/s, The Tool of the Witless

I loathe the sarcasm flag, /s. I find it often follows witless and offensive comments, where the /s is somehow wielded as a shield against further criticism.

If it is offensive to make a certain comment, I think that appending a '/s' to it hardly changes the quality of the message.

Fireworks on the New Year

Between the present, the past, and the future, he was sure he preferred the past. Perhaps all people on occasion feel the same pangs of nostalgia, and that he differed only in degree. It was thus surprising to see him at the bay on New Year's Eve, awaiting the fireworks at the knoll of the bell.

He smiled as a courtesy, but said little. When the countdown ended, fireworks rocketed through the sky and crackled with their multicoloured intensity.

It was only much later when I learned, entirely by coincidence, that the reactions within fireworks are not instantaneous; rather, it takes some time to fire. Thus, if the fireworks appear to immediately after the countdown, it could have actually been fired in advance at some known interval.

He wasn't celebrating the beginning of the new Year as we all did, but the passing of the old. But then again, perhaps we all were, simply that we didn't know it.

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 Personal Writing Challenge 2

Last year, I challenged myself to write a hundred words a day.

I succeeded, though with no assurances on quality. In 2011, I wrote 40239 words for the challenge over the span of 11 months. Averaged over the year, that's 110 words a day, though there were 3 months where I wrote less than 100 words a day.

This year, I aim to write more than the last.

Meaningful Poster

There were a few colorful posters pasted over the pillars of the Engineering canteen. They were pretty well designed, nice choice of color, good typography.

Then I read the message, "Please print or use both sides of papers. Save the Earth" (contents not verbatim). I was not impressed.

I had the strong urge to rip part of the poster off to see if it was printed on the other side.

A Personal Writing Challenge

In line with my recent belief that work-rate is almost everything, I've decided to challenge myself with a personal writing challenge. The goal is modest.

I'll write 100 words a day for 2011.

Therefore I'll end up with at least 36,500 words at the end of the year, if things work out. It doesn't matter if most of it is crap, as the goal is to increase the work-rate and sieve out the good stuff afterwards.

To keep track of my progress I'm including my current progress in my blog sidebar. This will be updated regularly, unless I fall seriously behind.

It'll be interesting to see how far this goes.

The Woman with the Scowling Lip

She seemed to have a lower lip that was somewhat larger than her upper lip; the lower lip appeared to protrude ungracefully outwards. The lips seemed ready to pull itself into an easy scowl or frown; on a whole, it was a face that lent itself to unhappiness.

Perhaps her scowling lips were not born of a natural asymmetry, but rather acquired by dour habit. After all, one's moods affect one's looks, and vice versa.

Portents of the Year to Come

Though I do not seriously believe in astrology, I did note the prediction for the Rat for the Lunar Year during the Countdown programme. One piece of advice that was given was, "Be careful with money and investments, beware of scams".

Prophetically, at 6:10 am, not even 400 minutes into the new year, I received an SMS. The contents of the SMS are reproduced below:

Congratulations! Your mobile phone no.has won (GBP) 560, 000 pounds in the ongoing Nokia UK promo. For claims, call +44702407 & email: claimprize@europe.com

Thanks to celestial advice I will not be taking up this otherwise fabulous offer.

Observations During the Safari Zoo Run

Yesterday, I participated in the Safari Zoo Run '10. It was a run of intermediate distance (6.2km) through the Night Safari and the Singapore Zoo. The route wasn't perfect, with some uneven terrain near the end, and a lot of slopes (minor and major) during some parts of the run. Still, despite my relative lack of training (consider 4 years of no exercise and perhaps 4 weeks of running prior), my run timing was more than satisfactory from my own perspective (42 mins).

Though the attraction of the event was ostensibly being able to view the animals while running, I actually found the fellow runners to be of more interest. Some observations made during the run:

1) The Japanese Trio: There was a group of three Japanese runners, each armed with a digital camera. One of their member would sprint perhaps 100m ahead, and take a photo when the group caught up. Another member would then himself run 100m ahead to take the next photo. In such a leapfrog fashion, they managed to capture photos of themselves during the run. It was quite amusing, and the Japanese runners appeared to be quite enthusiastic and jolly about the entire affair, posing and waving for each photo-take. It couldn't have been an efficient method of running, though; I probably left them behind after perhaps the 1 or 2 km mark.

2) The Tudong Runner: There was a Muslim woman running with the tudong headdress. I do not recall whether she was wearing the Safari Zoo dry-fit running tee; but in any case, running with a piece of cloth covering the head doesn't exactly seem very clean or hygienic. However, I do wonder if a specialized running headdress for Muslim women has been invented; I imagine that a headdress made of dry-fit microfiber (the stuff they make running tees and shorts out of that manages to absorb and evaporate sweat fast) would be better than one made of ordinary cloth.

3. Mother and Child: The Safari Zoo run was partly catered for young runners and the family, hence there were a number of parents running with their children. At around the 1km mark, there was a mother chastising her son (while running) for not adopting the proper running technique, while giving her son pseudo-advice (it's a short distance ! Before you know it it'll be over). If I were to be in the shoes of the son I'll be fairly irritated; I might have been motivated to run faster just to shake her off. Furthermore it is a waste of energy to talk while running.

4. Constantly Overtaken: The runners were dispatched in waves spaced about 5 minutes apart, probably to ensure that the running paths are not clogged with runners (which often happens during runs where bunches of runners can form, much like traffic jams). I was in the second wave. I probably overtook all the people that were slower than myself within the first two kilometers; for the rest of the race, I was constantly being overtaken. But, for the same reason, I could have tried to raise my speed as a result, hence I was faster than I expected (I was expecting 45-50 mins, based on some prior training).

5. Jacked Prices: After the run I went to the convenience store in the zoo, just to take a look at the prices. They were indeed inflated. A bottle of green tea usually costs about $1 at the right places; in convenience stores, they cost $2 (due to the 'convenience ' factor); at the zoo, it costs $3. I am intrigued; the traffic to the zoo couldn't have been poor. The rent must have been high, then.

Google OS ?

Google is developing a new OS for netbooks. The OS seems to be an extension of Google's Chrome browser. Being an owner of a netbook myself, I think that this idea is pretty great.

When I use my netbook, the primary function is to surf the net. Now, nothing major is lost if the core functionality of the OS is centered mainly on the browser. On the contrary, if one trims the superfluous elements of an OS , one might be better off; faster boot times (an instant-on, if possible), better battery life, a more net-centric user experience. It's a great idea.

Truth to be told, the browser, coupled with the power of the internet, can be said to duplicate many of the most-used functions of a netbook. Music? Just upload your entire song library online and stream. Games? Flash-based games come to mind. Internet messenging? Web-based interfaces exist; it is not difficult to integrate this function into the browser too.

One major omission is noted; that of productivity software, though it may turn out to be a moot point. Word processing is a function that is most essential, but it also the easiest to duplicate on a browser; even as I type this post on Blogger, I can't help but note that the Blogger interface allows for a good number of features found on word processors. Presentation software may be a bigger hurdle to overcome.

Of course, one can't realistically imagine the new Google OS to be entirely internet based. However, I can imagine various add-ons, downloadable from the internet, to fill in the gap. One of the greatest boons of Firefox is the ability to add almost any functionality via add-ons; we can only imagine the same with any future Google OS.

Sharing Communities and Upload Ratio

Bittorent file sharing communities are set up such that files can be shared more efficiently ; selfish agents that download but do not upload can be detected by their poor upload ratio and banned from the community.

It becomes absurd, however, when the minimum sharing ratio is set to a figure greater than 1. Since each uploaded byte must correspond to a downloaded byte, if someone has upload ratio greater than 1, then someone must have downloaded more than uploaded. If an altruist is defined as being an agent with a sharing ratio of greater than 1, then it is clear that any closed community of agents cannot be solely comprised of altruists.

If however the sharing rule is temporarily waived for new agents, say for the first week, then it is possible for everyone to be altruistic, barring new agents. However, this requires a continuous stream of new agents joining the community, which is unfeasible in the extreme run.

Sunset Showers

I like taking showers before sunset, though explaining why requires a bit of a long tale.

My electric water heater has 4 settings, low, medium, high, and off, and as it often is with factory settings, my preferred setting lies somewhere in between the factory ones. In this case, the low setting gives water that is just a bit cooler than I'll like, while the medium setting is warm but the higher temperature tends to dehydrate the skin. The best things are always in between.

Now, here's the part about the sunset showers. As it is, I live in a high rise apartment, and at a level that is almost near the top floor. For all high rise apartments, water from the piped supply will be pumped and stored in a water tank at the rooftop. This water will subsequently rerouted to the apartments by gravity.

By coincidence, I learnt that the sun has a great effect on the temperature of the water in the tank; in effect, the water tank is acting as a solar tank, albeit one that only raises the water temperature by a few degrees. And fortuitously, the extra few degrees bumps the water temperature (with the electric heater set to low) to my optimal comfort zone.

Thinking back, this was not the first time I've encountered this solar heating effect. A few years back, when I was still an army recruit serving BMT (basic military training), I found that if I managed to rush into the showers first when the sun was still up, the water would be reasonably warm (or at least, not unheated, as it would have been otherwise). Of course, there weren't many opportunities to capitalize on the knowledge, for training usually ending in the late evenings.

Weird Google Searches

Google has a suggestion feature that gives a list of possible searches that you might be looking for; this list is basically compiled from the most common searches. I've been typing random stuff into the Google, trying to see what I'll get. The conclusion: people are weird, sometimes scary.

First up: People are scared of Chinese people. Amusing.

Second tip: One man's meat is another's poison. I'll never eat mold, for sure. But a big red candle !? Seems like Google is available to ghosts as well.

Lastly, I think too many people have iphones. Making the poor assumption that result frequency is related to actual phone ownership rates, about 33% of phones are iphones.

How To Procrastinate

I have acquired some absurdly bad procrastination habits lately. Lots of things are being put off, though these are not by any means important matters, which is both assuring (well, it's only the unimportant things) and terrible (well, even the unimportant things are being put off!).

One telling indicator: My Firefox starts up with many tabs, and I think the leftmost two or three tabs have been there for a couple of days. My "TEMP" bookmark folder is increasing in size too.

I've got to devote more time to actually reading those webpages.

Factoring on the Go

Yesterday, I started factoring numbers. Apart from being a method to make waiting less mundane, it also works the brain.

I managed to factor the numbers from 1 to 100 while waiting for my bus to arrive. This would have been a minor feat, were it not for the absurd frequency of the bus service.

I also managed to factor 638 before 6:39pm. After more practice, I hope to be able to perform faster factoring.

Best National Day Present Ever

Majulah Singapura !!!

Spot the Mistakes

Spot the mistakes in the following map.

In spite of the mistakes, I still find the entire piece of mapping work amazing, since apparently they mapped the whole of Singapore within a short period of time.

The Man Who Did the Impossible

Standing on the top of a very high hill, the man vowed to do the impossible. He then went home.

As he was going home, he met a Greek philosopher with curled golden locks, and who wore a toga. The philosopher said "Fie Fie", and promptly ran away. The scene was surreal.

The anachronism of an ancient Greek philosopher appearing in modern times, while speaking (apparently) fluent Shakespearean English, jarred the man. Clearly, this was some sort of divine sign, with a deeper meaning to be deciphered.

The man then reflected upon the vow he had made earlier. He had vowed to do the impossible. On hindsight, it was impossible to do the impossible, for if it could be done, it would be possible and not impossible. Also, by definition, it was impossible to do the impossible!

Being clearly frustrated by this, the man decided to assault the writer of the story, whom had written him into a difficult situation with no good resolution possible. Due to damage taken to the head, the writer was unable to complete the sto

Queer Altering of Behavior

I find it interesting that when people visit foreign lands, their behavior is often different from their usual state. This effect is particularly evident in tourists.

Consider a person A, who is usually unadventurous in his choice of food. And yet, upon arrival at the foreign land, A decides to try each and every kind of strange food he chances upon. Queer.

Or that A decides to climb a famous mountain, and yet, A has never even mounted the hill back in his native land. Odder and odder.

Fortunately, I am rational and consistent. My behavior is similar to my original state, with the only difference being that I have more cash to spend, and that spending all the cash is acceptable.

This is the last post of the year. I shall now take some photos of the fireworks, although I consider that to be irrational and inconsistent with my initial state.

This irrationality must be corrected.

FOOD WAR

A war was waged, for the most mundane of reasons, in the most unlikely of places - a lecture theatre. The instigator of the war, motivated only by a need to satiate his boredom, thus began the FOOD WAR.

The 16 contestants, called from the recesses of the minds of the mad, fought for votes from the panel of bored judges.

Eventually, SUSHI won.



PS : Note contestant number 5.