Saturday, September 16, 2017

Reverse insomnia: when you wake up too early but can't go back to sleep

This FFT is inspired by real life and articles I've read over the years about how you shouldn't make decisions when you're not in the right state of mind (confusion, anger, sadness). I agree, and I'm going to try explaining it in a quantifiable manner.

As the saying goes,

You can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you react to them.

There have been uncountable situations where I've done or said something I've regretted after thinking about it moments, days, weeks later. I could've done better if I just took my time to calm down and think about it. Now, before everyone starts trying to over-rationalize everything that happens to them, I'll like to add that your choices made under duress isn't necessarily wrong. The problem is that we can never replay that exact moment and how we feel at that point in time.

A simple example would be when your life is threatened by some external force, say, a robbery where the assailant has a knife. In this example, you happen to own a gun and you're in a position where you can either shoot him, make a warning shot or run. It would not be surprising that a good number of people would choose to shoot him instead of giving a warning shot, not because some people just wants to shoot people; but because they're not in the right state of mind to make the rational choice of giving a warning shot.
(I understand the caveats where the victim is well-trained like a soldier, but their mental state is different from a normal person so the point still stands)

If you belong to the group who shot the robber, would you have regretted your actions if he died? Would you think that you're wrong?

It depends.

Whatever you feel about the goodness/evilness of your actions, it's pretty much universal that if you have had more time, you could've made a choice where you would feel better in the long run. Feelings don't last forever, when all that adrenaline/serotonin/dopamine finally balances out, you're faced with the stark truth of your actions. Which brings me to this graph.

x-axis: time / y-axis: satisfaction

Disclaimer: there's absolutely no statistical evidence backing this up, just plotting how I feel about it

The red line starts off with a really high satisfaction level (point 0), and it's usually the thing we end up doing; because it seemed like a really great idea at that point of time. Compared to the blue option at point 0, it feels leaps and bounds better. But the red line dips dramatically after the initial moments as you start wondering, "why did I do this?", "what if?", "maybe I should've tried something else". It will still feel like a great idea while you're still being fueled by emotions; until it finally hits you at that magical break-even point.

It was at this moment that you realize you fucked up.

The solution is simple, when you're not in a clear state of mind, if you can afford to, hold off on any decision making. Sounds simple and common sense, but applying it in real life is a difficult practice of restraint. Being aware that you're not calm is probably the first step.

Unfortunately, even when I'm aware of my state of mind, I'm not able to always make the best choices.

to err is human

(to forgive, divine)

The way I keep myself moving forward and not be bogged down by the countless of regrets that may arise from some bad choices is simply to write my thoughts down. Put it down in a tangible form that you can experience again, to feel the similar emotions you've felt. In my case, >90% of time I still feel like I have made the right call.
(p.s. the rightness of your choices depends on what you value, will probably write about it some other day)

And life goes on.

Labels: food for thought

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Friday, August 26, 2016

I had this conversation with my girlfriend recently, she was telling me about her work and how there's this bitch who hasn't been doing her work properly and she has to cover up for her all the time. (gross generalisation but let's just roll with it)

Her boss is aware of the situation so she prompted her about it and she is finally able to give some feedback about her colleague's poor work conduct. She mostly agreed with her boss's opinion without adding too much fuel to the flame, leaving out the incriminating parts that will probaly set her boss on a witch-hunt.

As she told me about it, I realized that she is actually proud that she held back; happy that she is the bigger person.

The thing is, why are we always happy when we stopped ourselves from doing a bad thing? It's like, we thought of it in the first place, just one step away from fulfilling it.

Stay with me here, I thought of this because of a book I read sometime back called, "hyperbole and a half". The book is more or less a compilation of all the posts on it's website.


Near the end of the book there's this chapter where the author explores him/herself, and found out that "I'm a shittier person than I thought I am".

One of the examples quoted loosely is when you see an annoying kid making a ruckus and just wouldn't shut up for the love of god. I would feel an urge to carass his face, violently, with a brick. Of course I wouldn't do that, not for many reasons other than the law. I would then feel "good" about myself for being the bigger man and not venting my angst upon that little devil.

Or a more random situation like, being at a sandy playground and having the urge to hurl sand at someone, just for the fun of it. I don't know why there's even such an urge but I surpressed it, then I feel good that I did not do a bad thing. But the fact that the thought even cross my mind isn't anything "good" don't you think? A proper good person shouldn't be thinking of random shit like that to do.

Which is the point of such a lengthy post, that we are all shittier than what we perceive ourselves to be*
*for most people anyway, unless you're a born saint. 

I was just amused that what the author described happened exactly in real life, and I was able to witness it from a 3rd person point of view. If it was me behaving that way, I would definitely not been able to spot it out.

In conclusion, not committing to a bad thing you've thought of isn't exactly something worth feeling good about.

Labels: FFT, food for thought, rant

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Saturday, June 04, 2016

There are some people that I've come across the years that admit that they have a problem with some-thing. But they think that they can get away with it simply by admitting it, and that gets my nerves sometimes. Though I'll admit that I commit the same mistake from time to time. (which will sound very ironic when you're done reading this)

Let me draw an example from my not-so-short-anymore life experiences.

There's a guy A who would always be late to a meet up, and after numerous times he would say something like, "Aiya you know I got trouble coming on time one mah, you all just meet a bit later lor!" Preeeetty sure many people have came across someone like that, and it may sounds harmless at first.

BUT.

It's the same as saying, I am a late bitch, deal with it. He's not going to do anything about it even though he knows that it's an issue. (let us not dive into what's counted as an issue for this post)

Another example.
Let's say girl B likes to whine about anything and everything. (imagine she's pretty so she gets away with it) Over time people get annoyed and tell her not to whine so much. From my experience, people like her will come up with a response similar to,
"But you know I don't like all these things one mah, I'm liddat one."

I'm like that.

That is the tell-tale sign of someone who will very willingly admit that he/she has a problem but would not do anything about it.

Another example, fat people.
I'm not going to lie, I do not find fat people aesthetically pleasing, it's not like I hate them or anything, but unless it's some form of illness or hereditary disease, being really fat just shows how much fuck you give about your life/health. Okay where am I going with this again...

Right, superficial. There are many people who claims they're not superficial but dislike fat/ugly people on the deep down. (a smaaaall group of people who don't care about looks) Then, there is this other group of people who will very willingly proclaim,
"I hate ugly people, I'm superficial, whatever."

I'm not saying that being superficial is a damning value to have but jeez just because you proclaim that doesn't make it totally okay. Do you guys get where I'm coming from?

Shopaholics who go crazy over shoes be like, "I know I buy a lot of shoes, but I LOVE shoes!". I mean, yeah sure but that doesn't mean that it's alright to be blowing your entire salary on some summer collection!

The point I'm trying to bring across is simple, knowing you have an issue is a wonderful first step, but it's not the only step. Bloody fix it for goodness sake.

Labels: food for thought, thinking

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Sunday, November 03, 2013

The title is my conclusion, not my feelings towards them. 

After passing out from that dreaded place, I have been posted to Kranji Camp as a mechanic. Shall write more about the place in another post. The thing that I want to bring up is that there is an abundance of overweight people in that camp, people who have been marked as unfit for combat.


How overweight you ask?

If F=MA is legit, then he would only need to punch 1/3 as fast as me to deliver the same amount of force. If I am a zip file, then he would be what raw uncompressed data looked like. I'm avoiding literal descriptions because I don't want to paint something your mind canvas can't fit. But just imagine that if you punched him, his bodily armor would absorb your punch and dissipate the energy in the form of ripples.


Now that we have the setting established, let me talk about the point of this post.

There are obese females, and males I observed, who have the potential to become models. But instead they hide their beauty behind a vault of carbohydrates. I don't have anything against people who literally bite more than what they could swallow, but I am superficial enough to say that their body outlines isn't what I deem as ideal.

They can look better, and some of them do have the intention of cutting down the chomp. Some of them succeed, some of them don't, some couldn't follow through.

Why?

From what I have seen from the people who have succeeded, you just need strong motivation, and a crap load of will power. I'm hypothesizing that the people who failed lacked either or both. I'm thinking that if life is going on well and there's nothing to change the flow, there would be little motivating factor to change anything at all. Will power can be found when you really want something, or if you got fucked over so badly that you gain the mental strength to make things happen.

This is why we shouldn't be nice to fatties. Laugh at them, insult them to your heart's content. Indeed, they will hate you to the core with their clogged hearts. But it is a very strong motivator. Not wanting to lose is a really strong feeling, and a common motivator for sports people alike. I'm not saying that pissing off people will make them want to change, but you know, it is a good enough reason when the whole world point their fingers at you. This may seem evil, and it is. But it's just a more direct version of how some people got their motivation.

For example, getting rejected because of your looks will motivate to improve on your looks through either cosmetics, clothes or whatever. There will most probably be resentment towards the person who rejected you. My point is just a distilled version of this example.

Side tracking a bit, there has been a thing that has been bugging me. Let's say that there is a female that likes me, but I am a superficial bitch and basically don't like her face, or whatever. Let's say that she went for some amazing make over and became an eye-turner. If I went for her, the relationship is fucked because it's obvious what it is based on. If she rejects me because I'm a bitch and she has her pride, the relationship is fucked. If I had accepted her in the first place, there will be little reason for her to become prettier. So fuck, looks must become a second factor to personality; this is somewhat of a downer.

But anyway, back to the topic, for the sake of humanity and raising the bar for looks;
Give them a reason to look better. Give them the motivation to change.


Well... I'm not saying all fat people must slim down. But it isn't that bad of an idea, is it?

Okay before you run out and start dissing all citizens of the obese, calm your tits. This utilitarian method is clearly too cruel to work in real life. It's just a thought I had from all the hours of sitting around. Obviously there are kinder ways of motivating people, but those take too long and it's a pain in the ass. So well, if you don't mind being a target for rocks, go ahead and fuck the fatties.

Labels: fat, featured, FFT, food for thought, random, thinking

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Sunday, May 26, 2013

A random thought spurs from the many cliche lines about how you are special/unique/different from everyone else. I have also always heard about how "no one understands me".

In fact, I seem to see "no one understands me" written all over the internet, on many blogs/tweets/posts that I see.

I think that both of them are true. Because no matter how similar two people are, they are still different, even if they're twins, the atoms making them up is different. No matter how similar the experiences are, it is still different for everyone.

Even though I don't expect anyone to truly understand my feelings or thoughts, it doesn't mean that it cannot be done. You see, the thing is: humans are rather fucked up.

There may come a time when someone is able to truly understand me for who I am. However, will I be able to accept "myself" that is projected by another? Questions like, "is this really who I am?", "who am I really actually?" are bound to surface, either you refuse to accept that your friend is correct about who you are, or you simply aren't sure about yourself in the first place.

Thing is, I find the concept of "self" rather confusing. Conscience and freedom of thought is a really confusing thing for me. Because it just seems to go no where when I think about it. (it's like the brain trying to define itself simply by thinking about it)

So here's my thought.

Our feelings are essentially our motivation to do things. Sometimes that feeling doesn't have a name for it, that's why we sometimes do things with the reason of "Because I felt like it." And from time to time, another person would be able to understand that feeling of why you wanted to do something.

The whole point of this post is to say that everyone is different, and it doesn't make them all the same. Just because everyone is a different fruit, doesn't make all them into an apple. Therefore, don't worry about not having someone to understand you inside out. We change all the time, just having someone who is able to tolerate you is good enough.


Additional note: Have you ever been at a really high building, and felt like jumping off?
Some people understand that feeling, some don't. There'll always be a unique situation/feeling that only you will understand.

Labels: FFT, food for thought, random, thinking

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Monday, April 01, 2013

Writing about this because I'm right about to fall asleep, and I suddenly remember something that I read a couple while back ago, or maybe it was a video, anyway it was talking about how sleeping is equivalent to dying.

I'm sure there will be a butt ton of argument against it, so for the sake of understanding my point, let's just think about it only based on your experiences and not on science.

When you sleep, you essentially lose consciousness, you have no control over your body. Even if someone were to defecate on your face, you won't be able to do anything about it. In this aspect, you're no different from a corpse. Of course, the pungent smell would wake you up and allow you to tear that bastard a new hole, something that a corpse couldn't do. (and would be really terrifying if it could)

We're done with the physical, now for the mind. When you sleep you don't remember the time when you're sleeping. (can you imagine being able to hear yourself snore, and remember it?*)  So that's 5 hours, or maybe 15 hours of time where you are not aware of your surroundings. (the time varies, from little to you-should-just-die-in-your-sleep)
*video cameras are not counted, it ruins the point

As such, from your own point of view, you're essentially dead during the time you're asleep.

When you think about it this way, it makes you wanna treasure the time you're awake, for you never really know if you're going to wake up again after you close your eyes.

Labels: dead, featured, FFT, food for thought, sleep, thinking

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Sunday, March 17, 2013

Been pondering about this for awhile. I like to showcase (showoff if you prefer) the geeky things that I do in my free time. I have heard people mentioning that I like to brag, or something similar.

I'm not going to flat-out deny it. But I don't really say things with the intention of telling people, "Hey look, I'm better than you."

"It's not about doing what others haven't
but doing something you've never done before."

That's how I would like to see myself when telling others about my geeky projects. The cold hard truth is that in the tech world, unless you're working on the frontier, it's pretty hard to do something that someone else has never done before. It's pretty much just some sort of personal accomplishment for yourself.

If you see something amusing/amazing, chances are that you will share with someone else, right? (think 9gag/youtube) But what if you, yourself are doing something interesting and want to share with someone else?

Of course, the finger-pointers will tell me, "Sure, it's cool that you're doing all these, but it's not like you have to tell someone about it. Some people just don't care." (real life responses) True as it may be, it's a fucking anal way to look at things and you make me want to hug you, with metal spikes.

Maybe because I'm a geek. We like to showcase our talents. Just browse through forums, you see people comparing custom desktop rigs, computer specs, game scores. And some people just make the most beautiful desktops you'll ever see.


Well, my point of all these is just to say that I think it is fine to brag talk to people about the things you're good in. Just don't rub it in their faces or make them feel bad about it. (un?)Thankfully, most people don't give a crap about the things I do so I probably didn't cause anyone to feel bad. I think. I hope.

Labels: FFT, food for thought, humility, thinking

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Saturday, March 02, 2013

"Give and take.
You win some, you lose some."

We hear that rather often. We have been taught, or at least I have been taught to learn to compromise when you face another person with a different opinion. That somehow I have to find a way to make both parties happy. Of course, we all know that it's just a fantasy.

"Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another - too often ending in the loss of both."
- Tryon Edwards

There are a ton of quotes on compromising over here and here. It goes without saying that I do not agree with all of them, but some struck me as interesting.

I do not believe in the idea of compromising. For a very simple reason.

"make a plan and you will find,
that she has something else in mind,
and so rather than do either you do something else
that neither likes at all"
- My Fair Lady

That's the problem with compromise. It is what happens when neither party is unwilling to take a step back and "lose". They instead choose something that allows neither to win. That's completely idiotic, but understandable.

Humans are selfish, self-centered egoists. Most of the times, I am disgusted by the idea of losing for the sake of someone else to win. Even so, I believe that there's always a time when you should step back and be the bigger, and better man. Not everything has to go your way. The problem with give and take is that we don't give in completely, just in a weird, half-assed way.

That is why I advocate compromising compromising. There's no way to make everyone happy, you can only make everyone less unhappy. It's a balancing act of someone's fortune, and another's misfortune.

It's pretty straight forward and commonsense up to this point. So why compromise when it is such a bad thing?

Because it's a necessary evil.

eg. Country A has an abundance of oil. It only wants to provide for it's own country, and monopolize the market on every other country based on it. However, it is forced to compromise and sign a pact saying that it would sell to other countries on a globally agreed price point. Why? Because Country B,C,D,F... will wage war on A if they don't do it.

It's a compromise because everyone is still buying from A. But A cannot set a ridiculously high price. In this case, everyone is happy, but not as happy as they theoretically be.

Which is why compromising is a necessary evil. If we don't, everyone will probably die. Imagine this moronic but very plausible situation.

Person A is walking on the same path towards B.
Person B is walking on the same path towards A.
If neither of them is willing to shift their walking line, they would bang, right?
And then they would fight, and kill each other.
(yep, true story)

So the moral of the story is,

We compromise because it's easier for everyone else to kill you, then for you to kill everyone else.

Labels: compromise, compromising, featured, FFT, food for thought, thinking

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Do you believe in fate?
I don't.

At least not in the traditional sense. The meaning of fate and destiny has changed along the years, so I asked Google to define them for me.



From what I understand, Fate is something determined by a higher power, like a God or any other supernatural being. Destiny on the other hand, is simply the inevitable.

For eg. It's this apple's destiny to be eaten by me.
For eg. I determined this apple's fate by eating it.

Apply this to humans, I would like to think of fate as a power you cannot oppose. Just like how an apple cannot stop me from eating it.

Let me just put this out there first. I absolutely do not believe in a higher power. (in the sense of a god that dictates the future of humans). I am an Atheist after all. Therefore, I don't believe in fate. Knowing that whatever you do, is already determined by someone else, is a fucking boring way to live your life. In other words, it makes life not worth living.

What I believe in, is physics, and the math of probability. A topic I touched on a little on my rant on gambling. Thanks to J who gave me a few examples of fate, I shall break it down using probability.

If you meet the same person on a bus every single weekday, what are the chances of it?

We shall assume very conservatively.
Let's say you only leave house within a plus-minus 20 minutes range.
You live in a neighbourhood with a population of 7140 residents. 15blocks, 17 stories, 8apartment/storey, 3.5residents/apartment.
Bus comes every 3minutes. (peak hour)
Only 3 buses goes to the same destination. (I have 5 in my situation)

40 minutes of total time. Average of 1bus/min since 1 bus/3mins and 3 buses goes to the same destination. So there are 40 possible buses. The calculation goes like this.
1/7140(residents) times 1/40(buses) = 1/285,600
The chance of you meeting a person on a bus is 1 in 285 thousand.

If you meet the same person every weekday, that's 5 days in a row.
(1/285,600)⁵ = 5.26 x 10^-28
That's 28 zeroes in front of 5.26. In comparison, the chances of striking TOTO* is 1.23 x 10^-7
(using system 6, $0.50)

Putting it in English, the chance of you striking TOTO is higher than you meeting the same guy on the bus by more than 20 million trillion. Putting it in a bell-curve, here's what it looks like.

It's on the far end of the spectrum

Now, if this isn't fate, I don't know what is. But of course, my version of Fate is very different from my love sick counterparts. My idea of fate is an event that happens despite of it's infinitesimal probability. Much like how you would think of luck.

Probability is interesting because it is true if you look at it on an infinite scale. For example, rolling a six-sided dice. The chance of you getting a 4 is 1/6. If you roll it 12 times, you might get a 4; ten times out of twelve. Does that mean probability is false? Nope. It just means that if you roll it a thousand times, a million times, a billion times; the graph will flatten out and the chances of you getting a 4, is 1 in 6.

Now, the argument supporting fate scientifically is using Quantum Mechanics and the theory of Multiverse. (multiple universe) In which case,

Everything that can happen, will happen and has already happened.

So technically, it doesn't matter what you do, it has already been done. In a way, you can think of your actions as inevitable. This might be hard to imagine, until you start to visualize time as another dimension, rather than a straight line. Hence, it doesn't matter what you do, you're destined to do that, because you have already done that.

Therefore, I cannot definitively conclude fate/destiny's existence. It's more of how you would like to define it.

For me,
Fate is the things that happens despite the probability of it not happening. 
In which case, it's probably fate that had you reading my blog (:

Labels: destiny, fate, FFT, food for thought, random, thinking

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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

That's how I'll fight zombies

Mini-confession: I'm actually quite scared of zombies.

Thankfully, they don't exist. Though it isn't a scientific impossibility. Either way, you don't see them in the streets, unless you're somehow stuck in a movie/game-world.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
- H. P. Lovecraft

I  completely agree with this. I'm not particularly sure if I'm really that scared of zombies, but because they don't exist, the possibility of them being my worst fear is a fear in itself.

It's similar to horror movies. My balls shrink inwards and disappear when I watch them, because of that unknown element always waiting to fuck your mind up. However, I'm mostly immune to real-life "ghosts" and whatnot. (unless you're talking about a haunted house where people are intentionally trying to scare you, that's a different story). In this case, I'm referring to creepy places, I'm not 100% immune to them, but I don't get as creep out as much as others as I simply do not believe in whatever that cannot exist.

Back to the topic,
I think people are generally afraid of zombies is because they prey on humans. (and all fleshy things)

Think about it for a second, as long as you live in an urban area, you have literally zero predators. There isn't another organism trying to eat you.*
* please ignore all bacteria, viruses, and parasites for the sake of this argument.

If you were to live in Africa, I am pretty sure you'll be scared of a Lion more than a stupid Zombie. The idea of a predator is scary, fortunately, we have evolved far enough to ward away all our natural predators. Hence, we have absolutely zero experience of trying to run away from something that is trying to eat you. However, it's still in our instincts, it's coded in our DNA.

All the movies about Zombies and Alien invasions are all poking at our primate fear of the unknown, and ultimately, getting killed. It's pretty much the fight or flight response that kicks off your adrenaline.

I'm scared of zombies and the idea of it. When I think about a humanoid being chasing after me relentless with full intentions to eat me, it's not a pleasant thought.

But you know, if a Zombie apocalypse ever happens, you'll be happy to know that people have been thinking about it for a long time.
self defense against zombies
How to fight zombies
Britain is well prepared to fight zombies
What is the best way to fight zombies
Army gets how to guide for zombie invasion
Google: How to fight zombies

Labels: FFT, food for thought, random, rant, thinking, zombies

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Saturday, January 26, 2013

Have you ever been faced with a choice, where swallowing your pride/emotions and doing the right thing makes you the bigger man. (or woman, not discrediting you ladies here)

I have been faced with such choices more often then I would prefer. Thankfully, I tend to go towards the side with the bigger heart. That said, there has been numerous occasions where I didn't. The times where I simply go, "You know what? Fuck you, fuck this and everything else."

Naturally, I didn't say that out loud.

But still, it does fill me with shame that I couldn't be the man I want to be. That there's a part of me that's petty, stingy and generally selfish. Being human, I suppose that these degrading qualities are inevitable.

The most annoying part is that I know what is the right thing to do, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Sometimes, doing the right thing* makes me feel like an idiot. Doing something that benefits me in absolutely zero ways for the sake of satisfying my moral compass just makes me feel moronic.
*it's not the clear cut good/evil cases. But like choosing between things like watching a TV show, or help clean the house. Things that are "for the greater good" at the expense of myself. 

It's an all out brawl between my idealistic side and realistic side. So far, neither side is really winning.
Ideally: I would want to help everyone, including strangers.
Realistically: Screw you, I don't even know you that well. Not gonna waste my time doing something for you that you might not even appreciate.

Is this something normal people struggle with? Or do people instinctively help others or push them down the gutter without batting an eyelid?

Well, I strive to be a better person everyday. Not quite sure how that's working out, only time will die.

Labels: featured, FFT, food for thought, thinking

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Monday, January 07, 2013

Because I've been rather happy these couple of days, my retarded mind starts to wonder if there's such thing as limited happiness. That you can only experience that much in your life time, before you get insensitized by it or something.

Think about it as how happiness is rather relative. Like, bread for a starving man, bread for a thirsty man, or maybe desserts after dinner. It's like varying levels of happiness but it's only relative to what you've experienced before. Which reminds me of this quote I saw recently.

The richer you are,
The more expensive happiness is.

Read more »

Labels: FFT, food for thought, happiness, random, thinking

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Sunday, December 30, 2012

Been watching quite a lot of shows lately. So here's the thing:
If a bad guy forces you to betray your best friend, in a way that will ultimately cause his death. Would you comply?

3 different outcomes if you choose to disobey the bad guy's orders.

1. You will be killed.
2. Your friends/family will be killed.
3. Strangers will be killed in front of you.

Given these 3 choices, which choice will cause you to give in and betray your best friend, ultimately causing his death? Or would you protect your best friend till the very end?

Of course, I must stress that there is no right answers, I'm just curious about what choices people will make. Please leave a comment or tell me through any other forms of media. Also, other than "best friend", is there a difference if it's substituted with your sibling,parent or partner?

Here's what I think about this.
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Labels: dilemma, featured, FFT, food for thought, moral, thinking

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Sunday, December 23, 2012

Humans and Animals, how different are we when we are competing for sex? 

Fundamentally? I think pretty much the same, we are animals after all. The end goal is to ensure the proliferation of our own species. The feeling good part is just an extremely good incentive for us to commit the act of sex. It feels so good that we oftenly do it without the intent of increasing the population. What is the main difference between a human and an animal finding a sex partner?

An animal generally chooses it's partners based on their partner's ability to raise their offspring. Also, using visual traits to judge the quality of it's genes. Usually the females get to be the one choosing, though the alpha male will have a harem and be granted the enviable position of fucking whoever he wants to.

So the males fight it out, to the death sometimes; winner takes all. Or they have a showcase of their ability or physical features. Building a good nest is proves their ability to father an offspring, while a display of beauty is simply a spectacular mating call.

Peacock strutting it's feathers

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Labels: animals, FFT, food for thought, humans, sex, thinking

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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

I was chatting with my friend last night, trying to give him some encouragement to work a little harder since we're graduating soon. In some ways it's some sort of "advice".

I've also had another conversation with another friend that already set my mind on this track. I'll go into more details about this conversation later on.

So the first encouragement talk. It's not like I was lying or anything, I truly believe in what I told him.
I told him that, (paraphrased)

"As a student, there's only one thing you can do, you might as well do it well. It's not that this road is great or anything, but the alternative is worse or far too difficult to predict."

Oh, this was because he has a different ambition from the course that he's taking. Hence doubts and all.

Of course, it is an extremely logical way of thinking, and I stand fully behind it. Thing is, I'm not really doing it. I don't think I'm trying to the best of my abilities. As such, "am I qualified to tell my friend that?". I find it to be a very interesting idea to think about. Qualifications. What qualifies you to do something? When are you not qualified to do something?

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Labels: are you qualified, faggots, featured, FFT, food for thought, humans, qualification, random, thinking

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Monday, December 03, 2012

Just another thought I had right before I fall asleep.

I was just wondering how to be happier in life. The age long question that everyone wants the answer for. Of course, I often pondered over this mundane question, usually ending with rather depressing answers. For example, you have to be sad to be happy. Similar to the quote, "You have to fall to learn how to stand."

There just isn't such thing as eternal bliss. At some point in time that bliss will become just another hell hole. This was when i realized that nothing is eternal. Or rather, anything good that lasts too long will eventually turn bad. Which brought me to a whole new level of understanding of the phrase, nothing lasts forever.

So, how can one be happy? 
You simply need to obtain the power to do whatever you want, whenever you want to.

If Biology is ultimately about having sex and not dying, then life I think, is ultimately about doing what you want without dying. If there is anyone who knows about doing what you want without any consideration for the people around you, you have to crown the insane people as king. Sure, they might have their own little problems going on inside their head, but in the end they could do things without empathy for others. What about all the other normal  people? We stick closely to our morals and ethics, making sure our actions do not to cause discomfort to the people around us. How happy could we be?

When I think about it this way, I feel that humans are truly happy only when they're selfish and tyrannical. In our defense, we're animals after all. I'm not insinuating that we should lose our minds or behave like an animal, but you know, our happiness are pretty much bounded by our intelligence.

Sometimes I wonder, maybe I would be happier if I were crazy.

Labels: crazy, featured, FFT, food for thought, happy, random, thinking

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

image from thenextweb

I'm relatively old, at least old enough to go through the advancement of computer technology. Old enough to have witness MS-DOS in action, enough to know what a vinyl record is, what a cassette tape is. (and using them of course)

Now, the interesting thing is that you have apps like Instagram and similar apps which mimics analog cameras. Using all the vintage effects, because that's how images looked like last time. The decomposition of the film causes old pictures to look like that.

But what about kids born in the digital age? With all the crystal clear images that we can get simply using our phones. To think that a handphone is something that didn't really exist in my early days. So, how would they recall the past? My recollection of TVs are of the bulky CRTs, fuzzy images, and a lot of yellow tint for whatever reason. Most of the electronics also turn yellow due to the way it's manufactured in the past. (google if you're interested why)

I'm feeling a little lazy so I'll cut the descriptions short. Do you think that kids these days will look back in their childhood in like "HD vision"? What about future down when we have perfected 3D technology and holograms and shit. Would their vintage pictures become HD in 2D?

I find this very amusing. If you have any family videos when you were younger, you'll remember how shitty the quality is, with all the shaking and whatnot. But look at the videos normal people create today, the quality is orders of magnitude better than movies i n the 80s. This shift in perspective is happening so fast that we can actually see it in action.

And I find this terribly amusing. 

Labels: featured, FFT, food for thought, future, instagram, past, thinking, vintage

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Wednesday, November 07, 2012

If you have the time to spare, I highly recommend that you watch this Youtube playlist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU&list=PLgE-9Sxs2IBVEoz0MkIzcUmFkXWpmw2zo&index=2&feature=plpp_video

If you're too lazy, then just watch this as I kind of thought of something while watching it. Again, if you're THAT lazy and not interested in Education, here's a very short summary of it.

We should make education more like games. Change the paradigm of grading from A to F. Instead, make it more like an RPG game, where everyone starts from 0 experience, and slowly gain experience based on what they've done in classes or test. That way, it becomes a positive encouragement for studying, rather than the current method, where you can only fail if you don't do well. Using the game method, you can always "level up" slower, but at least it wouldn't be game over if you failed to defeat the exams.

It is all very interesting and you should definitely have a look, this is a very rough summary.

After watching/listening to all the talks, I can't help but take a new perspective on education. I have always been a pragmatic/logical person. My "end-all, be-all" reason for education is that it benefits mankind. It's really not as selfless as you would hope it to be. Having an educated population benefits mankind overall.

However, I started to think that education exists to draw out the full potential of an individual. That it is for the benefit of oneself, not simply because it's useful to the human species. Thanks to the videos, I realized that there are actually people who wants to change the foundation of education of this era. To help develop the strengths of a person, and not to conform oneself to a rigid system.

Still, such a drastic change will take years to accomplish. Though I see the beauty of their end goal, I don't see the first step that could be taken. Until I thought of this.

We should allow more than one attempt in an exam.
If the fundamental idea of education is to learn, what better way to learn than to learn from your own mistakes?

The problem is that, once you pass a subject/module/chapter, you would never go back to it again. You wouldn't even be tested on it. Sure, the later chapters might build upon the concept and it might be related, but it isn't the same thing. Have you ever revised an older chapter from a couple of months ago and suddenly you just understood everything, wondering "How the fuck did I not see this in the first place?"

Everyone absorbs information at a different rate. Though generally, it takes some time before what you learn is fully internalized in your head. So why should we have a test once and then just forget about it totally?

I believe this is why students have that mentality that once the exam is over, you can forget everything. 

I think that we should have another similar exam, maybe 3 months later. Which will be added to the first exam and averaged out. Sure, it may be a hell of a hassle for the students, but I think that if we're going to stick with the notion of exams for the foreseeable future, this seems like a logical step forward.

I can say this with such confidence because I used to fail my A maths horribly, but if you were to give me 1 month to study the entire textbook now, I could probably score an A for it. Is it because intelligence grew with age? I doubt it. Sometimes, things just become clearer once you've had enough time to think about it. I remember flipping through my Secondary textbooks a year or two ago, and I was smacking myself in the head for my stupidity.

Back to my point of being able to take take an exam twice, you can upscale it and allow the student to retake an exam multiple times. With each new exam being worth less.

There is a major flaw. It will break the current system of filtering out the good students. Because the chance of someone scoring an A for every subject will be drastically higher with this method. However, isn't this what we want? Reward the hardworking. Similar to the "game education", this aims to encourage students to not give up after they fail. The improving grades will also prove that the student is learning over repetition rather than just memorizing and pasting down their answers.

One might argue that this will break the current system of "Good" and "Bad" schools. Where your exam results determines what "quality" school you're going to. Well yeah, that's my point. We have to break this traditional thinking of education. We should be educating people to learn, not teaching them to study. Schools don't teach you the unpredictability of the outside world, it only teaches you the definite answers of pre-determined scenarios. After all, an individual's talent and skills is way more important than his ability to study a textbook.

Of course, I'm just ranting to myself, I doubt such a crazy idea will see the light of the day during my career as a student. This idea probably didn't come by chance. I've always hated how you couldn't try again after you've failed. That I couldn't go back and study in my old school and take a test for it. Why is age such a factor? This kind of education doesn't make sense. I've always been told that "A successful person simply failed more times than an unsuccessful person." That the key is to not give up when you fail. But what's the fucking point if you can't try again when you fail? *

Is this how people envisioned education to be? A cold heartless place where it's do-or-die. Maybe they are trying to teach us that there is no going back in time, that we have to grab hold of any opportunity, or risk failing in life. That's all good and all, but isn't it too much for the little kids?

Well, I don't claim to have the answers to anything, but I definitely do see a need for the current education system to make some changes, as soon as possible.


*fail can mean not doing well, may not literally fail

Labels: education, featured, FFT, food for thought, future, thinking

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Thursday, November 01, 2012

Happened to think of this while I was washing up. Really have no idea why such an idea popped into my head.

I realized that we usually try to justify our actions with only one big reason. And when we try to justify an action with more than one reason, it just appears to be excuses instead. Let me show you an example of something simple.

Man A: Hey, why are you looking at pretty girls on Facebook?
Man B: I'm just bored.
or 
Man B: Because she's pretty, duh?

Those would've been perfectly acceptable answers. However, if he answered like this,

Man B: I'm bored, and she's really pretty, happens to be my friend's friend too!

The first reaction that Man A will have will most probably be, "Dude you're just a pervert aren't you?" Of course, I'm using a male's train of thought for this scenario, but I'm pretty sure it applies to females too, in other situations. Like dieting or other things that don't interest me.

What I find is that usually, there are more than one reason for my actions. For example, if someone asks me out and I choose not to, the big reason is because I don't feel like going. Why do I not feel like going? Because it's too far, it's out of the way, there's nothing much to do there, and I'm tired. But saying all of that makes you sound like an obnoxious prick, so it becomes, "I don't feel like going."

Just seems like over time, we become familiar with using one big reason to justify our actions.

I'm sorry if this is all a little vague, but it's a little hard for me to put it into words precisely. The best example I can come up with at the moment is this.

Let's say someone asked me, "What prompted you to write this post?"
"Well, cause I had this cool idea and just wanted to share with others."
That would be my main reason, but my other reasons for doing this is because I am bored, I don't feel like sleeping yet, and I haven't written anything so it's a great opportunity for me to write something. And also because I'm whimsical. (but I wouldn't think of these unless I tried to)

The thing I want you to take away from this, is that you don't have to force yourself to have a grand reason for doing anything.(or you could have no reason at all) If you did something bad, there could be many reasons why you did it, not because you're evil or anything. Also, I want to try to remove stereotyping of people who give many reasons are the type of people who are making excuses or trying to covering up for something. (though it's true more often than not.)

I hope you understood what I'm trying to convey. As common sense as this might be, it's easy to forget.


I found a random post online that sums up my post pretty well. Though it's a little different.

"Sometimes, we just do things. Then, we make up the reasons afterwards. Or rather, there are lots and lots of reasons we do things, but we like to pick the “real” one when we retrospect. Then, when we retrospect later, our memories change, and we may assign different reasons."

Labels: FFT, food for thought, random, reason to do something, thinking

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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

I was watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Joey or Ross was trying to convince someone else to do something. He tried every method he could to make the other person accept his ways of thinking. I also watched some Youtube reviews about certain products where the salesman is trying to sell the product more than giving a proper review.

I also met this guy at NTU the other day, talked to him a little, and heard him talk a lot to my friends. He's a good salesman, self-proclaimed and I agree with him. He is really good at talking people into things. Doesn't really work for me (cause I'm weird) but I do see where he's coming from.

Here's the thing: I hate sales, or the art of sales to be exact. I'm not particularly a fan of persuading people as well. 

A salesman's goal is to earn your money, whether he admits it or not. It's his job for goodness sake. Which is why he needs to work efficiently and not waste his time on someone who isn't going to buy his products. So there are only 2 categories, you're either a buyer, or you're not. Which makes a lot of sense when you start to looking at it in detail.

I really don't like that. 
You're either A, or you're not A. There are no options for anything else.
It's like, you're either an Egg, or a Chicken. What if I'm an embryo with a weird DNA mutation that is growing up to be a Tyrannosaurus?

Which is why I would hate to get into an argument with any good salesman. There are only two possible outcomes for him, you either agree with what he say, or you don't agree with what he says. It doesn't matter to him either way, and it's frustrating dealing with someone like that. Reason being, he is just trying to sell you an idea, it doesn't matter whether you buy it or not, he is not going to change his idea.

Bringing me to my next point. I don't really like to persuade people. I usually give up much quicker than a normal person would. Why bother trying to change the mind of someone who isn't willing to listen to you? This has a lot to do with the times I stop talking in an argument. It's kind of anti-social and self-centered, but I try not to waste my energy on things I know I cannot change.

This brings me to my final concluding point. I think I would hate talking to myself, or trying to talk myself out of something. I am stubborn as fuck. It's relatively pointless trying to convince me about an issue.

However, I love to be proven wrong. It is a lot more interesting than someone trying to change my perspective. For example, if you are going to convince me that pigs are cooler than ducks, tell me why my reasons for thinking ducks are cool are wrong, don't tell me pigs are cooler because they make good pork chops. (though that might actually work)

At the end of the day, I bend logic and theories to my whimsical will. So I only fight battles I know I can win.

Which is why you should never argue with a salesman. You will never win. You might win the argument itself, but the salesman will never think that he is wrong. If you ask me, the sure win way to "win" an argument is to be as stubborn as my genitals you can, and have a really loud voice. With these 2 qualities, your opponent will be too annoyed to argue.



Okay I shall add a couple of lines to clear out some muddy points.
1. To me, winning an argument, is for the person to realize and admit he/she is wrong.
2. To me, not winning an argument, is when the person concedes, only because he couldn't think of a better point on the spot. (not winning is different from losing, what is losing? The opposite of the first point obviously you dimwit.)
3. Convincing is different from persuading. Convincing is making the person say, "okay, I understand why your method is better, let's do it your way." Persuading is making the person say, "fine, I'll do it"

Labels: FFT, food for thought, sales, thinking

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