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.

The Power of Standing

If I had the chance, I would love to meet these folks. I'm convinced they are the secret masters of Mind Fist.

Texas Senator's 13-Hour Solo Filibuster Kills Brutal Abortion Bill

The Standing Man of Turkey

Nassim Nicholas Taleb once made a distinction between those in professions that are relatively stable ("Mediocristan") versus those that can be volatile ("Extremistan"). His point, broadly summarized, was that while a baker could expect gains proportional to the effort put into the work, someone like a Wall Street trader could find himself gaining and losing millions within a single trading day for reasons completely unrelated to his skills. 

There are many types of work out there where this applies. In the recording industry, the popularity of a song could depend on so many factors outside the artist's singing skill. In acting, consummate chameleons rub elbows with purveyors of cheap fare. Everything takes a second seat to the question of whether the audience likes you.

In Extremistan survivorship bias lives and breeds. How many people out there go follow their dreams in these professions every year, and of these how many are able to derive a good living off of it? For the winners, dreams do come true - but for the losers, they don't even register. 

I think it's the constant risk of going belly-up that prompts companies to become so restrictive with their talents. In K-pop companies for example, the contracts can be positively draconian while the training is extremely rigorous. 

Check out the video above at 4:22. The chart shows an Internet ranking of K-pop idol groups. Out of so many groups at the time of the airing of this program, only 16 can be said to have a hold in people's minds. And of those sixteen, only two are at the very top. This ranking is obviously very volatile, but the top groups are very comfortable in their position. For the others, they have to hustle because the competition is very fierce and tomorrow they could slide down from their current position. It's not a very objective example, but for illustrative purposes I think it serves the purpose.

Why should we care? Because when people are in desperate situations where they don't know what to do to get ahead, they end up willing to do anything to get ahead. Like getting minors to work in conditions that would be unacceptable in other countries. Or getting them to be of the mindset that doing stuff like this is appropriate.

Privacy

Ernest Hemingway survived war and many other privations. He thrived in adversity and conflict, that would lay other men low. And yet it seems that in the end he was unable to prevail against his own government watching him. Then again, it's very hard to fight against a shapeless, vague threat as compared to, say, a plane crash. In the latter one's priorities are clear.

Scrutiny does change how people behave - you only need to look at all of those fallen stars that litter every country's social scene. Being looked at is disconcerting - many convince themselves that it is a good thing just to escape from the unease. Ultimately, they try to dull their senses or withdraw. Anything to keep away from the eyes.

There are good arguments out there for protecting the right to be left alone. We are prone to biases; we think that such surveillance won't really be directed at us. Or even if it were, that the authorities will not find something. To that I say - the determination is not up to us. More to the point, them knowing so much about us makes it so much easier for them to use us however they like. 

But perhaps greater than all these arguments is that our privacy is fundamental and inalienable to our psychological make-up. We need that space to share only the parts of us that we want to share; and it shrinking can only bode bad things for our future as a species.

If one could have a soundtrack for one's life, I want this to be mine

Too Good Too Bad

I can't help visualizing this set to the music above.

Hacking and Writing

I'm not the only one that has noticed the overlap between coding and writing. The difference is mainly in the audience and purpose of what is written. In fact, code is categorized together with literature in terms of intellectual property. The article below riffs on a lot of concepts - definitely worth a reread... or ten.

Learn language

Boxing Wisdom

I'm a big fan of articles like these. Wisdom should always come in small, testable nuggets - nuggets hard-won through experience.

Twelve things maybe Cus d'Amato only knew

The world of martial arts that has long since passed

Get health and fitness tips at Greatist.com

Flow

Canabalt

If you've a couple minutes to spare and you were so inclined, please try out the game above. It's free and simple to operate. At first you won't be any good; the game though is addictive and you will soon last longer.

As you try again and again, you notice that your avatar goes faster and faster the longer you survive in the game. This is dangerous because it leaves you only a split second to assess the distance to the next platform, detect any traps, and press the control properly. It's much wiser to slow down by hitting the chairs and boxes that litter your path. However, every time you come back to the game the conviction that this thinking is wrong grows. You want to last. You want to be pure. So you might choose to jump over the obstacles, sort of another challenge to yourself.

As the distance of your avatar's run increases you begin to feel pride in what you're doing. You also feel, in a detached sort of way, that you won't be able to maintain this for much longer - you'll misjudge a leap, or your character will slip, or he'll hit a trap. But you haven't failed yet, and it's a thrill. You're not being bogged down, nor are you stalling. You have built, and continue to build, momentum on your run. You're soaring.

This must be a fraction of what masters feel.

On letting go

On awkwardness

This article got me to thinking not about intelligence, which was the actual intent of the piece, but rather about clumsiness. If all intelligence is situational intelligence, this means that being in a less than optimal situation is a result of not being able to shape the situation to our advantage, even with all the talents or advantages we were blessed with starting out. Shaping the situation jumps out to me because it's precisely what we do in the martial arts - we take a bad situation and somehow turn it into one that favors us. This means that shaping things to our benefit is a skill that has wider implications than was previously thought. It also means that starting out in a less-than-ideal situation is the norm as well as the consequence for failing to reverse things.

A skill is proficiency and artistry combined, that is being able to do what you want and being able to think of novel ways to apply what you know. To gain skill one starts out clumsy, but through long and intensive refinement one moves away from always being clumsy to being so less often. Skill also takes focus, and if focus wavers even the most skillful can look like amateurs.

Nothing in life is always clear-cut, and perhaps recognizing this is why we derive enjoyment from media that are vague or ambiguous. Things that don't have neat endings engage our imaginations, and things that don't go smoothly are more interesting to see. Perhaps there's an element of schadenfreude there as well. We hate awkwardness within ourselves though, and despise it in others. This is why it is so important to have one's grand achievements seem effortless in execution.

I think we tend to equate effortlessness with familiarity of something, the opposite of being clumsy. After all, back in the early days of our species' evolution a clumsy situation was more of an annoyance - do something wrong and your people could be wiped out. 

And I don't know how to render a proper ending to this train of thought, so in honor of the subject I'll be tabling this as it is right now.

The Scrappy Heap

So I've read that T-ARA is being considered to be some sort of Scrappy of K-pop groups right now because  of all the controversies they've figured in. I for one feel that it's a waste of their good talent to have them be hounded - just because they are public figures does not mean that they should be acceptable targets for backlash. 

It's the cost of free speech, I guess. When anyone can speak up, no speech is special. I consider being able to speak your mind as a safeguard for individuals so that they can create imaginative, meaningful and relevant messages. I really doubt it was for members of cliques to raise themselves up in their own eyes by dressing down targets, for instance.

Me, I believe in silence. Keeping mum isn't because I'm too slow to think of a comeback or that I'm riddled with guilt. I keep quiet because I know neither side will ever admit defeat, and to fight in such a situation is just a drain on my resources. It's better to do the job in front of me. It's better to grow in strength and expertise in all the things that are important to me. Let others do what they feel justified in doing; though they wish to exert power over me, I am myself and that is all I need.

Alas, my favorite K-pop group doesn't have that luxury. They need to go on interviews and talk to so many people. But they keep moving forward. So they truly are scrappy - as in, full of fighting spirit.

A Family-Unfriendly Aesop

Here's something to provide food for thought - turns out life is better with college and a steady 9-to-5.

Survivorship bias

An Irrefutable Data-Based Argument for Going to College

I'm putting this up largely to remind myself that in life, there are no guarantees. Even with skill and hard work and talent and luck and dirty tricks, you might still come up short. We need to take a hard look at the data - those who succeeded as well as those who didn't. What are the relative proportions between the two types? 

It seems cold, but you only get one life. If you need to sacrifice for something, it would be good if you could guarantee something for yourself and your loved ones. Yes, the loved ones as well - because whether they are agreeable to it or not, they do get roped into our shenanigans. We owe it to them to make our shots count. 

I wish I could say this to my college-age self; I was a bad student then, hung up on pipe dreams and distracted from the business of actually earning a degree. I struggled to finish my major, and up to today that still rankles. The humiliation is not only on myself, it's on all those who scraped to give me that education that majority of the world's population could only dream of. It's also on the institutions I learned under, who had great expectations for me. 

But I learned my lesson and did otherwise when I went to technical college to learn programming. This is my personal family-unfriendly aesop: your study determines your work. You work is your life. Friends are fine up until you need help paying the rent. Work hard, don't be distracted, choose your battles. Politics and fitting in don't really get you paid. Do the job in front of you, and achieve things. Save up for when you truly need it, for when your loved ones truly need it.

Always Be Coding

In my quest to be a better programmer, I came across these articles. I recommend them to anyone who wants to become a brilliant software engineer.

Four Steps to Google, Without a Degree

ABC: Always Be Coding

Rely only on your own arms

This is something I come back to several times. It's a lesson from Robert Greene's "33 Strategies of War." It's a very hard lesson. We are dependent on so many things. The key is in remembering that the things we are dependent may not necessarily be material in nature. We rely on what we've learned, what we've developed - we rely on what worked, and what we think might work. 

It's a horrible thing to doubt yourself in this way. You have to second-guess yourself, and that's when you realize the full extent of what you leave on auto-pilot every second of every day. What I've found is that there are principles to correct action. For instance, in the martial arts one strives to move with the barest minimum of effort; moves are not supposed to be excessively committed to; one must be able to change to the situation immediately. In dealing with oneself, there are a multitude of biases one's mind is subject to; considering carefully is important, but one must not let fear creep into the process of decision-making. When dealing with others, remember they have their own agenda - we all are subject to conflicts of interest. The input of others is useful as feedback, but never as a judgement of your inherent worth.

Wishing for more of something doesn't help; in many cases doing so is a waste of time as more is not forthcoming. We have to make do with what we have, and hopefully at the same time grow because if we survive the current predicament odds are good another, potentially greater, problem is on the way. Someone once told me, the problems you have today won't be the same things you worry about fifty years from now. It's not much, but I still want to reach that future. 

So I pay attention. And when the chips are down, I pay attention even more. May we never divorce ourselves from reality. Keep fluid. These things I tell myself, everyday - but what happens isn't always what we intend. 

Why We Love Psy

This probably explains part of the appeal.

Ask Ariely: On Lyrics, Joint Accounts, and Dialing Mom

Myself, I prefer songs without lyrics. Instrumental pieces tend to be more evocative to me.

Irrational notes

Dan Ariely's course has wrapped up, and here I'm posting my notes for the last three weeks. Fourth week is about labor and motivation; fifth week is about self-control; and the sixth week is about emotion. The studies are all available with a little searching.

Week 4:
Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior - People who feel happy give more, and those who give more are happier. Advertising the emotional rewards of giving does not reduce the tendency to give, but further research is necessary to disentangle between the costs and benefits of self-interested giving.


The “IKEA Effect”: When Labor Leads to Love - People value more the products of their labor only when they are able to complete their labor - that is, they can see the fruits of their work. The effect occurs even for those who do not have an affinity for "do-it-yourself" projects.


Large Stakes and Big Mistakes - Small incentives or incentives given where there were none before may increase performance, but past a certain threshold increased stakes increases motivation to the point where there are perverse effects on performance.

Effort for Payment - In the realm of effort and payment, one may find oneself in a monetary or social market. Monetary markets are more sensitive to the economics of compensation, while social markets are independent of the magnitude of compensation.


A Fine is a Price - At a day-care, a fine was introduced for parents who are late in picking up in their children. The parents possibly interpreted the fine as a cost in the sense of a monetary market and the number of latecomers per day shot up. The increased levels remained even after the policy regarding the fine was rescinded.


Man’s search for meaning: The case of Legos - When there is meaning to the tasks that people are assigned to do, they are happier at their jobs and are more productive



Week 5:
Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Self-control by Precommitment -
People are willing to self-impose deadlines to avoid procastination, even if it is costly. However, people space deadlines suboptimally


A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety -
Children with higher self-control ended up wealthier, healthier, and less likely to engage in crime in adulthood.


Counteractive Self-Control in Overcoming Temptation -
When the decision of undergoing an activity is threatened, counteractive self-control kicks in to increase the perceived value of the activity and ensure that motivation is maintained. This occurs when the cost of the action is moderate, tempting alternatives to the action are moderate, and before the performance of the activity. The counteractive self-control action motivates individuals to bind themselves to restrictive agreements, and delay rewards in order to ensure compliance.


The significance of self-control - Self control is a significant predictor of future welfare even after controlling for intelligence and family background; however, people struggle with wanting and in wanting to want other things.


Personal Decisions Are the Leading Cause of Death - The cause of many deaths can be said to be due to personal decisions; these deaths could have been avoided if a readily available alternative had instead been chosen. Over 80% of the deaths attributable to personal decisions in 2000 were due to smoking and being overweight. In 1900, just under 5% of deaths could be attributed to personal choices.


Rewards Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary - Impulsive behavior is driven by limbic activation, while non-impulsive behavior is associated with the activation of regions of the brain responsible for higher level deliberation.


Save More Tomorrow: Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving - Households that are saving too little may be because of bounded rationality, self-control, procrastination (which pro-duces inertia), and nominal loss aversion. SMART is a methodology encouraging increased savings using principles
of behavioral economics.


Week 6:
Dread Risk, September 11, and Fatal Traffic Accidents - In avoiding the risk of being caught up in an incident similar to the events of 9/11, more Americans took to driving - thus increasing the number involved in fatal vehicular accidents. The number of those killed this way even exceeded the total number of fatalities in the four flights that were hijacked.


The Peculiar Longevity of Things Not So Bad - When a stimulus reaches a threshold when it can be characterized as intense, it causes people to raise defensive measures to attenuate it. In cases of behavior this results in counteractive self-control, and in cases of hedonic states quicker abatement. This can result in situations where someone ends up hating another for a less grave offense and forgiving (or even liking) yet another for a bigger offense.


Psychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity - Crimes committed against a big number of people do not grab our attention and inspire our actions as they do crimes against an individual. This makes our moral intuitions not trustworthy in dealing with cases like genocide. We must find a way to treat cases of mass atrocity with the gravity that is commensurate to our belief that every life is equal and of great importance.


Emotions in Economic Theory and Economic Behavior - Economic models need to take into account the impact of deeply-rooted affective states (drives, emotions, passions) in individuals' decision-making process. There is a big gap between the actions of people when they are in a "hot" and "cold" state, and their ability to
predict their behavior when in a particular state while they are in the opposite one is impaired. These empathy gaps can occur for hunger, thirst, sexual arousal, anxiety, curiosity, and pain.

Learning Five Programming Languages

In these two videos we have the founders of two programming languages discuss which languages they believe every professional developer should know. I'm kind of happy that I'm familiar with most of the languages they enumerated.

Bjarne Stroustrup, of C++ fame

Larry Wall, Perl master

I've coded in C, C++, C#, and Java before. For webpage front-ends I know HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript - what I'm not familiar with Google generally supplements. I'm studying Scala for my functional language, and I have been exposed to Python through my own self-study. For databases, I have basic experience in MySQL and T-SQL.

Here's the thing though - in my experience knowledge in these programming languages is kind of expected for a developer gig. What really sets apart good software engineers is in the mastery of frameworks and tools for these specific languages. That means you have to know which tools are popular and get decent with them. This article helps break things down for us. Oh, and don't forget to take a look at this article as well, for a reversal of perspective.

The last couple of posts were rather short; I know I intended to have this blog be more about essays discussing stuff I find interesting, but right now I am thinking that it can sometimes be more effective to show people the things that I find of note. It helps to have others get a sense of my thought process, and in the future it'll be helpful to me in evaluating how I was today.

The above is something else that I look at regularly. Zheng Mingxing is a master with phenomenal skills; his hands move like lightning. He's a role model for me in how to develop my form.

More clips of the man can be found here.

Dedication

This link is a report on one Korean idol telling people in a variety show that she was a trainee for her company for 11 years. This woman is a determinator, pure and simple. What makes her unique is that increased motivation doesn't generally lead  to increased performance; if anything, higher stakes worsens how you do in something. Perhaps she found a way to channel physicality in her craft, which is usually when motivation and performance go hand-in-hand. In any case, I would love to shake her hand.

And the Clip-Fest Continues...

I hope this becomes a trend. My country's local programming is too dumbed down to compare; I spend my time watching clips of subbed foreign shows on Youtube. A full show is a treat for me. Anyway, please enjoy!

Brief Clip of Zhang Ziyi's Training for The Grandmasters

The work ethic these people have is awe-inspiring. It really makes martial arts movies that much more authentic when you have masters guiding you in expressing their art accurately. Oh, and those stretches do hurt - I still have scars from when I was forced to do splits for a martial art I was studying back then.

Baguazhang is a beautiful art. My current teacher swears by their footwork. Here's a brief introduction to the Circle Walk Practice and the art itself.