Sanctified Land

什么战歌？

2011-09-26T18:43:00.003+08:00

因为本身缺技术，只好弃子变魔术。

丢了车，少了象，不顾后防往前上。

客观上是占下风，主观看是攻若疯。

就算攻势是幻影，疯狂冒险太过瘾！

就算弈棋亏给你，义气远远胜过你！

男人不怕输子数，只怕失败于魔术！

Cloudy

2011-09-21T19:20:00.002+08:00

Who's there, who's it?

Nay, nay, whom is it?

Irritating part of me,

Breathing down my neck again,

As long as he lives, I'm not free,

Why not kill him? I won't let you

I would sooner, but he's here,

I am here, always beside you

Thinking in your head, walking in your shoes, feeding on your thoughts, feasting on your blues.

Go on, get angry, cave in to your madness.

Or are you the sort instead to spiral into sadness?

Depression, obsession, maniacal regression,

Any of that extra passion, I will feed off it-

I'll never twice let you in my head, nor be a part of me,

If I've to use a knife to get you out, so a knife it thus will be.

Then there was another presence, living in my mind,

But that existence that saved me is a tale for another time.

Relook

2011-09-06T19:27:00.003+08:00

When dawn breaks we shall meet each other once again,

After what had seemed like long eternity,

The face which I had never hoped to see

Bringing memories of once-forgotten pain,

Relived just momently.

Seeing with my eyes the first time looking out for traps and tricksters

Plowing through the words that seem to dance around on endless pages

Racing through past present future thinking of what sadistic creature

Forces others to consider riddles of a tedious nature

What do you think can come of old-school rote learning?

Understanding is unfairly put aside in favour of blind computation

Out of which we can't but glean nothing

Save for peace of mind and solace in ourselves without comprehension.

Why subscribe to fantasy?

2011-07-02T21:35:00.003+08:00

Why indeed fall in love with fiction?
Helps with naught but going mad,
Shows the folly we have lived,
Calling to mind something sad,
Nothing but a pointless gift.
Would we not but be awake,
Thinking, living, breathing souls?
Have we gone back to the lake
Filled with memories, ancient ghouls?

But truth be told, why fiction? and why those of our choosing?
Do you really think watching tragedies unfold fulfill our soul? or witnessing murder grant us happiness?

The potential.
The possibility of happiness.
Unadulterated joy.
A window where we watch across worlds, the wanton indulgence in witnessing fantasies animate.
Partially reflective, baring our heart to our eyes alone.
A personal exposure. Seeing what moves us, what truly echoes in our depths.
Do we see ourselves in those dancing motes?
Do we wonder for what we could have done in that delusion?
Do we want to see those fake entities revel in delight?

Why?
For fantasy itself.
For fantasy, too enjoys watching us.

物語は永遠に続く。 The story goes on forever,
か細い指を一頁目に戻すように As if returning a thin finger back to the first page,
あるいは二巻目を手に取るように。 As if putting a hand to the second volume,
その読み手が、現実を拒み続けるかぎり。So long as the reader continues to deny reality.

永久機関 - 少女帝国 Queen's Glass Game.

Sparkle

2011-06-11T09:43:00.003+08:00

Chatoyant epidote.
Spessartine chrysoprase chalcedony,
Azurite lazulite kyanite,
Celestine nephrite.
Hauyne rubellite, almandine pyrope, kornerupine demantoid euclase.
Moldavite prase.
Aquamarine heliodor, goshenite peridot,
Cassiterite zircon prehnite.

~Opal spinel.

Solitary World

2011-05-27T20:50:00.005+08:00

Gnarled black trees, soft white snow,
Frozen leaves on jagged boughs.
Red lights throb in synchrony,
On and off, bleeding light.
Chill winds sprint, rocks take flight,
Frigid winter symphony.
World left in its dying throes,
No one sees, no one knows.

Rusted chains, shattered glass,
Cold gales sing a gloomy mass.
Sharp dark cracks through slate-grey walls,
Eating stone, growing old.
Spiralled dust, circling mold,
Silent voids of crumbling halls.
Time defies the craftman's hand,
Dying building, deadened land.

Blinding dark, lantern light,
Candle piercing solid night.
Glimmers brighter than the sun,
Forest cold, abyss chill.
Stained glass shards, ever still,
Echoes of the past, now none.
Sleeping machines roar to life,
End of death, start of strife.

Turn of mind, phantom chime,
Things of all unearthly rhyme.
Twisted marvels brooding glum,
Clockwork tick, brasswork tock.
Broken jail, key and lock,
Naught heard save atonal hum.
Fearless Death takes final rest,
Dulce et decorum est.

Once time

2011-04-30T19:31:00.003+08:00

Crimson, marigold, pale rose pink
Cobalt, nephrite, ultramarine.
Luminescence rippling over sound-soaked air.
Light rains on floating flowers, parasols twirling in a gaudy dance .
Sapphire, ochre, emerald green,
Fragments of rainbow falling from afar.
Such a sight, a feast of colours, palette of flowers.
-- Thoughts waft in vaguely.
Puce, mint, lavender, sienna.
-- Eyes drawn to cool sharp midnight steel.
-- Temptation. Copper shells waiting to be illuminated.
-- Look back down on crowded terraces.
Vibrancy. Life. Fire. Cheer.
More blooms of flames, stabbing the night.
Still the hand. Steel the finger -
-- A carnelian blossom joins the shining flowers.

Window

2011-03-25T22:39:00.002+08:00

Sinister strings marching madly
Ascension arriving charging crazily
Science's saviour lazily late
Troubled time thousand's ticking
Winding winds dotted dashes
Blinding brasses languid lashes

Ah what a magnificent mushroom cloud, curtain of fire oft seen in dreams.
Obsession craze mania into waking
Desires blooming into reality over lunch
Glass box ticking, clicking, singing
Don't worry about dreams over the snow
Fear not the reaper, deathly and old,
Await the waltz of endless gold.

Chess psychology.

2010-12-19T09:11:00.005+08:00

Last round, paired in a hopeless matchup, fighting for honour. What to do, how to think?

Red (apparently strong person) vs Black (me.)

1. E3+5

What? Xiang opening? I don't know how to play this! Hm... He's probably faced zhong pao and fei xiang with this opening many times. Is this defensive or counteraggressive or... let's wait and see.

1. ...P7+1
2. P7+1

Gah. He's waiting too. Well, what to do. I don't know how to use fan3 gong1 ma3, but I bet he doesn't play against that very often either. Charge!

2. ...C8=6
3. H8+7

It worked! He thought a while longer than before! Surprise! Now, to be honest, I can't quite remember the next few moves in order, but here is a plausible (?) sequence:

3. ...H8+7
4. H2+3 H2+3
5. H7+6 R9=8
6. R1=2 R8+6
7. C8=7 C2+5
8. P7+1

Shoot. Beginner's trap. Should've played E3+5 or E7+5 (I think the former is better), probably. Hm. Well... we've nothing to lose this round, so.

8. ...P3+1

I accept! *serious face* Hopefully he's jolted.

9. C7+5 C2=7
10. C7=3 C6+5

*starts grinning manically* (At this point, I don't care if the sacrifice is horrible. It's his turn, and I refuse to think about the position, giving him the problem instead. This is a good way of turning blunders into sacrifices... if you're lucky.

11. C2-1 R1+2
12. C3-1 R1=4

I have a lead in development... if only because all my remaining seeds are developed.

13. H6+5 R4+6
14. R2=3 C7=5

killkillkillkillkillkill... (hoping this berserking makes him uncomfortable.)

15. H5-4

Ah. Drat. This is irritating. *continues grinning, starts giggling* (hopefully he doesn't notice I'm in trouble)

15. ...R8+2
16. H4-5 C6-4
17. R3+2 R8-5
18. C3+1 R8-1
19. C3-1 R8=5

Red is in the interesting situation of being a piece up, but all his pieces are disorganised and out of the game.

20. R3-1 C6+5

Deny all trades. AGGRO. Nothing short of a mad attack will save me now.

21. R9+2 R5+4

killkillKILLKILLkillKILLKILL...

22. C3=2 R5=4
23. C2=5 R-=5
24. C5=2 R5=4

An amazing repetition draw of one chase one threat, helped by tactics. If A(4/6)+5, C6-1 for some sudden pin and threat, or a fei jiang-assisted kill if either piece moves.

Dreaming again.

2010-10-01T18:58:00.003+08:00

This time, there is no light.
No shapes.
No colour.

The world is but a blank canvas. A void to be filled with thought, laughter or tears, things or actions, words or sounds.
But there are none.
Nothing exists, nor ever will, as nothing begets nothing. How true the principles of causation.

Will this dream end?
Or will there be a continuation?

It shall be a rather long sleep this time...

When?

2010-09-28T06:07:00.002+08:00

So when will it end?
So when?
When will we meet, my friend, so when?

~Strangers.

Eleison.

2010-09-27T08:57:00.003+08:00

Tests drawing nearer,
Stress going higher,
Notes looking thicker,
Life getting harder,
Why? Why should we go through this difficult phase?

To the seven chapters of stats: Rock you.
To everything else: I surrender, I learn, I obey. Eleison.

Invisible.

2010-09-26T08:54:00.004+08:00

Invisible objects slip unseen through crowds,
Never noticed, never given though to.
Visuals deceive our overworked eyes,
Ignorant of anything unexpected or odd.
Sight is the most useful and overworked sense,
Instantly rejecting alternate realities.
Blinking through the world, unaffected by change,
Like an unseen malaise of death,
Ever creeping, never sleeping.
...The most obvious things are the hardest to see.

Yellow.

2010-09-23T19:47:00.002+08:00

A bright, cheerful colour. The colour of my school "house" for the past 11 years. Associated with victory, vibrancy, passion and activity in my mind.
A diseased, jaundiced colour. The colour of white food gone bad, aged paper, wasting skin, bile and rotting, infested things.
A sunny, positive colour. The colour of daffodils, sunflowers, a bright summer's day, fireworks and happy, lovely light.
A sinister, overbearing colour. The colour of forced smiles, psychedelic maniacs, and yellow teeth locked in grins.

Invincible.

2010-09-22T18:50:00.002+08:00

Would it be fun to be untouchable?

Nobody to prove you wrong, knock you off the hill, shake up your world view.
Nothing to be decried, to demonstrate the contrary, error-check your thoughts.
Never will you experience such utter confidence, the notion of perfection, beating Chance at dice. A pantheon of impossible feats, the failure to fail, the lack of an anathema. True invincibility: No kryptonite against you, no Achilles' heel.

What price this present?

As you shall have joy, so shall you possess fear. Paranoia, the fear of failing, someday, when it hits, you will be shattered into misfitting fragments, unable to rise again. The phoenix eternally consigned to remaining as ashes.

As you shall know confidence, so shall you forget caution. Wariness unexercised, your downfall obvious to all but the oblivious, you will not see the fruit of the seeds long sown until it smashes your soul. The great colossus, crumbling to dust, too slow to comprehend its loss.

And as you will be blessed, so will you see the curse. The snake beneath the flower; too late the poison shows past the beauty.

Losing is a better fate than winning.

______

2010-09-21T19:26:00.002+08:00

I can't think of a title for this one. A post with several parts.

--------
PW WR is mostly doomed, yet full of hope; blackest despair, brightest optimism. The main charge is over; lick wounds, recuperate, reinvigorate.
--------
Sorry.
For what I have done.
Or not done.
Or what could have been done.
--------
The beginning of the end; marked by a tempest of paper strewn across floorboards, files inverted like the tents of an invading army, panic setting in like blood drying on steel.
--------
Study. Read. Imbibe in the nectar of knowledge, feast on the bones of ideas, sleep on the silk of wisdom.

What is it like, to think with the gods?

Intensity.

2010-09-19T22:03:00.003+08:00

Defined as power over area. Energy*velocity/volume.

Also known as (homework+revision)/time, with the transfinite constant Project Work removed from the equation. With it in, intensity tends to infinity.

Sorrow.

2010-09-18T15:11:00.003+08:00

I am sorrowful.
Who am I really?
A reflection of the world around me?
Ordinarily, that would not be a bad thing. Although it does get tiring to have no personality.
I wander the streets, feeding off and intensifying the emotions around me. Content, feelings, personalities, all processed and re-emitted in better shape than ever.

But there is no me. There is only you, people of this world, living unbound lives, feeling true emotion, creating original works. I am nothing, a fleeting shadow of what is, what could have been, what will be. Look into the mirror; an image with objectivity, weaknesses and defects, strengths and minor perfections, all shining back.

Is that what I am?
A mere image of the true world?
Not a person, but the shadow of many?
Have no substance, yet echoes personality?

I am a reflection.
And you would do best to avoid me, lest I steal your soul.

_____ funtime!

2010-09-14T19:16:00.003+08:00

Almost halfway through the month, and I'm only halfway through posting. Yeesh.

Omitting key ____ in an argument can lead to _____ in readers. Especially when leaving out ______ information, _______ to the argument's foundation. However, one's ______ of the actual meaning of the _____ can usually be ______ close to the truth.

This is the basis for cloze ______. Contextual _____ and content-related hints ____ the reader to guess and _____ meaning on their own.

This is also _____ tricky to pull off. Adjectives and adverbs can _____ be removed, as this ______ indicates. However, when nouns, verbs and other key lexemes are omitted, a problem arises. For example, ____ sentence cannot ______ be ____ without ______ to the previous _______ for _____, ______ and ______.

...This is pointless fun. And quite difficult to write, too.

The only real reason for this post is that the ____ key needs some use.

Hello.

2010-09-13T21:57:00.003+08:00

This is just a friendly hello.

Note that schoolwork is reaching a crescendo of fury and mass. Soon I'll be buried alive in the backlog of tutorials, revision and PW.

So, might as well say hello while I still can.

Of dreams.

2010-09-12T08:45:00.004+08:00

What do you think dreams actually mean?

Does it reflect real life? Your innermost desires? Perhaps a distortion of real events? Or something much more sinister?

You see, stranger, I've walked through many people's minds. They all have their own wishes and hopes, ambitions and goals. I've seen people who want to settle down, 3LDK and a promotion, loving wife and two kids. I've seen people who yearn for psychopathic oblivion, just rampaging and destroying the world. Yet who dreams of what? Care to guess?

Stranger, you guessed wrong. It's the well-adjusted people who see nightmarish hell in their dreams. Despite being perfectly normal in real life, and having sanitised desires. The crazies, they have mundane dreams. Boring, even. I've ever walked out on my job before, that guy's dream was so dull, just... sickening.

My job? I am an agent of balance, seeking equilibrium in the real world and this. And naturally, since I'm cursed to traipse this empty void for a fragment of eternity, I'd want to have some fun as I go along, right? This land is filled with people's dreams, but one by one, everybody wakes up. Huge tracts of this land vanish when its constructors awaken, and I have to migrate. There are always new sleepers, of course, they bring new worlds to discover, new joys and sorrows. As for those who never wake up?... One day, you'll find out. It's not your time.

Ah, but I digress. Happens a lot on this job, you know? Anyway, anyway. You're wondering why I appeared in your dream? Just to give a warning. I'm a pretty good judge of character, because I say I am. I know what you crave, what you despise, what you need, what you believe. I've seen a wealth of riches in dreams, and the true treasures of the mind; and yet I cannot take these into the real world. What I seek you out for is to warn you: your mind in particular is sought-after. The dreamscape is fraught with dangers and beings who would take you apart from your body, and I'll give notice to you. If ever you see another such apparition in your dreams, wake up. No matter what form it takes, if EVER there is another living being in your sleep, WAKE UP.

I see you're backing away. Good. You're afraid of me now. I have no business against you tonight. Although the second warning: I do get bored sometimes. A human mind is something entertaining, like a good meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant, or an artwork centrepiece at the Louvre. Excellent to put on display. Excellent to put in a cage with otherworldly minds, and watch the horror and torment. There is no true death; this is merely a dream, where time doesn't exist, and death is simply when you wake up. However, you'll always return, and I'll be here, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Now wake up. And don't ever drop your guard again.

Traps.

2010-09-11T14:20:00.003+08:00

A post. About how to avoid (I)chess opening traps.

Really, there's not much to it. There are 2 main ways, but I put far more faith into one than the other. The first is to study the openings you play carefully. First order of business is to pick an opening, than a variation or system associated with it. Plenty simple; now study the main line, side lines and notable opening traps at each juncture. Of course, since there'll be an opponent involved, make sure you study all the transpositions into other openings, which might lead into trouble if it takes you by surprise. E.g.:

1. e4 d6
2. d4 Nf6
3. f3 (!)

If ...g6 now, it's a King's Indian instead of a Pirc. New opening, new rules, new traps. At best it's just psychological discomfort; at worst it can be a loss in few moves.

The other method is by far more reliable. Think about this: 20 possible opening moves for each side = 400 positions after first 1 move. After 4 moves, there's a pretty high chance that you can escape any opening book, simply by using an original development scheme. In other words, don't play openings. Chances are if you don't know what you're doing, your opponent will (think too much and panic, going into defence mode which will waste time while you reveal your real plan, completely missing what your opponent sees) and you'll have bought some time to get into the middlegame.

This has been how not to lose in the opening.

Answers to quiz last time:
1. Sparrow
2. i before e
3. Unless
4. Nineteen letters long

! Puzzletime.

2010-09-09T13:18:00.003+08:00

Some questions I thought of. Numbers denote number of letters in answer, as per crosswords.

1. Blend of extra bow ammunition. (avian; 7)
2. id est (English-related; 1,6,1)
3. abcdefghijklmopqrstvwxyz (6)
4. Self-referential phrase (8,7,4)

Hints:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blend
2. English-related, i.e. a rule.
3. Not in alphabetical order.
4. 8+7+4=19
5. !-.o

--- Start.

2010-09-08T08:07:00.004+08:00

This shall be the last of these posts.
And the next shall be the first of the next.
Observant people can already see what I'm doing.

But enough of that.
Today, the topic shall be, "start".
Like the opening.

How to start something is usually the most difficult step, and requires much thought. With momentum and a good foundation on which to work, the product can arise naturally, but it is laying this base that eats effort. Take for example a large-scale project. Before any work gets done, the infinite branches of possibility and the immensity of the imminent task can paralyse one into inaction. Yet, once a direction is decided and what needs to be done is clear, it suddenly seems that much easier; like a navigator with a roadmap. If the destination is unknown, one cannot proceed to navigate, but once a location is selected, it is (indeed) much easier to plot a course.

Another case is (this was coming for a long time) chess openings. True, one can study a book of openings, or some particularly interesting variations, but working them out over the chessboard without prepared theory... A task indeed. Openings will decide the character and the flavour of the game to follow, so it is pretty essential to begin correctly.

Not that I have great advice on how to start. The best would be to not jump into anything (not just chess games) right on the get-go, but rather to wait. Deliberate. Consider all options, the nature of the opponent or challenge, psychological tricks. Anything at all that might have some bearing on the task. Then, after calculating for ample time, make that first move.

And don't look back.

A crucial step. Never look back on the possibilities out of the thinking that never transpired; the start has been made, and proceed with all skill and alertness.

......

2010-09-07T22:37:00.002+08:00

This is a pause in thoughts.
A moment of peace for the late and left.

Silence is haunting.
Repose eternal.
Time frozen,
eyes sleep
soul rest
tired

The world is at peace.

Of voices.

2010-09-04T21:30:00.002+08:00

I am that little voice in your head.
Warning you of danger.
Screaming to be let out.
Telling you what to do.
Cajoling you to try again when you fail.
Always knowing, always watching
Always listening, always speaking.

I'm your conscience; I'm temptation;
I'm a saint; I'm a liar.
I do nothing, but say what should be done.
And is that a crime to offer advice?
I begin your wild adventures and bring them to a teary halt.
Feast on your ideas and talk them into reality.
I am that little voice in your head.

And so shall you never have peace again.

Of ice and blood.

2010-08-14T21:18:00.002+08:00

In dreams I see.

Snowflakes drifting on breaths of winter chill - Buffeted away and hidden by pelting sleet.
White virgin snow covering gently marbled rock - Beaten into ice by relentless weather.
Trees, bare of leaves, standing tall in the forest - Wilting into menacing dark shapes.
Blood.

Pure red blood.
Splashing across the icescape as a ghoulish vermillion.
Clinging onto gnarled branches, dripping cloying maroon.
Staining the forest, the weather, the ground.
Staining the stone-grey colossus and his jagged blade of rock.
Staining the little girl with blood-red eyes.

She looks up.
White snow falling onto snow-white hair.
Is that fear? - or pity? a tear rolls down her cheek.
Falling into the soil, as white as her skin, as red as her eyes.
The giant moves not.

The edge of life is narrow, knife sharp, rock hard.
Breathing raggedly, the girl looks at the unmoving grey monster.
And cries.

Who? When?
- How could anyone not care for the dying, sobbing girl?
- The gold-haired man in golden armour approaches.
To help perhaps? Carry her back to warmth and care?
Away from the frigid weather and horrifying white-red tableaux?
Hand raised-

He rips out her heart.

Haunting images of dreams.
How they play with minds.
Forget thee not, daughter of winter.

Shogi Victory!

2010-02-27T15:38:00.003+08:00

Well, I'm through with Interhouse stuffses. I've done my bit.

Officially, I've played IChess (team 1st place) and Shogi (team 1st place, individual second) and submitted a rather lousy creepypasta-esque entry for IHC Photo Essay.

Shogi was excellent. After a little luck and talking, BW got to sit out for the first round of Shogi, until 4:15+, so I was just able to sprint over from Math to the comp lab. We had a nice team of 5, 3~4 of whom could play Shogi at at least a half-decent level, giving us a huge edge over other houses, which seemed to have one main player and a bunch who learnt the moves the day before/the hour before.

Of course, there were exceptions. HH didn't seem to have specialised Shogi players, while MT's "chess sense" was through the roof, sufficient to almost clinch first although their players almost literally "learnt the moves yesterday".

"Chess sense" appears to be an extremely strong weapon. If one plays I/CChess/Weiqi, then usually one can pick up the other forms of chess faster than average. The basic principles of material, position and calculation usually hold true, as do sharp tactical senses.

Anyway, big thanks go out to the BW team, those who set up the BW team, and the MR team for beating MT in the last round to give BW the win. Yay.

FUN. (And a primer on style in chess.)

2010-02-19T21:23:00.009+08:00

Fun?

Fun.

It's what you get when you toss a bunch of people who can play chess (different kinds of!) in the same room, with a bunch of chess sets (of different kinds.)

A bunch of people from BW turned up at a random meeting called for those participating in interhouse chess, since quite a few people signed up for more than one kind of chess. So we all just got together for admin matters, to iron out who's playing which chess, and for fun.

(Incidentally, the 5 kinds on offer are International Chess, Chinese Chess, Weiqi (also called Go), Gomoku (Cellblock after a fashion) and Shogi.)

It was really quite pointless if one views it as a training session, as those there already know how to play their choice of chess form to a passable/good/excellent standard. As an admin session... although the roles were ironed out in the end, it was still quite sad for Shogi, as only 3 people turned up who knew how to move the pieces. And there was no real wooden board, only virtual software. The upshot is, the AI the program came packaged with was easy to beat for a cheap ego boost.

As for the fun, it was fun indeed. Very, very fun.

Almost every chess game I play is fun. It is unique (obviously), artistic (...it's not supposed to be an art form) and almost out of control. The entertainment value therein lies where the moves play are just the right blend of creativity and surrealism, but yet actually work. Clearly, the problem lies with the second requirement. There are several classes of these fun moves.

1. The opening. Where ridiculous moves serve two purposes: to throw the game clear out of any established opening theory within four moves, and to tempt the opponent into making the mistake of thinking you're making mistakes (except that you better not be making any actual blunders.)

Key examples (for those who recognise notation): 1. g3 (P-KN3), 1. b4 (P-QN4) or similar as Black; 兵一进一，炮二平一 or 士四进五。

2. The middlegame, or the end of the opening. At these times, the tactical possibilities are abundant as the pieces are both numerous and active. Stylish pieces of misdirection, random attacking, berserk sacrificing and outlandish yet elegant defensive moves are key to this stage. Once again, the emphasis is not on blundering, but here there is an added depth of using cheap shots to your advantage, using the opportunities to create confusion and as zwischenzug.

Key examples: Nf3-g1 (Yes, retreating an advanced knight. Except that that was my only developed (or indeed moved) piece in 14 moves or so.) e5/d4/f5 (unjustified pawn pushes) a5/b5/h5 (and on the wings.) For Chinese Chess, moves like 士五进六 for the sole purpose of being a 炮架，or 兵一进一、车一进三 to prove that the vacated square is useful.

3. The endgame. Here the opportunities are scarce, but core elements involve attacking pawns/兵 to gain a slight advantage (even at the cost of everything else.) Other than that, strategic good sense to know what you're doing, and tactical sense to know how to do it.

And of course, the final class of moves. Those that would be automatically rejected by any experienced player, but without a clear, easily demonstrable reason. Things like randomly taking 兵 in the opening or retreating to an unusual square that actually holds important defensive value. These moves may not be objectively correct (I never said any of these were) but it takes either a keen tactical sense or extensive knowledge of theory to prove their inherent wrongness.

Odds are, against most people, these not-so-serious moves give one a fairly high chance of winning. And failing that, well, at least it was fun.

To conclude, a few bits and pieces that wouldn't really fit into any sort of coherent sentence.

Either you win in style or lose in epic style.
Escape from opening theory within 4 moves.
The book is useless if your opponent doesn't play by it.
Style is the most important part of chess.
"MUST COPE FREE 兵!!!!"
"QIONG 兵!!!"
"马 is worth more than 炮!" (1st move: 炮二进七)
Shooting chess is fun after everyone's too tired to think about Chinese Chess.

After most moves, we were all falling to pieces laughing.

It's song time!

2010-01-11T11:53:00.007+08:00

Golden Time Lover (FMA Brotherhood OP 3)

By Sukima Switch.

Listen to the full version.

...and I had nothing better to do, so I translated it into Chinese! Of course, there are several problems.

- My Chinese sucks.

- My Japanese isn't better.

- It's translated via an English translation of a slightly inaccurate transcription.

- Some words were just ripped off directly from the kanji.

精神集中不了哪身体还是不知怎么反应啊

全身一直颤抖啊 CONTROL也做不到啊

太阳与月亮也没完全面对向着我呀

‘没办法, 只可试作’ 这是我对自己说的

状况对我不利啦但逃走真是没有胆子的啊

前途没希望啊靠勇气CLEAR只能这样啊

抑制着冲动探出TARGET离它保持远离

重要的就是PRIDE

品尝的是胜利之美酒

还是败北的苦汁？

这一切都属于是两者之一

我好想控制命运的丝线

最好的GOLDEN TIME用这双手紧握着

穿上个POKER FACE使用我全力造成

ILLUSION的世界里把我一起带着

无限之PRESSURE GAME我会从中而逃越

荣光的BORDERLINE为了跨过它HOW MANY?

HOW MANY? 必须付出如何的代价？

舍弃不了的到底是什么？

证据胜过假设啊实现结果的人才是胜者呀

沉默就是禁止的时间过了秘密就揭露啦

感觉要清楚、敏锐，谨慎的解读潮流

现状的胜率是几PERCENT

胜利后分别是实际的GAME SENSE

隐藏的影是否是恶魔？

是男人的话

就先做好觉悟才勇敢地迈向前方而挑战

逆境中CLAP YOUR HAND欢呼周围那队人

崭新的FIGHTING STYLE借用此全力攻击

ATTENTION 危险的突破界限

最棒的FAIRY TALE把它刻进历史书

全胜的那瞬间为了实现它准备起

ARE YOU READY? 把迷惑与犹豫抛到路边

登上巴比伦城的楼梯

你的笑容像女神的一般

我被你的魅力引诱迷惑了

一边被诱捕一边降落

住于在我心底中的欲望

膨大再浮现成浩大之梦

谁也已经都不能阻止我

最好的GOLDEN TIME用这双手紧握着

穿上个POKER FACE使用我全力造成

ILLUSION的世界里把我一起带着

无限之PRESSURE GAME我会从中而逃越

荣光的BORDERLINE为了跨过它HOW MANY?

HOW MANY? 必须付出如何的代价？

逆境中CLAP YOUR HAND欢呼周围那队人

崭新的FIGHTING STYLE借用此全力攻击

ATTENTION 危险的突破界限

最棒的FAIRY TALE把它刻进历史书

惊天的大逆转华丽地去应付它呀

DO YOU KNOW? 命运是能夺走的东西

巴比伦的顶峰上

灿烂的阳光中荣耀

Translation: My own. It's supposed to match the original, be able to be sung, and the English words are kept.

Acknowledgments:

Sukima Switch for the song itself.

Csakuras' English translation.

Animelyrics' page for the pronunciations, the Eclipse-subbed video, and the kanji.

Anime vs. Manga vs. COMP GAMES.

2010-01-10T09:21:00.004+08:00

A three-way fight between 3 timewasting activities.

Anime. Animated stuff that is great to watch, fun to watch and can be more enjoyable than regular TV programming. Sports anime can own lousy sports TV scheduling (an anime about fishing (yes, I watched one) was infinitely more exciting than an actual fishing competition (yes, there was one.)) Drama anime can own lousy drama (I'm thinking some of those lousy sitcoms. Yes, they may both have excruciatingly slow pacing, but anime is nicer to look at than some wooden actors.) Sci-fi/fantasy anime gives sci-fi/fantasy movies a run for their money (possibly because it is mostly fictional in the first place.)

Downsides? Oh yes, there are a few, but they are painful. Firstly, it's a pain to find, get and then watch the episode, and a huge expenditure of time. Related to this, Windows Media Player (and Classic) can play songs perfectly, but bluescreen perfectly on any kind of video. Unfailingly fail. Next, there's the issue of comprehension. Without subtitles (I reject dubs) it is nearly impossible to catch the plot. Particularly on random anime like Hayate no Gotoku, which watching unsubbed allowed me to completely not get the plot (what little of it) and the jokes (20 minutes of it.)

Manga. Still images, usually black and white. Most of the time, for any given anime, there is a manga (or light novel) for it, either was based upon it or spawned it. Thus, given the same plot, it is usually faster and easier to read manga for it than wait for the anime episode to be released, then go through the hassle of watching it. After all, characters can only speak so fast, but one can speedread/speedlook through manga. Also, images don't require WMP, and do not cause computer meltdown.

Problems with manga? Of course, it is usually released in tortuously small chapters tortuously infrequently, and in Japanese at that. Granted, reading is easier than listening, and I don't mind manga translations as much as anime dubs. In fact, this is a big boon. If there is no English release, find the Japanese raw. If both seem not to exist, look for the Chinese version (both 简体 and 繁体 versions are fine) although Chinese is a last resort - proper nouns usually become quite odd transliterations.

Lastly, and OF COURSE, COMP GAMES. The most interactive of the lot, the most computer-resource-draining of the lot (yet no bluescreens) and in theory, the most addictive of the lot. Open ended gaming, you can change the online world, gain power, level up, become rich, what's not to like?

...Grinding. This form of entertainment requires effort (ironic) and plenty of time, which I'm too lazy to put in. This effectively sums up my attitude towards comp games. Well, I do play a little Freecell, and Crucis F+F, but that's all nowadays.

The winner by a nautical mile, manga. Only because it's the fastest of the three to go through (I AM that lazy.)

New year's plans!

2010-01-06T09:04:00.004+08:00

*blinks* It's a new year already? Damn, I'm slow. This calls for a small listing of what I intend to do for the new year, just so I can have a little focus. Of course, no harm will come of not doing these things, since being so serious will be bad for one's psyche, so this is just a rough outline.

1. Get College Physics. Man, I've been wanting one of these since last year, it's so useful. Maybe even University Physics, if it's still written comprehensibly. This would have been incredibly helpful last year so that I could finish learning this year's work and go on autopilot.

2. Get a competition mathematics primer that actually works. Yeesh, that last book, while not a total ripoff, was quite bad. Out of the 8 chapters it had, only 3 were of any use. 37.5% usability isn't a good ratio of for a book as thick as that.

3. Stop being so lazy when it comes to relaxing. Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Who the hell is too lazy to relax? Too lazy to watch anime/play online games/read manga? This is madness. Resolution: Force myself to work... then force myself to relax.

3.5. A few things to catch, related to the above. If even possible, I'd like to watch 涼宮ハルヒの消失 (fat chance), Unlimited Blade Works (again, fat chance), and Omamori Himari (which starts airing in Japan tomorrow at 0030, +9GMT) (I wonder how fast fansubbers are. Failing that, how good is my Japanese.)

4. More stuff to write here. I really suck at writing anything planned out beforehand. And worse at spontaneous posts (the majority are.) This calls for 2 things: a life, online or real, to actually generate decent content; and an improvement in my standard of English, which can be appalling at times.

Why are these posts getting shorter?

Why are these posts always so short?

Why so many short posts?

Why so few short posts?

Why post?

Memory continued.

2010-01-04T10:31:00.004+08:00

OK. Train of thought has returned, after my brain took several heavy hits by a mathematics obsession. SMO Senior and Open papers from 2008 & 9... still can't even get 50% right. Yeesh.

Back to the topic. Those maths papers? Funnily enough, I remembered how to do a few of the questions (since I did do them before, the first time round) despite there being one intervening year of maths deterioration (reason shall be unspecified.) Also, I remembered which questions I failed to complete the first time round. Armed with new approaches, I tackled the questions, and found my memory screaming "you couldn't do this, you still can't do this." It didn't lie. It might even have been the reason why, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Such a lousy memory (in every sense of the words.)

Oh, and a small listing's appeared on the sidebar. The first 2 categories are simple enough, but I figure the 3rd one could use explanation. "Forgotten Anime" simply means those that I've watched before, remember watching before, but completely forgotten what it was about, save for the name (in some cases. Had to Google a few times to get the correct names.) Truly a case of amnesia, this would be.

......admittedly, those were watched about 10 years ago.

On Memory.

2009-12-14T14:28:00.004+08:00

Eh, blast. Every time there's one of these "On a subject" posts, they usually end up as mere rants. Perhaps if I took psychology it'd be more interesting to read and write these things. And actually end up making sense.

Well. Memory. Funny little thing that helps us to remember events of times past. Even if you haven't got a creative bone in your body, your memory can apparently conjure up events of wonderous surrealism and complete falsehood. Even if you can't remember what you stepped into the kitchen to get, your memory can helpfully recall the embarassing moments of your childhood for you.

This queer phenomenon known as "remembering" allows one to recall, with near perfect ambiguity, precisely what happened that left that scar of a memory on one's brain. However, this amazing skill is usually not what people notice when recalling things. Nope, what people usually notice is all the long gaps in their memories. For example. What did you eat on this day 3 years ago? How many pages did the newspaper have today? Things like these are not supposed to be hard to remember, really (what did you have for lunch today?) and the answers we've seen before (if you read the newspaper, you should remember how many pages you read) so why the inability to answer?

Well, answering such inane questions with little bearing on one's well-being is really a waste of time. Who cares if the newspaper had 8975 pages today. (Bad example. Everyone would complain.) Who cares if the square root of 7 is 2.645. Here we have to delineate the two types of memory: (Not conscious and subconscious but) USEFUL and NOT USEFUL.

Admittedly, there is little difference between the two. After all, if one appears in a quiz show and some question like "What is the scientific name of the ixora?" is worth $100,000, obviously this little bit of trivia, usually completely irrelevant to life, becomes a life-changing piece of knowledge. However, typically knowledge that is of the practical variety is directly related to some aspect of one's daily routine, and has usage in one's life, like knowing how to brush one's teeth. If all these little things like knowing how to walk and remembering one's phone number were tallied, you'd be surprised how much you know.

Unfortunately, remembering things is scarcely this easy. Mathematics would be one realm where many people complain of specific amnesia, forgetting that important little formula before a critical test. (Trigo factor formulae come to mind here, or rather fail to.) If only we could all have better memories (although those "Improve Your Brain" genre of books all seem like they were written for laughs at us common people and seem utterly useless.) Such things as remembering acronyms, chains of pictures and funny sentences for the Reactivity Series, pi to 40 places and "how to answer AQ" seem extremely gimmicky. It may help some people, but personally, I think the best way is to forget all these tacky methods of memorisation and just remember whatever it is you should be remembering.

Running out of steam here. I think I'll end off, maybe pick up the thread of this train of thought later... if I remember.

To SCP-797...

2009-12-10T09:30:00.003+08:00

...(Not late this time) Happy birthday! SCP-797 is now over one year old. By a matter of minutes. Even if it doesn't officially exist. (Here's the link.)

Well, unlike the other post (sorry 559) I have something prepared for this occasion. Um, only a handful of people may get this one, but what the hey. I'd like to dedicate this to the inspiration of 797:

;-)

SCP-797 is a year old. Enjoy.

To SCP-559...

2009-12-05T09:04:00.003+08:00

...Happy birthday! (Oh the irony, I'm wishing a birthday cake a late birthday.)

It's been a year since 559 went up. And it remains after the huge purge! Yes! Good to see it survived the wave of deletions (with a healthy rating, at that.) Well, hallelujah and お誕生日おめでとう!

Collective consciousness.

2009-11-27T14:58:00.004+08:00

A magnificent concept, the idea of many units operating as one single entity. It would make such things as databases and computing much simpler, by splitting the load amongst the individual members of a collective consciousness.

Well, I might eventually make a post on this concept. But the main point of this particular rambling is to bring you akinator. A fantastic example of a collective consciousness.

It guesses any character you have in mind, given that you answer its questions truthfully. He'll guess within 20 questions any character, and if he's wrong, should you deign to give him chances, akinator will guess again within 30, then 40 questions. It's essentially a huge database of characters, questions and character traits, much like the old punchcard system for computers. A punchcard computer for akinator would probably be recognisable only as a sea of paper, given its sheer volume.

One thing in mind: it's frightfully accurate at guessing within 30 questions. 20 if the character is distinctive enough. If it can't get it within 30, it'll probably fail at 40, but its final trick is to pull a HUGE list of characters after getting it wrong the last time. Akinator is sneaky. Yet, even with its apparent psychic powers, it is amazingly fallible.

For the record, it guessed some (not so) obscure characters I pulled: Bazett Fraga McRemitz, Samurai Jack, Aku and Emiya Kiritsugu. For popular people and searches like Obama, Luffy, Kim Jong-Il and Nanoha, it'll usually get it within 20 questions, so forget beating akinator with those.

It does have its weaknesses. It took the whole 40 questions to guess Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. (WUT) V from V for Vendetta was initially thought to be Anonymous (HERESY) and even Archer from Fate/stay night was completely unguessable for it (WUT WUT WUT). In fact:
- Caster, Archer, Rider from F/sn it failed, yet it got Lancer, Hasan and Assassin also from F/sn.
- Ilya, Irisviel, Kotomine and Kiritsugu from Fate/Zero it got, but failed hard at Rider, Caster and Lancer from the same.
- Pulling out all the stops, I went for Miyu Edelfelt from Fate/kaleid liner (bloody obscure, and she only appears in that one series and its sequel.) As expected, akinator failed.
- Damn, turns out I'm a Fate (Nasuverse) fan. Damn.

The collective consciousness seems to like anime, though. Akinator got the characters Shana (Shakugan no Shana), Hayate, Hinagiku (Hayate no Gotoku!), Sanji, Luffy (One Piece!), and about half of the F/sn cast (aside from those mentioned, it took 2 guesses to get Kuzuki Souichirou). Admittedly I'm quite lousy when it comes to characters, but I'm sure someone else would be able to really put akinator through its paces.

Good luck stumping it!

Odds and ends.

2009-11-26T16:25:00.004+08:00

Just finished Endless Eight. FINISHED. DONE.

For the uninitiated, Endless Eight is a reputedly very aggravating series of 8 episodes in the 2009 airing of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi (涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱) that is essentially nothing other than a series of events repeated, with minor variations, 7 times. Well, I didn't read the light novel (not that volume, at least) so it's hard to say how less annoying it could have been.

It really wasn't that bad. As for those who watched it over eight weeks, it must've been a question of self-restraint to not hammer down the door of Kyoto Animation. What made it more bearable was:
- It was watched over a couple of days. Instead of 56.
- It was only 8 episodes. Instead of 15532 as they could have gleefully attempted.
- There were minor variations. The first and last episodes were different. The wardrobes changed each episode. And there were several different punchlines across the episodes.
- Bad press online prepped me for this set of episodes.

Well, goodbye, endless summer. At least this doesn't happen in real life... does it.

Next, some random complaints.

Haven't been able to slack off and play comp games as often as hoped. Reason being? Too damned lazy to. Yep, lazy. Hey, comp games need motivation, OK?

After all, faced with the alternative of sleeping, comp games can't hold a candle to my interests. It's much easier to do nothing than grind in comp games.

Another grouse. What the HELL kind of maths book that claims to prep people for maths competitions, has not one, not two, but three and probably more very serious typos. At that, it's preparation for British (my guess) maths competitions. No offence to anyone here, but I think that China and Russia are way ahead on this front. Even the SMO is harder than some of the questions in the book. After all, stuff like trigo formulae, identities and, heavens above, probability are already part of the normal syllabus in schools here.

The typos happen to be of the following sorts.
1. secx = 1/sinx. Seriously. Even another reference table printed in the same damn chapter contradicts this falsehood.
2. x + 1/x = 1, and the solution for this is phi (1.618yadda.) Pray tell how this equation has any real solutions. And earlier in the book, the inequality x + 1/x >= 2 for all real x was proven.
3. Factorisation of 120 (was it this number?) into 2 factors. 1x120, 2x60, 4x30, 5x24, 6x20, 8x15, 10x12 and their reverses, giving 14 ways as the answer to a question. Waitaminute, isn't 3x40 also a factorisation?

Before doing anything. DOUBLECHECK. Yeek.

On Language.

2009-11-24T14:41:00.005+08:00

Language, a communication medium, a barrier and a bridge between people. Enlightening and masking at the same time, it divides the world into a those who understand each other and everyone else. Of course, these are entirely arbitrary groupings. Anyone could be in the first group; it just depends on who you pick to start with.

People complain about language. Whether it should be learnt by rote or roleplay, which and how many languages to teach in schools, the evolution of a language, the low standards of language in society.

By its very nature, language divides the world into small portions, setting up walls of incomprehension between different zones of the world, between different languages. One can run away from this fact; for instance, if one only knows English, one can take relief that English is a remarkably oft-spoken language in the world, and that major countries such as the U.S. have it as their main/working/official language. Online, too, there are pockets of communities of different tongues; one could live their whole life being a monolingual and not be any the worse for it.

All the same, multilingualism is an advantage. Just as language carves trenches between people, knowing more than one language bridges the chasms. It multiplies your realm of knowledge, pushes your horizons further, and opens up new experiences on Earth. It is entirely worth it to be versed in more than one tongue.

...even if it is hell to learn more than 2 languages.

One language? Better excel in it, or you'll have serious problems.
Two languages? Excelling in one, comprehending the other. That's the bare minimum of aptitude.
Three languages? Again, you'd better be great in at least one.

Language has 4 main aspects to it:
- Reading (to be literate. To understand printed material.) [passive, visual]
- Writing (to create printed works.) [active, visual]
- Listening (to understand the spoken word.) [passive, aural]
- Speaking (to be able to communicate verbally) [active, verbal]

To understand a language, one merely needs to be skilled in reading and listening (still no mean feat, though.) To truly know the language, one must also know how to speak the lingo and write up a storm. In other words, all 4 aspects.

Then there's the choice of which language to study. Personally:
- English (compulsory; besides, it's a useful language, both on the interwebs and in general.)
- Mandarin (compulsory (erk) but useful. Useful for work/future, and useful for...)
- Japanese (it was this or French. French may have been easier/better, but Japanese has upsides...)

Namely, ANIME AND MANGA. Reading and listening to Japanese is simpler than speaking and writing. Mandarin (Chinese) is also incredibly helpful in learning the characters, and comprehending them.

One last thing: 3 languages = reduced reliance on any one language as a source. For research, for example. For online games, as another example. As a third example, if a particular sub/scanlation isn't out in English, Chinese would be the second choice. If all else fails, raw Japanese. :--D

Learn languages. They are useful. Fun. Or rather, the things produced in that language are fun.

A vent.

2009-08-31T11:35:00.004+08:00

Well. Seeing as this blog is dead, I'd like to keep it that way (less effort required to maintain.)

However, since the last 2 weeks (and this week) have been/will be an utter hell of events, let's take some time to vent our anger.

Firstly, there's a guitar concert coming up; 2 songs more to learn in a week's time. Dead.

Next, there is also a rather important Japanese exam coming up soon. That falls on 3 days. Non-consecutive. With the schedule juggled around 4 times already. That also counts for 100% of the whole year's marks. Crazy.

無限の～です！
はははハははハはははハハ！
Now if only I dared to write that in the paper itself...

Greatest apologies.

2009-08-06T18:28:00.002+08:00

Great. Down with flu-like symptoms. This means my brain will overheat if I Project any more thoughts into this reality. The standard, or indeed presence of posts will be reduced or nullified, depending on the outcome of this skirmish between virus and medichine. (not a typo)

A huge apology to the Al-air battery group at school. 39.1C fever means I will be generating more sparks than the battery. On the other hand, if I did turn up, you could use the battery to prod me like Frankenstein's monster if I collapse.

On Intuition.

2009-07-17T20:58:00.005+08:00

Events of the past few days have been somewhat central to my understanding of how things are supposed to work and why they never do. The problem lies not in the things about us, but hinge about the things in us. Quite specifically, a key problem is intuition.

Yes. Intuition and instinct, the non-rational (note: not irrational) component in us that is dismissed as a happenstance phenomenon by our logical minds. It stands to reason that what doesn't stand to reason stands to be reasoned to be a "Phenomenon" not worthy of great intellectual rigour, merely to be accepted as fact or fable, depending on what one wants to argue. What most rational beings fail to consider is that this component deserves not to be overlooked but to be looked upon, as a cornerstone of the foundation of the building of thought. Despite the apparent unreliability, inexplicability and ineffability of one's intuition, it fully demands that we tend to its offerings and act as per it.

Well, I'm not extolling on intuition's reliability, nor attempting to explain nor eff the inexplicably ineffable. Merely making an honest observation on how it affects life.

Firstly, the obvious use of intuition. To render luck in one's favour, maintain credence in a belief of luck. To do so, rely not on ruthless logic but on gut feel, and there will be the illusory feeling of luck at the very least. Intuition trumps logic the same way bicycles trump jet fighters: one of them is a hell lot more accessible and user-friendly. (For that matter, an extended analogy is Apple > Microsoft.)

Next, a less obvious apparition of intuition. Language. One learns languages from the ground up (no other groundbreaking approaches I've heard of, like starting with rhetoric and proceeding to grammar.) So we first become aware of the existence of the noun, the verb and the participle. Then we learn a whole new way of mixing them up, grammar. It's not "Book is a on shelf that" but "A book is on that shelf", although rules can be warped into other patterns, "like ancient tablets, on which inscribed are symbols, foreign to eyes of modern" but still perfectly grammatical.

The point being, that however odd or convoluted the grammar, the brevity or length of the word, as soon as one is accustomed to using it, there's no further need to acknowledge, consciously, the rules of language. One just surfaces the polished product at the end, having sent the package through a subconscious construction. The rules of language become embedded in an instinctive, intuitive layer of one's mind. When that occurs, it seems simplicity itself to use language, rather than struggle over conjugation, form and structure.

Yet, alas, few manage to perceive or even be aware of the third layer of intuition. Once applied, it saves time in life. Similar to language, the syntax of intuition can be deciphered. Repeated actions, repeated sights, repeated exposure can lead to imprints on the subconscious strata of the mind. Punch a wall repeatedly, and eventually you'll know the pain of the wall, not of your fist. See the patterns on a chessboard repeatedly, and you'll see how and why it works, despite the principles remaining murky. Stay in the winter's chill for weeks, and at the end lies not chill, but winter's warmth.

Application is far more difficult, of course. If your state of mind is right (if you feel that everything in the world on that day, is yours, will be yours) and the subject resonates to you, achieving that level of instinctive aptitude is a matter of days if not weeks, weeks if not months, months if not years. Observe and admire not the details but the feel of a subject, and accept it as your own.

This even works for maths. I don't know if this really works for anyone but me, but I like memorising/factorising car number plates. How? Don't remember 4-digit numbers (e.g. 6495 = sixthousandfourhundredninetyfive) but as a string of vowels, the feel of a number (... how to write this? Trying to explain, 495 is a 'dry' number, 64 a 'mellow' number and 95 a 'sticking-out' number, remember the feel of the groups. And no, I don't know why I assign those tags.)

Whatever it is, some people also have natural talent. Either in the form of genius (grasping immediately concepts far past their level, able to explain it out) or the unsung 'genius' (possibly negative - I know one who can, pretending or not, consistently pick out the worst chess move in critical situations. Failing that, generic bad moves.) Developing those should be easier than for others who have to discover their resonance.

Also, intuition only gets one so far. True mastery of anything takes many, MANY long hours of studying (in order to beat the crazy people who studied before them) and this is simply unavoidable, barring a deep innate talent for the subject. Generally, intuition can get one quickly to the standard of one who learns by rote, and possibly leapfrogging many who do not see the underlying concepts and structures of skills. Emulation, analysis, dissection into components... all aspects of this art of intuition.

Thinking of the blue radiance,
Gently illuminating true wisdom,
Lighting the path to the faceted jewel,
The centre of understanding this dream.
Fear not the light, fear not the dark.
Dream of the knowledge that neither imparts.

Darkness rend thy soul of horror.

2009-05-15T19:12:00.002+08:00

Wonder at life, the two-sided coin,
Marvel at hate, the jack of scorn.
Admire the dark, the balance to light,
Witness the dark, that lays in thine soul.
Fear not the darkness, for it is thy friend,
Shun not the evil that lays in thy heart.
Display outward virtue, blaspheme against truth,
Redemption of falsities, deep in the future lies.

Have you
Ever known
A second side to your heart?
That queries
And questions
Every step your conscience takes?
Conscience and morals
Have their antitheses:
Let not they fester, but fuel them to tempest.

A masque for thy true face.
A screen for thy heart.
A barrier for emotions.
A wall for thineself.
Board up the feelings that would otherwise ring true,
Lest they are broadcast and made known to those few.
Those same few that hunt you
And tell you "do good"
Those same few who tame you
To listen to their bid.
Hang all morality!
Cross all deception!
Unveil thy true self! O Servant of Heart!

Have you ever known a person who has a darkness in their heart? A weight that binds them down to hell, chaining them to their fate. Catalysts would be items, or events, or perhaps people; yet those who can quell these ebbs and pulses of the rush of evil: they are the ones who best balance their mental state. Even this comes at a price: A false persona is projected, empty and hollow, a mere husk to respond to the world. Behind the shell, the true self is collapsing, buried under the barrage of miasmic forces of rage. The conscience a mere weapon of light, hopelessly outmatched by the tide of evil.

And still unrent remain their souls, just lost forever in the void of abyssal hate. Nothing reaches them, touches them, moves them, saves them. The physical rejected, the transcendence of a great cost. And increasingly, they turn inwards, lost in their world, the eternal time-consuming task of reshaping their realm, a task so absorbing that one can only take it without a trace of joy. The darkness never wins, the soul never loses... nor sleeps.

Housed in its eternal orbit, the soul of the tormented flits about their astral scape, shying from the darkness at the border and the exclave of light just beyond. An abode of no escape and every door an entrance. A home where no man lives, at least lives like a man. And their body still fully flesh, in our corporeal world, interacting with none of the true intelligence, but an automaton-copy of the subject. This is their danger: There is no conscience, merely a Night Council of advisors, telling them what to do heedless of anything a real person would think.

There comes a point where one must ask: Is anyone truly like that?
And from shell to shell, husk to husk, I respond: Listen not to me, but to the counsel of your head. Detect you the Night Council, that tenuous link we share?
And scream in the knowledge of the Soul's true whereabouts.

F2P and P2P: Pros vs. Noobs... I mean cons.

2009-05-10T08:20:00.003+08:00

Starting off with a quote from J.M. Pescado:
"Have you destroyed a paysite today?"
Less tactfully:
PAYSITES MUST BE DESTROYED!

That said, let's move on. Everyone knows that there are free to play MMOGs out there. Everyone also knows they make money out of "optional" payments for benefits in the game. Everyone also now knows that paysites must be destroyed. A few simple examples to be amusingly noted, of why certain Games Which Must Not be Named fall into the same category:

Game 1: "Flee" (not real name, which is ███████.)

"A world three-times larger to explore!"
- Oh yeah, like walking wasn't already so lag. 3 times the walking, 3 times the fail.
"Nine more skills to train!"

Can you say grindfest? How about Grindfest +9?

"Over 100 more quests to complete!"

Oh great. Now you're telling us that it's not just 3 times the walking, it's at least three times the purposeful walking.

All this win for a mere US$5.95. Yep, certainly buying that one. (If you did, don't kill me. If you don't know what this is about, you will not remember this. You WILL NOT REMEMBER.)

Game 2: [REDACTED] (Real name: █████/███ ███ ███.)

Well, not much is said outright, but this is certainly the case:

Pay and be able to effectively, "cheaply" upgrade items, essential for higher levels.
Or don't pay and fork out a couple 10^x █████ to upgrade things just ONCE.

Paying also nets you some fashion items (yippee) and random beneficial items to help you with one massive grindfest.
You really want to work your way to max level ██ TWICE without paying real money? Because that's how the game works.

Well, that's 2 games I play. Or at least, don't pay for. Maybe I'll add more, maybe not. Just remember: Do your part, DESTROY ALL PAYSITES.

Power.

2009-04-21T19:23:00.003+08:00

EDIT 1st August 2009 (Singapore time): ~Submitted for Foyle Young Poets of the Year award~

Mighty troops, march on to war,
Face your enemies on their homeground.
Fear nothing, announce your arrival,
Let them see your might a thousand miles away.

Fly your flags, beat the drums with vigour,
A terrible sight to see for your opponents.
March at day, cease not at night,
Let them hear your charge through the night and day.

Just imagine,
If you were
On the other side, would you
Not fear
The advance,
Of the rumoured forces-

-Storm your way towards your target,
Show no mercy, show no fear.

Charge on, Holy Forces!
Charge on, Mighty Forces!
Charge on, Deadly Forces!
Charge on, Holy Forces!

A countless host, in full reflective armour,
Sunlight thrashing on legions of soldiers.
Tall standards, relentless drum beats,
Shouting your cause to fame across the plains.

What if you were
The enemy,
Would you quake and tremble? what if
You knew
Of the troops,
Marching in to beat you-

-This is war, with only one outcome:
Strike with God's blessing and you will win.

Charge on, Holy Forces!
Charge on, Mighty Forces!
Charge on, Deadly Forces!
Charge on, Holy Forces!

Strike true, Holy Forces!
Strike hard, Blessed Forces!
Strike fear, Gallant Forces!
Charge on, Holy Forces!

This poem, inspired by and adapted slightly from Forces from the anime Berserk.
It's really a powerful song. Listen in awe, to Berserk's Forces. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkYYYew8CUI

On Music.

2009-03-28T08:22:00.003+08:00

Music, yes. One of my lesser vices, if it truly deserves that title. If nothing else, the guitar lurking in my house is glaringly tempting to reach for in the middle of an important piece of work or study. Such inane devices as iPods and handphones are classed as "technology", and are hence deemed too complicated to turn on, let alone blast music on them.

Music can feed and awaken the soul. Particularly those that seem almost composed for that purpose. One of my favourites for entering a trance-like state where it seems that I'm far more relaxed than usual is Cloud Age Symphony; it's relaxing and not at all taxing on the brain.

Music can also enrage people. For example, most modern pop songs sound terrible to my ears. They sound worse when people try to sing off-key. They sound even more horrendous blasted across half an MRT carriage. And they sound downright [DATA EXPUNGED] when rammed unwillingly through everyone's ears via an "advanced" sound system at concerts. Ever wonder about those stampedes at pop concerts? My theory, they were all ignited by angry people trying to find rotten tomatoes (or just about anything) to jam the speakers with.

Being in a musical group, it's also hard to talk about music without talking about playing the same. CANON IN D! A spammable song that can go on for practically all of forever until baryons decay. Crazy songs like RV522 Concerto in A Minor (a minor? Which minor?) where finger incapacitation can be easily achieved by playing the solo at crotchet = 100+. Relaxing pieces like Radical Dreamers (Thanks Aza!) and Blue Bossa chords.

So I didn't really talk much, but this will have to do for a post. Just a random post to clear my systems.

UnEarth

2009-02-22T09:35:00.003+08:00

Flame of ice, lamp of darkness,
Seas of gel, chains of silk,
Rolling, shifting, sands of hills.
Jagged, thorny, shafts of crowns.

Globulets of burning cold flaring in the dark,
Spores of electric mushrooms freezing in the frigid night.

Striders marching through the purple gel that is the ocean,
Ingesting algae through its feet, towering over the sea.

Slowly crawling creeping microscopic crabs,
Shifting the pale hills of sand one grain at a time.

Herds of titans, quadrupeds,
Pine trees sprouting, feeding on their backs.

Unearthly concepts, figures, sights and sounds,
Would arise from where else... but on an UnEarth?

Cookie if you know which Discovery Channel documentary some of these are on.

Genesis 1.1

2009-01-25T08:35:00.005+08:00

Fractal he said, and there were 2.
And in these 2, the same they were.
The basics of art, the foundation of math.
Reflected in themselves were each other.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2uqngbt.jpg
A Sierpinski Triangle, green background.

http://i44.tinypic.com/20iw4xy.jpg
Same thing... but... BCG.

Mind you, this fractal is hand-drawn. A sixth-generation Sierpinski Triangle... goes to show how bored I am.

Personal information, and mind control.

2009-01-14T19:21:00.003+08:00

A completely deceptive title. This is about my personal (non-personal) information and about mental control. If this were an English essay, it'd probably fall flat at the title.

Now. About me. I'm not sure. Seriously. Identity crisis is a little... maddening at times. I'm not bipolar, nor hallucinating, nor most other mental disorders. Online, my tone, identity and style of communication is completely different when in real life. A mere normal habit to cultivate, except that there's leakage both ways. Sometimes I write in real life with the sort of half-baked craziness online, and online I sometimes am a little more reserved than usual for that period.

Also, I have somewhat of a problem with mild mental failures. Self-diagnosed OCD, if you will, and a complex that leans preferentially toward unusual phraseology to discuss an otherwise elementary thesis. All things that make daily life... odd. Interesting. And mostly odd.

Mind control: Mind over matter. Mind has an unlimited control over your own self; you just have to subscribe to a reality you truly believe in and have its rules be imposed over "normal" physical rules. What is so normal about physics anyway? Also, one can exert a control over one's mind to clear thoughts out of it (a useful tool) and even tap into the domain of the subconscious to somewhat accurately predict events.

As a finisher, I think the world's on the brink of a major pandemic, and localised epidemics of more deadly diseases. The number of coughing people on public transport, I notice, has drastically increased, and it's only a matter of time before an incubating disease is released at large into the world. Don't take this as gospel or even a rumour; but it seems wholly possible.

The heck with cures and magical medicines,
The era of the virus may start at any time.
The danger's brewing, the germs are stewing,
The final tempo, the haste to man's last war.

HAPPY. NEW. YEAR.

2009-01-01T07:40:00.004+08:00

(Not for those in timezones GMT -11:00 -- GMT -1:00... Yet.)

The new year descends in stages across the world,
The arrival of another subject of rhyme.
Yet what is this festival of new and old,
But an arbitrary marker of time?
It's been 364 days since January the second,
(365; 'twas a leap year last.)
But it's on this particular cosmological second
That we choose to be rid of the past.

The new year brings forth many interesting challenges
(Damn you, probability, don't get in my way)
Especially the one where it's last year's work
That I haven't yet finished today.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Off.

2008-12-13T16:40:00.001+08:00

I'll be off to Japan for a week. Darn, and I still have a few things left to post, and other things to do online.

Ah, heck. Ittekimasu.

SCP-797 - "Hydrophobic String"

2008-12-10T09:03:00.009+08:00

Item #: SCP-797

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: All samples of SCP-797 are to be kept in a safe made of titanium. Access is to be restricted to testers only on threat of termination. No strands or items made of SCP-797 are to leave the testing area.

Description: SCP-797 is some form of string that spontaneously appears near [DATA EXPUNGED], presumably through the dimensional fluxes near the area. Aside from this, it displays no other paranormal qualities, although it has several unusual properties replicable only by extensive materials synthesis at the present time.

Each strand of SCP-797 has been either one of two colours, red or black. However, items woven of it have been observed to be black, green, red, brown, copper or gold, depending on the viewer. Such items are also extremely durable, withstanding temperatures upwards of 7000 C and pressures of 400 atmospheres.

Its most notable quality, however, is its repulsion of all liquids. Whether as single strands or woven together, all samples of SCP-797 repel any type of liquid with a 0% absorption rate. When immersed in a liquid, results showed that SCP-797 forms a layer of vacuum around itself, preventing it from coming into contact with the liquid. Upon testing, a sheet of SCP-797 was 300% more effective than a HAZMAT suit at resisting low pH acids, toxic spillage, and even gas attacks by repelling the mist particles in the air. Experiments to determine the cause of this property were inconclusive.

Mass spectroscopy revealed high quantities of yttrium present (47% mass), unknown substances (27%) and complex double-helix structures, resembling terrestrial DNA but with different elements, carbon and phosphorous being replaced by germanium and arsenic. Such a structure is unlikely to arise by chance, suggesting that the origin of SCP-797 may be from other lifeforms.

Stock: Four thousand, seven hundred and sixty-one (4761) strands of loose SCP-797, one (1) 8x8x8cm cube, one (1) 5cm diameter sphere, one (1) 20x80 cm sheet.

Addendum 797-a: Dr. ██████ has requested that SCP-797 be raised to Euclid status, after finding that a solid steel plate was cut in half when one strand of SCP-797 was slid across it. Further testing showed SCP-797 capable of cutting through titanium, diamond, vanadium and a range of other materials, simultaneously casting doubt on the safety of a HAZMAT suit constructed out of SCP-797.

SCP-559 - "Birthday Cake"

2008-12-04T08:43:00.001+08:00

As good a time as any to issue a report on an SCP object. Since it's under the Foundation's control and is secured impenetrably, this document can be issued, although it doesn't exist in any of their databases as they have yet to construct this report.

Scratch that. It's up.

Item #: SCP-559
Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-559 is to be stored appropriately for any object it has taken the form of, within a secure safe containing 3 (three) other baked items inaccessible to those below Level 3 security clearance. Usage of SCP-559 is only to be done under the supervision of Level 4 or higher personnel with prior approval.

Description: As of the time of writing, SCP-559 is a round vanilla birthday cake. However, its powers have been known to exist in other baked items like rolls, puffs or cupcakes. Whichever item SCP-559 has subverted in this manner is easily identified by the words "Birthday Time!" marked out in green icing. Materials testing has returned this icing to be regular green icing with no unusual traits.

When lit candles are placed into SCP-559, they cannot be extinguished by any means by someone who is not celebrating their birthday. However, they can be put out by people whose birthday falls on that day, upon which the subject will have their age changed to the equivalent of the number of candles on SCP-559. This effect lasts for 24 (twenty-four) hours before the subject reverts to their original age.

Testing has revealed several other properties. SCP-559 seems to regard anything burning as a candle, regardless of its size or orientation. Matchsticks, fireworks and even high explosives have been used, and have all shown identical properties when inserted into SCP-559. Tests have been conducted with a number of candles from 1 (one) to above 900 (nine hundred.) Such a high age surprisingly brings about no directly related health problems, and the effects of existing health conditions (weak heart, asthma, etc.) are reduced when "aged" in this manner. In fact, 87% of those who were aged to above 500 years old survived the full 24 hours, although were physically weakened in their aged state.

If SCP-559 is cut or used in the above manner, or the green letters smudges, its current "host" will cease to exhibit the above unusual characteristics, and the nearest intact baked item will gain the powers instead. It has been observed to "travel" in this fashion over 25km (twenty-five kilometres) of sea, and this property led to difficulties during location and retrieval of the object.

Cross-testing with other time-based SCPs, SCP-006 and SCP-224 is pending approval.

The SCP Foundation.

2008-12-02T08:35:00.000+08:00

The SCP Foundation is responsible for containing many unusual phenomena and objects that would ordinarily be dismissed as fantastical or impossible. In fact, the links of these objects with the real world is subtly demonstrated by many large-scale occurrences that have been altered to betray no link to the Foundation. While I respect the Foundation for their attempts to study and analyse many SCP objects for the benefit of mankind, some are just too dangerous to do so. SCP-005, SCP-500 and some properties of SCP-682 may be useful to study and yield quantum advances is science, but objects like SCP-173, SCP-682, SCP-1007 and SCP-139 may be dangerous if released into the world at large.

Throughout my own travels through realms, I have encountered several potential SCP objects, and indeed some removed from the Foundation's premises. The analysis of such may put the world at risk, especially considering that certain few SCP objects are in the possession of less neutral organisations. If anyone comes across an SCP object, notify the Foundation by issuing reports of such. They will respond, and that at least carries less danger than having it fall into the hands of other factions. The objects must be secured.

Herald the Era

2008-11-20T08:25:00.000+08:00

Solid snow the winds did blow,
Red dust swirling around the globe,
The dust that lay asleep from long ago.

Shiny silver craft descends,
Outside glowing lights do strobe,
As heat turns it red as the planet's sands.

Final flying course is set,
Carrying a species' hopes,
The landing ship and the ground are met.

Large black shadow
Cloud of dust
Landing struts
Touchdown.

The awe and majesty of the landing
Largely inspired the waiting observer.
The best of humanity, at last arriving
Target of the human dreamer,
Rusty red world,
The lifeless husk that is the planet Mars.

The captain of the ship emerged
Stepping on the barren soil
The rest of the crew soon followed suit
And then came the moment in history
They saw not the glorious sands nor cold sunrise
But noted with not mere mild surprise
The human in a scuba suit
Not two metres from a Californian lab
As could be seen through the portal round,
A sign of times to come.

As such, the advent of the space-bending wormhole,
Left the Astronauts' hopes crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

R.

This took forever to write. Graagh. Yes, Graagh! Ah well, time to plan for the next one.

Through caverns measureless to man

2008-10-26T08:11:00.000+08:00

One ship escaped the jaws of science behind
And fled to Far Away, a distant world;
It crashed into a moonlit grove, align'd
Itself along that later was a road...
Then shot a signal out into the stars.
The cost of lightspeed messaging was high,
When there was once the birds, the trees, the grass,
Now lay a desolate long stretch of blight.

The spectre of technology lurch'd out
And slunk into the caverns, waiting for a shout.

--------------============+++++++++++++++============---------------

As you can see, poetry ofttimes makes
Little sense, for one can easily
Chop up a chunk of prose (cheat!)
Or Capitalise to make It seem like Wisdom's Words.
As such, by language twisting upon itself,
With horrid rhythm plaguing these pages,
The story I put before you
Has been written not by me, but by someone else, loosely based
(Chop the sentence!) on a book
(Chop the line!) whose name
(Chop the name, raise the tension!) is none other than---

--- With poetry, you've opened Pandora's Box
And revealed the Star within.
Poetry is one heck of a Judas too,
From within the Box, Unchained he has been.

~Wheen.

A miracle of rare device.

2008-10-25T08:06:00.000+08:00

The spell of language weaves a complex web,
Where lies the essence of meaning within.
To such a deep delight emotions ebb,
As we return to see the world again,
Through others' eyes we contemplate the stars
Sparkling far beyond our mortal grasp;
In terms of words this portrait's shown to us
A picture of beauty residing in its clasp.

In time we may well come to understand
Why the dreaming heavens' language did descend.

How unlucky...

2008-09-22T16:15:00.000+08:00

Well, the worst is over. I have failed to do more than 2 and a half questions in the dreadful geometry test. Terrifyingly unlucky, since I forgot to study Ceva's Theorem due to a lack of comprehension... and that was what came out. 2 times out of 5.

Incidentally, (maybe not, that intro was just to link up, why am I saying all this?) luck is one truly misunderstood phenomenon. How many times have you heard people saying "What a cute kid! You're so lucky?" Well, I haven't and the meaning of luck (pure chance) is wrong there, unless you quantify it by saying "...I've been trying 462 times and they all look like they've come from Mercury." Exaggeration. Where would we be without it?

Luck is the topic of Discovery Channel's "Million 2 One", a program where they explore the unusual, one-in-a-million sort of coincidences. Well, even rarer than that, so they claim. During the show, they give tales of wonderfully absurd coincidences, mathematical (apparent) paradoxes and stuff that either look like they defy the odds or do indeed. One thing I'd like to know: Where do they get their numbers?

They say something about slicing bagels in half, and the chance of getting your finger cut if you take "sin(angle off the table) / something or other"... seems a little far-fetched to quantify their formula. What units would you take all the measurements in? Is the formula even correct? Does anyone care? (I do, but only to poke fun at their maths.)

Calling someone up by mistake, and finding it's your long-lost second identical triplet 8 times removed, standing by a public phone in Siberia. How on earth do they get the numbers for the chance of standing next to a phone in Siberia, answering it, or the number of people who have nothing better to do than answer that phone? Pure conjecture, I would guess.

Finding your lost wallet 2 weeks after you lost it at the bottom of a scuba-diving practice area of the sea. Oh wow, like they can even calculate the odds on that; kudos to them saying the odds are "incalculable." They realise it.

Quantifying such strange things is really none of our business, neither is it accurate. The formulae, chances, units are all entwined in a mesh of speculation. Only when the unexpected happens to us do we care about what's happened, not why. Given the number of people in the world, it's likely that the unlikely will happen (cool) and we shouldn't really attempt to count the odds on those. Odds are that you'll fail, and I'd take that wager.

...And On Intuition.

2008-09-20T08:29:00.000+08:00

Right, this is a third post "On" topics. Intuition be the theme for today (tomorrow? yesterday's day after tomorrow?)

We all possess this amazing skill called intuition. Perhaps it evolved out of our primal instincts; a self-defense mechanism in fight or flight scenarios; a tendency to predict the future. Pick your reason from these and more, many have been forwarded as to how this peculiar sense works. I'm not so concerned about the mechanics of it, but more of the applications we put it to use in.

Gambling, I'm sure, is a "sport" that encourages, indeed revolves around the house taking advantage of players' misguided intuition. Intuition can spectacularly fail where numbers are concerned, giving one false odds and impressions. Take for example the chance of rolling 2 dice and getting a 12. People will reason "2-12 are possible; ten numbers, so there's a 1 in 10 chance of rolling a 12." Of course, this is a rather unsophisticated example; more elegant and subtle methods are employed by casinos. If for nothing else, I respect casinos for their eloquent execution of probabilistic mathematics.

Speaking of maths, here is a double-edged zone where intuition can help, or fall apart completely. In regular maths tests, it is fairly easy to guess all the MCQ answers from 4 options. Intuition can be applied liberally here to choose the most correct-seeming, non crap answer like "2+2 = 4" rather than "2 + 2 = 5^42/89.17". Don't laugh, this sort of thing happens. Maths competitions, on the other hand, screw up my brain totally. Due to circumstances requiring me to appear pro in math, I go for competitions to check my standard. And here is where intuition falls flat on my face, since all the questions appear to give insufficient information to solve (geometry anyone?) or seem obvious but have no short proof like the unacceptable common sense. Intuition is rendered helpless by the high-level questions.

Note, though, that intuition usually doesn't desert me like this; in regular schoolwork I can probably keep up through a combination of guesswork, short-term memory and a healthy dose of instinct. The correct answers just speak to me. In long open-ended questions, the correct method yells itself hoarse. In essay questions, points flow into my head while writing. Not good for Literature, but OK for everything else. The best thing is it's inexplicable, so I AM telling the truth when I say I don't know how I can even pass tests, let alone score well in them.

Luck is another thing related to this. I once won a scissors-paper-stone match, 5 out of 6 with one draw. Moving pieces like I had no idea what I was doing (I didn't) in a chess tournament and drew... twice like this. Guessing the correct answer to an open-ended maths question by flipping a coin. A wallet, actually, but same difference. Luck combined with intuition works wonders; My old eraser could be used to tell fortunes (and guess correct answers in tests.)

The bottom line? Intuition is weird, wacky and wonderously wicked at whacking randomly at wanted answers when wished for. I hope this holds true in the competition-level geometry test next. Waaaargh.

On technology.

2008-09-18T19:49:00.000+08:00

This is not a rant. Glad that's settled; now I shall turn it into one.

Technology, where would we be without it? What defines technology? Is a lightbulb? The Large Hadron Collider? Quark interactions? A fruit fly that can fly through open windows? Well, at our current stage of development, it would seem as though technology generally means something metallic, goes beep randomly, and have so many functions you need a diploma to get through the instruction manual.

What fits the bill? Handphones (go beep when someone attempts to bug you,) computers (go beep in order to bug you,) printer/scanners that print/scan "beep" onto what you want, along with an unfortunate dead bug, and Blackberries/iPhones (I'd rather eat the berries and apples than listen to their bugging beeps.)

As you can probably guess from the tone, mood, diction, assonance and Cow knows what else from the above paragraph, I dislike such technology. It should have stopped at the telephone, the personal computer, the car, and the postman delivering mail. Perhaps bypassing all the intervening rubbish to reach the LHC.

Seriously, who wants to be irritated by technology? You hear handphones go beep and buzz about like a hornet in your pocket, the radiation/noise emission disrupts sensible thought processes and indeed, their manuals look like Coptic to me. Think about this: how intuitive and efficient is an input interface with all of about 20 buttons? The iPod: going the extra mile by removing the buttons altogether. Exercise of the modern generation is designed to train thumb wrestling professionals.

Not to mention, all the cables, accessories and "little dongly things", as Douglas Adams calls little widgets and doohickeys. Those same things that claim to interface computer to handphone, 2 pin plug to 3, step down power rating from 2.5 Volts DC to 1.5 Volts AC. They help you charge your phone from anywhere, provided you have a "little dongly thing" for every place in anywhere you might go to. How anyone can multiply these variables of applications, accessories, cables, power supply and add-ons into design, functionality, beauty, intelligence and space-travel, and STILL select a handphone wisely floors me.

Ditto for handheld stuffses; even hands-off things like little metal earplugs that allow you to answer phone calls by talking to yourself. These things look like they could slither into your ear and hijack your brain (attention corporate gurus, we do NOT need handphone-powered zombies, thank you.) Earplugs also ensure that you focus on your music/phone calls without hearing distractions, or indeed anything at all. The volume at minimum is so loud it blows earwax clear into my brain.

Computers. These things are deadly. I'm typing on one of these television screens with typewriters in front of it, and if something goes wrong, you could practically blame it on NASA. Blue screens could pop up at any second; my thumbdrive appears to have a Trojan; my USB mouse is screwing the scanner; the wiring behind the monitor looks like a plastic Afro. If the Internet connection dies, I have to wrestle this Afro into giving me the cable for the router. Ditto for the mouse, keyboard, speakers and everything else.

Technology is easy to recognise. If it comes with an instruction booklet, it could be technology. If it looks shiny and is as flat as a peanut or whatever it is now, getting more likely. If the instructions are thicker than the thing itself, you're fairly sure it's technology; if the object in question ever appears to malevolently malfunction, nail on the bloody head, that's technology.

On Reason.

2008-09-17T18:44:00.000+08:00

This is not a random post. OK, so it is a post, and random too, but... never mind.

Today, there was a little lesson about logic (officially Non-Euclidean Geometry, but it seemed like a logic lesson) which touched upon the meanings of the words "axiom", "system", "unidentified term" and "limo". (Fine, not the last one.) It struck me that all such human logic is really, really flawed. The basic reasoning goes like this.

1. I want to prove something.
2. To prove something, I have to start from something.
3. Therefore, I shall start from this. Believe it, or else the intelligence I spew will make no sense to you.

This is a system. Of thought and logic, or the lack thereof. The first 2 statements are axioms, which you cannot question since they are not meant to be questioned. (I have an issue with this, like I have with handphones.) Next, there follows the Unidentified Term, like "prove" or "start from". "What the heck do these words mean?," you are entitled to question. "Go check a dictionary" is the only seemingly sensible response; you may well ask why chickens cross roads, such an answer I have to give.

But wait! A dictionary itself defines words in terms of... more words. You look up "Advice", it gives you "Guidance". Check "Guidance", and it says "see Advice." The thing is essentially a self-defined system, that you cannot accept if you (choose to) know nothing about it. (Incidentally, how do babies learn from nothing? Genetic programming that allows them to? Accepting things at face value?)

Besides, what makes an axiom? Why and how do we (who, actually) defines it? Look at this.

1. A Cow exists.
2. Cows eat pasta.
3. No pasta is left.

1. There is no pasta left.
2. Only cows eat pasta.
3. Cows exist.

Which, I ask of you, are the axioms in these 2 "arguments"? When Euclid proposed his theory of geometry, he defined complex stuff like "Only one straight line passes through any two points" and asked us not to question it, nor ask for explanation. An interesting parallel to school, really. Who sets the standards for defining axioms and undefined terms? All human reasoning is pointless by that token of arbitrarity of reasoning. To end of, a quote with much meaning to me (not to you, since it's my own axiom:)

"Asfafkbad gighwro nefhnvn j kawnda." Enjoy.

Commenting on the nets...

2008-08-17T08:36:00.000+08:00

On the nets, you can be literally anybody you want. You can create your own profile, identity, abilities, and portray them as though they were your own. Such freedom is brilliant, for young minds get their chance for recognition and respect if they are able to intelligently reason and debate topics.

Forums are an excellent way to mask your age and develop a personality that can wildly diverge from reality. With the flux of posts from around the globe, ideas are bandied about easily, and one can pick up tips from the merely good, and the excellent. All the while, one can accumulate respect if one posts intelligently, critically and respectfully. Such earned credit is crucial to displaying that one has the mental aptitude to conduct arguments and discussions with others.

This post sort of just came to my head, after having read once again Ender's Game, with 2 child characters masquerading as world leaders and political commentators on the anonymous webs. Quite an interesting parallel to the modern-day internet, particularly since this book was written before the digital era truly began. A fascinating read, and the themes inside are quite interesting of themselves, never mind how Card depicts them (rather well, I feel.)

R.

Wesnoth: Heir to the Throne

2008-06-08T08:21:00.000+08:00

Well, I've thought of another arena where the RNG gods reign. 'Tis the Battle for Wesnoth. To attempt to illustrate the chaos within this, I'm playing through the campaign "Heir to the Throne", which some would argue is the main campaign, a series of 25 challenging scenarios.

First scenario: The Elves Besieged. Get your leader (Konrad) from the middle of the map to the top left, while 3 Orc armies try to stop you. I got lucky with recruiting, getting 2 Elvish Shamans with dextrous (bonus ranged damage), ditto for the Elvish Archers, and 2 Elvish Fighters with strong (bonus melee damage). My target for this level: Level up Konrad to Commander, and at least one other unit.

Delfador was my only powerhouse of 14-4 Fire (x-y means y hits of x damage) , but was slow through the thick forest, and caught up only when I went after the level 3 Orc Warlord leader. For the 2 northern Orcs, they ran out of gold and stopped recruiting after 1 or 2 turns, but their recruits more or less all got stolen by the western Elves, so experience was scarce. Thankfully, I nabbed both leader kills (the south one is too powerful) even though "allied" forces surrounded them first. Finished early by 2 turns.

Turn 6: A skirmish. I don't look too good here (my troops have non-blue orbs above the green health bar.) Already, I lost one Shaman.

Turn 9: I managed to grab this leader kill despite my "allied" level 2 Ranger and level 1 Fighter and Archer. Konrad is now a Commander with leadership, which boosts adjacent lower-leveled units' damage.

Turn 14: Success in the east. The second leader is mine too, and my Archer is now incredibly close to levelling. Now I have a strong, dextrous Archer, Commander Konrad, and a bunch of units with good traits that I'd ideally like to level up in the next scenario (if I don't get KSed again.)

Thus ends the first scenario. An interesting sample of Wesnoth. Update: I've finished the campaign on Medium (far easier than Easy...) and will look into doing something with this dead wood blog. Don't hold your breath...

A post...

2008-06-05T10:41:00.000+08:00

I'm not going to blog about anything much. Just... occasional updates on... wait for it... GAMES!
...
...(...Too many dots? I tend to overuse punctuation....but I digress... a little.)
...So, firstly, it's Dragonfable. I've got a Dragon Amulet, and all the shiny things that go with it, like a big dragon, more powerful stuffses, and an even stronger headache. What IS with all those more powerful monsters?! They screw up the game by making sure I don't lay my hands on the powerful weapons I'm aiming for.

OK, so I exaggerate a little, but it's hard to train when you have no skills and you are being overrun by big monsters that conspire with the RNG to give you hell. I'm talking about the DragonRider class, where you fight big ugly giants on your (woefully noob) dragon to... wait for it again... level up your dragon's skills. Yay. A fantastic catch-22 that's fabulously tedious, and only with a huge dose of luck I made it through, and now the going's easier.

This is but an example of the ways those evil *lightning strikes* OK, 'nice' RNG gods can... er, 'bless' you in your journeys. I'll think of another one soon; oh, and visit http://whatshooguysays.blogspot.com/ (not by me, but I'm doing something to get more hits there. It's a great site, and almost 16.18% random.)

Hello World!

2008-05-29T11:56:00.001+08:00

Well. It's a pleasant day. School holidays started, and the first bit of homework has been completed. (Phew!) Anyway, I'm too tired to think properly and make a proper post, so here's a link to keep you captivated for a while:

http://tinyurl.com/5b97gk
http://whatshooguysays.blogspot.com/

(P.S. Really, this is just a start. I remain anonymous. I like cows. I also am very random at times.)