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Monday, Feb 17, 2014 - 00:44 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

For Love Of Inquiry



"All planets, step out... not so fast, Pluto."


A couple of notable events this Feburary the fourteenth - first off, there was the Neil deGrasse Tyson visit at noon, concurrent with the sneak preview of the new Cosmos series. Was pleasantly surprised when the organizers began handing out food - one thing about being in university, you'll never starve if you know what places to stake out.


And the screening channel is...


Despite supposedly being for NUS staff and students only, nobody checked any ID at the door. As for the premiere, I won't spoil it too much, suffice to say there was a drawn-out (if dramatic) presentation of the history of the Universe as one year (with us all in one tiny corner), as well as drumming in the sheer scale of it all (yes, a repeat, but still a favourite)

The part that struck me the hardest by far was, without doubt, the telling of Giordano Bruno's story. Recap for those not into Medieval history, he was a philosopher who got burnt at the stake by the Catholic church, for the heinous crime of insisting that the Earth revolved around the Sun (myself, I made it a point to seek out his memorial, when I was in Rome)

Oh, it was a worthy tale - some of the audience were discreetly dabbing their eyes at the telling. My astonishment was at it so overtly casting the church in a bad light, all the more given that the series will be on Fox in the US (and given that fully a quarter of Americans still believe that the Sun circles the Earth, Bruno's sacrifice may have been in vain - ah, the heretic's revenge is truth and love, after all). Then again, the Protestants could secretly be enjoying it all...

The rest of it was very professional if not outrageously stupendous - was slightly disappointed at there being audible space explosions, but I suppose silence would be strange.

As for the Q&A, I've got to admit that Dr. Tyson is swimming in charisma (most romantic physics phenomenon? Why, you're all heavenly bodies!), which is very helpful for a science advocate (or any other advocate, really). He got across how Carl Sagan inspired him very powerfully, though being a prominent scientist and inviting a high school kid to his lab will usually do that. Someone has generously provided snark on most of the questions raised, so I'll skip those for now.

Since Dr. Tyson has taken the opportunity to call for more astronomy in schools here, it should be noted that the government is planning to introduce programming lessons... because they think it'll make money. Interestingly, as with the bus incentive scheme, the Brits are also onto it. However, if past experience is any guide, most do agree that coding is good, in principle - it's just that few actually want to do it.

Still, given that none other than our PM's son is in this line, I can only feel assured that computer science is the future; he gave a talk on Spanner at UTown that evening (with free pizza). From what I managed to understand, it's some huge distributed database, which is not really my area, but it's good to dip one's feet into new ponds now and then. Trivia: they've opened a super-secret datacentre in the neighbourhood!


And So It Develops

You guessed it, more mucking about for a new topic to research on, when the hamsters came by; Mr. Robo however looked so absolutely miserable, that I simply had to ask why.

Mr. Ham: Ah, human! While you have been wasting your time, hammering away reams upon reams of C-plus-plus that nobody will ever look at, we have turned our energies to far more rewarding ventures. Here, have my new business card.

Me: "Ham Studios"?

Mr. Ham: Yes, our new game developer/publisher joint venture. Ninety-nine percent owned by yours truly.

Me: And which title did you rip off?

Mr. Ham: *shaking head* Human, human, you make me very sad. Your backward, speciest attitude does you no favours, sir. In years to come, future generations will view your deplorable, retrograde, unsubstantiated prejudices with most severe disdain. Sir, I beg you to consider your intellectual posterity, in persisting with such ignoble allegations.

Me: So, which title did you rip off?

Mr. Ham: Perhaps you can let me explain from the beginning.

Me: Of course.

Mr. Ham: You see, the financially-irresponsible Mr. Robo had fallen behind on his loan payments - I mean, come on, I had reduced the weekly interest to merely 80%, just for an old friend - I was barely making anything off that account! Well, we can't wait forever in this line, even for pals, and in my professional capacity, I arranged a... sit-down with Mr. Robo, along with several of my burlier associates, to inquire as to how recompense might be made.

Well, things were not moving as fast as I expected, when Mr. "Home Run" Nick began innocently swinging a baseball bat around, which concentrated Mr. Robo's mind wonderfully - sport reaches out so widely, doncha' think?

Anyhow, it was unanimously agreed by all present that the least Mr. Robo could do was to contribute his talents, and after some evaluations of his competency to help out in our usual businesses ended... poorly, I took pity on him, and offered to call the debt off if he would sign a long-term contract for programming services. Twenty hours a day, seven days a week of guaranteed employment! Where in the world can you find such a deal? I'm so kind that I don't even know how I manage to remain solvent!

So, with the happy partnership formed, we divided the labour equally - I decided that what we wanted was a hit game, and Mr. Robo's job was to create it. One doesn't go about these things blindly nowadays, though, so I got Mr. Robo to do some sentiment analysis, which indicated that a promising model to begin from would be Flappy Bird.

Me: Erm, that's not much of a revelation, given how much hype there has been about its US$50000-a-day success, which naturally brought some green-eyed conjectures about why it was removed. Granted, the idea's not entirely novel - the Helicopter Game, circa 2000, works on almost exactly the same principles - but with a hundred and one clones popping up each day, what makes you expect that your spin on the concept can distinguish itself?

Let's see - there's Flappy Doge, Flappy DOTA, Sesame Street's gone and done Flappy Bert... here's a three-dimensional version... and a bleedin' MMO! No matter what you do, it's doomed to get lost in the crowd. Moreover, the original might even make a return any day now.

Mr. Ham: I was coming to that, before you interrupted me. See, those copies have no soul. They're... replications. Tracings. Direct knock-offs. Which is where the power of sentiment analysis came in for us. Sieving through terabytes upon terabytes of unfiltered Internet content, we - well, mostly Mr. Robo, but still we - strove to isolate the apotheosis of mortal need, the purest distillation of sentient desire, the deepest motivations of our very beings...

Me: Yeah, get on with it.

Mr. Ham: I also vaguely recall you saying that your friends, who are assuredly more popular, gregarious and social than you, suggested that you create an app to "whiten" others' Facebook pages, which you of course never got down to. That, and all your other failed excuses at making games...

Me: This is why I don't like to talk to you.

Mr. Ham: Anyway, we found it.

Then, we had to somehow incorporate it into our masterpiece, without spoiling the wondrous simplicity that made it so accessible and addictive, and I am proud to reveal that I made the essential connection. After this momentous step, all that remained was the nitty-gritty details of implementation, which I left to Mr. Robo, those being beneath my notice. Yes, yes, I can see that you can't wait either.

Presenting...



Just in time for all those foreveralone losers on V-Day! Well, nearly.

Mr. Robo: *kneels and bows head to ground* Please kill me. I have dishonoured my revered ancestors.

Mr. Ham: There, there, my faithful right-hand ham. This'll make your name! *whispers* "Right hand". Geddit? Get it? Heh heh.

Mr. Robo: Sir, please do not hesitate. I yearn for release.

Mr. Ham: Ah, "release"! Good one, Mr. Robo!

Mr. Robo: Arghhhhhhhh!


Cheat Code (by Mr. Ham)





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