A Medical Device

In one of the less reputable corners of the market was a shop run by a poorly dressed doctor. He sold a variety of magnet-based therapeutic devices which were effective at treating all sorts of illnesses (primarily non-existent ones).

His greatest contribution to medicine was a sort of soft mesh hat with many small woven pockets, each of which could accommodate an equally diminutive magnet. By carefully manipulating the pattern of the magnets, the device could pattern and store a new memory in the brain.

Unfortunately, the device had at least two flaws. First, there was no effect when the hat was not worn. 

Now, I could joke that the second flaw was that the hat also had no effect when it was worn! But I would be quite dishonest to claim that. Having tested the device myself, I can confirm that wearing the hat did impose a new memory to the wearer. I recall that it was quite an uncomfortable fit.

The Great Race

The papers were plastered with celebratory headlines proclaiming the race worthy of history and the victory a miracle. By some accounts, this was one of  the great underdog victories of all time- though needless to mention neither of the involved animals was a canine.

While the kingdom was enraptured with romantic notions of a triumph against impossible odds, those who watched the actual race described it as a slow and plodding snooze-fest.

In the weeks after, there were rumors that match-fixing was responsible for the upset. The tabloids reported a sizzling exposé based on accounts from two unnamed eyewitnesses, though the local bookmakers denied any foul play and dismissed such talk as "a cock and bull story". The bookmakers subsequently issued a public apology for making unwarranted racial comments.

After much investigation, no trace of any wrongdoing was found. The lopsided result was ruled to be entirely due to a "hare-brained race strategy".

Random Thoughts on Tobacco Labels and the Sugar Tax

I'm not quite sure how effective including gory graphic warnings of the various unsavory outcomes of smoking on cigarette packets is. People who smoke, I would assume, are already aware of the countless health issues associated with smoking and thus would have, at some point of time, made the conscious decision to continue smoking. Thus, including the graphic reminder would add very little to challenge their decision if they had previously found the trade-off between their health and smoking to be, if not acceptable, at least tolerable.

Of course, it may be argued that the warnings, while ineffective on the hardened smoker, could yet serve to discourage budding smokers or smokers-to-be. However, I would imagine that social pressure is one of the reasons for picking up smoking, and if so, the health warnings would do little to overcome this cause. If anything, knowing about the risk-taking behavior of young punks, the gory graphic warnings would paradoxically enhance the emasculating image of smoking.

I've said it as a joke, but possibly the graphic warnings could be replaced with alternative imagery, preferably something deeply embarrassing that nobody would want to be seen with. My first thought was something pink and frilly, but that might boost sales in the wrong demographics. A safer bet would be pictures of old wrinkly ladies or dung beetles.

I could be entirely wrong, and graphic warnings could be extremely effective. In that case, I suppose we could adopt the same tactics on the war on diabetes. Instead of a sugar tax, we simply stick pictures of diabetics on every pack of sugary drink or snack. This would surely be more effective than a "Healthier Choice" logo!

Not Just an Uncle

At the void deck, the old uncle sat with one leg propped on the stone stool. He wasn't playing chess nor checkers, and he wasn't eating winter melon seeds nor sipping kopi out of a plastic bag. He just sat there, almost motionlessly staring into the distance. I then caught a fleeting glint in his eyes-  then I knew. This was no mere old uncle that partook in the decadent activities typical of his generation. No, this was a supreme martial arts expert secretly practicing and honing his skills in public. 

The question was, whether he knew that I knew. I detected no killing aura on him, but true experts are known to be able to hide their auras.  Then again, perhaps he didn't mind being discovered, and that this was some sort of game to him.

As I walked past him, he flashed a toothy grin. "Walk carefully, the ground is slippery." he called out from behind me.  Was this a threat? I didn't know. I did the only thing I could- I walked faster. Stride by stride, I distanced myself from the void deck, yet I could still an immense pressure from behind me. 

A few seconds later, the old uncle flashed past me on his electric scooter, his few strands of hair flowing majestically against the wind.

A Sound in the Night

You should be concerned whenever you feel a chill upon your spine, and yet search around to find nothing that could have triggered it. And if the sense of dread increases further, get out. Perhaps not too suddenly and quickly, but quickly enough. 

A silly notion, you might say, to be flustered over nothing. Nothing but foolish fear, to be dispelled and ignored. But is it really so? A fear is simply an evolved reaction to a stimulus, very often a dangerous one. Our ancestors that feared things that ought to be feared survived. 

And those who did not fear did not live to pass on their bravery. 

Now, reason might tell us what is the source and cause of the fear, and its danger. But sometimes reason fails to adequately identify or understand. Nonetheless, deep in our bones, we know that something is amiss. 

Rather than cowardice, fear is an ancestral danger sense. To ignore it would be folly.

Something Bought at a Convenience Store

Nowadays, you can buy a name at any local convenience store. Fairly good ones too, certified auspicious according to the various nomancy guidelines. Those names are not customized, but they'll do fine in a pinch, and at their mass-market price point there's not much to complain about.

In fact, I just bought a name as I was buying breakfast on the way to work earlier this morning. Certainly, it's not something that's an absolute necessity- with this new addition, I have about seventeen names in total- but we can't always live on the basis of necessity, can we?  In any case, the new name happened to be a middle name, which could easily be inserted into my existing names. 

What a thoughtful product! It was certainly an improvement on earlier versions, where only first (or worse, last) names were offered, leading to complaints from confused customers.

While nobody was looking during work, I logged on to my favorite nomacy website and keyed in my updated name. Immediately, countless complex calculations were performed remotely and their results transferred and displayed onto my screen. The predictions on various types of luck were indicated in green and red, foretelling fortune and misfortune respectively. 

My new name, it seemed, did not affect my fortunes in a manner that I had hoped. There were some minor improvements in luck here and there, but on a whole the effect was marginal at best. It was well known that there were diminishing returns to adding further names. There were examples of people who benefited significantly from having thirty or even fifty names, but many of those people employed experts to design their names. I would just have to be happy with my convenience store-bought name.

The Importance of Regular Maintenance of Property

The president was waving an origami sword at me in a menacing fashion. Although he was left-handed, he was wielding the deadly weapon with his right hand; immediately, I understood that he was reserving his true power for a later moment, and that he was not yet being serious. There was still a chance for me to get out of here alive. 

"I will give you a chance to learn why you must die here," he said while moving his sword into an attack stance.

I could have performed a sudden sneak attack at this moment by flexing my legs and launching my shoes at the president, but it would most probably have failed. Because I had taken a shortcut through a muddy footpath on the way to the clubroom, my shoes were weighted with mud, and thus any attack made with my shoes, although more powerful due to the added weight, would also be too slow and easily blocked or deflected.

W-wait- did the president anticipate this, and chose this particular date and time to attack? But he could not have known that I would take the shortcut across the muddy footpath.

"You bastard!" the president spat, "It seems like you think you have done nothing wrong. It looks like there's simply no way we can coexist. I can't forgive anyone without a proper sense of time. "

I looked at my watch. What was he talking about? I had arrived five minutes in advance of my club meeting. Could my watch be wrong- oh no!

In the moment that I was glancing at my watch, he had started his attack sequence, and was now moving impossibly quickly towards me! I had made a fatal mistake! I tried to dodge, but it was too late to avoid his well-practiced strike!

The origami sword crumpled against my the pocket of my uniform, but the weapon had done its job and inflicted untold amounts of piercing damage to me. I collapsed to the floor. 

"There are only two times in life. Now, and too late. You can only blame yourself.

Time of death- 310pm. 310pm !?"

As my consciousness faded, my last thing I saw was the president staring at the clock mounted on the wall of the clubroom.

Wise Words of a Fee-losopher

You can do it. Not talking about me, I'm talking about you. Whatever you want to be, I believe you can do it.

It's true.

One caveat: You must choose to act.

Those were the words of wisdom taught to me by a fee-losopher. Unlike normal philosophers, fee-losophers charged dearly for their insights. You get what you pay for, and thus the advice of fee-losophers was held in higher regard than that of the amateurish philosophers. 

I did not initially believe the smooth-faced man before me. Belief alone was insufficient. I knew- I had tried many times believing, but no change was wrought. My goals were not being met. It was precisely this desperation that I had sought out the help of the fee-losophers.

"How do I become a ninja turtle?" I had asked the wise man. And he answered, though I was reluctant to trust him.

"Very well. I shall demonstrate," he spoke, sensing my hesitation. 

His preparations were meticulous, to say the least. Dabbing his face with generous globs of green camoflague cream, and then putting on a turtle shell costume, the fee-losopher quickly began to resemble a ninja turtle in appearance. 

"Now watch closely, as I will begin my demonstration."

It was a miracle. Before me no longer stood a human, but a ninja turtle performing all sorts of advanced martial acrobatics. 

And then he stopped, and once more became a green-faced man dressed in a funny suit.  

"H-how did you do this, MASTER!?"

He only grinned. 

"Did you not listen closely? One caveat: You must choose to act.

You must hone your acting skills!"

My Friend Edmond

Memories are fallible. Personally, I think it's sad that very often, we don't even know what we've forgotten. Instead, what we are left with is a vague sense of emptiness, a fleeting notion of an event or thought that was once important.

My friend Edmond disagrees.

"Our lives are like a cheque. We live only once, acquiring whatever value possible from our experiences. And, at the end of the day, our memories inscribe our final value onto the fields of the cheque, in ink black and bold.

In the end, the ink eventually fades. And so, as our experiences vanish, the meaning of our lives disappear.

On the other hand, a blank cheque is incredibly tempting, particularly if nobody remembers what was written..."

In hindsight, I can't actually recall how I came to befriend Edmond.

Practice makes Perfect

Practice makes perfect, so they say. In general, that's true; at the very least, it's difficult to become worse with repeated practice.

I work hard, and train everyday. My skill of choice? Lying. 

Now, the problem is that you can't simply lie alone. Lying to a wall, or to an inanimate object, isn't lying- that's called neurosis. You need someone else to lie to. 

Practice makes perfect; so my lies became better and harder to detect. The downer? Practice makes perfect; everyone got better at seeing through my lies.

All in all, I think I lost more through practice than if I had just slept everyday.

Sleep

Actually, humans don't need to sleep. If you practice, you can survive without sleep. I learned of the secret technique when sleeping.

The theory is sound; If you accumlate enough sleep, you don't need more sleep. The typical novice approaches this by sleeping in preparation for not-sleeping. Clearly, this method is quite lousy !

The question is what is the best way to sleep. The secret is:

When you are sleeping, dream also that you are sleeping. Therefore, in a single moment of time, you have 2x the amount of sleep. Once that is mastered, when sleeping, you can dream that you are sleeping and dreaming of sleeping. In that case, 3x the amount of sleep is obtained.

It suffices to say that with practice, this method can be improved to infinity. One nap is enough to last you forever!

Happiness Drugs

There are a certain few drugs that can alter brain chemistry, temporarily granting feelings of happiness and euphoria. The problem is that after a period of use, the body builds up a resistance to those chemicals, and the drugs lose effectiveness. A higher dosage is necessary to compensate for the acquired tolerance. There are two main problems associated with this. First, the acquired resistance persists, even after a long window of time. Second, frequent use of these substances produces the contrary effect of making you feel miserable when you're not on the drug.

I am thinking of a ridiculous but somewhat plausible idea. Let's consume pain-causing pills that simulate the chemical receptors associated with pain, in the hope that the body builds up resistance to the pain signaling chemicals. If the body's mechanisms work in a similar fashion, after a period of use, the body would be more tolerant to pain, even in the absence of the pain-causing drugs.

Similarly, let's create sadness-causing drugs. Then, after a period of acclimatization, by stopping the drug-regime, we would be in a state of anti-sadness (happiness?).

Gifting

If I recall correctly, gifting is a practice that has negative overall utility. Prior experiments found that recipients of gifts tended to discount the value of the gift; for example, if a gift had cost $10, they deemed the gift to be worth less than $10. Perhaps unsurprising, given that gifts have a poor record of being exactly what people want. In the optimal case, gifts are exactly what you want, in which case nothing is gained over the case where you spend the money to acquire the item directly. In the worst case, you receive rubbish (from your point-of-view) and are worse off.

My analysis suffers from an assumption, which may be untrue. It assumes that the costs of gifts are equal for all people, i.e. you can't get the same gift at a lower cost than I can. However, sometimes this assumption is untrue. If one is able to obtain items at a discounted cost, then gifting makes sense. For example, if I were an artist, it is preferable to give people my artwork, since it does not cost me as much to 'buy' it as it does others. An alternative possibility is to gift others with items that you value poorly with respect to their generally perceived value; for instance if you hate bananas and happen to have some bananas, giving others the bananas is likely to improve the overall utility of the gifting scheme.

To summarize:

1. Gifting is generally bad for everyone, unless,
2. You give people something that you have a competitive advantage in procuring, or
3. You give people stuff you hate.

 I find the third conclusion particularly interesting. I believe it should be combined with the conclusions from my previous article on "Free Gifts".

The True Purpose of Free Gifts

There are some pedants who claim that the phrase "Free Gift" is bad English. Their line of argument is that gifts are by definition free, and hence the modifier "free" is redundant. Unfortunately, their insistence on such strict interpretations and usage of terms results them arriving at precisely the wrong conclusion.

Consider the following phrase, "$2 gift". Pedants would claim a contradiction, but it is clear to the astute mind that it is in fact valid. The word "free" does not modify the cost of the gift to the recipient, but rather the cost of the gift to the giver. In the proper context, it means that the gift is valued at $2, or costs $2 for the giver to buy.

There are two implications of the previous conclusion. The first possibility is that the "free gift" presented by the store or merchant costs nothing for the merchant to give. While this is true in some circumstances, for example crap freebies like pens, in general free gifts do cost a small yet substantial amount. This brings us to the second possibility, that the "free gift" is free (for you), but it is meant to be used as a gift. What this means is that free gifts are not supposed to be kept and used by yourself, but rather to be given away to plague people you disfavor. 

Half of the World is Below Average

Actually, it is incorrect to say that half of the world is below average. This confuses the statistical notions of average and median.

It is more correct to say that half of the world is below median.

What an entirely pedantic and useless correction.

Alternatives to Platform Screen Doors

Instead of installing platform screen doors for MRT stations, there are flashier alternatives. Effectiveness is not guaranteed, except in terms of dramatic terms.

It is not necessary to install complex door mechanisms that open with each aligned train carriage. My research finds that massively electrified fences have a greater deterrent effect against people attempting to commit suicide by jumping onto the train tracks in the face of oncoming trains. Not only does it serve as a physical barrier, it also serves as an active barrier! A further benefit is that it can coral recalcitrant idiots that refuse to line properly for the trains. Of course, some may ask how people may board the trains with the electrified fences in play; it is obvious, simply disable the electric supply to allow people to climb the fence when the trains arrive!

Another great idea is to line the platform with fountains dispensing vertical columns of fire. With this feature, commuters can barbecue food while waiting for the next train to arrive. The columns of flame also serve as cheap lighting during the evening. One crucial point to note while implementing this system is to ensure that the flames are turned all the way up, otherwise people may actually land on the train tracks while not being totally incinerated. We don't want people to die after being crushed by oncoming trains, do we?

A Tale of Madness

It was first reported in the papers of some minor nation, and even then it was treated as a matter of trifling importance; A man wielding two blood-soaked cleavers was seen walking down the major shopping district, muttering "This is a boring day."

What historical records remain note that his final words were "Tomorrow will be more exciting."

A lot of tomorrows later, there were many who looked similar to the Man. These creatures had a brain, 2 ears, a mouth and a pairs of eyes - furiously, furiously bloodshot. And in fervor they rampaged.

The world seemed doomed. They were everywhere. But one day, a solitary hero, one man by himself, stood up to these creatures. The final battle was in a large gorge. No one truly knows what happened, but it is rumored that a loud bellow was heard echoing from the valley.... "I LOVE PEACE !!!"

"REST IN PEACE MOTHERFUCKERS!"

A button was punched on an unimpressive looking outdated Nokia handphone. As a monophonic ringtone played, a flurry of warheads freed themselves from their respective pads scattered across the globe.

Then it rained drizzles of missiles and nuclear clouds bloomed everywhere one after another in the unfolding of the last day of Mankind of Earth.

---

Pilfered from a collaborative story with an incredibly insane inkblot.

Stone Soup

There once was a town which was ravaged by a harsh winter. Food was scarce, and everyone kept and hid whatever supplies that they had.

It was during this period of great scarcity that a tramp passed through the town. Curiously, the tramp trod to the town center and began boiling a pot of water. Within the pot lay a stone.

One townsman, being sufficiently perplexed by this weird occurrence, approached the tramp and inquired about the contents of the pot. To this question, the tramp replied that he was making a marvelous pot of stone soup. However, the soup would taste better with additional ingredients.

The townsman, tempted by the strange soup, decided to contribute. And so, in went some potatoes which the townsman had previously saved. The other townspeople, being similarly curious, followed suit, each adding their items to the pot.

Eventually, the pot of soup, now endowed with many ingredients, came to a boil. Unfortunately, the uncoordinated mess of random contributions resulted in a terrible soup which tasted like sewage. Deeply angered by this act of deception, the townspeople lynched the tramp and used his flesh to make a fresh pot of soup.

Conventional Moral:

Too many cooks make crap soup.

Philosophical Moral:

It is a mistake to believe that all properties of things are additive.

How to Argue Effectively

This is a quick tutorial on how to argue effectively. Most people fail to argue effectively due to a lack of professional training or relevant experience in the matter; however, this can be quickly corrected with some mental pointers.

A key factor behind argumentative failure is a lack of focus into the aims of the argument, and consequently, the use of arguing methods unsuited to achieve those aims. The untrained arguer uses the same methods for all occasions, a mistake that often leads to frustration.

People may argue with one or more of the following three aims in mind. Each aim may best be pursued with a different method.

1. To Convince Another Of One's Views
One common aim is to convince another of one's views. It may be to convert another person to adopt one's views, or to get the other to perform some action according to one's suggestions. The motive here is to convert or subvert.

The untrained may attempt to use logical reasoning to achieve the task, but this is an extremely poor and inefficient method. Rather, sophism should be employed. Sophism is a style that employs the prejudices and emotions of the other to achieve the goal of conversion. Logic and reason are not necessary; in fact most people tend to be wary of such things. A brilliant and convincing statement often trumps the effects of any factual inaccuracy or logical inconsistency.

2. For Personal Satisfaction
The other common purpose of argument is as a vehicle of personal satisfaction. Pseudo-dominance is often established through verbal sparring, with the corresponding trophies of pride and bragging rights.

Most people fare decently here, but those that fail to understand their motives earn only frustration. Once again, logical reasoning is barely useful here; logic sometimes adds to the smug satisfaction of ridiculing the other, but it is too inefficient a weapon. The proper method is to attack the opponent's being. Personal attacks that are relevant should be employed with the aim of triggering an satisfying negative reaction in the other. Other underhanded methods of offense can similarly be considered.

3. To Explore A Topic
Logic is best used in cold and calm situations where the aim is to arrive at wise conclusions. Unfortunately, nobody really argues for the sake of gaining greater wisdom, not in today's age. Thus, we can safely ignore this rare category of argument.

I hope that after this very brief tutorial, the reader would have obtained a greater understanding of the tactics and strategies used in arguing, and such understanding subsequently put to use for the greater(!) benefit of society.

Marital Conversion

I recently read an extremely long Facebook post on a certain issue, which, upon my analysis, seemed to be more trivial than I first thought. I present the issue below.

If one day your girlfriend or fiance were to make the following demand of you to choose one of the two following options,

A) Believe in X
B) Break up

,where X is some possible belief (for instance, the moon is made of cheese or flowers are nice smelling), what would you do?

The problem seems trivial. I present the following flowchart as aid for those who are unable to discover an satisfactory solution.