Unintended Consequences

The Condor Heroes series I've been following dealt with this theme. The actions of the characters may without their knowledge help or hinder their allies and enemies. The world, as they say, is wide and full of strange things. Intent and outcome are rarely coincident, as someone told the King of Dreams. I think it's something to remember when we try to help those less fortunate. Good intentions don't cut it in this world we live in. If one is truly committed to being of use one needs to do the hard work in finding the real mechanism for assistance.

Goodbye, Condor Heroes

I finished the series yesterday. I'm impressed with the sophistication of the themes explored, like how honor/goodness needs to take into account the circumstances - and therefore there are different kinds of honor. I also liked how they showed both good and bad characters reaping the consequences of their actions - good deeds don't always result in good and bad deeds don't always end up with bad. Both types of characters aren't completely blameless in that they all do morally questionable stuff for reasons that wouldn't hold up to the mores of today, but even the most evil of them have a chance at redemption.

Is it wrong of me to like a villain more than the main characters? I vastly preferred Ouyang Feng to any of the leads. In the novels he gets redemption in the second book, but it's okay with me how they chose to handle things with this adaptation. Hell, they changed Yang Kang into a more morally ambiguous character after all. This adaptation's Ouyang Feng does go insane, but the end implies he's becoming more in touch with himself as he finds stability. 

This makes me want to read the novels. One of these days I'll learn Chinese...

Quiet Spots

There's a spot I like in the restaurant I eat in. The weather is almost always hot, but the view is worth it - trees and green grass, a creek (man-made, regrettably) running beside with lots of koi and the occasional duck; birds on the wing only to turn back and land again, a cycle I don't tire watching. Sometimes I see people pass by, people-watching is interesting too.

I eat some keema or falafel or beryani, then I finish off with yoghurt. I don't like having people around when I do this, it seems like a shame to spoil the silence. Pretty soon I have to go back to my monitor and my work area that's awash in artificial light. But for a while I can enjoy this. 

I like trees and open spaces. I could never live in any of the more cramped cities in my country. Even where I live and work there's not much space - there's always someone happening by on your business. Being with people tires me, more often than not. That's why I also like the dead of night - there's no one to bother you while you train or read or meditate. At night, I used to have a midnight snack of instant noodles, fried egg, bread, coffee, and sometimes french fries; I was young back then, okay? But nowadays I just have the coffee.

Age of Wushu

Wallpaper image from Age of Wushu Media page

All this wuxia stuff is making me want to try out this MMO. I'm reading good things about the game over at Massively so I was thinking, why not?

I'm really liking the idea behind their Player versus Player system, in that it resembles fighting games a lot. What I don't like is that the MMO still maintains a significant resemblance to other MMORPG's that exploit the grinding mechanic. If it takes a while to build my character up to a level that satisfies me then I'll just stick with Yomi - the characters there were balanced by a professional game designer and by some dedicated players, and they focus totally on the fighting aspect.

The movement abilities though are superb - I would really enjoy spending time just moving around in the air and over water:

Condor Heroes

So I'm still watching the series. I am now on Episode 16. It's an irritating tendency for me to be so absorbed into something as to forget other stuff I need to do, so this will probably be the last episode for the day; I need to go and train and study some stuff.

It's definitely a different way of thinking. I mean, one character has an internal energy armor around her; it does not hinder her movement, can be worn with anything, is tough enough to repel some pretty advanced techniques, and routinely protects her from daily annoyances like snake bites. Oh, and it's a passive ability - it seems like it's always on and does not need her concentration to maintain. If I were living in this world where martial artists can have the ability to control poisonous vermin I think I would find a way to learn this skill. You would think that would be obvious, but no - because the skill was developed by a rival this martial arts hero won't even deign to think about learning it. He instead developed a skill that enables him to kill the vermin with needles. Yep, a skill that's dependent on having the right ammo, time to set up, and extreme abilities of perception, coordination, and precision. A skill whose effectiveness lowers drastically the more inebriated you are - which the inventor of said skill often is, given that he drinks wine from a seemingly-bottomless gourd. 

The concept of using snakes was pretty cool, I think. It's like using fire to attack in parallel, but more subtle. It's also a low-risk kind of attack - if you fail you can try again, and the loss of one snake isn't that disastrous. You also don't need to be anywhere close for it to work. I guess I'd learn this if it were real.

The episode had a lot of discussion about one's roots, about who one is. Ultimately it boils down to where you were born and what family your parents belong to. It's a recipe for division, and woe betide anyone who did not have power in this world. The conflict in this series was between the Song and Jin, and it's interesting that the characters were so focused on this that they neglected to reflect on whether there may be other groups waiting in the wings.

Legend of Condor Heroes

I found subbed episodes of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" on Youtube yesterday, and have spent the rest of the time since then watching episodes.

The show is from a wuxia novel trilogy by Louis Cha. This is a very big deal in the Chinese-speaking countries and so piqued my curiosity. I recognized a lot of the terminology since I used to play a text-based MMO called Kung Fu Knights way back when on the Kongregate site. A lot of the places, people, groups, etc referenced the novels; there were some concepts I recognized from my martial arts training as well, like how incorrect internal training could cause afflictions to descend upon one's mind and body.

There have apparently been previous versions of this TV adaptation. I can't say anything about those, but I have already watched the first nine-and-a-half episodes so far. As far as I can see the world is along similar lines as what you'd find in "Le Morte d'Arthur" - it's an idealized place where martial virtue is paramount and there's always derring-do and intrigues. In "Le Morte d'Arthur" it's chivalry in terms of feudal knighthood while in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" it's chivalry in terms of Eastern Asian martial arts and Confucian values.

I remember reading "Le Morte..." back in high school. For a book about the Arthurian legend it was a remarkably dry read. The really big events can be listed in a page or two; in between each event you get mind-numbing tales of knights fighting mysterious warriors who seem to have been gifted with powers, knights fighting other knights, knights getting it on with supposedly chaste women, ad infinitum. I really cannot imagine the kind of mind that would be able to gain entertainment from such a work. 

Louis Cha's novel probably benefits from being a more recent work; plus the above series has been calibrated to appeal to modern audiences. Just please don't come in expecting anything amazing with the fight scenes beyond coordinated posing.

The world-building is really top-notch. So much so that I feel like it's not a place I would ever want to be in. Why? Perhaps it's how the scriptwriters decided to tackle the project, since there seems to be a lot of deconstruction of the concept of jianghu. From what I have seen so far, disciples' lives are completely at the whim of their master; people avenge the slightest insult with duelling; honoring whatever virtue requires someone dying or maiming themselves; antagonists die earlier than the protagonists - but if the mains become Heroes of Another Story expect that they will die a violent death.

I'm debating with myself whether I want to continue watching past the first half of episode 10. A character who started out bad was humbled and seems to have turned a new leaf and even got himself a fiancee, but because of the massive difference between his past and current circumstances he gets tempted to reverse his change. I mean, if it were me I'd have seen from a mile away the difficulties that character will experience adjusting to his new station. And why is it no one in this setting seems to bother trying to find a way to provide for their family? It's always martial virtue this or martial skills that; every hot-blooded male seems to think that this is enough to put food on the table - until they get separated from their non-warrior wives and the latter have to fend for themselves. And even the one who got the coveted title "Best in the World" - as one character puts it - was still mortal; he died. 

I guess the me right now, sees the fantasy for what it is.

Something to think about.

My snowflake courtesy of http://weavesilk.com/

 

Traffic

Took an hour to get home today because of severe congestion. Traffic has been a historical problem in my country. Even with all the recent road widening initiatives and laws similar to #3 on this list, traffic still uses up a big fraction of the gas drivers purchase and is a major cause of air pollution. 

Everybody has a solution, but I'm a fan of small actionable tweaks to our daily activities. So this is where Mr. Bill Beaty comes in, in an article I first read about from BoingBoing. 

My Diet

By Alex Proimos from Sydney, Australia (In Speedos  Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

First off, have a read on this Wikipedia entry about abdominal obesity. I'm a bit concerned about my own love handles so I decided to do something - but intention doesn't always lead action, even with my training.

A large part of what I'm trying to learn for myself is the fact that what you look like doesn't dictate what you can do. My endeavor musn't be about looking attractive or showing up people who make my girth all that I am. It should be about health and quality of life, and what I'll be passing on. I read about genetic accommodation and epigenetics, and I don't want to pass on activated genes that increase my descendants' chances for cancer or other diseases.

I took the Coursera course for The New Nordic Diet; I like the ideas that they introduced, about emphasizing sustainability, aesthetics, flavor, and nutrition in crafting unique cuisine that reflects their culture. I can't claim to be able to do the same, but I've since incorporated elements of the diet to my routine.

I eat walnuts now everyday, and I'm incorporating more vegetables, especially chickpeas and peanuts, in my diet. I've stopped my frequent snacking, only eating three square meals a day. I don't drink carbonated beverages; I've gone months without doing so. My breakfast now has oats and black coffee - and come to think of it, I don't drink anything with my coffee now. A consequence of taking the CAMBRA course, I guess. I drink about two liters of water everyday, that's it.

It's rather unfortunate that my country has neglected food products coming from wild sources, so it's hard to find meat form wild game or wild herbs. I'm supplementing that lack with borrowing from other cultures' cuisine. After all, my country is something of a melting pot. A Korean grocery close to us is my source for seaweed (both laver and dried), kimchi, and gochujang; I'm still trying to source herbs like cilantro as well as mushrooms, but I've happily found soba and pumpkin seeds and watermelon seeds. I eat yoghurt too, and am still looking for kefir. I've also successfully gotten my family to adopt curries and Indian spices.

I'll try to post more about the effects of this in the coming months.

Oh Happy Day! :D

Realities I've learned because of what I got myself into

What's the difference between college-level and corporate programming?

How to take action in the face of limited knowledge

Life has been interesting these past months. The tester job I landed myself into got extended two more weeks, but at least there are now more of us so the work is less toxic. I have now officially worked support/maintenance, testing, and app development. Pretty soon I'll be taking some lessons on ISMS, hopefully to become an internal auditor. 

I'm still not happy about my coding skills though. I can really feel how out of my depth I sometimes am. Part of the problem is that this field is so big. Breadth and depth are out of this world. Never been good with something so loose and wild and unstructured. The above are just touching the tip of what I'm realizing so far.

We need more stuff like this on the Internet.

Hypnotic

Image from http://imgur.com/lzaMeXm

On the sense of self

Work has been pretty hectic the past couple of weeks and so has played hell with my online courses. I had to jettison the goal of completing the courses I enrolled in exchange for prioritizing doing a passable level of work in the office and not losing focus in training martial arts.

Couple of things I've been thinking about during this awful time: who we are in the dark, and anchors. Arguably this was brought on by reading Worm during the few moments of free time I got. (I recommend this web serial to everyone, the story is very engaging). Worm had parts where the the concept of knowing one's identity came up. The characters were in a position where this was very important. And a lot of people suffered personal tragedies because they didn't give this much thought.

So now I ask: who are we, then? Is it our actions that define us, unmindful of the situations we find ourselves in? Or is it our intentions regardless of our acts? Is it our memories?

I think we are patterns as we continue to exist in the world. Our cells die in a fixed cycle, replaced by near-identical cells made of different molecules. In a fixed number of years we lose all the cells and materials we had at birth; it's like we're different people. Our minds are also even more fluid. We forget, then reconstruct in an effort to remember. Our memories of our experiences, our viewpoint, our unique set of priorities, something in our minds draws these things together and discards some. From these things we construct the sense of who we are. And if some event is intense enough we may even forget these bindings and so need to recreate ourselves once again. Or some errant thought might make itself known, and we change yet again as we try to reduce the cognitive dissonance.

There are some concepts that have a greater pull. The need to survive, or the need to belong, for instance. The urge to uphold the mores of a group, or to have a high status. These are like hunger or thirst to the mind - motifs that one can't help but return to again and again.

Such fluidity is like being lost at sea, where the only way for you to find dry land is if you make it yourself. Hence the anchors; things to keep you grounded in reality and to keep your self stable. Some you may safely lose, others you cling to as a drowning man would a lifeline. Things you can go back to again and again, that give you sure footing and a direction to build your decisions around. Order in the midst of chaos, a piece of dirt in a cloud. 

What is it then, that is me? I am obsessed with making a Red-Green Madness deck. I like to read about novel things. I am a spendthrift. I like the martial arts. I like solving puzzles like code or games. I am not a people person. I used to have a thing for cards of all kinds. I used to be fascinated with magic. I currently like Kpop - started out with Sistar, then T-ara, and now I'm seeing the attraction of Girls' Generation. But I kind of still think of myself as a T-ara fan.

I like to find things. I believe that wanting is better than having. I read Terry Pratchett's "Night Watch" at least twice a year, the Thief and Hitman series of video games once a year. I don't really care for group circlejerking. I like to study psychology. I love food and self-improvement. 

And I do not like being beholden to cognitive heuristics. I absolutely hate it. I am insecure, and I can be petty. I've done a lot of things I regret in the past; still do some things I regret now - although it's either I don't regret them as much when the time comes, or I've learned to forgive myself for them. There's lots of other things, I can't really make the list exhaustive.

There's a lot of stuff. But when time comes to take stock, the earth of my island will be rich enough that I'm sure the answer that will sprout will be a robust one. 

Disaster Preparedness

This was part of the readings we had for Coursera's Disaster Preparedness course. Stuff like this kind of make me grateful I haven't faced yet a full-on marooned situation. However, thanks to the courses I've taken before on Irrationality and Social Psychology, I understand. God help me, I understand.

The patients were an outgroup. The ingroup, which were the medical professionals stuck in that hospital at the time, were completely untrained for the situation; but being the ingroup they must have favored each other more than those in the outgroup. Maybe things have been simmering for a long time and the situation forced the ugliness out. 

They were going by heuristics. There's some representativeness bias and spontaneous trait inference in them assuming that someone who has signed a Do Not Resuscitate order doesn't want to survive the crisis. Maybe there was some self-serving bias in there, thinking that their actions constituted the best care they could give under the circumstances. There certainly was self-serving bias in them declaring that evacuating certain patients would be impossible; you can't trust that statement when the people making it are dead-tired and would find it easier if a couple conveniently died on them. There was conformity - either some went along or they didn't protest effectively enough.

Then there's the rationalizations. I'm sure they made those up to assuage any cognitive dissonance. Like the consensus argument - that what they did wasn't any different to what they normally do. That what they were doing was sanctioned by the laws of God. That they were giving comfort. That since they were doing everything "respectfully," it was alright. Because they were doctors and nurses and medical professionals, so obviously they know more and should be allowed to get away with more.

I shouldn't make attributions to their disposition. They were in a terrible situation and this is why every country should have well-designed disaster management plans down to the level of the individual citizen. 

It's just that you're Americans. From the USA. Guardians of freedom, liberty, justice, and democracy. You should be better. If something like this could happen well within your own territory, then... this world... it's pretty horrible, huh?

I'm seeing Western boxing in a new light. The jab is a reliable tool for when someone wants to keep away from touching hands with us who are practicing Chinese martial arts. I'm also seeing a lot of parallels between the basic punches and stuff like the five fists of xingyi. Then there's also this article about Mayweather's infighting tactics, which is seriously giving me some ideas about where to take my techniques.

Priorities and Regrets

Priorities and Regrets

Read this just now and then went off to give the maternal a hug. Do the same.

Hell, No

Creative People Say No

Haven't been able to post stuff here for a while; am currently attempting to juggle twelve courses on Coursera. And I'll be starting on a new project at the office to boot. This will not end well, I know.

I miss them T_T

Fundamental Attribution Error

Dr. Phil should really do a segment about this. His recent controversy is a textbook example, I think. 

Of course it's not okay if a person is drunk to the point where consent prior to sex is suspect. So why is Dr. Phil talking about it on Twitter? Faced with the choice of his motivations, people overestimate the dispositional factors (he's a pervert seeking confirmation) over the situational factors (he's taking a survey for his show, or he's trying to figure out where people's boundaries are - take note the original tweet did not specify the level of drunkenness or the ability to give consent).

The fun thing is the reason that the FAE is an error is because even if it were explained to us we would still do the same thing. Something to think about, there.

Randmo Sfutf

The Science of Mental Fitness

How We Got "Please" and "Thank You"

What the Psychology of Suicide Prevention Tells Us About Controlling Our Everyday Worries

Beware of Beauty Overload: The Adaptive Eye of the Beholder

Stuff to Remember

I was browsing over some of my previous posts and found one where I realized I had forgotten the context behind it completely. In just a few months I was already a different person who probably would never have written that. Good thing I was able to save it; this blog is becoming a secondary storage space for stuff in my head.

Here's another thing: if you think about it, I am in a way similar to an organism that consumes information. I read and experience things everyday, I process it and then think about the processing that is happening. I shit out ideas and concepts and associations, as well as the information where these things come from. Ideally I add more than I take away, but we can settle for spreading it, like a bird would the seeds it swallows. 

I am a bird that ranges across continents. 

In the sea without lees
Standeth the bird of Hermes
Eating his wings variable
And maketh himself yet full stable
When all his feathers be from him gone
He standeth still here as a stone
Here is now both white and red
And all so the stone to quicken the dead
All and some without fable
Both hard and soft and malleable
Understand now well and right
And thank you God of this sight

The bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame.

Bankrupted

Bankrupt By Beanies from Chris Robinson on Vimeo.

I cringe inwardly at this. In my college days I entertained the idea of being a Magic: the Gathering pro player. Good plan, except even if I was the best (which I wasn't), my country didn't have tournaments that supported pro players. These days I have the notion of buying chase cards, like the dual lands and fetchlands and shocklands - the prices being relatively stable and most likely to increase in value. History repeats itself doesn't it?

Horror Stories

I thought I was pretty tough and jaded. I'd dissected pretty much everything, short of human beings, in college and high school. I was familiar with anatomy. I have an interest in occultism, serial killers and crime in general. I am also fascinated with psychology. I'm familiar with martial arts and the damage people can do to others.

Then just recently I read this and this. It was like watching Malena - I had to pause every once in a while, take a breather. 

I guess that means I'm still human... with all the potential for visiting horrible things upon myself...

Re: In Defense of Adria Richards and Call-out Culture

Interesting article over at The Daily Dot. It's in reference to the donglegate incident and the fallout that followed. A lot of what's happened, I'm sure anyone would agree, was overblown. Then again that's par for the course I guess when one involves the public at large - you never know how they'll react.

I have to admit that I get where the author is coming from; you see, anything that can be construed as a social putdown by one party does result in negative emotions, in most cases anger. Anger has been shown to follow social rejection, and admonishing someone for their actions does qualify. We don't know where someone's from and how he is in daily life, and so caution is advisable when dealing with strangers.

But here's the thing: Adria Richards did not try to approach two grown men in a public place with a neutral manner to mention how she can overhear a conversation that could reflect badly on the latter. The two men were presumably well-educated, well-adjusted and hard-working individuals; they're not your typical alley rapists. Talking to them in a way that did not generate feelings of rejection or belittlement would not, I think, have caused any problems. Assuming as the author did that women who call out others will get raped and/or murdered is a gross oversimplification and doing so sabotages the friendly, civil interaction that we should expect of each other.

And this is a true thing; in the Social Psychology online course I'm taking the concepts of confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecies were discussed. Rory Miller also has a lot to say about the topic in his blog. You're holding this idea in your head about how these interactions are going to go, you're going to be looking for the things that confirm your thinking. And you're going to be acting without realizing it, in a manner that will guarantee that the idea in your head will prove true. 

Aside from the above, I'm going to follow Mr. Miller's lead and shut up; I wasn't there, and these events don't really impact me in any personal way. But here's something to think about: if we grant that women should be allowed the prerogative to upload pictures of men to shame them when they act in a sexist manner, where is the oversight? We have multiple layers of security and monitoring and accountability for almost everything in our lives, where are all those for this?

And how is uploading call-out shots different from uploading creepshots? The latter is about promoting lust, the former about promoting outrage. Aside from that, what's the difference?

Belly Fat

Belly fat serves as emergency fuel, a good way to store excess when times are good. It's shock protection for the gut area. It's also insulation.

Belly fat is there for a reason. Then again we, living in this age, find no use for it. We find it ugly. Funny how we equate beauty with whatever induces the most lust in others, then we complain when that attraction becomes brought to our attention. You can't control who gets attracted to you.

There is beauty in utility. Something simple and elegant is beautiful. And perhaps greatest of all, it is meaning that makes for the purest beauty. An old mother's wrinkled hands spent caring for her children and grandchildren will have gained something no manicurist could ever hope to match.

I'm taking the Social Psychology course in Coursera. Week 1 had readings from a study made by David L. Rosenhan, "On Being Sane in Insane Places." It touches on a lot of things I'd written about earlier, and seems especially relevant now that I've read this.

The Curious Relationship Between Truth and Madness

Lost in Our Own Worlds

Managed to overhear a conversation today. Two friends were gossiping about this rich, smart professional who had to separate from her husband. Friend A said that the divorcee had difficulties supporting her children in spite of the alimony when Friend B suddenly pipes up with "She should demand for her right, her husband should support her." This was just milliseconds after Friend A mentioned the alimony. 

I remembered another conversation, this time about a girl trashing someone who was not part of their group. Said someone had at some point for whatever reason held her hand by the wrist - at this point one of the listeners interjected with "Were you hurt? Are you okay?" I knew at this point a rumor was born about that poor soul.

Neil Gaiman observed this phenomenon before. He said something to the effect that it was a trademark of his, portraying characters in the act of conversation who weren't really paying attention to what each other was saying. You get two or more people, talking at cross-purposes. Lost in their own worlds, going off on a tangent touched off by something they heard. Failing to listen at the most inopportune times.

I think it's an offshoot of us thinking we're so special. That we could figure out someone like Sherlock Holmes does, failing to see how utterly contrived some of the situations were and how the real world isn't as neatly understandable. That we're so good and nice and exempt from the law and our actions have no consequences. Or maybe, that we shit and fart roses.

Monkey talk. Monkey talk, all of it. 

I thought about it, and I've had Magic: the Gathering in my mind for more than seventeen years now. For ten of those years I've been trying to craft this RG Madness deck (for those interested, the final form of the deck is here). It took that long because the sets the constituent cards belonged to were a long time apart. I did not find the cards that were being used by other players to my liking, so I decided to hold out until I could come across the cards that I felt did deserve to make it in. 

I wanted a deck that fully abused the madness mechanic, yet had a complementary strategy in case the key cards enabling the mechanic were dealt with during a game; I also wanted that complementary strategy to stand pretty well on its own. 

I tried out a lot of cards, playtesting and goldfishing and then analyzing in my head. I read up on current strategy and trends on what cards to use. I posted on forums, even emailed the professionals to ask how to improve my deck.

Through most of it I knew that the cards I was using were subpar - I knew that if I really wanted to win games I should be playing the best cards that other people were playing. It was hubris to think that I'd be on to something the pro players weren't.

I went for it anyway. It was an obsession.

I learned recently about Walt Whitman, and about how he worked on Leaves of Grass up until two months before his death. All those years spent revising, adding to, reformatting, all to create the definitive opus. And all those years he must have held two things in his head - the confidence to keep going, even when often he had to self-finance his project. And self-awareness, that what he was doing just may amount to nothing more than grass - a publisher's term at the time for works of minor value.

He did live and write about some of the most historic moments in American history. I think him sending out editions of his book turned out for the better; the work benefited from the critique and it also made the work at the very least noteworthy for having provoked reactions from the era's literary luminaries. Maybe the taboo surrounding some of the topics helped out.

I don't care about that really. I am awed rather by the dedication he had. He acted as if the end was self-evident, when the future is clearly anything but. Obviously, obsessions aren't equal. I clearly won't be winning any games with the deck I thought up - I'm not part of that scene anymore. But I still do have other hobbies I'm working on. They bring me joy but I can't see myself going all the way, in the manner of Walt Whitman. 

Writing in this blog does help me express myself and it has made easier writing the occasional paper or presentation. I'm doing quite well in my martial arts training, I'm up to an hour of zhan zhuang. I plan to study programming some more, Go, and Japanese. I also take the occasional online course. I'm not sure what all this amounts to, or what they will amount to. Really, I get the feeling of being lost at sea sometimes. 

It took me a decade to focus my deck to what it is now; I don't think I have the leisure to do the same for my life. It's not so much the comforts - I want to feel the forward movement, the sensation that things are changing as per my intention.

The fifth day of the eighth month of the thirteenth year of the twenty-first century - today - is a Fibonacci day. I didn't even notice.

The discussion says that this will be the last Fibonacci day, unless in the future our calendars go over twelve months.

Glorious.

One

I cringe thinking about myself years ago. It was all about one more point in the test, one more point to get the bare minimum to pass. Oh no, I failed, got to do better on the one test coming up next.

If I could just get one more card, my deck would be killer. One more book. One more hour staying up late, searching the Internet for the one thing that would make me badass.

My love didn't work out. Nevermind, the next one will be sure to be mine. The one right now is just a whore.

One more read-through, even though I fell asleep reading the course text last time.

These days I recognize that the me one second from now is someone who is not to be trusted.

Now when I train, it's always one more - one more minute, hold on. Stand for one more hour.

You only get one lifetime. Be an adult and swallow your pride. Don't give in to the monkey.

One more day until the weekend; one day closer to all those cool stuff that will be released that you absolutely have to read/play/experience. One more payday. One more thing to add to the budget.

One more wonder to discover. One more thing to learn. One less thing to worry about. One more thing that's not as important as it was before.

Playing to Your Strengths

I like writing. I've been writing since forever. I loved it when we were made to do essays in grade school. The words came easy; even today I don't really do much proofreading for the posts I make here.

Should I have pursued that instead? Maybe go into journalism or literature? I could have transferred out. I could have spent my college life learning about Hemingway and Bukowski and Kafka. I could have learned to write poems as evocative as C.P. Cavafy's or fiction as arresting as Edgar Allan Poe's. I might not have been good enough to win a Pulitzer, but learning to write better would have been a joy.

Instead of writing for computers maybe I could have instead chosen to write for people. To expose the darkness in the world, have adventures in far-off places. I could have befriended witch-doctors in Haiti or investigated hoodoo in Louisiana; I could have trained in Daqingshan or walked Akihabara. All to pursue a story, to submit a deadline.

I might have had the singular experience of contracting epic obscure tropical diseases. I could have died in a hail of gunfire, a martyr to the cause of free press.

Writing is easy for me. It still is. If I had chosen that path, how many days would it be until I realized I wasn't really that good after all? How many days until I figure out that I won't get to write what I really want? How well will I be able to handle deadlines?

Choosing mediocrity has its perks. One can hold on to his illusions and sigh, staring into the distance, thinking of what-ifs.

Ip Man The Final Fight

I really want to watch this; I heard Gillian Chung has a part in it. I'm not much of a follower of the Chinese scene, but I really like her. She had to take a hiatus but during that time she took classes and honed her craft, without even knowing if she would be coming back. That kind of thing demands respect. I'd drink a glass of Sir Walt's to her, if I could afford it. :P

Re: Sex Sells, Part Five

When I was doing Dan Ariely's Coursera course on Behavioral Economics, there were videos of guest lecturers every week. One of the speakers was Nina Mazar, and she spoke about a model called "sexual economics" - if memory serves, one of the things she touched upon (and please note that the talk was short and could not possibly cover all the nuances of her research on the topic) was how sex was used in a manner of a good/commodity. Like, how someone who beds women gets scorned because he's getting the commodity without "paying" - that is, taking care of the female in a caring, secure, loving relationship. I believe there was also a part describing where women who are in an area that has a dearth of viable mates tend to "advertise" their "availability," in some cases by wearing more revealing clothing; whereas those who were in a place where there were a lot of possible mates tended to not do so (by covering up).

Hopefully, I did not misrepresent the information too much. It's been some months and I'm sure I've forgotten a lot. The amount of negative response after that talk's video was posted was really huge. The logical discussion about the concepts presented was completely overshadowed by the emotional response of the majority. It was kind of sad for me because what was presented was a model. That it got mired in controversy effectively scuttled whatever benefit the research might have had on those taking the course.

You can still view the firestorm, by the way, the forum posts should still be up at Coursera; one need just sign up for the course to be able to view them. I have to admit that thinking about sex as a thing subject to economics kind of made sense to me. Survival of the fittest has wrought weirder things, like that of duck genitals. A male's attractiveness is also affected by how able he is to take care of his mate; and furthermore there are a lot of societies in the world who consider that women should be pure, unsullied by worldly things, and dependent. Some of these societies consider women to have some ambiguous connection to the honor of the family that they are attached to; and so perhaps in these ways meeting these societies' definition of womanhood can represent a taking up of value. 

Because the family's honor is paramount, women who do not bring shame to the family are valuable; they can be married off to other families and there is financial benefit in doing so. Perhaps they'll also use her to cement alliances. These women therefore should be taken care of - they are covered up, and no doubt about their pristine natures should crop up. This means they must be confined at home or if they need to leave the house they must be accompanied by a family member. The women's families can afford to be discerning with regard to her future husband, there's probably a little endowment effect in operation here.

When we quantify what would make a good spouse in this way and worse when so many people (male and female) buy into it, horrors are committed without regret. If the society is less conservative, perhaps it's the women themselves who are free to settle on the terms of the economic exchange.

Helpful Information

This stuff is good to remember, so I'm putting them up here. 

A Six Months Exercise Intervention Influences the Genome-wide DNA Methylation Pattern in Human Adipose Tissue - nice to know that the effect of genes can be changed to a certain extent. We should care because DNA methylation has links to cancer.

Here's something to remember while we're gallivanting; the Group Monkey Dance and how to short-circuit it.

Aspirin Helps Keep Stomach Cancer Away

Can You Pay Off Your Sleep Debt?

Why You Should Take Cold Showers

Fruit Can Help Prevent Diet-Induced Obesity

Love this. Your dads and moms and other people in your life, just what were they up to before you "knew" them?

Are You Sexist?

This is an interesting test I found at the Social Psychology Network. It's supposed to measure the levels of sexism in one's opinion toward women. I was rather surprised at my result - I was way below the average score for females, as well as the average score for males. I took screenshots of my score so I have something to slap in the face of anyone who accuses me of not being gender-neutral.

A security guard who worked for my company died of a heart attack last Sunday. I used to see him a lot, but we never really interacted.

I wonder how his last moments were. Did he have an inkling? Or did he think that it was just another normal start of the week and he'll be back at his post at this boring old job he's been doing for years? Maybe he was looking forward to seeing again those other employees he was close with.

Nothing really changed much with his absence. They got a replacement on the Monday, it was like he was never there. I did catch a conversation between the day shift guard and one of my co-employees who happened to be on the night shift; the latter was asking if he'd be there soon. Day shift guard said he most likely would be.

I'm sure he had a lot of people in his confidence. He had experiences, grudges, intrigues, failures. All gone now, all worthless. Any of us would probably give up our own experiences, grudges, intrigues, failures - if it meant staying in the world one more day.

I suppose he considered me a weird one. He'd see me as I went to my secret space to train standing meditation; sometimes I'd stay there for thirty to forty minutes (recently a full hour), and by the time I'd come out I'd be sweaty and breathing a bit heavily. Whatever he thought, it doesn't matter anymore.

All that's left is the whip-round, for the funeral. It's the right thing to do. But I feel sad that this was all a lifetime of service amounted to: a donation drive. We don't notice their passing although they contribute greatly to the quality of life we enjoy, but who is it really who suffers when they're gone?

Managed to track down a copy of Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street. I'd written a little about it here and I wanted to read the whole thing. So, here's the site.

Things Meta

Meta-awareness - this blog post I find very relevant to what I strive for everyday. Truth be told, for all that I know and studied I'm still prone to many mistakes and errors of judgement. For example there was the thought process that got recorded in this gem; now that my Magic buzz has worn off I am realizing what a huge mistake I've made. For those who don't play, I entreat you to try out this site that simulates the shuffling of my deck and drawing an opening hand. The idea is to somehow make the deck's card composition of a certain proportion so that this opening hand has a decent mix of creatures, spells, and land. A secondary goal is to make the drawing of cards during subsequent turns actually relevant to a player's current board state. 

Needless to say, my deck's opening hands suck. Compare this deck, which has the same theme but an even better execution. And said deck costs three times less than mine. Yeah.

But my most recent lapse in judgement was when I went on a shopping spree this weekend, buying amongst other things a kilogram of dried red chili peppers. Now, I do love me some good dried chili pepper, but as my mother so helpfully pointed out, with the amount I bought we had enough for a year. That is, if my whole family were eating the stuff. Because I'm the only one who eats spicy food. And at the rate I eat the peppers, most of what I bought would probably go bad given the humid climate we're in.

As I write this I am feeling the burning in my stomach from eating too much of the peppers. "I regret nothing" is something I could say, but it would be a lie.

We need to pay attention to what we're thinking, how we're thinking it, and when we're not thinking. It's a real tall order of business. I'm just thankful my lapses aren't life-threatening. But then again, everything is connected after all. I may soon have occasion for even more regret because of the above.

Re: Sex Sells, Part Four

Do girl groups make more money if they have a sexy concept?

This feature presents an investigation on the effect of sexiness on the popularity of a girl group's releases. I have questions about the methodology - I haven't read the actual report on the investigation, but looking at only three groups can't be considered as validly representing the population. Also, there are other factors that may be affecting the ranking of the release, such as whether the group is debuting or it has an established fandom. For all we know, it may be that the market is reacting to the hype generated by these groups' companies.

So we see how we can't really call this an objective, valid study on the effect of sexiness in "market viability". Yet I'm sure there will be people who will still see this as confirmation of the belief. Maybe because it's been posted where everyone can read it. Maybe because there's these interesting graphs and cool pictures. Maybe because the conclusion one draws is so easy, so intuitive. It confirms what we've "known" all along, doesn't it? 

I call BS (for the non-American readers who likely don't get the reference, BS refers to the excreta of male cows' digestive systems). The world runs on people who never question what is "common sense." 

Take the idea that women are physically weaker than men. I've a kung-fu sister who is female, approximately in her fifties, has agoraphobia and has had no prior intensive physical training. She's an average adult, senior to me by a year in the style we're studying. After more than two years of training she is so strong young males in their twenties and thirties could not move or uproot her; only two of my other seniors can tie with her. She also is very religious in training and has been doing iron palm for some time now. 

Women are weak? Really?

We accept these generalizations as gospel - never questioning how the gospel limits us. My favorite example though is Sandara Park. Ms. Park started out in the Philippines by winning second place in a now-defunct talent show. She was paired off with the winner of said show, both of them billed as a "love team;" they mostly starred in cornball roles for fluff movies. I looked into what record is left of that time online and it seems like Ms. Park was almost always on the bad side of the judges both for lack of talent and lack of mastery of the local language. She did however gain the sympathy of voters (the show's contestants were eliminated through online votes). I suppose to the Filipinos at the time she was something novel, and her constant crying probably brought out some white knight tendencies.

Eventually, the Filipinos tired of Ms. Park. She was reduced to posing for a local men's magazine in order to drum up interest in herself. In the end, she accepted a contract to be an idol in South Korea. So what was that again about sexiness selling? It didn't help her out then.

Now though, Ms. Park is known as a widely-successful international star; she is arguably the most successful and well-known out of all the big names that talent show was supposed to have spawned. And yet she herself admits that she doesn't have that much talent; she says she just tries to work hard.



So in this case hard work and good attitude sold.

Re: Sex Sells, Part Three

Betrayed by the Angel

The above needs neither introduction nor commentary. I believe this author's perspective eclipses whatever sophistries I might come up with on my own.

This is what light looks like frozen.

I guess it's easy for us to forget how much wonder there is in the world. I've lived through events that won't happen again for hundreds, and for a few of them thousands, of years. I've seen new states born and old states die. Taboos are being broken, the established order is being overturned.

What else do we take for granted that the future will not have? What mysteries are even now developing in the present to perplex our descendants?

I'm in a real Magic buzz right now. Might as well get everything out.

I'm not sure if it's the same anywhere else, but in my country the guys who play Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering, and other tabletop games never refer to the merchandise they buy as "cards" or "figures." They're always called "pieces." I suppose it's to make it sound cooler; saying that you're buying cards when you've gone past a certain age kind of doesn't have the same cachet as saying you're buying pieces. The word conjures images of antiques or works of art or parts for a high-performance machine. Pieces of cardboard and hand-painted plastic benefit a lot from the connotation.

To succeed in the secondary Magic card market, at least in my experience, one is required  to be a bit more cutthroat than usual. It can mean charming some mook into giving up his precious cards, and then ruthlessly short-changing him when it's apparent he doesn't have as good a grasp of the real value of the card. One would rationalize it as divesting someone who doesn't really "play the game properly." People steal outright when that rationalization wears thin. And it does wear thin, sooner than one thinks.

Click to see the full price history for Tarmogoyf, one of the most expensive cards now

Playing the secondary market game is like being in a sort of stock market. You're trying to predict which cards will gain value and which will tank, which you can give up without regretting it later. Throughout my time collecting and searching for the perfect combination of cards for my Madness deck I've lost quite a lot of valuable cards. I've lost opportunities of getting now-chase cards on the cheap. I've sunk money (probably a little more than half a grand in total). I don't really have anything to show for it except the satisfaction of finally building a deck that satisfies my aesthetics. Though my aesthetics resulted in a deck that's horribly low-tier.

But you want to hear something horrible? There's a tiny part of me that wants to feel like it was all worth it. And even more horrible, when I was trawling the shops for the Chandra's Phoenix cards I saw this in stock. And something stirred that felt familiar.

A story that goes back to zero, indeed.

Red-Green Madness Aggro

I think I mentioned before how addicted I used to be to Magic the Gathering. I was really devoted to making Red-Green Madness Aggro work, and with the current Core Set I managed to acquire the last set of cards I needed. Switched out the Phantom Centaurs, and the result is:

8 Mountain
5 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga

4 Kird Ape
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Arrogant Wurm

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Faithless Looting
4 Violent Eruption
4 Fireblast

3 Cursed Scroll
1 Umezawa's Jitte

I find that the Phoenixes fit in more with the discard mechanic in the deck. I can use the card draw of Faithless Looting to search for burn and/or multiple copies of the Phoenix, and they work well with the Wild Mongrels too.

... I know this is meaningless to someone who's never played the game, and I recognize that I had sworn that there would be no further entertainment of delusions of Magic grandeur. There won't be anymore, I'm sure - because it turns out I don't really want to play big effects or build innovative decks or win games. I just want to create something that's mine, and where all the pieces fit together elegantly. I am what this new era of Magic gaming calls a Melvin. And I feel that this tendency defines everything that I endeavor to do, from programming to martial arts to writing to Go.

I want to build something that is my own, that is minimal and efficient and cool. I want to play video games where I can evolve my own style (here's looking at you, Yomi and King of Fighters and Guilty Gear and Thief and Hitman). I idolize Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski and other self-made men out there who have done what I haven't. I love the concept of improvisation and the blues. 

Now what? Dunno. But it's nice to have that moment of self-awareness.

There's really a lot  of things to ponder when reading Big Think. This particular piece about the costs of productivity really got to me.

What Melville says to us, reminds us of, is that our systems produce persons so damaged that although we may put them out of our minds, evict them from our offices, they are still there.  And in some way we are accountable to them.  And the sign that Melville has no terrific solution is that he ends the story, “Ah, Bartleby; ah, humanity.”  Right? 

He directs our attention to a kind of cruelty that is the human condition.  I’m looking for some cheer to offer in that story.  I think what Melville does though, is he takes us further and further into the dark heart of modernity, where a growing complexity of the world produces more and more dysfunction and victimization.

We study and train to get expertise in the field that we wish to create a career in, but once that expertise has been attained what we're truly trading in is time - that is, our time. The time we have left on this earth is contracted out for money at a rate determined by a host of factors. The more important others consider our time is, the higher the pay. But it's an illusion, isn't it? Because when you give up your time, there's no guarantee you'll have enough left to spend what you're given in return.

There's something arbitrary about this system. It subtly makes us think that one person's life is less than that of another, because a chunk of their life is deemed as not valuable enough to be paid as much for.

I get only one life as myself. My life is priceless to me. Life is cruel, and one must fight because no one else values me as much as I do. I perform my work, but I will not let it define me.

Please, don't be a victim either. It's just a ride.

Invitation to Great Music

Poetry

What Planet is this

Just some light reading :P

Bundling and Minification in ASP .Net 4.5

Why Curry Helps

Dependent Types in Scala

Developing Random Ideas into a Product

jQuery Tab in ASP .Net

Creating Smart and Stylish Buttons

Uploading Files

Entity Framework for Absolute Beginners

Web Application Security Quiz

Coppers aren't soldiers.

I can't remember if it was Terry Pratchett who gave me the impression that coppers shouldn't be smart. Now I know why that is - when you're a copper who's smart enough to get away with breaking the rules, or at the very least is smart enough to think of any excuse, the world goes to hell. Good coppers aren't smart; they're thorough.

Why Did You Shoot Me?

It will always hurt

Rory Miller at Chiron Training - That's gotta hurt

This is a true thing. It makes me uncomfortable, because there are some drills and exercises I loathe, but I still have to do them. Even though I don't always; and they will always hurt, as per my teacher. He says doing some of them means pitting your body against itself, so everything will always be uphill. I'm still quite immature, I guess.

Madness isn't what others say you have.

From the wiki:

Adrian Schoolcraft (born 1976) is a suspended New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who secretly recorded police conversations from 2008 to 2009. He brought these tapes to NYPD investigators in October 2009 as evidence of corruption and wrongdoing within the department. He used the tapes as evidence that arrest quotas were leading to police abuses such as wrongful arrests, while the emphasis of fighting crime sometimes resulted in underreporting of crimes to keep the numbers down.

After voicing his concerns, Schoolcraft was reportedly harassed and reassigned to a desk job. After he left work early one day, an emergency unit entered his apartment, and eventually admitted him to a psychiatric facility, where he was held against his will for six days. In 2010, he released the audio recordings to The Village Voice, leading to the reporting of a multi-part series titled The NYPD Tapes. In 2012 The Village Voice reported that a 2010 unpublished report of an internal NYPD investigation found the 81st precinct had evidence of quotas and underreporting. In 2010 Schoolcraft filed a lawsuit against the NYPD and Jamaica Hospital.

There was also this story previously about a German man committed to a psychiatric facility for "fabricating" allegations of illegal activity at his place of work - allegations that turned out to have some merit. If one wants to increase the adult fear there's what happened to Christine Collins; she was committed to a psychiatric ward despite having definite proof that her returned child was actually an impostor.

From a very young age we're taught to trust authority, and I think it's easy for us to do so because this conceit helps make our lives less uncertain and more comfortable. We don't need to worry about so many things - we can just have someone else do it for us, someone who has the training and resources and permission by the majority. But life is really never so simple and even being a submissive member of society has its price. Being let down by those who should have measured up but didn't, how many have there been who never achieved vindication? How many have there been who have lost things and will never get them back?

It's not just authority figures. Society has the general practice of othering, too.

 We are fed stories everyday and instead of verifying and validating them most of us instead spread them around; that's something we're quite good at, spreading things around. Meanwhile we stick to our small inner ponds, steeped in our own biases,  thinking that the worst will never happen to us because we're good (not just good, amazing) people.

In my experience, we aren't the ones to make that decision. That's why these two quotes have special significance to me:

I don't know which option you should choose. I could never advise you on that... no matter what kind of wisdom dictates you the option you pick, no one will be able to tell if it's right of wrong until you arrive to some sort of outcome from your choice.

 And:

The only thing we're allowed to do is to believe that we won't regret the choice we made.

UPDATE: This seems to  lend more credence to my view on things. 

Even before the Human Genome Project wrapped up in April 2003, scientists have worked overtime to find the gene or genes responsible for autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, ADHD, alcoholism, depression, and other ailments "known" to have major genetic components.

The problem is, many neuropsychiatric ailments that are assumed to have a major genetic component don't seem to have one.

More than a decade after the sequencing of the human genome, there is still no reliable genetic test for autism, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, or any other major neuropsychiatric disorder (except for Huntingon's disease, for which there was already a test, prior to the Human Genome Project). 

... the fact remains that scientists have failed miserably to find genes for schizophrenia, depression, and other major mental disorders.

Let's all have a long think on that. Maybe the real madness is in giving others permission to "get" us - as in, to "understand" us, and in so doing get us to be something or get us to do something.

SWAG

Re: Sex Sells, Part Two

Okay, going to take a second crack at this. 

Wouldn't It Be Nice If Race Didn't Matter? But It Does

I feel that this issue with race shares something with gender issues. The truth is that a person's gender does matter in some things, even when it would be better if it didn't. It also seems true to me that while we wish to discuss this matter, the sensitivity of the topic makes us reticent to speak our minds. 

When I was doing Dan Ariely's Coursera series on irrationality, we were told about how people have difficulty conceiving of large numbers. This causes situations like people empathizing for one starving girl but not having as large an emotional response when confronted with the plight of a million people. There was research showing that the effect occurs even when the subject increases to just two people. I have a feeling that this effect also creeps up when we talk about sexism. It is difficult to connect with the concept of women being doused with acid for purposes of restoring honor or whatever; it's much easier to take one incident then make it representative of the whole struggle.

Still, I think there is value in the discussion generated with stuff like this, this, and this. So long as we don't get blinded to the forest the trees are part of.

...That turned out better than expected. But I think a third crack is in order. Watch for it.

My Zhan Zhuang

I am now consistently able to reach one hour of standing practice.It's been more than a year since I started studying. Health-wise, I've found my digestive system to have become more stable. My right shoulder and right leg also seem to be stronger, whereas before starting standing they were quite weak compared to my left side.

There's a key to being able to last so long in a Zhan Zhuang posture. I've found that it's good to remember to always stretch the head upwards; as you do so imagine the upper body drooping down like taffy into your waist. Push down with the feet and the C-back will be perfectly created. Try to keep your chest concave, and if the shoulders still hurt try to make sure the hands are shoulder-width apart and parallel to the shoulders.

Standing practice also helps create a mental/spiritual "space." When you have this space all the day-to-day stresses seem to pale. They are not so important as maintaining alignment during the session, and unpleasant/unnecessary thoughts just flow away. They enter the mind easily and are just as easily flushed out.

There are other benefits. Ever since I started I have not lifted a single pound for weight training. And yet now I am really much stronger. My arm muscles have also gotten noticeably bigger. I don't slip or trip over myself anymore.

Re: Sex Sells

Sex Sells, Drawing the Line Between Classy and Raunchy

The above piece is an interesting opinion on one aspect of the great Hallyu invasion we are experiencing right now. As Kpop gets more and more exposure all over the world it's inevitable that people will start to evaluate it according to their own groups' mores. There will be those who will take issue with how this genre celebrates youth, beauty, and empowerment. 

I'm aware that South Korean broadcast media is strict with its guidelines on what can be aired and that the companies behind Hallyu do want to project the best side of their country to foreigners. However these same companies are in a race to survive and thrive - the competition is quite fierce. Sex does sell, but in the case of Kpop it has to be tempered otherwise a big chunk of the older demographic gets lost. But things aren't simple - there's considerations of appeal and image to think about. 

I am sorry if I'm not as coherent with this post; I am not entirely clear about how I feel about this kind of thing, you see. I believe it's hard to quantify "classy" versus "raunchy." The image that comes to mind is that of female beach-goers being accosted so the length of the hemlines of their swimsuits could be measured; too short and one can look forward to being arrested. I understand that there is an imbalance when one gender predominates in positions of authority and that judging a person by their physical assets does diminish them. On the other hand, I recognize that judging people this way is something that we do all our lives - we think of people in terms of how they affect us, what they look like/sound like/etc, how they are in relation to us. Nobody really takes the trouble to research someone thoroughly to the point that they know more about the latter than she does herself. People just go for satisficing.

There's a part of me thinking that having beauty and sexiness are assets just like having intelligence or riches. Those who have them are well within their rights to exploit what they have to get ahead. Falling in love with someone who is beautiful, falling in love with someone who is rich - what's the difference, really?

But there are things that disturb me. The extreme dieting, the cosmetic procedures, the excessive expectations everyone has of these artists - it's like trying to maintain the illusion of being young and dependent for as long as possible. And I hesitate to think that I could even begin to empathize with the situation of those who are oppressed by this. 

And there's another thing to consider: that maybe the view the author is talking about could be the seed of a moral panic.

I also reflect a lot on Sandara Park. I've researched her prior career in the Philippines, it's interesting how she's an international star now when her career stagnated in that country.  I wonder if the author considered her before writing the op-ed.

These ideas hover around me like flies when I come across things that invoke the issue. Perhaps I'll write about this some more someday, when my views have become more stable.