[ March 2006 ]

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Tuesday, Mar 28, 2006 - 01:16 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Abandonware?

Come to the realization that I don't even really read my own blog. Part of it has to do with my tendency to self-censor thoughts, a boon when writing academic essays (saves time on cancellation, plus looks much neater), but a liability when blogging.

In Secondary One, I remember being penalised for rambling in one of my first compositions. I learnt quickly :)

So, a small recap on the past week or so: Collected tickets for the concert by Angela somebody for a pal - got one of the last three tics from the Engineering booth, the organisers have got some reorganization to do. There were plenty of unhappy queuers that day.

European History simulation - open mouth, insert foot. Represented Germany, got admitted to the Conference with restriction "only to speak at the end", "the end" happening to be the end of each single point.

So there I was dutifully organizing my notes, with no one else in my group really prepared to speak. Magnanimously ceded Alsace-Lorraine back to France with blessings, and discovered that generosity is probably not considered de rigeur in international diplomacy.

Well, at least I got to talk a bit, which is more than I can say for some of the rest - totally dominated by a single leader. Wonder how they can be graded properly. Hopefully the spread of marks from the simulation is not that large, and the final grade will be mostly decided by the exam essay.

Attended an interview for the Special Programme in Computing, and a query by one of the interviewers, "Why do you want to do something that has been done?" makes me think. I gave a castle of cards analogy, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to invoke Everest or Luna. Moreover, rather than start with a lofty mission to "cure cancer" or "achieve world peace", wouldn't it be more logical to actually take concerte, measurable steps?

Well, I did get an email to inquire about a possible tailored double degree as a side bonus. Should I go on exchange? Decisions, decisions.

Must try to wring every drop of potential out of discrete time quanta. But for that need to self-generate drive and energy like that in primary school.

Studies are more fun when you get on a roll and start scoring near-perfect marks for most tests, but after twelve years of compulsory education (fourteen if kindergarten is included), I wonder if it really makes a difference - other than a degree to wave about and hang on a cubicle wall.

When I was ten I could find the tenacity to author my own gamebook, Lone Wolf style, all tens of thousands of words of it, and plan sequels. I need to find that divine spark again.

And before I forget, I pledge to post more frequent and indiscriminate - if shorter - entries.



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Sunday, Mar 19, 2006 - 18:39 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Full Stomach

Was it Buddha who rejected asceticism? What is for sure is the futility of trying to work on an empty tummy. Yum.

Food is something of feast or famine personally, as when I feel hungry I really eat, and if not, I don't. All those skipped lunches and halfeaten sandwiches during secondary school add up.

Rather fortunately I have pretty insensitive tastebuds, which explains how I actually liked most cookhouse meals during NS. Saved a bundle on forced canteen purchases then.

Dinner time!


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Monday, Mar 13, 2006 - 22:14 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

On a Ball, a Shirt and a Book

Saw someone actually bouncing a basketball while walking up the steps of the overhead bridge today. Man, that takes some confidence to pull off, since one bad bounce might result in an unwanted trip all the way back down - or worse, having the ball end up on the road.

Apparantly (after a quick home trial) it's not impossibly hard if you keep your mind on it, but the guy did it extremely naturally. Oh well, I'll be sticking to perfecting my around-the-world trick with a ping pong ball. One revolution followed by maintained control is pretty common now. It's the reverse cycle that's challenging.

Fast forward to the economics lecture, and got a guy with his T-shirt inside-out sitting in front of me. Rewind to my NS days, when that happened to me once - didn't have a clue with a grey shirt in the dark. I don't know what others thought of it, but for me it was... oddly refreshing. Not that I would do it on purpose, of course.

Later, I got a glossy publication, "Beneath that smile", from a friendly distributor standing in one of the high-traffic throughfares near Computing. Turns out that it's by the Singapore Campus Crusade for Christ, in partnership with the Covenant Evangelical Free Church, and focused on Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code - which I have happened to have read, like your average bushman in the Kalahari.

It is fully understandable that they are intelligently trying to refute the erroneous claims in that bestseller, which otherwise may confuse the unwary. A clear improvement over the iamrightyouarewrongrepentorburn argument that religious organizations too often employ simply because it is in their arsenal, at the very least.

I have to applaud the professionalism of the layout, the liveliness of the writing and the impressive objectiveness of the material. Unfortunately they could not refrain from introducing fact to justify faith. Example:

"The Bible was written by more than 40 different authors, and across a period of 1,600 years. Yet amidst the diversity of authorship, there emerged a single unified story - the salvation plan of God for a sinful humanity. To get a picture of how miraculous a task this is, listen to this simple parable:

A master carpenter assigned seven of his discuples to make a table. He gave them each a part of the table to design. One was in charge of a leg, and another the drawer. They were given one week to come up with their designated component.

Can you imagine what an impossible task it would be for the different parts to come together and fit precisely? One leg would be longer than the others, and the drawer may not fit. The result - a total disaster."

For the life of me, I can't see what is at all "miraculous" or "impossible" about that feat, unless all the writers had no opportunity to peruse the work of their predecessors. Correct me if I am wrong, but that seems unlikely. Otherwise, the numbers mean nothing at all.

Later on there is a similar appeal to logic, proferring several alternatives - that Jesus claimed to be God, and either his claim is true or it is false. If it were false, then he was either liar or lunatic - unsavoury titles, to be sure. The article ends with C.S.Lewis saying, "...either shut Him up as a fool, kill Him as a demon, or fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

Now I realise who George W. Bush emulated when he declared all those not with him, were against him. It is exactly this moral absolutism that has caused the world to come to grief, more than once.

Piers Anthony said it best in Tarot, after all - "Maybe the origins... are suspect, or maybe it is all a great libel. It doesn't matter! What matters is what the religion is today. Many worthy religions have foundered when their adherents forgot their original principles - but here is a religion that became greater than its origin!..."



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Monday, Mar 06, 2006 - 00:23 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Expired for a Day

Got several comments from various pals that they couldn't access my site, leaving me mostly clueless because it ran fine for me.

I assumed at first that one of those ubiquitous spyware programs had burrowed itself between their browsers and the wider Internet, but after the reports began to roll in I finally realised something was really wrong (still no problem on my home computer, though - have to find out why someday).

Edchong helpfully supplied a screenshot,


This site has shuffled off the mortal coil

whereupon I burst into action.

First stop, renewing the domain name... but I had forgotten both the username and password for Network Solutions. No problem, it could be sent to my pacific.net email, which has been colonized by spam for many a year. Old-school Pegasus Mail took five minutes to load the 6000+ messages I never bothered to delete, and a further five to trash them.

The pacific.net POP3 mail server then coughed up 700 of the 1500+ messages it had been holding for God knows how long, before refusing to cooperate. Thinking quickly, I logged in to Pacific Internet's account management portal and temporarily forwarded my email to my gmail. Presto, access gained.

Next was the unavoidable emergency call to dad for his credit card details :P I like to think that I don't resort to that too often - it's a sensible arrangement nevertheless. Network Solutions warned of an up to 24 hour wait, but a quick check with Ed revealed that all was back to normal. At least until 2009.



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Thursday, Mar 02, 2006 - 22:52 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

- -
Wrong on So Many Counts

So the results of the Economics mid-semester test came back, and the first question which I thought I got wrong transpired to be correct. Never been so happy on having the tables turned. The final score was pretty alright too.

The tendency to make hurried adjustments to undecided problems has cost me dearly over the years, and I have somehow never managed to rid myself of the habit. Generally, when I am not sure about a question and are forced to guess, the initial selection turns out to be correct more often than not - Note to self: Never switch choices unless you have a good reason to (i.e. figured it out with certainty).

Recall the story of the man who wasn't upset when his horse ran away, wasn't pleased when it brought back a wild steed, wasn't sad when his son was thrown off the untamed bronco and broke his leg, and presumably wasn't delighted when he avoided conscription and probable death due to that disability?

My Automata Theory test mirrored that. Glad I didn't spend too much time on preparation because it was open-book and required creative solutions anyway, but ended up realising the answers close to the end and didn't have enough time to describe the answers as in-depth as I hoped to.

Then on the bus, I went white when I realised that Question Two referred to Figure One (conveniently printed on the back page) and not Question One. Damn. That's 8/25 marks down the drain immediately.

Cursing myself, I studied Figure One belatedly and it dawned on me that the essential part of the automata (made up of states and arrows connecting them to each other, for the uninitiated) queried in part (a), worth four marks, turned out exactly the same in my Question One automata (which I constructed from a totally unrelated description)!

There was absolutely no reason for it to, since I could have arranged the states in another way - there were many possible machines which could generate that language. But even the state numbers q0, q1 and q2 matched exactly. What was a potential disaster evaporated into a mere inconvenience.

Ah, I owe the Lady a kiss, the one with emerald eyes.



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Wednesday, Mar 01, 2006 - 20:56 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Signal, please!

Paraphrased from a sign on the back of a van yesterday:

Those who never signal are
IDIOT
MORON
IMBECILE
Sure beats "Child on Board". Not many bumper stickers with character on our streets...



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