So a woman survived after falling onto train tracks. I was like," What's the big deal?" Then I thought maybe it was because the woman was lying perpendicular to the tracks but escaped unscathed after the train ran over her. That would definitely hit the front page like... a speeding train. Then I clicked the link and there she was lying in the middle of the tracks, parallel to each rail.
Pffft. What's the big deal?
The US deficit rose to $1.4 trillion last fiscal year which ended on the 30th of September. I'm pretty sure it's because of inflation. The American public debt will rise to $12 trillion this week. Unemployment rate has hit 10.2% and will reach 10.5% by the middle of next year.
Things are looking pretty grim. It may not be our economy, but the Americans' money problems have this uncanny knack of spreading around the world like AIDS in a gay drug addicts' orgy.
Public debt is the amount of money the government owes, eg through bonds and securities (they're the government's way of borrowing money). Since China is in possession of lots of US securities, it means the US owes China a lot of money.
Like I said some rants ago, China can't fuck around with the US economy in spite of this because if the USD collapses, they aren't going to get their money back.
Still, me thinks the inflation rate of the USD is worrying.
Whoa! AIG is 80% owned by US taxpayers after the bailout! It's as good as nationalised.
Starting to watch Damages. After the first three episodes, it looks pretty interesting. IS PATTY THE MASTERMIND OF THE ENTIRE THING JUST TO WIN THE CASE???? Wait, don't tell me. I don't want to spoil it for myself, not so soon.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Rant 459 / Nobody Wants To Be The CEO Of The Bank Of America
MSG. There is little evidence that MSG harms you. All you anti-MSG elitist, go put your anti-MSG sentiments where the sun doesn't shine. Here's some of my research:
-A 2000 review found that large doses of MSG given without food may elicit more symptoms than a placebo in individuals who believe that they react adversely to MSG. However, the frequency of the responses was low and the responses reported were inconsistent and were not reproducible. The responses were not observed when MSG was given with food.
-A 2002 report found that rats fed on diets supplemented with 10% and 20% pure monosodium glutamate suffered retina degeneration, possibly through glutamate accumulation in the vitreous humor. However, such extreme amounts are more than one order of magnitude higher than those used for flavoring or found in foods.
For the ignorant, one order of magnitude = 10 times. More than an order of magnitude = 10 times, 100 times or more. At 10 times of the amount described, you would have to consume about a ladle of that stuff.
In conclusion, it's all in your head! MSG IS SAFE!
However,
-Prevalence of overweight was significantly higher in MSG users than in non-users.
This can easily be explained by that fact that food just tastes... heck, life just tastes better with MSG. It is no wonder they get fat. And here's something to back my point:
- The epidemiological survey of 4,938 ethnically Japanese men drawn from the Honolulu heart program in Hawaii found that self-reported dietary monosodium glutamate consumption was not statistically linked with obesity. Researchers furthermore found that frequent monosodium glutamate consumption did not significantly affect blood sugar or serum cholesterol levels among the participants.
See? Even if you gain weight quickly, it's not directly due to the MSG. You just like eating more!
I have just been screwed by Borderlands. I opened it a few minutes ago and discovered all my skill points are gone and weapon proficiencies have been reduced to zero. I googled this and discovered that this is a bug of moderate frequency. MODERATE FREQUENCY!
There is no fix. They are gone. Time to either get a new character or delete the game.
Democracy. Democracy is an illusion. You would be surprised by what people want without proper guidance.
People don't want a lot of things they seem to want today. They don't want meritocracy; they want wealth without work. They don't want a smart man who seem to know how to run a country; they want "one of them" with 20 years experience as an office worker, doesn't know shit about government but understands their troubles. People want the facade of being civilized, not actual civilization.
Without being told who to vote for, democracy would kill.
It is stupid to assume everyone likes what you like, think what you think and believe in everything you believe in. Some people don't care for technology, others don't want people with degrees to get better pay just because they spent a couple of years in an university.
Write down a list of things you assume is important in the government of a nation and someone's bound to disagree with you. Lots of someone's. That is democracy.
Uncontrolled democracy is chaos. Or rather, democracy is controlled chaos. Just look at games. Game are never designed by democracy. Gamers don't vote for what they want in a game. Few features are ever derived this way. The number of repeated support posts for an idea does not reflect the probability of it being implemented.
In Empires, democracy decides what maps we play in the server I frequent. Very often, people would vote for maps that generally considered bad and stupid. Other times, people would just hit the 1 key no matter what map it is.
The internet is an excellent place to see the thoughts caused by free will.
Read the Wiki article on the Siege of Leningrad, which occurred during WWII when Hitler made the mistake of attacking the USSR. If you thought Russia had it easy back then, you were very wrong.
Now renamed as Saint Petersburg, the city was large, being the ex-capital of the Russian Empire. There were 3.5 million people excluding unregistered (and there were lots of those) civilians in the city before the Germans arrived. 1.4 million were evacuated. 872 days later, only 700,000 people were left. 500,000 were civilians.
872 days = 28 months = 2.5 years. 8 September 1941 - 27 January 1944.
Things were so bad, children were deployed to fight fires after the frequent bombings. 15,000 children were later decorated for their actions during the seige.
Food was a huge problem. Within 5 days of the seige, all restaurants were cleared of their leftovers and had to close. Money became worthless since it couldn't buy food any longer (note how food supply affects the value of money).
At the beginning, the analysis was already very grim.
It was calculated that the provisions both for army and civilians would last as follows:
Food rationing was the only option. It started in July 1941 before the city was encircled. On the 2nd of September the same year, it was reduced to:
manual workers had 600 grams of bread daily; state employees, 400 grams; and children and dependants (other civilians), 300 grams per day
Then due to the successful bombings of most of the warehouses by the Germans between August to October that year, it was reduced again on the 12th of September to:
the workers received 500 grams of bread; employees and children, 300 grams; and dependants, 250 grams.
Rations were reduced yet again in Oct, followed by two more cuts in November. By the last reduction, the rationing was as follows:
250 grams daily for manual workers and 125 grams for other civilians.
That's almost as bad as being a POW. 125g of food is like... 3 slices of ham? A handful of rice?
By the winter of 1941, all rats, pets and birds were consumed. Anything that walks was food, and reports of cannibalism began from that point on. The severity of this problem led to a special unit of police being created to fight cannibalism.
It is estimated that this siege did more harm than the nuclear bombs dropped in Japan. Not only was the city as good as razed, it had contained several of the most beautiful palaces from the Tsarist era (it was the ex-capital, as mentioned before). Many of the palaces were looted and destroyed by the Germans before they left.
A diary of an 11-year-old girl who lived through the siege still exists in a museum in Russia, though the author passed away from intestinal tuberculosis after being rescued. Tanya Savicheva was born on 23rd January 1930 and had 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Also with them were 2 uncles and a grandmother. Of her entire family, one brother was outside the city before the siege while a sister was evacuated without their knowledge. Her father passed away before it happened and everyone else perished during the siege.
Excerpt from her diary:
In May 1942 when she wrote her last entry, she was only 12 years old and worked as a trench-digger and fire-fighter. She was rescued in August that year, found to be very ill and eventually died in July 1944.
All in all, this event caused the most casualties ever in a modern city.
At first I read this report about a discussion on what is unacceptable when using human genes in animals to grow human parts. Then I read the next report on rabbits that were given lab-grown penises that mated better and I thought Reuters was being very humorous here.
Kraft is getting warmer. It just offered $16.2 billion for Cadbury, or 709 pence per share. Cadbury investors rejected it of course, saying they will consider no offer below 800 pence per share. (1 pound=$1.6713)
No one else is competing against Kraft. Not Nestle, not Hershey, not PepsiCo.
From the report:
-A 2000 review found that large doses of MSG given without food may elicit more symptoms than a placebo in individuals who believe that they react adversely to MSG. However, the frequency of the responses was low and the responses reported were inconsistent and were not reproducible. The responses were not observed when MSG was given with food.
-A 2002 report found that rats fed on diets supplemented with 10% and 20% pure monosodium glutamate suffered retina degeneration, possibly through glutamate accumulation in the vitreous humor. However, such extreme amounts are more than one order of magnitude higher than those used for flavoring or found in foods.
For the ignorant, one order of magnitude = 10 times. More than an order of magnitude = 10 times, 100 times or more. At 10 times of the amount described, you would have to consume about a ladle of that stuff.
In conclusion, it's all in your head! MSG IS SAFE!
However,
-Prevalence of overweight was significantly higher in MSG users than in non-users.
This can easily be explained by that fact that food just tastes... heck, life just tastes better with MSG. It is no wonder they get fat. And here's something to back my point:
- The epidemiological survey of 4,938 ethnically Japanese men drawn from the Honolulu heart program in Hawaii found that self-reported dietary monosodium glutamate consumption was not statistically linked with obesity. Researchers furthermore found that frequent monosodium glutamate consumption did not significantly affect blood sugar or serum cholesterol levels among the participants.
See? Even if you gain weight quickly, it's not directly due to the MSG. You just like eating more!
I have just been screwed by Borderlands. I opened it a few minutes ago and discovered all my skill points are gone and weapon proficiencies have been reduced to zero. I googled this and discovered that this is a bug of moderate frequency. MODERATE FREQUENCY!
There is no fix. They are gone. Time to either get a new character or delete the game.
Democracy. Democracy is an illusion. You would be surprised by what people want without proper guidance.
People don't want a lot of things they seem to want today. They don't want meritocracy; they want wealth without work. They don't want a smart man who seem to know how to run a country; they want "one of them" with 20 years experience as an office worker, doesn't know shit about government but understands their troubles. People want the facade of being civilized, not actual civilization.
Without being told who to vote for, democracy would kill.
It is stupid to assume everyone likes what you like, think what you think and believe in everything you believe in. Some people don't care for technology, others don't want people with degrees to get better pay just because they spent a couple of years in an university.
Write down a list of things you assume is important in the government of a nation and someone's bound to disagree with you. Lots of someone's. That is democracy.
Uncontrolled democracy is chaos. Or rather, democracy is controlled chaos. Just look at games. Game are never designed by democracy. Gamers don't vote for what they want in a game. Few features are ever derived this way. The number of repeated support posts for an idea does not reflect the probability of it being implemented.
In Empires, democracy decides what maps we play in the server I frequent. Very often, people would vote for maps that generally considered bad and stupid. Other times, people would just hit the 1 key no matter what map it is.
The internet is an excellent place to see the thoughts caused by free will.
Read the Wiki article on the Siege of Leningrad, which occurred during WWII when Hitler made the mistake of attacking the USSR. If you thought Russia had it easy back then, you were very wrong.
Now renamed as Saint Petersburg, the city was large, being the ex-capital of the Russian Empire. There were 3.5 million people excluding unregistered (and there were lots of those) civilians in the city before the Germans arrived. 1.4 million were evacuated. 872 days later, only 700,000 people were left. 500,000 were civilians.
872 days = 28 months = 2.5 years. 8 September 1941 - 27 January 1944.
Things were so bad, children were deployed to fight fires after the frequent bombings. 15,000 children were later decorated for their actions during the seige.
Food was a huge problem. Within 5 days of the seige, all restaurants were cleared of their leftovers and had to close. Money became worthless since it couldn't buy food any longer (note how food supply affects the value of money).
At the beginning, the analysis was already very grim.
It was calculated that the provisions both for army and civilians would last as follows:
| grain and flour | 35 days |
| groats and pasta | 31 days |
| meat and livestock | 33 days |
| fats | 45 days |
| sugar and confectionery | 60 days |
Food rationing was the only option. It started in July 1941 before the city was encircled. On the 2nd of September the same year, it was reduced to:
manual workers had 600 grams of bread daily; state employees, 400 grams; and children and dependants (other civilians), 300 grams per day
Then due to the successful bombings of most of the warehouses by the Germans between August to October that year, it was reduced again on the 12th of September to:
the workers received 500 grams of bread; employees and children, 300 grams; and dependants, 250 grams.
Rations were reduced yet again in Oct, followed by two more cuts in November. By the last reduction, the rationing was as follows:
250 grams daily for manual workers and 125 grams for other civilians.
That's almost as bad as being a POW. 125g of food is like... 3 slices of ham? A handful of rice?
By the winter of 1941, all rats, pets and birds were consumed. Anything that walks was food, and reports of cannibalism began from that point on. The severity of this problem led to a special unit of police being created to fight cannibalism.
It is estimated that this siege did more harm than the nuclear bombs dropped in Japan. Not only was the city as good as razed, it had contained several of the most beautiful palaces from the Tsarist era (it was the ex-capital, as mentioned before). Many of the palaces were looted and destroyed by the Germans before they left.
A diary of an 11-year-old girl who lived through the siege still exists in a museum in Russia, though the author passed away from intestinal tuberculosis after being rescued. Tanya Savicheva was born on 23rd January 1930 and had 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Also with them were 2 uncles and a grandmother. Of her entire family, one brother was outside the city before the siege while a sister was evacuated without their knowledge. Her father passed away before it happened and everyone else perished during the siege.
Excerpt from her diary:
Grandma died on Jan. 25th 3:00 P.M. 1942
Leka died on March 5th at 5:00 A.M. 1942
Uncle Vasya died on Apr. 13th at 2:00 after midnight 1942
Uncle Lesha on May 10th at 4:00 P.M. 1942
Mother on May 13th at 7:30 A.M. 1942
Savichevs died.
Everyone died.
Only Tanya is left
In May 1942 when she wrote her last entry, she was only 12 years old and worked as a trench-digger and fire-fighter. She was rescued in August that year, found to be very ill and eventually died in July 1944.
All in all, this event caused the most casualties ever in a modern city.
At first I read this report about a discussion on what is unacceptable when using human genes in animals to grow human parts. Then I read the next report on rabbits that were given lab-grown penises that mated better and I thought Reuters was being very humorous here.
Kraft is getting warmer. It just offered $16.2 billion for Cadbury, or 709 pence per share. Cadbury investors rejected it of course, saying they will consider no offer below 800 pence per share. (1 pound=$1.6713)
No one else is competing against Kraft. Not Nestle, not Hershey, not PepsiCo.
From the report:
Pepsi, which owns snack-maker Frito-Lay, is buying its two largest bottlers and may have little appetite for a new deal.
Nestle has said it plans no big acquisitions. Hershey has been interested in Cadbury, but cannot afford it on its own and is hampered by the control structure of the Hershey trust.
Two titans are about to merge. Pretty dramatic.
China lends US$10 billion to African nations at below-market interest rates, among several other things it is doing to help Africa. It looks to me like China wants to take over the domination of African resources from Europe.
I think Africa is deliberately being kept in such poverty so that Europe can exploit their resources cheaply, and now China wants a large portion of this pie.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Rant 458 / SafeSurf Not Very Safe
So a website I know of has been blocked by Starhub's SafeSurf programme. I don't know when it started, but I don't like to be blocked for any reason. =(
They should implement this only for households with children below 18, not for everyone. Anyway it's not compulsory for Starhub subscribers. In fact you have to pay $2.68 a month (GST included) for this service, except for those with the more expensive plans like MaxOnline Ultimate who are getting it for free until May next year.
Cancelled it just now because of a few reasons:
1) Don't need it.
2) Doesn't block everything that needs to be blocked.
3) TOR can bypass it.
4) It's not free of charge.
You can do what I did and also read about this service on this page.
It doesn't even block 4chan. Peace of mind my ass.
Also cancelled my International Roaming and got the Pay-As-You-Roam service instead. The former has a subscription fee of $5/mth but charges less when in use. The latter does not have an activation fee and subscription fee, but costs 20% more when I'm using my phone overseas. Didn't know about this until I looked around in the My Account section.
Just read about this Singaporean who's planning to ski to the South Pole. Ah, gone are the days when one can do the same to the North Pole. Water-ski yes, but not ski. Not anymore.
Was re-watching the video "Every OS Sucks" in the previous rant while proofreading again (found lots of mistakes) and was curious about what was so special about this game Zork. The spelling was rather intuitive so I googled and found myself at Wikipedia.
Apparently it's a very old trilogy of text-based games that are older than me. So I went to another link and interesting enough, I could play the game on the website itself. It must be so small it doesn't cost much to let anyone play it using their server resources.
Anyway, it's a text-based RPG in which you don't just pick your actions from a list. Instead, you type in what you want to do, freestyle. Unfortunately, there IS a list of available actions, but they aren't displayed for the players so they have to figure them out on their own. Kind of frustrating when I couldn't switch on a battery-powered lantern, but I could turn it on.
However, this is where the magic of the internet shines again. By googling "commands zork", one can easily find the list of all the available actions, so that players don't have to guess whether they can "drink" the bottle of water or "use" it.
This game, due to its primitive origin, is not player-friendly. Anyone who tries this game is advised to follow their old habits (if they played RPGs when they were young) to save as frequently as possible. Although players can save at any time, there is only 1 save slot, so do so wisely.
Unlike modern RPGs, this game focuses on you, the adventurer, who has to explore a dungeon and collect treasures. There is little background story, very little combat and is all about finding your way to the treasures and back to your trophy case.
A US Army psychiatrist shot and killed 12 soldiers in his camp yesterday. When I went to bed it had appeared as a headline as Breaking News. Now that the report is out, it doesn't look surprising any longer.
1) That man is a Muslim. Even the most un-Muslim Muslim would be morally tortured if ordered to serve in a camp that's fighting in a Muslim country.
2) He's a psychiatrist dealing with men returning from Iraq. He had to listen to all the problems of soldiers who had lost friends to Muslims, yet cannot release his frustrations due to his occupation.
3) If you have to fight a certain race for years, you would probably become racist even if you weren't one originally. This is made more possible when the two sides have different skin colours because their differences just stand out. Hence he has to treat soldiers who may have certain views about him.
These are just 3 things that popped up in my head immediately after reading the report. I'm surprised they would deploy Muslims in Iraq. Even if we discount the dilemma they are placed in, we still have other problems like increased security risks. It's kinda like deploying American-Japanese soldiers in Asia during WWII - didn't really make sense if they had done it.
Sauerkraut. Sour Cabbage. It's a delicious German dish, though I've found small servings of it in the set meals of a certain Japanese stall in a food court somewhere. It's great as an appetizer but it seems they eat it on hotdogs too.
Also, it's easy to make. Shred/chop cabbage, pour salt, cover and ferment. It becomes sauerkraut within a month. Sounds really easy, but I don't have anything to ferment it in. I'm not worried about smells since sauerkraut doesn't have an unpleasant smell despite being fermented.
In the mood to try, just need to find the proper makeshift containers. Can't use plastic since I don't know if I have any that's safe for it. The sauerkraut is sour after all, so it's acidic.
Vinegar is only used for the modern pickled version, which does not have the healthy benefits of the bacteria in the traditional fermented sauerkraut.
Also, it's a natural Viagra.
They should implement this only for households with children below 18, not for everyone. Anyway it's not compulsory for Starhub subscribers. In fact you have to pay $2.68 a month (GST included) for this service, except for those with the more expensive plans like MaxOnline Ultimate who are getting it for free until May next year.
Cancelled it just now because of a few reasons:
1) Don't need it.
2) Doesn't block everything that needs to be blocked.
3) TOR can bypass it.
4) It's not free of charge.
You can do what I did and also read about this service on this page.
It doesn't even block 4chan. Peace of mind my ass.
Also cancelled my International Roaming and got the Pay-As-You-Roam service instead. The former has a subscription fee of $5/mth but charges less when in use. The latter does not have an activation fee and subscription fee, but costs 20% more when I'm using my phone overseas. Didn't know about this until I looked around in the My Account section.
Just read about this Singaporean who's planning to ski to the South Pole. Ah, gone are the days when one can do the same to the North Pole. Water-ski yes, but not ski. Not anymore.
Was re-watching the video "Every OS Sucks" in the previous rant while proofreading again (found lots of mistakes) and was curious about what was so special about this game Zork. The spelling was rather intuitive so I googled and found myself at Wikipedia.
Apparently it's a very old trilogy of text-based games that are older than me. So I went to another link and interesting enough, I could play the game on the website itself. It must be so small it doesn't cost much to let anyone play it using their server resources.
Anyway, it's a text-based RPG in which you don't just pick your actions from a list. Instead, you type in what you want to do, freestyle. Unfortunately, there IS a list of available actions, but they aren't displayed for the players so they have to figure them out on their own. Kind of frustrating when I couldn't switch on a battery-powered lantern, but I could turn it on.
However, this is where the magic of the internet shines again. By googling "commands zork", one can easily find the list of all the available actions, so that players don't have to guess whether they can "drink" the bottle of water or "use" it.
This game, due to its primitive origin, is not player-friendly. Anyone who tries this game is advised to follow their old habits (if they played RPGs when they were young) to save as frequently as possible. Although players can save at any time, there is only 1 save slot, so do so wisely.
Unlike modern RPGs, this game focuses on you, the adventurer, who has to explore a dungeon and collect treasures. There is little background story, very little combat and is all about finding your way to the treasures and back to your trophy case.
A US Army psychiatrist shot and killed 12 soldiers in his camp yesterday. When I went to bed it had appeared as a headline as Breaking News. Now that the report is out, it doesn't look surprising any longer.
1) That man is a Muslim. Even the most un-Muslim Muslim would be morally tortured if ordered to serve in a camp that's fighting in a Muslim country.
2) He's a psychiatrist dealing with men returning from Iraq. He had to listen to all the problems of soldiers who had lost friends to Muslims, yet cannot release his frustrations due to his occupation.
3) If you have to fight a certain race for years, you would probably become racist even if you weren't one originally. This is made more possible when the two sides have different skin colours because their differences just stand out. Hence he has to treat soldiers who may have certain views about him.
These are just 3 things that popped up in my head immediately after reading the report. I'm surprised they would deploy Muslims in Iraq. Even if we discount the dilemma they are placed in, we still have other problems like increased security risks. It's kinda like deploying American-Japanese soldiers in Asia during WWII - didn't really make sense if they had done it.
Sauerkraut. Sour Cabbage. It's a delicious German dish, though I've found small servings of it in the set meals of a certain Japanese stall in a food court somewhere. It's great as an appetizer but it seems they eat it on hotdogs too.Also, it's easy to make. Shred/chop cabbage, pour salt, cover and ferment. It becomes sauerkraut within a month. Sounds really easy, but I don't have anything to ferment it in. I'm not worried about smells since sauerkraut doesn't have an unpleasant smell despite being fermented.
In the mood to try, just need to find the proper makeshift containers. Can't use plastic since I don't know if I have any that's safe for it. The sauerkraut is sour after all, so it's acidic.
Vinegar is only used for the modern pickled version, which does not have the healthy benefits of the bacteria in the traditional fermented sauerkraut.
Also, it's a natural Viagra.
Monday, 2 November 2009
Rant 457 / Getting Drunk In Zero Gravity Is No Joke
You know, how did Singapore find out about its history? Before Singapore, there was Temasek. But who recorded it?
The Malays? The Sultanate of Johore maybe? At least for China and the Roman Empire we know there were historians who recorded everything in the news when it was still news. These archives were so complete that some countries have to go to them to find out about their own history.
I remember this guy from Kazakhstan I met in NTU, who said that his country had to get its history from the records in China because theirs were mostly destroyed during the USSR period. I hope China doesn't go through a similar period or get another Emperor Qin, or much of the world will probably lose their history.
Hmm, wait a minute. There really wasn't anything about our history until Raffles came along. By then the British would have recorded everything. That tale about the prince who saw the lion and named the island Lion City (Singapura) sounds suspiciously like a folktale, since no one has ever seen lions in the wild here. Boars and tigers have been spotted before, but even the tigers have disappeared now. Just not a single lion ever.
Was thinking about this while reading about the Egytian pet mummies in this month's National Geographic. Apparently those who could afford it mummified their dead pets. The Kazakhs are lucky compared to the Egyptians. The latter only has the Roman archives to refer to, but it isn't complete since their earlier history wasn't there.
The Egyptians lost so much of their history that they couldn't even exactly revive their ancient language, the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Even the Jews were luckier in that they still kept the written form of Hebrew alive (eg via private letters between each other) when the verbal form was lost. The death of the original written language of the Egyptians was so complete the hieroglyphs has become a code that has to be deciphered.
Languages die all the time, but a language crucial to finding out about a long history and rich culture of an ancient civilization is a different story altogether.
The multiyear ice in the Arctic is as good as absent. Multiyear ice is probably ice that was formed more than a year ago. Now most of the ice in that region is ice that were formed within the year. A recent expedition to find multiyear ice was a failure. The only significantly large chunk of this ice they found broke up right in front of them by the waves. It must be very dramatic for the people who studied this.
Now Earth will warm up much faster, without the ice at the North to reflect light away.
This is proof that commercial mass-produced food isn't always bad. How can any sane human being dislike the Vienetta? Does this make you drool? It does for me.
I usually go for medium, but medium rare is fine too. Unfortunately the hygiene of hawker centres/food courts is not exactly the best so I go for only medium when eating in such places. To me, well done is only for meat that is almost spoilt (ie left in the fridge for too long, beef no longer bright red)
Good steaks don't need gravy, good gravy don't need steaks. =D
And steaks definitely don't need ketchup. Ketchup is only for bad food since it covers up all other flavours. Good steaks just need to be seasoned and marinated well.
A space hotel? Architects estimate it will cost each tourist 4.4million USD for a 3-night stay. Of course, this term "3-night" is misleading, since night is an Earthly concept. In space, things are very different, especially since the hotel won't be in geo-synchronised orbit.
Indeed, space tourists will be seeing 15 sunrises every 24 hours. By the time they're back on Earth, they will be pretty sick of it.
The space visit will also include 8 weeks of training, basically to get them used to the lack of gravity. Lots of things happen different without the aid of gravity, like when you sneeze, your snot will fly. Since this is going to be made for the wealthy, they will obviously provide suction where it is needed, eg in the various parts of the bathroom. Still, dropping a glass of water is a much larger issue in space than on Earth.
And the basic necessities of living in space is expensive. According to NASA, it costs $450 million per mission on the Space Shuttle. The max payload according to Wikipedia is 25,060kg. That's $17,957 per kg of payload. In other words, a 5-course meal will cost tens of thousands of dollars even if you have to eat the ingredients raw. However, this is only a rough estimate since they aren't going to use the Space Shuttle to transport cargo for them.
The price is actually quite different from those of early commercial flights. In the early 1900s plane tickets in the US were costing about $10-$20. Train ticket prices were probably still in tens of cents over the same distances.
Then again, the circumstances were quite different then. The Wright Bros had achieved success just before WWI, and it was quickly employed by the armies. By the time the fighting was done, planes were mostly built for the wars. Hence in early commercial flights, passengers were often travelling on converted military aircrafts, not the comfortable Boeing 747 most of us are using today. So they wouldn't dare to charge too much for the poor quality of the ride.
I was curious about the impact of China's efforts to keep the RMB down. Although some questions can be answered by laymen, it feels better to get them from someone who has actually studied economics. This Q&A seems to be pretty good, though I'm unsure of the credibility of the authors.
Copied from the article:
To those who would say things like 'You wouldn't download a car!" I say,
The Malays? The Sultanate of Johore maybe? At least for China and the Roman Empire we know there were historians who recorded everything in the news when it was still news. These archives were so complete that some countries have to go to them to find out about their own history.
I remember this guy from Kazakhstan I met in NTU, who said that his country had to get its history from the records in China because theirs were mostly destroyed during the USSR period. I hope China doesn't go through a similar period or get another Emperor Qin, or much of the world will probably lose their history.
Hmm, wait a minute. There really wasn't anything about our history until Raffles came along. By then the British would have recorded everything. That tale about the prince who saw the lion and named the island Lion City (Singapura) sounds suspiciously like a folktale, since no one has ever seen lions in the wild here. Boars and tigers have been spotted before, but even the tigers have disappeared now. Just not a single lion ever.
Was thinking about this while reading about the Egytian pet mummies in this month's National Geographic. Apparently those who could afford it mummified their dead pets. The Kazakhs are lucky compared to the Egyptians. The latter only has the Roman archives to refer to, but it isn't complete since their earlier history wasn't there.
The Egyptians lost so much of their history that they couldn't even exactly revive their ancient language, the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Even the Jews were luckier in that they still kept the written form of Hebrew alive (eg via private letters between each other) when the verbal form was lost. The death of the original written language of the Egyptians was so complete the hieroglyphs has become a code that has to be deciphered.
Languages die all the time, but a language crucial to finding out about a long history and rich culture of an ancient civilization is a different story altogether.
The multiyear ice in the Arctic is as good as absent. Multiyear ice is probably ice that was formed more than a year ago. Now most of the ice in that region is ice that were formed within the year. A recent expedition to find multiyear ice was a failure. The only significantly large chunk of this ice they found broke up right in front of them by the waves. It must be very dramatic for the people who studied this.
Now Earth will warm up much faster, without the ice at the North to reflect light away.
This is proof that commercial mass-produced food isn't always bad. How can any sane human being dislike the Vienetta? Does this make you drool? It does for me.
I usually go for medium, but medium rare is fine too. Unfortunately the hygiene of hawker centres/food courts is not exactly the best so I go for only medium when eating in such places. To me, well done is only for meat that is almost spoilt (ie left in the fridge for too long, beef no longer bright red)Good steaks don't need gravy, good gravy don't need steaks. =D
And steaks definitely don't need ketchup. Ketchup is only for bad food since it covers up all other flavours. Good steaks just need to be seasoned and marinated well.
A space hotel? Architects estimate it will cost each tourist 4.4million USD for a 3-night stay. Of course, this term "3-night" is misleading, since night is an Earthly concept. In space, things are very different, especially since the hotel won't be in geo-synchronised orbit.
Indeed, space tourists will be seeing 15 sunrises every 24 hours. By the time they're back on Earth, they will be pretty sick of it.
The space visit will also include 8 weeks of training, basically to get them used to the lack of gravity. Lots of things happen different without the aid of gravity, like when you sneeze, your snot will fly. Since this is going to be made for the wealthy, they will obviously provide suction where it is needed, eg in the various parts of the bathroom. Still, dropping a glass of water is a much larger issue in space than on Earth.
And the basic necessities of living in space is expensive. According to NASA, it costs $450 million per mission on the Space Shuttle. The max payload according to Wikipedia is 25,060kg. That's $17,957 per kg of payload. In other words, a 5-course meal will cost tens of thousands of dollars even if you have to eat the ingredients raw. However, this is only a rough estimate since they aren't going to use the Space Shuttle to transport cargo for them.
The price is actually quite different from those of early commercial flights. In the early 1900s plane tickets in the US were costing about $10-$20. Train ticket prices were probably still in tens of cents over the same distances.
Then again, the circumstances were quite different then. The Wright Bros had achieved success just before WWI, and it was quickly employed by the armies. By the time the fighting was done, planes were mostly built for the wars. Hence in early commercial flights, passengers were often travelling on converted military aircrafts, not the comfortable Boeing 747 most of us are using today. So they wouldn't dare to charge too much for the poor quality of the ride.
I was curious about the impact of China's efforts to keep the RMB down. Although some questions can be answered by laymen, it feels better to get them from someone who has actually studied economics. This Q&A seems to be pretty good, though I'm unsure of the credibility of the authors.
Copied from the article:
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF CHINA LET ITS CURRENCY APPRECIATE?
Theoretically, the cost of Chinese-made products would rise for consumers around the world. If prices rise sufficiently, other countries' goods might be substituted for those China now makes. Some in the United States hope that domestic firms that now say they cannot compete might decide that they can boost their share of export markets, in turn cranking up production and hiring. If Chinese consumers were empowered with a stronger currency, they might become more aggressive importers, perhaps even swinging China's trade surplus to deficit.
In practice, though, the yuan's 21 percent rise from 2005-2008 barely registered on the price tags of Chinese goods abroad, as buyers -- often foreign firms like Wal-Mart -- demanded that costs be kept down and their suppliers were able to oblige, thanks in part to productivity gains.
Economists often describe China's trade surplus as structural, referring to the country's cheap capital and over-investment, which generate excess production that is cleared through exports. The implication is that deeper reforms to China's economy such as building up a social safety net, and not just yuan appreciation, are necessary to stimulate domestic demand and rein in its yawning trade surplus.To those who would say things like 'You wouldn't download a car!" I say,
"Would that I could!"
Potato salad, one of the simplest joys in the world. Here, I used 3 leftover sautéed potatoes from 2 nights ago when my mum made pork chops. The cores had ice chips when I diced them, so it looks like my fridge isn't working too well.
Anyway, this contains 3 potatoes, 2 hard-boiled eggs, a small packet of "Smoked Salmon with Dill and Olive Oil", a tiny onion (maybe it's a shallot, I don't know), a generous sprinkle of black pepper and about 3 tablespoons of mayo.
Result is that the salmon is undetectable unless I am looking for it. Should have used bacon, but I ran out of bacon and was too lazy to go out to buy some. So I used my last resort, the salmon. Was saving it for something else, but this was worth a try.
Dual-screen laptops. Out by Christmas, probably. Now you can multi-task on the move! There will be a 16- or 17-inch model before a 13- or 14-inch one. Not exactly useful for most of us, but... it's a dual-screen laptop!
Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck
" I jumped out of the ambulance and I ran to the wreckage to make sure that the victim was still breathing or else was Glenn Beck."
According to another source, the onboard computer of the Lunar Module used by Neil Armstrong contained only NOR gates. After checking Wikipedia, I found out that the computer had 5600 NOR gates, could complete 8 tasks in parallel and skip low-priority tasks in emergencies.
In short, the designers were fucking geniuses.
According to NASA, it had 2048 words of RAM, each word being 16 bits. That is 32,768 bits of RAM, or 4096 bytes, or about 4kB. They went to the moon with less computing power (it used a 2MHz CPU) than an iPhone, which has 128MB of RAM and a 600MHz processor. A 2Mhz processor would be quite similar to an average scientific calculator.
The moon landing itself was an incredible feat not only because some dudes went to the moon, but also because of the machines that made it happen.
It is strange how 30 degrees Celsius can be either warm or cool.
Getai, a form of public performance similar to busking but more annoying. Each time they set up their stage in my neighbourhood, they entertain the entire region with their singing. Seriously, why do they even bother to arrange for chairs under a temporary shelter when I can hear their songs clearly right here in my bedroom with my window shut?
And it's not like they're particularly good either. Some of them sound like my neighbours when they're enjoying their karaoke in their living room, or worse. It gives me the impression that the getai is really just a larger form of karaoke and people who find themselves enjoying life too much would sit in front of the huge speakers to get a large dose of exquisite audio torture in order maintain a balance of yin and yang.
Where do they find those singers anyway? Do they post recruitment ads in KTV lounges? Do they hire deaf singers or something? Why don't they at least make some effort at sound-proofing the area where they preform?
Maybe Singaporeans are living lives that are too comfortable and this is our karma. I'm pretty sure if the getai singers are wearing good solid headphones that are blasting hard metal into their ears during their performances, their singing would remain the same.
The military should hire them. They would be excellent at PSYOPS, or whatever the equivalent is here.
Finished Borderlands. Not exactly a long game, especially if you have people helping you. Multiplayer games tend to go faster if the host picks the right quests and keep completing them. In Borderlands multiplayer, the host chooses the quests to be completed and everyone enters each zone together, so if the host keeps focusing on completing the main quest, no one can stop him. Not that anyone would, since the main quest is the most exciting part of the game.
In fact, if I just keep doing main quests, people would usually stay, instead of getting bored and quit. More players also means tougher enemies and better loots, and loots dropped when there are 4 players are very much better than those dropped in solo mode. In after getting all my weapons from multiplayer, everything seems to die like flies when I play solo.
After this, there really isn't much to do in the game. I can play a second time, with tougher enemies and even better loots, but it's not as interesting anymore.
We're going to have an increasingly powerful space defence system to protect Earth against possible alien invasions. Introducing... space junk, an economical yet effective entry deterrent. By leaving all our defunct satellites, dead machines and smashing them into bits, they form a randomly generated network of high-velocity projectiles that will cause difficulty for even an ant to enter our atmosphere without getting hit.
Potato salad, one of the simplest joys in the world. Here, I used 3 leftover sautéed potatoes from 2 nights ago when my mum made pork chops. The cores had ice chips when I diced them, so it looks like my fridge isn't working too well.Anyway, this contains 3 potatoes, 2 hard-boiled eggs, a small packet of "Smoked Salmon with Dill and Olive Oil", a tiny onion (maybe it's a shallot, I don't know), a generous sprinkle of black pepper and about 3 tablespoons of mayo.
Result is that the salmon is undetectable unless I am looking for it. Should have used bacon, but I ran out of bacon and was too lazy to go out to buy some. So I used my last resort, the salmon. Was saving it for something else, but this was worth a try.
Dual-screen laptops. Out by Christmas, probably. Now you can multi-task on the move! There will be a 16- or 17-inch model before a 13- or 14-inch one. Not exactly useful for most of us, but... it's a dual-screen laptop!
Victim In Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck
" I jumped out of the ambulance and I ran to the wreckage to make sure that the victim was still breathing or else was Glenn Beck."
According to another source, the onboard computer of the Lunar Module used by Neil Armstrong contained only NOR gates. After checking Wikipedia, I found out that the computer had 5600 NOR gates, could complete 8 tasks in parallel and skip low-priority tasks in emergencies.
In short, the designers were fucking geniuses.
According to NASA, it had 2048 words of RAM, each word being 16 bits. That is 32,768 bits of RAM, or 4096 bytes, or about 4kB. They went to the moon with less computing power (it used a 2MHz CPU) than an iPhone, which has 128MB of RAM and a 600MHz processor. A 2Mhz processor would be quite similar to an average scientific calculator.
The moon landing itself was an incredible feat not only because some dudes went to the moon, but also because of the machines that made it happen.
It is strange how 30 degrees Celsius can be either warm or cool.
Getai, a form of public performance similar to busking but more annoying. Each time they set up their stage in my neighbourhood, they entertain the entire region with their singing. Seriously, why do they even bother to arrange for chairs under a temporary shelter when I can hear their songs clearly right here in my bedroom with my window shut?
And it's not like they're particularly good either. Some of them sound like my neighbours when they're enjoying their karaoke in their living room, or worse. It gives me the impression that the getai is really just a larger form of karaoke and people who find themselves enjoying life too much would sit in front of the huge speakers to get a large dose of exquisite audio torture in order maintain a balance of yin and yang.
Where do they find those singers anyway? Do they post recruitment ads in KTV lounges? Do they hire deaf singers or something? Why don't they at least make some effort at sound-proofing the area where they preform?
Maybe Singaporeans are living lives that are too comfortable and this is our karma. I'm pretty sure if the getai singers are wearing good solid headphones that are blasting hard metal into their ears during their performances, their singing would remain the same.
The military should hire them. They would be excellent at PSYOPS, or whatever the equivalent is here.
Finished Borderlands. Not exactly a long game, especially if you have people helping you. Multiplayer games tend to go faster if the host picks the right quests and keep completing them. In Borderlands multiplayer, the host chooses the quests to be completed and everyone enters each zone together, so if the host keeps focusing on completing the main quest, no one can stop him. Not that anyone would, since the main quest is the most exciting part of the game.
In fact, if I just keep doing main quests, people would usually stay, instead of getting bored and quit. More players also means tougher enemies and better loots, and loots dropped when there are 4 players are very much better than those dropped in solo mode. In after getting all my weapons from multiplayer, everything seems to die like flies when I play solo.
After this, there really isn't much to do in the game. I can play a second time, with tougher enemies and even better loots, but it's not as interesting anymore.
We're going to have an increasingly powerful space defence system to protect Earth against possible alien invasions. Introducing... space junk, an economical yet effective entry deterrent. By leaving all our defunct satellites, dead machines and smashing them into bits, they form a randomly generated network of high-velocity projectiles that will cause difficulty for even an ant to enter our atmosphere without getting hit.
Friday, 30 October 2009
Rant 456 / WWE, For Kids!
Borderlands multiplayer mode allows 4 players but doesn't restrict all 4 players from using the same characters. I just went through a game with 3 Hunters and it was pretty interesting. Apparently, they don't just snipe - a few of them actually ran ahead and used their swords while some used shotguns.
Unlike other games, Borderlands require the players to forward 4 ports in order to host online games. Quite troublesome but didn't cause further problems for me. Another complaint from me is that the chat messages appear on the right instead of the lower left corner of the screen which is the standard for 99% of the games I play.
Interestingly, it has no copyright protection at the moment. Players using original or pirated copies can all play online using GameSpy, a legit online gaming service.
If you're planning to host, you need to forward several ports beforehand so that other players can join your games. The ports are 7777(UDP and TCP), 29800(TCP), 28910(TCP), 27900(UDP). Your router's port forward menu should look something like this:
So WWE is "toning down" its violence to attract more children. Are they going to give us G-rated wrestling action? I know they said they've been keeping it PG, but that may not be enough. Why not have a WWE Kids, where there is no violence but is still wrestling.
Come to think about it, that would be rather hard to accomplish. Yes, it would be hard to distinguish from gay porn. 2 half-naked men in a ring, no violence. =/
Next thing we're going to see will be the porn industry trying to nurture a new generation of audience with the same method. It will be porn, but without the private parts shown and with the erotic moans muffled. The actors will be so discrete and everything will be so covered-up that you won't be able to tell that it's porn unless they say so.
Porn, for kids!
Reminds me of this video.
Unlike other games, Borderlands require the players to forward 4 ports in order to host online games. Quite troublesome but didn't cause further problems for me. Another complaint from me is that the chat messages appear on the right instead of the lower left corner of the screen which is the standard for 99% of the games I play.
Interestingly, it has no copyright protection at the moment. Players using original or pirated copies can all play online using GameSpy, a legit online gaming service.
If you're planning to host, you need to forward several ports beforehand so that other players can join your games. The ports are 7777(UDP and TCP), 29800(TCP), 28910(TCP), 27900(UDP). Your router's port forward menu should look something like this:
So WWE is "toning down" its violence to attract more children. Are they going to give us G-rated wrestling action? I know they said they've been keeping it PG, but that may not be enough. Why not have a WWE Kids, where there is no violence but is still wrestling.
Come to think about it, that would be rather hard to accomplish. Yes, it would be hard to distinguish from gay porn. 2 half-naked men in a ring, no violence. =/
Next thing we're going to see will be the porn industry trying to nurture a new generation of audience with the same method. It will be porn, but without the private parts shown and with the erotic moans muffled. The actors will be so discrete and everything will be so covered-up that you won't be able to tell that it's porn unless they say so.
Porn, for kids!
Reminds me of this video.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Rant 455 / Ain't No Rest For The Wicked
The Blackadder series is just amazing. No other series can make me literally LOL in every episode. Usually shows like Family Guy would just make me chuckle and smile, but Blackadder can be described as "one in a million". It's just that good.
If you buy coffee from this store, you get free fortune-reading services if you hand them your empty cup with the grounds at the bottom. I think euthanasia clinics can use such incentives too. I can almost see this on an advertisement: "Sign up to be euthanised at one of our clinics and get your fortunes told by certified soothsayers. Accuracy guaranteed or your money back!"
Right now the US economy is only just beginning to recover. Maybe it's a good time to buy their stuff. I mean, it can't possibly drop any more, right?
And RMB too, because they can't keep forcing its value down forever, right? Then again, it might just drop in the future.
I am untrustworthy. I always say yes under pressure, but whether I keep the promise is arbitrary. A math tutor in JC managed to discern this habit of mine and told me to change that, but I never did. It was an issue about homework, because like in most of my secondary school days, I rarely did my math tutorials in JC. Any warning they gave me were ignored that way, including his advise to change my habit of saying yes without meaning it.
I still haven't changed.
The second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is very much better than what I expected. In the first Chronicles, the bitter person is tortured by the beauty of the Land, convinced that it was a dream but so tantalizingly real. It pained him because he thought if he accepted the Land to be real, he would be insane. But it was so much better than living in the real world, where he was a leper and everyone hated him. In the Land, he was a hero and was magically cured of his leprosy. He wielded magic powers and everyone loved him no matter what he did to push them away. How could anyone not want to live in that situation? Hence the torture.
In the second Chronicles, he returned to a very different place. All that was good had turned bad, and the Sun seemed to be the greatest evil of all. It appeared all the beauty of the Land was gone, the people had forgotten their magical lores and the castle where the Lords resided had become the heart of evil.
In addition, a doctor from his world was brought to the Land along with him, which added to the mystery.
Only read half the book, but it's a real page-turner. Haven't had such a good reading experience since the first time I read A Song of Ice and Fire. I stopped only when I noticed that I was so tired I was having difficulty understanding what I was reading.
A 15-year-old girl was gangraped in front of about 20 people who watched and cheered. No one called the police.
The responsibility was diffused? They thought it was a joke? They thought someone had already called? They don't want to be caught snitching by the gang?
If the responsibility was diffused, it means some of them were thinking along the lines of "Who cares?"
If they thought it was a joke, then their jokes are obviously overboard, such that they can no longer tell practical jokes from actual crimes.
If a fire is raging in a building, everyone would call. A girl gets raped, no one calls. And they call Middle Eastern men in rural villages barbaric for not punishing rapists.
If they fear the gang that much, it reflects on the impotency of their law enforcement officers and how little confidence the masses have in them.
The bystanders were aware of the crime but did not report it to the police. Aren't they now accomplices and can be charged as such?
I know this is an extreme, but I also know this is not an isolated case. That this is even possible shows how moral people are. Furthermore, it shows how far people can go just to be "normal". If "normal" means raping a baby everyday, most would do it.
Ask yourself how many things you've been doing that you don't like but make you appear normal. Or rather, what have you done that does not conform with the norm?
No matter what you think you would do in such a situation, the above questions can be a good gauge (in my opinion) of how you would respond. You see, you won't have time to think, so the "you" who makes the decision will be your subconscious, your real self.
For example, if you're drinking at a bar and suddenly two guys start shouting at each other. Then one of them takes out a glass bottle and smashes it into the other's head repeatedly before running out of the bar.
Do you think you're going to be in the right state of mind to weigh the pros and cons of calling for help or stopping the fight? Do you think you'd want to mess with a guy who has that jagged piece of glass in his hand? Most likely, you're just going to stare and only think of "WTF?"
Better still, you may pull out your handphone and start recording. =/
Played a bit of Borderlands, a new game that's similar to Fallout 3 but seems more suited for consoles than the PC. It's a first-person shooter (FPS) set in a wasteland not very different from the Capital Wasteland.
Borderlands is not as serious as Fallout 3 and tries to be much cooler-looking. There is a multiplayer mode similar to L4D in which you join small games of 4 players using 4 different characters: Roland "the Soldier", Mordecai "the Hunter", Lilith "the Siren" and Brick.
So far I've only tried the Soldier, named Roland (default name, but editable). His special ability is the turret he can deploy for a minute or so. This turret comes with a small shield so that it acts as temporary fortification. This character can also heal by shooting allies and is proficient in medium range weapons like rifles and shotguns.
Unlike Fallout 3, this game can feel boring in solo mode. I think the problem lies in the lack of music and radio because Three Dogs and his songs were very entertaining by themselves. Now after playing Borderlands with its slow ambience music, I think listening to GNR is half the fun of playing Fallout 3.
Need to play online.
Compared to Fallout 3, Borderlands is more focused on the FPS side and less on RPG, while Fallout 3 is very much focused on its RPG side and its storyline. Also, side quests in Fallout 3 are usually more developed, eg with a background story. Those in Borderlands can sometimes have no relation to anything - they just tell you to do something and then you get rewarded for that.
And the song...
If you buy coffee from this store, you get free fortune-reading services if you hand them your empty cup with the grounds at the bottom. I think euthanasia clinics can use such incentives too. I can almost see this on an advertisement: "Sign up to be euthanised at one of our clinics and get your fortunes told by certified soothsayers. Accuracy guaranteed or your money back!"
Right now the US economy is only just beginning to recover. Maybe it's a good time to buy their stuff. I mean, it can't possibly drop any more, right?
And RMB too, because they can't keep forcing its value down forever, right? Then again, it might just drop in the future.
I am untrustworthy. I always say yes under pressure, but whether I keep the promise is arbitrary. A math tutor in JC managed to discern this habit of mine and told me to change that, but I never did. It was an issue about homework, because like in most of my secondary school days, I rarely did my math tutorials in JC. Any warning they gave me were ignored that way, including his advise to change my habit of saying yes without meaning it.
I still haven't changed.
The second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is very much better than what I expected. In the first Chronicles, the bitter person is tortured by the beauty of the Land, convinced that it was a dream but so tantalizingly real. It pained him because he thought if he accepted the Land to be real, he would be insane. But it was so much better than living in the real world, where he was a leper and everyone hated him. In the Land, he was a hero and was magically cured of his leprosy. He wielded magic powers and everyone loved him no matter what he did to push them away. How could anyone not want to live in that situation? Hence the torture.
In the second Chronicles, he returned to a very different place. All that was good had turned bad, and the Sun seemed to be the greatest evil of all. It appeared all the beauty of the Land was gone, the people had forgotten their magical lores and the castle where the Lords resided had become the heart of evil.
In addition, a doctor from his world was brought to the Land along with him, which added to the mystery.
Only read half the book, but it's a real page-turner. Haven't had such a good reading experience since the first time I read A Song of Ice and Fire. I stopped only when I noticed that I was so tired I was having difficulty understanding what I was reading.
A 15-year-old girl was gangraped in front of about 20 people who watched and cheered. No one called the police.
The responsibility was diffused? They thought it was a joke? They thought someone had already called? They don't want to be caught snitching by the gang?
If the responsibility was diffused, it means some of them were thinking along the lines of "Who cares?"
If they thought it was a joke, then their jokes are obviously overboard, such that they can no longer tell practical jokes from actual crimes.
If a fire is raging in a building, everyone would call. A girl gets raped, no one calls. And they call Middle Eastern men in rural villages barbaric for not punishing rapists.
If they fear the gang that much, it reflects on the impotency of their law enforcement officers and how little confidence the masses have in them.
The bystanders were aware of the crime but did not report it to the police. Aren't they now accomplices and can be charged as such?
I know this is an extreme, but I also know this is not an isolated case. That this is even possible shows how moral people are. Furthermore, it shows how far people can go just to be "normal". If "normal" means raping a baby everyday, most would do it.
Ask yourself how many things you've been doing that you don't like but make you appear normal. Or rather, what have you done that does not conform with the norm?
No matter what you think you would do in such a situation, the above questions can be a good gauge (in my opinion) of how you would respond. You see, you won't have time to think, so the "you" who makes the decision will be your subconscious, your real self.
For example, if you're drinking at a bar and suddenly two guys start shouting at each other. Then one of them takes out a glass bottle and smashes it into the other's head repeatedly before running out of the bar.
Do you think you're going to be in the right state of mind to weigh the pros and cons of calling for help or stopping the fight? Do you think you'd want to mess with a guy who has that jagged piece of glass in his hand? Most likely, you're just going to stare and only think of "WTF?"
Better still, you may pull out your handphone and start recording. =/
Played a bit of Borderlands, a new game that's similar to Fallout 3 but seems more suited for consoles than the PC. It's a first-person shooter (FPS) set in a wasteland not very different from the Capital Wasteland.
Borderlands is not as serious as Fallout 3 and tries to be much cooler-looking. There is a multiplayer mode similar to L4D in which you join small games of 4 players using 4 different characters: Roland "the Soldier", Mordecai "the Hunter", Lilith "the Siren" and Brick.
So far I've only tried the Soldier, named Roland (default name, but editable). His special ability is the turret he can deploy for a minute or so. This turret comes with a small shield so that it acts as temporary fortification. This character can also heal by shooting allies and is proficient in medium range weapons like rifles and shotguns.
Unlike Fallout 3, this game can feel boring in solo mode. I think the problem lies in the lack of music and radio because Three Dogs and his songs were very entertaining by themselves. Now after playing Borderlands with its slow ambience music, I think listening to GNR is half the fun of playing Fallout 3.
Need to play online.
Compared to Fallout 3, Borderlands is more focused on the FPS side and less on RPG, while Fallout 3 is very much focused on its RPG side and its storyline. Also, side quests in Fallout 3 are usually more developed, eg with a background story. Those in Borderlands can sometimes have no relation to anything - they just tell you to do something and then you get rewarded for that.
And the song...
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Rant 454 / I Feel Like Eating Curry After Typing This Rant But It's Now 10PM.
Even though I set my aircon to 26 degrees and the fan speed at 2 out of 5 bars, my thermometer is reading 23 degrees. I guess it really doesn't matter what temperature I set because it feels no different even when it's set to 17 degrees.
Again, half the book was quite different from the other half. The first half described their journey to the Node, a space station where they were told the purpose of their trip - that the aliens were collecting data of all creatures that were capable of space travel. Then they were instructed to return to Earth to bring back 2000 more humans for further observations and tests.
This half was all about new aliens and stuff. At one point the doctor was even allowed to communicate with an aquatic eel-like alien whose civilization had been spacefaring for thousands of years.
The next half of the book was more about how the humans behaved during the journey. Pretty ugly, not very interesting except for the part where it was found that the flying aliens from Rama II was actually in a symbiotic relationship with two other species. They were almost wiped out by a war started by the mob boss (he took control of the colony by killing the original leader) who needed to distract the people from their other problems, but a few eggs were saved and taken elsewhere.
All these time, another species of aliens they called the "octospiders" were watching the carnage. Regular reports were also sent from the ship back to "the collective intelligence" behind the Node.
It is in Rama Revealed that another moral issue is shown. In the octospider society, there are 2 sides - chaos and order. Octospiders who have agreed to take a certain drug to stop sexual maturity live in the peaceful part, where there are strict laws and his/her role in the society is carefully planned out. These octospiders are healthier, safer and have a very long life expectancy.
Those who prefer to have more freedom would have to choose to mature sexually at a certain age and they would live in a separate part of the society where their life expectancy will be very short, but have a more intense life.
In this, it seems they believe that sexuality is the root of all desire. It can appear so at times for us humans too, since many of our problems come from this inborn instinct to find the best possible mating partner.
But I don't see how sexuality is the cause of all our problems. If we are completely uninterested in sex, would we stop being greedy, selfish and etc? No, being greedy is necessary to promote competition among humans, thus forcing us to evolve into fitter people. "Survival of the fittest" always applies in life, whether "the fittest" is referring to one or many.
What I think is that the root of all problems is desire. Quite Buddhist, this view. But going further, I think that the mother of all desire is the desire for satisfaction. Or is it happiness? Aristotle claimed that desire for happiness is the mother of all desires, and he's a smart guy. But even Einstein made major mistakes, so he can be wrong about this.
Would you do something that makes you happy, yet unsatisfied?
Would you do something that satisfies you but not make you happy?
How can a person be happy and not satisfied, or vice versa?
An example can be this: if you were expecting to score an A+ but got an A- instead, you may be happy without being satisfied. Maybe this isn't such a good example, since you can also be satisfied without being happy.
I had at first thought of using revenge to illustrate the second case, but seeing someone I dislike fail in what they do can sometimes be one of the greater joys of life.
Hmm...
So it seems curry kills cancer cells. I can already see future cancer treatment including curry baths as part of the procedure. Imagine, soaking in a jacuzzi of therapeutic sterilized chicken curry, with an assortment of chicken wings, drumsticks and potatoes around your butt as you sit in the tub with a plate of Mutton Bryani resting on the side.
Joy.
Just don't fart. You don't want to eat curry that tastes even remotely like shit.
Double entendres are funny.
============
Spoiler Alert!
============
Rama II ended with the doctor, the engineer and the communications officer flying in Rama towards deep space. Garden of Rama picked up from here and got even more interesting. So far this third book is the best of the three that I've finished reading.Spoiler Alert!
============
Again, half the book was quite different from the other half. The first half described their journey to the Node, a space station where they were told the purpose of their trip - that the aliens were collecting data of all creatures that were capable of space travel. Then they were instructed to return to Earth to bring back 2000 more humans for further observations and tests.
This half was all about new aliens and stuff. At one point the doctor was even allowed to communicate with an aquatic eel-like alien whose civilization had been spacefaring for thousands of years.
The next half of the book was more about how the humans behaved during the journey. Pretty ugly, not very interesting except for the part where it was found that the flying aliens from Rama II was actually in a symbiotic relationship with two other species. They were almost wiped out by a war started by the mob boss (he took control of the colony by killing the original leader) who needed to distract the people from their other problems, but a few eggs were saved and taken elsewhere.
All these time, another species of aliens they called the "octospiders" were watching the carnage. Regular reports were also sent from the ship back to "the collective intelligence" behind the Node.
It is in Rama Revealed that another moral issue is shown. In the octospider society, there are 2 sides - chaos and order. Octospiders who have agreed to take a certain drug to stop sexual maturity live in the peaceful part, where there are strict laws and his/her role in the society is carefully planned out. These octospiders are healthier, safer and have a very long life expectancy.
Those who prefer to have more freedom would have to choose to mature sexually at a certain age and they would live in a separate part of the society where their life expectancy will be very short, but have a more intense life.
In this, it seems they believe that sexuality is the root of all desire. It can appear so at times for us humans too, since many of our problems come from this inborn instinct to find the best possible mating partner.
===================
End of spoiler.
===================
End of spoiler.
===================
But I don't see how sexuality is the cause of all our problems. If we are completely uninterested in sex, would we stop being greedy, selfish and etc? No, being greedy is necessary to promote competition among humans, thus forcing us to evolve into fitter people. "Survival of the fittest" always applies in life, whether "the fittest" is referring to one or many.
What I think is that the root of all problems is desire. Quite Buddhist, this view. But going further, I think that the mother of all desire is the desire for satisfaction. Or is it happiness? Aristotle claimed that desire for happiness is the mother of all desires, and he's a smart guy. But even Einstein made major mistakes, so he can be wrong about this.
Would you do something that makes you happy, yet unsatisfied?
Would you do something that satisfies you but not make you happy?
How can a person be happy and not satisfied, or vice versa?
An example can be this: if you were expecting to score an A+ but got an A- instead, you may be happy without being satisfied. Maybe this isn't such a good example, since you can also be satisfied without being happy.
I had at first thought of using revenge to illustrate the second case, but seeing someone I dislike fail in what they do can sometimes be one of the greater joys of life.
Hmm...
So it seems curry kills cancer cells. I can already see future cancer treatment including curry baths as part of the procedure. Imagine, soaking in a jacuzzi of therapeutic sterilized chicken curry, with an assortment of chicken wings, drumsticks and potatoes around your butt as you sit in the tub with a plate of Mutton Bryani resting on the side.
Joy.
Just don't fart. You don't want to eat curry that tastes even remotely like shit.
Double entendres are funny.
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