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- reviews - "CDs?" - Voiceover from anti-piracy trailer shown before Avatar, followed by priceless quote from twc And the results are... CS4243 Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition - A+. Keeping up a perfect CA score worked wonders (although that's not saying too much, and that [or something close] should be within the reach of most motivated students), and the final exam was a touch easier than previous years. CS5206 Foundations in Algorithms - A+. Fortunate, as previously mentioned, and dampened by the realisation that there are a lot of seemingly simple problems to which I have no efficient algorithm. But hey, this is a foundations module, so I'll take my small victories where I can find them. CS5208 Foundations on Database Systems - B+. Actually a bit better than I feared; I would probably have given myself a vanilla B. Floundered about on some questions in the final which I thought were rather open-ended, and depended heavily on how the quantities used were justified, but it seems that the ones I chose, and the logic used, were ok. On hindsight, maybe our group could have fought for more marks on the project (the professor does have a captioned photo stating that "If you don't ask, you don't get" by his door); still, it's over, and I'll take my first non-A on a graduate computing module (sobzz). Onward next semester. When arriving at Bugis MRT for a financial planning session, I got approached by a clipboard-wielding young lad about donating for some cause. Sad to say, the sight of the clipboard brought back not-so-good memories, and I am ashamed to admit that I was in no mood to give in to his persistent entreaties, and instead scrutinized the donation records already on the sheet of paper, all of which indicated sums of S$10 or more. I am even more ashamed that my next thoughts after that were whether some of these records were added for the same reason as panhandlers salt their cups with a few coins to get the ball rolling (if I recall rightly, they were written pretty neatly in a similar hand, and it might be more natural to let the donater write his own name), and then estimating how long it would have taken him to accumulate the twenty-odd donations (coincidentally, today's New Paper ran an experiment where a guy got a single S$20 donation in five hours and 50-odd rejections, though he didn't have any clipboard and didn't look particularly endearing) The young lad finally offered to take less ("just S$5?"), but I could do no more than follow the precedent set by the others, since I did not see any such sum on the clipboard record previously (warning bells in head approach critical level). Might this be a useful study on Singaporean psychology? It may be unworthy to be suspicious where charity is concerned... Yeah, right. After the session, I took in the new National Library for the first time, and spent a hour contentedly browsing through a few back issues of Newsweek. Returned Bamboo Goalposts, which I had only borrowed due to a reference in Soccernomics. While it is indeed mainly about football development in China, the author Rowan Simons (Luo Wen to his Chinese friends) makes the book more than just that, and describes, among other events, how he got caught up in the Tiananmen Incident (visitors from China, please do not click the link) in 1989.  Chairman Meow, on the other hand, doesn't care (Source: Critteristic) The passage that stuck most in my memory was not even related to football, but the tale of a student who put forth an innocuous question to his teacher - his poster of the Great Chairman Mao was becoming tattered, and thus he asked, would it not be disrespectful to leave the poster in its current less-than-pristine state? Yes, it would be disrespectful to do so, the teacher said. Then, the student asked, could he paste a new poster of the Chairman over the old one? Would it be disrespectful to cover the face of the Great Chairman? No, cannot cover, it would be disrespectful, the teacher said. Finally, the student asked, could he remove the old poster, since he might tear the poster if he did so, and that surely would be disrespectful? No, cannot remove, it would be disrespectful, the teacher said. As my astute readers would probably have figured, this leads to a dilemma, which the student quickly pointed out - cannot leave as is, cannot paste over, and cannot remove, so how? The teacher passed the buck, and eventually it was decided that for bringing up an impertinent question that was guilty of having a logic that would not yield to Communist virtue, the student was sentenced to re-education (i.e. hard labour) And there his story ends. Christmas Eve Sat in on a lab meeting at 9am (counter to my usual sleep cycle), where the Desert Fox somehow got mentioned in a far-reaching discussion, then skipped the Japanese food-meet before watching Avatar in 3D at Great World City. Before continuing, it has to be stated that Avatar is visually very arresting and probably deserves better than some of the snark that follows; here's the review (and a few miscellaneous observations) from the eyes of a Com Sci student (spoiler alert):
 Autogun Array 1, Stone-Age Aliens 0 (Source: Pandorapedia) And on to the plot proper. Synopsis: A disabled Marine fills in for his deceased Ph.D. twin brother as the controller of an Avatar, or a na'vi body that is used to communicate with actual na'vi, who live peacefully at one with Nature within lush jungles, and whose planet-moon Pandora (which has air that is toxic to humans) might have been completely ignored by humans had they not had the bad luck to have some black mineral required for transportation (not oil), that the humans want. But since they do have the mineral, some huge faceless corporation from Earth sends in loads of workers and soldiers to get it one way or the other, and after half-assed attempts at negotiation (the Avatar-ed hero doesn't even broach the subject within his three-month deadline, being too busy cavorting with his newly-found na'vi girlfriend...) the decision is regrettably made to further the persuasive process through liberal application of heavy weaponry. This mostly works until the na'vi, who had been getting stomped on thanks to using bows and arrows against machineguns and mechs, inexplicably get the aid of a horde of bulletproof indigenous monsters because they are the good guys and there was no other remotely plausible scenario where they could have prevailed. For 10 marks: Discuss the extent to which the movie is a commentary on the colonization of the Americas (for extra credit, state similarities between na'vi and American Indian dress and customs) and the more recent US-led invasion of Iraq (hint: consider the "shock and awe" strategy applied in both cases). Extend this discussion to the process of cultural assimilation since the dawn of human history. I'm not sure if a sequel will be produced (likely yes), but if history can teach us anything, it's a nine out of ten chance that the humans will return with bigger guns and raze the area containing the minerals to the ground (amortizing the extra expenditure over several accounting periods), before establishing a large security perimeter (guerilla wars were lost and the invaders pulled out in Afghanistan and Vietnam, but those places didn't have oil, diamonds or some other delectable extractable resource) and strip-mining the land to their heart's desire. Also, if atmosphere engineering is at all viable, the na'vi will soon enjoy the joys of some addictive drug (alcohol with the American Indians, or opium with the Chinese, but perhaps Civilization CXXVIII or Football Manager 2159 this time round), and begin trading their lands away for that stuff and other trinkets, eventually subsisting on tiny reservations, selling authentic na'vi handicrafts, raptor rides and photo-taking opportunities, and eventually lobby for the exclusive rights to build integrated resorts to make a better living. Some of the children of the flood of human immigrants will of course be briefly indignant at how their ancestors treated the na'vi, and rail about the injustice of it all on some corner of the native Biointernet (now bought over by some human corporation), and hold the occasional street protest, hunger strike and candlelight vigil, until they grow up and get a job with Mineral Mining Inc, and begin to delete all evidence of their participation lest it affect their chances of promotion. Maybe, just maybe, one of those kids will become a visionary holomovie director around the year 2250, and pen a budget-bursting historical epic about how some tribe in some ancient era of Earth were going to be driven from their fertile lands and exploited by a bigger, meaner tribe, and how an unlikely hero arose and led that plucky little tribe to improbable victory in a tearjerking finale with stunning special effects and a very cute female lead actress as warrior-princess. This will certainly spark the brisk sale of holomovie tie-in merchandise, and should also inspire at least a few wiseguys to recognize the parallel between the Earth fable and what is happening to the na'vi on their beloved Pandora, and proudly publish little comments and articles on it and... nothing. As that avatar of angst-ridden teenagers, Holden Caulfield, might have said, people are almost without exception phony hypocrites (myself included), but if an impartial revelation of how magnificently self-centered we actually are (as opposed to what we would like to believe) were made, a madness that would make the sight of Cthulhu a welcome respite might likely befall our feeble minds - so perhaps it is for the best that this perception is sealed from us. Or, these people might then walk out of the holomovieplex, and quickly forget their noble concerns when faced with tasty morsels, perhaps obtained thanks to the underpaid labour of some nameless na'vi, somewhere far, far away:  The legendary Ben & Jerry's Vermonster (S$88) Who cares, really? There is no absolute justice, anyway. La dolce vita, here and now; Mineral Mining Inc is doing well, overhauling the incumbent RDA Corp, and the division manager is throwing a party. There are rumours of a generous half-year bonus. Those blueies should have been more cooperative from the beginning. We came in peace - well, mostly - and bore the gifts of civilization, we offered education, gave medicine. They shot arrows at us after we helped them to clear some forestland for development. Those bloody trees were a real eyesore anyway. The people eat, drink and make merry. Ah, to hell with the ungrateful blue f**kers. If they won't move on into the new world, they'll just be dragged kicking and screaming into it. Another ice-cream? Oh, and Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho! For 5 marks: Discuss whether the fiery destruction of the gigantic na'vi Hometree (and collateral ecological damage) is a suitable metaphor for the "meaningfully agreed" COP15 talks.  (Source: mattbors.com) Epilogue: But cruel as this story may seem, it's more or less the story of mankind thus far; Little groups meet, and if they do not merge, eventually they fight - and then the winners absorb what's left of the losers, taking their women and settling their lands. Families became clans, clans combined into tribes, tribes formed nations, and nations forged empires. When the stories of the vanquished are made into plays and told with skill, we may weep for the fallen. But the right to mourn them came from victory in the first place. How many here know of which petty fiefdom their forefathers belonged to, two thousand years past? But by the mere fact of their existence, they do know that it is not one of those - those many - that were extinguished oh so long ago. Not only were the people and the unique identities of those tiny kingdoms lost, the living would, very soon, not even bother to forget them. This is the doom of man, after all. It is a sad world, but a glorious one. Afterthought: Maybe the humans could have tried religious engineering, sort of like the Missionaria Protectiva in the Dune universe, or what one simply calls missionaries in real life; the humans certainly had sufficiently advanced technology to masquerade as magic (or divine favour), and quite often the natives are only too happy to spread the word by themselves (see cargo cult, which has a Com Sci application in cargo cult programming) Walked to Orchard Road, but got on the MRT before the countdown. I might rename my pretend punting challenge to How To Throw Away $100 Challenge after what has happened in recent weeks (at $829/$1400 now). Quitters don't win, so... $50 on Birmingham to draw Chelsea (at 3.50) $50 on Fulham to draw Tottenham (3.20) Next: 我怒
anonymous said... YOU MADE BIG MONEY DIO BEH PIO!! DIO BEH PIO!!
Mr. Ham G. Bacon said... Alas, a drop in the ocean, but it goes to show that the hams are best unbeaten. *smack* Ow!
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