doesn't like money being injected into one's enterprise, be it a company or a country?
I fear for our future. If we don't beef up our sense of social good and rationality, we are fast descending into a situation where we won't be able to enjoy the simple pleasures that we are losing now, and more importantly, we might be in an age where we are all mere cogs of the larger corporations, whose existence spans beyond the constraints of laws, who wield more power than the UN, who make decisions which impact billions of people and yet are not checked in their power. We are then looking at the fall of human institution as we know it.
I'm not saying that all corporations are bad—I'm saying that in preserving their self-interests, they have reached the point where it is getting overexcessive, and is hardly fair to the consumers who literally give the corporations their perceived power in the markets. We need to bring fairness back to the people; technology should not be another class divide between the haves and the have-nots, and technology should also not be an imposition of the powerful's will on that of the masses.
Alright, I think I've spoken enough to relieve that discomfort in me. Again, till next time.
Check this out: Report of the National Consumer Council on EULAs. A shorter version of this can be found at their website.
It always pains me each time I see all these rather nasty sides of the software companies appearing. And to think that I am going into something that will eventually end up contributing to this whole shebang of a mess.
Already people are not having enough time to do stuff. Then, the subterfuge that millions of folks around the world face each day each time they use their device. Unfair DRMs, trusted computing platforms, and incomprehensible EULAs—it is obvious that most companies who dabble in technology are fighting rather dirtily to ensure that we are all bound to them indefinitely. So, in the future, it is likely that the governments of sovereign states have no true power; all of the political power and clout lie in that of the big corporations.
And it is not a dream; it is already happening as we speak now. Already we rely heavily on products from Google, and Microsoft, among other companies—it is known that countries are trying ways and means to seduce these large multi-national companies to set up regional headquarters in their countries, simply because of the influx of capital and investments.
All seems good. But this brings us back to my original qualm: there is no law anymore. Does anyone really think that all those anti-trust convictions of Microsoft in Europe are actually going to have the effect that they were supposed to have? Does anyone really believe that all these corporations are benevolent entities who are trying to make the world a better place by contributing to infrastructure in the places where they set up their various offices?
No! They are corporations, and by definition, profits are what they care of the most. And given their current [extended] reach, some of them have evolved to the point where they are no longer afraid of potential annihilation from any legal skirmish in any single country; one cannot "kill" something that has parts of it elsewhere from the place where one is trying to attack it.
Then, should we descend into anarchy? No, that is not the argument. A concerted effort by the leaders of the world and the legal geniuses should really sit down together and think this problem through. Already the traditional seats of government are having troubles with legislation with regards to the Internet, and now the Internet is literally real, with real money and real capital moving around, and no longer like the nebulous entity that was once thought of as an academic curiosity. If the concept of the government as the social protectors of a sovereign state is still true, then effective checks and balances must be enforced to give fairness back to the citizens.
When dictators take power, unsatisfied masses can take those said dictators down and bring about a period of peace and progress. But when multi-national corporations take power, and misuse them, who then has the power to take them down? Our last institutions for the social good, the government, seem to have reached the point where they are fast being manipulated by the corporations; tell me, who doesn't like money being injected into one's enterprise, be it a company or a country?
I fear for our future. If we don't beef up our sense of social good and rationality, we are fast descending into a situation where we won't be able to enjoy the simple pleasures that we are losing now, and more importantly, we might be in an age where we are all mere cogs of the larger corporations, whose existence spans beyond the constraints of laws, who wield more power than the UN, who make decisions which impact billions of people and yet are not checked in their power. We are then looking at the fall of human institution as we know it.
I'm not saying that all corporations are bad—I'm saying that in preserving their self-interests, they have reached the point where it is getting overexcessive, and is hardly fair to the consumers who literally give the corporations their perceived power in the markets. We need to bring fairness back to the people; technology should not be another class divide between the haves and the have-nots, and technology should also not be an imposition of the powerful's will on that of the masses.
Alright, I think I've spoken enough to relieve that discomfort in me. Again, till next time.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Intermezzo
Without sounding too melodramatic, here I am once more, writing a little of my mind and thoughts here. It is a Saturday, and I am still a little weary from the rather hectic week that I had. There were lots to be done in the last week, from preparing for exams, to fixing my programs to visiting my community partner's site to gather information to do a report.
Speaking of the report, I had no clue if it were supposed to be a draft or something quite polished, so I ended up erring on the side of the latter and turned in something that weighed in at 9 pages, single-spaced. It was mildly unnerving, considering the fact that a member of my mentor group for the technical consulting course shared his report of only 3 pages.
I had to write four essays prior to that though—all for my Introduction to Ethics course. I chose the first four to write on, namely on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I think I should have covered the material sufficiently in my essays, but I have no clue on whether I'll be in good shape or not; it is, after all, my first time writing for a philosophy-type class.
And the numerical methods exam. I think I might have shot myself in the proverbial foot when I decided to change my answer to the last question in the last minute, which I later realised to be wrong. This is yet more empirical evidence that one should always trust one's first gut reaction for the most part.
I'm so lethargic today. Granted, I've done about a third of my machine learning homework, but I'm feeling somewhat lackadaisical. Maybe it's because I need more coffee, but I'm not really sure. There's so many things to work on (what's new?), and I know that I have the latent energy around to do them. But the mere thought of doing them is in itself, an inertial barrier towards my actual doing of the work.
Oh, and on Valentine's Day, I did something that I had never done before: I wrote an obfuscated C code and sent it to my girlfriend, simply because she didn't want anything on Valentine's Day. It wasn't the most sophisticated obfuscation ever, but she was delighted at it, which makes me happy too.
Argh. I think that I need to get more coffee. I'm starting to be a little woozy from all this strange sense of lethargy. I need more coffee. Need more coffee. More coffee. Coffee.
Till next time.
Speaking of the report, I had no clue if it were supposed to be a draft or something quite polished, so I ended up erring on the side of the latter and turned in something that weighed in at 9 pages, single-spaced. It was mildly unnerving, considering the fact that a member of my mentor group for the technical consulting course shared his report of only 3 pages.
I had to write four essays prior to that though—all for my Introduction to Ethics course. I chose the first four to write on, namely on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I think I should have covered the material sufficiently in my essays, but I have no clue on whether I'll be in good shape or not; it is, after all, my first time writing for a philosophy-type class.
And the numerical methods exam. I think I might have shot myself in the proverbial foot when I decided to change my answer to the last question in the last minute, which I later realised to be wrong. This is yet more empirical evidence that one should always trust one's first gut reaction for the most part.
I'm so lethargic today. Granted, I've done about a third of my machine learning homework, but I'm feeling somewhat lackadaisical. Maybe it's because I need more coffee, but I'm not really sure. There's so many things to work on (what's new?), and I know that I have the latent energy around to do them. But the mere thought of doing them is in itself, an inertial barrier towards my actual doing of the work.
Oh, and on Valentine's Day, I did something that I had never done before: I wrote an obfuscated C code and sent it to my girlfriend, simply because she didn't want anything on Valentine's Day. It wasn't the most sophisticated obfuscation ever, but she was delighted at it, which makes me happy too.
Argh. I think that I need to get more coffee. I'm starting to be a little woozy from all this strange sense of lethargy. I need more coffee. Need more coffee. More coffee. Coffee.
Till next time.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Community Involvement
And now, on a completely different note, today was a most interesting day. I went to my Community Partner's site today to work on my Technical Consulting class, and was pleasantly surprised at the level of devotion that the folks there had for the job that they were doing. Considering the fact that I've been working with technology from a developer's perspective for so long, doing things from the consultant's perspective has revealed technology in a different light to me. This whole [new] perspective has further amplified the main idea that I have been having—technology is useless unless it can serve people's needs. Broadly speaking, the field of Computer Science can be split into Systems and Theory; Theory is where computer scientists develop new concepts and ideas to further define the theoretical bounds with which we as computer scientists can operate in, while Systems makes use of the theory created to create real technology that can be used to help enhance people's work processes, be it for fun or for profit.
I've always seen myself as a Systems person; something about getting into the nitty-gritty that makes me feel happy. At the same time though, I love to read up on current advances in theory so that I can further improve technology to do even more, thus releasing us humans to spend more time doing what we do best—innovating and inventing. Needless to say, this consulting course is just starting, but I find myself slowly enjoying the process, and have re-found that lost spark in me that I once had, the spark in me that loved to help others. Sometimes, life does give one strange surprises and can open one's eyes to things that one has never seen before.
Another interesting thing happened today that made me feel really pleased. I'm currently taking a StuCo course, Introduction to Traditional Chinese Music. Now, if you actually know me, you might wonder why the blazes am I taking such a course, considering my history. Honestly, I just miss my traditional Chinese music. But I digress so much. The pleasing thing was that the instructor invited me to conduct the course for next semester. Of course I agreed—one of the things that I like to do is to spread Traditional Chinese Music around, not in an evangelistic way, but more of a sharing way.
Alright, I've already spent too much time writing this; I need to work on some essays that are due soon for my take-home exam. Until next time...
I've always seen myself as a Systems person; something about getting into the nitty-gritty that makes me feel happy. At the same time though, I love to read up on current advances in theory so that I can further improve technology to do even more, thus releasing us humans to spend more time doing what we do best—innovating and inventing. Needless to say, this consulting course is just starting, but I find myself slowly enjoying the process, and have re-found that lost spark in me that I once had, the spark in me that loved to help others. Sometimes, life does give one strange surprises and can open one's eyes to things that one has never seen before.
Another interesting thing happened today that made me feel really pleased. I'm currently taking a StuCo course, Introduction to Traditional Chinese Music. Now, if you actually know me, you might wonder why the blazes am I taking such a course, considering my history. Honestly, I just miss my traditional Chinese music. But I digress so much. The pleasing thing was that the instructor invited me to conduct the course for next semester. Of course I agreed—one of the things that I like to do is to spread Traditional Chinese Music around, not in an evangelistic way, but more of a sharing way.
Alright, I've already spent too much time writing this; I need to work on some essays that are due soon for my take-home exam. Until next time...
I'da Say It, But Maybe Her Ideas Are Different...
Alright alright... because Danielle was complaining about me being so secretive, I will prove her wrong and put it here (all your fault hahahaha) complaining that she didn't know that I have a girlfriend, I'll "announce" it a little more "officially" here.
I'm currently dating a really awesome girl. She's smart, geeky, lovable, pretty, independent, inquisitive, intellectually stimulating, passionate and caring. If you've read the rather short paragraph here on the kind of girl I like and looked rather carefully at the timestamps of the posts here, you'd probably realise that something might just be a tad amiss—I'm updating this blog rather sporadically. And yes, it's because I'm dating her.
She's an amazing person. With all honesty, I had first met her nearly a year ago, and found her to be a rather interesting (but mildly awkward) person. I started hanging out with her and her friends over the last semester, and slowly feelings started to develop between us.
And so, we're now dating. Take that, my X-who-has-turned-into-a-Y!
By the way, the last I heard (from the horse's mouth, no less), it seems that my X-who-has-turned-into-a-Y seems to have grande social problems these days. So, I guess I shouldn't be too unhappy now, eh?
And no, I will not put my girlfriend's name here nor anywhere. Nor will I say it in real life unless she is with me. MWAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaha...
I'm currently dating a really awesome girl. She's smart, geeky, lovable, pretty, independent, inquisitive, intellectually stimulating, passionate and caring. If you've read the rather short paragraph here on the kind of girl I like and looked rather carefully at the timestamps of the posts here, you'd probably realise that something might just be a tad amiss—I'm updating this blog rather sporadically. And yes, it's because I'm dating her.
She's an amazing person. With all honesty, I had first met her nearly a year ago, and found her to be a rather interesting (but mildly awkward) person. I started hanging out with her and her friends over the last semester, and slowly feelings started to develop between us.
And so, we're now dating. Take that, my X-who-has-turned-into-a-Y!
By the way, the last I heard (from the horse's mouth, no less), it seems that my X-who-has-turned-into-a-Y seems to have grande social problems these days. So, I guess I shouldn't be too unhappy now, eh?
And no, I will not put my girlfriend's name here nor anywhere. Nor will I say it in real life unless she is with me. MWAHAHAHAHAhahahahahaha...
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