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- changelog - changelog v1.12f --------------- * Google Friend Connect box added. More hidden clutter. Somewhere along Michael Moorcock's King of the City, I had cause to reflect upon my writing style. Verily one may not equitably contrast a novel - that meticulously-edited bastion of professionals... well, at least those novels that are read are written by pros - with a rank amateur's blog. But here I am; flattery by mimicry, if not outright plagiarism, is present everywhere. Ranks of dutiful schoolchildren staining their hands to some long-dead calligrapher's script, Elvis undying, multiplying, chimpanzees prying ants out of antholes. The men in white coats would agree, they say we're all ninety-nine point nine percent identical. Virtually clones by many factories' QC standards. So how could I imitate? Good writers wear many coats, after all, shedding and donning them as they see fit. It does not seem a matter of the short sentence versus the long, or even the winnowing of logical conjunctions that inhabit my natural voice and hold a mirror to hidden character. Because, therefore, I must justify, bluntly. Mere description is seldom enough, I must stamp judgment even when promoting tolerance, as all my psychometric tests confirm. It is at least a good habit for wannabe academics to get into. But this is only the part of it. Great prose, the domain of Wilde, Poe, Narayan, of Shaw in particular, is easy to recognize, hard to replicate. As it should be, lest the streets be clogged with more wordsmiths than due could properly be paid to. I will still make humble effort here, and in the interests of versatility adopt an alien pen that summons headaches. Bicycle-riding on Thursday, as good a day as any to go two-wheeled. Hot too, the kind of day that mortgages sunburns. Throw in unconvincing gears that often fail to bite, and poor suspensions that irk butts and frame blameless seats, and it had all the makings of misery. Misery does love company, and having little better to do, our little band of riders went east, further than before, on the back of a one-hour extension that the bike shop could well afford. Past the airport, Changi beach, the ferry terminal to Tekong where I once stood guard for a day, all the way to Changi Village across a quaint narrow bridge. The hawker centre was overpopulated with drinks stalls, beyond what I thought could be supported by the average clientele, even if it's common wisdom that drinks are the money-spinners of coffeeshopdom. Iced milo is iced milo anywhere, not to speak of Coca-cola. The Zero version went down surprisingly well, and bar a minor mishap with a fly in an eye it was back to the Mac's easy as pie. Three hours of exercise only to enter Ronald's junkyard embrace. Saturday, a new pair of glasses, transitions, the frame sharing a name with one of the university's servers. A good sign? The shop had the misfortune not to inform my grandmother immediately as agreed upon. They could have ducked it with a little fib, as this was one honest deed that would not go unpunished. Still, admonitions are water off a businessman's back as long as they get paid, and the optician on duty had the advantage of a prominently displayed degree from Pennsylvania to deflect some of her wrath. A soft touch for handsomely embossed qualifications, my grandma, prone to slight exaggerations and frankly stupidly high standards, of which I have been an unwilling pacesetter. Tough break for my cousins and other relatives. The world is massively clearer through new, unscratched lenses, with the yellowing old pair plenty good enough for ball games. More sun, dehydration, and mislabeled vending machines with little recourse. The presence of cars threw open our options for dining, and we ended up at IMM where free parking was a definite draw. A plate of lemon chicken rice, a chocolate Flavour Burst at Mac's (butterscotch was all out), and three Menthos rolls at a dollar from some alluring two-to-five jackpot machine, and I was sated. Less about myself, and more about recent happenings. From the embattled head of Ren Ci, who has undoubtedly done some good, regrettably with questionable finances - is the time of true saints over? - he desired a racehorse as a pet. One understands, a hamster is tiny, some peoples' wishes run to the larger of Nature's beasts. The lifestyle section of the Sunday Times obligingly does a feature on horse owners, mostly women, in assent. Little girls do like ponies after all. For better or worse, gods and their men cut little ice with the real powers that be - a Singapore Armed Forces private, in civilian mode a Hindu priest, was shorn of his strength and crowning glory. Did he point to the brave Sikhs, who can boast of a whole head and a full turban? Would the authorities unearth 2002's primary school tudung affair? As ever with gods, some are the larger and some are the smaller, depending on place and time, and whatever deity the Sikhs adore, they were by all accounts good fighters and loyal; for such, accommodations can surely be made. If a god grant his priest the power to smite nuclear submarines, generals will hasten to clear his request to wear his underpants on the outside, in double-quick time; but gods do love humility, at least in others, so. Local property prices, despite a gloomy economy (but the worst is over, some say), hit a record high. Yes, we know of lags, as plump prices delay their agonizing diets. As we have seen, the monthly payment for a flat is indeed likely below 30% of income, and renting a nice place, for the family-inclined, will cost about that anyway. Not that anybody actually owns a flat either. One just rents it for a longer time. And from a fixed need to a mobile one, housing to transport; drinking plain water or sucking on a sweet now carries a fine. Again the slippery slope, from blatant messy packed-lunch munchers, to sippers, to saliva-swallowers, where is the handbrake pulled? A straw poll by the local news had 78% of respondents think the implementation "too strict", but one cannot rule by consensus. It's the Discarded Slurpee corollary to the Broken Window effect. Blending into academics, it appears that traffic rule-breaking, to an extent, is good for all. Before the drivers of Naples grow smug, the fine print after the headline taketh away. The simulation was, after all, on pedestrians in discrete squares, and improvements were only observed with up to four-tenths of them jaywalkers, not to speak of the actual mechanism by which they break the rules. It seems a Beamonesque leap to extrapolate these findings to highways, alternately the usual round of Chinese whispers by a mass media more ravenous than rectitudinous. In the prestigious Public Service Commission scholarship interviews, integrity and authenticity was held to be paramount, after the ability to ace exams being prerequisite. No conformists, no "yes-men", no sirree! Against corruption, there must be no wavering - as the pride of the proletariat called out their parents in Communist China for crimes against the state, integrity must be uncompromised. But what is corruption? Who is to say? Who can it be said to? Whose priest administers the confessional? A certain young officer of impeccable pedigree, flower of the nation, recepient of said scholarship, must have been an exemplar of this virtue. His convictions went all the way up to the Minister of Defence, they came back down to him. But is that not what we are looking for? Integrity. A medium-sized word of many faces. It smiles in bureaucracy, scowls in the military, is veiled in academia. Hush, ungrateful NTU Fine Arts valedictorian, the horn of the ship sounds for thee. A man may not hold a man's bare back, it is provocative, it will tempt good men into the abyss. Our shorn Hindu priest may nod at the immorality - all that uncovered, immodest man-flesh in National Service! The world turns into a dark and widening gyre. Local doctors, heed the call of integrity. Should we make exceptions for a profession of compassion? No, the rules are the rules. Tar and feather your rude colleagues, drive them from the healing road, for rudeness and abrasiveness are symptoms of an unworthy character. Who cares if they discharge their duties competently, if their mother has died, if their wife has left them? This is professionalism. This is integrity. Learnt through a semester's course, marks given for the correct answers, assigned a letter grade, recognized through a few hours' jaw-jaw, integrity! Postscript, an ex-civil servant whispers in the national news, delighted to hear from the Public Service Commission chairman that the public service needs people who are non-conformist, and that a few radicals will also be acceptable: "This sounds so alien to someone who has worked in the civil service for many years." Having contrary ideas is great, is progressive, leaders gush. Just not in my backyard, please. Some students have certainly been true to themselves. My statistics of the previous post were slightly off - one classmate, whom I thought had quit NUS medicine (too little integrity there?) after two years for business, had actually hopped over to NTU to study accountancy. Trumping that is a high school senior I knew mostly by reputation - a fellow Computer Science graduate, from CMU, he became a fellow NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences graduate, in English Literature. I would not have dared, and can only salute. On the rise of automation, optimistic scientists, under the auspices of the A.A.A.I, have agreed. The robots are rising. Today's science fiction may well be tomorrow's dystopia realized. Asimov's Three Laws, or Herbert's Butlerian Jihad? "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm..." "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind..." I intuit that neither will come to pass. The Promethean's box once opened cannot be again closed. The human hand is seldom stayed indefinitely by the human mouth. Nor a hamster's mouth. My fingers hover over my little furry friend, lying contentedly as an opium-smoker may. I left a noodle-bit on its head, as a parting gift. Goodnight, little guy, go hence; to your sad, short and simple dreams. Until the time that you wake, and we shall feast again. Next: The Washing Machine
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