a > b means 'a' is greater than 'b'. In nursery, the book told us that the > sign is a crocodile. As you know, crocodiles would prefer to eat more, so naturally the crocodile would want to eat the bigger number. I wondered why the crocodile would prefer eating 9 to eating 8, since 8 is "bigger" than 9! (I dunno if you can see the logic behind it... one way to put it, is that when you writing 8 involves more writing than writing 9)

Anyway, one day in nursery, for some reason, I got the impression that the crocodile didn't want to eat so much. And as a result, I scored badly for that piece of work.

So, as an extension to that concept...

a >> b. 'a' is so much bigger than 'b' that some crocodile would rather bite another crocodile's tail to snatch for a bit of 'a'.

a ><> b. a is sufficiently bigger than b for two crocodiles to want to eat it, but not enough to fight for it.

a <> b. Both a and b are so small that the crocodiles can't be bothered.

> a b<. The two crocodiles hate each other so much that they totally don't care about the food.

I am back from Thailand.

Thailand was fun! I'm pretty happy about the stuff I've bought there.

I bought mainly 2 things: A remote controlled car that costs $10, and Red Alert 3 for $24.

Why am I so happy about the remote controlled car? Because it is only about 5cm long, and you wouldn't believe that it's remote controlled until you've seen it work. When I bought it, I got responses like this:

G(some guy): What's that you bought?
X(me): A toy car for $10.
G: [condescendingly]...you bought that?
X: Yeh, it's remote controlled.
G: [in disbelief] ARE YOU SERIOUS?
X: Yep. *proceeds to play with the RC car*
G: Eh! Tell me where you bought it from!
X: Sure. *brings him to the store* Excuse me, do you have any more of this? No? Oops, I guess I bought the last one... [in my mind: MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA]

I did this twice. Just to be a bastard.

The other thing I'm really happy about was the Red Alert 3. $24 for an original. It normally costs about $60 in Singapore. There were games in the same shop that the shopkeeper assures that "if it's not explicitly stated it's in Thai, it's in English" Problem is, the Red Alert 3 packaging stated that it's in Thai. I was a little apprehensive about it initially, but Haoyi assured me that there should be some way to change it to English, so I bought it anyway.

When people saw my purchase, they were comparing, "See, mine doesn't say it's in Thai, so it's in English. You see Xin Yang's one! It says it's in Thai, so I don't know... Eh Yak, are you going to learn Thai while playing this game?" "I'll try to work this out." "If you can't, you basically wasted $24!"

So when I got home, after a few hours, it was indeed in Thai. I MADE it work in English.

The next time they asked, "So, how's your Red Alert 3?"
"It's in Thai, but I managed to make it work in English."
"How did you do that? Mine is in Thai." *NOTE THE IRONY*
"Oh I had to download 3 language files, change the 3 files, edit a config file, and repatch it online. It's harder than it sounds."
"That's nice! How much was your Red Alert 3?"
"$24."
"And how much does it usually cost?"
"$60."
"So you saved $36."
"Yep."


Basically, my purchases were huge ego boosts for me, 'cos I have 2 things that you want but you don't have! Neh neh neh neh neh!

Other than my fruitful shopping trip, the night sky was wonderful. It is basically as though the star map in real time was displayed on Omnimax in HD, only more awesome because 1)there are no lines, 2) it includes planets, 3) as you look more closely you can see more and more stars. As someone said, "You could see Orion wielding his sword."

It's a pity that wonderful night skies always appear at the most inopportune moments. Once was in Bintan, during CCAL camp, when we had to move from our campfire location to our campsite. Another time was in Pulau Tekong, during 5BX. Now Thailand, during our deployment exercise. Damn. Oh well, at least I caught a glimpse of a wonderful night sky, and I know that this is something I can look forward to in future, since the stars will always be there.

In the day, the scenery is beautiful! The ground is mostly shubbery and sparse sundry vegetation or plantation, so once positioned on any small knoll you can see very far. Indeed, you can not only see the hills and knolls 10km away, you can even see the mountains >30km away, with the clouds encircling the hillside. It's a pity that for some reason, I didn't really see the sunset.

You wouldn't believe it, but it is really cold at night. Like, 15 degree celcius that kind. When you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the latrine it is so cold that it is hard to fall asleep again, unless you build a fire next to you. And yes, this IS Thailand.

This post is an attempt to make it sound like a holiday trip to Thailand. If you thought so, I have succeeded. Hurray to me.

I've just learnt that the word "Goodbye" originated as a contraction of the phrase "God be with ye."

God be with ye -> Godbwye -> Goodbye

See! Even then people used "b" to represent "be" and "w" to represent "with"! Contractions are clearly not a modern thing.

In the Star wars world, shouldn't they be saying "Foorbye"?

So nowadays, when we say "bye" when we are leaving each other, we really mean "be with you"?

If I just want you to scram, should I be saying "Debye"?(Wait, that's a unit for dipole moment)

Or if I wish you future success in your political career in Singapore, I should say "Leebye"?

I'llbye sounds pretty cryptic if you ask me.

While commenting on a post, I had this random thought.

Normally, verbal conversations are one-tracked. That is, the participants of a verbal conversation can only engage in one topic at a time, and usually there is a point when there distinct change in topic. I think that this is the case because we cannot listen to others speak while we ourselves are speaking. However, in MSN conversations, multiple topics can be engaged simultaneously, because it doesn't require listening or speaking.

But have you wondered, do deaf/mute people have single topic conversations?

I mean, just because you can't listen and talk at the same time doesn't necessarily mean that you can't watch and gesture at the same time. If that is the case, wouldn't deaf/mute people be more adept at multi-topic convos on MSN?

____________

Another random thought:

In evolutionary biology, traits of beauty are linked with traits that demonstrate health, youth, and in turn fertility. There has been research done on beautiful faces, and by geometrical studies, it has been shown that if certain ratios can be made to obey the golden ratio, the face would be perceived as beautiful. With this model, cosmetic surgery would have a guide as to what modifications would make a person look better.

Now, what about beautiful voices? Since beautiful voices are linked to young-sounding voices, it makes some sense in terms of evolutionary biology. Now, I'm sure someone would have done fourier analysis on beautiful voices before. Are there particular physical properties of beautiful voices that separate them from not-so-beautiful voices? Can voices be modified to sound better?

If there are people who do cosmetic surgery to please their partner, would there be people who would consider voice modification to please their blind partner?

If both beautiful voices and faces are indications of health, youth, and fertility, why is it that not all people with beautiful voices have beautiful faces? (e.g, Ou de yang)

____________

CTW did a 16km route march along East Coast Park. Being the wayang kias we were, we sang extra loud when there were people watching. When a few girls walked past from our left side, Cpt Daniel had to tell us, "Oei, pandan ke hadapan[or how something like that]! (meaning 'face front')".

I told my mother about this, then she said that when she was younger (about 16+) and working near taman jurong, the marching army boys caught her attention, and she watched with admiration as the guys marched past, filled with gusto and spirit as they sang and cheered in unison.

No, really.

"Our higher-ups are very proud of this new equipment which they have procured. In actual fact, it sucks. It sucks so much that we only use it when we have no better alternative."
"Why do you say it sucks?"
"I'm sorry, that's classified."

I recommend you play Fantastic contraption.

Why not?

It's just another planet right?

Not as if planet earth is the only unique thing in the universe. Every point in time is unique. Everyone we meet is unique. Every interaction we have with others is unique. Yet we don't cherish them.

So, why this? From what you've been doing so far, saving the planet isn't consistent with your actions.

... so why not?

It's just a human life, right?

How's a human life worth any more than another animal's life? How do you even judge the worth of a life? People don't judge the lives of everyone equally; it's worth more if they can relate to it and empathise with it, and worth less if they can't. In fact, most people would be more affected by the death of their pet than a fellow countryman whom they can't relate to.

You trust such judgements on the worth of life? Then why preach about the sanctity of life? It isn't consistent with your actions.



Conclusion: unbounded insistence on consistency would get us nowhere, even on the most obvious things.

Common sense is common sense even if they are wrong, because everyone else think that everyone else don't know it is wrong except themselves, and they wouldn't admit it because it's obviously true.

context: YCX and amyas are my godlike juniors, now in j1. based on my impression from 2 years ago, amyas was slightly more godlike. just today,

YCX: did I tell you abt what happened last ct
YCX: abt the first qn
YCX: it was some graphing qn
YCX: find intersections btw Y=xlnx n some other graph
YCX: is sposed to use solve by GC
YCX: dan [amyas] go and do lambert W
YCX: T_T
me: wait.
me: wad is that?

(then i go and wiki "lambert W")

me: HOLY SHIT


AMYAS IS OFFICIALLY BEYOND-GODLIKE.