Random stuff:

I remember in primary school there's this song that goes "look right look left look right again" when crossing the road. Then I wondered why you look right twice and look left once.

Recently I realised that it's because the cars always come from the right side when you are standing on the kerb.
Unless you are in Orchard where the road is one way.

Which makes me wonder if the primary schools in, say, US, learn "look left look right look left again" cos their roads are different.
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If you're from RI, you'll remember that the headmaster made a speech about the NUTS(No-U-Turn Syndrome) where in Singapore, only places where U-turns are allowed have a sign that indicates so, and elsewhere it is assumed that U-turns are not allowed. Whereas in other places, only places where U-turns are not allowed have a sign that indicates thus, elsewhere it is assumed that U-turning is allowed. As such, it was said that legislations that specify what are allowed would stifle creativity, and we should instead only specify what is not allowed.

It is only recently that you'll see a sign with a bold circle around a cigarette. This specifies that smoking is allowed only in that area, and not elsewhere in the coffeeshop. This makes more sense than putting a "smoking prohibited" sign outside the yellow box area because the yellow box area is always much smaller than the area outside it.

So does this stifle people's creativity about where smoking is allowed? Perhaps, but it doesn't really matter.
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The popiah stall with great service and great popiah closed down.
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Many stories in Doraemon speak of Nobita getting bullied, Doraemon giving him a gadget that makes him more powerful than the bully, Nobita punishing the bully, and finally abusing the power that Doraemon's gadgets confer to him.

Perhaps the author of Doraemon wants to teach us that power corrupts.

Which is thicker? Thinner or turpentine?

If thinner is thicker, then turpentine is thinner. Since turpentine is thinner, and thinner is thicker, then turpentine would be thicker.

I am super free now, after chem O prac and kata seminar.

Chem O prac was the kind where you have this feeling that everyone else will do very well. Everyone else got >100% yield while I got 45% yield in organic synthesis. Probably calculation error because I remember I did the whole thing quite carefully. Either that or everyone else forgot to subtract the weight of the filter paper. :P But that's not very likely, considering that Daniel Lo also got >100% and he is usually very careful. Hope I can get some prize.

I'm amused by the tv mobile on laptop advertisement. The guy and girls are all staring at the strategic spot.

TOFLMAO.

I laugh at the ad wars between star hub and singnet.

"There's something fishy in here." Join the fat green pipe today! - Starhub


"Rarrrr I'm fat!" "I may not fat, but I'm fast!" - Singnet

I noticed a widespread problem with expiry dates!

Okay when you compare three or more things, you say that one of them is the best, but if there are only 2 objects to be compared, you say that one of them is the better.

Here's the problem. Expiry dates usually follow the words "Best before:" Now there are only 2 things under comparison: the quality of the product before the expiry date, and the quality after the expiry date. So shouldn't it be "Better before:" instead?

Also, which is better, milk 1 day before expiry date or milk 2 days before expiry date? Its quality is already the best before the expiry date, so how can anything be better than the quality of the best possible quality of milk?

Then logically speaking, if the milk is really "Best before" the expiry date, that must mean that the quality of the milk remains completely unchanged at any point in time before the expiry date, and only starts deteoriating at the point in time of the expiry date.

Make of that what you will.

I am seriously bored. When I'm bored enough I'll consider buffing my nails.

If you happen to pass by, do tag. At least I would try to think of something to blog about, then I wouldn't be so bored.

Can't imagine I'm saying this on my 298th post.

As I read my previous posts, I feel quite stupid then. Maybe 2 years later I read what I wrote this year I'll feel quite stupid too. I must be changing by the year.

Random note: When was the last time you contemplated the meaning of life with your parents?

I saw this on haojin's blog:
"not that im complaining but shouldn serve customers with black cutlery lar reflects damn badly."

Like LMAO black reflects badly! So RJC's white uniform serves to reflect well on RJC? Maybe should wear silver jewellery too?

Finally beat normal comp in Warcraft! But quite tyco also, because I was massing gryphons and the comp's army happened to have very few anti-air units.

It ends here.

Oh no why do I have so little to say?

I feel weird saying stuff. Speech seems like an action. We can interact with people through action, we can obtain stuff through action. We are held responsible for actions.

Sometimes we trip, sometimes we swing our arms but accidentally hit someone. Just like sometimes we twist our tongue, or we accidentally offend someone.

So sometimes speaking is like scratching yourself... it just makes yourself feel better, but other people may not be interested. Sometimes it isn't so clear why we speak at all.

I feel so limited with words, but that seems to be the best communication medium I have. Perhaps it's best to use words prudently. Like credit card.

There are some nice advertisements I'd like to comment on.

The Sony one with all the robots very nice. Especially after I watched Animatrix, can't help feeling a sense of wonder and amazement about what makes us human. The music played a key role.

The Finnair one with the panda is very touching. I can't describe what makes it touching. But man... the last part when it appeared at the shelf totally owns.

The Fedex one I wouldn't say its good, but it sure is interesting. Take a look at what you get when you take away the pictures and you're just left with the conversation.

"Okay here comes the big boys!"
"They may be big, but have they got the technique?"
"Oh yes, oh yes, what a great maneuver!"

K nvm. Just thought it was interesting.

Random stuff.

Sometimes nouns are used as verbs. The verb generally means doing something with the noun. As such, such nouns have a thing in common: the object has one common use.

E.g, nuke, Google, Wikipedia, knife, axe, Photoshop, spoon, Ziploc, Jif, Deep Heat.

The interesting thing is that sometimes proper nouns are used, and it has quite a powerful effect on how people act. For example, when told to Google something, one will only use google and not yahoo or ask.com., even though they perform similar functions. Perhaps, "Yahooing yourself" or "Asking yourself" doesn't sound quite the same as "Googling yourself".

It seems like an aspect of natural evolution of a language.

Perhaps, the advertisement "Hang on, I'm bueno-ing!" is trying to achieve that. But if it succeeds it's going to be really absurd. I mean, Kinder Bueno is food. After Bueno-ing, what next? I'm graping? Or I'm fishin' and chippin' away? To keep myself awake, I shall go coffeeing?

Man, what an abuse of the continuous tense. But just think about it. Perhaps you can even put an -ing at the end of shops, to advertisers' delight. Like, instead of hiking with a pair of Nike shoes you go Niking. Or you go Burger-King.

Or onto console games: Let's go Wiiing!

Perhaps a 2% increase in GST would not lead to just a 2% increase in prices.

I would take a very simple analogy.

The cost price of a certain good is $1, which was sold from the wholesaler to the retailer at $1.50. The retailer then sold the good to the consumer at $2. Thus, the wholesaler and retailer each makes a profit of $0.50. (Pardon my loose use of the word profit)

Suppose a sales tax of 10% is imposed. The cost price of the good would still be $1. However, to make a profit of $0.50, the wholesaler would have to sell the good at $1.65 to the retailer. To make a profit of $0.50, the retailer would have to sell the good at $2.37. The price increase for the consumer has risen by 18.5%, which is significantly higher than the 10% sales tax imposed.

A 2% rise of GST is in fact a 107*100/105% or 1.9% rise of prices from a first hand exhange. It is not hard to see, with some mathematics, that a rise of GST by 2% would not simply lead to a 2% increase in prices, as most consumers would go through at least one middleman when they buy a good.

Thus, for a family that spends $500 a month, $120 of annual aid would not be enough to cover the increase in additional expenses incurred due to the rise in GST. The additional amount incurred would depend on how much profit middlemen at each level would want to earn, and the number of middlemen exchanges. It is however, definitely more than 2% of the expenditure.

ja.

Hohoho SPhO prac over! Nice and fun prac :P

For SPhO rite, you need to get a certain score in the theory round, which everyone would take, before you can enter the practical round. And, only 35 people are doing the practical.

Out of the 35 people, 20 from RJ, 11 from HCI, 2 from ACSI, 1 from ACJC, 1 from TJC. Bahaha the clear and distinct idea here is: OWNAGE.

However, only 10 from RJ are Singaporeans. Then again, how many Singaporeans would you expect from HCI? :P

w00t!

"This train is terminating at Jurong East. Passengers travelling towards City hall and Ang Mo Kio, please alight at the next stop and transfer to another train."

Three Little Wolves and a Big Bad Pig.

I thought of one little thing. If you could have one of the five rings of Captain planet, which one would you want?

I want Fire. To make it stronger, I want Wind. Just in case it gets out of control, I want Water. In case water flood too much, I want Earth. Then in case I hurt someone I don't want to hurt, I want Heart. Oh wait... one...

Nah I still want Fire if I can only have one. Energy! w00t.

Chem O selection test results are out, and I'm in!

To give you an idea of what the chem O selection test is like, allow me to quote some figures.

Menglin and Mengfei got 6th and 7th. Chin Heng got 1st. Chin Heng got 32.5 marks, and I got 11th placing, with 18.5 marks.

And the paper is out of 100 marks.

Anyone would like to see the paper?

Mirror neurons and Warm Fuzzies

Actually I don't really know much about mirror neurons, but under my impression, they allow a person to feel a bit of what another person is feeling by watching him do something.

So perhaps, when people help others, while they are feeling what they themselves are feeling, they also "feel for" the person who gets helped. The response of the person who has been helped would affect what the helper would "feel for" the helped. For example, when a person who has been helped scowls at the helper, the helper would "empathise" for his frustration and thus wouldn't feel good about it. Whereas, when a person who has been helped smiles at the helper, the helper feels good too because he feels as though he has been helped.

Sometimes when you see someone smile, you feel good too, perhaps because you empathise when the people who appear to be in a good mood.

My sister once asked me this question: There are 2 rich people. One of them donates large sums to charities, but it's for reputation and networking, and he never visits them. The other does not donate, but he goes to a charity organisation to do voluntary work regularly out of compassion. Who do you think is a better person?

Now of course if you ask me I can't give an answer because good and bad, right and wrong make no sense to me anymore. However, we might want to take note that it is highly likely that the guy who donated made a greater positive difference to the needy. In addition, the philantrophist would not get any happiness from empathy, because he don't see the people whom he have helped and thus cannot feel for them. The volunteer did not contribute as much as the philantrophist, but at the same time, he enjoyed the happiness from empathy.

It is also to be noted that the philantrophist gains from the prospect of gaining reputation and networking. However, do we not instinctively feel that the volunteer is a better person? It is not really beyond the means of the volunteer to donate. So now we care about intentions more than anything?

In my opinion, judging a person's actions inevitably involves empathy. One would try to put himself in the person's shoes and try to sense what his "conscience" tells him. For example, Heinz' dilemma is a dilemma because if we put ourselves into his shoes, we'll find ourselves in a dilemma too. We think that murder is wrong because if we put ourselves in the person's shoes, we wouldn't be able to bring ourselves to kill. Relativistic moral judgements thus arise, as we are unable to accurately put ourselves in the other person's shoes.

The above are merely speculations.

3 blogs that I regularly visit are now laden with signs of problems of the heart.

I think I'm really fortunate. But maybe next time it can be worse. Especially if money or third party comes into the picture. Ohohoho the pain... I simply can't imagine.

EXP gain without loss of HP. Lucky little me.

My block caught fire yesterday. And I was the hero who reported it. Ok, to be more precise, when I reached my block I saw smoke, so I went to check where the smoke came from, while my mother called the neighbourhood police post. The guy who received the call couldn't speak mandarin, so she gave me the phone instead.

And 15 minutes later, people from the civil defence force came with hoses and extinguished the fire. 15 minutes! That's really quite fast.

However, according to my mother, the smoke started appearing 30 minutes before I reached home, so someone else probably reported it already.

This brings us to the question: Did I cause the SCDF to come? Whatever the case, there is an apparant correlation between the arrival of the SCDF and my report, so I'm still a hero.

Oh, and when I reported, The conversation went like this:

"There is smoke coming out of the rubbish chute in my block."
"Okay, so it's a case of fire ah... where is your block?"
" *my address* "
"Okay can I have your name and contact number please?"
" *my name*"
"Contact number?"
"Oh just my home number would do."
"ok. *pause* what's your home number?"
"Oh. *home number*"
"Ok, we'll report it to the relevent avenue. Thank you."

2 things:

1. I didn't say there was a fire! I only said got smoke... Later if no fire then they come and find me how?

2. When I was young my mother told me not to dial prank calls to 999 or 995 (not that I did). She said that once I dial they can track my call down and the police can find out my number and where I live. I thought this was true, as in, maybe at least I supposed the police would have caller ID...

But should have what! Scarly like someone call
"Hello, Police? There is someone who AAAAAAAAAAARRGH *hangs up*"
Then the police would feel so helpless lor. At least should have caller ID.

Or maybe it's just the NPP that is not as advanced. Or maybe like if I don't dare to give my name and contact number then they'll treat it as a prank call case or something. That sounds plausible. But that may not be true. It may forever remain a mystery as to why they needed to ask for my home number.

Sorry for not updating for so long... if you are still here. Was preparing for SPhO. Frankly speaking I wouldn't have studied so hard if not for constant reminders from Eesin and the sight of Yangtong doing every question in 1/10 of the time it takes for me to do. Which is a good thing. I needed to study.

Still, got badly owned by the paper. One ought to see the paper for him/herself to see how hard it is. If you ask me, I'll say its DAMN FRIGGING HARD EVEN FOR SPHO.

Enough ranting about SPhO. Almost everyone is complaining about its anomalous difficulty. Anomalous as in, this year's paper is harder than the 2003, 2004 and 2005 paper.

Anyway training for SPhO was fun. Yang Tong's thick-skinned comments are seriously rofl.

"It can't be wrong. It's my working."
"I can't do this question. This question is too difficult. It will not come out."

When asked who would get champion, he said someone else would get it. When asked why, he said "Because I am humble."

Ok. That's about it this time.

Wheeeeeeeee

Earth, fire, wind, water, heart, go Megazord, I choose you! Captain planet, he's the hero, does whatever a planet can. I shall punish you on behalf of the Moon! Each pokemon is to understand, the power that is yours! I am cow, bayley rules, I am not a kangaroo. I am your father. Show me. Move fast! Stop trying to hit me and hit me! Do or do not, there is no try. Do not hesitate, show no mercy. You mean, I can dodge bullets? To catch them is my real test; to train them is my cause. No, that's impossible! Impossible is nothing. We will live in prosperity.

Random thoughts:

If you consider someone to be a success, would that mean his mother is a failure?

The coolest first name for your kid would be Doctor. That would save him 6 years of medical school to be called Doctor whatever.

If two people look the same, sound the same, and respond the same way whatever you do to them, are they the same? Consider the definition of identical functions. What if you are one of them?

What does your cornea look like?

Maybe a better term for nuclear weapons would be "Weapons of Mass conversion"

Ahh and I went to the same popiah stall again! This time I went with my father and we sat at the same spot which was quite far away from her stall.(Not on purpose) And this time, she brought 2 pairs of chopsticks! I looked carefully, and saw that indeed, she brought with her two and only two pairs of chopsticks!

So it's not true that she brings extra chopsticks around with her. Well of course you can propose that she brings a random number of chopsticks with her, and that the number of people corresponded to her number only by luck... but seriously lah.

Oh and I think there is a rationale in bringing the same number of chopsticks as people! Not just for the reason of good service, leaving a good impression of her stall, but also subconsciously more people at the table would eat her popiah.

For example, if I buy 1 popiah and at first I didn't intend to share with someone else I'm with (but I wouldn't say it out), then she brings 2 pairs of chopsticks. Out of courtesy I MUST offer to share with that person rite? Otherwise it would be just weird. The other person would also find it harder to reject.

Also, if I originally intended to share with the person but I didn't say so, having the correct number of chopsticks would facilitate sharing too, because sometimes people reject the offer to share because they don't want to share chopsticks, and the other person doesn't feel like grabbing an additional pair. In effect, having the correct number of chopsticks results in more people getting to try her popiah.

Which is a good thing too! Her popiah is nice...

While most of us would probably try to find the smoothest road to take, the route most desirable to us, most of these people don't actually get to take it, as they make mistakes and fail in some aspects sometime in their lives. These mistakes prevent them from taking the easiest possible route. In the meantime, when they make mistakes, they learn. Afterall, how one goes about achieving his goals depends on his existing beliefs about how the system works. When one fails to achieve his goal, it signals a misunderstanding about the system.

But when one tries harder to find an easier road, and does manage to find an easier road, he makes less mistakes. He is less able find out what is wrong with his understanding of the system.

By luck, or by diligence, he might just stumble upon a picture of the system as accurate as one who have made more mistakes. Thus, he would try to achieve his goals the same way as the other person might. In many aspects, he is similar to the other person.

A person who has made more mistakes is more likely to be able to understand the workings of the system better, but it is not a guarantee. It is possible to gain understanding of the system and avoid mistakes at the same time. An analogy would be that one who has lost more chess games is not neccessarily better.

While making mistakes can be helpful, people try to avoid mistakes. While unlikely, it does seem possible to avoid mistakes and gain a good understanding of the system. Perhaps, there is still the danger where one does not know what is wrong with his understanding of the system.

So should people make mistakes on purpose? In my opinion, no. Enforcing his understanding about what does not work doesn't teach one about what does. When one makes a mistake on purpose, he already has an idea of what doesn't work. Even without making this mistake, he would have avoided this route anyway. By making this mistake on purpose, he does not learn anything. He only makes his life harder, while trying to make his life easier by learning about the system.

If one think carefully before one acts, he is more likely to achieve what he wants. Life is not long enough to make enough mistakes to learn everything there is about the system. Making mistakes is a waste of time if one does not learn anything from it. That time is probably better spent playing. At least you enjoy yourself, and you wouldn't be under the impression that you know more than other people.

Random note: When I hear the word "penetrate", especially in some manly british or australian accent, excites me somewhat. I mean, not excite in that way. I assure you I'm not gay.

Quite some time ago there was this documentary on Discovery channel called "The Ultimate Tank". Here are some quotes from the show:

"As we can see, for the piece of steel armor sloped at 30 degrees, the bullet was embedded in the armour. *pauses a while* But no penetration."

"However, the military has invented something that can even penetrate through sloping armour: the shaped charge." (The way he said "the shaped charge" was like how cool lah! Man I want a shaped charge.)

"He realised he was on his way to something big. The explosive reactive armour."

"The shaped charge has completely penetrated through all the layers of steel plates, whereas for the one with the explosive reactive armour, the last three plates are left intact. *pauses a while* No penetration." (Nvm I still want a shaped charge... explosive reactive armour is not exactly good for the health of infantry... even when used properly)

I think that episode used the word "penetrate" more than 10 times lah!

That word is one of a kind.

And I want a shaped charge.

Random ramblings about chemistry:

The longest compound sentences are probably not found in GP scripts, but in chemistry scripts. I really only learn to write very very long sentences in chemistry with a variety of conjunctions, like: As, because, thus, hence, therefore, such that, and, moreover, then, additionally, however, but, also, due to, while.

Just a weird thing that came up in my mind.

"When trifluoroethanoic acid dissociates, it forms a carboxylate anion which has its negative charge spread over the two highly electronegative oxygen atoms and is stabilised by resonance. In addition, trifluoroethanoic acid has three highly electronegative and hence electron-withdrawing fluorine atoms attached to it. As such, the negative charge on the carboxylate group of the trifluoroethanoic acid anion is further dispersed by the fluorine atoms that draw the negative charge towards itself. Thus, the deprotonated trifluoroethanoic acid is highly stable.

While ethanoic acid anion also has its negative charge dispersed over two highly electronegative oxygen atoms and is also stabilised by resonance, the additional stabilising effect of nearby electron-withdrawing groups by charge dispersal due to the inductive effect is absent in the ethanoic acid anion. Thus, the deprotonated ethanoic acid is less stable than the deprotoned trifluroethanoic acid anion, and hence trifluoroethanoic acid is a stronger acid than ethanoic acid.

Should the author's conclusion be accepted? Explain your answer."

Moral of the story: Never talk to Zheng Rong about your math paper, no matter how confident you may feel.

Yoda's quote doesn't make a great deal of sense. Imagine this convo between Luke and Yoda:

"Okay... I shall try to punch through this wall."
"Do or do not, there is no try."
"..." Luke punches the wall but fails to punch through, and he grimaces in pain.
"And so you did not punch through this wall."

Whee. Promos in 18 hours time. GG.

I apologise for my lousy narrative skills. Afterall, I read little fiction.

This afternoon I bought popiah from a store, and I sit quite far away from the store. I bought 2 popiah, they were meant to be shared among my father, mother and I. After I ordered she asked me to go back to sit as she would pass it to me later.

After a while, she came with the popiahs and 3 pairs of chopsticks. I was quite amazed, how did she know that 3 people were eating? Later it came upon me that she could have peeked after she was done with making the popiah and find out that there were 3 people, but we were sitting quite far away!

I don't know if I could say that she went the extra mile for service, but she really impressed me with the extra effort she spent.

There is no free lunch in this world.

In sec 4 I was amazed that certain horrible expressions, after differentiation, gives you something neat.

Then in J1 I was amazed at how this neat expression becomes a horrible expression upon integration.

A convo with my mother on wednesday. I was playing comp at that time(4pm).

"Yang, you've been playing for quite long."
"...quite a while... but I studied from 7 to 1!(not lying)"
"Yar, well... I mean, can I play now?"

rofl.

I have wondered about the difference between a mental image and a "real image"; the difference between an object you are looking at and an object you are thinking of. Think of the colour red. Apparently, this "colour" is not quite the same as one you would see, yet we can make a correlation. We can think of a red ball, but apparently we can conceive of nothing but a "red ball", with nothing else, in the middle of nowhere. We have never seen anything quite like it, yet we can think about it. You can't touch an object that is hot and cold at the same time, but you can touch a hot object and think of cold. You can think of what a person looks like, and still be well aware that the person is not anywhere within sight. You can even have a song ringing in your mind while listening to a lecture.

Apparently, the realm of thought and sense are separate; they seem be independent of each other at any given point in time, and we are aware of it. No matter how one can vividly imagine and fantasize, he is still well aware that the images are not the same as what he would see with his eyes; one can have an imaginary discussion within his mind during an examination and he can be quite sure that he is not listening to something that others can hear. Best of all, one can mentally curse someone in the person's face with a smile, and be certain that the person would not hear it.

My dreams are vivid and uncontrollable. The strange thing is that as I recall from the transition from thought to dream, there is no defining point when things start to appear as sense instead of thought. Perhaps, the ability to distinguish between sense and thought is diminishing as I perceive less sense data. When I close my eyes, I can make myself see my eyelids if I want; I can make myself feel the cloth on a particular part of my body; I can feel myself breathe, but after a while, when thoughts start flooding my mind, I don't sense them anymore. At a reduced level of "consciousness", the distinction between thought and sense become less clear.

But I might have just been taking this ability to distinguish between thought and sense for granted. Apparently, schizophrenic people can't.

I heard the word "system" being referred to a few times today, so I feel like babbling a little.

How can a virus create more damage than a bomb, even though its energy content is less? How can the president of USA affect the lives of more people than a farmer in Ethiopia? How can a million catalyst molecules affect the system to a larger extent than the same amount of reactants?

Let us consider the case for the catalyst. A catalyst can only make the system reach equilibrium at a faster rate, i.e, non-selectively hasten both the forward and backward processes. The catalyst does not provide the energy or the entropy change for the reaction to take place. The energy and entropy change required is already provided by the reactants or surroundings, so whatever that is going to happen anyway, the catalyst makes it happen faster.

The virus is only using the abilities of the current bodily mechanism to replicate itself. The virus itself does not contain enough chemical energy to break the bonds in the crucial organs, but the human body itself does. The energy and entropy change required to kill a person comes from the person himself.

The president cannot make the people what they don't want to do. He only has the physical might of one person, and should the country turn against him, he cannot resist. Thus, a president needs to convince the people to follow him in order for him to have influence. His influence comes from what he can make his people do, not his own ability.

From the personal scale, each person is weak; it is easy for the rest of the population to kill a particular person if they so desire. Yet, we see people unwary of each other. It is so easy to kill and get killed, it is really a wonder that we are living in peace. I don't want to die yet, but I don't know how not to get killed. I can't resist if people want to kill me. For some reason, people aren't trying to kill me. Perhaps conscience, or consideration of consequences? In any case, I owe my life to the current peace I enjoy.

Lots of brute force always wins, but limited brute force may not. As it stands, each of us only have limited strength and power. Most of us would not have the ability to make an event that would not otherwise occur take place. Thus, it is crucial to make use of the system we are in to make events occur. Indeed, we are enjoying the use of many things that we as individuals would not be able to enjoy if we were on our own. To publish this entry, I would need internet access, the blogger tool, a computer, software, and powergrid. To go to school, there must be teachers, educational materials, grading systems, evaluation systems, maintenance etc. I can't imagine how I can have all these as a solitary human being in a forest.

As a person with the might of only one person, it is really not my "right" to have all these. All my "rights" would come from the ability to fight for it. If I can get hold of a piece of ruby, and no one can take it from me, then it is "rightfully" mine. If people are pissed off and they take it away, then it's their to keep until I can get hold of it again, by persuasion or by force. If a person wants to obtain certain things, he might want to learn how he can use the environment to his cause. If one wants a radio, it is certainly easier to work somewhere, earn some money and buy it, rather than to mine iron ore and refine silicon and build one radio from scratch. If one wants water, it might be easier to get it from a tap than to find a river.

The ability to fulfil one's desires comes from the environment, not so much from the person himself. It is helpful to learn the rules of the environment to use its energies and mechanisms towards the individuals cause, but ultimately, we are still at its mercy. We owe our existence to the environment, and what we get is more of a combination of luck and the environment's reactions to our actions, rather than what we "rightfully deserve".

Food for thought.

Someone mistook a namesake for the deceased. That person knew the namesake, but not the deceased, so naturally he was sad. But the moment he realised it wasn't someone he knew, he felt rather... embarrassed.

The interesting thing here is that it didn't matter whether someone he knew really passed away or not. He had enough reason to believe that it happened, and that was enough to make him sad.

Nice. Perceptions matter so much. White lies have a point.

There doesn't seem to be much difference between planning ahead and living for the present. Afterall, you wouldn't be sure of what you want in the future. For example, one might study hard in school for years to be a doctor, just to realise 1 year before graduation that by then he doesn't really want to be a doctor anymore (tough luck if he's not from a rich family. He'll have to push on or lay in some bomb debt.)

So what was the guy who studied hard in school doing all the while? He seemed to be doing just what he wanted to do. He wanted to be a doctor, and he worked towards it, thinking that he would eventually be fulfilled by doing so.

Now "delayed gratification" doesn't make much sense anymore.

There are two kinds of Mrs Lim.

One of them is found in H2 Physics Lecture, who goes, "But don't worry, you won't be asked to derive this."

Another is found in Physics Olympiad training, who goes, "You won't be asked to derive this, we consider it too trivial."

much fear.

On adapting the Lamarckian theory of evolution to the adaptation and propagation of ideas

Although the Lamarckian theory came first, the more famous theory of evolution is Darwin's theory. Darwin's theory* assumes the following:

1. Certain traits are only changed by random mutations. *Darwin himself did not suggest how variation arises, but he did establish that variations in traits occur entirely by chance. Mutation is well ahead of his time.*
2. These traits are passed down to the offspring.
3. There are more offspring than the environment can support.
4. Only the offspring more suited to survive and propagate their traits would have their traits carried by their offspring. The rest would not be able to propagate their traits.
5. Eventually, only the traits that are helpful to the survival and propagation of the species would be passed on.

Darwin's theory only differs from Lamarck's theory in its first point. While Darwin suggests random uncontrolled mutations, Lamarck's theory states that the hereditary traits are modifed by use and disuse, i.e., more utilised organs or systems becomes larger and develops complexity, while less utilised ones would shrink, deform, and eventually disappear. For example, he suggested that giraffes have long necks because generations of giraffes have been stretching their necks to reach higher leaves. While this theory is conceptually valid (and in some aspects more attractive than Darwin's theory), experimental results do not agree with it. Being a scientific theory, this signifies that Lamarck's theory is to be cast aside, in favour of Darwin's theory, which experimental results agree with.

However, Lamarck's theory is only inaccurate for the origin and evolution of species; its main concepts can be "recycled" and adapted to describe other systems. There has been a great deal of work done on adapting Darwin's theory of evolution to the adaptation and propagation of ideas, a more established one being the "meme" theory by Richard Dawkins, as expressed in his book "The Selfish Gene(1976)".

In his "meme" theory, a "meme" is a replicator of cultural information that one mind transmits (verbally or by demonstration) to another mind.(<-taken from wikipedia) A meme can be a skill, idea, belief or theory. He suggested that memes propagate in ways analagous to genes. From here on, I shall use the word "meme" instead of "idea", since the former is more specific.

In adapting a theory that is meant to describe a particular system to describe another system, the fundamental assumptions, or at least their respective analogues, must still remain reasonable. In the following paragraph, we shall examine Darwin's fundamental assumptions in the context of the adaptation and propagation of memes. The way that I adapt his theory to a different context is contestable, but I shall attempt to retain the original meaning.

1. Memes are only changed by random mutations.
2. Memes are passed on from one mind to another.
3. There are more memes than minds can hold.
4. Only the memes more suited to stay in the mind and be successfully propagated will reach another mind. The rest would be lost.
5. Eventually, there would only be memes that are well suited to be retained in the mind and be propagated.

Assumption 2 cannot be challenged, since it is part of the definition of a "meme". Assumption 3 seems reasonable; most people don't remember everything we see or hear, thus it would be inevitable that some memes are lost as they are forgotten by the individual. Assumption 4 is an implication of assumption 3, and assumption 5 is an implication of assumptions 2, 3 and 4. Thus, assumptions 2, 3, 4 and 5 are still reasonable even when they are adapted to the context of memes.

Assumption 1 is problematic. In fact, it was already problematic before it was adapted to the context of memes. In the context of species, Darwin did not have any evidence or arguments to back this assumption up. This assumption was only shown to be valid after the mechanisms for replication of DNA and RNA were established. In the context of memes, however, the mechanisms for how memes change in the mind are not well established. Thus, assumption 1 is not neccessarily valid. In the light of this, we can explore other theories of evolution to attempt to describe memes, and perhaps find one superior to the adapted version of Darwin's theory.

Hence we turn to Lamarck's theory of evolution, the next most famous theory of evolution after divine intervention. Assumptions 2, 3, 4 and 5 remain intact; assumption 1 is different. In the context of species, variation arises from use and disuse; in the context of memes, I would interpret it in a way to mean that:

Within the mind of an individual, parts of the meme that are more often used would be more emphasized; parts of the meme that are less often used would be neglected and eventually forgotten.

Again, this interpretation is contestable.

An implication of this assumption would be that even within the mind, memes would progressively "mutate" in such a way that they become a form more often used by the mind. Like assumption 1 of Darwin's theory, this assumption is also not backed up by any evidence. However, by changing this assumption in such a way that it becomes more similar to Lamarck's theory, this theory would be capable of producing testable predictions without prior knowledge of what causes the memes to change in a person's mind. In this aspect, it would be easier to falsify this model than the model based on Darwin's theory. If it is not falsified, then it would prove to be a more useful theory than that modified from Darwin's theory, because it can successfully predict more phenomena, i.e, it would enable us to find out more specifically how memes would adapt and propagate.

One experiment that can be done to check this assumption:

3 groups of volunteers in groups A, B and C listen to a long paragraph describing a scene.

After listening to the scene, group A volunteers are singled out and asked a certain number of questions about certain parts of the scene, but the experimentors who ask the questions would not tell them if the answers are correct.

Group B volunteers are singled out and asked the same number of questions about other parts of the scene that are not asked to group A volunteers. Similarly, they are not told if their answers are correct or not.

Group C volunteers are singled out and asked the same number of questions about the entire scene. Likewise, they are not told if their answers are correct or not.

Three days later, all the volunteers are asked to write down a paragraph about the scene. Group A, B and C are then assigned to different colours, and only one experimentor would know which group corresponds to which colour. The volunteers then write down the colour and hand in their paper. (This serves to eliminate confirmation bias)

The papers are then sorted by their colour, and the researchers check to see if there are indeed two groups that writes more about different parts, and one group that does not emphasize any part in particular. If the group that writes more about certain parts are indeed the group that has been asked questions about that part, then we can suggest that the adapted Lamarck's model might be more useful in this aspect. This is because the adapted Darwin's model would not predict thus.

However, the above experiment assumes the following:

1. Asking questions about certain parts of the scene prompts the volunteers to "use" those parts of the meme more often.
2. The volunteers do not "use" the paragraph scene meme at all when they are not asked questions.

Assumption 1 might be valid. However, assumption 2 is a problem. For example, if a part of the scene contains of a joke that the volunteer finds funny, he might try harder to remember it so that he can tell it to someone else. In that case, the volunteer would be using this particular part of the scene meme when he is not being asked questions. Thus, this experiment would not be able to adequately test if this theory is an accurate model.

If this model is shown to be able to adequately predict phenomena regarding the adaptation and propagation of ideas, then we can better appreciate that all the information that has been passed to us are essentially memes that are useful in the context of the people who transmitted it to us. Even though there may be certain pieces of information somewhere in the world that might be useful to a particular person, if that piece of information is not useful to anyone other than those two people, this information might never be transmitted to the person who can use it. Even if a certain piece of information is useful to many people, it may not be useful to some people, and thus the high likelyhood of this piece of information and not another piece of information that could be more useful to those people can be undesirable. This is because information that is useful to most people in the society are more likely to be transmitted than information that is only useful to some people.

An implication of the possible success of this model in describing phenomema regarding the transmission of information would be that most of the information that we receive are likely to be useful to us as well, because being in the same society would suggest that the context of the information would be similar, and hence that piece of information would still be applicable. For example, the fact that calculus is taught in schools indicates that calculus is useful to the people who have learnt it, and since the teachers and the students live in the same society, it is likely that the students would find the information useful as well.

However, the situation where both the teacher and student would find the information useful may be just a coincidence. For example, Newton-Ralphson approximation may be more useful to a student 5 years ago, because he would not have a graphic calculator with him in the examination hall to find the root of a complicated function. Being useful to the student five years ago who is now a teacher, it is likely that he would teach this technique to his students. Now, students are allowed to use the graphic calculator during examinations, so this information is no longer so useful to the students, so it is likely that the students would forget this part of calculus. Hence, the amount of effort spent on teaching the newer students Newton-Ralphson approximation may be better spent on teaching the students something else that is more useful to the students. This would mean that curriculum planning is essential, because if allowed to follow the natural cause of action, students would not be spending their learning time in an efficient manner, as they would be likely to learn things that are not applicable to them.

Thus, it is likely that most of the information that we receive and retain are not those that are closest to the "objective truth", but those that are most useful to us, those that are more easily transmitted, or those that are most useful to the people who transmitted that information to us. If the model of adaptation and propagation of ideas based on the Lamarckian theory is accurate, we should be skeptical of the information we receive, because information that reach us would tend to be useful rather than truthful.

We must also be open to the suggestion that the model adapted from the Lamarckian theory of evolution is not an accurate description of the adaptation and propagation of ideas. This could arise due to the following:

1. Transmission of information follow a much less strict selection criteria than the transmission of genetic information. Thus, while useless memetic information is likely to be much more widespread than useless genetic information.
2. Change in genetic information occurs much more slowly than change in memetic information. Thus, genetic
3. Similar to the problem encountered in Lamarck's theory of evolution on species, the word "useful" is not properly defined, and is open to interpretation.
4. Speciation occurs in nature in the case of species, such that certain genetic information are not able be freely hybridised with others. For example, the pollen grains of one specie of plant cannot fertilise the ovules in the flower of another plant, and this results in the genetic information of different species of plants not being able to hybridise with each other. No obvious analogy applies in memetics.
5. Sexual reproduction occurs in nature where genetic information can only be transmitted after being hybridised with the genetic information of another member of the some species. No obvious analogy applies in memetics as well.

In such a case, we would temporarily fall back on the model based on Darwin's theory of evolution, or come up with another one that would be more accurate. We would also have learnt that using analogy to find explanation for phenomena is not as simple as it seems on the surface. There are a lot of hidden assumptions in the mechanism behind the system that need to be justified in order for the application of the mechanism of one system to another system to be logically valid and sound.

When you are required to wear RJC PE attire to school, please remember to bring an umbrella. It's hard not to notice.

Morality, power, persuasion

People want things, and they take action to obtain them. However, in the process of obtaining this item, a person may gain or loss something else. For example, in obtaining a shop item, a person may steal or buy it. However, he may lose something else should he steal it.

In the process of obtaining an item, another person may stand to gain or lose. When another person stands to lose, he would guard against this loss. Similarly, when another person stands to gain, he would attempt to obtain this potential gain. Therefore, in the process of a person attempting to obtain something, other people may stand to gain or lose. This may help or hinder this process.

When a person can obtain something easily, there is a high tendency of him acquiring it. The harder it is to obtain something, the lower the tendency of him acquiring it. The difficulty factor is determined by the person's ability to use his environment to achieve his desired ends, and also the interaction between the ends and environment.

Consider a particle at point A. When there is lower potential on point B than point A, there would be a force acting on the particle to move from A to B. However, when there is a high potential region between A and B, the particle would not move from A to B.

Now suppose the particle has slightly more kinetic energy than the change in potential energy from point A to the potential spike, the particle would then move from point A to point B. Let us raise the potential spike higher now. The particle would oscillate between states of higher kinetic energy and states of higher potential energy, but it cannot reach point B.

We open the particle to another pathway: one which has a lower potential spike, but after crossing the spike, it reaches point C, which has higher potential than point B, but lower potential than A. In this case, the particle would not move to B. It would, instead, oscillate between point A and C, even though the energy change in moving from A to B is greater.

A person wants many things. When someone else offers him something he wants, he is likely to accept the offer. In accepting the offer, he may benefit himself and the person who initiated the offer. In this case, both people can acquire what they want more easily than if they go for it alone. Thus, there is a high tendency for both of them to obtain what they want.

However, when someone else offers him something he does not want, he is unlikely to accept the offer. That someone else would need to force him to take the offer, and this is generally more difficult to achieve than a case of mutual agreement. Thus, there is a low tendency for this transaction to occur.

If a person has the ability take something by force and hold on to it, he would attain it if that is only what he wants. However, a person wants many things. Taking something by force may make it more difficult for him to attain something else in the future. Thus, by taking advantage of the environment, he can make attaining that object easier, which would lead to a higher tendency of him acquiring it. (Think enzymes)

However, in order to take advantage of the environment, one would need to learn how to interact with the environment in such a way that what he wants can be acquired. One can learn many things about the environment by assuming that what applies in the past applies in the future as well. If this assumption is a reasonable one, by studying the environment, one can learn to interact with the environment in such a way that he maximises his gains.

An important part of the environment is the social environment. An interesting thing about social environment is that while interactions with inanimate parts of nature is mostly a means to another end, social interaction is occasionally an end in itself. Playing around with the social environment can be quite tricky as there can be side effects.

If one can utilise the environment well to help him achieve his ends, there is a high tendency for him to succeed in attaining what he wants. By understanding what other people want, he can persuade them to work for him. Persuasion is a way to interact with the social environment to achieve one's goals. By understanding other people's morals and principles, it would more likely be successful.

If all else fails, sheer power works too.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained :))

Lately I read some other people's blogs, and it seems that there are many things bothering them. I realise how lucky I am to be free of so many troubles! Stress-free life ftw!

As mentioned before, many song lyrics are excellent poems to describe feelings, and here goes.

Simple Gifts:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

omg chem fun.

On wednesday, there was a demonstration showing the reaction between KMnO4 and glycerine. They react only with each other, and very strongly exothermic, without even a need for any additional heating or oxygen. Basically, you see a bright lilac flame with lots of smoke (though not quite as much as KNO3/sugar reaction), and the more reactants you have, the more smoke and flame you have.

The best part is, they left a huge bottle of KMnO4 and glycine out in the charge of people crazier than me. Of course, knowing that they were crazy, those crazy people were occasionally watched by a teacher. But when the teacher was looking away, the fun began. One of the crazy people just finished drinking a bottle of coke, and I suggested mixing the stuff in the bottle. And so we did. Oh, the smoke! Oh, the fumes! It was pretty spectacular.

Then I suggested reacting the stuff in the bottle with the cap on. However, you can't react this stuff in the school, because we knew full well it would explode, and we have not known how loud it would be. Considering that the school didn't even allow smoke bombs (which aren't even bombs at all), what more something that explodes and spews smoke and fire? So we took some KMnO4 and a bottle containing some glycerine out of RJ and found a nice spot to deploy it: a butress root.

Now what's so good about a butress root, you say? Well, only rather large trees have butress roots, and between butress roots are huge cavities which point directly outwards. This means that you can plant the bottle in the cavity and stand behind the tree; you'll be safe. If the tree collapses, nothing you could have done would make this experiment safe enough to not kill you, so it is not much of a concern anyway.

And so here we have a pile of KMnO4 and a bottle of glycerine and a bottle cap. Problem: How do you put the KMnO4 into the bottle and cap up the bottle tightly without it exploding in your face? So one crazy guy thought of stuffing the KMnO4 into the bottle cap and capping up the bottle with at bottle cap. Not a bad idea, but we didn't realise that the bottle cap had a speck of glycerine in it. Oh the fun! Oh the joy! The bottle cap was reduced (or rather, oxidized) to nothingness in no time.

Now we have a bottle with glycerine and no bottle cap and no KMnO4. The question still remains, how do you cap up the bottle without it blowing up in your face?

A certain guy had a brilliant idea. He took an empty tissue packet (made of plastic) and he koped KMnO4 with it and with a bunch of crazy people (like me), he ran out of the school. to the butress root. Then, we stuffed the entire plastic packet into the bottle. Now, recall that plastic is waterproof, so the KMnO4 sat comfortably in the plastic packet, and the glycerine out of it. Perfect. We had ample time to screw on the bottle cap. After screwing on the bottle cap, all that remained was shaking the bottle.

And so we shook it, and dropped it on the ground. No response. Weird. So we kicked it. White fumes emerged in the bottle. In a split second, the bottle exploded with the loudness of a balloon (quite disappointing) and flew across the road with a trail of smoke. It almost hit a passing car, but the car couldn't avoid being caught in the smoke trail. Nothing much happened to it. The exploded bottle hit the middle of the road and stopped, with a flame that lasted uncannily long. A plastic bottle shouldn't burn for 5 minutes. Later, upon investigation, we found out that it was the glycerine that was burning.

Chemicals can be fun.

What does "knowledge is power" mean from a commonsensical point of view?

A more drastic proverb would be "a pen is mightier than the sword". However, I don't think that knowledge alone confers power to someone. Just consider a leading theoretical physicist lost in the jungle. It can be easily seen that the knowledge must, first, be relevent to the person's situation.

Now let's test: "Relevent knowledge is power." True? So suppose there is a war between two nations, and a strategist knows just the right strategy to deal with either country. However, neither country is willing to employ him. Is his relevent knowledge powerful? I doubt so.

Now let's retreat further and test:"Relevent knowledge confers power when used." I think this starts to make more sense. I'm not sure if this is acceptable, but when one say something is knowledge, it must somewhat hold true for an extended period of time. Thus, when one has knowledge, one would be able predict future events in the relevent field given enough relevent information, and when he has the power to change the input, he can manipulate the input to achieve the desired output. However, if he has no power to change the input, even with extensive knowledge, he cannot change the output.

Thus, I propose that "Relevent knowledge confers additional power when one's available power allows him to use that knowledge."

Morality has existed before people even came up with a word for it. People have an idea of what is right and what is wrong before there were any theories proposed on it.

An analogy would be that people have already been walking on the surface of the earth long before Newton conceived of gravity. Newton described this phenomenon. However, if it ended at accounting for why things fall, it would be useless; a theory that all objects tend to fall would work just as well, and being simpler than Newton's theory and predicting the same phenomena, Newton's theory ought to be removed by Occam's razor. However, Newton's theory included the three laws of motion, which explains and predicts almost all phenomena very well; far better than that can be explained by Aristotle's theory that objects tend to stay at rest. Thus, Newton's laws are endorsed by experiments and observations, and the "gravity" became a concept we all have become familiar with.

Let me ask a question: Can we live without gravity? This question can be interpreted in two ways. One, can we live if we are not acted upon by a force that would cause an acceleration towards the centre of the earth were there no normal contact? Two, can we live without the concept of gravity? Once this distinction is made clear, answering this question is trivial.

What are the implications of describing this... phenonomena that allows us to walk on earth? So what if we don't have this theory, we're not going to fall off the earth right?

Think of any physics question in your tutorial now. Notice that you have to use the concept of a force. A net force leads to a change in momentum of an object. Tension, spring force, air resistance etc are all forces. Without treating gravity as the force, it becomes harder to predict phenomena. Newton's laws provide an excellent estimate of trajectory. By altering the initial conditions, one can change the trajectory as desired. By obtaining an accurate description of nature, we can manipulate the trajectory of a cannonball to, say, hit a desired target. This is just like many other successful theories that manage to describe nature: explain, predict, manipulate.

Now let us go back to morality. What are the implications of arriving at a successful theory of morality?

A successful theory on nature describes nature. A successful theory of morality describes morality. Is morality objective like gravity? It would be difficult for me to prove that morality is not objective. I think I shall just assume that morality is subjective... the thing is while a subjective theory may not be falsifiable, it is more general than an objective theory. A subjective theory accounts for more phenomena than an objective theory, and in the case where neither theories are accurate, I'll take the more general one, which is the subjective view of morality.

So what is morality relative to? I'll suppose that morality is relative to "consciousness". Thus, a successful theory of morality would describe what a unit of "consciousness" would consider to be moral or amoral. It would then enable us to explain, predict and manipulate what a particular conscious being would consider to be moral or amoral.

If you caught the essense of the last statement, you would realise that this theory would have great implications, and is liable to use and abuse. This would enable the world to manipulate human consciousness to regard morality in such a way that the benefits to the society are maximised, and an objective moral standard can be reached. If everyone regards slavery as amoral, there would be no slaves. If all merchants regard moneymaking(as opposed to personal enjoyment) as their ultimate cause, merchants would be more efficient. If the scholars and scientists regard attainment of knowledge as their purpose, they would have greater fervour. If soldiers regard upholding the defense of their country as their duty, they would fight with their lives. This would lead to an even higher degree of specialisation of jobs. What's more, not only do people enjoy what they do, they would feel obligated to do it, and guilty if they do not. Each unit of consciousness would dedicate more time and energy to, presumably, what they are good at. The clockwork efficiency of an ant colony can possibly be attained.

This would also enable the manipulation of human consciousness to regard obedience and allegience to the state as the ultimate virtue. People are willing to fight to death for their leaders, and also be willingly lord over by their leaders. Personally I wouldn't consider this a bad thing... but in case the reader does, let us be reminded that in the eyes of the citizens, YOU are immoral.

I think this is quite cool.

"I can't believe it, my sister's suffering from aneroxia."
"Oh man, my sister's worse, she's suffering from bulemia."
"You can't beat this, my sister's suffering from both."

3 "principles that I follow:

1. Do what you like.
2. Not sure then don't say.
3. Money is important.

An electron found itself in distress. It was attracted to the proton, but it could never get close enough to it, thus there was always some amount of trapped energy. It thought, "I wish I were a neutrino, then I could stay with the proton and give out a certain amount of energy."

However, a neutrino passed by and told the electron, "Once you became a neutrino, you'll lose all the electric potential energy you currently have, and there is no way of you releasing any potential energy from that proton."

It is nice when all possible factors don't conflict with each other.

When chemical A exhibits extensive intermolecular hydrogen bonding, has large electron cloud, chemical B has small electron cloud and is non polar, simple molecular, nice and simple. Chemical A has higher boiling point than B.

Boiling point is a phenomenon that results from overcoming the electrostatic forces of attraction between numerous particles. Between the particles, these forces of attraction get alternatively weaker and stronger. When the forces are stronger, the forces of attraction of the collective whole would be harder to overcome, leading to a higher boiling point.

When all your agendas point towards a certain direction, your path is clear. I find the 7 deadly sins to be an excellent guide.

Here I shall consider the circumstances most favourable for studies.

Pride: You feel shiok in doing well.
Greed: You badly want a scholarship.
Gluttony: You are aware that remedial => less opportunities to eat outside RJ.
Envy: Someone else is doing better than you.
Sloth: You mother has convinced you that "If you don't study hard you'll go sweep the streets."
Anger: You are pissed that you did extremely badly for one particular subject.
Lust: You think that doing well for Promos is sexy.

There. When all these factors are present, you'll naturally want to study. Such is the power of the Dark Side.

Today I went for scholarship day with my sister and mother. We came back with lots of goodies that are not relevent to us, not meant for us, and cannot be used by us. My mother and sister just took everything they could take, and so we had lots of stuff to carry... its not like I'll take every scholarship if I can, I would be mostly interested in A*, DSTA, MOE or SAF.

They took:

PSC, GIC, MAS, Police, SAF women, Singapore Power, PUB, Design.

Personally I would only take pamphlets from NUS, NTU, A*, DSTA, SAF and MOE. The rest are not really relevent to me.

And I saw bad behaviour today. During the DSTA speech, you could hear handphones ringing pretty often.

After the speech in the question and asnwer session, there came the ultimate:

A woman, presumably a parent, asked the senior public relations officer a question, and she politely answered. While she was answering, her handphone rang. She took out her phone (which isn't supposed to ring anyway!), and she ANSWERED IT and walked away while the PRO was answering her question. There is like almost no regard for her! Lao eh.

An indicent later brightened up my day. My mother and sister wanted to shop at junction 8, but I have to go for tuition so I had to carry all the scholarship goodies home. As you can remember, there was a lot of it. While I was walking towards the MRT station, an RJ girl with two other people around approached me and asked me to donate for some "Very special arts" thing. Here's roughly what she said:

"Hi! We are Rafflesians too! Would you like to donate to our cause, it is to fund the "Very special arts programme" for the disabled members of the society... As you can see, a lot of potential scholars have signed and donated. So you should donate too."

Both the two people with her and I were laughing, and I reached for my wallet.

"I really hope you become a scholar."

ROFLMAO.

But when I took my wallet out I realised I have no money. :( A bit paiseh. The first time I sincerely wanted to donate I have no money :(( I was thinking that by donating I could encourage her to entertain more people with her powerful BSing skills. Aiyar. THIS is what I call very special arts.

If for some reason that particular RJ girl happens to come by this place, I really really realllly had no money. I really wanted to donate, and I sincerely thank you for brightening my day.

Songs are wonderful things made by wonderful people, and being poems they are meant to express feelings. Further noting the fact that there are so many songs in either your mother tongue or in English, there is probably at least one song that can describe your feelings really well.

Thus, it is probably quite a good idea to post lyrics to say your feelings. The song would most likely say it better than most bloggers can. And what can better express your feeling than a sad tune to go with a sad poem? So it also makes sense to put up background music.

However, writing a song is not an easy thing to do, and when someone writes a song it probably means he has strong feelings or is very talented (take Andy Lau for example, who can write a song as an ode to the toilet bowl, AND do an MTV on it).

Enough said, I shall post the lyrics of a very popular song!

MAJULAH SINGAPURA
Mari kita rakyat Singapura
Sama-sama menuju bahagia
Cita-cita kita yang mulia
Berjaya Singapura
Marilah kita bersatu
Dengan semangat yang baru
Semua kita berseru
Majulah Singapura
Majulah Singapura

Wonderful.

"What causes oxygen to dissolve in water?"
"Electrostatic forces of attraction."
"That is hardly helpful."
"But that is the most accurate answer."

Random thoughts:

Every 18 year old in the world is to write an essay entitled "How different would be the world be like in forty years if I did not exist?"

Then when someone becames very famous and makes a huge impact on the world, publish it. I would personally like to see one by Adolf Hilter or Saddam Hussein.

This is, of course, assuming no one is a solipcist. Otherwise it would just go, "There would be no world to speak of if I did not exist."


Chem SPA videos have funky music.


Be careful, the Pipette is a Big. But don't worry, we are for the Big. We are more and more Strong and Big. And may the Force be with your Velocity; for you'll be more Strong and Big than any of your counterparts.

In physics, we can see what can possibly happen to a few particles using energy principle, but to find out what really happens in the next instant would require a knowledge on the forces acting on the particles. For systems involving many particles, energy can also tell us what can possibly happen, but only entropy can tell us what would actually happen. Even so, entropy would not be able to tell us what exactly happens at the microscopic level.

Darwin's theory of evolution tell us what can possibly happen according to the assumptions (scarce resources, excess offspring, random mutation, survival of the fittest, propagation of inherited traits). It can tell us the general trends, but it cannot give us more details than that. It cannot tell whether a tiger would fight back when its children are threatened. However, if such an action aids in its survival and propagation, then the evolutionist can say that a tiger can possibly do that. Still, it would not be able to predict what happens.

However, even forces seem to be unable to explain why things happen; the idea of a force is, after all, a tool used to account for observations, predict future behaviour, and to manipulate the surroundings to obtain the effects we want. So is energy. These things do not necessarily exist. People have lived for a long time without Newtonian mechanics or proper definitions of work and energy, and yet they are still able to come up with many wonderful inventions. Science can only describe nature.

Example:

Why do things fall? Because Fg=-GMm/r² ?

Nope, that is just a description. I don't think there is a "why" to it.

At the end of the day, we'll just have to take it as a fact that Fnet=dp/dt, and that since this "fact" is taken from experience, there will always be a possibility that it is not a correct description.

Which is so gay. Ultimately, all that we have to "explain" phenomena are simply nothing but descriptions? There is nothing that tells me what is actually causing things to happen. Even when taking time as simply another dimension, science still cannot answer "why?"

I suppose we are too used to having "why"s answered for us. The idea of an event being causally linked to another event preceding it is a powerful idea, because it allows us to predict and manipulate the latter event, and allows us to prepare for it. However, just because it works, it doesn't mean it is true.

Gah. Science being a descriptive framework, it would work, but ultimately it cannot answer many questions that we have. I suppose our questions are somewhat loaded. It seems kinda disturbing that things just happen. Maybe it just so happens that humans would want to ask such questions that can never be answered, and we can never be satisfied.

Yet in math, can we ask "why?"

Why is x²+1 always positive for real x? Because x² is at least zero for real x, so x²+1 is always positive for real x. It sounds like we can answer this question. However, what is the point of knowing whether x²+1 is positive? If you assign values to x and use math to find the area, it would work. But even without knowing algebra, one can too show that this similar real life phenomenon leads to such a conclusion. Trial and error would always work if you try long enough.

So is math simply descriptive? What would happen to math if it doesn't correspond to real life phenomena? I suppse math would have to be tweaked in such a way that it does somewhat correspond real life phenomena before it can be accepted. Math is perhaps descriptive to some extent as well.

Darn. So we have been living in this nature, and all we have been doing is describe it? This is... gay.

Nobody said challenging the process is impossible. But then again, nobody said it is easy.

Then again, nobody said that eating brinjals would cause the koala population to decline.


It is easy to underestimate people to the extent that you do not consider the idea that they might be right, yet it is also easy to overestimate people to the extent that you do not consider the idea that they might be wrong.

This is so fun.


It is easy to kill someone, it is easier to get killed. Yet people generally are not worried about getting killed. People don't even consider killing as an option. I see that "an eye for an eye" is a pretty good policy.

I shall be a bastard and talk about physics O selection test.

Shocker 1: 10 questions.
Shocker 2: Open ended (but I'm not surprised)
Shocker 3: 2.5 hour paper.

I accidentally opned the question booklet and w00t! This... weird looking shape appeared before my eyes. In physics, generally, the more weird looking an object is, the harder it is to talk about it. I closed the booklet in horror and apprehension.

But actually, it wasn't too bad. Doable... though I'm very worried about presentation now.

:<

I have made twenty free grinders jump from Peru to the Southern Ocean. It may take another fifteen seconds for another such extravaganza to commence again. Indeed, six of the green flies have found themselves devoid of the great misery they wanted to acquire; alas! they donate their carcasses to the big atmosphere, where sixty two of their fifty four relatives appear beyond them. So as may one wonder how the jellyfish covet after their earthly possesion, one must seek to understand that they are close substitutes for fugu. Just as one cannot make seventy one stoats all sit in reverence to their follow reptile debaters, one ought not expect the same from their ancient counterparts: the snake. Thus, while the quick brown fox jumps over the sloth, the big bad pig eats up the lazy dog. Besides, as the wolf is unable to change their spots and they can no longer expect the tiger to give them further protection, the leopard shall then be justified to taunt the canine class ones more. In other words, heterolytic fission cannot act as an advocate for racial harmony day. Speaking of which, the people can no longer find themselves inside another great cozy environment; they must be prepared for the Big. Only by acquiantance with the ethereal, they can remind themselves that their free air is not to be taken for granted. As such, jams of cheeses of the old democracies once again reign sumpreme in their everlasting bid to generate the new dynasty of unilateral displacement.

Auspicium Melioris Aevi.

Random thought of the day:

Play "two truths and a lie" with your fengshui advisor. Then you can find out if he is good. Or better still, "3 truths and 2 lies". Even better still, warn him that everything you say about your current circumstances may or may not be true, then tell him the complete truth about your circumstances.

It was fun trying to sell goods and services.

The stall I was helping to manage for Viva worldcup was a stall selling iced fruit dessert and an ice breaking challenge. I was very enthusiastic about the ice breaking challenge. Here's what the challenge is about: The organisers have frozen tissue paper in ice, and the ice is supposed to become very very hard to break. So the participants can try to break the ice with a hammer in 4 hits. If they manage to do so, they get free dessert. If they can't, they pay $1. Simple? If the ice is very hard to break, the marginal cost of the service is almost nil. And considering that it is a sports event, you can expect lots of sportspeople with swollen ego to test their strength.

Indeed. When the lady boss asked the announcer to advertise for us, 10 seconds later there were about 9 muscular people + female canoeists trying out the challenge. The sad thing is... the ice didn't freeze properly, and it was so easy to break! I thought this would be so profitable and fun to watch.

It was not because we didn't test it out. I did test out to see if it works. When I did it, it took me 200 hits to break the piece of ice. You could say I'm weak, but the fact remains that I broke 2 bricks into 8 pieces of stone and lots of sand in trying to break the piece of ice. The piece of ice I tested with was frozen with a normal freezer for 20 hours. The ones we offered for challenge was frozen in an old freezer for 15 hours and placed in a cooler box for 3 hours. Not very good. But overall the dessert stall + ice breaking stall didn't make a loss.

Later we ran out of fruits, so we tried out some ideas. We blended syrup with ice, and it was really good! And it is so much cheaper and easier to make. We played around with the concentration and composition of the syrup, and we sold one of them. We made that out of all the remaining ice, and it was so nice we bought them ourselves. And then we closed shop. Not very profitable, but at least we all had fun, we learned from this experience, and we have a better idea of how to set up a stall next time. And we all had CIP hours.

After that, when all the shops were closed, the remaining stock were free for all! Play table soccer for free! Cookies and brownies and cakes and tarts all for free! w00t! Damn if I didn't have to go home for dinner I would probably stay there for 2 more hours or something.

A pre-emptive defense of moral egoism

Let us first establish a few things. We are trying to identify what is "right", and not what should be "right". Any attempts to answer the latter question would lead to a circular argument.

Moral egoism is a theory. There is no way you can prove that this is the best ever possible theory of ethical behaviour, and it is possible to disprove it by providing a counter example. Only one counter example is needed.

Here I make one assumption: A person would do something if and only if he thinks he is doing the "right" course of action. By making this assumption, theories of ethics become testable by observation. We can find out what is "right" by observing how people act.

In the next few paragraphs I shall establish that no objective theory of ethics is correct. Suppose there is a certain "ethical" way to live, and everyone agrees with it and obeys it and thus there is no need for enforcement. In this case, would there be any ethics? Everyone is simply doing what they would want to do, and whatever they do is considered ethical. There is no difference whether there is this ethical codes or not. By Occam's razor, there are no ethics in this hypothetical society.

Now let us suppose there is this set of "ethical" way to live, but no one obeys it. Everything that people do is "wrong". Because nobody would obey the "ethical" course of action, nobody would enforce it. Thus, everybody would just do what they want to do with no restrictions from that "ethical" code, but whatever they are doing, it is still "wrong". There is, again, no difference whether there is this ethical code or not. By Occam's razor, there are no ethics in this hypothetical society either.

Here let us suppose that there is this set of "ethical" way to live, but only half the population agrees with it and obeys it. This half of the population does whatever they want, unresticted by ethics. The other half of the population would also do whatever they want, because they think their course of action is the right course of action. Thus, both halves of the population would think that the other half of the population is "wrong", and would ry to impose it on the other, But what a minute, nothing would change if we consider the other side to be the side that obeys the "ethical" course of action. In this case, if we consider any side to be the "right" side, it makes no difference to whether the other side is "right". Having an objective set of ethical codes have no implications. Thus, by Occam's razor, there is no objective set of ethical codes.

In the following paragraphs, I shall establish that no consequentialist theory of ethics is correct.

From the point of view of a self, the only things that can affect a person's thoughts are his considerations at that point in time; the considerations of the future are made at that point in time, recalling the past occurs at that point in time of the decision making as well. Thus, the things that the decision maker cannot predict, or the things he forgot do not play a role in his decision of what is right or wrong. The outcome cannot possibly affect his decision as it is something of the future, and we can safely assume that events of the future cannot affect the past.

Since the outcome cannot affect whether a person does something or not, we can also state that the outcome cannot affect whether a person thinks something is right or not. Thus, we can conclude that no consequentialist theory of ethics is correct.

Although the above arguments don't prove that moral egoism is correct, they pretty much prove everything else incorrect.

Consider this statement, which we can assume to be true.

"The maximum amount of force my spear can exert on you solely depends your armour."

Doesn't sound impressive yet?

Think about it more carefully, and you'll notice that this spear can actually pierce all armour. By Newton's third law, the spear can only exert a force on the wearer of magnitude equal to the wearer's reaction force.

If in a certain case, the spear cannot pierce through the armour, then it would only be able to exert the same force on an even tougher piece of armour. In order for the above statement to be true, the spear must be able to pierce through all armour.

Just a random thought.

You scored as Biology/Chemistry/Geology. Related majors that match your highest scored category: Animal Sciences, Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Dietetics, Ecology, Environmental Science, Food Sciences, Forestry, Fisheries and Wildlife, Genetics, Geography, Geology, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Neurobiology, Nutrition, Pharmacy, Pre-Med, Psychology, Zoology. Consider all majors in your OTHER high scoring categories. The right major for you will be something 1) you love and enjoy and 2) are really great at it. Consider adding a minor or double majoring. Please post your results in your myspace/blog/journal. Biology/Chemistry/Geology 100% Physics/Engineering 94% Mathematics/Statistics 88% Education/Counseling 81% Accounting/Finance/Econ 63% Psychology/Sociology 56% French/German/Spanish 44% HR/BusinessManagement 31% Nursing/AthleticTraining 31% PoliticalScience/Philosophy 25% Religion/Theology 25% Visual&PerformingArts 25% English/Journalism/Comm 25% History/Anthropology 13% WHAT MAJOR IS RIGHT FOR YOU? created with QuizFarm.com

Not really unexpected.

Today we played with millipedes. GGY tried to catch millipedes with a pair of scissors, but he cut one of them cleanly. So the part with the head was crawling away while the part without the head was squirming, maybe in pain.

So I wondered: If the mind resides in its head, then would it be okay to mash its tail end? But the tail end looks like it is squirming in pain. Maybe it has a mind of its own.

Cool, so if you cut off the arm of a person, you did not kill, because the arm does not have a mind of its own and is not conscious. But if you cut a millipede into half, you probably just created life. Then both lives would die on their own.

It is so strange.

Anyway we placed lots of millipedes in a plastic bottle and put the bottle to 7 bars of pressure. Their bodies are meant to withstand 1 bar but we pressurised them to 7 bars. They looked quite agitated as we went above 4 bars then when we reach 7 bars they were slightly more agitated and eager to get out of the bottle. But they can't get out because the bottle is airtight.

Insects breath through airholes at the side of their bodies (called spiroza if I remember correctly), so at 7 bars, those millipedes that look normal have probably gotten used to having 7 bar pressure air in their air holes. We took about 3 minutes to pressurise the bottle, but only 5 seconds to depressurise them. It was depressurised so fast that the air turned cold and fog formed in the bottle. When the fog evaporated (because the surroundings heated the bottle back up), the millipedes looked somewhat larger and kinked.

Someone suggested shooting the bottle instead so that the millipedes get depressurised in less than 0.1 second, and see what happens to the millipedes. I would have liked to witness that, but nobody wanted to voluteer to shoot it. (the millipede juice would fly into his mouth if he goes "WOAH" ::gulp::)

But imagine if we did shoot it.

millipede: "Oh please, let us get out of here... oh, he's picking up the launcher! hurray! we're getting out! oh wait, he's gonna FIRE it! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" *kaboom* *splat*

Okay but we didn't fire it, so not all the millipedes died. One or two escaped after being rapidly decompressed because we dropped the bottle. I can imagine a Wisely show about some supernatural thing happening to the millipede, transforming it into a person that tries to wipe off all human beings off the face of the earth, then he'll recount his traumatizing expereince of being rapidly decompressed with about 100 other millipedes. Maybe as revenge he'll kill all the human beings he catch by rapidly decompressing them. Then the protagonist would find me and ask me "What exactly did you you do the millipedes in rjc 2006?" Then I'll collapse in my armchair in grief and sob and slowly utter, "I decompressed them."

Okay this is getting very weird. I can picture a lousy film about this.

Scene 1: So this guy gets tricked into entering a chamber of a very rich and handsome and infuential guy to do some big business. Then there is this covered big glass window where someone watches the guy. The chamber gets sealed up and slowly starts to get pressurised, but the guy only notices when his eyes, ears and bladder start to hurt. So he asks the host what is happening, then he realised that the host is a robot. Then he starts to panic. Then the window becomes transparent and reveals a shadowy character. The guy begs for mercy in various ways, but the shadowly character only smirks. Then when the guy mentions something about lowering the pressure, when the pressure is about 10 bars, the shadowly would grant his life and decompress the chamber in 0.1 seconds. Then you'll watch his eyes and middle ear and nose pop out, his lungs explode, and the rest of the body remaining fine. Then the shadowly guy laughs an evil laugh.

Okay I can't really be bother with coming up with anything more. Use some imagination.

Damn. I probably shouldn't have let them out alive.

Today I went to buy dinner for my sister at long john's silvers. I ordered fish and chips, which cost $4.50. After I placed my order, I was asked: "Drink size: medium or large?"

"... how much would it be for medium?"
"30 cents extra."
"I have regular."

Damn, it is these times I love myself.

Today I heard of the most qian4 bian4 way to brag about one's physics score.

"I know I can get subpass already."
"Orh."
"But then again I only got back my MCQ."

Anyway it seems that everyone is blogging about how they died for CTs. I guess I shan't blog about that.

I took some time to study econs, and I got kinda addicted to economic analysis of merit goods and demerit goods. Recall that a possible measure that the government can take to maximise social welfare is FINE. As Singapore is a fine country, there are so many things you could analyse.

Take the MRT station for example. They have two signs to tell you not to go down the track. One says something to the effect of "Value life. Act responsibly." and the other sign says "DO NOT GO DOWN THE TRACK. FINE $5000."

Since it is possible to dare a person to "go down a track" for a sum of money, or to fine someone for "going down the track", "going down the track" could be considered as a tradable service, i.e, a good. Since the government is obviously actively discouraging people from going down the track, I could consider this as a demerit good. There are two things that the government can do to maximise social welfare: 1) Make sure that people are rationally consuming at MPC=MPB; 2) Make sure that the negative externality is considered by the individual in deciding whether to go down the track or not.

By the sign "Value life. Act responsibly.", this is a measure which the government takes so that their assumption of consumer rationality becomes a reasonable one, because if the public is completely clueless that going down the track could cost them their lives, then the government making the individual take the cost difference between the rational level of consumption and the MSC would still not lead to social efficiency. Thus, by putting up this educative slogan, the government is intervening in such a manner that the consumer does not suffer from imperfect information, and thus the assumption of consumer rationality is valid. [Insert graph here]

By the fine of $5000, the government is making sure that the individual takes the negative externalities of going down the track (such as dirtying the track with his intrails, loss of business due to temporary public fear of mrt) into account. Thus, with the fine, the individual would act in his own best interests and at the society's best interests at the same time.

However, I find that the slogan "Value life. Act responsibly." is still not educative enough. People are not not fully aware of the private consequences of going down the track. May I sugggest that they do it the same way as cigarettes. They felt that the health warning (Smoking causes stroke) is not adequate, and so they included a picture of the brain of a stroke victim. Maybe they can include the picture of a dirtied MRT track to further enhance the educativeness of the slogan.


Another demerit good to consider is suicide. If the government wishes to achieve social efficiency, he would want individuals to commit suicide at the amount where MSC=MSB. Since we can see that suicide is highly discouraged, it is a demerit good and thus we can infer that there is too much of suiciding going on. The government would want to lower the overall suicide rate to the number of suicides that would take place when MSC=MSB.

There are 3 approaches that the government can take.
1) Educate the individual to ensure that he/she really knows the private costs and benefits of suiciding
2) Make the individual take the negative externalities into account so that MPC=MSC=MSB=MPB (rationality and social efficiency)
3) Lower the MPB such that the amount consumed when MPB=MPC, MSB=MSC as well.

There is always the possibility of imperfect information. The suicider wouldn't know what it feels like to die, especially if that is his/her first attempt. Not to say that people who haven't succeeded would actually know, but they probably have a better idea. While the roaring sea might look tempting, that could be because the body's survival instinct chemicals haven't kicked in yet. While flying down a building may look cool, that could be because the combined effect of [andrenaline] + [the consideration that you would actually die] hasn't activated the chemicals to make you think "Hey, maybe dying isn't so nice afterall."

Thus, educating the potential suicider about how horrible dying is could help to shift the MPC graph that the person thinks he incurs closer to the MPC graph that he really incurs. This would most likely be an upward shift of the MPC.

Increasing MPC from an already very high amount to an even higher amount would be difficult. While the MSC would certainly exceed MPC, there is no more additional cost that individual can possibly incur. Any additional cost probably doesn't matter much to him anymore.

Lowering the MPB may be quite feasible. A rational person would commit suicide until MPC=MPB. Since a person can only commit suicide once, this means that if the person really wants to commit suicide (not indifferent to living or dying; actively prefers dying), his MPB would be even higher than MPC, which is already very high. So perhaps if a person who wishes to commit suicide so that he may go to heaven, a councellor could tell him that "Well, you probably wouldn't like heaven that much." or his pastor could tell him "Nah, if you do that you'll go to hell." or if he want to rejoin his dead relatives you could tell him "But don't you think your last uncle was a jerk?" Okay a tad insensitive, but you get the idea. Lower the MPB such that when MPB=MPC, MSC=MSB as well.

When all that is done, and people still commit suicide, well, there are two ways I can comment on the persistent suiciders. Using economics jargon, I could say that any additional or less unit of suiciding would lead to a lower social welfare than can possibly be attained. In layman terms, they are the only ones who should die, and their death makes the world a better place.