The Preserver

I recall an elderly man from my childhood. He could always be found on a bench overlooking the main lake of the park. On days of fair weather people tended to gather about the lake, feeding the ducks.

Often when I looked up I could see him sketching away on a notepad. Sometimes he merely observed. When I was a child I was more curious, and at many times wondered what the old man was drawing. Was he sketching the same thing daily? How boring! Or did he switch subjects all the time, secretly taking notes like a spy?

One day I got up to the small overlook. He did not seem to mind me. Peeping from behind the bench, I then saw that he was drawing people, or more specifically, the people down at the lake. They were rough sketches, quickly drawn, and every few minutes or so he would flip the pages of the notepad and begin drawing another subject.

"Why are you drawing everyone? Are you a spy?"

He did not give me an instant reply. It was only after he completed the current drawing that he spoke, seemingly to himself and not addressed to me.

"In 100 years time how many will be remembered? In 200 years time, perhaps the only evidence that they ever existed will be my drawings."

It was many tens of years ago when my family moved away. I did not see him again after we moved; I supposed he must have died.

I wonder if anyone else remembers him today. Perhaps the only evidence that he ever existed is from this very story.

Mental Laziness

There are some people who don't seem to know two hoots about anything of importance; not the name of the people running the country, nor of the workings of the world, nor of matters of common sense. You can't discuss literature with them, nor argue philosophy. And we think, how vacuous their minds are, perhaps not by any lack of capacity or ability, but by a strain of mental laziness, of a reluctance to examine.

But then we tend to endear ourselves to the idea of an absent-minded professor, someone so deep in thought that daily life seems to be neglected. He does not know about social graces or modern dresses, and has little opinion about food and gossip. But by some measure is this not also mental laziness? Is the neglect of the mundane considered a less troubling instance of laziness?

Maybe we should get off our high horses. Perhaps those who know naught about "higher things" are truly ignorant idiots in some sense, but then again, we are quite the same in other senses.

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.

Bamboo Charcoal

A friend recently expressed his interest in buying a bamboo charcoal product, which was said to be able to reduce electromagnetic waves and radiation emitted from daily electronic products such as monitors. I gave him a dressing down.

It is pseudoscience, I said. It only requires a basic understanding of physics to know that the product cannot achieve what it pretends to do. Buy a lead sheet, and that would be more effective at blocking radiation.

A simple test for detecting pseudoscience products is to ask whether there is a plausible mechanism for action. If the action of the product cannot be explained, that it is no different from a magic bauble. If one thinks that a bag of bamboo charcoal, placed somewhere near the monitor, is somehow able to attract and absorb the electromagnetic radiation, then one must either presume that the bamboo charcoal is a black hole, hence bending local space to redirect the path of radiation, or has an immense electromagnetic field by which to alter the waves. This does not seem sound.

It might improve health, or at least the perception of health, by the placebo effect. But then again, after my cruel lecture, even that effect may be lost.

Page Flipping in the Lecture Halls

One lecturer likes to provide lecture notes consisting of many slides. As it is costly to print out that many number of pages, most students fit multiple slides onto a single page to reduce the number of pages needed.

A useful consequence of fitting multiple slides on one page is that one only needs to flip the page every X slides, where X is the number of slides on one page. This itself leads to the interesting phenomenon of there being a loud series of page flipping sounds every X slides, since most students need to flip the page to get to the next slide.

One day, I fell asleep during the lecture. I was awoken by the sound of page flipping. Apparently, the lecturer had just advanced past a slide. No worries, time to pay attention. The lecturer continued to teach, and slowly finished two more slides. Another loud series of page flipping sounds echoed through the lecture hall. Then he taught another slide, and when he was done many students began flipping their pages as well.

Glancing about myself, I suddenly realized that students tended to fit 4, 6, and 9 pages onto a slide. And, knowing that the lecturer had not taught past slide 50, I was able to deduce which slide the lecturer was on when I woke up.

Requirements of Knowledge

I have made several mistakes in my thinking. Perhaps the arguments do not seem wrong, but that itself is irrelevant, for one does not need to be correct to seem correct; sufficient style is often able to make up for substance insufficient.

The key error is that my arguments follow from my position. If so, reason serves not to seek the truth, but to support whatever stand that has been chosen. This is not correct. Instead, the reverse method should be adopted, and a position decided based upon facts and reason.

To increase objectivity even for subjective affairs, I propose to first define a set of criteria by which one would be convinced or doubtful of a certain position. Often it is too easy to be mired in a debate where both sides have reasonable but not fully convincing arguments, where it is difficult to objectively and consistently weight both sides.